By late evening we received news that Mycroft had Mains’ property sealed off, and a large military presence had moved in within hours of our report. The inn was buzzing with speculation, but most of that was directed at the town police force and councilmen, and Holmes and I were able to find a quiet corner beside a roaring fire and enjoy some much-needed ale and more of that fine rabbit stew in relative privacy.
Once I had sat back from the table and lit a well-earned smoke, I asked Holmes if he would not rather be back on the grounds, involved in the aftermath and helping Mycroft make some sense of what had just happened.
“No,” he replied. “We have caught our murderer—or murderers, for Mains himself confessed to being complicit. The rest is in Mycroft’s domain now; it will require the power and vigilance of governments to keep watch lest the creatures attempt a return.”
Holmes lit up a cheroot of his own and seemed disinclined to discuss the matter any further.
“But do you think it would have worked?” I asked. “Could they indeed have succeeded?”
Holmes seemed lost in thought, and I was about to push for an answer when he spoke softly, so that no one else in the bar could overhear.
“It is an interesting strategy, I’ll give them that,” Holmes said. “Using our desire for an end to conflict against us is a touch of genius.”
“And what if they were sincere,” I said, giving voice to a concern I’d been harboring for some time. “What if they genuinely only wanted to help?”
Holmes laughed softly. “By threatening to blow up London? Actually, it was more than a threat—you saw that for yourself, Watson. And having us all live in glass jars? Their technology was surely advanced enough for them to know, as you did, that minds would degrade and decay over time. No, I’m afraid that some of our brightest and best were sorely duped.”
We had finished our ale, and I went to the bar for another round. When I returned, Holmes was still in a pensive mood, and he had still not answered my question to my satisfaction.
“Might it have worked, though?” I asked again. “I mean, the threat of a single huge bomb—would it have been enough to stop all other bombs—or would that one bomb be so large that it would destroy us anyway?”
Holmes was quiet for the longest time before answering. “I too have been pondering that question, Watson,” he said. “And neither answer is entirely satisfactory. We may only know when we have to face a large enough threat, and I fear that time may be coming all too soon.”
Holmes flicked the stub of his cheroot into the fire, where it flared for a second before burning out. “And when it happens, we really will have to choose which future we want to live in.”
SHERLOCK HOLMES:
THE LONG SLEEP
by John Hamish Watson, MD
William Meikle
Chapter One
EF
There are two main types of retired military men. One sort lives a life of quiet reflection, haunted by old battles and lost friends. The other seizes life with a vengeance, determined to wring every last moment out of it before they too go to join fallen comrades in the long sleep.
That cold day in late autumn, I gathered with old comrades in arms as we buried one of the quiet men—but the wake that followed contained many more of the second group than the first, and I am afraid it became a boisterous reunion. After a service and interment in Chelsea, we took over the upstairs bar of the George in the Strand and, fueled by pies and ale, were quickly lost in a sea of old songs, reminisces and tall tales. Smoke hung heavy in the air; the language was rather fruity, as befitted the company. If I closed my eyes, I could just as easily have been in a mess in the Afghan foothills, and several years younger.
As if to remind me that the past was not all song and jollity, my old wound played up, and I retired to a quiet corner for five minutes’ rest and contemplation with a fresh flagon of ale. I had just got a pipe lit when Jock Travers sat down beside me.
“I’ve been hoping to have a quiet word with you, Watson,” he said.
“That will be a first,” I replied, and laughed. Jock was our Regimental Sergeant Major, and I doubt a louder man has ever walked this earth. His booming commands had echoed across countless parade grounds and battlefields, usually accompanied by several of his particularly florid Scottish curses. He was a fighter, a singer, a drinker—and he excelled at all three, sometimes all in the course of the same evening.
But something was far wrong with my old friend. He seemed withered, sunken somehow. His eyes were hooded deep in their sockets, and his cheeks had that hollow, fallen-in look I always associate with fever. His hair, once red and lustrous, hung in limp gray strands across a prematurely balding scalp that looked flaky and livid. His tongue sat like gray stone in a mouth of yellowed teeth behind dry cracked lips.
He put a hand on mine when he saw I had taken note of his condition.
“I have fallen into perilous straits. Don’t say anything to the lads,” he said, his accent coming across as thick as ever. “I don’t want a fuss made. Not today.”
“But whatever is the matter with you, man? Have you seen a doctor?”
“I have seen far too many of them,” he replied, and downed most of his ale in one gulp. “And I do not need another. That is not why I wanted a word. Will you join me in a dram? I’ve got a story to tell—and I think you are the man I need to tell it to.”
He went to the bar and returned with two large glasses of Scotch and two more ales. The wake went on around us, but after several minutes I ceased to notice, lost in Jock’s tale as his voice carried us over the seas once more.
3
“I got a taste for the heat out in the East,” he started. “Like some kind of lizard, I found I could not do without it. After we returned from our last campaign, I lasted a month in Glasgow before the damp and the chill forced me to seek out warmer climes again.
