Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes (22 page)

“Is Professor Westen all right?”

“As well as can be expected for a man in a deep and protracted trance,” said I.

“Trance? Ah … yes. A psychic attack would explain both the astral projection that brought me here and what has happened just now. I was making a search of the library in the hope Professor Westen may have shoved
The Sigsand Manuscript
—” here Carnacki indicted the secret niche, now open and empty, within the octagonal table, “—into a cupboard or shelf … when something came unbidden into the room.”

“Some
thing
?” said Holmes.

Carnacki frowned, as though he were trying to recall a dream. “The bell-ringers had just left — I heard the door close — and there was a time of silence while I looked about the shelves and cupboards. Then a dog barked briefly somewhere outside and it was after this that I heard the church door open again, but very stealthily it seemed. I remember thinking how queer this was, and then I remember turning around and seeing … a small figure, I think, at the library door.” Carnacki spread out his hands at his inability to describe it further. “It approached me slowly. I don’t know what it was, nor exactly what shape it took, but I know that something else crawled or slithered along the floor beside it. And as it crept nearer I seemed to be trying to fight off a terrible need for sleep as someone was whispering ‘Sigsand … Sigsand’ over and over. I recollect snatching a piece of chalk from my pocket … and then had no more sense of time passing until you entered.”

“Extraordinary,” said Holmes in a neutral voice while his gaze roved around the library: now on the octagonal table with its burden of chained books, now on the surrounding shelves and cupboards, now on the radiators, with their grey heating pipes, spaced at intervals along the wall. Finally he looked again at the drawn five-pointed star within which Carnacki remained, as if still unsure of our corporeality. “I wish I had thought to invest in a piece of chalk. It might have saved me untold trouble throughout the years.”

“Make mock if you wish, Mr. Holmes,” said Carnacki, though without rancor. “Even a rough pentacle is a fair defence against most Aeiirii developments, though I might not have survived even a minor Saiitii manifestation. It is the wisdom that is behind such as this pentacle that is the soul of the book we seek. Deduction and knowledge of all things worldly is your school. Mine is the lore of magic as written by Sigsand and others — that and arcane wisdom combined with modern science. We both seek the truth, but our adversaries are of different stuff: the criminal and the Abnatural.”

Carnacki’s words, though in places incomprehensible, impressed me with their heartfelt sincerity, and I could see that Holmes too had also taken them in with a measure of acceptance he might not have displayed earlier. He was about to speak when, from the tail of my eye, I noticed a small figure appear in the library doorway. I swung around with a shout, expecting to see heaven knew what, startling Holmes and Carnacki in the process.

It proved to be Susan, the maid.

She regarded our reaction with an odd, bemused expression. “If you please, gentlemen, Mrs. Westen said I should make certain you found your way.”

“You may tell your mistress,” said Holmes, “that we are all quite safe and that we will be back to the house presently. I’m afraid it appears the
Sigsand Manuscript
has in fact been stolen and is quite beyond recovery. There is nothing further either Mr. Carnacki or I can do here.”

“What—” began Carnacki, but stopped as Holmes waved his hand behind him in a quick, shushing gesture.

“Very good, sir,” said Susan. After bobbing a curtsy she left to convey the news to Mrs. Westen. I could not imagine her receiving it with any equanimity.

“What is this, Holmes?” I asked indignantly. “Surely you’re not frightened that there really are ghosts at the bottom of this business?”

“Not at all, doctor,” said Holmes. “Mr. Carnacki, have you by chance a sounding hammer?”

In reply Carnacki produced a small hammer from his bag. “It’s invaluable in finding hollows in walls and false panels. More than one ghost has been laid with its use.”

Climbing onto one of the radiators, which lined the library walls, Holmes methodically tapped along the length of its brass feed pipe, rapping out several high notes before hitting a dull
thunk.
A moment more and he had unscrewed the pipe joint, dislodged the pipe itself and was carefully knocking the end of it against the palm of his hand where fell, like a conjurer’s trick, an antique parchment scroll.

“Jove!” said Carnacki. “
The Sigsand Manuscript
!”

“But who put it there?” I asked.

“Is it not obvious?” said Holmes. “Professor Westen. There were scuff marks on his trousers and shoes which indicated to me that he had been doing a bit of climbing. The injury to his right knuckles suggested his hand had likely slipped while undoing the pipe joint.”

“And he did this,” said Carnacki, “to hide it from whomever held him in trance to steal it?”

“Precisely. And our mysterious hypnotist is someone who knows about the books, covets the knowledge this scroll contains, but has no easy access to the library.”

“But how are we to catch him?” said I.

Holmes smiled. “I have already set the trap, Watson, when I gave the girl Susan that message to take to Mrs. Westen. To win our little victory, we must first admit defeat.”

Our interview with Mrs. Westen in her downstairs sitting room was as embarrassing as it was awkward. Holmes had rarely tasted of defeat, and as he explained to Mrs. Westen his inability to help he made it plain that he was finding it a sour dish indeed. Carnacki also was clearly feeling humiliated in being “utterly stumped” as he put it, so early in his unique and peculiar career, which could only reinforce the impression of the ‘
genus
Charlatan.’ As for myself, I had to claim that as a general practitioner, I knew little about exotic trance states.

Against this there were, from Mrs. Westen, recriminations of the bitterest kind, all of which we thoroughly deserved. To her accusations that we had not even attempted to find a solution we had no answer. She implored us to stay at least one night to see whether her husband’s condition improved, but we denied her even that. Our behavior toward the lady was wretched and beastly. It pained me, as I know it pained Holmes, but what else could we do?

And so we took our leave, trooping along the road to the station with our long shadows trailing after us. We must have looked a quite dejected trio, which of course was the impression we hoped to give.

