Doctor Who: All-Consuming Fire

by Andy Lane

  Beyond the smoking salon, stairs had been lowered to the snowy ground.

  The white train lay twenty feet away. Footsteps led from that train to ours and back again. There was a chill in the air, but no worse than the bite of an April morning in London.

  The chef de train halted and turned to us.

  'Gentlemen,' he began, his breath steaming in front of his face. 'In the history of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits this has happened not once before. Not once. We have been...' he searched for the right words, '...flagged down!'

  'By whom?' Holmes inquired softly.

  'By one whom I may not disobey,' the chef said, crossing himself briefly.

  'Your presence is requested. We will wait for ten minutes. The schedule will allow no more.' With that he turned on his heel and strode back inside the salon.

  'You saw it pass us by earlier?' Holmes asked, indicating the distant carriage. I nodded. 'That crest is familiar,' he continued. 'I have seen it before, on a letter or a document of some kind.' He shook his head. 'There is, of course, only one way to find out. Are you game?'

  'I would consider it a privilege,' I replied.

  We set out together across the snow-laden ground towards the white train.

  The snow crunched underfoot. I could feel the cold begin to bite at the tips of my fingers. Behind us I could hear an increasing number of voices from the second-class compartments demanding to know of the chef de train what was causing the delay. I could not make out his answer.

  Within moments we were approaching the train.

  'Are you armed?' Holmes asked.

  'No,' I replied. 'I had not anticipated the need. Are you?'

  'My hair-trigger pistol is back in my valise.'

  As we reached the steps leading up to the lone carriage a door opened above us. Back-lit by the light spilling from the carriage, a spindly, cloaked figure cast its shadow over us. I could make out nothing apart from the unnatural smoothness of its head. It gestured us inside, then retreated.

  Holmes and I looked at each other, then Holmes climbed the steps. Casting a longing glance back at the Orient Express, I did likewise.

  The bright light blinded me momentarily as we entered the carriage.

  Shielding my eyes, I managed to make out three figures before us. One was seated in an ornately carved chair in the centre of the otherwise empty space. The others stood behind. As my eyes grew accustomed to the glare I began to make out more. The carriage was lined in white silk, with the scarlet velvet curtains across the windows standing out like splashes of blood. Three massive gas-lit chandeliers hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly. The carpet was deep and red.

  The figures standing behind the chair were tall and thin. Both wore long black robes with scarlet scarves draped across their shoulders, scarlet sashes around their waists and scarlet skullcaps half-covering what sparse hair they had. Each had a face that seemed to be made up of vertical lines.

  Neither showed any expression.

  The man in the chair, swamped by his white robes, was the least impressive thing in the carriage. Thin and greyhaired, he might have been a banker or a grocer. His tiny white skullcap looked as if it could fall from his head at any moment.

  Holmes walked to the centre of the carriage and stood before the man in the chair. I expected one of them to say something, and so I was completely unprepared when Holmes knelt upon one knee. The man extended his hand, upon which I saw a massive gold ring. Holmes's face tightened for a moment, then he knelt and kissed the ring.

  I was hit by a sudden crashing realization, and so when Holmes turned his head and said, 'Watson, may I introduce His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII,' I was at least half prepared. I bowed from where I stood. One of the men who flanked the Pope frowned and opened his mouth as if to rebuke me, but the Pope raised his hand. The other man spoke in excellent English.

  'His Holiness understands that Doctor Watson shares the majority of his countrymen's antagonism towards the Holy See. There is no transgression.'

  Holmes stood and took two steps backwards to join me.

  'We are grateful, your Holiness,' he murmured. There was a undertone of sarcasm in his words.

  The man spoke again.

  'I am Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla, and this,' he gestured to his mirror image on the other side of the chair, 'is Cardinal Tosca. His Holiness wishes to express his regret for disrupting your journey.'

  'His Holiness has no need to apologize for anything,' Holmes said. 'I have served the Holy Father from a distance before, although I had never expected to meet him in person.'

  'His Holiness was most pleased with your discreet recovery of the Vatican cameos,' Ruffo-Scilla continued smoothly. 'Your actions prevented a scandal, and justified his Holiness's faith in you.'

  'I did wonder how I had come to the Vatican's attention,' Holmes said carefully. 'After all, given Mr Gladstone's belated acknowledgement of the annexation of all papal lands by King Victor Emmanuel II, and the subsequent withdrawal of the Apostolic Delegation from British territory, I had assumed that his Holiness would use the extensive resources of the Vatican rather than resort to a British detective who regards himself as an atheist and whose fame,' and he spread his hands modestly, 'barely extends beyond the borders of a country currently regarded as non grata.'

  His Holiness Pope Leo XIII smiled gently.

  'His Holiness has followed your career with interest,' Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla said. 'There are certain things that a free agent can do that members of the Sacred College cannot. His Holiness believes, however, that such business should be "kept within the family", whenever possible and, despite your own regrettable lapse in faith, your family have served the Holy See faithfully before.'

