Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants

by Christopher James

  ‘If there are enemies amongst us, let them show themselves now, or we seek them out and drain them of their God-light.’ I shut my eyes, almost expecting the lid of the trunk to be flipped open. I felt entirely protective of my God-light.

  ‘Then let us begin,’ Chatburn finished. I expelled the remaining air in my lungs.

  ‘What news of Snitterton?’ a voice came in.

  ‘Yes Jack, what news?’ came another, rather more prosaically. I puzzled at the name.

  ‘Still at large. But I have taken steps. You will have heard of the great detective, Sherlock Holmes? I have engaged him to seek out Snitterton on our behalf. Where we have failed, Holmes will surely succeed. I provided a simple clue that will send him on a chase across London. Once he delivers him to us, we will finish him.’

  ‘Naturally, Chatburn,’ came a voice of authority, we are all concerned that Snitterton is gathering his forces. We have heard that he has sworn vengeance on us all.’

  ‘And yet,’ came yet another, ‘It is you, Jack, with whom he has his grievance. What say you to squaring up to him, man to man, eh? Get this thing over with.’

  ‘I wish,’ said Chatburn wistfully, ‘I only wish it was that simple. You heard the curse he placed on our order as he left. No man can lift such a curse, not even I.’

  The room broke into a flurry of conversation. I heard the strike of matches and the sloshing of drinks.

  ‘Order, brothers, order,’ Chatburn called. ‘Mr Smyth, would you care to furnish us with what we know of Snitterton’s plans?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Chairman,’ came a low voice I had not yet heard. There was the sound of chair legs grinding backwards as he rose to his feet. Some heavy steps worked their way around the room, coming slowly towards me. Clearly this was a man of some size and stature.

  ‘Brothers, this news came to me from an acquaintance, who has neither the wit nor the inclination to lie. Snitterton has formed a society of his own: The Order of the Sapphire Butterfly.’

  ‘Sounds somewhat derivative,’ a voice chipped in.

  ‘Think what you will,’ rebuked Smyth. ‘He has already signaled his intention. No doubt you will have heard of the elephant that escaped from the London Zoological Gardens. I believe the elephant was drugged with a powerful stimulant that sent it mad and out into the streets. With Snitterton’s knowledge of animal medicine, such a stunt was easy enough.’

  Once more, the room broke into a mutinous fray, before Chatburn called them again to order.

  ‘Brothers, please!’ A relative hush descended, before a dissenting voice called out:

  ‘Who will be next? You, Ignatius? How about you, Peaceheart?’

  ‘Gentlemen. Here is my pledge: that before the week is out, Snitterton will be out of the picture for good.’

  The meeting proceeded in varying degrees of audibility while my confinement become increasingly uncomfortable. Try as I might, I failed to glean the purpose of the society, precisely what role Chatburn held or the common interest that bound them together. I hoped Holmes had divined something more useful than I.

  Just as the blood had drained entirely from the lower half of my legs, the meeting drew to a close. Once more the strange humming filled the room and Chatburn’s incantations were every bit as ridiculous as those which began the meeting: ‘You who wait for the sun to set on the sea, the rain to fall on the desert, the day to pass in the hills; wait for the hour of the elephant. Hathhee, in the hour of the setting sun we honour and salute thee.’

  ‘We honour and salute thee,’ the other members chorused.

  The chairs scraped again and the conversation turned to general matters; I heard more than one yawn, excusable given the early hour, and within ten minutes, the last of them had gone. Still I dared not move. Who was to say a house servant or even Chatburn himself would not return to empty the ashtrays?

  Presently I heard a light knock on the lid of the trunk and before I had time to panic, the lid lifted to reveal Sherlock Holmes. He peered down at me, folded as I was, like a spider in a matchbox.

  ‘I fancy you are ready to be posted to West Bengal, Dr Watson.’

  ‘I would prefer that to our other exit options,’ I replied ruefully, uncoiling myself and testing my weight on a leg.

  ‘A most enlightening meeting, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure, Holmes,’ I said honestly. ‘In fact I would go as far to say that I am perhaps less enlightened than when we arrived.’

