by Andrew Lane
‘If, as you logically point out, a ghost that can walk through walls as if they weren’t there should fall through the floor, then it seems logical to conclude that all ghosts will end up at the centre of the earth. If, of course, they are bound by gravity. Perhaps that’s why the Church teaches that hell is beneath us, and heaven above.’
Sherlock nodded decisively. ‘The whole thing is based on a series of premises that make no sense.’
‘So that disposes of ghosts. Very well. What about the concept that something of a person – call it their spirit or their soul – survives after the death of the body? That is, you will admit, a slightly different prospect.’
‘Didn’t someone once say that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, although energy can change forms, and energy can flow from one place to another? I think I read that somewhere.’
‘A German physicist and physician – Hermann von Helmholtz. Very precise and methodical, the Germans. That is why they make such superb engineers. Lord help us if they ever decide to take over the world – their single-mindedness and determination would virtually guarantee their success.’
‘So, if a person’s consciousness is defined as a form of energy within the brain, then it makes sense that the energy isn’t destroyed when the brain is destroyed. It either flows to another place or is transformed into a different type of energy.’
‘An excellent point,’ Mycroft conceded.
‘Why so much interest in souls and the persistence of character and memory after death?’ Sherlock asked, intrigued. ‘And what on earth does it have to do with the reason you are here in Galway?’
‘You will be aware that my job in the British Government involves collecting information from a number of agents located around the world. I trawl this information in, as a fisherman might trawl mackerel, and then I sort through it all, seeking fish hidden in the catch that are considerably rarer than mackerel, or perhaps looking for two or three mackerel whose markings by themselves appear random but which can be put together to form a bigger picture.’ He frowned. ‘I believe I will abandon the fishing metaphor. It isn’t helping me make my point. Anyway, my job is frustrated by three things – communication, perception and death.’
‘You are going to need to explain that a little more, if you don’t mind. Without recourse to fishing.’
‘Of course. Communication is a problem because it takes weeks or sometimes months for my agents to get information to me, and by the time it arrives on my desk it is often out of date, superseded by events. The man who invents a means of communication that enables someone to speak to another person on the other side of the world as though they were in the next room will, I guarantee, become a millionaire. Perception is a problem because I expect my agents to look at each scrap of information that comes into their possession as though they were me, but they aren’t. I have a feeling that they often throw away scraps of information that they believe are unimportant but which, if I saw them, would lead me to come to important conclusions. Death is important because a significant number of my agents have a habit of ceasing to exist before they can give their reports to me.’ Sherlock glanced at Mycroft, shocked, and his brother continued: ‘I do not wish to sound callous. I know they have loved ones, and families who will miss them. The problem is that the nature of this business means that many of them work in dangerous, out-of-the-way places where accidents often happen to people or where they catch strange foreign diseases. Others have a habit of getting caught while infiltrating government buildings in various capital cities around the world and being killed either while trying to escape or, shortly afterwards, by hanging or by firing squad. It is, regrettably, a risk that the job entails. They all know that it might happen.’
Sherlock found a vision of his friend Rufus Stone flashing in front of his eyes. He knew that Rufus had been, and indeed still was, an agent of his brother. Had Rufus been sent into some of these dangerous situations that his brother was talking about? Was there a chance that he could have been, still might be, killed? He decided not to ask.
‘I suppose that the problem there is that when they die, the information in their heads dies with them?’
‘Indeed. It happens all too often.’
Sherlock had a sudden sense of where Mycroft was heading. ‘And if there were some means of contacting them after their deaths, you might be able to retrieve the information they have learned and make use of it?’ he asked. He was taken aback by the scale of Mycroft’s vision. Was it likely that something like that could be done? Was it even conceivable?
‘I understand your scepticism. Nobody has ever managed to demonstrate communication with the dead in conditions other than a badly lit room when everyone is holding hands and facing into the centre. The trouble is that the British Government has been approached by a man, a medium, who currently resides in Ireland. His name is Ambrose Albano, and he claims that he can find any recently deceased spirit and establish a two-way communication with it. If his claims are true, and I do appreciate the enormity of what lies behind the word “if”, then the government which controls, or even first exploits, that means of communication would have an advantage over the rest of the world that would be difficult to eradicate.’
