The two friends drifted about the shop, poking at things, picking up the odd toy, which whirred or buzzed or jangled as it performed some kind of intricate mechanical motion. As he prowled the space, Conan Doyle’s scalp prickled and he had the feeling he was being watched. Then he saw the shadowy figure watching him from the back of the shop: the Automaton Turk.
“What the devil is it?” Wilde asked.
“A mechanical chess-playing device. You should try it.”
“You mean it actually works?”
“Very well. Too dashed well! You play chess, of course?”
“Naturellement. I was chess champion at Trinity.”
“Go on. Have a bash. Play a game.”
Wilde studied the elaborate device with a puzzled frown.
“How does it function? I see no switch.”
“Simply play your opening move. It somehow activates the mechanism.”
“Really?” Wilde tossed Conan Doyle an incredulous glance, but then squared his shoulders and pushed his knight’s pawn to knight 4.
Instantly, the Turk came alive in a whir of gears. The dusky head lifted, the eyes opened and glowed. It drew the long-stemmed pipe to its lips, paused, and exhaled a jet of steam. The arm jerked across the chessboard and pushed a black pawn to bishop 4, threatening Wilde’s pawn.
Wilde chuckled. “That’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen. It plays like my old chess master, Shaughnessy. It even pongs a bit like him.”
Conan Doyle left Wilde to his game and wandered deeper into the shop. The toy steam train sounded its mournful whistle and burst once more from the mountain tunnel, thundered around the walls in a blur of mechanical hurry, and vanished through the far wall. Beneath the alpine tunnel was a door, presumably leading to living premises behind the shop. He rapped his knuckles on the wood and called out, “Hello? You have customers! Hello?”
He waited a polite moment and, when no one answered, tried the doorknob. It was not locked and he stepped into a small sitting room decorated with horsehide settees bedecked with doilies and fripperies. Fresh cut flowers sat in glass vases. A coal fire throbbed in the grate.
“Are you quite certain we should be in here?” Wilde’s voice asked in his ear.
Conan Doyle gave a start. The large Irishman hovered at his shoulder.
“What happened to your chess game?”
A look of discomfort flashed across Wilde’s long face. “The machine cheats. Of that I am quite sure. Check and mate in under a dozen moves? Preposterous! Did I mention I was chess champion at Trinity?”
Conan Doyle noticed a framed black-and-white photograph hanging on the wall. Two figures posed on the foreshore of a large and placid lake: a young blond woman in a light crinoline; by her side a small boy, probably a few years younger than his son Kingsley, clutching a windup toy warship.
“Ah, there’s life,” Wilde said, and nodded out the window.
Like many English properties, the shop had a long, narrow garden. At the far end of the space, sitting in a kind of open pavilion, were two people: a woman in a rocking chair (Conan Doyle guessed it had to be the same woman as in the photograph, but could not be certain as her face was hidden beneath a rather old-fashioned pokey bonnet); at her side was a young boy seated in a bath chair, a cap upon his head and a blanket draped across his lap. His hands worked at the controls of a black box, which evidently threw the switches of the train track and determined the path of the toy steam locomotive. His face was set in a smile of childish delight, and his gaze followed the train’s progress as it sizzled along the shiny loops of track.
“Doctor Doyle, is it not?”
Both men jumped. The shopkeeper stood behind them, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Terribly sorry,” Conan Doyle apologized. “I knocked but no one answered. We had been waiting some time.”
Jedidiah beamed with his usual good humor. “Yes, I was down in the workshop, just putting the finishing touches on… a project. Your little boy’s soldier has been fixed. I have it under the counter, all boxed up and ready to take home.”
“Wonderful.”
Wilde nodded at the figures in the garden. “If I may say so, you have a beautiful boy. A quite radiant child.”
“Thank you, sir.” Jedidiah gazed out the window at the two figures and his eyes misted. “My wife and child are the reason I draw breath. Without them, I would be nothing.”
A silence crowded into the room with them and overstayed its welcome. The toy maker drew himself together. “Shall I ring you up, sir?”
They returned to the shop counter. As Conan Doyle settled the bill, Wilde continued to browse.
“There you go, sir,” Jedidiah said brightly, tightening the twine fastening the box securely. “And as I promised, a lifetime guarantee.”
Conan Doyle thanked him and, seeing an opening, said, “You’re a man conversant in all matters mechanical. As a matter of interest, have you ever seen anything like this?” He fished in his pocket, took out the shiny brass cogwheel, and laid it on the counter.
The shopkeeper glanced down at the object and froze. After a long pause he picked it up and studied it, turning it over and over. His head shook from an involuntary tremor. “No… no, I have never seen its like. Quite remarkable. The machining is exquisite.” He laughed. “I am a mere toy maker. This is the work of a great engineer. A master.” He fondled the shiny gear. “Might I inquire where you obtained it?”
Conan Doyle did not want to reveal too much, and offhandedly muttered, “I found it. In the street somewhere.”
“In the street?” Jedidiah repeated in a tone brittle with skepticism. “Do you recall which street?”
Conan Doyle shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Just happened upon it in my travels.” He held out his hand. “Well, there you are. Thank you for trying.”
Jedidiah hesitated. “I’d be very interested in finding the maker of these gears, sir. Their use would contribute greatly to my business.”
“Afraid I can’t help.” Conan Doyle kept his hand held out. With obvious reluctance, the toy maker handed the gearwheel back.
Wilde arrived at the counter. “Might I inquire, sir, which are the noisiest toys in your shop?”
“The noisiest?” the shopkeeper repeated, puzzled by the question. He squinted around. “I suppose the tin trumpet and the drum. Between them they make a fair old racket.”
“Splendid,” Wilde said, laying his calling card on the counter. “Please box them up and have them delivered to my home address.”
The bell chimed as Conan Doyle and Wilde left the shop. As soon as the door closed on their backs, Jedidiah rushed from the counter. He flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED and turned his key in the lock, watching through the glass as the two friends stood conversing on the pavement.
From behind, the Ottoman Turk stirred to life in a purr of greased gears. The head lifted, the eyes sprang open and glowed eerily. A jet of steam shot from the automaton’s caved lips. The wooden arm lifted, swung across the chessboard, and tapped the tip of its pipe one… two… three… four… five times upon the chessboard.
“Yes, Otto, you are right,” the toy maker said without turning to look around. “This is a most worrisome development.” His eyes momentarily dropped from the men outside to the calling cards clutched in his trembling hands. “Fortunately, the two gentlemen”—he squinted to read the finely calligraphied names—“Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, Author, and Mr. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, Playwright, have been kind enough to provide me with their calling cards. Now I know who they are… and precisely where they live.”