#the house for peculiar practices of the scientific and investigatory nature

[mrhyde-mrseek]

Victor: Which one of you was gonna tell me tea tastes different if you put it in hot water?

Watson: …You were putting it in cold water?

Time Traveller: Victor. Answer the question Victor.

Victor: Yeah??? I thought for like five years that people just put it in hot water to speed up the tea-ification process. Didn’t realize there was an actual reason.

Griffin: You don’t have the patience to microwave water for three minutes???

Sherlock: Why are you putting it in the microwave to boil it?

Griffin: Do you think I have the patience to boil water on the stove??

Sherlock: IT TAKES LESS THAN A MINUTE.

Griffin: BESTIE IS YOUR STOVETOP POWERED BY THE FUCKING SUN?!

Sherlock: HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO BOIL A CUP OF WATER ON THE STOVE???

Griffin: LIKE SEVEN MINUTES!

Sherlock: Just stick the mug on top of the stove on medium heat and it boils in like two minutes… less than that and you use a saucepan…

Griffin: YOU’RE PUTTING THE WHOLE MUG ON THE STOVE???? ON MEDIUM HEAT???? Your stove is enchanted.

Gwen: Every single one of you is a fucking lunatic.

Jekyll: DO NONE OF YOU OWN A FUCKING KETTLE?!

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Finally made a collage for the House itself—kind of the entire AU, I guess, looking at it now. But I suppose those two go hand-in-hand.

[mrhyde-mrseek]

The Origins of the House for Peculiar Practices of the Scientific and Investigatory Nature

Van Helsing, of course, started it. Before I get into how, though, I think I should clarify a few things related to the timeline of the story.

The characters didn’t arrive at the same time. First it was Griffin, then Victor, then Jekyll/Hyde, then the Time Traveller, then Holmes and Watson, and finally Gwen. The years their individual stories take place in are irrelevant to the AU, which takes place late 1880’s-early 1890’s.

Returning to the origins, Griffin was a student under Van Helsing for a time, when Van Helsing was staying in England for a time. (In fact, he was in the same class as Seward, although they didn’t have much interaction). Van Helsing ended up being one of Griffin’s favorite professors.

Van Helsing, being the wonderful surrogate father figure that he is, grew concerned about Griffin’s situation. (It was more money-related than family-related). The young man had gotten into University College purely on a scholarship, and had difficulty affording some of his textbooks, resorting to using secondhand ones supplied by the school. He also wasn’t the most social student; as far as Van Helsing knew, Kemp was the closest he had to an actual friend. He seemed to prefer it that way, but that didn’t stop Van Helsing from worrying about how being alone so often would affect his mental health. So he made Griffin promise to keep in touch—which, for years, was something Griffin did not do, either forgetting about his promise or just choosing to neglect it.

Fast forward some time, and Griffin, now irreversibly invisible (as far as he knows), was nearly beaten to death by an angry mob led by Kemp. It was Kemp who managed to find a doctor, and once he was well enough, escaped town and was on the run once again. He did, however, stop just long enough to write a desperate letter to a certain college professor of his. The letter only had four words written on it: HELP ME. Asa Griffin

Van Helsing met Griffin at an abandoned railway a short distance from the station Van Helsing had arrived at. Griffin explained the entire situation to the professor, ending with, “—And now I don’t have a home, or money, or a means to get food—Oh, God, Professor, I have made an enormous mistake!” Van Helsing agreed to help him, and to do so, called upon the help of another former student of his: Dr. Seward.

Long story short, over the span of several months, Griffin was passed from Van Helsing to Seward, and after a shit ton of legal and financial transactions that I won’t get into, an old, crumbling manor bordering a forest that was going to be torn down to make space for a factory, but which they managed to wrangle a second life out of, was purchased. (Both Seward and Van Helsing pay the rent of the place.) This became Griffin’s new home. Van Helsing visited whenever he was in England to check up on how he was doing.

