“I say, Holmes, that your utter tactlessness is appalling. If it were not that Dr. Hatherley is in need of your help, I would leave with him this instant and give him my deepest apologies for introducing him to you.”
Holmes looked authentically surprised at my rebuke.
“Good heavens. At what are you taking offense? I welcomed the lad, offered food and drink and a comfortable chair. Now I am respecting the time of both of you and not wasting it with meaningless chit-chat.”
There was no point arguing. I shrugged and continued. “Dr. Hatherley believes that his mother has been kidnapped and is in danger. Last night he was attacked and chased by men with guns. He escaped, even with his injury, and is now seeking your help, having been turned down by the Reading police and Lestrade.”
“Ah, my afternoon has at last become interesting. Please, young man, state your case. How do you know that your mother is in peril? Many wives and mothers of all ages have fits of goodness knows what, leave their husbands and children for any number of reasons good and bad, and then they come home again having accepted their lot in life. I have seen it many times. Why should I think yours would be any different? Before answering that, please introduce yourself more fully.”
Victor hesitated before speaking and looked intently at Holmes but then responded.
“You are quite right sir in your insights. My mother did adopt me when I was eight years old and yes, it had been assumed by Bernardo’s that I would be there until I turned sixteen since no family wanted a child with my appearance. My mother said she chose me for my brains, not my face and in the past seventeen years, my mother and I developed an exceptional bond between us. A day does not pass that we are not in contact with each other. She has traveled the world, sometimes taking me with her and at other times sending telegrams back to me daily. She has never, not once sir, disappeared for over a week without informing me of her whereabouts. She would never do that to me as I would never do it to her. We are just too close to each other.”
“And who is this mother of yours?” asked Holmes. “The loving and devoted Mrs. Hatherley?”
“That is not my mother’s name,” said Victor. “My mom is Gertrude Margaret Ring. I assume that you have heard of her.”
I came close to joining the Reading police and Lestrade in breaking out into laughter. Of course, we had heard of her. Everyone had heard of her. She had made sure of that. Gertrude Ring had been in the public eye for over forty years and was one of the most outrageous women in the Empire. Ostensibly a reporter for The Times and widely believed to be a reckless adventuress and likely a spy (for which side no one was sure), she had been present at countless notable events and written stories for the press and several books. Although I had never met her personally, she and I were fellow contributors to The Strand. She had been present recently when the Brooklyn Bridge had opened and again six days later when a wild crowd heard that the bridge was about to collapse and stampeded, killing a dozen men, women and children. She had urged the Foreign Office to block King Leopold of Belgium’s appropriating the entire Congo as his personal fiefdom and had presciently warned that General Chinese Gordon was undertaking an arrogant mission to the Sudan that would end in disaster. Just this past year she rode the Canadian Pacific Railway across the entire length of Canada, stopping only to watch as the last spike, completing the sea to sea rail line, was driven in the remote Rocky Mountain village of Craigellachie. It was reported that she had to show Lord Strathcona how to hold a sledgehammer. She was friends with Susan B. Anthony and with both mother and daughter Pankhurst. Her name had been linked romantically with royalty throughout Europe, with captains of industry on both sides of the Atlantic, and with the most dashing actors in the West End. There were many stories of her daring escapes on horseback, camelback, foot, canoe, and rowing shell from men who were shooting at her. That she would have run off one more time while armed men were in pursuit was no surprise whatsoever and I was about to say so in a most blustering manner when I caught a sharp look from Holmes that bid me hold my tongue.
“I have heard of your mother. She is a remarkable woman and I do recall some stories in the press years ago concerning her adopting an orphan child. It caused a bit of a stir.”
“It did,” said Victor. “Many upright people were offended that a single woman with such a way of living should be allowed to raise a child. They claimed that it was one more of her publicity stunts. She would have been denied the right to adopt except that she went to Dr. Bernardo and asked him for the most unwanted child in his homes and he gave her me. That silenced her critics since they could not claim that she had taken away an opportunity for me to have been placed in a normal and proper family. She has admitted to me that I was her project that year. She had turned fifty years old and proven over and over that a woman could do anything a man could do. But of course, there was one thing that a woman could do that a man could not and that was to give birth and create a new life. She had missed her opportunity but decided that she would do the next best thing and raise a child on her own. I was needed as an exhibit.”
“And somewhere along the way, that changed, did it not?” queried Holmes.
“For the first three months she was at my side twenty-four hours of the day, but she soon tired of that. So, I was provided with the most progressive tutors and governesses and subjected to every passing fad and whim in child-rearing, education, nutrition, and physical training. She could not stand to be confined to an ordinary life of a mother in England so she dragged me along with her all over the world. I tolerated it, happy to be out of the orphanage and grateful for the opportunity that God had given me even if it were with a very strange woman who now claimed to be my mother.”
“And then?” asked Holmes.
