Sherlock Holmes - The Stuff of Nightmares (33 page)

“Should I –?”

He held up a hand, forestalling my question.

“No. Don’t offer to accompany me. It is generous of you, and no less than I would expect, but I do not know how long I am going to be away, and your patients need you and, more importantly, so does Mrs Watson. Your obligation to her as a husband, especially in her convalescence, outweighs your obligation to me. Besides, I travel lighter and faster alone.”

“Very well,” I conceded reluctantly. “But please take care. To judge by Cauchemar’s experiences, the Hériteurs are a dangerous bunch, the more so because they are well connected.”

“I have the full backing of the French embassy. Ambassador Waddington is most embarrassed by de Villegrand’s devilry. A home-grown terrorist, right under his nose! He is also most grateful that you and I averted disaster, so that he is now dealing with an uncomfortable diplomatic incident rather than a fullblown crisis or worse. I am going to France with his and his government’s blessing. His Excellency has urged me to use all my powers to ‘root out the evil lurking in my nation’s bosom’, and I have assured him I will.”

“I am confident you will, too.”

“Thank you. By the way, you may like to know that Aurélie has been released without charge and without a stain on her reputation, as per my recommendation to Lestrade. At least one victim of de Villegrand has emerged more or less unscathed.”

“Poor girl. Bereft of her brother, how will she live?”

“Waddington has found her a placement in his own household. His wife has promised to care for her as though she were their own daughter. Aurélie, given her mental condition, will find life difficult on her own, but I am optimistic for her. She will cope.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“I have also vouchsafed to Lestrade that de Villegrand was the slayer of the Abbess, and he has accepted my rationalisation for it. Baron Cauchemar is in the clear for that crime. Speaking of whom, the police, sifting through the wreckage of the
Duc En Fer,
discovered only the three bodies – de Villegrand’s and those of Torrance’s two cronies.”

“So will we be hearing from the Bloody Black Baron again, do you think?”

“Who can say? With his nemesis gone, so is much of his
raison d’être
. Then again, the East End – all of London, for that matter – is still riddled with criminals and crime. I wouldn’t be sad to know that Cauchemar is out there, patrolling. I, for one, would sleep slightly easier at night.”

“Well then.” I extended a hand. “I shan’t be seeing you for a while, so – best of British.”

We shook hands warmly, and I left the house, wondering when next Holmes and I would be called to action.

The memory of our recent hair’s-breadth escapes and close brushes with death was still fresh in my mind. I bore a fair assortment of cuts, scrapes and bruises. I ought to have been dreaming of quiet nights in, a warm fireside, a well-upholstered chair, a good book, a glass of wine, the company of Mary, all the comforts of home and hearth. I should not have been contemplating how soon it would be before I sallied forth again into the cold, cruel world at Holmes’s side to confront evil and risk my neck doing so.

Yet, for all that, I hoped it would not be long.

In the opening passages of “The Final Problem” I wrote that Sherlock Holmes was “engaged by the French government upon a matter of supreme importance” in the winter of 1890 and the spring of ’91, and that during this period I received from him two notes postmarked Narbonne and Nîmes, updating me on his progress.

What those notes said, in fact, was that Holmes had “denied some would-be heirs of their hoped-for inheritance” and that “a Marquis has learned that a commoner may be the equal, if not the better, of an aristocrat”. These cryptic references pertain to his struggles against the Hériteurs de Chauvin, the full nature of which I may reveal in a further memoir, if I am so inclined.

For now, the time has come to set down my pen and add this manuscript to the many others currently being held for safekeeping by Cox & Co. Bank at Charing Cross, to whose vaults I entrust all of my never-to-be-published works.

The story of our involvement with Baron Cauchemar may yet see the light of day, should the executors of my literary estate see fit. I shall stipulate that this can occur only several decades hence, after I am long gone and so is Fred Tilling. That should spare him, and any offspring and immediate relatives he may have, from reprisals. The criminal fraternity possess long memories, but not that long. Their grudges usually fade once a generation or so has passed.

What will the world be like then, I wonder, in the dawning days of the next century. Will technological marvels of the kind the Vicomte de Villegrand and Fred Tilling purveyed be commonplace? Perhaps civilisation will have altered beyond all recognition, the march of Progress sweeping all before it like a relentless tide. Perhaps the imaginings of writers like Jules Verne and our own Mr Wells will have come true, their wildest prognostications made manifest. Perhaps mankind, aided by science, will have advanced to a blessed state of social perfection.

Or perhaps technology will be the downfall of us all, with war machines becoming ever more prevalent, ever more terrible, ever more destructive of human life. The hostilities in Europe are not long over. There, indeed, was a conflict in which science played a chilling role, turning conflict into mass slaughter, battlefield into abattoir.

Could that “great” war simply have been a foretaste of yet worse to come? And could there, even now, be another de Villegrand waiting in the wings, a brilliant madman dreaming of global conquest, of a world remade in his nation’s image?

I cannot say. I do not wish to speculate on the matter.

I am an old man and have no desire to spend my final years fearing for the future. I shall think only of the present and, of course, the past. Yes, the past. Always the past.

J.H.W.

This book owes its existence to the hard work and generosity of two people.

George Mann was the middleman who made the introductions and helped get me onto Team Titan. He also gave me the opportunity to have a trial run at a Sherlock Holmes story in his anthology
Encounters of Sherlock Holmes.

Editor Cath Trechman is the one who decided to take a punt on a Holmes novel from an author better known for his science fiction and untried in the detective mystery genre. She shepherded
The Stuff of Nightmares
from outline to final draft with immense patience, skill and care, offering brilliant solutions to knotty plot problems and making me work harder than I ever have before on a book.

I was eleven when I first started reading about the exploits of Conan Doyle’s great hero. It has been my dream, in the thirty-odd years since I fell under the spell of the character and his world, to write a Holmes tale myself. Thanks to the above two people, that dream has been made a reality, and I couldn’t be happier or more grateful.

J.M.H.L.

James Lovegrove
is
The New York Times
best-selling author of
The Age of Odin,
the third novel in his critically acclaimed
Pantheon
military SF series. He was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1998 for his novel
Days
and for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2004 for his novel
Untied Kingdom.
He also reviews fiction for the
Financial Times.

Guy Adams

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A brand-new original novel, detailing a thrilling new case for the acclaimed detective Sherlock Holmes.

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“Compulsory reading... glorious.” Neil Gaiman

“Newman’s prose is a delight.”
Time Out

“A
tour de force
which succeeds brilliantly.”
The Times

Kim Newman

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The New York Times

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Seattle Times

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As ever the Diogenes Club is at the heart of British Intelligence and Charles Beauregard and his protégé Edwin Winthrop go head-to-head with the lethal vampire flying machine that is the Bloody Red Baron...

“...stunning follow-up to his inventive alternate-world fantasy,
Anno Dracula.” Publishers Weekly

“Gripping... superbly researched... Newman’s rich novel rises above genre... A superior sequel to
Anno Dracula
, itself a benchmark for vampire fiction.”
Kirkus Reviews

“A delicious mixture of wild invention, scholarship, lateral thinking and sly jokes... Unmissable.”
Guardian

Kim Newman

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“He writes with sparkling verve and peppers the text with cinematic and literary references.
Dracula Cha Cha Cha
has full rations of gore, shocks and sly laughs.”
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