That was interesting, but they had to stay in character. “You’re not disturbing us at all,” Katamori said, bending his head to kiss Dahlia’s neck.
“Let’s look through the bushes,” said Cop Two, scandalized, and the two policemen dutifully searched the paths and parted the bushes, trying not to watch the activity in the waters of the fountain while checking any place a body could be concealed.
Except for the one place it was.
But they made a slow job of it because they kept looking back to watch Dahlia and Katamori, whose cavorting progressed from warm to simmer to boil.
“Oh my God,” said Cop One. “They’re actually . . . ”
“Did you know how fast they could move?” muttered Cop Two. “Her boobs are shaking like maracas!”
By the time the two marched back to the mansion’s French doors, the two vampires were perched on the edge of the fountain, Katamori’s legs hanging over the maintenance door while Dahlia sat in his lap. They both looked pleased, and were whispering to each other in a loverlike way.
Dahlia was saying, “I’m much refreshed. What a good idea, Katamori.”
“I enjoyed that. I hope we can do it again. Even out here. Perhaps without an audience, next time. How many police were lined up inside, watching?”
“At least five, plus the two out here. Did you see what I found in the hiding place?”
“Yes, I saw. Joaquin will be so pleased with us. Surely the humans will leave soon. I think we did an excellent job of distracting them. Thank you.”
“Oh, it was my pleasure,” Dahlia said sincerely.
In half an hour, Joaquin himself came into the garden to tell them that the police had left. He was only slightly startled to find them still naked.
“I’m glad you’ve enjoyed each other’s company,” he said. “Did you have any problems concealing the body?”
“Let me show you what we found under the fountain when we opened it,” Dahlia said, and reopened the panel to pull a bundle of clothing out. It was not her clothing, or Katamori’s. She shook out the garments and held them up for Joaquin’s viewing. He was silent for a long moment.
“Well,” he said. “That’s settled, then. Bring them in when you’ve readied yourself. Later tonight, I’ll send Troy and Hazel out here to dispose of the body for good. I regret this whole incident.” The new sheriff seemed sincere, to Dahlia. He turned and went into the mansion.
The two pulled on their own garments, though Dahlia hated resuming her stained dress. It had been a gamble leaving the clothes in a heap by the fountain, but it had been the right touch. Katamori and Dahlia checked each other to make sure they were in order. She tucked his shirt in a little more neatly, and he buckled her very high heels for her. They followed Joaquin back in through the brightly lit French doors.
The crowd had thinned.
“Where are the demons?” Dahlia asked Taffy, who was sitting beside Don on a loveseat.
“They left when the police did,” Taffy said, running her fingers through her huge mane of hair. “They were smart to go while the getting was good.”
“There’s no harm in that,” Dahlia told her friend. “Diantha was the only one involved, and we know she didn’t do it.”
“Melponeus looked sorry to be leaving without seeing you again,” Taffy said slyly. “He did a little looking out the windows when the police seemed so interested in the garden. I think it sparked a few memories he enjoyed very much.”
“You’ve had the demon?” Katamori was intrigued.
“Yes,” Dahlia said. “The heat and texture of his skin made the experience very interesting. Nothing compared to you, of course.” Dahlia could be polite when it mattered.
Joaquin and his bodyguards were waiting for Dahlia and Katamori to present their findings. All the Rhodes vampires gathered around when they entered. Joaquin, who had resumed his seat in his massive chair, waited impassively for their report. Cedric was still drinking Red Stuff and seemed even more unhappy, and Glenda, now completely healed, glowered at Dahlia. But they joined the throng with the rest. Even Don and his enforcer rose to join the crowd when Taffy did.
“That was an excellent strategy to distract the police,” Joaquin said. “Now tell us what you’ve discovered.”
“We found a bundle of bloody clothes hidden in the base of the fountain,” Dahlia said, and a ripple ran through the crowd. “If we hadn’t had to hide the body, if no one had called the police, we might never have found them. Since Arthur Allthorp’s murderer was the one who called the police, hoping to get the nest in trouble, you might say he cut his own throat.”
