Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu

by Lois H. Gresh

  Bligh Braithwaite, whose arms and legs kept seizing up and twisting into odd shapes, and Inspector Lestrade, joined Holmes with the two nurses on the other side of the room, where a second Eshocker sat, cold and clean, awaiting its next victim, or rather, patient.

  The Eshocker in question was another matter. It was anything but cold and clean. It was where the corpse—unrecognizable—had been seated and the source of the burned-meat haze filling the room.

  “Who is the victim?” I asked.

  “Dr. Reginald Sinclair,” Holmes said. “That is obvious, Watson.” When I didn’t answer, he elaborated. “It’s the simplest of deductions. If he were not dead, he would be alive in the room with us now. This was his hospital.”

  “Idiot,” Miss Switzer hissed.

  Lestrade chuckled.

  “Get on with it, would you?” he said, not in an unkind tone.

  “Dr. Sinclair might have been out at the time of this… incident,” I said.

  “But he wasn’t. He was right here with Bligh Braithwaite,” Miss Klune said coldly. “I know because I left the room shortly before what you refer to as an incident, and the two of them were alone, right here.”

  “Where exactly were they?” Holmes asked.

  “The patient was in the Eshocker, ready for treatment—much needed treatment, I might add,” she said, glaring at Bligh Braithwaite.

  The patient’s arms suddenly kinked out of joint, and he screamed. Both nurses grabbed him, but he wrenched from their grasp.

  His arms twisted unnaturally outward at the elbows, then snapped back into place with a loud clicking noise.

  “I-I don’t… don’t… need…” He could not finish.

  “But you do,” Miss Klune cooed at him with what I took to be her professional voice, “you do need extreme treatment, Bligh.”

  “You see, sir, why Mr. Braithwaite is our man,” Lestrade said.

  “Yes,” Holmes replied, “I can see why you think this is the case. Tell me, nurse, was this room locked from the inside when you left them alone here? I notice that the door can be locked from either side.”

  “Dr. Sinclair always locks the examination room from the inside when he’s treating a patient, and he insists upon treating them without help.”

  “Do you have a key?” Holmes prompted.

  “No, there is only one. Dr. Sinclair keeps it on him at all times.”

  “I see…” Holmes said thoughtfully. “Watson, would you examine the body, if you don’t mind?”

  I did mind—the smell had grown no less appalling with familiarity—but all the same, I held my handkerchief over my nose and mouth and approached the Eshocker. Where Dr. Sinclair had burst upon us in his office only days earlier, now he himself had burst, literally and permanently. Charred remnants of his white doctor’s coat curled atop the scorched rags of his trousers and shirt, revealing a body ravaged by fire. Burned to the bone in places. His chest was ripped down the center as if by a scalpel. The blood had coagulated but still glistened; dark, viscous swells had oozed from the volcano of a dead heart.

  I moved slowly, not wanting to slip and fall in the blood slicking the floor. I stepped around the bone and lumps of burned meat, but still, some of the bits were so tiny I could not avoid them and my shoes crunched and squished as I worked.

  Oddly, at this moment, my mind flashed to my wife, Mary, and our baby, Samuel. If I could finish this job with Holmes, if I were smart enough to help Holmes uncover and catch this murderer, to help him shut down the dens and kill the hideous creatures swarming in the Thames—

  I longed for the warmth of home, for the smile of my wife, for the gurgles of my son. After this nightmare finally ended, my family would return to London and to me, and I would be happy enough to be with them and to eat meat pies and take evening strolls and issue tonics to cranky old ladies.

  It would be enough.

  Get through this, I thought. Finish the job and get out of this room. Finish the whole job and get out of this way of life. It’s not worth it.

  I pulled a notepad from the inner pocket of my coat. While I scribbled with the stub of a pencil, Holmes continued questioning the nurses and Bligh Braithwaite. Coughs punctuated their conversations, and like them, I choked for lack of air while examining the corpse. My eyes watered and burned from the smoke. The room had no windows to open, so it was nearly unbearable and I was anxious to complete my work and leave.

  “Inspector Lestrade tells us that another victim was found in the Whitechapel asylum. A young girl? You found her, Miss Klune?”

  “Yes, I found her,” came the clipped tones, “dead, killed at night in her bed.”

