Sherlock Holmes-The Army of Doctor Moreau Read online

  Also by Guy Adams and available from Titan Books:

  Sherlock Holmes: The Breath of God

  COMING SOON:

  Deadbeat: Makes You Stronger

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  The Army of Dr Moreau

  GUY ADAMS

  TITAN BOOKS

  Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Dr Moreau

  Print edition ISBN: 9780857689337

  E-book edition ISBN: 9780857689344

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: July 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  Guy Adams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. Copyright © 2012 by Guy Adams.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Printed and bound in the USA.

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  To James Goss, who will wash it down with cava and cat hair.

  Contents

  Part One: Mystery in Rotherhithe

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Two: Fear the Law

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Part Three: The Terrible Father

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Part Four: The Pig-Headed Villain

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Part Five: Into the Lion’s Den

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Part Six: The Army Of Dr Moreau

  Watson

  Carruthers

  Johnson

  Holmes

  Inspector Mann

  Holmes

  Watson

  Challenger

  Mycroft

  Medical Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  “Children of the Law,” I said, “(Moreau) is not dead … He has changed his shape—he has changed his body … For a time you will not see him. He is … there—” I pointed upward “—where he can watch you. You cannot see him.

  But he can see you. Fear the Law.”

  Edward Prendick in The Island of Dr Moreau, H.G. Wells

  PART ONE

  A MYSTERY IN ROTHERHITHE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Writers are surrounded by editors. If there is one thing I have learned in my time working on these stories, it is that.

  I have always tried to be an honest chronicler, adhering to the facts wherever legally and morally possible. I’ve shuffled things around, presented events in the most dramatic order, clarified dialogue and trimmed the wandering up and down flower beds and gravel driveways to a bare minimum. These reports are intended to be exciting after all, and my editor at The Strand will soon tell me if I run the risk of boring his readers to death.

  Editors, you see? They always want to steer the ship, no matter whose hand is on the tiller.

  And what of Holmes? Certainly, he’s never slow in offering his opinion. “You are a genius, Watson,” he announced only the other day. “To be able to remove every aspect of interest from a case so fascinating as that of the Hamilton Cannibals is astonishing. Every deduction, every piece of analysis—all sacrificed to scenes of you swooning over Lady Clara and chasing around Kent with your service revolver. Perhaps it’s time these tales were renamed? Could the reading public finally be ready for The Tales of John Watson: The Crime Doctor?”

  Of course I could claim near-immunity to Holmes’ comments, he makes them so often and with such relish that I take them as little more than bitter seasoning during our mealtime conversations. It amuses him to mock the stories, for they are singularly responsible for the public image he now labours under, an image he would dispel given the slightest chance. Holmes, though in possession of a gargantuan sense of self-importance, never will take to life as a public hero. It implies a morality on him he has no wish to bear.

  Then there are the editors in their thousands: the readers.

  No, I will qualify that—before I alienate every pair of hands to pick up a copy of The Strand—certain readers who appear to possess altogether too much spare time. These are the people who write to complain about inaccuracies and inconsistencies. The people who claim to know better. According to these folk I should pass on my pen to another. Perhaps one better able to remember where he was wounded in Afghanistan (the leg and the shoulder, thank you Mr Haywood of Leeds), or even what his first name is (my wife often used to call me James, Mrs Ashburton of Colchester, initially mimicking a particularly forgetful client and then simply because the name stuck. She also used to call me Jock, Wattles and Badger, though you can rest assured I shall have no call to repeat the fact now she has passed).

  I must confess these are the editors I work hard to ignore. While I will always appreciate the popularity of my work (anyone who says he doesn’t care whether people like his writing is a liar), you can never please all of the readers all of the time. Whenever I try to do so, my writing suffers as a consequence.

  There will always be those who insist certain stories are fakes, written by other authors attempting to pass off what Holmes would laugh to hear me refer to as my “style”, or those who complain that the contents are unbelievable. The latter will be particularly vocal when—or perhaps I should say if—our last case, the curious affair I have titled “The Breath of God”, comes to print. There’s nothing that a certain band of readers likes less than ambiguity, a quality that adventure certainly possessed. Conversely there are many who rate such fantastical adventures higher than those grounded in reality. The public’s appetite for the bizarre will always be considerable. Which is why I can never resist selecting such cases, even though I know that many of them will join the considerable stack of writing I have completed that will never see print in my lifetime.

