Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1)

by Ralph Vaughan

  Little Kitty uttered the start of a terrified yowl, but Levi placed a reassuring paw on her shoulder, and she silenced herself.

  “Sorry, Levi, it’s just that…”

  “I understand,” he whispered.

  The shadowy creature lurched against the tree – the sound Levi had earlier heard – then thudded great paws against the walkway and collapsed to the ground. A solid meaty sound was followed by whimpers of pain and urgent gasps for air.

  Little Kitty turned her head to ask Levi a question, but she was alone in the planter. The little Dachshund-mix was already over the brick wall of the planter and running to where the beast had fallen. Little Kitty leaped after him.

  “Be careful, Levi,” she warned. “It’s some kind of monster!”

  “No, Little Kitty,” he replied as he reached it. “Not a monster, just a dog very much in need of help.”

  “A dog?”

  She had never seen a dog with two heads and horns, nor thin claw-like hands sticking out of its sides.

  When Levi began to paw at the poor fellow, however, the horns became branches entangled in his fur, as were the claws protruding from his body. As for the second head, it was a wet mass of vegetation adhering to long fur rising from the back of his neck. His thick coat was matted with filth and grass, and the fur itself was very odd, more like that of a goat than a dog; yet there was no denying his inclusion in the canine family, even though he was like no breed Little Kitty had ever seen. He wore an identity medallion, but the light was too dim to read it.

  “The poor guy is nearly done in,” Levi said grimly. “He’s been through some traumatic ordeal obviously, and he’s had quite a trek to get this far.”

  “What is he?”

  “An Estrela Mountain Dog,” Levi replied. “Their herders, mostly, from Portugal. I’ve never seen one before, just in books.”

  “Help…” the big fellow moaned weakly.

  “We’re here to help you,” Levi assured him.

  “My companion…”

  “Was someone with you?”

  “The truck…the crash…my companion…”

  And the big dog passed totally into unconsciousness.

  “What’s he talking about?” Little Kitty asked.

  “Someone was with him; he and his companion were in a truck driving near here,” Levi explained as he began sniffing at the dog. “There was a crash, the truck dove into a marsh, and he was unable to rescue his companion.”

  “How can you know that?” Little Kitty watched him sniff at the unconscious dog. “What are you doing.”

  “Sniff him.”

  “What?”

  “Sniff him.”

  She did as she was told.

  “What do you smell?”

  “Dog,” Little Kitty replied. “Wet dog.”

  “When I sniff him, I smell who he is, where he’s –“

  Levi stiffened, then began to sniff the downed dog with a concentrated and methodical earnestness. He ignored Little Kitty’s questions. He stood suddenly still, raised his head and sniffed at the breezes out of the west.

  “I have to go,” Levi said.

  “Me too,” Little Kitty decided.

  “Not this time, Little Kitty.”

  “But I want to be a detective, I want to be like you,” she said. “I’m tired of being Kim’s flunky and being housebound.”

  “Being a detective isn’t always about clues and excitement and running around the neighborhood,” Levi said kindly. “But it is always about doing the right thing…and doing the right thing means caring for this big fellow while I track down his companion.”

  “His companion?”

  “He was not alone; the scent is all over him, as is oil from the truck,” Levi explained. “I know it is not the same for cats, but for dogs companions must always be cared for – they cannot survive without our help. While you’re saving this guy, I’ll find the companion, because if we don’t save the companion there may not be any point in saving this dog’s life – I can’t explain it, Little Kitty, but often dogs become so attached to their companions that one will not want to live without the other…it’s just the way dogs are.”

  “Dogs are weird,” Little Kitty announced, which, coming from a cat, was not exactly a news-flash. “How am I going to help him, he’s so big?”

  “Wake Sunny, but Sunny only,” Levi instructed. “If she can drag a fifty-pound bag of dog food out of a drawer –“

  “That was amazing.”

  “– then she should be able to handle him,” Levi said. “Her maternal instinct will give her whatever strength she needs. Hurry Little Kitty!”

  “You can could on me,” Little Kitty said as Levi bounded into the darkness. “And, Levi – be careful!”

