Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes

by Kim Newman

  “No, sir!” The servant grabbed me. “You must not move, sir.” It spoke with a disarmingly sweet voice, almost singing. “Master Adam told me to make sure you—”

  A latch clicked from across the room.

  I sat back. My vision cleared. Then, across the room, the far door swung wide.

  A dark man entered, bowed slightly, and extended his hands. “Please,” he said. “Don’t get up.” He spoke English, seasoned with the vowels of a man more accustomed to French. “Stay seated and save your strength.”

  I did as he said, watching as he took his seat across from me.

  He was of average height, yet his form conveyed a sense of stature, immense size. He wore his hair long and straight, like the Indians of the American plains. His skin, too, was uncommonly tanned, though lighter than his lips, which were as black as his hair. But despite such features, there was something noble about him, almost beautiful, and somehow familiar.

  “I’m relieved to see you looking so well,” he said, his diction recalling the tone of his letter: clear, precise, confident. “How is your pain?”

  “It lingers,” I said, startled by the thinness of my voice. It seemed as atrophied as my limbs. “How long have I been here?”

  “Since I pulled you from the flood.”

  “That was yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “How long?”

  His gaze narrowed, as if studying me from across a great distance. At last, he said: “Nearly four weeks.”

  I flinched.

  “Not four weeks from your perspective,” he added quickly. “Time is for the living, and you, Mr. Holmes, have spent nearly a month in the realm of the dead.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I think you do, Mr. Holmes. My words are plain. You were dead. Your suicide was successful.”

  “My suicide?”

  “Excuse me if I speak candidly, but there’s no need for pretence. I found your suicide note.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “Please. There’s no need to argue. Perhaps if I start the story at the beginning, it will be easier to follow.”

  “Please.” My voice, which had grown stronger through our brief exchange, now faltered again. “I’m listening.”

  He shifted in his seat, leaned back, and then proceeded in a tone more suited for oratory than conversation. “My home,” he began, spreading his hands to indicate the space beyond the library. “This secluded estate in which you find yourself stands near the brink of the Reichenbach Falls, less than a quarter mile from the site of your death. It’s a wild place, but the location suits my work. The river powers my generators, just as the hills and valleys power my mind. When I am wrestling with a problem, I wander the valleys, climb the cliffs, and contemplate the wonder of the first creator. I find answers in His works, but four weeks ago, while walking a path above the falls, I found a note resting on a boulder, held there by a cigarette case.” He paused, inviting comment.

  I gave it: “You found my letter to Watson?”

  “Yes. That was the salutation: ‘My Dear Watson’.”

  “But that letter contained instructions, not an admission of suicide.”

  He smiled, showing rows of straight, white teeth, so perfectly aligned they might have been carved from marble. “No? Perhaps not in so many words, but it did speak of a final act and the pain it would cause friends and family. And it gave the location of documents, instructions for the disposition of your estate.”

  I could have explained those points, but there was a more pressing concern. “The letter,” I said. “Did you take it?”

  “No. I left it on the boulder, with your cigarette case. I left your walking stick as well. It was clear you had left it to mark the location, to make it easier for your ‘Dear Watson’ to find your final testament. And there was no need for me to take the document. I have perfect recall. One look and I owned the form and content of the note: the names, details, tone, penmanship. That night, after pulling you from the flood, I drafted a letter in a hand and voice identical to yours. I sent it to your brother. It was a perfect forgery, though the minuteness of your hand required me to employ the use of a pantograph device. I tend to write large. Indeed, I do everything large. The sins of the father visited upon the child.” He smiled again, more broadly than before; giving the impression that he had just revealed something about his origins. I might have asked for clarification, but the matter of his forgery was more pressing.

  “So you wrote to my brother,” I said, trying to get ahead of the story. “Instructing him to send supplies.”

  “And money,” he added. “Some of which I used to purchase those few things your brother did not provide.”

  “So Mycroft knows I’m alive?”

  “He does. But I have — that is to say, you have — sworn him to secrecy. The rest of the world believes you are dead.” He sat back, studying me as if from a great distance. “It was suicide, to be sure. But a martyr’s suicide. You trailed a criminal to the brink of the falls, threw him over the edge, then leaped after him.”

  “I did not leap. I lost balance.”

  “Yes, it often comes to that, a loss of balance. My father—” He turned away abruptly, cocking his head as if listening to a voice behind his chair. But there was no one there, only a wall of books and an empty doorway. He raised a hand, cupped it to his ear, listened a moment longer, and then turned again to face me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I must go.” He stood, and once again I was struck by the impression of size. He was a man of average height with the poise of a dark god.

  “Shall I wait here?” I asked.

  “No.” He started toward the door, but then he paused, gripping the back of his chair as if clinging to a cliff. He looked back at me. “This conversation is over. Indeed, I fear I’ve already explained too much.”

  “But I still have questions.”

  “Yes. I’m sure you do. I would expect no less. But this meeting is over. A carriage will take you into town. From there, you can arrange passage—”

  “You mentioned a test.”

  “I did.” Again, he started toward the door.

