The Perils of Sherlock Holmes (12 page)

Mycroft pulled at his cigar. “That loss has led to a most unstable situation upon the continent. For some time now, the great powers have known that certain devious men hope to turn the change of leadership into unrest, and seize large parts of British and French territories by arranging a war between our two countries that would weaken us both. It does not stress the imagination to predict that a global conflict would result. However, we could not come to an agreement as to who should be entrusted with investigating and uncovering the details of their plans. Until now.” He drew a folded sheet of paper from inside his coat and handed it to his brother.

Holmes spread the exquisite stationery, examined both sides, and read. The text was all but obscured by the presence of royal seals.

“What is the purpose of this?” he asked at length.

Mycroft said, “It is a letter signed and sealed by all the crowned heads of Europe and Great Britain, presenting the bearer with authority to go anywhere and interrogate anyone, with the absolute cooperation of the local constabulary. Your mission will be to investigate any and all rumours of subversive activity and to report your conclusions to an international tribunal headquartered in Switzerland. You will answer to no government; which means, of course, that you will answer to them all.”

At this point, the broad face of this shadowy influence in British politics became stern.

“Before you accept this post,” said he, “I should warn you that it will expose you to more danger than you have known previously. In addition, it will leave you little time for quiet contemplation. I can promise you it will never be boring.”

“I begin to understand,” said Holmes. “Tonight was an audition.”

His brother’s scowl became a sardonic smile.

“I must claim credit for the sham’s details. I’m inordinately proud of the business with the wax cylinder. It arrived by the international post with others, a musical library; an early Christmas present from an American dignitary, which I decided to put to good use. I was somewhat concerned when Sir John reported that you did not expect anything to happen until the ball was concluded—really, Sherlock, you must learn to curb your impulses before you enter the Great Game—but I must compliment you upon the swiftness of your actions the moment you realised you’d erred. Flexibility and reflex are crucial. Do you accept the post?”

“I can do no other in the name of peace. I’m grateful you chose me.”

“You should thank Dr. Watson.”

“Watson? Whatever for?”

“He visited me last week in my offices in Whitehall, reminded me sternly that England was wasting its greatest natural resource and challenging me to put you to work on its behalf. I confess that because I am related to you I lacked the objectivity to have considered you for this assignment. It was good luck all round that he approached me when he did.”

Holmes looked at me with the first signs of absolute astonishment I had ever seen upon his face. I hastened to reassure him—if reassurance were necessary—that he had not lost his keen powers of observation.

“I knew nothing of this test, Holmes. Mycroft said only that he would take up my suggestion with the foreign secretary. He seemed distracted, and I assumed that he was merely humouring me so that he could return to work. I’d nearly forgotten our meeting, and was convinced tonight’s mystery was legitimate.”

“Thank you for that, old fellow, but you might have spared your breath. I know you well enough to know you are incapable of guile.”

I could not think how to respond to this rather sinister compliment, and so kept silent.

“A great adventure!” the marquis exclaimed.

“It is more than that.” Holmes was still looking at me. “It is a great gift from a great friend.”

At that moment the clock on Sir John Whitsunday’s mantelpiece chimed midnight, announcing that Christmas Eve was upon us.

“The ball is over, Watson. Let us not overstay our welcome.”

“Happy Christmas, Holmes,” said I.

My friend made no reply. His store of sentiment was exhausted. It was never ample.

My doorbell rang on Christmas morning while I was breakfasting with my wife.

“Oh, dear.” She set down her cup. “I hope that isn’t a patient, today of all days.”

I arose from the table resignedly. “Perhaps it is just Mrs. Ablewhite’s annual case of the sniffles. Asafetida, and her son can handle the mustard-plaster after I leave.”

A fat commissionaire stood upon the doorstep, his great bulging middle barely contained by his brass buttons. An enormous pair of snow-white moustaches obscured most of his florid face. “Package for Dr. Watson,” said he.

I signed the receipt and accepted the parcel, which was no larger than a tin of tobacco and wrapped in bright silver paper. Curious to see which of my patients had sent me a gift, I unwrapped it there upon the threshold.

