The Perils of Sherlock Holmes

by Loren D. Estleman

  “It is admirable of you both to take the trouble to preserve the place. The loss of such an unusually substantial example of architecture would be a great tragedy. There is a difference of six feet in the width of the building between the outside and the inside. One seldom encounters walls three feet thick so far past the medieval period.”

  “Indeed. I never noticed.”

  “I am always intrigued by how little attention we pay to familiar things, which are to us the most important. May we inspect your chamber?”

  We were led up a narrow flight of stairs to a large room on the first floor, equipped with a huge old four-poster bed and a stone fireplace nearly large enough to walk into upright, with a bearskin stretched before it on the hearth. Above the mantel hung a huge old painting in a gilt frame of a medieval noblewoman languishing on the floor of a dungeon, with light streaming down upon her from a barred window high on the wall.

  “An outside room,” observed Holmes. “Do you not find it draughty?”

  “No; the window was bricked in years ago.”

  “Convenient.”

  “How so, Mr. Holmes?”

  “Darkness, of course. There is nothing less conducive to sleep than an unwanted shaft of light. Is that the corner in which you saw the apparitions? Yes, that is where they would be most visible to someone sitting up in bed. Where is Lady Chislehurst’s chamber in relation to yours?”

  “Just down the hall. Do you wish to see it?”

  “That won’t be necessary.” He swung upon our host, eyes bright as twin beacons. “Dr. Watson dabbles a bit in Jamesian architecture. Would Your Lordship object to conducting him upon a tour while I complete my inspection? I thought not. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “Curious fellow, your Mr. Holmes,” said the earl when we were in the gaslit hallway outside the room where Holmes could be heard rummaging about. “Is he always this unusual?”

  “Usually.”

  “Do you know anything at all about Jamesian architecture?”

  “Only that it is uncommon to find walls so thick, and I didn’t know that until a few minutes ago.”

  He produced two cigars from the pocket of his dressing-gown and gave me one. “Curious fellow.”

  “He is the best detective in England.”

  We had smoked a third of our cigars when the door opened. Holmes appeared sanguine, as if he had spent the time stretched out upon the bed. “There you are, Watson. Does Your Lordship have a spare bedroom?”

  “I have several. Would you and the doctor like to share one, or would you prefer separate quarters?”

  “With your permission, we shall share yours. I am suggesting that you sleep in the spare room.”

  “Whatever for?”

  Holmes smiled and placed a finger to his lips.

  “As Dr. Watson has no doubt told you, my methods are my own and I seldom confide them. Pray do as I ask, and do not venture out under any circumstances. By morning I hope to have laid your ghosts to rest.”

  “See here, Holmes,” said I when we were alone in the room. “I have known you far too long to accept this nonsense about architecture as an adequate explanation for keeping secrets from me. What were you about while I was out on that fool’s errand?”

  My friend had removed his boots and stripped to his shirtsleeves and was making himself comfortable upon the big four-poster. “Forgive me, dear fellow. You know full well my weakness for theatrics. In any case your own mind is too active for you to continue to assist me in these little problems if I fail to occupy it. I have come to depend upon my amusements. What was lightning before Franklin arrived with his kite and key? Merely a pretty display.”

  My disgruntlement was only partly relieved by this pedantic apology. “What do we do now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?!”

  “Turn down the lamp, will you? There’s a good fellow.” Whereupon, in the dim orange glow of the lowered wick of the lamp upon the bedside table, he closed his eyes. Within moments his even breathing told me he was asleep.

  I did not join him in the arms of Morpheus. Although nothing had been said, I knew from past experience that one of us must remain vigilant, and so I stayed awake in the room’s one chair, feeling the reassuring solidity of my faithful service revolver in my pocket.

  At length I heard the front door open and shut, and divined that Lady Chislehurst had returned from her visit. Presently, light footsteps climbed the stairs, paused briefly outside the room as if waiting for some sign of movement from within, whilst I held my breath; then they continued down the hall, where the snick and then the thump of a door opening and closing told me that our client’s wife had returned to her room. Then silence.

