The Cthulhu Casebooks

by James Lovegrove

  “He held them captive, starved them, but then slew them himself,” Gregson countered. “Lack of sustenance left them thin and weak, and Stamford finished the job off by his own hand at the time he needed to.”

  “And through such means adhered to the demands of his lunar agenda. Very well. I grant you that, Inspector.”

  Gregson bowed his head with a measure of grace and a larger measure of sardonicism.

  “Had a coroner assessed the bodies,” Holmes continued, “he may have been able to determine whether their ends were violent. There might have been visible evidence of strangulation, say, or suffocation.”

  “We have that ‘look of terror’,” said Gregson. “It would seem to suggest that the deaths came suddenly and were far from tranquil.”

  “I shall refer you to Watson on that subject.”

  I regaled Gregson with the same discourse on the early effects of bodily decomposition that I had given Holmes.

  “Furthermore,” Holmes said, “the whole business of starving the victims might have led to death striking too soon. What if one of them had expired within the first day or so of captivity? Then Stamford would have had to keep the body while it gradually rotted until the desired date arrived, with all its astronomical or astrological or practical significance. None of the corpses, as far as I am aware, was anything but fresh. I’m certain that signs of bloating, skin discolouration or putrefaction, had there been any, would have been noticed and remarked upon. The smell alone would have drawn attention to the fact that the body had decayed somewhat.”

  “So he was fortunate in that respect,” said Gregson. “The victims all lived long enough.”

  “Indeed so, but there is one final hole I can shoot in the hull of this whole forced starvation thesis that will sink it outright. Dr Stamford was scouting for his next victim only last night.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I didn’t tell you, so I don’t hold you to blame for your ignorance.” Holmes gave a brief summary of our doings at the pub in Shadwell and after. By careful omission he avoided revealing that I had participated in gambling there, leaving it implicit but unsaid that he and I had been tailing Stamford together all along. I nodded discreetly to him, acknowledging his tact.

  “But,” said Gregson, “perhaps he already had this new moon’s victim on hand, trussed up and dead. Perhaps this girl whose saviours you became was to be his sixth victim.”

  “Then he would have been kidnapping her far too soon,” Holmes said, “would he not?”

  Gregson shook his head, conceding defeat. “All the same, Mr Holmes, it seems cut and dried to me. However Stamford did it, he did it, and now he won’t be doing it any more. If you wish to pursue the case further and clear up these peripheral details, by all means go ahead. You have my blessing. I personally shall devote myself to the many other demands on my time.” He patted one of the stacks of case folders, much like a father absentmindedly patting the head of one of his offspring. “But do keep me apprised of your progress.”

  * * *

  The day was brilliantly bright, the air as cold as the sky was blue. Holmes and I picked our way east along the Embankment, with the Thames sliding by on our right, sleek and uninviting, and traffic clattering to and fro on our left. We cut up to Trafalgar Square and thence to Oxford Street, and all the while Holmes was mired in thought, brooding silently. I sensed that any intrusion upon his meditations would be given short shrift, so I refrained. Already I was getting the measure of the man.

  With Advent just begun, the shops on Oxford Street were parading gaily towards Christmas. The windows of almost every one were glittering wonderlands, magnetically attractive to passing children and their mothers, nannies and governesses. There were displays of merchandise festooned with cotton wool to emulate snow, trees garlanded with baubles, sweets, tinsel and paper chains, and wax mannequins of angels, elven toymakers and good old Father Christmas himself. A brass band struck up on Oxford Circus, parrumping their way through a succession of carols and other seasonal tunes. The traffic was not so heavy that they could not be heard above the clatter of wheels and hooves. The festive spirit was everywhere in abundance. Yet it touched neither Holmes nor me. We were insulated from it by Stamford’s horrendous self-assassination and the knowledge of his crimes.

