Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Doctor Moreau

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

All three of us made our way to the Diogenes Club. This time the meeting would take place on Mycroft’s territory, the silent and smoky hallways of which were more than simply a gentlemen’s club.

The Diogenes is often discussed as the strictest and most unfriendly club in the city. Its members, some of the most influential and important men in the land, are forbidden to speak except in certain isolated areas. It prides itself on homing the most unclubbable men in the country, men so anti-social and misanthropic that no other building would have them. Of course this has the effect of making many people wish to join, there is nothing quite so attractive to a certain stratum of society as exclusivity, even if that exclusivity is earned at the cost of their social reputation. But few were allowed to join the club, the board saw to that.

The board was composed of one man, the same man that had established the club so as to have a central office within which to conduct his business: Mycroft Holmes. The club had become an extension of his secret empire, a place filled with those with real power. Not the Cabinet, which was in Mycroft’s view nothing more than an ever-shifting selection of public functionaries, rather than long-term men of money and position. Those who supported the Cabinet; who provided the leverage and finance to see things get done. In many ways the Diogenes was the government, the quietly beating heart at its centre that kept the country afloat. And now, in this state of emergency, that heart was beating harder than ever.

“Good morning, Gentlemen,” said the footman who greeted us at the doorway. “Mr Holmes is expecting you.” He led us up the stairs to the front door. “Need I remind you that, even in these trying times, the rules of the club stand. Once we are beyond those doors you are to say nothing until you are within the visitors’ room.”

“Nothing?” asked Carruthers, a man to whom this sort of behaviour was an anathema.

“Absolutely nothing, Sir,” the footman confirmed. “Failure to observe this rule will result in one of the staff ejecting you from the premises.”

“And we wouldn’t want that,” said Holmes. “I’m sure Carruthers has been thrown out of much better clubs than this in his time, after all.”

“Well, actually, I was once banned from the Coleman but that was entirely down to a misunderstanding with regards a demonstration of Chinese wrestling. I got a bit carried away and threw a member of staff through a picture window. It was quite a scandal at the time.”

“No doubt,” I said.

We were ushered through the front door into the charge of another member of staff, this one even more aged than the last. He had the face of a baby bird, a bulbous cranium surrounded by straggling hair with a nose that looked more than up to the task of fishing a snail from its shell. He gave a deferential nod that turned into a panicked shake as Carruthers opened his mouth to greet him. I nudged the garrulous explorer in the ribs and was relieved to see he got the hint. He adopted a music-hall routine of mime, rolling his eyes, slapping his wrist and making buttoning gestures at his lips.

The bird-faced gentleman led us up the giant staircase to the fourth floor of the club. I often wondered if the visitors’ areas were located on the top floor as an extra deterrent against sociability. Certainly there was little Mycroft would dread more than climbing all those stairs. He would never make the journey unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

We were led into the main visitors’ room where Mycroft sat in the window observing the street outside. Whenever I had met him here this was the position he adopted. I realise now that it was his version of that walk Holmes and I had conducted through the city. It was Mycroft’s opportunity to remind himself what the real world —and all the people in it—were really like.

“Well,” he said, without turning around, “I don’t imagine any of us thought matters would come to a head as quickly as this.”

“Indeed not,” Holmes agreed standing at Mycroft’s side and gazing through the glass at the street below. “Tell us what happened.”

“The Prime Minister was addressing the House of Lords on the matter of Ireland,” Mycroft sighed, “as he so often does. It was neither a particularly heated debate nor an important one, just the usual hot air that keeps that building warm through the winter months.

“Moreau—or whoever he is—gained access through the cellars. We later found a hole knocked through from one of the expanded train tunnels.” He looked up for the first time. “We’re having our own station built as part of the Underground network, saves time all round. Anyway, once inside the building he made his way to the main debating chamber. He was not alone.”

“He had some of his creations with him?” asked Holmes.

Mycroft nodded. “According to one of the security officers there was a gang of eight, all of them recognisable as different animal species. A leopard, a goat, a … dear Lord … a horse! Oh, damn it all it was positively a bloody farmyard! And he played the part, he wore a pig’s face as a mask.”

