Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  After dinner, sitting at a heavily carved table with comfortable leather chairs, the general laughed heartily at a witty comment of Holmes’s and then said, “Before we go any further, Mr. Holmes, please dispense with calling me General. I think we know each other well enough by now. Call me Harry.”

  “General,” said Holmes, “I appreciate the offer. I find it not surprising that you would make it, having long since deduced your character. However, I honor your rank and your service too greatly.”

  This brought even greater laughter from General Thompson. “Deduced that, did you! I had quite forgotten that you are a detective by trade. What else have you deduced about me?”

  A small smile crept across Holmes’s face. The battlefield was the general’s forte ... we had just entered Holmes’s.

  “Oh, a few things. You arrived here in London by horseback only a few hours ago ... perhaps from your family’s estate, which is north of Manchester, say either Leeds or Bradford. You come from quite a large family—very wealthy I might add—of which you are the second-eldest son. You have been wounded at least twice in battle, although your pronounced limp is not a battle wound, but an injury you acquired in the Afghan War, nonetheless. You are a modest man for one of such heroic deeds, and you are much loved by your men—”

  “Enough!” he cried. “It is all true, though I can’t speak for my men. I’d accuse Watson of priming you, but he knows naught of my personal life. Explain your magic, lest I go mad.”

  “Elementary, sir, and quite simple.” Here, Holmes paused while he lit his pipe and took several deep draws. ‘That you only just arrived is evident by your boots, which are still soiled, though the staff of the Langham Hotel is surely mortified that it escaped their immediate attention. There is horsehair on both insteps.” Holmes leaned closer to the general’s boots. “A fine Arabian, I see. Your accent puts you from Manchester, but it is the mud on your boots that pinpoints the area as either Leeds or Bradford. That you come from wealth is evident by the cut of your uniform. Her Majesty pays her general officers well, but not enough that they can afford the finest cloth and Savile Row tailors. Firstborn sons usually assume the family business, leaving ambitious brothers to seek success and honor in the military. Watching you eat, I could see the influence of a large family. Even in a well-mannered one such as yours, one must not let his attention wander lest all the food be taken, eh?” laughed Holmes.

  “Your right shoulder has limited movement indicating either a deep bullet wound or a poorly healed saber cut. The black mark on your cheek is powder from a pistol that was fired point-blank into your face, but misfired. Your limp is almost a hobble, unique to those who are missing both toes. The odds of losing both in battle seem remote, thus frostbite. And where but the mountain passes of Afghanistan has the British army seen service in that type of extreme cold? Your wounds indicate that you are an officer who leads by example, fighting alongside your men.

  “You wear but two medals on your chest, while yon colonel sitting three tables over is bedecked with ribbons enough to tie back the hair of all the ladies at the Lyceum. One is the Victoria Cross—England’s highest honor. The other appears to be a unit badge, probably the unit you are currently commanding. Finally, you reddened and stopped me when I started talking of your modesty and the love of your men. Of all my assertions, that is the one I am most certain of.”

  A moment of embarrassed silence passed. I have always enjoyed Holmes’s theatrical displays of deduction, but this was tops. I greatly admired both of my companions, and to see them doing so splendidly together was an unexpected pleasure. General Thompson pulled out a silver case and offered us Havanas which, of course, required several minutes of sniffing, snipping, and long savoring puffs.

  Finally, the general chuckled, “Have you thought of entering military service, Holmes? Intelligence could use a man with your intellect and powers of observation.”

  Holmes smiled. “You do me an honor, General, but I have my hands quite full battling rogues and scallywags here in London. Besides, my habits don’t exactly lend themselves to military life; do they, Watson?” Holmes looked over at me and winked.

  I nodded, and laughed politely. “No, Holmes. I can’t envision you following a military routine.”

  The general’s tone turned serious as the conversation evolved into a discussion of science and the startling advancements in explosives and other weapons of war. General Thompson was privy to the latest developments; and, without divulging any secrets, he described future battlefields wrought with petrol-engined carts carrying cannons, while overhead, men in flying machines dropped explosives on the soldiers below.

