Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants

by Christopher James

  ‘Mrs Hudson,’ he intoned. ‘I have failed you entirely.’

  ‘Sit down, won’t you?’ a spectator behind us demanded.

  ‘I will not sit down!’ Mycroft retorted, red faced.

  ‘How about we all adjourn for some tea?’ I said, attempting to diffuse the situation.

  ‘A splendid idea,’ agreed Holmes.

  ‘Capital!’ agreed the spectator.

  Refreshed, we returned in better spirits and England too, appeared revived. Grace had rediscovered his form and was swatting away anything the Australian bowlers could hurl at him. Presently, I became aware of a hubbub at the other end of the pavilion. What appeared to be a blind man was being led down the steps by a number of minders, who together made up an impressive entourage. The entire party were dressed in fashionable clothes and the Lord’s officials appeared highly deferential towards them. Most noticeable, apart from the blind gentleman himself and his diamond tipped walking cane, were the four men at the rear of the group in matching striped red and white blazers and gas-pipes, those rather tight fitting trousers that were fashionable at the time. It occurred to me immediately that these men resembled closely the four men lingering on the corner of Baker Street. I gave Holmes a nudge.

  ‘Mmm?’ he said, waking from a catnap.

  ‘Russian royalty?’ I suggested, pointing towards the group.

  He peered at them.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, sitting up, his curiosity suddenly awakened. ‘New money, I would expect. Royalty of any stripe wouldn’t join us in the pavilion.’

  At lunch, after we had gorged ourselves to capacity, Holmes and I left Mycroft to his second and third helpings in search of a glass of beer. Mrs Hudson appeared to have forgiven Mycroft his transgression over the tea and the two of them were getting along famously.

  Outside the pavilion the home crowd was in buoyant mood and the scent of victory was in the air.

  ‘I say, Holmes,’ I said, ‘there’s our blind millionaire.’

  Sure enough, there he was being led around the grounds like the Count of Monte Cristo; an acolyte on each side and one to the front and rear. He was a man of sixty five, still vital, with grizzled grey hair, cut close ahead his head. Red capillaries marbled his cheeks and his eyes were a little sunken. He wore a new silk shirt, perfectly white, and a diamond tie pin.

  Holmes put himself deliberately in their path.

  ‘Enjoying the match?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘That man Ferris is a devil with the ball, isn’t he?’

  ‘Stand aside,’ one of the men in striped blazers said coldly.

  ‘Ah,’ said Holmes, mischievously. ‘You’re with the tourists, then!’

  ‘I won’t ask again,’ the minder threatened.

  I was about to retrieve Holmes from the fray when the blind man himself spoke up.

  ‘Who are you, sir?’ he asked. He spoke English with a slight accent.

  ‘My name is Sherlock Holmes,’ said my friend. ‘When did you return from South Africa?’

  ‘How could you know that?’

  ‘It is my business to know what others do not,’ he said simply. ‘But I see that you are a Suffolk man,’ he continued.

  ‘Michael,’ said the blind man. ‘We will stay and speak with Mr Holmes a while. Unless he is a fraudster or charlatan, I would hazard that he is possessed of the most remarkable powers.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Holmes, how does a man from Suffolk reveal himself so easily?’

  ‘Your jacket is a made from a wool to be found only from the town of Lavenham. The unusual arrangement of the three buttons at the cuff is also a trademark of your tailor is it not?’

  ‘Go, on,’ he laughed. ‘I am finding this most diverting.’

  ‘I think we ought to be getting back,’ said the man referred to as Michael. He had a mean look about his face and was as pale and thin lipped as Holmes himself, but without the kindness and keen intelligence in the eyes.

  ‘Nonsense,’ scoffed the blind man. ‘We have plenty of time.’

  ‘Raphael,’ he instructed, ‘a cigar for Mr Holmes and his friend here.’

  Another man stepped forward, an equally surly fellow with an ugly horizontal scar directly across his chin.

  ‘Ah,’ said Holmes, approvingly, ‘the mighty Ghurkha! A popular choice in South Africa.’

