To his credit, Holmes never so much as blinked.
“We are not here to discuss my failings, Mr Mackie – I am all too aware of them. As I have said, I am merely here to let you know that I shall be watching you closely from now on until you make the mistake that allows me to put a stop to you once and for all.”
“Watch and learn, Mr Holmes. I have developed a taste for this life, and it is surely preferable to joining my stoker father on the Great Eastern Railway, so do your worst. I intend to be busy here in London for quite some time yet.”
And with that we were dismissed. As Holmes rose and walked past me he turned, looked into my eyes and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. I, however, knew that look of old – he had spotted something, something that he deemed important. He did not speak of it though, not then, nor on the way back to Baker Street, where I took my leave of him and Watson and went down to the theatre to prepare for that evening’s show and, hopefully, catch a couple of hours of well-earned sleep.
I heard no more until three nights later, when a street lad – I think he was one that I had seen in Baker Street but I cannot be sure – delivered a note to the stage door.
It was not signed, but I knew the sender. I left Sleepy Jack in charge of the house – with severe admonishments as to the consequences should he take to the gin again – and made my way across town to Soho.
Everyone in central London knows Miss Jane’s, but nobody will admit to ever being there, despite it being packed to the gunwales with lonely gentlemen on any given night. Tonight was no exception – the downstairs hallway was so crowded with well-suited toffs that I had to push through them to make my way inside. Holmes and Watson were there ahead of me, standing at the foot of a flight of stairs.
“The Irregulars followed him,” Holmes said. “And they did a fine job of it. He has a new quarry tonight.”
Holmes mentioned a name and this time it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. European royalty, even minor royalty, was indeed a step up for Mackie, and one that would ensure him plenty of those worldly pleasures he seemed to covet should he succeed in his play.
“He has two rooms – His Majesty is in one with the lady, and I believe Mackie is in the other with his camera. Watson will get the prince out without any fuss, and you and I shall beard Mackie in his den. Agreed?”
Both Watson and I nodded, and we made our way upstairs.
Watson seemed concerned. “Even if we catch him in the act, Holmes, there will still be nothing that Lestrade can use for a conviction – not enough in any case.”
“At least we will stop him tonight,” Holmes said, and he looked at me pointedly in the same manner as before; he knew more than he was saying.
We arrived outside a room on the second landing. It was obvious from the noises from within that His Majesty was enjoying all that the house had to offer.
“On my mark, Watson,” Holmes said, leading me to the next door along. We stood there for some seconds.
“Are we waiting for something, Holmes?” I asked, and again I got the raised eyebrow in reply.
“I was rather hoping you would tell me, Shinwell,” he said.
Luckily, before I had time to think of an answer that would be evasive enough to get past Holmes, the gap at the bottom of the door lit up as a flash went off within. Even as I put a shoulder to the door, I knew we would be too late, for the screams that immediately followed the flash were too high and too wild to come from a man with any hope of living.
The door split under my weight, and revealed the hellish scene inside. Mackie’s whole upper torso was aflame, his hair singed off, his skin bubbling and seething under a white fire that burned so hard it hurt the eyes to look at it. By the time we reached him he had already fallen to the floor, and by the time we doused the flames by wrapping him in a rug the man was dead. There was only a smoking ruin where his smug smile had been.
I saw through a connecting door to the room beyond that Watson was already leading the prince away and out of sight of what would soon be many prying eyes.
Holmes looked down at the body and pursed his lips.
“Well, Shinwell, it seems that your ploy worked.” He went on, without giving me time to protest my innocence. “I smelled the fixing reagent on you as soon as you came back into the hotel room so I know you found the developing room. And I noted the empty glass on the sideboard as we left. That, and the fact that you were present when I told Watson of the properties of the flash powder, and now the look on your face. I know this is your doing, so there is no sense in you denying it.”
“I would not want to deny it, if truth be told, Mr Holmes,” I said. “For if anyone deserved it, it is this piece of vermin. But I am happy to pay whatever price you deem necessary.”
Holmes smiled thinly.
“It is as much my doing as yours, Shinwell, for I knew it was coming and did nothing to intervene. Just do not tell Watson – he would not understand, and this is one case I would rather never have documented in full.”
We left the room together, just as the sound of police whistles pierced the air and Mr Mackie quickly became one of those very stories that he was so keen to see publicised.
THE VANISHING SNAKE
Jeffrey Thomas
My first impulse in selecting a character from the Holmes canon for this volume was to choose a female protagonist, and I quickly settled on Helen Stoner from what is said to be Arthur Conan Doyle’s favourite Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”. I liked that, rather than passively fall victim to her stepfather’s plot to murder her, Helen took a proactive route by sneaking off to avail herself of outside resources in the form of Holmes and Watson. I decided on following Helen through a direct sequel, which takes the original story’s grotesque gothic vibe a step over the line into horror, and in so doing seeks to address certain biological issues some readers have had with “The Speckled Band”. Helen’s new adventure also provides Holmes with the inspiration to visit a certain region of Asia, which he is revealed to have done in his back-from-the-dead story, “The Adventure of the Empty House”.
“I am sorry to say there is no such snake in existence as a swamp adder, Mr Holmes,” I proclaimed upon being let into the sitting room of the Baker Street rooms Sherlock Holmes shared with his companion Dr John Watson, also present.
“Helen Stoner, gentlemen,” their landlady Mrs Hudson belatedly introduced me, no doubt thrown a bit by the words of greeting from this unexpected visitor. She departed, and I took a seat by the window.
Mr Holmes certainly did not require her introduction, in any case. Only a few weeks prior, he had saved me from sharing the tragic fate of my twin sister, Julia. Our own stepfather, Dr Grimesby Roylott, had connived to murder us shortly before we could marry, for fear of losing the inheritance he had been given to control upon the death of our mother, so long as her daughters lived under his care. Dr Roylott had been successful in doing away with poor Julia, by introducing a venomous snake into her room, but when he had made an attempt to do the same to me only two years later I had brought my unformed suspicions to Mr Holmes, who had not only uncovered Dr Roylott’s plot but, in repelling the serpent, had inadvertently caused it to kill its own master.
Having apparently finished a late breakfast and now enjoying a pipe while slumped back comfortably in his chair, Mr Holmes arched an eyebrow at me, clearly intrigued that his identification of the reptile had been challenged these several weeks after the investigation’s conclusion. I have no doubt the observant Mr Holmes took note of my uneasy manner, surely not so different from my greatly troubled demeanour when I had first come to him, much oppressed by strange nocturnal occurrences. I knew too well that my hair was even more shot through with white than before, though I was only thirty-two years of age. Yet with my brutal stepfather deceased, and the snake itself having been captured by Mr Holmes using a noose and locked away inside an iron safe in my stepfather’s room, I can well imagine that he wondered what there was to cause me such anxiety.