THE SECOND THEFT OF ALHAZRED’S MANUSCRIPT

Bradley H. Sinor

“Watson, would it surprise you to know that there is an organization that once rejected me for membership, but also has declined my offers of assistance on no less than two other occasions?”

I looked up at my friend, Sherlock Holmes, who had been standing silently at the window of our Baker Street quarters for nearly a quarter-hour. It was now two months since he had “returned to life,” as the tabloid London newspapers had proclaimed it.

“Are you perhaps referring to the Diogenes Club?” I asked, as I set down the copy of the Times that I had been reading. Holmes had mentioned, a few months after I first learned of his brother, Mycroft, and the queerest club in London, that he had chosen not to seek membership in the organization.

“I would not want to give Mycroft the pleasure of blackballing his own brother,” he had told me. “No, the group I am referring to is far less well-known than the Diogenes Club and, in fact, has no name.”

I must admit that I was puzzled, given that beyond its membership, there were few people who knew of the Diogenes Club and certainly fewer that knew of its connections with the British government.

Since Holmes was not one to dwell overmuch on the past, save where it concerned information he needed in order to deal with one of his cases, there had to be another reason for his bringing up this subject. That was when I heard the familiar squeaking on the stairway, which meant that someone was approaching our door.

“So, why would someone from that group be coming now to call on you, Holmes?” I asked.

“Watson!” Holmes laughed. “You amaze me. I go away for three years and then I find that you have taken over the mantle of the consulting detective. I suppose now I will find myself taking up my pen to chronicle your cases.”

I would be lying if I said that this sudden praise did not inflate my ego more than a little bit. “I take it my little deduction was correct?” I said, trying to inject a note of commonplaceness into my voice.

“Indeed, I saw the man in question getting out of a hansom cab not three minutes ago. He and his companion seemed quite agitated,” Holmes said.

As if on cue, there was a knocking on the door and the page boy stepped into the room.

“Two gentlemen to see you, sir.” He held out a tray with the visitors’ card on it.

Holmes walked across the room and picked up his clay pipe from its place on the mantel. After examining the tobacco in it, he plucked a thin ember from the fire place and lit the bowl.

“You may show them in,” he said.

One of our visitors was an exceptionally plain-looking man, the sort whose face you might forget a few seconds after he walked away from you, while the other was a big fellow reaching up to six foot three or four inches, if not more.

“Good evening, Mr. Holmes. I ‘m sure you are quite surprised that we have crossed your threshold on this day.” The first stranger removed his silk top hat. He lifted the ebony walking stick and held it under his arm.

“Your presence is not surprising.”

“Is that your ego speaking?” From their words and Holmes’ earlier statement, I felt there was obviously history between them.

“Ego? Hardly! If you think that, then you do not truly understand either me or my methods.” Holmes gestured toward his chair, where a pile of clippings from the last several days’ newspapers lay. “I have eyes, sir, and a mind. When I see that there have been three robberies in the past two weeks, all unsolved, two of them the homes of men I know to be members of your organization and at one at the office of your brother-in-law, I know that something is afoot regarding your group.”

“I see that your powers of observation are as sharp as they ever were, in spite of, or perhaps because of, your recent ‘extended holiday’,” the plain-faced man said.

The words were obviously intended to injure Holmes’ ego, but the man did not know my friend, or he would have understood that he was wasting his breath.

“Oh, where are my manners?” said Holmes, making a point of ignoring our visitor’s last words. “My ‘extended holiday’, as it has just been called, has atrophied my manners. Watson, allow me to introduce you to Sir James Marsden, Baronet, who also is the leader of the organization that I mentioned to you earlier.”

“It’s a pleasure, Sir James,” I said. The man had a firm, dry handshake, but it his eyes struck me the most. They were hard, dark and distant, reminding me of some of our men who had ventured into the tribal areas of the mountains and seen things that had ripped into their souls.

“The pleasure is mine, Doctor. I read of the passing of your wife some months ago. My condolences,” he said, nodding toward the other man, who nodded but said nothing. “My companion and bodyguard, Davis St. John.”

