"Really?" Holmes turned an appraising eye on the brother, Tarquin. "Sir, are you in the habit of visiting the hen-house?"
Tarquin blustered. "I should say not—I used to help Millie with the eggs as a boy—it was a fine morning—can't a fellow act on impulse once in a while?"
Wells was growing impatient. "Look here, Holmes, why are you so interested in this business of a breakfast egg? Isn't it rather trivial? And can't you see it's causing the lady distress?"
I knew my friend well enough to understand that nothing is truly trivial—there was surely some pattern to his close questioning which none of us could discern—but Mrs Brimicombe was, indeed, becoming agitated, and so Holmes dropped his interrogation of her and allowed Tarquin to lead us through to the drawing room, where he provided sherry. "I have to say I did not invite Mr Wells here," he said. "At first I regarded his interest and his insistence on coming here as an intrusion into my family's grief. But my view has changed, as I have meditated on the recent tragic events. Now that you are here I am glad, Mr Holmes. I need your help."
"Why so?"
"Ralph's life was not lost. Mr Holmes, it was stolen. After the coroner's report, the police are not interested. I was not sure who to approach, and—"
Holmes held up his hands. "Tell me exactly what you mean."
His pale blue eyes were fixed on Holmes. "Ralph's death was no accident."
"Who was present in the Inertial Adjustor chamber at the time of the incident?"
"Only two of us. Myself and Bryson, my brother's engineer."
"Then," I said doggedly, "you are accusing Bryson—"
"—of murder. That is right, Doctor. Jack Bryson killed Ralph."
Holmes is always impatient to visit the scene of a crime, and Wells was clearly enjoying the whole affair hugely; and so we agreed to accompany Tarquin at once to the Inertial Adjustor chamber, the site of Ralph Brimicombe's death.
We had a walk of a hundred yards or so across the grounds to an out-building. By now it was late afternoon. I took deep breaths of wood-scented air, trying to clear my head after the fumes of the train. I could hear the clucking of chickens, evidently from the hen coop Mrs Brimicombe had mentioned.
I was startled when an insect no less than six inches long scuttled across my path, disturbed by my passage. At first I thought it must be a cockroach, but on closer observation, to my astonishment, it proved to be an ant. It ran with a blur of legs towards an anthill—a gigantic affair, towering over the lower trees like an eroded monument. "Good Lord, Holmes," I said. "Did you observe that? What was it, do you think, some tropical species?"
He shook his head. "Ralph Brimicombe was no collector of bugs. Given the pattern of events here I have expected some such apparition."
"You expected it? But how?"
"Surely that repulsive red leech of Wells's was enough of a clue. But in any event—all in good time, my dear friend."
We reached a laboratory, of crude but functional construction, and I ran my eyes for the first time over the gruesome details of the Inertial Adjustor itself. The main chamber was fifty feet tall; and it was dominated by the stupendous wreck of a vehicle. This latter had been a cone some fifteen feet in length and perhaps as broad, but it was without wheels, sails or runners: for its purpose, Tarquin told us in all seriousness, had been to fly, freed of gravity by Ralph's invention, into Space! To simulate to its occupant some of the stresses and impacts to be expected during a flight, the vessel had been suspended in midair, at the heart of the Inertial Adjustor itself, by a series of cables and gimbals.
Now the cables dangled uselessly. The ship, after an evident fall, had gouged a crater a few inches deep in the floor; it looked as if a great hammer had pounded into the concrete. And it was inside this capsule, this aluminium dream of flight in Space, that Ralph Brimicombe had fallen to his death.
Around the massive wreck were arrayed the elements of the Inertial Adjustor apparatus: coils and armatures, cones of paper and iron, filamented glass tubes, the poles of immense permanent magnets, great shadowy shapes which reached up and out of my vision, the whole far beyond my comprehension. There were besides some more mundane elements: drafting tables laden with dusty blueprints, lathes and vices and tools, chains for heavy lifting suspended from the ceiling.
I observed, however, that the fall of the vehicle had done a pretty damage to the equipment in that chamber, surely rendering it inoperative.
My eye was caught by a series of small glass-walled cages, beside a dissecting table. There was a series of leeches in stoppered jars, none of them as big as the specimen in Well's photograph, but all so large they were indeed unable even to sustain their characteristic tubular forms; they lay against the thick glass at the bottom of their jars, in evident distress. Among the higher animals imprisoned here there were mice, but of an unusual morphology, with remarkably long and spindly limbs. Some of the mice, indeed, had trouble supporting their own weight. I remarked on this to Holmes, but he made no comment.
Holmes, Wells and I stepped over the crater's cracked lip and walked around the wrinkled aluminium of the capsule's hull. The fall had been, I judged, no more that ten feet—a drop that seemed barely enough to injure, let alone kill a man—but it had been sufficient to compress the ship's entire structure by perhaps a third of its length.
"How terrible," Wells said. "It was in this very spot—suspended under the glittering hull of Brimicombe's Moon ship itself—that he bade us dine."
