by George Mann
Even as I asked myself that question, the Professor saw Dr Watson, and headed in his direction. Not knowing what he intended, I moved without thinking. Dodging past a nursemaid pushing a pram and an old soldier with one leg, I circled back toward the Professor. He was still quite a distance away from the doctor and Mr Holmes, and there was a surge of people between them, moving toward the train. The doors were starting to slam shut, whistles were being blown, and I could see that Dr Watson was climbing into his compartment, still looking around. Then he turned with a jerk, looking at the man in priest’s clothing across from him. He said something. The train started to move.
At that point, the Professor gave a cry of rage. Several people turned his way, and I observed Dr Watson look at him as well. His eyes locked with those of the Professor, even as the train gained speed. The Professor reached his hand into his coat. Fearing what he would remove, and what would happen when he did, I made a final lunge forward, knocking him to the ground. A gun fell from his hand and skittered across the platform. I ran to it and kicked it the rest of the way across the platform and into the gap beside the accelerating train, where it disappeared from sight.
I turned back to the Professor, who was getting to his feet. He raised the cane, pointing it accusingly in my direction. His eyes locked with mine, and then they flicked down toward my uniform. I knew that he recognised me from the day before. He took a step toward me, and then stopped. Seeming to make a decision, he cried aloud, “Bah!” and turned, making his way haltingly toward the office where one arranges to engage special trains.
I wanted to do something else to help, but I had reached the limit of what I could provide. If the Professor chose to engage a special, there was nothing that I could do. I prayed that Mr Holmes and Dr Watson, wherever they were bound, would be safe. Perhaps there was hope after all. Now all that I had to fear was that the Professor had marked me. That was quite enough to worry about.
* * *
Nearly two weeks later, on 7th May, I was on the run back from Liverpool when I happened to read the Reuters dispatch, telling what had happened to Mr Holmes when the Professor caught up with him in Switzerland on the fourth. The details were sparse, but it was enough, and it was absolute. I couldn’t imagine how it had happened. Mr Holmes was the most capable man I’d ever met. What set of circumstances had occurred that would let a man like the Professor win?
Still, I believe that if the only way to defeat the Professor was for Mr Holmes to sacrifice himself, then he wouldn’t have hesitated. From the little that I’d seen during those two days, and all that I’ve read and heard about him during the two-and-a-half years since that day he and Dr Watson left London, I cannot doubt that he knew what he was doing.
Just the other day, when I returned from the Liverpool– Dublin run, my father handed me the latest Strand magazine. It had the account of what took place on those two days in April ’91, and what happened after that as well. There was no mention of me or my father – but, then, there wouldn’t be, as it’s likely that Mr Holmes never mentioned it.
I’ve thought about writing to Dr Watson, to tell him of this, one of Mr Holmes’s last cases, but something keeps holding me back. Perhaps, now that I’ve written this account, I’ll send it to him. He needs to know that, through Mr Holmes’s efforts, my father had the opportunity to change his life, and he grabbed that chance and has made the best of it. It’s been a good year, and we had a good Christmas, all of us, including my wife and new child.
My mother would be happy, but she would shake her head when pointing out that, even though I now know better, good deeds are always followed by punishment. “Look at what happened to poor Mr Holmes after he helped you!” she would say, and no amount of argument from my side – that what happened to him was already in motion when he took time to aid us – would sway her, God rest her soul.
And God rest Mr Sherlock Holmes as well. As Dr Watson wrote, he was the best and wisest man – even if I only knew him for just a couple of days – that I’ve ever known.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF VANISHED YOUTH
Mark A. Latham
I’ve long had a fascination with Langdale Pike. We know little about him, except that he is a “strange” and “languid” character, who spends his days “in the bow window of a St. James’s Street club”. He is named in one story – “The Adventure of the Three Gables” – but although he does not appear directly, unusually it is he, and not Holmes, who solves the case. We know little about the man, except that Watson dislikes him. Scholars have pointed to the language used in describing Pike as perhaps an indictment of the man’s sexual persuasion in the Victorian mind, and to Watson’s strange disavowing of Pike as reflective of Conan Doyle’s own attitudes. And yet Pike is, in many respects, the hero of “Three Gables”, and it has often led me to ponder whether he was analogous to a real-life character known to Victorian society, or to Doyle. This, then, was the inspiration for my story.
—Mark A. Latham
Between the years 1891 and 1894, Sherlock Holmes was dead. Or so everyone thought. And yet, of course, his legacy lived on until the time that he returned to us from the grave, triumphant against a great evil that had plagued Europe for years. But what of the dark times between Holmes’s fall at Reichenbach and his return in “The Empty House”? If one was to believe the stories of Dr Watson, Holmes miraculously solved at least one case during that period, and likely others, though careful scrutiny of the case notes makes it clear to all but the most bone-headed Scotland Yard inspector that the detective at Watson’s side then was not Holmes at all.
Much later, upon the publication of “The Adventure of the Three Gables”, I gave a wry smile. Watson had, as always, altered the names and locations pertinent to the case to protect the innocent. And yet he had no choice but to characterise me, because the case could not have been solved without me. And so, in the pages of The Strand, I found myself immortalised as a “strange” and “languid” character, who spends his days sitting in the window of a St. James’s Street club (nonsense, of course, for I virtually reside at the Albemarle).
