Shadows over Baker Street

by John Pelan;Michael Reaves

  “He spoke in Hebrew,” Holmes answered at once. “The words were very clear, and, I suspect, appropriate. I believe that Adcott’s soul managed to make use of the same power that the elder Silverman would have used to animate clay. He used his will, and his faith, and he spoke the only words that could bring him peace.

  “He said, ‘It is done.’ ”

  I stared at Holmes for a long time, watching for doubt, or belief, anything in those wise eyes that would prove a clue to the mind beyond, but he had turned his gaze to the fire once again, and grown silent.

  “I wonder,” I said, rising and retrieving my coat, suddenly very tired and ready for my own home, and my bed, “who got the money.”

  Holmes didn’t look up as I departed, but I sensed the smile in his answer.

  “To the living go the spoils, Watson. Always to the living.”

  Shaking my head, I opened the door and made my way into the late-evening fog.

  Nightmare in Wax

  SIMON CLARK

  PROLOGUE

  Thunder tears the air asunder. Half of Europe, it seems, is afire. Nations shrink back before a Pentecostal wind. Today, the London Times brings news of the sinking of the Lusitania by the Hun. Over a thousand innocent lives lost. While yet more newsprint carries the dreadful litany of tens of thousands of our soldiers consumed by the war—this war to end all wars. In the midst of global conflict, the cases of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes might appear of little importance now. Last night, however, I was roused from bed by three visitors. I will not identify them for obvious reasons; although two of them would be widely known from king to barrow boy. Suffice to say: one gentleman holds a very senior post in His Majesty’s government, the second a high rank in the army, while the third is a leading light in the clandestine and anonymous world of our secret service.

  Clad in dressing gown and slippers, I invited them into my sitting room.

  The military gentleman said: “Dr. Watson. We apologize for calling on you at this time of night, but you will appreciate the fact that we are here on business of a most important nature that concerns not only the security of the Empire but the preservation of all nations.”

  “I understand, gentlemen,” I replied. “How may I help you?”

  The military man said, “We have two matters to put to you. Firstly, do you know the whereabouts of Sherlock Holmes?”

  I shook my head. “I understand he is traveling.”

  “Do you know where?”

  Again I shook my head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Has Mr. Holmes contacted you?”

  “I received a telegram from him perhaps three weeks ago.”

  “Are you able to divulge the contents of the message?”

  “Normally not. But as it’s you, gentlemen . . .” I cleared my throat. “Holmes simply wrote, ‘Watson, the game is afoot.’ ”

  “I see . . .”

  The third gentlemen then spoke. “Thank you, Dr. Watson. That brings us to our second matter. We have brought with us a phonograph recording made several years ago, which my agents retrieved, from a Home Office vault. We should be grateful if you would listen to this recording and identify the voices you recognize.”

  Assembling the phonographic equipment with its horn speaker and wax cylinders took but a few minutes. Then the intelligence officer wound the clockwork motor before pushing a brass lever that set the audio mechanism in motion.

  The chimes of midnight from the church across the square died on the air as the wax cylinder yielded the sound of a man’s voice to the hushed room. This, then, is what I heard.

  Now, pray . . . are you in the mood for a little sport? Perhaps you might care to guess my name? What’s that you say? Is it a name of some importance? Will history have even recorded that name? Or, as with countless billions of men and woman who have swarmed upon the surface of this planet like so many maggots, will it be forever lost to the four winds?

  You require a clue?

  A certain amateur detective who can perform tricks with clues with all the cack-handed dexterity of a Barbary ape juggling apples, described me as “the organizer of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected in London.” Evil? The man’s interpretation of the word is unutterably blunt. I admit I have the ability to acquire that grubby medium called money and to exert my will on men without the handicap of conscience. Moreover, the term evil is merely a rather clichéd insult directed by the weak against the strong. And you will be patently aware that the strong are not forgotten by history. Some might accuse Rome’s Julius Caesar of evil, but he will never slip from memory. The seventh month of the year is named after him. His successor, Augustus, a powerful man of scant conscience, made posthumous claim to the following month, August. Perhaps one day my name will be similarly honored in the calendar.

