“I would not have thought that an amateur detective was qualified to do so. Why did they not appoint someone senior from Scotland Yard?”
Holmes held out his hands, palms upward, and affected a sheepish look on his face. “I cannot possibly defend any logic behind a decision by Her Majesty’s government and have on many occasions been baffled by the utter lack of it. I can only tell you that I received the request and as a loyal subject of Her Majesty have complied. I can only beseech you to do the same and this whole exercise will then be over soon enough.”
She smiled back. “Very well. Soon enough. Carry on for Her Majesty sir.”
“What evidence,” he began in a matter-of-fact tone, “have you ever observed that Professor Stark may be working as an agent of the government of Germany?”
I was stunned by the bluntness of the question. So was Professor Carpenter. Her eyes widened and I expected an outraged response. But then I sensed that she checked herself and affected an expression of qui sait?
“I am a scientist, and I can only speak to what I have observed and know to be true. I have known Doctor Stark for many years and have never seen any such evidence. However, I have only observed him here at the University. He arrives every day at ten minutes before nine in the morning and leaves at twenty-five minutes past six in the late afternoon. Those are the times I have observed him and can speak to. I have no knowledge of what he does in the evenings or on the weekends and, again as a scientist, I have learned not to speculate on those things about which I know nothing.”
“Ah, yes,” agreed Holmes. “Wisely spoken. And how long has it been that you have known Doctor Stark?”
She paused for a moment and stared up at the high windows in the hall while slowly shaking her head. “I suppose if I were to review my diaries and notes I could give you an exact date, but I cannot recall it at the moment. It has been at least a decade. It was almost immediately after he joined the faculty at Cambridge and I believe that was over ten years ago. So yes, ten years, maybe slightly more, I would have to say.”
“And the two of you have collaborated on quite a few successful studies, have you not?”
“Oh yes, I suppose you could say that. Of course, both of us work with other colleagues as well. Cambridge University has a large number of excellent scholars and I have been honored to have worked with many of them, as has Colonel Stark.”
Holmes nodded his assent. “It is indeed one of the great centers of research and researchers in the world. Please explain something to me. In preparation for this visit, I reviewed the journals of hydraulic and mechanical engineering for the past few years. I observed over two score of papers published under the name of Professor Stark, and in which your role as the senior researcher was credited. I do not recall seeing your name on any other papers as having worked collaboratively with any other scientists. Who else have you worked with?”
For a short but perceptible instant she did not respond, and then, with quiet assurance answered. “Mr. Holmes, I perceive that you have never lived in the groves of academe. Any research carried out in any laboratory always reports the name of the director of the laboratory as the titular lead author of the published paper. It is how our pecking order works. As Colonel Stark is the director of this institute and as I work here, every paper to which my name is attached is also one to which his name is. That is the way things take place here. You might say that rank has its privileges.”
“Ah, yes, and here I thought that these hallowed halls were a world away from the rank and file of Her Majesty’s soldiers. Thank you for enlightening me.”
Holmes went on to quiz her about the graduate students and research fellow and she responded, asserting that she had supervised the work of all three of them for several years and considered them diligent and upright although she repeated Professor Stark’s assessment of Jeremiah Hayling-Kynynmound.
“Jerry’s family, “she said, “is listed in Debrett’s as a lower rank family in County Durham. He was born with an excellent brain but a character that lacks seriousness. If he put half the thought and energy into his studies as he does his sports, he would be a great scientist. Instead, he appears to be destined to be a middling one. But it is best for you to form your own opinions of our assistants, Mr. Holmes. Shall I have Mr. Hayling-Kynynmound come and speak with you next? I am assuming that you have no further questions of me.”
“Yes, that would be very helpful,” replied Holmes. “Please ask him if he could join us briefly.”
Once the lady had departed from the hall, I turned to Holmes. “A bit on the snooty side, I dare say. Mind you, I do not have any sense of their being spies, or kidnappers, or holding back any secrets. Do you, Holmes?”
Sherlock Holmes gave me the same look he had countless times in the past. “Good heavens, Watson. There are times that I despair of your ever being able to see anything past the end of your nose. They are hiding an enormous secret which is as obvious as Nelson in Trafalgar Square, if only you would stop and observe and think.”
I was quite taken aback by his tone and was about to demand that he explain this so-called secret but at that moment a young man entered the room. The first thing to strike me was the way he was dressed. All of the other gentlemen at Cambridge, whether students or faculty, were properly attired with a starched white shirt, clean collar and tie, a respectable jacket and the standard academic gown. This chap entered clad in white flannel trousers, a cricket sweater and shoes that would be appropriate on a sailboat but hardly in a laboratory. He was quite strikingly handsome, with a full head of wavy brown hair and perfectly balanced eyes and strong cheekbones. He flashed a broad smile and I could see that not a single tooth was out of alignment.
“Crikey,” he exclaimed. “Auntie Ellie said it was His Such-and-Suchness the very Sherlock Holmes come to see us. I thought she was either balmy or I was blotto. But blimey, here you are. Don’t tell me someone has done in the chaplain and they’ve hired you to write a good story about it. Good for the college’s reputation in the House of Lords. I had hoped to be famous as an oarsman and here I am about to be known by millions for a bit part in The Strand.”
