“Yes. Crowley contends that he received psychic messages from an entity connected with Horus while he and his wife were staying in Cairo at the turn of the century. He wrote it all down in his Book of the Law, which he regards as a work of prophecy. He espouses a new era of enlightenment and self-determination for mankind, an ‘Aeon of Horus’, in which we throw off the shackles of patriarchal religions like Christianity and Judaism and become masters of our own destiny. Crowley’s ritual magick – which he spells with a ‘k’ on the end in order to set it apart from any other kind of magic, including stage conjuring – is a means of communing with the powers of the cosmos and also of raising his own spiritual consciousness. His views may be heretical but they do not, as many claim, have any Satanic connotations.”
“Nonetheless he does not sound like a man I would much care to meet. Did Patrick fall in with this Thelema lot, then? And could that account for his deteriorating conduct over the course of the summer?”
“Occult societies like Crowley’s tend to lure in the disaffected and the disenchanted, and those with money as well, for fleecing adherents is one of the primary goals of sham religions. In both respects, disaffection and money, Patrick Mallinson fits the bill. And yet, to the best of my knowledge, there is no Thelema temple in the vicinity.”
“With all due respect, Holmes, secret societies have a habit of being, well, secret. Just because you aren’t aware of the existence of a Thelema temple round these parts doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
“Granted,” said my companion, “which is why our next port of call is the police station, where I shall pick the brains of our new bosom friend Inspector Tasker.”
“Pick his brains? I doubt that will take long.”
Holmes chuckled. “Even a barren orchard may bear a single piece of fruit.”
Tasker welcomed us into his office with no great show of delight. Holmes set to quizzing him about the presence of any secret societies or esoteric religious cults in Eastbourne.
“Aside from the Freemasons, you mean?” said Tasker. “Not that I’d call them secret. The local lodge is just down the road on South Street. You can’t miss it. It’s the one with ‘Masonic Hall’ painted in big black capitals above the door. Not that I hold with all that trouser-rolling malarkey myself.”
“You are not ‘on the square’?” said Holmes. “Rare for a policeman.”
“Some coppers, the ambitious ones, see Freemasonry as a way of getting a leg up through the ranks, but me, I’d rather ascend by merit and the sweat of my own brow. As for religious cults, there’s a synagogue over on Susans Road. Or do the Jews not match that description either?”
“I’m after less orthodox forms of worship.”
“We’ve our fair share of table turners and mediums. How about that? Esoteric enough for you? Barely a street in Eastbourne doesn’t have its own recreational spiritualist holding Sunday-afternoon salon séances. Get yourself invited to just about any posh tea party, Mr Holmes, and chances are you’ll soon be holding hands in a circle and contacting the other side. Not forgetting the gypsy fortune teller on the pier. Cross her palm with silver, and you can bet the mists will be clearing in no time and messages coming through from the great beyond.”
“I have the feeling, inspector, that you are not taking me entirely seriously.”
“Whatever gave you that impression? On the contrary, I am being inordinately helpful, per Mr Mallinson’s request. Has anyone been such a font of useful information as I?”
Holmes, with the utmost forbearance, changed tack. “Might you be so good as to tell me if the coroner’s report on Patrick Mallinson is in?”
“I might.”
“And is it?”
“It is.”
“May we then see it?” Holmes said through clenched teeth. He looked tempted to punch the man, and I would not have held him back. Nothing would have pleased me more than to see a fist planted in the inspector’s smug, obdurate face.
“I have it here somewhere,” Tasker said, and proceeded to search the drawers of his desk at some length, before turning to rifle through the files and case folders which lined the shelves behind him. All the while he whistled tunelessly.
Eventually Holmes said, “Could that be it? The document sitting on the desk blotter right in front of you?”
Tasker turned back and feigned surprise. “Why, how observant of you. There it was all along. Silly me. It came in not half an hour ago. Ink’s still wet on it, almost.”