Enter Victor. After nearly dying of . . . well, hypothermia, mostly, but probably also multiple diseases in the Arctic, he was taken back to London with Walton. Half in a daze, numb to the world, and afraid of what would happen if he allowed himself to get close to another person, as soon as Walton turned his back, he bolted. Eventually (as in three hours later at most), he stumbled upon Van Helsing, who had arrived to check up on Griffin again. Van Helsing could tell Victor wasn’t in a state to be left alone, so—much in the manor of a boy taking in an abandoned puppy from the streets—he brought him to the manor with him.

Griffin wasn’t too thrilled about having a roommate, but after hearing Victor’s story, he begrudgingly agreed to let him stay. They hardly interacted, anyways—Griffin was busy building a functioning lab for himself, and Victor needed space to become accustomed to being a functioning member of society again.

Van Helsing actually had no part in finding Jekyll/Hyde—they found Griffin and Victor entirely on accident. After faking their death, they realized what they had gotten themselves into, panicked, and escaped from their lab with the remainder of the salt in the form of Hyde. Since Hyde was still at risk of being recognized for Carew’s murder, he had to sneak around some shifty neighborhoods and lesser-known backroads.

He ended up stumbling upon the manor. Since the outside was deceivingly run-down, thinking it was abandoned, he broke inside—only to discover that he had been wrong. Eventually, after confrontation and some fighting with Griffin (those two are like a match and gasoline), he explained what he was doing there. Griffin reluctantly agreed to let him stay the night. He wrote to Van Helsing in the morning, who told him to let Hyde stay. It was only after Hyde managed to figure out how to make the salt work again did he (as Jekyll) tell Griffin and Victor the truth.

It was then they realized that they had begun to form a society of sorts. Jekyll had the idea to give themselves a name. After a lengthy debate, they ended up combining a few name ideas into the House for Peculiar Practices of the Scientific Nature. But a society needs a purpose, doesn’t it? They decided that the purpose of the society was to provide shelter for any outcasts in the scientific field deemed “eccentric” by their peers, or who were in need of a place to take shelter.

And thus, recruitment missions began. Because Jekyll/Hyde couldn’t leave for fear of being recognized and Victor still wasn’t in a good place to be out in the busy city, Griffin would go out around evening looking for outsiders to recruit.

While on one of these missions, he passed a group of men sitting outside at a restaurant discussing something in semi-hushed voices. He was about to walk right by before he heard one of them say, “—Don’t believe him in the slightest. A time machine, indeed! Why, the fellow must have finally gone mad to think that he managed to travel back in time! Anyone can see those flowers he brought back are simply common wood anemone.” A bit more eavesdropping and Griffin managed to glean the street on which the man who they were discussing lived.

He found the house easily enough—it was big, fairly well-off, and there were very audible sounds of mini explosions coming from it. A man in a lab coat and brass goggles ran out the front door coughing, and after he had collected himself, he slumped onto the front step with a groan and buried his head in his arms.

A brief conversation revealed that this man was, indeed, the time traveler the men at the restaurant had been talking about. It took less convincing than Griffin had expected to convince him to become a member of the House. A few days later, the Time Traveller left with his machine (don’t ask how) without telling anyone, making it seem as though he had disappeared off the face of the earth. (And don’t ask how they managed to get the time machine up into the attic. Even they don’t know.)

After the Time Traveller came Holmes and Watson. After Holmes returned from pretending he was dead (and scaring Watson half to death), Holmes explained that while he was elsewhere, he met a man named Van Helsing who, apparently sensing something special about Holmes, gave him a letter to open only once he stopped traveling. (He didn’t know it was Holmes who he had met, but he still had a good feeling about this British traveler.) The letter said to come to a little-known bar on the docks as soon as possible, but not before burning the letter.

