Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium Part 6

Several minutes later, the a.s.sa.s.sin emerged from the building and stepped out into the busy street. He made his way to the post office, heading straight away to the mail box he had rented. As he pulled out the key to unlock it, he found one of the men who worked there sliding an envelope into the slot.

"Good morning, sir," the courier cheerfully sang.

"Mm." The a.s.sa.s.sin edged his way past the mail-man, opening the box and drawing out the envelope. He tore it open with a finger. Inside was information on his next target-a small-time crook and current escapee by the name of Arcadia Snips.

"Hope you're having a pleasant day," the courier said. "By the way, has anyone ever mentioned you have the same nose as that fellow from those books? I think his name was Von Gri-"

Never lifting his eyes from the doc.u.ment, the a.s.sa.s.sin drew his pistol from the holster under his coat. The hammer slipped back with a sharp and punctuated click.

Suddenly overcome with a wave of wisdom, the courier snapped his mouth shut and went along his way.

CHAPTER 7: IN WHICH WE MEET MISS PRIMROSE, MR. WATTS, AND THE ARCHITECTURALLY FELONIOUS STEAMWORK.

Snips observed that the front hood of the train was curved into a quarter of a rusty snail's sh.e.l.l, segmented with plates of bolted and tarnished bra.s.s. A telescopic periscope popped out its armored side, swiveling with a hiss of pneumatics; the aperture of its scuffed lens blinked and narrowed its gaze on her.

Dusty, scraggly, and looking like something the cat would not drag in for fear of being labeled a s.a.d.i.s.t, Snips stepped forward and presented her ticket to the large and intimidating contraption that hovered over the train's doorway. It swallowed the slip of paper, nibbled on it, then spat it back out. Snips stepped inside and followed the ticket's directions to her seat.

She was surprised to find that, rather then walking back to the third cla.s.s compartment, she was expected to head straightaway to the front of the train. She arched an eyebrow and made her way to first-cla.s.s.

The lobby that Snips stepped into was comfortably wide and lavished with opulence; a coffered ceiling swept over her head, with a midnight indigo divan framed with burled rosewood and trimmed with gold laid out besides a mahogany long table. The table had an extensive needlepoint of gears and cogs contained beneath a gla.s.s frame-a silver platter was placed on it, with complementary tea and crumpets provided. Somewhere, Snips could hear a phonograph playing a scratchy arrangement of stately violins.

Sitting on the divan was a graying pear-shaped gentleman who was enjoying a cup of tea with a short heavy-set lady. The man wore a deerstalker cap so absurd that Snips had to fight the urge to swat it from his head. At once, he turned to Snips, inspecting her through a set of rimless spectacles sitting on his nose.

"Oh, hullo. Are you the fellow they sent to bring more lumps of sugar?"

Snips looked down at herself-dressed in the tattered hand-me-downs of a vagrant. She then looked back up to the old man.

"One lump or two?"

"Two, please," he responded with blissful ease.

"Mr. Watts, if I may." The lady stood. She was a brute of a woman built with all the functional craftsmans.h.i.+p of a stone outhouse. Her jaw was herculean, and her face full of stern scowls and disapproving stares-with a tangled mop of wheat gold curls and corkscrews bound up atop her head. Her evening dress was so conservative that it could have made a pastor's daughter look questionable in comparison. At her feet lay a large coal black medical bag. "I am Miss Maria Primrose, and this is Detective Jacob Watts. I a.s.sume you are our consultant, Mr. Snips?"

"I most certainly am," Snips agreed. "Although I'm actually more miss than mister."

Miss Primrose's expression slipped from stern authority to shock and embarra.s.sment. "I beg your pardon, Miss Snips! Count Orwick's man failed to inform me that you are a woman."

"I've forgotten a few times myself," Snips said, rolling her hat off and tipping it. "I a.s.sume you two are the detectives?"

"Detectives? Are we detecting something?" Mr. Watts asked. "Oh, excellent! I do love a good mystery. What is it we're detecting, Miss Primrose?"

Miss Primrose shot an angry look at Watts, then sighed in reluctant surrender. "We're solving a crime, Mr. Watts. The recent death of Basil Copper."

"Oh, he sounds like an interesting chap. When do we meet him?"

