Sherlock Holmes - The Stuff of Nightmares
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SHERLOCK
HOLMES
JAMES LOVEGROVE
TITAN BOOKS
Sherlock Holmes: The Stuff of Nightmares
Print edition ISBN: 9781781165416
E-book edition ISBN: 9781781165423
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: August 2013
Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
James Lovegrove asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. Copyright © 2013 by James Lovegrove
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
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Contents
Foreword
Chapter One: The Waterloo Massacre
Chapter Two: The Disfigured Delivery Boy
Chapter Three: A Study in Contrasts
Chapter Four: The Aroma of Overripe Bananas
Chapter Five: Grout the Irregular
Chapter Six: Asian Lilies
Chapter Seven: The Blood of a Machine
Chapter Eight: The Realm of Rats
Chapter Nine: A Living Ironclad
Chapter Ten: The Froggy Toff
Chapter Eleven: At the Villa de Villegrand
Chapter Twelve: Savate Versus Baritsu
Chapter Thirteen: Brawl on Primrose Hill
Chapter Fourteen: The Calm Before the Storm
Chapter Fifteen: The Fourth Bomb
Chapter Sixteen: Death of an Abbess
Chapter Seventeen: The Booby-Trapped Brougham
Chapter Eighteen: “Mrs H to the Smiths’ Place”
Chapter Nineteen: Graveyard Vigil
Chapter Twenty: The Fall of the House of God
Chapter Twenty-one: “The Fatal Stone Now Closes Over Me”
Chapter Twenty-two: The Subterrene
Chapter Twenty-three: The Law is an Asset
Chapter Twenty-four: The Compromised Stockbroker
Chapter Twenty-five: Feigning Fenianism
Chapter Twenty-six: A Note of Shame
Chapter Twenty-seven: The Blood Beneath the Fingernails
Chapter Twenty-eight: In the Conservatory
Chapter Twenty-nine: Glass Guillotines
Chapter Thirty: The French Connection
Chapter Thirty-one: Wheels in Motion
Chapter Thirty-two: An Earthquake on Baker Street
Chapter Thirty-three: The maiden voyage of the Delphine’s Revenge
Chapter Thirty-four: Baron Cauchemar Commences His Story
Chapter Thirty-five: Baron Cauchemar Continues His Story
Chapter Thirty-six: Baron Cauchemar Concludes His Story
Chapter Thirty-seven: Two Iron Dukes
Chapter Thirty-eight: A Whale Harpooned
Chapter Thirty-nine: Human Jetsam
Chapter Forty: A Manmade Titan
Chapter Forty-one: Duelling Machines
Chapter Forty-two: The Varnished Truth
Chapter Forty-three: A Departure
Afterword
Acknowledgements
About the Author
SHERLOCK
HOLMES
FOREWORD
Concerning the events of late 1890, much has been written, most of it by people wiser and more qualified than I. Historians tell of a period of turmoil in Great Britain when, albeit briefly, the very cohesion of civilised society seemed threatened. They also tell how the machinations of seditionaries from a nation adjacent to our own were foiled by the offices of the good men of Scotland Yard.
Such is the consensus, and I would not wish to gainsay it in any way – at least not openly. This, alas, is another of those occasions when a case investigated and resolved by my great friend Sherlock Holmes must remain a secret from all. I commit an account of it to paper solely for my own satisfaction, by way of a personal souvenir, an old man’s memento, not for public consumption. As I wrote in the story entitled “The Final Problem”, there were only three cases of which I retain any record for the year 1890, and two of those I published as “The Red-Headed League” and “The Copper Beeches”. This is the third, and it has remained solely in note form until now.
The reasons for this are threefold. To start with, some of the content would have been unpalatable to my readership at the time, and would be even to a modern audience, for all that we live in a more permissive age than ever we used to.
Also, there is the matter of relations between Great Britain and a near neighbour which I would not wish to disturb by raking up old enmities and divisions.
The third and most crucial reason, however, lies in my reluctance to risk exposing the true identity of a certain mysterious character who, at the time, was widely held to be a rumour and who now, from the vantage point of thirty-five years on, is regarded purely as a figment of myth and superstition, an entity who never existed except, perhaps, in the imaginations of purveyors of penny-dreadful fiction.
I speak, of course, of the bizarre, terrifying and remarkable individual known as Baron Cauchemar...
John H. Watson, MD (retd.), 1925
CHAPTER ONE
THE WATERLOO MASSACRE
I had just stepped off the 3.47 from Ramsgate when all hell broke loose.
One moment I was presenting my ticket for inspection and preparing to step onto the concourse at Waterloo Station. The next, there was an almighty detonation that reminded me of nothing so much as a salvo of artillery fire, a great percussive roar that seemed to tear the very fabric of the air asunder.
