by Lyndsay Faye
“How can you mean?” I asked, puzzled. “Surely the darkroom incident casts him in an extremely suspicious light. All we know is that he disappeared, probably with the colonel, and the rumor in San Francisco told that they were both stolen away by the Tejano ghost who possessed the house. That is rubbish, of course, but even now I cannot think where they went, or why.”
“It is impossible to know where they vanished,” Holmes replied, his grey eyes sparkling, “but I can certainly tell you why.”
“Dear God, you have solved it?” I exclaimed in delight. “You cannot be in earnest—I’ve racked my brain over it for all these years to no avail. What the devil happened?”
“First of all, Watson, I fear I must relieve you of a misapprehension. I believe Molly and Charles Warburton were the authors of a nefarious and subtle plot which, if not for your intervention and Sam Jefferson’s, might well have succeeded.”
“How could you know that?”
“Because you have told me, my dear fellow, and a very workmanlike job you did in posting me up. Ask yourself when the colonel’s mental illness began. What was his initial symptom?”
“He changed his will.”
“It is, you must own, a very telling starting point. So telling, in fact, that we must pay it the most stringent attention.” Holmes jumped to his feet and commenced pacing the carpet like a mathematician expounding over a theorem. “Now, there are very few steps—criminal or otherwise—one can take when one is disinherited. Forgery is a viable option, and the most common. Murder is out, unless your victim has yet to sign his intentions into effect. The Warburtons hit upon a scheme as cunning as it is rare: they undertook to prove a sane man mad.”
“But Holmes, that can scarcely be possible.”
“I admit that fortune was undoubtedly in their favor. The colonel already suffered from an irrational preoccupation with the supernatural. Additionally, his bedroom lacked any sort of ornament, and young Charles Warburton specialized in photographic technique.”
“My dear Holmes, you know I’ve the utmost respect for your remarkable faculty, but I cannot fathom a word of what you just said,” I confessed.
He laughed. “I shall do better, then. Have we any reason to think Jefferson lied when he told you of the ghost’s earthly manifestations?”
“No, but nevertheless he could have meant anything by it. He could have slit that hole and stolen that firewood himself.”
“Granted. But it was after you told him of Portillo’s presence that he broke into the photography studio.”
“You see a connection between Portillo and Charles Warburton’s photographs?”
“Decidedly so, as well as a connection between the photographs, the blank wall, and the torn-out lilac bush.”
“Holmes, that doesn’t even—”
I stopped myself as an idea dawned on me. Finally, after the passage of many years, I was beginning to understand.
“You are talking about a magic lantern,” I said slowly. “By God, I have been so blind.”
“You were remarkably astute, my boy, for you took note of every essential detail. As a matter of fact, I believe you can take it from here,” he added with more than his usual grace.
“The colonel disinherited his niece and nephew, possibly because he abhorred their mercenary natures, in favor of war charities,” I stated hesitantly. “In a stroke of brilliance, they decided to make it seem war was his mania; they would not allow him to so slight his kin. Charles hired Juan Portillo to appear in a series of photographs as a Tejano soldier and promised that he would be paid handsomely if he kept the sessions secret. The nephew developed the images onto glass slides and projected them through a magic lantern device outside the window in the dead of night. His victim was so terrified by the apparition on his wall, he never thought to look for its source behind him. The first picture, threatening the white woman, likely featured Molly Warburton. But for the second plate . . . ”
“That of the knife plunging into the Texian’s chest, they borrowed the colonel’s old garb and probably placed it on a dummy. The firewood ‘disappeared’ so that a number of men could assemble, farther off on the grounds, to portray rebels with torches. The lilac, as is obvious—”
“Stood in the way of the magic lantern apparatus!” I cried. “What could be simpler?”
“And the headaches the colonel experienced afterward?” my friend prodded me.
“Likely an aftereffect of an opiate or narcotic his family added to his meal in order to heighten the experience of the visions in his bedchamber.”
“And Sam Jefferson?”
“A deeply underestimated opponent who saw the Warburtons for what they were and kept a constant watch. The only thing he stole was a look at the plates in Charles’s studio as his final piece of evidence. When they sent him packing, he told the colonel all he knew and they—”
“Were never heard from again,” Holmes finished with a poetic flourish.
“In fact, they found the perfect revenge.” I laughed to think of it. “Colonel Warburton had no interest in his own wealth and took more than enough to live from the safe. And after all, when he was finally declared dead, his estate was distributed just as he wished it.”
“Yes, a number of lucky events occurred. I am grateful, as I confess I have been at other times, that you are an utterly decent fellow, my dear Doctor.”
“I don’t understand,” I said in some confusion.
“I see the world in terms of cause and effect. If you had not been the sort of man willing to treat a rogue wounded in a knife fight who had no means of paying you, it is possible you would not have had the opportunity to tell me this story.”
“It wasn’t so simple as all that,” I muttered, rather abashed, “but thank—”
“And an admirable story it was, too. You know, Watson,” Holmes continued, extinguishing his pipe, “from all I have heard of America, it must be an exceedingly fertile ground for men of mettle. The place lives almost mythically in the estimations of most Englishmen. I myself have scarcely met an American, ethically inclined or otherwise, who did not possess a certain audacity of mind.”
