Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes

by Jeff Campbell

  I had reached Baker Street, and here I paused beneath a lamp whose light formed a sphere in the fog. A second sphere hovered above an adjacent corner, while a third, considerably dimmer, waited farther off. It was as if the planets had descended to guide me home, but I no longer recognized the street. Indeed, as I pushed on, I became overwhelmed with a sense that I had lost my way.

  The impression grew as I continued, and I soon wondered if I had gone too far, if perhaps I had walked past the door and was now moving north toward Regent’s Park. But then, as I turned to retrace my steps, I glimpsed the glowing oblong of the large bay window of 221B.

  I eased toward it, staring at an incandescent fog behind the glass, an intense yet muted light that gave the impression that the night’s haze had permeated the room.

  My friend was there, standing within the bay. His face looked down, chin in hand. He seemed to be frowning, though there was no way to be sure, since he appeared only in silhouette.

  I studied the scene, watching the figure turn and pace back into the room, and it was then that I realized what I was seeing. The bay was masked on the inside with hanging sheets, lit from within by a single source that lacked the hues of conventional light. “Electric illumination,” I muttered. “What the devil is Holmes up to this time?”

  Had I known, I might have turned around, slipped back into the fog, and returned to the station. As it was, I climbed the stairs and soon entered a sitting room so rearranged that I hardly recognized it. The chairs had all been stacked higgledy-piggledy against Holmes’ desk. Only the settee remained in place, and on it sat a rather agitated-looking Scotland Yard inspector. I recognized him as George Lestrade, a man of little imagination but good intellect, who sometimes consulted Holmes on baffling cases.

  Behind Lestrade stood a monstrous thing of wood, metal, and glass. I saw in an instant that it was the source of the room’s illumination, but its proportions confounded me.

  “Watson?” Holmes had looked up to find me standing in the doorway. “Back so soon?”

  “It is the thirtieth,” I said.

  He touched a switch on the side of the contraption, dimming the harsh light before turning to raise the flame on one of the wall fixtures. Then he crossed the room to shake my hand. “It’s good to see you, old friend.”

  “Great to be home,” I said. “But I seem to be interrupting something.”

  “Yes.” He leaned away. “It’s been quite an evening.” He turned, leading me toward the contraption. “Have you ever seen one of these?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “It’s a Calibrigraphe, a moving picture machine designed by the late Great Calibri.”

  “The magician?”

  “The same.”

  “I saw him perform once,” I said. “He caught a bullet between his teeth, spit it onto a plate. We could have used such skills in Afghanistan.” I laughed, stopping when neither Holmes nor Lestrade joined in. It was then that I realized I had missed something. “Excuse me. Did you say the late Great Calibri?” I glanced at Lestrade, then back at Holmes. “Calibri is dead?”

  “No,” Lestrade barked.

  “Possibly,” Holmes said.

  Lestrade turned. “You still have doubts, Holmes?”

  “A few.” Holmes looked at me. “It’s an intriguing case. Mrs. Calibri has already seen to the burial, but now the magician’s creditors are hounding Scotland Yard, demanding that they reopen the case.”

  “Creditors hounding the Yard?” I asked. “Why not hound the widow?”

  “I’m sure they would. After all, bookkeeping was her responsibility. But she’s gone missing.”

  “Not completely.” Lestrade stood. “We have it on good authority that she has boarded a transatlantic steamer, accompanied by none other than the Great Calibri — both traveling under assumed identities.”

  “So Calibri is alive?”

  “It’s all conjecture,” Holmes said. “What we need is evidence, and most of what we have is in this machine.”

  “A moving-picture machine?”

  “Indeed. It’s a clever design, entirely portable. Two men can carry it, and it packs its own charge.” He gestured to a black rectangle on the floor.

  “Electric battery?”

