Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds Page 5

  "Impossible," boomed Challenger. "My experience with Stent proves it is impossible."

  "Surely others might prove more reasonable."

  Challenger rose ponderously and paced the floor. "My dear Holmes, let me tell you a doleful truth about so-called scientific authorities, proven through the ages. They cling to ancient theories and disdain new truths. Galileo was forced, under threat of terrible punishment, to deny the heliocentric system of astronomy. Darwin's theory of evolution was attacked as a tissue of blas­phemies. Pasteur, when he demonstrated that disease was caused by germs, was laughed to scorn for years. And I—" He flung out his arms, as though to sweep his three rivals away. "I suffer the same fate as those other pioneers, I must meekly bear the ridicule of mental Lilliputians like Stent, the Astronomer Royal!"

  "We might call in Watson," offered Holmes. "He is better acquainted than I with scientists. He might suggest someone more receptive."

  "Not as yet," said Challenger suddenly. "Stent's re­action is but a sample of what reception we would get."

  "The Martians are on the way," said Holmes. "With them comes vindication."

  "And we must hope that their intentions are peace­able. Then they will seek to communicate with us. And who has the intellect, the method, to establish that communication?"

  "You want me to nominate you?" asked Holmes.

  "Modesty forbids me to suggest it, but I accept."

  "The nomination is not forthcoming as yet," said Holmes. "I do not insult you, my dear Challenger, when I say that I doubt the possibility of any communica­tion."

  "We shall soon know. Leave all in my hands, and wait for me to notify you of any new developments. Agreed?"

  "Agreed," said Holmes.

  That midnight, astronomers saw another fiery flash on Mars. Next midnight another, and the next. Holmes visited Challenger again. The crystal revealed only the girdered chamber. But as they peered into it, the face of a Martian drew close and looked steadily, as though meeting their own gaze.

  "It must want to tell us something," suggested Holmes.

  "Tell us what?" demanded Challenger. "Have you a theory?"

  "Call it rather a fancy. What if I acted under some sort of direction in buying the crystal and giving it to you for joint scrutiny? What if this Martian is trying to say that? Perhaps thought waves come through the crystal; perhaps they came to me in the shop."

  The Martian drew away.

  "His face was expressionless, at least to us," said Holmes, "but at last interest was shown in our reac­tions."

  "If they do have mental contact with us, they must gather that my intellect is unique on this planet," said Challenger gravely. "Your own is, of course, sufficiently exceptional to be worth their recognition. I must profoundly regret that Professor Moriarty—the one ad­versary worthy of you in all your deductive career—is not here to observe with us."

  The crystal went dim. They sat back in their chairs. "We can only wait for them to arrive," said Challenger.

  Each midnight thereafter, precisely at twenty-four-hour intervals, new flashes were reported by observa­tories throughout Europe. The newspapers reported various speculations about volcanic explosions on Mars, impacts of meteors, once a suggestion that Martians sought to signal earth. Watson was interested, but set aside his astronomical surmises to journey to the Derby at Epsom on May 21, there to wager heavily on Shoscombe Prince and applaud loudly as his choice came home a winner. He stayed away that night and the next, May 22, on which morning the press reported the tenth flash from Mars.

  After that, no more explosions. Challenger telephoned several times to say that the crystal gave no new information. "We can only wait for our visitors to arrive," he said curtly.

  The first of June brought a minor case for Holmes to study. He successfully concluded it by Thursday, June 5. Next morning he wakened early, to find Watson packing a bag.

  "I must go at once, Holmes," he said, putting on his hat. "Poor Murray—my faithful servant, who saved my life in Afghanistan—is critically ill, up at his lodgings in Highgate. I have promised to go and care for him."

  He hurried out. Holmes was at breakfast when Billy brought in a telegram. It was from Sir Percy Phelps of the Foreign Office:

  HUGE CYLINDRICAL PROJECTILE FELL NEAR WOKING THIS MORNING SCIEN­TISTS REPORT LIVING CREATURES IN­SIDE COME WITH ME THIS EVENING

  YOUR HELP NEEDED

  Holmes, too, went out hastily, straight to Enmore Park. Mrs. Challenger met him at the door.