“It’s the pioneer in them, I suppose. Still, I cannot help thinking that you are more than a match for anyone, American or otherwise.”
“I would not presume to contradict you, but that vast expanse boasts more than its share of crime as well as of imagination, and for that reason commands some respect. I am not a complete stranger to the American criminal.”
“My dear fellow, I should be delighted to hear you expound on that subject,” I exclaimed, glancing longingly at my notebook and pen.
“Another time, perhaps.” My friend paused, his long fingers drumming along with the drops as he stared through our front window, eyes glittering brighter than the rain-soaked street below. “Perhaps one day we may both find occasion to test ourselves further on their soil. I should like to have met this Sam Jefferson, for instance. He had a decided talent.”
“Talent or no, he was there to witness the events; you solved them based on a secondhand account by a man who’d never so much as heard of the science of deduction at that time.”
“There are precious few crimes in this world, merely a hundred million variations upon a dozen or so themes. I have thought of categorizing them into a monograph at some point, to aid assiduous officers of the law in identifying what type of mischief they are facing. Some of these inspectors wouldn’t know a Spanish Prisoner scheme from an involuntary manslaughter, I fear.”
Laughing, I remarked, “To think I imagined it might confound you—how very callow of me.”
He shrugged. “It was a fetching little problem, however, no matter it was not matchless. The use of the magic lantern, although I will never prove it, I believe to have been absolutely inspired. Now,” he proclaimed, striding to his violin and picking it up, “if you would be
so kind as to locate the brandy and cigars you mentioned earlier, I will show my appreciation by entertaining you in turn. You’ve come round to my liking for Kreutzer, I think? Capital. I must thank you for bringing your very interesting case to my attention; I shall lose no time informing my brother I solved it without moving a muscle. And thus, my dear Watson, we shall continue our efforts to enliven a dreary afternoon.”
The Adventure of
the Magical Menagerie
It has long been a dictum of my internationally celebrated friend Sherlock Holmes that work is the best antidote to sorrow. As his biographer, therefore, I have been given occasion to wonder whether the almost superhuman effort he himself expends over his cases is relevant to this credo. When at work, he is an indefatigable automaton: dashing hither and thither consulting all relevant parties, weighing the value of data to hand provided by the police, and more often discovering clues everyone else has overlooked. When idle, however, he is a listless creature, hollow-eyed to a degree which ever causes me the deepest sympathetic consternation.
Perhaps the maxim and the man have no literal relation to one another. Holmes has many times accused me of owning too poetic a nature for my own good; were I to broach the subject with him, howsoever obliquely, he would lift an icy brow while inquiring whether I was not a trifle feverish and suggesting I lie down. And yet, so mournful does he appear when inactive that I shall never rule out the possibility of some tragedy having befallen my friend. It remains to be seen whether he shall ever give his tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak, as it were, but I can state with personal assurance that his adage is wisdom and, on March the 15th of 1897, he proved it to me.
As was usual during that season, I had a letter from Mrs. Cecil Forrester, a former client of my friend but, far more important, the former employer of my late wife. Mary had for years worked as a governess before we wed, and had been far better disposed to that difficult work than some, for her nature was so tender and gentle that even the most colicky newborn would settle into her arms and coo like a dove.
This facility of hers had been treated by the Forrester household not with cold approval but with heartfelt affection, particularly by the wife, who called Mary her “darling girl” and shared every intimacy of cohabitation and companionship with her. The two had remained devoted to each other even after our wedding separated them geographically, just as I continued to join in adventures with my vastly more eccentric friend, and Mrs. Forrester each March since 1894 had written me a heartfelt missive suggesting that if I ever needed an audience for my reminiscences, she would prove not only a devoted listener but a willing participant. It was typical of Mary’s closest friend that she should not abandon me following our shared bitter loss, and whenever in Mrs. Forrester’s company, I thought with warmth how glad I was that Mary may have been poor when we met save for the mysterious pearls that were her inheritance, but nevertheless was perfectly comfortable in her situation.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Forrester’s well-intentioned overture ever filled me with harrowing dread of our postman, Mr. McPhail (who deserved no such sentiment, as he was a florid, jolly fellow with four children and a fifth on the way). When the letter addressed in her handwriting arrived I was alone at Baker Street with a vexing case of catarrh—still in my dressing gown, my chin and hair in a pitiable state, all my handkerchiefs soiled, staring at untouched toast and the film of white clouds pasted over the sky beyond our window. On the two other occasions when I had received this apparently annual correspondence, Holmes and I had both been from home; since his miraculous return, he had been the most sought-after man by the police and the most loathed by the underworld in the history of England, and I had been at his side all the while.
Holmes, however, had gone to consult with his brother Mycroft over some abstruse encoding work at Whitehall regarding which he could tell me nothing whatsoever; I was alone. I was, in addition, irrationally petulant over the fact. It would be the basest self-flattery to suggest that this was due to mere illness, for I am no stranger to physical hardship. The sea of melancholy in which I was floating had soaked me to the bone. By the time I heard my fellow lodger’s brisk step upon the stair and his lean form had burst into the room, scattering his beloved latest editions as if he were a potentate showering the masses with gold, the skies beyond the window had darkened to the somber bluish coal of twilight’s end, and the fire had died untimely. I was spread lengthwise upon the settee patently doing nothing whatsoever, to my own considerable disgust.
