The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes (6 page)

‘Therapy?' I said, looking up from my book.

‘Therapy for an old man, yes.'

‘I haven't the foggiest idea what you are talking about. Whatever can you mean, Coombes? You say the strangest things sometimes. I begin to wonder if you are keeping some deep dark secret from the world.'

‘Perhaps I am, Wilson,' said he, in a faraway voice. ‘Perhaps I am.'

‘Who is this mysterious contact of yours at Scotland Yard? And what has he to do with Sergeant Bundle? Bundle is always referring to your famous contact – with a
wink wink
, and a
nod nod
. I am not a terribly clever man, Coombes, but I do pick up on the obvious.'

Coombes stalked back and forth across the floor with renewed anxiety, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. ‘Yes, yes, I doubt you could help me unless you knew all the facts.'

‘I don't wish to pry into any man's secrets,' I said. ‘But I have wondered why the police should be consulting
you
on a murder case. I've been baffled from the beginning. A common man such as me needs to be provided with a few facts before he can judge a matter.'

‘Quite so, quite so.'

‘If ever you wish to tell me what your connection is with this mysterious “Scotland Yard” contact, I'd be very glad to listen.'

For a moment he paused in front of the fire and seemed about to tell me something. Then he walked on, at a gentler pace, still rubbing his neck. ‘It is a very long story, Watson . . .'

‘Wilson.'

‘I could hardly expect you to believe it even if I dared tell you.'

There we left it, for the time being.

FOUR

Suspicions of the Impossible

I
did not sleep well that night. Coombes reminded me of someone. How very odd! More and more I had the feeling he was a person I had once known well – perhaps in Afghanistan, or in schooldays at Eton, or even back in the early days of childhood in my father's garden. The notion grew on me that Coombes had been not merely a remote acquaintance but someone I had been more or less intimately acquainted with. Stuff and nonsense! Impossible. Very odd, though. Perhaps I felt this way only because I was living in a retirement dream where nothing seemed entirely real, living in a town that was a fairy tale – a Kingdom of Books! I wandered through its crooked streets as if under a spell, navigating into tiny bookshops where I hoped to meet Mr Pickwick, or Miss Havisham, then prowling through a gloomy castle heaped with books so ruinously mouldy that I scarcely dared touch them for fear of being poisoned. I began to wonder if the horrors of Afghanistan were with me still, causing me to hallucinate.

I opened my eyes to a bright morning. As I shaved I could smell toast, tea. Coombes had been up for hours, apparently. I resisted the temptation to be the first to say
good morning
. I poured myself a cup of Earl Grey, sat down before the cold fire, and sipped.

Coombes was staring at the wall, evidently deep in contemplation. He appeared to spend half his life energetically gathering facts and details, the other half sitting in a stupor while processing those facts in his brain. I had to admit that I liked the man, cold and analytical as he was. He seemed to mean well. When he wasn't impatiently seeking out more facts, he was genial enough. When his strange, cold passions made him, for a moment, rude, he was always ready to see his fault and apologize. Yet his strange silences and occasional dramatic poses seemed at times to border on affectation. I found them annoying. I sipped the Earl Grey and made the slightest move to reach for my book, intending to go read it on the patio. But Coombes stopped me with a sudden cry. ‘You know, Wilson, this case has some very singular features!'

‘Horrible,' I said. ‘A literal blood bath.'

‘It has rejuvenated me enormously,' he said.

‘I've noticed that,' I said, feeling a twinge of revulsion.

He sprang from his chair and almost sprinted to the window, hopping slightly on his injured leg. ‘I wish I had a pipe,' he said.

‘If you smoke I'll be obliged to move out,' I said.

‘Oh, I shan't smoke ever again. My London doctor strictly prohibits it and I wouldn't wish to disappoint him after he has worked so hard. I have an appointment with him next week, and he would find me out.' Coombes laughed.

‘I thought you had an appointment with him just a few weeks ago. Are you ill, Coombes?'