“What can I say? We began to care for each other and eventually became fanatically loyal to each other. She came to love me as only a mother can love and adore her only son, and I would have walked over hot coals for her; I would die to protect her. We are still that way. We know each other’s thoughts before we can express them. We finish each other’s sentences. We immediately are attracted to each other’s true friends and ready to pick up cudgels with each other’s critics. We are never inconsiderate of each other and neither of us would think of letting a week go by without the other knowing our whereabouts.”
“Your mother,” said Holmes, “has not been in the press much in the recent past. Why is that?”
“In part because she is now sixty-five years old and has slowed done somewhat, but mostly because she has been helping me in my work at Cambridge.”
Again, Sherlock Holmes paused before speaking. “I believe I also recall some mention of Gertrude Ring’s son being admitted to Cambridge at a very young age. Did not the Press compare you to Francis Bacon?”
“They did and it was nonsense. I never attended a public school, but I wrote the entrance examinations and was admitted when I was sixteen. School was not difficult for me and I completed the third part of my Tripos when I was twenty-one. I admit I did well and was the Senior Wrangler for that year. The university has kept me on and I now work in the new Department of Engineering.”
“Excellent,” said Holmes. “Would that be under the direction of Professors Stewart, Ewing and Parsons and the rest of the wizards?”
“Charles Parsons is the director of the project but in my work, I am reporting to his assistant, Professor Stark.”
“And you say your mother was helping you? Most mothers of college lads are happy to have them out of the home and would never dream of following them to school. What in heaven’s name are you doing up there that could be of any interest to your mother? Steam turbines are not the usual province of women in their seventh decade of life.”
“You are aware then of the work done by Dr. Parsons?”
“I have some knowledge of it. Please explain your area of research to me and do your best to be concise and precise.”
Most young scientists and engineers are
only too eager to tell anyone who will listen about their particular field of endeavor, even to those who are only feigning interest. To be so asked by England’s most famous detective should have occasioned a deluge of passionate babbling. Yet that did not happen. Victor Hatherley said nothing and looked altogether ill at ease.
“You have put me into a difficult situation, sir. I can only say that I am certain that she has been kidnapped and it is directly connected to our work at Cambridge, but the project that I am working on with my mother and a very select group of colleagues has been commissioned by the Admiralty and is classed as secret. I could be tried for treason if I were to divulge it to you.”
I could swear that saw a flash of a spontaneous smile appear for a second on the face of Sherlock Holmes. Even I could now discern that this case had acquired an appeal far beyond the tracking of an aged and wandering parent. Holmes recovered his stone face and continued.
“Indeed. Well then, we shall not act in any way that might offend Her Majesty’s government. It is enough to deduce that your secret assignment has to do with the application of steam turbines to our warships in such a manner as to give the Empire some sort of naval advantage. As my reasoning is no more than the application of common sense, I do not believe that a nod from you would constitute treason.”
The young engineer looked uneasily at Holmes and then nodded.
“And might I further reason,” Holmes continued, “that your mother, brilliant woman as she is, was not assisting with the design and the science but with the necessary harassing of the mandarins in Whitehall, the politicians in Westminster, and the Lords of the Admiralty. Someone has to make sure that the necessary monies and approvals keep flowing else all research grinds to a halt.”
“Yes, sir. That is indeed her role.”
“Ah ha. An important secret project indeed. But why would anyone want to kidnap your mom? She is an exceptional person but if she has no expertise related to the science and engineering involved what benefit is she to anyone?”
“Sir, I do not know. I have been asking myself that question all day. There is no explanation for it. Quite frankly, sir, anyone foolish enough to take my mom captive would be inviting no end of pain and suffering into his life. She would see to that.”
Holmes and I both chuckled and Holmes continued.
“There is an explanation. It is perfectly obvious and the only one that makes any sense at all.”
“Sir?”
“Whoever has taken your mother has no interest in her. They are after you.”
“Me?”
“You are the one with the complete understanding of the engineering behind your secret project. Your devoted attachment to your mother must have been known to all with whom you have ever been associated. It was inevitable that when you did not hear from her that you would come looking for her. It was easy to find her home near Reading and remove her from it and then just wait for you to show up.”
“If that was their plan, then I fell into the trap.”
“Yes, and they were not trying to kill you, else they would have succeeded. One of them came at you with a knife. If he had any training at all - and I assume that you have had none - he could have plunged it into you. The second man had a gun and must have been close enough to put a bullet into your head but did not do so. What they had not banked on was your skill and speed as a harrier runner. Running at speed through a forest is something no sensible man will attempt let alone excel at.”
Here Holmes paused. “Permit me to digress for a moment. How did you happen to become so proficient at that sport? Only a few young men go out for it. The others all try out for the rowing, cricket, rugby, or football teams. What drove you to such a demanding pastime?”
Victor shrugged. “Do you really need to ask?”
Holmes again laughed. “Of course not. Your mother.”
