by Barry Grant
‘I should hope so!’ I said. ‘Many a man who has worked hard, acted bravely and thought logically has – for lack of a little luck – failed utterly.’
‘What I fear, Watson, is that this may be just such a case. You know, I must tell you something: not all my cases were solved.’
‘Naturally not.’
‘In the annals of crime, many a criminal has done his dastardly deed and skipped away to live a happy life.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Even among the murder cases I have undertaken, some were never solved and the murderers never paid for their crimes. There was the affair at Notting Hill in 1890, in which the man and his dog were both dissolved in acid. The only facts ever discovered about the murderer were that she loved the poems of Wordsworth and that she could not correctly pronounce the words fissiparous or autochthonous.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. And then there was the bizarre Case of the Shrinking Dachshund. That was what Watson intended to call it. He even wrote it up. But his wife convinced him it was too horrible a tale to present to an unsuspecting public, particularly as it was a tale not only without a point or a moral, but without a real beginning or real ending. There was also the case, back in ’97, of the Christmas tree candle conspiracy, in which the candles were tampered with and the angel on the top of the tree exploded, resulting in a whole family being burnt to death as they opened their gifts – a case so outré and grisly that the newspapers of the time would not even print it. I could not solve it, Watson. I couldn’t! I lacked one fact. Of course, the bothering thing about an unsolved case is that one can never be absolutely sure whether the failure is due to lack of facts or lack of insight. I tell you, Watson, you are right! So much is chance, so much is . . .’
At that moment his mobile phone began to play Für Elise.
He held the phone to his ear. He frowned. Slowly he closed the phone and put it into his pocket.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘That was Scotland Yard. My contact there wants to see me.’
‘A problem?’
‘Could be . . .’ He trailed off. He looked worried.
‘Look, Holmes,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow is your doctor’s appointment in London anyway. So you’ll kill two birds with one journey. No use worrying about things. A change is as good as a rest. Do you good. Get away to London for a day or two.’
‘Yes, yes, that’s right,’ he murmured. ‘Quite right . . . say, uh . . .’
‘What?’
‘I wonder, Watson – would you like to accompany me to London?’
‘It would be a pleasure,’ I said.
His proposal really did suit me perfectly. A few days in London would make a nice change from rural life. Accordingly, we drove early the next morning to Hereford, caught the train, and by eleven were at Paddington Station where a black car was waiting to take us to the offices of New Scotland Yard. At Scotland Yard I finally laid eyes on Holmes’s so-called ‘contact.’ He was a lean man about our age or a little older, with thinning black hair untouched by grey. He moved quickly out of his chair to greet us – ‘Good morning, Holmes – and you, sir, must be Dr . . .’
‘Mr . . . Mr James Wilson – how do you do.’
‘I am Detective Chief Inspector Lestrade.’
‘Lestrade!’ I cried, despite myself.
‘Or a reasonable facsimile thereof,’ remarked Holmes, with uncharacteristic puckishness.
I tried to back off a little, to excuse my outburst. I said very mildly, ‘Are you two playing a little joke on me?’
‘No, no,’ said Lestrade with a brisk smile. ‘But I can see why you might think so. Evidently you are familiar with Mr Sherlock Holmes’s personal history, as so eloquently recorded by his good friend, Dr Watson.’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘And I am aware that in the very first chapter of that history, titled A Study in Scarlet, a certain Mr Lestrade of Scotland Yard appears.’
‘He was my grandfather,’ said Lestrade. ‘He was just twenty-eight years old when he met Mr Holmes in 1880. Grandfather married late, and might not have married at all had it not been that Holmes saved a young shop girl named Mary Bates from the clutches of white slave traders who intended to ship her to Burma. Mary Bates was my grandmother. My grandfather’s first son, my father, was born in 1910 when Grandfather was fifty-eight. My father went on to serve many years as a London policeman. I was born in 1942 when my father was thirty-two. And now, at the ripe old age of sixty-six, I may soon retire – I’ve lingered on far longer than most of my contemporaries, I fear. But I like the work, you see? That’s three generations of Lestrades with careers at Scotland Yard.’
