The Acton Body-Snatchers

Oh, so cold!

Brrrrrrrr!

Dear God, why was it so damned cold! Why was I so cold? Why was I absolutely bloody freezing? Why did my bones feel like icy stalagmites and stalactites, converging within the core of my aged being?

I was supposed to be asleep, wasn’t I? How could I be so cold when I was tucked up cosily with my hot water bottle inside my army-supply blanket and Lily Hudson’s freshly bleached cream sheets at 221B Baker Street? Dreaming of my two beautiful wives, Mary and Beatrice, whose warm flesh had succoured me for so many years in the past, before they made their premature departures to those pearly gates?

So cold!

Perhaps my good friend Sherlock Holmes would soon be inviting me to partake of his tobacco from the toe of his Persian slipper?

So cold!

Or might Lily ‘erself be serving me one of ‘er piping ‘ot brea’fas’s of kippahs an’ frie’ onings?

So cold!

Maybe young Jasper Lestrade would be recounting yet another important new case that had stumped Scotland Yard. Like our last one, which had involved the dastardly assassination of a young Australian aborigine, and had seen the pair of us in a bullet riddled battle with the Irish Republican Army inside a gold mine in Avoca, County Wicklow. An investigation that had resulted in the Irish Free State awarding me their very first Medal Of Honour. Holmes and I had even shed a little blood for the honourable cause of Irish peace.

So cold!

Suddenly my eyes jerked open. At last! Properly awake! But where in the name of Jehovah was I? What was that peculiar, cloying stench? And where on earth were my pyjamas? No wonder I was cold! Oh, thank heavens! At least I was wearing my underpants. But nothing else.

So dark!

So dark?

So dark and so... airless. I could scarcely breathe. And my lips were parched. I had to drink some water, and maybe open a window. Ouch! My raised hand had thumped off something right above my head. A substance that was hard and solid. Was I resting on a lower bunk bed? Or in a ship’s cabin? Panic-stricken, I felt all around the flat surface above and below me. O, dear God! I was trapped! Inside some kind of wooden box! What was happening to me? HELP! Was I really dead? Was this a dream? A nightmare? Had I truly woken up? Or was some cruel joke being played on me? A childish game? Hide and seek? Yes. That must be it. Soon my dear friend would come to rescue me and everything would be right with the world again. Breathe deeply, Watson. In, hold, out. In, hold, out. In, hold, out. That’s it. I started to relax and slowly released a long sigh of relief.

‘Watson, it is clear to me that we been buried alive together...’

‘Aaaaaggggghhhhh!’ I shrieked.

‘...having first been chloroformed. Do be quiet, old chap,’ came the cool voice of Sherlock Holmes from somewhere to my right. ‘Curb your taphephobia. To be buried alive is not all that unusual in 1927. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust etc., And yet our predicament does require a degree of concentration that I have neither needed nor achieved in the past. If you must breathe, do so very gently through your nostrils, in order to minimise your oxygen intake and maximise our future. Which does seem rather fleeting at the moment.’

I struggled to stay calm as I shifted my position and placed my hand upon the bony shoulder of my old friend. His skin felt clammy to my touch. Trust his skeletal frame not to feel the cold!

‘But... but... what has happened? Why are we here? Where are our clothes? Holmes? Tell me you are wearing underpants, aren’t you?’

There was no sound from the great detective for several agonising minutes. I struggled to contain my horror and recall why we should have been buried... ALIVE!

‘The way I see it, Watson,’ he murmured at last, ‘is that we have three choices. Apart from the most likely, which is hypothermia. We can lie here quietly, chat about old cases for a while and wait for the worms to come calling. Or we can lose the plot altogether and scratch away at the wood until our hands are bleeding, and then die anyway, like in one of Edgar Allan Poe’s ghoulish stories about catalepsy.’

‘And?’ I enquired politely. ‘Pray. What is the third option?’

‘We can escape from our premature tomb.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I muttered impatiently. ‘But how?’

‘Let us consider that possible third option, Watson. I am sure you will agree with me when I say that all problems must have at least one solution?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Good. I believe that we can assume that no one, apart from those villainous perverts and their group of bloodthirsty cohorts, has the slightest idea where we are, so we can expect no rescue. No funerals will have been held for us. Lestrade and Lily will not know where to look. Unless we do something about it, our disappearance will remain a mystery to them for the remainder of their lives. But when we pause for a moment and ask ourselves what exactly has happened, the answer seems resoundingly clear. When we discovered this evil criminal gang at one of their conclaves, we were both overcome in turn, anaesthetised, stripped of our clothing and bundled into a coffin, before being interred within a grave.’

‘Or just some shallow hole in the ground?’ I suggested hopefully. ‘That could be anywhere?’

‘It is definitely a grave, Watson. And almost certainly six feet under. On my far side lies the thoroughly decayed corpse of some other poor soul, wrapped in a shroud. Cursum perficiat. He has finished his journey. The fact that they used an existing wide coffin may yet provide us with a vital clue, if you will allow me to apply my cerebrum to the subject for a few minutes. Do excuse me.’

‘Ouch! Damnation!’

