Sherlock Holmes--The Devil's Dust

by James Lovegrove

  “It wasn’t the mutton stew, then. Or was it?”

  “It was and it was not,” Holmes said cryptically. “To me the more intriguing matter is the nature of the Devil’s Dust itself. What is it? Of what is it composed?”

  These sounded like rhetorical questions, but I hazarded an answer anyway. “Some concoction of toxic roots and berries, I should suppose. Is that not how witch-doctors work? Their potions derive their properties from the chemicals inherent in organic matter, principally plants.”

  “Yet the Devil’s Dust mimics the effects of a substance that does not occur in nature, and by ‘mimics the effects of ’ I mean ‘is utterly indistinguishable from’.”

  “And what substance is that?”

  “Arsenic trioxide, Watson. Internal bleeding, reddened skin, swelling of the flesh; all are classic signs of acute arsenic trioxide poisoning. A fatal dose would not need to be a significant quantity. A quarter of a teaspoon would do the trick. That would be enough to end the life of even a healthy adult male such as Bradford Wade. I should be able to confirm this theory once I get my hands on the items which Mrs Biddulph is keeping for me. You know, of course, where arsenic trioxide is commonly found?”

  “It is an ingredient in a number of patented medicines,” I said, “mostly those used to treat syphilis. It is also to be found in Fowler’s Solution, which is both a tonic and a treatment for malaria and cholera.” An idea struck me. “What about the doctor at Silasville? The one whom Umslopogaas portrayed as a corrupt, indolent quack?”

  “What about him?”

  “He would have access to medicines of the kind I’ve just described. He might have somehow been able to filter out the arsenic trioxide from them, distilling it down to lethal concentrations. Then he could have handed that to the mine’s resident witch-doctor in powder form to use as he saw fit. The witch-doctor gave the powder a sinister name – Uthuli lukaDeveli – and swiftly it became a source of terror amongst the miners.”

  “There is a more straightforward way of getting hold of arsenic trioxide than the one you posit,” said Holmes. “The compound is a by-product of the smelting of certain metals, mainly copper and gold when they are, as is often the case, mined from areas rich in sulphide mineral deposits. Now, with Fanthorpe Overseas Ventures being involved in large-scale mining operations, to obtain sizeable amounts of arsenic trioxide would be easy for a high-level employee of the company.”

  “Such as Van Hoek.”

  “All he would have to do was visit the nearest ore-processing plant, of which Fanthorpe has several in Africa, including one just outside Johannesburg. He could avail himself of as much of the deadly residue as he desired. Hey presto, a dust that can be passed off as a sorcerous powder.”

  “How grotesque,” I said. “A Fanthorpe mine’s leavings being deployed against the company’s workforce.”

  “Grotesque, but also fiendishly efficient. One has to admire that level of resourcefulness, while at the same time deploring it.”

  “And Harry Quatermain?”

  “What of him?”

  “His death by Devil’s Dust was the catalyst for all this, but why did he have to die?”

  “It could be that he, like Wade, found out about the nefarious goings-on at Silasville,” said Holmes. “He appears to have been an intrepid and inquisitive young man, and it is not beyond the realms of possibility that those same qualities got him into trouble. Van Hoek resolved that he had to be disposed of, and so he was. He resolved, too, that he himself was the only man for the job, not one of his underlings. Yet there is one aspect of the scenario I have just outlined that does not sit well with me.”

  “Namely?”

  “Van Hoek seemed aggrieved by the killing of Harry, if Wade’s account is anything to go by. ‘I wish this had not happened.’ Those were his words, spoken bitterly.”

  “It might have been an attack of remorse.”

  “It might, but this is a man who seems to have little compunction about committing murder. It is almost as though he was being swept along by a tide of events over which he had no control, as though he had become a victim of force majeure.”

  “There may, then, be more to Harry’s death than we realise?”