  “Yes. Two of Calibri’s former shop workers saw to its charging. They were eager to assist, claiming they haven’t been paid in weeks.” He ran his hand along a pair of wires that connected to a box on the top of the table. “This is the lamphouse. It holds an electric light, powerful enough to project life-size images onto those sheets.” He gestured across the room. “It also generates considerable heat, which is the reason for the vent between lamphouse and shutter assembly.” He stepped toward the front of the table, where a frame supported two metal wheels, one above a projection lens, the other below it. “And this is the film.” He took hold of a loose end dangling from the lower wheel.

  I bent close. “Smells of vinegar.”

  “Nitrocellulose.”

  “Guncotton?”

  “The same chemical compound,” Holmes said. “In a different form, but nonetheless comparable.” He attached the end of the film to the upper wheel. “If it jams while playing, it can be ignited by the heat from the lamphouse.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “Not when the machine is operating properly.” He threw a switch. The upper wheel spun, collecting the film.

  “So you’ve already watched the picture?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I need to play it once more.” The machine hummed, the film picking up speed. “The inspector and I have been studying the images. Unfortunately, we don’t agree on what we’re seeing.”

  Holmes turned off the power as the film slipped free of the lower wheel. He looked at me, lips drawn, eyes tense. “You must be exhausted,” he said. “Shall I help you with your bag? See you to your room?”

  “Now?”

  “I think that would be wise. You can retire, leave the inspector and me to finish what we’ve started. Tomorrow, once you’re rested—”

  “I doubt I’ll rest!” I exclaimed. “I must see this contraption work.”

  Holmes frowned. “I dare say that you may not rest ever again if you remain in this room.” His voice took on a foreboding edge.

  “Gentlemen!” Lestrade turned. “Might we proceed?”

  I glanced at Lestrade, then back at Holmes. “Please. I have to stay. I’m far too curious.”

  Holmes nodded, resigning himself to my decision. “I can’t force you, Watson. But if you insist on viewing the projection, might I suggest that you pull up a chair. Some things are best taken sitting down.” Then he set to work threading the film, with great care, as I dragged a chair from the back of the room.

  “The projector has an automated shutter,” Holmes said. “It’s Calibri’s own design, easy to set up, but temperamental.” He leaned back from the machine, inspected his work, then spun the upper wheel to draw up the slack. “In addition to working as a projector, the device functions as a camera and a film processor. Thus, The Great Calibri was able to use it to record and evaluate his performances before presenting them in public.”

  “So this is a practice film?” I asked.

  “It seems so.” He threw a switch. A clatter rose, ticking like clockwork as Holmes threw a second switch beside the lamphouse.

  Across the room, patterns shimmered on the hanging sheets. A chalkboard appeared, standing on an easel before a curtained backdrop. On the board, written in neat, back-slanting script, were the words:

  Exploding-Bullet Catch

  26 December 1900

  “The trick is a variation of the old bullet catch,” Holmes said, raising his voice to be heard above the clatter. “But it employs a nasty form of artillery, a projectile containing an explosive charge of tetryl and phosphorous.”

  “A bullet bomb?”

  “That’s as good a name as any. But whatever it is called, it generates wounds so disfiguring that the St. Petersburg Decl
aration banned it in 1868. That is to say, banned it for warfare, not for a magician’s trick.”

  I studied the chalkboard, and then, in a blink, it vanished, leaving behind an empty stage.

  “What just happened?” I asked. “The chalkboard? Where did it go?”

  “Carried offstage.”

  “Carried by whom? I didn’t see—”

  “The camera was turned off during filming. If you’d been watching closely, you would have noticed a shifting of the curtains, as if someone had just walked past them. But the slate isn’t our concern. Keep watching, and note this man.”

  A shape had appeared from the right, a figure walking with his back to us, pushing a Chinese screen.

  “The man positioning that partition is supposedly a discredited illusionist, one Guy Guignol.”

  “A mystery man!” Lestrade exclaimed. “No one knows who he really is.”

  The figure kept his back to us as he angled the partition.

