The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part VI

by David Marcum

  “Ammunition alone would not cause a large single explosion such as was described and witnessed,” I pointed out.

  “Indeed. I suspected dynamite, or something similar, was contained in those cases. Hence, my words to the dying Jessop, and he confirmed to me that this was the case.”

  “So it was Jessop who was responsible for placing the explosive on board, and for destroying his own ship?”

  “Naturally. You have no doubt determined for yourself that Jessop and the mysterious M. Malmaison are one and the same person. We have already heard that the company wished to scrap the ship, or to commit an act of insurance fraud. This trick would bring more money than either, on account of the lives of the crew being insured, with the company being the beneficiaries. Naturally, such a plan required confederates.”

  “Porter and Sweethowe?”

  “Precisely. In his guise as Malmaison, Jessop gave them a berth on the Sophy Anderson, and as himself, informed Winslow by letter that this precious pair had been assigned to his crew. Their task, given to them by ‘Malmaison’, was to set a timing device to explode the dynamite and complete the destruction of the Sophy and her crew. They were to escape from the doomed craft using the ship’s boat, which, you will recall, was found floating upside-down, apart from the main mass of the wreckage.”

  “And where were these rogues when the search was conducted?”

  “Why, in the upturned boat, of course, breathing the air trapped underneath it. When the searchers had left the area, they were free to make for shore and claim the remainder of the money to be paid to them by the mysterious M. Malmaison. They were not to know that there was another survivor of the wreck, let alone that he was their captain, who was likewise seeking Malmaison.

  “I discovered Porter and Sweethowe by going to Limehouse, and posing as an unscrupulous shipping agent who wished a criminal act to be performed for insurance money. It was not difficult to find such a notorious couple.”

  “The whole business is totally infamous!” I exploded. “To murder in cold blood nearly twenty brave souls, leaving widows and orphans to fend for themselves, and all for the sake of a few thousand pounds at the most!”

  “I agree wholeheartedly,” said Holmes. “I can only trust that the maximum penalty will be applied to them both, once I have communicated the facts to the court. As to the amount, I have discovered that a few thousand pounds was indeed the whole of the sum that Jessop received.”

  “And even then, after receiving that money, he failed to pay his cat’s paws for their foul deeds.”

  “Thereby hangs a tale. Quite apart from the debts owed by Hillbrook & Co., which were paid off through this means, Jessop also had personal matters of a delicate nature which claimed some of the proceeds.”

  “A young lady in the case?” I asked.

  “As always, Watson, your instincts in this line are infallible. Not only a young lady, but an infant of tender years claimed a large proportion of Jessop’s ill-gotten gains.”

  He paused. “Watson, it is not often that I am puzzled and require an answer from you, but I find this to be one of those occasions. Tell me, did we not agree that you were to leave your revolver here when we went a-calling on Jessop?”

  “We did,” I smiled.

  “Then why did you not do so?”

  “My revolver has been here the whole time,” I answered, indicating my desk drawer.

  “Then with what did you threaten those two villains, if not with your revolver?”

  “With this,” I smiled, holding out my empty hand. “Concealed in my pocket, who was to know what manner of weapon it might be holding?”

  Holmes regarded me with an expression of surprise for a few moments, and then fell to laughing heartily. “That is capital, Watson! Brave as a lion, resourceful as a serpent, as tenacious as a limpet, and as faithful a friend as a man could have.”

  It was not often that Sherlock Holmes bestowed such tributes on others, and these words from him meant more to me than they would have done from any other source. I blushed on hearing these words spoken by my friend, and it is with some embarrassment, I confess, that I write them now, as the concluding words of this adventure.

  As a postscript, I would like to add that following the trial, the jack-knife with which Sweethowe killed Jessop somehow found its way into Holmes’s possession, where it now skewers the correspondence on the mantelpiece.

  The Adventure of the Wonderful Toy

  by David Timson

  January 1927

  Sifting through my papers recently in the vaults at Cox and Co.’s bank, I came across my notes for the following case, which for many years I had considered too trivial to be placed on record. But as technological advances continue to amaze an old Victorian like myself, I feel now it might have some interest for the present generation.

