“You have a map, you say?”
“Let me get it,” the Brigadier said, leaving. In a few moments he returned and unrolled a large-scale survey map of a portion of the East End across a low table. He pointed to a series of points, some connected, some not. “This is where we first heard the sounds, and these are other places we thought we heard them as well. I’ve tried to connect them, but they do not seem to follow the order of the streets.”
“No, they do not,” Holmes agreed. It was easy to see that any lines connecting the points would take them beneath buildings and beyond the boundaries of streets. “But there might yet be a pattern that follows something older than the streets.”
“But beneath the streets we see are even older streets, down to Roman times and beyond,” Sherrington protested. “Even our nethermost sewers more or less follow the same track.”
“I think Holmes is referring to a pattern older than London itself,” the Brigadier explained. He looked at Holmes. “The rivers?”
“Precisely,” Holmes agreed. “The lost rivers of London.”
“They run beneath the metropolis hidden and all but forgotten,” the Brigadier said. “I suppose it is possible they could be used for transport, but…such animals!”
“Hold on a moment, chaps,” Sherrington said, setting aside his now-empty glass and wishing the Brigadier would offer something a little stronger. “Are you suggesting that whales have found their way up the Thames and are gamboling about under these chartered streets like playful carp?”
Holmes and the Brigadier looked from Sherrington to each other, then back to the map, contemplatively.
“Well, I suppose it does sound a bit daft when I say it like that, but…” The young clubman set his glass down with a resounding plonk! “Confound it! The notion would sound daft no matter who said it.” His brow furrowed. “Is that what you chaps are saying?”
“No definitely not whales, or even dolphins, no matter the sounds we heard,” Knight admitted. “But certainly some kind of creature, one agile enough to traverse the narrow winding tunnels the ‘lost rivers’ have become over the years.”
“With the ability to extrude an appendage of some sort when near the surface, very swiftly snatching away its victims,” Holmes added. “A deliberate attack, not blindly groping.”
“Which would eliminate both squid and octopus,” Knight said. “They attack prey directly, what they can see.”
“They are also eliminated by the means of propulsion used by both creatures,” Holmes agreed. “The creature must be powerful enough to swim against strong currents, agile enough to navigate twisting passages, possess some sort of appendage capable of sensing its prey, and be well adapted to a lightless environment.”
“Sounds like Dhumin or Shudde M’ell,” Sherrington remarked as he listlessly contemplated his empty glass.
“Myths!” Brigadier Knight scoffed.
“No, not at all, Brigadier,” Sherrington countered calmly. “It is true the creatures are mentioned in ancient writings, but there have been many sightings of them in modern times, made by several very reliable witnesses.”
The Brigadier snorted derisively.
“You gentlemen have me at a disadvantage,” Holmes said.
“Mr Holmes, did you ever study world religions or comparative mythology?” Sherrington asked.
“No more than what the first-year student would encounter in university,” the detective answered. “And I did my best to put it out of mind, along with other unimportant studies, such as philosophy and astronomy, all of which are irrelevant to my work.”
“Well, I doubt you would have come across Dhumin or Shudde M’ell at any rate,” Sherrington admitted. “They are rather outside the Greco-Roman piffle that is used to pad undergraduate noggins, if you know what I mean. Both creatures are as obscure as they are ancient, part of the Cthulhu Mythos.”
“Now, that is a term I have encountered,” Holmes said.
“Oh?”
“Probably in the pages of a penny dreadful,” Brigadier Knight suggested, though he felt a twinge of guilt as he did so, being an avid reader of such dubious literature himself.
“What about the two creatures you named?’ Holmes asked.
“Since you have some familiarity with the Cthulhu Mythos,” Sherrington said, “may I also assume you are familiar with the concept behind it?”
Holmes answered: “An interconnected network of myths about prehistoric creatures no longer extant.”
“It is a worldwide mythos,” Sherrington admitted, “but the Great Old Ones are active in the world today, though, thankfully, not as much as they were in primal times.”