  “Watson,” Holmes said eventually, as we began tramping north through Marylebone, “I do not intend to ask why you froze the way you did in Stamford’s cell, when he started speaking in that alien tongue.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “It appears you have secrets you would rather keep, and it is not my place to pry into them. I shall restrict myself to commenting that, whatever they are, they must be daunting, to have so stalwart a fellow as you in their thrall. Perhaps one day you will see fit to unburden yourself of them to me.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “In the meantime, I hold you under no obligation to continue with me in the investigation into the murders. I should, however, like to enquire whether you would be willing at least to consider assisting me in another sphere, namely the maintenance of my tenancy at 221B. I like the rooms very much. They suit me, and I want to keep them, but I am currently somewhat more impecunious than I would wish, and financial assistance from your good self, as a fellow tenant, would be invaluable.”

  “You’re asking me if I would move in with you and go Dutch on the rent.”

  “I am.”

  “Then why not just say so? I would be more than happy to, Holmes. My current accommodation is nowhere near as comfortable as yours, nor as conveniently situated, and you and I seem to rub along. If you have any bad habits, I am sure they are nothing I couldn’t live with, and I in turn am a fairly regular and dependable sort.”

  “That is exactly what you are, and exactly why I am extending you this invitation.”

  “As to the other issue, the investigation – well, I can’t say I’m not intrigued. It’s like a story missing its final pages. I should like to know how it turns out.”

  “Splendid!” He held out a hand to me, we shook, and the deal was sealed. “I have gained a colleague and a fellow lodger in one fell swoop. Now come, there is much to be done, starting with fetching your belongings from Norwood.”

  “I shall have to give my landlord notice.”

  “Do, but I still want you ensconced at Baker Street today. By early afternoon, if possible.”

  I was unable to fathom why there was such a rush, but I nodded assent.

  “Oh, and, Watson? As an ex-serviceman, you wouldn’t happen to be the owner of a firearm, would you?”

  “I would, as a matter of fact. A Webley Pryse top-break revolver, taking Eley’s No. 2 .450-calibre cartridges.”

  “Excellent. Of all your personal effects, that is the one that will be the most essential in the near future.”

  “Whatever for?”

  Holmes regarded me evenly. “My dear fellow, Dr Stamford may be no longer with us, but there is more going on here than his death. You heard him. ‘Forces at work. Men who would be more than men.’ Stamford and his trail of emaciated corpses are part of something larger. It cannot be otherwise.”

  “You never said so to Gregson.”

  “Why would I? He has so much else on his plate, and I, I have only a host of loose ends which as yet I am unable to tie up. My instinct is that I will eventually do so, if only I can follow them to their extremity. My instinct, too, is that wherever they lead, we may find grave danger.”

  NIGHT HAD FALLEN OVER LONDON, BRINGING WITH it one of those “particulars” for which the city is renowned: the yellowish fogs that turn every street into a miasmic tunnel and reduce visibility to a few yards during daylight hours and even less after dark. The residue of the snow had begun to melt away, leaving the cobblestones and pavements glossily slick, with ridges of ice here and there. It was still bitterly cold, and the chill and the fog in combination made the notion of venturing out of doors undesirable. The warmth and safety of the hearthsi
de were more than usually alluring.

  Yet venture out Holmes and I did, into the noisome, icy breath of the fog, and our footsteps were directed towards Limehouse, specifically towards the opium den owned and run by a certain Gong-Fen Shou.

  En route, Holmes filled me in on all he knew about the Chinaman. Gong-Fen had been resident in Great Britain since the late 1850s, emigrating from his land of origin in the wake of the Second Opium War, the flight of the Emperor and the burning of the Summer Palaces. Nothing was on record about his past before he came to these shores, but he had in the subsequent couple of decades built up a considerable business empire based on the importation of silk and rice. He had cornered the market in England for those two commodities almost entirely, such that an estimated ninety per cent of the trade in them passed through his hands, allowing him to cream a handsome profit off the top.

  He was, then, an immigrant success story, rising from nothing to become the model plutocrat, one who paid his taxes, gave generously to charity, and had a Belgravia mansion and a manor house retreat in the Surrey countryside, each with an army of servants, to show for his entrepreneurialism.

  But darker rumours swirled perpetually around Gong-Fen Shou, linking him to at least three East End opium dens. The same steamships out of Shanghai and Hong Kong that brought over his bolts of silk and sacks of rice also carried chests of raw opium hidden in secret compartments below decks, or so it was alleged.

