He left us alone—Holmes raised an eyebrow.
“It seems we are once again enlisted for Queen and Country, old chap,” he said.
“If it means them adding a few pounds to my service pension, I’m all for it,” I replied.
We were both smiling when Mycroft returned, which puzzled him, and made us smile all the more.
“Behave yourselves,” he said. “This is important.”
Holmes burst out laughing. “Then tell us, brother. Break the habit of a lifetime and tell me a secret.”
Mycroft poured us another sherry before sitting. “It does not leave this room,” he said, and then settled back, half-closed his eyes, and began.
“I knew about the murders—the mutilations, before the thing in Hackney. And at first I did not make the connection with the Sigil—you see, I have also known about Mains’ little gatherings, but presumed they were merely bored rich men looking for some rough-edged entertainment. Just last night I discovered these gatherings are rather more commonplace than I knew—there are groups in Bristol, Bath, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and York, alongside at least four others in London—and those are the ones I know of. I have made inquiries with my international counterparts to see how far the web has grown, but that will take some time. I believe I will hear that this is worldwide; it is big, and it is something we should all fear.”
Holmes nodded. “For once we agree, brother. But it is not the sect of the sigil itself we need to worry about—they are being led, like so many sheep. It is the shepherds we need to find—or rather, as is most likely in my opinion, the wolves in the fold. There is a genius behind all of this we have not yet been allowed to see—just a glimpse here and there, a hint as to the full extent of their plans.”
“And how do we find this elusive figure?”
“He started with Mains—and so should we,” Holmes said. “The man has a story to tell we haven’t heard yet. If Watson and I go after that, I trust you will deal with the rest of the affair?”
“The matter is already in hand,” Mycroft said. “All such meetings are now illegal, by act of Parliament, and by command of her Majesty. Any participants will be tried for treason, found guilty, and given a long drop on a short rope. I have men watching all the places I mentioned earlier—we should have everyone in custody within the week.”
“Which is all well and good—but without the ringleader, it will all just start again.”
“So you will help?” Mycroft said.
“I will catch our murderer,” Holmes replied. “You can save the world.”
3
Once again we made our way to Russell Square, hoping to talk to Mains and get the tale of his first encounter with the speaking image—but on this occasion we were to be disappointed.
The town house lay quiet and dark, with no sign of life, no light in any window. The gate in the driveway was now securely locked against visitors.
“It seems our quarry has already fled,” Holmes said, and began climbing the tall iron framework. “Let us see if he has left us anything to be going on with.”
He turned at the top and saw I hadn’t yet followed. He laughed.
“It is just a small bit of burglary, Watson. We are on Her Majesty’s Service, remember? Mycroft will not allow us to be jailed for doing the Queen’s business.”
I am afraid I am not as agile as my good friend, and there was much huffing and puffing before I dropped myself down beside him on the house side of the gate. Despite the noise I had made, the house still sat quiet and still.
Holmes ignored the front door and led me through some tugging and tearing foliage to the back, where a kitchen door looked out over a long expanse of well-maintained lawn. Holmes tried the handle on the off chance it had been left open, and then, when that didn’t work, laid his shoulder, hard, against the door above the lock. It gave with a crack, as loud as a gunshot in the night, and swung open. If anyone was at home, the alarm would be sounded any moment now.
We stood in silence for ten seconds. No one shouted, nothing moved.
The door opened directly into an old kitchen area with butler’s sinks, copper pans and huge butcher’s blocks, little more than dark shadows in the unlit room. Despite the gloom, Holmes seemed to know where he was headed. He led me through to an even darker corridor beyond that was lined in huge oak panels; the black glass eyes of long dead animals followed our passage from high mounts. I was not surprised after a few more seconds to find ourselves at the tall door to the library in which we had met Mains earlier.
