The music showed no sign of abating, although I could not for the life of me discern how it was being produced. However, as I walked over toward the fiddle the draft stopped blowing, the drone faded, and the last bars of the tune echoed and died.
I no longer felt tired. I sat for a while, smoked a fresh pipe, and played with Holmes’ stencil, reading a random decoded passage from near the rear of the old book.
On the thirty-seventh day, take the third and last grain. A profound sleep will follow during which the hair, teeth, nails and skin will be renewed.
On the fortieth day the work will be finished and the aged man will be renewed in youth.
I could see how the old man might be interested, but as a medical practitioner I knew only too well that old age was something that could not be fought into remission, could not be bargained with.
And yet, as I made my way back to bed, the fiddle struck up a jaunty jig once more.
I woke in the morning with a smile on my face.
I could tell over breakfast that Holmes had not been disturbed in the night, for he would surely have mentioned it. He also seemed to have lost all interest both in the book containing the cipher, and in the fiddle itself.
“Can you arrange for them to be returned to the old man please, Watson,” he said to me over a pipe. “I have no further use for them.”
“Do you not wish to return them yourself?” I asked. “To explain how you discovered the cipher? And perhaps find to what use he intends to put it?”
Holmes put The Thunderer up as a barrier between us. The conversation was over.
So it was that later that same morning, I made my way alone to Upper Street carrying the fiddle and the book.
I was shown again into the library. The fire roared just as strongly as on my previous visit, so I took care not to sit down, electing instead to stand near the old man’s shoulder. Even there it felt as if I was being slow-roasted, so I was more than happy to cut the visit short. I contented myself with a rapid demonstration of the paper grille, and explained how the key was actually the pattern of carvings on the fiddle.
The old man applauded softly, and appeared delighted that Holmes had made such rapid progress. “All this time, and the answer was right in front of my face. Still, it is money well spent, for now the Great Experiment is revealed and it is only a matter of transcribing the ritual, and following it to the letter.”
“Death will not be cheated easily,” I said.
The old man laughed, the fire lending a red cast to his face. “I never pretended it would,” he said. “But I have a chance. That is all that I ask. A chance to begin again.”
He promised that full payment of the agreed sum would be immediately forthcoming and the manservant showed me out to some thankfully cooler air in the street.
The old man was as good as his word. The money was put into Holmes’ bank account two days later.
We did not hear from Mr. Jones again for three months.
3
When the summons came, it was in the form of a visit from his manservant.
“Mister Jones would like you to visit him this afternoon, if that is agreeable to you, Mister Holmes? He asked me to tell you that there is something you urgently need to see.”
Holmes harrumphed, but it only took a small piece of coaxing on my part to get him to agree. Holmes might not have any curiosity to spare for the matter, but I found that I wanted to know the outcome, if any, of Jones’ Great Experiment.
We took a lunchtime carriage to Upper Street, and arrived at Mr. Jones’ residence just after one o’clock.
We were shown upstairs almost immediately.
“He said you would come,” the manservant said as he led us along the gas lit corridor. “He wants you to see the final outcome of your work on the cipher.”
The servant stopped outside a door with a barred small window at eye level.“He asked to be isolated. He has been almost catatonic for days now, but I am under strict orders not to enter. Not until the forty days have passed.”
“And when is that?” Holmes asked
The servant looked at his pocket watch and smiled. “In about ten minutes, sir.”
Holmes and I stepped forward and looked into the room. It was an eight-foot cube containing nothing except a mattress. The only source of light was a small lamp in the ceiling, and the six-inch hole in the floor was only a way out for fluids. Jones lay on the mattress, as naked as the day he was born. He stared straight at us, unseeing.
“Open this door,” Holmes said to the servant. “Let’s have no more of this lunacy.”
“I cannot,” the servant said. “I am under orders.”
Holmes looked as angry as I have ever seen him. “Open this door now, or I shall see that you are arrested for manslaughter.”
The servant looked as if he might argue further, but something in Holmes’ glare must have shown him how useless that might be.
“I will lose my job for this,” he said as he took out a key and opened the door.
“I would start looking anyway,” Holmes said as he walked into the room. “It does not look like Mr. Jones is long for this world.”
Holmes strode over to Jones and took the man’s arm. The old man blinked, and stretched, as if coming out of a deep sleep. He raised his hand to his face and immediately burst into tears.
“It’s working,” he whispered. He showed Holmes his hands. His wrinkles were gone, smoothed out into new flesh, new skin. The hairs on the back of his hand were thick and strong. He used a finger to prod into his mouth and pulled back his lips to show two new rows of teeth, just beginning to poke through the gums.
“It’s working!”
Holmes pulled Jones to his feet.
“It’s working,” the old man whispered again.
“Yes. You have said that already,” Holmes said, just as Jones started to convulse, jerking like a puppet on too few strings. I pushed Holmes aside and laid the man back down on the mattress.
“Get me some brandy,” I shouted.
Jones started to foam at the mouth and thrash from side to side. I had to enlist Holmes’ help to hold him down. The old man’s blue eyes looked up at me, pleading.
