Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

by Mike Resnick (ed)

  “Madonna, what a colossal ego!”

  “Indeed. Well, let’s not dillydally. We both still have a considerable night’s work ahead of us.”

  “But how will you relocate my coffin? It weights over one thousand pounds.”

  “I am something of a student of physics, Mr. Pascalini. I’m sure it shouldn’t be too difficult to fabricate a simple system of pulleys and levers which I shall use to lift it onto a hansom cab.”

  “It sounds somewhat complex to me.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t work, I’ll simply make the Baker

  Street Irregulars carry it for me. They’re not doing anything tonight”

  “Very well. Before I go …”

  “Yes?”

  “I was just curious about what you intended to ask the count.”

  “Oh, a small matter of professional curiosity.”

  “Yes?”

  “I was wondering if he might perhaps be the culprit in one of my earliest, unsolved cases: The Adventure of the Anemic Albino.”

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND SCARF by Mark Aronson

  Of the myriad cases investigated by Sherlock Holmes, one alone remains unrecorded in the vast collection of his commonplace books. Nor is it to be found among the notes I have thrust into the tin dispatch box kept far from prying eyes in the safety of a locked bank vault.

  It irritates Holmes that I must resort to those notes in order to bring to mind the details of the many investigations we pursued together. He regards it as a form of mental untidiness, and I cannot fault his opinion.

  Yet even without notes, this one case remains in all its particulars as clear today as it was so many years ago. And though no more than a dozen words have passed between Holmes and me regarding the singular events of the autumn of 1897, I know that his remembrance of this case, primus inter pares, remains equally vivid. With his penchant for understatement, Holmes refers to it as “The Case,” even as Irene Adler will ever be ‘The Woman.”

  But with the recent remarkable advances made by our men of science in so many fields, the English-speaking world may at last be prepared to hear in full the astonishing tale of the greatest adventure of Sherlock Holmes’s career.

  Nature had determined, in the autumn of 1897, to exert her primacy over the mere works of Man. For weeks, storms of unprecedented ferocity lashed the metropolis, interrupted only by brief periods of unrelenting gloom and chill. The rain, propelled by cruel winds, became bullets of water that found their way through the most elaborate foul weather clothing. The Channel was rendered impassable to all but the stoutest vessels. And the doorbell at 22IB Baker Street was heard with less and less frequency, finally ceasing altogether as even the criminal class was driven into its holes by the weather’s fury.

  Holmes dreads mental inactivity above all else. Lacking a client, he at one time would have been driven to the needle. With those days past, he buried himself within the thousand fields in which he has made himself expert. The stench of chemical experimentation pervaded every comer of the flat. And he undertook a critical examination of the authenticity of the extant motets of Ockeghem for the London Academy of Medieval Studies. Yet this activity was plainly a poor substitute for the passion of his chosen profession.

  For my part, I had taken to visiting Holmes almost daily, for the Jezail bullet that remains within me ached incessantly from the unending damp, and I found that my old chair afforded me more comfort than any other in London. So passed the season, Holmes straining at the leash and I suffering in silence.

  At last a morning dawned that was windless, warm, and fair. My pain had eased, and so, evidently, had my friend’s. For scarce had I reached the pavement at Baker Street than the door flung open and Holmes appeared at the top of the stairs, his eyes brighter than I had seen them in months, and a determined smile upon his face.

  “Watson,” he cried, “are you up for a tramp?” Without waiting for a response, Holmes turned immediately and strode toward Oxford Street. It was all I could do to keep up.

  We wandered all morning through streets scrubbed clean by the recent weather and everywhere dense with people. Holmes missed nothing, his eyes photographing every detail and remarking on every observed change as we made our circuitous way through Mayfair and Soho and along the Embankment to the City.

  Finding ourselves at last at the Liverpool Street Station, I declared myself all in and pleaded for a moment’s respite. Holmes, who had been, if anything, energized by our wanderings, continued a disquisition on the importance of observation.

