Private Dicks

by Samantha M. Derr

  Hallingsworth stops and unlocks a door at the end of the corridor. He pushes it open to reveal a little room containing a desk, chair, washbasin, wardrobe and bed. The room is small, but clean, and the little window next to the bed has been propped open to let in a breeze.

  "This is your room," Hallingsworth informs him. "There is a bath and other necessary accommodations across the hall," he points, "which you will share with three other assistants."

  Jamie examines the room before nodding. "It seems very generous. May I have my things moved down from London?" he asks, glancing up at the other man. "There is a steam-powered chair which allows me to move about a little more freely when I am inside."

  Hallingsworth looks interested at that. "Steam-powered chair?" he mutters softly to himself, nodding a little. "Fascinating. Of course you may have your things shipped, especially this chair. If you need extra funds to do so, by all means tell me and I will make arrangements."

  Jamie nods as Hallingsworth takes the room key from the key ring he carries and hands it to him.

  "I will leave you to make your arrangements and fetch whatever you have brought with you." Hallingsworth takes out his pocket watch and consults the time. "I will expect you for supper at eight. You will be taking all of your meals with me." Hallingsworth turns, retreating without explanation as to why he would demand something so strange.

  Jamie watches Hallingsworth retreat down the hall, not really sure what to make of him, then locks the door of his room to go in search of a carriage. Even from their short time together, there is no doubt Hallingsworth is an eccentric, but Jamie is far from convinced he is actually a dangerous one, as Mr. Burton had implied.

  He eventually finds a carriage and travels back into town. Once there, he sends a telegram to Mrs. Stanton requesting that his chair and some of his books and possessions be shipped to Cambridge, then sends another to Percy explaining the situation. He also hires several young men to help gather the few bags he'd brought with him and move them out of his temporary lodging and to his new rooms at the College of Natural and Computative Science.

  Jamie unpacks his bags and takes a few notes on his and Professor Hallingsworth's first meeting. The idea of supper with Hallingsworth stumps him slightly. He's still unsure why Hallingsworth wants them to take their meals together. It seems very strange to him, unlike any of the other working relationships he has had before, but Hallingsworth is a very eccentric man, so Jamie assumes this is one more of his quirks. He plans to bring up Professor Brown's death during the meal if at all possible and gauge Hallingsworth's reaction, perhaps find out some new facts regarding the relationship between Hallingsworth and Brown.

  A knock comes at the door at twenty to eight, and Jamie opens it to find Mr. Fielding on the other side.

  "Professor Hallingsworth informs me you will be taking supper in his rooms," Mr. Fielding tells him. Turning abruptly, he leads the way to Hallingsworth's room, where Mr. Fielding raps smartly on the door.

  The door is flung open by Professor Hallingsworth, who is still only in his shirtsleeves. His eyes alight on Jamie and he smiles. "Oh good, Mr. Hartgrove, please come in. Thank you, Mr. Fielding."

  Mr. Fielding nods and leaves while Jamie steps into Hallingsworth's room. The room itself is large with expansive windows, and half of it seems to be a study and sitting room, while the other half is occupied by a table and chairs already set for supper. The walls are decorated with framed sketches and blueprints for bridges, canals and trains. There is a large fireplace and bookcases lining almost every wall, a desk overflowing with papers, a large settee and a table also overflowing with papers in front of the fireplace along with several armchairs. A large skeleton of some strange, large bird stands in a glass case by the settee.

  "We are waiting on Del Martin, who will be taking supper with us," Hallingsworth informs him, making his way to the fireplace. "Do you smoke, Mr. Hartgrove?"

  "No, thank you, sir." Jamie makes his away to the settee and sinks down on it. Though he smokes on occasion, he tries not to make a habit of it.

  Hallingsworth lights himself a cigarette and takes a drag. "Please, might we dispense with all this frightful formality, Mr. Hartgrove? Call me Hallingsworth, or Professor Hallingsworth, if you really must."

