Sherlock Holmes: The London Terrors by William Meikle

by William Meikle

  He was immediately lost to everything else, and I knew better than to interrupt him so early in the task. I poured a snifter of brandy and took myself off to the comfort of the fireside chair for a smoke and a think. I’m afraid to say there was not much of the latter done; I quickly dozed off, as the soup and the warmth lulled me into a most pleasant slumber.

  I woke at some point later to a fire that was burnt down to little more than glowing embers. Holmes still sat at his work desk, hunched over the strip of gauze, lips pursed in concentration. It was nearly midnight, but I knew my friend would stay up until he was satisfied he had wrung every piece of information possible from the thing in front of him. As I, too, felt no inclination to head for bed, having just woken, I lit the lamps around the room, poured another brandy, and lit a fresh pipe.

  Holmes finally pronounced himself satisfied somewhere around two in the morning.

  “Well, Watson,” he said, sitting up and stretching like a cat. “We have stumbled on something rich and strange indeed. Come and see.”

  I groaned as I heaved myself out of the chair—more for effect than from any discomfort—and went to join him at the desk.

  “What do you know of the mummification process, Watson?” Holmes asked as I bent for another look at the gauze.

  “Is that what this is?” I replied. “Linen?”

  “I believe so—although it was almost completely drenched in resin at some point long past, a process that made it rather tough and brittle. I believe what we have here is a portion from the outermost layer—as you may know, the last layer was often covered in writing—spells to protect the dead on its journey to the afterlife.”

  “So it is Egyptian, then?” I asked.

  Holmes smiled.

  “Ah, but I did not say that—I merely said it was from a mummified body, and that there is writing on the fragment.”

  “Then what indeed are you saying, Holmes?”

  “Have a closer look for yourself, old chap,” he said. “Tell me what you make of it.”

  I lifted the large glass and studied the strip of gauze. There, in a tight, crabbed script I had to strain to make out, was indeed a form of writing, in the smallest letters imaginable. I was about to turn away when I realized I knew—after a fashion—what I was looking at.

  “Dash it, Holmes. I was expecting hieroglyphs—but this is no such thing. Unless I’m mistaken, this is ancient Greek.”

  “You’re not mistaken, Watson. It is indeed Greek—and a distinct dialect at that.”

  “You have translated it?”

  “What I can read—and some I have surmised, for it is something we both learned as schoolboys—although I never expected to find it here.”

  “Yea, and if some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep, even so I will endure. For already have I suffered full much, and much have I toiled in perils of waves and war. Let this be added to the tale of those.”

  “Homer?”

  “Indeed,” Holmes replied. “It makes you wonder what else was written on those shrouds in that crate—and who it was that might have been interred there.”

  “You know, Holmes—you might be right about there being skullduggery at work here—this smacks to me of theft of some great piece of antiquity.”

  “My thoughts exactly, Watson. And the answer will lie with Lord Northwich, mark my words. What say you to catching the early train to Liverpool?”

  Chapter Five

  EF

  I managed to have several hours in bed before being woken at six by the smells of cooking and Mrs. Hudson moving around downstairs. After a hearty breakfast and some rather hurried packing of a valise we made our way to Euston just in time to catch the eight o’ clock train to Lime Street.

  Holmes sat in quiet contemplation throughout the journey, refusing to be drawn into speculation about our latest discovery.

  “I will not—cannot—give you an answer, Watson. There are insufficient facts as yet to form a cogent theory. We may speculate, certainly, but that would only have us chasing our own tails in search of ever more fanciful conclusions. Ask me again this evening—we may have some more bricks and mortar in the wall by then.”

  I contented myself with watching the country go by through the window, although in truth there was little to be seen, as the dashed fog seemed to have crept over the whole of the Southern Counties and beyond.

  Liverpool proved every bit as cold, damp and fog-bound as London had been. We took lodgings above the Red Lion in Albert docks, and when we ventured out after a quick spot of lunch it was once again in the face of thick, almost cloying, fog.

  We did not have to go far to find the vessel we had come in search of—the quayside was rife with stories of the “Boat of Death.” It came as no surprise to be told tales of men suffering from sores and boils or of a boat that docked with scarce five men alive in a crew of fifty. What did surprise both Holmes and myself was to hear that the vessel was still here, moored in the farthest quay from the main dock, a dead hulk that no dockhand dared to approach.

  Holmes had no such qualms. We headed to the designated quay. It was completely deserted save for a single vessel looming above us, a black shadow in the fog.

  We had found it.

  3

  The fog threw an ethereal, almost ghostly pall over the boat, and despite myself I felt a cold shiver of foreboding as we climbed the gangplank. It might have been afternoon, but it was difficult to tell in such fog, and once we were inside the vessel it was as gloomy as if it were almost full night.

  The deck was empty and bare, and the wheel cabin’s silent, cracked and broken windows open to the elements testament to the fact that the boat would not be making any trips out of dock any time soon. A gentle swell off the Mersey meant that we were aware we were not on firm land, but it was not enough to make me want to take to the open seas—and certainly not in this vessel.

