Angela drew in her breath sharply, a noise almost like a hiss.
“She planned everything! The Worm—the human sacrifice—it was all her idea, all her…”
Angela moved so quickly I don’t think anyone could have stopped her, even if they had suspected what she might do. She extended both arms, cried “Traditore!” and struck Arabella, knocking her backwards into the pit. The splash was almost instantaneous, followed by a pause, then a scream. “Oh get me out—get me out—for the love of God!”
Again we rushed to the edge, and the beams of the lanterns showed the black water and Arabella’s head bobbing about. Her white hands clawed futilely at the wall.
Adam would have climbed down to the ledge, but Holmes grasped his arm. “Not this time—it is too dangerous.” He looked at Pratt. “Get the rope—quickly!” He stared down at Arabella. “Hardly very original trying to blame another, madam. By now you should have learned that your efforts at improvisation can end badly.”
“Get me out! Please—oh, please! I did it—I admit it all—but get me out! Please, Mr. Holmes. I beg of you.” Her terror was evident, her voice harsh and completely changed.
“It is your pet, isn’t it? Just like Delilah or those others in your menagerie, only this one I suspect goes back almost to your childhood.”
“Yes—yes—but hurry! For God’s sake hurry!”
Pratt arrived with the rope, and threw it into the pit. “The rest can wait, madam. I need not tell you to make haste.” Holmes and Pratt both had hold of the rope. “Wrap it round your wrists, so you cannot lose your grasp.”
Arabella wound it round her wrists twice, then grasped it with both hands. “Pull—pull—hurry—hurry.”
They hoisted away, and by the time her torso came up out of the water, I felt somehow relieved myself. I could not understand her obvious terror, but it was contagious. They pulled again, even as the beams danced about on the shimmering surface and the stony side of the pit. Something appeared in the black water, something long and white and slender, snake-like, moving very fast, disappearing, appearing, then one end rose and became a rounded sort of head with jaws which opened even as it shot upward. Arabella gave a howl of pain and terror, and she immediately plunged back into the water. Holmes and Pratt had not been able to hold onto the rope.
Holmes grabbed it again. “Quickly, or she is lost!” He tried to pull, but could not budge it. “Selton—all of you—help me!” he cried. Adam grabbed at the rope and Pratt, Dodd and the others soon joined him. They managed to slowly hoist Arabella out of the water. She was screaming and screaming; if the rope were not wound round her wrists, she could never have held on. As she rose, the thing came with her, a terrible weight, its jaw obviously clamped to her upper leg.
“The worm!” Sir Nathaniel cried, his arm gripping mine fiercely. “A little one! A babe!”
“Dear Lord,” I muttered.
They kept pulling, and Arabella slowly ascended, but there seemed no end to the pale serpentine form which had her in its grip. Arabella’s cries were more like moans now. There must have been seven or eight feet of the monster out of the water, but still no diminution.
“For God’s sake,” I cried. “What is that thing?”
Arabella made a choking gasping noise. “Help me—help me.”
Holmes had let go of the rope, and he took a long walking stick in his hand. He knelt down at the edge, held the end with both hands, then bent over and swung it round in a great arc, striking the creature on the head. A quaver shimmered down along its serpentine shape. He struck it again. Arabella screamed and swayed. The beast let go at last, plunging back down into the black waters, and Arabella almost shot up and out of the pit as the men holding the rope staggered backward, the greater part of the burden suddenly gone. Arabella lay on her side gasping and moaning. I glanced a last time at the waters. I saw the gray-white head and the slightly parted jaw and sharp teeth, then the creature submerged for the last time and vanished with a final flash of its pale back.
“I don’t understand,” Michelle moaned. “I do not.”
We both went to Arabella’s side. She looked ghastly. The makeup was partly gone, leaving her face a blotchy white and gray. A huge dark stain was blossoming on her torn white robes and her leg. I wondered if one or both of her wrists had been broken by the rope wound around them and the great weight pulling at her.
Michelle bent over and tried to staunch the bleeding with her hands. “Oh no, no,” she muttered.
