by Bill Crider
Holmes meanwhile had leapt over the grave and plunged past a small nearby obelisk. The sound of my shots was still ringing in my ears, but I heard someone cry out and there was the new sound of a struggle.
I started forward. Swaraj had already recovered from his fright and gone to join Holmes in his fight with the ghoul. When I reached them, I saw that they confronted not a creature of the night but a purely mortal enemy, though one who appeared as vicious as any ghoul could hope to be. A man with an American Bowie knife was crouched with his back to a tomb. He held the knife loosely as he swung it in front of him, as if daring Holmes and Swaraj to come any closer.
“There is your ghoul, Watson,” said Holmes as I approached. “Though I have never seen him before, I would wager that his name is Stanley Forbes.”
“I believe you are correct,” said Swaraj, leaning forward for a better look. “But why is he here, and what happened to the monster?”
“The monster was nothing more than a balloon,” said Holmes, “painted to resemble a grotesque face. Your former school friend used an old medium’s trick, dangling the balloon from a flexible fishing pole, which I am sure we will find nearby.”
“You will find nothing,” said Forbes, for it was indeed he, as he stepped forward, brandishing his knife.
“A knife is an effective weapon,” said Holmes, “in certain situations. However, I believe our American friends have an aphorism about the foolishness of bringing a knife to a gunfight.”
I stepped forward and exhibited my pistol. Forbes looked at it for a long moment. Without a word he flipped the knife so that the blade and not the handle was in his hand. Then he hurled the knife at Swaraj, who barely ducked aside in time as it whistled by him. Forbes did not wait to see the result but turned and ran.
“If you please, Watson,” said Holmes, and I fired. The bullet struck Forbes in the right calf, and he went down on his face, sliding a few feet along the ground.
“And thus,” said Holmes, “ends the career of the St. Marylebone ghoul.”
The next morning over a late breakfast, I asked Holmes how he had known what we were going to encounter.
“Of course I was not certain,” he said, buttering a muffin. “But it appeared to me that Swaraj was ripe for trickery, especially of the kind that takes place in the darkness. You must have noticed how near-sighted he is.”
I said that I had, and Holmes went on. “He needed considerable assistance to see under the best of circumstances. At night he must have been nearly blind. Add to that the frightful appearance of the ‘ghoul,’ along with just the smallest bit of superstition on our client’s part, and you have a situation that someone might easily take advantage of.”
“Someone like Stanley Forbes,” I said, savoring a sip of Mrs. Hudson’s excellent coffee.
“Indeed,” said Holmes. “His hatred of the Swaraj family, and of Benjamin in particular, led him to his bullying at school, and when that proved not to be enough to satisfy him, to other, more barbarous things. When the Swaraj family moved to London, Forbes was deprived of his pleasures, and followed them. This I learned when I took a trip to Sheffield by rail. I undertook to locate Forbes in London, but I was unable to do so in the short time I had. I was not bothered by my failure, however, for I knew we would encounter him at Holden’s grave.”
“But how could you be so sure of that?”
“Holden was a well-to-do man, and I had a few words with some of his family. They informed me that he was to be buried with certain personal items, including a valuable gold ring and pocket watch. Forbes, while mutilating the bodies to make it appear that they might have been fed upon, was actually robbing them.”
“Ah, now I understand more fully your reference to human ghouls.”
“Yes, the body snatchers did more than provide cadavers for the anatomists. They also enriched themselves with whatever tokens they found on the corpses. Forbes was doing the same.”
“A wretched sort, that Forbes,” I said.
“Yes,” said Holmes. “It is too bad that ignorance, hatred, and superstition cannot be exploded as easily as a painted balloon.”
I set my cup down and said, “That reminds me, Holmes. The laughter that I heard when the supposed ghoul was attacking Swaraj … how was that produced?”
“By Forbes, of course,” said Holmes.
“But the direction of the laughter,” I protested.
