Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

by George Mann

  “The question is—” said Holmes, at last, as Mrs Hudson bustled into the room with a tray and interrupted him before he could say what the question was. “I didn’t ask for tea, Mrs Hudson,” he snapped a little too sharply to our housekeeper

  “You don’t ask me to do a great number of things, Mr Holmes, but if I didn’t do them this room would be an even bigger mess than it is now.”

  Holmes said nothing, but the smile that played across his lips was forced. It was true that she did a great deal that Holmes took for granted, rarely with any show of thanks, and I knew that it would be hard to find anyone as tolerant of his behaviour as she was. She clattered the teacups as she placed the tray down and left the room without another word.

  “The question is,” Holmes repeated, as if there had been no interruption, “Are you Yousef or Iqbal?”

  “Then you remember me?” the young man said, placing his hat on the arm of the chair.

  “I remember two small boys who constantly demanded their father’s attention. You have changed a great deal.”

  “I was only seven or eight years old when I saw you last. I can’t say that I remember you, but my father has spoken of you many times.”

  “Six. You were only six.”

  “Ah, then my brother Yousef was correct.”

  I looked to Holmes in the hope that he would shed some light on the exchange, but he avoided my gaze.

  “And your father is gravely ill.”

  “How did you know?” The young man could not contain his surprise, but I knew that Holmes would explain his reasoning.

  “Had your father been well he would have come to see me himself. If he were dead then the signs of mourning would have hung heavy on you. There is enough concern for you to call for my assistance, so please tell me how I can help.”

  “As you have rightly guessed, Mr Holmes,” the man began, though he looked startled at Holmes’ snort at his choice of words, “my father is severely ill and needs you. He has refused the assistance of any doctor and only speaks your name. He raves much of the time, claiming that the djinn has returned and that only you can help. It is nonsense, I know, and I fear that he is losing a grip on his mind, Mr Holmes, but the least I can do for him is to try and follow his wishes. Please forgive me.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” said Holmes. “Do you still have the shop at the same address in Cheapside?”

  “We have been there since we arrived in England, Mr Holmes. My father is a skilled man but he has never earned enough to secure us better premises. I have other errands to run in the city and will not return home until later today, but my brother is with him and will be expecting you if you decide to call.”

  “Of course we will, my dear boy. I hope you don’t mind if I bring Dr Watson along with me?”

  “Not at all. I am sure that my father will welcome any friend of yours, Mr Holmes.”

  The man left despite my offer of tea and, rather than risk the wrath of Mrs Hudson, I poured Holmes and myself a cup, but he was in no mood for refreshment. “There is not a moment to lose, Watson. A man’s life might be at stake.”

  “As long as you promise to fill me in on the way,” I said, taking a single swallow of the still-warm liquid.

  “Of course, Watson, but remember when you once asked me about the slipper I keep my tobacco in?”

  “Of course. You said that I asked the wrong question.”

  “Hah! And have you worked out what the question should have been?”

  I shook my head and waited for him to enlighten me.

  “The question you should have asked was not who gave it to me, but what became of the other slipper.” He then fell silent once more until we were in a cab and heading towards Cheapside.

  “Did you recognise him?” I asked.

  “On the contrary,” Holmes said, without turning his gaze from the outside world that passed by the window. “I had no idea who he was until a few moments after he came into the room, and even then I did not know which of the brothers he was.”

  “Well it sounds as if it is a long time since you saw him.”

  “Half a lifetime ago, Watson, I saved Iqbal’s father’s life and he gave me a gift. A pair of Persian slippers he had made with his own hands.”

  I waited for a moment, desperately wanting to know more but reluctant to force the issue. My friend was silent, though, and I knew that I would have to tease the information out of him. “So what became of the other slipper?” I asked eventually.

  Holmes turned towards me and I knew he had been waiting for me to ask the question, even though he had already given it to me. “I gave it back to him and told him that if he ever needed my help, all he would need to do was send it to me and no matter where I was, no matter what I was doing, I would drop everything and go to his assistance. He did not realise it but by asking for my help he had saved me from the Black Dog that haunts me. It may have been a little fanciful, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do.”

  “Then why didn’t the young man bring it with him?”

  “Oh but he did, Watson. It was in his pocket. Did you not see the bulge in his coat? When you have held an object as often as I have held that slipper you would be able to identify its brother in the dark. His expression changed when he saw my own hanging from the mantelpiece, and that more than anything convinced me of who he was.”

  “Then you had no idea...”

  “I knew when I shook his hand that he was a leatherworker. The calluses on his hands are different, he stoops at the shoulders from bending over his work and there was the slight odour of the tannery about him. His features marked him out as a man from the Levant but his accent belonged to someone who had been raised in this country — though he spends much of his time with someone who was not. When he glanced at the slipper and I saw the bulge in his pocket I knew that it had to be one of the boys now fully grown.”

