Somewhat dramatically, I must confess, I inserted the disk into my floppy disk drive.
“This particular computer contains a voice-recognition card, a device that allows it to accept spoken commands. And so, if you will do the honors by reading the phrase I’ve written on the paper before you, what do you say we get rid of the bastard once and for all?”
He studied for a moment the contents of the paper I’d indicated. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Holmes smile before. He did now, however, as he looked up and announced with a strong, clear voice: “Delete MORIARTY.DAT”
I saw no need to tell Holmes that he had just deleted an empty file. I’d already erased all vestiges of the Moriarty code, a feat easily accomplished as I reconstructed the Holmes program. Nor did I tell him that none of this would have been necessary, had Holmes only informed me of his discovery and subsequent plan before confronting Moriarty on his own. What he didn’t realize, what he couldn’t have realized, was that the Bernoulli drive in which Moriarty sought refuge contained a removable disk. Had I known the professor’s whereabouts, I could have taken this disk out of the drive at anytime and destroyed it, thus ending the threat.
What would be the point of telling Holmes this? Why not allow him to believe that he had vanquished his greatest foe alone, in the only way possible? He deserved it. The way I figure things, Holmes’s life already contained more than its fair share of illusions. What harm could be done by burdening him with one more—a positive one, this time?
THE GREATEST DETECTIVE OF ALL TIMEby Ralph Roberts
The silver-suited figure, for once, was late in materializing.
Sherlock Holmes laid aside his pipe and journal. In the latter, he had been writing what he knew of the latest machinations of our archenemy, the despicable and dastardly Professor Moriarty—that evil and bent man who was always trying to trap or discredit us in some manner, an annoying and inconvenient activity that called for some sort of retribution when time allowed.
As was his wont when uninterrupted, Holmes took the small bottle from the mantelpiece and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. Three times a day for many months I had witnessed this performance, but custom had not reconciled my mind to it. You have perhaps read my description of this act in previous writings—”The Sign of the Four” comes to mind—but there is now a difference, a wonderful but fearful difference in our lives.
For this moment, however, the result was the same. With his long, white, nervous fingers Holmes adjusted the delicate needle and rolled back his left shirt cuff. For a brief period of time—seconds to him, an eternity to me—his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture marks.
“Which is it today?” I asked. “Morphine or cocaine?”
Holmes glanced only briefly at me, then back to the poised needle. “It is cocaine,” he said; “a seven percent solution. Would you care to try it?”
“No indeed,” I answered, a bit brusquely I’m afraid, being somewhat testy that he had ignored my advice as a medical man and continued his deleterious habit.
Finally he moved to thrust the sharp point home, thumb poised in anticipation of pressing the tiny piston that would release the narcotic into his bloodstream.
There was no discernible sound, but suddenly the silver-suited figure was there. He plucked the needle from Holmes’s fingers before the sharp point had so much as indented the skin. With a practiced gesture, he pressed a 24th-century spray hypodermic against Holmes’s bare arm and activated it. Holmes sighed in resignation and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair.
‘There!” the figure said, his voice muffled by the silver hood, “cured, by God.”
“Yes, cured again,” Holmes said. ‘This is becoming rather a nuisance. No free time to engage in one’s pastimes at all anymore, eh, Watson?”
I nodded in agreement to the obvious. We both watched as the figure removed his silver coveralls. The garment was nothing special but simply the standard protective garb for time travelers of the next three millennia. Holmes and I each had several such coveralls concealed in the back of our closets.
A distinguished appearing older gentleman of regular features was revealed. He was dressed in a white uniform with red trim and plastic boots, also red. Badges of apparently high rank adorned his shoulders and several decorations rode proudly on his chest. Obviously, our visitor, this time, was a personage of the first order. His expression bordered on the haughty and was, perhaps, somewhat tinged with contempt. He did not seem to be overly intelligent either, more the stiff and punctilious bureaucrat. Obviously he was uncomfortable—pale and nauseated as he looked around. I took an instant dislike to him.
