Sherlock Holmes: The Coils of Time & Other Stories (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 1) Read Free Page B

footfalls.
    There were no tradesmen bound for the early markets, nor even any staggering tars or provocative dollymops.  To his ale-saturated mind, it was peculiar, damn peculiar. The Vanishments, he decided grimly.  People, especially the lower classes, were a superstitious lot, building such things as the Vanishments or the East End Ghosts into demonic manifestations, when they were really nothing more than another extrusion of London’s black heart into civilised society.  When there was such an active criminal underworld as existed in London, there was no need to populate the darkness with demons or ghosts.  Although he felt in his guts that there was some tangible but unclear connection between the East End Ghosts and the Vanishments, he was still willing to bet, pennies to pounds, that every victim taken was either at the bottom of some mud-pit or would eventually float up from the bottom of the Thames, throat cut or garrotting rope knotted tight; that, or slaving under some foreign tropical sun, if still alive.
    Dunning was a little nervous, but he did not truly fear the night or any terror it might hide.  His present fearless condition resulted from almost equal portions of brash youthfulness, too many pints of strong ale, and a general bitterness about the futility of the life he led.  And there was, of course, the sword in his umbrella.  In all the clubs along Pall Mall and Fleet Street to which a young gentleman might belong, willingly or not, there was not one other who could best him with a foil.
    Odd furtive sounds emanated from the depths of the park, then seemed to surround him.  But they were not sounds born of the most populous city on Earth, nor the sounds of criminals seeking victims to rob and murder.  They were, unmistakably, the sounds of stealthy beasts stalking their prey.
    He paused in his journey toward the haven of Deptford Road.  He could not be more than a minute or two from the lights of the station, but he now doubted he would see them, for the way ahead was choked with ominous footfalls, quick tattoos against the cobbled pavement.
    Suddenly sober, his back against the bricks of a warehouse, he eased his sword from its sheath and stood at the ready, convinced he was more than a match for any danger concealed by the clotted night.
    The fog seemed to press close against him, smothering him.  With the fog came a particularly noxious smell, like the musk of a predator’s lair, accompanied by a crushing silence that seemed to hush his breaths and make his heart sound like an overwound watch wrapped in cotton.
    Suddenly the fog erupted, limbs grasping and claws slashing, red eyes burning like hooded lanterns.  Try as he might he could not make out anything distinct about his attackers, only that there were dozens of them and that they were not human…not quite.
    He swung and thrust with his sword, but for all the good it did he might have been hacking away at the mist itself.  Within moments of the start of the attack the sword was yanked from his grip and vanished into the darkness.
    He was thrown down.  His palms and knees slammed against the pavement. He was pinned by several squat heavy forms covered with pale matted hair.  He was choked by stinking hot breaths.  His face was smashed against the roadway.
    A cry of pain and terror echoed through the streets of Bermondsey, causing the poor to tremble in their huddling places, and carousers to linger a little longer in the light.
    The cry ended as sharply as it began.
    A curly-brimmed top hat rolled into the street.
    The morning’s silence surged back.

Chapter II
    After the Incident of the Empty House
     
     
    “What do you mean, ‘You have got him,’?” Inspector Geoffrey Lestrade demanded.  “Got whom, Mr Holmes?”
    “The man for whom Scotland Yard has hunted in vain since the thirtieth of last month,” replied Sherlock Holmes.  “The man who shot and killed the Honourable Ronald Adair with an expanding bullet,