The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes

by James Lovegrove

  “There’ll be proof enough,” said Holmes. “What alerted me to the possibility that Sir Peregrine did not die by accident was the fact that he did not have his right-hand glove on. One might argue that he had not put it on before the bee stung. But what if we turn that around? What if he took it off after the bee stung? This inference gave me a location for the bee to have been lodged. The moment he felt a stab of pain in his index finger, Sir Peregrine snatched off his glove and flung it onto the workbench, to reveal the dire truth. As for the open awning window, that was, after all, mere misdirection. You left it ajar, Mr Harrison, at the same time as you introduced the bee into the glove, sometime in the night when everyone else was asleep. You were taking a nap yesterday when we turned up in the evening, were you not?”

  “Trying day. You know how it is.”

  “Our arrival woke you. Doubtless you were catching up on the sleep you had lost through your nocturnal activities. That slight misstep aside, you have otherwise been shrewder than people give you credit for. The terrible thing, as far as you are concerned, is that it has all been for nothing.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that killing your uncle, a man who did what he could to support you and keep you solvent, is going to reap you no reward save the gallows.”

  “Reward? Are you referring to the inheritance? But I get nothing, Mr Holmes. Didn’t you know that? Uncle Perry changed his will. He left everything to her, lock, stock and barrel.” Harrison gestured intemperately at Miss Smith. “She gets the lot. The Lord alone knows why. Is she kin? She is not. But that was my uncle’s decision, and he informed me of it, and there is a major plank of your case against me taken away.”

  “Maybe,” said Holmes, “but it sets another plank, just as firm, in its stead. If money was not the motive, what is a no less powerful and compelling a reason to kill? Revenge.”

  Harrison’s eyes flickered. I saw it, and in that moment realised that Holmes had hit the nail on the head. Cecil Harrison had planned and executed a cold-blooded murder simply to get his own back on the uncle who had cut him out of a lucrative legacy. His reason was not greed but a pettier one: peevishness.

  “And with your revenge,” Holmes added, “you sought to make it look as though Miss Mary Smith had been the agent of Sir Peregrine’s death. You wished it to be ascribed to her inattention, so that at least the responsibility would be attached to her thereafter, if not the technical culpability. She would live for the rest of her life dishonoured, with shame and opprobrium heaped upon her. She would be known forever as the careless housemaid who caused the world to lose a great scientist.”

  Harrison continued to remonstrate and deny, but by that stage the local constabulary were at the door. Holmes had summoned them earlier, with instructions about the timing of their arrival. He bade them search Harrison’s room, and sure enough, there they found, hidden in a drawer, a second syringe which was identical to the other and which proved to have contained only plain water.

  As for Mary Smith, her face had turned ashen upon learning the news about the will, and as the police officers led a fulminating Cecil Harrison away from the premises, she sank into a swoon. I tended to her until she came round.

  “I can scarcely credit it, Doctor,” she said in a wan voice. “Such benevolence. Such generosity. Oh, Sir Peregrine…”

  A severe glare from Mrs Frensham was aimed her way, after which the housekeeper, without another word, left the room. Her baseless assumptions about Mary Smith’s relationship with their employer would never be allayed, it seemed; and indeed, not an hour later, she was seen departing Bridlinghall Place in high dudgeon, with a packed valise, clearly having no intention to return. I try not to editorialise in these chronicles of mine, but in Mrs Frensham’s case I can only say good riddance.

  * * *

  “It is a terrible pity,” said Holmes on the train back to London, “that someone should prefer a young woman who is not family over a young man who is. Yet Sir Peregrine clearly felt the virtuous, industrious Miss Smith a worthier recipient of his largesse than the shiftless, unenterprising Mr Harrison, and it was to prove his undoing.”

  “Might I ask, purely in order to tidy up a final detail, how you knew he had been injected twice in the same spot?”

  “Oh, that.” My companion waved a hand airily. “The puncture mark was a fraction too large for the bore of the needle on the syringe. Harrison was accurate but nonetheless could not avoid widening the original hole, by however minuscule an amount. It was easy to discern because I myself have been guilty of the same thing.”

