The Seven-Per-Cent Solution

by Nicholas Meyer

  “What about him?”

  “I know what you want me to say, Doctor. Very well, I shall oblige you: the only time Professor Moriarty truly occupied the role of my evil genius was when it took him three weeks to make clear to me the mysteries of elementary calculus.”

  “I am not so much interested in your saying it,” the Doctor responded quietly, “but in your understanding it to be true.”

  There was a pause.

  “I understand it,” Holmes whispered at length. In that almost inaudible reply was all the exhausted humiliation and suffering it is possible for a human being to know. Even Freud, Who could be as dogged as Holmes, when he felt the occasion demanded it, was loath to break the long silence which followed this terrible confession.

  It was Holmes himself who finally brought his reverie to an end; gazing about the room, he espied me and his features came to life.

  “Watson? Come closer, old friend. You are my old friend, are you not?” he added, uncertainly.

  “You know I am.”

  “Ah, yes.” He eased back onto the pillows from the sitting posture he had made such an effort to assume, and regarded me with a troubled expression clouding his usually keen grey eyes, “I do not remember much of the past few days,” he began, but I cut him off with a gesture of the hand.

  “It is over and done with. Do not think about what has happened. It is over.”

  “I say I do not remember much,” he persisted tenaciously, “but I do seem to recall screaming at you, hurling all sorts of epithets in your direction.” He smiled in what was meant to be ingratiating self-deprecation. “Did I do that, Watson? Or did I just imagine it?”

  “You just imagined it, my dear fellow. Lie back now.”

  “Because if I did do that,” he pursued, obeying my instructions, “I want you to know that I did not mean it. Do you hear me? I did not mean it. I remember distinctly that I called you Iscariot. Will you forgive me for that monstrous calumny? Will you?”

  “Holmes, I beg of you ! “

  “You’d better leave him now,” Freud interposed, laying a hand on my shoulder. “He is going to sleep.”

  I rose and fled from the room, my eyes blind with tears.

  * * *

  * Oysters held some importance in Holmes’s unconscious. When shamming delirium in ‘The Adventure of the Dying Detective’, he worries dial the world will be over-run by oysters. Possibly he was incorporating features of his genuine delirium as reported to him afterwards by Watson into his performance. Holmes was also known to eat oysters and appears to have enjoyed them very much. Did consuming them represent an attempt on his part to dominate them and so master his fear? In any case, it would be interesting to learn the origin of the phobia. N.M.

  CHAPTER IX

  Concerning a Game of Tennis and a Violin

  As SIGMUND FREUD had warned me, though Holmes no longer appeared to crave cocaine, vigilance regarding the drug and possible access to it needed to remain as strict as before. I had briefly entertained the notion of returning to England, conceiving that the worst was over—which Dr. Freud assured me it was—but he pleaded with me to remain. Holmes’s spirits were still alarmingly low, it was difficult to get him to eat, and it was impossible yet to send him back to his own world; he so plainly needed a friend that I consented to stay a while.

  Another exchange of telegrams took place between my wife and me, during which I outlined the situation and begged her indulgence and she, for her part, responded with all warmth and encouragement, saying that the practice was being ably cared for by Cullingworth and that she would inform Mycroft Holmes of his brother’s progress.

  Holmes’s progress, however, was minimal. If he took no further interest in the drug, neither did he evince curiosity regarding anything else. We forced him to eat and cajoled him into taking strolls in the parks near the Holburg. On these occasions he promenaded dutifully, though he kept his eyes on the ground before him and looked almost nowhere else. I did not know whether to be pleased or not by this development; certainly it was in character with the Holmes I knew so well, who rarely noticed scenery and much preferred to study footprints. Yet when I endeavoured to draw him out on the subject, and asked him what he was able to deduce from the ground, he responded with a tired injunction not to patronise him, and said no more.