Upon meeting Van Helsing, he was surprised to see who Holmes really was, but not put off. He told them of the House, and after some convincing, they both agreed to move in (of course, though, they told Mycroft of Holmes’ survival. They couldn’t let him think that his brother was still dead, then possibly frighten him if they saw him out in public). It was after they joined that they changed the name to the House for Peculiar Practices of the Scientific and Investigatory Nature.

Lastly, Gwen. Gwen has a secret that, when she lived in the United States, nearly cost her her job and her life. It hasn’t come up in the AU yet, but it will. All I‘ll say is that it does have an impact of her field of work. So, to avoid spoilers, I’m going to make this vague. Van Helsing found her struggling to pay rent in Cambridge, managed to secure her an archeological/Egyptological position much like the one she had in the U.S., and invited her to join the House. She agreed, gratefully, and thinks she owes Van Helsing a debt when in fact he refuses to accept that she does.

[mrhyde-mrseek]

Was Harker or at least his firm at all involved in finding the big spooky house? It seems like their niche.

Harker’s firm did help them with finding the house, and while Harker himself was involved, his interactions were mainly with Seward, since Van Helsing was busy trying to stop the demolition plans for the house. The few meetings he did have with Van Helsing were long enough for him to recognize the professor during the whole Dracula business, but they mainly knew each other in a professional way before it. (And he definitely didn’t meet Griffin.)

[mrhyde-mrseek]

Science Most Sinister - Masterpost

VOLUME I

PLOT: For a few years, a centuries-old manor on the edge of a forest, christened the House for Peculiar Practices of the Scientific and Investigatory Nature (or simply the House), has served as a secret haven for misfits and outcasts. Its occupants number seven: Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, the Time Traveller, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Victor Frankenstein, and Guinevere Crowley.

But a dark force is descending upon the House, one unlike anything the group has ever seen before. As the House members delve into the mystery, the lines only become more and more tangled; an ancient well, a mysterious disease, inexplicable occurrences—it seems the deeper they go, the closer they’re getting to unearthing something that wants them all dead.

~•~

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

PART SEVEN

PART EIGHT

PART NINE

PART TEN

PART ELEVEN

PART TWELVE

PART THIRTEEN

PART FOURTEEN

PART FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

~•~

VOLUME II

PLOT: The House members’ pasts finally catch up to them with the discovery of another organization known as the Society of Themis. Formed by Gabriel Utterson, Mr. Poole, Mycroft Holmes, Edmund Seawright, Dr. Kemp, and Robert Walton, the Society has dedicated itself to discovering what, exactly, became of each of the House members a year ago.

Just as they’re beginning to fear for the end of the House of Peculiar Practice of the Scientific and Investigatory Nature, news of a series of crimes reaches both societies—crimes that appear to be irrevocably connected to the fate of Griffin, Kemp, Marvel, and the invisible man’s notebooks.

~•~

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

PART FOUR

PART FIVE

PART SIX

PART SEVEN

PART EIGHT

~•~

CHARACTER REFERENCES (THE HOUSE FOR PECULIAR PRACTICES OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND INVESTIGATORY NATURE)

CHARACTER REFERENCES (THE SOCIETY OF THEMIS)

(If anyone wants to ask me or the SMS characters questions, give drawing requests, etc., feel free to!)

[mrhyde-mrseek]

Science Most Sinister Character Profiles - The House

Sherlock Holmes

Holmes was recruited to the House of Peculiar Practices of the Scientific and Investigatory Nature by Van Helsing immediately after returning from faking his death. He spends much of his time in his study/laboratory, especially now that he’s taken it upon himself to analyze the mysterious black liquid from the well below the House. Logical, observant, a bit prideful, and at times wont to descend into “black moods”, anyone who doesn’t know him would suspect him to be stoic and emotionless. This, however, is certainly not the case; he holds a great love for those few whom he is close to, especially his secret lover, Watson.

