Sherlock Holmes-The Army of Doctor Moreau (9 page)

So saying, I raised my revolver and loosed two rounds. I am not a bad shot, despite the fact that my army career was dedicated to saving lives rather than taking them. Though I freely admit the fact that I hit both of the lanterns I was aiming for was lucky. They ejected their flaming oil in a spray over the heads of Kane’s gang, offering a perfect distraction as we turned into the darkness and began to run.

Those first few steps were disorientating: blinded from the flash of light that had accompanied the exploding lantern, I found the darkness all the more impenetrable as I followed Holmes. Keeping my elbow against the bricks to my left, I used the wall to guide me, rather than my eyes. We needed to be quick but also sure-footed. If we stumbled off the path and into the water then they would catch us for sure.

Behind us the sound of panicked shouts began to coalesce into something more purposeful. Kane’s gang had presumably extinguished the small fires I had caused and were now preparing to follow. As I listened, I heard the noises of something closer—a laboured, snarling breathing and the heavy fall of booted feet. I imagined Kane himself, forcing his large bulk along the narrow pathway, determined not to let us slip away from him. The noises drew closer and closer. There was no sign of light from a lantern, so I could only assume he was as blind as we were. It seemed to cause him less discomfort. Closer and closer came the sound of his boots, heavy leather soles beating at the wet brick. Each footfall
boasted of his size and weight, a giant’s tread. I had seen how easily he had snapped bone between his fingers—were those grotesque leather mittens even now reaching out for me? I could swear that laboured breathing was mere feet away now, so close as to almost dampen the back of my neck.

I turned and fired blindly into the darkness. In the muzzle flash I caught a terrifying glimpse of Kane who was indeed almost within reach. His hat and veil had come loose and the face that leered at me in that sudden moment of illumination was a dark, terrible thing of teeth and pink maw. The image was so brief as to be impossible to fix, though it clung to me even as I heard him splash into the water—whether darting for cover, or because I actually hit him, I could not say. I turned back to keep running but with every step I saw that terrible face. What kind of wound could have exposed so much of his mouth? As if the cheeks had been split wide either side so his head could hinge by those monstrous teeth. Whatever had caused his deformity, I could understand only too well his desire to hide it.

“Watson!” Holmes shouted.

“I’m fine,” I replied. “How much farther?”

For a moment my foot grazed the edge of the path and I came close to losing my balance and tumbling into the sewer water alongside. I held my hand out to steady myself.

“Just keep running!” Holmes replied.

Kane was splashing in the water, presumably pulling himself back out to continue the chase. As I listened further, I realised he was actually swimming, his gang heading after us on foot. As he continued to pull himself through the water with those powerful arms I ran after Holmes, hoping that he would find escape soon. Surely we didn’t have to exit by the same manhole we entered? Wouldn’t anywhere do at this point?

He seemed to answer my thoughts, his hand darting out of the darkness and grabbing me by the lapel as I made to run past.

“This way,” he said, tugging me upwards where it now became clear that a ladder was mounted to take us towards street level.

I climbed as fast as I could. Which, with the sounds of pursuit still all too close, was fast indeed. There was a clatter above my head as the steel cover was lifted and pushed aside.

“Quickly man!” came Holmes’ voice.

As I felt the cool air of the world above hit my face, I was aware of the ladder shaking beneath me. Someone else—and it could be only Kane—had begun to climb.

“Right behind me,” I said as I pulled myself out onto the road surface. I hadn’t exaggerated either. The ladder had been shaken violently enough that it would surely soon come loose from its fastenings.

“Move!” Holmes cried, standing over the hole and placing what looked like a small blowpipe to his lips. He blew and the most awful roar of pain echoed up from beneath the street. A second later this was followed by a loud splash; Kane had clearly fallen back into the water.

“Dear Lord!” I cried. “What did you shoot him with?”

“No explanations,” Holmes replied, infuriatingly, dragging the manhole cover back into place and dropping the pipe into his pocket. “Now, might I suggest we find a cab to take us to safe territory before the rest of his gang are on our heels?”

