The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes (7 page)

Sergeant Bundle looked both stunned and pleased. He was shaking his head, almost in amusement.

I felt stunned and not pleased. A terrible sense of
déjà vu
had come over me again. I wondered – with a strange sinking feeling in my heart –
where have I heard all this before?

‘It sounds as if we are well on the way to solving this case, sir,' opined Bundle, swelling in his chair and taking a deep breath.

‘I wish I could be so optimistic,' said Coombes.

‘Have you further theories?' asked Bundle. ‘I should be very glad to hear them.'

Coombes sprang from his chair and hobbled to the window, then turned and faced Bundle. ‘I think you will learn that young Mr Calvin Hawes was recently a military man with the American forces.'

‘You are right, sir!' cried Bundle. ‘We have already learnt that he served as an infantryman with the American army in Afghanistan, and was discharged a year ago.'

‘I believe you will find he was lured to Hay-on-Wye by the promise that a young woman was awaiting him here. No doubt he thought her name was
Lydia Languish
.'

Bundle nodded. ‘The bouquet in the poor lad's hands, is that it? It seems most probable.'

‘Few things are more potent to a young man than the promise of sex,' said Coombes. ‘Even money pales in comparison. What better to lure him all the way across an ocean? Attraction to women is not a sensation I have personally experienced, yet I have observed that for most men it is an overpowering madness. Young men in particular.'

‘Very true, sir.'

‘If you succeed in breaking into his email you may well find that he was corresponding, or thought he was corresponding, with Lydia Languish. I don't know how computers work, but I suspect the murderer does, and that he has covered his computer tracks better than he covered his bicycle tracks. So you are unlikely to track him down in that manner. You might, however, enquire of bicycle shops here and in Hereford to learn whether they have in the past week sold a bicycle that leaves tracks like these . . .' Coombes handed the sergeant a small print of a photograph.

‘I didn't know you had a computer!' I said. ‘You astonish me, Coombes.'

‘One must keep up with the times – difficult as it is to do.'

‘Well,
tempus fugit
, Mr Coombes. I must be off and running,' said Bundle. He rose from his chair, and seemed to fill the room. His white shirt and tie, and the epaulettes on his shirt, made him look very grand.

A moment later he was gone.

‘Come, Wilson. I must show you my computer. A very strange little thing it is.' He led me up the stairs to his room.

‘I had no idea you had so many books up here too!' I cried, for they were ranged on shelves all round the room, and piled in corners. On the desk was a new laptop computer, and on the side table a small colour printer.

‘Certain friends have outfitted me with all the latest machinery,' said he. ‘I have found the computer somewhat more convenient than notebooks for storing information – although for field work a notebook is indispensable.'

‘And what, may I ask, is the object of your researches? I have often wondered but been reluctant to ask.'

‘Reluctance to ask is a very English fault, my dear fellow. But there is no secret. I am trying to catch up with what I've missed.'

‘It is something I ought to do myself,' I said. ‘Much of life has slid by me unnoticed. Now that I have leisure, I want to try to catch up on what I've ignored before. But what exactly are you trying to catch up on?'

‘Everything,' said Coombes, and suddenly he looked a bit deflated. ‘And it is a Herculean task.'

‘If you try to catch up on everything, I imagine it would be,' I said.

‘I must away to work, Wilson!' he cried, seeming to gather his energy again. He began grabbing volumes from the wall.

I went downstairs, finished my tea, ate a biscuit, then wandered into the street and up towards the centre of town, feeling more lost than I had felt in many a year. I scarcely know what I did that day, perambulating through crooked streets, into and out of bookshops, rambling in the hills, then back into town, filled with half-formed decisions, musings, uncertainty. I ate my evening meal at a restaurant, then walked to Cambrai Cottage. Coombes was seated in front of a roaring fire. ‘Greetings, Wilson!' said he, in a cheery voice.

‘Good evening, Coombes – very chilly weather.'

