by David Marcum
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was a simple, unadorned two-story house that must have once been the pride of the street until it eventually fell into disregard and lost most of its attractive qualities. Yet, that rustic charm still lingered amid the old cabinets sparsely filling the rooms, the shoddy carpet along the passageways, and the weather-stained floral wallpaper covering up almost every space unoccupied by the furniture or empty bookcases.
“It’s all dust and wind, methinks,” Mr. Lynch muttered. He seemed to be talking to no one in particular, as neither of us seemed inclined to strike up any sort of conversation with him. Even Mrs. Dillenberger, who was no stranger to the servant, seemed unwilling to try and comprehend what he was arguing about. Her troubled look had not faded away and she seemed to quicken her pace behind Mr. Lynch, as if eager to press on with the matter at hand.
By now we had made it to the first floor and stood in another gloomy corridor very similar to the one below, except that it was smaller and narrower. Occasionally, the muffled howls of the wind could be heard slipping through some half-shut window. The stuffiness increased and sweat began to trickle down my back underneath the overcoat to which I had gladly clung just moments before we entered the house. I followed Holmes, who had taken the liberty of examining the two spare rooms on either side of the corridor. Having found nothing out of the ordinary, except more creaking floorboards, stale air, and signs of disuse, Mrs. Dillenberger approached us as we were about to leave the second room.
“Pardon me, sirs, but if you would excuse me, I’d like to pay a visit to my husband and see how he fares,” she said timidly, with a nervous smile.
“Absolutely, and we shall join you too,” replied Holmes enthusiastically. But before he had taken another step, Mr. Lynch darted in between him and our client. His baleful eyes stared suspiciously at my companion.
“Mr. Dillenberger has given me orders not to allow anyone to disturb his repose, except his wife and none else,” he said bluntly.
Holmes remained silent, staring at the man, who seemed to falter under my friend’s intense gaze.
“As a medical doctor, perhaps I could examine Mr. Dillenberger’s condition,” I suggested, peeking from behind Holmes’s shoulder. My overbearing sense of duty and welfare came before anything else, no matter what extraordinary circumstances awaited us in a case.
“Nobody must disturb Mr. Dillenberger. Nor any stranger doctors, nor anyone else,” retorted Mr. Lynch with even more severity, whilst looking at me and my companion in turn.
“Perhaps a visit to the attic, Mr. Holmes? I’m sure you’ll want to begin your investigations there,” said our client in an apologetic tone.
“Quite right Mrs. Dillenberger. No doubt Mr. Lynch here can show us the way,” he replied, looking cheekily at the disgruntled man before him.
So whilst Mrs. Dillenberger headed down to the end of the corridor, we followed Mr. Lynch towards the decrepit-looking staircase which led to the attic.
“Mr. Dillenberger has never liked anyone going into his study, not even myself.” Our guide stopped to lean against the handrail. He said no more, but simply pointed at the wooden door at the top of the stairs, before proceeding to give us one of those sinister gazes with which he seemed most comfortable.
Holmes and I ascended slowly and with caution. The staircase consisted of only a few cracked steps, but there was much creaking of wood before we eventually found ourselves on the doorstep to the attic. The gloom had now intensified considerably and, as Holmes reached for the door handle, it was evident that darkness lingered heavily behind it. Before following my companion, I glanced back to find Mr. Lynch still leaning against the stairs and looking up at me, grinning with menace. His expression unnerved me considerably, and Holmes’s unusual silence, as we walked inside, made me even more uncomfortable.
As I closed the groaning door behind me, a small ball of light emerged from the middle of the room. Holmes had lit a candle, presumably from the half-burnt wax sticks which lay scattered in a tray on top of a battered cabinet just by the door. The air was musty and more confined than the rest of the house. Clouds of dust were disturbed by every gentle step we took around the attic. The weak candle light made our shadows dance feverishly along the crooked wall and ceiling which joined together at an oddly obtuse angle.