Mention of Mary brought a feeling of sadness to the pit of my stomach. It was a feeling that I embraced, but had learned to put aside, with memories of our all-too-brief happiness together.

“So, Sir James, the facts, if you will,” Holmes said casually.

Sir James sank into the plush chair at the far corner of the fireplace. “It has been stolen,” he said.

“What has been stolen?” Holmes voice was even and unemotional, though I suspect it had the exact sound he wanted.

“The manuscript, as you predicted so many years ago that it would be, although we had taken every step within our power to prevent this. I will say that there have been at least a dozen attempts over the years and this is the only one that has succeeded,” said our visitor.

“It matters not how many, just that there was one who managed to pull it off. I warned you years ago that it perhaps would have been better had the thing been burned and the ashes scattered to the four winds,” said Holmes. I had never heard such vehemence in my friend’s voice.

“You may have been right in your idea. I admit that, now,” said Sir James.

“When did this happen?” asked Holmes.

“As best we can tell, some four days ago. The vault that it was being kept in is only opened when something is being added to its contents,” said Sir James. “We had come into possession of some small, star-shaped stones that could be used to command certain situations.” Our visitor glanced over at me, as if weighing what – and how much – to say.

“Please continue, Sir James. Simply be aware that anything you can tell me, you can tell Dr. Watson, and know that if you insist on his not being present, I will terminate this interview at once,” said Holmes.

“Of course,” Sir James said. “Watson’s trustworthiness is well known.”

Holmes began to pace slowly across the room, puffing on his pipe as he went. It was as if the three years of his absence had melted away. I could tell he was mulling over possibilities.

“Then you will accept the case?” asked Sir James.

“No, because I suspect that you will find it is one of your own who has ‘liberated’ the manuscript, a book collector who decided that it would make a fine addition to his personal collection,” said Holmes, looking toward me. “You will find, Watson, that the Machiavellian doings of some bibliophiles almost put them on a level with the late Professor Moriarty. I believe that this was the tale that you spun me when you asked me to get involved in the first matter.”

I had to admit that Holmes was right. In my life, I have known several bibliophiles who were, to say the least, willing to go to any extent to add a lusted-after first edition, or a rare volume, to their collection.

“You seem to forget the events of ten years ago. You saw what happened.” Sir James’ voice had grown louder to emphasize his words.

“I saw a number of things; many of them had explanations that could be traced back to hysteria, rather than reality,” said Holmes. That last remark was enough to cause the Baronet to leap to his feet and be out of our door in less than a minute, his companion close behind him.

I turned toward my friend and said, “Holmes, you were a bit ru....” However, I did not get to finish the sentence. Holmes had doffed his dressing gown and was grabbing his coat from the rack. His attitude had turned from that of disdain to one of intensity.

“Quick, Watson, the window. Make sure you are not seen.”

I didn’t understand, but knew that Holmes had reasons, good reasons. From the edge of the window, I could see Sir James and his companion standing on the edge of the street.

“He’s hailing a hansom, from down the street.”

“That would be Bisang. He always hangs about there when he is waiting for a fare. That gives us just the time we need. Bring your revolver; this may be a nasty business.”

Since I had only just cleaned my pistol, not out of need from having fired it recently, but simply out of habit in caring for one’s weapon, I had no trouble in laying my hands on it.

Holmes was already standing at the street door, which he had opened just a crack. He motioned me to wait as I came down the stairs.

A moment later, we were out the door. A tall, thin boy, one of Holmes’ band of street Arabs, appeared at our side. “Anything I can do, Mr. Holmes?”

“Indeed, Wiggins, your timing is excellent. Get yourself and several of the others after that cab that just pulled out,” Holmes said.

“The one with the green stripe? I can follow that one on me own.”.

“Nevertheless, take help. Waverly is always good. I want to know where the men in the cab go and then, wherever that is, watched.”

The young fellow nodded and then vanished into the crowd.

“We have much to do and, I suspect, not all that much time to do it in,” said Holmes, as he waved another cab to us, to which he gave an address that I did not recognize.

Once we were en route, my friend did not say anything for nearly ten minutes. I had seen him in this mood before, so I waited. There were times when he could be forthcoming with answers; there were times when getting the slightest information from him would be like pulling teeth.

