The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection

The Influence Machine SEAN MCMULLEN

I am an Associate of the Royal College of Science, which is unusual for an inspector in the Metropolitan Police. With the Twentieth Century only months away, education for police is becoming important. Much of my work consists of lecturing to sceptical constables with ten times my experience about how electricity may be used to murder people, how to spot the illegal tapping of telegraph wires, and why it’s important to preserve the fingerprints on murder weapons. Occasionally I am even called to real crime scenes.

A beer waggon had been impounded and driven to Bankside Jetty, beside the Thames. Upon it was a large shed with a chimney at the back. I was sent for, and asked to identify what was inside because it looked “scientific.”

“It’s either a bomb or a death ray, sir,” said Sergeant Duncan as we circled the waggon. “The lady had it stopped in Harper Road, near Session House.”

“Lady?” I asked.

“Aye, sir, her name is Lisa Elliot. We think she’s an anarchist, and had a mind to blow the place up. I arrested her.”

I was not known for tact or patience.

“Sergeant, the waggon is nine feet high, is drawn by two Clydesdales and probably weighs five tons. If you wanted to blow up Session House, wouldn’t you just use a clock, a detonator, and a dozen sticks of dynamite in a carpet bag?”

He had no answer to that.

“Are you sure you arrested the right person?” I asked as I opened a door in the side of the waggon.

“She’s the driver, sir.”

This was a surprise, but I managed not to show it. True, some quite small men were known to drive very large waggons, but this was August 1899. Women can’t do that sort of thing, I thought.

The waggon had no windows, but the door admitted enough light for me to find my way around. There was a small steam engine and a tank of paraffin at the back, but most of the space was occupied by six disks, each two yards in diameter. Coiled on the floor was a length of cable, insulated with rubber. Connected to this was a camera on a tripod.

“There’s a lot of wires,” said Duncan. “Reckon it might be electrical.”

“Who ever heard of an electric camera?” I asked as I picked up the tripod.

“Are you sure it’s safe to touch that, sir?”

“Yes.”

“But—”

“This thing with the disks is an electrostatic generator, sergeant. It produces electricity when turned by the steam engine. Is the steam engine turning it?”

“No.”

“Then it’s safe.”

I was twenty-four, was an Associate of the Royal College of Science, and was the youngest inspector in the Metropolitan Police. I was not shown much respect or deference by those who had learned policing on the job, so I retaliated by treating everyone with contempt.

While Sergeant Duncan watched and three constables kept the onlookers from crowding in, I set up the tripod and examined the device as best I could without dismantling it. It provided a view of the world through a laminated glass filter connected to a Wimshurst generator. What manner of camera needs very high voltages to operate? I wondered.

“I reckon that thing is like the heat ray what the Martians used,” said Duncan.

“Martians?”

“In that War of the Worlds story what was in Pearson’s Magazine last year.”

Thanks to Wells, Verne and the like, people were having trouble distinguishing fictional science from real science. One of my duties was to separate the two.

“The device in the waggon is a Wimshurst machine, a type of electricity generator.”

“Sounds German,” said Duncan suspiciously.

“James Wimshurst is British, he lives in Clapham.”

“Oh. What’s it for?”

“Sergeant, if you called me in to examine a body with a slashed throat, would you expect me to say who did it on first sight?”

“Er, no.”

“Where is the Lisa Elliot?”

“She’s being held at Carter Street Station.”

My family was in reduced circumstances, rather than being common as muck and on the way up. My grandfather had owned a boilermaking workshop, but his rivals had undercut him in the markets and forced him into bankruptcy. My father had been taken out of an expensive school and put to work as a bank clerk. For the rest of his life he endured ridicule from his former classmates whenever they visited the bank. As a result, I was given the best education he could afford, then placed with the Metropolitan Police. It was dad’s way of getting back at his upper class tormentors.

“Crime is the great leveller, Albert.”

He found a pretext to speak those words every time we met, but he was not entirely correct. Far from sending Eton’s old boys to Newgate, we inspectors generally investigated murder, theft, rape, prostitution and assault with broken bottles in places like Whitechapel and Spitalfields. Those with money and connections could afford to live by different rules. This made me angry. I was always angry.

Miss Elliot’s solicitor was leaving Carter Street when I arrived. He told me that she had a comfortable income from patent royalties, and no criminal record or political affiliations. Sergent Duncan’s search of her residence had produced nothing more deadly than a carving knife.

“My name is Inspector Albert Grant, and I believe you have met Sergeant Duncan already,” I announced as she was shown into the vacant office where we were waiting.

Miss Elliot was no older than I, and dressed in smart but plain clothes. Her hair was pinned up tightly, and she wore minimal cosmetics.

“You’re not going to get anywhere with me until you fetch a scientist,” she began.

“I have ARCS after my name, that will have to do,” I replied.

We sized each other up for a moment. She had the confidence and bearing of someone rich, so for me she was yet another enemy.

“What did you study?” she asked. “Mathematics? Natural Philosophy?”

“You are being investigated, Miss Elliot, not me,” I said firmly. “I suspect that you’re fairly clever, but don’t try any clever talk in here.”

