The Investigations of Sherlock Holmes

by John Heywood

  “She took a few seconds to compose herself. Her lips trembled, but she held firm. Still standing, her hands resting on the back of a chair, she told me her story.

  “ ‘Our party comprised myself, my father, Hugo and Robert, together with the servants and bearers. We camped out for two nights. I had been on a hunt in the bush before; we would set up camp where the scout thought lions were to be found, and the men would go off into the bush for a mile or two with a couple of Africans, taking a kid as bait.’ ”

  “ ‘Was it not dangerous for you to be left behind, unarmed, with lions at large?’ ”

  “ ‘I never thought so for a moment. The rest of the Africans were with us. They could keep off any lion with noise and fire. Or perhaps it was merely the thoughtlessness of youth that made me feel safe.

  “ ‘The first day was unsuccessful. On the morning of the second day, father was unwell. He decided to stay behind with me while Robert and Hugo went out on their own. They were preparing for the hunt in their tent, and I went to wish them luck. As I approached the tent I heard Robert’s voice through the canvas. “It’s all right, old boy,” he said. “I’ve done yours too.” The two men walked out for about two miles. We could see them far away, tiny figures in the distance through a haze of heat. They tethered the kid, took up their places and waited. For a long time nothing happened. Eventually I joined Papa in the tent, out of the sun. I had not been in the shade of the tent long when suddenly we heard in the distance a terrible cry. We rushed out. A lioness had one of them in its mouth, shaking him like a doll from side to side. The other figure hesitated what to do, then fired, but the shot seemed to have no effect. He fired again, and again, and finally the beast dropped her victim and tried to run away. He shot again, and she fell. By now I could tell which was which: it was Robert who had fired, and Hugo who had been mauled. He lay on the ground, quite still. We all rushed over to the scene, of course. My father fitted tourniquets to Hugo, who was bleeding dreadfully. A stretcher was made from one of the tents and the party returned to the town as quickly as possible. Hugo was given what care he could be given. His arm was amputated.

  “ ‘Father and I were due to return to England within a week. It broke my heart to leave Hugo in that state, but I was given no choice. I visited Hugo each day before we left, of course, but he did not regain his consciousness. With Papa I left Matobo and returned to England, to our home in Wiltshire. I wrote regularly to Hugo, but I never received a reply. I wrote to Robert, too, asking about Hugo, but had no reply from him either.

  “ ‘It was not until some years later, when father was very ill, that I was visited by Robert in England. Those terrible events in Africa I had never forgotten, of course, but they had faded into memory. You understand, I am sure; in time the pain gradually lessens, and is replaced by a kind of sadness. Robert had done well in Africa and was pursuing a political career in England. Hugo had died, he told me. I was deeply saddened by the news, but not surprised. Robert continued to call on me. He was no longer a youth; he seemed older by more than the few years that had passed since the African days. Even his name was different. In Africa he had been plain Robert Smythe.

  “ ‘ “It’s Bonnington Smythe now,” he said. “One needs a name that will stand out from the crowd at Westminster. Sounds well, don’t you think?” He had become a man of the world, and I was still only a girl. Within three months we were engaged to be married.’

  “ ‘There is one detail of your story I would like to confirm with you,’ I said.

  “She looked at me steadfastly. ‘I know what it is,’ she answered. ‘It is the words I heard outside the tent, on the morning of the accident.’

  “ ‘That is right.’

  “ ‘I am absolutely certain of what I heard, Mr Holmes. Let me explain to you. At the time that I heard those words, they meant nothing to me. I never thought of them for a moment. Until last week, I was unaware even they were in my memory. Then, when I read the papers, and realised that Hugo had been alive all this time, the past came back to me. I remembered those times in Africa when I was just a girl, excited by the novelty of it all, and I remembered Hugo, and Robert as he was then, and most of all I remembered that last hunt. Every detail of that day came back to me, and one detail in particular has haunted me. I have heard those words so many times in my mind these last few days. It was just as I told you, Mr Holmes. I was walking between the tents, and as I approached Robert and Hugo’s tent I heard Robert’s voice coming from inside. I can hear him now; “It’s all right, old boy. I’ve done yours too.”