Holmes pushed the door open. The room lay in total darkness and silence. Holmes did not hesitate; he lit the lamps on either side of the fireplace, and started to go through the paperwork on Mains’ desk. As he was doing so, I made a study of the books—as I expected from our first visit, few of the volumes showed any signs of having been read—a rich man’s library, bought for show and containing nothing of any pertinence to our investigation. I turned to tell Holmes, and saw that he was lost in reading from a batch of letters.
“Mycroft was right—it is worldwide. Brazil, Italy,” he said, dropping a page for emphasis with each country. “India, Japan, Egypt. Mr. Mains has been busy. But here is what I was looking for.”
He showed me a note—it was an invoice from a Scottish butcher for a large quantity of meat.
“Why this, Holmes?”
Holmes tapped the top of the page. “This is his address in Scotland, Watson—where this thing began, and where we must go to find out where it ends.”
I did not have time to reply. As I was passing the note back to Holmes a thud as of someone heavy moving around came from the room directly above us. Holmes and I moved at the same time, each of us putting out a lamp, and although I was not aware of doing so, I realized I now had my pistol in my hand, raised and aimed at the door.
A noise came again above us, this time sounding almost as if someone had fallen out of bed. I smelled a now recognizable hint of vinegar.
Holmes moved away from me, and I saw his silhouette cross against the dim light coming through the window. I followed, my eyes starting to adjust to the gloom as we reached the door, Holmes already heading swiftly and quietly towards the main staircase.
The smell was stronger here, almost burning in my nasal passages. The thudding was repeated, twice, from a bedroom to the right at the top of the stairs. Before I could recommend caution, Holmes ran up the remaining steps with no heed for the noise and burst in the bedroom, his cane raised. I heard him yell, in pain or surprise I knew not. There was a scuffle, as of a fistfight, but it lasted only a second before I heard the crash of breaking glass.
I arrived at the doorway to see Holmes on the floor, the tall bedroom window thrust open to the elements—and a blacker shadow, barely visible, moving off high above the rooftops, flying into the night.
Chapter Twelve
EF
It took Holmes several seconds to recover his composure.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“Only my pride,” he said. “And that can soon be mended.”
I helped him to stand. I looked for his cane to pass it to him—it lay on the floor, snapped in two pieces.
“The blighter is dashed strong,” Holmes said, as he stood, somewhat groggy, leaning on my shoulder. “I hit him hard, Watson, as hard as I have ever hit anyone. It felt like hitting a wall and as you can see, I need a new Malacca. But there’s more—after he returned my blow, and as I was falling, I grabbed out at something, something soft, almost pulpy. I believe I have done him some damage in return for the loss of my dignity.”
I light a bedside lamp—if anyone were going to note our trespassing, they would surely have done so by now—and studied what Holmes had grasped in his left hand. I couldn’t for the life of me make sense of what I was looking at. It seemed to be a piece of black shell, shot through with the rainbow colors often seen on rocky shores. And like a shell that had been cracked by a gull, its concave cavity held a wedge of yellow meat, oozing a pa
le gray fluid that stank of acrid vinegar.
“What in blazes do we have here, Holmes?”
“Another mystery,” Holmes replied. “And one we must go to Scotland to solve I’m afraid. But let us first return to Baker Street. I must examine this more closely.”
3
It was in the wee hours of the morning by the time we arrived back in Baker Street, but Holmes showed no sign of tiredness, despite having a bruise the size of a small egg on his temple.
Mrs. Hudson roused herself from bed just long enough to brew us some coffee and provide ham sandwiches and a splendid cold meat pie, and then returned to her quarters mumbling imprecations against unpredictable lodgers, leaving Holmes and me at his study table examining the mysterious substance.
