Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (17 page)

"The real murderer!" Etreyo says. "And I can prove it, too! Get out of my way!"

Now, though you may find it hard to believe, the physical perfection that is Detective Wilkins is not without flaw. It's a flaw that he takes pains to hide, and one that he has learned to work around. His eyesight is not very good. He can see distance fine, but up close, things tend to blur, and to bring them into focus, he must get very near indeed. He sees the cage perfectly, but the hand, now clutching at the bars of its prison, is not so distinct. He leans forward to get a better look. Etreyo pivots away from this lean, tries to go around him. Wilkins reaches for the cage; she sidesteps his grip and puts her foot down squarely on a duck that she didn't know was underfoot. The duck quacks angrily, and surprised by the sudden flutter of wings at her feet, Etreyo drops the cage.

The cage pops open, and galvanic quick, the Squeeze leaps from its prison, scuttles on fingertips, crablike, across the ground, and grabs ahold of Detective Wilkins's perfectly creased trouser leg. Detective Wilkins looks down and sees something crawling rapidly up his leg; he squints and thinks it's a squirrel, a rabid squirrel probably, for whoever heard otherwise of a squirrel attacking someone? Detective Wilkins stamps his feet and bats at the hand, trying to dislodge it. The Squeeze knows what it wants: the splendid diamond pinky ring that Detective Wilkins wears on his left hand, and it is not going to be so easily dislodged.

"Hold still!" Etreyo shouts, tearing off her coat.

Detective Wilkins is doing the tarantella now, his feet stepping mighty high, slapping ineffectually. The Squeeze is skittering up Detective Wilkins's splendidly embroidered weskit, heading for his snow-white cravat.

"Get it off!" Wilkins hollers. His straw skimmer falls off and he steps on it, putting his foot through the crown. Now he looks as though he's invented a new dance: the Murdering Hand Fandango. Choking back laughter, Etreyo throws all her weight against the dancing detective. He goes down like a ninepin.

"Use my cloak — it's bigger!" Dr. Elsinore cries.

Etreyo snatches Dr. Elsinore's cloak and throws it over the thrashing detective, hoping to trap the Squeeze in its folds. Detective Wilkins's screams, muffled in the heavy cloak, have become wheezes, and his thrashing is lessening. His head is tangled in the cloth; when Etreyo gets it free, she sees that the Squeeze has Detective Wilkins by the throat.

She grabs at the Squeeze, tries to pry it off, but the Squeeze has a death grip on the detective. His face has turned plum purple, and his eyes are bulging out. She dares not let go of what grip she has to reach for her pocketknife. Dimly, she hears Dr. Elsinore shouting. Dimly, she hears herself shouting. Wilkins's tongue is protruding; his face is almost blue. Desperately, she leans down and sinks her teeth into the Squeeze. She bites down as hard as she can, until her teeth grate on bone. The hand spasms and slackens its grip, and Detective Wilkins gurgles. A horrible rancid iron taste floods Etreyo's mouth, and she almost gags, but grimly she holds on. Her jaws ache and the taste is making her want to upchuck. But she holds on. The Squeeze's grip is growing weaker. With one last spasm, it lets go of Wilkins's throat. Etreyo raises up her head, tears the now limp hand out of her mouth, and throws it back into the cage. Dr. Elsinore slams the cage door shut. Someone helps Etreyo crawl off of Detective Wilkins's now limp form; dimly, she hears someone yell that he is still alive. Etreyo staggers over to the bushes, and spits and spits and spits, and rubs her lips against her sleeve until they are raw.

Like moths to a flame, they cluster around him, the great Detective Wilkins, his muscular throat wrapped in a silken bandage, silver sunshades hiding his bruised eyes. Just back from Saeta House, where he has received a commendation for bravery in subduing and capturing the Hand of Gory (as the press have redubbed the murderer). Not every detective is willing to revisit his own case, to admit that he might have the wrong man. Not every detective is willing lay his life on the line to capture a murderer and save an innocent man. The station house throngs with well-wishers, and people are lined up outside to shake his hand.

What a trump!

The Hand of Gory has been booked and now resides, still in its cage, in a cell in the Califa City Jail. How a revivified hand can participate in its own defense, understand the charges against, and make a plea, well, that's not the police's problem. The lawyers will have to figure that out. The police (who love lawyers not a whit) are sure that the lawyers will find a way. Nutter Norm has been released and now resides in the Palace Hotel's best suite, courtesy of the Warlady. Doctors Elsinore and Ehle have had an audience with the Warlady, the end result being that they have been appointed to her medical staff. The Warlady is canny; she sees great potential in galvanic energy, if it is harnessed to Califa's advantage. The not-quite-so-dead chorus boy has returned to the Odeon Theater, a chorus boy no longer, but now, with much ballyhoo, recast in the lead role of the Dainty Pirate. The run is already sold out.

But where is the true hero of the hour, Constable Etreyo? She's in the station house bathroom, brushing her teeth for the hundredth time. No matter how hard she scrubs, she can't get the rancid taste of the Hand of Gory out of her mouth. As she brushes, she listens to the sounds of congratulation coming from the other room and tries not to feel bitter. Nutter Norm, standing on the scaffold with a rope around his neck, was reprieved. That's all that matters. Let Detective Wilkins have the glory. He's already been somewhat overshadowed by Doctors Ehle and Elsinore and their fantastic medical experiments, anyway. Once the revivified chorus boy makes his debut, Detective Wilkins will be forgotten.

