by David Marcum
“In my room I conducted the experiments that confirmed the use of a very strong and dangerous acid on the clock works. None of the other clocks had been altered. The storm was raging, and I felt confident that my quarry would not leave the hotel until it abated. I was mistaken, however. About four-thirty a.m., I was told Wondowner had left. He had arranged for his luggage to be shipped directly back to America.
“I followed him into the storm. The winds were still high and the rain was pouring down. The dawn was about to break behind the masses of clouds. Oh, it was a pretty job of shadowing, Watson. He was suspicious and I was hard put to evade detection. The storm that still enveloped the town around us impeded us both with blinding rain and high winds. I do not know if he ever saw me, but he did run a complicated course all through Mousehole, up streets and down alleys, bent upon shaking off any pursuers. It almost worked, but he didn’t know he was being followed by Sherlock Holmes.
“Finally I saw him, his clothes sodden from the rain, creep to the quay and get into one of the rowboats. The waves were still driving into the harbour and rocking every ship and boat in sight. He began rowing in the direction of Bluff House. I saw his plan at once. Since nothing else had worked, he had become desperate. He was going to enter the Hall under cover of the storm, abduct Dorit, and make his escape in the rowboat. If he could make it to Penzance, he could get a train to Plymouth and leave for New Orleans from there. He didn’t know Dorit had gone to nurse her fiancé at his parents’ home. It was a mad scheme. I think that by then it was possible that his obsession had overcome his reason and he had gone insane.
“I realized that his original plan had one mighty flaw. It was the storm. No one, not the best sailor in the world, could control that little rowboat in the midst of such a gale. I started to run along the shore toward Bluff House, at the far edge of Mousehole and the bay.
“There were whitecaps on the water. The current pulled his little boat out away from the shore. He did have the wind behind him, so he traveled faster across the water than I could run along the shingle.
“I had to make my way through much debris left by the storm. Enormous trees had fallen over the cliff and landed on the sand. I ran as fast as I could, but when I arrived at the spot below Bluff House, a woeful sight greeted me. Among the debris thrown up by the storm, I recognized the rowboat Wondowner had stolen. It was smashed up on the rocks right below here.
“What of Wondowner?” asked Richard Orrey.
Sherlock Holmes dropped onto a sofa by the clock. “He is dead. I found his body on the rocks, half covered with sand. One of your neighbors was walking past, assessing the damage, and I sent him for the police. They are down there now, examining the scene.”
The three of us were silent for a few minutes. Mr. Orrey sighed. “At least Dorit is safe. But that still leaves the question of the ghost.”
Sherlock Holmes went over to our client’s desk and scribbled something on a sheet of paper. He carefully folded it and handed it to Mr. Orrey.
“Follow the instructions I have written on this note, Mr. Orrey,” said he. “Do not fail to comply in every particular. I will not require that you travel back to London with your results. A wire will find us at home at Baker Street. Good day, Mr. Orrey.”
We collected our bags from the Ratonea and took the next train to London.
The doorbell rang barely twenty-four hours later. Holmes stood at the top of the stairs, ready to snatch the yellow envelope out of Mrs. Hudson’s hand as she brought the telegram up. He ignored her squeak of protest and came back into the sitting room where I waited.
He ripped open the missive and read it eagerly. A great smile of satisfaction spread over his face and he handed the paper to me.
I read the telegram with interest. It was addressed from Mousehole, Cornwall and read as follows:
Have followed your instructions completely. Basil Dotson of enormous help. Last of bodies removed this morning. Timepiece repaired and now in excellent working order. Wedding date set for first of February. Your invitation to follow.
Many thanks.
H. Orrey
I looked at Holmes. “What can this strange message mean?” I said.
“It means that Mr. Orrey of Bluff House no longer believes his hickory clock is haunted.”
“Who is Basil Dotson?”
“An efficient tradesman of Penzance, well known in his field, whom I recommended as being able to help with Mr. Orrey’s problem.”