  "George has gone to Woking," she said. "A number of scientists are gathering there. Do you know what it is about, Mr. Holmes?"

  "I am going there myself," said Holmes

  Back at the flat, he found Martha waiting for him with the door open. She ran to his arms.

  "Has Sir Percy Phelps called?" he asked.

  "He was here and said he wanted you to take dinner with him at Simpson's. Sherlock dear, please don't go with him into danger."

  "It's my duty to go Martha," he said, patting her shoulder. "The government wants me there."

  "It may be dangerous," she said. "Take care of yourself, my love. Don't be reckless. Only think how lost, how alone, I would be without you."

  "I never forget that," said Holmes. "And I shan't forget it now."

  He spent the afternoon arranging some papers and meeting with several scientific writers. These talked eagerly about the cylinder at Woking and offered a variety of glib theories. He met Phelps at Simpson's for an early dinner, and at six o'clock they boarded their train at Waterloo. Holmes was silent and thought­ful, Phelps happily excited.

  "Men from Mars!" he cried. "How shall we greet them, Holmes?"

  "I suggest we wait and see how they greet us," answered Holmes darkly.

  II

  SHERLOCK HOLMES VERSUS MARS

  by Edward Dunn Malone

  7

  By evening of that warm, bright Friday in June, throngs had moved out upon Horsell Common, the heathered expanse that divided the pretty suburban town of Woking from the neighboring hamlets of Horsell and Ottershaw. Almost midway between Woking and Horsell on the Basingstoke Canal some three miles to northwest, near the road through both towns and to Chobham beyond Horsell, a great craterlike pit opened.

  That was where the mighty cylinder had fallen from the sky and had unscrewed its top to reveal bizarre passengers. It was like a place where an explosion had happened, with upthrown banks of turf and gravel ringing the hole many yards across. The first sight of the creatures emerging had somewhat daunted a flow of curious people from Woking and from Horsell in the opposite direction, so that they milled around at a considerable distance. But their curiosity was roused anew by a mirrorlike disk that was pushed upward on a rod to turn shakily.

  "I wonder if they can watch us with that," said someone.

  On the evening train from Waterloo Station in Lon­don had arrived Sir Percy Phelps and a tall stranger in gray. Now they, too, came out from Woking to mingle with the crowd of onlookers. Several acquaintances greeted Sir Percy and gazed curiously at his com­panion.

  "I suggest that we do not approach the pit at once," said the tall man to Sir Percy. "Here, we can see well from behind this sandy rise and make deductions."

  Sir Percy stood with him in a depression on the far side of a heather-tufted knoll. A nearby bicyclist joined them and told of seeing the creatures of the cylinder.

  "Like an octopus," he described them.

  "No, more like a big spider," suggested another man a dozen feet away.

  The tall stranger wrote on a note pad. Ogilvy, from the nearby college observatory, came to speak to Sir Percy, who introduced his guest.

  "Has Professor George E. Challenger been here?" asked the tall one. "His wife said he had come. A short, heavily built man with a black beard."

  "Yes, he was here," said Ogilvy. "It was my first acquaintance with him, and I shan't care if it turns out to be the last."

  "Why do you say that?" asked Sir Percy.
/>   "He began by saying he had seen these visitors on Mars, and he added that they might not be Martians at all.

  "Indeed?" Sir Percy looked blank. What, then?"

  "I fear we never got to anything like sane, con­sidered discussion. Stent, the astronomer Royal—there he is, yonder with Henderson, the journalist—said something appropriate, about not offering mere con­jectures and imagined evidence."

  "And Challenger?" prompted the tall man, smiling slightly. "What was his reaction?"

  "I cannot exactly quote his unrestrained invective," said Ogilvy, shaking his head. "He talked as though Stent were an impertinent schoolboy, bade him go to to the devil, and went walking away somewhere. I'm glad he's gone. But you, gentlemen, will you join our deputation, to communicate with these Martian visitors?'

