Selections from The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Page 8
"Good God, Holmes," I cried. "Are you telling me those poor wretches died simply because their instruments made sounds resembling that creature's natural prey?"
"I not only believe it," said Holmes, "I intend to prove it, by the most direct means possible."
He drew out the trombone from his bag, along with a copy of the sheet music for Thaxted.
"You will not need your pistol, Watson. It would be entirely useless against the creature. Shooting it accurately in the brain would be as hard as hitting a bull from a hundred yards, and I imagine even four-five-five ball would simply bounce off its scaly hide."
We were walking through a wilderness of winter-deadened trees, in a fog in which an entire herd of hadrosauridae could have stood shoulder to shoulder unobserved. A bandstand loomed out of the murk. Posters announced a forthcoming event involving royalty.
"There do not seem to be any dinosaurs in the vicinity, Holmes. I feel sure that such large animals would advertise their presence."
"A predator," said Holmes, "never advertises its presence." And he raised the trombone to his lips, and blew out the final bar of Thaxted. A tear rose to my eye at the thought of the country all of whose ways are gentleness, all of whose paths are peace.
Then the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end as I heard a distant, clumsy crashing from far away in the fog, as if a drunken coachman were attempting to drive an omnibus through heavy brush.
"The hunter's afoot," said Holmes. "And it is we who are the game." He motioned to me to follow as he stole away.
"Confound it, Holmes! I hadn't expected your damnable theory to actually be correct!"
"My theories, Watson, are always correct." With that, he plunged into a nearby drain or ha-ha and squelched ponderously along it, not appearing in any hurry to get to the other side. "Into the water, Watson. In this fog the beast will hunt by scent."
I have no shame in relating that I piled into the water more smartly than I have ever piled into water before, particularly since I heard, at a somewhat lesser distance now, the immense crackling whisper of something dreadfully, fearfully heavy walking across the carpet of fallen leaves on the Heath towards our former position. Walking slowly, and appearing to deviate to left and right, like a questing hound. I believe I actually heard breath, escaping like a head of steam from a ship's boiler.
"Do not make a sound, Watson, for your life depends on it."
Holmes claims that he still saw nothing at that point—I would have been able to see nothing even had the beast been standing right next to me, for I had my eyes tight shut. But at that point, we heard another sound, deep and sonorous, singing out through the fog—the sound of the low notes of a violin. It is difficult to convey how I knew purely from the sounds I heard through the mist that a Mesozoic lizard was cocking its head on one side, but somehow I knew this was what was happening, as if a bird on a branch had heard another bird whistle, or a dog heard its owner call.
We heard it plunge away through the fog.
"As I suspected," said Holmes. "There are two hadrosaur species."
We sat in the pleasant surroundings of the Jack Straw's Castle inn near the flagstaff on the northern perimeter of the Heath. Warm beer was a welcome antidote to the cold.
"I cannot understand, Holmes, how the fact that there were two species of hadrosauriwhatsit can possibly be significant."
"Quite simple, I imagine. The first species, whose calls sound like those of a trombonist executing the final bars of Thaxted, are our megalosaurus's preferred prey. The second species, meanwhile, whose call is more violinlike, are a related animal which moves with the herds of the first. But our carnivore will not attack this second species."
"It will not?"
"I will stake my life on it. These animals are not prey. Their flesh is shunned by our megalosaurus, which will nevertheless follow them in much the same way a lion will follow an animal it is incapable of bringing down, such as a rhinoceros, in the hope of finding other herbivores it can bring down. Nevertheless, Watson, whoever is controlling this creature is playing fiddle with the Devil. And he is about to walk through that door, right about—now."
The doors opened to admit a shabby-looking street musician, similar in appearance to the poor devil I had examined only a day earlier.
"Mr. Green, I believe," said Holmes. "Formerly music teacher to the family of Professor Challenger of Enmore Park. No, don't trouble yourself to pull out that revolver. You will find that almost every person in this hostelry right now is an armed member of Her Majesty's Metropolitan Police."
Eerily, as if Holmes were some macabre puppeteer, every single one of the establishment's customers turned round and raised their hats to the newcomer.
"You will perhaps be mystified as to how I know your name. You are, of course, an adherent of the Fenian cause and a proponent of Home Rule for Ireland. The merits or demerits of that question I leave to politicians. I involve myself only at the point when people believe their political causes justify murder. Your principal mistake was in presenting yourself, in disguise, to your former employer as a meat wholesaler of the name of Glass. 'Glas,' as Watson doubtless does not know but I certainly do, is the Gaelic for Green, a childish conceit which led to your downfall. You noticed several months ago whilst tutoring Professor Challenger's children that the notes of the trombone appeared to induce a blind killing rage in the juvenile megalosaurus chained up at the other end of the drawing room. The notes of the violin, meanwhile, served only to attract its attention and cause it to follow the violinist round the room. It was after learning these facts that you formulated your plan.