Holmes had an unfocused look in his eyes as he groped the air before his face as if searching through a file cabinet. I hastened to fill the void and, since one seldom gets the opportunity when Holmes is about, demonstrate my own detective powers.
“Mars Constabulary,” I said, somewhat smugly. “Twenty-fourth century. Rank: Chief Inspector. Service includes: the Food Riots of 2354, the Great Air Shortage of 2360, and four citations of additional meritorious service, plus the Order of Tourism, a rather important decoration from your government. And, you have taken the unusual action of walking outside the domes in the past few hours.”
The inspector did not appear surprised. “Yes, yes. I know you two are great detectives, hence my journey here at some personal inconvenience. Ah ... I can understand you reading the decorations and interpolating my service record, but how did you know of my extra-dome activities?”
Holmes was now paying attention to us and spoke. “He saw a few specks of sand on your boot, old chap. Watson knows that an officer of your high rank has robotic valets and goes on duty immaculately turned out. Hence, any imperfection—even one so minor as a speck of sand—could only have occurred in the past few hours. Since the Mars domes are also kept extremely clean in the twenty-fourth century, you would only have picked up sand outside. Now, what may we do for you, Chief Primary Inspector Charles LeBeck?”
LeBeck, finally, was taken aback. “You know my name?” I sighed. Holmes, if not cut short, would drag this out forever, and I was quite curious about what the Inspector wanted with us.
“The general period and service organization being established,” I said, “it then remains but a simple matter to examine the files of all high ranking officers. I dare say Holmes knows more about you now than you do yourself.”
Holmes passed (lie file to me. I quickly scanned it as LeBeck watched our mystifying maneuverings in what was, to him, nothing but thin air.
“Virtual reality, Chief Inspector,” Holmes condescended to explain. “Gift of a grateful police force in the thirty-third century—in fact, our most consistent and delightful clients.” “We’re just returned from an extended and successful stay there only minutes ago,” I added.
“Quite so. Anyway, Watson and I both have computers implanted within us. To facilitate ease of use, we ‘see’ file cabinets, desks, paper, pen, and so forth whenever we make use of a particular function. Our databases cover all of recorded history through the fifty-fifth century.”
I finished scanning the file and transmitted it back to
Holmes. “The Black Dome murders,” I said. ‘Tourists killed at random over a number of years. Very bad for the main industry of Mars—tourism.”
He nodded. “Of course. Elementary, my dear Watson. The only case of import the good Chief Inspector never solved. He nears retirement now and wishes to leave a clean slate. Also, the situation has heated up and his superiors and the Board of Tourism—an organization with extreme clout— have placed considerable pressure on him.”
LeBeck raised his arms, then let them fall in disgust. “If you two already know everything, kindly consult your computers, and tell me the culprits so that I may return uptime and arrest them. Probably one of those dirty tourists themselves. Always stinking up our beautifully pure domes.” Holmes and I
exchanged glances. The blatherings of amateurs in detection—which included, alas, most law enforcement officers of all millennia—never ceased to amuse us.
“My good Inspector,” I said, “it is a common misconception of the layperson that Time is some black and white construct.”
“You think that, for want of a nail, a horseshoe was lost,” said Holmes. “For want of a horseshoe, a rider was lost.” “Yes, yes,” LeBeck said impatiently. “I know the theory. The battle was lost; history was changed.”
“Not so,” Holmes said triumphantly. “It’s actually somewhat the opposite. Time is not black and white, but rather many shades of gray.”
“Not unlike Life,” I said. “There are no absolutes.”
“In other words, Chief Inspector,” Holmes concluded, “mysteries are not solved until they are. No matter when they occur in Time.”
LeBeck looked confused. “But ...”
I took up the explanation. “There are a number of happenings we call the Major Mysteries: murders and other events that would remain forever unsolved unless they suffer the attentions of the greatest detective of all Time, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!”
