![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charleygirlTitle: The Hand of Seth 4/?
Author: charleygirl
Rating: PG
Type: Gen, mystery
Characters Involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson,
Summary: A visit to the British Museum, and Watson meets a rather odd man...
Disclaimer: These characters are out of copyright but still don't belong to me. Doctor Who elements are the property of the BBC
Author's Note: Holmes and Watson as they appear in this story are based on the performances by Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada TV series. This fic is ostensibly set between The Sign of Four and The Devil's Foot in the Granada run.
THE HAND OF SETH
CHAPTER FOUR
It was with a heavy heart and an uncomfortable feeling of foreboding that I followed Holmes down to the hansom summoned by Mrs Hudson. He was bundled up against the cold in overcoat, thick scarf and homburg, the blanket still pulled around his shoulders. His whole aspect was unapproachable, and my immediate impression was that he resembled nothing so much as a great black crow.
“Where are we going?” I enquired, attempting to sound casual. I tried to tuck one of the rugs I had brought down over his legs, but he swatted my hand away in annoyance.
“Watson, please leave me be!” he snapped. “You are not my doctor!”
“That is exactly what I am, whether you like it or not,” I retorted, stung. “And I am also your friend, a friend who wishes it to be known that he believes your taking of this case in your present condition to be foolhardy in the extreme.”
“I am not a child, nor do I wish to be treated like one, by either you or Mycroft!” Holmes rapped on the roof of the cab with his stick. “The British Museum, Russell Street entrance!” he commanded.
Silence reigned as we rattled down Oxford Street. Holmes was quite evidently not inclined towards conversation, and, to be perfectly honest, neither was I. My mind was still buzzing from the sight of the needle and its implications. For almost as long as I had known him Holmes had used a seven percent solution of cocaine as a method of stimulating his mind and distracting his formidable intellect from the stagnation it often suffered when there was no case to exercise it. I deplored this, as any medical man should, and made my objections known on many occasions. He had noted them, and politely ignored them – I had not felt that I could do more to make him see the danger of his actions without appearing to intrude into matters that were really none of my business. Holmes, as he had forcibly reminded me a few minutes earlier, was not a child, and unless he came to me for help I was powerless.
I had, naively it would seem, assumed that with a continual stream of clients since his return to London three years before he would have no more need of the drug, but it was now obvious that I had been entirely wrong. He had even taken the needle with him on our visit to Reginald Musgrave, a fact that had only just popped into my memory – I was appalled at the time, but the unfortunate death of Brunton, Musgrave’s ambitious butler, had removed any opportunity for confrontation on the subject, and subsequent events had pushed the matter to the back of my mind.
“Thank you, George.” I started at the sound of Holmes’s voice – we had arrived, and he was already out of the cab as I scrambled to follow.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, catching up as he ascended the great steps that led to the museum’s main entrance. It was a huge building, and I felt quite dwarfed by the mighty columns as we passed beneath the architrave into the huge, echoing hall beyond.
“To view the photographs of this statue,” came the clipped reply. “My friend Bretherton will be expecting us.”
“You wired him earlier?”
“Precisely. Do keep up, Watson. We have a busy morning ahead of us.”
I recalled that, long before we had taken our rooms in together, Holmes had lived in Montague Street, just round the corner from the British Museum, and had spent much of his time within the walls of that great institution. It was doubtful in my mind, however, that he had ever frequented the Egyptian galleries – his rather haphazard general knowledge did not often extend to history, and when it did the activities of criminals past were more likely to gain his interest than those of dead civilisations.
I trailed behind him, up the magnificent staircase which was flanked on both sides by marble lions, snatching glimpses of fascinating exhibits in the rooms we passed. Holmes’s iron self-control had come to the fore, and after the morning’s display of weakness he was climbing the stairs with very little effort, his stick tapping on the marble.
“Holmes!”
At the sound of the voice I looked up at see a man of perhaps my own age, with a pointed beard and a genial expression descending swiftly to meet us. He shook my friend’s hand warmly as he reached him.
“Such a pleasure to see you again, my dear fellow. I was rather distressed to have missed you over the business of the Etruscan fingers,” he said, smiling. “The other curators were still discussing it when I returned two months later!”
“Ah, yes – you were abroad at the time, I believe,” said Holmes, favouring the man with one of his own swift smiles.
“In Italy, looking at Roman remains, and hoping to acquire something for the museum.”
“Were you successful?”
“On this occasion sadly no, which made the timing of the trip all the more galling!”
“Etruscan fingers?” I queried as I reached them, feeling more than a little bemused.
