Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter IX

A Machine of Exquisite and Curious Design

In the centre of the vast workroom, glittering beneath the guttering flame of a single low-burning gaslamp, was such a device as neither man had ever before beheld.  It was composed of a dizzying array of burnished brass, cut crystal, glittering jewels and a complexity of wheels within wheels to rival Ezekiel’s vision.

“Mr Holmes, could it possibly be?” Kent breathed.

“A vehicle most certainly,” Sherlock Holmes announced.  “Note the padded leather seat in the midst of the machine above the tripod arrangement, and what appears to be a control panel of some sort, though oddly incomplete. The tripod contrivance of the undercarriage is mounted upon short skis, and those aligned holes indicate that Maddoc either had axles and wheels, or allowed for the possibility ”

“But a…a Time Machine?”

“Its source of power is obscure,” Holmes remarked, walking around the mechanism.

“Neither steam nor electricity,” Kent decided.

“No boiler,” Holmes agreed.  “Nor the rows of galvanic piles one would expect if it…”  He paused.  “I wonder…”

“What, Holmes?”

“Perhaps an application of magnetics,” Holmes suggested.

Inspector Kent looked doubtful.  “I hardly think this thing could be powered by a lodestone.”

“I do not know,” Holmes admitted.  “My knowledge of science, except for the more practical aspects of chemistry, geology and botany, is quite limited.  I suggest magnetism  only because none of the more familiar sources of motive power seem to satisfy the limitations delineated by the form of the device before us.  I do know, however, that a group of German engineers in Stuttgart recently constructed an elevated monorail train, the motive power of which is derived from non-ferrous electromagnets activated in series. No doubt those German scientists are attempting to remake the world, for good or for ill, and the world should probably watch German scientists in general lest they lead us into darkness.”

“This cannot possibly be Maddoc’s Time Machine,” Kent asserted.  “It cannot exist, no more than can the Morlocks or Eloi.”

“To question the improbable is the beginning of knowledge,” Holmes replied.  “But to deny the obvious is to wrap oneself in a cloak of ignorance.”

“You believe that Moesen Maddoc has actually invented a machine for going forward and backward in time?”  Kent demanded. “You are claiming that this device is that Time Machine?”

Holmes dropped to one knee, pulled out a glass from his inside cloak pocket and examined the under portion of the machine.  “Inspector, I would draw your attention to the encrustations upon the sled skis and the lower portion of the struts.”

Inspector Kent kneeled beside the consulting detective and took the offered lens.  “Dried mud, grass…let’s see…two crushed flowers, pollen or seed pods of some kind, and some object…oh, a crushed bug of some sort.  Well, at the very least it does seem that it has been outside the confines of this room, and, look, there are scrapings upon the flagstone, where it has been dragged…from the direction of that wall.”

“Bravo, Inspector, but I fear that although you see, you do not observe.”

Kent passed the glass back to Holmes.

“Many a murderer has gone to the gallows protesting he was nowhere near the scene of a crime when the dirt on his boots testified to the contrary,” Holmes explained.  “The soil here is of two types, one contemporaneous with the current geology of Richmond, the other closely related, but not the same; the similarities and difference in the soil is suggestive of a geologic shift, but not conclusive.  However, the botanical specimens you noted are unknown species of grass, flower and pollen. Also, they are quite unsuited to England’s present climate, being native to a much warmer, almost tropical clime, and certainly that insect is of a species unknown to modern science, thought obviously descended from a modern beetle, evolved as it were.”

Kent snorted in disbelief.

“That proves nothing,” Kent asserted.  “The evidence you cite could have been easily concocted by Maddoc – samples taken from geological or botanical displays – to produce just such an effect, and to lead even the likes of you, Mr Holmes, to an erroneous conclusion.”

“Perhaps,” Holmes admitted.  “It would hardly be the first time someone has tried to fabricate evidence, but to what purpose here?”

“To make people believe he really
had
created a Time Machine, maybe to obtain financial backing, or just as a lark upon his friends,” Kent said.  “You heard what Mrs Watchett thought of the tale, and I’d wager that old Scot bird has more common sense than a dozen hard-headed bankers from Threadneedle Street.  Perhaps Maddoc’s intention in making this device, for telling the story, even dirtying himself up, was just to gull his dinner companions, for motives as enigmatic as those as any lunatic who ever walked Bethlehem’s halls in Lambeth Road.”

