Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) (8 page)

“True,” Brigadier Knight admitted. “Still, Holmes, the creature put forward by young Sherrington exists definitely only in ancient writings, but, currently, only as allegations in the outrageous belief systems of certain dark cultists.”

“And in reports tendered by witnesses,” Sherrington murmured. “
Reliable
witness, old bean.”

The Brigadier frowned.

“You may be correct, Brigadier, but you offer only evidence of a negative nature, possessing a null value in formulating a deductive equation,” the detective pointed out. “I thoroughly perused all the statements gathered by the police and my own agents, and I also consider your own account, Brigadier. The nature of the Whitechapel abductions preclude any human agency or the use of some sort of mechanical device, and there is no natural or electrical force that could account for them either. Therefore, it becomes clear we are dealing with some sort of organic entity,  a beast, shall we say. It must be a creature able to exist in the riverine system beneath the city and hunt in a very specific way. No known animal fulfills all the criteria requires, so,
quod erat demonstrandum
, it must be an unknown animal. Perhaps it is not a young Shudde M’ell, but it will do until a better candidate is nominated.

“I wish I could detect a flaw in your argument, Holmes, for I do dislike giving in to Sherrington.” He looked to Sherrington and gave an apologetic tilt of the head. “No offense, young man, but you do have a reputation for advancing wildly fanciful occult theories.”

Sherrington raised his glass in a comradely toast and vaguely shrugged his thin shoulders. It was useless to deny the obvious.

“Unfortunately, Mr Holmes, your position is as logical as it is unassailable,” the Brigadier agreed. “All right, call this malicious force ‘Shudde M’ell,’ if you must. What do we do now? Call Scotland Yard? The Thames River Police? The Admiralty?”

“No, I think not, at least for the moment,” Holmes replied. “But you do have…”

A soft knock at the door interrupted them, and Ah Ling entered carrying a message form, which she handed to Knight. He unfolded it, read it and scowled fiercely.

“Blasted fool!” the Brigadier snarled, crushing the paper between his fists, then snapping it open. “Damned fool!”

“What is it, Brigadier?’ Sherlock Holmes demanded.

“It’s Archie Wallace,” the Brigadier explained, glancing down at the message form. “He’s received some information, a ‘tip’ he calls it, of activity in Whitechapel and gone down there alone.”

“My word,” Sherrington breathed. “That could get sticky.”

III

The odd trio of Sherlock Holmes, Brigadier General Knight and Roger Sherrington set out for Whitechapel without delay, but first made a stop at Grennel and Son, Machinists, a shop in an alley off East India Dock Road. Holmes borrowed from them a device in a teakwood cabinet with brass fittings and handles, as well as bulls-eye lanterns fitted with gas mantles, and a satchel.

“What in the world is that, Mr Holmes?” Sherrington asked when Holmes and the Brigadier returned to the carriage.

“This,” Holmes explained, as he opened the case, revealing the complicated machinery within, “is an electrically activated sensor for detecting the transmission of sounds underwater.”

Sherrington frowned, for he was not in the least mechanically minded and viewed most inventions of this modern age with healthy doses of distrust and unease. In fact, he really only felt comfortable with a G and T in one hand and an ancient tome in the other.

“It seems I’ve heard of such devices, a few years ago, in Lake Geneva, chap by the name of…” The Brigadier as he searched his mental storehouse for the proper fact.

“Colladon,” Holmes supplied.

“That’s it!” the Brigadier said. “Daniel Colladon. Swiss.”

Sherlock Holmes nodded, checking the connecting wires to the voltaic cells as well as a long insulated cable to which was attached a metal disc about the size of a cricket ball.

“Edward Grennel and his son, William, are clever, inventive and imaginative,” Holmes said. “When they and those like them can no longer thrive in our free society, the sun will at last set upon the Empire. I do not entirely understand the inner workings of this device, but the younger Grennel has instructed me fully in its operation and interpretation.”