I had forgotten about the absence of light and banged my head against our coffin lid, trying to see the remains of our dead companion. Dear God, it was coming back to me now. Acton. That hypocritical bastard and his secret society. The Body-Snatchers. The horrible discovery of those poor lads. This had to be the filthiest, most revolting, most evil case that we had ever worked on. It seemed to me a lifetime ago, yet it could hardly have been more than a day or two since New Year’s Eve 1926, when Jasper Lestrade, having imbibed one too many glasses of our Krug Champagne, had insisted upon involving the pair of us in one of his father’s many unsolved mysteries, from as far back as 1905...

***

The first flakes of snow had begun to fall silently upon Baker Street, melting into the asphalt as they landed. We were playing Contract Bridge to see in the New Year. Holmes had finally condescended to be dummy and permit me the pleasure of winning a four hearts bid. Lily was busy shuffling the deck in her customary slick manner when the equally ferret-faced son of our old nemesis George placed his cigar in a tray, leaned forward over the table, rubbed his hands together awkwardly, and addressed the great detective.

‘Mr. Holmes. Eh, I... have been wanting to talk to you about something. It concerns my late father and a case he worked on many years ago. It was never actually solved...’.

‘That is such a shock to my system,’ interrupted Holmes, smiling demurely.

Jasper Lestrade ignored the insult to his tenacious parent and continued his story.

‘It involved the disappearance of young boys around the village of Acton. This had been such a common occurrence in nineteenth century London that little interest was taken by the police. But my father carried out a thorough investigation at the time, to no avail. The poor man continued to obsess about the subject until his dying day. Once I had risen to Detective Inspector at the Yard, he tried to persuade me to reopen the case, but we had, and continue to have, insufficient resources.’

‘Have?’ enquired Holmes, raising his dark eyebrows in sudden interest.

‘Yes. You see, after a lull of over twenty years, it has started to happen again. And in the same part of London. I thought you might be interested. I have his case notes downstairs, if you would care to look at them?’

Holmes pretended a mild interest with a slight motion of his evening pipe, but I could sense his excitement at the possibility of a fresh challenge to those extraordinary powers. When Lestrade returned with a voluminous bound yellow folder, it was all he could do to contain himself and finish out the rubber, before wishing our housekeeper and her new husband a brisk happy new year and pleasant dreams, lighting a fresh churchwarden clay pipe and settling himself upon the cane chair to study the notes. I followed suit with my walking stick up the stairs to my own bed chamber, knowing full well that this problem would occupy my friend throughout the entire night.

Indeed he was still there the next morning, albeit dead to the world, his head lolling back upon the rattan, the notes flung across the basket chair, the dormant pipe in his hand. At least there was no sign of the dreaded needle. Just as I had decided to forsake my breakfast so as not to waken him, he woke up.

‘Watson. What time is it?’

Holmes stretched his arms out to their fullest possible length and yawned loudly.

‘It is almost eight thirty,’ I replied. ‘Happy new year.’

He grabbed the case notes and leapt up from his makeshift bed.

‘And the same to you. There is no time to lose. We need to discuss this case with George’s son. Many young lives may depend upon our abilities now. Ring the bell and ask him to come up.’

‘Eh, Lily will come up if I ring the bell,’ I pointed out. ‘Jasper may very well have left for work at Scotland Yard. As we know, the criminal class does not respect the New Year holiday.’

With that, the great detective rushed to the top of the stairs and yelled, ‘Lestrade!’

‘’e’s gorn tah woik.’ Lily’s echoing scream rose from the basement like the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

‘Very well,’ muttered Holmes. ‘We shall make an exploratory trip to Acton ourselves. There are many points that are not entirely devoid of interest in this case. Grab your cane. Don’t worry, we shall augment the glorious smell of horse manure by using one of your beloved growlers. Along the way, I shall explain poor old George’s limited findings.’

By the beginning of 1927, the motorised Beardmore taxi cab had begun to dominate the streets of London. My friend was aware that I hated the damn things, with their constant racket and odour of petroleum fumes. They may have been faster than a gondola, but for comfort I preferred the ancient horse-drawn four-seater. For similar reasons, the lure of the underground had escaped us both.

The snow had ceased overnight and a bleak sun struggled to warm us as we settled ourselves inside the hansom cab. Once our morning pipes were lit and working well, Holmes handed me the notes to read, and proceeded to prevent me from doing so, by summarising the main features of the case.

‘He has a record of thirty-five children vanishing between 1890 and 1905. There seems to have been few common denominators between them, apart from the fact that they were all boys, aged about twelve or thirteen and they came from an area geometrically circular to the central market street of Acton. About half a mile out. Note that, Watson. It might be important. They came from all classes of society. But whatever happened to these unfortunate boys, it was all done very subtly, at the rate of only two or three boys per annum, almost as though the villains were counting on such a small number not capturing the attention of either the police or press. No bodies were ever found.’

‘Perhaps George took a special interest in it because he had a boy himself?’ I suggested.

‘Good point. Who knows? Also the children all came from large families. Even George himself had six of the little... darlings. Unfortunately his investigation yielded few real clues, as I expected. But at least he has provided us with details of the missing boys from the old case, and Jasper has updated the file with three new names, each of which has disappeared within the last year.’

‘Their parents must be crawling up the walls with worry,’ I ventured.

‘Perhaps. We shall soon find out, as we are visiting the three addresses today and talking to them.’

‘Holmes! Do we have to? Might we not build up their hopes unnecessarily? They will most certainly have heard of your reputation as a detective.’

