Holmes for the Holidays

by Martin H. Greenberg (ed)

  Then, to my astonishment, he tossed the parcel to Untermeyer.

  The German mouth widened in a grin that was almost hideous. "Thank you, Mr. Holmes. I believe I know what you have in mind, and I shall avail myself of it." He puffed deeply on his cigar, causing the end to glow bright red. "However," said he, "I fear you underestimate the power of this new substance."

  He took the cigar from his mouth.

  Von Tepper screamed the only word I ever heard from him: "Nein!"

  Holmes brought me to the pavement with a rugby tackle just as Untermeyer said, "See you in hell, Mr. Holmes," and touched the coal of his cigar to the parcel.

  The blast felt like the kick of a spirited horse, and made my ears ring for a moment, but I was otherwise unharmed. Of Untermeyer and Von Tepper, nothing remained but a stain on the pavement.

  "He was a fool," said Holmes. "Had he not the wit to imagine I would adjust the amount of explosive in the parcel?" He shook his head, and helped me to my feet.

  "Come, Watson. We must go and spoil everyone's Christmas with the sad news that Herr Untermeyer and his friend have been assassinated by anarchists."

  * # *

  On Christmas Day in our Baker Street rooms, with Mrs. Hudson's wonderful goose inside us, Holmes puffing on the new pipe I had given him and I placing early engagements for next year into the leather-covered physician's pocket diary he had given me, Holmes finally deigned to discuss the events of the previous night.

  "It takes but little imagination to see, Watson," said he, "that arresting Untermeyer and putting him on trial would be little better than letting his assassination plot succeed in the first place."

  "In what way, pray?"

  "The man wouldn't admit to being an anarchist; he was an employee of the German government. He would say he was following orders."

  "But the Germans would deny it!" I protested.

  "Which they would in any case. And our government, no doubt, would believe them. But the suspicion would remain, poisoning relationships, and adding to the already dangerous international tension. Mark my words, Watson, if war comes, it will be caused by just such a trivial incident as the assassination of a duke."

  "Hardly trivial to the duke," I ventured.

  "Quite so, Watson."

  "And so you offered yourself, and me, though I hesitate to mention it, as bait to make it worthwhile for Untermeyer to kill himself."

  "If you wish to put it that way."

  "Strictly for patriotic reasons."

  "Indeed. Mycroft is beside himself with the joy of it, I'll wager. My Christmas gift to him."

  "You had no thought of Lady Caroline? She was well on her way to falling in love with that evil young man. You let her remember him as a martyr, rather than as a scoundrel who used her trust in an effort to kill her father and her."

  "Well, Watson," he said in mock surprise. "So I did." Then, more sombrely, he said, "I am sorry I could not prevent Christmas from becoming a time of sad memories for her. But we cannot be expected to pass miracles, eh, Watson?"

  "Not that kind," said I. "Happy Christmas, Holmes."

  "And the same to you, my dear Watson."

  The Adventure of the Christmas Ghosts

  Bill Crider

  It was the morning of the twenty-second day of December, a Sunday according to my notes, that Sherlock Holmes and I received one of the strangest visitors who had hitherto arrived at our lodgings at 221B Baker Street. I heard the man coming down the hall, and even before he had brushed past Billy, our page boy, and entered into our sitting room, I used the methods I had begun to learn from Holmes to reach a conclusion about our caller.

  I deduced that he was not coming to give the greetings of the season to Holmes. I arrived at this conclusion because, although this was early in our association, I already knew Holmes to be the least sentimental and the least superstitious man I had ever known. Our halls were not decked with holly but with retorts and vials; there was not within our rooms the steamy scent of plum pudding but of the tobacco from our pipes mixed with the faint chemical odour of one of Holmes's experiments; the music Holmes occasionally played on his violin was of his own composing and was not remotely related to any known carol; and for Holmes, the idea of cattle bowing down in their stalls at midnight on the eve of Christmas was nothing more than the sheerest fantasy, laughable on its face. Logic was what Holmes believed in, rare as he considered logic to be in the world in which we lived.