On closer examination, the piece of shell seemed more like that of a crab than any insect, and the inside curve had a most attractive mother-of-pearl sheen to it. The yellowish meat, however, was unclassifiable; it certainly wasn’t edible, being slimy and emitting an odor of vinegar so strong I had to keep my head away from immediately above it. Although it was most definitely organic, close examination of the cell structure showed it was closer to plant than animal, with a rigid cell wall that might have been some kind of cellulose but resisted any examination by the admittedly crude equipment at our immediate disposal. There were also mycelia-like strands in a tangled web threaded through the flesh, as if it were infected by—or indeed partly composed of—some form of fungal growth.
One thing both Holmes and I agreed on—it was not anything remotely human.
“And you say it flew?” Holmes asked as we retired to the fireplace for a smoke.
I nodded, remembering my last glimpse of the shadow.
“It might have had wings—or it might have been some kind of balloon or kite—it was too dark to make out any detail.”
Holmes went quiet. “This may be yet more mummery to throw us off the scent,” he said. “For the life of me I cannot equate what we have here with the man who assaulted me.”
“If it even was a man?” I replied.
Holmes guffawed. “Come, Watson. If not a man, then what? His actions so far in following and observing us have been all too human, and I can tell you that he punched like a boxer, albeit one with iron in his gloves. No—I must think on this.”
We smoked in silence for some time, Holmes growing increasingly still until he was once more in that trancelike state of concentration I was coming to know so well. He did not even twitch when I rose to pour myself two fingers of Scotch.
At some point I grew tired and, before I could act on the feeling, fell asleep in my chair. When I woke to the thin light of morning peering through the curtains, Holmes still sat opposite, puffing on his favorite meerschaum.
“We have had word from Mycroft,” he said. “They have rounded up Mains’ collaborators from last night, but the man himself slipped the net. It appears he has taken fright—and I believe I know where he will go to ground. What say you, Watson—will you accompany me to Scotland?”
I stood and stretched the kinks out of my poor back. “Just give me time for a wash and shave. And some breakfast—please?”
Holmes laughed. “I shall see us on the afternoon train from Euston. Take your time, old chap,” he said.
I was not particularly impressed with the emphasis he put on the word ‘old’.
3
The train going north was a quiet one, it being too close to Christmas for the tourist trade, and the weather inclement enough to discourage the casual traveler. We had a carriage to ourselves the whole way and were able to smoke without inconveniencing anyone and to chat without having to worry about being overheard.
Holmes indulged me by doing his thinking aloud, using me as a sounding board for his ideas.
“What we must ask ourselves, Watson, is who has the most to gain from this … conspiracy, for want of a better word—and who has the skill, and the will, for what is obviously an undertaking on a grand—and grandiose—scale. Each part of that question requires close scrutiny, and unlocking any one part might bring us closer to the truth of the whole. What we can say with some degree of certainty is that Mains, and indeed the whole of the sect of the sigil, have been mere pawns in a larger game. Mycroft may well round them all up and have them disappear from polite society—but the main player remains very much on the board, and very much hidden behind the defenses he has built for himself.”
“To continue with the metaphor,” I replied. “Are we approaching the end-game?”
Holmes laughed.
“I fear we may still be at the stage of positioning our pieces,” he replied. “And I am as yet unsure whether I myself am the white king, or merely another pawn. And as for our opponent—he has shown no scruples about sacrificing pieces when they are no further use to him.
“But it is the advanced machinery that worries me most, Watson. That, and the use they have made of poor Green’s face. The manner in which that was accomplished has me completely stumped—it is beyond the ken of what I understand to be the current state of modern science. It may be that we are dealing with an extreme event—a scientist who has made a giant stride forward in scientific thinking independent of all others in his field. And if that is the case—what else might we have to face in our quest for justice?”
“And what of the shell-like material? What are we to make of that?”
Holmes shook his head.
“I do not know, as yet. But it may be merely subterfuge and camouflage. This case began with deception on my part—it may be that our adversary is equally, if not indeed more, adept in that art himself. Facts, Watson—that is all the rational mind can afford to deal in. We need more facts.”
