The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

by edited by John Joseph Adams

  "The Folk," Robert said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Sir Arthur. "The ones who lived in this land before us."

  "The lights, man!" Holmes said impatiently.

  "At first I saw only a glow against the fog. Then—a ring of lights, not like candles, flickering, but steady like the gaslights of the city. All different colours. Very beautiful."

  "Foxfire," Holmes said.

  "No, sir. Foxfire, you see it in the marsh. Not the field. It's a soft light, not a bright one. These lights, they were bright. The circle spun, and I thought—"

  He hesitated.

  "Go on, man!"

  "You'll think I'm mad."

  "If I do, I shall keep it to myself."

  Robert hesitated. "I thought I saw . . . a huge solid object, floating in the sky like a boat in the water."

  "A flying steamship?" I said.

  "An aeroplane," said Sir Arthur. "Though I would have thought we'd hear of a pilot in the area."

  "More like a coracle," Robert said. "Round, and solid."

  "Did you hear its motor?" Holmes asked. "A droning, perhaps, or a sound like the autocar?"

  "Only the music," said Robert.

  "I've never known an apparition to make a sound like a motorcar," Sir Arthur said.

  "What happened then?" said Holmes. "Where did it go, what did it do?"

  "It rose, and I saw above it the stars, and Mars bright and red in the midst of them." Robert hesitated, considered, continued. "Then the lights brightened even more, and it vanished in a burst of flame. I felt the fire, smelled the brimstone—At first I thought I was blinded!"

  "And then?" Holmes said.

  "My sight returned, and the fog closed around me."

  "What have you left out?" Holmes asked sternly. "What happened afterwards?"

  Robert hesitated, reluctance and distress in every line of his expression.

  "The truth, man," Holmes said.

  "Not afterwards. Before. Before the coracle disappeared. I thought I saw . . . a flash of light, another flash."

  "From the coracle?"

  "From the sky. Like a signal! White light, white, not red, from . . . from Mars!" He drew in a deep breath. "Then the coracle replied, and vanished."

  I managed to repress my exclamation of surprise and wonder. Holmes arched one eyebrow thoughtfully. Sir Arthur stroked his mustache.

  "Thank you for your help, Robert," Sir Arthur said as if Robert had said nothing out of the ordinary. "And your good observation."

  "Sir Arthur," Robert said, "may I have your permission to salvage what I can from the field? The grain can't be threshed, but I could at least cut the stalks for hay."

  "By no means!" Sir Arthur roared in alarm.

  Robert stepped back, surprised and frightened.

  "No, no," Sir Arthur said, calming himself with visible effort.

  "Sir—!"

  I was astonished by the tone of protest in which Robert addressed the landowner.

  "It's imperative that no one enter the field!" Sir Arthur said. "The pattern mustn't be disturbed till we understand its meaning."

  "Very well, Sir Arthur," Robert said reluctantly.

  "And set little Robbie and his brothers to keeping the sightseers out of the patterns. They may walk around the edge, but under no circumstances may they proceed inside."

  "But, Sir Arthur, this field, every year, has paid your rent. This field keeps the roof over my family's head! Sir Arthur, the crop prices have been low going on two years—"

  I did not blame him for his distress, and he was fortunate that Sir Arthur is a humane and decent gentleman.

  "You'll not worry about the rent," Sir Arthur said. "I relieve you of the obligation for this year."

  On Robert's open face, gratitude and obligation warred.

  "I cannot accept that offer, Sir Arthur," he said, "generous though it is, and grateful though I am to you for making it. You and I, we have an agreement. I cannot take charity."

  Sir Arthur frowned, that his tenant would not accept such a simple solution to the difficulty.

  "We'll discuss this another time," Sir Arthur said. "For the moment, keep the sightseers out of the field." His tone brooked no disagreement.

  Robert touched the bill of his ragged cap in acquiescence. We returned to Sir Arthur's mansion, where his gracious wife Jean, Lady Conan Doyle, presided over a fine, if long-delayed, breakfast. After our excursion, I was famished, but Holmes merely picked at his food. This meant the mystery aroused him. As long as it kept his interest, he would hold himself free of the embrace of cocaine.

  For the rest of the day, we accompanied Sir Arthur to other fields where theorems had mysteriously appeared over the past few weeks. They were all, according to Holmes, sadly trampled.

  We spoke to tenants who had also seen lights in the sky, but the apparitions frightened the observers; each gave a different description, none as coherent as Robert's. I could not imagine what they had actually seen.

  My mind kept returning to Robert's description. Cogent though it had been, something about it nagged at my memory. I put my unease own to the mystery of the phenomenon.

  And to my wonder. Holmes's skepticism notwithstanding, it would be quite marvelous if we were visited by beings from another world, whether physical or spiritual. Naturally one would prefer friendly beings like those Sir Arthur described, over the invading forces of Mr Wells's scientific romances.

