Shadows over Baker Street

The Adventure of the Arab’s Manuscript (1898) MICHAEL REAVES

Of the many and varied adventures in which I have been privileged to assist my friend and colleague Sherlock Holmes, there are several which I have not made a matter of public record. The majority of these omissions have been for reasons pertaining to the security of the Empire, or to avoid causing scandal and embarrassment to certain parties involved. To a degree, these considerations apply to the following incidents as well. However, after much discussion, Holmes and I have reached the mutual conclusion that it is in the best interest of the Empire—indeed, of mankind in general—that they be documented, despite the considerable personal grief I anticipate recounting them will cause me.

Let me begin, then, on a day in early October, in the Year of Our Lord 1898. The sun was shining, pale and wan in the northern sky. There was a brisk snap to the air, and the leaves were reflecting the variety of nature’s palette. Holmes and I were returning from an interview in Reading. It was not long after the occasion of my second marriage, and I was in a mood of pleasurable anticipation at the thought of rejoining my new wife after dropping Holmes off at the Baker Street residence.

Our route took us near Foubury Gardens, at the sight of which my frame of mind became somewhat darkened by certain memories. They were bittersweet recollections, familiar to me by now, but nonetheless poignant. Only for an instant did they intrude, but it was sufficient to cause me to turn my eyes from the hansom window toward the front, and at this point I became aware of Holmes’s measuring gaze upon me.

“There are some wounds left by war that time cannot heal, sad to say,” he remarked.

Our relationship had endured long enough that his uncanny ability to divine my thoughts no longer had the power to astonish me, although I would never come to regard it as pedestrian. “As always, your words strike home,” I replied. “How did you know my mind was dwelling on my service in Afghanistan?”

My friend waved his fingers in a disparaging gesture. “Your behavior was embarrassingly easy to read. As we passed Foubury Gardens I saw you gaze upon the statue of the Maiwand Lion, which stands as a monument to the Berkshire Regiment massacre in that remote Afghan village in 1880. Your brow darkened, your fingers moved slightly toward the shoulder where you sustained your wound, and your posture straightened to that of a more military bearing—all doubtlessly without any conscious volition on your part. Even someone far less observant of human behavior than I would have had no trouble ascertaining your thoughts—provided they knew, as I do, of your past military service.”

I gave what I hoped was a noncommittal nod, and after a moment Holmes returned his interest to the scenery of the passing streets. I felt relieved. There are certain things which, despite all his perspicacity, my friend has not deduced about me, and I felt no shame or lack of friendship was implied by my desiring it to remain that way. There are secrets one cannot share with even the closest of friends. Besides, I told myself comfortably, it was long ago in another land; save for the occasional nostalgic twinge, I had wholly put it behind me. Not even Holmes, after all, could intuit an episode out of the past without some form of suggestive evidence.

All of this being said by my inner self to great confidence and satisfaction, I can now only imagine the irony with which my readers must greet this next scene. For when we returned to Holmes’s flat at 221B Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson informed him that a young woman awaited within. She presented Holmes with the lady’s card. Holmes glanced at it and handed it to me. The print on the pasteboard rectangle was small and cursive, and I was still trying to squint it into focus as I followed him through the door.

I recognized her immediately, of course. It was as if the twenty intervening years had passed in the space of a heartbeat. She was wearing a twill jacket and walking skirt now instead of the lambskin khalat in which I had last seen her. There were touches of gray in what had been lustrous black hair, and wrinkles—a legacy of the unforgiving tropical sun as much as years—at the corners of her eyes and mouth. But these did not speak of age so much as of life—the harsh and spartan life of the Afghan hill people.

“Miriam,” I said. I was dimly aware of Holmes standing somewhat to one side and watching us both, but that knowledge didn’t matter. All that mattered was the shock and the almost painful pleasure of seeing her there. I took a step toward her, as she did toward me, and then we simultaneously remembered that we had an audience, and a very curious one. I glanced at Holmes and coughed into my fist.

“My apologies, Holmes,” I said. “It’s just that—that is, she and I—”

“I believe not even Lestrade could fail to notice evidence of a past association between you two,” Holmes said dryly. He gave Miriam a slight bow. “Sherlock Holmes, at your service, Miss Miriam Shah.”

“I am most gratified to meet you, Mr. Holmes,” she replied. Her voice was as strong and melodic as I remembered it. She turned somewhat, and I noticed that she was wearing a single piece of jewelry—an amulet, carved from lapus lazuli into the shape of an open hand, with an eye in the middle of the palm. Even the shock of seeing her again was not strong enough to keep me from silently remarking its uniqueness.

I could not resist speaking, propriety be damned. “Miriam,” I said, “how do you come to be here? It is so wonderful to see you again—”

“And you, John,” she replied. “I wish I could say that naught but the desire to visit you after all these years has propelled me on this long journey. Unfortunately, that is not the truth.”

“Most interesting,” Holmes said. “Pray be seated, Miss Shah. I am quite curious to know why a chieftain’s daughter has journeyed all the way from the hill regions of northern Afghanistan—specifically, I believe, the vicinity of Mundabad—to see me, especially at the possibility of mortal danger to her soul.”

Miriam’s expression of surprise was, of course, little different from those I had seen on the scores of other clients who had found their way to Baker Street over the past decade. “You do not fall short of your reputation, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “How did you intuit these facts?”

