Sherlock Holmes - The Stuff of Nightmares (26 page)

I resolved that France was where my future lay, and not only that but the future of the world. I must go there and live and partake of its culture and its thrusting ambition. There my genius would be recognised and celebrated. My talent for invention and my mechanical expertise would bloom more fruitfully in French soil than in English.

I had little to leave behind. Two parents who had begun to despair of me ever making anything of myself. A string of jobs that were beneath me and provided nothing but an income, and a paltry one at that. I sold all I owned, apart from my precious collection of Vernes, and crossed the Channel by packet steamer to start anew in what I firmly believed was the country I had been born to belong to.

It is a decision I regret to this day, deeply.

Do I have to go on?

Holmes insisted that Cauchemar, or rather Fred Tilling, must continue his narrative.

“You cannot,” he said, “leave us in the lurch. You arrived in France, and then what?”

Then (said Cauchemar) I travelled straight to Paris, the city where most of the French intelligentsia were gathered, the hub of that nation’s cerebral industry. I set myself up in a cheap atelier apartment in Montmartre – that
arrondissement
which is the haunt of artists, musicians, writers and other Bohemian types, an impoverished, absinthe-soaked demimonde – and I cast about, looking for suitable gainful employment, something to tide me over while I built up a list of useful contacts and made my way in the world.

Soon I found work with a manufacturer of clockwork automata. This is a field the French have long excelled in, its best-known exponent being the stage conjuror Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, famous for his Marvellous Orange Tree illusion, in which a replica orange tree grew before the audience’s eyes and sprouted real fruit, and his Mystery Clock, which ran perfectly and told the right time but had no apparent mechanism.

I was engaged in constructing altogether less dramatic devices: singing canaries in cages, monkeys that ride bicycles, and dolls – androids, as they are known in the trade – that can seemingly draw pictures, write poems or play chess or cards. We produced these as fairground attractions, props for illusionists, or toys for the rich. It was not terribly demanding work, at least not for someone with my aptitude, but I enjoyed it because of the miniaturist precision it required, the necessity for millimetre-perfect accuracy at all times. A single misaligned ratchet, a single faulty cog, a single eccentrically turning cam, and nothing would happen. One’s creation would refuse to spring into action or grind to a screeching halt.

But oh, when it did work, when a machine functioned as though the very breath of life infused it – that thrill never palled.

I began to offer my employer, Monsieur Pelletier, suggestions for improvements. I told him how we could make our automata yet more complex, more uncannily realistic still. At his encouragement, I devised a system whereby an android could be given the power of mimicking speech. A rubber voicebox, with puffs of air pushed through it pneumatically and piston rods to manipulate it, could replicate vowel sounds. Combine that with a malleable rubber “tongue” which could modulate those sounds and introduce plosives, fricatives and glottal stops, and you had a fairly authentic reproduction of human vocal patterns. Individual phonemes could be triggered by keystrokes. Put them in sequence and you had actual words, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, close enough to the actuality to deceive the human ear.

The trouble with this was that it was a step too far. An automaton which could point to letters on a blackboard or tell someone’s “fortune” by dealing out tarot cards, that was one thing; that was acceptable. One which seemed actually to be conversing with you? The reactions to that were almost invariably shock, disgust, horripilation, cringing dread. I saw people recoil from the doll much as though it were a farmyard pig that had suddenly opened its mouth and started talking. One woman to whom I demonstrated my
androïde qui parle
swooned away in a dead faint. Another person, a highly respected actor who was later appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, made the sign of the cross and ran shrieking from the workshop.

There was, I realised, such a thing as a too-lifelike machine. Mine offended people’s sense of themselves as divinely favoured beings. If a doll could talk – and most who saw my creation were firmly convinced it could, in spite of my protestations to the contrary – then what did that mean for those of us on whom God had bestowed the supposedly exclusive gift of a soul?