Over a light repast at a nearby public house we laid out our plans for the coming night. We were back again at the church with twilight deepening perceptibly around us. The vicar had been told by Mrs. Westen of our arrival and business, but had yet to be informed of our failure and departure, so he was quite amenable to loaning us the church keys and a dark-lantern.

By the time we entered the building it was all but night, and this made Carnacki distinctly uneasy. “
Forces and entities rejoice and gather pow’r in darkness,
according to Sigsand,” he said, as we made our way down the aisle with Holmes leading, lantern held aloft. Its light chased shadows out before us like dark conspirators surprised, and though I did not quite believe the essence of Carnacki’s quotation, his uneasiness at the approach of night communicated itself to me. I glanced over my shoulder, I peered into corners, I fancied following footsteps and looming attackers.

We reached the library and all was as we had left it.

By the light of our lantern and with Holmes looking on bemused from beside the octagonal table, Carnacki first swept a part of the floor with a broom of hyssop (as he called it), then took careful measurements before drawing a pentacle around both himself and me with a stick of blue chalk.

“I’ve recently learnt that some colors are just as effective as particular substances and shapes in providing a defense,” Carnacki explained. “Doctor Watson, before I complete the pentacle please empty your pockets of all smoking paraphernalia. Light can act as a path for certain of the forces we may encounter, and I don’t want you forgetting yourself.”

I tossed my matchbox and cigarette case over to Holmes whose part was to stay outside this magical protection, no matter what occurred.

“It appears you’re traveling in a non-smoking carriage tonight,” said my friend cheerfully.

“And your role, Holmes,” said I a little testily as I eased myself down to sit upon the cold floor, “might be better suited if you were tethered by a rope and making the noise of a goat.”

“Bravo, Watson!” He began to laugh, then sniffed and asked, “Is that garlic?”

“It is, and it’s a smell I hate,” Carnacki said, wrinkling his nose and producing from his bag several cloves of garlic strung on a sturdy cord, followed by a gold chain from which depended a glittering pentacle. He stepped through the gap in the yet unfinished chalked star. “Humor my eccentricities, please, Mr. Holmes, and put these on.” He draped the strange necklaces around Holmes’ neck. “Garlic is a wonderful protection against the more usual Aeiirii forms of semi-materialization that I am supposing this to be.”

“And what if it proves to be a Saiitii manifestation, as you call it?” Holmes asked. There was, I noticed, a lack of banter in his tone now, and I wondered if his prejudices were beginning to weaken a little, as were my own.

“I consider it unlikely,” said Carnacki, returning to the pentacle to smudge a clove of garlic in lines parallel to the blue chalk. “The hollow-eyed ghost Mrs. Westen and the housekeeper witnessed, and the similar images you told me Doctor Watson and yourself saw in the window, lead me to suspect there is a human will behind this, but uncertain and amateur
.
Those ghosts were mistakes, I believe. Tentative experiments. Anyone so inexperienced meddling with Saiitii matters would be dead by now … or worse than dead.”

“Experiments in what?” said I.

“Avatars.”

“Avatars?”

“Hindu mythology, Watson,” said Holmes. “Manifestations of their gods on Earth, or in this case a projected persona.”

“You put the idea very neatly,” said Carnacki. “Doctor, do you have your gun?”

In answer I produced my service revolver from my coat pocket.

“Good. There’s no telling what level of materialization may take place. It may prove useful.” Carnacki finished both the garlic and chalk stars, enclosing us both.

Holmes sat down upon the floor, back against the wall and closed the shutter over the lantern, plunging us into darkness. So we began our night watch.

How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil? I could not hear a sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet my companions sat open-eyed and close by, Holmes within a few feet and Carnacki beside me with our shoulders touching. From outside came the occasional cry of an owl and once I fancied hearing something scratch at one of the high windows. There in the dark and the quiet, without connection to the world, save for the now fading smell of bruised garlic, I felt adrift in the night. My old wound began to remind me of its presence with a dull but persistent ache. It did not like this long and enforced inactivity where the minutes dragged like hours, and neither did I.

Suddenly I felt Carnacki stir beside me.

“Something is about to happen,” he whispered.

Wondering how he could know this, I was overcome with an odd feeling of nervousness. Then Holmes shifted uneasily where he sat, the first sound he had made since closing the dark-lantern. He was, I supposed, experiencing the same weird sensation.

Outside, somewhere in the dark, a dog barked, giving two or three brief yaps and nothing more. It brought to mind the little dog presumably owned by the maid Susan that had caused such a commotion at our arrival. For some unaccountable reason, however, identifying the sound did not make me feel any better.

Then came another sound that did nothing for my nerves — the slow and stealthy opening of the church door, just as Carnacki had described before the attack on him that afternoon. Footsteps echoed faintly through the church, and presently there came a fumbling at the library door.

From nearby came the sound of squeaking metal and I knew Holmes had picked up the lantern by its handle in readiness to fling open its shutter. I drew my revolver from out my coat and aimed into that part of the darkness where I knew the door to be. I heard it too open in a slow and stealthy manner. Something was entering the library.

It came on in the dark, bearing no light, but with a quick, uncanny step amidst the furniture. I was certain it could see us plainly, and I dreaded a sudden attack out of the blackness. The footsteps stopped quite near to me and I heard something scuff against the radiator in what was surely an attempt to surmount it. It had evidently not seen us at all, and it occurred to me in a queer fashion that if there was anything to this magic of chalked stars and garlic it might not only protect but also obscure.

Just above me and to the left someone gave a grunt of exertion, a sound patently human. Light flashed across the room as Holmes unshipped the cover to his lantern, disclosing Professor Westen, still in his bed-clothes, holding onto the radiator’s piping as he attempted to unscrew a large connecting joint.