Sherlock Holmes-The Army of Doctor Moreau
Also by Guy Adams and available from Titan Books:
Sherlock Holmes: The Breath of God
COMING SOON:
Deadbeat: Makes You Stronger
The Army of Dr Moreau
G
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A
DAMS
T
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B
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Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr Moreau
Print edition ISBN: 9780857689337
E-book edition ISBN: 9780857689344
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: July 2012
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Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
Guy Adams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. Copyright © 2012 by Guy Adams.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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Printed and bound in the USA.
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To James Goss, who will wash it down with cava and cat hair.
Part One: Mystery in Rotherhithe
Part Three: The Terrible Father
Part Four: The Pig-Headed Villain
Part Five: Into the Lion’s Den
Part Six: The Army Of Dr Moreau
“Children of the Law,” I said, “(Moreau) is not dead … He has changed his shape—he has changed his body … For a time you will not see him. He is … there—” I pointed upward “—where he can watch you. You cannot see him.
But he can see you. Fear the Law.”
Edward Prendick in
The Island of Dr Moreau,
H.G. Wells
A M
YSTERY IN
R
OTHERHITHE
CHAPTER ONE
Writers are surrounded by editors. If there is one thing I have learned in my time working on these stories, it is that.
I have always tried to be an honest chronicler, adhering to the facts wherever legally and morally possible. I’ve shuffled things around, presented events in the most dramatic order, clarified dialogue and trimmed the wandering up and down flower beds and gravel driveways to a bare minimum. These reports are intended to be exciting after all, and my editor at
The Strand
will soon tell me if I run the risk of boring his readers to death.
Editors, you see? They always want to steer the ship, no matter whose hand is on the tiller.
And what of Holmes? Certainly, he’s never slow in offering his opinion. “You are a genius, Watson,” he announced only the other day. “To be able to remove every aspect of interest from a case so fascinating as that of the Hamilton Cannibals is astonishing. Every deduction, every piece of analysis—all sacrificed to scenes of you
swooning over Lady Clara and chasing around Kent with your service revolver. Perhaps it’s time these tales were renamed? Could the reading public finally be ready for
The Tales of John Watson: The Crime Doctor?”
Of course I could claim near-immunity to Holmes’ comments, he makes them so often and with such relish that I take them as little more than bitter seasoning during our mealtime conversations. It amuses him to mock the stories, for they are singularly responsible for the public image he now labours under, an image he would dispel given the slightest chance. Holmes, though in possession of a gargantuan sense of self-importance, never will take to life as a public hero. It implies a morality on him he has no wish to bear.
Then there are the editors in their thousands: the readers.
No, I will qualify that—before I alienate every pair of hands to pick up a copy of
The Strand—certain
readers who appear to possess altogether too much spare time. These are the people who write to complain about inaccuracies and inconsistencies. The people who claim to know better. According to these folk I should pass on my pen to another. Perhaps one better able to remember where he was wounded in Afghanistan (the leg
and
the shoulder, thank you Mr Haywood of Leeds), or even what his first name is (my wife often used to call me James, Mrs Ashburton of Colchester, initially mimicking a particularly forgetful client and then simply because the name stuck. She also used to call me Jock, Wattles and Badger, though you can rest assured I shall have no call to repeat the fact now she has passed).
I must confess these are the editors I work hard to ignore. While I will always appreciate the popularity of my work (anyone who says he doesn’t care whether people like his writing is a liar), you
can never please all of the readers all of the time. Whenever I try to do so, my writing suffers as a consequence.
There will always be those who insist certain stories are fakes, written by other authors attempting to pass off what Holmes would laugh to hear me refer to as my “style”, or those who complain that the contents are unbelievable. The latter will be particularly vocal when—or perhaps I should say
if
—our last case, the curious affair I have titled “The Breath of God”, comes to print. There’s nothing that a certain band of readers likes less than ambiguity, a quality that adventure certainly possessed. Conversely there are many who rate such fantastical adventures higher than those grounded in reality. The public’s appetite for the bizarre will always be considerable. Which is why I can never resist selecting such cases, even though I know that many of them will join the considerable stack of writing I have completed that will never see print in my lifetime.
The affair that immediately followed that of The Breath of God, the complex business I turn my attention to now, will be yet another forced to gather dust rather than readers. It will also stretch the credulity of that unhappy band of readers who demand that everything keep to the well-worn and easily believed. That this was to be the case was obvious from the first, for certainly nothing ever came from Mycroft Holmes that was conventional.
