Gumshoe is based off of a lego guy and some very real Sherlocks.

He was also missing a hand. In lieu of that slightly necessary appendage, the peculiar trespasser had at the end of his left arm a tarnished copper contraption which looked like the spawn of a pair of tongs and a clockwork meat tenderizer. It was scratched and dented by time, and looked very complicated. This man was more than met her eye.

“Oh!” gasped Jemima after seeing the portly gentleman’s prosthetic. She had read about wizards and warlords with such thing-a-ma-bobs*, and was hoping beyond hope that the very scoundrel she had come across was one such terrifying (and therefor exciting) individual. “Sir,” she asked, “might you be a wizard? Or if not that, maybe a warlord? The very notion! Might you-“

“Hold up,” said the mustachioed man with a touch of lingering pain. “Wait just one second. Who the devil are you?”

Jemima was quite frazzled by this rude interruption of wonderment. She began to answer, a halted sound much like a toad tired of croaking, but remembered something. She was the interrogator, and he was the suspect. She then, with an air of put-on confidence, asked him who he was, and just how much of a reason did he have for barging into her property, and ended with a curt “sir,” in a manner steeped in vicious propriety. The portly gentleman eyed Jemima suspiciously, as if to say she would regret being so blunt someday but he wasn’t quite sure when exactly. Then he humphed approvingly, such as to say that girls should be much more proper, but he liked it better when they weren’t. (This vexed poor Jemima all the more. She had a particular abhorrence to self-contradiction.)

“Fair enough,” The gentleman growled, stroking his yellowing mustache. “seein’ as I don’t have much of a invitation. Detective Gumshoe Burns, at yer acquaintance, madam.” He steeped this last word in enough causticity to erode the Rockies. This man was beginning to look dangerously like a kindred spirit. Jemima was just beginning to comment on what kind of a ridiculous name as “Gumshoe” was when she remembered a headline from The Times in years past:

DETECTIVE ELLIS “GUMSHOE” BURNS CRACKS THE LE REINE TOMB PUZZLES*

This revelation was so remarkable that Jemima, being a lover of such things, was inclined to trust it. “Why, you’re that American gentleman who finished the Reine Sorcière enchantments, aren’t you?” Jemima squeaked. “How thrilling! I tried and tried to unravel those last blas-” Jemima halted here: her father disapproved of oaths, but Detective Burns grunted, “I’ve said worse.” and she smiled. She approved of this man and his growling. “Anyway, I tried so hard to crack those last locks*. What did you use? LeFoux Dèchiffer?* Tueur D’ènigmes?* Or did you use any spell at all?” Detective Burns was trying his very best not to stare. This child, a mere girl, was rambling on about spells he hadn’t known about at thirty. He was obviously at the right house. Detective Burns then replied that he had indeed used a mix of LeFoux and Tueur, but how on earth did she know, and was she by any chance a Duggins? Jemima certified this with much pride.

* The wizards and warlords Jemima was thinking of were most likely Götz of the Iron Hand and Marcus Sergius. Götz von Berlingen was a German imperial knight, poet, and minor sorcerer during the sixteenth century, and was known to have summoned a spirit to devise a blueprint for a superior prosthetic hand. Marcus Sergius was a Roman General famed for his fighting spirit and metal hand.

*The Le Reine Tomb Puzzles, or, more accurately, the Reine Sorcière Enchantments, were set place on the tomb of Morgana le Fey, one of the greatest sorceresses of all time, in the French countryside. They ranged from Confounding spells to large jigsaw puzzles, and to say that Gumshoe Burns solved all of them would be an overstatement. Gumshoe solved the last forty-two (some of the hardest) out of two-hundred and thirty-seven over the course of two years, which is one of the greatest achievements of the nineteenth century.

*Jemima Duggins solved the impressive amount of nine of of the Reine Sorcière Enchantments. Her father solved fifteen.

*Henri LeFoux was a modern French wizard and puzzle-maker who had the unfortunate habit of making puzzles so complex he couldn’t solve them, so he invented a rather good spell to undo them.

*The Tueur D’ènigmes, or “Riddle Slayer” is a spell invented by Merlin to crack riddles that he couldn’t do by himself. Needless to say, he was a terrific cheater.