  Ah . . . Do you have my name yet? That same aforementioned detective also bestowed upon me the title “the Napoleon of Crime.” A laughably inaccurate one, I should add. Napoleon ultimately lost, whereas I shall be the victor. Still, you may have guessed by now. No?

  Dear, oh dear. Then I’ll delay no longer because I only have precisely one hour to preserve this account of my singular endeavor for posterity. My name is Professor James Moriarty. Never one to fail to exploit the cream of new technology, I am recording my voice on a phonograph. These wax cylinders will preserve this verbal testament for all mankind. After all, I don’t wish anyone hearing this to believe that I merely somehow stumbled upon the greatest discovery made by man through sheer luck. Believe me, luck is for fools. Effort mated with intelligence brings success, not mere chance. What I have uncovered is the result of twenty-five years of painstaking labor and applied thought. Indeed the purpose of my criminal career, as the ignorant might term it, has merely been to fund important research work; although I have to admit that devising all those nefarious strategies did reward me with a modicum of entertainment. I daresay I could have netted the required capital via legitimate commerce, but how deadly dull those long years would have been. Indeed, I would never have had the opportunity to engage in those cerebral duels with that aforementioned detective, one Sherlock Holmes (a name, I daresay, soundly forgotten by history).

  Now here I am, Professor Moriarty, sitting alone in a most elegantly appointed carriage that is drawn by a privately chartered locomotive. It is the first day of November, 1903. On the throne of England and commanding the British Empire is that idiot wastrel King Edward VII.

  No doubt during the pauses between my words you can hear that clickety-click of iron wheels against track. Isn’t it an evocative sound? A symphony for the traveler! The time is ten minutes before midnight. We are passing through a forbidding moor that is ill lit by a gibbous moon. In a short while . . . there . . . did you hear it? The train’s whistle? The driver has signaled that we are but a few miles from a most singular destination. Even now I see ocean away to my right.

  Yet what unfurls beyond the windows on this fiercely cold winter’s night is of far less importance than what lies on the desk in front of me. In this snugly warm carriage is the product of twenty-five years of the most demanding labor imaginable. If through the medium of these wax cylinders you could see what this singular object is, you might not immediately be moved to excitement. “It is merely a book,” you might say. Ah, but what a book. Not just any book. Hear that? That whispery sound? Like the voices of a million ghosts revealing secrets from beyond the grave? Ah . . . That sound you hear, my friends, is the pages of this great and glorious tome. And if you could see the title—that strange and darkly powerful title that has filled many a man with dread—you still might not understand its importance. But I proclaim here and now that this, indeed, is the Book of books. It is the bridge between worlds . . . it is the Necronomicon.

  My diaries reveal in intricate detail the background to my research. However, to toss you a little information in easily digestible morsels will help you to understand what I am about to accomplish tonight. Twenty-five years ago a large bo
dy of antique volumes came into my possession from some ruffian who wanted little more in exchange for them than the price of a few quarts of gin to souse his bloated liver. From the blood-spattered trunk they arrived in, one can deduce without difficulty how the ruffian came by them. No matter. I examined the volumes, intending to sell them on to collectors. However, these were no ordinary books. For the main part they related to occult matters in a number of disparate cultures.

  Now, these volumes did tickle my curiosity delightfully. Moreover, there were several journals in the excitable hand of a certain Father Solomon Buchanan. A man of God who was clearly far more interested in what lay in pagan tracts than can ever be found in the Gospels. I quickly grasped the core of the man’s fascination with these apparently disparate cultures. From the Americas to Europe to Africa to the Orient, he’d studied pagan mythology and arcane writings in search of a common element universal to all cultures across the globe, yet a common element that was a deeply held secret, and known only to an inner sanctum of priests, witchdoctors, and shamans. Now, this was something of immense interest, because if the most powerful individuals guard certain information with the utmost rigor, it means just one thing: that information confers power on its keeper. And isn’t power the most sublime asset of all?

