CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

THE TEMPLE

The staircase was narrow, the steps barely wider than our feet. We followed it down, the air chilling with every turn. Holmes held up the lantern as we reached the bottom and walked through an arch to find ourselves in a vast underground chamber.

The space was roughly octagonal in shape, lit by large candelabras against the plain stone walls.

“A Templar chapel,” Holmes said, pointing towards the large Maltese cross that dominated the domed ceiling. “The League’s very own ‘sacred grove’.”

“And that’s not all,” I said. Two altars lay side by side in the middle of the room. One was empty; on the other was a large wooden coffin. A number of rubber tubes ran from holes drilled in the side of the casket, each snaking to twenty or so small cribs arranged in a circle, like spokes in a wheel.

Holmes stepped over the tubes and, placing the lamp on the empty altar, tried the lid of the coffin. “It’s not nailed down,” he said. “Give me a hand, will you?”

I did as I was asked. The lid came away easily, revealing its prize. The body of a mummified man lay before us. His eyelids were closed, his skin like old leather. The lips were parted to show long yellow teeth, the nails on his fingers also unnaturally long.

“Warwick?” I asked.

“Less fresh than the legend would have us believe, but still remarkably well preserved. He must have been dried out by the cold air of St Nicole’s crypt, the thick wood of his casket slowing decomposition. A miracle of nature rather than the divine.”

“Or the satanic,” I added, glancing around the temple in disgust.

“They have found a replacement gem,” Holmes said, pointing out the ruby ring on a long grey finger.

“And a periwig too,” I said, assuming that the hairpiece framing Warwick’s sunken face was Sir George’s prize relic.

“The ritual stated that the body needed to be completed. It was essential that Warwick’s property be returned to him.”

Holmes was right. Even the cross Clifford mentioned, stolen from the corpse, was once more around the mummy’s neck.

Holmes pulled aside the dead man’s shroud.

“Good heavens,” I said as I saw the gaping hole in Warwick’s grey chest. “The heart’s been removed.”

“To make room for a pure one, again as per the ritual. I wonder, Watson, all those poor chimpanzees, stolen from the zoological gardens. They were found without their hearts, were they not? Trial runs maybe. I wonder if the Worshipful Merchants have made any sizeable donations to the zoo recently.”

As he spoke, Holmes fiddled with the nest of rubber tubes that surrounded Warwick’s body. They were attached to needles already inserted into the corpse’s dry veins.

Holmes traced the path of a tube through the wood to a pump and then out to one of the cradles. The meaning was clear, and it sickened me.

“They’re going to drain those babes…”

“To pump new life into Warwick.”

“It’s obscene.”

“And beyond the laws of science, not that that seems to worry the League.”

I examined the pump, recognising the design. “This is the work of Melosan. When I offered to give blood…”

“Melosan shares a tattoo with Redshaw and Hawthorne,” Holmes said. He approached an iron cage that hung from the ceiling near the back of the chamber. “Here’s another relic from an earlier age.”

I had seen similar objects depicted in some of the more esoteric books Holmes liked to read. It was made of iron, the bars curved to form the outline of an adult man.

“A medieval coffin cage,” I said.

“In which blasphemers were hung to be pecked at by birds.” He turned, looking at the unholy machine the League had constructed. “How lucky we are to live in more enlightened times, eh, Watson?”

“But what’s the cage for?”

Holmes made a motion for me to be silent.

“I was only asking…”

“I mean it, Watson. Be quiet.”

He darted across the chamber, leaping over the mess of rubber tubing to disappear through another arch.

“Watson, quick!”

I rushed after him, finding Holmes stooped over two figures, both bound and gagged.

“Clifford!” I exclaimed, recognising Anna’s husband.

“And Father Ebberston too,” Holmes pointed out, working the gag from the priest’s mouth.

“Oh, thank God,” Ebberston gasped. “You have to help us.”

“It’s B-Benjamin and the others,” Clifford said. “They’ve g-gone m-mad. Some kind of r-r-r—”

The last word proved too much for him, so Holmes completed the sentence for the terrified man.

“A ritual, to raise Edwyn Warwick from the dead.”

“But why?” Ebberston said.

“To provide leadership?” Holmes theorised. “To lead them into a golden age?”