“And this talk of bodies?”
“Every war has its casualties, I am afraid, my dear Watson.”
I threw up my hands. “I am totally baffled, Holmes. Whose bodies were removed this morning?”
Holmes dropped into his armchair and reached for his favorite pipe. He tried to look solemn but merriment still danced in his eyes.
“It was elementary, Watson. The tall-case clock had been invaded. I merely arranged for Mr. Orrey to defeat and remove the intruders.”
“What are you talking about, Holmes?”
“Mice, Watson. Moon-lit mice. The tall-case clock picked up a stowaway cargo of mice during its travels. Basil Dotson is a vermin exterminator. I plan to write to the British Paranormal Society today to suggest that many cases brought before that committee might have similar causes. Sometimes, Watson, it is the smallest of things, be it mice or microbes, that determine what happens in the world.”
The Tranquility of the Morning
by Mike Hogan
I stood at the open window of our sitting room in Baker Street one crisp, clear Sunday morning, smoking a fine cigar and sipping an excellent cup of pre-breakfast coffee. The street below me was busy in the dry, chill weather that had followed days of rain, and pedestrians strolled under streetlamps that were still draped with the remains of the victor’s laurels that had honoured the exploits of our victorious Army. Even in the wan sunlight, Baker Street presented a busy, festive appearance. The strains of a military band playing martial airs wafted from the Park in the intervals between sprightly music hall tunes played by a hugely bearded hurdy-gurdy man who had made his pitch outside our door. A flock of children in their Sunday clothes surrounded him, petting his monkey companion and clamouring for their favourite tunes.
I leaned out of the window, called for “Abdul Abulbul Amir”, and threw down a penny, which the monkey caught with an athletic leap in the air.
The door of Holmes’s bedroom opened, and he strode across the room, reached past me and slammed the window shut.
“Do have a care, my dear fellow. The sash pulleys are original,” I said, somewhat sharply.
Holmes grabbed his Times from the table, slumped into his chair before the fireplace, wrapped himself in his disreputable shawl, and jabbed tobacco into his morning cherry-wood pipe with his thumb. “How can I think with this cacophony?”
I went to the door and called down to Billy, skulking in the hall as usual, for fresh coffee. I turned back to Holmes. “Shall I order breakfast now, or do you want your coffee first?”
Holmes flapped his newspaper and grunted a reply which long exposure to early-morning under-employed Holmes allowed me to interpret, and I called again to Billy to bring breakfast immediately.
“I will be glad when this ridiculous fuss is over and we can settle down to pleasant, quiet mornings again,” Holmes remarked from behind his paper. “Our so-called war with the Kingdom of Burma was a purely commercial venture, a military excess akin to a rampaging elephant stamping on a delicate flower. It was accompanied by assurances of Burmese independence that were were outright lies.”
My companion had been cranky and argumentative during the Christmas and New Year festivities, doubtless due to the paucity of clients over the holidays and what he considered the vacant, simple-minded merriment of the populace, and I had no intention of provoking another row over the Army’s victori
es in Upper Burma. I changed the subject. “Celebrations in the street are less noisy, and far less destructive than riots,” I suggested. “I am astonished at reports that the agitator, John Burns, has been aquitted.”
Holmes flicked down a corner of his paper and frowned a quizzical frown.
“The man who led the mob along Pall Mall, smashing the windows of the gentlemen’s clubs, attacking members and passers-by, and shouting Socialist slogans. Disgraceful behaviour.”
“He with the red flag? I did not know his name.” Holmes went back to his newspaper, and I threw a shovelful of coal into the grate, poking our recalcitrant fire into a semblance of flickering life. “The chimney’s still blocked. We’ll have to get the sweeps in, like it or lump it. We could spend a day and night at my club to avoid the mess, or better yet, have a refreshing week-end in Torquay.”
