Warlock Holmes--A Study in Brimstone (29 page)

“I… I think so.”

“Good. You are to agree to sleep in Julia’s bedroom again tonight. When Dr. Roylott has retired to his room for the evening, you are to signal Holmes and me with a lantern placed in Julia’s window—Holmes and I will be stationed nearby. Make sure the front door is unlocked, then return to your own bedroom and wait there. When we see your signal, Holmes and I will sneak into Julia’s room and endeavor to catch the good doctor at his mischief. Agreed?”

“Are you sure?” asked Miss Stoner. “Do you think the two of you are enough to face such a monster as my stepfather has proved to be?”

“Oh,” said Holmes, with a sideways smile in my direction, “I imagine we’ll be all right.”

“But isn’t he—what did you say—a thug?”

“Thuggee,” I said, “but you are correct in that we derive our English word ‘thug’ from their sect. They are an Indian murder cult, dedicated to Kali, the goddess of destruction and…” I had to choose my next words carefully, “…marital relations, external to the formality of wedlock.”

“Well, if you are certain you can confront him,” Miss Stoner said, “you could wait at the local inn. It’s just at the base of the hill. If you arrive early and ask for a seat by the window, you will have a clear view of Stoke Moran.”

“Capital. We must hurry, I think. Holmes and I took some time walking here and the next train must be arriving soon. Miss Stoner, you may want to splash some water on your face and take a moment to compose yourself.”

She nodded her agreement and bustled down the hall, whereupon I turned to Holmes and whispered, “And as for you… Dr. Roylott must have no idea that his sanctum has been violated. This means his lock must be intact and fastened.”

“Ohhhh…”

“Well, you should have thought of that before you melted it. Now put it back with as little magic as you can manage. I will say our farewells to Miss Stoner.”

* * *

I soon discovered the chief flaw in my plan: it lay in Holmes’s and my weariness, combined with the sheer amount of time we needed to bide while waiting for the occupants of Stoke Moran to settle in to slumber. The most felicitous remedy was to hire a room at the very inn where we were supposed to wait and sleep through the afternoon and early evening.

I woke much refreshed. Holmes looked better too, though a certain clumsiness remained in his limbs, which told me they were not answering to his will as they should. I thought some food might effect a partial cure, so we went down into the tavern to sit by the window, eat and wait.

In a country dominated by sheep and shepherds, mutton is not considered a delicacy. Yet when it is fresh and delivered hot from the oven, baked into a hearty country pie, it is difficult to best. I married mine with a pint of stout and rejoiced. Holmes pouted until the innkeeper agreed to make him a plate of toast. Once this was joined by a cup of their runniest vegetable soup, he settled in, happy as a cat. As we ate, he asked me, “So, what do you make of this case, Watson?”

Gazing around to be sure we were not overheard, I replied, “I feel sure that Dr. Roylott murdered his stepdaughter. I am unsure as to his exact modus operandi, but I have a theory: suppose he has trained his cobras to slither through the vent, down the bell pull and attack whatever sleeping unfortunate lies upon the bed below.”

Holmes gave me a squinty look, as if he found this highly unlikely.

“No, think about it, Holmes! Remember the cobras? Remember their mottled scales? Can’t you imagine a woman, surprised and bitten in the dead of night, crying out about the horrifying speckled band that had just worked her ill? That’s what I think Julia Stoner was trying to say as she died, ‘the speckled band’!”

“All right, I see your point, Watson,” Holmes said, “but then again, might she not just say, ‘Help, a snake?’ It’s got fewer syllables and the benefit of clarity too, don’t you think?”

“But what else could she have been trying to say?”

“I don’t know,” Holmes shrugged. “Go through the alphabet. ‘And’ is a word. So is ‘band.’ ‘Canned’ also. ‘Dand’ and ‘eand’ are not, but ‘fanned’ is…”

“Yes, but how many words end in ‘eckled’?” I said.

“Well I have been too much a gentleman to bring up the other flaw in your conjecture, Watson. Have you ever heard of a snake whose bite causes one’s skin and musculature to fall off?”

“No,” I admitted, “but then, I have never known of anything else that could either.”

