Edward Graves: Temporal Detective
Chapter 7: The Vanishing Detective

“Jess.”

“Jess?”

“Jessica!”

Jessica suddenly became aware of one Jenny Jones, her best friend since high school, who was staring and yelling at her. They had just gone out to lunch together and Jenny had insisted on escorting Jessica back to work. “I’m sorry,” said Jessica, “what did you say?”

Jenny just folded her arms and furrowed her brow in that particular way she always did when considering a problem at hand. Her short brown hair hung down the sides of her face, held in place with a yellow headband which matched her yellow top. Combined with her orange skirt and white knee length socks, it looked like she was rocking the Velma Dinkley look.

“You seem very distracted today, everything alright?”

“I’m sorry” said Jessica apologetically, “I’ve just had some stuff on my mind,” a massive understatement, she thought, “What were you saying again?”

Jenny gave her a worried look. She knew something was wrong but she was too polite to push the matter. She had always been like that; so polite and respectful of other people’s feelings and always wanting to help people. It had been no surprise to Jessica when she had decided to study Social Work at university, so that she might become a Councillor one day.

“I was talking about my Aunt Maggie’s seventy-fifth birthday party, remember? You said you’d help me with the decorations?”

“Oh. Right!” said Jessica. “Of course I remember.” She couldn’t believe that she had forgotten about it. To be fair, she reasoned, she had been dealing with a fair bit over the last few days.

“Good,” said Jenny, “so you’re clear on the details then?”

Jessica nodded her head and gave the biggest smile she could muster. Then she shook her head instead. “Actually, do you think you could run over it just one more time? You know, for safety.”

Jenny rolled her eyes, “You really are off with the pixies today, aren’t you?” She sat herself on the edge of the counter, which Jessica didn’t think her boss would appreciate very much, but she didn’t say anything. “My parents are taking Aunt Maggie away for a cruise on the fifth of next month and they’ll be gone for four days. During that time it’ll be up to us to sneak into her house and unleash some interior design magic. We’ll be like decorating ninjas, hiya!” jenny jumped up and swung her leg into the air, nearly knocking over a display in the process. “Oops, sorry!”

Jessica just laughed; Jenny had always been like this for as long as she had known her. She always seemed like she’d just consumed a bowl of sugar, but a kinder soul one would be hard-pressed to replace. Most people in school had thought she was weird, but then again they had thought Jessica weird too. It was this mutual exclusion by their peers which had forged their friendship in the early days of high school, a friendship which still held strong.

Jenny looked at her watch, ’Right-o, I’ve got to ship off, but I’ll see you at lunch tomorrow. Ciao!” With that she was out the door, running up the street instead of walking. Jenny hardly ever walked, she’d often say that there are too many amazing things to see and do in a lifetime and she couldn’t waste time by walking to them.

Besides a small mid-afternoon rush, the shop was pretty quiet for the rest of the day and at Three O’ Clock Sara, Jessica’s boss left for the day, leaving Jessica alone with the books. As she busied herself with organising the history section, she noticed a book entitled Revolution and Evolution: An English History by E.L.Barnes. She picked it up and looked at it. A thought struck her. She picked up another book, England, 1799-1899- A Complete History by Evelyn Marwood. Before long she had pulled out every book she could replace on English history, specifically ones that covered the nineteenth century.

She sat on the floor, cross-legged, pouring over the books, looking for any mention or allusion to Edward Graves. For fifteen minutes she skimmed through three different books with no results. But then she picked up a book titled Secrets of the Victorian Era. Two chapters in, she found mention of a private detective who had operated out of London in the nineteenth century, who had retrieved the crown jewels after they vanished in strange circumstances in 1869. In the next chapter she found another mention of that same private investigator, this time about his rescue of a kidnapped Danish royal in 1872. The royal had disappeared without a trace, with no ransom requested or list of demands left behind. She couldn’t be certain, but she was sure that Edward was the detective in both cases.