  “ ‘You have understood the import of those words, Mr Holmes, have you not? Robert must have been talking about loading the guns. It was he who prepared Hugo’s gun - the gun that failed to fire.’

  “ ‘Have you any idea as to Smythe’s motives for such an act?’ I asked her. ‘Was it rivalry with Mr Mayne for your affections?’

  “ ‘I’m not sure if it was my affections he longed for, or my inheritance,’ she answered bitterly. ‘Father’s health was frail, and the doctor had warned him that he was unlikely to reach old age, a warning that I was rash enough to repeat to Robert. My mother died when I was an infant, and I was their only child. At father’s death all he had would come to me.’ ”

  Holmes had smoked out his pipe, and leaned forward to knock it out in the hearth.

  “So there it is, Watson. My reconstruction of events, as far as it went, was confirmed by the lady’s testimony. But the most important question of all - who killed Hugo Mayne? - remains unanswered. The police, the irregulars, all of them have been trying for a week to find the answer, and have found precisely nothing. There is only one thing for it, Watson. I must beard Smythe in his lair.”

  He looked at his half-hunter. “Five o’clock. I believe there is a debate in the house tonight, is there not?”

  I consulted the Times. “Yes, upon bi-metallism and the gold standard. ‘The value of the rupee,’ ” I read, “ ‘and hence the economy of India, is the subject--’ ”

  “Never mind the subject of the debate,” Holmes interrupted. “When will they vote?”

  “ ‘The debate is not expected to continue late.’ ”

  Holmes sprang to his feet. “Then I had better go there immediately.”

  “Would my presence be of help?”

  “It certainly would. He is as slippery and lethal as a cobra, this fellow. Remember your Shakespeare?” he continued as we hurried down the stairs. “We have scotched the snake, not killed it.” A wounded beast is the most dangerous, Watson. We must be on our guard.”

  When we arrived at Westminster the debate was still in progress. We had as our guide a clerk, provided for us by a Member of the House whom Holmes had helped in the past. The fellow soon established that our quarry was not in the debating chamber, where he was now a figure of derision, and accordingly took us to Smythe’s office, but he was not there either. Our guide suggested the Whips’ office, but there we learnt that Smythe had that day lost the party whip. He had reacted to this latest disgrace with anger, and stormed out of the office hardly an hour ago. The opinion in the office was that it was unlikely that Smythe was still in the House.

  “This smacks of desperation, Watson. They won’t have him in the chamber, they won’t have him in the Whips’ office - he is running from one bolt-hole to another, but they are all stopped. Where can he go now?”

  “He cannot rely on a welcome at his clubs,” I answered. “Except his own home, I cannot see--”

  “Precisely, Watson! His own home. Come, it is not many minutes distant.”

  Holmes and I hurried out of Westminster Palace and struck out along Victoria Street, and thence through Grosvenor Gardens and Eaton Square. So brisk was my companion’s pace that I could scarcely keep up without breaking into a run. “Smythe’s place is at the further end of the street,” explained Holmes as we turned into Lowndes Terrace. “H
ulloa! What’s this?”

  A constable was stationed at the steps to the front door. Holmes ran up to him: “Good evening, constable. We are here to see Mr Bonnington Smythe.”

  “It’s Mr Holmes, isn’t it? If you’d be good enough to knock, someone will let you in.”

  A butler opened the door to us. There was a ghastly look about the man; his face was the colour of ash. Holmes handed him his card and announced himself: “Mr Sherlock Holmes, the detective.” The butler glanced over our shoulders at the constable on duty, who gave him an affirmative nod.

  “Of course, sir. You wish to see ...”

  “That is why we are here.”

