Scarlet Traces: An Anthology Based on H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds

by Edited by Ian Edginton

  “Precisely, but again, I am not on familiar terms with anyone such. My enquiries amongst colleagues of Nahum’s have drawn a blank. I am at a loss, frankly, and that is why I have, upon your brother’s advice, come to you. I am certain that the wheezing man and Nahum’s death are connected. I simply cannot fathom how.”

  “This is all suitably intriguing,” Holmes averred. “I shall gladly take up the investigation on your behalf, Major. Give me a few days and I will report to you with my findings.”

  “Thank you, Mr Holmes.”

  “Good day to you, Major Autumn.”

  NO SOONER HAD our visitor departed than Holmes instructed me to fetch down certain of his scrapbooks from the shelf. In these he was wont to compile clippings from newspaper articles which piqued his curiosity.

  I left him thumbing through the scrapbooks, his clay pipe clenched between his teeth. When I returned from conducting my rounds, he was still poring over the volumes and the room was thick with tobacco smoke, so much so that it reminded me of one of the noxious ‘London particulars’, now a thing of the past. I would have opened a window to let in fresh air, had it been any less wintry outdoors.

  “There have been five deadly house fires in the capital over the past six months,” Holmes announced. “Five which stand out, at least. Raging, devastating infernos, and in every instance a common thread is that the homeowner was a person of distinction.” He pointed to one scrapbook, open at his feet. “Here a baronet.” He pointed to another, canted over the chair arm. “Here a High Court judge. A second common thread is that the blaze started as a consequence of a faulty water boiler.”

  “That is not perhaps as rare an occurrence as one might think,” I said, “especially with these new-fangled boilers, the ones whose design is based upon Martian Heat-Ray technology. I have heard they’re the very devil for going wrong. The manufacturers have yet to iron out the problems, but still the boilers are deemed sufficiently safe to be sold.”

  “When offered something new, people will rush to adopt it regardless of the risks.”

  “I would not have one in my house, that’s for sure. A good old gas-fired appliance will do me.”

  “I might not disagree with that, Watson. However, I will take issue with your assertion that the faultiness of the boilers is not unusual. It is. For our purposes it is, at any rate, since the five boilers in questions were all built and installed by the same company.”

  “Ah. Now it does begin to look less like coincidence.”

  “Quite. The company concerned is Cavor Calorics Ltd.”

  “Cavor. Would I right in thinking its founder is Professor Cavor, the inventor?”

  “None other. The ‘moon man’, as he was dubbed by the press. In the aftermath of the late interplanetary hostilities he turned his focus away from our lifeless satellite and further afield, towards all things Martian. It was Cavor who first spied the potential commercial applications of the Heat-Ray devices. He turned a weapon of war into a domestic convenience, beating a sword into a ploughshare. It has netted him a small fortune.”

  “Perhaps he ought to have tested his boilers somewhat more extensively before putting them on the market.”

  “Cavor has come out with a robust defence of his product.” Holmes grabbed one of the scrapbooks and flicked through it. “Here. From last Friday’s Times. ‘In response to accusations that his appliances are a hazard to life and limb, Professor Cavor has this to say. “The Cavor Calorics boiler is not only a tremendous scientific advance but the safest and cheapest way to heat a home and meet one’s every hot-water need.” He adds, “It has not been conclusively proven that our boilers are responsible for this string of dreadful mishaps. It is quite possible that incorrect usage by the customer may be to blame.”’ What do you think of that?” said Holmes, snapping the scrapbook shut with a flourish.

  “He seems rather keen to exonerate himself.”

  “And why not? Shares in Cavor Calorics have slumped. Those in the financial know are deserting the company in droves. If the fires continue and it is shown that his boilers are the problem after all, he faces ruin. Were I in Cavor’s shoes, I would be fairly worried right now.”

  “You do not think Cavor is in any way culpable?”

  “Not unless he has a self-destructive streak and wishes to put himself and hundreds of employees out of work. But the Cavor Calorics connection is nonetheless a useful lead, one I intend to pursue. Watson, you may not see much of me in the coming days. I trust you will be able to survive without my company?”

  “I shall endeavour to cope,” I replied.