“I imagine you are somewhat confused,” he said finally.

“It’s obvious that you are not turning your back on this case, in spite of what you told Sir James,” I said.

“You yourself have noted in your rather florid chronicles of my cases that there have been a number of matters for which the world is not yet ready. This would qualify as one of those,” he said. “It happened some six months before young Stamford brought you to the laboratory at Bart’s. The organisation that Sir James represents claims to have been in existence for centuries, protecting the world from things of a dark and possibly supernatural nature. Of course, I did not know it at the time. He approached me through young Musgrave; apparently, he was a friend of the family, wanting my assistance in finding a book that had been stolen.

“The book in question was actually only a portion of an Arabic manuscript called the Al-Azif, dated from around 730 A.D. It was written by a man who used the name ‘Abdul Alhazred’. Since that is not an Arabic name, I suspect it was a nom de plume. It purports to be a spell book and history of ancient gods called ‘The Great Old Ones’, who seem intent on taking command of this world.”

“‘Ancient gods’?” I hoped that Holmes could hear the tone of sneering in my voice. This hardly seemed the domain of my friend. I must confess that some part of me wondered if it was all part of some elaborate practical joke on Holmes’ part. But that would be so unlike him that I ruled that possibility out at once.

“‘Gods’, hardly. I did not rule out the possibility that the author and many of those who read his work were completely insane. I do not believe in ghosts, vampires or such creatures as that. Everything can be explained rationally and within the realm of logical thought.”

“Sir James said you had seen things,” I continued.

“Indeed, the recovery of the manuscript brought me into an occult underworld that was bloody and without mercy, and that stretches from even the lowliest East End hovel to the highest drawing rooms in the land. I suspect that even the late Professor Moriarty would have found himself repulsed by it. I did see things that, quite honestly, I could not explain, but I am certain, even to this day, that there are valid scientific explanations for them. I told that to the members of Sir James’ organization when I applied for membership. It was one of the reasons, I suspect, that they blackballed me. They claimed it was because that their ‘psychic’ members had foreseen my rise to fame and I would bring too much notice to their little group. I crossed paths with them, on two additional occasions during cases, and both times they refused my assistance.”

I chuckled. I did not believe in any of the spiritualist occult nonsense and had been in many an argument with Doyle over the matter, but at least in this one case, these so-called psychics had been right: if anything, he was more famous now since he had “returned from the dead”.

“The problem, Watson, is that, regardless of what you or I might believe, there are people who think that possession of that manuscript might give them power beyond belief and are not adverse to harming a great number of people in the process. That is why it is imperative that it be retrieved from whatever hands that those pages have fallen into. If they are the same ones with whom I crossed swords a dozen years ago, this is not a matter that I can ignore.”

“But you told Sir James that this was not a matter of any consequence.” I paused for a moment. “Are you being a bit petty over that blackballing they gave you?”

“Say simply that I don’t completely trust Sir James and his compatriots. Just as there are people who would do anything, including murder, for power, there are also those who would protect us from them that can be tempted to the dark side.” I could have sworn I saw a slight smile pass over Holmes’ face as he added, “Besides, when have you ever known me to be petty?”

A half-hour later, Holmes and I found ourselves standing in front of a large grey building with dozens of people moving in and out. Several were loading boxes onto a wagon; it looked as if one of them had a large animal skull under one arm.

“And this place is...?” I asked.

“One of the most unique and unknown places in all of London. It is one of a number of additional storage areas operated by the British Museum,” said Holmes. “I stumbled on the place many years ago, and, thanks to the kindness of several of the directors of the Museum, have been permitted to visit here on occasion.”

Given the size of the British Museum, I could well understand that they would have far more in their collection than could either be displayed or stored at their main building. I had a sudden vision of unending streams of items marching from the four corners of the empire to find their new homes in the British Museum.

It was obvious Holmes had been to the place a number of times; he wound his way through the maze of shelves and stacked boxes with ease. Everywhere I looked, I could see Greek statues, South African masks and black stone monoliths inscribed in some unknown tongue, standing next to each other.