‘Not ill – though I ought to be. I feel perfectly healthy, apart from my injured leg, but he has good reasons for wishing to check on me once a month.'

I let this cryptic statement pass. I stood up and poured another cup of tea. ‘Well, tell me, Coombes, have you cracked the case for Sergeant Bundle?'

‘Not
cracked
it, I'm afraid, though the general outlines of the crime are clear enough.'

‘Well, I'm certain Sergeant Bundle will be happy to hear any theory you may have,' I said. ‘He appeared to be completely at sea.'

‘Ah, poor Bundle. He is one of those blustering, ambitious sorts who grabs on to things with great gusto and heaves each detail, willy-nilly, into the scales of judgement. But as he does so he is apt to drop facts and crush evidence and inadvertently leave his thumb on the scale as he weighs the evidence. He has not the delicacy of touch or refinement of mind to nudge the truth out of trifles. He is boisterous and willing, but lacks true talent.'

It was just this sort of supercilious comment that sometimes rubbed me the wrong way and made me wonder what sort of man Coombes really was. ‘Come, now, Coombes. The man was doing his job. I rather like him.'

‘He is a splendid fellow,' said Coombes. ‘He has a big heart and he does his best. I would even go so far as to say that in certain crude situations he is just the man who can . . . well, speak of the Devil.'

A uniformed blur appeared beyond the whorled leaded panes of our sitting room. A moment later Sergeant Bundle filled the small doorway, loomed into the room, and joined us for tea.

‘Just a wee cup,' said he, rubbing his hands together. ‘And then I must be on my way. Mr Coombes, I have come for the book. The crime lab wishes to take prints from the cover – I know you have been very careful with it.'

‘Very careful,' said Coombes. ‘I have kept my prints off of it.'

‘We are thorough, Mr Coombes. Our department is small, but thorough. It is my belief that the book was owned by Mr Jenkins. His whole house is full of books. It is unusual that a murderer would bring reading material to a crime.' Bundle laughed, and took a sip.

‘In this case the murderer did,' said Coombes.

The smile fell off of Bundle's face. ‘Do you think so, sir?'

‘I have a theory that may interest you,' said Coombes, coolly.

‘Ah, theories are well, theories are good,' said Bundle, his optimism and self-confidence instantly returning. ‘Theories always interest me. But in the end what we need are practical results, Mr Coombes. Practical results – that is what our citizens always crave and cry for.'

‘Sometimes theories lead to practical results,' said Coombes.

‘Books seldom provide much evidence at crime scenes,' said Bundle. ‘That's my theory. That is why I ignored that book.'

‘I'm afraid you were right,' said Coombes. ‘The book disappointed me.'

Bundle laughed, gesturing with a thick and rosy hand. ‘Well, there you are, sir,' he said.

‘Still, my research into the book has not proved entirely barren,' said Coombes.

‘Did it reveal something?' asked Bundle sceptically, curiously, nervously, raising a large bushy eyebrow.

‘Not as much as I had hoped,' said Coombes.

Bundle grinned. ‘Well, I thought as much.'

‘It only revealed,' said Holmes, ‘that the murderer is an actor with dark hair who very likely has lived in Afghanistan, spent his youthful years in North America, received his later education in England, and now lives in or near London. The book also suggests that he travelled from London to Hay-on-Wye by train and by bus, that he made this journey sometime since last Saturday, that he is methodical, highly educated, despises the present US Government of George W. Bush, and probably owns a very distinctive automobile – perhaps a vintage car.'

‘My heavens!' cried Bundle. ‘Did he write his entire life story in the margins?'

‘He wrote two brief marginal notes, commenting on the text.'

Glancing over Coombes's shoulder I saw that the book was titled
Abu Ghraib: Torture and Betrayal
. On the cover was that famous picture – that all the world has seen and that has brought such discredit upon the United States of America – of a man standing awkwardly on a stool of some sort, wearing a black robe and a black hood, with wires attached to his body, as he is being tortured by US troops.

