Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes

by Jeff Campbell

  So it was that in the last rays of daylight Holmes and I again made our way along the narrow and unsavory passages which led to the vast West India Docks. We had just started down Preston Road when an unexplained premonition of deep foreboding caused me to spin round, and I realized that I had unconsciously drawn my service revolver from my overcoat. I shouted a warning to Holmes before I became fully aware of the gang of swarthy ruffians bearing down upon us. The nearest drove his knife toward my left forearm just as I managed to shoot him in the leg. Arms around one another, we fell to the greasy stone surface and grappled for some moments until I was able to subdue my attacker.

  Meanwhile Holmes was engaged in routing the others. Although they were armed with knives, cudgels and weighted coshes, they were no match for a man skilled in baritsu and the art of singlestick combat. As they fled down the alley, Holmes prised my assailant off me and slammed him roughly against the wall of a brick warehouse.

  “If Watson is seriously hurt you will not live another minute,” he growled.

  “There is no need for such desperate action, Holmes,” I said. “My heavy coat deflected his blade and I have suffered little more than a scratch. But I had better bind up the gunshot wound in that fellow’s thigh before he bleeds any more.”

  The ruffian was understandably relieved to receive such immediate medical attention and readily answered all of our questions. He and his comrades had been hired by a ‘Yank’ from the public bar of The Gun, a pub on a nearby thoroughfare called Coldharbour. They’d been given our description, probable route and likely time of arrival. After the assault they were to dump our bodies into the water.

  “He didn’t say nuffink about you being armed, Guv’nor, or about your mate being able to use a cane like that.”

  His description of the ‘Yank’ left no doubt that it was Calhoun. Holmes and I gave our attacker into police custody and continued on our way to the Friesland’s berth. Captain Neustaedter was waiting at the top of the gangway. With him were two Lascars holding tight the arms of a struggling man in his mid-twenties.

  “They’ve flown, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Calhoun and his older American friend lit out of here just about a half-hour ago. They commandeered a tug that was at the dock here and already had steam up. But we laid hands on their younger confederate as he was climbing over the side.”

  “Have the River Police been notified?” asked Holmes.

  “Yes, and they are in pursuit.”

  “Then we will have to possess our souls in patience and use the time to get some account of the affair out of Billy here.” Somehow it was no great surprise that Holmes knew the scoundrel’s name without being told.

  Obtaining the information proved to be easier than I would have imagined. Holmes explained to Billy that he would undoubtedly swing for the murders of Openshaw and Brouwer unless he could provide convincing testimony that the other two men were chiefly to blame. With such inducement the frightened young man was quick to tell all he knew.

  In most particulars his account tallied with what Holmes said he had learned already from the spirit of Openshaw. For example, Holmes had wondered at the time how Openshaw was lured to the edge of the Embankment, well away from his most direct route from Baker Street to the railway at Waterloo Station. Billy explained that he had been the decoy. As a mere youth then, he had found it simple to imitate a woman’s voice and had cried out for help as Openshaw came down Wellington Street toward Waterloo Bridge.

  “But it was Jim and Darrell that did the poor man in, not me, Mr. Holmes,” Billy pleaded. “They coshed him and then Jim pressed his cap down on the fellow’s face till he stopped breathing. He was already dead afore he went into the water.”

  Even more striking was his confirmation of what had happened on the high seas, an explanation that I felt came too close to fantasy when Holmes had first relayed the spirit-transmitted version. Yet, unprompted, Billy described exactly the same sequence of improbable events: the survival of the Lone Star in the storm-tossed ocean, the providential discovery of wreckage from the mail-ship and the interception of Holmes’ accusatory letter. Then the staged disappearance of the Lone Star at sea, followed by its real disappearance in a Caribbean port.

  “Jim said the ship’s owners were little better than carpet-baggers anyway, so we were merely getting a little bit of our own back, as real Southerners.”