I was knocked clean off my feet, and briefly lost consciousness. When I came to, I was aware of a profound ringing in my ears and a sharp smell of burning in my nostrils.
Before me lay a ghastly sight. The orderly, everyday scene of a few minutes before had been utterly transformed. Where there had been people milling about, railway travellers exhibiting the usual mix of urgency and nonchalance, there was now carnage. The injured tottered to and fro, pressing a hand to some wound or other in order to stem the flow of blood. Cries of distress pierced the air, although in my half-deafened state I could only just hear them. I glimpsed a sailor-suited child gripping a toy bear, peering about himself forlornly for an accompanying adult who was either lost or worse. A bookstall owner sat, stunned, his wares cast all around him in shreds like so much confetti.
Everything was wreathed in smoke. Débris lay scattered on the board flooring of the concourse – chunks of masonry, shards of glass. Bodies lay scattered, too. Some bore no
greater sign of harm than a few tattered edges on their clothing, yet their stillness spoke of nothing but death. Others were so mutilated that they scarcely resembled human beings any longer, looking more like something one might find in a butcher’s shop.
I could scarcely comprehend what had happened. In a small, distant part of my mind, a voice was telling me: bomb. Uppermost in my thoughts, however, was the imperative that I must help people. Was I not a doctor, once a surgeon with the Army Medical Department? Had I not come to the aid of countless wounded soldiers at Ahmed Kel, Arzu, Charasiab, and at Maiwand too, until that jezail bullet put me on the casualty list myself?
My army medical training asserted itself. Even as my head cleared and the ringing in my ears began to abate, I sprang into action.
Of the hour or so that followed, I have little clear recollection. It passed in a haze of frantic activity. I attended to whomever was in distress, making an assessment of the extent of their injuries and spending as much or as little time with them as I felt was required – the process of triage so familiar to me from the battlefield hospital. I tore up strips of clothing to press into service as makeshift bandages. I ascertained which fragments of ejecta from the explosion could be safely extricated from the flesh they penetrated and which were so large or lodged so deep that they were better left in place until such time as a trained surgeon could deal with them under operating theatre conditions. I offered reassurance to those not too badly hurt and gave what scant consolation I could to those who, alas, were slipping into that state which lies beyond the power of any mortal to assist them. I also, I am pleased to say, managed to reunite the sobbing child with his nanny, to the great joy of them both.
I remember one doughty old widow who pestered me time and again to examine her, despite my protestations that she had suffered no worse than a few superficial scratches. I also remember – and it will haunt me to my dying day – a mother cradling an infant in her arms, insistent that the babe was alive and well when all the evidence was to the contrary.
It was a terrible experience, one which even a veteran of the Second Afghan War such as myself found harrowing and nightmarish. All these people had been quietly, innocently going about their business, heading home from work, waiting to greet a newly arrived friend or relative, preparing to embark on a journey, none of them having the least inkling that, in a split second, their lives would be reduced to chaos and horror. Whatever feelings of hope, trepidation or expectation they might have had, had been obliterated in an instant by an act of wanton, unconscionable destruction.
I did not pause to wonder, at the time, who had committed the atrocity. I had no doubt that it was a deliberate act of terrorism, for there had been two similar incidents in London during the previous fortnight, neither bomb blast as devastating as this one but both intended to cause considerable damage and sow fear and discord among the populace. I did not let that concern me. I simply focused on the matter at hand: easing pain and saving as many lives as I could.
When the police arrived on the scene, I directed them towards the victims in direst need of proper medical attention, and soon enough, hackney cabs, private carriages, and even a grocer’s wagon, had been commandeered to ferry the injured to hospital.
Once the situation seemed to be under control and the concourse was free of all but corpses, I was able to halt and take stock. The surge of adrenaline that had borne me through the past couple of hours receded, and I found myself starting to tremble. Nausea nearly overwhelmed me. My hands, coated in the blood of others, shook uncontrollably. I had not been in such close proximity to so much slaughter in years and, unsurprisingly, I had not become inured to it in the interim. It was as horrific to me now as it had been a decade ago on the subcontinent.
Two thoughts brought me some slight comfort. One was that my Mary had not been there to witness this appalling massacre or, worse, be a casualty of it. She was some seventy miles east, in the town I had just travelled up from.
My wife was, as it happened, recovering from a miscarriage, her third since we were wed two years earlier. I have not referred to our childbearing misfortunes anywhere in my published writings, as I deem it too private a subject for public consumption and anyway of no real interest to my readers. Here, though, in this account which is likely to be seen by no eyes but mine, I can at least mention how Mary and I, in spite of our best efforts, failed to produce offspring. It is a source of great regret to me, even now, that I have no heirs, no children and grandchildren to lighten the burden of old age. My only hope for posterity, such as it is, lies in the written works that I leave behind.
