Encounters of Sherlock Holmes Part 9

Upon our return, a fugue-like state settles on my companion as the deep contemplation needed to unwrap this ghastly conundrum begins. We exchange few words before Holmes retreats into himself and indulges in habits I would rather not be privy to.

I retire to my quarters and, despite my fear, try to bring to mind every detail of that night. The sheer strength of this misshapen man, his obvious and terrible injuries, his seemingly impervious nature, or un-nature-I am at a loss to explain it, especially the latter. At the time I wonder if I am in fact mistaken, that my shot went wide of the mark; my colleague's too. Certainly, there is a great deal I bring into question about my understanding of science and nature on account of this night. Holmes is not only a champion of the law, he is a champion of enlightenment, of science and reason. I am his able batman, I am not too proud to admit, as well as a subscriber to the same beliefs. But what we witnessed defied our logical creed and threatened to bring it burning down around us.

Sleep, when it comes that night, is fitful and fraught with images of a giant patchwork man, glowering from the shadows, resurrected from the grave.

The next morning I cannot rouse Holmes from whatever drug-induced torpor he has inflicted upon himself. Perforce, I keep an appointment I had made with the physician conducting the autopsy on the poor, unfortunate wretch we discovered in Brick Lane.

A walk in the fog-laden day does little to banish the demons plaguing my nocturnal hours, but I feel a measure of calm return. London's warts are ugly to behold in the naked light of the sun, as is its dirt and squalor-but they are at least entirely corporeal, rational things and I find the solidity of that rea.s.sures me.

The visit to the attending physician is of little import, so I will not recount the details of it here. Most saliently, I discover the victim's name is Bartholomew Sh.e.l.ley. Upon inspection of his internal organs, the viscera and other matter also found on Brick Lane are determined not to belong to the man, thus suggesting a second victim.

According to Lestrade's investigations, Sh.e.l.ley is a chemist and owns property in the vicinity of where his headless body was discovered. Several chemicals are noted in the autopsy, the evidence of which is found on his clothes, fingertips, even his hair. I catalogue mercury, antimony and a.r.s.enical salts; charcoal, clay and ethanol, all of which are or could be used in the process of embalming.

Despite all of this additional information, I am no closer to understanding the grotesque man, although his candidacy for the role of murderer has been greatly enhanced. My intention is to take all of this to Holmes, but by the time I return to our lodgings he is no longer there and a note remains in his stead with instructions to meet him at an address in London.

I take a carriage and do just that.

Late into the afternoon, I arrive in Southwark and the somewhat forbiddingly named Ossory Road. According to Holmes' directions I am in the right place, standing in front of a dishevelled building which looks as if it hasn't been occupied for some time. A notice for public demolition is pinned to the door.

I am about to knock when a shuttered window on the second floor opens and my colleague leans out, a distinct cloud of dust billowing free behind him.

"It's neither locked nor barred, Watson," he says, and promptly disappears again.

With little other recourse, I wrench open the door and am conveyed up to the second floor by a flight of worn and rickety stairs. Through a second door, I emerge into a room that has every appearance of a study. It is a closeted s.p.a.ce, festooned with nook and cranny, antechambers and shadow-swathed corridors. There is one desk, fully laden, and a great many bookcases and gla.s.s cabinets.

"Holmes?" I enquire, not seeing my colleague amongst the raft of books, papers and academic materials. He surfaces from behind a stack of volumes dedicated to anatomy, chemistry and thanatology amongst other more esoteric subject matter.

"Glad you could join me, Watson," he says, a fat bell jar held aloft in one hand as he examines it in what little light penetrates the grimy window.

Coughing up some of the dust from my lungs, I say, "Join you in what, Holmes? What is this place? And why are we here?"

"August Wilhelm von Hofmann," he replies, failing to elucidate me.

My frown evidently spurs a more detailed response as Holmes brandishes the bell jar, a briny-looking liquid sloshing within.

"Formaldehyde," he adds. "A solution used in the process of embalming. Von Hofmann's invention." Holmes smiles as if indulging an indolent child. "A better question, Doctor, would be to whom does this domicile belong?"

Outside, the sun is dipping below the London horizon and with the coming of the dark I feel the slightest resonance of the previous night's anxiety.

Distracted, I answer, "I have no idea."

"Look around, John," he says, setting down the bell jar so he can encompa.s.s the room with the spreading of his arms, "and tell me what you see."

My brow wrinkling further, I do as he requests.

"Books, papers, beakers, jars, vials... dust," I add, ruefully "No, no, no," Holmes impatiently snaps. "Those are all objects in this room as any fool with eyes can perceive. Tell me what you see."

