by Andy Lane
She retreated back to whatever rock she had crawled out from under. I thought I heard her say, 'Take two or three, if you want, it's all the same to them, and you looks like you can afford it,' but the buzzing in my ears made it difficult to tell.
'Bear up, man,' Holmes's voice whispered beside me. 'Smile, and when I say the word, make for the stairs.'
I glanced again into the room. One of the boys winked at me and licked his lips. I shuddered.
On Holmes's command we moved back into the hall. As we rounded the bannister Holmes reached out and opened the door slightly, then slammed it shut.
'With luck they'll think our courage deserted us,' he said grimly. 'That harpy could tell from your face that you were discomfited.'
'Discomfited!' I hissed. 'Holmes, do you have any idea . . .?'
'More than you, old friend,' he said as we reached the first landing. 'The underside of London is my natural habitat. I have been able to keep most of it from you. I'm only sorry you had to be here now.'
'But Holmes, they were children!'
He scanned the carpet and sniffed the air like an experienced hunter in search of big game, then started up the next flight of stairs.
'The other side of the coin to our experiences in Holborn,' he whispered.
'The overcrowding in the slums and rookeries is so intense, the poverty so appalling, that many families feel they have no option but to sell their children into what may seem to them to be better circumstances.'
'And there are men willing to . . . to pay money for . . . And with boys as well . . .!'
I could not continue. Holmes glanced over at me, his eyes shadowed.
'I have never been one to censure what two consenting adults wish to do in private, Watson, the provisions of Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill notwithstanding. But to involve children is the lowest form of moral perversion imaginable.'
We had reached the second landing by now. The dubious trappings of respectability had faded: the walls were distempered rather than papered, the floor uncarpeted. Holmes repeated his shikari act, then led the way to a closed door which he opened a crack. Behind it a smaller staircase led further upward. From upstairs I thought I could hear chanting: voices raised in a deep, slow song whose words appeared to be in some foreign language. Closing the door again, Holmes whispered, 'I can hear Maupertuis at the top of the stairs. He appears to be standing guard over a room, inside which I presume is his hooded companion. We must determine what he is doing in there.'
'But Holmes, surely it's obvious.'
He gazed at me pityingly.
'This address was familiar to me not because I am an expert in brothels but because Madame Sosostris, the infamous clairvoyant, holds her devilish seances here.'
'Wasn't she mixed up in black mass ceremonies a few years back? I remember reading it in the newspapers. Shocking.'
'Indeed, and this is where she ended up, attempting to contact the other side by using devils and demons, rather than the Red Indian spirit guides so beloved of other clairvoyants. I would give a great deal to know what this hooded man wants with her.' A thought struck him. 'Perhaps we can gain access from this floor.'
Holmes and I checked the nearest door. Hearing nothing, I cautiously turned the handle and opened the door a crack. The room was dark. I pushed the door a few more inches and poked my head cautiously around the edge. Apart from a stained and rumpled bed and a small plaster crucifix on the wall above it, there was nothing. The curtains had been drawn, and the room was in twilight.
Holmes went straight to the window and drew back the curtains. Beyond the fly-specked glass I could see a patch of overgrown garden bordered by chest-high walls. As I retrieved my stethoscope from my hat, Holmes threw up the window, secure in the knowledge that he could not be observed, and began to climb out onto the ledge.
'Be careful!' I mouthed. He nodded, and swung himself sideways, feeling with his fingers and toes for the gaps between the bricks.
I was just about to turn back to the room when something-familiar caught my eye in the garden, half hidden by the shadow cast by one of the walls. It was a pile of tall, thin twigs with a leather pouch, like a half-deflated football, balanced on top. I tried to remember where I had seen something similar, but my mind would not cooperate.
'Watson,' Holmes hissed from his position above me, 'stop wool-gathering and see what you can hear through the ceiling!'
Chastened, I gazed upwards. All I could see were the soles of his feet. I scurried back and placed my stethoscope against the ceiling.
There were two voices upstairs. One seemed to belong to an older man, and was oddly familiar. The second was that of an old woman. Together they seemed to be chanting a series of polysyllabic words in a regular and detached manner, like children reciting nursery rhymes.
'I-ay, I-ay,' the sound seemed to go, 'naghaa, naghaighai! Shoggog fathaghn! I-ay, I-ay tsa toggua tholoya! Tholoya fathaghn!'
I looked over towards the window, suppressing a shudder. There was no sign of Holmes. I felt a moment of panic, but decided in the end that if he had fallen he would have made some noise, if only to warn me.
The two voices were chanting out of phase now. They seemed still to be using the same words, but the elder man's voice was two syllables ahead of the woman's. The effect was oddly hypnotic. The curious stresses within the words made the chant resonate with a strong beat as the voices alternately reinforced and competed with each other. I had heard much the same effect in Afghanistan and India, listening to the music of the native tribesmen of the hills, music based not upon the melodic structure so dear to Holmes's heart, but upon a rhythmic foundation not heard in the West.
