He beckoned me over to join him. “What do you make of this, Watson?” he said.
The body had its back to me, so the first thing I saw was the gaping hole in the skull. It was only on close inspection I saw that it had been made as part of a surgical procedure. The body was cold to the touch, colder even than had it been lying in the morgue for several hours—it had lain in the open for quite some time. Even so, the extensive wounds were clear enough. I stood back, disgusted by the thought that a man in my profession might have performed such a deed.
“Someone has taken his brain—they were dashed careful about it, too. The brain, and most of the spinal column by the looks of it. Who would do a thing like that?”
Holmes’ lips were pursed tight. “Perhaps the identity of the brain’s owner might give us a clue.”
I walked round the body and stopped when I saw what Holmes was getting at—I knew this man, had last seen him lying, dead—as I had thought—on the floor of his dressing room.
John Green was no longer a missing person.
“So you can confirm it is him, then?” Lestrade said. “Our missing memory-man?”
“It is indeed,” Holmes replied. “And he may have been missing these four months and more, but he has only been dead a matter of days by the looks of the body. Where exactly was he found?”
“In ‘Ackney Marshes, on the north bank of the Lea, sir,” one of the younger officers replied. “A man on his way home from night shift came across him—right sudden, he said—gave him a terrible shock and …”
“All right, lad,” Lestrade butted in. “We don’t need chapter and verse. He’s dead. That’s an end to it.”
“On the contrary, Lestrade,” Holmes said. “I believe we are merely at the end of the beginning.”
3
Holmes would brook no disagreement—he had to see the scene. “And quickly too, before half of London has trampled over it.”
Five minutes later we were on our way to Hackney once more. At least on this trip we had no worries about our driver leaving us stranded, for Lestrade accompanied us and we traveled in one of the Yard’s carriages, but the inclement weather had made the streets treacherous, and going was slow, especially after we left the city center. There was ample time for Lestrade to infuriate Holmes with a series of questions that as yet could not possibly be answered. It took my friend ten minutes to get exasperated, which was five minutes longer than I had expected.
“So where’s the rest of him, then?” was the latest question, and the one that finally caused Holmes to sigh in exasperation.
“All in good time, Lestrade. You only asked me to become involved this morning, remember?”
“I should say you involved yourself several months back, Holmes. Or do I have to remind you about the dead man we found tied in your chair?”
I saw Holmes bristle—that was the moment where the case became a personal matter of pride for him, and I knew then that we would pursue it until the bitter end. At the time, I had no idea how far away that end might be.
The carriage took a more direct route to Hackney Marshes than on our previous trip, so we avoided the almost-derelict area around the old church and found ourselves out on the flatlands to the north, in a winter landscape. Snow had fallen here overnight, and then frozen to a crisp layer that crackled underfoot as we disembarked.
It was immediately apparent where the body had lain—the snow for several yards around was tinged pink, and there was a body-shaped indentation in the soft mud of the riverbank. Holmes had also been right about the police officers—the marks of their boots were apparent across the whole area.
“Whoever did it certainly made no attempt to conceal the body,” Holmes remarked dryly, eyeing the open spaces all around us. He set about his customary minute examination of the immediate area despite the bitter cold. Lestrade and I were more circumspect and returned to the carriage, where I partook of a hair-of-the-dog Scotch from his hip flask in return for a smoke. The flask was empty and we were on our second cigarillo before Holmes stepped up into the carriage. His face was pale, with only two small patches of color on his cheeks, and ice crystals had formed in his eyebrows, but Holmes seemed not to notice any physical discomfort when his mind was fully occupied.
“There are no prints apart from police-issue boots, neither coming or going from any direction,” he said. “Dash it all to blazes—it is as if he fell out of the sky.”
He leaned out and pointed up the hill towards where the old church and graveyard looked out over the plain. “Driver—take us up there. I have a feeling that if we are to find any answers, that is the only place they will be.”
3
The carriage struggled to climb the slope in the snow, and we had to get out and walk some way from the top, so we got a full view of both the church and the street beyond as we walked into the graveyard from the north end.
The street had been covered in an inch of snow, with no sign of footprints anywhere to break the expanse of white. No fires burned in the houses, no smoke rose from any of the chimneys, and there was not even the sound of a bird to break a silence so deep that none of us felt much like speaking.
“If I were you, I’d bring some men out here,” Holmes said softly to Lestrade. “I think you have more than one missing person to worry about now.”
Lestrade went back to relay a message to the carriage driver, while Holmes and I made a circumnavigation of the church. We trod through crisp snow; there was no indication that anyone but us had been near the building since the snowfall.
Holmes walked towards the church door.
I pulled him back. “We should check on Mrs. Green first,” I said. “If she is still here, she might need medical assistance. And in any case, she deserves to know of her husband’s fate.”
“That is Lestrade’s domain, not mine,” Holmes said.
“Nevertheless, the lady knows us—it would be best for bad news to come from a familiar face.”
I thought Holmes might argue the case, but as I walked towards number 23, I heard his footsteps crackle in the snow behind me.
