“Therefore, you studied Miss Claudine Millwood when you questioned Mrs. Barstow?”
“That I did, sir. In this case, as I spoke to the widow, I also took careful note of the direction of Miss Millwood’s eye-line. When I mentioned Mr. Barstow by name the woman’s gaze became unfocused, yet directed slightly downward and some degrees off center to her left. Trust me, Watson, how we arrange our limbs and direct our gaze reveals volumes to the competent observer.”
“Therefore you could glean her unspoken thoughts?”
“To a degree. The direction of her gaze and the unfocused eyes told me that Miss Millwood was in the process of recalling a memory that is not only secret to her, but one she knew would shock or revolt right-minded individuals. That was enough to arouse my suspicions.”
“And you divined this by reading the eye-line? Remarkable!”
“Just as you, a medical man, can diagnose an illness from subtle symptoms. Moreover! The woman couldn’t bear to hear her own sister reveal that private, intimate name, which, once upon a time, she murmured into her husband’s ear. A name that Claudine Millwood did not know.”
“Millwood was in love with her sister’s husband?”
“Without a shadow of doubt. Whether that love was reciprocated or not we don’t know.”
“And during the years Barstow lay in that iron tomb the love grew.”
“Indeed! The love grew—and it grew malignantly. That obsessive love took on a life of its own. Millwood projected thoughts from her own mind into the telephone apparatus. She imitated the late Mr. Barstow.”
“Why didn’t she want us to venture down here?”
“That would have destroyed the fantasy. We would have returned to the surface, but not, however, with an account of finding a handsome young man full of miraculous life, still trapped within the diving bell. No! We would have returned with the grim fact that we gazed upon a shrivelled corpse.” Holmes snapped his fingers. “We would have ruptured the fantasy. The woman has incredible mental powers, certainly—yet she is quite mad.”
“So she killed the crew of the Castor yesterday?”
“In order to prevent them describing what we, ourselves, now see.”
“Holmes, Captain Smeaton claimed they were frightened to death.”
“Miss Millwood will have conjured some terrible chimera, no doubt.”
“And the shadow that attacked us as we descended?”
“Millwood.”
“Then she won’t allow us to return to the surface?”
“No, Watson. She will not.”
“Therefore, she won’t stop at yet more slayings to keep her fantasy alive—that Barstow is immortal?”
“Indubitably. However, we do have recourse to the telephone.” He picked up the handset.
“But the woman fell in a dead faint. I checked her myself; she’s deeply unconscious.”
“My good doctor, I don’t doubt your assessment. However, recall the essays of Freud and Jung. Aren’t the leviathans of deep waters nothing in comparison to those leviathans of our own subconscious?”
Holmes turned the handle of the telephone apparatus. At that precise instant, a dark shape sped through the field of electric light. This time the walls didn’t impede its progress. A monstrous shadow flowed through the iron casing of the diving bell. Instantly it engulfed us. We could barely breathe as tendrils of darkness slipped into our bodies, seeking to occupy every nerve and sinew.
“Watson, I am mistaken! The woman’s attacks are far more visceral than I anticipated.”
“She’s invading the heart. Those men died of heart failure. Ah . . . ” A weight appeared to settle onto my ribs. Breathing became harder. My heart thudded, labouring under the influence of that malign spirit. “Holmes, you must tell the . . . the captain to distract her. Her flow of unconscious thought must be disrupted.”
Holmes grimaced as he struggled to breathe. “A shock . . . how best to administer a shock?”
“Electricity.”
With a huge effort Holmes spoke into the telephone. “Captain Smeaton. Ah . . . I . . . ”
“Mr. Holmes?”
“Listen. We will soon be dead. Do as I say . . . uh . . . don’t question . . . do you understand?”
“I understand.” The man’s voice was assured. He would obey.
“Is Millwood there?”
“Yes, she’s still unconscious.”
“Then rip the power cables from an electrical appliance. Apply the live wire to her temple.”
“Mr. Holmes?”
“Do it, man . . . otherwise you haul up two more corpses!”
Then came a wait of many moments. Indeed, a long time seemed to pass. I could no longer move. The shadowy presence coiled about the interior of the diving bell as if it were black smoke. We sagged on the bench, our heartbeats slowing all the time. Another moment passed, another nudge toward death. That shadow was also inside of us, impressing itself on the nerves of the heart.
All of a sudden, a woman’s piercing scream erupted from the earpiece of the telephone. Immediately, thereafter, Captain Smeaton thundered: “Damn you, man, I’ve done as you asked. But you’ve made me into a torturer!”
Instantly, the oppression of my cardiac system lifted. I breathed easily again.
Holmes was once more his vigorous self. “No, Captain. You are no torturer. You are our savior.”
I leaned toward the telephone in order to ask, “Is she alive?”
“Yes, Dr. Watson. In fact, the electrical shock has roused her.”
The black shadow in the cabin dissipated. I heaved a sigh of relief as I sensed that entity dispel its atoms into the surrounding waters. The diving bell gave a lurch. And it began to rise from the sea bed. The ocean turned lighter. Black gave way to purple, then to blue. Holmes, however, appeared to suddenly descend into an abyss of melancholy.
“We’re safe, Holmes. And the mystery is solved.”
He nodded.
“Then why, pray, are you so downcast?”
“Watson. I didn’t reveal the purpose of my trip to Cornwall. I came here to visit an old friend. You see, his six-year-old daughter is grievously ill. No, I am disingenuous to even myself. The truth of the matter is this: she is dying.”
“I am very sorry to hear that, Holmes. But how did that sad state of affairs bring you to investigate this case of the diving bell?”
“An act of desperation on my part.” He rested his fingertips together; his eyes became distant. “When I heard the seemingly miraculous story that a man had been rendered somehow immortal I raced here. It occurred to me that Barstow in his diving bell had stumbled upon a remarkable place on the ocean bed that had the power to keep death at bay.”
“And you came here for the sake of the little girl?”
“Yes, Watson, but what did I find? A woman who has the power to project a sick fantasy from her mind and cause murder. For a few short hours I had truly believed I might have a distinct chance of saving little Edith’s life. However . . . ” He gave a long, grave sigh. “Alas, Watson. Alas . . . ”
Simon Clark has been a professional author for more than fifteen years. When his first novel, Nailed by the Heart, made it through the slush pile in 1994 he banked the advance and embarked upon his dream of becoming a full-time writer. Many dreams and nightmares later he wrote the cult horror-thriller Blood Crazy, and other novels including Death’s Dominion, Vengeance Child, and The Night of the Triffids, which continues the story of John Wyndham’s classic The Day of the Triffids. Simon’s latest novel is a return to his much-loved Vampyrrhic mythology with His Vampyrrhic Bride. Simon lives with his family in the atmospheric, legend-haunted county of Yorkshire. His website is www.nailedbytheheart.com.