“Yog-Sothoth, huh,” Lestrade said, pursing his lips.
Jacket nodded.
“Gate, left hands, blood, keys, the key is hand, blood is key, the way is opening, Yog-Sothoth is the key.”
Jacket leaned forward, hands clasped under his chin. There were many things in the world he did not know, but one thing he absolutely knew was to never disturb Inspector Lestrade when he settled into one of his meditative fugues. The senior officer’s eyes were half-closed, his lips barely moving as he repeated elements of the case and the names of people involved over and over. He knew Lestrade was linking events, locations, theories and personages in various combinations. He had seen this happen twice before, and he understood none of it.
“Jacket!”
“Yes, sir?”
“You have a revolver?”
“Well, I…”
“Do you, or do you not?”
“Yes, sir,” Jacket gulped.
“Good, we’re going to run Lord Alathon and the other cultists to ground before they take another life,” Lestrade said. “I hope it will be without violence, but that will be their choice, won’t it?”
“Should we call into the Yard for reinforcements, sir?”
Lestrade rolled his eyes. “We were given this case to solve, not to admit we can’t. Besides, if two of Scotland Yard’s…” He cast a worried glance at Jacket. “…two of its finest can’t handle a rabble of bally cultists, then what’s the world coming to?”
“Absolutely,” Jacket agreed, wishing he felt as confident as he tried to sound. “So, you think Lord Alathon and…”
“Come along, Jacket,” Lestrade snapped. “We’ve no time to piddle over facts already in evidence.”
Jacket led Lestrade back to the warehouse that had been Sir Martin’s final destination. The street was black except for a hissing gaslamp at each end, but the small red embers of gaspers showed the guards were still in place. They climbed to the roof of an adjoining building, made their way across, then penetrated into the depths of the warehouse.
Before they saw a light within, they heard the soft murmur of perhaps two dozen people chanting, following a single voice. Even at this distance Lestrade recognized the leader as Lord Alathon. And he heard other sounds, of someone trying to scream through a gag, of a victim frantically struggling against bonds.
“Cor,” Jacket breathed softly.
“Shhh,” Lestrade cautioned.
They had emerged from a narrow stairway onto a wide landing that stretched around the upper story of the warehouse. Crates and bales were stacked around the broad deck, giving them plenty of cover. The only light that reached them was what spilled up from below. There was, however, no chance of the cultists seeing them, so concentrated were they upon their leader and the victim trussed upon a altar shrouded in black silk.
If Lestrade and Jacket had not known they were in the midst of the largest city in Christendom, they might have guessed they had been transported to some heathen temple deep in the heart of darkness. The ground floor of the warehouse had been transformed into a temple to Yog-Sothoth and the other Great Old Ones, the minions of Cthulhu that Lord Alathon had spoken of so openly and breezily, obviously an effort to allay any suspicions.
Detective Sergeant Jacket blinked, shook his head, then blinked again. There was something not quite right about the architecture of the place. It lacked parallel lines and had few straight ones. It was such a sight as would give his frustrated geometry master at school a migraine. The pillars leaned this way and that, always seeming on the verge of collapse, yet enduring. The corner angles of the stone slabs arranged around the worship area were all either obtuse or acute, and upon those stones were depicted such monstrosities and horrors as never could have crawled from the minds of Bedlam, creatures which should never have lived, and yet were undeniably taken from hideous life. Thick mist drifted along the floor, tendrils of the yellowish vapor seeming to pluck at the supplicants’ robes, almost like serpents.
The only illumination came from torches mounted in the tops of the stone slabs and from bronze braziers at either end of the altar. Standing behind the altar, robed and arms upraised, was Lord Alathon; in one of his hands was a knife with a long, thin, wickedly curved blade, a perfect instrument whether for slitting a throat or cleanly severing a hand.
Upon on the altar was the prone figure of a beautiful blonde girl wearing almost nothing. Her arms and legs were tied. She thrashed against the bonds, but she could not break them. She was gagged by a black silk band and could only make muffled gasps. Her eyes were wide with terror. Detective Sergeant Jacket thought he had never seen a more beautiful girl in his life.
