Sherlock Holmes--The Vanishing Man

by Philip Purser-Hallard

  Letter from Miss Charlotte Haborn to Miss Amelia North

  King’s Shelton

  12th April 1893

  My dear Amy,

  It is so kind of you to write with your sympathy over the dreadful events of this past week. You cannot imagine how frightening it is to read in every newspaper stories about ‘the mysterious disappearance of the Hon. Letitia Haborn, who was last seen’, etcetera, and to know that they are referring to one’s own dear sister.

  If you have also seen these distressing stories, as I realise you must have, you will know that none of us have seen dear Letty since last Wednesday, 5th April, when she retired to bed a little early, having said goodnight just as usual to Mama, Papa and myself. The next morning when her maid Judith went to wake her, she found her gone, along with most of her jewellery and a suitcase of clothes.

  After some frantic questioning of the servants we discovered that the gardener’s boy had borrowed the trap to take her to the station for the early train to London, bringing it back before it was missed. It seems the foolish fellow was quite smitten with poor Letty and would have done anything she asked, even to the peril of his own job (from which he has of course been dismissed, with a further threat from Papa of criminal charges if it turns out that any harm has come to Letty!) He assures us that she met nobody there, and I believe that he is telling the truth.

  Although there has been some terribly fervid talk of white slavers and opium dens and the like, the common conclusion to which the press are all so eagerly jumping is, I suppose, the obvious one for one who did not know her – that she has eloped with, or been abducted by, some unsuitable lover. I believe that that is also the assumption upon which the police are proceeding, though they have assured Papa that they are keeping an open mind.

  As you will surely agree from your own acquaintance with Letty, this seems to us quite out of the question. Though at twenty-two she is three years my senior, she has never shown any interest in men, preferring the company of books and of her peculiar, and to all our minds quite unsuitable, ‘researches’. You will, I am sure, recall her at the age of twelve finding that dead frog that Grimalkin brought in, and attempting to revivify it using electricity. And that is perhaps the least obscure and worrying of her experiments. A girl who is capable of that is unlikely to be considered quite the catch by any man, I fear.

  Letty has, alas, always been an excellent liar, creative and always most persuasive – she once convinced me that the Queen had died, and earned me a beating from our governess for telling wicked stories! So we are less shocked that she was able to deceive us than that she would choose to do so. Our feeling of betrayal is, as I am sure you can realise, almost as horrible as our fears for her safety.

  But as to where my dear sister has gone, or what her intentions there might be, I cannot for a moment fathom. London is no place for a young lady on her own, and yet as far as we can discover she seems to have done nothing to make herself conspicuous there. Papa and I are distracted with worry, and poor Mama is quite prostrated.

  I will write more if we learn more. Though it seems disloyal to say so, my own life has not been uneventful since I wrote to you last, but of Lieutenant Maurice Webster I will have to tell you on a future occasion. I will tantalise you with that for now!

  In gratitude again for your concern, I remain,

  Your loving friend,

  Charlotte

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After this prelude, supper itself was a relatively tame affair. Though there were tensions, with so many outlandish personalities clustered around one table and skirting with varying degrees of caution around the same subjects, we all survived it without major incident.

  Skinner did not join us, which caused a detectable relief on the part of one or two participants – more because it brought our numbers down to an acceptable twelve, I hoped, than for any particular dislike of the pallid young detective, who I still feared could ill bear any further opprobrium. The atmosphere discouraged Holmes’s attempts to ask questions relating to Kellway’s disappearance, and we finished our meal little the wiser, although Holmes did succeed in establishing, through a whispered conference with Anderton during the port and cigars, that the only key to the summerhouse had been lost two summers previously, and that the outbuilding had stood unlocked ever since.

  Before leaving Parapluvium House for Baker Street, Holmes and I returned to the Experimental Annexe. The room was darkened and unheated, so it was a surprise to find the shadowy shape of Skinner, sitting alone and thoughtfully gazing into Room A. He leapt to his feet as I switched on the lights, and stared antagonistically at Holmes, who raised a placating hand.

