“Holmes,” said Challenger. “Not that I disagree old chap but you might want to mind your tongue.”
“Wise advice,” said Mitchell, “or one of my friends will bite it off.”
“Very well,” I replied, “let’s get on with whatever lunatic plan you have in mind. Taking over the country? Killing all the no-tails? Installing scratching posts on all street corners?”
Mitchell clenched his piggy little fists but just about managed to stay in control. Unfortunately. It was probably extremely foolish of me but I was intrigued to see him reduced to his animal state.
“Lock them up with their friend,” he said. “We’ll see them on the operating table soon enough.”
“Only a fool would operate on Professor Challenger!” bawled the man himself. “It would be like repainting Ming china.”
“Come along, Professor,” I told him. “There’s time yet to impress your genius upon them.”
We were led through the warehouse and I paid special attention to my surroundings, noting Mitchell’s equipment and how many creatures we had to contend with. On the latter point, things were not far from my desultory comment to Mitchell. For all his grand talk, he was little more than a crackpot with dangerous pets. Once Mycroft arrived, we’d certainly have no problem in handling them.
We passed his surgery and I slowed my pace in order to take in as much detail as I could. The rest of the warehouse had been—much like Mitchell’s brain—little more than empty chambers littered with animal faeces—this was a hive of order and efficiency.
“You admire my laboratory, Mr Holmes?” he asked, noticing my attention.
“It is at least lacking in bones and straw compared to the rest of your home from home,” I replied and took the opportunity to walk in and have a quick look around.
“Come away from there!” he shouted. “You’ll see it soon enough when you’re underneath my knife!”
I stepped out and he made a considerable show of locking the door behind me. I continued along the passageway to the room that was to be our gaol cell.
Mitchell unlocked the door, threw it open and shouted at us to enter.
We did so with no more complaint.
“Holmes?” said the welcome voice of my Watson. “I might have hoped to see you on better terms.”
“Ah!” I replied. “Is that you, Watson? Not the most convivial of surroundings is it?”
“Damned disgrace,” Challenger shouted. “Treated like a blasted animal!”
“If only his intentions were that kind,” said Watson.
He proceeded to tell us of the fate of Lord Newman, a further depressing note to the case. Not only had it descended into nothing more interesting than the hunt for a lunatic, that lunatic had already managed to kill his most distinguished captive. Well, second most distinguished.
“I can’t really see a way out of our situation,” continued the ever-fretful Watson. “He has an army of those beasts to fight against, we’re outnumbered, overpowered and trapped here in the dark.”
“I know,” I told him, with a smile that he could not hope to see in the darkness. “I’ve got him just where I want him!”
Which is when Carruthers started blowing the place up, providing a most exemplary distraction.
“I don’t suppose anyone has anything long and thin I might use to pick the lock?” I asked.
“Pick the lock,” shouted Challenger. “What for?”
There was a resounding crack and the door swung open. I walked out, glancing at the imprint of his size fourteen boot on the paintwork. “You’ve been in Peru recently I perceive,” I mentioned, noting the highly unusual colour of the clay deposit he left an inch to the right of the lock.
“Indeed,” he replied, “it was much nicer than this damnable place.”
“Then let us take our leave.”
INSPECTOR MANN
Walking back out into the warehouse was an assault on our senses. The explosions continued and the animals were in a wild panic, screaming and howling as they ran to and fro trying to escape the loud noise and hails of brick.
“My first London investigation,” I said, “and I’ll be blown up before I see the end of it.”
“Sorry to have dragged you into this,” said Watson, over-thinking things as usual.
“Don’t worry,” I told him, “at least it will save me having to do the paperwork.”
“What have you done?” Mitchell was screaming. “What have you done?”
He ran to the laboratory, Holmes and I hard on his heels.
There was a roar from the end of the corridor and Kane stood there, his mouth wide open as he growled his animal hatred at us.
“Gun!” shouted Watson. Holmes, not even breaking his stride, threw his revolver to him and darted into the laboratory after Mitchell.
“Stand down!” Watson shouted, pointing the gun at Kane. “Or I’ll drop you where you stand.”
Suddenly the wall to his left cracked as another explosion took its effect. He fell to his right, the gun tumbling from his hands.
“Watson!” Leaving Holmes, I ran to help him but the explosions had taken their toll on the structure of the old warehouse and the crack in the wall was only the beginning. With a soft crunch, the ceiling sagged and before I could get to the fallen doctor, there was a hail of bricks and plaster as the lot came caving in before me. “Watson!”
“He’s a goner, man,” said Challenger behind me. “If the bricks didn’t get him, that damned dog soon will.”
The passageway was impassable, we were sealed in and Watson was sealed out.
HOLMES
Mitchell ran straight towards his laboratory and I could only assume he had something in there he considered potent enough to help him regain the upper hand. I therefore felt it best to follow.
He struggled with the keys as the explosions rang out throughout the warehouse, but wrestled the door open and dashed inside.
I noticed Kane appear at the end of the hallway. I really didn’t have the enthusiasm to be able to deal with both of them. Isn’t it precisely for situations like this that you come in company?
“Gun!” Watson shouted and I took great pleasure in throwing it to him as I continued in my pursuit of Mitchell. Behind me I was aware of the collapse of part of the ceiling and wall, hardly surprising given the age of the building. I’d placed the majority of it at close to a hundred-and-twenty years old, though some of the bricks had dated from as far back as 1763. Given the temperature of the last few winters and the fact that the place had not been looked after for some years, it must have been fragile indeed. I wasn’t aware that part of it had fallen on Watson. After all, I can hardly be expected to notice everything.
“Come now, Mitchell,” I said, stepping into the doorway of his laboratory. “There’s no earthly use in running, we have reinforcements on the way.”
“Who says I’m running?” he replied, grabbing a hypodermic syringe.
“This is a concentrated dose of my serum,” he explained, rolling up his sleeve, “a chemical capable of turning me into a creature far more powerful than the rest of your pathetic species.”
“Up until it kills you,” I reminded him.
“Not me,” he insisted, plunging the needle into his arm, “I’m too strong, I will develop! I will evolve!” He began to swell, his skin reddening. It was almost as if his madness was taking on physical shape, turning him into a flesh and bone illustration of his own anger and violence. The pig cowl stretched and distorted as his head continue to expand beneath it. The veins were rising on his forearms, blue lines as thick and jumbled as a map of the Underground trains.