It was a box containing Sherlock Holmes’s needle in its morocco leather case and his bottle of cocaine.

“Happy Christmas, Watson,” came a familiar voice from behind the messenger’s moustaches. “Thanks to you, I shan’t be needing it again this century.”

T
he year 1899 stands out of particular note in my memory; not because it was the last but one of the old century (the numerologists are clear upon this point, but popular opinion differs), but because it was the only time during my long and stimulating association with Sherlock Holmes that I came to call upon his unique services as a client.

It was the last day of April, and because I had not yet made up my mind whether to invest in South African securities, I was refreshing my recollection by way of recent numbers of the
Times
and
Telegraph
about developments in the souring relationship between the Boers and the British in Johannesburg. The day was Sunday, and my professional consulting-room was empty. This situation presented the happy prospect of uninterrupted study outside the melancholy surroundings of my lonely quarters in my wife’s temporary absence, as well as a haven from personal troubles of more recent vintage.

I was, therefore, somewhat disgruntled to be forced to disinter myself from the pile of discarded sections to answer the bell.

“Ah, Watson,” greeted Sherlock Holmes. “When I find you squandering your day of rest in conference with your cheque-book, I wonder that I should have come in chains, to haunt you out of your miser’s destiny.”

I was always pleased to encounter my oldest of friends, and wrung his hand before I realised that he had once again trespassed upon my private reflections. It was not until I had relieved him of his hat, ulster, and stick, and we were comfortable in my worn chairs with glasses of brandy in hand to ward off the spring chill, that I asked him by what sorcery he’d divined my late activity.

“The printers’ ink upon your hands, on a day when no newspapers are delivered, is evidence; the rest is surmise, based upon familiarity with the company and the one story that has claimed the interest of every journal in the country this past week. Having experienced war at firsthand, you are scarcely an enthusiast of sword-rattling rhetoric; but you are a chronic investor, who prides himself upon his determination to wrest every scrap of intelligence from a venture before he takes the plunge. The rest is simple arithmetic.”

“You haven’t lost your touch,” said I, shaking my head.

“And yet I fear I shall, should I remain in this calm another week. There isn’t a criminal with imagination left on our island. They have all emigrated to America to run for public office.”

His voice was jocular, but he appeared drawn. I recognised with alarum the look of desperation which had driven him to unhealthy practices in the past. Instead, he had come to me, and I was heartily glad to serve as substitute.

“Well, I don’t propose to ask you to investigate the
Uitlanders
in South Africa,” I remarked.

He threw his cigarette, which he had just lit, into the grate, a gesture of irritation.

“The fare would be a waste. Anyone with eyes in his head can see there will be war, and that it will be no holiday for Her Majesty’s troops. Heed my advice and restrict your gambling to the turf.”

Holmes was prickly company when he was agitated. Fortunately, I did not have to cast far to strike a subject that might distract him from his boredom, which in his case could be fatal. The situation had been nearly as much on my mind of late as the squabbling on the Ivory Coast. However, a cautious approach was required, as the circumstances were anathema to his icy faculties of reason.

“As a matter of fact,” I teased, “I have been in the way of a matter that may present some features of interest. However, I hesitate to bring it up.”

“Old fellow, this is no time in life to acquire discretion. It suits you little.” He lifted his head, as a hound does when the wind shifts from the direction of a wood where game is in residence.

“My dear Holmes, let’s pretend I said nothing. The thing is beneath you.”

“You are an open book, unequal to the skills of a confidence-man dangling bait. Get on with you, and leave the techniques of obverse alienism to the likes of Dr. Freud.” In spite of the irony in his speech, he was well and truly on the scent.

“It is just that I know your opinions on the subject.”

“What subject is that?” he demanded.

“The supernatural.”

“Bah! Spare me your bogey tales.”

He pretended disappointment, but I knew him better than to accept appearances. He could disguise his person from me with wigs and rubber noses, but not his smouldering curiosity.

“You are aware, perhaps, that I am a consulting physician to the staff of St. Porphyry’s Hospital in Battersea?”

