Sherlock Holmes

by Martin Rosenstock

  “So he is now twenty-one, whoever he is.”

  “And ‘whoever’ is the issue here,” said Holmes. “He cannot be Miss Efralstein’s father, naturally.”

  “Nor can he be her son,” I said. “Unless, of course, she is not the spinster her title proclaims her. Perhaps he is a favoured nephew, she an adoring aunt.”

  “The last in the series was perhaps the most noteworthy.”

  “In what way?”

  “For the young man’s attire.”

  “I cannot remember what he was wearing.”

  “How fortunate, then, that I can.”

  “Was it a uniform of some sort? I have a vague notion it might have been.”

  Instead of replying, Holmes turned to peer out of the hansom’s side window at the fog rolling past.

  Eventually he said, “Things are occluded at present, but I am beginning to glimpse solid shapes amidst the murk. Soon, Watson, I am sure, there will be clarity.”

  * * *

  Over the next couple of days I was too busy with patients to see Holmes. From dawn to dusk I scurried back and forth on house calls, returning home in the evening exhausted but glad to find my constant Mary waiting for me.

  On the third day I found time to visit Baker Street, only to discover that Holmes was not in. Mrs. Hudson informed me that he had been absent from the premises for much of the past seventy-two hours, running errands.

  “If he eats any of the meals I’ve prepared, Dr. Watson, it’s a miracle,” said the redoubtable landlady. “He is in one of those energetic moods of his, where work comes first and bodily sustenance a poor second. And oh, the racket he has been making when he is home!”

  “Racket?”

  “Every night, until about one in the morning, he has been crashing and banging around upstairs and emitting strange groans. I have heard him using voices, too. Loud, soft, a range of accents and intonations. All very peculiar. Just when I think I have become accustomed to my lodger’s idiosyncrasies, he manages to surprise me.”

  “Whatever can he be up to?”

  “You would have to ask him yourself.”

  “I shall, at the first opportunity.”

  Said opportunity was swift to arrive, for just as I was taking my leave, the front door opened and in strode Holmes. He had about him the look of a man very pleased with himself, which was confirmed when, over a glass of Madeira in his rooms, he told me he had made substantial progress with the case.

  “Yesterday afternoon I took myself to Lloyd’s at the Royal Exchange,” said he.

  “The insurers.”

  “The same. It was highly illuminating. The ships of the Pole Star Line are underwritten by Lloyd’s, as most commercial fleets are, and I was shown a list not only of those currently plying their trade upon the ocean main or ensconced in port, but those which have sunk. There were, in the latter category, a fair few. More than the average, indeed, according to the clerk who assisted me.”

  “You yourself said that Sir Hubert liked to cut corners.”

  “He was, it appears, prepared to do anything in order to minimise outlay and maximise profits. Hulls improperly caulked, worn rigging not replaced, threadbare sails going unrepaired, rotten timbers ignored. He would, too, prevail upon his captains to overload the holds, with the ships riding far below their Plimsoll lines, dangerously so. I learned that accidents resulting in injury and even death are rife aboard a Pole Star merchantman, and the vessels themselves, since they carry cargoes heavier than they ought, are apt to founder in bad weather.”

  “That surprises me. Sir Hubert was a shrewd operator. Wouldn’t cargoes that are so heavy they imperil the ships carrying them be bad for business?”

  “Yes, but still it is a practice not unheard of in the trade. The reward outweighs the risk.”

  “What a wretched man Sir Hubert Cole was, enriching himself at the expense of his crews’ safety.”

  “I can hardly gainsay that opinion,” said Holmes. “Yet enrich himself he did, to no small degree. His Mayfair mansion is one of the largest and most impressive of its kind. It so happens I was there on the morning of that same day, and seldom have I stood outside a house quite so imposing. I could scarcely count the windows. One would have to be a veritable Croesus, as Sir Hubert was, to afford such a palace.”

  “You went to his house? What for?”

  “To make the acquaintance of Deakins.”

  “Sir Hubert’s valet?”

