Steampunk Detectives Character Contest

Northeast of London, Summer 1860:
Thomas Wayne Hildebrand sired two sons at the same time with two women. The women were twin Prussian dancers and they abandoned Thomas with the boys before their first birthday. Thomas had inherited an old manor house with a small estate surrounding it from the Wayne family. He lived there alone until the Prussians showed up. Now he shared it with two infant sons: Clancy and Henry.

Thomas hired a Russian nanny/maid, Tetanya, to help raise the boys and she came with a Russian brother, Boris, who help manage the estate. Thomas had met Boris during his service for Her Majesty in Afghanistan. Boris was there as an adviser to the Crown on the steam powered, tracked, vehicle.

The boys grew up looking like Thomas with square head, a long aquiline nose, and a broad jaw. By 18 they were 2 inches taller than their 6 foot father sharing his broad shoulders and narrow hips. They looked like twins from a distance and even sounded alike. The most obvious difference was their eyes. Clancy had pale blue eyes and Henry had black eyes. Henry’s iris was so dark that the pupil was indistinguishable.

They learned much from their father, Tetanya and Boris. History, tactics and marksmanship from their Father. Math, engineering and science from Boris. Tetanya tutored them in art, languages, reading and writing. She also taught them social skills.

Boris had converted a barn in to a steamworks tinkers workshop and taught the boys all he knew about mechanics and steam power. They built machines for the estate and neighboring estates. Almost 25% of the income to the estate came from these machines.

At 19 the boys joined her majesties Engineering corps. They were supposed to be sent to a research and development facility in Wales but something mysterious happened to the paperwork and they were both sent to India.

They had many adventures in India, beginning with the airship delivering them to their assignment getting shot down over the Arabian peninsula. They served with distinction and were rewarded by being sent to South Africa (where their airship, once again, got shot down crossing the Arabian peninsula.) Eventually they reached the British's South African Engineering corps and created new machines to fight the Boers with. They picked up the nicknames Clamor and Bang for the racket their machines made when in use. As in "Oy, what's Clamor and Bang sent us this time? I swear I can hear it 3 miles away"

After 7 years of service they left the corps and returned to England. When they returned to the Hildebrand estate they found it almost in ruins, Boris gone, their father near death from some mysterious disease and Tetayna in obvious pain herself but unable/unwilling to tell them what happened. She was trying to focused on nursing their father.

Upon investigation they found that 6 months early a group of 10 mounted, armed men stormed the estate in the middle of the night. Their father and Boris put up a grand fight but were overwhelmed. Their father got into a sword fight with the leader and took a wound that festered. Tetanya was raped and beaten almost to death. They took Boris and made ominous threats about killing anyone that went looking for them or Boris. They spoke with a foreign accent, after some probing it turns out to be a Bulgarian accent.

Without even speaking about it they knew they would find these men, get Boris back and deliver retribution on them. For the first time in their lives the boys decided to split up. Clancy would stay and get the estate back in order and get some medical care for their father and Tetanya while Henry would try to find out what was going on.

It took only a month and a half to get the estate back to proper state, Thomas and Tetanya on the mend and able to talk without fear. Clancy and Henry looked on Tetanya as their mother and they loved her and Boris as much as their father.

Clancy met Henry in Paris 4 months after they returned. Henry had found two of the men and had wired Clancy. The took the pseudonyms of Clangor and Hiss when they went after these men. It did not take much persuasion for the two men to give up information on their compatriots. The job had been to get the Prussian engineer and get out. The fighting, raping and ransacking were the 6 Bulgarians in the group. The men kept referring to them as wild animals.

They eventually found the men, rescued Boris (who was doing forced steam power engineering for a secret Prussian group) kill the Bulgarians and the leader, who was a Prussian. They returned to the family estate to find their father and Tetanya healthy again and the estate functioning normally. Boris went back to his old job.

The boys, at loose ends, decided they liked the sleuthing they did to find Boris and decided to head into London and become private detectives. They decided to use the name Clangour and Hiss Detective Agency.