“Ably assisted by his boon companion, Dr. Watson,” Holmes staunchly and immediately inserted.
LeBeck nodded hesitantly.
“Naturally,” I added, “only those Major Mysteries that Holmes and I have already addressed appear in history as solved. Yours is not yet one of those, but we have already done five this week, twenty-six so far this month, I believe. All this has created quite a demand for our services throughout the various millennia. Rather a good business wholesale-wise, and a good bit of nice uptime fringe benefits, such as our implanted computers. And, since we return here usually only a minute or two after we leave—even if the case took weeks to conclude—it doesn’t interfere all that much with our regular cases and life in this era.”
‘Time travelers in and out of here in droves, though,” Holmes said. “Our landlady, Mrs. Hudson, does look askance at us from time to time. You are all, for the most part, an unsavory appearing lot, I fear.”
“I see,” LeBeck commented, looking around as if seeing Holmes’s lodgings for the first time. “Rather a dreary and dirty place for it,” he added in obvious distaste. “Why are you so popular, Holmes? A primitive detective from a filthy, practically prehistoric era?”
Holmes took no overt offense, warning me with a glance to do likewise. “Dr. Watson’s fault, of course,” he said, tempering it with a smile. “It didn’t take future generations very long to discern that the supposedly fanciful tales he wrote under his nom de plume of A. Conan Doyle were actually true stories of our exploits. It is a burden I must bear, but for many, many centuries into the future I am considered to be the premier detective of all Time. Since they come downtime to us with the cases, which we consequently solve, this reputation is maintained.”
LeBeck came close to sneering, but said nothing.
“The nineteenth century,” I said, “has, thus, become the very zenith of the art of detection, despite the technological advantages of future times.”
“Many of which we now employ, ourselves,” Holmes added.
“On the other hand,” I continued, “we have also become the veritable nadir of villainy. Just as Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of all time, this century is also home to Time’s most diabolical evildoer, that arch villain, Professor Moriarty. He, alas, is as consulted as we are, only by the future’s criminal elements instead of its law enforcement agencies.”
“Enough of this,” was LeBeck’s reply. “If, indeed, I must put up with you on this case, let us, by all means, get it over with as soon as possible.”
Holmes and I rose to our feet.
“Nothing for it except a little trip to Mars,” Holmes said. ‘The game is afoot, Chief Inspector. Off we go, eh?” But he paused for a moment, looking down at LeBeck’s mirror-polished footwear. “Watson, do be a good chap and clean the Chief Inspector’s boots before we leave. Must have him looking his best, what?”
I glanced at him, but his face remained impassive. Foregoing my dignity as a medical man, as one often must in assisting the great Sherlock Holmes, I took a small brush and a blank sheet of white note paper from a side table. Bending—I must admit with a bit of effort, as Holmes and I are often regally wined and dined after solving cases in this era or that—I carefully brushed a few bits of sand onto the paper and stood again. Holmes held out his hand, and I gave him the page.
LeBeck snorted impatiently as Holmes held the paper at eye level and, with his other hand, did the groping in air that showed he was accessing the files in his virtual reality computer.
“I have been guilty,” Holmes said, somewhat distracted as he leafed through the invisible-to-us files, “of several monographs, all on technical subjects related to the solving of crimes. At first, before Watson and I became in such demand on the temporal circuit, they were on such local time subjects as ‘Upon the Distinction Between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos.’ In that one, I enumerate one hundred and forty forms of cigar, cigarette, and pipe tobacco, with colored plates illustrating the differences in ash.”
“What is tobacco?” LeBeck asked, genuinely confused.
Both Holmes and I sighed; a good smoke was one of the few things missing from most future eras. It was, I might also add, precisely why we maintained our headquarters still in Baker Street during the nineteenth century instead of some more luxurious uptime address, numerous of which had been offered to us as rewards for successful detective work.