3
Mrs. Green was long past the stage of needing my expertise—we found her in her parlor, partially frozen to her armchair. It was clear that she had been dead for several days at least.
“Is it a coincidence, Holmes, she and her husband dead so close to each other?”
Holmes stood up from where he had been studying the body. “I do not believe in coincidences—not in this case,” he muttered.
We made a quick search of the house, but found nothing of note that would yield any clues, and no sign that anyone other than Mrs. Green herself had lived there at any time recently—certainly no sign that John Green might have been home in the months since his disappearance. As we left the building and went back out into the road, Lestrade arrived through the graveyard.
“We have another body for you, Inspector,” Holmes said. “And she, too, is in a chair, but on this occasion you cannot lay the blame at our door for putting her there.”
Lestrade looked up and down the street—it was still as quiet and lacking in activity as when we arrived. “What happened here, Holmes?”
“At a guess? I would say almost everyone simply left—apart from poor Mrs. Green, who waited, as long as she was able, for her husband to come home to her. There may well be others who have suffered a similar fate—this place smells far too much of death for my liking.”
Holmes strode off at speed, back towards the church. “Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “There must be something. There is always something.”
3
“Give me a hand here,” Holmes said. “It was a bit stiff back in August, and I fear the cold has made it worse.”
The church door finally yielded under pressure as the three of us put our shoulders to it, and we almost fell inside when it gave way. It felt strangely warm inside, especially when compared to the chill that had pervaded Mrs. Green’s small parlor, but there was no obvi
ous sign of a heat source.
Holmes had us stand back as he studied the floor. He looked disappointed when he turned to motion us forward. “There are no footprints but mine. No one else has been here these four months past.”
We sidled past the tangled heap of broken chairs and pews I had seen from outside the window on our previous visit and stood in front of the stone altar. The roof immediately above us was open to the elements, but no snow lay on the altar or on the floor around it.
Holmes put his hand out, moving it above and around the stone. “There is a draft here—warmer air coming up from below. I would not have noticed it in the heat of August. Lend me a hand, if you please, Watson.”
He pushed at the altar. The old stone grated and squealed—and slid a good inch. A gust of air, even warmer still, blew past us, and with it came a smell I knew only too well—the rotting stink of putrefaction.
“It is a crypt, Holmes,” I said. “There is nothing to be found there but more death.”
“We shall see about that,” he said, and put his weight against the altar again, moving it another inch.
In the end it took all three of us to shift the old stone, but finally we had it slid aside sufficiently far that we could look down on where a flight of timeworn stone steps led deep into the dark.
The rising air smelled—and tasted—rank and foul, but only for a few seconds, and then the assault on our nasal passages seemed to clear as the colder, fresher air from above mixed through it. Holmes took out a handkerchief and put it over his face. He peered down the steps.
“Holmes, don’t.”
My request fell on deaf ears.
“There is light down there, Watson. And possibly answers.”
Before we could stop him, he headed down into the dark. I had no option but to follow. It was only a dozen or so steps down, but oppressive heat grew with each one, and the smell, although dispersing gradually, was still almost enough to make me nauseous. I was trying hard to keep my stomach under control, so I did not notice that Holmes had stopped at the foot of the steps. I almost barged into him, apologized, and then stopped myself, struck immobile and dumb by the sight in front of us.
3
The room was lit from high overhead—by descending the steps we had moved out from under the foundations of the church and were now somewhere under the graveyard, with thin sunlight coming in through snow-covered grates high above. It showed what we had discovered all too clearly—I almost wished for darkness.
There were six of them—six mutilated and bloody bodies in varying stages of decomposition, lying atop six ancient sarcophagi. Each body, like Green’s back in the morgue, had its brain and spinal column surgically removed. There was no sign of the removed organs.
I finally got some degree of control over my faculties and started forward, but Holmes pulled me back.
“Look, Watson, on the floor.”
The floor was deep with dust, and covered with marks, but they looked less like footprints, more like the scratching of some huge insect or bird.
“Can you smell it?” Holmes said.
At first I thought he was talking about the putrefaction, and then it came to me, stronger than before: the definite tang of a vinegar-like acid.
“There’s more,” Holmes said, and directed my gaze to the far end of the crypt. It was gloomier over on that side, but what Holmes wanted me to see was clear enough. There, carved on the wall in bas-relief, and obviously of great antiquity, was the very same sigil that was etched in silver and jet on the ring.
Chapter Eight
EF
Lestrade soon had his hands full trying to control the growing chaos that comes with a multiple murder, and sent us off in no uncertain terms once officers started to arrive on the scene.
“Six more bodies? The Chief would have my guts for gaiters if he knew I’d let you anywhere near them. I’ll try to find time to see you in Baker Street later,” he said. “But I can’t promise you anything—not in a case like this.”
We went up into the clear air while police doctors and uniformed constables crowded into the crypt below. Holmes was never the one to stand idly by while others charged ahead, and he lasted less than ten minutes before declaring that he would not countenance staying in Hackney merely to observe the comings and goings of Lestrade’s investigation.
“Come, Watson, let us approach this from another direction,” he said, and walked away down the deserted street so quickly that I had to break into a trot to catch up with him.
