The Perils of Sherlock Holmes

by Loren D. Estleman

  A brief ride in a four-wheeler deposited us three before an unprepossessing house in Westminster, where Sir Richard presented us to his wife. I found her to be a woman of serene dignity, at whose throat reposed a gold crucifix, in the heart of Protestant England. An adventurer, she, every bit as fearless as her husband, who had penetrated the African interior, Mecca, India, and the Country of the Saints in Utah Territory. She greeted us graciously.

  “I hope, Mr. Holmes, you can help Richard locate his pagan shrine. It has the virtue at least of being less dubious than some of his other projects.”

  “Isabel still entertains the hope of civilising her barbarian,” confided our host.

  “Would that Jimmy Patterson had absconded with The Perfumed Garden.” With this Parthian shot—delivered, it seemed to me, without a trace of irony—she left us to our exploration.

  Burton’s private study was an exhibition hall of Orientalia; the exotic fixtures in our own digs were conventional by comparison. Beaded curtains, scimitars, an Indian hookah, blowguns of various lengths, and at least one shrunken head were interspersed among no fewer than five writing-desks. Sir Richard, reappearing after a brief absence in a proper European turnout of shirt, shoes, waistcoat, and trousers, with most of the stain scrubbed from his skin, informed us that each cluttered desk contained papers related to a different literary enterprise.

  “It used to be ten,” he added; “but the diplomatic service has gelded the stallion.”

  Holmes made no response, engaged as he was in his examination of the room. His intense grey eyes scanned the books and objets d’art on the shelves, peered inside the kneeholes of desks, and passed without scholarly interest across scattered sheets containing dense notations in Burton’s nervous hand. His hands remained in his pockets until he came to the hearth, where he prodded the smoking ashes of a recent fire with a poker that had begun life as a Sepoy lance.

  Holmes replaced the weapon in its holder, then directed his gaze to the leopardskin rug in front of the grate. For several moments he remained in a crouch with his hands spread on his thighs, moving only his eyes. Suddenly he threw himself to the floor, combed his fingers through the short coarse fur, and came to his feet holding something between his forefinger and thumb. With his other hand he fished out his pocket lens to study it more closely. He asked how often there was a fire in the room.

  “Every day, even in summer,” came the reply. “All those years in the tropics have ruined me for the English climate.”

  “Tell me, Sir Richard, if you recognise this.”

  Burton accepted the tiny object, smaller than a child’s fingernail. He borrowed the lens, through which he scrutinised it for a few seconds only.

  “Parchment, without a doubt, and ancient.” He paled. “Good Lord, Holmes! You can’t suppose—”

  “I never suppose. I only propose. The document left this room by way of the chimney, there to mingle with the rest of the soot coating the most populous city in the world.”

  “If he burned it, the man is a vandal, which is worse than a thief, and a madman besides. He has acted entirely without purpose, depriving posterity of the way to the riddle of Tutankhamen’s burial place. Now it will never be found.”

  “Let us not be pessimistic. Where there is no reason, deductive reasoning is futile, and I am not prepared to surrender the point. Your vandal theory does not cover the second disappearance which has taken place.”

  “There is nothing else missing.”

  “Where, then, is the Kodak camera you said young Patterson abandoned to a shelf in the study?”

  The explorer directed his gaze towards a cabinet containing books and exotic bric-a-brac. There was a space between objects.

  “I haven’t given the bloody thing a thought for weeks. I’m certain it isn’t in his old quarters, either. I searched there as well. But certainly Isabel would have seen him carrying it out.”

  “Possibly not. Apart from its simplicity, the Kodak’s chief advantage is portability. He could indeed have hidden it under his coat, apropos your suggestion, however facetious it was intended. The answer that occurs first is often the best.”

  “But if he photographed the papers, why haven’t I received a ransom demand? I’m convinced he’s approached no one else.”

  “For the answer to that, we must wait for morning,” said Holmes. “Will your purse enable you to maintain your watch upon him one more night?”

