The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

by Otto Penzler

  Waving aside my protestations, he lapsed into a thoughtful silence for a few minutes. Then a gleam of amusement appeared in his deep-set eyes.

  “Well, Watson,” said he, languidly, “why do you yourself not make an attempt to formulate a hypothesis which will account for the facts? After all, you have been my colleague for many years, ample time to have absorbed the principles of deductive logic of which you speak so highly.”

  “I certainly shall!” I exclaimed hotly, for I thought I detected some slight irony in his voice. “We shall see whether by tomorrow I cannot present you with a logical explanation for the mysterious happenings on the Mary Celeste.” With that, I went to my room, taking the book of references with me.

  “We shall see,” said Sherlock Holmes thoughtfully, as I left.

  II

  On the following morning I rose late, after a largely sleepless night. A wintry December sun shone through the windows of our rooms in Baker Street. Holmes was already at the breakfast table. He looked up as I entered.

  “A fine day, Watson,” said he, cheerfully. “Have you made any progress with the intellectual problem you have set yourself?”

  “Indeed I have,” I rejoined, somewhat coolly. “And I will give you a full account of my solution as soon as I have had some breakfast.”

  A little later, when we were seated in our armchairs, Holmes looked at me expectantly.

  I arranged my papers in front of me. “The first thing to do,” I said, I dare say somewhat self-importantly, “is to marshal the relevant facts. The Mary Celeste left New York on November the 7th ’72 with a cargo of methylated spirits for Genoa. Her captain was Benjamin S. Briggs, who was accompanied by his wife and child. There was a crew of eight men. She was sighted by the brigantine Dei Gratia on December the 5th, derelict and abandoned, some 400 miles east of the Azores, and was boarded and taken into Gibraltar by a prize-crew from the latter vessel. At the subsequent hearing by the Vice-Admiralty Court in Gibraltar, it was established that the ship was sea-worthy, although she bore every sign of having been hastily abandoned. There was no sign of violence on board.”

  Holmes stirred in his seat. “Was there not a sword found in the captain’s cabin?” he asked.

  “There was, but it was in its scabbard, and stains found on it were analysed and found not to be blood. It was an Italian sword, with a cross of Savoy on the hilt, and was thought to be a souvenir acquired by Captain Briggs on his travels.”

  “Pray continue with your exposition.”

  “The last entry on the log slate was for 25th November, giving the ship’s position as six miles to the north of Santa Maria island in the Azores. The ship’s boat was missing, and all the signs were that the ship had been abandoned hurriedly. There was no indication why this might have been done, and no trace of the boat or the crew has ever been found.”

  “I seem to recall that there were some strange marks on the hull.”

  “I cannot explain those,” I admitted. “Each side of the bows had an almost symmetrical strip shaved off just above the water-line. I suppose that this could have been caused by rocks, during a near-shipwreck in the Azores, but all accounts state that the strips appeared very regular, as if they had been cut by a sharp instrument.”

  “What then is your solution to the mystery?”

  I leaned backwards in my armchair. “I think that we can discard theories involving the slaughter of the crew by pirates, for the Atlantic has been free of these for almost a century. Mutiny by the ship’s crew, or their murder by the crew of the Dei Gratia for the salvage money, which was the theory put forward by the Admiralty Advocate in Gibraltar, seems even more unlikely; in all these cases, signs of a struggle would surely have been found. I am prepared to discount theories of sea-monsters rising from the deep to swallow up the crew—”

  “Are you?” said Sherlock Holmes, and smiled.

  A little nettled, I continued, “The only remaining possibility, then, seems to be that the ship was abandoned voluntarily because of some danger to those on board her, and that the ship’s boat was then swamped and all on board drowned. But the Mary Celeste was sea-worthy when found, although there had been a storm and the rigging and sails were damaged. I do not believe that an experienced captain, as all agree Captain Briggs was, would put those in his charge to the perils of an Atlantic storm in a small boat unless his ship were actually foundering, or if those on board were in deadly danger.”

