Warlock Holmes--A Study in Brimstone (5 page)

That upset Holmes. He began to stammer, “I wonder, did you note the tattoo on his left forearm?”

Holmes seemed to have forgotten that our guest had been wearing a greatcoat. Either that or he’d forgotten greatcoats have sleeves.

“I didn’t,” I said.

“Well he had one and it was a large blue anchor and it said ‘Royal Marines, Sergeant, Retired, 1869–1880.’”

I was sure our visitor had had no such thing, or at least that Warlock would have had no opportunity to see it.

“Really?” I pondered. “That’s a peculiar tattoo, don’t you think?”

“He was a peculiar man,” Holmes said.

“What would drive a man to get such a tattoo, do you suppose?”

Holmes shrugged.

“Perhaps he was concerned that if ever he should die, and be discovered with no identification on his person, that the coroner would be unable to establish his
previous occupation
?”

“Look here, Watson, I cannot surmise what drove the man to favor such a tattoo; I merely observed that he had one.”

“Odd that I overlooked it.”

“Hardly,” Holmes countered. “Most people
see
, but they do not
observe
. There is a difference between seeing a thing and observing it.”

“I know,” I told him. “I’m a doctor.”

But he continued unabated. “For example, Watson, how many times would you say you had traveled up or down the staircase from our rooms to the street?”

Having been now about three weeks in his company, I estimated, “Fifty or so.”

“Then you have
seen
those steps fifty times, Watson. I wonder, have you ever
observed
how many there are?”

“Seventeen.”

“There are, in fact, seve—oh… yes. Seventeen.”

For a moment, he sunk back into his sulk, then jerked towards me with sudden vigor. He fixed me with a hideous grin, his green eyes burning, and demanded in his deeper voice, “But tell me, Watson, do you know their true names? If ever you should have to call upon the power, the loyalty of those steps, what name would you call them by, mortal?”

I confess, I cried out and shied back towards the opposite corner of the carriage, spluttering, “Ah! Holmes! Really! Really now, I’m not sure such a thing as steps should have names.”

“Ro’glugh!” he shouted.

“I say!”

“Griegh’eh!”

“What?”

“Mek-ek, Fef, Uhl,” he continued.

“Holmes, are you quite all right?”

“Hregah, Vie, Doff, Seff, Geg’ar, Zhess, Jierg, Bhe’dei, Mur, Mech’hel, Jekh’hel and
Squeeee-errk-ka-reeek
!”

“The creaky one, third from the top!” I gasped.

“Your instinct serves you well,” he said and began to issue a slow, deep laugh.

“This is highly irregular, Holmes!” I said, but he would not cease his morbid laughter. Seizing the initiative, I demanded, “I wonder, would you say that a retired Royal Marines sergeant had been refused by the sea, leaving his sheep to wander uncommanded upon the waves?”

“
I
would not,” he laughed, vaguely.

“And yet you did.”

“What? Did I?”

“Just before the man appeared,” I said.

“Out loud? Damn!” The fire in his eyes cooled and he drooped once more into his seat, muttering, “I hate that Moriarty…”

We rode along in silence for a while. His breaths came ragged and tired. I stared at him. He was my deliverance from poverty, and I quite liked him, on a personal level. I had the sense he needed me. Still, there was so much of the inexplicable and dangerous about him, I half thought I should throw myself from the cab, take to my heels and not stop until I found myself master of a Jamaican cotton plantation. I told myself I would if the need arose, and gazed out the window to distract myself from the unwelcome thoughts that flooded in upon my repose.

The morning was dreary. Though the rain of the past evening had abated, the low, oppressive clouds hung heavy with the threat of more. There is something malicious about November drizzle in London. It is always cold, unwelcome and delivered at the most fiendishly inconvenient times. The cab-horse was a veteran of some years’ service, with the rhythmic gait to prove it, but even he stumbled once or twice over irregular cobbles.

“Why did we come?” I asked.

Holmes said nothing.

“Why does a detective inspector of Scotland Yard ask the help of a… of you?”

Still staring out his window at the gray mass of London, Holmes admitted, “I am a sort of… consulting detective.”