  TRUE TO HIS word, Holmes was absent from our lodgings for some while—three whole days, in fact—and I saw neither hide nor hair of him until the afternoon of the fourth day, when he reappeared full of vim and gratification.

  I say he reappeared, but in the event it was a grizzled old seadog who walked through the door to our apartment, one whose chapped cheeks and perpetual squint betokened many a year spent on the foredeck, scanning far horizons while waves lashed over the bows. This sailor also carried his right arm close to his chest, crooked at the elbow as though it was paralysed, the hand hanging limp. As he shambled across the sitting-room I thought for one moment that he must be a client. It was only when he planted himself confidently in Holmes’s chair and I perceived a familiar pair of keen grey eyes twinkling at me beneath those bushy white brows that I realised this was my friend sporting one of his excellent disguises. The apparently paralysed arm reached for the Persian slipper in which Holmes kept his shag and tamped a generous pinch of it into Holmes’s pipe.

  “Captain Basil, I presume,” I said. “Or is this some other jolly jack tar who has spent a long life roaming the seven seas?”

  “Able Seaman Arthur Tregowan at your service, sir,” Holmes replied in a gravelly West Country burr. “Formerly a naval rating. Survivor of the sinking of the ironclad torpedo ram, HMS Thunder Child. Now Oi’m something of a vagabond, in search of gurt gainful employment.”

  “Hah!” I ejaculated. “A likely story. The Thunder Child went down with all hands, utterly destroyed by a Martian tripod.”

  “Oi jumped overboard just before the Heat-Ray hit her and swam for moy life,” Holmes said, still impersonating his salty alter ego. “Lost the use of an arm in the process, Oi did, but Oi made it to the banks of the Blackwater all the same. Moy story has earned me a few free pints in various pubs and a sympathetic ear wherever Oi go. More to the point, it’s helped get me a job interview with Cavor Calorics and the offer of employment as a boiler engineer, which Oi readily accepted. Oi’ve already worked two days as an apprentice.”

  “A somewhat long-in-the-tooth apprentice.”

  “Pity and admiration granted me leeway. Moy new employers, they consider me not so ‘aged’ as ‘experienced’. It makes ’em look good to have someone like Arthur Tregowan on their books, both senior and a war hero. Oi have, in consequence, learned plenty about boiler fitting and also, courtesy of moy colleagues, plenty about other members of the Cavor Calorics workforce.”

  “And how does that help?”

  “You shall see, Watson,” said Holmes, adopting his usual voice, “for you and Major Autumn are invited to accompany me to a Cavor Calorics appointment tomorrow morning at the home of Sir Walton Bellows.”

  “The Liberal politician?”

  “None other. Are you busy?”

  “I can rearrange my patient schedule.”

  “Capital! It is not like you to miss the dénouement to one of our cases.”

  “Not if I can help it,” I said with a grin.

  THUS IT WAS that Holmes, Major Autumn and I travelled by cab to Kensington the next day. Our jarvey steered a dextrous course through the hordes of traffic that trooped antlike along London’s broad thoroughfares, each vehicle expelling its own little fog of green fumes. The city seemed to be assuming more and more fantastical proportions by the week. Wherever one looked, some enormous structure was going up—here a cantilevered br
idge, there a shimmering cylindrical tower—all of which were conspiring to make our capital the envy of the world. Other nations looked on at Britain’s remarkable rate of progress and marvelled, wishing they could share in our bounty. Few appreciated the cost at which these glories had been bought: hundreds of thousands of lives. Only one country had suffered the Martians’ depredations. It was fitting, therefore, that we should be entitled to reap whatever rewards we could, by way of compensation.

  Sir Walton Bellows’s townhouse was undergoing all manner of modification. Its roof was being crowned with one of those domes which aped the Martian fondness for rounded contours. Remote-controlled tripodal cranes were working on every storey, inserting new windowpanes made of green-tinted glass which darkened automatically at night and obviated the need for curtains or shutters. The front porch was being remodelled so as to incorporate a small flight of moving steps. A lot of money was being spent to render the property as modern as possible, at the expense of some of its intrinsic Georgian splendour.