“It is all too easy, Watson, for some people to become confused, in the night and the fog, about the direction from which a sound emanates.”
“Yet Forbes has vehemently denied the mutilation of the bodies.”
“My dear Watson,” said Holmes, sounding a bit peevish, “are you implying that there might have been someone else in the cemetery?”
“Or something,” said I. “The laughter was, you must admit, positively ghoulish.”
“I do believe that is the worst joke you have ever attempted,” said Holmes. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Now I believe I will play a few tunes on my violin, as there is nothing left to do on this dreary November day.”
Within moments he was drawing his bow across the strings, and I seemed to hear again the laughter of the St. Marylebone ghoul.
The Adventure of the Christmas Bear
Readers of these sporadic accounts of the accomplishments of my friend Sherlock Holmes will no doubt be aware that the Christmas season seldom brought him joy. His eyes would come alight at the mention of some nefarious plot or heinous crime, but they tended to grow dim if anyone brought up a cheerful holiday topic that he believed related to arrant superstition. It was not that he was opposed to the experience of joy brought on to others by the singing of carols or the exchanging of gifts; it was rather that he achieved his joys, such as they were, from the exercise of his formidable intellect.
Thus it was that one cold winter’s evening some two days before Christmas, I found myself seated at one side of the fireplace listening to Holmes as he sawed away on his violin at what I am certain was a tune of his own composition. His intent was to drown out the song of a group of carolers gathered beneath the windows of 221B Baker Street. While they sang of Good King Wenceslaus and of snow that was crisp and white and even (quite unlike the snow that presently covered the streets outside), Holmes began a frenzied run up the scale in which I fancied that he missed several of the notes he intended to sound, though I failed to mention that fact to him. At length the carolers moved on, and Holmes immediately put aside his violin.
“My dear Holmes,” said I, “I fear that your mood is not in keeping with the festive intent of the season.”
He paced distractedly about the room. “The season means little to me, Watson, and it offers no challenges. I am bored. I have not had an adversary worthy of my talents in many weeks.” He cast his eyes at the mantelpiece and at the bottle and hypodermic syringe that rested thereon.
I closed the volume of sea stories that I had been reading and said, “I hope that you are not considering some artificial stimulation of your mind, when at any moment someone with a problem needing your attention might come walking through our door.”
Holmes paused and turned to give me a speculative look. “I suppose that you are now going to declare some recent acquisition of the powers of clairvoyance and tell me that you can predict to the instant when such a person will appear.”
“I make no claims to precognition,” I said. “I merely suppose that even at this happy time of year there are those who have their troubles and who might seek the aid of the great Sherlock Holmes.”
Even as I spoke, I heard the sound of hoofbeats outside, hoofbeats that came to a stop beneath our window.
“And I presume that is our client now,” Holmes said.
“Possibly,” I responded. “If so, it is merely a coincidence. Or it could be merely a lost traveler who is seeking directions.”
“Of course it would be a coincidence,” Holmes said. “It could be nothing more.”
He walked over
to the frost-rimed bow window, where I joined him in looking out into the dark street. A carriage creaked to a stop in front of 221B, and a rather large gentleman emerged. Without a word to the driver, he entered our building. Shortly there was a the sound of a heavy step in the hall, followed almost at once by a knock on our door.
I answered the knock and welcomed our visitor inside. He was even larger than he had appeared from the window, and the room seemed almost to shrink when he entered. He wore a decrepit wide-awake hat on his rather too-long hair and a heavy bottle-green overcoat with a wide fur collar and cuffs. His hands were soft and white, his boots were clean, and his eyes were clear and wide.
