Murder, My Dear Watson

  “Not only has Moriarty got access to the queen’s ear, and the power to persuade her to ask us to lunch, but he also stops the trains running on time,” Holmes remarked. “We shall be on the night train after all, Watson.”

  In view of this we agreed that we would not use the sleeping compartment, but stay in our seats, keeping watch alternately, one hour on, one hour off. It was a wretched night, and we both felt dog tired but relieved when the train eventually pulled in to King’s Cross.

  “You must come and have some tea and scones at Baker Street, before you return home, Watson,” Holmes said.

  “We’re safe now, Holmes,” I replied thankfully. “Terra firma so to speak. He cannot get us now. Yes, tea and scones sounds excellent. I feel that the worst thing that can happen to us now is that Mrs. Hudson drops the tea tray! You can advise me as to what name I should give to our latest saga.”

  Seated comfortably in Holmes’s apartment, I watched and waited as he filled his pipe and lit it.

  “‘The Case of the Highland Hoax’ is my suggestion, Watson,” he said.

  I looked puzzled. “What was the hoax?” I asked.

  “There was no attempt on the life of Queen Victoria,” he replied.

  “I know that that is the official version, but. . .”

  “No, Watson, I mean there was genuinely no attack on the queen— she was not the intended victim,” Holmes insisted.

  “You have lost me there, my dear chap.” I was now totally confused. “I seem to remember this ghillie pulling out his gun from within the tartan rug and firing at the queen, and I stopped a bullet that was going in her direction! I could not be mistaken about that! And as the other ghillie drew his knife and lunged towards the queen, you wrestled him to the ground! Then that shot came out of the bushes and killed him just as he had the better of you.” I recalled it with a sudden vividness. “A bit strange, that. Why, if that shot had been a second earlier, it would have killed you . . .

  “Oh my God, Holmes, I see what you mean!” I exclaimed and a cold shudder ran down my spine.

  “Precisely, my dear friend, precisely,” Holmes continued in a very matter of fact voice. “I was working on the assumption that Moriarty would try to kill the queen in front of us, so that we should both be discredited. The ‘great detective’ Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. John Watson failed to stop the assassination of Her Majesty! And furthermore were unable to catch the assailants!” He shook his head.

  “No, Watson, discredited or not, we would still be able to go about our business of pursuing criminals. Moriarty wanted much more—he wanted me dead, and to accomplish the act right in front of the queen! He would have been quite happy with your departure as well! I hope that I am not placing too high a value upon myself, but I conclude that those bullets were meant for me, not Her Majesty.”

  “I fear you are right, Holmes,” I said. “I also fear that the game is not yet played out.”

  “My conclusion, too,” he agreed, all victory gone out of his voice.

  “Those people who repeatedly walked past our compartment last night, and that man who stood for an hour, smoking, right by the door, they were all to keep us on edge, keep us awake and wondering when and how we would be attacked. We arrive back, Watson, thinking we are safe. We are not! I suspect that Moriarty has a yet one more surprise in store for us!”

  I looked about the room and could see nothing unusual or out of place.

  “What, Holmes? Where?”

  Holmes nodded towards the luggage.

  “But that was locked up in the luggage compartment!” I assured him.

  “Of course. It would be a simple job for Moriarty to bribe the guard and go in there. But to do what, Holmes? Plant a bomb?”

  “Those were my thoughts, Watson.”

  “Then let us hand these suitcases over to the police, or simply hurl them into the Thames!” I demanded. “There is nothing in them that is worth your life or mine!”

  “If we hand these cases over to the police, they will only blow themselves up,” he said with a dismissive gesture, “And if we throw them into the Thames, somebody will be sure to find them and likewise blow themselves up! We must solve this one ourselves, Watson.”

  I could feel beads of sweat beginning to stand out on my forehead, and my throat going dry.

