Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes

by Jeff Campbell

  An urgent telegram demanding my presence in London upon that date at noon sharp vexed my good nature, but also piqued my curiosity. Such an august individual, who was once described by his own brother as the “British Government, Personified”, could not easily be denied. Not even by an old retired army surgeon.

  I was duly shown to the Strangers Room, the only place within the eccentric building that allowed normal conversation, and immediately recognized the imposing figure of Mycroft Holmes, much grayer and less corpulent than I remembered from our last encounter. Seated mournfully by a window was a small perfectly elegant lady, dark of hair and eye. She was very handsome, if worry-worn, her fine features denoting a more exotic heritage than usual in an attractive English woman. I would certainly have remembered if I’d met her before. Standing stalwartly beside Mycroft Holmes, much to no small amazement upon my part, was the solemn iron-mustached Prime Minister himself.

  “Dr. Watson, good of you to come,” Mycroft Holmes offered his great flipper of a hand. “You know the Prime Minister.”

  The Prime Minister hardly nodded, remaining nearly as motionless as his official portrait. Although the lady was not introduced, she favored me with a sad yet attractive smile.

  Mycroft Holmes consulted his watch, snapping it shut again with a distinctive air of conviction.

  “I perceive a multitude of queries forming behind your brows, Doctor. Pray remain silent one minute longer and all shall be revealed.”

  He spanned the space of the room in three prodigious strides, swinging open the door, revealing — to my great surprise — his celebrated brother, and my old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, upon the threshold.

  “Welcome, Sherlock. I apologize for the deception, but I surmised nothing less could lure you from those infernal bees,” Mycroft Holmes tilted his massive head in my direction.

  I hadn’t seen Sherlock Holmes in nearly a year. He was leaner, and as a result seemed taller, than ever. At Holmes’ first sight of me, the steely fierceness burning in his grey eyes immediately dimmed. I thought for a moment to detect something akin to sentiment settling on his hawkish features, but with a blink he was the aloof Holmes of old once more.

  Without so much as a glance toward the Prime Minister, Holmes pressed my hand.

  “My dear, Watson, it’s quite gratifying to discover the full extent of my brother’s rather imaginative exaggeration,” he smiled faintly, presenting a crumpled telegram which I read with astonishment.

  DR. WATSON DECEASED. COME AT ONCE. MYCROFT.

  I didn’t know what to remark, so I remained quiet within the uncomfortable silence of the room.

  “Well, Doctor,” said Sherlock Holmes, “since I somewhat inexplicably find myself suddenly in London, I suggest that we take advantage of the new Greek and Etruscan vase exhibit at the British Museum. What do you say?”

  My old friend hooked my elbow with his wiry forearm.

  “Mr. Holmes, I protest your cavalier manner, sir,” the Prime Minister came suddenly to livid life. “I ordered your brother to arrange your presence before us. He has done so, as was his duty. Your country has need of you, sir.”

  Holmes continued to spirit me hastily from the room.

  “My country,” replied Sherlock Holmes, “appears to suffer from a chronic form of reprehensible and unconscionable embellishment. Good day to you. Come along, Watson.”

  “The Prime Minister does not exaggerate, Mr. Holmes,” the lady abruptly spoke out. “I am Mrs. George Edward Challenger. I understand you’ve met my husband.”

  Holmes halted, sighed slightly, and turned to face her.

  “Once, more than a decade ago,” a smile hinted at the notorious name. “I can certainly personally testify to the professor’s scientific proficiency … as well as his rather brutal bare-knuckled straight left.”

  Mrs. Challenger beamed, brightening her dark beauty.

  “However brief your meeting may have been, George always spoke of you with great respect, Mr. Holmes. A rare and difficult thing for a man like my husband, as I trust you can appreciate.”

  Holmes narrowed his eyes, regarding the lady for an instant, then stabbed rapid glances at his brother and, lastly, the Prime Minister. A shadow of apprehension veiled his pale gaunt features. Shoulders settling back he assumed his old unique comportment of authority.