It was hard to make out the actual size of the space. The darkness that circled around us, away from my companion’s light, denied us from guessing how far the room stretched back. Holmes paced lightly over the creaking floorboards. In his left hand, he held the candleholder with its feeble flame. He used the other to inspect the objects which revealed themselves to the light as we moved further in.
Wooden boxes piled on top of each other blocked almost all sides of the room. Meanwhile, blank pieces of paper lay scattered over the floor, amid stained glass tubes of various sizes, large cotton sheets, stands, and stools. Serving as essential equipment for the serious photographist were also several bulky pieces of apparatus, well taken care of and all carefully laid out on a long table which stretched from one end of the room to the other.
Except for the constant murmur of the wind from outside, an eerie silence roamed in that attic, one which disliked being disturbed. The oppressive gloom seemed to drown out everything. The air grew warmer and the sweat which ran down my back turned chill. Besides the overpowering smell of chemicals, there was also a persistent scent which rose above all others - a pungent odour with a distinct oily smell seemed to blend with the musty room.
“It would appear this is Mr. Dillenberger’s own darkroom,” Sherlock Holmes proclaimed loudly amid the fleeting shadows of the light, his voice booming peculiarly around the clustered attic.
“A what?” I gasped, somewhat flustered by the sudden shattering of silence.
“Our client’s husband is a spirit photographer. This is his laboratory. As much as my own is at 221b, Mr. Dillenberger utilised his space for the purposes of exposing the captured world onto paper.”
He swerved round, pointing towards the machinery on the table, while the flame in his hand flickered violently.
“The bulkiest of those - the specialist would call it an enlarger - aides in processing a photographic print. Not to mention the unmistakable scents of sodium thiosulphate and other solvents that allow the light from the photographic machine to project and expose onto paper or glass sheets. Quite an extraordinary feat.” Leaning forward, he sniffed deeply as if following some trail around the table.
Having once more glanced fleetingly at these contents around us, Holmes headed towards the main attraction itself: A large box with a short metallic tube emerging from one end, which made up the lens of the machine. Both ends were constructed of wood, whilst the middle consisted of folded leather bellows between the lens and where the image was reflected onto a glass plate for eventual processing. The whole machine stood on a metallic plate which locked itself onto a three-legged stand. The structure stood beside a shuttered window, the only one in the attic, and seemed to be pointing at nothing in particular except the darkness around us.
Upon the floor lay a number of papers similar to the photographic print Sherlock Holmes had presented me with that morning. Handing me the candleholder, my companion knelt down, picking up several of these, before carefully sifting through them. Similar to the photograph Mrs. Dillenberger had brought with her, here were a series of prints showing nothing more than an indistinguishable series of black and white speckles. I leaned over beside my friend, bringing the light closer to the photographs in his hand. As he shuffled through them, each one became progressively clearer. That same silhouette image standing beside the window became less abstract and more pronounced.
I looked at the shuttered window to where the lens was pointing. Mr. Dillenberger had seemingly kept the same angle and position, whilst repeating the process of capturing what could not be seen with the naked eye
.
The candle was slowly burning out as we both stood there gazing at those prints. Holmes then walked around the room, before pausing near the window where the mysterious figure had appeared. He leaned in, examining the window frame closely, before stepping back towards the photographic camera. Then he analysed the glass plate that was inserted at the opposite end of the camera lens, ready to be used for another exposure.
As the light dimmed and the darkness intensified, a piercing wail rose from the very heart of the room and diminished into a series of short moaning gasps. I recoiled in fear and nearly dropped the candle from the suddenness of that cry. Instinctively, my free hand felt for the concealed revolver in my overcoat pocket, whilst the shadows danced mockingly around us as the flame settled down.
“It’s just the voice of the wind, Watson. Nothing more.” His tone was cold, yet at the same time tinged with hesitation.
At that moment, I could hear nothing more than the fervent beating of my heart. Holmes regained his composure from whatever slight disturbance he may have felt and bent once more to analyse the photographic camera.
