The Whitechapel Terror
I
“They are all good lads, Mr Holmes, and are doing their level best, but alarm is mounting all the same, not just in the populace of Whitechapel, but among the police themselves,” Inspector Gregson explained. “This new terror is no respecter of person, position or authority, and two victims have themselves been police constables, though the Yard is making every effort to keep that quiet. When it becomes known, and of course it will, there will be no holding back the panic. People will riot, and the Home Secretary fears a general strike among the police.”
“I dare say all that is true,” Sherlock Holmes admitted as he leaned back in his chair, long legs stretched before him, chin resting upon his steepled fingers, and clay pipe curving outward from his thin lips. “Officers are not dispatched singly, I presume?”
“No, always in pairs,” Gregson replied. “But doing so seems not to offer any added protection. The people of Whitechapel have also taken to the habit of going about accompanied, for the most part, though a few still travel alone for reasons easily understood.”
Holmes nodded.
“Yet, it does no good,” Gregson continued. “Two men may be walking side by side, vigilant of everything around them, and yet one man will be taken, the other totally ignorant of what has happened until the screaming starts. By the time he is able to react, there is no trace of the missing man. Whatever it is, Mr Holmes, it moves silently and strikes swiftly.”
“How many so far, Inspector?” Holmes asked.
“Eleven,” the man from Scotland Yard replied.
“Your superiors have done quite well keeping the incidents out of the newspapers,” Holmes remarked. “Even I, with my many eyes and ears in all the dark places of London, have received vague reports of only seven incidents, and others exist only as rumors.”
“That cannot last.”
“Indeed it cannot,” Holmes agreed.
“Fortunately, no one has of yet put together all the disparate information, but someone will do so eventually,” Gregson said. “It is only a matter of time, and I fear it will be sooner than later.”
“I suspect some scrivener already has an inkling of what is afoot and lacks only the editorial direction to go to press with the most outlandish theories and conjectures,” Holmes mused. “The scribes of Fleet Street may not be a perspicacious lot, on the whole, but they are very persistent, and always on the lookout for stories that write themselves in blood.”
“I regret that I must agree with you, Mr Holmes,” Gregson said with a tight grimace. “Journalists in the Capitol have always been a bit on the ghoulish side, but the affair of the Ripper last year has left them thirsting for blood like the vampires of legend.”
“You have brought all the files, Inspector?” Holmes asked.
“Aye, Mr Holmes, as you requested,” Gregson replied with a nod toward the five large cartons on the floor. “All statements, reports, physical evidence, maps, drawings…everything. Nothing has been omitted.”
“I hope that is true, Inspector, for I cannot function without every iota of information, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to you,” Holmes said. “Everything you have, I must have, absolutely without exception.”
“Nothing has been held back, Mr Holmes,” Gregson assured him. “Not all the information was released, shall we say, willingly, but your name carries great weight in the Home Office.”
Holmes nodded and glanced at the cartons. When he added what his sources had already gathered to what Scotland Yard had provided he hoped a plan of action would be revealed to him.
“Tell me, how are the witnesses being kept silent?”
“Some of them are too terrified to talk—you will gather that much from some of the statements—but almost all of them are in such a position as to not to want to garner the ire of the police,” Gregson explained. “As long as they cooperate, we turn something of a blind eye to matters we have pending.” He sighed. “Such is the nature of life in Whitechapel.”
Sherlock Holmes shook his head. “Lives perpetually between the law and the abyss. Your hold is tenuous. It will eventually slip. When it does, the cry against the police and the Home Office will be all the louder, like the torrent from a shattered dam.”
“All the more reason to clear the fog quickly,” Gregson said. “You will look this information over, Mr Holmes, see what you can make of it, with all deliberate speed?”
Holmes suddenly gathered himself out of the chair and escorted a startled Inspector Gregson to the door. “Rest assured, Inspector, I will give it first priority.”
