Shadows over Baker Street

by John Pelan;Michael Reaves

  “Where is my book of notes?” she asked him.

  From a chest by the bed, Stone withdrew a small flowered notebook of the kind young English ladies are encouraged to keep as diaries. “It is here, sister,” he said, laying it beside her on the coverlet.

  Releasing Holmes’s wrist, she pressed it into his large, dexterous hands. “All of the instructions are here,” she told him. “Follow them to the letter. Please do not fail me, Mr. Holmes!”

  “Yes, Miss Stone,” said the still curiously passive Holmes. “I will endeavor to do my best.” And with that, he tucked the diary into his waistcoat and left the bedside without another word. I remained there with the equally startled Stones. Violet Stone settled back against the bedclothes and let her eyes drift shut.

  After explaining to the Stones that surely my friend had excellent reasons for his abrupt departure from the room, I conducted a brief physical examination of Miss Stone. Failing to detect any immediate threat to her life, I followed the Stones back downstairs to the drawing room.

  We found the detective’s lanky form folded into a chair, his long nose buried in the girl’s diary. “Fascinating,” he muttered, fishing a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it with a wooden match. “Utterly amazing.”

  “What is it, Holmes?” I asked him, as anxious as the Stones for some explanation.

  “Ah!” said Holmes, arising from the chair and closing the little book with a snap. “Mr. Stone, madam, we shall return in a few days’ time, when I hope we shall set things to rights.”

  And saying little more, we retrieved our coats and made our way back out to the waiting hansom.

  On the return trip to Baker Street, Holmes continued to peruse the young girl’s diary. I wondered what on earth could command such rapt attention from my friend, but many years of Holmes’s caprices and occasional erratic behavior had taught me to wait, for he would answer no questions but in their hour.

  Burning with curiosity, however, I did contrive to steal a look at the pages. I do not know what I expected, but what met my questioning eyes was a complete shock. Rather than pages of a schoolgirl’s neat hand, the diary seemed full of highly technical drawings and schemata. While most of the letters and symbols I glimpsed were familiar, there were several lines of a flowing script that vaguely resembled Arabic, and on one page a shape that appeared to twist itself into eldritch configurations before my very eyes. If I were a superstitious man, I suspect the sight of that shape would have made me seize the book and hurl it out of the cab. Instead I averted my gaze until Holmes turned the page.

  Finally, I could bear it no longer. “What has she written there, Holmes?”

  “Instructions, Watson,” Holmes answered vaguely, and it was then I noted the queer expression in his eyes. It was as if he were not entirely there with me in the coach. He looked vastly preoccupied, as if even as he spoke, the wheels of his mind were already turning and he was buried in some faraway set of problems and calculations. “Miss Violet Stone has provided me with a very detailed list of instructions.”

  Upon our arrival back to our rooms, Holmes prepared himself an especially large dose of cocaine. As he rolled up his sleeve, he said to me, “I shall be spending a great deal of the next few days in private, in my study. Pray do not interrupt me except in the direst emergency.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said as he carefully found a site for the injection and released the cocaine into his bloodstream. “But I have never known you to take cocaine at a time like this, Holmes.”

  “Ahhhhhhhhhh . . .” he sighed. Instantly his head lolled on his shoulders as the powerful drug coursed through him. “Normally cocaine sends me to a drowsy land of dissociated dreams.” He chuckled softly. “But today’s events have left me believing that I may be lost in one of those dreams and only dreaming that I am awake and aware.”

  With infinite care, he extracted the gleaming hypodermic syringe from his arm. After a moment of reverie, he leaped from his chair and began to pace the room. “Watson, I am going to tell you this now. The drug has loosened my tongue, but we shall never refer to it again, because I fear I would feel a fool.”

  I waited silently in my chair by the fire. Rarely have I seen my dear friend in the throes of the drug, and certainly not at such a copious dosage. His eyes were as fever bright as those of Violet Stone. His stately forehead gleamed with a sheen of sweat, and a vein pulsed ominously at his temple. He hastily poured himself a whiskey from the sideboard and, seizing a poker, began to jab savagely at the fire.

