Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) (17 page)

Holmes lifted a wry eyebrow.

“Yes, of course you are; that aspect of you will never change,” Wilmarth sighed. “Camshronack is an old island family, perhaps the oldest. Once a powerful force, it is now—or was—represented by a single survivor, Ailie Camshronack.”

“The sister,” Holmes murmured.

“Yes, they are twins, Aulay and Ailie,” Wilmarth said. “Or so I have been told, though not by Ailie. His departure, some described it more as an expulsion, marked the final decline of the family in some way. What was the reason he gave for his return?”

“He has fallen upon hard times and wants a homecoming ere the end,” Holmes replied. “While it is true he lost his ship and wealth to the deprecations of the new Tsar, and possibly his health as well, I suspect his reason for returning to St John has less to do with resignation from life than a desire to regain what was lost.”

“This complicates the situation greatly,” Wilmarth said. “The house in which I live is the ancestral home of Clan Camshronack. If Aulay has not been in contact with…”

“His sister does not know he is coming…”

“She will know long before he reaches her door—it is that kind of a village,” Wilmarth explained. “He might have hard feelings about the passing of the house and land, but it
was
hers to sell.”

“How well do you know her, Professor?”

“Not at all,” Wilmarth admitted. “The transaction was handled by a mainland solicitor. She moved out long before I arrived. I tried to meet with her. She will not have it. I’m told it is not me, but her, as she strictly keeps herself to herself. The other villagers are just as happy at that—the name Camshronack is an old one, but it is more feared than respected. Something to do with an island legend about…” He paused. “You intimated he was a sailor?”

“Captain of a screw steamer, confiscated by the Tsar for smuggling.” Holmes added: “His ship was the
Ithaqua
.”

“Good lord,” Wilmarth breathed.

“Yes, knowing your speciality and your interests, I thought you might find that of particular interest.”

“Yes, indeed,” Wilmarth said. “Come, let us be on our way. It is but a short walk to my house. Of course, on St John every destination is merely a short walk.”

The retired academic moved with a spryness unusual in a man more than ninety. Even Holmes, who himself was sound of wind and an inveterate city walker, struggled to keep up with the old man. St John Island was a long sprit of land, wider at the inhabited south, narrowing as it stretched northward, rising steeply all the way. The protected harbor at the island’s southern extremity was home to a dozen fishing vessels, the main source of sustenance for the islanders. Pasturages behind the neat but ancient houses held a small number of goats and sheep, and it seemed almost all the inhabitants raised chickens.

“Quite a hardy and self-sufficient people,” Wilmarth suddenly said. “The only foodstuffs in short supply are vegetables because of the very short growing season, and processed goods. They import what little they need from the mainland, including ale and whiskey. Can’t live in a place like St John without alcohol…or religion.”

Holmes nodded. He had observed two small taverns near the waterfront, a pub a little further along the high street, and two chapels. It was an amazing concentration on an island populated by less than three hundred souls, but as the Professor had indicated, both were as necessary for survival as bread and water.

They quickly left the village behind. Side lanes fell away, and the main street became a graveled path. The wind picked up, a mist closed in, and Holmes became aware of continuous low crashing sounds on either side—waves endlessly assaulting the rocky shore  hundreds of feet below. They approached a low wall composed of angled rocks and passed between stone posts upon which were carved figures so heavily weathered there was no deciphering them. Attached to one post was a brass plate announcing SPINDRIFT HOUSE, its brilliance incongruous against the ancient stone.

“These posts were placed by the first Camshronack who settled the island in antiquity,” Wilmarth explained. “No one knows when, but it had to be at least eight centuries ago, judging by the lines of the house, which we will see shortly.”

“What was the original name of the manor house?”

“Krozak’el.” Seeing Holmes’ frown, he added: “Aye, it’s a word borrowed from the Picts, and they likely acquired it from a Paleolithic tribe they conquered. No one on the island even knew its meaning, and none cared when I changed it.”

