Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  “And Holmes,” Watson added, “do have a good wash before bed. You’re covered with that red stuff.”

  “Hmmm? Oh. Good night, Watson. Pleasant dreams.” Watson frowned, recognizing Holmes’s most annoyingly enigmatic smirk, and closed the door behind him.

  It was only a few minutes before Holmes heard a scratching at the door which confirmed his theory. “Just a moment!” he cried. He flew about his rooms in haste, assembling the necessary items to shield himself from his visitor, then positioned himself in a comfortable chair and called, “Come in!”

  The door creaked open. In the darkness of the narrow hallway, the visitor appeared only as a sinister shadow. Holmes narrowed his eyes. “Good evening,” he said.

  “I believe that’s my line, Mr. Holmes,” responded the visitor in a heavily accented voice.

  “Do come in, sir, and tell me how I may be of assistance to you.”

  “Very well.” The visitor stepped into the room. He was a tall, chubby man, wearing clothes which, though nicely tailored, had not been in fashion for more than thirty years. The door closed behind him of its own accord. When Holmes was clearly unsurprised by this parlor trick, the visitor said, “I perceive that you are a man of quick wits and cold blood, Mr. Holmes.”

  “It was not difficult to guess the nature of my visitor,” Holmes said, lighting his pipe. “Gauging size and velocity, I was naturally able to deduce that the creature flinging itself against my window could be nothing other than a vampire bat. When I further observe that the ashes in my fireplace have fallen in a such a position as to suggest that something has recently attempted to fly down the chimney, I know that the odds are astronomically against its being a coincidence that two winged creatures have attempted to surreptitiously enter my rooms within the last few minutes.”

  “Uh-huh.” The gentleman leaned forward and peered at Holmes in the dim light. “Porca miseria! I see that another of my kind has already been here!”

  Holmes blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “That blood, all over your neck and cheek! What a mess! It must have been that dreadful count from Transylvania. He has the table manners of a pig!”

  “What? Oh. Um. No, no, there has been no other visitor, sir, I assure you.”

  “You have not been bitten by another vampire?”

  “No, of course not. As you can see,” Holmes added, displaying the crucifix around his neck, “I am well protected.” “Just a little advice, Mr. Holmes. That really won’t help you. I’m a good Catholic and take Communion every Christmas at Midnight Mass.”

  “Really? Oh. Well, then!” Holmes held up a string of garlic bulbs he had been concealing.

  “That won’t help you, either. I’m Italian.”

  “Oh?”

  “Guido Pascalini. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “I seem to have miscalculated.” Holmes was despondent. “Do not condemn yourself. It happens all the time. But could you clean up that blood on your neck? I’m on a diet, and looking at it is making me very hungry.”

  “It’s not blood, actually. It’s an indelible stain, part of a chemical experiment.” He gestured to the table littered with test tubes, beakers, powders, and potions.

  “Gesil! Where do you mortals find the time?”

  “Speaking of which,” Holmes said, glad to be getting things back on track, “shall we stop wasting time and get to the point?”

  “Yes, of course, signore.”

  “What is the reason for your visit to me? I know nothing about you, save for the obvious facts.”

  Pascalini frowned. “I do not understand. Which facts are obvious?”

  Holmes sighed and tried (unsuccessfully) to pretend he didn’t absolutely love doing this. “You are at least five hundred years old, but no older than six hundred fifty. You are a connoisseur of music, art, architecture, and literature, but you loathe cricket and haggis. You’ve been married several times, most recently to a German woman. You are only recently arrived in London, you read the Strand, and you frequent the salon of the actress Miss Eponine Chaste. You have already—shall we say, dined—this evening, and you have very recently lost something of great importance to you.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Holmes! This is excellent! Bravo!” Holmes smirked.

  “But how have you guessed all this?”

  “Guess!” Holmes cried. “I never guess**

  “No, of course not. I should have realized that from your reputation. Anyhow, it is of no importance,” Pascalini said dismissively. “The reason I have come—”

  “Of no importance?” Holmes was even more annoyed now. He decided to ignore Pascalini’s uncouth behavior and simply proceed as if he had, as usual, been asked with breathless admiration how he had so brilliantly deduced these facts through mere observation.

