I forced myself to concentrate. Holmes was already at the trestle, but it was hard to make out his form inside an ever-moving cloud of glowing green mist.
“Holmes!” I called out.
“I’ll be right with you, Watson,” he replied, but it sounded as if he were shouting from a long way away in a wind. More blue sparks ran across the roof of the warehouse. I felt a chill at my back, as if a door had been opened.
“Thank goodness, Thomas,” I said. “I need some help here.”
But when I turned to the source of the breeze it was not Thomas I saw. A tall gentleman stood there, dressed in a waistcoat and trousers that were long in need of a good wash. He had not shaved for more than a week and his hair was disheveled. All these things I noticed, all while I was trying not to notice his eyes. Thomas had been right—this must be Boothroyd—and his eyes did indeed glow. Whatever that iron cylinder might be, it had infected him. The green flickered as his gaze fell on me.
And just like that, I was gone.
I felt it first through the soles of my feet, but soon my whole frame shook, vibrating in time with a rhythm that seemed to beat through the mist. My head swam, and it seemed as if the very walls of the workshop melted and ran.
The black cylinder receded into a great distance until it was little more than a darker blob in a blanket of darkness, and I was alone in a vast cathedral of emptiness where nothing existed save the dark and the pounding beat from below.
Shapes moved in the dark, wispy shadows with no substance, shadows that capered and whirled as our dance grew ever more frenetic. I was buffeted, as if by a strong, surging tide, but as the beat grew ever stronger I cared little. I gave myself to it, and I know not how long I wandered, there in the space between. I forgot myself and I forgot my friend, lost in blackness where only the rhythm mattered.
I do believe I would be there yet if Holmes had not come to my aid.
Even then I was confused as I felt his hand in mine, there in the dark. It was his voice, and the calm reassurance of it, that brought me back to myself.
“It is time we were going, Watson,” he said. “I fear we have overstayed our welcome.”
I felt him tug at my hand. My friend called. I answered.
We ran out of the workshop. I turned back once, just in time to see the green mist flare, then fade. The last hint of it to go was in Boothroyd’s eyes. He stood in the doorway of the workshop, watching us all the way as we fled.
It took over half an hour to get back to Baker Street, most of it on foot. Holmes scarcely said a word the whole time, but he did wave the journal he had taken from the trestle at me.
“The answer will be here, Watson: trust me on that.”
I myself had much on my mind, not the least of which was that black cathedral of dancing shadows. It had felt wrong, but even as I walked along the thoroughfares of North London I could feel its insidious tug at my mind. For the first time I had some inkling, some idea of kinship, with those poor souls who spent their waking hours chasing the dragon in the opium dens of the East End.
And even after we reached Holmes’ apartments and settled in our chairs awaiting a welcome pot of tea, still Holmes did not speak. He lost himself in the newly found journal. I knew I would get little out of him until he was good and ready. I went to help Mrs. Hudson prepare our supper and afterward read The Thunderer from front to back.
It was near midnight before Holmes put down the journal. He stayed quiet through the process of lighting a pipe, and it was only when he was satisfied he had it going that he brought me in to his findings.
“It is a rum do, Watson,” he began between puffs. “But I fear Boothroyd, in his search for knowledge, has uncovered something far more arcane.”
He tapped the journal with his pipe. “He has been corresponding with a young man in the United States. They have some wonderful theories regarding the transmission of sound through the ether without the need for wires, and they even conjecture that electrical power may one day be available in this fashion. But that is a story for another day. What concerns us here is what happened on their first attempted transmission.
“It appears they woke something up with their racket,” Holmes said with a thin smile. “Something that has been asleep a long time. Here is what Boothroyd has to say in his journal.”
He read: “Tesla believes it to be a denizen of some other dimension, a creature so vast that we can scarcely encompass its nature in our primitive brains. Normally it is dormant, merely drifting, somewhere not in, or even out of, our space, but somewhere between. Whatever it is, we have woken it. And it has taken note of us. God help me, it haunts my every dream. We have a theory as to how we might be able to placate this thing before it fully wakes, to send it back to its long sleep. But will we be given the time? At night I dance with it, there in the vast blackness. And, dear God, I find I have little will to resist. I would that I could be there now, lost in the dance.”
That last gave me a bit of a turn, I can tell you, bringing the events of the evening rushing back to me. But if Holmes noticed, he paid it no heed.
“There is some more,” he said. “Notes on how they intended to put this entity back to slumber, but there is some experimentation of my own I must attempt before broaching that subject. It may take some hours, old chap. Maybe you would prefer to return in the morning?”
I knew my friend well enough. I might be able to return to bed that night, but he would not; he would be unable to leave a problem alone for that long. Besides, I had spent so many nights in the old chair by the fire that its upholstery was molded in the shape of my spine, and it had become almost as comfortable as my own bed.
I lit a last pipe of the night and watched Holmes work.
He seemed to spend most of his time trying to decipher some kind of code that took up a dozen sheets of a handwritten journal. And it had him stumped. After almost an hour, he gave up and retired to his chair to brood over a pipe of his own.