  “Watson, what is the earliest record of a sentient race on this planet?”

  “The Sumerians, I believe, from approximately 4000 B.C.”

  “What if I told you that this was a gross instance of humanity’s shortsightedness? That a much wiser race preceded us?”

  “I would ask you what evidence you have to support this claim.”

  “Ah, dear Watson, ever the pragmatic scientist.” He downed the whiskey in two neat swallows and returned to the sideboard for another. “Cigarette?” he asked me, proffering the gilt box. I stated that at this hour I would prefer a cigar, with which he gladly provided me.

  “Watson, my old friend, something singular occurred in that house today. When young Miss Stone seized my wrist, it was as if, as if . . .” He downed the second whiskey and took a chair in order to prepare his syringe for a second injection.

  “Please, Holmes,” I said. “As a gentleman, I would never presume to tamper with your pleasures. But as a physician, I feel obliged to inform you that a second dose of cocaine at that volume could seriously—”

  “Doctor,” he interrupted, “I do appreciate your concern.” But he continued nonetheless. When he had finished his preparations, he glanced up at me. “I wish I could even begin to convey what I experienced at that moment by the bedside,” he said.

  Sliding the needle in and driving the plunger home, he groaned aloud at the waves of pleasure that assailed him. Then he began to laugh a giddy madman’s laugh. Seconds later, a stillness came over him. The drug was accelerating his moods, or perhaps just jangling them into an inchoate frenzy.

  He lit another cigarette, clearly having forgotten the one he had left smoldering in the mantel ashtray. “If I attempt to explain it, you must give me your word we shall never speak of the matter again.”

  I freely gave it, and waited.

  “Watson, a race of sentient beings inhabited this planet millennia before humans arrived. And as preposterous as it may seem, they have discovered the means of moving their souls backward and forward through time.”

  “Good Lord, Holmes! What on earth are you suggesting?”

  Holmes held up a patient, silencing hand. He drew hard on his cigarette before continuing. “At a single touch of her hand, she was able to communicate this to me. She has confided to no one else, but the consciousness inhabiting the body of Miss Violet Stone is in truth a traveler from this time before man, come to gather the information and lore of our age.”

  I was mute, stupefied. And yet Holmes, in spite of his mischievous nature, had never once told me anything other than the truth of his perceptions. During the whole of our acquaintance he had never deceived me, misled me, or informed me of anything with any other principle at heart other than my own enlightenment. As discordant a note as it struck in my own rational nature, I had no choice other than to believe that this was the truth.

  “This race refer to themselves as the Great Ones. Though you might not recognize them as sentient beings, were you to lay eyes on one—they are rather like enormous limpets as far as I can gather—they possess a body of knowledge unrivaled by anything in our history. Alexandria was but a village lending library by comparison.

  “They require a living host, and the consciousness of the person they inhabit is in turn spirited back to their own time, between the ending of the Mesozoic and the beginning of the Palaeolithic period. This traveler inside Miss Stone is inexperienced, and something has gone dreadfully wrong in the pro
cess. Miss Stone’s body has rebelled. She will not take sustenance, and as a result is too weak to move. The traveler has kept her alive as best it can, but in order to reverse the process, a special device is required. And that, Watson, is what these instructions are for.”

  He sat upright in his chair, cigarette in hand, face gleaming.

  I have known madmen, treated them, done what I could to help with their sufferings. A person off the street might at that moment have looked upon the countenance of Sherlock Holmes and declared him mad, irrevocably insane. And yet through our years of acquaintance I had learned that what might look like one thing in the mien and deportment of a normal personage, on Holmes tended to indicate the exact opposite.

  “I shall be very busy for the next few days. Send away any callers. I am not to be disturbed. We must hope I shall find myself equal to the task before me.” He rose, ascended the stairs, and shut his study doors with a bang.