  “Facts, facts, and more facts, Watson. They are the only means by which deductive knowledge is to be gained. Facts pour into all the senses, if you but train yourself to receive them. Knowledge cannot be hidden from an open mind. For example, Watson, what do you make of that fellow there?” A well-appointed man of middle years had stopped at the kiosk outside the station to purchase a copy of the Standard.

  “Open your mind and your senses, Watson, and tell me what you see.”

  I watched intently as the man paid for his newspaper and scanned the headlines. “Judging by his dress and choice of paper,” I began, “he is a man of means, yet not of leisure, perhaps a former tradesman who now owns his business. From the position of his watch-fob and the fact that he has used his left hand to pay for his purchase, I assume he is left-handed. There is nothing more to learn.”

  Holmes regarded me gravely. “Excellent, Watson. You are coming along. You have, of course, missed everything of interest, but still you have made progress. The man is a jeweler, left-handed as you observed, yet curiously he plays the violin right-handed. He is to be congratulated for resuming his studies at so advanced an age, for plainly he learned the instrument in his youth, put it aside in the interest of his profession, and has only recently taken it up again. There are sundry other facts to be gleaned, but that is the meat of it.” “Really, Holmes,” I protested, “this is too much!”

  “I merely repeat the knowledge my senses report to me, deducing what anyone might from the evidence at hand.” “But there is no proof of your claims. This man will shortly vanish into the crowd, and your assertions will never be put to the test.”

  Holmes abruptly turned and strode toward the man in question. The stage lost a memorable presence when Sherlock Holmes turned his powers exclusively to the detection of crime. For in the space of a few footsteps, his demeanor became that of a desperate man. Watch in hand, he addressed his subject with considerable agitation.

  “You will, I hope, pardon the intrusion of a stranger, but I have heard that the great Sarasate is to play a matinee today, and if I might check the notices in your Standard ... you see, I am an amateur violinist and cannot bear to miss even one of his concerts.”

  At hearing this, the man brightened. “A fellow player! My word! By all means, let us search.” A few moments sufficed to scan the concert notices, with no success.

  Feigning disappointment, Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps it is to be next week. Thank you for your forbearance. My card.”

  “And mine,” replied the sometime violinist, for so he had declared himself.

  “Elias Hatch,” said Holmes, reading from the card he held, “Fine Jewelry, Four Pindar Street.” He offered me a sidelong look of triumph.

  The eyes of Elias Hatch grew round as he discovered who his importunate inquisitor had been. “Sherlock Holmes! My word, my word! What an experience to relate! My word! If I were not at this instant late for an appointment—my word!—a coincidence to be treasured! Had I not resumed my studies after so many years, this meeting could not have—my word!”

  With a tip of his hat, Holmes walked back to me, leaving Mr. Hatch to hurry on to his appointment, the richer by one anecdote.

  “My word!” said Holmes, grinning hugely. He stopped short and raised his hands level with my face. “Do you not see a difference between the fingers of my left and right hands, Watson?”

  I looked closely. “The middle and ring fingers of your left hand
nearly touch, while the fingers of your right hand are evenly separated.”

  “Quite correct, Watson. The pattern produces a major scale on the violin; after countless hours of practice and performance, the fingers of one’s left hand remain permanently thus.” He wiggled his fingers.

  “Also observe, Watson, that the nails of my left hand are trimmed to the quick, and that the ends of my fingers display prominent calluses from frequent pressure against the hard strings. Our Mr. Hatch’s fingers had the hallmark pattern and the trimmed fingernails, but lacked the calluses. Hence my obvious deduction that he had only recently taken up the instrument again.”

  “Obvious to you, perhaps.”

  “Obvious to anyone who troubles to look! No less so than the traces of polishing rouge on his sleeve and the imprint of the loupe around his eye that declared him to be a jeweler.

  There is nothing that cannot be deduced in the presence of sufficient evidence.”

  I did not argue the point. My friend plainly reveled in the exercise of his intellectual powers, and I was pleased to see him lifted from the melancholy that had so recently held him in its grip.