A thought struck her and so she moved to the True Crime section and located a book on great detectives of the past two centuries. She skimmed the table of contents and found something that looked promising: Chapter Four- The Vanishing Detective. She flipped through to the appropriate page and her heart skipped a beat when she saw a grainy old picture of Edward, staring at her from the chapter’s title page. She carefully read through the thirteen page chapter and learned about a detective who had operated out of London in the Nineteenth Century. He had been involved in several strange and unusual cases during the period, including the disappearance of the Crown Jewels in 1869 and the vanishing of a Danish Royal in 1872. It was noted in the book, that most of the cases which he was involved in centred around someone or something of note simply disappearing without a trace. This was one of the reasons why he became known as the Vanishing Detective, the other reason being because he himself would disappear upon closing a case, even before receiving payment. He often left instructions for his payment to be donated to a charity, hospital, workhouse or the like.

“Wow,” said Jessica, “I’ve met a man from a history book. And Mum always said that I wouldn’t meet any nice guys by planting my head in a book all day.

Once she had read and re-read the chapter twice, she put the book back on the shelf, slid behind the desk and hopped on the computer.

“Let’s see what the internet has to offer,” she said to herself.

She went to Google and searched for Edward Graves. Nothing. There were lawyers, students, Facebook profiles, but no Temporal Detectives.

Ah! She thought and tried searching for Edward Graves: Temporal Detective. Still nothing. There were some websites related to a book series called The Temporal Detective Agency and a short film of some kind, but that was it. Jessica decided to give it one last shot and so tapped away at the keys until the phrase ‘The Vanishing Detective’ appeared in the search bar.

The tope result was a website called, www.whoisthevanishingdetective.co.uk. She clicked on it. The homepage was covered with various photos and sketches of Edward that come onto the screen and then vanished again, being replace by new ones. Some photos showed his face explicitly and were relatively well lit, while others showed only the back of a man in a long coat, or a shadowy figure in the distance. “Whoa,” she said and immediately clicked the ‘about’ tab.

‘Who is the Vanishing Detective?’ the description read, ‘In the Nineteenth Century, a mysterious stranger stalked the streets of Queen Victoria’s London. A man of great knowledge and skill, he was called upon by governments and citizens alike to solve the most perplexing mysteries and dastardly crimes of the age. Bizarrely though, he always seemed to disappear at the conclusion of a case and never received payment for his work.’

A little over-dramatic, thought Jessica, but there’s nothing wrong with that. So far this is pretty much the same as what was in the book.

She continued reading. ‘Stranger still, there have been accounts of the same man appearing, albeit less commonly, as recently as 2009 and as long ago as 1786. Many experts, such as myself, believe that the Vanishing Detective is in fact a Time-Traveller, moving through time and correcting the misdeeds of history. Always hidden in the shadows of time, whispers of the Vanishing Detective can be found in a large number of history books. His picture has been found in photos taken over the last one hundred and fifty years and witness testimonies have been made, describing him in detail. These same testimonies have placed the Detective at many historical events, and many not so historical ones. The one thing common in all descriptions of the Vanishing Detective is that he always on the side of the oppressed and always fights for justice. Whoever he may be, there are many who would like to meet him and thank him for all that he has done. If you have information regarding the Vanishing Detective, please contact me.’

She clicked on the photos section and began skimming through the multitude of images. They had all been scanned from the original hard copies by the looks of it. Some were faded while others were in relatively good condition. Many were in black and white or sepia, but surprisingly there were several colour photos too. Suddenly an image caught her eye; she clicked on it to see it full size.

“Wait a second...no!” She couldn’t help but laugh, “That’s fantastic,” she said. She was staring at a black and white picture marked November 2nd 1902. A crowd of people were gathered near a building. At the back of the crowd there was a handsome man in a top hat; Edward for sure. But what was more amazing was who was standing next to him. A small woman with, what Jessica assumed to be red hair, was looking off to the side with a concerned look on her face.

“I can’t believe it,” she yelled. “I’m a part of history. That’s trippy.”

She couldn’t believe it, this was her future. This was her future and it was in the past. It was her future, in the past which she was viewing in the present. It was all so exciting and confusing. She wondered what case they were working on; what was going on out of shot that had her so worried.

She scrolled down to look for more photos of the same incident, but to no avail. Something else caught her eye though. It had to be the best picture of Edward on the site, but also the one that most piqued her curiosity. Edward was staring directly at the camera and he actually looked a few years younger than he did now. He was smiling, which was uncommon in photographs of the era. He wasn’t wearing a hat so she could see his neat brown hair. Next to him was another young man of about the same age. He had dark hair and was dressed in similar Victorian style clothing to Edward. They looked like they were close.