Holmes raised an eyebrow. “My dear lady, I do not ‘intuit.’ I deduce. I extrapolate. In your case, the process was simple. Your accent alone is sufficient to determine your nationality. In addition, you have until recently been wearing the traditional veil of the Moslem woman, which covers the lower half of the face. The upper half is slightly, but noticeably, more tanned. On the whole, Afghan hill women toil at a greater and harder variety of tasks than those who dwell in the country’s more metropolitan areas. This keeps them exposed to the desert sun longer. There are lines of paler skin on your arms and fingers as well, indicating that you are accustomed to wearing jewelry—a practice which few save the daughters and wives of tribal leaders can afford to do. The obvious fact that you know my friend and colleague places you in the Mundabad region. Finally, the single piece of jewelry you have retained”—he gestured at the amulet nestled in the hollow of her throat—“is, I believe, a talisman known as a hamsa, intended to ward off evil.”

Miriam nodded and sat, and no more was said until after the tea Mrs. Hudson brought had been poured.

I was, of course, aflame with curiosity as to what had brought her to London, this woman who was quite probably the last person on earth I would ever have expected to see here. I restrained myself—after all, a gentleman cannot press a lady to speak until she is ready—but it took quite an effort on my part. For Miriam Shah had once quite literally saved my life.

Miriam took a long sip of tea and shuddered slightly. “That’s better,” she said. “I believe I understand now why Englishmen are so driven to expand their empire—it keeps them away from this chill climate.”

Then she said to Holmes, “Have you ever heard of the Kitab al-Azif?”

Holmes started slightly—a reaction that would have, I think, been unnoticeable to all save myself, who had known him for years. It was one of the few times I have ever seen him register surprise.

“I have read of it. My knowledge is, I must admit, somewhat sketchy. Kitab is, of course, Arabic for ‘book.’ Al-Azif, as I understand it, is a term used by Mussulmen; it refers to the buzzing of nocturnal insects, which their superstitious minds take to be the howling of afrit, or demons. The consensus is that the book was written by a Yemenite named Abdul al-Hazred, around A.D. 700. The work was subsequently translated several times; first into Greek by Philetas, who renamed it the Necronomicon, or ‘Book Concerning the Dead,’ and later into Latin by Olaus Wormius. There was also an English translation in the late sixteenth century by the occult scholar Dr. John Dee, who called it the Liber Logaeth. There have, I believe, been more recent translations as well. The book’s contents are supposed to be a compendium of ancient lore and forbidden knowledge concerning various pre-Adamite beings and creatures, some of extraterrestrial origin, who once ruled the earth and who anticipate doing so again.”

“Your information is correct,” Miriam replied. Then she was silent for a moment, as if gathering herself. As much to fill the silence as anything else, I interjected, “Surely such a work must be considered the product of a demented mind.”

“If al-Hazred was not mad before he wrote this infernal opus, he surely was after he completed it,” Miriam said. “Those who have looked through the pages of the Necronomicon say it is the most dangerous book in the world because it gives far more than just the knowledge that these Old Ones and Elder Gods exist—it also instructs the reader in various ways to summon them from their places of exile, that they may rule the earth as they did eons ago.”

I looked to Holmes, assuming he would immediately dismiss such a bizarre statement as utter claptrap. He was slowly filling the bowl of his pipe with shag, and he did not pause in doing so. Instead he said simply, “Please go on.”

Miriam continued, and as I listened, my astonishment at her story became great enough to almost supersede my astonishment at her presence.

“According to legend, al-Hazred had delved deep into forbidden knowledge and ancient, hidden cults. He had visited Irem, the dreaded City of Pillars, and other lost conurbations even more dangerous. He had communicated with the djinn, and afrits, and nameless beings still more primal and powerful. And all of this he put down on parchment—a lifetime of mind-shattering, soul-blasting experiences.

“It is an uncontested fact that, as each successive translator copied the Arab’s work into his own language, he edited out various teachings and sections—perhaps because he considered them to contain knowledge that man was not meant to know, perhaps in the interests of brevity and clarity, perhaps both. For whatever reasons, the few copies of the Necronomicon extant today are known to be heavily abridged. Far more text is missing than has been left in. The original Latin edition was over nine hundred pages; the Liber Logaeth not even six hundred. These pages were assumed lost; the complete al-Azif has not been seen for centuries.”

“Until now, I take it,” Holmes said. His voice was flat, almost contemplative. He had finished filling his pipe, but he did not light it. He sat quite still, his attentive gaze fixed upon Miriam. “Pray continue.”

As Miriam continued to speak, I felt an involuntary shiver caress me, and wondered at it—after all, I was used to the damp chill of a London fall, and normally would have scarcely noticed it. But now I shivered. It felt as if the fire’s heat were somehow not penetrating the room, even though I could see it blazing away beyond the hearth.

“Two years ago a large ceramic container was found in a cave far back in one of the many narrow canyons near where my people live. There was some concern among the more superstitious villagers that to open it would be to unleash a plague of demons and ill luck. So it was taken to Kandahar, where it was sold to a ferengi.”

Holmes put down his pipe and steepled his fingers in front of his face, looking, for a surprising moment, almost as if he were praying. “You said the container was sealed. How did you know what the contents were?”

