Sherlock Holmes: The Army of Doctor Moreau

“Kane!” I shouted, in my strongest, most authoritative voice, it was enough to give him pause. “Kane!” I shouted again, loud and firm. He looked at me, head cocked to one side. “Fetch,” I told him, tossing the ball over my shoulder and onto the busy road.

With a pitiful howl he chased past me and ran after the ball. That howl turned to a scream as an omnibus bore down on him, and Kane met with the lethal, grinding wheels of progress.

CHALLENGER

I could scarcely comprehend the coldness of Sherlock Holmes, to be told that his friend and colleague was dead, and all he could do was smoke. Damn the man, I thought, he’s a cold bloody fish!

Mann and I fought to pull away the rubble before us, even as we became aware of the sound of Mitchell trying to escape from his locked laboratory.

“Shouldn’t we deal with him?” I asked, staring at that chilly damned detective.

“I shouldn’t concern yourself,” he replied, puffing away on his church warden. “Give him a little more time and he’ll have dealt with himself. He said it was a concentrated formula so I can’t imagine he will manage to last long before …”

There was a terrible tearing sound from the inside of the laboratory, followed by a wet slap such as might be made by hurling a bucket of tripe at a wall. In a way I suppose that is exactly what it was.

“There we are,” said Holmes with a smile. “Problem solved.”

More hands were helping with the bricks now as Mycroft and his small force had appeared on the other side.

We could hear the sound of gunshots and I found myself wretched at the thought of those poor creatures being killed. I do not doubt that Fellowes and his men acted out of the public interest but, ultimately, the beasts were blameless. It was their humanity that did for them, not the part of them that was animal. What a terrible bastard Mitchell had been! Aye, him and Moreau before him. When would we humans ever learn? We are not the dominant species in this natural world, and the sooner we stop and realise it, the better we all shall be.

Soon the way was clear again, and we found ourselves face to face with Mycroft and none other than John Watson! He was looking distinctly the worse for wear, but alive for all that.

“I told you,” said Holmes, patting the doctor on his arm. “My Watson is hard to kill.”

“He seems to try often enough,” Watson replied.

“Right then,” said Mycroft. “Can we please get all this tidied up? I have a hot toddy I wish to be on the outside of.”

MYCROFT

I didn’t learn anything from the laboratory. I certainly didn’t take any of the chemicals I found there, and certainly will not suggest that Mitchell’s work is continued, albeit in a safer, more controlled manner.

And anyone who says differently will be shot as a traitor to the Crown.

MEDICAL NOTES

In my last book, The Breath of God, I sought to write something of a love letter to supernatural fiction (using the ultimate fictional rationalist to do so). This time my sights were set on the scientific romance, the escapist fun of deluded scientists, mad professors and the monsters mankind does so like to create.

In doing so I have once more raided the work of others so let me take this opportunity to parade the originals, like a man in the dock admitting to his thefts.

My main crime is of course directed at H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. First published in 1896, Wells’ book is thoroughly discussed here and forms the background of everything you’ve just read. While the conceit of Moreau having been in the employ of Mycroft Holmes has no more justification than that it was fun and brought his brother easily into the matter, I hope the idea that Edward Prendick, the original story’s narrator, might lose his mind through his experiences seems a logical enough extension of the original.

When Wells wrote The Island of Doctor Moreau he had a point to make. I have resisted following in his footsteps. The Army of Dr Moreau is not a polemic, it’s a bit of pulp fun. Though it is somewhat depressing to note that, after so many years, I could still have preached had I wished. As a species we haven’t learned our lesson when it comes to the kindly treatment of our fellow creatures. What terrible animals we still are.

The other crimes I wish to take into consideration concern the members of Mycroft’s ludicrous think tank.

Professor Challenger is sure to be well known to most Holmes enthusiasts as he was another creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The aggressive giant lay at the centre of the novel The Lost World, that glorious romp of dinosaurs and lost tribes. The Lost World has inspired many books and movies, not least of all several direct adaptations. Looser offspring include Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movies and (a personal favourite) 1969’s The Valley of Gwangi, where cowboys find their way into an isolated biological pocket in Mexico and come face to face with dinosaurs.

My decision to set the action of this book directly after that of the previous volume means that Challenger has yet to have that adventure, hence his scepticism of Professor Lindenbrook’s claim to have found prehistoric animals at the centre of the Earth. Lindenbrook of course comes from Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Another scientist who would go on to find strange things beneath the bedrock of our planet is Abner Perry (though, as with Challenger, that adventure lies ahead of him in the chronology of this book). Perry, through the funding of his friend David Innes, would soon invent the “iron mole” and the pair of them burrow their way to adventure in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ At the Earth’s Core, the first of his series of Pellucidar novels. I make no bones about the fact that my version of Perry is played by Peter Cushing, as per the movie from Amicus Studios released in 1976, the year I was born! Cushing is a hero of mine and the film continues to brighten up any grey day I chose to screen it in.

The final member of our team is not played by Peter Cushing, nor Lionel Jeffries (though he could easily have been) but rather Mark Gatiss who’s performance as Professor Cavor in the 2010 adaptation of The First Men in the Moon (another book by H. G. Wells, of course) pleased this viewer no end.

They were small crimes, a fun nod of the hat to the books and movies that have entertained this silly dreamer for the majority of his life.

Carruthers is also stolen from another book, though this time it’s one of my own so the sentence should be negligible. He appears in my novel The World House and its sequel Restoration and he fitted so well that I couldn’t resist having him close to hand once more.

Inspector George Mann is a distinctly unsubtle nod of the trilby to the writer of the same name. I featured the countryside detective in The Breath of God and decided he may as well return here as, if nothing else, it will make George smile that he finally gets to have some action.

Everybody else is either the product of my imagination or Doyle’s (though I have cheekily referenced a scene from the Basil Rathbone movie, Sherlock Holmes and The Voice of Terror and Peter Cook’s appearance as Watson’s editor in Without A Clue because once you start it is so very difficult to stop).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As always, thanks to everyone at Titan and to all those who have supported these new tales of Baker Street,