by Barry Day
“Morning, Wiggins,” I said.
“Mornin’, Doctor,” he replied, snapping to attention and giving a passable salute.
I have had cause to reflect more than once that there was an element of satire in his deference but the little charade, frankly, amuses me almost as much as it pleases him.
“What news of Irene, Holmes?”
“You’d better hear what Wiggins has to report,” Holmes replied without looking up from a letter he was reading.
Wiggins permitted himself to be ‘at ease’ and repeated what he had presumably told Holmes earlier.
“The lady wot you told me to keep an eye on, she’s all right for now. But, blimey, that’s the strangest church I’ve seen in all me born days …”
Which doesn’t give us many of either, I couldn’t help thinking.
“More like a prison that anyfink else and yer never see people going in to pray, like. Not much goin’ on during the day time but then at night lots of carts and drays unloading round the side. Crates and boxes and some big bottles. They’re very careful wiv ’em, I can tell yer. Somefink funny’s going on, if yer ask me. And all them geezers in black everywhere. Wouldn’t like to meet them on a dark night …”
“But Miss Adler …?”
“Oh, we’ve worked out a little code, see. She don’t get out except wiv some of the uvver people what work there and once or twice wiv old Cain hisself. ’E seems to ’ave taken to ’er—I mean ’im—right enough. But every evening at five Miss Adler’ll stand at one of the winders’ and smoke a cigarette, to show me she’s all right. Last night, when she saw me across the street, she managed to slide the winder’ up just a touch and slipped a letter out …”
He looked over at Holmes, who was just finishing the last page of the letter Wiggins was obviously referring to. Without a word he passed it over to me.
The paper was rough and clearly torn from a notebook. The writing was in pencil and appeared to have been dashed off in haste but the hand revealed was fluid and feminine and I could see the face behind the words …
“Dear Comrades-in-Arms …” it read. “Do not worry about me. I am fine for the present. This place is like a beehive. You would not believe how organised everything is—and it all revolves around Cain. Part of it deals with the Church and seems perfectly genuine, if such madness can be genuine. There are ‘converts’ like me from all over the place, sending out letters, arranging Cain’s rallies. All of us live here in our own little cubicles, which I must admit are extremely comfortable, even luxurious. Money is certainly no object here!
“The worker bees buzz around happily but there is another part of the complex that we are kept well away from and which is not immediately obvious from the way the place has been built. If anyone asks, they are told that these are Mr. Cain’s ‘private quarters’. I have only once managed to get a quick glimpse inside when one of the aides was coming out and I could have sworn I saw some sort of laboratory but then I had to move on, as the man was becoming suspicious.
“Why does a Church need a laboratory? And what do all these men in black do when they’re not guarding Cain from his admirers? I get the impression some of them are travelling around the country and perhaps setting up branches in other cities.
“Call it my woman’s intuition if you like, but I know they are planning something terrible here. The worker bees are happy in the thought that they are safe from the wrath to come, as they put it—but I have a strong feeling no one else is.
“As far as I can make out, the ‘laboratory’ is in the part of the complex that used to be called Mitre Square and must have a separate entrance. I’ll try and find out more.
“Your friend …”
“We can’t leave her there; Holmes.” I handed him back the letter. “Not now we know without doubt that there is villainy afoot.”
Holmes’s brow was deeply furrowed. He tapped the letter on his knee as he brooded on what we had just learned.
“I share your view entirely, old fellow, but if you care to look at the date on this morning’s paper lying at your feet, you will note that it is February 13th …”
“And …?”
“And Cain has promised to deliver a Valentine’s Day present to the whole of London tomorrow—the 14th. It is imperative that we discover just what that present is without delay. To remove a Trojan horse before we have sacked the city defeats the purpose of constructing it in the first place and, besides, I very much doubt if either of us is persuasive enough to convince the lady in question.
“But you are quite right. We must intensify our efforts. Yesterday—straws in the wind. Today—this. A picture is beginning to emerge, Watson—an horrendous mural painted in blood and bitterness …”
Then seeing that Wiggins had his eyes out on stalks, he ceased.
“Wiggins, you have, as ever, been of some small service. Pray continue to watch over Miss Adler’s wellbeing, keeping your eyes ever open and your mouth firmly closed at all times. Perhaps this may assist the process.”
So saying, he rose and escorted the boy to the door. I saw him palm a folded banknote into the boy’s hand with the skill of a practised conjuror.
At the door Wiggins turned to give us both an angelic smile, which shone oddly through the grime, and gave a smart salute.
“Count on Wiggins, Mr. ’Olmes. Gawd bless ya, sir. And you, too, Doctor. In fact, Gawd bless us, every one.”
And with that, the door closed behind him.
Holmes and I looked at one another.
“Dickens, thou shouldst be living at this hour,” he smiled, as he resumed his seat.
Somehow Wiggins’s performance reduced the tension we had both been feeling and we continued to analyse what we knew and what it might mean.