  Holmes continued: “According to Calibri’s notes, Guignol is the trick’s originator.” Holmes paused. “Now brace yourself, Watson. This next bit is not for the squeamish.”

  Guignol turned, revealing a face that barely qualified as human. He had one eye, a flap of skin for a nose, and a lower jaw that ended in a stump near the top of his throat. A leather harness covered part of his face, although I could not tell if it was for structural support or merely to cover the exposed portions of an overhanging jaw.

  “According to the notes,” Holmes said, “Guignol nearly died during his first performance of the trick.”

  In the Afghan War, I had seen faces cleaved with swords and shattered by ordinance. I had seen eyes gouged in combat, faces atomized by high-caliber rifles. But never had I seen a living countenance as ruined as the one that now stared at me from those hanging sheets. My breath raced out in a fright as I looked at him.

  “Hang on, Watson.”

  Guignol stepped forward, appearing to come right at me, his face growing larger until it blurred and vanished from view.

  “The next sight is a bit more pleasing.”

  A woman entered from the left, wearing a costume better suited to a brothel than a London stage. In one hand she carried a backless chair. In the other, a wine table. She placed the table behind the chair, then exited and returned with a brass spittoon. It was of ordinary design: flared top, narrow neck, wide bottom. But instead of placing it upright on the floor beside the chair, she set it on its side upon the wine table.

  “The woman is Mrs. Calibri, the magician’s wife, bookkeeper, and stage assistant.”

  “She’s quite fetching,” I said.

  “Yes. Too fetching, perhaps. Uncommon beauty has a way of causing uncommon trouble.”

  I expected him to elaborate, but in that instant Guignol reappeared, wheeling a rifle mounted on a heavy stand.

  “Now all the pieces are in view,” Holmes said. “Rifle, partition, chair, table, spittoon — all we need is the Great Calibri. And here he is!”

  The pleated backdrop parted, making way for a tall man in top hat and cloak. He spread his arms, and in an instant Mrs. Calibri was behind him, catching the cloak as it slipped from his shoulders, accepting the hat as he swept it from his head.

  “He looks a bit heavier than I remember,” I said.

  “The fruit of success,” Holmes said.

  “But you said he was in debt.”

  “Debt and penury do not always coincide, Watson. We will explore that later.”

  Calibri bowed and began speaking, gesturing first to the gun, then to the Chinese screen.

  “The magician opens by explaining how the rifle will fire through the rice paper, blasting a visible hole to show the bullet’s path.”

  “When I saw the trick, the rifle fired through a sheet of glass, smashing it to pieces.”

  “And I’m sure it was quite dramatic. But a bullet bomb would explode upon striking a sheet of glass. Here the barrier must be paper.”

  Calibri gestured to the backless chair.

  “Now he explains how he will sit on the chair, face the screen, and wait for the gun to fire. In that instant, he will catch the projectile in his teeth.”

  “Catch a bullet bomb?”

  “So he claims.”

  “One that would explode if it struck a pane of glass?”

  “Quite so.”

  “Then why won’t it explode when he stops it with his teeth?”

  “He explains that next,” Holmes said.

  Calibri folded his hands, striking an exotic pose.

  “He claims to have studied the oriental art of rapid motion, techniques that will enable him to move so fast that the bullet will not discharge until he has redirected it into the spittoon.”

  “Redirected it?”

  “Spit!” Lestrade said. “The notes say he spits it out.” He raised some papers from the cushion beside him. “The written record was in his studio. Conveniently placed!”

  Calibri waved his hands in a large arc, suggesting an explosion.

  “When the trick is performed properly,” Holmes said, “the spittoon explodes. I’m sure it would be quite a spectacle. Alas, that is not what we are about to see.”

  Calibri took a seat in the backless chair, positioning himself while Guignol locked the gun into place.

  “Supposedly, part of the danger of the trick is that Calibri cannot move once the gun is locked down.”