  Levi barely heard the Calico’s admonition as he padded swiftly down the walkway, following the unique trail the Estrela had left in his wake. While Levi had often used his sensitive nose to follow a scent in pursuit of a lost or missing animal, this was the first time he had followed one in reverse.

  He crossed Fifth Avenue to the opposite walkway, then turned right at the corner, heading west on F Street. The trail was not a straight one as the injured dog often veered into yards or into the street. It was almost a miracle that he had found his way to the one house in the area where help was a surety.

  But Levi was one dog who believed in miracles, just as surely as he believed in the methods of the Great Detective.

  Levi crossed and re-crossed F Street as he meandered toward Broadway. A mix of scents which had been faint upon the Estrela suddenly surged into prominence – the strange and musty mix of spice that had at first so confused him. He followed the smells to the trash area behind the Cali Baguette and Pho Restaurant on the southeast corner. Charred ginger and onion, cloves, fennel, coriander, and the must of wheat – all the ingredients of Pho, the spicy noodle soup of Vietnam, which the Estrela must have got on him when he stumbled into the trash.

  The dog’s trail stagger-stepped out of the trash, around the corner of the now-closed restaurant, and back onto the walkway, and Levi diligently followed, stopping only when he reached the edge of Broadway. The trail continued across the wide four-lane street; traffic at this hour was practically non-existent, so there was no real danger in crossing, but Broadway marked the furthest western boundary of the area monitored by the Three Dog Detective Agency. The region lost in the darkness beyond was very much a No Dog’s Land, sparsely inhabited and though not controlled by any gang it was roamed by often-vicious ferals who were unlikely to live by either the Precepts of Anubis or the Code of First Dog.

  What would Sherlock Holmes do? Levi asked himself, but he already knew the answer: He would do whatever he had to do to follow the evidence!

  Levi leaped from the curb, running after the scent, which was now just marsh-land and oil and dog, keeping a peripheral eye out for traffic. On the other side, he followed the trail away from the comparative light and life of Broadway. As he ventured deeper into the unlighted wilderness, where lonely land was interrupted only by occasional apartments rising sad and dilapidated alongside battered by-the-hour motels, the faint scent wafting up from the ground battled with the much stronger odors of marsh-land, salty air, and abandoned city work yards. He heard the ominous rumble of the Interstate, busy even at this neap hour with traffic to and from the Mexican border, but even more distinct to him was the noxious fumes that roiled up from the channel through which the Interstate ran.

  Levi crossed the tracks upon which the San Diego Trolley ran, and even though no trains operated at this hour the wires overhead still sparked and sputtered, raining down the rich scent of ozone. The trail left by the injured dog continued into the absolute darkness, where streetlamps were not just broken and neglected, but totally absent.

  Just before the Estrela’s trail veered into the thick reeds beyond the freeway off ramp Levi came across a concentration of rubber, compressed air, and oil hanging heavy above the road; at the same place he
smelled the sharp and brittle odors of broken glass and plastic.

  Hesitating only the barest of moments, Levi plunged into the reeds, head low, nose almost touching the moist earth, ignoring the brackish water that rose to his pasterns and at times threatened to reach his hocks. He smelled the juices of the plants that oozed from breaks caused by the earlier passage of something large.

  Then he saw it, partially submerged into the muck, only one tail-light barely visible through the running water. Levi felt the gentle but persistent tug of a current and realized the tide was coming in.

  Splashing through the shimmering water, he clambered up onto the bumper of the truck, then leaped over the gate into the bed. Several blankets were clumped together, and though now sodden they were heavily redolent with the scent of the big dog who had found his way to them. Peering through the back-window, Levi saw the dog’s companion, unconscious, bleeding and threatened by the rising water.

  And he also saw there was nothing he could do. It would have been an arduous and nearly impossible task for a massive breed like a Wolfhound or a Bullmastiff to wrench the companion free and drag him back to the safety of the roadway; and Levi was just under twenty pounds.

  Levi raised his head sharply and his eared pricked.

