“He is beyond help,” I said to Holmes, then leaped to my feet. “Lady Carthon!”
We raced down the long dark central corridor, all the while my heart dreading what we might find once we reached her room.
“Why are all the candles out?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“I put them out,” said Holmes. “To test my theory.”
I looked to him with confusion, but he offered nothing further.
When we reached the door to Lady Carthon’s chamber, we found it partially open, and the room swathed in darkness. As we entered, I feared that she, too, had fallen prey to this night creature. But when Holmes swept his lantern across the room, the beam fell upon Lady Carthon, lying motionless upon her bed, her hand dangling over the edge, and several glass vials lying on the floor close by.
“Dear God,” I said as I raced to her side, taking up her hand and feeling for her pulse.
Holmes picked up one of the vials and examined it closely, running a finger along the open edge and putting it to his lips.
“The apothecary’s tincture,” he said. “From the number of empty vials here, I’d say she’s swallowed quite a bit of it.”
“A suicide?” I asked.
“It would appear so,” he replied.
I could feel no pulse on her wrist, and moved my hand to her neck. And there, thankfully, I felt the faint beating of her heart.
“She lives!” I said with a mixture of relief and apprehension that she still might succumb, and tried to rouse her, shaking her shoulders quite vigorously.
“Lady Carthon! Lady Carthon! Wake up!”
Holmes grabbed a pitcher of water nearby and splashed some on her face. Finally, she stirred.
“Oh God,” she said softly. “What has happened?”
“You have taken too much sleep medicine,” I said gently, trying not to frighten her.
She looked at me, quite puzzled.
“Do you remember anything?” asked Holmes.
“I remember preparing for bed, as I always do, hoping this would be the night when I finally found sleep. But as I was removing my necklace, my thoughts went to my husband, wishing it was he who had removed it, wishing he were here still, holding me in his arms, and I knew right then I would remain restless another night. I broke down, I think, and took all that remained of the sleeping drug.”
“And then?” said Holmes.
“Nothing. Just the darkness. The horrible, unending darkness. I couldn’t find my way out of the darkness.” She looked up at us then, seeing the blood that covered my hands and my nightclothes. “Dr. Watson, what’s happened? Where is Arthur?”
I could not bring myself to speak, leaving it to Holmes.
“Dead,” was all he said.
She began to sob. “This is all my fault.”
“I think not,” said Holmes. “He was not murdered by your hand.”
“It came for me,” she said, shaking her head from side to side. “In the night. From those hideous dreams.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “The creature came for you?”
“It wanted something from me. That night in January, when the moon went dark. I knew that it wanted something, but God help me, I could not comprehend what. A key, I think. An opening. A doorway to some other place. I could not understand what it wanted. I felt its thoughts, but its language was foreign to me. I begged it to leave me be. But it would not give me a single night’s rest. Each time I tried to close my eyes, each time I allowed myself to be in darkness, it came haunting me again. I warned people. I told them to keep their lights on at night, to avoid the darkness. It feared the light. Hated the light. It came from the darkness, you know, from the void. It traveled a great distance, searching . . .”
“Searching for what?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she said softly.
“Well, it can search no more,” said Holmes, taking up the necklace from where it lay at her bedside. “We have put an end to it.”
We dressed quickly, leaving Carthon on foot as the sun was rising. Looking back at the mansion, we found it a much different place in the day. It had a sadness, a solemnity, which neither sunlight nor lamplight could ever hope to hide. The glowing beacon of light that lit up the previous evening was gone, a dream turned nightmare, and now in the daytime the illusion was replaced by stark, unpleasant reality.
As we walked back to Inswich, I asked Holmes to recount what he had done after he left Mashbourne and me the previous night, and how he had happened to come to my rescue so quickly.
“After I bid the two of you good night,” he said, “I followed Lady Carthon to her room, making sure she had put herself safely away for the evening. When you and Mashbourne adjourned to your rooms, I began to put out the lights, moving from the far eastern side of the manor to the west. I was hoping to call out this thing, to confront it, to ascertain whether it really existed at all. That is when I heard it—”
“The beast that nearly killed me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “I heard a terrible crash, from Mashbourne’s room. I lit my lantern and raced to him, but it was too late. Then I went immediately to summon you. Finding the door locked, I proceeded to shoulder it open.”
“And I am most grateful that you did, my friend.”
“I’m sorry, Watson. I had not expected you both to put out your lights. I had instructed you not to.”
“Force of habit, old man,” I said. “Not your fault at all.”
“I should have anticipated that possibility,” he said. “I should have been more forceful in my instructions. Perhaps it was my own fatigue, but I did not think the beast would act so murderously.”
“I still don’t understand why you believed the stories of this creature. They sounded most preposterous to me.”
“I could only conjecture, Watson,” he replied.
“But how could you even guess?” I said, trying to comprehend his reasoning.
“First, there was the fact that no one could offer any other cause, or medical explanation, for such a widespread epidemic of sleeplessness. A hysterical condition did not seem out of the question at first. No doubt the lady’s warnings put everyone on edge. And the soporific had me a bit confused as well, I must admit, for it seemed that when it was first administered, the citizens did sleep through the night, but their symptoms soon returned. And after hearing tales of a creature from so many, seeing the child’s drawing, and sensing the carriage driver’s dread of this place, I began to suspect there was more truth than superstition to these stories.
“But it was Mashbourne himself who finally convinced me. He saw the body of Captain Carthon. He said it did not look to him like he was murdered by grave robbers, but mutilated by some wild animal.”
“And you think it was the same creature that killed Mashbourne?”
“The very same.”
“But why?”
“For this,” said Holmes, pulling Lady Carthon’s necklace out of his pocket.
“The necklace?” I said.
“Not the necklace,” said Holmes. “The stone on the necklace.”
I looked at what he held in his hand. In the daylight, it seemed merely a black rock, the obsidian trinket of some long-dead Egyptian. Yet when I stared at it awhile, Holmes had to call my name loudly to regain my attention.
“This is the key that Lady Carthon spoke of?” I asked.
“I believe so, Watson,” he said. “As I listened to her talk about the creature, about what it seemed to be after, I recalled something I had read in a dark text, rarely mentioned, written by a mad Arab, about objects that act as windows on the void, objects older than this earth, which lay buried in lightless crypts built by long-forgotten pharaohs.”
“Not forgotten long enough,” I said, still transfixed by the black stone. “So this is what got Captain Carthon murdered?”