‘And that is why you are here – to look into his claims?’
‘Indeed. I am sceptical, and my lords and masters know that, but when I protested about being sent all the way here they pointed out that if a sceptic such as me could be persuaded then the claim must be true. Sadly I could not argue with their logic.’
‘Couldn’t this medium have travelled to London? He could demonstrate his skills in front of a much larger audience then.’
Mycroft nodded. ‘I did make that point, along with the associated point that his insistence on being examined in Ireland strongly suggested that he wanted to control the environment in which he was tested, but my arguments fell on deaf ears. He does not travel, we were told – something to do with a head injury he once received and which is connected in some strange ways with his spiritualist skills. No, despite my well-known dislike of travelling I found myself forced into planning a little jaunt across the Irish Sea.’
‘How did he end up at Cloon Ard Castle?’
‘I understand that Sir Shadrach Quintillan, whose castle it is, has become his protector and patron.’
‘I’ve never heard of him.’
There is no reason why you should have – the title is not hereditary, and was awarded for services rendered to the Royal Family. He is, however, an interesting man, as you will discover when we meet him – which will be this afternoon when we travel up to the castle.’
‘And what is my role in this likely to be?’
‘You are an intelligent boy, and a keen observer of details. I would value your opinions as a backup to my own. In addition, there may be occasions when you see things that I am not in a position to see.’
‘We are staying at the castle?’
‘Indeed. I am assured that Sir Shadrach’s hospitality is unrivalled – at least, in the West of Ireland.’
Sherlock stared for a moment at his brother. ‘What do you want to get out of this, Mycroft? Do you want it to be true, or not, that this medium can communicate with specific and named dead people?’
‘Whether or not I want it to be true is immaterial. I am here to establish whether or not it is true. Personal preferences must be ruthlessly filtered out of the consideration; otherwise they may affect the final decision.’ He sighed. ‘But for myself, I hope that it is not true. I am aware that a number of my agents suffered quite substantially before their deaths. There are, sadly, many regimes around the world less considerate than Britain. I would prefer to think that death was an escape from suffering, rather than just a bump in a longer road.’
‘And,’ Sherlock ventured gently, ‘you wouldn’t want to talk to them if you thought they might blame you for what happened to them.’
‘Indeed. And they would. I feel sure that they would.’
<
br /> That thought stopped them both from speaking for a while. There was a dessert of some kind of cream flavoured with alcohol, but Sherlock hardly tasted it. He was still thinking through the implications of what Mycroft had told him. If it was true that the spirits of the dead could be made to speak then the world would be revolutionized. The implications were immense!
After finishing their desserts, Mycroft took Sherlock up to his room. His luggage was already neatly packed. A few moments after they entered there was a knock at the door. A man entered, well-dressed but deferential, with several shirts and suits. He handed them to Sherlock, who stared in bemusement. He hadn’t worn anything so formal since Shanghai, and that had been a long time ago.
‘Try them on in the bathroom,’ Mycroft suggested. ‘I have already taken delivery of various sets of undergarments for you. I left them on a shelf in there. Please try them as well.’
When Sherlock finally emerged from the bathroom, feeling uncharacteristically constrained by the unfamiliar clothes, another man had arrived. He had a large box in his hands.
Mycroft looked Sherlock up and down. ‘Yes,’ he said critically, ‘that will do.’ Indicating the new arrival, he added: ‘This gentleman has brought several pairs of shoes in different sizes. Please select the ones that fit you best while I settle up.’
A few minutes later Sherlock was fully outfitted. Or at least he thought he was. Mycroft gazed at him and said, ‘A cravat, I think, will set the whole ensemble off. I have taken the liberty of selecting one for you.’
