“This is one of Watson’s tales, I take it?”
“Of course. It’s the case of Birlstone and the Scowrers and John McMurdo and Professor Moriarty and—”
“Yes, I believe I can identify the case, although I have often wondered why, if Conan Doyle so likes pseudonyms, he couldn’t have given them to Watson and myself as well.”
“So how did it end?”
“I haven’t the faintest notion. You would have to ask Watson.”
“But surely you know how the case ended,” I said, amazed.
“The case, certainly. But what Watson has made of it, I couldn’t begin to guess, except that there is bound to be gore and passion and secret handshakes. Oh, and some sort of love interest. I deduce, Miss Russell; Watson transforms. Good day.” He went back into the cottage.
Mrs. Hudson, who had stood listening to the exchange, did not comment, but pressed a package into my hands, “for the trip back,” although from the weight of it the eating would take longer than the driving, even if I were to find the interior space for it. However, if I could get it past my aunt’s eyes it would make a welcome supplement to my rations. I thanked her warmly.
“Thank you for coming here, dear child,” she said. “There’s more life in him than I’ve seen for a good many months. Please come again, and soon?”
I promised, and climbed into the car. The driver spun off in a rattle of gravel, and so began my long association with Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNIQUE HAMLET
VINCENT STARRETT
Vincent Starrett may not have invented the fictional biography, but he was one of the first to chronicle the life of Holmes as if he were a historical figure. His The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a staple of that ever-expanding subgenre. “The Adventure of the Unique Hamlet” combines a thoroughly grounded understanding of its subject, sly humor, and a send-up of that “gentle madness” he shared with so many (this editor included): bibliomania. This particular story is now in the public domain.
I.
“Holmes,” said I, one morning as I stood in our bay window, looking idly into the street, “surely here comes a madman. Someone has incautiously left the door open and the poor fellow has slipped out. What a pity!”
It was a glorious morning in the spring, with a fresh breeze and inviting sunlight, but as it was rather early few persons were astir. Birds twittered under the neighboring eaves, and from the far end of the thoroughfare came faintly the droning cry of an umbrella repair man; a lean cat slunk across the cobbles and disappeared into a courtway; but for the most part, the street was deserted save for the eccentric individual who had called forth my exclamation.
My friend rose lazily from the wicker rocker in which he had been lounging and came to my side, standing with long legs spread and hands in the pockets of his dressing gown. He smiled as he saw the singular personage coming along. A personage indeed he seemed to be, despite his odd actions, for he was tall and portly, with elderly whiskers of the brand known as mutton-chop, and he seemed eminently respectable. He was loping curiously, like a tired hound, lifting his knees high as he ran, and a heavy double watch chain of gold bounced against and rebounded from the plump line of his figured waistcoat. With one hand he clutched despairingly at his silk two-gallon hat, while with the other he essayed weird gestures in the air with an emotion bordering upon distraction. We could almost see the spasmodic workings of his countenance.
“What under heaven can ail him?” I cried. “See how he glances at the houses as he passes.”
“He is looking at the numbers,” responded Sherlock Holmes, with dancing eyes, “and I fancy it is ours that will bring him the greatest happiness. His profession, of course, is obvious.”
“A banker, I imagine, or at least a person of affluence,” I hazarded, wondering what curious bit of minutiae had betrayed the man’s business to my remarkable companion, in a single glance.
“Affluent, yes,” said Holmes, with a mischievous grin, “but not exactly a banker, Watson. Notice the sagging pockets, despite the excellence of his clothing, and the rather exaggerated madness of his eye. He is a collector, or I am very much mistaken.”
“My dear fellow!” I exclaimed. “At his age and in his station! And why should he be seeking us? When we settled that last bill—”
“Of books,” said my friend, severely. “He is a professional book collector. His line is Caxtons, Elzevirs, Gutenberg Bibles, folios; not the sordid reminders of unpaid grocery accounts and tobacconists’ debits. See, he is turning in here, as I expected, and in a moment he will stand upon our hearthrug and tell us the harrowing tale of an unique volume and its extraordinary disappearance.”