Arabella let her head roll sideways and drew in a great shuddery breath, her face staring up at Holmes. She tried for a smile but could not manage it. “Hoist on my own petard, Mr. Holmes. Fitting enough, yes?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Do not try to speak—not now.”
“It’s probably my last chance. It hurts, but it is not like… Oh, I don’t care, so long as I am out of the water. I didn’t want to end up in the pit, not that way. And you were right about improvising. It was all utter nonsense. Angela could have never dreamed it up. And she hates reptiles and fish.”
“Hush,” Michelle said. “Hush.”
She had raised the rope and was looping some around Arabella’s bare thigh, no doubt to act as a tourniquet. Blood was spurting out. I shook my head. “Can I help?” I asked.
“No.” She looked up at me and gave her head a quick shake. “It’s bad.”
“Petard,” Arabella muttered. “Poetic justice. Clever that.” She was shivering. “I’m so cold.” I took off my overcoat and put it over her. “Dr. Henry Vernier, always the gentleman, always the guardian of the fair sex… always…” Her eyes rose upwards even as her mouth stiffened.
Michelle shook her head. “She has lost so much blood. That thing must have severed the femoral artery. Even a tourniquet… Arabella!” She drew in her breath. “Arabella?” One hand still held the rope, but she touched Arabella’s throat with her fingertips, probed gently. At last she drew in her breath and shook her head. She let go of the rope and slowly stood up.
I had begun to shiver myself and not merely from cold. I stared at Holmes. “For God’s sake—now you can explain? What was that thing in the water?”
“The worm,” Sir Nathaniel cried jubilantly. “It was…” The rest of the worshipers watched silently.
“Nonsense!” Holmes exclaimed. “That was no White Worm, not even a serpent. It was a conger eel, nothing more.”
“An eel?” I muttered, thinking of its smaller brethren who could be purchased chopped and stewed from many a London street vendor.
“Yes, an ocean-going variety, technically a fish, and the largest of its race. They can grow to some twelve feet and weigh nearly five hundred pounds.”
Pratt nodded. “I saw a big one hung up by the dock at Whitby two years ago, the same sort of ugly brute. It was ten feet long and three hundred or so pounds, but only a babe compared to that thing!”
“The females are larger than the males,” Holmes said. “They can also live as long as a man, sixty years or more. Lady Verr must have encountered that creature in the pit at high tide when she was a girl. She trained it to come for food. Perhaps she offered it rabbits. She was gone for many years, but when she returned last year and put out some bait, amazingly enough the creature reappeared. She began to feed it again. This was the foundation of her cult and the animal sacrifices. It must have amused her greatly.”
Sir Nathaniel shook his head and moaned. “No, no. It was the worm, a juvenile variant.”
Holmes stared at him. “You call yourself a naturalist, sir! Ask any fisherman about conger eels. They can tell you that they are very fierce, a difficult catch indeed, and that they can grow to immense size, as Pratt has just noted.” He drew in his breath, then looked at Angela. She had seemed dismayed earlier, but now she stood wearily, her arms folded. Dodd was next to her, his revolver in hand. “Was my surmise correct, madam?”
She nodded twice. “Certainly, Mr. Holmes. And you realized, of course, that with that lunatic Caswall gone, she
had resolved to kill her niece for her money and for the estate. She said we would do well enough then, but given her extravagances, we would have been bankrupt and in debt within a year or two at most. She seemed to think this was all a game between the two of you, a kind of chess match. I tried to warn her, tried to persuade her…” She drew in her breath and let out a long sigh. “In the end, I have come to understand that she was… a sort of monster, a cold, unfeeling beast like her reptiles or that creature in the pit, and yet I loved her. I loved her from the first moment I saw her. But she—she could not love! She could not. She could pretend well enough, and she had her brief infatuations, but real passion—true love—no. I finally understand that, but too late. And that she should try to betray me after all I had done for her, all I had endured! No, no—impossible! All the same, I did not truly want to kill her. I swear it. After all, you had survived the pit without harm.”
Holmes nodded. “I believe you. It was as I said. She was not good at improvisation. That business with Adam was pathetically inept. She had not thought things through.”