  True to his word, Holmes remained sequestered for three days. Meals sent up to him were largely ignored. Requests came for cups of tea and coffee and pitchers of water for drinking, and on three occasions, Holmes abruptly quit Baker Street, twice in the first day and once again late at night on the second. He returned with oddly shaped parcels, greeted no one, and again disappeared into the study.

  Finally, on the morning of the third day, he emerged, somewhat wild-eyed and with an air of disorder about him. I was just waking, and through eyes still slightly bleary from sleep, I watched as he blithely tossed Violet Stone’s notebook onto the fire crackling in the grate.

  “Great Scott, Holmes!” I said, returning my coffee cup to its saucer. “What are you doing?”

  “It is finished, Watson. The instructions were to be destroyed when the task is complete.” He settled into a chair opposite me.

  “The device is finished? What the devil does it do?”

  “Were I to explain it to you, Watson, you would think I had utterly taken leave of my senses. I scarcely understand it myself.” He stretched and yawned like a great cat. “We shall pay a visit to the Stones before the morning is out. And after that, I shall greatly enjoy myself resting. This has been most taxing indeed.”

  A message was sent to the Stone house to expect us within the hour. At the appointed time, Holmes emerged from his rooms every bit as fresh and crisp as if he had just returned from a seaside holiday. A queerly shaped bundle draped in black cloth was tucked beneath his arm.

  I was barely able to restrain my curiosity about this bundle. What bizarre machine could help to alleviate the suffering of Miss Violet Stone? What could be the actual cause of this suffering? Could it truly be as Holmes had explained? As a medical doctor, I had seen nothing in my own patients that seemed to fit the history of the case. As I had done so many times before, I wordlessly followed Holmes out to a cab in the gray London morning and trusted that all would be revealed to me in time.

  We found Mrs. Stone sitting anxiously in her front room, twisting a sodden handkerchief between her white-knuckled fists. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she greeted us. “Tom should be along shortly. He sent word that he would come when the chef permits him.” She quickly tucked the handkerchief away, and again I caught a faint whiff of jasmine as I leaned down to clasp her hand.

  “Ah, good,” said Holmes, taking a seat and setting the draped bundle next to his feet. “I hope this morning’s events will bring the business to a satisfactory conclusion.”

  “Mr. Holmes, it is so strange,” said Mrs. Stone.

  “What is that, madam?” asked Holmes, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

  “This morning, when I went in to see her, Violet told me that you would return before noon today. She asked Tom to put off going to work, but he went anyway. How could she have known the hour of your visit before I knew it myself?”

  But before Holmes could venture to answer the lady, Mr. Thomas Stone bustled in. “I came as fast as I could,” he said breathlessly.

  “Ah, good,” said Holmes, rising. “Now that we are all present, I will require a moment or two alone with Miss Stone. May I show myself up to her room?”

  Mrs. Stone and Thomas exchanged a baffled look, but gave no protest as Holmes once again tucked the mysterious (but apparently quite heavy) machine under his arm and made his way up the stairs. I endeavored to make polite conversation with the Stones in his absence, but anxiety pinched their features and I was considerably preoccupied with my own bafflement. Our conversation proceeded only in fits and starts as a quarter of an hour passed, then twenty-five minutes.

  At last, just as my watch declared that Holmes had been gone for the better part of an hour, his voice summoned us from the top of the stairs. The Stones and I rose with one motion, and were I not a gentleman, I would attest that Mrs. Stone sharply elbowed me out of the way at the bottom of the stairs.

  We found Holmes grinning to himself at the bedside of Miss Stone. The lamps in the room were turned up bright and the fire had been stoked in the grate. The chest by the bed had been moved, and I noted briefly that its surface looked to have been recently marred and scratched by the weight of some heavy, sharp-edged object. But such thoughts were driven from my mind only to be puzzled over in later days, for when my eyes bore witness to the transformed girl on the bed, I could think of nothing else.