“Ah, here we are,” said Holmes. He gestured at a door that stood flanked by a strange black statue of an octopus-headed creature and a pure-white polar bear, which reared up to its full height. It was one of those places that, if you didn’t know it was there, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you would never notice it.

“This is the domain of Professor Richard Chadbourn Sanderson, perhaps one of the foremost experts in the world on the folkloric roots of civilization as we know it,” said Holmes. “But this is most unusual....”

“How so?”

“He generally keeps his door bolted.” As we stepped into the room, I noticed the heavy-duty lock below the door handle, as well as several others along the door’s frame. The workroom on the other side was only about ten feet long and half that wide, but it was crowded with an eclectic collection of items so that it felt more like a closet.

“I gather he likes his privacy.”

“More that he dislikes people. Were he more outgoing, I would have said he might be an ideal candidate for the Diogenes Club.”

With that introduction, I expected to find an aged, stooped little man with white hair and inch-thick spectacles. That was definitely not what Professor Sanderson turned out to be. He was six feet tall, with blonde hair, an eye patch and a scar that ran half the length of his face, definitely not your typical academic and definitely not what I expected to see. Of course, I had not expected to find him very dead, impaled on a spear. I knew before I reached the body that the man was dead, but checked for a pulse, anyway.

“He’s gone, Holmes,” I said. Since rigor was not fully set in the body, that meant that he had been killed just over three to four hours ago. The large amount of blood that had dried on the floor indicated that the body had not been moved since the attack.

Holmes knelt next to me to examine the spear with his small magnifying glass. The weapon was a good five feet long and at least two inches thick.

“There was something freshly painted on the shaft,” said Holmes. Looking over his shoulder, I could see nothing but the streaks of blood and bits of flesh that were clinging to the carved surface of the weapon. “Additionally, this weapon should not be here.”

“I’m sure Sanderson would agree with you on that point,” I said.

“Of that I have no doubt, but what I was referring to was the fact that this is a South American spear, from a tribe along the upper Amazon. This warehouse is devoted to Africa and eastern Europe; South American artifacts are kept at another location. So, whoever the killer was brought this weapon with him.” Not that anyone would have thought it odd to bring a spear into the British Museum; people were no doubt highly used to seeing odd items coming and going and would have made no comment at all.

Holmes turned his attention to the area around the corpse. In the chaos, I had to wonder how he would discern any evidence of the killer. Although I suspected that, had Sanderson been alive, he would have been able to immediately lay his hands on any required material. I had to admit that at times, my study had been like that and Mary had frequently remonstrated with me, with that gentle stare of hers. I would have given anything right then to hear that disapproving sigh of hers even one more time.

Holmes worked his way from one end of the room to the other, picking up one item here and another there, plucking at something with a pair of tweezers he took from a table and staring intently through his magnifying glass at other things.

“It is not often that we have been the first on the scene at a crime, Watson. Were it not an old acquaintance now lying dead, I would say it was a most refreshing and enjoyable experience. I have seen all I need to and now know that the killer was a big man who moved with an economy of skill. He was acquainted with Sanderson and did not find what he was looking for.”

“Should I bother to ask how you know all this?”

“You know my methods, Watson. Given what I have said, what would you say I have seen?”

I pursed my lips for a moment. “Given the man’s preference for solitude that you described, unless there is a back door, I would say that the Professor let the person in the door.”

“Excellent, Watson. There is a side door to the room, but it is still locked, and from the inside. Go on,” said Holmes with a smile.

I scanned the room again, trying to see the most minute detail, but everything seemed to be drowned in the overabundance of things in the area. I shrugged my shoulders and admitted defeat.

“Worry not, old friend. The clues are there It is just a matter of knowing what you are observing. In some cases, however, it is not what is there, but what is not there. That spear is big and heavy; it would take a large man to have the strength to drive it through another man. That, along with a half-footprint in the blood, gives us his size. That there is not a large number of broken items in the area indicates that our killer could move with some dexterity.”

“And the fact that he did not obtain what he was looking for?” I asked.

