Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1) (21 page)

“Holmes!” a voice shouted from above. “Are you all right.”

Holmes gazed upward into the relieved face of Doctor John Watson, and gratefully accepted a hand-up from his friend and an aerial navvy for the last few feet.

Sherlock Holmes rolled onto the floor of the airship’s gondola, then sat up and looked to his friend. “I do not believe I have ever been so glad to see you, old fellow.”

They gazed out the windows at the smoke and flames where the East India Docks had stood. Martian fighting-machines tried to destroy the ships that had come up the Thames, but, for once, they were outgunned, and there was nothing the Martians could do against the artillery batteries in the great metropolis or the airships raining ordinance upon them.

“There’s no escape for those poor devils,” said a new voice. “Devils they may be, but poor devils they are now.”

“Holmes, this is Captain Ernest Willows,” Watson said, introducing a young man with sharp features and deep eyes.

“Ah, the Welsh aviator,” Holmes said, smiling as he shook his hand.

“Aviator, thank to the Martians,” Willows explained. “Without them, I would still be an inventor looking for financial backing.”

“Somehow, I do not think you will have to beg from now on,” Holmes said. “This near invasion of Earth will likely cause a florescence of science and technology.”

“You think, then, Mr Holmes, that this is a death-blow,” asked Captain Willows.

Holmes looked down at the annihilated Docks, at the shattered fighting machines, at the masses of Martians breathing their last, breathing in their own deaths.

“Yes, a death-blow,” Holmes agreed. “But not one to which any mortal man may lay claim.”

They had no idea what to do with the confused Guatemalan Spider Monkey, the Claw Masters had been spooked out an alliance with the Feral Gang, and Little Kitty refused to stop calling herself Slash Face – it had been quite an eventful Halloween night for the Three Dog Detective Agency.

Levi was sorely in need of some peace and quiet.

He finally got it shortly after midnight, when everyone else was at last bedded down and a deep silence settled over the neighborhood. Alone in the living room, he ambled over to one of the bookcases, gripped the fifth book from the left on the second shelf with his teeth, and pulled it out; he carried it into the circle of light spilling down from the Tiffany-shaded lamp, placing it carefully on the floor so that the book fell open to the leather bookmark indicating where he had left off the night before.

He lay with a paw resting on each page-edge. In moments he was totally immersed in a world of yellowish fogs softly illuminated by hissing gaslamps, of mysterious visitors mounting the stairs at 221B Baker Street, and of insidious villainies to be thwarted. Once again, the game was afoot…all four of them as Levi imagined himself trotting alongside a familiar figure in a deerstalker hat and an Inverness cape.

Bump.

Levi looked up sharply from the open book, the columned pages of which were adorned with replicas of the original Paget drawings, and listened intently. Just as he was on the verge of dismissing the sound as nothing more than a stray night-noise or perhaps a product of his overwrought mind, it came again, more distinct, slightly louder.

Bump!

It came from the walkway in front of the house, and now the soft bumping sounds were accompanied by the slow tread of large paws upon concrete, and of something being dragged. He stood and warily made his way to the side door, where he stood and listened to the ebb and flow of the night, where he quizzically sniffed at the cool air wafting in under the door.

Levi was a short-haired Dachshund-mix, mostly black, but not nearly as inky as he had once been, not now that the years were beginning to catch up with him. Of his Dachshund ancestry there was no doubt – no denying the evidence of his long, long body and that barrel chest; it was the
mix
, however, that engendered the greatest speculation, and the guesses ranged from the seriously proffered Black Labrador (the shape of his head) to the much less seriously suggested giraffe (those legs!), but, in the final analysis, Levi defined himself by what he did, not how he looked, and he was, like all of us, greater than the sum of his parts, no matter what those parts were.

There was no doubt someone, or something, was loitering in front of the house, moving up and down the walkway, pausing now and then by the gnarled pepper tree between the walkway and the street. Whoever, or whatever, it was, its attempts at stealthiness, if that was its goal, could not deceive either Levi’s ears or, most especially, his nose.

He smelled matted fur, a loamy earthiness, and a brackish taint; there was also a strange mixture of must and spice, a faint smell, well below the range of most dogs, but not Levi.

Given the recent tensions in the neighborhood, it was something demanding an investigation. Briefly, he considered waking his fellow detectives, Sunny the Golden Retriever and Yoda the Pomeranian, but dismissed the thought almost as soon as it entered his mind. They deserved a good night’s rest.

