by C J Lutton
”When I left you outside,” Holmes said, ”I slipped up on your observer and put him temporarily out of service. When the growler came to pick you up, I saw the other scoundrel. I'll explain the rest after we get back to Baker Street. If my instructions are being followed by your previous cabby, we should shortly be pulling up to Scotland Yard behind our two unsuspecting visitors.”
I had been so absorbed in following Holmes’ explanation of what had happened that I paid little notice as to where we were going. Just as my friend had said, our cab pulled behind the conveyance with the other two inside and we found ourselves in front of Scotland Yard.
”Get out your revolver, Watson. These are dangerous times.”
I did as instructed, and we both climbed out of the cab.
”You take the driver,” said Holmes. ”I'll tend to the others.”
Holmes unbuttoned his coat and fidgeted with something I couldn't see. With my revolver in my hand, I turned around and walked to the driver on the street side. The startled man was quite enthusiastic about following my instructions, although he had a difficult time in managing to keep his hands in the air he stepped down from the driver’s seat without breaking his neck.
Sherlock Holmes was on the other side of the cab and on the sidewalk. He boldly walked to the front of the vehicle and threw open the half doors. To my surprise, Holmes was standing with his greatcoat open, and he held the most dangerous looking weapon I've ever seen. It was a shotgun. No, not simply a shotgun, but one that had been menacingly modified. Not one but two barrels now protruded ever so slightly over the wooden stock.
Holmes held the weapon with his left hand under the shortened barrels, whilst in his right hand, he held firm on a curving pistol—type grip. This handle was attached to a rigging by swivel rings and a harness was threaded through them. The harness was draped over Holmes’ shoulder and disappeared under his outer coat.
”A souvenir from the Beckenham Murders,” he remarked, seeing my questioning glance.
I couldn't help but laugh at the two men's faces inside the hansom. They were shocked, to say the least, as they woefully peered down the double—throated weapon. Holmes kept his modified shotgun aimed at them whilst he and I escorted the two miscreants into Scotland Yard. There, a very nervous constable acceded to my friend's wish of confining them until our return. Ordinarily the Yard will not hold someone just on a citizen's say—so. But this situation was different because Holmes produced a badge and card that I had never seen before. These accessories caused a curious mood to permeate the precinct once they were displayed. The sergeant and the other constables stepped all over themselves in an attempt to comply with Holmes’ wishes. Wishes? Well, perhaps the proper word is orders, because that’s what my friend did. He issued orders. The officers cowered at the thought of not being able to comply with his directives.
Satisfied with the results his credentials had garnered, Holmes nodded approvingly. He bade the officers a goodnight, and we once more found ourselves outside the Yard where the two cabbies were still waiting. Holmes strolled over to the anxious pair and paid them for their time and trouble. Turning to our original cabman, Holmes gave him the Baker Street address.
”Anything for you Mr. 'olmes, anything at all,” said the cabby, as we climbed into the back. The modified shotgun my friend had been brandishing was now hidden from view. By all appearances, Holmes seemed to be unarmed. I was relieved. What a frightful weapon.
Our arrival back at the flat was silent and unremarkable and yet Holmes, upon exiting the cab, peered cautiously about and went quickly up the front steps with me close behind.
”Mrs. Hudson!” he bellowed after slamming the door behind us and bolting up the stairs, ”Coffee, if you will, for me and the good Dr. Watson! Your prodigal sons have returned!”
My senses swirled as I entered the flat that had been my home for so many years. The familiar well—worn furniture. The aromatic smells of mingled tobaccos and chemistry. I must admit to my startled surprise with the realization that it was this place—and especially this man, Sherlock Holmes − that had been missing from my life. I was home again!
I strolled over to my old chair and collapsed into it, letting the familiar shape envelop my body. The warmth of the room washed over me, and it's impossible to describe the feeling of comfort. But that was short—lived as I watched my friend.
