The Finality Problem

by G. S. Denning

  “All right,” said Bradstreet. “But what?”

  This, I deemed, was my signal to improvise. I found a disused old prison bench and had Bradstreet’s constables knock two of its legs off. Once we had it fairly steady on its remaining two legs and one side angling down to the floor, we constructed a set of leather straps that would hold Hugh Boone on his chest (well… and leg) with his head on the downhill side.

  “There,” I told Bradstreet, when we had Boone in position. “That should help the mucous drain down and out of his mouth, rather than back into his lungs. You must check him frequently to make sure it does not stuff up his mouth or nose. If you tip him upright every now and then, he should be able to swallow it. Give him a few sips of water once an hour or so.”

  “Awwww, come on now,” Bradstreet protested. “You can’t expect us to do all that!”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have arrested him, then.”

  “But… how long must this go on?”

  I shrugged. “Until he is either freed or hanged for the murder of Neville St. Clair. Yet if you are building a case wherein you propose Hugh Boone overpowered and killed a fit fellow in his thirties, I might suggest that a successful resolution is some ways off. Now, good day to you. The hour is late—or perhaps early—and I have yet to return my new friend Isa Whitney to his wife. Ah! I just realized: I do hope neither he nor the cabman have woken up.”

  “Or died,” Holmes added.

  “Egad! I hadn’t thought of that!”

  “Ha! And you’re the doctor!”

  Luck was with us, however, and—aside from some added weariness in the corners of Best Horse’s eyes—we found our companions in much the same state as we’d left them. As soon as we were settled in and headed west, I opined, “A very strange case indeed, Holmes.”

  He said nothing, but cleared his throat. Guiltily cleared his throat, it seemed to me.

  “Holmes?”

  “Um… yes, Watson?”

  “Holmmmmmmmmmmes?”

  “All right! Fine! Fine, damn it! It’s just that, as you said that last bit, it sort of occurred to me that it’s actually more like two cases and—though I certainly do enjoy this one, because of all the wonderful murders and twisted-up men—the other makes me a bit uncomfortable!”

  “The other?”

  “Yes! The smiff!”

  “The what?”

  “The smiff!”

  I stared at him levelly for a few moments.

  “Which is a word I’ve recently made up,” he explained, “to mean something like ‘a rather worrisome weak spot in the borders of our reality, through which significant quantities of magical/demonic energy seem to be leaking and for which Watson and I may be largely responsible’.”

  “Oh? I am responsible?”

  “As a matter of fact, you are. I don’t suppose you remember that little dust-up I had with Hugo Baskerville about two years ago?”

  “You mean the night he tried to bend all my bones out through my skin? Yes, I seem to recall it.”

  “And do you also recall that the particular danger that evening was that my battle with Sir Hugo took place upon the convergence of five great ley-lines?”

  “Again, I do.”

  “And…” Here Holmes let a particularly worried expression cross his face. “Do you remember that moment where it seemed like at least one of them sort of broke?”

  I thought back to those horrifying moments as the other worldly light of the lines reached its straining point, to the terrible cracking sound and the sudden increase in the power of all Baskerville Hall’s ghostly inhabitants.

  “Ohh… Now that you mention it… yes, I do.”

  “Well one of those lines is just knackered, I’m afraid. Specifically, the one that takes its genesis at Baskerville Hall and runs across England, all the way from Dartmoor to the alley behind The Bar of Gold, where it abuts the Thames. And where now—unless I miss my guess—there is a bit of a smiff!”

  “How is that my fault?” I demanded. “You were the one fighting Sir Hugo!”

  “Yes. And I do admit my part in the fiasco,” said Holmes. “However, I would never have been there in the first place if my smart friend Watson had done his damned smart-person job and solved the case and outmaneuvered Sir Hugo and put everything to rights before I even got the chance to travel down to Dartmoor and arse everything up, now would I? So, perhaps a slight display of contrition might reflect well on your character!”

  He threw his arms across his chest and settled in to a guilty sulk. Holmes was a good man at heart—in point of fact, a very good man, better by far than me. Yet he was also the single greatest threat to the continuation of our world and he knew it. The hurt and frustration it caused him was a terrific burden, especially in moments such as these where the true cost of his failings was made clear to him. I gave him a sad little smile.

