The Final Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Volume 1 (4 page)

Chapter IV. The Stranger's Room.

‘Did you know, Watson, that Diogenes was a Cynic, who believed that personal happiness was satisfied by meeting one's natural needs and that what was natural could never be shameful or indecent? He was determined to follow his own inclinations and not adhere to the conventions of society. Living a life of extreme simplicity, he slept in a tub on the street and survived on a diet of onions. He became notorious for his philosophical stunts, such as carrying a lamp around Athens during the day, claiming to be looking for an honest man. The story is that he held his breath in order to commit suicide. When asked how he wished to be buried, he left instructions to be thrown outside the city wall so that wild animals could feast upon his body.'

‘No.'

‘What's the matter, old man?'

As if he didn't know.

‘If you expect me to work with you on this case, we will have to find a different mode of travelling, Holmes. This hackney rattletrap is intolerable. And if you think the old broughams were odorous, then I rather think your exposure to Royal Jelly has destroyed your own sense of smell. For petrol and oil, anyway. And they go so
fast
. There are bound to be serious crashes in this incessant London fog. We could be killed!'

‘I believe you've become a bit of a grump during our separation, Watson.'

‘But Holmes, don't you miss the musical clatter of hooves and the screech of the carriage wheels?'

‘No. Not at all. But I accept that you do, Watson. You are, after all, the one fixed point in a changing age. Ah, here we are. Thank you, Mr. Rees.'

He leaned forward and pushed some coins through a window to the cab driver. I caught a glimpse of a shiny, bald head above an angelic cherub-like face that looked far too young to be driving a murder weapon like the Beardmore through the dense fog of wintery London.

‘My pleasure, Mr. Holmes.' The voice was a sing-song Welsh accent.

‘Holmes, before we alight from this fireball, can you satisfy my idle curiosity on one subject?' I asked.

‘I'll certainly try.'

‘Why were you expelled from the Diogenes Club?'

‘Hah! For talking to other members, of course. Three times. I grew bored and suggested to one fellow that he could sleep much more soundly at home, as he was obviously single and without family. Another objected to my assertion that his wife might not appreciate his intense perusal of the pearls of wisdom in the Times agony columns. The third was snoring so loudly that I simply said,
shush
. That finished it. Mycroft was on the committee that made the decision, poor chap. He never forgave me.'

Once we had managed to find it through the gloomy swirl, number 15 Pall Mall proved to be nothing more than an innocuous plain wooden door lodged between the more grandiose Atheneum and Reform Clubs. Neither plaque nor notice existed to identify the Diogenes Club. Far too exclusive for ex-army surgeons, I decided.

And Holmes seemed nothing less than a senior policeman, with his stove-pipe hat, black Inverness cape, bushy eyebrows and fine spread of bristling mutton-chop whiskers. He hammered his cane authoritatively upon the door, which was opened by a liveried doorman, dressed exotically in broadcloth, linen and silk stockings and with long, plaited blonde hair, like someone straight out of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Except that his features were purely white. His eyes shifted rapidly from side to side before focusing on us. When Holmes asked for Detective Lestrade, this throwback to another time and country, who was obviously Joseph, grinned continually as he ushered us into a narrow colonnaded hall, wherein Jasper Lestrade paced up and down, as though we were late. Which we were not.

‘Mr. Watson. There you are. And Mr. Holmes?'

‘Inspector Holmes to you, Lestrade,' said my friend sternly.

‘Ah… yes, indeed. I hardly recognised you, sir. Well. We can sign the Visitor's Book over here, Inspector.'

Once signed in, we deposited our cloaks and were asked to place socks over our shoes. Then Lestrade led us up a flight of stairs to a richly-carpeted balcony that jutted out in a semi oval shape from an elongated glass panelling, with a door at either side. I peered through this window at the strangest sight. It was like a monastery. Men were sitting alone in tiny cubby-holes, reading newspapers or sleeping. They were like wax dummies in a motionless ballet by Diaghilev, set to the gentle music of… snoring.

‘This is the main room, Inspector. I must ask you not to make any noise when we move through it to the Stranger's Room, as all conversation is frowned upon.' Lestrade actually placed a finger to his lips.

We threaded our way carefully through the silent members, some of whom turned away from the intruders, until we reached a single door to the rear. This led to a small passage, like that between the two carriages of a train, and through to another door.

