Shadows over Baker Street

by John Pelan;Michael Reaves

  “I was quite shaken, as you might expect, and allowed myself even a second glass of brandy, after which I returned to bed, believing by then that I had hallucinated the entire incident. But when I doused the lamp in my bedroom, I felt the presence return. I immediately relit the lamp, and once again the thing vanished, so I kept a light burning all through the night. I slept quite poorly, as you might guess, waking often to check that the lamp remained lit.

  “The next evening, before retiring, I had my servants check the entire mansion for any open windows, unlocked doors, making sure they were all bolted shut. Once I was assured that all was secure, I doused my light and climbed into bed. It was only a moment later when I once again sensed the presence, and immediately lit the lamp.

  “I then woke all the servants and instructed them to search the house. They found a single open door, with strange scrapings around the outside latch, like claw marks.

  “This same ritual went on for the better part of a week, and each night a different door or window was found open. Finally, I instructed my servants to light a lamp in every room of the house and keep them lit all night, believing this to be the only way to scare off the invader.”

  As she told her tale, Lady Carthon’s hand went several times to the stone on her necklace, and I saw it clearly for the first time then. It was an oddly shaped amulet, like a long teardrop, with flattened edges and a strange black color that oddly reflected no light.

  “Your husband,” said Holmes, pressing on, “he gave you that necklace?”

  She nodded, looking transfixed at the stone that hung from it. “It was an anniversary gift. Sent to me from Egypt. It arrived only a week or two after he died.”

  “Were you told any of the circumstances of his death?” asked Holmes.

  “Really, Holmes!” I said, quite forcefully.

  “It’s all right, Doctor,” she said gently. “I was told he was murdered by grave robbers while on patrol somewhere near the Great Pyramids. But Arthur could tell you more. He was there.”

  “I’m sure we can discuss this later,” I said, hoping to spare the poor woman any further discomfort.

  “Yes, of course,” said Mashbourne, “after dinner.”

  “You miss him terribly, don’t you?” said Holmes.

  “I would give anything to have him back with me,” she answered, tears welling up in her eyes, the song now gone from her voice.

  She suddenly looked tired, quite pallid and gaunt. As if the light that was the life in her pale blue eyes had been momentarily snuffed out, leaving only a glassy, vacant stare that reflected the black teardrop’s empty darkness. I was quite taken aback by this change, as was Mashbourne. Only Holmes maintained his cool detachment.

  “Have you tried any medicines to induce sleep?” I asked.

  “Any number of them, Doctor. Valeriana, passionflower, warm milk, chamomile tea, a short walk before dark, a hot bath before bed. Lately I have even ordered special elixirs from an apothecary in London. Nothing has helped.”

  I looked at Holmes, whose expression revealed nothing.

  “You must try some of my brandy,” said Mashbourne, pulling the silver flask from his waistcoat. “It puts me to sleep even at the noon hour.”

  She smiled at him with such a sad affection that it put a lump in my own throat. “I have tried it, Arthur,” she said.

  “Yes, you’re right. You have,” he said softly. Then he turned to us and spoke forcefully, “We must uncover the mystery behind this.”

  “I should think one night’s sleep in this house and I will have the answer,” said Holmes.

  Lady Carthon rose from her chair, and we rose with her. With a warm, sad smile, she said, “My sweet champions. I feel most fortunate to have you as my guests this evening.”

  “It has been our pleasure, I assure you, madam,” I said.

  She bid us good evening, leaving instructions with a servant to turn down two more beds, and departed from us for the night.

  We watched her leave in silence. When she was gone, Holmes turned to Mashbourne. “The circumstances of the lady’s husband’s death, if you please.”

  Mashbourne cleared his throat with a swallow of wine, then began. “As Emily has said, Captain Carthon was on patrol with his men in the desert near the Great Pyramids. I was assigned to his regiment as physician. Carthon’s men reportedly came upon a group of grave robbers one evening making off with a large quantity of antiquities from a recently uncovered burial sight. There was a brief but bloody skirmish, and the robbers were apprehended.

  “Now, as Captain Carthon related to me in secret after he had secured the pilfered treasures with the royal governor, he’d come across something amongst the many items that he fancied would make an excellent gift for his wife. He showed me the necklace we all saw her wearing this evening. What followed, oddly, were several nights of unrest among the soldiers of the regiment.”

  “Sleeplessness, you mean?” asked Holmes.

  “Yes,” Mashbourne said, “but not to this degree. It lasted no more than a week. Then one night while out on patrol again, Carthon was murdered. Some said it was the grave robbers come back for their loot, but I was certain it had to have been a wild animal of some sort, for I examined the body, and it had been very badly mutilated.

  “It was my unfortunate task, since I was returning to England, to deliver the unpleasant news, along with some of her husband’s effects, to Lady Carthon.”

  “And the necklace was among those items?” asked Holmes.

  “No,” said Mashbourne. “I believe he sent that to her earlier, before he was killed.”

  I could see Holmes’s mind working again. “You said earlier that you were on to something,” I said to him. “Care to share it yet?”

