The Last Adventure of Dr. Yngve Hogalum (The Magnetron Chronicles) (2 page)

“
I began to experience pangs of conscience for my elaborate ruse, but I judged that there was precious little time at this juncture to devote to such ambiguities.”

By evening
’s end, I had succeeded in convincing everyone present that my proposal had been but a prank, thus prompting a fresh onslaught of bitter rebukes and indignant excoriation.  Nevertheless, I felt it necessary to convince them I had no intention of acting upon my plan. By bearing up meekly under the ensuing barrage of condemnation, I buttressed the illusion that my recommendation had been merely a crude and ill-advised attempt at humor rather than a serious course of action. I apologized profusely, laughing off their barbs with as much good temper as I could manage, and at last bade them good-night.

When the house had grown quiet and Mrs.
Mackenzie and Anders had retired for the evening, I stole quietly into Pung’s quarters where he was dozing amidst a patchwork of cats. Rousing him gently, I confided that I would indeed undertake my bold plan, and then swore him to absolute secrecy. I took the opportunity to make the most jovial and light-hearted mention of his badly neglected hedges which now threatened to impede access the grounds and even the house itself. He acquiesced rather unconvincingly with a nod and a peculiar yawning laugh, and again closed his eyes to sleep.

Much of my initial preparation was complete, but
much yet remained.  I slept fitfully but arose early to continue my work.  I instructed Mrs. Mackenzie to tell callers that I was preparing for a conference and could not be disturbed, and worked myself to near exhaustion for several days in the Masterstroke Mill, the most advanced laboratory in my Contrivance Conservatory. I made several trips into town to send telegrams and purchase supplies.  The pieces were beginning to fall into place.

Anders announced suddenly that he had family business to which he must attend.
Before he left for his train, I prevailed upon him to assist in the loading of a large wagon which I had procured in town. True to form, he did not ask the nature of the unusual implements which we were hoisting onto the ungainly conveyance. I could not resist adding with feigned nonchalance that the items would be the object of a presentation I would be giving at my conference, again, to lend further verisimilitude to my deception.

On many
past occasions, Anders had served as an attentive—if indifferent—audience as I practiced aloud my delivery of disquisitions on any number of abstruse topics.  I gather he feared I might press him into such service, as once the wagon was loaded he preemptively reminded me of his tight schedule and left posthaste for his train.

I began to experience pangs of conscience for my elaborate ruse, but I
judged that there was precious little time at this juncture to devote to such ambiguities.  I vowed to forswear such self-appraisal until I had completed the concrete tasks before me, after which time my consummate achievement would render my prior peccadilloes irrelevant footnotes.  For now, the plan was laid. The preparations were concluded. There was nothing but direct and expeditious action to be conducted in single-minded pursuit of a valiant aspiration.

I loaded my
baggage and climbed aboard the wagon, the horse team whinnying in anticipation, and set off at an immoderate canter. The time had come to save Dr. Hogalum from an eternity of oblivion.

“
… I realized I was effectively imprisoned within the confines of my own excavation, but worse, my hired rapscallions were nowhere to be seen.”

How I detest horse drawn vehicles! To burden such graceful creatures in exchange for such an entirely unsatisfactory method of transportation is unforgivably barbaric in my view.
I dared not take a train, however, as my unusual baggage would most assuredly have attracted attention. If only I had secured the support of the Hogalum Society in this endeavor! I might have piloted our electrified
Luftigel
airship to and from Richmond and completed the entire mission in hours rather than days!

I expedited my journey as much as was practica
ble, napping for brief intervals only and stopping but once to dine in loutish and disagreeable haste at an Alexandria restaurant.  By the time I arrived at the Richmond cemetery where Dr. Hogalum was buried, it was as dark as if I were buried there myself.

