Reggiecide (Reeves & Worcester Steampunk Mysteries) (9 page)

“Your kind never do,” said Snuggles. “We can never achieve true freedom until the bastions of privilege have been totally destroyed. Isn’t that right, Mr Reeves?”

“Indubitably, Mr Snuggles,” said Reeves. “No gods, no masters. As Sylvain Marechal said in his
Manifesto of the Equals
– the 1796 edition — the distinction—”

“Quite,” interrupted Snuggles. “Ah, here’s Guy. Reeves, Sir Roger, help Guy carry the rest of the explosives. I’ll guard these two.”

As I watched my former valet disappear up the tunnel, I wondered if, perhaps, he would come to his senses. Maybe an erring subroutine had temporarily taken over the giant brain and turned him into an anarchist. Surely the old Reeves was in there somewhere, and one look at those crates of explosives would bring him back.

A minute later Reeves did return, but not to his senses. He marched past me, without looking my way once, carrying a crate of dynamite. Ahead of him lurched Guy, who didn’t look at all steady on his feet. And behind him loped the now pokerless Sir Roger. Only Sir Roger acknowledged my existence — with a demented leer — and I rather wished he hadn’t.

Back and forth the three of them went. Scrottleton-Ffoukes appeared equally peeved with his ancient a. for every time Guy passed he remonstrated with him.
This is not like you, Guido. You’re a Catholic, not an anarchist. And innocent. I’ll help you clear your name!

Guy didn’t reply once. I wasn’t sure if he even understood what was being said to him. He had a glassy-eyed look as if he’d had one too many mace blows to the side of the helmet.

After twelve or so trips back and forth, Reeves announced that they were carrying the last three boxes. Snuggles then took a timing device from his pocket, set the clock, and placed it carefully in Guy’s box.

“Be careful with this one, lads,” he said. “Place it as close to the middle as you can.”

A minute later the trio returned.

“We’re going to take our leave now, gentleman,” said Snuggles. “But don’t worry. You two are going to be heroes of the revolution. They’ll sing songs about you.”

I expected a diabolical laugh, but Snuggles was a more of a smirker. I waited for the four of them to walk out of earshot before turning to Mr S-F to give him the good news.

“Don’t worry. I have an associate outside with instructions to call the police if I don’t return within the hour. And that hour’s nearly up.”

~

I don’t know if time travels slower in the dark but it certainly felt like hours had passed, and still we hadn’t been rescued!

“Are you sure your associate is trustworthy?” asked Mr S-F. “Your other one wasn’t.”

His words stung, but when it comes to trustworthiness and a determination to succeed, Emmeline Dreadnought was second to none. Her track record with the constabulary may not be of the highest, and she
was
wearing a full beard, but I had every confidence.

An aeon passed. Several Ice Ages came and went. I’m sure I heard the plaintive trumpet of at least one woolly mammoth. And my confidence in E. Dreadnought started to wane. What if Snuggles had her? Reeves was certain to mention her.

Then, at my darkest hour — well a few minutes after, as my darkest hour involved a large beetle running up my trouser leg — I saw a faint light in the distance. Someone was coming!

“We’re here!” I shouted.

No answering call came.

“Hello!” I shouted.

“Hello!” shouted Scrottleton-Ffoukes.

Still no answering call. But the light was getting brighter.

Then out of the gloom came ... Reeves.

“I’ve come to rescue you, sirs,” he said.

“Come to your senses at last, have you?” I said bitingly.

He didn’t say a word. I couldn’t see it on his face but I suspected he was feeling not a little contrite and was too embarrassed to speak.

“Have you informed the police yet?” I asked.

“No, sir.”

“Why ever not?”

“It’s a question of time, sir. Mr Snuggles and his associates have been watching me since last night. I have only this minute been able to evade them, using the crowds around Parliament to make good my escape. Come, sirs. The bomb will go off at any minute.”

“What about Emmeline? Have you seen her?”

“No, sir. I really think we should be going.”

We ran down the tunnel and into the Tyburn sewer via the hole in the brick wall and, from there, retraced out steps of the night before back to the manhole cover in Great Scott Street. I blinked into the daylight and ... the Stanley was gone. Had Emmeline attempted to drive it? Had she had an accident?