  A vehicle was speeding up the lonely road from the marina built along the mudflats of the west.

  Levi instantly bounded from the truck, leaping and splashing through the marshy water, propelled equally by desperation and urgency – the dog’s companion did not have much time left to him, and the happenstance of a vehicle barreling down that bleak road at that hour of the morning was a miracle that would not soon repeat.

  As Levi neared the edge of the marsh, he saw the rising glare of the vehicle’s headlights.

  Summoning his last ounce of will and energy, he lowered his head and shot forward like a bullet.

  The water started to fall away; the ground beneath his paws grew firmer.

  The headlights flared beyond the last of the reeds.

  Levi practically flew from the wall of vegetation, landing in the center of the road.

  The headlights burst like twin suns going supernova.

  Levi faced the onrushing car.

  Tires screamed against the blacktop.

  The cold night air was filled with stinging smoke and the smell of burning rubber.

  Levi held his ground.

  As the chrome grill hurtled toward him, Levi felt no fear, just a feeling that he was not alone. As the car ground to a halt, the bumper punched into him, throwing him back, but he felt no pain, just a feeling of satisfaction.

  Good boy, Levi, a voice seemed to whisper. That’s a brave little chap. You’ve a heart of oak!

  A deep feeling of satisfaction.

  A door opened; there was the sound of pounding feet.

  “Oh my God! Oh my God! Where did you come from?”

  Levi struggled up and stood before the stopped car, barking desperately, barking as if to burst his lungs. He darted back and forth between the reeds and the car, barking unceasingly, barking imploringly.

  And finally he was followed.

  They went to the truck.

  “Oh my God! Someone is in there!”

  Levi barked urgently.

  “My God, he’s alive!”

  A cell-phone was produced, a call was made.

  Weary and battered, tired to his very bones, feeling every bit his age, Levi finally approached the house on Fifth Avenue. He had stayed at the accident site long enough to see the arrival of the police cars and fire engine, to see the dog’s companion lifted into an ambulance, to know all was well.

  He climbed back onto the patio, squeezed through the side door, and closed it behind him. Little Kitty and Sunny told him the big dog – his name was Bonifacio according to his medallion – was doing well and they would see him home on the morrow, just a few blocks away, where he could eventually be reunited with his companion. They were concerned about Levi, but he finally convinced them he was okay, even though they did not believe him.

  Levi returned to the book he had abandoned seemingly so long ago. It was still on the floor where he had left it, but no longer open to the same spot. Night breezes from the door had ruffled the pages, and the book was now open to The Boscombe Valley Mystery, to an unusual illustration by Sidney Paget showing Holmes stretched prone, his nose very close to the ground as he sought the trail of Charles McCarthy’s murderer.

  Levi smiled, for he felt he understood the thought that must have gone through the mind of Sherlock Holmes:

  What would Levi do?

  Sherlock, Gary, HPL & Me

  Once upon a time, more years ago than I really care to recall, there was a small press magazine entitled Holmesian Federation, a enthusiastic fannish enterprise based on an elementary idea – publish fiction melding the worlds of Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes. In doing so, they anticipated, by decades, some of the more interesting storylines of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which the ever-aspiring android Mr Data played out his Sherlock Holmes fantasies on the holodeck of the USS Enterprise.

  Certainly it was a premise that appealed to me as a fan and a reader, for I had watched all the first-run and syndicated episodes of Star Trek (in those days, the prospect of another theatrical film was just a rumor and the idea of a revived television series a pipe dream) and had read all the stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon many times over. As a writer, however, the crossover held far less appeal; on the other hand, the idea of mixing the worlds of HP Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes was very appealing. I pitched the idea to editor Signe Landon of a Holmes/Lovecraft crossover (something, I discovered later, had never been done before) and got a green light.

  So, I came to write The Adventure of the Ancient Gods, in which fantasy writer HP Lovecraft met an elderly Sherlock Holmes, anticipating by a few years Peter Cannon’s match-up of the duo in his excellent Pulptime. My story, in which I recast Cthulhu and his minions as powerful otherworldly creatures misinterpreted as gods, appeared in the fourth issue (1983) of Holmesian Federation, and there it rested…or so I thought.

