The Chronological Man: The Martian Emperor

by Andrew Mayne

  April kept her mouth shut to avoid pointing out that if he’d ever bothered to read a scientific paper on the subject, he could have saved himself the trouble. The filament problem had been solved twenty years prior. The real challenge was the vacuum, which Edison already solved.

  “Meteors and the like. Odds and ends,” added Wincher.

  “Pardon me?”

  Miss Wincher leaned across the table. “You don’t know where the next great discovery might come from. A new rubber tree or some special rock. It’s of vital industrial and strategic importance. They’re going to be with Mr. Tiller for a moment. Probably to do with this Martian nonsense. Goodness, we’ve had enough of that already around here. The government fellows have been asking our researchers all sorts of questions about missing equipment.”

  This was new to April. She wondered if there was a connection to the copper spindle disappearing. “You mean after the Central Park commotion?”

  Wincher shook her head. “Before that. Men love to tell tall tales, especially when they’ve been drinking on the job. Nonsense.”

  April’s ears perked up. The filing cabinets behind the woman had to contain the records of the men who’d worked there when the copper spindles were stolen. April tried to think of a way to get access to them.

  “Miss Wincher, I have an embarrassing confession.”

  The woman raised an eyebrow.

  April looked at her hands in her lap. “I’m a fine typist and a technical speller, but I’ve not the faintest idea on how to do filing. I know I should have mentioned that. I’ve done some volunteering at the public library, but they never even let me touch the card stacks.”

  “There’s nothing to it,” said the woman.

  “Do you think you might be able to show me?”

  Opium

  “Doctor Qi no here,” said a man near Roosevelt’s elbow. “You go now.”

  Smith ignored him and walked to the back of the room. Angry eyes followed him. The rear wall was covered in grime and layers of wallpaper. The floor was dirty except for a narrow rectangle.

  “Trap door,” said Smith. He reached down to open it.

  “Leave it. I don’t want us getting stabbed in the dark,” replied Roosevelt.

  Smith stood back up and walked back to the center of the room, disappointed that he didn’t get to explore the labyrinth of tunnels underneath the streets.

  “I can ask the local police to keep an eye out for him.”

  Smith tapped his finger to his chin. “I have another idea.” He motioned toward the door.

  They both tipped their hats to the indifferent chinamen and left the illicit gambling hall and stepped back into the bright street.

  “Let’s hear it,” said Roosevelt.

  “Doctor Qi certainly didn’t want to speak to us.”

  “That much was apparent to me.”

  “I’d think he’d normally be willing to at least entertain someone waving around cash. I looked at his side of the Fan-Tan table and he was in such a hurry to leave he left behind his winnings.”

  “I’ve never known a chinaman or any other to do that.”

  “I suppose it’s for two reasons. Either one of the men there was an accomplice, someone he trusted to take care of them. Or he was in such a fright he didn’t care. Both of them lead me to a conclusion.”

  Roosevelt leaned against a railing and smiled. “Explain.”

  “First, I believe I know where the hypothetical men are who’ve been burned by the hydrochloric acid used to make the hydrogen gas. Both hypotheses lead to the same conclusion.”

  “And what tells you this?” asked Roosevelt.

  “The man sitting near Doctor Qi’s winnings reeked of opium.”

  “Nearly all of the men down their did.”

  “True enough. But this man had neither the glassy-eyed look or any of the other symptoms of the opium addict.”

  “So he works in an opium den,” finished Roosevelt.

  Smith nodded. He pointed to the basement. “Then there’s the obvious. Why does this doctor have a gambling hall as his address and not a clinic or a remedy shop?” He pointed to several signs covered in Chinese symbols. “I see several of them here. He doesn’t practice out of any of them. There’s a kind of particular patient he treats. The kind you don’t want talking to anyone else. Men who got injured pulling robberies or who are on the run. Men you keep doped up in an opium den so they don’t talk to anyone while they either heal or die from their wounds. Acid burns are particularly painful.” Smith waved his finger in the air and then pointed toward the ground. “Tell the police captain to do a search of the opium dens in this block and I’ll bet you a cigar he’ll find our hypothetical acid-burned men.”

