by Jim Musgrave
I had changed into my detective clothing: white shirt, black coat and vest, and wool army overcoat, at my apartment on 42nd Street. I also had my trusted Bowie knife strapped to the outside of my calf, and my Colt pistol inserted within a snug leather holster inside my coat. The crowd on the avenues was a welcome sight after having spent two days in the wilds of Pennsylvania. I much preferred the civilized uproar of New York City to the noisy roosters and children at the Lowe farm.
Becky was sitting inside her parlor when I turned the key and opened the door to her large apartment in the Plaza District. She was sitting at her secretary table doing her ladies’ books. Rebecca Charming Jones kept meticulous records of each one of her girl’s rendezvous with her gentleman callers. She tabulated the costs of medical care as well as the rental of hotel rooms, if needed, and she put all of this into ledger statements. These were copied into individual statements which she then gave to each of her employees.
I also noted that Becky was wearing one of her humorous dresses. She was in an all-black dress reminiscent of England’s Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria wore widow's mourning clothes, which were black in color after the death of her husband Albert in 1861 at the age of 42. She had mourned her husband's death for almost 10 years and she said that for the rest of her sovereignty she would wear black. I knew my Becky was wearing this dress as an inside joke, so I decided to play along. The bottom of her dress, however, was cut short to reveal fishnet stockings.
“Your majesty!” I said, taking my porkpie hat from my head and bowing, waving the cap across my chest. “I do hope you can accept an audience with such a lowly rogue as I. I know it is quite late, and my white stallion is quite agitated outside.”
Becky turned around, saw me standing there, and she stood up. She ran over to me and put her arms around my neck. “Quite so! My good Sir Galahad, you have come at last. The Irish are in need of discipline, so I shall send you down posthaste to quell their riotously famished stomachs!”
I laughed and sat down at the end of her weekly color-changing French divan. This week it was blue. She moved from her desk to sit down next to me. Her green eyes were their usual sparkling pools of joy, and her curly-blonde tresses fondled the black collar of her dress in a most attractive way.
“I visited Professor Thaddeus Lowe in Valley Forge. He was in charge of the Army Balloon Corps during the war. I suppose you’ve heard about Seth’s vision?” I wanted to get right into our new case. In fact, I was thinking about perhaps installing teletype machines at each of our abodes. One here, one at my apartment, one at Bessie’s mansion, one at Walter McKenzie’s dockside offices in Hoboken, New Jersey. We needed to seriously consider improving our lines of communications.
“No. What did he see?” Becky leaned forward in expectation.
“That’s strange. Bessie never told you?” I was wondering how she had not heard from Bessie about Seth’s report from the future. I was gone two days, and yet she had not been informed.
“Oh, I was out and about town. You know how busy I can get,” she said. “Please, Patrick, let me hear about it.”
There was a crashing noise of something hitting the floor in Becky’s bedroom. Having graced its confines before, I knew she had no pet nor other animal which might have done such a deed. As I walked over to the door to the bedroom, I could hear Becky moving from the divan.
“Who’s in there?” I shouted at the door. There was no response, so I turned the knob. It opened to the sight of another Becky Charming splayed out on the floor of the bedroom. She had knocked over a lamp, and it was dripping liquid gas from the inside. Glass was strewn over the floor in fragmented shards.
This other Becky was looking up at me, her mouth covered by a wool stocking tied around the back of her head. Her eyes were wide, and she kept tossing her blonde curls from side-to-side in exasperation, as her hands and feet were also bound together behind her black dress.
“Becky?” I pictured little Seth outside the theater after we had seen The Black Crook. He spoke to us—lectured to us—about the other mazikeen, the evil ones. They will torture you, and burn down your homes, and rip the flesh off your bones!
I spun around to meet a ball of steel that hit the side of my head with a dull thud. Blackness.
When I came to, I could see two plump-brown thighs straddling my chest. These legs were on the body of a woman who was wearing a rubber butcher’s apron over them. I could also feel a long, curved blade pressed against my Adam’s apple. I knew it was extremely sharp because I could barely feel its edge; it felt just the way a barber’s blade touches against your jaw when you sit in his chair and are all lathered up.