There was one man who did not regard my talking android as an affront against religion and nature. Rather, he was impressed and captivated by it and insisted I reveal to him its mysteries. He was a charismatic fellow, high-born and urbane, ever ready with a quip and a neat turn of phrase. He seemed to me, naive and inexperienced as I was, to be the epitome of class and sophistication.

I am talking, of course, about the Vicomte de Villegrand.

I did not know him then for what he is. At the time, I could not have been more delighted that this nobleman, of seemingly impeccable credentials, who had apparently dropped by the workshop on an idle whim, was taking such a keen interest in my work. He professed himself an engineer too, although not, he said, of my calibre – not in the same league. An amateur, he called himself modestly, a tinkerer. Not a genius, like me. That was the word he used: genius.

Naturally, all this flattery turned my head. Thereafter, de Villegrand became a regular visitor at Pelletier’s, always keen to admire my handiwork, though never to buy anything, much to my employer’s chagrin. We discussed engineering-related topics for hours on end, he and I, and soon we were meeting up in the evenings. He would take me to glamorous night spots, Paris’s finest watering holes, the best cafés and brasseries, even the notorious Moulin Rouge, and there introduce me to various of his friends. All of them appeared as high-ranking as himself, and those of them who weren’t affected airs and graces as though they were.

He was a roué and a reprobate, that much was obvious. He enjoyed a drink and had an eye for the ladies. Indeed, I lost count of the number of times he and I parted company at the end of an evening’s carousing and I would watch him stagger homeward in the company of some lively mademoiselle, about whom, when we next met, he would have many a racy, lascivious tale to tell. He was ten years my senior, he was a handsome rake, he appeared not to have a care in the world – he was everything that I wished to be, and better still, he was my friend.

I recall this one occasion when we were both in our cups and wandering along the banks of the Seine. It was a gorgeously warm, clear spring night, the city alive and buzzing all around us, and de Villegrand began describing his ambitions for the promotion and advancement of
la belle France
across the entire world. He bemoaned the current administration’s desire for rapprochement with England in the face of the aggressive rhetoric coming France’s way from von Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm. He was firmly of the view that France could stand on its own two legs against any enemy and that no alliance with
“les rosbifs”
was necessary.

I jokingly said that, as a
rosbif
myself, I ought to take offence, but could not bring myself to, being such a devoted Francophile.

De Villegrand’s response was to wrap an arm around my shoulders and call me, not merely a Francophile, but an honorary Frenchman. I all but melted at the compliment.

“I must confess,
mon ami
,” he said, “it was no accident that we met. I came to Pelletier’s not by chance, as I claimed, but because I had heard rumours of this marvellous doll with the power of speech and I wished to make the acquaintance of the Englishman who had built it. He sounded to me as though he must be a man of brilliance. And he is! And that is why I am asking you now to come and work with me. Leave Pelletier and his trinket factory. Together, you and I could achieve such things, Fred, such wonderful, incredible things. Join me in building a better, stronger France and a brighter future for all.”

There were two reasons why I didn’t accede to his request on the spot, why I asked for time to consider. The first was that I liked my job. Pelletier was a decent man and, although my talking android had proved something of a fiasco, he remained open to new ideas from me. He claimed he was proud to have me as an employee, and I was proud to call him my boss.

The other reason was Pelletier’s daughter. I haven’t mentioned her until now because... Well, it is difficult. It is difficult for me even to think about her, let alone talk about her.

Her name was Delphine. She was seventeen. She was the loveliest creature in all of Paris, and that is saying something in a city whose women are generally held to be the most beautiful anywhere. She was sublimely pretty, with perfect lips, tip-tilted nose, and auburn hair that tumbled about her face in glossy ringlets. She moved with the utmost gracefulness, and her conversation was by turns witty and intelligent. She was a very paragon of femininity. All who met her fell instantly in love with her, and I’m not ashamed to say I was one of the smitten.

We were introduced for the first time when Pelletier invited me to dinner at his townhouse on the Rue des Rosiers in the Marais. I have to say I was dumbstruck throughout the entire meal. My grasp of French appeared to have deserted me, along with my senses. All I could do was gaze across the table at this vision, this angel dressed in the latest Parisian fashions, while Monsieur and Madame Pelletier tried in vain to extract some sort of meaningful conversation from their English guest. It was
“le coup de foudre”,
in the French parlance. The thunderbolt. Love at first sight.