  “Do not look so alarmed, my dear friend,” Holmes said with a smile. “I have taken a precaution. As I was closing the locks on my suitcases, I placed a piece of gray cotton thread over the holes before pressing the catch home. If anyone has been tampering with them, then I would expect the piece of cotton thread to have fallen away. Here, Watson, take one of my magnifying glasses and see if I am right. Oh, and I have done the same with your cases, of course.”

  Tentatively I picked up a magnifying glass and got down on one knee to examine the locks on my suitcases. Yes, I could see it; not conspicuous to the naked eye, but under each catch there was a thread of cotton.

  “So far, so good,” I said. “Now let me examine your cases.”

  I started with the smallest. I could definitely see threads in both locks, and similarly with the next case. With growing apprehension I examined the last and largest suitcase. My hands were getting clammy and my heart was racing. I looked and looked again. There was no mistake—there were no threads of cotton.

  “This case, Holmes. It has been tampered with,” I said as I stepped backwards.

  “Moriarty is the devil incarnate, Watson. I believe he has rigged up a bomb in there that is designed to detonate when I open the lid and thus kill me, or perhaps even worse, blind me and blow my hands off! It might of course, be just another hoax!”

  “Be sensible, Holmes. Let’s just throw the damned thing away!” I protested.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “But then we would never know! We would be frustrated and suspicious of everything, waiting for the next attempt. No, Watson, we must face it now.”

  “I have an idea. Lay that case flat on the floor, upside down. Now, hand me those scissors over there, and I will unpick the stitching of the back panel, then I can take my clothes out very carefully, and thus, without opening the lid, we can see what little present Moriarty has sent me!”

  “Holmes,” I protested, “I will do it. You stand well back—no argument!

  I refused to hand him the scissors, and went to the case myself.

  Methodically I cut through the stitching on three sides that held together the bottom panel of the case, and then I peeled it back and cut through the lining. Slowly I removed item by item, socks, trousers, shirts, and placed them on the floor. Then I saw it.

  Explosive, wrapped in brown paper, with colored wires coming out of it to an electrical circuit with a battery. Wires led away from it into the lid in such a way that when the lid was opened, the circuit would be completed and the bomb would go off! My hands started to shake.

  “Steady, Watson,” Holmes instructed. “One by one cut through those wires leading into the explosive.”

  “Keep well back, Holmes. Here goes.” I cut. And breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Congratulations, Watson! It seems you have saved my life twice in two days!”

  “Think nothing of it, my dear friend,” I said with exaggerated abandon, now that it was over. “I was under the impression that I had saved Her Majesty’s life yesterday, but I stand corrected!”

  “Just as a matter of interest. If it were a question between saving my life or the queen’s, which would you choose?” Holmes asked.

  “No problem, Holmes. Patriotic chap that I am, I would save yours,” I said without hesitation.

  “But supposing that Queen Victoria had deceased, and Edward, as King Edward VII were on the throne, would you save his life or mine?”

  “Again, no problem. King Edward,” I began.

  Holmes looked slightly crestfallen, “Your patriotism does you credit, Watson,” he said with an effort.

  “As I was about to say, Holmes, ‘King Edward is
eminently dispensable, and I would, of course, choose to save your life.’” I replied with a larger smile than I had intended. “I fear Edward has too many of his parents’ vices and too few of their virtues! You must forgive me— it is my turn now for a humble attempt at humor!”

  Holmes’s look of pride and relief was transparent. “You are a splendid fellow, Watson!” he said, picking up his pipe and fiddling with it.

  “I think I hear Mrs. Hudson coming with the tea and scones. If she drops those, it really will be the worst thing that could happen to us, and I think if she sets eyes on this rather nasty device, we can say goodbye to our refreshments!”

  As Mrs. Hudson came through the door, Holmes took the tray from her immediately, and not a moment too soon. She spied the mess on the floor, then the bomb, and she put her hands to her face and shrieked, “Mr. Holmes! What is that evil-looking thing?”