Holmes removed his coat and I found myself fixated on the horrible weapon that he slowly revealed from underneath. With practiced moves, he unharnessed the rigging and carelessly slung the contraption on the hook behind the door. Then he swung around to face me.
”I see that you do not approve of my choice of weapons,” he said. ”Well, it had the same effect on me when I first saw it, but now this contraption provides me with a sense of security and comfort. Besides, I no longer had my Boswell covering my back. It is sad, but true, people must change with the times. Circumstances mandated that it was time for me to do so. I just made the best out of a tenuous situation.”
He went about lighting a fire, and I welcomed its warmth. ”I leave the lamps burning all the time now,” Holmes said.
He picked up the envelope that he’d showed me before. ”I've taken on many more cases since your departure. Perhaps more than I should have done. But this case,” he gestured with the envelope in his hand, ”this confounding case may be the death of me. As it is certainly a threat to the very life of my brother.”
I was shaken by what I had seen and heard that night. ”Holmes, since you deemed it necessary to come back into my life, I have been more than patient with the goings on, but I have been practically shanghaied from my own home and solitude. Left standing in the fog, not once, but twice. I was forced to jump from a moving cab. And finally ... finally! I am coerced into brandishing my revolver at some poor cabby whilst my friend, on the other hand, threatens the lives of the occupants inside with some awful weapon! What exactly is going on?”
”Watson, leave it to you to bring me back down to earth. I am truly sorry if I’ve imposed on our friendship.”
”It's nothing really,” I said. “But I would like to know what is going on.”
”I'll explain as best as I can the current state of affairs,” Holmes said. “I've been out of the country recently. It would seem that a case that I had been working on has some connection with my brother. We've been in contact over the last month or so, and we had arranged to meet at the Diogenes Club to formulate a plan and to compare notes. Watson, this is a most singular case.”
”To you, every case is singular,” I remarked, having heard that phrase a thousand times before. ”But please continue.”
Holmes eyed me keenly, then continued, ”My involvement came about through a rather innocent, but very curious advertisement that sought the whereabouts of a certain individual. What had caught my interest was its author. It was the same father whom I had recently informed of his son's death. But here the man was now looking for his son again.”
”That is curious,” I replied. ”I'm confident that you've already verified that the ad hadn't been ordered prior to his son's death, and had somehow been overlooked, then published when the paper realized its mistake?”
”Of course, I did,” he said. “But it’s a relief to have you as my sounding board again. I'm glad to see that our time apart hasn't dulled your keen mind.”
I questioned him further, ”Assuming that you contacted the father, what reason did he give in taking such a curious action?”
My friend's face clouded over. The words came slowly. ”I'm afraid I'm going too far off the mark, Watson,” he replied, avoiding my question. “Bear with me, please. Be so kind as to empty the envelope of its contents.”
3
The Case Unfolds
Holmes handed the envelope to me and I took it to the corner table. Standing near, he monitored my every move, as I once again emptied the articles onto the table: a calling card, a wadded up piece of paper, and a piece of jewelry. In particular, my
attention was drawn to the lovely ring, notable for its fine filigreed detail. The stone was unlike any that I’ve ever seen before, with its rich moss coloring cut through by tiny rivulets of red and orange. In the stone’s very center there lay embedded a miniature coat of arms featuring the letter “V.” The piece was created no doubt by an unknown but highly capable silversmith.
”No, Watson,” Holmes interrupted my inspection of the ring. “Please order them thusly: put the calling card on the left, the crumpled note in the middle, and finally position the ring at the far right.”
I moved them as instructed and stepped back to allow Holmes a closer look.
“Excellent! Now prepare yourself for... ”
There was a knock at the door and in burst Mrs. Hudson, her arms laden with a tray of coffee and rolls. Of course, I immediately moved to help the kindly old woman. I relieved her of her burden and put the tray on a side table. “My prodigal sons, indeed. Why I put up with you two all these years, I'll never know.
