“Hardly surprising, your address is somewhat obscure even for the A to Z.”
“Would you care to see my mushroom beds?”
“Frankly, no.”
“I spy with my little eye?”
“Stick it in your ear, Soap.”
The three men sat awhile in silence. Jim picked a bit of chive out of his teeth and won five quid from Soap. But other than that there was frankly no excitement to be had whatsoever, which might in its way have been a good thing, for there was a great deal of it in the offing. A sudden bout of urgent knocking rattled Soap Distant’s front door.
“Expecting guests?” Omally asked. “Ladies, I trust. Current affairs have played havoc with my social calendar.”
Soap’s face had, within the twinkling of an eye, transformed itself from an amiable countenance into the all-too-familiar mask of cold fear. “Are either of you tooled up?” he asked inanely.
“I have my barlow knife,” said Omally, rapidly finishing his drink.
“And me my running shoes,” said Jim. “Where’s the back door, Soap?”
Mr Distant dithered in his armchair. “No-one knows of this place,” he whispered hoarsely. The pounding on the door informed him that that statement was patently incorrect.
Omally rose hurriedly from his seat. “Lead us to the priesthole, Soap, and make it snappy.”
“I’m for that.” Jim leapt up and began smacking at the walls. “Where’s the secret panel, Soap?”
Soap chewed upon his knuckles. “It’s the other me,” he whimpered. “I knew it had to happen, even here.”
“The odds are in its favour. Kindly show us the way out.”
“There’s no other exit.”
“Then find us a place to hide, someone must continue to serve the cause, even if you are indisposed.”
“Yes, fair do’s,” Jim agreed, as the pounding rattled ornaments and nerves alike. “If it’s the other you, then he may not know John and I are here. We at least should hide until the bloodshed is over.”
“Oh, thanks very much, pals.”
“We’d do the same for you.”
“Come again?”
“Open up there.” A voice from without brought the ludicrous conversation to a halt.
“It’s Sherlock Holmes,” said Omally. “Let him in.”
Soap hastened to unfasten the front door. “Close it without delay.” The detective pressed himself inside. “They are hard upon my heels.”
“How did you know where I lived?” Soap pressed the bolts home.
“No matter. Are you three tooled up?”
Omally shook his head and fell back into his seat. Pooley did likewise. “Would you care for another splash of carrot, Jim?” Omally waggled the bottle towards Pooley.
“Another would be fine. So how goes the game afoot, Sherlock?”
“A bit iffy as it happens.” Holmes drew out his revolver and flattened himself against the front wall.
Jim rattled his glass against the bottle’s neck. “And you have brought the lads down here after us. Most enterprising.”
“I never really believed in him, you know,” said John, now refreshing his own glass.
“I looked it all up in the library,” Pooley replied.
“The evidence is very much against him. Purely fictitious, I so believe.”
“Wise up,” said Sherlock Holmes. “These mothers mean business.”
The sounds of terrible ghost train screaming leant weight to his conviction. From beyond, something malevolent was surging forward from the darkness. Pooley covered his ears and crossed his eyes. Omally snatched up a Biba table-lamp and prepared once more to do battle. If the awful screaming was not bad enough, the sounds which accompanied it were sufficient to put the wind up even Saint Anthony himself. Hideous slurpings and suckings, as of some gigantic mollusc, and thrashing sounds, dragging chains and clicking joints. All in all, anything but a Christmas hamper.
Omally turned towards Holmes, who now crouched facing the door, Magnum forty-four poised once more between his outstretched hands. “What in the name of the Holies is it?” he shouted above the growing din.
“It came at me from a basement opening. I have only seen its like before amongst the work of Hieronymous Bosch.”
This remark meant little to Omally who had always thought a Bosch to be an expensive sports car. But that the something which was approaching was very very nasty and somewhat overlarge seemed on the cards.
As the first concussion shook the front wall, Holmes fired point-blank into the door. A gale-force icy wind swept through the bullet-hole, like a blast from a ruptured gas-pipe. A fetid odour filled the room; the stench of the very pit itself, of all the world’s carrion congealed into a single rotting mass. Holmes staggered back into Omally, coughing and gagging. The Irishman fell to his knees, covering his nose, and retching violently. Outside, the thing lashed at the door with redoubled fury. The iron hinges screamed in anguish, echoing those of the satanic emissary of death. Beneath the throbbing door, slim, barbed hooks worked and tore. A yellow haze of brimstone coloured the unbreathable air and the room shook and shivered beneath the hellish assault.
Omally crawled over to Soap Distant, who had wisely assumed the foetal position beneath the table. “You’ve got to get us out,” he shouted, tearing away the hands clamped about the albino head. “There has to be a way.”
“No way.” Soap tore himself from Omally’s hold. “No way.”
Shivers of woodwork flew from the bottom of the door as the evil barbs, now showing porcupine quills and scorpion tails thrashing about them, stripped the Ronseal finish clear down to the filled knot-holes. Omally stumbled to his feet. Sherlock Holmes was standing alone in the whirlwind, a speckled band tied bandana-fashion across his face. A finger in the air. The doyen of dicks was definitely off his trolley, thought John. As if reading his thoughts, Holmes suddenly struck him a weltering blow to the skull. Caught in surprise John hit the deck. Holmes leapt down upon him and pointed frantically through the swirling, cascading stench. “Fireplace,” he shouted, his voice all but lost amidst the screaming, the hurricane, and the splintering woodwork. “Up the chimney, get going, quick.”
It took very little time for Omally to cop on. Grabbing the huddled Pooley firmly by the collar, he dragged him towards what was surely the only hope of escape. Holmes stepped over to Soap and booted him in the ribcage. Soap peered up bitterly towards his tormentor, a dizzy blur, lost for the most part in the maelstrom of tearing elements. Holmes stretched deftly forward and hooked a pair of fingers into the sub-Earther’s nostrils. “Lead us out!” he cried, bearing him aloft. Whimpering and howling, but somehow happy for the nose-plugs, Soap staggered forward. Holmes thrust his head first into the fireplace and then, suddenly enlightened, Soap turned towards his persecutor with a nodding, smiling head and gestured upwards. Within a moment he was scrabbling into the darkness above. Omally pressed Jim onwards and followed hard upon his heels. Holmes spun about, revolver in hand, as the door burst from its hinges to spin a million whirling fragments about him. The icy gale tore his tweedy jacket from his shoulders as the thing rolled into the room, a tangle of barbs, quills and spikes, whipping and lashing and screaming, screaming. The great detective held his ground and fired off his revolver again and again into the spinning ball of death as it charged towards him.
The wind and the terror coming from below spurred on the three-man escape committee as it crept higher and higher up the narrow black chimney. Soap’s voice called down from above, “Come on, lads, shouldn’t be more than a mile at most.” Pooley mumbled and complained, but Omally, who was tail-end Charlie and in the most vulnerable position, bit him in the ankle. A howl of pain and a sudden acceleration from Jim assured the struggling Irishman that the message was well-received.
The going was far from certain and made ever more perilous by the cramped space and the complete and utter darkness. Stones and grit tumbled down into the climbers’ faces. Soap trod upon Jim’s hands and Jim out of fairness trod upon John’s. Higher and higher up the slim shaft of hope they clambered until at last they could no longer feel the icy wind rushing from below or the awful stench souring their nostrils. They paused a moment, clinging to what they could for dear life, to catch their breath, and cough up what was left of their lungs.