Sherlock Holmes whistled, his grey eyes pinned to one of the newspapers. “Dear me. A fiver says you and I will be called to the Norfolk coast over this business of the Viking manuscript, Watson. A complete eleventh-century ballad cycle discovered just when the Earl is rumored to be selling half his securities? The mind balks at such felicitous coincidences. At least the barometer suggests we’ll have no difficulty in traveling there. The nine-twenty-three express from Charing Cross ought to do nicely, though I suppose there is no use in getting an early start when I don’t yet know which party involved will inevitably consult me.”
When I merely coughed, he glanced up, taking in the scene with his usual lightning precision. Admittedly, genius was not required to create a narrative from the rapidly dimming room, the dismal condition of the fire I had neglected, the supply of kerchiefs, my own state of undress, and the letter which I had slid unopened onto the mantel so that I might glare at it unreservedly. As Holmes himself would put it, the greenest C Division constable would have solved the mystery quick as blinking.
My life is one of perpetual surprises. Whatever I had expected to happen next, I did not expect Sherlock Holmes to tilt his chiseled features as if in thought, slap the newspaper against his hand, drop it with its brethren upon the rug, and quit the room.
When I heard his bedroom door shut, I confess my already hunched shoulders slumped fully into the cushions. The combination of sorrow, sickness, and idleness had already so depressed my spirits that this latest development suggested I give the entire day up as lost and hope for an improved tomorrow. By the time I had determined to do just that, however, Holmes was back, now clad in his blue dressing gown, with its ties valiantly fluttering as he announced, “I will not tolerate this sort of abuse.”
My bleary eyes widened to saucers as he briskly opened the scuttle and stoked up the blaze. That task finished, he donned his slippers and whirled about seeing to various lamps until our parlor glowed as yellow as the inside of an egg.
“What abuse might that be?” I rasped incredulously.
Guilty as I already felt over my own black humor, I supposed that he meant the dark, chilly, and altogether inhospitable atmosphere to which I had subjected him. Instead of answering, however, he flung himself out of the room with fully as much alacrity as he applies to unidentified footmarks.
This rankled tremendously. However insalubrious Holmes found Baker Street that day, surely I found it trebly worse. I was about to quit the sofa in favor of demanding satisfaction of my friend when he returned bearing the ever-tantalizing tin box which houses reports of his earliest cases. This he dropped to the floor so disgustedly that Mrs. Hudson must have supposed the sky was falling.
“It absolutely will not do, Watson,” Holmes declared imperiously. An instant later he had sunk neatly behind the box, in one fluid movement crossing his legs as if he were a Buddha presiding over a temple. “Even men whose time is of less value than my own prefer to be engaged upon work related to their actual vocations—one does not enlist the secretarial services of costermongers or the nautical skills of ornithologists. Speaking directly to this principle: I am a consulting detective, not a secretary for a third-rate shipping concern.”
I regarded him in no little awe. “What on earth are you on about?”
His hand waved in an impatient spiral before lifting the box lid. “Athelney Jones has lost the paperwork regarding a shared case. Naturally he has. The man ought to be d
aily congratulated for selecting the correct left and right boots for his respective feet. Now he needs to write a secondary report, and of course, I could tell you at once that the business hinged entirely upon the fellow’s having had a twin brother in the diamond cutting business, but surely you’ll agree Inspector Jones owns considerably more energy than acumen.”
When once Sherlock Holmes has embarked upon his tirades, those not enthralled despite their customary verve and nuance could no more stop them than they could a charging elephant. My money, in fact, should be upon the gargantuan mammal’s being felled long before my friend wearied of invective. I watched as he rummaged through the box whilst muttering in his rapid tenor, “Pointless waste of a perfectly pleasant evening. Is it to be my job to file the Yarders’ paperwork now, after solving their cases for them? That was Gregson . . . this one Hollingberry . . . Heavens, Doctor, but we spend a great deal of our lives with Lestrade. . . . Ha, Jones!” His face fell immediately, however. “Confound it, this is a Jones case to be sure, but it’s one from before your time which introduced me to Old Mr. Sherman. Come to think of it, the matter must hold some interest for you—you surely remember Sherman’s dog Toby, from the business of Jonathan Small and the Morstan treasure.”
Holmes’s steely eyes swept up to mine. “Should you like me to recount the case for you? Supposing you’re not too done in.”
When I realized precisely what my friend had just orchestrated, I confess I was forced to clear my throat for reasons other than illness. He knew all about poor Mrs. Forrester’s yearly letter commiserating over Mary’s—née Morstan’s—passing; in one fell swoop, he not only had said in his peculiar sideways fashion that he knew why I was so low, but had offered an obvious way to honor my late spouse without any maudlin sentiment entering the picture, nor any work on my part other than to sit back and listen.
“You are altogether extraordinary,” was my answer when I could speak.