Back in the bathroom, Sherlock stared at himself in the mirror. It was like looking at a painting – he hardly recognized himself any more. The image in the mirror bore no relationship to the image of himself that he had in his mind.
At five to four Mycroft called for a valet to carry his bags down to the carriage. He had bought a carpet bag for Sherlock to carry his meagre possessions. Just as they were about to leave the room he suddenly raised his hand and slapped his forehead. ‘Idiot! I almost forgot.’ Bending down on the other side of the bed, not without some difficulty, he retrieved a strangely curved case and held it out to Sherlock. ‘I thought you might find a use for this.’
Sherlock took it in wonder. It was a violin case! With unsteady fingers he opened it. Inside lay, as he knew it would, his old violin – the one he had bought from a trader in Tottenham Court Road.
‘Something to connect you to your previous life,’ Mycroft said. ‘I retrieved it from Holmes Manor on my last visit.’
‘That was . . . very thoughtful,’ Sherlock said quietly. ‘Thank you.’
They made their way down to where the carriage was waiting. Within a few minutes they were clattering through the cobbled streets of Galway, heading north, parallel to the coast. The road gradually began to slope upward, and Sherlock was soon looking down on the glittering grey ocean.
Sherlock couldn’t be sure, but based on the size and the number of masts, he had a strong suspicion that a ship he could see at the quayside was the Gloria Scott. He felt a sudden and unaccustomed pang of regret. She had been hard, but she had been home. He would miss her.
He hoped he would get the opportunity to travel abroad again, at some point in his life.
It took half an hour for the carriage to make its way from the town of Galway to Cloon Ard Castle. The sky was grey with low clouds, and a fine drizzle washed the landscape. Everything that Sherlock could see from the window appeared to be coloured in various shades of green and grey.
The carriage abruptly turned left, through a stone gateway in an eight-foot-high stone wall that appeared to surround an estate of some kind.
‘Say as little as you can when we arrive,’ Mycroft cautioned. ‘But keep your eyes and your ears open. I would be very interested to know what impression you form of the people and the situation that we are joining.’
Cloon Ard Castle, when they finally arrived, was smaller than Sherlock had imagined. It was essentially a squat, four-storey tower of grey stone in the middle of one side of a forbidding three-storey wall. There were windows in the wall – narrow slots that glowered down on to the landscape – indicating that they were thick enough to contain rooms and corridors, and were not just narrow defensive features. The corner of the wall that faced them as they approached had a similar but smaller tower built into it. Sherlock couldn’t see if there was a matching tower on the other side. The whole thing was surrounded by a wide moat. A drawbridge crossed the moat to a wide arch set into the wall.
As the carriage pulled around the side of the castle to get to the drawbridge, Sherlock looked out of the other window, the one facing away from the castle. He realized that the far side of the moat was only a few yards from a cliff edge. Over the edge of the cliff, several hundred feet below, were the grey waters of the Atlantic.
The sound made by the carriage’s wheels changed from wood on earth to wood on wood, as they crossed the drawbridge and entered the castle through the arch. The carriage halted and, seconds later, the driver jumped down and opened the door for them.
Sherlock emerged first, and helped his brother down. The air was fresh and cold, and smelt of the sea. The area inside the walls was paved with large slabs of moss-dappled stone. Gulls wheeled overhead.
Sherlock looked around at the inside of the castle. It was pretty much as he had imagined from outside: a square formed by the walls, with a large block in the middle of the side facing the Atlantic – presumably the main accommodation – and a smaller tower on one of the two nearest corners.
A door set into the main block opened. Sherlock and Mycroft turned to face it. Instead of a set of steps leading up to the door, Sherlock noticed that there was a stone ramp. Odd, he thought.
From the darkness of the doorway, a figure emerged – a man in a three-wheeled bath chair being pushed by a severe-faced woman wearing a black jacket, grey waistcoat and, strangely, striped trousers. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun. For a horrible moment Sherlock thought it was Mrs Eglantine, his uncle and aunt’s poisonous former housekeeper, but although this woman was similar in build and features she was not the same. The man she was pushing was in his fifties, handsome, with tightly curled grey hair, but what struck Sherlock particularly was that he was black.