He smiled and came forward and shook both of our hands.
“Name’s Jeremiah Hayling-Kynynmound. But my friends just call me Jerry and I won’t tell you what the rest of this town calls me. So that will just have to do.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Master Jerry,” said Holmes. “And I have been informed that before long we will be calling you Doctor Jerry. Is that correct?”
“Indeed, it is, sir. All I have to do is write another hundred thousand words and I’ll be finished.” He flashed his perfect smile again as he spoke.
“And might I ask,” said Holmes, feigning interest, “the topic of your unique and original contribution to the ever-evolving body of scientific knowledge?”
“Nothing fancy, sir. I am just recording and writing up the contributions I have made to this project. It’s quite the big thing and I have done my part, if I do say so myself. Most of it I’ve already written. I was joshing about the words left to go. Needs a bit of the polishing still, but by this time next year, it should be over and done and published for the world to see.”
“I am afraid that you have confused me,” said Holmes. “I was told that the specific contents of this project were shrouded in secrecy as they were of top-drawer concern to the Admiralty. How is it that you are going to tell the world all about it?”
“Secret?” the young fellow exclaimed. “My Aunt Fanny. There’s not a bloke in this whole building, the jolly porter included, that does not know what we’re doing up here. And just so that you can put it in your story, Doctor Watson, I’ll tell you. We’re trying to re-jig Parson’s steam turbine so that it can give direct drive to our battleships. And once we have that one cracked, we’re going to attach it to an electrical generator and then use the electricity to drive the props on the boat. So, there you have it. Secret’s out. Come and arrest me for treason, will
they? No fee charged to you, Sherlock Holmes. Mind, I expect to have at least an honorable mention when this all comes out in The Strand. I would have even more women wanting to marry me if they thought I helped solve a crime than if I merely won a world medal in single sculls.”
For the next fifteen minutes or so Holmes asked the young chap some rather innocuous questions about the work he had been doing and about rowing and about the disappearance of one of the team members, Miss Gertrude Ring.
“Ah, our dear Miss Ring,” said Jerry. “I am awfully fond of the old girl. Quite the lively one she is. But my goodness, she has had more adventures, if that is what you want to call them, than your average clergyman’s daughter in the East End. I know that Vic-the-Plum is all dreadful worried about his mom but the rest of us … well … we told Vic that he could just look under the nearest member of the Czar’s family and he would likely find his mommy.” He laughed at his cruel and tasteless joke.
Holmes waited until the laugh had faded and then looked the young man in the eye and said, “I have a duty to tell you that there have been some rather nasty rumors told about you. Some people claim that you not only employed crammers to help you get through your examinations but that you may have hired one of the students who is attending on scholarship to write your assignments. I believe I should hear your side of that story in order to give a fair and complete report.”
Jeremiah Hayling-Kynynmound rolled his eyes and put a most pained expression on his face. “Really, sir. That imbecilic talk has become such a bore. It arose out of nothing more and nothing less than envy and jealousy. That is all it was.”
“Could you kindly explain that?” asked Holmes.
“What is there to explain? At the end of my third year our entire class had an important assignment due and while the rest of them were cooped up like hermits scribbling away, I went to Stockholm for a splendid regatta, in which I performed rather well. I returned and within seventy-two hours wrote the paper, submitted it just before the deadline, and received an excellent grade. No one believed that I could have done it without help, but that is because they do not understand the discipline of both mind and body that comes with dedicating yourself to being the best in the world at your sport. I merely transferred that discipline over to my academic work and succeeded.” He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers once as he spoke.
“That must have been an exceptionally strenuous undertaking,” observed Holmes.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes, it was nothing more than what I have read that you do when dedicated to one of your cases. I made copious use of tobacco and coffee and focused on nothing but the task at hand. That is what you do, is it not?”
“It is, and may I commend you on your self-discipline. And I see you looking at your watch. Are we keeping you from another engagement?”
“The lunch hour begins in five minutes. I do not take lunch but instead go to the Boat House and spend most of the hour in training. My coach is waiting and if I do not show up on time, he will make me do another hundred push-ups at speed. So please excuse me now and give my best wishes to the editors of The Strand. I look forward to being in their pages.”
He rose and smiled and nodded and moved quickly out the door.
I was about to return to my interrogation of Holmes himself, but the mousey Miss Fitzwilliams appeared and announced that lunch would be served at the High Table in Christ’s College in fifteen minutes and the Fellows and Faculty would be waiting for Holmes and me to appear before starting. On hearing this, I reached for my map of the school as I had no idea of which way to go. Holmes, on the other hand, stood and exited the building, and began to zig and zag his way through several narrow laneways. I put the map away and followed. A porter was waiting for us and handed us academic gowns, the compulsory uniform behind the walls of ivy.
