Warlock Holmes--A Study in Brimstone

by G. S. Denning

  In an instant, Holmes was upon me. He clasped me by the front of my dressing gown and shook me, demanding, “How? How does he do it, Watson?”

  “He has a lock of her hair,” I told him, struggling ineffectually to free my collar from his grasp. “He bribed her maid.”

  Holmes released me and began to pace. “Now we have something, Watson! Now we have something! So… he needs a token then… Is he making an effigy? Does he need the materials as ingredients for his spell or… By the gods! Does he cast the spell upon the hair itself? Are these tokens of his victims the medium that holds his enchantment? Are they like some form of phylactery? Oh, let it be so, Watson! Let it be so!”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Holmes turned to me and, in the tone a philosopher might use to address a moron, “Because if I could destroy his phylactery, I could break his spell! Don’t you see? If I find out what he’s done with Lady Blackwell’s hair and burn it, his power over her is gone. More to the point, Watson, if I find he has a phylactery for me…”

  “Oh! You could free yourself of his influence?”

  “I could unwind that little blighter from my soul! I could live free of fear of what would happen to me if he should come to harm. What a relief that would be, Watson! Gods, it would be hard to keep from killing him on the spot, just to celebrate!”

  “Holmes!”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t, of course. I’m just saying, Watson… Oh, what I wouldn’t give! Bless you, John; this is the first ray of hope I’ve had in a long time. I have so much to do now. So much to do…”

  He ran to his bedroom and busied himself, clattering around with his poisons and shifting noisily through his closet. I made myself breakfast and settled in with The Times. I had just decided on a second cup of tea when he re-emerged. He was dressed exactly as a music hall comedian might portray a tramp. He wore an oversized coat of a garish color, patched and re-patched with theatrical abandon. One trouser leg was shorter than the other. He had attached a grand moustache that cleared his face by a good six inches on either side. He grinned at his own artfulness and showed me three gaps where his teeth were missing.

  “Behold!” he cried.

  “What… what am I beholding?” I asked.

  “A clever disguise, of course. Dressed as a common Irish working man, I shall seek employment in Milverton’s household, infiltrate and find where the villain keeps his phylacteries!”

  “No, you won’t,” I laughed.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you look like a clown, Holmes! You will be spotted in an instant.”

  “I worked very hard on this disguise.”

  “Well, I can see that,” I said. “There are elements which are quite ingenious. How did you do the teeth?”

  “Ha! The simplest illusion, Watson. I merely knocked them out with an ink blotter.”

  “You what?”

  “They’re on my desk. I’ll put them back when I’m done. Really, this is a foolproof plan, Watson, you shall see.”

  “Don’t go out like that, Holmes.”

  “I will.”

  “No. You’re going to be caught. Let me help you.”

  But Holmes was too proud and too sure of his plan to let me interfere with it. He cast one hand towards the ground, shouting, “Escape gas!” There was a muffled boom and our sitting room filled with dense black and purple smoke. I coughed and spluttered, groped about for the window latch that I might vent the foul stuff. By the time I had cleared the air enough to see, Holmes was gone.

  * * *

  It was dark ere I saw him again. I had gone to the library and withdrawn the only two books I could find that concerned phylacteries in any context other than as a Jewish prayer box. The first book was useless; the second was interesting, yet they both laughed such creations off as quaint tribal superstitions. I was two-thirds of the way through the better volume when the apartment door swung open and Holmes stumbled in. He was spattered with mud. Half his mustache had been burned away and he stared about in utter confusion. Finally he announced, “Hello. I live here.”

  “You do,” I confirmed. “How did the plan go, Holmes?”

  “Ah! An unqualified success! Yes. It exceeded my every expectation.”

  “So you know what Charles Milverton is doing with his ill-gotten hair samples?”

  “Oh… no. Better than that! I am engaged to be married to his housekeeper.”

  “What? How did that happen?”

  “We are in love.”

  I looked him up and down. Even for Holmes—the most easily distracted man I ever met—this was quite an unexpected departure from his plan. I asked, “Who is this girl? Had you even met her before today?”