“But, what does that mean? What is a consulting detective? I have never heard of such a thing.”

“No, well you wouldn’t have. I am the only one. It means that when certain individuals encounter a crime that they cannot solve, they call upon my powers.

“Of observation!” he quickly added.

“Quite,” I said, but I couldn’t help reflecting, “You know, Holmes, Scotland Yard has always seemed to project such an air of superiority that if God himself were to descend and offer to help them find the Holy Grail, they’d ask to see his badge.”

Holmes nodded and agreed, “I don’t work with the Yard often. Or anyway, I don’t work with most of them at all. But if Grogsson or Lestrade need my help, I must answer.”

“Lestrade? That queer little man who comes to visit?”

“The same,” Holmes said.

“And they pay you for your help?”

He sighed again, heavily. “No.”

“Ah, then you are credited with solving the crime, which helps build your reputation for private practice?”

“No.”

“Then, Holmes, why are we going?”

“Understand, Watson, the Yard and I… we get on rather poorly.”

“Why?”

“It can hardly have escaped your notice that I am an unusual sort of man.”

“It has not,” I agreed.

“To their way of thinking, I am a guilty outsider if ever there was one. Whenever there is a crime with… unusual characteristics, I must solve it as rapidly as possible, or expect to be accused of it, in short order.”

“I see,” I said, “and you assume this to be such a crime?”

“No,” he shrugged. “Or rather, I don’t know. It’s just that Grogsson and Lestrade are… unusual gentlemen themselves. Despite their positions, the rest of Scotland Yard seems to harbor almost as much suspicion of them as they do of me. Yet, these two are my only friends there. It is of some importance to my continued freedom to ensure that Grogsson and Lestrade remain the most effective inspectors on the entire force. So long as they continue to solve cases the others cannot, they are safe and so am I. So no, Watson, there is no money in this for me and no recognition, only safety. That is why I am going.”

He settled back into his thoughts for a moment then suddenly sprang up and exclaimed, “Oh! Hey now! Why are
you
going?”

I was embarrassed to admit I didn’t quite know. I’m sure I must have said something about abandoning a friend or the duty of a doctor to see to a seizure victim. But that was not the truth of it.

Why was I in that cab?

I had always considered myself a creature governed by reason; clearly, I had seen enough to know that Holmes was dangerous to me and dangerous to the fundamental foundation of my worldview, as well. Yet that, I suppose, was the very bait that had caught me. I realize that most men will shy away from a thing that contradicts their understanding. I admit I had done it too, ignoring Holmes’s supernatural nature for as long as I could manage. But eventually, awe and wonder overruled my fear. There is nothing so intoxicating to the scientific mind as the weird and unfamiliar.

The fundamental basis of scientific thought is that an observed truth that undermines one’s understanding is yet the truth. If the observation is not flawed, one’s previous understanding must be. To the open mind, this is not a crisis; it is an opportunity to form a new, more perfect understanding of the world. Did I ever abandon science for a belief in magic, as some people may accuse? Never. Rather, I included magic in my understanding of the physical phenomena that shape our world. Science is a path to knowledge—one that must include and explain every observable fact, embracing all and rejecting none.

So, there is the professor’s answer. To the reader who cares not a whit for science or the scientist, let me say: curiosity. That’s why I went. I was curious, all right?

Of course, that day in the cab, I had no ready answer. All I could do was stammer half-truths until I looked out the window and noted, “Lauriston Gardens! We’re practically there, Holmes.”

Holmes rapped on the ceiling with my walking stick and called, “Driver, stop here.”

I WALKED CALMLY DOWN THE STREET TOWARDS
3 Lauriston Gardens. Holmes did not. On the pretense of investigation, he ducked behind every single hedge we passed. Occasionally, he would break a leaf between his fingers and examine the sap, or rub his finger against a brick in one of the neighbor’s walls and say, “Yes, that’s all very well, but I wonder…” The closer we got to Number 3, the slower his pace became. At last, he eschewed the pavement altogether and slunk from lawn to lawn, hopping over the walls when he thought himself unobserved. I waited patiently in the street. Or rather, let us say, I waited in the street. I deduced that Holmes must have some compunction about actually arriving at 3 Lauriston Gardens, but could not guess what it might be. It remained a mystery, until the constable guarding the front door saw him pop up over the garden wall.