Holmes did not deign to answer my suggestion. Our chimney had long been due for a cleaning, but Holmes detestation of the inevitable disruption - tidying of papers, covering furniture, soot everywhere - was so profound that in his tetchy mood he had refused to countenance the sweep. My holiday cheer had been dampened by the chill and sooty atmosphere, and as my bedroom fireplace connected to the same blocked flue, I had been obliged to sleep under a mound of blankets, shivering in my dressing gown, balaclava, and mittens.
The arrival of the second post and breakfast coincided, and Holmes and I set to our kippers and bacon and eggs in silence as we read our mail, in my case a wad of end-of-year bills, club and magazine subscription demands, and reminders from tradesmen of essential services that might be provided to a discerning customer at a discount and with payment spread across the calendar. I tipped most of my post into our kindling box.
Holmes shared the last of the coffee between our cups, then he waved a telegram flimsy at me.
“Not a client, Holmes,” I said, wearily. “Not on a Sunday. I had hoped for a quiet day catching up on my reading. I have the last two weeks’ Lancets yet unread.”
“He will be here at eleven: A gentlemanly hour to start the business of the day.” Holmes passed me the telegram.
“Beg leave report strange phenomenon stop 11 a.m. stop Coulteney.” I raised my eyebrows.
“Short and sweet,” said Holmes. ‘A military gentleman, I suggest, with his ‘beg leave report’ and admirably succinct style. Note the carefully chosen term, ‘phenomenon’.” Holmes stood and felt along the mantel for his pipe while I anticipated his request and took down the ‘C’ volume of his scrapbook index. I flicked through it to no avail.
“‘Coulteney, Admiral Sir Arthur, retired, and Lady Alice of Coulteney Hall, Berkshire and Curzon Street in London’,” Holmes said, consulting Who’s Who. “He commanded the China station in the sixties. Interests include china (with a small ‘c’), fishing etc., etc. The admiral sired a son, Major Albert Coulteney, Indian Army, unmarried.” Holmes dropped the volume on his desk.
“Your client could be the admiral or the major,” I said.
“Undoubtedly the son.”
I frowned at the telegram. “Is there some clue in the phrasing that I have missed?”
The doorbell rang downstairs, and Billy showed our visitor up to our sitting room. Major Coulteney, as Holmes had somehow deduced, proved to be a handsome, tanned, square-faced man in his mid-forties in a plain black frock-coat and matching top hat. His only adornments were a gold watch chain across his waistcoat and a very fine gold cravat-pin in the shape of an elongated ‘S’, set with a two gleaming, green gems. He wore wide mourning bands around his hat and sleeve.
Having introduced himself and shaken my hand, the major laid his gloves, hat, and stick on our sideboard, and after a few preparatory remarks about the weather, sat on the sofa I indicated. Holmes had busied himself with his newspaper and pipe as our guest arrived, but at last he laid his paper aside, steepled his fingers in a characteristic gesture, and regarded our visitor with the intensity of a mongoose glaring at a python, or perhaps the other way around. Major Coulteney did not appear disconcerted by my friend’s unsociable behaviour.
“Do I have the honour of addressing Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” he asked mildly.
“Oh, I do apologise,” I said. “May I introduce Mr. Holmes? Holmes, this is Major Coulteney.”
“I see from the newspapers that the erstwhile Kingdom of Burma has been annexed by the British Crown,” Holmes said in an admonishing tone, “despite assurances that the current king would be replaced by a dynastic successor. I predict arid years of thuggery and warlordism. The Burmese are a pugnacious race, when aroused.”
I readied myself for a most inhospitable row, but fortuitously the sitting-room door opened and Mrs. Hudson entered with a tray of coffee. I stood. “Perhaps Major Coulteney would prefer a whisky?”
He shook his head. “Coffee would be most acceptable. It is a little early for me. I have an occasional twinge of gout that I supress by daytime abstinence.”