“Watson,” he called softly. He raised one hand, urging me to come forward, whilst keeping his gaze fixed on the magnifying lens he held with the other.
“Come closer, Watson! I need light, not a weapon.”
He gave me a sidelong glance and proceeded with his analysis, as I inched my way closer to assist his examination. Holmes had never given me the impression that he knew much about this field, yet as I studied his behaviour, he seemed to be well aware of how such machinery worked. He dismantled the back plate to reveal the inner workings of the photographic camera.
“Anyone who is on the path of unveiling a bizarre occurrence,” he said, “must primarily attempt to eliminate every physical possibility of interference. In our present case, the persistent reproduction of these prints should lead us to the supposition that the machine itself has developed a fault.”
Amid several grunts, he managed to insert his lens and carefully analyse all of the mechanical and optical components.
“It would seem everything is in order. What about...” Holmes was cut short as a loud thud echoed behind us.
“‘ere, you two!” shouted a voice from across the room. “Mrs. Dillenberger has asked for your presence to speak to her husband.”
Mr. Lynch’s bent silhouette stood by the door, peering at us through the darkness.
“Excellent idea, but first let us conduct an experiment, shall we?” He looked at me in turn, “Stand still for a few minutes, will you, Watson?”
Closing the machine, he swung its body round, pointing the lens towards me and the candleholder. After several minutes he swung it back round, removing the glass plate before dipping it into a tray filled with liquid and inserting a new plate back in the photographic camera.
“Watson, bring the camera stand and follow me.”
He unlocked the machine from the stand before carrying it all the way downstairs with surprising ease. I picked up the stand and followed suit, making my way towards the exit, glad to finally shut the attic door behind me. After our initial investigations in not very ideal conditions, the corridor now seemed unusually bright, given the scarce amount of lamps in use. The air too felt fresher and less stale than the attic. Breathing was easier and my agitated disposition seemed to calm down.
I found Holmes waiting for me to reassemble the stand so that he could re-attach the machine. He tinkered with the leather bellows of the camera and carefully rotated the ring round the lens whilst pointing at the western end of the corridor from where we had ascended.
“Go along, Watson. I’ll be right there.”
Confused by my companion’s odd behaviour, I followed Mr. Lynch towards the Dillenbergers’ main bedroom whilst Holmes still played with the machine. Inside, I found our client sitting on a large bed next to the figure of a man lying feebly on top. His left hand was placed on his unbuttoned shirt, whilst the other lay over his forehead. Were it not for the painful expression he bore on his pale face, I would have thought he could not have been more than forty. His wife stretched out her hand and clasped his.
“Doctor Watson, my wife tells me you and Mr. Holmes are here on the matter of the blank photographs, are you not?” he said, his voice broken up amid heavy breathing.
“That is correct, but also for your welfare. If I may?” I gestured towards the man and was allowed to proceed closer to begin my examination. While Mr. Lynch lingered by the door and Mrs. Dillenberger provided the necessary reassurances, I continued my diagnosis.
“A terrible, terrible business,” he said. “Never in my occupation as a spirit photographer could I have imagined myself being haunted by such ghostly encounters. Will you and Mr. Holmes investigate? Perhaps ask around the neighborhood, to discover whether this kind of thing has happened here before?” He seemed quite urgent. ‘I can give you the names of some of the neighbors, and the local house agent.” His voice seemed calmer now and his breathing steady. My medical analysis concluded that there was nothing amiss with the man. Physically, he was one of the healthiest patients I had encountered. What resided in his mind, however, was another matter entirely.
“Will you investigate the matter?” the patient asked again. “Perhaps research the history of the house?”
Before I could form an answer, and as the silence in the room settled once more, we heard the distinct footsteps of someone carrying a heavy burden across the corridor. Loud banging and heavy thuds soon followed, before a door was slammed shut and the series of footsteps hurried towards the bedroom.
A hand landed on Mr. Lynch’s shoulder and, as he was gently moved aside, the figure of Sherlock Holmes pushed past into the room. He had a grin on his face and rubbed his hands gleefully.