Holmes, who had not stopped looking over the machine, suddenly dropped again to his knee, examined a recess behind a rear strut, and uttered an exclamation of discovery. He pulled out what was wedged there and showed it to Kent on his open palm.

“I would give more than passing credence to your estimation, Inspector, were it not for this,” he said.

“Another crushed bug?”

“No, not this time,” Holmes said after a moment.  “It is not a bug at all, but a trilobite, a now-extinct form of marine arthropod which throve only in the warm shallow seas of the primeval world.  And, please note, it is not a fossil remnant but…”

“Fossils are humbug!”

“Not a fossil, such as you might now find on display, but an actual creature not more than a month dead.”

“Just because godless scientists believe…”

“Quiet!” Holmes cautioned.  “Someone approaches.”

“It might be Maddoc,” Kent whispered.

“Or it might not,” Holmes replied.  “We should conceal ourselves.  You are still armed, Inspector?”

Kent nodded and gently patted his jacket pocket.

Maddoc’s laboratory was cluttered to the point where a regiment could have nicely concealed itself.  Holmes and Kent had no trouble finding hiding places from where they could easily observe both the machine, whatever its true nature, and the door to the corridor by which they had gained access to the laboratory, the source of the approaching stealthy footfalls.

The door creaked open and they saw the man they had encountered at the Neptune Tavern seemingly a lifetime ago, the man they now knew to be Moesen Maddoc.  In his hand was a revolver.  He looked about the room, as if expecting danger to leap from the shadows.  When no menace appeared, he pocketed the weapon and strode to his machine.

Without preamble of movement, he seated himself upon the padded leather chair, quickly reattached a number of levers, and pushed them forward.

“Maddoc!” Holmes yelled, leaping into view, Kent coming directly after him.

The man in the midst of the machine turned toward them, a started expression upon his face.  They had no more than a moment to contemplate each other before both the machine and its rider vanished in a swirl of wind.

“Well, I’ll be dished,” Kent murmured, vulgarly.

Only a few seconds after machine and occupant had vanished, however, they reappeared.  Maddoc slipped from the leather seat, and would have crashed to the floor had not Kent caught him.

“Good God!” Kent breathed, gazing into Maddoc’s face.

Chapter X

The Time Traveller

In the few seconds which had elapsed since Moesen Maddoc had vanished from their vision he had changed greatly.  The hair at his temples had greyed noticeably, and his body evidenced several wounds, both new and healed, which he had not possessed prior to his disappearance.  His clothes were covered with dust and torn in a few places where previously they had been whole.

“Carry him into the sitting room,” Holmes instructed.  “He needs a brandy.”

“As do I,” Kent gulped, gathering the man into his arms and following Holmes out of the laboratory.

They laid the injured, exhausted man out on a chesterfield.  While Holmes administered brandy to Maddoc, Kent administered two whiskeys to himself in quick succession.  The Welsh inventor sputtered as the fiery liquid coursed its way down his throat.  He opened his eyes and gazed at Holmes and Kent uncomprehendingly.

“You…both of you…you were at the Neptune…”

“Holmes, how could he know that when you were then disguised as a lascar?”  Kent demanded, still searching for trickery of any kind.

“The ears,” Maddoc explained weakly.  “Even in the best of disguises, the ears are usually left alone.”

“Exceptionally observant,” Holmes murmured.

“And in my laboratory,” Maddoc continued.  “Before…”

“That’s right,” Holmes said.

“So long ago…”

“How long?”  Holmes asked.  “Months?”

“I had to get back to…” He paused and gazed at Holmes with widening eyes. “Then you know…”

“About your infernal machine?  Yes!” snapped Kent.  “I still do not understand it, but I can no longer deny it.”

“And we know about the Morlocks as well,” Holmes said.  “The Morlocks in London came from here did they not?”

“That’s right, from here, but not here and now.”  He forced himself to sit up and to take another brandy from Holmes.  “Who are you?  What are you doing here?”

“I am Inspector Charles Kent of Scotland Yard.”

“Sherlock Holmes.”

“As to explanations, young man,” Kent said, “you owe them to us, not us to you.”

“I expect you were seeking the same as I was when you were at the Neptune,” Maddoc said.  “The source of the East End Ghosts and the Vanishments.”

“They have the same source,” Holmes suggested.  “The colony of Morlocks now dwelling in London’s sewers.”

“We were looking for William Dunning,” Kent clarified.  “And, as far as I am concerned, we still are.”

“How did you get from the Neptune to here?” Maddoc asked.

