Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes

by Kim Newman

  The architect of this singular item sat hunched behind a tiny, splintered table in a bare cell illuminated only by a thin shaft of moonlight from a high, narrow window. He was dying. His arms, legs and face were lacerated with hundreds of self-inflicted cuts, his clothing scarlet with blood. When three robed men appeared at his door, he looked up weakly from his bloodstained fingers and smiled.

  “Where is it, Brother?” asked one of the men.

  “Of what do you speak, Abbot?”

  “Brother Josef, Brother Ehren, bring the candles,” the abbot said to the two monks behind him. “Search his cell — quickly!” He turned back to the man seated before him. “We know of the hellish instrument you have forged this night. God has revealed it to me in a dream.”

  “More a nightmare, I should think. For the power of the thing shall be hideous, its ministry implacable.”

  “How dare you use consecrated paper!” said Brother Josef.

  “Where is it?” the abbot asked again.

  “Gone out into the world,” said the dying man, clinging to the edge of his blood-smeared desk.

  “You have corrupted an instrument of God,” cried Brother Josef. “Where is it?”

  “As I have said, Josef, it is gone. Spirited away by the Prince of the Air.”

  “Satan!” Brother Ehren said with disgust.

  “Certainly not your weakling god,” he replied.

  “You stand at death’s door,” said the abbot. “Have you no fear? Tell us now where the thing is hidden.”

  “Hidden?” laughed the man behind the table. “In this tiny room?” He coughed hard and struggled to regain his breath. “Nay,” he said hoarsely, “though you search for it, you shall not find it. For I have sent it out into the world. To baptize all men into a new age of darkness.”

  On a bone-chilling night in early May of 1891, a hooded figure crouched over the dead body of a young woman on Clements Lane in the district of Westminster, London. An icy rain spattered against the grey cobbles and ran away in grimy rivulets towards the Thames. From the south the faint peal of Big Ben marked the midnight hour. While two other men watched from nearby, the veiled figure knelt before the corpse, a Bull’s-eye lantern in one hand. His free hand moved quickly and expertly over the woman’s body as he probed the bloodstained clothing. After several moments, he heard a voice above him ask, “Well?”

  The man looked up from the corpse. “Well what, Lestrade?” he asked irritably. “This infernal rain has scrubbed the street clean. Despite what the good doctor may have written about my abilities, I cannot work without clues.”

  “She was obviously another drab who got more than she asked for,” said Inspector Lestrade, pulling up the collar of his coat. “But her face, Mr. Holmes! Look at her face! Why would anyone do such a thing?”

  “This was no streetwalker, Lestrade. Observe the clothing. It appears to be new and of the highest quality. This woman was dressed for an evening out. What brought her here, so far from the beaten path?”

  Holmes tossed back the hood of his Ulster. The rain had died away to a fine mist that shone as a halo around the street lamp at the end of the lane. “This rain started a little after 3 p.m., but this woman is not dressed for inclement weather. As you can see, she has no cloak at all.” He motioned to the man in black coat and derby standing next to Lestrade. “Watson, notice the blood about the eyes and mouth — how thickly coagulated it is.”

  Watson knelt and winced at the mutilated features.

  “Yet the body is face up,” said Holmes. “The heavy rain would have washed away most of this blood — had it not been so thickly clotted. Now, since you put the time of death at only a couple hours ago, and it has been raining since three…”

  “Then the wounds were inflicted somewhere else,” Watson said. “Some place dry enough to allow the blood to congeal.”

  “Come,” said Holmes, “we can learn nothing more here. The scent has grown cold, and so have we. What will Mrs. Watson have to say, should I detain you any longer?” He turned to Lestrade, who quickly gestured to two uniformed policemen to remove the dead body. “If I can be of any further assistance…”

  Lestrade watched the two men walk down the lane toward the Strand and disappear into the shadows. A few minutes later he heard two shrill blasts from a cab whistle — telling him that Holmes had hailed a hansom.