Find a cab? Naturally that was a far-from-simple task. Two gentlemen, dressed as vagrants and fresh—or quite the opposite—from the sewer will find it hard to befriend cab drivers. It was only by my holding up a pound note and agreeing a grotesquely inflated price upfront that I managed to secure us transport.

Once back at Baker Street, Holmes went straight to his room, leaving me to wash and struggle my way clear of my disguise. The damnable thing was cemented to my skin, and it was sore-faced and pink as a lobster that I finally settled down to sleep.

It may surprise some of my readers that I was even able to do such a thing but I can only say that, working with Holmes, you learned to take the terrifying in your stride. You also learned to take your sleep where you could find it; he was certainly not beyond waking you up before the dawn demanding you accompany him on one errand or another.

* * *

Thankfully that was not to be the case the next morning. I breakfasted alone, Holmes already having vanished, much to Mrs Hudson’s irritation. She never did like to see her food go to waste, a fate I assured her I would help it to avoid, having woken with the hunger of an ox.

Thus, working my way through two plates of bacon, eggs and kidneys, I resolved to spend the morning putting the peace and quiet to good use: I would dedicate my thoughts to the case. I know such an announcement is likely to create amusement amongst a number of my readers—I have received enough letters damning my faculties to know what the greater reading public thinks of my deductive abilities—but Holmes’ churlishness had put me in a competitive mood, and I was determined to prove my worth. In my defence, I will also point out that a perfectly serviceable candle may struggle to impress when placed next to a large gas lamp; in comparing my powers of deduction to those of Holmes, mine will always be found wanting.

Bearing all this in mind, I was nonetheless determined to make a dent in the case.

Once the breakfast plates were cleared, I asked Mrs Hudson for more coffee and set about making some notes, all the better to organise what we knew already. I shall spare the reader the inconvenience of ploughing through all of them verbatim, but shall nonetheless attempt to lay out the main points regarding the cadavers:

Body number-one—Male. Washed up and rapidly disposed of, not thought to be anything more than an accident. Information limited.

Body number-two—Male. Discovered by a gang of children. Manacled hands and feet. Signs of considerable abuse prior to death. Body had been beaten. (Interrogation, perhaps?) Investigating police surgeon believed he recognised both tiger-and snake-bites. (Indian connection?) The body was dead by the time it was dumped in the water. This can be deduced from the fact that there was no water in the lungs.

Body number-three—Male. In an even worse state than the previous cadavers—more of a collection of parts than an intact body. The tooth marks around a wound on what remained of the torso identified the attacking creature as a shark most often found in Australian waters. Given the state of the remains, it is impossible to tell whether it had been treated in a similar manner to the second.

Accepting those facts, we had Shinwell Johnson’s insistence that the bodies were not, as was speculated in the press, the result of gang violence. His logic for this was that you only committed such theatrical killings if you were sending a message, and if you were sending a message you signed your name to it. The thinking was sound enough and further endorsed by the snatch of conversation we had heard in the tunnels. “We know no gang could have done it,” Martin had announced, and Kane had agreed with him. Though whether that could be taken as actual fact rather than a sign they shared the same opinion as Johnson, it was impossible to say. Kane and his gang didn’t believe the murders were committed by gangs—that is all we could say for sure.

So, what could we say with regard to motive? The second body showed clear signs of having been interrogated, so the perpetrator was after information. Of what sort we could not say.

I was, by this point, realising there was a great deal we could not say! And what of Moreau? What evidence did we even have that he was involved?

Aside from the death of Prendick and the fact that these bodies showed signs of attack from exotic animals, there was absolutely none. Could it be that Mycroft had been withholding information? It seemed unlikely he was basing his fears on those two facts alone.

Prendick.

I underlined that name and then added two others:
Montgomery
and
Moreau.
I decided that procrastinating over paper was all very well, but we needed more information, and that was unlikely simply to fall into our hands.

