Sherlock Holmes and the Alice in Wonderland Murders

by Barry Day

He opened one more door and we found ourselves on a wide balcony looking down into the sunken interior of the house. There we beheld a sight that will stay with me to my dying day.

  The whole of the floor some ten or twelve feet below us was also marble and laid out in squares like a giant chess board. On each of the squares, inset with some kind of glittering mosaic that made it glow in the dark, was a different symbol. Some I recognised, but others looked totally foreign. There was a goat’s head, a spider, a cat and several signs that seemed vaguely astrological but about each of them there was something strangely malignant.

  “The locals were apparently correct in their suspicions,” Holmes said, leaning over the stone balustrade and peering into the gloom below. “Witchcraft was most certainly practised here. See the pentacle over there? Watson, be so kind as to turn up your lantern and hold it over here …”

  As I did as he asked, I heard myself gasp, for there below us were two seated figures. The glittering symbols had sufficiently dazzled us so that only now did we see them in the flickering light of my bull’s eye.

  The reason we had remained unaware of their presence now became readily apparent Both were gagged and trussed to their chairs and each was unconscious. Almost certainly drugged was my immediate thought.

  Then the smaller one stirred slightly. It was Alicia Creighton! Her dark hair had been covering her face but now, as she lifted her head, it fell back and I could see those strong and distinctive features. She appeared unhurt but her face was drawn. I called her name but Holmes, as ever the voice of reason, quietly said what was going through my mind.

  “I doubt if she can hear you, old fellow. Moriarty has certainly sedated them in expectation of our arrival. I think we have more cause to be concerned about her companion. He looks to be in a bad way to me.”

  Now I could recognise the other figure as Steel—and what a strange figure he made. He was dressed in the costume he had worn at Moxton’s fancy dress party but this Jack or Knave of Hearts was no longer the elegant man about town. The costume was crumpled and begrimed and the face pinched and unshaven. It was clear the man had suffered greatly during the last few days. Whatever mistakes he had made, I had no wish to see him degraded in this way.

  “Holmes, we must do something,” I cried, “we can’t let them stay there another moment.” And with that I made to climb over the balcony, even though the drop to the marble floor was a dangerous one. It was something in Holmes’s voice that made me stop.

  “Indeed, Watson, and so we shall but first we must ascertain precisely what. Why do you think Moriarty pointed our feet in this direction? He expects us to be standing on this very spot. How ironic if we were to prove to be the executioners of his prisoners!”

  My friend’s words were like a dash of cold water. Of course, he was right. Immediately I began to use the lantern to examine what could be seen of the rest of the hall. As I did so, I heard a faint murmur.

  “Did you say something, Holmes?”

  But, as I looked round, I saw him raise a finger to his lips. His brows were drawn together into hard lines and those sharp grey eyes were focused like none I have ever seen in another human being. He was straining to hear the sounds that were coming from Steel.

  The man was not fully conscious and I could swear that he was not aware of our presence. Whatever he was trying to impart was something that was possessing him. I leaned forward in unconscious imitation of Holmes’s posture and heard what sounded like—“Not a Court but a House … not a Pack but a House.”

  Now, as I leaned further forward, the light from the lantern played on Steel’s face and I saw the most surprising thing. He was wearing one of those false beards and moustaches that are commonly sold by theatrical costumiers. Someone had obviously hooked it on to him after settling him in the chair and his struggles, feeble though they may have been, had caused it to slip to one side, giving him what should have been a faintly ridiculous air—an air that ought to have been compounded by the tall felt hat with a rakish plume that had been jammed on to his head. Instead, the effect was unsettling, as though the man were shedding one identity and assuming another before our eyes.

  Suddenly I heard a crashing noise from somewhere at the back of the house and Holmes sprang forward with a cry.

  “Lestrade! What was I thinking of? We must stop him, Watson, before it is too late.”

  “Too late for what?” I shouted as I followed him through the maze of rooms back to the hall way by which we had gained access to this house of illusion. In seconds we passed through cultures and centuries, as room gave way to room.

