Shadows over Baker Street

Death Did Not Become Him (1902) DAVID NIALL WILSON and PATRICIA LEE MACOMBER

It has been many years since the events I now record took place, and even as I run through them in my mind, I’m uncertain if I should continue. There is a question of privacy involved, to be certain. There is more. I fancy that when all is said and done, these words will one day find their way into the hands of others. Still, my purpose over the years has never been to further my own reputation, and certainly I’ve been brutally honest when it comes to others.

Let me begin by mentioning the most glaring oddity of all. In this case, when my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes admitted his newest client to 221B Baker Street, it was none other than myself, half-crazed and shaking like a scared dog.

Upon my arrival in the neighborhood, the clock in the church tower had chimed eleven. It was later than I had thought, and far too cold for a sane man to be about. All but one light was out in Holmes’s flat and I assumed him to be asleep. It did not matter. The burden of that night was too much to bear alone, and at the very least I needed the comfort of my old friend’s solid intellect.

I paced, until my shoes threatened to wear ruts in the sidewalk. I wanted desperately to turn around and return to my own home, have a brisk shot of brandy, and slide between the cool sheets of my bed. What I most emphatically did not want was to see my relationship with Holmes tainted by the appearance of insanity. Still, there was nothing for it but to plunge ahead, and I finally dashed for the door in desperation, wanting to reach it before my traitorous feet turned away yet again. Before I could raise my hand to the door knocker, the door swung inward, and I found myself stumbling to a clumsy halt, staring into the grinning countenance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

“Do come in, Watson,” Holmes said with a twinkle in his eye that set my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Another few paces and you’ll wear the leather from your soles.” As he took in my own expression, Holmes grew more serious, and he closed the door quickly behind us, taking my coat.

“I’m terribly sorry about the hour, Holmes,” I blurted, “But the matter simply can’t wait.”

“I gathered from the odd slant of your hat and the mismatching of buttons that this was a matter of some importance,” he replied. He turned and disappeared into his study, and I hurried to catch up with him. When I reached the dimly lit room, he was already in his chair, legs stretched out before him and fingers pressed together under his chin. “So tell me what brings you out so late on a cold night.”

“I’ve come to offer you a new client, Holmes.”

“But you’ve come alone. Who, then, would your client be?”

I watched him for a moment, steepling his fingers and staring at me, eyes twinkling. I knew he had already deduced my reply, but I made it anyway. “It is I, Holmes. This time, it is I who seeks your aid.”

The skin around his eyes drew taut and his lips pursed. “Very well, Watson. Why don’t you sit down, take a brandy, and tell me your story.”

I sat back, closed my eyes, and let the events of the evening flow back into my consciousness, telling the tale as best I could. I knew any detail I left out, or forgot, might prove the one thing Holmes needed to see through it all as nonsense, so I was careful. The brandy helped. This is the tale I told.

It was but a few hours before when a knock came at my door. It was later than I was accustomed to accepting callers. I immediately assumed it to be you, Holmes. Who else would call on me at such an hour? My heart quickened at the thought of adventure, and I hastened to open the door.

The man who met my gaze was gaunt, tall, and weathered as if he’d spent long years on the deck of a ship, or working a farm. His complexion was dark, and his coat clung to him like a shroud. I could make out two others standing directly behind him in the gloom.

“Dr. Watson,” he asked, his voice sharp and edgy.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” I countered. “I’m Watson, and you are? My God, man, do you know the time?”

“I am well aware of the time,” the man answered. “My business with you cannot wait.”

The man held forth a sheet of paper, pressing it toward my nose as if I could read it in the dark. “Did you sign this?” he asked sharply.

“I can’t see what it is from here,” I said. “Step inside Mr. . . .”

“Silverman,” he said, stepping hurriedly through the doorway. “Aaron Silverman. My companions are Mr. Sebastian Jeffries and . . . well, read the paper, and you may see who else accompanies me.”

I knew I should have told the men to return by daylight, but I’d invited them in, and the deed was done. I glanced at the other two, who remained silent. The first was a white-haired old chap with ruddy features and wide, bulging eyes. His cheeks were overly full, making his lip drape oddly downward. I didn’t know him. The third wore a dark coat, as did Silverman, and a hat pulled down to hide the features of his face.

I glanced back to the paper and began to read. It was a death certificate. I had signed it only a week before, pronouncing one Michael Adcott dead of a knife wound to the back. Mr. Adcott had been out too late in the wrong part of town, and apparently someone had fancied his wallet.

“What has this to do with any of you?” I asked bluntly.

“Mr. Jeffries,” the first man explained, “is my solicitor. I should say, he is my cousin’s solicitor. I’m not certain if you would have been told, but there was a sizable fortune—a tontine—involved in the death. Michael was one of only two surviving members of the tontine, and upon the declaration of his death, the courts moved to deliver the tontine’s assets to a Mr. Emil Laroche.

“I knew of no tontine,” I said, “but I see no way I can help you in such a matter. Mr. Adcott died, and as I understand such arrangements, that would indicate that the courts were in the right.”

“So you say,” Silverman said, “and yet, you would be—for the second time this week—mistaken.”

I blinked at him. “Mistaken? How—”

Silverman held up a hand, then turned to his third companion.

“Michael?”

My heart nearly stopped. The man removed his hat slowly, staring at me through eyes I’d seen glazed and closed so few days in the past. He didn’t seem to see me, not really, and yet he reacted to Silverman’s words with perfect understanding. The dazed, haunted expression of those eyes burned into my mind, and I had to shake my head to clear the sensation of—something—something dark and deep. Something wrong.