Above me, a woman with raven black hair and two differently colored eyes was staring down at me. She was no longer in the form of Becky Charming. I looked into those gray and blue eyes and concentrated. “Are you a mazikeen?” I asked her.
When she smiled at me, all of her teeth were gold! They were perfectly formed, and yet their shining brilliance made me think of the Bible story of King Solomon and his mines. “You are a detective! Inquisitor Manette told me you were sly. He has watched you from his dominion for several years. You should feel honored. Now that misfortune has struck, I am afraid you must now be disposed of.”
I strained my neck so I could see past her into the bedroom. The authentic Becky was still tied-up and lying on the floor. Becky’s eyebrows arched. She flailed her head from side-to-side. I knew I had to think of something very quickly.
“Did your leader also tell you that we have a mazikeen? His name is Seth, and he stands invisibly right behind you. I believe his sword is a bit larger than yours.” I felt the weight of her body shift. She was turning around to search for her adversary. I knew I must act at once or become a sacrificial bull.
I twisted under her and she was thrown off-balance. She tumbled over onto the floor, and the sword clattered across the wood surface until it slid under the rug near the front door. In one motion, I reached into my leather holster inside my right coast pocket and pulled out my Colt service revolver. I sprang to my feet and pointed the barrel at her as she stared at me in a crouch in front of me, from where she was about ready to make a spring for her sword.
“When will you be attacking the ships?” I wanted information before I tied her up. That was my mistake. I should have tied her up first.
One second she was there, glaring at me with her golden teeth. The next second she had vanished like the Cheshire Cat. I knew she was still there, but I could not risk shooting at where I thought she might be. I might hit Becky. I tried to listen carefully for this evil mazikeen. I could not hear her moving or breathing. There was a deadly silence. All I could hear was the wind blowing through the laced curtains of the open window overlooking the street three stories below. Was she going to come up behind me and slice me into steaks? If she went after the sword now I knew I could hear her in time to fire.
I decided to go over into the bedroom to cut Becky loose. What if our visitor had other mazikeen with her? I walked into the bedroom, bent down, and pulled my Bowie knife out with my other hand. I reached over and cut the ropes on Becky’s hands and feet. I sliced off the gag over her mouth.
“What are you doing? Go out there! She can get the sword!” Becky screamed.
“She’s already gone,” I said, lifting Becky to her feet. I stood there with my Queen Victoria for a moment. She seemed confused.
“What do you mean? I saw you pointing your gun at her,” said Becky, grabbing my forearm.
“She has the other skill,” I said, stroking Becky’s red wrists with my fingers. “I knew there was no chance to capture this mazikeen.”
“She must be out there,” Becky said, and she broke away from me to run into the parlor. She waved her hands wildly in the air, running in circles all around the room, but Becky came into no other human contact.
“Her other skill is flight,” I said, as I walked over to the open window. “An invisible woman, even with gold teeth, can easily f
ly out this window,” I reached up and pulled down the window pane. “She flew the coop.”
“I swear, O’Malley. It wasn’t my fault. She must have entered when she was invisible, and I had the door open while bringing in some things from the market. You never said there were these mazikeen people on the other side!” said Becky, sitting down on her divan and resting her head back against the cushion. “Why me? Was she just waiting until you got here?”
“Yes. Also, we did know there might be creatures like her on the other side. Remember after the theater matinee? Seth instructed us about the two kinds of mazikeen. She is the evil variety. This group is using this one just the way we are using Seth,” I said, sitting down next to Becky.
“It certainly is a terrible development. How do we counter it?” She placed her hand upon my shoulder.