I fell silent to ponder that. I made no headway on the problem but I did notice we had another. Our supper was finished and the dishes cleared away, yet as I stared at the windows of Stoke Moran on the hill above, I realized it might be hours yet before our signal showed.

“You know, Holmes,” I said, “we may need to order a drink from time to time, else the innkeeper will take it amiss that we hold this table all night.”

“As you say, Watson. Just be careful. We must be at our best tonight and you know how drink affects you people.”

“
You people?
”

“Yes. Well, you know… everybody who isn’t me. Alas, I shall never know the comfort of alcoholic torpor, since such draughts have no effect on my person.”

“No effect?” said I. “Just as poison has no effect on you, I suppose?”

“Just so, Watson.”

“Except that I have
seen
its effect on you, Holmes. Just last night you were completely overcome with it.”

“Preposterous.”

“When Miss Stoner came this morning, you were unable to stand.”

“Or I chose not to, in order to make her feel unthreatened though she was entering the domicile of two unknown gentlemen.”

“Ha! A fine explanation, Holmes, but we both know you could not stand.”

“Watson! I am surprised at you. Just because I am immune to alcohol and other poisons and you are not, that is no reason to engage in envy and lies!”

“Lies? How dare you!”

“I am sorry, Watson, but you wear your envy as a Texan wears a hat: though it is a monstrous thing that would uglify any man, you seem almost proud of it.”

I am sure I could have argued in circles with him for hours but I had a more wicked expedient for proving my point. I cast about the room until I found the man I needed. He was at once the fellow who looked like he could least afford a drink, while also being the fellow who looked like he most often did. I beckoned a barmaid over to us and asked, “I say, miss, what is that slop-shirted shepherd in the corner drinking tonight?”

“Same thing as he does every night, sir.”

“I wonder if you would be so good as to bring a bottle for my friend and me.”

She hesitated, then said, “I’m not sure you’d want any of that, sir.”

“Most nights, I am sure you would be correct. But tonight is special.”

She shrugged and moved off to fetch our bottle of destruction.

“Bring four glasses,” I called after her.

“You gentlemen expectin’ comp’ny?”

“No.”

I then turned to Holmes and asked him, “So you think you could drink more than any man in this tavern?”

“Any man?” he scoffed. “Any ten men! Any ten men and the horses that bore them here!”

“Very admirable. Let’s just set the bar at three, shall we? I will drink a glass of… whatever it is I just ordered. You will then drink three and we shall see which of us begs off first.”

The bottle arrived at our table with a heavy thunk. Its mottled brown glass was covered in a slick of grease. I could not read the label as it was cheaply printed and had not profited by storage—by the looks of it, it had spent a century or so in the belly of a sunken pirate sloop. Nevertheless, the cork slid free with a joyous pop. I can only assume it was pleased to end its association with the foul bottle and roll off into the comparative cleanliness of the nearest pile of rat droppings. The smell that issued forth from the bottle was strangely familiar to me, yet at first I could not place it. At last, the dim recesses of my memory brought it forth. As a youth, I had spent one summer at the home of my uncle. While living, he had been a maker of stringed instruments. Ah, yes! Cello varnish! I poured a glass for myself and three for Holmes.

“To good health,” said I, raising the glass to my lips and draining it in a single gulp. My eyes burned; my throat swelled; my stomach spasmed. Still, it was worth it to see the look on Holmes’s face.

“Your turn,” I coughed.

“Ah… yes… so it is, I suppose,” he said. He grew visibly sick as he raised the glass, even before it touched his lips. He drank it down just as quickly as I had. He placed his glass back down and paused to let forth a high-pitched scream of distress. All eyes turned to our table. The slovenly shepherd in the corner raised his glass in salute. I imagine it was rare for him to meet someone who understood what he was going through.

I stared at Holmes, a smile on my lips, daring him to touch his second glass. He looked horrified at the notion of repeating his ordeal, but reached down with a trembling hand and grasped it. He held his nose while he swallowed it then cried out, “Aaaaaigh! Why? Why is it like that?”

I smiled and asked, “Well, Holmes, are you ready to admit…”

But he held up a hand to silence me and then—to my horror—drank down the third glass. This time he managed to avoid crying out, though only by clenching his mouth shut with both hands. He nodded that it was my turn and settled back in his chair, writhing slightly.