“I tried to re-enlist with the old regiment, but they wouldn’t have me on account of the gammy leg—you’ll remember that well enough, Watson, as I have you to thank for saving me the use of it, such as it is. I took to the sea as a bosun’s mate, running a cargo vessel across the Med. It was a cushy number compared to the service, I can tell you that, although hard enough work in its own way. I spent a summer going between Tripoli and Malta—lovely place, Malta; I might retire there if I’m spared—and everything ran as smoothly as Davies’ dog. I turned as brown as a nut and as tanned as old leather, the rum was cheap and plentiful, and there were willing wenches at both ends of the trip.
“Life was grand, for a while.”
He stopped and sipped at his ale, lost in a far reverie, a little smile crossing his face before he noticed and it turned to his customary scowl.
“Never fear, Watson, I shall get to the point soon enough; just let me remember the good times for a few seconds longer—the tale grows dark from here on in.
“Toward the end of summer I was approached by two women in a dockside bar in Tripoli. I don’t know what it is about my face, but it seems to attract a certain kind of person—those looking for help with something illegal. They offered me a large amount of money to turn a blind eye to a piece of cargo. At first I was wary—I thought, for that amount, it must be opium. Both you and I have seen enough of the damage that stuff can cause; I was inclined to shy well clear, but they assured me it was nothing too illegal; I was told of a family trying to bring a body home for burial in a case where the authorities were against the body being shipped.
“When the box was loaded the next day, and I saw it was indeed coffin-shaped—albeit a larger box than I had anticipated—I felt happier about having taken the money, and we set sail from Tripoli without any mishap.
“I started to hear grumbling among the men that first night out. A fight broke out on deck, and blood was spilled. It turned out to be over who would have first dibs on the box, for the men had decided there was bounty to be had. I had to crack a few heads—you will remember that I have always been good
at that—and I got them settled well enough; or so I thought.
“The next morning we found a body in the hold, lying stretched out on top of the box, which had clearly been tampered with, but not actually opened. I suspected foul play, but when we turned the man over it was clear he had been sick—he had lesions on his hands and face, weeping sores, as if he had been burned in some manner. Not only that, but his eyes were cloudy—boiled in their sockets.
“The men gave the crate a wide berth after that. I kept an eye on it all the same, but I did not like to stay too close. You see, there was something about it that gave me the willies. I know you will understand—you were in the Afghan with us, and we all saw things there that we could not explain—there is more to Heaven and Earth than the church teaches us. I am willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that there was something in that crate that didn’t ought to be there—something cold and dark that reminded me of nothing less than the immediate aftermath of a particularly grim battle.
“I drank too much rum on the way over to Valletta while trying to rid myself of that feeling, and missed the crate being unloaded in the morning when we docked. But just by having it off the boat, I found my spirits rising. We loaded up and headed back to Tripoli on the very next tide.
“We never made it.”
3
He stopped again, and I was surprised to see that we had both emptied our drinks—both Scotch and ale gone, and I had scarcely noticed, having been lost in Jock’s story. I started to rise to head for the bar, but he put a hand on my arm.
“No, this is my shout. I might not have too many more chances to buy an old pal a beer or two. I’ll be right back.”
I watched him navigate to the bar as if it was a ship in a heaving sea, but he didn’t spill a drop on his return—two more ales, and two more large Scotches; it was just as well I had already written off any chance of work that day.
“So, where was I?” he said after downing half of his ale.
“Leaving Valletta?” I prodded, and that was enough to set him going again.
“Right—the last voyage of the Wayfarer. The first man fell sick scarcely an hour out—weeping sores, redness of the skin, and eyes like glass marbles; I was starting to recognize the signs, although I had not as yet ascribed them to any one cause. Before we were halfway to Tripoli five more men had died, and eight others had fallen sick. I persuaded the Captain to turn back to Malta—medical facilities would be better there, and it was obvious that time was running out for all of us.
“It was an anxious journey, each of us watching for any sign of contagion. We locked the afflicted up below decks and hoped against hope that we would survive. The whole boat felt like a plague ship. The weather turned sultry, and that only served to make the stench of death almost unbearable.
“By the time we pulled into Valletta harbor, there were only six of us fit enough to walk down the gangplank. And there was little to be had in the way of help for our sick—the few men who had not yet died—for the whole dock was under quarantine.
“Eighty people died that week. Then, as quickly as it had come, the sickness passed. I got off lightly—a fever and a sore back being the sum of my own afflictions—but the Wayfarer would never go to open sea again—she was sailed offshore and burned off Gozo. I watched her sink, and was happy to see her go.
“It was a local priest who made the connection I had not seen for myself. I was in a quiet bar in the Roman quarter, drowning my sorrows and wondering how I might reach home, when he found me. He knew I had been on the voyage from Tripoli, and he told me a story that was all too familiar to me—a story of an offer of money for passage of a crate, and of a sickness that followed on the boat carrying the tainted cargo. Only this time he was talking about another boat entirely—one that had left Malta the same day we had delivered the cursed thing. And before he left me there in the bar, he told me where the crate was headed—it was coming here, John.
