by Otto Penzler
“I did not, as a matter of fact, call upon the Colonel.”
“No? Your natural curiosity did not get the better of you?”
“When I arrived the following morning, Colonel Warburton as well as Sam Jefferson had vanished into thin air.”
I had expected this revelation to strike like a bolt from the firmament, but was destined for disappointment.
“Ha,” Holmes said with the trace of a smile. “Had they indeed?”
“Molly and Charles Warburton were beside themselves with worry. The safe had been opened and many deeds and securities, not to mention paper currency, were missing. There was no sign of force, so they theorized that their uncle had been compelled or convinced to provide the combination.
“A search party set out at once, of course, and descriptions of Warburton and Jefferson circulated, but to no avail. The mad Colonel and his servant, either together or separately, voluntarily or against their wills, quit the city without leaving a single clue behind them. Upon my evidence, the police brought Portillo in for questioning, but he provided a conclusive alibi and could not be charged. And so Colonel Warburton’s obsession with war, as well as the inscrutable designs of his manservant, remain to this day unexplained.
“What do you think of it?” I finished triumphantly, for Holmes by this time leaned forward in his chair, entirely engrossed.
“I think that Sam Jefferson—apart from you and your noble intentions, my dear fellow—was quite the hero of this tale.”
“How can you mean?” I asked, puzzled. “Surely the darkroom incident casts him in an extremely suspicious light. All we know is that he disappeared, probably with the Colonel, and the rumor in San Francisco told that they were both stolen away by the Tejano ghost who possessed the house. That is rubbish, of course, but even now I cannot think where they went, or why.”
“It is impossible to know where they vanished,” Holmes replied, his gray eyes sparkling, “but I can certainly tell you why.”
“Dear God, you have solved it?” I exclaimed in delight. “You cannot be in earnest—I’ve wracked my brain over it all these years to no avail. What the devil happened?”
“First of all, Watson, I fear I must relieve you of a misapprehension. I believe Molly and Charles Warburton were the authors of a nefarious and subtle plot which, if not for your intervention and Sam Jefferson’s, might well have succeeded.”
“How could you know that?”
“Because you have told me, my dear fellow, and a very workman-like job you did in posting me up. Ask yourself when the Colonel’s mental illness first began. What was his initial symptom?”
“He changed his will.”
“It is, you will own, a very telling starting point. So telling, in fact, that we must pay it the most stringent attention.” Holmes jumped to his feet and commenced pacing the carpet like a mathematician expounding over a theorem. “Now, there are very few steps—criminal or otherwise—one can take when one is disinherited. Forgery is a viable option, and the most common. Murder is out, unless your victim has yet to sign his intentions into effect. The Warburtons hit upon a scheme as cunning as it is rare: they undertook to prove a sane man mad.”
“But, Holmes, that can scarcely be possible.”
“I admit that fortune was undoubtedly in their favor. The Colonel already suffered from an irrational preoccupation with the supernatural. Additionally, his bedroom lacked any sort of ornament, and young Charles Warburton specialized in photographic technique.”
“My dear chap, you know I’ve the utmost respect for your remarkable faculty, but I cannot fathom a word of what you just said,” I confessed.
“I shall do better, then,” he laughed. “Have we any reason to think Jefferson lied when he told you of the ghost’s earthly manifestations?”
“He could have meant anything by it. He could have slit that hole and stolen that firewood himself.”
“Granted. But it was after you told him of Portillo’s presence that he broke into the photography studio.”
“You see a connection between Portillo and Charles Warburton’s photographs?”
“Decidedly so, as well as a connection between the photographs, the blank wall, and the torn-out lilac bush.”
“Holmes, that doesn’t even—”
I stopped myself as an idea dawned on me. Finally, after the passage of many years, I was beginning to understand.
“You are talking about a magic lantern,” I said slowly. “By God, I have been so blind.”
“You were remarkably astute, my boy, for you took note of every essential detail. As a matter of fact, I believe you can take it from here,” he added with more than his usual grace.