  “I very much fear that Moriarty has set the spring which, through my blockheadedness, is about to be sprung.”

  We were now literally running and I cursed my own lack of fitness. Ahead of me Holmes burst into the entrance hall, where Lestrade and half a dozen uniformed men were now pushing through the wreckage that had been the front door of Royston Court.

  “Lestrade! You must not …”

  Holmes shouted but Lestrade put up a patronising hand before my friend could reach him. “Don’t you worry now, Mr. ’Olmes. Scotland Yard is here to take care of things.”

  Now I saw what Holmes and I had both missed in the gloom. Opposite the open front door, but slightly to one side of it and now clearly illuminated by the lights from the street outside, and the lanterns of Lestrade’s men, was another door. My sense of the geography of the place told me that it had to lead into what I had by now classified as the Satanic Chamber. Even as he spoke, two of Lestrade’s burlier men took a run at the door, which gave way at the impact of sturdy official shoulders.

  By this time I had caught up with Holmes and heard his defeated sigh as the room was suddenly revealed in all its barbaric splendour. There was Alicia and—heaven be praised—she was beginning to stir. There was Steel and again the sight of him brought a flash of memory that was gone almost before it registered.

  I heard Lestrade say—“Hello, what ‘ave we here?”—and then, in front of our eyes, Steel disappeared. The ground beneath him literally opened up and swallowed him.

  There was absolute silence. The look on Lestrade’s face as it turned in our direction was a picture to behold. “But Mr. ’Olmes …”

  “I think you will find a mechanism linking the opening of the main doors of the room with a trapdoor under the square on which our friend Steel was carefully placed. As you will notice, freed of his weight, it has now returned to its original position. Don’t blame yourself unduly, Lestrade. We were not meant to take him alive, so that he could tell us his side of the story. If you had not triggered it, one of us most certainly would have. Unless I am very much mistaken, the main sewer runs directly under this house into the river. I doubt we shall see the poor devil again until the tides see fit to return him to us.”

  “But what about Alicia—Miss Creighton?” I said for Lestrade’s benefit.

  In answer Holmes walked straight into the room and across the arcane mosaics until he was by Alicia’s side.

  “What are you doing, Holmes?” I shouted, expecting to see the ground open up beneath them at any second.

  “Don’t worry, old fellow.” Holmes was almost amused at my display of concern. “This kind of mechanism is employed for a specific purpose and that purpose has been accomplished. Notice where Steel was sitting. In relation to the other symbols he was in the locus of the satanic sacrifice. It would be most unlikely the room would be equipped for more than one. And now, as I see Miss Creighton seems to be recovering consciousness and, as you are the one with the medical qualifications, I believe this is your department.”

  Before he had finished speaking I was at Alicia’s side and unfastening the ropes that bound her to the chair. Moments later I had carried her to what I still considered the relative safety of the main hallway and placed her on one of the few chairs. By now her eyelids were fluttering and when her eyes finally did open, I was glad to be the first person she saw.

  “John,” she said
and her hand gripped mine. “I knew the two of you would find me …” She forced a smile, “I just wasn’t sure you’d find me alive.”

  Then some memory of the recent horrors seemed to seize her and her grip on my hand tightened.

  “It was a nightmare,” she said, her eyes widening but unseeing, as she looked into that second Chamber of Horrors we had seen in recent days. “He still looked like Moxton but it was if you were seeing someone else emerge who had been using his body.”

  There was no need to ask whom she meant by ‘he’.

  “He knew I’d been to see you and Mr. Holmes and he guessed why. Don’t ask me how he knew—but he knew. From that moment his manner towards me changed completely and he had me watched. If I wanted to go out for a walk, he’d have one of those strange foreign men accompany me. He said it was for my protection. The town was not safe with all these terrorists about. At one point I lost my temper and said his men were more than enough to terrorise any terrorist. But he just laughed a horrible cold laugh and said he must protect his ‘investment’, I think he called it. I was a prisoner, that’s all there was to it.”