Mycroft Holmes appears rarely in my written accounts—no doubt that critical band of my readership can remind me precisely how often. This is not because he was a stranger to his younger brother, rather that the cases he involved us in were usually so secret that there was little point in my making any record of them. That could be argued as the case now, though I will gamble the possibility of a few wasted hours in the hope that one day the adventure can
see the light of day. As bizarre and horrific, as politically charged and embarrassing to certain members of hallowed governmental offices as it may be, it would be a shame indeed were nobody ever to know the truth with regards to the army of Dr Moreau.
“Well,” announced Holmes, “either the country is on the brink of disaster or word of Mrs Hudson’s kedgeree has spread to Mayfair.” From his position, cross-legged on the floor before the fire, he raised his head above the parapet of his tobacco-stained nest, a temporary blemish on the carpet built from newspaper personal columns and that morning’s mail, and pointed towards the window. “Unless I’m mistaken...”
“Which you never are.”
Holmes smiled. “… Mycroft approaches.”
The doorbell rang.
“You’ll be telling me you could smell his hair wax half a mile away,” I joked.
“No,” Holmes admitted, “at least,” he smiled, “not with the windows closed. Though I can recognise the sound of his tread easily enough and there are few men in London who can make a cab creak with such relief when they offload themselves from it.”
I heard the front door open followed by the groan of our stairs.
“Not to mention the agony of our floorboards.” We laughed as the door crashed open and the considerable bulk of Mycroft Holmes appeared breathlessly in the doorway.
“Only poor people chose to live in upstairs rooms,” he complained. “Kindly have the decency to live up to your bank balance and buy a damned house.”
“Then how would you get your bi-annual exercise?”
“Exercise? I have evolved beyond exercise. Only those without a brain would choose to obsess on the flesh. It’s a vehicle, nothing more.”
Words I’d heard Holmes himself use, though I chose not to mention the fact. “A vehicle that is in need of upkeep, Mycroft,” I said. “When was the last time you had a check-up? You’re breathing like a bulldog with a bullet wound.”
“Dear Lord!” Mycroft shouted, dropping into an unfortunate armchair. “Since when did a gentleman have to endure such slights against his person?”
“When there is so much of his person to slight,” Holmes replied and erupted into laughter, throwing the remnants of his morning correspondence, fluttering, into the air.
“Oh no,” Mycroft said, looking at me, “he’s positively effervescent! What’s wrong with him?”
“I rather imagine,” I replied, “that he is excited by the possibility of work you bring. We’ve just finished a particularly complex and unusual case and the idea of being able to sink his teeth immediately into a new one …”
“One man’s meat is another’s poison,” Mycroft said, glowering at his brother. “What brings you excitement threatens to breed
another ulcer in this stomach that so fascinates you both.”
“Another ulcer?” I sighed and fetched my medical bag. If Mycroft wouldn’t go and see a doctor I’d force a medical opinion on him while he was too exhausted to move.
“Oh don’t fuss!” he said as I advanced upon him. But he knew better than to actually fight me off and I proceeded to conduct a basic examination while Holmes called down for coffee.
“Your heart sounds like a drunken bare-knuckle fight and your blood pressure would see the sleeper train to Glasgow and back. You need to look after yourself. Otherwise, sooner or later, one or the other will kill you.”
“Obviously, Doctor,” he replied. “Luckily my job is extremely relaxing.”
“I shall prescribe you a medical diet and an exercise regimen.”
“And I shall have you shot as an enemy of the Crown.”
“Follow my advice or end up in an early grave, the choice is yours.”
“Coffee,” Mrs Hudson announced, bringing in a tray, with a disapproving look on her face. It was a familiar countenance, as much a part of the Baker Street furnishings as the tobacco slipper and the shrunken head that Holmes used as a stopper on a flask of gunpowder. The decoration in those rooms was always wont to make a lady despair.
Mycroft made a childish show of taking a biscuit from the saucer Mrs Hudson had provided and popping it, whole, into his mouth.
“Might we now move onto matters of more importance than my weight?” he asked once he had swallowed. “As much as your concern is gratifying I did not make this arduous journey simply to gossip like an old lady at a bandstand.”