by Barry Day
He paused and a wistful expression crossed his face.
“Nonetheless, I must confess that I rather wish he were here now. It would give me such pleasure to see Envy written across those dessicated features of his when he realised that I, George Edward Challenger was able in an instant to solve a problem that had beaten the combined and—perhaps one might surmise—possibly over-vaunted intellects of the brothers Holmes.”
“Perhaps you would care to elucidate, Challenger—or may I call you ‘George’?” Mycroft enquired with dangerous calm.
“I’d prefer Challenger, if you don’t mind,” the Professor replied totally missing the irony. He was now in full spate.
“Frankly, gentlemen, what is so special about this business of deduction? What else do you think scientists like myself do in our daily work? Come, Mr. Holmes, let me put you to the test. What, sitting here, can you tell about me?”
I felt my irritation towards the man begin to abate and I smiled inwardly. Little did he know the trap he had just sprung for himself.
My friend pursed his lips and said mildly—
“I dare say you are quite right, Professor. Having only just met you, I can tell very little about you, other than the fact that you have recently started to become vain about your personal appearance, dressed this morning in rather a hurry, were in the habit of smoking a cheroot made of Turkish tobacco in a distinctly unorthodox fashion but have recently given up the habit—presumably at your wife’s insistence. Oh, and you had a small dog of which you were inordinately fond but which died while you were abroad. Other than that—and what may be gleaned from reading your newspaper cuttings, I know—as you rightly say—nothing about you.”
I was pleased to note that Challenger now wore that familiar glazed expression that was a hallmark of Holmes’s subjects.
“Pardon me,” said Holmes, leaning across the Professor’s desk and gently removing a hair from the arm of his jacket. “The dog was a Jack Russell terrier.”
There was a moment’s silence and then Holmes put the man out of his misery.
“I am always telling Watson that I shall sink whatever reputation I possess by explaining my little parlour tricks but on this occasion I can see that it is necessary …
“Your personal appearance presents no problem. You have naturally strong hair that goes its own way but recently you have detected a bald spot on the crown and attempted to brush your hair over it. It has, however, resisted your best, if intermittent, efforts and thus draws attention to what you wish to conceal.
“This morning you dressed on the ship and—without your wife to check your appearance before you appeared in public—you put on odd socks. I noticed them at the station and since you are not a man to make a deliberately outré fashion statement …
“When we entered your house a few minutes ago, your wife studied your right hand most carefully—presumably to see if the stains on the fingers that distinguish an inveterate smoker were in fresh evidence, thus proving that, in absentio you had broken your promise.
“I use the word ‘unorthodox’ because, while most of us hold a cigarette or cigar between the index and second fingers, the stains indicate that you are accustomed to hold it between the second and third fingers.
“‘Turkish’? Watson will tell you that I have learned to distinguish between the ashes of some one hundred and forty different tobaccos—I have even written a small monograph on the subject.
“This …”—and he picked up a pinch of cold ash from an ashtray on the desk—“though some months old is clearly of Turkish origin.” He dropped it back where he found it. “A man remains true to his smoking habits. I see no reason to suppose you have changed yours.
“The dog? Here I fear I tread on sensitive ground. I perceive that you and Mrs. Challenger are a childless couple. Yet you, Professor, are proud of your family heritage and equally proud of your own accomplishments …”—and he indicated the gallery of framed photographs with a sweep of his hand. “It is, therefore, inconceivable that you would not include a picture of yourself as proud parents. You do, however, have a record of yourselves with a series of small dogs …” And here he reached out and turned around a cabinet photograph of the Challengers holding a dachshund that had been facing the Professor, so that we could all see it.
“When a pet dog and its owner form a bond and the owner is indulgent, as you are, it is not uncommon for the dog to insist on sitting on its master’s lap when he is working at his desk. The hair in the cradle of your arm tells its own story. Sadly, the fact that the dog was not there to greet you on your arrival—and the look that passed between you and your wife—tells another.
“I rest my case.”
There was a moment’s silence before a subdued Challenger said—
“Mr. Holmes, I hope G.E.C. is a big enough man to apologise. You fully deserve your reputation.”
He stretched his powerful right hand across the desk. Solemnly Holmes shook it.
“And now,” said Challenger, “allow me to make my small but not insignificant contribution to this bizarre tale.
“When we embarked upon that ridiculous Sinners charade and somebody—I seem to remember it was Pelham—said that every halfway respectable society had to have a mystical Book of Rules, I suddenly remembered a whole pile of junk my father had accumulated from his travels. He was, as you may know, a distinguished explorer and scientist in his own right with a reputation not far below my own present one.
“Since he was out of the country at the time, I had no trouble in finding something suitable looking. I had not the faintest idea what it was. A Sanskrit inscription, of course, but that particular field of study has never attracted me and still does not. The others seemed to find it acceptable but then little things please little minds …”
“But what happened to it when the Society disbanded?” Holmes asked. Even he, I noticed, was comparatively subdued in Challenger’s emotional presence. The man’s life force was such that he seemed to suck the air from the room around him. I have never experienced anything quite like it.