  “And what about Steel?” I asked, while I tried to chafe some warmth back into those little hands.

  “Something terrible seemed to happen to change everything,” she went on. “Last night I was awakened by a terrible commotion. Doors banging. Men shouting and cursing. Most of the excitement seemed to be centered around his study. I crept out of my room. For the last several days he’d left a man on guard in the corridor but whatever was happening had obviously distracted him. I was able to get close enough to listen through the door that someone had left ajar.”

  The memory of it all seemed to agitate her afresh and I tried to tell her that there was plenty of time to tell her story later but she would have none of it.

  “No, no, don’t you see, John, I may know something or have heard something that you and Mr. Holmes need to know—something I may not even be aware of?”

  Calming herself, she continued. “I could hear that one of the voices was Steel’s. At first he seemed angry and seemed to be pounding the table.”

  She was describing precisely the scene young Wiggins had spied on from the window.

  “But then Moxton—or Moriarty or whoever that devil is—began to speak. He spoke in a cold hard voice that was too soft for me to hear but whatever he said, it reduced Steel to silence. I risked a quick look through the crack of the door and I swear he was shivering. Then I heard Moxton say something about iron being brittle. Just then there was a noise at the window.”

  Exit Wiggins, I thought to myself.

  “When Moxton returned from the window, one of his men must have asked him what caused the noise. ‘Oh, nothing but a rat in the arras,’ he replied with that horrible cold laugh again. Then he said something which frightened me even more. ‘My dear Steel,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid you are becoming something of a trial to me. Which means that I have no alternative but to put you on trial. And since Mr. Carroll has proved such a helpful guide to our recent actions, would it not be fitting to take one more leaf out of his book, hm?’ Let me see, now, how did his trial scene play? Ah yes, ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’ So much tidier, don’t you agree?’ Then he said ‘Hold him!’ to one of his men and there was a brief scuffle. Then he went on—and I swear to you, John, I had this mental picture of a horrible little boy—a horrible clever little boy—pulling the wings off flies. He said—‘I’m afraid the jury have come to the unanimous conclusion that you are guilty, my dear fellow. Such a pity but the voice of the people must be heard in the land. And speaking of voices, I’m sure that, were you not to have that rather unsavoury gag in your mouth, you would now be asking me what your punishment was to be …’”

  It was then I realised that Holmes had now returned and must have heard most of the recent account.

  “Go on—Alicia, I beg you. And what was the punishment to be?”

  “That was the strangest thing, Mr. Holmes. It made no sense at all. Moxton laughed again and said—‘I’m afraid your next role is to be what our American cousins quaintly call the ‘fall guy’ …’ And that’s all I heard. They all started moving towards the door. I think they were dragging Steel. I ran back to my room …”

  Suddenly my not very nimble brain began to race. Images like the fragments in a kaleidoscope came together and separated, came together and separated. I heard Alicia ask Holmes if this terrible business was finally over and Holmes’s reply that he feared Moriarty had one more card to play. But all of this seemed to be happening a long way away.

  Then the pieces stopped circling and came to rest. I saw a picture in my mind that could not have been clearer. It was of the dummy I had meant to study more closely at Madame Tussaud’s. The man was wearing medieval costume complete with plumed hat. For some reason he was carrying a piece of cardboard in front of him and now I could see that it had a drawing on it. Roughly sketched, as if by the hand of a mischievous child, was the smiling face of a cat …

  In the far distance I heard Holmes say—“Just which card that is we now have to determine …”

  And, as if from the bottom of a well, I heard myself say—“I think I can tell you that …”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I cannot ever remember being the centre of attention as I was at that moment. No one asked a question. Their eyes spoke for them.

  To this day I cannot explain what made it happen. Heaven knows, I am not by nature an intuitive man. But suddenly several pieces fell together in my mind and formed a pattern that made sense.

