The blasts caused chunks of stinking flesh to fly outward and shook the sewer. A tidal wave of sewage swept in two directions. A rain of dust and rubble cascaded down. The beast continued to surge toward its attackers. A ragged tentacle coiled about Sherrington and a second grabbed the Brigadier. The two men flew upward. The lantern clattered to the stone floor, rolling, throwing its beam about the slimy-walled tunnel at random.
Upended above the noxious sewer waters, unable to breathe because of the muscular ropy tentacles grasping him, Sherrington gazed into a malevolent eye, a nictitating membrane that seemed to glow with an inner fire, his own image reflecting in it, and behind that reflection an otherworldly intelligence that hated humanity and saw man as naught but an infestation. It was, as he had argued to the skepticism of the Brigadier and Holmes, the beast which the ancients called Shudde M’ell. His vindication, however, was not accompanied by any sense of elation.
Sherrington emptied his revolver into the gleaming eye, and was vaguely aware of another weapon being emptied, the Brigadier striking with battle-steadied nerves. Concurrent with the blasts of the revolvers were other explosions, the detonation of two more sticks of dynamite thrown unerringly by Holmes.
Though still gripped by the tentacle, Sherrington flew through the black air. He slammed against the wall, and only then did the severed arm loose its grip, uncoiling from around him like a dead anaconda. As he struck the stone wall he heard a splash and a sputter and hoped the Brigadier could swim. Then pain gripped him, swelled over him, and the last thing he noticed before a cottony blackness swallowed him entirely was the face of Sherlock Holmes hovering above him, like a pale and luminous planet.
V
“How are you doing, Sherrington?” Holmes asked.
“As well as can be expected, I suppose,” the young man said.
He shifted beneath the bedcovering, the movement eliciting a soft moan. Giles thrust his head through the doorway.
“Leave me alone, Nanny,” Sherrington snapped, then looked to Holmes as his manservant retreated. “The sawbones says I have slight concussion, that I need to have some rest. The arm is not broken, merely dislocated at shoulder and elbow. It certainly could have been much worse. The best thing for it is regular and large doses of g & t.”
Holmes’ eyes narrowed dubiously. “I doubt that was advice you received from your doctor.”
“I should say not, old man,” Sherrington said with no small amount of pride. “I thought of that all on my own.”
Holmes looked about, then leaned close and whispered: “How much of our little adventure beneath London have you shared with anyone?”
Sherrington shook his head. “I’ve told Giles very little about our adventure, though he seems to know more about it than he should, not that that is surprising—I suspect he keeps close tabs on me. Yes, he’s a rather cheeky beggar, but I suppose I have to put up with it. A good man’s man is hard to find, you know. Anyway, he seems content to keep it all to himself, though I do catch him smirking from time to time, but one can never be quite sure whether he’s smirking because he actually knows something, or smirking because he wants me to think he knows something.”
Holmes sighed at the clubman’s ramblings. “Anyone else?”
“Not a soul, old boy,” Sherrington asserted. “And that took some doing, if you know what I mean. Over these two days there’s been a veritable parade of maiden aunts, and believe me, two of the old hens make Shudde M’ell seem as menacing as a guppy.”
“We owe the success of our enterprise in no little way to you and the Brigadier,” Holmes said. “I regret not coming by sooner to check upon your welfare but my time has not been my own.”
“I can well imagine there have been questions to answer.”
“And lies to tell,” Holmes added. “Even Scotland Yard and the Home Office would rather hear comforting prevarications than disquieting truths. They are satisfied the emergency is over, that panic has been avoided.”
“What about the newspapers?” Sherrington demanded. “I know the Brigadier’s Fleet Street friend was among the captured. Giles, the devil, has refused me any newspapers under the pretext that I need absolute rest. He’s been most insubordinate since I regained consciousness, and I do believe he is delighting in it.”