"We're not meeting him," Miss Primrose said, struggling to maintain her composure. "He is dead."

"Oh. How dreadfully dull," Watts said.

Miss Primrose turned to Snips. "My apologies for the confusion, Miss Snips. As you have no doubt already guessed, we are with the Watts and Sons Detective Agency."

"Pleasure to meet you," Snips said. "Arcadia Snips, professional lock enthusiast."

Miss Primrose frowned sternly, looking down at Snips'

attire. "May I ask, Miss Snips, why you are wearing such an odd a.s.sortment of clothes?"

"Oh, you know," Snips said, shrugging. "Dangers of the profession, that sort of thing." She walked forward, draping herself down on the far-end of the divan. "So, what do we do now? Trade recipes?" She took one of the crumpets, tossing it into the air and leaning back to catch it in her mouth.

Miss Primrose reached forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed the crumpet before Snips could bite down. "Explain yourself. Why are you dressed in such a crude fas.h.i.+on? And exactly what is your specialty? Why were you a.s.signed to our investigation?"

Snips crossed her eyes. "Oh, come on now. What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Your current manner of dress would cause dark alleyways to avoid you for fear of soiling their good reputations," Miss Primrose said.

"I think she's dressed quite cleverly," Detective Watts piped up. "It's likely a disguise-get into the minds of the insane and homeless-"

"I'm a professor of escapology, with a minor in chicanery,"

Snips said.

A grim expression swept over Miss Primrose's face. "You are a thief."

"Well, I don't like to brag-"

"Count Orwick a.s.signed us a thief."

"-but I am pretty good with sleight of hand," Snips said, taking another bite out of the crumpet.

"I should have known he would attempt some form of sabotage. I cannot believe that-" Miss Primrose stopped and stared, looking from her now empty hand back up to the crumpet Snips was eating. "Oh, for goodness sake. Give me that!" She s.n.a.t.c.hed the crumpet back, placing it aside.

Snips licked the excess b.u.t.ter off her fingers. "So, what is it that we'll be up to?"

"'We' will be up to nothing. You are to accompany us as we investigate this death as thoroughly as possible."

"And I'll be doing what, precisely?"

"Keeping quiet," Miss Primrose snapped.

Cobbled together from a pastiche of styles, the Steamwork looked as if it had suffered an a.s.sault at the hands of a roving pack of mad Victorian architects. 'Something stylish and elegant,' the first had said. 'With Corinthian columns and a Greco-Roman motif.'

'b.u.t.tresses! Flying b.u.t.tresses!' the second had roared. 'With steeples! More steeples! Steeples on top of steeples!'

'And perhaps a bit of wood leafing around the windows.

Nothing too flashy, mind you, but just a few subtle touches here and there-'

'-arches! More flying b.u.t.tresses! Six fireplaces! A balcony! And-'

'Let's slap on some avocado paint and call it a day,' the third had said.

The final result broke six city ordinances and at least two laws of physics.

When the three investigators arrived, they found someone attending to a statue of a muse located near the front door, polis.h.i.+ng up her naughty bits with a dirty hanky. The man was just finis.h.i.+ng buffing her to a marbleized s.h.i.+ne when he noticed them approaching.

"Good afternoon, sir," Miss Primrose announced. "We are members of the Watts Detective Agency, here to investigate the matter of your recent unfortunate tragedy-"

The man spat into his hanky, gave the statue one last swab, then turned to approach the three of them. He was older than old; he was old back when old was still a fad. When G.o.d had said 'Let there be light', this was the fellow who had been sitting on the back porch, shaking his cane and complaining about all the racket those whippersnappers were making with their new dang-fangled invention.

"Pleasure t'meet ya," he said, giving Miss Primrose a crooked grin and offering her a grimy palm. "I'm Dunnigan McGee, the janitor. Is this your first time here?"

"I am afraid so," Miss Primrose admitted, refraining from taking the hand. "You have a very, ah, interesting building here,"

she observed, glancing past Dunnigan.

"Aye, she's a beaut." He gave the door a st.u.r.dy kick and shoved it open with his shoulder. "We'll probably have some papers for you t'sign. Indemnities against electrocution, combustion, subtraction, that sort of thing-"

"Subtraction?" Snips asked. "What do you mean, 'subtraction'?"

