Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes (25 page)

Not for the last time, Holmes was to be proven spectacularly wrong. Two days later, the afternoon newspapers reported the finding of two bodies washed up on the north Kentish shore near the mouth of the Medway. They were identified as the men sought by police in connection with the suspicious death of the First Officer of the Dutch steamship
Friesland
. There was, however, no sign of the stolen tug.

As we sat quietly that night, each lost in his own thoughts, Holmes suddenly started. “He’s here, Watson. Can you sense his presence?”

“I sense nothing beyond this fug of tobacco smoke, Holmes.”

But his attention was already elsewhere, eyes focused on a patch of empty air and ears cocked like a whippet on the hunt. A one-sided colloquy ensued.

“Yes, I wondered if you played a part in that. How exactly was it managed?” A long pause and then a high-pitched laugh. “Oh what a fitting end!” Holmes glanced my way. “Dr. Watson does not hear you speak. Why is that?” He listened for some moments and then looked at me again, and smiled.

“This will be our last night-time chat, I surmise?” Pause. “It is my business to know what other people don’t know, and I now realize that can also include spirits. Thank you for lifting this burden from both our souls. Perhaps we shall meet again nonetheless.”

For some minutes Holmes continued to gaze into that empty space and to strain his ears. Finally he sighed.

“You must promise me, my dear Watson, never to chronicle this adventure. It would be hypocrisy in the extreme for me to claim any credit for the solution of these crimes, and I fear the table-rappers would seize upon what happened as support for their nonsense.”

“Of course, I will honor your wishes, Holmes. But I feel that I am owed an account of what you learned from the visitation that apparently just took place.”

“Good old Watson, you truly are the epitome of the firmly rooted Englishman. Your colleague may be hearing voices and talking to himself, but you will nevertheless take pains to insist upon fair play.”

He continued: “I learned that the drowning of Calhoun and Darrell were no accident but the final retribution from the spirit world. Openshaw was, of course, aboard the fleeing tug in spirit form. When it had passed safely beyond the mouth of the Thames and it became apparent the two murderers were once again likely to vanish into the shadowy maritime world, he took action.”

“But you said these spirits cannot assume corporeal form, so Openshaw could have no way of checking their flight physically.”

“That is correct, Doctor. Nor was there aboard that tug an independent agent such as myself with an intellect capable of communicating with the spirit world and a desire to interfere. Instead, Openshaw said he ‘clouded their minds’, causing the scoundrels to run the tug into a navigation buoy with such force that it took on water and then quickly sank. Neither man could swim, as is common among sailors, and they drowned.”

“How did Openshaw ‘cloud their minds?’” I asked.

“He did not provide details about that. It is my belief that the spirits can modulate the force of their mental emanations to suit different circumstances. In this case I suspect Openshaw projected into the minds of those two murderers an image that obscured the true risk of striking the navigation buoy with some even more imminent hazard, perhaps a phantom ship steaming upriver through the fog. Taking evasive action to avoid the imaginary danger, Calhoun and his henchman rammed the real one.

“You also asked why I couldn’t hear the spirit’s voice. What did he answer to that?”

For a long time Holmes said nothing, and I began to think that he was deliberately ignoring my question. In a low voice, he finally spoke:

“I once feared death, Watson. Not the disintegration of this body, which will all too soon begin to betray me, but the snuffing out of this intellect which I have spent so much effort to fashion into an unequalled thinking machine. My experience with Openshaw has vanquished such fears. When we die, our spirits can continue as the purest form of intellect, ratiocination elevated to this highest conceivable level. I will not rush to embrace death, nor actively seek it out, but I will not despair when it finally comes.

“Moreover, I now appreciate the reason that Openshaw could project his thoughts into my mind only when we were in the same room and why he had to be present on the tug to be able to fatally confuse the thinking of those murderers. As you noted in your published account, he was but two and twenty when he met his death. His mind was nowhere close to reaching its full potential, so the power of his emanations was limited. I, on the other hand, have honed my mind over the years to such a degree that I will no doubt be able to project my thoughts over great distances and continue my work on behalf of the living.

