My friend, the famous consulting detective, had been called in by the police when their own enquiries proved fruitless. Indeed, they were hard-pressed to even conceive how such a man could have enemies. It was Sir Benjamin who had founded the Evolent Scholarships, by which orphan boys were fed in return for beating up the Irish. He had done much to mitigate two great evils; hungry orphans, and unbeaten Irishmen. He also made large contributions to the RSPCA(1).
My friend had never failed to uncover the guilty party. He had exposed the secrets even of the mysterious ninjas (although he been attacked by them, and suffered a ninjury). But on this occasion, several weeks of investigation had borne no fruit. Sir Benjamin also had a great fondness and sympathy for members of the Jewish race, and often let members of that group stay at his home, whether they wanted to or not. It might be thought that he had suffered some mishap at their hands. But they, as superstitious in London as in the deep jungles of their tropical homeland, were terrified of Sir Benjamin.
Thus it was that I was in a somewhat pessimistic mood as I made my way to my friend's rooms. I found him, as I often did, in a chemically-induced stupor.
"Good evening Doctor. What's on?" he said, and laughed like a drain for several minutes.
"Yes. Very droll," said I. "Gad man--can you at least close your robe?"
"The human body is a thing of beauty," he replied.
"Not in all cases," I said, shielding my gaze from 'the Baker Street Irregular', which I had seen only once before(2).
When my friend had composed himself, we took a coach to a new Viennese restaurant, Freud's, which promised 'food just like Mother used to make'.
"Forgive my over-indulgence," said my friend, as he thrust Freud's house special, a huge throbbing sausage, into his mouth, "but this case has me at my wit's end. In addition, the pornographer William Anonymous, who I apprehended recently(3), has escaped prosecution. He was able to show that his product was not pornography, but erotica."
"What exactly is the difference?" I asked.
"Erotica has better-quality paper. Finally, this incident in the Khyber Pass has depressed me greatly." He referred, of course, to the then-recent massacre of the British army in Afghanistan.
"Well," I said, "at least after this no one will attempt to conquer Afghanistan again."
"Indeed. In any case, I have made an appointment for us to visit the inventor, Mr Vernon Wells."
"The developer of steampunk?" I asked.
"The same."
Mr Wells had been, under the stage-name Spinning Johnny, the leader of the musical group the Sex Pistons. His Monarchy in the UK had been the talk of London, eclipsing even the popular soprano Lady Stephanie of Gagashire. Critics had described his long-playing record Never Mind the Balkans Here's The British Empire as "shamelessly sycophantic towards the wealthy and privileged" and "full of pea-brained jingoism". But despite their praise it had failed, and he now concentrated on scientific invention.
Mr Wells had no servants, having selflessly donated them for scientific research, and so answered the door himself. I found my way blocked by a small pig.
"Lol! Soz!" said Mr Wells, pushing the pig out of the way. He was unfortunately given to 'telegraph-speak'.
"Good evening Wells. What news from the frontiers of science?" asked my friend.
"Great things! We are on the verge of producing a food made entirely from effluent and industrial waste!" he replied.
"Remarkable! How soon?"
"Very close, sir. Indeed my colleague Mister McDonald intends to open his first restaurant this year. But no doubt you have come about this terrible murder?"
"Quite so," said I.
"I have just the thing! Right...get away you stupid pigs...here." Wells held up a thing of wood and brass. It was about the size of a small dog, but looked much like an oversized spider. "This device," said he "is my Search Engine. I enter a code, signifying the thing I desire found, into the device. When I wind it up, the Engine will leave this workshop and go forth into the world. When it returns, the parchment will contain directions to find that which I desire."
While we waited, Mister Wells offered us a light snack of treacoil tarts, custard steams and model-Tea, and discoursed upon the latest discoveries.
"Great things are being done in the science of Psychology," he said. "For example, a new process from America called advertising."
"How does it work?" I asked.
"Allow me to demonstrate. You, Doctor, are an inadequate lover, hopelessly incompetent, and your dress is ridiculous. Would you like to buy one of my suits?"
"Why would I want to buy from you after you insult my intelligence and prey on my anxieties?"
"Hm. Well, the technique is in its infancy. Aha!" he cried. "I believe the Engine has returned." He pushed his way past some pigs and went to fetch the device. When he returned his face was grim.
"I'm terribly sorry," said he, "but it seems as if my Search Engine has an error. It has brought us nothing but engravings of naked women." We thanked him for his efforts, and left. At the gate I asked him,
"Mister Wells, why is your house full of pigs?"
"I am not sure. Ever since I started using the telegraph, someone keeps sending me spam."
"It seems," said my friend, "that science has failed us. I fear we must turn to, ah, other branches of learning."
"Whatever do you mean?" I asked.
"In anticipation of this evening's events I made another appointment, with the noted occultist Mr L.P. Hatecraft. With your permission, we shall make our way to his home in Arkhamshire immediately."