  “A rather disagreeable fellow, I must say, at least until I ventured him a few shillings, whereupon he became talkative and even amiable. I questioned him on a number of topics pertaining to his late master. Who knows a man better than his valet? The vast majority of the intelligence Deakins provided was irrelevant, but he did mention an incident that occurred the autumn before last, when Sir Hubert was accosted in the street as he was leaving the building to go to his office.”

  “Accosted by whom?”

  “By a woman. Deakins was present and saw it all. The lady stormed up to Sir Hubert and introduced herself as Mrs. Fenella Leinster. She asked him if the name meant anything to him, in answer to which Sir Hubert said it did not. She said that that was hardly surprising, then began to upbraid him in a low, urgent voice. Deakins did not catch what she said, but the more she berated Sir Hubert, the huffier Sir Hubert became. At last he thrust Mrs. Leinster aside and climbed into his waiting brougham. She pursued the coach down the street, hammering upon the bodywork with her fist and calling to the passenger, until she could keep pace no more. Deakins said he never saw her again, but the episode left an impression, and not only upon him. He dates Sir Hubert’s use of sulfonal as a sleeping aid to that day.”

  “Whatever this Mrs. Leinster said to Sir Hubert during the altercation, it must have aroused dark feelings in him which he had thitherto been able to suppress.”

  “So it would seem,” said Holmes.

  “Mrs. Hudson tells me you have been unusually noisy at night,” I said. “Would you care to explain why?”

  “Practice,” my companion said with a dismissive wave of the hand.

  “In aid of what?”

  “You will soon see. The wheels are in motion. My investigation is drawing to its climax. I anticipate its resolution within the next twenty-four hours.”

  Try as I might, I could not educe any more from him than that. Holmes liked to be enigmatic when it suited him, teasing me with scraps of intelligence but withholding the full feast of facts until he felt the time was right. It was one of his more infuriating peccadillos.

  The following day, I received a telegram instructing me to be at a certain address in Chelsea at a certain hour. As ever with a missive from Sherlock Holmes, the wording of it brooked no refusal. The telegram was not so much a request as marching orders.

  Accordingly, I showed up when and where it had stipulated. The time was eight o’clock and the place was a dingy basement flat on the western fringes of Chelsea, where that elegant borough shades into its less salubrious neighbour, Fulham. Later, I would learn that the flat was one of what I have described elsewhere as Holmes’s “small refuges in other parts of London”. Indeed, it was his first such acquisition, a bolthole wherein he might elude criminal attention and conduct business clandestinely. Over the ensuing years he would go on to purchase several other similar residences, as his fame grew and he began to adopt distinct alter egos, Captain Basil, for instance. He would inhabit these personae for days or even weeks at a stretch, creating whole other lives for himself in order to meet the demands of his more complex cases.

  Incognisant of the flat’s ownership at that precise moment, I knocked upon the door. Somewhat to my surprise, it was opened by Alec Carstairs.

  “Mr. Carstairs,” I exclaimed.

  “Come in, Doctor. Swami Dhokha awaits.”

  “Swami…?”

  “The great fakir Swami Dhokha,” said Carstairs. “Newly arrived from the subcontinent. His skills as a psychic medium are second to none.”

 
“But where is Sherlock Holmes? Is he here too?”

  “Mr. Holmes, I regret to say, is otherwise engaged. I am present at his behest, in order to greet the Swami’s guests, of whom you are the first.”

  “I confess I do not understand any of this.”

  “I am sure all will become clear in due course,” Carstairs said. “For now, I ask simply that you make yourself comfortable in the living room. We are expecting five more attendees. Then the séance can begin.”

  It was all very puzzling. A séance? Conducted by some Indian medium? And why was Alec Carstairs involved? What on earth was Holmes playing at?

  As I mulled the matter over, it dawned on me that Holmes might well be laying a trap for Carstairs. Indeed, who else could this Swami Dhokha fellow be but Holmes himself, in disguise? I fancied that during the course of the séance he would manifest the spirit of Sir Hubert, who would then accuse Carstairs of engineering his demise. Carstairs, no sceptic when it came to spiritualism, would be shocked into making a confession.