At that point, Holmes dramatically picked up a leather portfolio that I had noticed him looking at earlier. “Because I have it,” he said, passing his prize over to me. “After dealing with Sir Charles the first time, I discovered that the Professor had apparently acquired a page of the manuscript. I spoke with him about it several times, but got no satisfactory answers.”

There were several designs drawn on the page and line after line of cramped Arabic writing. I touched the paper and it felt odd to my finger, like something I did not want in close proximity to me. “This was worth killing over?”
“There are those who would swear on their immortal souls that it is,” said Holmes.

We left quickly, using the side door, and were away from the building in only a matter of minutes. Holmes knew the maze-like passages like the back of his hand, a fact that, given this was Sherlock Holmes, did not surprise me in the slightest.

“But shouldn’t we notify the police?” I said.

“Under normal circumstances I would not have hesitated in doing just that, but these are not normal circumstances. While much was smeared, I could make out several symbols that had been painted on the shaft of the spear, similar to ones I glimpsed in the Necronomicon.”

“Necronomicon?” I said.

“My apologies, Watson. That is the English title for the Al-Azif.”

The two of us walked quickly along the street in front of the Museum warehouse, each one watching and listening for some sign that the murder had been discovered. I would have preferred to be in a cab racing away from the area, but the very act of walking helped dispel any nervousness that the last few minutes had caused.

Yet, as we walked, I could not shake the feeling that we were being followed. It was more a feeling in the pit of my stomach, rather than anything else, but it was the same that I had had on more than one occasion during my days in Afghanistan. I tried to casually look over my shoulder, catch reflections in windows, but there was nothing, or else, it was that I did not recognize whoever it was that was following us.

“Holmes ....”

“Yes, we are being followed, Watson, by two small men in sailor’s jackets, with caps pulled down low on their faces. They have been dogging our trail since we left the warehouse.”

“Police?”

Holmes chuckled, “The Metropolitan Police may at times scrape the bottom of the barrel when it comes to recruiting, but these fellows are far below that level.”

We were several blocks from the warehouse and the evening had spread quickly, especially since what gas lights there were in this area that were not broken had yet to feel the lamplighter’s touch. What businesses we passed had been locked up and shuttered, or had been long since abandoned by their owners.

“We are just a few blocks from a pub called ‘The Long John’. I propose we stop in there and see if our companions are willing to come into the light,” Holmes said.

“What is to prevent them from simply lingering outside until we leave?” I said.

“Let them ,” Holmes said. “There is a smugglers’ tunnel in the back that we will make use of.”

However, they say that even the best laid plans go astray, which applied on occasion to even the ones that were developed by Holmes. The two of us had turned into an alley that would lead to the pub on the next street, our earlier companions hanging back half a block, when three other figures appeared out of the shadows and came at us. One, a big man, had a crooked-looking knife in his hand, while the other two were unarmed. All of them were wrapped in ragged coats, with mufflers and hats masking their faces.

Holmes charged toward one of them, grabbing his left arm and throwing the man to the ground in a single swift movement. He followed it with two swift kicks to the fellow’s torso. I had my revolver out and drove the butt hard against the second one’s skull, the sound being enough to know that I had done some damage. He tottered for a moment and went over onto the cobblestones of the street.

The third one, the big man who had the knife, had held back, but now he moved toward us, brandishing the weapon and jabbing it into the air. Holmes stared at him, matching his movements to the other man. The dance between them went on for several seconds before Holmes acted. He feinted in one direction then whirled around and launched a drop-kick that impacted hard in the center of the man’s chest; a quick two-handed smash put his attacker unmoving on the ground.

“Was that last an example of Baritsu?” I asked. That Japanese style of wrestling had, according to Holmes, saved his life at the Reichenbach Falls.

“Hardly. Merely something I picked up,” said Holmes.

I looked back along the street, but our other pursuers were nowhere to be seen. If they were allied with these men, then they had presumably retreated when they saw their comrades go down, no doubt now en route to report on the outcome of the battle.