  That same night, several streets away, a man sat alone in a dimly lit room and wept bitterly. He held something in his arms, something heavy and cool, which he gently caressed. He laid the object on his lap, wiped the tears from his eyes, and then opened it with a trembling hand.

  “It’s gone!” he cried. “Gone!”

  When Watson called on Holmes at his Baker Street lodgings the next morning, he found the detective sitting before the fire, absently scraping away at the violin that rested across his knees. Each screeching note from the Stradivarius sent a chill up the doctor’s spine, making him cringe and grit his teeth. “Holmes! If you please!” he cried, tossing the morning newspaper on the table.

  Holmes glanced at the headlines. “Miss Anne Skipton. Certainly not a streetwalker, and yet The Times is alluding to the Whitechapel murders of two and a half years ago.”

  “You must admit,” said Watson, taking the other chair by the fire, “there has been no murder this gruesome since the days of Jack the Harlot killer.”

  “And already The Times is capitalizing on it.”

  Holmes set aside the Stradivarius and was about to say something when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Mrs. Hudson entered, followed by an elderly man wearing a battered black hat and faded cassock. A dull metal cross hung from a chain about the man’s neck.

  “Ah! A client,” said Holmes. “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

  The man removed his hat and bowed, revealing a thick, tangle of gray hair. “I am Brother Eduardo. I have come on behalf of … well, you will not have heard of our order. It is a little-known offshoot of the Benedictines, whose mission is to safeguard certain antiquities.”

  Watson smiled. “A secret society?”

  “Excuse me,” Holmes interrupted, “this gentleman is my good friend and colleague, Dr. Watson, and I am Sherlock Holmes.”

  The old man nodded. “Not secret, Dr. Watson. The Church is well aware of our presence. Perhaps, though, our day-to-day activities may be somewhat obscure.”

  Holmes motioned for the man to be seated.

  “I was referred to you by a Mr. Lestrade. He feels my problem is not a matter for Scotland Yard.”

  “And what is your problem?”

  “My brothers and I have hopes that you will be able to locate a missing book.”

  Holmes turned to Watson. “Our friend Lestrade has a habit of sending us his … more interesting cases.”

  “He told me of both your amazing abilities and your genuine goodness,” the monk said anxiously. “And I pray you will be able to discern my deep sincerity when I say that this matter is of the utmost importance. I would not have come to you were it not so.”

  “I discern that you are indeed a man without guile,” said Holmes reassuringly. “Surely you are also a humble man, to be so long in the service of your order as to attain a position of authority and yet choose to remain a novice.”

  At the surprise on Brother Eduardo’s face, Watson used a finger to trace a circle about the crown of his own head: “The lack of a tonsure, quite elementary.”

  Holmes sighed heavily.

  “In many ways, Mr. Holmes,” said the monk, “we are all novices. Not one of us is ever fully capable of solving the great mysteries of this world.”

  “Really!” said Holmes. “You quite obviously have not come here to flatter me, Friar. So please, tell me about this missing book.”

  “It is a bound manuscript known as the Codex Exsecrabilis.”

  “Cursed Book,” remarked Watson, taking notes.

  “Watson,” said Holmes, “be a good fellow and fetch my copy of Librorum Prohibitorum.”


  “You will not find it listed on the Church’s index of banned books,” said Brother Eduardo. “It is a singular work … composed in the early thirteenth century by an apostate monk in Podlažice, Bohemia. The manuscript pages mysteriously disappeared the night they were written, and were not recovered until 1477. By then the pages had been bound.”

  “Describe the physical appearance of the book,” Holmes interrupted.

  “It consists of vellum sheets gathered in wooden boards. The boards are covered in leather and ornamented with a metallic cross — an inverted cross. It is rather large and weighs over 32 pounds. The codex remained in Benedictine possession for over a hundred years … at a monastery in Broumov, until it was forcibly taken to Prague to become part of the collection of Rudolf II.”

  “Bohemian Kings,” muttered Holmes, “I am besieged with the consequences of their mischief.”