“Oi! It’s you!” the officer shouted, face reddening. At Holmes’s chest he leveled one finger—it shook, nearly bursting with the strain of containing so much vehemence and accusation.

Warlock stopped, halfway over the wall, frozen like a deer in a hunter’s sights. “No it isn’t!”

But the constable’s whistle was already at his lips. He blew three sharp blasts and shouted for his fellows, then turned to Holmes—who was engaged in extricating his trouser leg from the wrought-iron railings that topped the wall—and cried, “Warlock ’olmes, I charge you stand in the name o’ th’ lawr!”

Warlock didn’t stand. Instead he toppled backwards into the neighbor’s azaleas, shrieking. When at last he was free of both masonry and shrubbery, he endeavored to take to his heels, but accomplished no more than three steps before being tackled by two burly constables. A third arrived a few moments later, huffing and panting. He must have been embarrassed to have missed the apprehension, for he made a point of re-tackling Holmes, right out of the arms of his comrades.

My walking stick bounced free of the melee and clattered into the street. I made sure to recover it before wading in to save my friend. It is good to have something to lean on when dealing with constables—they can be tiring.

“Wait! I didn’t do it this time!” Warlock was protesting as I approached. “Oh! I mean: ever! That’s what I meant to say: I didn’t do it, ever!”

“Officers, what is the meaning of this?” I inquired, in my most imperious tone.

“We har hengaged into th’ haprehension of this suspicious hindividual! Stand haway, sir!” One of the peculiarities of London’s police force is that they are all recruited from areas of Britain where folk use no h’s at all, or far too many.

I almost protested that Warlock Holmes was not a suspicious individual, but caught my tongue just in time; it was not an argument I could have won. Instead, I told the red-faced constable, “This gentleman, whom you have just collared, is here on the particular request of Detective Inspector Grogsson, to assist in the solution of this crime.”

“I don’ know habout that,” he said. I rolled my eyes at the man, reached into Warlock’s overcoat and withdrew Grogsson’s letter. I presented it to the constable, who glared at it for the barest instant before huffing his disapproval and waving his friends away.

“We don’t need none o’ ’is mumbo-jumbo,” one of them protested, as he wandered back to his post. Warlock gave me a look of deep relief and sidled away towards the garden path, by the side of the house.

“Hand ’oo might you be then, my fine friend?” the constable barked at me, as if the murderer might make the mistake of approaching the police to argue the innocence of other suspects.

“My name is Dr. John Watson; I am here as a friend of Warlock and to lend my knowledge to the case. You may want to take note of my name and address, Constable, in case anybody asks you to identify me later.”

He nodded curtly, as if to say that was going to be the next thing out of his mouth (which it was not, of a certainty) and began searching his pockets for a notebook and stub of pencil. He took down my information and even ventured to get a little free work done, which is a hazard of my trade.

“Medical doctor, then?” he inquired.

“I am.”

“Hi wonder ’f you’d take a look at me back, Dr. Watson, sir. Pains me somethin’ hawful now.”

“No need, man. There are three courses of cure for you: take the clerk’s position the next time they offer it, spend more on shoes, or spend less on pastries,” I said, gazing around his bulk towards the door.

“Hoi! Wait there! I said me back!”

“Your back is in sad shape because you have been walking your beat far too long in cheap shoes on cobblestones. The whole situation is not aided, Constable, by the fact that you have doubled your weight since joining the force—observe the stretch marks on your neck and your original-issue academy stockings, which are swollen almost to bursting. This has ruined your feet and the waddling gait you have adopted to pamper them has begun to work upon your spine. I am told that should a constable break his leg, it’s considered poor form to take him out behind the station house and shoot him. Instead, the force finds desk jobs for its physically unsound members. If they haven’t offered you sedentary employment already, they soon shall. Accept it. Now, I feel I must reclaim my friend and address the matter of the day, if you please.”