When he had rid himself of Inspector Gregson, Sherlock Holmes seated himself on the floor, cross-legged, surrounded by the cartons that had arrived before his visitor. Rifling through the mass of information, it did indeed appear nothing had been denied him, from the first known incident to the latest, just after the last midnight, which was understandably scant of details. As he studied, he puffed furiously upon his shag-filled clay pipe, gradually transforming the atmosphere of his sitting room into a noxious and nearly opaque cloud equal to any palpable London particular.
Hours later, deep in thought, considering every detail of each case and their enigmatic confluences as a whole, he barely heard the opening and closing of the door at the ground floor, or the voices below. He did note clearly, however, the hesitant, almost mincing, footfalls upon the staircase, which then paused upon the landing.
Holmes smiled thinly, then called: “Enter or go away, my dear Sherrington, but do not lurk just outside my door like a quavering footpad uncertain whether to cosh or run.”
The door opened, and a thin, pale, aesthetic face seemed to float reluctantly into the room.
“Are you quite sure?” asked Roger Sherrington. “It’s late…”
“Not too late for you to be about town when you are usually otherwise occupied, nor for me to be up,” Holmes pointed out. “You have not brought your ‘nanny’ along, have you?”
The tall young man, immaculately clad in evening attire, slid into the room, easing the door closed behind him.
“No, I gave Giles the night off, to do whatever he does when not keeping me out of mischief, if you know what I mean.” The young clubman frowned. “You no doubt recognized my tread upon the steps, but you could not…well, I suppose Giles is rather catlike at that.” He paused. “I say, you appear quite industrious for the hour.” He coughed. “You make the miasma outside seem quite healthful by comparison.” He uttered a short high laugh. “But I mustn’t prattle; I decided to knock you up with a minor conundrum, but since you seem…”
“Nonsense, old man,” Holmes interjected, knowing that unless he pinned Sherrington down he would drone on until he decided to sidle out the door, down the stairs and back into the night, having wasted Holmes’ time and his own. “Setting off into the wilds of the Capital without finishing one of the most adequate mutton dinners in London surely portends some dire concern. Sit and tell me all.”
“Yes, admittedly I departed the Cairo Club in some haste, but I would hardly call their fare…” He paused, gaped, then hurriedly checked sleeves, cuffs, lapels, and anywhere else that might have afforded the observant Holmes some clue as to his recent activities. “I swear you do this simply to vex me, and me alone, Holmes.”
“Nonsense, Sherrington,” Holmes replied mildly. “Being quite egalitarian, I vex one and all. A scuff upon your otherwise mirrored left shoe, a daub of gravy in an incised gold button, the corner of a receipt protruding from your pocket, and I do believe this is Friday. Now, as I urged, sit and reveal your purpose in calling.”
Sherrington frowned, moved toward a chair, but did not sit as instructed. “But I am obviously interrupting a complex study of some…I say, is that a map of Whitechapel?”
Holmes nodded, his eyes narrowing at the man’s tone.
“How very odd!” Sherrington exclaimed. “Perhaps this is a fortunate coincidence after all, then, for the matter which motivated me to r
ush through what was actually a rather indifferent mutton dinner at my club—yes, you are correct about that, damn you—does indeed involve a strange and disturbing event in the Whitechapel area.” He thrust a silencing palm toward Holmes, who had made no move to speak. “And, no, it has nothing to do with last year’s so-called Ripper murders which the irresponsible scribes of Fleet Street touted so shamelessly.”
“Then, please sit,” Holmes repeated, “and tell.”
Sherrington finally sat, but said: “I hesitate to trouble you with matters you will no doubt see as mundane in comparison. Obviously you are involved in a case of some importance, at least important enough for some Scotland Yard chappies to cart all these storage boxes across London to you. And I bring you naught but my usual foolishness, as you so often accuse me.”
