Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

by George Mann

  It is... a monster, in the truest sense of the word. Large and lumpen, grotesquely muscled, it has stitches running across its face, bisecting its ugly visage. Now I look closer, I see the pale and wasted texture of its flesh, the mismatched nature of its limbs. A crude metal brace attached to its left leg reveals the source of the scrape I heard and the limp I saw the previous night. It is rank, this “man”, a thing not created by natural means but fashioned through some devilish artifice; hubris given form.

  I recall the terrible plight and malformation of Joseph Carey Merrick when I visited London Hospital as part of a delegation of medical professionals invited to comment and theorise on the poor man’s condition. His affliction was horrifying and evinced an equal sense of dread and pity, but this creature before me is far worse and I can find no empathy for it.

  But as it stands before us in the half-light, its head bowed, eyes unblinking, I do wonder if there is a mote of humanity contained within its patchwork frame.

  “Remarkable,” says Holmes, absorbing the full horror of the creature. “Victor Frankenstein was a doctor who hailed from Geneva, one of dubious reputation. Are you asking us to believe you are his offspring?”

  The creature nods, slowly and forlornly like a dog that has taken one too many beatings.

  “He was my father,” it says again, “my creator.”

  Holmes draws closer and I am about to warn him off again, but the creature makes no move, no threat.

  I lower the gun.

  “A simulacrum of a man, fashioned from the concomitant parts of other men,” says Holmes, walking around the grotesque creature in our midst.

  “I am a man!” declares the monster, a sudden apoplexy filling it as it snarls through rotten teeth and clenches its club-like fists.

  Holmes takes a backward step; I, a forward one with pistol extended once more.

  “The gun, Watson!” says my colleague. “Down, if you please.”

  Reluctantly, I obey, but keep it close at hand just in case.

  The creature calms down, but I cannot calm the thunderous refrain of my heart. I feel Holmes must be similarly afflicted but masks it expertly.

  “Tell us then,” I demand, “what are you doing here and why are you following us?”

  As it shifts its dead gaze to me, I fight every instinct not to flinch before it. As if I am facing off against a feral dog, I give no quarter and try to establish my dominance.

  “These are my father’s lodgings, his study,” the creature explains, “but they have been defiled, as have his works.”

  “You,” I say, “are his works.”

  “They are much more than that,” it retorts, and I am surprised by its obvious intellect and capacity for cognisance; surprised and, at the same time, disturbed. “I am not the scientist my father was, I cannot create life, though I dearly wish I could. I came here seeking to learn how, after all of my father’s work at home was destroyed. But someone discovered this place and took it for themselves.”

  “And you were driven to the sewers, the only safe place for a man as unique as you,” says Holmes.

  The creature nods again. “Yes. I will not stand by and let my father’s works be perverted by those who would see them turned towards ill.”

  “Was this why you killed Bartholomew Shelley?” I ask, my tone accusing. “Is perverting your father’s works excuse enough for murder?”

  It roars and, despite its intelligent veneer, Holmes and I are reminded of the monster this thing truly is. “No! I do not kill. I will not. I have seen enough of that to last several lifetimes. But the man you speak of is involved in this.” It turns to Holmes then, a doleful look in its eyes. “Please, help me put a stop to this.”

  “A stop to what?” I cry. “Holmes, what is the meaning of all of this?”

  Holmes does not answer me. Instead, he regards the creature as if measuring the veracity of its words and declaration.

  “For certain there is perfidy of a most unique and horrifying stripe afoot here,” he says. “You wish us to help you track down the man responsible for perverting your father’s works? I believe I know where he is to be found, and furthermore,” he adds, looking askance at me, “I believe we will discover the identity of Bartholomew Shelley’s murderer at the same time. We have already met him, Watson,” he states, now looking directly and only at me.

  “We have?”

  “Indeed. Not far from here is Greenland Dock, one of several yards in close proximity, but with one pertinent difference.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow, Holmes.”

  “You will, Watson. You will.”

