The Perils of Sherlock Holmes

by Loren D. Estleman

  “The magic lantern is an old model,” explained Richard: “an ancestor, as it were, of the ones employed by the magicians with whom my mother performed. I replaced the bottle of hallucinative with one my father used in his act. The original would have been useless. It had probably been there forty years.”

  “That is precisely when Scrooge lived here,” reflected the earl.

  “Well, Watson, what do you make of our little Yuletide adventure?”

  The next morning was Christmas. After I had breakfasted and exchanged greetings and gifts with my wife, I paid a call upon Holmes in the old sitting-room, where I found him enjoying his morning pipe.

  “I should say Bob Cratchit was fortunate there was no Sherlock Holmes in his day,” said I.

  “Crafty fellows, these clerks. However, they are no match for a Lady Chislehurst. I perceive that package you are carrying is intended for me, by the way. The shops are closed, Mrs. Hudson is away visiting, and you know no one else in this neighbourhood.”

  I handed him the bundle, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a cord.

  “It is useless to try to surprise you, Holmes. It is a first-edition copy of The Martyrdom of Man, which you once recommended to me. I came across it in a secondhand shop in Soho.”

  His expression was pleased, but I detected a cloud behind it. “Splendid, but I’d rather hoped it would be ‘A Christmas Carol.’ This adventure has demonstrated to me that I’ve fallen behind in my reading.”

  It was with no small satisfaction that I reached into my coat pocket and handed him the story, bound in green calfskin with the title wreathed in gold.

  He appeared nonplussed, a singular event.

  “I am afraid, old fellow, that I have no gift to offer in return. The season has been busy, and as you know I allow little time for sentiment. It is disastrous to my work.”

  It may have been my interpretation only, but he sounded apologetic. I smiled.

  “My dear Holmes. What greater gift could I receive than the one you have given me these many years?”

  He returned the smile. “Happy Christmas, Watson.”

  “Happy Christmas, Holmes.”

  THE RIDDLE OF

  THE GOLDEN

  MONKEYS

  It is a common misapprehension of old age that the widower is of necessity a lonely man even in the press of a crowd. In the third year of the reign of George V, I had been in bereavement for the better part of a decade, and the tragic inroads that had been made upon the British male population during the wars in South Africa and China were such that for a solitary gentleman in relatively good fettle to show himself in society was to trumpet his availability to any number of unattached women of a certain age.

  This situation was exacerbated by the appearance, since the deaths of our gracious Victoria and that good-hearted man Edward VII, of a breed of bold, independent female who would step up and declare her intentions before a teeming ballroom with no more blushes than a tiger stalking a hare. The struggle for women’s suffrage and unstable conditions upon the Continent had stripped the gender of its traditional reserve.

  By the summer of 1913, I had long since abandoned my shock at such behaviour, but I found it wearisome in the extreme. I had reached that time in life wherein a cigar, a snifter, and a good book quite fulfills one’s dreams of bliss. However, to confess to it in the presence of one of these daring creatures must needs give offence, and ultimately lead to the undoing of one’s good reputation, which in the end is all any of us ever has.

  “I jumped—it seems,” writes Conrad, in Lord Jim. The declaration is appropriate to the action I took that June, when in response to frequent invitations I bolted London for the South Downs and a holiday from eligibility in the company of my oldest and closest friend.

  Those who are familiar with my published recollections may remember that Sherlock Holmes, after a lifetime of unique service to the mighty and humble, had retired to an existence of contemplation and bee farming in Sussex. The setting was isolated, and in lieu of neighbours the modest villa looked out upon the brittle Channel from a crest of severe chalk cliffs similar to those which are commonly associated with Dover. Keenly I anticipated this lonely (and unapologetically masculine) stretch of English coastline, and a reunion with the man with whom I had shared so many adventures. I disembarked from the train at Newhaven and engaged an automobile and driver to convey me along the twenty miles of seacoast ahead, light in heart.