‘Congratulations!’ I said. ‘And do you have a son to carry on the tradition?’
‘My daughter Agnes works in this same building, different floor.’
‘Congratulations again,’ I said.
‘When Mr Holmes was revived,’ said Lestrade, ‘the doctors learnt of his connection to my grandfather, and thus to me. They asked me to be his liaison with Scotland Yard, and to be his counsellor and guide as he oriented himself in a world rather different from the one he was – shall we say – frozen out of.’ Lestrade winked at me, proud of his wit. ‘It is I who arranged for Mr Holmes to begin his new life in Hay-on-Wye under the watchful gaze of an old acquaintance of mine, Thomas Bundle, who promised not only to keep tabs on Mr Holmes, but to use him on small cases as they came along, part of our programme to help him to get back in the groove while also learning a bit about modern police methods. We agreed it would be best if Mr Holmes started out in a place that was not quite the madhouse London is these days. You may imagine, Mr Wilson, what an honour, not to say a joy, it has been to me to meet the man about whom I had heard so much all my life, and who – if truth be told – was largely responsible for my grandfather’s successful career.’
Holmes modestly batted away this compliment with the back of his hand, brushing his fingers through the air. ‘If I helped Lestrade clarify a few small points in several of his cases, it was my pleasure entirely.’
‘The reason I wished to see you today,’ said Lestrade, ‘is to ask if you would be good enough to help me, Mr Holmes. For the past week I have been troubled by a few small points in a very odd, not to say bizarre, case. In truth, I can make neither head nor tail of this strange affair at Croxley Green – yet I am certain that something dreadful is about to occur in the household of one Colonel Davis. That is why I have asked you here. I would like your opinion as to whether Colonel Davis is in danger.’
Until this moment Holmes had been languidly attentive, a bit dégagé. Now suddenly he sat up in his chair and his eyes became bright. ‘Yes, indeed. Pray, Lestrade, give me the details.’
‘The case may be of particular interest to you, Holmes, for it contains elements similar to the case you have been consulted on in Hay-on-Wye.’
‘And what are those points of similarity?’ asked Holmes.
‘First, the Croxley Green case – Colonel Davis lives near Croxley Green – centres on an American serviceman. Second, it involves a recently published book called Abu Ghraib: Torture and Betrayal. Third, it involves the supposed appearance of a black, hooded figure.’
‘Go on,’ said Holmes anxiously. ‘Spare no detail.’
‘Colonel Anthony Davis of the US Army was posted to London a little over a year ago, from Iraq, as interim military advisor to the US Embassy’s Defense Attaché Office. He rented a large manor house in the countryside near Croxley Green. It is a fine house in a peaceful neighbourhood, yet his wife has never been happy there. The reason? She believes the house is haunted. Evidently the poor woman has always been drawn to the supernatural fringe – goes in for séances, regressive psychic readings, that sort of thing. She also frequently attends spiritualist meetings, for she likes to talk to the dead.’
‘Then she ought to enjoy talking to me,’ said Holmes.
‘Come now, Holmes!’ laughed Lestrade.
‘A
morbid wit has he!’ said I.