“I know St. Poor’s,” he said. “My testimony at the Assizes sent a murderer there, bypassing the scaffold, and there are at least two bank robbers jittering in front of gullible medical experts who ought to be rotting in Reading Gaol.”

I could not determine whether he was wishing incarceration upon the robbers or the doctors. Either way, I was annoyed.

“St. Porphyry’s is a leader in the modern treatment of lunacy. It’s not a bolt-hole for charlatans.”

“I did not mean to suggest it was. Pray continue. This penchant for withholding the most important feature until the end may please the readers of your tales, but it exhausts my store of patience.”

“To be brief,” said I, “there is a patient there at present who’s convinced himself he’s the Devil.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s on its way towards balancing the account. Bedlam has two Christs and a Moses.”

“Have they succeeded in convincing anyone besides themselves?”

He saw my direction, and lit another cigarette with an air of exaggerated insouciance. Thus did I know he was sniffing at the pit I had dug and covered with leaves.

“It’s no revelation that he’s found some tormented souls in residence who agree with him. There’s more sport in bear-baiting.”

“It isn’t just some of the patients, Holmes,” I said, springing the trap. “There are at least two nurses on the staff, and one doctor, who are absolutely unshakeable in the conviction that this fellow is Satan Incarnate.”

Within the hour, we were aboard a coach bound for Battersea, the telegraph poles clicking past, quite in time with the working of Holmes’s brain. He hammered me with questions, seeking to string the morsels of information I’d already provided into a chronological narrative. It was an old trick of his, not unlike the process of mesmerisation; he worried me for every detail, mundane though it may have been, and in so doing caused me to recall incidents that had been related to me, and which I had seen for myself, but had since forgotten.

My regular practice having stagnated, I had succumbed at last to persistent entreaties from my friend and colleague, Dr. James Menitor, chief alienist at St. Porphyry’s, to observe the behaviour of his more challenging patients twice a week and offer my opinion upon their treatment. In this I suspect he thought my close exposure to Holmes’s detective techniques would prove useful, and I had been rather too flattered by his determination, and intrigued by the diversion, to put him off any longer.

Dr. Menitor was particularly eager to consult with me in the case of a patient known only as John Smith; at which point in my narration I was interrupted by a derisive snort from Holmes.

“A
nom de romance
,” said he, “lacking even the virtue of originality. If I cannot have imagination in my criminals, let me at least have it in my lunatics.”

“It was the staff who christened him thus, in lieu of any other identification. Dr. Menitor insists upon treating patients as individuals, not as mere case numbers. Smith was apprehended verbally accosting strollers along the Thames, and committed by Scotland Yard for observation. It seems he told the constable that he was engaged on his annual expedition to snare souls.”

“I hadn’t realised there was a season. When was this?”

“Three days ago. It was fortuitous you dropped in upon me when you did, for Mr. Smith has indicated he will be returning to the netherworld this very night.”

“
Walpurgisnacht
,” said Holmes.

“Bless you,” said I; for I thought he had sneezed.

“Thank you, but I am quite uncongested.
Walpurgisnacht
is a Teutonic superstition; not worthy of discussion in our scientific age, but possibly of interest to the deluded mind. Has your John Smith a foreign accent?”

“No. As a matter of fact, his speech is British upper class. I wonder that no one has reported him missing.”

“I know a number of families in the West End with good reason not to in that situation.” He shrugged. “It appears I am guilty, then, of a non sequitur. The date may not be significant. What has he done to support his claim, apart from wandering the hospital corridors, snatching at gnats?”

“Would that were the case. He has already nearly caused the death of one patient and jeopardised the career of a nurse whose professional behaviour was impeccable before he arrived.”

Holmes’s eyes grew alight in the reflection of the match he had set to his pipe. Violence and disgrace were details dear to his detective’s heart.

I continued my report. On his first day in residence, Smith was observed in close whispered conversation with a young man named Tom Turner, who suffered from the conviction that he was Socrates, the ancient Greek sage. Dr. Menitor had been pleased with Turner’s progress since he’d been admitted six months previously, wearing a bedsheet wrapped about him in the manner of a toga, bent over and speaking in a voice cracked with age, when in fact he was barely four-and-twenty; he had of his own volition recently resumed contemporary dress, and had even commenced to score off his delusion with self-deprecating wit, an encouraging sign that sanity was returning.