Holmes had already reclined in his chair, chin resting upon his entwined fingers. His thin lips curved slightly into the faintest of smiles. Yes, there were times when he had labeled Sherrington a fool, but not without cause, and certainly not with any malice; they were not accusations at all, but rather undeniable estimations rising from irrefutable logic. Besides, Holmes considered as he exhaled a bluish cloud toward the ceiling, no one called Sherrington a fool more often than Sherrington did himself.
“Your concerns…” Holmes urged, removing the clay pipe and gesturing roundly with the stem “They are…”
“Very well,” Sherrington sighed. “But try not to be too harsh when I tell you what I heard at the Cairo Club. I was talking to Bunny Benton, well, Lord Prathering, I suppose you’d call him, when he mentioned a chap he knows named Knight…Brigadier James Wellington Knight…do you know him, Holmes?”
Holmes’ eyes narrowed. “Something of an adventurer.”
“Rather!” Sherrington exclaimed. “Something of a braggart, too, from what I’ve heard. Anyway, Bunny told me that this Knight chap said there were strange doings in the East End, Whitechapel to be exact, not far from the St Katherine’s Docks.”
“What,” Holmes asked, “precisely?”
Sherrington shrugged his thin shoulders. “There, it gets a little dicey, I fear, for what Bunny heard that Knight said was that he and his friend Archie Wallace, the Fleet Street scribbler, heard music from underground, well, maybe not music, actually, but something like it, if you know what I mean. Bunny thought it was all some kind of joke, but it’s a damned peculiar one, don’t you think?”
“Yes, very peculiar,” Holmes murmured softly as he perused all the police files he had committed to his eidetic memory. There was no mention of any case involving either Knight or Wallace, but there were several cases near the docks in which strange sounds were heard, ranging from whines to groans, and while none of the witnesses the police interviewed mentioned “music,” Holmes knew from his own experiences that the classifications of any set of sounds as music was more an indication of mental refinement rather than any property inherent in the sounds themselves.
“…and, so, then I thought: what the deuce, Holmes is always on the prowl for…”
“Let us pay a visit to Brigadier General Knight,” Holmes said, interrupting the ramble to which he had abandoned Sherrington. He slipped off his dressing gown, donned his overcoat and hat, and grabbed his walking stick. “Are you up for an outing, a little bit of adventure, perhaps, Sherrington?”
“Rather!” the young man agreed enthusiastically. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew an ivory-handled Webley British Bulldog. “I didn’t think I would need a revolver to eat a mutton dinner, but, as usual, Giles was right, damn the fellow!”
“Ready then?” Holmes asked.
“Right-o!” He eagerly returned the revolver to his pocket. “The game is afoot!”
Sherlock Holmes frowned.
II
Brigadier General (ret) James Wellington Knight resided in the Westminster Mansions, not far from Portman Square, an easy walk from Baker Street. The door was answered by Ah Ling, the Brigadier’s young companion, who seemed neither surprised nor discomfited by the late hour of their visit. The slender girl garbed in a long robe of blue and gold immediately conducted the duo through the double-flat. She slid open an ornately carved door and motioned for them to enter.
“Well, as I live and breathe—Sherlock Holmes!”
The Brigadier was very old, but there was no sign of weakness in his frame. He sprang from behind his desk with an agility that would have shamed a young officer of cavalry. His hair had gone completely white with the passing decades, but his blue eyes glinted with galvanic mischievousness, and though his face was seamed with fine wrinkles, they were of the kind formed by squinting under foreign suns, not from worry or age. He was a large man, just over six feet tall and thick bodied, but his frame was trim, the result of an active life and a determination not to let himself go to seed.
“And young Sherrington!” he continued, shaking the clubman’s hand in turn. “Still dabbling in the occult?”
“Ah, been studying the Mahabharata, have you?” Sherrington said to keep from wincing as his hand was swallowed and squeezed by the Brigadier’s grip. “And in the original Sanskrit.”
