The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (79 page)

The other
simulacra
within the Vitascope screen took no notice of James Phillimore, but continued their own exits and entrances at both sides of the rectangular image. At the centre of the screen, the left hand of James Phillimore silently aimed his umbrella into the audience: directly towards the head of Sherlock Holmes. At the same time, Phillimore raised his right hand to his brow in a sardonic salute.

At that instant,
James Phillimore vanished!

There was no question of a trap-door beneath him. With my own eyes, I had seen Mr James Phillimore
disappear into thin air
. On the Vitascope screen, the people and conveyances of West Fifty-Eighth Street maintained their kinetographic cavalcade, utterly oblivious to the fact that a man had vanished from their midst.

“Quickly, Watson!” In a trice, Sherlock Holmes bounded into the theatre’s gangway and made a dash for the nearest exit. And once again, as so often in the past, I found myself following at his heels, in pursuit of our quarry.

“James Phillimore is in Manhattan, Watson, for that kinetograph was photographed
today!
“ Holmes declared as we pelted through the lobby of the Edisonia Amusement Hall. “I have promised the officers of the Continental Insurance Company that I shall be aboard tomorrow’s train to San Francisco, and I am honour-bound to keep that pledge. Therefore we have a trifle less than sixteen hours in which to find a man who has eluded me for thirty-one years. Watson, come!
The game is afoot!
“

We raced out of the theatre, emerging into Broadway. My friend made haste to flag down a passing hansom. Holmes instructed the cabman to convey us to Broadway and Fifty-Eighth, the scene of Phillimore’s latest disappearance. The cabman whisked up his reins, and a moment later the pursuit of Phillimore had begun.

“There must be some mistake, surely,” I said to my companion, as we settled into the seat and our hansom proceeded northwards through difficult traffic. “How can you be certain that the Vitascope we saw was photographed today?”

“It was obvious, Watson. You saw the newsboy in the image? The caption scrawled across his hoardings duplicated the headline in today’s New York
Herald
.”

I still was utterly astounded at having seen a man
vanish
. “But are you certain that the man on the screen was really James Phillimore? We are in Manhattan, Holmes: perhaps this fellow was an American who bears a chance resemblance to Phillimore.”

Sherlock Holmes shook his head. He had withdrawn a jotting-book from his pocket, and was busily sketching within this as he spoke. “Depend upon it, Watson: that man on the Vitascope screen was an Englishman.”

“How can you be certain, Holmes?”

“No man can hide his heritage, Watson. I can tell an American from an Englishman by the arrangement of his boot-laces: the man we saw just now was British … or else he has an English valet to tie his shoes for him. And did you observe the salute that Phillimore gave as he vanished?” Holmes duplicated it now – cocking his right elbow, Holmes’s hand went to his forehead: the upper edges of his finger-tips went flat against his brow, whilst his thumb pointed downwards. “
That
is how a soldier in the British army salutes … as you know full well from your own campaign in Afghanistan.” Now Holmes saluted again; once more the hand went to his brow, but this time his fingers were parallel to the ground, and his thumb pointed rearwards. “
This
is the American military salute, Watson: it is also the salute of our own Royal Navy. When I investigated Phillimore’s background in 1875, I found no record of military service. Yet he must have been a boy once, and boys play at being soldiers. They learn their drill from observing
real
soldiers, and copying them.”

Holmes was right: the man in the Vitascope had displayed a
British
salute.

“Furthermore,” Holmes went on, sketching furiously in his jotter as our cab progressed, “did you remark, Watson, that the man on the screen briefly glanced to one side?”

“Of course.” I nodded. “As he stepped off the kerb into the road, he glanced sideways to see if there was oncoming traffic.”

“Quite so, Watson. But he glanced to the
right
. That is as we do in England. In American roads, and European ones, a pedestrian glances first to the
left
. An Englishman acquires the foreign habit when he has spent some time outside our Empire. But the man on the screen, Watson, turned the wrong way: he is accustomed to British thoroughfares, and has only recently arrived in the United States.”

Of a sudden, I shuddered once more. “The fact remains, Holmes, that we saw a man vanish
into thin air
.”

