A Golden Grave--A Rose Gallagher Mystery Page 11

  His eyes crinkled with amusement. “It’s for me to thank you, madam. My hand has been in want of a good throttling all day, and now here you are to perform the service.”

  “Oh!” I released his hand, which I’d been energetically shaking this entire time. “I do beg your pardon. I’m just a bit…” Awestruck? Moon-eyed? “… excited.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “Miss Gallagher is my partner,” Thomas said, though just now he was looking at me as though I were a complete stranger.

  “And Mr. Clemens is mine, at least in this endeavor,” said Mr. Tesla, gesturing about the lab.

  “Now you flatter me, Tesla. I am merely an interested investor.”

  Thomas gave a thin smile. “Mr. Clemens has enlisted Mr. Tesla’s talents in pursuit of a device to enhance thought transference. That is, communication between minds—what Mr. Clemens terms mental telegraphy. They have been about it for several months now.”

  “At the expense of more worthy endeavors, is what Mr. Wiltshire means,” Mr. Clemens said casually, sticking his cigar back in his mouth.

  I glanced between them—Thomas stiff and irritable, Mr. Clemens smiling like a Cheshire cat—and decided I wanted no part of that discussion. “Well,” I said, “it sounds as though great minds think alike, because Mr. Wiltshire and I are also in pursuit of a device of some kind, to help us with a murder investigation.”

  I have found that there is nothing quite like the mention of murder to bring a conversation back on point.

  This time proved no exception. Thomas nodded gravely, and Mr. Clemens’s Cheshire smile vanished. As for Mr. Tesla, he tilted his head with interest. “Murder, is it? And which device are you interested in? The biograph? The teleresonance, perhaps? Or are you looking for another sort of machine altogether?”

  “The biograph in particular,” Thomas said, “but they are all of interest insofar as they can shed any light on our investigation. Why don’t you tell us what you’re working on, and we can take it from there?”

  Mr. Tesla smiled like a small boy who’d just been handed the keys to the candy shop. “In that case,” he said, pulling out a chair, “take a seat.”

  CHAPTER 12

  THE ONLY CLUB THAT COUNTS—MARX TWAIN—SCARLETT—LUCK2

  “And by such means,” Mr. Tesla concluded, “the device detects whether the subject is lying or telling the truth.”

  Thomas knelt for a closer look at the machine, a box of coils and tubes that was currently connected to Mr. Clemens by means of some wires and an armband. “Assuming your theory about electrodermal activity is correct, that is.”

  “And what if the subject believes he’s telling the truth,” Mr. Clemens put in, “but his recollection is flawed? Such as may happen to a man in his declining years?”

  Mr. Tesla sighed in the long-suffering manner of a genius surrounded by lesser intellects. “It is a lie detector, Mr. Clemens, not a truth detector. As for electrodermal activity, the theory is sound.”

  “Fascinating,” Thomas said. “We will certainly keep it in mind once we have a suspect in hand.”

  “But it is not what you’re looking for.” The inventor nodded. “Very well, what about the teleresonance?”

  “The mechanical medium?” Thomas hummed thoughtfully. “I’m not convinced communing with the dead would do us much good. We already have a description of the suspect, and it doesn’t sound as though his victims knew him personally.”

  “Victims, plural?” Mr. Clemens arched a thick eyebrow.

  “An awful business,” I said. “Six people dead already.” Thomas shot me a warning look, but I stood my ground. “Discretion is well and good, Mr. Wiltshire, but how is Mr. Tesla to help if we don’t tell him what we’re about?”

  “That is true,” the inventor said. “The more I know, the more useful I will be. I promise to keep anything you tell me in strictest confidence.”

  “As do I,” Mr. Clemens added. “You know better than most, Mr. Wiltshire, that we Masons are not in the habit of being loose about the lips.”

  “You’re a Freemason?”

  There must have been something in the way I said it, because Mr. Clemens chuckled. “I hope that will not tarnish me too much in your estimation, Miss Gallagher. I do so hate to disappoint my readers.”

  “Not at all,” I said, which was not strictly true. I’d nurtured a lifelong distrust of Freemasonry, and even my friendship with Mr. Burrows, himself a Mason, wasn’t enough to dispel it.

