Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection (11 page)

It was an energy, but nothing like that left by the living. I would have to ponder its meaning.

The third murder site I visited wasn't a home proper, but instead a workhouse inhabited by a family of Chinese immigrants on the Whitechapel/Spitalfields border. Though it had been temporarily shut down for the duration of the Met's investigation, its owners had had the good sense to lock up in the mean time. Prying off the chains securing the front doors allowed me access onto the workroom floor, a massive chamber housing a number of clockwork looms and dying apparatus. There were small traces of N-Ray emanations dotted among the equipment, though from spilt blood, sweat, or tears I could not be certain. I saw nothing that indicated the site of a multiple murder, so I pressed inward, covering my nose with my handkerchief against the cloying, stinging stench of lye.

The interior of the workshop was nearly pitch dark, and I had nought but the dull green glow of my Forensic N-Viewers to guide me. The storeroom beyond the workroom was cluttered with spare parts for the autolooms, bundles of cloth, bins of thread, and racks of completed garments. It was here that the murdered family had spent their lives, and as I hunted for the tell-tale N-Ray cloud that my quarry had left behind I could not help but feel like a voyeur sifting through the relics of a forgotten people.

As I moved slowly through the green-tinted darkness, manoeuvring between great drop-cloths used as dividers, I caught sight of the Scissorman's trail. I followed his dim billowing N-Radiation cloud through what felt like a labyrinth, until I reached several drop-cloths arranged into what looked like living quarters – a beat up old rug had been placed in the centre of the area, under a discarded table holding a cheap and unwashed tea service. An unlit lantern sat in the corner amongst scattered matches, and what little furnishings remained had been smashed to pieces in the melee that had ended the inhabitants' lives.

The entire area – drop clothes, walls, floor – was splattered in N-Ray residue, and I realised by the intensity of the emanations that the blood itself yet remained. I collected a sample, more out of habit than anything else, and noticed that some of the Scissorman's cloud was particularly dense around one of the dividing drop-cloths. From it I collected another bit of residue, and realised that the killer had to have brushed past when he made his egress. It was slick, and smelled heavily of ammonia... no. Formaldehyde.

A sudden brightness on the periphery of my vision caught my attention. A spot of green, moving through the darkness, visible only through my Forensic Viewers. Whatever it was, was several sheets away still, off in the storeroom. With an N-Ray luminosity like that, it had to be a living being. Was it one of the workers? A burglar? The Scissorman?

I grabbed a pair of fabric scissors, the closest weapon I could approximate, and cursed myself for having left my spanner in my workshop. I crouched and slowly made my way through the drop-cloths, closer and closer to the N-Ray signature, ready to defend myself should the situation require it. As the last cloth parted before my hand I poised to strike, ready to bring the scissors down through yielding flesh with all the force I could muster.

The girl screamed at me in the darkness with wide, terrified eyes, curling up in the corner behind some baskets. She was tiny thing, small even for her age, and looked malnourished. The dressing gown she wore was a tattered mess, and dirt and dust smudged her face. I realised that with the scissors I carried and the green glow of my N-Ray goggles I must have looked a fright, and quickly put the improvised weapon aside.

***

"That makes far more sense then." Bartleby watched with satisfaction as our guest devoured her third bowl of stew. "The workhouse murder didn't quite fit the killer's pattern; there was no orphan left behind. This girl must have hidden from the police, from the owners, from everyone until you found her."

"She was well hidden," I acknowledged. I sat across from the girl, a little astounded at her gusto. I was aware that she probably hadn't eaten since her family had been killed, but it was still a mystery as to where she was putting it all away. "But now, what do we do with her?"

"I haven't the foggiest, James. You're the one who brought her home with you."

"Well, I couldn't just leave her." I poured the girl some tea. She seemed to have gotten over her initial fear now that she had a stomach full of food and could finally see me in the light.

"謝謝你的茶，老總." She smiled up at me gratefully.

"I doubt we'll get much information from her," Bartleby said. "Unless you've got some sort of Chinese to English translation device."

"Don't be absurd." Though upon reflection I could think of a few ways it could be done with a small Babbage engine to interpret and catalogue phonetic variations and a comprehensive set of wax cylinders to play back samples of speech. It would be a simple enough variation on the Sonic Galvanic Disruptor, though the complexity of the Chinese language would require a significant storage space. Perhaps if we dug out a sub-cellar to my workshop...

"James? Focus, James."

"Hmm? Oh, yes."

"I could ask Aldora to translate. I'm fairly certain that Chinese is one of the languages she's proficient with. Dear me, James! Such a face you make."

"You know we don't get along."

"You're both quite ridiculous about it."

"It isn't my fault," I said. "The woman doesn't approve of me."

"Now, you don't know that."

"She says it all the time." I cut the girl a slice of bread. "She said it at last Sunday's brunch."

"Well, unless you know any Chinese engineers--"

"None that would take the time away from their workshops for this."

"Then we'll take her to see Aldora tomorrow."

***

"So what did you discover during the course of your investigations, besides a little girl?" Bartleby asked after supper had been cleared away. He'd rolled his sleeves up and was drawing our orphan a bath.

"它看起來像一隻天鵝，但它不是一隻天鵝!" the girl exclaimed, reaching out and touching the bath's swan-styled faucet, smiling at me in delight. I stopped to smile back before responding.

"I collected some biological samples from the victims." I said, reaching into my breast pocket.

Bartleby was quick to stay my hand, throwing a glance towards the girl in the tub.

I nodded absently. "More importantly, though, I found some residue left by the killer."

"What sort of residue?"

"I haven't examined it yet, but I think it may be a preservative of some sort. For his trophies, perhaps."

"Distracted by your guest? I must say, James – I was a bit taken aback when you returned to the upstairs instead of just retreating into your lab upon returning."

