The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by edited by John Joseph Adams

  "Good God, Holmes," I cried. "Are you telling me those poor wretches died simply because their instruments made sounds resembling that creature's natural prey?"

  "I not only believe it," said Holmes, "I intend to prove it, by the most direct means possible."

  He drew out the trombone from his bag, along with a copy of the sheet music for Thaxted.

  "You will not need your pistol, Watson. It would be entirely useless against the creature. Shooting it accurately in the brain would be as hard as hitting a bull from a hundred yards, and I imagine even four-five-five ball would simply bounce off its scaly hide."

  We were walking through a wilderness of winter-deadened trees, in a fog in which an entire herd of hadrosauridae could have stood shoulder to shoulder unobserved. A bandstand loomed out of the murk. Posters announced a forthcoming event involving royalty.

  "There do not seem to be any dinosaurs in the vicinity, Holmes. I feel sure that such large animals would advertise their presence."

  "A predator," said Holmes, "never advertises its presence." And he raised the trombone to his lips, and blew out the final bar of Thaxted. A tear rose to my eye at the thought of the country all of whose ways are gentleness, all of whose paths are peace.

  Then the hairs at the back of my neck stood on end as I heard a distant, clumsy crashing from far away in the fog, as if a drunken coachman were attempting to drive an omnibus through heavy brush.

  "The hunter's afoot," said Holmes. "And it is we who are the game." He motioned to me to follow as he stole away.

  "Confound it, Holmes! I hadn't expected your damnable theory to actually be correct!"

  "My theories, Watson, are always correct." With that, he plunged into a nearby drain or ha-ha and squelched ponderously along it, not appearing in any hurry to get to the other side. "Into the water, Watson. In this fog the beast will hunt by scent."

  I have no shame in relating that I piled into the water more smartly than I have ever piled into water before, particularly since I heard, at a somewhat lesser distance now, the immense crackling whisper of something dreadfully, fearfully heavy walking across the carpet of fallen leaves on the Heath towards our former position. Walking slowly, and appearing to deviate to left and right, like a questing hound. I believe I actually heard breath, escaping like a head of steam from a ship's boiler.

  "Do not make a sound, Watson, for your life depends on it."

  Holmes claims that he still saw nothing at that point—I would have been able to see nothing even had the beast been standing right next to me, for I had my eyes tight shut. But at that point, we heard another sound, deep and sonorous, singing out through the fog—the sound of the low notes of a violin. It is difficult to convey how I knew purely from the sounds I heard through the mist that a Mesozoic lizard was cocking its head on one side, but somehow I knew this was what was happening, as if a bird on a branch had heard another bird whistle, or a dog heard its owner call.

  We heard it plunge away through the fog.

  "As I suspected," said Holmes. "There are two hadrosaur species."

  We sat in the pleasant surroundings of the Jack Straw's Castle inn near the flagstaff on the northern perimeter of the Heath. Warm beer was a welcome antidote to the cold.

  "I cannot understand, Holmes, how the fact that there were two species of hadrosauriwhatsit can possibly be significant."

  "Quite simple, I imagine. The first species, whose calls sound like those of a trombonist executing the final bars of Thaxted, are our megalosaurus's preferred prey. The second species, meanwhile, whose call is more violinlike, are a related animal which moves with the herds of the first. But our carnivore will not attack this second species."

  "It will not?"

  "I will stake my life on it. These animals are not prey. Their flesh is shunned by our megalosaurus, which will nevertheless follow them in much the same way a lion will follow an animal it is incapable of bringing down, such as a rhinoceros, in the hope of finding other herbivores it can bring down. Nevertheless, Watson, whoever is controlling this creature is playing fiddle with the Devil. And he is about to walk through that door, right about—now."

  The doors opened to admit a shabby-looking street musician, similar in appearance to the poor devil I had examined only a day earlier.

  "Mr. Green, I believe," said Holmes. "Formerly music teacher to the family of Professor Challenger of Enmore Park. No, don't trouble yourself to pull out that revolver. You will find that almost every person in this hostelry right now is an armed member of Her Majesty's Metropolitan Police."

  Eerily, as if Holmes were some macabre puppeteer, every single one of the establishment's customers turned round and raised their hats to the newcomer.

  "You will perhaps be mystified as to how I know your name. You are, of course, an adherent of the Fenian cause and a proponent of Home Rule for Ireland. The merits or demerits of that question I leave to politicians. I involve myself only at the point when people believe their political causes justify murder. Your principal mistake was in presenting yourself, in disguise, to your former employer as a meat wholesaler of the name of Glass. 'Glas,' as Watson doubtless does not know but I certainly do, is the Gaelic for Green, a childish conceit which led to your downfall. You noticed several months ago whilst tutoring Professor Challenger's children that the notes of the trombone appeared to induce a blind killing rage in the juvenile megalosaurus chained up at the other end of the drawing room. The notes of the violin, meanwhile, served only to attract its attention and cause it to follow the violinist round the room. It was after learning these facts that you formulated your plan.