“There was writing inscribed in the clay. And there was this as well, impressed into the wax seal.” From within her jacket she withdrew a folded piece of paper and handed it to my friend, who opened it. On it was drawn some sort of symbol—of its exact configuration I cannot say, but as Holmes held it up to look at it, the paper was poised for a moment in front of the fire, which illumination allowed me a brief, translucent impression of the sketch. It was abstract, and even in that imperfect glimpse seemed somehow wrong, as if it represented some sort of spatial anomaly. I can think of no better way to describe it. Before I could ask to see it, Holmes had crumpled it up and thrown it into the fire.

“That is known as the Elder Sign, if I’m not mistaken,” he said.

“It is. The writing on the container was al-Azif, in Akkadian.”

“Ah. Which was the lingua franca of the Arabian world until approximately A.D. 700.”

“Just so,” Miriam said. “It would appear that al-Hazred felt the book’s contents important enough to write down the entire manuscript a second time, for safekeeping.”

They were both quiet for a moment. Then Holmes said, “You have followed the ferengi—the foreigner—who brought the manuscript to England. Why? I understand the volatile nature of the text, but why have you elected to pursue it?”

She glanced at me, then replied, “I volunteered. I am one of the few from my village who speaks French and English, and I have heard whispers, ever since I can remember, of the ancient and shunned sects, the worshipers of Those Who Came Before.” Her hand went to her throat, touching the charm that hung there. “Mashallah,” she murmured, then continued: “The existing copies of the Necronomicon are kept under lock and key, lest the knowledge it still retains be used to shatter civilization. How much more dangerous, then, must the unexpurgated version be? It must be found, as quickly as possible. That is why I have come to you, Mr. Holmes.” She glanced at me again, and smiled. “And I could not resist the opportunity to see you again, however briefly, John.”

As might be imagined, my state of mind after hearing all this was complex, to put it mildly. It all sounded like the febrile fantasies that I have seen hashish and opium spin in many an Oriental mind—and not a few Occidental ones as well. But one look at Holmes’s grim expression told me that he considered this no fantasy.

“What can you tell me about the one who acquired the manuscript?”

“He was strong in appearance, tall, with black hair and beard and intense blue eyes. My impression was that he was in his midthirties.”

“Were there any distinguishing marks—any characteristics or traits that might help one single him out in a crowd?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes. He had a scar on the palm of his left hand—as if a knife had been drawn across it.”

“Ah. Most illuminating,” Holmes commented. He stood. “Very well, Miss Shah; I shall certainly accompany you on your quest, and I hope I speak for my colleague as well”—this last with a glance in my direction. “If you’ll excuse me—I must see to some affairs. I foresee that our inquiry should take no more than a day, perhaps two at most, so we shall need to pack but lightly.” So saying, Holmes left the room.

For a moment Miriam and I stood silently together. My mind was a welter of conflicting thoughts and emotions—not the least of which was that my wife was waiting for me at our home. She was, of course, used to—perhaps “resigned to” would be a more accurate phrasing—my sudden departures from London at Holmes’s requests. This could not help but be different, however, and I could not predict what her reaction to it might be.

Or if even I would tell her.

Such disloyal thoughts did nothing to quell my inner turmoil. I turned to Miriam, feeling the need to say something to break the silence. “I—I don’t believe I ever properly thanked you,” I said to her, “for saving my life those many years ago.” For in fact she had done no less than that, by ministering to me during the long months of my convalescence in Peshawar, after I was wounded on the front lines. During my prolonged battle with enteric fever, on the many occasions when my life balanced on the edge of death, I would often open my eyes to see a young Afghan woman, daughter of one of the tribal chieftains with whom our forces had established a friendly liaison, bending over me, sponging my forehead or otherwise tending to my needs. Initially there were frequent periods of delirium, and it was Miriam who listened to my ravings, who talked to me and gently guided me back to myself. I truly believe that had it not been for her presence grounding me in reality, I would have been lost in madness. And a life without the mind is no life at all.

During the latter months of my convalescence, we had many long conversations. She was well educated, having attended school in Bombay, and she was intelligent and self-possessed to a degree rarely seen in Afghan women—or any woman in my experience, for that matter. Quite a strong friendship developed between us—more than a friendship, if truth be told. The memory I had retained from it, over all these years, was that sense of deep connection—an intimacy that, in many ways, I had not shared with anyone since then, not even my beloved Mary. We had spoken of so many things, Miriam and I, including matters of the heart. Near the end of my recuperation, I asked her to return to London with me. She declined, saying that as the daughter of a chief, she had responsibilities she could not ignore, even for the sake of love.

We both had our obligations, and so parted, but I had, more than a few times over the intervening years, wondered what might have been had we been less faithful to duty.

And now she stood before me—older, as was I, but still in so many ways the woman I remembered. It stirred things in me which had been quiet for no small time.

“No gratitude is needed,” she said, in response to my statement. “For surely your presence in my life did enrich it at least as much as I hope mine did yours. I wish that there were time to speak of such things now. But there is not, and we must act swiftly and decisively, John, if we are to ensure any kind of future at all. If we do not, the world may once again feel the tread of the Great Old Ones.”

Her apparent dismissal of our past seemed abrupt, and I felt a vague disappointment. I wanted to ask her more, to investigate more deeply this mysterious and seemingly dangerous imbroglio that evidently revolved around the possession of the Arab’s manuscript, but she laid a finger lightly across my lips, enjoining silence. “We will speak of the past later,” she told me. “But now you must prepare for the trip, as your friend is doing.”

