Adcott staggered back. The effort of concentration had drained him, and the otherworldly rage and strength with which he’d propelled himself vanished. He turned, noticing us for the first time, and raised a hand toward Holmes, as if asking for something. Seconds later, I saw Michael Adcott die for the second time in a single week, and I nearly fainted away on the spot.
Holmes had me by the arm and headed toward the door before I had my wits fully about me, and we were out and into the waiting carriage without a word, closing and locking the doors of St. Elian’s behind us firmly. Holmes stared out into the night, and I collapsed into the seat and my own thoughts as the carriage hurried into the fog.
We were seated in Holmes’s study, sipping brandy and watching the fire that very night. Holmes was staring into the flames, not offering any explanations, and at last I’d had all I could stand of it.
“Holmes,” I said, “back in that laboratory, you said there was something we were missing. I’m familiar with Caresco’s work, and the abominations he is purported to have created. I have heard that he managed to reverse aging in some subjects, though at the cost of the mind—this is beyond me. I never heard that he had cheated death, and in any case, Adcott showed none of the madness reported of the earlier experiments. A great number of very learned men have pored over the bits and pieces that remain of his notes—they found the research to be an abomination, and the process beyond repair. Was Silverman a mad genius?”
“He was not,” Holmes replied, turning to me at last, steepling his fingers and taking a long breath. “Aaron Silverman was a Jew.”
I stared at my friend, wondering if something in the night’s business had addled his brains. He returned my gaze with his usual frank, half-amused expression firmly in place. I waited, and, finally, cracked.
“What in the world,” I asked slowly, “can that possibly have to do with this mess?”
For the first time since we’d left that accursed asylum, Holmes smiled.
“How much do you know of Jewish history?” he asked. I shrugged, and he continued. “There are legends,” he said. “Legends that trail back to the Holy Land itself, and that are known to only a select few. When you first spoke to me, I was nearly certain that Adcott must have a twin that no one had been aware of, or a cousin who bore a striking resemblance to the dead man whom they were trying to pass off as Adcott to win the funds from the tontine. There were obvious answers, but very quickly, the obvious answers caved in, one by one.
“I then began to explore the less obvious, and there was something that bothered me from the start. Silverman’s name. I knew it was familiar to me, but Aaron is hardly an uncommon name, nor is Silverman, so I set out to see if I could find what it was that itched at my mind.
“My search led me to the local temple, and the rabbi, an old friend, was very helpful. He remembered the name of Aaron Silverman immediately, but the Silverman he remembered had been dead for many years. Silverman was a rabbi, or had been. He migrated to London about fifty years ago and made a home here, but even among his fellows he was shunned. Rabbi Silverman had spent years in the Arabian desert, studying and fasting. He came away from that study—changed. He had scrolls and teachings that were unfamiliar to the others already settled here, scrolls dealing with legendary creatures and the Cabala. Scrolls dealing with the Golem. It is reported that he had a scrap of cloth that contained verses from al-Hazred himself, inscribed in blood. Bits of a larger work.”
“The Necronomicon?” I asked dubiously. “That work has long been passed off as legend. And what in the world is a Golem, Holmes, and what has it to do with Michael Adcott?”
“The Golem was an instrument of revenge,” Holmes continued. “It was a creature formed of clay and brought to life by the will, faith, and rage of a rabbi. It would serve the purpose of that rage, and only the rabbi himself could control it.”
“And Adcott?” I asked, not certain I wanted the answer. “He was no man of clay.”
“No,” Holmes agreed. “He was a man brought to a sort of hellish, painful un-life by the science of Caresco Surhomme and the diabolical research of Aaron Silverman. It was the incantations, and the clay, Watson, clay from another place—another time. Clay inherited from Silverman’s father, Aaron Silverman Senior—Rabbi Silverman. The substance in that sixth vial was the very clay of which I speak. When I found a bit of it on your doorstep, I was intrigued. When I saw the vial, I was certain.
“Through the power invested in the clay, Silverman was able to exercise enough control of Adcott’s reanimated form to lead it about in public. You’ll recall that Adcott never spoke, not at your first meeting, nor at any time thereafter.”
“But he did,” I said at last. “He spoke, right at the end. What do you suppose he said, and what enabled him to do what he did?”
“He spoke in Hebrew,” Holmes answered at once. “The words were very clear, and, I suspect, appropriate. I believe that Adcott’s soul managed to make use of the same power that the elder Silverman would have used to animate clay. He used his will, and his faith, and he spoke the only words that could bring him peace.
“He said, ‘It is done.’ ”
I stared at Holmes for a long time, watching for doubt, or belief, anything in those wise eyes that would prove a clue to the mind beyond, but he had turned his gaze to the fire once again, and grown silent.
“I wonder,” I said, rising and retrieving my coat, suddenly very tired and ready for my own home, and my bed, “who got the money.”
Holmes didn’t look up as I departed, but I sensed the smile in his answer.
“To the living go the spoils, Watson. Always to the living.”
Shaking my head, I opened the door and made my way into the late-evening fog.
Nightmare in Wax
SIMON CLARK
PROLOGUE
Thunder tears the air asunder. Half of Europe, it seems, is afire. Nations shrink back before a Pentecostal wind. Today, the London Times brings news of the sinking of the Lusitania by the Hun. Over a thousand innocent lives lost. While yet more newsprint carries the dreadful litany of tens of thousands of our soldiers consumed by the war—this war to end all wars. In the midst of global conflict, the cases of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes might appear of little importance now. Last night, however, I was roused from bed by three visitors. I will not identify them for obvious reasons; although two of them would be widely known from king to barrow boy. Suffice to say: one gentleman holds a very senior post in His Majesty’s government, the second a high rank in the army, while the third is a leading light in the clandestine and anonymous world of our secret service.
Clad in dressing gown and slippers, I invited them into my sitting room.
The military gentleman said: “Dr. Watson. We apologize for calling on you at this time of night, but you will appreciate the fact that we are here on business of a most important nature that concerns not only the security of the Empire but the preservation of all nations.”
“I understand, gentlemen,” I replied. “How may I help you?”
The military man said, “We have two matters to put to you. Firstly, do you know the whereabouts of Sherlock Holmes?”
I shook my head. “I understand he is traveling.”
“Do you know where?”
Again I shook my head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Has Mr. Holmes contacted you?”