I must have grown quite pale.

I really hadn’t thought it would come to a second round. Then again, I did not wish to return to Baker Street and spend the rest of my days being forced to admit that Holmes was immune to both poison and alcohol. Given the difficulty he’d had with his first three drinks, I thought it unlikely he could manage even one more. Thus, with doubtful hand and faulty courage, I reached down to refill my cup.

Some hours went by.

I’m not sure how.

I only remember laughing quite a bit. We must have invited the shepherd over, for he joined us in finishing two more bottles and I never did manage to get the smell of him out of my clothes. I think we must have engaged in a series of dares and forfeits. I cannot recall them precisely, but I do remember our best penalty: he who had erred had to reach down under the table with his knife and carve a chip from one of the table legs. He then had to eat it, without attracting the attention of the innkeeper. I do not remember who won or lost, but between the three of us, we ate one of the table’s sturdy oaken legs and made pretty good progress on a second. I continually reminded Holmes that we must be ready when Helen Stoner signaled for us, but after a time it seemed as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“Holmes, we have to stop. Stop. What will happen when the signal comes?” I protested, some time after midnight.

“What is this damned signal you keep talking of, Watson? It sounds like something you made up.”

“No. I didn’t. It’s… it’s a lantern.”

“There are plenty of lanterns.”

“No. In the window.”

“Plenty of lanterns in the windows.”

“Not our window. The house. The house on the hill.”

“Like that lantern?” said Holmes, pointing to the light in the late Julia Stoner’s window. “But that’s been there for hours.”

I was out the door in a flash, with Holmes close behind. The shepherd wanted to come too, but we eventually shouted him away. We staggered up the hill, along the muddy road.

“Shekels!” Holmes declared.

“What?”

“The money of post-Roman Judea! Don’t you see, Watson, if someone was rich, he’d be well-shekeled! He’d be the Shekeled Man!”

“That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“Ah, but when a fellow is strangled or hanged, could he not be said to have been neckled?”

“Nope.”

“Oh. Public speakers sometimes get heckled, though.”

“That’s true, they do,” I admitted, “but keep quiet, Holmes. We’re almost there.”

I think we must have made more noise than we ought, sneaking into Stoke Moran and up the winding stairs. Luckily for us, our quarry was too distracted to note our approach; from behind Roylott’s closed door, we could hear muffled chanting.

“He’s started it,” I hissed. “Quick, Holmes, into Julia’s room!”

The room was in half-darkness, lit only by the lantern Helen Stoner had obscured behind the curtain to signal us.

“I don’t see anything,” whispered Holmes.

“Watch the vent,” I told him. “That is where danger shall approach.”

Even as I said it, there was a dull metallic bang from the vent, followed by the sound of an unknown, fleshy body sliding through the duct.

“Here comes the cobra,” I said, but when our antagonist emerged from the vent, it was no snake. A human hand protruded itself from the edge of the vent and began groping about for the bell pull. Its spotted complexion and profusion of curly ginger hair proclaimed this to be the hand of Dr. Roylott. It used only two fingers to feel about; the others clutched something that gleamed metallic in the lantern’s failing light—I recognized it to be one of his hypodermic needles.

The wayward human hand found the bell pull and started down. As I had suspected, it seemed the pull was there as a guide to reach the pillow below. As unsettling as the hand was, what followed was even more horrifying. The hand was not disembodied. A long, prehensile forearm flowed out of the vent and began coiling down the rope. Certainly there could be no bones within, for it was rubbery and capable of bending in any direction at any point along its length.

“Disgusting!” proclaimed Holmes. He was alight with admiration.

In his shock and inebriation, Holmes quite forgot to keep his voice down. The creeping hand recoiled in surprise, then struck out in Holmes’s and my direction with the hypodermic poised. We tried to get out of the way, but as I fled, the needle caught the flapping tail of my overcoat and pierced it. The back of my coat instantly disintegrated into a putrid brown liquid. Holmes saw this better than I could, and the fright of it caused him to cry out again. The hand turned towards him and pursued him about the room, striking randomly with the deadly needle as Holmes pelted back and forth screaming, “Ahhhhhhhhh! Watson! Help! The Freckled Hand! The Freckled Hand!”