“Mr Wallace was detained at New Scotland Yard for several hours, to ensure his good health, you understand,” Holmes replied with a small puckish smile. “By the time he was able to contact his employer, the water had, shall we say, been muddied considerably.”
Sherrington sighed. He chafed at the idea the government was playing fast and loose with the truth, but, at the same time, he knew that occult knowledge was usually occulted for very good reasons, at least as far as the general public was concerned.
“And the Brigadier?” Sherrington asked.
“Surprisingly well,” Holmes said. “Evidently being plunged into London’s sewer, escaping a monster’s grasp, and fighting his way to the surface is not the worst he’s been through. The man has the constitution of a war horse.”
“And the…” Sherrington paused. “What about the beast? The body of Shudde M’ell?”
Holmes pursed his lips, then said: “The vanishings, such as they have been admitted at all, are attributed variously to structural defects in the streets, white slavers, opium fiends, and ne’er-do-wells seeking to avoid either debts or nagging wives. There is no room in any of those explanations for ancient beasts.” Sherrington started to rise and sputter, but Holmes quieted him before Giles could make an appearance. “However, if anything of the beast did survive the explosions, the pressure pushed it into the lost river and on into the Thames, where the current swept it out to sea.”
Sherrington frowned.” But I recall.”
“The tentacle which cushioned your fall vanished very quickly after the missing were rescued,” Holmes said. “Making enquiries about it would not be…” Holmes paused. “…prudent.”
Sherrington uttered a heavy sigh. “I suppose not. How many of the beast’s victims were rescued?”
“Only six, including Mr Wallace,” Holmes replied, “though, strictly speaking, he was not a victim, but the rescuer.”
“Oh?”
“Following the same logic which guided us, though without your knowledge of the Cthulhu Mythos, he sussed out an entrance to the lost river under Whitechapel, entered the sewers on his own, and found the place where the beast was holding those upon whom it intended to…”
“Dine?” Sherrington gulped.
“Quite.”
“A resourceful fellow.”
“A bit too impetuous for his own good,” Holmes said. “The Brigadier talked to him about his rash ways, but I fear it will be for naught. His recklessness will no doubt be one day his undoing.”
A silence settled upon them, not a companionable one but one born of shared lies and truths that could not be uttered. After a few awkward moments Holmes started to take his leave.
“Mr Holmes, I understand many of my questions can never be answered, at least with any degree of openness or veracity,” the young man said, “for such is the nature of the governments we have constructed to protect ourselves.”
Holmes nodded.
“But tell me, Holmes, do you now believe in the supernatural?” Sherrington asked earnestly. “Considering what you have seen, what you cannot deny?”
After a long moment, Sherlock Holmes said: “I believe in what I can see, in the logic of existence, and in what I can deduce from that which is known. That being said, however, I acknowledge our view of the universe is severely limited by our senses, that there are realms beyond our own, and that those who exist beyond our direct perception might seek suzerainty over us. Now, there is no denying a beast did hunt humans from beneath the streets of Whitechapel, at least amongst ourselves, but was it more than a beast? Was it indeed this Shudde M’ell of which you spoke, or some related being? Or was it merely the malformed offspring of some known creature, like a phantasm
plucked from one of Mr Darwin’s nightmares? I saw a beast of great cunning and menace, but pending further information, there is where I must leave it.”
Sherrington nodded, reluctantly.
Sherlock Holmes departed.
“Thank you,” Sherrington whispered, “for believing in me.”
Sherrington settled back into the pillows and closed his eyes. He knew what he had seen, knew what had been revealed, feared what was to come. He had seen Shudde M’ell’s great eye burning with malicious intelligence in the night, and he shuddered at the remembrance. In a memory that would never fade, that eye still stared back malevolently, an eye that would never close.
