The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes (2 page)

‘Remember how earnest we were? We were so anxious to learn. For we felt that before Eton we were too young to think, and soon we would be too busy, and eventually we would be too old. The golden time, we thought, was
now
. And now that
now
is nearly half a century ago.'

‘I used to admire you greatly, Wilson – captain of the rowing team, and all that. We younger boys looked up to you.'

‘You know Ffoulkes, those Eton days seem so distant that I remember them almost as if they were a tale I read in a book, rather than a life I really lived.'

‘Yes, yes,' he said, and he looked bemused, seeming struck by the idea. He took a sip of wine. ‘That's exactly how it feels – like a story I've read. Seeing myself from the outside, like a character in a story, or a movie. How curious!'

‘I have,' I said, ‘often asked people to remember a long-ago scene, and then I ask them whether they see that scene from within themselves or if they actually look at themselves from the outside, as in a movie. Ninety per cent say the latter.'

‘It is hard to believe it's been almost half a century since we were standing on Eton Bridge and pegging biscuits to the swans. You're right – I see myself from the outside, a little boy in a uniform, standing there and looking down at the winking water. Say, this food is rather good.'

‘You'll be around for a while, Ffoulkes?'

‘I'm afraid not. I came just last evening, and in the morning I must drive back to London.'

‘You didn't happen to hear where that strange chap was staying at present, did you?'

‘No, but the bookseller would surely be able to – but wait, I do know. I remember him saying he was staying at Oxford Cottage.'

I asked the waitress where Oxford Cottage was located. She gave me directions, saying it was only a few minutes' walk. I paid the bill and a moment later we were out on the street in a flood of autumn sunshine, and a ghost of leaves was scurrying along the kerb ahead of us.

‘The funny thing is,' said Ffoulkes, ‘as I was watching that fellow I continually had the feeling that I knew him, that I had seen him before. As if perhaps he were a movie star, or a celebrity of some sort. But I can't place him. And yet I'm sure I've seen him, or someone very like him.'

‘How old is this chap? If he's young I doubt he'd be interested in rooming with an old guy like me.'

‘About our age, I expect. But don't get your hopes up. He is a very queer duck. As he was leaving the shop he asked the bookseller where he might purchase Fussell's Milk in
solderless sterilized tins
. Can you imagine that? Solderless sterilized tins. He said he always likes to keep a supply of Fussell's Milk for emergencies.'

‘I've never heard of Fussell's Milk,' I said.

‘Nor has anyone,' said Ffoulkes, with a laugh.

‘He must have some deep research study under way,' I said, ‘if it requires wheelbarrows full of books. Yet what could he be studying that couldn't be studied more efficiently at a bona fide research library? We have enough of those in this country.'

‘I wondered the same thing, and after our strange friend had left the shop I asked the bookseller that very question. So far as he could tell, the man is interested in all history from 1914 to the present day, with particular emphasis on pop culture and science.'

We had now reached the top of the street, and we turned right into a busier road. After a little distance we reached Oxford Cottage and rang the bell. An empty wheelbarrow was parked out front. At the second ring, the door opened and a tall man about my own age – early sixties – stood before us, looking quizzical and just a little querulous. Like my friend Ffoulkes, I instantly had the impression that I had seen him somewhere before, though I couldn't imagine where. He was tall, slender – almost emaciated – with bright active eyes that glanced up, down, this way, that way, as if to take in every separate detail of me, and also every detail of Ffoulkes and the street behind us. His eyes I found a little unnerving, though his thin lips were smiling. His manner was genial enough, though tinged with impatience, as if he had many things pressing on his mind. He had a hawk nose and sharp chin, and made a pleasant impression despite his intensity of look and manner.

‘Good day, gentleman,' said he. ‘Who might you be looking for? I believe all the other guests are out at the moment.'

‘I believe it is you we are looking for,' said I. ‘My name is James Wilson. My friend here, Mr Percy Ffoulkes, recently overheard you wishing for someone to share the cost of a cottage.'

‘Yes, yes, I remember you, Ffoulkes. You bumped into me at the bookshop.'

‘That's it,' said Ffoulkes.