  “So I assume it has begun,” I said. “This meeting is part of it, as is my dismissal. You tell me I can leave, but it’s really a challenge … a challenge for me to stay. Am I correct?”

  He paused within the doorway. “I give you my leave, Mr. Holmes. You may take it as you wish.” He bowed, deeper than before, then left me alone with the servant.

  I pushed up from the chair. “One moment!” I advanced toward the ropes. “One last question!” The vertigo came again. I felt myself falling, and then….

  “No, sir!” Giant hands grabbed my shoulder, turned me toward the door. “Not that way.” The servant led me from the chair, directing me back the way I had come.

  The ground floor hall was lighted now, with electric sconces illuminating the line of paintings that I had hurried past on my way to meet my mysterious saviour. Most of the art depicted scenes similar to those in the upstairs hall, but one was different, the portrait of a man with delicate features, rendered in the romantic style of the Regency Era. It depicted a young scholar seated amid old-world ruins: a crumbling arch, fallen walls, distant mountains. A journal lay open on his lap. He held a finger to his head, thinking as he peered from the painted canvas: wide brown eyes, straight nose, pensive lips, pale skin. I knew those features, having seen them before in the faces of God in the upstairs paintings. But there was something else….

  I stepped closer, reading the inscription:

  “Posthumous Portrait”

  by M Adam 1872

  after J. Severn 1845

  The servant watched from the library arch, peering at me from around the doorframe. The lights were still on behind its massive head, but, as the opening stood at a right angle to the hall, I could not see the room, only the light spilling from the arch.

  “Do you need anything?” the servant asked.

  I
pointed to the painting of the young scholar. “Who is this?” I asked.

  “The master’s father, sir.”

  So that was it. M Adam’s paintings of God the creator had been modelled on the likeness of his own father. Yet I sensed there was more meaning here, a more poignant connection.

  “What was the father’s name?” I asked

  “It was Victor, sir.”

  “Victor Adam?”

  “No, sir,” the servant said. “Adam is what the master calls himself. It is not a family name. The father was Victor Frankenstein.”

  Yes, that was it!

  I looked at the face in the painting, recognizing the wan complexion of the audacious Genovese student whose autobiography had caused a sensation in the early part of the century.

  I knew the story.

  Victor Frankenstein had died on board an arctic vessel. He had been 27, widowed, childless, and obsessed with tracking down and destroying an artificial man of his own design.

  I considered these things, wondering if it were possible that my host, the man who had restored my life, might be the artificial man described in the young scholar’s book. But that artificial man — or creature, for surely such a thing could not be considered a man — had supposedly died in the arctic along with his creator. And even if the creature had survived, the events recounted in the scholar’s book had taken place over a century ago. The creature, if it still lived, would hardly resemble the hearty, dark-skinned man I had just met in the library. And there was something else, the matter of size. One of the most striking details from the scholar’s book had been the creature’s stature — eight feet tall, according to the text.

  The man I had just met was of average height. Or so he had seemed.

  “Excuse me, sir.” The servant sounded impatient. “May I help you to your room?”

  “No.” I turned from the painting. “But I should like to have another look in that library.”

  “Sorry, sir.” The servant stepped into the hall, not blocking my way, but letting me see that he was prepared to do so if necessary. Even if my body were not battered and sore, I would be no match for those orangutan arms.

  “Some questions, then,” I said. “Will you answer some questions?”

  “Sorry, sir. I believe my master wants you to find those on your own.” And with that he stepped back through the arch and swung the door closed from the inside. The hall rang with the click of an engaging latch, leaving me alone with a clear sense of what I needed to do.

  I turned and shuffled toward the stairs.

  My bad leg was throbbing by the time I reached my room. I opened the pharmaceutical case, finding that it held a hypodermic syringe and six glass vials of morphine. I opened one of the vials, filled the syringe, and placed it back inside the holder. I did not secure the clasps, but instead simply folded the case closed before slipping it into the pocket of my coat. Next I checked the pistol, opening the gate to make sure it was satisfactorily armed. Then I closed it again, aligning the hammer with the empty chamber. Finally, I opened my smoking kit, removed my pipe tools, and left the room.

  The lights in the upstairs hall were much dimmer than before. M Adam no longer needed me to see the paintings. I realized, as I hurried past them, that he had been playing many moves ahead of me the entire night. Now, descending the stairs, I resisted the urge to think that I had gained on him. Chances were he was still playing me, manoeuvring from a position of strength.

  The door to the library was still closed. I looked through the keyhole. All the lights were still on.

  Left on for me. He expects me to break in.

  Using my pipe tools (the spoon to apply torque while the poker worked the pins) I picked the lock and opened the door. Then I entered. The chair and velvet rope stood as before, their careful arrangement pointing to the room’s sole purpose — not as a library, but as something far more specialized.

  I closed the door behind me and stepped forward, past the ropes and toward the centre of the room. With each step, the room changed. Shelves that had appeared parallel when viewed from the chair now appeared out of plumb. Likewise, framed paintings lost their squared corners, becoming trapezoids. And the floor, which had appeared level from the edge of the room, now sloped downward beneath a rising ceiling. These realities, which had previously been masked by both the precise positioning of the chair in which I had been sitting and the carefully controlled lighting of the room, were now plainly obvious.

