Once I was sure he was just unconscious and not, as I first feared, stone dead, I became aware of a scuffle behind me. I turned to see that Holmes had Gatherford in a half nelson grip and had a thin smile of victory on his face.
“Now, my good man, we have you. ‘Bang to rights,’ I believe my friend Lestrade would say.”
Gatherford did not seem in the slightest bit out of sorts. Indeed, he laughed. The cruel edge of it echoed around us in the confines of the tunnel.
“And what precisely do you think will happen now, Mr. Holmes? Let me hear your brilliant deduction, if you will?”
Holmes tightened his grip, but Gatherford did not so much as grimace.
“Now we shall send you to the rope and get these men here the medical attention they need to return them to their lives.”
Gatherford laughed again, and there was more than a hint of malice in it. He looked at me. “Shall I tell him, Doctor Watson, or shall you?”
Holmes maintained his wrestling grip on the man, but looked over to me and raised an eyebrow. I saw pain in his face, but also the steely determination to get the job done. I was sorry to disappoint him.
“There’s no life for these men to go back to, Holmes,” I said. “At least not in the one I had a close look at. I don’t know how the swine has done it—but these men are already long dead.”
“Nonsense,” Holmes replied. “It is a simple case of mistaken catatonia. That and the power of suggestion is all that is at play here.”
Gatherford laughed again. “Then, please, let me suggest something.”
3
The squad of workers had not paid the slightest attention to our little altercation—at least not until Gatherford barked out a single word, in a language I did not recognize. The workers, however, understood it well enough. As a man they turned and stared in our direction, every eye clouded white with cataracts, every mouth and nose sewn tight with the thick black thread.
“Put a shot over their heads, Watson,” Holmes said.
I did as I was bid—the noise almost deafening down here in the tunnel. The dead men didn’t flinch. Instead they inched forward, slowly, almost clumsily, but with a definite aim in mind—they were coming straight for us.
Holmes tightened his grip again, and this time Gatherford was forced into a grimace of pain.
“Call them off,” Holmes said. “Call them off or I will snap your neck.”
The man laughed through the pain. “You have not thought this through, my dear Holmes. If you kill me now, all you’ll have down here with you is a wealthy, well-regarded businessman, dead by your hand, and a pile of corpses. What will your friend Lestrade make of that, I wonder?”
The dead men were closing in on us, forcing us to step backward, then back again until we retreated down the tunnel before them. I saw them step over the still-prone body of the butler, then he was lost in the shadows as we fell back. Holmes half-dragged Gatherford, and I followed close behind, pointing the revolver at the advancing men, aware even as I did so that the weapon was going to be of no use whatsoever to me.
3
It is hard to describe the sheer terror that gripped me over the next minutes as we inched our way backward in the gloom and the undead workmen continued their inexorable advance. Maybe if there had been any expression on their faces, whether of hate, or anger … or hunger; maybe that would have made them seem somehow less threatening, somehow more human. But as it was, it felt more akin to being pursued by a totally silent pack of trained dogs.
And Holmes still had hold of their master.
A minute later Gatherford laughed as we found we had backed ourselves up against a tall conical pile of rubble.
“Look where your rationality and intellect has got you, Holmes,” he said. “An end without fame or glory, ignominiously brought down by something you cannot even begin to explain.”
Holmes changed his position slightly so that his forearm was at the man’s windpipe. “I know this much,” he said. “You are somehow giving these men their orders. I may not be able to kill you—but I can certainly put you to sleep.”
Holmes began to squeeze, blocking Gatherford’s airway.
The undead walkers did not slow. By this time I had my back to the hill of rubble, and the nearest attacker was less than three yards from me.
“Hurry, Holmes.”
Then we were completely out of time. I batted the first reaching man aside with the barrel of the pistol, raking a long strip of flesh away from brow to chin and exposing gray bone and white muscle beneath. There was no blood, and no sign from the attacker that the wound had any effect on him whatsoever. He reached for me again. I bent low and rolled aside; his slow movements giving me enough time to escape his clutches. But all I had achieved was to take myself into the range of the grasp of another.
I was able to turn my head just enough to see Holmes drop Gatherford to the ground. The man looked as pale as the dead man in front of me, but his eyes fluttered, telling me that he was alive—for now.
At the same instant that Gatherford fell unconscious, the attack faltered and failed. The undead stood in a silent rank, unmoving, just staring at us from milk-white eyes.
Holmes coughed, and I saw blood at his lips. “Come on, old man; it is time we were leaving.”
Holmes looked dead on his feet, and it was all I could do to get him moving, clambering over the rubble to where we could see brighter light above.
“Wait,” Holmes said, barely above a whisper. “Gatherford—we must bring him with us.”
“No can do, old bean,” I replied. “I mean to get you out of here, and that is going to be hard enough in itself. Can you climb?”
We scrambled on hands and knees up a slope of rubble that kept sliding and slipping away beneath us, threatening to send us tumbling down among the dead men. I stayed below Holmes to make sure he did not falter, encouraging him onward and having to bodily lift him over the top when we reached the summit.