“And she did not think things through tonight! She turned on me—I who had loved her and served her so long and faithfully!” Again Angela shook her head, then she stood upright proudly. “Do you know opera, Mr. Holmes, Italian opera?”
He stared warily at her. His hair was still wet and black under the moonlight. “Yes, certainly. Which one?”
“Do you know Norma of Bellini?”
Holmes laughed softly. “Yes, of course. The story of a high-priestess of the Druids. She loved a Roman. She and her lover go together to the sacrificial pyre at the end.”
Angela smiled fiercely. “Very good, signore. This grove, this whole business—it is all like Norma. I did help her plan everything, and of course, I was Corchen! I was the high-priestess of the snake goddess, the mighty White Worm. I played my part well, even if I do say so.”
Holmes nodded. “Very well indeed. Most impressive.”
“Norma was a priestess and a mother. She felt real love for Pollione, who was an unfaithful cur. She was not like Arabella, who could not love. She was not a fake. She was not empty inside, capable only of lies and deceit, even to the one who most…” She drew in her breath, struggling for control. The white makeup still covered her face, and its pallor seemed appropriate. “The pit—she was right about the pit. I cannot face the pit either. But there is an alternative—something worthy of Bellini, something worthy of Norma, something truly… operatic.”
She smiled fiercely at Holmes, then whirled about and ran straight for the cliff. She had surprised us all, she had a head start, and she was very fast. I stopped well before the edge, but I saw the figure in white go over without hesitating in the least. Holmes and the others paused to stare down at the rocks and the sea far below. I could see their silhouettes framed against the bright starry sky. At last they turned and walked back toward me.
Holmes shook his head. “Lady Verr was not worth it—not worth it at all.” Adam and Diana had remained behind. She was crying, her face hidden against his massive chest. “Well, Mr. Selton, you needn’t worry any more about White Worms or curses on the Marsh daughters.”
The few worshipers who remained were absolutely silent. Most had lowered their cowls. They looked stunned or dismayed. Pratt glanced at Holmes. “Any reason to keep the lot, sir?”
“No, except for Hamswell. Once one of the doctors has had a look at him, you’ll want to take him into custody. I am certain he was involved in Evans’s murder. That, unfortunately, will be difficult to prove, but we all saw him attempt to murder Miss Marsh. Perhaps he can lead us to the apparatus used to create the worm at night.”
Pratt folded his arms and looked around at the hapless worshipers. “All right, this business is finished once and for all, done with. Go home and consider yourselves lucky. I hope you’ve all learned your lesson.”
Sir Nathaniel’s face formed a sorrowful grimace. “Only a conger eel,” he moaned.
Thirteen
Michelle and I took care of Hamswell, using the back of the wagonette as an operating table. He actually still had a bottle of ether in his pocket, but we used our own. Michelle muttered something darkly about dispensing with an anesthetic, which did worry Hamswell, but I knew it was an idle threat. Once he was under, she probed about and had the bullet out of his haunch within two or three minutes. She was remarkably fast. Meanwhile I was scouring out the other wound through the leg with carbolic acid. He stirred even under ether. After some stitching and bandaging were complete, his trousers finally came back up, much to our relief and that of the two policemen who had been shining the beams from their dark lanterns onto his posterior.
Holmes had been talking with Pratt and Sir Nathaniel. Pratt and all his men soon left in the wagonette, along with the still unconscious Hamswell. Diana and Adam sat quietly on a rock. She was completely engulfed in his woolen overcoat, her head leaning against his shoulder. Neither of them said a word, but they looked very happy. Since Diana had no shoes, Adam insisted on carrying her back. He held her in his extended forearms, and it didn’t slow him down at all, although he had to turn her occasionally to dodge a tree trunk.
When we finally entered the great hall of Diana’s Grove, we found Mrs. Troughton bound to a chair. She was greatly relieved to see us, especially Diana, and once she had been untied, she embraced the girl fiercely. Her jaw was thrust forward slightly, her eyes stern, as she heard what had happened to Arabella and Angela.