Holmes smiled and blew smoke peacefully towards the window.

‘We do not know what has happened to these boys, Watson. The corollary of your concern is that we may yet be in time to rescue one or two of them. And maybe find out what happened to the rest. These people will welcome any extra effort, if Scotland Yard has not been able to assist them.’

***

Holmes was right. Our first visit was to the home of the most recent case, a modest two-up, two down terraced house at the end of Hillcrest Road. The boy was called Alan Davis, and he had vanished a mere two weeks earlier. The door was opened by a nervous, dowdy, middle-aged woman clutching a tea towel. She had obviously been crying. Several curious infants gathered noisily around her skirt. My heart went out to her. I could only imagine the love that a parent feels for a child, never having been fortunate enough to be granted one with either of my wives. But I could not imagine a greater tragedy than the loss of a child.

Once Holmes had explained who we were, she invited us cordially into her living-room, shooing away her other youngsters.

‘Was your son in the habit of going off on his own, Mrs Davis?’ enquired Holmes gently, taking out his pocket book and pen.

‘Oh, no. Never. He is a good lad, a bit quiet like, but well behaved. He reads a lot, mainly the books of Mr. Dickens, but also your excellent adventures with Mr Holmes, Doctor.’

I bowed my head in modesty.

‘And he loved... loves listening to the wireless after he has done his homework. Classical music mainly. And playing cards.’

She blew her nose loudly.

‘Did he have any special friends? At school, for instance? Any other hobbies?’

‘No, Mr Holmes. He did not have a good mate. Sometimes we worried about how solitary he was. But he seemed happy enough. And always cheerful. He lived for the local church, and his singing in the choir.’

‘Is he a boy soprano?’ I asked.

‘Yes, sir. A treble. His favourite was Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’. But his voice is beginning to break... or was.’

At this Mrs Davis’ body shook into a spontaneous spasm of grief, and she suppressed a howl by burying her face in the tea towel. I was about to commiserate with her, but Holmes shook his head slightly.

We waited for several minutes until she had regained control of her emotions.

‘What form of employment occupies Mr. Davis?’ asked Holmes.

‘He is a bookkeeper with A. J. Niland and Company, the building contractors,’ she replied, before adding as an afterthought, ‘Charlie is also a lay preacher at the Acton Church Of Christ over in Shakespeare Road.’

‘Pentecostal?’ I queried.

‘Yes. It is a new Church. We are all born again Christians in this house.’

She said this defiantly, as though we might see fit to criticise her for believing in the New Testament. Personally, I had sympathy with those people who chose to reconnect with the teachings of Jesus Christ. As an active member of the Anglican Church, being kind to your neighbour still seemed a good idea to me. But my friend was having none of it. Predictably, he changed the subject immediately. I knew very well what he thought of a belief in God and the afterlife.

‘One last question, Mrs Davis, and then we will bother you no more. Did anything strange or unusual happen in the days or weeks before Alan vanished?’

Holmes was folding his notebook away as though he had given up hope of discovering anything useful and did not expect a constructive answer to his question.

‘Not that I can remember. Oh, except for the bookseller, of course.’

‘Bookseller?’

‘It was about a week before Alan disappeared. A man called at the door, selling copies of the works of someone called Agatha Christie. “The Mysterious Affair At Styles” was one title that I purchased. They are murder mysteries and feature a really clever and rather vain Belgian detective called Hercu...’

‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Holmes with a sigh. ‘We have heard of the fellow and his wonderful little grey cells. Unfortunately, he is based upon a real person. What did this salesman look like?’

‘As though he had seen better days. He was very well-spoken, medium height, extremely thin, clean-looking, with a trimmed black beard. In his late fifties, I’d say. But his clothes, although quite colourful, were threadbare and his shoes could have done with a good brushing. And he had a pronounced limp, almost as though he had an artificial leg. He looked quite tired and seemed very grateful when I bought some books from him. Of course, that may have nothing whatsoever to do with Alan’s disappearance.’

‘Perhaps not. Did this fellow meet your son?’

‘Yes. It was Alan who persuaded me to buy the books,’ she replied.

‘I see. Well, thank you very much for your time, Mrs Davis,’ said Holmes gravely, standing up. ‘I want you to know that we will do our best to find your son. You have my word upon it.’

***

Our visits to the next two distraught mothers produced little new information about the missing boys. But the connections between the three cases started to grow, as we established that each of these lads had sung in choirs, albeit in different churches, one Anglican and one Presbyterian. Each was experiencing that change in voice which is most common in the early teenage years with the onset of puberty. And each one liked his own company and enjoyed reading.

Over lunch in the George And Dragon, Holmes indicated that there had been no record of similar links in George Lestrade’s earlier files.

‘But knowing Lestrade’s methods, that means nothing,’ he suggested, as he speared a chunk of cheddar with his fork. ‘Hhmm. This ploughman’s lunch is really quite palatable. There is little point in revisiting all the families of the original thirty-five boys, some of whom disappeared over thirty-five years ago anyway. They could well be dead.’

‘I agree,’ I answered. ‘But if we could contact just one of the 1905 ones, to establish a common link to the recent disappearances, it might be useful. Reading, singing, the church, etc.,’ I suggested.

