Apprehension flickered in the big cabby’s expression at the reference to his earlier activity, but at Holmes’s cordial invitation he relaxed somewhat and took the seat indicated. He fingered the brim of his hat nervously.
‘Albert Horn is my name, sir, and very pleased to meet you both, I’m sure,’ he ventured. ‘May I ask which of you was driving today?’
Holmes inclined his head in a humble bow.
Horn nodded enthusiastically. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but I guessed as much. You have that masterful air about you which says that you’re a born handler of horses. I’ve driven in this city many a year, and I never saw anyone put a cab through its paces like you did today. There was one man, though, years ago, who taught me the basics — a Russian gentleman —’
‘Ha!’ Holmes slapped his knee. ‘I might have known. Coincidences, Watson; life delivers them by the bushel. Now, Mr. Horn, there is a half-sovereign in it for you, on top of your regular fare for the journey here, if you will tell us where you dropped off your passenger this afternoon after we separated.’
As he spoke, he offered the cabby a cigar from his case. Horn took two, placed one inside his coat, and bit the end off the second. Apparently deciding that there was no way for him to get rid of the end gracefully, he took it out of his mouth with his fingers and deposited it inside a coat pocket. Then he lit the cigar from the match which I held out for him. For a few seconds he savoured the smoke. Then:
‘I’m sorry, sir, but that’s a question I cannot answer.’
‘Cannot — or will not?’ shot Holmes. His eyes glittered.
‘I would if I could, sir, believe me. Half-sovereigns these days are few and far between. But when I got to the address which he gave me and climbed down to collect my fare, he was gone!’
‘Gone, you say? How could he alight without your knowledge?’
‘It must have been sometime when I had slowed down for a crossing and had my eye on the traffic coming the other way. ‘It’s happened to me before, but not when my passenger was a toff, like this time. And after him promising me a sovereign if I lost the other cab. I don’t mind telling you that I was fair put out.’
‘What makes you think he was a toff? His dress?’
‘Well, clothes like them he was a-wearing plays their part right enough, but there was more to it than just that. A gentleman through and through he was, or so I thought till he left me holding the sack. A fine figure of a man; tall, poised, soft-spoke —’
‘Good heavens!’ I cried, looking up from my notes. ‘That hardly sounds like a description of Hyde.’
‘Rather like Jekyll, I should say,’ reflected Holmes, contemplating his cigar-end. He tossed it away. ‘You are certain of this description?’
‘I was as near him as I am to you.’ The cabby was indignant. ‘I should think that I’d know a gentlemen when I see one. He come out of that door like a blooming lord and hailed me with his stick. A driver can’t be too careful these days, so I took thorough measure of him before I let him in. I won’t carry no ruffians.’
‘No-one is doubting your word,’ Holmes assured him. ‘But it is curious.’ He began to pace, unconsciously reaching inside his dressing-gown pocket for his meditative pipe. It was charged and lit before he spoke again. ‘Where did he ask you to take him?’
‘Wigmore and Harley.’
Holmes swung round.
‘That’s Lanyon’s address!’ I exclaimed.
‘Yet you went past the address,’ prodded the detective.
Horn nodded. ‘We was just round the corner from it when my passenger rapped on the roof with his stick and told me to circle round to where I’d picked him up.’
‘Did you not think that a strange request?’
‘Mr. Holmes, I’ve driven cabs a long time, and I’ve taken on all sorts of passengers. Very little surprises me any more.’
‘Tell me, did you notice anything odd about your passenger’s voice upon this occasion?’
Horn’s brow puckered. ‘Yes, it seemed greatly changed.’
‘Changed how?’
‘It sounded much harsher. More like a grating whisper. I remember thinking that perhaps he had suffered some kind of attack and had changed his mind about visiting because of it.’