  ‘Mr Holmes, there seems to be nothing you don’t know about me. And I believed that I was keeping a low profile. Well let me test you a little further. As you can see, I am a man of some means. Perhaps you will be able to tell me how I acquired my wealth?’ My friend smiled and looked at the man, his clothing, his cane, the patent leather shoes, the gem encrusted chain on his pocket watch. His eyes were concealed entirely by a pair of small, neat, jet black goggles, rendering him somewhat inscrutable.

  ‘I would suggest,’ said Holmes at length, ‘that you have had some considerable success in the mining industry.’ The blind man appeared taken aback. ‘Is it gold or gemstones?’ Holmes added innocently.

  ‘Have I been set up?’the man demanded, all trace of humour suddenly leaving him. ‘Michael?’ he barked. ‘Where are you? Get me back to my seat. Who let this charlatan get in my way?’

  The minder stepped forward and with brutish force, shoved me backwards, knocking the cigar from my lips. I saw it break under the ruffian’s foot. My friend’s reactions were quicker; he stepped back deftly, setting the man off balance. In an instant, the strange entourage had moved on.

  ‘What a shame,’ I said, forlornly, ‘a perfectly good cigar.’

  ‘How very singular,’ said Holmes. He reached down and picked up a tiny, silver tie pin.

  ‘Whatever is it?’ I asked, frowning.

  ‘I believe it’s an angel,’ my friend said.

  EIGHT - The Alchemist

  I had just settled down for another trip in The Time Machine, when Holmes swept into the room, his cape across his shoulders and hat planted on his head.

  ‘Fancy a little night air, Watson?’ I frowned.

  ‘I had planned a quiet evening in the company of Mr Wells,’ I admitted.

  ‘I promise more excitement in the next hour than a week spent with your pot-boiler,’ Holmes wagered, ‘or your money back.’

  I closed the book with a sigh, marking my place with a single strand of blonde hair that I had found across the armrest.

  ‘I would warn against any attachment to Miss Braithwaite, Watson,’ said Holmes, noticing my keepsake. ‘She is an unknown quantity.’

  ‘I am a married man!’ I retorted. ‘Regardless, Holmes,you would warn against a liaison with any woman.’

  ‘True enough,’ he admitted.

  It was late on a Sunday evening and couples were returning arm in arm from their perambulations in Regent’s Park. Holmes doffed his hat to a passing pair and the woman blushed. It struck me that if Holmes was so inclined, with his commanding aspect and distinctive features, he could have the pick of any girl in London. And yet his preoccupations were elsewhere.

  A carriage waited outside and no sooner had I stepped upon the footplate than Holmes slapped the door and we were away.

  We turned right onto the Marylebone Road. I glanced up and saw the last of the sun catching the white alabaster gargoyles that perched at the very apex of the four-storey block. The light seemed to quicken them into life, shivering their wings, preparing them for their twilight mischief. Rattling past the gothic splendour of the Old Marylebone Grammar School, Holmes, I noticed was possessed of that familiar twinkle of mischief and anticipation.

  ‘No clue as to our destination, I suppose?’ I asked Holmes.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ he smiled.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be novel for once, just once,’ I protested, ‘to know what the future holds.’

  ‘Have more than you kno
w,’ my friend intoned, sparking a cigarette into life, ‘speak less than you know.’

  ‘Blast you and the Bard,’ I muttered and folded my arms.

  ‘Courage, Watson,’ said Holmes, ‘a miracle awaits on the other side of the river.’

  As we crossed the Thames, Holmes hummed a sonata under his breath as if doing a little mental violin practice. It put me in mind, of course, of Miss Braithwaite, and her bewitchingly free spirit. How different she was to Mary. These matters were not straightforward and they were not something I could discuss freely with Holmes. It would be easier discussing cats at Crufts.

  The great dog’s show, my papers remind me, caused something of a stir that year. Holmes and I had spent an agreeable afternoon at the Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington, inspecting the breeds and speculating about the winners. Holmes took great delight in correctly predicting several, with the caveat that none of them were a patch on Toby, his own mongrel currently in the care of one of his many associates. ‘I prize usefulness above intellect and kindness above beauty in all my dealings,’ he had told me. It felt like a pointed reference.