  “You appear to have eliminated your last possibility,” Holmes observed.

  “Not quite,” I replied triumphantly. “The sea is not the only possible source of peril to those on board a ship. A situation may have arisen on board which seemed so dangerous to the captain that he saw no alternative but to risk his wife and child, and his crew, to the fury of the Atlantic waves. Indeed, it has been suggested, on the strength of some minor damage to one of the casks in the cargo, that an explosion of spirit fumes may have been feared, and that the captain may have decided to launch the ship’s boat and stand off from the ship until the fumes had dissipated, and that the Mary Celeste then drifted away, leaving them to their fate.”

  “But this, I take it, is not your preferred solution,” Holmes observed.

  “Indeed not,” said I. “The evidence for a serious leak of methylated spirit is very poor, and in any case, I cannot imagine that seasoned seamen such as Captain Briggs and his crew would not have taken the precaution of fastening a tow-line to the ship. It is true that a tow-line might have snapped, but no trace of this was found aboard the ship.

  “The true solution to the mystery was suggested to me by a remark which you once made during the case of the missing racehorse Silver Blaze, to the effect that sometimes it is not the presence but the absence of something which may be significant.”

  Holmes clapped his hands in approval.

  “Excellent, Watson, excellent!” he cried. “I see that you have taken note of my methods, even while you were recounting them to the public in so sensational a manner. I believe there is hope for you yet.”

  Thus encouraged, I continued, “Those who boarded the abandoned vessel described in great detail what they found on her, but nowhere is there any mention of an animal on board. Now, there can be very few vessels which do not carry one or more cats on board, to keep down the rats, and frequently also a dog, to guard the ship against intruders when it is in port—”

  “Might these animals not have been taken into the boat by the crew?”

  “The Mary Celeste was abandoned in such haste that all personal belongings were left behind. There was then surely no time to hunt down the ship’s pets. No, Holmes, the explanation for the absence of the animals is more sinister: I believe that these creatures had become infected with rabies, or hydrophobia, and this so terrorised the crew that in a mad panic they took to the boat, which was then swamped with the loss of all aboard. As the disease progressed, the rabid animals then jumped or fell overboard, leaving the ship deserted and a mystery which has remained unsolved—until today!” I added with some satisfaction.

  “Capital, Watson, capital!” exclaimed Sherlock Holmes with a broad smile. “You have excelled yourself!”

  “Do you then agree with me that I have divined the solution to this hitherto insoluble problem?” I inquired.

  “Indeed not! But your solution is ingenious, and not entirely devoid of logical reasoning.”

  Somewhat crestfallen, I persisted.

  “How can you maintain, then, that mine is not a possible solution?”

  “For at least four reasons.”

  “Four!” I exclaimed, wounded. “Come, Holmes, I cannot believe that you have found so many flaws in my theory. Let us hear them!”

  “Very well,” said Holmes languidly. “Primus. I cannot believe that a crew of able-bodied men, used to facing all the dangers of the sea, would flee in panic from rabid animals into the greater danger of an Atlantic storm, rather than banding together with knives, boathooks, and belaying-pins to hunt the creatur
es down. Secundus. Should they indeed have decided to flee, which would presuppose not only cowardice but stupidity, as they would have been exposed to attack by the creatures while they laboured to launch the ship’s boat, they would surely have seized every weapon available in order to defend themselves. Yet the sword remained in the cabin. Tertius. I think we must assume that there were several animals, even to attempt to justify this improbable panic. Yet the Mary Celeste was not found to be in total disorder, as it would have been had these creatures run wild through it in their final frenzy, prior to casting themselves so conveniently overboard.”

  He paused for a second, and I returned to the attack.

  “Your fourth reason, Holmes. Which is your fourth reason? Your first three only make my solution improbable, not impossible.”