  Holmes dutifully explored each damaged field, and listened to the descriptions of flashing lights in the sky. But as he was presented with nothing but old and damaged evidence, his inspections became more and more desultory as the afternoon wore on, his attention more and more distracted and impatient. He also grew more and more irritated at Sir Arthur's ruminations on spiritualism, and nothing I could do or say could divert the conversation. Like any true believer, Sir Arthur was relentless in his proselytizing.

  Toward the end of the afternoon, as I began to hope for tea, we rested beneath an ancient oak near a patterned field.

  "Look," Sir Arthur said, "at how the grain has been flattened without breaking. The stalks in the pattern are as green as the undisturbed growth. Don't you think it odd?"

  "Quite odd," I agreed.

  "Not odd at all," Holmes said.

  He leapt from the carriage, snatched a handful of the crop from the edge of the field, and returned with a clump of unbroken stems still sprouting from their original earth. He held the roots in one hand and smashed the other against the stems, bending them at a right angle to their original position. Clods of dirt flew from his hand in reaction to the force of his blow.

  But the stems did not break.

  "Triticum aestivum at this stage of growth is exceedingly tough," Holmes said. "Exceedingly difficult to break."

  Holmes pulled out one stem by its roots and handed it to me, then another for Sir Arthur. I tried to break my stem, and indeed it took considerable force even to put a kink in the fibrous growth. Sir Arthur bent his stem, folding it repeatedly back and forth.

  "The field theorems would be more impressive," Holmes said, "if the crops were broken."

  "But, Mr Holmes," said Sir Arthur, "the forces we are dealing with are mighty. A stem I cannot break would be like a fragile dry twig, to them. Do you not think it amazing that they can temper themselves to gentleness?"

  Holmes stared at him in disbelief. "Sir Arthur! First you are impressed with a feat that appears to be difficult, then, when the action proves simple, you claim yourself impressed because it is simple! Your logic eludes me."

  In Holmes's powerful hands, several stalks ripped apart.

  We returned to Undershaw. We drank Earl Grey from delicate porcelain cups, surrounded by heavy, disagreeable silence. Lady Conan Doyle and I tried in vain to lighten the conversation. When Sir Arthur announced a seance to be held that very evening, Holmes's mood did not improve.

  A loud knock on the door, followed by shouting, broke the tension. Sir Arthur rose to attend to the commotion.
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  "One of your tenants to see you, Sir Arthur," the butler said.

  Robert had followed the butler from the front door; to my astonishment he crossed the threshold of the sitting room. Then he remembered his place and snatched his battered cap from his head.

  "There's been another field done!" he exclaimed. "Little Robbie just discovered it, coming home to get his brothers some bread and cheese!"

  Holmes leapt to his feet, his grey mood vanishing in an instant.

  Sir Arthur called for his autocar and we hurried off to see the new phenomenon.

  The automobile, newly repaired, motored smoothly until we turned down the final road to the new field theorem. Suddenly it died. Robert stepped down from the running board to crank it, but none of his efforts revived it.

  Sir Arthur revealed a knowledge of colourful oaths in several languages.

  "Bushman," Holmes muttered after a particularly exotic phrase.

  I reflected that Sir Arthur must have acquired this unusual facility during his service in the Boer War.

  We walked the last half-mile to the field. The afternoon's heat lingered even in the shade of the hedgerows. Birds chirped and rustled the branches.

  "Well, Robert," I said, "you'll have the chance to observe Mr Holmes in action, and he can hear your story in your own words instead of mine. Holmes, Robert is a great enthusiast for your adventures."

  "I am flattered," Holmes said, "though of course the credit goes entirely to you, Watson, and to your craft."

  We had no more opportunity to chat, for we reached the newly patterned field. Robert's children—including Little Robbie, who was considerably taller and larger than his father—had arrived before us, despite our use of the motorcar. They stood in order of descending height on the bottom rail of the fence, exclaiming over the pattern crushed into the field.

  Sir Arthur made as if to plunge into the very center of the new theorem, but Holmes clasped him by the shoulder.

  "Stay back!" Holmes cried. "Robert! To the lane! Keep away the spectators!"

  "Very well, Mr Holmes." Robert and his children tramped off down the path.

  I marveled at the efficiency of the "bush telegraph," to give everyone such quick notice of the new field theorem.

  Holmes plunged past Sir Arthur. But instead of forging into the field, he climbed the fence and balanced atop the highest rail to gaze across the waving grain. He traced with his eyes the valleys and gulches etched into the surface. Only after some minutes, and a complete circumnavigation of the field, did he venture into the field theorem itself.

  Sir Arthur observed Holmes's method.

  "You see, John?" Sir Arthur said. "Even your Mr Holmes acknowledges the power—the danger—present here."

  "Sir Arthur," I said in the mildest tone possible, "why should danger result, if the communication is from those who loved you, in another life?"

  "Why . . . " he said, momentarily awkward, "John, you'll understand after the seance tonight. The other side is . . . different."