  “Don’t panic, Mrs. Hudson. It is a bomb, but it is quite safe now,” I reassured her. “It seems that somebody in Scotland took a dislike to Mr. Holmes, and planted this in his suitcase.”

  “Well,” she said with disgust, “promise me, Mr. Holmes, that you will not go to that country again if there are people that would wish you such ill will! Please choose a country where the English are respected, somewhere like Switzerland.”

  “As you wish, Mrs. Hudson,” Holmes conceded. “In the interests of my health and safety, as you insist, my next vacation will be . . . the Reichenbach Falls, and you, Watson, will accompany me!”

  THE RIDDLE OF THE GOLDEN MONKEYS

  Loren D. Estleman

  IT IS A COMMON misapprehension of old age that the widower is of necessity a lonely man even in the press of a crowd. In the third year of the reign of George V, I had been in bereavement for the better part of a decade, and the tragic inroads that had been made upon the British male population during the wars in South Africa and China were such that for a solitary gentleman in relatively good fettle to show himself in society was to trumpet his availability to any number of unattached women of a certain age. This situation was exacerbated by the appearance, since the deaths of our gracious Victoria and that good-hearted man Edward VII, of a breed of bold, independent female who would step up and declare her intentions before a teeming ballroom with no more blushes than a tiger stalking a hare.

  By the summer of 1913, I had long since abandoned my shock at such behaviour, but found it wearisome in the extreme. I had reached that time in life wherein a cigar, a snifter, and a good book quite fulfills one’s dreams of bliss, but to make such a statement in the presence of one of these daring creatures must needs give offence, and ultimately lead to the undoing of one’s good reputation, which in the end is all any of us ever has.

  “I jumped—it seems,” writes Conrad, in Lord Jim, and the declaration is appropriate to the action I took that June, when in response to frequent invitations I bolted London for the South Downs and a holiday from eligibility in the company of my oldest and closest friend.

  Those who are familiar with my published recollections may remember that Sherlock Holmes, after a lifetime of unique service to the mighty and humble, had retired to an existence of contemplation and bee farming in Sussex. The setting was isolated, and in lieu of neighbours the modest villa looked out upon the brittle Channel from a crest of severe white cliffs similar to those which are commonly associated with Dover. It was with keen anticipation of this lonely (and unapologetically masculine) stretch of English coastline, as well as the proximity of the man with whom I had shared so many adventures, no two of which resembled each other, that I disembarked from the train at Newhaven and took the hire of a Daimler to convey me along the twenty miles of seacoast that remained. Chugging along at a blistering fifteen miles per hour, I held onto my hat with one hand and the side of the vehicle with the other, remembering when a clattering ride in a horsedrawn hansom towards the scene of some impending tragedy represented the height of excitement for a man of any age.

  “Watson—good fellow, is that you? I am only just in receipt of your wire. We are but one more scientific improvement away from outdistancing even the genius of Mr. Morse.”

  We were slowing for the turn to the villa when I recognized the gaunt figure approaching with the sea at his back. He wore a terry robe only, untied over a bathing costume, which plastered with damp to his skeletal frame testified that retirement from public life had neither increased his appetite nor lessened his distaste for inactivity of any sort. But for the grey in his hair and the thinning at the temples, he did not appear to have aged a day since the attempt was made on his life by the blackguard Count Sylvius ten years before. It was the very last investigation we shared, and my final visit to our dear old digs in Baker Street. (I, meanwhile, had grown absolutely stout, a victim of my comfortable armchair and the bill of fare at Simpson’s.)

  Years and weight notwithstanding, I alighted eagerly from the passenger’s seat and seized his hand, which was iron-cold from his late immersion in the icy Channel. At close range I observed the creases at the corners of his razor-sharp eyes and the deep furrows from his Roman nose to his thin mouth, cut by time and concentration. He put me in mind of a Yankee cigar-store Indian which has been left out in the weather.

  “I hope I have not inconvenienced you,” I said.