  “I am of a mind to think so,” said Holmes. “Perhaps the role of ‘son of Macumazahn’ was a double-edged sword. While it conferred a certain cachet, it could also have brought opprobrium. I cannot believe that Quatermain senior has rampaged across Africa all these years and not acquired a fair few enemies along the way. One amongst that rogues’ gallery might have wished to strike back at him.”

  “By murdering his son?” I shuddered. “What a horrible notion.”

  “I offer it simply as speculation. There are doubtless many other reasons why Harry might have been killed. Africa is not known as the Dark Continent for nothing. As on the American Frontier, new and old civilisations are clashing, and that foments savagery in the hearts of those on both sides of the conflict. In Africa, where there are fortunes to be made and territory to be conquered, it seems that anything goes. I wonder if that is why friend Quatermain feels so at home there. There is a streak of primordialism within him, a wildness that finds the modern world restrictive. Have you noticed how he gravitates towards London’s green spaces? Regent’s Park, Victoria Park, Hyde Park…”

  “Now that you mention it, yes.”

  “The urban environment just does not suit him. He instinctively seeks out trees, grass, open skies. As life becomes ever more mechanised and industrialised, and cities and populations grow, one has to ask oneself how a man such as he will survive. He is an endangered species, his habitat shrinking. I almost pity him. Perhaps, when he is gone, we shall never see his like again.”

  The thought, oddly sobering, hung over us for the rest of that drive through the city and out into the night-clad countryside beyond.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EYES

  A full moon, a cloudless sky, a freckling of stars, and a soft breeze rustling the tree branches: that was the prospect as we climbed out of the brougham after some three hours of travel. My spine felt tender after having been jounced and jolted around for so long, particularly during the latter portion of the journey once we had exchanged paved roads for rutted tracks. I stretched and bent to ease out my stiffness, while Quatermain fetched his elephant gun and bandolier from the cab.

  “Stay put, Tucker,” he said to the cabman. “Keep the carriage lamps burning. I cannot say how long we shall be, but I expect to find you here when we return.”

  “For what you’re paying me, sir, I’m happy to sit tight from now until doomsday.”

  Turning to Holmes, Quatermain said, “Now then, this cave. Where does it lie?”

  Before we left Baker Street, Holmes had consulted a map of the area. Now he glanced around, taking the lie of the land, and said, “Unless I am much mistaken, Loughton Camp is situated upon that ridge of high ground over there, and the cave lies a short distance to the north of it. Therefore, once past the hill fort, all we have to do is keep an eye on the Pole Star – there – and we will be going in the right direction. You are aware, are you not, that we may be walking into a trap?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Briefly, Holmes enumerated the various deductions he had shared with me during the course of the journey.

  “Then the symbol at Victoria Park was not left by Umslopogaas,” Quatermain said.

  “It is hard to know how he could have managed it,” said Holmes. “The evidence points to him having been lured out of your camp in the thicket. It is unlikely he would have been at liberty to go back in and etch the symbol into the ground, having been informed about his destination in the interim. No, someone else is responsible.”

  “Whoever did the luring.”

  “Yes, which would suggest that we were meant to find and interpret the symbol.”

  “Dammit. Why did you not mention this earlier?”

  “Would it have changed your mind about comi
ng here?”

  Quatermain gave this question the briefest consideration. “No. Do you think Van Hoek is his abductor?”

  “Or the African boy, who may or may not be an accomplice of Van Hoek’s.”

  “And let me get this straight,” said Quatermain. “Van Hoek killed Wade using Uthuli lukaDeveli, in order to cover up what Wade knew about Harry’s death, and may also have killed Harry the same way.”

  “I have yet to establish the latter beyond reasonable doubt.”

  “But there’s a chance he did.”

  “There is.”

  Quatermain slotted cartridges into both breeches of his gun and snapped the weapon shut.

  “Then I am going to the cave, come what may. Trap or no trap, if Van Hoek is there, he is a dead man.”

  Quatermain marched off without another word. We fell in behind him, matching our pace to his rapid, forthright stride. Holmes and I were both carrying dark-lanterns to illuminate our way, but for Quatermain it seemed that the light of stars and moon alone afforded sufficient visibility.

