Death on a Pale Horse: Sherlock Holmes on Her Majesty's Secret Service

by Donald Thomas

  Only a professional roof-top thief could have put this object and its container in place without rousing me from sleep. By now I knew a good deal from Holmes about the skills of London’s so-called cat-burglars, quite enough to conclude that none could have climbed the outside wall without alerting either of us. Once again I confronted the sightless eye and its floating hair. How had this head been put there—and why—and by whom? No doubt the sole aim was to scare me out of my wits; but for what reason?

  It was not a practical joke. For a second only, I imagined some ingenious pleasantry on the part of Sherlock Holmes. But his whimsies always had a purpose to them, and I was damned if I could see any purpose in this pathological monstrosity. Instead, if it had a dark humour it also had a whiff of mania about it. However eccentric his impulses might be, my friend and housemate was no maniac.

  I must wake him, of course, if only because the perpetrator might still be close at hand. I went to the open window and glanced out. There was no one in sight. I was about to draw away from my survey of the back yard when I saw by the faint reflection of gaslight and stars that there was a message of some kind written on the slates of the outhouse roof a dozen feet below. The night was cold and the roof slates had been humid enough to cause a chilly condensation. It was presumably a finger that had traced darker lines on the lighter moisture of the slates in large uneven capitals.

  I COME IN SILENCE AND I KILL WITHOUT A SOUND

  I VANISH LIKE THE SMOKE UPON THE WIND.

  READ THIS, WHOEVER YOU MAY BE,

  AND TAKE GOOD CARE YOU DO NOT CHALLENGE ME.

  It seemed that the writer feared that he had still not made his purpose sufficiently plain. There was a further line, detached from the quatrain and drawn lower down across the roof. It appeared to have been done as an after-thought, just before he dropped softly from the outhouse guttering to the ground.

  BEWARE ALL—I WARN BUT ONCE.

  If I was to beware of anything, it was that the wretch might still be down there waiting for me to appear at the window. I found my key and unlocked the bureau bookcase, inherited from my father. This piece of furniture had for years been my companion as I slept.

  My Army service revolver, a reliable and efficient Webley Mark 1, lay in the top drawer, carefully wrapped in lint, cleaned and oiled only the week before. With this faithful friend loaded in my hand, I felt more than equal to confronting any roof-top burglar or any spectre of the dead alike. At such a range, I was confident that my first bullet would settle all accounts between us.

  I had no idea how Holmes would take to being roused from sleep at this unsocial hour by such a wild story as mine. I had still not consulted my watch; but as I crossed the landing, I heard the distant winter chimes of St. Marylebone Church striking four in the morning. I paused, then tapped gently at the door of his room. I pushed it open without waiting for an invitation. I kept my revolver drawn. For all I knew, he might be in mortal danger from an intruder standing over him.

  I realised, as he looked up at me expressionlessly from the pillow, that he had been lying there wide awake during my silent ordeal.

  “Holmes!” I said quietly. “We have had an intruder in the house!”

  “Indeed?” he said equably. “And has anything been taken? Have Mrs. Hudson, Billy, and the maid been roused?”

  “It is not what has been taken, but what has been brought!” As I went on, my story sounded more and more fatuous. Holmes listened without expression or reply, patiently pulling his dressing-gown about his shoulders.

  “A bell-jar with half a human head, preserved in formaldehyde by the look of it, is hanging in my window. It was put there while I was fast asleep. I have heard nothing since I woke just now, and I have seen no one.”

  How ridiculous it sounded! What if the thing was no longer there when we went to investigate? He looked up sharply.

  “Is that all?”

  “All? Is it not enough? But no—it is by no means all. Someone has left a message written in the dew on the slate roof of the shed. Someone who claims to move and kill without a sound. He warns only once and this is our warning. It is mad; the whole business is insane.”

  He got to his feet and nodded.

  “Good,” he said thoughtfully as he shuffled into his carpet slippers. “Capital. I had been expecting something of the kind, Watson, visitors or messages. I prefer that they should not have kept us waiting.”

