The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by edited by John Joseph Adams

  Our visitor was perhaps twenty-eight: a short, broad-shouldered young man, a little prone to fat, the voice high and thin, and he moved with a bright, bird-like bounce. His face, under thinning hair, was pale—perhaps he was consumptive—and his blue eyes were striking, wide and dreaming. He could hardly have presented a greater contrast, physically and in his manner, to my friend Holmes. And yet his conversation sparked with Holmes's, as if their two minds were poles of some huge electrical battery.

  This visitor had presented Holmes with a set of rather grainy photographs, taken with one of the New York Kodaks which are so popular. Holmes was inspecting these with his lens. The visitor, with some malicious glee, was challenging Holmes to deduce, from the evidence of each photograph, the elements of some unusual situation, after the manner of a parlour game. Holmes had just finished with a blurred image of some withered white flowers. I studied this for myself, and could see little untoward about the flowers, although I could not immediately place their natural order—perhaps it was the genus Malva—for instance, the shape of the gynoecium, clearly visible, was rather unusual. Holmes appeared rather irritated by this harmless image, and had passed on to the next, while his young visitor was grinning. "I'm not surprised he made nothing of it. The apparatus of a classic hoaxer!" he told me.

  Holmes passed me the next print. "See here, Watson. What can you make of that?"

  This appeared more promising—and, I observed, the visitor was somewhat more serious about it. At first glance it seemed to me an undistinguished portrait of a commonplace luncheon party—although it was set in unusual surroundings, the table and guests being all but engulfed by bulky electrical equipment, wires and cylinders and coils and cones, and in the background I could make out the fittings of a workshop: a steam lathe, metal turners, acetylene welding equipment, a sheet-metal stamp and the like. I ventured, "I observe that our visitor this evening was a guest at the lunch. I do not know these others—"

  "They are the Brimicombes, of Wiltshire," said the visitor. "My hosts that day: two brothers, Ralph and Tarquin. Ralph is an old college friend of mine. The brothers work together—or did so—on mechanical and electrical inventions."

  "It was a sunny day," I said. "I see a splash of light here on the tablecloth, just behind the dish containing this handsome sausage."

  "Yes," said Holmes with tolerant patience, "but what of the sausage itself?"

  I looked again. The sausage sat on its own plate, the centrepiece of the meal. "It is a succulent specimen. Is it German?"

  Holmes sighed. "Watson, that is no sausage, German or otherwise. It is evidently a prank, of dubious taste, served on their guests by these Brimicombes."

  The visitor laughed. "You have it, Mr Holmes. You should have seen our faces when that giant concoction crawled off its plate and across the tablecloth!"

  "A man of your profession should recognise the beast, Watson. It is an aquatic annelid, of the suctorial order Hirudinea, employed for the extraction of blood—"

  "Great Heaven," I cried, "it is a giant leech!"

  "You cannot see the colour in the Kodak," said the visitor, "but you should know it was a bright red: as red as blood itself."

  "But how can this be, Holmes? Is it some freak of nature?"

  "Of nature—or Man's science," Holmes mused. "Consider the influences acting on that wretched leech. It is drawn towards flatness by the force of the gravity of the Earth; that much we know. And its collapse to a pancake is resisted only by its internal strength. But it is hard to believe a creature as gross as this specimen would even be able to sustain its own form. Why, then, has it evolved such a magnitude? What gives it the strength to hold itself up, to move?" He eyed his visitor sharply. "Or perhaps we should ask, what is reducing the force which drags it down?"

  The visitor clapped his hands in delight. "You have it, sir!"

  Holmes handed back the photograph. "Indeed. And perhaps you might care to set out the particulars of the case."

  Confused, I asked, "Are you so sure you have a case at all, Holmes?"

  "Oh, yes," he said gravely. "For did our visitor not speak of the work of these Brimicombe brothers in the past tense? Evidently something has disturbed the equilibrium of their fraternal lives; and you would not be here, sir, if that were not something serious."

  "Indeed," was the reply, and now the visitor was solemn. "There could be nothing more serious, in fact: my visit here was motivated by the death of the elder brother, Ralph, in unusual circumstances—circumstances deriving from the more obscure corners of the physical sciences!"

  I asked, "Is it murder?"

  "The local coroner does not think so. I, however, am unsure. There are puzzling features—inconsistencies—and so I have come to you, Mr Holmes—I am a journalist and author, not a detective."

  I smiled. "In fact, sir, I already know your occupation."

  He seemed surprised. "Forgive me. We have not been introduced."

  "No introduction is necessary, nor was any deep deduction on my part. Your portrait has been as common enough this year."

  He looked flattered. "You know my work?"

  "As it has been featured in the Pall Mall Budget, The National Observer and elsewhere. I am a great admirer of your scientific romances." I extended my hand. "It is good to meet you, Mr Wells!"

