It was my turn to nod. Affection. At least Holmes allowed me to cling to whatever shreds of self-respect I might still have.
“I could tell that something in her had changed since you knew her. Her attitude was distant, even though she smiled and spoke politely; I ascertained an ulterior motive. She showed no real surprise when I announced our destination, merely questioning the reasoning that led me to the conclusion. It was obvious she already knew the identity of Professor Coombs.”
“Then why involve us at all? Why not proceed directly to his house?”
“She needed two things from us. The first was the meteorite stone you carried. The vibratory rate of the elements that compose it was a necessary part of the ritual. The second was a means to combat any opposition the late professor might have mounted against her. He had anticipated some kind of attempt to claim the manuscript, even though he wasn’t sure what form it would take.”
“This still seems like madness to me,” I said wearily. “Magic books . . . a woman possessed by an ancient spirit . . .”
“Not magic, Watson. My researches have made clear to me that the powers of the Old Ones were based on science, albeit science far in advance of ours. There are theories that concern the possibilities of different realities stacked side by side with our own, like a deck of cards. And these realities, by invocation of certain forces, might be merged. I believe that is what the thing that had assumed Miriam Shah’s identity was attempting—to sunder the boundary between our world and another.” He paused, then added, “I believe her personality had been completely subsumed by the other consciousness. Perhaps you can console yourself by knowing that the animus of the woman you knew was already gone.”
I nodded. I understood—I even believed it, absurd as it all sounded. Still, I felt none the better for knowing that I had killed, not Miriam, but instead a being which had usurped her identity for its own foul purposes. Holmes tells me that the strange vortex that had started to form in the chamber while the thing—I cannot call it “Miriam”—was performing the rite had vanished when the ritual was interrupted. But even the knowledge that we had saved our world from infestation by an enemy from outside was cold comfort. The bullet had ripped through my own heart as surely as it had hers.
Perhaps Holmes was right in his theory that Miriam’s essence had been extinguished before she came to London. But I will still take with me to my own grave the expression of hurt and betrayal on her face as the bullet fired by my hand drained the life from her on that damp cavern floor.
As I fought for composure a flash of recollection came to me: an image of Holmes standing before the altar, torch held high, staring down at that abominable stack of pages. “And what of the Arab’s manuscript, Holmes? What did you do with it?”
He did not speak for a moment. Then he said, “Ancient parchment burns quite well.”
Something odd in the tone of his voice made me glance at him. He was looking out the window. There was nothing to see but the English countryside, a sight that, I knew, usually interested him not in the slightest.
“You destroyed it, then,” I said.
Again the hesitancy. For a moment fear nearly stilled my heart. Then he looked back at me and smiled. “Yes, Watson,” he said, and this time it was the voice of the Sherlock Holmes I knew and trusted. “I put the torch to it. Within seconds there was nothing left of the Kitab al-Azif but ashes. And the world is the better for it.”
I felt immense relief. After all, Holmes prized knowledge above all else, no matter what its source. How long could even his formidable will have resisted such a temptation? He had done the sensible thing, the sane thing, by destroying it.
Holmes looked out the window again. I peered over his shoulder. We were once again passing the bee hives.
“Remarkable creatures, bees,” Holmes murmured. “Each one a part of a greater whole. Every action, every movement and communication orchestrated, ritualized—almost preordained. Fascinating . . .”
The Drowned Geologist
CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN
10 MAY 1898
My Dear Dr. Watson,
At the urgent behest of a mutual acquaintance, Dr. Ogilvey, lately of the British Museum, I am writing you regarding a most singular occurrence which I experienced recently during an extended tour of the Scottish lowlands and the east English coast south on through north Yorkshire. The purpose of my tour was the acquisition of local geological specimens and stratigraphic data for the American Museum here in Manhattan, where I have held a post these last four years. As one man of science writing openly to another, I trust you will receive these words in the spirit in which they are intended; indeed, the only spirit in which I presently know how to couch them: as the truthful and objective testimony of a trained observer and investigator who has borne witness to a most peculiar series of events, which, even now, many months hence, I am yet at a loss to explain. I fear that I must expect you to question the veracity of my story, and no doubt my sanity as well, if you are even half the man of medicine and of science that your reputation has led me to believe. As to why Ogilvey has suggested that I should entrust these facts to you, sir, in particular, that will shortly become quite clear. Moreover, if my voice seems uncertain and strained at times, if my narration seems to falter, please understand that even though the better part of a year has passed since those strange days by the sea, only by the greatest force of will am I able to finally set this account down upon paper.
My travels in your country, which I have already mentioned, began last June with my arrival in Aberdeen after a rather uneventful and regrettably unproductive month spent studying in Germany. Moving overland by coach and locomotive, alone and availing myself always of the most convenient and inexpensive modes of transportation for my often unorthodox purposes, I wandered throughout the full length of June and July, on a course winding crookedly ever southward, across rugged bands of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata, usually exposed best, as my luck would have it, along the most inaccessible coastal cliffs and beachheads. So it was that by mid-August, on the morning of the twelfth to be precise, I had worked my way down to Whitby and taken up residence in a small hotel overlooking the harbor.
After the long weeks I’d spent on the road and often on foot, making my way across the rugged countryside, even these modest accommodations seemed positively luxuriant, I can assure you. To have a hot bath at the ready and cooked meals, a roof to keep the rain off one’s head, such little things become an extravagance after only a little time without them. I settled into my single room on Drawbridge Road, excited at the prospect of exploring the ancient, saurian-bearing shales along the shoreline, but also relieved to be out of the dratted weather for a time. A fortnight earlier, I had cabled Sir Elijah Purdy, a fellow of the Geological Society of London and a man with great experience regarding the Liassic strata at Whitby and the fossil bones and mollusca found therein, and he was to meet me no later than the afternoon of the fourteenth, at which time we would begin our planned weeklong survey of the rocks. Meanwhile, I was to examine specimens in the small Whitby Museum on the Quayside, perusing what type specimens of ammonites and reptilia resided in that institution’s collection.