  On the table before me in my study all those long years ago, I carefully laid out drawings that Father Buchanan had made of statues from Mesopotamia, tomb paintings from Egypt, ritual masks from the Tehucan people of Central America, cremation jars from Ban Na Di in India, and a bronze cauldron that belonged to a priest of China’s Shang Dynasty. To an uneducated eye the drawings would merely be of museum pieces; however, even though these depictions of archaeological artifacts came from each corner of the globe and were many thousands of years old, they all contained a representation of the same being: one that is squat, bulbous, some might say toadlike. Yet it has little in the way of facial features save for a vertical slitlike mouth above which sit toadlike eyes. In each representation hooded priests worship before it. While scattered before this object of veneration are severed human limbs and heads.

  This is one example of multitudinous deities that are common to disparate cultures. Ergo, at some point in man’s history fabulous creatures occupied our world. There are suggestions in Buchanan’s journals that there was a mingling of human and inhuman blood. Moreover, these creatures were worshiped as gods, the masters of humanity.

  Night after night I pored over Father Buchanan’s writings. He enthused about a secret book, the Necronomicon. He recounted ancient testimonies of men driven mad after encountering abominable unhuman races that dwelled in the sea or in subterranean lairs. Strange words leaped out at me from the text—Cthulhu, Dagon, Y’golonac, Shub-Niggurath, Daoloth. Soon I realized that the priest had discovered not only a hitherto unknown race of beings that had long ago penetrated our world, but that these Old Ones possessed a source of enormous occult power. A power capable of being accessed—and exploited—by a man of knowledge and courage. Now, twenty-five years later, I, Moriarty, am within barely fifty minutes of achieving just that. The power of steam and electricity barely—

  Now, this isn’t right . . . the train is slowing . . . it’s not scheduled to stop here. Through the windows all I see is moorland. The train is still ten minutes from its destination . . . now . . . now . . .

  Forgive me for that pause. The train has indeed come to halt. Ah, here is my trusted assistant, Dr. Cowley.

  “What’s the delay, Cowley? We must be at Burnston by twelve-fifteen.”

  “We’re continuing immediately, Professor. We’ve paused to allow one of the engineers to be brought on board.”

  “What on earth is an engineer doing here? He should be at the drainage site.”

  “I’m sorry, Professor, but there appears to have been a problem.”

  “Problem, what problem, Cowley? I was telegrammed that the area had been successfully drained.”

  “I—I’m not sure of the details, Professor. But the engineer’s waiting in the next—”

  “Bring him in, then. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

  Ah, this is most irritating. Nevertheless, I will keep the clockwork running on the phonograph in order to record my conversation with the man that Dr. Cowley is in the process of collecting from the next carriage. Ha, the sound of the locomotive . . . we are in motion once more. I should be dreadfully annoyed if we weren’t in Burnston on time.

  And now here is the engineer, a bespectacled man of fifty-five, I should say, in his Norfolk jacket and muddy boots.

  “Sit down, there’s a good fellow. And don’t be distracted by this apparatus. You’ll have seen phonograph recording equipment before?”

  “Indeed I have, sir.”

  “I am keeping an aural record of a scientific experiment. Every sound you utter will be preserved on the wax cylinder here as it turns. Don’t worry, it won’t bite.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Now, I need to know the nature of the problem that has taken you away from your work in order to stop this train.”

  “Well, sir, I thought you should—”

  “Ah, first of all, your name? For the benefit of record.”

  “Of course, sir. My name is Victor Hatherley.”

  “You’re the hydraulic engineer?”

  “I am.”

  “Then, for our audience perhaps you will briefly explain the nature of the contract of works I awarded to your company earlier this year?”