She did not reply. A police inspector from the Royal College was probably as much of a shock to her as a woman with a high voltage generator was to me. Educated and police were two words that were seldom seen together. Neither were female and scientist.

“You were arrested while loitering in Jail Park, and are under suspicion of planning an attack on Session House. Just what were you doing?”

“I was conducting an experiment in photography.”

“Your waggon contains a very large Wimshurst generator. It can probably generate two hundred thousand volts of static electricity.”

“Half a million.”

“Half a million!” exclaimed Duncan. “That could kill a man, like lightning.”

She pressed her lips together for a moment and shook her head.

“Sergeant, a beer bottle can kill a man if you strike him over the head with it,” she explained in a slow, level voice. “My influence machine merely delivers a very high voltage to an array of thin glass plates within a heavily insulated camera. Where is the danger in that?”

“Why?” he asked. “What are you trying to photograph?”

“It would take months to explain, even with Inspector Grant translating.”

“I can arrange for longer than that, Miss Elliot,” I said. “I can testify to a magistrate that your device is designed to seem like a harmless scientific instrument, yet can use a half million volt spark as a weapon. You may be convicted of being an anarchist planning an attack, and if you get less than ten years I’ll be the most surprised inspector in the Metropolitan Police. Now I’ll ask the same question: what were you trying to photograph in Jail Park?”

For some moments she sat very still, leaning forward with her arms folded tightly and staring at the table between us, as if making a difficult decision.

“Can I show you?” she asked, looking up.

“You mean demonstrate your… whatever it is?”

“My influence machine, yes. Where is it?”

“It’s been moved to Bankside Jetty, for public safety.”

“Is there a nice view?”

The question was clearly meant to annoy me, and I was very annoyed.

“Miss Elliot, I am what’s known as a police expert, and my word is all that stands between you and Newgate. It’s not a good idea to bait me.”

“I’m not trying to bait anyone!” she retorted. “It’s vital that I have a good view of London.”

That made no sense, yet she seemed to be sincere.

“You can see St. Paul’s, the Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London,” said Duncan.

“That will do.”

We squeezed into a Hansom cab for the three mile trip to Bankside Jetty. As we travelled, Miss Elliot explained something of her device to me, although I suspect that she was just testing my grasp of science.

“My father had the waggon set up as a travelling demonstration,” she said. “The steam engine is from a small boat, and a friend of his built the generator.”

“Was that friend James Wimshurst?”

“Yes,” she said sullenly.

She was not used to dealing with people who understood her work, so I was proving to be a challenge to her sense of superiority. Oddly enough, this made me sympathetic, because it was the story of my life as well. I glanced at her hands. They were scratched and grimy, more like those of an electrician’s apprentice than a society girl.

“Why do you do your own wiring?” I asked.

“I’m better than any tradesman.”

“I spoke to your solicitor.”

“Good tactic. Always know the answers to some of your questions if you want to catch a liar.”

“Don’t make this hard for me, miss, I’m just trying to establish that you’re not up to something illegal. Apparently you make a few quid from patents.”

“About a thousand pounds a year.”

“All those patents are for improvements to existing machines: printing presses, steam engines, harvesters, and even brewery fermentation vats.”

“What is illegal about that?”

“Nothing, but your father was an expert in electricity and optics, and you are apparently a good photographer. That’s nothing to do with your patents.”

“What the inspector means is that you and your waggon could be a front for folk who built a death ray,” said Duncan.

“The sergeant has a good point, even if his death ray theory is fanciful,” I added. “Explain your electric camera to me. What does it do?”

“It’s to test an electrostatic optical filter utilising multiple diffraction gratings and thinly sliced calcite to provide light of selective polarisation.”

I understood all the words, but not what they were describing. She was doing to me what I did to other people, and I did not like it.

“If you could explain that a bit clearer, we’d not be so suspicious,” said Duncan.

“The filter is seven paper-thin glass plates pressed together. Three of them are silvered on one side, and into the silvering I have cut hundreds of very fine lines. These plates are enclosed by plates thinly coated with gold, and an electrostatic potential of half a million volts can be applied across them by using the Wimshurst generator. Two other plates, fashioned from calcite, provide selectively polarised light while insulating the viewer from the lethal electric potential.”

“Sounds dangerous,” said Sergeant Duncan.

“Used sensibly, it’s not.”

“What do you see through this… this filter?” I asked.

“Changes in the behaviour of light.”

“You work alone. Why?”

“Why let some male colleague take all the credit because nobody would believe a woman can do what I do?”

That made sense.

“Most young ladies in your circumstances pass the time by painting or doing tatting mats for teapots,” said Duncan. “Why do men’s work?”

She sighed wearily, as if she had heard the question far too many times.

“Because I do it better than men.”

“But your father built most of your equipment,” I pointed out.

“Do you use a gun?”

“Er, yes. Standard issue police Webley.”

“Did you build it?”

She had me. Debating with her felt like arguing with myself.

“Go on,” I muttered.

“Father was experimenting with a capacitance battery, a device to store large amounts of electricity in a very small space. His idea was to use thinly layered metal on glass substrate.”

“Did it work?”

“Oh yes. Even a day after he disconnected the Wimshurst machine there was enough electropotential left to kill him when he touched the wrong wire.”

