Sebastian Gloom

Paul

     They travelled the rest of the way in silence, Benson beside and half a pace beside the steam wheelchair, until they reached the Museum of Science and Technology. It was just getting ready to close for the day but Gloom was well known to the curator, the two having spent many long evenings discussing recent advances in technology, and when Gloom enquired whether they could examine one of the museum's recent acquisitions, a German steam engine copied from a British design, the man was glad to agree. “You're the second man tonight to show an interest in that piece,” he said. “I showed another gentleman down there earlier this afternoon. He must be greatly interested in it because he hadn’t come up yet.”

     “The enigmatic Paul, I presume,” said Gloom as he parked his steam wheelchair in an alcove and Benson helped him into a more traditional model. “He must be close to giving up on us.”

     “Then let's go put him out of his misery,” said Benson as he wheeled his master along the corridor.

     They passed long galleries filled with examples of machinery from around the world, each with a little plaque telling how it was inferior to British machinery or with a photograph of the British machine from which it had been copied. Most of the foreign machines were German, that country being Britain's only serious industrial rival, and several of the exhibits had been chosen for display because they had failed in some spectacular or comical fashion. The successful foreign machines were down in the underlevels, safely out of sight.

     They turned a corner, past a section containing agricultural equipment, then down a level to a gallery containing automatic textile machinery, all looking rather spooky in the dim light and accompanied by mannequins in period dress and standing in action poses, all of which seemed to stare at them as they passed. Benson kept a careful watch on them as they passed, in case one of them was an assassin waiting to ambush them, but they reached the lift without incident.

     The floor of the lift was an inch higher than the corridor and Benson had to tilt the wheelchair back to get the front wheels on, then push the rear wheels in by sheer brute strength. He then turned the chair to face the entrance and closed the railing. Finally he pulled the lever, opening a valve in the pipe running from the great boiler in the basement, allowing steam to turn the great pulley that allowed the car to descend.

     They watched the floor rising past them and then the upper basement containing the workshops in which the exhibits were repaired and maintained. Gloom saw a Chinese waterwheel attached to a great system of gears and pulleys, but they were past before he could see what function it had once served. Then they entered the sub basement and the car came to a shuddering stop, bouncing a little on the sturdy springs that would have attempted to break their fall if the cable had snapped.

     Benson opened the railing and pushed Gloom's wheelchair out into the basement, all of which seemed to be one large room fifty yards across. Most of it was filled with machinery in various states of repair and completeness, and there was a much larger lift against the opposite wall capable of raising and lowering objects weighing several tons. They gave them only a cursory glance, though, because there was a man waiting for them, a relieved and hopeful expression on his face.

     “Mister Gloom!” he said, holding out a large, strong hand. “Thank you for coming. Thank you ever so much! I desperately need help, and if you cannot give it, I don't know who can.”

     Sebastian Gloom examined the man carefully. He appeared to be in his mid fifties with greying hair and was dressed in the clothes of the upper middle class. The kind of man who might be the foreman in charge of hundreds of factory workers but who was still regarded as merely one of the workforce by the gentlemen who owned the business. His jacket was tweed with leather patches on shoulders and elbows and he wore a bowler hat on his head. His cheeks were covered by a patchwork of broken blood vessels where they weren’t hidden by the splendidly maintained mutton chops moustache.