He called me Langdale Pike.
Now that the Great Detective has retired, I think it is safe to put pen to paper to record my first case with Watson, one that he never dramatised, for reasons that will become very clear by the end of the narrative. I doubt very much that I shall ever publish it however, for this is a lurid and curious tale. This, then, is my story.
* * *
It was in the late autumn of 1891 that the most alarming news reached my ears. I had long made it my business to know everyone else’s, and gossip seemed to gravitate towards me quite naturally, for me to use or store away as I saw fit. Indeed, Dr Watson later painted me as a scurrilous rumour-merchant; rather an exaggeration. But this particular nugget of information was not of the usual kind, for it concerned matters rather too close to home.
It was my fellow clubman Bosie who brought the news. I was sitting in the library window of the Albemarle, ostensibly working on my latest play, but really gazing distractedly onto the street beyond. It has always been in my nature to abandon anything that becomes a chore; my humble drama, which had started as an amusing conceit, had rapidly become a commitment to a noted West End producer, and now my brain wanted nothing more than to abandon the task at hand and find something more intriguing to occupy it. Bosie’s interruption brought to me what I craved, though I quickly learned to be careful what I wished for.
“Might I have a word, old boy?” he ventured.
“You needn’t ask, Bosie. Take a seat.”
“Not here,” he said, lowering his voice. “Best to take this somewhere more private.”
His youthful expression was so uncharacteristically grave that my interest was piqued at once, and I led the way to a private room. Bosie lit a cigarette with a trembling hand, and I realised that something very serious was affecting him.
“It’s about a mutual acquaintance of ours,” Bosie said. “Young Toby.”
“Be more specific; I know several Tobys.”
“You only know one Toby Cottingford.”
I leaned forward, and now it was my turn to lower my voice. “What of him?”
“He’s missing.”
“Missing? For how long?”
“Four days certainly, perhaps a few days before that.”
“A strange answer,” I said. “Is it four days, or is it more?”
“I…” he paused. “I was to meet him four days ago, but he never turned up. I thought he’d just changed his mind.”
“Oh, Bosie,” I groaned.
“Come on, Pike, you know Toby. Anyway, he didn’t turn up, and I thought no more of it. Then I was talking with Whiggins yesterday, and he mentioned something similar. And apparently Toby’s sweetheart is beside herself, hasn’t seen him for a week.”
“Sweetheart?”
“Fiancée, actually. He’s supposed to be marrying some bank clerk’s daughter from Holborn.”
I cleared my throat. “Now that’s the most unlikely thing you’ve told me so far.”
“It’s true.”
“Has it been reported to the police?”
“The girl reported it, but they told her that a young gentleman is quite within his rights to go where he pleases. They probably think he’s had a change of heart about the girl, and has beat a retreat to the country.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think Toby’s a flighty bird, but he’s not the sort to be so callous.”
“So you say…” I thought for a moment. “Why come to me? You aren’t implying that—”
“Oh, good grief no,” Bosie threw up his hands. “I know that’s old history. Besides, I tried all the… usual haunts. No one has seen him for weeks. Looks like he’s taking this girl seriously, which is why I worry.”
“But you were meeting him, four days ago,” I said, my eyebrow raised.
“Well, that’s different. Old times’ sake. Look, you know everyone and everything, old boy. Thought maybe you could perhaps find something out, seeing as the police are unwilling.”
“Bosie, you are a dear friend, so do not take offence at what I am about to imply. But if the police were to take an interest, would they come to your door asking the wrong sort of questions?”
Bosie went very pale, and I knew I had hit upon the nub of it. “Quite possibly,” he said. “But I doubt they’d stop at just me.”
I sucked in a breath. Bosie wasn’t the sort to deliberately make trouble for anyone, but he wasn’t the most discreet of men either. I decided to change the subject. “What about Toby’s father?”
“The old goat is about to shuffle off the mortal coil. Toby’s only nineteen but he’s been running the family’s affairs for some time already.”
“And you don’t think Sir Denis Cottingford might have sent Toby off somewhere having learned of his son’s more bohemian habits?”
“No, he’s not exactly compos mentis. Besides, he only has one son and heir—who else is he going to leave the family jewels to?”
“Certainly not to a bank clerk’s daughter from Holborn,” I mused. “Perhaps I should talk to the girl first.” My mind was already churning through possibilities. Given Toby’s past associates, some of those possibilities were too terrible to dwell upon. “Toby Cottingford is a friend. I shall find him.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Bosie said. “If anyone can find him, it’s you.”
* * *
The next morning, I paid a visit to the girl, one Dorothea Beresford. The house was a well-presented second-rate affair, not far from Furnival’s, that great Inn of Chancery. I could see why Toby would meet a girl here of all places; the inns had long been occupied by men predisposed to bachelorhood.
The door was answered by a housemaid, who was naturally reticent to allow a strange man to see her young mistress who was, I was informed, home alone. A calling card revealing my identity, and a deftly presented shilling with it, secured me access regardless, and I was ushered into a small bland sitting room.