  Jamie can't help but smile at that. "Only if you call me Hartgrove."

  "Well then." Hallingsworth beams back at him. "Do you read much social philosophy, Hartgrove?"

  Jamie tentatively smiles back. "A little."

  "Have you ever had the opportunity to read pamphlets by a German fellow, Mr. Karl Marx?" Hallingsworth pours them both a drink and hands the glass to Jamie.

  "I can't say I have." Jamie takes a sip, finding that the scotch is the best quality he's ever drunk, the flavors rich.

  "Remind me to give you a copy of his latest pamphlet; it will change your life." Hallingsworth rummages around his desk. "You do read German, I trust?"

  "Only a little," Jamie admits, choosing not to mention the fact that his German is self-taught and only because he very much admires the writing of a certain brilliant German police detective.

  There comes a brisk rapping on the door, and a moment later the door is thrown open and a small figure storms in.

  At first glance, Jamie assumes the new arrival is a young man dressed in trousers, a crisp white shirt and almost flamboyant blue waistcoat with a black jacket, overcoat and bowler hat. But when the figure whips off the hat and overcoat, hanging them all by the door, Jamie sees that the newcomer is in fact a woman. She has rather striking dark ginger hair braided and piled on top of her head and a slim, boyish figure, although Jamie guesses she is older than he. She carries several large rolls of paper under one arm, which she also sets aside.

  "Del Martin," Hallingsworth exclaims, "you're just in time for supper."

  Del Martin smiles back at him. "I am sorry to call on you late, Hallingsworth, my research took longer than anticipated and I lost track of time."

  "No, no, quite understandable." Hallingsworth claps Del Martin on the shoulder. "How is the work going, by the way? No, don't tell me, let me introduce my new research assistant first." He turns to Jamie who sets his glass aside and rises with his crutches.

  "Del Martin, meet Mr. Hartgrove, the newest member of our merry little band. Hartgrove, meet Del Martin, one of the finest mathematicians of our generation and a dear friend."

  Del Martin laughs and holds out her hand, and Jamie thinks for a moment she expects him to kiss it until she seizes his hand in a strong grip and shakes it. "It's good to see Hallingsworth has settled on a research assistant; we've all been telling him for months he needs one."

  The door opens, allowing a cart to be pushed through by a smartly dressed maid followed by a manservant. As they place the dishes on the long mahogany table towards the back of the room, Jamie, Hallingsworth and Del Martin move to the dinner table.

  "So tell me about your work," Hallingsworth requests, turning towards Del Martin. "What held your interest so completely today? More work on the flying machine?"

  Del Martin frowns and shakes her head. "Always the flying machine. Mathematically, my design is sound, in practice though …" She lifts one slender shoulder. "I brought my latest plans for you to look over. Hopefully you will have more luck than I with them."

  They begin to eat; Del Martin and Hallingsworth continue to discuss their work. Jamie finds that the food is quite good, though he's so distracted by the conversation he doesn't enjoy it as much as he otherwise would.

  "Young Horace Taylor is working on a quite interesting project for ships that can sail under the water," Hallingsworth comments. "I looked over his sketches. They're very much in the early stages, but promising. I notified the pertinent officials and they seemed quite interested in what this could do for Her Majesty's Navy."

  "Do you think you might assist him with this project?" Del Martin asks.

  Hallingsworth sighs. "I would love to, but I am behind in my own projects as it is." He laughs
softly, but there is a touch of sadness to it as well. "Our dearly-departed Dean would have had a thing or two to say to me."

  Jamie is suddenly focused sharply on Hallingsworth, watching the way his shoulders slump and his eyes drop to the table. "Are you referring to the late Professor Brown?" he asks, trying to keep his tone only vaguely interested.

  "Yes." Hallingsworth sighs. "Professor Brown was a brilliant scientist, but we did not see eye to eye about a great many things. He disliked my tendency to neglect my own work in favorite of assisting my students with theirs."