  The butler admitted us, and walking down the hall, opened a door. He ushered us into a darkened room, turning away from it himself with a shudder. We passed him and stepped inside. The heavy curtains were drawn closed, shrouding the room in such a gloom that at first I could hardly make anything out. It seemed to be a dining-room in the grand style. From the ceiling hung an enormous glass chandelier. The walls were dark and hung with paintings. As I took a step further into the room I recoiled, for I felt the carpet beneath my feet to be sticky. Beneath the long dining-table which occupied the centre of the room I made out, as my eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness, something lying on the carpet, covered in a sheet. A dark stain marked the sheet at one end. Holmes knelt down and lifted it at the stained end. He looked carefully at what lay beneath, and then silently replaced it. Standing up, he crossed the room and drew back the curtains, and as light flooded into the room the full horror of the scene was revealed. Daylight revealed the stain on the sheet, that I had thought black, to be red, the brilliant scarlet of arterial blood. It had spread in a pool across the carpet to where I stood, and away in the other direction beyond the table. As an army surgeon I had become accustomed to the sight and smell of blood, but I had known it on the field of battle; in this refined and splendid setting it had a new power to shock, as it squelched in the carpet beneath my feet or dripped slowly from the dining-table. Blood seemed to be everywhere; it had even sprayed over the lower pendents of the chandelier. The man, having severed an artery, must have staggered about the room, spouting blood as he went, before collapsing to the floor. A carving-knife lay on the carpet beyond the table. “What an end to a brilliant career,” said Holmes as he looked about him. “What would Mayne have said, I wonder, had he known that the man who ruined his life would end by taking his own? Well, we can do nothing here. Smythe has gone, by his own hand, and none in this world can harm or help him now.”

  And so the case of Hugo Mayne’s murder came to its bloody and unsatisfactory end. The murderers were never brought to trial for their crime. As for Robert Bonnington Smythe, though he escaped the arm of the law, he can hardly be said to have escaped justice. His suicide caused a brief public scandal, after which his renown sank without trace. It might truly be said that for his crimes he forfeited both his life and his fame. Who now remembers the name of the man once hailed as the rising star of his party, and a future Premier of his country?

  The Case of the Vanishing Fish

  When I married and set up privately in Paddington, my wife and I moved into a house near my new surgery, and I abandoned my old friend Sherlock Holmes to the sole occupancy of the Baker Street rooms we had once shared. The unsettled life of my bachelor days was replaced by the comforts of marriage and the regular employment of a busy medical practice. It was a happy period of my life; intrusions upon my domestic contentment were not, therefore, likely to be welcome, least of all if they chanced to come just as I had settled comfortably at home after a taxing day’s work. Thus it was that when one evening a telegram arrived for me as I sat at dinner, I so far forgot myself as to slam down my knife and fork, and ask if a fellow could not be left to dine in peace.

  The message that had so angered me ran thus:

  MEET TOMORROW AT ALL SAINTS COLLEGE = ROOM IN FOUNDERS RESERVED FOR THE NIGHT = HOLMES +

  The peremptory tone of the thing did nothing to soothe my irritation. It was typical of Holmes to send, at the most inconvenient possible hour, a telegram containing neither apology nor explanation. For some minutes I bemoaned the high-handed manner of my friend, and thanked Providence that my life was now shared with a loving wife. As I resumed my dinner, however, my indignation cooled. I was bound to admit, in justice to my erstwhile companion, that I had never had cause to regret my involvement in his cases. The adventures in which I had played a part could be described variously as bizarre, dangerous, or grotesque; but never as humdrum. The prospect of a new case, as I turned it over in my mind, began to appeal; perhaps the spirit of adventure was still alive in me, and stirred at this call like an old hound to the sound of the horn. Holmes was, for all his faults, the most extraordinary man I had ever known, and during these last few years, he had become a figure of national, even international renown. Yet he still turned to me, his old companion, when he wanted someone upon whom he might rely. Could I turn my back on him? So my thoughts ran on, as I ate; with the result that by the time I had finished my dinner, I was almost fully persuaded to fall in with Holmes’s wishes and pay a visit to the University. The matter was finally settled by the ready acquiescence of my wife, who gave her opinion that a day or two away from the practice would do me no harm. So it was decided; and the following afternoon found me in that ancient university city, an overnight bag in my hand, walking through the narrow lanes that lead to All Saints College.