You planned to remove the beast from confinement using two of your Fenian confederates, and train it to attack human beings. The small number of bites inflicted on his serving staff had convinced Challenger that the creature did not seek out human beings as prey; it needed to be taught to do so. And you, Mr. Green, have been teaching it to kill for the last twelve months. And why have you been doing so? Why, in only one week's time, His Majesty King George is due to attend an open air concert at the Parliament Hill bandstand on the Heath, where the final piece on the programme will be Mr. Spring-Rice's inspired lyrics to Thaxted by Gustav Holst. In fact, it is only the final note of that tune that sets off the beast, am I right?" Holmes began whistling the final few bars of Thaxted.
The musician's face palled.
"For pity's sake," he exclaimed, in a pronounced Dublin brogue, "you do not know what you're doing. If you value your life, if you value all our lives, stop!"
And Holmes did stop, drawing out that long penultimate note, and laughed. "Indeed," he chuckled. "How could it be otherwise? We have Professor Challenger's word that you practised Holst's Jupiter in the beast's presence without ill effect. Jupiter, of course, would have been safe to practise, for in Jupiter, which is otherwise identical to Thaxted, the final note never resolves. Were you, perhaps, hoping that the beast would wreak such havoc among the crowd that His Majesty would be trampled?"
The scarlet-haired Fenian shook his head. "You do me an injustice, sir. If you had only troubled to look further into the cast of the orchestra, you would have discovered I was to play the principal trombone. I intended to place myself directly before the monarch of your despicable island, blowing my horn for all I was worth. The beast would surely have taken the ermine-laden buffoon after it had finished with me."
Holmes nodded. "I see you are a man of courage, if a misguided one. I am offering you an honourable way out."
He extended a hand, proffering the trombone. The Irishman nodded sadly and accepted it. Holmes picked up the untouched pint of ale he had been nursing since we arrived, and held it up as well.
"A last drink for a condemned man."
Green accepted the pint, and drained it with gusto. Then, he turned round to the assembled police officers and cried:
"Fianna Fail!"
—before striding out through the inn doors into the white murk. We saw no more of him; but heard, d
roning in from without, the clear, calm notes of that timeless patriotic hymn which, I became more acutely aware than ever before, apply to any country, any King, and more especially to that great country we all hope to become citizens of upon our end.
Then, suddenly, there was a great thundering crash, and a hideous roaring, and the notes of the trombone ceased as the instrument itself was flung out of the fog, bent double, towards the window where we sat.
"Gods, what a beast! It will take a troop of soldiers with an artillery piece to kill it!"
"I think not," said Holmes. "That pint of ale contained enough strychnine to kill ten elephants. Now, I believe there is time for me to consume another less dangerous pint before we repair to the bandstand, where I believe the local brass ensemble is currently setting up to practise. I fancy I could stand to hear that tune again."
And he clicked his fingers for the barman to bring him another beer.
Dynamics of a Hanging
by Tony Pi
Tony Pi has a Ph.D. in Linguistics and currently works as an administrator at the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. At the time of this writing, he is a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. His work has appeared in (or is forthcoming from) Abyss & Apex, On Spec, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and the anthologies Ages of Wonder, Cinema Spec, and Writers of the Future XXIII. He is currently working on a novel manuscript about the shapeshifters who first appeared in his story "Metamorphoses in Amber," which was a finalist for the Prix Aurora Award.
Most people know Lewis Carroll (the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) as the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Dodgson became good friends with the family of one of his academic colleagues, the Liddells, and would often take their children along with him when he went rowing on the nearby rivers. During these expeditions he would make up fanciful tales to entertain the children, and one of the girls, Alice, was so enchanted that she begged Dodgson to write it all down. The enthusiastic reception for the manuscript by fantasy author George MacDonald and his children convinced Dodgson to pursue publication. Dodgson's private life has been the subject of intense speculation, especially regarding his relationship with the Liddells. (Dodgson's family apparently destroyed several pages of his diary, presumably to protect his reputation.) We know that he was tormented by feelings of guilt and shame, which apparently restrained him from following his father into the priesthood. It's all very mysterious. One thing that's beyond any doubt though is that Dodgson demonstrated brilliance in many different fields. Notably, he held a lectureship in mathematics, and wrote books on logic. It's those abilities that he puts to good use in our next adventure.
It was in the fall of 1891 that I received a telegram from the Reverend Charles Dodgson, inviting me to his residence in Guildford, Surrey. It was not for a medical consultation, but of vital importance to the present trial of the Moriarty gang: the mystery of Professor Moriarty's cipher.
