Neil Gaiman - Shadows over Baker Street

He sagged to his knees as the Creature snarled its throbbing snarl and spun about on its haunches. It took a step toward Miss Adler and screamed as only a cat can scream.

The prisoner fell to the ground dead, and Miss Adler stood defiant and braced behind the corpse, ready for whatever death might find her. Seeming unaffected by the death of the Arab, the Creature crouched to leap. Pain grinding in my broken leg, I started to drag myself upright with some futile idea of hurling myself on the thing.

At that moment, the rain came.

The monsoon was upon us like a wall of glass, and the Creature screamed again—this time, in agony. It turned this way and that, frantic to escape the raindrops, like a dog that seeks to elude a beating. Each drop sizzled and steamed as it struck, and with each drop the devil’s light flickered, spots appearing on its hide like the speckles on a coal sprinkled with water.

It twisted about itself, shrieking, and finally seemed to collapse. A sickening scent of char rose from the wet ashes that were all that remained.

My leg flared at last into agony, and a black tunnel closed upon my sight.

I groaned and opened my eyes on a vision of bedraggled and ineffable beauty tucking a jeweled dagger into her reticule. There was a tarpaulin under me—wet, but drier than the ground—and another one hung over the branches of the tree to shield me from the worst of the rain. I recognized it as gear Rodney had carried. Moran lay beside me, under a blanket, quite still.

She laid a damp cloth on my forehead and smoothed back my hair before she stood. “Your leg is broken. I beg you to forgive me for leaving you in such straits, Mr. Larssen. I assure you I will send help, but I must leave at once: it is a delicate matter, and vital to the security of a certain Baltic nobleman that the theft of this dagger from his household never be proven—either by the English or the Russians.”

“Wait,” I cried. “Miss Adler—Irene—”

“You may certainly call me Irene,” she replied, something like amusement in her voice. I saw that her gloves were burned through, and the palms of her hands were blistered.

I tried for a moment to formulate a question, but words failed me. “What has happened here?” I finally asked her, trusting that she would understand.

“I am afraid you have been rather overtaken by events, my dear Mr. Larssen . . . Magnus. As have we all. I came here to retrieve this dagger, which was stolen from a friend of mine. The rather vile Mr. Kolinzcki, whom I fear is neither a Count nor a Lithuanian but an agent of the Tsar, stole it and brought it here with the intention of providing it to this Afghan sorcerer.”

She spurned the corpse with her toe.

“For all I know, he intended some foul ritual of human sacrifice, which may have greatly discomfited the British army. At the very least, it seems to have had the power to control that.” She gestured expressively to the pile of ashes. “A pity I had to kill him. I imagine he would have befuddled British intelligence greatly, if they had the chance to interrogate him. But once I understood that he was somehow holding back the storm . . .”

“Monsoon. If I may be so bold as to correct a lady.”

“Monsoon.” She smiled.

“But how? You cannot tell me how?” I wished I could grit my teeth against the pain in my leg, but they chattered so that I could not manage it. I did not look to where Rodney lay, out in the cold rain.

“It seems that there are things in heaven and earth that lie beyond our ken as Western minds of scientific bent.”

I nodded and a wave of pain and nausea threatened to overwhelm me. “The Count?” I asked.

She lifted her strong shoulders and let them drop, her expression dark. “Left behind and eaten, I presume. I assure you that your assistance has been invaluable, and that the war in Afghanistan may now come to a close.”

She set a pan of rainwater and a loaded pistol close by my hand. “The colonel is alive but unconscious—it seems the blow rendered him insensate.” A final hesitation, before she turned to go.

She turned back, and seemed to study my face for a moment. I hoped I saw something like affection there. “I am also very sorry about Rodney.”

It was a very long, cold night then, but the villagers and Dr. Montleroy came for me in the morning. We did not speak, then or ever, of the thing we had seen.

James survived, although Conrad never regained himself. I had occasional dealings after with Colonel Moran, until he left the region for cooler climes. I understand he has come to a very bad end.

As for Miss Adler—her, I never saw again. But my dreams are haunted to this day by her face and, less pleasantly, by those eerie words— Iä! Iä Hastur cf’ayah ‘vugtlagln Hastur!— and I have never since been able to take up a gun for sport.

Holmes sat in the overstuffed leather chair, making ready his briar pipe. The room was more or less quiet. A small coal fire burned in the iron stove set upon on the brick in front of the fireplace, the stove’s metal creaking slightly from the heat; two oil lamps with well-trimmed wicks provided enough light to read by, and with the window open but a tiny crack, the winter winds and cold were kept more or less at bay. A woolen shawl about his shoulders finished the battle against whatever slight chill might whisper its way into the room. From the adjoining chamber, the door of which had been left ajar, came Watson’s snores, not so loud as to impede Holmes’s concentration, but enough to mark the doctor’s position precisely.

It was not as comfortable as 221B Baker Street, but it was sufficient shelter for their brief visit to New York City. He had certainly stayed in worse places.

Holmes packed a goodly pinch of moist tobacco into the bowl of his briar. It wasn’t his favorite meerschaum, grown golden with the years, but that beauty was too good to risk loss or damage to on a trip to the wilds of America. He compacted the tobacco, using for this purpose a solid gold tamper presented to him by Her Royal Majesty Victoria Regina years past for his invaluable assistance in the affair of the purloined love letters. When satisfied it would produce a proper smoke, he struck a match, allowed the vapors to rise from the stinking sulfur’s ignition, then carefully lowered the flame into the bowl, inhaling until he produced a cheery glow and a cloud of fragrant bluish smoke that enveloped his face.

Ah.

He took another puff, exhaled the smoke, and nodded.

Now the night would become interesting.

“Good evening,” he said, looking at the pipe. “I know you’re hiding there. Won’t you come and join me?”

Two seconds passed. Then, from out the dark shadow of the tall wooden chifforobe that held his traveling clothes, stepped a woman.

She was tall, willowy, and like the stained oaken chifforobe, her skin was dark. She wore a green long-sleeved wool blouse and a black wool skirt whose hem brushed the tops of sensible shoes. Her shining jet hair was pinned on top of her head. Let down, it must reach nearly to her waist, Holmes estimated. When she smiled, her teeth flashed pure and white against her café au lait features. Though he had never been one for the sensual pleasures to be found in most female company, he had to admit she was a handsome woman—strikingly handsome.

“Good evening, Mr. Holmes,” she said.

He took another deep draft of the pipe smoke and allowed it to tendril out from his thin nose and lips, wreathing his head. “Shall we get on with it?” he asked. He waved his free hand at the chair across from his own, one that would put her face toward the nearer lamp.

She nodded and moved toward the chair. She had the feline grace of a tigress.