Something in her manner and tone seemed to reassure me, on a subtle level, that despite the obvious gravity of our mission, the favorable outcome of it was not in doubt. But there was, too, a sense of foreboding, a coldness that continued to waft through the room, as if the warm and cheery fire had suddenly gone out. Miriam was on the one hand the woman who had called to the passion of my younger self, years ago and worlds away; now she was older and different, not quite as I recalled her. I could not help but feel a nostalgic sadness for the path not taken. I nodded and moved down the hall to what had once been my bedroom to assemble an overnight bag.

Packing did not take long; I had, over the years, become quite good at throwing the necessary accoutrements for a short trip into a valise. In less than a quarter hour I was ready, save for three items, which I then included. The first was a small bit of stone, the size of my closed fist, the surface of which was dark and pitted. If one looked closely at it, deep colors appeared to shift beneath its surface, somewhat like the black opals of Queensland, Australia. I had happened across it in Afghanistan and kept it as a souvenir all this time. I had come to think of it as a lucky piece, despite the knowledge that Holmes did not believe in such things and would have ridiculed me for it. But a man who has stood upon the field of battle amidst flying bullets and survived, while those all around him died, knows that Dame Fortune smiles or frowns upon those whom she chooses. It seemed appropriate with Miriam here that I bring the lucky stone.

The second item I decided to keep upon my person was a small, teardrop-shaped leather sack, perhaps five inches long and filled with fine lead shot. There was a loop of leather at the narrow end. It was what the underworld element called a cosh, or blackjack. I gripped it for a moment, slipped the loop over my thumb and slapped it experimentally against my open palm, then dropped it into my coat pocket.

Though there was no need to carry it at the moment, in my bag I included, too, my Webley Bulldog revolver, for, while most of my adventures with Holmes had been without any real danger to ourselves, the sense of foreboding I felt now urged me to err on the side of caution. Should a need arise, I would prefer to have a weapon at hand. After all, it was not just Holmes and myself I needed to protect this time.

As I left the room I encountered Holmes in the hall. He looked even more preoccupied than usual, and I made an attempt at jocularity. “So, Holmes, once again the game’s afoot, eh?”

He did not return my smile. “It is no game this time, Watson.” Before I could ask him what he meant by that, we had rejoined Miriam, and Mrs. Hudson was announcing the hansom’s arrival.

As we waited for the cabbie to tuck our bags into the boot, enduring a sudden chilly and damp wind that threatened to blow away our hats, Miriam said, “Mr. Holmes, it seems as if you already have a destination in mind.”

“Indeed, madam, I do. We shall take the train to Guilford Station, and a carriage across the river to East Molesy. The man we seek is Professor George Coombs, who maintains a house outside of town.”

Miriam looked at Holmes, her expression more one of curiosity than the more common reaction of incredulity. “How can you know this?”

“From your description of him, madam. Professor Coombs is a man with a powerful build, black hair and beard, and blue eyes.”

Miriam frowned. “I hazard to say, sir, that there must be more than a few men in England who would answer to that same description.”

Holmes gave her the briefest of smiles. “Of course. But not that many who have a knife scar across the palm. The professor received that wound warding off an attack from a hashish cultist while in India some years ago. Assassins, they are called, after the drug that incites them to suicidal madness. Normally they employ strangling cords for their foul work, but I understand that the professor, who was something of a pugilist in his university days, thwarted the initial attack, so that the would-be killer had to resort to a blade. Which obviously also failed, since our Mr. Coombs is still with us.”

Miriam looked somewhat doubtful. Of course I knew that Holmes would not have engaged a taxi on this scant evidence; there would be more. It was not long in coming: “Professor Coombs is an archaeologist, attached of late to Lord Richard Penshurst’s recent expedition to the Khyber Pass. Penshurst is a gifted amateur, and wise enough to engage properly credentialed assistants when he mounts these forays. According to the Times, the group is recently returned with a plethora of items that have been donated to the British Museum.”

“Wouldn’t it be wiser, then, to check the museum first?”

A quick frown flitted across Holmes’s saturnine face, and I suppressed a smile. He did not care overmuch for advice, certainly not from those he considered his intellectual inferiors, a category which included nearly everyone. I have even heard him argue at length with his brother Mycroft, whom he considers perhaps his only superior in mental capacity, though I have my doubts upon that score.

“No, madam, for had such a document as you describe been delivered to the museum, it would have been on the list of items so donated. Since I have seen this list, and since the manuscript is not upon it, I deem it more likely that the professor has kept it for further study. East Molesy is our destination.”

To the southwest from London, an hour or so by train, Guilford is a town with an academic bent, the local college being well thought of in certain circles. Professor Coombs, who was an Oxford man and therefore not attached to the local school, lived on the outskirts of Molesy; his family owned a residential property there, and a professor’s salary, even when from private sources, is not so great as all that.

This Holmes explained to us on the train as we steamed through the intermittently sunny English countryside. The colors of autumn were upon the land—reds, yellows, and golds—quite pleasant, if such things mattered to one. Holmes, of course, never evidenced much interest in nature per se, though he did remark upon a cluster of boxy white bee hives crowning a hill we passed. The precise construction of bee society and their hives had always seemed of particular fascination to him. Having seen some men swell up like corpses left three days in the tropical sun from naught but bee stings, I held a certain medical interest in the insects, but nothing to the extent with which Holmes viewed them.

