Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants

by Christopher James

‘Keep your distance,’ I yelled back, ‘but don’t let it out of your sight!’

  ‘Right you are!’

  We kept on its tail through the city, swerving between the drinkers and ladybirds, the bobbies and the loafers.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ I muttered to myself after we had turned left onto Euston Road, ‘I do believe we’re heading for Baker Street.’

  In fact we travelled directly along it. I glanced into our dimly lit chambers, reflecting on the peace we had enjoyed just a few days earlier. But we didn’t stop, whipping into Park Road and only slowing as we reached the cricket ground. Mr Porter and I stopped at a safe distance and after settling up I slipped into the shadows where I could observe the passengers disembarking.

  Soon enough, I saw the large, overbearing figure of Snitterton jump down from his carriage, then climb the steps to the front door of a narrow terraced house. The door was open just long enough for me to see that it was none other than Chatburn who had let him in.

  ‘Two sworn enemies under the same roof,’ Holmes cried later that evening. ‘The game’s afoot, Watson, well and truly afoot!’ He was pacing our rooms with the agitation of a boxer waiting for a bout to begin. ‘The two are in cahoots,’ he cried. ‘I knew it!’Mrs Hudson appeared at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Ms Penelope Braithwaite is here to see you both. I didn’t keep her waiting as I felt sure that you would wish to see her.’

  ‘Quite sensible,’ agreed Holmes. A moment later she stepped into the room like a goddess from a cloud.

  She wore a free flowing green gown tied loosely at the waist with a white sash. Beneath, she sported a white silk blouse. Her hair was held in place by a silver band, at the centre of which was a single ruby. Her neck was bare.

  ‘You look simply ravishing!’ I cried, before I could help myself.

  ‘You like my outfit, Dr Watson?’ she asked flirtatiously. ‘I have been asked to play at court on Monday next and wanted to try it on ahead of time.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘my advice is to go right ahead and wear it.’

  ‘Do you not think it a trifle daring for the Queen?’ asked Holmes a little waspishly.

  ‘I think she likes it when people are themselves.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Holmes. ‘But on your head be it.’

  She rolled her eyes and moved to the couch. Clearing a heap of periodicals, she found a little space to sit down. She glanced around the room.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Did you enjoy the performance?’ I glanced at Holmes.

  ‘How did you know we were there?’ I asked, somewhat taken aback.

  ‘Despite your attempt at a low profile, word soon travels when Sherlock Holmes is seen in a crowd. Did you hear the rumour that the Queen herself was there last night?’

  ‘We did,’ I muttered, still unable to tear my eyes away from her.

  ‘In answer to your first question,’ said Holmes, ‘it was a remarkable performance. Please accept my congratulations. There was however a small lapse in the second movement; an unintended glissando perhaps?’

  ‘I knew you would spot that, Mr Holmes,’ she said. Mrs Hudson brought in the tea.

  ‘Would you care to join us for lunch?’I asked Miss Braithwaite.’ Mrs Hudson is preparing tripe and onions.’

  ‘Alas, it is just a flying visit, Mrs Hudson. But thank you.’

  ‘A pity,’ said the venerable woman, ‘there will be plenty to go around.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, after Mrs Hudson had left us a second time, ‘have you had any success in tracking down Wimpole’s killer?’

  ‘The trail is warming,’ said Holmes peering out of the window.

  ‘And what of the ruby elephants?’ she asked.

  ‘What of them?’ asked Holmes, abruptly.

  ‘I know they are of interest to you. I heard you and the doctor discussing them and I believe there was one at Wimpole’s flat.’

  ‘You didn’t mention that before,’ said Holmes.

  ‘I never thought to,’ she said in a rather blasé fashion, leafing through the London Illustrated News.

  ‘Tell me,’ asked Holmes. ‘How is your father?’

  ‘Who?’ she asked without looking up.

  ‘Your father.’

  ‘Oh, lord knows,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen him in years.’

  ‘Would it surprise you,’ said Holmes, ‘if I told you that he was at the performance last night?’ She laid down the newspaper.