“We now know that Cain is well funded, that he intends to do something to disrupt the whole of London, or at least a large part of it. His total disregard for human life makes me fear the worst. In his warped mind he somehow believes that he and his immediate followers will survive what he calls the New Apocalypse …”
“What were the so-called ‘clues’ from that Porlock fellow?”
Holmes rested his head on his tented hands and looked into the far distance.
“He advised me to remember his name. The name ‘Porlock’ has no meaning, unless one relates it to Coleridge and the poem he was composing when he was interrupted—‘Kubla Khan’…
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree …”
“‘Stately pleasure domeg’. Could that be this palace he’s built in the East End?”
“Possibly, Watson, possibly. Cain certainly seems to be deriving pleasure from it. But then—‘Remember Musgrave’?”
“Well, that’s obvious. One of your earliest cases—before I came on the scene. I remember your telling me all about it. ‘The Musgrave Ritual’. Some sort of nursery rhyme that told you where the lost crown of Charles I was. Or was it Charles II—I forget?”
Holmes began to recite again …
“Whose Was It?
His who is gone.
Who shall have it?
He who will come.
Where was the sun?
Over the oak.
Where was the shadow?
Under the elm.
How was it stepped?
North by ten, east by five and by five,
South by two and by two, west by
One and by one, and so under.
What shall we give for it?
All that is ours
Why should we give it?
For the sake of the trust.”
“Two fragments written two hundred years apart that appear to have nothing in common.”
“Deep waters, eh, Holmes?”
“The deepest, the very deepest … yet I sense something lurking in those depths … I wonder …”
And then, foolishly, I had to distract him with my next question.
“Now, why does ‘Mitre Square’ seem to
ring a bell?”
“That question I can answer, old fellow. Mitre Square was the scene of one of the Ripper murders—the fourth, if I am not mistaken. Catharine Eddowes. Presumably it has some sentimental significance for our friend for him to incorporate it into his new shrine.
“The more I hear about that building, the more curious I am to see it for myself. How do you feel about a little larceny this evening, Watson?”
I have often speculated on how different things might have been if Holmes had decided to step across the other side of the line of the law. The world may have lost a great actor but it certainly lost a master criminal when he decided to prosecute crime rather than pursue it.
That evening he insisted that we dine in but instead of relying on Mrs. Hudson’s good plain cooking, he arranged to have a meal sent in from Harrod’s.
“A cold bird or two, old friend, a little something in aspic and a very fair bottle of Sancerre. Two more deserving fellows never lived. Tonight we drink, for tomorrow … who knows?” And with that somewhat qualified toast, he raised his glass.
After the table had been cleared, he began to lay out the tools of his alternative trade. Several of them I had never seen before but they certainly looked most impressive.
Seeing my expression, he demonstrated them one at a time—each a relic of a previous case.
“This jemmy dates back to the Hoxton affair … before your time, I fancy … this is the black lantern used by John Clay in ‘The Red-Headed League’ business. The fourth smartest man in London in his day and, when it came to daring, I would probably have put him third … And this …”—here he held up a bunch of picklocks—“this belonged to dear old Charlie Peace. He could have been sent down for simply owning them—always supposing they could have caught him. A virtuoso of the violin, Watson, and a remarkable fellow, Charlie …”
The light of enthusiasm was bright in his eye. “D’you know, Watson, I do believe burglary could have been an alternative profession for me, had I cared to adopt it, and I have no doubt that I should have come to the fore.”
As midnight struck we sallied forth, two middle-aged burglars, dressed in dark clothing from head to foot. We had to walk a few minutes before we could hail a passing cab and then we were on our way, committed to the task ahead.
Some half an hour later the cab turned out of Fenchurch Street into Aldgate and Holmes gave the sign to stop as we reached the corner of Duke Street on the left. We waited until the cab had continued into the High Street before moving on and Holmes looked around him almost nostalgically.
“Seven years and almost nothing has changed. I swear that same set of chairs sat in that same pawnshop window and that same nightwatchman poked the same brazier in front of a hole in the road. I swore I would never return here after those fools let Daintry go free but he’s back, Watson—I can smell him. And this time I mean to have him.”
With that he was off, setting a good pace, despite the weight that dragged down his coat pockets. Within a short time the noise and lights of the main thoroughfare were well behind us and we had the street to ourselves, except for the occasional young boys who never seemed to sleep and flitted aimlessly from one alley to another.
And then we saw it. It wasn’t that obvious at first glance but where Mitre Square had presumably been there was now a single structure. The original houses were still there but their windows had been sealed, like eyes blinded with cataracts, and a large vaulted roof linked them to the houses on the other side of the square. Walking round a second side of the square soon confirmed the impression.
That second side also revealed the front door of the Church of the New Apocalypse, signalled by a large wooden sign, carved in gothic gold letters out of a black painted background and embellished with a symbolic drawing of four horsemen, like something out of a painting by Hieronymous Bosch. Even in the dim light it was loathsomely attractive. The flickering gaslight made the riders seem to move.
My first impression was that the doorway was deserted but, as we stood in the shelter of a neighbouring house, I saw movement in the shadows opposite and the glow of two cigarettes.