  ‘My dear Watson,’ Holmes assured me. ‘All will be revealed in a moment. But as for now, there is something else.’ Holmes strode to the other side of the room where a large cabinet stood and thick curtains covered much of the dark wood. ‘Would it surprise you very much if I told you we are not alone?’ With a magician’s flourish, he tore down the curtain to reveal the shadowed form of a tall man.

  I staggered out of the trunk and shambled a few steps forward. My mind reeled; filled with horror and incomprehension.

  ‘Would you care to step into the light, Mr Snitterton?’ my friend invited.

  Dutifully, like Frankenstein’s monster, the man loomed towards us. Snitterton was a great beast of a man; forty, black bearded with shoulders like Atlas and a livid purple birthmark that pulsed angrily on his neck. He was wearing a rich blue jacket in the military style, with a white silk shirt. He had the curious air of a circus strongman, slightly dandyish and with a fierce intelligence. His eyes blazed like hot coals and his high, wide forehead was red with fury. Like us, he was pearled with sweat from his confinement and he clenched and unclenched his fists as if to mirror his shallow breathing.

  ‘You have made a sorry mistake, Mr Sherlock Holmes,’ the man growled. ‘You are mixed up in a business beyond your limits and jurisdiction.’

  ‘I am beholden to neither,’ Holmes returned curtly.

  ‘I would dare say your ignorant friend Dr Watson here has more sense than you in this matter.’ I bristled somewhat at this backhanded compliment, but was more preoccupied by the pins and needles creeping up my legs, denying them of their ability to hold me upright. I crashed forward, unwittingly toppling the giant, who quickly scrambled to his feet.

  ‘First class, Watson!’ my friend applauded. ‘A magnificent opening salvo.’ Holmes adopted a stance I had seen before, something he practised during long evenings at 221b Baker Street, especially when we were without a case. His legs were set akimbo, bent at the knees. His left arm was down in anticipation of a blow from the taller man. Above his head, he held a poker, which he had produced seemingly out of nowhere.

  He parried Snitterton’s first blow and then slid lithely beneath him so the man rolled over Holmes’ back, with barely any contact being made. Once more, Snitterton found himself on the floor.

  ‘Perhaps our friend is unfamiliar with the art of bartitsu,’ Holmes chided. Snitterton growled, again picking himself up before hurling himself at Holmes, this time with a revolver in his hand. In an instant, Holmes had sent his cane spinning like a blurred bicycle wheel, which succeeded in knocking the weapon from Snitterton’s hand and snapping his fingers at the same time. The fiend emitted a howl like a dog whose paw had been caught beneath a shoe and he reeled backwards - far enough for Holmes to place a jab directly onto his jaw. Snitterton’s thoughts now had turned to flight and he glanced at the picture of the Viceroy, clearly aware of what lay behind it.

  ‘Quick, Watson,’ my friend urged, ‘he’s at the twenty two yard line. Bring him down!’

  I tackled as best I could, but the feeling had still not entirely returned to my legs. We both watched aghast as Snitterton ran at the painting of Warren Hastings and crashed directly through it, leaving the Viceroy in ribbons. We ran to the empty frame and peered beyond as the morning light filled the room. The roof slates reflected the brilliance and we squinted out beyond them and down onto the cobbles.
Either he had slipped to his death or else made a miraculous escape across the rooftops. There was the sound of feet coming up the stairs, no doubt Chatburn come to investigate the commotion.

  ‘I think,’ said Holmes, ‘that we would be wise to follow suit.’ We scrambled through the painting and out, once more into the wilds of London.

  ‘Three nil!’ Holmes exclaimed. ‘Really my dear Watson, you must do better.’ I glared at the great detective, the lid of a cigar box gripped in my hand, before retrieving the champagne cork that had ricocheted off the table into the corner of the room.

  It was Holmes’ idea to revive our occasional sporting rivalry with a game of ping-pong. We played in the manner my friends and I had pioneered in the officer’s mess in Afghanistan; that it is to say, to line up a pile of cheap novels in the centre of the dining room table and wallop a makeshift cork ball over the top. It was generally first class fun, but of late Holmes’ game had improved no end and I rather suspected that he had been getting in some private practice.

