J. Campbell - Gaslight Arcanum - Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes

“The Deadly Sin of Sherlock Holmes” by Tom English

Illustration by Luke Eidenschink

The Deadly Sin of Sherlock Holmes

by Tom English

Hundreds of years ago, around the time of Magna Carta, while England endured the growing pains of an empire in its infancy, and kings and kingdoms waged endless wars across Europe; and long before Prince Wilhelm von Ormstein’s dalliance with the woman Irene Adler, the aftermath of which, were it not for the intervention of Sherlock Holmes, might have ended in a royal scandal in Bohemia, yet another chapter of history was being written in a Benedictine monastery in an obscure Bohemian village. Its consequences would span centuries, and dreadful would be its effects.

The architect of this singular item sat hunched behind a tiny, splintered table in a bare cell illuminated only by a thin shaft of moonlight from a high, narrow window. He was dying. His arms, legs and face were lacerated with hundreds of self-inflicted cuts, his clothing scarlet with blood. When three robed men appeared at his door, he looked up weakly from his bloodstained fingers and smiled.

“Where is it, Brother?” asked one of the men.

“Of what do you speak, Abbot?”

“Brother Josef, Brother Ehren, bring the candles,” the abbot said to the two monks behind him. “Search his cell — quickly!” He turned back to the man seated before him. “We know of the hellish instrument you have forged this night. God has revealed it to me in a dream.”

“More a nightmare, I should think. For the power of the thing shall be hideous, its ministry implacable.”

“How dare you use consecrated paper!” said Brother Josef.

“Where is it?” the abbot asked again.

“Gone out into the world,” said the dying man, clinging to the edge of his blood-smeared desk.

“You have corrupted an instrument of God,” cried Brother Josef. “Where is it?”

“As I have said, Josef, it is gone. Spirited away by the Prince of the Air.”

“Satan!” Brother Ehren said with disgust.

“Certainly not your weakling god,” he replied.

“You stand at death’s door,” said the abbot. “Have you no fear? Tell us now where the thing is hidden.”

“Hidden?” laughed the man behind the table. “In this tiny room?” He coughed hard and struggled to regain his breath. “Nay,” he said hoarsely, “though you search for it, you shall not find it. For I have sent it out into the world. To baptize all men into a new age of darkness.”

On a bone-chilling night in early May of 1891, a hooded figure crouched over the dead body of a young woman on Clements Lane in the district of Westminster, London. An icy rain spattered against the grey cobbles and ran away in grimy rivulets towards the Thames. From the south the faint peal of Big Ben marked the midnight hour. While two other men watched from nearby, the veiled figure knelt before the corpse, a Bull’s-eye lantern in one hand. His free hand moved quickly and expertly over the woman’s body as he probed the bloodstained clothing. After several moments, he heard a voice above him ask, “Well?”

The man looked up from the corpse. “Well what , Lestrade?” he asked irritably. “This infernal rain has scrubbed the street clean. Despite what the good doctor may have written about my abilities, I cannot work without clues.”

“She was obviously another drab who got more than she asked for,” said Inspector Lestrade, pulling up the collar of his coat. “But her face, Mr. Holmes! Look at her face! Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“This was no streetwalker, Lestrade. Observe the clothing. It appears to be new and of the highest quality. This woman was dressed for an evening out. What brought her here , so far from the beaten path?”

Holmes tossed back the hood of his Ulster. The rain had died away to a fine mist that shone as a halo around the street lamp at the end of the lane. “This rain started a little after 3 p.m., but this woman is not dressed for inclement weather. As you can see, she has no cloak at all.” He motioned to the man in black coat and derby standing next to Lestrade. “Watson, notice the blood about the eyes and mouth — how thickly coagulated it is.”

Watson knelt and winced at the mutilated features.

“Yet the body is face up,” said Holmes. “The heavy rain would have washed away most of this blood — had it not been so thickly clotted. Now, since you put the time of death at only a couple hours ago, and it has been raining since three…”

“Then the wounds were inflicted somewhere else,” Watson said. “Some place dry enough to allow the blood to congeal.”

“Come,” said Holmes, “we can learn nothing more here. The scent has grown cold, and so have we. What will Mrs. Watson have to say, should I detain you any longer?” He turned to Lestrade, who quickly gestured to two uniformed policemen to remove the dead body. “If I can be of any further assistance…”

Lestrade watched the two men walk down the lane toward the Strand and disappear into the shadows. A few minutes later he heard two shrill blasts from a cab whistle — telling him that Holmes had hailed a hansom.

That same night, several streets away, a man sat alone in a dimly lit room and wept bitterly. He held something in his arms, something heavy and cool, which he gently caressed. He laid the object on his lap, wiped the tears from his eyes, and then opened it with a trembling hand.

“It’s gone!” he cried. “Gone!”

When Watson called on Holmes at his Baker Street lodgings the next morning, he found the detective sitting before the fire, absently scraping away at the violin that rested across his knees. Each screeching note from the Stradivarius sent a chill up the doctor’s spine, making him cringe and grit his teeth. “Holmes! If you please!” he cried, tossing the morning newspaper on the table.

Holmes glanced at the headlines. “Miss Anne Skipton. Certainly not a streetwalker, and yet The Times is alluding to the Whitechapel murders of two and a half years ago.”

“You must admit,” said Watson, taking the other chair by the fire, “there has been no murder this gruesome since the days of Jack the Harlot killer.”

“And already The Times is capitalizing on it.”

Holmes set aside the Stradivarius and was about to say something when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Mrs. Hudson entered, followed by an elderly man wearing a battered black hat and faded cassock. A dull metal cross hung from a chain about the man’s neck.

“Ah! A client,” said Holmes. “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

The man removed his hat and bowed, revealing a thick, tangle of gray hair. “I am Brother Eduardo. I have come on behalf of … well, you will not have heard of our order. It is a little-known offshoot of the Benedictines, whose mission is to safeguard certain antiquities.”

Watson smiled. “A secret society?”

“Excuse me,” Holmes interrupted, “this gentleman is my good friend and colleague, Dr. Watson, and I am Sherlock Holmes.”

The old man nodded. “Not secret, Dr. Watson. The Church is well aware of our presence. Perhaps, though, our day-to-day activities may be somewhat obscure.”

Holmes motioned for the man to be seated.

“I was referred to you by a Mr. Lestrade. He feels my problem is not a matter for Scotland Yard.”

“And what is your problem?”

“My brothers and I have hopes that you will be able to locate a missing book.”

Holmes turned to Watson. “Our friend Lestrade has a habit of sending us his … more interesting cases.”