“I wonder if a vengeful God approves of nicotine?” I murmured to my companion but he simply replied—“Stay here, Watson, while I reconnoitre the other side.” With that he was gone as if he had never existed and I remembered someone once evincing surprise that Holmes had apparently followed him. “But I saw no one,” said the poor fellow. “That is what you may expect to see when I follow you,” was Holmes’s rejoinder.
I continued to watch the watchers in the doorway. To judge by their monotones and their body language, they were bored by their repetitive duties and I could hardly blame them. It was late and the street was quiet. The building of this monstrosity had driven the ordinary folk of Whitechapel away. People who had trodden these shabby streets all their lives and found them home had been forced to move back and start their lives again. It was as though the life had been sucked out of the area, leaving a strange vacuum in its place.
But then, was it my imagination or were there more of those ubiquitous street urchins about than I had seen previously? There would seem to be a flicker of movement in a doorway but when I turned my head to look, it would be gone.
I was still puzzling over this when I sensed Holmes at my side once more and heard him whisper—
“If it’s all the same to you, Watson, I feel the servants’ entrance might be more appropriate.”
Then we were making our way, keeping to the deepest shadows, around the square to what was clearly the back of the building. Here there had been no real attempt to keep up the illusion of domestic dwellings. The facades were still there but they were lined with solid brick. Set into the middle of one ‘side’ was a loading dock of the kind one sees at commercial wharves.
“What on earth do they need that for?” I murmured. “Delivering Bibles?”
Holmes raised a finger to his lips and pointed to a steel door next to the dock. A moment later it was clear that his reconnaissance had borne fruit, for he had it open and we were inside Cain’s compound with the door safely closed behind us.
The interior was lit with occasional gaslights turned low but it was enough to see that we were in some sort of man-made cavern. Overhead stretched a curved dome of a roof, though it was impossible to tell of what substance it was made. Metal pillars and struts supported it and it was clear that it spanned the whole of what had been the old Mitre Square.
Now it was a virtual city in its own right with countless doors opening off a central area in which we now stood. That area was presumably the Church itself, since it contained rows of benches grouped around what looked like a simple granite altar.
Two long floor to ceiling walls divided the space like segments of an orange. The area we were in tapered away in the distance to what must have been the public entrance we had seen earlier. To the right we could hear a subdued murmuring from what I took to be the living quarters.
“The worker bees,” Holmes whispered in my ear.
The opposite wall appeared identical, until one looked closely, when it became clear that doors which superficially appeared to be wood were, in fact, made of solid steel and secured with heavy locks.
“The Ark of the New Covenant, I fancy, Watson.”
All this time we had been in the shadows cast by one of the huge pillars and taking our bearings. Now it occurred to me that, successful as we had been in gaining entrance, it was nothing by comparison with the task that still lay ahead of us.
Although the Church was not by any means crowded, occasional black-suited men would wander through on some errand or other. There was no way we could hope to see what lay behind those metal doors under these circumstances.
Then I saw Holmes consult his watch and give a small smile of satisfaction. A moment later there was an explosion at the far end of the hall and black smoke began to billow into it. At the same time there began such a din of boyish voices and the clang of sticks being bea
ten on tin. It sounded for all the world as though a riot was erupting in the street outside. It was equally obvious that Holmes had fully expected this turn of events.
He smiled like a mischievous boy himself.
“Where would we be without The Baker Street Irregulars? Mere lads but their strength is as the strength of ten, because their hearts are pure, eh, Watson?” And then I knew why I had seen so many of them massing earlier.
“Tennyson,” Holmes added. “Or close.”
He then took my arm and urged me towards what looked like the main steel door. As he did so, I was aware of all the attendants rushing like so many black ants to repel what sounded like an attack on their nest.
What Holmes achieved in the next few moments was positively frightening. I had seen him open the occasional safe before but this was different. He worked at fantastic speed producing one tool after another from the pockets of his ulster, then handling each with the strength and delicacy of the trained mechanic. It took him no more than a minute before the door was swinging silently open in his hand.
We found ourselves in a space-within-a-space. To our left, behind a padlocked grille, was a veritable arsenal.
“Why, it’s enough to equip a small army,” I exclaimed, as Holmes made even shorter work of the padlock.
“Which is precisely what it’s intended to do, old fellow. These gentlemen in black are not exactly altar boys. And I’m sure it has not escaped your notice that another of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is called War. We are looking at his stable. Hello, this is interesting …”
As he was speaking, he had picked up a brand new rifle from an open crate that contained a round dozen of them. Even though I had long since had my fill of fighting, I could not but admire its sleek lines and its well-oiled blue metal finish.
“A few of these fellows in our hands and Maiwand might have turned out very differently,” I muttered and then, realising that he had spoken—“What is interesting?”
“These weapons—and, I suspect, most of the rest of the matériel in this hell hole—comes courtesy of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Yes, Watson, ‘Made in Germany’. We have received word lately from several quarters that weapons like these have been infiltrated into several potential danger zones …” I forebore to ask who ‘We’ were.