With an economy of words, Holmes told Maddoc something of the trail that had led them across London to Richmond.  By then, Maddoc had finished his third brandy, and the colour was beginning to return to his pallid cheeks; his hands still trembled, but ever so slightly.

“Wells,” Maddoc mused.  “I forgave him for writing ‘The Chronic Argonauts,’ and should humanity survive, I suppose I shall forgive him ‘The Time Machine’ as well.”

“What do you mean?” Kent demanded.

“Maddoc has seen the future of man,” Holmes said, “and has found a future without man.”

“You mean that preposterous fable of Morlocks and Eloi?”

“Nothing so distant as that,” Holmes replied.  “You have seen a time much closer to our own, have you not, Mr Maddoc, and very much darker than that which you related to Mr Wells and your other dinner guests.”

“You are unfortunately correct, Mr Holmes.”

“The dinner party story was a lie?”

“Not all of it,” Maddoc countered, “but a goodly portion.”

“What, then, is the truth?”

“If Wells kept an accurate shorthand of the tale I told, and I am sure he did, as he always does,” Maddoc began, “then you know something of my first journey into the future.”

“First?” Kent blurted.

“Inspector, please,” Holmes cautioned.

“I told my guests of sheepish Eloi burdened under the yoke of the cannibalistic Morlocks,” Maddoc continued.  “Actually, the far future is not so dominated by the Morlocks as I gave them to believe.  The Eloi fight back, and savagely, at times pursuing the Morlocks into their underground warrens, where they attempt to destroy their great machines.  The world of Anno Domini 802701 is one of endless warfare and bloodshed.

“After attaining that century, I was taken prisoner by the Eloi, who found me so odd in appearance they were convinced I was somehow leagued with the Morlocks.  If not for the help of an extraordinary girl named Weena, I would be a captive still.  She helped me at the cost of her own freedom.  When I escaped, I discovered the Morlocks had taken the Time Machine inside one of their Winged Sphinxes, the image of the repellent god that earns their worship.  When I again found my machine, I saw it had been examined by Morlock mechanics, had even been cleaned and maintained by them, a decadent form of religious devotion to the machine, I supposed.  Though I was discovered in the darkness and attacked, I fought them off, striking out at anything that came near me, and  I escaped into the past, our present, and moved my machine back into the laboratory from the garden, which is the future site of the Winged Sphinx.”

“Why not tell them what you told us?”  Kent asked.  “Why tell them of an Eloi under the yoke.”

“He did not tell them of the Eloi,” Holmes answered.  “He told them of us.  Is that not true, Maddoc?”

Maddoc sighed and let his chin sink to his chest, remaining silent so long as to make his listeners wonder if he had lapsed unconscious.  “When I stumbled into the midst of that dinner party which I had long forgotten,” he finally continued, “I knew I had to tell them something.  They had seen the demonstration of the model, so there was no denying it, especially since that fool Wells immediately put the idea into their heads.  It was all I could do to remain conscious.  I’m afraid that in my efforts to make the future more palatable to them, I inadvertently drew upon memories of my second trip, the one I made in a misguided effort to lift the Eloi from savagery, to help them regain their human heritage and destroy the Morlocks forever.”

Kent downed another whiskey.

“Tell us of your second trip,” Holmes said quietly.  “Tell us how you unmade the future.”

Maddoc looked at Holmes sharply.  “Yes, it is all my doing…my undoing.”

“Maddoc,” Holmes urged, less gently.

“After my return to 1894, I decided I must help the Eloi, those who had forgotten so much of their heritage, yet had retained much of man’s form,” Maddoc explained.  “Though the Morlocks are the more intelligent of the two races, and have preserved much more of our technical skills, I decided that I had to throw my lot in with the Eloi, to tip the balance decidedly in their favour.  To do so, I had to help them regain the technical skills they had lost, to bring them steam and electricity, to help them build the weapons of final war against the Morlocks.  I saw it as a holy crusade to put a better version of man back on the evolutionary road to the future.”

“Blasphemous,” Kent muttered.

“When one travels through time in my machine,” Maddoc continued, “the translation is not instantaneous.  If you can visualise time as a roadway with scenery that changes as one progresses or regresses along the roadway, then please see my machine as nothing more than a sort of carriage.  The sun and moon travelled their courses beyond the glassed roof of my laboratory, but at a much swifter rate.  So great was my velocity through time that I could see the growth patterns of the plants in my garden as they crept up the walls.  Bear in mind, gentlemen, this was already a familiar road for me, and I did not expect to see any different ‘scenery’ than I had upon my first excursion into the far future.  That was how I first realised something was amiss.