  Robert ran down the path, panting.

  "I'm sorry, Mr Holmes, Sir Arthur," he said. "We kept them away as long as we could. Constable Brown ordered us to stand aside."

  "More devotion to duty than to sense," Sir Arthur muttered. He sighed. "I'm sure you did your best," said he to Robert.

  A group of curious people, led by Constable Brown and minimally constrained by Robert's children, approached between the hedgerows. Holmes was right: Someone, somehow, had alerted the public. Sightseers who had come to see the other field theorem now found themselves doubly fortunate.

  The constable entered the field just as Holmes left it. The sightseers crowded up to the fence to view the new theorem.

  Holmes rejoined Sir Arthur and myself.

  "I have seen what I needed," Holmes said. "It's of no matter to me if the tourists trample the fields."

  "But we must survey the theorem!" Sir Arthur said. "We still do not know its meaning!" He ordered Robert to do his best to prevent the sightseers from marring the designs.

  "If we depart now," Holmes said, "before the constable realizes he is baffled by the phenomenon, we will be spared interrogation."

  Dinner's being far preferable to interrogation, we took Holmes's advice. I noticed, to my amusement, that Robert's children had lined the spectators up. Some visitors even offered the boys tips, or perhaps entry fees. At least the family would not count its day an utter loss.

  A photographer lowered his heavy camera from his shoulder. He set it upon its tripod and disappeared beneath the black shadow-cloth to focus the lenses. He exposed a plate, setting off a great explosion of flash powder. Smoke billowed up, bitter and sulphurous.

  The journalists began to question Constable Brown, who puffed himself up with importance and replied to their questions. We hurried away, before the journalists should recognize Sir Arthur—or Holmes—and further delay us.

  "If the motor starts," Sir Arthur said, "we will be in time for the seance."

  For a moment I wondered if Holmes would turn volte-face, return to the field, and submit to questioning by Constable Brown and the journalists, in preference to submitting to the seance.

  To our surprise, the motorcar started without hesitation. As Sir Arthur drove down the lane, Holmes puzzled over something in his hands.

  "What is that, Holmes?"

  "Just a bit of wood, a stake," Holmes said, putting it in his pocket. "I found it in the field."

  As he was not inclined to discuss it further, we both fell silent. I wondered if we had to contend—besides the field theorems, the ghostly lights, and the seance—with wooden stakes and vampyres.

  "Tell me, Sir Arthur," Holmes said over the rhythmic cough of the motor, "are any of your spirits known to live on Mars?"

  "Mars?" Sir Arthur exclaimed. "Mars! I don't believe I've ever heard one mention it. But I don't believe I've ever heard one asked." He turned to Holmes, his eyes bright with anticipation. "We shall ask, this very evening! Why, that would explain Professor Schiaparelli's 'canali,' would it not?"

  "Perhaps," Holmes said. "Though I fail to understand what use channels would be—to dead people."

  Darkness gathered as we motored down the rough lane. Sir Arthur turned on the headlamps of the autocar, and the beams pierced the dimness, casting eerie shadows and picking out the twisted branches of trees. The wind in our face was cool and pleasant, if tinged somewhat by the scent of petrol.

  The engine of the autocar died, and with it the light from the headlamps.

  Sir Arthur uttered another of his exotic curses.

  "I suppose it will be of no use," he said, "but would one of you gentlemen kindly try the crank?"

  Holmes—knowing of my shoulder, shattered by a Jezail bullet in Afghanistan and never quite right since—leapt from the passenger seat and strode to the front of the automobile. He cranked it several times, to no avail. Without a word, he unstrapped the engine cover and opened it.

  "It's too dark, Mr Holmes," Sir Arthur said. "We'll have to walk home from here."

  "Perhaps not, Sir Arthur," said I. "Holmes's vision is acute." I climbed down, as well, to see if I could be of any assistance. I wished the automobile carried a kerosene lamp, though I suppose I would have had to hold it too far away from the engine, and the petrol tank, for it to be of much use.

  "Can you see the difficulty, Holmes?" I asked.

  His long fingers probed among the machined parts of the engine.

  "Difficulty, Watson?" he said. "There is no difficulty here. Only enterprising cleverness."

  The automobile rocked, and I assumed Sir Arthur was getting down to join us and try to help with the repairs.

  "Cleverness?" said I. "Surely you can't mean—Ah!" Light flickered across his hawkish face, and for a moment I thought he had repaired the engine and the headlamps. Then I thought that Sir Arthur must have an innovative automobile, in which the headlamps gained their power from an independent battery rather than from the workings of the motor.


  But then, I thought, they would surely not have failed at the same moment as the motor.

  And finally I realized that the headlamps were dark, the engine still, and the lights on Holmes's face emanated from a separate source entirely.

  I raised my eyes in the direction of the flickering lights. An eerie radiance lit the forest beyond the road. As I watched, it descended slowly beneath the tops of the trees.