Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

Some might have considered it a too-quiet end to a long chase, but to Durant’s thinking there had already been too much killing. He was more than glad to see an end to it and a return to his regular duties, if only for a little while.

  “What are you doing here?” the normally silent Home Office man exclaimed.

  Durant turned to see Dunning shaking the hand of Sherlock Holmes; at Holmes’ side was that Challenger fellow. Both of them appeared as if they had been in a bigger fight than any here had witnessed.

  “Merely to see Chief Inspector Durant’s triumph,” Holmes said. He shook the police inspector’s hand firmly. “Congratulations on a job well done, Chief Inspector. Londoners may now enjoy a far more peaceful rest than any have known recently.”

  The Home Office representative looked warily form man to man, wondering what went unsaid behind the words.

  Durant searched the detective’s gaze for some ulterior motive, some faint trace of the mockery which others reported, or imagined, but found only sincere admiration.

  Finally, Dunning firmly placed his big hand on Durant’s shoulder. “Good work, Chief Inspector. Please render Mr Holmes and Professor Challenger whatever assistance they might require.”

  “Certainly, sir, but what can…” Durant replied, but Dunning was already moving away.

  “A good haul, Chief Inspector Durant,” Holmes remarked.

  “Due in no small part to your…”

  “My part in this matter was truly inconsequential,” Holmes interrupted, “yet I pray it was enough to acquire your gratitude, and hence your cooperation in a matter too confidential to explain and too fantastic to believe.”

  The Chief Inspector looked at the awkward paper-wrapped bundle carried by Professor Challenger. He had heard certain rumors around the Yard, whispers of how Holmes and Challenger, along with Wilkins, had got themselves mired in some sort of nasty business involving murder and devil worshippers. Maybe they had and maybe they had not, but even if the man from the Home Office had not expressed a desire for cooperation, he would still have given it willingly. He knew what he owed Sherlock Holmes, and, too, he owed something to Wilkins who lay in the hospital because he had not chased these infernal Dynamiters to ground.

  “Yes, Mr Holmes,” Durant said. “What may I do for you?”

  “We have need of the abandoned tannery till dawn, perhaps later,” Holmes replied.

  “Certainly, after the explosives and weapons have…”

  “By all means remove any weaponry from the building, but not the explosives with which these rascals perpetrated their crimes against the Crown,” Holmes interrupted.

  “It must be disposed of!” Durant exclaimed. “I can’t…”

  “Of course you can,” Challenger said. “In fact, any explosives not in the building’s basement must be moved there.”

  Chief Inspector Durant hesitated, his jaw agape.

  Challenger looked to his companion.

  Holmes nodded. “Yes, that would be most kind of you, Chief Inspector.”

  Durant sighed and shook his head, not in denial but resignation. He knew the enormity of his debt, and he had his orders. Both situations combined to batter down any arguments conjured by standard protocols and his sensibilities.

  “There is one thing more,” Holmes said. “I expect you will post a police guard in the area?”

  “I should say so!”

  “If you must, but please have them keep well distant and out of sight,” the detective said. “Before long, a man will come to this place, to this building; he must not be interfered with in any way, nor must he suspect the presence of your men.”

  “That can be arranged,” Durant said.

  “And they must stay away from the building for their own safety,” Holmes added grimly, sternly.

  “Whatever danger you two have got yourselves into,” Durant said, “I will stand at your side.”

  Holmes smiled slightly and his gaze softened. “Thank you, Chief Inspector, but I cannot allow you to share the end of this particular case. So great is the danger, none might walk away from it alive. I would face it alone, but I do not think you and your men could arrest Challenger without suffering broken limbs. I wish there were a way to keep Challenger out of harm’s way.”

  Challenger bristled.

  “But I fully understand the rashness of that course of action,” Holmes said quickly. “Besides, having participated intimately since the beginning of this whole bloody affair, and having more than once proven himself, I cannot in all good conscience keep him from the last reckoning.”