“Oh, I put it back with my father’s other paraphernalia. He never even noticed it was gone.”
“And where is that paraphernalia now?” Mycroft asked urgently.
Challenger looked at him as if he were a dense pupil at one of his lectures.
“Where it belongs, obviously. In the British Museum. The Rare Manuscripts Department. I placed all of his papers there immediately after his death.”
“But—” I looked helplessly at Holmes but he gave me a sign to let Challenger continue uninterrupted.
“I have, of course, given those incompetent bureaucrats strict instructions that the Challenger Collection should remain inviolate until I have time to collate it personally—which looks increasingly unlikely—or until after my own death. At which time I have suggested that a complete suite of rooms be dedicated to our memory and achievements. ‘The Challenger Annexe’ would be perfectly appropriate.”
“So the blessed book was under our noses all the time, Holmes?” I could not help but interject.
“So it would seem, old fellow.”
And then he explained the whole episode to the Professor, which amused him immensely. The beard rose and fell on the massive chest as he laughed. “Who is acting like the schoolboy now?” I thought.
“So now the Great God Kor has two books to his name?” he gasped when he had contained his amusement. “And what do you propose to do now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”
“I propose to offer one of them to Mr. Geoffrey Staunton—the ‘New Testament’ to be precise.”
There was a stunned silence in the room after Holmes had spoken.
“You mean that after all we have gone through, you intend to let the fellow win, Holmes?”
“Not at all, Watson. Merely that we use our ‘Book’ to entice the rat from his lair. At this very moment he is lurking there, licking his wounds, desperate to revenge himself for what he undoubtedly sees as his humi
liation at our hands.
“We must also assume that he now knows that Challenger here has returned. Therefore, left to his own devices, he will make the Professor his next target …”
Once more the chest was puffed out and the eyes glared fire. This time I was put in mind of an angry pouter pigeon.
“If George Edward Challenger cannot defend himself against a little pipsqueak like Staunton, then …”
Holmes ignored the interruption.
“However, before he has the opportunity to do so, we shall make him our target, using the Professor as our bait …”
“Bait!” roared that worthy.
“Believe me, Professor, it is a role which will require both courage and unusual subtlety.”
“Then I am your man,” replied the Professor, somewhat mollified.
“I imagine that financing one of your expeditions must be a tedious and time-consuming business?” Holmes asked in an apparent non sequitur.
“Why, yes, tedious in the extreme. But what …?”
“Tomorrow’s papers will contain an announcement that you are to hold an auction of a number of your personal and professional effects to raise money for your forthcoming expedition to—where shall we say?”
Now the Professor’s eyes really did light up with an almost religious fervour.
“What an excellent idea, Mr. Holmes. I have no doubt that a grateful public would be prepared to pay substantial amounts of money for the most trivial of my surplus items—what my dear wife likes to refer to as ‘my old rubbish’. And now that you mention it, I have long had it in mind to pursue the persistent rumours that have come to my ears of a strange plateau that exists deep in the Brazilian rain forests. The stories refer to it as a ‘lost world’. Who knows what rare life forms may linger there. Why …”
I caught Holmes’s eye. No wonder this man’s fevered imagination got him into so much controversy. A lost world, indeed! He had been reading too much of that Jules Verne fellow.
“Splendid,” said Holmes, as he got up, rubbing his bony hands in satisfaction. “If you will make a list of the items for sale—it scarcely matters what—I will arrange for the auction to take place in the main lounge of the Savoy Hotel two days from now and place an announcement accordingly. I shall also have a personal invitation hand delivered to Mr. Geoffrey Staunton, care of the Zakhistan Consulate, telling him that he will find something to his advantage, should he choose to attend. If I understand his psychology adequately, even though he scents danger, he will be unable to refuse. He will see it as his chance to redeem himself.”
“And now, Professor, we will leave you to your unpacking.”
As we left, we could hear the piping treble and the booming base notes; the Challengers picking up their perpetual duet of harmonious disagreement.
“What do you make of the fellow, Holmes?”
“I am inclined to the view that, if anyone can find a lost world, he can …”
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning I slept late for me and when I came down to breakfast, it was obvious that the day was already well advance for Holmes.
He was in the middle of briefing young Wiggins who, on seeing me, snapped off his version of a military salute. He has grown accustomed to the thought that it pleases me and, to tell the truth, he is not entirely wrong.
Holmes, who fails to see the need for such niceties, rapidly pulled him back to the business at hand.
“I want you to take this letter round to the Zakhistan Consulate and make sure that you leave it where it cannot be missed. No one is to see you. However, should you be detected, you are to say …”
“I know the drill by now, Mr. ’Olmes. I tell them a bloke gave me a tanner to deliver it. Never seen ’im before in me life.”
Holmes gave an approving nod, Wiggins a further salute and the door closed behind him. I could hardly fail to notice that, although he had mentioned one letter, Holmes had, in fact, handed the lad two. But I knew better than to question my friend when he was laying the details of one of his dénouements.
