The Gospel of Sheba Read online

  O Almighty Father and Lord, Who regardest the Heavens, the Earth, and the Abyss, mercifully grant unto me by Thy Holy Name written with four letters, YOD, HE, VAU, HE, that by this exorcism I may obtain virtue, Thou Who art IAH, IAH, IAH, grant that by Thy power these Spirits may discover that which we require and which we hope to find, and may they show and declare unto us the persons who have committed the theft, and where they are to be found.

  The penknife never turned up, but I felt suitably irreligious afterward that despite owning no very strong godly passions, I plunged myself into a study of the early Christian martyrs until I felt that some balance had been restored to my soul. And Lettie, upon being told the tale when we were courting, had a heartily fond laugh over my foolishness.

  “The Brotherhood of Solomon revere his teachings above all others.” Mr. Grange loosened his necktie. He seemed feverish, a bright red flush adorning his cheeks. “We’ve all been thrown into such disarray since Mr. Scovil found the Sheba text. Our meetings generally consist of debate over particular ceremonies found in The Key of Solomon the King—whether incenses and perfumes are of any tangible efficacy when enacting spells, study of the Order of the Pentacles, the proper preparation of virgin parchment and whether blood sacrifice is truly evil if enacted for a noble purpose, that sort of thing.”

  Fighting not to laugh, I gestured with the spectacles in my hand to continue.

  “But then Mr. Scovil announced that a secret library had been found within his very own townhouse in Pall Mall, and that it was full of magical texts, and that one of them—The Gospel of Sheba—was an unprecedented find. Mr. Sebastian Scovil is from a very long line of esoteric scholars, Mr. Lomax, so we greeted his discovery with ardent interest. But the book itself is cursed, I assure you, sir! There is no other explanation.”

  “A little slower,” I requested. “As a bibliophile, not to mention a lover of conundrums, your story is terribly interesting. Let me be certain I understand you?”

  “By all means, Mr. Lomax.”

  “First, speaking historically, King Solomon was renowned for his great wisdom, and for his closeness to God, and the hopes of those studying grimoires ascribed to him are that his words remain largely intact. The Queen of Sheba was the monarch of a lost African kingdom who appears in the Koran as well as the Bible and traveled to meet with King Solomon after tales of his great wealth and wisdom reached her people. Have I got the proper context?”

  “As concise as any encyclopedia and as accurate, sir! The gospel purports to be written in her hand, revealing ceremonial rites more powerful than any King Solomon developed before meeting her. Apparently the King and the Queen were lovers, Mr. Lomax, and brought the study of ceremonial magic to new heights.”

  “The text is in Hebrew?”

  “The text is in Latin, sir, transcribed by a sixteenth century monk, we believe.”

  “And you claim it has made you physically ill?” I demanded, awed.

  Mr. Theodore Grange did, to give him credit, look very ill indeed. Even were his colour not similar to candle wax and his limbs not all a-quiver, he seemed to have shrunk somehow in the six days since I’d seen him, his skin shrugged on as if a child were wrapped in its father’s coat. His navy blue suit was likewise too large, twiglike wrists obscenely thrusting out from gaping cuffs.

  “Not just me!” he protested. “First my friend Cornelius Pyatt took the volume home to study, and he fell ill almost instantly. Then Huggins had a crack at it, and we’re all three in the same sad straits. No, I tell you, that gospel is the genuine article and Mr. Sebastian Scovil is the single man worthy of its powers.”

  “Oh, there you are, Mr. Lomax, at last I’ve found you.”

  The gentle, rasping tones of the Librarian startled me out of my rapt attention. My head shifted upward to take in his bowed back, the genial tufts of hair about his ears, the air of absentminded benevolence that wafts about with him like the aroma of his sweet pipe smoke, and prayed that I would not be complimented.

  “Apologies, sir, did you want me?” I asked.

  “Oh, no, no, my boy, you appear engaged. But Mr. Sullivan, I should tell you, was most pleased by your assistance with his geological studies. He claimed that you identified a book which shed all manner of light upon his research into sedimentary facies. You are to be congratulated again, Mr. Lomax.”