  “Expecting it? Preposterous! And who are ‘They,’ I should like to know!”

  He was already leading the way across the landing.

  “Not preposterous, Watson. I should call it inevitable in the circumstances.”

  “Why, in heaven’s name? What circumstances?”

  Before replying, he paused on the threshold of my room, looking across at the macabre souvenir in the window. He turned away and said, “I forsook George Meredith. I have lain awake until now, thinking. Night is the best time for it. Consider this. We may conclude that Captain Joshua Sellon of the Provost Marshal’s Corps is dead because he believed, on the evidence of Major Putney-Wilson, that Jahleel Brenton Carey was killed in India in order to silence him. Captain Carey and perhaps his wife had come to believe that the killing of the Prince Imperial was not a chance encounter with Zulu tribesmen, but rather a carefully planned assassination. Major Putney-Wilson was the Careys’ natural ally, having suffered at much the same hands. Both men were stationed close to Hyderabad, and both shared a similar evangelical faith. I will bet a pound to a penny that they shared the same garrison chapel and, not surprisingly, a determination to rid the world of Colonel Rawdon Moran.”

  He stopped for a moment, as if to check that the room was truly empty, and then looked round at me.

  “After Carey’s death, Putney-Wilson adopted his absurd role of Samuel Dordona in order to hunt down the murderer of his wife. So far, he has done his best to get himself killed and accomplished nothing. No doubt he has resigned his commission, but the best place for him is safely back in India.”

  “And our nocturnal visitors?”

  He shrugged and stared at the shrivelled head in its jar of formalin.

  “Simple observation would have drawn them here. We entered Carlyle Mansions, the apartment of the murder, in public view. Who more likely to keep secret watch than the murderers? We have publicly associated ourselves with Sergeant Albert Gibbons, late of the Royal Marines, confidential courier—as and when required—to the Provost Marshal General. Who more likely to keep watch on us than those who knew his history? Did you really think we should not be noticed? For my own part I have counted upon it and should be disappointed if it were not so!”

  “Even though the opposite apartment in Landor Mansions was not occupied?”

  “Precisely because it was not. It had been taken by a certain ‘Mr. Ramon,’ that foolish anagram of ‘Moran.’ It seems he is not yet in the country, but how dearly he wants us to know the game has begun. This pickled head is his doing. Learn to know his mind. Moran is master of the revels, and mankind are his puppets. He reminds us tonight that we are his creatures, our very lives are at his beck and call. After Carlyle Mansions, did you truly believe we should hear no more of the matter?”

  “I had hoped so. I did not quite see it as you do.”

  “Did you not? For myself, I was so sure of it that I have slept tonight—or rather I have not slept—with an efficient little Laroux pistolet under my pillow. It is a firearm better suited to a lady’s corsage but handy enough in the circumstances. One cannot be too careful. Now let us see what we have.”

  He stood back a little from the window, regarding the severed and cloven head in its jar as though it might have been a work of art. After a moment or two, he passed judgment.

  “Phrenologically, I feel quite sure that this fellow’s origin is East African, though not, I believe, the Somali coast. That aquiline nose and the proud angle of the jaw would tempt me to suggest Ethiopia or even perhaps one of the many itinerant tribes of the southern Sudan.
I would hazard that as a guess.”

  “Holmes! Who cares where the damned thing came from? What matters is that it is here!”

  “I care greatly,” he said in a murmur. Then he leant forward a little for a view of the yard with its outhouse. “And you say that you saw the message on the slates below us?”

  “It is on the roof, just down there.”

  He shook his head.

  “I only ask because I fear it is there no longer. It is a foolish but effective trick of writing on ice or dew or anything which will vanish in the warmer air. It makes the inscription useless as evidence and usually casts doubt on the credibility of the witness. As it will do upon you, if you repeat the story outside these walls.”

  “Fortunately, I can remember what was written, word for word!”