  “Just that. I fail to see—”

  “Failure to see is the driving force behind exploration. If the fellow attempts to fly tonight, he will have King Tut on his person, and presently you will have him upon yours. Tomorrow, or the next day at the very latest, the Pharaoh will be comfortably ensconced in Westminster. Should it be the next day, Dr. Watson and I shall stand the watch through tomorrow night. By then, one month will have passed since the deed was done, a wizard measure of time. My faith in the efficiency of our government institutions encourages me to expect success.”

  My friend’s cheerful certainty had an effect upon the chronic cynicism of our host, whose ferociousness of feature had abated to some degree. “I shall be in your debt, quite literally. It goes without saying that history will as well.”

  “History can look to its own account. Yours, Sir Richard, will be discharged if we can prevail upon you to put us up tonight at least. Should Patterson take flight, it’s best we learn of the fact simultaneously with you. Action must be taken in concert and at once.”

  Burton accepted Holmes’s terms without hesitation. His majordomo, a Mameluke whose British livery did not subtract from his ferocious countenance, was sent round to our quarters with a note to Mrs. Hudson to pack two overnight cases. By the time he returned, we had dined with Sir Richard and his lady, on curried lamb such as I hadn’t tasted since my Indian service, paradoxically prepared by their stoic Scottish cook, and been shown to our room.

  It contained two camp beds and various items of arcania which had spilled into it from the master’s overladen study. A stuffed mongoose perched on a shelf above my bed, feeding upon a lifelike cobra. That night I dreamt of Calcutta.

  Our game had not flown by morning, when Holmes with some difficulty persuaded Burton to stay home rather than accompany us upon our mission.

  “Your illustrious scars, and Patterson’s familiarity, would put the odds overmuch in his favour. Compose your soul in patience this one time. I assure you the game will prove worthy of the candle.”

  We donned our simplest garb and alighted from the hansom several squares ahead of our destination. It was a neighbourhood of day-laborers, common loafers, and strangers to prosperity, for whom any unfamiliar visitor who did not arrive by shank’s mare or the Underground was suspect.

  Holmes, armed with Patterson’s description, enquired at the post office on his street, and satisfied himself that our quarry had not been in yet that day. Thereupon we took up our vigil outside the entrance.

  There, a group of unfortunates in motley attire crouched glumly on the steps and pavement, hoping to earn a shilling helping the odd customer carry his or her parcels. Upon Holmes’s advice, I ignored the black looks we received from our supposed rivals, whilst fingering the revolver in my coat pocket. There were evil faces in that crew, some of whom (I had no doubt) were described in detail in police bulletins posted inside the building.

  The day wore on. People of every description, although few thriving in appearance, came and went; fewer still succumbing to our companions’ ministrations to relieve them of their burdens upon exiting. Lady Isabel had provided us with cold mutton sandwiches, which we unwrapped at mid-day, and earned some grudging approval from the others when we shared them with those who had not brought along provisions.

  Throughout our surveillance, we did not converse beyond the necessary. Curious as I was to learn what we were about, experience had taught me the folly of trying to draw Holmes out on the details of his plans.

  Towards late afternoon, a catch in Holmes’s breath aroused m
e from the stupefaction of boredom. His hand closed firmly upon my near wrist. I noted then a youngish man approaching.

  He was in need of a haircut and wore a shabby overcoat, but his bearing betrayed breeding. His hair colouring and blue eyes, shot through at that early hour with the ensanguination of strong drink, matched the description Burton had given us of James Patterson, the disinherited son of one of the heroes of Roarke’s Drift.

  I grasped the handle of my pistol, but was prevented from drawing it out by a quick squeeze of Holmes’s hand. Thus we stood unmoving as Burton’s late assistant climbed the steps and entered the post office.

  Leaning close, Holmes whispered in my ear.

  “If he should emerge carrying a parcel, we shall follow him until we’re clear of these other fellows. He may have friends among them. Be prepared, upon my signal, to step in close and press your revolver against his ribs. Discreetly, I beseech you; a day at the Assizes to answer a charge of robbery by a passing patrolman may undo a lifetime of respectable behaviour.”