  “My fourth reason you may well find more convincing. I know that matters did not proceed as you have conjectured, for I was on board the Mary Celeste on that fateful voyage.”

  I stared at Sherlock Holmes in disbelief.

  “Holmes, that is impossible!” I ejaculated. “You were surely too young—”

  “I was young,” he agreed, “but not too young. I will recount to you what truly happened, but only on the condition that it remain a secret during the lifetime of all those involved.”

  “You may rely on me,” said I earnestly.

  III

  The Lily of Aosta

  Holmes rose, and filled his pipe from the Persian slipper on the mantelpiece. When he had returned to his seat, he lit the pipe, and spent some minutes smoking it thoughtfully. I was in a fever of impatience to hear his tale, but I knew better than to interrupt his reverie.

  Finally he broke the silence.

  “I have rarely spoken to you about my early life, Watson,” said he. “And it is possible that you do not know that, after my schooling was completed, I spent a year abroad before going up to Cambridge. I had already determined to devote my life to the study of criminology, and considered that I might benefit from a period of apprenticeship in an organisation recognised as the foremost detective agency in the world.”

  “You mean—”

  “Exactly, Watson, the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I must confess, though, that I was seriously disappointed; our American cousins show a sad deficiency of imagination both as criminals and as detectives. But I run ahead of my story.”

  —

  My brother Mycroft, who even then had connections the world over, was instrumental in securing for me a junior position in the agency, and I sailed for New York early in ’72.

  A few months at the agency convinced me that I had nothing to learn from them about scientific detection, and I would have left and returned to England had I not been so fascinated by the energy and zest for life of the citizens of New York. Nevertheless, I was approaching a state of total ennui when one morning, a young man of swarthy complexion strode into the office.

  He stopped at the doorway, and stared at me in amazement.

  “Sherlock,” he cried. “Can it possibly be you?”

  For a second I had not recognised him, for since I had last seen him he had acquired a bristling black moustache. It was Luca D’Este, a young Italian of noble blood who had been a companion of my schooldays.

  “Luca,” I exclaimed, grasping him warmly by the hand. “What can have brought you here, so far from the Mediterranean sun which you always swore to return to and never leave again?”

  “It is a matter of honour—my family’s honour, and a lady’s honour,” he replied seriously. “May I speak with you privately; I remember your keen mind and your energy of old, and I feel sure that you are the only man who can help me in this strange quest.”

  I led him into an inner office, where, throwing himself into a chair, he launched himself impatiently into his tale.

  “You may know, Sherlock, that I am a close relative of the King of Italy. Two years ago, his son, Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, was chosen by the Spanish Parliament to be King of Spain. I travelled to that country with my cousin, as part of his entourage. Also in his party, as one of the ladies-in-waiting to his Queen, Maria Victoria, was a young girl of sixteen, who even at that early age, because of her surpassing beauty, was known as the Lily of Aosta; her name is Bianca Bernini.

  “If you have followed the fortunes of Spain in the last year, you will know that the King’s reign has not been easy; ignored and insulted by Madrid society, his rule threatened by Carlists and Republicans, he has become discouraged, and abandoning his high hopes of improving and modernising Spain through a popular constitutional monarchy, has retreated more and more into the company of those Italians who form his court. His eye lighted on Bianca; he became infatuated with her, until terrified by his advances the girl, virtuous and loyal to her queen, fled from the palace. Would that she had confided in me,” Luca groaned. “She has not been seen since.”

  “How then do you know of all this?” I asked.

  “As soon as her disappearance was known, the King summoned me and confided to me what had happened. We had high words—”

  “You are then very fond of the lady,” I observed.

  His dark eyes flashed in astonishment.

  “How did you know?” said he.

  “One does not exchange angry words with a king, even if he is a cousin, for any lesser reason,” I observed drily. “Proceed.”