Brigadier Knight glanced at the books and scrolls littering his enormous teak desk. Sherrington wanted to rub the feeling back into his hand, but did not want to do so in front in front of the two men, who did not at all seem troubled by each other’s grip. Instead, he looked about the bookshelf-lined room, at the many displays upon stands and in glass cases, a room more like a museum’s chamber than a retired officer’s study.
“Yes, I’ve developed quite an interest in the old thing with its accounts of flying machines and city destroying explosives, not to mention its concept of the just war,” Brigadier Knight said. “But the original Sanskrit? I think not, as a much earlier version written in Proto-Iranian which is even more amazing in that it…” He paused. “But I do not suppose you gentlemen have come at this later hour to discuss ancient epics. How may I help you?”
“I am investigating a series of unusual events in the East End,” Sherlock Holmes replied. “I believe you may be able to help me.”
The Brigadier frowned and shook his head. “Bunny Benton, I’ll wager! I manage to prevail upon Archie to keep all this under his hat, but I did not count on Bunny’s big ears. Well-named chap, that one! Perhaps we should adjourn to a setting more conducive to conversation.”
In the sitting room, Ah Ling served sherry, then left the men to their deliberations.
“Music?” the Brigadier mused after Sherrington related what he had heard from their mutual acquaintance. “No, I would not call it music exactly, nor did Archie Wallace, who was with me when I heard it, but it was indeed coming from underground, beneath the alleys and byways north of the docks at the edge of Whitechapel.”
“How, exactly, would you describe the sounds heard by you and Wallace?” Holmes asked.
“Not music, as I said,” the Brigadier replied, sipping slowly and contemplatively at his sherry. “Definitely musical, though, but in a very organic way, much as the cry of a bird is musical, or the rhythmical howl of a wolf.” He leaned forward in his chair and regarded his two visitors with intense eyes that flashed like fire and ice. “Archie just called it weird, but I’ll tell you what it brought most to my mind. Out upon the lone immensity of the sea, far from even the smallest speck of land, where you feel like the trumps of doom have sounded and you’ve been left behind, sometimes you hear the great leviathans of the deep call to each other across the watery leagues, ancient wails and cries that have meaning only for the whales and dolphins—aye, that’s what I thought when I heard the sounds in the night.”
“Were the sounds stationary or moving?” Holmes asked.
Sherrington looked at the consulting detective, amazed, not hiding his surprise. The young man possessed a great capacity for belief and subscribed to a tremendous variety of obscure and arcane notions—Atlantis, ley lines, the Lost Masters of Tibet, mesmerism, the existence of a prehistoric race of monster-god
s, pyramidology, spiritualism, life on other worlds, and thaumaturgy—but he felt he had to draw the line at bally whales cavorting beneath the most populous metropolis on Earth.
“Moving,” Brigadier Knight replied.
“Do you think you could project what you heard upon a survey map of the area?” Holmes asked.
Sherrington gulped his drink and poured another.
“I already have,” Brigadier Knight replied. “I did so because I thought there might be some connection between the sound and the recent rash of disappearances.” He sent a sudden bluster of a laugh in Holmes’ direction. “With other men, their reactive expressions reveal to me their fears, joys, hopes and secrets, but, with you, I must read you, so to speak, from your lack of expression. I would not want to face you across the gaming table, Mr Holmes, for I would soon be a pauper.”
“I leave card playing to Watson, and I hold his checkbook,” Holmes explained. “The clubs all welcome Watson, but they do not extend the same invitation to me.” He paused. “You are aware of the disappearances in Whitechapel?”
“As is my friend Archie Wallace,” the Brigadier said. “Whom, I might add, has been barely constrained from emblazoning our fears across the front page of his tabloid.”
“I’m sure Scotland Yard appreciates his discretion,” Holmes remarked coolly.
“Discretion is not really in Archie’s nature,” Brigadier Knight pointed out. “But I was able to convince him that waiting until we had more facts would result in much more notoriety—now, that did appeal to his nature. But I should caution you, Mr Holmes, that Archie will not hold back should he sense others are closing in on the story.”
Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) Page 5