“This is quite impossible,” I stated. “There is no way this can be the same Michael Adcott that I examined earlier in the week. That man had sustained a direct stab wound to the back, penetrating a lung, and he lay dead in the street at least an hour before I arrived on the scene. There was a constable on the spot—Johnston was his name.”

“And yet,” Silverman said, holding up one hand to silence me, “Michael Adcott stands and breathes before you, a very alive, and suddenly destitute, man. Only your intervention, Dr. Watson, can prevent a horrid miscarriage of justice.”

This was a strange situation, to be certain, but I fancy that I’ve acquitted myself well in any number of odd happenings over the years. Without hesitation, I stepped closer and stared at the man before me. He wavered back and forth, as if his legs barely held him upright, and I squinted, trying to find some fault between my memory of the dead man and the one who’d disturbed my evening.

“Impossible,” I muttered, stepping back. “Preposterous.”

Silverman eyed me coldly. “And yet, a fact that is difficult to deny, I suspect,” he said shortly.

At this, the plump man, who’d remained silent until that moment, stepped forward, fumbling a monocle from his breast pocket and perching it on the bridge of his nose with a palsied hand. The lens teetered, and I was nearly certain it would drop from its perch before he could steady it, but miraculously the man got it under control. He lifted a small sheaf of papers, bringing them closer so he could glance at them through the lens.

“It would seem,” he spoke, the words slow and forced, “that we have a situation before us requiring the utmost in haste and discretion.”

“You would be Mr. Jeffries,” I stated, not waiting for an answer. “I would expect, sir, that of all gathered here, you would be first to note the absurdity of the claim laid before me. Dead men do not pry themselves from the grave, no matter the fiscal windfall it might provide themselves or others. This man cannot be Michael Adcott.”

Jeffries glanced up from his papers quickly, nearly sending the monocle flying. “I assure you, Dr. Watson, that he is. I have served the Adcotts for the past twenty years as solicitor, and I know my client when he stands before me.”

“Which would lead me to believe, sir, that you have mistakenly pronounced Mr. Adcott dead.” Silverman folded his hands in front of him and peered down his nose at me.

I must say that I would rather admit to an error in judgment than to the possibility of the walking dead. All evidence and proof aside, I needed them gone just then.

“Return here tomorrow at four sharp and I’ll have the answers you seek,” I told them, shoving the papers at Silverman and marching them forward.

Holmes had grown contemplative; his eyes were focused, but not, I think, on any point in the reality we shared. Leaning forward in my chair, hands on my knees, I gazed at him anxiously and finished.

“With the house again empty and my heart still beating a savage rhythm in my chest, I could think of only one thing to do, and that was to bring the matter to you.”

Holmes eyes shifted, and he rose suddenly. “And well you did, my dear Watson, well you did indeed.”

He was already walking toward the door, wearing an uncharacteristically distracted expression. “I must see to some things, Watson,” he said suddenly. “And you must rest, old friend. When the sun has risen a little higher in the sky, we shall see what we can find.”

“But, have you no thoughts on this matter?” I cried.

“Thoughts are often all that we have, Watson. There is nothing that I can say for certain, but I do have—thoughts. That is for tomorrow. Go and get some rest.”

With that, he opened the door, and I could think of nothing to say or do, other than to stumble out into the night and off toward home, wondering if my old friend now thought me daft. The sky was already stained a deep bloodred with the sunrise.

Silverman glanced furtively to either side, then slipped through a massive wooden door and into the depths of the squat, monolithic building beyond. The exterior was dingy brick; even the soot and grime seemed soiled, and there was an oily sheen to the place, gleaming sickly in the early-morning light.

He carried a case under one arm, and he’d come on foot. No coach waited outside that door, nor did anyone spot his entry. There had been precious little traffic through those doors in recent years, and what there was, men tended to ignore. Such knowledge was best left to others, or to no one at all. It was a dark place, and the screams of those who’d entered and never been freed echoed through the air surrounding the place like a hum of electricity. So it seemed to some.

The Asylum of St. Elian had been closed for reasons never released to the public. There were rumors of dark experiments, of torture and sin, but they were not often repeated, and usually died before reaching the level of greatness. There was nothing good in the building, and if it hadn’t required actual contact with the place, most would have been happy to wield one of the hammers that would bring it down.

Silverman had found no trouble at all in renting a portion of the fading edifice, and with Jeffries handling the legalities and paperwork, had managed to do so with near anonymity, the solicitor having been granted the right to sign on Silverman’s behalf. The laboratory of St. Elian’s, and the ward nearest that foul place, had come under Silverman’s control easily and without contest. Even the homeless and the drunks had avoided the place. It was empty and lifeless as a tomb, and that suited Aaron Silverman just fine.

Now he made his way down the dark main corridor and fumbled a large skeleton key from one pocket of his jacket, balancing the leather case precariously under one arm. He’d cleaned up as much as was possible—or necessary—but the old lock ground its metal tumblers together in a sound near to disbelief at the intrusion of his key. St. Elian’s hadn’t welcomed him gladly.

Once inside, Silverman wasted no time. He moved about the room, bringing the dim lights to life and placing the wooden case carefully on a bench just inside the door. The laboratory was much as he’d found it. There had been a great deal of equipment left behind when the building closed, and none had felt the urge to return and clear it away. The thought of the use it might have seen was enough to slap away even the greediest of fingers. Silverman had carted in, late at night and under cloak of the deep London fog, the last remaining bits of what he’d dragged from his father’s home—his inheritance.