After we had journeyed for a couple of hours, Holmes appeared to doze, and once again I found myself alone, after a fashion, with Miriam. I felt the need to talk to her of our past.

“Miriam—”

“Later, John,” she said, as if sensing my thoughts. “We will speak of these things later.”

Frustrated to no small degree, I subsided. Perhaps she sensed this as well, for she said with a smile, “Do you remember a peculiar stone you showed me once? You said you found it in a dry watercourse near Khusk-i-Nakhud.”

“Yes. A strange bit of rock, evidently meteoric in origin,” I said. “Odd you should make mention of it; I fancy it rather a good-luck charm, and have brought it along.”

“Do you have it with you now?”

I produced the stone from my pocket. Her face lit with a smile, and she held out her hand. I tendered it to her.

She ran her fingers over it lightly, her eyes half closed; it seemed to be almost a sensual pleasure for her, as if the touch of it roused some pleasant tactile memory. After a moment she sighed, and offered it back to me.

“Keep it,” I said.

“I couldn’t.”

“It would please me if you did. It came from your country, after all.”

She smiled, though in her expression was a hint of mystery. “Thank you, John,” she said softly. “I will treasure it more than you can know.” After a moment, she raised her hands behind her neck, unclasped the charm that hung there, and held it out to me. “A gift for a gift. Please.”

“Miriam, you don’t have to—”

“Take it, John,” she urged me. “It will keep us close together, always, no matter the distance between us.”

Touched by the sentiment, I accepted. We said no more, but settled into a comfortable and companionable silence as the train continued.

British railways run like fine clocks, and thus we arrived in due course at Guilford Station just before evening, and engaged a hansom. The clouds that had partially obscured the sun were now thickening, and the threat of rain grew stronger during the trip to Professor Coombs’s house, which, as Holmes had said, was in the countryside beyond the town proper. By the time we arrived the rain had sent heralding drops, and we barely attained the porch before the skies opened up with a pounding, wind-lashed downpour. Through the rain I noticed, as we drove up the winding lane, the vague outlines of a small hill or mound in the fields behind the place.

The doorbell was answered by a large, rough-looking butler who, it seemed to me, would be more at home on a wharf loading heavy cargo than working as a man’s man. His clothes fit well enough, but he did not look comfortable in them. Since our visit was impromptu and without appointment, and as Holmes has always been somewhat impatient with the social graces, I took it upon myself to introduce ourselves and to inquire if the professor might be persuaded to see us. The butler took our hats and bags, showed us to a modest but well-appointed parlor, and lumbered off to speak to his master.

I have never been, nor do I expect ever to be, in Holmes’s league when it comes to observation; however, even I noticed that Miriam seemed anxious, lacing and unlacing her fingers and smoothing and adjusting her garments nervously as we waited. Twice she stood, took a few steps in different directions, then returned to her chair. Her high level of concern over the danger represented by the Arab’s manuscript was evident. I would have attempted to reassure her, but something in her manner—her movements seemed oddly formal, almost as though she were performing a series of gesticulations by rote—coupled with her earlier reticience, prevented me from doing so. Holmes seemed to have noticed it as well; he watched her with his usual clinical detachment.

A short time passed, during which the only sounds were the rustling of crinoline and the loud ticking of a grandfather clock. At length the apish butler returned. With him, judging by Miriam’s and Holmes’s descriptions, was Professor Coombs. I appraised him with my physician’s eye. He was tall, well made, and sound of limb from his motions, athletic in appearance, and tanned darkly.

Again, I made introductions. Coombs did not appear to be surprised to learn our identities.

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Your reputations precede you, sirs. I am honored, if a trifle puzzled, by your visit. And Miss Shah.” He bowed. “Have we met? You seem familiar.”

“We have, sir, after a fashion. Though you would not have seen my face, as I would have been veiled.”

“Of course.” He sat, as did we, and offered us claret, to which we demurred. “What brings you two gentlemen from London? And you, madam, from the Eastern lands?”

“Come now, Professor,” Holmes said. “There is no need to be disingenuous. We are here to speak of the Kitab al-Azif.”

Coombs’s smile was a flash of white against the darkness of his beard. “You are a direct man, Mr. Holmes, as I have heard. Let me be equally as blunt. What business is it of yours?”

Holmes replied smoothly, “Miss Shah’s concerns stem from a worry as to its possible . . . misuse.”

Coombs raised an eyebrow. “And is this a concern shared by Sherlock Holmes? A rationalist known for his powers of deduction? You are an Englishman and an intellectual, sir—surely you do not subscribe to such beliefs as the al-Azif espouses?”

I expected a quick reply from Holmes affirming this, but I was surprised. “My research into this topic is not yet complete,” he replied, his voice even. “However, I am unwilling to dismiss the underlying premise out of hand.”

Coombs nodded, tugging at his beard. “You are wiser than I have been led to believe, sir. There are things under God’s heaven that seem impossible to any modern nineteenth-century mind yet which are in fact quite real.” His expression darkened. “Over the years and in my travels, I have seen some of these things, and I have become a believer, albeit a reluctant one.”