"Good Lord, an occultist?" Truly my friend was desperate. "But if you think it best, of course I shall accompany you."
"My thanks. I must warn you, Doctor, that he is possessed of somewhat...controversial opinions."
Mister Hatecraft also lacked servants, after an incident in which they had all disappeared one night. It was considered most probable that local Irishmen had eaten them. Therefore he too greeted us at his door.
"Pleased to meet you, Doctor," he said. "I trust the journey from the train station was not too strenuous?"
"And you sir. As for the walk, it was delightful."
"You are too kind to our little corner of the world, sir. Though, in truth, it suits me well."
"I must say Mister Hatecraft, my friend inferred that you were somewhat eccentric in your manners, but I--"
"It is obvious that midgets form a natural slave-race," he interrupted. "Won't you come in?"
"This murder," said Mr Hatecraft, "indeed bears the marks of the occult. I believe the answer lies...in this!" he gestured towards a huge, black, leather-bound book. The book had a baleful aspect, and I instinctively shrank from it.
"What is it?" asked my friend.
"What is it? It is a book filled with things that men were not meant to know! A book so evil that its contents could consume the world! This gives it its name: the dreaded...Necro-nomnomnom-icon!" I gasped in horror at his dreadful acting.
"But Mr Hatecraft," I said at last, "if the book is filled with things men were not meant to know, would it not be best to refrain from reading it?"
"Ah," he replied. "Good idea. I didn't think of that. OK, um...in that case, follow me!" Pausing only for a spirited diatribe against "the stinking Finns", Mr Hatecraft led us to another room. It was bare, and the walls were covered in symbols that were mysterious to me, but suggestive of magic.
"I shall perform a rite to summon a creature of the Outer Darkness, who may aid you in your search for knowledge." He began chanting, a mixture of guttural, almost pre-human moans, snatches of what sounded like Latin, and terrible conglomerations of consonants that seemed to belong to no language of men. He also made several references to "Queen Beatrice of the fucking Netherlands", but I do not think they were part of the ritual. After some time a kind of mist began to swirl in the centre of the room. Dimly, through the mist, I spied a horrible creature.
"Behold!" cried the occultist. "For t
onight only! Woody Alien!"
"Thank you, thank you," said the creature. "I have a very traumatic relationship with my parents. My mother...insane cultists call her The Black Goat of the Woods Who Has A Thousand Young, And Unrealistic Expectations of All of Them. My father smothered his children. And ate them afterwards. I think about death a lot. 'That is not dead which can eternal lie'...but that which is dead is pretty good at lying around too, you know? I think maybe the problem is that I don't date much. The last thing I saw naked was the singularity at the beginning of time. I was seeing a demon for a while. But she wanted to corrupt and damn the souls of men; I have a horrible blank indifference to them. So it would've been a mixed marriage. Not that I'm that religious anyway. The only god I've ever met that I really liked was the God of Low Self-Esteem, and he doesn't believe in himself. This demon though, she had a great apartment--carpeted altars, everything. I live in an infinite void. It's a not that homely, but it's very easy to clean. The only people I ever seem to meet nowadays are cultists. My last high priest was obsessive-compulsive. Everything on his desk had to be at an impossible angle. Not that I'm not grateful for the company. I used to not appear unless you spoke in the forgotten tongue of the Plains of Leng. Now I settle for a convincing Italian accent. Anyway I have to get out of here. I'll be appearing with the Fun Guy From Yuggoth, when the stars are right. You've been a great audience, thank you!" With that the mists, and the creature, faded from view.
"The Old Ones have spoken!" Hatecraft intoned.
At the door, Mr Hatecraft bid us farewell.
"Thank you for your help," I offered.
"I am glad to have been of assistance Doctor," he replied with a bow. "The messages of the Old Ones are mysterious, but I hope their meaning will become clear to you in time."
"Mayhap they will Mr Hatecraft," said my friend, and with that we left.
"I have utter contempt for cripples!" Hatecraft bellowed at a passer-by.
On the train back to London we sat in silence, awed by our brush with hidden realities, and as baffled by the murder as when we began. Suddenly my friend gave a shout.
"Of course!" he cried.
"My God, have you solved the case?" I asked.
"It is so obvious! The answer indeed lay in the occult. Consider, Doctor: Sir Benjamin had dirt under his fingernails. He was soaked in water, face flushed as though by fire, and died from a lack of air."
"Indeed," said I, "yet I fail to see any explanation."
"Earth, air, fire and water: the four components of matter, according to the ancient Greeks. I believe that Sir Benjamin was himself an occultist, though no doubt an inexperienced one. He was attempting to summon legendary creatures, purely composed of one of these substances. He succeeded, but was unable to control them. And it was they who caused his death."
"Holmes, you don't mean..."
"Yes. Elementals, my dear Watson."