He doffed his hat and stood for a moment as he looked around our room. Although Holmes was one of the neatest of men in many ways and certainly had quite tidy habits of mind, neither he nor I made any great pretense to fastidiousness when it came to our lodgings. Several unanswered letters from Holmes’s correspondents were nailed to the center of the mantel by a jack-knife, and there was the strong smell of chemicals and tobacco in the room, which, I confess, could have used a good airing. Books and papers, most of them belonging to Holmes, who had a positive horror of disposing of any kind of document, were strewn about the hardwood floor, while others had been tossed into boxes. Two of the cushions from the faded green couch were also on the floor along with the papers, and Holmes’s violin lay upon the couch itself. Our bookcase was crammed with maps, charts, and reference books of all kinds, along with Holmes’s commonplace books, though the latter, at least, were neatly aligned. Our desks were no less cluttered, and the sideboard was jumbled with cigar boxes, the remains of our cold dinner, and several tumblers, not all of them clean. Our floral wallpaper was marred somewhat on one wall by the pattern of a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks.
It was this last that seemed to draw our visitor’s attention. “Ah,” said he upon seeing it. “Someone has created an interesting variation in the, um, decor.”
“It was I,” said Holmes. “But I am sure you did not come here to discuss my house beautiful.”
At one time early in my acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes, he had informed me that he wished to possess no knowledge that would not be useful to him. I had deduced from his statement that his knowledge of certain fields was nil, and I had even jotted down a list of those fields for my own amusement. One thing of which I supposed him to know nothing was literature, but afterwards he had more than once surprised me by introducing into our conservation a passing reference to Shakespeare or Pope, to Flaubert or George Sand.
On this occasion, he surprised me once again, and because of his use of a certain phrase, I was fairly certain that he had already discerned the identity of our visitor, as had I, and I decided to put him to the test.
“Holmes,” said I, “can you tell me the name of our esteemed guest, or should I reveal it to you?”
“There is no need for you to tell me. I believe that we have the honor of hosting Mr. Oscar Wilde, the lecturer and poet.”
“You are correct,” Wilde said. He was not surprised at all. It was as if he felt that anyone in London would know him on sight. “Are you familiar with my work?”
“As for me,” I responded, “I have seen your picture more than once, and I have attended one of your lectures. It was the one in which you spoke of ‘the House Beautiful.’”
He glanced around our room once more, not exactly with approval. “Had I saved a dollar for every time I have delivered that lecture, I should be surrounded by luxuries.” He smiled. “The necessaries could then take care of themselves.”
“And you, Holmes,” I said. “How did you know our visitor’s identity?” I was quite certain that he had never attended one of Wilde’s lectures or read any of Wilde’s works, and I was proved correct by his reply.
“I am not a literary man,” said Holmes, “but I have read quite widely in the annals of crime. I believe that Mr. Wilde was involved during his American tour some years ago with a series of quite horrible murders.”
I was surprised at Holmes’s statement, but Wilde was positively astounded.
“I had not thought that the news of those events had made the return across the Atlantic with me,” said he.
Holmes nodded as if in agreement. “It did not. I read the American papers, among many others.”
“Ah. I see. Then you are aware of the circumstances. I have indeed come to the right place.”
“The right place for what?” Holmes inquired.
“For help,” said Wilde. “You see, I believe that someone wants to kill me.”
“It would appear,” said Holmes, looking far more cheerful than he had at the song of the carolers, “that you have a story to tell. Perhaps we should be seated.”
While I retrieved the sofa cushions from the floor, Holmes removed his violin from the couch. I then placed the cushions in their proper places for our visitor, who removed a silver cigarette case from a pocket.
When Wilde had lighted a gold-tipped cigarette, Holmes sniffed the air and said, “I believe I detect a hint of clove, do I not?”
“You do,” Wilde said, no doubt unaware that Holmes regarded himself as something of an expert on tobacco. “Mixed with Latakia and Virginia. I have them made up—”
“—in Piccadilly,” Holmes said. “I’m familiar with the shop.”
Smiling at Wilde’s surprise, Holmes took some tobacco from the toe of his Persian slipper, packed his pipe, and lit it. Soon he was seated in his chair at the side of the fireplace opposite from my own, puffing contentedly.