Holmes did not speak to this. After a moment, Coombs continued. “Miss Shah may rest easy. I guarantee the manuscript will not be misused. It is part of my personal collection of antiques and curiosa.” He rose. “I apologize for seeming brusque, but my schedule today—”

“You have the al-Azif here, then?” Miriam interjected.

Coombs looked at her. During his speech she had diminished, but not ceased, her patterns of anxious movement. Coombs now seemed to take note of this. His eyes narrowed, and some wordless communion seemed to pass between them. A look of mingled fear and anger filled his face. I saw Holmes lean forward, watching them intently.

“I had not expected you so soon,” Coombs said to Miriam. He raised his voice. “Bradley!”

The butler reappeared. In his oversized hand he held a Webley .38 Bulldog, like the one I had in my valise. Exactly like mine, I realized, recognizing with a start the custom ivory grips I had caused to be installed on the revolver some years ago. The thug had evidently searched our baggage.

I have never considered myself primarily a man of action, though certainly my time in Her Majesty’s service exposed me to more than my share of turmoil in foreign lands. And, while most of the investigations upon which Holmes and I have ventured have been relatively peaceful, there have been times when a stout heart, aided by a quick wit and quicker movements, have been necessary for survival. So it was that the instant I discerned my weapon in the brute’s grip, I slipped my own hand into my jacket pocket and quickly removed the cosh, palming it and holding it thus hidden upon my lap. The butler did not appear to notice my action.

Meanwhile, Coombs spoke to Holmes but kept his gaze upon Miriam. “I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes, but you have involved yourself in matters much more complex than you comprehend. I cannot allow the manuscript out of my keeping. Especially to one such as her.”

He spoke this last sentence with an expression of disgust akin to that which a white man might voice about a wog with leprosy.

If I live to be a thousand, I shall never forget what transpired next. Miriam—dear, sweet Miriam, who had brought me back from Death’s door with her own gentle hands—glared at Coombs, her expression one of concentrated evil and fury that seemed inhuman in its intensity. Then she spoke, uttering a short, harsh two-word expression in a language I did not recognize. The discordant timbre of her voice grated painfully in my ears.

“N’gêb Yalh’tñf!”

Coombs suddenly lurched to one side, clutched at his chest, and collapsed, as a man suffering a fatal cardiac convulsion might.

Bradley, the butler, stepped in and leveled my revolver at the back of Miriam’s head. He meant to shoot—I saw his finger tighten on the trigger, saw the hammer begin to cock, the cylinder begin to turn, chambering the round to be fired. This all happened in a kind of measured motion, as if time were somehow stretching. In that elongated moment, the only sound I could hear was the ticking of the grandfather clock, which suddenly seemed loud enough for a timepiece the size of Big Ben.

Then sound and movement rushed back to fill the momentary vacuum. I realized I had leaped to my feet. I heard Holmes yell, “Watson, no!” But I had already jumped for the butler and brought my cosh down on the man’s arm, just above his wrist. I distinctly heard the bone crack. That would be the radius, I found myself thinking.

Bradley howled in pain and dropped the gun. But he was a burly brute and, broken arm notwithstanding, he turned to grapple with me.

I fancy that I can handle myself as well as most civilized men in a bout of fisticuffs, but this was not a boxing ring. This thug was half again my size and obviously a brawler who had never heard of the Marquess of Queensbury. I did not hesitate to employ the cosh again.

The advantage to being a doctor of medicine in a tussle is a good knowledge of anatomy. My next strike deadened the ulnar nerve and paralyzed the butler’s left arm; even so, I had to duck as he nearly took my head off with a haymaker punch thrown by his broken right. My third strike with the cosh was to his right temple. It stunned him, but it took another hit to his skull to complete the process. Bradley fell, unconscious.

Holmes knelt next to Coombs, who was trying to talk. I looked about anxiously for Miriam, but saw no sign of her. She had apparently fled the room while I was dealing with the butler.

I stepped to Holmes’s side; he was cradling the fallen professor’s head in one hand. Coombs looked up at us, and his eyes were filled with a fear I had never before seen, not even in the eyes of men dying on the front lines. “B-behind the house,” he managed. “In the cromlech! Hurry!”

These were his final words, for they were followed by the unmistakable sounds of his death rattle.

Holmes whipped about to face me. “Watson! Does she have the stone?”

I was by this time, I admit, in something of a state of shock. “What?”

“The good-luck piece you sometimes carry!” There was an intensity in his expression that I had never seen before or since. “Does she have it?”

“I—yes. What’s this all about, Holmes?”

But he was already on his feet and rushing for the parlor door. “Out the rear entrance!” He flung back over his shoulder. “Hurry, if you want the world to see another dawn! And bring your revolver!”

Bewildered, and more than a little frightened, I snatched the gun from the butler’s limp grasp and followed.

I left the rear entrance of the house a few steps behind Holmes. It was raining with almost tropical ferocity now, and full night was upon us. A flicker of lightning showed me our destination: A cromlech—an ancient burial mound probably dating back to the Neolithic. Holmes dashed up the winding path and under the shelter of the huge capstone. When I regained his side, he had already struck a match and set aflame a makeshift torch, which was little more than a wooden club with the blunt end wrapped in dry reeds and grasses. By its wavering light I saw it was one of several on the ground before the mound’s entrance. Holmes picked up a second torch, ignited it from his, and handed it to me. “Keep your gun ready,” he whispered. “And pray it will be effective.” With that enigmatic statement he started into the narrow passage.

