by George Mann
“The story—your story—grew with every new day. Fear, panic, mania. All to sell a few more copies of a squalid little magazine.”
Holmes let his words hang in the stuffy air of the office. Broken, Pearson stumbled back, letting himself fall into his chair, lost for words.
“Fortunately, thanks to the story Miss Stead is about to write, everyone will soon know the true horror of the Demon Slasher.”
* * *
A crowd had gathered around the offices of The Adventure Weekly, Pearson’s dream made flesh. They gawped and gaped as the disgraced publisher was bundled into the back of a police wagon.
Holmes himself paid no attention to the man he had just ruined. Instead, he was giving Hettie one last quote. What did he care? As far as he concerned his work was done. The case was now in the hands of the authorities and a young journalist from The London Examiner.
I still didn’t really know what I was doing here. It wasn’t as if I had contributed anything to the great reveal. Perhaps Holmes just liked an audience. Was that why he kept Watson near, to have someone on hand to be amazed by his brilliance? A sickening thought occurred to me—was that the real reason Hettie endured my company?
“Mr Rayne, I must take my leave of you.” Holmes’ voice made me jump. The detective was standing beside me, his hand outstretched. I took it happily. The thought of being shot of him was cheering me no end.
“My pleasure, Mr Holmes.”
“I doubt that very much.” He paused for a moment, as if suddenly in uncharted territory. “I owe you an apology.”
I hadn’t been expecting that.
“What for?”
“For the way I embarrassed you in the hotel. There was no need to make such a show. Sometimes, when Watson is not around...”
For a second, those grey eyes shifted, the familiar proud mask slipping away to reveal a weary soul, beset by secret concerns. He looked so old, so alone.
I coughed, embarrassed for the man, and in an instant he had snapped back to his usual self-assured demeanour.
“Of course, for the record, my observations were mere trifles. I knew you had been late for work as there was a spot of blood on your collar. That, and the general slovenly nature of your chin told me that you had rushed your morning shave.”
“Very good, Mr Holmes. Now let me guess, the stains on my finger betrayed my fondness for beetroot sandwiches and the stain on the inside of my jacket—”
“Is evidence that you carry a pen that is in the habit of leaking in your breast pocket.” Holmes let out a genuine laugh. “You were obviously paying attention when you read Watson’s little stories.”
“And the other points?” I asked. “About my past—”
“And the woman you love?” A smile played on Holmes’ thin lips. “Your shoes are perfectly polished, Mr Rayne, the kind of workmanship only practised by soldiers or servants. I can tell from your hairstyle that you have never been a military man, so a servant it must be. No doubt how you persuade all those cooks and butlers to reveal all. As for the love of your life...”
He paused, raising one eyebrow as he considered his next comment.
“Let’s just say that you don’t have to be a detective to see the obvious.”
I felt my face flush as he unzipped his portfolio and produced the latest edition of the The Strand. “Before I forget, I have something for you. A gift from a friend. I suggest you turn to page seventeen.”
And with that Holmes was gone, leaving me holding the magazine. I flicked through the pages to find an inscription above this week’s tale of Sherlock Holmes.
Dear Mr Rayne,
You have my deepest sympathies. He can be utterly intolerable at times.
Yours,
John H. Watson.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cavan Scott has written novels, comics, audiobooks and dramas for series such as Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Judge Dredd, Highlander and Blake’s 7, as well as numerous books for children. His latest novel, Blake’s 7: The Forgotten, written with Mark Wright, was published by Big Finish in 2012.
Cavan lives near Bristol with his wife and two daughters and is currently working on a new fantasy trilogy.
THE POST-MODERN PROMETHEUS
BY NICK KYME
At the corner of Brick Lane my colleague stoops, his nose within close proximity to a corpse. It takes little deduction, especially for one of his superlative talents, to realise how this unfortunate wretch met his end.
