Tony Richards - The Astonishing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty-First Century

“And he’s been like this since he was first discovered?” Holmes whispered to van Heuten.

“He was standing up and wandering about, but vacantly, in no particular direction. People thought at first that he had been struck on the head.”

“And was any physical injury of that sort revealed?”

“None whatsoever.”

Sherlock Holmes sucked air in through his teeth a moment.

“Where precisely was he found?”

“On Rokin.”

Which was both a canal and the street beside it.

“Very near the Red Light District, then.”

“Yes. What are you thinking, sir?”

But Holmes held back from commenting any further. It was far too early to jump to conclusions.

What was unfolding in front of him, though, was a horribly familiar picture. A powerful bull of a man, but getting closer to the verge of slipping into old age and infirmity. A doting, loyal wife who must have been a remarkable beauty back in earlier days. His heart felt heavy as he watched her try to heal her husband with her touch. When Pieter had been sane, he must have loved her just as much. But even very strong men can be rather weak on some occasions.

He decided to try out one last line of enquiry, even though he knew that he was grasping at straws somewhat.

“There are many so-called ‘coffeeshops’ – drug dens – around the Red Light District. Was he tested for such substances?”

“Of course,” van Heuten came back at him, a little testily. “And no slightest trace of narcotics was found. The superintendent was enormously old-fashioned when it came to things like drugs.”

“A man of virtue, then?”

“Why, absolutely so.”

“A man of solid values?”

“Yes!”

“As Edwardian as his moustache and sideburns.”

“What are you driving at, Mr Holmes?”

“Have others who’ve been so affected been incarcerated in this place? I’d imagine so. Show me a violent one.”

Willem van Heuten gawped at Holmes as though the great detective had suddenly grown a second head. He personally was a fit-looking man in his mid-forties, blond and very formally and neatly dressed, so that he looked more like a businessman than a policeman. Holmes did not particularly like him.

“Don’t you even want to try and talk with Pieter? Or his wife?”

Holmes smiled dryly and lifted a single eyebrow.

“I’ll not get a word from him, and we both know it. As for talking with his wife, in the first place she knows nothing more than we do. And in the second place, she is already being caused enough distress.”

“Do you suspect—?”

“I suspect nothing, inspector. I expect almost anything. It saves me the discomfort of being unpleasantly surprised. I’d like to see a victim who’s turned violent, and right now. If you would be so helpful as to lead the way?”

And Holmes batted the back of one palm at the man, as though he were fending off some annoying insect. Inspector van Heuten went red in the face when the great detective did that, but he then complied.

They went into the subterranean depths of the hulking grey building, past numerous locked gates, and this time a guard stayed with them the whole way. Shrieks and howls and other noises, many of them unidentifiable as human, began drifting to their ears. Holmes’ reaction was to smile mildly and comment, “Maybe they have Hannibal Lecter down here?”

Which got him an amazed look from van Heuten.

“You’re familiar with such a modern character?”

This was not a man who stretched his intellect to its fullest, now was he? Holmes’ smile became a little bitter.

“I may hail from the Victorian age, inspector, but I remain aware of the world around me, greatly changed though it might be. I read, and I watch the movies, and am well aware of Mr Harris’ most famous creation. And there’s nothing new about him in the slightest. He is Mephistopheles.”

Van Heuten’s jaw dropped open.

“For a start,” the detective continued, “in the books, he has reddish irises, and how many humans do you know of who possess that quality? But more pertinently, he is utterly vicious, and yet on the surface cultured, charming, almost likeable, and terribly persuasive. When Miss Starling approaches him for advice, he contrives to make a bargain with her. He will give her what she wants, namely knowledge. In return for which, she has to explain to him what genuinely makes her tick. He wants a piece of her soul, in other words. He is Old Nick.”

“I … never saw it that way,” the inspector mumbled.

“And why does that not surprise me?” was Sherlock’s response. “Aha, it appears we have arrived.”

A second guard had turned up and, between them, they were undoing the several locks on a heavy metal door which had a tiny round glass observation porthole.

“Who is it that we are visiting?” Holmes asked the nearest guard.

“Jan Derrek,” came the response. “Poor son of a bitch.”

“A local councillor of some repute,” van Heuten explained. “He’s the first one who was found in this state.”

“Was he discovered on Rokin?”

“Two streets up from there, in the early hours of the morning.”

“A pattern emerges, then,” Holmes nodded.

But if he was going to say anything more, it was cut short by the most frightful guttural wailing. As soon as the door to his cell was prised open, the man inside began making noises as if some pack of wild beasts were making a meal of his feet. There were screams and there were shrieks. There were gurgles and strange gibbering sounds. Holmes had never heard any single human being in such absolute distress. He steeled himself and peered inside, and the sight that met his stern gaze was remarkably unpleasant.

This was a middle-aged man of the same generation as van Heuten. He was thin and looked to be tall, but was sitting down upon the padded floor, which was no wider than ten feet by ten. A straightjacket was restricting him … stopping him from harming himself as much as anybody else, Holmes guessed. He was clad from the waist down in institutionally green pyjama bottoms, and his feet were bare. But it was his face that most shocked the great detective.

It was unshaven, and its head of hair was as wild as a circus clown’s. If there’d been any colour to its brow or cheeks, no slightest hint remained by now. It looked more like a pencil drawing of a human face than an actual one, the features stark white and the shadows in it dark and deep. The eyes were very wide, distended pupils black and glittering. And the mouth was stretched as wide open as it could possibly project, and kept emitting frightful, high-pitched utterances.

“Lord alive!” was all that Holmes could breathe.

Van Heuten nodded. “It’s as if that painting by Munch has come to life, isn’t it?”

He was obviously trying to glean some intellectual respect from Holmes, but he was not succeeding.

“When did he become like this?”

“About three days after he was first brought in.”

“And what was he doing before he was brought in?”

“He told his wife that he had a late meeting.”

“And did he?” Holmes asked, after he had paused a moment.

“So far as we’ve been able to discover … no.”

Holmes stood in the cell’s doorway, crouched down, bending from the knees, and peered into Jan Derrek’s strangely darkened eyes. And they didn’t even flicker back in his direction. Just like Superintendent Hoek, this man was staring off into thin air, fixated by something only he could see.

“Again, he’s been tested for narcotics?” the detective asked van Heuten.

“Again, he is clean.”

“And he’s not been sedated since?”

Both of the guards shook their heads.