Gaslight Grimoire_ Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Barbara Hambly [70]
We gazed at each other, silent in the moment of our reprieve. Each of us, so I believe, knew the real storm was about to strike.
“Drop all your weapons to the ground,” an English voice growled from behind us. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I could barely see his outline, simply a tall stoop-shouldered figure standing in the curtain of mist. An extraordinary-looking firearm was pointed in our direction. We complied, relinquishing our rifles.
Even unarmed, Sherlock Holmes moved assertively toward the intruder.
“On the contrary, Colonel Moran,” Holmes said coldly, “it would appear that it is you who aren’t going anywhere. Not without us, that is. And you damn well know it.”
Colonel Sebastian Moran glared at Holmes with pure hot murder in his eyes.
“Aware of the fate of my companions, are you, Holmes?” he snarled beneath a heavy iron-grey mustache.
“I know much more than that,” Holmes stepped closer to the barrel of Moran’s amazing weapon. “How tragic for your scheme, that Challenger’s secret formula has died with him. No doubt, had you tortured the data from him, you would have possessed a King’s ransom. More than enough to rebuild the late and unlamented Professor Moriarty’s decayed criminal empire.”
Colonel Moran grimaced, showing his stained tusk-like teeth.
“That’s quite close enough, Holmes,” he raised the remarkable rifle against his ursine shoulder. “You’re correct, of course. The existence of such a formula made this damnable gamble a risk well worth taking. Not that there haven’t been other rewards for a man such as myself. Never in all the world, since the beginning of time, has there been such a hunt for big game — the biggest game — as I have relished in this Primordial Hell. I’ve proven myself as the chief predator, almost a god. Ironic, isn’t it, Holmes, that I was protecting all of you from harm, just so the World’s Greatest Detective could guide me to Challenger and all his secrets!”
The grizzled old murderer was nearly raving. There was a mad yellowish cast to his eyes that bespoke, perhaps, of malaria, syphilis, or both. Moran was no longer the roguishly distinguished tiger-hunter Holmes and I once battled, but he was every bit as dangerous as he was more than twenty years before.
“Your cleverness has faded, Moran,” Holmes smiled thinly. “You need us to help you escape from this Plateau. You cannot possibly leave the way you came, aided by your mountaineering henchmen. Even as demented as you are, it should come as no great surprise that we utterly refuse to grant you passage.”
Moran pressed a lever with his thumb and the fantastic rifle softly hummed like an electrical dynamo.
“You’re wrong, Holmes,” Moran sneered as he pointed the weapon directly at me. “Quite an improvement upon my old silent air-gun model, eh? You observed what it did to that forty-ton monstrosity. There won’t be enough left of Dr. Watson to fill a jelly jar — unless you do as I demand.”
Both Lord Roxton and Jessica made angry motions toward Moran.
“Pull that trigger and this Plateau will be your damned grave,” Lord Roxton swore to the madman.
Jessica gazed at me with tear-rimmed eyes. The pain apparent on her bruised, scratched face intensified her beauty.
“I’d say this is as good a time as any, if you please,” Holmes said, with a studied ease, directing his voice toward the branches above us.
No sooner had the first furrows of confusion appeared on Moran’s murderous face than he was pinned to the earth, impaled with a Stone Age spear.
We stood aghast as the troglodyte dropped down into our midst from the trees. He was covered with filth, crusted blood, and animal skins only slightly shaggier than his own brutish nearly naked hide, and a rich blue-black beard flowed nearly to his waist. Although his height was scarcely a few inches over five feet, the bull-like shoulders