The Labyrinth of Death

by James Lovegrove

  “Naturally.”

  “You are able to see us, too.”

  “How astute.”

  “I caught sight of a glint of glass within each of the cage-like structures. Would I be right in thinking that a network of mirrors runs concurrently with the speaking tubes? Thus, in the manner of someone using a periscope, you are able to monitor our activities by eye.”

  “The images are small and blurry, but nonetheless give me a fair idea of your progress,” said Dr Pentecost.

  “How else would you know when to operate the doors and how Watson and I fared when crossing the pits?”

  “How else indeed?”

  “What perplexes me, Doctor, is why you are putting us through this whole ordeal. If it were Sir Philip co-ordinating things from above, instead of you, I could understand that he might wish to see how Sherlock Holmes measures up against his own brilliance. Without wishing to flatter myself, I am perhaps more adroit at this kind of puzzle-solving than the average Elysian. If he can outwit me, it would reflect well upon him. What, however, do you stand to gain from it?”

  “Maybe it is what you stand to gain, Mr Holmes. Namely the life of Miss Woolfson.”

  “That is undoubtedly a prize,” said Holmes, “but you must surely know, Doctor, that when we come through the labyrinth safe and sound, as we surely shall, you yourself will suffer for it. We shall be at liberty to expose your crimes and hold you to account for them.”

  “It is a gamble I am willing to take.”

  “No, you are no gambler, sir,” said Holmes darkly.

  “Perhaps not,” Dr Pentecost rejoined. “That is enough badinage for now, at any rate. You have passed the first test. It is also the easiest test. They get progressively more arduous. Onward you go.”

  The door slid open, and Holmes went through, as did I, having elected myself lamp-bearer once again. Another narrow passage beckoned, this one executing a couple of right-angle turns before it deposited us at the next door.

  That portal led to a chamber considerably bigger than the previous. Seen from above, it was in the shape of an isosceles trapezoid, like a triangle with its apex shorn off. The end where Holmes and I stood – the base of this blunted triangle – was broad, with the two walls on either side of us converging so that the far end was considerably narrower. The ceiling and all four walls were blank, uniform brick, while the floor was paved with two kinds of tile: large hexagons and small triangles, all of glazed white ceramic. These were arranged in a tessellated pattern:

  The pattern covered the entirety of the chamber floor. The sole exception, as far as I could see, was a strip of rectangular tiles a couple of feet wide, the same dimensions as a hallway runner, which lay beneath my and Holmes’s feet.

  Presiding over everything was a huge and hideous sculpted head that leered across at us from the far wall. It consisted of a woman’s face, crone-like, with wide, hollowed-out eyes and a snarling mouth from which projected a forked tongue. Framing this grotesque visage were numerous snakes, like a serpentine mane of hair. Each of the reptiles was rendered in a coiled, aggressive posture, fangs bared, as though poised on the verge of delivering a deadly strike.

  Dr Pentecost’s voice insinuated itself down from above. “Gentlemen, you may recognise the Gorgon Medusa there, she whose gaze would turn a man to stone. The challenge itself is called the Perseus Stratagem. That is all I am going to tell you. The rest you must work out for yourselves.”

  With that, the door closed, trapping us in the chamber with that vile, gaping head.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  THE GORGON’S GAZE

  “Well, Holmes?” I said. “Any thoughts?”

  “At present, nothing springs to mind,” said my companion, “save that it is apparent that we must cross the floor, for a second door lies ahead, to one side of Medusa’s head, and can only be our exit.”

  “I see it. I would not be so foolish, however, as to assume that we may simply stroll over there and, as if by magic, it will open for us.”

  “Your sagacity does you credit. There is also a matter of singular interest that you have no doubt already registered.”

  “Perhaps you can spare me the effort of floundering around in ignorance and just tell me straight out what has caught your attention and eluded mine.”

  “You ruin my fun. Very well, then. Look at the wall behind us. See how it is scarred and pitted?”

  The brickwork was covered in pockmarks. None occurred above head height or below ankle height. It gave the wall the appearance of being diseased, like skin afflicted by the aftermath of smallpox.