  He now took his meals with the rest of the household, sitting silent through all attempts we made at conversation, and eating little. Dr. Freud’s discussion of other patients appeared to hold no interest for him whatever, and I am afraid I was so preoccupied with Holmes’s slightest reactions that I scarcely heard anything of the Doctor’s cases, either. I have a dim recollection that he referred to them by the strangest names, sometimes alluding to the ‘Rat Man’ or the ‘Wolf Man’, and sometimes to a person called ‘Anna O’. I understood him to be protecting the true identities of these people for reasons of professional discretion, yet I do think he betrayed an otherwise latent sense of humour in the sobriquets he applied to describe them, or at least a real talent for anthropomorphic association. Often, falling asleep with my thoughts idly touching on this and that, I have recalled those snatches of table talk in the Freud home and smiled to think of the man who looked like a rat and the one who resembled a wolf. And what of Anna O? Was her person perhaps sensationally rotund?

  Curiously, the only member of the household who appeared to elicit any positive response in Holmes was another Anna, Freud’s small daughter. She was an adorable child (I am not normally fond of children),* intelligent and also engaging. After the first day, Holmes’s fits lost whatever terror they had once held for her and she approached him quite freely. With some instinct of her own, she was always quiet in her advances, but they were advances nonetheless. Once, after supper, she offered to show him her doll collection. With a grave demeanour, punctiliously polite, Holmes accepted her invitation and they withdrew to the cupboard where the figures were assembled. I was on the point of rising from my chair and following them when Freud signed to me to remain where I was.

  “We must not suffocate him with our attentions,” he smiled.

  “Or Anna,” laughed Frau Freud and rang for more coffee.

  The next morning, as I lay in my bed rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I was startled to hear the sound of voices from the next room. I looked at my watch on the night table and ascertained that it was not quite eight. From the sounds downstairs I knew Paula to be in the kitchen and the rest of the family not yet awake. Who could it be?

  Silently I stole towards the door of our adjoining rooms and peeped through the crack. Holmes was sitting up in bed talking quietly with little Anna, who had seated herself at the foot of it. I could not make it out but the conversation appeared to be a pleasant one, the child posing questions and Holmes doing his best to answer them. Once I heard him chuckle and I crept back from the door lest some inadvertent sound on my part disturb their rapport.

  Following breakfast. Holmes elected to remain in the study with the object of reading some of the Dostoievski (should he come upon any in French translation), rather than accompany us to the Maumberg, Freud’s exclusive club, for some indoor tennis.

  “Dr. Watson will confirm my utter disregard of exercise for its own sake,” he said, smiling, as we hesitated at the door, urging him once more to join us. “You really must not ascribe my staying behind to any motives connected with my illness.”

  Freud decided not to press, and leaving him in the care of the ladies—Frau Freud, Paula and little Anna—we set forth.

  The Maumberg, located south of the Hofburg, was a rather different club from those I knew in London. It was primarily a place for exercise, the cafés of the city supplying the social and intellectual deficiencies of the institution.

  There was a restaurant and bar, to be sure, but Freud was not in the habit of lingering at either or socialising with the members. He enjoyed a game of tennis, he told me, and simply used the club’s courts for their elementary recreational purpose. I was not a t
ennis player, myself (my arm† having made the question of playing an impossibility), but I wished to see the club and to escape, for a little while, the dreary influence of Holmes’s battle which had kept me in constant attendance and depression. Dr. Freud had no doubt sensed this in extending his kind invitation.

  The tennis courts were enclosed in a huge wrought-iron structure rather like a green-house. Enormous skylights permitted the sun to brighten the place, while from within it was heated for comfort during the cold months. The courts themselves were constructed of highly polished wood that reverberated in a roaring cacophony as the balls from several simultaneous games struck the flooring.

  As we entered the dressing room where the Doctor kept his tennis costume, we passed a group of young fellows who were drinking beer from tall tapered glasses, their feet propped on benches and towels draped carelessly about their necks. We walked by. I heard one of their number choke on his drink and laugh.