‘Hardly likely. Why, then, would he turn his back upon the doctors’ quarter, where medical help was everywhere? But all this is beside the point. Pray continue.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s all there is to tell. Not long afterwards he rapped again and made me that offer of a sovereign if I got rid of the cab what was following us. You saw the rest.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Horn. Here is the half-sovereign which I promised, plus a little more which should take care of your fare. You have been a great help.’
When the cabby had departed, thanking him, Holmes turned to me. ‘Well, Watson? What do you make of that?’
‘I am at a loss to explain it,’ said I.
‘Come, come; you must have formulated some theory which will cover the facts as we know them.’
‘I have nothing to offer, other than the obvious conclusion that Jekyll and Hyde switched places somewhere along the journey.’
‘The probability lies in that direction, to be sure. The snow was falling heavily, and behind its veil such an exchange was eminently possible without my witnessing it. But why? Tell me that.’
‘I cannot guess.’
‘Of course you cannot, and neither can I, nor will I try. Imagination becomes useless when it is compelled to cross into the realm of fantasy. We simply do not have enough facts. Let us attack it from a different angle. What did you learn during your conversation with Lanyon?’
I gave him a detailed account of the interview, including my conviction that the physician knew more than he was willing to divulge. He listened in moody silence, smoke drifting lazily upwards from the bowl of his pipe. When I had finished he went over and knocked its contents into the grate.
‘I think,’ said he, ‘that we are dining upon pheasant tonight. I smelt scorched feathers earlier and now a most delicious and familiar aroma is floating up from Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen.’
‘Is that all you have to say?’ I was irked by his irrelevance. ‘What has supper to do with solving this mystery?’
‘It has everything to do with it,’ said he smiling. ‘An engine cannot run without fuel. How is your memory these days, Watson? Good as ever, I trust?’
‘I trust. Why?’
‘We shall need it to find our way about tomorrow. I should not wish it voiced abroad that Sherlock Holmes became lost upon the grounds of your old alma mater, the University of Edinburgh. Perhaps a dash of clear British academic thinking will show us the way out of these very deep waters in which we seem to be floundering.’
Thirteen
ACADEMIA
The journey by rail from London to Edinburgh, apart from the invigorating experience (in my own case) of viewing scenery which I had not beheld in more than a dozen years, was a physically exhausting one, with the result that for two days after our arrival neither of us stirred from our room at the inn. Holmes put that time to use placing the finishing touches upon a monograph in which he catalogued some sixty-seven common deadly poisons, along with brief case histories recounting the various methods by which all of them had been applied to evil purpose by some of our fellow citizens. Not once during that period did he allude to the mission which had brought us there, other than to state, when I pressed him upon it, that further progress was out of the question until more data became available. Inspired by the literary atmosphere, I set to work once again arranging my notes concerning the Drebber case into that chronicle which was eventually to introduce the world-at-large to the remarkable talents of Sherlock Holmes, only to find that I was too pre-occupied with the current turn of events to do justice to that tangled skein, and at length I put away my materials and settled back to read what others had written. It was a grey January day when, rejuvenated at last, we stepped onto the grounds of one
of the finest institutions of higher learning which the Western world has to offer.
‘Our wisest course is to find someone who knew Henry Jekyll when he was attending classes here,’ said Holmes as we made our way down a well-trammelled path through a maze of students hurrying to and fro, carrying armloads of books. ‘Failing that, we shall have to rely upon the University records. How about it, Watson? Does anyone come to mind who answers that description?’
‘There is old Professor Armbruster,’ I responded after a moment’s concentration. ‘He was far from young when I left; the popular jest was that they built the University round him. My latest Medical Directory lists him still among the living, but at his age that is a status which is subject to change at any moment.’
‘That is easy enough to confirm.’ Holmes placed a hand upon the arm of a callow student who was in the act of striding round us. The student, his arms loaded down with several ponderous volumes, stopped and glared at him in irritation.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Holmes, ‘but where may we find Professor Armbruster?’
