“Stop!” Holmes called, but it was too late. The last hint of the green substance disappeared down to the sewers below.
We found Lestrade out in the street coordinating proceedings. The hosing down of the brewery went on for several hours while we stood outside, smoking and keeping an eye out for any return of either the slime or the luminescence. After a time Lestrade announced himself satisfied and called off the clear up. Holmes proved harder to satisfy. He insisted on waiting until almost dawn, spending the intervening hours stalking the floor and peering in every corner of the brewery. Twice he asked to see the pebble I had dug from the vat. Both times he returned it to me with a grunt of displeasure. The sun was throwing an orange tinge across the sky before I was finally able to persuade him to leave.
He said nothing in the carriage on the journey to Baker Street, merely sat, elbows on his thighs and fingers steepled at his lips, deep in thought.
Mrs. Hudson ministered to our hunger, providing a hearty breakfast that I took to with gusto. Holmes scarcely ate a mouthful. He had already taken the pebble from me, and pored over it intently, subjecting it to a variety of assays and investigations. By the time I finished my breakfast he seemed to have come to some conclusions. He called me over and handed me a magnifying lens.
“I believe we have found our source,” he said to me. I immediately saw what he meant. The pebble was a small rough stone. Holmes had managed to slice it in half and I looked down at the inner hemisphere. There was a small hollow almost dead center, hardly bigger than my little finger nail. It carried the barest tinge of green.
“The stone itself is mostly iron,” Holmes said. “With a trace of nickel. I do believe you are holding your first visitor from beyond this world.”
After that Holmes seemed to settle somewhat. We sat by the fire and lit our pipes. He repeatedly quizzed me on my experience inside the luminescence.
“It was dashed peculiar Holmes,” I said. “I have experienced something similar before, while watching a Swami perform the rope trick in Delhi, but even there I felt in control. This time it felt like my very will had been drained from me. If you had not intervened, I do believe I would have given myself to it.”
Holmes nodded, and went back to staring into the fire.
I left in the early morning to fulfill an obligation to a sick friend. When I returned Holmes was scarcely in any better spirits. I found him on the doorstep, delivering instructions to a group of urchins who were gathered around him as he distributed pennies.
As I entered I saw Mrs. Hudson packing cleaning materials back into the cupboard.
“Please Doctor. Can you not get him to settle? He’ll be the death of me with all this commotion.”
Holmes seemed oblivious to his landlady’s protestations.
“We must be vigilant,” he said, as we once more sat by the fire. “As a doctor you well know the dangers of contagion re-emerging after a period of dormancy.”
I saw that a black mood had descended on my friend, one that only action might shift, but there was no news forthcoming. In the late afternoon I went to stoke the fire. I searched for the old pair of bellows I customarily used, but they were nowhere to be found, and Holmes merely smiled at my mention of them.
We sat in conversation as darkness started to fall once again, our discussions ranging wildly with much speculation as to the nature of the green organism. Despite our intellects, we were unable to come to any firm conclusions. And I disagreed vehemently with one proffered by Holmes.
“I suspect a rudimentary intelligence is at work,” Holmes said. “That much was obvious in the way you yourself were lured into the trap.”
I tried to argue the case for instinct, citing many examples in the animal world of trap setting, but by then Holmes was once again deep in thought. I contented myself with a fresh pipe of tobacco as I made some notes on the progress of the case so far.
Matters came to a head in the late evening.
“My eyes and ears are ready for anything out of the usual,” Holmes had said.
The news brought by the urchin who came to the door certainly qualified as out of the usual. To my eyes he looked like any other grime-ingrained child of the streets, but Holmes immediately saw something I had not.
“It is on a boat?” he asked, even before the child had spoken.
The child smiled, showing more gaps than teeth.
“That it is Mr. Holmes sir. ‘Tis down at Vauxhall Bridge. They say ‘tis a ghost ship, for it is all quiet and green like. Ain’t nobody going near ‘till the coppers have had a look. That Inspector Lestrade has been sent for.”
Holmes gave the lad a thrupenny bit and sent him on his way. I was dispatched to find a cab. Holmes himself went back inside and returned wearing a heavy coat. It seemed to bulge at the back, as if he carried something bulky underneath, but I knew from experience not to ask until he was ready for his revelation.
I only asked one question on the trip down to Vauxhall.
“How did you know about the boat Holmes?”
He smiled thinly.
“The boy had fresh pitch on his fingers. I smelled it even before I saw it. There is only one place you find tar of that sort — on the deck of a boat.”
He said no more as we bounced through the city, rattling like peas inside the cab. Holmes had requested speed and offered extra payment. The driver did not disappoint and had us at Vauxhall in record time, if a little shaken.
A small crowd had gathered on the bridge, looking down at a moored boat. Despite the fact it was not quite yet full dark, the luminescence was immediately apparent, a dancing green light that ran up the masts and along the rigging of the schooner. The gathered watchers had the good sense to stay well back.
The same could not be said of the two policemen down on the dock itself. Holmes shouted a warning, but they took no heed, stepping onto the boat while we were as yet too far away to go to their aid. By the time Holmes and I descended the steps to the dock the policemen had already gone aboard and disappeared down into the hold.
Holmes was in no mood to wait. He ran down the steps and I was hard pressed to keep up with him as he jumped on board the boat. I joined him at the hatchway leading to the hold. I realized we were already inside the glow of the luminescence, but I felt none of the compulsion I had undergone earlier. Nevertheless my heart beat a little faster as we went down in to the bowels of the vessel.
Screams rose from beneath us. Holmes shed his overcoat. I stood behind him so was not able to see the full scope of the apparatus, but he carried two metal tanks on his back, secured at the shoulders with thick canvas straps. The tanks looked heavy, but did not slow Holmes as he descended the steep steps to the hold. Saying a silent prayer I followed close behind.
At first it seemed we stood in impenetrable darkness but as my eyes adjusted I began to make out shape and shadow around us. The screams we had followed had already faded, replaced by the sound of piteous weeping to our left. I could make out Holmes ahead of me as we moved towards the wails.
We were too late to do anything for the poor policemen. One lay dead, green foam at lips and ears. The other would be following him soon. Most of his chest was a bubbling ruin. He tried to speak but green fluid poured from his mouth and even as I bent to his aid he fell back, eyes wide, staring, unseeing.
I realized I could see Holmes’ face, his pale features seemingly behind a green mask. I turned to see the source of this new light. The entire far end of the hold was an aurora, sickly green shot through with an oily sheen, which cast rainbows before it. Under other circumstances it might even be called beautiful.