  “Juden in the Maumberg! I say, this place has gone to the dogs since last I set foot here.”

  Freud, walking ahead of me, stopped and faced the young man, who pretended to be absorbed in conversation with another companion, though indeed they could neither of them suppress their giggling. When he turned to us with a blandly inquisitive expression, I could not but start at his features. His otherwise handsomely cold countenance was made positively sinister by a hideous, livid sabre cut on his left cheek. Indeed, his entire face was transformed by this dreadful wound into something quite malignant, and his icy, unblinking eyes gave him the unpleasant air of a great nodding bird of prey. He was not yet thirty, but the wickedness in that face was ageless.

  “Were you referring to me?” Freud demanded quietly, stepping up to where he sat lounging.

  “I beg your pardon?” He was all innocence, and his cruel mouth was wreathed in smiles, but his eyes remained expressionless.

  “It might interest you to know, mein Herr, that since you last set foot here—which apparently was never, since you appear totally ignorant of the composition of this club, to say nothing of its manners—the membership has become more than a third Jewish.” He spun on his heel to go, leaving a trail of good-humoured laughter in his wake. The young man with the scar flushed crimson and listened with bent head to the whisperings of his companion as his eyes followed the departing figure of Freud.

  “Dr. Freud, is it?” he called after him suddenly. “Not the same Dr. Freud who was asked to leave the staff of the Allgemeines Krankenhaus because of his charming assertion that young men sleep with their mothers? By the way, Doktor, did you sleep with your mother?”

  The Doctor froze during this speech, then turned around again, very pale, and faced his tormentor.

  “You are absurd,” he replied briefly, and turned once more to go, again having hit the mark he desired. In an instant the beer drinker was on his feet, dashing his glass to bits on the floor in a fury.

  “Will you step out, mein Herr?” he cried in a voice shaking with rage. “My seconds will call upon you at your convenience.”

  Freud looked him up and down, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

  “Come, come,” he offered blandly, “you know that gentlemen do not duel with Jews. Have you no sense of etiquette?”

  “You refuse? Do you know who I am?”

  “I neither know nor care. I’ll tell you what I will do,” Freud went on, before the other could protest, “I’ll undertake to beat you in a set of tennis. Will that satisfy your sense of propriety?”

  At this juncture some of the young man’s friends sought to intervene, but he pushed them vehemently away, never taking his eyes from Freud, who was now coolly engaged in removing his boots and taking down his tennis racquet.

  “Very well, Doktor. I shall attend you on the courts.”

  “I shall not keep you waiting,” responded Freud, without bothering to look up.

  Advance word of the match had obviously run through the club by the time we appeared beneath the enormous skylights and joined the young man with the scar and his entourage, some of whom were elaborately examining the balls to be used as if they were bullets.

  “Don’t you find this absurd?” I tried to caution Freud as we started up the stairs.

  “I find it entirely absurd,” he replied without hesitation, “but not so absurd as our attempting to slay one another.”

  “You do not fear losing this match?”

  “My dear Doctor, it is only a game.”

  It may have been a game to Freud, but his opponent was in deadly earnest and showed it from the moment play began. He was bigger, stronger, and in far better training than the physician and they were both aware of the fact. He drove his shots deep and with considerable accuracy, while Freud answered them as best he could but appeared in no way discomfited when he was not in time to return them. In this fashion he gave up the first two games, capturing only one or two points in the process.

  During the third game he did slightly better and actually reached deuce before surrendering the point. I took it upon myself to draw some water for the Doctor as the play was halted for the switching of sides.

  “You did rather better that last round,” I noted encouragingly as I handed him the sponge.

  “I hope to do better still.” Freud made a few passes with the sponge behind his neck. “His game is only offensive and, among other things, without a backhand. Have you noticed?”

  I shook my head.

