The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes (20 page)

‘No, no! They have engaged me as a consultant.'

‘But times have changed, Holmes! Times have changed!'

‘In some ways, no doubt. But this is the way I do things, Watson, and I have always found it to work tolerably well.'

I could see he would not alter his opinion. I looked at my watch. ‘Well, we have a couple of hours to kill. What do you think he intends to do to Colonel Davis?'

‘Much the same he did to Private Calvin Hawes.'

‘And why?'

‘Certain elements of these crimes suggest a motive, of course. But in truth, I don't know why. In some ways it must be confessed that Simon Bart doesn't seem the type who would involve himself in something like this.'

‘From what we know of him, he surely doesn't seem the type,' I agreed. ‘I have always felt that.'

‘What a curious cast of characters is the human race, Watson! When one thinks of a torturer the first image that leaps to mind is not of an actor strolling along a public footpath quoting Keats and Shakespeare. Oh, by the way, he
is
an actor. While on your computer last night at the Savoy I checked. He has played a number of small roles, mostly Shakespearean parts, over the past several years. He appears to be slowly making his way towards a small career on the London stage. He is one of those actors who is not widely known to the public but is doing good work.'

Holmes walked to the window. Dusk was settling in the trees. He drew all the curtains in the room.

‘But the Pashto writing seems a problem,' I said. ‘Simon Bart does not sound like the name of an Afghan.'

‘It doesn't quite seem to fit. But we shall see,' said Holmes. ‘Actors take pseudonyms.'

‘The effort he has put forth stupefies me,' I said. ‘I find it almost unbelievable to think that someone would spend months luring a man here from the United States in order to torture and murder him in a secluded cottage in Wales. And in the case of Colonel Davis, how strange! Bart has gone so far as to move to the neighbourhood in order to carry out his plan. What could possibly motivate this? It is beyond belief, Holmes!'

‘Hate always is beyond belief. Beyond measuring.'

‘Hate?'

‘I fancy we are witnessing, my dear Watson, a version of that tremendous hate that we see being fuelled all over the world today by the way men treat each other. As to the specifics, who knows? Perhaps we shall find out.'

‘Do you think he is working alone? Or could there be a terrorist organization involved?'

‘So much depends on how one defines “terrorist organization,”' mused Holmes. ‘I suspect Simon Bart believes that a terrorist organization is indeed involved, and that he is the one working against it.'

With this cryptic remark Holmes fell silent for a few moments and gazed at the flickering flames on the hearth. Then he waved his hand in a peremptory manner and said, ‘Enough speculation. We will see what we shall see. It is dark out.'

‘And what is our plan, Holmes? What role would you have me play, if our visitor comes to call?'

Holmes's plan was relatively simple. He explained it to me as we ate our meal at the dining room table. We waited until ten o'clock, then turned off the lights in the house and retired to our places. Holmes went upstairs to the master bedroom. There he lay on the four-poster bed fully dressed. He lay with his Webley in his right hand and a white coverlet drawn over him. Meanwhile, down in the library, I lay on the long leather couch in the farthest corner of the room, far away from the French windows that opened on to the back garden. Thus we waited. Holmes had predicted that Bart would wait until one or two in the morning, the dead of night, before making his appearance.

The moon came up. Its light fell through the white curtains that covered the French windows, casting pale light into the library where I lay. From my shadowy corner I could gaze out on to a lawn that looked like another world, hallucinatory, immaterial, dreamlike. The black and barren trees looked like props in a play, and the world beyond my window seemed like a giant stage set in the shivering moonlight.

I must have dozed, for I awakened suddenly to the sound of tapping. I opened my eyes and saw a robed and hooded black figure standing outside the French windows, tugging at the handle, obviously straining to get in. Behind the black figure were the cut-out trees, and behind the trees was the full moon hanging white over the hill. I leant and gripped the poker that I had placed nearby on the rug. I watched as the black figure leant and picked up a black case and floated away from the windows and out on to the lawn towards the yellow Volkswagen. The Volkswagen seemed almost black in moon shadow. I arose from my couch and crept to the door of the library. I peeked out into the great hall. The embers of the fireplace barely glowed, emitting a faint fog of light. I heard the front door open. Evidently the intruder had a key. I had no time to ponder why, if he had a key, he had bothered to try the French windows in the library. I had no time to speculate about anything, for already he was floating across the room, passing in front of the fireplace. At that time of night, under those circumstances, it is easy to be frightened. Even a rational man may begin to believe in supernatural phantoms that he would laugh to scorn in the light of day. I heard a footstep and rustle of cloth, but I confess that even this did not completely convince me that I was watching a material being. The phantom was nearing the staircase at the far end of the room. I was determined to follow Holmes's instructions and to avoid doing anything to interfere with the intruder before whatever drama Holmes had planned for him could play out. I waited until the black shape had begun to mount the staircase at the far end of the room. Then I crept in slow pursuit, poker in hand.

