Sherlock Holmes - The Stuff of Nightmares (7 page)

The spatters of oil were few and far between but formed a distinct, unmistakable spoor nonetheless, which we followed easily for half a mile.

Until, that is, the trail terminated abruptly. We were in a cul-de-sac, silent warehouses towering to either side of us. Holmes inspected the doors and windows of the building for signs of forced entry. He found none.

He rejoined me in the middle of the road, frowning.

“A dead end,” he said. “Yet our friend the baron can’t simply have vanished into thin air. It’s not feasible.”

“I disagree,” I said. “You saw him yourself. He’s a monster of a thing, capable of who knows what. Why should the normal laws of physics apply to him?”

“Because the laws of physics apply to
everything
, Watson,” Holmes said in sharp rebuke. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Baron Cauchemar is in any way a being of magical or supernatural origin. That might be what he wishes people to believe, but trust me, he is not. He is as human as you or I – just augmented somewhat.”

“Augmented? You mean to say he’s –”

“Confound it. Of course!” Holmes slapped his forehead. “What a dunce I was not to think of it straight away. The sewers.”

There was, dead centre of the thoroughfare, a manhole. Holmes knelt and studied the cover.

“Look there. Those scratches around the edge. Two sets, almost exactly opposite one another.”

“As though put there by fearsome talons.”

“Watson!” Holmes shook his head in a parody of despair. “Here, help me lift it.”

He bent and began to grapple with the heavy iron cover. I joined him, and together, at some cost to our backs and fingernails, we succeeded in dislodging it. The smell of human waste drifted up from the aperture to greet us, along with the faint susurration of running water.

“We’re going down there, aren’t we?” I sighed.

“Needs must, my dear doctor.”

Holmes produced a nickel-plated pocket-lantern from the folds of his silk pyjamas and lit the candle within. The flame, magnified by mirrors, shed a penetrating beam of light through the lantern’s glass front.

“How convenient that you brought that with you,” I remarked.

“I’m never knowingly under prepared,” Holmes replied with the merest hint of a smile.

We descended the clammy iron rungs of the ladder that was bolted to the side of the shaft, and soon we found ourselves ankle deep in a stream of foul-smelling and disconcertingly warm fluid.

“I don’t suppose you thought to bring a couple of pairs of galoshes as well,” I said.

“Not
that
well prepared, alas. But if the worst we come away with tonight is ruined shoes, we should count ourselves lucky.”

Actually, the boots I had on were an old, worn-out pair, in keeping with the rest of my outfit. I would not mourn their loss that greatly.

Holmes led the way along the vaulted tunnel of the sewer, his pocket-lantern’s beam piercing the mephitic darkness. Rats scurried away in alarm from our advance. It was their realm, but they were accustomed to having it to themselves and were unused to intruders. Sir Joseph Bazalgette, who had devised this entire subterranean drainage system just thirty years earlier, could scarcely have guessed that he was creating the perfect environment for rodents such as these to flourish in. The rats thrived off Londoners’ effluvium and detritus, their population larger now than at any time in the city’s history. Above ground, the capital may have become a cleaner and less noxious place to live, thanks to Sir Joseph and his engineers, but below ground it was more infested than ever with vermin. A paradox of the modern age. For every advance of progress, a drawback.

“Holmes,” I said. “These tunnels stretch a hundred miles and more. We’ve entered a veritable labyrinth. How can we hope to find Cauchemar? He could be anywhere.” I didn’t add that I had no great desire to meet the baron again; I would not have Holmes thinking me a coward.

“I fear you may be right, Watson. However, there is always a chance that – Ah-ha.”

“What is it?”

We had come to a bend in the tunnel. Holmes held the pocket-lantern close to the wall, low down. “Do you see?”

I peered. “It seems to be... a scrape of some kind.”

“A straight-edged groove gouged in the brickwork,” said Holmes. “Fresh, too.” He fingered the mark. “Observe how the brick powder comes away readily to the touch. This was made in the last few minutes. And look, here’s another.” He moved the lantern. “Running parallel to the first, but a good three feet higher up. And a further one, directly above us. It is as though the edges of something large and metallic has bumped against the wall, something travelling at speed.”

