“Why not tell them what you told us?” Kent asked. “Why tell them of an Eloi under the yoke.”
“He did not tell them of the Eloi,” Holmes answered. “He told them of us. Is that not true, Maddoc?”
Maddoc sighed and let his chin sink to his chest, remaining silent so long as to make his listeners wonder if he had lapsed unconscious. “When I stumbled into the midst of that dinner party which I had long forgotten,” he finally continued, “I knew I had to tell them something. They had seen the demonstration of the model, so there was no denying it, especially since that fool Wells immediately put the idea into their heads. It was all I could do to remain conscious. I’m afraid that in my efforts to make the future more palatable to them, I inadvertently drew upon memories of my second trip, the one I made in a misguided effort to lift the Eloi from savagery, to help them regain their human heritage and destroy the Morlocks forever.”
Kent downed another whiskey.
“Tell us of your second trip,” Holmes said quietly. “Tell us how you unmade the future.”
Maddoc looked at Holmes sharply. “Yes, it is all my doing…my undoing.”
“Maddoc,” Holmes urged, less gently.
“After my return to 1894, I decided I must help the Eloi, those who had forgotten so much of their heritage, yet had retained much of man’s form,” Maddoc explained. “Though the Morlocks are the more intelligent of the two races, and have preserved much more of our technical skills, I decided that I had to throw my lot in with the Eloi, to tip the balance decidedly in their favour. To do so, I had to help them regain the technical skills they had lost, to bring them steam and electricity, to help them build the weapons of final war against the Morlocks. I saw it as a holy crusade to put a better version of man back on the evolutionary road to the future.”
“Blasphemous,” Kent muttered.
“When one travels through time in my machine,” Maddoc continued, “the translation is not instantaneous. If you can visualise time as a roadway with scenery that changes as one progresses or regresses along the roadway, then please see my machine as nothing more than a sort of carriage. The sun and moon travelled their courses beyond the glassed roof of my laboratory, but at a much swifter rate. So great was my velocity through time that I could see the growth patterns of the plants in my garden as they crept up the walls. Bear in mind, gentlemen, this was already a familiar road for me, and I did not expect to see any different ‘scenery’ than I had upon my first excursion into the far future. That was how I first realised something was amiss.
“I saw Richmond burst into flames and my laboratory destroyed. Only my tremendous velocity through time save me from a like incineration. I witnessed far fires and incredible explosions beyond the horizon, with rising clouds like so many sprouting mushrooms. By the time I was able to halt my forward temporal velocity and bring my machine to a halt, I had reached the year 1954. There were still people in the Richmond area, but they were a ragged lot, wretched in every way, fearful of the night, terrified of predatory Morlocks.”
“But you said the Morlocks lived in the far future,” Kent protested.
“I had no explanation of the situation, and nothing in the area enlightened me,” Maddoc said. “I walked along rusted rail lines that had not been used in decades, along a Thames that was silent and vacant of all watercraft. Twice I was almost spotted by nocturnal patrols, and once by daylight I was set upon men, who took flight at a single revolver shot, as if they had never seen a firearm.
“Finally I came upon London, or, more properly, a mockery of the London we know. Soaring chimneys from the bowels of the earth continually belched a sulphurous pall over the ruins of the city. Amongst the smouldering remnants of once-great buildings reared the Winged Sphinxes of the Morlocks. The Thames was choked with wrecks and filth, and areas of the water and the docks were so chemically polluted by the Morlocks’ manufactories that they burned and smoked day and night. Portions of London’s great bridges were still extant, but they were clogged with herds of humans driven by their Morlock masters into slaughterhouses. Morlocks and humanity had waged war in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, and humanity had lost. The Morlocks were the masters of London, and from what I was able to learn over weeks of dodging and hiding it was the same story in every other world city. The Morlocks had, by the end of the second decade of the Twentieth Century, become the masters of the Earth, and by the period in which I had halted their rule was absolute. The future I had witnessed on my first journey no longer existed, had been ‘uncreated’ by some factor of which I was then ignorant. Seeing there was nothing I could do, seeing that the Eloi I had sought to help would never now come into being, I abandoned the nightmare that was London, and eventually made my way back to Richmond where I had hidden and disabled my machine.”