After a while I drifted into a fitful sleep, troubled by dreams of vast black emptiness and dancing shadows. I woke with a start to find Holmes shaking a fistful of papers in my face.
“I have it, Watson,” he said, his face flushed with excitement. “It is not a code at all. It is a rhythmic notation—the steps of the dance, if you will.”
He said no more, having already moved to start making marks on the wax disks of the Graphophone. I could not for the life of me follow what he was up to, so I closed my eyes again and tried to rest, knowing that Holmes might have need of a rested friend in the morning.
But sleep would not come, interrupted as it was by a series of unworldly screeches and drum-like raps from Holmes’ experiments. I gave in to the inevitable, sat up and got a fresh pipe going. Just as I had it lit to my satisfaction, Holmes stood from his work, stretched with palms pressed to his spine, and turned toward me, smiling broadly.
“I believe I have it, Watson,” he said. “But time is of the essence, and the only way to test the theory is to return to Boothroyd’s workshop. Are you ready for more burglary?”
3
Watery morning sunshine greeted us as we approached the Boothroyd house. The trip back to Hackney had been made somewhat easier by the use of a carriage that Holmes managed to flag down at Paddington. I was most grateful, for he had left it to me to carry the Graphophone and, despite being encased in a rather attractive carrying valise, it was somewhat cumbersome, if not particularly heavy. What with that and the weight of my service revolver—which I thought circumspect to bring along—I felt rather burdened as we walked along the avenue.
Holmes made no pretense of hiding our approach, striding down the center of the drive as if we were simply making a house call on a friend. I had no idea how we might explain ourselves to Boothroyd should he note our arrival and confront us. It was a moot point, however, as we reached the workshop without any interruption.
The workshop itself lay in silence. As we approached, I was on tenterhooks, straining to listen f
or any resumption of the vibration that had so bewildered me the night before. Holmes had no such qualms. He strode forward and threw open the large wooden doors.
I had my free hand on my revolver, but it was not required.
“It seems we have the run of the place, Watson,” Holmes said, and before I could speak, he walked quickly inside so that I had no option but to follow him.
In the dim daylight that filtered in through whitewashed windows above, the array of machinery was even more bewildering. Metal tubes and cables snaked across all surfaces, and steam hissed from pipes obviously under a high degree of pressure. But my gaze kept returning to the main object of Holmes’ attention—the large black iron cylinder.
“Don’t stand there gawping, old boy,” Holmes said. “Fetch me the Graphophone.”
I was loath to step too close to the trestle where the iron cylinder sat, but I had come this far, and six feet more was not going to make much difference. I did as I was requested and Holmes immediately got to work setting it up. I saw that he had made certain modifications to the instrument that would allow him to play several wax disks in succession and, with minimal manual intervention, restart the whole thing at the turn of a key.
But even while he was setting it up, I felt the vibrations start to build around the iron cylinder, and the air inside the workshop took on a green tint, like a fine emerald mist.
I felt the vibrations first through the soles of my feet, but soon my whole frame shook, vibrating in time with the rhythm. My head swam, and once again it seemed as if the very walls of the workshop melted and ran. Holmes turned toward me, but his pale face receded into a great distance until it was little more than a pinpoint of light in a blanket of darkness. I was once again alone, in a vast cathedral of emptiness where nothing existed save the dark and an ever-louder, pounding beat. I gave myself willingly to it, lost in the dance, lost in the dark.
Some time later I was brought back directly to the workshop by a new sound—Holmes had switched on his modified Graphophone. A giant drum still beat all around me, but I no longer felt any compunction to join it in the blackness beyond.
Above the black cylinder, the room was filled with a dancing green aurora so dense that I could not see the workshop walls. For the first time I could sense a presence directly, probing at my defenses, looking for a passage through.
The Graphophone sounded thin and tinny in comparison to the deep vibration that echoed in the room, but when Holmes began to stamp and pound on the trestle in time with the wax disks, the vibration seemed to falter. The aurora thinned enough that I could momentarily see the walls of the room. I almost let out a cry of victory, but I was premature.
I was looking at the cylinder and only just caught a movement at the corner of my eye as Boothroyd came at a run along the corridor between the trestles and barreled into Holmes, knocking him to the ground.
The aurora surged. Sparks flew across the iron cylinder, the sudden light so bright I had to squeeze my eyes shut, and even then the afterimage stayed there for long seconds.
Boothroyd reached for the Graphophone.
“Shoot him,” Holmes shouted. “Before it comes through completely.”
I pulled out the revolver but could not fire—not on an unarmed man—not until Boothroyd turned and stared at me, the green aurora dancing in his eyes. I felt the tug of the place beyond calling me. I pulled the trigger until it went away.
Boothroyd took four bullets to the chest. The green aurora glowed in all four wounds. He staggered, but did not fall. He turned away from me, once again reaching for the Graphophone.
“In the head,” Holmes shouted.
