A spectacular flash of lightning illuminated the scene. For a brief second I saw — or fancied I saw — the fiery horned devils who bore the dead on their backs, armed with unsheathed cavalry swords. And then they were gone, thundering back into the rolling clouds, born away by the tempestuous night.
“No more!” Holmes slammed the doors shut at his back, leaving the fallen man outside.
“No, Mr. Holmes, now there is only me, and I am an old man whose time has come,” said Sir Henry, as his daughter ran to his side.
“Father, the Devil has had his due,” exclaimed Miss Woodham. “Mr. Charlton has made right his terrible mistake.”
“Perhaps that is so,” said Sir Henry, “for there is no greater crime than when an officer has made his own men suffer.”
“You are wrong, sir,” said Holmes with some passion. “The greater crime is to engage the enemy in the sure belief that God is on your side.” He turned to me. “Come, Watson, I feel we should return to London tonight. There is nothing more to be done here.”
I had never seen my friend in a mood like this. He was angry. Not detached and analytical, but furious that he was being forced to face the impossible and consider it real. I felt sure that back in London he would bury his doubts once more in work and the syringe.
My last view of Sir Henry was as a sickly old man being comforted by his daughter, slumped in his armchair before the dying fire, disturbed by doubts that he might have spent his life believing in things that were not true.
Holmes and I returned to London, but during the long train journey home we did not speak of the case again, for fear that it might have awoken a chasm between us that no amount of reason could ever fill.
* * * * *
CHRISTOPHER FOWLER is the multi-award winning author of over thirty novels including the recently released Bryant and May Off the Rails, the eighth novel to feature Bryant and May. In addition to writing novels and short stories Christopher has written comedy and drama for BBC Radio One (including the Sherlock Holmes story The Lady Upstairs), has written articles and columns for a variety of publications and recently completed Celebrity for the stage.
“The Deadly Sin of Sherlock Holmes” by Tom English
Illustration by Luke Eidenschink
The Deadly Sin of Sherlock Holmes
by Tom English
Hundreds of years ago, around the time of Magna Carta, while England endured the growing pains of an empire in its infancy, and kings and kingdoms waged endless wars across Europe; and long before Prince Wilhelm von Ormstein’s dalliance with the woman Irene Adler, the aftermath of which, were it not for the intervention of Sherlock Holmes, might have ended in a royal scandal in Bohemia, yet another chapter of history was being written in a Benedictine monastery in an obscure Bohemian village. Its consequences would span centuries, and dreadful would be its effects.
The architect of this singular item sat hunched behind a tiny, splintered table in a bare cell illuminated only by a thin shaft of moonlight from a high, narrow window. He was dying. His arms, legs and face were lacerated with hundreds of self-inflicted cuts, his clothing scarlet with blood. When three robed men appeared at his door, he looked up weakly from his bloodstained fingers and smiled.
“Where is it, Brother?” asked one of the men.
“Of what do you speak, Abbot?”
“Brother Josef, Brother Ehren, bring the candles,” the abbot said to the two monks behind him. “Search his cell — quickly!” He turned back to the man seated before him. “We know of the hellish instrument you have forged this night. God has revealed it to me in a dream.”
“More a nightmare, I should think. For the power of the thing shall be hideous, its ministry implacable.”
“How dare you use consecrated paper!” said Brother Josef.
“Where is it?” the abbot asked again.
“Gone out into the world,” said the dying man, clinging to the edge of his blood-smeared desk.
“You have corrupted an instrument of God,” cried Brother Josef. “Where is it?”
“As I have said, Josef, it is gone. Spirited away by the Prince of the Air.”
“Satan!” Brother Ehren said with disgust.
“Certainly not your weakling god,” he replied.
“You stand at death’s door,” said the abbot. “Have you no fear? Tell us now where the thing is hidden.”
“Hidden?” laughed the man behind the table. “In this tiny room?” He coughed hard and struggled to regain his breath. “Nay,” he said hoarsely, “though you search for it, you shall not find it. For I have sent it out into the world. To baptize all men into a new age of darkness.”
On a bone-chilling night in early May of 1891, a hooded figure crouched over the dead body of a young woman on Clements Lane in the district of Westminster, London. An icy rain spattered against the grey cobbles and ran away in grimy rivulets towards the Thames. From the south the faint peal of Big Ben marked the midnight hour. While two other men watched from nearby, the veiled figure knelt before the corpse, a Bull’s-eye lantern in one hand. His free hand moved quickly and expertly over the woman’s body as he probed the bloodstained clothing. After several moments, he heard a voice above him ask, “Well?”
The man looked up from the corpse. “Well what, Lestrade?” he asked irritably. “This infernal rain has scrubbed the street clean. Despite what the good doctor may have written about my abilities, I cannot work without clues.”
“She was obviously another drab who got more than she asked for,” said Inspector Lestrade, pulling up the collar of his coat. “But her face, Mr. Holmes! Look at her face! Why would anyone do such a thing?”
“This was no streetwalker, Lestrade. Observe the clothing. It appears to be new and of the highest quality. This woman was dressed for an evening out. What brought her here, so far from the beaten path?”
Holmes tossed back the hood of his Ulster. The rain had died away to a fine mist that shone as a halo around the street lamp at the end of the lane. “This rain started a little after 3 p.m., but this woman is not dressed for inclement weather. As you can see, she has no cloak at all.” He motioned to the man in black coat and derby standing next to Lestrade. “Watson, notice the blood about the eyes and mouth — how thickly coagulated it is.”
Watson knelt and winced at the mutilated features.
“Yet the body is face up,” said Holmes. “The heavy rain would have washed away most of this blood — had it not been so thickly clotted. Now, since you put the time of death at only a couple hours ago, and it has been raining since three…”
“Then the wounds were inflicted somewhere else,” Watson said. “Some place dry enough to allow the blood to congeal.”
“Come,” said Holmes, “we can learn nothing more here. The scent has grown cold, and so have we. What will Mrs. Watson have to say, should I detain you any longer?” He turned to Lestrade, who quickly gestured to two uniformed policemen to remove the dead body. “If I can be of any further assistance…”