  As for Thomas, he looked momentarily undecided, but then he sighed. “I suppose we haven’t the luxury of discretion. But be warned, gentlemen: Certain powerful figures are working diligently to cover up this crime. If they suspect you know about it, it could put you in difficulty.”

  “How exciting,” Mr. Clemens drawled, relighting his cigar.

  Thomas outlined our investigation so far, such as it was. “The chief difficulty is that we’ve too many suspects. There are any number of people with an interest in preventing a Roosevelt administration.”

  Mr. Clemens grunted. “I can well believe it. He certainly would not have my vote.”

  For reasons I can’t fully explain, the remark rankled. “Personally, I found him quite amiable.”

  “I’m sure you did, young lady. Theodore Roosevelt is one of the most likable fellows of my acquaintance. Forthright and earnest, full of vim and vigor. But that does not mean he would make a good mayor. A runaway locomotive such as he is bound to jump the tracks sooner or later. In addition to which, he has the grim distinction of being a Freemason, which ought to disqualify him from too much admiration.” He winked.

  He was teasing, I knew, but his words affected me. They’re all connected, aren’t they, these glittering creatures? Mr. Burrows. Mr. Roosevelt. Even Mark Twain. They went to the same colleges, dined at the same restaurants, danced at the same balls. They had their clubs—the Porcellian, the Madison Club, the Freemasons. But there was only one club that really counted, and it controlled the city, maybe even the country. Was Mr. Clemens a full-fledged member of the Luck Society, or just an honorary one like Thomas? I wondered if I’d ever find out.

  “And here I thought Masons weren’t loose about the lips,” Thomas said dryly.

  “Oh, dear, I’ve discredited myself entirely, haven’t I?” The Cheshire smile returned.

  “So you are looking for a way to eliminate suspects more efficiently,” Mr. Tesla said, focusing on the problem at hand.

  Thomas nodded. “I admit I had high hopes for the biograph, but having seen it work, I’m afraid it’s not practical for our purposes. It’s much too large, and the fact that it has to be wired directly to the subject means that one could use it only in direct interrogation.”

  “Hmm.” The inventor’s eyes narrowed. “There may be another option…” His gaze grew abstracted, and he drifted away, hands folded behind his back.

  “I do hope he solves it,” Mr. Clemens said as he watched the inventor pace. “I would not wish any misfortune on Mr. Roosevelt. Outside of the polls, that is. There, I can only hope he receives a comprehensive drubbing. Even another mandate for the thieves of Tammany Hall must be preferred to a Roosevelt administration.”

  “Why are you so dead set against him?” My question earned me a look from Thomas that plainly said, Don’t encourage him.

  “Because, my dear, the Republicans are the party of bankers and robber barons. And now, to add insult to injury, they’ve put forward a boy of such blue blood, such glaringly obvious luck, as to be unprecedented in the history of municipal government. People of Roosevelt’s stock used to have the good sense to stay out of the grubby business of politics. They had more than enough power, and were content to leave the table scraps for lesser men. Now it seems they’ve grown too rapacious even for that. It’s simply grotesque.” He paused to take a long draw of his cigar. “That being said, it promises to be a cracking good contest. Labor versus Capital, with Henry George in one corner and Theodore Roosevelt in the other.”
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  “You seem to have forgotten the Democratic Party,” Thomas said.

  “My dear fellow, have you not read the papers? All of New York has forgotten it! Poor Hewitt toils in the shadow of grander passions. The working class is all aflutter over this upstart new labor party, and the wealthy in pure terror of its rise. The landlords and monopolists have tightened the yoke one too many times, and if I may be permitted a flight of optimism uncharacteristic in a man of my age, I hope and believe they will finally pay for it at the polls.”

  “And I hope you’re wrong in that,” Thomas said. “George’s concern for the poor is admirable, but his solutions are dangerous. His brand of populism will bring nothing but trouble, especially for the workingman…”

  By this point, I’d stopped paying attention. Listening to a pair of rich men hold forth on the plight of the working class was not my idea of stimulating conversation. Instead, I found my interest piqued by something sitting on a corner of Mr. Tesla’s desk. It was about the size of a melon, perfectly spherical, and dark as a shadow. In fact, it looked almost as if it were made of shadow, but of course that was impossible.