  Del Martin shakes her head and looks down at her own plate. "Poor man, his wife was most distraught when I last saw her. The loss of a beloved husband is always difficult."

  "Do they know what caused his death?" Jamie wonders out loud. Hallingsworth gives him a quick look he can't quite parse.

  "He was shot in his office," Hallingsworth informs him. "It was quite the tragedy. Who would want him dead? Not to mention the police have been running all over the college."

  "That is terrible." Jamie shakes his head.

  "Let us move on to better conversation around the supper table," Del Martin suggests just as Jamie is about to come up with an innocent sounding way to ask Hallingsworth what other matters he and the late Professor Brown had disagreed on. The conversation turns to the latest railway system.

  "Connecting Bristol to London will help Bristol's economy tremendously," Jamie notes.

  "It's an engineering masterpiece!" Hallingsworth declares, eyes shining. "Emerson's really outdone himself this time." He gives Del Martin a knowing look. "However, I know you are not so enamored as I."

  "It would be impossible to be more enamored, if not with the man then at least with his engineering," Del Martin points out dryly. "He's better then you, Hallingsworth, at least in that regard."

  Hallingsworth waves his hand as if dismissing the very idea. "Yes, well, Emerson does have his moments when it comes to public engineering, but he's no good at theoretical mathematics."

  Del Martin laughs at that and then shakes her head. "I just wish Emerson would throw himself into the problems of aviation with as much tenacity as he does steam engines. Between his engineering and my calculations, we might have claimed the skies for Britain by now."

  "And my work on the project does not count?" Hallingsworth asks with a slight pout, to Jamie's great amusement.

  "Your work is, of course, brilliant, but just think how much further we would be with another great mind involved." Del Martin takes a sip of wine and sighs.

  The rest of supper passes amicably enough. After the meal, they retire to the sitting room where Hallingsworth pours them all drinks and he and Del Martin smoke cigars while Jamie accepts a cigarette. Del Martin unfolds her latest plans for the flying machine and then rolls out reams upon reams of wide white paper imprinted with line after line of numbers. Both she and Hallingsworth seem to think the numbers make perfect sense, while Jamie can't hope to understand them. After some questions, he learns the papers are the end result of calculations which have been run through the Computative Engine. The sketches and blueprints make much more sense to him, although thinking of such things as flying machines is a new experience entirely. Right before he leaves, Hallingsworth presses a small pamphlet into his hands.

  By the time Jamie makes his way back to his own little room, his head is so full of new ideas and possibilities that he has to remind himself severely that he is not there to indulge his intellectual curiosity. He is there to do a job, to try and judge Hallingsworth's guilt in the matter of Professor Brown's death and maybe uncover the murderer himself.

  The next morning Jamie is once again guided by Mr. Fielding, this time back to the laboratory where one of the tables has been cleared off to make space for breakfast. Jamie learns that Hallingsworth eats breakfast while working, scribbling notes and sketching out plans on one table before dashing back to the breakfast table to eat another piece of toast or finish off his eggs. For the most part, he either ignores Jamie or talks animatedly at him about his latest plans. Most of the morning, Jamie simply observes Hallingsworth's work. Hallingsworth drags out his pocket watch before grabbing his jacket.

  "I have a lecture I must give," Hallingsworth tells him, thrusting a large stack of papers at him. "Be a good man and go over these notes and consolidate everything that has to do with the velocity of bodies moving through water." With that, he dashes off.

  Jamie spends the next several hours trying to decipher Hallingsworth's really quite appalling scrawl. He had hoped to track down some students of Professor Hallingsworth and try to extract their understanding of his character, but the task he's been set takes up too much of his time.

  He's just finishing off the stack of notes when Mr. Fielding comes to inform him his baggage has arrived from London. Hurrying as fast as he can on his crutches, Jamie almost runs straight into Hallingsworth coming down the hall accompanied by a young blond man Jamie doesn't recognize.

  "Easy there!" Hallingsworth steadies him before both of them can pitch over.

