Two of the sailors ran past me, yelling, “Fire!”
Indeed, new flames had broken out in an outbuilding which had somehow been spared before. I followed the sailors as quickly as I could, my bad leg choosing this moment to seize up. Holmes, though, kept poking around the main house as if nothing new or unusual were happening.
“Holmes, for God’s sake! There’s another building on fire!” I yelled.
“The wind is blowing the smoke away from us,” he said, completely unperturbed. “I’ll be along presently, Watson.”
For what seemed to me like several hours (though it was more like ten minutes), Holmes explored the compound before returning to our party. Finally, I was able to share my data with Holmes.
“A body that size and shape certainly fits the description of Alexandre Moreau,” Holmes said. “We appear to be too late. Whoever cleared this place out did a thorough job. I found nothing but the melted instruments of torture and the remains of a few cages inside the House of Pain.”
“So you think the fire was set deliberately?”
“No, take a look over at that shed. They kept their food supplies in there. The flash point—”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The spot where the fire ignited,” Holmes said. “The fire started when a wooden chair caught flame, which then spread to wooden barrels and, eventually, the thatched roof. I found some broken glass and metal over there, and it could have been a lamp. No deliberate arsonist would go about it that way, and it’s not as if there are any authorities here to investigate and prosecute. No, clearly an unfortunate accident, but at least it has put an end to the Moreau horrors.”
We prepared to leave, thinking our work done, but we heard sounds of fighting on the beach. Rushing to the scene, we saw several sailors grappling with some Moreau monsters, Challenger at the center of the melee.
On seeing us, a young woman who apparently had accompanied the other party, bolted in our direction when she saw us.
“You must help us!” she cried, in French. “They attacked from nowhere!”
I could see a hyena with severely porcine qualities, and absurdly wondered why anyone would waste good pork in such a manner. But the creature’s teeth and claws had made short and bloody work of one French sailor and had trapped a second by the foot.
“Watson! Your Webley!”
“Sorry, Holmes. We were so eager to get here I left it on the ship.”
Challenger, enraged, slammed his fists against the creature’s snout, causing a bellow of pain and freeing the trapped French sailor. But he also caught the monster’s attention, and it leapt for his throat.
“You must die!” it snarled.
“George!” the girl cried. “George!”
Our men had remembered their knives, and the blades flashed in the hot sunshine as they plunged into the hyena-swine’s haunches and torso. Now wounded and bleeding, it turned and fled into the forest, leaving us to deal with the other ape-like savages.
“Leave us!” said one, some sort of combined wolf, rat, and something else. “Leave us, Men of the Sea!”
“Wait!” cried Holmes. “Where is the Creator?”
The beast pointed to the sky.
“The Man Who Walks in the Sea has told us he now watches us from the sky,” it said. “Is there still Law?”
“Not here,” Holmes replied. “We have no quarrel with you. Leave in peace. May fortune be with you.”
The man-beast held a hand up and showed an open palm, spreading its curled and clawed fingers apart. Most of us saluted in kind, and the two abominations disappeared into the forest. Looking up, I saw something else: an orangutan climbing into one of the coconut trees, foraging.
“Let’s go,” said the coxswain. “I’ve had all I can take of this cursed island.”
The French sailors regrouped, having wrapped their fallen comrade in a tarpaulin from one of their boats. The situation might have been solemn, but for a raging row between Challenger and the young woman.
“Sophie, I know you’re upset and frightened,” Challenger said, trying to be soothing, but coming across like a headmaster trying not to discipline a rambunctious pupil. “But please think of—”
“This isn’t science!” she barked. “It’s blasphemy! Those—those monsters have no business in nature! I will have nothing to do with it!”
“But—our plans!” Challenger pleaded.
“Go back to the boat! My plans have changed!”
Sophie Moreau (as I now know her to be) tore a wedding band from her hand, slammed it down into the sand, and marched over to Holmes and myself, followed by a pleading Challenger.
“Do you have room on your vessel for one more?” she asked. “I have money.”
“I believe we can find a place,” said Holmes, who seemed to be taking a mean and childish satisfaction from the stunned look on Challenger’s face. “I’m leaving at our next port of call in any event. By an interesting stroke of fortune, I’ve been summoned to Sumatra once again. The Netherland Sumatra Company is missing a great deal of money, and there seems to be political intrigue afoot. You can still change your mind, Watson.”
I shook my head.
“I have memories of my time in San Francisco, and I’d like to look up a few old friends,” I said. “I have nothing on at present, and a holiday seems in order. Besides, I have been writing my reminiscences on this voyage, and this will allow me to complete the study in scarlet I have mentioned to you.”
“San Francisco?” asked Sophie, her eyes bright. “In America?”
“Yes.”
“I have never seen America,” she said. “Please let me join you until I decide what to do.”
“I’d be delighted, my dear.”
“Come back with me, Sophie!” Challenger pleaded. “You can’t just throw everything away over one bad incident!”
“I not only can, I feel I must,” Sophie said, her voice softening. “This is far more than a bad incident. The things my uncle has wrought must never, ever leave this island. I do not understand how you could admire such a monster, George. I cannot marry someone like that. I also have the family’s reputation to think of. Better we had left this alone.”
“I will use his work for the good of mankind,” Challenger said. “Holmes, tell her! Tell her about Moreau! This need not be for nothing.”