My opponent had not moved from where he had gone down and I could not at first be certain that he was even breathing. When I touched his wrist to check for a pulse, the skin under my fingers felt slimy, almost like that of a fish. I pulled the scarf and hat away from his face and found myself staring at something I was hard-pressed to be sure was not an hallucination. The face of this, I hesitate to even call him a ‘man’, looked like some cruel cross between a human and a fish. On the side of the neck were what might even be gills. I have seen strange things in my life, in places that ranged from the battlefields to the darker places that my career with Holmes had taken me, but this ranked as the strangest.

“Holmes, this is not right,” I said, in a voice that sounded strained to my ear.

“How so, Doctor?” he said coming to my side. His face was impassive, even in the darkness, as he studied the being.

“Given what I found, this does not bode well,” he said, and gestured toward the other man. Holmes had stripped him of his facial coverings and I knew at whom I was looking. It was Davis St. John, Sir Charles’ companion of this morning.

“It all makes sense,” was all that Holmes would say, en route back to Baker Street. I had long ago learned that asking for details from him, until that moment when he was ready, was a waste of time. The most I could expect would be vague words and half-muttered statements, which were exactly what I seemed to be getting. So, as we drove, I satisfied myself with lighting my pipe and watching the city roll by.

The cab had barely pulled to a halt in front of our quarters before Wiggins’ lanky figure had appeared out of the shadows and leaped up onto the cab, clinging to the edge by his long thin fingers.”We have him, Mr. Holmes!” said the young Irregular. “It’s a house, eight blocks from Condign Square,” he said, spouting out the address so quickly it sounded like a single word.

“Good man, Wiggins. Get in!” The youth clamored inside, without bothering to open the door, squeezing in between the two of us. Since our cab was a smaller one, the fit was tight, but that did not matter at the moment.

“I know the area: private homes, a few shops. Not the best part of town, but certainly not the worst. Hardly the area in which I would have expected to find Sir Charles residing,” I said.

“I imagine that, officially, he doesn’t,” said Holmes.

Again, he would say no more until we had arrived at our goal, having walked the last few blocks, since it would not do to announce our presence. We found the other Irregular in an alley a half-block from the house; the view was an excellent one of the front and side of our goal.

“Well, Alexander, what have you to report?” said Holmes.

“Sir Charles went inside two hours ago and hasn’t left,” the second Irregular replied.

“Excellent job, boys,” said Holmes. “It’s time for you to be elsewhere. Things might get a little dangerous in the next few hours.” He extracted two coins and tossed them over to Wiggins and Alexander; both were gone with a nod.

“So I take it it’s time for a bit of burglary?” I said. This wouldn’t be the first time that Holmes and I had violated the law in pursuit of a case.

“I think not; I feel an urge to go in the front door.”

So, that was exactly what we did: walked right up to the front door and pounded on it. It occurred to me, as we were standing there, that the night seemed darker and even here, in the center of London, there was a silence that until now had only been in the background. I felt a strange chill; if I were a superstitious man, I would have said that someone had just walked on my grave.

“Sometimes, the direct approach is the best, but you do have to be prepared to keep demanding attention,” said Holmes. He was about to knock again when the door opened and we found ourselves facing, not Sir Charles but a woman in her thirties, dressed in dark colors that seemed to shift with the light around her.

“Please come in, gentlemen,” she said.

“I presume we are expected,” said my companion.

“Indeed you are, Mr. Holmes. My uncle will be with you in just a few minutes. There is brandy on the sideboard and you will find cigars in the humidor near the fireplace.”

This was not what, fifteen minutes before, I would have predicted happening. We were escorted into a room filled from floor to ceiling with bookshelves that were overflowing with books, scrolls, and portfolios. In the center of the room was a huge carved wooden desk, one of the most ornate that I had ever seen. Lying dead-center on it was a pile of parchment pages covered with drawings and words in what I was certain was Arabic.

“Holmes! The Al-Azif!” I stepped over to the desk and reached out toward the manuscript, but could not bring myself to touch the papers.

The woman reappeared without a sound, lit the lamps and stoked the fire in the fireplace at one end of the room, and then was gone, all without a word.

The dark wood of the walls, which seemed almost black in places, was covered in a strange, inlaid design that seemed to make it hard to focus on any specific part for more than a few seconds.