  An eternity seemed to pass before Patterson reappeared. In truth it was not quite five minutes. He sauntered down the steps, considerably lighter on his heels than he had seemed on the way up. Beneath his right arm, clutched as tightly as if it contained the treasure of the Tower, rode a brown paper–wrapped parcel no larger than an officer’s toilet kit.

  As directed, I fell in beside Holmes and we trailed the young man at a distance of fifty yards until we were well quit of the crowd outside the post office. Then we picked up our pace, and an instant before the sound of our approaching footsteps must alert Patterson to our presence, Holmes cried, “Now, Watson! Sharp!”

  I stepped in quickly, thrusting my weapon’s muzzle through the material of my coat pocket against Patterson’s side, just as he turned. He seemed to recognise the feel of the tempered steel, for he tensed. At that same instant, the detective circled round in front of him. His eyes were bright.

  “Your game is done, Patterson! My friend is no stranger to the hazardous life, and will not hesitate to fire if you offer him no choice. The parcel, if you please.” He held out a hand.

  The young man wet his lips noisily. “Is it a hold-up, then?” asked he, loudly.

  “Were I you, I would not seek to summon police help, however clumsily. It would be the word of a disgraced son against a knight of the realm.” Holmes’s tone was withering in its contempt.

  The tension went out of Patterson like wind from a torn sail. He surrendered the parcel.

  Instinctively I stepped back a pace, widening my field of fire, whilst Holmes tore away the coarse brown paper. Within seconds he had exposed a box covered in black fabric, with a round opening on one side encircled by shining steel.

  “A marvelous invention, the Kodak,” said he, extricating a square brown envelope from the wrapping. “It makes every man a Louis Daguerre, without the expense of maintaining a processing laboratory. One has but to snap away until the rolled film is exposed, then send the camera to the company headquarters in America, where it is opened, the film is developed, and camera and pictures are returned by the next post. With the aid of Mr. Fulton’s equally marvellous steamship, a British subject can expect to view the results within a month.”

  As he spoke, Holmes drew a sheaf of glossy photographic paper from the envelope, and there on that scrofulous street in modern London, we three gazed upon page after page of writing which few men had laid eyes on since before the fall of Rome.

  Sir Richard Burton, seated at one of the desks in his study in a worn fez and an equally venerable dressing-gown of heavy Chinese silk, shuffled through the photographs like a seer reading the Tarot. His predatory eyes were bright.

  “The bounder’s a passing good photographer, thank the Lord for that,” said he. “Shot ten pages at a time, and with some enlargement and the help of a good glass, I should be able to decipher them all. How in thunder did you work it out?”

  “His brief infatuation with the Kodak stood out against the indolent portrait you painted,” Holmes said. “When you referred to his trips to the corner post office, the thing was fairly settled for me. What interest can a disinherited man, recently dismissed and without prospects, have in the post? I withheld my suspicions until I could examine the vicinity where the theft took place. The scrap of parchment near the hearth, and the missing camera, eliminated any other theory which might have proposed itself.”

  “You have rescued history.”

  “Tish-tosh. I have merely saved you the price of Patterson’s extortion. He would almost certainly have approached you with the pictures, as you surmised. In any case, the credit is as much Watson’s as mine. You’d have done well to have so nimble a companion in Africa.”

  “If I’d had you both, I’d have tracked the blasted Nile to its cradle,” he grumbled. “You let Patterson go?”

  “I thought it best the record of Tutankhamen’s tomb remain with you than in the evidence room at Scotland Yard. I did him no service. Eventually he will commit a crime for which no one can or will absolve him.”

  Burton studied each photograph in turn a second time. At last he set them down and rose, offering Holmes his hand. “I wish I’d known you in ’60.”

  “You would not have found me diverting company, Sir Richard. I was six years old.”