As previously arranged, I was met by two
raggedy young ne’er-do-wells provided by the gracious gesture of General Southwick, a shadowy but discreet acquaintance of mine.  General Southwick had been a captain in the Confederate Army and was now the leader of The Remarkable Myrmidons, a rebellious faction which refused to acknowledge the South’s defeat in our nation’s bloody civil war. How he had subsequently advanced to the rank of General was a matter I steadfastly avoided as I deemed it potentially awkward.

The General found slavery a revolting exploitation, and shared my conviction that machinery would soon render it obsolete.
Nevertheless, he maintained that the South had developed a culture of chivalry and decorum that could not coexist with the “oppressive regime” in Washington.

Southwick was a brilliant tactician with whom I had played
several exceedingly challenging games of chess by post.  He revealed in one of his letters that he was also a member of the nefarious League of Miscreants, a fact which was already known to me. He was in actuality a distant relative of Eldridge Compost, the founder of the tenebrous League. I thought it unwise to disclose my own relationship with Mr. Compost, preferring simply to maintain a cordial correspondence.

Southwick
said of me that I was a gentleman and quite well educated “for a Northerner.” Suffice it to say the General was accommodating, if occasionally bombastic and provincial, and graciously consented to provide the mercenary youths in discreet service to me.  Thankfully, they were prepared with lanterns to aid in my crepuscular caper.

I cannot say for what reason, but I attempted to converse with the two young rebels as they un
loaded the wagon. I remarked that the epitaph carved into Dr. Hogalum’s headstone, “One World at a Time,” was in fact a Henry David Thoreau citation. An acquaintance had once asked Thoreau if he believed in an afterlife, and he had reputedly quipped, “Oh, one world at a time!” I opined on the irony of Thoreau’s death occurring so shortly thereafter. The young men eyed me with a kind of dispassionate bewilderment and the lesson was abruptly halted.

We worked diligently
assembling the components of my Precision Dig Engine, and once assembled, the Engine made noisy but quick work of the job at hand, spouting jets of the rich soil into a series of tidy mounds. I leapt into the resulting void with a small spade and a large knife to perform the final procedures of the hasty exhumation. Upon completion, I realized I was effectively imprisoned within the confines of my own excavation, but worse, my hired rapscallions were nowhere to be seen.

I scraped and scrabbled at the crumbling walls of my earthen prison to no avail, but I dared not cry out lest I be discovered.
Suddenly, the perplexed and apprehensive faces of the cemetery’s caretaker and night watchman appeared over my limited horizon, thus rendering my earlier reticence pointless. Upon observing my wretched predicament, the caretaker adopted a cloying bravura, tipping his hat and directing his musically accusatory drawl downward at my perspiration-drenched figure. “Well now,” he began with a smirk. “What do we have hee-ah?”

“
I concocted a story, which seemed plausible enough at the time, that I was in fact a victim of treachery by the two young dastards who were now making their escape.”

Peering up from the bottom of the grave, I sensed at once that these two gentlemen clearly intended to derive as much merriment as possible from my inauspicious circumstance. It seemed most likely that their mir
th would culminate in my arrest—a potentiality I could not permit. More so than the indignity of my own incarceration, I desired to avoid any hindrance in the completion of my mission.

I arrived at the conclusion that any encounter with law enforcement would rapidly deteriorate upon the discovery that I now carried Dr. Hogalum
’s head in a burlap sack which hung from my belt. No, police involvement had to be avoided at all costs.

I attempted to misdirect the men by exhorting them to chase down the two young rascals
who had scampered away.  “After them!” I cried, pointing in a random direction. The caretaker calmly inquired whom it was I intended they should follow. I concocted a story, which seemed plausible enough at the time, that I was in fact a victim of treachery by the two young dastards who were now making their escape. The caretaker informed me that he saw no one else and that I seemed to be the only individual present worthy of his attention. The night watchman, however, withdrew his gaze from me and squinted vigilantly at the trees bounding the cemetery’s perimeter.

