by Marvin Kaye
“Watson.”
He dropped my name into the silence like a stone into a still pond.
I stepped to Holmes’s side.
“This chair is occupied,” he said, and lifted the lantern.
Light spilled over the back and arm of the chair, picking out a hairy thigh, a wiry forearm, an unmoving chest bound by thick ropes. The poor wretch in the chair was as naked as the day he was born.
“Good Lord.” I took an involuntary step back.
“What is it?” McMahon walked around us, his coat brushing close to the chair.
“Have a care, man!” I cried. “For the love of Heaven, do not touch it!” I leapt forward and dragged him from the dreadful thing.
Holmes frowned. “Watson?”
“Look!” I said, taking the lantern from Holmes and holding it high.
McMahon gasped, and even Holmes’s vaunted self-control wavered. The man’s milky, sightless eyes were red and swollen, his cracked lips stretched in a parody of a smile. Large, black swellings clustered at throat, beneath his arms, around his groin. The remainder of the cadaver’s skin was waxy and tinged with green.
“The black death,” I whispered. “Impossible.”
Holmes took the lantern from my nerveless fingers and moved to the other chairs.
“He is not the only victim, Watson. Look here.”
An old man sat in the next chair. He was also naked and bound, and displayed the hideous symptoms of the plague. Another corpse occupied the last chair, a woman, as unclad and marked with corruption as the others.
“This house has been vacant for over a hundred years.” Disgust and pity warred in McMahon’s expression. “Have they been here all this time?”
“They cannot be the original plague victims,” I replied. “Even in this cold, decay could not be postponed for long.”
Holmes nodded. “Less than a week?”
“Three or four days at the outside, but I would have to examine the corpses to make certain.”
“There is no need for that.” Holmes spoke with conviction. “Although intellectually satisfying, I doubt that identifying a definitive time of death is important for these poor devils.”
A sudden tremor shook the building as the huge, groaning cacophony began again. The furniture rattled, and we stumbled over the vibrating floorboards as we dashed to the corridor. A crack across the ceiling lengthened and widened, sending plaster dust drifting down.
“This way,” Holmes cried over the din, heading toward the back of the house. More plaster fell from the walls and ceiling, as the house fairly quivered from the noise. As had happened before, shrieks and moans eventually resolved into the sound of bagpipes played by some monstrous hand.
Holmes gestured toward a small door at the far end of the hall. McMahon and I followed close behind. I am not a coward, but the circumstances so unnerved me that I slipped my hand into my coat pocket and grasped my revolver. Stopping before the door, Holmes closed the shutters on the lantern until only a sliver of light was visible. The noise increased as he opened the heavy oak, until I thought I should go mad from the clamour in my head. The lantern light was barely adequate to see the narrow stone steps leading down, the centre of each tread worn into a deep curve. We steadied ourselves by resting our hands on the cold, smooth stone walls, and as we descended, a rosy glow grew in the depths.
Holmes stepped into the cellar and the noise stopped, the sudden cessation almost as painful as the din itself. My ears rang.
“’Ands in the air,” commanded a deep voice. Even those few words marked him from Whitechapel, not Scotland.
McMahon gasped. Holmes slowly raised his hands, still holding the lantern. I remained on the stair and could not see the man who threatened us. I hesitated, hoping to gain the advantage for long enough to venture a shot, but Holmes spoke before I could move.
“Why, it is Bully Joe Perkins,” said Holmes, sounding unruffled. “Watson, surely you remember him from the incident with the false fishmonger at Lambeth.”
“Well, Mr ’Olmes.” Bully Joe laughed hoarsely. “I never reckoned on meeting you ’ere. And Dr Watson. Come down where I can sees you.”
I released my revolver, removed my hand from my pocket, and joined McMahon and Holmes in the cellar. Bully Joe held a heavy revolver in one hand, and a truncheon, no doubt leaded, in the other.
“’Oo’s your other friend?” he asked, gesturing toward McMahon.
McMahon gave his name, and Bully Joe laughed again. He jerked his head toward a doorway in the far wall.