  “Allow me a moment to propose my suspicions as to my role in this dubious matter,” he stated bluntly. “I take it that I have been engaged to locate and reveal the exact whereabouts of the infamous Professor George Edward Challenger, who — according to The Times — has been missing and is presumed dead these last twenty-seven months. I further infer that Mrs. Challenger believes that her husband is very much alive.”

  The Prime Minister’s moustache visibly twitched in surprise.

  “How in Hades did you guess that, sir?”

  Holmes grimaced impatiently.

  “I never guess,” he snapped.

  Mycroft Holmes stamped a boot heel.

  “Now see here, Sherlock — these theatrical antics of yours are heinously out of place,” the elder brother’s neck bloomed a deep crimson. “I assure you that this is a desperately secret matter of the very deepest concern for all of England. Why, the very lives of hundreds of thousands are at stake—”

  The Prime Minister touched Mycroft Holmes upon the sleeve.

  “Your brother never spoke more truly, sir,” his voice more grave by several degrees than mere moments before. “I demand to know exactly how you came by this information. If there has been some clandestine breach in our security I must know about it immediately.”

  Sherlock Holmes turned his back upon the bristling mustache and resigned himself to an armchair. His hooded eyes nearly disguised his growing interest in the matter, though his mouth remained fixed and determined. Automatically, he lighted a cigarette and blew the blue smoke toward the lofty ceiling.

  “You may call off our watchdogs, Mr. Prime Minister, the secrets of the Crown are quite safe for now.” Holmes exhaled with an exaggerated weariness. “You should be aware of my methods.”

  The Prime Minister puffed his annoyance.

  “You mean to say, sir, that this is more of your deductive reasoning nonsense,” his face was starting to purple.

  Holmes allowed himself a slight smile.

  “Is it nonsense to deduce, after being rather intimately aware of the workings of this government, that the presence of the presumed widow of a private scientific adventurer would suggest such an obvious inference? Why else would the lady be present within this selective company, were that not the case? As to Mrs. Challenger herself being convinced of her husband’s survival, well, that is also simplicity itself. The lady would be wearing black, certainly not the stylish dove-grey dress we all perceive, if she were, in fact, in genuine mourning.”

  I noticed an immediate glint of affirmation in the lady’s dark, lustrous eyes and a considerable weight of the earlier anxiety had perceptibly eased from her proud, yet delicate, shoulders.

  The Prime Minister regained his stalwart composure.

  “I see,” he nodded. “Now that you’ve explained yourself, it’s really not so very clever at all. Well, sir, now that we understand each other—”

  “There is one small detail I need to possess before we proceed,” my friend interrupted. “Why is the Crown so interested in locating the Professor?”

  The mustache fluttered angrily again.

  “That is privileged information, sir,” the Prime Minister glowered.

  Holmes fully opened his eyes and tossed his half-spent cigarette into the fireplace. Abruptly, he rose to his feet and donned his top hat.

  “Quite so. Good day, madam. Come, Watson, a gallery of Greek and Etruscan marvels await us.”

  The Prime Minister’s violet complexion deepened.

  “Very well,” he spoke directly to Mycroft Holmes. “Show him the damned thing!”

  The elder Holmes revealed a steel infantry helmet from a wooden case
, handing it to my friend with the reverence of a Holy Relic. It was no different than any other soldier’s helmet I’d seen, though I did notice immediately that it had been violently pierced by a rifle bullet.

  “The Germans have advanced the effectiveness of their artillery, sir,” the Prime Minister spat with no little amount of disgust.

  Sherlock Holmes was upon the brink of an inquiry when his brother explained the meaning of the grisly artifact.

  “Sherlock,” he began, “Mrs. Challenger recently discovered a hidden notebook belonging to her husband wherein he had enthusiastically experimented with a formula, of his own invention, for a new lightweight steel alloy dozens of times stronger than what is currently possible.”

  I broke my long silence.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, frankly. “It was my impression that Professor Challenger’s expertise was, uh, rather is, zoology. How could a zoologist conceive of such a sophisticated formula?”

  “My George has a restless mind, Dr. Watson. He rarely sleeps and constantly studies. I dare say, one day, he may well know just about everything,” Mrs. Challenger smiled proudly, making her look younger and even more charming by some dozen years.