  I smiled inwardly. For one who often condemned me for the melodrama I injected into my chronicles of his exploits, Sherlock Holmes himself had a marked penchant for the melodramatic.

  One by one the other guests turned up, joining me in the dusty and rather cramped sitting room, where Carstairs supplied us with refreshments from the drinks cabinet. They were an odd assortment of human beings. The first was a slender, elderly fellow with a pinched face and a rather prissy bearing, like a perpetually censorious schoolmaster. The second was a grossly corpulent man who shuffled along with the aid of a walking stick and wheezed like a set of bellows as he sat down. The third was a delicate-seeming woman in the habit of constantly wringing her hands and dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a minuscule lace handkerchief. The fourth was a dandyish bravo who affected a swaggering, nonchalant air and whose buttonhole was adorned with a red rose. As for the fifth and last, she was already known to me, for it was Miss Ellen Efralstein.

  Her surprise at seeing me mirrored mine at seeing her. “Dr. Watson,” said she. “This is unexpected.”

  Before I could reply, Carstairs interjected. “Dr. Watson was impressed by the perspicacity the spirits displayed when he consulted you, Miss Efralstein. I believe he has become a confirmed believer, in much the same way that I have, thanks to you.”

  “Oh,” she said. Her mouth, below the edge of her half-veil, quirked at one corner. “Yes. I wondered about that when I saw your name mentioned in the letter of invitation. Why is Mr. Alec Carstairs, of all people, hosting this event? I asked myself. You too are a convert, then, I take it?”

  “I am indeed.”

  “Well, that is gratifying. And Doctor? After just the one sitting, as with Mr. Carstairs, you have accepted the existence of the spirit world?”

  All I could think to do was nod. I sensed that Carstairs, as our host, wished us all to get along. His goal was that the evening should pass smoothly, without hindrance or upset. Little did he suspect what lay in store for him.

  “What about your friend Mr. Holmes?” Miss Efralstein asked. “I do not see him here.”

  “I regret to say that he, madam, remains in the doubters camp.”

  “I suppose there will always be those who embrace the temporal and reject the ineffable,” she said with something of a sigh.

  The corpulent man rose to his feet, with some effort, and gave Miss Efralstein a bow. “Permit me to introduce myself. Aloysius Guthrie, Esquire. I have heard of you, Miss Efralstein. I believe we are both in the same trade, namely the conjuration of spirits.”

  “As am I,” said the elderly fellow. “David Ventnor Brown, medium to the aristocracy, at your service.”

  “I thought I recognised you, Mr. Ventnor Brown,” said the dandy. “We met at one of the Duchess of Wolverton’s psychical soirées. You produced some very remarkable effects, I must say.”

  “You are too kind, Mr…?”

  “Lapham. Clifton Lapham.”

  “Ah yes. I remember now. You too are a medium.”

  “I have been known to dabble in a spot of table-turning,” Lapham said, preening. “In fact, my materialisations have been commended far and wide. I am on record as extruding the greatest quantity of ectoplasm at a single sitting, more than any other medium in London, and my levitations are second to none.”

  “I myself am a levitator par excellence,” said the delicate-seeming woman. “Mrs. Isolde Potts. More than once I have caused a trumpet to fly halfway across a room. I mean, of course, the spirits cause the phenomenon. I am merely the conduit for their powers.”

  “Then we are all of us, it transpires, practitioners of the same art,” said Aloysius Guthrie. “How fascinating. I suppose Swami Dhokha, whoever he may be, wishes to make a splash in the spiritualist community. That is why he has organised this event and invited a bevy of London’s top mediums to attend.”

  “That would be my interpretation too,” said Lapham. “His letter was very persuasive, I found. Apparently, he is a celebrity in his native India. He has performed for maharajahs and governors alike, to huge acclaim.”

  “Moreover, he has been vouched for by my erstwhile employer, Sir Hubert Cole,” said Carstairs.

  “Sir Hubert,” said Ventnor Brown. “Yes, Dhokha said as much in the letter I received. A great man, was Sir Hubert. His loss is keenly felt. I had the privilege of his presence at a few of my séances. He was not only an enthusiastic participant but a generous one.”