“We need to ask Seth and possibly Doctor Adler. What I was going to tell you about Seth was that he saw a vision into the future. He foretold an invasion by pirates who are going to attack our ships in the harbor. At least, I would assume it’s going to happen in New York harbor. He also saw a huge balloon that was able to bring up the stolen cargo with a system of ropes and pulleys. I was in Pennsylvania talking about how we might prepare for these pirates. I visited the head of the Army’s Balloon Corps during the war. His name is Professor Thaddeus Lowe. I believe he will be able to help us,” I said.
“I hope so. Did you like the temple? Bessie said Doctor Adler prepared a room for us there, and now we even have a way to travel through time. Won’t that make us their equals?” said Becky.
“No, not quite. First of all, this group has obviously been at their craft far longer than we have. Secondly, they seem to be collecting a group of professionals who can use technology from the future in order to take advantage of our inferior technology in the present. Finally, we have no idea when they will strike and how they will accomplish it. We can only make educated guesses.” I stood up. “I want to stay with you tonight, Becky. I don’t want to risk another entry by our golden lady until we can talk to Seth.”
Becky also stood up. She placed her arms around my waist and looked up into my eyes. “I am happy to have you home, Patrick James O’Malley. Will we all be moving into the temple starting tomorrow?”
“Yes. That is the plan. Even McKenzie and his men are going to stay there sometimes. Until we can see where these adversaries of ours strike first, we can only protect ourselves and attempt to learn how to use our own time travel machine. It’s our only hope. If this group is as cunning as I believe it is, then we will need to investigate every clue in order to prepare our defenses.”
Becky took me by the hand and led me into her bedroom. As we were lying together under the covers, I kept thinking back to our house guest. If she could fly, then what prevented her from flying over to me and taking my gun away? This was another question I needed to ask my little genius, Seth Mergenthaler.
It took me a long time to fall asleep. Becky seemed to easily drift off with me there because I could hear her deep breathing. I reached down beneath the bed and got my pistol out of its holster. I brought it into bed and placed it under my pillow.
This new enemy was much more insidious than any Rebel. Johnny Reb had fought for his own way of life and his own independence. There is a kernel of nobility is such a quest, no matter how racist and hateful it was in practice. This new rebellion wanted to strike out and build a powerful following. They might even have in mind their own version of Utopia, just as Sir Thomas Moore and Plato had planned their versions. I had fought for an American version, and although it might allow for some very greedy people to acquire power, it kept a basic value system that was built upon change when we needed to have it. I was afraid that our new group of utopians was being led by someone who wanted a world shaped in his own image. Who was Inquisitor Manette? What was his next move?
I knew that the word “inquisitor” meant someone who questions in a harsh manner, but it could also harken back to the Great Inquisitions in Spain, Portugal, and Rome as well as the terrible slavery of the Jews in Egypt. The Medieval inquisitors killed suspected mystics and soothsayers and tried them as witches and warlocks. The war was often between science and religion.
I remembered a play Becky took me to see on Broadway. It was an old one by a German historian and philosopher by the name of Friedrich Schiller. It was called Don Carlos. The play was quite dramatic and was, of course, about unrequited love for a woman. However, it was Becky’s historical assessment after the play that gave me my education about what was really going on behind the play’s creative struggle. In the play, Don Carlos becomes a heroic humanist who fights for the rights of the people during the cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition.
I now wanted to talk about that play, so I gently shook Becky’s shoulder. “Becky? Remember that Don Carlos play we saw?” I said.
“What?” She sat up in bed.
Becky had told me that the Don Carlos character, in reality, was a mutilated and ugly man. His physical deformities were caused by the genetic inbreeding of the royal classes in Europe. As a Vassar-educated woman, Rebecca Charming Jones knew all about how certain people wanted to use history in order to manipulate the audience to their own idealistic purposes. I now wanted to hear the details about this historical character of Don Carlos.
“Tell me again what this Don Carlos was really like,” I said.
“Why on earth do you want to know?” she asked.
“I think we may be facing some kind of leader who fancies himself a fictional Don Carlos, but, in reality, he is a monster,” I explained. “Let me know about this Don Carlos. Let’s just say I want to meditate upon him the way you taught me to do to come up with clues and other deeper, more intuitive information,” I added.