  Holmes and I sped through Borough, past the bright lights of the old inn at Elephant and Castle and down through Streatham. Our driver was skilled in his trade and we delayed for no man as we thundered through Norbury.

  The lights grew fewer and the houses more scarce before we were consumed in all pervading darkness. It was beyond me how the coachman could see the road before him at all. It was only when Holmes muttered the name Purley, did I have any inkling of my geography. Eventually I felt the carriage decelerate and heard the horses’ hooves slow to a canter and finally a trot. We appeared to be still on a country road, an indeterminate distance from the nearest dwelling with thick woods on all sides. The moon had crept out from behind a cloud and climbing down from our hansom our shadows were thrown on the trees like the ghosts of long dead highwaymen.

  ‘Ere, Mr ‘Olmes,’ our driver warned. He was a portly fellow whose face was almost entirely forested in ginger hair, curled in dense ringlets across his jowls. A pair of bright eyes emerged from this forestation. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you into the huey? I ‘ear there are all sorts of bludgers ‘round these parts and there ‘ain’t too many of those blue bottle friends of yours to help you out. You’ll get into a load of beef if you ‘ain’t too careful.’

  ‘Thank you for your advice, Mr Biggin,’ my friend smiled, signalling me to hand over a sovereign, ‘but we will take our chances. We look forward to meeting you here at the stroke of midnight.’

  ‘I’ll be here, Mr ’Olmes, sir,’ he vowed, ‘but will you?’

  ‘Never fear, Mr Biggin. The good doctor and I are quite capable of looking after ourselves. A Bulldog and a Wesley are reassuring companions on a night such as this.’

  ‘Be that as it may, but you best be on the lookout for them that play the crooked cross. The King’s Head we passed back up the road is a flash house if ever I saw one. If one of them dragsmen saw my growler stopping’ on the road he’ll ’ave his shiv to our throats before you can say Jack Horner.’

  ‘Mr Biggin,’ Holmes said, showing now just a little impatience. ‘Your consideration is as expansive as your vocabulary. We shall see you at midnight.’ Holmes glanced up the road.

  ‘This way, Watson!’ he cried, then hopped the ditch and stepped into the wood.

  At first I thought it a kind of madness, stumbling through the pitch dark woodland in the dead of night, tripping over roots and being snared in brambles. I feared that any minute my foot would slip down a foxhole or that I would tumble headlong into ditchwater. The wood was possessed of a terrible silence.

  ‘Holmes?’ I called. ‘Are you there?’

  There was a crack as a badger or deer stepped on a branch then the snuffle of the same woodland animal, followed by the questioning hoot an owl.

  ‘Who? Who?’ it asked, then growing in eloquence, added: ‘Who do you think you are?’

  ‘Holmes! This really is too much. We could break our necks in here.’

  ‘Nonsense, Watson,’ scoffed Holmes, amused by his little joke. ‘This is a picnicking spot. In the light of day you would laugh at your foolishness.’

  I had forgotten my friend’s astonishing power for seeing in the dark. It was as if he was possessed of feline blood. I recalled one of our adventures where he led me through a house in utter darkness, striding forward as if it were bright as day.

  ‘Lord help the honest men of England if ever you turn to crime, Holmes. You would murder us in our beds.’

  ‘Then let us hope it never comes to that,’ he said. ‘Now, we are not too far off. Do you see that light?

  Not only could I perceive a yellowish light through the trees, but also a smell like sulphur burning in my nostrils. I could make out a small stone building in a clearing in the trees. Smoke was bellowing from the chimney. Holmes advanced on the front door of the building and rapped hard with his cane. We heard hissing steam and the throaty roar of a furnace.

  Eventually the door fell open an inch or so, producing a beam of red light and a blast of hot, foul air.

  ‘Like the gates of hell themselves,’ I muttered. ‘You cannot possibly enter, Holmes. I forbid it. Your lungs would burst with your first breath.’

  ‘I have inhaled the foulest smoke from the coarsest tobaccos on Earth; my lungs are accustomed to such punishment. Be brave Watson!’