We did not have the luxury of a waiting carriage. We walked, heading south, neither of us speaking for some time. It was only as we moved into busier streets that Holmes made his thinking known to me.
“What do you make of it, Watson? Why would anyone perform such operations? And why in a musty crypt?”
I had indeed been thinking on it. “I mentioned Far Eastern cults when we first discovered the ring—these have medicines made from animal parts: bulls’ pizzles, rhinoceros horn and the like, and there is a great deal of money in the business. Perhaps these procedures are to procure materials that are part of that trade?”
“Perhaps,” Holmes said. “But I cannot get my mind off the sigil on the wall. It is important; I feel it—I have known it since I first saw it. Come. Let us see if we can uncover its meaning.”
3
We reached the city center at lunchtime, but if I thought Holmes might allow us some time for victuals, I was to be disappointed. I was acutely aware that I had only eaten two pieces of toast since last night’s indulgences, but Holmes was deaf and blind to the needs of the body when a case had hold of him.
Our first stop was to the British Library, not to peruse the shelves, but for Holmes to nudge one of his many contacts to undertake some research on our behalf. A florin changed hands, and Holmes gave a description and details of the old church, the ring and the sigil, and then we were off quickly to another port of call, a bookstore tucked away off Charing Cross Road that I had never before noticed. Holmes, however, seemed well-acquainted with the owner, a thin, balding chap of indeterminate age who again received a florin, and the same descriptions as before.
Our third visit was to a tiny Chinese medicinal store behind Berwick Street—I knew there was an opium den in the cellar below—every doctor in the city knew of that place, and if I knew, Holmes also must know. But that was not the purpose of our visit. Two florins changed hands this time, as Holmes asked to be told news of any trade in brains or spinal columns.
By this time I was becoming rather tired and leg-weary, and more than a bit cold.
“Just one more thing, old chap,” Holmes said. “Then we’ll see if Mrs. Hudson can rustle up some soup.”
The last thing proved to be a stop on the corner most favored by the group of local boys Holmes called, with no little affection, his Baker Street Irregulars. More coins changed hands—ha’pennies and pennies in the main this time, and the boys dispersed quickly, like shadows, all gone into the surrounding streets by the time Holmes returned to my side.
“And now, we wait,” he said.
3
The redoubtable Mrs. Hudson had anticipated our needs with her usual, almost telepathic efficiency, and we lunched on some piping hot potato-and-carrot soup with cheese buns fresh out of the oven. I have rarely had a more welcome meal, and by the time we lit up a smoke and settled down with a cup of tea by the roaring fire, I felt disinclined to venture any further that day.
My resolve not to leave the comfort of the fire was strengthened by a growing darkness outside, and a deadening of all sound of the city that told me fresh snow was falling, and in some quantity too. I finished my smoke and my tea and was drifting into a peaceful reverie when we heard a carriage door slam outside, and then a heavy knock on the door downstairs.
“Wake up, Watson. Mycroft has deigned to leave his lair. It must be important.”
I did not know how Holmes knew the identity of the caller; it could be anything from the sound of the carria
ge, the heft of the knock on the door, or even the speed at which Mrs. Hudson moved to answer. All I know is that he was rarely wrong in such matters, and our landlady showed Mycroft Holmes in a minute later.
I had not seen Holmes’ brother for some time, and I was surprised to see him looking gaunt and rather unwell despite the fact that he seemed to have gained several pounds in his already-portly bulk. He sat in the offered armchair, resting himself down in it as if he had just undertaken an inordinate amount of exercise, and dropped the satchel he carried to his feet, letting out a satisfied sigh of contentment.
He waved away my show of concern. “A touch of lumbago,” he said. “The cold weather makes it worse. It’s nothing a glass of port won’t cure.”
I took the hint, went to the cabinet and returned with a bottle and three glasses. I poured Mycroft’s first, and he was ready for another before I had sat down. It was only after he was halfway down that one, and had got a cigarette lit in his long ebony holder, that he broached the reason for his visit.
He addressed Holmes directly, which was rare, for he often preferred to use me—at the start of things at least—as a buffer between their mutual animosity on the infrequent occasions when they needed to talk to one another civilly.
“You were there in Hackney this morning when they found the bodies,” he began. It wasn’t a question, and Holmes didn’t reply. “Lestrade thinks he is after a maniac, and much of the city is inclined to agree with him—there are already rumors spreading of a foreign sailor with a grudge. The Yard will have its hands full keeping panic and mayhem off the streets in the coming nights. But that’s the Yard’s problem. I’m here because Lestrade may be wrong in his conclusion as to the nature of the killer.”
Holmes looked up. Mycroft had seized his attention.
“There have been other cases.”
That also wasn’t a question. I have watched the Holmes brothers indulge in their cat-and-mouse conversations on many occasions and I was expecting something similar here, with Holmes having to work for every scrap of information that Mycroft deigned to provide. For once the older brother seemed too weary for the game, and showed his hand almost immediately.
Sherlock Holmes: The London Terrors by William Meikle Page 4