Gaslight Grimoire_ Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Barbara Hambly [82]
Suddenly I felt Carnacki stir beside me.
“Something is about to happen,” he whispered.
Wondering how he could know this, I was overcome with an odd feeling of nervousness. Then Holmes shifted uneasily where he sat, the first sound he had made since closing the dark-lantern. He was, I supposed, experiencing the same weird sensation.
Outside, somewhere in the dark, a dog barked, giving two or three brief yaps and nothing more. It brought to mind the little dog presumably owned by the maid Susan that had caused such a commotion at our arrival. For some unaccountable reason, however, identifying the sound did not make me feel any better.
Then came another sound that did nothing for my nerves — the slow and stealthy opening of the church door, just as Carnacki had described before the attack on him that afternoon. Footsteps echoed faintly through the church, and presently there came a fumbling at the library door.
From nearby came the sound of squeaking metal and I knew Holmes had picked up the lantern by its handle in readiness to fling open its shutter. I drew my revolver from out my coat and aimed into that part of the darkness where I knew the door to be. I heard it too open in a slow and stealthy manner. Something was entering the library.
It came on in the dark, bearing no light, but with a quick, uncanny step amidst the furniture. I was certain it could see us plainly, and I dreaded a sudden attack out of the blackness. The footsteps stopped quite near to me and I heard something scuff against the radiator in what was surely an attempt to surmount it. It had evidently not seen us at all, and it occurred to me in a queer fashion that if there was anything to this magic of chalked stars and garlic it might not only protect but also obscure.
Just above me and to the left someone gave a grunt of exertion, a sound patently human. Light flashed across the room as Holmes unshipped the cover to his lantern, disclosing Professor Westen, still in his bed-clothes, holding onto the radiator’s piping as he attempted to unscrew a large connecting joint.
“Is this what you seek, Professor?” said Holmes, and swung the light away from Westen, playing it instead on the ancient scroll of The Sigsand Manuscript that he retrieved from his coat pocket.
The light veered again onto the Professor, shining into his unblinking eyes as he stiffly climbed down from the pipe and lumbered towards my friend with arms outstretched like a soulless automaton. Westen was all but upon him when the Professor flinched back, and I saw the pentacle around Holmes’ neck flash in the lantern light. Taking advantage of the confusion, Holmes threw the scroll deftly over the Professor’s head to where Carnacki, already rising, caught it between both hands. But in catching the precious grimoire he had reached too far forward and began to over-balance. The scroll fell from his hands, hit the floor and began to roll out of the pentacle. Dropping my revolver I grabbed the scroll with one hand while with the other clutched at Carnacki’s coat-sleeve as he began to pitch forward over the barriers — gripping him with all the fright and desperation I might feel rescuing a man teetering on the brink of a mighty chasm.
We seemed to swing in a moment of vertigo along the lines of garlic and blue chalk as though they were the very edge of the world. Then I pulled back with all the weight that Holmes had been so unkind about earlier, and we tumbled backwards together. I heard Carnacki gasp with relief, and it was only then I had a queer realization as to the danger we had been in.
But there was no time for reflection. “He’s coming your way!” I heard Holmes shout