The Czar's Spy

The Czar's Spy by William Le Queux is a novel of personal cussedness versus political intrigue. It begins with the putative owners of a luxury yacht getting into a fix in Leghorn, Italy. (A foghorn was not involved, nor were any chickens harmed.) They are so grateful for the locals' help that they ask Our Hero and Narrator, writer Gordon Gregg, famous for writing novels in shorthand for speed-readers, to help them write a thank-you note in Italian. Gregg is filling in for the real British Vice-Consul of Leghorn, so while he is being entertained aboard the yacht, someone decides to raid the consular office. Hard luck: he has already drunk the good booze and smoked the best cigars. Still, they ransack the place.

Gregg, meanwhile, has encountered aboard the yacht the hastily shredded photo of a Mysterious and Beautiful Woman, whose visage (when he reassembles the picture) immediately burns itself on his brain for keeps. This proves handy later on.

Mystery follows mystery in a frankly infuriating fashion. Gordon becomes more or less used to two phenomena: people trying to kill him and people telling him that he is at the edge of an Amazing Mystery, and they could sure give him an earful if only they dared. The killers are more fun. I found myself fantasizing about a more satisfying response to one of these mystery-mongers:

Mystery-Monger: If you could only penetrate the mystery of this matter, you would find that you had uncovered a plot beyond the dreams of the National Enquirer! Of course, I have Important Secret Information that I'm not about to divulge, though I'll sure rabbit on about how much I know.

Gordon Gregg: Fair enough. Then I shall thrash you until you tell me whatever you do know. That shouldn't take long.

MM: But I'm a lady!

GG: Righto! The thrashing shouldn't take long, either, then.

It's pretty much a cheat anyway: most of them don't really know that much, and the only one who knows it all, a lady with an unforgettable face, has been the subject of a fiendish experiment to transform her into a mime. Gordon Gregg gallivants all over in search of the truth, or failing that, a hot date: England, Scotland, Finland, Russia--in palaces and dungeons, meeting the Arch Anarchist, the Strangler of Finland (not to be confused with the Wedgie King of France), and The Face.

Anyway--self-importance aside, it's not a bad yarn, though I found it odd that a couple of lethal devices seemed like practical jokes gone wrong. Still, the suspense and mystery aren't bad, especially when a dead man turns up alive and the narrator gets to fight his way out of a Finnish Bastille and bluff his way out of certain death.

The Czar's Spy is available as a free e-book and as a free audiobook.

The Mystery of the Four Fingers

The Mystery of the Four Fingers by Fred M. White is... Okay, I'll say it: it's about a bad guy getting the finger four times. His own fingers. Mummified. Mysteriously delivered. Oh, and he'll die after the fourth one.

If that doesn't say "quality literature," I don't know what does.

Set in the early 20th century, the story features a number of characters in extraordinary circumstances who act according to a strict personal code of honor (except the villains, who for some reason don't care so much about honor).

A man gets married--it could happen to nearly anyone--and thirty minutes in, his wife leaves him a note saying to forget about her, because she's off for an extended period, but she hopes there are no hard feelings. Of course not. She probably left the oven on, and now she feels honor-bound to rebuild the house brick by brick herself. Or maybe she was drafted by the French Foreign Legion. It could happen to anybody. And since her husband is such a noble sort, when he runs across her three years(!) later--under mysterious circumstances, of course--he plays along when she says she still loves him but has Mysterious Business which involves posing as the daughter of a Bounder and a Cad who is, coincidentally, old enough to be her father.

Did I mention he has no fingers on his left hand? But not to worry: he's getting them back, one at a time. It has to do with the Four Finger Mine, the secret possession of Indians in Mexico. Whenever someone messes with their mine, he loses four fingers, gets them back piecemeal, and dies, usually insane. It could happen to anybody.

But wait! There's more! Counterfeiters who hit on the perfect crime of producing perfect copies of gold sovereigns in real gold--a point where the shoddier counterfeiters tend to skimp. A handsome cripple who threatens to kill people who--it could happen to anyone--fall through a grating into his cellar. A beautiful girl who thinks she's Ophelia or some such because her fiancé is supposedly dead except she knows he isn't.

Practically everyone is related one way or another, but inbreeding is not the proffered explanation. It does lead to some odd bits near the end, where the highly principled characters decide that blood is even thicker than their heads, causing the story to run an extra couple of chapters.

Strangely enough, I actually liked the story. It has good pacing, a lot of twists and turns, and reasonable suspense. It is not a Christian story, but the code of honor is generally good: villains aside, these are fairly decent, honorable people who eventually confront the problem of vengeance and reach a reasonable if not quite problem-free solution.