  “Rudolf was a student of the occult,” said the monk.

  “An avocation that did nothing to help him prevent the Thirty Years’ War.”

  “And when the Swedish army plundered the region, his entire collection was stolen and removed to Stockholm. A few years later the Swedish Royal Library allowed us to purchase the codex. Since then — except for three or four brief periods — the book has been in our safekeeping. Until three days ago. We are extremely anxious to locate it!”

  “No doubt. Such a valuable and coveted book as…”

  “Our desire to recover the codex does not stem from cupidity. The book has the power to corrupt the souls of decent men!”

  “Your desire to protect us from this book is a noble one, Friar, but I believe each of us should be free to read and decide for ourselves what is moral and praiseworthy.”

  “But Mr. Holmes, the Codex has been linked to numerous crimes! In fact, it is directly responsible for several ghastly murders.”

  “Is this book so poorly written,” Holmes asked drily, “as to incite the reader to violence? Then why not simply fling the offending volume into the fireplace?”

  The old monk nervously fingered the tiny cross hanging over his heart and stared mutely into the detective’s piercing eyes.

  “Friar, if I am to help you, I must have all the facts, and I must have them now.”

  “The facts will sound like fancy, I fear,” the monk said at last.

  “Allow me to be the judge of that.”

  “The codex is a compendium of evil acts, Mr. Holmes — all of them hideous, hellish. When anyone reads a passage from the book — and I stress, anyone — that person is compelled to enact what has been read, no matter how monstrous the deed. Later, after the evil has been enacted, the passage literally fades from the page, leaving absolutely no trace of the words.”

  “That is indeed a fanciful tale,” said Holmes. “One worthy of Oscar Wilde, I might add.”

  “The book must be found,” Brother Eduardo pleaded, “before it falls into the hands of another poor soul who will be powerless to resist its call.”

  “But, Friar,” Holmes said soothingly, “a book composed by a thirteenth-century Benedictine scholar is undoubtedly written in Latin. How many people tramping the streets of London would be able to read such a book?”

  “To be precise, the codex was written in the Vulgate. But that has never prevented anyone from reading it, regardless of a knowledge of Latin.”

  “And how do you explain this?”

  “It is difficult to explain the unexplainable,” the old man said slowly. “The author of the codex had been confined to his cell for breaking monastic vows. His abbot had ordered him to do penance by transcribing several sacred documents. The manuscript should have been a common prayer book, but Brother Moriarty had long been under the sway of the Prince of Darkness.”

  “Moriarty,” said Watson. “That does not sound Germanic.”

  “It is ancient Gaelic for ‘greatly exalted.’ In a perverse way, he lived up to his name: power accompanies exaltation — and his manuscript has become a source of relentless power. According to legend, he called upon Satan to anoint his writing, then repeatedly cut himself to supply the blood with which the codex was written. When finished, he was more dead than alive and the manuscript had mysteriously vanished.”

  Holmes withdrew a pipe from his pocket and examined its charred contents distractedly.

  “Throughout the ages there have been many blasphemous books,” continued Brother Eduardo. “Were this simply another such volume, we would not concern ourselves with it, but the parchment upon which it was written had been consecrated for sacred documents. Moriarty poured into that parchment everything that is evil. Somehow, on the night of its satanic creation, the codex took on a life of its own. Now, it is trying to revert to its original holy state.”

  “Fascinating,” said Holmes, yawning.

  “You must believe me! When an evil passage is read from the codex the reader is forced to enact that evil — and the passage is then wiped clean from the book! I assure you, Sir, many of its pages are now blank!”

  “I believe only in those things which can be proven. You claim the book has special properties, but you have given me no proof.”

  The old monk stood and bowed. “You were our last hope, Mr. Holmes. Please forgive me for taking so much of your time.”

  “A moment, Friar. I may not believe the legend tied to the codex, but I will help you to recover it. Tell me the circumstances surrounding its disappearance. You said it was three days ago. Where?”