The lunch was a pleasant affair with several of the gowned gentlemen showing off their obscure knowledge by challenging Holmes on his use of science. One chap assured him that there had been some rather exciting advances in testing for hemoglobin in the past few months, while another informed him that if he had only used Babbage’s calculating machine he could have solved the Musgrave ritual much more speedily. Their strutting their stuff was no surprise as it is a universal tendency of those in academe. What was a surprise was that every one of them appeared to have read all of the stories I had written about the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and committed the details to memory. I fully expected that had I entered any one of the many libraries I might find well-thumbed back copies of The Strand secreted in the stacks.
Once dessert had been cleared the Master of the College called upon Holmes to speak. Holmes did so and, with more erudite, obscure, and arcane references that even I had imagined he could summon, he delivered an altered version of this favorite lecture, The Science of Deduction. For a full half hour after he had finished he was peppered with questions and then accompanied back to the Cavendish Laboratories by three aging pedagogues who kept up the barrage. I felt myself wondering “Do these chaps not have jobs to get back to?” The answer was a bit obvious.
On re-entering the examination hall, we saw a young woman sitting at one of the desks that had been moved to accommodate our inquiries. She was not a particularly attractive lady, but had a friendly rounded face, somewhat protruding eyes and dark hair pulled up onto the top of her high forehead. She had several files and pinned sets of papers on the desk in front of her. I walked over to meet her.
“Miss Philippa Fawcett, I presume? Awfully sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“It is quite all right, Doctor Watson, she replied. “Waiting here with no one else around has given me a rare and precious time to read and study. I have tried to make good use of it. And it is an honor to meet you and the famous Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Your visit to our laboratory is quite unexpected.”
“It was,” replied Holmes, “somewhat unexpected for us as well. However, measures of national secrecy can force other matters aside and take precedence. Your willingness to accommodate us on such short notice is an act for which we are most grateful.”
After some exchanges of pleasantries regarding the very demanding mathematical Tripos that Miss Fawcett was studying for, Holmes asked her many of the same questions he had posed to Jerry and Professor Carpenter. She responded frankly and without any sense of guile. Then Holmes queried her with, “How close had you come to Miss Gertrude Ring? Were you, as two women in what has been claimed to be a man’s world, allies to each other?”
She did not hesitate to respond. “I idolized her, sir, in the same way that I have my own mother and Professor Carpenter. Such women, with their magnificent accomplishments, have blazed a trail that cannot be denied. Because of their success against all odds it will only be a matter of time before the vote and finally full and equal rights will be accorded to women.”
“I cannot,” said Holmes, “comment on the progress of legal changes in that regard, as I have no qualifications to do so. I can most assuredly tell you that beyond a shadow of a doubt women are every bit as skilled at criminal activity as men, although I suspect that is not the type of equality you are referring to.”
Miss Fawcett smiled back. “If we are to be considered equal in all matters, sir we shall just have to accept the bad along with the good. I do not expect, though, that we will see a Miss Jacquelyn the Ripper come along for a few years yet.”
We chuckled and then Holmes quizzed her more concerning Gertrude Ring.
He said, “Professors Stark and Carpenter have dismissed concern for her disappearance as no more than a tempest in a teapot. Given her indomitable and independent spirit, they say, there is no cause for concern. Are you of the same mind, Miss Fawcett?”
“At first, I was, for the reasons you have stated. During the past few days, though I have had several conversations with Victor, that is Mr. Hatherley. He is a very clever and sensible man and not given to flights of fancy. And yet he is desperately worried about Miss Ring. I assume you
are aware that she is his mother?”
“Indeed, we are,” said Holmes, “and we will be meeting with him later this afternoon. You appear to know him quite well. Surely you must have sensed that he can be impulsive. He does have a bit of Gypsy blood in him, does he not?”
Miss Fawcett raised her head sharply and gave Holmes a hard look. It was replaced quickly with a faint smile. “I perceive, sir, that you are testing me. And that, of course, is what a detective must do. And I thank you as it is good training for the examinations I will be facing shortly. To answer your question, however, yes, Mr. Hatherley is deeply and emotionally distressed. He is distraught and distracted, but it is in a way that I have never witnessed before. He is adamant that regardless of whatever adventure his mother has scampered off to in the past she has never let a day let alone a fortnight pass without sending him word of her whereabouts. As a result, I have come to agree with him that there is something terribly wrong and I fear for her, as well as for Victor.”
After a few more questions Holmes concluded the interview and thanked Miss Fawcett for her time and concern and then turned to me. “Conducting my questions in a sterile hall restricts the observation of so many details that could be seen in someone’s home or office. So, we shall not call our final member, the accountant fellow, but go and visit him in his office. I am certain that we will find him close to the bursar’s desk and not in the secret laboratory.”
That was precisely where we found Mr. Malcolm Ferguson. I knocked on the door and a thin Scottish voice in response brought us into a tiny windowless office. A slight man of about fifty years of age stood behind a desk and bid us good day. “Please, gentlemen, come in. I am sorry that I do not have extra chairs to offer you so I fear you will have to stand.”
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Three: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition (Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 4