Sherlock Holmes and the Apocalypse Murders

by Barry Day

  It was clear, however, that the role of understudy was not one that the Bursar had either expected or enjoyed and he was obviously relieved when the first course had been cleared away and he could announce the evening’s pièce de résistance.

  “As you heard The Master say earlier, we very much hope that this evening will come to be a permanent date on all our calendars, a symbolic coup de grâce of the mind, as it were, a fans et origo, a …” and here his linguistic allusions seemed to desert him. He hurried on …

  “So, gentlemen, may I ask you to charge your glasses and be upstanding, as we sing the traditional hymn, originally sung before Prince Henry at St. John’s College at Christmas 1607.”

  As he spoke, the College choir in full regalia had quietly assembled behind us and now began to sing a cappella …

  The Boar is dead

  So, here is his head;

  What man can have done more

  Than his head off to strike,

  Meleager like

  And bring it as I do before?

  As the final notes died away, The Bursar raised his glass—“The Boar’s Head!”

  We all solemnly echoed him—“The Boar’s Head!”—and, assuming that was what was intended, resumed our seats in a rather uncoordinated fashion. As we did so, there was a flourish of trumpets—that reminded me uncomfortably of the previous evening at Cain’s rally—and the great doors swung open to reveal the Head Chef and his retinue of underlings.

  In his arms he bore a gigantic covered salver. In stately fashion the procession walked around the perimeter of the hall and approached the top table. Reverently, the salver was presented to the Bursar, who bowed. The Chef bowed in reply, then set it before the Bursar in a space that had been conveniently cleared. There followed an expectant and dramatic pause. Then the Chef with a practised flourish, whisked away the cover—to reveal …

  … a boar’s head, smiling cheerfully with an apple in its mouth …

  … and the head of Sherlock Holmes!

  Chapter Eleven

  If a hundred people can gasp in unison, then that was the sound that reverberated around that hall. The Artful Dodger could have picked every pocket in the place without the slightest difficulty, for every eye was on that platter.

  The boar’s head sat there with that air of slight surprise that has distinguished boars’ heads through the ages. And next to it, examining it quizzically, was Holmes. It was the stuff of nightmares.

  I found myself gripping Mycroft’s sleeve as if I would never let it go. And then behind us, from the back of the hall, I heard a voice say—

  “Gentlemen, I do hope you will excuse this somewhat excessive touch of theatricality. I confess that our two guest speakers touched off my competitive instincts and I felt compelled to make a statement of my own on this hallowed occasion. Consider it, if you will, a piece of living—or, perhaps I should more accurately say, dead—art. Drawn from a Biblical quotation—Proverbs, I believe—I call it—‘Two Heads Are Better Than One.’”

  And Sherlock Holmes walked in dead silence to take up his place on the High Table, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Then, as the decibel level rose all around the room, he reached across me and handed an envelope each to the Bursar and Janus Cain.

  The Bursar, I thought, looked positively relieved to read his. In fact, he rose to his feet immediately and rapped the table for silence.

  “Gentlemen, I have a message here from The Master. He regrets that he can not be with us on his historic evening but he has been summoned personally by the Prime Minister himself on an urgent mission of national importance.”

  There was a ripple of speculation around the room. And then I glanced at Cain.

  His expression started as surprise, then melted successively through shock and anger into a frozen malevolence that had but one focus—the man sitting next to me, who appeared completely oblivious.

  Slowly the noise level returned to normal, the offending platter was removed and centuries of tradition reasserted themselves. The dinner was resumed, the inevitable speeches followed and the evening wound to its preordained close.

  After a suitable period of socialising, the three of us found ourselves in Mycroft’s rooms overlooking the main quadrangle. The full moon picked out small groups of people strolling to their respective quarters. Since the evening’s food and drink had been every bit as copious as I had been led to expect from the Magdalen kitchens, it seemed to me that few of them were feeling the cold night air.

  When everything is in motion, the stationary object stands out in stark relief. The cheerful homegoers were like eddies swirling around a black rock formed by three people standing in earnest conversation. Even from here I could identify Cain, Sugarman and another of his henchmen and it was clear that, whatever Cain was saying to them, it was making them extremely uncomfortable. Finally, he seemed to dismiss them and they slouched away like two whipped curs.

  Cain stood there and one could feel the tension in his tall frame. By now he was alone in the quadrangle—or so he believed. Suddenly, he rushed up to a nearby tree. To my eye it looked like an ancient mulberry that had presumably survived the floods, fires and intellectual anguish of centuries. Taking one of its bare branches in both hands, he ripped it from the trunk and hurled it from him. It was an obscene and brutal act that made me shiver to watch it.

  As I turned away from the window, it was apparent to me that both Holmes and Mycroft had witnessed the very same incident.

  “The abyss looms, I fancy,” said Mycroft. “And now, Sherlock. A word of explanation, if you please …”

  Holmes, I thought, looked like a small boy who has just played a trick on grownups and is defiantly pleased with himself.

  “It seemed to me that it was high time Mr. Cain was pulled up short. He had been having things his own way for too long. First Lady Hatton, then the judge—and the taunting little notes. To say nothing of his hounding of Miss Adler …”

  What, I asked myself, was the real order of priority here?