"Math can get a little out of hand around these parts, ma'am."

The interior of the Steamwork looked worse than the exterior; it was held together by nothing more than springs, duct-tape, and liberal amounts of whimsy. Lengths of pipes speared overhead, spewing out plumes of scalding steam at irregular intervals; tables groaned beneath the weight of alchemical apparatuses and books explaining the intimate details of flying sloths' mating rituals. On quite a few occasions, the detectives could see past the scorched ceiling to the floor above through holes caused by various explosions. These pits had been patched up with a few bits of metal grating and nets.

"What is it exactly that you do here?" Snips asked.

"A little bit of everything," Dunnigan said. "We're a factory for ideas, missus."

Snips hmphed. "Any good ones?"

"Sometimes," Dunnigan admitted. "Sometimes, well-it's complicated."

A case of indigestion stirred somewhere in the bowels of the building. A dull thump and a series of distant explosions rattled the jars on the shelves and sent several experiments clattering to the floor. Dunnigan sighed.

"Things have been a bit stressed since Basil's accident," he said.

"Are you convinced it was an accidental death, then?" Miss Primrose asked.

Dunnigan shrugged. "Accidents are pretty common around these parts, 'specially with someone like Basil. Man couldn't put together his afternoon tea without blowing something up. Mr. Eddington'll want to know you're here, of course; if you wait in the lobby, I'll be with you in a moment."

"Of course," Miss Primrose gracefully replied.

The Steamwork's lobby had been designed to house their more prominent guests; it was lushly furnished in an Egyptian motif, with expensive blue-black sofas lined in gold ta.s.sels and sleek furniture built from varnished maple and gla.s.s. A roaring fire snarled in an artificial hearth, glutting itself upon a meal of flammable gas.

"I'll be back in a jiffy," Dunnigan said, turning to the three of them. "Make yourselves comfortable." Once he left, they seated themselves and mulled over the turn of events.

"So," Snips said, turning to Watts. "How do you plan on proceeding with the investigation?"

"Oh, well, if I am going to get to solving this mystery, it's best that I begin at the beginning," he said. "Miss Primrose, you wouldn't happen to know where the beginning is, would you?"

Miss Primrose's eyebrows pinched together in intense thought. For a scant moment, she had the look of a calculating machine steadily clicking its way through a difficult problem. At last, she said: "I think that to begin, you must perform a thorough interrogation of the tea and biscuits, so you may eliminate them as a potential suspect."

"Oh, quite good," Watts said, nodding. "Quite good. I knew that, of course. I just like to make sure others are keeping up on their detecting." He reached for a nearby biscuit, preparing it for a barrage of questions with a small knife and a bit of b.u.t.ter.

"In the meanwhile, Miss Snips and I will attend to the incidental details-so you may have no distractions while you pursue this important route of inquiry," Miss Primrose said.

"Ah! Excellent. You are as helpful as ever, Miss Primrose."

"Thank you."

Dunnigan soon returned. "Well, Mr. Eddington'll to speak with you whenever you're ready. In the meanwhile, you're free to inspect the Steamwork at your leisure."

"Very well. If you'll pardon us, Mr. Watts." Miss Primrose rose to her feet.

"Er," Snips glanced between Miss Primrose and Watts, then dropped her voice into a whisper as she stood up besides her.

"Where are we going again?"

"To attend to the 'incidental' parts of the crime," Miss Primrose said. "Specifically, the scene of Mr. Copper's demise."

Basil Copper was seriously dead.

The entire workshop had been consumed in an explosion that had left the far wall and ceiling exposed to the elements; as the three of them stepped in, they found themselves staring out at the vast and bustling cityscape below. Whatever destructive force had been unleashed here had been quite thorough in its destruction; nary a tool or sc.r.a.p of paper remained in a semi-recognizable state.

Snips looked around. "So he blew himself up."

"That would be the obvious a.s.sumption," Miss Primrose said. She lifted her skirts up to step across the scorched debris, crouching down to more closely inspect the rubble. Immediately, she grew pale.

"Mr. Dunnigan," she said, doing her best to smother the quaver in her voice. "Have you already done a thorough search of this room for-ah, his remains?"

"Oh, aye, I swept up a little before you came in, Miss Primrose. Just thought it would be polite. Basil did always hate a mess."