  “I have a theory, which I plan to put to the test tonight,” was all that Holmes offered.

  “Come now,” said Mashbourne, clearly annoyed. “Is there no small crumb you might leave for us as a trail to follow your reasoning?”

  “A crumb would leave you most unsatisfied,” he said, pushing back his chair. “Now, I’m afraid I must leave you, gentlemen. Sleep well.” As he reached the doorway, he turned again to us. “And keep a light on. If you encounter anything unusual this evening, any unnatural sounds or the like, come find me at once. I’m certain I shall be awake.” Then he was gone.

  “He is a singularly peculiar fellow, is he not, Watson?” said Mashbourne.

  “That he is,” I replied.

  After cigars and a bit of Mashbourne’s brandy, we, too, retired for the night, a servant leading us upstairs and delivering us to our rooms.

  “Good evening, Dr. Mashbourne,” I said as I left him.

  “Good evening, Dr. Watson. I’m sure that I, for one, shall sleep soundly tonight. This day has truly exhausted me.”

  He closed himself inside his room.

  I shut my own door and found that a robe and pajamas had been laid out for me on what looked to be a most comfortable bed. A pitcher of water sat on a nightstand nearby, and I helped myself to a glass before dousing the light and climbing beneath the covers.

  As I lay there, my eyes growing accustomed to the dark, I ruminated over Holmes’s last words, wondering as to what sort of unnatural sounds he referred. I listened carefully, surveying the night around me, and as my ears grew accustomed to the silence, I heard the sounds of the wind blowing through the trees outside, of an unlatched shutter banging softly in some distant part of the house.

  I awoke to a crash. Attempting to rise, I found myself paralyzed, save for my eyes, which were wide open but useless in the utter darkness. I tried to maintain calm, convincing myself that the paralysis must be gone momentarily, that I most certainly must be dreaming. But then I heard a key twisting in the lock—had I bolted my door?—and sensed someone enter the inky blackness of my room.

  I cursed myself at that moment for having ignored Holmes’s advice and dousing my light. Dark foreboding, a sense of malevolent evil, gripped me then. My heart be
gan to race. I struggled vainly to get up—my arms and legs tingling, sweat forming on my brow, my breath sorely entering and leaving my chest—but still I was unable to rise.

  I heard footsteps, coming nearer to my bedside. I told myself it was just a servant, looking in on me, or perhaps someone sleepwalking, but the panic in my heart rose to a crescendo, and something leaped up onto my chest! Cold hands grasped at my throat, strangling me. I gasped for air, trying to cry out for help as the breath left my lungs beneath the weight of my assailant.

  Just as the darkness was about to swallow me, the door to my room crashed open with such force that it fell from its hinges, and blessed light poured in from the hallway.

  A creature—for I know not what else to name it—was revealed by the light, crouched menacingly over me! No child’s fairy story was this, but a roughly bipedal, forward-slumping beast, with a vaguely canine cast, a doglike face with pointed ears. The texture of its flesh was a kind of unpleasant rubberiness. This nameless blasphemy stared at me with glaring red eyes, its scaly claws around my throat, its flat nose and drooling lips expelling the thing’s acrid, fetid breath upon me. Fanged teeth set all askew in its gaping maw were poised to rend me, when it howled its hatred at the sudden brightness, stretched out hideous black wings, and releasing me, flew directly toward the blazing doorway where Holmes stood, a lantern in one hand and his revolver in the other.

  Holmes fired off a shot, striking the beast in the chest. The force merely knocked the creature backward a step, before it leaped again at him, wailing with fury. I saw Holmes empty his revolver point-blank into the beast, sending it toppling over dead at his feet.

  “Watson! Are you all right?” he said.

  I had managed to prop myself up on one elbow, the paralysis waning. “I don’t know,” I replied, still badly shaken, and examined myself for wounds. I’d been bruised about the shoulders and neck, but otherwise remained mercifully unscathed.

  “Can you stand, old man?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” I said, making a poor show of it, my legs trembling.

  Movement on the floor caught my eye then, and I watched with Holmes in wonder as the dead thing slowly melted into a sulfurous oozing tallow, seeping through the floorboards until it was gone.

  “What in God’s name was that?” I asked Holmes.

  “Nothing of this world,” he said. “Now come, this way.”

  I followed him to Mashbourne’s room, where, from the glow of Holmes’s lantern, I could see the poor man lying sprawled on the floor, his sleeping gown covered in blood. I moved quickly to his side, checking his wrist for a pulse. Finding none there, I moved to his neck, withdrawing in horror when I saw that his throat had been torn open.

  “He is beyond help,” I said to Holmes, then leaped to my feet. “Lady Carthon!”

  We raced down the long dark central corridor, all the while my heart dreading what we might find once we reached her room.

  “Why are all the candles out?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “I put them out,” said Holmes. “To test my theory.”

  I looked to him with confusion, but he offered nothing further.

  When we reached the door to Lady Carthon’s chamber, we found it partially open, and the room swathed in darkness. As we entered, I feared that she, too, had fallen prey to this night creature. But when Holmes swept his lantern across the room, the beam fell upon Lady Carthon, lying motionless upon her bed, her hand dangling over the edge, and several glass vials lying on the floor close by.