‘Chilly indeed,' said he, and he rubbed his hands together and looked into the flames.

I set the books I had purchased on the table, five lovely volumes bound in full green morocco. I carefully placed them so that their gilt titles were in plain view of my strange acquaintance. After a few minutes I saw Coombes glance towards them. But he did not display much interest.

I wandered to one end of the room, gazed out the window. I turned, considered making a pot of tea. Coombes seemed deep in meditation. His back was to me and he was staring towards the mantelpiece. I felt in the pockets of my sport coat, contemplating my next move. It suddenly seemed to me that I may have been wrong to buy the Sherlock Holmes volumes merely to try a foolish experiment, and that I should really have spent my money on . . .

‘You are absolutely right, Wilson, you
should
have bought
The Pickwick Papers
,' said Coombes, ‘and you will regret it if you do not go to Boz Books and buy it before someone else does.'

I froze. He had broken in on my mental processes. He had replied to my unspoken thought. A thrill of coldness ran through me. I knew where I had seen this trick before. ‘Ye gods!' I cried, walking round to where I could face him. ‘That is just what I was thinking. But how in the world did you know it? I think you really must be Sherlock Holmes! Or else I'm losing my mind—'

‘Elementary, my dear Wilson.'

‘I
am
losing my mind,' I said, and I sank into a chair with my head in my hand. ‘This is some sort of giant charade, to which I have fallen victim.'

‘Nothing of the kind,' said Coombes. ‘All this while that you thought I was staring and vacantly contemplating, I was in fact watching you in that mirror by the mantle. I saw you place those Sherlock Holmes volumes on the table, in hopes that they would cause some sort of reaction in me. You carefully angled the books so I could see the titles. When I did not react as you had hoped, you gazed at your newly purchased books ruefully, then turned away and walked to the window. Then you turned back into the room again as if uncertain or upset. You looked again at the set of books you had just bought, and then you looked down at the Boz Books pamphlet protruding so flamboyantly from the pocket of your jacket, and you gave a deep sigh. Your train of thought was obvious: you were thinking that instead of buying the set of Sherlock Holmes you should have purchased the first edition of
Pickwick Papers
that you have so often mentioned. You have often said that a
Pickwick
with both of the cancelled Buss plates is a rare find, and that you will never get it at a better price.'

I stared like a man bereft of his wits.

‘There is hardly anything at all in my observation,' he added. ‘You have been mentioning that
Pickwick Papers
volume so frequently in the last ten days that anyone could have guessed your thought.'

‘But I have seen this done before only by one person,' I said. ‘You even look like him. For weeks I have been trying to remember where I have seen you before, and now it has come upon me. And yet it cannot be so!'

‘It was inevitable that you would discover me,' he said. ‘I have seen it coming for a long time. And I have feared it, Wilson . . . I have feared it a little.'

‘What is it you have feared, Coombes?'

‘I have feared you would find out who I am.'

‘And who are you?'

‘Since you have become my friend, I might as well confess,' he said. ‘Anyway, you already know.'

‘Know what?' I said, trying to project a manly voice. But the words came out almost a whisper.

‘It is too late at night for confessions,' said Coombes. ‘Tomorrow morning, if you still desire it, I will tell you everything.'

That night I again slept fitfully, wondering what strange tale I might hear in the morning. I arose early but Coombes had arisen earlier. He was already shaved and dressed. We went out to breakfast together and only chatted on commonplace topics – the quality of food in England versus food on the continent, Welsh myths in relation to Greek myths, and whether the notion that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny might apply to psychic development. But when we returned to our cottage the subject could be avoided no longer. I stoked the fire. My friend leant back and, placing his elbows on the arms of the chair, he touched all his finger and thumb tips together and gazed at me steadily, with a kindly and curious gaze. ‘I have seen you struggling with this problem for weeks, and now you have guessed, and guessed correctly, my dear Watson . . .'

‘Wilson.'

‘. . . that I am Sherlock Holmes.'