  Our visitor, as I have said, brushed past Billy and entered our room. He was a man of middle age, somewhat above medium height, well dressed in a dark suit and clean linen, with his hat firmly mounted on his head. His face was smooth shaven and strongly scored with lines that ran beside his mouth and down his chin as if he might have spent his life frowning perpetually. His face was ruddy, either from the intense cold outside or from his exertions, and his breath came in short gasps, as if he had run all the way to our rooms from his own.

  "This gentleman—" Billy began, but Holmes waved to him to be silent, and Billy backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  "Which of you is Sherlock Holmes?" our visitor asked, his voice rough with either emotion or the effects of the cold.

  "I am," Holmes replied. "What brings you to us in such a rush and flurry of nervous agitation, having missed a deal of sleep into the bargain?"

  "How did you know—ah, I see." Our visitor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I have been almost running, and it has taken my breath, so you know that I was in a rush to see you."

  "That you are short of breath is true," Holmes acknowledged, and I was gratified to realize that I too had noted as much. "And your shoes are wet, with a rind of ice beginning to form on your pants cuffs." continued Holmes, "indicating that you stepped onto a crusted-over puddle rather than taking the time to pass around it. You shaved so hurriedly this morning that you missed a spot just below your right ear and another just below your nose. You have also nicked yourself at least twice, and there is a dot of blood on your right shirt cuff, no doubt from one of the nicks; you would surely have changed the cuff had you noticed it."

  Our visitor looked down at his cuff. "I had heard of your methods, and you do not disappoint me. Yes, I would have changed cuffs had I noticed."

  Holmes looked over at me. "Always look at a man's hands first, Watson, and then his shoes and then the knees of his trousers. You will invariably learn something of interest."

  "Quite so, Holmes," said I.

  "As to your sleeplessness," Holmes went on, "I am sure that Watson has noted the way in which the pallor of your skin makes the black circles beneath your eyes stand out, a sure sign of sleepless nights."

  "You are right," said Scrooge. "I have not slept well of late."

  As usual, Holmes's analysis of the caller's condition seemed quite simple when he explained it, but I suspect that few men would have been able to reach the same conclusions from the clues that Holmes had observed.

  "Now," said Holmes, "perhaps our visitor will have a seat and be so good as to tell us his name."

  Removing his hat and seating himself opposite Holmes, the man said, "My name is Franklin Scrooge."

  "Of Scrooge and Marley?" Holmes asked.

  "The same. You have heard of my firm?"

  "Certainly," responded Holmes. "As Watson could tell you, I have an interest in all the more sensational crimes of our little country. Isn't that right, Watson?"

  It was of course true. Holmes, while his knowledge of ordinary things like literature and philosophy was virtually nil, had an immense store of facts at hand relating to sensational literature. He in fact seemed to have an intimate acquaintance with every appalling and dreadful crime committed within the last century.

  Mr. Scrooge was puzzled. "I know of no crime in connection with Scrooge and Marley."

  "Let me enlighten you, then," said Holmes. "I take it that you are related to one of the founders?"

  "Yes. Ebenezer Scrooge was my uncle. My great-uncle, t
hat is."

  "And what of Marley?"

  "Well, Marley died. That was the beginning of the whole confounded muddle in which I find myself. At least I believe that to be so."

  "Let us not get our stories out of order," said Holmes. "Marley first. He died. Is that not correct?"

  "Yes. Marley was dead. There can be no doubt about that."

  "And how did he die?"

  Mr. Scrooge started to answer. His mouth was halfway open. But then he closed it. "I ... well, I don't believe that anyone ever said."

  "No, I suppose not. And yet your uncle, your great-uncle, was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, was he not?"

  "I believe that is correct. But all that was long ago. What of it?"

  "It is suggestive, is it not?" asked Holmes. "A man dies, and yet the cause of his death is never revealed. His business partner, the one who stands to gain the most—the one who stands to gain all—is never questioned. He was, as I understand the facts, a man quite well known for his avarice, and he inherited all the business." Holmes paused. "But, as you say, that was long ago. That is not why you came here. Why, by the way. did you come?"