“Preposterous!” Brigadier Knight muttered.
“From what I have heard of your adventures, Brigadier, I am a bit surprised at you,” Sherrington chided gently. “I seem to recall a rumor about something encountered in a chamber deep beneath the Great Pyramid in ’85. And then there was something about a…what was it…a loathsome horror rising from the sea near the ruins of Ponape a few…”
“Archie does tend to exaggerate,” the Brigadier muttered, but he did seem suddenly ill at ease.
“Gentlemen,” Holmes interrupted. “I must have information, if it is pertinent to this investigation. I will decide its pertinence after I have heard it. As you may have surmised from my comments about your journalist acquaintance, Brigadier, this is something of an urgent matter. Now, Sherrington, pray continue.”
“Both Shudde M’ell and Dhumin are subterranean creatures, able to burrow swiftly through the earth, and which our very earliest ancestors took for gods, as they did others,” Sherrington explained. “Despite being associated with the chthonian realm, they are also able to maintain an aquatic existence, though Dhumin has never been sighted anywhere but in the forests and lakes around the city of Memphis in the United States. Of course, the thing is, according to witnesses…”
“Witnesses!” Brigadier Knight snorted.
“According to reliable witnesses,” Sherrington continued, “the entity known as Dhumin is really nothing much more than a great bloody snake, perhaps just a pet to Cthulhu. Now, Shudde M’ell…”
The Brigadier sighed heavily.
Sherlock Holmes made no comment.
“Shudde M’ell is a whole different kettle of gods, if you know what I mean,” Sherrington said. “Fast, agile, strong, possessed of a malevolent intelligence, mostly considered a burrower but able to maintain an indefinite aquatic existence, and, most importantly, the damned thing has at least a score tentacles, all very long, all prehensile, and all possessing organs of sight and smell—each one perfectly adapted for hunting in the method you explained, Mr Holmes. There is, however, one problem.”
“That Shudde M’ell does not exist?” the Brigadier suggested.
“No, not at all,” Sherrington replied, trying to appear as if he were not irked by the older man’s comment, and not succeeding. “It is that Shudde M’ell is, well, rather large, at least the size of a house which, I think, would put it out of the running.”
“Humph!” the Brigadier humphed.
“You are forgetting something, Sherrington,” Holmes said.
The young man raised his thin eyebrows enquiringly.
“It is an axiom of biology that only a microscopic organism starts out full sized,” Holmes said, almost hiding a slight smirk. “A Shudde M’ell, as you call it, must begin life in, shall we say, a much more modest fashion, perhaps smaller than a house.”
Sherrington slapped his forehead and exclaimed: “By Jove, Mr Holmes. It seems painfully obvious when you put it that way, but it escaped me altogether. Though many these beings of the Mythos are preternaturally long lived, they are, of course, not gods but living creatures, though perhaps not of this Earth or of any dimension of which we are aware. The ancients always described full grown creatures as if they were solitary beings, but they must have issue from time to time.”
“The plesiosaurus is a massive beast,” the Brig
adier said, “but a pod of newly spawned plesiosauri can be easily held in one’s cupped hands.”
It was now Sherrington’s turn to regard the retired military man with a doubtful gaze.
“Some years ago, up in Scotland,” the Brigadier said. “It all…”
“Perhaps another time, Brigadier,” Holmes suggested. “If a young issue of this Shudde M’ell has found its way somehow into one of the underground rivers, it will continue hunting prey until it either finds its way into the sea or can be no longer contained by the subterranean watercourse. So far, it has contained itself to an area roughly comprising Whitechapel, but it…”
“Mr Holmes, do you really believe Shudde M’ell is more than a myth spun by the ancients to explain natural events,” Brigadier Knight asked.
