Shadows over Baker Street by John Pelan;Michael Reaves

Author:John Pelan;Michael Reaves
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2003-09-30T07:00:00+00:00

Subterranean London was a multilayered labyrinth of lost sewers, underground railways, pipes, tunnels, culverts, and conduits of every description, a sprawling network of forgotten passages comprising centuries of buried architecture, level upon level of it, from the medieval to the very modern. It was so vast and deep that no known maps covered it in its entirety. It was also hellishly black, and constantly swimming in a foul miasma from the rivers of excrement and industrial and chemical ooze that meandered back and forth through its slimy entrails.

Once down there, Holmes made a torch by tying pieces of rag around a broken stave, and bade Watson do the same, though even then they proceeded with utmost caution, wading warily westward along arched passages of ancient, sweating brickwork. Everything they saw was caked in the most loathsome detritus. Strands of putrid filth hung in their faces; the squeaking of rats was all around them; there was a continuous rumble and groan from the streets above. Persistently, Watson advised against the foolhardiness of such an enterprise, warning about the dangers of Weil’s disease, hepatitis, bubonic plague. “And these naked flames,” he added worriedly. “They’re a perilous option on our part. Suppose we encounter firedamp?”

“That’s a chance we must take,” Holmes replied, again consulting the map as they approached a junction. “If we turn right here, I believe we’ll be cutting north onto the Piccadilly branch.”

“Holmes!” Watson protested. “This is a deadly serious matter. Suppose there’s a sudden downpour? These pipes get flooded!”

Holmes looked up. “Watson . . . I am perfectly aware of the risks we are taking. Believe me, I wouldn’t have brought myself, let alone my dearest friend, into such danger if I wasn’t absolutely convinced of its necessity.”

“But, Holmes—”

“Watson, I can’t force you to accompany me. If you wish to return to the surface and hunt down Lestrade, then by all means do so. You’d be serving a useful purpose. But I must continue.”

He was wearing his most no-nonsense expression. It was at once plain how utterly serious he was. Finally, Watson shook his head. “And a fine thing that would be . . . for dearest friends to abandon each other in their hour of need.” He smiled bravely.

Holmes smiled back, then gripped his companion by the shoulder. “This maze may appear daunting, but Jobson’s map is not too difficult to follow. He must have been this way many times himself, to be able to draw it from memory while sitting in the death cell. If he can manage it, I fancy we can.”

They plodded on for another fifteen minutes, making turns both left and right, occasionally passing under manholes and ventilation grilles beyond which the upper world was briefly visible. The overwhelming stench of rottenness and sewage became slowly bearable, but that didn’t lessen the visual horrors in London’s dark and fetid bowels. Here and there, gluts of offal were heaped, having been jettisoned from the slaughterhouses; the carcasses of cats and dogs lay decaying, enriching the already poisonous waterways in the most rancid and sickening fashion.

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