‘I'm Cedric Coombes. By all means come inside, gentlemen, and let us get better acquainted.' He opened wide the door and led us into a rather gloomy sitting room. As he did so I noticed he had a slight limp in his left leg.

‘I couldn't help overhear your comment about wishing for a roommate,' said Ffoulkes. ‘So when my friend here mentioned that he was seeking inexpensive lodgings, I thought we should look you up.'

‘I'm not much of a host, gentlemen. I have nothing to offer you from the kitchen, but please do make yourselves comfortable.'

‘Thank you,' I said, taking a seat on the sofa.

‘I have found a very nice holiday cottage just around the corner in Chancery Lane. It is too pricey for me to rent on my own, and that is why I am looking for someone to share. My intention is to settle there for the next two or three months, where I can do my experiments more comfortably than I can here.'

‘Experiments?' said I.

‘Excuse me,' cried Ffoulkes, ‘do you smell something burning!'

‘Oh, no!' cried Coombes. ‘I forgot.'

He leapt to his feet and, in several jerky steps, rushed into the kitchen while we followed close behind. He hurried to the stove where several sheets of paper in a flat pan had burst into flames. He removed the pan and set it in the sink, and black ash floated upward towards the ceiling.

Ffoulkes was leaning in the doorway with his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. ‘So that's what you do with your wheelbarrows full of books,' he said. ‘You slice them up and burn them on the stove?' Ffoulkes nodded towards the kitchen table where a book and a knife lay. The book had been torn apart.

‘Oh, a little hobby of mine,' said Coombes. ‘It is possible to learn a great deal more from books than what is printed in them. I'm just carrying that notion to its logical conclusion. I'm trying to develop a process to determine scientifically who has owned, or handled, any book in the world.'

‘And what,' said Ffoulkes, ‘could be the point in doing that – even if it could be done?'

‘Why, good Heavens!' cried Coombes. ‘Had a test to prove who has handled a particular book or document been invented long ago, thousands of criminals now walking free would instead be paying the penalty for their crimes – criminals of every sort, from murderers to white-collar swindlers.'

‘Do you have a theory how such a test might be constructed?' I asked.

‘Several,' said he. ‘They depend on identifying actual or reconstitutable samples of DNA found in the oils that the fingers leave on the pages of the book, or in flecks of skin that inevitably rub off when one is turning pages.'

‘Sounds far-fetched,' said Ffoulkes, lazily. ‘But good luck.'

‘Oh, no, Mr Ffoulkes! A hundred years ago it would have been far-fetched. Today it is almost inevitable.'

‘Really?' Ffoulkes smiled.

Coombes wiped his blackened hands on a towel and darted away into the sitting room with amazing speed, and then he vanished into a bedroom off the front hall. He returned with a book in his hands. ‘I imagine you have read this book?
The Double Helix
by James D. Watson. I knew a man named Watson once. No relation, I'm sure. There has been a biological revolution, gentlemen, that astonishes me. They are cloning animals. They have created rat hearts using cells of baby rats. They have created mature human embryos from adult skin cells. I am sure you know all this.'

‘Yes, yes, it is all very amazing,' said Ffoulkes. ‘But on a more practical note, what sort of place is this holiday cottage you have found?'

‘Quite right, quite right,' apologized Coombes. ‘I get too excited when my favourite topics are in the air. The cottage has two bedrooms, a sitting room, kitchen, bathroom, patio, and a nice view of the hills. That's about all I can say. I think you will like it, Mr Wilson. The main thing is, will you like me? Perhaps I should enumerate my worst traits.'

‘I don't think that is necessary,' I said, laughing.

But Coombes was determined to tell me his faults. ‘I'm moody,' he said. ‘I'm alternately in a state of furious energy and then in a state of reverie and passivity, a dreamlike state. What we used to call “a brown study”.'

‘What do you do in your furious state?' I asked.

‘Walk the floor, dart away to solve problems, talk too much. I have learnt my behaviour can be disconcerting to those who are used to regularity and steady habits.'

‘I do need peace. My nerves are easily jangled. Are you ever loud?'