  “Mummy! Tom!” she cried. “I had the strangest dream! I was swimming in a pool on the isle of Knoxos. And then I woke up here! I must be so excited about going on holiday that I’m dreaming of it in advance.” And then she laughed, a merry bell-like laugh every bit as musical as Thomas had described to us in the hansom cab. Though still terrifyingly gaunt, Violet Stone appeared a wholly different person. Light danced in her eyes. It was a warm light, though, entirely unlike the hideous gleam of three days before. And just as Mr. Stone had said, her restless hands carved graceful gestures from the air as she spoke.

  “Violet?” queried Mrs. Stone, and then rushing to her daughter with a mother’s instinct, she cried, “Dear, dear Violet!” She threw her arms about the girl and burst into a violent fit of weeping.

  “Mummy, what is it?” the girl asked anxiously. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong, Violet,” said Holmes, patting the lady on her shoulder. “Absolutely nothing is wrong.”

  Moments later, when the smiling girl announced that she was hungry, absolutely dying for one of her brother’s delicious custards, we knew it was time to withdraw. Holmes slumped in the leather seat of the cab back to our rooms, exhausted. I noticed that the mysterious device he had brought on our journey was now missing, as was the black cloth he had draped it in. When I remarked on this, Holmes looked at me as if I were thoroughly out of my mind and said nothing.

  I felt so full of questions as we ascended the stairs at Baker Street that my head seemed about to burst, but it was apparent that my old friend was in no way disposed to explain. He cordially bid me good morning and disappeared into his room without another word.

  I spent many hours of the following days struggling in vain to come up with some sort of explanation for the whole business. When a grateful letter arrived containing a generous check and the heartfelt thanks of the Stone family, I endeavored to pry some sort of explanation from the closed lips of my friend, only to be wordlessly repelled once again.

  To this day, I have never been able to explain the case to myself, and true to our agreement, no further attempts to explain it to me have been forthcoming. I must, as a last recourse, trust in the account given to me by Holmes. As much as this record may stray beyond the bounds of credulity, such is the sum and the entirety of what I know of the curious case of Miss Violet Stone.

  The Adventure of the Antiquarian’s Niece

  BARBARA HAMBLY

  In my career as the chronicler of the cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have attempted (his assertions to the contrary) to present both his successes and his failures. In most instances his keen mind and logical deductive facility led him to the solutions of seemingly insoluble puzzl
es. Upon some occasions, such as the strange behavior of Mrs. Effie Munro, his conclusions went astray because of unknown and unforeseen facts; on others, such as the puzzle of the dancing men or the horrifying contents of the letter received by Mr. John Openshaw, his correct assessment of the situation came too late to save the life of his client.

  In a small percentage of his cases, it was simply not possible to determine the correctness or incorrectness of his reasoning because no conclusion was ever reached. Such a case was that of Mr. Burnwell Colby and his fiancée, and the abominable inhabitants of Depewatch Priory. Holmes long kept the singular memento of his investigation in a red cardboard box in his room, and if I have not written of these events before, it is because of the fearful shadow which they left upon my heart. I only write of them now in the light of the new findings of Mr. Freud concerning the strange workings of the human mind.

  Burnwell Colby came to the lodgings that I shared with Holmes in Baker Street in the summer of 1894. It was one of those sticky London afternoons that make one long for the luxury of the seashore or the Scottish moors. Confirmed Londoner that Holmes was, I am sure he was no more aware of the heat than a fish is of water: whatever conditions prevailed in the city, he preferred to be surrounded by the noise and hurry, the curious street scenes and odd contretemps engendered by the close proximity of over a million fellow creatures, than by any amount of fresh air. As for myself, the expenses incurred by my dear wife’s final illness prevented me from even thinking of quitting the metropolis—and the depression of spirits that had overtaken me from the same source sometimes prevented me from thinking at all. While Holmes never by word or look referred to my bereavement, he was an astonishingly restful companion in those days, treating me as he always had instead of offering a sympathy which I would have found unendurable.

  He was, as I recall, preparing to concoct some appalling chemical mess at the parlor table when Mrs. Hudson’s knock sounded at the door. “A Mr. Burnwell Colby to see you, sir.”