THE IRREGULAR CASEBOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (23 page)

Instead of a house full of dangerous criminals, we found only a handful of lightly armed individuals, who were playing cards and clearly not expecting our arrival. There was a brief scuffle, during which furniture was overturned and a lamp spilled, but resistance was soon overcome.

We found Machen bound and gagged in one of the rear bedrooms. He was gasping to speak even before we had loosened the cloth at his mouth.

‘They are at The Pillar. A ritual sacrifice is in progress. We must hurry, for I think they have a local girl.’

He was already staggering downstairs, refusing all aid, and leading us out on to the terrace.

‘From the questions they asked me, I have gathered that they hold in their possession a box containing an object in the form of a stone, which they obviously connect with my Black Heaven, and the Sixty Stone,
Ixaxar.
They cannot open the box, but for some reason are convinced that I know how this can be achieved.’

Though still unsteady on his feet, Machen insisted on leading the way through the grounds and out on to the wilder land that lay beyond. Darkness was already gathering in the hanging woods, and the earth soon became a wilderness of jagged stones and rough scrub. Massive rocks jutted towards the sky, and trees lay distorted by wild winds into grotesque shapes. It was a place made for ungodly things.

Abruptly the land levelled into a featureless plain, then fell away again into a huge shallow depression in the turf. The hollow presented an aspect all too familiar.

A gnarled pillar of stone stood at its centre, surrounded by a dozen or so cowled figures. Torches and braziers lit the scene, turning the hollow into a dish of blood. I saw the faces of Holmes, Mycroft, and Machen distorted with horror in the gory light, as they looked with disbelief at the blasphemous sight that lay before them.

We could make out the girl tied to an altar. Around her the rite was building to its terrible conclusion.

Mycroft turned his eyes away. Holmes grimaced and shook his head, but Machen stared, as though looking levelly into the flames of hell, and whispered in a voice that mixed awe and loathing:

‘The Pain of the Goat.’

‘We have to stop this, Sherlock,’ whispered Mycroft. Holmes nodded and gestured for us to go forward.

‘Don’t waste a shot,’ he warned as we went over the lip of the hollow. ‘We might need every one.’

With Machen unarmed, we were, in effect, outnumbered more than four to one, but we had surprise on our side. At our appearance, guns aimed, most of the group raised their hands. One cowled figure, however, who was standing behind the altar with a knife poised over the throat of the bound girl, made no move to surrender.

‘Put down the knife,’ said Holmes.

An easy laugh came from behind the cowl.

‘No, I would rather not, thank you. So your friends have come for you, Mr Machen. Mycroft Holmes, I see. And despite our warnings, dear brother Sherlock, and Dr Watson. Very foolish of you all. Disappointingly short-sighted. If you were to cooperate, and help us to unseal the box, the power of The Stone could transform the world. You could have anything you desire.

‘You, Mr Machen, could win great fame in Literature. Dr Watson, you could have the hospital of your dreams. All diseases, even the one that claimed your dear mother’s life, could be cured, Mycroft, all your diplomatic and political ambitions could be realised. And you, Holmes—think of it: the power to put an end to all crime. Come over to us, help us, and there is nothing you cannot achieve.’

As he spoke, I felt my fears gradually lulled by his words, and the calming voice in which he intoned them. What he was offering might be no more than a mad fancy, but the power to heal sickness, to end pain, was a noble enough end. What if it were possible, if the box really contained the power to achieve such great things? Would not any compromise be acceptable?

A vision of myself, founding great hospitals, building operating theatres and laboratories, rose unbidden before my eyes with a vividness that startled me. I was gripped by the realisation of my own inadequacy. What had I achieved with my paltry practice, compared to what could be done?

I was aroused from these guilty reveries by the voice of Sherlock Holmes, sounding curiously strained.

‘Your touching account of all the good you could help us do would be more convincing were it not spoken by someone with a knife held to a girl’s throat. What do you say, Mr Machen?’

Machen had been standing as lost in thought as I. He shook himself and looked around.

‘To be spoken of in the same breath as Poe, that would be enough to tempt any writer.’

He smiled and shook his head.

‘But what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul? I think we have been taken up on to a high place, and shown a glittering vista of illusion. I reject it.’

‘Mycroft?’

‘If it is granted to me to see peace in the world, I fear it will not be achieved by magic.’

‘Watson?’

‘I think it is nonsense, Holmes,’ I said; but my voice was gruff in my throat as I said it.

‘There you have our answer then. You must have had great success with that voice of yours over the years, but it has not worked with us. Come to that, it did not work this afternoon when you gave me such untrustworthy directions.’

This seemed to shake ‘Lucifer’s’ calm.

‘You were the old man! I should have guessed. So you refuse my offer. I am truly sorry. Your weapons will not be adequate to protect you from the consequences of that decision.’

So saying, he raised his arms above his head and gave vent to a barbarous flood of meaningless sounds which defy all attempts at reproduction. Guttural, droning, rising at times into the bray of an ass, sinking to a reptilian hiss, rasping in the throat like a death rattle, they yet conveyed the unaccountable impression that a language was being uttered. Even more appalling was the realisation that he was being answered from somewhere out in the gathering darkness beyond the hollow.