  I turn sharply, noting a sudden change in the room. The monster has gone, evaporated into the shadows like so much London fog.

  “How is that even possible?” I ask, and make for the back of the room, where the creature must have retreated, until Holmes puts out a hand to stop me.

  “You won’t find him, John, and I think pursuit at this point would be most unwise.” He is staring straight ahead, but pats my shoulder and concludes, “Our destination is Greenland Dock and the resolution of this most disturbing case, I think. Come!”

  We leave the study of the departed Dr Victor Frankenstein as we found it. Bartholomew Shelley or his employers are not coming back, and neither is the creature. As we emerge onto the streets again, I imagine it travelling the sewers beneath and wonder where its path will end up leading us. I am not to wait long for my answer.

  * * *

  Holmes is checking his pistol as I catch up to him at the edge of Greenland Dock and, more specifically, the block of warehouses appended to it. One in particular has my colleague’s undivided attention.

  “A tannery?” I ask.

  “Even a cursory examination of the sadly deceased Bartholomew Shelley would have revealed his background in chemistry, specifically his recent predilection for embalming. However, a much more detailed analysis, such as that which I was able to conduct while inspecting the dead man’s apparent rigor mortis, would reveal an additional chemical concealed by the compound of the others.” Now he turns to me, a satisfied and beaming smile broadening his face, and says, “Tannin, my dear doctor.”

  “Tannin?”

  “Yes, derived from the German oak and fir, a chemical most commonly used in the process of tannery. I’d also wager that the viscera we discovered alongside the body had similar traces of the substance. And, here, dear doctor, we are.”

  Not bothering to try and fathom the inner-workings of my colleague’s exceptional mind, I return my attention to the tannery. Much like the offices down Ossory Road, it is a broken-down and ramshackle building.

  “And what, old boy, do you expect to find in there?”

  Holmes’ smile loses its warmth. “Monsters, my dear Watson.”

  * * *

  We enter through a side door, noting that its lock has been forced and eventually broken. Within, the tannery is gloomy and we proceed slowly and with care down a narrow channel, flanked either side by large copper vats that have long since fallen to disuse. Overhead I make out the ragged silhouettes of rawhide and other partially cured flesh hanging from stout metal hooks suspended from thick beams set into the ceiling. The effect is both grisly and disconcerting. Ahead is a set of black iron steps leading to an upper level, where I assume the offices of this establishment are located.

  Just as I am wondering what has happened to our monstrous companion, we hear voices coming from the upper level.

  Holmes turns to me with a finger on his lips and, pistols drawn, we advance quietly up the steps.

  Upon reaching the summit, my suspicions about the upper level are confirmed as we are presented with an office area. There is a desk and a similar array of papers and scientific paraphernalia as we saw in Victor Frankenstein’s study. I realise then that this is no office, but in fact a crude laboratory

  Three men are present: one a burly-looking thug, the other two well attired and evidently gentlemen, if in name and not manner. The fi
rst is wiry, his suit jacket buttoned and pressed, hair slicked back. The second is rangier still, but without jacket, shirtsleeves rolled up over his elbows, top button loose. Dark rings around his eyes suggest fatigue; the sweat upon his brow, stress. He is talking animatedly to the other gentleman—I take this to be the lawyer, J.G. Utterson—who listens as the other man frantically leafs through the myriad papers on the desk.

  I am about to remark my findings to Holmes, but in the short time it has taken me to compile this observational analysis, my colleague has mounted the upper level and is proceeding to advance boldly on the three men.

  Cursing Holmes’, at times, suicidal craving for drama, I follow.

  The thuggish brute sees my colleague first and grunts to the others. There’s a nervous tic affecting the man’s right eye and what appears to be delirium tremens shaking his thick fingers. Still, he appears to have no weapon or I believe he would have already drawn it.

  Both gentlemen look up but it is the lawyer who speaks first. “This is private property,” he says, reaching for his inside pocket until I glare and slowly shake my head. “What are you doing here?”

  Holmes answers, “I should like to put the same question to you, my good man.”

  The lawyer’s eyes narrow. “Who are you?”