  Inside, the heat was astonishing. I felt my collar dampen and pressed a handkerchief to my mouth. But still I could not see the man or men stoking this furnace. Then, through the smoke, I saw something move, a figure most like a man, but with a strange hood upon his head. I edged closer, following Holmes as he strode forward confident as ever. My breath faltered, not because of the searing heat in my throat, but because of what I saw upon the head of the figure - what appeared to be nothing other, than a pair of horns.

  ‘Holmes!’ I yelled, instinctively. I saw him raise a calming hand, then extend it in friendship with the demon. I knew Holmes had contacts in every strata of society, but never did I dream that his circle extended to the devil himself. The figure waved in my direction as I staggered back towards the door.

  I came around lying on a hard, wooden bench looking up at the moon. Holmes was standing over me, proffering a small flask, which I gratefully received.

  ‘The only true medicine for a doctor,’ he chortled. ‘Now come, Watson, your amateur dramatics have cost us time. We cannot keep our coachman waiting much past midnight or the very sump of London’s criminal fraternity will drag him down to their underworld.’

  Presently a bright-eyed, middle aged man approached. He was wearing a burnt leather apron and a slightly theatrical moustache twisted to a point at either end. His head was untroubled by hair and sweat dripped from his brow. He wore a pair of enormous gauntlets that covered his arms to the elbows.

  ‘May I present Asslo Wilberforce,’ introduced Holmes, perhaps our pre-eminent scientist and certainly our greatest magician.’

  ‘Really Holmes, you flatter me,’ said the man. ‘Dr Watson, I am little more than a hobbyist.’

  ‘Well, a hobbyist perhaps,’ admitted Holmes, ‘but one that has produced remarkable results.’ I felt the brandy doing its vital work and sat up, scrutinising the fellow.

  ‘Well if you don’t walk the boards, Mr Wilberforce’ I began, ‘then you are wasted talent. Your turn as Mephistopheles was most convincing and your ability to work in that heat is nothing short of miraculous.’

  ‘Which is why I created this patent hood,’ he said calmly, ‘producing his elephant-like mask, two ventilation tubes sprouting from the top.’ I had learned not to be surprised by anyone in Holmes’ circle.

  ‘Mr Wilberforce works in a specialised branch of the natural sciences,’ Holmes explained. ‘I use him from time to time for a second opini
on in the matter of forgeries.’

  ‘Bank notes?’ I speculated.

  ‘Precious stones,’ corrected Holmes. ‘But Mr Wilberforce has taken his interest a further stage further. You see, he has, and I will permit you a further gasp of astonishment, perfected a process that facilitates the manufacture of diamonds.’

  Wilberforce’s face passed into shadow as a cloud crossed the moon. When it re-emerged, I noticed a grin had replaced his previously sanguine expression.

  ‘My dear Holmes,’ I cried. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Then this is the end of poverty. The end of every social ill. The beginning of a new age!’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ he agreed.

  ‘How many people know about this?’

  ‘Four,’ replied Wilberforce. ‘Yourself included.’

  ‘Ridiculous!’ I cried. ‘The Prime Minister must be informed at once.’

  ‘Not so fast, Watson. Think of the repercussions. All diamonds would become worthless. They would become as common as lumps of coal. The fortunes of kings and countries would be reversed at a stroke. There would be anarchy, Watson.’ Holmes’ eyes glimmered in the silver light. ‘Then think on this. Imagine that this wonderful discovery falls into the hands of a master criminal. They use it to bankroll their sinister activities. They could make hundreds of small discrete sales that remain undetected. With their endless resources they would strangle every law abiding nation.’ Holmes raised his arms to the moon. ‘They would become invincible, Watson!’ I stared at him in horror.

  ‘Then we must destroy it, Holmes!’ I cried. ‘It is a fearsome weapon.’

  ‘Destroy what?’ he asked. ‘The elements required are common place. Bone oil, lithium and a dash of paraffin. You could buy them in an ironmonger without arousing the least suspicion. No, it is the knowledge that is the value; the intricacies of the process. These exist only in the mind of its creator. I stared at Wilberforce, the bearer of this imaginable burden.

  ‘What is to be done, Holmes?’

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a large object, covered in a piece of black cloth. For a moment I believed it was his Bulldog revolver. He unfolded the edges until it was revealed in all its brilliance in the centre of his palm.