Despite the hum and glow of the lamps, shadows clung like swamp lichen to every surface and bit of furniture. Silverman shivered; then, irritated with himself, he drew forth a box of matches and lit the large oil lamp on the table beside his case. Turning up the wick, he watched as the flame licked upward, flared, and settled. Standing in the pool of light this created, he felt a little of the spell of the unease lifting and drew a deep breath.

There was little time, and there was no room for delays, or hesitation. Silverman flipped open the case and stared down at the contents. The interior was lined in rich velvet. In slots manufactured to accommodate their exact shape and size, a line of six vials rested. The first three were empty. In the next two slots, a greenish liquid roiled. It was not quiescent, as it should have been, sitting still on the table. It swirled and curled toward the edges of the vials, reaching up the sides and falling back down—as if trying to escape. The sixth and last of the vials contained a flat red powder. Silverman stared for a few moments longer, as if mesmerized.

Then, recovering his senses, he reached for the next full vial and drew it forth, along with the sixth vial, containing the powder.

With one deft movement of his thumbs, he uncapped both vials. Inside the first—green, liquid and light—the solution ceased its movement. He tilted the second, angling the lip of it toward the first, tapping gently, mentally ticking off grains of the powder. The green liquid devoured it, changing color slightly, then regaining its normal appearance, almost as though the powder had been—digested. He recapped both vials, and returned the powder to its place in the wooden case.

To the right of the case, farther along the bench, sat an open carton. Silverman carefully laid the vial down beside the box and reached inside, drawing forth a small leather bag. It might have been easier to work had he unpacked his things, but there was something about the old laboratory, and the asylum walls surrounding it, that made even Silverman want to avoid deeper connection with the place than was absolutely necessary. The less he unpacked, the less he’d have to pack when his work was done.

Silverman opened the bag and pulled out a small kit. The kit contained a syringe, a bottle of alcohol, and a small pouch of glittering blades and tools. He grabbed the syringe, which sported a hideously long needle, picked up the vials once again, and turned toward the door.

At that precise moment, a low moan echoed through the corridors beyond that door, and Silverman froze. The sound was deep, rolling up from the stone bowels of the asylum and rising to a banshee wail that reverberated and echoed back onto itself, forming waves of sound without rhythm or reason. The sound was drenched in pain.

Silverman staggered, bringing one hand to his brow to brush away the sweat and nearly poking out his own eye with the syringe. He cried out, ducking away from this own hand, and cursed softly.

“Damn you,” he said softly. “It’s too soon. I should have hours.” He stared at the doorway, and the dark, shadowed hall beyond. “I should have hours,” he whispered.

The moans rose again, louder than before, and there was a deep metallic clang. He could almost believe the solid stone floor shook.

Under his breath, Aaron Silverman began to pray. He prayed in the ancient Hebrew the words he’d committed to memory, the charm his father had brought to him from the mind and faith of his grandfather and his grandfather’s father. He thought of the ancient, torn shred of canvas, soiled and worn, the spidery lettering etched into that cloth. With his eyes closed, he could see those letters burning brightly—as if they had a life of their own. He could sense the madness behind the verse, could almost see the wild, skewed eyes. He had heard them described so many times they seemed part of his own memory, and not that of his father’s father.

Silverman spoke slowly and very softly, trying not to blend his voice with that other—that horrible, hate-filled sound.

Entering the hall, he took a single deep breath, released some of the pressure he was putting on the vial before he crushed it in his hand, puncturing his skin. Fresh sweat broke out on his brow at the thought of that green, glowing slime slipping into his veins. He had a sudden image of the case in the laboratory behind him, the vials and the thick velvet. This led to further memories, journals, and stories—stories that would be impossible to believe—were the proof not waiting one floor down in a stone room barred with iron.

Silverman shook it off and stepped into the hallway, moving quickly and purposefully toward the sound. Nothing mattered but the vial in his hand, the syringe that would empty it, and the words. He had to speak the words, had to repeat them from memory, just as he’d learned them, or it would all be for nothing. The madness that echoed through the halls would become his own, and the money . . . all that money . . .

There were dim lights strung along the hall, leading down a wide stone stair, and into the shadows below. Silverman took the steps at a trot, ignoring the sounds, which had grown to a constant shriek of madness and a grinding rattle of metal. As he went, he grasped the syringe tightly and plunged it into the lid of the vial. His footsteps grew quicker, and the heaving of his breath threatened to steal the words from his lips, but he couldn’t wait any longer. It had to be now, and it had to be quick.

He hit the bottom step, stumbled, righted himself, and hurried down the hall. The sounds were close now, immediate and maddening. To his right, barred doorways loomed, cells that had lain empty for long years, their iron doors latched and rusted. He passed the first two cells without a glance, but as he came abreast of the third, he slowed, backing toward the center of the hall. Fingers gripped the bars of that third cell, long and sinewy—strong. The bars shook again.

Silverman took a step closer, raising the syringe like a dagger over his head. The words flowed from his lips, but he had no more control of them now than he did of the tremble in his wrist, or the rubbery sensation that threatened to deny him the use of his legs. He slipped toward the barred door, and suddenly a face slammed into it, too-wide eyes glaring at him, framed in wild, unkempt hair. The skin was sallow and pale, and the bars shook harder than they had before, threatening to tear loose from the stone of the walls.