  The other, as yet unknown gentleman now joins in, “Why, John,” he says, referring to his friend, “don’t you recognise them?” Leaving the papers to the chaos he has made of them, he steps around the desk and stands alongside John Utterson. The brute is still in the background, but looms large over the other two. “This is the inestimable Sherlock Holmes and his redoubtable servant, Dr John Watson.”

  Utterson stiffens at the revelation, just as my colleague deigns the unknown man with a short bow.

  “And you are Dr Henry Jekyll, are you not?” says Holmes, and my eyes widen at the name.

  The man before us is a wraith, a mass murderer several years dead, or so I had believed. I am unable to recall the full details but remember a strange case involving Henry Jekyll and another man, Edward Hyde. What he is doing here is, as yet, a mystery.

  “How long have you been hiding in the shadows, good Doctor?” Holmes asks. “Was Bartholomew Shelley your apprentice? Was he to walk in the light where you could not for fear of being recognised? Did he baulk at what you were doing here and refuse to assist you further? Is that why you had one of your thugs separate his head from his shoulders?”

  Jekyll merely smiles, running a hand through the feverish sweat in his hair.

  “How did you find me?” he asks, a subtle change in his tone and diction that I thought I imagined at first.

  Holmes returns the smile. “It was elementary.”

  Utterson then turns to Jekyll. “Henry, I cannot be implicated in this...”

  ‘Nor I,” Jekyll replies, “the formula isn’t perfected yet.” And at this point I note the many vials and philtres set out on a shorter bench behind the two men. I know not what they are concocting but I recognise an experiment when I see it.

  Without further conversation, Jekyll steps to one side.

  “Zeus. Kill them both.”

  The brute lurches into motion, swift as a charging ape, arms swinging low by his sides to cement the image. Holmes and I fire as one, but the brute’s sudden speed puts off our aim and he grunts in pain as our shots strike him in the arm and torso respectively.

  It is barely enough to slow him.

  We run.

  Taking two stairs at a time, I feel sure we are outpacing the brute until it leaps down in front of us to block our exit.

  “Please tell me you discussed this with Lestrade before we came here,” I say, backing off in lockstep with my colleague.

  “Afraid not, Watson,” replies Holmes, as our simian aggressor advances on us.

  “Can’t let you live, Holmes,” Jekyll calls from above us, “nor you, Dr Watson. I am truly sorry, but even with Victor Frankenstein’s research my work is incomplete, and I fear your untimely intervention would delay it indefinitely.”

  “Quite understandable, Dr Jekyll, but I am afraid we shall have to disappoint,” Holmes replies.

  We are almost with our backs to the steps again, and out of room to manoeuvre.

  “Oh?” asks Jekyll.

  He sounds amused and I don’t appreciate the humour of the situation until I notice the shadow looming behind Zeus. The thug sniffs the air, realising his error a fraction too late, as Victor Frankenstein’s monstrous creation enfolds him in its arms and starts to squeeze.

  I hear a shout from above us, but can’t discern if it’s Jekyll or Utterson. Most of my attention is focused on getting Holmes and myself out of harm’s way as the monster and the brute wrestle. We duck off to the side, hurrying around them until we’re at a safe distance, and watch the brawl from behind one of the tanning vats.

  Honestly, I am expecting Frankenstein’s monster to tear the other man apart, but I have not considered the sheer depths of turpitude to which Dr Jekyll has sunk in his nefarious endeavours.

  Face reddening by the second, Zeus breaks the hold of the creature, and is seemingly... grown. His entire body, his musculature, his hands but not his head, have enlarged. Veins stand out on his neck, rope-like and thick. His small eyes bulge. Like a silverback gorilla, he strikes out at the monster, a palpable blow that sends it to its knees.

  Shaking, growing further, this new abomination looms over the monster and prepares to hit it again. Interlacing both hands, it will smash the creature while its head is down.

  “If he kills it...” I mutter.