  “The rest of the wall is perfectly smooth,” I said, “as are all the other walls. What can have caused blemishes of such a sort, and why only in the one area?”

  “The answer to that might well give us insight into the nature of the threat this room poses,” said Holmes, tapping his lips, which were pursed in a small, pensive smile.

  “Holmes,” I said, “something tells me you are rather enjoying yourself.”

  “I cannot deny, Watson, that I am finding these puzzles not a little invigorating. Sir Philip Buchanan possesses a great brain, and I am intrigued to learn how my own measures up against it.”

  “Even though we risk injury, and perhaps death, if you fail to meet the mark?”

  “No, we shall survive this gauntlet, I assure you. Countless Elysians have, so why not us? Although, admittedly, not every Elysian who has entered the labyrinth has emerged unscathed, or for that matter alive. That is the dark truth behind Charfrome Old Place. Sir Philip’s altruism has led to unfortunate consequences that, I am afraid to say, he has not sought to rectify or ameliorate but instead somehow countenances as justifiable.”

  “You think some dire fate has befallen Elysians in the labyrinth?”

  “A fall from one of the beams in the previous chamber might well prove fatal. The drop is sufficient to break a man’s neck. And if, as Dr Pentecost has intimated, the tests become progressively harder, they may also become concomitantly more dangerous.”

  “Might that be what happened to Simms and Kinsella, for instance? They became the labyrinth’s victims?”

  “Really, Mr Holmes, Dr Watson,” said the disembodied voice of Dr Pentecost, sounding impatient. “We don’t have all night. Would you kindly do me the honour of getting on with it?”

  “Duty calls,” said Holmes. “Now then. The distribution of the pitting on the wall is certainly suggestive. Hold the lamp a little closer, would you? That’s it. The marks appear chiselled. Or… No. The result of impacts. Each is roughly conical, like a tiny crater, as though some small, pointed object has struck the wall with force, repeatedly. A hail of such objects, perhaps.”

  He turned to look across at Medusa.

  “Her gaze turns a man to stone, eh?” he mused. “Or does it, in the event, inflict damage upon stone? Those eyes of hers are suspiciously hollow. More like gun barrels than eyes. Would you not say so?”

  I had stared into a gun barrel on more occasions than I cared to recollect. “There is a resemblance, I agree.”

  “At this distance one cannot confirm that they are anything other than empty sockets. Yet I am convinced they are not. Within their interstices they hide a secret.”

  “The marks on the wall are bullet holes?”

  “They are far too diminutive for that. It is, by my estimate, twenty yards from here to that head. Even bullets of the smallest calibre would inflict deeper gouges than these, especially if fired from so close a range. No, we must consider other forms of projectile, minuscule ones, such as nails or pellets. We must likewise consider what causes those projectiles to be launched. That, I feel, is the nub of it. Medusa is passive right now. She must somehow be incited to attack.”

  “Her field of fire seems extensive,” I said, eyeing the pockmarked wall. “She can enfilade the entire breadth of the chamber.”

  “Which accounts for its trapezoidal design,” said Holmes. “There are no places where shots from her e
yes cannot reach, no safe refuges for us. Wherever we go, we are exposed, until such time as we can gain entrance through the other door. All of this is conjecture, of course, but the evidence supports it and seems incontrovertible.”

  “And the name the Perseus Stratagem. How does that fit in to this?”

  “It was the demigod Perseus who slew Medusa, was it not? Beheaded her, as I recall.”

  “So we, then, must somehow ‘slay’ that representation of her.”

  “Figuratively speaking, yes.” Holmes fixed his attention upon the floor. “I am inclined to think that those ceramic tiles are no mere decoration. They look innocuous enough, but scrutiny reveals a notable absence of grout surrounding each hexagon. The triangles do have grout between them where they adjoin one another, but not where their edges meet those of the hexagons.”

  He dropped into a crouch and gently explored the nearest hexagonal tile with his fingertips.

  “Yes, it betrays the tiniest amount of give under my touch. The hexagons are detached, independent. They rest loosely in slots rather than being affixed to planking below. A certain springiness suggests that this one, and all its cohorts, are actually triggers.”