  “But it is the truth. Every point I’ve drawn from him has been to his backhand. Watch.”

  I watched, as did two hundred‡ eager spectators. Now the tide turned, slowly but inexorably, as Freud took game after game from the younger man. At first his opponent could not understand what was happening. It was not until the score was tied at three games all that he realised that Freud’s strategy was deliberate, and, knowing his own weakness, stood farther and farther to the left of the court, in hope of forestalling the Doctor’s tactics. In this manner he gained a point or two, but Freud quickly perceived his intentions and frustrated them by shooting his returns down the right-hand alley, far from the reach of his harried opponent.

  And when he did reach them in time, Freud exploited the exposed backhand once more, hitting deftly cross court again. The playing was not easy, but the young man with the scar clearly had the worst of it. Forcing a defensive game, Freud obliged him to race from side to side whilst he himself stood virtually still. Anger led the young ruffian into errors he should never have made had he been in full control of his temper, and Freud drew the set to a close within an hour, the final score standing at six games to three.

  When the last shot had spun wide of the young man’s reach, Freud walked calmly up to the net.

  “Is honour satisfied?” he enquired politely. I believe the other would have sprung forward and throttled him there and then, had not his friends hastily intercepted and held him back by force.

  In the dressing chambers, Freud bathed and changed once more into his street clothes without comment, except to acknowledge my effusive congratulations, and we started back to Bergasse 19.

  “At least I had my set of tennis,” he observed, hailing a cab. “And I didn’t even have to wait for a court.”

  “That man’s comment—about your theory,” I asked, after some hesitation. “You don’t seriously contend that boys—that they—”

  He smiled at me with that expression of sadness I had come to know so well.

  “Set your mind at rest, Doctor. I do not contend that at all.”

  I sank back on the cushions of the cab with something like a sigh, though I do not think Freud was aware of it.

  When we returned to the house, Freud cautioned me to say nothing of the tennis duel to Holmes. He did not wish to distract my friend with the incident, and I agreed.

  We found the detective where we had left him, poring over volumes in the study and not inclined to talk. Merely finding that he took an interest in something was encouraging to me. Withdraw
ing to my room, I pondered over the curious scene at the Maumberg. We never had learned that young jabbernowl’s name, but his face, his livid wicked face, seamed with that evil scar, lingered in my mind for the rest of the afternoon.

  During supper Sherlock Holmes appeared to have relapsed into his former malaise. Despite our efforts at conversation, his rejoinders were again monosyllabic and desultory in the extreme. I eyed Freud anxiously but he affected to ignore my glances and chatted away as though nothing were amiss.

  Following supper he rose and excused himself from the table, returning some moments later with a parcel in his arms.

  “Herr Holmes, I have something which I believe you might enjoy,” said he, handing over the oblong box.

  “Oh?”

  Holmes took the box and left it in his lap, not knowing, apparently, what to do with it.

  “I wired to England for this,” Freud went on, seating himself again. Holmes still said nothing, but looked at the box.

  “May I help you open it?” offered Anna, reaching up for the string.

  “Please do,” Holmes responded, and turned the box round towards the child.

  “Be careful,” her father enjoined as her small fingers grappled with the knot. “Here.” With a pocket knife, Freud severed the string and Anna pulled open the paper, then uncovered the box. Involuntarily I drew in my breath when I saw what was inside.

  “It’s another box !” Anna exclaimed.

  “Let Herr Holmes open this one himself,” Frau Freud commanded behind me.

  “Well, aren’t you going to?” Anna encouraged him.

  Without answering her, Holmes drew a case from the stuffing inside the box. Slowly but automatically, his fingers worked the catches and he withdrew the Stradivarius, then looked up at the Viennese physician.

  “This is very kind of you,” he said in the same quiet tone that so frightened me. Anna clapped her hands with excitement.

  “It’s a fiddle !” she cried, “a fiddle! Can you play it? Oh, please won’t you play it for me? Please?”