  “Then our exit is behind us, John,” Holmes answers, “and Godspeed that we reach it in time.” He glances up from the fight between the two titans. “Come on,” he says, deciding, “we cannot allow Jekyll or Utterson to escape.”

  Only half paying attention, I watch as the monster seizes the brute’s wrists before his fists can fall.

  “Go!” it snarls at us. “For my father.”

  “For the law of everything that is right and decent,” says Holmes, but nods to the creature nonetheless.

  We run, back up the steps this time, passing the two massive brawlers.

  By the time we reach the upper level again, Utterson has fled but Jekyll remains. He is hunched over the small bench, a steel syringe in his right hand that he drops to the floor where it clatters.

  “Henry Jekyll,” I shout, my pistol held out before me, “turn and raise your hands.”

  As he does, I see the dark rings around the doctor’s eyes have deepened and there is a transformation occurring within them. And not only his eyes—his entire body is reshaping.

  “I doubt he’s coming quietly, old boy,” says Holmes, and I cannot argue.

  We exchange the briefest look before discharging our weapons in unison.

  Unlike the monsters grappling below us, Jekyll is shaken by the impact of both bullets. He staggers back, two crimson stains blossoming from around the holes in his shirt, before merging and overlapping in the middle.

  He falls off the edge of the upper level and into one of the tanning vats below.

  Holmes and I rush after him, stopping short at the edge of the wooden platform and looking down as we try to discover the doctor’s fate.

  At first there is nothing, then the viscous contents of the vat start to bubble and froth.

  “How many more bullets do you have, Watson?” Holmes asks, rising from a crouching position and backing away from the edge. He doesn’t have to tell me to do the same.

  I check. “Just one. You?”

  “The very same.”

  We get as far as halfway back to the steps when something large and formidable springs from the vat where we saw Henry Jekyll fall to his certain death not a moment ago. It is massive and hulking, the equal of the brute but with a feral intelligence in its eye that the other abomination does not possess. Clothes torn, dripping with acidic tannin, it looks raw and bestial despite the cognition in its eyes.

  “J
ekyll,” I gasp.

  The thing wearing the doctor’s shredded attire slowly shakes its head and corrects me in a deep voice, “Hyde.”

  In my gut, I feel that the thing Jekyll has turned into is about to pounce, and there is nothing Holmes or I can do to prevent it.

  Or so I believe.

  Holmes tilts his aim wide and fires off his last shot. It clips the lamp Jekyll had been using to see in the dingy confines of the tannery, and Hyde laughs at my colleague’s apparent ineptitude until the spark from the shot ignites the spilled oil and sets him aflame.

  With a roar, Hyde goes up in conflagration. Drenched in tannin, the flames burn eagerly. He leaps again, straight up, and catches hold of one of the rafters in the ceiling. Brachiating from beam to beam, he seeks to swing his way free and douse the fire ravaging his flesh.

  “After him, Watson!” Holmes cries, and I marvel at the sheer courage of the man as he throws himself across the wooden platform and down the iron steps.

  Blindly pursuing my colleague, I come to an abrupt and sudden halt, almost barrelling into Holmes’ back.

  The brute is larger still and has the monster in a vice-like grip around the neck, but just as he is about to dispatch it, he changes again. Mutation is rapid this time and, far from apotheosis, signals the brute’s demise. Like a bellows filled with too much air, the brute expands, skin stretching to accommodate.

  “Behind me....” ” rasps the monster, shielding us, and through the gaps in its massive frame I witness an explosion of flesh, blood and matter as the brute combusts before our very eyes. Nothing is left following this violent reaction, nothing but a pool of sticky red viscera.

  There is little time to appreciate the connection. I had misinterpreted Hyde’s intentions—he wasn’t trying to escape, he was tying up his loose ends, including the tannery and us.

  Fire is spreading quickly across the roof, virulent like a plague, colonising every foot and yard, dissolving it in a black and orange sea.

  Smoke thickens the air, so much that I raise my handkerchief to my mouth.

  “Holmes,” I shout above the din of burning timber and the crackle of flames, “we have to get out of here.”