Sherlock’s Secret War — File 8

(From The Air-Gun, Volume 2, Number 3, May 1986)

by Brad Keefauver

(Even in our widely informed modern day world, certain passages of history remain a half-lost jigsaw puzzle. Certain papers recently released by the inner ranks of Her Majesty’s Government have provided us with yet another of these, a piece for which the puzzle may have yet to be discovered. This time our disconnected fragment of the past comes from a formerly unheard-of recoding and cipher-breaking branch of that nebulous British intelligence agency referred to in past documents as “the DC.” our experts have fixed the date of these papers at the mid-point of the year 1891.)

From the first:

Brother. As we thought might be inevitable, events have reached a point of complexity demanding my leaving behind the old profession. Have my things held for me; the doctor will take care of my death certificate. In the days to come I must leave Switzerland to follow certain threads of immediate concern, but I leave behind one that still wants some attention.

As you surmised, the professor’s air-gun specialist was not following on orders from M. himself. I had only begun to confront the professor with what we know when an expanding bullet struck his chest and drove him over the edge of the precipice on which we stood. In that moment, apart from M.’s screams, I seem to recall hearing another cry -- one of sudden anguish -- At first I considered it to be the specialist’s dismay over hitting his master when I was his intended victim, but then I remembered just how great his proficiency with an air-rifle is. That one does not hit what he does not want to hit.

I began to climb toward the sound of that cry, knowing that M.’s assassin could target me no matter which route I took — the cliff face seemed to afford the best protection. My progress up that treacherous incline was far too slow. A rockslide started by the air-gun man almost stopped me altogether, but eventually I reached a point from which I could approach his position with relative safety. Needless to say, he was gone by the time I arrived. For one curious moment I wondered why he had ceased to favor me with his attentions—if he was merely coming up behind me for the kill or was intimidated by that reputation the doctor has built up around me. Then, I spotted him.

He had made his way to the base of the waterfall, and there, amazingly enough, had found the professor’s body. I made sure of all this through the spy-glass I had been carrying—it was indeed the late professor that the assassin drug from the water—and also noted one curious development. The air-gun man was wrapping the professor’s corpse in some peculiar sort of bandage, from head to toe. He worked with as much care and skill as if the object of his attentions was still alive—although the hole in his chest, the odd twist of his neck, and the suffocating wrap of the bandages all indicated otherwise. Soon he hefted the well-wrapped form onto his shoulder and started for the road not far from the lower falls. Remembering the task that lay before me, I did not attempt to follow and went on my own way. I will be staying with Florence in a little over a week. You can reach me through her. Brother.

And from the second of the papers:

Brother. Have traced the wrapped package to Geneva and the home of a very old and very notorious family there. Implications incredible, but what isn’t these days? Stick to charted course. Regards to Florence. Brother.

And from the third of the papers:

Central, D.C.—
I have gone through all the data you have supplied regarding the Geneva incident, and I find your suggested theory to be wholly impossible. The location was surely coincidental, and as for the rest of the events, a logical explanation does exist, depend upon it. Re-animation of a human being is something we cannot accept as a viable alternative. You have let the name of Frankenstein run away with your imagination.
I would expect such from your brother, but you, sir -- toy with such fantasies in private from now onwards.
Gen. Head Science, D-C.

The last of the above papers was plainly crumpled at some time prior to filing.

The reason for this treatment might be found in the hastily scrawled line at the bottom of the note -- an angry sarcasm, one would hope -- that read as follows:

And would re-animation be a “viable alternative” if the subject were not a human being?