Coombs’s smile was a flash of white against the darkness of his beard. “You are a direct man, Mr. Holmes, as I have heard. Let me be equally as blunt. What business is it of yours?”
Holmes replied smoothly, “Miss Shah’s concerns stem from a worry as to its possible . . . misuse.”
Coombs raised an eyebrow. “And is this a concern shared by Sherlock Holmes? A rationalist known for his powers of deduction? You are an Englishman and an intellectual, sir—surely you do not subscribe to such beliefs as the al-Azif espouses?”
I expected a quick reply from Holmes affirming this, but I was surprised. “My research into this topic is not yet complete,” he replied, his voice even. “However, I am unwilling to dismiss the underlying premise out of hand.”
Coombs nodded, tugging at his beard. “You are wiser than I have been led to believe, sir. There are things under God’s heaven that seem impossible to any modern nineteenth-century mind yet which are in fact quite real.” His expression darkened. “Over the years and in my travels, I have seen some of these things, and I have become a believer, albeit a reluctant one.”
Holmes did not speak to this. After a moment, Coombs continued. “Miss Shah may rest easy. I guarantee the manuscript will not be misused. It is part of my personal collection of antiques and curiosa.” He rose. “I apologize for seeming brusque, but my schedule today—”
“You have the al-Azif here, then?” Miriam interjected.
Coombs looked at her. During his speech she had diminished, but not ceased, her patterns of anxious movement. Coombs now seemed to take note of this. His eyes narrowed, and some wordless communion seemed to pass between them. A look of mingled fear and anger filled his face. I saw Holmes lean forward, watching them intently.
“I had not expected you so soon,” Coombs said to Miriam. He raised his voice. “Bradley!”
The butler reappeared. In his oversized hand he held a Webley .38 Bulldog, like the one I had in my valise. Exactly like mine, I realized, recognizing with a start the custom ivory grips I had caused to be installed on the revolver some years ago. The thug had evidently searched our baggage.
I have never considered myself primarily a man of action, though certainly my time in Her Majesty’s service exposed me to more than my share of turmoil in foreign lands. And, while most of the investigations upon which Holmes and I have ventured have been relatively peaceful, there have been times when a stout heart, aided by a quick wit and quicker movements, have been necessary for survival. So it was that the instant I discerned my weapon in the brute’s grip, I slipped my own hand into my jacket pocket and quickly removed the cosh, palming it and holding it thus hidden upon my lap. The butler did not appear to notice my action.
Meanwhile, Coombs spoke to Holmes but kept his gaze upon Miriam. “I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes, but you have involved yourself in matters much more complex than you comprehend. I cannot allow the manuscript out of my keeping. Especially to one such as her.”
He spoke this last sentence with an expression of disgust akin to that which a white man might voice about a wog with leprosy.
If I live to be a thousand, I shall never forget what transpired next. Miriam—dear, sweet Miriam, who had brought me back from Death’s door with her own gentle hands—glared at Coombs, her expression one of concentrated evil and fury that seemed inhuman in its intensity. Then she spoke, uttering a short, harsh two-word expression in a language I did not recognize. The discordant timbre of her voice grated painfully in my ears.
“N’gêb Yalh’tñf!”
Coombs suddenly lurched to one side, clutched at his chest, and collapsed, as a man suffering a fatal cardiac convulsion might.
Bradley, the butler, stepped in and leveled my revolver at the back of Miriam’s head. He meant to shoot—I saw his finger tighten on the trigger, saw the hammer begin to cock, the cylinder begin to turn, chambering the round to be fired. This all happened in a kind of measured motion, as if time were somehow stretching. In that elongated moment, the only sound I could hear was the ticking of the grandfather clock, which suddenly seemed loud enough for a timepiece the size of Big Ben.
Then sound and movement rushed back to fill the momentary vacuum. I realized I had leaped to my feet. I heard Holmes yell, “Watson, no!” But I had already jumped for the butler and brought my cosh down on the man’s arm, just above his wrist. I distinctly heard the bone crack. That would be the radius, I found myself thinking.
Bradley howled in pain and dropped the gun. But he was a burly brute and, broken arm notwithstanding, he turned to grapple with me.
I fancy that I can handle myself as well as most civilized men in a bout of fisticuffs, but this was not a boxing ring. This thug was half again my size and obviously a brawler who had never heard of the Marquess of Queensbury. I did not hesitate to employ the cosh again.
The advantage to being a doctor of medicine in a tussle is a good knowledge of anatomy. My next strike deadened the ulnar nerve and paralyzed the butler’s left arm; even so, I had to duck as he nearly took my head off with a haymaker punch thrown by his broken right. My third strike with the cosh was to his right temple. It stunned him, but it took another hit to his skull to complete the process. Bradley fell, unconscious.
Holmes knelt next to Coombs, who was trying to talk. I looked about anxiously for Miriam, but saw no sign of her. She had apparently fled the room while I was dealing with the butler.
I stepped to Holmes’s side; he was cradling the fallen professor’s head in one hand. Coombs looked up at us, and his eyes were filled with a fear I had never before seen, not even in the eyes of men dying on the front lines. “B-behind the house,” he managed. “In the cromlech! Hurry!”
These were his final words, for they were followed by the unmistakable sounds of his death rattle.
Holmes whipped about to face me. “Watson! Does she have the stone?”
I was by this time, I admit, in something of a state of shock. “What?”
“The good-luck piece you sometimes carry!” There was an intensity in his expression that I had never seen before or since. “Does she have it?”
“I—yes. What’s this all about, Holmes?”
But he was already on his feet and rushing for the parlor door. “Out the rear entrance!” He flung back over his shoulder. “Hurry, if you want the world to see another dawn! And bring your revolver!”
Bewildered, and more than a little frightened, I snatched the gun from the butler’s limp grasp and followed.
I left the rear entrance of the house a few steps behind Holmes. It was raining with almost tropical ferocity now, and full night was upon us. A flicker of lightning showed me our destination: A cromlech—an ancient burial mound probably dating back to the Neolithic. Holmes dashed up the winding path and under the shelter of the huge capstone. When I regained his side, he had already struck a match and set aflame a makeshift torch, which was little more than a wooden club with the blunt end wrapped in dry reeds and grasses. By its wavering light I saw it was one of several on the ground before the mound’s entrance. Holmes picked up a second torch, ignited it from his, and handed it to me. “Keep your gun ready,” he whispered. “And pray it will be effective.” With that enigmatic statement he started into the narrow passage.
The ceiling barely allowed us room to walk upright. The walls were drystone, broken occasionally by the darker entrances to several interior burial chambers. The central passage led steeply down, twisting back and forth to mitigate the precipitous descent. I had to swallow more than once to equalize the pressure of my inner ears with that of the tomb’s dank atmosphere.