Hammershire is one of the least famous of English counties. It has contributed its share of writers, philosophers, artists and poets, but it has avoided the fame of the Lake District or the Home Counties; few of its numerous quaint villages are destinations for the Briton on holiday, and most inhabitants tend to keep themselves to themselves, defining the basic character of village and county. If the county of Hammershire is known for anything, it is for resisting change, despite the onslaught of modern times. The Parliamentary acts of 1888, 1965 and 1974 left its boundaries virtually unchanged. Home to some of England’s oldest villages, it has ruins that make even the most ancient settlement seem quite recent. Hammershire has long been of interest to antiquarians and folklorists, but extracting information from villagers is difficult, sometimes fraught with danger. Hammershire is a place where the past endures, and old things sometimes refuse to die.
The Woods, The Watcher & The Warding
(Reconstructed from the day-book and notes of John H Watson, M.D.)
Setting aside the journal I had read only in a desultory manner, I gazed out the window of the carriage. The clouds under which we had set out from London were still with us, low and oppressive. In the waning day, darkness deepened. We crossed into Hammershire County, the train steaming between ancient tracts of woodland. Occasionally I saw lonely cottages and farmhouses, pale against the forests, some with tilled fields suggesting current occupation, others seemingly untenanted, though a feeble lamp seen though a window might indicate a forlorn recluse. I thought about all the isolated people represented by those structures and the insular lives they must lead, far from the concerns of others, far from the strictures of society, and beyond any helping hand.
Abruptly, the setting sun edged below the clouds and I saw the light denied all the course of the day, but what a baleful light it was. The effect was startling, as if the land had been splashed with blood, the forests burning deep crimson with rivers of darkness running through them. The habitations that had seemed merely isolated now seemed doomed.
“I would not want to live in such a place either,” Sherlock Holmes murmured. “As you know, I am not given to such emotions as are other men, but there is something definitely unwholesome in choosing to live so far from the habitations of man, where gunshots go unheard, and cries in the night are never answered.”
I turned to my traveling companion, dim and indistinct in the gloom of the carriage. He puffed at his clay pipe, the glow from the bowl sending bloody light upon his lean features. I suppressed a shudder and turned up the gas.
“How did you know I was thinking about the loneliness of the region, Holmes?” I asked. “I could have been thinking about one of the monographs I read, or contemplating the weather, or, for that matter, wondering if I had packed enough shirts and collars.”
“Perhaps,” Holmes allowed. “But to consider a monograph, one must read more than random selections; you were often distracted, but rarely returned to the same place in the publication after looking away. As to the weather, an overcast sky barely qualifies, unfit for any kind of contemplation, unless you play the child’s game of turning clouds into familiar shapes.” He shook his head “Shirts and collars? Really, my dear chap. You separated from the army long ago, but the discipline instilled in you, the need for preparedness and order, will be with you the rest of your life. You would no more embark upon a journey half-packed than you would call upon a patient with a half-empty medical bag.”
Holmes was of course correct.
“I noticed your preoccupation, the way your gaze lingered upon every habitation, how your brow furrowed, deepening the longer an isolated farmhouse remained within view,” he explained. “When the setting sun suddenly lit the land, your reaction, though muffled, was audible. It was obvious the combination of environment, geography and habitation had affected you emotionally, creating a sense of revulsion, completely separate from your previous, and obvious, dismay toward such isolated farmsteads. Therefore, your thoughts had migrated from the general to the specific, imagining loneliness under the worst of conditions. It is not the first time you have been affected by such a visual juxtaposition, as revealed in your effective and evocative descriptions of the countryside in that rather fanciful story you wrote about the boot and the dog.”
“Even you cannot deny there are times when the genius loci of regions is an almost palpable force,” I said defensively. “Dartmoor is such a place, areas in the East End, and certainly Hammershire.”
“Ah, the genius loci,” he murmured. “When men invoke that term these days, they really refer to their own emotions, the fears and memories which they project upon an odd-shaped rock, a path curving into the dark woods, a cottage abandoned to mosses and foxes, places which an unemotional man, or one possessed of a much different demeanor, would see quite differently, perhaps as just a rock, a path, or an old house.”
