“Yes, sir, two days ago,” replied Baynes. “We found his body just outside Mortlake.”
“I didn’t kill him, you know.”
“Yes, sir,” said Baynes. “It’s looking more like an accidental death. That area can be marshy and treacherous, especially at night. The ground may seem firm enough but it’s easy to put a foot wrong. He wouldn’t be the first poor soul to lose his life in such circumstances.”
Shawcross fixed the inspector with an intense stare. “I said I did not kill him, but that does not mean it was an accident. He played the tune and paid the piper… with his life. As we all must in our turn.”
“And the piper is?” enquired Holmes.
“Why, death, of course.” Shawcross blinked and looked around perplexed, as if rousing from a fugue state. “Please excuse me. My medicine is taking its toll. I’m afraid I will shortly be of scant use. What is it you wish to know?”
“Everything. Omit nothing, no matter how trivial,” said Holmes.
“Yes, of course, it would be my pleasure,” replied Shawcross, lowering himself into the armchair again. “So, where to begin?”
“Perhaps with the excavation?” prompted Holmes.
“Quite so. As you may or may not know, I was formerly Associate Head of the department of Anglo-Saxon history at the British Museum. In March of 1881, I and several of my associates commenced an archaeological dig close to the village of Mortlake. You see, in the ninth century, England was sorely afflicted by attacks from Scandinavian Vikings. Surrey’s inland position saw it go largely unmolested until a large invasion force of Danes, some ten thousand strong, made their way up the Thames. They had already sacked Canterbury, then London, and defeated King Beorhtwulf of Mercia in battle. The West Saxon army led by King Aethelwulf rose to meet them, but the odds did not bode well. This was a hardened, battle-seasoned foe they faced.”
“And what happened?” asked Baynes, obviously intrigued.
“The Danes were defeated at the Battle of Aclea. Routed, slaughtered. Thousands of the fiercest warriors the world had ever seen.”
“How’s that possible?” I asked.
“Perhaps a combination of tactics and knowledge of the terrain?” said Holmes.
“Or something else?” added Shawcross. “Legend has it that before the battle King Aethelwulf sought the council of a tribe of cunning women. Witches, shamans, call them what you will. Their arcane practices were being scoured from the land by the one true god, but the King offered them amnesty if they would aide him in his darkest hour. And aid him they did. They summoned the angel of death itself to walk in the vanguard, playing a pipe whittled from the bones of the first human. The King’s men were bade to avert their faces and stopper their ears so as not to see or hear it.”
I was watching Shawcross closely now. His face was beaded with sweat. Despite the sedative’s soporific effect, the professor showed no signs of succumbing. Quite the opposite in fact.
“It’s said the Danes gave the piper no mind at first, but when its tune reached them, they froze, rigid with terror. When they then set eyes upon the darkness of the angel’s form, it swallowed their gaze and showed them the yawning chasm of eternity that existed after life. There was no Heaven, no Valhalla. There was nothing but the endless void, where a second would last an eternity. Some of them ran, mad. Others remained in shock, even as the king’s men fell upon them, butchering them all. That is how the day was won.”
“But it’s a story, surely?” I said. “Perhaps with a grain of truth at its core, but a story nevertheless.”
“I thought so too,” Shawcross replied. “That is why I began the dig at the site of King Aethelwulf’s muster camp. It was a disappointing dig, yielding nothing of great note. Coins, combs and brooch pins, plenty of broken pottery and several untouched jars of wheat and rye grain.”
“So you returned to London and left Peter Allenby at the site?” said Holmes.
“I had business at the museum. I was only back a day or two when Peter’s telegram arrived.”
“He’d found something?”
“He found it – the piper’s flute! It had been wrapped in doe skin and buried deep inside one of the grain jars. I was all set to return when a parcel arrived the next morning. It was the flute itself; Peter had sent it to me.”
“That’s not customary, is it?” Holmes asked.
“Not at all, but he knew how anxious I would be to see it. I imagine he thought he was helping. I telegraphed him to say it had arrived, but, well, events took another turn as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Yes, well, I think we’ve heard enough for now,” I suggested. “We don’t need to pursue this any further. You should rest.”
“There’s time for one more question, surely?” said Holmes.
“Holmes, this man’s mind is a fragile thing!” I said in terse whisper. “You cannot simply push a stick into it and stir it up as if it were an anthill!”
“It’s alright, Doctor, it’s no bother.” Shawcross was on his feet, standing straight and tall, his arms by his side. His face was sheened with sweat and something else, a calm beneficence that sent me cold. I knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that Professor Mortimer Shawcross was quite insane.
“The flute was an extraordinary object. It was indeed a human tibia with faint, almost imperceptible, ridges engraved upon its surface. An elaborate scrimshaw of the most beauteous and obscene images I had ever seen. I put it to my lips and played it. It seemed the right thing to do. It gave a flat, dull tone and proved to be something of an anti-climax. However, I was soon to discover that I couldn’t have been more wrong in my assumption.”
Shawcross held out his hands.
“I studied my hands as they held the flute. I fell into them, past them. I rushed headlong beyond tissue and bone, soaring past atoms and the spaces in between the spaces until there was naught but void.”
He looked up at us and I could see tears streaming down his cheek. His face was a picture of saintly elation.
“I lifted my head and did the same. Lath and plaster, brick and sky were stripped away as my mind raced. Planets, suns and stars sped past me, the whorl of galaxies, the very crucible of creation, until again there was an infinite absence. But where was God in all of this? Then it struck me: God was the void, everywhere and nowhere.”
Shawcross was face-to-face with us now, only the bars keeping us apart.
“We are born from nothing and return to nothing. It is life that is the abomination, an unnecessary punctuation. Death is the release, which unshackles us from the flesh.”
“So you took up a sword and became death?” said Holmes.
“No… but I am its prophet. It is my crusade to relieve mankind of the burden of its mortality.”
“Mr Holmes!”
Dr East suddenly appeared, backed by a trio of burly guards. He brandished a telegram in Holmes’s face.
“This is not from your brother! You are not the only one with influence and friends in high places. It did not take much digging to discern the truth!”
“You really should not have gone to all that trouble,” Holmes quipped. “We were just leaving.”
“I guarantee it. Escort them off the premises.”
We were pressed sharply towards the door when Holmes called back. “Professor, where is the flute now?”
“Safe, Mr Holmes. As it was below, so it is now above. It lies in Hell with an eye on Heaven.”
“Get them out!” shrieked East. And that was that.
The train journey home was a grim affair. The weather was wretched and the carriage an icebox. Baynes was wrestling with his cold, which seemed to have gotten steadily worse. Holmes’s lack of sleep had added to his irritability, while my head was pounding from trying to make sense of what we’d heard thus far.