  “My greatest fear,” said he, “is that an enemy might develop a weapon so advanced that we would be powerless to defend against it Warfare is such a delicate balance.” Holmes had gone back to his pipe as he thoughtfully sat back and listened to the general. “You paint a vivid but bleak picture, General. A sufficiently advanced weapon in the hands of an evil genius would enable him to rule the world, would it not?”

  The general nodded. “Precisely.”

  On that note, the hour being late, we shook hands and said our farewells. A pleasant evening, albeit troubling at its finish, but well spent, nonetheless.

  Holmes suggested that I spend the night in my old room, which I gratefully accepted, sleeping late into the morning. I arose to find Holmes dressed, smoking his morning pipe, and the remains of his breakfast congealing at the side table. He seemed chipper considering his economic plight.

  “Ah, Watson. There you are. Mrs. Hudson will bring your breakfast shortly. Make haste!” He handed me an embossed vellum business card. “This arrived earlier. I have a client.” That explained it. Nothing lifts Sherlock Holmes’s spirits like a new case!

  Holmes paced the floor, looking out the windows often as I finished breakfast. ‘This must be he. A fine carriage and a well-dressed gentlemen stepping out,” he said, returning to his humidor and repacking his pipe.

  Moments later, Mrs. Hudson led the gentleman into the sitting room.

  “I am Henry Babbage. You received my message, I presume,” he said looking first at me and then Holmes.

  Holmes ended the confusion by stepping forward and introducing himself and then me. Taking Mr. Babbage’s coat and scarf, he offered coffee, and we took seats near the fire in deference to our visitor, who appeared quite chilled. He was a portly man with graying sidewhiskers that framed a fleshy face. As Holmes had already noted, he was impeccably dressed in a fine suit, set off with silk cravat and a large diamond stickpin.

  “You read my note, then?” began Mr. Babbage.

  “Most assuredly,” responded Holmes. “You have suffered a theft and wish me to retrieve the article. No doubt you have already informed the police, and achieving no results, you have come to me.”

  “That’s correct. Actually, two items were stolen. Where shall I start?”

  Holmes arose and poured more coffee. “At the beginning, please.”

  “You might recognize my name, or at least my father’s— Charles ... Charles Babbage.”

  “Why, of course!” I interjected. “He founded the Royal Astronomical Society. I have a fondness, a hobby if you will, for astronomy.”

  “Yes, that was he. My father was somewhat of an eccentric and an inventor. He spent most of his life and a goodly amount of the family’s fortune on the development of a machine that would be able to make mathematical calculations at an extremely rapid rate. His initial attempt was partially funded by the Exchequer and was called a Difference Engine. Its original intent was to make error-free navigational tables, but my father kept redesigning it in an attempt to create a mighty engine capable of freeing mankind from the drudgery of solving mathematical equations.

  “He was never able to perfect the Difference Engine and began work on an even more complex mathematical machine which he called the Analytical Engine. It contained two main parts. One part was to store all the mathematical variables of the probl
em and the results of the operation. The other, which my father called ‘the mill,’ the guts of the machine, was to process the quantities as they were fed into it, where they would again be sent back to storage or printed for use.”

  “And it was this Analytical Engine that was stolen?” asked Holmes, reaching for his pipe and packing it with tobacco.

  “Yes. Over a year ago. It was taken from the warehouse where it had been in storage since my father’s death over twenty years ago. It disappeared overnight.”

  Holmes walked over to the fire and retrieved an ember, placing it in his pipe, and remained standing while he sucked noisily to ignite the tobacco. “I assume that this Analytical Engine was never perfected?”

  “No. Although my father even designed his own tools in an attempt to achieve the precision needed for all the thousands of machined parts, he was never able to complete his machine.”

  “Why do you want it back?” asked Holmes. “It is still of some value?”