  “The library of All Hallows in Longbourn.”

  “I was not aware of a monastery in Longbourn.”

  “Our home is in Rome. We were in London on Church business and were extended hospitality by the priest at All Hallows.”

  “You brought the codex to London? Why?”

  “It accompanies us wherever we go. I cannot give you the full reason for this — other than to say we are sworn to protect it.”

  “Very well,” said Holmes. “We will accompany you to Longbourn.”

  Judged by its dour façade, the Church of All Hallows was particularly uninviting: a squat and decrepit edifice of crumbling brick and stained glass windows darkened by decades of soot. At one corner of the church, fronting the narrow street below, an imposing tower rose up against a gray sky; a much older structure, built of huge blocks of blackened stone, that stood out from the rest like a rook on the corner of a chess board, thought Watson, stepping from the four-wheeler.

  “How long have you been staying here?” Holmes asked, following Brother Eduardo inside the tower.

  “We arrived six days ago,” said the monk. “We would have been on our way the next morning but Brother Paolo fell ill. Father Twitchell insisted we stay until he was well enough to travel. He said we would have the place to ourselves, for he was going up to Cambridge to attend to a Church matter and would be away for four days.”

  “When did he depart?”

  “The morning after our arrival.”

  “And when was the last time you remember seeing the codex?”

  Brother Eduardo opened a large oak door and waited for Holmes and Watson to enter. “It was certainly here in his library the night after he left. It was gone the next morning.”

  The priest’s study was large but austere and, like the tower rising above it, clearly much older than the rest of the church. Heavy beams crisscrossed the ceiling and extended down the windowless walls. At one end of the room was a massive desk covered with curling documents and open books. Behind the desk a high shelf held numerous volumes recording births, burials, and other church history, their leather bindings dry and brittle with age. All this was illuminated by a single great log burning in the massive fireplace.

  Holmes circled the room, making a quick inspection of the bare floor. “Other than yourself,” he asked the monk, “who else might have had access to this room?”

  “Only my brothers. The study was kept locked to safeguard the codex.”

  “How can you be certain of this?”

 
“Upon his departure Father Twitchell entrusted me with the keys to the Church, including this room.”

  “Then I wish to speak to your brothers — but to each individually. Please go and ask one of them to step in.”

  Holmes walked to the fireplace. It was wide and deep, and almost a foot taller than the detective. He extended his hands before the blazing log. “I daresay, Watson, I could fit my entire bed upon this hearth. No more chilly nights!” he said longingly.

  The library door opened slowly and the first of two monks entered, a stout, balding man who went by the name of Brother Paolo. Holmes soon ascertained that the man had been seized with severe abdominal pains the night of his arrival and, until yesterday morning, had been far too ill to leave his bed. The detective thanked him and instructed the monk to show in his brother Eugenio.

  When Eugenio entered, followed by Brother Eduardo, Holmes quickly realized the young man was a true novice, for he was hardly more than eighteen and demonstrated little of the qualities of meekness and humility that characterized the other monks. Holmes turned to the fireplace. “This is an inviting blaze. Certainly it is a temptation for someone in possession of an undesirable book. Tell me, Brother Eugenio, could the codex have found its way into the fire?”

  “We do not burn books,” the youth said petulantly.

  “A book does not simply disappear from a locked room.”

  “We believe the codex has escaped,” said Brother Eduardo, “just as it did the night of its creation.”

  “Escaped?” Holmes said peevishly. “Did it flap its pages and fly up the chimney? I should like to speak with the priest on his return.”

  “He is due back tomorrow, but surely you cannot suspect Father Twitchell of taking the book!”

  “At present, I suspect no one,” said Holmes, “But I must question everyone. I shall call upon him tomorrow afternoon.”

  In the carriage, on the way back to Baker Street, Watson turned to Holmes and asked, “The murder last night — could it somehow be related?”

  “Possibly,” said Holmes, lighting a cigarette.

  “Could the codex have some occult power?”