  It was a dank, foggy day. The yellow mist clung to the windows and left an oily deposit that obscured further my vision. I tried to make out on the street below the outline of a hansom cab, or an omnibus, or a familiar face among the bleared pedestrians that mingled without any set purpose, it seemed, on the indistinct pavements of Baker Street.

  My friend and colleague Sherlock Holmes sat in a brown study, his hawk-like brows knotted and his teeth clenched on the stem of his favourite briar. Such weather, with its accompanying lack of activity, always put him into a severe depression. The danger was ever-present that he might alleviate it with a seven-per-cent solution of cocaine. Eventually, under my influence I like to think, he would forego this dangerous habit, but in this year of 1887, I was more often than not on tenterhooks lest he should reach for his syringe.

  Fortunately, our meditations were curtly interrupted by the front door bell being rung in what I can only describe as a forthright and business-like manner. “Only shopkeepers with bills or policemen ring in such a pugnacious way,” said Holmes, “and my guess is that it is the former.” Billy the page, with his eyes bulging out of his head, could hardly announce our visitor. “It’s a queer old cove and no mistake, Mr. Holmes,” he said, but before I could admonish him for his lack of respect towards a potential client, our pugnacious bell-ringer had swept into the room. For once, Billy had not been inaccurate, and “a queer old cove” he certainly was.

  He was a large man, over six feet in height, with a bulky figure to match. His clothes were of an eccentric fashion: his frock coat hung loosely on his frame and was of a navy blue, emblazoned with gold buttons that appeared to have been polished so as to give the maximum amount of sparkle. He wore tight riding-breeches of buckskin, and knee-length riding boots whose polished surface competed with his buttons for brilliance.

  A loose cotton shirt was adorned with a bright red cravat carelessly tied, and on his head, pushed back in a like careless manner, was a straw wide-awake hat.

  If his dress appeared somewhat eccentric in the cold grey light of an October afternoon, it was matched by his striking features. A long mane of greasy grey hair fell onto the collar of his coat, and a full moustache with waxed ends and a goatee beard, both equally grey, though with flecks of silver, gave an imposing expression to a face dominated by a pair of intensely blue eyes that were almost mesmeric in their intensity.

  As he burst into the room, he held out a giant hand, intending to shake Sherlock Holmes’s own warmly in greeting, but my friend stepped back behind the dining-table and cut short our visitor’s intention. “Pardon me, sir,” said Holmes. “Before we are introduced, indeed before you have spoken a word, would you indulge me to the extent of allowing me to give a summary of the characteristics I have already deduced, based on a first impression? It is a game I like to indulge in for the sake of maintaining that mental agility so essential to my art - but is also for the edification of my good friend Dr. Watson here.”

  Interrupted thus, in the very act of opening his mouth to introduce himself
, our visitor stopped short, lowered his outstretched hand, and with a broad grin, revealing a set of uneven and yellowing teeth, bowed in acquiescence. Then folding his arms, he casually stepped back and leant against the door-frame, fixing Holmes with his steely blue eyes, raising a quizzical grey brow.

  “You will notice first, Watson, our guest’s clothes. The breeches and the coat, to anyone with but a faint understanding of the sartorial, will suggest a military cut - an impression confirmed if it were necessary by the profusion of gold buttons on the coat. The casual way the clothes are worn, however, combined with a physical energy uncharacteristic of the British soldier when in a civilian environment, suggests to me our visitor is not of these shores, or indeed of Europe. I believe, sir, you are by your cut and jib, an American, and judging by the style of your beard and your confident manner, a southern gentleman who was no doubt a Colonel in the unfortunate Civil War the United States suffered some twenty years ago.”

  Our friend, whose eyes had been twinkling with anticipation, now tossed his wide-awake hat across the room, threw back his head, and laughed long and loud. “Jumpin’ Jehosophat, Mr. Holmes, you’ve hit a bull’s-eye! They told me you were good, but that was a humdinger of a performance you just gave - correct in every detail, down to the shine on my buttons. Colonel Goriot sir, late of the 1st Virginia Cavalry Regiment - an honour and a privilege - ” And once again he held out his hand in greeting.

