The man who had fired the shot stepped out of the shadows behind me. “I’m sorry for that, gentlemen,” he said. “I did not expect anyone else to be down here.”
I went to check on Challenger. His topcoat and waistcoat were in shreds, and he had a welt at his neck that oozed blood, almost black in the dim light from the oil lamp. His eyes fluttered and he staggered, threatened to fall.
“Explanations can wait for later,” I said. “Give me a hand here. We need to get Challenger out of these caves before that thing comes back.”
The newcomer put his pistol away in a holster at his left hip, and between us we managed to manhandle Challenger back to the place we had entered the system. The old chap surprised me by pushing us away and starting up the steps on his own accord.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, taking out a handkerchief and holding it to his wound. “It’s nothing some good Scotch and a better explanation won’t cure.”
It was only when we were back out in the light that I saw our newcomer properly for the first time. He was older than I had thought, somewhere in his fifties, and walked with a pronounced limp in his left leg. His face was drawn and haggard, giving him the look of a man who carried the cares of the world. But he proved mannerly enough.
“I have a house nearby,” he said, and managed a smile. “I also have good Scotch, and a better explanation, if you will listen. It is high time I told somebody.”
So it was that ten minutes later we were to be found sitting in a rather well appointed front room, sipping some dashed fine Scotch. Challenger had cleaned and patched his wound, and it was not as bad as it had originally looked, but I was afraid his topcoat and waistcoat would not survive the night. Challenger seemed unconcerned. He raised his glass at our new host.
“Now, good sir, a story if you please. How is it you come to be chasing a relict hominid through the caverns of Chiselhurst?”
The man was quiet for several seconds, as if wondering where to begin. He sighed loudly, then launched into his story.
“It was not a relict hominid who attacked you. Not in the sense you may mean it, in any case. But to convince you of that fact, I will have to tell you the whole story.
“It begins in a small church in a remote corner of North East Scotland. My traveling companion—I shall call him Johnson—was drawn there in search of a doctor. James McIntyre was his goal—a medical man who had spent much of his life in Edinburgh. James had been a Renaissance man; not only a healer, but also a philosopher, a mathematician and a chemist.
“More importantly for our purposes, he was also Johnson’s grandfather. Thus far in our travels we had visited five graveyards in the area, all to no avail. This was our last chance. We knew that McIntyre had lived in this vicinity at the latter end of his life, but had no idea where he might be buried. If we didn’t find him, then Johnson’s search for his forefather would come to an abrupt end.
“I would not relish the end of our travels. Johnson had proved to be an excellent companion, both witty and erudite with a gentle manner that made our journeys seem short and pleasant. Nothing seemed to bother him. He was as excited as a schoolboy as we pushed our way through the old rusted gate, and he was still smiling almost an hour later although our search had so far proved fruitless. I saw his pale hands tremble each time he moved the grass aside on another gravestone, and with each new disappointment there was only the merest of furrows on his brow.
“As for myself, I had already given up hope and was turning back toward the gate when a voice hailed us from within the small battered church. At first I took him for a youth, but as he moved into the light I could see that it was age that had withered him. The backs of his hands were infested with liver spots, and his teeth were so yellow as to be almost brown. He was bent forward and was only able to walk with the aid of a stout cane, but his handshake was firm and his eyes were clear and unclouded.
“He bade us good morning and asked if he could help us. When Johnson mentioned our search his eyes suddenly showed fear, but then I could see that he had made a decision as he invited us into the small quiet church.
“Little light penetrated the gloom as we were led through to a tiny room at the back, and silence seemed to be the order of the day as the old minister pulled a heavy sea-chest away from the wall.
“‘This was left in trust to me. I must tell you that it seems to have belonged to the man you are seeking. It was to be left here until a descendant came to claim it. It would seem sir, that you are that man.’
“His left hand burrowed deep into his vestments and emerged with a large key that he handed to Johnson before turning away.
“‘If you need anything, you need only call,’ he said.
“He left us alone in the room, and it was all Johnson could do to contain his excitement.
“‘It’s here. It’s really here. And it is just as the old man’s journals described it.’
“He had never given me a reason for his almost irrational desire to find his grandfather but I had a feeling that I was about to find out. A deep chill settled on my soul, a blackness that could not be shaken. I longed for sunlight and the sound of the sea, but Johnson, in his desire, was already kneeling on the floor beside the chest.
“It was a simply wrought thing, its boards warped and cracked with age but the key fit securely in the lock which turned easily with only the slightest pressure.
“The chest creaked and groaned as we lifted the lid to reveal a closely packed collection of notebooks—leather bound and yellowed with age. I opened several; they were all covered in the same, crabbed, handwriting, volume after volume of chemical formulae and mathematical equations. I counted thirty of them before we unearthed the rest of the contents.