His eyes gleamed and he rubbed his hands together in profound satisfaction. I could not but hope that Holmes’s conjecture was correct, for he had had little to occupy his mind for some weeks, and I lived in constant fear that he would seek that stimulation his active brain required in the long-tabooed cocaine bottle.
As Holmes finished speaking, the man’s ring at the doorbell echoed through the apartment; hurried feet sounded upon the stairs, while the wailing voice of Mrs. Hudson, raised in agonized protest, could only have been occasioned by frustration of her coveted privilege of bearing his card to us. Then the door burst violently inward and the object of our analysis staggered to the center of the room, and, without announcing his intention by word or sign, pitched head-foremost onto our center rug. There he lay, a magnificent ruin, with his head on the fringed border and his feet in the coal scuttle; and sealed within his lifeless lips the amazing story he had come to tell—for that it was amazing we could not doubt, in the light of our client’s extraordinary behavior.
Holmes quickly ran for the brandy bottle, while I knelt beside the stricken mountain of flesh and loosened the wilted neckband. He was not dead, and when we had forced the nozzle of the flask between his teeth he sat up in groggy fashion, passing a dazed hand across his eyes. Then he scrambled to his feet with an embarrassed apology for his weakness, and fell into the chair that Holmes held invitingly toward him.
“That is right, Mr. Harrington Edwards,” said my companion, soothingly. “Be quite calm, my dear sir, and when you have recovered your composure you will find us ready to listen to your story.”
“You know me, then?” cried our sudden visitor, with pride in his voice and surprised eyebrows lifted.
“I had never heard of you until this moment, but if you wish to conceal your identity it would be well for you to leave your bookplates at home.” As Holmes spoke, he handed the other a little package of folded paper slips, which he had picked from the floor. “They fell from your hat when you had the misfortune to tumble,” he added, with a whimsical smile.
“Yes, yes,” cried the collector, a deep blush spreading over his features. “I remember now; my hat was a little large and I folded a number of them and placed them beneath the sweatband. I had forgotten.”
“Rather shabby usage for a handsome etched plate,” smiled my companion, “but that is your affair. And now, sir, if you are quite at ease, let us hear what it is that has brought you, a collector of books, from Poke Stogis Manor—the name is on the plate—to the office of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, consulting expert in crime. Surely nothing but the theft of Mahomet’s own copy of the Koran can have affected you so amazingly.”
Mr. Harrington Edwards smiled feebly at the jest, then sighed. “Alas,” he murmured, “if that were all it were! But I shall begin at the beginning.
“You must know, then, that I am the greatest Shakespearean commentator in the world. My collection of ana is unrivaled, and much of the world’s collection (and consequently its knowledge of the true Shakespeare) has emanated from my pen. One book I did not possess; it was unique, in the correct sense of that abused word; it was the greatest Shakespeare rarity in the world. Few knew that it existed, for its existence was kept a profound secret between a chosen few. Had it become known that this book was in England—any place, indeed—
its owner would have been hounded to his grave by American millionaire collectors.
“It was in the possession of my friend—I tell you this in the strictest confidence, as between adviser and client—of my friend, Sir Nathaniel Brooke-Bannerman, whose place at Walton-on-Walton is next to my own. A scant two hundred yards separate our dwellings, and so intimate has been our friendship that a few years ago the fence between our estates was removed, and each roamed or loitered at will about the other’s preserves.
“For some years, now, I have been at work on my greatest book—my magnum opus. It was to be also my last book, embodying the results of a lifetime of study and research. Sir, I know Elizabethan London better than any man alive, better than any man who ever lived, I sometimes think—” He burst suddenly into tears.
“There, there,” said Sherlock Holmes, gently. “Do not be distressed. It is my business to help people who are unhappy by reason of great losses. Be assured, I shall help you. Pray continue with your interesting narrative. What was this book—which, I take it, in some manner has disappeared? You borrowed it from your friend?”