  “I have not met her at all,” Holmes said. “Yet, the importance of such trifles is greatly overestimated. I know all I need to know. Her name is Agatha and she is venerable.”

  “Venerable? That just means… old.”

  “Ye gods, Watson, it means so much more than that! It means that she has persevered in the face of nine murderous decades. Though time has robbed her of one leg and the vast majority of her teeth, still she refuses to surrender. Like a treasured heirloom, she has been passed from one generation of Milvertons to the next. And why not? On any given day, one can find her down on her one remaining knee, scrubbing Milverton’s floor, turning in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”

  “That’s all very admirable, Holmes, but you still have not provided me with an explanation as to why you should be so smitten with her—sight unseen—as to seek a betrothal.”

  “Well, I am not the only one,” he said with a defensive sniff. “The court of popular opinion has already ruled on the subject and agreed with me entirely. She has seven husbands and three wives already and I fail to see how all ten of them could be wrong, eh?”

  “Ah ha! Now we have hit on something, I think,” said I. “Tell me, did you run into Charles Augustus Milverton today?”

  “Er… yes, he intercepted me shortly after I got to his house. He says he’s worked some fitting punishment for me, but the joke is on him for I made my escape free and clear and became engaged to his housekeeper.”

  I folded the book in my lap and took a deep breath. I knew my next words might fall heavily on my lovestruck friend. “Do you think it might be possible that, when Milverton wants revenge on some fellow who has inconvenienced him, he binds that person’s soul to the soul of his aged housekeeper? Might that not have happened before? Ten times before? Might you be the eleventh such person to be caught and treated thus?”

  Holmes blinked a few times and cocked his head to one side, searching for a retort. “Well, that’s… The thing is… Watson, can’t you see…” He fell silent for a few moments, then moaned, “Well, I can’t break it off now! What will become of poor Agatha?”

  “Don’t feel bad, Holmes. Ten spouses are considered more than adequate. I am sure she will survive. Though, from what you tell me, I am sure she cannot survive very much longer.”

  “Oh,” said Warlock, shaking his head to clear away the remaining confusion, “so then, actually my plan…”

  “…did not go so very well,” I concluded. “Yet, do not despair. You have seen his house and have some idea of the lay of the land. I propose we seek a simpler expedient—let’s burgle him.”

  “Watson! I’m surprised at you!”

  “Well,” I said, “we are running out of time. Tomorrow night will be our last chance. As negotiation and covert operation have now failed, we must turn to less legal strategies. Besides, the man is a colossal ass; I really don’t mind burgling him.”

  “Oh no, I quite agree,” said Holmes. “I didn’t mean to imply that I was unpleasantly surprised.”

  “We are agreed, then,” I told him. “Oh, and, Holmes, don’t forget to put your teeth back in.”

  “Hmm? Oh! Yes, I shall. Thank you, Watson.”

  * * *

  I spent the next day teaching myself the trade of burglary. The public is posse
ssed of a morbid love of crime stories, so it was not hard to come across several ha’penny pamphlets that detailed the sort of cloak and dagger business I needed. Though it can be problematic to obtain the tools of such a trade, I was in the position to solve that difficulty with only twelve words: “Lestrade, please steal me the best thieves’ tools Scotland Yard has confiscated.” He didn’t appreciate being given errands to run in the light of day, but he did come through. Two hours later, I found myself the proud owner of a dark lantern, a diamond-tipped glasscutter, a nickel jemmy, and a set of skeleton keys.

  I was also privileged with access to medical supplies. Thus, one cab ride later, I had an assortment of anesthetics—courtesy of Stamford—that would make fine knockout drops. On the way home I stopped by a butcher’s shop and gave him tuppence for a bag of gristly scraps. These I dosed with my homemade sleeping sauce, in case we ran into any dogs.

  I packed my new tools and anti-canine meatballs into a dark leather satchel with my pistol. All that remained was to cut a few masks from black dressmaker’s felt and wait. An hour before nightfall, Holmes and I set out for Milverton’s house in Hampstead to begin our career of crime.

  I was never much afraid of being burgled until I tried it myself and discovered how impossibly easy it is. I will confess I was afraid of guard dogs. I need not have been. All dogs love a good bite of fatty meat followed by a nap. I was happy to provide both. Milverton had only one dog and he was down and snoring happily in under a minute. The only response from his household to the dog’s warning barks was one groom who shouted at the mutt to stop his noise.

  Holmes and I made a quick half-circuit of the house, planning our best point of ingress. As some of the windows did not have their curtains drawn completely, we had a good many chances to look in at our targets. Fortune was with us; we found Milverton’s ground-floor study unoccupied, unguarded and with the curtains open wide enough for us to view our goal.

  “Look at that safe!” Warlock hissed. “It’s as big as a wardrobe. No man has that many papers to guard in a home study, eh? Oh no, Milverton, I think I know what you’ve got in there…”

  “How are we to crack a safe like that, Holmes?”

  “Well… I’ll have to take a look at it, I suppose. For now, let’s just worry about getting to it, eh?”

  I didn’t even have to make a noise shattering the window. The back of my glasscutter had a sharp hook, whose use I soon guessed. It happened to be the perfect shape to work into the corner of a window and slice away the glazing that held the pane in the wood frame. I withdrew the entire sheet of glass intact. I then turned to the next window over—whose pane was the exact same size—and placed the pane I had removed up against its twin. I wedged its corners with sticks to keep it in place. Since glass is barely discernible from an empty pane, anybody who looked at the house would see no cut window, no broken glass and no pane leaning against the side of the house to hint that there were intruders about. Only the lack of glare upon the empty window frame could give us away. For my coup de grâce, I planned to simply replace the pane on the way out and let them puzzle over how we’d ever gotten in in the first place.

  As we crept over the windowsill and across the study, I hissed, “I imagine you are planning on turning the door of that safe into a duck, or some such…”

  “Oh! What marvelous fun! I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “…but I really think we ought to try cracking it without resorting to magic.”

  “Then by all means, Watson, you attempt it first. If you succeed, all the better. If not, I will make short work of it, I promise.”

  “Fair sport,” I said.

  “Quack,” said Holmes.

  I stifled a laugh and said, “You watch the door.”

  The room was not entirely dark; the remains of a fire slowly burned itself out in the grate. I could see the safe well enough. It was an older model with three parallel dials, which spun towards the operator, displaying only one number at a time. The dials went from one to thirty. Despite its age, the mechanism turned smoothly and I could discern no click or pause when one of the dials was turned to any number. I shifted my attention from the dials to the safe itself, searching for any way to force the door, the top, or the back. Soon, I had to admit that my only hope lay in guessing the combination.

  I wracked my mind, but could think of no combination that might be meaningful to Milverton—I barely knew him, after all. Holmes was beginning to get impatient. At last I struck upon a realization: assuming Milverton did not bother to turn the dials away from their orientation while the safe was unlocked, only the proper numbers would be exposed. I could therefore guess the correct combination by carefully noting which numbers were the most faded by the sun. I was about to call Holmes over with the lantern, when he scuttled over of his own accord and whispered, “Someone’s coming!”

  “Quick! Douse that lantern! Get behind the curtains,” I said. “Stand upon the windowsill or they’ll see your feet.”

  Holmes and I had scarcely reached our perch before the door handle turned. The door opened, but no challenge was shouted, nor did any sound of a search come to my ears. Whoever had come in walked about with lazy strides. He threw a few fresh logs on the fire, paced over to the desk, lit a cigar and then—judging by the creaking of wooden chair legs—came to rest himself in the armchair by the hearth. As I knew the occupant’s back must be towards us, I ventured a peep around the curtain. With horror, I recognized Milverton himself. No other man would wear such a blatant comb-over lest he perish of shame.

  My relief that he was not searching for us was tempered by despair that he seemed to have no intention of leaving soon. He sat in the fireside chair, enjoying the occasional puff of his cigar, perusing a long legal document. As the minutes slid agonizingly by, the awkward nature of my stance upon the windowsill began to work on my back. I began to cramp. I began to squirm. I feared I would slip off and be discovered.

  I am sure I would have failed, if it were not for Holmes. I could see him by the moonlight that filtered through the window behind us. Though his features were concealed by darkness and the mask that covered him nose to chin, still his focus shocked me. He was not normally a patient man, nor a cautious one, yet he waited—still as a gargoyle and twice as stern. He made no sound and betrayed no fear, but stood with his face frozen in a purposeful resolve, staring hawk-like at Milverton’s safe through the crack in the curtain.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a sudden footstep on the gravel path behind our window. Whoever trod there must have been no more than seven feet from us and I could not imagine how they had failed to see Holmes and me framed in the window. Nevertheless, this unexpected interloper’s footfalls moved away and around the corner of the house. In a moment, I heard a knock upon the veranda door that led into the study.

  “At last,” Milverton mumbled. He stood and, as he did, I recoiled in horror to see what he was wearing. He had a claret-colored silk smoking jacket with a broad black collar and military-style epaulets fixed upon the shoulders. It was open to the waist, revealing a proud expanse of graying chest hair. On his legs he wore only gray silk shorts of a disgustingly sheer cut. I nearly gasped out loud when I realized what kind of appointment he might have arranged at this hour. I heard him unfasten the door and grumble, “You are late. I’ve been waiting half an hour.”

  A woman’s voice replied, “Begging your pardon, good sir, it was all I could do to get away.”

  “Ha. Yes, I have heard the Countess d’Albert keeps a strict household. Lord knows she has reason to guard her secrets. Yet here you are, eh? Come inside.”

  “But… but, sir… I am unescorted and the hour is late, I fear…”

  “Come inside, I say! You would balk for the sake of petty propriety? Do you not realize the scope of this endeavor? What you proposed to me is criminal. If I wished, I could have met you here with a detective at my side; we’d have had your pretty little neck in a noose before the week was out. As it happens
, I am intrigued by your offer. Come inside and let us be partners, eh? I am sure you will find it worth your while.”

  I heard her hesitate upon the threshold, but at last, with the soft swish of cloth, she stepped inside. She wore a long traveling cloak of dark green wool, which failed to conceal the burst of red curls that must have been either her pride or her bane. Her hair and her accent were enough to suggest her entire person to me. She was a shy, freckled Irish girl, employed as a domestic. She must be a basically good person, but struggling in the face of some difficulty—probably poverty—if she was forced into an alliance with Milverton. This was easy to imagine, but I blush now as I realize how much of my assessment was just that—imagined.

  Milverton announced, “Now, you have these letters of the countess’s. You wish to sell. If they are as good as you say, I wish to buy. All that is left is to discuss price and… terms.”

  He reached out towards her shoulder to guide her to a seat, but she shied from his touch. I didn’t blame her. It could have been a friendly gesture, but from a man in shorts like those, how could anything but lechery lie beneath? She took a chair and huddled in it. Milverton launched into a clumsily prepared speech on the subject of morality and how they were now partners outside it. I was sure the evening’s rendezvous would end with the promise of a substantial sum of money and an indecent proposition of another sort, but there was one surprise left.

  A laugh. A woman’s laugh. It was deep and rich and merry. It rang forth into the room as if its owner could no longer resist some perfect jest. It must have been half an octave deeper than the scared little Irish girl’s voice had been and possessed of a confidence the trembling domestic could never dream of. I feared a second, unexpected woman had sneaked past my notice into the room. Yet when I peeped out around the curtain, I could see the woman in the traveling cloak’s shoulders bobbing with rhythmic regularity. Indeed, it was from her that the laugh issued. She said, “Charles, do you still not know me? I am wounded, sir.”

  Milverton, who had just been turning back with the brandy he no doubt meant to ply her with, froze in his tracks. The color drained from behind his orange face treatment. “You,” he said.