"Red curtain," Merridew said as we stepped down from the growler to the street. "Stay away."
"Come along, Merridew," Holmes said, taking the American by the elbow and steering him towards the door. "The signal suggests that your Mr. Stuart is in, and he is a man that my friends and I would very much like to meet."
When we reached the top of the stairs, in the deeply shadowed gloom of the ill-lit interior, I caught a strong smell of bleach and lye, overlying something stronger, ranker, more unsettling. Through the flimsy wooden door at the landing, I could hear faint moaning, somewhere between the cry of a child and the mewling of a drowning cat.
"Red curtain, stay away," Merridew repeated, looking visibly shaken.
"You've been here before," I said, feeling the irresistible urge to cheer him, if possible. "What is there to be afraid of?"
Merridew shook his head, and fixed me with a pathetic gaze. "When I came before, it had always been cleaned. Now, I think, it is still dirty."
"Enough of this nonsense." Lestrade pushed ahead of us, and pounded on the door. "Open up in the name of Her Majesty!" He pounded again, louder. "It'll only go harder on you if you resist."
The moaning on the door's far side took on a different quality, and I could hear the sound of scuttling, feet pounding against wooden boards, as if somewhere were trying to flee. But the room occupied the entire floor of the narrow building, and the only out would be through the window.
"He's trying to scarper," Lestrade said.
"Not today, I think," Holmes said. Stepping back, he carefully studied the door in the dim light. "There, I think." He pointed to a spot midway up, near the jamb. Then, after taking a deep breath, he lashed out with his foot, kicking the door at the point he evidently felt the weakest. He'd been right, as it happened, for the thin door flew inwards, shattering into three pieces.
The stairway and landing had been darkened, a gloaming scarcely lighter than a moonless night, but in the room beyond candles burned in their dozens, in their hundreds. Their flickering light cast shadows that vied across the walls and floor, shifting archipelagoes of light and darkness. The room itself might once have been suitable for a human dwelling, but had been transformed into an abattoir. Bits of viscera hung like garlands from the rafters, and blood and offal painted the walls and floor. A pair of severed limbs had been transformed into grotesque marionettes, strung up on bits of intestine tied with ligaments, a kind of macabre Punch and Judy awaiting some inhuman audience.
It took an instant for me to recognize the figure that lay stretched on the floor as being that of a human being at all, so little was left of him, the rest having been spun out and excised to decorate the room. And a further instant to recognize as human the figure crouched by the now-open window, his arms and face covered with blood as red as the curtain he'd torn out of his way. In one hand, the man held a knife, in the other what appeared to be some severed piece of human anatomy. The blood-covered man regarded us with crazed eyes, lips curled in a snarl baring red-stained teeth, his cheeks sunken.
"Don't do it, Phipps," Holmes shouted, taking a single step forward, and only then did I recognize the steward of the Tomlinson household.
There must have been some confusion when Merridew and the man first met, and the American's strange recall had fixed on a term he'd misunderstood. Phipps had simply never corrected him when Merridew assumed his name was Stuart, not his profession that of steward.
Phipps snarled like an animal. "Money is power, blood is power, both are mine." He threw one leg over the window's sash. "You cannot stop me, nothing can."
I don't know whether Phipps truly believed in that moment that he could not be hurt, or even that he might be able to fly. When he struck the cobblestones below a heartbeat later, though, he quickly learned that neither notion was true.
While Lestrade rushed to the window, already too late to do anything about Phipps, Holmes and I turned our attention to the man on the floor. He was alive, but only barely, and would doubtless perish before any help could arrive, or before he could be transported anywhere else.
"Dupry's under-butler," Holmes said, his hand over his nose and mouth to block the worst of the smell.
"Poor fellow." I held a handkerchief over my own nose, but still the fetid stench of the place threatened to overwhelm me.
Lestrade stepped over from the window, his expression screwed up in distaste. "The man 'removed' so that Merridew could take his place, I take it."
"The most recent of five," Holmes corrected. "Most recent and final victim of the so-called Dismemberer."
It was only then that I thought to see where Merridew had got to. I turned, and saw him standing there in the doorway, just as he had been when Holmes had kicked the door down. The American idiot savant had not moved, but had stood stock still with his eyes wide open and fixed on the scene before him, his mouth hanging slightly open, slack-jawed.
"Merridew?" I said, stepping towards him.
But it was clear that Merridew would not be answering, not then, not ever. He could not look away from the horrible carnage that his erstwhile partner in crime had wrought, and for which he in some sense at least had been responsible. Eyes that could recall entire books in a single glance, that could find untold levels of detail in the patterns of shadows' falling or the curve of a cloud, took in every detail of the grisly scene. And having seen it, Merridew would never see anything, ever again. He would live, but his mind would be so occupied by that macabre sight in all its untold detail that his mind would refuse to allow any other sensations or impressions to enter. He would live forever in that moment, in the horrible realization of the horrors he had, however inadvertently, helped to accomplish.