“What happened?” Kent demanded. “What did you do?”
Maddoc slumped down into the sofa and stared at the floor.
Kent grabbed him by the lapels. “What did you do?”
“Easy, Inspector, we gain nothing by loosing our destructive emotions,” Holmes said, disengaging Kent’s fingers. “We must retain our sense of reason.”
“I do not know what happened,” Maddoc muttered.
“Of course you do, Maddoc,” Holmes said evenly. “That is why you returned to 1894 and began scouring London. You were searching for the Morlocks’ lair in London, for you deduced that the conquest of the future began in the present.”
“But how could the Morlocks have journeyed back in time?” Kent demanded. “They’re just animals, clever white monkeys, not men…not God’s creatures…”
“In examining your machine, cleaning it,” Holmes said, “they were not paying homage, as you lied to yourself, but were learning the intricacies of its operations, the secret of its motive power, the method of navigating time. They were copying it, and when they had done so, they abandoned their own time for the past, seeking a period when they could operate unmolested, gather strength against an enemy less dangerous than the Eloi because it was more ignorant.”
“You bloody fool!” spat Kent toward Maddoc.
Maddoc buried his face in his hands.
“The situation is far from hopeless,” Holmes said.
“What do you mean, Holmes?”
“In searching London for the Morlocks’ lair within the sewers, Maddoc was no more successful than were you with your charts and maps,” Holmes explained. “That’s why he returned to Richmond and risked another venture forward in the Time Machine.”
“They’re very careful here,” Maddoc murmured. “But not so in 1954, when they are the lords of the Earth.”
“Yes, and you have seen where they started their conquest of humanity,” Holmes said. “Where, Maddoc? Where are they now?”
“Spitalfields,” the man replied, drawing himself up. “Spitalfields in Stepney, just south of the Market on Commercial Road. There is a sewer opening in Frying Pan Alley; that is where they started, and where we must go to undo what I have done, to put the future back on track.”
“Yes, we must return to London, the three of us,” Holmes agreed. “But before we do so, there is one last thing you must do here.”
“As much as it pains me, Mr Holmes,” Maddoc said, “I fear your are correct, and of the two of us the wiser man.”
“If I take your meaning aright, I’ll swing the sledgehammer myself,” Kent volunteered.
Chapter XI
Into the Darkness
They journeyed back to London by hired steamer, put at their disposal by Sir Reginald Dunning, whom Holmes contacted by emergency telegram from the Richmond Station. The great River Thames was layered with predawn blackness and the launch’s running lights were the only lights in motion all along the Syon, Mortlake and other reaches of the Thames, all other vessels either moored till the dawning or waiting for the turning of the tide. They were unlikely to encounter any significant river traffic till Battersea or Nine Elms, a situation of which Peter Yan
oz, owner of the launch, took full advantage, driving the engines at full pressure.
They passed the Old Deer Park and Kew Gardens on the right, lost in the shrouded night. Kent lay on deck, letting the cool breeze flow over him, regretting his need to intake so much whiskey. Holmes sat next to Maddoc on a bench by the side.
“Some stragglers remained in the woods there,” Maddoc said, “but the largest group moved on to London.”
“How many do you estimate?” Holmes asked.
“Fifty at the most, probably less at the moment, but their numbers are not as important as their constitution,” Maddoc answered.
“Which is?”
“You must understand that although the Morlocks evolved from modern man they are not like us in many ways,” Maddoc explained.
“The devil…” Kent muttered, but Holmes gently motioned him to silence.