Holmes perused the coroner’s findings, I reading over his shoulder. The autopsy had turned up little that we didn’t already know. Judging by body livor, temperature, skin texture and degree of decomposition, the deceased had been in the sea for at least thirty-six hours before washing up on shore. There was seawater in the lungs, though not in any substantial quantity, suggesting that it had leaked in post mortem rather than been inhaled. The neck was broken, almost certainly the result of violent impact with rocks or the sea’s surface.
“In sum,” the report concluded, “death came about as a consequence of injuries sustained from a fall from a height of 250 feet or more. The injuries are congruent with an act of voluntary or involuntary ejection from the cliffs at Beachy Head and environs. Instantaneous cessation of cerebral and cardiovascular function would have ensued on termination of said fall, such that the deceased did not drown but was dead upon the very moment of immersion.”
“He fell, he died,” Tasker said, spreading out his hands. “There’s not much more to add.”
“Except, how did he fall?” said Holmes. “And why?”
“Did he jump,” I chimed in, “or was he pushed? That’s a point the coroner raised – ‘voluntary or involuntary ejection’ – and one we haven’t addressed yet.” I realised that Holmes would have already been entertaining the idea of murder as a possible cause of death for young Patrick Mallinson. I know that I was always slower on the uptake than him, but I was also always slower to think the worst.
“Given young Patrick’s disturbed frame of mind,” said Tasker, “surely the question doesn’t need asking, doctor, let alone answering. Patrick Mallinson had no enemies that we know of. He was universally well-liked. Why would anyone do him in?”
“His father has enemies,” said Holmes. “He told us that yesterday. Rivals in the same industry as him.”
“You think somebody may have murdered the son in order to – what? Enact revenge upon the father? Unhinge him? Destabilise his business empire?”
“It is not beyond the realms of possibility. Worse acts have been perpetrated in the name of profit.”
“And where, exactly, do these cults and secret societies of yours fit in?” Tasker said. “Is there some dark Satanic conspiracy brewing against Craig Mallinson? Could it also involve Indian thuggees, perchance? Exotic poison on the tip of a blowpipe dart? A trained mongoose?”
The inspector’s sneer of contempt was obnoxious to behold. Seldom had Sherlock Holmes been mocked with quite such disdain, and by an officer of the law, no less, someone who ought to have appreciated that the two of them shared a common cause.
“Oh yes, all those exotic, enigmatic crimes you used to investigate,” Tasker went on, “all those twisting, turning cases. But this, Mr Holmes, isn’t that world of yours – the world of Dr Watson’s elaborately constructed narratives. This is the real world, my world, where a death is either a tragic accident or the end-product of a set of mundane circumstances. A world of sordid ends and human blunder. Nothing more, nothing less. And you and your outlandish hypotheses have no part in it. Now, if you will kindly show yourselves to the front door, gentlemen, I have work to be attending to, proper police work, and plenty of it. Thank you.”
Outside on tree-lined Meads Road I gave vent to a torrent of invective about Tasker which I shall not reproduce here.
Holmes took a more sanguine view. “Irritating and arrogant though he is, Tasker has at least confirmed that the Thelema angle is not worth pursuing. If some disciple of Crowle
y’s were operating in Eastbourne, Tasker would know. A man of his ilk keeps his ear to the ground. I doubt there is much that goes on in this town that he is not apprised of.”
“How you can speak well of him when he holds you in such low regard, Holmes – it beggars belief.”
“Where you see scorn, Watson, I see envy. Tasker feels threatened by me, so his instinct is to belittle and belabour.”
“I could quite happily belabour him – with this.” I brandished the sturdy hickory walking-stick which I had lately taken to carrying with me on longer jaunts.
“No, keeping relations cordial with Tasker is paramount,” said Holmes. “We may have to call upon him for a favour in the near future – indeed the immediate future.”