Dr. John Watson

Watson joined the House with Holmes. He and the detective make up the “investigatory” part of the name. Watson is the House’s only designated doctor, being the only one who lives there with any sort of professional medical training—and new developments have rendered that training very necessary indeed. He is amiable and possessing of a remarkable calmness even in stressful situations, although has admitted to being rather lazy as well (something occasional heightened pains from his old wound don’t help very much). He also suffers from war-induced PTSD, and has an extreme intolerance of loud noises—especially gunshots.

The Time Traveller

His real name unknown to anyone in the House but Van Helsing, The Time Traveller had been recruited by Griffin only a day after returning from the year 802,701 A.D. His time machine, damaged by his return to the present, resides forlornly in the House’s attic. Occasionally, he likes to tinker with it—though he has no plans to use it again any time soon. Ironically, he has an awful concept of time, and is either early or astoundingly late to anything. He has boundless amounts of energy and cannot sit still for more than five minutes; he is also ridiculously clumsy, and has a habit of gesticulating wildly while he talks, a combination that doesn’t always have favorable outcomes.

Asa Griffin

Griffin (or Dr. Griffin, as he occasionally introduces himself if he wants to show off his doctorate) started the House with Van Helsing after running from his failed attempt at killing Kemp. Permanently invisible and cursed with low vision (a common enough result of his albinism), he prefers to spend most of his time in the well-lit laboratory he shared with Jekyll/Hyde, the latter whom he has developed a vicious sibling rivalry with. Griffin was one of the first to experience the strange new goings-on happening in the House; believing himself to be chasing after Hyde, who had destroyed his notes, he was actually trapped in a disturbing hallucination—induced by what, nobody knows yet.

Dr. Henry Jekyll

After faking his own death, escaping his old laboratory in the form of Hyde, and figuring out the trick to the serum to shift back into his original form, Jekyll quickly became accustomed to the House and its residents. He’s the oldest member, Van Helsing not included. A fall into the well hidden beneath the House’s foundations has rendered him mysteriously blind, a condition which he is praying isn’t permanent. He has fallen into a habit of pretending that he is completely fine, even if everyone can see the cracks spreading from the inside out.

Edward Hyde

Hyde found the House completely on accident on the night of his false suicide, and one night hiding out to figure out a plan of action in the morning eventually lead to him joining. Another difference between him and Jekyll is their age gap; with Jekyll in his fifties, Hyde is at most in his mid-twenties. He and Jekyll can speak to each other telepathically, although neither of them are very good at their job as the other’s conscience. Although he would never admit it—ever—he is intensely claustrophobic, and the only point in which he will listen to Jekyll is if he is trapped in a small space and can’t think his way out on his own.

Victor Frankenstein

After nearly dying aboard Walton’s ship and running into Van Helsing upon Walton’s return to London, Victor was the second person to be taken to the not-yet-named-then House; as well as being one of the first, he is also the youngest member, a few years younger than Hyde. It took a very long time for him to recover enough to return to society (society for him being less than ten other people). Timid, rueful, and paranoid, Victor is much changed from the Icarian boy he used to be.

Dr. Guinevere “Gwen” Crowley

Gwen was brought to London from the United States by Van Helsing after an incident involving her old mentor that cost her her job and very nearly her life, and which she has sworn never to speak of to anyone ever again. She divides her time between the House and her job as an archeologist and Egyptologist, although she is now exceedingly cautious about the expeditions she takes up and how often she shows her face in public for fear of being recognized. She has put that on hold for now, however, the omen proclaimed by the hieroglyphs in the secret passage having become a more pressing concern at the moment.

[mrhyde-mrseek]

Science Most Sinister - Part One

WARNING: VOMITING/EMETOPHOBIA, DISTURBING DESCRIPTIONS OF HALLUCINATED IMAGES.

Inside the House for Peculiar Practices of the Scientific and Investigatory Nature, things were, as was typically the case, descending into chaos. And, as was also typically the case, the perpetrator for today’s disruption of peace was Edward Hyde.