  Mrs. Calibri crossed in front of her husband, took hold of the screen, and wheeled it forward until both the gun and Guignol became no more than shadows through the rice paper.

  “You see, Watson. Shooter and target are now hidden from each other. Guignol cannot adjust his aim, and Calibri dares not change his position. More significantly, the magician must be ready to act the instant the gun fires, the moment the paper tears.”

  Mrs. Calibri made a final adjustment to the spittoon. Then she backed away, moving out of the projection to leave her husband alone with the rice-paper shadows.

  “This last part happens quickly.” Holmes stepped forward, advancing toward the hanging sheets, his shadow rising beside Calibri.

  In that instant, a hole appeared in the rice-paper. It seemed to happen slowly, my mind racing in apprehension. Indeed, I almost saw the bullet itself, spinning as it crossed the stage…

  Calibri leaned forward, hands on knees, head erect, mouth drawn into a half-open grimace. As Holmes had said, it would have been a spectacular trick: Calibri turning with lightning speed to deflect the projectile to explode within the brass spittoon.

  But none of that happened.

  Instead, Calibri’s head ignited into a ball of flame.

  I leaped to my feet. “Good God!” I teetered forward, reaching out as Calibri convulsed and fell. He struck the wine table, knocking it over as his wife ran back into the projection. Grey flecks covered her costume, face, and hands. She had been caught in the spray…

  I stepped forward, still reaching out as if to stop the madness.

  And now the rice paper screen was moving, sliding back to reveal Guignol’s ruined face and emotionless eye. I could make no sense of his expression. The monster simply stared, straight ahead. “The camera,” I muttered. “Guignol is looking at the camera!” But the impression was different. The eye seemed to be staring straight at me.

  I stumbled, returning to my seat.

  And then, suddenly, the staring eye was gone, eclipsed by Mrs. Calibri’s spattered face as she turned, leaned forward, and extended a hand. In that instant, the screen went white.

  “Did you see it that time?” Lestrade asked.

  “No,” Holmes said. “It wasn’t there.” He stood before the hanging sheets, chin in hand, looking down. “I tell you it wasn’t there.”

  “What wasn’t there?” My voice trembled. “Gentlemen, please. Tell me … assure me! What we saw was surely an illusion. Wasn’t it? Did we not just witness a trick?”

  “Yes,” they answered together.

  “We
agree on that much,” Holmes said. “But who is tricking whom? That is where we disagree.”

  “Play it back,” Lestrade said. “Just the end, the last few seconds. It must be there!”

  Holmes returned to the machine, closed a douser to block the light, and cut the power to the still-clattering projector. Then, hands trembling, he re-threaded the film.

  “May I ask what you’re looking for?”

  “Movement in the curtains,” Lestrade said. “A change in the light. Anything to indicate that the camera was stopped and restarted.”

  Holmes opened the douser as the film ran backward through the machine. The image leaped back onto the sheets with Mrs. Calibri’s gore-smeared face jerking as the film momentarily hung up and started moving again.

  “So it is a trick.” I sounded like a man trying to convince himself.

  No one responded.

  Mrs. Calibri backed away, and once again I found myself staring at the cyclopean eye of Guy Guignol. The orb looked dead, more like the lens of a machine than the window to a soul. And then it was gone, slipping behind the rice-paper screen as the headless body of the Great Calibri leaped from the floor, bringing the wine table with it before resuming its seat on the backless chair.

  “Watch his body,” Holmes said. “If the camera shuts off during filming … if another figure takes the magician’s place … we’re sure to see movement in his limbs, a shift in his posture.”

  Viscera flew through the projection, coalescing in a reverse flash of light, reconstituting to become the living head of the Great Calibri.

  “It’s him,” Holmes said. “It’s still him. If there had been a switch, we would have seen it.”

  “But I saw something!” Lestrade said. “I’m sure of it. A jump in the film!”

  The image jumped again as he spoke.

  “There! You see it, Holmes?”