  Sherlock Holmes rubbed his squared, prominent chin.

  “The lady hardly exaggerates, my dear fellow,” his long white finger morbidly traced around the helmet’s bullet hole. “I’ve read Challenger’s monographs on the practical applications of chemistry and physics with keen interest. Regardless of how he is ridiculed by his colleagues, they can’t hold a candle to him. George Edward Challenger may well be the greatest scientific mind in all of Europe, if not the world.”

  The Prime Minister reinstated himself into the proceedings.

  “A rather clumsy and discourteous scientific mind, I’ll wager,” he growled, peering at Mycroft Holmes.

  “Yes, gentlemen,” he explained to us, “it appears that Professor Challenger’s actual formula resided purely within his own head.”

  “My George memorized everything,” the lady sparkled. “He claimed it considerably reduced the clutter of his filing cabinets.”

  Sherlock Holmes moved to the window, putting a match to another cigarette.

  “Allow me to refresh my own memory,” his eyes took on a momentarily pensive aspect. “After Challenger returned from South America, he proposed to prove his claims of having discovered a hellish plateau, a lost world — if you will — still populated by the surviving denizens from the ancient Age of the Dinosaurs. As I recall, Challenger delivered such authentication by exhibiting, in person, a pterodactyl which he had captured and brought back alive to London.”

  Mrs. Challenger moved to my friend, her dark doe-like eyes suddenly tragic.

  “That’s exactly as it happened, Mr. Holmes,” her fine porcelain features flushed with feminine ferocity. “But the creature escaped and the assembly of scientists almost immediately pronounced it a hoax. Two of my husband’s most trusted colleagues, dear old Summerlee and young Mr. Malone of the Daily Gazette — both of them sworn eye-witnesses — were ridiculed into professional and public exile. My husband was furious. Even with such a temper like his, I don’t think I ever saw him so close to cold-blooded murder as he was toward the entire academic community in those weeks that followed. In the end, George vowed that he’d go back to that primordial purgatory and, once and for all time, return with positive proof of its reality for the entire world to witness.”

  The heavy silence in the room was remindful of a wake. The dear lady fought back tears, more of outrage than of sorrow. Sherlock Holmes extinguished his cigarette and smiled at her kindly, if sadly.

  “Madam, what you ask is impossible,” he spoke to her as if they were alone together in the room. “Surely you must see that I am at my own limits, considering my age, and for me to even begin such a journey would be madness. It is my opinion that your brave, brilliant husband met an honorable end to his noble life somewhere upon that mysterious plateau. There are no existing maps or charts of this lost world. No way to even find it, let alone search for clues, now some two years old, of his possible whereabouts. I very much regret that services such as mine are useless to you in this endeavor.”

  Mrs. Challenger sank back against a chair as if all strength had left her. I felt powerfully sympathetic toward her plight, but Holmes, of course, was quite correct in his assertion. Without a map, without a guide, it would be like seeking a single lost speck of sand from among all the beaches of the world.

  “Now see here, sir,” the Prime Minister blocked the door. “We do not request, but rather, command this duty of you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. It is by royal decree that you undertake this mission, regardless of your personal feelings in the matter. Whatever the chances, or the odds, England must have that formula or our boys fighting for our liberty in the trenches will be slaughtered like sitting fowl. Even if there’s only the merest possibility of Challenger’s miraculous survival, surely the World’s Greatest Detective can discover this lone indispensable needle in a haystack for the sake of his nation?”

  I didn’t like the hot rapacious gleam in Holmes’ eyes as he stalked so closely to the Prime Minister that his aquiline nose nearly brushed the suddenly fluttering mustache. A quiet knock at the door stayed his reply, for the moment.

  Mycroft Holmes opened the door, receiving a calling card from the butler. His watery grey eyes were astonished as he read the name aloud.

  “Apparently, Professor Challenger is … here.”

  The room was silent as a confessional until broken by the clack of a lady’s boots.

  Into the chamber stepped a tall, golden-haired young woman of twenty-eight or thirty. Her striking features were, somehow, familiar and yet the intense grey-green eyes almost buried her beauty behind a gaze of such piercing intelligence that I have never before witnessed in one so young and fair. She was, at once, Athena and Artemis, molded into the same divine being.