All that changed after his encounter with John Smith.

Minutes after the pair separated, young Turner had opened a supply closet and was prevented from ingesting the contents of a bottle of chlorine bleach only by strenuous intervention by a male orderly who’d happened to be passing. Placed in restraints in the infirmary, the young man raved in his cracked old voice that he must have his hemlock, else how could Socrates fulfill his destiny?

“A madman who reads Plutarch. Perhaps not such an oddity after all.”

“Holmes, please!” I deplored his callousness.

“
Mea culpa
, my friend. Pray continue, and I shall endeavour not to be impertinent.”

Mollified, I went on.

Confronted by Dr. Menitor after the episode, John Smith smiled blandly.

“Good physician,” he said, “when he was Socrates, his acquaintance was worthy of pursuing, but as a plain pudding of the middle class, he was a bore. I am overstocked with Tom Turners, but my inventory of great philosophers is dangerously low.”

“Holmes,” said I, “neither Menitor nor myself can explain just what Smith said to Turner that overturned the work of months. He will not be drawn out upon the subject.”

“And what of the disgraced nurse?”

“Martha Brant has worked at St. Porphyry’s for twenty years without so much as a spot on her record. It was her key to the supply closet Turner had in his possession when he was apprehended.”

“Stolen?”

“Given, by her own account.”

“Hum.”

“When questioned, she confessed to removing the key from its ring and surrendering it to Turner. She insisted that she was commanded to do so by Smith. She became hysterical during the interrogation. Dr. Menitor was forced to sedate her with morphine and confine her to a private room, where she remains, attended by another nurse on the staff. Before she lost consciousness, Miss Brant insisted that Smith is the Prince of Lies, precisely as he claims.”

“What has been done with Smith in the meantime?”

“At present, he is locked up in the criminal ward. However, that has not stopped him from exercising an unhealthy influence upon all of St. Porphyry’s. Since his incarceration, a previously dependable orderly has been sacked for stealing food from the kitchen pantry and selling it to the owner of a public-house in the neighbourhood, and restlessness among the patients has increased to the point where Menitor refuses to step outside his own consulting-room without first placing a loaded revolver in his pocket. The orderlies have all been put on their guard, for an uprising is feared.

“It’s for my friend I’m concerned,” I continued. “He has been forced to replace the nurse in charge of Miss Brant and assign her to less demanding duties elsewhere in the hospital; the poor girl has come to agree with her that Smith is the Devil. It’s true that she’s a devout Catholic, belonging to an order that believes in demonic obsession and the cleansing effects of exorcism. However, Miss Brant herself is a down-to-earth sort who was never before heard to express any opinion that was not well-founded in medical science. And when I was there yesterday, I found Menitor in a highly agitated state, and disinclined to rule out the Black Arts as a cause for his present miseries. I fear the situation has unhinged him.

“I hope you will consider me your client in this affair,” I concluded.

“Hum,” said Holmes again, and pulled at his pipe. “Under ordinary circumstances, I would dismiss this fellow Smith as nothing more than a talented student of the principles taught by the late Franz Mesmer. However, I doubt even that estimable practitioner was capable of entrancing the entire population of a London hospital.”

“It is more than that. I’ve met the fellow, and I can state with absolute certainty that I’ve never encountered anyone who impressed me so thoroughly that he is the living embodiment of evil. This was before the Turner incident, and we exchanged nothing more than casual greetings; yet his mere presence filled me with dread.”

“Insanity is a contagion, Watson. I’ve seen it before, and no amount of persuasion will force me to concede that prolonged exposure to it is less dangerous than an outbreak of smallpox. Do you limit your visits to St. Poor’s, lest you contract it as well. I have never been stimulated by your intellect, but I have come to rely upon your granite pragmatism. Sense is not common, and wisdom is anything but conventional. You must guard them as if they were the crown jewels.”