The import of this remark was lost on me then, and all did not become clear until much later in the day. During the afternoon I settled down on Holmes’s sofa with a book, The Insidious Dr Fu-Manchu, the just-published account of the efforts of former colonial police commissioner Sir Denis Nayland Smith to thwart the machinations of an Oriental mastermind hell-bent on bringing about the downfall of civilised Western society. As I turned the pages I reflected upon how Nayland Smith always seemed to fall foul of Fu-Manchu’s traps and schemes, relying on luck and his fists to get him and his somewhat colourless colleague Dr Petrie out of trouble. It was a far cry from Holmes’s more artful and light-footed approach to tackling villainy.
Presently my eyes became heavy and I fell into a deep sleep, which lasted until well after sunset.
I awoke to the sound of Holmes bustling about the sitting room, opening cupboards and drawers, fetching out matches and lanterns.
At first I thought I must still be asleep and dreaming, for also present in the room with me was none other than Reptilio the Human Cobra.
“Holmes!” I spluttered. “What is the meaning of this? Why have you invited this – this ruffian into your home? How is it even possible that he’s free from jail? What is going on here?”
“Calm yourself, Watson,” said Holmes. “Think of your blood pressure. Reptilio – or Caleb Smith, to give him his proper name – has been released from police custody on temporary licence and on my recognisance. Tasker took some persuading to sanction it, believe me, but I was at pains to remind him of his pledge to Craig Mallinson, and eventually he relented.”
“I took some persuading too, to be honest,” said Reptilio. “Help the bloke who nailed me for the Barraclough’s job? But Mr Holmes told me that if I did as asked, it would go well for me at my trial. In return for my co-operation he’d be willing to vouch on my behalf before the magistrate, and I might be in for a shorter stretch.”
“Well, I… I…” I stammered. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Then don’t make anything of it,” said Holmes. “Just fortify yourself with some food. There’s bread and cheese on the chiffonier in the kitchen and cold gala pie in the larder. Then gird your loins for a midnight excursion.”
“A midnight…?”
I could see it in Holmes’s grey eyes. They held a glint of excitement and anticipation that I recognised all too well.
The game, without question, was once more afoot.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A LIVING LOCKPICK
We hiked, the three of us, uphill to the turnoff for the Jevington road, which we then followed inland for two or three miles. The night was moonless, windless and clear, the stars out in profusion. An owl screeched, and a fox answered with its hoarse bark – lonely and forlorn sounds, both.
We diverted off the road onto a chalk footpath that glimmered like a silvery winding thread in the darkness. Holmes seemed to know his way around these rural byways as well as he had the back alleys and rookeries of London.
Soon we were in a forest, which enclosed us in primordial pitch-black silence and stillness. Here we deployed the lanterns. Tree roots underfoot were a perpetual tripping hazard. We moved in fragile haloes of light.
Reptilio began to talk, perhaps to combat the oppressively brooding atmosphere of the forest. He told me that he was not a bad person, just somebody whom providence had not given a fair shake. He had been a foundling, and his early life was a tale of orphanages, brutal education at the hands of strict Jesuit priests, and bouts of beggary, starvation and indigence, until his natural talent for serpent-like elasticity had brought him to the attention of McMahon the circus owner. He confided in me that he strongly suspected he was the illegitimate son of a nobleman, conceived with an actress. His father – a duke or an earl, he was sure – had no knowledge of his existence, else he would have come looking for him long ago and set him up in handsome lodgings with a stipend.
I refrained from commenting on the last. I had begun to feel pity for the man, this Caleb Smith. The credible parts of his story would have evoked compassion in even the hardest-hearted, and if his fantasy of aristocratic parentage brought him some comfort in his darker moments, so be it. And yet, that said, there could never be any excuse for criminality. No one need steal for a living while there was honest work, however menial, available.
Holmes instructed us to keep our voices lowered henceforth. “We are nearing our destination,” he said. “Douse the lanterns. Follow me closely.”
We arrived at the forest’s edge, where a wooden post-and-rail fence bordered a large field.
“Whose property is this?” I whispered.
“Craig Mallinson’s, of course. Who else?”
I had suspected as much but was still somewhat taken aback. “And we are here why precisely?”
“To gather evidence.”
“Of what?”
“Malfeasance.”