  “Sir Hubert consulted me too, on several occasions,” said Mrs. Potts. “He complimented me on the spirit-slate readings I did for him. ‘You truly have a gift, Mrs. Potts,’ he said. ‘I come to you with the burden of a difficult decision, and every time the spirits, through you, lift it from me.’ I came to regard him as a friend, and he, I hope,” she added with a coy, girlish smile, “felt a reciprocal affection.”

  “I propose a toast,” said Lapham. “Everyone, raise a glass to Sir Hubert. He has gone to a better place, and his shade is now watching over us. Sir Hubert!”

  Ventnor Brown, Guthrie, and Mrs. Potts all joined in the toast. So did Carstairs. I participated but, knowing what I did about Sir Hubert, with circumspection. No less grudging was Miss Efralstein, who barely tilted her glass and did not echo Sir Hubert’s name as the others did. I surmised that she must have mixed feelings about the man. After all, there had been that unpleasantness at the séance, when she had been moved to rail at him violently and then been hurled to the floor – although whether this had been of her own volition or by dint of ethereal forces, I could not say.

  “How did Sir Hubert and Swami Dhokha come to meet?” Ventnor Brown enquired of Carstairs.

  “Sir Hubert chanced upon him during a business trip to India back in ’eighty-six,” came the reply. “Such was the Swami’s skill as a spiritualist that Sir Hubert sought several times to bring him over to England. Only now has he been able to make the journey, however. He set off from Calcutta three weeks ago with every expectation that Sir Hubert would present him to all of you in person. Sadly, as you know, that was not to be. Now the duty has fallen, instead, to me.”

  “And when are we going to meet the fellow?” Guthrie asked. “I confess I grow impatient. If his abilities are as remarkable as Sir Hubert found them…”

  “I wonder if they are so great,” said Lapham offhandedly. “Perhaps by the standards of his homeland they pass muster, but here in London? He will have to be of a very high quality if he is to win over experts such as ourselves.”

  “Now that we are all settled in,” said Carstairs, “I shall go and ask the Swami whether he is ready to receive you.”

  He disappeared through a velvet curtain, returning a few moments later.

  “Swami Dhokha bids you enter.”

  He held the curtain aside, and one after another we filed into a back room whose walls were hung with swags of batik cloth. The air smelled headily of incense, and arrayed on a shelf were sundry items including a tambourine, a violin, and a hand-bell c
overed by a heavy glass jar.

  In the middle of the room stood a large round table and seven chairs, one of which was occupied by a gaunt, turbaned fellow in voluminous robes. He bowed to each of us as we entered, pressing the palms of his beringed hands together. His teeth, as he smiled, shone whitely against his nut-brown skin.

  “Greetings,” he said. His voice was pleasantly lilting and conveyed the impression of the better-educated Indian. “Greetings, all. You are welcome. Most welcome indeed. Please, take a seat. I am in illustrious company tonight, I know. I only hope my humble talent will meet with your approval.”

  As luck would have it, I found myself sitting to Swami Dhokha’s immediate left. No sooner had I drawn in my chair than he half-turned his head and aimed at me a subtle, secretive wink. None of the others could have seen it. The wink was for my benefit alone.

  That confirmed it for me. Although Swami Dhokha lacked Holmes’s aquiline nose and domed forehead, it was not beyond Holmes’s skills with theatrical makeup to disguise both features. He must have rubbed his skin with burnt cork dissolved in alcohol to lend him a swarthy tropical complexion, as a tragedian will when playing, for instance, Othello.

  Swami Dhokha was quite clearly Sherlock Holmes himself.

  Things, I sensed, were about to become very interesting.

  * * *

  Carstairs lowered the lighting to its dimmest level, so that we became little more than silhouettes to one another. Then he withdrew. This puzzled me somewhat. If Holmes’s intention was to catch him out by some means during the séance, how could he do so if Carstairs was not in the room with us? I assumed he had prepared some ruse that would bring the young man back when necessary.

  After Carstairs was gone, Swami Dhokha exhorted us each to grasp the wrist of the person to our right.