The Stranger's Room showed few signs of the recent murder. It was comfortably furnished, with book-cases lining the walls and a huge log fire that roared hospitably from within a wide fireplace. Comfortable chairs ranged in front of it, with periodicals spread across them. Two luxuriant aspidistras spanned the doorway. A long case grandfather clock ticked away beside a wide bay window that looked out over Pall Mall. The bottom half of this window was delicately engraved with items of fruit and different family crests on each pane, against a background of fluted glass, which prevented anyone seeing into the room from the outside. It was flanked by a pair of step-ladders, presumably for use against the book-cases.

‘Where was Mycroft's body found?' demanded Holmes, whipping out his pocket lens.

‘Over here,' replied Lestrade, pointing to a small area beside the fire. ‘He was bent over forwards, with his head between his knees. He… he was undressed. He had no clothes on. Oh, and he was tied up.'

Holmes appeared disinterested in this news. I tried to imagine the scene, but without luck. My life with Beatrice had been a happy one, but I doubt if we had ever disclosed our naked bodies to each other. True, there were attempts to have children – several, actually – but they came to nothing, and after a lot of giggling, we decided to leave well enough alone. Nevertheless, I still missed our nights together, when we could snuggle up to one another for warmth on a cold winter's night. Enough. My leg was giving me gyp again.

‘I see. And was he definitely killed here?'

‘Yes, Mr. Holmes. There is no sign of blood anywhere else. We have checked.'

Holmes knelt down to explore the carpet with his lens. It was heavily stained with black blood, while the hearth and wainscoting were sprinkled with crimson splashes. Lestrade and I wandered about the room, trying to picture what might have happened there four nights ago. I was at a complete loss even to imagine Mycroft without his customary illustrious garb, and so I sat down and waited for Holmes to do his thing.

‘Most interesting,' he said, standing up. ‘The weapon, Lestrade, is a conventional farming implement, used for killing animals. A well sharpened slaughter knife with a straight blade twice the neck width is outlined within the blood marks on the carpet. The killer wiped the blade on it.'

He looked around the room. ‘It seems we came through the only door. There are also the two doors on the landing, one of which leads to a bathroom and the other to the Main Room. What else is on the ground floor, Lestrade? Is there a basement?'

‘Just the kitchen and restaurant, Mr. Holmes, with more toilet facilities. And a single guest apartment behind them which is rarely used, apparently. There's no basement. A double garage at the rear of the garden opens unto Carlton House Terrace.'

‘And no secret doors into this room either, eh?'

‘Not that we know of, sir.' Lestrade smiled at the idea.

Holmes walked slowly around the room, tapping each oak wall panel with his lens, checking, I imagined, for any variation of sound that might indicate a hollowness, behind which there could lie a magical passage to the street. But there were none.

‘Hmmm. I'll check the other rooms on the way out. Now, the window'.

To my eyes, there was no certain way of opening it, or climbing through it into the room. The only aperture was a ventilation fan in the middle, with a long string attachment. Having examined it closely, Holmes climbed onto one of the ladders and peered through the clear glass at the top. First to the left, then to the right.

‘A busy day in the Mall. Lots of Beardmore Mark Ones, Watson, choking their filthy fumes up into the atmosphere. And many nags on old hansoms, spreading their heavenly ordure onto the road. Ah, that musical squish, squash! There goes Joseph into Huggett's shop. He must have a sweet tooth. Quite a queue outside the butchers. Fresh meat today! Oh, well. If one wished to study mankind, this might be the spot. But no one could have come through here, unless they were invisible or disguised as a whiff of smoke,' he declared as he turned to step down.

Just then I heard a loud cracking sound, followed by the splintering of glass, and Holmes' body was falling to the ground off the step-ladder. I rushed over to him.

‘Holmes, are you hurt? Holmes!'

My old friend lay still on the carpet while Lestrade ran from the room, presumably to chase after the person who had fired the bullet through the window. My only agonised thought was for Sherlock Holmes.

There was a significant amount of blood, but a swift examination of his body proved that only his left ear had been grazed. His pulse was steady and his pupils seemed normal in size. I concluded that he had knocked himself out when he had fallen to the ground. I sacrificed my handkerchief to staunch the impressive flow of blood from his ear, and waited patiently for him to come round.

Lestrade had returned by the time Holmes opened his eyes and stared up at me.

‘Watson, we must find that chair of yours. Mycroft is dead, you know. Aaaaaagh, Moriarty, get away, get away! You evil genius! MRS. HUDSON!' He smiled weakly at me and closed his eyes again. It took him another minute or so to recover properly and realise where he was. His momentary hysteria had vanished.