Mrs. Hudson smiled an approving smile, handed cups of coffee, and offered seed cake. She accepted the major’s thanks, suggesting that nothing was too good for our heroes of the Burma campaign.
The door closed behind her, and Major Coulteney smiled at me. “I wonder how that lady knew I soldiered in Burma.”
“Mrs. Hudson has been our landlady for several years, and I have no doubt that she, like me, has picked up one or two of Mr. Holmes’s sleuthhound tricks.”
“Tricks?” snarled Holmes.
I ignored him. “You did not achieve such a deep suntan any time recently in this country, Major. It has been a dark and dismal winter. Your bearing is military, of course, suggesting that you are an officer recently returned from a long posting, probably in India or the North-West frontier. A senior officer in a line regiment, I might suggest. And, according to the papers, our troops in Burma are mostly drawn from the Indian Army.” I turned to Holmes and raised my eyebrows, willing him to be civil, but he merely smiled his Buddha smile.
“You have suffered a recent bereavement,” I continued, indicating the mourning band around the major’s arm. “Was your regiment closely engaged in the fighting?”
“We suffered several casualties, but I wear these mourning favours for my father, Admiral Coulteney. You may have seen the notice in The Times last month.”
I gave Holmes a disdainful look. So much for sleuthhounding, I thought. He had seen the admiral’s death notice in the paper.
“I am adjutant of the Third Madras Light Infantry,” Major Coulteney continued. “The regiment was heavily engaged on the Irrawaddy, and then took part in an expedition up-country from Toungou.”
“I read of that,” I exclaimed. “A very creditable operation, particularly with regard to the difficult terrain and your lack of cavalry support.”
Major Coulteney bowed. “After King Thibaw’s surrender, I was released to return home on leave. Word of my father’s death was cabled to the regimental barracks in India while I was aboard a steamer heading for home, and I did not receive the sad news until I had settled into my club, the Travellers.”
“You did not stay at your townhouse in Curzon Street?” I asked.
He smiled. “I see you have done your homework, Doctor. No, I had booked rooms at the Travellers by cable, and when I disembarked I did not yet know of my father’s death. He and I did not see eye-to-eye on a number of matters, and I had thought it prudent to make my London base in Pall Mall. We always observed an informal truce while my mother was present, but we could rarely get through a day, and certainly not a dinner, without an argument erupting.”
“You are now in residence in Curzon Street with your mother?”
“I stay there, but Lady Coulteney, who is in poor health, is in Lourdes, where she hopes to recover her vitality at the shrine of Saint Bernadette. We are a Catholic family.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?”
; “Her maid de chambre recently resigned, and the shock brought on a migraine. She was extremely fortunate in acquiring a replacement at very short notice.”
I blinked at Holmes, willing him to make a contribution to our conversation, and at last he stirred himself out of his sulk. “Might I know the matter?” he asked, yawning and stretching. “What can I do for you, Major?”
Major Coulteney seemed to gird himself before he replied. “You must understand, Mr. Holmes, that I am a military man, a gunner by training, and thus steeped in the empirical: Trajectories, windage, rifled bores, and ballistics are my creed, and apart from a residual adherence to the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, I have no truck with spirits, demons, and the like.”
Holmes flicked his eyes to me then back to our visitor. “But?”
“I am embarrassed to admit that our house on Curzon Street is infested by at least one, and perhaps several ghosts.” Major Coulteney shook his head. “If I might trespass on your time and indulgence, it might be simpler if were to show you the phenomenon rather than attempt a description?” He stood and handed me a pair of calling cards. “If you gentlemen would be so kind as to visit me in Curzon Street, perhaps this afternoon if that is not too inconvenient, then I need trespass on Mr. Holmes’s valuable time no further.”
I avoided my friend’s eyes as I saw the major to the door.
“Major Coulteney,” Holmes called from his place by our smoky fire, “you were last home on leave about eight years ago, is that correct?”