“You wonder what all this has to do with the question I posed to Openshaw’s spirit about you. Well, let me ask you a further question in turn. What caused you to draw your revolver on Preston Road and spin about, thereby no doubt saving both of us from serious injury and possibly even death?”

“I had a sudden premonition of danger. I don’t know why.”

“I do. Openshaw says he shouted a warning at you. You perceived it instantly in the most primitive portion of your brain, the part that prompts us to flee or fight. And being Watson, you fought.”

I did not intimate to Holmes that I accepted this explanation nor did we discuss it again. But in the years following I observed Holmes talking to the thin air on numerous occasions. As for myself I subsequently held many fascinating discussions with a certain doctor who had become quite famous as a writer.

The Entwined

The Entwined

by J. R. Campbell

She strode across the neatly trimmed grass, immune to the charms of the day around her. Spring was in full bloom, the wind rustling the leaves in the trees and carrying the season’s fresh scents to the fortunate and unfortunate alike. Her feet were bare as she walked across the lawn; tracing out a path perceived by none but her. She walked with her head bowed. Whether to watch the rise and fall of her hesitant steps or to shelter her frighteningly pale skin from the sun’s warmth I could not say but her posture and slack expression telegraphed an utter disinterest in everything and everyone around her. The pleasant English countryside unfurled its full lush glory but, for all the pleasure she took from it, a bleak, arctic wasteland would have served her as well. Slender and pale, her wispy hair tousled by the breeze, she seemed almost insubstantial until she turned her remarkable brown eyes to you. Confronted with the depths of those ravishing eyes a man realized this young woman was meant to be beautiful. In those dark eyes was a promise unfulfilled, a potential thwarted by the insidious affliction from which she suffered.

Dark circles gave her face a hollow-eyed aspect. Next to her pallid skin, even the grey clothes of the asylum appeared bright. Her footsteps, her translucent skin, her painfully thin form all but lost in the asylum clothes, all combined to make the young woman insubstantial. Seeing her I found myself in agreement with the opinions I had read in her case file. The poor creature suffered from nothing which food and rest could not cure, nothing save a flaw in her mental process preventing her from accepting that which her body craved. We followed her unnoticed, despite my friend Sherlock Holmes’ attempts to gain her attention.

“Miss Drayson!” Holmes, impatient and frustrated, called once more. He moved to stand directly before her. She lifted her head slowly, careful not to lift her feet from her unseen path as she dealt with this interruption.

“You must be Sherlock Holmes,” Catherine Drayson said, offering the detective a shy smile. “I trust you received my letter?”

“Yes,” Holmes said impatiently. “However I do not understand what it is you require of me.”

Her smile, so small a thing, slipped from her features as she examined my friend. “I thought I had explained myself adequately, Mr. Holmes,” she said, a charming childlike lilt in her voice. “I require you to determine whether or not I murdered the men I listed. Obviously this matter is of the utmost importance to me. Until my guilt or innocence is proven I am trapped here. Abandoned. Uncertain which world I am to be a part of…”

Having spoken, she lowered her head and resumed marching along her invisible path. She appeared startled when she encountered Holmes who, unmoving, remained directly before her. Looking up, her expression of concern was replaced by a shy smile. “Mr. Holmes,” she greeted him as if meeting him again after a lengthy absence.

“Miss Drayson.” Holmes returned the courtesy. “I can assure you: These murders are not of your doing.”

“That is wonderful news,” she said, bringing her hands together in delight. Her shy smile expanded into something more substantial. “You must tell me how you were able to determine this. Was the investigation difficult?”

Holmes cast a concerned look at me before returning his attention to the young woman. “It was not difficult at all.”

“You mustn’t be so modest Mr. Holmes,” Catherine Drayson said.

Holmes, a man seldom accused of modesty, was momentarily nonplussed by this assurance. Nevertheless he pressed on. “It is quite impossible for you to have committed any murders. You have been confined here in this asylum, under constant observation, for the last twenty-three months. I have reviewed your medical file, Miss Drayson. I have spoken to the doctors and staff charged with your treatment. They assure me you have not left the asylum grounds for almost two years.”