“Now, Mr. Wilde,” he said, blowing out a stream of white smoke, “let us hear your story. You were saying that someone wants to kill you.”
Wilde tried for several seconds to achieve a comfortable position on the couch, without success. He was too tall. Finally he simply leaned forward, puffing airily on his cigarette.
“It all began,” he said, “when I saw the bear.”
Holmes removed his pipe from his mouth. “A bear? In London?”
Wilde smiled. “Not a real bear. I’m sure of that. But more of a bear than I could bear.”
I smiled. Holmes did not. “Either you saw a bear or you did not,” said he. “You must be plainer, and restrict yourself to the facts.”
“Restricting oneself to the facts,” said Wilde, “is not always easy for an artist. Sometimes truth resides in things other than facts.”
“Nonsense,” said Holmes. “Truth always resides in the facts and nothing more. There is nothing more.”
Wilde sat a bit straighter and took on the look of the enthusiast. “There is a truth that remains beyond the reach of the facts. It is the truth that is found in art, and sometimes in something beyond even that.”
I feared that Holmes might lash out in response to such a statement, but he simply smiled a thin smile and said nothing.
“Years ago, in America,” Wilde continued, “I had visions of bears. They were a prelude to an act of violence against my person and that of another. After that lesson, and others like it, I have come, over the years, to trust my intuition.”
“Then you would have us believe that the bear you saw is either art or intuition, rather than a fact,” said Holmes.
“True,” Wilde agreed. “In a way.”
“In what way?” I asked, hoping for a straightforward answer.
Wilde returned it. “In the way that what I really saw was a man.”
“A man who looked like a bear?”
“Yes. Either that or a vision.” He smiled. “Perhaps I should say, a re-vision.”
“And do you know the man?” asked Holmes, disregarding all Wilde’s statements except the first.
“I believe that I might,” said Wilde.
“And does he have a reason for wanting to kill you?”
“He may feel that he does.”
“And what would have caused that belief?”
“When I was in America, on that tour of the West that you mentioned,” said Wild
e, “I encountered two men unlike any I had ever met. They were buffalo hunters.”
“You do mean bison hunters, I take it,” Holmes said.
“Of course, though in America, they call them buffalo. I have no idea why.”
“Americans are peculiar that way,” said I, and Wilde nodded.
“These particular Americans were very unsavory characters,” he said. His nose wrinkled as if he could still smell them. “They … did not ‘take a liking to me,’ as they sometimes say in those parts. In fact, one of them intended to kill me, as well as another person. Instead, the one who wanted to kill me died himself, and his friend fled the scene. I fear that somehow the one who fled has found his way to London, seeking revenge after all these years for the death of his companion.”
“Did you kill his companion?” asked Holmes.
“No. That was done by another, someone who came upon the scene and rescued me.”
“And the name of this other?”
“It is not one that you would know.” Wilde paused to reflect, puffing his cigarette. “Or perhaps you might, but it has no bearing on the present matter.”
Holmes nodded. “And has anyone made an attempt on your life?”
“I believe so,” said Wilde.
Holmes puffed on his pipe, then said, “But is your belief based on fact?”
Wilde smiled. “I cannot be certain,” said he. “But as I was walking this morning near my house, a carriage rounded the corner at high speed, careening along as if the Devil himself were at the reins. I am a great admirer of recklessness, especially in others, but I drew back so that I would not be in any danger. At that moment, someone gave me a powerful shove forward, and I stumbled into the street, directly into the path of the careening carriage.”
“And yet you sit here before us, calmly telling your story,” Holmes observed.
“Not so calmly as it might appear to you,” Wilde said. “Although the public might think otherwise, I am generally in control of my emotions. And despite my appearance, I am remarkably nimble, which is why I am sitting here now. I was able to spring aside, and the horses missed me by the narrowest of margins. As I turned back to see who had given me the near-fatal push, I saw the bear turning a corner down the street.”