“When you put it that way…” I started to say.
“But there are areas which have always been sacred, or cursed, depending upon which tribe settled where,” Holmes said. “In their quest to dominate the known world, the Romans came upon many such places. To explain the persistence of belief they invented the idea of the genius loci, but, of course, to them it was not just an interplay of random emotions, but the actual habitation of a spirit, an entity older than the Romans, the Greeks or any of the known tribes of man. When they came to Britain, they built their temples in all the locations held sacred by the Kelts and Picts, but likewise avoided all the places looked upon as evil and tainted.”
Holmes looked toward the window. I followed his gaze. The world beyond the pane was almost lost in darkness, the redness of the setting sun edging toward black. The thickly clustered trees were discernable only as deeper shadows amongst massed darkness, and the lonely cottages only as feeble sparks seemingly on the verge of being extinguished.
“The Romans were perhaps wise in avoiding such places of bad repute,” Holmes finally said. “In our modern age, we dismiss such concerns as rank superstition, not because we are more advanced in our beliefs but because our arrogance encourages ignorance.”
“I take it then,” I ventured, “you are not dismissing out of hand the claim of Ignatius Dean?”
“I do not yet know enough about his claim, other than he denies murdering Henry Quint,” Holmes replied.
“According to newspaper accounts, he says…”
“Yes, that Quint ‘offended the forest,’ whatever that may mean,” Holmes interrupted. “Investigation at a distance is never satisfying, especially when the source for the London papers is a local scribbler, born and bred to the region, no doubt steeped in folklore and gossipy history. Still, we know there was bad blood between the men, that Quint was found near Dean’s cottage, and that Dean was likely the last to see him alive.”
“And there was blood upon Dean’s clothing,” I reminded him.
“Yes, it would seem a rather ironclad case against a man, who, by all accounts, is dim of mind and blunt of spirit,” Holmes mused. “And yet the local constabulary called in Scotland Yard on such an obvious case, and Inspector Lestrade feels compelled to summon us to Upper Orm in Hammershire to assist him.”
I frowned, for I had read Lestrade’s telegram.
“You think ‘summon’ a strong word?” Holmes asked.
“I do,�
�� I replied, taking out my notebook. I unfolded the slip of paper delivered that morning to Baker Street. “Is it possible for a weapon to emulate the Devil’s hooves?” I returned it and notebook to my waistcoat pocket. “It is an enigmatic and outlandish enquiry, to be sure, but certainly not a summons.”
“Asking for help is not in Inspector Lestrade’s nature, is it?” Holmes suggested. “During his visits to Baker Street, he shares his cases almost in passing, only imparting the details once he thinks me intrigued or amused. As I have mentioned before, Watson, Lestrade is the best of the professionals, not because he very often manages to rise above his pedestrian mindset, but because he is more tenacious than a badger. Once he clamps his jaws upon a lawbreaker, the villain will have a lifelong companion.”
“True, Holmes, but tenacity only takes one so far,” I said. “The intellect must assemble disparate elements to discover the truth.”
“Lestrade’s tenacity is enhanced by an innate cleverness, but, most importantly, he knows his limitations,” Holmes explained. “Many tenacious and clever, even brilliant, detectives in the CID stumble in their climb to the top. Lestrade has the ability to see when his own faculties are outpaced by the elements of the crime, a trait I first noticed in the so-called study in scarlet, and which has developed nicely since those early days.”
“Yet he cannot ask you directly for help,” I pointed out.
“A wise man knows his limitations, but wiser still is the man who keeps that information to himself,” Holmes said. “One day he shall make superintendent, not that he will find any joy in sitting at a desk while others do the work, but he shall never have the chance if he does not seize all opportunities presented.”
“Such is the nature of the world in which we live,” I reluctantly agreed. “Hence Lestrade’s propensity for accepting credit when the cases he brings to you are solved, to great acclaim.”
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