  “You?”

  “When, in the not too distant past, I habitually partook of cocaine, I would sometimes reuse a puncture. For that I have you to blame.”

  “Me?”

  “Your constant disapproval over my use of the drug worsened whenever the puncture marks on my arm multiplied. In order to forestall that, I would inject in the same spot twice to keep their number down while maintaining the same frequency of doses. Hence it would appear that I was moderating my intake when I was not. I am not proud of that, but at least it was of benefit in this instance.”

  I did not know whether to laugh or chastise him. In the end I chose the former. It seemed better to make light of that period of his life when cocaine had him in its grip, and thus lay it to rest, instead of reviving it.

  Holmes’s mind, at any rate, seemed to be focused more on the future than the past. He turned his head to gaze out of the window at the Sussex countryside speeding by, into whose rustic embrace he would, as it turned out, consign himself a few months thence. In its golden autumn finery, the landscape had rarely looked better.

  “The bee,” he said, half to himself. “Admirable, captivating little insect. It would not be a waste of one’s declining years to devote oneself to the study of it. Yes, bees…”

  A BAUBLE IN SCANDINAVIA

  First published in The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories

  Part V: Christmas Adventures, ed. David Marcum, 2016,

  MX Publishing

  There is only one canonical Holmes tale that deals specifically with Christmas, “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”. Here is a non-canonical Holmes tale that deals specifically with Christmas.

  I like giving Watson a more prominent role in my stories than Conan Doyle did in his. To me, he isn’t just a sidekick and a convenient wall for Holmes to bounce exposition off. He is an accomplished man – a war hero, a medical practitioner, dauntless, unswerving in his loyalty to his friend and his love for the ill-fated Mary. He also serves to mitigate Holmes’s often acerbic nature and offers us a truly sympathetic and likeable character to root for. Holmes is indisputably a force for good but can be condescending, haughty, even arrogant at times. Without Watson, he would be unbearable company.

  In “A Bauble in Scandinavia”, Watson gets his moment to shine.

  A Bauble in Scandinavia

  For most of the winter of 1890 Sherlock Holmes was in subdued mood, morose and taciturn. I did not yet know it but he was brooding on the problem of Professor Moriarty, whose malign influence over our nation and over Holmes himself would reach its apex – and climax – the subsequent spring. Other affairs troubled my friend’s mind, including an engagement by the French government to attend to matters of supreme political significance, but principally, as I now see in hindsight, it was Moriarty who cast a shadow over him and dampened whatever pleasure the season might have brought him.

  During Advent I took it upon myself to call by at 221B Baker Street as often as I was able to, my medical caseload and my domestic demands permitting. I attempted the best I could to cajole Holmes out of his gloom. “Surely,” I would say, “you can allow a chink of Yuletide light to pierce this shroud of darkness which surrounds you.” In response all I would receive was a noncommittal shrug of the shoulders and a twitching moue of the mouth, as if I had suggested he fly to the moon and eat green cheese there. He was imperturbable and inscrutable. My efforts
to elevate his spirits rebounded like bullets off armour plating.

  What a contrast with Christmas 1889, when he and I had memorably been engaged in the pursuit of a villain who had concealed a stolen jewel in the crop of a goose, a jaunty episode I have chronicled as “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”. Then, Holmes had been particularly light of heart, even to the point of letting the felon go free in the hope that forgiveness rather than punishment would be the salvation of the man’s soul. I wondered whether the Holmes of late 1890 would have been quite so lenient.

  As Christmas Day itself loomed, I was loath to visit him any more. Until he bucked himself out of the trough he was in, how did it benefit me to seek out his company? He, it was clear, had no wish to consort with me. Why, therefore, might I wish to consort with him?