It was obvious that the others heard this too. Holmes, Machen, and Mycroft all looked about them, to points beyond the rim of the bloody light.

Then we knew that all was up, for uncounted dark figures were pouring from all sides down into the hollow, murmuring, as they came, their answer to the sounds that had summoned them.

I could only think that many members of The Eye of Lucifer had concealed themselves, and were responding to a prearranged signal. Yet as they poured forth, surrounding us, their crouching forms in the flickering light seemed horribly distorted.

We were clearly so completely outnumbered that our few meagre bullets would not account for a tithe of them. In my years of foreign service I had, on more than one occasion, stood my ground in a square of men that all but broke under waves of assault, but held and lived to tell the tale. It is the simple truth that I was never more scared then than I was in the bloody hollow, surrounded by that crouching, hissing crowd.

We were preparing to sell our lives dear if we could, when the hosts stopped and looked back towards the eastern edge of the hollow. At first I thought dawn had come. Then I remembered the lamp knocked over in the house, and realised that the whole building must be ablaze, turning the skyline to flame.

It was not this, though, that had stopped the horde in their tracks. Silhouetted against the blaze were mounted men, armed with weapons that glittered cruelly in the light. I surmised that the police had arrived, supplemented by volunteers with horses and farm implements. The effect as they thundered down on the horde was remarkable. They seemed to glow, their weapons sparkling as swords and lances of silver. Like a receding tide, the dark host melted backwards and fled, pursued by the galloping figures.

This distraction enabled some of the cowled ones to escape over the edge of the hollow, while the braver few leapt at us. The ensuing scene was chaotic. Machen was wading in with all the pent up anger of a man who has been held under restraint, and has a score to settle. Even Mycroft felled one of them with what looked to me like a move from some mysterious Eastern art of self defence.

I overcame my adversary and held him at gunpoint. Holmes was locked in a struggle with the ‘Lucifer’, whose cowl had fallen off to reveal an incongruously well-groomed and respectable looking gentleman. He may have looked like a London bank manager, but he was busy trying to slit Holmes’s throat with his ritual dagger. Machen, who had settled his own argument, raised a large and heavy looking object and brought it down on the ‘Lucifer’s’ head.

Peace reigned in the hollow for a second. Then a man in a muddy brown raincoat, brow bloody and collar askew, appeared over the brim, gripping one of the cult by the arm. Uniformed police officers followed, each with a firm grip on a would-be escaper.

‘Inspector Evans,’ cried Holmes, scrambling to his feet, ‘your timing is perfect.’

‘Two got away, Mr Holmes, but we will have ’em.’

We set about untying the girl, who had been decked with a pungent garland. I found her to be physically unharmed, but in a deep state of shock. Evans addressed her as Mary, and she responded, so she had stood up well to her ordeal.

‘Thank God you sent the horsemen on ahead,’ I said to Evans. ‘They saved our lives.’

Evans looked blankly at me.

‘Horsemen? I had enough trouble scraping together the few officers you see. What do you think we are, the Welsh Hussars?’

‘But there were men on horseback!’ I expostulated.

Machen, who was looking like a man who had been in a fight, and enjoyed it, raised a hand to his lips.

‘I saw them too, gentlemen, but Inspector Evans can tell you nothing of them. I understand now just what this thing is.’

He held cradled in his arms an elaborately fashioned box of iron.

‘One of the cult was trying to make off with this, but he dropped it before I caught up with him. A pity. I would have liked to punch just one more head.’

‘Is this it?’ asked Mycroft with disgust, ‘the cause of the worst few days in my life?’

‘Yes,’ said Machen. ‘This box contains the Stone from the Heavens, The Eye of Lucifer, as the cult believed. From what I heard they have been unable to open it. They seemed so sure that I would know how.’

‘Let us get rid of the thing as soon as possible,’ said Mycroft. ‘It has nearly killed me.’

‘It is clearly a danger,’ I conceded. ‘And a focus for evil. It should be put somewhere safe.’

‘It is stolen goods, gentlemen,’ said Evans, dabbing a handkerchief to the cut on his brow. ‘It should eventually be returned to its owner.’

‘That,’ I offered, ‘is evidently Royston Fisher.’

Evans nodded. ‘What say you, Mr Holmes?’

‘What? Oh, I don’t care, Inspector. The case is finished, the mystery solved. The object merely represents a successful conclusion to the case as far as I am concerned.’

‘How odd,’ said Machen, ‘that you all see it in different ways, according to your individual characters. Might it not be that the object in this box is not what any of you perceive it to be? When I think of what we have witnessed in this place, I wonder if I was right in claiming that I knew nothing about this. It seems to me now a matter I have always known and cared a great deal about, a matter perhaps of special significance to my countrymen. I would say that, with the honourable exception of this Royston Fisher, we have all been on the wrong track

‘I am going to suggest something to you gentlemen, and I would like you to hear me out before arriving at your decision. I know of someone who can open this box. Will you come with me now, and, when you see what it contains, will you consider the idea of leaving it with that person? I feel it will be safe with him. If I am correct, this object is too precious to be left where it can fall into the wrong hands again.’