“Nice to see you two together again,” she said, scolding us good—naturedly. “At last, things are as they should be. Neither one of you is complete without the other.” She was gone in an instant.
”Ah, Mrs. Hudson. Where would we be, Watson, if we did not have our mother hen to watch over us?” Holmes said.
”Back to the matter at hand,” he said, turning to serve the coffee. The tension in the room was such that I could not bring myself to take a seat. Instead, I paced the apartment.
”My friend, steel yourself,” he said, as he handed me my cup. “My brother may already be dead, if you can call it that.”
Although I am long accustomed to my friend’s lack of emotion, in this incident the unaffected manner in which he delivered those horrible words shocked me. I was about to take issue, but Holmes put up a hand. ”It pains me deeply, Watson, have no doubt as to that. Nevertheless, from what I've already experienced regarding this horror, I can assure you that if it is so—that Mycroft is truly dead—he may be better off than the rest of us.”
My perambulations stopped at this horrifying turn of phrase. I stopped, shocked to silence as he continued.
”In attempting to reconstruct the circumstances of certain occurrences, arising from now having in our possession these items, we must deduce that one of these created an orderly chain of natural – or in this case, perhaps – supernatural events.”
My friend splayed his hands on the table and stared at the items that rested on its surface with a mocking silence.
”I had you place the items in this particular order because, just as you would read a book from left to right, I would conclude that this precise arrangement is the correct order of happenings. This brings us first to the calling card. It is a commonly styled card of average printing quality. However, the cardstock itself may lead us to an interesting conclusion.”
Holmes reached for his glass and bent forward over the table to examine the card more closely. A soft whistle played off his lips as he inspected the two pieces. The left side of the card had BR and the right contained AM.
Not knowing what this could mean, I put it aside and turned my attention to the small crumpled note. I looked up at Holmes, quizzically. He nodded. Again, I examined the note. On the paper someone had written a series of numbers.
”Curious,” he muttered. “Forget about that for now, Watson. We shall come back to it. I am afraid that the last item is the most distressing.”
His index finger nudged the ring with its fine filigreed detail. Once again, my attention was captured by the unusual piece and the strange coloring of the stone.
I lifted the piece to the light and examined it with great care. “This appears to be have been crafted by an excellent silversmith, as it is a rare and unusual ring in an antique style. The ‘V’ is exquisitely worked.”
Holmes responded, “You are not too far off when you say the ring is expensive. Do you not recognize the crest of the family Vernet?”
I responded with a sharp inhale of breath.
“Yes, Watson, I see that you do understand. As I told you earlier, that ring belonged to our mother. Mycroft would rather die than give up that ring.” My friend grew solemn. “I am afraid, Watson. Afraid for my brother’s very life.
“No time for that,” he said briskly, with a shake of his head. Holmes laid down the magnifying glass and walked to the bookshelves. Rummaging through the many books that lined the cluttered shelves, Holmes at last came upon the one that he was seeking. From its appearance, this book was obviously an often used source of reference. The cover was torn and tattered with the spine just barely holding the pages within. I assumed it to be one of the many obscure texts that Holmes had acquired through the years. With a quick overhead toss, Holmes sent the book flying towards an empty chair. However, having missed its intended target, the book fell to the floor.
I mustered my most disapproving look as I stooped to retrieve the book. I caught sight of the author's name, Laurens Coster. But before I could snatch up the book, Holmes grabbed it. His full attention was drawn to the problem at hand. Rather than sitting on the chair next to the table, he dropped to the floor and proceeded to riffle the pages. Holmes ran his finger down the text, in the fashion of drawing the letter Z, over and over. He paid particular attention to a specific entry, pausing long enough for his quick mind to absorb what he had just read, before continuing with the rest of the pages. Placing the book on the floor beside him, he rose slowly to his feet and paced the room for a few minutes, absently biting into one of the rolls that Mrs. Hudson had baked for us.