  The affair that immediately followed tha
t of The Breath of God, the complex business I turn my attention to now, will be yet another forced to gather dust rather than readers. It will also stretch the credulity of that unhappy band of readers who demand that everything keep to the well-worn and easily believed. That this was to be the case was obvious from the first, for certainly nothing ever came from Mycroft Holmes that was conventional.

  Mycroft Holmes appears rarely in my written accounts—no doubt that critical band of my readership can remind me precisely how often. This is not because he was a stranger to his younger brother, rather that the cases he involved us in were usually so secret that there was little point in my making any record of them. That could be argued as the case now, though I will gamble the possibility of a few wasted hours in the hope that one day the adventure can see the light of day. As bizarre and horrific, as politically charged and embarrassing to certain members of hallowed governmental offices as it may be, it would be a shame indeed were nobody ever to know the truth with regards to the army of Dr Moreau.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Well,” announced Holmes, “either the country is on the brink of disaster or word of Mrs Hudson’s kedgeree has spread to Mayfair.” From his position, cross-legged on the floor before the fire, he raised his head above the parapet of his tobacco-stained nest, a temporary blemish on the carpet built from newspaper personal columns and that morning’s mail, and pointed towards the window. “Unless I’m mistaken...”

  “Which you never are.”

  Holmes smiled. “… Mycroft approaches.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “You’ll be telling me you could smell his hair wax half a mile away,” I joked.

  “No,” Holmes admitted, “at least,” he smiled, “not with the windows closed. Though I can recognise the sound of his tread easily enough and there are few men in London who can make a cab creak with such relief when they offload themselves from it.”

  I heard the front door open followed by the groan of our stairs.

  “Not to mention the agony of our floorboards.” We laughed as the door crashed open and the considerable bulk of Mycroft Holmes appeared breathlessly in the doorway.

  “Only poor people chose to live in upstairs rooms,” he complained. “Kindly have the decency to live up to your bank balance and buy a damned house.”

  “Then how would you get your bi-annual exercise?”

  “Exercise? I have evolved beyond exercise. Only those without a brain would choose to obsess on the flesh. It’s a vehicle, nothing more.”

  Words I’d heard Holmes himself use, though I chose not to mention the fact. “A vehicle that is in need of upkeep, Mycroft,” I said. “When was the last time you had a check-up? You’re breathing like a bulldog with a bullet wound.”

  “Dear Lord!” Mycroft shouted, dropping into an unfortunate armchair. “Since when did a gentleman have to endure such slights against his person?”

  “When there is so much of his person to slight,” Holmes replied and erupted into laughter, throwing the remnants of his morning correspondence, fluttering, into the air.

  “Oh no,” Mycroft said, looking at me, “he’s positively effervescent! What’s wrong with him?”

  “I rather imagine,” I replied, “that he is excited by the possibility of work you bring. We’ve just finished a particularly complex and unusual case and the idea of being able to sink his teeth immediately into a new one …”

  “One man’s meat is another’s poison,” Mycroft said, glowering at his brother. “What brings you excitement threatens to breed another ulcer in this stomach that so fascinates you both.”

  “Another ulcer?” I sighed and fetched my medical bag. If Mycroft wouldn’t go and see a doctor I’d force a medical opinion on him while he was too exhausted to move.

  “Oh don’t fuss!” he said as I advanced upon him. But he knew better than to actually fight me off and I proceeded to conduct a basic examination while Holmes called down for coffee.

  “Your heart sounds like a drunken bare-knuckle fight and your blood pressure would see the sleeper train to Glasgow and back. You need to look after yourself. Otherwise, sooner or later, one or the other will kill you.”

  “Obviously, Doctor,” he replied. “Luckily my job is extremely relaxing.”

  “I shall prescribe you a medical diet and an exercise regimen.”

  “And I shall have you shot as an enemy of the Crown.”

  “Follow my advice or end up in an early grave, the choice is yours.”

  “Coffee,” Mrs Hudson announced, bringing in a tray, with a disapproving look on her face. It was a familiar countenance, as much a part of the Baker Street furnishings as the tobacco slipper and the shrunken head that Holmes used as a stopper on a flask of gunpowder. The decoration in those rooms was always wont to make a lady despair.

  Mycroft made a childish show of taking a biscuit from the saucer Mrs Hudson had provided and popping it, whole, into his mouth.