“Ah, Watson.” Holmes glanced over his shoulder. “Bretherton, my friend and colleague, Doctor Watson.”
“I had already guessed,” said Bretherton, taking my hand and shaking it with what I took to be natural effusiveness. I had always imagined curators of museums to be rather dry fellows, spending their time poring over dusty artefacts, but evidently that was not the case. “I am Thomas Bretherton, curator of Roman Antiquities. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Doctor. Knowing Holmes as I do, I have always ensured that your stories are at the top of my required reading list.”
“Thank you,” I said, no clearer as to their discussion than before. “But – Etruscan fingers, Holmes?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Later, Watson. Much later. You have the photographs, Bretherton?”
The curator tapped his breast pocket. “I do indeed. It will be easier if we examine them in the gallery, however, in conjunction with the statue’s partner. It’s not far – just off the next landing.”
Holmes extended a hand in a wordless instruction to lead on, and Bretherton led us into a long room lined with glass cases. The objects on display ranged from ornately decorated sarcophagi, their painted features eerily blank as they gazed out at the visitors, to beautiful and exotic jewellery, its precious stones set in more gold than I had ever seen in a single piece before. I would have liked to stop and take a proper look at the collection, but time was of the essence and Holmes and Bretherton were already some twenty feet ahead of me. I hurried to catch them up, and found them in front of a case containing a variety of urns and bottles and what appeared to be a very small sarcophagus with the head of a cat instead of a man.
Pride of place in the cabinet had been given to a statue, about ten inches high and carved from wood, of a man with the head of a hawk or falcon, holding a staff in one hand and a strangely shaped key in the other.
“The statue of Horus,” Bretherton was saying as I reached them, “It is almost identical in its carving to the Harcourt Seth. The general belief is that the statues were a pair, fashioned at the time when the two gods were worshipped as twin rulers of Egypt.”
“Twin?” repeated Holmes, his head snapping round from his perusal of the cabinet’s contents. “As I understood the myth, Horus and Seth were bitter enemies, fuelled by the latter’s murder of Horus’s father.”
“That is one version of the story. Egyptian mythology is highly complicated, stretching as it does over so many thousands of years. And it isn’t strictly my field,” Bretherton added ruefully. “In later dynasties, I have been told, Horus and Seth were even worshipped as an amalgamated deity.”
“I see.” Holmes nodded, turning back to the case. “And the statue of Seth?”
Bretherton reached inside his coat and withdrew a manilla envelope which he handed to my friend. “I owe one of the Egyptology curators several drinks at the Alpha for this,” he said. “By rights they should not have been removed from the files, as the earl of Harcourt forbade their use when he decided not to donate the statue.”
“Why should he have done that?” I wondered.
“The late earl was a somewhat fickle man, Doctor. One could never rely on his whim being the same one day as the last.”
Holmes took the envelope and removed several photographs, which he spread out on a conveniently prone case displaying a rich sarcophagus. We were fortunate in having the gallery to ourselves, the museum being quiet so early in the day. I looked at the images over his shoulder: the figure depicted in them was virtually identical to that of the Horus statue, except that the man had the head of an odd dog-like beast with large ears and a long snout. I could see why Amsworth would have been disquieted by the thing – even from a photograph I could appreciate its malevolent air.
“Horrible thing,” I remarked.
Holmes grunted and rummaged in his pocket for paper and a pencil. No other comment was forthcoming, so, shrugging at Bretherton, I wandered away, down the line of display cases, idly glancing at the objects within. My attention had been caught by a beautifully decorated coffin lid, the female features exquisitely carved, when I heard someone enter the gallery. A man’s voice, a voice which had a rather booming quality that immediately commanded attention, preceded him into the room.
“Of course this is where we’ll find him, Sarah,” he was saying, “If he’s hiding anywhere, he couldn’t do better than the British Museum. Look at all of this – enough to keep his greedy little eyes happy for hours.”
“I can see that, but what makes you so sure what he’s after is actually here?” a young woman – Sarah, presumably – asked.
“Well, nothing really, but it’s not such a long shot, is it? We know he’s in London, and – oh, hello.”
Quite suddenly, there they were, reflected in the glass. I turned, and did my best not to stare, for the man was quite the strangest person I have ever seen. Taller even than Holmes, with a battered felt hat rammed on over unruly curls, he had wild eyes and a grin that was no doubt meant to be friendly but was really rather alarming. He wore what must have been the longest scarf in the world, which was looped twice around his neck and still dragged on the floor behind him. In contrast, the young lady at his side appeared to be rather normal, though her skirt was several inches shorter than propriety demanded and the heels of her boots were precariously high.
