Sherlock Holmes (6 page)

“Quite,” replied Holmes. “Shame about his heart.”

“His heart?” I queried. “What the devil do you mean, Holmes?”

Holmes issued a disapproving tut. “Watson, I should have thought to a medical man it was obvious. Our driver suffers from a chronic weakness of the heart. Consider the facts: pale skin, breathlessness…”

“The very fact he’s here, in London, rather than at the front…” I cursed myself for my poor observation. “I should have seen it. Poor boy.”

Holmes said nothing, but took the steps up to the house and rapped loudly on the door with the brass knocker. It was cast in the shape of a rather undignified, impish face, its mouth fixed open in a screaming grimace.

Footsteps followed, and a moment later the door yawned open and Inspector Foulkes stood in the light, his considerable figure cast in stark silhouette.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he said. His voice sounded muffled, and it took a moment before I was able to discern that he was speaking around the mouthpiece of a pipe, which he’d clenched between his teeth. “This is something of an unconventional hour to be making house calls.”

I offered him an apologetic shrug from behind Holmes.

“Well come in, come in.” He stood to one side and ushered us both over the threshold.

“I understand, Inspector, that Herbert Grange lived alone,” said Holmes.

“That’s correct, Mr. Holmes. He was a bachelor,” replied Foulkes.

“No lodgers, tenants, housekeeper?”

“The housekeeper comes in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday to take care of the washing and cleaning. I gather Mr. Grange had no love of home cooking and preferred to eat out.” Foulkes shook his head, as if finding it difficult to comprehend such a notion. Holmes had already pushed on past him and was at the other end of the hallway, taking stock of his surroundings. “There were no lodgers or other inhabitants,” added Foulkes.

“Very good,” said Holmes. “Now, if you’ll give me leave?”

“Be my guest,” said Foulkes, with a gregarious shrug. “Take as long as you need.” At this, I felt my stomach grumble once again. “We’ve disturbed nothing. The house is as it was the day Grange died.”

“Excellent,” said Holmes. He passed along the hallway and disappeared down the short flight of steps to the kitchen.

Foulkes glanced at me, realised that I was not about to follow Holmes, and gestured for me to join him in the sitting room instead while we waited.

The room, and from what I could gather the rest of the house, was well appointed. Grange had obviously lived comfortably, and lived well. The house had the well-worn feel of a place that had been
inhabited
. Trinkets clustered on the mantelpiece, and on top of the sideboard stood framed photographs of people I took to be close friends and family.

Papers were spread out on a small table beside a high-backed chair in the bay window. A cut-glass decanter and a half-finished tumbler of whisky had been placed on top of them.

The curtains were drawn, but I had the distinct impression that the room was indeed very much how Grange had left it, as if he had simply got up from where he’d been sitting and left for the day, with every intention of returning later.

“So, Dr. Watson,” said Foulkes, “did you manage to turn up anything useful at the War Office?”

I shrugged. “With Holmes, even the most trifling detail might be the key to unlocking a mystery, but I fear his method is not to reveal anything until much later in the game.”

Foulkes nodded. “Keeps his cards close to his chest, does he? Can’t say I blame him. Although I admit, Doctor, this whole business has me somewhat baffled. I mean – a suicide is a suicide, is it not? No matter the victim or how much it pains us to acknowledge the rather unseemly deed. I cannot see that there is much of a mystery to unravel.”

“I rather fear that if the matter has piqued Holmes’s interest – and, indeed, that of his brother – then there will be layers to this case that have yet to become apparent,” I replied.

We lapsed into silence for a moment, both standing by the fireplace, contemplating the implications of what I’d said. After a while I noticed that my back was beginning to ache, and cursed myself for not taking more care. I wasn’t getting any younger, and I’d pushed myself harder that day than I had in months, if not years. That was the thing about spending time with Holmes, I realised – being caught up in a new case, dashing about like we had when we were younger – it felt a little like old times. There was a joy in that, of course, but nevertheless, I had to remind myself that I no longer had the stamina I once did.

“Do you mind if I sit?” I said. “It’s been something of a trying day.”

“Not at all,” replied Foulkes. “Help yourself.”