I looked back from the high point, back down into the tunnel. Gatherford was rising to his feet. He turned and looked up at me and gave a sardonic salute. His voice echoed around us as we scrambled down the far side of the slope and out into the relatively clean air of the night.
“We will meet again, Sherlock Holmes. You can be sure of that.”
Chapter Eight
EF
The rest of the night passed in a blur of activity. We roused Lestrade and had him take to the tunnels with a squad of men. Holmes would have joined them had I allowed it, but I made him sit still while I prodded and probed the extent of the damage to his ribs.
“By rights you should be in the hospital, Holmes,” I said as we sat on a pair of large boulders just outside the tunnel entrance.
“Not while Gatherford is a free man,” he replied through bloodied lips. “I will not rest until I see justice for those men he has so blithely brutalized.”
I was of the same mind. The sight of milk-white eyes staring up from the black depths had rather unnerved me, but only served to steel my resolve to see this out at Holmes’ side, to whatever dark places it might take us.
It was several hours before Lestrade’s men returned, and when they did they were grimy, exhausted—and empty-handed. Gatherford had fled, taking his crew with him, and there was not even the body of the butler to verify our story. Either he had lived through the encounter, or Gatherford had the sense to remove the evidence. Anything that might incriminate the businessman had been removed from the scene. And to add insult to injury, Lestrade informed us that the man in the Yard morgue had gone.
“I doubt he got up and walked,” the Inspector said. “So he must have had help—but I’m blowed if I can find out how it happened. And without a body, there ain’t no crime.”
We went back to the Yard with Lestrade to put our statements on record. Lestrade listened with increasing incredulity, and I do believe he might have dismissed our story out of hand had it not been for his previous history with Holmes and his methods
.
“Dead, yet not dead, men in the tunnels, more of them on the streets, and a body missing from the morgue? I would be grateful, gentlemen, if you have anything else at all that might help me explain this to the Chief?”
“You are now at as much of a loss as we are, Inspector,” I said, speaking for Holmes, who was still and quiet—as close to total exhaustion as any man I had ever seen. I managed to make some running repairs to his wounds in the Yard infirmary just as the sun was rising: he had two broken ribs beneath a mass of yellow and purple bruising. I was surprised he could even breathe, but after he was strapped up in tight swathes of bandages he professed to feeling much better and even managed to join me in a most-welcome smoke as we waited in Lestrade’s office for further news.
A young officer was kind enough to offer us tea and toast, and we were breaking our fast just as a somewhat-harried Lestrade returned.
“Well, your man’s done a runner for sure,” he said, helping himself to some of my toast before lighting up a cigarette. “There’s nowt left down the tunnel but rubble, and nowt at the house that’s any use to us—although somebody has packed and left in a hurry. Now, tell me again—why are we after him? I can’t see any charge I can bring if we do track him down.”
Holmes did not seem inclined to answer, so I did it for him. “Would drugging a work force into slavery and bondage be enough to be going on with?”
“It would,” Lestrade replied. “But only if there is a way of proving it. I don’t suppose there’ll be any evidence in Baker Street?”
I shook my head. “Mrs. Hudson will have it all squared away by now, of that I have no doubt,” I replied.
“And there’s nothing left in the morgue?” Holmes said, speaking for the first time since Lestrade came into the room.
“Nowt of any use,” the Inspector replied. “We still have our samples, of course, but the lads ain’t been able to make anything of them yet.”
He turned back to me. “You mentioned something about a toxin, Watson? Would the ingredients to make such a thing be readily available?”
Holmes answered first. “You need a certain variety of tropical fish,” he said. “But that can be procured for a price anywhere in the East End. As I told Watson earlier, there is some other chemistry at work here to make the workers compliant. I intend to get to the bottom of it, Lestrade. You have my word on that.”
I held my peace. The men in the tunnel were compliant, right enough, but they were also quite, quite dead. Holmes had not got a close look, but I had—and I was still struggling to come to terms with it.
Lestrade ordered one of his men to fetch fresh parts of the samples for Holmes and me to take away, and the Inspector kept up a string of chatter about the tunnels, the state of Gatherford’s house, and speculation on what might have happened to the workmen. I am afraid I missed most of it, my mind being still full of images of sewn lips and white eyes in the dark.
I only started to pay attention as Holmes stood to leave.
“Ain’t nowt I can do unless we have a body. You know that, Holmes,” Lestrade said.
Holmes nodded. “Never fear, Inspector. There will be bodies aplenty yet to come. We are not done with this case yet. Not by a long chalk.”
3
Back in Baker Street Mrs. Hudson stood ready to give us a rollicking telling-off—apparently the rugs were completely ruined, there were scratches on the floorboards, and a chunk taken out of the worktable. But all her ire washed away when she took one look at Holmes’ face, which was once again as pale as any we had seen down in the tunnels.
“What have you done to yourself this time, you silly wee man?” she said.
She immediately became a model of Scots efficiency and organized a hearty breakfast. This time Holmes managed to eat something, although not as much as Mrs. Hudson implored him to. She cleared the table, brought us a large pot of strong tea, and informed Holmes that he would be taking no visitors until he was better.