“Good morning,” I said, taking a moment to recover my voice.
“A very good morning, especially now the rain has stopped. Rain in the morning does so spoil a day, I find. It’s interesting here, isn’t it? If death interests you, of course – personally, I find it all rather morbid. Don’t you find it all rather morbid? Much better to concentrate on the living,” the man said rapidly, leaving no chance for either myself or his companion to respond.
“Well, death comes to us all eventually,” I pointed out when he paused for breath.
He fixed me with those eyes. “Does it? Yes, I suppose it does. Tell me, have you seen a man hanging around in here? About six feet tall, beard, probably wearing a fez?”
“He’s Egyptian,” the young woman added helpfully, “He’ll probably be acting rather strangely.”
I frowned, for the description sounded familiar. But why would they be looking for Ibrahim Namin? “I have not met the fellow myself, but I believe my friend saw him here yesterday. He is just over there.” I pointed and the man jumped, peering over my shoulder.
“Where?” he asked, staring wildly around him.
“Not the man you are seeking – my friend is over there,” I said, as patiently as I could. “Should I ask him to join us?”
The man looked down the gallery behind me, and blinked in surprise. I glanced round to see that he was looking intently at the dark figure of Holmes, who had abandoned the photographs and was talking once more to Bretherton.
“Ah,” the man said, and turned his unsettling gaze back to me. The toothy smile reappeared. “You know, I don’t think we’ll bother him. I’m sure you’re both very busy men. We’ll catch up with our Egyptian friend another time. Come on, Sarah.”
He tipped his hat to me and whirled around, striding off towards the staircase. Sarah gave me an apologetic smile before chasing after him, her footsteps ringing on the floor. As she reached the door she cast a curious glance in the direction of Holmes, and then she was gone.
“Doctor,” I heard her call when she was out of sight, “Was that who I think it was - ?”
“I believe we have done here, Watson,” said Holmes suddenly from behind me. “Who was that man?”
“He was looking for Namin. An eccentric, obviously, but I think a harmless one.” I turned to face him and noted that he was looking pale and strained, but this time I forbore to comment, knowing the reaction it would doubtless provoke. “Where to next?”
“Grosvenor Square. It is time we viewed the scene of the crime.”
TBC
Author: charleygirl
Rating: PG
Type: Gen, mystery
Characters Involved: Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson,
Summary: A visit to the British Museum, and Watson meets a rather odd man...
Disclaimer: These characters are out of copyright but still don't belong to me. Doctor Who elements are the property of the BBC
Author's Note: Holmes and Watson as they appear in this story are based on the performances by Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in the Granada TV series. This fic is ostensibly set between The Sign of Four and The Devil's Foot in the Granada run.
THE HAND OF SETH
CHAPTER FOUR
It was with a heavy heart and an uncomfortable feeling of foreboding that I followed Holmes down to the hansom summoned by Mrs Hudson. He was bundled up against the cold in overcoat, thick scarf and homburg, the blanket still pulled around his shoulders. His whole aspect was unapproachable, and my immediate impression was that he resembled nothing so much as a great black crow.
“Where are we going?” I enquired, attempting to sound casual. I tried to tuck one of the rugs I had brought down over his legs, but he swatted my hand away in annoyance.
“Watson, please leave me be!” he snapped. “You are not my doctor!”
“That is exactly what I am, whether you like it or not,” I retorted, stung. “And I am also your friend, a friend who wishes it to be known that he believes your taking of this case in your present condition to be foolhardy in the extreme.”
“I am not a child, nor do I wish to be treated like one, by either you or Mycroft!” Holmes rapped on the roof of the cab with his stick. “The British Museum, Russell Street entrance!” he commanded.
Silence reigned as we rattled down Oxford Street. Holmes was quite evidently not inclined towards conversation, and, to be perfectly honest, neither was I. My mind was still buzzing from the sight of the needle and its implications. For almost as long as I had known him Holmes had used a seven percent solution of cocaine as a method of stimulating his mind and distracting his formidable intellect from the stagnation it often suffered when there was no case to exercise it. I deplored this, as any medical man should, and made my objections known on many occasions. He had noted them, and politely ignored them – I had not felt that I could do more to make him see the danger of his actions without appearing to intrude into matters that were really none of my business. Holmes, as he had forcibly reminded me a few minutes earlier, was not a child, and unless he came to me for help I was powerless.
