Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu

by Lois H. Gresh

  I knew better. The despicable Koenraad Thwaite was possibly the most dangerous adversary I’d met in my career, possibly more dangerous to my health and wealth than Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Thwaite possessed keen intelligence and had nearly brought down my London enterprise. My sources told me that Thwaite also possessed the same strange powers as his mate, Amelia Scarcliffe. Professor Henry Fitzgerald, tucked away in prison, had been a figurehead of the gang, reporting to Koenraad Thwaite. I was troubled by what I’d heard, that Holmes himself had battled Thwaite’s gang in London and nearly been defeated, that the creatures polluting the River Thames were under Thwaite’s control.

  Could it be?

  Logic and science told me that my sources were wrong, but I’d read the accounts in the London newspapers about the creatures, how they’d appeared as if from nowhere in a London warehouse and attacked people. I’d stood on the banks of the Thames and seen them myself, how they flickered in and out of view across the surface of the water.

  That despicable Holmes had rebuffed my suggestion that we work together. He obviously wanted the glory for himself. But Holmes hadn’t beaten me yet. Not in all these years. The man irritated me and distracted me from my true purpose, that of domination over London’s criminal enterprises. Someday, I’d put Sherlock Holmes in his place, and if I had my way, he’d be next to Professor Henry Fitzgerald in prison—either that, or dead, buried and long forgotten.

  The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  “Get on with it,” I barked at my men, who backed away slightly in fear. That’s the way I like it, I thought, and then softening my tone, said, “Assuming you find the child, kidnap her along with Amelia Scarcliffe. And blow up that beach to get the heat off Michael’s group. Now, go!”

  My men burst out of the inn and into the quiet country lane. I followed the dynamite group heading toward the beach. I have always liked a good explosion.

  23

  DR. REGINALD SINCLAIR

  Whitechapel Lunatic Asylum

  Professor Moriarty’s procurement agent loomed in my mind. He would return soon—in a few days, I suspected—and demand delivery of ten Eshockers for the dens. If I didn’t supply ten machines, he’d snap my neck in two.

  Mr. Norris, my master carpenter, had succeeded in carving, constructing, staining, sanding, and polishing three coffin-sized Eshocker boxes. I didn’t know if I could push him any further. Right now, he was in the day room, prattling at his nonsensical visions.

  Bligh Braithwaite, buffered on good hot meals, had been working twelve-hour shifts. He’d wired all three of Mr. Norris’s boxes. In the meantime, Willie Jacobs had already studied my wiring diagrams and knew what to do.

  I fell into the leather chair behind my desk, and my fingers drummed the wood. I was much too jittery. To solve my problem, I had to calm down, think clearly.

  Here in the asylum, what other patients did I have who could help build Eshockers for Professor Moriarty’s dens? Who hadn’t I thought of?

  Malcolm Demane sprang to mind. He’d recently arrived, and I’d admitted him under duress. I’d been forced to admit him for fear that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson would make trouble for me. This Malcolm Demane… well, he was fairly sane compared to the others.

  He didn’t have visions.

  He didn’t mumble nonsense.

  He didn’t fight Miss Klune or Miss Switzer when they strapped him into the Eshockers or tranquilized him.

  I wasn’t sure what was wrong with Demane. His brother-in-law, who was employed as an attendant at the asylum, was of no help in elucidating the matter.

  “He’s been this way for a while, sir,” he’d told me. “He may fall to the floor at any time, and he groans and twists his body into knots. We don’t know what the foam is that bubbles on his lips, and we certainly don’t know, sir, why he insists on ripping at his skin—” here, he shuddered—“with his teeth… and then…”

  “Yes, eating his flesh,” I completed the sentence for him. “Cannibalizing his own body. It is a curiosity.”

  I didn’t want foam and blood all over my new Eshockers. We didn’t have time to clean up such messes. We’d be lucky to build the Eshockers and deliver them, untested, to Professor Moriarty.

  The situation was desperate, but still…

  Of what use was a foaming-mouthed self-cannibal who writhed in knots on the floor?

  No, I had to think of someone else to help build the Eshockers.

  In the end, I settled on Jeremy MacMyers, who had been in the asylum for most of his life. Miss Klune often let MacMyers play with wood, a hammer, and a chisel. He never hurt himself or the other inmates. He carved patterns into the wood and constructed small boxes that could hold a few trinkets.

  Could he translate his skills to the construction of a large box?

  Knowing what I had to do, I pushed back the chair and rose, then gazed briefly at the honors and degrees on my wall. I’d come a long way, hadn’t I? And still, here I was, mired in the muck of administrative and bureaucratic detail. It was such a waste of my talents, when I should be doing nothing but curing the mentally diseased.

  I called for Miss Switzer, and she entered, scowling at me, as she was too often prone to doing these days. She pursed her lips, and a bloom of wrinkles spread outward from her mouth. When she spoke, her mouth twisted downward, and the wrinkles kinked into strange formations.

  Tearing my eyes away, I looked over her shoulder so I could focus on her words.

  “What do you need, Dr. Sinclair?” she snapped. “I’m in the midst of restraining Mrs. van der Kolk. The shameless woman’s ripped off her clothes again! She’s causing quite the ruckus in the day room!”

  Stunned by her insolence, I glared at her, and her face flushed. Her masculine body tensed, as if ready to spring upon me.

  “What do you need?” she demanded again.

  My nerves skittered, my stomach ulcer flared. I moaned and clutched my stomach, gestured at the nurse to sit in a chair in front of my desk. As she complied, I let a wave of nausea pass.

  “Miss Switzer,” I said sternly, “as an employee of this asylum, you need to remain calm at all times. Your stress and anxiety translate into bad behavior on the part of the patients.”

  “Don’t you dare lay into me!” she cried, half-rising from the chair.

  I waved her back down, then sank into my own chair and leaned over my desk with my hands still gripping my stomach. Pain shot through my chest and shoulders, and down my upper back and arms.

  “If you don’t come to your senses, and soon, I’ll do more than chastise you,” I said. “Remember, you work for me, Miss Switzer.”

  “Yes, yes…” She breathed heavily for a few moments with her eyes shut, as if trying to force herself into a calmer state. When she spoke again, her voice was less strident. “I apologize, Dr. Sinclair. Now, what can I do for you?”

  “Jeremy MacMyers,” I said simply. “Bring him to me.”

  “That’s it?” she said.

  “And I suppose you should escort Willie Jacobs, Mr. Norris, and Bligh Braithwaite into my office, as well.”

  She eyed me, puzzled, but nodded, and when I tilted my chin at the door, she rose and hurried from my office toward the day room.

  Would Old Ones Serum, which supposedly helped cure nearly all human ailments, help my stomach pain?

  I slid open the upper left drawer of my desk and plucked out a bottle of serum. It was unopened. I’d never tried it.

  The label read, OLD ONES SERUM, and in smaller letters beneath, HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.

  If only it were so simple, I thought, that a mere drink could bring health and happiness. Even my Eshocker requires medical supervision and continual applications.

  Nonetheless, desperate for relief, I twisted the top off, tilted the bottle, and took a good swig of Old Ones. Instant warmth spread through me. My stomach pain grew sharper. Maybe I hadn’t drunk enough.

  Sucking down more of the elixir, I was aware that my mind was rel
axing but my stomach pain was increasing. The two offset each other somewhat. I let my mind drift, and with it, went my stomach pain.

  A sharp rap on my office door wrenched me from my daydreams, and I stuffed the bottle back into the drawer.

  Pain shot through my stomach.

  Wincing, I managed to compose myself as Miss Switzer swept in with the four men I’d requested.

  Jeremy MacMyers sank into a chair; he was so old he hardly stood up anymore—nobody, not even he, knew how old he was. He rarely spoke, and even then, it was only to grunt or emit a shrill and random high note. His dim eyes focused on nothing. He was so emaciated that his torso was concave. A short man, even shorter than I, MacMyers weighed less than a well-nourished child.