I look again, and at first notice nothing further, but then a pattern begins to form in the madness. At first, I merely thought the place to be untidy, forgotten and left to decay, but that wasn't true.

"It has been ransacked," I say, touring the small study.

"More..." Holmes cajoles, patiently following in my stead.

I see a recent paper, some damage to one of the many bookcases that looks fresh and a smashed beaker, the gla.s.s crunching underfoot.

"Someone has been living here, but not the owner. He left long ago," I say, pausing by a stack of scientific journals un.o.bscured by the dust which is ubiquitous throughout the rest of this abode. "These are a much more recent addition." I see a treatise by von Hofmann; a paper written by Frederik Ruysch; another in Russian, which I cannot read but am able to discern its author as a Ilya Mechnikov.

A quiet moment of contemplation settles in, so, belatedly, I recall my conversation with the physician and reach for my notebook.

"I met with the physician conducting the autopsy and discovered that the victim's name was -"

"Bartholomew Sh.e.l.ley," says Holmes. "A backstreet chemist and former a.s.sociate of one J.G. Utterson." He produces a yellowed piece of paper from his breast pocket and brandishes it with aplomb. "A receipt for services rendered, I believe. One that the unfortunate Mr Sh.e.l.ley had concealed about his person and which I liberated during my examination of the body."

"And you felt that was unworthy of Lestrade's attention?"

Holmes returns the paper to his pocket. "The good inspector has enough to deal with without adding this to his already challenged and overworked mind."

By now, the light outside the window has all but disappeared and Holmes ignites the oil lamps in the room to provide some meagre illumination.

"Very well," I say, not entirely in agreement, adding, "But that is not all I learned. There were chemicals found on the victim's body common with the process of -"

"Embalming," Holmes interrupts again, prompting me to fold my arms in exasperated consternation.

"If you already knew all of this then what was the point of my visit to the autopsy physician?"

"What indeed, good Doctor, but no matter; we are here now, if a little behind speed."

I am about to protest again but see no point in it, opting for a different tack.

"Who, then, is this J.G. Utterson? The owner of this hovel?"

"No. He is, in fact, a lawyer who uncovered the deeds to this 'hovel', including the ident.i.ty of its previous owner, and then granted access to our now-headless Bartholomew Sh.e.l.ley."

I am still, at this point, nonplussed. "So who was the previous owner and how is this relevant to our murder?"

Night having now fallen, the shadows have deepened in the room, the paltry light from the oil lamps doing little to lift the gloom.

"One Victor Frankenstein," Holmes declares, and in that moment of revelation I feel a creeping dread up my spine as a solemn voice issues from the back of the room.

"He was my father..."

It was a grave rasp, a deep and forbidding cadence best left to the darkest corners of the mind.

Surprised, I turn to face the speaker and am confronted with the same diabolic image as we saw in the alleyway next to the waterworks.

The grotesque, the giant man is here!

"Holmes, get behind me!" I shout, pulling out my gun, though more to bolster my courage than in the hope it could actually protect us from this monster.

Holmes raises his hand, his eyes on the lumpen silhouette at the back of the room.

"A secret pa.s.sage," he says, and I am unsure if he is making a statement or asking the grotesque. To me, he adds, "Put down your gun, Watson. It will not avail us here."

I hesitate, gauging the distance to the door and Holmes' distance from the man.

"Down, if you please?" Holmes requests calmly a second time, while beckoning the man forward.

I raise my gun anyway, unconvinced of our safety at this point.

"Holmes, what are you doing?"

"If he meant us harm he would have done so already," Holmes replies. "And I do not think that is why you were following us," he addresses the man.

To call it such would be a gross dereliction of the term, for as it steps forward into the wan lamplight, we see it fully revealed for the first time.

It is... a monster, in the truest sense of the word. Large and lumpen, grotesquely muscled, it has st.i.tches running across its face, bisecting its ugly visage. Now I look closer, I see the pale and wasted texture of its flesh, the mismatched nature of its limbs. A crude metal brace attached to its left leg reveals the source of the sc.r.a.pe I heard and the limp I saw the previous night. It is rank, this "man", a thing not created by natural means but fashioned through some devilish artifice; hubris given form.

I recall the terrible plight and malformation of Joseph Carey Merrick when I visited London Hospital as part of a delegation of medical professionals invited to comment and theorise on the poor man's condition. His affliction was horrifying and evinced an equal sense of dread and pity, but this creature before me is far worse and I can find no empathy for it.