  “And there you have your provocation,” I said. “Treading upon a hexagonal tile will launch one of those hypothetical projectiles from Medusa’s eyes.”

  “Hypothecation must invariably yield action,” Holmes said.

  “Spoken decisively. You are going to attempt to get her to open fire on us.”

  “At me. We must know what we are dealing with, and this is the best – the only – way to find out. It is reasonable to infer – at least as an opening gambit – that when Medusa shoots from her eyes, she does so in the direction of the tile that has been pressed. At what height the projectile emerges is less easy to determine. Her salvoes seem subject to some variability. The pockmarks are spread wide and evenly across the wall, with a rare few instances of clustering. The projectiles are therefore likely to be lightweight and, as a consequence, easily deflected during the course of their flight. They do not necessarily travel straight and true. All the same, they retain some degree of accuracy, enough to guarantee striking a target the size of a human body.”

  “Then how will you avoid becoming just such a target?”

  “By ducking down, like so, and bending to one side, so that only my arm lies within the line of fire.”

  “You may still be hit.”

  “As may you, for there is no telling where precisely the projectile may go. For that reason, I would advise you to crouch as low as you can.”

  I did as bidden, hunching to present as little of my bodily surface area as possible.

  “You have every right to look concerned, Watson,” my companion said. “I have minimised the risk as far as possible. I can do no more. And should the worst happen, either or both of us shall at least satisfy his curiosity as to what it feels like to be turned to stone.”

  “Dr Pentecost was speaking in metaphors, surely,” I said. “That carved head over there cannot literally petrify one with its gaze.”

  “Who knows? Perhaps it can.”

  With these words, Sherlock Holmes stretched out his arm to its fullest extent, so that his hand just reached the chosen tile. His features were impassive, but I thought I detected a flicker of anxiety in his eyes. Even he was not immune to twinges of self-doubt.

  He tapped the tile, and instantly there was a loud, sharp hiss from the far end of the chamber. This was matched by a loud, sharp hiss from me as something embedded itself in the meat of my thigh – something that stung horribly for a second, before the pain ebbed and was replaced by a spreading icy numbness.

  I looked down and beheld the feathered butt-end of some kind of dart protruding from my trouser-leg. I groped for it, but Holmes’s hand was swifter. In a single deft motion he plucked the inch-long missile out.

  At much the same moment, my leg gave way under me. All sensation had left it, and all strength. The muscles went as slack as blancmange.

  As I sagged to the floor, my knee landed heavily on another of the hexagonal tiles. Again there was that hiss from the end of the chamber where the Gorgon glowered. A second dart whisked across the room, this one thudding into the wall behind us, mere inches above Holmes’s head. It ricocheted away, having added yet another pockmark to the multitude.

  Holmes wrestled me fully onto the strip of rectangular tiles. “Here is the safety zone, Watson. Do not let any of your limbs stray off it.”

  “My leg,” I gasped. “I cannot feel my leg. I cannot move it.”

  Holmes held up the dart he had pulled out of me, studying its bloodied point. He took a sniff. Then he retrieved the one that had narrowly missed him and sniffed its point too. He followed that action by touching the tip of his tongue to it very briefly, before spitting out a gobbet of saliva straight away.

  “Curare,” he said.

  “My God!” I cried. “Are you certain?”

  “I am. A fairly dilute dose, but potent enough. Contrary to popular opinion, curare has no smell. It is one of the few poisons to lack a distinctive aroma. It does have an extraordinarily bitter taste, though, and oral contact with it leaves the tongue tingling, as mine is right now. To confirm my analysis, there is the effect it has had upon you. You know as well as I do that curare acts as a muscle relaxant.”

  “Of course. For which reason it has been used to treat lockjaw and polio, and also as an antidote to strychnine poisoning. In excess, however…”

  “It may lead to full bodily paralysis and, potentially, cardiac arrest.” Holmes turned to look at the Medusa’s head. “So she can, after all, turn a man to stone – or at least render him as stiff as a statue. Bravo, Sir Philip.”

  “What are we to do?” I said. “I am incapable of walking.”

  “The effects of the curare should pass relatively soon. But we definitely cannot risk you being pierced by further darts. I estimate it would take only two or three more doses to leave you stricken to the point of helplessness.”

