Sherlock Holmes - Gods of War

by James Lovegrove

  HUMAN SACRIFICES

  They pushed us out of the house and across the village green to the roadside, where a pair of cars awaited. One was Mallinson’s Humberette, the other a Mercury Thunderbolt double phaeton, considerably taller and longer, a powerful beast with something of the oceangoing yacht about its lines.

  Holmes and I were bundled into the rear seat of the Thunderbolt. Our hands had been tied behind our backs with lengths of spare sash-window cord which Jenks had found in the cottage. The gamekeeper, despite his injured, bleeding hand, was good with knots. So tightly were my wrists fastened, in fact, that my fingers tingled with loss of circulation.

  Jenks took the passenger seat, cradling his shotgun in his lap. The barrels were pointed backwards at us.

  Into the driving seat climbed a lanky individual whose face, once he had divested himself of his balaclava, was pinched and pale. Childhood-acne scars stippled his sallow cheeks, and his eyes were hooded and deep-set, with a melancholic cast to them.

  “Victor Anstruther I presume,” said Holmes. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all yours, Mr Holmes,” said Anstruther. He executed a series of operations to get the car going, priming the starter motor and switching on the ignition coil. The Thunderbolt coughed, then purred, the engine’s thrum reverberating through the steel and wood coachwork and calfskin-upholstered seating. Anstruther threw the car into gear and we were off, with Mallinson and the other two intruders – who could only be Partlin-Gray and Harington – leading the way in the Humberette.

  Headlamps cast dual cones of light into the mist as we travelled out of East Dean in convoy. Trees were skeletal shadows. It felt as though the world was in stasis, we the only things moving in it.

  “This is a fine piece of automotive engineering, Anstruther,” said Holmes. “Top of the Mercury line. You must be proud of it.”

  “Be quiet,” said the car manufacturer. “I have no interest in making idle conversation.”

  “Can you not at least take a compliment? I have never ridden in anything so sleek and comfortable. Independent suspension on each wheel, am I right? And a sliding-mesh transmission. Very smooth. Although you may want to change up a gear, as we are about to hit thirty miles an hour.”

  Anstruther grumbled but did as Holmes suggested, tugging on the gear lever so that the car would not conk out.

  “So, now that we have broken the ice,” my friend continued, “perhaps you would be so good as to fill in a few gaps in my knowledge.”

  “You heard the gentleman,” Jenks growled. “He doesn’t care to talk to you, so button your lip.”

  “Forgive me, Jenks, but it is not you I’m addressing. After all, who are you? You’re no one. Just the hired help. Craig Mallinson’s attack dog. Whereas this is Victor Anstruther, one of our nation’s premier industrialists, no less.”

  Jenks’s finger curled round the shotgun trigger. “If I didn’t have my orders that you’re to be kept alive for now…”

  “But you do have your orders, don’t you? And like any good lackey you’ll obey them.” Leaving the gamekeeper to fume and harrumph, Holmes returned his attention to our driver. “So, Mr Anstruther, the four of you have conspired to murder one another’s relatives. I can see superficial reasons why the deaths might have been desirable, and yet the motive in each instance appears somewhat tenuous, lacking in depth. You, for example, may not have liked your brother much or approved of his lifestyle. You may at times have resented and even despised him. But to have him slaughtered like one of the dumb beasts he liked to hunt? That seems rather drastic, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “It had to be,” was Anstruther’s terse reply.

  “That’s it, is it? Your only excuse? ‘It had to be.’”

  “Yes. You don’t understand. You couldn’t understand. The reasons are beyond your comprehension.”

  “I think I do understand,” said Holmes. “At any rate, I can just about follow the warped intent behind all of it.”

  “Oh, you can, can you?” said Anstruther. Briefly he took his eyes off the road to scrutinise Holmes in the rear-view mirror. “And what is our intent?”

  “Sacrifice,” my friend said simply.