  Billy’s eagerness to talk began to abate, however, as we approached the death of Jan Brouwer. He confirmed that Brouwer’s preferment had festered with Calhoun. “It wasn’t just that he got the job because his Daddy owned part of the shipping line. And it wasn’t only that he was obviously a Nigra-lover, what we could see right away by the way he treated the rest of the crew the same as us. But Jim said that Brouwer had a touch of the tar brush, and there was no way we should be taking orders from a man whose blood was impure.”

  “So you followed the same method as with Openshaw: the cosh to the head, suffocation and then into the water. Is that correct?” Holmes asked. Billy nodded silently, and it seemed likely that his hand had wielded the cosh or at least helped tip Brouwer’s body overboard.

  At that point a grim-faced Captain Neustaedter interrupted our interrogation. “Blackwall Station has sent over a message, Mr. Holmes. They have had a cable from Tilbury. The River Police lost sight of the tug in the fog just past there and the scoundrels have made their escape.”

  We were a dispirited duo as we made our way back to Baker Street. “To have failed John Openshaw once was a blow to my pride, Watson, but for it to happen twice is almost too much to bear. I cannot believe that he will have enough magnanimity to forgive me twice. The next visit of his spirit to our rooms will be painful for all concerned, but most of all for me.”

  Not for the last time, Holmes was to be proven spectacularly wrong. Two days later, the afternoon newspapers reported the finding of two bodies washed up on the north Kentish shore near the mouth of the Medway. They were identified as the men sought by police in connection with the suspicious death of the First Officer of the Dutch steamship Friesland. There was, however, no sign of the stolen tug.

  As we sat quietly that night, each lost in his own thoughts, Holmes suddenly started. “He’s here, Watson. Can you sense his presence?”

  “I sense nothing beyond this fug of tobacco smoke, Holmes.”

  But his attention was already elsewhere, eyes focused on a patch of empty air and ears cocked like a whippet on the hunt. A one-sided colloquy ensued.

  “Yes, I wondered if you played a part in that. How exactly was it managed?” A long pause and then a high-pitched laugh. “Oh what a fitting end!” Holmes glanced my way. “Dr. Watson does not hear you speak. Why is that?” He listened for some moments and then looked at me again, and smiled.

  “This will be our last night-time chat, I surmise?” Pause. “It is my business to know what other people don’t know, and I now realize that can also include spirits. Thank you for lifting this burden from both our souls. Perhaps we shall meet again nonetheless.”

  For some minutes Holmes continued to gaze into that empty space and to strain his ears. Finally he sighed.

  “You must promise me, my dear Watson, never to chronicle this adventure. It would be hypocrisy in the extreme for me to claim any credit for the solution of these crimes, and I fear the table-rappers would seize upon what happened as support for their nonsense.”

  “Of course, I will honor your wishes, Holmes. But I feel that I am owed an account of what you learned from the visitation that apparently just took place.”

  “Good old Watson, you truly are the epitome of the firmly rooted Englishman. Your colleague may be hearing voices and talking to himself, but you will nevertheless take pains to insist upon fair play.”

  He continued: “I learned that the drowning of Calhoun and Darrell were no accident but the final retribution from the spirit world. Openshaw was, of course, aboard the fleeing tug in spirit form. When it had passed safely beyond the mouth of the Thames and it becam
e apparent the two murderers were once again likely to vanish into the shadowy maritime world, he took action.”

  “But you said these spirits cannot assume corporeal form, so Openshaw could have no way of checking their flight physically.”

  “That is correct, Doctor. Nor was there aboard that tug an independent agent such as myself with an intellect capable of communicating with the spirit world and a desire to interfere. Instead, Openshaw said he ‘clouded their minds’, causing the scoundrels to run the tug into a navigation buoy with such force that it took on water and then quickly sank. Neither man could swim, as is common among sailors, and they drowned.”

  “How did Openshaw ‘cloud their minds?’” I asked.

  “He did not provide details about that. It is my belief that the spirits can modulate the force of their mental emanations to suit different circumstances. In this case I suspect Openshaw projected into the minds of those two murderers an image that obscured the true risk of striking the navigation buoy with some even more imminent hazard, perhaps a phantom ship steaming upriver through the fog. Taking evasive action to avoid the imaginary danger, Calhoun and his henchman rammed the real one.