  The night wore on. The room was chill without a fire, for which I was grateful, as it kept me alert. The shadows thrown by the nearly nonexistent light were monstrous, and in my imagination I peopled them with all sorts of mortal terrors.

  I must have dozed, despite the cold, for I was suddenly aware of a pale light in a corner of the room where before there had been only darkness, and I had the impression it had been there for some little time. I started, and reached instantly for my revolver. However, a sudden sharp sibilant from the direction of the bed halted me. Holmes was sitting up, his attention centred on the light in the corner. His profile was predatory in its silver reflection.

  As we watched, the light changed, assuming vaguely human shape. Now we were looking at a tall, gaunt figure seemingly wrapped in a cloak as black as the shadows that surrounded it. Its face was invisible in the depths of the cowl covering its head, but its skeletal wrist protruded from a loose sleeve, and as the image shimmered before us, its crooked, bony finger appeared to beckon.

  My heart hammered in my breast. Clearly, this was the most frightening phantasm of the three that had been described to us; the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, with its cold, silent promise of a lonely grave for he who encountered it.

  “Quick, Watson! The light!”

  I hesitated but briefly, then reached over and turned up the lamp. Immediately the ghost vanished. I leapt to my feet, starting in that direction. Holmes, however, moved to the wall adjacent, which contained the huge fireplace. The grate was supported by an enormous pair of andirons of medieval manufacture, one of which he seized by its lion’s-head ornament and pulled towards himself. There was a pause, followed by a grating sound, as of a rusted gate opening upon hinges disused for decades. Then the entire back of the fireplace, which I had assumed to be constructed of solid stone, slid sideways, exposing a black hollow beyond.

  “A passageway!” said I.

  “I surmised as much from the beginning. You will remember I remarked upon the discrepancy between the inside and outside measurements of the building. Hand me the lamp, and keep your revolver handy. Remove your boots. We don’t want them to know we’re coming.”

  I did as directed. Holding the light aloft, Holmes stepped over the grate and into the blackness, with me close upon his heels.

  The passage was narrow, dank, and musky-smelling. Once inside, Holmes exclaimed softly and lifted the lamp higher. A great metal contraption equipped with a glass lens stood upon a ledge at shoulder height. I smelled molten wax.

  “It looks like a lantern,” I whispered.

  “A magic lantern; or so it is fancifully known.” Standing upon tiptoe, Holmes reached up with his free hand, groped at the contraption, and slid a pane of glass from a slot behind the lens. He examined it briefly, then handed it to me. When I held it up against the light of the lamp, I recognized the image of our old friend the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come etched upon the glass.

  “The image is projected through the lens when the candle is lit,” Holmes explained. “When I examined the room earlier, I found a small hole in the painting above the mantel, just where the light streams through the window to fall upon the lady in the dungeon. That is where our ghost gained access to the room. When I found the mechanism that opens the fireplace, I kne
w my suspicions were correct. I daresay if we look, we shall find similar panes bearing the likenesses of the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present precisely as they were described to us.”

  “But Past and Present spoke to the earl!”

  “It might surprise you to learn what a ghastly effect the echoes in a narrow passage such as this will lend to an ordinary human voice. But come!”

  I was forced to hasten lest he outrun the light from the lamp. When I caught up with him several yards down that gloomy path, he was peering at a small bottle perched in a niche in the wall. Presently he removed it and held it out, asking me what I made of it.

  “Radix pedis diaboli,” I read from the label. The old familiar name clamped my heart in an icy fist.

  “I see that you have not forgotten the grim affair of the Tregennis murders. No doubt you remember also the rather melodramatic title under which you published your account of them.”

  I shuddered. “‘The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot’! But the Devil’s-foot root is a deadly poison!”