“Which is?”

“Devil’s wind.”

“Would it not be better translated as ‘Lord of the Wind’?”

“I have known you a long time, Holmes, starting when you were just a pup first coming to the Reading Room,” Wilmarth said, shaking his head, “and yet you continue to amaze me. The man who writes those stories in the
Strand
does not understand the breadth and depth of your knowledge.”

“Please don’t think harshly of Watson,” Holmes admonished. “He must fictionalize certain aspects of the cases when he submits them to his editor, not so much to protect the names of the people involved but to make them more believable—we have had many cases for which the world will never be prepared. The same, he has explained, applies to me as well, a matter of making me eccentric, but not too eccentric.”

“Foolish man,” Wilmarth commented, but without any rancor. “As if the true scope of your knowledge, and ignorance, could be contained within a simple list.”

“He is very good at what he does, perhaps a better writer than he is a doctor, though I would never mention that to him; I doubt I could write a fictionalization as well as he, but I might try my hand at it one day, after I have retired. He is, I might say, relatively selfless, as he dims his own light to make mine seem all the brighter. I think the two of you would get along well, but do take his war stories with a grain of salt.”

They continued along the path. The mist thickened behind and to either side, but ahead a dark, brooding shape took form. The house was constructed from the same dark stone that comprised the boundary wall, each piece fitted together precisely. It was a two-story structure, a narrow central façade with two wings sprawling to either side. The low wall continued along both sides, arching around to the rear of the manor house.

“Eight centuries at least,” Holmes remarked. “But there is also a certain timelessness to its lines.”

Unseen waves roared on either side, but even the cliffs’ edges were lost in swirling mist. A mass of opaque vapor eddied behind the ancient house, rising to obscure the setting sun. Holmes looked back the way they had come, the track leading into oblivion. He prided himself on his ability to view any situation through a prism of emotionless logic, but even he had to admit that, at that moment, Spindrift House seemed the loneliest place on Earth.

“Let’s get out this mist,” Wilmarth suggested. “At dusk, the winds rise. Very dangerous then.” He shuddered. “Come. A good meal, a cordial drink, and I’ll tell you why I asked you here.”

The door opened as they approached, revealing a lean man with glossy black hair and a severely pointed Van Dyke.

“The room is prepared, as you requested, Professor,” the man said. He looked to Holmes. “May I take your bag, Mr Holmes?”

“Emerson?” Holmes asked.

“Yes, sir,” the man replied, grinning. “Thank you, sir. Always nice to be remembered, sir.”

“When I retired, Holmes, young Emerson applied to go with me,” Wilmarth explained. “The British Museum Reading Room lost an excellent porter and I gained a skilled researcher and assistant.”

“And I can cook,” Emerson added.

“I might have starved long ago without Emerson, for no local will come up here,” Wilmarth said. “I appreciate his sacrifice,”

“Oh, ‘twern’t a sacrifice, not really,” Emerson defended. “I was never one for the bustle of London, and the Reading Room wasn’t the same as when I got on there as a lad. Seems now they’ll issue a card to anyone. Spent half my time shushing chattering patrons and cleaning up books and manuscripts after grubby-handed students. The next thing you know, they will start letting in undergraduates.”

“Shocking,” Holmes murmured.

“Indeed!” Emerson agreed. “Mannerly gents like you were always a rare breed, Mr Holmes, but now they’re all but extinct.”

“Emerson exaggerates.”

The younger man snorted. “Here, the work is easy, the research interesting. Life moves at a slower pace. Grant you, the islanders are a queer lot, but they pull a good pint at the pub and steal my pennies at darts, same as anyone else. Besides, I have an interest in chemistry, and the Professor lets me pursue it.”

Wilmarth cleared his throat softly and glanced at the bag still in Holmes’ grip.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Emerson said, his face flushing. He took the bag. “If you’ll follow me, Mr Holmes, I’ll show you to your room and you can freshen up before dinner.”