Behind Lord Alathon rose a kind of gateway constructed from black rectangular stone into which were incised silver symbols, none of which, Jacket noted, were representations of the Elder Sign. On the posts of the gateway were mounted four human hands, all left hands, and there was a space at the top ready for another. The hands had been dipped in wax, turned into macabre tapers. Jacket should have been able to see the rear of the warehouse through the gateway, but it was filled with an impenetrable darkness, an oily shimmer which swirled and pulsed.
Jacket nearly jumped out of his skin when a large hand landed on his shoulder. He found himself facing Lestrade’s scowl.
“Keep your wits about you, Jacket, or what you have of them,” Lestrade murmured into the man’s ear. “This is no time to let all this hoodoo rubbish get to you.”
“No, sir,” Jacket whispered. “I mean, I won’t let you down.”
“Good man,” Lestrade responded, but did not look entirely convinced. “Look, I want you to make you way around till you’re behind Lord Alathon.”
Jacket nodded, then noticed how close he would be to the gateway. “Why do you suppose we can’t see through that gate, sir?”
“Concentrate on what’s important, Jacket,” Lestrade urged. “Don’t focus on the tomfoolery he’s using to mesmerize the sheep. I’m going down there, and I’m counting on you.”
“Me?”
“God help me, but, yes, you, Jacket,” Lestrade sighed. “I doubt anyone down there poses a real threat except Alathon, them being all toffs and dilettantes, but you never know when a sheep is going to bare a wolf’s teeth.”
“I’ll watch over you, sir,” Jacket said.
Lestrade’s lips flattened into a grim line, but it was too late for an alternate plan. “Be off with you, lad,” Lestrade said.
Jacket nodded and swiftly made his way amongst the stacks of goods. He was quickly lost to sight. Lestrade mentally marked the young man’s progress, seconds seeming like hours. Knowing from the mounting chants that he could delay no longer, Lestrade made his way to the stairs, moving silently but with purpose.
Standing behind the robed worshipers, Lestrade slipped his revolver from his coat pocket. He pushed the nearest cultists to both sides, sending them sprawling into each other.
“All right now, let’s break this up!” Lestrade shouted into the confused hubbub. “Everyone stay where you are. I am Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard, and you’re all under arrest.”
“Blasphemer!” screamed a cultist, rushing forward to throttle Lestrade. “Praise to Yog-Sothoth! Praise to…”
The revolver in Lestrade’s hand barked once and Sir Martin fell into the swirling mist, a neat hole marking his forehead.
“Let’s have no more of that,” Lestrade warned, moving his gun in a slow arc around him, back and forth. “You’ve all been properly nicked, so let’s have no foolishness from you.”
The cultists regarded him with undiluted hatred, their mouths twisted into animalistic snarls, eyes wide and staring as if drugged. But they made no attempt to rush him. Though filled with strange drugs and their passions raised to hysterical levels by the spilling of blood and the prospect of more, they were still just swells and posers, whose debauchery was more than matched by cowardice.
“Inspector Lestrade, you have come at an inopportune time,”
Lord Alathon called from behind the altar. “I don’t suppose there is anything I could offer you to depart and leave us in peace?”
“No, I don’t suppose there is, bucko,” Lestrade replied, keeping one eye on him while making sure the cultists remained properly cowed. “Put the knife down and untie the young lady.”
“No, I don’t think I will.”
Lestrade raised his weapon, aiming it at Alathon.
“I do not see that you have a choice, Your Lordship.”
Lord Alathon smiled. “There is always a choice. We made a choice to open the Eldritch Gateway so Yog-Sothoth could reenter our realm, could rouse Great Cthulhu from his long slumber in the sunken city of R’lyeh, could pave the way for all the Great Old Ones to return from their places of banishment, whether in this dimension or in others, whether from beyond time or from beyond the wall of sleep. They will walk again where in elder times they walked before, serene and hungry, and when they do they will invest us, their loyal servants, with such power as would sear the mind of a mortal such as you. We will be as gods! We will laugh and sing as the Great Old One’s crunch your bones! Ia! Ia! Fwatagn moz’tl Yog-Sothoth! Cthulhu sh’kina dul…”
“Enough of that blather!” Lestrade interrupted.
