The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove

Author:James Lovegrove
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan Books

I HAD NO DESIRE TO ENTER GONG-FEN’S CLARENCE. I would much rather have walked barefoot into a nest of vipers. I did not even have my Webley on me, which might have offered me some reassurance. There would then have been the option of simply shooting the scoundrel if all else failed.

Holmes, by contrast, showed little hesitation about climbing into the carriage, which left me with no alternative. I could not allow him to face Gong-Fen alone, unaided. I had done so once, to my regret. Not again.

Gong-Fen rapped on the front window, the coachman whipped the horses, and we were away. The Chinaman now presented a somewhat different figure from the confident, serene sophisticate who had invaded our home. There was a marked perturbation about him. His hand showed a tiny but distinct tremor as he drew the curtains at the front and the blinds at the sides and back, cocooning the carriage’s interior in shade. He was trying to behave like his usual self, and failing.

For all that, I could not help muttering to Holmes, as an aside, “I do not feel that this is wise. Now we cannot even see where he is taking us.”

“Tut, Watson. Think it through. Mr Gong-Fen wants us here, in his carriage.”

“Of course he does. To kidnap us.”

“Perhaps I spoke inaccurately. He needs us here. Why did he pick us up? Did he simply happen to be driving by the London Hospital, look out, spy us passing, and decide to make good on an opportunity presented by fate? He did not. He knew we were likely to visit the hospital at some stage, because he knew we would be looking for Li’s body and he knew it had been taken to this very morgue. Hence he waited for us outside.”

“So it was a trap, and he has sprung it. Li’s body was merely the bait.”

“A singularly poor trap, in so far as we have entered it willingly, knowingly.”

“You did.”

“And we could quite easily overpower our trapper, could we not? If it came to that. Am I not correct in my surmise, Gong-Fen? We are not prey but guests.”

The Chinaman nodded. “I see you are as perceptive as ever, Mr Holmes. You have come through your dream-quest unscathed.”

“More or less.”

“I knew you could endure it. A lesser mind might have cracked.”

“Like Stamford’s, you mean?”

Another nod, this one slightly rueful. “It was his choice. I might have counselled against it, had he not been quite so insistent. An addict of any kind is always on the lookout for newer, more intense experiences. After a time he builds up an immunity to the rush of sensation he receives from his addiction. He seeks greater heights, higher stakes. In Dr Stamford’s case, opium no longer fulfilled his needs. He was smoking it in ever-increasing quantities but still becoming inured to its effects. He wanted more, and knew I could provide it.”

“That was the incentive for him, no?” said Holmes. “That was how you got him to perform abductions for you.

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