  It smelled of putrefaction and death—odors with which I am all too familiar—and the doorway that led to the steps to the lower decks looked dank and uninviting. Holmes lit an oil lantern that sat at the hatchway with a match—the flare of which quite blinded me in the growing gloom as he put the flame to the wick. A warm yellow glow immediately restored some of my spirits, and I followed the bobbing light as we went down into the depths.

  The air grew heavy, thick and cloying both in the nostrils and at the back of my throat. The walls ran wet with cold moisture, as if the boat itself had worked up a fever-sweat. The further we descended, the worse it became. We saw no signs of life—not even the hardy ship’s rats had stayed to reign over the end of the boat’s life.

  As we walked through the crew’s quarters it was obvious that some had been vacated in a hurry, with no thought for packing personal belongings. Clothing, books and even half-eaten remnants of meals still sat there, waiting for men who would never return. A larger cabin—the Captain’s own quarters, at a guess—had been ravaged by fire, the walls covered in soot, with scorched and charred furniture piled in a heap in the center of the floor. Holmes took a cursory look through the room while I stood at the door and lit a cheroot that did much to dispel the noxious assault on my nose and throat.

  “There’s nothing of value left here,” Holmes said after a minute or so. “Let us see if the hold has retained any secrets.”

  At least it was warmer—marginally—in the deeper reaches of the boat, but that only served to remind me of the stories from its passage through the Mediterranean and up the coast to France. Suddenly the old sailor’s tales seemed much less outlandish, and I was thinking, not for the first time, of a warm fire and a snifter—a large one—of brandy as we reached the main hold.

  3

  Our footsteps echoed in a vast, empty space as sepulchral as any cathedral. The lamp only illuminated five yards or so around us, but as we walked it was obvious that any cargo that had been held here was long since gone. Holmes insisted we tread carefully, and began a systematic quartering and re-quartering of the deck. It took an in
ordinate length of time, and just as I was losing patience with the whole thing, Holmes let out a yelp of delight and bent down.

  “It was here, Watson,” he said. He picked up some material I recognized immediately—more of the linen gauze. He put it carefully away in a paper envelope he took from his inside pocket, and handed it to me for safekeeping as he made a minute search of the deck around us. It was a further ten minutes before he was satisfied, during which time he handed me three more envelopes.

  “It was here, Watson,” he said again as he stood and stretched. “But it was moved some time ago—four men at least, in sturdy work boots, smokers of cheap tobacco if the ash tells us right: dockhands, at a guess. How do you feel about visiting a few more taverns?”

  “That is the best offer I have had in weeks,” I replied, and had already turned away toward the stairs upward when I heard it.

  A deep moan came from the darkness in the far end of the hold, then another as we turned toward the unexpected sound. A metallic clang rang around us, as if a hammer had just been struck against the hull.

  “Hello?” I called out injudiciously. I received another loud moan in answer.

  “It seems someone is intent on keeping prying eyes at bay,” Holmes said. “Come, Watson—let us flush them out.”

  Holmes strode away across the hold, and I had little choice but to follow, for I did not in the least bit fancy standing on my own in the dark after the light had been taken away.

  “Let us have you, then,” Holmes shouted.

  He, too, was answered by a moan, louder and more prolonged than before, reminding me of nothing less than a great church organ wheezing into life. I had to trot to keep up with Holmes, and when I finally caught him, he was standing in the prow of the vessel, holding the lamp aloft. There was nothing to be seen but the metal plates of the hull, curving away on either side of us. Apart from some moisture dripping from high above there was no other sound, no movement—and no sign of a source for the moaning.

  We stood there, silent, for several minutes, waiting for any recurrence of the sounds, but all I could hear was my own breathing and the steady drip of water off somewhere to my right.

  “I’ve had enough of parlor games and tricksters,” Holmes announced, and without further ado turned on his heels and strode back down the length of the hold. I followed on behind as well as I was able, ready to increase my pace should a moan rise up to mark our passing.

  We arrived back on the top deck with no further ado. Holmes snuffed out the lamp and we stood there, looking over the fog-bound quays. Slowly the sounds of the city reached us; dockhands shouted, muffled and far off, and a boat whistle blew long and hard out in the Mersey channel in counterpoint to the sad rhythmic wail of a foghorn.

  Holmes took a cheroot when offered and we stood smoking in silence for a while.

  “So—our trip was for nothing?” I said. “Just four envelopes containing more fragments of linen? Hardly a winning haul.”

  “On the contrary, Watson,” Holmes said. “We know far more than we did an hour ago.” He ticked off items on the long fingers of his left hand. “We know that the sailors’ stories—both of them—are substantially true. We know that the crate was indeed on this boat, we know it was taken off it by common dockhands—and we know, from the pathetic attempts to scare us off—that someone does not want us snooping around. That is rather a lot to be going on with, don’t you think?”

  “Well, if you put it like that,” I said, and laughed with him. “So we think Lord Northwich has spirited the crate away—is that it?”