“Yes. Because of my appearance and everyone knowing that I was a Bernardo boy, my mother realized that I would be ostracized and blocked from any of the popular team sports. She said that there were far too many insufferable snobbish twits on those teams and that I had to take up a sport that relied on my skills and wits alone. So, I went out for harrier. To it I now owe my freedom, if what you say is correct, and I have to admit that it makes sense.”
“Young man, it is a truth of both advanced experimental science as well as basic detective work that when all other possibilities have been disproven, the only one remaining, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“I will remember that, sir. But what now? I escaped. Someone still has my mother. I am still in dread that she will be killed. I would go now and give myself up and take her place if I thought that doing so would save her.”
“Oh my goodness, young man. No. That will not do. Really, my boy, if you were to throw in the towel that quickly how would your mother react? I dare say she would box your ears and kick your backside across the Thames and back again. Am I correct?”
“Yes, sir. She was always impatient with me when I failed to use my brain. But what then do I do?”
“Nothing. You wait. You wait for whoever has taken your mother to act. They failed to capture you on their first attempt. They will act again very soon.”
“Mr. Holmes. I cannot just sit and do nothing. I will go mad with worry. Please, sir, you have to come up with some sort of plan to find her and rescue her. I put my case into your hands and shall do exactly what you advise, but you must tell me what happens next?”
“In the very near future – within this week most likely – you will receive some sort of communication from whoever is holding your mother. They will say that you must come and meet with them or they will do terrible things to her if you do not comply and even worse if you go to Scotland Yard. They will give you some sort of means for communicating back to them, and you will do so in an anguished tone stating that you believe that your mother is already dead and demand that they prove that she is alive and well. We may have to repeat this dance several times over the next week or two. It will give us ample opportunity to allow them to furnish us with all of the clues and time we need to bring about their undoing and your mom safely home. And now, young man, I suggest that you get back on your crutches and hobble your way back to Cambridge. You have important work to do there.”
“Sir. You can’t just send me back there. I will go mad with not knowing what is happening. I will be useless in the lab. What you are saying is impossible.”
“Oh dear, my boy. I am not sending you back there alone. Dr. Watson and I are coming along with you.”
Chapter Three
We Go to Cambridge
SHERLOCK HOLMES HAS NEVER BEEN forthcoming about his formal education. To this day, I, who know him better than anyone else on earth, can only name with certainty the schools from which he did not graduate. He did not go to any of the famous public schools and held no diplomas from either Oxford or Cambridge. Other than his profound knowledge of chemistry, which must have been acquired in classrooms and laboratories somewhere, his academic knowledge, while immense, was totally lacking in coordination. Some of you will remember the list I recorded in my first story about him, A Study in Scarlet, in which I noted his peculiar and excessive strengths in some areas and inexplicable vacancies in others. As I write this account today, some twenty years later, I am no more able to explain this phenomenon, and any new list would end up again in the fire as did the first.
I bring these matters again to light as they have a bearing on our excursion to Cambridge, the center of the scientific and intellectual life of England. In all the years I had assisted Holmes as we scampered across London and up and down the English countryside I had never once set foot in either of our great universities and, as far as I knew, neither had Sherlock Holmes. And now we were about to make our way into the depths of one of England’s most advanced institutions. I could not begin to predict if Sherlock Holmes would treat the outing as a source of amusing recreation or a descent to the seventh circle of D
ante’s hell.
With my curiosity still raging I postponed the appointments of my patients for a few days and early on Friday morning met Holmes at King’s Cross. As I entered the enormous station, I could see the tall, gaunt figure of Sherlock Holmes pacing back and forth along the wall that separates Platforms Nine and Ten. He was holding his pipe in one hand and a school textbook in the other.
“Are you,” I asked, “boning up on your hydraulic engineering?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” he replied without looking up from the text. “I have told you on several occasions that I will only fill my brain with data that is of use to me in carrying out the science of deduction. Prior to today, most matters related to engineering and mathematics had been a waste of time. Today they are important and so I spent last night and this morning acquainting myself with the basics. And as soon as this case is resolved I will do my best to forget them.”
“Oh come, Holmes. The fundamental formulae and mathematical equations are the foundation of all of industry, and construction, and modern warfare. You cannot escape them. They are always important.”
“My dear Watson, they are important today and only today because they are connected to the kidnapping of an adventuress mother of an unattractive son who is working on a secret project at Cambridge for the Admiralty. How many cases with the same criteria do you predict I will have to settle in the coming decade?”
He had me there. “Oh very well, none I suppose.”
“Precisely. Now please join me in our cabin. I asked young Hatherley to put together some notes describing those who are involved with him in this project. Nothing violating any official secret of course. But all crimes must eventually come down to human beings who had a compelling reason to do what they did, an opportunity to carry out their criminal deed, and the means to effect it. I am most fortunate that this case is related to his small and secretive project. It has greatly limited the number of people that must be considered suspects. One or more of them has to have let the secret out and perpetrated the kidnapping.”
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Three: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition (Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 2