“It’s working,” he said softly, then spoke no more.
In the end, there was nothing I could do for him. I pronounced him dead fifteen minutes later.
3
As far as Holmes is concerned, that was the end of the case of the Highland fiddle. His belief that it was all mumbo-jumbo having been vindicated, Holmes went back to work on other cases more interesting to his intellect.
Over the coming weeks I started to think less and less about the fiddle, but it all came flooding back one afternoon almost a month after Jones’ death.
I was volunteering in the East End at one of the medical missions set up in areas of greatest hardship. We had taken residence in one of the old East India warehouses on the docks where we had set up what little aid we could provide. As ever, I was mightily depressed by the whole gamut of human suffering on display. A steady stream of sick came and went; most with bronchial complaints, some with rickets, others even worse off with black lung or gut rot so severe that all I could do was ease their way for a while before death.
I had just started an examination on a screaming baby so grotesquely deformed I wondered why, like many before her, she had not been discreetly strangled at birth, when I heard the tune, the self-same haunting air I had last heard in the Baker Street apartments. I looked up at the man who was playing it on an old battered pennywhistle.
“Where did you hear that?” I asked, having to speak louder than normal to make myself heard above the baby’s cries.
“Me old mam taught it to me,” he said, his Scots brogue coming through strong. “She said it came straight from the wee folk. It’s the only thing that seems to soothe the bairn … for a time, at least.”
I looked down at the child.
Old Mr. Jones’ blue eyes looked up at me, pleading, as I re
membered something I’d read in the decoded passage of the old book.
On the fortieth day the work will be finished and the aged man will be renewed in youth.
The baby screamed.
The Case of the Lost Overcoat
EF
I was sodden through by the time I arrived in Baker Street, having had to walk back from a consultation in Leicester Square in a steady cold drizzle. I felt tired, miserable, and not in the mood to be accosted on the doorstep by a ragamuffin.
“Give us a shilling, guv’nor,” the boy—at least, I presumed it was a boy—said. “A shilling for this nice coat ’ere.”
I became interested despite myself when I saw that the garment he thrust toward me was a particularly fine black wool overcoat, obviously from a top-class tailor, and not the kind of thing one would expect a street-urchin to have on his person.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
The boy showed no shame. “I found it, guv’nor,” he said. “Just lying across the railing there.” He pointed to the cast-iron fencing that ran along the side of the pavement in front of the houses. “A shilling and it’s yours.”
I gave him two pennies and sent him on his way with an admonishment against petty thievery. He stuck two fingers up at me as he ran off, but I was in no mood to waste more breath in shouting after him. I headed inside for the dry warmth of the hallway.
Mrs. Hudson was already at the door, and proved to be her usual efficient self. In mere minutes she had me sitting by the range in the kitchen, drying myself off in the luxuriant heat afforded by a recently lit stove, and sipping at a most welcome cup of strong, sugary tea.
“Your coat is sodden, Doctor Watson,” she said, hanging the newly discovered coat over the back of a chair near the stove.
I explained to her the circumstances whereby I had come by the garment.
“Dear me,” she said. “Some gentleman will be missing this. It’s a Crombie, from Edinburgh. It would have cost a good few shillings to the person who has lost it.”
Holmes arrived seconds later. He immediately took an interest in the overcoat and studied it with his usual intensity.
“Two years old, at most,” he said when he stood away. “And it has seen service in both Edinburgh and London, as we can tell from by the gravel and clay deposits on the bottom fringe. The owner is a smoker and has expensive tastes in tobacco, judging by the fragments of leaf in the pocket. He is left-handed, black-haired, and rather a dandy, judging by the cologne and hair-grease encrusted in the collar.”
“Bravo, Holmes,” I said, but my friend was not finished.
“He is also, I’m afraid, probably dead,” Holmes continued. He held the coat up and poked a finger through a hole in the front. “This was caused by a sharp blade; a knife or a sword-stick judging by the width of the tear.”
When Holmes held the coat up in front of him I saw that his finger wiggled at me from right over where the coat would have covered the man’s heart.
3
Over the next fortnight Mrs. Hudson did her utmost to find the coat’s owner. But despite her many and varied acquaintances, and her advertisements in shop windows and newspapers, all of her attempts led precisely nowhere. I myself had a quiet word with Lestrade on the matter, but there were no reports of any stabbing, and no missing gentlemen who might have come from Edinburgh. The whole thing became just another of life’s little mysteries. By the time winter rolled into spring I had almost forgotten the coat entirely, and I am quite sure that Holmes himself had not given it another thought.
That all changed one afternoon in late April.
It had been a sunny morning. But by the time Holmes and I finished lunch, rain was coming down steadily. I could not manage to hail a carriage, and I needed to be at the Royal Hospital for an afternoon lecture. I grabbed a coat from the rack in the hall, and hurried out to face the weather. I was halfway down Regent Street before I realized I was wearing the black Crombie overcoat.
I must admit it did a grand job of keeping one dry and warm, but the thought that I might be wearing the garment of a murdered man sent a cold chill up my spine that the warmth of the coat itself could not quite dispel.