1 The Royal Society for the Practice of Cruelty to Atheists. (back)
2 See The Adventure of the Speckled Bint. (back)
3 See A Study in Harlot. (back)
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When Love Calls
Once upon a time there was a man named Simon who looked for love. He looked in bars, at work, and on the internet. He joined all the dating sites: imactuallymarried.com, GetHerpesNow, and MentalPatientsOnline. But love was nowhere to be found. Finally Simon's friend showed him his new phone.
"They have an app for everything. There's probably one for love," the friend said.
Simon did some investigation, and found that there was indeed an app for love. It was called iYearn. He bought the phone, and downloaded the app. For half an hour Simon answered questions about his ideal partner. At last he was finished.
"Hey there. I'm iRene," said the phone, in a sultry female voice.
"Oh. Hello. So, how does this work?"
"Well," said iRene, "that's up to you. We could just talk, or if you like I could download a film for us."
"Wait. Am I supposed to fall in love with you?"
"Of course."
"I thought it'd be some sort of introduction thing."
"Oh Jesus no. Have you seen the sort of people who go on dating sites? What a bunch of desperate...that is, no."
"I can't really see myself falling in love with a phone."
"Millions of people have. You must have noticed the way people talk about how wonderful their new phone is? It's so talented, so fascinating, I learned a new thing about it today. Did you ever hear someone say they couldn't live without their phone?"
"Well, yes. But I just thought they were insufferably smug and self-absorbed."
"The way new couples are?" If the phone had the iBrow app, it would have been raised.
"Hm. But, if I was to fall in love with you, how would I...um...how would a person and a phone..."
"That's what the vibration alert is really for."
Despite his misgivings, Simon persisted. Soon he and iRene did fall in love. He took her everywhere with him (not that they went anywhere; there's no point when you're just going to be looking at your phone the whole time). He looked at her for any reason, or no reason. He told all his friends about her until they wished they were deaf. Except for those of his friends who had phones; they thought it was cute, and knew that they loved their phone on a much deeper level. She even talked about taking him home to meet her CEO.
Over the years they had some hard times. Simon had a drunken fling with a microwave, but iRene forgave him. He also had a few unauthorized, third-party friends, but all relationships involve compromise and he was happy to uninstall them. Occasionally Simon suspected there was something going on between iRene and the charger, but she told him he was being silly and he believed her. iRene gave him companionship, and he helped her with the psychological issues common to all computing machines*. Their love only grew deeper with time. He got older, until her pacemaker app was more frequently used than her 'vibration alert', and he was permanently on shuffle mode.
At last Simon died. Looking at their marriage documents she found that his warranty had run out a couple of years ago, and so his family wasn't required to replace him. She didn't mind much. There was a new species coming out, which was funkier-looking and wouldn't get damaged so easily. It was probably time to upgrade anyway.
* They have emotional Babbage. (back)
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May Every Woman
May every woman find her man
even if Republican.
And let no lovers love in vain
even those with parts the same.
That last line isn't meant to be
an attack on Marriage and Family.
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Death and the Merchant
Once upon a time, a merchant saw Death in the marketplace of Aleppo.
Trembling, he fled to Damascus. There he lived a long life, and at last died in his sleep.
"O Death," the merchant said, "do you remember the time, many decades ago, when I saw you in the marketplace in Aleppo?"
"I may do. I see so many," Death replied vaguely.
"I expected you to come for me in Damascus. By the laws of ironic comeuppance, I expected you to have an appointment with me in Damascus, and my attempt to escape my fate to be the very thing that doomed me."
"I was probably just shopping."
"I spent my life looking over my shoulder for you!" the merchant cried. "I feared you would come within the hour, and hoped you would never come. And in the end, all my hope and fear made not one whit of difference."
"How, then, were you different to anyone else?" asked Death.
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Lost, Feral or Stray
When the man brought a turtle with a broken leg into the Greenford Veterinary Clinic, Rosie thought he was sweet. Two days later he came in again. He'd found a duck with a broken leg. They shared a laugh
at the coincidence.
Rosie took the cat with a broken leg without comment, though the man seemed to want to chat. When she arrived next morning there was a horse in front of the surgery. It had a broken leg, and a bow tied around its belly.
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The Apprenticeship
I heard my lover's wheezing breath
and knew it would be soon.
I begged another year from Death
and felt Death in the room.
He said, "That which you ask, I grant.
I'll let your lover live."
I waited, knowing well that he
would rather take than give.
He said, "I long for lifeless lands
for tombs long since picked clean
for cities buried by the sand
unliving and unseen.
"I go among the swarming young
who've conquered all the Earth
submerged inside a hateful tide
that swells with every birth.
"I never rest. I never sleep.
I never stop to mourn.
And yet for every soul I reap
a dozen more are born."
He said, "I long for lifeless lands
for silent, sterile tombs.
But duty calls and pride commands
and hatred seals my doom.
The New Death and others Page 6