”Of course, that's it!” Holmes exclaimed. ”This card has numerous histories behind it. Watson, you'll note the cardstock has a cockled sheen to it, but the grain is running contrary to its horizontal and rectangular shape. The fibers in the stock preclude its origin from being local. I would say the card stock is of an east European manufacturer. The type, though crude in quality, also intimates its eastern origins.”
I examined the card more closely, yet I was unable to confirm Holmes’ observations. It remained an ordinary card to my less educated eyes.
”Getting back to the grain,” Holmes continued, ”I would venture an opinion that the four small nicks in each of the corners would constitute that the card came from a much larger piece of stock. That's why the grain is running vertical and not horizontal, as would be the case if this was an actual calling card. Also, I'm sure that you've noticed the card is not quite plumb. It's not a true rectangle. Therefore, I again say that what we have before us is something very different than what we had first supposed. This was intentionally cut out of something else, perhaps even a report cover of some kind.”
I nodded.
”If that's the case, then what we may have here are two parts of a three—part puzzle with the third piece being the cover and its accompanying report.” Holmes’ eyes practically gleamed as he considered the possibilities.
”But Holmes,” I said, ”why the jagged cuts, of what purpose do they serve?”
”Very good, Watson. Of course, the separateness of each piece would mean nothing to anyone if it fell into the wrong hands, but the preciseness of the cut would preclude any chance of a counterfeit, and once together the pieces could be some prearranged signal for the recipient of the second part. It could mean that the recipient should expect the third piece. Or perhaps the second part could come as a warning.”
Holmes sipped his coffee and gazed at the card, as if trying to will its secrets to come forward. ”If my hypothesis is correct, and I'd wager that it is, then Mycroft was the recipient of the second part of the puzzle.”
”How do you arrive at that conclusion?”
He sighed. “I was told earlier that Mycroft wanted to see me as soon as possible. I was to meet him at the Diogenes Club, but unfortunately the message was held for too long. I was in the midst of acting on behalf of a client and was not present when the messenger arrived. Mrs. Hudson gave it to me late this morning. By the time I arr
ived at the club, Mycroft and his secretary Harker had vanished. I think Mycroft was the recipient of the second half of this card and that triggered his panicked reaction to see me.”
Holmes’ eyes clouded over as he considered his own words. ”It came to light over the previous three and a half weeks that both Mycroft and I were working on the same case. We've had many discussions regarding the similarities of occurrences that we had come across. During one of our talks, my brother mentioned the name of one of his agents, Bram. Hence, the letters BRAM on our card here would no doubt imply that it was he who had sent this to Mycroft.”
A look of consternation crossed his face.
”What is it, Holmes?” I asked.
”Oh, I recalled some cryptic words Mycroft had said at our last meeting. He said, 'If something should happen, do nothing. Wait for part three.' Watson, this has to be what he means. A third part of the card. I know it.” Holmes paced about the room. Standing by the mantel, his face disappeared behind a veil of smoke that wafted from his lighted pipe.
”The third part,” he went on. ”It must be so. These are two parts of a three—part puzzle. I'm to receive the third, I would guess. But where is it now?”
Of course, neither of us knew the answer.
”The crumpled note is also troubling, Watson.”
”I know that it is some sort of code,” I said, “but I can't for the life of me figure it out.”
”When Mycroft and I were lads, we were of the habit of communicating by post, since he, as the elder, went to boarding schools before I did. It was during these growing years that we became aware that one of my father's servants was intercepting my mail and reporting, in many instances, the contents of our writings directly to our father.”
”The secrets of our youth were often exposed to harsh ridicule and punishment. It's enough to say that my brother and I had learned our lessons well. Mycroft and I hit upon the idea of communicating by code. To be sure, it took many attempts to perfect our secret. But find it, we did. That code before you now is what saved me from further thrashings.”