  But my attention was on Braithwaite. He had a surly look on his face. What was he up to now? God help him, should he try to sabotage my Eshocker program, I’d kill him. Well, I’d throw him out on the street, and that would suffice. The poor sot couldn’t take care of himself. Why didn’t he realize how vulnerable he was without my care?

  Willie Jacobs loitered by the office door along with Mr. Norris. Nobody moved near the door leading into the Eshocker treatment room. Despite all I’d done to reassure them, they still mistrusted my wondrous machines.

  “Get up, Mr. MacMyers,” I said, opening the door on the far side of my office, which led to the treatment room. “We are not stopping in here.”

  I gestured at Miss Switzer to remain in my office, then led all four men through the treatment room to my special medical cabinet. I moved books and beakers, reached into a deep crevice in the wall behind the cabinet, and pulled an unseen lever. Then I stepped back as the wall and its attached cabinet swung into the treatment room.

  “Come,” I told them, ignoring their astonished expressions, and they followed me into the back room, where I built the new Eshockers. What did it matter if they knew about the back room? I had the only keys to the treatment room, and I never allowed anybody in here unless I was present. Indeed, nobody but my nurses was ever present during the routine treatment of patients.

  I explained what I wanted. Jeremy MacMyers would learn the trade from Mr. Norris. They would work the night shift, from 9 p.m. until 9 a.m., constructing the boxes out of mahogany and pine. Willie Jacobs would work part of the night shift with them, as I didn’t dare team up Jacobs with Bligh Braithwaite; the latter would work alone from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. every day. Jacobs and Braithwaite would wire the machines after MacMyers and Norris built the boxes.

  “Mr. Jacobs,” I said, and he raised what was left of his eyebrows, “for now, you must help Mr. MacMyers and Mr. Norris construct more boxes. Work from 9 p.m. until 1 a.m., then get some sleep. As soon as the boxes are ready, please work as hard and fast as you can to wire them up with the actual machine components. Can you do that for me?”

  He shrugged. His right hand crept up to his nose, and he jabbed his enlarged nostril with his right thumb. I’d not been able to break him of the habit. Both nostrils were inflamed with infection, both encrusted with scabs, as was his scalp, which was almost entirely bald.

  “I’ll do as you say,” he said. “I’d rather make Eshocks than be Eshocked, sir.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “Well, then, gentlemen, I believe we’re all set. We’ll begin the new schedule now. Mr. Braithwaite will return to his room, while the rest of you set to work on building boxes. It’s early, but I urge you to work more than a full shift, until 9 a.m. tomorrow. Remember, if you want to eat, if you want beds, if you want me to shelter you, then you must work on these Eshockers rapidly and with precision. All depends on what you do, gentlemen. Your fate rests in your own hands.”

  I directed Miss Switzer to return Bligh Braithwaite to his room, and relief swept over me as he left my office. I would lock the other three inmates in the back room, where I’d monitor them every hour or two. I didn’t want anyone going wild back there, hurting someone else or—a pang of guilt accompanied this final thought—damaging my equipment.

  I asked Willie Jacobs to keep things under control. Of the three, he seemed the most capable and even-tempered. Norris was already drooling and shrieking at his visions.

  “Yar, no! Th-the heads, condemning, screaming at me! I be bound for hell, they say!”

  MacMyers gripped his head with both hands, his lips opening and closing but issuing no words. His toothless gums mashed together, opened, mashed together, opened. Squish, squish.

  As for me, my stomach hurt like hell, and I needed rest, so I left the three men in the work room and retreated to my office bed.

  I curled into a ball, arms wrapped around my torso. I rode the waves of pain, and after an hour of agony, pushed myself off the bed and returned to the work room.

  Norris was on the floor, unconscious, his head in a pool of vomit.

  MacMyers looked up at me from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, a chisel poised to chip wood from the beginnings of an Eshocker panel.

  Willie Jacobs stood behind a box he’d hammered together in a mere hour. A faint smile flickered across his lips, then faded.

  “You’ll be wantin’ ’ow many?” he asked.

  24

  PROFESSOR MORIARTY

  Half Moon Bay

  We clawed our way through vines of ivy clad in sticky berries, through thickets and weeds, toward the sea. As if trying to push us to our task, gusts swept through the forest, rustled dead leaves high on branches and ripped them off, rattled tree trunks until they groaned.