  “There were no signs of foul play,” Lestrade interjected.

  “But,” the nurse said sharply, “there was foul play, detective.”

  “Inspector,” Lestrade murmured.

  “The needle marks on her arm were too fresh,” Miss Klune said, “and also too ragged. We don’t do things that way here. We know how to give patients injections.”

  “You were on duty that night, Miss Switzer?” Holmes inquired.

  “What of it?” she demanded. “She was alive when I left, and besides, why would I kill her? She was dead enough, being in the asylum so young and for the rest of her life. Why would anyone kill her?”

  I listened to all of this while inspecting the remains of the Whitechapel Lunatic Asylum director and jotting down notes.

  Legs: both broken at the kneecaps, shattered from knees to ankles, femur stumps on the seat of the Eshocker chair. Exposed thigh muscle on the right stump. Blackened tibia and fibula fragments like ashes around the feet, also burned to the bone.

  “You tried to kill me, too,” Willie Jacobs rasped. “You evil nurse, tell Mr. ’olmes the truth, tell ’im ’ow you crept into me room at night with the needle. An’ you killed others, you called ’em kind killin’s.”

  “I did no such thing,” Miss Switzer snapped.

  “She has been particularly agitated lately,” Miss Klune said thoughtfully, then barked a quick laugh. She didn’t strike me as the type of woman who laughed very often. “Why, Amy dear, I do believe you desired our Dr. Sinclair, didn’t you? Oh, don’t deny it, dear. It’s my job to know people and understand what they’re thinking. I work in a lunatic asylum. He spurned your love, didn’t he, dear?”

  I didn’t look up from the corpse or from my notes, but my mind was whirling with possibilities. My heart quickened. By God, what I wouldn’t give to know what Holmes will make of all this, I thought. I wrote:

  Two hands still grasp the armrests. A blackened shaft of humerus hangs from the remains of the left shoulder. On the right side of the corpse, the shoulder looks as if someone pounded it with a jackhammer before setting it aflame. The exposed trachea has cracked midway up the neck, and the head hangs upon the shredded chest, held in place by filaments of muscle.

  “I love nobody!” Miss Switzer screamed. “Nor did I try to kill anybody! Not that ridiculous imbecile, Caroline Brown. Not you, Willie Jacobs! And most certainly not Dr. Sinclair, a man I respected more than anyone in this world. What will we do without him? I, too, am a professional, Miss Klune!”

  “Calm down, ladies,” Lestrade said.

  I swiveled to look at them. The nurses both clenched their fists, and had Lestrade not stood between them, I was certain they would hurl themselves at each other in a death match. Vaguely, I wondered how women fought in battle to the death. I was only familiar with the methods of men.

  “Doctor,” Holmes asked me, “are you finished?”

  “One more item,” I answered.

  I wrote in my notebook:

  Top half of head blown off, remains on ceiling and splattered on nearby cabinets. Eyes gone. Nose gone. Black smoke still curling from bottom half of head. Lips exploded. Teeth broken, missing.

  Looking up, I announced the cause of death. Nobody looked at all surprised.

  “Electrocution by Eshocker,” I said.

  Holmes turned to Bligh Br
aithwaite.

  “But who strapped him in and flipped the switch?” He spoke as if he already knew the answer.

  38

  “Can we leave this infernal room?” Miss Switzer demanded. “The smell is going to kill us all. The patients need attention. Someone has to get a cart in here, get the body out. Inspector Lestrade, take control of the situation. There are things to do.”

  Lestrade nodded and started moving to the door leading to Dr. Sinclair’s office, but Holmes grabbed his arm.

  “A moment, Lestrade,” Holmes said. “I may need you.” His eyes twinkled. “If only as a witness.”

  Wrenching his arm from Holmes, the Inspector muttered something under his breath and gestured at Miss Switzer to leave the examination room. Quickly, before Holmes could object, she raced out, and the outer door to the hall banged shut.

  “Why did you let her go?” Miss Klune asked. “If anyone’s guilty of murder, it’s Amy Switzer. I wasn’t here the night of Caroline Brown’s murder, nor was I in this room when our poor doctor met his fate.”