“What is it about this place?” I muttered. For a few moments, I had the same sensations in the pit of my stomach that I had had on those few times when I had been intoxicated to the point of almost passing out.

“I see it now, Watson. This whole room has been prepared for this moment,” Holmes said.

That was when the voice started. I wasn’t even sure if I heard it at first; there was just a slight churning sound, an echo in the distance that might or might not have been there. Only gradually, over a space of a few minutes, did the sound become words and a voice that we could hear. The words made no sense, yet they grew louder and clearer.

“It’s Sir Charles. He obviously has some kind of tube system to carry his voice here from another part of the house,” said Holmes.

The door that we had entered was locked. I banged my shoulder twice against it, but it did not move and I doubted that even the two of us combined could batter it down. The gaslights flared as the chanting continued, wrapping the room in twisted shadows. As I looked around, the very angles of the room, the bookcases, the furniture, everything seemed wrong, as if they were just slightly out of focus.

“Sir Charles!” yelled Holmes. “You are destroying a tradition that goes back centuries. You are one of the protectors of this realm.”

The chanting continued. If Sir Charles heard Holmes, he was ignoring him. I had my revolver out, but I realized that I had no target at which to fire.

From inside his jacket, Holmes pulled out the loose parchment page then threw it straight into the fire. The heat caused the paper to dance in the air for a moment before being engulfed in flames. Holmes threw himself against me and dragged the two of us down behind the desk.

I’m a little unclear about what happened next. I do remember the flames roaring through the whole room then fading away. The next thing I knew, we were running through billowing smoke; this time, the study door gave way and we were free. In the distance, I could hear the sound of warnings of fire and people rushing around us.

“I don’t know about you, Watson, but I, for one, could use a stiff drink,” said Holmes.

“Several,” I said.

“I was a fool, Watson. I let my own hubris at my treatment by this organization blind me to some obvious facts,” said Holmes.

It was two days after the fire and the reports of it had only been a minor event in the London papers, quickly fading for the far-more-sensational tales of a killer who seemed to be using a strange-looking black sword. The papers had reported finding the body of Sir Charles and the woman who owned the house. There was, of course, speculation that she was his mistress.

“How so? You are not a mind-reader; there was no reason you should have suspected Sir Charles as the thief,” I said. “After all, he was the one who came to recruit you to find the criminal – i.e., himself.”

“Yes, obviously, he realized that I had not returned all of the manuscript to them those ten years ago and felt this was the only way flush it out.”

“But why? Was it simply the value of such a historical curiosity?”

“I think that Sir Charles felt that it was real and could summon these creatures. He realized that I had retained some part of the manuscript and he needed it. The burglaries were designed to flush the remaining page out into the open. I cannot explain everything we saw that night. I suspect that there was a hallucinogenic of some sort pumped into the room via the gas outlets.”

Before I could say anything, Mrs. Hudson came in the door, an envelope in her hand.

“I found this in the kitchen,” she said. “I just turned around and this was lying in the center of my cutting board. No one but myself was there.”

Holmes arched an eyebrow and accepted the envelope. “Expensive paper, goes for at least a shilling a box. The handwriting shows a sure, steady hand,” he said. On the front were the words: “To be delivered to the hand of Sherlock Holmes.” He opened it, stared at the page, then passed it over to me.

It was two words, written in the same hand that had addressed the envelope. “Thank you.”

Bradley H. Sinor has seen his short stories published in numerous science fiction, fantasy and horror anthologies such as The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; Tales of the Shadowmen, Vol. 6: Grand Guignol; Ring of Fire 2; and The Grantville Gazette. Three collections of his short fiction have been released by Yard Dog Press: Dark and Stormy Nights, In the Shadows, and Playing with Secrets (along with stories by his wife Sue Sinor). His newest collection of stories, Echoes from the Darkness, is from Arctic Wolf Press. His non-fiction work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies.

The author speaks: “The Second Theft of Alhazred’s Manuscript” is set in 1894, some months after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Empty House”, which featured Sherlock Holmes’ return from his apparent death. Since Holmes was known to frequent the British Museum when he first came to London, I had always wondered if he knew about the manuscripts in parts of the building that were not open to the public.