The ceiling barely allowed us room to walk upright. The walls were drystone, broken occasionally by the darker entrances to several interior burial chambers. The central passage led steeply down, twisting back and forth to mitigate the precipitous descent. I had to swallow more than once to equalize the pressure of my inner ears with that of the tomb’s dank atmosphere.

At last we reached a level floor. A few paces farther the passage ended at the entrance to a large cist carved from the subterranean rock. And in that chamber, by the light of our torches, was revealed a scene which my mind at first refused to comprehend.

Miriam stood next to what appeared to be a stone altar, bounded on either side by stelae. Petroglyphs were carved into these stone pillars—sigils that seemed, in the uncertain light, to writhe and dance on the rocky surfaces. Atop the altar lay two tall stacks of ancient parchment, one higher than the other. I could barely make out the faded, cryptic scrawl that represented the thoughts, experiences, and fears of the mad Arab, set down by his own hand centuries ago. I realized that this must be the complete Kitab al-Azif; the book of which the Necronomicon was but the merest fragment.

Lying on the altar before it was my lucky stone, though I scarcely recognized it. It glowed, pulsing with a chatoyant light that shifted through a dark spectrum of colors I could not name.

Miriam did not notice us at first; she was occupied with chanting phrases in that same ear-smiting language she had spoken upstairs only moments ago. My senses reeled as I tried to comprehend this phantasmagorical scene. What was happening could not be happening. The very air seemed to be alive and visible, swirling like fog and smoke on a cold London winter’s eve, as those bizarre syllables, utterly inhuman in their cadence, reverberated about us:

“Wyülgn mefh’ngk fhgah’n r’tíhgl, khlobå lhu mhwnfgth . . .”

I realized Holmes was speaking to me, his voice urgent and barely audible over Miriam’s chant. “Shoot, Watson, shoot!”

I looked about in confusion. Shoot what? What I saw was as bizarre and unbelievable as a Jules Verne fantasy, but there was no immediate threat—

“Now, man—before she finishes the spell and it’s too late! You must!”

I stared at him, realizing with horror that he wanted me to shoot Miriam. At that point I knew one of us had gone mad, and I honestly wasn’t sure if it was Holmes or myself.

I was paralyzed with bewilderment, and Holmes must have realized that, for he raised his walking stick and lunged toward Miriam.

But she realized he was there before he could cover half the intervening distance. She broke off her chant and fixed him with that same horrifying glare that she had used on Coombs. She uttered the two-word command I had heard before—and Holmes stopped as if he had run into a stone wall.

He fell to his knees.

Dear God, I thought. But it was obvious that no benign deity was being invoked here. I looked from Holmes’s trembling form to Miriam, and saw there a cruelty in her features—the feral enjoyment of a cat tormenting a mouse. Miriam, who had nursed me for months, who had brought me back from the pit. Miriam, a woman of foreign soil whom I would have, against all convention, made my wife. She seemed unaware of me; all her attention was on Holmes.

“Holmes! I’m coming!” I shouted.

I took a step forward—and a strange lethargy swept over me. I was still aware of what was taking place, but in an increasingly dreamy, somnambulistic way. I felt somehow removed from it all, to the point of numbed intoxication. The hand holding my revolver dropped, to hang at my side. I was reminded of Mesmer’s experiments in concentration and suggestion, but even as they occurred to me they seemed spurious. I began to understand that this tableau before me was really none of my affair; more, that my human mind was completely inadequate even to begin to understand the forces at work here. Better, far better, not to interfere . . .

The luminous, thickening quality of the air was increasing; it seemed to be somehow coalescing near one side of the chamber. As if something was taking shape where there had been nothing.

Holmes, with what was obviously a great and wrenching effort, turned to look back at me. His face was going gray. A part of me, dim and far away, realized that I was watching my friend die.

Holmes was dying. And Miriam was killing him.

I cannot explain my next action—there certainly seems no logical reason for what I did. I can only be grateful that my body responded in an atavistic, primitive way to the danger. Had I stopped to think, I would have hesitated—and all would have been lost.

My left hand dug into my pocket, grasped the talisman Miriam had given me, and pulled it out. It, too, seemed to be glowing slightly, but perhaps that was only my imagination. I cast it on the stony chamber floor and ground it to powder under my heel.

As it had done before in Coombs’s parlor, reality seemed to snap back. The lassitude enveloping me vanished. I took a deep breath, and raised my revolver.

“Miriam, stop!” I shouted.

I clearly saw a moment of surprise, of uncertainty, flash across her countenance. “You can’t shoot me, John,” she said. “You still love me.”

It was true, I realized. I did still love her. Even though I knew she had laid some kind of mental snare for me, even as she continued to somehow cause Holmes’s slow death from afar—still I felt love for her.

“Join me, John,” she said. Even without the aid of the charm, her voice was alluring, convincing. “The secrets of the Arab can grant us a life beyond earth, beyond flesh, beyond imagining . . . the cosmos can be ours, John; worlds to create, to command, to destroy . . .”

The sound of my weapon firing was perhaps the loudest noise I have ever heard.

