Carnacki: The Edinburgh Townhouse and Other Stories

by William Meikle

  *

  Churchill was there to meet me. He had grown more stout and portly since our last meeting, and his belly strained rather too tightly against his waistcoat. Compared to his lads around us, he looked out of place on the dock, his walking cane, heavy silver fob chain, tall hat and tails being much too grand, and more suited to the rarified atmosphere of the House.

  Given the abrupt nature of my summoning, I half-expected him to be brusque and off-hand. But he was all 'hale fellow, well met' and made a show of telling his lads that I was an expert, consultant I believe is the word he used, and that I was to be given access to the whole site; nothing was to be kept from me. I still had no idea what was kept in the big shed at this point, but at least I knew now that I had been bought for a reason, for Churchill took my arm and suddenly became quite conspiratorial.

  *

  "It's those bally Huns. They’re at it again," he said as he led me toward the large boat shed and to a small door to the rear of the main building. "They're readying for war, I can feel it in my water. And it’s my job now to do what I can to stop them mastering the seas. It's our best defense, always has been. But it's also our weakest point, for there are far too many miles of coastline all the way up the North Sea that are undefended and vulnerable to a sneak attack. We must show that we are prepared for any eventuality. Britannia must rule the waves again, and we must take charge of the oceans now, before it's too late. Don't you agree?"

  It had sounded more in the nature of a speech than conversation, so I thought it best to be circumspect and muttered my agreement, to which he clapped me on the shoulder. It appeared we were to be friends, for a while at least.

  We came to a halt outside the small door and he turned to me again.

  "Now, Carnacki, my good man, I must ask for your complete discretion on this matter. What you are about to see is the best kept secret in the country at the moment, and we must ensure it remains that way. Apart from my chaps on guard here, there's only ten people know of it. And you are the tenth. The PM knows, but not the cabinet, and not even the King has been told. I know you are a man of your word, so I can trust you to keep this under your hat."

  I nodded in reply, but didn't get time to get a word in edgeways as he continued.

  "And there are to be no Friday night stories told around the fire over a smoke and a brandy; not with this one. It's too bally sensitive to be bandied about, even between close friends and confidantes. Agreed?"

  "Agreed," I replied, although I was feeling increasingly unsure as to what I was letting myself in for. Churchill nodded to the guard beside the door, who opened it to allow us into the cathedral that was the boat shed and reveal Churchill's big secret.

  Of all the things I had considered, of all the things I had expected to see, I think a German U-Boat might well have been near the bottom of the list.

  *

  And yet there it was, like a great russet-colored whale beached up on timbers that held it off the floor and ran along its whole length. The bulk of it almost filled the old shed from the huge riverside doors to the rear where we stood. I could only look at it in awe, and wonder how it had got here, to the East London docks. Churchill answered my question before I asked it.

  "We think she's a prototype for a new class they're developing over there; there's been rumors of such a thing for a year or so now, and it looks like they were right. We caught this one snooping around in the North Sea, up in Doggerland at the shallowest point. Well, we didn't actually catch her. The engineers who've been over her bow to stern tell me that she had some kind of system failure and gave up the ghost all on her own. She was floating on the surface when we got to her, and not a man of the crew left alive inside either. The poor blighters all died of suffocation, or so the doctors assure me."

  He paused, and laughed as if he had made a joke.

  "Gave up the ghost. That's rather apt, I must remember that one."

  "He didn't look inclined to explain that point, so I let it lie and went on to the matter that most concerned me.

  "So you have a German submarine. That's probably good for you and the Admiralty," I replied. "But I fail to see why you need my particular brand of expertise, or where I am being asked to apply it."

  Churchill laughed again, a booming thing that echoed high in the rafters of the shed.

  "That is why you would never make a politician or indeed an Admiral, Carnacki. You have failed to see our tactical advantage here, even when it's right in front of your nose."

  "I'm still not with you," I replied.

  Churchill waved at the length of the submarine in reply.

  "It felt like a godsend, when it turned up like that, almost on our doorstep," he said. "A free, no strings attached, chance to examine our largest adversary's latest vessel. But when I looked at it, I started to wonder. It was a simple question at first, but the implications of it kept making me come back to it again and again.

  "What if we gave them it back? What if we gave them it back with something on board that would make them think twice about ever sending something our way again?"

  I was starting to see some daylight, and I was wishing that I didn't.

  "You want me to mock up some kind of propaganda scene inside the submarine, is that what this is about? I am to make it look like something from beyond killed the crew and that it has been taken over by a spectral presence? Parlor tricks and scare tactics, in other words."

  "You've nearly got it, old man," Churchill said, and suddenly he looked completely serious. "But I do not, under any circumstances, want a mere mock up. There must be no 'parlor tricks' that can be easily exposed as such. I need the real thing. I want this U-boat infested with a particularly vicious spook, I went it sent back to them, and I want to put the fear of God into the bally Hun so that they will never trouble us again."