  “Thank you, Holmes,” Challenger said.

  At that moment, a stocky man with a moustache and wearing a tweed overcoat made his way through the police line. He was stopped twice, but was allowed to continue when he indicated his goal was Sherlock Holmes. Durant glanced sharply at Holmes, but the detective shook his head.

  “This is Operative Barton of the Pinkertons,” Holmes said. “Chief Inspector Durant.”

  “Howdy,” the newcomer said in a thick American accent. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Chief Inspector.”

  Durant briefly shook the man’s proffered hand.

  “Our man went from his house to The Doves,” Barton reported. “After the hullabaloo by the river, he was joined by another, by the name of McBane, leastwise according to his papers. When Bronislav left, McBane was dead, but not a mark of violence on him. The serving boy was in and out of the room by his own admission, but didn’t see nothing. Murder, obviously, but I couldn’t rightly say how it was done. Bronislav left in the commotion.”

  “And returned to his Kensington home?” Holmes asked.

  Barton nodded. “Headed directly there most likely, but I couldn’t more than follow him part of the way because of what happened to McBane. Couldn’t be helped.”

  “Of course,” Holmes agreed.

  “But I reckon he’ll be here before long,” Barton continued. “After he finds that message, he won’t be able to stay put. He’s not a criminal. Not wary enough. Too impetuous. Crime should be left to the professionals—criminals and detectives.”

  Durant started at the trio incredulously.

  “Don’t worry, I called the Yard about McBane,” Barton said.

  “I should say so!” Durant sputtered.

  “Barton you’ve done fine work, as usual.” Holmes said, “but there are two final tasks remaining.”

  Laslo Bronislav crumpled the message in his bloodless hand and turned slowly toward Jensen, the retainer who had served him so long and faithfully.

  “When?” Bronislav asked, his voice barely more than a dense whisper. “When did this come?”

  Jensen hesitated barely a moment before answering. He never really liked the look in his master’s eyes, not at any time, but they now held such fury as he had never before seen. It was the sort of gaze that could make a man burst with the flames of perdition. He did not doubt Bronislav’s power, not after all he had seen. Beads of perspiration popped on his forehead and his mouth suddenly felt as if it were filled with cotton.

  “It was delivered almost immediately after you departed this evening, master,” he replied.

  It was a mark of the tumultuous rage seething through Bronislav that he did not rebuke Jensen for his forbidden term of address just then. The honorific ‘master’ was prohibited while his residence was in England.

  Bronislav had crumpled the message, dropped it to the floor, but he could still see the blasted words in his brain. He could almost hear the superior tone in the voice behind the words:

  You (the note read) have played a dangerous game, Mr Bronislav, but the banality of your gamesmanship bores us. Killing Lord Whitecliff, then trying to use him as a pawn was a grave error. The time for your charlantry had come to an end. You will meet Professor Challenger and myself at the abandoned tannery off Union Road in Bermondsey. Come as soon as you receive this message; failure to follow my instructions will result in your immediate arrest by the authorities.

 
It was signed, with an arrogant flourish, Bronislav perceived, by Sherlock Holmes.

  How could Holmes have known about Whitecliff so soon? True, McBane had handled the details of Whitecliff’s murder, but even with the man’s bungling ways it should not have been discovered till the next day, and it was supposed to appear as an accident. Everything was coming unraveled, and it had to be McBane’s fault. Or was it? He had not told McBane that he was going to use Whitecliff’s name to lure Holmes and Challenger into bringing the M’tollo idol to Hammersmith Bridge. Should he have informed him of that fact, perhaps sought a suggestion for a better lure? The man was a fool, Bronislav thought with an angry snort. But if he could not blame the dead for this disastrous turn of events, who remained?

  Certainly not himself.

  He looked to Jensen, who remained immobile before him, as a bird might before the gaze of a hooded cobra. Jensen had witnessed the forging of the note and knew of its delivery. It had appeared perfect, but perhaps Jensen had seen some flaw that attracted the suspicion of either Holmes or Challenger.