  In the opposite direction, three of my agents crept nearer to Amelia Scarcliffe’s cottage. They would wait for the explosions, would wait for Koenraad Thwaite’s Dagon gang to hurry to the black slab of rock in the hope of saving the gang’s sacred ground from the blast.

  Archibald had told me that, despite their relationship, Thwaite was hardly ever at Amelia Scarcliffe’s cottage. He didn’t know where Thwaite slept at night. Perhaps Thwaite moved from location to location, keeping his whereabouts secret in case someone like me showed up and wanted him dead. This was my method. I remained rootless, unlike Holmes, whose 221B Baker Street was a well-known address, where a killer might find him snoring in his bed one night.

  I keep myself in good physical shape, but even so, my agents ran much more quickly than I could, and by the time I reached the start of the cliff-path leading to Half Moon Bay, they were already scrambling down it to the beach.

  Panting, I settled myself beneath a tree that swayed with the wind. From here I had a good view of the beach. The few Dagonites we’d seen earlier had left. Hunching my shoulders and drawing my coat closely about my neck, I allowed myself a grin. I lived for excitement, for moments like these, for what good was life without your heart racing and without the flush of the chase?

  In this, Sherlock Holmes and I were alike. We both craved impossible challenges, which we invariably conquered, and we both lived for the excitement of the chase. Either of us could have ended up running a bank or controlling an arm of the government. Either of us could have been a titan of some random corporation, a man who shook up the world and made things happen and earned a fortune for his efforts.

  But those occupations would have been too boring, too dull, too predictable for Holmes and for me. We both needed to be in control, but it wasn’t just money that drove us. In fact, in Holmes’s case, money didn’t seem to matter.

  Ah, I see that Grant has reached the beach. He looks smaller from up here, not six feet six inches tall and not the bear he was when he stood beside me. And here come the other two behind him, Chester and John, carrying the sacks of dynamite and matches.

  I leaned back on my elbows and stretched out my legs. I was going to enjoy this little scene… a lot.

  Beyond Half Moon Bay, waves crested beneath storm clouds, then crashed over boulders that sprayed the water in all directions. Rhythmically, the waves soared then crashed, the water opened like a blossom then fell. Closer to shore, the waves smashed against more boulders, perhaps a reef, and the water sh
ot up in a jagged line before sinking down into violent eddies.

  A huge black rock with a polished top surface abutted the lip of water. My smile grew wider as Grant and the other two placed dynamite on the surface.

  Suddenly, I realized that when the dynamite exploded, the Dagon gang might come scurrying down the path where I sat high on the cliff. So I turned my back on the scene below and scrambled along the path, circling through the brush until I could sit with a good view yet remain hidden from any intruders.

  By now, my men had set the dynamite all along the short beach. They fanned out, each with matches. Though they had trouble lighting the matches due to the wind, these men were professionals and managed to shield the matches, strike them on rock, and then put fire to the dynamite.

  My heart banged against my ribs, and I jumped up.

  Even with the wind, I heard the sizzle, the crrackk, and the—

  KABOOM!

  A bolt of fire shot up over the black rock slab, followed by fire bolts all along the beach. The fire spread—but it spread in mid-air, with flames darting horizontally over the beach beneath a thick cloud of soot.

  Where were my men? I peered but could see nothing beneath the black cloud.

  KABOOM! I ducked and shielded my head with my arm. Below on the beach, rock and sand exploded up and then slammed down. A blast of wind sucked the rock and sand off the beach and crashed it against the cliff, then reversed direction and whipped it all toward open sea. I’d never seen a wind reverse direction. I couldn’t explain it, and it terrified me. Fire erupted again, spewing more rock and sand in all directions.

  I gripped a tree trunk with both hands, fearing I might fall over the cliff, so fierce was the wind whirling below me. Never before had I seen dynamite explode with such force that it kicked up a whirling storm of rocks.

  And what had been the nature of the black soot cloud and the horizontal flames?

  This had been unlike any dynamite explosion I’d ever seen.