  “Not nearly as much as you have inconvenienced your dog. I trust the kennel in Blackheath is a good one.”

  I was so astounded by the mention of Blackheath that for a moment I could not recall if I’d ever told him I owned a dog.

  He laughed in that way which many thought mirthless. “Time has not changed you, nor age sharpened your wit. An old athlete such as yourself cannot resist a visit to the rugby field of his youth, hence that particular dark loam adhering to your left heel. Fullness of age and greatness of girth might prevent a casual excursion, but you would travel that far to board your dog; a bull, if I am any judge of the stray hairs upon your coat.”

  “It would appear an old detective such as yourself cannot resist the urge to detect.”

  Again he laughed. “Avery palpable hit.” Before I could protest, he had paid my driver, relieved him of my Gladstone bag, and started up the path towards the house.

  Soon we were in his parlour, he having bathed and put on the somewhat shabby tweeds of a country gentleman. The room was small but commodious, with a bay window overlooking the water and sufficient memorabilia strewn about to create the sensation that we were back at 221 B. Here was the dilapidated Oriental slipper, from which he filled his pipe with a portion of his old shag; there the framed photograph of Irene Adler, and she in her grave these twenty years. I recognised the harpoon which had slain Black Peter Carey and the worn old revolver that had saved our lives upon more than one occasion, now demoted to a decoration on the wall above the hearth. A library of tattered beekeeping manuals filled the bookpress which had once contained his commonplace hooks. I asked him how his bees fared.

  “Splendidly. Later I shall bring out the congenial mead I’ve developed from the honey. It may make amends for supper. My housekeeper is deceased, I have not yet replaced her, and my cooking skills are not on a level with my ratiocination. I say, old fellow, would you mind terribly if we have a third at table?”

  “A client?” I smiled.

  “A man in need of a favour, which in an unprotected moment I agreed to provide. You may find him entertaining company. He’s rather in the way of a colleague of yours.”

  “A physician? I’ve not practised in years. We shall not be able to converse in the same language.”

  “A writer; or have you retired from letters as well as medicine? Sax Rohmer is the name.” Turning in his armchair, he rummaged among a jumble of books in a case which looked disturbingly like a child’s coffin, and tossed a volume across to where I sat facing him upon a sagging divan.

  I inspected the book. It was bound cheaply, with a paper slipcover bearing the sensational title The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Holmes smoked his pipe in silence whil
e I read the opening pages.

  I closed the book and laid it in my lap. “I read this story in serial form in a London magazine. I considered bringing suit against the author, but I couldn’t decide whether to base it on grounds of invasion of privacy or plagiarism.”

  “Indeed. I noticed the resemblance myself: a clipped-sounding adventurer with a pipe and a nervous manner and his storytelling companion, an energetic young physician. The late lamented Professor Moriarty might also have brought a case as regards this devil doctor. But the story itself is rather ingenious, and, apart from borrowing your unfortunate practice of leaving out the most important bit of information until the last, his debt to your published memoirs seems negligible. He sent me this inscribed advance copy along with his letter requesting my assistance.”

  I opened the book to the flyleaf and read: “To Sherlock Holmes, Esq., with admiration. Sax Rohmer.”

  “I never knew your head to be turned by flattery and a disingenuous gift,” I said churlishly.

  “Good Watson, it was the problem which turned my head. This old frame is far too brittle to support any further laurels. But here, I believe, is the gentleman himself. You nearly arrived upon the same train, and might have fought your duel on board.”

  Holmes opened the front door just as another automobile from town pulled away, greeted his visitor, and performed introductions. I was taken aback by the appearance of this straight, trim young fellow, whom I judged to be about thirty years of age; his acquiline features, keen gaze, and general air of self-possession reminded me uncannily of the eager young student of unidentified sciences who first shook my hand in the chemical laboratory at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, three decades and so many adventures ago. So close was the resemblance that I was startled into accepting his handshake. I had intended to be polite but cold and aloof.