‘Indeed. The twenty-year gap might be a clue in itself, Watson. And don’t forget the voice break. Why don’t we assume there is such a link, and use what data we have from the three most recent cases? Time is of the essence. This afternoon we will take a stroll to the three churches in question, talk to the clergymen and choirmasters who may have known these young lads, and see if we can build upon that data. Waiter, more cheese!’

***

‘Ave Maria,

Gratia plena,

Dominus tecum,

Benedicta tu in mulieribus...’

The glorious treble voice, unaccompanied by organ or other musical instrument, lifted our dejected spirits as we pushed back the squeaking entrance gate to St. Dunstan’s Anglican Church, the last of the trilogy to be visited. It had taken us more than a couple of exhausting hours to reach it. The first two churches produced no additional information of interest. For some reason, neither the Presbyterian nor the Church Of Christ minister was prepared to discuss the missing choirboys with us. They had already spoken to the police, and had nothing more to add to the subject. Thank you very much and you can see yourself out. A somewhat suspicious attitude, I thought. We had to make do with noting their next choral services, and a firm plan to return and talk to the boys themselves.

‘Most interesting. Unless I am very much mistaken, Watson, that is the Bach-Golden version of Ave Maria, not the Schubert. Let us perch our weary bones quietly upon a pew and listen to this choral practice.’

The choir consisted of twelve youths, each clad in white surplices, and all about the same age as the ones who had vanished. I found myself wondering grimly if we might be listening to a future victim. Assuming that Holmes did not solve the case in time, of course.

‘Nobis peccatoribus

Nunc et in hora, in hora

Mortis nostrae...’

Once the practice was over and the boys had been dismissed, Holmes and I introduced ourselves to the choirmaster, Canon Jonathan Large, and explained our reason for visiting the church. The clergyman was completely bald, red-faced, short and jovial, with a waistline that suggested a fondness for good vittles. He looked about sixty. His permanent smile belied the coldness of his light blue eyes, one of which looked glassy, as though it were false. But at least he agreed to discuss the matter with us, seated in his vestry.

‘Do sit down. I am truly astonished to discover that you are both real people. I had thought those stories of clever deduction were the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, masquerading as you, doctor. I think I may have even read one or two of them in some magazine. Dear me, what was it called?’

‘The Strand,’ smiled Holmes. ‘Oh, we are very real, I do assure you, Canon. And it is my good friend beside me who pens those elaborate fairy tales.’

‘Well, as I explained to the police, gentlemen, I know nothing about young Gerard Ryan’s disappearance.’ His voice held traces of a Welsh childhood, without actually being sing-song. ‘One day the little angel was attending choral practice, the next he was not. His voice was breaking and he was having difficulty with his high notes, but I like to think I persuaded him that it was a natural process, and we could manage it together. He even asked me what was involved in becoming a castrato. Can you imagine? Sadly, very few choirboys go on with their singing afterwards. They are too deflated. Music is one of the great compensations for being alive, don’t you think?’

‘Indeed it is,’ said Holmes. ‘I am a trifle proficient with the violin myself.’

Canon Large’s smile stretched from ear to ear. ‘My favourite instrument!’

‘I have a particular fondness for Paganini’s seventh concerto,’ continued Holmes. ‘Dah, da, da, dah, dah, da, da, dah...’

‘Ah, the seventh! Wonderful! Perhaps you would care to play for us at a service sometime?’

‘Perhaps.’ I tried to imagine Holmes playing his violin to a crowded congregation in a church, but failed utterly.

‘How long have you been the vicar here?’ continued Holmes.

‘Only about a year. Before that I was stationed for a couple of decades in Africa. A place called Gaberone, in Bechuanaland. Bringing Christianity to the natives, that sort of thing. It was there I lost an eye to a careless Dikgosi tribesman.’

‘And before that?’

‘Such an interest in my boring career!’ said Canon Large sharply. ‘Well, before that I studied Theology at Heythrop College, London University. Unfortunately, I was a little wild in my youth, and spent a good fifteen years at my studies, when it should have been ten.’

‘I am sure you have made up for any lost time,’ I murmured encouragingly. It seemed obvious to me, if not to my friend, that his African experience needed more plaudits.

‘Are you married, Canon?’ asked Holmes, blithely ignorant of any tension in the atmosphere.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I have never been fortunate in that regard. Nowadays I believe my dead eye would put off the ladies somewhat.’

‘And do other choirs come to your church to sing?’

‘Oh, yes. Indeed they do. And our boys sing at other churches also. Some of the smaller constituencies of the Anglican Church cannot afford choirs, you know. They can’t get enough boys from their parish.’

‘Did young master Gerard ever perform outside St. Dunstan’s?’

‘I’m sure he did. But I have no idea where and when. Look. Have you nearly finished? I must repair to my rectory to write the sermon for tonight’s service, which celebrates the Feast Of The Circumcision Of Christ. It is on the need for humility and forgiveness.’

‘Except ye become as little children. Matthew Chapter 18,’ I ventured.

‘I see you know your Bible, doctor. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. I am contemplating removing my dead eye for effect, and throwing it into the congregation. That should wake them up, eh?’

Holmes and I were content to leave Canon Large collapsing into gales of laughter at his own joke.

As he closed over the squeaking gate again, the great detective became quite animated.

‘Our friend is not the musician he pretends to be, Watson. Anyone with a basic knowledge of the violin is aware that although Paganini did write more than six concertos, the two others have been lost for many years. There is no way that he could be familiar with it.’

