Mrs Darcy vs The Aliens

Wickham looked at the contraption that H had brought into the office. It was a rectangular polished mahogany box, around four feet high, with ornate brass fittings. On the top was a large red button and on the side was a crank handle.

“Ready?” said Sir Humphry Davy.

“I suppose so,” said Wickham. “Are you sure this thing’s safe?”

“Safe as houses,” said H.

Yes, but your last house burnt down a few weeks ago, didn’t it, thought Wickham, although he kept this to himself.

“Here we go then,” said H, pressing the button on the top. At this, the top of the box divided into four sections and a panel containing several dials, a pair of regulators and a whole array of knobs and switches sprang out. He reached down and gave the crank handle a couple of turns and Wickham heard the unmistakeable sound of a steam engine starting up. The regulators began to spin furiously in opposite directions and the dials started to flicker backwards and forwards.

“So far, so good,” said H. He leaned over and turned one of the knobs a few degrees clockwise. A whistle blew, and a faint wisp of rose-coloured gas wafted from a vent at the back of the box. If Wickham had had to think of a name for the precise colour, he would have called it “steam pink”, but he didn’t have time to do this because the box had begun to shake from side to side in an alarming manner.

“H, are you sure – ”

Several of the dials now began to whizz round at a frantic speed, and then the right-hand regulator went “ping” and flew off, embedding itself in the ceiling. The rose-coloured steam had now turned into belching clouds of black smoke and there was a strong smell of burning in the room.

“H, I really think – ” said Wickham, before he was overcome by coughing.

One of the brass handles on the front of the box now shook itself loose and narrowly missed Wickham’s ear. An alarm bell began to ring somewhere and a slick of oil began to seep out of the bottom. The atmosphere was now positively toxic.

Then without any warning, everything went quiet and the air cleared. The machine was quietly humming to itself and the remaining regulator was whirring around happily. H smiled at Wickham. “Forgot to activate the dampers,” he said, pointing to one of the switches.

“Ah … good,” said Wickham, gasping for breath. He watched as H opened up a compartment on the front of the box and withdrew a long length of hose with a funnel on the end.

“H? What on earth is that?”

“Ghost detector. Uses the power of the steam engine to generate ether waves that amplify the presence of supernatural objects. Damn clever if I say so myself.”

“Fine. Fine. Well, go ahead, then,” said Wickham.

“I already am,” said Sir Humphry, waving the end of the hose in the direction of Maberley’s desk. “Wickham, would you mind awfully flicking the third switch on the left, please?”

Wickham looked at H in horror. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” H paused, and then hit the side of his face with his hand. “Sorry, old man. The fourth one. Yes, definitely the fourth one. Third one would have blown us all to kingdom come.” He seemed to find this incredibly amusing.

Wickham leaned towards the machine, keeping as much distance as he could between it and himself and then flicked the switch. He leapt back as quickly as he could, but then felt a little foolish as nothing untoward happened after all. Then he turned and looked at where H was pointing his device. The image of a woman was forming in the air next to the desk: a young woman, dressed in shabby clothes but with an air of wounded pride and self-respect about herself.

“’Bout bloody time, too, Mr Wickham,” she said.