  “Indeed, gentlemen,” her voice was low though not unmusical, supremely confident in her rapid inflection. “Professor Jessica Cuvier Challenger — doctor of medicine, zoology, and anthropology.”

  Mrs. Challenger was clearly aghast.

  “Jess … you promised—” she started and stammered, but the vivacious Amazon waved her aside.

  “Not the first time I’ve broken such a ridiculous oath, Mother, dear,” Professor Challenger held a telegram in her graceful hand. “As is my habit, I’ve managed to discover the very thing that all of you are so desperately searching for. I am, in truth, my father’s daughter!”

  She turned her cool scientist’s eyes upon each of us and finally relinquished the telegram to Sherlock Holmes. After scanning it, Holmes handed it to me with a smile of satisfaction. It was sent from Central America. I’m reprinting the message below exactly as written:

  DELIGHTED TO GUIDE MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES TO LOST WORLD. WILL LAY ODDS THAT OLD SON OF A BITCH CHALLENGER

  IS STILL ALIVE.

  — LORD JOHN ROXTON

  The cave man had slept for two full days. His belly again gnawed at him to be filled, but it was the desiccation of his painfully parched throat which provoked the descent from his protective little grotto fortress in the limestone cliff. He had chosen this refuge principally because of the small stream of fresh water that poured continually near its hidden entrance, but an aberrant ten-day drought had caused the flow to vanish.

  There was no avoiding it. Gathering up his club and spear, slipping his treasured doeskin medicine bag around his burly neck, a chill raised the hackles along the caveman’s spine. His aching, adventure-etched body was already going through the motions before his clouded mind caught up with it. He must return to that monstrous river or die.

  The long, snakishly winding, narrow river was an awful place, indeed. It was there that many of the terrible, most massive creatures of the Plateau came to sate their unfathomable thirst. Canopied in black-green shadows from towering vine-webbed branches, even at high noon, the river banks were a twilig
ht world of creeping, crawling, living delirium and unseen impending death.

  The cave man waited impatiently behind a concealing boulder, his swollen tongue raking across cracked lips. He knew what he was doing, the strategy worked flawlessly a thousand times past. The safest place among giants was to form an alliance with them.

  The massive jagged-spined stegosaur wouldn’t do. The hulking reptile was docile enough, except when roused, but the two tons worth of meandering, slashing, spike-tipped tail made the beast a companion of unpredictable peril. The cave man warily kept his eye on the fin-backed flesh-eating dimetrodons, but the entire pride was too immersed in glutting themselves with the muddy water to notice him.

  He’d nearly resolved to select the company of two enormous exotically crested duck-billed hadrosaurs, but then a great baritone bellow trumpeted the arrival of a lone hundred-year-old deinotherium. Even better, the cave man recognized the elephantine goliath from long-healed foreleg scars caused from the claws of great saber-toothed cats, the splintered skulls of which were embedded forever in the pads of a ponderous front paw, resulting in a familiarly distinctive limp.

  Gathering up a bouquet of succulent orchids, the cave man showed himself plainly to the colossal matriarch. Her melon-size left eye regarded the snack tentatively for just a moment, then the long muscular proboscis snatched the juicy blossoms high above to her pink hook-tusked mouth. The cave man had chosen his allies carefully, knowing from endless hours of observation that the deinotherium were predominantly gentle, intelligent and entirely fearless, even in the face of the Plateau’s most fearsome flesh-eaters.

  Confidently, the caveman followed alongside his lumbering guardian behemoth — safe in the shadow of her protective company — and drank his fill beside her from the edge of the beetle-infested, worm-writhing green-brown river. A swelling wave suddenly engorged the odious surface and for a scant second the cave man found his entire head submerged beneath the water. Coughing up the sulfur-flavored refreshment, he bitterly observed his leather medicine bag floating rapidly away from him. No chance of rescuing the precious little pouch, already it glided among sharp-beaked snapping turtles twice his own weight. The cave man’s sole luxury, absolutely irreplaceable, was bade a tender farewell through his tear filled eyes.