The Scroll of the Dead (24 page)

Authors: David Stuart Davies

BOOK: The Scroll of the Dead

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Now and then I paused to get my bearings. I realised that I was moving east of Kingsland Road, and I took great care whenever I crossed a side street. Suddenly the sound of a human voice made me jump.

Glancing around, I saw a hunched figure in fluttering rags of clothing. He came toward me until I could see him in the darkness. He was old, with an untidy white beard. His eyes glowed rather spectrally.

“I thought that I alone was saved,” he croaked.

“You, too, must have the mercy and favour of the Almighty.”

“Favour of the Almighty?” I said after him, amazed at the thought. Not for days had I felt any sense of heavenly favour in my plight.

“The destroying angels of the Lord are afoot in this evil town,” he said. “For years I have read the Bible and its prophecies, have tried to preach to the scoffers. Judgement Day is at hand, brother, and you can bank on that. You
and me’s left to witness it together, the judging of the quick and the dead.”

I asked if he had seen any invaders, and he replied that they had been roaming the streets earlier in the week, “looking out human souls for judgement,” but that for two days he had seen none except at a distance. Again he urged me to stay with him, but I went on southward. My course kept me on the eastern side of Kingsland Road for a number of crossings, until I came to where I could turn my face westward, skirting a great heap of wreckage, to head slowly and furtively for Baker Street.

At midnight, approaching Regent Street, I saw lights. They were white this time, not green. Hastening toward them, I judged that they beat up at their brightest from the direction of Piccadilly. But before I came anywhere near, I spied northward a gleaming metal tower – again one of the fighting-machines – and plunged into a cellarway to hide.

There I cowered, miserably hungry and thirsty, until Sunday noon. There was no sound in abandoned London. At last I slunk, like the hunted animal I had become, to make my way across Regent Street and move west along Piccadilly. I reached Baker Street at last, and saw no sign of destruction there. It gave me a faint feeling of hope. Along the pavement I walked, ready at a moment’s warning to dive for shelter, until I came to the door of 221B. The familiar entry seemed strange and hushed. It was as though I had been gone for a year. Up the stairs I fairly crawled, then along the passage to turn the knob of the door. It was unlocked and opened readily. In I tottered, home at last.

There sat Sherlock Holmes in his favourite chair, calmly filling his cherrywood pipe from the Persian slipper. He lifted his lean face to smile at me.

“Thank God you are safe,” I muttered, half falling into my own chair across from him.

He was on his feet in an instant and at the sideboard. He poured a stiff drink of brandy into a glass. I took it and drank, slowly and gratefully.

“You have been here all the time?” I managed to ask as he sat
down again.

“Not quite all the time,” he said, as easily as though we were idly chatting. “On last Sunday night, at the first news of disaster heading up from Surrey into London, I escorted Mrs Hudson to the railroad station. At first I had had some thought of sending her to Norfolk alone, but the crowds were big and unruly, and so I went with her to Donnithorpe, her old home. She has relatives at the inn, and they were glad to welcome her. News came to me there. On Monday, the flight from London moved eastward to the seashore, well below Donnithorpe, with Martians in pursuit of the crowd of fugitives. Then came comparative quiet with no apparent move into Norfolk. On Wednesday I returned here, cautiously, on foot for a good part of the way, to look out for you.”

“I was with poor Murray up at Highgate,” I said. “He has died. Perhaps it is as well to die, in the face of all this horror.”

“Not according to my estimate of the situation,” he said. “But to resume. I have hoped for your return ever since I reached here on Thursday evening. I have hoped, too, for word from my friend, Professor Challenger. But you must be hungry, Watson.”

I remembered that I was. On the table was a plate of cracknels and a plate of sardines, with a bottle of claret. Eagerly I ate and drank as I told of my adventures.

“You have mentioned Professor Challenger to me, I think,” I said between mouthfuls. “Just who is he?”

“One of England’s most brilliant zoologists, and vividly aware of his own attainments. He would say, the most brilliant by far.”

“You speak as though he is of a tremendous egotism.”

“And that is true, though in his case it is pardonable. But do you remember a magazine article some time back, an account of an egg-shaped crystal that reflected strange scenes and creatures?”

“Yes, because you and I looked at it together. I do not care for its
author, H. G. Wells, but I read it because young Jacoby Wace, the assistant demonstrator at St Catherine’s, was concerned. He said that the crystal had vanished.”

“So it had,” nodded Holmes, his manner strangely self-satisfied.

“Wace told Wells that before he could secure that crystal from the curiosity shop where it had been taken, a tall, dark man in grey had bought it and vanished beyond reach.”

“And what does that tall, dark man in grey suggest to you?” inquired Holmes casually.

“To me? Why, nothing in particular.”

“Really, Watson, and you always admired my grey suit I got at Shingleton’s.”

I almost choked on a bit of cracknel. “Do you mean that you got possession of that crystal?”

“I did indeed. Challenger and I have studied it, and I left it at his home for his further observations. So, you see, we are not wholly unprepared for this voyage across space from Mars to Earth. When the first cylinder struck at Woking, a week ago last Friday, I hurried at once to Challenger’s home in West Kensington. His wife said that he had joined the scientists at Woking, but I could not find him when I went there myself. I fear he may have been killed by the heat-ray, along with Ogilvy of the observatory there, and Stent, the Astronomer Royal.”

“May I come in?” boomed a great voice from the passage outside.