Joaquin held up the bloody bundle. The smell was really strong now, and the Weres’ upper lips pulled up in a snarl of distaste. Even Weres liked their blood fresh. Joaquin, with a certain amount of drama, shook out the garments, one by one.
“Cedric, I believe these are yours,” he said.
“That’s not true,” Cedric said calmly. He swept a hand down his chest. “Someone is trying to incriminate me. This is what I have been wearing all evening.”
“Not so,” retorted Dahlia. “The flowers on your vest were golden at the beginning of the evening. After the death of the human, the flowers were blue.” She was almost sad to have to say the words, but out of spite Cedric had almost condemned the whole nest to hours in the police station, days of bad press, and the end of the regime of Joaquin before it had even really begun. “The clothes you have on now are your clothes you wear when you garden, the clothes you leave hanging on a peg outside. Including the boots.”
Everyone looked down at Cedric’s scruffy boots. They were certainly not footwear anyone would choose to wear to a reception, not even Cedric.
For a second, fear flashed in Cedric’s blue eyes. Only for a second. Then he charged at Dahlia, a wild shriek coming from his lips.
She’d been expecting it for all of a couple of seconds. She stepped to the left quicker than the eye could track her, seized Cedric’s right arm as he went past her, twisted it upward at a terrible angle, and when Cedric screamed she gripped his head and twisted.
Cedric’s head came off.
There was silence for a moment.
“I’m so sorry,” she said to Joaquin. “I didn’t intend his decapitation. The mess . . . ”
“He’ll flake away and we’ll get out the vacuum cleaner,” Joaquin said, with a good approximation of calm. Before his elevation to the sheriff’s position, Joaquin had been in body disposal, Dahlia recalled. “If the stain won’t clean out of the rug, we’ll buy another.”
That was something Cedric would never have said, and Dahlia brightened. “Thank you, Sheriff. He almost surprised me,” she said, and she could barely believe the words were coming from her lips. Perhaps she would miss Cedric more than she had realized.
“When the humans charge the police in order to be shot, they call it ‘suicide by cop.’ ” Katamori bowed to his new friend. He said gallantly, “We will call it ‘Death by Dahlia.’ ”
Charlaine Harris is a #1 New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for more than thirty years. After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, she published eight books featuring Aurora Teagarden, a mystery-solving Georgia librarian. In 1996, she released the first of the Shakespeare mysteries featuring amateur sleuth Lily Bard. The fifth (and last) of the series was published in 2001. Harris had, by then, created the Southern Vampire Mystery series about a telepathic waitress named Sookie Stackhouse who works in a bar in the fictional northern Louisiana town of Bon Temps. The first book, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001. The thirteenth and final novel in the series, Dead Ever After, will be published in May 2013. Alan Ball produced the HBO series based on the Sookie books, True Blood, which premiered in September of 2008. Its sixth season aired earlier this year. Harris has also co-edited six anthologies with Toni L. P. Kelner. Personally, Harris is married and the mother of three. She lives in a small town in southern Arkansas in a house full of
rescue dogs. “Death by Dahlia” features Dahlia Lynley-Chivers, who was introduced in the Sookieverse short story “Tacky,” and has appeared in All Together Dead and several other short stories. Dahlia also “stars” in Dying for Daylight, an interactive PC game.
The Case: Two men find death when they descend into the sea to recover the remains of a man who has lain dead ninety fathoms deep for five years. Meanwhile, terrifying sounds emerge from what was thought to be a watery tomb.
The Investigators: Sherlock Holmes, the world’s greatest consulting detective, and John H. Watson, MD, Holmes’s friend, assistant, and sometime flatmate.
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DIVING BELL
Simon Clark
WATSON. COME AT ONCE. THAT WHICH CANNOT BE. IS.
That astonishing summons brought me to the Cornish harbor town of Fowey. There, as directed by further information within the telegram, I joined my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, on a tugboat, which immediately steamed toward the open sea. The rapid pounding of the engine made for an urgent drumbeat. One that reinforced the notion that once more we’d embarked upon a headlong dash to adventure.