"Then perhaps you have had a lucky escape," said Holmes grimly.
"The workmen have cut the capsule open." Tarquin indicated a square rent in the wall, a shadowed interior beyond. "The body was removed after the police and the coroner studied the scene. Do you want to look in there? Then I will show you where Bryson and I were working."
"In a minute," said Holmes, and he studied the corpse of the fantastic ship with his usual bewildering keenness. He said, "What sort of man was Ralph? I see evidence of his technical abilities, but what was it like to know him—to be related, to work with him?"
"Among those he worked with, Ralph stood out." Tarquin's face was open and seemed untainted by envy. "When we were children, Ralph was always the leader. And so it remained as we entered adult life."
Wells remarked, "I never knew if you liked him."
Tarquin's eyes narrowed. "I cannot answer that, Bertie. We were brothers. I worked for him. I suppose I loved him. But we were also rivals, throughout life, as are most brothers."
Holmes asked bluntly, "Do you stand to benefit from his death?"
Tarquin Brimicombe said, "No. My father's legacy will not be transferred to me. Ralph made out his own will, leaving his assets to his wife; and there is no love lost between the two of us. You may check with the family solicitors—and with Jane—to verify these claims. If you are looking for a murder motive, Mr Holmes, you must dig deeper. I will not resent it."
"Oh, I shall," muttered Holmes. "And Ralph Brimicombe is beyond resenting anything. Come. Let us look in the capsule."
We stepped over the shattered concrete to the entrance cut in the capsule wall. A small lamp had been set up, filling the interior with a sombre glow. I knew that the body—what was left of it—had been taken away for burial, but the craft had not been cleaned out. I dropped my eyes to the floor, expecting—what? a dramatic splash of blood?—but there were only a few irregular stains on the burst upholstery of the aviator's couch, where Ralph had been seated at the moment of his extinguishing. There was surprisingly little damage to the equipment and instrumentation, the dials and switches and levers evidently meant to control the craft; much of it had simply been crushed longways where it stood.
But there was a smell, reminiscent to me of the hospitals of my military service.
I withdrew my head. "I am not sure what I expected," I murmured. "More . . . carnage, I suppose."
Tarquin frowned thoughtfully; then he extended his index finger and pointed upwards.
I looked up.
; It was as if a dozen bags of rust-brown paint had been hurled into the air. The upper walls and ceiling of the ship, the instruments, dials and switches that encrusted the metal, even the cabin's one small window: all were liberally coated with dried blood.
"Good Lord," said Wells, and his face blanched. "How did that get up there?"
Tarquin said, "The coroner concluded the vessel must have rolled over as it fell, thus spreading my brother's blood through its interior."
As we moved on, Wells muttered to me, "Such a size of ship, rolling over in ten feet? It hardly seems likely!"
I agreed with the young author. But Holmes would make no remark.
Tarquin took us to a gantry which crossed the chamber above the wrecked ship. We stood a few inches from a bank of cables, many of which showed necking, shearing and cracking; they had clearly snapped under extreme pressure. But one cable—a fat, orange-painted rope as thick as my arm—had a clean, gleaming termination. At my feet was a gas cutting kit, and a set of protector goggles. It seemed absurdly obvious, like a puzzle set by a child, that a load-bearing cable had been cut by this torch!
Tarquin said, "Not all the cables supported the weight of the ship. Some carried power, air for the passenger, and so forth."
Holmes said, "You say you were both working up here, on this gantry, when the accident occurred? Both you and Bryson?"
"Yes. We were doing some maintenance. We were the only people in the chamber—apart from Ralph, of course. He was inside the vessel itself, performing calculations there."
Holmes asked, "And the Inertial Adjustor was in operation at the time?"
"It was."
I pointed to the fat orange cable. "Was that the main support?"
He nodded. "Although I did not know that at the time."
"And it has been cut with this torch?"
"That is right," he said evenly. He leaned against the gantry rail, arms folded. "The flame sliced clean through, like ice under a hot tap. When the big one went the others started to stretch and snap. And soon the ship fell."
"And Bryson was using the torch? Is that what you are saying?"
"Oh, no." He looked mildly surprised at Wells's question. "I was doing the cutting. I was working it under Bryson's supervision."
I demanded, "But if you were working the torch, how can you accuse Bryson of murder?"
"Because he is responsible. Do you not see? He told me specifically to cut the orange cable. I followed his instructions, not knowing that it was supporting the capsule."
"You said you are trained to know every detail of the ship, inside and out."
"The ship itself, yes, Doctor. Not the details of this chamber, however. But Bryson knew."
Wells remarked, "But it must have taken minutes to cut through that cable. Look at its thickness! Did Bryson not see what you were doing and stop you?"
"Bryson was not here," Tarquin said coldly. "As you have heard, he was taking breakfast with my sister-in-law, as was their wont. You see, gentlemen," he went on, a controlled anger entering his voice, "I was just a tool Bryson used to achieve his ends. As innocent as that torch at your feet."