“We saw nothing of the kind, Watson. Are you aware of the French illusionist Georges Méliès? He works his conjuror’s tricks inside a kinetoscope. Our quarry Phillimore knows the same dodge.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did it seem to you, Watson, that Phillimore’s eyes on the Vitascope screen were looking directly at
us
in the orchestra-stalls? I thought the same thing … for a moment. But such a thing is impossible. When we observe a moving-picture, we see only what the camera saw. Phillimore did not see us, did not salute us. He was looking directly into the lens of the
camera,
whilst saluting the cameraman … and through the camera’s borrowed gaze we fancied that he looked at
us.”

“But, Holmes! We saw him
vanish
… like a phantasm!”

“Watson, no. A kinetographic camera records movements not only through
space,
but through
time.
I think I know why Phillimore saluted: to distract the cameraman’s attention towards his right arm, and
away
from his left.”

“His left hand carried an umbrella,” I recalled.

“Quite so, Watson. And did you mark what he did with it? Just before he disappeared, Phillimore seemed to aim the shaft of his umbrella directly towards us. In fact, he extended it towards the
camera.”

“And then he vanished, Holmes!”

“No. He merely cut out a fragment of
time.
That is, he thrust the tip of his umbrella into the camera’s mechanism – thereby jamming it – then withdrew his umbrella and walked away. The cameraman required precisely four minutes to unjam the mechanism.”

“How the deuce can you know how long …”

“When our quarry vanished, Watson, did you not observe a sudden lurch within the image on the Vitascope screen?”

I shook my head. “I saw only James Phillimore … and then the place where he
wasn’t.
”

“Ah! But just before he vanished, the clock on the tower behind him read ten seventeen. And then, at the precise instant
after
he vanished, the clock abruptly jumped to ten twenty-one. The newsboy’s posture shifted instantaneously from one position to quite a different one. All the other people and vehicles in the
tableau
vanished as well … and were replaced by others. Georges Méliès learned the same trick by accident, Watson. He was photographing traffic in Paris when the mechanism of his camera jammed. The traffic kept moving whilst Méliès endeavoured to restart his apparatus. Afterwards, when Méliès developed his film and projected it, he was astonished to see a Parisian omnibus abruptly transform itself into a hearse.”

By now we had reached West Fifty-Eighth Street; Holmes paid the cabman, and we alighted. I had never been here before, yet I recognized the place: the buildings, the newsboy underneath the street-lamp, even the clock-dial on the distant tower were just as I had marked them on the Vitascope screen … except with colours added to Mr Edison’s photographic palette of greys. As our cab departed, I remarked to Holmes: “Then the man in the Vitascope film cannot be James Phillimore at all, Holmes.”

My friend’s jaw tightened. “No, Watson. He is Phillimore to the life. In every particular, the man whom we saw is identical to his cabinet photograph. I committed the portrait to memory in 1875, Watson. I shall never forget those dundrearies! Our quarry is even wearing
the same suit
: pin-stripe, of a cut and design favoured by tailors in Savile Row some thirty years ago. I interviewed the two Leamington bankers who were present when Phillimore vanished: they assured me that the suit he wore in his portrait is the one that Phillimore was wearing on the morning when he vanished.”

“Very few suitings last for thirty-one years,” I remarked.

“And very few men can vanish for three decades and return without growing a day older,” Holmes replied. “Yet our quarry is just such a man.”

The day was warm, yet I felt suddenly cold. “Holmes, is it possible that James Phillimore has slipped sidelong in Time? I recall the original case: there was evidence of some sort of circular
vortex
in Phillimore’s house. Can a man fall through a hole in Warwickshire in 1875, and emerge in Manhattan in 1906? It would explain why Phillimore has not aged, and why his suit has not become more worn.”

We were standing outside a greystone edifice at Number 1789, Broadway. A brass plate near the entrance informed us that this was the home of something called “The Cosmopolitan. A Hearst Publication“. Sherlock Holmes tapped his fore-finger alongside his nose, as if taking me into a confidence. “Ignore the newsboy, Watson, and humour me in a
charade
.”

Holmes strode purposefully to the exact spot where the Vitascope apparatus had stood. “This is a good place to start, Watson,” said my friend in a loud voice, “if we intend to collect the reward.”