  *

  It took a few seconds for all of that to sink in. I did not know whether to be simply confused, or completely appalled. In the end, I pleaded unfit for the task at hand.

  "You've seen my methods first-hand, Churchill," I said. "You know my defenses are just that; they are only defensive. I wouldn't know to go about calling up a spook, never mind ensuring you got a nasty, vicious one."

  He didn't reply at first; he looked me straight in the eye for the longest time before speaking in a measured voice.

  "Come, now. That is not strictly true, is it, Carnacki?" he said finally. "I know for a fact you have a wide variety of books on the shelves in your library dealing with such matters. There must be something in those tomes that is of practical use?"

  I did not go into how he might know what I had in my private library. Just as he had seen my methods first-hand, so I had seen his. He had a ruthless streak in him I found hard to like, and a blatant disregard for any piddling matters such as legality and morality if they did not suit his purposes. He did however, have the strongest sense of duty to King and Country of any chap I have ever met, and I could not help but be impressed with the zeal with which he approached the task. But that in itself was not enough to get a job done that I considered to be frankly, impossible. I tried to tell him so in words he might understand.

  "Those are merely books," I said. "It is only research and history. Practically, there is little there of use. Necromancy and demon summoning are only primitive methods of trying to understand the mysteries of the Outer Realms, and I have never encountered a single report that suggests any such attempts were ever successful. Let it go, Churchill. There is no foolproof way of summoning a thing from the Great Beyond, never mind getting one to do your bidding"

  "I am not asking for it to be foolproof," Churchill said. "I am only asking for it to be done. Your country needs you, man. Will you refuse it in its hour of need?"

  He did not know me well enough to realize that appeals to base patriotism wouldn't wash with me. My country was of little consequence compared to the immensity of the Beyond. But, still, it is my country and Mr. Churchi
ll is a most persuasive gentleman.

  I also had a feeling that if I did refuse him, I might not be making a return journey home from this boat shed. I have seen the shark beneath his smile, and his ruthlessness would not allow his secret to be out and abroad and not under his control. I would have to brazen it out with a brass neck until I could get a clearer idea of how I would need to play it to satisfy his demands.

  "What manner of spook do you require?" I asked calmly, as if I knew what I was about.

  *

  He laughed at that, and hid the shark away. He did not fool me though; I knew it still swam in the depths, waiting to surface when required.

  "I knew you were a man of sense," he said. "Come, let's seal our deal over a drink and a smoke and we can discuss it further."

  He led me to a small office that was more like a foreman's hut at the back of the shed beyond the submarine propellers. The space was crammed with carpentry tools, blueprints, cameras and ledgers. And I was not in the least bit surprised to see my box of defenses on the floor amid the clutter, and two tall piles of my books on the table in a space that had obviously been cleared for them. It appeared that Churchill didn't only know the contents of my library; he had the run of the whole bally house.

  At least he hadn't needed to have his chaps rifle my liquor cabinet or smokes drawer. He had a tall travelling valise at his side, one of those expensive leather and brass jobs I've had an eye on for myself. He opened it to expose, not books or clothes, but a well-stocked range of liquor in tall decanters, some expensive crystal glasses, and a long wooden cigar box.

  He winked at me as he saw my astonishment.

  "Perks of the job, old boy," he replied. "One must travel in style, if one must travel at all."

  He poured me some rather fine single malt I hadn't had before from Orkney, and passed me a Cuban cigar that was thicker than my thumb and twice as long, before clicking his glass against mine.

  "To business," he said after swallowing most of his scotch in a single gulp. I merely sipped at mine. I had a feeling I had a lot of work ahead of me, a feeling that was amplified considerably as he outlined his requirements.

  "It has to be strange enough to spook the Huns," he said, "yet not so bloody weird that it'll frighten my men. I'm going to have to have some crew aboard when we take this thing out of here. They'll be needed to get it back into waters where it can be found."

  "And what about the original German crewmen? How will their absence be explained?"

  "Absence?" Churchill said, and again I saw the ruthless shark under the mask. "Oh, they won't be absent. We have them on ice in a shed not a hundred yards from here. When we're ready we'll get them back on board and send them off with their boat."

  I was less and less keen on this whole business by the second, but I was in too far now to back out.

  "I will need to spend some time with my books," I said. "This is not something I can undertake lightly."

  Churchill nodded. He poured another large measure of his scotch and topped up mine, although I had as yet scarcely touched it.

  "I thought you might say that," he said. "Let me know if you need anything. The chaps outside are at our beck and call at all hours."

  He went and sat in the chair across the table opposite me and was immediately lost in his thoughts, a fug of cigar smoke surrounding him like fake ectoplasm at a séance.

  It was time for me to get to work.