“I rarely believe in anything in the sense of possessing faith in an unseen world, but I do believe in my powers of deduction,” Holmes replied. “I need never to have seen an ocean to deduce its existence from a single drop, or the expanse of the Sahara Desert from the smallest grain of sand. Similarly, I need not to have seen, or necessarily believe in, a particular animal (if someone chooses to call it a ‘god,’ what is that to me?) to accept the possibility of its existence contrary to the knowledge of naturalists—both the gorilla and the platypus managed to thrive unsuspected in their respective habitats quite well without the permission of the Fellows of the Royal Academy of Science.”
“True,” Brigadier Knight admitted. “Still, Holmes, the creature put forward by young Sherrington exists definitely only in ancient writings, but, currently, only as allegations in the outrageous belief systems of certain dark cultists.”
“And in reports tendered by witnesses,” Sherrington murmured. “Reliable witness, old bean.”
The Brigadier frowned.
“You may be correct, Brigadier, but you offer only evidence of a negative nature, possessing a null value in formulating a deductive equation,” the detective pointed out. “I thoroughly perused all the statements gathered by the police and my own agents, and I also consider your own account, Brigadier. The nature of the Whitechapel abductions preclude any human agency or the use of some sort of mechanical device, and there is no natural or electrical force that could account for them either. Therefore, it becomes clear we are dealing with some sort of organic entity, a beast, shall we say. It must be a creature able to exist in the riverine system beneath the city and hunt in a very specific way. No known animal fulfills all the criteria requires, so, quod erat demonstrandum, it must be an unknown animal. Perhaps it is not a young Shudde M’ell, but it will do until a better candidate is nominated.
“I wish I could detect a flaw in your argument, Holmes, for I do dislike giving in to Sherrington.” He looked to Sherrington and gave an apologetic tilt of the head. “No offense, young man, but you do have a reputation for advancing wildly fanciful occult theories.”
Sherrington raised his glass in a comradely toast and vaguely shrugged his thin shoulders. It was useless to deny the obvious.
“Unfortunately, Mr Holmes, your position is as logical as it is unassailable,” the Brigadier agreed. “All right, call this malicious force ‘Shudde M’ell,’ if you must. What do we do now? Call Scotland Yard? The Thames River Police? The Admiralty?”
“No, I think not, at least for the moment,” Holmes replied. “But you do have…”
A soft knock at the door interrupted them, and Ah Ling entered carrying a message form, which she handed to Knight. He unfolded it, read it and scowled fiercely.
“Blasted fool!” the Brigadier snarled, crushing the paper between his fists, then snapping it open. “Damned fool!”
“What is it, Brigadier?’ Sherlock Holmes demanded.
“It’s Archie Wallace,” the Brigadier explained, glancing down at the message form. “He’s received some information, a ‘tip’ he calls it, of activity in Whitechapel and gone down there alone.”
“My word,” Sherrington breathed. “That could get sticky.”
III
The odd trio of Sherlock Holmes, Brigadier General Knight and Roger Sherrington set out for Whitechapel without delay, but first made a stop at Grennel and Son, Machinists, a shop in an alley off East India Dock Road. Holmes borrowed from them a device in a teakwood cabinet with brass fittings and handles, as well as bulls-eye lanterns fitted with gas mantles, and a satchel.
“What in the world is that, Mr Holmes?” Sherrington asked when Holmes and the Brigadier returned to the carriage.
“This,” Holmes explained, as he opened the case, revealing the complicated machinery within, “is an electrically activated sensor for detecting the transmission of sounds underwater.”
Sherrington frowned, for he was not in the least mechanically minded and viewed most inventions of this modern age with healthy doses of distrust and unease. In fact, he really only felt comfortable with a G and T in one hand and an ancient tome in the other.
“It seems I’ve heard of such devices, a few years ago, in Lake Geneva, chap by the name of…” The Brigadier as he searched his mental storehouse for the proper fact.
“Colladon,” Holmes supplied.
“That’s it!” the Brigadier said. “Daniel Colladon. Swiss.”
Sherlock Holmes nodded, checking the connecting wires to the voltaic cells as well as a long insulated cable to which was attached a metal disc about the size of a cricket ball.