“And don’t you even think about moving from that chair,” she said, her brogue coming through strong as she raised her voice. “Don’t think I won’t hear you.”
“Yes, Mother,” Holmes said sarcastically, which only earned him a look that would have withered a lesser man as she left us.
As soon as the door was shut Holmes slumped in his seat. He had clearly been making an effort to appear in better fettle than he actually was.
“I don’t suppose you would consider allowing me a small prick of the needle?” he said, and smiled wanly. “A few hours away from this might do me the world of good, you know?”
I snorted. “But consider how you will feel on your return, old chap. You would only be delaying the pain, not getting rid of it. I will allow you a brandy and a smoke, but even then it goes against my instincts. Now do as you have been told and rest. Doctor’s orders.”
Much to my amazement Holmes ceded to my wishes. His demurral only served to tell me that the pain must be severe indeed, for the samples we had retrieved from the Yard had yet to be analyzed, and Holmes, when in good health, would have been at that task even before breakfast. I was not at all surprised to look up ten minutes later to see him fast asleep in his chair. I fetched a blanket and ensured he was comfortable, not wishing to move him when he was already sleeping.
For my part, my mind was still too full of images from the tunnel, and closing my eyes was the last thing on my mind. That, and a desire to be at Holmes’ beck and call immediately on his waking, meant I would still be awake for some time to come.
I took the samples over to the workbench, dug out what phials, tubes and reagents we had remaining and set to work on trying to discover Gatherford’s secret.
3
All attempts to isolate Gatherford’s toxin proved futile.
Holmes slept through most of that first day while I toiled at the workbench to no avail. Besides, I was coming round to the belief that the toxin was a smokescreen for Gatherford’s main intent. He did not want a work force of slaves—not as such. He wanted to enslave the dead.
Of course I could not voice this opinion to Holmes—to do so before Holmes had proof he could see for himself would only be to open myself up to his scorn and ridicule.
On the second day I gave up my attempts to delve into the secrets of the toxin and turned my attention back to Holmes. A night’s rest in the chair had helped with his color, but did his wounded ribs few favors. Between Mrs. Hudson and myself we were able to banish him to his bed where he complained loudly and bitterly for a full morning before once again succumbing to sleep.
We had two visitors while Holmes slumbered.
The first was poor Mrs. Pemberton, and I was at quite a loss as to how to handle the conversation. I could hardly tell her that her husband was most probably working somewhere in the city even now, although it was looking increasingly likely that he was already dead. On the other hand, I could scarcely give her any hope that we might be able to return him to her as he had been—not given the state I had seen the workers in. I’m afraid I told her a little white lie and attempted to persuade her that, while Holmes was still on the case, she should not get her hopes up. All that accomplished was for me to bring her to tears, and Mrs. Hudson was quite cross with me again as I showed the lady downstairs. We parted with a promise from me that we would be in touch should anything turn up—a promise I knew I would not be able to keep any time soon.
I sat at the fireplace in rather a foul mood for several hours before Lestrade arrived with more news later that afternoon. Holmes, again to my surprise, did not awaken. The Inspector and I both lit up smokes.
“Ain’t no sign of your man nowhere in the city,” Lestrade said. “And that’s that as far as the brass are concerned.”
“Did you check on last night’s shift?” I asked.
“Every last man of them. None of them looked dead or anywhere close. Just a bunch of angry Irish who just came off dayshift and had to turn around and start again. Gatherford’s crew never showed. Ain’
t no hide nor hair of any of them, either.”
Lestrade finished his smoke and flicked the butt into the grate.
“I had a check done on Gatherford. We didn’t find anything even remotely dodgy there. I’ve got no crime to investigate, no leads to go on, and no men to spare. I’ve got a murder in the West End to contend with that needs my time, so I’m afraid you’re on your own again on this one, Doctor Watson.”
I thanked him for his time and he left me alone in the sitting room with my pipe and a vague feeling of unease.
And that was the last we heard of the Gatherford case for several weeks.
Chapter Nine
EF
Holmes proved to be both an irritable and irritating patient over the days to come. He complained about the heat, he complained about the cold, and he pestered poor Mrs. Hudson with a succession of requests for food items that she had little chance of finding without having to stray far afield from her normal shopping routine. The only saving grace was that his bruised ribs would not allow him to lift the violin bow, so at least we were spared his mournful scraping.
He took to scouring all the newspapers of the day with his utmost attention, peering at them angrily as if demanding that they provide him with work.
There was nothing forthcoming, and no sign of Gatherford or his activities to be found.
I thought—hoped—that the matter had blown over and that we had driven the business to ground.
A week or so later, Holmes was almost back to his own self—even more so when a country squire in town for business needed help recovering a wallet that had been mislaid in a local inn of ill repute. That matter was concluded in only three hours, but just getting out of the apartment for that short space of time improved Holmes’ mood considerably.
But any feeling of better humor on my part vanished on the Friday afternoon when Mrs. Pemberton once again arrived on the doorstep of 221b Baker Street.
Sherlock Holmes: The London Terrors by William Meikle Page 23