I remember that day as if it were yesterday, and yet I know that I can not recall even a scintilla of the detail that Merridew retained. But even that tiniest amount, even that small iota of recollection, is enough to haunt me to the end of my days.
Doctor Rhys regarded John Watson, his eyes wide with sympathetic horror.
"I can't help but think of all those young men," John continued, waving towards the door and indicating the whole of Holloway Sanatorium beyond, "those tending the garden, or around the snooker table, or else just lounging in the corridors. So young, with so much life ahead of them, and yet their minds are fixed on the horrors of the trenches, their attentions forever fixed on the Great War."
John leaned forward, meeting the doctor's gaze.
"If it were up to me, doctor," John went on, "you would spend less time studying how it is that we remember, and marveling over the prodigious memories of the past, and instead devote your attentions to discovering how it is that we forget."
John closed his eyes, and eased back in his chair.
"Memory is no wonder, Dr. Rhys, nor is it a blessing."
John pressed his lips together tightly, trying to forget that awful day, and the smells that lingered beneath the scent of bleach and lye.
"Memory is a curse."
The Adventure of the Green Skull
by Mark Valentine
Mark Valentine is the author of the novels In Violet Veils, Masques and Citadels, and, with John Howard, The Rite of Trebizond, which are about an "aesthetical occult detective" and are collectively known as the Tales of The Connoisseur. He is the editor of the psychic sleuth anthology The Black Veil and The Werewolf Pack. He also edits Wormwood, a journal of fantasy, supernatural and decadent literature, and writes regularly for Book & Magazine Collector about neglected authors.
A revenant is a visible ghost or animated corpse that returns to terrorize the living, often in retribution for some wrong visited on that person in life. Wrongs done create ghosts, and many wrongs were committed against the workers of London in the early days of industrialization. Many of these deprivations were chronicled by the author Charles Dickens, who was so traumatized by the time he spent working in a dangerous, squalorous blacking factory that for the rest of his life he wore gloves and washed his hands constantly. T
he Sadler Committee once interviewed a young man named Matthew Crabtree, who testified that he had started work in a factory at the age of eight, commonly worked sixteen-hour days, and was beaten severely for the slightest infraction. He also testified that in all his years in the factory, not an hour had passed that you couldn't hear one of the child workers wailing. Many people don't realize that the thick, impenetrable London fogs that we associate with Sherlock Holmes were a result of terrible air pollution. The Victorian Age was romantic, but it was also a dark time, when business interests were totally unrestrained.
I have mentioned before the three massive manuscript volumes that contain my notes on our cases for the year 1894. Circumstances now allow me to reveal the details of one of these, as weird and tragic a case as any we encountered. It was, I see, the beginning of November, and Holmes was on capital form, pleased to be back at the hub of matters in London after his long incognito wanderings in the East and elsewhere. There had been a high wind wailing outside our rooms and throughout the city, and Holmes was just beginning to become restless for some new matter to whet his keen mind upon. As was his habit, therefore, he was scouring the pages of the Times at breakfast, seeking evidence of anything untoward. Today his researches had an especial edge, for he had received word that Inspector Lestrade would call later, if convenient.
"Read that, Watson," he said, passing the paper to me, and pointing to a brief paragraph.
"'Mr Josiah Walvis, 51, an overseer at the Bow-side match-works, met an untimely end on Saturday evening when he fell from a high wall abutting the East India Wharf, and cracked his skull. The cause of his sad accident has not been ascertained. It is understood Mr Walvis had been entertaining friends at the Lamb & Flag public house before making his way home. Interviewed, his associates say the deceased was of his normal disposition upon departing, and was not excessively inebriated. It is considered possible Mr Walvis was contemplating a shorter route to his home but missed his footing. Two witnesses, a watchman and a street boy, aver that they saw the victim pursued some moments beforehand, but this cannot be better corroborated. The proprietor of the Bow match-works reports that Mr Walvis was a diligent and just employee who—well, etc, etc'"
"There is the barest hint of promise in that, Watson: the pursuer, you know. But it is otherwise a drab affair. Yet it is all there is. Inventive evil appears to have quite vanished from London."
Holmes sighed, and began to gather up the dottles for his morning pipe.
The visit of our colleague from Scotland Yard did not at first obviate his gloom. For it seemed Lestrade had indeed nothing better to offer.
"It's the Walvis business, Mr Holmes."
"Oh, indeed? But that happened two days ago, Lestrade. The gales will have rushed all the evidence to the four corners. There is no point in coming to me now."
"Well, it seems a straightforward case that is hardly worth your while. But one of the constables, a keen lad, saw something he didn't quite like."
"Indeed?"