  ‘Forgive us, Skinner,’ he said. ‘We have no plans to hamper your investigation. We simply hoped to carry out a brief observation. If you are busy here, we can return later.’

  ‘Oh,’ said the young man, disarmed. ‘Well, I suppose it’s all right, actually. I wasn’t really doing anything, you know, just thinking. This is a tricky case, you see. “A three-pipe problem”, isn’t that the term you use? Not that I’m a smoker, personally. I haven’t the lungs for it,’ he added with a shudder. ‘I do find sitting in the dark helps my concentration, though.’

  ‘But you do not need to be in this room particularly?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. No, I can leave you to it. I’m sorry I missed supper, I just… if you must know, I find the conflicting energies between the Society exhausting. Their auras are constantly sparking off one another. Not to mention the Countess and Floke fatuously claiming that Kellway is safe and happy on Venus, when I know full well he’s nothing of the kind.’ He added gloomily, ‘Of course you won’t agree, Holmes. I know you reject my claims, but –’

  ‘And yet in some respects I do agree,’ said Holmes. ‘About the company, at least, and about the unlikelihood of both Miss Casimir and Mr Floke’s views. I am not in a position to judge those of the Countess since her utterances, except when mediated by Miss Casimir, are so opaque.’

  The Countess’s one observation at supper had been to the effect that certain people had been born with their minds inside out, but that as the world inside the human mind so closely mirrored that outside it, this made very little difference. I had begun to suspect that the old woman was, while perhaps also an out-and-out fraud, nevertheless no longer in possession of her full complement of faculties.

  Skinner said, ‘I know you have little respect for me as a detective, Holmes, but I wasn’t idle this afternoon. I’ve looked into the history of this house, and found something rather interesting.’ I received the impression that despite his earlier hostility he was eager to find some kind of acceptance on Holmes’s part, and I feared the rebuff he was likely to receive.

  Holmes said, relatively politely, ‘But surely the history of the house is unlikely to be of significance, since the Experimental Annexe is of such recent construction?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Skinner. ‘But there’s recent and there’s recent, isn’t there? For instance, there was a murder here, at Parapluvium House – Keelefort House, as it was then – just twelve years ago, a little before Sir Newnham bought the place.’

  ‘Of course!’ Holmes recalled the case immediately, I could see. ‘Ralph Cordwainer, the MP murdered in his bed by the Honourable Percival Heybourne. I had not realised that the house was this one.’

  Although nobody at the house had mentioned this dubious history, as the buyer Sir Newnham at least must be aware of it. I assumed that he had deliberately kept it quiet so as to avoid overstimulating his excitable guests.

  ‘It was,’ Skinner confirmed smugly. ‘But there was another murder, nearly two hundred and fifty years before that, that became peculiarly important to the defence.’

  ‘Heavens, yes. Heybourne’s barrister tried for a verdict of insanity, because his client insisted he was driven to the act by a vengeful ghost.’

  ‘Anne Heybourne,’ Skinner agreed. ‘The youngest daughter of the Royalist Sir Robert Heybourne, who
was hacked to death at her home during the Civil War – on, as far as I can tell, this very spot. I did not detect the aura of her trauma earlier because it is so all-pervading – you know the way you fail to notice the background noise of the sea or the wind when you are listening to someone speak? Yet when all else is silent you can hear it loudly and clearly.’

  ‘An interesting tale, Skinner,’ said Holmes, ‘though I am for the moment at a loss to divine its exact relevance to the matters in hand.’

  Skinner looked smug. ‘Has nobody mentioned? The spirit of Anne Heybourne has been seen again, and recently. Gregory the footman swears he saw a lady on the stairs near Sir Newnham’s study just last week, when there were no ladies in the house, only the cook and a few maids. None of them would have had any reason to be outside the servants’ quarters in the early hours of the morning.’