  I could see that Holmes had introduced the topic of the uncle, the great-uncle, to give our visitor some time to compose himself. He was now breathing quite regularly, and his face was composed. The lines beside his mouth, while still visible, had softened and receded into the flesh. He looked at me, then back at Holmes, sighed, and said, "Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Holmes?"

  Holmes gave a barking laugh. "I most certainly do not. Ghosts do not exist any more than other creatures of occult legend—vampires, say, or werewolves. To believe otherwise is utter lunacy."

  Our visitor looked at the floor. "I was afraid that you would say so. You reject the idea out of hand?"

  "Or course," Holmes responded. "And so you should as well."

  Scrooge looked up and turned to me. "Dr. Watson?"

  "Are you asking about my beliefs, or about my services as a physician? I do not generally treat nervous maladies."

  "A malady I may have," said Scrooge. "I do not deny it. And yet I have seen . .. things."

  "Ghosts?" asked Holmes.

  "Yes, and worse than ghosts. Would you at least listen to my story? I do not ask that you believe it."

  Holmes had little patience with people who presume they have seen things, ghosts in particular, and would ordinarily have told our visitor to leave at once. However, with no case of interest having come his way of late, he had been idle for several days, and while he might not have hoped for much, he told Scrooge to continue.

  "Thank you, Mr. Holmes! You do not know what I have suffered for the past two nights. It has been terrible, I assure you. But I must begin with my great-uncle, Ebenezer Scrooge. He was, as you seem already to know, the sole legatee of the late Jacob Marley, and when he took over as sole proprietor of the firm of Scrooge and Marley, a quite strange thing happened to him. It is the same thing that has been happening to me."

  "The ghosts," said Holmes.

  "Yes. The ghosts. My uncle was a greedy, grasping man, Mr. Holmes, but something happened that transformed him. It was the ghosts."

  "Or perhaps his guilt over the untimely death of his partner."

  "It could have been the effects of guilt. You see, when he went home one night, at just about this time of the year, he put his key into the lock of his door, and by chance he glanced at the knocker. But he did not see the knocker. He saw... Marley's face!"

  Scrooge brought a handkerchief out of his coat and wiped his face, which had begun to perspire. I looked over at our fire, but it was burning low, and the room was hardly warm.

  "When he looked again," Scrooge continued, "the knocker was merely a knocker again, and my uncle went inside the house and eventually went to bed. It was later that night that Marley's ghost appeared."

  To my surprise, Holmes was leaning forward in his chair, his gray eyes a-gleam with excitement. "Did your uncle describe to you the process by which the knocker became Marley's face?"

  "No. But that was not the strangest thing. When Marley's ghost appeared to him, my uncle ... floated in the air of his room." Scrooge held up a hand as if to still a protest that neither Holmes nor I had made. "That is what he told me. And the air was filled with noise and numberless phantoms."

  "And you believed his story?"

  "That was forty years ago or more. I was quite young at the time, and impressionable, but even then I thought it was just a story. Especially when he told the rest, about the other ghosts that visited him, ghosts that helped him pass through the very walls of his rooms and out into the streets. Ghosts that helped him see the past and the future."

  "And what became of these ghosts?" asked Holmes.

  "One of them he smothered with an extinguisher cap, like a candle."

  "A very small ghost," observed Holmes.

  "It was not small. But it... dwindled somehow."

  "And the other ghosts?"

  "One of them simply disappeared. The other transformed into a bedpost."

  "And your uncle insisted that he saw these ghosts? That he floated through the air, that he passed through the very walls?"

  "He did."

  I felt it was time for me to speak as a physician. "And what did your uncle have for dinner the night he saw these 'ghosts'?" Could they not have been the result of a bit of undigested beef or a scrap of cheese? Perhaps a morsel of underdone fowl?"