  “But there were no clues as to which one it might be?” I tried to be flippant.

  “They are identical twins, Watson.”

  He said it in a matter-of-fact way, but I knew that he was pointing out the folly of my attempt to find any shortcomings in his reasoning.

  * * *

  The shop was set into a terrace of houses, with the window of the front room given over to a display of gloves and belts that the residents of that district were never likely to be able to afford — and yet it was clear that the business had been there for many years. A bell rang as Holmes pushed the door open and led the way inside. Three benches were pressed close together in one small room, and while there was work in differing states of completion, there was no one being industrious at that moment.

  “I’ll be there in a moment,” a voice called from up a narrow flight of stairs. Holmes said nothing, but looked around the room as if reminding himself of how things had once been, looking for changes or things that had remained the same. Eventually the sound of heavy-soled shoes came clattering down the staircase. The man that emerged into the room was as alike the one who visited Baker Street as two peas in a pod. It was hard to believe that it was not the same man.

  “Yousef,” Holmes said as the man looked at us.

  “That’s right.” It took him a moment to realise who my friend was, but then he shook his hand warmly.

  “My friend, Dr Watson.”

  The man nodded in acknowledgement and we exchanged the briefest of handshakes. I tried to identify the calluses that Holmes had referred to, but to me they felt the same as any other working man. “My father won’t see a doctor, I am afraid.”

  “But he will see me, or you would not have sent for me.”

  “Of course, Mr Holmes. Perhaps you can get him to open the door. I’ve just been up to see if he wants anything but found his door locked.”

  “Does he usually lock his door?”

  “He has started to recently. He seems to be afraid of something, but we cannot understand what.”

  “Then take me to him, and Dr Watson will follow.
We need not alarm him any more than absolutely necessary.”

  He led the way up the narrow staircase to the upper floor. What little light there was came from a window on the landing, but even that was enough to reveal the peeling wallpaper and the air of neglect. This was a place where almost every waking moment was devoted to working and eating with little time for anything else. There had been no mention of a wife or mother and I drew the conclusion that there had been no feminine presence in the house for a very long time. This was the home of a man who had raised two sons on his own.

  We turned left at the top of the stairs and I held back as Yousef tapped on the bedroom door. “Father? You have a visitor. Mr Holmes has come to see you.”

  There was no response.

  “Is there another key?” Holmes asked, trying the door handle himself to no avail. The young man shook his head and Holmes eased him to one side. He tested the strength of the door with a push of his shoulder and then, despite the young man’s protestation, he gave a single hard kick at the lock. To the sound of splintering wood the door gave up all resistance and swung inwards.

  “Watson, quickly,” Holmes said, and stood to one side so that I could see the figure of a frail old man dressed only in a nightshirt, lying half in and half out of the bed.

  I pushed past Yousef to get to his father, but even before I reached him and despite the meagre light that crept through the thin curtains, I could see that we were too late. I had seen the lightness of skin around the face, the tightening of muscles to create the rictus grin on his mouth; it left a man with the look of abject terror that would be enough to haunt anyone’s nightmares. I searched for a pulse even though I needed no confirmation that the poor man’s soul was no longer in this world.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. It was the platitude that sprung to the lips far too easily. “It was probably his heart.”

  Holmes stood over the corpse, but his eyes were not focused on it; they darted across the scene, looking for something.

  “If there is nothing you can do for him then perhaps it is my turn.” Holmes ushered me out of the room and I urged Yousef to follow. “He wanted my help and I will try to give it.”

  Yousef reluctantly led the way back down the stairs and into a tiny kitchen at the rear of the house. He started to busy himself with making tea, but it was only so that he had something to do. We talked about nothing in particular while we waited for Holmes. There were questions I wanted to ask but I did not want my friend to have to repeat them when he had finished looking for whatever had caught his attention. We did not have to wait long for the sound of him returning down the stairs.

  “Had your father been ill for long?” Holmes asked as he joined us.

  “A few weeks,” the young man replied. “His health deteriorated gradually at first, but he became worse in the last few days.”

  “Your brother said that he had been talking about a djinn.”

  “He talked about a lot of things, but he did say that his sleep was often broken by nightmares.”

  “Has you father had any visitors recently, people you did not know?”

  “There are always tradesmen calling to see us.”

  “But have any of them gone upstairs? To your father’s bedroom?”

  “Of course not, why would they?”

  “Why indeed,” said Holmes.

  “Iqbal said that he was angry after a man came to the shop, but that was nothing new. The man was Greek and that was cause enough for my father to lose his temper.”

  Enmity between Turks and Greeks came as no surprise to me and immediately put me on my guard. But why would Holmes want to know if someone had been up to the old man’s room?

  “What did the Greek want?”

  “I wasn’t here, but Iqbal said he was selling something from door to door. Candles, I think.”

  “Candles?”

  “Or matches. Something like that.”

  “Did your father buy anything from him?”