Reverend Dodgson was both an author of children's books and a mathematician. My wife was fond of the Alice books under his nom-de-plume, Lewis Carroll, while Holmes once recommended me to read his Game of Logic to hone my analytical reasoning. It surprised me that Dodgson knew of the coded notebooks, as their existence had been suppressed. It was not five months ago that my friend Sherlock Holmes perished at Reichenbach Falls in his final confrontation with James Moriarty. Even in death, Holmes struck a fatal blow against Moriarty's criminal confederates, leaving documents that thoroughly incriminated them. Inspector Patterson invited me to examine the materials recovered from one of Moriarty's secret lairs: vials of opiates among blueprints and handwritten musical scores; purloined paintings beside burned account books; and most intriguing, notebooks written in Moriarty's hand, the oldest of which had a page torn out.
Moriarty's notebooks contained mathematical formulae interspersed with code. Mycroft Holmes speculated it was a Vigenère cipher, but even he couldn't solve it. "Alas, both the Kasiski and Kerckhoffs methods failed," said Mycroft. "If only we knew what the coded messages were about. Are they musings on mathematics, or something more sinister? Find the key, Watson, and we'll glimpse Moriarty's mind."
I was intrigued by Dodgson's message. Did he know the key, when even Mycroft Holmes failed? I immediately dispatched a telegram accepting his invitation.
Thus I found myself in Guildford, sipping tea with Charles Dodgson in his parlour. The Reverend, a thin man with uneven blue eyes and sloped shoulders, tilted his left ear towards me as we talked.
"My condolences, Doctor Watson, on the untimely passing of Mr. Holmes," said he. "I fear I must bear some of the burden for his demise."
"Oh? Did you know him?" I asked.
"I knew of Holmes at Oxford, though we never met. It was James Moriarty I knew, through our years at Christ Church debating mathematics and logic. Is there a volume from Moriarty's effects, with a single coded page torn out?"
"Indeed!" I exclaimed. "How did you know?"
"Because I have that page." Dodgson retrieved a copy of Through the Looking Glass from his collection. Tucked within was the coded page he spoke of, folded and yellowed with age. "Tenniel's Jabberwock illustration always reminds me of Moriarty, hypnotic and serpentine."
"How did you get this?"
"That, Doctor, is a twisted tale," said he. "It began with the Order of Copernicus, and ended with the tragic murder of a young prodigy named Arthur Doyle."
The Order of Copernicus is a fellowship of scholars, physicians, mathematicians and philosophers. The Copernicans often invite new members to enrich their symposia with fresh ideas and voices. Moriarty first introduced me to the Order years ago, after he completed his dissertation on the Binomial Theorem. I found their debates enthralling, and participated whenever I could.
In early summer, 1879, Moriarty and I were invited to Aston by a fellow Copernican, Doctor Reginald Hoare. Reginald introduced us to his young lodger, Arthur Doyle, a medical student who was working as a dispensing assistant taking house calls on Reginald's behalf. I found him an engaging conversationalist and a sharp observer.
"What do you plan to do with your future, Arthur?" I asked.
"Surgery, sir," said Arthur. "I'm very much inspired by Doctor Bell at the Edinburgh University. But I'd also like to become a writer like you, actually, and have written some stories for Reginald's children. Edgar Allan Poe's another inspiration, and I'm attempting a mystery now."
"Poe! Now there was a true Copernican. I heard he was a great cryptographer," I said.
Moriarty disagreed. "He indulged in substitution codes, barely worth the effort to solve, unlike Vigenère ciphers."
Arthur asked what a Vigenère cipher was.
"It's based on the Caesar cipher, which shifted letters by a chosen number of positions, looping back to the beginning of the alphabet if necessary," I explained. "Shift the word JABBERWOCKY four positions to the right, you'd have NEFFIVSGOC. To solve the coded message, apply the shift in reverse.
"The Vigenère cipher uses a keyword where each letter in the alphabet represented a different shift. For example, if ALICE were my keyword, that would mean shifts of 0, 11, 8, 2, and 5. The keyword is repeated as needed, and so JABBERWOCKY becomes JLJDIRHWEOY."
Moriarty nodded. "There are mathematical ways to solve a Vigenère code. Kasiski's method determines the length of the keyword by measuring distances between repeating combinations, then uses frequency analysis to break the code. Kerckhoffs' method focuses on solving the keyword itself."
"Moriarty, didn't you have a notebook at Christ Church where you jotted down your formulae?" I asked. "You used a cipher on the annotations. Was that Vigenère?"
Moriarty smiled. "It was, to ensure that the musings and errors of my youth were for my eyes alone. But I'm confident that my code cannot be broken by either the Kerckhoffs or Kasiski solutions. They assume the keyword would be short, and repeated. But if the keyword's significantly long, like a piece of text, then a coded message would be virtually unbreaka
ble."
"Respectfully, Professor, the keyword may be impervious to analysis, but the codemaker is not," said Arthur. "At medical school, Professor Bell taught us to observe the person as well as the disease in our diagnoses. By analyzing the man's habits, experiences and indulgences, one can deduce the choice of text he uses for his code."
"You presume to unriddle my cipher by mere observation?" asked Moriarty.
"If I had the chance to get to know you better, Professor, I daresay I could figure out your code," said Arthur.