“That is what I am coming to,” said Mr. Harrington Edwards, drying his tears, “but as for help, Mr. Holmes, I fear that is beyond even you. Yet, as a court of last resort, I came to you, ignoring all intermediate agencies.
“Let me resume then: As you surmise, I needed this book. Knowing its value, which could not be fixed, for the book is priceless, and knowing Sir Nathaniel’s idolatry of it, I hesitated long before asking the loan of it. But I had to have it, for without it my work could not be completed, and at length I made the request. I suggested that I go to his home, and go through the volume under his own eyes, he sitting at my side throughout my entire examination, and servants stationed at every door and window, with fowling pieces in their hands.
“You can imagine my astonishment when Sir Nathaniel laughed at my suggested precautions. ‘My dear Edwards,’ he said, ‘that would be all very well were you Arthur Bambidge or Sir Homer Nantes (mentioning the two great men of the British Museum), or were you Mr. Henry Hutterson, the American railroad magnate; but you are my friend Edwards, and you shall take the book home with you for as long as you like.’ I protested vigorously, I assure you, but he would have it so, and as I was touched by this mark of his esteem, at length I permitted him to have it his own way. My God! If I had remained adamant! If I had only—”
He broke off and for a moment stared fixedly into space. His eyes were directed at the Persian slipper on the wall, in the toe of which Holmes kept his tobacco, but we could see that his thoughts were far away.
“Come, Mr. Edwards,” said Holmes, firmly. “You are agitating yourself unduly. And you are unreasonably prolonging our curiosity. You have not yet told us what this book is.”
Mr. Harrington Edwards gripped the arm of the chair in which he sat, with tense fingers. Then he spoke, and his voice was low and thrilling:
“The book was a Hamlet quarto, dated 1602, presented by Shakespeare to his friend Drayton, with an inscription four lines in length, written and signed by the Master, himself!”
“My dear sir!” I exclaimed. Holmes blew a long, slow whistle of astonishment.
“It is true,” cried the collector. “That is the book I borrowed, and that is the book I lost! The long-sought quarto of 1602, actually inscribed in Shakespeare’s own hand! His greatest drama, in an edition dated a year earlier than any that is known; a perfect copy, and with four lines in his handwriting! Unique! Extraordinary! Amazing! Astounding! Colossal! Incredible! Un—”
He seemed wound up to continue indefinitely, but Holmes, who had sat quite still at first, shocked by the importance of the loss, interrupted the flow of adjectives.
“I appreciate your emotion, Mr. Edwards,” he said, “and the book is indeed all that you say it is. Indeed, it is so important that we must at once attack the problem of rediscovering it. Compose yourself, my dear sir, and tell us of the loss. The book, I take it, is readily identifiable?”
“Mr. Holmes,” said our client, earnestly, “it would be impossible to hide it. It is so important a volume that, upon coming into possession of it, Sir Nathaniel Brooke-Bannerman called a consultation of the great binders of the Empire, at which were present Mr. Riviere, Messrs. Sangorski and Sutcliffe, Mr. Zaehnsdorf and others. They and myself, and two others, alone know of the book’s existence. When I tell you that it is bound in brown levant morocco, super extra, with leather joints, brown levant doublures and flyleaves, the whole elaborately gold-tooled, inlaid with seven hundred and fifty separate pieces of various colored leathers, and enriched by the insertion of eighty-two precious stones, I need not add that it is a design that never will be duplicated, and I tell you only a few of its glories. The binding was personally done by Messrs. Riviere, Sangorski, Sutcliffe, and Zaehnsdorf, working alternately, and is a work of such enchantment that any man might gladly die a thousand deaths for the privilege of owning it for five minutes.”
“Dear me,” quoth Sherlock Holmes, “it must indeed be a handsome volume, and from your description, together with a realization of its importance by reason of its association, I gather that it is something beyond what might be termed a valuable book.”
“Priceless!” cried Mr. Harrington Edwards. “The combined wealth of India, Mexico, and Wall Street would be all too little for its purchase!”
“You are anxious to recover this book?” Holmes asked, looking at him keenly.