  Holmes said, ‘And what was Gregory the footman doing there in the early hours of the morning? If he was sampling the contents of Sir Newnham’s drinks cabinet, for example, that would make him a most unreliable witness. Besides, where one servant can go, another might be found. Most probably it was one of the maids on a similar errand. Now, if you will forgive us…?’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ said Skinner, obviously disappointed, and made a few stumbling steps towards the door. He turned. ‘Unless… could I stay and, um, observe your observations? As a professional courtesy?’

  Holmes looked surprised and a little annoyed, but I welcomed the opportunity to ease the friction with our self-declared rival. ‘Of course that will be perfectly all right,’ I said. ‘We won’t be giving away any trade secrets, will we, Holmes?’

  The readers of my reminiscences have more than once commented on the lack of tact which Holmes can display, but I have always maintained that this is more often due to simple distraction on his part than to any actual indifference to the feelings of others. When I drop a hint to the effect that he is exhibiting this failing, he is often willing to accept my guidance.

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ he said, perhaps a little shortly. ‘We merely hope to ascertain as far as possible what exactly the observers mean when they say that they saw Kellway meditating in Room A throughout the night.’

  For full verisimilitude, the electric lights in the antechamber being already alight, we turned on those in Experiment Room B, but left Rooms A and C in darkness. I then entered Room A at Holmes’s urging, and subsided rather stiffly to the floor. He closed the door and I sat, staring at the dim light from the window, while Holmes and Skinner took it in turns to peer in through the window at me. I quickly began to feel most uncomfortable at their scrutiny.

  After what seemed an excruciating interval, but can only have been a couple of minutes, Holmes opened the door again. ‘I saw you quite clearly, Watson,’ he said. ‘At the centre of the window, the glass creates very little distortion. Your presence and position were perfectly clear, and even your face was tolerably visible. I could not have mistaken you for anyone else, at least.’

  ‘You know me better than any of the observers knew Kellway, though,’ I pointed out. ‘Unless there’s something they’re not telling us.’

  ‘True enough, though as yet none of our theories involve the person in the room being someone other than Kellway – except in that that identity may itself have been an assumed one. It is in any case remarkable how little detail the human brain needs to identify a face correctly. See for yourself,’ he said, and ducked into the room, pulling the door shut after him.

  I looked inside, but the room seemed dark. I pressed my nose to the glass and shaded my eyes, blinking to get rid of the after-dazzle of the electric lights. Holmes sat on the floor, framed by the odd curve that the glass gave the walls of the room, in the lotus position that Kellway had adopted, and which my troubled leg would never have allowed. It was unmistakeably Holmes; the light on his face was dim and shadowy, the room and its contents leached of all colour, but I could readily trace the lines of his intelligent eyes and proud mouth, not to mention the shadow of that prominent nose.

  ‘Watson,’ hissed Skinner next to me. ‘How does he look to you? Are you satisfied that he’s solid?’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’ I asked, pulling away from the window.

  ‘I’m hoping you’re more open-minded than he is,’ the young man told me. ‘He’s made it perfectly clear he hasn’t the slightest interest in anything I have to say. But he looks solid to you? You couldn’t be mistaken about that?’

  I peered in again. Holmes waved playfully at me.

  ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘He’s as solid as the Tower of London. How else could he be?’

  Skinner gave a nervous grimace, midway between a scowl and a smirk. ‘Kellway wasn’t.’

  I frowned at him. ‘What can you mean?’ I asked again.

  ‘The later observers – McInnery and Lord Jermaine, who took the fourth shift – I visited them both this afternoon. They told Anderton that Kellway looked tired, but each told me independently that they thought it went beyond that. There was something insubstantial about Kellway towards the end of the night, they said. A ghostly look, as if he was already not quite there. Ghostly, Watson, as if he were fading away. Just as I told you all after reading the aura this morning.’

  I said, ‘Nonsense, Skinner,’ but I said it rather uneasily. To tell the truth, the atmosphere in the chilly Annexe, not to mention the succession of strange beliefs I had been subjected to during the course of the day, had unsettled me.