“Or r-return us t-to o-one,” Clifford said as Holmes worked on the knots that bound him. “B-Benjamin and Sir G-George have talked about it b-before.”

“A time before workers’ rights,” I said, remembering Redshaw’s words in the drawing room. “When business was allowed to be business.”

“They were going to sacrifice Mr Clifford,” Ebberston gabbled, shivering both from the cold and from abject terror. “And make me watch from that cage.”

“‘Under the deceitful eyes of the damned’,” Holmes said, quoting the ritual. He leant across to where I was trying to free the priest, and inspected Ebberston’s arms. “No tattoo for you.”

“What do you mean?” Ebberston asked.

“The participators in the ritual have been marked by Sutcliffe.”

“V-Victor?”

“You are a pawn in their game, Father. Your face betrayed you when Warwick’s body was discovered missing. You already knew it was gone.”

“Tavener told me not to tell anyone.”

“Why? What does he have on you? He blackmailed Mrs Mercer. What secrets is he using against you?”

Ebberston shook his head. “No, that’s not it. He promised support for St Nicole’s, for our work in the city, the opening of a new shelter for the poor and destitute.”

“And you went along with it?” I said.

“He was offering a small fortune. Told me it would be bad for the city if the truth of Warwick’s tomb were known. Even when you came to the church, asking questions, and the tomb was opened… I went to him, begged him to let me tell the truth…”

“But the deed has already been done. He has made a liar of you, sir,” Holmes said, “and you have damned yourself by your silence. Your deceitful eyes must bear witness so that the ritual will work.”

“And w-will it?” Clifford asked.

“Of course not,” I insisted, unable to loosen a single knot of Ebberston’s ropes.

“No one will ever find out, one way or the other,” Holmes insisted, working on Clifford’s restraints. “I shall see to that.”

“Will you indeed?” said a voice from the other side of the arch.

We wheeled around to find Lord Redshaw standing behind us, flanked by Dr Melosan, Tavener, a prim-faced woman whom I could only assume was Mrs Nell, and a large man with a crop of red hair whom I didn’t recognise. Mrs Nell was wearing an austere black dress, with boots of patent leather, fastened with white buttons. So this was the mysterious Mrs Protheroe. The men were all dressed in the same way, wearing black breeches and loose cotton shirts rolled up at the sleeves. Like Redshaw’s and Melosan’s, Tavener’s wrinkled arm was tattooed, a single black ring to Redshaw’s two.

I was unable to see whether the red-haired man’s arm was inked. I was too concerned about the shotgun he pointed in our direction.

Holmes went to stand.

“Stay where you are,” the flame-haired man said.

“Now, Lacey,” Redshaw said. “We’re not savages. Let the fellow get to his feet.”

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Mr Lacey, the esteemed editor of the Bristol Mercury. He was in on it too.

“Thank you,” said Holmes. “I assume I no longer need to maintain my disguise?”

“We know who you are,” sneered Redshaw. My former host was slightly hunched over and I could see bloody dressings through the fabric of his shirt.

“Benjamin, you don’t have to do any of this,” I pleaded with him. “Those babies upstairs. They don’t have to die.”

“You are right,” Redshaw nodded. “Of course you are. Clifford was to be our pure heart. So naive. So guileless. But no longer. Not compared to you. Dr Watson, who has seen the evil of the world time and time again and yet still clings to good; railing against injustice, defending those who cannot protect themselves. You are a perfect candidate. ”

He nodded in Melosan’s direction and the doctor stepped towards me. Holmes moved to intercept, but was halted by a warning from Lacey and a wave of the gun. Melosan tried to grab my arm and pull me forward, but I resisted. He was no match for me. But then Redshaw joined the fray. He pulled at my free arm, and blood splattered against his shirt as the stitches in his side burst. He was unperturbed, even as he buried his fist in my stomach.

I doubled over, winded, and Redshaw shoved me to the floor. Before I knew it, he was kneeling on my chest, his large hands around my throat, pressing down hard. Melosan held one of my arms, leaving my other free to batter Redshaw, but my strength was deserting me, Redshaw’s grip too tight. I gagged, trying to call Holmes’s name, but my friend was unable to move without risking a shot from Lacey. There was a flash in the corner of my vision; Mrs Nell had something in her hand. Was that a syringe? I had no fight in me. She bent forward and I felt the sharp scratch of a needle before everything went dark.