Head sits separate to body, the neck cavity a ragged and bloody mess that sees one of Lestrade’s junior officers relinquish his hasty breakfast and me reaching for the menthol. Neither is a pleasant aroma—putrefying corpse or actinic, mildly acerbic reek—but the latter is most certainly preferable to the former.
It is a dingy place, a dark little alcove where light does not penetrate or is too afraid to venture. A killer’s alleyway in many respects, of rough cobblestone, rotted shutters and dirty awnings that funnel the rain down into grimy gutters that carry off this patina of filth to the rest of London.
There are five of us present, myself included, two of whom are wearing the uniform of the Queen’s Constabulary. A third is not in uniform, but his manner betrays his profession as the self-same as the officers. The fourth wears a long, tan coat, suit and waistcoat underneath.
“What do you estimate as the cause of death?” asks my colleague, his attempt at gallows humour lost on the vomiting constable.
“Very droll, Holmes,” I rejoinder, pitying the poor constable as one of his fellows slaps his back. The bile of his stomach lining jolts out to join his expelled breakfast in a merry union.
It’s raining, and I pull up the collar on my greatcoat and pull down the brim of my hat, over which a cataract is falling.
“I would suggest death by decapitation,” I posit, as my mind wanders to a warm fire back at Baker Street and some of Mrs Hudson’s homemade scones.
Holmes looks sharply over his shoulder at me, one knee sodden where it supports him next to the corpse, his deerstalker similarly overflowing with the deluge from the grey clouds above.
“Is that your professional opinion, Doctor?”
Despite having been his acquaintance—I hesitate to say “friend” —for several years, and although it was doubtful anyone could ever say they actually “knew” Sherlock Holmes, I do, for the most part, believe I can decipher his mores and whimsies better than most. Yet I could rarely tell with any certainty when he was being serious and when he favoured sarcasm.
I considered it a test, of character, of my intelligence—which, by the barometer of most scholars, is well above average but pales to the remarkable ingenuity and mental faculty of my colleague—but most pointedly, I believed, of my capacity for forbearance, for Holmes was not an easy companion.
“Yes, death by beheading, Holmes,” I concede, eager to be away from this squalor and to environs entirely more salubrious. Brick Lane has ever been the refuge of the poor and the deprived, and, while not blind to their plight, I had no wish to associate with it any longer than I had to.
“Wrong!” he snaps, standing straight and sweeping across the narrow alley to a pool of viscera, thinning with every passing second as the pouring rain diluted it. “Watson, you are as blind as you are drenched. A layman’s assessment,” he went on, revelling, I suspect, in the theatre of it, “little better than the observations of Inspector Lestrade.” He turns to the inspector to whom he refers, who looks hawkish and miserable in a long black coat and hat. “Wouldn’t you say, Inspector?’
“Get on with it, Holmes,” he gripes, not bothering to hide the scowl or his obvious displeasure at the inclement weather.
“Just so,” says Holmes, smiling with unfettered delight at a truth to which only he, with his prodigious deductive abilities, can see. “And here,” he adds, crouching down again to wet his other knee and more ostensibly to lift the victim’s right hand, “is the proof of it.” Dropping the hand, he skips over to the head n
ext. “And here, also. See it?”
He puts this last question to me.
I frown, asking, “What am I supposed to be—”
“No, of course you don’t,” he interrupts, “none of you do, having already demonstrated the abject mediocrity of your observational skills.”
“So illuminate us, Mr Holmes,” says Lestrade. He pronounces the words, “illoomanate” and “ohms”, but I can see his patience is wearing thin.
Holmes sees it too and starts to bring down the curtain on his performance.
“Doctor, consult your notebook, if you will, and tell me the approximate time of death based on this unfortunate individual’s liver temperature, as noted when we first entered Brick Lane and beheld this grisly scene now before us.”
Slightly wrong-footed but quick to react, I leaf through my notebook and find the requested answer.
“Approximately two hours, Holmes.”
He clicks his fingers, a tutor happy with his slightly dimwitted student. “Precisely!”