  "A deputation, eh?" repeated Sir Percy. "Why, as to that, since I'm from the Foreign Office, I suppose that I should—"

  "You are from the Foreign Office, and that is an excellent reason for you to stay apart for the time being," broke in his companion. "Reflect, Sir Percy, scientists may confer with those creatures if it is pos­sible, which I do not wholly admit. But you are with the British Government and I am but a private citizen. Thank you for your flattering invitation, Mr. Ogilvy, but we will stay where we are just now."

  Ogilvy left them. At a distance he conferred with Stent, a tall fair man with a rosy face. They moved away, followed by several others. On the far side of the pit, toward Horsell, the deputation formed itself. Stent and Ogilvy took position at its head. Close be­hind them, the journalist Henderson carried a white flag on a pole.

  "That was a wise thought," commented Phelps from behind the mound. "The Martians will know that we offer them peaceful welcome."

  "I take leave to wonder about that," said the other gravely. "All these descriptions, though sketchy enough, suggest a race of beings vastly different from ourselves. A white flag may mean nothing at all to them, or it may mean the exact opposite of what it means to us. And creatures who can travel across space may not regard us and our overtures with any particular re­spect or deference."

  The deputation walked closer to the pit, and closer. The more distant watchers all around stood in silent expectation.

  Then something seemed to stir in the pit beneath the mirror, something dark and dome-shaped. It hunched upward into plainer sight. Upon it rode some sort of superstructure, brassy brown and shaped like a hood. This object swiveled around as though to face the approaching group. Henderson lifted his flag above his head and dipped it to left, then to right.

  Something else came into view. It was a metal arm, seemingly jointed, that bore at its upper end a strange housing, smaller than the hooded superstructure. This, too, shifted position as though to face and observe Stent's party.

  "Perhaps—" Sir Percy began.

  He got no further. There was a spurt of green vapor from below, a momentary, blinding flash of light. A wail droned in the evening air, and the men of the deputation seemed to burst into flame, all at once. They staggered and writhed, then fell this way and that, motionless and cinder-black.

  The hood turned from them, and so did the arm with the ray-throwing instrument. Another flash, rather than a visible beam, swept through the groups of on­lookers in the direction of Horsell, ignited a tuft of trees beyond them, and jumped to more distant houses at the edge of the great open common. Flames burst out everywhere that it touched.

  Sir Percy Phelps cried out wordlessly and turned as though to run. His companion shot out a lean arm, caught his shoulder and dragged him powerfully down behind the sandy rise, himself falling flat as he did so. The flash was passing over them, and the wail of sound rose again in the evening air. Others in the groups near­by, less fortunate or less quick, burst into incan­descence like grotesque fireworks and went slamming down upon the turf. The flash abruptly died away. The two prone men behind the rise glanced upward. The first stars had begun to wink into view in the darkening sky.

  Elsewhere on Horsell Common rose quavering screams of terror. The tall stranger raised himself on his hands until he could peer over the low ridge toward the pit. The domelike contrivance still hunched there, with the mirror on its slender rod above it. All across the open space people were running, except for those who could run no more. Heather and clumps of furze burned smokily, and trees were aflame. Two miles away to the northwest, the roofs of Horsell blazed redly against the evening sky. He dropped quickly flat again.

  "Move away, but keep low," he said to Phelps. "See here, there's a dip in the ground just behind us, toward town. That's our line of retreat, but keep out of sight. Never give them a chance at you."

  Crouching so low that they almost crept on all fours, the two made their way into a shallow saucerlike de­pression, fully a hundred yards across. The strange fire-weapon had not kindled the turf here. Sir Percy trembled, but came along at his companion's touch until they were able to slide behind some bushy trees, burning and crackling but affording a screen. Keeping that mask between them and the thing in the pit, they gained the Chobham Road, rose and ran along it, and so into Woking.

  Trees and houses at the edge of town had also been stricken by fire. Along the street beyond these, people huddled at windows or peered in terror from doors. Nobody seemed to move in the streets except the two who now made their way toward Briarbrae, Sir Percy's beautiful home. They entered at the door and came into the study, where they conferred, Sir Percy still shaken, his companion earnest but calm.