“Whatever can it signify?”

“Too early to tell,” said Holmes. “But it suggests to me that not only did the baron come this way, he continued his journey with a celerity that we cannot hope to match on foot. No, he is long gone, my friend. Further searching down here will yield little more.”

I was not unhappy that he had said that. The stench was starting to get to me. I was dizzy, almost lightheaded with it.

“So we turn back?” I said, not attempting to feign disappointment.

“We do.”

As we retraced our footsteps to the ladder, I noticed that Holmes appeared cheerful, more so than the situation seemed to merit. I remarked on this.

“We have made some headway this evening, Watson,” said he. “My gambit to draw Baron Cauchemar into the open, using the disagreeable Abednego Torrance as bait, paid off.”

“But how did you know he would go for Torrance?”

“I have been lurking around the East End all day, in disguise, eavesdropping. Nobody pays much attention to a coolie, and most assume he ‘no speakee English’, so people are unusually candid in the presence of one. Once I got wind of Torrance and his shipment of women, it seemed exactly the sort of crime Cauchemar would wish to put a stop to. You know how I like to go on about ‘the balance of probabilities’. I applied it in this instance, and it bore fruit.”

“Inspired.”

“There’s no denying that I’m disappointed that Torrance got away from us, as he did from Cauchemar too. The baron was clearly quite badly damaged by Torrance’s bullet, so Torrance was easily able to outpace him and elude him. Cauchemar must have then decided to repair to the sewers and make good his own escape.”

“All of which leaves us little better off.”

“Come, come. Don’t be downhearted. We are still alive, that is something, and we are undoubtedly wiser than before. More importantly, we have saved those Chinese ladies from an appalling fate. Speaking of whom, let us return to the docks, where in all likelihood a rather confused constable is still trying to get some sense out of them. I will help him out with my admittedly somewhat sketchy Mandarin. After that, we both deserve a good night’s rest. Then, tomorrow, we shall reconvene and consider our next move.”

Owing to the demands of my practice, I did not make it to Baker Street until well after noon the next day. A familiar visitor preceded me there: G. Lestrade of Scotland Yard. The sallow little CID inspector had taken a chair beside the hearth, near the Persian slipper on the mantel in which Holmes kept his tobacco, and was tucking into some buttered crumpets. I asked Mrs Hudson to prepare a plate of the same for myself, and a pot of hot tea, as I had forgone lunch in my eagerness to come over from Paddington and was famished.

“I gather you and Mr Holmes had a close encounter with a bogeyman last night,” Lestrade said, licking butter off his fingers.

“If you mean Baron Cauchemar, quite so,” I said, with a not altogether simulated shudder. “It is an experience I would not care to repeat in a hurry.”

“There’s many of my lads who think he’s no bad thing. Real or not –”

“Oh, he’s real all right.”

“Real or not,” Lestrade repeated, “the so-called Bloody Black Baron has been responsible for a marked drop in crime in the East End and environs. A lot of crooks just aren’t going out at night any more. Too worried they’ll bump into him and come off worse. I only wish I’d thought of the idea myself – put about a rumour that there’s a fiend at large who’s giving ne’er-do-wells a good drubbing. There’s none so superstitious as criminals. It doesn’t take much to put the wind up them. Result: safer streets for law-abiding citizens to walk, and we coppers can put our feet up. A perfect world.”

“I can assure you, Inspector,” said Holmes, “as Watson says, Baron Cauchemar is no rumour. His corporeal existence is beyond question.”

“Well, if a perspicacious and noteworthy gent such as yourself says that that is the case, who am I to argue?” said Lestrade. “What is it, then? A gang of armed civilians? Some of the tough eggs this baron’s given what-for, and the way he seems to crop up in a dozen different places in the course of a single night, it surely can’t be a lone vigilante.”

“I believe that’s exactly what he is. A singularly resourceful individual who has turned himself into – well, the best description is a ‘living ironclad’.”

Lestrade shook his head in wonderment. His hair was slicked down with so much Macassar, it shimmered like a chestnut as the light moved across it. “You must be joking. He’s... armoured? Like some sort of latterday knight?”