  “Of course not. He did well to stay inside the shop as long as he did.”

  “Watson, perhaps you could help Yousef with the practicalities and I will see you on your return to Baker Street.”

  As he was about to leave, Iqbal returned, but Holmes slipped away without another word, leaving me to witness the exchange of bad news between one brother and the other.

  * * *

  I entered our rooms in Baker Street to the odour of chemicals and tobacco smoke. “Ah, Watson, sorry I had to leave you to deal with the practicalities but there was a matter that needed my attention.”

  “More important than offering comfort to the sons of an old friend?”

  He ignored the comment and examined a candle he had secured with molten wax to one of Mrs Hudson’s best saucers, then checked his pocket watch. As the flame flickered he crossed to the windows and drew the curtains closed in a single fluid motion.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “Just a moment,” Holmes said, delighting in the spectacle he was about to unleash. The flame changed colour for an instant and an explosion of hues filled the room. I stepped back in surprise, almost stumbling into one of the chairs, as the colour bloomed and the shape changed before disappearing as quickly as it had burst into life. Holmes wet his finger and thumb and snuffed out the remaining glow of the wick with the slightest of hisses.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing that would be difficult to obtain and easy enough to work into a candle, so that the time of release could be controlled. Were you not a little surprised that the bedroom curtains were closed during the day and a candle was burning in the night stick?”

  “I have to confess that I did not notice.”

  “Of course you didn’t, Watson, you were concentrating on your patient. This was the djinn that my old friend saw.”

  “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,” I said, inspecting the candle a little closer, hoping that it was not about to explode into life again. Holmes said nothing and I could see that I had stumbled upon one of the gaps in his knowledge, but he was unwilling to acknowledge it.

  “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” I said. “It’s Virgil, from The Aeneid.”

  “I know, Watson. My grasp of the classics may be limited but even I am familiar with that particular piece of Latin. I just could not understand why you chose to quote it.”

  “I had assumed that the candles came from the Greek salesman who visited the shop.”

  “Of course you did. And that was what we were meant to think, my friend.”

  “You already have the solution to this puzzle?” I was astounded, as I so often was.

  “Almost, though I have one question left that needs to be answered.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Why?”

  “But who? Isn’t that more important?”

  “Not at all, Watson. I’ve known the answer to that particular question for some time.”

  * * *

  By the time we returned to the tiny shop the body of the old man had been dressed and laid out on the bed ready for the undertaker. I have seen enough death in my time to be able to separate the idea of the person that had lived and died and the body that is left behind, but that did not stop it feeling strange when Holmes insisted on reexamining the room as if the body was not there.

  He crouched at the door, brushing aside some of the splinters caused when he had kicked it open, and ran a finger across the brass escutcheon that protected and defined the keyhole. He perched on the edge of the bed and the body shifted slightly as he put his weight on the mattress. One of the twins gave a sudden intake of breath, though I was not sure which one. Holmes stared at a patch of wallpaper and tilted his head to one side to mimic the view the man might have had while lying in his bed.

  The two brothers stood in the doorway as Holmes worked, though neither of them seemed comfortable with what they were seeing. At length Holmes appeared to discover what he was looking for and rose from the bed. He reached into his p
ocket and produced a key which he handed to me.

  “I took the liberty of picking this up earlier. This is the key that was on the inside of the lock, but remember how easily it fell to the ground when we forced the door open? Was that likely to happen if it had only recently been turned to lock the door? Wouldn’t it have been left in place ready to unlock the door again? Try it.”

  I slipped the key into the lock and tried to turn it, but the mechanism did not budge. “It won’t work.”

  “Of course not. It’s the wrong key,” Holmes said.

  “But it was in the door.”

  “Naturally. It was there to make us think that the door had been locked from the inside. A thread had been looped around this to pull it into the hole from the outside after the door had been locked.”

  “Is that even possible?” I asked, staring at the key which I had withdrawn from the lock.

  “Evidently. There are even some fragments of the thread caught in the lock if you look carefully enough.”

  “Then there is no doubt that it is murder?”

  “Of course not. And it was obvious from the start who it was and why I was called upon on the very day the crime was committed.”

  I heard the bell ring to signal the opening of the shop door, followed by the sound of several pairs of feet entering.

  “I’ll go,” said Iqbal.

  “There really is no need,” said Holmes. “I told Inspector Lestrade to come straight up.”

  I said nothing. Holmes would never alert the police unless he was sure that the criminal could be delivered directly into their custody or needed the additional manpower his men could supply.

  “Inspector?” asked Yousef “What is this all about?”

  “I’m afraid that your father was murdered.”

  “Murdered? Who by?”

  “The Greek!” said Iqbal. “It had to be that damned Greek.”

  “There was no Greek salesman,” Holmes said. “That was just to set us off on the wrong track if I discovered that this was murder rather than death by natural causes.”

  “But Iqbal saw him. He said he had to throw him out.”