“Really? That is interesting.”

“It’s damned grotesque. Obviously the majority assumed they were all wearing masks, then one of the damned things spoke and the way its mouth moved …”

“We have seen something of a similar nature,” Holmes said, briefly describing our encounter with Kane. “This security officer, might we hear the story direct from him?”

Mycroft nodded and gestured towards the old member of staff. “I thought you might ask that. Bring him in, Kirk.”

Kirk led in a small, stocky fellow who looked like he was completely out of his environment. Some people are simply more physical than others and this fellow looked like he was probably snapping the floorboards simply by standing on them.

“Fellowes, Sir,” he announced, holding out a worn, strong hand that looked all too capable of crushing the bones of mine to powder.

“Dr John Watson,” I replied, shaking the man’s hand.

“A pleasure to meet another old soldier,” he said. “I was wounded out around the same time as yourself. Good to finally put a face to the name.”

Mycroft was quick to cut the regimental reunions short. “We haven’t time for all the pleasantries, Fellowes,” he said. “Kindly explain to my brother exactly what happened.”

“Of course, Sir,” said Fellowes, clearly not in the least bit discomfited by the mild rebuke. A man who worked with politicians no doubt developed a thick skin to such things.

“As Mr Holmes has probably told you, our first assumption was that we faced a group of terrorists. It wouldn’t be the first time some group or another decided to storm the building and grind their axe in public. Normally they’re easily dealt with. These groups may have a good deal of enthusiasm but they have no training and that’s what really counts in the end, as Dr Watson here will attest I’m sure.”

“Absolutely,” I said, completely on impulse. Fellowes was the sort of man that could make you agree just by being in the same room as him. He had a very powerful personality.

“Given their bizarre mode of dress my first assumption was the animal rights lot, you know, anti-vivisection and what have you.”

“Quite the opposite, if anything,” said Mycroft waving his hands at Fellowes to encourage him to continue.

“Speaking personally, it was the horse-headed feller that first convinced me we were dealing with more than just a bunch of mutters in masks,” Fellowes continued. “He spoke up you see, told Sir Bartleby of the Exchequer to shut his face (the honourable gentleman was doing more than his fair share of screaming you see, Sirs). The way he opened his mouth was more than a theatrical costumier could manage and that was a fact. I saw its teeth, tongue and throat and knew that what I was looking at was a horse’s head on a bloke’s body. Absolutely ludicrous, naturally, but I’ve seen a fair few ludicrous things in my time and if there’s one thing I’ve learned working security it’s that you should never stop to question the obvious. I couldn’t begin to tell you how you got a horse’s head stitched onto a fellow but as I was looking right at one, somebody surely had managed and there was little to be gained by questioning it. The brute had designs on a number of peers, peers that fell under my care. So—figure out the how and why of it later —in that moment you just get on and do your job.

“Not that I was able to do much of that—those things had the strength to match their ugliness and I can honestly say that man was not built to punch horses.” He held up a bandaged right hand. “Made a right mess of me hand it did.”

“The chief was the odd one out—his face weren’t a part of him, however much he might have wished it were, snorting and oinking like the poor swine that had owned the face before him. It was a rough, butcher’s-shop job, hollowed out and worn like a cowl, the ears flapping as he shouted his orders. He looked an idiot to be honest but the gun in his hand probably went a fair way towards convincing people not to mention it.

“I’m embarrassed to say they had our number within seconds. I’m not blaming the men, they didn’t know what they were looking at. They had the wind blown out of them and it made them slow to react. Still, like I say, training—that’s what you need. If they’d been a bit more like me they’d have got the job done and not worried about what they were beating up.

“Once you’re on your back foot though it’s usually too late. Situation like that you’ve got to keep the upper hand from the off, otherwise they’ll make their move, grab hostages or what have you, and from there on you’re trying to limit the damage rather than win the day.

“That’s what happened to us, they grabbed Lord Bartleby, Lord Messingham and Lord Wharburton. The three of them were on their knees, looking death in the face before we could even rally a proper defence. Of course, had I known what they had in mind I dare say I would have taken the risk anyway. Without wishing to dismiss the worth of those noble gentlemen …”

“You’d rather risk an old peer than a Prime Minister,” said Holmes.