But Etreyo does feel bitter. To the press, Detective Wilkins has credited his turnaround to the Bertillo System, the very system he had earlier ridiculed. The
CPG
has published a glowing account of his investigation, of his ferocious fight with the Hand. She has not been mentioned at all. Her report, contradicting Detective Wilkins's in almost every detail, has been ignored by Captain Landadon.

She spits into the basin one last time; she's out of Madama Twanky's Oh-Be-Joyful tooth polish. She's gone through two bottles already, and yet the taste still lingers. She should have bitten Detective Wilkins instead. She bets his flesh tastes just like chicken. It's almost midnight: time for her to go on shift. She's already changed into her blue tunic with the brass buttons. She collects her truncheon and her helmet; on the way out of the locker room, she finds herself blocked in again.

"I want to thank you," Detective Wilkins says. He takes his sunshades off. The blue bruising brings out the golden glints in his eyes. "You saved my life."

"That's not what I read in the papers."

"Don't take it personally. The police must always appear as heroes; that is how we keep order. But I am grateful."

"Don't take it personally," she says. "I was after the hand."

"Happy for me, then, that you are so single-minded."

"What do you want?"

"To thank you," he says sweetly, sincerely. "And to invite you to join my team."

"Your team?" she says warily.

"Captain Landadon has agreed that it is time for the department to modernize. To that end, I'm organizing a team to study the Bertillo System. I thought you might have some interest in joining it. Am I wrong?

Etreyo is torn. Finally — the Bertillo System is taken seriously. But to work under Detective Wilkins! She'd almost rather continue to patrol the Northern Sandbank. Wouldn't she?

"I'll think about," she says.

Detective Wilkins grins gorgeously. "Do that. We'll be in the ready room. Oh, and here — a little token of my esteem."

Constable Etreyo waits until he's gone before she opens the berib-boned box he has given her. Nestled inside is a small cut-glass flask. She holds the bottle up and reads:
Madama Twanky's Mint-o Mouthwash: Polish Your Palate Until It Shines!

Constable Etreyo laughs and takes the bottle to the bathroom. The Mint-o mouthwash burns the awful taste away and makes her smile almost blinding. It would be a pity to waste that brilliant smile on the Northern Sandbanks. And anyway, doesn't Detective Wilkins always get what he wants? Who is she to stand in the way of the hero of the hour?

Etreyo puts her truncheon and helmet away, tucks the bottle of Mint-o in her locker, and walks down the hall to the ready room.

There was a ghost at Cwmlech Manor.

Everybody knew it, although nobody had seen her, not with their own eyes, for years and years.

"Ghosts have to abide by the rules," I remember Mrs. Bando the housekeeper explaining as she poured us out a cup of tea at the manor's great oak kitchen table. She'd been parlor maid at the Manor when Mam was a kitchen maid there. Fast friends they were, and fast friends they'd stayed, even when Mam left domestic service to marry. Mrs. Bando was my godmother, and we went to her most Sunday afternoons.

I was ten or thereabouts, and I was mad for wonders. Da had told me of the new clockwork motor that was going to change everything, from the mining of coal to the herding of sheep. Above all things, I liked to hear about horseless carriages and self-powered mechanicals, but I'd settle for ghosts at a pinch.

So, "How do ghosts know the rules?" I asked. "Is there a ghost school, think you, on the other side?"

Mam laughed and said there was never such a child for asking questions that had no answer. She'd wager I'd ask the same of the ghost myself, if I saw her.

"And so I would, Mam. But first I'd ask her where she'd hid the treasure."

"And she'd likely disappear on the spot," Mrs. Bando scolded. "That knowledge is for Cwmlech ears only, look you. Not that it's needed, may the dear Lord be thanked."

Sir Owen indeed had treasure of his own, with a big house in London and any number of mechanicals and horseless carriages at his beck and call. It was generally agreed that it was no fault of his that the roof of Cwmlech Manor was all in holes and the beetle had gotten into the library paneling, but only the miserly ways of his factor, who would not part with so much as a farthing bit for the maintenance of a house his master did not care for.

Which made me think very much the less of Sir Owen Cwmlech, for Cwmlech Manor was the most beautiful house on the Welsh borders. I loved everything about it, from its peaked slate roofs and tiny-paned windows to the peacocks caterwauling in its yew trees. Best of all, I loved the story that went with it—very romantic and a girl as the hero — a rare enough thing in romantic tales, where the young girls always act like ninnies and end up dead of a broken heart, as often as not.

Mistress Angharad Cwmlech of Cwmlech Manor was not a ninny.

When she was only seventeen, the Civil War broke out, and her father and brothers, Royalists to a man, left home to join the king's army, leaving Mistress Cwmlech safe, they thought, at home. But in 1642 the Parliamentarians invaded the borders, whereupon Mistress Cwmlech hid her jewels, as well her father's strongbox and the family plate, dating, some of it, from the days of Edward II and very precious.