  M Adam’s chair grew as I approached it, towering over me. I reached up to grasp its armrest, resting my leg as I looked at the door through which M Adam had entered the room. I now saw that the opening had indeed been designed to accommodate a man of gigantic stature, easily eight-foot tall, possibly more.

  I was still contemplating the significance of it all when someone called from the short end of the room. The voice rang out, musical but nonetheless threatening. Looking around, I saw the servant standing near the hallway door. The same slanted lines that had reduced M Adam to normal proportions now expanded the servant to gigantic size. More than ever, he resembled one of those jungle orangutans, with a massive body dwarfed only by the size of its gigantic head and arms.

  “You were told not to return here!” the servant said.

  “Yes.” I stepped away from the chair, steadying myself on both legs, trying not to look as wounded and vulnerable as I felt. “I was told that, but I was goaded to the contrary.” I reached into my pocket and removed the pharmaceutical case, hiding it behind the chair while the servant started toward me, steadying itself on giant arms as the floor sloped downward. The monster seemed to shrink as it moved, but the loss of stature did nothing to allay the threat. By the time the beast man had reached the centre of the room, it was charging.

  I gripped the syringe, waiting until the thing was almost on me. Then I swung the needle around, jabbed it deep, and squeezed the plunger. By then the huge hands had grabbed me, throwing me down, pinning me to the floor beside the doorway. For a moment I flashed to my last memory of Reichenbach Falls, being pinned against a high ledge with a madman straddling my chest. My training in the eastern arts had served me then. I had been able to use my opponents force against him. But here the opposing weight was too great. I was at the mercy of the beast man, helpless to resist as it grabbed me tight and lifted me from the floor. Then, as it prepared to throw me across its back and carry me from the room, its face went slack. In a blink, we were both falling: beast man crashing against the base of the chair, me landing atop him.

  My hip spasmed. I rolled away, forced myself into a crouch, and tried standing. The pain intensified. I slumped back against the chair, bracing myself while the servant breathed noisily, lying on its back, eyes open but seeing nothing.

  The syringe and case had fallen near the chair. I crawled toward them. Nothing was broken, but still I resisted taking an injection, using my will to ignore the pain as I stood, crossed to the gigantic doorway, and entered the space within.

  The way veered left, opening into a lighted corridor. The walls were stone, older than the wood-panelled rooms and halls behind me. But here, as before, the lights were electrical, bolted to the walls and trailing wires that snaked toward a chamber about twenty feet back from the forced-perspective room.

  I paused, slipped the pharmaceutical case back into my pocket, and drew the pistol. Then I pushed on, watching the chamber’s interior come into view: tables strewn with strange instruments, walls affixed with snaking wires and twitching dials, air reverberating with the hum of unseen engines. And over all of it, becoming clearer as I passed through the doorway, a long shadow that could only belong to my host and saviour, the giant who called himself Adam.

  “Impressive,” he said, speaking to me even before I had completely entered the room. “You do justice to your reputation. I can only hope that you do not think the same of me.”

  I found him sitting with his back to the door. This time, I saw him as he was: a creature of astounding propor
tions, so large that I might have taken him for a statue. He kept his back to me, dabbing a bit of paint on an easel-mounted canvas. He was working on a reproduction of Pieter Brueghel’s Fall of Icarus, which he seemed to be painting from memory. The canvas, like the artist himself, was enormous.

  “You may put the pistol back in your pocket.” He spoke without looking around. “I did not provide it to be used against me.” He lowered his brush, turned slowly, and gave me the benefit of his magnificent face, a countenance more like that of a god than a monster, with a complexion so uniform that it might have been fashioned from silk. No blemishes or scars, and yet the face filled with wrinkles as he smiled, seeming almost to shrivel as he flashed rows of marble teeth. He seemed pleased to see me. “So you have your answers, Mr. Holmes? Have you deduced who I am? What I am?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Say it then. What am I? What is it they call me in the world I am hiding from? What is my name out there?”

  “Frankenstein’s monster,” I said.

  His smile broadened, wrinkles deepened. “Really? His monster? Not simply Frankenstein?”

  “I’ve heard that, too,” I said.

  “And what about other things? How my father stitched me together from cadavers, gave me a criminal’s brain?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard that, though I don’t recall your father’s book mentioning such things.”

  “People make their own versions,” he said. “Things become grander in the retelling; more sensational.”

  “It’s much the same with stories about me,” I said. “I’m hardly the master of deduction that people think I am.”

  “I wondered about that,” the creature said. “It’s why I decided to test you, gauge your resourcefulness, your commitment to solving a mystery. From what I can see, the reputation does you justice.” The creature stood, towering over me. “I need to show you something.” He turned, heading toward an antechamber and the sound of humming engines.

  I followed.

  “I understand that people don’t believe my father’s story,” he said. “Probably because so few of them have actually read his book.” He looked down at me. “But you have?”