“I see. But this is looking awfully like an act of trespass.”
“Wait,” said Reptilio. “Did somebody just say trespass?”
“What did you think we were going to do, Mr Smith?” said Holmes. “Here we are, skulking about the countryside in the dead of night. Surely you must have had some inkling of the ultimate purpose of our journey.”
“Well, yes, but you never said nothing about anything illegal.”
“Why else would I have enlisted your aid if it wasn’t to exploit your unique properties and the egregious use you have put them to?”
“I thought you were after a demonstration. But now I’m thinking you need me for breaking and entering.”
“And you would be correct.”
“But… But I’m supposed to get on the right side of the coppers by breaking the law? Where’s the sense in that?”
“No one other than the three of us need ever know what transpires here tonight,” said Holmes. “Perform as required, and I will back you to the hilt at your trial as promised, without ever breathing a word about any felony I may have asked you to conduct on my behalf. You have my solemn vow on that. Watson’s full complicity you may also be assured of.”
Reptilio was not placated. “But what’ll I tell Inspector Tasker tomorrow, if he asks what I’ve been doing? He’ll have a fit!”
“We shall concoct some suitable lie together. Watson is a great storyteller. I’m sure he can come up with a convincing fabrication. He does it often enough when turning my exploits into saleable fictions.”
“I do not,” I harrumphed. “I may embellish the truth on occasion, but fabricate? Holmes, you wound me.”
“I don’t know,” said Reptilio dubiously. “It still seems wrong.”
“Oh, this is not the time for scruples,” snapped Holmes. “Perhaps if I were to increase the incentive… Watson? How much money do you have on you?”
“Ten shillings, I think.”
“And I have fifteen. What do you say, Smith? Will twenty-five shillings sweeten the pot sufficiently?”
Simple greed lit up Reptilio’s eyes, and he nodded to indicate that he would be able to overcome any compunction he had, in return for such a sum of money. Then he motioned with his fingers, the gesture of someone who would go no further without proof of earnest, and Holmes and I were obliged to tak
e out our pocketbooks and hand over all the banknotes therein.
Reptilio’s compliance now assured, we straddled the fence and proceeded to cross the field, which was broad, flattish and grassy, with here and there a thick tussock or a clump of thistle.
Halfway across, Holmes crouched to inspect a queer circular impression on the ground.
“What do you make of this, Watson?”
It was roughly the same diameter as a football and appeared to be a scorch mark of some kind. The grass within its circumference was blackened and brittle.
“Has a brazier stood here?” I wondered. “A stove?”
“And look, here is another one,” Holmes said a few paces further on. “And another. They are positioned at intervals of fifteen yards, I’d estimate.”
“Evidence of some pagan fire ritual?” I ventured, bearing in mind the younger Mallinson’s Horus costume and Holmes’s talk earlier that day about occult societies.
“Or something altogether less primitive,” said my companion, but he would not be drawn to expand on this remark. Sherlock Holmes, as my readers will know all too well, could be highly reticent when it came to sharing his insights. More often than not he would wait until the most dramatic moment to do so, when the revelation would show him off to his best advantage or wrongfoot an opponent. He had a theatrical streak to rival Sir Henry Irving.
At the far end of the field lay a brick barn. It hulked up against the starlight, impressively large and impregnable-looking all the way to its pitched roof. Some distance beyond, through a stand of oaks, I could make out the lights of a house. This I took to be Settleholm Manor, Craig Mallinson’s country seat. Despite the lateness of the hour, lamps were lit in several rooms, and I imagined the owner stalking the corridors and hallways, afflicted by the self-lacerating insomnia of the recently bereaved.
Thinking of Mallinson, I wondered what Holmes hoped to unearth in the barn and what relevance it had to the case.
As if reading my thoughts, Holmes said, “This is where he keeps his biplane. I have seen it once when passing by. It was sitting immediately outside, with Mallinson himself tinkering with the engine. The field serves as an airfield, affording him just enough room to effect take-off and landing.”
Sherlock Holmes - Gods of War Page 10