  “If you wish, sir.”

  “I do wish, Hatherley. Now lean forward. Speak clearly.”

  “The firm of engineers with which I am employed has been contracted to drain a parcel of low-lying hinterland that lies on the Yorkshire coast. Five years ago a storm in the North Sea flooded the village of Burnston. Since that time the village has lain at the bottom of a lagoon of saltwater that averages some twelve feet in depth. My colleagues and I erected sea defenses in order to isolate the lagoon, which we then proceeded to drain with the aid of steam pumps.”

  “And now the village of Burnston has been reclaimed from the ocean?”

  “Indeed it has, sir.”

  “So what problem has brought you all the way out here to stop my train?”

  “The men wish to discontinue work at the site.”

  “Then fire them.”

  “We require a number of men to serve the pumps, otherwise seepage through the subjacent soil results in fresh flooding.”

  “And why, pray, do the men refuse to earn the wages I am paying them?”

  “The navvies aren’t happy, they say—”

  “Speak up. The phonograph can’t record murmurs.”

  “The professional men continue their duties, but the navvies are afraid to enter the village.”

  “I daresay there are a few human bones, Hatherley, moldering in the silt; after all, I gather that a hundred and fifty villagers were lost when the place was flooded.”

  “The men aren’t afraid of skeletons, sir.”

  “Then what, pray, is the problem?”

  “They discovered bodies in the buildings when the water levels dropped far enough for them to enter.”

  “Well, then?”

  “The people they found in the houses . . . they were still alive.”

  Our friend Hatherley is now drinking tea in another carriage. The absurdity of these artisans. They fear their own shadows. I, Professor Moriarty—please: take a fix on that name—will not be afraid to enter the drowned village, for I know that is where the greatest treasure of all lies. It was in Burnston that Father Solomon Buchanan discovered an ancient pagan temple beneath the parish church . . . a temple dedicated to the worship of the Old Ones described in the Necronomicon.

  In a little while I will enter the temple. I will conduct the solemn rites that I have painstakingly reconstructed from a thousand fragmentary ancient texts. Then we shall see what we shall see . . .

  I am continuing to record my account of events on the p
honographic device. I have raised the blind of the carriage as the train pulls into a rather ad hoc station built by the hydraulic engineers to serve the drainage site. The time is fourteen minutes past midnight. Now, what do I see before me? Some quarter of a mile away I spy in the moonlight the rolling silver of the North Sea. Between ocean and land is a rampart of earth and rocks that has been raised by the navvies to sever the lagoon from the tides. The lagoon, you will recall, was formed quite recently when the village of Burnston was engulfed during a storm. I see men toiling by the light of hurricane lamps. Horses drawing carts mounded with yellow gravel to renew the roadway. Sparks rising from the chimneys of steam engines that drive pumps to expel seawater from the inundated village.

  Of the village itself, I see houses without roofs. Loathsome mud still oozes across streets to the height of the windows. There’s the village inn, the Mermaid, with its sign still festooned with seaweed. And here is the church of St. Lawrence, covered with a white leprous rash of barnacles. It is in this location that Father Buchanan uncovered a pagan temple beneath the nave. Carved there on the walls are symbols that evoke the Nameless One. In a few moments I shall leave the carriage to conduct a momentous ritual within the ancient temple. With that I shall access power of unimaginable—ah, it is Cowley again; here to interrupt my soliloquy. His face is as purple as a beet.

  “Cowley, can you not see I am making a phonograph recording?”

  “I beg your pardon, Professor.”

  “Go on.”

  “Those individuals that the navvies found in the houses . . .”

  “Oh yes, pixies for the pixilated, no wonder.”

  “No, Professor. These individuals are attacking the navvies.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “They are devouring the men!”

  “Away with you, man.”

  “No, Professor, sir. Can’t you hear the screams? The men are being eaten alive. I’ve seen it myself. Their attackers are grotesque . . . monstrously deformed.”