  ‘Will you repeat that, Mr Holmes?’

  ‘You heard me well enough.’

  ‘Mr Holmes,’ she said imperiously, rising from the couch, ‘I am late for an appointment and I have nothing more to say to you.’

  ‘Good day, Dr Watson,’ she said. ‘Thank you for your advice. I shall be wearing this to Buckingham Palace.’ She stormed out of the room, down the stairs and slammed the front door behind her.

  I collapsed back into my chair and loosened my collar.

  ‘What a woman, Holmes!’

  ‘Indeed!’

  ‘And you are a madman to rile her. What’s all this rot about her father? Whoever do you mean?’

  ‘Just a theory I am testing,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you’re playing a dangerous game.’

  ‘They happen to be the ones I enjoy the most!’

  TEN - The Fake

  ‘Well, well,’ I said, folding The Times to a manageable size. ‘There has been a disturbance at the National Gallery.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Holmes.

  ‘The critic and aesthete, Abercrombie Macintosh,’ I read aloud, ‘was forcibly ejected from the National Gallery on Tuesday afternoon. Macintosh, who was suspected of being drunk, was found disturbing visitors in Room 35 of the gallery. At 2.45pm a constable was called to assist gallery staff and after a short struggle they succeeded in restraining him. Macintosh continued to make claims outside the gallery telling the crowd that the painting The Shrimp Girl, by George Hogarth, and a number of other works in the gallery were fakes. The Director of the Gallery, Sir William Frederick Burton, made the following statement: “We very much regret the incident on Tuesday afternoon and wait in full hope and expectation of an apology from Mr Macintosh, who hitherto was considered a friend of the gallery. We are pleased to confirm that the gallery has no forgeries in its possession and that the painting by Hogarth has been independently verified as an original work by the artist.”’

  Holmes blew a series of smoke rings into the air.

  ‘Sounds like Abercrombie’s been at the absinthe again,’ I put in, laying down the paper.

  ‘Do you think?’ asked Holmes evenly.

  ‘Well, I would assume Sir William knows his own paintings.’

  ‘Why don’t we take a trip down there,’ suggested Holmes, ‘and see for ourselves?’

  This said everything about my friend, Sherlock Holmes. He was never content with a second hand account of anything, even if it came from a supreme authority.

  ‘Even though we are assured to the contrary?’

  ‘My friend,’ Holmes said, rising imperiously, his eyes gleaming. ‘London is in thrall to a superior criminal mind. Its manifestations are all around us: on the streets, in the galleries and along the corridors of powers. As my friend Mr Shakespeare forewarned: ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here!’

  It was unusually busy when we arrived in Trafalgar Square. A large crowd was gathered at the entrance to the National Gallery, which rose up like the Temple of Artemis.

  ‘Whatever Sir William’s views are on the matter,’ said Holmes, peering through the window of our two seater, ‘the scandal has unquestionably been good for business.’

  We queued up with the others and filed patiently through the rooms until we were standing before the painting. My appreciation of
art is strictly as a layman, but I know what I like when I see it. The portrait was of a vivacious working class woman, a fishmonger’s wife, with a large, flat basket balanced on her head, laden with shellfish. Despite her exertions, her expression was hopeful, even happy. Up close, the style appeared somewhat slapdash with streaks of paint seemingly applied at random and yet the overall effect was undeniably impressive.

  ‘If you want my view, Holmes,’ I said with a grin, ‘except for what’s balanced on her head, there’s nothing fishy about this painting.’ My friend appeared unmoved by this attempt at humour. Instead he was studying the floor immediately beneath the painting, the ceiling and the four corners of the room.

  ‘Surely, Holmes,’ I said, your time would be better spent analysing the painting itself.’

  ‘On the contrary, Watson,’ my friend explained. ‘I am an expert in observation, logic and probability, not fine art.’

  ‘Sherlock Holmes!’ addressed a careworn voice with a soft Dublin accent.

  We were greeted by the stern face of the director himself, Sir William Frederick Burton. With a snow white beard, high forehead and owlish glasses, he wore the tired look of an artist who had turned, reluctantly, into an administrator.