‘Old ‘brucie?’ The young man’s tone was a mixture of fondness and irreverence. ‘Try the medical library. Where else would he be? He practically lives there.’ He inclined his head towards a huge, grey building some fifty paces to our left, its tall windows framed with branches of ivy now withered to reveal the lichen-spotted stone beneath.
‘Thank you. I trust that we have not made you late for your examination in anatomy.’
‘I’ve some time yet.’ He walked away a few steps, stopped suddenly, and turned an expression of comical bewilderment upon the detective. By that time, however, Holmes was already halfway down the path which led to the medical library. I shrugged and turned to follow, leaving the young man standing there in absolute mystification.
‘Would you care to explain how you knew that he was going to an examination in anatomy?’ I asked my companion as I feel into step beside him.
‘When one overhears a student muttering such terms as “ectoderm,” “neural tube,” “notochord,” and “mesenchyme” beneath his breath in quick succession as he hurries past, his destination is hardly a mystery. Quiet now, Watson, for University libraries are sacrosanct.’
We passed through an enormous pair of double doors and down a shallow corridor into a vast repository whose walls were solid with books from the dark oaken floor to the sills of the lofty windows near the ceiling. Through these, pale sunlight filtered downwards to illuminate the dusty spines of countless volumes and the hunched forms of students seated round broad library tables, lost in study. The sheer scale of the chamber, however, dwarfed them into insignificance and created a curious atmosphere of desertion. At the far end an emaciated old man was perched atop a tall step-ladder, bent over a volume spread open upon his bony knees. His head, which appeared too large and heavy for his withered old neck to support, was crowned with snatches of fierce white hair sticking out all over in stiff bristles. Thick-lensed pince-nez framed in plain gold straddled his beak of a nose. He was wearing a seedy old frock-coat which, once black, had long since faded to an uneven grey. I am prepared to swear that it was the very same one which he had worn throughout my tenure as a student. As a matter of fact, he appeared not to have changed at all since those halcyon days, aside from his shoulders, which seemed even more rounded by study than I remembered them. I was overcome with nostalgia at the sight of this rock who had refused to surrender its position before the torrent of modern history which gurgled round it.
‘Professor Armbruster?’ Holmes addressed as we approached, our footsteps echoing among the rafters twenty feet above our heads.
‘Go away! Can’t you see that I’m busy?’ He spoke without removing his eyes from his book. His voice was a cross between a raven’s croak and the squeal of a rusted hinge.
‘As indeed are we,’ responded the detective. ‘We should like a word with you. It will take but a few minutes and will cost you nothing.’
‘It will cost me a few minutes, and I have few enough as it is. Go away!’
‘Professor —’ said I.
‘Can you not hear? Are you deaf as well as stupid?’ He glanced down at us for the first time. His eyes of faded grey flashed behind the bottle-glass lenses of his spectacles.
‘I am John Watson,’ I continued. ‘I studied surgery under you for four years. Do you not remember me?’
He adjusted his pince-nez and peered at me. After a moment: ‘Are you the young man who ran my overcoat up the flagpole in ‘73?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘Too bad. That laddie showed promise of becoming a fine surgeon. Which one were you?’
‘I was in your class from ‘70 to ‘74. I worked in the laboratory nights to earn money for my education.’
‘If you were that serious about it, you should have known better than to run my overcoat up the flagpole. It cost me a small fortune to repair the lining.’
I reiterated my innocence.
‘Professor,’ Holmes broke in, ‘I should like to question you about Henry Jekyll, a former student.’
At the mention of the name the old man’s eyes glittered in recognition. ‘Jekyll! A brilliant young man!’ he closed the book which he had been reading. ‘What is it that you wish to know?’
Holmes glanced about at the students in the room, some of whom had looked up from their studies at the sound of voices and appeared to be listening out of sheer boredom. He lowered his voice. ‘Is there some place where we may converse in private?’