By the time I’d regained my breath, after a somewhat hurried embarkation, I saw that Holmes had taken up a position in the tugboat’s bow. There he stood, straight-backed, thin as a pikestaff, hatless, and dressed severely in black. Every inch the eager seeker of truth. His deep-set eyes raked the turquoise ocean, hunting for what he knew must lie out here.
But what, exactly, was the nature of our case? He’d given no elaboration, other than that mystifying statement in the telegram. That which cannot be. Is.
I picked my way across the deck, over coils of rope, rusty chain, and assorted winding gear that adorned this grubby little workhorse of the sea. The vessel moved at the limits of its speed. Steam hissed from pipes, smoke tumbled out of the funnel to stain an otherwise perfectly blue June sky. Gulls wheeled about our craft, for the moment mistaking us for a fishing boat. Either they finally understood that we didn’t carry so much as a mackerel or, perhaps, they sensed danger ahead, for the birds suddenly departed on powerful wings, uttering such piercing shrieks that they could be plainly heard above the whoosh! and shorr! of the engine.
Likewise, I made it my business to be overheard above the machine, too. “Holmes. What’s happened?”
That distinctive profile remained. He didn’t even glance in my direction.
“Holmes, good God, man! The telegram! What does it mean?”
Still he did not turn. Instead, he rested his fingertip against his lips.
Hush.
My friend is not given to personal melodrama, or prone to questioning my loyalties by virtue of frivolous tests. Clearly, this was a matter of great importance. Just what that matter was I’d have to wait and see. However, a certain rigidity of his posture and grimness of expression sent a chill foreboding through my blood. Terrible events loomed—or so I divined. Therefore, I stood beside that black clad figure, said nothing, and waited for the tugboat to bear us to our destination.
Presently, I saw where we were headed. Sitting there, as a blot of darkness on the glittering sea, was a large vessel of iron. What I’d first surmised to be a stunted mast between the aft deck and the funnel was, in fact, a crane. A cable ran from the pulley at the tip of that formidable lifting arm to a gray object on the aft deck.
In the next half hour Holmes would speak but tersely. “Steel yourself, Watson.” That was his sole item of conversation on the tugboat.
The dourness of countenance revealed that some immense problem weighed heavy on the man. His long fingers curled around the rail at the prow. Muscle tension produced a distinct whitening of the knuckles. His piercing eyes regarded the iron ship, which grew ever nearer. And he looked at that ship as a man might who’d seen a gravestone on which his own name is etched with the days of his mortal arrival and, more disconcertingly, his departure.
The tugboat captain fired off two short blasts of the steam whistle. The leviathan at anchor gave an answering call on its horn. A mournful sound to be sure. Soon the tugboat drew alongside. A grim-faced Holmes took my elbow in order to help me safely pass from the heaving tugboat to the rope ladder that had been cast down for us.
My heart, and I readily confess the fact, pounded nearly as hard as the pistons of the tugboat. For, as I climbed up toward the guardrail fifteen feet above me, I saw an assembly of faces. They regarded me with such melancholy that I fully expected to be marched to a gallows where my noose awaited.
Panting, I clambered over the rail onto the aft deck. There, something resembling the boiler of a locomotive, lying horizontally, dominated the area. A pair of hawsers ran from this giant cylinder to a linking ring; from that stout ring a single hawser of great thickness rose to the crane’s tip.
Holmes followed me on deck.
Immediately, a man of around sixty, or so, strode forward. His face had been reddened by ocean gales and the sun. A tracery of purple veins emerged from a pair of mutton-chop side-whiskers that were as large as they were perfectly white. Those dark veins appeared as distinct as contour lines on a map. Such a weather-beaten visage could have been on loan from the Ancient Mariner himself. His wide, gray eyes examined my face, as if attempting to discern whether I was a fellow who’d stand firm in the face of danger, or take flight. That assessment appeared to be of great importance to him.
Holmes introduced me to this venerable seaman. “Captain Smeaton. Dr. Watson.” We shook hands. His grasp was steel. Holmes closed with the terse request: “Captain Smeaton, please explain.”
The captain shared the same funereal expression as the rest of his crew. Not smiling once. Nevertheless, he did speak.