  Chugging along at a brisk fifteen miles per hour, I held on to my hat with one hand and the side of the Daimler with the other, remembering when a clattering ride in a horsedrawn hansom towards the scene of some impending tragedy represented the height of excitement for a man of any age.

  We were slowing for the turn to the villa when I recognised the gaunt figure approaching at a trot with the sea at his back.

  “Watson—good fellow, is that you? I am only just in receipt of your wire. We are but one more scientific improvement away from outdistancing even the genius of Mr. Morse.”

  Holmes wore a terry robe, untied, over a bathing costume. Plastered to his skeletal frame, the damp wool told me that retirement from public life had neither increased his appetite nor lessened his distaste for inaction. But for the grey in his hair and the thinning at the temples, he did not appear to have aged a day since the attempt was made on his life by the blackguard Count Sylvius ten years before. It was the very last investigation we shared, and my final visit to our dear old digs in Baker Street.

  I, meanwhile, had grown absolutely stout, a victim of my comfortable armchair and the bill of fare at Simpson’s. We remained as separate in our habits as at the beginning.

  Years and weight notwithstanding, I alighted eagerly from the passenger’s seat and seized his hand, which was iron-cold from his late immersion in the icy Channel. At close range I observed the creases at the corners of his razor-sharp eyes and the deep furrows from his Roman nose to his thin mouth, cut by time and concentration. He put me in mind of a Yankee cigar-store Indian left out in the weather.

  “I hope I have not inconvenienced you,” I said.

  “Not nearly as much as you have inconvenienced your dog. I trust the kennel in Blackheath is a good one.”

  I was so astounded by the mention of Blackheath that for a moment I could not recall if I’d ever told him I owned a dog.

  He laughed in that way which many thought mirthless. “Time has not changed you, nor age sharpened your wits. An old athlete such as yourself cannot resist a visit to the rugby field of his youth, hence that particular dark loam adhering to your left heel. Fullness of age and greatness of girth might prevent a casual excursion, but you would travel that far to board your dog; a bull, if I am any judge of the stray hairs upon your coat.”

  “It would appear an old detective such as yourself cannot resist the urge to detect, whatever his circumstances.”

  Again he laughed. “A very palpable hit.” Before I could protest, he had paid my driver, relieved him of my Gladstone bag, and started up the path towards the house.

  Presently we were in his parlour, he having bathed and put on the somewhat shabby tweeds of a country gentleman. The room was small but commodious, with a bay window overlooking the water and sufficient memorabilia strewn about to create the sensation that we were back at 221B. Here was the dilapidated Oriental slipper, from which he filled his pipe with a portion of his old shag; there the framed photograph of Irene Adler, and she in her grave these twenty years. I recognised the harpoon that had slain Black Peter Carey and the worn old revolver that had saved our lives upon more than one occasion, now demoted to a decoration on the wall above the hearth. A library of tattered beekeeping manuals filled the bookpress which had once contained his commonplace books. I asked him how his bees fared.

  “Splendidly. Later I shall bring out the congenial mead I’ve developed from the honey. It may make amends for supper. My housekeeper is deceased, I have not yet replaced her, and my cooking skills are not on a level with
my ratiocination. I say, old fellow, would you mind terribly if we have a third at table?”

  “A client?” I smiled.

  “A man in need of a favour, which in an unprotected moment I agreed to provide. You may find him entertaining company. He’s in the way of being a colleague of yours.”

  “A physician? I’ve not practised in years. We shall not be able to converse in the same language.”

  “A writer; or have you retired from letters as well as medicine? Sax Rohmer is the rather outlandish name.” Turning in his armchair, he rummaged among a jumble of books in a case which looked disturbingly like a child’s coffin, and tossed a volume across to where I sat facing him upon a sagging divan.

  I inspected the book. It was bound cheaply, with a paper slipcover bearing the sensational title The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Holmes smoked his pipe in silence whilst I read the opening pages.