She peered closer at what was scrawled in faded ink on the bottom of the photo: ‘Edward and Alexander- 1870’. I wonder who that is, She thought.

The next morning, her day off, Edward knocked on the door at Nine O’ Clock on the dot, exactly as planned. If everything worked out the way that Edward said it would, then their Timelines would be synchronised now.

She opened the door and he was standing there in a burgundy frock coat, matching waistcoat, brown checkered trousers and a gold cravat with a silver pin. His hat, which could be collapsed, was tucked away inside his coat and his cane was clasped gently between his hands.

“Hey,” said Jessica.

“Good morning, I see that you made it back safe and sound,” he said cheerily.

“Yeah,” she said, “no problems at all.

“Excellent,” he said before picking up a book from one of Jessica’s many bookcases and flicked through the pages. “I didn’t think you would have any trouble.”

“Say,” said Jessica, “just out of curiosity, have you ever heard of ‘The Vanishing Detective’?

“Can’t say that I have,” said Edward. “Should I know him?”

“No, I was just curious, it doesn’t matter. Take a seat, I’ll be ready in a minute.” Jessica gestured to the two seater lounge in front of the entertainment system. Edward kept looking around as he made his way to it and took a seat.

“Nice place you have here,” Edward called out as Jessica walked into her bedroom.

“Thanks,” she said as she clipped two purple studs into her earlobes. She stepped back so that she could see herself fully in the mirror. She had chosen to wear something nice and pretty for her first trip into the future, seeing as she didn’t need to worry about being conservative she thought that she could get away with it. Plus she was meeting a Curator, an important man from the sounds of things, so she wanted to look her best. She wore a pale green dress that billowed out below the thick belt which held it in at her waist, hanging down to just above her ankles. Then a thought occurred to her. “Hey Edward, what will the weather be like?” she yelled.

“We’re going to the 6th of August, 2918, in what is today known as Canada,” bellowed Edward. “It’ll be a bit chilly.”

Jessica looked at her arms, which were exposed except for her shoulders and decided to ere on the side of caution. She pulled on a yellow cardigan and some black stockings and then slipped into a pair of flats.

“Alright, ready,” she said as she emerged from her room and picked her handbag and keys off of the kitchen counter. She looked over at Edward and stopped dead in her tracks. “What are you doing?”

Edward was kneeling right in front of the TV, his coat and cane laying on the lounge. His face was mere centimetres away from the screen. “Fascinating,” he said. “This program seems to be for children...but I replace it utterly terrifying! I mean, look at those eyes, zounds they’re huge! I mean, whose idea was it to superimpose a real mouth and eyes over an animated body? The whole thing just feels...wrong!” Edward gave a shiver with the last word.

Jessica covered her mouth to stop herself from laughing. “Don’t worry, I think that show scares anyone over the age of 10.”

Edward slowly began to rise but he kept his eyes fixed on the screen. “It’s like a train wreck, I want to look away but I just can’t. Oh no! She’s singing and look, now there’s more of them! Jessica,” he whimpered, “I think that they’re stealing my soul!”

Jessica turned the TV off and tried not to laugh. “Kids shows aren’t what they used to be,” she said.

“No,” said Edward as he straightened his cravat, “They certainly are not. I’ve seen some horrors in my time, but that thing was pure evil.”

Putting the evils of modern children’s television aside, Jessica offered Edward a drink, which he declined and then gave him a brief tour of her modest little home. Jessica though that it was rather unimpressive compared to Edward’s sprawling and refined home, but Edward insisted that he found it positively charming.

Then, without further ado, they moved to the most open space in the unit, between the kitchen and lounge room and prepared to Flux. “You really should have a dedicated space for Fluxing,” said Edward, “it’s quite a turbulent process after all.”

“Sorry, but small unit remember,” said Jessica. “So where and when am I aiming for again?”

“9am on the 6th of August, 2918, the Archfield Museum in New Plains, what is today Ontario, Canada. But don’t worry too much, I’ll be here to guide you through Timespace. Ready?”

“Ready,” said Jessica. Then she closed her eyes and focused on the resonance of everything around her. She sensed time flowing through everything and she thought about where and when she wanted to go. Then her body began to vibrate with a blue glow and they Fluxed out of existence.