The picture aroused all my memories of the war, and a cold bolt of fear shot through my heart, surprising me. I was almost trembling. ‘My God, Coombes!' I murmured. ‘Then here is the significance of the black hood you found in the bushes . . .'

‘Exactly!' cried Coombes, and his eyes flashed.

‘What do you mean?' asked Bundle.

Out of a plastic shopping bag by his chair Coombes pulled the black hood made from a pillow slip. ‘I have examined this,' he said, ‘and found in it two hairs that match the strand of hair I found in the book. Also, actor's pancake make-up smeared on the inside of this hood will, I suspect, match smears of make-up that can be detected on pages thirty-eight and two hundred and thirteen of the book. Evidently on two occasions he inadvertently touched his face before turning a page.'

‘I cannot imagine how you deduced all of these things from a book,' said Bundle, looking earnest, bewildered, and slightly defeated.

‘A cursory and quite superficial glance at the book reveals all I have mentioned,' said Coombes. ‘That the man is an actor is suggested not only by the pancake make-up and the dramatic manner in which the crime was carried out, but by the fact that both of the pencilled marginal notes refer to the theatre. The first of these notes is a simple transcription of poetry from
The Merchant of Venice
. In the empty space at the end of chapter three he has pencilled the famous passage beginning “The quality of mercy is not strain'd,/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd:” and so on. Anyone can memorize poetry, but this man goes on quoting for nineteen lines. Indeed, I am almost inclined to think he has played a part in that play. To quote at such length suggests a man in love with the language of the theatre, and unable to stop before he has finished the cadence.

‘The second marginal note is truly in a margin, next to a paragraph discussing the role of George W. Bush in beginning a war which has resulted in the death of as many as six hundred thousand Iraqis. The note reads thus:
He might play Macbeth if he could but speak the lines without stumbling. Death colours all his acts, and his only defence is ignorance
.

‘That the murderer is a male is suggested by the handwriting, which is elegant but assertive. The style, on the whole, is an American style of handwriting, yet the spelling is British. The word
colour
, for instance, is not spelled with a
u
in America, and
defence
with a
c
is British usage. This suggests that he first learnt cursive handwriting as a child while living in North America, and that he spent his later years in Britain, or at least somewhere in the British Empire. That he also was educated in Afghanistan is suggested by the impress of four words on the back of the dust jacket, as if he had used the book for a support as he wrote something on another sheet of paper. Those words are in Pashto, the primary language of Afghanistan. It is true that Pashto is also spoken in some other countries, but to a much lesser extent. More might be learnt by translating the words, which I cannot do.

‘That the book was purchased at Hatchards in Piccadilly is indicated by the bookseller's cash receipt that I found tucked between two pages in the middle of the book. The receipt indicates the book was bought last Saturday. That it was bought no earlier than last Saturday I also know because I telephoned the store and learnt that that is the first date they sold it. I was aware it was only recently published because I have been looking forward to its appearance in the bookstores myself.

‘That he rode the train from London is suggested by the long handwritten passage from Shakespeare. It begins fluently written but ends in a jiggle of letters. Evidently he began writing at a station stop but before he could complete the passage the train resumed its journey, and consequently the letters of the last half of the passage are spidery and hard to read. Towards the end of the book I found a small strip of paper used as a bookmark, obviously torn out of some publication. In fact, it was torn from the Hereford-London train schedule. I have a copy of that schedule here in my pocket, in anticipation of my journey to London next week to see my doctor. The several lines of print visible on the bookmark scrap exactly match those on the last page of my schedule.

‘The bus ride is only an educated guess. The bus is the usual mode of public transport for most who travel by train to Hereford and must journey on to Hay. He might have hired a taxi, but I think that unlikely. He has gone to great lengths to remain anonymous and unremarked, and would not wish a taxi driver to remember him. He might even have ridden a bicycle from Hereford. I have wondered why he did not drive to Wales. It occurred to me that either he had no car, or had a car that was too easily remembered. He wouldn't wish to rent a car, for that would be a matter of record. By contrast, a train journey is an anonymous journey.'