  There is a many-paned window at the end of the periodicals room, and reflected in its glass I could see Mr. Grange and the Librarian, my own slender seated figure with its mop of wildly curling brown hair, and the six or seven members who had perked up and were now eyeing me with interest, wondering what arcane knowledge I could gift them before tea time.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, rubbing at my eyes. “I did my best.”

  “Quite right, quite right. Carry on, then! You do us credit, Mr. Lomax, and I don’t care who knows it.”

  Chuckling in resignation, my eyes drifted back to the volume I’d abandoned when Mr. Grange arrived. It was nearly lunch hour and time for a hastily procured sandwich or at least the apple in my greatcoat pocket. I didn’t know nearly enough about Celtic coinage to assist Mr. McGraw yet, and he was due at the Library at one o’clock sharp. Outside, a thin patter of rain had commenced, darkening the paving stones of St. James’s Square and quickening the steps of the shivering pedestrians below.

  “Mr. Grange, I should love to hear more about The Gospel of Sheba, truly, but my mind is spoken for at the moment.” Rising, I gathered the magical volumes he’d returned, meaning to check them in. “When is the next meeting of the Brotherhood of Solomon? Might a stray bibliophile be welcome in your company?”

  “Oh, undoubtedly, Mr. Lomax!” Mr. Theodore Grange cried, mirroring me. Grasping my hand in his palsied one, he shook it. “I was about to propose the very thing. Tuesday next is our regular gathering. We dine at the Savile Club in Picadilly. The works of scholarship you were kind enough to lend me introduced no doubts in my mind as to the authenticity of The Gospel of Sheba, but I would greatly value a fresh pair of eyes. We have been at each other’s throats over this discovery, and two chaps have quit the club entirely, claiming outright Satanic influence at work regarding our sudden poor health. I shall look forward to seeing you at eight o’clock sharp, Mr. Lomax, and in the meanwhile wish you a very good week.”

  Frowning as I watched Mr. Grange depart, I went to check in his returns, placing them upon a cart to be shelved. A book possessed of such occult power that it worked upon the reader like a disease? Impossible.

  And yet, I had witnessed the decline of Mr. Grange myself. The man appeared to be shriveling before my very eyes into a grey husk.

  Could poison be at work here? Something more pedestrian but no less sinister than demonic influence?

  The very question is unnerving. I am not callow enough to suppose that books are not powerful—on the contrary, a book is the most delicious of paradoxes, an inert collection of symbols which are capable of changing the universe when once the cover is opened. Imagine what the world would look like had the Book of John never been written, or On the Revolutions of Celestial Spheres, or Romeo and Juliet? One day I attended the opera and was captivated by a beautiful blonde soprano with a mocking blue eye and a milk-white neck with the loveliest smooth hollows, but I fell in love with Colette when she admitted to me that she couldn’t read Petrarch’s poems to Laura without weeping and had never bothered over being ashamed of the fact.

  I look forward to Tuesday with the greatest interest. Meanwhile, Celtic currency calls to me and I’ve a new set of picture-books to bring home to Grace this evening.

  Excerpt from the private journal of Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 15th, 1902.

  What a ghastly day this was.

  My friend Dr. John Watson stopped by the London Library in need of my assistance late in the evening, looking battlefield-grim. All the newspapers have been screaming that his friend Mr.
Sherlock Holmes was attacked by men armed with sticks outside the Café Royal a week ago today and is languishing at the door of death. Whatever they were investigating, they still seem to be in the thick of it. I berated myself at once for not having wired asking after Watson’s well-being. He little considers the topic himself.

  “My God, Watson, how are you?” I whipped my half-spectacles off when the doctor came into sight cresting a spiraling staircase. Lost in thought in a peculiarly narrow Library byway, I stood seeking out a book on native Esquimaux art for a member. “More to the point, how is Mr. Holmes?”