  Anstruther was silent for a while. Then he said, “I told Craig it would be a mistake involving you in this. I said there was a danger you might figure it out. But he was adamant. ‘Holmes won’t have a clue,’ he said. ‘I’ll misdirect him. Bamboozle him. Distract him. And if he does still somehow get too close to the truth, well, we have become adept at handling potential troublemakers, haven’t we?’ I was unconvinced, knowing something of your career history, but Craig insisted that you are past your best…”

  “How wrong can a man be?” said Holmes. “Yes, sacrifices. That is what you have performed, you and your cronies. A series of human sacrifices, each more elaborate than the last, carried out over the course of a year on days that are traditionally held to be of cosmic importance. Who started it all off, I wonder. Who planted the seed? Was it Eustace Harington by any chance? Here is a man versed in the habits and lore of South America, intimate with that continent’s indigenous people and their past. Human sacrifice was commonplace among the Aztecs and Incas, indeed almost routine. They appeased their gods with ritual killings. Lord Harington would have had that in mind, surely, when the four of you sat down together to hatch your scheme.”

  “Eustace… was certainly an enthusiastic advocate of the idea,” said Anstruther.

  “And the rest of you became swept up in it soon enough. Harington went first, using subterfuge and strong drugs to dispose of his father. Sir Josiah, of course, played his part. The success of that led you to make the second murder – that of your brother – a little bit more dramatic. You, sir, are a classical scholar. The wine tipped onto the floor beside your brother’s corpse – that is what is known as a libation, isn’t it?”

  Anstruther nodded in such a way as to indicate that he was mildly impressed.

  “Libations of wine, poured onto the earth,” said Holmes, “were one of the ways the Ancient Greeks honoured both the gods and the dead. Odysseus does it in the Odyssey, and Electra in the Oresteia. Those are august exemplars to follow – the man whose cunning brought down the city of Troy and the woman who abetted her brother in the murders of their mother and stepfather. What a noble pair of precedents! Shall I go on?”

  “Please do, Mr Holmes. You are clearly enjoying yourself, and there will not be much more opportunity for you to do that.”

  These words had a chilling ring to them, and I wondered why Holmes and I were being kept alive now when earlier in the day Jenks had had no qualms about trying to kill us. What had brought about this change of heart among our enemies? Did some other, no less undesirable fate lie in store for us?

  “Very well,” said Holmes. “The third death, that of Lady Inga Partlin-Gray, bore overtones of medieval Norse practices. Specifically: the method of execution known as the blood eagle, which is referred to in the Nordic sagas, skaldic poetry, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. By all accounts, Norsemen weren’t averse to human sacrifice, usually by strangulation or immolation, but the blood eagle was a particularly gruesome form of lethal torture visited upon captive enemy warriors. It involved the back of the subject’s ribcage being sliced open and the lungs being drawn out, with the broken ribs spread so as to form wings. I can think of few more hideous ways to die. You did it yourself, didn’t you, Mr Anstruther? To Lady Inga?”

  I saw Anstruther’s hands tighten on the steering wheel until his knuckles had gone white. Then, relaxing his grip, he said with steely calmness, “It had to be.”

  “Again, ‘It had to be.’”

  “She didn’t suffer. She was dead already after I struck her. I have carved up the carcasses of deer that I have shot in Scotland. It wasn’t so much different.”

  “The scent of her blood attracted wolves, as you hoped. Their depredations were the perfect cover for the atrocities you committed on her body. I can
think of only one person who was unkinder to his victims, and that was Jack the Ripper.”

  “You cannot rile me, Mr Holmes, if that is your goal. You cannot rouse me to anger or cripple me with guilt. I am far too sanguine and firm of purpose for that. What I did, what we have all four done, is for the greater good. The good of all.”

  “Oh really?” said Holmes. “Tell me more.”

  “All in good time. Everything will be revealed in due course.”

  “Well, until then, let me expound on the fourth and final death, Patrick Mallinson’s. This one had an Ancient Egyptian theme, and we all know that Craig Mallinson used to live in Egypt until his wife died, and still has considerable mining interests there, which are currently overseen by the older of his two sons. Hence its very specific cultural relevance to him, just as Lord Harington’s father’s murder was culturally relevant to Lord Harington, and your brother’s to you, and Lady Inga’s to her husband. Patrick was sent off into Eastbourne to commission a costume for himself, one that would make him resemble the god Horus. Later, his skin was etched with temporary markings in the form of hieroglyphs. Whose idea was that? His father’s, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  “So there was a ritual. Candlelit? With incense? Did you all four attend?”