  “You also asked why I couldn’t hear the spirit’s voice. What did he answer to that?”

  For a long time Holmes said nothing, and I began to think that he was deliberately ignoring my question. In a low voice, he finally spoke:

  “I once feared death, Watson. Not the disintegration of this body, which will all too soon begin to betray me, but the snuffing out of this intellect which I have spent so much effort to fashion into an unequalled thinking machine. My experience with Openshaw has vanquished such fears. When we die, our spirits can continue as the purest form of intellect, ratiocination elevated to this highest conceivable level. I will not rush to embrace death, nor actively seek it out, but I will not despair when it finally comes.

  “Moreover, I now appreciate the reason that Openshaw could project his thoughts into my mind only when we were in the same room and why he had to be present on the tug to be able to fatally confuse the thinking of those murderers. As you noted in your published account, he was but two and twenty when he met his death. His mind was nowhere close to reaching its full potential, so the power of his emanations was limited. I, on the other hand, have honed my mind over the years to such a degree that I will no doubt be able to project my thoughts over great distances and continue my work on behalf of the living.

  “You wonder what all this has to do with the question I posed to Openshaw’s spirit about you. Well, let me ask you a further question in turn. What caused you to draw your revolver on Preston Road and spin about, thereby no doubt saving both of us from serious injury and possibly even death?”

  “I had a sudden premonition of danger. I don’t know why.”

  “I do. Openshaw says he shouted a warning at you. You perceived it instantly in the most primitive portion of your brain, the part that prompts us to flee or fight. And being Watson, you fought.”

  I did not intimate to Holmes that I accepted this explanation nor did we discuss it again. But in the years following I observed Holmes talking to the thin air on numerous occasions. As for myself I subsequently held many fascinating discussions with a certain doctor who had become quite famous as a writer.

  The Entwined

  The Entwined

  by J. R. Campbell

  She strode across the neatly trimmed grass, immune to the charms of the day around her. Spring was in full bloom, the wind rustling the leaves in the trees and carrying the season’s fresh scents to the fortunate and unfortunate alike. Her feet were bare as she walked across the lawn; tracing out a path perceived by none but her. She walked with her head bowed. Whether to watch the rise and fall of her hesitant steps or to shelter her frighteningly pale skin from the sun’s warmth I could not say but her posture and slack expression telegraphed an utter disinterest in everything and everyone around her. The pleasant English countryside unfurled its full lush glory but, for all the pleasure she took from it, a bleak, arctic wasteland would have served her as well. Slender and pale, her wispy hair tousled by the breeze, she seemed almost insubstantial until she turned her remarkable brown eyes to you. Confronted with the depths of those ravishing eyes a man realized this young woman was meant to be beautiful. In those dark eyes was a promise unfulfilled, a potential thwarted by the insidious affliction from which she suffered.

  Dark circles gave her face a hollow-eyed aspect. Next to her pallid skin, even the grey clothes of the asylum appeared bright. Her footsteps, her translucent skin, her painfully thin form all but lost in the asylum clothes, all combined to make the young woman insubstantial. Seeing her I found myself in agreement with the opinions I had read in her case file. The poor creature suffered from nothing which food and rest could not cure, nothing save a flaw in her mental process preventing her from accepting that which her body craved. We followed her unnoticed, despite my friend Sherlock Holmes’ attempts to gain her attention.

  “Miss Drayson!” Holmes, impatient and frustrated, called once more. He moved to stand directly before her. She lifted her head slowly, careful not to lift her feet from her unseen path as she dealt with this interruption.

  “You must be Sherlock Holmes,” Catherine Drayson said, offering the detective a shy smile. “I trust you received my letter?”

  “Yes,” Holmes said impatiently. “However I do not understand what it is you require of me.”