“So your waggon really is a weapon!” said Duncan eagerly.

“Sergeant!” I snapped. “Remember the beer bottle?”

To my surprise Miss Elliot gave me a fleeting smile of gratitude. It was probably rare for men to take her seriously.

“My condolences, miss. So do extreme electric fields really affect diffracted, polarised light?”

“You actually listened to what I was saying,” she replied. “I’m astounded.”

Nobody could accuse Lisa Elliot of technical incompetence. When we reached the Thames she opened a hatch in the back of the waggon, lit the paraffin burner and got the steam engine spinning. While boiler pressure was building up she opened the side door, uncoiled the insulated cable and deployed her camera to face north across the river.

To my surprise, the Wimshurst generator ran very quietly. The three contra-rotating pairs of disks produced no more than a whispering sound, so the chuffing of the little steam engine accounted for nearly all the noise within the waggon.

“Shouldn’t there be long, crackling sparks?” I asked.

“Sparks are the discharge of potential, inspector,” she replied. “They are only useful when impressing schoolboys, policemen, and university professors. I need the electrical potential to be maintained.”

Within the waggon was a rack of levers, switches, dials, galvanometers and indicator lights. I watched as she made adjustments, threw switches and pulled levers, but did not really understand what I was seeing.

“You can look through the camera now,” she said.

She was inviting me to put my forehead within a couple of inches of a half million volts. A bead of perspiration made its way down the side of my face as I took out my Webley Bulldog and handed it to Duncan.

“If I collapse, shoot a hole in the steam engine’s boiler.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Then arrest Miss Elliot.”

“She’s already under arrest.”

“That’s for loitering with intent, sergeant. If I die, charge her with murder.”

This must be how a suicide feels when he stands on Tower bridge and looks down at the Thames, I thought as I stood behind the camera, but Duncan, three constables and several dozen idlers were watching. One can get away with being an arrogant pratt, but only if one has some redeeming quality, like courage. This was a time to be brave, so I bent down and looked through the back of the camera.

“The image is the right way up, you’re using an inversion lens,” I observed, very relieved to still be alive.

“What do you see?” Miss Elliot asked.

“St. Paul’s is visible, but only just. There’s a lot of smoke in the air.”

“What else?”

“There’s a barge anchored about ten yards away, I can see a pigeon sitting on the tiller. Look, is there any point in—”

There was a soft sizzling sound, like bacon dropped onto a hot griddle. It lasted only a moment.

The view of London that I was suddenly presented with had clear skies, apart from a few fluffy white clouds. The buildings were devoid of the neo-gothic architectural froth that is all around us, instead the preference was for straight lines and smooth, elegant curves. Most roofs were flat, and parked upon many of them were sleek… carriages, for the lack of any better word. The air abounded with floating carriages, but they had neither bags of hydrogen nor wings to hold them up. They must have been powered by paraffin, because they discharged no smoke.

“Are you all right, sir?” called Duncan.

“It’s utterly fantastic!” I exclaimed, unable to help myself.

“Rotate the right handgrip for a closer view of anything,” called Miss Elliot. “And turn the camera with the lever on the left.”

“What can you see, sir?” asked Duncan.

“I see St. Paul’s in the distance, yet no other buildings are the same.”

“What do you mean? That makes no sense.”

Ignoring him, I inclined the view upwards.

“Something the size of an ocean liner is passing us, flying slowly above the river. There are people on promenade decks. The men are wearing dark, calf length coats, open shirts and cravats. There’s not a hat to be seen. Some women are wearing skirts that only reach down to mid-thigh, others are dressed like the men—but with lace blouses open to the naval. Parasols seemed to have gone the way of the dodo.”

“Don’t suppose I could have a look, sir?”

“In a moment. The sky is clear, no smoke at all. Even the Thames looks clean, no scum or floating rubbish.”

After what was a selfishly long time I retrieved my gun from Sergeant Duncan and allowed him to look through the camera. Miss Elliot remained in the waggon, tending her dials, switches and levers.

“That was absolutely astounding!” I said as I stared at the familiar, grimy reality of my 1899 London.

“Do you agree that my machine is no threat to life or property?” she asked.

“I suppose so, yet half a million volts in a public place is still dangerous.”

“Inspector, just over the river is St. Paul’s Railway Station. Stroll along the platform and you can stand within inches of locomotive boilers containing steam under extreme pressure. If one were to burst, it would kill you. Occasionally they do burst. Why is my influence machine any different?”

There are times to concede, and this was one of them. Blindly searching for guilt where there is none has ruined better careers than mine in the Metropolitan Police.

“I’m satisfied,” I said, although shaking my head in bewilderment.

“Have you seen all you need to? The engine burns a lot of paraffin, and I must pay for it myself.”

“Finish up, sergeant!” I called.

There was a loud hiss as Miss Elliot released steam.

“What were we seeing?” I asked as she clicked switches and pushed levers.

“Another London.”

“I worked that out for myself. Is it London in the future?”

“According to dates on newspapers that I have managed to view, it is the present.”

High voltage electrical potential crackled as is was discharged.

“You should take your machine to the Royal Academy and have it assessed by qualified experts.”