I had, naively it would seem, assumed that with a continual stream of clients since his return to London three years before he would have no more need of the drug, but it was now obvious that I had been entirely wrong. He had even taken the needle with him on our visit to Reginald Musgrave, a fact that had only just popped into my memory – I was appalled at the time, but the unfortunate death of Brunton, Musgrave’s ambitious butler, had removed any opportunity for confrontation on the subject, and subsequent events had pushed the matter to the back of my mind.
“Thank you, George.” I started at the sound of Holmes’s voice – we had arrived, and he was already out of the cab as I scrambled to follow.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, catching up as he ascended the great steps that led to the museum’s main entrance. It was a huge building, and I felt quite dwarfed by the mighty columns as we passed beneath the architrave into the huge, echoing hall beyond.
“To view the photographs of this statue,” came the clipped reply. “My friend Bretherton will be expecting us.”
“You wired him earlier?”
“Precisely. Do keep up, Watson. We have a busy morning ahead of us.”
I recalled that, long before we had taken our rooms in together, Holmes had lived in Montague Street, just round the corner from the British Museum, and had spent much of his time within the walls of that great institution. It was doubtful in my mind, however, that he had ever frequented the Egyptian galleries – his rather haphazard general knowledge did not often extend to history, and when it did the activities of criminals past were more likely to gain his interest than those of dead civilisations.
I trailed behind him, up the magnificent staircase which was flanked on both sides by marble lions, snatching glimpses of fascinating exhibits in the rooms we passed. Holmes’s iron self-control had come to the fore, and after the morning’s display of weakness he was climbing the stairs with very little effort, his stick tapping on the marble.
“Holmes!”
At the sound of the voice I looked up at see a man of perhaps my own age, with a pointed beard and a genial expression descending swiftly to meet us. He shook my friend’s hand warmly as he reached him.
“Such a pleasure to see you again, my dear fellow. I was rather distressed to have missed you over the business of the Etruscan fingers,” he said, smiling. “The other curators were still discussing it when I returned two months later!”
“Ah, yes – you were abroad at the time, I believe,” said Holmes, favouring the man with one of his own swift smiles.
“In Italy, looking at Roman remains, and hoping to acquire something for the museum.”
“Were you successful?”
“On this occasion sadly no, which made the timing of the trip all the more galling!”
“Etruscan fingers?” I queried as I reached them, feeling more than a little bemused.
“Ah, Watson.” Holmes glanced over his shoulder. “Bretherton, my friend and colleague, Doctor Watson.”
“I had already guessed,” said Bretherton, taking my hand and shaking it with what I took to be natural effusiveness. I had always imagined curators of museums to be rather dry fellows, spending their time poring over dusty artefacts, but evidently that was not the case. “I am Thomas Bretherton, curator of Roman Antiquities. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Doctor. Knowing Holmes as I do, I have always ensured that your stories are at the top of my required reading list.”
“Thank you,” I said, no clearer as to their discussion than before. “But – Etruscan fingers, Holmes?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Later, Watson. Much later. You have the photographs, Bretherton?”
The curator tapped his breast pocket. “I do indeed. It will be easier if we examine them in the gallery, however, in conjunction with the statue’s partner. It’s not far – just off the next landing.”
Holmes extended a hand in a wordless instruction to lead on, and Bretherton led us into a long room lined with glass cases. The objects on display ranged from ornately decorated sarcophagi, their painted features eerily blank as they gazed out at the visitors, to beautiful and exotic jewellery, its precious stones set in more gold than I had ever seen in a single piece before. I would have liked to stop and take a proper look at the collection, but time was of the essence and Holmes and Bretherton were already some twenty feet ahead of me. I hurried to catch them up, and found them in front of a case containing a variety of urns and bottles and what appeared to be a very small sarcophagus with the head of a cat instead of a man.
Pride of place in the cabinet had been given to a statue, about ten inches high and carved from wood, of a man with the head of a hawk or falcon, holding a staff in one hand and a strangely shaped key in the other.
“The statue of Horus,” Bretherton was saying as I reached them, “It is almost identical in its carving to the Harcourt Seth. The general belief is that the statues were a pair, fashioned at the time when the two gods were worshipped as twin rulers of Egypt.”
“Twin?” repeated Holmes, his head snapping round from his perusal of the cabinet’s contents. “As I understood the myth, Horus and Seth were bitter enemies, fuelled by the latter’s murder of Horus’s father.”
“That is one version of the story. Egyptian mythology is highly complicated, stretching as it does over so many thousands of years. And it isn’t strictly my field,” Bretherton added ruefully. “In later dynasties, I have been told, Horus and Seth were even worshipped as an amalgamated deity.”