“Indeed so. But there is more to it than that. More to
him.
I daresay I have only just begun to plumb the mysteries of Baron Cauchemar. But it is not he that you have come here to discuss, Inspector.”

“No,” said Lestrade. “It’s those Oriental lasses you lumbered my colleagues with last night. Or, specifically, the note you left with them, addressed to me.”

“You have acted on my instructions, then?”

“I’ve managed to find the time, Mr Holmes, although frankly I’m not sure how. In case you haven’t noticed, the Yard has its hands full at present. Not only are there these damnable bombings to investigate, but there’s unrest all over the city. Protests on almost every corner. Folk demanding action, wanting to see some culprits held to account. We police are stretched to breaking point.”

“Which means I appreciate your efforts all the more.”

“Yes, well,” said Lestrade gruffly. “So, first off, we’ve put the Chinawomen up in a boarding house for the time being, while we work out what to do with them.”

“What will become of them?” I asked.

“It largely depends on what they themselves want. I’ve made enquiries among the Chinese immigrant community in Limehouse. There are jobs available for the women if they wish to remain on these shores – laundry work, skivvying in restaurants and suchlike. Getting them back to their native land may prove more problematic, but a few of the wealthier Orientals are organising a whip-round with a view to paying for their return passage. They won’t be travelling first-class but the conditions will still be a damn sight better than on the journey here.”

“And Abednego Torrance?” said Holmes. “What of him? Any sign?”

“I’ve put the word out, but so far, no sightings. If the miscreant has any sense, he’ll be lying low until things blow over. As for his charming accomplices Bill ‘The Bull’ Sinnott and Jasper Creevy...”

“Both not exactly strangers to the police, I take it.”

“Their faces are not unfamiliar, nor are their case files entirely bare. They are, as we speak, recovering in hospital, manacled to the frames of their beds – not that they’re going anywhere in a hurry, the state they were left in. Neither is well enough to assist us in our enquiries just yet, but from experience I can tell you that they’re likely to remain tight-lipped no matter what. The hardened sort of crook always does. Them and their ‘code of honour’”

“That is a shame, although I suspect they do not know anything that could help us materially anyway. They are hired hands, mere stooges. There remains one last matter. Watson overheard Torrance mention a certain ‘Abbess’. Is the name at all familiar to you?”

“As it happens, it is,” said Lestrade. “The lady – and I use the term advisedly – is well known to us at the Yard. One of London’s most notorious madams. We’ve raided her brothel on many an occasion. Trouble is, we close down one of her emporia, send her and all her trollops packing, and a week later she’s upped stakes and opened another somewhere else. She’s a persistent one, and no mistake.”

“Perhaps she would not be so persistent if there wasn’t such a demand for her wares,” Holmes observed. “And if the courts did not treat her so leniently.”

“True, Mr Holmes. Regrettably, she has friends in high places. Some of her clients are men who hold great sway with the Met Commissioner. Charges against her seldom stick. I doubt she’s seen the inside of the Old Bailey more than twice in all the years she’s been plying her trade.”

“Would it be possible for me to speak to her?”

“I can’t stop you,” the policeman said with a casual shrug. “I daresay I can even furnish you with her current address, if that’d help. She doesn’t keep regular, sociable hours, mind.”

Holmes smiled thinly. “She and I have that in common, at least.”

“She’s more like an owl, or a bat. You go to see her now, you’ll probably find her just rising from her slumbers.”

“Then I pray we shall give her not too rude an awakening.”

All I could think was: Thank God Mary can’t see me right now.

For I was in the parlour of a brothel just off Moorgate, seated opposite its madam and two of her harlots. Holmes was with me, but this did little to mitigate my discomfort.

The room was decorated to look opulent, yet the brocade upholstery on the furnishings was old and worn in places and the flock wallpaper was peeling at the corners. Likewise the entire building, a tall terraced tenement house on a reasonably decent street, gave off an air of respectability until you noticed the occasional cracked and unrepaired windowpane and the patches of crumbling brickwork that begged for re-rendering.