  It was late afternoon by the time Holmes and I had reconvened. After a perilous dash across three rooftops, a leap onto the roof of a Greek restaurant next door and a necessarily speedy descent down the drainpipe at the rear of the premises, we had lost no time returning to 221b Baker Street. After a pair of kippers courtesy of the inestimable Mrs Hudson and a cigar apiece, we found ourselves entirely spent from our morning’s exertions. We had therefore opted to retire to bed for a few hours to recover our wits.

  I served smartly, only to find the cork back on my side courtesy of a deft backhand slice. Holmes let out a snort of triumph. ‘The secret is to examine the behaviour of the ball and in a millisecond, project yourself into the ball’s future. You will be there to meet it in precisely the right spot and in precisely the right moment. Quite elementary.’ In a mood such as this, Holmes could be unbearable.

  I dispatched the ball again in Holmes’ direction. ‘Take me back to the very start,’ I said, as he sent it back with topspin. ‘How did you know that access to Chatburn’s place could be gained from the roof?’

  ‘At first this threw me,’ my friend confessed. ‘I saw no obvious ladder or steps and the door to the attic itself from the inside was perfectly secure; three separate locks you will have noticed. On our exit, therefore, I examined the walls again and noticed the tell-tale marks of black rubber plimsolls, the kind favoured by university climbers. I wagered that these belonged to Snitterton, whom we know attended King’s College, Cambridge as an undergraduate and no doubt was one of the infamous night climbers.’ I retrieved the ball from the floor.

  ‘Do you make that five nil, Watson?’

  I grunted my acquiescence.

  ‘That took us, after a little investigation, you will remember, inside the attic room. Chatburn’s minutes provided the date, time and venue of the next meeting. If I had found the minutes, then I deduced that the previous intruder had also seen them and planned to eavesdrop in the same way.’

  ‘But weren’t we taking a colossal risk being in the same room as this brute?’ I asked.

  ‘A small risk perhaps,’ admitted Holmes, ‘but it was too valuable an opportunity for Snitterton to listen to the society’s plans to reveal himself with all of them in the room.’

  ‘He must have breathed an almighty sigh of relief when we chose alternative hiding places.’

  ‘I deliberately steered you away from him, having divined his presence moments after arriving in the attic room. I saw the indentations in the rug leading to the cabinet corroborated by the smell of Dr Cox’s Antiseptic and Liniment, an animal medicine.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ I murmured, marveling at my friend’s audacity. ‘So what have we learnt?’

  ‘A great deal Watson,’ Holmes declared as another ball sailed past me.

  ‘I must confess I am rather at a loss,’ I admitted ‘So much so that I am hardly sure now who our client is.’

  Holmes laid down his paddle and retrieved his stash of tobacco from his Persian slipper.

  ‘Let us consider the facts.’ He settled himself into his tall backed chair and began to prepare his pipe with delicate expertise, much as a skilled fishmonger might dress a fresh piece of fish. ‘Chatburn came to see us on Tuesday morning, fearful of his old associate Snitterton, who it appears has recently returned to England.’

  ‘And he was counterfeiting his distress?’

  ‘I believe that at the time his fear was genuine. However we now know that Chatburn was in fact the rival, going under the name Jack Brace. Chatburn is the name he uses here.’

  ‘Indeed, it is emblazed above his door,’ I put in.

  ‘Indeed, Watson.’

  ‘He employed me to find Snitterton in an attempt to remove the threat.’

  ‘The threat to what?’

  ‘To his lives; to all their lives. Snitterton will clearly stop at nothing until he has the eight ruby elephants in his possession.’

  ‘Well we stumbled upon Snitterton sooner than we expected,’ I exclaimed. ‘It is just a pity we didn’t hang on to him. Perhaps we should have interrogated him before throwing him around the room.’

  ‘I fear the circumstances provided me with no other option. And besides, we have all the information we require.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean, Holmes!’

  ‘Well, for one, we have an excellent idea where we shall find Snitterton and his whimsically named Order of the Sapphire Butterfly.’

  ‘Pray tell, Holmes!’