“Go on.”
He stayed well back. Holmes tread warily as he stepped to the door, glancing around the room before him.
“We ’as company,” called Bully Joe. “Mr Sherlock ’Olmes, his friend, Doctor Watson, and another gentleman you’ll recognize.”
The chamber we entered was filled with machinery, none of which I could immediately identify. Iron pipes, drive belts, and gears co-existed side-by-side with a haphazard collection of glass boxes of varying sizes. To one side, a glass partition walled off a section of the room, which appeared to be partially composed of the granite bedrock upon which the Old City was built. Next to that, an open door in the stone wall led into darkness, probably into the maze of tunnels that burrowed beneath the Old City.
A pale young man wearing spectacles stood at the far side of the chamber, behind a scarred table upon which rested an extensive collection of chemical apparatus. He looked like a faded water-colour version of our client, and the remarkable resemblance enabled Holmes to hazard a name before any introduction.
“Mr James Knox,” said Holmes, unruffled.
The young man’s chin snapped up, and his lip curled. “Doctor James Knox.”
“I beg your pardon.” Holmes sketched an ironic bow.
“Cousin James!” McMahon stepped forward. “What is the meaning of this?”
Dr Knox hesitated for a moment, his features shadowed. “Good evening, cousin. I cannot say I am pleased to see you. You would have been well advised to heed my warning and leave with the others.”
“Warning?” McMahon stared at the machinery surrounding us. “This is the source of those horrible sounds?”
Knox nodded brusquely. “It is the result of a necessary part of my research. However, it does have the added advantage of frightening off the curious and meddlesome.” He glared at Holmes. “Well, perhaps not all of them.”
“You are the reason my tenants have been frightened into leaving?” McMahon appeared stunned. “But why?”
“So he could work in peace, no doubt.” Holmes studied a complex assortment of gears that connected to a lever on one side of the chamber. He raised his gaze, following a long crack that rose up the wall to the roughly plastered ceiling. “One would not wish to be interrupted by the rabble during one’s researches.”
“I wished them gone because of the danger!” Knox’s spectacles flashed in the gaslight. “If you remain, you are all flirting with death.”
“Death?” Holmes coolly looked at Bully Joe, still brandishing his revolver. “Do you mean from our pugilistic friend here, or more in the manner experienced by the cadavers we happened upon in the parlour?”
Knox frowned. “Do not mock that which you do not understand.”
“Perhaps I understand more than you realize.”
“I doubt that very much,” said Knox. He crossed his arms over his chest and met Holmes’s gaze steadily. “However, you have a certain reputation for a superficial type of cleverness, Mr Holmes. I am curious about what you believe you understand.”
Holmes laughed. “Even the most cursory investigation reveals that you are one of the leading proponents of the Campaign for Eugenics in Great Britain, and author of Characteristics of Inferior Races: A Study of the Dilution of Celtic Physiology by Lesser Populations.”
I glanced at Holmes. His researches the previous evening had certainly borne ripe fruit. I had read Galton’s Hereditary Genius, and English Men of Science: Their Nature
and Nurture, but had no idea Holmes was aware of the subject of eugenics.
“I don’t fink the Professor — ” began Bully Joe.
“You are not being paid to think.” Knox returned his attention to Holmes. “You have read my work?”
“Yes. A most impassioned plea for selective breeding, with more emotion and less scientific rigour than the works of your leader.” Holmes shrugged and ran a finger carelessly across the laboratory table. “Personally, despite the fact that he obviously read my own contribution but failed to cite it, I found Galton’s treatise on the individuality of fingerprints more interesting than his papers on eugenics.”
As Holmes spoke, Knox’s complexion darkened and his hands clenched. He drew a deep breath and appeared to calm himself before replying.
“An understandable reaction in one who champions the inferior. Still, it is no matter.”
“I do not understand!” cried McMahon. “Why should we concern ourselves with talk of fingerprints and breeding? It is far more important to discover whether or not those poor souls upstairs really died of the plague and to grant them a Christian burial.”
