Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the thing, yes? Choosing hard targets, dramatic entrances, the attention-getting greasepaint. He knows we have his plans, and he'll have the girl do her work in spite of us. Imagine the publicity he'll garner if he pulls it off."
    "I didn't think engineers cared about that sort of thing," Inspector Abel said.
    "We don't," I replied.
    "He won't pull it off." The Inspector was adamant. "If you don't manage to catch him, my boys will stop this Spider of his in the act."
    Bartleby and I glanced at one another, not sharing his enthusiasm.
     
    ***
     
    The Home Office didn't appear to, either. The next day we were called into a meeting with the Home Secretary, Herbert Gladstone.
    "The Queen's Jubilee is rapidly approaching, gentlemen. The spectacle is vital to the mental and economic health of this Empire."
    "More so than Her Majesty's life?" Bartleby asked.
    Gladstone's face darkened. "Cancelling the parade is an admission of weakness, of fear, something I cannot tolerate even if the Queen were to allow such a craven response."
    "Seeing the monarch gutted on a parade float would be a good deal worse for morale, I'd imagine," I said.
    Gladstone and Bartleby stared at me in abject horror before doing the respectable thing and pretending I'd never said it.
    "It is imperative that the two of you catch this Spider before the parade." Gladstone set a doll atop the desk. Garbed in red and black with a porcelain face it was the very image of the assassin.
    "What's this?" Bartleby asked.
    "Blast if I know. The Scotland Yard found it in the church after you two departed for the evening. It's some sort of clockwork-- see if it gives you some insight into the killer."
     
    ***
     
    The doll was incredible. An absolute marvel of clockwork ingenuity disguised as a children's toy. It was capable of articulation impossible by most engineer's standards, and when wound moved with an almost prescient autonomy. The patterns it moved through-- gymnastic routines, capering, mime-work-- were varied and almost human. Its creator was a true master. Sadly, once disassembled, I lacked the skill or tools to put it back together. No matter-- it had served its purpose down in my workshop.
    I joined Bartleby in the dining room to tell him my findings of a supper over cold knots of beef and ginger beer.
    "If Dobbson made the clockwork then he's got to be guild-accredited. We should visit the Academy hall of records and see what they have on him."
    Bartleby put his plate aside. "Well. We'd best hurry, then-- the Jubilee is but days away."
    "What? I thought we had a week?"
    "It's Thursday, James. You've been obsessing over that doll for thirty-six hours."
    "That makes sense. Yes, of course. To the Academy then?"
    "Maybe you should take some time and rest?"
    "I'll sleep when I'm dead." I gave my partner a grin borne on wings of sleep-deprivation, enthusiasm fuelled by my examination of a true masterwork of modern clockwork engineering.
    "That's what I'm afraid of."
     
    ***
     
    "Dobbson. Two 'B's'."
    "I'm afraid I'm not seeing it here." Mr. Gregory, the aged clerk at the Academy register's office wasn't a member of the Guild; no guild member worthy of membership would be content with a paper shuffling job. I had known him since my own academy days, and rumour claimed that he'd worked as an administrator since the founding, though that would put his age well beyond the reasonable.
    "Hm. It'd make sense that he'd be using a pseudonym. Still, it's unlikely that a man with such skill wouldn't be a member."
    "What did you say it was that he'd made?"
    "Toys. Dolls. Clockworks of various sorts."
    Bartleby wasn't here to handle the talking, citing an appointment with his own contacts elsewhere. It wasn't a problem, though-- old Gregory was well used to engineers and our social shortcomings.
    "And how aged would you say he was?"
    "Indeterminate. Somewhere between sixty and seventy if I had to hazard a guess."
    The clerk nodded and turned, disappearing between the stacks