Just a quick look
, Levi thought.
Observation, deduction, evaluation and resolution – it’s  what Sherlock Holmes would do.

It was not an easy task, opening the side door without any assistance, but he managed to do so while not making a betraying sound. He started to slip through the narrow opening.

“Where are you going?”

Levi whipped around and saw Little Kitty sitting atop the back of the sofa.

“I’m just going outside for a moment,” Levi answered, keeping his voice very low. “Go back to sleep, Little Kitty”

“The name is Slash Face,” she said, glaring at Levi with her eye that still worked, sort of. She yet wore the black leather jacket and cap she had donned when she sneaked out of the house earlier in the evening, but had ditched the rubber squeaky mouse.

“Fine,” Levi said. “Whatever you want to call yourself, go back to bed.”

“I’m going out with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Then I’m waking everyone up so we can
all
go out.”

Levi sighed.

In the hierarchy of the 3DDA, Little Kitty’s  official role was assistant to Kim, the Torby who acted as Office Manager and Information Coordinator. While Little Kitty could at times be recalcitrant, even a bit rebellious, she had mad-crazy computer skills and could manipulate a mouse with all the dexterity of…well, a cat. When the Calico had first come to them years earlier, rescued from an outdoors for which she was totally unsuited, her name was quite appropriate, but over the years the name had become less descriptive and more ironic.

“Very well,” he finally growled, knowing the cat had him treed. “You can come along, but be quiet and keep back.”

“Why, what’s out there?” she asked, now looking a bit nervous. She leaped down from the sofa, landing noiselessly. “What does your sniffer tell you?”

“That you should stay indoors,” Levi snapped. “I should look into this alone.”

Little Kitty moseyed over to where Levi had left his book in the cone of light, glanced at what the Dachshund-mix had been reading. She gazed closely at the illustration Sidney Paget had drawn for
Silver Blaze
showing the railway journey to Dartmoor.

“I suppose you would have told Doctor Watson to stay in London?” Little Kitty asked.

Levi uttered a small snort of annoyance. “Come on then.”

They slipped out the door and onto the patio, pulling it to, but not shutting it behind them. The moon was bright, and silvery light streamed down upon the dog and cat, dappled through the trees and the lattice walls that closed off the patio. Through the glass doorway facing the street they saw a dark and indistinct form lurking around the pepper tree.

“Who is it?” Little Kitty asked softly. “What is it? I can’t quite make it out.”

Levi peered intently, and lifted his muzzle, sniffing the odor-freighted breeze out of the west. He smelled the mysterious deeps of the Pacific Ocean, the crystalline beach sands, the swampy wetlands that lay between sea and city, the sharp tang rising from I-5 a quarter-mile off…but, again, there were also smells that were not of the neighborhood, the dank smell of a fur that seemed neither canine nor feline, the earthiness of the unburied; then there was the inexplicable scent of an exotic mix of must and spices.

He climbed into the planter and made his way through the luxurious vegetation to the space between the corner column and first panel. Two boards had been nailed in place, one above the other, but it was no real obstacle to escape, not to a dog with legs like Levi’s or to a cat born to leap, even if her vision was a little wonky. They landed soundlessly in the long  brick planter beyond the panel and settled amongst the dense growth of ferns, agapanthuses, penstemons and hyacinths; they simultaneously raised their heads till they could just see over the bricks.

At first they saw nothing but shadows among shadows, patterns of clouds scudding through the moonlight that transformed a mundane street scene into a shimmering dreamland; abruptly, that world of dream was transformed into something out of a nightmare. From behind the decades-old gnarled pepper tree there shambled into view a large four-legged creature that had odd limbs extending from its sides and possibly two heads, with a tangle of horns rising from one of the heads.

Little Kitty uttered the start of a terrified yowl, but Levi placed a reassuring paw on her shoulder, and she silenced herself.

“Sorry, Levi, it’s just that…”

“I understand,” he whispered.

The shadowy creature lurched against the tree – the sound Levi had earlier heard – then thudded great paws against the walkway and collapsed to the ground. A solid meaty sound was followed by whimpers of pain and urgent gasps for air.

Little Kitty turned her head to ask Levi a question, but she was alone in the planter. The little Dachshund-mix was already over the brick wall of the planter and running to where the beast had fallen. Little Kitty leaped after him.

“Be careful, Levi,” she warned. “It’s some kind of monster!”