“Come, sirs, we have to make haste if we are to reach Parliament in time.”

Reeves has a remarkable turn of foot when he applies himself and set off at a steady gallop. I was a little stiff from being tied up all night but still managed a respectable canter. Scrottleton-Ffoukes, however, blowing hard, trailed far behind.

As we approached Parliament Square I could see the crowds gathered along the railings waiting to see the Queen emerge from the House. Unless we were successful they’d soon see the Queen emerge a dashed sight quicker than any of them thought possible.

Reeves slowed as he entered the Square and stopped.

I hove alongside, puffing. “Why have you stopped? Shouldn’t we start warning people?”

“There’s no time, sir. I recommend we stand by these railings.”

“What? Are you mad? We’ll get blown up. Wait a minute. Isn’t that Snuggles, Guy and Sir Roger over there?”

“Where, sir?”

“There! By the statue in the centre of the square.”

“It could be, sir. It’s difficult to tell from here.”

“What are you talking about, Reeves? I can see them plainly. Shouldn’t we set the police on them?”

“I would not recommend it, sir.”

“Reeves, are you beginning to malfunction again? A gang of regicides are standing in the middle of Parliament Square, the queen is about to be blown up, and you suggest we stand here and watch.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I never—”

And I never would, for at that moment — whump! — the bomb exploded. The very ground beneath the Worcester brogues shook. A huge roar followed the whump. The roar made way for a cloud of dust, and startled screams came in for the encore.

But the Houses of Parliament were untouched. The explosion had come from beneath the statue in the middle of Parliament Square. Three singed characters struggled to their feet. The three-eyed woman in orange did not.

“What just happened, Reeves?”

“Plan B, sir.”

“We had a plan B?”

“Yes, sir, it came to me when Mr Snuggles pointed a revolver at us.”

“Did it never occur to you to inform me that we had a plan B?”

“I couldn’t, sir. The plan’s success depended upon your ignorance.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to take that.

“Ignorance, Reeves?” I said, bristling.

“Of the facts, sir. In order to gain Mr Snuggle’s trust I had to ensure he believed in our estrangement.”

“But how did you get them to blow up the statue?”

“It was not my intention to blow up the statue, sir. My intention was to move the explosion away from Parliament and into the first clear patch of ground.”

“And it just happened to blow up a statue you detest?”

“I think detest is too strong a word, sir.”

“So how did Snuggles and co. come to be standing under said statue, Reeves? Coincidence?”

“I may have suggested the location to them, sir. So they could get a good view of the explosion.”

I was speechless. How? What? Where does one begin?

“But ... but ... you could have killed someone!”

“Unlikely, sir. There was insufficient dynamite.”

“But, Reeves, how did the dynamite get into the Square in the first place? Didn’t the tunnel go to the Houses of P.?”

“Indeed, sir, but I noticed Mr Fawkes’ confusion upon reaching the hole that we had made in the sewer wall and sought to persuade him that it was an entrance to the undercroft of the new Houses of Parliament. And that if he followed me I would lead him to the place directly beneath the Queen’s throne.”

“He bought that?”

“Death and three hundred years mouldering in a coffin is apt to have a deleterious effect on the intellect, sir.”

“And Sir Roger believed you as well?”

“I fear Sir Roger’s brain is even more addled than Mr Fawkes’, sir. He can barely understand the simplest of instructions and appears little more than a shell. It was not difficult to wait until Guy and Sir Roger had deposited their crates, then follow them back along the sewer carrying a full crate which I deposited in one of the Tyburn’s side channels without either of them noticing.”

“Well,” I said. “I must say you’ve surprised me, Reeves. And all that anarchist guff! You sounded pretty knowledgeable. Do you read a lot anarchist literature?”

“No, sir, but one of my subroutines
was
written by the young Karlo Marx when he had a summer job at Babbage’s.”

“Karlo Marx? The name’s familiar. Do I know him, Reeves?”

“The music hall entertainer, sir. One of the three Marx Brothers — Karlo, Engelo and Lenino — a song, a dance, and dialectical materialism.”

Our conversation was cut short by the arrival, stage left, of a flying Emmeline. I don’t know if you’ve ever been jumped upon, then hugged and kissed in public by a full-bearded man, but it attracts a lot of attention. Even if the act it followed was an exploding orange statue.