  The Metropolitan Underground being immediately at hand, we rode to Baker Street and walked the few yards to 22IB. Inside, we discovered that Mrs. Hudson had prepared a joint for our midday meal. We had just set into it when we heard the clatter of a hansom coming to a halt in the street. We heard the doorbell ring, and heavy footsteps ascending the stairs.

  “Music, Watson,” exclaimed Holmes with anticipation, “music more sweet than that which Senor Sarasate conjures from his instrument.”

  The door opened and a large man, leaning heavily upon a cane, made his way to the nearest chair, sat carefully and gazed at Holmes with intensity.

  “If you are able, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, tell me who I am.” He said nothing more. He had a well-trimmed mustache and wore a suit of dark blue with a muted brown stripe, a high shirt collar and black boots of good quality. His cane was black with silver filigree and a patent tip. He removed neither his hat nor his gloves, but sat unmoving, staring at Holmes.

  Holmes threw aside a week’s accumulation of newspapers and sat on the sofa opposite our visitor, examining him minutely. Suddenly he rose, and striding to the mantel asked, “Do you mind a pipe?”

  The man in the chair said nothing, which Holmes took as assent, for he collected his clay pipe and Persian slipper of shag tobacco and made his way back to the sofa. Uncharacteristically, he stumbled slightly as he passed the chair and brushed lightly against our guest’s clothing.

  Five minutes passed, and ten. Through the clouds of smoke swirling about the room, Holmes continued to stare at the stranger. It was quite the most remarkable tableau I had ever witnessed.

  At length, Holmes broke his silence. “Watson,” he said, addressing me but continuing to face our visitor, “I hold one principle above all others, as you well know. That when one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. It is the cornerstone of my existence. Yet this moment tests it to the breaking point.

  “The untrained eye sees little out of the ordinary in this man. But he is really quite remarkable. His boots, Watson, are unblemished, despite the recent storms, save for a blot of our distinctive Baker Street mud. Yet they bear no signs of having ever been polished; they have never been worn before today. And their construction is quite unusual. Note the extreme width of the heel, hinting at—you will pardon me, sir—a gross deformity of both feet. Perhaps that is the reason for the cane. Yet the cane, too, is new. The tip is unworn, the head not dulled by the friction of a hand. To the hands, then, which are gloved. This is plainly a mannered gentleman, yet he fails to remove either hat or gloves. Why? Perhaps to shield us from another deformity, for it is plain as he moves his hands that while his gloves have five fingers, his hands do not, the middle finger of each being artificial. Artificial is an apt description as well of your complexion, sir. Your morning shave must have been remarkably close to yield no shadow by this hour. Impossibly close, I should judge. And you did not shave this afternoon, for the aroma of soap would still be prominent”

  “Alopecia areata,” I murmured.

  ‘Thank you, Watson. But topical baldness, which is the condition you name, leaves the skin discolored as with a rash, if I am correct.”

  I nodded.

  “Now to the suit itself. Notice the fullness of the cut of the trousers, Watson. See how they disguise, but cannot hide, the presence of a second leg joint above the knee, as well as the fact that the leg itself is not connected properly at the hip. And how the suit coat similarly disguises another joint above the elbow.”

  “Such a child could not grow into adulthood,” I exclaimed. “Such gross distortions of the human frame are inevitably accompanied by fatal internal aberrations.”

  “I concur, Watson. And when I contrived to touch the fabric of his suit, I found myself unable to identify the composition of its fibers. There is more, but ...”

  Holmes now addressed the stranger directly. “Sir, your exact provenance is information which I may obtain only from your lips. But I may say, with all the certainty which is ever mine to offer, that while the earth which I daily tread contains traces of my ancestors buried within, it contains none of yours.

  “Sir, you are not of the soil of this planet.”

  I reached on instinct for the revolver in the nearby cabinet, but Holmes stayed my hand. The stranger stared at Holmes for a moment, sighed and relaxed back into his chair.

  “I am relieved that your reputation has not been exaggerated. I might have approached you directly, but those dreadful scientific romances of your H. G. Wells and others ... besides which, if you had not formed your conclusion yourself, which is of course correct, would you have believed my claim?”

  “The point is moot, Mr....”

  “Call me Drimba.”