“I’m afraid it is, Challenger,” said Holmes. “Dr. Moreau is dead and the laboratory has burned to the ground. All his notes, all his research burned with it. All that remains of Dr. Moreau is a pile of smoking wood. We found his body and the remains of his pitiful experiments on a funeral pyre. Face it, Challenger. We went through all this travail for nothing.”
“Have we?” Challenger tried one last time. “It’s all gone, Sophie. Can’t we just put the whole thing behind us?”
Sophie shook her head.
“It’s too late,” she said. “My work has always been devoted to beauty and betterment, George. You know that. There is no beauty in these wretches, and there never can be. I know now that I was so desperate in my situation, I convinced myself I was in love with you. I had never met a man of such energy and verve before, and I believe that’s what attracted me to you. Now I believe I was just using you as a means of escape from my family and their plans for me. I’m not sure I felt love at all, just passion.”
“It will never be ‘just passion’ for me,” Challenger said. “I do love you, Sophie. No other woman has moved my heart the way you have. Please don’t take my happiness away.”
“Do you really think I would be happy as the wife of a professor?”
“Yes. We can work together. Please come back with me. We can make it work.”
At that moment, Sophie looked up at the orangutan in the trees, and waved her hand at it in greeting. The creature looked back at he
r, its face impassive, but clearly fixed on Sophie Moreau. Then it raised a paw to her, as if to say goodbye before disappearing into the lush, green jungle.
“You know that ape?” I asked.
“It was to have been one of Uncle Alexandre’s experiments,” she said. “I felt sorry for him. It eases my heart to know he won’t come to a sad, wretched end.”
Challenger tried to say something, but Sophie silenced him.
“You would have let that magnificent creature suffer the torments of the damned,” she said. “Just for glory.”
“Were there other animals?” Holmes asked.
“Captain Vigneault freed the animals we brought here,” Sophie replied. “We had no place else to take them, and certainly not enough food for a return voyage.”
Poor Challenger looked on, looking for all the world like a child who’s seen his puppy drown. Sophie embraced Challenger and said, “I’m sorry, George. I’ll always keep you in my heart.”
With that, she gave him a gentle final kiss and turned away.
For once in his life, G. E. Challenger had nothing to say. His shoulders slumped in dejection, he returned to the Meribelle with the other French sailors, who promised to send Sophie’s belongings over to our ship.
Holmes stared at the trees, his countenance wistful.
“Come on, Holmes, don’t start philosophizing now. We have a voyage to complete.”
“I was just thinking, Watson, of what we might find if we return in ten years’ time. Who knows if these creatures will survive? Perhaps evolve? Alexandre Moreau may have achieved greatness after all.”
“He’s achieved ignominy, and deservedly so. Come on, my dear Holmes.”
Epilogue
1896
At last, Holmes has finished reading The Island of Doctor Moreau, the sensational posthumous account by a chap named Edward Prendick, who claims to have spent about a year on that hellhole in the middle of the Pacific.
“I wish I had known about this man sooner,” Holmes said, “but he does confirm everything I surmised from the compound’s wreckage. He died never knowing how close he came to rescue.”
“Do you doubt him, Holmes?”
“No, I believe he is being quite truthful, and his dating, precarious as it is, does hold up. All he’d have had to do is stay put, but that hyena thing drove him to desperation.”
“One can’t blame him for heading to the other side of the island,” said I. “We saw for ourselves how dangerous the place was.”
“Indeed.”
“Since Moreau has now been exposed, perhaps I might reveal the full tale?”
“The Giant Rat of Sumatra? I’m sorry, Watson. One account from a slightly mad hermit won’t get anyone’s scientific curiosity going, but an account from you or me would be a vastly different affair. I do not believe it will benefit Londoners in any way to learn how close they came to being overrun by enormous, intelligent rats. I will have no hand in perpetuating the legacy of Alexandre Moreau, thank you.”
“Holmes, nothing you do can stop the advance of science. Sooner or later, someone else will stumble into Moreau’s footsteps. It is as inevitable as the sunrise.”
“But perhaps by then ethics as well as science will have advanced. At the very least, we should wait until Challenger is dead. I should hate to have someone that volatile take it into his head to get going, assuming he hasn’t done so already.”
“Who would let him?”
“Speaking of the Moreau family, you never did tell me your adventures in San Francisco. Were you able to work the famed Watson charm upon the young lady?”
“That’s not the sort of question a gentleman answers, old fellow.”
Holmes smiled and said, “No gentleman, yet I feel perfectly comfortable putting the question to you.”
I smiled. Holmes likes his occasional jest.
“Well, if you must know, we spent a pleasant time together on the Delta, and I lost track of her not long after we docked in Sam Francisco. She decided to tour the continent, and booked passage to the East Coast. I have not heard from her since.”
“I have,” said Holmes, handing me a newspaper. “Check the second column.”
It took a second, but I spotted the item. The Royal Horticultural Society’s annual flower show is scheduled for the weekend; the prize flower this year is the Moreau Rose, the result of patient hybrid experiments by Dr. Sophie Moreau.
“Unusually educated for a woman,” Holmes said. “It would be interesting to know how she came by her advanced education.”
“It doesn’t surprise me, Holmes. Sophie is an exceptional young woman.”
“Indeed she is. Let’s hope she doesn’t get any ideas about animals.”
With that, Holmes topped up my whiskey, picked up his violin, and filled our rooms with sweet music.
Also Available
Front Matter
Title Page
Publisher Information
Introduction
The House Of Pain, or,The Giant Rat Of Sumatra
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Epilogue
Back Matter
Also Available
Sherlock Holmes and The House of Pain Page 14