  “Your age is easily detected by the calluses on your forefinger. They could only be the result of using a two-edged falchion sword with triangular pommel and finger-guard, a weapon which you surely would not have used had your formative years occurred any time after the fourteenth century. Yet you are clearly no older than six hundred-fifty years, as it is a well-known fact that no Italian vampire predates Marco Polo.

  “Your love of music I observe from the program book tucked in your right-hand pocket; you have been to the opera this evening. Any Italian who failed to emigrate during the Renaissance must be a lover of art and architecture. And all foreigners loathe cricket and haggis.” Holmes shrugged nonchalantly at his own genius.

  Toeing the line now, Pascalini prompted, “And my marriages?”

  “My dear sir, any Italian man who’s lived for five centuries is bound to have been married several times, and only a German wife would have let you out of the house in such unfashionable clothes.”

  “How dare—”

  “Clearly you are new to London; no man could wander the streets of this city dressed like that for more than a few days before some self-respecting tailor would insist upon intervening. Moreover, you smell of a particularly singular brand of perfume which only one woman in all of London wears—Miss Eponine Chaste. And the color in your cheeks suggests you have already taken your sustenance for the evening.”

  “A pitiful ration, I assure you, Mr. Holmes. I’m watching my weight, you know.”

  “So you have mentioned.” Holmes sucked thoughtfully on his pipe for a moment before continuing, “You are obviously a lover of great literature, for it’s plain that you learned of

  my reputation as a consulting detective by reading one of Doctor Watson’s accounts in the Strand Magazine; the particular variety of ink staining your left thumb is unmistakable.”

  Pascalini wiped his hand on his trousers. “The truth is, Mr. Holmes, I have lost something of great importance.” “Yes, that is clear from the obvious state of agitation in which you attempted to enter my rooms. First by flinging yourself at my window, next by flying down the chimney toward a live fire.”

  “Yes, yes, if we could proceed, signore Pascalini urged through his sharp teeth.

  “By all means.”

  “I have not merely lost something. I have every reason to believe it has been stolen!”

  “Indeed?”

  “And I do not exaggerate, sir, when I say that without this object, my life is not worth the paper that the Strand is printed on.”

  “This is serious,” Holmes observed. “I assume the object in question is your coffin?”

  “Yes!” cried Pascalini. “Filled with the soil of my native village, Vermicelli!”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, Mr. Holmes, I beg you to help me. If I am not in my coffin at dawn, I’ll—I’ll—”

  “Die?” Holmes suggested.

  “I’m already dead.”

  “I thought you were undead.”

  “Well, yes, if you want to be technical. But the only real difference between being dead and undead is your net income after taxes.”

  “So what will happen if you’re not in your coffin at dawn?”


  “I will endure a living hell, signore! My body will disintegrate in the most hideously painful manner you can possibly imagine, and my spirit will be condemned to spend all eternity in Newark!”

  “Where’s that?”

  “America.”

  “Good God, man! We must act at once! There’s not a moment to lose!”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Show me where you last saw your coffin.”

  Holmes grabbed his hat and coat, and off they went, striding through the murky London night. Holmes hailed a hansom cab on the comer, and Pascalini directed the driver to a modest Italian restaurant near Holborn Circus. When they arrived, a small, grizzled old man took one look at Holmes, clapped his hands to his cheeks, and cried, “Madonna! You’ve bitten the detective, Guido!”

  “No, no, Uncle Luigi, that’s just a stain from—”

  “This gentleman is your uncle?” Holmes asked skeptically.

  “No. A very distant cousin, actually.” As the old man turned and walked away, Pascalini lowered his voice and confided, “He doesn’t know I’m a six-hundred-year-old vampire. He thinks I just have strange sexual practices.” “Ah. Very well. Where was the coffin?”

  “In the cellar, signore.”

  “And your uncle doesn’t find it strange that you sleep in a coffin all day?”