With a cry, Silverman plunged the syringe down and slammed it into the flesh of one of the arms groping through the bars, fingers wide to seek his throat. He felt the needle bite and brought his free hand down on the plunger, jamming it home with a grunt and stepping back, leaving the needle deeply embedded in its target, watching in horror as the arm was jerked inward, catching the syringe on the bar and snapping it off near the center of the too-long needle. Green liquid glittered in the air, splashing the walls and floor in droplets that glowed and hissed. Silverman stepped back farther with a gasp. His heart slammed too quickly—too violently—in his chest, and he feared it would stop. He couldn’t get breath to slip past the knot in his throat, and only the intervention of the wall at his back prevented his toppling to the stone floor.

The screams tore through the air at inhuman volume. Silverman slapped his palms to his ears and closed his eyes. Nothing could have blocked that sound, but he muted it, and blessedly, within moments, the sounds began to fade. The screams receded slowly to wails, the wails to moans. Silverman’s eyes snapped open wide, and he pushed off the wall, moving toward the bars of the cell. His voice rose instantly, returning to his chant, bringing the ancient Hebrew to life through his voice, and trying to imagine that he was in control of the situation.

He stepped closer. The light was very dim, and the bony wrists and yellowed, skinny arms no longer groped between the bars. In fact, the cell’s occupant had retreated to the far wall and slid down to a sitting position on the floor, knees drawn up and head back.

Silverman spoke more clearly, enunciating carefully. There was no reaction within the darkened cell. No motion, no sound. Silverman grew calmer, gaining confidence, and he stepped to within an inch of the bars, staring down fixedly at the man cowering against the back wall. The final words of the chant tumbled from his lips, resonant and strong. For just an instant, as the hall fell silent, Michael Adcott raised his head, staring into the eyes of his captor. The captive man’s eyes blazed with something beyond insanity, beyond rage or pain.

But only for a second. Then those eyes were dead. Blank. Nothing more reflected in their dull black depths but the dim light of the torches in the hall. Silverman watched a moment longer, letting his breathing catch a normal rhythm and straightening his jacket, running one hand back through sweat-soaked hair.

Reaching into one pocket, Silverman retrieved a ring of keys and inserted a large iron skeleton key into the cell’s huge old lock.

“Come along, then,” he said, his voice cracking once, then steadying again. “Come along, Michael. We have work to do, and I’ve had enough nonsense for one day.”

Adcott didn’t move. Not until Silverman’s fingers gripped his upper arm and tugged. Then, with slow, mechanical movements, he levered himself from the floor, leaned against the wall for support, and found his feet. The man did not turn to Silverman, nor did he answer. When Silverman turned toward the door of the cell, Adcott followed as if drawn in the other man’s wake.

It was nearly three o’clock by the time Holmes made his way to the door of my flat. He stood outside the door, and when I invited him in, he shook his head impatiently.

“Your coat, Watson, and hurry. Timing is crucial, and we have several places to be before evening.”

I didn’t hesitate. Long years as Holmes’s companion have removed several layers of my natural hesitation. There were only two choices: follow as best I could, or be left behind and miss whatever was to come. My coat over one arm, my hat in the other hand, I slipped out the door, and Holmes pulled it tight behind me.

Just as I was turning to go, I saw him bend at the waist, reaching down to run a finger along one of the cracks in the sidewalk. Straightening, he removed a bit of paper from his pocket and carefully folded whatever he’d scraped from the ground inside. I thought to ask what he was doing, then thought better of it. All in its time, he’d say. Why force the words?

There was a carriage waiting at the curb, and Holmes slipped inside. I followed, and without a word from Holmes, the driver was off. I should have liked to ask where we were bound, but experience told me the words would be wasted. Holmes had the predatory, hunter’s gleam in his eye I’d seen so many times before, and I knew he’d speak to me only when he was ready. I contented myself with slipping into my coat and leaning back to watch the streets as we passed.

The carriage headed into the center of the city, and it was only a short time before we pulled to the curb. A quick glance out the window confirmed my suspicions. We had pulled up in front of the morgue.

“Why have we come here?” I asked in surprise. “I’ve told you the man was in my flat, alive and standing as you, or I.”

“If, indeed, the man you saw was the same Michael Adcott you pronounced dead,” Holmes replied, exiting the coach and motioning the driver to wait, “then I would expect without doubt to find that body here. The fact you met a man you believe might be Adcott does not mean the Adcott for whom you signed the death warrant is not dead.”

He fell silent then, leaving me to follow the trail of his thoughts to their obvious conclusions. A brother? A close cousin? Why hadn’t it occurred to me? My ears were burning with the sudden realization I’d acted the fool, but I followed Holmes into the morgue entrance nevertheless. What had I been thinking? That dead men walk?

It was late in the day, and it was unlikely that many would be walking the halls of that dark place, but Holmes entered with familiarity and confidence. There was nothing to do but to follow.

It took a good bit of cajoling on Holmes’s part, but the clerk behind the desk, a dour little man with too-thick glasses and a perpetual frown that creased his brow with deep wrinkles, finally agreed to escort us to where the body of Michael Adcott had been stored. The body was, he assured us, right where it had been left, tagged and recorded.

“I sent you a report earlier this very day, Mr. Holmes, did you not get my message? Do you think he’s up and walked away, then?” the man asked. His voice was grave, but now there was a twinkle in his eye that had not been present as he argued with Holmes at the front desk. “They do that, you know. One day here, the next up and gone, and days later wives and mothers, daughters and friends, are here, telling how they’ve met the corpse on the road and asking after the remains. Sometimes, they’re just not there.”

