Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes

precision explosives. As a trade, it’s on a level with being a plumber or glazier, with a better chance of being blown to bits or rotting on Dartmoor — not that most plumbers and glaziers wouldn’t deserve it, the rooking bastards! Oh, I have done more than my fair share of thieving. I’ve robbed, burgled, rifled, raided, waylaid, heisted, abducted, abstracted, plundered, pilfered and pinched across five continents and seven seas. I’ve lifted anything that wasn’t nailed down — and, indeed, have prized up the nails of a few items which were.

So, I admit it — I’m a thief. I take things which are not mine. Mostly, money. Or stuff easily turned into money. I may be the sort of thief who, an alienist will tell you, can’t help himself. Often, I steal (or cheat, which is the same thing) just for a lark when I don’t especially need the readies. If a fellow owns something and doesn’t take steps to keep hold of it, that’s his look-out. But even I know better than to pluck an emerald from the eye-socket of a heathen idol … whether it be North, South, East or West of Kathmandu.

Ever heard of the Moonstone? The Eye of Klesh? The Emeralds of Suliman? The All-Seeing Eye of the Goddess of Light? The Crimson Gem of Cyttorak? The Pink Diamond of Lugash? All sparklers jimmied off black men’s idols by white fools who, as they say, Suffered the Consequences. Any cult which can afford to use priceless ornaments in church decoration can extend limitless travel allowance to assassins. They have on permanent call the sort of determined, ruthless little sods who’ll cross the whole world to retrieve their bauble and behead the infidel who snaffled it. That goes for the worshippers of ugly chunks of African wood you wouldn’t get sixpence for in Portobello Market. Pop Chuku or Lukundoo or a Zuni Fetish into your Gladstone as a souvenir of the safari, and you wake up six months later with a naked porroh man squatting at your bed-end in Wandsworth and coverlets drenched with your own blood. Come to that, common-or-garden, non-sacred jewels like the Barlow rubies and the Mirror of Portugal are usually pretty poison to the crooks who waste their lives trying to get hold of ‘em. Remember the fabled Agra treasure which ended up at the bottom of the Thames? Best place for it.

Imagine stealing something you can’t actually spend? Oversize gems are famous, thus instantly recognizable. They have histories (‘provenance’ in the trade, don’t you know? —a list of people they’ve been stolen from) and permanent addresses under lock and key in the coffers of a dusky potentate or the Tower of London where Queen Vicky (long may she reign!) can play with them when she has a mind to. Even cutting a prize into smaller stones doesn’t cover the trail. Clots who loot temples are too bedazzled by the booty to take elementary precautions. Changing the name on your passport doesn’t help. If you’re the bloke with the Fang of Azathoth on your watch chain or the Tears of Tabanga decorating your tart’s decolletage, you can expect fanatics with strangling cords to show up sooner or later. Want to steal from a church? Have the lead off the roof of St. Custard’s down the road. I can more or less guarantee the Archbishop of Canterbury won’t send implacable curates after you with scimitars clenched between their teeth.

Since the tale has been set down by another (one J. Milton Hayes — ever heard of anything else by him?), I’ll copy it long-hand. Hell, that’s too much trouble. I’ll shoplift a Big Book of Dramatic and Comic Recitations for All Occasions from W. H. Smith & Sons and paste in a torn-out page. I’ll be careful not to use ‘Christmas Day in the Workhouse’, ‘The Face on the Bar-Room Floor’ or ‘The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck (His Name Was Albert Trollocks)’ by mistake. Among the set who stay away from the music halls and pride themselves on ‘making their own entertainment’, every fool and his cousin gets up at the drop of a hat — who really drops hats, by the way? —to launch into ‘The Ballad of Mad Carew’. You’ve probably suffered Mr. Hayes’ effulgence many times on long, agonising evenings, but bear with me. I’ll append footnotes to sweeten the deal.

There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the North of Khatmandu,

There’s a little marble cross below the town;

There’s a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,

And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

He was known as ‘Mad Carew’ by the subs at Khatmandu,

He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;

But for all his foolish pranks*, he was worshipped in the ranks,

And the Colonel’s daughter§ smiled on him as well.

* eg: setting light to the bhisti’s turban, putting firecrackers in the padre’s thunderbox … oh how we all laughed! —S. M.

§ Amaryllis Framington, by name. Fat and squinty, but white women are in short supply in Nepal and you land the fish you can get —S. M.

He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,

The fact that she loved him was plain to all.

She was nearly twenty-one* and arrangements had begun

To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

* forty if she was a day —S. M.

He wrote* to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;

They met next day as he dismissed a squad;

And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do

But the green eye of the little Yellow God§.

* since they were at the same hill station, why didn’t he just ask her? Even sherpas have better things to do than be forever carrying letters between folks who live practically next door to each other —S. M.

§ that’s Colonel’s daughters for you, covetous and stupid, God bless ‘em —S. M.

On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance*.

And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars;

But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,

Then went out into the night beneath the stars.

* kif, probably. It’s not just the natives who smoke it. Bloody boring, a posting in Nepal —S. M.

He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,

And a gash across his temple dripping red;

He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day*,

And the Colonel’s daughter watched beside his bed.

* lazy malingering tosser —S. M.

He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;

She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;

He bade her search the pocket saying ‘That’s from Mad Carew’,

And she found the little green eye of the god*.

* if you saw this coming, you are not alone —S. M.

She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do*,

Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;

But she wouldn’t take the stone§ and Mad Carew was left alone

With the jewel that he’d chanced his life to get.

* here’s gratitude for you: the flaming cretin gets himself half-killed to fetch her a birthday present and she throws a sulk —S. M.

§ which shows she wasn’t entirely addle-witted, old Amaryllis —S. M.

She thought of him* and hurried to his room;

As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy

air of a waltz tune softly stealing thro’ the gloom.§

* the least she could do, all things considered. Note that M. C. being stabbed didn’t stop her having her bally party —S. M.

§ poetic license at its most mendacious. You imagine an orchestra conducted by Strauss himself and lilting, melodic strains wafting across the parade-ground. The musical capabilities of the average hill station run to a corporal with a heat-warped fiddle, a boy with a jew’s harp and a Welshman cashiered from his colliery choir for gross indecency (and singing flat). The repertoire runs to ditties like ‘Come Into the Garden, Maud (and Get the Poking You’ve Been Asking For All Evening)’ and ‘I Dreamt I Dwelled in Marble Halls (and Found Myself Fondling Prince Albert’s Balls)’.