“There were two loose manuscripts: the first, in a fine stylish script, seemed to be a letter to Dr. McIntyre, and the second, in the same hand as the first, was either a much longer letter or a tale of some length. I was unable to see the front page as Johnson immediately snatched the main bundle of papers away and hid them deep in his coat. He would have done the same with the letter if he had not been stopped by the sight of something glinting at the bottom of the chest.
“By moving the last of the journals aside he uncovered a small glass vessel, the sort a medical man might use to carry potions to the ailing. And inside the vessel was a sickly fluid, glowing green in the dim light. Johnson’s eyes reflected that gleam and, for the first time in our acquaintance, I saw something which I did not like—a cold malice of thought.”
Our host broke his story and rose from the chair. He went to his writing desk and came back with a small glass vessel containing a green liquid. He handed it to me. It moved thickly, as if almost solid. I held it up to the light, which barely showed through.
“This is what your “relict hominid” is looking for, gentlemen,” our host said. “This is why he is here in Chiselhurst. But it all started back then in that church, when Johnson found this liquid in the chest.”
“He unscrewed the top of the jar, breaking the seal in the process, and before I could stop him, he tipped the noxious contents down his throat. I dashed the vessel from his lips with a cry, but the look he gave me was so full of rage that I stepped back. He reached toward me but his hands began to tremble, a convulsion racking his body. He fell backwards, his head striking the floor with a dull thud, and white flecks of foam flew from his lips.
“I went to the door and called for the old minister. I had barely turned back to the room when I was struck hard from behind and blackness threatened to creep in at the edges of my sight. I only caught a glimpse of Johnson as he pushed me aside, but he was no longer the upright figure that I had come to know. His back was bent, his knuckles reached almost to the ground and, although the light was dim, the thick black hairs on the back of his hands could be clearly seen.
“As he disappeared from view I made to follow, but the blow I had taken had enfeebled me and I could only manage several slow steps before the blackness finally t
ook me. As I fell to the hard floor it seemed that I heard a scream, a long howl as of a wild creature in pain.
“I was awakened by the rough hand of a policeman, and it was many long hours before they believed my story. But there was no blood on my hands or my clothes, and whatever had killed the old minister had inflicted such wounds as to strike his head from his body.
“In the end they were forced to give me my freedom. I believe the letter may have had something to do with it—the letter I still had in my hand when the police found me.”
He rose again from the chair and went to his writing desk, lifting a single sheet of paper from the top of a pile of letters.
“I brought everything from that chest with me when I came here. You must believe me when I say that I searched everywhere for Johnson. But in the three years since that day, I only managed to find the aftermath of some most dreadful crimes of violence. In the end, the blow to the head I had taken took its toll. My health finally gave out and I left Scotland, returning here to my family home.
“I did not know that he would follow me. I did not know that he was searching for the elixir … until several days ago, when I heard reports of the sightings in and around the village. Since then, I have been hunting him … and he has been hunting me.”
He started back across the room toward us, carrying the sheet of paper.
The front window of the room fell in with a crash as something heavy came through it. Before either Challenger or myself could move it knocked our host aside, and came straight for me, its gaze firmly fixed on the glass vessel I held in my hand. I had no time to rise from my chair. I kicked out at it with both feet, but did little to stop the assault. Its whole weight fell on my chest. I smelled it, musty and sour, like a wet dog. Hot breath blew in my face and it roared. The glass vessel was removed, none too gently, from my hand.
“No!” our host shouted. There was a shot and I felt the body on my chest jerk. The beast wailed, and the weight lifted from me as it threw itself straight at the man with the gun. He went down firing, their combined weight buckling his gammy leg and sending them both to the ground. He fired again, even as the beast tore his face off with a single blow, and again, just before it broke his neck, then fell forward to join him on the carpet.
I bent to check. When I looked down there were two men lying on the carpet, one naked, one clothed.
They were both quite dead.
Of course we had a dashed hard time trying to make sense of the situation to the satisfaction of the local constabulary. But it was obvious even to them that the two dead men had killed each other, although we were quite at a loss to explain why one of them was completely naked, or where Challenger had got his fresh wound.
In the end they were forced to let us go, but not before we spent a sleepless night in the police station being asked the same questions over and over again.
So it was that we caught an early morning train back to town, both of us rather bedraggled and dog tired.
“What in blazes happened?” I asked once we were settled in the carriage.
Challenger puffed mightily at a fresh cheroot before replying. “You may recall our conversation yesterday, where I mentioned the growth of stories of ape men, and noble savages? There is something of a movement afoot in society, a desire to return to a more primitive, less stressful way of existence. I believe that might have been what poor Johnson was originally searching for. He should have asked us, Malone, for we, alone above men here, know better. The modern age may indeed be stressful for many. But it is infinitely better than the alternative.”
I nodded in agreement.
“But it still doesn’t explain the how of it.”