I didn’t much appreciate the clerk’s levity, but Holmes paid the man no mind at all.

“You saw the man, then,” Holmes asked, watching the clerk’s face with keen interest. “You verified the information you sent personally?”

The old man cackled. “If he’s in my book, Mr. Holmes, he’s in my morgue. There are papers that must be filled out to remove a corpse, and permissions to be granted. No such papers have passed my desk for the late Mr. Adcott, and if there are no papers, there is no reason to look. He is here.”

“Then let us wish him Godspeed on the road to the next world,” Holmes replied. “Let us see Mr. Adcott for ourselves, and then we shall see what we can make of the rest of this business.”

Unfortunately for my own sanity, the remains of the late Mr. Michael Adcott were indeed missing from their slab. No note, no papers of explanation or permission. The numbers and documentation lay neatly in place, but no body accompanied them. The small man was less talkative now, and a sight less sure of himself.

“Perhaps he’s been moved?” I suggested.

The man shook his head, not turning to meet my gaze, only staring at the empty spot where a dead man should be. “There were no papers. No one moves without paperwork. No one.”

“And yet,” Holmes observed mildly, “Mr. Adcott seems to have been in the mood for an afternoon stroll.”

“Shall we search for him?” I asked, ready to button up my sleeves and get to the task at hand.

“There’s no time,” Holmes said, his expression shifting in an instant to the old, familiar intensity of the hunt. “I didn’t really expect he would be here, but without knowing . . .” He trailed off, and I followed him out the door. Without a word, he was back in the cab and holding the door impatiently, as I made to enter.

At just that moment, there was a cry from down the street, and I turned, startled. A young man darted from around the corner of the morgue, tousled hair waving about a roguish face and a scrap of paper clutched tightly in grubby fingers. I recognized him at once, as did Holmes, who rose and exited the carriage, calling to the driver to hold.

Wiggins was the leader of a group of ragged urchins Holmes had called on a number of times in the past. Holmes claimed there was more work to get from one of the little beggars than a dozen of London’s finest, and I’d had occasion to see the truth in this. As always, though, Wiggins’s arrival was a surprise to myself.

“Mr. Holmes,” Wiggins cried, coming to a halt and holding out the paper. “We’ve found him, sir, as you asked.”

Holmes didn’t say a word, but took the paper from the boy’s hand, eyes blazing. He read quickly, then folded the paper and slipped it into one of the pockets of his coat. “The others are posted?” he asked quickly.

Wiggins nodded. “He’ll not slip past, sir. Count on it.”

“I do,” Holmes replied, almost smiling. Shillings changed hands and Holmes had turned away and reentered the carriage before I could ask what was written on the paper, or who the “irregulars” were watching.

I knew better than to ask. I’d seen that expression on Holmes’s face too many times. He was on the trail of something, and until that thing was in his grasp, he’d not share it with anyone. Best to keep to his side, watch his back, and wait until he was ready to speak. The carriage took off without a word from Holmes, and I realized suddenly that he’d already anticipated our next stop. Either the note Wiggins had brought him had confirmed his suspicions, or it was related to another matter.

I watched out the curtained window as we passed deeper into the city, trying not to think of the scrap of paper in Holmes’s pocket, or the pallid face of Michael Adcott, staring at me from heavily lidded eyes.

Silverman walked briskly down the street, hands pressed deeply into the pockets of his coat. At his heel, Michael Adcott followed more slowly, his gait forced and clumsy. Silverman paid his companion no mind. They had to meet Jeffries at the court before the last of the judges left his chambers, and that left little time indeed. Time was slipping through his fingers too quickly, and things he’d expected to have accomplished had evaded him.

The doctor—Watson was his name—was a problem. The man should have seen what was obvious, feared what was less so, and signed off on the paperwork by now. Without that signature, they would be forced to let a court decide Michael’s state, and at the very least, he’d be found unfit to speak on his own behalf. That wouldn’t do. Michael Adcott would not be speaking to anyone, and that was another problem.

For the moment, things were under control. The serum—alone—was not enough. That much had been clear in the sketchy notes that had been included with the case that lay waiting in the laboratory at St. Elian’s. Only fate—a bottle of wine—and a loose tongue had given Aaron Silverman the information he needed.

“There was a time,” his father had said, head drooping toward the table and fingers loosely gripping his wineglass, “when we had ways to deal with our problems. There are things we know.” The old man had glanced up to see that his son knew the we in question. “We have always harbored our secrets, Aaron. There was a time when we kept them less guarded—when a rabbi could walk the streets with the respect of those around him. They knew. I know.”

Several glasses of wine later, and a lot of cajoling and flattery on Aaron’s part, and those secrets had begun to surface. Men from clay. The Cabala. Patterns of words and form, rhythm and breath, that emulated the formation of the first man. A mad Arab poet who spoke as if he were in another place and time and stared into distances that were not there. Those words, copied onto the canvas corner of a tent and guarded, studied—shifted over the years and recombined. Al-Hazred, the man had been called, and though he’d been mad, he’d been a prophet as well—a prophet of power. At first the notion had seemed ludicrous. A clay monster controlled by he who gave it life, born of the proper words, the proper earth—the prayers—the faith of the rabbi, and the vision of a madman.

Sworn to secrecy, Aaron had left his father’s home and set out to find a use for his new secret. Money wasn’t everything, he reminded himself often, but no money was certainly something to be avoided. Money was power, and if you were not the one with the power, you were under that man’s thumb. Aaron Silverman would feel the pad of no man’s thumb.