  *

  I sipped at the scotch and smoked the cigar as I checked to see what Churchill had thought were the books I might require for the task at hand. Not for the first time, he surprised me with his perspicacity and breadth of knowledge. He had indeed thought of everything, from the Key of Solomon to De Vermis Mysteriis, from several medieval grimoires to my working copy of the Sigsand mss. Of course, as I have said, I considered the bulk of this material to be of historical curiosity value only. I had read them all before, but never with an eye to considering them as in any way practical.

  I took the time it took me to smoke the cigar to clear my mind of my own preconceptions, and then set about looking for something I thought might have a chance of working, given my talent and expertise, and a large amount of good luck. I had a feeling that I was going to need it.

  *

  I ploughed through spell after spell, annoyed at myself for agreeing to a course that took me so far from my natural instincts to defend against the very things I was going to attempt to raise. Much of the kind of ritual spellbinding I was perusing is, of course, superstitious mumbo-jumbo; dead men's hands, blood from a pregnant mare, the skull of a dog killed at a crossroads; all stuff and nonsense. And besides, procuring any such items in time for Churchill's purposes was going to problematic, to say the least. I aimed for something that might be simple, but effective, which proved to be another problem; the old coves responsible for writing these things didn't really go in for doing anything the easy way.

  But finally I settled on something I found in 'The Mysteries of the Worm', a binding spell for summoning a hellish entity that could cloud men's minds and make them go mad at the sight of it. It sounded like the kind of thing that Churchill might be after, and even if it didn't work, I had the passage right there in the book to point at, to show him that I’d at least tried.

  I was, however, not quite stupid enough to walk directly into a dark place and start chanting a centuries old demon summoning ritual. I would need some protection. I got up to check that nothing in my box of defenses had been damaged in its journey here.

  Churchill looked up as I opened the box.

  "Another snifter?" he said, and raised his empty glass.

  "No," I replied. 'But I shall definitely need one when I return. I think I've found what you asked for."

  "And will it work?"

  "We shall know one way or another in a couple of hours."

  *

  It was mid afternoon and already starting to get rather dim inside the big boat shed as I carried my box of defenses up the makeshift gangway that led to the flat, main deck of the submarine. My footsteps clanged on metal and echoed, hollow, like funereal bells, all around me. The chill I immediately felt in my spine did not bode well for my state of mind to deal with what was coming next.

  I considered setting up on that open, flat surface, but Churchill would want this job done properly. I would have to descend into the bowels of the beast so to speak. That was easier said then done, for there were no obvious exterior hatches. To get inside I had to manhandle the bally box up the railed steps of the turret, and back down the other side once I got inside. As a result, I was dashed hot and bothered before I even started to investigate the interior of the vessel.

  I had enough light coming in from above me to open my box and get out the small oil lantern I carry within it. I lit it up, and started to look for somewhere I could set up my circles.

  It was immediately obvious that I was going to have some difficulty. Conditions were cramped inside the submarine, to say the least, and there appeared to be no single spot of floor large enough to contain my defenses. The air inside the vessel felt heavy and slightly warm; it stank, of burnt oil and stale breath. To my left was a tall and wide bank of meters and dials I could make no sense of whatsoever, and to my right long lines of piping and wiring stretched off in both directions down the dark corridors. There was no sound save any that I was making, and even the tiniest movement, the merest scrape of sole on deck, was amplified in whispering echoes that ran up and down the length of the boat.

  My lamp did not penetrate far into the darkness, and I was suddenly all too aware of Churchill's tale of the thirty dead crewmen who had met their end, locked in this metal box under who knows how many feet of cold water. That made my mind up for me. I could possibly have spent more time searching for a better, wider, spot, but now that I was here, I wanted to get things done as quickly as possible and get back to the bottle of scotch and some living company.

  As I ha
ve said, I was in a tight spot. So I improvised. I stood in the main control area, which was slightly toward the bow under the turret, and set up a pair of small circles in chalk that were as wide as I could make them in the space I had available. Then I transcribed the pentagram, noticing that there was now only just, by a matter of inches, enough space for me to stand with my feet together inside the defenses. That, obviously, meant that my valves for the pentacle were much closer together than I would have liked, with only the span of a hand separating them, but I managed to quickly get them aligned in the peaks and troughs of the pentagram, and switched on the battery pack.

  The resultant hum echoed and thrummed through the whole bally vessel, and a wave of cold rushed through the corridors, a cold, damp, breeze as if a heavy fog had descended. My heart thudded faster, and my knees went to jelly before I remembered that I had stood in worse bally spots than this, facing real danger, not imagined spooks. I berated myself for letting the dark and Churchill's story get to me.

  I stepped into the defenses, lit a pipe, and composed myself.

  It was time to begin.

  *

  I will not reproduce the spell that I used here. Even inadvertent reading of these old incantations is thought by practitioners to cause unforeseen and unwanted effects, so it is probably for the best not to tempt fate. Besides, I did not get the opportunity to finish even the first stanza of the chant.