  It was my wife who insisted I should drag myself over to 221B on Christmas Eve, contrary to my own desires. I would far rather have stayed at our cosy home – which she had adorned in splendid festive finery, including numerous paper chains and a heavily ornament-bedecked tree – and enjoyed a night in by the fire, reading a book and indulging in pleasant conversation. My dear Mary, however, was adamant that I not spurn Holmes. Thus, with the utmost unwillingness, I traipsed through the gaslit dark from Paddington to Baker Street, bearing a gift.

  My friend, as had become his wont, did not seem pleased to see me. If anything he was sullener than ever. I found him ensconced in his armchair by the window, legs drawn up, frowning intently over a telegram.

  “Watson. What brings you here this cold, blustery evening?”

  “Nothing,” said I, “save the inclination to offer you a small token in keeping with the time of year.”

  “Hmm? Oh, a present. Yes. Put it there, would you?” He wafted a hand idly at the dining table before resuming his perusal of the telegram.

  I laid the package, which my wife had wrapped very elegantly, where indicated. Inside was a calabash pipe. Holmes was wedded to his briar and his clay, with the occasional diversion to his cherry-wood when he was in a disputatious frame of mind, but I fancied he might find the large bowl and curved stem of a calabash congenial. I had expected him to tender some sort of reciprocal offering, but there was, it would appear, none.

  “What do you have there?” I enquired. “The germ of a new case, maybe?”

  “This?” He tapped the telegram. “Not as such. Nothing that need concern you, old fellow.”

  “You are quite absorbed by it.”

  “It exerts a fascination, I confess.”

  “Then tell me more.”

  “So that you can make it the basis of another of your trifling little sketches?”

  “I am merely expressing polite curiosity,” I said, bristling somewhat. “You could do me the courtesy of satisfying it.”

  “Well, since you insist. The telegram in fact pertains to an investigation that is already in train. I have a northern Scandinavian client whose business is in danger of suffering a grave setback.”

  “You have mentioned, more than once, that you are presently being of assistance to the royal family of Scandinavia. Is this related to that case?”

  Holmes did not reply, instead fixing his keen gaze on the slip of paper. He ran his forefinger along the words, his lips pursing slightly.

  “Would you care to read it aloud?” I persisted. “Perhaps I might offer some insight.”

  He gave vent to a brief and ever so scornful laugh. “You overrate your usefulness, Watson, or else underrate my mental powers.”

  At that, I picked up my hat and quit the apartment. I do not mind reporting that I was in high dudgeon. I do regret to relate, however, that I was short-tempered with Mary when I got home and that I went to bed thinking some fairly uncharitable thoughts about Sherlock Holmes.

  * * *

  I awoke on Christmas morning still chagrined, still resentful, and although I strove to remain civil and good-humoured over breakfast, I failed. Mary, indefatigably gracious when I was disgruntled or ill at ease, urged me to return to 221B forthwith and make amends.

  “I will not have you full of gripe and crotchetiness on this day of all days, John,” she said. “Go and clear the air between you and Mr Holmes. It is the only way I shall get to enjoy Christmas.”

  I refused, but she was determined. Like the tide eroding the shore she wore me down, so that by eight o’clock I was exiting the house, clad in Ulster, cravat and gloves, and wending my way through the London streets. The city was quiet, the pavements empty, the roadways bare of traffic. It was the only day of the year that the capital’s constant hubbub dwindled and peace prevailed. The sky sent down a sleety drizzle which, had the temperature been a couple of degrees lower, would have been transfigured into a light snowfall.

  I rapped on the front door of my former address, and Mrs Hudson ushered me in with an expression of surprise. “Doctor, I was not expecting you.”

  “I did not anticipate being here. Your lodger is in, I presume.”

  “No. He left an hour ago, and in somewhat of a hurry, too.”

  “Where might he have gone? Whatever could have summoned him from home on Christmas Day?”

  “I’m sure I have no idea. Mr Holmes is a law unto himself, you know that as well as I. He may have been exercising some whim.”

  “Or pursuing a lead in a case. He gave you no indication as to his destination?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Nor as to when he might return?”

  “None.”

  “How singular.”

  “You sound concerned, Doctor.”