  “With rare exceptions the criminal mind is inclined to create its own tracks and then run on them. Most criminals are caught because they repeat themselves. Cain—for I find it less confusing to use his new name—likes to pun and create identities for people, not merely himself.

  “‘Fallen Woman’ … ‘Hanging Judge’ … So what might we have in mind for The Master of an Oxford college on the occasion of an event the victim himself has christened—somewhat fancifully—The Boar’s Head Banquet? ‘College Head’, perhaps? It seemed a reasonable deduction that it would have something to do with decapitation—which also happens to be his preferred form of retribution …”

  “So you decided on the pre-emptive strike, so to speak?” said Mycroft.

  “And enlisted the aid of Monsieur Oscar Meunier of Grenoble …” I added. “A name I have good reason to remember …”

  “Indeed, you do, Watson, indeed you do.” Holmes rubbed those long thin hands of his together in boyish relish.

  “You will recall, Mycroft, that when I returned to London last year after the little hiatus caused by Moriarty, I was literally drawing the fire of his sole remaining aide, the infamous Colonel Sebastian Moran …”

  “‘The second most dangerous man in London,’ I believe you dubbed him?”

  “By this time the most dangerous—at least, as far as I was concerned. I ascertained that he intended to assassinate me by shooting me with a patent air rifle from the window of the unoccupied house opposite …”

  “I called the story ‘The Empty House,’ I said proudly.”

  “One of your very finest, Doctor,” Mycroft nodded magisterially. “I declare I could quote it to you almost word for word.”

  “Yes, yes, I must admit you curbed some of your more romantic flourishes for once.” Holmes was never best pleased when the attention was distracted from him in full flow.

  “In which case you will recall how I lured Moran to fire at what
was, in reality, a wax effigy of me which I had placed in the window of 221B. You can still see the bullet mark just under the angle of the chin … And so I determined that if the work of Mr. Meunier could deceive the eagle eye of the then most dangerous man in London, it had every chance of doing the same for Mr. Janus Cain—especially when what he was expecting to see on that silver salver was the head of that celebrated classicist, Cyril Overton …”

  Seeing that both Mycroft and myself were opening our mouths in unison, Holmes rushed on, rather than risk interruption …

  “It was obvious to me that Cain was not committing these recent crimes unaided. Oh, he may very well have administered the coup de grâce to keep his hand in, so to speak, for old times’ sake, but there was no way he could have strung up the Judge from the rigging single-handed. And it seemed to me extremely unlikely that he would chance his arm—if I may mix a metaphor—in front of this evening’s gathering.

  “No, Cain’s ‘faithful’ were charged with that task. While Cain was speaking in full view of all of us, Overton was to have been lured out of the room and ‘prepared’ for the banquet …”

  “But The Master was called away and no one has seen him since …”

  “Yes, but by me. A little high handed on my part, I am afraid. When Overton left the room, he was met by Lestrade and escorted to special transport that is even now carrying him to London, where he believes he is to have a private audience with the Prime Minister. A slight exaggeration on my part, I fear. In reality, he will be seen by one of the Prime Minister’s closest confidants, where the gravity of the situation will be explained to him in general terms. He will then be escorted to a safe residence for the duration ‘in the national interest’. There will be some reference made to a possible honour in the Queen’s Birthday List. The country cannot afford to imperil such a towering talent. That sort of thing … As far as Cain is concerned, Overton is one pawn that is no longer on the board to be taken …”

  “And that, I presume, was the content of the note delivered to Cain at dinner?” Mycroft enquired.

  “In a sense. I also enclosed a copy of the entry from tomorrow’s agony column that Cain had placed. The quotation from Proverbs about two heads being better than one. I added a copy of the entry that I had placed adjacent to it …”

  “Which read …?”

  “Which read—

  ‘THERE SHALL NO RAZOR COME UPON HIS HEAD’

  (Numbers 6:5)

  “But perhaps the most significant event of the entire evening was the one we just witnessed …”

  “In what sense, Holmes?”

  “The man is beginning to come apart. The gears are clashing instead of meshing. He has become so convinced of his innate superiority that he cannot deal with a situation in which he is not in complete control.

  “The game of personal revenge is now over and the outcome is less than satisfactory to him. Yet this is a man who must act …”

  Mycroft mused aloud …

  “And enterprises of great pith and moment

  With this regard their currents turn awry,

  And lose the name of action.

  “Hamlet—as usual—was quite right. I’m sorry, Sherlock, I did not mean to interrupt.”

  “I’m afraid, gentlemen,” Holmes continued, “that I have deliberately precipitated the next phase—whatever that may be. Cain will now seek to accelerate his master plan. And we must find out what that plan is before it is too late.”

  Then, as if on cue, there came a soft tap at the door.

  “Come,” boomed Mycroft, the setting seemingly taking him back to imperious student days.

  Around the door appeared the tentative head of Oscar Wilde.

  “I have no wish to intrude, as I see you have sported your oak …” he said in a surprisingly normal tone.

  “Closing the outer door for privacy,” Holmes explained for my benefit.