“Edward Grennel and his son, William, are clever, inventive and imaginative,” Holmes said. “When they and those like them can no longer thrive in our free society, the sun will at last set upon the Empire. I do not entirely understand the inner workings of this device, but the younger Grennel has instructed me fully in its operation and interpretation.”
“If I recall correctly, Colladon and his co-worker, some damn Frenchman or another, used a device like this to listen to fish, or some such thing,” the Brigadier said.
“Actually, I believe he used it was to determine the speed of sound through water,” Sherrington added.
Both Holmes and the Brigadier looked at the young clubman, eyebrows raised.
“Oh, come now, chaps,” Sherrington chided. “Surely you don’t think I spend all my time reading ancient occult tomes, chasing ghosts, and drinking gin martinis, do you?”
“It is that determination of sound’s speed underwater which allows this device to indicate velocity, that is, speed and direction,” Holmes said as he suppressed a slight smile.
“Your aim, then, is to track the…” The Brigadier shot a skeptical glance in Sherrington’s direction. “…the beast as it makes its way through the lost rivers beneath Whitechapel.”
“Or the sewers,” Holmes added. “I fear the term ‘river’ is a bit of a kindness these days, for the lost channels are at their fullest in times of rain and the overtaxed sewer system often spills into them. And no doubt it is possible to break through at points.”
Sherrington glanced out the carriage window at a sky devoid of stars. “Looks like rain, chaps.”
“What do you expect, young man?” the Brigadier grumbled. “It’s bloody London, isn’t it?”
As the carriage made its way from the comparative brightness of western London to the dark nimbus that seemed to overlay the East End, a silence settled upon the three passengers. Sherrington, as was his wont, tried to lighten the mood, but the Brigadier was too worried about the welfare of his journalist friend to be prodded to any sense of lightheartedness, and Holmes, as usual, ensconced himself within an impenetrable cocoon of dark brooding; truth be told, though, even Roger Sherrington, normally game for the most outré of adventures, was uneasy about this expedition.
Over the last couple years, Sherrington had collaborated with Holmes on cases which challenged the great detective’s perception of the world, but he was under no illusion that Sherlock Holmes was ready to abandon the redoubt of logic and reason from which he surveyed a material world. Sherrington still cast his own net upon the sea of ideas and beliefs as wide
ly as he ever had, but association with Holmes had made him more critical of ideas he still held dear to his heart. They had affected each other in subtle ways, the young man reflected, each giving ground a little, Holmes to the mystical and Sherrington to the practical, but neither would ever abandon the core values that made them who they were.
A fool, as Holmes had once called him? He supposed it was more true than not, and at the time not an accusation made unjustly or unkindly. Yet, at the same time, he thought with a slight smile, Holmes apparently thought highly enough of this fool’s expertise in matters occult to speed across the dark expanse of London on what was not only a fool’s errand, but a highly dangerous one. As for the Brigadier…he evinced a disbelief in the doctrine of the Cthulhu Mythos and its monstrous denizens, and obviously dismissed him as naught but a dissolute clubman of some notoriety, and, yet, the old war veteran rode boldly with them nevertheless.
When they entered Whitechapel, Holmes rapped against the ceiling with his walking stick and issued directions to the driver when the trap opened. Less than twenty minutes later the carriage rumbled to a stop at the narrow mouth of an alley marked by an archway surmounted by a carving weathered to unrecognizability.
A black night surrounded them as they exited the carriage and even blacker buildings rose around them, their monolithic darkness unrelieved by even the slightest flicker of light. A thin mist flowed through the murky lanes, and the silence of the night was broken only by the soft murmur of flowing water and the distant tones of dull iron bells slowly tolling.
“I thought I knew all the foul streets of the East End…” the Brigadier started to say.
“Actually,” Holmes interrupted, “we are not far from where you reported hearing that strange sound. The underground river you were near branches through here and we should be able to…”
A shuffling noise came to them and a shadow approached them out of the alleyway. Both Sherrington and Knight started to reach into their jacket pockets, but Holmes restrained them with a gesture.
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