  “Dear God,” I said as I raced to her side, taking up her hand and feeling for her pulse.

  Holmes picked up one of the vials and examined it closely, running a finger along the open edge and putting it to his lips.

  “The apothecary’s tincture,” he said. “From the number of empty vials here, I’d say she’s swallowed quite a bit of it.”

  “A suicide?” I asked.

  “It would appear so,” he replied.

  I could feel no pulse on her wrist, and moved my hand to her neck. And there, thankfully, I felt the faint beating of her heart.

  “She lives!” I said with a mixture of relief and apprehension that she still might succumb, and tried to rouse her, shaking her shoulders quite vigorously.

  “Lady Carthon! Lady Carthon! Wake up!”

  Holmes grabbed a pitcher of water nearby and splashed some on her face. Finally, she stirred.

  “Oh God,” she said softly. “What has happened?”

  “You have taken too much sleep medicine,” I said gently, trying not to frighten her.

  She looked at me, quite puzzled.

  “Do you remember anything?” asked Holmes.

  “I remember preparing for bed, as I always do, hoping this would be the night when I finally found sleep. But as I was removing my necklace, my thoughts went to my husband, wishing it was he who had removed it, wishing he were here still, holding me in his arms, and I knew right then I would remain restless another night. I broke down, I think, and took all that remained of the sleeping drug.”

  “And then?” said Holmes.

  “Nothing. Just the darkness. The horrible, unending darkness. I couldn’t find my way out of the darkness.” She looked up at us then, seeing the blood that covered my hands and my nightclothes. “Dr. Watson, what’s happened? Where is Arthur?”

  I could not bring myself to speak, leaving it to Holmes.

  “Dead,” was all he said.

  She began to sob. “This is all my fault.”

  “I think not,” said Holmes. “He was not murdered by your hand.”

  “It came for me,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. “In the night. From those hideous dreams.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “The creature came for you?”

  “It wanted something from me. That night in January, when the moon went dark. I knew that it wanted something, but God help me, I could not comprehend what. A key, I think. An opening. A doorway to some other place. I could not understand what it wanted. I felt its thoughts, but its language was foreign to me. I begged it to leave me be. But it would not give me a single night’s rest. Each time I tried to close my eyes, each time I allowed myself to be in darkness, it came haunting me again. I warned people. I told them to keep their lights on at night, to avoid the darkness. It feared the light. Hated the light. It came from the darkness, you know, from the void. It traveled a great distance, searching . . .”

  “Searching for what?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” she said softly.

  “Well, it can search no more,” said Holmes, taking up the necklace from where it lay at her bedside. “We have put an end to it.”

  We dressed quickly, leaving Carthon on foot as the sun was rising. Looking back at the mansion, we found it a much different place in the day. It had a sadness, a solemnity, which neither sunlight nor lamplight could ever hope to hide. The glowing beacon of light that lit up the previous evening was gone, a dream turned nightmare, and now in the daytime the illusion was replaced by stark, unpleasant reality.

  As we walked back to Inswich, I asked Holmes to recount what he had done after he left Mashbourne and me the previous night, and how he had happened to come to my rescue so quickly.

  “After I bid the two of you good night,” he said, “I followed Lady Carthon to her room, making sure she had put herself safely away for the evening. When you and Mashbourne adjourned to your rooms, I began to put out the lights, moving from the far eastern side of the manor to the west. I was hoping to call out this thing, to confront it, to ascertain whether it really existed at all. That is when I heard it—”

  “The beast that nearly killed me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I heard a terrible crash, from Mashbourne’s room. I lit my lantern and raced to him, but it was too late. Then I went immediately to summon you. Finding the door locked, I proceeded to shoulder it open.”

  “And I am most grateful that you did, my friend.”

/>   “I’m sorry, Watson. I had not expected you both to put out your lights. I had instructed you not to.”

  “Force of habit, old man,” I said. “Not your fault at all.”

  “I should have anticipated that possibility,” he said. “I should have been more forceful in my instructions. Perhaps it was my own fatigue, but I did not think the beast would act so murderously.”

  “I still don’t understand why you believed the stories of this creature. They sounded most preposterous to me.”

  “I could only conjecture, Watson,” he replied.

  “But how could you even guess?” I said, trying to comprehend his reasoning.

  “First, there was the fact that no one could offer any other cause, or medical explanation, for such a widespread epidemic of sleeplessness. A hysterical condition did not seem out of the question at first. No doubt the lady’s warnings put everyone on edge. And the soporific had me a bit confused as well, I must admit, for it seemed that when it was first administered, the citizens did sleep through the night, but their symptoms soon returned. And after hearing tales of a creature from so many, seeing the child’s drawing, and sensing the carriage driver’s dread of this place, I began to suspect there was more truth than superstition to these stories.

  “But it was Mashbourne himself who finally convinced me. He saw the body of Captain Carthon. He said it did not look to him like he was murdered by grave robbers, but mutilated by some wild animal.”