“Qualified experts? Qualified experts are men who will swear that a woman could never have done what I have done, wait a few months, then claim the influence machine as their own idea.”

“Sergeant Duncan searched your house but found no notes or journals of experimental results,” I said. “Where do you document your work?”

“The only true secrets are those that are unwritten and unspoken, inspector. I have a very good memory.”

“But why do research and not publish it? Your invention is truly sensational.”

“One day I’ll write something for Nature magazine, but only when I’m the richest person in the world.”

What does one say to something like that? My police colleagues were all men who were experienced rather than educated, so being misunderstood was part of my life. Here was a woman whose grasp of science outclassed mine, and she was just as misunderstood by the police.

“I’ll issue orders that you and your waggon are to be left alone unless you’re disrupting traffic or creating a disturbance,” is what I replied. “If anyone gives you trouble, refer them to me.”

“So I’m to be released?”

“Of course.”

I beckoned to Sergeant Duncan.

“Have the lady’s Clydesdales fetched and harnessed to the waggon,” I said. “Then assign a man to see her home.”

Duncan and I tried to make sense of what we had seen as we walked the half mile to Borough underground station.

“Cinematics,” he suggested. “Like you see in those moving picture theatres.”

“You mean Miss Elliot’s made up some sort of moving picture show that she projects on a view of real London?”

“Aye, I suppose.”

“How does she do it?”

“Don’t know, sir, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”

“What do you think she’s up to?”

“I think she’ll announce that her machine makes magical things visible.”

“And separate stupid people from a bit of excess money?”

“Working girls do much the same, sir, yet we turn a blind eye.”

Sergeant Duncan was a dreamer with common sense. He read the new scientific romances and kept up with the basics of real science, but there were gaping holes in his education. Sometimes he reached ridiculous conclusions, like his death ray theory, yet was it so very ridiculous? At short range Miss Elliot’s nine foot high, five ton waggon could indeed generate a death ray about ten inches long.

I was in a frail, brittle mood. Miss Elliot definitely reminded me of myself, because we were both alone and fighting a world that hated and resented us. Does Duncan hate me? I wondered. He ought to, I humiliate him nearly every day. Would he put the boot in if I gave him the chance?

“Science is getting ahead of policing in general and myself in particular,” I admitted. “I get called all over Greater London to give my opinion, but more often than not, I can’t help.”

“What’s a case as troubled you, sir?” he asked.

No snappy comeback, I thought, with as much surprise as relief.

“Just yesterday Scotland Yard called me in to check a death in Threadneedle Street. An old man was having a bath and reading the newspaper when an electric lamp fell in and electrocuted him. His son had gambling debts and stands to inherit two thousand pounds. Did he toss the lamp into the bath? Perfect crime, no way of telling.”

“There is too,” said Duncan at once.

“What do you mean?”

“Did the old geezer like a pint?”

“Probably.”

“Then just go to a pub where he used to drink. Get chatting with the locals, ask if he was much of a reader. If he couldn’t read, how to explain the newspaper and reading lamp?”

New technology had killed the old man, yet the cost of a pint might be all that was needed to solve the case! Why had I not thought of that? Probably because Duncan had several times more policing experience. By now we were standing in front of Borough Station’s ticket window.

“You get back to Carter Street, sergeant. I just might go north.”

“Have a pint for me, sir.”

There were a few afternoon loafers in the first pub that I entered in Threadneedle Street. I mentioned that I was down from Manchester for old Hiram Beamwell’s funeral. A sympathetic local bought me a pint.

“Aye, I’ll miss him, and his newspapers,” he said. “Bought one every night.”

So much for Duncan’s theory, I thought, as condescending as ever.

“So he was a keen reader?”

“Couldn’t read his own name, guv. He got me to read for him.”

Beamwell had died in his bath, in the company of an electric lamp and a newspaper, yet he could not read. Duncan had solved the case. I had not.

“Inspector Grant, Metropolitans,” I confessed. “I have no authority in the City, but I don’t suppose you’d like to tell some people in Scotland Yard what you just told me?”

Within the hour Beamwell’s son was under arrest, and my self-confidence had fallen below the limits of detection.

I returned to the Carter Street police station to find that Miss Elliot was back in a holding cell. I had not yet signed her release, so when she had returned to collect her keys and bag, she was again locked up. Rather than just walk her to Kennington Station, I hailed a Hansom cab to take her home.

“I suppose you know that I can’t apologise enough?” I said as the cab set off.

“No matter, inspector, I’m glad of the chance to see you again.”

“Now that just has to be a lie. Nobody’s ever glad to see me.”

“You tried to understand my work, instead of sneering. Only my father has ever done that.”

“And I’m sick of people sneering and saying that a mere police inspector couldn’t have ARCS after his name. You didn’t. Just what does your machine show, Miss Elliot—apart from a much cleaner London?”

“It shows another reality.”

“How? Please, help me to understand.”

“I can’t. Come back and ask your question after I’ve had a lifetime to study the effect.”

“So what is this other reality?”

“It’s an alternate time, in which Galileo made discoveries in electromagnetism two centuries before Faraday, and Newton devised Maxwell’s laws of thermodynamics in the Seventeenth Century. The science there is far more advanced than our own.”