  “Yes, yes.” Holmes waved a hand at her. “I grow weary of this situation,” he said, “and of the plodding nature of the inquiries.” At this, he glared at Lestrade, who put his hands on his hips and glared back at him.

  “That’s enough, Holmes,” the Inspector said sharply. “Let’s hear what you have to say, so we can all leave. I can’t breathe in here, and as the nurse says, I must call someone about the corpse.”

  Holmes surveyed Lestrade’s diminutive physique and agitated manner. Then his attention snapped back to Dr. Sinclair and the Eshocker that had electrocuted him.

  “His arms and legs broke from struggling against the restraints during electrocution. The electricity was high enough to penetrate the flesh and burn him, inside out, one might say—yes, I believe the poor fellow was cooked to the point where the meat fell off his bones. The electrodes on the head applied sufficient voltage to cook his brains until the skull exploded.” Holmes reflected a moment. “A terrible way to go, and one of the worst cases I’ve encountered.”

  “But can the Eshockers actually kill a man in this way?” I asked. “I have seen addicts shocking themselves over and over again in the Whitechapel den, and none of them are seriously hurt—merely addled. Why here and right now, in this particular instance, did the man who created the Eshocker die from own creation?”

  “Indeed, a mystery. Miss Klune,” he said abruptly, turning to face her, “has anyone quarreled with Dr. Sinclair recently? Have you witnessed any arguments, fights, anyone or anything out of the ordinary in the past few weeks?”

  She didn’t hesitate with her answer.

  “Dr. Sinclair did have a visitor, yes, and he was afraid of this man and avoided him.”

  Holmes’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Pray tell,” he murmured.

  “Dr. Sinclair told me the visitor was a procurement agent, though he never told me what the fellow wanted to buy from a lunatic asylum. A burly man with big fists and big muscles, a threatening manner about him. He stopped by several times, and after each visit, Dr. Sinclair was shaking, unable to speak without a tremor in his voice, and while I hate to say this about our dear, departed director, he took to the bottle a bit, too.” She pointed to the door leading to Dr. Sinclair’s office. “He keeps alcohol in one of the drawers of his desk. I know. I’ve seen him eye the drawer when he gets particularly nervous.”

  Lestrade dashed into the office, and sounds of drawers sliding open and banging shut soon followed. Shortly, he returned with his hand held high, clasping a half-drained bottle of Old Ones Serum.

  “Of all the drinks he could have chosen!” Miss Klune exclaimed. “The man had sufficient wealth to take anything he wanted—brandies, fine liquors, wines! But Old Ones Serum? That’s what they drink in the seediest of dens.”

  “The serum is opium and alcohol and nothing more,” said Holmes.

  “But Holmes, how do you know this?” I asked, astonished.

  “Because I’ve drunk my fill of it, Watson. The taste is not hard to recognize.”

  My chest tightened. All the time Holmes was investigating the dens for his brother, Mycroft, had his motive extended or been largely driven by his desire to swill Old Ones Serum? The thought sent chills through me.

  “Dr. Sinclair’s office is tidy, as always, with everything in its place as far as I can see,” Holmes declared. “Nobody fought with him in that office today, then dragged him in here and electrocuted him. There was no intruder from the outside office. The murder was not done by this so-called procurement agent.” Again, he turned to the nurse. “You told us the doctor locked himself into this examination room with Bligh Braithwaite?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And that nobody, not even his most trusted employee—that being you, Miss Klune—”

  Not even a glimmer of self-satisfaction crossed her face.

  “Correct,” she said, “I had no key to get into this room. Nobody did.”

  Stuffing his handkerchief back in his pocket, Holmes stooped in the blood and muck by the dead man’s charred feet and examined the straps around the ankles. Then he peered closely, his face inches from the floor, at the black ashes littering the area. He pulled a small magnifying lens from his pocket and peered yet more closely, then jumped up, his face lit with the thrill of discovery.

  “The slightest of footprints, Watson, but I see them! The blood and the ashes obliterated most of the outline, but still, I see them!” he cried. “Lestrade, this is evidence, surely, that there was a struggle in this room, right by this Eshocker, that someone forced Dr. Sinclair into the chair and strapped him down. And that someone, that person, electrocuted him! Briefly, he stood close to the chair as Sinclair was cooked alive—he stood close enough to imprint the outline of his shoes in the dust and the blood on the floor. He moved back and away from the cooking man to avoid the explosion of blood, guts, and brains, didn’t he?” Holmes whirled and pointed at Bligh Braithwaite. “It had to be you, sir, for nobody else was in the room!”