  Watson smiled, a sincerely meant expression that nevertheless failed to meet his eyes. As a collector of dichotomies, I am rather fascinated by Watson. I met him four years ago, before being hired at the London Library, when I used to frequent his club prior to my marriage to Lettie. We share an interest in cricket, and I think the kaleidoscopic quality of my studies amuses him. Watson is a doctor and a soldier, about two decades my senior but no less hearty for that, and the man is so utterly decent that he ought to be the most appalling bore in Christendom. The fact that he is just the opposite is therefore rather baffling. He is well-built and sturdy, a bit shorter than I am, with a neatly groomed brown moustache and an air of rapt attention when he is listening to you. But this evening he looked exhausted, a solid line etched between his brows and his hat clutched a bit too hard in his fingers.

  “Between the two of us, Lomax, Holmes is better than can be expected, which … frankly, is still not well at all,” he sighed, shaking my hand. “I’m to lay it on thick for the papers, but I trust in your discretion. He’ll make a full recovery, thank God.”

  I have never been introduced to Sherlock Holmes, but, like the rest of London and possibly the world, am deeply intrigued by Watson’s accounts of his exploits. “His attackers are known to you?”

  Watson’s determined jaw tightened as he nodded once. “The case is a complex one, with the safety of a lady at stake, or I should have horsewhipped them by this time.”

  “Naturally. Can I do anything?”

  “As a matter of fact, you can. I’m to spend the next twenty-four hours in an intensive study of Chinese pottery.”

  “To what purpose?”

  The smallest hint of mystified good humour entered his blue eyes. “Surely you know better than to ask. I haven’t the smallest notion.”

  Laughing, I waved the doctor further into the labyrinthine stacks. He left with a mighty book under his arm, making promises of an evening of billiards. Watson has a brisk military stride, and I could not help but compliment myself that it appeared more buoyant as he exited than when he’d first appeared.

  I saw the two of them once, outside of a tobacconist’s in Regent Street. I’d have known Mr. Holmes from his likeness in the newspapers, not to mention the Strand Magazine, but when Watson appeared in his wake, I was sure of myself. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were exiting with replenished cigarette cases, Dr. Watson casting about for a cab, and they were so complete together. Wanting no other company save themselves. Watson, just as their hansom slowed, stopped to flip a coin to a crippled veteran by the side of the road—and Mr. Holmes, who cannot be a patient man at the best of times, rather than pull a face, simply called out to the driver to ensure they kept their cab. They reminded me of my wife alongside her cohorts at the end of a lengthy curtain call, air reeking of hothouse roses and the heat sending trickles of sweat down the faces of worshipful spectators—and all the while, the performers in perfect, casual tune.

  They are just as Grace and I are together, I’ve decided. The harmony. The friendship, the complete ease. Mr. Holmes’s genius seems the icy sort, all edges and angles, but despite his legendary prickliness, he is most certainly held in the highest esteem. I don’t like to think of how Watson looked this afternoon.

  I must turn the lamp down and retire shortly. What odd connections we make as we pass through life—old friends, new ones, perhaps if we’re lucky even ones we’ve brought into being. But why do I remain so pensive over such a happy topic? I must confess, though camaraderie of the highest level is deeply satisfying and fatherhood still more so, I miss Lettie terribly. The romance which so bafflingly visited a bookish scholar’s life has departed, leaving bare halls with traces of magic swept away under carpeting. It has been so long since the early days of our marriage, when we lay entwined with the windows open, breakfasting upon stale bread and returning hastily to mussed bedclothes, hours lost in poetry and skin.

  It has been so very long since Lettie chose to stay.

  Tomorrow at least I shall have the distraction of the Brotherhood of Solomon. What on earth can the matter be with these people and their accursed new acquisition? I’ve been dying to discover the truth, and I don’t mind admitting it. One hopes that the morrow will reveal all.

  Letter sent from Mrs. Colette Lomax to Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 16th, 1902.

  Dearest,

  I fear that I write with as much speed as affection today. The sudden epidemic of stupidity which appears to have beset our company managers has led to our being double-booked: both at the theatre where we are paid to sing, and at the country home of a Bavarian duke who has decided that I am a better English interpreter of Germanic music than many of my predecessors, where we are not paid to sing.

  You can imagine I am both flattered and furious. But the Duke himself is charming enough despite being pasty and made all appropriate apologies for my being forced to attend a champagne fête when in a state of such exhaustion, so I suppose complaints are unworthy of me. The repast was admittedly beyond reproach—I haven’t tasted caviar this fine in a twelvemonth or more.