“My brain is trying to escape through my ears,” I confessed.

She giggled, then put a hand on my arm. I had deprecated myself to her, and she had been charmed. For me, that was an important lesson in being human.

“Would the world be any different if Napoleon had defeated Britain?” she asked.

“Vastly so, miss.”

“Yet Newton, Galileo, Maxwell and Faraday changed the world more radically than any king, general or prime minister. Napoleon and Wellington had a lot of cannons, but Newton discovered the laws of motion that allowed them to be fired accurately. A few centuries ago in another past, laws were discovered and inventions were invented much earlier than happened in our own history. My influence machine can see into a reality where scientists have gone on to make new discoveries. I have brought some of those discoveries into our own world.”

“Brought? Past tense?”

“Yes.”

“Inventions from the other London?”

“The very same.”

The cab turned into Rockingham Street.

“Would your wife be very scandalised if you stepped into my house for a moment?” she asked.

“Not married, miss.”

“Then pay the driver and come with me.”

The top floor of Miss Elliot’s house had been made into a workshop. She opened a very ordinary Gladstone bag and took out a large cigar box. To this she had added a brass band and clasp, and protruding from the side were an electrical switch and a dial.

“Take hold of it, inspector,” she said. “Be brave, it won’t bite.”

I hefted the box. It weighed four or five pounds.

“This doesn’t contain cigars,” I said.

She reached out and set the dial to zero, then pressed the switch.

“It’s lighter,” I noticed.

“Let it go.”

I did so. The box hovered in mid-air.

“Unbelievable!” I exclaimed softly. “But how? Electromagnetism?”

“Nothing so crude.”

Grasping the box, she flicked the switch off, then returned it to the Gladstone bag.

“Are you convinced, Inspector Grant?” she asked.

“Definitely, most definitely,” I said, “yet one matter puzzles me. We don’t post the laws of our sciences and the principles of our machines in public places. How did you learn what repulses gravity?”

“In the other London, a school has been built in Jail Park. Just think about it, inspector. If you wanted to learn the science of some very advanced civilization, would you seek out its greatest scientists, or would you go to a school where children are educated and everything is explained simply and clearly?”

“Splendid point, but your device provides no sound,” I pointed out. “How do you hear the lessons?”

“Every classroom has charts and diagrams pinned to the walls, and I can see what teachers write on blackboards.”

Like everything else she said, this made sense.

“You will never again be disturbed in Jail Park,” I assured her.

“Thank you, but I don’t need to return there. Soon I shall use my influence machine to become the richest person in the world.”

“Miss, with the greatest respect for your abilities, that will not happen. Watt, Stevenson, Newton, Brunel, Faraday, they all built or discovered things that changed the world, but none became very rich. It’s merchants, speculators and bankers who make truly great wealth.”

“I hope to prove you wrong, inspector.”

“Fortune attend you, miss.”

With that she put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me on the lips. The act was so sudden and out of character that I just stood frozen with my mouth open and eyes wide, looking like a complete idiot.

“My apologies, but that may well be my first and last chance to kiss a man on the lips,” she said. “Best not tell anyone.”

I walked the two miles to my rooms, my thoughts whirling. On this day I had been humiliated as both a scientist and a detective, then Miss Elliot had kissed me and said she may never kiss anyone else. Why did I feel curiously happy?

Mr. Field’s importance and influence can be shown by the fact that I was taken off my normal duties to attend him. I was called to my very first meeting with the Assistant Commissioner. He told me to report to Cadogan Square and do whatever Mr. Field required. I expected to be kept waiting for hours, but he met me at the door. He was of early middle age, and dressed in a plain but expensively tailored suit. As he escorted me into the parlour, he glanced at a folder to refresh his memory.

“I see that you have scientific qualifications,” he said.

“That’s true, sir,” I replied. “Associate of the Royal College of Science.”

“I hope you’re grateful to Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sir?”

“The Sherlock Holmes stories have caused a vogue for using science to solve crimes. However, Conan Doyle depicts his police inspectors as lower middle class and a bit thick, so the commissioner had you appointed to attend crime scenes and sound scientifically educated. Hope that doesn’t offend you; I can be a little blunt.”

The rich and powerful are often rude and boorish to their social inferiors. The frighteningly powerful have nothing to prove, and can afford to be polite and apologise. Mr. Field had a subtle but definite sense of being frighteningly powerful.

“Speaking as a policeman, what do you think of Doyle’s stories?” he asked as he unfolded a chart on a table.

“If Holmes were real, I have a sergeant who could give him a run for his money,” I replied.

“And what about yourself? Don’t be modest.”

“I suppose I’m as useful as anyone can be with three years on the job and three more in the Royal College, studying chemistry.”

“Splendid, chemistry is the reason you are here. Look at this, tell me what you make of it.”

On the table was a large, neat copy of Mendeleev’s table of the elements, drawn on wrapping paper. To my astonishment, I saw that it contained a hundred and twenty elements, rather than the eighty-two that I knew of. The recently discovered gases neon, krypton and argon were noted as copernicon, newtoneron and kepleron, in fact very few of the elements had names in common with those that I knew.