I obliged him, putting my last two shots into the back of Boothroyd’s skull. More green showed as a mixture of blood and brains escaped. Finally the body fell away.
The aurora above the iron cylinder surged as if alive, and once again I felt the tugging in my mind, the thing between, searching for me. But Holmes immediately went back to stamping and thumping on the trestle in time with the recordings on his wax disks.
He also started to chant in time with the recordings; meaningless sounds, but strangely apt to accompany his stamping and thumping. The new sound found some sympathy in the walls of the workshop itself. A new beat grew: a bass drum pounding in perfect time with Holmes’ chanting.
Once more the green aurora surged and threw itself forward toward Holmes.
His voice faltered … just for a fraction of a second. The aurora swelled and pressed an attack stronger than any previously made. I raised my voice, joining Holmes and putting more depth into the chant, aware that there were surely mere seconds left to us before the wax disks stopped spinning.
In answer the whole workshop seemed to swell in song, our voices echoed and amplified, as if recorded and re-recorded on a thousand Graphophones simultaneously. Even as the wax disks started to falter, the aurora shrank and diminished. A blue spark crackled and I was forced to blink. When I looked again, it was just in time to see the aurora hover over the iron cylinder, like a cape falling over the contraption.
The Graphophone played out with a last dying whir. The aurora fell, streaming inside the cylinder, then was gone. The echoes faded and died and our chants died with them. We stood in a sudden silence.
3
We made our way back to Baker Street in silence, and it was only when I inquired about informing Lestrade about the body we had left behind that Holmes spoke.
“No,” he said. “We cannot allow the police access to that workshop. They would only cause more mischief. I shall send the journal to Mycroft. The defense of the realm is, after all, more his domain than mine.”
“The defense of the realm?” I asked. “You believe it was that much of a threat?”
He was quiet for so long that I thought he would not answer. When he did he was deadly serious.
“It was only my knowledge of musical theory that saved us from enslavement and calamity,” he said. “Boothroyd has opened a door that we might not be able to shut. We were fortunate in that I was able to set up a rhythm that exactly cancelled out the vibration they had brought forth from between. For if it had been otherwise, we two would also have been taken away—I believe you got a glimpse of the place to which I am referring?”
He went on before I could reply.
“If allowed to persist, the dance would have spread as the vibrations grew stronger. All of London, perhaps even the whole of Europe, might have fallen under its sway had the vibration not been countered.
“We have sent it back into dormancy. But for how long? That is the question that vexes me now, Watson. I believe that the experimentation we saw in that workshop is some twenty to thirty years in advance of current scientific theory. But what will happen when other scientists catch up and start sending out more and more transmissions into the ether? What happens when the dreamer in the dance wakes once more?”
He went quiet.
I had no answer for him—not at that time.
But there are some nights when I dream, and I am back there in the dark cathedral of emptiness, back between.
I hear the call of the dance.
The Case of the Highland Fiddle
EF
We could not possibly have foreseen that Mrs. Hudson’s birthday present to Holmes would be the object of one of the strangest cases my good friend and I have ever undertaken.
The day started with a hearty breakfast, with our redoubtable housekeeper doing us proud with kedgeree, toast, and enough tea to float a small schooner. Holmes was in fine spirits and kept up a steady stream of witticisms and retorts as he read snippets out from The Thunderer.
He professed himself more than happy with the new pipe and four ounces of his favorite Turkish tobacco I had gotten for him, but his eyes really lit up when he opened the present from Mrs. Hudson. It was obvious what it was right from the start, for it is difficult to disguise the shape and size of a violin case. I could tell before he opened it that there was some age to the
instrument, if the case itself was anything to go by; it was made of old, cracked leather, worn smooth from many touches.
When Holmes brought out the violin itself, it too showed a depth of patina that denoted the many years that had passed since it was made. It was as dark and tanned as a veteran of a campaign in the Tropics. But it sang much more sweetly as Holmes caressed the bow over the strings and the air filled with a ringing tone far deeper, far more resonant than I was used to hearing when he played.
Holmes brought the tune to a rousing finish and surprised both Mrs. Hudson and myself by leaping from his seat and embracing the startled housekeeper warmly. It was one of the few times I have seen her flustered. She blushed like a giddy schoolgirl.
“I’m just glad you like it, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “It came down through the family of a Highland friend of mine who died some time ago. I was given the pick of her possessions; a memento if you like. I don’t normally hold with such morbid keepsakes. But I was shown this, and I thought of you. You don’t mind that it came from a dead woman’s things, do you?”
Holmes laughed.
“An old fiddle for an old fiddler,” he said, and laughed again. “Mrs. Hudson, I am delighted.”
That afternoon we had a most pleasant stroll in Kew Gardens, where Holmes and I met Constance McGregor, a remarkable woman who has brought back a great many new rose and rhododendron species from her trips to the mountains of the Orient. Her love for these beautiful plants was so contagious that we spent three hours in her company; time that flew by as if it were so many minutes.
Sherlock Holmes: The Quality of Mercy and Other Stories Page 7