“They are hive creatures, the ideal adaptation to subterranean communal life,” Maddoc continued. “Every biological and psychological change wrought in them is in answer to and in support of that environment. Their hives in the future centre about an analogy to a queen bee or queen ant, an entity which I call the Mother-Thing, by dint of its relationship to the ordinary Morlocks of the hive. A colony cannot exist without a Mother-Thing; kill it and the hive withers.”
“Hence your zeal to find the centre of the Morlock infestation in London.”
“By 1954, Mr Holmes, there were three colonies in England and many more throughout the world,” Maddoc said. “But they all stemmed from the one colony in the London of 1894.”
“Destroy this colony, and the others will never be.”
“Precisely,” Maddoc agreed.
After they passed the distinctively fashioned bridge at Hammersmith and hove closer to the heart of the great city, the captain of the launch was forced to reduce speed. Holmes roused Kent, who had mostly recovered from his bout with disbelief, faith and whiskey.
“Maddoc and I will disembark up ahead, but I want you to continue on to New Scotland Yard, landing at the River Police Dock,” Holmes told him. “The time is past when we can fight this by ourselves.”
“What if they refuse to believe me?”
“You must make them believe, if not in the truth then in the danger.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Call upon resources of my own,” Holmes replied. “Remember, there are not only the Morlocks to defeat, but William Dunning and the other poor souls to rescue from the darkness, if possible.”
Holmes and Maddoc were put ashore at an ancient jetty.
“As soon as you arrange for support meet us outside Charing Cross Station with three dark lanterns,” Holmes instructed. “No more than an hour from now, Inspector, else we will have to go on without you.”
“Like bloody hell, you will!” grinned Kent as the launch swung away from the jetty and steamed down the Thames.
Holmes, accompanied by Maddoc, engaged a hansom cab from Tilling’s fleet. They made their way to the London Office of the Pinkertons, considered the finest private detective agency in the world, second in efficiency as an organisation only to Scotland Yard itself. Over the years, Holmes had called upon the Pinkertons to act as enquiry agents in some of his investigations when extra eyes were warranted.
When Holmes rejoined Maddoc in the waiting hansom, he handed the inventor a revolver and a box of ammunition. Holmes was himself armed with a similar firearm as well as a loaded hunting crop in the inside pocket of his coat.
“Charing Cross Station,” Holmes told the driver. “And hurry!”
“Do we stand a chance, Mr Holmes?” Maddoc asked. “Can we hope to avert of nightmare future of the Morlocks?”
“It does not matter,” Holmes answered. “Even if we knew of a surety the hopelessness of our quest, that the future was preordained to the abyss, we could do nothing else but strive toward our goal. To do otherwise, even to escape death, would make us traitors of humanity. Besides, the fact that you changed the future to the worse at least presents the possibility of us changing the future to the better.”
Holmes settled back into the cramped confines of the hansom and rested his sharp chin upon his interlaced fingers, his eyes half-closed. A sudden jolt of the vehicle in one of London’s numerous potholes brought him out of his reverie and he realised the cab was racing down Baker Street, that he was almost even with his own lodgings. Glancing upward, he saw the window broken by Colonel Moran in his murderous attempt on the evening of his return, which now seemed almost a lifetime ago. The morning breeze fluttered the curtains. A dim light burned within though he recalled turning down the gas before leaving. A form appeared in the window, too tall to be Mrs Hudson, too lean to be Watson, and he saw the ruddy glow of a pipe.
Holmes frowned as the cab continued on through the darkness.
They found Kent waiting impatiently outside Charing Cross Station. He clambered inside the hansom after the driver levered open the knee-doors, a tight fit in a conveyance designed for two, but still workable.
“It took some doing, but we’ll not be alone in the darkness,” Kent reported as they shot toward the East End. “They wanted to lock me up as a lunatic, but both Gregson and Lestrade threw in, at the peril of their careers, at the mention of your involvement. You may not realise it, Mr Holmes, but there are few at the Yard who do not have the utmost respect for you, and I am proud to now count myself as one of their number.”