“I see.” Holmes nodded, turning back to the case. “And the statue of Seth?”
Bretherton reached inside his coat and withdrew a manilla envelope which he handed to my friend. “I owe one of the Egyptology curators several drinks at the Alpha for this,” he said. “By rights they should not have been removed from the files, as the earl of Harcourt forbade their use when he decided not to donate the statue.”
“Why should he have done that?” I wondered.
“The late earl was a somewhat fickle man, Doctor. One could never rely on his whim being the same one day as the last.”
Holmes took the envelope and removed several photographs, which he spread out on a conveniently prone case displaying a rich sarcophagus. We were fortunate in having the gallery to ourselves, the museum being quiet so early in the day. I looked at the images over his shoulder: the figure depicted in them was virtually identical to that of the Horus statue, except that the man had the head of an odd dog-like beast with large ears and a long snout. I could see why Amsworth would have been disquieted by the thing – even from a photograph I could appreciate its malevolent air.
“Horrible thing,” I remarked.
Holmes grunted and rummaged in his pocket for paper and a pencil. No other comment was forthcoming, so, shrugging at Bretherton, I wandered away, down the line of display cases, idly glancing at the objects within. My attention had been caught by a beautifully decorated coffin lid, the female features exquisitely carved, when I heard someone enter the gallery. A man’s voice, a voice which had a rather booming quality that immediately commanded attention, preceded him into the room.
“Of course this is where we’ll find him, Sarah,” he was saying, “If he’s hiding anywhere, he couldn’t do better than the British Museum. Look at all of this – enough to keep his greedy little eyes happy for hours.”
“I can see that, but what makes you so sure what he’s after is actually here?” a young woman – Sarah, presumably – asked.
“Well, nothing really, but it’s not such a long shot, is it? We know he’s in London, and – oh, hello.”
Quite suddenly, there they were, reflected in the glass. I turned, and did my best not to stare, for the man was quite the strangest person I have ever seen. Taller even than Holmes, with a battered felt hat rammed on over unruly curls, he had wild eyes and a grin that was no doubt meant to be friendly but was really rather alarming. He wore what must have been the longest scarf in the world, which was looped twice around his neck and still dragged on the floor behind him. In contrast, the young lady at his side appeared to be rather normal, though her skirt was several inches shorter than propriety demanded and the heels of her boots were precariously high.
“Good morning,” I said, taking a moment to recover my voice.
“A very good morning, especially now the rain has stopped. Rain in the morning does so spoil a day, I find. It’s interesting here, isn’t it? If death interests you, of course – personally, I find it all rather morbid. Don’t you find it all rather morbid? Much better to concentrate on the living,” the man said rapidly, leaving no chance for either myself or his companion to respond.
“Well, death comes to us all eventually,” I pointed out when he paused for breath.
He fixed me with those eyes. “Does it? Yes, I suppose it does. Tell me, have you seen a man hanging around in here? About six feet tall, beard, probably wearing a fez?”
“He’s Egyptian,” the young woman added helpfully, “He’ll probably be acting rather strangely.”
I frowned, for the description sounded familiar. But why would they be looking for Ibrahim Namin? “I have not met the fellow myself, but I believe my friend saw him here yesterday. He is just over there.” I pointed and the man jumped, peering over my shoulder.
“Where?” he asked, staring wildly around him.
“Not the man you are seeking – my friend is over there,” I said, as patiently as I could. “Should I ask him to join us?”
The man looked down the gallery behind me, and blinked in surprise. I glanced round to see that he was looking intently at the dark figure of Holmes, who had abandoned the photographs and was talking once more to Bretherton.
“Ah,” the man said, and turned his unsettling gaze back to me. The toothy smile reappeared. “You know, I don’t think we’ll bother him. I’m sure you’re both very busy men. We’ll catch up with our Egyptian friend another time. Come on, Sarah.”
He tipped his hat to me and whirled around, striding off towards the staircase. Sarah gave me an apologetic smile before chasing after him, her footsteps ringing on the floor. As she reached the door she cast a curious glance in the direction of Holmes, and then she was gone.
“Doctor,” I heard her call when she was out of sight, “Was that who I think it was - ?”
“I believe we have done here, Watson,” said Holmes suddenly from behind me. “Who was that man?”
“He was looking for Namin. An eccentric, obviously, but I think a harmless one.” I turned to face him and noted that he was looking pale and strained, but this time I forbore to comment, knowing the reaction it would doubtless provoke. “Where to next?”
“Grosvenor Square. It is time we viewed the scene of the crime.”
TBC