Mary had taken this third setback particularly hard, so I had prescribed a stay with a cousin of hers who owned a cottage on the Kent coast. There she might find calm and relaxation and recover her mental equilibrium. Her condition had undoubtedly improved, and it had been mooted that she would accompany me on my return to London that very day, but I had seen how wan her features still were and how her eyes continued to lack their usual lustre, and had pronounced her not yet ready to resume city life with all its demands and vicissitudes. I thanked providence that I had made the decision I had.
The other comforting thought was that the perpetrators of this outrage would face the full might of the law.
I knew this for a fact, because I happened to have a dear friend who had dedicated his life and his vast intellect to the pursuit of justice and who would, if charged with the task, stop at naught to see the malefactors apprehended and arraigned.
Thinking of Sherlock Holmes, I resolved to pay a call on him there and then. Outside the station I hailed a cab and presently was on my way to 221B Baker Street.
CHAPTER TWO
THE DISFIGURED DELIVERY BOY
After the carriage had deposited me at my destination and pulled away, I paused to peer up at the house where Holmes and I had once, until quite recently, shared rooms. The autumnal twilight lent a golden glow to the plaster façade of the ground floor and the bare brickwork of the upper storeys. I felt a brief pang of nostalgia for the period when the two of us had lived here together and for the adventures that had always been a knock on the door away. Anybody might turn up at the residence of the world’s first and foremost consulting detective, at any hour, and most likely the result of their visit would be Holmes and I haring off on some wild, extraordinary, often dangerous investigation.
I was now a happily married man, approaching forty and with a thriving general practice. I had every reason to be content with my lot and not to wish to jeopardise it, or myself, in any way. Yet I could not help but miss those younger, helter-skelter bachelor days when, with scarcely a warning, my friend and I might find ourselves confronted with a lethally venomous swamp adder or a vexing mystery arising from something no more apparently innocuous than a few orange pips in an envelope. There had seemed so much possibility in the world back then, and for all that I continued to assist Holmes on numerous cases, I doubted life would ever be quite so thrillingly unpredictable again.
As I stood on the pavement, lost in these maudlin musings, the front door of 221B opened before me, and out stepped a telegram delivery boy.
I say “boy” but he stood a good six feet tall and, by his broad shoulders and well-proportioned, generally sturdy physique, I took him to be in his early twenties at least, if not older.
What struck me about him, however, apart from his being a grown-up when most in his profession were too young even to shave, was that he was hideously disfigured. I can put it no less plainly than that. His face bore extensive scarring, particularly on the right-hand side. Waxy-looking tissue distended both corners of his mouth and drew down the edge of one eye, giving him an air of perpetual grievance and mistrust. A chunk of his hair was absent at the temple, just below the band of his peaked cap, and his right ear was all but nonexistent, just a few nubs of cartilage fringing a puckered hole like the rim of a volcanic crater.
Through my work, I was accustomed to the many distortions and mutila
tions which birth and accident can visit upon the human anatomy. Nonetheless I could not avoid staring at this poor creature as he came down the front steps towards me. Manners ought to have prompted me to avert my eyes, but doubtless I was still in shock from the bombing and its aftermath, so much so that my normal sense of decorum temporarily deserted me.
The telegram delivery boy met my gaze and held it. He must have been used to receiving unwelcome, searching looks from strangers. His eyes, in contrast to the physiognomical ruin that surrounded them, were among the sharpest and clearest I have ever seen. They seemed to dance like starlight amid stormclouds. I was conscious of being assessed by them, appraised, judged, with a keenness I had beheld in only one other pair of eyes before – and their owner was surely sitting upstairs at this very moment, ruminating on whatever message the delivery boy had brought.
Unless...
Could it be that this individual was none other than Holmes himself, decked out in one of his many disguises?
No. The eyes were the wrong colour, a piercing blue rather than Holmes’s flinty, perceptive grey. Altering the hue of his irises was beyond even my friend’s great powers of self-camouflage.
The telegram delivery boy took in my somewhat dishevelled state, the dried blood that still caked my hands, the dazedness that I must yet have been exhibiting. Then he smiled and saluted.
“Good day to you, sir,” he said.
“Good day to you,” I replied mechanically, with a tip of my felt bowler.
More would have been exchanged, but at that moment a first-storey window casement rattled up and Holmes himself leaned out, once and for all quashing any notion I might have had that the delivery boy was actually he.
“Ah, Watson, there you are,” my friend barked. “I thought I heard a familiar voice. What are you dawdling for? Hurry on up. There’s work to be done!”
Accordingly I hastened indoors and, firing off a swift salutation to Mrs Hudson in her parlour, mounted the stairs.