I would find out all I could about the three men capable of reproducing these experiments.

I started my investigations by inquiring after Mycroft. Needless to say he was not receiving visitors. Locked away within the book-lined walls of the Diogenes Club, he frequently instructed the staff to fend off all callers. He talked to the world only when he wished it.

With that method of inquiry closed, I decided to call on Norman Greenhough, my editor at
The Strand.
This was something I tried to avoid wherever possible, as Norman’s pursuit of material often bordered on the vicious. That day was no exception.

“John!” he called, reaching inside the liquor cabinet he concealed behind a counterfeit row of books on his shelf. “How nice to see you. Care for a drink?”

“Bit early for me,” I admitted, having never adapted to the liquid consumption of those who worked in publishing.

He checked his watch, white moustache twitching. “You may have a point there,” he admitted. “I’ve been in the office since yesterday and one loses track.”

He walked to his door, opened it and bellowed for his secretary to find some morning coffee and something that might pass for an ad hoc breakfast.

“Why so late?” I asked as he settled back down behind his desk.

“Oh the usual crackpots and loons,” he said. “We’ve had a reader threaten to blow the place up unless we reveal the whereabouts of Raffles.”

“Raffles?”

“You know, Hornung’s character—gentleman thief, homosexual and anti-Semite—the character, not the man. I don’t think so anyway …”

“Oh yes, him.” I might add that Norman’s opinion of the character’s attributes were not necessarily shared by his creator. The editor was famed for his jocular dismissal of most of the work he published. I had no doubt that, were Ernest Hornung to pop in for a chat about his latest submission, Norman would moan for a few minutes about “that upstart medico and his smart-aleck room-mate”. “And why do they feel such a need for an amateur cracksman?”

“Who knows? And it doesn’t matter how many times you insist the only place Raffles can be found is in the flaccid forebrain of his creator, the fools won’t listen. Some people just can’t help but blur the lines between fiction and reality.”

“Have you alerted the police?”

“Heavens, no. If they could really build a bomb they could surely blow up their own safe. If they turn up at the office I’ll have a couple of the print boys throw them out on their ear. It just sends everything into a panic for a few days. Nothing scares the filing clerks like a bomb threat, and before you know it half the
staff are claiming to be trapped in their sick beds.” He mopped his brow with the florid silk handkerchief he kept stuffed in his jacket pocket. “Lily-livered lot! Oh, for a decent war! They could use the training.”

Not being altogether able to recommend the experience of combat, I decided to try and change the subject.

“I wanted to talk to you about a series of press articles I remember from a few years ago,” I said.

“Oh,” he replied. “I rather hoped you were planning to offer me a novel.”

“Just short stories at the moment I’m afraid,” I said. “I haven’t the time for a full-length piece.”

“But the public love the serials,” he insisted. “They queue up around the block.”

“I’m afraid most of our cases just don’t really suit the format.”

“Couldn’t they be … well, padded out a bit?”

“I’d rather not.”

“You know—a few red herrings, trips to the country. Throw in another moor and they’ll be biting our hands off—they were as rabid as the damned dog during our serialisation of the Baskerville case!”

“I understand that, Norman,” I said. “But I really can only work with the case files I have. Besides, I think the stories read much better when they’re kept trim.”

“Our bank disagrees. What are you working on at the moment? Following up that business with the chef?”

“Chef?”

“Andre Le Croix. Famous chap, fat, did a runner on the opening night of his new restaurant.”

“Not really our sort of thing.”

“No, I suppose not. Shame though, I was one of the diners and the whole night put me out a couple of quid. You sure I couldn’t get you to hunt him down for me?”

“I’m not your personal debt-collection service, Norman. I’m afraid the current case is not for publication.”

“Top secret, eh?” he asked, a vicious glint in his eye.

The last thing I wanted to do was encourage him. “Not at all, it just wouldn’t make a very good story. Now, about these articles …” Which was when the coffee arrived, and my request was curtailed by the serving of drinks. I fielded the offer of sandwiches.