“I suppose as a Christian I mustn’t exult in their terrible end, but they had their just deserts, all the same.”
Diana sighed wearily. She was standing next to Adam, and he still had his arm around her. He hadn’t left her side for an instant since getting her out of the water. “I still can’t believe it all. I do… I do feel sorry for her. In fact…” Her eyes had filled with tears, and she could not continue.
“I am not certain I exactly believe in the theory of just deserts,” Holmes said. “Lady Verr was vain, selfish, and as Angela realized at last, she was incapable of love. Still, I would not have wished such a fate upon her. ‘Poetic justice,’ as she called it, is rarely so swift or bloody. Nor was there anything the least poetical about that monster.”
Michelle sighed. “It was very fast. I don’t think she suffered much, not once she was out of the water.”
Mrs. Troughton shook her head. “Such wickedness.” She suddenly made a terrible face. “Whatever are we going to do with all those beasts?” She and Diana stared at one another. I’m not sure who started first, but both began to laugh. Diana’s laughter had a certain hysterical edge.
“You might try the London Zoo,” I said.
Diana was smiling, but her face was pale and strained. “I cannot believe she’s really gone. I wanted her to leave, but…” She bit at her lower lip, then turned. “Will you stay with me, Adam—will you please stay with me?”
His black eyebrows sank inward over his nose, and his lips parted. I could see the fear slowly appear in his eyes. “Diana,” he whispered.
She touched his face. “I would have forgiven you, anyway. You know that. I would have forgiven you because I love you, but you saved my life. You and Mr. Holmes. You pulled me out of the water. Aunt Arabella deceived us both. She was wicked. She wanted your money, but I think she also wanted to hurt me. She’s gone. There’s nothing to keep us apart now—nothing.”
He seemed frozen, unable to speak, and the look in his eyes simply made no sense to me. “Adam?” I said softly.
He lowered his gaze. “Diana, I… I love you, but… but…”
“But what!” she cried.
“I… I cannot be a fit husband for you.”
“What are you talking about? Let me be the judge of that!”
“There is nothing…” He clenched his teeth, then shook his head. “If only it could be.”
She let go of his arm and stepped back. She was still wearing his overcoat, her bare white feet showing beneath it. “So
you won’t have me, is that it?”
“Not won’t—can’t.” He would not meet her gaze.
“Oh I don’t understand—I don’t.”
Michelle shook her head and stepped nearer. “We are all out of sorts. This is not the time.”
Diana stared at her. “It’s never the time—never the time with him—oh, I give up. I give up! It’s hopeless.”
She began to cry and let Michelle take her in her arms. Michelle held her tightly and glared at Adam. “I… I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry!” Michelle exclaimed. “Oh my dear, let’s get some dry clothes on you. You must be freezing.”
“Yes, yes,” Mrs. Troughton exclaimed. She gave Adam a venomous gaze. The two women led her toward the stairway.
Holmes shook his head. “Incredible. Simply incredible. Even I with all my peccadillos find this utterly incomprehensible. Sir, this has gone on long enough.” He looked at me. “Henry, can you put some sense into this great buffoon? Perhaps you can get through that incredibly thick and dense skull of his. In the meantime, I shall finally get into some dry clothes myself.”
I nodded brusquely, then seized Adam by the arm. “Come with me.” He followed docilely as I led him to the drawing room. I turned up the lamp, then poured us each a brandy. “Sit down.”
He sagged into one end of the sofa, I into the other. I took a big swallow, felt the warmth slip down my throat and into my stomach. “That creature—that fish—was incredible. I don’t think any actual snake could have been half so frightening.”
Adam stared at me curiously. “I didn’t find it exactly frightening.”
“You didn’t?” I sipped at my brandy. Adam hadn’t touched his. “Drink.”
He took a swallow, then sighed. “Now everyone hates me.”
My laugh was a moan. “Adam, no one hates you—least of all Diana.” I drew in my breath slowly. “This has already lasted far too long. Can you explain to me what is going on?”
He swallowed the brandy. One hand fumbled awkwardly at a lock of his black hair. “I’m ashamed,” he whispered.
The White Worm Page 28