  “It is also a hallucinogen in small doses. Small enough, let’s say, to escape notice once it has been introduced into one’s sherry.”

  “Richard,” I whispered. “Lord Chislehurst told us his clerk accompanied him to his tavern for a glass the night the ghosts first visited.”

  “I suspected him the moment the earl told us how Richard had taken him into his confidence about his financial situation. That, and the picture of Richard’s wife in the counting-room, planted a suggestion in our client’s mind. Under the influence of the root tincture, it came back to him in his dreams, convincing him that Christmas Present was allowing him a peep into his employee’s private life.”

  “But how do you explain the glimpse that Christmas Past provided into his own childhood?”

  “Christmas is a time of remembering, Watson. No doubt the earl was reminded of his own impoverished origins, which sprang forth as a vision at the mere mention of the word past. Post-mesmeric suggestion is a fascinating scientific phenomenon. I should like to know how Richard came by his expertise, or if the talent was inbred. It would make an interesting subject for a monograph.”

  “One moment, Holmes! His Lordship was haunted the same way last night, yet he said he came straight home from work. His clerk had not the opportunity to administer the drug again.”

  “But Her Ladyship did. He said himself he had a cup of tea with her before retiring.”

  “You’re certain they’re in it together? Richard and Lady Chislehurst?”

  His expression was grave.

  “It was she who insisted her husband prepare his will without delay. She is the beneficiary, but Richard is the Svengali in our little melodrama. ‘What evil one may do compounds when they are two.’ They already have our unfortunate client walking the streets in his sleep—mark you his sopping slippers! Who is there to say, when he is found some night murdered in an alley, that he was not set upon by some anonymous ruffian while in the somnambulant state?”

  “Good Lord! And in the season of love and mercy!”

  Holmes hissed for silence. Motioning for me to follow, he crept along the inside wall, and I realised belatedly that he was measuring the distance. Presently he stepped away as far as the outside wall would permit, scrutinising the other from ceiling to floor. He seized a stony protuberance and, with a significant nod towards the revolver in my hand, pushed with all his might. Again there was a grating noise, and then a section of wall eight feet high and four feet wide swung outwards upon a hidden pivot. Light flooded the passage. Together we stepped through.

  We were in a chamber slightly smaller than Lord Chislehurst’s, with a cosy fireplace, a bed piled high with pillows and canopied in chintz and ivory lace, a dressing-table, and a huge oak cabinet quite as old as the house, before which stood a tall, handsome woman ten years our client’s junior, fully dressed and coiffed in a manner both expensive and tasteful. She appeared composed, but upon her cheeks was a high colour.

  “Lady Chislehurst, if I may be so bold?” Holmes enquired.

  “That is my name, sir. Who are you, and what is the meaning of this invasion?”

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is Dr. Watson, and unless I am very much mistaken, the gentleman hiding in the cabinet is named Richard.”

  Her hand went to her throat. She took an involuntary step closer to the cabinet. “Sir! You are impertinent.”

  “Just so; and yet so far it has not proven a failing in my work. Will you open the door, or has the gentleman the moral fibre to present himself and spare you that indignity?”

  At that moment, the door to the cabinet opened and a slender young man stepped out. I recognised Lord Chislehurst’s clerk, dressed in black from collar to heels. I raised my revolver.

  “That won’t be necessary, Doctor. I am unarmed.” He spread his dark coattails, revealing the truth of his assertion. I returned my weapon to my pocket, but kept my hand upon it warily.

  “I fled from the passage when the fireplace opened,” Richard explained. “Not knowing who might be in the hall, and fearful of compromising Lady Chislehurst, I took refuge in the cabinet. I thought perhaps it was the earl, and that we had been found out.”

  “So you have. You admit that you were conspiring to murder Lord Chislehurst?” Holmes’s tone was sepulchral.

  The woman gasped and swayed. Richard put out his arm to steady her. His face was white. “Good heavens, no! However did you form that conclusion?”