“It arrived in the post last week,” Field explained. “Note these elements: brunelium, luminium and descaron.”

“Luminuim and brunelium could be radium and polonium. A French couple, the Curies, refined radium and polonium out of pitchblende last year. Both elements are radioactive, though the term used here is radioluminescent.”

“And this one, descaron?”

“It doesn’t exist.”

“It exists, inspector, but we have not yet discovered it.”

Whoever had drawn the table had given each element something called an atomic number as well as the more familiar atomic weight. I did not know what to make of it.

“Has a crime been committed?” I asked.

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Then why am I here? I’m a police inspector.”

“I’m coming to that. I showed this to a scientist who works for me from time to time. He happened to be passing through London on the way back from Paris, where he had been visiting the Curies. They mentioned in passing that radium emits a radioactive gas, but they had not yet determined its properties.”

I checked the table

“Descaron?”

“Without a doubt.”

He turned the table over and pointed to some writing and symbols.

“The author goes on to talk of atoms being made of particles called electrans, protrans and neutrans. The electrans may be what George Stoney calls electrons. Protrans and neutrans are still to be discovered.”

“If they exist.”

“Indeed. I made discrete enquiries, and determined that five dozen handwritten copies of this table were sent to some of the richest and most influential men in Britain. All but one of those copies were discarded.”

“This one?”

“Yes.”

“I still don’t understand where I fit in, sir.”

“Assume, just for one moment, that this is not a hoax. What would you say?”

Memories of a half million volt Wimshurst generator suddenly flashed bright in my mind.

“I’d say this table comes from another science, one that is far more advanced than ours.”

Field nodded, but did not smile. He was an influential man, but his influence was based upon the world as it is. The table of elements spread out before me came from somewhere beyond his control.

“You are here because you recently investigated the activities of a woman named Lisa Elliot,” he declared. “It was she who sent this table to me. According to your report, she experiments with optical polarisation and diffraction under very intense electric fields, and may be considered harmless.”

“I stand by my words,” I said.

“Maybe so, but I consider her to be the most dangerous person in Britain, and possibly the world. Come along, we’re off to Scotland Yard.”

In the carriage I gave Field a detailed account of what I had seen during my few hours with Lisa Elliot, and related what she had told me. I did not mention that we had kissed. Sergeant Duncan had been fetched to Scotland Yard, and he provided his own account of how Miss Elliot had been arrested. Field then took us on a short walk to the Houses of Parliament.

“You are about to meet the Prince of Wales, the prime minister and a lot of other important people,” he said. “Resist any temptation to pick your nose or scratch your behind.”

“But what will I say?” asked Duncan, who was understandably agitated.

“Say nothing unless spoken to, just stand to attention. Call the prince your highness and everyone else sir. Remember, the less you say, the less trouble you can get into. They probably won’t want you to say much. Try not to stare at Sir Edward, his left arm was eaten by a tiger when he was in India.”

“Sir Edward?” I asked.

“Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, the man who pays your wages.”

“But sir, what’s going on?” asked Duncan.

“Remember what I said about not speaking unless spoken to? Start practising now.”

We were shown into a room paneled with polished wood, and featuring a long table. Here the more important of the assembled dignitaries were seated. Many more were standing. The prince must have been feeling peckish, for he had a cold roast chicken and flask of red wine on the table next to him. He said little, and I suspect that he understood practically nothing of what was being said. The prime minister, Lord Salisbury, reminded me of a large, elderly bear that had been awakened from hibernation early, and was passably cross about it.

“Sergeant Duncan, I understand that you arrested Miss Lisa Elliot in Jail Park recently,” said Sir Edward.

“Yes sir, for loitering with intent.”

“And you authorised her release, Inspector Grant?”

“Yes sir, after appropriate investigations.”

“I understand that she demonstrated her, ah, influence machine to you both?”

“Yes sir.”

“How large was the flying battleship Mr. Field told me about?” Lord Salisbury asked.

“It was more like a passenger ship, sir,” I replied.

“But it was as big as a battleship?”

“Yes sir, at least as big.”

“So were war to break out with France or Germany, we might fly such a ship over the enemy armies and drop bombs over the side?”

“I imagine so.”

“Why did you not report all this?”

“I did, sir. I wrote a full report.”

Lord Salisbury looked across to where Sir Edward was standing.

“Make sure all the right heads roll, there’s a good chap,” he said.

“But, but this all seemed like so much nonsense,” Sir Edward protested.

“Field?” said Lord Salisbury, ignoring Sir Edward. “Explain the situation to these people.”

“Miss Elliot has access to sciences and technologies that would allow Britain to dominate the world for the next thousand years. We could defeat any army sent against us, establish colonies on the moon, wipe out disease and famine, and even unlock the secret of immortality.”

Some moments of total silence followed.

“You mean nobody in this room need die?” asked the prince eagerly.

“Barring accidents or assassinations, no,” said Field.

“Then why was she arrested again?” asked Lord Salisbury.

“Because she cannot be allowed to fall into foreign hands.”

Field had no title, yet everyone deferred to him, and even seemed to fear the man. I began to suspect that the empire might not really be run by elderly, opinionated men with dangerous medical conditions. Behind the scenes, were Field and men like him discretely making sure that things got done? I was a police inspector. Why had I not heard about them?