‘Oh, very well, if you insist upon disturbing me.’ The professor shoved the book back into its place upon the shelf with a disgusted gesture and descended the ladder. I stepped forward to help him down the last few steps, but he slapped aside my hands. ‘I’m not an invalid, blast it! And stay away from that overcoat! I haven’t forgot what you did with it the last time.’ Before I could hand it to him, he snatched up the shabby black garment which had been draped over the bottom step and thrust his bony arms into the threadbare sleeves.
Half-loping, half-scuttling in the manner of an excited crab, the old man led us out of the building and across a snow-covered courtyard into the neighbouring structure. There we followed him up a narrow, creaking staircase to the first floor and pattered down an ancient corridor, stopping at last before a door which was panelled in handsome old walnut. At this point I expected him to produce a key but was dumb-founded when instead he kicked twice at the bottom right hand corner of the barricade and then smacked the panel before him with the flat of his hand. The door sprang open as if by magic.
There was a pause whilst he struck a match and ignited a gas fixture just inside the door, and then he stepped aside for us to enter.
After four years’ residence with Sherlock Holmes, whose aversion to casting away anything which might prove the least bit useful to him had led to the inevitable result, I had thought that no-one lived amidst worse clutter than we, but Professor Armbruster’s study (for such I immediately judged it to be) was far and away the victor in that dubious contest. As might have been expected, every available bit of wall space in the tiny room was devoted to the storage of books, some upright, others jammed in horizontally, the whole packed so tightly that removing one would not have been possible without bringing about a veritable avalanche. But this haphazard system did not confine itself to the shelves. Documents of every description — some bound, some rolled, still others piled atop one another and beginning to curl at the edges — lay about the floor and covered every stick of furniture in the room, including a battered old roll-top desk behind which stood an ancient, high-backed chair whose seat was rounded over with a number of exquisitely rendered pen-and-ink drawings of the human body in various stages of dissection. The odour of must pervaded everything, and it was impossible to take a step in any direction within the room without hearing the crackle of parchment beneath one’s foot.
It was the work of a few seconds for the professor to clear off a pair of straight woode
n chairs for Holmes and me, as well as his own seat at the desk, and as he filled a squat clay pipe with tobacco from a jar which he kept in the deep bottom drawer he frowned and said: ‘Let’s begin with who you are and why you want to know about Henry Jekyll’s career at this University.’
‘My name is Sherlock Holmes,’ said my companion, who had taken the seat beside mine and was following Professor Armbruster’s example with his own charred briar and pouch. ‘I have been engaged as a consulting detective to aid Scotland Yard’s investigation into the violent death last year of Sir Danvers Carew in London.’
Two matches flared simultaneously. The professor puffed energetically until his tobacco caught fire, then shook out the match and deposited it, still glowing, atop the papers on his desk. I winced, wondering if he was always that careless with fire.
‘And who,’ said he, ‘was Sir Danvers Carew?’
Holmes stared until his own flaming vesta burnt down to his fingers. He extinguished it hastily and ignited another. This one performed its duty; he disposed of it somewhat more carefully than was the wont of our host, and drew on his pipe.
‘You do not follow the newspapers?’
‘Another London murder can hardly be expected to raise eyebrows in my circle,’ responded the other. I noticed that his Scottish burr, previously faint, had sharpened, as if to emphasise his lack of interest in things English. ‘There are so many of them.’
‘No matter. I will begin by stating that Jekyll is not implicated directly but that he is deeply involved. Whatever you can tell us about his background may assist us in bringing a murderer to justice.’
‘You mean that if you are able to find him, if he does not elude capture, and if the courts convict him,’ said our host acidly. ‘I know your English system of justice very well, you see. Well, ask away, and I shall decide whether your questions deserve answers.’
‘What sort of student was Jekyll?’
‘The brightest whom ever I have taught. Everything about him indicated a brilliant future in scientific research.’
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Dr Jekyll & Mr Holmes Page 13