“If I recall correctly, Colladon and his co-worker, some damn Frenchman or another, used a device like this to listen to fish, or some such thing,” the Brigadier said.

“Actually, I believe he used it was to determine the speed of sound through water,” Sherrington added.

Both Holmes and the Brigadier looked at the young clubman, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, come now, chaps,” Sherrington chided. “Surely you don’t think I spend
all
my time reading ancient occult tomes, chasing ghosts, and drinking gin martinis, do you?”

“It is that determination of sound’s speed underwater which allows this device to indicate velocity, that is, speed and direction,” Holmes said as he suppressed a slight smile.

“Your aim, then, is to track the…” The Brigadier shot a skeptical glance in Sherrington’s direction. “…the beast as it makes its way through the lost rivers beneath Whitechapel.”

“Or the sewers,” Holmes added. “I fear the term ‘river’ is a bit of a kindness these days, for the lost channels are at their fullest in times of rain and the overtaxed sewer system often spills into them. And no doubt it is possible to break through at points.”

Sherrington glanced out the carriage window at a sky devoid of stars. “Looks like rain, chaps.”

“What do you expect, young man?” the Brigadier grumbled. “It’s bloody London, isn’t it?”

As the carriage made its way from the comparative brightness of western London to the dark nimbus that seemed to overlay the East End, a silence settled upon the three passengers. Sherrington, as was his wont, tried to lighten the mood, but the Brigadier was too worried about the welfare of his journalist friend to be prodded to any sense of lightheartedness, and Holmes, as usual, ensconced himself within an impenetrable cocoon of dark brooding; truth be told, though, even Roger Sherrington, normally game for the most outré of adventures, was uneasy about this expedition.

Over the last couple years, Sherrington had collaborated with Holmes on cases which challenged the great detective’s perception of the world, but he was under no illusion that Sherlock Holmes was ready to abandon the redoubt of logic and reason from which he surveyed a material world. Sherrington still cast his own net upon the sea of ideas and beliefs as widely as he ever had, but association with Holmes had made him more critical of ideas he still held dear to his heart. They had affected each other in subtle ways, the young man reflected, each giving ground a little, Holmes to the mystical and Sherrington to the practical, but neither would ever abandon the core values that made them who they were.

A fool, as Holmes had once called him? He supposed it was more true than not, and at the time not an accusation made unjustly or unkindly. Yet, at the same time, he thought with a slight smile, Holmes apparently thought highly enough of this fool’s expertise in matters occult to speed across the dark expanse of London on what was not only a fool’s errand, but a highly dangerous one. As for the Brigadier…he evinced a disbelief in the doctrine of the Cthulhu Mythos and its monstrous denizens, and obviously dismissed him as naught but a dissolute clubman of some notoriety, and, yet, the old war veteran rode boldly with them nevertheless.

When they entered Whitechapel, Holmes rapped against the ceiling with his walking stick and issued directions to the driver when the trap opened. Less than twenty minutes later the carriage rumbled to a stop at the narrow mouth of an alley marked by an archway surmounted by a carving weathered to unrecognizability.

A black night surrounded them as they exited the carriage and even blacker buildings rose around them, their monolithic darkness unrelieved by even the slightest flicker of light. A thin mist flowed through the murky lanes, and the silence of the night was broken only by the soft murmur of flowing water and the distant tones of dull iron bells slowly tolling.

“I thought I knew all the foul streets of the East End…” the Brigadier started to say.

“Actually,” Holmes interrupted, “we are not far from where you reported hearing that strange sound. The underground river you were near branches through here and we should be able to…”

A shuffling noise came to them and a shadow approached them out of the alleyway. Both Sherrington and Knight started to reach into their jacket pockets, but Holmes restrained them with a gesture.

“That you, guv?” a low hoarse voice asked.

“Over here, Bagby,” Holmes said softly. “I hoped I would find you about.”

“Ah, there you are, Mr Holmes,” the newcomer said as he drew near. He was short, bald and garbed in sooty garments; he also smelled foul, even for the nether half of London. “It’s a bloody black night, Mr Holmes.”