  Grasping it and giving it a firm shake, Holmes said, “It was a trifle, my dear sir, merely an excuse to keep myself up to scratch.” And in truth, I agreed with him, for unusual as Colonel Goriot’s appearance had been in Baker Street on a cold grey October afternoon, it did not need a genius to deduce by his manner and clothes his origins and background.

  Indeed, after years of observing his methods, I pride myself that I was only a whisker behind Holmes in deducing them for myself. “But Holmes,” I ventured mischievously, “upon hearing the door-bell, you remarked that only a tradesman or a policeman would have rung with such energy, whereas it is obvious our friend is neither. I fear you have not quite achieved full marks for your examination.”

  Holmes’s eyes narrowed, but before he could frame his answer - which would no doubt have been caustic in tone - the Colonel once again threw back his head and gave such a yell of laughter that he caused our sash-window to rattle quite distinctly. “I guess the tables are turned on you, Doctor, all right. Colonel I was, and in honour of the cause I fought for I retain that rank - but it sure is as a tradesman, as you so quaintly put it, that I come to you today - or as I prefer to call myself - an entrepreneur!

  “My purpose Mr. Holmes,” he continued in a tone of deep sincerity, “is to make you an exclusive offer. Future generations yet unborn may wish to know more about you - the world’s first consulting detective. A photograph may capture your likeness, the excellent Doctor here may faithfully record the details of your life and career in print, but no one in the future could hear the compelling and masterful tone of your voice - until now...” And with something of the showman’s flourish, he set a rose-wood box, no bigger than a writing-slope, on the table, and unlocking its clasp, opened the lid.

  We live in an age of gadgetry, and I dare say as we enter the Twentieth Century, the flow of helpful aids to life will steadily increase, but I must say the contents of the Colonel’s rose-wood box was absolutely intriguing. Inside was a metal cylinder with a handle at one end, by which it appeared the cylinder could be turned. A metal arm was suspended over the cylinder, at one end of which was a sharp steel needle, at the other end of the arm a horn. What this machine’s purpose was bewildered me, but Holmes’s eyes had narrowed and were intensely focused on the apparatus. “Although I have never seen one before,” he said, “I deduce that this is a phonograph. Colonel Goriot?”

  “Exactly so, sir. Mr. Edison’s phonograph, and I am here in England as his representative to record for posterity (and by the bye, of course, to publicise this new invention,) the voices of the great and good - and Mr. Edison would be honoured to capture your vocal likeness for his collection, Mr. Holmes.”

  Holmes sat immobile, except for his nervous fingers rapping on the arms of his chair. I knew he was considering the invitation. “As a man of science,” he eventually said, “I confess I am curious, but why anyone in the future should have an interest in mere voices from beyond the grave I fail to understand. Surely it is what a man says that is important, not the way he said it.”

  Ignoring my friend’s last remark, the Colonel, assuming that Holmes had accepted his invitation, was in the process of setting up the phonograph. He slid a wax cylinder over its metal counterpart, and lowered the metal arm until the sharp needle was embedded in the cylinder’s soft wax. Then adjusting the horn, he asked Holmes to sit in front of it and direct his voice into the aperture. “Your voice will vibrate the needle attached to the end of the horn and the needle will in turn pass those vibrations on into the wax which will then hold your vocal waves in a tangible physical form - in perpetuity.” And the Colonel’s eyes gleamed as he pronounced those last two words.

  I have often remarked that Holmes was a born actor, but I could see that even his natural instinct to perform was cowed when confronted with a mechanical apparatus unfamiliar to him. “What on earth am I supposed to say?” he snapped out.

  “Well sir, perhaps a few thoughts on the nature of detection, the skills required, etcetera, might be of interest to future students of ratiocination?” suggested the Colonel quietly.

  I could see he was an old hand at putting his subjects at their ease, and in the case of Holmes he had judged it to perfection. There was nothing Holmes liked more than expanding on the nature of his business. The Colonel had cleverly appealed to his vanity.