“That’s it, Sir,” said Fellowes, “you’ve got it.

“But I didn’t know of course so I was shouting for people to stand down before we ended up spilling blood that we’d struggle to mop up.

“Pig-face took up the speaker’s position and made his little speech. I’ll give it to you as verbatim as I can, Gentlemen, I can’t say it meant a great deal to me but I’ve been doing this game long enough to know that details are important so I do my best to keep everything locked away.” He tapped the side of his head.

“He said: ‘This is an action on behalf of the army of Dr Moreau.’ I remembered the name but couldn’t think why at the time. Since then I’ve placed it of course. Outside the heat of the moment there’s not much that escapes this ugly old head of mine.

“‘For too long, this world has been under the control of the stupid apes,’ he carried on, which was a bit rich considering one of his men had a monkey’s face on him. But, there you go, you don’t expect much in the way of sense from a man who wears a pig’s head as a mask, do you?

“‘I am here,’ he said, ‘to take away that control and place it in the hands of the next species, the better species. Mankind has had its chance and proven itself incapable time and time again.’

“He got a real good rant going then but I’m afraid I missed a lot of it. That pig mask of his obscured his words something chronic, and when he got excited all you could hear was the sound of wind being forced through that dead old snout of his. It was something of a one-sided history lesson, from The Hundred Years’ War to the Boers—anything and everything he could think to moan about with regard our track record. Personally I think it’s all too easy to give mankind a bad name as long as you’re happy to be selective, we’ve all done things we’re not proud of.

“Anyway, it wasn’t the speech of a sane man so I don’t know why I bother trying to judge it. The man was a loon and a dangerous one at that.

“One of my boys decided to try and take his opportunity while pig-face was orating to the masses. He made a break for the doors; I like to think he was rushing to fetch help rather than just thinking about his own neck but we’ll never know. One of the creatures, the leopard-headed one, jumped for him. I tell you, it wasn’t just his head that was unnatural, that thing leaped feet into the air, sailing over people’s heads, before landing on the poor lad. Its teeth made short work of him. He was nothing but bone above the neck by the time he’d taken a couple of bites.

“Of course that soon made the room panic, there was no more time for speeches. The Lords were shouting and screaming and pushing each other out of the way. At the sight of all this chaos the animals were quick to join in too, they were barking and screeching and leaping all over the place. It was only pig-face, Moreau, that managed to get them back on side. ‘Fear the Law!’ he started shouting, ‘Fear the Law!’

“Well, they hadn’t been doing much of that had they? Still, they gathered round him quick enough so it had the desired effect. Of course the rest of us were not so organised. It was madness in there as people made a break for the doors. It took them a few minutes to realise that nothing was stopping them. Moreau had used the chaos to grab the Prime Minister and make his escape. I’m afraid I didn’t even see him do it, it was only afterwards, when cross-examining those who were there that we realised what had happened.

“The Prime Minister had been making for the exit the same as everyone else but the horse-headed one and a short, hairy thing that had a good dose of goat in him had snatched at him before he’d got so much as a few feet across the hall. According to the Speaker of the House, they put a sack over his head and the horse creature carried him out under one arm. The man in question claims he tried to intercede on the Prime Minister’s behalf but, honestly, I don’t believe a word of it, I think he was as scared as all the rest and making it up after the fact as he didn’t want to be seen as a coward. Frankly there’d be no shame in what he did, he’s an old man and he’s never seen active service. No reason why he should suddenly become the man of action when faced with that sort of thing.”

“And they left the building the same way?” asked Holmes.

“They did, gone into the tunnels before we could get any kind of party together.

“I investigated some way down there myself but it soon became obvious that I had no chance of pursuing them in the dark, not on my own anyway. In these sorts of situations it’s never long before we receive communication. If they’ve taken the Prime Minister then likely they want a ransom, we’ll soon hear how much and what they expect us to do next.”

“That may be so,” said Mycroft, “but I’d rather not wait for them to make the next move, not if we can help it.”

“We most certainly can help it,” said Holmes, “we make our move tonight!”