  The case which I have indulged myself so far as to call “The Adventure of the Arabian Knight” has shed more light upon the singular methods of Sherlock Holmes than upon the undefiled resting-place of an Egyptian Pharaoh. Twenty-six months after the events herinfore described, Sir Richard Burton died, a victim of a combination of ailments he’d contracted during his many explorations into places which before him were unknown to white society. His loss was regretted in some quarters, celebrated in others. History, in which he placed so much store, will determine whether he was a serious scholar or a reckless adventurer bent only on sensation.

  In order to protect her late husband’s reputation from malicious gossip connected to some manuscripts she found morally objectionable, Lady Isabel Burton burned most of his voluminous papers. Among them, it must be concluded, since nothing has since been heard of them, were the photographs James Patterson took of the Egyptian document and any notes Burton may have made subsequent to their recovery. In view of this calamity, it seems likely that King Tut’s tomb will remain forever buried beneath the sand of many centuries.

  John H. Watson

  10 May 1904

  THE ADVENTURE

  OF THE THREE

  GHOSTS

  “Compliments of the season, Watson. I note Lady Featherstone retains her childhood infatuation with you. She thinks you twelve feet tall and two yards wide at the shoulders.”

  Scarcely had I entered the ground floor at 221B Baker Street and surrendered my outerwear to the redoubtable Mrs. Hudson when I was thus greeted by Sherlock Holmes, who stood upon the landing outside the flat we’d shared for so long. He wore his prized old mouse-colored dressing-gown, and his eyes were brighter than usual.

  “Good Lord, Holmes,” said I, climbing the stairs. “How could you know I saw Constance Featherstone this morning? Her invitation to breakfast was the first contact I have had with her since the wedding.”

  “You forget, dear fellow, that I know your wardrobe as well as your wife does. I can hardly be expected not to notice a new muffler, particularly when it bears the Dornoch tartan. You told me once in a loquacious humour of your early romance with Constance Dornoch. Who but she would present you with such a token in honour of the holiday? And who but a sentimental lady who still thought you taller and broader than the common breed of man would knot one so long and bulky that it wound five times round your not inconsiderable neck and stood out like the oaken collar of a Mongolian slave?”

  I simply shook my head, for to remark upon my friend’s preternatural powers of observation and deduction would be merely to repeat myself for the thousandth time. Ensconced presently in my old armchair in the dear old cluttered sitting-ro
om I knew so well, I accepted a glass of whisky to draw the December chill from my bones and enquired what he was up to at present.

  “Your timing is opportune,” said he, folding his long limbs into the basket chair, where with his hands resting upon his knees he bore no small resemblance to an East Indian shaman. “In ten minutes I shall hail a hansom to carry me to an address on Threadneedle Street, where I fully expect my fare to be paid by the Earl of Chislehurst.”

  I nodded, not greatly impressed, although Lord Chislehurst was a respected Member of Parliament and a frequent weekend guest at Balmoral, and whispered about as the Queen’s favoured candidate for Minister of Finance. In the hierarchy of Holmes’s clients, which had included a pontiff, a Prime Minister of England, and a foreign king, a noble banker placed fairly low. “A problem involving money?” I asked.

  “No, a haunting. Are you interested?”

  I responded that I most certainly was; and ten minutes later, my friend having exchanged his dressing-gown for an ulster, warm woollen muffler, and his favourite earflapped travelling cap, we were in a hansom rolling and sliding over the icy pavement through a gentle fall of snow. Vendors were hawking roast chestnuts, and over everything, the grim grey buildings and the holiday shoppers hurrying to and fro, bearing armloads of brightly wrapped packages, there had settled a festive atmosphere which transformed our dreary old London into a magical kingdom. In two days it would be gone, along with Christmas itself, but for the moment it lightened the heart and gilded it with hope.

  “The earl is not a fanciful man,” explained Holmes, holding on to the side of the conveyance. “A decade ago he acquired a money-lending institution teetering on the precipice of ruin and within a few short years brought it to the point where it is now universally thought of as one of the ten or twelve most reliable banking firms in England. Such men do not take lightly to ghosts.”