The Mystery of the Four Fingers is available as a free e-book at Gutenberg and as a free audiobook at LibriVox.

Dark World: On the Road Again

(The story begins here.)

No one spoke until Dvorak Manor was well out of sight. Lassiter grunted slightly as another car turned away from them, heading south. “There goes Antonin. He still gives me the creeps.”

Darren had also been watching the other vehicle. “Dvorak was unwise to isolate himself. And Antonin probably wouldn’t have done anything so dramatic if Dvorak had just listened to him. Combining their interests—organics for control and inorganics for power and precision—might have been the perfect blend, though it probably would have yielded the ultimate horror.”

“Speaking of horrors,” Dr. Fleming said, “we seem to have escaped our weird friends. Nothing truly strange has happened for a full day, and I’m beginning to hope they’ve lost our trail.”

“I do hate to disappoint you,” Darren replied, “but I had an odd experience this morning after you threw me out and before I fetched Lassiter.”

“Great,” Lassiter muttered. “Are we werewolves together, or are you above such things?”

“I believe I’m protected. But this was a more positive encounter: I think I’ve met the priest you mentioned in our first interview.”

“I’d take my chances with the werewolves.”

“Having interacted with both, I disagree. He provided some useful information, though I’m still sorting it out. Basically, there’s a kind of doorway between worlds, and once it opens for you, it never really closes—unless you go through, in which case it shuts you in forever. It tends to draw evil to that other world, though I think it’s letting some out here as well.”

Lassiter merely snorted in response, but Dr. Fleming smiled. “I’m sure Dr. Newman will want to hear all about it; he’s always interested in the duality of good and evil in human nature. He even uses Christian terminology, though I’m sure you would disagree with precisely how he uses it.”

Darren glanced back; Lassiter was either very quick at falling asleep or very determined to ignore and be ignored. “So if neither of us is likely to agree with this Dr. Newman, why bother with him?”

“He has relevant knowledge. Dr. Adam Newman—yes, go ahead and chuckle; I am well aware it’s an alias—Dr. Newman pursues unorthodox means, but he sometimes succeeds where others fail. He specializes in rehabilitating criminals, and his work there is quite impressive. It’s rumored that a certain well-known doctor—more of a modern Renaissance man, really—has funded his establishment in upstate New York where he reforms criminals and helps them become useful citizens. But he also believes in some kind of transformative power. I never actually listened, but he seems to think a strong enough psychological change or disturbance can produce physiological changes. He probably would accept the possibility of lycanthropy.”

“So would I,” Darren retorted. “So would you—now. Why go to someone we both consider questionable? Are you really so determined to find even a pseudo-scientific explanation and cure?”

“It may not be so much a false science as a real science sloppily pursued and documented, much like mesmerism. Perhaps I have been too quick to dismiss him and his views, just as I initially rejected the idea of lycanthropy. But in any case, we shall soon see for ourselves whether Dr. Newman’s ‘Better Angel Foundation’ is genuine or fraudulent.”

Next: How Firm a Foundation?

[I really am behind in my book reviews, so I'll pause the story for a few days.]

Dark World: Aftermath

(The story begins here.)

“My workroom!” Dvorak screamed.

Dr. Fleming opened the door, but it was Darren who pulled it wide—until he too saw the interior and froze.

Metal fragments protruded from the walls and lay on the floor. The mechanical arms showed varying levels of damage, and Darren concluded that they would not be playing the piano anytime soon. A shriek of dismay and rage told him that Dvorak had shaken off his assistant and wheeled himself forward for a look.

Darren ignored the man. “Victor, was there a radio in that thing?”

Dr. Fleming shook his head. “I doubt it. No, it was designed to play a recorded message and self-destruct when someone probed the less innocent parts of the machine. If there had been a radio, the remote killer would have detonated the bomb when we were gathered around Karel this morning: it should have been obvious that he was going to survive, and the blast would’ve eliminated all witnesses.”

“Why didn’t he use a bomb to begin with?” Antonin asked.

“The same reason he used the knife,” Darren said. “Misdirection and intimidation: a phantom German assassin who can enter locked rooms would keep the police occupied for some time. Victor’s right: the bomb meant that the ruse had failed and the killer had to destroy the evidence and an investigator.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Dvorak snapped. “He practically did kill me—though it looks like some of the manipulators can be salvaged. If I can get a proper version of the new machine, I can rebuild it all.”