A chance encounter had landed the wooden case in his hands, won from a drunken, reeling fool at poker. The man had wagered it against a five-pound note, holding it close to his chest and announcing drunkenly that the secrets to life itself were contained within, and that this being the case, it certainly qualified as collateral against a five-pound note. The case had been found floating, he claimed, off the shore of the island of Eucrasia after the explosion that destroyed its culture and its ruler. It had been handed from man to man since, and nothing was known of its contents save that they came from the laboratory of one Dr. Caresco Surhomme. Silverman, who knew of Caresco’s work, had agreed impatiently, the four threes in his hand itching to be slapped to the tabletop, and he’d walked away with all the other man’s money, and the wooden box. He could still hear the fellow’s words, echoing in his mind.

“You’ll find more than you bargain for in there. I’m glad to be rid of it. God bears a very heavy burden my friend—don’t be too quick to shoulder it.”

It had taken years of poring over corresondence and articles, diatribes about and against Caresco and fictions written about the man and his work, to realize what it was that he possessed. It had taken another five years to analyze the serum and attribute it to one small corner of Caresco’s work. The reversal of aging. The shaving away of the ravages of time. Taken to the extreme, and with certain additions of Silverman’s own devising, reversing the process of death.

Silverman shook his head to dislodge the memories of what had come before. More important to see to the needs of the moment. He led Michael around a corner and disappeared into the fog. Jeffries would know what to do, and they would have to set about whatever it was with haste. Both the serum, and the incantations and amulets his father had reluctantly provided him, were proving less stable than he’d anticipated. The row in the cell earlier had been a near miss that Silverman didn’t want repeated.

The asylum brooded over the street beneath, giving off a sensation of density, immovable and old as time. When the carriage stopped in front of that place and Holmes stepped out, tipping the driver, I was sure he had lost his mind. The Asylum of St. Elian had been deserted since I was a young man, still pursuing the degrees and education that would lead me to a career in medicine. The stories I’d heard had seemed laughable enough at the time, but when I was faced with the reality of the place, they came back to me full force, flickering across the years of my memory with chilling speed.

Holmes didn’t hesitate. He moved from carriage to door with forceful steps, reached up, and rapped his knuckles against the door sharply. I stared at him, then at the building before us. I would have bet my last pound that no one had passed through that door in ten years. Holmes knocked again, then turned to me with a purpose.

“No one seems to be about, Watson. We must hurry.”

“Hurry where?” I inquired.

Holmes was already trying the door. It was, of course, locked, but I noted with amazement and some alarm that Holmes had pulled a small tool from his pocket and inserted one end into the lock. A few deft movements of wrist and finger, and I heard the sound of tumblers sliding into place. The latch gave way, and Holmes pulled the door open, slipping inside. There was nothing to do but to follow him into the shadows, and to pray that most of what I’d heard back at university was the hogwash it had seemed. The heavy door closed behind us with a loud click. Holmes fiddled with it for a moment, then turned away.

“Locked,” he whispered.

There was no light, but Holmes moved quickly and easily, making his way to the first set of doors to his left. He pulled out a box of matches, lighting one and holding it up as we entered the room. It was a crude, antiquated sort of laboratory. On one of the benches, a few crates lay open, packing material and other items strewn about as if opened and gone through quickly and without much care.

I moved up beside Holmes, glancing over his shoulder as the light from the first match flickered, then died. The quick glimpse had been enough.

“Medical equipment,” I said softly.

“As I suspected,” Holmes replied, turning to the other bench. He lit another match, and this time he slipped along the wall and found the light switch, flicking the power to on.

“Someone will see,” I hissed.

My friend ignored me, and with a quick turn about the room, I realized my error. There were no windows. We were encircled in stone as surely as if entombed. The light was dim, but Holmes made use of it quickly, making his way to a wooden case flung open on one of the bench tops.

The case held two vials, and I saw that Holmes had looked past the greenish, glowing liquid and the other—full of something that looked like sand. He plucked it from the case and held it to the dim light. Then he removed the folded paper he’d brought away from the doorstep of my flat and opened it. He held the two objects together, and I saw that what was on the paper was a bit of clay. Red clay, unlike anything near the city. The dust, or sand, in the vial had the same reddish hue.

“Watson, have you heard of a man named Caresco?”

I started violently, nearly toppling into the nearest of the benches. “Caresco is dead.” I replied, a bit more calmly. “His island was buried in volcanic ash. That Caresco?”

Holmes held up a hand, and I fell silent. The greenish contents of those vials had taken on a new reality for me. I had heard of Caresco and his hellish experiments, and I knew the end he’d reached. Playing God with the human anatomy, enslaving the mind. Seeking a cure for death and time.

“I know of Caresco as well,” Holmes assured me. “I was fairly certain his work was tied up in this, but there is more—something vital that we are missing.”

He returned the card to the case and began pacing the room, rooting through the remaining cases and tossing paperwork and equipment aside without a thought. Clearly, he had no intention of trying to keep our illegal entry a secret. Holmes turned and lifted the vial in his hand so that I could see it more closely.

“Clay?” he asked. I didn’t believe that he expected an answer, so I remained silent as he replaced the vial and continued to stare into the case.

Then, just as I was certain he would turn in disgust and leave that accursed place, Holmes laid hand on a small leather-bound volume. Pulling it nearer to the light, he flipped open the covers, which had nothing upon them but a few characters rendered in Hebrew. Holmes’s brow furrowed, and he flipped the pages rapidly, grunting under his breath.