  I closed the book and laid it in my lap. “I read this same story in serial form in a London magazine. I considered bringing suit against the author, but I couldn’t decide whether to base it on grounds of invasion of privacy or base plagiarism.”

  “Indeed. I noticed the resemblance myself: a clipped-sounding adventurer with a pipe and a nervous manner and his storytelling companion, an energetic young physician. The late lamented Professor Moriarty might also have brought a case as regards this devil doctor. But the story itself is rather ingenious and, apart from borrowing your unfortunate practice of leaving out the most important bit of information until the last, his debt to your published memoirs seems negligible—altogether too fanciful to be taken as genuine. He sent me this inscribed advance copy along with his letter requesting my assistance.”

  I opened the book to the flyleaf and read: “To Sherlock Holmes, Esq., with admiration. Sax Rohmer.” The S in “Sax” bore two vertical lines straight through it, in imitation of the American dollar sign. Perhaps it was this boastful reference to the author’s success upon both sides of the Atlantic that raised my ire. My own writings had required years of seasoning to attain critical and commercial acclaim.

  “I never knew your head to be turned by flattery and a disingenuous gift,” I said churlishly.

  “Good Watson, it was the problem which turned my head. This old frame is far too brittle to support any further laurels. But here, I believe, is the gentleman himself. You nearly arrived upon the same train, and might have fought your duel on board.”

  Holmes opened the front door just as another automobile from town pulled away, greeted his visitor, and performed introductions. I was taken aback by the appearance of this straight, trim young fellow, whom I judged to be about thirty years of age; his aquiline features, keen gaze, and general air of self-possession reminded me uncannily of the eager young student of unidentified sciences who first shook my hand in the chemical laboratory of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, three decades and so many adventures ago. So close was the resemblance that I was startled into accepting his handshake. I had intended to be polite but cold and aloof.

  “Dr. Watson,” he said, “I’m quite as excited to make your acquaintance as I am that of Mr. Holmes. You cannot know what an inspiration you have been to me; though you would, in the unlikely event you were ever to read my work. I am a shameless imitator.”

  This confession—the very last thing I had expected from him—left me with neither speech nor ammunition. I had been prepared to accuse him of that same transgression, and for him to deny having committed it. In one brief, pretty declaration he had managed to turn a contemptible deed into an act of veneration.

  I was not, however, disposed to respond to guile. I said, “You might first have sought the opinion of the imitated, to determine whether the honour would be welcome.”

  He nodded, as if he were considering the matter. “I might have, and I should. I can only state in my defence that I thought you existed on far too lofty a plane to be approached by one of my youth and inexperience. Pray accept my apology, and I shall post the circumstances of my debt to you upon the front page of the Times.”

  This sentiment, and the obvious sincerity with which it was delivered, unmasted me thoroughly. For all his seeming repose, young Rohmer was clearly flummoxed by the celebrated company in which he found himself. This was evident both by his attitude and by his dress; his Norfolk and whipcords, although quite correct to his surroundings, were new almost to the point of gaucherie. He had dressed to please, and his efforts to ingratiate himself touched that which remained of the youth inside me. I told him no public abasement was necessary, and in so doing informed him he was forgiven.

  Moments later we were sharing the divan, enjoying the whiskies-and-soda which Holmes had prepared as carefully as his chemical experiments of old, and with considerably greater success than some. My friend—showing subtle signs of discomfort born of rheumatism—had assumed his Indian pose of listening, with legs folded and hands steepled beneath his chin.

  Rohmer began without further preamble.

  “Dr. Fu-Manchu, who is the antagonist of my little midnight-crawler, is not entirely a creature of fiction. He is based upon a Chinese master criminal known only as ‘Mr. King,’ who was the principal supplier of opium to the Limehouse district of London at the time I was researching an article on the subject for a magazine. He was a shadowy figure, and though I heard his name whispered everywhere in Chinatown, I never laid eyes upon him until long after I had filed the story, when I chanced to glimpse him crossing the pavement from an automobile into a house.