“HYDE!” The bellow echoed through the upper floor of the manor-like house, followed by the sound of someone storming from a room and a door being slammed shut. Curiously, the source of the footsteps was nowhere to be found.

They stopped on the landing. There was a pause, like that in which a person scopes out the area for an item or figure of personal interest, and then the same voice called out, “Hyde! Has anyone in this blasted house seen that cur?”

A crash and a yelp of pain from the room next to the stairs caught the speaker’s attention. He walked rapidly over and threw open the door. “Time Traveller! Have you seen Hyde?”

The Time Traveller, who had been muttering under his breath and rubbing his foot a moment earlier, cursed and jumped at the sudden intrusion. He whirled around, long white coat swirling like waves around his legs. He relaxed slightly when he realized who had spoken. “Oh, Griffin, it’s only you.”

Griffin approached, head cocked. “What have you done to yourself now?”

“Dropped a box trying to get it down from the shelf,” the Time Traveller muttered, gesturing to a wooden crate of glittering, cylindrical crystals. “What did you ask me before?”

“Do you know where Hyde is?” Griffin repeated. “I found the margins of all three of my notebooks filled with his handwriting.”

“How should I know where he has run off to now?”

“You make it your business to know where everyone in this house is at all times.”

The Time Traveller shrugged. “It helps to know when one of you plans to spring on me while I am at work.”

Right. Well, if he wasn’t going to be helpful, there was no point in staying. Griffin turned to leave—and spotted a dark figure darting away from the open door. Hyde! Without giving warning, he sped off after his target.

Hyde sharply rounded a corner, and Griffin found himself shrouded in darkness. The gas lamps, oddly, had gone out, making the dark maroon flock wallpaper appear almost black. He could no longer see Hyde, could only follow the sound of his limping step and his inherently raucous, cruel laughter. He tried to call out after the smaller man, but his shout was strangled midway out of his mouth and shoved forcefully back down his throat with a cough.

His foot struck a ridge in the carpet. He tripped, slamming his jaw on the floor. Swallowing a groan, he got to his knees and looked around himself. The corridor was filled with impenetrable blackness; he wouldn’t even have been able to see his own hand in front of his face if he was visible. The only sound now was that of his own panting.

A gaze behind him revealed nothing—there was no faint glimmer of light indicating the lamp-lit hallway that connected to this one. He must have gone farther than he thought. Keeping one hand out in front of himself to grab Hyde in case he ran into him, he slowly walked back the way he came.

Then his hand hit something solid. He blinked. It felt like a wall. But that was impossible . . . he couldn’t have run through a wall; he was invisible, not intangible. He felt along the obstacle feverishly, trying to find a hole, a door, something, anything that would provide a way out of there—but there was nothing.

Growing frantic, he ran in the other direction and was met with yet another wall. As with the other one, there was no hidden exit. Only wallpaper covering hard wood paneling.

He was trapped.

Bizarre shapes, like those you see in your peripheral, melted and bubbled in the darkness; an overlarge eye, a sinister smile, a deformed, reaching hand. A humanoid face, with scaly, flaking, ink-black skin, yellowish pus dripping sluggishly from its pores, eyes tinted an unnerving milky white. The hallucinations whirled around him as though they were in a tornado, and he frozen in the very center.

He felt sick. His head spun, and he stumbled, overcome with a dizziness so strong he didn’t even realized he was moving until the side of his head struck the wall. He sank to the floor, colors flashing like fireworks before his eyes. His ears were ringing deafeningly, muffling even his own thoughts. There was a pressure on his chest, like something was kneeling on it to suffocate him. Something latched onto his arms, but he hardly cared, he only wanted the horrible feeling to go away, the hallucinations to fade into nothing, to jolt awake in his bed so he could be sure this was a dream.

He hardly noticed when he lost consciousness. The visions didn’t stop.