  “Of course you can!” he cried soothingly, “and I should believe you without hesitation, in any case. But do you not see? It was essential to their purpose that you should read it while it was still there. I am quite sure that they watched you as you did so. They may be watching still, for all we know. That message—that challenge indeed—was the whole purpose behind tonight’s charade. As for the rest.…”

  “I come in silence and I kill without a sound,” I repeated; “I vanish like smoke upon the wind.…”

  “Just so. Certainly neither of us heard them come or go.”

  “Beware all, I warn but once!”

  “Of course, they could not leave without a threat of that kind. These are men of some quality, Watson, however criminally deranged. We should do well to remember that.”

  “And we still have no evidence of the message they left!”

  He looked a little put out by this. “I would not quite say that, my dear fellow. You have read the message and that is all. If proof of its existence became absolutely necessary, I do not think it would be beyond my powers of detection to provide it. I should be surprised if the finger which traced those wet words had not also disturbed the patterns of minute debris collected on the surface of the slates. A microscopic examination would, I think, reveal paths of lettering left in this process. For the moment, however, we have more immediate evidence to consider.”

  “The severed head?”

  “The severed head indeed. Our visitor—or visitors—have departed, and I believe we shall hear from them again. But I do not think it will be tonight. They would prefer to see us tremble a little, first of all. Where is the fun otherwise? Therefore I propose to recoup a little of the sleep I have lost. Following that, I have no doubt what our next step must be.”

  I nodded towards the window. “That thing?”

  “Indeed,” he said. “Let that be our task.”

  “To do what?”

  He looked at me with surprise.

  “What else, Watson? To discover its origins. Why have we been favoured with that particular gift? If we can establish the reason, it may take us a good long way.”

  Breakfast on the following morning was a little later than usual. The exhibit in its bell-jar had been covered with a cloth and placed out of sight in an old leather hatbox in the lumber-room above our sleeping-quarters. On Sherlock Holmes’s instructions, nothing was to be said to Mrs. Hudson or the rest of the household about the events of the preceding night.

  “You believe that we shall experience some further intrusion of this kind?”

  He shook his head. “Not of this kind. I think that most unlikely, Watson. Surprise is their weapon, and so these people seldom repeat themselves. We are merely forewarned and therefore forearmed.”

  I laid my knife and fork on the empty plate. “He came unseen and in silence,” I said thoughtfully; “he vanished like smoke in the wind. How did he come?”

  Holmes rattled the pages of his Morning Post a little impatiently and spoke from behind them.

  “He was here already, I imagine.”

  “But how?”

  He looked at me round the corner of the paper.

  “Watson, you have already assured me that the ascent in silence to your window from the yard—or the descent from the roof-top—would be almost impossible while carrying a head in a bell-jar. Heads are heavier than people imagine. How then was it delivered?”

  “How?”

  “My dear fellow, were I to perform such a task, the modus operandi would be simple. I should enter when the house is open at various points, take cover, and then remain concealed. That is how I should go about it. I might choose the roof-space for my concealment. Until this morning, when did we last have occasion to open up the lumber-room? Even without that, how easy the access would be to those other dark corners under the tiles which Mrs. Hudson abandons to nature. Once in the house and their purpose accomplished, the departure requires only a doubled length of rope which may be used for the descent. This can then be cut through as one stands on the ground and the entire length drawn clear.”

  “These people have been in the house with us for all those hours, and we have not known it?”

  “Quite certainly. Were we to search those abandoned spaces, we should no doubt find the evidence of it. Our time is too valuable at present to waste it upon foregone conclusions.”

  “How did they get in?”

  “I was in conversation with Mrs. Hudson this morning. It seems the gas company sent two workmen yesterday afternoon to make a routine inspection of safety joints on the pipes. It is now an annual precaution, to ensure that we shall not all be asphyxiated in our beds. An hour later, these fellows took their departure. That is to say, they shouted a cheery farewell down the basement staircase and the outer door was heard to slam behind them as they—or one of them—left. No one recalls their appearances. They were just gasmen in gasmen’s caps, like all other gasmen. How simple.”