When Dorothea Beresford entered, my impression was that she suited her environment perfectly. In my younger days I would have said something awfully biting, such as “how on earth could a blazing flame like Toby extinguish himself so in such a pool of mundanity”. Nowadays, however, I understood only too well the need for the mundane, like the grounding of an uncontrollable electrical charge.
“Do you really think you can find Toby?” the girl said over tea, when she had finally shaken the stars from her eyes.
“I can try,” I replied, “which is more than can be said for the police, if I understand correctly. Tell me, when did you see Toby last?”
“Last Friday, at the music hall.”
“Which music hall?”
She leaned forwards, and whispered, “Mile End. The Paragon.”
I offered a reassuring smile. “I shall tell no one if you don’t,” I said. “Toby has a predilection for visiting such places incognito. Can I presume that you have indulged this habit?”
She nodded nervously.
“You need fear no rebuke from me,” I said. “I have done things ten times as rash. But tell me, was the music hall the only place you visited that night?”
She nodded yet again.
“And have you visited… other places… with Toby, of late?”
“No, sir. It was the first time we had stepped out in a week or more.”
With Toby, it had always been the thrill of adventure that drove him. Though the son of a wealthy baronet, he had always sought his pleasures outside his social circle, carousing with down-and-outs in Whitechapel gin-palaces, or backstreet opium dens, from where he would sometimes not surface for days. Thankfully, he had rid himself of that particular habit, although his current situation made me wonder if he had not been sucked back into the mire. But now, with a respectable young girl to support, would he tread so dangerously?
“What did you see at the music hall?” I asked.
“A magic show. The Magnificent Balthazar. He was ever so good—he made Toby disappear in his magic cabinet…” The irony of what she was saying dawned on her, and she paled.
“What time did you leave?”
“It must have been nearly ten o’clock, sir.”
“It is some distance from here to there,” I said. “Would your father not have been worried, having you out so late?”
“No, sir. Two of my friends accompanied us, and I came straight home.”
“In a cab?”
“Of course, sir.”
“With Toby?”
“No, sir, with the other girls. Toby said he had a friend in lodgings nearby that he wished to visit, and so he summoned a cab for us and left. That was the last I saw of him.”
“Did Toby name this friend?”
“He did not, sir.”
“In which direction did he walk upon leaving the music hall?”
“The opposite way to us,” she said. “We went over Bow Bridge.”
I suppressed a shudder. That would mean Toby, on foot and alone at night, would have walked towards Mile End Gate, through the Waste. The Waste is a vibrant place to take one’s pleasure, with its amusements and market stalls, but is no place to linger after dark. I could see why he would send Dorothea home first. I started to wonder if I should first look to the East End mortuaries, in case Toby’s body had washed up in the Thames.
“He never called on me on the Saturday, as he promised. It was unlike Toby—he has never missed an engagement with me.”
“Were any cross words spoken between you that night?”
“None, sir.”
“And do you know of anyone with whom Toby might have quarrelled recently?”
Tears began to form in the girl’s eyes. “None whatsoever, sir. He was always so pleasant to everyone. Do you think some evil has befallen him?”
“Do not dwell on such things my dear, for in my experience the mind always conjures worse possibilities than the truth.” It was a
lie, but a necessary one.
“If he is not come to harm, then perhaps… perhaps he wishes to call off the wedding.”
Just looking at the girl’s plain features was enough to tell me that any marriage between her and Toby Cottingford was unlikely to be successful. Unless of course it was a marriage for appearances’ sake, in which case she would prove the most excellent cloak for Toby’s more exotic escapades. All of this flashed through my mind. What I said, however, was simply, “My dear, it is more likely that he has been summoned away on business for his father, and that a message has simply failed to reach you. Or perhaps he and this mysterious friend overindulged in the local taverns, and he is too ashamed to call on you.”
“There is a pub nearby,” she said. “He mentioned that he’d been there before, but it’s not the kind of place he could take a lady.”
“Do you recall its name?”
“The Vine, I think.”
“Excellent. If that was the direction in which he was heading to meet this friend, then there is a chance he may have gone there. I shall look for him, and rest assured I shall send him to your door post-haste once I find him.”
This seemed to placate the girl, and so I said goodbye, keeping her mood as cheerful as possible, though my own was blackening by the minute.
* * *
I made sure to visit The Vine that very day. It was a Thursday afternoon, and the day was surprisingly bright and crisp given the horrid London particular that had hung over the city the past two days. It was this fortunate change in conditions that I now exploited, walking briskly, hoping not to be recognised, and dressed in a plain and modest fashion.
The Vine was a tall, narrow tavern, sandwiched between a meat-packing shop and a coffeehouse. Hardly a ray of sunshine penetrated the frosted glass and smoke-stained net curtains of the front windows. The previous night’s detritus had been swept into the corners where it sat like molehills beneath poorly upholstered benches, upon one of which lay a gaudily dressed woman, fast asleep. I sidled up to the bar, shoulder-to-shoulder with several unwashed patrons.