‘What happened? Why am I on this damn floor?'

‘Steady, Holmes. Someone tried to kill you, and the bullet nicked your ear.'

He grimaced. ‘Ah, yes. Our potter friend from the Rubayait, no doubt. He must be losing his touch.'

He sat up and I helped him over to a couch in front of the fire, keeping his ear covered.

‘I believe he fired at you from across the road, Mr. Holmes. A couple of bobbies and I searched the houses and their rooftops, but we could find nobody,' said Lestrade.

Holmes took my handkerchief and held it to his ear.

‘Obviously, my policeman masquerade was not good enough. He must have followed us from Baker Street. I believe that I shall have to be somewhat cleverer in my disguises from now on. We must keep our eyes and ears sharply open, gentlemen, as we are in deep waters. Would you be kind enough, Lestrade, to consult with the Diogenes powers-that-be, and see if they can rustle up a single adhesive bandage for me? Good man. I shall collect it on the way out, as we check the other rooms. And please send the details of the autopsy report when you have them, to 221B Baker Street. Watson, I believe that we can do no more here. It is now four-thirty. We might just be in time to catch the five o'clock showing of the new Buster Keaton film,
Go West
. The man's a veritable comic genius. We are both in need of a little humour, don't you think? Then afterwards, perhaps a bite to eat at Simpson's might be called for.'

Unbelievable. His life in real danger. Almost killed. On the day of his brother's funeral. Buster bloody Keaton.

Whatever happened to Wagner?

Chapter V. The Train Journey.

Despite my protestations, Holmes insisted on working alone over the next few days, without disturbance from anyone. He wished to apply his analytical skills to breaking the ‘cipher or code within the cipher', he said. I returned to my practice in Paddington but found it difficult to concentrate on my patients' problems while my friend's life was in such danger. At night I dreamt of being chased by a herd of angry elephants up the Khyber Pass. I took this as an indication of my concern for him. That phrase about the potter reverberated through my head. I could make no sense of it in the context of Mycroft's murder. I even bought a copy of the Rubaiyat poem, and tried reading the section on pots over and over again, looking for some clue as to why the killer should send such an encrypted message to Holmes. All in vain.

I telephoned Lestrade, but he had made no progress. When I asked him about the autopsy, he stated that Mycroft Holmes had either taken, or been forced to take, a significant dose of veronal, a strong sleeping aid, shortly before his murder. There were also traces of cannabis resin in his system, enough to suggest that the dead man had been an habitual user of the substance. This was quite a shock to me, and I found myself wondering if any of us had really known Mycroft Holmes at all.

Against my friend's wishes, I decided to make a record of the case in my diary. I hereby beg forgiveness from any reader who finds my style somewhat wooden and lacking in pace, as eleven years have passed since I put pen to paper for anything other than a simple prescription. Where possible, I have endeavoured to inject some little humour into the text to counteract the horrible details of the killings. Also my memory is not quite as good as it once was and I am not getting any younger. Unlike Holmes, it would seem. I must confess that his example caused me to change my diet and to purchase a jar of Royal Jelly. For my own health, you understand. This had nothing whatsoever to do with Lily Hudson.

My mood lifted on the morning of the fifth day, when I received a telegram from the great detective himself:
Victoria Station. 3.30pm. Bring weapon.
At last something was happening! I rescheduled my single patient and spent the remaining hours in a state of nervous trepidation, worrying that I might be too old for the job. I searched for my rusty Webley RIC revolver, (it needed some maintenance) while wondering if Holmes had solved the Potter code, or if he had found some other hidden meaning in that threatening note. A clue to the killer's identity, perhaps?

Having braved a filthy day of shrieking wind and horizontal sleet, which almost made me wish that I had taken one of those damn cabs rather than a growler, I arrived outside the station at 3pm, not wishing to delay Holmes in his lofty work. But after forty frustrating minutes of searching through the restless buzzing crowd in the central concourse, I was beginning to give up any hope of finding him. Slightly relieved, I patted the ancient gun in the pocket of my ulster. Still there. Loaded. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and looked around to face a strikingly decrepid old lady, complete with wide-brimmed feathered cloche hat, curly blue perm, brown mottled skin, rouged cheeks, bright scarlet lips and a colourful pince-nez perched on the end of a bulbous nose. Her fur coat must not have been out of storage for very long, as it issued forth a faint patina of dust whenever she moved.

