The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (77 page)

“I trust not, Holmes,” I said, as Mrs Hudson entered with a tray, which she placed on the table and left. Holmes sniffed the air and said: “Hello, what’s this, Watson?”

“Turkish coffee, Holmes. One of Orman Pasha’s attendants gave it to me as we were leaving Royston Manor. He said that the Pasha asked him to say that it was a better stimulant than many others.”

Holmes smiled to himself as he sipped the coffee. “Excellent, Watson,” he said.

The Enigma of the Warwickshire Vortex

F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre

According to Watson’s accounts, Holmes investigated just three more cases in 1903 – “The Mazarin Stone”, “The Three Gables” and “The Creeping Man”. After the last case he decided to retire. He probably did this on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. He settled in a small house on the South Downs near Eastbourne and spent his time beekeeping, on which he wrote a treatise, the
Practical Handbook of Bee Culture,
and bringing together all of his own papers to produce the definitive volume
The Whole Art of Detection.

He was very strict about his retirement, refusing to venture back to his old practice. Nonetheless, a mind as active as Holmes’s would never be at rest. He recorded an investigation of his own, “The Lion’s Mane” in 1907, but it is rather surprising that he did not record the culmination of a case that had puzzled him for thirty years. This was the remarkable one of James Phillimore, who stepped back into his house to collect his umbrella and was never seen again. Holmes investigated the case early in his career but had been unable to resolve it. The mercurial interests of F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre have caused him to undertake research into a number of areas, none of which were Holmesian, but a stroke of luck while researching the development of the cinema in New York brought the conclusion of the case to light. Many others have attempted to resolve this enigmatic case but here, at last, is the answer.

Strange Disappearance of Local Businessman

A peculiar and unexplained incident is reported from Leamington. On the Wednesday morning, two bankers of this community made a visit to Number 13a, Tavistock-street, the residence of Mr James Phillimore, age 33, who desired to accompany these gentlemen to their place of business for the purpose of discussing a financial transaction.

Stepping into the street, Mr Phillimore glanced momentarily upwards, and – although the weather has been fair this past fortnight – he remarked to his companions: “It looks like rain. Let me get my umbrella.” Whereupon he stepped back into his own house, closing the front door but leaving it unlocked, whilst his colleagues remained on the doorstep.

A moment later, the two gentlemen over heard Mr Phillimore shouting from within: “
Help me! I can’t
–” His words were terminated in mid-sentence. Mr Phillimore’s two callers straight away entered the house’s antechamber, where a most peculiar sight awaited them.

The floorboards in the centre of the foyer were
scorched
, in a pattern forming
a circle roughly six feet in diameter
: as if some unknown vortex had visited this portion of the room, and no other. Mr Phillimore’s muddy footprints could be clearly seen, in a trail leading directly to the perimeter of this circle.
The rear half of a footprint
protruded from the outer edge of the circle: the front half of Mr Phillimore’s right foot had evidently entered the circular mystery, yet
it left no imprint within.

An umbrella-stand stood unmolested in a corner of the vestibule, well away from the circle. The ferrule of Mr Phillimore’s umbrella, with several inches of the shaft, was found on the floor at the outer edge of the circular enigma. The missing portion of the umbrella – which presumably had accompanied Mr Phillimore into the circular zone – had been neatly
sheared off.

Both of the witnesses to this astonishing occurrence are prominent bankers of Leamington Spa, whose veracity and sobriety are above reproach.

The house has now been thoroughly searched by the local police, and there is no evidence of sink-holes nor of any hidden chambers. At this reporting, no trace of Mr Phillimore has been found.

Extract from
The South Warwickshire Advertiser
for Thursday, 26 August 1875

My friend Sherlock Holmes had recounted the Phillimore case to me in only the briefest terms, for he was disinclined to discuss his rare failures. I knew only that the incident had occurred very early in his detective career, shortly after the
Gloria Scott
affair. Mr Phillimore of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, had vanished quite as if the Earth itself had swallowed him up, and he might never reappear unless the Earth itself should open and regurgitate him.