  “I told him that my chiropractor advised it.”

  Guido lit a lantern and they descended the steep, slippery stairs into the dank cellar. “Tell me exactly what happened,” Holmes ordered.

  “I arose at sundown, dressed for the evening, went out for a bite, attended the opera, and paid a call on Miss Chaste. Then, finding myself weak with hunger on account of this diet, and feeling myself more and more tempted to sink my fangs into a few of the lady’s guests—”

  “Yes, I’ve been to one of Miss Chaste’s soirees and felt much the same way,” Holmes murmured absently.

  “I decided to spend the rest of the night at home working on my memoirs. I’ve been corresponding with an English novelist who has expressed some interest in—”

  “Hmmm. And that’s when you noticed the coffin was missing? Is anything else missing? Have you touched anything since returning from Miss Chaste’s? Has your uncle been down here? And does this silk handkerchief belong to you?”

  “Uh ... No.” Pascalini took the silk handkerchief from Holmes and studied the embroidered initials. He gasped with shock, then immediately began cursing vehemently in Italian.

  “Calm yourself, Mr. Pascalini, calm yourself. I perceive that those initials mean something to you.”

  “This is the work of that odious count!”

  “From Transylvania?”

  “Yes!”

  “Have you any idea why he would steal your coffin?” “Oh, the infamous, monstrous, unbridled egotism of that vampire!”

  “Please, sir, do try to make yourself clear.”

  “He, too, hopes to be immortalized by the gentleman with whom I have been corresponding, an English author who wishes to write a novel about a vampire. The count is afraid that I, Guido Pascalini, am the vampire who will be the hero of this story and who will be remembered across the centuries. He could not bear honest competition between us, and so he sought to eliminate me from the race!”

  “Never fear, sir! You shall have your coffin back ere the sun rises again.”

  “But how is this possible?”

  “Because I, Sherlock Holmes, have deduced where your notorious nemesis has hidden it.”

  “Where?”

  “Think, Pascalini! What is the one place in all of London where an ancient coffin filled with Italian soil could go unnoticed?”

  “Kew Gardens? Trafalgar Square? The House of Commons?”

  “No, no, no! It’s so absurdly simple!”

  “Where?”

  “The British Museum, of course! Come on, man! The game’s afoot!”

  They proceeded with haste to Bloomsbury, where Holmes tried to talk his way past the night watchman who guarded the heavy wrought iron gates outside the ponderous pillars of the British Museum.

  “Sherlock Holmes? Detective stories, you say? Sorry, I don’t read that trash,” the man said, returning his attention to the copy of Frankenstein he was reading by lantern light.

  “This man’s life depends upon you letting us into the museum,” Holmes snapped.

  “This man? You’re the one bleeding from the jugular vein,” the guard remarked.

  “That’s just a stain from ... The point is—”

  “Do you mind? I’m trying to read here, okay?”

  “This is intolerable!”

  “Uh, Mr. Holmes? Perhaps I can assist.”

  “How?”

  Pascalini crossed his eyes and made some effeminate gestures. After a minute or two, he said calmly, “We can pass now. The guard will not see us.”

  “But—”

  “He has already forgotten we were ever here.” “Remarkable! You must teach me that some time.”

  “How busy is your schedule? It took me over three hundred years to learn how to do it.”

  They crossed the courtyard and entered the immense neoclassical structure in which the British kept treasures stolen from all over the world. As they crept through the silent, dusty halls, Holmes whispered, “I feel certain we can safely bypass the Greek and Roman collections, and also the—” “Arrgh!” Pascalini screamed and fell back, his eyes bulging as he gazed in terror at the colossal winged bull before him.

  “And also the Assyrian and Babylonian galleries,” Holmes finished. “Calm yourself, Mr. Pascalini.”

  “Scusi. I’m just feeling very anxious, you understand.” “If this count is as diabolically clever as I believe him to be, the medieval antiquities galleries over here should— Ah-hah! It’s just as I suspected!”