“Avoid the ornaments this time,” Dr. Fleming said. “I suspect that their real purpose was just to distract you from other oddities in the construction. You should investigate the man who insisted on producing them.”

“A waste of time. If they were innocent pawns, they’ve been killed; if not innocent, they have fled. I know these people.” Turning to Antonin, he added, “I should have known you, too. It is pointless to have an assistant who disagrees with my goals. You are dismissed. I’m sure Victor can find a place for you in his vehicle; I would let him stay—perhaps even Mr. Christopher—but I haven’t the energy or patience for their ‘transforming’ friend. I see now that I am better off alone here with my machines, which at least are rigidly ethical—they are essentially decent.”

“And one day,” Antonin muttered, “you will punch a card incorrectly, and they will kill you for it—without even knowing they have done so. I have a vehicle of my own, sir; I shall not burden Dr. Fleming and his party.”

Lassiter grunted. “At least I’m getting used to wearing out my welcome. May I hitch a ride with you two?”

“Of course,” Dr. Fleming replied, not even looking in Dvorak’s direction. “We aren’t done with you yet. I suppose I shall see what Dr. Newman thinks of you. For now, you can help Darren and me remove our effects to the car.”

Next: On the Road Again

Dark World: The Master's Voice

(The story begins here.)

“As I investigated,” Dr. Fleming continued, “I came to a curious conclusion: none of the manipulator arms was in quite the right place for the attack. They can move, of course, but the angle wasn’t quite right: they aren’t made for stabbing downward. They didn’t have the proper bloodstains, though the dagger was bloody and would have been worse had it struck its intended target.
“Then I noticed this section of the machine—there’s a nearly invisible seam, and I thought it was a door. But it’s welded shut.”

“That’s a support,” Dvorak said. “It can’t be hollow and bear the weight and torque of the mechanism.”

“I doubt the mechanism would’ve seen much use after your death, but I agree that it is no longer hollow. For it was also quite warm to the touch—it must have been very hot at first. So this is what I think happened: the arm and dagger emerged from this niche and made the attack. Then the arm dropped the dagger and returned to the niche, probably triggering a thermite charge or something similar. The arm had been nestled among metal blocks that the thermite melted, thus covering the arm in molten metal that later solidified.”

“But the cards—”

“There were no cards. When you activated the machine, your position was predictable; all the killer needed was for an arm to shoot out and down with a knife. The blow knocked the knife loose, the arm retracted, and the thermite fired and encased the arm in molten metal. The device had no more need for a punched card than a mousetrap does.”

“You are asserting nonsense,” Dvorak shot back. “There’s no proof—”

Dr. Fleming had opened the cabinet-like machine and began probing the interior. “I think there is. The circuit formed when the cards were loaded included a branch to the trap. So there should be a line about here… Yes! See this wire?”

“Very clever,” a metallic voice called from the machine. “But you have only forced me to trade subtlety for ruthless efficiency.”

Darren had one of those flashes of insight that had kept him alive many times in his brief existence. He seized Dr. Fleming’s arm and ran for the door. Lassiter, warned either by a similar revelation or Darren’s actions, was already through the door, and Antonin’s guardian instincts led him to haul Dvorak through backwards in the wheelchair. Darren and his friend were just past the threshold.

“Goodbye, my friend,” came the voice. As the two men pushed on the door, a blast shook them.

Next: Aftermath

Dark World: The Assassin Unmasked

(The story begins here.)

“It’s really quite simple once you realize it’s complicated,” Dr. Fleming mused.

“I should know better,” Dvorak muttered from his wheelchair, “but that still sounds like gibberish.”

Dr. Fleming smiled with satisfaction as he surveyed the group. “You still don’t remember what happened?”

“No.”

“A result of the shock, no doubt. However, the facts are clear: you were stabbed from behind in an unprofessional fashion, your assailant is not obvious, and the weapon was left behind—no doubt deliberately, given the blatantly obvious clue of the crest. Also, though the attack was stealthy, it still failed remarkably: the strong thrust of the knife became a glancing blow, and no coup de grace followed. Why?

“The answer is clear: the assassin did not know the attack had failed—because the attacker was a machine.” He paused while Darren restrained Antonin. “Ignorant of the failure, the machine completed its predetermined mission with a concealment phase.”

“Where were the instructions for the machine?” Dvorak asked.

“You said Antonin wouldn’t harm Dvorak,” Darren commented, “so I suppose that’s out.”