  “And if they should return?”

  “I do not believe they will take the trouble to disturb us again today,” he said, sighing behind his newspaper. “You recall the message? Beware all, I warn but once. In that, if in nothing else, I believe them to be sincere. We have had our warning. Next time, I imagine it will be a question of whose throat is slit first.”

  “And what is to be done?”

  He lowered the paper again and spoke thoughtfully,

  “It is possible that Brother Mycroft may know more than I do about these matters. It is sometimes the case. We shall endeavour to find out presently. Today is the first Thursday of the month, when the committee of the Diogenes Club meets at 11 A.M. That is where Mycroft will be this morning. Let us therefore put Mrs. Hudson’s Billy to the trouble of fetching the leather hatbox down from the attic—before he puts his best foot forward for the telegraph office.”

  3

  The Diogenes Club is a secret society. Yet it stands at the heart of the British Empire. Its windows look out on to the fashionable pillared buildings, the gentlemen’s clubs, and the carriages of Pall Mall. But you would more easily penetrate the secret rituals of the remotest tribes than the proceedings of its members. It is scarcely two minutes’ walk from the dark-brick façade of St. James’s Palace, the gilded clock, and the scarlet sentries. Yet the first rule of the Diogenes is that no member shall discuss its business with an outsider nor reveal its precise location. I shall say only that it stands somewhere between the intellectual elegance of the Athenaeum and the literary journalism of the Reform Club.

  Mycroft Holmes was one of the six founder-members of this eccentric society. It had been whimsically named after that stoical philosopher of the ancient world who lived and died in a tub. Like him, the club professed an indifference to humankind and all its follies. When Alexander the Great came to ask Diogenes what favour he might bestow upon him, the ancient sage merely requested the Conqueror of the World to stand aside a little so that he no longer blocked the warmth of the sunlight. Holmes chuckled as he recalled this tale from Plutarch. He assured me that his elder brother would probably have made much the same reply.

  As for Mycroft Holmes, I have no doubt that he will outlive us all, serving h
is Sovereign to the end of his days. As Her Majesty’s Permanent Secretary for Inter-Departmental Affairs, he regulates the formalities of the Prime Minister’s cabinet. He maintains the machinery of state in Whitehall and Westminster. From day to day, he advises the leaders of our government on every topic from Antarctica to the Zambesi. Indeed, as his younger brother Sherlock once remarked, he not only advises the British government, in many a crisis “he is the British government.” In other words, governments may come and go, but Sir Mycroft goes on for ever.

  Within his weighty intelligence, the policies of cabinets and the decisions of great leaders are filed and memorised. Cornered once by departmental inquisitors who required to inspect and approve the records and methods of his office, Mycroft replied innocently:

  “Gentlemen, I will be frank with you: I do not find it necessary to keep records, for I have an exceptionally retentive memory. At this moment, your names, your faces, and your presumptuous intrusion upon my valuable time have been noted there. That note shall be at the disposal of the Prime Minister and Her Majesty’s private advisers in deciding upon your future careers—in the event that you should still have future careers. To them alone I am answerable. Good morning to you, gentlemen.”

  Behind Mr. Gladstone, or the Earl of Beaconsfield, or Lord Salisbury stands this majestic eminence grise. Sir William Mycroft Holmes, Knight of the Order of the British Empire, is there as surely and securely as Cardinal Richelieu or Father Joseph were behind King Louis XIII of France two centuries earlier. Yet you would search the newspapers of the day or the volumes of Who’s Who? in vain for a single mention of my friend’s elder brother. When his time comes, an unobtrusive obituary in The Times will remember him only as a fugitive and wayward intellect. The eulogist will tell us merely that he enriched the study of ancient Greek particles by his note on “The resolution of Enclytic δε” in the Classical Quarterly and revolutionised Algebraic Philosophy by six pages on “The Methodology of Pascal’s Wager” in the Journal of Higher Mathematics. Not a word will hint at the secrecy and power which he commanded at the heart of government.