  And then Wilde seemed to pick up the earlier thought.

  “What is it about this place that makes one revert to habits and speech patterns one had long since thought to have given up?”

  Then, more like his usual self …

  “My dear Holmes—if I may be allowed the intimacy—I simply came to say how relieved I am to see that you have kept your head under these trying circumstances. No, perhaps that is not precisely true. I rarely say anything simply.

  “I also bring news of our mutual friend. Whether they are ‘clues’, as you professionals call them, I leave to you to decide.”

  “Pray continue, Mr. Wilde. After this evening, I would find your insights most instructive,” said Holmes but in a tone I had rarely heard him employ. I had the distinct impression that he was beginning to take a more positive view of this unusual man.

  “We happen to have been allocated adjacent rooms and I was attempting to collect my thoughts—as well as the far more difficult task of choosing my cravat—before attending our little soirée. I just happened to have my door ajar the merest crack …”

  “I wonder why?” I thought.

  “… and three of the most loathsome men kept coming to and fro, as if on errands for Mr. Cain. Their appearance and demeanour was utterly unaesthetic. I really don’t know what the college is coming to.

  “To begin with, Cain seemed quite cheerful. In fact, he kept whistling that rather repetitive little French tune. Yes, that’s the one—but how …?”

  Holmes had whistled the fateful six notes, as if anticipating what our guest was going to say.

  “Ah, well, you have your methods, I’m sure. But as the visits continued, it became clear that, whatever their mission, these men were not succeeding to his satisfaction. Voices became raised …”

  “I made sure Overton was never left alone,” Holmes said to Mycroft and myself in a voice so soft that Wilde did not even pause in his narrative.

  “… and by the time he left, Cain was a very angry man. I saw his face as he passed my door and his florid complexion gave me a distinct recollection of the dear Marquess of Queensberry—but that is another story. I waited for a while, naturally. After all, no diva makes an entrance until the supporting players are already on stage to create a context. And then …”

  “Yes?” Now Holmes seemed genuinely interested. It was as though what Wilde had reported so far merely confirmed what he already knew.

  “Then—we left the hall together just now after your own little divertissement and I was chatting to him in my usual charming fashion, although I must admit he had little to contribute—except one thing …

  “I happened to mention that I have my new play opening in a few days’ time on February 14th. It is, frankly, my chef d’oeuvre to date. I insist that you all come to the opening night. The play is quite brilliant. I call it a trivial comedy for serious people. All that remains is to see whether the audience is worthy of it. I said—I thought charmingly—that it would be my personal Valentine to my public. And then Cain said …”

  “Try and remember the precise words he used,” Holmes said urgently.

  Wilde thought for a moment. Then—

  “Cain said that was interesting. ‘Then there will now be two presents on Valentine’s Day. For I have one for the whole of London.’”

  Chapter Twelve

  By mid-morning we were back in Baker Street with a great deal on our minds. In the train we were each wrapped in our respective mantles of silence.

  We knew our adversary. We also knew that the events of the previous evening had put a match to the blue touch paper that was Cain. But what kind of explosion could we expect and where would it occur?

  Mycroft returned to the labyrinths of Whitehall, where he would ensure the continued absence of Cyril Overton for the duration—even though I strongly suspected that he had now been dismissed from Cain’s stage as an irrelevant ‘extra’.

  Strangely, Holmes’s first priority, once we had unpacked, seemed to be the cleaning of his own waxen image. I was reminded of Hamlet fussing with Yorick’s skull as he c
arefully wiped and polished it, muttering to himself—“Congealed gravy! Meunier would never forgive me …”

  The whole spectacle was so bizarre that I soon left to attend to a number of business matters around town. Exciting as it often is to be involved in Holmes’s escapades, it does play havoc with the minutiae of day to day life. What with one thing and another—a visit to the club being the other—it was well after the noon hour before I returned to our rooms.

  As I entered, I found Holmes curled up in his favourite chair like a cat and smoking his old clay pipe. Judging from the texture of the air around his head he had been there ever since I went out. That in itself was not unusual but the expression on his face was.

  “Watson,” he said, without even looking in my direction, “I have just had a visitation.”

  “Oh,” I replied facetiously, “you mean like A Christmas Carol? The Ghost of Holmes Past? Probably to do with polishing that stupid head …”

  Then I saw that my attempt at humour was inappropriate. Something had seriously discomposed my friend. Fortunately, he did not appear to have heard me.

  “I can think of only one other comparable occasion and that was the time Professor Moriarty visited me and threatened my life—with the result you know.

  “This morning, soon after you had gone—in fact, he must have waited until he had seen you go—Janus Cain came here.

  “Mrs. Hudson was also out doing her morning shopping and no one rang the bell—but the next thing I knew, he was here in the room.”

  “Good heavens, Holmes! The man might have murdered you!”

  “Oh, there was little fear of that, old fellow. These days I am a lot less trusting of homo sapiens. Or femina sapiens—if such a species exists. You will have observed that I keep my loaded stick near to hand and there is a handy revolver tucked under this cushion at all times. No, Cain was not here to kill me—merely to warn me …”