  “What’s to be done, Holmes? How can we put it right?”

  “I’m not convinced that we can, Watson. Think of floating in a boat with a thin iron hull and a cannonball hole in the side. You could patch the hole, if you could get some extra iron. But the only place to take it from is some other area of the ship. And even then, the patch would be rudimentary and not come up to the quality of the original hull—which you would have just holed again to attempt the repair. To say it is a zero-sum game would be over-optimistic. So far as I can tell, it is nothing but a losing gambit.”

  “Oh. So, how should we proceed?”

  “Well we at least ought to stop everybody mucking about with the smiff and using it for mischief. By the Twelve Gods, Watson, did you see what they were doing with that opium?”

  I nodded. “I did not understand, but I certainly saw. Now that I know the whole story, it would seem they are thrusting the opium out the hatch in their back wall and into the smiff, letting it absorb demonic energies, then distributing it to hopeless drug-heads like Isa here and recording the prophetic observations they issue once they have smoked it.”

  Holmes gave a sad sort of shrug to show he concurred, then wondered, “What should we do?”

  I rubbed at my eyes. “Nothing tonight, I should think. No, you must give me time to reflect on this whole mess for a while. For now, I should get this idiot Isa back home and make sure our cab driver is not dead.”

  Holmes nodded at the wisdom of this and called, “Best Horse, stop here, if you please.” Once the carriage halted, Holmes jumped down to the street and said, “Think on it, Watson. If you have any breakthroughs, you can reach me at 221B.”

  “Actually I can’t, Holmes. It seems to have become invisible to me.”

  “Well, send a telegram then. And now, good night; I can make my way home from here.”

  “Holmes,” I said in my most warning tone, “no teleporting.”

  He gave a wounded sniff. “You are no longer the boss of me, Watson.” He then took a moment to digest his own words and added, “I mean… and you never were.”

  “No teleporting.”

  “Fine,” he said, and turned on his heel. He headed off up the street in the direction of 221B or another cab, whichever should come first. This left me free to slap Isa Whitney in the face over and over, until he at last could be cajoled to tell me his address. Once this was duly related to Best Horse, I settled in for the ride and to reflect on the night’s events. How should I proceed on the morrow? How could I shed light onto the strange disappearance of Neville St. Clair, the one-time writer who had once rocked London with his exposé on profitable beggars and who had now, perhaps, been done in by one? I would start, of course, with the more bizarre aspects of the case. Most notably, the ladder Holmes had mentioned. Why would a man with legs as useless as Hugh Boone’s ever request a ladder be attached to his quarters?

  Oops! Damn! The ladder!

  I had it.

  I’d solved it.

  Strange, but in that moment of triumph I felt a profound disappointment. Was my return to adventure to be so brief? No back-and-forth with the fo
rces of evil? No monsters to slay? No further exploration of the darker corners of the world, whence to shed my light?

  No? I just solved it by myself sitting in a cab?

  Ah, well… There was nothing for it now but to try and make it seem impressive to Holmes in the hopes he might find use for me again.

  Nobody answered the bell at Isa Whitney’s house. Perhaps they were all abed. Or perhaps he’d slurred his words in his opium-induced stupor and I was ringing the bell of a perfect stranger. Whatever the case, I’d had quite enough of young Isa. I just left him in a bundle on what I hoped was his doorstep and hastened back to the cab. From there, I had Best Horse drop me at my own home. As we parted ways, I took the largest bill I had—a fifty-pound note—folded it, and tucked it into Best Horse’s harness. “That is for you, because you are amazing,” I told him, then jerked my head at his driver. “Don’t let him have any of it.”

  I returned to my own quarters to find Mary gently snoring in our bed. (Try telling her that, though. No torture man has devised could ever drive Mary to admit she snores.) I dearly wished to join her—compelled not only by my own weariness, but the strange pull of Holmes’s matrimonial curse. But no. I had work to do.

