“Did you say something, Holmes?”
But, as I looked round, I saw him raise a finger to his lips. His brows were drawn together into hard lines and those sharp grey eyes were focused like none I have ever seen in another human being. He was straining to hear the sounds that were coming from Steel.
The man was not fully conscious and I could swear that he was not aware of our presence. Whatever he was trying to impart was something that was possessing him. I leaned forward in unconscious imitation of Holmes’s posture and heard what sounded like — “Not a Court but a House … not a Pack but a House.”
Now, as I leaned further forward, the light from the lantern played on Steel’s face and I saw the most surprising thing. He was wearing one of those false beards and moustaches that are commonly sold by theatrical costumiers. Someone had obviously hooked it on to him after settling him in the chair and his struggles, feeble though they may have been, had caused it to slip to one side, giving him what should have been a faintly ridiculous air — an air that ought to have been compounded by the tall felt hat with a rakish plume that had been jammed on to his head. Instead, the effect was unsettling, as though the man were shedding one identity and assuming another before our eyes.
Suddenly I heard a crashing noise from somewhere at the back of the house and Holmes sprang forward with a cry.
“Lestrade! What was I thinking of? We must stop him, Watson, before it is too late.”
“Too late for what?” I shouted as I followed him through the maze of rooms back to the hall way by which we had gained access to this house of illusion. In seconds we passed through cultures and centuries, as room gave way to room.
“I very much fear that Moriarty has set the spring which, through my blockheadedness, is about to be sprung.”
We were now literally running and I cursed my own lack of fitness. Ahead of me Holmes burst into the entrance hall, where Lestrade and half a dozen uniformed men were now pushing through the wreckage that had been the front door of Royston Court.
“Lestrade! You must not …”
Holmes shouted but Lestrade put up a patronising hand before my friend could reach him. “Don’t you worry now, Mr. ’Olmes. Scotland Yard is here to take care of things.”
Now I saw what Holmes and I had both missed in the gloom. Opposite the open front door, but slightly to one side of it and now clearly illuminated by the lights from the street outside, and the lanterns of Lestrade’s men, was another door. My sense of the geography of the place told me that it had to lead into what I had by now classified as the Satanic Chamber. Even as he spoke, two of Lestrade’s burlier men took a run at the door, which gave way at the impact of sturdy official shoulders.
By this time I had caught up with Holmes and heard his defeated sigh as the room was suddenly revealed in all its barbaric splendour. There was Alicia and — heaven be praised — she was beginning to stir. There was Steel and again the sight of him brought a flash of memory that was gone almost before it registered.
I heard Lestrade say — “Hello, what ‘ave we here?”—and then, in front of our eyes, Steel disappeared. The ground beneath him literally opened up and swallowed him.
There was absolute silence. The look on Lestrade’s face as it turned in our direction was a picture to behold. “But Mr. ’Olmes …”
“I think you will find a mechanism linking the opening of the main doors of the room with a trapdoor under the square on which our friend Steel was carefully placed. As you will notice, freed of his weight, it has now returned to its original position. Don’t blame yourself unduly, Lestrade. We were not meant to take him alive, so that he could tell us his side of the story. If you had not triggered it, one of us most certainly would have. Unless I am very much mistaken, the main sewer runs directly under this house into the river. I doubt we shall see the poor devil again until the tides see fit to return him to us.”
“But what about Alicia — Miss Creighton?” I said for Lestrade’s benefit.
In answer Holmes walked straight into the room and across the arcane mosaics until he was by Alicia’s side.
“What are you doing, Holmes?” I shouted, expecting to see the ground open up beneath them at any second.
“Don’t worry, old fellow.” Holmes was almost amused at my display of concern. “This kind of mechanism is employed for a specific purpose and that purpose has been accomplished. Notice where Steel was sitting. In relation to the other symbols he was in the locus of the satanic sacrifice. It would be most unlikely the room would be equipped for more than one. And now, as I see Miss Creighton seems to be recovering consciousness and, as you are the one with the medical qualifications, I believe this is your department.”
Before he had finished speaking I was at Alicia’s side and unfastening the ropes that bound her to the chair. Moments later I had carried her to what I still considered the relative safety of the main hallway and placed her on one of the few chairs. By now her eyelids were fluttering and when her eyes finally did open, I was glad to be the first person she saw.
“John,” she said and her hand gripped mine. “I knew the two of you would find me …” She forced a smile, “I just wasn’t sure you’d find me alive.”
Then some memory of the recent horrors seemed to seize her and her grip on my hand tightened.
“It was a nightmare,” she said, her eyes widening but unseeing, as she looked into that second Chamber of Horrors we had seen in recent days. “He still looked like Moxton but it was if you were seeing someone else emerge who had been using his body.”
There was no need to ask whom she meant by ‘he’.
“He knew I’d been to see you and Mr. Holmes and he guessed why. Don’t ask me how he knew — but he knew. From that moment his manner towards me changed completely and he had me watched. If I wanted to go out for a walk, he’d have one of those strange foreign men accompany me. He said it was for my protection. The town was not safe with all these terrorists about. At one point I lost my temper and said his men were more than enough to terrorise any terrorist. But he just laughed a horrible cold laugh and said he must protect his ‘investment’, I think he called it. I was a prisoner, that’s all there was to it.”
“And what about Steel?” I asked, while I tried to chafe some warmth back into those little hands.
“Something terrible seemed to happen to change everything,” she went on. “Last night I was awakened by a terrible commotion. Doors banging. Men shouting and cursing. Most of the excitement seemed to be centered around his study. I crept out of my room. For the last several days he’d left a man on guard in the corridor but whatever was happening had obviously distracted him. I was able to get close enough to listen through the door that someone had left ajar.”
The memory of it all seemed to agitate her afresh and I tried to tell her that there was plenty of time to tell her story later but she would have none of it.
“No, no, don’t you see, John, I may know something or have heard something that you and Mr. Holmes need to know — something I may not even be aware of?”
Calming herself, she continued. “I could hear that one of the voices was Steel’s. At first he seemed angry and seemed to be pounding the table.”
She was describing precisely the scene young Wiggins had spied on from the window.
“But then Moxton — or Moriarty or whoever that devil is — began to speak. He spoke in a cold hard voice that was too soft for me to hear but whatever he said, it reduced Steel to silence. I risked a quick look through the crack of the door and I swear he was shivering. Then I heard Moxton say something about iron being brittle. Just then there was a noise at the window.”