‘What were you humming, then?’ I asked.

‘Part of the third movement of Max Bruch’s first violin concerto, the Allego Energico. It is one of the most popular and most frequently played pieces of music, which the learned Canon failed to recognise. Also, did you notice the bookcase in his office, with all those second-hand copies of the works of Dickens?’

‘No, I don’t believe I did,’ I replied sardonically. ‘I see, but I do not observe.’

‘Indeed. I could not have put it better myself. A bookseller has been in his church, I’ll wager. One with threadbare clothes and a wooden leg. You are familiar with the fable of the Pied Piper Of Hamelin, I’m sure?’

‘Of course. He was a rat-catcher. But surely there must be more to this than a mere fairy tale, Holmes?’

‘Who knows? Children are disappearing. And I smell a rat where the good Canon Large is concerned. His twenty years in Africa could well explain the gap in the disappearing boys. Tonight we will find out more, as we are going to explore the illustrious Church of St. Dunstan thoroughly, cellars and all.’

‘Oh, no, Holmes. No. I will have nothing to do with breaking into the House Of God. And I am also rather tired. My leg is all fired up after that walk. For heaven’s sake, it is against the law!’

Holmes held up a set of bronze skeleton keys.

‘Who said anything about breaking in? Let us hope that Canon Large is so busy writing his hilarious sermon that he does not miss his spare keys, which he keeps on a nail at the side of his desk. Come, Watson. If we can catch a Beardmore there and back, we should have about five hours to recuperate at Baker Street. I am perfectly sure that Lily is preparing a succulent hash to your liking at this very moment.’

***

We arrived back at St. Dunstan’s Church much later than we had planned, two aging detectives who just happened to have lost track of time. He had insisted on examining the case details again, as well as studying the history of the church in question. I must confess to having fallen asleep in front of the fire, after Lily’s delicious bubble and squeak. Consequently, it was well after one o’clock by the time the outer door clunked shut behind us and we stood shivering inside the dark nave, our flashlights at the ready. A single candle flickered beneath the altar, sending shadows dancing on the walls.

‘If my reading of the history of St. Dunstan’s Church is correct, Watson,’ whispered Holmes, ‘there will be a door to the dungeons of the original castle, upon which the church was built. They were used by Oliver Cromwell to house dissident Catholics during his purge of that faith in the seventeenth century. It should be somewhere to the left of the reredos, behind the altar.’

Our torches pierced the spectral gloom as we passed by the eagle lectern and organ to reach the wainscot of the rear wall, decorated by a flowery, ruffled curtain, which Holmes dragged across impatiently. No door. Just more wall, this time panelled in a rich shade of mahogany.

‘Strange,’ he muttered. ‘It must be hidden in some way.’

The great detective gently tapped each panel, but there was no variation of sound to indicate a hollowness, behind which might lie a secret passage to the dungeons.

‘Perhaps it is in the floor?’ I suggested. ‘If it was going downwards? A trapdoor of some kind?’

‘Let us see. Grab the other end of this rug and lift it sideways with me.’

But there was no trapdoor either. Just a plethora of dust that sent me wheezing against the rear wall and Holmes clutching one of the statues on the side of the reredos for support.

‘What about the screen itself?’ he murmured, once he had recovered. ‘Let us examine it in more detail.’

My friend strode in front of the elaborately decorated structure and began tapping and pulling at each of the brass figurines, as though he was a barman in a pub. But none of them would budge. Then he reached the central figure of Christ upon the crucifix and started to play around with the feet of Our Saviour.

‘Holmes!’ I objected. ‘I say!’

‘Be quiet!’ he interjected.

To my astonishment, when he pushed the right foot forcefully upwards, I heard a gentle whirring noise behind me. Part of the lower wainscot had disappeared into the ground, revealing a set of stone steps leading down into the heart of the earth and causing me to almost lose my balance.

‘Clever,’ said Holmes. ‘Nobody would dare touch the foot like that. Even the cleaning lady would simply flick her duster at it. Come, Watson. Let us explore one of Oliver Cromwell’s subterranean jails. Be careful going down. And be ready for anything. Unless I am mistaken about this case, what we find down here will not be to your liking.’

‘Ready, willing, and able,’ I replied dutifully. But my walking stick would have to suffice as a weapon. I had refused to bring my old army revolver into the House Of God, a decision I would come to regret.

I followed Holmes slowly down the steps and into the dungeons, hoping with all my heart that Cromwell’s victims had been dispatched elsewhere before the church was built, and little dreaming of the appalling spectacle that awaited us.

After a while the stairs became spiral and continued to lead down and down and... down yet again until I became quite dizzy and started to feel that I was passing through several layers of Dante’s inferno. Then Holmes came to an abrupt halt ahead of me. He shone his torch around the dank, pitch-black chamber into which we had landed.

The few remaining hairs on the back of my head stiffened. As long as I live, I shall never forget the sight of all those small pine coffins, each mounted about waist-high on four wooden staves and spread around the edges of the horseshoe-shaped dungeon. Nor the odour of rotting flesh that permeated it.

‘Yes,’ muttered my friend. ‘This is it. Just as I expected.’

‘This is... what, exactly?’ I enquired innocently.

‘Why, the graveyard, of course,’ he answered. ‘The graveyard of the choirboys.’

‘The graveyard of the choirboys,’ I repeated to myself in wonder.