  Curious, I approached the desk.

  “Mark my words, Wiltshire, this contest is the very incarnation of Labor versus Capital.”

  “Look, we’ve all read Karl Marx…”

  Even up close, the sphere on the desk remained dark, as if it were not so much a thing as the absence of a thing, like a hole in its surroundings. It’s just the glare of the lamp, I thought. I switched it off, plunging the desk into darkness, but the sphere remained just as visible as before, an even deeper shadow against the gloom.

  Don’t touch anything, Thomas had warned, but surely Mr. Tesla wouldn’t keep something truly dangerous right there on his desk?

  Yes, I know. All I can say in my defense is that if you’d seen that ball of shadow sitting there, you wouldn’t have been able to resist either.

  I touched it.

  A burst of flames sent me reeling back with a cry. The sphere sprang from the table, no longer a shadow but a writhing ball of crimson fire. It hovered there for a moment, suspended in midair, blazing like an angry red sun. Then it charged at me, swooping straight for my face. I shrieked, throwing my arms up to shield myself—

  “Scarlett! Prestani! Can’t you see you’re frightening her?”

  The ball of red flame stopped where it was. Mr. Tesla rushed up and grabbed it—with his bare hands—and scowled as if it were a misbehaving toddler.

  “Rose,” Thomas sighed.

  I leveled a trembling finger at the fireball. “W-what is that?”

  “Scarlett,” said the inventor. “At least, that’s what I call her.”

  “Her?”

  “Her. Him. It.” He shrugged. “Impossible to say.”

  Mr. Clemens grinned. “Isn’t it wonderful? Mr. Tesla transported it here from the otherworld.”

  “Possibly,” the inventor said. “I cannot say for certain. I was trying to create a conduit to the otherworld, and the apparatus overheated. There was a slight explosion.” He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “I lost consciousness, and when I awoke, she was just … here.” He tapped the flame ball with a finger, and it floated away like a soap bubble. “I have run every test I can think of, and I still cannot determine what she is composed of or where she came from. I don’t know what else to do with her, so she stays here in the lab.”

  Even Thomas was in raptures over the thing. “Fascinating, isn’t it?” He reached for the flame ball. It nestled comfortably between his hands, bathing his face in a red glow.

  “Is it … does it understand us?”

  “Who knows?” He held it out to me. “Don’t be afraid. It’s not hot.”

  Reluctantly, I reached out, and after a few tentative taps, I relaxed enough to take it into my hands. It felt a little like water between my fingers and emitted the soft hiss of a gas lamp. “It’s amazing.” I dropped my hands and it floated away, settling on the inventor’s desk once more.

  “Now then,” Mr. Tesla said, “I’ve had an idea. This way, if you please.” He showed us to a humble-looking device on a nearby table. Slightly larger than a loaf of bread, it resembled a tin box connected to the earpiece of a telephone. It bore two dials, the first showing numbers from 0 to 10, while the second looked a little like a compass, except instead of north, south, and so on, it was marked with air, water, earth, and fire, as well as a series of question marks.

  Thomas peered at it with interest. “What is it? Something to do with luck, obviously.”

  “It is designed to help determine what variety of luck a person possesses.”

  That confused me. “Doesn’t a person with luck already know what kind he has?”

  “Not always,” Thomas said. “The origins of some talents are obvious. The ability to detect oil underground, for example, clearly comes from the earth domain. But what about the abilities of some of your fellow Agency recruits? Where does exceptional eyesight belong, or a brilliant mind for numbers? They don’t fall obviously into any of the four classical categories, suggesting that there are additional domains in the otherworld we know nothing about.”

  “The lost domains,” I murmured, remembering Fillimore’s essay in the Journal of Paranormal Studies. “Dr. Fillimore believes electromagnetism is one.”

  Mr. Tesla dismissed that with a wave. “Electromagnetism is the conveyance, not the source. That is what the machine detects—electromagnetic radiation.”