‘I am loud only when I play the violin,' said he. ‘And I haven't played a violin since . . . well, I haven't played one for a long time. But I intend to obtain one as soon as possible.'

‘Do you play well?'

‘Exquisitely, if I do say so myself,' said Coombes. ‘Anyway, I used to play exquisitely. But I can assure you, Watson . . .'

‘Wilson.'

‘Sorry, yes. Wilson. I can assure you that if I find I no longer play the violin exquisitely, I will instantly give it up. A violin played less than perfectly is too painful to bear. I could not put myself through the agony – much less anyone else.'

‘That's all right, then. Any other faults?'

‘Not that I can think of.'

I had to laugh at his logical approach to this whole problem, as if setting up a balance sheet of pluses and minuses would really help anyone decide anything. But I had decided to go along with his fantasy.

‘So it is my turn to confess,' I said. ‘Then, I must tell you, first of all, that I am opinionated. I try to restrain myself from voicing my opinions when they are not wanted, but I do not always succeed.'

‘I don't mind wrong opinions. I find them amusing,' said Coombes.

‘Also, I am by nature impatient.'

‘So am I,' said Coombes.

‘Third, I stay up very late and rise very early, and though I will promise to be as quiet as a mouse, I cannot change the sleep habits of a lifetime.'

‘Sometimes I don't go to bed at all,' said Coombes.

‘Well, there we are,' said Ffoulkes, smiling and rubbing his hands together like a broker who has just seen his clients conclude a deal.

‘If you are agreeable,' said Coombes, ‘we can meet at the property tomorrow at nine, so you can decide whether it suits you. I'll call the agent.'

‘Excellent,' I said.

Coombes gave me a sheet describing the cottage and how to find it. Then we shook hands and he said, ‘Everyone talks so much about Afghanistan these days. How did you like it there?'

‘I confess,' said I, ‘that it was not . . . I say, but how did you know that I . . . ?'

The doorbell rang again and Coombes hurried to answer it. An old woman wearing a backpack was on the front stoop. ‘Is this Oxford Cottage?' she asked. ‘I have a reservation.'

While Coombes showed the woman into the kitchen to await the arrival of the manager, Ffoulkes and I left and strolled back towards the centre of town.

‘By the way,' I said, suddenly stopping and turning to Ffoulkes, ‘how in the world did he know I had been to Afghanistan?'

‘I don't think either of
us
told him.'

‘No, I'm sure we didn't. But it was curious, wasn't it? And then all this folderol about cooking books to learn their owners – I don't know what to make of him.'

‘Nor do I,' said Ffoulkes. ‘But he seems harmless enough. And anyway, Wilson, you always liked puzzles when we were at school. Mr Cedric Coombes is a puzzle you can work out in your spare time, when you tire of buying first editions of Dickens and hiking the foggy hills.'

We walked to the car park by the tourist information centre and said our goodbyes, and we vowed to meet up in London someday soon – one of those vows old friends make in the heat of sudden meeting, but seldom carry out. Percy Ffoulkes climbed into his Range Rover, waved, and through the window his face seemed suddenly young, as I had known it years ago in the flower of our youth. And then he was gone in a swirl of leaves.

I walked towards the Boz Books shop, anxious to examine a first edition of
Pickwick Papers
that I had found there – and anxious, also, for morning to arrive so I could learn more about my curious new acquaintance.

TWO

The Logic of Poetical Leaps

I
met Coombes next day in Chancery Lane, as he had arranged, in front of a pretty stone cottage in a row of stone cottages that walled one side of the street. Cambrai Cottage featured a sitting room with a wood-beamed ceiling and a large stone fireplace. At the top of the stairs were two bedrooms, one looking on to the street, the other on to the patio behind the house. We were pleased by the premises and by the price which, when divided by two, was quite reasonable. We concluded our bargain on the spot. On that very morning I checked out of the Old Black Lion and moved my belongings into Cambrai Cottage. The following morning Coombes arrived with his wheelbarrow of books and a very ancient leather suitcase with three faded stickers on the side. Only one of the stickers could still be read:
Hotel Beau-Rivage, Quai du Mont-Blanc, Geneve
.