  I pulled my little side table up to Mary’s side of the bed, so I could be near her—or even reach out and touch her if my Mary-withdrawal symptoms became too acute. There I sat, drafting telegrams—one for Holmes, one for Bradstreet, one for Grogsson, and one for Mrs. St. Clair. When the light of day was sufficiently bright, I gave them to Joaquim and asked that he take them to the local telegraph office and send them.

  Then, since I realized how well that was likely to turn out, I took them back and went to send them myself.

  * * *

  Four hours later, I stood leaning against a hired cab on Upper Swandham Lane with Warlock by my side. Lilly St. Clair sat hidden in the carriage behind us, with the door closed and the window curtains drawn.

  “So you think you’ve got it, do you, Watson?” Warlock piped.

  “I do. It was the ladder that cracked it.”

  “The ladder?”

  “Yes. You told me Hugh Boone had one installed, leading from the window of his beggar’s roost down to the alley behind The Bar of Gold. Now, what do we know is in the alley?”

  “The smiff?”

  “Indeed, the smiff. And how long has it been there?”

  “About two years, I should say. Since our little misfortune at Baskerville Hall.”

  “Just so. Two years—a timeframe that also happens to correspond with Neville St. Clair’s last successful article. Recall that roughly two years ago he wrote an exposé on the profitability of begging—provided the beggar was hideous enough—and that shortly after this article was published, his family’s finances took a turn for the better.”

  “What is the significance of that?” Holmes wondered.

  “Perhaps nothing,” I said. “But perhaps more clarity shall come once our police friends have done their work. If I am not mistaken, that loud grunting and the sound of twisting metal indicates that Grogsson is seeing to the first task.”

  Sure enough, in only a few moments the hulking figure of Torg Grogsson came skulking around the corner on the far side of The Bar of Gold, dragging a twisted iron ladder beside him.

  “All done, Torg?”

  “Yah. Laddur gone. Can’t use dat side of alley. I put in rocks ’n briks ’n haf a cart I fownd.”

  “You found… half a cart?”

  “Nah. But horsie got away wif half.”

  A lucky thing for the horsie in question, no doubt.

  Warlock made a face and wondered, “Um, Watson… why did you have Torg block off an alleyway and tear down that ladder?”

  “Because now there is only one way back to the smiff and—more notably—one way away from it. An able-bodied man near the smiff would once have been able to escape out the other side of the alley. Either that or climb the ladder into the upper story of The Bar of Gold. Now, he could only emerge from the alley along the Thames side and onto the bank just before us.”

  “Which is important, because…?”

  “Because Inspector Bradstreet is about to release his prisoner. Look, here he comes.”

  I am not sure that punctuality could normally be counted amongst Inspector Bradstreet’s good qualities, yet I know this much: he was wise enough not to keep Hugh Boone one second longer than he must. Thus, just at the appointed minute, a Black Mariah appeared, trundled up to the bank of the Thames, reversed itself, and stopped. Two constables swung open the back door, from which Inspector Bradstreet promptly ejected Mr. Boone.

  “Um… yep… you’re free to go,” he mumbled, then beckoned to the constables to get the bloody hell out of there.

  Boone’s confusion lasted only for a moment. When he realized where he was, a sudden, desperate hope grew in his eyes. Weak as he was, he began dragging himself feebly towards the corner to the back alley. He had one arm that was in decent enough shape to pull him along, aided by strange little kicks from the leg which bent across his chest. By God, I do not think I have ever felt such revulsion, wed to such pity. How I yearned to run to him and help him to his goal, if only to stop this horrid spectacle.

  Instead, I knocked upon the carriage window. Presently Mrs. St. Clair opened the door and asked, “Yes?”

  “I wonder, is that your husband?” I asked.

  “Eugh! No! Of course not!”

  “Then we must be patient, I fear. I apologize for disturbing you.”

  As the door closed, Holmes gave me a strange look. “We know who that is, Watson.”

  “Yes, the finest beggar in all London,” I said with a smile.

  “Where he go?” Grogsson wondered.

  “Ah! Now there is an intelligent question! He is headed for the smiff.”

  “But why?” asked Holmes.