  “I’ll take you up on that offer, Smith. The police station is two blocks over. I can get a squad of men here in twenty minutes,” said Roosevelt. He started walking down the street.

  “Er, I was speaking theoretically,” said Smith as he ran to catch up with him.

  “Well, aren’t you supposed to test theories?” Roosevelt was grinning from ear to ear. “Let’s put your theory to the test.”

  Smith looked over at a telegraph pole covered in signs and notices written in Chinese. “Yes, well, I’ll stay here and look for clues. Maybe our Martian contracted for labor from here.”

  “Don’t want to face the police with that theory?”

  “I’d prefer to sneak in during the still of night and look, to be honest. I’m quite practiced in the art of ninjutsu.”

  “You can’t do everything by yourself, Smith. Besides, these coppers are dying to do something other than stare at the sky.”

  “I’ll wait here. After my stunt this morning, I want to avoid the authorities as much as possible.”

  “Good point. I’ll be back in a moment.” Roosevelt walked around the corner.

  Smith turned back to the pole and read the different notices nailed to it. He tried to ignore the fact that a hundred pairs of eyes were staring back at him from around the street.

  Fifteen minutes later, Roosevelt and the captain of the police station marched back into Chinatown with a column of two dozen uniformed officers behind him. Smith was speechless.

  “What’s the matter, Schmitty? Didn’t think I could pull it off?” said Roosevelt as he exhaled a triumphant puff of smoke into the air.

  “I was afraid you would. You’re the kind of man that can talk others into following you into the mouth of hell if you wanted.”

  “Just point me in the direction.” Roosevelt nodded to the captain.

  The policemen split into two groups and stormed down the street and down various back alleys.

  Roosevelt leaned against the telegraph pole. “This is old hat for them. They know all the dens by heart. Usually they only raid them when things get out of hand or someone fails to grease the right palm. Since this is just a search, the opium den operators won’t make too much of a fuss.”

  “What did you tell the captain?”

  “Just that we were following down a hunch that some men may have been burned igniting the Statue of Liberty.”

  “An acid burn would look different than that kind of burn,” said Smith.

  Roosevelt shook his head. “I’m pretty sure these crushers can’t tell the difference.” He looked at the pole. It was covered with thousands of slips of paper with Chinese characters.

  “See anything interesting?”

  Smith yanked a sheet off and handed it to him. “It says there’s going to be a raid on the Green Lotus Fan-Tan parlor next Tuesday. Not much of a secret?”

  “That’s how this city works.”

  They watched as policemen ran down one alley and then came back another. Occasionally a few dozen chinamen would come running out of a doorway across the street after the police went into a building opposite. Some even came climbing down fire escapes.

  “It’s a maze down there,” said Roosevelt. “Another city. You’ve got entire gangs living in the sewers.”
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br />   A police lieutenant came running out of a doorway and up to Roosevelt. “Captain wants you to see this.”

  “What is it?” asked Roosevelt as he and Smith followed the young man.

  “We found two men all bandaged up like you said. Doped out of their minds.”

  They walked down a narrow alley. Cats boxed up in crates howled at them as they walked by. Smith flipped open a catch on several as he walked by, setting them free. Roosevelt shook his head as the animals ran as fast as they could to get away.

  “This way,” the lieutenant said as he pointed toward an even more narrow corridor between two buildings. “One of the men keeps saying something in another language.”

  “What?” asked Roosevelt.

  The young lieutenant held open a door. “Sgt. Balky, his mother was Turkish, I think. He says the man is saying ‘fear’ over and over again.”

  They walked down a flight of stairs into a basement underneath a five-story tenement building. Two police officers were standing at the doorway. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dark interior.