‘Anyway, a neighbour who lives near the Davises informed Mrs Davis that the house is haunted by a murdered monk, and ever since that moment she has been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The story goes that in the basement of Tetchwick Manor a monk was tortured and murdered more than 300 years ago, in or about 1678. That was an age when cries of ‘No Popery’ were in the air, and when some people saw a papist with a bomb behind every tree. In those days papists were often persecuted, officially or unofficially. Mrs Davis claims that early one morning, shortly after she learnt of the ghost, she heard the ghost prowling about in her basement. This happened just after her husband had left for work. Mrs Davis was still dozing in bed and heard footsteps on the stairs. At first she thought it must be her husband returning for some reason. She called his name. He did not answer. She heard the footsteps continue upward. The footsteps came down the hallway, approached her bedroom door. She was so paralyzed with fear that she closed her eyes. According to Mrs Davis, the ghost entered her bedroom. She dared not open her eyes. The spectre approached her bed. When she felt it actually slip into her bed with her, she began to pray to God, and that did the trick. A moment later she felt the ghost’s presence vanish. Several mornings afterward the identical thing happened again: the ghost crawled into bed with her, she prayed, and it vanished. Then the ghostly appearances took on a new character. On many afternoons a black, hooded figure peered into her dining room window, always at about three o’clock. Her husband, Colonel Davis, became so alarmed at her reports, and at her behaviour, that he stayed home from work one afternoon just to prove to her that her fears were groundless. Unfortunately, he was in the loo when the ghost appeared. He heard his wife shriek, and he ran to her as quickly as circumstances would allow. She was nearly hysterical by the time he reached her. She informed Davis that only a few moments ago the tortured monk had appeared at the window. The creature had – she shrieked this – fled away, floated over the hedge, and flown off almost with the speed of a bird down the public footpath that passes in back of their house. “He flew into the trees!” she cried. Colonel Davis instantly ran in hot pursuit. He ran down the back garden path, through the gate, and out on to the public footpath. He says he could not have been more than thirty or forty seconds behind the ghost. He ran towards the grove of trees through which the path passes before it emerges again into fields. About fifty yards into the grove of trees he met a neighbour. He asked the neighbour if he had seen anyone running along the path. The man replied that he had seen no one.’
‘But could the ghost have run off the path and into the trees?’ asked Holmes.
‘That is possible,’ said Lestrade, ‘but not terribly likely, for the path is fenced with a high wire fence on both sides at that point. The fence is a few yards into the trees, so it could be that the man was hiding in the trees, not far from the footpath.’
‘And what do you know of the neighbour?’ asked Holmes.
‘Nothing,’ said Lestrade. ‘It was the same neighbour that had informed Mrs Davis of the tradition that her house was haunted. So one would suppose that if a ghost had appeared he would have been among the first to recognize it.’
‘Touché,’ said Holmes. ‘But did he himself believe in the ghost?’
‘I gather he did,’ said Lestrade. ‘Mrs Davis says it was he who told her the monk had actually appeared to people.’
‘What else about the neighbour?’ asked Holmes.
‘He apparently is a friendly sort, lives about a quarter mile from the Davises. He encountered the Davises at a church function a month or two after they moved in. He even brought them a housewarming gift, tried to help them adapt to English life. He showed Mrs Davis the best places to shop, that sort of thing. She often met him on the public footpath when she took her morning walk. He also met her at several spiritualist meetings, and she seems very taken with his kindness. She had always heard that the English are aloof, but this man, Simon Bart, proved to her we have our welcoming side.’
‘What was the housewarming gift?’ asked Holmes.
‘The housewarming gift?’ asked Lestrade, a little taken aback. ‘That is a detail which, I regret to say, I failed to inquire about. Do you think it could be important – to this case, I mean?’
‘Details,’ said Holmes, ‘are like piles of old nuts and bolts in a drawer. You never know which one is important until you need it.’
‘Excellent, Mr Holmes. Excellent. I begin to see why criminals of the Edwardian era found you such a formidable opponent.’
‘I frequently stressed to your grandfather,’ said Holmes, ‘the singular value of cataloguing all details – a point with which your grandfather agreed in theory but sometimes neglected in practice.’
‘Ah, well, Grandfather did his best, I’m sure,’ said Lestrade, patiently.
‘When I first met him,’ said Holmes, ‘I confess I thought your grandfather very lightweight, very misguided and somewhat irritating. But later, my dear Lestrade, I grew to enjoy him greatly. In later years on many an evening he stopped by Baker Street and filled me in on the latest activity at Scotland Yard, and smoked his cigar, and presented me with little problems to amuse me. I guess I mellowed.’
‘We all do, we all do,’ said Lestrade.
As I watched these two talking, however, it seemed to me that if Holmes was ‘mellow,’ I didn’t know the meaning of the word. I had seldom known a man more tightly wound, or a creature with nerves so close to the skin.
