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

“Evidently,” murmured Holmes, “this isn’t the occasion for formal introductions.”

For the women in black disregarded me; they hugged each other tight, desperate for some degree of comfort amid the horror.

“A series of clicks.” Holmes tilted his head to one side as he listened. “Almost like the sound produced on a telephone speaker when a thunderstorm is approaching.”

Jessup cried, “Or the sound of his bones. They’ve begun moving about the Pollux !”

Captain Smeaton spoke calmly. “Go below to your cabin, Jessup.”

Jessup fled from his post, and fled gratefully it seemed to me.

More clicks issued from the horn. The women moaned with dismay. Mrs. Barstow pressed a handkerchief against her mouth as if to stifle a scream.

Captain Smeaton explained, “After the hawser was recovered from the seabed, my crew secured it to a deck bollard. One of the ship’s apprentices did what he was routinely supposed to do. He attached the Pollux’ s telephone wire to this telephone apparatus.”

Holmes turned to the Captain. “And that’s when you began to hear unusual sounds?”

“Unusual?” exclaimed the red-bearded officer. “Terrible sounds, sir. They come back to you in your dreams.”

I listened to the leaden clicking. Very much the sound of old bone striking against yet more bone. “Forgive me, if I ask the obvious. But do you maintain that the telephone line connects this apparatus with that in the diving bell, which has lain on the seabed for five years?”

“Yes, Doctor Watson. I fear I do.” Captain Smeaton shuddered. “And I wish circumstances did not require me to make such a claim.”

“And those clicks are transmitted up the wire from…” I refrained from adding “Barstow’s tomb.”

Sherlock Holmes turned to me quickly. “Ha! There you have it, Watson. That which cannot be. Is. ”

“Then it is a fault with the mechanism. Surely?”

“Would I have come aboard this ship, Watson, to attend to an electrical fault? They did not mistake me for a telephony engineer.”

“But dash it all, Holmes—”

Then it issued from the horn. A deep voice. Wordless. Full of pain, regret, and an unquestionable longing.

“Urrr … hmm … ahhh…”

Ice dashed through my veins. Freezing me into absolute stillness. “That sound…”

“Human?” asked Holmes.

“Decidedly. At least, it appears so.”

“ Fffmm … arrnurr … Mmm-ursss… ” The deep, shimmering voice from the horn tailed away into a sigh comprised of ghosting esses. “Ssss…”

The pent-up scream discharged at last. Mrs. Barstow cried, “That’s my husband! He’s alive. Please bring him back to me. Please!”

Her sister murmured to her, reassuring her, comforting her.

“No, Holmes,” I whispered to my friend. “That’s impossible. No mortal man could survive five years underwater without air.”

“Survive? Or evolve? As environment demands? Remember Darwin.”

“Holmes, surely you’re not suggesting—”

“I’m suggesting we keep our minds open. As well as our eyes.”

The voice came ghosting from the horn again. That longing — yet it appeared to come from the lips of a man who had witnessed the unimaginable. His widow wept.

Captain Smeaton said, “Perhaps the ladies should leave.”

“No!” Holmes held up his hand. “Now is the time to unravel this particular mystery!”

The syllables rising from the Pollux became a long, wordless groan.

“Mrs. Barstow.” Holmes spoke briskly. “Forgive what will be difficult questions at this vexing time. What did you call your husband?”

The widow’s eyes, which were surely as dark as the coal that fired water into steam in this very ship, regarded Holmes with surprise.

“Madam, how did you address your husband?”

She responded with amazement. “His name? Are you quite mad?”

“Madam, indulge me. Please.”

“My husband’s name is Mr. George Barstow.”

His manner became severe. “You were husband and wife. Surely, you gave him a familiar name? A private name?”

“Mr. Holmes, I protest—”

“A nickname.”

Miss Millwood stood with her arm around Mrs. Barstow, glaring with the utmost ferocity at my friend.

“If I am to unravel this mystery, then you must answer my questions.”

The groaning from the horn suddenly faded. An expectant silence followed. An impression of someone listening hard. A someone not in that room.

Still Mrs. Barstow prevaricated. “I don’t understand what you would have me say, Mr. Holmes.”

“Tell me the private name with which you addressed the man whom you loved so dearly. The name you spoke when you and he were alone.”

A storm of rage erupted. Not from any living mouth there. It came from the speaker horn that was connected by some hundred fathoms of cable to the diving bell at the bottom of the ocean. The roar came back double, then again many-fold. It seemed as if demons by the legion bellowed their fury, their outrage and their jealous anger from the device. The pair of ship’s officers at the desk covered their ears and fled through the doorway.

At last the awful expulsion of wrath faded. The speaker horn fell silent. Everyone in the room had been struck silent, too. All, that is, except for Sherlock Holmes.

“Mrs. Barstow. A moment ago you said these words to me: ‘My husband’s name is Mr. George Barstow.’“

“Indeed.” Recovering her composure, she stood straighter.

“Is, Madam, not was ?”

“ Is! ”

“Therefore in the present tense. As if he is still alive?”

“Of course.” She pointed a trembling finger at the speaker horn. “Because he lives. That’s his voice.”

“Then perhaps you will tell me your private name for Mr. Barstow? The one you use when the servants are gone, and all the lamps are extinguished.”

The blast of sound from the instrument almost swept us off our feet. A glass of water on the desk shattered. At that moment, the widow’s sister stiffened, her eyes rolled back, and she fell into a dead faint. Holmes caught the woman to prevent her striking the floor.

Nevertheless, he fixed Mrs. Barstow with a penetrating gaze. “Madam. I am still waiting for you to reveal the name — that secret name only you and he knew.”

“Katrina. Stay silent. Do not say it!”

All heads turned to the speaker. That voice! Waves of such uncanny power radiated from every syllable.

“George,” she cried.

“Do not speak with Sherlock Holmes. He is evil. The man is our enemy!”

“You heard with your own ears!” she shouted, her fist pressed to her breast. “My husband is alive!” She turned to Captain Smeaton. “Send the machine down to save him.”

Captain Smeaton’s weather-beaten face assumed a deeper shade of purple. “I will not. Whatever’s down there can no longer be George Barstow. Not after five years.”

“He’s immortal,” she cried. “Just as my sister promised.”

My friend’s eyes narrowed as the widow voiced this statement. Quickly, he settled the unconscious form of Miss Claudine Millwood into a chair at the desk. I checked the pulse in her neck.

“Strong … very strong. She’s fainted, that’s all.”

“Thank you, Watson,” said Holmes. “And I rather think the pieces of our jigsaw are falling into place.” He picked up the handset part of the phone and spoke into the mouthpiece. “Whom do I have the honour of addressing?”

“Barstow.”

“For a man dead these last five years you sound remarkably vigorous.”

“So shall I be when you are dust, sir.”