“Mr. Dillenberger!” he shouted. “I am sorry to see you in such distress over this ghastly affair.” He moved further in, looking at both myself and the client, before returning his gaze to the man on the bed - who had remained silent during this outlandish introduction.
“Now, Malpacu’s vengance. What can you tell me about it?” he added, his gaze unwavering.
Our client’s husband looked uncomfortable and the paleness seemed to return. He glanced at his wife and back at me. “I would rather not dwell on the past Mr. Holmes. The scar is too deep,” he replied after some difficulty.
My companion brought his hands behind his back and shrugged his shoulders with indifference.
“Fair enough, but rest assured I shall bring this spectral case to a successful conclusion,” he said.
“I would like nothing more than that, Mr. Holmes.”
“Capital! Then you will not deny me your participation in a little experiment of mine?”
Mr. Dillenberger rose painfully on his bed, resting his back against the headboard. “Anything to rid us of our current plight.”
“I have taken the liberty of utilising your photographic machine for a few trials, and until I return I would like you to develop the images I have taken,” said Sherlock Holmes.
“You are leaving then?” I said, rising up from beside the patient and walking over to my companion.
“A few enquiries that I have to pursue, nothing more. I would like you to assist Mr. Dillenberger in his work.” He smiled at me, as if punctuating the end of that conversation.
“Mr. Lynch, I’d like a word before I leave,” he finally concluded.
The day progressed, and whilst Holmes took his leave to pursue whatever it was he had on his mind, I was left in that unusual house to wait while Mr. Dillenberger dressed, and then to watch over him as he followed my companion’s instructions to process the photographs he had taken.
We were back in the attic with the wind still howling outside. By acquainting myself once more with the surroundings and contents of the darkroom, I had strengthened my
resolve, although the uneasiness at the possibility of spectral appearances in the attic only served to further unnerve me.
Mr. Dillenberger had regained some of his strength, although he still struggled to walk or lift any heavy objects. I assisted as best I could in handling the glass plates and operating the mechanisms of the enlarger as requested.
True to his profession, he allowed only the faintest amount of light to fill the room, with a small candle burning weakly at the other end of the entrance. He guided himself around quite efficiently, grabbing hold of equipment in the dark without hesitation, trusting in his instinct and the repetitive process of the work itself.
There was hardly any conversation, as Mr. Dillenberger seemed to prefer silence over amicable discourse. He started by projecting the first plate onto an albumen paper base. Utilising a mixture of chemicals, an image slowly began to develop. The distinct outline of my overcoat and candleholder in my hand soon emerged. The photographic image Holmes had taken of me during our previous visit to the attic took shape. It was a mesmerising spectacle, as much as the abysmal light allowed, to see something emerge out of seemingly thin air. Once produced and placed under the available light, the image yielded a blurred appearance. The sharpness of my own face was replaced with smudges and speckles, yet the distinction could certainly be made.
“Photography requires light, and lots of it. There is barely any of it here, hence that,” said Mr. Dillenberger, pointing at the speckles and lack of clarity in the photograph. He handed me the print and headed back to the table to process the next glass plate.
I stood there for a moment, looking at my own self on the piece of paper. Upon closer inspection, moving closer to the light, I could clearly see the unmistakable shadow and silhouette hovering behind my back as it was captured the moment Holmes took the photograph.
The fear which had been so laboriously suppressed since that morning returned to haunt me. The lack of light became more oppressive, and the occasional howl of the wind unsettled me considerably. A sudden clunk and creaking sound seemed to invade the attic before being cut off abruptly. As I turned round, peering into the blackness towards the door, I could see nothing except the faint outline of Mr. Dillenberger at the processing table. I felt as if we were not alone in that ghastly attic. How could I possibly convince Holmes that something beyond what Reason can comprehend may actually exist? Had I stumbled upon the path of an unquiet spirit? Mr. Dillenberger’s lack of communication only increased my sudden agitation.