I must have come across to Delphine as a complete nincompoop. I certainly was behaving like one. Yet she had the politeness not to laugh out loud at me, nor to be offended by my helpless staring. I imagine she was accustomed to it. There can’t have been a man alive who didn’t become her adoring, tongue-tied thrall the moment he laid eyes on her.

Thereafter Delphine started coming down to the workshop, which by all accounts she had never done beforehand. She would even try to talk to me, lobbing questions to which I would offer fumbling replies. She would listen patiently as I launched into long, technical explanations about whatever piece I was working on, and she never showed signs of boredom, however much I rambled.

Ignoramus that I was, I had no idea that Delphine Pelletier had taken a shine to humble Fred Tilling. I could never have believed such a thing possible. She was Aphrodite, I was lowly Hephaestus, but unlike in the myths, no divine edict could surely bring two opposites such as us into union. As far as I was concerned, I was barely worthy to be in the same room as her.

Monsieur Pelletier, however, knew his daughter’s mind and perceived what was going on. He took me aside one day and dropped hints so broad, so unsubtle, that even I could not misconstrue them. The penny dropped. I was beside myself with joy. Could it be true? Delphine was showing a romantic interest in
me
?

Being a father, Pelletier was at pains to warn me not to take advantage of his girl or abuse her feelings in any way. I vowed to him that I would not. I would behave as honourably towards her as it was in my capacity to do. He need have no fears on that front, I told him.

Consequently, I was permitted to squire Delphine on walks in the park, with her mother or one of the family maidservants acting as chaperone. I understood Pelletier’s caution. His daughter was such a rare pearl, so great a prize, he could not afford to let her go out with any man unescorted. I did not mind. An hour spent with Delphine all to myself, even though we were never truly alone, was an hour in heaven.

What we spoke of during those walks, I scarcely remember. Nor does it matter. It was everything and nothing, the sweet nonsense of young lovers. Amid all the billing and cooing, however, there was a clear sense that she and I were coming to an understanding. I could foresee the direction my life was taking, and Delphine was a part of it. No. She
was
it.

You can see, therefore, why I was so reluctant to jeopardise my situation with Pelletier. If I quit my job, might I also not ruin my chances with Delphine?

In the end, I told de Villegrand I would be available to him at evenings and weekends. It was my best offer, and he, though he obviously would have preferred more, consented.

So I found myself, a few days later, calling round at de Villegrand’s apartment in the district of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Occupying the whole of the second floor of the building, it was a nice set-up, perhaps not as grand as I might have expected for a man of his background and breeding, but relatively opulent and spacious. He kept two servants, a brother and sister, both young: Benoît, who was my age and acted as general factotum, and Aurélie, who was barely a girl and acted as scullery maid. I had little interaction with either of them. Aurélie was clearly a simpleton, while Benoît seemed to me unusually surly and resentful of his master. This inclined me to look down on him, for who on earth could dislike the magnificent Vicomte de Villegrand? Of course, I know now that Benoît was fully justified in his antipathy, and I regret how contemptuously and dismissively I treated him.

The apartment had a studio, where de Villegrand had been busy drawing up plans. He showed me portfolios full of sketches and diagrams of inventions he wished to build, and scale models of some of the same. He invited me to offer my input on his ideas and suggest ways of refining them.

What did he propose to create?

I’ll tell you.

War machines.

Astounding, frightful war machines.

Things to make the ordinary infantryman redundant and render rifle and cannon as primitively ineffectual as a Stone Age man’s club.

I can barely convey the bizarreness and awesome ingenuity of what he was dreaming up. You think my armour and weaponry remarkable? My
Subterrene
and this airship extraordinary? They are nothing next to de Villegrand’s designs. They are mere toys compared with the massive, artful engines of destruction he hoped to assemble.