  As we arrived, a Cavor Calorics van was drawing up at the kerb in front. Two workmen in overalls clambered out and one of them went round to the back to open up the rear doors, revealing a hulking, pipe-festooned contraption within that could only be a boiler. The other workman rested against the side of the van, a hand clamped to his ribs. He was breathing heavily, as though even the simple act of standing required considerable exertion.

  Up to this latter fellow Holmes strode, greeting him with a hearty salutation. “Davey Milford! It is Davey Milford, is it not?”

  The other blinked at him. “And ’oo might you be?” he enquired in a hoarse rasp.

  “I am known to the company for whom you work—and for whom I work, in a manner of speaking—as Arthur Tregowan.”

  “I’m none the wiser.”

  “You might know me better as Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Oh,” said Milford. “Ah.” He took a deep breath, and I heard the wet rattle of damaged lungs, the sound not unlike that made by a consumptive or an emphysematic.

  The wheezing man, I thought to myself. This was he.

  I could see, by the widening of his eyes, that Autumn had arrived at the same conclusion. “You’re the one Nahum spoke of,” said he, jabbing an accusatory forefinger at Milford. “He worked it out. He knew somehow that you were a miscreant.”

  “Nahum Throgmorton?” Milford nodded. “Well then, the jig is truly up, isn’t it? ’Ere’s Mr Sherlock ’Olmes, the detective bloke, and ’ere’s you, sir, a friend of Throgmorton’s.” The wheezing man drew another laboured, whispery breath. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all of ’em.”

  “What are you talkin’ about, Davey?” said the other Cavor Calorics workman. “What the bloomin’ ’eck’s goin’ on ’ere?”

  “It’s all right, Jed. These men ’ave found me out, that’s all. It was only a matter of time.”

  “Found you out doin’ what? What is it, Davey? What ’ave you bin up ter?”

  Milford looked contrite but not rueful. “Murderin’, Jed, that’s what. There en’t no other word for it. And I’ll swing for what I done, that’s for sure, but people will know. They’ll know ’ow I feel about this damned Martian tomfoolery they’re bringin’ into their ’omes, and like me they’ll turn against it. You mark my words.”

  “You have been sabotaging the boilers, have you not, Milford?” said Holmes. “Rigging them so that they malfunction, disastrously.”

  “It’s just a case of fiddlin’ with a few of the valves while settin’ ’em up. Child’s play. So ’appens that Throgmorton caught me at it. I told ’im I was only tinkerin’, makin’ sure everything was all shipshape and tickety-boo, and it seemed ter put ’is mind at rest but ’e still ’ad ’is suspicions, I could tell. Not surprisin’, ’im bein’ an engineer ’imself and all. Didn’t do ’im any good in the end, though.”

  “But why?” I said. “What do you stand to gain?”

  “I did it because I ’ad ter. I ’ad ter show the world. Usin’ ’Eat-Rays for ’ot water! It en’t proper. What next? The Black Smoke to fumigate vermin?”

  “The Black Smoke,” said Holmes. “The same substance which ruined you, no doubt.”

  “Too right it did!” Milford declared with some asperity. There followed a coughing fit so severe, I feared he might asphyxiate. “I lived through a direct ’it from one of those Martian shells what gave off that gas. I covered my face with my scarf and ran for cover while all around me folk was chokin’ and staggerin’ about, vomitin’ up their guts—literally. I dunno ’ow the Smoke didn’t get me the way it did them. Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe I wasn’t exposed to it as much. Maybe I ’ad some kind of natural immunity to it. All I know is I was in Covent Garden mindin’ my own business one moment, and the next there was tripods comin’ up the Thames and I was in the middle of ’ell, with Londoners droppin’ like flies to the left and right. I never bin right since. My lungs don’t work a quarter as well as they used ter.”

  “And as a result you harbour a deep-seated grudge against all things Martian.”

  “Don’t you, Mr ’Olmes? Don’t everyone? Not just a grudge—a loathing. It can’t be just me. What those bloody alien abominations did to this country! And ’ere we are, adaptin’ bits and bobs of their terror machines to make our lives more comfortable. It’s a disgrace, is what it is. A godawful disgrace!”