  By the time Adventure of the Ancient Gods was printed, I found myself settled on the left coast of the United States, working on the dark fringe of publishing, still yearning for “overnight” fame as a writer, an elusive goal to say the least.

  I was then active in the world of the small press, which meant writing stories and poems for magazines that might never be published, and subscribing to magazines that would probably not have a second issue, certainly not a third – that’s the real reason why the small press is rife with anthologies and one-shot chapbooks, even in this world of webzines and e-books.

  A welcome exception to the transitory nature of the small press universe was found in Gryphon Books of Brooklyn, N.Y., the creation of Gary Lovisi, an ardent advocate of the collectibility of pocketbooks and the author of several price and collection guides. In addition to the well-regarded trade journal Paperback Parade, Gryphon regularly publishes science fiction and mystery magazines (in chapbook format) as well as original and reprint fiction. And Gary Lovisi loves Sherlock Holmes.

  I would never have been anything but a customer of Gryphon Books had it not been for a comment by my epistalatory friend James P Roberts, himself a Lovecraft scholar and prolific writer: “I mentioned to Gary Lovisi that I know you, and I hope it’s okay I gave him your address. He read The Adventure of the Ancient Gods in Holmesian Federation, and is something of a fan.”

  Gary wrote to me, I wrote to him and we became postal pals. It was not long before he floated the idea of reprinting the Holmes story as a standalone book. I thought it was a great idea and immediately consented.

  An interesting aspect of that first edition is that all the lettering on the cover was hand-done by the artist. In drawing out my surname, letter by letter, he omitted the final “a,” changing me from Welsh to English, accidentally creating a collectible in the process.

  When the booklet was rep
rinted a few years later, the misspelling of my surname was corrected, so the second and third printings have it correct. So there it was, printed for fans of Lovecraft and Holmes to enjoy, and there it lay…or so I thought.

  No matter what people thought of the writing itself, Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Ancient Gods was an important book in both fan fields and as a collectible tome. But it seemed that people really did like it; Gary asked me for a sequel.

  I didn’t want to write one, didn’t feel I had one in me struggling to get out. I’m not, and never have been, much of a commercial writer, and the fact that any of my books and stories have been popular is likely an accident of nature. But Gary must have planted a seed in me, for a few years later I sent him The Quest for the Dreaming Detective, which was published by Gryphon as a chapbook entitled Sherlock Holmes: The Dreaming Detective.

  Since I was still not comfortable writing something as commercial as a sequel, it carried a listing inside that it was “a sort of sequel” to the previous volume. In the story, Nikola Tesla enters Lovecraft’s Dreamlands in the early years of World War II at the behest of the War Department in search of Sherlock Holmes, who had been residing in the Dreamlands while his body was cryogenically preserved here, but who had become lost or captured. As it turned out, Tesla became the protagonist, with Holmes appearing only very late in the story; my sense of guilt led me to write an accompanying story, The Adventure of the Laughing Moon-Beast, in which Holmes was front and center.

  That volume went on to become very popular with readers and was well-reviewed in fanzines of the time. There were many, of course, who rebelled at the very idea of inserting Sherlock Holmes into the Dreamlands, usually citing Holmes’ disregard for all things supernatural, but it’s really a minor point. As in the first book, I took pains to present Lovecraft’s ideas in scientific terms, as did Lovecraft himself.

  A few years after the publication of the Dreamlands story, I re-read Conan Doyle’s other tales, particularly those involving the iconoclastic scientist Professor Challenger, and I wondered what would happen if the scientist and the detective happened to meet and encounter a case which challenged both their skills and their views. However, I did not want them mixing it up with Lovecraft’s minions again, so I took one of Watson’s many toss-off comments about unchronicled cases (this one about a horror found in an ancient barrow), threw in some legends from ancient Britain and the Maldives, and brought in an evil occultist from one of my other stories, Laslo Bronislav. The result was Sherlock Holmes and the Terror Out of Time.