  Holmes agreed to travel with Wells to the Brimicombe home, near Chippenham, and he prevailed on me to accompany him, despite my reluctance to leave London, so close was I to my bereavement. But Holmes persisted, kindly. "You know how few of my cases involve the deeper mysteries of science, Watson. Perhaps this will be a suitable candidate for your casebook! It will be quite like old times." And so it was, the very next day, that I found myself with my valise clambering aboard the 10.15 from Paddington Station. We had the carriage to ourselves, Holmes, Wells and I. Holmes wrapped himself in his grey travelling-cloak and stretched out his long legs on the cushioned seat, as Wells, in his thin, piping voice, set out the full details of the case for us.

  "I have known Ralph Brimicombe since we both attended the Normal School of Science in the '80s," he began, "and I remained in friendly contact with him until his recent death. He was a rather dream-like, remote figure—oddly impractical in the details of everyday life—to the extent that I was somewhat surprised when he married, when still a student at the Normal School. But his mind always sparked with creative energy. His subjects at the School were Astronomy, Astro-physics—all that sort of thing—along with Electricity and Magnetism. Even as a student he began to develop intriguing ideas about the coupling, as he put it, between electricity and gravity. Our theories of gravity were long due for an overhaul, he claimed. And perhaps there could even be practical applications. He was a delight to debate with!—you can imagine how I found him a soul-mate."

  Holmes asked, "A coupling?"

  "Gravity, as you know, is that force which imbues our bodies with weight. Ralph became convinced that the gravity of a large mass such as the Earth could be mitigated by a suitable arrangement of large currents and magnetic fluxes. Mitigated, or reduced."

  "Reduced?" I said. "But if that were true, the commercial possibilities would be enormous. Think of it, Holmes. If one could reduce the weight of freight goods, for example—"

  "Oh, to hang with commerce and freight!" Wells exclaimed. "Doctor Watson, Ralph Brimicombe claimed to have found a way to have removed the influence of gravity altogether. Without gravity, one could fly! He even claimed to have built a small capsule, and flown himself—alone, mind you, and without witnesses—all the way to the Moon. He showed me injuries which he said were due to an exhaustion of his food and water, an exposure to the Rays of Space, and burns from the lunar Vacuum. And he gave me a small vial, of what he claimed was Moon dust, as 'proof' of his journey. I have it about me." He patted his pockets.

  Holmes raised a thin eyebrow. "And did you believe these claims?"

  Wells hesitated. "Perhaps I wished to. But not entirely. Ralph was never above exaggerating
his achievements, so impatient was he for acceptance and prestige.

  "But I run ahead of my account. Ralph, for all his ability, could only scrape through the examinations at the Normal School, so distracted did he become by his gravitational obsession. After that, no respectable institution would take him on, and no journal would publish the revised theories and partial experimental results he claimed." Wells sighed. "Perhaps Ralph's greatest tragedy was the untimely death of his father, some months after he left the Normal School. The father had made a fortune in the Transvaal, and had retired to Chippenham, only to die of recurrent malaria. He left everything, with few tiresome legal complications, to his two sons: Ralph, and the younger Tarquin. This sudden legacy made Ralph a rich man. No longer did he need to convince peers of the value of his work. Now, he could plough a lone furrow, wherever it might take him.

  "Ralph returned to Wiltshire, and devoted himself to his studies. He privately published his results which—while of great interest to students of the esoteric like myself—were roundly and rudely rejected by other scientists."

  "And what of Tarquin?" Holmes asked.

  "I knew Tarquin a little. I never much liked him," Wells said. "He was quite a contrast to Ralph. Full of vanity and self-regard, and not nearly so intelligent, though he has some smattering of an education, and, as I understand it, a crude grasp of his brother's accomplishments. Tarquin squandered his own inheritance in trying to follow his father's footsteps in Southern Africa, failed roundly, and came home pursued by debtors. Eventually his brother took him on as a species of senior assistant. Tarquin acquired equipment for Ralph's experiments, arranged apparatus and so forth. But even in this he proved less than competent, and Ralph was forced to demote him, effectively, to work as subordinate to Ralph's own engineer, a stolid local chap called Bryson."

  I remarked, "It looked as if your lunch party took place in the midst of Ralph's apparatus."

  "Yes." Wells smiled. "He was fond of such spectaculars. And I must describe the purpose of that apparatus to you, for it will be of significance to your investigation.

  "I have mentioned Ralph's attempts—partially successful, he claimed—to nullify gravity. But this proved possible only over a small volume. To extend his abilities—to build greater ships which might carry teams of men across the Void of Space—Ralph pursued studies of more subtle aspects of the gravitational phenomenon, notably the Equivalence between Inertial and Gravitational Mass. You see—"

  I held up my hands. "I cannot speak for Holmes, but I am already baffled, Mr Wells. I know nothing of gravity, save for its slow dragging at the lower spines and arches of my patients."

  "Let me explain by analogy. Mr Holmes, can I trouble you for some coins? A sovereign and a farthing should do—there. Thank you." He held the two coins over the carriage floor. "Look here, Watson. The sovereign is considerably heavier than the farthing."

  "That is clear enough."

  "If I release these coins simultaneously they will fall to the floor."

  "Of course."

  "But which will arrive first?—the farthing, or the sovereign?"

