HOLMES

“You really should have stayed within the safe walls of Baker Street,” Mitchell continued, his voice distorted as it echoed around the inside of that swinish cowl. “Now that you are all here I can do whatever I wish with you. My experiments can recommence with fresh supplies! You are entirely at my mercy!”

All of which, naturally, came as something of a relief.

Of course if I had been in Mitchell’s shoes I would have had Kane lead us somewhere utterly unrelated, take us on a wild goose chase and then unleash the wild monsters on us. That way, in case something went wrong—and he was dealing with me so of course something might go wrong—you haven’t just led your enemy right up to your front door. All in all, such an action might be most charitably described as moronic. But then you don’t expect genius when you’re talking to a man who wears a pig’s head as a hat. People like that are simply not the brightest sparks.

“Remember,” I told the rest of my party, “stay calm.”

The last thing we needed was one of them to bolt and set the animals into a frenzy. And what creatures they were! The equine creation mentioned by Fellowes, the leopard, a ram with ancient curled horns, a vulpine fellow, whose long white hair suggested to me Canis lupus arctos (my collection does in fact contain all canine species, not simply the domestic dog. Not so ridiculous now, is it?).

“Calm?” asked Mitchell. “What have you got to be calm about? You have been an idiot, led straight here by the nose, a mindless oaf who scarcely warrants his reputation.”

Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that.

“Mindless oaf? Surely not. There has been little opportunity to exercise my brain on this particular case, I grant you, but that can hardly be taken as evidence of stupidity.

“Though I grant you I should have seen the pattern days ago. A greyhound trainer and a Parisian furrier go missing then Andre Le Croix, the chef perhaps most famous for his foie gras, the recipe for which proudly reads like a torture menu for the unfortunate animal that goes into making it.” Watson thinks I pay no attention at all, this is far from true. I listen, I just do not always care. “Someone was clearly targeting people known for their mistreatment of animals. I presume it was Le Croix who ended up in a sack on the floor of the Bouquet of Lilies?”

Mitchell was clearly somewhat thrown by this sudden change in tempo, an effect I always find endlessly pleasurable. “That was all that was left of him by the time my friends here had dined on him.”

“Poetic I’m sure, I suppose we should be thankful you didn’t try to skin the furrier but merely settled for chaining him up and torturing him for a while.”

“We let him off lightly.”

“Oh shut up!” I shouted. I don’t anger often but this fool, this second-rate scientist with his hand-me-down philosophies and theories, was really beginning to get my dander up.

“So much for keeping calm,” I heard Inspector Mann mutter. I suppose he had a point.

“You are a charlatan!” I told Mitchell. “You claim to be fighting on the side of animals and yet you commit the most unspeakable acts upon them.”

“I improve them!” he screamed. “I fulfil their potential.”

“Really?” I looked to Kane. “What it must be to be so fulfilled.”

He growled and stepped in front of his master, his “father”, still as loyal as ever, whatever he might have told Watson and I.

“I am the equal of you,” he insisted, drool forming around his jaw.

“Hardly, though we might have a similar skill for fetching sticks, I’ll grant you that.”

I reached into my pocket for the whistle I had purloined off Perry but he had been thinking the same thing. He grabbed my wrist, pulled my hand out of the pocket and took the whistle himself. He dropped it to the floor and stamped on it.

“We’ll have no more of that,” he said.

“I suppose to have fallen foul of it a third time would have been rather embarrassing,” I said, only too aware that even if I could have incapacitated Kane the rest of the beasts would have remained fighting-fit. “It doesn’t bode well for your little sideline does it, really?” I looked to Mitchell. “I presume his criminal activities have been helping to fund your hobby? Just think what you could have achieved with an intelligent crook at your disposal, no doubt by now you would have managed to build an actual army rather than just skulking in the sewers with a handful of mongrels. Like an impoverished farmer with a grudge.”

“Holmes,” said Challenger. “Not that I disagree old chap but you might want to mind your tongue.”

“Wise advice,” said Mitchell, “or one of my friends will bite it off.”

“Very well,” I replied, “let’s get on with whatever lunatic plan you have in mind. Taking over the country? Killing all the no-tails? Installing scratching posts on all street corners?”

Mitchell clenched his piggy little fists but just about managed to stay in control. Unfortunately. It was probably extremely foolish of me but I was intrigued to see him reduced to his animal state.

“Lock them up with their friend,” he said. “We’ll see them on the operating table soon enough.”

“Only a fool would operate on Professor Challenger!” bawled the man himself. “It would be like repainting Ming china.”

“Come along, Professor,” I told him. “There’s time yet to impress your genius upon them.”

We were led through the warehouse and I paid special attention to my surroundings, noting Mitchell’s equipment and how many creatures we had to contend with. On the latter point, things were not far from my desultory comment to Mitchell. For all his grand talk, he was little more than a crackpot with dangerous pets. Once Mycroft arrived, we’d certainly have no problem in handling them.

We passed his surgery and I slowed my pace in order to take in as much detail as I could. The rest of the warehouse had been—much like Mitchell’s brain—little more than empty chambers littered with animal faeces—this was a hive of order and efficiency.

“You admire my laboratory, Mr Holmes?” he asked, noticing my attention.

“It is at least lacking in bones and straw compared to the rest of your home from home,” I replied and took the opportunity to walk in and have a quick look around.

“Come away from there!” he shouted. “You’ll see it soon enough when you’re underneath my knife!”

I stepped out and he made a considerable show of locking the door behind me. I continued along the passageway to the room that was to be our gaol cell.

Mitchell unlocked the door, threw it open and shouted at us to enter.

We did so with no more complaint.

“Holmes?” said the welcome voice of my Watson. “I might have hoped to see you on better terms.”

“Ah!” I replied. “Is that you, Watson? Not the most convivial of surroundings is it?”

“Damned disgrace,” Challenger shouted. “Treated like a blasted animal!”

“If only his intentions were that kind,” said Watson.

He proceeded to tell us of the fate of Lord Newman, a further depressing note to the case. Not only had it descended into nothing more interesting than the hunt for a lunatic, that lunatic had already managed to kill his most distinguished captive. Well, second most distinguished.

“I can’t really see a way out of our situation,” continued the ever-fretful Watson. “He has an army of those beasts to fight against, we’re outnumbered, overpowered and trapped here in the dark.”

“I know,” I told him, with a smile that he could not hope to see in the darkness. “I’ve got him just where I want him!”

Which is when Carruthers started blowing the place up, providing a most exemplary distraction.

“I don’t suppose anyone has anything long and thin I might use to pick the lock?” I asked.

“Pick the lock,” shouted Challenger. “What for?”

There was a resounding crack and the door swung open. I walked out, glancing at the imprint of his size fourteen boot on the paintwork. “You’ve been in Peru recently I perceive,” I mentioned, noting the highly unusual colour of the clay deposit he left an inch to the right of the lock.

“Indeed,” he replied, “it was much nicer than this damnable place.”

“Then let us take our leave.”

Загрузка...