Wells stared at the torch, the ripped cables. "Tarquin, your brother knew Bryson for years. He relied on him utterly. Why would Bryson do such a thing?"
He straightened up, brushing dust from his jacket. "You must ask him that," he said.
The next step was obvious to us all: we must confront the accused.
And so we returned to the drawing room of the main house, and confronted the wretched Bryson. He stood on the carpet, his broad, strong hands dangling useless at his side, his overalls oil-stained and bulging with tools. He was, on Wells's testimony, solid, unimaginative, able—and utterly reliable. I could not avoid a sense of embarrassment as Holmes summarised to Bryson the accusation levelled against him.
Jack Bryson hung his head and ran his palm over his scalp. "So you think I killed him," he said, sounding resigned. "That is that, then. Are you going to call in the police?"
"Slow down." Holmes held his hands up. "To begin with, I do not know what possible reason you could have for wanting to harm Ralph Brimicombe."
"It was Jane," he said suddenly.
Wells frowned. "Brimicombe's wife? What about her?"
"She and I—" He hesitated. "I may as well tell you straight; you will find out anyway. I do not know if you would call it an affair. I am a good bit older than she is—but still—Ralph was so distant, you know, so wrapped up in his work. And Jane—"
"—is a woman of warmth and devotion," Holmes said gently.
Bryson said, "I knew Jane a long time. The closeness—the opportunity. Well. So there is your motive, Mr Holmes. I am the lover who slew the cuckolded husband. And my opportunity for murder is without question."
I found it painful to watch his face. There was no bitterness there, no pride: only a sour resignation.
Wells turned to Holmes. "So," he said, "the case is resolved. Are you disappointed, Holmes?"
For answer he filled and lit his pipe. "Resolved?" he said softly. "I think not."
Bryson looked confused. "Sir?"
"Do not be so fast to damn yourself, man. You are a suspect. But that does not make you a murderer: in my eyes, in the eyes of the law, or in the eyes of God."
"And will the courts accept that? I am resigned, Mr Holmes: resigned to my fate. Let it be."
To that dignified acceptance, even Holmes had nothing to say.
Holmes ordered Bryson to take us through the same grisly inspection tour as Tarquin. Soon we were walking around the wreck once more. Unlike Tarquin, Bryson had not seen this place since the day of the accident; his distress was clear as he picked his way through the remnants of the support cables. He said: "The fall took a long time, even after the main support was severed. The noise of the shearing cables went on and on, and there was not a thing I could do about it. I ran out for help, before the end. And when we heard Ralph had been killed—" Now he turned his crumpled face to Holmes's. "No matter who you call guilty in the end, Mr Holmes, I am the killer. I know that. This is my domain; Ralph Brimicombe's life was in my hands while he was in this room, and I failed—"
"Stop it, man," Holmes said sharply. "This self-destructive blame is hardly helpful. For now, we should concentrate on the facts of the case."
Holmes took Bryson to the entrance cut in the capsule. With obvious reluctance the engineer picked his way to the crude doorway. The light inside cast his trembling cheeks in sharp relief. I saw how he looked around the walls of the cabin, at the remnants of the couch on the floor. Then he stood straight and looked at Holmes, puzzled. "Has it been cleaned?"
Holmes pointed upwards.
Bryson pushed his neck through the doorway once more and looked up at the ceiling of the capsule. When he saw the human remains scattered there he gasped and stumbled back.
Holmes said gently, "Watson, would you—"
I took Bryson's arm, meaning to care for him, but he protested: "I am all right. It was just the shock."
"One question," Holmes said. "Tell me how the cable was cut."
"Tarquin was working the torch," he began. "Under my direction. The job was simple; all he had to do was snip out a faulty section of an oxygen line."
"Are you saying Ralph's death was an accident?"
"Oh, no," Bryson said firmly. "It was quite deliberate." He seemed to be challenging us to disbelieve him.
"Tell me the whole truth," said Holmes.
"I was not watching Tarquin's every move. I had given Tarquin his instructions and had left to take breakfast before progressing to another item of work."
"What exactly did you tell him to do?"
He considered, his eyes closing. "I pointed to the oxygen line, explained what it was, and showed him what he had to do. The air line is a purple-coded cable about a thumb's-width thick."
"Whereas the support cables—"
"Are all orange coded, about so thick." He made a circle with his thumbs and middl
e fingers. "It is hard—impossible—to confuse the two."
"Did you not see what he was doing?"
"I was at breakfast with Mrs Brimicombe when it happened. I expected to be back, however."
"Why were you not?"
He shrugged. "My breakfast egg took rather longer to cook than usual. I remember the housekeeper's apology."
Wells tutted. "Those wretched eggs again!"
"At any event," Bryson said, "I was only gone a few minutes. But by the time I returned Tarquin had sliced clean through the main support. Then the shearing began."
"So you clearly identified the gas line to Tarquin."
The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Page 34