  ‘My dear Sir William,’ said Holmes.

  ‘I would have thought that you of all people,’ said Sir William, ‘would have been able to resist the cheap sensationalism that has surrounded us this week.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ my friend replied. ‘It is very much our stock in trade. Now how do you account for Macintosh’s outburst? He is a man of impeccable taste and reputation. Do you have a theory?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sir William. ‘The bottle. It has been the ruin of some of our greatest minds, from Byron to Shakespeare himself.’

  ‘So you believe his accusation has no basis in fact?’

  ‘None whatsoever. The painting was certified on its acquisition and has been certified again.’

  ‘By the same individual?’

  ‘As it happens, no. But it was a pre-eminent authority.’

  ‘You do not believe there is any way the painting could have been switched during cleaning or loan?’

  ‘Impossible.’ he said. ‘It has remained in the same place since it was purchased six years ago.’ The gallery doors are locked at night. There are twenty guards who patrol the building every evening and an additional guard who stands at each entrance. The roof and basement are both impregnable.’Holmes nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Then Sir William, I apologise for questioning your judgement.’

  We retired to a bench on Trafalgar Square and luxuriated in the sunshine, smoking in companionable silence.

  ‘It appears there is no crime to solve,’ I said at length. ‘If you are in need of fresh blood, Holmes, would you not be better off visiting Scotland Yard and asking to see their files of unsolved cases?’

  ‘Did you notice,’ he asked, without taking his eyes off Nelson, ‘that pair of large vases either side of the door in Room 35?’

  ‘I can’t say I did,’ I admitted.

  ‘They were Chinese porcelain, five feet tall, each with four carved lion’s paws emerging from a round wooden base. On the top of the lid was a stylised ceramic lion.’

  ‘Perhaps I did,’ I mused. ‘But what of them?’

  ‘It struck me that with a little discomfort a man might be able to squeeze inside and hide himself there.’

  ‘A fanciful notion!’ I laughed.

  ‘Yes, it is rather,’ said Holmes. ‘But would you not agree that it is also possible?’

  ‘At a pinch,’ I said.

  ‘Why don’t we hear,’ my friend concluded, ‘what the great aesthete has to say for himself.’

  We arrived outside Abercrombie Macintosh’s Kensington flat early that same evening. The day had softened into balmy night and a full moon irradiated the white stucco front of the building. A lamplighter was making his way slowly along the street as if fixing the stars to the sky. A demure lady housekeeper with a long suffering look answered the door and we presented our cards. ‘You will be aware that Mr Macintosh has been under some considerable stress,’ she said quietly, perhaps mistaking us for the police. ‘Do not press him too hard.’

  We were led to a spacious upstairs room, where on a green upholstered chaise-longue the great man lay in a pile of purple robes. He glanced over at us then rose to his feet.

  ‘My dear Sirs,’ he exclaimed. ‘Forgive me! How long have you languished there?’

  ‘We have only just arrived,’ I stated.

  He cut an extraordinary figure. He wore a pointed goatee with a long moustache; his brown hair was parted into two silky curtains that entirely hid his ears. His robes were somewhere between a dressing gown and a magician’s outfit. It was impossible to say whether this was all for our benefit or whether he usually spent a mid week evening wearing such attire.

  He glided over to a drinks cabinet then handed us tooth mugs of a greenish liquid that could only be absinthe.

  ‘Do you have any wine?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘No,’ he replied curtly.

  ‘Have you had a pleasant day?’ I asked in earnest.

  ‘Any day above ground is a good day,’ he replied. ‘Isn’t that so, Mr Holmes?’

  ‘Quite,’ my friend replied. ‘Now Mr Macintosh.’

  ‘Abercrombie, please,’ he said with a winning smile, returning to his couch. His swung his legs high, then crossed them at the ankles. ‘Now I am certain you know I am telling the truth.’