  Holmes nodded and turned to me.

  'I remember Sherringford writing to tell me,' he murmured, 'that one of our distant ancestors had been Commander in Chief of the Naval Forces of his Holiness the Pope. I had never credited the story until now.'

  I was amazed, not so much at what had been said, but at Holmes's uncharacteristic revelations concerning his family. After all, it had been five years before he revealed to me that he possessed a brother. I made a note to ask who Sherringford was when we got back to London.

  His Holiness raised a hand, still smiling enigmatically.

  'Time is short,' Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla said. 'Your train will be leaving shortly.

  His Holiness wishes to retain your professional services. You may demand any recompense that you wish.'

  'My fees are on a fixed scale,' Holmes said severely, 'except in those cases where I remit them altogether. The problem is everything. Pray explain what you wish of me.'

  His Holiness twisted his ring around his finger and looked thoughtful.

  'Have you heard of the Library of Saint John the Beheaded?' Ruffo-Scilla, asked.

  I saw Holmes's fingers twitch. Had we been back in Baker Street I knew he would have been demanding: 'Watson, pass my index for the letter L down from the shell Oh, and whilst you are at it, you may as well recover J and B

  as well.' Now, however, I could hear the chagrin in his voice as he admitted, 'The name is familiar, but I am afraid I cannot place it.'

  'I would not expect you to,' the Cardinal said calmly. 'The Library does not advertise its presence. It is a repository for books which have been, or are, or may be, banned - either by us or by some other . . . authority. Books so extreme and unusual that we cannot even acknowledge that we are interested in them, for fear of exciting general opinion. Books that, some say, should never have been written. However' - he spread his hands wide in an unofficial benediction - 'we are reasonable men. We allow selected scholars and researchers to examine these books in the hope that they may shed a little light into the darker corners of God's creation for us.

  Because England is the centre of the rational world, and has always seemed to us to be more stable than many other countries, the Library is based in London. The present . . . discommodation . . . between our countries h
as, paradoxically, made things easier. The greater the perceived gap between the Library and the Church, the better.'

  'Suppression of knowledge by the Church,' Holmes said bitterly. 'Why am I unsurprised?'

  I cleared my throat. His Holiness looked up at me and smiled.

  'I find myself confused,' I said. 'What sort of books are we talking about?'

  'One of the three unexpurgated versions of the Malleus Maleficarum is in the Library' the Cardinal replied from the Supreme Pontiff's side, 'the other two being held in the Vatican Library. The only complete transcript of Galileo Galilei's trial resides there, along with shelves of books on the Chinese Si Fan society and its leader, Doctor Fu Manchu - a man whom we in the Vatican believe to be as huge a menace to civilization as you believe anarchism to be. Five lost plays by Aristophanes. The only known copy of the Basra Fragment of the lost Dictionary of the Khazars, along with the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. And,' he smiled, 'a copy of notes made by Doctor Watson and picturesquely entitled The Affair of the Politician, The Lighthouse and the Trained Cormorant, the publication of which was, I believe, suppressed at the highest levels.'

  I took a step forward, ready to remonstrate with the Cardinal. Holmes raised a hand to stop me but His Holiness the Pope coughed, attracting my attention. The small man in the loose-fitting white robe who was believed by many to be God's mouthpiece on Earth looked full into my eyes for the first time, and I was so struck by the calm and wise intelligence that shone like a beacon in his gaze that I stood with my mouth hanging open until Holmes interjected, 'This is all very interesting, but I'm afraid we have a train to catch. Perhaps you could get to the point.'

  'The Library was been robbed,' Ruffo-Scilla, said quietly. 'In the thousand years that the Library has existed, such a thing has never happened. Wars, fires, disasters . . . these things have been as the beating of a moth's wing to the Library. And yet now, after all those long years, books are missing.'

  Cardinal Ruffo-Scilla seemed genuinely upset, although I could not see why. Admittedly, the theft of historical relics was unfortunate, but the Cardinal was making it seem like a world catastrophe. I had seen enough looting in Afghanistan and in India to show me that nothing lasts forever.

  Holmes cut to the nub of the issue.

  'Do you have any idea who the thief might be?' he said.

  'None.'

  'When was the theft discovered?'

  ''Two days ago, when a member of the Library asked to see one of the books.'

  'The news came through rapidly.'

  'We have our methods.'

  'I shall have to visit the scene of the crime, of course, although the evidence will almost certainly have been cleaned away by now.'

  The Cardinal smiled. 'Cleaners are not allowed in the Library,' he said.

  'Some of the documents are so old that a careless touch would crumble them to dust.'

  'The police have not been informed?'

  His Holiness frowned. For the first time Cardinal Tosca spoke from the other side of the Papal Throne. His voice was sibilant, his accent pronounced.