I glanced over his shoulder as he flipped through the pages. The script was coarse, and though I’m no linguist, I saw what seemed to be alternating lines of Hebrew and some antiquated form of Arabic. There were notes scribbled in the margins. I could make out none of it, but Holmes seemed to be devouring it all.

“There’s no time to waste, Watson,” he said at last, replacing the book where he’d found it and tidying up the room just enough so that a cursory glance would show no evidence of our presence. “We must hide ourselves.”

We moved none too soon. Holmes had just switched off the lights, and dragged me down the hall and through another door, when we heard the grate of an iron key turning slowly in the lock. We could just make out the cursing voice of Aaron Silverman through the solid wood, growing louder as he pushed the door inward and stepped inside.

“I curse the day I first laid eyes on you,” he was saying.

There were two sets of footsteps, and I guessed that the second set must belong to Michael Adcott. There was no answer to Silverman’s ranting diatribe, but the echo of shuffling feet followed his hard, sharp strides into the hall. The door closed once more, and Silverman moved into the laboratory, shoving things about roughly. I held my breath, but he seemed to notice nothing amiss.

“I suppose there’s nothing to do but to put you back in your cell and go in search of Watson,” he said at last. “There is more than one way to get a paper signed, and if Jeffries can’t straighten this out without the good doctor’s authorization, then authorization he shall have.”

Only silence was his answer, and the two sets of footsteps moved closer to us once again, passing into the hall and by our door, moving into the gloomy interior of the old asylum. Holmes hesitated only for a moment, then followed. I trailed behind, moving a bit more slowly, dragging the fingertips of my right hand along the wall beside us as we went. I didn’t want a chance misstep to alert Silverman to our presence. Indeed, I had no idea what Holmes planned to do, and I wanted to be as ready as possible for any circumstance.

We followed the pair down into the bowels of that wretched structure, and at last I felt Holmes’s hand on my arm and came to a stop. Just ahead, around a final corner, there was a stationary glow, as if a torch, or a lantern, was being held. I could still hear Silverman’s muttering voice, and I heard as well the clatter of keys on a ring. Holmes was moving ahead again, very slowly now, and I followed, keeping well back, not wanting to cause my companion to stumble.

Silverman’s words came into clearer focus. He was so agitated that his voice quavered. If I’d been seeing him in my office, I’d have prescribed a stiff brandy, and a few hours’ rest, but Silverman was as far from being prepared to rest as a man could be.

“I’ll find him, don’t you worry,” he was saying. “I’ll make him sign those papers, show him the error of his ways. He saw you, plain as the nose on his face, walking about. Alive. No reason he shouldn’t sign, and by the Gods he will.”

There was more. His lips never ceased their motion, the words flowing in an endless stream. There was the solid click of a key turning in a lock, and the creaking of rusted hinges, followed by the shuffling of feet. I started to inch forward, not wanting to miss a word of what was being said, but I felt Holmes’s hand gripping my shoulder tightly, and I grew still.

He leaned in close and whispered into my ear: “Something is afoot, Watson. Listen!”

I did—and there were two voices. The second, far from coherent, began as a low moan, shivering up from some deep darkness I could not equate with human consciousness. I heard the scrape of shoes on the stone floor, but they weren’t measured steps. The sound was random and wild, quickly drowned out by the wailing voice. It rose from a moan to a banshee screech so rapidly that I was physically stunned by the blast of sound. There was a crash, and a loud cry, followed by a volley of crazed curses.

“Now, Watson,” Holmes hissed. “We must hurry.”

Without looking back, Holmes rounded the corner and stopped. I came up short behind him and stared over his shoulder.

Aaron Silverman was shoving Michael Adcott toward the door of the cell frantically, cursing with each breath, fighting to avoid the other’s flailing arms. Adcott’s hands were clasped to Silverman’s head, fingers twined in his thin, wispy hair, ripping, then gripping again, and ripping more, tufts drifting about the two in a slow-motion counterpoint to their struggle.

“Get in that cell, damn you,” Silverman screeched.

Adcott either didn’t hear the words or ignored them. Backpedaling, he rammed Silverman into the stone wall, spun to the side, and began slamming his own head into the stone with such force it made me sick to watch. Silverman, momentarily stunned, took a step toward Adcott, then seemed to think better of it. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a wrinkled sheet of paper. With trembling voice, he began to read, or, at least I believe he was reading. The words were unfamiliar to me, and his entire frame was shaking with such frustrated rage that he couldn’t hold the paper still enough to read.

Adcott stilled, just for a moment. The man turned toward Silverman, who stood between Holmes, myself, and Adcott, providing a face-on view. To the day of my own death—may it be more lasting and complete than poor Michael’s—I will never shake the image of those eyes from my mind. They flared with inner light so intense that I could imagine worlds within, arms flailing and voices crying out for salvation. Those eyes were windows straight to hell, and in that second, they burned full force into the soul of Aaron Silverman.

Silverman began to back away. He tried to continue the chant, but the words failed him, and his voice faltered, then fell silent. Adcott was moving with quick purposeful strides that slipped from a walk to a full sprint in seconds, propelling his slight frame with alarming speed toward his tormentor. The madness of moments before had blossomed into an intense concentration of anger.

“My God,” I whispered.