‘To be precise, Watson, the coffins of the missing choirboys. You start to the left, and I’ll take the right. Just whip the lids off and ensure there is a corpse inside. Then move on to the next one. We may be in time to save one or two of them, if their users have not finished with them. Here. Take this.’

Holmes fished a pair of small jemmies from his coat pocket and handed one to me. I did not know then what he meant by users, but like any military aide-de-camp, I followed orders. And very soon wished that I had not.

Each coffin was covered with a lid made from a darker shade of pine and permeated with six tiny diamond-shaped holes. I placed my stick on the ground and used the nail-bar to jack up the lid of the first one, but was forced to recoil in horror as the stench of rotting flesh assaulted my nostrils. Grasping my nose between two fingers, I peered into the coffin. Inside were the skeletal remains of what looked from his hair-length like a young boy. His poor body was strapped around with wide brown tape from top to bottom, including his face, where his mouth once was. The strips had loosened around the bones. Something small moved in the corner of the coffin. My knees weakened as I shoved the lid back. What kind of twisted animal would do this to a harmless child?

I did not want to go on, but was driven by Holmes’ belief that we might find one or two boys still alive. I clenched my teeth and limped on with the job, as quickly as possible.

All the coffins on my side were the same, except for the last one, which was blissfully empty. Some of the amateur mummified remains were slightly more recent than others. Almost twenty children, taken from the world just as they were on the cusp of manhood. Murdered. But how? And why?

Trembling with rage, I turned back to reclaim my stick and see how my colleague was doing.

‘Holmes!’ I whispered fiercely. ‘They are all dead. And they have been dead for many years. Were you expecting this? How did you know?’

‘Later, Watson. When we have more facts to hand. It is the same on my side, except for this one, which is recent, and not yet embalmed. He was probably one of the three. Just two to go. There! Another recent one. Also dead, but not yet embalmed. Their throats have all been cut, of course. Now for the last one.’

Holmes jemmied the lid off the final coffin on his side of the horseshoe.

‘Let me check. Watson! Yes! I was right! This lad has a pulse! He is alive! His neck has yet to be lacerated. But he is drugged! Unless I am very much mistaken, that sweet smell is chloroform!’

‘Could he be Alan Davis?’

‘Who knows?’ he replied. ‘Unfortunately we must leave him here for the time being, as our evening’s work is not yet done. We must find out why these children have been killed in this manner. So we shall move on to explore behind the curtains.’

‘Curtains?’ I spluttered. ‘What curtains?’

‘The ones over there,’ replied my friend and ally. ‘In the gap at the end of the horseshoe.’

With that he flashed his light across at the sagging black drapes I had failed to notice. It parted easily in the middle to reveal another small chamber, with about fifteen basic wooden chairs grouped around a square white sheet hung upon the wall. It looked to me like a private theatre, complete with projector perched on a tripod to one side and containing a film for exhibiting on the amateur screen. A pile of film cans stood beside it, each of them annotated with the letters CAM around the edge.

‘Yes, I see it all now,’ said Holmes. To himself, really. I saw nothing but dead boys, and felt that we should get young Davis, if indeed it was he, to a hospital as soon as possible.

‘What do you see now?’ I demanded.

‘Let me show you, Watson. But I suspect you will not like it, nor understand it. Buster Keaton, it is not. Shine your torch over here for me, will you? Good man.’

Holmes stood beside the projector and started fiddling with some switches. How he knew what to do with such an infernally complicated device defeated me, but then he always did have a knack with machinery.

‘Now. Sit down,’ he ordered, once the film roll had started to move around the reel. The centre of the screen lit up and highlighted the fuzzy words The Body-Snatchers Club, just like the title at the beginning of a moving picture.

Yet there were no moving images at the beginning, merely a series of still photographs. It took me a while to realise what they were showing. When I did, I wanted to rise from my seat and strike the sheet with my walking stick in disgust.

‘Wait, Watson!’ commanded Holmes.

‘But they are naked boys, Holmes! And they are being killed! Here, in this very room! In front of a camera! Murdered! What is going on? Please tell me!’

‘Wait,’ he reiterated. ‘Sit down! There is more to come.’

I obeyed, although my instinct was to rush out of that vile chamber as fast as I could, back up the steps into St. Dunstan’s Church and home to the warmth and safety of 221B Baker Street. Taking that young lad home to his mother first, of course.

Most of the photographs were in the same vein, with only the faces of the boys and the killers changing. The hollow-eyed men were grasping each lad around the waist with their left hand, and drawing a knife across their throat with the right hand. I did not recognise any of the adults, who all seemed to be dressed in some form of clerical garb. I could hazard a guess that the boys were the missing ones from George Lestrade’s early cases.

After an appalling series of deaths, I suddenly realised that the makeshift screen had started to show a moving image. And one which depicted exactly the same thing! I thanked God that it was silent, because I could only see the child’s mouth opening into a scream of anguish, as the dastardly villain lifted him up in front of the sheet and delivered his coup de grace. The next boy struggled so much by kicking his feet in the air, that a second man moved around in front of the camera to hold down his legs. When he turned his head slightly after the awful deed had been committed, I recognised the rotund features of our afternoon host, Canon Large. Good God! The vicar of an Anglican Church!

The screen went blank.

‘This is not the first time in our many years together, Watson, that we have come up against villainous clerics.’