  Bronislav’s gaze narrowed murderously.

  Yes, that had to be the flaw in the Persian carpet.

  Jensen had been in his service for a long time, but all things come to an end, he thought.

  Everyone dies.

  Almost everyone, he corrected, thinking of his long journey.

  “Goodbye, Jensen,” Bronislav murmured. His voice was tinged with a note of regret, losing a once-valuable possession, but lacked any trace of the compassion that resides, at least in some small measure, in the heart of even the most callous man. “Goodbye.”

  Jensen backed away from the man to whom he had sworn faithful and devout service, from the moment of his release from that hellish Transylvanian prison till his last breath. They had been through much together over the decades, had suffered together. While Jensen never imagined he would ever be more than a tool for the perpetration of Bronislav’s conspiracies and machinations, he had always considered himself a valuable tool, ever willing to do whatever was needed to serve his master. So accustomed had he become, serving as Bronislav’s tool, he had forgotten that every tool picked up was eventually and inevitably set aside.

  The time to put aside Jensen the tool had come.

  Darkness surrounded Jensen, a swirling, clinging darkness that clutched at him as he backed away. The grasping shadows lashed at him with icy talons, with claws of cold fire. He opened his mouth, but at first no sound emerged. Something slammed against his back—the room’s wall, he dimly realized.

  The horrid nether-demons, coming at Bronislav’s beckoning, raked his flesh. The silence that had accompanied his terror was shattered by excruciating pain. He uttered at last a terrible shriek.

  “No, master!” Jensen screamed. “No!”

  Pain racked his body, but the physical distress was nothing compared to the pain felt in his soul, for the wounds inflicted by these tenebrous creatures were not entirely of this world. The agony he experienced as they shredded his soul paled to insignificance when drawn against the feeling of betrayal he suffered under his master’s unsympathetic gaze.

  Yes, his master, Jensen realized, not former master. Despite everything, he still looked upon Bronislav as his reason for living. He had hated him and loved him, but never, he knew now, had he ever regretted following him. In some odd way he could not fathom, even as he hovered between two worlds, a vantage point that allowed him to transcend the limits of the flesh, he felt a sense of completion, of coming full circle. Bronislav had given him his life, so it was fitting it should be he who took it away. Being killed by Bronislav was perhaps the best end he could hope for.

  The pain seemed to vanished.

  He no longer saw the ravenous demons.

  He was aware only of Bronislav’s penetrating gaze.

  He was dying, but dying as his master watched.

  “Thank you, master,” he gasped as he fell. “Goodbye.”

  At a complex gesture from Bronislav, the hungry shadows slipped back into the dark starless dimension from which they had come. When the foetid air was clear of their clotted presence, he stepped forward and gazed dispassionately upon the remains of what had once been a man.

  “Fool,” Bronislav sneered softly, disdainfully.

  Afflicted with an unwonted sense of emptiness, he departed the home within which he would never again dwell.

  The Orms moved through the surging darkness of the Thames, whispering to each other in their mind-speak, their ancient thoughts awakening cold fears in the creatures native to the venerable river, sending them scurrying. The three Orms had traveled far to reclaim that which had been stolen from their human cattle on their last lonely island. Once, it had almost been within their grasp, but it had escaped them, and they had quested for it ever since.

  Quested quietly, furtively, secretly. These humans were not like the humans of old, before they acquired the forbidden knowledge. Because of what had started upon this very Isle so long ago, the Orms had fled to the deep places, to the lonely places where the humans were still cattle, needing their bloody gods.

  The Orms had returned to Britain, but as beggars, not gods, as thieves in the night.

  Suddenly they paused in their search.

  That for which they sought was close…very close.

  They surged through the brackish currents of the channel toward the end of the hunt.

  Chapter Twelve

  Holding high a bull’s-eye lantern, Professor George Edward Challenger looked about in disbelief. The entirety of the abandoned tannery’s cellar was filled with dynamite boxes. He looked at the fuses he helped prepare, but his attention wandered to the crates.