I had just reached the foot of the stairs when I heard an explosion above. I bolted up the staircase and plunged into Holmes's moonlit bedroom.

Holmes was sitting up on the edge of the four-poster bed with his revolver in hand, pointing it at the hooded figure who stood at an angle to me. ‘That was only a warning,' said Holmes calmly. ‘The next shot goes directly into your skull, sir.' And then he flicked the light on.

The Mad Monk held a long knife in his left hand.

Holmes waggled the end of his revolver. ‘Drop the knife – that's it. Now, Watson, if you would be good enough to retrieve the knife, yes, thank you. And next, my dear Watson, kindly remove the gentleman's black pillow slip, and I will be most happy to introduce you to Mr Simon Bart, tenant of Swale Cottage . . .'

Holmes pronounced this introduction in grand style, with the air of a showman . . . whereupon I quickly jerked off the black hood –

‘Ye gods!' cried Holmes.

I gasped and stepped back a pace.

Revealed before us was not the head of a man, but the head of a beautiful woman. Her lush red hair tumbled to her shoulders. She shook her head defiantly, nervously. Her skin was creamy and freckled.

‘Mrs Davis! You have come to murder your own husband?' cried Holmes. He stared in disbelief.

‘Not to murder him but to warn him!' she said passionately. ‘Though I despise him.'

In her anger she was truly beautiful. (I blush to use this commonplace observation, but it was true.) Her high-boned cheeks were flushed, her lips full and red, her almond-shaped eyes almost a lambent blue-green in their depths, afire with passionate alertness. I had no doubt that her body equalled her face for striking beauty, for its shape was revealed even beneath the black robe. She was of medium height, and her skin was very fresh for a thirty-eight-year old.

Holmes recovered himself quickly. ‘I must tell you, madam, that when a woman dressed in a black robe and hood creeps into her husband's bedroom in the dead of night carrying a knife in her hand, it is hard to believe she intends him any good.'

‘Who are you?' she demanded. ‘What have you done with my husband?'

Her voice was musical, throaty with warmth, and might have been engaging if she hadn't been shouting.

‘I'm Sherlock Holmes,' he replied. ‘And this is my associate, Watson.'

She ran the back of her freckled right hand across her forehead. She looked at him almost with horror. ‘My God, is there no sane soul alive on this earth anymore? What mad world is this! Who are you?'

Holmes stood up and with the revolver barrel gestured towards a chair. ‘Have a seat, madam. And explain yourself.'

She stripped off the black robe in a single motion and let it flutter to the floor. She was dressed in white slacks and a green blouse. As I suspected, she was gorgeous. She sat down in a graceful gesture of collapse. She sat upright and stark. ‘Are you with the police?'

‘In a manner of speaking,' replied Holmes.

‘And why are you here?'

‘We have laid a trap for someone who might intend harm to your husband – and that someone appears to be you.'

‘That is not true!' she cried. ‘Where is he? Where is my husband?'

‘Someone broke into the house the day you left. Your husband was hit on the head. Nothing serious, but he has been in hospital a couple of days. Soon he will get out. We had a feeling that someone might mean him harm, and so we have waited here, just in case.'

‘I know nothing of it,' she said, a little abashed, a little angry, a little insulted.

‘Now perhaps you had better tell us why you are here.'

She hesitated a long while. At last she said, ‘OK. Look. For the last three months I've been cheating on my husband. With a man who lives near here. I needn't tell you his name.'

‘Simon Bart,' said Holmes.

‘Oh, my god!' said Rebecca Davis.

‘Go on,' said Holmes.