  The bells of the city’s colleges and churches were chiming five o’clock as I arrived at the porter’s lodge of All Saints. There I was handed the key to my room, and told that I might expect to find Professor Hendricks and Mr Holmes in the Senior Common-room. A college servant escorted me there, leading me through a small courtyard and a maze of passages whose stone floors had been worn smooth over the centuries by the feet of scholars. We arrived at a heavy oaken door, which my guide opened for me. Stepping inside, I found myself in a large and gloomy hall, its panelling made dark by candle-smoke. At the far end stood a massive granite fire-place, and on one side two long windows allowed the view of a sunken lawn. A few gowned men, whom I took to be fellows of the college, were seated in high-backed chairs, talking or reading. At the far side of the room I saw, silhouetted against a window, the familiar hawk-like features of Holmes, who was in conversation with one of the fellows. I made my way over to them.

  “Ah, Watson! I knew I could rely on you.” Holmes indicated his companion. “Professor Hendricks here is an old friend of my undergraduate days.” The professor was a short gentleman, broad and pink of face. His eyes blinked behind thick spectacles in an expression of bewildered innocence. Though prematurely bald on the pate, his hair sprouted densely about his ears. His appearance put me in mind of a monk; it suggested a life sheltered from discomfort and temptation.

  “The professor here is one of your readers,” continued Holmes. “I thought you might be interested in the problem on which he has consulted me. As it was his telegram that brought me here, perhaps it should be he who explains matters to you. Please be as thorough as you like, Hendricks,” he added, turning to the professor. “It will help me to hear all the relevant facts stated again.” With these words Holmes steepled his hands, lay back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  Hendricks turned to me. “I must first confess to a misgiving, Dr Watson. I fear that I may have brought you here on a wild goose chase. It was largely in jocular spirit that I communicated with Mr Sherlock Holmes. As he mentioned, I have for some years had the pleasure of reading your most interesting accounts of his cases, and your reports have made me aware that it is neither the enormity of a crime, nor the exalted standing of those concerned in it, that are of importance to our friend, but the intellectual challenge of solving a mystery. Well, sir, a little matter arose here which I judged to be exactly to our friend’s taste. It is a matter utterly baffling to us here, and at the same time so trivial
that no-one - certainly not the police force - could be expected to take it seriously. You will understand, then, that my intention in mentioning it to Holmes was more to amuse him than seriously to request his help. You know that we were undergraduate friends, and perhaps I am guilty of some remnant of undergraduate humour in approaching so distinguished a figure with so inconsiderable a matter. In any event, I now find, somewhat to my discomfiture, that Europe’s greatest consulting detective and his invaluable ally are here to investigate our little problem.

  “Enough of apologies. Let me put the facts before you. The marine biology department, for which I am responsible, has a laboratory for its researches. In it we keep living specimens of marine life; so many, indeed, that the lab is jocularly known to some as the Aquarium. To feed our piscivorous specimens we keep a constant supply of fish in the cold larder. These fish have been unaccountably disappearing.”

  The professor paused, and I waited for him to continue.

  He coughed apologetically. “That, I am embarrassed to tell you, is the problem in its entirety,” he said. “So you see, Doctor, that I was not guilty of exaggertion when I said that the matter was, in itself, of no importance whatever. But I can assure you that I was not exaggerating either in saying that it has been, to us at least, quite inexplicable. We have puzzled and puzzled over it, without making the least headway. The whole situation raises questions none of which we have been able to answer. Questions such as: who would trouble to steal fish that are readily available for a few pence not ten minutes’ walk away, in the town market? Or again: who would be able to do so undetected? I could go on.”

  “I take it that these are just ordinary fish?” I asked.

  “Indeed so. We take whatever is readily available from the fishmongers in the covered market: the heads of the choicer fish, perhaps, or whole mackerel when they are cheap and plentiful. I leave the details to my assistant Johns.