Miriam, a look of stunned disbelief on her face, stared at me in shock as she crumpled. Simultaneously Holmes seemed to regain his strength. He and I ran forward. I remember wondering if my medical training could save her, wondering if my loyalty to humanity—to life itself—would let me—

I held the torch high and we saw the answer to that.

Whatever it was, it was no longer Miriam Shah—if in fact it ever had been. Obviously it was not life as we define the word, as its death was unlike the death of any material being. Or so I am given to understand. Mercifully, I do not remember it—my brain has elided that memory, a fact for which Holmes says I should be profoundly grateful. It is he who has supplied the gist of our final few moments in the underground chamber. My last recollection is of pulling the trigger. The sound of the gunshot still reverberates within me.

My next complete memory is of our train ride back to London the next day. Of the time it took us to return to the surface, I remember only brief, intermittent flashes.

“You knew,” I said to Holmes. “You knew what she was. You called on me to stop when I prevented Bradley from shooting her.”

He nodded gravely. “I had thought to spare you, old friend. I was hoping to deal with her myself, but I confess I underestimated her power. If Coombs’s man could have ended it then and there, I was willing to go that route.”

I felt utterly drained—grief was there, but it was a distant wave on a distant shore. “How did you know, Holmes?”

For the first time in my association with him, Holmes seemed reluctant to expound upon his deductive abilities. “The most obvious clue was the talisman she wore,” he said at last. “No good Mohammedan woman would bear such a thing, for their faith does not permit such charms, and the representation of the human form in their artwork—even so much as a hand—is expressly forbidden by the Prophet. But I had thought it no more than part of her disguise. I would surmise there were magnetic elements in it that somehow gave her mesmeric power over you.

“But what was more informative was her demeanor. Although you have never spoken directly of her, I long ago surmised that you had met someone during your service in the East. The confirmation of that came nearly four years ago, when I happened into a discussion of the Maiwand campaign with a former infantryman who had been a physician’s assistant in your ward. Please believe me when I tell you I did not solicit details about your stay there—he volunteered the information that you and an Afghan woman had developed a certain . . . affection for each other.”

It was my turn to nod. Affection. At least Holmes allowed me to cling to whatever shreds of self-respect I might still have.

“I could tell that something in her had changed since you knew her. Her attitude was distant, even though she smiled and spoke politely; I ascertained an ulterior motive. She showed no real surprise when I announced our destination, merely questioning the reasoning that led me to the conclusion. It was obvious she already knew the identity of Professor Coombs.”

“Then why involve us at all? Why not proceed directly to his house?”

“She needed two things from us. The first was the meteorite stone you carried. The vibratory rate of the elements that compose it was a necessary part of the ritual. The second was a means to combat any opposition the late professor might have mounted against her. He had anticipated some kind of attempt to claim the manuscript, even though he wasn’t sure what form it would take.”

“This still seems like madness to me,” I said wearily. “Magic books . . . a woman possessed by an ancient spirit . . .”

“Not magic, Watson. My researches have made clear to me that the powers of the Old Ones were based on science, albeit science far in advance of ours. There are theories that concern the possibilities of different realities stacked side by side with our own, like a deck of cards. And these realities, by invocation of certain forces, might be merged. I believe that is what the thing that had assumed Miriam Shah’s identity was attempting—to sunder the boundary between our world and another.” He paused, then added, “I believe her personality had been completely subsumed by the other consciousness. Perhaps you can console yourself by knowing that the animus of the woman you knew was already gone.”

I nodded. I understood—I even believed it, absurd as it all sounded. Still, I felt none the better for knowing that I had killed, not Miriam, but instead a being which had usurped her identity for its own foul purposes. Holmes tells me that the strange vortex that had started to form in the chamber while the thing—I cannot call it “Miriam”—was performing the rite had vanished when the ritual was interrupted. But even the knowledge that we had saved our world from infestation by an enemy from outside was cold comfort. The bullet had ripped through my own heart as surely as it had hers.

Perhaps Holmes was right in his theory that Miriam’s essence had been extinguished before she came to London. But I will still take with me to my own grave the expression of hurt and betrayal on her face as the bullet fired by my hand drained the life from her on that damp cavern floor.

As I fought for composure a flash of recollection came to me: an image of Holmes standing before the altar, torch held high, staring down at that abominable stack of pages. “And what of the Arab’s manuscript, Holmes? What did you do with it?”

He did not speak for a moment. Then he said, “Ancient parchment burns quite well.”

Something odd in the tone of his voice made me glance at him. He was looking out the window. There was nothing to see but the English countryside, a sight that, I knew, usually interested him not in the slightest.

“You destroyed it, then,” I said.

Again the hesitancy. For a moment fear nearly stilled my heart. Then he looked back at me and smiled. “Yes, Watson,” he said, and this time it was the voice of the Sherlock Holmes I knew and trusted. “I put the torch to it. Within seconds there was nothing left of the Kitab al-Azif but ashes. And the world is the better for it.”

I felt immense relief. After all, Holmes prized knowledge above all else, no matter what its source. How long could even his formidable will have resisted such a temptation? He had done the sensible thing, the sane thing, by destroying it.

Holmes looked out the window again. I peered over his shoulder. We were once again passing the bee hives.

“Remarkable creatures, bees,” Holmes murmured. “Each one a part of a greater whole. Every action, every movement and communication orchestrated, ritualized—almost preordained. Fascinating . . .”