‘Pray, go on,’ said Holmes, and he placed his index finger vertically across his pressed lips, and leant forward a fraction, listening intently.
‘Three days after the colonel chased the ghost,’ said Lestrade, ‘Mrs Davis became so frightened and distraught that they decided she should take the advice of her neighbour and go for a month to a spiritualist retreat in California. Two days later Colonel Davis took her to Heathrow, dropped her off, and then went to work. When he returned to Tetchwick Manor that evening he was surprised to find, on the dining room table, a book about the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The book was called Abu Ghraib: Torture and Betrayal – in fact, the same book you encountered at The Old Vicarage cottage in Wales. The sight of the book on the table made him uneasy. Suddenly he had the feeling that someone else was in the house with him – so much so that he called out, “Hello! Anybody there!” At that instant the doorbell rang. Colonel Davis walked towards the front door. But he never made it. Someone jumped him from behind and smashed him on the head with one of the silver candlestick holders on the dining room table. Davis turned slightly before he got hit, and he had the impression that he might have glimpsed a figure draped in black behind him. But now he doesn’t know for sure. He is now of the opinion that this “black figure” vision was just his imagination playing tricks on him.
‘Colonel Davis awoke in a pool of his own blood. On the front porch he found a basket of food and a note indicating that this was a care basket from friends. They had stopped by because they knew Davis would be a bachelor for a while, and they wanted to start him off with a good meal. I have interviewed the friends, a couple who also work at the embassy. They said they saw nothing unusual at Tetchwick Manor. They noticed the colonel’s car in the driveway but assumed, after they had rung several times, that he must be out for an evening walk through the fields. They had an engagement elsewhere, so they put the basket of food on the porch and left.’
‘Was anything stolen?’ asked Holmes.
‘A few things only. Two Persian miniatures were taken from the dining room wall and a few netsuke carvings were taken from a nearby display shelf. Davis had acquired the netsuke while stationed in Japan and he was very upset that they had been taken. Also, the book was gone.’
‘What were his duties in Iraq?’
‘I did not inquire into his exact duties,’ said Lestrade.
‘It is possible they might be of some relevance,’ said Holmes.
‘We will need to find that out,’ said Lestr
ade.
‘Where is Colonel Davis now?’ asked Holmes.
‘St George’s Hospital, by the Wellington Arch.’
‘Keep him there,’ said Holmes.
‘You think he is in danger?’
Holmes’s face looked grave. ‘A great deal of danger, Lestrade. I should like to talk to him, if he is able, and then visit his house.’
‘Apparently he’ll be in the hospital for another day or so,’ said Lestrade. ‘You are welcome to talk to him. He is a strange man. I cannot say I like him. He likes to control people. My duty is to protect him, but he makes this as difficult as he possibly can. He will not accept any suggestions I offer to him. I think you may expect the same reception. Good luck.’
‘By the way,’ I said, glancing at my watch. ‘Time is fleeting, Holmes. You have an appointment with your doctor at St Bart’s in an hour.’
TEN
Holmes Remembers the Horses
At St Bart’s Hospital they took lab samples from Sherlock Holmes, measured all his vital signs, gave him a stress test. He passed his exam with flying colours. As we walked through the halls of St Bart’s it was obvious that a number of people were in on the secret of Coombes’s true identity. Doctors and nurses smiled, winked, looked at him furtively. Holmes had told me that the reason he had wanted his identity kept secret was that he did not want to become a celebrity, or a sideshow, before he was fully prepared. He wanted to adapt himself, and to make himself fully ready to cope with this new world. He felt it was inevitable that he must someday admit to the world that he was Sherlock Holmes, but before that day arrived he wanted to prepare himself fully. The people who had brought him back to life were honouring his wish for secrecy – for the time being. Yet, clearly, many of them knew. One young nurse came up to him and said, ‘Sir, could you sign your name in my book?’ And she presented him a first edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles. ‘My great grandfather was Sir Henry Baskerville,’ she said.