  Braithwaite’s limbs were locked into odd positions, and his head jerked back and forth. It was Miss Klune who spoke up for him.

  “No,” she said, “it could not have been Mr. Braithwaite. Look at him, Mr. Holmes. He’s a very sick man. He’s not capable.”

  “B-b-b-but…”

  Everyone swiveled, and all eyes flew to Willie Jacobs, who clawed his way up from his position on the floor by the door and now stood, clutching the door to remain upright.

  “Yes, Mr. Jacobs?” I said.

  “B-but Bligh an’ me… Norris did woodwork on the boxes…”

  “Yes?” Holmes pressed.

  “A-an’ I… I did the fine woodwork, I did the electrical work…” His right hand crept up, shaking, reached for his nose and jabbed the air instead. His other hand gripped his right wrist to keep it steady and then moved the right hand, still shaking, to his head, where he jabbed both nostrils wildly. Pleasure spread across his face. He moaned once, happily. His thumb poked rhythmically at the left nostril then the right, and then his knuckles flew across both nostrils, jamming them with such ferocity that I feared that, in his dilapidated condition and with much of the flesh rotted off the lower half of his face, he would dislodge his nose and it would fall to the floor.

  “Please,” I cried, running over to him, “please, Mr. Jacobs, do stop!”

  I grabbed both hands and tore them away from his face. He staggered against the door and started sliding down, his body angled such that he would fall and probably injure himself further. I looped my arms under his shoulders and propped him up, then stood beside him, holding him around the waist.

  “D-don’t touch me nose,” he whimpered.

  Oh, God.

  “I promise,” I mumbled. The poor wretch.

  “I’m too weak to kill.” He struggled with his next words. “But B-Bligh! He’s the master electrician on the Eshockers. The master,” he stressed.

  “Can I pl
ease leave now?” Miss Klune interjected, breaking our concentration on the matter at hand. “I have work to do, patients to tend, and I see no point in you keeping me here, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Just go, yes, go!” Holmes cried with a flourish of his hands. “Leave us, Miss Klune, if that is what pleases you!”

  “Well, I never—” she started to say something but then raised her chin, straightened her back, and stalked from the examination room. Again, the outer door to Dr. Sinclair’s office banged.

  “Tell us, Mr. Braithwaite,” Holmes asked, as if he hadn’t been interrupted by anything, “where are the new Eshockers built? Where is the room?”

  Braithwaite’s lips issued a cascade of stutters and babbling, his body refusing to cooperate as he tried to remain standing. Instead, he collapsed to the floor again, writhing and twisting.

  Both men, Willie Jacobs and Bligh Braithwaite, were dreadfully ill, and how much longer either would live was anyone’s guess. My heart filled with sadness and compassion. I would have done anything within my power to help these men recover, or at minimum, feel more comfortable in their own bodies as they sank into the unknown realm beyond death.

  “H-help me,” Willie Jacobs whispered, pointing a finger at the medicine cabinets.

  I did as requested and helped him stagger past the Eshocker and the corpse, past the blood pooled and coagulating all around the machine.

  Our shoes in blood and gore, we stood in front of Dr. Sinclair’s medicine cabinet. Jacobs’s wavering finger pointed at a shelf containing books and beakers. As I held onto Willie Jacobs, Holmes circled the Eshocker and reached to the shelf, shoved aside the items, finally exclaimed, “At last!” and reached his arm into the back of the cabinet.

  “What is this?” I cried.

  “The lever, pull the lever,” Jacobs said with as much strength as he could muster, his eyes dim and unfocused.

  Holmes reached far into the wall behind the cabinet, and something groaned—machinery set in motion by the lever—and then we all jumped back as the wall, with its attached cabinet, swung open to reveal a hidden room. Still clutching Willie Jacobs and sliding on the blood, I nearly fell, but I regained my footing and followed Holmes into the interior room. Inspector Lestrade followed, hauling a limp and gibbering Bligh Braithwaite.