On the afternoon of 18 April 1906, I was examining a patient in my London surgery when word arrived that a great earthquake had lain waste to the mighty city of San Francisco. By nightfall the grim toll was confirmed: several hundreds were injured or dead, and many thousands were homeless. For the next thirty hours, the transatlantic cable relayed further news: the coal-gas lines beneath the San Francisco streets had ruptured in the earthquake, in consequence of which the entire city was now engulfed by fires that raged unchecked. In the safety of my Harley Street surgery, I resolved myself to make a modest contribution to any public subscriptions which might be set up in London to aid the San Franciscan victims.

Scarcely a fortnight later, a telegram bearing a familiar return address in the Sussex Downs was delivered to my rooms. The message consisted of only three words: “Come at once“ and the signature “Holmes“. No further text was necessary.

I made haste to Victoria station and purchased a first-class return for the down train to Brighton. After an unusually long wait for my train’s arrival, the railway journey passed quickly enough. At the Brighton cab-rank, a coachman conveyed me to the gateposts of my destination.

The house of Mr Sherlock Holmes was outwardly like any bachelor’s domicile, but the gardens surrounding it provoked astonishment. The house was flanked and garrisoned on all sides by long thin wooden cabinets which – upon closer inspection – were in fact
bee-hives
, oozing the pale beeswax and darker secretions of their insect inhabitants. The constant buzzing was a thousandfold Babel. As I strode up the front path amid an escort of inquisitive bees, I glimpsed the face of my friend and summoner at a nearby window. Before I even had time to make use of the boot-scraper beside the doorstep, I was ushered within. The bees, fortunately, elected to remain outside. A moment later I was cross-legged on a haircord settee, in the parlour of my good friend Sherlock Holmes.

“Delighted you came, Watson.” He passed forth his cigar-case, and I accepted a black
perfecto.
Whilst I cut this and lit it, Holmes resumed: “You must pardon my bees. One of the hives has just today produced a new queen, and she has been kept busy murdering all of the dormant queens.”

“I had not known that bees could be persuaded to live in wooden cabinets,” I said.

Holmes selected a Havana
panatela,
and lit his cigar without cutting it. “The bees live in a nearby hollow oak. Those cabinets are my own creation, inspired by the devices of an American beekeeper, the Reverend Langstroth. Each honeycomb occupies its own cabinet, and may be removed without disturbing the other combs.” Without warning, my friend changed the subject abruptly: “Watson, I regret that you were obliged to wait so long for your train at Victoria station.”

“You were aware of the delay, then?” I asked him.

“Not at all,” said Sherlock Holmes. “As soon as you entered my house, I observed that your train was delayed.”

I smiled indulgently. “You must have memorized
Bradshaw’s Railway Guide,
and you inferred the tardiness of my train from the hour of my arrival.”

“I never memorize idle data, Watson. My mind is a workroom, not a storage room.” Holmes pointed his long fore-finger towards my feet. “Your shoes, I observe, are freshly polished. Owing to the urgency of my telegram, you would not have chosen to delay your departure from London by devoting time to such trifles. You must have been unwillingly detained at the railway terminus, and – during the enforced wait – you availed yourself of the bootblacks who ply their trade along the Belgrave wall of Victoria station.”

“Remarkable, Holmes! What you say is the truth.”

“Furthermore,” my friend continued, “there is one particular bootblack in the Belgrave Road whose brown boot-cream is of a distinctive
russet
colour, not available commercially. I believe that he makes up the mixture himself, from an original receipt. Your footgear, Watson, bears the mark of that tradesman.”

Once again I was astonished. “But surely, Holmes, you did not summon me here to discuss bootblacks,” I ventured.

“Indeed not.” Holmes went to the fireplace, and retrieved a folded document from the mantelshelf. “You are doubtless aware of the recent holocaust in San Francisco.”

I nodded sadly. “Yes, the earthquake and the subsequent fires. A dreadful accident.”