  “Why, indeed? And while we are at it, why would a man who cannot walk require a ladder to his rooms? Why would he even take rooms on a second floor?”

  Holmes and Grogsson both shrugged.

  “Because sometimes he can walk,” I said. “The other useful clue was something else you said, Holmes. You reminded me what occurred at the Battle of Baskerville Hall.”

  “We cracked the world open?”

  “No, not that. What Sir Hugo did to me. You reminded me of the effects of magic on rigid biological materials—how it is especially adroit at bending wood and…”

  At that moment, a hideous screaming rang out from the alleyway.

  “…bone,” I concluded.

  As I spoke the screams began to change. An element of relief crept into them, until finally, they resolved into maniacal laughter.

  I turned to Grogsson. “In a few moments, Torg, a gentleman is going to come around that corner and try to make it into the front door of The Bar of Gold. I wonder if you would be so kind as to apprehend him for us.”

  “Shure.”

  “Unharmed, please.”

  “Awwwwww!”

  Torg shuffled dutifully off. A few moments later, a figure emerged from the alleyway and clambered towards us. He was trembling and disheveled, dressed only in amazingly dirty underpants. His build was on the slight side, but otherwise totally normal. He made a weak sort of progress towards The Bar of Gold, until Grogsson bounded from the shadows and caught him up in both hands. The poor fellow punched and kicked and screamed, but Torg took little notice. He turned and trundled back towards us, prisoner in hand.

  I gave a second knock upon the carriage window and, when the door creaked open, asked, “Mrs. St. Clair, is that your husband?”

  She gave a gasp of horror at the bedraggled man and cried, “No! My husband would never… wait… Neville, is it you? Neville?”

  She leapt from the carriage and ran straight towards him, calling, “Neville, what has happened? Why do you look like that?” Then, as she came within a dozen feet, she pulled up sharply and added, “Why do you smell like that?” She stood vacillating. Cle
arly, she was relieved to have her husband back and happy to see he was all right. Well… mostly all right. But the situation was, shall we say, questionable at best, and her expression repeatedly edged towards one of deep suspicion.

  Neville St. Clair did not help matters. “Honey! Hello! Um… good to see you!” he stammered in a most unconvincing tone.

  Lilly St. Clair’s face hardened. “Neville, what is going on here?”

  “Erm… could we, um, talk about it later? Perhaps after this nice gentleman puts me down?”

  “Right now, Neville!”

  “But really, darling, it’s not the sort of thing one discusses in polite company. Especially if any of these gentlemen are police. Are any of you police?”

  “Yup,” said Torg.

  “Perhaps I can be of service, Mrs. St. Clair,” I said. “Two years ago your husband was in this very neighborhood, researching his article on begging. Somehow or other, he discovered the smiff.”

  “The what?” said Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair together.

  Holmes laughed. “Oh, it’s a word I made up, meaning ‘a weird little area where magic leaks into our world and bends any nearby people into horrid shapes’.”

  “Ah,” said Neville, guiltily. “That’s a good word for it.”

  “Thank you,” said Holmes, beaming with pride.

  I continued, “Somehow or other, your husband began experimenting with the smiff, bending himself into hideous shapes—”

  But St. Clair cut me off. “I wasn’t experimenting! I was ambushed! There I was, walking down this glum little alley—horrified, because my article wasn’t going as I wanted. None of the beggars would talk to me; they didn’t trust me. So then I got some rags and tried it myself, thinking I could frame the article as a day-in-the-life-of story. But I must have done it poorly, for all the beggars and the locals knew I wasn’t really the genuine article. I got nothing. I was marching down that alley on the very point of giving up, not paying much attention to my surroundings. Suddenly, I stepped into… something… Oh, God! My head! It filled with a thousand voices, telling me secrets! Whispering! Screaming! My limbs were wracked with pain. I turned to run, but I fell down into the mud. Half running, half crawling, I made it back to the street. Only then did I see that my arm had twisted round behind my back and up over the opposite shoulder. And one of my legs was bent out sideways, which was why I fell when I tried to run. I cried out for someone to help me, but the first fellow whose attention I got just jerked back and said, ‘Jesus! Would you look at this one, Charlie?’”