  Our visitor stood and walked over to one of the large windows and stared off into the morning fog as if pondering a weighty decision. He turned back toward us and began speaking emotionally. “My father was thought a fool. The scientific community called his Difference Engine, ‘Babbage’s Folly.’

  “Mr. Holmes, my father was a genius! I studied his notes, which led me to other files that he had secreted away. Once perfected, his Analytical Engine would be capable of astounding—nay magical—feats. With it, one would be able to predict the outcome in advance of any series of events. One could define any problem using mathematical equations and feed it into the milling unit in order to find possible solutions. Do you see the potential? The power it could give you? You could predict the future ... or even more significantly, you could change the future!”

  “A Future Engine,” said Holmes quietly, abstractly, obviously deep in thought.

  “Exactly!” cried Babbage.

  “Impossible!” I scoffed.

  Both men turned and faced me. I hadn’t realized that I had spoken out loud.

  “Impossible, Watson?” said Holmes, frowning at me. “Let me ask you this. If the wind is from the north, in what direction will you find the fallen leaf?”

  I laughed. “To the south, of course.”

  “And if halfway down, a gust blows suddenly from the east?”

  “Why, then, it would land to the southwest. I see where you’re going Holmes,” I said, smiling. “But what about all the leaves in swirling winds?”

  “If this Future Engine can make thousands upon thousands of calculations as our esteemed guest claims, then it could tell you where each and every one would alight, including which side was turned up,” said he, returning my smile.

  At this, I confess he made me doubt my initial scorn for this incredible tale. “Mr. Babbage, if I might ask, what type of mathematics is used in these calculations?”

  “Not at all, Dr. Watson. It is based on the Binomial Theorem.”

  If Sherlock Holmes had been shot with a pistol, he could not have reacted more violently. His pipe dropped from his hands, spilling its contents on the carpet. His face, which is pale to begin with, went bloodless, and I thought he might faint. Instead, he kicked his pipe across the room, stamped out the smoldering ashes, and began to mutter in ever-increasing volume, “What a fool I’ve been. What a fool. I knew that my investments had been manipulated, and instead I blamed myself.”

  I had risen from my chair, and I grabbed his arm. “What is it, Holmes? What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. It’s Professor Moriarty. It is he behind this theft. It is he who is trying to ruin me financially. And unless we stop him, it is he who will rule the world with the Future Engine!”

  “Who is Professor Moriarty?” questioned Babbage, looking confused, and not a little taken aback by Holmes’s display of anger.

  “He is the Napoleon of crime. A nefarious blackguard who controls much of what is evil in this great city. He is genius, gone awry. And ... he is a former mathematics professor who as a young man wrote a treatise on the Binomial Theorem!”

  Holmes walked over and picked up his pipe, examined it minutely, and then, as if realizing that only a clear head and cool logic would prevail, he relit his pipe and calmly began to question Babbage.

  “You mentioned that two items were taken.”

  “Yes. Four months ago to this very day, all my father’s personal files and scientific papers also disappeared.”

  “From your home or the warehouse?”

  “From my home.”

  “Had you made any progress yourself on the Future Engine?”

  “Some. It could tabulate to six decimal places, and I was able to compute the first thirty-two multiples of pi, but then the gears kept sticking and I could not fix it. I had not worked on it for more than a year.”

  “Who knew of your progress?”

  “Several people. I was quite excited at first and spoke openly about it at the Royal Astronomical Society.” “Ah-h-h ... including to a tall, thin, bald-headed man with sunken eyes and a beak-like nose.”

  “Why, yes. He seemed quite interested ... and very knowledgeable.”

  “You, sir, have met the vilest criminal on the planet,” said Holmes, placing his hand on Babbage’s shoulder. “Come. Take me to the scene of the thefts. Time is of the essence.”

  Babbage hesitated. “It has been a year, and Scotland Yard did inspect the warehouse and my home quite thoroughly.”

  Holmes shook his head. “And what did they find?”