“More to the point,” Holmes said, “is my treatise on Martian sand ... ah, here it is ... in which I detail some fourteen thousand and fifty-six varieties, including high-quality holograms of each and every type of grain, and where that sand is found. Wonderful how computers augment our abilities.”
LeBeck, for once, showed at least a modicum of respect. “You’re that Holmes as well? I thought you nothing more than some primitive playing at detective work. University of Hermes Press? 2150? I collect works relating to police and detective work, you know,” he added, in a modestly arrogant manner.
“Ummm, 2155, I believe,” Holmes said. He made a gesture that put away his files and dumped the few grains of sand into the fireplace, along with the piece of note paper, which flared up briefly. “The sand is from outside Black Dome,” he concluded.
LeBeck was now fully back to his haughty, contemptuous self now. “Of course it is. I investigated a murder there only this morning. It was necessary to step outside the dome for a few minutes. Then, before I could properly clean my boots, my superiors demanded I go get Sherlock Holmes and solve these murders once and for all. Something I could have done easily enough on my own.”
He paused and looked at each of us in turn. “You’d think I was a suspect,” he said, huffing.
Holmes raised his eyebrow. “Well, of course you are, my good fellow. Everyone is until we unravel your little mystery. Except Watson, naturally. I can vouch for him, he was here with me.”
LeBeck puffed out his cheeks in disgust, but beckoned us to follow him through Time. And, to close the book on this string of serial murders over a twenty-year period, Holmes and I donned silver suits from Holmes’s closet and followed.
On the southern edge of Mare Australe, between that great red plain and Ogygis Regio, the first Black Dome had been built by Swiss colonists in 2054—a dark bump on the red landscape. That original construction had been long since replaced with several much larger domes. Now, in 2368, the central dome was still colored black, thus maintaining the tradition that had given this large city its name.
Holmes and I had materialized in LeBeck’s wake in a customs post. Our clothes and persons were subjected to a rigorous cleaning. To our mutual disgust, Holmes’s pipe and pouch of tobacco were confiscated, as were the cigars from my coat’s breast pocket. Even as we rode through the city’s streets, past rows and rows of tourist hotels, in a small cab to LeBeck’s office, the smell of lavis
hly applied antiseptic dominated the air. Everything was unbelievably clean, reflecting the habits of that culture. The streets were literally sanitary enough to eat off of—although, naturally, the Mars Constabulary would prevent one from soiling those pristine surfaces in such a manner.
Seeing and experiencing this religiously purified era for the first time brought home to me, and surely to Holmes as well, the enormity of LeBeck’s move in seeking our assistance. For LeBeck to have appeared before us, as he had, with a few grains of sand still on his boots, was a massive social and regulatory transgression. The pressure upon him to solve these murders must, indeed, be tremendous for him to forgo even a moment’s time for the cleaning of his boots. Unless, of course, he wanted us to think he was the murderer, then eliminate him as a suspect because, based on the sand, it would be too obvious. I shook my head. Such a convoluted and sophisticated ploy might be employed by the likes of Professor Moriarty—LeBeck, on the surface, appeared to lack the intelligence for it.
LeBeck’s office was not exceptionally large, despite his position as the chief investigative officer for the entire city. It was, of course, spotless. All surfaces gleamed and were totally dust free. One whole wall was taken by shelves displaying LeBeck’s collection of items and books relating to police work down through the centuries. His pride caused him to first show us that collection before getting down to business. There was, as there should be in any good collection of such a sort, an entire shelf of books about Sherlock Holmes.
I tapped one of the leather-bound spines. “I’m pleased to see that you have some of my works here.”
LeBeck unbent with a brief smile, his pride in his collection momentarily overcoming his haughtiness. “Yes, all under your pseudonym of ‘A. Conan Doyle,’ of course. Did the people of your time really believe that Holmes was just a fictional character?”
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