  “A little.”

  “What if you were to look about his rooms? There is a chance you might find some clue to his whereabouts there.”

  “It would seem impertinent.”

  “But if you are worried about him…”

  I assented to her proposal. I could not put my finger on why I thought Holmes might be in jeopardy. I knew only that his behaviour had lately been off-kilter and that, with his tendency towards obsessiveness and single-mindedness – towards mania, even – he could often be his own worst enemy.

  Upstairs, I cast an eye around the sitting room. I noted that my giftstill sat on the table exactly where I had placed it. It had not been touched. Holmes’s breakfast, which Mrs Hudson had laid out for him, likewise had not been touched.

  “He said nothing to you, either this morning or last night, regarding an appointment today?” I asked her.

  “He said nothing to me at all this morning other than the briskest of goodbyes as he went out the door. As for last night… Well, I do recall him making a comment that I found queer. Queer even by Mr Holmes’s lights. I was taking away his supper tray and he said, ‘Mrs Hudson, I shall just give the ashes a riddle, shall I?’ He was kneeling by the hearth at the time with the poker in his hand, preparing to scrape at the grate, and I thought to myself why make such a statement? It was obvious that that was what he was doing, riddling the ashes. Why draw unnecessary attention to the fact?”

  “Of late he has been acting rather oddly.”

  “You would be the better judge of that than I. I could swear, though, that he had been busy doing something else in the fireplace immediately before I entered. He looked… furtive, I suppose the word is, and all that talk of riddling was to divert my attention from some other deed.”

  “Furtiveness? That is not like Holmes. He can be secretive, but never furtive.”

  I bent beside the hearth and examined the cold ashes in the fireplace. It seemed unlikely that I might find therein some explanation to Holmes’s abrupt departure, but I felt it was worth a look. Almost instantly I spied a scrap of paper standing proud among the clinker and the fragments of charred wood. It was the corner of a telegram, and I could not help but assume it belonged to the selfsame telegram that had so preoccupied him yesterday.

  I plucked the scorched remnant out and held it up to the light to examine it. Just three words were legible, printed out in the telegrapher’s neat hand:
>
  Mrs Hudson read over my shoulder, and together we puzzled over what these meagre morsels of data might signify.

  “‘ICE’?” I said. “Holmes referred to a ‘northern Scandinavian client’ in connection with the telegram. Ice is undoubtedly a feature of Scandinavian climes, not least at this time of year. ‘TRADE’ is less easily analysed. It might, I suppose, refer to an exchange of some sort, of goods or perhaps of contraband.”

  “What about ‘RD’?” said Mrs Hudson. “Might that be someone’s initials?”

  “Or the common abbreviation for ‘road’, shortened here so as to save the sender of the telegram a penny or two. Each of the words lies at the end of its respective line but we must not infer that each is complete. The ‘RD’ could be the final two letters of a longer word.”

  “By that token so might ‘ICE’ and ‘TRADE’.”

  “A good point. Were Holmes here and the telegram previously unknown to him, by now he would have extrapolated the entirety of its message from the scant available evidence, and doubtless also the sender’s occupation, hair colour and preferred brand of snuff.”

  “It is unlike you to sound so churlish. Has Mr Holmes done something to cause offence?”

  “He has, but now my anxiety overrides my feelings of affront. I believe I ought to—”

  I broke off, slapping my forehead as inspiration struck.

  “Mrs Hudson, there is one obvious interpretation. I am amazed I did not think of it sooner. As you yourself just said, ‘ICE’ and ‘TRADE’ might also be the ends of words, like ‘RD’. What if those words are ‘POLICE’ and ‘LESTRADE’?”

  “That would also account for the ‘RD’, would it not?”

  “How so?”

  “‘SCOTLAND YARD’, Doctor.”

  * * *

  I made haste to Scotland Yard. I could scarcely believe I was chasing so slender a thread. There was no guarantee I had intuited correctly the import of the telegram from those few isolated characters. In the absence of any other course of action, however, it was all I could do.