“Indeed it is, in more ways than one,” Holmes agreed. He said to his companions: “Mr Bagby is a…collector, of sorts, quite well acquainted with the world beneath our feet.”

Bagby laughed. “Collector, Mr Holmes, that’s a right good one. Scavengin’ it is, down in the drains, and a tosher I am, looking for what otherwise would get washed into the briny. Course, I can’t say I been in me haunts much of late, it being passing strange.”

“How do you mean?” Holmes asked. “Have you seen anything odd in the sewers?”

“Not seen,” Bagby admitted. “But heard down where the night is eternal and blacker than black. They say it ain’t safe to walk these streets, but I’m telling you it ain’t no safer down below.”

“Think you could show us one of your ways down?” Holmes asked.

Bagby rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “To tell you truthfully, Mr Holmes, I ain’t been down in the sewers nearly a fortnight. There was something that came too close, made me think I was near to being brown bread, and I ain’t been back since.  Those underground channels have always been my coin, but of late I’ve been setting by much more meager stores from rubbish piles. A poor living it be, sir, but a living what leaves you breathing.”

“Tell me, my good man, did you see anything of tentacles?” Sherrington asked.

“Daft,” the Brigadier muttered.

The scavenger Bagby look at Holmes’ companions as if seeing them for the first time. “Tentacalies? Like a devil-fish? Naw, I ain’t seen anything of that, but I heard things sliding and splashing in the darkness, didn’t I? Felt something monstrous-huge passing, didn’t I?” The man shuddered. “I ain’t gone back, and not gonna.”

“Not even for a sovereign?” Holmes asked.

Fear and greed warred across Bagby’s coarse features, and in less than a moment it was clear which emotion had won out, the gleam in his gimlet eyes clear to all even in that oppressive and murky atmosphere.

“Well, I wouldn’t do it for no one else,” Bagby justified as he took the proffered coin. He glanced at the trio dubiously, noting that of the three only Holmes was suitably garbed for a journey into the foetid netherworld of London, the other two dressed as if they were off to the bloody opera. “All three of ye?”

“Rather!” Sherrington said enthusiastically.

“Don’t be impertinent, fellow!” the Brigadier growled.

“All right, all right,” Bagby said hastily. “No need to get your knickers in a twist. I told Mr Holmes I’ll take you down, and down I’ll take ye. Come on, then.”

“I should try to find Archie,” the Brigadier said.

“If your friend is following, in his own way, the same trail we are, then we might encounter him at some point,” Holmes pointed out. “Even if we do not, however, the lives of the many will usually outweigh the lives of the few.”

“Or the one,” the Brigadier said, frowning. A harsh reality, he knew, but one the logic of which he could not dispute. “Very well, then. Let us do what we came to do.”

Sherrington glanced at the Brigadier. The old soldier’s face did not now carry the expression of a man who thought himself on an expedition in search of nothing more than a legend, but Sherrington held his silence.

Holmes and the Brigadier, being the strongest of the group, took charge of the bulky listening device, while Bagby was given care of the two bulls-eye lanterns, which he lit with a Bryant and May lucifer, then closed the apertures. Sherrington was wondering what to do with himself when the driver handed down the canvas bag Holmes had brought out with the other gear.

He gave Holmes a quizzical look.

“Do be gentle with that bag, Sherrington,” Holmes cautioned.

“Oh?”

“A dozen sticks of dynamite,” Holmes explained, “courtesy the Grennels.”

“Oh,” he said, then stared at Holmes with wide eyes. “Oh!”

“If you are correct, Sherrington,” Holmes pointed out, “then we shall surely need more than the revolvers carried by you and the Brigadier.”

Sherrington nodded, but the logic of Holmes’ argument did not change the fact he was carrying a bag of dynamite. Going against supernatural horrors and terrors from beyond the grave was one thing, but carrying explosives was quite another.  He forced a smile.

“You can count on me, Mr Holmes.”