  “Does it work?” Thomas asked.

  “Not as it should. But.” The inventor raised a long finger. “It does detect when luck is in use. Allow me to demonstrate.” He handed me the bit that looked like a telephone earpiece. “Please, Miss Gallagher, point the probe at me.”

  I did as he instructed, holding the elongated bell shape near his chest.

  “Now, I activate this switch and…” He closed his eyes, as if listening. There was a pause. Then: “Mr. Wiltshire’s watch ticking in his pocket. Miss Gallagher’s heart beating at approximately sixty-eight beats per minute. The tobacco burning in Mr. Clemens’s cigar.”

  The box began to produce a series of soft clicks.

  “Are the dials moving?”

  I glanced down. “A little, maybe, but what—?”

  “Farther away, then.” His brow furrowed—not in concentration, it seemed to me, but in discomfort. Then he pointed at the door. “A carriage on Doyers Street, just now turning onto the Bowery. We will hear it in fifteen seconds … ten … five…”

  A clip-clop of hooves sounded outside the door of the factory. Meanwhile, the clicking sound from the box grew louder and more erratic.

  “Keep the probe raised, Miss Gallagher, if you please.”

  In my amazement, I’d let the bell-shaped tube droop in my hand. I hadn’t even realized it, yet somehow the inventor had known, in spite of his eyes being closed. “You heard a carriage from a block away?”

  “And I felt it.” He tapped his forehead. “Here.”

  That was impossible, of course, unless … “You’re lucky.” I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was starting to think that all of Thomas’s friends were lucky—except me.

  “Yes, yes, but the needles—where do they land?” He opened his eyes.

  As soon as he stopped concentrating, both needles dropped, and the clicking fell silent. “Here,” I said, recovering from my astonishment. “This one went straight to ten, while this one hovered back and forth between water and air.”

  He sighed, visibly disappointed. “The same every time. That dial is useless.”

  Mr. Clemens laughed. “What did you expect? You have two kinds of luck!”

  Two kinds? My mouth fell open. “But Pullman’s Guide to the Paranormal said that was impossible! Even if several forms of luck are in the bloodline, only one is ever expressed.”

  “Tesla’s is the only known case,” Thomas said with a wistful smile. “His cup runneth over.”

  Mr. Tesla didn’t see
m especially gratified about the contents of his cup. He scowled, absently sorting little mechanical parts into piles of three. “That is half the trouble, you see. How can I calibrate it on myself? I need test subjects. I don’t suppose you are lucky, Miss Gallagher?” I shook my head, and he sighed again. “I thought not,” he said, and I tried not to be offended.

  “It’s brilliant, Tesla.” Thomas hovered eagerly over the machine, his eyes gleaming with boyish enthusiasm. “How does it work?”

  “Through the application of electrical current to helium gas. In the presence of sufficient electromagnetic radiation, the gas becomes conductive, which is then amplified through the tube to produce a pulse—”

  “Excuse me, gentlemen.” I softened my interruption with a smile. “I don’t mean to be rude, but it sounds as though this could be a rather long explanation, and while I’m sure it’s very interesting, time is short.”

  Thomas gave a faint sigh of regret. “You’re right, of course. As to the application of this device to our investigation, while it might warn us of an imminent attack, I’m not sure how it would help us eliminate suspects.”

  Mr. Tesla gestured at the first dial, the one with numbers on it. “Notice that the needle has not fallen entirely to zero. Here, Miss Gallagher, please take the probe again and point it at me. Now, observe.” Turning on his heel, he headed for the door, and as he drew away, the needle began to drop. Three, two, one … He passed through the curtain separating the entryway from the main part of the lab, and a moment later, we heard the door.

  “Well, well,” said Mr. Clemens, leaning over the device. “How do you like that? Zero, now that it is only we mortals in the room.”

  So the great Mark Twain was just an ordinary person like me. I felt a little better after that.

  When Mr. Tesla returned, the needle crept back up to three. “There, you see? The apparatus can be used to detect the presence of a person with luck, even if he is not using his gift. Electromagnetic radiation remains present in sufficient quantities to—”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, “but I’m afraid I still see a few problems.”