  “Good God, Holmes,” he breathed. “The damage they could have inflicted with this.”

  “The damage they would have done.” Sherlock Holmes agreed. “According to documents discovered in the rooms above by Chief Inspector Durant, they planned in the very near future to dynamite both Big Ben and Parliament, and other government buildings.”

  “Those two acts alone would have completely devastated the public’s belief in His Majesty’s Government,” Challenger observed. “Even the knowledge they were being planned would be enough to destroy public confidence.”

  “The public shall never know about the aborted plans of the Dynamiters anymore than they shall ever know the truth of what, hopefully, will happen here later,” Holmes vowed. “Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Should we survive, we shall not have that luxury; should we not survive, perhaps we shall not be troubled in whatever dreams may come.”

  Challenger again looked about at the instruments of death and uttered a fatalistic sigh.

  “But let us hope it does not come to that,” Holmes added.

  “Quite,” Challenger agreed. For once in his life, he was at a loss for words. He walked down the sloping floor of the cellar, where it opened into a larger chamber with two short docks, projecting into a brackish pool.

  “This is how the Dynamiters were able to move the length of London undetected,” Holmes said. “Originally it was constructed for the loading and offloading of small vessels carrying tanning supplies and picking up products, but I would be surprised if it had not also seen the use of smugglers over the years. See, there’s the control for the portal mechanism. Activate it, if you please.”

  Challenger handed the lantern to his companion and did as he was asked, pulling the indicated lever. It was an old mechanism, certainly of the last century or earlier, but it had been recently oiled and had seen usage. It resisted his efforts at first. Obviously, it was the work of at least two men to pull it. He grasped it tighter and pulled. The muscles in his arms bulged and popped with the effort, and the sleeves of his jacket split. His efforts were rewarded when the lever finally swung over. A grating sound filled the air moist, of hidden gears and chains moving in the darkness. The wall opposite the two men suddenly swung over.

  “I’ll be damned,” Challenger breathed.

  Hol
mes lowered the lantern’s panel, plunging the cellar into near darkness. Bluish light shimmered upward.

  “Using rented steam launches, the Dynamiters traveled the river under the cover of night, delivering explosives to prearranged locations along the Thames. Those were picked up by confederates and sympathizers,” Holmes explained.

  The air was clear above the river and it sheened softly with the light of a crescent moon and the cold stars. Across the river were the lights of the London Docks. To the left Challenger could just make out the twin ornate spires of Tower Bridge. River traffic was sparse at this hour but still present. It moved with a laziness absent from the day. Looking upon this bucolic riverine scene, the lifeline of the Empire, Challenger cold hardly believe it the conduit of so much death and destruction.

  He heard the soft, rhythmic stroking of a steam engine.

  A shadow moved across the river, turning toward the tannery.

  Holmes raised the lantern’s panel just enough to let a flash of light escape, then lowered it. He sent the same signal twice more.

  A steam launch, low to the water and obviously very fast, approached the waterfront entrance of the tannery. Without slowing, it whipped about. The pitch of the engine changed, metal groaned, and the small vessel continued its approach to the tannery’s farthest dock, but stern first. A constable wearing the distinctive uniform of Scotland Yard’s River Patrol was at the helm, along with a navvy tender. At the stern stood Baton holding the idol, this time not hidden by paper but loathsomely naked to the world.

  “I think there’s something in the water, Mr Holmes,” Barton said as he climbed from the boat, “but I can’t be sure.”

  “If you followed the course I laid out for you, you attracted the notice of the creatures,” Holmes said.

  “Followed it, we did, Mr Holmes,” reported the constable. He started to tie the boat to the dock.

  “Loosely, constable, very loosely,” Holmes warned. “And make sure the engine remains at a slow idle. It is imperative the boiler need not be heated to make steam.”

  “Aye, Mr Holmes.”

  “Give me that,” Challenger said, taking the idol.