SFSTORY: HMS Golden Lance #17 - The Case That Never Wasn't

It was a foggy morning, much like any other, and I was just going to meet my friend on Baker Street for breakfast. We had plans to discuss our most recent adventure, which I had been referring to in private as "The Case of the Cat Who Went Moo" simply to annoy my friend, prior to publishing my account of some of the more believable elements. I was running a trifle late, leaving my coach in quite a bit of a hurry, knowing that my friend would not delay breakfast on my account, and so nearly missed meeting the two strangers.

I glanced up to check the sun, which was just then appearing over the rooftops, and saw something completely unexpected. It was as if the sky itself had been sliced open somehow. Rays of light, in every colour of the rainbow, streamed forth. And from this hole in the sky stepped two people of the most remarkable description.

The first was a man, neither young nor old, with a full head of short dark hair, graying slightly at the temples, wearing a utilitarian one- piece suit of some kind which looked vaguely like a uniform and with a somewhat military hat on his head at a rakish angle. The second was a young red-headed lady, though I hesitate to use the word, seeing as she was dressed in a form-fitting suit of some kind of leather, which looked more like something worn in a bedroom than on the street. She did, however, also have a long cloak with which she wrapped herself against the morning cold, so she did not offend too many people's finer sensibilities. Not a moment too soon, as my own sensibilities were not too fine by that point.

It was not until the man stepped forward and plucked my umbrella from the ground that I realized that I had dropped it. He handed it to me with a flourish, apparently showing off for the young lady. I found myself stammering to thank him appropriately. "I am sorry to present such a befuddled demeanor," I also said. "I am afraid that your rather unique method of travel has caught me unawares."

"No apologies necessary," said the man simply.

"Yeah, we get a lot of that," spoke the young lady, who reached out to pat me affectionately on the arm!

"I am sorry, miss, but I don't think we've been properly introduced," I said, stalling for time and trying to decide if I should be offended by her actions.

The man had just finished turning all the way around, seemingly taking in the entire city, perhaps even the entire continent, in a single glance. "Yellow-orange sun. Cobblestones. No sign of advanced power generation. Politeness. Painfully repressed sexual drives. 1800's England?" were some of his words, many of which I did not understand but nonetheless record faithfully here.

"Where are my manners?" he finally said in something approaching the local accent, though nowhere near as educated as I like to think that my own sounds. "Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Agent 357." He shook my hand with an expression so forcefully serious that I found myself liking the man in spite of his strangeness. "My lovely companion is Miss Diana Dark, of what you would call The States."

The young Miss Dark, after giving her companion an odd look, took my hand more roughly than a dockworker, yet also gave me a slight curtsy as if I were royalty. "Pleased to meet you, sir."

They looked at me expectantly for several seconds, and it was only then that I realized that they had no idea who I was, either. I bumbled through an introduction of sorts, followed by an apology for my lack of manners.

"Think nothing of it, my good man. We'll be out of your hair and on our way now. Good day!" The Agent took the lady's arm and made as if to escort her away, yet she did not move.

"Wait a minute," she told him before turning to me. "You said that you're a doctor? We're in Merry Old Elizabethan England? On Baker Street? And there's a brownstone building right over there, where a perceptive man with a pipe is staring out at us from the window?"

I nodded my assent to each of these questions, the last of which coming as no surprise, considering who lived in the building.

Miss Dark turned to me. "I would hazard to guess that you're on your way either to or from a visit with a detective friend of yours who lives on this very street. Think he might grant us an audience?"

Her guess was of course correct, and not a surprising one to make for anyone who knows me, but I was quite confused as to how she knew me, as I was quite sure that we had never met before.

I spoke carefullty. "I am afraid that I could not speak on behalf of my friend in this case. He is very busy, you see..."

At that time I heard a door open. "Oh, don't be foolish, my dear old friend. Make no excuses for me. I would be simply delighted to speak with your new friends."

When I took too long to answer, my friend bounded down the steps and, with his uncommonly strong arms, he quickly herded us into his study. The Agent repeated his introductions, and my friend introduced himself (as if he needed introduction).

"I am at your service," he said in his best slightly self-mocking tone. "And while I can plainly hear that Miss Dark originates from the States (though I dare not guess what part), I find your accent somewhat of a mystery. Of here, and yet not of here."

"My training causes me to attempt to emulate the accents of those local to whatever area I happen to be working in," The Agent explained. "I'm not sure I even remember what my native accent is."