Field placed three photographs on the table and beckoned Duncan and me forward. All had been taken in some cobbled yard with high brick walls. One showed the influence machine’s waggon as I remembered it, and the second was dominated by a blurred and overexposed tangle of glowing, jagged threads where the camera stood on its tripod. In the third was a pile of char where the camera had been.

“Some Cambridge chaps examined the machine, then tried to start it,” said Field. “When the Wimshurst generator was engaged, this happened.”

“Did they read my report?” I asked.

“They were experts from Cambridge, inspector, it was not considered necessary,” said Lord Salisbury. “Why do you think the camera caught fire?”

“There’s no insulation, sir.”

“Insulation?” he asked. “What does that mean?”

“It’s from insula, the Latin for island—”

“I know what insulation means!” he shouted, slamming his fist on the table and turning florid with anger. “What the hell has insulation to do with cameras?”

I had somehow overstepped the mark. Someone who had the authority to start wars was aware of me, and he was not impressed. How much worse can it get? I wondered.

“Miss Elliot may have removed a multi-layer diffraction screen that prevents the electropotential from the Wimshurst generator from discharging. When your experts started the machine—”

“Dammit man, speak English!” demanded Lord Salisbury. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

I was seeing what everyone else probably thought of me whenever I explained something in words that only another expert could understand. It was a valuable, if harrowing, lesson. I tried to think how I might explain the issue to Sergeant Duncan. In terms of understanding technical matters, Lord Salisbury and Sergeant Duncan were probably equals.

“There was a bit missing,” I said.

“We require a little more detail than that,” muttered Lord Salisbury.

So, the prime minister now suspected that he also had gone too far. I combed my mind for a harmless analogy.

“It acted like a fire screen that stops sparks from the hearth from flying out and burning your carpet.”

“Is that the best you can do? I read some nonsense about you having a degree.”

“I’m an Associate of the Royal College of Science, sir.”

“So, not a real degree,” he began, but Field stepped forward with his hand raised.

Lord Salisbury suddenly fell silent and stared down at the table, like a schoolboy caught writing rude words on a toilet wall. Field actually had the authority to silence the prime minister!

“How extensive is the damage to Miss Elliot’s influence machine, inspector?” he asked, holding up the third photograph.

“Quite minor, by the look of it. Provide her with a new camera and tripod, and I expect she could have repairs done within minutes.”

“She? Why must she do the work? Could you do it?”

“If I had the missing part and an inverter lens, yes.”

Field waved Duncan and myself back and stood before the table, facing people who probably owned the deeds to nine out of every ten acres in Britain.

“Your highness, gentlemen, Miss Lisa Elliot is being held in this building. Her influence machine has been taken to St. James’s Park for a demonstration. We have negotiated the purchase of the machine.”

“What was the price?” asked a cabinet minister.

“Five hundred million pounds,” muttered Lord Salisbury.

There was an extended silence, during which many rich and powerful mouths dropped silently open.

“You could buy the Royal Navy for that,” said the minister.

“Twice,” said Lord Salisbury.

“But thanks to Inspector Grant, we know that the missing part is a small glass diffraction screen,” said Field.

“Which costs five hundred million pounds.”

“True, but once we have the screen, terms of purchase can be renegotiated,” said Field smugly.

I shivered as the sharp chill of alarm lanced through my body. Miss Elliot knew how to build more influence machines. She could build them for other nations, and these men did not like the idea of that. They are lords of the golden rule, I thought. They have the gold, so they make the rules. At best she might be locked away for the rest of her life. At worst was a cheaper option.

Members of the public had been cleared from the whole of St. James’s Park, and the waggon housing the influence machine stood on a stretch of lawn just north of the lake, near Duck Island. One of Field’s experts had found a camera identical to the one Miss Elliot had used, and had even installed an inverter lens within it. The insulated cable had been uncoiled on the grass, and the charred bits cleaned away.

Miss Elliot was sitting on a bench, handcuffed to a man dressed just like Field and surrounded by armed guards. More guards arrived escorting a middle aged man in an intimidatingly tailored suit and top hat. He took a slip of paper from the inside pocket of his coat and presented it to Field.

“You are looking at a five hundred million pound cheque,” I whispered to Duncan.

Miss Elliot was brought to stand before the Field. He held the cheque up for her to see.

“The bearer will be paid five hundred million pounds, Miss Elliot,” he said. “What do we get in return?”

“May I have my Gladstone bag?” she asked.

One of Field’s experts brought the bag over from the waggon, and Miss Elliot had him take out a very familiar cigar box. She reached out for it, but he snatched it back.

“It contains two Gassner dry cell batteries, a lot of wires and something sealed in lead casing,” said Field’s expert. “It may be a bomb.”

“How can I demonstrate what you will get if you do not let me demonstrate?” Miss Elliot asked.

I raised my hand. Field waved me forward. The Cambridge expert handed me the cigar box. All the onlookers pulled back. I opened the box and looked inside, then closed the lid again.

“Set the dial on the side to zero, flick the switch, then let the box go,” Miss Elliot called.