  'The authorities must not be made aware of the Library,' he hissed. 'The whole point about conspiracies is that they have been suppressed by those in power.'

  Outside a train whistle hooted mournfully.

  'I believe that is our train,' Holmes said. 'I shall take your case, but I will require the location of this mysterious Library, and a letter of introduction to its custodian.'

  Ruffo-Scilla reached into his robes and pulled out a sheaf of documents, which he passed to Holmes.

  'His Holiness would like to extend his gratitude,' the Cardinal said. Holmes, uncomfortable with the display of subservience but too experienced in the ways of the world to object, knelt to kiss the ring on the Pope's outstretched hand again, and this time I did the same. Leo XIII leaned forward and made the sign of the cross above Holmes's forehead, and then above mine.

  'In nomine Patris; et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,' the Pope murmured, 'Amen.

  God be with you, gentlemen.'

  We left the carriage together.

  'A rum business, what?' I said as we walked back across our footprints.

  The night had turned colder in the few minutes we had been inside.

  'Returning overdue books to the library,' Holmes snapped. 'It's a bit beneath my dignity. And I have no great love for the Catholic Church. Our family was brought up in the faith, but my brothers and I were too aware of the inconsistencies and irrationalities inherent in the Bible to make good communicants.'

  Brothers? I thought, but just then the Orient Express began to pull slowly away from us, and we had to sprint the last few yards or face a long walk home.

  Chapter 2

  In which Holmes and Watson visit the Library and Mr Jitter threatens to take a hand.

  'Cab!'

  Holmes's strident cry rang out across the late afternoon hurly-burly outside Victoria Station. I added a single blast from my cab-whistle for good measure. A growler that had seen better days detached itself from the throng of vehicles and clattered towards us.

  It was good to be back in London. The metropolis was labouring under a warm and muggy spell and despite the high, if not putrid, aroma of horse dung and refuse that greeted us as we left the station, I felt my spirits soar.

  As Holmes and I sank gratefully back into the upholstered seats and the cabbie hoisted our considerable baggage on to the four-wheeler's roof, Holmes turned to me and said, 'You have been strangely quiet since our meeting with his Holiness last night'

  Indeed, we both had. After we had clambered back on to the Orient Express, Holmes had refused to be drawn on the matter. We had retired to our cabins with no more than a few words passing between us. We awoke in Paris, and spent most of the day so occupied in getting ourselves to the present point with the minimum inconvenience and our luggage intact that no opportunities for serious conversation had presented themselves. Even on the journey from Dover to London, Holmes had buried himself into the pages of the Daily Chronicle, eschewing the headlines for the agony columns.

  In passing, I should say that, despite his frequent claims to care 'not a whit'

  which party was in power, I could not help but notice that on the day that the Daily Telegraph switched its editorial allegiance from the Liberal camp to the Unionist persuasion, Holmes had given up reading it in favour of the newly published Chronicle.

  'You,' I ventured, 'have been remarkably reticent on the subject as well.'

  We jolted into motion. The ornate facade of the Grosvenor Hotel passed us by, followed moments later by the Metropolitan line Underground station ticket office.

  'That is no more than anyone who knew my foibles would expect,' Holmes responded.

  I glanced across at Holmes, suspecting some jibe. His eyes were closed and his mouth curved into a slight smile.

  'However,' he added, 'since you are known as a clubbable sort of fellow, your silence is more surprising than mine.'

  The growler's speed increased as it moved from the muddy area outside the station to the asphalted wooden blocks of Victoria Street. Within a few minutes we were rounding Parliament Square and trotting up Whitehall.

  Holmes glanced at his watch.

  'Mycroft will be clearing his desk at this very moment,' he said, 'in preparation for his usual walk to the Diogenes Club. As I may have remarked before, the daily rotation of my brother between his lodgings in Pall Mall, his office here in Westminster and his club is as unvarying as the motion of the stars.'

  'If you must know,' I said, 'I have misgivings concerning this case.'

  'I confess,' he replied, 'that the more I think about it, the less I like it. I suspect there are deep undercurrents here of which we have not been made aware.' He brightened up. 'Still, it is a capital mistake to theorize in the absence of the facts, and the case does hold certain interesting features.'

  We took Trafalgar Square at a fast clip, and were heading up the newly built Charing Cross Road
when Holmes said, 'How do you fancy a little run out tomorrow, old chap?'

  His casual tone did not fool me.

  'To the Library of Saint John the Beheaded?'

  'I'll make a detective out of you yet,' he chuckled.

  As we turned into Oxford Street we found ourselves behind a slow-moving bus - one of the dark green Atlas type -whose horses could not be raised from an idle canter. The press of traffic made it impossible for our own driver to overtake.

  'These streets are becoming more crowded by the day,' Holmes remarked.

  'There is only so much traffic the capital can take without grinding to a complete halt.'

  It was twenty minutes later that we arrived at our lodgings in Baker Street.