  We passed through beech woods along broad, smooth paths that may well have been ancient roads. We circumvented the earthworks of the hill fort, the remains of which consisted of a few curving banks and ditches. The incline was gentle, but the downward slope beyond the ridge was steeper and the leaf litter treacherous underfoot, with the result that I lost my footing and slithered down more than once.

  Every so often Quatermain would pause, go down on bended knee and examine a patch of ground. I can only assume he was looking for spoor. Whether he found any, he gave no indication. He simply straightened up and carried on walking. The elephant gun was slung over his shoulder but it was clear he was ready to use it at a moment’s notice.

  All at once, he raised a hand and hissed at us to halt.

  Then, in a voice only just audible, he said, “We are not alone.”

  It was not so much the words themselves that sent a chill through me, as their tone. Quatermain sounded perturbed, and that in itself was perturbing. The great hunter, veteran of lion attacks and Zulu wars and heaven knows what else, possessed nerves of steel – and yet here he was, unnerved.

  “Dim the lights,” he said, and Holmes and I closed the shutters of our lanterns to the merest chink.

  Darkness settled over us. The trees whispered with their brittle leaves. Now and then a bough creaked like someone moaning in pain.

  Quatermain dropped to a crouch, unshouldering his gun and thumbing back both hammers. I scanned keenly the dim woodland all around us. There was movement perceptible in the spaces between the tree trunks, but I could not tell if it was anything other than branches waving and fallen leaves skittering.

  Quatermain traversed from side to side with the gun barrels, pausing every so often as if something had caught his attention. His forefinger curled around the trigger.

  He sounded almost resigned as he said, “Ah. We are most definitely outnumbered. This is not a situation we can simply shoot our way out of, I fear. You may as well reopen the lanterns, gentlemen.”

  The light we shed upon the scene revealed the import of Quatermain’s remarks.

  There were eyes.

  Ahead, behind, and to either side, eyes glared at us yellowly out of the darkness. I counted at least a dozen pairs, all at hip height.

  Not human eyes. Animals’.

  Then I heard a low, menacing growl.

  “Was that a dog?” I murmured to Holmes.

  “Worse, I fear, than any hound,” came the reply. “One can just make out the shape of a muzzle over there. It is tapered in a distinctive fashion and the fur is pale. Watson, these are wolves.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SHEPHERDED BY WOLVES

  “Wolves,” I breathed.

  I knew there were wolf packs still roaming Britain, but their numbers were dwindling and I had not heard of any this far south. There had been sightings in the Scottish Highlands as recently as last year, but none in England since the turn of the sixteenth century. It startled me to find these wilderness creatures so near to the sprawl of London, and I wondered if perhaps the wolves were a single family that had survived for generations in Epping Forest, keeping hidden. But that, surely, was impossible.

  Then, all at once, I recalled the article I had lately read in The Times about the wolves that had escaped from a menagerie near Chelmsford, a mere fifteen miles or so from Epping. These wolves around us must surely be the same creatures.

  I drew my revolver. With its five rounds, and the two in Quatermain’s gun, we might account for the majority of the wolf pack in one fell swoop. That, however, was assuming neither of us missed and that we were able to empty our guns before any of the wolves reached us. None of the beasts was more than a dozen yards away, and I had no doubt they could cover the distance in a matter of seconds. However rapidly we shot, the wolves would be faster.

  “What should we do?” I murmured.

  “Whatever they want us to,” Quatermain replied. “They are the masters here. We must comply with their wishes.”

  “They’re animals. They don’t have—”

  Even as I spoke, some of the wolves ahead of us moved. They parted ranks, creating a break in the encircling barrier they had formed.

  At the same time, the wolves behind us padded forward.

  “That is it, then,” said Quatermain. “We are being given an escort.”

  And so it was. The wolf pack, as though possessed of a single, unifying consciousness, ushered us through the forest in the direction of their choosing. They maintained a horseshoe shape around us so that we could neither retreat nor dash off to either side. We could only keep going straight ahead.