“Meaning?” asks Lestrade, still not following.
“Have you seen this man’s hands, Inspector?” says Holmes. “Have you seen his face? Have you examined, observed or noticed his other extremities at all? In short, have you perceived or inspected anything in this alley to make the warranting of your profession and rank a just one?”
“Watch it,” he warns, but stoops alongside Holmes anyway.
So do I, eager to witness the conclusion of my colleague’s antics, despite my distaste for them.
“What do you see?” Holmes asks of us both, looking either side as we flank him.
Up close, and with the time of death in mind, I see.
“Looks like rigor mortis in the hand,” I say, and cannot help a self-indulgent flush of pride at Holmes’ guarded smile, “which should be impossible after only two hours, yet this man’s hands are curled into claws. Of course,” I continue, moving down the body to the feet, removing the boots and socks myself, “there is a margin for error with such diagnoses...”
Barring a rather ugly carbuncle, the toes are perfectly fine.
“No apparent rigor on the other extremities,” I say, continuing my examination. I move to the head, bringing my menthol handkerchief closer to my mouth and nose.
Between inhalations, I add, “The face is similarly contorted, an almost rictus grin,” I sneer the word, “upon it. Eyes are wide, pupils dilated. No purpling or swelling of the tongue...”
“And what is your analysis, my dear Watson?”
Holmes has followed me and I can practically smell the tobacco on his breath.
“Well, I would say this man was dead before his head was removed and furthermore, that... it sounds ridiculous... but...”
“He was scared to death!” declares Holmes. “Something so terrible, some apparition resolving from the London fog, his nightmares coalesced into solid form, prompted such a reaction from this man that he died from sheer fright.”
“If he was already dead, then why remove his head?” Lestrade chips in.
Holmes turns to him, face aglow with excitement. “That, my cognitively challenged inspector,” he says, “is the question before us.”
“Not to mention what that God-awful, bloody mess is,” I say, pointing to the pool of viscera slowly sluicing into Brick Lane’s streets for stray dogs to lap at.
“Indeed,” says Holmes, equally ebullient as he turns his razor-like attention on me. “Do you know, my dear Watson,” he adds, his expression almost paternal, his tone most certainly patronizing, “I do believe there is hope for you yet.”
He stands and stalks from the alley, having seen all he needs to of the evidence.
“Holmes, where are you going now?” I hope it’s back to Baker Street to dry out.
“Mrs Hudson’s home cooking will have to wait, Watson,” he replies, edging out of sight as he leaves the crime scene, as if reading my mind.
“And, I suppose, a hot bath and a warm fire will too, then?” I ask, following him and cursing the weather.
“You really are on good form today, old man,” Holmes gibes.
* * *
We take a winding path through London’s gloomy districts, Holmes unwilling or unable to tell me our destination. I content myself with following him, knowing that often the only possible recourse when he is in one of his moods is to simply accept it and let it run its course.
He moves swiftly, taking obscure turns, doubling back, about to take one street before favouring another and taking that instead. By the time we reach Trafalgar Square, I am utterly out of breath and at a loss as to what he is trying to achieve.
“Holmes!” I gripe, having to shout to be heard, my earlier attempts at getting my colleague’s attention falling on deaf ears.
“Yes,” says Holmes, to himself and not to me, I realise, “I believe we’ve been standing out in the rain for long enough.”
Holmes is flat against a brick wall, breathing hard and utterly soaked. We both are.
“Long enough for what?” I ask.
He smiles superciliously, and it takes some effort for me not to throw a right hook. “Time for tea, Watson?”
“Tea?” I ask, my incredulity yet to wane in the face of such bizarre behaviour. “Tea!” I repeat, turning to anger. “Yes, I’d like a bloody cup of tea. An hour ago might have been nice.”
Holmes smiles again. “Tea it is then.” He proceeds to slap me on the arm as he sets off at a brisk pace in the direction of our by-now-distant lodgings. “Come now, Doctor, you’ll catch a death out here in this rain.”