  Holmes lay back and puffed triumphantly, rather like Mr Stephenson’s Rocket on its voyage along the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

  ‘Did you notice anything odd about Snitterton’s attire?’

  ‘Not in particular,’ I said.

  ‘What have I said about observation? You have eyes but you do not see, Watson! The man was festooned with feathers.’

  ‘He is an animal man,’ I countered, ‘surely that is a satisfactory explanation.’

  ‘His specialtiy, as we know is the big beast, not ducks and chickens.’

  ‘So where do a few feathers lead us?’ I asked, reasonably enough.

  ‘Nowhere at all by themselves,’ said Holmes. ‘But during our scuffle in the attic, Mr Snitterton was careless enough to drop this.’ Holmes held up an envelope, with the name ‘Fotheringay’s Feather Factory’ and an address scrawled across the centre in black ink.

  ‘No detective work required, Watson, the postman would find it just as easily as we would. Now what say you to a little self-poison?’ He administered two doses of The Dimple, a smoky blend of Scotch whisky of which we were both inordinately fond.

  The smoke, I noticed, was beginning to creep across our rooms with the deadly stealth of a boa constrictor, slowly enveloping not only Holmes but everything else too. It curled around my shoulders and neck as if waiting for its moment to strike.

  ‘Would you mind very much,’ I asked, ‘If I opened the window?’

  Holmes shrugged.

  ‘Only if you want us to catch our death.’

  ‘A little close today though, wouldn’t you agree Holmes?’

  ‘O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out,’ he declaimed, ‘against the wreckful siege of battering days.’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ I confessed. ‘But speaking personally, I feel a trifle confined.’

  ‘There’s nothing worse than a confined trifle,’ Holmes remarked facetiously. Heaving up the glass frame I inhaled a life giving blast of oxygen.

  The streets teemed with the bustling of hundreds of Londoners; a lawyer snapping his fingers to hail a hansom; a drunkard weaving his haphazard way to the corner of Marylebone Road. Their shadows danced at their heels, like accomplices.

  ‘Wait,’ Holmes uttered, suddenly starting to his feet. ‘Music!’ A remarkable transformation was
apparent on his features, charging his cheeks with colour. His eyes glinted as they did when finally making headway in a particularly difficult case. Through the maelstrom of birdsong, chatter, the clatter of hooves and the calls of the paperboys and flower girls, I too could pick a melody.

  ‘Paganini, if I’m not very much mistaken.’ declared Holmes, joining me at the window. ‘Violin Concerto No. 3. Simply majestic.’

  Holmes stood with his eyes closed, in a state of utter serenity, as if absorbing a noble gas. Suddenly the practical part of his mind took over.

  ‘Where do you think the sound is coming from?’ he demanded. I scanned the rooftops and windows.

  ‘I would say from a westerly direction,’ I said, my hands clinging to the bottom sill.

  ‘Look at those flowers down there,’ he pointed out. ‘Do you see how they are blowing in an easterly direction? I would suggest the sound is coming from somewhere to the east, bouncing off the facade of that not insubstantial town house over there and returning to us for our own private delectation.’

  I searched the upper windows to the east and sure enough made out the silhouette of a figure playing a violin behind a curtain of white lace some three floors up from street level.

  ‘I am quite certain it is a woman playing,’ Holmes deduced ‘from the colour and tone and from the barely perceptible breath between phrases. I would also wager that she studied under the influence of Ignatius Wimpole, from the minute stress she is placing on the final phrase in each bar. She also has a slight injury to her right hand.’

  ‘Remarkable,’ I said, ‘although I am only sorry we have no way of discovering the accuracy of your speculations.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Holmes, collecting his hat and cane from the stand. ‘We should pay her a visit this very instant.’

  Holmes hurried me along Baker Street at an uncomfortable pace, somewhere between a march and a light jog. This was customary when he was seized with an idea. His legs seemed to span continents with each stride. He appeared to be counting flagstones with his cane and presently began to slow down. Finally he stopped in front a dark green door, and delivered two loud raps with the end of his cane. A bonneted servant with a ruddy complexion appeared in the doorway.