“The Colonel disinherited his niece and nephew, possibly because he abhorred their mercenary natures, in favor of war charities,” I stated hesitantly. “In a stroke of brilliance, they decided to make it seem war was his mania and he could not be allowed to so slight his kin. Charles hired Juan Portillo to appear in a series of photographs as a Tejano soldier, and promised that he would be paid handsomely if he kept the sessions dead secret. The nephew developed the images onto glass slides and projected them through a magic lantern device outside the window in the dead of night. His victim was so terrified by the apparition on his wall, he never thought to look for its source behind him. The first picture, threatening the white woman, likely featured Molly Warburton. But for the second plate…”
“That of the knife plunging into the Texian’s chest, they borrowed the Colonel’s old garb and probably placed it on a dummy. The firewood disappeared when a number of men assembled, further off on the grounds, to portray rebels with torches. The lilac, as is obvious—”
“Stood in the way of the magic lantern apparatus,” I cried. “What could be simpler?”
“And the headaches the Colonel experienced afterward?” my friend prodded me.
“Likely an aftereffect of an opiate or narcotic his family added to his meal in order to heighten the experience of the vision in his bedchamber.”
“And Sam Jefferson?”
“A deeply underestimated opponent who saw the Warburtons for what they were and kept a constant watch. The only thing he stole was a look at the plates in Charles’s studio as his final piece of evidence. When they sent him packing, he told the Colonel all he knew and they—”
“Were never heard from again,” Holmes finished with a poetic flourish.
“In fact, it was the perfect revenge,” I laughed. “Colonel Warburton had no interest in his own wealth, and he took more than enough to live from the safe. And after all, when he was finally declared dead, his estate was distributed just as he wished it.”
“Yes, a number of lucky events occurred. I am grateful, as I confess I have been at other times, that you are an utterly decent fellow, my dear doctor.”
“I don’t understand,” I said in some confusion.
“I see the world in terms of cause and effect. If you had not been the sort of man willing to treat a rogue wounded in a knife fight who had no means of paying you, it is possible you would not have had the opportunity to tell me this story.”
“It wasn’t so simple as all that,” I muttered, rather abashed, “but thank—”
“And an admirable story it was too. You know, Watson,” Holmes continued, extinguishing his pipe, “from all I have heard of America, it must be an exceedingly fertile ground for men of mettle. The place lives almost mythically in the estimations of most Englishmen. I myself have scarcely met an American, ethically inclined or otherwise, who did not possess a certain audacity of mind.”
“It’s the pioneer in them, I suppose. Still, I cannot help but think that you are more than a match for anyone, American or otherwise,” I assured him.
“I would not presume to contradict you, but that vast expanse boasts more than its share of crime as well as of imagination, and for that reason commands some respect. I am not a complete stranger to the American criminal,” he said with a smile.
> “I should be delighted to hear you expound on that subject,” I exclaimed, glancing longingly at my notebook and pen.
“Another time, perhaps.” My friend paused, his long fingers drumming along with the drops as he stared out our front window, eyes glittering brighter than the rain-soaked street below. “Perhaps one day we may both find occasion to test ourselves further on their soil.” He glanced back at me abruptly. “I should have liked to have met this Sam Jefferson, for instance. He had a decided talent.”
“Talent or no, he was there to witness the events; you solved them based on a secondhand account by a man who’d never so much as heard of the Science of Deduction at the time.”
“There are precious few crimes in this world, merely a hundred million variations,” he shrugged. “It was a fetching little problem, however, no matter it was not matchless. The use of the magic lantern, although I will never prove it, I believe to have been absolutely inspired. Now,” he proclaimed, striding to his violin and picking it up, “if you would be so kind as to locate the brandy and cigars you mentioned earlier, I will show my appreciation by entertaining you in turn. You’ve come round to my liking for Kreutzer, I think? Capital. I must thank you for bringing your very interesting case to my attention; I shall lose no time informing my brother I solved it without moving a muscle. And now, friend Watson, we shall continue our efforts to enliven a dreary afternoon.”