“
Accident
is hardly the word, Watson. Precisely
one day
after the San Francisco earthquake, my good friend Pierre Curie – the distinguished French scientist – was struck and killed by a horse-cart in Paris.
That
misfortune was an accident. This San Francisco affair is something rather worse: our planet Earth has burst open at the seams.”

I nodded once more. “In spite of scientific progress, men are still at the mercy of Nature.”

There was a dark look in his eyes as Sherlock Holmes spoke: “It is not Nature which preys upon men, Watson. The predator who threatens humanity is man himself.” Holmes sat down and unfolded the document in his hands. “I have received a despatch from two American gentlemen: Mr Henry Evans, the president of the Continental Insurance Company; and Mr James D. Phelan, a former mayor of San Francisco. These men have pledged themselves to the cause of resurrecting their dead city, and of seeing San Francisco rise from the ashes.”

“Strange that a
former
mayor, rather than the current office holder, should undertake such a mission,” I remarked.

“The current mayor is part of the problem, Watson.” Sherlock Holmes glanced at the document before him. “Mr Phelan informs me that, during his own term as mayor of San Francisco, municipal funds were allocated for the wages and training of police officers and firemen, as well as funds for the purchase and maintenance of fire-engines and pump-waggons, and for horses to convey them.”

“A prudent investment, surely,” I said.

“Perhaps not,” Holmes’s frown deepened. “Mayor Phelan’s letter goes on to state that the present mayor of San Francisco – one Eugene Schmitz by name – is the agent of a ring of thieves and grafters who have systematically looted the city’s coffers and enriched themselves by several
millions
of stolen dollars. Due to the absence of funds, the police force and fire department of San Francisco are mere skeleton crews: ill-trained, and obliged to fulfil their duties with defective equipment. In consequence, when the earthquake struck, the death-toll was far higher than it might have been. Doctor, it may interest you to know that the recent San Francisco earthquake, and the ensuing conflagrations, have claimed
seven hundred
human lives.”

“
Good heavens!
” I exclaimed.

“Indeed. But if Mr Phelan is to be believed – and I believe him, Watson – more than 300 of those deaths, as well as 20 million dollars’ worth of property damage, are the direct result of Mayor Schmitz’s embezzlements. Had the city’s funds been allocated to their rightful needs, those people never would have died.”

“A tragedy, surely. But what has this to do with you, Holmes?”

My friend refolded Mr Phelan’s epistle and pocketed it. “The Continental Insurance Company, and several other assurance firms as well, are now threatened with bankruptcy as a result of the torrent of policy claims emanating from San Francisco. Mr Evans and his colleagues intend to make good on all claims, but they are resentful at bearing the costs for this tragedy whilst the thieves who caused it go free. Mayor Schmitz and his corrupt associates are to blame, yet no evidence of their guilt can be established.”

We smoked in silence for a moment, and then Holmes spoke again: “Evidently my reputation has travelled all the way to California, Watson. This letter is the result. Mr Phelan and Mr Evans, joined by a syndicate of insurance brokers, have offered me
carte blanche
if I will but journey to San Francisco and place myself at their disposal. These men wish to engage my services in a matter of deduction and investigation. They desire me to find solid
proof
, such as will stand up in any American court, of the malfeasances of Schmitz and his henchmen.”

“And do you intend to accept this commission, Holmes?” I asked him.

“My dear Watson, I already have. American politics are a dark labyrinth which I have never entered before, and the challenge intrigues me.” Holmes arose and stretched himself. “One more thing, Watson. The hospitals and emergency wards of San Francisco are filled to bursting with the injured and the dying; there are not enough doctors in that broken city to attend to them all. Your medical talents would be welcome in this crisis. And I may have need of your assistance during my own investigations. Shall I notify Continental Insurance to advance me the funds for
two
steamship tickets to America?”

The question was altogether unexpected. I hesitated for the briefest of moments while I considered how to inform my wife, then extended my hand. Sherlock Holmes clasped it in both of his own.

“Capital, Watson! We shall be occupied for two months at the very least. Inform your Harley Street patients to make other arrangements in your absence. As for my bees: until we return I can only hope that their new queen will rule wisely.”