  “Mr. Drimba, then,” said Holmes, “the point is moot, for you are who you are and you are here. The question that now concerns me is why.”

  “Murder, Mr. Holmes, murder yesterday at the highest levels of diplomacy, murder that will compromise the negotiations of two great empires, yet has left no clue to the identity of the murderer.”

  “There are always clues, Mr. Drimba, if there be eyes to see them and a mind to recognize them.”

  “Murder many thousands of miles above the Earth. Are you willing to make the journey?”

  “The newspaper informs me that a man lost his life yesterday when struck by a cab in the Edgware Road. You have made your much longer journey in safety; surely Watson and I can do as well.”

  The three of us departed in Drimba’s hansom and in time found ourselves among the wharves and warehouses in the district east of London Bridge, not far from where we had learned the secret of Hugh Boone many years earlier. Stopping at a large, windowless building, Drimba dismissed the hansom and unlocked the door.

  “As you will see, this building has been made unusually secure,” said Drimba. Unlocking a steel cabinet built into the wall of the small chamber we had entered, Drimba manipulated several knobs and levers in an intricate pattern, causing a section of the nearest wall to move aside silently. The large room beyond, which plainly comprised the bulk of the building, held a large, metallic ovoid object.

  “This is how we will travel, gentlemen. Think of it as a captain’s gig. It is a ship whose ocean is the void of space.” As Drimba approached the spacecraft, a hatch opened, rather like those which secure the watertight compartments of steamships. Drimba entered and beckoned us to follow, I after Holmes.

  “Please secure yourselves with the harnesses you will find in those chairs,” said Drimba, gesturing toward two unornamented, pedestaled seats. “Time is of the essence.”

  No sooner had Holmes and I strapped ourselves in than we heard and felt a deep, rhythmic throbbing, as of distant, powerful engines. The instruments in the wide panel before Drimba lit up in a profusion of colors, and a large
screen displayed a picture of the ceiling of the great room which surrounded our craft. Before either of us could remark on the wonders around us, the display of the ceiling grew larger, as if the craft were moving toward it, though we could feel no sensation of motion.

  “We have left the ground. The harnesses are merely a precaution, for you will feel no motion on this journey,” remarked Drimba, as if answering our unspoken question. “Our ships generate artificial gravity, which serves to protect us from the severe forces of acceleration.”

  As we watched, a section of the roof slid open, and we shot up into the brilliant night sky.

  “The ship will now pilot itself,” said Drimba, turning his chair to face us. “It has ... let us call them mechanisms of disguise ... to hide it from casual watchers, and even from your telescopes. These ... mechanisms ... are not perfect, but they work well enough at night.

  “As you so brilliantly deduced, Mr. Holmes, this is not my normal appearance. Give me but a moment to shed this uncomfortable masquerade, and I will tell you all I know about the grave situation that has driven me to seek your aid.”

  Drimba rose and disappeared aft into a private cabin, closing the hatch behind him. By the view on the screen, we were hurtling upward from London at a tremendous rate of speed. In moments, the city’s sprawl was left behind, and in time the whole of the Earth lay before us, half dark, for we could easily see the creeping line of night. The sight of the beclouded blue and green orb left me speechless, but not so Holmes. He had taken out his watch and was dividing his attention between it and the spectacle on the screen. Even such a sight could not stop the clockwork of his brain.

  “By my calculations, Watson,” he observed, “if this moving picture is accurate, we are traveling something beyond forty thousand miles per hour.”

  “Oh, rather more, Mr. Holmes, and accelerating,” said Drimba, emerging from his cabin. “This is my natural appearance; I trust it is not so foreign as to be frightening.” Without the confinement of his human costume, Drimba was taller and less bulky than he had first appeared. His arms and legs were jointed rather like the legs of a grasshopper, with each hand possessing a thumb at either end and two fingers between them. He wore a dull golden tunic and blue trousers with a gold stripe; his ensemble and bearing struck me as military. His complexion was a curious shade of ocher, and his head was markedly wider and flatter above the ears than the human norm. No wonder he had kept his hat on.