Knox laughed. “You are a true son of the soil, Albert. Healthy and unpretentious, good Celtic stock.” His lip curled. “And like your parents, with all the imaginative power of a plough horse.”
His fists raised, McMahon took a step toward his cousin.
“I wouldn’t try it,” said Bully Joe, raising his weapon.
I caught hold of one of McMahon’s arms, and Holmes the other. “Insults are the recourse of the weak,” remarked Holmes, as the two of us pulled a recalcitrant McMahon away from Bully Joe and toward the glass wall. He fixed McMahon with a glittering gaze and spoke softly. “They do not deserve a response.”
After a long pause, McMahon nodded. Holmes and I released him.
I turned to Knox, my professional curiosity and concern unabated.
“Did they die of the plague? Mock me if you will, but I ask as a fellow medical man.”
“Then you will surely appreciate the importance of my researches,” said Knox with a satisfied smile. “To answer your question, yes, they did succumb to the black death. A particularly virulent strain I discovered here, in this very house.”
“Here?” I was appalled. We had walked through the house, innocent of the knowledge that an agonizing death lurked just inside. Were Holmes, McMahon, and I somehow infected?
“Indeed.” Knox’s expression grew animated. “When I was a young medical student, I was intrigued by the idea of a plague house, where contagion filled the air before the house and its occupants were sealed off from the outside world. When I discovered that Great Uncle lived beside one, I increased the frequency of my visits. One day I noticed a loose shutter on a rear window and made my way inside. As I explored the deserted chambers, I discovered a jar of calves-foot jelly that contained a culture of plague bacteria.”
“Good God,” I breathed. “Surely you did not keep it?”
“But of course.” Knox gestured to the machinery surrounding us. “With the financial assistance of … well, that is neither here nor there. Suffice it to say I created this laboratory to avoid outside interference with my work. Over time I cultivated the bacteria, increasing its virulence a hundredfold. You saw the results in the parlour.”
“You infected those poor wretches upstairs?”
He lifted one shoulder, then let it drop. “They were from the dregs of society. A thief. A beggar. A prostitute. I used them as I would use cattle, for the advancement of the human race.”
Bully Joe laughed. “They died squirming an’ screamin’, their last breaths bubblin’ in their throats. I left ’em there to scare off nosy-parkers.”
“But what of your Hippocratic oath?” I asked.
“What of it?” He spat the words. “The slums of Britain are teeming with the degenerate, barely intelligent enough to exist, fit for only the most menial of employment. I propose to rid the country of that burden. I have recently developed a pneumonic strain of the bacterium — ”
“Dear Lord, no!” I could not believe my ears. “Such a strain could kill millions!”
“Transmission via the air,” Holmes said, unable to conceal his horror at the thought. “What we originally assumed were bagpipes playing is in fact part of a pneumatic air pumping system. The joints of the glass chamber are sealed with rubber gaskets, as is the door.” He gestured at the belts and gears covering the walls. “Through your machinery, you can lower the air pressure within your experimental chamber, thereby protecting you from contamination by the air-borne bacteria.”
My gaze met Holmes’s, and he slowly patted his coat pocket. I grasped his meaning instantly — deep within the corresponding pocket of my own coat lay my revolver. I slipped my hand into my pocket and curled my fingers around the cold metal.
“Very clever, Mr Holmes.” Knox selected a vial from a rack on the table. “You are quite correct: the machinery controls the air pressure within the glass chamber, allowing me a place to safely expose an experimental subject to the plague. It is powered by rushing water deep beneath us. The apparatus is particularly noisy, but very effective at preventing contamination. After all, I do not wish to die, nor does my associate.” He held the vial up to the light, studying it intently. “The resemblance to the sound of a bagpipe drone was particularly fortuitous, and with the judicious spread of rumours of the Devil’s Piper, I was able to frighten off the inhabitants of the neighbouring tenements.” His gaze shifted from the vial to McMahon. “Save for my interfering cousin and his two companions, who will now pay for their temerity by becoming my first human experimental subjects for the pneumonic plague.”
He gestured to Bully Joe, who grinned unpleasantly.