“No, Little Kitty,” he replied as he reached it. “Not a monster, just a dog very much in need of help.”

“A dog?”

She had never seen a dog with two heads and horns, nor thin claw-like hands sticking out of its sides.

When Levi began to paw at the poor fellow, however,  the horns became branches entangled in his fur, as were the claws protruding from his body. As for the second head, it was a wet mass of vegetation adhering to long fur rising from the back of his neck. His thick coat was matted with filth and grass, and the fur itself was very odd, more like that of a goat than a dog; yet there was no denying his inclusion in the canine family, even though he was like no breed Little Kitty had ever seen. He wore an identity medallion, but the light was too dim to read it.

“The poor guy is nearly done in,” Levi said grimly. “He’s been through some traumatic ordeal obviously, and he’s had quite a trek to get this far.”

“What is he?”

“An Estrela Mountain Dog,” Levi replied. “Their herders, mostly, from Portugal. I’ve never seen one before, just in books.”

“Help…” the big fellow moaned weakly.

“We’re here to help you,” Levi assured him.

“My companion…”

“Was someone with you?”

“The truck…the crash…my companion…”

And the big dog passed totally into unconsciousness.

“What’s he talking about?” Little Kitty asked.

“Someone was with him; he and his companion were in a truck driving near here,” Levi explained as he began sniffing at the dog. “There was a crash, the truck dove into a marsh, and he was unable to rescue his companion.”

“How can you know that?” Little Kitty watched him sniff at the unconscious dog. “What are you doing.”

“Sniff him.”

“What?”

“Sniff him.”

She did as she was told.

“What do you smell?”

“Dog,” Little Kitty replied. “Wet dog.”

“When I sniff him, I smell who he is, where he’s –“

Levi stiffened, then began to sniff the downed dog with a concentrated and methodical earnestness. He ignored Little Kitty’s questions. He stood suddenly still, raised his head and sniffed at the breezes out of the west.

“I have to go,” Levi said.

“Me too,” Little Kitty decided.

“Not this time, Little Kitty.”

“But I want to be a detective, I want to be like you,” she said. “I’m tired of being Kim’s flunky and being housebound.”

“Being a detective isn’t always about clues and excitement and running around the neighborhood,” Levi said kindly.  “But it
is
always about doing the right thing…and doing the right thing means caring for this big fellow while I track down his companion.”

“His companion?”

“He was not alone; the scent is all over him, as is oil from the truck,” Levi explained. “I know it is not the same for cats, but for dogs companions must always be cared for – they cannot survive without our help. While you’re saving this guy, I’ll find the companion, because if we don’t save the companion there may not be any point in saving this dog’s life – I can’t explain it, Little Kitty, but often dogs become so attached to their companions that one will not want to live without the other…it’s just the way dogs are.”

“Dogs are weird,” Little Kitty announced, which, coming from a cat, was not exactly a news-flash. “How am I going to help him, he’s so big?”

“Wake Sunny, but Sunny only,” Levi instructed. “If she can drag a fifty-pound bag of dog food out of a drawer –“

“That was amazing.”

“– then she should be able to handle him,” Levi said. “Her maternal instinct will give her whatever strength she needs. Hurry Little Kitty!”

“You can could on me,” Little Kitty said as Levi bounded into the darkness. “And, Levi – be careful!”

Levi barely heard the Calico’s admonition as he padded swiftly down the walkway, following the unique trail the Estrela had left in his wake. While Levi had often used his sensitive nose to follow a scent in pursuit of a lost or missing animal, this was the first time he had followed one in reverse.

He crossed Fifth Avenue to the opposite walkway, then turned right at the corner, heading west on F Street. The trail was not a straight one as the injured dog often veered into yards or into the street. It was almost a miracle that he had found his way to the one house in the area where help was a surety.

But Levi was one dog who believed in miracles, just as surely as he believed in the methods of the Great Detective.

Levi crossed and re-crossed F Street as he meandered toward Broadway. A mix of scents which had been faint upon the Estrela suddenly surged into prominence – the strange and musty mix of spice that had at first so confused him. He followed the smells to the trash area behind the Cali Baguette and Pho Restaurant on the southeast corner. Charred ginger and onion, cloves, fennel, coriander, and the must of wheat – all the ingredients of Pho, the spicy noodle soup of Vietnam, which the Estrela must have got on him when he stumbled into the trash.