Catherine Drayson listened patiently to Holmes as he explained his findings. When he finished she laid her small hand on his forearm in a friendly, familiar gesture obviously intended to lessen the sting of her reply. In her musical, untroubled voice, she chided the detective. “Now really Mr. Holmes, I have no wish to be difficult but I did expect better from you. Reading a medical file to solve such ghastly crimes? And everyone says you are so very clever. If you do not wish to accept my case that is one thing, but to stint on an investigation is quite another. I am relying on you Mr. Holmes, is that not clear to you? I must know one way or another before I can decide which world I should direct my efforts towards.”

It was a rare instance indeed when Holmes cast a look of desperation my way, I will confess to being somewhat flattered as he did so now. I cleared my throat, drawing Miss Drayson’s attention to me. “Excuse me Miss Drayson, but that’s the second time you’ve mentioned different worlds. May I ask which worlds you are referring to?”

“There is this world,” Catherine Drayson said, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture towards the blue skies, the looming asylum and the lush, green woods. “Here I am a daughter to a kind man. A child whom everyone likes and pities at the same time. I fear I am a disappointment to those who know me here although they cling to a fading hope. This world is, I confess, a difficult one for me. Often it is a remarkably lonely and frustrating place. Yet it is not without its attractions.”

“I see,” I said. “And the other world?”

“In many ways the other world is much like this one,” she answered earnestly. “Yet in that world I am different. In that world I have neither friends nor family yet, somehow, I am never alone. It is as if there is another me, a part of myself which is missing in this world. When I am there I know myself to be a fearsome thing, capable of the most vicious violence, yet in that world I am untroubled by my nature. Under the red sun of that world, the only frustration I know comes from my inability to unseat my rider.”

“Rider?” I interrupted. “Like a horse?”

“Much more dangerous than a horse.” Her words bore a strange flash of bravado, very much at odds with her feminine voice. “The person I am in that world has tasted the flesh of men and gloried in the spilling of their lifeblood. My rider believes I can become great. A beast so fearsome I will carry him beyond the red sun to where all his ambitions might be realized. Although I know such a path will be bloody indeed yet, when I am in that world, I find myself eager for the bloodshed.”

“When I look up to the red sun the memories of my life here disgust me. Everything seems so weak and lonely, devoid of purpose or companionship. But when I am here the memories of the other world horrify me, such cruelty and wickedness. You see how I am trapped, don’t you? There is a choice to be made. I cannot exist between such extremes. I must be one thing or another. I am not large enough to encompass both. So when my rider commanded me to murder those men, I did so eagerly. I knew it would solve my unendurable riddle.”

“Solve it how?” I asked.

“I should think it obvious.” Catherine Drayson explained pleasantly, her brown eyes captivating as she spoke to me of murder. “If I have indeed killed men from this world then it proves the other world is more than a delusion. It follows then, having spilled the blood of living men, I no longer belong here. Knowing this I am free to commit myself to the world beneath the red sun. Oh, I admit I shall miss the compassion and independence of my life here but one cannot deny one’s nature. Besides, if I am truly a murderer, I cannot harbor any expectations of continued kindness on my behalf. Then again, if Mr. Holmes can prove my innocence, I shall abandon the other world. While I will miss my rider and — how shall I put it? — my savage half, it will be a relief to know such frightening deeds are nothing but a delusion.”

“I see,” I spoke with a confidence I did not entirely feel.

Holmes’ frown deepened as he listened to Miss Drayson’s explanation. “These men you claimed to have murdered, how did you learn their names?”

The question seemed to puzzle her. For a moment she was silent as she considered her answer. “Yes,” she said. “I can see where that might trouble you. In truth I know their names only because I tasted their lives. You see, in the other world, when creatures such as I feed on our prey we gain a sense of our victims. Perhaps it would be more correct to say we gain a sense of who our victims were, for it is only in the last swallow of blood the knowledge appears. I knew their names because I tasted their names. Can you understand that Mr. Holmes? No, I see you do not but I have no better explanation to offer. However I came to know their names, you must admit I did know them. These men did exist and each of them was recently murdered.”

“That has not yet been proven,” Holmes said.