The Infernal Machine
JOHN LUTZ
WITH MORE THAN forty novels and two hundred short stories to his credit, John Thomas Lutz (1939– ) has demonstrated both the ingenuity and work ethic of historically prolific writers who turned out entertaining prose year after year. Born in Dallas, Lutz moved to St. Louis when young and has lived there ever since. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1975, he had jobs as a construction worker, theater usher, warehouse worker, truck driver, and switchboard operator for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
His writing career has been as varied as his background, producing private-eye stories and many other types of fiction, including political suspense, humor, occult, psychological suspense, espionage, historical, futuristic, police procedural, and urban suspense. When asked why he writes serial-killer novels, he replied, “Serial paychecks.” His first series character, Alo Nudger, who debuted in Buyer Beware (1976), is an unlikely private eye, so compassionate that he appears meek, a borderline coward paralyzed by overdue bills, clients who refuse to pay him, and a blood-sucking former wife.
A more traditional character is the Florida-based P.I. Fred Carver, a former cop forced off the job when a street punk kneecapped him; his first appearance is in Tropical Heat (1986). Lutz’s most commercially successful book is probably SWF Seeks Same (1990), a suspense thriller that served as the basis for the 1992 movie Single White Female starring Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh. His novel The Ex (1996) was adapted for an HBO movie of the same title in 1997; Lutz coauthored the screenplay.
Lutz has served as the president of the Mystery Writers of America and has been nominated for three Edgar Awards, winning in 1986 for best short story for “Ride the Lightning.”
“The Infernal Machine” was first published in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Martin Harry Greenberg and Carol-Lynn Rössel Waugh (New York, Carroll & Graf, 1987).
THE INFERNAL MACHINE
John Lutz
NOT THAT, AT times, my dear friend and associate Sherlock Holmes can’t play the violin quite beautifully, but at the moment the melancholy, wavering tunelessness produced by the shrill instrument was getting on my nerves.
I put down my copy of the Times. “Holmes, must you be so repetitious in your choice of notes?”
“It’s in the very repetition that I hope to find some semblance of order and meaning,” he said. He held his hawkish profile high, tucked the violin tighter beneath his narrow chin, and the screeching continued—certainly more piercing than before.
“Holmes!”
“Very well, Watson.” He smiled and placed the violin back in its case. Then he slumped into the wing chair opposite me, tamped tobacco into his clay pipe, and assumed the attitude of a spoiled child whose mince pie has been withheld for disciplinary purposes. I knew where he’d turn next, after finding no solace in the violin, and I must confess I felt guilty at having been harsh with him.
When he’s acting the hunter in his capacity as consulting detective, no man is more vibrant with interest than Holmes. But when he’s had no case for some weeks, and there’s no prospect of one on the horizon, he becomes zombielike in his withdrawal into boredom. It had been nearly a month since the successful conclusion of the case of the twice-licked stamp.
Holmes suddenly cocked his head to the side, almost in the manner of a bird stalking a worm, at the clatter of footsteps on the stairs outside our door. From below, the cheerful voice of Mrs. Hudson wafted up, along with her light, measured footfalls. A man’s voice answered her pleasantries. Neither voice was loud enough to be understood by us.
“Visitor, Watson.” Even as Holmes spoke there was a firm knock on the door.
I rose, crossed the cluttered room, and opened it.
“A Mr. Edgewick to see Mr. Holmes,” Mrs. Hudson said, and withdrew.
I ushered Edgewick in and bade him sit in the chair where I’d been perusing the Times. He was a large, handsome man in his mid-thirties, wearing a well-cut checked suit and polished boots that had reddish mud on their soles. He had straight blond hair and an even blonder brush-trimmed mustache. He looked up at me with a troubled expression and said, “Mr. Holmes?”
I smiled. “You’ve recently come from Northwood,” I said. “You’re unmarried and are concerned about the well-being of a woman.”
