“How remarkable you are, Holmes,” came a rich American voice behind them.
Both men turned sharply to find the ramp blocked, not only by Rohampton, but by the brutish fellow in the bowler hat and by the clerk, Burgess, who had detached the Gatling gun from its tripod and now cradled it in his arms so that it was trained squarely on them; a full ammunition belt, partially fed into its firing mechanism, was draped over his arm.
Watson went for the revolver in his pocket, but Rohampton shouted a warning. “Don’t even think about it, Doctor!” He tapped the machine gun’s heavy muzzle. “You’re a former military man. You know what this weapon can do.”
“In God’s name, Rohampton!” Watson cried. “What horrors are you engaged in here?”
“Horrors, Doctor? How very judgmental of you.”
“Judgmental? When you’re draining people’s blood to the last drop!”
Rohampton gave an almost sad smile, then shouldered his way past the two intruders, walking down the ramp into the center of the lab. The bowler-hatted man followed. Burgess brought up the rear, indicating with the Gatling that Holmes and Watson should go first, pushing them down ahead of him.
“These people . . . as you call them,” the American said, “are volunteers. They have willingly surrendered their lives for a greater good.” He glanced across the room, to where Professor Langley now watched events from behind his racks of flasks and tubes. “Keep working, Langley!”
“But if they’ve seen this much . . .” the professor protested.
“Trent!” Rohampton said sharply. “Remind our friend the professor why it is so important that he keep his mind on the task at hand.”
The bowler-hatted man wove his way across the lab, then drew the curtain back on a small alcove at the other side. Beyond it was a chilling sight. A hospital operating table was propped upright against the dank bricks of the alcove wall, and strapped to this by several belts was a young girl. She still wore the bedraggled tatters of nightclothes, and her fair hair hung in tangled, dirty knots. She gazed at Holmes and Watson pleadingly, but was unable to speak owing to a tight gag pulled across her mouth. Clearly, this was Laura, Professor Langley’s daughter.
Directly in front of her there sat an open barrel, stuffed with a green, spongy herbage. Rohampton now approached it, stripping off his frock coat as he did. He took a rubber apron from the wall, along with two heavy-duty industrial gauntlets, and put the entire assembly on. Then he gingerly dipped one gloved hand into the barrel.
“You see this, Holmes?” he said, lifting up a handful of the green material. “Devil’s Reef Moss. It’s virtually unique. It grows only in one particular place off the New England coast. Don’t ask me why, I’m not the scientist here . . .”
Holmes watched carefully. Something about that handful of rank vegetation touched a deep primal fear within him. “Presumably it’s toxic?”
“Oh, it’s much worse than that,” Rohampton replied, gazing at the moss as if fascinated. “But then why am I telling you? You’ve seen the results for yourself.”
“Randolph Daker,” said Holmes.
The American opened his hand and wiggled his fingers, making sure to return every scrap of moss to the barrel. “That’s correct. Daker . . . the only weak link in our chain. Inevitably, he’d seen something of what we were about, yet what was he? A common carter, a ruffian, a drunkard . . . likely to gossip the first time he got into his cups. We couldn’t allow that, Holmes . . . so we spiced those cups.”
“Rather glad we didn’t sample your sherry,” said the detective.
Rohampton smiled. “Yes . . . very intuitive of you. Of course, the moss is quite slow acting. Eventually we became concerned that even infected as he was, Daker might still blab.”
“So you dispatched one of your followers to put him out of his misery?”
“That’s right.”
Holmes glanced at the fellow called Trent. “He wasn’t terribly efficient.”
Rohampton began to strip off his gauntlets. “These are the tools we must work with, I’m afraid. When one recruits at short notice, and can offer in return only vague promises of wealth and power . . . one is lucky to draw on anything more than the sweepings of the streets. Harold Jobson was a case in point. He and several others successfully orchestrated the kidnap of Professor Langley and his daughter, replacing them in their burning home with two drunken derelicts snatched from the backstreets . . . and then Jobson went and allowed himself to be captured.” The American shook his head with feigned regret.
“You are aware, I suppose,” said Holmes, “that it was Jobson who led us to you?”
Rohampton made a vague gesture, as if it hardly mattered. “He took his death sentence with a pinch of salt. I think he expected to be rescued virtually up till the final day. Only then did his ambition switch from survival to revenge.” Rohampton gave a cold chuckle. “As if anyone in my position has the time or inclination to save the necks of fools.”
Watson, meanwhile, was staring at the bandaged form lying on the truckle bed. All the while Langley had continued pumping out its blood. By the lifeless manner in which its arm now lay by its side, it was evident that this patient, too, had expired. “These so-called volunteers?” he said distastefully. “Who are they?”
Rohampton was now removing the apron. He moved back into the lab, beating brick dust from his dress shirt. “Their names are unimportant. Suffice to say this . . . they were chosen from among the ranks of my native townsmen.”
“Innsmouth,” said Holmes.
For the first time, the American seemed surprised. “You know it?”
“Only stories,” the detective replied. “About the tainting of the Innsmouth bloodline some fifty years ago . . . and how the townsfolk have been degenerating ever since.”
“Degenerating?” If it was possible for the white, rigid features of Julian Rohampton to grimace with rage, they did so now. “Some would call it evolving. Into a higher life-form.”
“If it’s so high a form,” Holmes asked, “why do you hide behind that waxen mask?”
There was a moment of silence, Watson gazing from man to man, bewildered. His gaze settled on Rohampton when the American suddenly hooked his fingers into claws and began to attack his own face. In strips and gobbets, he tore away what had clearly been a finely crafted disguise. Beneath it, the flesh was a pallid gray blue in tone. More horrible yet, it was patterned with scales and fishlike ridges. The lips and eyebrows were thick and rubbery, the nose nonexistent. Down either cheek, lines of gills were visible.
Watson could scarcely believe the abomination before him. “Good . . . Lord!”
Rohampton wiped off the last fragments, then removed his blond wig. “Behold, Dr. Watson, the Innsmouth look! When Obed Marsh returned to us from the South Seas, he brought more than just a new wife. He’d intermarried with a race of beings in every way superior. When the bloodlines were fully mingled, Innsmouth became the cradle of a truly new civilization. As the generations passed and we natives of the town slowly transformed, a cosmic awareness began to dawn on us . . . of the Deep Ones, of their culture and science and beliefs, and of our destiny to be as one with them. In time, I will join their teeming ranks beneath the waves. And I won’t be alone!”
Holmes remained dispassionate. He strolled to the nearest table, surveying the many bottles of chemicals there. Rohampton’s men watched him warily.
“You’re creating a bacillus, I take it?” he said, picking up an open jar. He noted with interest that it had dry salts encrusted around its rim. When he sniffed it, he detected picric acid, as he’d suspected.
“Put that down, Mr. Holmes,” said Rohampton firmly.
Holmes turned to face him. “Distilling an infectious agent from the life fluids of your own people . . . is that what you’re about?”