“Correct,” Dr. Fleming said. “At least for the most part. Actually, Antonin helped save Dvorak’s life—and so did we.” He paused for reaction, but Dvorak evidently wanted him to get it over with, as did Lassiter, and Antonin was brooding silently. “Remember what you said about the problem of not knowing what a machine would encounter? An unknown can destroy any pre-arranged plan, and the murderer did not allow for two unknowns: first, our arrival with Lassiter, which delayed Karel enough that he put off the trial run until morning. Ordinarily he would have run the tests alone in the evening after dismissing Antonin: he wouldn’t want a disapproving critic on hand until he was sure of the device. So he would have lain there for several hours, quite possibly until morning, by which time loss of blood would have killed him, if not the severity of the wounds.

“Second, the distant killer did not foresee what Antonin decided to do—I suspect it was a last-minute inspiration anyway. Antonin was up during the night, which wasn’t unusual, and he had access to the workroom. It wouldn’t have been difficult to add a few cards to the waiting stack.”

“I would not kill the master!” Antonin roared, shaken from his sullen stupor.

“Of course not; we’ve settled that. But you might decide to give him a scare. What would he say if his great achievement attacked him? It wouldn’t actually harm him, though it might shove him or bruise him. You could rush in and fire on the machine, partly destroying the evidence—and if Karel were sufficiently dazed, you might be able to remove the incriminating cards as well. But you saved his life: your attack must have come just before the attempted murder, and it knocked Karel out of position. I’ve checked, and I’m virtually positive that if he had been normally positioned when the dagger struck, it would have penetrated his heart. But he was shoved less than a second before, so he received only a flesh wound. It was really man versus man, but the machine both threatened and saved him.”

“This is all very clever,” Dvorak said, staring suspiciously at his assistant, “perhaps even true. But you still haven’t explained how the machine got the homicidal instructions—or why there were no bloodstains on the manipulator arms.”

“That’s the most ingenious part,” Dr. Fleming replied.

Next: The Master's Voice

Dark World: Mysteriouser and mysteriouser

(The story begins here.)

“You recognize the dagger?” Darren asked.

“The crest,” Lassiter replied. “It was on some of the stuff that belonged to Althaus and his friends. Some society or other.”

“That figures,” Dr. Fleming muttered. “A pointer to an obvious enemy.”

“You don’t believe it?” Darren asked.

“I’m undecided. It’s both credible and convenient.”

“It’s not that credible,” Darren stated. “A real assassin wouldn’t attack that way.” Seeing the doctor’s look, he said, “Go ahead and strike at me the way the attacker did.”

Dr. Fleming complied, miming a downward arc that Darren easily blocked; then Darren sent a right hook less than an inch from the doctor’s chin. “I could have put a knife anywhere I wanted in your chest, stomach, or throat,” he added helpfully.

“Karel was attacked from behind.”

“It doesn’t matter; anyone used to a knife would attack like this.” And Darren poked his fist horizontally toward the doctor. “See how much harder that is to block? And it’s faster: while you’re drawing back for that dramatic downward sweep, I can launch a lethal attack of my own. No, this was an amateur job—or meant to look like one.”

Lassiter had resumed work on his sandwich. “He’s right—I’ve seen some real knife fights, and they keep it horizontal, with thrusts, not downward sweeps.” He popped the last mouthful in just as a chime sounded.

“Dvorak’s amazing machine has finally decided that he’s out of danger,” Dr. Fleming muttered. “A real doctor would’ve figured that out some time ago, but it’s not bad for an automaton.”

Lassiter frowned. “I hope Antonin doesn’t double-check it. He wasn’t happy playing cook while his boss was in that traveling coffin.”

“It’s not that easy to trust an important job to a machine,” the doctor murmured as he absently ran his hand over the ornate surface of the automaton.

“Maybe that’s because we know it’s a blind, inferior version of its creator,” Darren suggested.

“What do you mean?” Dr. Fleming asked as he began to explore the cabinet-like structure more carefully.

“These things of Dvorak’s try to incorporate his knowledge and skill into a machine that acts in circumstances he couldn’t completely foresee. It’s like trying to guide someone with no medical knowledge through surgery—and doing it over the telephone. It’s worse, really, because at least the novice surgeon can ask questions. Dvorak had to guess at all the possible situations, which is humanly impossible.”

“Brilliant,” Dr. Fleming cried as he continued his probe now of the machine’s interior.

“Thank you,” Darren said, abashed.

“Not you, the scheme—though you can be assistant genius for the day if it pleases you. I think I know what happened.”

Next: The Assassin Unmasked