The Call of Distant Shores (22 page)

The carriage headed into the center of the city, and it was only a short time before we pulled to the curb.
 
A quick glance out the window confirmed my suspicions.
 
We had pulled up in front of the morgue.

"Why have we come here?" I asked in surprise.
 
"I've told you the man was in my flat, alive and standing as you, or I."

"If, indeed, the man you saw was the same Michael
Adcott
you pronounced dead," Holmes replied, exiting the coach and motioning the driver to wait, "then I would expect without a doubt to find that body here.
 
The fact you met a man you believe might be
Adcott
does not mean the
Adcott
for whom you signed the death warrant is not dead."

He fell silent then, leaving me to follow the trail of his thoughts to their obvious conclusions.
 
A brother?
 
A close cousin?
 
Why hadn't it occurred to me?
 
My ears were burning with the sudden realization I'd acted the fool, but I followed Holmes into the morgue entrance nevertheless.
 
What had I been thinking?
 
That dead men walk?

It was late in the day, and it was unlikely that many would be walking the halls of that dark place, but Holmes entered with familiarity and confidence.
 
There was nothing to do but to follow.

It took a good bit of cajoling on Holmes' part, but the clerk behind the desk, a dour little man with too-thick glasses and a perpetual frown that creased his brow with deep wrinkles, finally agreed to escort us to where the body of Michael
Adcott
had been stored.
 
The body was, he assured us, right where it had been left, tagged and recorded.

"I sent you a report earlier this very day, Mr. Holmes, did you not get my message?
 
Do you think he's up and walked away then?" the man asked.
 
His voice was grave, but now there was a twinkle in his eye that had not been present as he argued with Holmes at the front desk.
 
"They do that, you know.
 
One day here, the next up and gone, and days later wives and mothers, daughters and friend are here, telling how they've met the corpse on the road and asking after the remains.
 
Sometimes, they're just not there."

I didn't much appreciate the clerk's levity, but Holmes paid the man no mind at all.

"You saw the man, then," Holmes asked, watching the man's face with keen interest.
 
"You verified the information you sent personally?"

The old man cackled.
 
"If he's in my book, Mr. Holmes, he's in my morgue.
 
There are papers that must be filled out to remove a corpse, and permissions to be granted.
 
No such papers have passed my desk for the late Mr.
Adcott
, and if there are no papers, there is no reason to look.
 
He is here."

"Then let us wish him Godspeed on the road to the next world," Holmes replied.
 
"Let us see Mr.
Adcott
for ourselves, and then we shall see what we can make of the rest of this business."

Unfortunately for my own sanity, the remains of the late Mr. Michael
Adcott
were indeed missing from their slab.
 
No note, no papers of explanation or permission.
 
The numbers and documentation lay neatly in place, but nobody accompanied them.
 
The small man was less talkative now, and a sight less sure of himself.

"Perhaps he's been moved?" I suggested.

The man shook his head, not turning to meet my gaze, only staring at the empty spot where a dead man should be.
 
"There were no papers.
 
No one moves without paperwork.
 
No one."

"And yet," Holmes observed mildly, "Mr.
Adcott
seems to have been in the mood for an afternoon stroll."

"Shall we search for him?" I asked, ready to button up my sleeves and get to the task at hand.

"There's no time," Holmes said, his expression shifting in an instant to the old, familiar intensity of the hunt.
 
"I didn't really expect he would be here, but without knowing ..." He trailed off, and I followed him out the door.
 
Without a word he was back in the cab and holding the door impatiently, as I made to enter.

At just that moment, there was a cry from down the street, and I turned, startled.
 
A young man darted from around the corner of the morgue, tousled hair waving about a roguish face and a scrap of paper clutched tightly in grubby fingers.
 
I recognized him at once, as did Holmes, who rose and exited the carriage, calling to the driver to hold.

"Mr. Holmes," Wiggins cried, coming to a halt and holding out the paper.
 
"We've found him, sir, as you asked."

Holmes didn't say a word, but took the paper from the boy's hand, eyes blazing.
 
He read quickly, then folded the paper and slipped it into one of the pockets of his coat.
 
"The others are posted?" Holmes asked quickly.

Wiggins nodded.
 
"He'll not slip past, sir.
 
Count on it."

"I do," Holmes replied, almost smiling.
 
Shillings changed hands and Holmes had turned away and re-entered the carriage before I could ask what was written on the paper, or who the "irregulars" were watching.

I knew better than to ask.
 
I'd seen that expression on Holmes' face too many times.
 
He was on the trail of something, and until that thing was in his grasp, he'd not share it with anyone.
 
Best to keep to his side, watch his back, and wait until he was ready to speak.
 
The carriage took off without a word from Holmes, and I realized suddenly that he'd already anticipated our next stop. Either the note Wiggins had brought him had confirmed his suspicions, or it was related to another matter.

I watched out the curtained window as we passed deeper into the city, trying not to think of the scrap of paper in Holmes' pocket, or the pallid face of Michael
Adcott
, staring at me from heavily lidded eyes.

Jepson walked briskly down the street, hands pressed deeply into the pockets of his coat.
 
At his heel, Michael
Adcott
followed more slowly, his gait forced and clumsy.
 
Jepson paid his companion no mind.
 
They had to meet Jeffries at the court before the last of the judges left chambers, and that left little time indeed.
 