“It hasn’t?” Catherine Drayson’s childlike voice betrayed an adult note of hopefulness. Yet even as it built I could see it fade. “Oh, of course, Mr. Pursey was aboard a ship, wasn’t he? I should have recognized that I suppose. The small room with the ocean all about. Have you been able to contact him?”

“Not as of yet,” Holmes admitted with ill grace.

“And the other names I gave you?” Miss Drayson asked.

“Mr. Mulchinock has been reported missing,” Holmes said. “His fate has not been determined. I should remind you that India is a savage land, full of perils for unwary travellers.”

“Those are but two names from my list of five,” Catherine Drayson reminded him. “Nor have you disproved my contention they have been murdered. What of the remaining gentlemen on my list?”

Holmes scowled, his expression answering her question more eloquently than words could have. The remaining gentlemen had been murdered and Holmes did not wish to admit it to her. Instead of answering her question, Holmes countered with an argument.

“You could not have murdered any of these men,” Holmes insisted. “You were confined here, in the asylum.”

“In the other world, Mr. Holmes,” Catherine Drayson said earnestly, “I have wings.”

“Like an angel, Miss Drayson?” I asked.

She smiled an ironic, humorless smile. “No, Dr. Watson, not in the least like an angel. You see Mr. Holmes? I doubt the guards who watch over us are prepared for inmates who sprout wings and disappear into other worlds.”

Almost against my will I nodded as she said this, feeling she had spoken the simple truth. It was unlikely, after all, asylum guards would be instructed to watch the unimposing Miss Drayson in the event she unfurled hidden wings and flew off to sea with the intent of determining a sailor’s name by drinking the last drop of his blood. Still my unthinking nod was noticed by Miss Drayson who graced me with a grateful, pretty smile. Holmes also noticed my reaction, and glowered furiously at me.

“You see Mr. Holmes,” Miss Drayson continued. “Your investigation has only just begun. You’ll wish to be paid of course, my father will see to the details. You understand they do not allow us currency in the asylum else I would settle our account now. Oh, and Mr. Holmes, there is one more thing I feel I should mention. I did not include it in my note as I was uncertain how to properly explain such a thing to you but now that you’re here, now that you’ve heard my explanations, perhaps you will understand. The last victim, Mr. Wolfe, as he perished I tasted a fear in his blood, a concern that his friend — Mr. Willingham — was in grave danger. I understood this to mean Mr. Willingham was likely to be my next victim. You understand I know nothing of Mr. Willingham beyond the fact Mr. Wolfe feared for him. I do hope you will be able to prevent his murder. When I am in this world I find thoughts of death and murder most distressing.”

“Of course,” Holmes agreed, his expression humorless. “Miss Drayson, who told you of these murders?”

Smiling in a friendly manner at Holmes, she answered sweetly. “If you have looked in my file, Mr. Holmes, and spoken to the doctors and staff here, you know I receive no visitors aside from my father. No doubt you will have noticed how newspapers and the like are not permitted within the institution? The staff feels news from the outside world is not helpful to those suffering nervous disorders. If that is all Mr. Holmes?”

Holmes looked as if he wished to say more but was unable to articulate his questions. Instead he merely tipped his head to the slight girl. “I trust you will have a pleasant day Miss Drayson,” he said in farewell.

“And you Mr. Holmes,” Miss Drayson returned the courtesy with a smile. “A pleasant and productive day.”

Holmes stepped aside and, as if a switch had been thrown, Miss Drayson bowed her head and her expression slackened as she resumed her joyless walk along her invisible path. For a moment Holmes and I watched the young woman walk away from us. The detective’s hands twitched as he watched her. It seemed to me he was reaching for the pipe and tobacco which he’d unthinkingly left behind in Baker Street. Then Holmes turned and indicated with a tilt of his head that we should be leaving.

“Holmes,” I asked when we were in the cab leaving the asylum behind us. “What on Earth was all that about?”

In answer Holmes reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out a small, carefully folded note and handed it to me. The stationary was plain, the woman’s writing somewhat ornate but easily read.

Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,

I am writing to you in hopes of securing your services. Much to my dismay, I have been witness to a series of ghastly murders. I wish for you to investigate the following deaths:

Russell B. Wolfe: Killed in a room overlooking London’s Hammersmith Bridge.