"Thank you, thank you, Madame!"

Victoria, the newly widowed woman, had a difficult time containing her tears of joy outside of the police station. I offered her a handkerchief which became completely damp in just a few moments.

"I don't know how I can possibly thank you. I don't got much money," she said.

"Payment is entirely unnecessary," Madame Vastra said, "especially because your innocence took no effort to prove on my part. But, if you feel indebted to me, I do require something that you can provide."

"Oh, anything, Madame," the young woman's already gentle and mousy voice was squeaking from happiness.

"Information," Vastra said.

"About Benjy's murder? I don't know how much I can tell you. I got home from the butcher's and found him in the state he was in. Before I got the chance to call 'em meself, the police had arrived and arrested me."

I immediately pulled out my personal notebook that I use to keep track of any facts about a case. Vastra always memorizes everything, but I always like keeping a record of information just in case. I quickly jotted down "police arrived before call could be made. Was there a witness after all?"

"I've already inferred all of the important information of that nature I could from the murder scene," Vastra said with her analytic tone, "the information I am looking for has more to do with your late husband's every day activities: where did he work, who was he close to, those sorts of things."

"Well, Benjy has a few friends at work, but they're all such sweet men. I can't imagine any of them doin' somethin' this horrible. "

"And what exactly was your husband's career?"

"He works...worked down at the steel mill. He did all the heavy liftin' sorta jobs. Though lately…"

Vastra and I waited for the statement to continue.

"Lately, what, Victoria?" Vastra said, hoping to pull an answer from the reluctant woman.

"Well," she said, with a hint of hesitation, "he's been gone for the past month…his boss, Mr. Carthwright, he'd been havin' him and a few other men from the plant searchin' through the woods in the country for some of those meteors that had fallen in that meteor shower. Said somethin' 'bout studyin' 'em to make some kind of new metal."

My pen flew through my notebook to get every bit of information down.

"This wouldn't be the Theodore Carthwright, would it?" I asked.

"The same," Victoria replied.

Vastra and I looked at one another with a worried look. Theodore Carthwright was one of the richest men in London and he owned the largest steel company in the country.

"And what was the last thing your husband did before he died?"

"Well," Victoria said, "he went to the circus."

"The circus?" Madame Vastra never had trouble believing things that sounded impossible, for obvious reasons, but this was the most surprise I had heard in her voice in years.

"It wasn't just any ol' circus though; it was the Phoenix Circus, the one Mr. Carthwright sponsors. He gave Benjy free tickets! We went together, matter of fact."

"Was there anything out of the ordinary there?" Vastra asked, still sounding surprised that this murder was going to involve anything has pleasant and wholesome as the circus.

"Not really," Victoria said, "but there was an odd moment…Benjy went out for a smoke before the show, and when he got back he looked white as a ghost. He barely said a word for the rest of the night, matter of fact."

We said our goodbyes to Victoria, and immediately directed Strax to take us to the circus grounds. By day, the typically fun-filled playground seemed rather drab. The animals in their cages lay still without the audience to stare at them. The massive tent that looked luminescent in the night was filthy and riddled with tears in the sunlight.

"What precisely is the point of a seer-kus?" Strax asked.

"It's meant to be entertaining, Strax," I said, though looking around, I doubted he would believe this.

"I'll never understand you Earthlings and your obsession with entertainment. Fun little toys and flashy things are forbidden on Sontar! After we are first replicated in our clone batch, our rattles are our disintegrator pistols, and our strollers are Class-A Death Cruisers!"

"Yes, Strax, you've told us many times before," I said with a sigh.

"Well, it bears repeating, boy."

Vastra's attention was focused entirely on a lone crocodile sitting in a cage, not moving an inch.

"He's a friendly looking, croc," I said, hoping to bring cheer Vastra's sour face.

"It's an alligator," she said, "the fools have it mislabeled. Is this all that my own people will become if they ever reemerge from the Earth? Subjugated novelties to be gawked at?"

I put my arm around her waist and rested my head on her shoulder. I rarely saw this kind of pain in Vastra. But whenever I did, it was a reminder of why she needed my company as much as I needed hers.

"Focus on the problems we can solve today, remember?"

Vastra allowed her smile to return.

"Of course, my love."

Our trio began to march along the grounds in search of some kind of clue as to whom or what might have perpetrated the grisly murder. At the end of the rows of animal cages, just before the entrance to the main tent, there was a smaller tent with a poster pinned to its flaps. The poster featured a painting of a snarling gorilla with massive fangs with red letters sprawled along the top that read "QUAKE BEFORE THE TERROR OF THE JUNGLE!"

"Now that looks like a worthy opponent for combat!" Strax said while looking at the poster.

"The odd thing about all this," Vastra said, surveying the grounds, "is that no one is here. Not a single animal tamer, or clown, or…anyone! It's as if this whole place has been abandoned."

Vastra circled the main tent and found a plain wagon. We approached it carefully, with Strax keeping an eye behind us for any possible trouble. Vastra peered into one of the wagon's windows, while I peeked through the other.

"Anything?" she asked.

"Nothing," I answered.

"Then if you'd be so kind?"

I pulled a pair of thin wires from bag and slowly slipped them into the lock of the wagon's door.

"Damn your picks, I can simply bash the door down with my skull!"

"Strax, your suggestions are always appreciated, but for the time being, we'll save your skull's destructive prowess for when it is truly needed."

"Very well, I shall continue to look out for a target to destroy!"

A small click from the lock told me the door was now open.

"Nothin' to it," I said.

Vastra and I walked slowly into the wagon, keeping our hands on our swords in case of danger. Though it seems foolish now, the wagon was so small, that anything dangerous would have popped out almost immediately. Everything seemed normal, so we began to search through the piles of paper sitting on the desk near the door. Again, nothing strange, or at least nothing that would incriminate anyone for the crime of murder. We were almost ready to stop looking when, while sliding my hand along the bottom of the desk, I felt a round circle of metal with a sliver that cut it down the middle.

"Mum, there's a lock under here," I crawled under the desk, removed my lock pick, and immediately set to work on this new challenge. This one took a few more seconds than the door, but I heard the same satisfying click. A hidden drawer popped out from the bottom of the desk. From it, Vastra pulled a rolled up blue print. She unfurled it with flair and flattened it out on the surface of the desk. The drawing was a pale outline of separate parts that, when put together, would resemble a metallic man. Each of the limbs had specific notes as to how they should be built to provide proper mobility. This wasn't meant to be a wind-up toy or a new attraction. This was meant to be an actual moving metal man. Scrawled across the top of the page was a title with a word that I didn't recognize from any language:

PHASE 1 PROTOTYPE- NESTENE AUTOMATON

"Jenny," Vastra rolled up the blueprint and headed for the door, "we need to find out who drew this blueprint. Immediately."