Adcott hit Silverman at a full run. One of Michael’s hands gripped the other man by the throat and drove him backward into the stone with a sickening crunch. Silverman tried to speak, but no words or air made it past the iron grip at his throat. His legs buckled, and as Adcott continued to drive forward, squeezing ever harder, Aaron Silverman fell to his knees, eyes bulging.

In a voice so clear and pure that it washed over the scene like the water of a mountain stream on a flame, Adcott spoke. He spoke three short words, and as he spoke them, Silverman struggled a final time, eyes widening farther, if that was possible, and then went absolutely limp, the life crushed from his body.

Adcott staggered back. The effort of concentration had drained him, and the otherworldly rage and strength with which he’d propelled himself vanished. He turned, noticing us for the first time, and raised a hand toward Holmes, as if asking for something. Seconds later, I saw Michael Adcott die for the second time in a single week, and I nearly fainted away on the spot.

Holmes had me by the arm and headed toward the door before I had my wits fully about me, and we were out and into the waiting carriage without a word, closing and locking the doors of St. Elian’s behind us firmly. Holmes stared out into the night, and I collapsed into the seat and my own thoughts as the carriage hurried into the fog.

We were seated in Holmes’s study, sipping brandy and watching the fire that very night. Holmes was staring into the flames, not offering any explanations, and at last I’d had all I could stand of it.

“Holmes,” I said, “back in that laboratory, you said there was something we were missing. I’m familiar with Caresco’s work, and the abominations he is purported to have created. I have heard that he managed to reverse aging in some subjects, though at the cost of the mind—this is beyond me. I never heard that he had cheated death, and in any case, Adcott showed none of the madness reported of the earlier experiments. A great number of very learned men have pored over the bits and pieces that remain of his notes—they found the research to be an abomination, and the process beyond repair. Was Silverman a mad genius?”

“He was not,” Holmes replied, turning to me at last, steepling his fingers and taking a long breath. “Aaron Silverman was a Jew.”

I stared at my friend, wondering if something in the night’s business had addled his brains. He returned my gaze with his usual frank, half-amused expression firmly in place. I waited, and, finally, cracked.

“What in the world,” I asked slowly, “can that possibly have to do with this mess?”

For the first time since we’d left that accursed asylum, Holmes smiled.

“How much do you know of Jewish history?” he asked. I shrugged, and he continued. “There are legends,” he said. “Legends that trail back to the Holy Land itself, and that are known to only a select few. When you first spoke to me, I was nearly certain that Adcott must have a twin that no one had been aware of, or a cousin who bore a striking resemblance to the dead man whom they were trying to pass off as Adcott to win the funds from the tontine. There were obvious answers, but very quickly, the obvious answers caved in, one by one.

“I then began to explore the less obvious, and there was something that bothered me from the start. Silverman’s name. I knew it was familiar to me, but Aaron is hardly an uncommon name, nor is Silverman, so I set out to see if I could find what it was that itched at my mind.

“My search led me to the local temple, and the rabbi, an old friend, was very helpful. He remembered the name of Aaron Silverman immediately, but the Silverman he remembered had been dead for many years. Silverman was a rabbi, or had been. He migrated to London about fifty years ago and made a home here, but even among his fellows he was shunned. Rabbi Silverman had spent years in the Arabian desert, studying and fasting. He came away from that study—changed. He had scrolls and teachings that were unfamiliar to the others already settled here, scrolls dealing with legendary creatures and the Cabala. Scrolls dealing with the Golem. It is reported that he had a scrap of cloth that contained verses from al-Hazred himself, inscribed in blood. Bits of a larger work.”

“The Necronomicon?” I asked dubiously. “That work has long been passed off as legend. And what in the world is a Golem, Holmes, and what has it to do with Michael Adcott?”

“The Golem was an instrument of revenge,” Holmes continued. “It was a creature formed of clay and brought to life by the will, faith, and rage of a rabbi. It would serve the purpose of that rage, and only the rabbi himself could control it.”

“And Adcott?” I asked, not certain I wanted the answer. “He was no man of clay.”

“No,” Holmes agreed. “He was a man brought to a sort of hellish, painful un-life by the science of Caresco Surhomme and the diabolical research of Aaron Silverman. It was the incantations, and the clay, Watson, clay from another place—another time. Clay inherited from Silverman’s father, Aaron Silverman Senior—Rabbi Silverman. The substance in that sixth vial was the very clay of which I speak. When I found a bit of it on your doorstep, I was intrigued. When I saw the vial, I was certain.

“Through the power invested in the clay, Silverman was able to exercise enough control of Adcott’s reanimated form to lead it about in public. You’ll recall that Adcott never spoke, not at your first meeting, nor at any time thereafter.”

“But he did,” I said at last. “He spoke, right at the end. What do you suppose he said, and what enabled him to do what he did?”

“He spoke in Hebrew,” Holmes answered at once. “The words were very clear, and, I suspect, appropriate. I believe that Adcott’s soul managed to make use of the same power that the elder Silverman would have used to animate clay. He used his will, and his faith, and he spoke the only words that could bring him peace.

“He said, ‘It is done.’ ”

I stared at Holmes for a long time, watching for doubt, or belief, anything in those wise eyes that would prove a clue to the mind beyond, but he had turned his gaze to the fire once again, and grown silent.

“I wonder,” I said, rising and retrieving my coat, suddenly very tired and ready for my own home, and my bed, “who got the money.”

Holmes didn’t look up as I departed, but I sensed the smile in his answer.

“To the living go the spoils, Watson. Always to the living.”

Shaking my head, I opened the door and made my way into the late-evening fog.