“My God!” shrieked the collector, rolling up his eyes and clawing the air with his hands. “Do you suppose—”
“Tut, tut!” Holmes interrupted. “I was only testing you. It is a book that might move even you, Mr. Harrington Edwards, to theft—but we may put aside that notion at once. Your emotion is too sincere, and besides you know too well the difficulties of hiding such a volume as you describe. Indeed, only a very daring man would purloin it and keep it long in his possession. Pray tell us how you came to suffer it to be lost.”
Mr. Harrington Edwards seized the brandy flask, which stood at his elbow, and drained it at a gulp. With the renewed strength thus obtained, he continued his story:
“As I have said, Sir Nathaniel forced me to accept the loan of the book, much against my own wishes. On the evening that I called for it, he told me that two of his trusted servants, heavily armed, would accompany me across the grounds to my home. ‘There is no danger,’ he said, ‘but you will feel better,’ and I heartily agreed with him. How shall I tell you what happened? Mr. Holmes, it was those very servants who assailed me and robbed me of my priceless borrowing!”
Sherlock Holmes rubbed his lean hands with satisfaction. “Splendid!” he murmured. “It is a case after my own heart. Watson, these are deep waters in which we are sailing. But you are rather lengthy about this, Mr. Edwards. Perhaps it will help matters if I ask you a few questions. By what road did you go to your home?”
“By the main road, a good highway which lies in front of our estates. I preferred it to the shadows of the wood.”
“And there were some two hundred yards between your doors. At what point did the assault occur?”
“Almost midway between the two entrance drives, I should say.”
“There was no light?”
“That of the moon only.”
“Did you know these servants who accompanied you?”
“One I knew slightly; the other I had not seen before.”
“Describe them to me, please.”
“The man who is known to me is called Miles. He is clean-shaven, short, and powerful, although somewhat elderly. He was known, I believe, as Sir Nathaniel’s most trusted servant; he had been with Sir Nathaniel for years. I cannot describe him minutely for, of course, I never paid much attention to him. The other was tall and thickset, and wore a heavy beard. He was a silent fellow; I do not believe he spoke a word during the journey.”
“Miles was more communicative?”
“Oh yes—even garrulous, perhaps. He talked about
the weather and the moon, and I forget what all.”
“Never about books?”
“There was no mention of books between any of us.”
“Just how did the attack occur?”
“It was very sudden. We had reached, as I say, about the halfway point, when the big man seized me by the throat—to prevent outcry, I suppose—and on the instant, Miles snatched the volume from my grasp and was off. In a moment his companion followed him. I had been half throttled and could not immediately cry out; when I could articulate, I made the countryside ring with my cries. I ran after them, but failed even to catch another sight of them. They had disappeared completely. “
“Did you all leave the house together?”
“Miles and I left together; the second man joined us at the porter’s lodge. He had been attending to some of his duties.”
“And Sir Nathaniel—where was he?”
“He said good night on the threshold.”
“What has he had to say about all this?”
“I have not told him.”
“You have not told him!” echoed Sherlock Holmes, in astonishment.
“I have not dared,” miserably confessed our client. “It will kill him. That book was the breath of his life.”
“When did this occur?” I put in, with a glance at Holmes.
“Excellent, Watson,” said my friend, answering my glance. “I was about to ask the same question.”
“Just last night,” was Mr. Harrington Edwards’s reply. “I was crazy most of the night; I didn’t sleep a wink. I came to you the first thing this morning. Indeed, I tried to raise you on the telephone last night, but could not establish a connection.”
“Yes,” said Holmes, reminiscently, “we were attending Mme. Trontini’s first night. You remember, Watson, we dined later at Albani’s?”
“Oh, Mr. Holmes, do you think you can help me?” cried the abject collector.
“I trust so,” declared my friend, cheerfully. “Indeed, I am certain that I can. At any rate, I shall make a gallant attempt, with Watson’s aid. Such a book, as you remark, is not easily hidden. What say you, Watson, to a run down to Walton-on-Walton?”
The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes Page 8