Time was slipping through his fingers too quickly, and things he'd expected to have accomplished had evaded him.

The Doctor – Watson was his name – was a problem.
 
The man should have seen what was obvious, feared what was less so, and signed off on the paperwork by now.
 
Without that signature, they would be forced to let a court decide Michael's state, and at the very least, he'd be found unfit to speak on his own behalf.
 
That wouldn't do.
 
Michael
Adcott
would not be speaking to anyone, and that was another problem.

For the moment, things were under control.
 
The serum – alone – was not enough.
 
That much had been clear in the sketchy notes that had been included with the case that lay waiting in the laboratory at St. Elian's.
 
Only fate – a bottle of wine – and a loose tongue had given Aaron Jepson the information he needed.

"There was a time," his father had said, head drooping toward the table and fingers loosely gripping his wine glass, "when we had ways to deal with our problems.
 
There are things we know," the old man had glanced up to see that his son knew the "we" in question.
 
"We have always harbored our secrets, Aaron.
 
There was a time when we kept them less guarded – when a Rabbi could walk the streets with the respect of those around him.
 
They knew.
 
I know."

Several glasses of wine later, and a lot of cajoling and flattery on Aaron's part, and those secrets had begun to surface.
 
Men from clay.
 
The
Kabbalah
.
 
Patterns of words and form, rhythm and breath that emulated the formation of the first man.
 
A mad Arab poet who spoke as if he were in another place and time and stared into distances that were not there.
 
Those words, copied onto the canvas corner of a tent and guarded, studied – shifted over the years and recombined.
 
Alhazred
, the man had been called, and though he'd been mad, he'd been a prophet, as well – a prophet of power.
 
At first the notion had seemed ludicrous.
 
A clay monster controlled by he who gave them life, born of the proper words, the proper earth – the prayers – the faith of the Rabbi, and the vision of a madman.

Sworn to secrecy, Aaron had left his father's home and set out to find a use for his new secret.
 
Money wasn't everything, he reminded himself often, but no money was certainly something to be avoided.
 
Money was power, and if you were not the one with the power, you were under that man's thumb.
 
Aaron Jepson would feel the pad of no man's thumb.

A chance encounter had landed the wooden case in his hands, won from a drunken, reeling fool at poker.
 
The man had wagered it against a five pound note, holding it close to his chest and announcing drunkenly that the secrets to life itself were contained within, and that this being the case, it certainly qualified as collateral against a five pound note.
 
The case had been found floating, he claimed, off the shore of the island of
Eucrasia
after the explosion that destroyed it's culture and its ruler.
 
It had been handed from man to man since, and nothing was known of its contents save that they came from the laboratory of one Dr.
Caresco
Surhomme
. Jepson, who knew of
Caresco's
work, had agreed impatiently, the four threes in his hand itching to be slapped to the tabletop, and he'd walked away with all the other man's money, and the wooden box.
 
He could still hear the fellow's words, echoing in his mind.

"You'll find more than you bargain for in there.
 
I'm glad to be rid of it.
 
God bears a very heavy burden my friend – don't be too quick to shoulder it."

It had taken years of poring over correspondence and articles, diatribes about and against
Caresco
and fictions written about the man and his work, to realize what it was that he possessed.
 
It had taken another five years to analyze the serum and attribute it to one small corner of
Caresco's
work.
 
The reversal of aging.
 
The shaving away of the ravages of time.
 
Taken to the extreme, and with certain additions of Jepson's own device, reversing the process of death.

Jepson shook his head to dislodge the memories of what had come before.
 
More important to see to the needs of the moment.
 
He led Michael around a corner and disappeared into the fog.
 
Jeffries would know what to do, and they would have to set about whatever it was with haste.
 
Both the serum, and the incantations and amulets his father had reluctantly provided him, were proving less stable than he'd anticipated.
 
The row in the cell earlier had been a near miss that Jepson didn't want repeated.

The asylum brooded over the street beneath, giving off a sensation of density, immovable and old as time.
 
When the carriage stopped in front of that place, and Holmes stepped out, tipping the driver, I was sure he must have lost his mind.
 
The Asylum of St. Elian had been deserted since I was a young man, still pursuing the degrees and education that would lead me to a career in medicine.
 
The stories I'd heard had seemed laughable enough at the time, but faced with the reality of the place, they came back to me full force, flickering across the years of my memory with chilling speed.

Holmes didn't hesitate.
 
He moved from carriage to door with purposeful steps, reached up and rapped his knuckles against the door sharply.
 
I stared at him, then at the building before us.
 
I would have bet my last pound that no one had passed through that door in ten years.
 
Holmes knocked again, then turned to me with a purpose.

"No one seems to be about, Watson.
 
We must hurry."

"Hurry where?" I inquired.

Holmes was already trying the door.
 
It was, of course, locked, but I noted with amazement and some alarm that Holmes had pulled a small tool from his pocket and inserted one end into the lock.
 
A few deft movements of wrist and finger, and I heard the sound of tumblers sliding into place.
 
The latch gave way, and Holmes pulled the door open, slipping inside.
 
There was nothing to do but to follow him into the shadows, and to pray that most of what I'd heard back at university was the hogwash it had seemed.
 
The heavy door closed behind us with a loud
CLICK
.
 
Holmes fiddled with it for a moment, then turned away.