  Sir Percy scribbled a telegram and sent a servant running with it to wire to London, then dashed off others and sent a second man with those. At last he held out a shaking hand to his guest.

  "I haven't had time to say thank you," he said in a voice that could barely be heard. "Out there, when things were happening as though in a nightmare, you knew what to do, you kept us both safe and brought us away."

  "Knowing what to do has been my lifelong study," said the other. "At the time, I was thankful that they brought no worse weapon into play than that flashing beam."

  "What weapon could be worse?" asked Sir Percy.

  "I should think they have it at hand. The ray might be compared to a pistol, something for short range and direct fire, for it could not reach us behind our dune. But very probably they are provided with something that can strike a target under cover, comparable, per­haps, to a rifle in human hands."

  "What would it be like?"

  "There you call on me for a guess, and I am not prepared to make it. But I think your servants are setting out something for us to eat."

  They went into the dining hall, where a supper of cold meat and bread and salad had been laid out. As they ate, a man arrived with a message from London. Troops were being sent to augment the sketchy units already on the scene. The night went on, at about one o'clock word arrived that another cylinder had landed at nearby Byfleet.

  "Two cargoes of horror have come to us across space," Sir Percy half moaned. "What next?"

  "A third cargo next," readily answered his guest, "and, after that, a fourth. Eight more in all, making a total of ten."

  "Yes, yes, there were ten flashes from Mars, were there not? I had forgotten."

  "It would be well to bear it most faithfully in mind."

  At last they sought their bedrooms to rest as well as they could, and were up at early dawn of Saturday. They dressed quickly, drank hot coffee, and walked together to the Woking railroad station to catch the first train for London. Sir Percy stopped to speak to the grizzled postmaster.

  "More troops will be coming here, with trained ob­servers and heavy weapons," he said. "Information on all that happens here is to be wired to my office by Brigadier Waring or various members of his staff. Now, here are my urgent orders to you personally: Any message addressed to me is to be sent in dupli­cate to my friend here."

  "Don't I know this gentleman, Sir Percy?" asked the postmaster. "I seem to remember that he visited you here in '88."

  "Yes, he came
to help me in a confidential matter that concerned the Italian naval treaty. This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and his address in London is 221-B Baker Street."

  8

  Sherlock Holmes hailed a cab when he got off the train at Waterloo Station and was in Baker Street by seven o'clock. He went upstairs to 221-B, but did not enter his own flat. Instead, he touched the bell above the doorplate that read MRS. HUDSON. In a mo­ment his landlady opened to him. She was a stately blond woman with a rosy face, smiling in happy wel­come.

  "Has Watson come home?" he asked quickly.

  "No, he telephoned last night. He says he must stay with his poor old servant Murray until tomorrow, per­haps longer."

  "Then we are alone."

  Holmes stepped into her sitting room as he spoke and closed the door to the hall. They kissed, holding each other close, her rich curves pressed against his sinewy leanness. "My dear," she whispered against his cheek, "I have always loved you."

  "Let us not say quite always, Martha," he amended, smiling. "Not until we met at Donnithorpe, when I was an undergraduate beginning my work as a consulting detective and you were a poor, troubled village girl."

  "You are always exact, even when you are kissing me."

  "Yes, call me a precisionist in that, too." Expertly their mouths joined again.

  "You solved my troubles then," she said, after long moments. "You set me free from Morse Hudson."

  "It was then that I decided what my career would be."

  "And you helped me find this place in town, and then you came to live here. You found Dr. Watson as a fellow lodger, so that between you you could pay the rent I must have." She released him at last and drew back, relishing him with her eyes. "But have you had breakfast?"

  "Only a quick cup of coffee with Sir Percy Phelps."

  "Then here, all ready for you."

  She stepped to a table and lifted a silver cover from a chafing dish. Holmes smiled again as he sat down. "Curried chicken," he said approvingly. "I often say, my dear, that you have as sound a notion of breakfast as a Scotchwoman."