“The filthy, disease-carrying box was headed straight for London.”
Jock stopped talking and took to drinking even faster than before. His tale had finished too abruptly for me to take it all in.
“You think there might be another outbreak? Is that it? You think there could be some kind of epidemic, here in the city?”
“That is part of it,” he said, barely above a whisper. “The way the crew went … it was bad, John—worse than anything we ever saw in the foothills, and we saw plenty of good men fall over there. I would not wish that kind of death on any man.”
He took on a faraway stare, looking through me, gazing at something that terrified him to his very core. I had never seen the old soldier spooked by anything—not a native charge, a faulty cannon or a fight in a bar. But now he was, and that more than anything else convinced me that he was telling the truth—at least as far as he understood it. When he started to speak again, he had tears in the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away angrily.
“At least they went fast—I fear I got the rum end of the deal, for it has stricken me too but has decided to play with me for a while first. I’m not long for this world, John.”
“Let me take you to the Royal College, man,” I said. “There are tests we could make.”
He waved me away.
“I have been poked and prodded until I ache,” he said. “Let it have me if it will; it is no less than I deserve for taking the crate on board in the first place. That is not why I told you the story. You must be vigilant—keep a weather eye open, and when it comes—for it will come—you must ensure it is nipped in the bud, quickly.”
“One last question then, if you will not allow me to help you. What was in the box?” I asked. “What was so important?”
He shook his head, then stopped when it seemed to cause him pain.
“I never found out—and despite asking all the way back from Marseille I ain’t found anyone alive who knows. But trust me, John—it is not anything you want to see. There’s a devil in yon box, and mischief and mayhem is its game.”
In truth, Jock’s tale was starting to sound more and more like the ravings of a sick man, and although I agreed to keep an eye open and nodded politely I did not expect to hear any more beyond a sad tale of the man’s long weary descent into infirmity.
Chapter Two
EF
Jock Travers died in early January of the following year, although I did not hear of it until days after the funeral in Glasgow, so I was not given a chance to formally pay my last respects. I did check with the hospital where he had spent his last days though. The official cause of death was complications following a fever.
When I first heard the news, I was in the apartments in Baker Street, having just finished one of Mrs. Hudson’s excellent breakfasts. My good friend Sherlock Holmes looked up from the Thunderer and raised an eyebrow having spotted a change in my demeanor.
“Bad news, Watson?”
“Another comrade in arms gone to the long sleep, I’m afraid,” I replied. “An all-too-common occurrence as we all grow older.”
Over a smoke by the fire, I found myself relating Jock’s tale of fever on the high seas and Holmes, being between cases of his own, was gracious enough to listen attentively to my somewhat disjointed attempt to tell the story.
“I have done as he asked and kept an eye open for any reports of strange illnesses,” I concluded. “But there has been nothing at all out of the ordinary these past months. I fear old Jock may have overstated his tale—not an uncommon state of affairs when coming from a Scotsman in his cups.”
Holmes smiled.
“Just because something was not reported does not mean it never happened,” he said. He stood, went to his desk, and began rummaging through his papers. “Besides, Watson. You may have been looking in the wrong place. Sometimes it is necessary to go backward first in order to make progress.”
He returned and handed me a newspaper cutting. The paper was already yellowing with age, and the date at the top told me the story was more than five ye
ars old. It was from the Manchester Guardian.
PEER’S TREASURE HUNT ENDS IN MISERY AND CHAOS
Lord Northwich’s much-vaunted expedition to Persia has ended in chaos and death. Details are sketchy, given the secrecy that has surrounded the venture since its inception, but it is reported that an illness, likened to a plague of boils and sores, swept the site last week, killing twenty of the local diggers under Northwich’s employ and bringing all work to a standstill. Northwich and his backers have been asked by the local authorities to leave the country. The peer is believed to be on his way home to Cheshire under a cloud of suspicion that the sweeping sickness was not an accident but a deliberate attempt at sabotage to mask what was clearly a crushing financial failure.
Lord Northwich is known to be desperate to revive the family’s ailing fortunes, and this latest setback will not help his chances of his long-standing promise to save the manor house that is one of the few things that remain of the legacy of his forefathers.
I read it through twice.
“You think this is pertinent?” I said, handing the clipping back to Holmes.
“Don’t you?” Holmes replied, and raised an eyebrow.
“I will need some convincing,” I replied. “Although the detail about boils and sores may seem relevant, I cannot see any other connection.”
Holmes laughed. “Well, then, my dear Watson—I shall have to convince you otherwise. Shall we go?”
He stood abruptly.
“Go where?” I said, in some confusion.
“To the docks—in the first instance, at least. We may need to head north to discover the full answer, but we should at least eliminate some other possibilities first.”
“Do you not have any work of your own to attend to?” I asked, somewhat hopefully, for it was filthy weather outside, and I was loath to move far from the comfort of a warm fire and a pot of tea. “Surely there is a more pressing case awaiting your attention?”
Sherlock Holmes: The London Terrors by William Meikle Page 10