“Reggie!” she cried. “You’re alive!”

“And so are you! Emmy!”

Had there been a bird left in the square — perhaps a singed one that had been basking atop the statue prior to its elevation — it would have sung its little heart out at the sight of true love reunited.

“Excuse me, sir, miss,” said Reeves. “I fear I must shout.”

“What?”

Reeves cupped both hands to his mouth and called to a group of policeman who were running towards the remains of the statue. “Take care, officers! Those anarchists who caused the explosion are armed!” He then turned to us. “I think we should leave now. I find that communication with the constabulary is best conducted anonymously.”

~

We exited at speed, not stopping until we’d reached Trafalgar Square, whereupon Emmeline made me tell her everything. Which I did — omitting the ignorance part — because I was sure that, deep down, I’d known all along there’d been a Plan B.

“But what about you?” I asked Emmeline. “Did you go to the police?”

“I did, but they didn’t take it seriously. The sergeant sent a constable, but he wouldn’t go down the sewer or knock on any doors! Then there was an incident.”

“What kind of an incident?”

“One involving a helmet.”

I shook my head. “Were you arrested?”

“No, I outran him. He wasn’t very fast after I kicked him in the shins.”

Sometimes one is gifted a glimpse of one’s future. I rather fancied mine might include substantial periods looking up the visiting hours of Her Majesty’s prisons.

“Then I had to go home and climb back up the drainpipe so I could get hold of a copy of
Who’s Who
.”

“What? What did you want a copy of
Who’s Who
for?”

“To find out where Mr Binghampton lived,” said Emmeline.

“Binky?”

“That’s right. So I could borrow Farquharson.”

I was agog. “You borrowed Farquharson?”

“Yes. So I could use him to track you through the sewers.”

“Let me get this straight. Binky let you, a bearded person he’d never met, borrow his beloved dog in the middle of the night?”

If a bearded man could look sheepish — and I don’t see why sheep shouldn’t wear beards — Emmeline was that man.

“I didn’t ...
exactly
ask permission. Farquharson was in the back garden and he sort of ... volunteered.”

“Volunteered?”

“Farquharson is a public spirited canine, sir,” said Reeves. “Volunteering would be in his nature.”

Yes, I could see that. But I couldn’t see Farquharson.

“Where is he?” I asked. “He’s not at the establishment of Ernest Durrant, family butcher, by any chance, is he?”

Emmeline paused ovinely before answering. “Well... We were passing the Abbey...”

“Don’t tell me,” I said.

“I’ve been advised not to.”

“Legal proceedings?”

“At least five. Farquharson really doesn’t like Anglicans, does he? He bit the Dean in the apse.”

“The where?”

“The apse. And that was after he’d ripped his cassock off.”

“The Dean ripped his cassock off?”

“No, Farquharson did. And then he bit him.”

“In the apse.”

“Exactly.”

I winced. “Where is he now?”

“In police custody. I did use a false name for him though.”

“Blenkinsop?”

“Anubis Blenkinsop.”

“Reeves, lead on to the nearest cocktail. We have a prison break to organise.”

What Ho, Automaton! — $2.99
from
Amazon US
or
Amazon UK

Finalist for the 2012 WSFA Small Press Award for short fiction. The first of the Reeves and Worcester Steampunk Mysteries.

Wodehouse Steampunk! Reggie Worcester and Reeves, his automaton valet, are consulting detectives in an alternative 1903 where an augmented Queen Victoria is still on the throne and automata are a common sight below stairs. Humour, Mystery, Aunts and Zeppelins!

“A fun blend of P.G. Wodehouse, steampunk and a touch of Sherlock Holmes. Dolley is a master at capturing and blending all these elements. More than fascinating, this work is also rip-roaring fun! But where Dolley really excels is in capturing the atmosphere and humor of the Bertie and Jeeves stories. Any Wodehouse fan will want to grab a copy of this work, but even if you have never explored that world, What Ho, Automaton! is a fun and fascinating read. Highly recommended, take a spin in this steampunk hybrid and enjoy the ride!”
-
SFRevu

“I found myself laughing out loud at Reggie and the fabulous Reeves as they romped their way through various adventures. A homage to Wodehouse without being sycophantic, this is fantastic.”
-
Sueo23