As I sat down to the boiled eggs Mrs. Hudson had put in front of me, Holmes tossed the morning’s Telegraph in my general direction. It was folded in such a way as to show a fair-sized display advertisement—
GRAND AUCTION!
PROFESSOR CHALLENGER TO SELL VARIOUS PERSONAL ARTEFACTS AND MEMENTOES TO HELP FUND LATEST HISTORY-MAKING EXPEDITION.
I thought I knew whose hand had penned that last phrase.
It then went on to list the various categories of objects that would be for sale—relics of various primitive cultures, photographs, books, copies of monographs that Professor Challenger would be happy to sign personally. Happy to? Let someone try and stop him, I thought.
FROM TIMBUCTOO TO TIBET …
NOW YOU CAN SHARE THE FANTASTIC
VOYAGES OF THIS GREAT MAN!
The advertisement ended with the details of time and place the following evening.
“If that does not coax our friend out into the open, my name is not Sherlock Holmes,” said Holmes, re-reading it over my shoulder. “He will hope to find the Book, fulfill his commitment to his heathen employers, if for no other reason than that he has boasted he can do so … and then go after Challenger.”
“And what happens when he realises that the book is not the Book?”
“By that time the trap will have been sprung, old fellow.”
And he would say no more.
I had my own business to attend to for much of the rest of the day, although I would, of course, have given it up willingly, had Holmes required me to. Irritatingly, he did not and on the occasions I was in Baker Street, I had to content myself with watching a succession of messengers coming and going about their inscrutable business.
Finally, as dusk was beginning to fall, Holmes seemed content with his day’s work.
Indicating our favourite chairs, he crossed the room, took down my pouch of Arcadia mixture from the mantle-piece, and brought it over to me in one of those rare but thoughtful gestures of his that acknowledges—without the need for words—his understanding of my frustration at being left out of events.
When we had our respective pipes going, the introspective Holmes emerged.
“You know, old fellow, I sometimes think that the human mind is a bottomless pool into which we dive at our peril. We look at someone—even someone we think we know well—and on the surface all appears calm. And then one day—for reasons we may never fathom—down in the deep something stirs.
“In the case of friend Staunton that something is unspeakably evil and primeval. Slowly but implacably it rises, until it hovers near the surface waiting its moment.
“Staunton’s beast first took shape in adolescence, a compound of the fears and perceived inadequacies that beset him. It fed on every defeat and rejection, real or imagined, until it was stronger than he. But still it slumbered.
“Then one day, years later and by a coincidental combination of circumstances—if, indeed, one is inclined to believe in coincidence—it is goaded into life. And now someone must pay, for now the beast must feed.”
“But how has this ‘beast’, as you call it, survived all these years?” I interjected.
“Simple. It has fed on Staunton. And now it is Staunton. The young man Mycroft and his Oxford friends knew was probably no more than a callow fellow overshadowed by cleverer but not necessarily superior minds. But with the cruelty of youth they were—at least in part—responsible for creating this, their own nemesis. And somewhere, even now, comparable unwitting tragedies are in the making, tragedies we are powerless to detect until the beast emerges from the depths.”
“So Staunton is doomed?”
“There is no Staunton. Only the beast and the beast must be taken. Believe me, Watson, I take no pleasure in this case. It has the elements of Greek tragedy—pity, terror, catharsis even. My only satisfaction is that I have been able to act as my brother’s keeper and perhaps repay him in some small way for watchi
ng over me during the Reichenbach affair.”
He looked thoughtfully at the mantlepiece, where some time ago he had propped a small framed etching of the infamous Reichenbach Falls. The very mention of the place conjured up sobering memories for both of us and for some moments we sat there in silence.
Eventually, Holmes spoke again.
“Do you know what should give us the greatest pause, old friend?”
“No, what is that?”
“Mycroft and his friends were arrogant and thoughtless but not deliberately malicious and yet they conspired to help create their own destruction. What new leviathans are we creating by our incursions into the lives of others?
“We are divers in deep waters, Watson. Never forget that. Divers in deep waters.
“And now I suggest we shake off these morbid thoughts. I happened to notice the De Reskes are singing tonight. Let us have glorious harmony tonight before tomorrow’s inevitable discord. What do you say?”
Chapter Fourteen
The Savoy Hotel descends gently from the main entrance just off The Strand in a series of almost imperceptible layers until it reaches its riverside exit. At the heart of it lies the main Lounge and it was in that direction that the crowds were making their way, as I entered the building a few minutes before seven, when the auction was supposed to start.
I was not, I must admit, in the best of tempers. As I had been dressing to come here, Mrs. Hudson had delivered a note from Holmes, whom I had assumed was doing the same. It was one of his typically cryptic missives—
“Dear Watson,
The game’s afoot!
I shall be at The Savoy at 7:00.
As always, your role in tonight’s drama will be critical.
Do not fail to bring your other faithful friend!