‘Excuse me, young man,' she said. ‘Can you direct me to platform ten, and the four o'clock train for Brighton?' Her voice was shrill, tremulous and excited, as though it had been years since she travelled on a train.

‘Yes, ma'am. It's over there to the right. Through the stile and… the porter will help you then.'

Normally I am never rude to a member of the fair sex, especially if they refer to me as a young man, but time was ticking on, and I was keen to join Holmes on the murderer's trail.

‘Young man. While it is true that manners maketh the man, I think you'll agree that plenty of make-up and a few old clothes maketh the woman.'

The hag actually winked at me.

‘Good God, Holmes! Not again!'

‘Thank you for your trouble, young man.'

With that, Holmes placed a coin coquettishly into my hand and staggered off on heels that were at least six inches too high for any woman, let alone a man. Only when I opened my palm did I realise that the coin was, in fact, a short note that had been scrunched up into a ball.

‘Watson. The four o'clock smoker for Brighton. First class passenger car. Don't try to follow me.'

As ever, I obeyed the masterly chameleon, bought my ticket and later found myself sharing the first carriage of the London to Brighton afternoon train with a sprinkling of bowler-hatted City types, who were either reading the Times newspaper or sleeping their way home to the coast. Needless to say, there was nary a sign of Holmes, or Milady Montmorency, or whoever he was pretending to be this time. I was beginning to get the rather odd feeling that Holmes was dressing up, not to protect himself from some dangerous lunatic, but because he was enjoying it so much.

At least the scrawny conductor in his velveteen uniform could not have been Holmes. Far too small.

‘Excuse me, sir. Are you Mister Watson?' he asked shyly.

‘Yes, I am.'

‘Well, sir. Lady Forsythia Moriarty, a rather ancient dear in the dining-car, wishes you to join her for afternoon tea.'

‘Very well. Thank you.' Really! Lady Forsythia Moriarty! I was getting fed up with all this moving about and subterfuge. Why weren't we baiting a trap for the Potter swine, rather than running away from him? Attack, attack, attack! That had been the cry up the Khyber Pass in the Great Game! Those were the days, right enough. Kill or be killed. Day-dreaming of those wonderful times, and with my leg starting to throb again, I followed the collector dutifully back to where the grand old dame was sitting at the back of the empty dining carriage with a rug covering her dress and sipping tea in a most delicate manner.

‘Do sit down. So delighted you could join me,' she murmured.

Once the conductor was out of hearing, Holmes returned to his normal voice.

‘Who'd be a woman, eh, Watson?' he whispered. ‘The fussy dresses, the reeking perfumes, the high heels, the make-up, the complicated underclothes. God, it's disgusting!'

‘Holmes, I must protest,' I cried. ‘Women are the jewels of our species, the very beacons of shining light in an increasingly dark universe. Without them, we men would simply revert to our animal nature, and return to the caves. I won't have you malign their sex like that.'

‘Here, old man,' said Holmes, smiling tolerantly. ‘Have some Earl Grey. It'll calm you down.'

‘I don't need to be calmed down,' I replied, thoroughly nettled by his customary patronising attitude and refusal to take me into his confidence. ‘I just want to know if we're safe here, and if you have made any progress on Mycroft's murder. What about that cipher within a cipher, for instance?'

‘Have you brought your weapon?'

‘Of course.'

‘Good. I have my stick sword and knuckle-duster. Now place the gun where it cannot be seen but can be drawn swiftly. Hopefully our friend will have been led to believe that we are travelling all the way to Brighton. We will disembark at Haywards Heath at the last moment and pray that he does not follow us. I intend that we shall spend the night at The Dolphin. Tomorrow, old fellow, I'm hoping you will help me break the news of Mycroft's death to our father. I fear I cannot broach the event alone.'

‘Your father!' I almost screeched, as I fumbled my life-preserver under a newspaper on the seat. ‘But Holmes, you told me your parents had died many years ago. Before we even met!'

‘I know. I apologise, Watson, for having misled you on that. I'm sure there was a good reason for it at the time. If only I could remember it. The truth is that Teddy Holmes is a very frail, wheelchair-bound, slightly deaf ninety-eight-year-old who lives with a pretty young Norwegian housekeeper in the Sussex home that he moved to from Yorkshire after our mother's death. Ellie looks after things at the Old Rectory. I fear the shock of Mycroft's death will be too much for the old man.'

‘But surely he will have read of it in the newspapers.'