“All right, Patrick. Let me see now. Don Carlos was not the handsome prince oppressed by his stern unfeeling father that Schiller depicted in his play, but rather he was a pigeon-breasted hunchback whose right leg was considerably shorter than his left,” Becky said, stroking my cheek with her soft right forefinger. I could hear a light rain falling outside.
“Prone to indiscriminate and violent actions, he would rant and threaten in his high-pitched voice, made even more bizarre by his uncontrollable stuttering. He took sadistic delight in inflicting pain on young girls, servants, and helpless animals. In spite of his irrational comportment, he possessed a diabolical cleverness that permitted him to be even more malevolent. Court physicians were uncertain as to whether he would be able to impregnate a wife to assure the birth of an heir. He was betrothed to Elizabeth de Valois, but his father married her in 1560 for political reasons,” she explained, smiling over at me.
“So this is where our play began,” I noted.
“Yes, Schiller was inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This relationship between Don Carlos and his step-mother Elizabeth does figure in Schiller's work, as well as Don Carlos’s dream of leaving Spain and ruling over the Netherlands. In historical truth, Don Carlos even tried to approach the Protestant Dutch leaders in the Netherlands for support, but his erratic plans to flee to Flanders never materialized, and his relationship with his father became even more strained. He was accused of plotting to kill his father, and on 9 July 1568, he was judged guilty of treason. By 24 July the Infante was dead, supposedly poisoned on orders of his father, King Philip.”
“Thank you, Becky. I think I have enough. In the mind of one man, a man who thinks of himself as an artist and philosopher, history is merely a tool with which to manipulate an audience. This Grand Inquisitor Manette may see inventors from history the way Schiller saw the historical Don Carlos,” I said.
“How do you mean?” Becky asked.
“I mean, whereas Schiller used a monster from history and changed him into a hero of literature, Manette may use a chosen inventor from history and convince him that he’s a hero because of some grandiose purpose Manette alone has concocted. For example, what if Abraham Lincoln had been secretly angry at the world
because he was tall, gawky, not educated at the finest schools, and thus he wanted to have personal revenge? What if he used the issue of slavery in order to reap huge profits from the South, holding them responsible for all the evil of mankind that was, in fact, inside Lincoln’s own mind?” I knew Rebecca would grasp my meaning.
“I understand you now. You believe our adversary might manipulate these inventors from history and science to aid his selfish megalomania. I suppose you have a valid idea, O’Malley. Now can we get some sleep?” She gently kissed my lips.
“To sleep, perchance to dream?” I said. It was back to primordial darkness once more.
Chapter 3: In Which Our Heroes Formulate a Defensive Posture
I arranged to have our personal belongings transported to Temple Emanu-El by delivery wagons. We were all going to meet over there at different times. Becky and I would arrive first, at ten, then Bessie and her son, Seth, at noon. Finally, Walter McKenzie and his men would be there at two in the afternoon.
As we walked over to the temple, I discussed with Becky the problems we needed to face. She was enthusiastic about moving into the new lodgings now that we had made the acquaintance of the evil mazikeen mistress. My darling was quite lovely in her French dress. It was blue and white and had a fetching laced apron in front. She wore a matching bonnet with the same lace and a red rose affixed to the lace.
“I want to ask young Seth if there is a way to combat the powers of the evil mazikeen. I want to know how many of these creatures we can expect. In addition, I want to know about this time machine that Doctor Adler has created. If we are to stand a chance at stopping this group, we will need the help of time travel.” I felt for my pocket watch. It was ten after nine. We would make it in plenty of time.
“That is all well and good, Patrick, but do you really expect to be able to devise the exact repellant we will need at the same time they use their device? We are not exactly the War Department. Our resources are minimal, and our ignorance is great.” Becky stepped over a piglet that was standing in front of her on the boardwalk. “If they don’t do something about these disease carriers, we will have another cholera outbreak,” she muttered, looking back at the sickly-looking porker.