“The Gateway will be opened!” Alathon screamed. “Stop him or the Great Old Ones will feast upon your souls!”
The cultists swarmed Lestrade as if they were motivated by a single mind. They were lords and ladies, businessmen and members of Parliament, lost souls and seekers after power, but at the moment they were naught by an extension of Lord Alathon’s will, pawns eager to sacrifice their own lives to ensure his mad dream of power came to pass.
The sheer mass of them attacking so suddenly after Lestrade had discounted them as a threat startled him, He fired at Alathon, but a hand grabbed his arm. The bullet vanished upward.
“The Gateway will open!” Alathon screamed.
Lestrade fought against the tide, but it was too much. Three of the cultists fell away with bullets in them, but the others refused to turn from their bloodlust. He watched in helpless horror as Alathon lifted the knife, preparing for the slash across the throat, the taking of the left hand to complete the Gateway.
A shot rang sharply through the gloom. Alathon paused in mid-incantation. He remained still, as if paralyzed, then collapsed behind the altar. The knife clattered away noisily.
Well done, Jacket, Lestrade thought, though it almost hurt to give the daft young man any credit.
Their leader felled by Jacket’s shot, the crowd instantly ceased their actions against Lestrade. He pushed the nearest ones away from him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jacket climbing down to go to the aid of the would-be victim.
“The Gateway will open!” Alathon screamed, dragging himself up from where he had fallen, using one of the posts of the Gateway for support. He had recovered the knife but he was not close enough to the altar to do the girl any harm. “Yog-Sothoth will rise!”
Lord Alathon drew the knife across his own wrist, the keen blade passing easily through flesh and muscle, cleaning severing the joint. He dropped the knife, grabbed the detached hand, and climbed up the post toward the lintel, fighting the slickness of the blood that gushed from his left arm.
“Come, Yog-Sothoth!”
Lestrade raised his weapon.
“Infidel!” yelled a cultist, rushing Lestrade with a dagger.
Lestrade’s aim did not waver. The blade would plunge into his chest, but in his gut he knew it was more important to keep Alathon from completing the pattern on the Gateway, and he always listened to his gut, even when it was about this heathen hoodoo rubbish.
An instant before the cultist reached Lestrade, the robed figure fell heavily to the mist-covered floor. A throwing knife protruded from his throat.
Lestrade did not spare a moment to either question his good fortune or the source of the throw. All that mattered was stopping Alathon before he completed the Gateway. He fired his penultimate bullet, striking Alathon in the back.
Lord Alathon was a dead man, but he refused to turn from his goal. Yog-Sothoth would rise, even if it took his last breath to bring the Great Old One forth. Alathon stretched toward the lintel.
Only one bullet stood between Lestrade and the still-restive cult members. Once spent, there was no way to control them. He was used to scrapping, but even he was no match against a mob.
Well, nothing to do about that, he thought grimly.
He raised and aimed his revolver.
Detective Sergeant Jacket clambered up to the altar. All he saw was the beautiful blonde girl who needed his help. In his eagerness to help her he stumbled, crashing against Lord Alathon.
The leader of the cult screamed as he fell into the writhing blackness of the Gateway, but Jacket hardly noticed. He only had eyes for the Most Beautiful Girl in the World. He lifted her from the altar and carried her to safety.
“Well done, Jacket,” Lestrade murmured in tones too low to carry even to his own ears.
A flash of movement caught Lestrade’s eye inside the space between lintel and posts. He saw suggestions of tentacles and claws, of burning eyes and dripping fangs. It was a terrible sight, made all the more horrible by the incomplete view he had of the monster trapped within. But what made Lestrade smile was a final glimpse of Lord Alathon’s face.
He was not smirking.
The image vanished, the darkness cleared, and all that could be seen through the blood-smeared Gateway of Yog-Sothoth was the rear area of the warehouse.
“All of you, sit against those stones,” Lestrade commanded. “I swear to God Almighty, I will shoot dead the next one of you who so much as twitches.”