He smiled down at Mycroft and Sherlock, and threw his arms open wide. ‘What a pleasure to welcome you to Cloon Ard Castle. Please, come in, come in!’
A movement in the shadows of the doorway attracted Sherlock’s attention. It was only when a third person stepped forward that he could see that it was a man of about his own size and build. He was wearing a black suit and a black hat, and his unfashionably long black hair cascaded down on to his shoulders. His right eye was bright blue, and stared at Sherlock with piercing curiosity.
His left eye was a sphere of cloudy glass that seemed to glow with its own internal light.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Sir Shadrach,’ Mycroft boomed as he climbed the stone ramp towards the front door. ‘It is a pleasure and an honour to meet you.’ He stopped a little way down, so that he was not towering over the man in the bath chair. He held out a hand, and Quintillan took it, shaking twice and then relinquishing it. ‘I am—’
‘Mycroft Holmes, representing the British Government,’ Quintillan said. ‘Your fame precedes you, Mr Holmes. Welcome to my home.’ He glanced at Sherlock. ‘I suggest that your man takes your bags and puts them in your room.’
‘I did not bring a servant,’ Mycroft explained smoothly. ‘This is my . . . brother, Sherlock. He has the ability to think logically, and to observe dispassionately, which I find to be rare and valuable.’
‘Then your brother is welcome here,’ Quintillan said. His voice was deep and warm. ‘Please, come inside. We have refreshments prepared for you.’ He glanced over his shoulder briefly. ‘The gentleman standing in the shadows of the doorway is, as you will already have realized, Mr Ambrose Albano. Permit me to introduce you.’
Sherlock had been trying not to stare at the
man, despite his striking appearance, but now that Albano had been formally introduced he felt that he could look without appearing rude.
Albano was slim and tall, with white skin and large but thin hands. His suit seemed to fit him badly: it was too large around his chest and his limbs, but the sleeves were so short on him that his bony wrists stuck out, and the hems of his trouser legs hovered far enough above his shoes that his socks were clearly visible. His milk-white face, shadowed by the wide-brimmed hat, was pocked with circular scars from some childhood disease. His front teeth were prominent, and his nostrils flared, giving him a look rather like a horse, but it was his left eye that attracted Sherlock’s attention like a magnet. It was the colour of milk mixed with water, and it had no pupil or iris.
He didn’t step forward to offer his hand either to Mycroft or to Sherlock. Instead, he stared at them both. ‘Doth mine eye offend thee?’ he said, noticing the way Sherlock was looking at him. His voice was high-pitched, and sounded strangely like someone letting the air out of a balloon.
‘I’m sure that my brother doesn’t wish to appear rude,’ Mycroft said before Sherlock could say anything.
‘I would imagine,’ Sherlock said, speaking not to Mycroft but to Albano, ‘that people either try to ignore your eye, or fixate on it to the exclusion of all else. I was merely trying to work out what had happened to you. An accident, I presume?’
‘Sherlock . . .’ Mycroft warned.
‘Your brother is very direct,’ Albano said. ‘I appreciate that. He is right – most people either pretend that nothing is wrong, or they stare and then stutter when they try to speak.’ He raised a hand to his left temple. ‘The answer is simple: I was injured when I was young. I was chopping wood with an axe. A chip of wood flew up and penetrated my left eye. The eye could not be saved. For many years I wore an eyepatch, but when I was in my early twenties I journeyed to India, where I met a holy man. He told me of a stone, a special stone, that was the eye of a statue in one of the local temples. This stone, he said, was rumoured to be strong in magical qualities, and had been used in times past to see beyond the veil of this world and into other planes of existence. I became obsessed with this stone. Eventually, and through circumstances too complicated to relate now, it came into my possession. I took it to be no coincidence that the stone was just the right size to be placed into my own, vacant, eye socket. That is how I brought it home – wearing an eyepatch so that nobody would see it and comment on it.’