“Dr. Watson,” he began in a voice long since made permanently hoarse from having to make himself heard above ocean storms, “I don’t know what Mr. Holmes has revealed to you about our plight.”
“Nothing.” To avoid my friend’s silence on this matter as being altogether too strange I added, “I arrived from London in something of a rush.”
Captain Smeaton didn’t appear concerned by my ignorance and continued swiftly. “You’re on board the Fitzwilliam, a salvage vessel. Mr. Holmes spent the day with us yesterday, because . . . well . . . I’ll come to that later, sir. I’ll tell the story in plain-speak. There’s no requirement for me to embellish with colorful or dramatic phrases, because what you’ll witness is going to strike at the heart of you anyway.”
Holmes stood beside me, listening carefully.
The Captain did as he promised, rendering his account in deep, whispery tones that were plain and very much to the point. “Five years ago, Dr. Watson, we were engaged by the admiralty to recover silver bullion from the SS Runswick, which lies ninety fathoms beneath our keel. The depth is too great for divers using Siebe Gorman suits. They can operate to depths nearing thirty fathoms or so—to go any deeper is certain death. So we use Submarine Chambers, such as this.” He indicated the iron cylinder that occupied the deck. Moisture dripped from its massive flanks. Bulbous rivets held that hulking beast together in such a formidable way the thing appeared downright indestructible to my eyes.
“A diving bell?” I asked.
“As they are commonly known. Diving bells have been used since the time of the ancient Greeks, sir. Back then they’d simply invert a cauldron, trapping the air inside. This they’d submerge into the ocean. A diver would then visit the air pocket in order to breathe. That arrangement allowed sponge divers, and the like, much greater duration on the seabed.”
“Remarkable,” I commented, eying the huge vessel squatting there on the deck. “And this is the twentieth century descendent of the cauldron?”
“That it is, sir.” Captain Smeaton’s gaze strayed toward Holmes as if seeking permission to continue. Holmes gave a slight nod. “To get to the meat of the matter, sir, back in 1899 we used a diving bell to retrieve silver bullion from the sunken ship. One particular morning, I ordered that the Pollux, which is the name of the bell, b
e lowered to the ocean floor. On board was a man by the name of George Barstow. The diving bell was delivered to the wreck by crane, as you see here, sir. It is both lowered, and raised to the surface by means of a steel hawser. Fresh air is pumped down to the craft via a tube. Contact is maintained between the ship and the diving bell by telephone. I tell you, gentlemen, I curse the hour that I ordered Barstow to man the craft. Not a day goes by without me reliving those terrible events.” He took a deep breath, his gray eyes glistened. “Initially, the dive went well. Barstow descended to the wreck without incident. His function was to act as observer and to send directions, via telephone apparatus, to my men on the ship to lower a grappling hook in order to retrieve the cargo. We successfully hooked five cases of silver and brought them to the surface. Then I noticed a swell had begun to run. This poses a risk to diving bells as it puts excessive strain on the hawser. I gave the order to winch the craft back to the surface.” He paused for moment. “That’s when Barstow spoke to me by telephone. He reported that the diving bell had become caught on the superstructure of the wreck. The thing had jammed fast. We tried every which way to free the bell. Meanwhile, waves had started to break against the sides of the ship. So I told the winch-man to use brute force and haul the diving bell free.” He paused again. Trying to avoid melodrama, he said simply. “The hawser snapped. As did the telephone line and air pipe. That was five years ago. The Pollux became George Barstow’s coffin. He’s been down there ever since.”
“And now you are trying to recover the Pollux and the man’s body?”
“Indeed we are, Dr. Watson.” He nodded to where a hawser ran along a steel channel to a fixing point on deck. Barnacles and brown kelp sheathed the hawser. “That’s from the Pollux. We recovered it three days ago.”
“It’s still attached to the diving bell?”
The captain nodded his gray head. “The Pollux is held down there on the seabed. Probably the old wreck’s doing. Even so, we made fast the cable on deck here. I’m going to do my damndest to haul that diving bell out of Davy Jones’s locker and bring the blasted thing back to dry land, so help me.” His hands shook as a powerful emotion took charge. “Or it’ll be the death of me in trying.”
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