  “Quatermain,” I whispered, after we had gone perhaps half a mile with our lupine entourage, “would not a few well-placed gunshots cause the beasts to scatter? We might then be able to make a run for it.”

  “I do not think that will work, Watson. The wolves’ natural instincts have been overridden. They will not behave as they normally might.”

  “Ah. Much like the rats and the pigeons who laid siege to us at Baker Street.”

  “This is not dissimilar. Someone is influencing the wolves’ behaviour.”

  “Someone has trained them, you mean?”

  “You do not hear that faint piping sound?”

  “No.”

  “Nor you, Mr Holmes?”

  “I wish I could say I did,” said Holmes.

  “Perhaps it is above the threshold of audibility for both of you. I myself can only just detect it. It is intermittent, and broken up into patterns of long and short bursts, not unlike Morse code. The wolves are responding to it as though receiving orders.”

  “Like a dog whistle,” I said. “But who is blowing it? Marius van Hoek, I suppose.”

  “Could be. Could be.”

  “You seem to think otherwise, Quatermain,” said Holmes.

  “It is just that…” Quatermain mused for a moment. “Th is talk of an African child leading Umslopogaas along the river bank. And now these wolves, taking commands, obedient as anything. It makes me wonder… No. No, that is a futile line of thinking. There is no earthly way it can be he.”

  “Speak up. If you have something to share with us, something that may be to our advantage, now would be the time.”

  But Hunter Quatermain would not be drawn to elaborate.

  “No,” said he. “Just an old man’s foolish fancy. Pay it no heed.”

  “Holmes,” I said, trying another tack, “you seem content to go along with this – this death march.”

  “Content? No. Curious to see where it ends? Yes. We do not even know that it is a ‘death march’, as you put it. We are sheep being shepherded. Shepherded by wolves. There is, if nothing else, a certain irony about that.”

  “Everyone knows what happens to sheep eventually.”

  “Chin up, Watson. If we are threatened with being put to the slaughter, that is when you may mount a spirited resistance, with m
y blessing. Until then, curtail your violent tendencies. We have come this far. Let us see how the rest plays out.”

  Presently we entered a large, bowl-shaped clearing. At one end lay a rocky bluff at the base of which there was a roughly triangular fissure. This aperture, at its apex, was a little taller than a man and looked deep.

  “There it is,” said Quatermain with amazement and a certain pride. “The very cave. The one I saw. It is as real as it was when I was Tom Chalmers.”

  “That’s far enough! Stop where you are!”

  The command was issued from the cave mouth by a voice with a strong Afrikaans accent.

  We halted, while our escort of wolves dispersed to the edges of the clearing, leaving us isolated in the middle.

  From out of the cave stepped a burly, redheaded fellow with a raised rifle. He trained the gun on Quatermain.

  “Th at blerrie great cannon you have there,” he said. “Put it on the ground. Nice and gentle.”

  Quatermain set down the elephant gun.

  “Now kick it towards me.”

  Quatermain nudged the weapon with his toe.

  “Again. Further this time. Out of your reach.”

  Quatermain put more force into the action, and the elephant gun skidded several yards, coming to a rest closer to the Boer than to him.

  “If you’ve a knife on you, do the same.”

  Quatermain slid out his hunting knife from its sheath at his ankle and tossed it to one side.

  “Any other weapons?”

  Quatermain shook his head.

  “All right. Now you.”

  The rifle did not leave Quatermain, but it was I who was being addressed.

  “That pistol of yours. Ditch it. Don’t get any funny ideas. Mr Quatermain’s brains would splatter all over you if I blew them out. I don’t think you would enjoy that.”

  I parted company with my Webley, using a bed of leaves to cushion its landing.

  “Marius van Hoek, I presume,” said Holmes in an affable tone. “We meet face-to-face at last. You have led us quite a merry dance. How are you finding England? Not what you’re used to, I’m sure.”