"Hold on a second," interupted Miss Dark. "Never mind the accents. How did you know we wanted to speak with you? Surely, you couldn't hear us from that far away on a noisy street..."

"Never assume what a man may hear, young lady," my friend began harshly, but then smiled to show that he meant it kindly. "However, in this instance, it was apparent from your demeanor and actions that you had recognized the good doctor here, though he obviously did not know you, and from my own experience with him I could tell by his facial expression that you had asked something of him that he did not feel he could give. It was simple to deduce what your request was, given you were very nearly on my doorstep."

The Agent gave my friend a piercing look. "If you're so good at deductions, perhaps you can deduce-"

"Perhaps I can deduce how you arrived here?" he cut in. "Oh, please don't appear surprised. Though I missed seeing your arrival, I was quickly appraised of it by my maid, whom I am afraid I had to send to her room to recover her wits with the aid of a bottle of my finest cooking sherry. It is quite obvious from your lack of coat and other dress that you did not mean to arrive here, and that quite likely you did not intend to travel at all."

"Right on the button," The Agent said. "In fact, you might be able to help us with a little problem we're having. It all started..."

The Agent spoke at some length, during which time my friend simply sat and smoked, staring at something only he could see. Early on, The Agent made several lengthy deviations to explain concepts which I could only begin to grasp, but my friend made it clear to him that he would prefer the straight narrative. The Agent spoke of people and places and times and items which were obviously works of fiction, the likes of which might be scribbled by one of my Bedlam patients. However, my friend took fantastical tales of other worlds and other intelligent life as if they surprised him not at all.

"It is all quite elementary, old boy," he said as The Agent finally finished. "Either this young couple has recently escaped from Bedlam, or they are simply lost travellers in time."

"Travelling in time!" I interjected. "Impossible! Absurd!"

"Calm yourself, old chap. Are we not travellers in time as well, moving forward, second by second, from our births until our inevitable meeting with Death? Can we not, with the tiniest effort of will, take our minds back to yesterday, or forward to think of what might happen (or might not happen) tomorrow?"

My friend was so persistant that I eventually had to agree that, yes, such a thing might be possible, though I could not see how. I then noticed that the young Miss Dark was utilizing a device of some sort.

"357," she said, oddly calling for The Agent's attention by using his number and instead of his name, which I never learned. "I'm beginning to think that we weren't dropped here by accident. If I'm reading this right, we've got temporal fluctuations to the north of here."

The Agent checked the device. "Say, have you two noticed anything strange around here lately?"

"I was wondering when you would ask. Friend, please tell these fine young people the details of our latest case while I refill my pipe."

I drew myself up straight to present my deepest of most meaningful tones. "As it so happens, there has been a strange occurrance. Mrs. Teal on 4th street has discovered that her cat has a most peculiar talent. It seems that this cat has learned how to imitate the calls of other animals. It is especially fond of mocking the cattle from the nearby--"

"Not that one!" huffed my friend. "The other one!"

"Oh," I said, and I am afraid that my disappointment was quite obvious to all present. "Then you must be speaking of the Wylie murder. It seems that Mrs. Wylie presented herself to Scotland Yard confessing that she had murdered her husband with a meat cleaver roughly an hour before, being unable to tolerate his comments on her cooking any longer. The Chief Inspector took her into custody, taking note of her bloodsoaked clothing, and sent an officer to check the Wylie home, the scene of the reported crime. This officer, however, returned in short order to report that Master Wylie was in good health and making lunch of a poorly-cooked roast. He stated that his wife had simply stepped out to do some shopping."

"Naturally," my friend continued for me, "the Inspector held Mrs. Wylie due to her bloodsoaked clothing and general state of mind, no doubt believing that she had attacked and possibly killed someone else entirely. He held her for two days and, when no attacks or missing persons were reported, prepared to release her to her husband."

"Let me guess," said The Agent. "When they sent an officer to fetch Master Wylie to come take possession of his wife, they found him freshly killed by a meat cleaver, just as his wife had confessed two days before."

"Exactly. Not only that, but reliable witnesses observed Mrs. Wylie leaving the scene of the crime in bloodsoaked clothing, even though as best the Inspector can estimate he himself was with the suspect at the time of the murder. I have examined the scene of the crime and Mrs. Wylie quite thoroughly, spoken with the neighbors, and have otherwise exhausted all leads. There can be no doubt that she did indeed murder her husband in the manner in which she confessed, yet the Inspector and several other officers claim that she was miles away at the time."