  The room was quite as eccentric as the man himself. A stuffed owl sprang from the wall by the fireplace with outstretched wings. Two gold dishes that looked Aztec in origin flanked an enormous mirror with an intricate gilt frame. The mantelpiece was lined with an exotic crimson fabric with red tassels that hung loosely over the edges. An icon of the Madonna and child was placed high up above us while below our feet was a large, colourful Persian rug. The green panelled walls were almost entirely obscured by works of art of varying sizes. Incense burned furiously giving the whole place the air of a Moroccan bazaar.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ Holmes nodded. ‘I have a theory, which I would be happy to outline. However first I need to know for certain that the painting is a forgery.’

  ‘A forgery?’ cried Macintosh. ‘That is too good a word for it. I have visited The Shrimp Girl once a week for almost a year. When I saw it on Tuesday last, it was like returning home to find your wife replaced by an impostor.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ said Holmes.

  ‘And neither would I,’ returned Macintosh archly.

  ‘The delicacy of the flesh tone, the lightness of touch around the eyes; the finely balanced absurdity of the composition - all are missing.’ He swallowed sunk a half glass of absinthe then brought the empty tumbler down emphatically onto the table. He rummaged in the deep pockets of his gown.

  ‘Where are those infernal things?’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘Are you looking for this,’ I asked handing him a silver cigarette case.

  ‘Mr dear doctor,’ he said with gratitude. ‘I can see now why you are in the business of saving lives. Won’t you help yourself? You too Mr Holmes.’ We took a moment to enjoy his choice Turkish tobacco.

  ‘Then it is a fake,’ my friend concluded.

  ‘It is indeed,’ said Macintosh in a dense cloud of smoke. ‘Art is not a reflection of life; it is mirror of the soul. I have stared into this mirror and found nothing there.

  Macintosh’s housekeeper appeared at the door.

  ‘The soup is ready,’ she announced.

  ‘We have already dined, thank you,’ advised Holmes.

  ‘I would be indebted,’ said the aesthete, ‘if you were to try just a little of this. It is a rare delicacy; a once in a lifetime
experience.’

  Three bowls of a steaming, clear broth were produced and we sat with them on our laps.

  ‘Will you give us an inkling,’ I asked, ‘as to its ingredients?’

  ‘Taste it, my friends!’ Macintosh cried. ‘What is life if not an adventure?’

  I raised a spoon tentatively to my lips. The taste was somewhat elusive. It was somewhere between French onion soup and a light lamb broth.

  ‘Not bad at all,’ I said, taking another spoonful. ‘Are you going to let us into the secret? Is it Lamb?’

  ‘Mammoth,’ smiled Macintosh.

  I spluttered into my napkin.

  ‘I acquired a Mammoth’s femur on the Portobello Road. Rather than add another ornament to my collection, I thought it would be more amusing to put it to some practical use. Consider it a culinary form of time travel.’

  ‘A singular flavour,’ complimented Holmes, sipping thoughtfully. I, meanwhile, had decided my own culinary adventure was over.

  ‘So tell me,’ said Macintosh, returning to the matter in hand, ‘how do you intend to expose this foul play?’

  An hour later Crabtree stood outside Macintosh’s door. It was the same man, I recalled, who had leant Holmes his brolly during the incident of the runaway elephant. He bore every resemblance in his stature and manner to a mole. In fact, his twitching and squinting became more pronounced the closer he came to us.

  ‘Let me introduce my friend, Crabtree,’ said Holmes. ‘You will no doubt be acquainted with his optician’s practice in Jermyn Street and his particular interest in the art of the monocle.’

  ‘Delighted to make your acquaintance,’ said Macintosh. ‘You will know, Mr Crabtree, like every great artist, that to reveal its true beauty, the world must be viewed through a lens.’

  Crabtree was a small neat man, cleanly shaven with the unusual affectation of a pair of monocles suspended on lengths of string from his buttonhole. He clearly believed that the promotional value of such a gimmick outweighed the obvious inconvenience of having to insert each one carefully into the eye socket. You might say he was his own shop window.

  ‘At the risk of pointing out the obvious,’ said Macintosh studying the man, ‘would it not be easier to wear a pair of spectacles?’