Jacket appeared, the blonde girl at his side, unbound, ungagged and now clad in his coat.
“Those lags on guard have probably flown,” Lestrade said, “so go blow your police whistle to attract the local plod. We’ll need at least two Black Marias for this fine catch.”
“Yes, sir.” He escorted the blonde girl away from the prisoners. “You just sit here, miss. Everything will be all right now.”
Lestrade rolled his eyes.
Within a half-hour all prisoners were transported. Miss Jean Graeling, the girl who would have been their fifth and final victim, was taken to Guy’s Hospital in St Thomas-street by a pair of St John’s corpsmen. Jacket accompanied her, and Lestrade did not protest. The lad had earned that much, and probably much more. The building was sealed, guards were set, and eventually those in power would decide what was to be done.
More likely what is to be covered up, Lestrade thought.
The privileged would be protected, all the occult rubbish would be broken up and carted away, and the press would print some fairy tale. None of that mattered, not really. He knew he might or might not be credited with solving the crime, but that, also, did not matter to Lestrade. Nor did he care the world might have been saved from an ancient apocalypse, for he still counted it all nothing but drug-addled mumbo-jumbo, despite what he had seen, or thought he had seen, through the Gateway. Even the fact that the murders had been avenged and one prevented was, for him, a side issue.
What was truly important was that he had solved the case, and with no help whatsoever from Mr Sherlock-bloody-Holmes. He gave the now-mundane warehouse one last look.
“Damned cultists,” he murmured.
“Henna?” Dr John H Watson asked.
“Yes, a form of it,” Sherlock Holmes replied, wiping away the tattoo with an alcohol-moistened cloth. He removed the putty that had made his nose more prominent and wiped the dark coloring from his skin. “Lestrade and his sergeant handled themselves quite well under the circumstances, don’t you think?”
“Rather! Did you retrieve your throwing knife?” Watson asked as he cleaned sooty makeup from his face.
“No need to,” Holmes replied. “It cannot be traced to me, and since the follow-up will be lackadaisical, to say the least, it will be lost among the other mysterie
s of the night.”
“I was surprised at Lestrade’s steely nerve.”
“Lestrade is often underestimated, occasionally by me.”
“It all ended well,” Watson said. “That is what’s important.”
“Thanks, old man, for assisting me in…”
“Think nothing of it, Holmes.” Watson laughed, flipping a coin into the air. “Made me a ‘alf-crown out of it, I did, guv.”
The voice most often heard in the stories of Sherlock Holmes is that of Dr John H Watson, who met Holmes 16 July 1881. In the Canon of stories, Holmes himself tells “The Lion’s Mane,” and a nameless narrator relates “The Mazarin Stone” and “His Last Bow.” But his activities were prolific beyond Watson’s jottings or Holmes’ own claims. Sherlock Holmes touched many lives before, during and after his association with Dr Watson. Some would have been motivated to write of the encounter, whether for publication or not, either in their own voices or with the anonymity of an unknown (and non-actionable) narrator. Some may have had stories pulled from their memories by others, as in the case of Professor Angus Hamish MacCullaich, DSc, EngD, FRSA, FRGS, lecturer in geology at the University of Edinburgh. He was interviewed in 1891 by Martin H Williams, a reporter on The Scotsman. Professor MacCullaich does not specify the date he met Holmes, but it was surely very early in the detective’s life. The following is based mostly on Williams’ daybook and shorthand notes, discovered in office files during remodeling in 1963, rather than the heavily edited and rather fanciful story published Sunday, 17 May 1891, which at the time was considered a total fiction and resulted in a lawsuit by Professor MacCullaich, in which he did not prevail. The “Mr Cooper” mentioned by the Professor is Charles Alfred Cooper, who edited the newspaper 1880 – 1905.
The Whisperer in the Highlands
Aye, I knew Sherlock Holmes, but years ago, afore he became such a great noise, a light amongst his people, ye might say. He was just a fresh-faced bairn newly sent down from university. Ye heard me, mon! I said ‘sent down,’ and sent down is what I…
Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) Page 18