The Agent and Miss Dark conferred for a moment. "Time loop," Miss Dark announced. "Somewhere between her home and Scotland Yard, Mrs. Wylie hit a temporal fluctuation which sent her back in time two days to report the murder long before it actually happened."

357 looked thoughtful. "A time loop like that would pull loose objects in the timestream to it, much like a magnet would attract small pieces of metal. That's how Diana and I arrived here." I am sure that he added the last part for me, as I was feeling quite lost in the conversation by that point.

My friend was already striding to his closet and commenced handing out coats. "Obviously, we must go and re-trace Mrs. Wylie's steps. Perhaps if I can get you close enough, one of your marvelous devices can suggest an avenue of attack."

"Attack?" I sputtered. "On what?"

"On whatever is causing this problem. Perhaps this is a simple, one-time event, but I somehow doubt it. What kind of world would we have if people began arriving at their destinations two days before they left? Can you imagine the confusion and panic that would result? This could destroy our civilization as we know it, assuming it did not somehow destroy the very planet itself!"

"At the least," I thought I heard Miss Dark mutter. Somehow, the fact that she seemed worried caused me to worry.

Still, I might have argued against immediate action, had not something odder than I had ever seen before (though not, I'm afraid, that I have ever seen since) happened at that very instant. The maid came rushing in from the hall door. "Gov'ner!" she called. "I just now saw the most peculiar thing outside!"

"Gov'ner!" I heard behind me, and turned to see the very same maid rushing in from the kitchen door. "I just now saw the most peculiar thing outside!"

We all must have been a pretty sight, our heads jerking to and fro as we looked from one identical maid to the other. I was quite clueless as to what to do with matching maids, but was relieved of a need to make a decision when they spotted each other, gave matching shrieks, and fainted dead away. We carried them upstairs and lay them in bed with another identical maid, obviously quite calmed by the bottle of cooking sherry that she had recently finished off.

Then we were off.

Though we did not know the exact route the Mrs. Wylie had taken that fateful day, using my friend's knowledge of women in general and his recognizing a particular type of clay which was smeared on one of Mrs. Wylie's shoes, he believed he followed it very closely. The accuracy of his estimate was confirmed a short while later when one of Miss Dark's devices began emitting a tone which was obviously some sort of warning. The Agent bid us to join him in an alley.

I looked out and saw something which to this day I still do not believe. An animal of some sort, larger than an elephant yet scaled like a lizard, waddled by our hiding place, spooking horses and causing much general confusion. It was pursued, if my eyes did not deceive me, by something that looked very much like a knight in full armor. There was some sort of ripple in the air and they were gone.

"In here!" The Agent shouted, storming the stairs of the building to the north of where we hid. Striking the door at full run, he was inside before I had mounted the first step. While I tried to put myself between Miss Dark and what I perceived to be approaching danger, she actually elbowed me aside and proceeded ahead of me, as if I were the one who needed protection! My word!

I reached the basement by following the sounds of battle. I observed The Agent grappling with another lizard creature. My friend was emptying his revolver into a pack of wolf-like creatures which promptly fled, though perhaps more from the noise than the bullets. Miss Dark was moving in a most unladylike fashion, wrestling with an frail elderly gentleman whom I did not recognize.

"The machine!" she shouted between kicks. "Destroy the machine before he can activate it!" I looked beside me and noticed what what must have been the machine which she mentioned, which I can not adequately describe in the space I have here. It appeared armoured, and I saw no immediate way to dismantle it.

"Fools!" shouted the elderly man. "Nothing can stop me now!" He threw Miss Dark aside as if she were weightless and advanced towards me in the most menacing of fashions. I noted as he approached that he did not appear as frail or as elderly as he did when I first saw him.

The Agent intercepted him just before he reached me. Though the gentleman's strength was unbelievable, The Agent held on like a bulldog. "He's trying to make himself immortal by causing a localized time loop," The Agent explained almost conversationally. "He doesn't understand that this sort of thing never works. Temporal fluctuations are flowing backwards in time from when he activates the machine in a few seconds from now. The only way to stop that from happening is to keep him from activating the machine to begin with."

The gentleman, now quite young, finally threw The Agent aside, though obviously at great effort. My friend grabbed him from behind and applied his nearly legendary strength. The gentleman was bodily lifted and was actually able to pulled back several yards before he managed to break free.