  More anon, love, and kiss Grace for me,

  Mrs. Colette Lomax

  Excerpt from the private journal of Mr. A. Davenport Lomax, September 16th, 1902.

  I’ve emerged victorious, with a terribly queer book upon my desk. But I shall tell it in order, I suppose, or never recall it correctly.

  Not having been there previous, I noted that the Savile Club is done in the traditional style, its walls teeming with textural flourishes and a quiet pomp in the mouldings accenting its ivory ceilings. Art abounds, as does crystal, as does the sort of furniture inviting terribly expensive trousers to be seated. There was quite a grand fire in the dining room we occupied, and the requisite set of picture-windows—all the details one expects when one comes from old money, not actually possessing any. But that is the lot of having a great many brothers, I suppose, and when one is younger, and a natural scientist, one is trusted to do well on one’s own. I arrived at ten minutes to eight, rather at a loss over introductions after handing away my coat. But I was prevented any awkwardness by Mr. Grange, who charged (well, made weak haste, anyhow) towards me within seconds.

  “Mr. Lomax!” he cried. His complexion, previously grey, had gained a slight touch of pink in the week we were apart, though his appetite clearly had not returned and his upper lip twitched tremulously. “Just the man we wanted—here, may I present my friend Mr. Cornelius Pyatt, another investor like myself and the one who introduced me to the Brotherhood of Solomon.”

  As I entered the dining room fully, I shook hands with a sallow man of perhaps forty years with a calculating expression and a crow’s sable hair. Mr. Pyatt, according to Mr. Grange, likewise suffered the ghastly effects of The Book of Sheba, but he seems to have made a full recovery if so. His handshake was certainly firm enough, and his aspect one of clear, cutting focus.

  “Delighted to meet you, Mr. Lomax,” he professed. “I hear you’ve consented to get to the bottom of this business. And high time, too, though I am by now convinced we are dealing with mighty supernatural forces. I was quite prostrate with the effects of studying this volume some weeks ago.”

  “So I have heard. I’m happy to see you are well again,” I answered. Another man stepped forward from the depths of the carpeted dining room, and
I stepped aside to include him. “But I cannot understand how such a thing could be possible outside the realm of ghost stories. The best sort of ghost stories, of course.”

  “I thought precisely as you did, Mr. Lomax,” admitted the newcomer. “Especially since I failed to suffer the symptoms associated with exposure to the book myself. It all seemed the merest coincidence, or else an especially grim fairy tale. But as the evidence mounts, I grow ever more convinced that my find was a monumental one. Mr. Sebastian Scovil, at your service, and eager to hear your conclusions.”

  If I come from old money which leaked away from the Lomax family in small but steady trickles, surely Mr. Scovil’s funding commenced with the Pharaohs and built its way upward from there. He was a small man, very quietly dressed in grey, with every seam and tuck so perfectly tailored in the finest traditional taste that you could have made a model of the chap based solely upon his clothing and not the other way round. His brown eyes twinkled, his apple cheeks shone with cheer, and the pocket watch he consulted after shaking my hand cost a hundred quid if it cost a shilling. Which it probably hadn’t, since the initials etched upon it ended duly in S. An inheritance, no doubt, to the diminutive yet decisive heir apparent. Mr. Sebastian Scovil was so very small, as a matter of fact, and so very wealthy in appearance, that he brought to mind a Lilliputian dignitary.

  “I am eager to see it, as I’ve dedicated my life to books of all sorts,” I owned, my pulse quickening.

  “Come, come sir!” Mr. Grange exclaimed. “I told Mr. Scovil as much, and you shall examine it at once! Right this way.”

  We passed further into the dining area, towards a table where several well-to-do fellows stood muttering—some angrily, some raptly—over a cloth-veiled object. They were successful businessmen on the clubbable model, warm when it came to handshakes and ruthless when it came to figures. The fact they didn’t suppose consorting with the devil to be any particular blemish so long as the chequebook balanced at the end of the day failed to shock me; the acquisition of money is a high virtue indeed in some circles.