I finally managed to hail a carriage in the Strand, and after giving the man my destination, I settled back in my seat. I suddenly felt quite tired, and allowed myself to nod off to sleep. I have no recollection of any dreams, only an impression of it not being entirely restful.
3
When I woke it was nighttime, and I was sitting in a bar I did not recognize, drinking gin, a drink I usually avoid, associating it as I do with my service in Afghanistan and the friends I left behind there. I was quite alone, and had no recollection of my actions since falling asleep in the cab. I still wore the Crombie overcoat, but it had seen some action since earlier in the day; it was now streaked with thick mud, as if I had rolled in the dirt.
Or had been involved in a fight.
I touched a wet spot on the sleeve. My fingers came away red and bloody.
I resolved to make straight for Baker Street.
It proved rather harder than I hoped. On leaving the bar I could see no familiar landmarks, no clues as to my whereabouts. I started walking, and was most surprised several minutes later to come to the river, and see London Bridge some way to my west. I had come all the way across the city without being aware of it.
I was in a state of some distress by the time I arrived at the apartments. Holmes took one look at me and insisted on pouring me a most welcome snifter of his best brandy. As I removed the overcoat I felt a sharp pain, over my heart, but once the garment was off me I could find no signs of any wound in my chest.
Indeed, I found I was soon able to regain my normal composure with the help of a pipe of Holmes’ strong shag and more brandy. It was only then that I noticed that the knuckles of my left hand were bruised and torn, as if I had hit something—or someone—rather forcefully.
Holmes examined the overcoat most carefully, then sat opposite me in his chair by the fire. “Tell me,” was all he said.
In truth, it did not take long, for I was completely unable to recall anything that might have happened between my falling asleep in the cab on the Strand, and coming back to my senses in the East End bar, some eight hours later. As it turned out, Holmes was able to fill in at least some of the blanks, but as he did so, I almost wished I could have stayed ignorant of the matter.
“You have indeed been in a fight,” he said. “That is obvious from the bruises on your hand … your left hand, you will note, and the mud on the coat. The mud itself comes from the tidal silt down in the East End … St. Catherine’s Docks being one of the most likely spots. There you will find the siliceous ooze peculiar to the small river mouth in that area. It looks as if you have rolled around in it for a while.”
He smiled, but I was in no mood for any witticisms, and chewed hard on the stem of my briar as he continued.
“There is indeed blood on the sleeve, and I suspect it is not your own, but there is not enough to suggest that you have seriously wounded your opponent. There are also traces of fresh tobacco in the left-hand pocket, and this …”
He took out a packet of rolling papers and a small leather pouch I had never seen before. He emptied the contents into his hand. It looked like a coarse, dark shag. Holmes rubbed the tobacco between his fingers and sniffed at it, like a dog offered a new treat.
“It is Turkish,” he said. “And an exotic blend I have only ever come across once before. It is supplied exclusively to Hobart and Williamson’s in the city. That is where we will take up the trail on the morrow.”
“But what about my blackout, Holmes? I should see a doctor …”
“Physician, heal thyself,” Holmes said, and gave me another smile. I was not in the mood.
“I suspect you have been in a fugue state,” he said. “Tell me, Watson, have you ever been hypnotized?”
“Stuff and nonsense,” I replied. “Parlor tricks for the gullible, that is wh
at hypnosis is … that is all it is.”
Holmes looked thoughtful. “Nonetheless, it is something we must consider. When a stout, strong-minded chap such as yourself gets so thoroughly discomforted, there must be a good reason.”
I went to bed intending to seek out a fellow doctor in the morning and get myself, and my head in particular, examined.
3
Holmes had other ideas.
Even as I was having breakfast, he was having Mrs. Hudson order us up a carriage to the City. I started to protest, but my old friend was in that state of almost manic intensity that I have seen so often in our past adventures together. I knew nothing would shift him from this course of action. And I could not, in all conscience, allow him to follow up on what was, after all, a mess of my making. When the cab arrived at the curb I was at Holmes’ side.
I did not, however, choose to wear the overcoat, which was left behind, once again hanging in its place on the rack in the hallway.
Holmes was a study in silence on the trip to the City, which gave me plenty of time to reflect on the events of the previous day. I realized there was one thing I could do to try to trace my steps; I could seek out fellow attendees at the lecture in the Royal Hospital, and inquire as to whether I had managed to take my seat in the hall. I knew it would seem a dashed strange question, but I resolved that I would make it a priority to ask, should nothing come of our visit to the tobacconist.
As it turned out, that trip was made redundant.
We arrived at the tobacconist’s, a small, dark shop in a side street off Cannon Street, just after ten. Holmes entered first, which was just as well, for when I myself got inside the small shopkeeper looked in fear for his life. He bent behind his counter and came back up with a police whistle at his lips.
“Stay back, you fiend,” he said to me. “I’ll have the rozzers on you this time, I swear I will.”
Sherlock Holmes: The Quality of Mercy and Other Stories Page 9