  Since the restrictions on the sale of opiate-derived drugs imposed by the Pharmacy Act of 1868, addicts often found it easier, and preferable, to visit opium dens and partake of the pure stuff there rather than purchase the watered-down versions that were commercially available in the form of morphine, laudanum and various patent preparations. There were fortunes to be made smuggling and illegally supplying the narcotic, and Gong-Fen was said to be London’s foremost purveyor of it. Nothing had ever been proved to that effect. There had been not a whiff of a criminal prosecution against him. He was to all appearances virtuous, his reputation spotless. Still, it was common currency in the area that he ran those dens. He was the éminence grise behind them, their unseen sponsor and beneficiary. He sat deep at the heart of them like a dragon in its cave, a zealous, quasi-mythical presence.

  Tonight, Holmes and I were going to beard that dragon in its lair.

  The plan was simple. We were posing as a pair of gentlemen, one of us a regular user of the pipe, the other a willing aspirant who was keen to be inducted into its delights. Holmes, of course, was the former, and he had tricked himself out accordingly, adding a touch of sallowness to his complexion with make-up and introducing a dab of salted water into his eyes to lend them a suitable pinkness. I was the latter, under instruction merely to be myself and let Holmes do most of the talking. Our goal? To behave in a manner that would ensure us an audience with the man himself, Gong-Fen.

  This would not be without its risks and rigours, and I was not a little apprehensive as we entered that section of Limehouse that had become a predominantly Chinese community, a network of half a dozen streets where every other mercantile premises was a laundry or a tobacconist and where bobbing Asians in coolie hats outnumbered white westerners five to one. Shop signs were almost all written in Chinese logograms, as were the banners which overhung the roadway announcing who-knew-what in that elegant yet baffling script.

  The buildings were rickety and tawdry, and the smells that emanated from many a basement grating were redolent of foreign climes and exotic cuisines – spicy, fragrant, sometimes repellent. The residents themselves, as they passed us in the fog, spoke to one another in the liquid, songlike intonation of their mother tongue and aimed looks at us that strove to be incurious but bore a hint, or so I thought, of animosity. It was as though they knew we had every right to be there, as native-born Englishmen, yet still resented us as intruders in their realm.

  I cannot say that our country’s behaviour in their homeland over the preceding few decades, alternately swaggering and bullying, would have endeared us to any of their nationality, and of course the situation in China would later come violently to a head during the Boxer Rebellion, the inevitable outcome of British imperial intransigence and the Qing dynasty’s inability to rein in dissent amongst its subjects. All the same, I did not care for being regarded as an interloper in my own city. It put me on my mettle.

  The opium den of which Stamford had been a habitué purported to be an ordinary if rather rundown hotel. Called the Golden Lotus, it was sandwiched between a shop offering herbal medicines and a butcher’s with pigs’ heads and whole duck carcasses hanging on display. A notice posted in the window, in English, promised A WARM WELCOME, ENVIABLE TARIFFS, AND ALL POSSIBLE COMFORTS. As we approached the front steps, the door opened to permit someone to leave. He emerged with his hat brim low and the collar of his ulster drawn up, and hastened past us with scarcely a glance in our direction. No sooner was he out of earshot than Holmes chuckled and, when I asked what was amusing, said, “Did you fail, Watson, to recognise a peer of the realm? A prominent Liberal who sits in the House of Lords, no less?”

  “I barely saw his face.”

  “As he intended. But the features he could not help but expose were sufficient. A man of the utmost probity in his public deeds, yet a noted libertine in his private life. Little wonder that Gong-Fen Shou has remained untroubled by the law, if he can count such illustrious legislators amongst his clients.”

  “How very dashed cynical of you.”

  “Cynicism is simply realism with a veneer of irony.”

  So saying, Holmes climbed the steps and pushed through the door. Inside, in a modestly appointed reception area, we were greeted by a tiny and very old Chinese woman clad in a tight-fitting mandarin gown decorated with flowers. Her hair was coiffed in a tight, glossy bun, which was secured by a pair of chopsticks inserted crosswise. She bowed to us with exemplary courtesy and enquired in broken English what we required.