“All I have is conjecture,” I replied, giving voice to something I had been worrying over. “But what if there is no subterfuge? What if the voice in the image is what it says it is—an emissary from another world, come to help us bring an end to war?”
“By using a dead man’s face?” Holmes scoffed. “No, Watson. I cannot be persuaded of the veracity of the most complicated, least obvious solution—not yet in any case, but for the sake of your instincts, I promise not to dismiss it out of hand.”
3
Our journey became somewhat protracted north of Crewe as the weather drew in, and we made slow progress through ever-strengthening winds and steadily building snowdrifts.
The conductor passed through the train and poked his head into our carriage on the way past.
“Jist a wee bit o’ snaw,” he said in a broad Scots accent. “Nothing to worry about, gents. We’ll be in Carlisle for supper—you’ll see.”
The train finally came to a grinding halt somewhere to the south of Oxenholme. Icy snow rattled like gunfire against the windows as the light faded and the evening drew on with no seeming prospect of any forward movement.
The conductor poked his head around the door again.
“Should nae be long now, gents,” he said, but half an hour later we were still at a standstill. At least the dining carriage stayed open, and we were able to have a supper, albeit one of rather poor quality, which led me to imbibe more ale and Scotch than I perhaps should have. So it was that when nine o’ clock came round and there was still no sign of any progress towards Carlisle, I allowed my head to drop, and fell into a doze that quickly turned to sleep.
I was rudely awoken sometime later in a darkened carriage with Holmes bending over me. He had a large syringe in his hand. Even in my slightly befuddled state, I knew this was not a good sign.
“Holmes. You promised me …”
He smiled thinly.
“This is not for me,” he said, at the same time as I heard a loud thud overhead. “We have company.”
The thudding came again, louder this time. I followed Holmes out into the corridor, just as the conductor came from the front of the train.
“Nothing to worry about, gents. We have a wee coo on the roof—not so rare as you’d imagine round these parts.”<
br />
The thudding came again, four quick beats.
“It’s a dashed dainty cow,” I said. Holmes was already at the carriage door. He pushed it open, letting the wind and snow in, and causing the conductor to sputter and curse in outrage. Holmes wasn’t listening. He had already swung himself, one-handed, up onto the slim ledge on top of the doorframe and then outward in one smooth movement onto the carriage roof.
I did my best to follow.
Lashing snow immediately stung my cheeks and threatened to blind me; a gusty wind tugged at my clothes, trying to dash me backward as I pulled myself up. Despite the snow, I saw Holmes clearly enough. He faced an adversary shorter than himself but stocky, broad across both hips and shoulders. Both were mere silhouettes against the darkness of the night, and Holmes’ cry of triumph as he raised the syringe came only faintly in the howling wind. His opponent seemed to shudder and quail, and the resulting shriek was louder even than the gale. Holmes made a grab forward, but the other man was still too fast, slipping out of reach to Holmes’ left and then leaping—a prodigious jump of some fifteen feet or more—from the roof. The last I saw of him was as a shadow heading over the top of a drift as tall as the train itself; then there was only the snow and wind.
Holmes dashed past me and swung himself in one seemingly effortless movement back into the carriage. I followed rather more sedately, and by the time I got back inside Holmes was remonstrating with the conductor.
“For pity’s sake, man! I’m only asking for a lantern, not the Crown Jewels.”
“I can nae let anyone off the train …” the man started.
“I’ve already been off the bloody train,” Holmes said, almost shouting in his face.
The man tried to stand up to Holmes, but there are few men who could look Holmes in the eye when his dander is up. He still, however, would not give in to Holmes’ request for a lamp. Holmes turned in disgust and headed off down the train as I did my best to keep up with him.
It took five minutes for us to find a lamp—there were several in the guards’ van at the rear. The two gentlemen sitting there were only too happy for us to take what we wanted, although they showed no sign of rising from their seats by a stove to help us.
Sherlock Holmes: The London Terrors by William Meikle Page 7