~•~

Griffin bolted up, and immediately doubled over the edge of the sofa and vomited.

He narrowly missed a pair of black, gold-buttoned boots that hurried hastily back.

From his position, he could see that he was in the study. Bookcases with rolling ladders covered the wall in front of him, and the dark red sofa across the carpet mirrored the one he was laid on perfectly. He knew that the chair at the desk was inherently the perch of another someone, who most likely had her feet propped on the surface of the table.

His suspicions were proven correct when the startled voice of Guinevere Crowley exclaimed from the aforementioned desk chair, “Blimey, Griffin! What happened to you?”

There was a metallic clatter. Griffin looked up, wiping traces of vomit from his mouth, to see Victor Frankenstein fumbling to catch the fire poker he had knocked over in his haste to avoid Griffin’s retching. As he did, he noticed the four others that surrounded his sofa—the Time Traveller, Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Jekyll. It appeared the whole House had gathered in the study.

Finding his voice, he asked weakly, “What—what did happen? Where did I—how did you—“

Watson made a calm yourself gesture. “Slow down, Griffin. You’re safe.”

“But—the walls—“

He looked perplexed. “What about the walls?”

“How did you get through them?”

“Get through them? I do not understand.”

The Time Traveller spoke up. “In my laboratory, after you asked me where Hyde was, you suddenly collapsed. When I caught you, you were convulsing violently and murmuring under your breath. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I—I panicked and called for help, then brought you into here.”

“How long was I unconscious?” Griffin asked. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes—or at least, that was how it felt.

“Ten minutes.”

“What?!” He abruptly sat up properly, and was overcome by another wave of nausea. He bent over again and heaved, and felt Watson put a hand on his back to support him.

Ten minutes. He had been trapped in that hallucination for ten minutes. All those images floating around him like a macabre carousel. And that grotesque, blackened, dripping face. . . .

A slight sound above him caught his attention. Holmes, sitting on the other sofa, had taken his pipe from between his teeth and was now staring penetratingly at the apparently empty space on the cushions where Griffin was. “You asked how we managed to get through the walls,” he said, as cool and collected as ever. “What did you see in your visions?”

Griffin took a shaky breath. “I saw Hyde run in front of the doorway to the Time Traveller’s laboratory,” he began. “I chased after him. He led me down the hallway and around a corner into a second corridor that was completely dark. I tripped, and when I had gotten to my feet again, he was gone. I could not see anything around me, so I began to retrace my steps. My hand hit a wall that I was certain had not been there before, and I could find no hole or door I could have run through. It was the same situation in all other directions.

“I . . . suppose I began to hallucinate then. Images in the darkness. Panic-induced, probably.”

“What images?” Gwen interrupted.

“Unnerving ones. Deformed limbs, mouths filled with fangs, glowing eyes that . . . stared at me; no matter where I moved, they followed me.” He shuddered. “And then a—a face appeared. It was ghastly, all covered in black, scaly skin and leaking pus”—he was moving his hands as though attempting to mold the face out of clay as he spoke, not that anyone could see it—“and its eyes . . . good God, they—they were the worst part, wide and staring and sickly white, even the pupil.

“I grew extremely dizzy—my ears were ringing. I staggered into the wall and fell down. I wished it all would just stop, but it didn’t, not even when I fainted. That is all I remember,” he finished, abruptly.

Holmes nodded contemplatively. One finger tapped the bowl of his pipe as he held it. “Curious . . .” he whispered.

“You think I am insane, don’t you?” Griffin said angrily.

“I do not,” he said sharply. “It merely is so singular an occurrence that I cannot come up with an explanation yet. This was the first time it has ever happened to you?”

Griffin nodded. And the last, he hoped.

“And nobody else in this room has ever experienced a hallucination such as Griffin’s?”

The question was met with shakes of the head and quiet nos.

“Have any of you experienced any strange occurrences that could possibly be related to this one?”