"Yes. Of course, an accident is quite the likeliest explanation. There was no robbery, and no other marks on the body but those caused by the fall. Yet, here is the thing. In the deceased's left hand, between the two middle fingers, protruding outwards, was a spent match."
"Ah. That is singular." I saw my friend's eyes gleam.
"Quite so. A drowning man may clutch at a straw, but—I say to myself—a falling man does not. He splays his fingers, so . . . "
"Therefore, the match was placed there after the fall," I interjected.
"Exactly, Doctor," returned Lestrade. "Now I am inclined to regard it as merely a macabre little joke on the part of the friends who found him. They all worked at the match factory, you know. They were pretty far gone in drink. So they put it there as if to say 'you, Walvis, have struck your last match.' I questioned them pretty fiercely about that, but they deny it. Half didn't notice it at all, the others say it must have blown there . . . "
"You have preserved the match, Lestrade?" Holmes demanded.
"I have, Mr Holmes, and—knowing your ways—have brought it with me." Lestrade produced a twist of paper from his waistcoat pocket and handed it over.
Holmes inspected the exhibit carefully between thumb and forefinger, then handed it back.
"It tells us little. It is a Lyphant & Bray match—the people who have the Bow works. So it could well have come from his colleagues. Or from almost anybody. It is a very popular brand. Yet, someone who has handled it may be an actor."
We both looked suitably astonished, and Holmes favoured us with an explanation. "It is very simple. I have studied the shape, size and composition of over forty types of lucifer or match—the matter complements my researches upon tobacco ash, you know. A combination of a certain ash and a certain match may help to mark a man. But not in this case. No ash, and a very common brand."
"The theatrical connection?" I urged.
Holmes shrugged. "Oh, merely that someone has left a small smudge of greasepaint upon the stick. Not you or your constable, I assume, Lestrade?"
"Indeed not."
"Well, it does not get us very far. But what about this evidence of a pursuer, Inspector?"
Our visitor's face settled into a satisfied smirk.
"The witnesses are not very sound. An aged watchman, half deaf and almost wholly foolish. A street arab, with a lively imagination."
"And what do they say?"
"Well, Mr Holmes, I don't give it much credit. Indeed, I am trying what I can to suppress their little yarn. It doesn't take much to spread unreasoning terror abroad."
There was a brittle silence, Lestrade savouring the matter that had really brought him to us, Holmes quiveringly alert.
"They say they saw Walvis chased down the street by a phantom. It wore a hooded cloak, but they caught a glimpse of its face—if you can call it that. It looked more like, they said, it looked more like—a green skull."
Sherlock Holmes rose from his chair and rubbed his hands together. "Come now," he said. "This sounds promising."
The case may have caught my friend's imagination, because of its peculiarities, but for some days he made little progress. The scene, as he had anticipated, had been quite wiped clean by the wind and rain of the intervening days, and all the witnesses he interviewed stuck resolutely to the stories they had given the police, even the two who had seen the spectral pursuer. Lyphant & Bray would give nothing but a sound character to Walvis, conceding only that by some he might be regarded as somewhat stern in his duties. There was little more for Holmes to do, and he was succumbing again to his blue devils when, barely a week later, Mrs Hudson ushered in a new client. He was an angular, brisk young man, pale and peremptory in manner.
"Sit down, Mr Reynolds. This is my friend and associate, Dr Watson. What is your business with us?"
"I have read of you, Mr Holmes, from Dr Watson's accounts. I have observed that you see importance in matters others overlook."
"You are very kind. And you think you have a similar matter?"
"I do. My employer, Mr Thomas Mostyn, died last night."
"I see. The cause?"
"Heart failure."
Holmes looked crestfallen.
"It is certain?"
"Yes. His medical man has treated him for years. He has long had indifferent health. I could see this for myself too."
"Then why—"
"That was the cause of his death, Mr Holmes. I am concerned about the occasion of it."
"There is something here that does not satisfy you?"
"A number of matters."
Holmes tapped his fingers upon the arm of his chair. "Pray proceed."
"Mr Mostyn's face in death was distorted most disturbingly. It was a grimacing mask, exhibiting naked fear."
I interrupted. "Rictus, Mr Reynolds. It can give the most distressing effects."
Our client turned to me. "I understand. But there is rather more. Though in his nightgown and dressing-gown, as if prepared for bed, Mr Mostyn
met his end in his study. Some matter had taken him there. And in death he was clutching between his middle fingers, pointing outwards—"
"A match."
Mr Reynolds' face was a picture of astonishment. "Great heavens, yes. How did you know?"
Holmes smiled. "No matter. It was used?"
"Yes."
"Well, perhaps he was about to enjoy a cigar before retiring. It is not uncommon."
"Certainly not, Mr Holmes. My employer disapproved of smoking. It was the only matter of disagreement between us. If I wished to smoke, I must do so clandestinely."
Selections from The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Page 12