‘He never reads them. He is a total recluse, and has not received a single visitor since our mother died, thirty years ago. Apart from Mycroft, of course, who used to go down regularly. This is my first trip since her funeral. Good grief, how do women wear these things? My feet are killing me.'

Holmes kicked his shoes under the dining table and started rubbing his heels.

‘Holmes, do you seriously mean that you haven't seen your father in thirty years? I find that difficult to understand. And have you warned him of our arrival?'

‘I'll explain it to you later. There is a logical reason for everything, Watson. And no. It will be quite a surprise. Now, this damned poetry quote. I must confess my failure to you. Even after three pipes, I still could not come up with a single thing, other than the quote itself. ‘Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot.' You do remember it, don't you?'

‘Of course,' I replied. ‘It's been driving me mad. Holmes, I do hope you're going to change your clothes before seeing your father again.'

‘Hah! I'll do just that in the Dolphin tonight. I've booked two rooms, Watson, just in case people get the wrong idea about Lady Forsythia Moriarty.'

The twinkle in Holmes' eye did not serve to improve my mood.

‘Well,' he continued. ‘I spent many hours examining the quote for secret meanings, using my monograph on ciphers. I decided to approach it in several stages. First I split the text into digraphs, as follows:

WH-OI-ST-HE-PO-TT-ER-PR-

AY-AN-DW-HO-TH-EP-OT'.

Holmes noticed my puzzled expression and leaned forward across the table.

‘A digraph is a combination of two letters that represent either a single sound, or another letter. A sound formed by a digraph might be ‘ch' as in chair, or ‘sh' as in ‘shush'. In this case, I thought it must be a letter, as no sounds are formed by ‘dw' or ‘ot'. Do you follow?'

‘Yes, Holmes, I do follow.'

‘Good. Notice that no digraph is repeated. And the message is too short for frequency analysis.'

‘Frequency analysis?' I was getting a little out of my depth.

‘It's an old tool for breaking substitution ciphers, invented by Arab scholars in the ninth century to establish the sequence in which the revelations of the Koran had been made to the Prophet Mohammed. For example, the letter E in English occurs on average about ten times out of every one hundred letters. So if we had a longer message, with one digraph occuring that frequently, we could assume it was E, and work from there.'

‘I see. I think.'

‘Good. It is elementary, isn't it? There are many ciphers, so I decided to apply each one to the cipher text on a trial and error basis. It may have consumed a few days of my life and come to nothing, but was rewarding in itself as an intellectual exercise. I tried the Mary Queen Of Scots, the Atbash, the Vigenere, the Pig-pen, the Playfair, the ADFGVX, the Checkerboard, all the other substitution and transposition ciphers, most of which require a key. Unfortunately none of these worked, possibly because I didn't know the key. I tried many options for that key, including MYCROFT, SHERLOCK, WATSON, HUDSON, MURDER, MUSICAL but nothing worked. So there it is. I must admit it. For once I have been foiled.'

‘Wait, Holmes. Just wait,' I said loyally. ‘Perhaps there
is
no hidden meaning. Maybe it's something much simpler. A clue within a cipher, which might be in the title of the poem, or the name of the author? What is a Rubayait, anyway?'

‘It is a form of Persian poetry, I believe. Yet I hardly think that Omar Khayyam can be the name of our nemesis. I tried all possible anagrams of his name and came up with nothing.'

‘What about Edward Fitzgerald? The translator?' I queried. ‘Your father is called Teddy, isn't he? Surely that is another name for Edward?'

‘Teddy. Edward. Edward Siger Holmes. That's my father's full name.'

Holmes' face had turned a ghastly shade of white.

‘Oh, no. Oh, great God in heaven, no!'

Holmes had bitten so anxiously upon his little pen that it splintered in two. He looked like a stricken clown in his female make-up and attire.

‘Watson. It takes a simple mind to discover the obvious. I have been too studious in my approach. Fitzgerald is my mother's family name. Now that is too much of a coincidence. It may be that my father is to be the next victim. And that our foe is one step ahead of us already. We must quickly to the Old Rectory when the train stops at Haywards Heath. And I must become a man again now. Excuse me.'

Holmes grabbed his bag from the overhead hanger and disappeared down the corridor in his clacking high heels. Any misgivings I may have had about his feelings for his father were banished as I witnessed his obvious distress at the possibility of injury or worse to the old man.

But what kind of fiend would want to kill a ninety-eight-year-old man? Then I remembered.
Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?

I felt beneath the newspaper for the comfort of my Webley.