He is fortunate I am tired and a few paces behind, or I may well have thrown that punch after all.
But as we walked back to Baker Street like two drowned rats, I wonder what has set him off; what has arrested Sherlock Holmes’ senses to make him wander off and take such a circuitous route back to our abode? If I didn’t know any better I would say he is trying to discern if someone is following us. I look back on several occasions but see nothing out of the ordinary. In a city like London, with its black, beating heart, there is no shortage of ne’er-do-wells, ruffians and assorted vermin that would do well-heeled, law-abiding folk harm. I see plenty of these but none whom I believed Holmes would regard as a threat.
It is with grateful eyes, then, that I finally behold 221b Baker Street and imagine the warm welcome we will receive within.
Still, the chill that something or someone has alarmed my colleague persists even after the fire is lit and a hot towel is curled around my shoulders. It is to be as nothing to what we will encounter later.
* * *
“What are you looking at, Holmes?” I ask, mildly exasperated. I have a small glass of whisky in my left hand, a cigar in my right and am warming my bare feet on the fire. I have changed my clothes, dispensing with my sodden garments for Mrs Hudson’s expert attention. The towel around my shoulders is warming my neck and I sit in a plush armchair, glad to be out of the storm lashing the streets outside.
Holmes is transfixed on the gloom below our window, staring seemingly without blinking at some unknown and unseen terror only he can perceive.
He doesn’t answer.
“Holmes, you are soaked and will catch a death of cold if you do not change. At once, old boy, doctor’s orders. I insist.”
“Watson,” he replies, “you are as badgering and ineffectual as our old nanny. Mrs Hudson has tried, and failed, to dislodge me. I shall not be moved.”
“At least take a towel, Holmes, or remove your jacket. I have no wish to be ministering to a dose of influenza because of your recalcitrant attitude.”
“On the contrary, Watson,” he corrects me, unflinching in his dedication, “it is essential.”
I decide to drop the matter. In a battle of wills, I am wise and humble enough to accept that Sherlock Holmes would always be the victor. Instead, I cast my mind back to the alley and that scene of utter horror and bodily devastation.
“What manner of man could do something lik
e that?” I wonder out loud. “How,” I say, turning away quickly from the fire to regard my colleague again, “could a man possess the strength to remove another man’s head, and why?’
“I feel it is connected,” says Holmes.
“Is that a joke?” The seriousness of my colleague’s expression suggests it is not. “Connected?’ I continue, glad that we are at least engaging in conversation. “To what, old boy?”
“To whatever else that was layering Brick Lane. Certainly not the victim’s neck though, dear Doctor.”
“The blood and viscera? Outside of a slaughterhouse, I have never seen such a mess.”
“Vile indeed,” Holmes agrees. “Are you so sure though, Watson?”
“Sure? Of what?”
He turns quickly, bolting from the window like he’s been bitten by an adder.
“Holmes?” I ask. “What the devil—”
“Come, Watson!” he shouts, throwing open the door. “And bring your gun, if you please.”
“What?”
I am pulling on my socks and shoes, still damp from the rain, as I hear him call from the corridor.
“Are you so sure it is a man at all?” Holmes’ voice echoes.
Feeling that now familiar chill up my spine, I take my gun from the drawer in my office, grab my coat and give chase.
* * *
I race into the street outside our lodgings, very nearly colliding with a clutch of lingering street urchins. Bullying them with harsh words, even though I know I am at fault, I find Holmes standing by the corner of Baker Street looking out into the void.
Night is encroaching, brought on faster by the rain, and my colleague is a tall and gaunt silhouette.
He seizes an urchin as they scurry past, teasing the wretch’s ear and having a quiet word. By the time I catch up to them, Holmes has released the boy and is proffering a pocket watch I recognise.
“Yours, I believe, Watson,” he says, without looking at me.