  "I'm sorry." Jamie wills himself not to blush. "I just received word that the things I sent for from London have arrived, including my chair."

  Hallingsworth's face lights up as if he's been offered a gift he had very much wanted. Turning to the young man at his side, he says, "I am sorry, Horace, I really must see this. Come by the laboratory this evening and we will look over those plans together."

  Horace nods before walking away.

  Jamie leads the way back to his room, Hallingsworth just behind him. The crate containing his chair is too big to fit in his room and instead sits in the hall. Jamie makes note to send a considerable sum back to Mrs. Stanton for the inconvenience.

  Hallingsworth takes one look at the crate and heads off the way they had come, returning at a slight run with a crowbar in hand. He pries the side of the crate off and manages to pull the chair out while Jamie stands by and feels useless.

  Jamie lowers himself into his chair with a sigh of relief, setting aside the hated crutches. He takes the key from his waistcoat and turns the chair on, listening to the engine purr to life.

  Hallingsworth actually claps his hands together. "Amazing." He circles around the chair as Jamie uses the stick set into its wooden box on the armrest to guide the chair further out into the hall. "Simply amazing." Kneeling behind the chair, Hallingsworth peers at the intricate construction of gears and pistons that connects the small steam engine to the wheels. "Truly beautiful. I've seen all of this technology separately, but never together like this."

  "It is amazing," Jamie agrees, turning himself in a slow circle. "A world better than having to support myself on those crutches, or the old heavy chairs I used to use." He shakes his head. "This has allowed me to be somewhat independent, at least while in the house."

  Hallingsworth looks up at that. "Why only indoors?"

  "City streets are not made for such machines, what with curbs and cobblestones," Jamie explains. "And there would be no getting this into a cab or carriage, I can assure you."

  Hallingsworth nods to himself, his eyes getting that faraway look Jamie is beginning to recognize as Hallingsworth working on a problem. He takes an eyeglass, the kind employed by jewelers or clock makers, out of his pocket and kneels down again to peer at the back of the chair. "I would very much like to meet the man who made this," he murmurs quietly.

  "I was told the plans for it came from here, actually," Jamie informs him.

  Hallingsworth leans to the side so he can look up at Jamie's face. "The technology for it certainly comes from here, but I have been studying and teaching at this college since its founding and I have never seen anything like this before." Straightening finally, he removes the eyeglass. "Take the rest of the afternoon to unpack and get your things in order. I will see you for supper in my rooms at eight sharp. Oh, and if you are settled by then, you can accompany me to the laboratory after we dine to look over those sketches Horace is bringing around." With t
hat, he turns and wanders off back towards the laboratory, crowbar in hand.

  Jamie arranges for money to be sent to Mrs. Stanton for the expense of shipping his things and then unpacks. Really, he hadn't ordered much to be brought to him aside from the chair, so it takes only a small amount of time.

  Making his way to Hallingsworth's room that evening, Jamie finds that large tracks of metal have been laid down and bolted to the floor over half of the stairways between his room and Hallingsworth's.

  "Ah, yes, I did that after leaving you," Hallingsworth informs him when he inquires. "I did the same for the stairs between your room and the laboratory as well. It makes no sense to me for you to use those horrible clumsy things—" Hallingsworth gestures to his crutches "—when you have a marvel like your chair, and since it cannot handle city curbs, I assumed it could not climb stairs."

  Jamie cannot adequately express how surprised and grateful he is, although he does try.

  The following weeks pass quickly enough. The ramps across the stairs allow Jamie to live much more freely in his chair than he ever had before, which is something he greatly enjoys.

  Jamie and Hallingsworth fall into a pattern of working on Hallingsworth's many projects throughout the day, pausing only for meals and Hallingsworth's lectures. Hallingsworth, Jamie learns, never attends chapel and works straight through most Sundays as if they were any other day.

  Del Martin is there more often than she is not, dining with Hallingsworth at least twice a week. She seems to have her own projects which she works on for the college, although she herself does not teach there.