“I can help there. I took this before the police could find it. They would never have understood it.”
He reached into his pocket and took out a single sheet of paper. There was blood on the edges, but it was perfectly readable. The letter explained everything.
My Dear Doctor,
Please pardon this intrusion into your privacy.
Several years ago I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance in Edinburgh, and I was most impressed with your theories and experiments concerning the descent of man and the awakening of the primitive aspects of our natures.
As you may know, I have been having some success as a humble scribe, and I have taken the liberty of incorporating part of your theory into my current work.
It will only be a penny dreadful, but I am proud of it nonetheless.
I have enclosed my original draft of the story for your perusal. Of course, if you disagree with the content, or if I have misrepresented you in some way, then the work will go no further.
I await your reply.
Yours in good faith,
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Penge Terror
The spring of 1914 was a tense one in London.
Rumors of war spread wherever people gathered, and gazes were set across the channel to the mainland of Europe, where the dynastic heads of old empires seemed determined to rattle their sabers and prepare for battle. An explosion in the south of the capital did little to lessen the fears of the people, especially when talk turned to it being a possible weapon, a new German bomb that could strike from a great distance.
McGuire wasted no time in sending me out, under orders to come back with the story or not bother coming back at all.
I was already in a foul mood upon boarding the train at Victoria, and that was not helped in the slightest by the fact that the passengers of said train seemed to be mostly fellow reporters from Fleet Street’s finest. Any story I was lucky enough to weasel from the site was likely to be shared by every other newspaper.
I needed an angle, and I needed one fast.
We arrived in Penge at lunchtime, and it was obvious that something big was afoot. A cordon had been thrown around a block of houses three streets to the south of the station itself, and it showed all the signs of being a military-run affair. Armed men stopped us before we were a hundred yards from the station.
“No further, sirs,” a squaddie said, and by the look on his face he’d said it too many times already that morning.
Nobody was talking. I spent half an hour in the Crooked Billet, a renowned local hostelry of some age, just probing, but even the locals did not have much of a clue as to what had happened.
“It were five in the morning, guv’nor,” the man next to me said. “I had just got up to do my business in the outhouse when there was an almighty bang and the gaff next door fell in. My old ticker was going twenty to the dozen, I’ll tell you that for nowt. We got Old Dave out from the rubble, and he’s away to the infirmary for a check-up, but I think he’ll be right as rain. He told me to keep the corner seat here warm for him, and that he’d be in for a pint later.”
“But what caused it?” I asked.
The man shrugged, and made serious inroads into the ale that had been his price for talking to me.
“I’ll be buggered if I know, guv’nor,” he said. “Pardon my French and all, but it all happened so fast, and now the squaddies won’t even let me up to my own house. The missus is in an awful state and …”
I left him to the ale and went in search of someone in command.
I didn’t have to look far. The officer in charge was already surrounded, three deep in reporters. There wasn’t going to be any exclusive story there. I had almost decided to return to the bar and drown my sorrows when I saw a familiar figure beyond the cordon, walking toward me with a grim look on his face. At first I thought I had the wrong man, for although this figure was as broad and stout as my old friend, the flowing beard in evidence seemed more gray than I knew it to be. I soon saw that I had merely been deceived, for the man shook out his beard and hair, and a plume of dust fell around him.
“Challenger!” I called out, twice before he paid me any attention. He looked up, and finally saw me.
“Malone? Well met, my boy. Come and have a look at this; see what you can mak
e of it.”
The squaddies on guard weren’t too keen on letting a civilian through, but Challenger’s name seemed to carry some weight among the soldiers, and on his say-so I was allowed to pass. I heard the pained cries of my fellow journalists behind the cordon as I joined Challenger, and I wore a small contented smile as we headed for the scene of the explosion.
“So what’s the story, old man,?” I said as we walked up what had been only the night before a quiet side street, now little more than a smoking ruin of brick, dust and rubble. Challenger didn’t reply at first, merely led me to what I had taken to be just another hole in the ground, and pointed in to it.
“There’s your story, Malone. And what a story it will be.”
I looked down at a large, smoking rock, half-buried in what was left of a wardrobe.
“This is why I was called in,” Challenger said. “I’m their man when it comes to strange rocks, apparently. And this one is very strange indeed, although I won’t know much more until it cools down enough to allow us to examine it. That’ll be a few hours yet, I’m afraid. What do you say to a beer?”
Ten minutes later, I was back in the same bar as before. Several of the other journalists had also taken residence there, and when they saw Challenger they started in on him with questions. The first one that got too pushy got bawled at for his impudence, and the second one got punched in the jaw. After that, they left the old man alone. We were able to get a seat in a quiet corner, and it was only after we lit up smokes and had full tankards in front of us that Challenger brought me fully up to date on the situation at hand.
Professor Challenger: The Kew Growths and Other Stories Page 9