I chose the armchair by the window and slumped into it gratefully. Foulkes, in the meantime, had drifted over to the sideboard, where he was taking in the unsmiling faces in the photographs. I cast around, looking for anything of interest.

The papers on the small table caught my eye and I reached for them, sliding a handful out from beneath the decanter, careful not to spill the remains of Grange’s drink in the process. I transferred them to my knee. They were, it seemed, a series of bizarre colour photographs.

Clearly the subject was Grange himself, sitting in a repeated pose across six photographs: a head-and-shoulders shot. His expression was decidedly serious, perhaps even vacant, as he stared, unseeing, into the lens of the camera. The photographs had clearly been taken in sequence; although his pose had not altered, there were minute alterations in the curve of his lips, the direction of his eyes. Most unusual, however, was what could be seen above Grange’s head.

In every print there were strange shapes and cloudy patterns, like some sort of gaseous aura surrounding the man. The pattern changed from photograph to photograph, but it was clearly present in all of them. I peered more closely. Within these patterns were striations, segregated bands like the pattern of a rainbow, and just as colourful. They were unlike anything I had ever seen. How the photographer had managed to achieve such colour and vibrancy in his prints, I could not say.

“What do you make of these?” I said to Foulkes, holding them aloft.

He turned, saw what I was looking at and crossed the room to stand over me, looking down on the photographs. “Yes. Damned unusual, aren’t they?” he said. “Some sort of double exposure, I presume. A sequence of portraits that have gone wrong.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, no. Look at Grange himself. His image is sharp and clearly in focus. If the photographs were double exposed, it would be evident here, as well. And besides, look at his countenance, his posture. He’s not posing for a studio portrait. It’s as if he’s not really there. He looks – well,
haunted
, I suppose. He doesn’t look engaged. No, this is something else.”

“Then what?” said Foulkes. “I suppose it could be some sort of gas or vapour, swirling around above and behind him. But what about those colours? How did the photographer achieve that?”

“Good point,” I said, intrigued. I simply couldn’t fathom the look on the man’s face. Had he been planning his own death, even here, in these strangely crafted shots? Did he know what was coming?

I looked up at the sound of footsteps in the hall outside. “Let’s see what Holmes makes of them,” I said, getting to my feet.

As expected, Holmes appeared in the doorway a moment later. He looked pleased with himself.

“Well?” said Foulkes.

“This,” said Holmes “is in no way the home of a man who planned to commit suicide. If his death was premeditated, it was not by Grange himself. I have studied the habits of many diverse victims in my time, Inspector, and a man who does not intend to return home from work does not leave the remnants of his breakfast on the kitchen table, his bed unmade and entries in his diary for events still to be fulfilled.”

“Yes, I had that sense too,” I said. “The place feels as if he simply got up and went to work in the usual sort of hurry; that he intended to return home later to see to it all.”

“Precisely, Watson,” agreed Holmes. “It is the tendency of suicides, in my experience, to put their homes in order before committing the fateful deed. It brings a note of finality to proceedings, helps them to prepare.” He paced back and forth as he spoke, his eyes flicking from the mantelpiece, to the sideboard, to the ticking clock. “It is my belief that Grange fully intended to return home from work on the evening upon which he died.”

“Then you
do
suspect foul play,” said Foulkes.

“It is the only logical conclusion,” said Holmes.

“Murder, then?” I suggested.

Holmes shook his head. “Perhaps by proxy,” he replied. “I do not for a moment believe that anyone but Grange himself had a hand in arranging his plunge into the Thames, but as to whether he was in his right mind, and whether another had placed an undue and unwelcome influence upon him – well, that reminds to be seen.”

“Though you suspect that to be the case?” said Foulkes.

“I suspect nothing,” said Holmes, a little sharply. “I deal only in facts. To draw any conclusions at this juncture would be tantamount to guesswork. I had assumed that Chief Inspector Bainbridge might have impressed such cardinal principles upon his men before he retired.”

Foulkes flushed a bright shade of cerise.

I coughed, drawing attention away from the rather embarrassing conversation.

Holmes peered at me inquisitively. “Do I take it, Watson, that you have found something worthy of consideration?”

I glanced down at the photographs in my hand. “Well… I… oh, goodness knows,” I said. “See what you make of these, Holmes.”