The chant stopped abruptly in the middle of a phrase. For a moment I thought that Holmes had been discovered, until a third voice spoke. It was high-pitched and pure, without character or personality. It oozed sweetness. I had never heard anything like it in my life.
'My children,' it said, 'you have done well. I am pleased.'
The man spoke again, but in English.
'When shall we bask again in your presence?' he asked fawningly.
'Soon, very soon,' the outlandish voice answered. Despite its peculiarities, I could make out its meaning.
'The armies are gathered,' the man said. Presumably he was well used to the owner of the strange accent.
'You must see to it yourself. The brethren will be committed to moving me soon.'
'I would crave a request, oh luminous one.'
'Name it. You are my favoured son.'
'There is interference here. I would ask that a few of the brethren are spared to protect this side of the gateway.'
'Interference? You displease me. The guards are mobilizing. Soon they may realize our plans. I am loathe to spare any of the brethren.'
'A detective and a stranger called the Doctor are investigating our affairs.
They are nothing, but I would not take chances with your safety at stake.'
There seemed to be a slight quickening of interest in the voice.
'Nothing can threaten my safety, but this Doctor may pose problems. You may have four of the brethren. They will be waiting this side of the gateway.
. . '
There was a sudden scrabble outside the window, and the sound of rubble hitting stone far below. In the moment before I tore my stethoscope away from the ceiling a silence fell across the meeting, broken by the woman's voice asking, 'What was that?'
'Some jackanapes is outside the window!' the elder man snapped. 'The connection is broken! Maupertuis! Damn you, man, attend me!'
As the door to the room above was thrown open by, I presumed, Baron Maupertuis, I rushed across and peered out of the window. There was no sign of Holmes down below.
'Watson!'
An urgent hiss attracted my attention upwards. Holmes was moving rapidly down towards me. Beyond him I could see that the lintel beneath the window must have crumbled under his fingers, sending fragments of masonry crashing to the
ground.
'Damn it,' Holmes exclaimed as I pulled him in. 'All that and I hardly got a glimpse. Maupertuis was outside guarding the door, that much is for sure.
There were only the two of them in the room, and the robed man had his back to me.'
'Only two of them? But I heard three voices!'
'I know,' Holmes barked as he flung open the door.
We emerged onto the landing at the same time that Baron Maupertuis arrived from the stairway. He was holding something in his hand. No flicker of expression crossed his face as he saw us. Madame Sosostris - a sour-faced woman in faded finery - cowered behind him. There was no sign of the hooded man.
'Surd!' yelled the Baron.
Holmes took two steps towards Maupertuis and tried to snatch whatever it was that he was holding. They struggled silently for a few moments whilst the woman gazed at me with horrified eyes: horrified not by what was going on, but by something else that she had seen. I was trying to decide whether to join in the struggle or make for the stairs when a grotesque figure rushed up from the floor below. He was at least seven feet tall, and wide to match.
His physique was that of a prize-fighter, but it was his face that held me in thrall. Crowned by a rough thatch of black hair, it was scarred and swollen, and pulled into a grotesque expression by what seemed to be all of the many muscles of his lips and cheeks pulling in different directions. I recognized his garb: he was the driver of Maupertuis's carriage.
Holmes broke off the struggle and ran to join me.
Maupertuis indicated us with a flick of his head.
'Surd,' he whispered to the man behind him, 'kill them.'
We leaped back into the room and I slammed the door. There was a cheap bolt on the inside: I threw it, but it wouldn't stop Surd for long. Holmes tried to open the door again, crying, 'I must see the other man!', but I pulled him towards the window.
'The drainpipe!' I gasped. He picked up my meaning straight away, and clambered over the window-sill. I gave him a few seconds to get clear, then followed.
I still have nightmares about that climb. More than once I felt the bolts that attached the drainpipe to the wall start to give. Rust scoured my hands, and a bloody haze seemed to hover before my eyes as I called upon all my reserves of strength. I paused to look up at one point, and saw Maupertuis and the cowled figure of his companion leaning out of the window watching us. Of the menacing Surd there was no sign. I presumed that he was racing down the stairs to catch us. In my panic my foot slipped, and I was left hanging by a supporting bracket whilst my muscles screamed for release.
My flailing feet found a brick which projected slightly from the wall and I resumed my climb, drenched in sweat. I could not tell how far I had come, or how much was left. My universe was a stretch of crumbling brick and a cast-iron pipe.
'Jump!' Holmes's voice shouted from below. Trusting him, I let go.
It felt as if I was hanging unsupported in mid-air for an eternity, but the drop could have been no more than a few feet. Holmes steadied me, then pulled me away across the garden towards the wall.
'Oy!' a voice yelled from the direction of the house. I ignored it, and pounded after Holmes. A hand caught my jacket, and I was pulled up short.