  “I had not even heard him so much as described, yet I knew on the instant it was he. He was as tall and dignified a celestial as you are ever likely to meet, attired in a fur cap and a long overcoat with a fur collar, followed closely by a stunningly beautiful Arab girl wrapped in a grey fur cloak. The girl was a dusky angel, in the company of a man whose face I can only describe as the living embodiment of Satan.

  “That, gentlemen,” he concluded quietly, “is Dr. Fu-Manchu, as I have come to present him in writing and to picture him in my nightmares.”

  “Who was the girl?” I heard myself asking; and inwardly jeered at myself for harbouring the interests of a young rake in the body of a sixty-one-year-old professional man.

  Rohmer, who like Holmes was a pipe smoker, shrugged in the midst of scooping tobacco from an old leather pouch into a crusty brier. “His mistress, perhaps, or merely a transient. In any case I never saw her again.”

  Holmes intervened. “I take it by that statement that you did see Mr. King subsequent to that occasion.”

  “Not according to the information I gave to my publicist, or for that matter anyone else, including my wife.” He struck a match off his bootheel and puffed the pipe into an orange glow, meeting Holmes’s gaze. “But, yes.”

  “And has he anything to do with the parcel which you have brought?”

  “Again, the answer is yes.” His eyes did not stray to the bundle he had placed atop the deal table where our host had once conducted his chemical researches, now a repository for the daily post. My own gaze, connected as it was to a curious mind, was drawn there directly. The item was roughly the size of a teacake, wrapped in burlap and tied with a cord. My fingers itched for my old notebook.

  “Mr. King is no slouch,” said Rohmer, “and like Dr. Watson, recognised himself immediately when he read my description of Fu-Manchu. Beyond this fact, the opium lord and the good doctor have nothing in common. Vexed though he might have been by my little theft, I’m convinced that Dr. Watson would not stoop so far as to kidnap me and threaten my life.”

  “Good Lord!” I exclaimed. In my foolish complacency I had formed the fancy that such incidents had been left behind with the dead century.

  Holmes’s guest proceeded to exhibit his flair for narrative with a colourful but concise account of his recent adventure.

  Whilst strolling the twisting streets of Limehouse in quest of literary inspiration recently, he had been seized and forced into a touring car by two dark-skinned brutes—Bedoui
ns, he thought—in shaggy black beards and ill-fitting European dress, who conveyed him to that selfsame house before which he had first set eyes upon Mr. King. There, in a windowless room decorated only with an ancient Chinese tapestry upon one wall, he was left along with that weird Satanic creature, attired in a plain yellow robe and mandarin’s cap, who interviewed him from behind a homely oak desk, enquiring about the source of his novel. In precise, unaccented English, Mr. King expressed particular interest in the character of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the wicked Chinese ascetic bent upon world domination by the East.

  “He is a creature of my imagination,” Rohmer had insisted; for he intuited that to profess otherwise would seal his doom.

  “Pray do not insult me,” Mr. King replied evenly. “I am a law-abiding British resident. Import-export is my trade, and I have no wish to conquer this troubled planet. Beyond these things, your description of me is accurate in every detail. Was it your purpose to malign my character?”

  “It was not.”

  “And yet I find myself incapable of doing business with gentlemen who placed absolute faith in my integrity before your canard appeared. If the situation continues I shall face ruin.”

  “I sympathise. However, I am not responsible for your sour fortune.”

  “Will you withdraw the book from circulation?”

  “I shan’t. I am informed its sales are increasing.”

  Mr. King stroked his great brow.

  “May I at least extract your word of honour that this ogre who resembles me will not be seen again once the novel is no longer in print?”

  “You may not. I am writing a sequel.”

  “I could bring suit, of course. However, the courts take too long, and in the meantime I shall have no source of income. Shall I threaten you?”

  “I rather wish you would. This conversation has become tedious.”

  At this point in Rohmer’s account I laughed despite myself. Here was an Englishman! He continued without acknowledging the interruption.