But as it stands before us in the half-light, its head bowed, eyes unblinking, I do wonder if there is a mote of humanity contained within its patchwork frame.

"Remarkable," says Holmes, absorbing the full horror of the creature. "Victor Frankenstein was a doctor who hailed from Geneva, one of dubious reputation. Are you asking us to believe you are his offspring?"

The creature nods, slowly and forlornly like a dog that has taken one too many beatings.

"He was my father," it says again, "my creator."

Holmes draws closer and I am about to warn him off again, but the creature makes no move, no threat.

I lower the gun.

"A simulacrum of a man, fashioned from the concomitant parts of other men," says Holmes, walking around the grotesque creature in our midst.

"I am a man!" declares the monster, a sudden apoplexy filling it as it snarls through rotten teeth and clenches its club-like fists.

Holmes takes a backward step; I, a forward one with pistol extended once more.

"The gun, Watson!" says my colleague. "Down, if you please."

Reluctantly, I obey, but keep it close at hand just in case.

The creature calms down, but I cannot calm the thunderous refrain of my heart. I feel Holmes must be similarly afflicted but masks it expertly.

"Tell us then," I demand, "what are you doing here and why are you following us?"

As it shifts its dead gaze to me, I fight every instinct not to flinch before it. As if I am facing off against a feral dog, I give no quarter and try to establish my dominance.

"These are my father's lodgings, his study," the creature explains, "but they have been defiled, as have his works."

"You," I say, "are his works."

"They are much more than that," it retorts, and I am surprised by its obvious intellect and capacity for cognisance; surprised and, at the same time, disturbed. "I am not the scientist my father was, I cannot create life, though I dearly wish I could. I came here seeking to learn how, after all of my father's work at home was destroyed. But someone discovered this place and took it for themselves."

"And you were driven to the sewers, the only safe place for a man as unique as you," says Holmes.

The creature nods again. "Yes. I will not stand by and let my father's works be perverted by those who would see them turned towards ill."

"Was this why you killed Bartholomew Sh.e.l.ley?" I ask, my tone accusing. "Is perverting your father's works excuse enough for murder?"

It roars and, despite its intelligent veneer, Holmes and I are reminded of the monster this thing truly is. "No! I do not kill. I will not. I have seen enough of that to last several lifetimes. But the man you speak of is involved in this." It turns to Holmes then, a doleful look in its eyes. "Please, help me put a stop to this."

"A stop to what?" I cry. "Holmes, what is the meaning of all of this?"

Holmes does not answer me. Instead, he regards the creature as if measuring the veracity of its words and declaration.

"For certain there is perfidy of a most unique and horrifying stripe afoot here," he says. "You wish us to help you track down the man responsible for perverting your father's works? I believe I know where he is to be found, and furthermore," he adds, looking askance at me, "I believe we will discover the ident.i.ty of Bartholomew Sh.e.l.ley's murderer at the same time. We have already met him, Watson," he states, now looking directly and only at me.

"We have?"

"Indeed. Not far from here is Greenland Dock, one of several yards in close proximity, but with one pertinent difference."

"I'm afraid I don't follow, Holmes."

"You will, Watson. You will."

I turn sharply, noting a sudden change in the room. The monster has gone, evaporated into the shadows like so much London fog.

"How is that even possible?" I ask, and make for the back of the room, where the creature must have retreated, until Holmes puts out a hand to stop me.

"You won't find him, John, and I think pursuit at this point would be most unwise." He is staring straight ahead, but pats my shoulder and concludes, "Our destination is Greenland Dock and the resolution of this most disturbing case, I think. Come!"

We leave the study of the departed Dr Victor Frankenstein as we found it. Bartholomew Sh.e.l.ley or his employers are not coming back, and neither is the creature. As we emerge onto the streets again, I imagine it travelling the sewers beneath and wonder where its path will end up leading us. I am not to wait long for my answer.

Holmes is checking his pistol as I catch up to him at the edge of Greenland Dock and, more specifically, the block of warehouses appended to it. One in particular has my colleague's undivided attention.

"A tannery?" I ask.

"Even a cursory examination of the sadly deceased Bartholomew Sh.e.l.ley would have revealed his background in chemistry, specifically his recent predilection for embalming. However, a much more detailed a.n.a.lysis, such as that which I was able to conduct while inspecting the dead man's apparent rigor mortis, would reveal an additional chemical concealed by the compound of the others." Now he turns to me, a satisfied and beaming smile broadening his face, and says, "Tannin, my dear doctor."

"Tannin?"