Turning, I found myself in the grip of the greasy-haired footman.
'What's your game, then?' he panted. I planted a short jab to his solar plexus and a cross-cut to his jaw. He'd been in a scrap before, though, and shrugged the blows off without letting go.
Over his shoulder I saw Surd leave the house and lumber towards us.
Holmes had reached the wall by now, and was urging me on. I redoubled my efforts.
Surd paused, stood upright, and gazed strangely at me. A warm breeze stirred my hair. It must have been a reflection of the sun, but it looked to me as if his eyes were glowing.
I tried to jerk myself out of the footman's grasp, and succeeded too well.
Staggering backwards, I caught my foot in a clump of weeds. I sat down, hard.
It was that which saved my life.
As the footman grinned down at me I felt, rather than heard, a sudden whumph, and watched in disbelief as his head was engulfed in flames. He screamed and flailed his arms around. I scrabbled backwards through the garden on my hands and heels. He was jerking like a marionette in the hands of a drunkard. The flames were spreading down his shoulders and arms. As I watched, a fiery seam opened up across his chest. I was screaming too, as Holmes hauled me up over the wall and pulled me along the road, out of sight of the burning man, but not out of range of his agonized shrieks.
Chapter 7
In which Watson and the Doctor attend a family reunion where much is explained and an unusual guest is introduced.
Holmes dragged me around the corner and onto the street. My side was raw with the pain of running, and the old Jezail bullet wound in my leg throbbed with a hot, insistent beat. I kept gulping for air, but it seemed that no matter how fast I panted, it was not enough. My stomach was in revolt, and I paused for long enough to bring up a thin, acrid bile before Holmes pulled me on.
Eventually he slowed and allowed me to collapse against a lamp-post. He glanced back urgently. I tried to follow his gaze. Although my eyes were watering, I could see that the street behind us was empty. Everything seemed normal. The birds were singing, the sun shone upon scrubbed steps and a cat padded along a wall.
And yet, not five minutes walk from where we stood, a man was burning like a Roman candle.
'They do not seem to be pursuing us,' he said finally. Apart from a slight flush, he was unaffected by our escape. 'No doubt they are worried about attracting attention.'
'Holmes, who are they?'
He frowned.
'These are deep waters, Watson,' he said finally. 'I confess myself adrift.
What we have seen today is not amenable to deductive logic, and yet...'
'And yet it happened.'
My breathing was coming under control now. My stamina had never fully recovered from my wounding near Maiwand and a subsequent bout of typhoid in Peshawar. It never usually let me down when I made demands: it just extracted its price later. I would probably be laid up for a couple of days after this.
'I need to think,' he said distractedly.
'Perhaps Mycroft...' I ventured.
'No. No, not Mycroft . . : Holmes glanced briefly at me, debating whether to let me in on something. I was well aware that there was some player in this mystery whose identity was being kept from me. 'But perhaps...'
The clatter of a four-wheeler made us both jump. It was coming from the opposite direction to Drummond Crescent, and I relaxed as Holmes hailed it with a short blast upon his whistle. It slowed to a halt as I pulled myself to my feet.
'Baker Street,' Holmes barked to the muffled cabbie, 'and double the fare if you make good time!'
He opened the door and aided me into the shadowed interior. I sank gratefully into the upholstery.
'Thank Heaven for small mercies,' Holmes muttered with heartfelt relief as the growler clattered off.
'Let's not get personal,' said a voice from the shadows. 'Small but perfectly formed, I think you'll find.'
A figure leaned forward into the light from the windows. I groped for my revolver, then remembered leaving it back at Baker Street. The four-wheeler turned a corner, and a shaft of sunlight suddenly illuminated our fellow-traveller's features.
'Doctor,' Holmes snapped, 'is that you?'
'Let's pretend it's not,' said the Doctor, 'and see what happens.'
'I presume that this is no accident.'
'Given the random nature of quantum interactions,' the Doctor mused as the cab turned again, and I saw the great hall of Euston Station through the window, 'can the confluence of any two events be truly described as anything but accidental?'
'I refuse to bandy words with you, Doctor. Give me a straight answer.'
'I prefer bandy legs to bandy words,' the Doctor murmured. 'An answer to what, Mr Holmes?'
'You didn't ask any question.'
'I quite patently did.'
'Oh no you didn't!' the Doctor chanted, grinning.
'Oh yes I . . : Holmes pulled himself together with an effort. 'I distinctly asked you what you were doing here.'
The Doctor gazed owlishly over the curved handle of his umbrella.
'No,' he said, 'you merely presumed that my presence here was no accident.'
'The question was implicit!' Holmes almost spat the words out.
'What question was implicit?'
'What are you doing in this cab?'
The cab swerved slightly as a growler overtook us at some speed. Our cabbie cursed the driver in earnest and graphic terms.