  “Well ... nothing.”

  Holmes and I exchanged glances ... and a smile. “Quite so,” said he, reaching for his coat. “Let’s be off.”

  The warehouse was nestled among several well-located buildings and factories in the industrial section away from the Thames. The Future Engine—the new name seemed to have stuck, for even Babbage called it that now—had been located on the upper floor centered in a large, high-ceilinged hall that surprisingly was heated to a comfortable temperature. Babbage explained that this was necessary to prevent moisture from causing the many gears to stick. The room contained very little else: a drafting board, some file cabinets, a desk placed over by one of the large, well-caulked windows, and several bins full of assorted cogs and gears. The outline of the machine was clearly delineated by the shading of the wood and the residual oils accumulated over twenty years of storage.

  “It was quite large, I see,” noted Holmes.

  “You can see what a puzzle this was to the police. It weighed more than a ton. It took my father a week to dismantle, transport, and reassemble it twenty years ago. This floor has a separate entrance and stairway from the bottom floor, which was chained and locked, and had not been tampered with.”

  Holmes brought out his magnifying lens and examined the area. Then he inspected the door and lock.

  “May we examine the lower floor?” he asked.

  “Of course,” replied Babbage and led us off, explaining as we departed that the building was owned by his family, but as their fortunes declined, they had been forced to lease the space below.

  The lower level was a beehive of activity. It was leased by an importer-exporter whom Babbage trusted completely, the merchant having been a tenant for a decade.

  “As you can see,” commented Babbage, “this place is very busy, with no chance the theft could have occurred by day. At night, my warehouse, as well as the neighboring factories, is patrolled by a security service with bonded guards. Not an hour goes by without a check.”

  It did not take Holmes long before he was satisfied. Stopping at a pub, Holmes expounded. “Well, we know who, what, when, and how. The question before us now is, where—”

  “Excuse me, sir,” interjected Babbage. “Did you say we know, how? I’m at a loss ...”

  Holmes smiled. “Sometimes I despair of the police work done by Scotland Yard. Even when they find a clue, they never place it in the context of the situation. For instance, the assumpti
on was made that one day the machine was there, the next day it was gone. Thus it had to have disappeared that night.”

  “Correct,” nodded Babbage.

  “No. Incorrect There were no fresh scratches—even allowing for a year’s passage—near the machine’s location. Yet there were several gouges in the wood that had the appearance of being twenty years old that surely dated from its original move. The Future Engine was not moved overnight; it was moved over many nights. Each evening, one of the common laborers below would conceal himself in one of the many nooks-and-crannies, climb up through the central-heating vent—I observed the coal room and furnace were on the bottom floor, and being the summer months, not in use—and thereupon, under dim candlelight, proceed to dismantle small, interior portions of the machine. He would then return before sunrise to the floor below, hide his booty, and then mingle with his coworkers as work began that morning.”

  “I visited the warehouse often. I saw nothing amiss,” said Babbage, obviously puzzled.

  “But you had ceased experimentation, had you not?” “Yes, for quite some time,” he replied.

  “What you saw was the shell of your machine ... more so every day. Until finally, it was an easy matter to dismantle the remaining structure. Most of the mass was in the gears and entrails of the machine. The thieves had only to evade the watchman once on his rounds, place the frame on a dogcart, and be off. I inspected the lock on the lower floor, and it had been picked before.”

  “I must say, Holmes, I am impressed,” said Babbage, lifting his glass in a salute.

  A search of Babbage’s home revealed nothing further, or at least nothing that Holmes shared with us. We left Babbage at his house with arrangements to meet in two days, Holmes confident that by then he would have more information, perhaps even the location of the Future Engine. On the ride back to Baker Street, I asked him how he could be so certain.

  “What do we know about the Future Engine, Watson?”

  “It’s large, heavy, complicated, and ... apparently, now that Moriarty has tinkered with it, capable of predicting the future, or perhaps determining the future,” I replied.