“Right. Through there,” Bully Joe said, pointing to the iron door, propped open and ringed with a rubber gasket, which led into the glass chamber. On the floor of the chamber, the bloated bodies of a dog and several cats provided evidence of the deadliness of Knox’s bacteria.
“Forgive me if I decline to participate in your experiment,” said Holmes and leapt toward a lever nearby. “Now, Watson!”
Holmes grasped the lever and depressed it. I now understood the reason for his careful study of the mechanism. He had chosen correctly, for gears turned and belts groaned as they began to move.
“No!” cried Knox. He stepped back from the table, still clutching the vial of death.
The unexpected movement and noise provided the distraction Holmes had no doubt intended. Holmes snatched the lantern from the floor and flung it onto the table. The lantern glass shattered, releasing burning oil to spread across the table top and drip onto the stone floor.
Around us, the mechanism continued unchecked as more gears engaged. The house shook and our heads throbbed as we were assailed by that appalling noise.
Sharp, stabbing pain radiated from my ears. The door to the glass chamber was open, and the air pressure in the entire room was being reduced by the pneumatic pump. I gulped air and winced as the air pressure within my ears and without became equal.
Apparently stunned by the rapidity of Holmes’s actions, Bully Joe only roused himself when Holmes moved toward the stair. He raised his revolver and aimed at Holmes. Without hesitation, I drew my weapon and fired. My bullet struck Bully Joe in the forearm, and he dropped his gun with an oath. He was not completely unarmed, however, for he still wielded the truncheon.
McMahon, quickly comprehending our purpose, rushed Bully Joe before he could bring the truncheon to bear on Holmes.
Leaving McMahon to take on Bully Joe, I turned to Knox, who was frozen in place as if petrified, the vial still held high above the stone floor. The fire from the lantern was spreading rapidly, reaching greedy fingers toward the ceiling.
Somewhere in that infernal clockwork mechanism a gear slipped, jerking the belts, and with a terrible grinding sound the entire building shuddered. The crack in the wall widened and other cracks appeared in the ceiling as plaster dust
rained down upon us. Suddenly a large piece of plaster fell, striking Knox on the shoulder, sending the vial flying.
“No!” he screamed, frantically reaching for the container.
“Watson!” Holmes cried.
I turned. Bully Joe was sprawled on the floor, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. McMahon stared down at him, his hands clenched tightly at his side.
Holmes caught McMahon’s sleeve and propelled him through the door in the stone wall. Holmes held out his hand, gesturing anxiously.
“Quickly, man!”
I dashed to his side through the smoke and falling plaster. We passed through the portal together, then turned and closed the door after us. It was then I witnessed a sight that will forever be imprinted upon my memory: James Knox, surrounded by hellish flames, staring down at the broken vial before him.
We were indeed in the dank and fœtid labyrinth of underground passages beneath the city. We stumbled through those dark tunnels for what seemed hours, until at last we emerged from the stone warren into the confines of the Castle itself, nearly sending the guards into an apoplectic fit. After exhausting explanations, we were permitted to leave, and in the early morning’s watery light, made our way back to Hangman’s Lane.
There we were greeted by the fire brigade, who were preparing to depart after battling a blaze that, in the words of one participant, “Looked as if ol’ Horney hissel’ decided to destroy the house.”
Of the Hurley house, only a smouldering pile of stones remained. The structural deficiencies we had noted contributed to the cataclysmic collapse, and the fire that followed completed the work.
Fortunately, McMahon’s house was relatively undamaged. The adjoining wall would require some repair, but the foundation of the house remained sound. After receiving McMahon’s heartfelt thanks, Holmes and I retrieved our valises and retired to the Royal, where we breakfasted lavishly in a private parlour.
“What an appalling night,” I said, tucking into my kippers with relish.
“Indeed, my dear fellow.” Holmes leaned back in his chair and drew upon his cigarette. Smoke curled toward the ceiling. “Dr Knox’s proposal was quite Draconian. If he had released the pneumonic plague upon the population, there was no guarantee it would only infect those he deemed worthless.”
