“Please, come closer, Mr. Fellows.”
The doctor beckoned me to his creation. Inside this fake man, this thing, lay an endless labyrinth of gears and belts and pendulums. Everything was still but the pendulums, which rocked in silence.
“I oil everything daily; otherwise you’d hear the ticking, like the beat of a thousand hearts.”
I reached out to touch the work. It seemed like a thing of madness, all those gears and belts. I couldn’t imagine such a work being constructed in a hundred years. Not by a single old man. Again I was speechless.
“They move according to my design. The vibrations of the music starts master gears, a set for each act.”
“But how…?”
“Gear ratios, Mr. Fellows. We are not so different creatures from these. We react to that which is before us based on what the mind has learned prior. If I were I to thrust a torch at you, you would jump back because you already have the knowledge of flame and the damage it may do. You have undoubtedly been burned, probably as a child. The recesses of your mind recall the threat and act accordingly. My dancers are no different. Every motion is pre-ordained by gears articulating in the interior frame. They are skeletal, but their skeleton is steel. They have skin, but it’s wood and lacquer. They are powered by a heart, but rather than one clumsy muscle I have granted them four-thousand two-hundred and eight micro pendulums and two full pendulums. The pendulums transfer motion to energy and wind four-thousand two-hundred and eight springs. The springs compress and grant power to three-hundred ninety-one thousand six-hundred and eleven gears. The gears are fitted with eighty-three thousand, four hundred thirty-one belts, ranging in size from one inch to one one-thousandth of an inch. The gears and belts give reactive motion to the limbs as I have preordained. Gear sets give way to specific, particular motions. I programmed them. They step because I programmed them to step. They dance because I programmed them to dance. I am the god of these creatures much like the being on high who wound the springs that run you and I and all of mankind.”
“I don’t know what to say, Doctor.”
“There’s nothing to say. I showed you this to make a point.”The doctor retrieved the prince’s breastplate and snapped it back into place.
“These dancers are my life’s creation, and one of them was taken from me!”
The doctor shoved the prince to ground. He struck the stage heavily. The noise was like a thousand tiny splinters of metal ringing out at once. The automaton jerked and twitched.
“Someone stole my Swan Princess!”
Now, I see the incredulous look on your faces and I respond to that with a guarantee. When you telegraph my office, you’ll find I’m a man of impeccable reputation. I stake my reputation on the assertion that everything I witnessed in the doctor’s theater is true. He’d made statues dance to Swan Lake and someone had run off with his prize ballerina, the Swan Princess.
I felt fortunate to have been assigned the case. The doctor’s work fascinated me.
The whole affair should have been an easy resolve. Some things are hard to track: pocket watches, silver spoons, China plates. Things get nicked and sold to fences and if they aren’t engraved or personalized I tell the owners to let them go.London has a robust black market, and the retrieval of certain valued works is nearly impossible. However, an unusual and rare item, a life-sized automatic ballerina for instance, is impossible to move. Whoever nicked it did it for profit or pleasure. If the theft was for profit, then the pawnbrokers union would find it soon enough. If for pleasure, Bow Street or the Metropolitan Police would probably have files on art house wank-enthusiasts. Either way I expected a short investigation and voiced as much to the good doctor.
I have many friends in the pawn business, as comes with the trade. Thief-catching is really about understanding the ebb and flow of money. Thieves steal to survive, not necessarily to better themselves. Some have habits to feed. Some have families to feed, which is as costly as any opium hook. The point of their trade is to move items for cash quickly. Neither pocket-slasher nor lock-smasher gets into the trade for investments. They need cash-in-hand. That’s where the brokers come in.
Goods change hands, money changes hands. There are some brokers who don’t even sell to the public, just to other men in the pawn trade. The more times a hot parcel changes hands, the quicker it changes hands, the less likely anyone will be popped for the larceny. Lucky me, some of these quick traders owe me favors for not getting you fine gentlemen involved in their dodgy transactions.
“I’ll find her, good sir. She can’t have gone off far. Do you know anyone who had an interest?”
“No,” the doctor said.“Aside from myself, you’re the only one who has ever seen my dancers. They were for my pleasure alone.”
I gave him a long stare on that admission. His face was sweaty and anxious. He nervously nibbled on the tip of his forefinger. It’s right to note the doctor was a boffin and a confirmed bachelor for reasons both complex and obvious.
I left the doctor in his theater with many assurances and took a stroll to Panzer’s warehouse. Panzer is one of the aforementioned quick brokers. I would use the cliché, “He had his ear to the ground,” if it weren’t for the fact that both his ears had been cut off during a spoiled transaction.
“Hello, Panzer,” I said and puffed up my chest, just so he knew I was present on business.
“Jolly,” he replied and raised his hand for a shake. I always love a good shake. My hand completely engulfs most men’s hands. I’ve got a good tough guy squeeze, too.
“Seen any fancy statues? One about this tall? Moves about on her own?” I looked him square in the eye and kept my grip on his mitten. He gave a revealing smile.
“Haven’t seen anything like that, Jolly. Hearing is a different matter, though.”
“Alright, mate. I’ll bite. What have you heard?”
“Hold on, sound is money and all that, what’s it worth?”
I tightened my grip on his hand.
“It’s worth me not giving you a smack and tipping the Metros to your moody gold sales.”
His face showed a bit of the pain I was inflicting on his hand.
“Hey now, Jolly, no need for ugliness. Just give me a taste of the bounty when you collect.”
I had to laugh. Here I am, crackling the man’s bones and he’s still negotiating for quid. Bloody pawn brokers. I let him go.
“You’re my kind of criminal, Panzer. A deal’s a deal, so what do you know?”
“Jacques Nouveau’s got some kind of moving statue. There’s a lot of talk of it in the union.”
“Nouveau?”
“He’s a gallery owner and art fence; he moves sculptures and the like. All the rotten heads are abuzz about it. I’d be careful about walking in if I were you. A man’s liable to make more enemies going where he isn’t wanted.”
I flipped Panzer a sovereign.
“Keep your worries, mate. Here’s your bounty. Cheers.”
I telegraphed the main office and left an address for where I was headed. That’s standard procedure. In case I go missing the firm’s retrievers have a starting location. I left the telegraph office and took the tube train to Whitechapel.
Nouveau’s gallery looked more like a butcher’s shed than an art shop. It was purposefully rustic and pretentious. The walls were made of more splinters then planks and no two pedestals were of the same height. Statues adorned the place, standing and staring from behind velvet rope lines. The ropes separated masterworks from gawkers, one group staring at the other. For all I know they were bloody genius works. The jade and porcelain statues looked marvelous in contrast to the dingy patrons. But I’m no art critic.
Nouveau immediately picked me out from the crowd of men and statues. I guess I don’t give the proper impression of wealth or interest on my fat face.