‘I've had enough,' she said. ‘That's all. I've had enough. My husband is a monster, as I've sadly discovered. And I'm done with him. He's a colonel in the army, Mr . . . Mr Holmes, is it? Anyway, I'm sure you know this, since you are here, that he is in the army. Throughout the ten years we've been married he has kept things pretty much secret from me, but although I did not know precisely what he was doing all the time, I thought he was protecting our country – I'm an American, as I'm sure you know. When I learned he has been in charge of torturing people I was shocked. He denied it at first. My god. I've questioned him, and it was all a bunch of BS he gave me, how it was necessary, how the Geneva Conventions weren't really being broken. But they were! He has supervised the torture of people day after day for at least three years. What kind of man is that? So then we moved here and all that terrible past was finished, supposedly. But it wasn't finished. I couldn't get it out of my head. He is a cold man, always was. Cold and dull. A bureaucrat. My god, I can't believe I married him. And then he showed his cruelty to me when I began fearing this house was haunted. People told me it was haunted and I believed it was haunted and he only laughed and looked at me with boredom and contempt and told me I was a child to believe such things. I told him I saw some creature in a black robe and hood peering in my windows, and he just blew it off, said I was blowing smoke. One day he became so impatient with me that he reached down to me and twisted my ear – can you imagine! As if I were a child in school. Twisted it hard and said that I should wake up. He said I must be mentally unbalanced. His face was contorted as he said this, and for a moment I thought he might hit me. He ought to have seen how frightened I was. But no. He gets angry, turns away. I was bothering him, that's all. My god, what kind of man is he? Only once did he make the faintest effort to help me – he stayed home one afternoon to see the ghost for himself, but really just to prove that there was no such thing and to shut me up because I disturbed him. He chased it down the path, but said he saw nothing. The great US Army, typically inept.

‘Simon came into my life – and he led me down the garden path, literally. Simon was Tony's opposite. Kind, thoughtful, insightful. An artist, really. He would interject the appropriate line of poetry into conversations without sounding stuffy. We went to spiritualist meetings together, walked the footpaths together. We became lovers. I wanted it, he didn't at first. But then he came to like it, came to like being with me. He would talk to me. He would listen. He agreed when I told him my horror of what my husband had been doing in Iraq. I bought him a book that came out recently. I went down to London to buy it at Hatchards so I could get one of the first copies, and I read it in a single breath, and I was so horrified that I couldn't eat for two days. I gave my copy to Simon and then he went away for a few days on business and lost it, and I was so obsessed and repulsed that I bought another copy. When I departed a few days ago for my spiritualist retreat in California, I left the book on the dining room table, under a newspaper, so my husband would discover it and be horrified. And then I left . . . well, wait a minute, let me go back a bit.

‘It was Simon who suggested I should get away to calm my nerves. He suggested a month-long retreat at a place he had heard of in California. My husband agreed. But at the last minute I convinced Simon to let me stay with him for a month. I said that a month with him would be the best therapy. He finally agreed. And when my husband took me to Heathrow and dropped me off to get my plane, I went instead to an airport hotel and stayed a day. Then Simon picked me up and ever since I have been hiding with him just a quarter mile from here. And it was delicious – until I found the horrible truth. This evening Simon went out to refill his prescription of beta blockers and I found this costume, the black robe and hood of the Mad Tortured Monk, in Simon's closet. I recognized it instantly. So he had been haunting me to drive me to his arms. This evening I realized what a fool I am. You can't imagine the sickening feeling when you realize that everyone . . . everyone is . . . oh, god, when you see that . . . pardon me . . . something in my throat . . . that everyone is using you, it is such a sickening feeling. Everyone who should comfort you is using you and cruel. I did not confront Simon. I only wanted to get away. That's all I want now. Simon was in one of his nervous moods tonight, asked me if I'd like to drive in moonlight in his E-type for an hour or two. I said no. So that's what he is doing now. Tooling along little roads in the light of the moon, quoting Keats and laughing, no doubt, at how he's scared me to death and made me his sex slave. I packed my bag, intending to come down here and sneak my Beetle out of the garage and drive to Heathrow and go to California and drop out. But then it occurred to me that first I would show my husband what a stupid man he is, show him how much I despise him, show him – the cowardly soldier, the dull bureaucrat torturer – show him what fear was, and warn him I was leaving him forever. I wished to see him afraid, terrified. As terrified as I was when he laughed at my fear. As terrified as he has made others. As terrified as he has made so many men – many of them completely innocent, cab drivers picked up on the streets of somewhere and hauled off and tortured . . . have you read the book? No, no, I can see you haven't. So that's it. I came in here to terrify him. And then to leave him forever. I wanted to go to the retreat I planned to go to, isolation for a month, to get my head on straight. And then to leave him forever. I've had enough. I've had completely enough.'