  “Yes.”

  “And was by any chance the sideboard in the hallway at Settleholm Manor pressed into service as an altar?”

  “It was. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t, not until now when you confirmed it. However, it seemed a likely supposition. It would account for the scuff marks on the floor. The sideboard had been heaved out into the middle of the hallway. When Sir Josiah went over and stood by it the other night, I believe he was intending to try and cover up the marks, knowing they might be construed as suspicious. Instead, he achieved the opposite result of drawing attention to them.”

  “He’s normally more canny than that.”

  “It was late at night, and he had had at least one glass of wine,” said Holmes. “At this ceremony I am talking about, I imagine Craig Mallinson officiated, anointing himself high priest. Patrick, dressed as Horus, grudgingly submitted to the indignity of it. Why? Because he was a good son, not perhaps as blindly loyal and dutiful as his brother, but still keen to please his father and his father’s friends. He might not have known what the ritual was for but he went along with it regardless. Yet he was uncomfortable. It disturbed him. The whole business was causing friction between him and his father, manifesting in their arguments over his place at Cambridge. Am I still hewing close to the truth? I haven’t diverged from it in any respect?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Excellent. You four had developed a taste for this mumbo-jumbo stuff by then. You were really getting into your stride. All of the foregoing, however – the costume, the ceremony – was mere preamble. At last the autumnal equinox came round, the time Patrick was scheduled to be killed. Lord Harington cajoled him into joining him aboard the Grahame-White for a night flight. Did Patrick take much persuading? Some, I imagine. He must at least have suspected something was up. Yet this was Lord Eustace Harington, his father’s bosom friend, a peer of the realm. How could he reasonably refuse?”

  “He went meekly enough,” Jenks piped up. “His lordship took the precaution of sitting down and having a drink with him beforehand. Several drinks, actually. Patrick never had much of a head for the hard stuff. He was in quite a gay mood as we walked out to the barn. Docile as a lamb.”

  “Ah yes, Jenks, you were there, weren’t you? Someone laid out the firepots to serve as a runway. That would have been your task, too menial for Lord Harington. What you were in effect doing, as you were well aware, was marking out poor Patrick’s path to the scaffold. How did that make you feel? He was just a young lad, his whole life before him. Possibly you had known him since he was a small boy. You would have watched him grow up. I daresay you were even fond of him, somewhere in that shrivelled black heart of yours.”

  Jenks, scowling, said, “My feelings are none of your business. I had a job to do. I did it. That is all.”

  “Yes, like the little soldier ant you are, scurrying around mindlessly at your master’s beck and call.”

  “Really, do we have to put up with this?” the gamekeeper growled to Anstruther. “He is insufferable. I should have gagged him as well as bound him.”

  Anstruther made a placatory gesture. “He is trying to worm his way inside your head, Jenks. Sow seeds of discontentment. Unsettle you. Do not let him. Do not give him the satisfaction.”

  “Are you getting paid extra for all of this, Jenks?” Holmes asked. “You have gone above and beyond your duties as Settleholm gamekeeper. What has Mallinson promised you in reward? A small fortune? Or is it enough just to serve in this grand, psychopathic enterprise? Play a role in whatever absurd, fanciful dream it is that these men are chasing? I’ve often wondered about the mindset of the henchman. What does he get out of being the villain’s strong right arm? Does he wish to bask in reflected glory? Is it just about the money? Is it the chance to indulge his bullyboy tendencies while passing the burden of blame onto someone else? Perhaps he derives a masochistic thrill from being pushed into heinous acts he would otherwise never have had the nerve to commit. It is something, I reckon, to do with the man who can barely think for himself, happily letting someone else do the thinking for him. Does that not describe you?”

  Jenks’s response to this taunting was to bellow out a roar like a wounded bull. “They are going to kill you, Sherlock Holmes! You and your friend. Slit your throats and let the blood pour out!”