‘But why, Holmes? Why? I do not understand the reason for any of this. Their voices break, and they are of no further use in the choir and then they must be slaughtered! Is that it?’

‘Oh, no, old friend. No, indeed. They are being killed to protect their adult lovers from subsequent prosecution, and because they are no longer pure.’

‘You will have to explain that remark.’

Holmes sat down beside me like a teacher with a dense pupil.

‘All the boys were selected by the members of this private club, while they were still prepubescent, because of their response to romantic, intimate overtures. They may have had difficult fathers, or ones who were absent altogether, or felt a mutual need for friendship and sexual pleasure. I don’t know.’

I stood up, astounded. ‘Sexual pleasure? Do you mean that they are all musical men, like your poor benighted brother and father? And the lunatics who killed them?’

‘No. Not at all. It is because the boys have grown into pubescence that they are killed,’ replied Holmes patiently. ‘They are no longer in the divine state of innocence required by these deviants. No longer angels. Do sit down again, Watson. Have you ever heard of the word paedophilia?’

‘Of course I have. I am a doctor. But I do not understand such things. And how do you know so much about the subject anyway?’ I demanded.

‘From the beginning of this case, I suspected this particular perversion as a reason for the missing boys. What I did not expect was the public recording of their execution in this way, also possibly for sexual pleasure and commercial reasons. In other words, to sell the tapes to a wider audience. I spent some time last evening reading about the subject in Stedman’s Medical Dictionary. Also Freud in Vienna has written extensively on it. He calls the desire for young children an ‘uncontrollable instinct’.

‘Bah!’ I exploded. ‘That is like saying murder is an uncontrollable instinct! Or any other crime! That Austrian fuckwit is a... a... complete sociopath! Isn’t he the lunatic who says we are all in love with our mothers?’

‘Calm down, Watson. It is not that simple. In ancient Greece, pederasty was considered a perfectly normal relationship between an experienced man and a young boy. It was more of an intellectual mentorship, whereby the elder male helped a younger one to find his place in society.’

‘While buggering him before cutting his throat, you mean?’ I exclaimed.

‘What was that?’

I had heard it also. A clatter from the outer chamber. The boy had woken up and pushed the lid off his coffin! We hurried out of the makeshift cinema to help him.

He was struggling to lift himself out of his sarcophagus. Holmes reached the lad first and grabbed him under the shoulders and hoisted him onto the ground. But his feet gave way and he slid to the floor. His face was a picture of puzzlement as he stared around at the coffins and then back at us.

‘You look just like Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, the detectives. I must be dreaming,’ he breathed. ‘Where’s the Canon? Why am I here?’

‘Is your name Alan Davis?’ I asked.

He nodded vaguely, as though he was not sure.

‘Do not worry, young man,’ said Holmes firmly. ‘We are your friends. Your ordeal is over. Canon Large and his ilk can no longer harm you. We will get you back to your parents immediately. They will look after you.’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Watson. As you are so crocked, I will carry young master Davis up to the church and place him in a Beardmore with instructions to the driver to take him home to his mother. You will get some food there, young man,’ he finished kindly.

I marvelled at the ease with which my friend hoisted the boy onto his shoulders, as though the poor chap was weightless. Holmes turned around on the first step.

‘I should be back in ten minutes, Watson. In the meantime, you might see if you can open the door that leads to the vicarage. Here are the keys.’

‘What door? The vicarage? Where?’ I queried.

‘It is behind the sheet in the other room. The members of this club did not arrive through the church. If you can open it, wait for me then. Please do not attempt a reinactment of your Avoca heroics.’

He vanished up the spiral staircase and I turned to search for yet another entrance that his rather stupid aide-de-camp had failed to notice. I lifted the sheet and sure enough, it had been camouflaging a massive iron-clamped wooden door, that presumably led to the vicarage.

I tried each of the keys several times in the tumbler lock, but to no avail. Frustrated, I turned the door handle and shoved. With a tremendous creak, it swung open to reveal a long curved corridor. I flicked my torch around the tunnel, the smoothly plastered walls of which looked as though it had been dug out of the soil far more recently than several hundred years ago, during Cromwell’s time.

I was tempted to explore further, but decided to close the door, sit myself back down in the cinema, smoke a cigar and wait for Holmes instead. I did not understand why he would wish to investigate this case any further. Because he was starved of interesting problems? Maybe. Or to make it last as long as possible? Definitely. And the more dangerous, the better. He really was getting reckless in his old age. It was my feeling that we should explain our findings to Jasper Lestrade and allow Scotland Yard to round up this evil club of child-murderers.

I had almost finished my cigar when I was startled by the sound of music coming from within the tunnel. It was a hypnotic melody, played on some kind of pan flute. I recognised the tune, but could not put a name to it. What I did know was that it was getting louder!

I grabbed my stick and limped swiftly through the curtains and into the coffin room. My first instinct was to climb back up the stairs immediately, to get away from that chamber of horrors. But I knew that Holmes would consider it cowardly of me, so instead I switched off my torch and stood waiting behind the drapes.