‘Sherlock Holmes!' I murmured.

‘Is not that what you have been thinking?'

‘Yes – but that's impossible!'

‘Improbable, certainly. But as a man of science I am not terribly surprised that good Dr Coleman of St Bartholomew's Hospital, with the help of his many able assistants and all his modern equipment, has been able to bring me back to life – presuming, of course, that I was actually dead . . . a point upon which the metaphysicians of the scientific fraternity seem unable to agree.'

A fit of nervousness came over me. My hands were actually trembling. I arose and walked to the window. I gazed out at the commonplace and comforting street. I gazed a long while. At last I said, ‘You are a very good actor, sir.'

Coombes ignored my evasions. ‘Awakening my brain was relatively easy, they tell me. But bringing my body back to function, after ninety years lying frozen in a glacier, was a long, complicated and painful ordeal – indeed, I am not at all sure I would have gone through it if they had given me a choice. But of course I had no choice.'

‘A glacier!' I cried.

‘Perhaps I should begin at the beginning,' said Coombes, with equanimity. ‘I take it from the look of horrified disbelief on your face that you are interested.'

‘Yes,' I said, and I sank into my chair. I had no intention of believing whatever it was he had to tell. But I was certainly interested. Here is what he told me. As he spoke he seemed to intoxicate me, and – for some moments at least – I became quite certain that it was really the voice of Sherlock Holmes speaking . . .

FIVE

Cedric Coombes and Sherlock Holmes

I
must go back a bit and refresh your memory of history, Wilson, if you are to understand the strange adventure that befell me in the year 1914. The Great War, as I'm sure you recall from your history books, was precipitated when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary visited Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, and was assassinated by a Serbian fanatic. In retaliation, Austria-Hungary declared war on tiny Serbia, and soon was backed up by its ally, Germany. Russia, in defence of its fellow Slavs in Serbia, jumped in and declared war on both Germany and Austria-Hungary. Britain and France were added to the mix, simply because they had, for many years, been loosely united with Russia. So Russia, France and Great Britain aligned themselves against the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Thus the stage was set for war. All the props were in place. All the actors were dressed up in soldiers' uniforms and waiting in the wings, ready to unleash death on a scale never before witnessed in this world.

Many people tried to prevent the conflict. The three people best placed to do this were Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of England, and Czar Nicholas II of Russia. The first two, George and Wilhelm, were grandchildren of Queen Victoria, which made them first cousins. Nicholas was married to one of Victoria's grandchildren, which made him a sort of first cousin by marriage. The assassination of Ferdinand took place on June 28th. During the month of July few people seriously believed that war would break out. But great forces were gathering, and the three cousins sensed that a juggernaut may have been set in motion. Telegrams flew back and forth between them. They had been children and young men together, and they often signed themselves
Nicky, Willy
and
Georgie
when they wrote to each other. But all this flurry of telegraphic conversation between the cousins was to no avail. Britain followed its allies and declared war on August 4th, 1914.

Now, if you recall my own history, as transcribed by my old friend Watson, you will know that in 1912 I had come out of retirement to track down a German spy named Von Bork. The task took two years. On August 2nd, 1914, I finally collared Von Bork and, with the help of my friend Watson, trussed him like a turkey, loaded him into a motorcar and carried him off to Scotland Yard.

I immediately returned to Sussex, intending to resume my quiet life of retirement. But scarcely had I arrived home when Britain declared war. Soon I began to chafe that I was no longer able to help the cause of England. I was a man of sixty, but I was perfectly fit in both body and mind. I wondered how I might make shift to assist my country in this terrible moment. The answer was not long in coming. A messenger rode up my cottage lane one morning, leant his bicycle against the low wall, and handed me a letter from our King. It was dated from Buckingham Palace and was signed by the King himself. Prime Minister Asquith had visited me in my cottage two years earlier, imploring my assistance on the Von Bork case. Now the King was requesting that I come to Buckingham Palace to discuss ‘a matter of grave national importance.'