  “The very best that you have,” Holmes replied. “We have heard great things about your establishment, madam, and are eager to sample its fare for ourselves. I myself am no stranger to the kind of hospitality on offer, while my friend, though unversed, anticipates becoming a frequent caller.”

  Briefly the old woman appraised us both with a wizened, expert eye. Seeming satisfied, she bowed again and said, “Of course, good misters. We would be honour to have you stay with us at Golden Lotus Hotel. We have many, many fine room. You stay for just short time or maybe longer. Maybe upstairs we have just what you looking for.”

  “Upstairs, yes. Somewhere nice and quiet, where no one is likely to disturb us.”

  She beamed toothlessly. “No disturb. No. Much quiet, and sweet dreams.”

  “Sweet dreams. That sounds ideal.”

  “This way.”

  We followed her delicately quick-stepping form up a flight of narrow wooden stairs, and soon were in a low-ceilinged room with shuttered windows and a score of low bunks pressed close together. The atmosphere was filled with smoke so dense it was almost as impenetrable as the fog outside, and richly, beguilingly aromatic. Oil lamps gleamed like faint stars, and on almost every mattress lay a human figure, each with a pipe in his hands or lying nearby him. Some of these people were inert, utterly limp, as though drained of all energy. Others moved restlessly, limbs twitching, throats emitting mumbled snatches of monologue. Now and then a dim, lacklustre eye fluttered open and caught mine, but I did not have the impression of being seen but rather of being looked through, as though I were a phantom, evanescent and unreal.

  A couple of Chinamen dressed in long shirts, loose trousers and close-fitting caps glided amongst the smokers, checking on them as solicitously as nurses making their ward rounds.

  “Li. Zhang.” The old woman beckoned the pair over. “You take good care of these two gentlemen.” She patted one of the chopsticks in her hair, adjusting its position slightly. “You understand?”

  Li and Zhang both nodded.

  Holmes slipped
the old woman a shilling for her pains. She accepted the coin with yet another tidy bow before disappearing back to her post at reception.

  Both of the Chinamen were young, and the one I took to be Li wore a moustache consisting of two lengthy tendrils that hung down on either side of his mouth like the barbels of a sturgeon, while his companion, Zhang, was clean-shaven but sported a foot-long pigtail queue. With gestures and soft murmurs they directed us to a pair of adjacent vacant bunks. They barely had a word of English between them, but the language barrier was immaterial. They needed to communicate only where we were to lie and how much money we should give them. When Holmes produced a crown, Zhang shook his head ruefully and held up two fingers. Holmes duly doubled the price to a half-sovereign, which was graciously accepted.

  So far, so civilised.

  Holmes stretched himself out on his bunk with a louche, experienced air. I followed suit, in my own way. Li and Zhang departed and returned shortly with long metal pipes, the bowls of which they stuffed with tarry brown wads of opium. They handed us one each, then placed small oil lamps on stools next to us. They invited us to roll onto our sides and made a dumb show of placing the pipe bowl over the lamp flame and sucking air in through the mouthpiece at the other end. Holmes nodded impatiently, as though an old hand at the practice, and shooed Li and Zhang away. The two Chinamen retreated into the wreaths of smoke, leaving us to our own devices.

  “How far are we meaning to go with this?” I asked Holmes in a whisper. “You don’t really expect me to ingest opium, do you?”

  “Play along,” came the reply. “Pretend. Make it look good. Just remember not to inhale.”

  Easier said than done. I was already woozy and fuddle-headed from the fumes in the room alone. I feared that I might inadvertently take some of the smoke from the pipe into my lungs and this would be enough to tip me over into a state of full-blown narcotic delirium. In a gingerly fashion I heated the opium over the lamp until it began to sizzle, then drew on the pipe until hot, smooth smoke flooded my mouth. I kept it there for a few seconds before breathing it out in a plume. I saw Holmes do the same on the other bunk. He made the subterfuge look more convincing than I believe mine was. After several further puffs he let his head sink back on the pillow, pulled his legs up, and laid the smouldering pipe across his chest. I copied him, adding what I hoped sounded like a satisfied moan, an expression of pure contentment.