After a short while, the music stopped and I heard the creak of the door opening into the theatre. I peered through the narrow gap in the curtain. The room became brightly lit by a hurricane lamp. As my eyes adjusted to it, I recognised its holder, Canon Large. Beside him came the flute-player, who was limping badly, wore a plaid shirt with green sleeves and had a neatly trimmed black beard. The bookseller! They were followed by six hooded individuals in cloaks, who seemed to glide into the room and position themselves on the seats as though in some sort of trance. Too late I realised that the residue of my cigar smoke would arouse suspicion in these barbarous club members.

At precisely that same moment, I heard Holmes coming down the stairs. And the curtains were pulled across violently in front of me.

‘So! Who, or what, do we have here?’

His voice was pleasant and completely without anger, as though he was a librarian enquiring of a customer as to their reading needs. Except for the pistol that had magically replaced the flute in his hand. I had only my walking stick, which I raised above my head and tried in vain to crack down upon his weapon.

‘Watson, look out!’ cried my friend.

A wide-eyed Canon Large appeared from behind the bookseller and clamped a sweet-smelling cloth to my face. I cursed the dodgy leg that prevented me from landing a good kick in the perverted cleric’s private parts. Instead, my head began to swim and all I could feel was my senses heading downwards into the darkness of night.

***

‘Did you hear something, Holmes?’ I whispered. A distant rumble had grown in volume until it had shaken the very foundation upon which our coffin rested. Then the sound began to diminish in contrary fashion, until everything within our premature tomb was returned to the silence of the dead.

‘Yes indeed! It may be our escape clause, Watson,’ exclaimed my friend excitedly. ‘This grave must have been dug within a church graveyard many years before the Underground passage that is beneath it. Let me think. The tunnel would be a part of the sub-surface network, so it is likely that the train we have just heard was coming into a station, and we will soon hear its departure. Wait for it. Yes, here it comes.’

The ground had begun to reverberate gently. The noise built up gradually again and then abated more rapidly than before.

‘We must dig down, Watson. Down! Not up! Then we can cover our poor friend here with the soil we bring up and find our way into the station somehow. By my reckoning, taking into account the noise level produced by the train and the soil muffling factor, it can only be a foot or two away.’

‘Yes, but how, Holmes? Surely we must get out of this wooden box first? And what if we find that we are entombed inside a windowless granite crypt?’

‘Then we are as good as dead, old fellow. But we must make an effort to escape from our tomb. If you finger around our sarcophagus more carefully, you will realise that a new lid has obviously been attached with strong bolts onto an older coffin, making an exit upwards more difficult. These wide coffins were abandoned in the early eighteenth century, as the base proved too flimsy for three cadavers, especially if they were of a certain bulk. The boxes were at their weakest in the middle, which luckily just happens to be my current location. This is where the skills gained from my old friend Edward William Barton-Wright might come in handy. Get ready for an intense bartitsu attack upon our docile opponent.’

‘Where? What opponent?’

‘The older base of our coffin. Let me find the most fragile spot first.’

Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Holmes felt around the wood under his legs with his bare knuckles. The eerie sound within that enclosed space served only to increase my anxiety at our predicament. Suddenly, he began to thump his right heel violently down upon the wood. This rhythmic thudding continued for several minutes, and I was beginning to become quite concerned for my colleague’s foot, when there was a dull splintering noise, followed by a groan of satisfaction from the great detective.

‘Watson, we will both be limping when we escape from here. I fear that one of my feet will not be much use to me for quite a while. In the meantime, old chap, place your hand between my legs and grab a slice of this wood and pull at it with all of your remaining might. I shall do the same. Then we can use the timber to burrow down through the clay.’

It took a while, but his bold plan to create a large enough hole worked well, despite the space restrictions and repeated bangings of our heads upon the roof of our coffin. Once we were through to the soil, we discovered that it was quite damp, which made the next phase of our escape a good deal easier. We used our bare hands to claw the earth up and onto our skeletal, uncomplaining neighbour. Within an hour or so, we had fashioned a decent enough hole through the soil and were hitting a curved brick wall, which I prayed inwardly would open onto the roof of an empty tunnel, rather than the busy station itself. But first we had to remove the bricks.

Holmes knelt down in the hole. ‘Watson, our best hope lies in me kicking out just one or two bricks with my good leg, so that our yells for help will be heard by someone down there. The last thing we need is to fall through the roof and onto the track.’

Despite my misgivings, I had to agree with my friend. Unfortunately we had not reckoned upon a poorly constructed roof. His first bartitsu kick resulted in about twenty bricks giving way instantaneously, causing the crumbling masonry to collapse into the centre of a train station, and the pair of us to follow the clay and rubble on its journey downwards, mercifully landing upon a platform rather than a track.

And yes, the experience did bruise us both quite badly, as well as frightening the life out of a corpulent nanny with a pram. Although no bones were broken, we were laid up for several weeks afterwards. And yes, it was profoundly embarrassing to be carried through the East Acton Underground Station to an ambulance in ones underpants. But it was well worth it, if only to put Canon Jonathan Large and his filthy gang of twisted perverts behind bars, each and every one of them easy to identify from the Body-Snatchers film and awaiting retribution in the form of the hangman’s rope. For some strange reason, the bookseller could not be found. Holmes had begun to mutter about the idea of justified murder, but I managed to persuade him to let the law take its normal course. Someone else would do it for us.

Oh, and yes. Nothing in this world has ever given me more personal satisfaction than the telephone call I received in hospital from a delighted Mrs Gwenneth Davis to thank us both for saving the life of her beloved son, Alan.