  The room was filled with row after row of bunk beds. Sparse candles provided illumination. A haze of incense and human stench filled the air. Men and women lying on cots, too doped up to notice, lulled about and covered their eyes from the light coming in through the open doors.

  They came to a bunk surrounded by policemen. On it lay a man whose head and hands were covered in bandages. The captain leaned against the bed, shaking his head.

  “We found another one in the next bed. Neither one can talk, except this one, barely. But he seems to have passed out from the exertion.”

  Yellow-tinged gauze covered the man’s face. The dressings looked like they hadn’t been changed in several days. Completely covered in a ball of bandages, it could be anyone or anything underneath the wrappings.

  “Can we have him moved to a proper hospital?” asked Roosevelt.

  “I’ll see to it,” said the captain.

  “And have an armed guard put on him and the other. They were sent here so they wouldn’t talk. We need to make sure that if they recover no one stops them from telling us what they know. Keep an eye out for Doctor Qi.”

  “Where is Sgt. Balky?” asked Smith.

  “Here,” replied a heavyset man from the left side of the bunk.

  “You heard the man speak?”

  “Yes. It sounded like he was saying ‘fear,’” said the sergeant.

  “Fear? What was the question?”

  “I asked him where he was from.”

  “And he said ‘fear’? Are you certain?” Smith tapped his chin for a moment. “Is your mother by any chance Greek?”

  Balky looked around at the other policemen. “She spoke a little.”

  “And that’s how you knew the man was saying ‘fear’? Because it sounded like a Greek word you remembered?”

  Balky nodded.

  “Very good, sergeant. But he wasn’t telling you he was afraid. He was naming a place. And this was the answer he gave you? Your question was specifically, ‘Where are you from?’”

  Balky looked at his captain and then nodded. “I think so.”

  “Sergeant,” Smith’s voice was sharp, “this is absolutely critical. You asked him where he was from and this is what he told you?”

  “Yes.” He stood up and stuck out his chest.

  “Well, that is peculiar,” said Smith. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked down at the mystery man.

  “Well? What is it, Schmitty?” asked Roosevelt. All the policemen were looking at him expectantly.

  Smith shook his head. “I guess honesty and openness is the only approach. The word Sgt. Balky heard was Greek, all right. But the man lying here wasn’t telling us he was afraid. When asked where he was from, he told the sergeant the ancient Greek word for fear. That word is ‘phobos.’ Isn’t that correct?”

  Balky nodded. “Yes. That’s what it sounded like.”

  “Phobos, gentleman, besides being an old Greek word for fear, is also the name of one of the Martian moons.” Smith shook his head as he gazed at the wrapped body and wondered what was underneath the bloody bandages. “When asked where he was from, this man said the largest moon orbiting Mars. Hardly the kind of jape a man in this much pain would make. Don’t you think?”

  Smith had expected the discovery of the acid-burned men to shed some light onto the mystery. Instead, he found one more clue pointing to the Martian explanation.

  Strange Visitors

  April walked up the stairs of the tenement building, carefully dodging the children who ran up and down like it was a vertical playground. Dressed in patched-up but well-mended and cleaned clothes, they were obviously the children of parents who had little money but at least cared enough to do their best by them. On her way to the building, she’d passed many other children not so nearly well looked after. Scruffy-looking boys and girls who looked like they’d never seen a bath. Some of them with gaunt faces. Others with angry expressions in their eyes, even as they went about their play.

  She reached the top of the landing and walked down the corridor to the apartment she’d been searching for. A small boy of perhaps six was playing a game outside the door involving a tin soldier and a handful of buttons and bottle caps.

  April had noted the address when Miss Wincher had given her a quick education on the art of filing. April pretended to know nothing of filing and asked several innocent questions before going to the “T” drawer in the employment section and pulling out a file of recent terminations. She memorized two names and addresses at a glance while she made eye contact with Wincher. Both belonged to men who had been fired the day after the copper spindle went missing.