“Well,” said Jekyll tentatively, “this morning, when I entered my laboratory to shift back, I found it in complete disarray. All of my equipment was smashed. I almost could not find the serum to change back.”

“Could you have done that yourself?” Gwen asked.

He scoffed ruefully. “No. Nobody here could have caused that much destruction, not even Hyde. And I would have remembered dismantling my own laboratory.”

Now they had a total of two inexplicable occurrences: a disturbing vision and a demolished laboratory.

One more and it could no longer be considered a coincidence.

A sudden whirring broke the silence. Everyone’s heads whipped around to the door. The mail receptacle the Time Traveller had created—almost like a gear-covered typewriter—had spit a slip of paper onto the floor. Griffin shot up on alert and jumped for the machine. Gwen too sprang from her chair and nabbed the paper before he could, unfolding it as she straightened. “It’s from Van Helsing!”

“Van Helsing?” Griffin repeated. “What could he want?”

“He does not have a request,” she said, reading the letter. “He has news.”

“On the recent occurrences?” asked the Time Traveller hopefully.

“Possibly. Listen to this: I discovered cryptic note this morning on my desk. While I find myself preoccupied and unable to decode the message with all of you, I will send it to you in hopes that you will be able to decipher it.”

Right on cue, the mail receptacle whirred again, and a second paper fell out. Griffin beat Gwen this time, and, with a smug smirk (that admittedly lost most of its value when his intended target could not see it), read aloud, “Once you reach the billiard room, look for the lion among lions.” He stopped, and looked up again with an expression of perplexity.

“Is there a signature?” Victor asked.

“Yes, but it is just signed The Mastermind.”

Automatically, all eyes turned to Holmes. He gazed back, unfazed, and blew out a puff of tobacco smoke. “It seems a trip to the billiard room is required,” he said.

~•~

A long and very thorough search of the billiard room, however, revealed absolutely nothing of use (although Griffin did find an expensive-looking pen that most likely belonged to Watson that he would have pocketed had he had pockets, and had Watson not spotted it in his hand and taken it back).

Griffin leaned against the billiard table. “This is useless,” he moaned. “There is nothing in here. We would have better luck searching Holmes’s study!”

Holmes glared at him. “If you are not going to help, you can keep out of the way and shut up,” he snapped.

He sneered, mouthing the detective’s words bitterly, and sighed quietly. He cast his eyes around the table. They landed on a pool ball, which he absentmindedly began rolling back and forth between his hands.

A loud thud made him startle and drop the ball. “Sorry!” the Time Traveller exclaimed sheepishly. “Dropped a few books. No need to worry.”

Griffin rolled his eyes, then bent down to retrieve the ball. As he did so, he spotted a perfectly assembled chessboard beneath the table.

The lion among lions. . . .

He peered around the edge of the table. Carved on each of the corners was a lion’s head.

Lions. . . .

A chessboard. . . .

The king.

He had a fifty-fifty chance. He reached for the white king and attempted to take it, but to his surprise, it appeared to be glued to the chessboard. He tugged harder, and the board suddenly swung up as if on a hinge, revealing a small hole in the floor.

It was a shaft. One that he was fairly certain had not been there before.

“Oh, you found something!” the sound of the Time Traveller’s voice made him jerk away from his discovery, nearly hitting his head on the underside of the table.

The others by then had joined them. Jekyll let out a low chuckle. “‘The lion among lions,’” he said. “The king among kings. Clever.”

“Then I suppose we must see where it leads,” Watson added. “Who is going first?”

“I think Griffin should,” Gwen suggested. “He found it, after all.”

The others seemed in agreement. Griffin himself, however, was none too eager to begin the venture; the shaft was rather narrow, and he wasn’t sure how well he would fit. But as everyone gazed at him expectantly, he realized he had no say in the matter, so he shoved his worries aside, ducked under the table, and began the descent.