  “Come, come, young man. There is the business of the will, the paraphernalia in the passage between the walls, and your own admission just now that you feared you had been ‘found out.’ I suggest you hold your defense in reserve for the Assizes.”

  “Thank you, Richard. I am quite well now.” The lady relinquished her grip upon the young man’s arm. Her expression was resolute. “You are quite mistaken, Mr. Holmes, as to our motives and intentions. I have been after Timothy for years to arrange his estate. I saw no reason that the fortune he has worked so hard to build should be dissipated in the courts. To whom he decided to leave it was his own affair, but I thought it would be appropriate if he named Richard as executor.

  “I have known Richard for two years. I don’t think my husband realises how valuable he has been to the firm, nor how much of himself he has sacrificed to its operation. This I know from what I have seen. Richard does not advertise his worth.”

  “Please, Your Ladyship,” protested the clerk.

  She smiled at him sadly, dismissing his plea. “When you work closely with someone, as I have with Richard when the firm was shorthanded, you learn things his employer doesn’t know. Richard’s financial situation is heinous. Aside from his responsibilities as a husband, he has pledged to repay the many debts left by his late father, and his mother is seriously ill.

  “Richard is the first member of his family to pursue a career in business,” she continued. “His father was a mesmerist upon the stage, and his mother was a magician’s assistant. When I learned that he had inherited some of their skills, a plan began to materialise.”

  The clerk interrupted. “The plan was mine. Lady Chislehurst went along purely out of the goodness of her heart.”

  “You needn’t claim responsibility,” said she. “I’m proud of the idea. My husband is a good man, Mr. Holmes, but his order of values is not always sound. When the firm suffered, he should have chosen an area to practise economy that would not affect his employees. When he told me there would be no Christmas gratuities this year, I knew from experience I could not change his mind through talk. I decided instead to work upon his conscience. I suppose you know the rest.”

  Holmes appeared unmoved.

  “Your plan was dangerous, Madame. Any number of tragedies might have befallen your husband as he wandered in his sleep.”

  “That was unexpected, and alarumed me greatly.” Her expression was remorseful. “It did not happen the first time. I obtained the Devil’s-foot herb from Richard, but I mishear
d his instructions and misjudged the amount I put in Timothy’s tea. Afterwards, Richard and I decided not to use the drug again. If the mere image of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come did not bring about the desired conversion, that was that.”

  “I am shamed.” This was a new voice.

  “Timothy!” Lady Chislehurst turned to face her husband, who was standing upon the threshold to the hallway. None of us had seen him open the door, with the possible exception of Holmes, whose red-Indian countenance betrayed no reaction.

  “I am not shamed for you,” he added hastily, “but for myself. Were I not so caught up in commerce, I would have seen what effect my measures to preserve the firm was having upon the people I depend upon.”

  His wife stepped towards him just as he strode forwards. He took her in his arms. “I’m sorry, Beth. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “There is one way,” said she.

  “Of course.” He looked at his clerk. “Richard, I want you in early tomorrow.”

  The young man was dismayed. “Tomorrow is Christmas Day!”

  “All the more reason to start early, so we can count out the holiday gratuities, beginning with yours. If we work hard we should be able to deliver them all by midday. Then you and your wife will join us here for Christmas dinner. Mrs. MacTeague has a fair way with a goose and plum pudding, and the claret the late Mr. Scrooge put down in ’39 should be at its peak.”

  “Bless you, sir!”

  “Bless you, Beth!”

  “God bless us everyone!” I exclaimed.

  Four curious faces turned my way.

  “Surely you are more familiar with those words than most,” I told the earl and his wife. “Lady Chislehurst especially. She must have studied ‘A Christmas Carol’ closely whilst engineering her little conspiracy.”

  “I haven’t read it in years. My husband doesn’t approve of the story. I thought about it, naturally, but my real inspiration came when I discovered the secret passage and the equipment inside.”

  Holmes said, “Do you mean to say the apparatus was there already?”