  It was Holmes who triggered it when he talked of Moriarty having one more card to play. And then I saw Steel in that tattered Knave of Hearts costume and heard his last demented babbling—“Not a Court but a House … Not a Pack but a House.” It had made no sense at the time but now I found myself thinking of the Court scene ending of Alice in Wonderland, when Alice cries ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’ just before she wakes up.

  Not a Pack but a House of Cards … something insubstantial, something ready to fall. And then the strange hat and beard Steel was wearing. I’d seen them before—and recently, too. But where?

  Click went the last piece. The dummy I’d hurried past in the Chamber of Horrors without stopping to read the legend the bearded man in the plumed hat had been given to carry.

  “Moriarty is going to blow up the Houses of Parliament,” I said as calmly as I knew how.

  “Of course—The country is a powder keg and all it needs is a match. And the ‘fall guy’ is—Guy Fawkes!” Holmes exclaimed. “Watson, if ever I appear to you to be arrogant in the future, I implore you to remind me of this moment of my abject humiliation. I saw but I did not observe. You and you alone were the lightning conductor.”

  Alicia said nothing but I felt a gentle hand on my sleeve and the look in her eyes was one I had not seen since my dear Mary Morstan all those years ago.

  Holmes now called Lestrade over to join us and succinctly communicated what we had now learned.

  “It may well be Moriarty’s one fatal weakness that, once he has devised a scheme, he is loath to change it, for to do so would admit the successful intervention of another mind. The same vanity that obliges him to leave us these clues also convinces him that we shall be unable to follow them to a successful conclusion—or at least, not in time. To that degree I can sympathise with the workings of that devious mind. To live on the edge is the only true excitement in life.”

  “So you reckon he’s serious, Mr. ’Olmes?” Lestrade scratched his head at the immensity of the thought.

  “Deadly serious, Lestrade. Just consider the pattern as it has evolved. All the earlier disruptions were somehow connected with Parliament. The white rabbits, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary … Steel, the would-be King Across the Water. Which is why it was particularly galling for Moriarty when I employed the same medium to subvert him.

  “He knows full well that anything that happens in the
Mother of Parliaments will not only focus the eyes of the world but undermine confidence, both at home and abroad, in the stability of this country. To repeat the attempt and succeed where Guy Fawkes failed would be the culmination of his present plans. Without Watson’s brilliant deduction, he might well have pulled it off …”

  “Nothing, really,” I muttered, feeling myself blush like a schoolgirl. “Lucky guess.” Praise from Holmes comes so rarely that I have never learned how to handle it in public. My friend was not known to be generous when it came to acknowledging the contributions of others.

  “Well,” said Lestrade, “there’s one good thing …”

  “And what might that be?” Holmes enquired with a dangerous calm in his voice.

  “We’ve got plenty of time to nip the Professor’s little plan nicely in the bud. Unless I’m mistaken, Mr. Fawkes tried his little bit of fun and games on November the Fifth. Today’s only the Fourth.

  “Once again I must beg leave to question your conclusion, Lestrade. I think you will find that the history books record that Fawkes and his fellow conspirators planned to detonate their barrels of gunpowder soon after midnight when November the Fourth had just turned into the Fifth. I see by the watch you insist on waving about so aimlessly that the time is now just after eleven o’clock. We may have barely an hour to bring this matter to a safe conclusion. I suggest …”

  At that moment there was a series of staccato explosions, rather like fire crackers going off. The next thing I knew snakes of flame were crawling up the tapestry-covered walls of the Satanic Room. Being old and desiccated, the tapestries burned like tinder and the result was soon a vision from Hell, as the faces of demons and goblins appeared to rise from the fire before being consumed by it. Ashes and tendrils of burning fabric started to shower on to the marble floor below, casting a flickering light on the occult symbols embedded there. The sight was so phantasmagoric as to be almost beautiful and we all stood there transfixed—except Holmes, who seized Alicia and me by the arm and hurried us to where the broken door stood ajar.