“I saw Richmond burst into flames and my laboratory destroyed.  Only my tremendous velocity through time save me from a like incineration.  I witnessed far fires and incredible explosions beyond the horizon, with rising clouds like so many sprouting mushrooms.  By the time I was able to halt my forward temporal velocity and bring my machine to a halt, I had reached the year 1954.  There were still people in the Richmond area, but they were a ragged lot, wretched in every way, fearful of the night, terrified of predatory Morlocks.”

“But you said the Morlocks lived in the far future,” Kent protested.

“I had no explanation of the situation, and nothing in the area enlightened me,” Maddoc said.  “I walked along rusted rail lines that had not been used in decades, along a Thames that was silent and vacant of all watercraft.  Twice I was almost spotted by nocturnal patrols, and once by daylight I was set upon men, who took flight at a single revolver shot, as if they had never seen a firearm.

“Finally I came upon London, or, more properly, a mockery of the London we know.  Soaring chimneys from the bowels of the earth continually belched a sulphurous pall over the ruins of the city.  Amongst the smouldering remnants of once-great buildings reared the Winged Sphinxes of the Morlocks.  The Thames was choked with wrecks and filth, and areas of the water and the docks were so chemically polluted by the Morlocks’ manufactories that they burned and smoked day and night.  Portions of London’s great bridges were still extant, but they were clogged with herds of humans driven by their Morlock masters into slaughterhouses.  Morlocks and humanity had waged war in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, and humanity had lost.  The Morlocks were the masters of London, and from what I was able to learn over weeks of dodging and hiding it was the same story in every other world city.  The Morlocks had, by the end of the second decade of the Twentieth Century, become the masters of the Earth, and by the period in which I had halted their rule was absolute.  The future I had witnessed on my first journey no longer existed, had been ‘uncreated’ by some factor of which I was then ignorant.  Seeing there was nothing I could do, seeing that the Eloi I had sought to help would never now come into being, I abandoned the nightmare that was London, and eventually made my way back to Richmond where I had hidden and disabled my machine.”

“What happened?” Kent demanded.  “What did you do?”

Maddoc slumped down into the sofa and stared at the floor.

Kent grabbed him by the lapels.  “What did you do?”

“Easy, Inspector, we gain nothing by loosing our destructive emotions,” Holmes said, disengaging Kent’s fingers.  “We must retain our sense of reason.”

“I do not know what happened,” Maddoc muttered.

“Of course you do, Maddoc,” Holmes said evenly.  “That is why you returned to 1894 and began scouring London.  You were searching for the Morlocks’ lair in London, for you deduced that the conquest of the future began in the present.”

“But how could the Morlocks have journeyed back in time?” Kent demanded.  “They’re just animals, clever white monkeys, not men…not God’s creatures…”

“In examining your machine, cleaning it,” Holmes said, “they were not paying homage, as you lied to yourself, but were learning the intricacies of its operations, the secret of its motive power, the method of navigating time.  They were copying it, and when they had done so, they abandoned their own time for the past, seeking a period when they could operate unmolested, gather strength against an enemy less dangerous than the Eloi because it was more ignorant.”

“You bloody fool!” spat Kent toward Maddoc.

Maddoc buried his face in his hands.

“The situation is far from hopeless,” Holmes said.

“What do you mean, Holmes?”

“In searching London for the Morlocks’ lair within the sewers, Maddoc was no more successful than were you with your charts and maps,”  Holmes explained.  “That’s why he returned to Richmond and risked another venture forward in the Time Machine.”

“They’re very careful here,” Maddoc murmured.  “But not so in 1954, when they are the lords of the Earth.”

“Yes, and you have seen where they started their conquest of humanity,” Holmes said.  “Where, Maddoc?  Where are they now?”

“Spitalfields,” the man replied, drawing himself up.  “Spitalfields in Stepney, just south of the Market on Commercial Road.  There is a sewer opening in Frying Pan Alley; that is where they started, and where we must go to undo what I have done, to put the future back on track.”

“Yes, we must return to London, the three of us,” Holmes agreed.  “But before we do so, there is one last thing you must do here.”

“As much as it pains me, Mr Holmes,” Maddoc said, “I fear your are correct, and of the two of us the wiser man.”

“If I take your meaning aright, I’ll swing the sledgehammer myself,” Kent volunteered.