The afternoon meal was filled with polite conversation about shared acquaintances in a London that now seemed as far away as the moon. Both the Professor and Emerson were keen to talk about Holmes’ many cases, both the ones that had been published and the many more that would never see print, about which Holmes was as discreet as he was informative. After the meal ended, Wilmarth took Holmes into his study, leaving Emerson to clean up and prepare the house for the encroaching night.

“Brandy?” Wilmarth offered.

“Yes, thank you.” Holmes pulled out his pipe, then paused.

“Oh, feel free,” Wilmarth urged. “If I remember correctly, your favorite smells rather like an old shoe on fire, but I don’t mind. The doctor has told me to stop smoking, but I can certainly enjoy another man’s vice.”

The study was long and narrow. The side walls were comprised of shelves crammed with books. The entire southern wall was lined with tall panes of glass. The swirling mist through which they had come was now tinged with the fires of a failing day, deep purplish hues, and was drawing back from the house. At the same time, strong winds were rising, rattling the panes, howling through the night. Stars appeared overhead, but the lights of the village were still hidden by thick vapors.

“The wind is quite strong at times,” Professor Wilmarth said, gazing absently out the windows. He realized he still held Holmes’ brandy, apologized, and gave it to him. “Distraction comes all too easily to me these days…the curse of age.”

“I think not, Professor,” Holmes said, taking the drink. “What is it that you are afraid to discuss in front of Emerson?”

Wilmarth gestured to a wingchair and sat in one opposite. “As you know, I came to this island to pursue my studies in obscure ancient writings about…well, for lack of a better word, the occult. It was a field that caused much friction over the years between me and the Museum. As I recall, it caused many tense moments between us when I argued against your solidly mechanistic worldview.”

“I was, as you may recall, quite young and, as you mentioned from time to time, very full of myself,” Holmes replied with a fond smile of remembrance. “In a sense, nothing has changed since then, yet, as always happens in any man’s life, everything has changed. I still do not believe in magic as anything but a tool useful to thieves and charlatans for controlling the credible. Also, most proponents of the occult sciences are either mad or deluded.”

“I’ve spent a lifetime studying the secrets of the
Necronomicon
and other forbidden tomes,” Wilmarth said, “and I do not disagree with anything you have said.”

“Then we have both changed,” Holmes said. “My experiences since we first met have convinced me there is much more to the world than we can acquire with our senses, not due to any mystical reality but because of our own limitations. Energies undetectable by the eyes and ears of most people surge about us like the waves of an unknown and unsuspected sea. Few can perceive what occurs below the surface of that sea. Likewise, our history is occult in the sense that it is hidden. We believe man holds sway and that he has since ages of darkness, but that view is supported not by unassailable evidence but simply by the power of belief in our own superiority to nature. Is the
Necronomicon
a true record of our past, with its array of embattled monster-gods subordinating humanity as cattle? There is no proof against it but our disbelief; in favor…there are, in lonely places of the world, isolated tribes whose lives still move to patterns created before memory, places where the foolish have aroused ancient forces of doom, and creatures which have survived the end of their worlds. When I try to understand the world around me, I do not subject it to beliefs and conventions, but to strict empirical tests of reality. After I have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains is the truth, even if it is a being that once called itself a god.”

“Bravo, Holmes,” Wilmarth said softly, raising his glass. “I have never heard the
Necronomicon
and the minions of Cthulhu set forth in such logical terms. I hope to relay it with sufficient lucidity in my next epistle to my nephew, Albert.”

“Is young Albert the same insufferable prodigy as he was when I met him in your office thirteen years ago?”

Wilmarth sighed. “Alas, some things do not change. He is in his second year at Miskatonic University in Arkham. Insufferable, yet brilliant, he is pursuing studies in folklore, comparative religion, and linguistics. Unless he procures a position on his own after graduation, I intend to use my influence at the British Museum to help him.”