I used that time to draw my own revolver and fire several shots into the machine and by chance managed to strike an area which seemed less armoured than some others. The machine disappeared in a shower of sparks and smoke. The strange animals and other things that I am very glad I never got a close look at likewise vanished.

The young man was now very old and seemed to be aging even as I watched. He seemed in some sort of distress, but before I could so much as check his pulse, he expired and, much to my surprise, turned to dust which settled on the basement floor.

The air to my left sliced open and shone with colours unimaginable. "That's our cue to leave," said Miss Dark. "It was a pleasure working on a case with you, Detective. And a delight to meet you, Doctor. I so enjoyed your writings as a young girl." She kissed me briefly on the cheek, and I was so touched by her praise that I scarcely thought to be embarrassed by her display of affection.

The Agent was shaking my friend's hand. "With the time loop gone, we're loose in the timestream again. I'm not sure what real changes, if any, will occur here once we leave, but I'm sure that you can adjust well enough."

With that, the young couple stepped through the hole in the air, leaving my friend and myself alone.

"Come, old chap," he said. "We have a meeting with the Chief Inspector at noon, and according to the position of the sun, it is very nearly that time now."

"Time," I mused.

We were, as luck would have it, exactly on time. The Inspector bid us to enter into his office. "You two! I can't for the life of me recall why I asked you to investigate this case to begin with, but I'm sure you've discovered something interesting, so out with it."

My friend simply smiled. "Perhaps first you would remind us of the facts of the case?" he suggested.

Dartles gave out a bark of a laugh. "Facts? Plenty of those. Mrs. Wylie came in two days ago confessing that she had just murdered her husband due to his comments on her cooking. The bloodstains were still on her clothing. An officer checked her home and found Master Wylie freshly dead, apparently killed by a meat cleaver just as his wife had described. Several reliable witnesses placed her leaving the scene of the crime."

He stared at my friend. "Well?"

"Well what?" he responded.

"Well, what ridiculous story are you going to tell me which, once we investigate further, will turn out to have been painfully obvious from the start? Did she stumble upon someone else murdering her husband and confess in shock? Or perhaps to protect a loved one? Or did one of his associates come to collect a debt too-long owed, arranging the details of the payment so that it looked like Mrs. Wylie is to blame?"

My friend and I exchanged knowing glances. Or, at least, I hoped that my countenance suggested such. "No, nothing like that, Inspector," I told him. "You were absolutely right."

"What?"

"It is as my associate says," continued my friend. "Your reading of the facts is completely accurate. My investigations revealed nothing more pertinent to the case. You not only solved the case, but did so in a fraction of the time that I required. I tip my hat to you." And, as he did so, so did I.

With left the Chief Inspector in stunned silence. "Do you think they will be all right?" I asked my friend as we walked back to Baker Street. I had grown rather fond of them both.

"I'm sure that they will be. They both seem to be confident, capable types, as well-suited for their world as we are for ours. I am sure that someday their exploits will be recorded in writing much as you have done with our little adventures."

I smiled. "And no doubt that their adventures will be taken as fiction, much as ours have been in their time."

He very nearly stumbled as he halted. "What, what did you say?"

"Well, it seems fairly obvious," I began. "The way that young Miss Dark knew of us and and of some our cases, yet in more of a familiar than studied way, as if we were old aquaintances instead of historical figures in a textbook, seemed to indicate that she had been exposed to us in her youth..." I trailed off as I saw my friend staring at me.

"My dear, dear fellow," he said as he clapped me on the back. "I must say that I am impressed. It is very seldom that an observation of that magnitude escapes my notice. Good show!"

"Why, thank you," I said in return. "Say, while you are in such a good mood, in regards to my accont of Mrs. Teal's cat..."

I had to hurry as my friend began walking again, not appearing to hurry, but his long strides easily leaving me behind.

Will Time Agent 357 and Diana Dark get back to the HMS Golden Lance?
What happened to Ralph and Omegas?
Will Doctor Spleen ever find that missing lasagna?
Just how do bowling balls reproduce?

To see whether I write another lengthy "done-in-one" chapter instead of chopping the story up into 10K segments, be sure to tune in to the next exciting episode of... SFSTORY!

Copyright 2006 by Troy H. Cheek. Free to read, but please reprint only with permission.