  “My coffin!” Pascalini cried, recognizing his beloved sarcophagus. He raced forward to inspect it, then stopped cold in his tracks when a bat swooped low over his head. “You fiend!”

  Holmes fingered the crucifix around his neck. “Is the count also Catholic, by any chance?”

  The bat laughed demonically, circled the room three times, then disappeared in a cloud of smoke. A moment later, Holmes found himself facing a small, dapper man dressed in fashionable clothes and wearing a tiny gold chain bearing the Star of David. “Actually, Mr. Holmes,” he said with a slight, elegant accent, “I converted to please the family of my twelfth wife. I even kept kosher for a while, but I went back to biting gentiles after she died.”

  “I have a rare blood disease,” Holmes said flatly. “Highly contagious.”

  The count chuckled. “Never fear, Mr. Holmes. Unlike our chubby friend here—”

  “Stronzo!”

  “—I never eat between meals.” The count peered at the stain on Holmes’s neck. “Did he bite you?”

  “No, it’s ... Never mind. We have come here, sir, to return his coffin to Luigi’s Restaurant,” Holmes stated.

  “And if I choose to prevent you from doing so?” “Attenzione, Mr. Holmes!” Pascalini warned. ‘The count is as violent as he is ill-mannered, dishonest, and contemptible.”

  “In fact, just ever so slightly more so,” the count admitted.

  “You won’t stop me,” Holmes said confidently. “You no longer have any need of this coffin.”

  “Ahh, I see you are rather more clever than the usual English gentleman—though this can hardly be considered a huge accomplishment.”

  “Well, sir?” Holmes prompted. “Will you risk causing Pascalini to suffer a fate worse than death? I warn you that I will not hesitate to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

  “Oh, dear, I can see you’re going to be tedious about this. Very well, Mr. Holmes. Case solved, coffin found. You may take it away. As you say, I have no further use for it.”

  “I don’t understand.” Pascalini looked to Holmes for enlightenment.

  “I’m afraid, sir, that the count has already secur
ed his literary fame at the expense of your own. You will observe the celebratory cigar in his breast pocket. There is a slight bulge beneath his coat, suggesting a sheaf of papers—his signed contract, no doubt. And do you observe that flower upon his lapel? It is as rare as it is lovely. I may be mistaken—” “Oh, surely not,” the count interrupted, sounding bored. “But I believe there is only one woman in all of London who sells such flowers, and she is usually found directly outside the Den of Iniquity in Covent Garden, a popular gathering place for writers.”

  “But what does it mean?” cried Pascalini.

  “You are slow, aren’t you?” the count observed.

  “I am forced to the conclusion, my dear Mr. Pascalini, that after stealing your coffin, the count proceeded with some haste to the Den of Iniquity, where he assured your English correspondent that you were no more.”

  “Dio!”

  “He then proceeded to secure an exclusive contract with the author.”

  “Non e possibile! “

  “Personally, I see no reason why the book shouldn’t become a bestseller,” said the count, lighting his cigar. “It has all the necessary elements—drama, suspense, true love, murder, exotic locations, more murder ...”

  “You are infamous, sir!” cried Pascalini.

  “And soon to be famous.”

  “Mr. Holmes, what can we do?”

  “I suggest that you go in search of the author and see if an explanation of the situation will force him to reconsider.” “Forget it,” the count advised. “I made sure the contract was ironclad.”

  “We’ll see about that, sir,” said Holmes. “Meanwhile, I shall think of some way to get this sarcophagus back to Luigi’s Restaurant by dawn. Uh, I don’t suppose you’d care to explain how you managed to get it here?”

  “You suppose correctly. Now if you’ll excuse me, the night is still young, and I have so many demands on my time. It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Holmes. As for you, Pascalini ...” He sighed and handed a business card to the Italian. “Please. Go see my tailor. It pains me to look at you.”

  “There’s just one more thing,” Holmes said.

  “An autographed copy of the first edition? Consider it done.” The count whirled his cape around his shoulders and disappeared in a spiral of smoke. A moment later, a bat flew over their heads and off into the darkness.