Arcadia Snips and the Steamwork Consortium (7 page)

"Heroes to the last." He drew a deep and hungry breath, soaking his lungs in the smoke's bitter tang. "Examples to us all."

"I see. Well, then."

"Well?"

The official smiled meekly. "Everything looks to be in order. This way, please."

~*~

"I must admit. I've never met an assassin as—as—"

"Pay me."

"As direct about things," Bartleby confessed.

The bureaucrat's office was a typhoon of paperwork, books, gifts, trophies, and other meaningless detritus that had apparently gathered around him not through any conscious work but merely by his sheer magnetism when it came to useless junk. The assassin was sure that if he spent hours digging through the piles of self-important knick-knacks that surrounded him, he'd never find so much as a functional bottle-opener.

The assassin relished his cigarette like others might enjoy a fine meal, allowing the smoke to languish across his tongue and throat. When he spoke, he was sluggish and calm, but beneath every drugged syllable lay the threat of cold steel.

"Speaking of direct. Pay me."

"Oh, yes. Your payment. My employee told me you'll be accepting the shares of your companions. They died? Very tragic."

"I'll send flowers. Pay me."

"Of course, of course." Bartleby swelled up to his feet, wobbling about. The man wasn't just overweight. He had long flown past the boundaries of polite obesity on a rocket-propelled sled, making a rude gesture on the way. The man was an amorphous blob. He waddled to the far side of the room, shoving aside a few trophies to get at the safe. "I must admit, it's been an exceptional thrill to have a legend working for me."

The man in black amused himself by imagining how Bartleby would look as he tumbled out of his own office window.

"Oh? You've heard of me?"

"Of course I've heard of you! Who hasn't? You're a downright legend around these parts, sir!"

"Good to know."

"In fact," Bartleby continued, fiddling with the safe's lock.

"I have all your books. I must say, they're quite good. Do you write them yourself, or does someone else write them for you?"

"Books?" The man's eye twitched. His mouth began to spasm.
Oh, God.
Please, no,
he thought to himself.
Please make
him shut up. Make him shut up right now.

"Yes. I've read them all. I'm quite the fan. Although I always I thought you'd be taller, in all honesty..."

The assassin turned around in his chair, staring at Bartleby's back. If the city bureaucrat could have seen him, he would have recognized a look of such pure murderous sociopathy that it might have killed him on the spot.

The safe clicked open. Bartleby reached inside, fishing out a bundle of cash. "Well, anyway. Truly, it's been an honor to have the legendary Von Grimskull working for m—"

One moment later, people on the street looked up in surprise as a window on the top floor exploded. A screaming fat man soon emerged, flailing his arms for a good second before slamming into the ground with a sound best described as

'incredibly moist'.

~*~

Bristling with weapons, the guards kicked down the door and stepped into the room.

The assassin makes it clear he will have no more of this 'Von Grimskull' guff.

Present were three details of note:

Bartleby, their employer, was missing.

The very large window behind Bartleby's desk was currently broken.

In Bartleby's place was a very angry man. An angry man currently holding a pair of fully loaded pistols and wearing a sinister bronze nose.

"Cancer," the assassin croaked.

"Holy mother of pearl," one of the guards yelped. "Do you know who that is?!"

"Eh?"

"That's Von Grimskull!"

The assassin sighed, drawing the hammers back with a swipe of his thumbs.

~*~

Several minutes later, the assassin 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 assassin 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 document, the assassin 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.

~*~

~*~

Snips observed that the front hood of the train was curved into a quarter of a rusty snail's shell, segmented with plates of bolted and tarnished brass. 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 sadist, 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 class compartment, she was expected to head straightaway to the front of the train. She arched an eyebrow and made her way to first-class.

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 glass 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 craftsmanship 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 assume 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 embarrassment. "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 assume 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 assortment 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 snatched the crumpet before Snips could bite down. "Explain yourself. Why are you dressed in such a crude fashion? And exactly what is your specialty? Why were you assigned 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 assigned 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 snatched the crumpet back, placing it aside.

Snips licked the excess butter 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 assault 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.'

'Buttresses! Flying buttresses!' 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 buttresses! 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, polishing up her naughty bits with a dirty hanky. The man was just finishing buffing her to a marbleized shine 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 God 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 sturdy 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.