  You planned to remove the beast from confinement using two of your Fenian confederates, and train it to attack human beings. The small number of bites inflicted on his serving staff had convinced Challenger that the creature did not seek out human beings as prey; it needed to be taught to do so. And you, Mr. Green, have been teaching it to kill for the last twelve months. And why have you been doing so? Why, in only one week's time, His Majesty King George is due to attend an open air concert at the Parliament Hill bandstand on the Heath, where the final piece on the programme will be Mr. Spring-Rice's inspired lyrics to Thaxted by Gustav Holst. In fact, it is only the final note of that tune that sets off the beast, am I right?" Holmes began whistling the final few bars of Thaxted.

  The musician's face palled.

  "For pity's sake," he exclaimed, in a pronounced Dublin brogue, "you do not know what you're doing. If you value your life, if you value all our lives, stop!"

  And Holmes did stop, drawing out that long penultimate note, and laughed. "Indeed," he chuckled. "How could it be otherwise? We have Professor Challenger's word that you practised Holst's Jupiter in the beast's presence without ill effect. Jupiter, of course, would have been safe to practise, for in Jupiter, which is otherwise identical to Thaxted, the final note never resolves. Were you, perhaps, hoping that the beast would wreak such havoc among the crowd that His Majesty would be trampled?"

  The scarlet-haired Fenian shook his head. "You do me an injustice, sir. If you had only troubled to look further into the cast of the orchestra, you would have discovered I was to play the principal trombone. I intended to place myself directly before the monarch of your despicable island, blowing my horn for all I was worth. The beast would surely have taken the ermine-laden buffoon after it had finished with me."

  Holmes nodded. "I see you are a man of courage, if a misguided one. I am offering you an honourable way out."

  He extended a hand, proffering the trombone. The Irishman nodded sadly and accepted it. Holmes picked up the untouched pint of ale he had been nursing since we arrived, and held it up as well.

  "A last drink for a condemned man."

  Green accepted the pint, and drained it with gusto. Then, he turned round to the assembled police officers and cried:

  "Fianna Fail!"

  —before striding out through the inn doors into the white murk. We saw no more of him; but heard, d
roning in from without, the clear, calm notes of that timeless patriotic hymn which, I became more acutely aware than ever before, apply to any country, any King, and more especially to that great country we all hope to become citizens of upon our end.

  Then, suddenly, there was a great thundering crash, and a hideous roaring, and the notes of the trombone ceased as the instrument itself was flung out of the fog, bent double, towards the window where we sat.

  "Gods, what a beast! It will take a troop of soldiers with an artillery piece to kill it!"

  "I think not," said Holmes. "That pint of ale contained enough strychnine to kill ten elephants. Now, I believe there is time for me to consume another less dangerous pint before we repair to the bandstand, where I believe the local brass ensemble is currently setting up to practise. I fancy I could stand to hear that tune again."

  And he clicked his fingers for the barman to bring him another beer.

  The Adventure of the Antiquarian's Niece

  by Barbara Hambly

  Barbara Hambly is the bestselling author of dozens of books, including the James Asher vampire series, Those Who Hunt the Night and Traveling with the Dead. She has written many other novels as well, such as the popular Dragonsbane and its sequels, as well as media tie-in projects for Star Trek and Star Wars. Her Benjamin January series may be of interest to Holmes fans, being as it is both mystery and historical (set in 1830s New Orleans). Hambly has also written other novels of historical fiction, such as Patriot Hearts, and has a Masters degree in Medieval History.

  H. P. Lovecraft went to great pains to make his fantastic otherworldly creations appear authentic. One of his techniques was to write his fiction in an extremely detailed faux-documentary format, incorporating, for example, realistic-sounding newspaper clippings that corroborated elements of his narrators' tales. Another technique was to reuse certain names from story to story, and to encourage other writers to make use of those names as well. Lovecraft felt that made-up names would resonate with more authority if the reader had heard those names somewhere before. The best known of his creations are the evil octopus-headed god Cthulhu and the book of black magic, the Necronomicon. A similar accursed tome is the Book of Eibon, invented by Lovecraft's friend Clark Ashton Smith and used by Lovecraft in several of his own stories. Lovecraft also made multiple references to Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath, malevolent gods, and to shoggoths, large protoplasmic servants. Many of these creations are now ubiquitous in popular culture and are familiar even if you've never heard of Lovecraft. Our next story continues the tradition of using these familiar elements to connect the tale to a larger body of fantastic literature.

  In my career as the chronicler of the cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have attempted (his assertions to the contrary) to present both his successes and his failures. In most instances his keen mind and logical deductive facility led him to the solutions of seemingly insoluble puzzles. Upon some occasions, such as the strange behavior of Mrs. Effie Munro, his conclusions were astray due to unknown and unforeseen facts; on others, such as the puzzle of the dancing men or the horrifying contents of the letter received by Mr. John Openshaw, his correct assessment of the situation came too late to save the life of his client.

  In a small percentage of his cases, it was simply not possible to determine the correctness or incorrectness of his reasoning because no conclusion was ever reached. Such a case was that of Mr. Burnwell Colby and his fiancée, and the abominable inhabitants of Depewatch Priory. Holmes long kept the singular memento of his investigation in a red cardboard box in his room, and if I have not written of these events before, it is because of the fearful shadow which they left upon my heart. I only now write of them in the light of the new findings of Mr. Freud concerning the strange workings of the human mind.

  Burnwell Colby came to the lodgings that I shared with Holmes in Baker Street in the summer of 1894. It was one of those sticky London afternoons that make one long for the luxury of the seashore or the Scottish moors. Confirmed Londoner that Holmes was, I am sure he was no more aware of the heat than a fish is of water: whatever conditions prevailed in the city, he preferred to be surrounded by the noise and hurry, the curious street-scenes and odd contretemps engendered by the close proximity of over a million fellow-creatures than by any amount of fresh air. As for myself, the expenses incurred by my dear wife's final illness prevented me from even thinking of quitting the metropolis—and the depression of spirits that had overtaken me from the same source sometimes prevented me from thinking at all. While Holmes never by word or look referred to my bereavement, he was an astonishingly restful companion in those days, treating me as he always had instead of offering a sympathy which I would have found unendurable.

  He was, as I recall, preparing to concoct some appalling chemical mess at the parlor table when Mrs. Hudson's knock sounded at the door. "A Mr. Burnwell Colby to see you, sir."

  "What, at this season of the year?" Holmes thumbed the card she handed him, angled it to the window's glaring light. "Heavy stock, one-and-six the hundred, printed in America in a typeface of a restraint generally only found in the most petrified of diplomatic circles but smelling of . . . ." He broke off, and glanced at Mrs. Hudson with eyes suddenly sharp with wary interest. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I shall see this gentleman. Watson, if you would remain I would much appreciate an outsider's unbiased view of our guest."

  For I had folded together the newspaper which for the past hour I had stared at, unseeing, preparatory to making a retreat to my bedroom. To tell the truth I welcomed the invitation to remain, and helped Holmes in his rapid disposal of alembic and pipettes into his own chamber. As I reached down for the card, still lying on the much-scarred rosewood, Holmes twitched it from my fingers and slipped it into an envelope, which he set in an obscure corner of the bookcase. "Let us not drip premature surmise into the distilled waters of your observation," he said with a smile. "I am curious to read what would be writ upon a tabula rasa."

  "Behold me unbesmirched," I replied, throwing up my hands, and settled back onto the settee as the door opened to admit one of the most robust specimens of American manhood that it has ever been my privilege to encounter. Six feet tall, broad of shoulder and chest, he had dark eyes luminous with intelligence under a noble brow in a rather long face, and by his well-cut, if rather American, brown suit and gloves of fawn kid, he clearly added material wealth to the blessings of kindly nature. He held out his hand to Holmes and introduced himself, and Holmes inclined his head.

  "And this is my partner and amanuensis, Dr. Watson," said Holmes, and Mr. Colby turned unhesitatingly to shake my hand. "Anything that may be said to me, may be said in his presence as well."

  "Of course," said Colby, in his deep, pleasing voice, "of course. I have no secrets—that's what gravels me." And he shook his head with a ghost of a chuckle. "The Colbys are one of the wealthiest families in New England: we've traded with China for fifty years and with India for twice that, and our railroad interests now will better those profits a thousand percent. I've been educated at Harvard and Oxford, and if I may say so without tooting my own horn, I'm reasonably good to look on and I don't eat with my knife or sleep in my boots. So what would there be about me, Mr. Holmes, that would cause a respectable girl's guardians to reject my suit out of hand and forbid me to exchange a word with her?"

  "Oh, I could name a dozen commonplace possibilities," replied Holmes, gesturing him to a chair. "And a score more if we wished to peruse a catalogue of the outré. Perhaps you could tell me, Mr. Colby, the name of this unfortunate young lady and the circumstances under which you were so rudely ejected from her parents' favor?"

  "Guardians," corrected our visitor. "Her uncle is the Honorable Carstairs Delapore, and her grandfather, Gaius, Viscount Delapore of Depewatch Priory in Shropshire. It's a crumbling, moldering, Gothic old pile, sinking into decay. My family's money could easily rescue it—as I've said to Mr. Delapore, any number of times, and he agrees with me."

  "A curious thing to
do, for a man rejecting your suit."

  Colby's breath gusted again in exasperated laughter. "Isn't it? It isn't as if I were a stranger off the street, Mr. Holmes. I've been Mr. Delapore's pupil for a year, have lived in his household on week-ends, eaten at his table. When I first came to study with him I could have sworn he approved of my love for Judith."

  "And what, precisely, would you say is the nature of Mr. Delapore's teaching?" Holmes leaned back in the basket-chair, fingertips pressed lightly together, closely watching the young American's face.