  Whilst the Colonel turned the handle at the end of the metal cylinder, Sherlock Holmes expounded his theory of detection. “It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.... The strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger, but with the smaller crimes.... When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” To me, they were sentiments I had often heard him express before in cases that I would make familiar to the reading public. As he spoke, the Colonel turned the cylinder and I could clearly see the needle ploughing its own idiosyncratic way through the soft wax. Groove upon groove appeared before my eyes till the end of the cylinder was reached. Then the Colonel re-aligned the needle to the beginning of the cylinder, and once again turned the handle.

  What followed next was the most amazing experience of my life. At first there was a crackle, a scraping sound, and then - with a clarity that made me jump - I heard the life-like tones of my friend Holmes emanating from the machine’s horn. Every syllable was as clear as if he were indeed talking to me, and not sitting silent and transfixed by the experience.

  “Well, Mr. Holmes,” said the Colonel, his face covered with a broad grin and the light of triumph in his eyes, “is it not the most fantastic machine yet invented? A rip-roaring world-changer destined to affect every human being born on this planet?”

  Holmes smiled his sardonic smile. “It is indeed remarkable,” he said, “but I see no useful purpose that it can have. It is, and always will be, a wonderful toy.”

  The Colonel’s grin faded, and a hitherto unseen coldness was in his eyes. “A toy sir! A useless toy! I would like to remind you that people said the same about Mr. Bell’s telephone, and now ten years after its invention, the demand for it increases daily.”

  Clearly put out that Holmes had not responded with unmitigated enthusiasm, the Colonel rapidly packed up his equipment and made for the door. “Come, come,” said Holmes, “pray don’t be offended. I am, no doubt, behind the times when it comes to new gadgetry. We do not possess a telephone here at Baker Street, preferring the far more reliable medium of the telegram. I wish you well with your phonograph, but its futu
re is assuredly only in the fairground.”

  As he opened our sitting-room door, the Colonel turned to Holmes.

  “On behalf of Mr. Edison, I thank you for your participation. I am sorry, however, you think so slightingly of this major contribution to science. I hope one day, Mr. Holmes, you will have reason to eat your words.” And with that, he was gone.

  Seven months had elapsed before the Colonel and his wonderful toy were to intrude themselves once again into our rooms in Baker Street - though on this occasion, it was not the Colonel himself who called on us, but a far more elevated visitor with a far more serious purpose.

  Mrs. Hudson had only just cleared away the breakfast things, when she returned, flustered and breathless. “Oh, Mr. Holmes,” she cried, “a carriage has just drawn up outside, and Lord Exeter’s coat of arms is on its door - what am I to do?”

  “Mrs. Hudson,” said Holmes, calmly removing his morning briar from his lips, “I would suggest that you open the door to his Lordship and show him with all due respect upstairs. It will not do to keep the Prime Minister of Great Britain standing on the doorstep in this most inclement weather.”

  In a few moments, the eminent politician was standing before us. It was a measure of Holmes’s reputation that he often had such important visitors descend upon him with problems in need of solution by his extraordinary powers, but he never allowed himself to be impressed by a man’s station in life - with him it was always the case that mattered. “Pray be seated, my Lord,” said Holmes, “I trust that this unexpected visit is not of a social nature, but imports that there is a grave crisis of national consequence you wish me to consider.”

  Lord Exeter was a man of sixty-five, who had long been accustomed to success in his chosen career of politics, success that had taken him to the top of his profession. His pale blue eyes gazed steadily at Holmes, as he perceived that he was a man of equal ability. “Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, in a tone of voice that members of Her Majesty’s opposition would have recognized as meaning business, “I have been persuaded against my better judgement to ‘consult’ you on a matter that, I am assured by the Home Secretary and other senior members of my party, only you with your extraordinary powers can resolve.” The Prime Minister lowered his voice and fixed Holmes with his eyes. “Mr. Holmes, Her Majesty’s government has received a threat from an unknown quarter which, if it is not dealt with with expediency, may strike at the very root of our democratic system.” He drew an envelope from the inside pocket of his frock-coat and handed it to Holmes who read its contents aloud for my benefit: