Warlock Holmes--A Study in Brimstone (16 page)

“I fear that is so,” said Trevelyan.

“In which case, the old man probably had no knowledge of trapeze to impart. That is why he endeavored to keep you speaking of what
you
knew; as soon as he was forced to demonstrate knowledge, his sham would have been revealed.”

“Likely,” sighed Trevelyan. “Alas, for I heartily crave contact with the master of my art and his secrets.”

“Just as I crave a heart attack, on the part of Mrs. Hudson,” said I. “Yet here we both sit, disappointed. Tell me, did you recount any of this encounter to Blessington?”

“No. I merely said I had not been in his rooms, at which he grew pale and agitated. I think he was up very late. When I awoke this morning, I crept out, hoping to shield myself from further interrogation. I returned just before lunch, to find him erecting a barricade across the top of the stairs. I had no idea what to do! I could not account for his strange behavior and he refused to answer my questions. One of my friends suggested you, Mr. Holmes, as a man who understands the bizarre better than he understands the commonplace.”

I had to laugh at that, but Trevelyan ignored me and asked, “What do you think, Mr. Holmes? Can you make any sense of the matter?”

“Hmm… let me see…” Holmes said and tapped his lips thoughtfully with his finger for a few seconds before deciding, “No. I can’t. How about you, Watson?”

I had a few notions, but most of the story was a mystery still, so I asked, “Did Blessington tell you nothing? He gave no further clue?”

“Well… I did hear him talking to himself last night. He was pacing back and forth in his bedroom below me and I several times heard him swear, ‘He shall not have it, by God, Moran shall not have it.’”

In a trice, Holmes was on his feet.

“Watson, get your coat!”

* * *

Upon our arrival at Trevelyan’s residence, Holmes stepped cautiously from the cab, observing the street in both directions before approaching the door. Trevelyan and I followed, uncertain. We were just behind Holmes and a little off to his left when he reached the door and knocked. No sooner had his hand touched wood than a series of loud reports rang out from behind the door. Shattered wood erupted towards us as a series of holes traced itself across both the door and adjacent wall. Dust and flying splinters filled the air. I can hardly describe the familiarity and horror a battle-wounded soldier feels when he realizes he is once again coming under enemy fire. I must have cried out. Holmes calmly stepped to one side, a look of irritation on his face. Trevelyan froze—the wrong instinct, but one I could well understand, for I had done so myself at the Battle of Maiwand. Turning from the door, I flung myself upon Trevelyan and pulled him down into the gutter.

“Holmes! Get down!” I cried, but he disregarded me and stood his ground, just to one side of the door.

“Calm yourself, Watson,” he said. “He’s nowhere near me. The shots are all off to my left.”

So they were, but not by more than two feet. One round struck the top hinge from the door, then the cascade of bullets began to travel in Holmes’s direction. Warlock huffed his annoyance and took a few steps to his right as the stream of bullets came closer, tracing a line of destruction. A round or two must have struck the latch, for there was a shower of brass and iron lock parts.

At last the firing ceased. The door sagged on its one damaged hinge, then slowly fell outwards into the street. From within, I heard a voice call, “Don’t come any closer! I have a gun!”

“So it would appear,” Holmes shouted back. “I don’t suppose you would stop firing it long enough to speak with my friends and me?”

“Who is that? Moran?”

“My name is Warlock Holmes; I am here with Mr. Trevelyan.”

“What does he want?”

“To return to his quarters without being blown to scraps,” said Holmes.

Raising my head, I could just see past the ruined door, into the hallway and up the stairs to a curious fort. It was constructed as if by a child on a rainy afternoon. Several cushions had been propped up with empty suitcases, becoming makeshift walls. Half of them were draped with blankets, to form a cozy little hiding place. If the armor afforded by this emplacement was sparse, it was more than recompensed for by its armament. A six-barrel Gatling gun protruded from between two cushions, venting smoke.

An instant later, a fat, flushed face—which I assumed belonged to Blessington—appeared over a cushion. “No! You can’t come in! It’s my fort!”

“Blessington,” Holmes remonstrated, “I
am
coming up there.”

“No.”

“I may be your last chance to set this right, Blessington.”

“I don’t care! Go away!”

“I am going to count to three and then I am coming in.”

“I won’t let you!”

“One…” Holmes said slowly. As he spoke, he gestured for me to get to safety.

I propped myself up out of the mud somewhat and said, “Holmes, you mustn’t.” With one hand I indicated first Trevelyan and then the rest of the world—meaning that the former should not see Holmes perform any unnatural feats and the latter should not be overrun with demons. I think he understood—vague as my warning was—but he tutted away my protests and again gestured for me to get clear.

“Two…”

“Damn him,” I cursed, then grabbed Trevelyan by the sleeve and dragged him to safety further down the street.

“Three,” said Holmes and stepped in through the door. Blessington opened fire; I heard three more shots ring out, then a strangled scream and a series of thuds, as if someone were kicking the walls inside the house. A lone sofa cushion bounced down the stairs, out the ruined door and into the street.

“Come on,” I told Trevelyan. “Let’s go see what he’s done in there.”

There were two possible outcomes and I wasn’t sure I liked either of them. Either Blessington had triumphed and I was about to behold Holmes’s earthly remains, or Holmes had triumphed and I was about to behold… well, it might be anything. I hoped it wouldn’t be too bad—that I wouldn’t find the upstairs crawling with chittering imps or every wall dripping with shreds of Blessington.

When I peeped around the remains of the doorway, I beheld Holmes, standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, looking down at Blessington’s bulk. All seemed well enough, until I crested the stairs and got a proper look at Blessington. He lay athwart the wreckage of his pillow fort, flat on his back with his limbs contorted. His eyes were open wide and rolled back and forth in a paroxysm of fear. From his mouth issued tendrils of black, oily smoke. These spilled down upon the floor and splayed outwards, moving with an undulating regularity. So cohesive were the strands that it looked as if an octopus made of smoke had just set up home in Blessington’s mouth and was now feeling about the floor with all its tentacles, searching for the wallet it had dropped on its way in. Just as disturbing was the impression that Blessington was pinned to the floor by a great weight situated at the back of his mouth. His limbs would convulse and strain from time to time, yanking his torso this way and that. Yet, try as he might, he could not make the back of his head budge from its spot.

“By God!” cried Trevelyan, from the stairs behind me. “What has happened to him?”

Holmes whirled around and, in wide-eyed guilty stammers, explained, “Oh! Um… He was… He fell down, you see…”

I raised a finger, stepped in front of Holmes and told Trevelyan, “Holmes has employed the ancient art of
karatei
, a sacred fighting style from far Japan.”

“Yes, but that’s… that’s just kicking and punching, isn’t it?” Trevelyan asked.

“It is,” I said.

“Then where did all that smoke come from?”

“You have seen Blessington take a cigarette from time to time, have you not?” I asked. “Holmes struck him in such a way as to release all the residual smoke that was trapped within him, after all those years of tobacco. It should be quite cleansing for him.”

“Remarkable!” said Trevelyan.

“Thank you,” Holmes said, with a sigh of relief.

“And here we have a chance to practice some deduction,” I continued. “Now, Mr. Trevelyan, did you not tell us you keep the upstairs rooms, while Blessington here has the lower floor?”

“I did,” Trevelyan said.

“Then why do you think he has constructed the barricade across Mr. Trevelyan’s door, Holmes, and not his own?”

Holmes shrugged, “It might have just been a better place to build a fort.”

“It might,” I conceded, “but perhaps there is a more logical deduction. Perhaps he has stashed something precious in Trevelyan’s quarters. Mr. Trevelyan, would you come with me please? I should like to search your rooms. If you find anything that does not belong to you—or anything that does, but which is out of place—you must point it out to me immediately.”

He agreed with an earnest nod. Holmes and I tossed aside the cushions and stepped through, but there was nothing to find. Trevelyan kept his quarters neat and had decorated them with circus and trapeze paraphernalia. The best of his pieces was an ingenious clockwork tableau. Only wind the key, press the lever on the front and the whole thing came to life. As the clockwork ringmaster raised his hat, the cannon behind him elevated and fired a thrashing clown towards a solid brick wall. Just before he hit, a man on a trapeze swooped down, caught him by the hands and swung him to safety. I found the story highly unlikely, yet I could not help but marvel at the hundreds of minute brass gears and levers that turned a simple swing of a pendulum into such perfect mimicry of life.

My fascination with this clockwork wonder notwithstanding, we found nothing of interest in Trevelyan’s rooms. He was able to answer for every item, down to each plate and spoon—nor did he think that anything had been disturbed. Lost for further inspiration, I suggested, “Shall we journey downstairs, gentlemen, and see what Blessington was so keen to protect?”

“He keeps a great deal of money in the house,” Trevelyan suggested. “I thought that must be the source of his fear.”

“Is it well hidden?” I asked.

“Not at all. He keeps a cashbox on his desk.”

“Well secured?”

“No. Not even locked.”

“Strange,” I pondered. “Given the amount of time you spent with our Monsieur Me’doreux, I would have thought his accomplice must have discovered such an obvious haul. If so, they would already have taken it, wouldn’t they? Blessington would be furious at the loss, but what would be left for him to protect? Either this cashbox was overlooked, or the thief was after something else.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what.” Trevelyan shrugged.

“Well, show us the box, to begin with,” I said. “Perhaps we shall find another treasure.”

In the hall we passed Blessington, still pinned to the floor, gasping for help.

“He’ll be all right,” Holmes said, then gave Blessington a little kick and reminded him, “I did warn you, if you recall.”

Blessington’s rooms were… what shall I say… like a kingly hovel. At first I thought the thief had ransacked the place, yet I soon realized that no man but Blessington had wrought this destruction. The mess was too personal and too established. Dirty clothes lay in every corner, the wreckage of meals in every nook. Yet—even in this filthy den—the man’s wealth was evident. I kicked aside a discarded dinner jacket; its extreme size testified that it did belong to Blessington, but only when it was in the air did I realize it was one of Savile Row’s finest, fit for any duke. Hanging from a doorknob nearby was the shirt to match it and in the cuffs were a pair of platinum links, emblazoned with a pure gold monogram: H.M. The workmanship was extraordinary and the cost must have been vast. Clearly Blessington was accustomed to the finer things, but not to treating them finely. For a moment I despaired of ever finding a clue amidst the clutter, until Trevelyan said, “Ah! There’s his cashbox.”

Holmes gave a sudden gasp and stood frozen in the doorway to Blessington’s study. Peering round him, I beheld the plainest wooden box I think I have ever seen. It was constructed of some kind of dark, well-worn wood. It had hinges of heavy bronze and a latch of the same. Apart from that, it was all but featureless. I could not name the artistic style it was constructed in, nor even guess at the country of origin. All I could say for certain was that it was old—very old indeed. I tried to push past Holmes to examine it, but he thrust me back, crying, “Do not touch it, Watson!”

“What is it?” I asked, but he ignored me and turned instead to Mr. Trevelyan.

“Have you ever seen Blessington open that box?”

“Many times.”

“What does it contain?”

“Well… money, obviously.”

“Nothing more?” Holmes demanded.

“Not that I have seen.”

Holmes edged into the room, eyeing the box with deep distrust. Taking up a silver fountain pen, he inched closer to the box and gingerly pried back the latch. Then, with his eyes squeezed almost shut, he tipped the lid up, ever so slightly.

Nothing happened.

Holmes breathed a thankful sigh and casually flipped the lid open the rest of the way. I could just see a disorganized wad of one- and five-pound notes, which rested on an equally disorganized wad of ten- and twenty-pound notes.

“Only money,” Holmes laughed, then snatched up the box and swept past Trevelyan and me into the hall and up the stairs. When he reached the top landing, he crouched over the recumbent bulk of Mr. Blessington and reached inside the fallen man’s mouth. Holmes plucked out an object that looked like a fuzzy, coal-colored cotton ball—from which the tendrils of dark smoke emitted—and flicked it into a nearby corner.

“Where is the other box?” Holmes demanded.

Freed from his smoky bonds, Blessington hauled himself into a sitting position and shuffled backwards, coughing and wheezing, until his back bumped against the far wall. Holmes had no consideration for the man’s recent plight, but urged, “The other box, Blessington! It’s a matter of some urgency, as I think you must realize.”

Yet, when our rotund host found his voice again, it was only to say, “No other box.”

“You mean to say you have never owned another box? Just like this one?”