  ‘He was draining away,’ Skinner told me obstinately. ‘During the night, somebody did something. It may have been the spirit of Anne Heybourne, or of Percival Heybourne – he was hanged, you know, and spirits sometimes gravitate to the scene of their crimes – or just one of the observers. That person put a curse on him, if you like, though it would be more scientific to say that they altered his properties. It amounts to the same thing – from that moment he was doomed. They say he didn’t move – well, probably he couldn’t. He was becoming less and less a person, and more… Well, let me tell you this: if Countess Brusilova’s Venusian spirit-guide is real, it has been lying to her. Thomas Kellway no longer exists in any sense that we would recognise.’

  From Room A, Holmes rapped impatiently at the door and, Lord help me, I jumped.

  ‘Remember, Dr Watson,’ Skinner said. ‘I told you because I thought your mind might not yet be entirely closed to such possibilities. You have to trust your instincts, not his prejudices.’

  He scuttled away suddenly, leaving the room at speed like some startled nocturnal stick insect.

  ‘What a peculiar young man,’ I said, as I opened the door for an audibly tutting Holmes. But it did not seem quite fair to pass on what Skinner had told me. Instead I said, ‘What did you make of his story about the footman?’ I thought that he had been rather ready to dismiss what might turn out to be a clue to this intractable affair.

  ‘Ah, yes. I did not wish to be indiscreet,’ said Holmes. ‘I suppose that for a man of Sir Newnham’s wealth still to be unmarried at his age, he must have as little interest in the fairer sex as myself. But with a handsome younger gentleman like Talbot Rhyne living here, there might be other reasons for a young woman to visit unbeknownst to the servants. Unless it becomes clear that the matter is important, I suggest we keep our counsel.’

  Returning to the main part of the house, we found that Skinner had already left, and that one of the footmen had been sent to secure a cab for Major Bradbury. We had learned during the meal that the Major was staying at his club in Mayfair, a short distance from Baker Street, so Holmes suggested that the three of us share the cab.

  Bradbury protested about the value of a person’s right to peace and quiet after a meal, but when the occasion called for it Holmes was as capable of blunt obstinacy as he was of tact. Despite the Major’s bluster, in the end we all climbed into the rear of the cab and the driver set it on its way. As the gates and hedges of Parapluvium House receded into darkness behind us I remembered that we had
left the door to Experiment Room A open, and wondered whether Anderton would think to lock it, or would assume it was to be left that way.

  ‘A most stimulating evening, Major,’ Holmes suggested. ‘Your Society is to be congratulated on the diversity of its membership.’

  The Major sniffed. ‘They’re tolerable, for the most part. Can’t stand that little skulker Skinner, though.’ I wondered whether he considered the epithet to apply to detectives in general.

  ‘Since it happens we are spending this time together,’ Holmes said, ‘I wonder whether you might favour us with your own recollections of the night of Kellway’s disappearance? All information is valuable, you know. I have already had Anderton’s account, and hope to hear Garforth’s on the morrow.’

  Bradbury remonstrated, but, short of asking the cab driver to halt and climbing out, he was Holmes’s captive, and he clearly understood this. Reluctantly, and with much complaint, he gave us his version of events.

  He had been responsible for the second observation shift, from ten o’clock to midnight, alongside Rhyne, after they and others had dined with Sir Newnham, and had seen nothing out of the ordinary during those two hours. Kellway was certainly no slouch when it came to sitting perfectly still, Bradbury said, but he remembered knowing a fakir in Lucknow who once…

  Holmes interrupted. ‘Did Kellway remain still for the entire two hours?’ he asked.

  ‘Now you mention it I think he did change position once,’ Bradbury said. ‘He had his left leg crossed over his right at first, but by the end it was right over left. Can’t have been comfortable keeping that position up for hours on end, although that fakir fellow I was telling you about in Lucknow—’

  Holmes once again dismissed any likely relevance on the part of the fakir in Lucknow. ‘Was anybody else with you during the two hours?’

  Bradbury grumbled at being interrupted again, but answered the question. ‘Anderton put his head round the door once or twice, to ask if we needed anything. Speight looked in to say goodnight at about half-past eleven. Nobody else.’