  The first man had moved on from the boarding house he’d been staying at and left no forwarding address. Her last hope of salvaging anything from her ruse was behind the door in front of her.

  She’d felt a little guilty after departing the office. Despite her guarded, crone-like exterior, Miss Wincher had actually been cordial and polite. After April got the information, she departed as quickly as she could to avoid the men dressed in black, lest they make a connection between her and Smith. Wincher had been sorry to see her leave and told her to come back the next day. April decided to keep that option open in case they needed more information.

  She knocked on the door to the apartment. The little boy looked up.

  “Are you here to see papa about a job?” His eyes looked hopeful. There were traces of dried tears at the corners of his cheeks.

  “I’m just a friend,” said April.

  The boy nodded his head and then went back to his play. The door opened and a petite woman with brown hair pulled back in a bun looked up at April. A toddler clutched at her skirt.

  “I’m here to speak with Mr. Garret,” said April.

  The room was dark except for light streaming in from a rip in the window shade. The woman had an exacerbated look about her face. A bed and a table with a thin slice of bread and a piece of cheese was visible to the side.

  April’s heart sank. It was obvious that the family had fallen on hard times since the man lost his job. She could see his shadow in the corner sitting in a chair, staring back at the doorway.

  “You work for Edison?” asked the man.

  “No. I’ve come to ask you about the night the copper spindle was stolen.”

  “You’re not the police. I’m not interested in talking.”

  April patted her coat pocket. “I’m prepared to pay you two dollars for your story.”

  “And look like a fool in the newspaper? Not interested.” The man’s silhouette turned from the door.

  The small woman looked back at her husband. There was a hurt look in her eyes.

  “Lots of people are looking foolish. Besides, it can be anonymous,” said April.

  “Anonymous?” The man thought about it for a moment. “All right. All right. Martha, let the young lady in. Find her a chair.”

  The
woman brought a chair from the kitchen. April smiled and sat down. She did her best not to stare at the squalid conditions and embarrass the people any further. Yellow tape held wallpaper up on one side. The furniture looked like it had been found in the street. The man sat up in his chair. It made a wooden creak as he sat up. He was wearing a woolen cap and a vest that had been buttoned up wrong. He looked like he was on the sober side of a several-day drunk. He was unshaven; his eyes were bloodshot.

  At first he seemed like a bit of a lout the way he commanded his wife, but April caught a slight nod from him to the woman after she brought the chair over. She then stood by his side and he reached up and held her hand. There was a tenderness there that both warmed and saddened April.

  “Tell me what happened the night the copper spindle went missing,” said April.

  “One minute it was there. Another it wasn’t.”

  April could tell that a lot more happened in that minute than Garret wanted to admit to.

  “Mr. Garret, I don’t think you’re a fool. Nothing you can tell me would surprise me. You’ve seen what’s been going on these last few days.”

  Garret nodded. He had the look of a man who was tired of telling his story to deaf ears.

  “I think what happened to you is related. It’s very important you tell me what you really saw that night. Why did they fire you?”

  “Five hundred dollars worth of copper wiring went missing on my watch in the yard. That’s why. And all I had was a fool story. Told me I was drunk and covering it up. Said I was on the take. The take! Look around you. Does it look like I’m getting any kind of graft?”

  April shook her head.

  “It was a foggy night. I looked after the yard in a watch with Vincent. Lots of expensive equipment there. Sometimes deliveries come at night, Menlo or other parts. We open the gates and let them in. That night I was sitting on a stack of crates, looking up in the sky at a bright red star. I thought it was peculiar how bright it was. Then I realized it’s getting closer. I holler to Vincent, but he’s sleeping behind a pile of crates. I look up and the star is right over us, so bright I’m casting a shadow. I have to hold my hands up to look at it.