My mind swirled with a variety of dubious courses of action.
I decided that all avenues of escape began with deliverance from the abysmal hole which I occupied. I attempted a direct approach (continuing in my farcical role as victim) and pleaded to be lifted from the cold, damp grave. Much to my astonishment and consolation the men complied, each of them presenting me with one of their hands in a miraculous display of decency and abject foolishness.

I thanked them lavishly and began to explain my peculiar situation.
I commenced my prevarication by appearing to struggle with the quantity of time which had elapsed since I had been discourteously thrust by rustic scoundrels into Dr. Hogalum’s grave. I reached into my vest as if to consult my pocket watch, but instead extracted my soon-to-be-patented Hypno-chronometer, a device I had constructed with the unwitting assistance of Valkusian. I held up the device and appealed for their attention to it. Once transfixed by the curious patterns of gyrating faceted gemstones mounted within, they were little more than moon-faced somnambulists, quite agreeable in disposition and credulous as toddlers.

I continued weaving my fabricated tale into the mental fibers of their now-receptive psyches.
I will confess here (though Valkusian would skin and bleed me were he ever to know) that I bamboozled the stupefied pair into assisting with the loading of my wagon. What choice did I have?

After I roused them with a snap of my fingers, the men were transformed.
The caretaker’s former swagger was replaced with a deferential manner I found quite pleasant. The night watchman’s respectful empathy for my imaginary ordeal began to grate on me, though, so I bade them good-night.

I had grown weary of
Richmond, and I still had a long return journey to Pennsylvania. My entire laboratory was idled there, stocked and prepared, lacking only the one final ingredient.

“
And yet, if I were wrong, if I did not succeed in my intricate and demanding plan, then I would have succeeded only in desecrating Dr. Hogalum’s remains.”

When I finally returned to my Contrivance Conservatory, it was late the evening of September 23rd.
The house was dark and the shades drawn. Pung had evidently made good on his promise to return to his gardening duties; the hardy japonica hedges had recently survived another hacking butchery under his razor-sharp trimmers. The mutilated plants cast eerie moon-shadows as I made my way up the walk.

Petión had not yet arrived, I deduced.
His presence was always marked by a booming laughter that was as much felt as heard, but there was not a sound emanating from my home. I entered quietly, changed my clothing, and set to work immediately. As I was transferring Dr. Hogalum’s head into a large beaker of a briny preservative I had prepared earlier, Mrs. Mackenzie startled me by entering the Masterstroke Mill unannounced. The poor woman fainted dead away at the sight of the good doctor’s disembodied head, first letting out a shriek that nearly caused me to drop it on the tiled laboratory floor.

I dragged Mrs.
Mackenzie to her room and returned to my Masterstroke Mill. Sitting for many unproductive hours, I ruminated feeble-mindedly about the enormous project ahead and the abomination I had committed in its pursuance. I surmised that Mrs. Mackenzie, once she had regained consciousness, would fire at me a fresh cannonade of disparaging remarks and pointed questions. How could I make her understand that I had already subjected myself to far more intense scrutiny and arrived at a single inarguable conclusion? Justification was pointless, and yet…

And yet, if I were wrong, if I did not succeed in my intricate and demanding plan, then I would have succeeded only in desecrating Dr. Hogalum
’s remains. I had violated the laws of Man and Nature. Would it be for naught? There was no precedent upon which my conviction might repose with any measure of certainty. I had only a profound confidence in my own tenacity. But what if that were to prove inadequate?

Lao Tse, one of Pung
’s ubiquitous cats, jumped up on the table at which I sat and purred loudly. Soon he became infatuated with Dr. Hogalum’s head, which bobbed torpidly in its beaker, and I was obliged to remove the inquisitive creature from the laboratory. I began for the first time to consider reversing course and putting my scheme to rest.

When I opened the laboratory door, I heard what sounded like knocking from down a series of corridors leading from my front door.
I confirmed the egregious hour by my pocket watch and cursed the cheeky oaf who intruded now on my contemplation. I made my way down the halls with my hands balled up into fists. “Who is calling?” I shouted through the closed door.