"First things first, Bartleby."

The girl dipped fingers into the tub. "水是溫暖!" she exclaimed, looking up at us with awe and wonder.

"Yes, warm," I agreed. A good deal of the conveniences I'd rigged up around the house ran on steam power, and the runoff was collected for the plumbing and redistributed.

Bartleby laughed. "Putting a child's welfare above your research?"

"I'm not inhuman, Bartleby."

"No, of course not. You seem quite taken. You could have just dumped her in my lap and retreated to your lair to work undisturbed."

I frowned. He was right – my research should take precedence. All the same, I felt a certain sense of responsibility to the girl, at least until we found someone to take her in. I hadn't been an orphan myself, but I knew all too well what it was like to grow up alone, without anyone looking after your interests. My father had been present but uninvolved, and I knew the value of small kindnesses. With what the girl had been through she could use them. Wordlessly, I lifted the girl and placed her in the warm water.

"飛濺!" The girl splashed at the tub's warm water in delight, sending droplets across my face and chest. "飛濺飛濺飛濺! 我是鴨子!"

I gave a slight laugh, then turned back to the matter at hand. "Have you discovered anything pertinent through your own enquiries?"

"Perhaps," Bartleby said, pouring some bath salts into the water. "None of the witnesses I contacted could tell me much more than what was in the police reports. These surviving children are traumatised or in denial – honestly this girl seems the best adjusted out of the bunch."

"Is her name in the files?"

"No, sadly. Unable to find a sign of her the police simply noted that there hadn't been any survivors, and that gnawed at me – a break in the pattern. Now it makes a little more sense... this Scissorman is somehow tied to these children."

A sudden cold realisation sunk into me. "It's not safe for her here. The killer is going to come here, come after us. I don't want to expose her to that again."

"Agreed. We can turn her over to the police and they can place her somewhere after we have Aldora ask her some questions."

I wasn't fond of that course, but was unable to come up with anything better. "This Scissorman, Bartleby. The N-Ray trail he left behind. Whatever he is, he's more or less than human."

"More or less?"

I nodded. "I can't say more than that."

"I'll bear it in mind. I've got some ideas rolling around in my head. It's all gelling. Perhaps this girl's testimony and the residue you've collected will be the missing pieces I need." Bartleby's mind was a beautiful thing, capable of gathering and correlating disparate data into elegant conclusions, almost intuitively. Mental processes that came to others only with effort were second nature to him, and even the Old Man had complemented him on his deductive reasoning. He'd been pleased at that, and requested a certificate be made up. The Great Detective had respectfully declined.

***

After we finished bathing the girl we dressed her in one of Bartleby's nightshirts and I carried her to the hall. It had been a while since it had been more than the pair of us in his ancestral home, but there were guest-rooms to spare. In their day Bartleby's family had been one of the more powerful and influential in London, and with his grasp of social currents and finances they were well back on their way to prominence. The fact that he'd effectively exiled the rest of his family to the Americas had helped their fortunes as well.

I lay the girl down in one of the guest-rooms while Bartleby departed to stoke the hearth.

"你會從壞男人我安全?" she asked sleepily, arms around my neck.

"Sleep, little one," I told her. "You're safe now."

"你是個好人."

For a moment I felt a tinge of sadness and rage. This girl – this poor, sweet girl – had had her world ripped from her by an inhuman monster. Her future was not particularly bright, either – she'd likely be shipped off to a new workhouse or an orphanage. Most Britons had little desire to adopt foreign children. Perhaps Bartleby could find something better for her. The helplessness I felt was heavy on my shoulders – I am a mechanic. I know machines and can fix mechanical problems. These things – social issues, emotional trauma – they were complicated, and beyond my expertise.

A sudden crash came from the parlour, followed by a cry of pain from my partner.

"不! 壞男人!" The girl sat up trembling, she looked to me with tears in her eyes.

"Wait here!" I said, grabbing the candlestick from the top of the guest-room's wardrobe. Closing the door behind me I hurried back towards the sounds of commotion, knowing that it was too late, knowing that the killer, the Scissorman, had already arrived. For all I knew he had already made an end of poor Bartleby.

If it had been standing the creature would have been easily seven feet tall. A crude mockery of a man, it was thin and gnarled, hunched over, shoulders bunched up near its ears, long limbs almost dragging along the floor. Most of its body was wrapped tightly in buckled leather straps, tinted red with dried and crusted blood; what flesh was visible through its gaps was mottled and grey, pitted and pocked. The creature's eyes were cold black empty pits. I could almost feel the hatred emanating from them, directed towards Bartleby, who held the creature at bay with the shattered remains of an end-table. Worst of all were the fiend's long jointed fingers, clutching an over-sized pair of wickedly sharp gardening shears.

As I reached the doorway it reached out, its fingers grasping, and grabbed the end of Bartleby's table. The creature was ungainly, clumsy, inelegant, but very fast – I could scarcely track its movement as it slammed the table back into Bartleby's chest with tremendous force, knocking him back over the parlour couch. With a roar I was in motion, vaulting across the parlour floor to swing my candlestick in a wide arc toward the Scissorman's back.

Time seemed to slow into a molasses flow as the beast turned, moving to catch the candlestick's impact on its forearm. I felt a give, heard the crunch, knew from the force and acceleration that I'd employed that the killer's forearm must be shattered, but it did not recoil, did not react, did not pause. I felt its hideous clammy and disjointed fingers clasp around my neck and was lifted off my feet, hurled through the air. I am a large man, powerful and broadly built, but it tossed me as easily as if I were a child. The impact when I hit the fireplace's mantle was tremendous, cracking the marble with my shoulder-blades and feeling something shift in my spine.