Gaslight Grimoire_ Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Barbara Hambly [119]
“Well, I’m not going to stand around and explain this to the bulls, so I pocket my gun and get out of there. I was thinking about it all day, and the only person I figured I could come to was you.”
He was still silent, looking over at the old picture of the moustached man. “I only called him John, you know,” he said. “Never his surname. I don’t know why he said otherwise in those lurid accounts of his, but I knew him only as John.”
“Excuse me?”
He turned to me. “Nothing. The curse of old age is long memory. You have something to show me, I perceive.”
I reached into my jacket pocket. “Yeah. I pulled the last few pages from the ledger when I left. It had the address on Edgecombe of where the boxes were shipped. I was at the city office today … it’s an old house that was recently bought. Landau acted as agent for the sale. It’s not far from his office.”
“Your motor car is outside, I presume? Then fetch my hat and coat. We haven’t a moment to lose.”
Getting him out of there was not that easy. I asked him if he could walk and he said yes, but slowly. I helped him out of his dressing gown; it had gone unwashed so long that parts of it had petrified. Though it was now May and summer heat had already hit California, he insisted on a tweed suit with vest and a greatcoat that had seen better days. Into this he stuffed a large flask of whiskey. He grabbed a heavy, black walking stick with a weighted knob as the handle and a battered gray homburg, which surprised me. “Blame the illustrator,” was all he said when he caught my look.
For convenience, I pushed him out in his wheelchair. The nurse’s station was empty, which was lucky, and I got him down to my car, a ’34 green La Salle that a Chinaman gave in payment for a case years ago. The old man gave it one look and murmured, “right again.” I virtually picked him up and put him in the front seat before folding the wheelchair into the back.
“Is that a wireless?” he asked as I got in, pointing at the dashboard. I said yes. He pulled a heavy turnip watch from the folds of his vest. “Time for The Shadow,” he said, reaching for the knob. “I’m slavishly devoted to it.”
He listened to the show as I drove, paying no attention to me whatsoever. During the station break he lowered the volume and spoke. “Outlandish fiction, of course, but it pales beside reality. What can you tell me of our destination?”
I shrugged. “Large brownstone. Private home forty years ago, but pretty much abandoned when the neighborhood changed. Has a large foundation, which makes me think it’s got a big basement.”
“Yes, he would need that.”
“Who?”
“Nothing. Is that a petrol station I see up ahead? Capital. Let’s stop there.”
I looked at the gage. “We don’t need gas.”
“Ah, it’s starting again,” he said, turning up the volume. “Be a good fellow and get a small canister of gasoline. I’ll just wait for you in the motor car. Invisibility is quite ridiculous, isn’t it?”
I figured that if he knew what he was doing, it would be best if I just followed orders. And if he didn’t, well, what did I have to lose? There’s a dead man walking around Los Angeles with three of my bullets in him, and I was ready to do or believe anything. I got the gas can out of the trunk and had the attendant fill it. Then I put it in the trunk and started the car.
“It would’ve been best if we started out in the morning,” the old man said, “but some things can’t be helped. By the way, have you reloaded your revolver since last night? Well done. It won’t be of any practical use against our antagonists, but it may help create a diversion. Isn’t it curious how life is like a wheel?”
“If you say so.”
“It is,” he wheezed, taking out another of my cigarettes. “Like a wheel it goes round and round and the same spoke comes up. I had thought all of this was finished in ’97, but, of course, I couldn’t go to