  The more impassioned Milford became, the more the quality of his breathing deteriorated. He was barely able to gasp words out now. Yet he seemed keen—not to say relieved—to have this opportunity to unburden himself.

  “So I took a job with Cavor Calorics. Their business was boomin’ and they were signin’ up practically anybody, even a cripple like me. I’d set my mind to makin’ people understand, see.” He jerked his head in the direction of the boiler. “Understand ’ow this stuff’s wrong and you shouldn’t welcome it. All these toffs puttin’ expensive ’Eat-Ray boilers in their ’ouses—set a few of them posh pads on fire and everyone’d sit up sharpish and take notice.”

  “There are better ways of making a point than committing arson,” said Holmes. “Better ways than killing, for that matter.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill,” said Milford, “not at first. I ’ated the fact that lives were bein’ lost in the fires. But once I’d started, I couldn’t ’elp myself. I couldn’t stop. I was on a path and I just ‘ad to carry on.”

  His eyes glinted with a madness that was half malice, half perverted righteousness.

  “But now you’re ’ere,” he went on, “it’s over. It’s over at last. I’ll ’ave my day in court, and I’ll ’ave my say, and the world will listen.”

  “No, you won’t,” said Autumn, and from within his jacket he drew a gun—one of the new ray pistols. “You will pay right here and now for your crimes, Milford.”

  “Autumn, no!” Holmes declared. “He deserves a trial, not summary execution.”

  The wheezing man eyed Autumn’s weapon with contempt. “Go ahead, mate. Blast me to ashes with that wretched thing. Pull the trigger and you’ll be no better than one of them Martian beasts. Is that what you want? Ter be one of the new breed of Englishman ’oo’s as bad as the monsters what tried ter conquer us?”

  Holmes was poised to seize the gun off Autumn, but it seemed that Milford’s argument had some effect. Autumn hesitated, the pistol buzzing softly in his hand, charged with energy. Then, with reluctance, he disengaged its power cell and lowered it.

  “No,” he said to the wheezing man. “You are correct.”

  He took three swift paces forward and punched Milford on the jaw, knocking him flat to the ground, out cold.

  “But that doesn’t mean I can’t get some satisfaction for my friend’s death.”

  LATER, AFTER A police van had carted Milford’s unconscious form away, Major Autumn said to Holmes, “I can be hot-headed at times. It is a failing. You were right, Milford must face justice.”

  “You would have regretted shooting
him,” said my friend.

  “Probably. I was sorely tempted.”

  “But you resisted, that’s what counts.”

  “Are we becoming like them?” Autumn pondered. “The Martians? Are we letting ourselves turn into the very things that came so close to exterminating us? If so, what does that say about us?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps all it means is that we must try harder to stay human.”

  “Humans are not always wise and noble.”

  “But we can be,” said Holmes.

  Autumn nodded. “If nothing else, I have learned today that I must control my baser impulses. I have learned, too, that consulting detective is an interesting vocation, with many signal virtues and benefits. It may be that I shall take it up myself in future.”

  “Do you so,” Holmes said with an avuncular smile. “There is always room for more like me, fighting the good fight, and I can foresee you faring rather well in that regard, Major.”

  He and Autumn shook hands.

  “Well, seeing as I’ve been given your blessing, Mr Holmes,” Autumn said, “I might just chance my arm at it. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  Voice for a Generation

  an inspiring homily, by

  NATHAN DUCK

  Birmingham, 1967

  STEAM HISSED FROM the kettle, rising to a whistle as the song on the radio ended and the DJ’s chirpy patter began again; “That was David Bowie and his minor hit from earlier this year, ‘The Chuckling Martian’.” Wilf Hardy lifted the kettle from the hob and poured the steaming water into a teapot and stirred its contents.

  “Next up is the news on the hour and we’ll be right back after with more pop hits. I’m Tony Blackburn and you’re listening to BBC Radio 1.” The DJ’s voice was replaced with a jaunty jingle cuing in the news. A more formal voice intoned, “This is the BBC morning news with David Dimbleby on Monday, the second of October, 1967. Tensions between Rutland and the Duchy of Grand Fenwick continue to rise...”