  Holmes looked amused. I felt that embarrassed frustration which sometimes comes over me when I cannot follow some elaborated chain of reasoning. And yet, the case seemed simple enough. "The sovereign," I said. "Disregarding the resistance of the air, as the heavier of the two—"

  Wells released the coins. They fell side by side, and struck the carriage floor together.

  "I am no expert in Gravitational Mechanics," Holmes chided me, "but I do remember my Galileo, Watson."

  Wells retrieved the coins. "It is all to do with various Laws of Newton. Under gravity, all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass. Think of it this way, Watson: if you were in a lift, and the cable snapped, you and the lift would fall together. You would feel as if you were floating, inside the lift car."

  "Briefly," I said, "until the shaft floor was reached."

  "Indeed. It was precisely this effect which Ralph strove to study. In the luncheon chamber I showed you, with an apparatus of coils and cones and loops, he managed to create a region of space in which—as Ralph showed us with a series of demonstrations and tricks—thanks to the adjustment of the gravity field with electrical energy, heavier objects did indeed fall more rapidly than the lighter! This was the 'Inertial Adjustor,' as Ralph called it. It sounds a trivial feat—and is much less spectacular than shooting a capsule at the Moon—but it is nonetheless quite remarkable. If true."

  "But you doubt it," Holmes said. "In fact, you employed the word 'tricks.'"

  Wells sighed. "Dear old Ralph. I do not think he lied deliberately. But his optimism and energy for his own work would sometimes cloud his critical judgement. And yet the acceptance of his theories and devices—particularly his Inertial Adjustor—were central to his life, his very mental state."

  "So central, in fact, that they led to his death."

  "Indeed," said Wells. "For it was in that very chamber, within the Inertial Adjustor itself, that Ralph Brimicombe died—or was killed!"

  It was after three o'clock when at last we reached Chippenham. We took a trap to the Brimicombe residence, a well-appointed affair of the Regency period which had been rather allowed to run to seed.

  Holmes stepped from the trap and sniffed the air. He walked to the verge of the gravel drive and inspected the lawn grass, which I noticed was discoloured here and there by small brown circles, samples of which Holmes disturbed gently with the toecap of his boot.

  A young man came out to meet us: tall and blond, his eyes a vacuous grey. He greeted Wells rather contemptuously—"If it isn't Bertie Wells!"—and introduced himself as Tarquin Brimicombe. We were escorted into the house and introduced to various others of the household. Jane, the widow of Ralph, was a tall, willowy woman who was younger than I expected, and her eyes were puffy as if from habitual crying; and Jack Bryson, Ralph's trusted engineer, bald of head and square of shoulder, appeared puzzled and ill at ease.

  Holmes smiled at the widow with the sudden kind warmth perceived in him only by those who know him well, and which made my own heart rise, for I sympathised all too well with this lady's loss of her spouse. "Madam," said Holmes. "My very deepest sympathies."

  "Thank you."

  "And how is your labrador? Is she still ill?"

  She looked confused. "Convalescing, I think. But how did you know?"

  He inclined his head. "The patches on the lawn are clear evidence of a canine—and a bitch at that, for it is well known that a bitch will empty her bladder in a single spot, so depositing enough material to damage the grass, whereas a dog will release small quantities of liquid to mark his territory. I have a monograph in draft on the excretory habits of other domestic and urban wildlife. And as to her breed, the golden hairs adhering to your lower skirt are evidence enough of that, Mrs Brimicombe, as well as to your affection for the animal."

  "Oh! But you knew of her illness?"

  Holmes smiled sadly. "If she were well, I should expect her to come bounding out with you to challenge three such rough strangers as ourselves."

  Wells clucked admiringly.

  Jane Brimicombe waved a hand rather vaguely. "The illness is baffling to the vets. Sheba has some difficulty standing, and her bones are oddly brittle and prone to breaking. She was involved in experiments of Ralph's, you see, and—"

  "I know," said Holmes.

  "You do? But how?"

  But Holmes did not answer. Instead he drew me aside. "Watson, I'd be grateful if you'd take a sample of the droppings from the wretched animal. Perform some kind of assay."

  "Looking for what?"

  "My dear fellow, if I told you that I might prejudice your results."

  "And how am I supposed to achieve it? I am no vet, Holmes, still less a chemist. And we are a long way from town."

  "I am sure you will find a way." Now he turned back to Mrs Brimicombe, and with deft skill, began to draw her out on the subject of her husband's demise.


  "It was early morning. I was in the kitchen. Mr Bryson had just come in, having completed an hour's work already." She avoided the eyes of the engineer Bryson, I observed, and the soubriquet "Mr Bryson" did not come naturally to her lips. "We would often eat together, though Mr Bryson was always busy and in a rush. For breakfast he would eat one fried egg and a slice of toast."

  "Egg?" asked Holmes. "What egg?"

  "From the small coop we keep at the back of the house," Mrs Brimicombe said.

  Holmes asked, "And how was the egg that day?"

  Mrs Brimicombe dropped her gaze. "Mr Bryson remarked on its fine flavour. I recall Tarquin—Mr Brimicombe—brought them in from the coop, fresh that morning."