Holmes, too, was smiling. “Amazing, Watson. Pray tell us how you did it.”
“Certainly. The red clay on Mr. Edgewick’s boots is found mainly in Northwood. He’s not wearing a wedding ring, so he isn’t married. And since he’s a handsome chap and obviously in some personal distress, the odds are good there’s a young woman involved.”
Holmes’s amused eyes darted to Edgewick, who seemed flustered by my incisiveness.
“Actually,” he said, “I am married—my ring is at the jewelers being resized. The matter I came here about only indirectly concerns a woman. And I haven’t been to Northwood in years.”
“The hansom cab you arrived in apparently carried a recent passenger from Northwood,” Holmes said. “The mud should dry on this warm day as the hansom sits downstairs awaiting your return.”
I must admit my mouth fell open, as did Edgewick’s. “How on earth did you know he’d instructed a hansom to wait, Holmes? You were nowhere near the window.”
Holmes gave a backhand wave, trailing his long fingers. “If Mr. Edgewick hasn’t been to Northwood, Watson, the most logical place for him to have picked up the red mud is from the floor of the hansom cab.”
Edgewick was sitting forward, intrigued. “But how did you know I’d arrived in a hansom to begin with, and instructed the driver to wait downstairs?”
“Your walking stick.”
I felt my eyebrows raise as I looked again where Edgewick sat. “What walking stick, Holmes?”
“The one whose tip left the circular indentation on the toe of Mr. Edgewick’s right boot as he sat absently leaning on it in the cab, as is the habit of many men who carry a stick. The soft leather still maintains the impression. And since he hasn’t the walking stick with him, and his footfalls on the stairs preclude him from having brought it up with him to leave outside in the hall, we can deduce that he left it in the hansom. Since he hardly seems a careless man, or the possessor of a limitless number of walking sticks, this would suggest that he ordered the cab to wait for him.”
Edgewick looked delighted. “Why, that’s superb! So much from a mere pair of boots!”
“A parlor game,” Holmes snapped, “when not constructively applied.” Again his slow smile as he made a tent with his lean finger
s and peered over it. His eyes were unwavering and sharply focused now. “And I suspect you bring some serious matter that will allow proper application of my skills.”
“Oh, I do indeed. Uh, my name is Wilson Edgewick, Mr. Holmes.”
Holmes made a sweeping gesture with his arm in my direction. “My associate, Dr. Watson.”
Edgewick nodded to me. “Yes, I’ve read his accounts of some of your adventures. Which is why I think you might be able to help me—rather help my brother Landen, actually.”
Holmes settled back in his chair, his eyes half closed. I knew he wasn’t drowsy when he took on such an appearance, but was in fact a receptacle for every bit of information that might flow his way, accepting this as pertinent, rejecting that as irrelevant—acutely alert.
“Do tell us about it, Mr. Edgewick,” he said.
Edgewick glanced at me. I nodded encouragement.
“My brother Landen is engaged to Millicent Oldsbolt.”
“Oldsbolt Munitions?” Holmes asked.
Edgewick nodded, not surprised that Holmes would recognize the Oldsbolt name. Oldsbolt Limited was a major supplier of small arms for the military. I had, in fact, fired Oldsbolt rounds through my army revolver while in the service of the Queen.
“The wedding was to be next spring,” Edgewick went on. “When Landen, and myself, would be financially well-off.”
“Well-off as a result of what?” Holmes asked.
“We’re the English representatives of one Richard Gatling, the inventor of the Gatling gun.”
I couldn’t help but ask, “What on earth is that?”
“It’s an infernal machine that employs many barrels and one firing chamber,” Holmes said. “The cartridges are fed to the chamber by means of a long belt, while the barrels revolve and fire one after the other in rapid succession. The shooter need only aim generally and turn a crank with one hand while the other depresses the trigger. It’s said the Gatling gun can fire almost a hundred rounds per minute. It was used in the Indian Wars in America, on the plains, with great effectiveness.”