I did not take his meaning, but I played along: “Yes! Certainly! A good deal of money is at stake.”

Sherlock Holmes now took out a tape-measure, and began making precise measurements of the kerb and the pavement, all the while muttering about a large reward. He seemed wholly unaware of the newsboy, who was observing Holmes’s every movement with the keenest attention. When he was unable to contain his curiosity any longer, the urchin spoke in thick American tones: “
Wutcha lookin’ fer, cul?
“

“Go away, lad,” said Holmes. “Can’t you see that we’re busy? The officers of the Edison Film Company have engaged us to investigate a serious incident of vandalism, and …”

“I know wutcher aftuh,” said the boy conspiratorially. His mouth was crammed full of some glutinous substance which he chewed furiously whilst he spoke, thus obscuring his diction all the more. “You’re lookin’ for the jasper who jiggered that camera, ain’tcher?”

Holmes looked up from his measurements. “The Edison Film Company have offered a substantial reward for information leading to the arrest of the man who damaged one of their kinetographic …”

“How much
?” said the boy. “That reward, I mean.”

“We have no intention of paying good money for idle rumours,” said Holmes. “Since you clearly did not witness the incident …”

“I seen him!” boasted the newsboy. “I seen the whole thing!” Now he began to re-enact the whole affair, in broad movements, taking by turns the roles of James Phillimore, the Edison cameraman, and even the camera itself. “There was one o’ them camera fellers here, takin’ pitchers. A dude came along, swingin’ his umbreller, see? He looked like the kind of a guy who would make trouble just fer the sport of it. Sure enough, I seen him poke his umbrelly into that camera there. He pulled it out again, and then he walked away laughin’. The umbrella weren’t damaged, but the camera started racketin’ loud enough to wake yer dead granny. The cameraman started cussin’, and he had to stop the camera. I seen him fiddle it fer a coupla minutes, and then he started it up again.” The boy’s face split into a broad grin. “Do I get the reward?”

“Not unless you can tell me the culprit’s name and address,” said Sherlock Holmes, pocketing his tape-measure and drawing forth his jotting-book. Somehow a five-dollar banknote had gone astray from Holmes’s note-case and was now protruding – by accident, surely – from the leaves of his jotter. “If you can offer us some
useful
information …”

“
That’s them!
” said the boy, stabbing a grimy finger towards the book as Holmes opened it.

I looked over his shoulder, and was amused to see what my friend had been sketching so industriously during our cab-journey In the pages of his jotting-book, Holmes had drawn two large portraits that I recognized as likenesses of our adversaries from bygone adventures: Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran. Between these two, scarcely more than an afterthought, was a small and hastily scribbled rendition of James Phillimore. Yet the newsboy now ignored the large conspicuous drawings of Moriarty and Moran, and pointed unerringly at the tiny likeness of Phillimore. “That’s them!” he said triumphantly. “That’s
both
o’ them!”

For once, Sherlock Holmes seemed confused … but he regained his composure swiftly enough to withdraw the jotting-book an instant before the freckled urchin tried to snatch the banknote within.
“Both
of them, you say?” asked Holmes.

The newsboy nodded. “You heard me, boss. That guy wit’ the umbreller: after he wrecked the camera, I seen him walk into that buildin’ over there.” The newsboy nodded towards the offices of the
Cosmopolitan.
“The cameraman left, an’ I kept peddlin’ my papers, see? Then, mebbe half an hour later, the umbrella man comes out again. Only this time there’s
two
of him.”

Holmes and I exchanged glances. “Can it be that there are
two
James Phillimores?” I wondered aloud.

“There were, ‘coz I seen ‘em,” the newsboy replied. “Like they could o’ been twins … an’ that there’s pitcher o’ both o’ them.” The boy tapped his hand against the jotting-book, leaving ink-stained finger-prints upon the drawing of James Phillimore. “Same suit, same hat, same lip-spinach, the works. Only difference was, one twin had an umbreller and one twin didn’t.” As he spoke, the newsboy’s fingers gravitated towards the stray banknote, but Holmes kept this just out of reach.