  Holmes sat back, obscurely satisfied. “Well, Watson, there we have it. We know what to expect now. We, too, are to be sacrificed.”

  “Yes,” said Jenks. “Yes, you damned well are. Like goats. I may not have enjoyed sending Patrick to his doom, but you two – you who have hurt me, led me a merry dance, killed my dog – you I am going to watch die with pleasure. I will even wield the knife, if they let me.”

  “Oh, I doubt they shall, Jenks,” said Holmes. “Eh, Watson?” He nudged me in the ribs with an elbow. “Why would the organ grinder relinquish control of the organ to the monkey?”

  Jenks just shook his head in disgust. For my part, I could not see what Holmes hoped to gain by goading the man, unless it was simply for his own bizarre amusement. I myself could see nothing funny in any of this. Nothing at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE LONG MAN

  A breeze was stirring, the mist thinning, as the two cars crossed over a saddle in the ridge of the Downs and descended into a combe – a shallow valley. Shortly, the Humberette pulled over to the side of the road, and Anstruther drew up behind in the Thunderbolt. Mallinson climbed out and indicated that we were to do the same. Wherever our destination was, we had arrived.

  Holmes and I stood side by side, under Jenks’s baleful glare, as the four plutocrats gathered at the rear of the Humberette. This presented me with my first look at the only member of the quartet whose face I hadn’t seen yet, Lord Harington. He had soft, jowly features, cherubic lips and a pendulous nose. His gestures were flamboyant, and his grin, which was of the quick, furtive kind, exposed shambolic, rickety teeth. On one of his cheeks a large red welt stood proud, which he scratched at several times. A bee sting, courtesy of Holmes’s home defence system.

  Mallinson produced a large wicker hamper from the boot and began unpacking it. Out came four sets of heavy purple velvet robes, which the millionaires duly slipped on over their clothing.

  Leaning my head close to Holmes’s, I muttered, “I trust you have some plan for getting us out of this.”

  “It is in hand,” came the reply.

  “Shut up,” Jenks snapped.

  The robes were all hooded, so that the four plutocrats now resembled monks. From the hamper Mallinson next produced a set of objects. One, an ornate Egyptian eye carved in onyx, he kept for himself. The others he handed out. To Partlin-Gray he gave a metal
swastika, to Anstruther a Greek war helmet, and to Harington an Aztec-style stone carving of a small bird.

  Finally he extracted a curved ceremonial dagger with a jewel-encrusted pommel. I couldn’t help but gulp as I saw its blade glinting like a crescent moon in the headlamps’ beams. Despite Holmes’s assurances, this situation was not looking good for us.

  Mallinson opened a five-bar gate and ushered everyone through. We crossed a field in single file, Jenks at the rear, his shotgun fixed unerringly on Holmes and me. The millionaires all carried their objects before them as though they were sacred relics. The hems of their robes swished through the long grass.

  The ground began to rise, evolving into a series of natural stepped ridges. Ahead, steep hillside loomed, and on its near-vertical flank I discerned a glimmer of white which resolved itself into the crude outline of a giant foot, then a leg, then finally the torso and head of a vast two-dimensional figure carved out from the chalky soil, a couple of hundred feet tall.

  “Windover Hill,” said Holmes. “This is the Long Man of Wilmington.”

  The entirety of the chalk figure was just visible through the gradually dissipating mist. Viewed from below, the Long Man appeared to be in proportion, an artful piece of Stone Age trompe l’oeil. Yet he was still weirdly misshapen, his head more like an inverted flask than a human head. His arms, crooked at the elbows, stuck out like crude wings, leading to small, rather dainty hands, each of which held a quarterstaff that was fully as tall as the Man himself.

  He had no face, but for all that I found him daunting, even forbidding. He appeared to be glowering down at us like some hulking chthonic deity, a being conjured to the earth’s surface from a grim netherworld. I recalled Holmes telling me that this spot marked the last resting place of an actual giant, slain by a fellow giant. At that moment, in the depths of that long gruelling night, I could almost believe the legend was true and immense bones lay buried beneath our feet. It was a place steeped in mystery and misery, violence and death, the abode of a monstrous, unquiet spirit.