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

“Indubitably. However, we do have recourse to the telephone.” He picked up the handset.

“But the woman fell in a dead faint. I checked her myself; she’s deeply unconscious.”

“My good doctor, I don’t doubt your assessment. However, recall the essays of Freud and Jung. Aren’t the leviathans of deep waters nothing in comparison to those leviathans of our own subconscious?’

Holmes turned the handle of the telephone apparatus. At that precise instant, a dark shape sped through the field of electric light. This time the walls didn’t impede its progress. A monstrous shadow flowed through the iron casing of the diving bell. Instantly it engulfed us. We could barely breathe as tendrils of darkness slipped into our bodies, seeking to occupy every nerve and sinew.

“Watson, I am mistaken! The woman’s attacks are far more visceral than I anticipated.”

“She’s invading the heart. Those men died of heart failure. Ah…” A weight appeared to settle onto my ribs. Breathing became harder. My heart thudded, labouring under the influence of that malign spirit. “Holmes, you must tell the … the captain to distract her. Her flow of unconscious thought must be disrupted.”

Holmes grimaced as he struggled to breathe. “A shock … how best to administer a shock?”

“Electricity.”

With a huge effort Holmes spoke into the telephone. “Captain Smeaton. Ah… I…”

“Mr. Holmes?”

“Listen. We will soon be dead. Do as I say … uh … don’t question … do you understand?”

“I understand.” The man’s voice was assured. He would obey.

“Is Millwood there?”

“Yes, she’s still unconscious.”

“Then rip the power cables from an electrical appliance. Apply the live wire to her temple.”

“Mr. Holmes?”

“Do it, man … otherwise you haul up two more corpses!”

Then came a wait of many moments. Indeed, a long time seemed to pass. I could no longer move. The shadowy presence coiled about the interior of the diving bell as if it were black smoke. We sagged on the bench, our heartbeats slowing all the time. Another moment passed, another nudge toward death. That shadow was also inside of us, impressing itself on the nerves of the heart.

All of a sudden, a woman’s piercing scream erupted from the earpiece of the telephone.

Immediately, thereafter, Captain Smeaton thundered: “ Damn you man, I’ve done as you asked. But you’ve made me into a torturer!”

Instantly, the oppression of my cardiac system lifted. I breathed easily again.

Holmes was once more his vigorous self. “No, Captain. You are no torturer. You are our saviour.”

I leaned toward the telephone in order to ask, “Is she alive?”

“Yes, Doctor Watson. In fact, the electrical shock has roused her.”

The black shadow in the cabin dissipated. I heaved a sigh of relief as I sensed that entity dispel its atoms into the surrounding waters. The diving bell gave a lurch. And it began to rise from the sea bed. The ocean turned lighter. Black gave way to purple, then to blue.

Holmes, however, appeared to suddenly descend into an abyss of melancholy.

“We’re safe, Holmes. And the mystery is solved.”

He nodded.

“Then why, pray, are you so downcast?”

“Watson. I didn’t reveal the purpose of my trip to Cornwall. I came here to visit an old friend. You see, his six year old daughter is grievously ill. No, I am disingenuous to even myself. The truth of the matter is this: she is dying.”

“I am very sorry to hear that, Holmes. But how did that sad state of affairs bring you to investigate this case of the diving bell?”

“An act of desperation on my part.” He rested his fingertips together; his eyes became distant. “When I heard the seemingly miraculous story that a man had been rendered somehow immortal I raced here. It occurred to me that Barstow in his diving bell had stumbled upon a remarkable place on the ocean bed that had the power to keep death at bay.”

“And you came here for the sake of the little girl?”

“Yes, Watson, but what did I find? A woman that has the power to project a sick fantasy from her mind and cause murder. For a few short hours I had truly believed I might have a distinct chance of saving little Edith’s life. However…” He gave a long, grave sigh. “Alas, Watson. Alas…”

* * * * *

SIMON CLARK lives in Doncaster, England with his family. When his first novel, Nailed by the Heart , made it through the slush-pile in 1994 he banked the advance and embarked upon his dream of becoming a full-time writer. Many dreams and nightmares later he wrote the cult zombie classic Blood Crazy . Other titles include Darkness Demands, Vengeance Child and The Night of the Triffids , which continues the story of Wyndham’s Sci-Fi classic.

Simon’s latest novel is Whitby Vampyrrhic , a decidedly gruesome and ultra-violent horror-thriller set in World War Two.

The Greatest Mystery

by Paul Kane

My dear and faithful reader. It is only now that I am able to recount the truly shocking events of what I firmly believe to be my dearest friend and colleague Sherlock Holmes’ greatest ever mystery. Upon first reading these words, you may feel my claim is somewhat of an exaggeration. What about the case of the Baskerville Hound, you might ask, quite possibly his most famous adventure to date? What about his entanglements with the evil Professor Moriarty (the merest mention of which will later have great significance, I can assure you)? But I have faithfully chronicled the master detective’s cases over the years and I can categorically attest to the validity of my statement. I alone was witness to its eventual outcome and, once you have finished this offering, I feel certain that you too will agree about the choice of title. I can also promise that while I have been taken to task in the past for what Holmes called my embellishment of these accounts — the addition of, to quote the man himself, ‘color and … life’ (the latter an irony, as you will soon see) — there is not a word of this that is not the whole truth. Whether you believe me or not is, in the end, your choice — all I can do is report the facts of this most singular case as I experienced them, no matter how strange they might seem.

The matter in question began with a simple case — although you might recall the air of strangeness and tension against which it was set, in the months approaching the turn of the century. Indeed, these very events were thought by some to be interlinked, though you will soon realize that this was not in fact so. The real explanation goes beyond that, beyond anything you might have thought possible. But I am getting ahead of myself once more…. The case in hand was an apparently straightforward crime, yet as Holmes is often at great pains to teach me, things are seldom what they appear at first glance.

And so, to the details. A lady by the name of Miss Georgia Cartwright called upon us one afternoon in late September, begging that we pay a visit to her cousin Simon.

“In jail,” Holmes said, motioning for Miss Cartwright to sit down. When he noticed her look of confusion, he waved a hand and explained: “The faint marks on your dress and your arms, a distinctive pattern showing you have recently been pressed up against a set of iron bars…. Pray tell us of what your cousin is accused, Miss Cartwright?”

“I am sad to say Simon stands accused of … of … murdering his fiancée, and my best friend, Miss Judith Hatten,” she told us, gratefully accepting a seat as well as a handkerchief; the latter to dry her eyes. “But he couldn’t have … he simply could not.”