  “He begged me, for the honour of the family, and because of a very natural concern about Bianca, for he feels the deepest remorse about his behaviour to her, to spare no effort to find her and bring her to safety.”

  “And how did this quest bring you to New York?”

  “I soon found out, for Madrid is a hotbed of spies and gossip-mongers, that Bianca had been abducted by a group of Republicans. Their plan is either to hold her to ransom, or to force her to make public the conduct of the King, to further discredit him and the monarchy in the eyes of the Spaniards. Fearing that I was on their trail, they spirited her away to Vigo, and thence to New York, where a group of Republican emigrés have established themselves. I followed, hot on their heels, and have discovered that she is being held, under close guard, in an apartment not far from here.”

  “Why then, you have done all the detection yourself,” said I. “All we need to do is to call on the excellent New York Police Department and they will release your beloved.”

  “That is impossible,” said Luca. “Firstly, Bianca’s life must not be put at risk; these men are desperate, and might well murder her if they feared capture—”

  “And secondly, if the story of her capture and release were to reach the ears of the pertinacious American press, your cousin the King might be embarrassed, so you thought that it would be best to trust to the discretion of a private enquiry agency,” I interposed. “Very well then, we must resort to subterfuge.”

  “You will then help me yourself? It would be more discreet if we were able to keep even this agency out of it.”

  “Of course.”

  Luca told me that he had observed the house in which Bianca was imprisoned. The apartment was on the second floor, and at all times there were at least three men guarding it. He had seen them going in and out, and it was only with difficulty, because of his concern for the lady’s safety, that he had restrained himself from rushing in and confronting the ruffians on his own.

  My plan was simple. On that very night we made our way to the building, and having introduced ourselves surreptitiously, with the aid of a jemmy, into the hall, crept up the stairs until we were outside the door of the apartment. A murmur of voices could be heard inside.

  I knelt down, and placing an armful of rags and papers, which I had brought with me, by the door, set a light to them. Waiting only until I could see the smoke beginning to seep under the door, I put on my best Yankee accent, and on a hysterical note, shouted: “Fire! The building’s alight! Fire!”

  There was a confused babble of voices inside. Luca and I stationed ourselves on each side of the door, clutching h
eavy cudgels. The door burst open and three men rushed out. Luca’s cudgel came down on the head of the first, and he collapsed to the floor without a sound. The other two were burdened with a form wrapped in a blanket, which could only be the drugged body of the girl; before they could put her down and defend themselves, we were on them, and they too fell senseless. Pausing only to verify that it was indeed Bianca, and that she breathed, we carried her out of the house and into a waiting cab, and drove away from the scene.

  Our next problem was to get Bianca and Luca back to Europe without attracting the attention of her abductors, or the Press. Luca agreed that it would be best to return to Italy, and restore Bianca to her family; a return to Spain would only expose her to further danger. I therefore left my friend, with the aid of my Irish landlady, to look after the rapidly recovering Bianca in my room, and made my way to the waterfront early in the morning. There I ascertained that a cargo ship, the brigantine Mary Celeste, was leaving for Genoa two days later. The steam-packet to Lisbon, which was leaving on that very day, I rejected, as I did not wish for Bianca to return to the Iberian peninsula, and it seemed to me that the gang would assume that we would attempt to escape from New York by this means, and would be prepared to intercept us, but I boarded her and handed the captain a package, with instructions to forward it urgently on arrival in Lisbon.

  I then sought out the captain of the Mary Celeste. I found Captain Briggs in a nearby lodging house with his wife and child. Captain Winchester, who was a part owner of the ship, was with them. Enjoining all to the utmost secrecy, I explained only that a lady and a gentleman, who were being pursued by criminals, desired immediate passage to Europe, for which they would pay a generous fee.

  “Oh, Ben,” cried Mrs. Briggs to her husband. “We must help this unfortunate young couple. I would never forgive myself if they came to any harm because of our failure to assist them.”