“Thank you, Inspector Kent,” Holmes replied. “How many men?”
“Several dozen, entering the sewers through every man-sized opening within a half-mile of the Spitalfields Market,” Kent reported. “All will be heavily armed. None will know exactly what they are hunting beyond the fact that the sewer has become infested by a dangerous sort of beast.”
“There is no need for them to know anything else,” Holmes agreed. “What they will encounter will give them nightmares enough as is. With the Pinkertons helping, especially if there is close-quarter fighting – the Americans are really much better at that sort of thing – we should be more than a match for any Morlock bands, and there might even be a chance of rescuing any hostages not yet consumed.”
Kent shuddered. “Do you hold forth any hope for young Dunning?”
“Only the faintest, I fear,” Holmes admitted.
They drove at a breakneck pace along the Thames, not turning from the river till they had sighted the gaunt form of Tower Bridge under construction. The twin towers were partially connected at the upper portion, but the gothic façades, which would house the machinery to raise and lower the bascules, had not been applied. They rose from the misty river like sentinels, obscure in the predawn darkness, dimly illumed solely by the vague navigation lights of river traffic moored and just stirring to motion.
Just south of their goal, Holmes called for the cabby to halt, and the three men poured out of the constricted confines of the hansom.
Deep in the heart of Stepney Borough, on Bishopsgate up from Houndsditch, they passed out of Whitechapel Parish into Spitalfields to the north, centre to London’s silk-weavers since the immigration of the Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, home to the infamous astrologer Nicolas Culpepper, whose lair in Red Lion Square was the scene to many strange goings on during the reign of ill-fated Charles I. Away in the distance they saw the elaborate steeple of the parish church soaring more than two hundred feet and knew they were not far from the great market, which had been established three hundred years earlier, where one could purchase any manner of cloth or produce, where came the bird fanciers of London to seek caged creatures with plumage beautiful and songs exquisite.
They walked through Petticoat Lane, down Widegate Street, across Sandy’s Run and finally into Frying Pan Alley, a dreary passage lined with dismal-fronted tenements, soot-grimed and nitre-encrusted, with cracked or boarded-over windows, and doorways so narrow one would have to turn sideways to enter into one of the tiny body-infested rooms beyond. Except for the three
of them the alleyway was uninhabited, but in one of the narrow doorways, huddled in shadow and watching them with the smouldering sullen glare of the poor, crouched a woman, probably in her teens but appearing in her forties, a wretched suckling clutched to her naked breast; and they felt the hostile gazes of others through those black windows.
“God,” Kent breathed, and no one could tell whether it was prayer or curse.
“Looking at her and knowing the unsanitary crowded conditions within, Inspector Kent, do you find it so difficult to believe in the Morlocks?” Maddoc asked. “Are these people of the East End not already well on their way to becoming Morlocks?”
“They’re human, damn you!” Kent growled. “They may be society’s dregs, but they still have within them, no matter how dimmed by drink and debauchery, the divine spark.”
“But, Inspector, they have already adapted…”
“Gentlemen,” Holmes interrupted. “You may debate biology or theology, as you choose, but please reserve it to a later date, providing we survive.”
Chapter XII
The Thing Beneath London
“The entrance is over this way,” Maddoc said. “It is not one of the avenues used by the Morlocks when they emerge from the darkness into night, but it is the closest opening to the heart of their operations.”
They approached a culvert that ran between two close buildings and vanished beyond a rusted grate. The flagged channel was layered with mould and refuse, coated with filth not completely washed into the chambers beneath, and stagnant puddles shimmered. Ignoring the stink rising from below, Kent and Maddoc levered the grate out of place and quietly set it aside.
Sherlock Holmes looked to the greying sky. “I would rather enter in darkness, but we can afford no further delays, for the sakes of whatever prisoners may yet remain alive.”
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