  "I would that it were so," said Franklin Scrooge, "and for a long time I believed that his visions were caused by nothing more, not that it mattered, for the visions, whatever might have been their cause, changed my uncle's life. They changed him from a miser into a philanthropist, from a skinflint into a virtual spendthrift, from one who believed Christmas to be a humbug into a man who loved that season more than any other. Previous to his seeing the ghosts, he tried to insist that his employees work even on Christmas Day, but that certainly changed. He had never had much to do with our family before that time, but from that Christmas forward he lavished us with his gifts and his attentions."

  "So it seems that the results of his experiences were beneficial," I said.

  "In his case, yes. But in my own ..."

  "Your own?" prompted Holmes, eyes gleaming.

  "In my own case, I fear for my life. For, you see, the ghosts are now visiting me."

  "Ah," Holmes muttered. "These are very deep waters indeed. Pray go on with your most interesting story, Mr. Scrooge."

  I was so surprised that I am afraid I may have muttered something or other under my breath. Sherlock Holmes finding interest in a ghost story? It seemed incredible. Both Holmes and our visitor looked at me strangely. I smiled and said, "Yes, please do go on."

  Mr. Scrooge resumed his tale by saying, "For two nights now, I have been visited by ghosts, or what I believe must be ghosts. Call them that or phantoms or apparitions—call them what you will. To me, they are ghosts."

  "Hooded figures?" asked Holmes. "Gibbering, sheeted spectres with eyes of flame? Describe them for us, please. And be as detailed as you can."

  Scrooge shook his head. "They were nothing like the usual idea of ghosts. There were no sheets. They were more like the knocker on my uncle's door."

  "The door knocker that became the face of Marley," said Holmes.

  "Yes, exactly. Although in my case it was not a knocker. It was the doorknob."

  "And what did it become?"

  "The face of my great-uncle, Ebenezer Scrooge. It was strange, most horribly strange, but as I put my key into the lock of my door, the knob above my hand seemed to elongate, as if it were made of clay. And then it twisted itself into the very face of my uncle and floated before my eyes. Then it became a doorknob again."

  "And for how long did it float before you?" asked Holmes.

  "Why, I do not know," said Scrooge, as if this were the first he had thought of it. "It might have been a few seconds, or it might have
been an hour. It has only just occurred to me, but I have no idea of the time that passed."

  Holmes nodded as if he had suspected as much. "Please continue, then, Mr. Scrooge."

  Scrooge passed a hand over his face and said, "Late that night, as I was preparing for bed, the curtains of my window began to sway and writhe. Eventually they assumed the shape of some kind of creature that I cannot really begin to describe. Somehow, I felt that the thing was speaking to me, and I opened the window. The creature passed outside and beckoned me. I knew at that instant that I could fly."

  "But you could not, of course," Holmes said.

  "No, although I must have tried. I have no recollection of launching myself through the window, but it seems that I did. I landed on the roof in a heap and slid for several yards over the rough shingles. I would have pitched into the street had I not been able to grasp the chimney and stop my progress. I managed somehow to crawl back to the window and pull myself shivering into the room. My nightshirt was damp, and I was extremely chilled. I got into my bed, but I was so terrified that I hardly slept.

  "The next morning, I seemed a little better, and I did well throughout the day, conducting my business with precision and acumen. But that evening, at about eight o'clock, the gas flame in my room began to flicker and fade, and then it became the face of my father. It wavered in front of me and seemed to be trying to speak, but I heard nothing. That is, I heard nothing until I heard the tolling of midnight on the clock down the hall."

  "The face hovered before you for four hours?" asked Holmes.

  "So it must have been, although I could not give an accounting of the time. It might have been seconds, for all I knew of its passing. As I had the previous evening, I tried to forget the incident. I got into my bed, but I had not been there long before the room seemed to expand around me. getting larger and larger while the bed got smaller and smaller. Soon it was as if the walls had spread so far from me that I could barely see them. It was as if the room itself had become as large as all of London, or as if the bed and I had become as small as a pea. I believe that I must have screamed at that point, and when I did, the walls rushed inward upon me with the speed of a courser; but before they reached me, I fell asleep or into a faint."