I crossed the room and handed him the bundle of prints. He leafed through them with interest.

“Well?” I prompted, after a short while. Holmes glanced up at Foulkes. “Inspector, have you any indication that Mr. Grange might have shown a particular interest in matters of the spiritual or the occult?”

Foulkes looked perplexed. “No, not at all,” he said. “I’ve heard or seen nothing to support that claim.”

Holmes gave a brief nod of acknowledgement. “Indeed, quite the same can be said of his home. I see no evidence here – these photographs aside – of a particular fascination with such
trivia
.” This last word was accompanied by a derisory snort, indicative of perhaps Holmes’s most unsavoury trait: his lack of empathy and his distinct inability to engage in the idea that others might find comfort in notions or beliefs that he himself had previously disregarded.

“Yet, here are the photographs,” I said, a little haughtily. “And clearly you take them to be examples of the sort of spiritualist material that we have often seen purported to present evidence of the supernatural realm.” I was referring, of course, to the many cases Holmes had dismissed over the years when, upon allowing a visitor to seek consultation in our Baker Street sitting-room, they had gone on to produce folders full of similar works, asking for Holmes’s assistance in contacting a late family member, or laying an errant spirit to rest. He had never had time for such nonsense, and while I consider myself a typically open-minded chap, as a man of science I had been forced to agree with him.

Nevertheless, the manner of his rejection had always left something to be desired, particularly when handling the rather sensitive needs of a person who had recently been bereaved.

“Poppycock,” said Holmes, as if to underline my thoughts. “Hokum.”

“Nevertheless, I
am
right,” I pressed.

Holmes sighed theatrically. “Quite so, Watson. Quite so. These photographs do, indeed, appear to have some connection with that murky world of showmanship, extortion and irrational credulity.”

“An indicator, perhaps, of his state of mind, close to the time of his death?” I suggested.

Holmes shrugged. “All evidence points to the contrary, Watson, as I have already outlined. No, there is something more going on here.”

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” asked Foulkes. “This halo effect around the subject’s head. The colours…”

“They are quite singular,” agreed Holmes. “The ingenuity behind their creation is remarkable.”

“I was just saying to Fou—” I started, breaking off suddenly at the deafening
crump
of a detonation from somewhere nearby. The house trembled around us, the windows rattling in their frames.

“Good Lord!” bellowed Foulkes. “What the devil…?”

The echo of the explosion was still ringing loudly in my ears. It had been very close, no more than a few streets away. I looked at Holmes. “Zeppelins,” I said.

Holmes went to the door, as if to head out into the street.

“Wait!” I called, sternly, and to my surprise he stopped, his hand upon the doorknob. “Stay inside,” I added. “There’ll be more bombs to come.” He backed away, crossing the room to stand beside me.

As if to ratify my point, the sound of another nearby explosion caused us all to flinch. This time it was close enough to make my teeth feel as if they were rattling inside my skull.

“They’re damn close,” I said. “And coming this way.” I crossed to the window and parted the curtains, peering out into the night sky. Sure enough, the silvery lozenge of a German zeppelin drifted lazily across the sky, under-lit by the wavering pillars of searchlight beams. From somewhere close by the dull thud of anti-aircraft fire started up, like the roar of distant thunder. The zeppelin seemed unconcerned by this noisy banter, however, continuing on its slow pass over the city.

Oily smoke over the rooftops marked the trail it had left, from tumbling incendiary devices, and worse, explosives like the two that had just been deployed.

“I’d suggest you step away from the window, Dr. Watson,” said Foulkes. “If another of those ruddy bombs goes off, you could find yourself on the receiving end of the blast.”

“Yes,” I said, allowing the curtain to drop and backing away. “Of course, you’re right.” I looked to Holmes. “I think we’d better lie low until it’s passed over. We’ll be in more danger if we try to make a run for it. Shall we see if we can rustle up some tea?”

Holmes looked distracted. “What? Yes, of course,” he said, although I knew that he hadn’t really heard me. He’d been thinking about the bombs, about the people trapped in the burning buildings, the imminent danger. I’d never seen him quite like this before – the look of sheer impotence on his face. He clearly wanted to
do
something, but there was nothing he
could
do.