  Her smile, so small a thing, slipped from her features as she examined my friend. “I thought I had explained myself adequately, Mr. Holmes,” she said, a charming childlike lilt in her voice. “I require you to determine whether or not I murdered the men I listed. Obviously this matter is of the utmost importance to me. Until my guilt or innocence is proven I am trapped here. Abandoned. Uncertain which world I am to be a part of…”

  Having spoken, she lowered her head and resumed marching along her invisible path. She appeared startled when she encountered Holmes who, unmoving, remained directly before her. Looking up, her expression of concern was replaced by a shy smile. “Mr. Holmes,” she greeted him as if meeting him again after a lengthy absence.

  “Miss Drayson.” Holmes returned the courtesy. “I can assure you: These murders are not of your doing.”

  “That is wonderful news,” she said, bringing her hands together in delight. Her shy smile expanded into something more substantial. “You must tell me how you were able to determine this. Was the investigation difficult?”

  Holmes cast a concerned look at me before returning his attention to the young woman. “It was not difficult at all.”

  “You mustn’t be so modest Mr. Holmes,” Catherine Drayson said.

  Holmes, a man seldom accused of modesty, was momentarily nonplussed by this assurance. Nevertheless he pressed on. “It is quite impossible for you to have committed any murders. You have been confined here in this asylum, under constant observation, for the last twenty-three months. I have reviewed your medical file, Miss Drayson. I have spoken to the doctors and staff charged with your treatment. They assure me you have not left the asylum grounds for almost two years.”

  Catherine Drayson listened patiently to Holmes as he explained his findings. When he finished she laid her small hand on his forearm in a friendly, familiar gesture obviously intended to lessen the sting of her reply. In her musical, untroubled voice, she chided the detective. “Now really Mr. Holmes, I have no wish to be difficult but I did expect better from you. Reading a medical file to solve such ghastly crimes? And everyone says you are so very clever. If you do not wish to accept my case that is one thing, but to stint on an investigation is quite another. I am relying on you Mr. Holmes, is that not clear to you? I must know one way or another before I can decide which world I should direct my efforts towards.”

  It was a rare instance indeed when Holmes cast a look of desperation my way, I will confess to being somewhat flattered as he did so now. I cleared my throat, drawing Miss Dr
ayson’s attention to me. “Excuse me Miss Drayson, but that’s the second time you’ve mentioned different worlds. May I ask which worlds you are referring to?”

  “There is this world,” Catherine Drayson said, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture towards the blue skies, the looming asylum and the lush, green woods. “Here I am a daughter to a kind man. A child whom everyone likes and pities at the same time. I fear I am a disappointment to those who know me here although they cling to a fading hope. This world is, I confess, a difficult one for me. Often it is a remarkably lonely and frustrating place. Yet it is not without its attractions.”

  “I see,” I said. “And the other world?”

  “In many ways the other world is much like this one,” she answered earnestly. “Yet in that world I am different. In that world I have neither friends nor family yet, somehow, I am never alone. It is as if there is another me, a part of myself which is missing in this world. When I am there I know myself to be a fearsome thing, capable of the most vicious violence, yet in that world I am untroubled by my nature. Under the red sun of that world, the only frustration I know comes from my inability to unseat my rider.”

  “Rider?” I interrupted. “Like a horse?”

  “Much more dangerous than a horse.” Her words bore a strange flash of bravado, very much at odds with her feminine voice. “The person I am in that world has tasted the flesh of men and gloried in the spilling of their lifeblood. My rider believes I can become great. A beast so fearsome I will carry him beyond the red sun to where all his ambitions might be realized. Although I know such a path will be bloody indeed yet, when I am in that world, I find myself eager for the bloodshed.”

  “When I look up to the red sun the memories of my life here disgust me. Everything seems so weak and lonely, devoid of purpose or companionship. But when I am here the memories of the other world horrify me, such cruelty and wickedness. You see how I am trapped, don’t you? There is a choice to be made. I cannot exist between such extremes. I must be one thing or another. I am not large enough to encompass both. So when my rider commanded me to murder those men, I did so eagerly. I knew it would solve my unendurable riddle.”