  “Or worse.”

  “Hush a moment, Watson, while I think.”

  Holmes studied the tessellations once more, then Medusa, then the pockmarks. I could almost hear the cells in that magnificent grey matter of his fizzing industriously.

  “Pneumatic firing mechanism,” he muttered to himself, “akin to that of an air-gun. Endlessly replenishable. Supply of darts limited, no doubt, but sufficiently copious. Direction of fire, variable. Randomised? No. There must be a pattern. These traps are meant to be solvable. But touching of this tile… Whereas touching of that tile…” He swivelled his head from side to side, at the same time sketching imaginary vectors in the air with a forefinger. “It is a case of angles. Of geometry. Yes. That’s it. With a dash of Newtonian physics thrown in. ‘For every action…’”

  Meanwhile, feeling was returning to my leg, albeit incrementally and not without discomfort. My quadriceps muscles were twitching and leaping as though galvanised.

  “Watson,” Holmes said. “I have worked it out. It is really quite elementary.”

  “Elucidate.”

  “We may regard this trap as the opposite of the previous, in so far as here the presence of two people in the chamber works against them, whereas before, back there, it worked in their favour. Nonetheless co-operation is required.”

  “I regret, I am still none the wiser.”

  “The Perseus Stratagem. How did Perseus defeat the Medusa? How did he avoid being turned to stone by her stare?”

  “I am drawing a blank.”

  “It does not matter. All that matters is that you are able to stand. Can you?”

  I struggled upright, gripping the pockmarked wall for support. I shifted my curare-deadened leg around, flexing the joints. I put weight on it.

  “My leg functions well enough,” I said.

  “You do not have to be at your most agile,” Holmes said. “Rudimentary locomotion will suffice. Just stay behind me.”

  “That
I can manage, and gladly, if it means you are my bulwark against further perforation by poison darts.”

  “Neither of us should have to worry about that, not if I have truly divined the secret of the Gorgon’s gaze.”

  Together, we went to one end of the “runner” of rectangular tiles, on the same side of the chamber as the door next to Medusa.

  “Now we go on tiptoes, I suppose,” I said. “We tread only on the triangles, avoiding the hexagons.”

  “It would be impossible to guarantee success by that means. The sections of triangle are narrow. The least carelessness, the slightest misstep, will inevitably result in a hexagon being pressed.”

  “What, then?”

  My friend, without another word, ventured boldly and brazenly onto the floor, inviting me to follow suit at his rear. Over the tiles we went, hexagon and triangle alike, and with practically every step he or I took, a dart was disgorged from one or other of Medusa’s eyes. Yet the darts came nowhere near us. On the contrary, they pinged one after another into the rear wall at the side furthest from us. I flinched at each crisp, pneumatic puff of air, at each silvery glimmer of dart in flight, but not once during the journey across the chamber did the Gorgon’s gaze directly threaten us with injury.

  In next to no time we presented ourselves at the door. We were on another rectangular-tiled “safety zone”, the barrage of darts having ceased now that no more hexagons were being pressed.

  “Dr Pentecost,” Holmes announced primly. “If you would not mind…”

  The door duly opened.

  “Do you not see now, Watson?” said my friend. “The rationale behind the puzzle? Perseus approached Medusa walking backwards, employing a polished shield as a mirror so that he did not have to look her straight in the eye. He also wore a Cap of Invisibility, a gift from Hades, so was able to sneak up on her unseen and behead her. But the shield mirror is the pertinent factor, for our purposes.”

  “Reflection.”

  “Precisely! It is all about reflection. Mirroring. Medusa here shoots, not in the direction of the tile that is trodden upon, but at a point symmetrically opposite. I apprehended as much by inference. I pressed a tile; you were hit. You pressed another by accident; I was nearly hit. Devious, but once one determines the relationship between cause and effect, beatable. Accordingly, we both took a path along the wall on this side, and Medusa’s shots ranged exclusively along the wall on the other side. Had we not done so, had we attempted to reach the door two abreast rather than in single file, or else each along one of the side walls, the outcome may well have been very different.”