  “Precisely,” Holmes replied. “And with the judicious spending of a few florins in the local hostelries, I am confident we shall be able to find its destination in short order. Now, this may be the first time I have had to ask you twice, Watson—but are you ready to visit some taverns?”

  Chapter Six

  EF

  At first I thought our search was destined to be fruitless. We visited half a dozen busy bars in the streets and alleys in the immediate area. The dockhands, to a man, were absolutely terrified of the “ghost” ship at the dark end of the docks. Many of the men demanded that it be towed away to be sunk far out at sea, although none of them looked in any hurry to volunteer for the task. No one would talk of the day of the boat’s arrival on the quay. There were dark mutterings of foul deeds, and reports of staff from the Royal Hospital ferrying the bodies—tens, scores or hundreds depending who we spoke to—to a mass grave on the edge of the city for burning lest the contagion spread into the general population.

  No two tales contained any correspondence with one another, the stories grew wilder the further we strayed from the dockside itself, and it was obvious that Holmes’ frustration was growing by the minute. However, it only took one snippet of conversation for him to regain his enthusiasm.

  “Them bosses know more than they’re saying, that’s for sure,” one particularly filthy laborer proclaimed as he wiped beer suds from his whiskers. Holmes went quiet, then without a word headed for the door.

  I met him out in the cobbled alleyway.

  “We have been asking in the wrong places. It seems we must raise our gaze, Watson,” he said. “Let us see if these ‘bosses’ are any more forthcoming.”

  I had no idea whether Holmes had ever visited this city before, but he led us, unerringly, through a warren of alleyways and side streets that brought us quickly to the merchant area; the more salubrious warehouses and office buildings clustered to the north of the dock. Even then he kept going, taking me round the rear of a tall sandstone building to an imposing porch and a large oak door with brass knockers. He rapped three times.

  3

  “Sherlock Holmes to see Lord Northwich,” Holmes said as the door opened, and without giving the doorman any time to answer, strode inside as if we were expected. I followed behind, trying to avoid seeming out of place.

  We were in a sprawling gentleman’s club, and one of some opulence at that, fitted out in more mahogany, leather and brass than any of the London establishments I frequented—shipping magnates were obviously somewhat better provided for than old soldiers. Holmes wasted no time taking in the surroundings. He strode into the main bar—a barn of a place in itself—and called out in a loud voice that stopped all conversation at a stroke.

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I am looking for Lord Northwich. Can any of you gentlemen help me?”

  Several uniformed flunkeys started to converge on our location. I feared our stay would prove to be a short one, but the staff members were waved away by an elderly chap in the corner.

  “They are with me,” he called out.

  He looked too heavy to struggle out of his chair without some aid, but seemed robust enough in spirits as he waved us over to join him at his table.

  “Holmes. Good to see you again, old chap,” the man said. “What’ll it be? Port or brandy?”

  He motioned toward one of the flunkeys, three fingers raised in the air. The man left without speaking, having understood the message, and the elderly gent motioned us to the chairs opposite him.

  “How long has it been, old man? It must be ten years since you sorted out that nonsense with the office safe for me.”

  “Eleven, sir,” Holmes replied. “And I am very pleased to see that you are still in robust health after all these years.”

  “Bah!” the man said. “Can hardly climb into bed these days, and I am of no use to the wife once I get there. But as long as there are still brandy and cigars to enjoy, there will be life in this old dog. Now, what has lured you away from the soft southern comforts of the capital? A matter of some import, I will wager?”

  Holmes took a minute to introduce me to what was obviously a client from a case before I became his chronicler. Our newest drinking companion was Mr. Edward Malone, a self-made businessman from this very city, with a dozen boats and a string of warehouses to his credit. He was also, as I was about to discover, a man who liked to hear himself talk.

 
“Northwich, is it?” he said, after the brandy and cigars had arrived and we all lit up. “Well, you won’t find many good words about the man in these parts. Nice enough chap, or so I’m told, but he has a terrible head for business. And the men don’t like him, which never helps. I suppose you being here must have something to do with that derelict boat of his? Bloody nuisance—it has got all of the dockhands spooked, and it’s hard enough to pry a day’s work out of them without ghosts and ghoulies in the way. I knew something was up when the man came to me asking for more workers.”

  “Northwich came to you? When was this?” Holmes said, quietly. He had sat back in his chair, seemingly quite relaxed, but I could see in the set of his eyes that Mr. Malone had seized his full attention. As I have said, the elderly gentleman needed little prompting. He settled deeper in his chair, knocked back some brandy, and smiled—he had an audience, and he intended to milk it for all it was worth.

  “It was just after that blasted boat docked. The crew that came in with it was too sick to be of any use to man or beast. It caused a bit of a stir here that morning—doctors and police and worried councilmen all getting in the way of the rest of the day’s business. In the end they took everyone off the ship down to the last man—they all were shipped off to the hospital that very same day. Some of them even survived—despite the stories you’ll no doubt have heard—but none of them could be persuaded to return. You won’t find them around here either—foreign chaps mostly, and this town was too cold for the likes of them. They’ve all shipped out—gone away south to warmer climes.”