The box hung in mid-air. There were gasps of amazement from the distant onlookers. I grasped the box, flicked the switch off, then took it across to where Miss Elliot was standing.

“No bomb,” I said to her guard, then I opened the box and displayed the contents to her. “No damage.”

She gave me the merest twitch of a smile as I handed the box to her, and she again set it floating about a yard above the ground. The dignitaries now closed in to marvel at gravity being defied. Two of the guards hoisted the prince up so that he could sit on the box. It bore his considerable weight as firmly as a stone pillar.

“Very good, your highness,” said Field. “I believe you are now the world’s first gravity machine passenger.”

Miss Elliot unpinned her hair as the hilarity and marvelling continued, then she removed something that resembled a microscope slide edged with resin and trailing two short wires.

“Install this in the camera,” she said. “There is a spare mounting frame in my bag.”

At a nod from Field, the Cambridge man took the filter from her and hurried away to the camera.

“While we are waiting, may I demonstrate another remarkable feature of what you call the gravity machine?” asked Miss Elliot.

Field looked to me and nodded again. I fetched the device. Miss Elliot asked me to turn the dial all the way around to ten.

“Switch it on again,” she said.

Imagine dropping something from the top of Big Ben and watching it fall to the ground. We watched as the cigar box fell into the sky instead. It dwindled to a point and was lost to sight.

“By the time the battery is spent, the device will be travelling so fast that it will exceed the power of the Earth’s gravity to draw it back,” said Miss Elliot.

“So we don’t have to cordon off the area in the interests of public safety?” Field asked.

“No.”

The gathering’s attention now turned to the influence machine. The filter had been installed in the camera and plugged into the insulated cable. Now the guards were needed to hold the dignitaries back instead of protecting them, for they had lost all fear in their excitement and were threatening to trample the equipment. The steam engine was brought up to full pressure, and the Wimshurst generator began to spin. The Cambridge expert switched a half million volts of potential to the camera, but it did not burst into a tangle of electrical discharges.

Field gave Miss Elliot a little smirk, then pocketed the cheque.

“Inspector Grant, will you do the honours?” he said.

I walked across to the camera, bent over and peered into the screen.

“Something’s wrong,” I announced. “I just see Big Ben and some cabinet ministers. The only flying things are pigeons.”

I looked up. Miss Elliot was staring upwards and looking very pleased with herself. Field gave a cry of what might have been outrage, but could easily have been horror, then drew a gun and began firing into the air. He screamed at the rest of us to open fire and bring the box down. I emptied my Webley Bulldog, firing straight up, but the box must have been at least a hundred miles above us by then. Once I had a chance to glance around, I saw Miss Elliot being hurried away by her guards while the dignitaries scattered as fast as arthritis and gout would allow.

Sergeant Duncan and I decided to walk to Borough Station. It was a pleasant day, and we had a lot to discuss.

“So the real filter plate is halfway to the moon, in a dummy battery, in a cigar box?” Duncan asked, once we were on Westminster Bridge and well away from anyone who might be spying for Field.

“I don’t think it’s gone quite so far,” I replied. “Not yet.”

“What will happen to Miss Lisa, do you think?”

“She’ll be locked in a cell with a pen, a bottle of ink and a ream of notepaper, and told to write out instructions for building an influence machine.”

“Will she do it?”

“Of course not.”

“What’s to do with the cheque I half inched from Mr. Field while everyone was shooting at the sky?”

I tried not to burst out laughing, but failed.

“I think Miss Elliot would want you to keep it,” I eventually managed. “Not much good to her, is it?”

“And it’s probably been cancelled.”

“But for a few minutes you were the richest man in the world.”

“How’d you let her know that Field was crooked?”

“With my fingernail. I scratched a double cross into that lead thing in the cigar box.”

By now we were over Westminster Bridge and passing Waterloo Station. Everything looked so very ordinary, yet not one hour earlier the world had changed so very much. I now knew that Miss Elliot had not really wanted five hundred million pounds. Her intention had been to humiliate Britain’s richest and most powerful men, and to shake their complacency and confidence.

Field and the masters that were his servants could have afforded the money that she demanded for her quite fantastic secrets, yet they disliked the very idea of treating a woman fairly. By trying to cheat her they had lost the stars themselves, and the immortality to explore them.

“Tonight Field and the others will climb into their beds with far more respect for both women and scientists,” I said.

“As will we,” said Duncan. “That must be the reason Miss Elliot named her influence machine as she did.”

What happened to Miss Elliot, you surely wonder. I have no idea, but a month after that day in St. James’s Park I noticed that I was being shadowed. Why shadow me? I like to think that Lisa Elliot escaped. She was intelligent enough to know Field would neither keep his word nor let her go, so she must have planned for it. She would certainly not try to contact me, but obviously Field lives in hope.

Duncan was right, we have both been influenced by Miss Elliot. Although there are no women in the Metropolitan Police, every Tuesday Duncan and I go to a mechanic’s institute hall and give lectures about the untapped potential of women in the investigation of crime. Some women who attend want to set themselves up as private detectives, others want to campaign for female police, and a few are even writing detective fiction and want their novels to seem more realistic. There are never any men in the audience, but every Tuesday the audience grows.