  “Might we now move onto matters of more importance than my weight?” he asked once he had swallowed. “As much as your concern is gratifying I did not make this arduous journey simply to gossip like an old lady at a bandstand.”

  “We never get the benefit of your company unless the empire itself is in peril,” agreed Holmes. “What is it this time? Treasury lost the keys to the vault?” He paused for effect. “Again?”

  He released himself from the clutter of that morning’s mail and walked over to the fireplace to refresh his pipe. Holmes knew well enough that a period of contemplation lay ahead and for him, contemplation was impossible without tobacco.

  “Gentlemen,” Mycroft announced, somewhat theatrically, “what do you know of natural selection?”

  “Survival of the fittest,” I replied. “The belief that a species adapts according to its environment, Darwinism.”

  “In a nutshell, Doctor. Though we’ve come a long way since Darwin’s initial writings.”

  “And who might you mean when you say ‘we’?” Holmes asked.

  Mycroft shuffled in his chair, something the piece of furniture was lucky to survive. “You are, I assume, suggesting this to be a Departmental affair.” The capital “D” was clearly emphasised.

  “Naturally, if only to watch you squirm. Need I reassure you of Watson’s discretion?”

  “I would hope not,” I interrupted. After all, given the work I had performed alongside my friend in the name and interest of Queen and country one begins to hope one’s reputation can be taken for granted.

  “No,” Mycroft agreed, “I appreciate you know when to discuss your adventures with my brother and when to keep your notebook locked within the desk.” A point that I shall, in haste, gloss over.

  “Nonetheless,” he continued, “beyond a handful of individuals nobody is supposed to know of the existence of The Department. As you know, I have often been in service to the government, applying such skills as I might possess in the furtherance of the national interest. It was only a matter of time before my role was expanded. While my experience and knowledge is suitably wide there will always be the need for more expert services and that is where The Department comes in, a movable list of agents hired— often without their direct knowledge—in order to handle specific threats or research projects. I am the Headmaster as it were, supervising and selecting those needed and acting as the central focus of the network.”

  “A central focus in government,” said Holmes. “What will they think of next?”

  “I cannot deny that the lack of inter-departmental squabbling and compromise of purpose is refreshing,” he agreed. “In fact it was a deciding factor when it came to my accepting the post. I operate outside the changing tide of policy and opinion, I do as I see fit. Pursuing the matters that seem to me to be of the most importance.”

  “And that included evolutionary theory?” I asked.

  “Naturally. Whenever a grand shift in scientific thinking comes along it is always the duty of government to lend its attention. You can be sure t
hat other governments are doing the same. Survival of the fittest, Dr Watson, just think of the possible extensions of that thought. Is this a force of nature that can be harnessed? Controlled? Imagine if it were something we could induce rather than endure.”

  “I fail to see the advantage.”

  “Really? As a soldier I had thought you would. Think of all the places where man is at a disadvantage, the hottest deserts, the deepest oceans. Imagine if he could adapt to that environment, embrace it rather than be threatened by it. There is no country we could not fight in, no battlefield on which we would not dominate.”

  The thought was so repugnant to me that I confess I could not reply for a few moments. Was there no limit to the arrogance of man?

  “It is not our place to play God, Mycroft,” I said at last.

  “Ah,” he replied with a smile. “What a pleasure it must be to have the luxury of morals. They are things I have had to abandon long ago. In my position, Doctor, you must appreciate that nothing is beyond contemplation. It’s all very well my objecting to a principle but what use will that be when the Germans mobilise troops that have a biological advantage over our own? Much comfort my principles will be when our men are dying.”

  “But surely someone has to draw a line. Must we all submit to our basest thoughts? Entertain the very worst behaviour just in case our neighbour does the same?”

  “Welcome to my world, Doctor.”

  “If we could agree to accept the pragmatic nature of your work and move on to the facts?” Holmes suggested, impatient as always to get to the actual data.

  “Indeed,” Mycroft agreed, clearly happy to do just that. “Though I will just say that perhaps the doctor would not be quite so affronted by the idea were its medical applications appreciated. Imagine a body evolved beyond the reach of disease—the principle is just the same. In fact I believe that was the initial route taken by the specialist I had contracted to explore the possibility.”

  Catching a look from my friend begging me to interject no further, I sank back into my seat and let Mycroft speak.