The Perils of Sherlock Holmes by Loren D. Estleman Page A

beyond.
    “A passageway!” said I.
    “I surmised as much from the beginning. You will remember I remarked upon the discrepancy between the inside and outside measurements of the building. Hand me the lamp, and keep your revolver handy. Remove your boots. We don’t want them to know we’re coming.”
    I did as directed. Holding the light aloft, Holmes stepped over the grate and into the blackness, with me close upon his heels.
    The passage was narrow, dank, and musky-smelling. Once inside, Holmes exclaimed softly and lifted the lamp higher. A great metal contraption equipped with a glass lens stood upon a ledge at shoulder height. I smelled molten wax.
    “It looks like a lantern,” I whispered.
    “A
magic
lantern; or so it is fancifully known.” Standing upon tiptoe, Holmes reached up with his free hand, groped at the contraption, and slid a pane of glass from a slot behind the lens. He examined it briefly, then handed it to me. When I held it up against the light of the lamp, I recognized the image of our old friend the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come etched upon the glass.
    “The image is projected through the lens when the candle is lit,” Holmes explained. “When I examined the room earlier, I found a small hole in the painting above the mantel, just where the light streams through the window to fall upon the lady in the dungeon. That is where our ghost gained access to the room. When I found the mechanism that opens the fireplace, I knew my suspicions were correct. I daresay if we look, we shall find similar panes bearing the likenesses of the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present precisely as they were described to us.”
    “But Past and Present spoke to the earl!”
    “It might surprise you to learn what a ghastly effect the echoes in a narrow passage such as this will lend to an ordinary human voice. But come!”
    I was forced to hasten lest he outrun the light from the lamp. When I caught up with him several yards down that gloomy path, he was peering at a small bottle perched in a niche in the wall. Presently he removed it and held it out, asking me what I made of it.
    “
Radix pedis diaboli
,” I read from the label. The old familiar name clamped my heart in an icy fist.
    “I see that you have not forgotten the grim affair of the Tregennis murders. No doubt you remember also the rather melodramatic title under which you published your account of them.”
    I shuddered. “‘The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot’! But the Devil’s-foot root is a deadly poison!”
    “It is also a hallucinogen in small doses. Small enough, let’s say, to escape notice once it has been introduced into one’s sherry.”
    “Richard,” I whispered. “Lord Chislehurst told us his clerk accompanied him to his tavern for a glass the night the ghosts first visited.”
    “I suspected him the moment the earl told us how Richard had taken him into his confidence about his financial situation. That, and the picture of Richard’s wife in the counting-room, planted a suggestion in our client’s mind. Under the influence of the root tincture, it came back to him in his dreams, convincing him that Christmas Present was allowing him a peep into his employee’s private life.”
    “But how do you explain the glimpse that Christmas Past provided into his own childhood?”
    “Christmas is a time of remembering, Watson. No doubt the earl was reminded of his own impoverished origins, which sprang forth as a vision at the mere mention of the word
past
. Post-mesmeric suggestion is a fascinating scientific phenomenon. I should like to know how Richard came by his expertise, or if the talent was inbred. It would make an interesting subject for a monograph.”
    “One moment, Holmes! His Lordship was haunted the same way last night, yet he said he came straight home from work. His clerk had not the opportunity to administer the drug again.”
    “But Her Ladyship did. He said himself he had a cup of tea with her before