Sherlock Holmes and the Chinese Junk Affair and Other Stories (4 page)

He rose from his chair to open the door for Mrs Hudson, bringing in our evening meal.

‘Let us enjoy our meal together, for who knows what tomorrow may bring. We must live in hopes that the gods are kind to us. What say you, Mrs Hudson?’

‘I don’t know what it is you’re referring to, Mr Holmes, but I agree that I hope the gods are kind to us all, tomorrow, and a while after that I hope.’

‘Well spoken, Mrs Hudson, and I am sure we shall enjoy our meal, it smells of ambrosia. I see too, you have chilled one of the wines Sir Beconfield gave us last month.’

After the meal and before we settled down for the evening we packed our small cases so as to be ready in the morning to dash out and catch the returning workman’s special that would have disgorged its teeming masses on London.

We retired early to bed so as to be fresh and ready for an early start.

‘Early to bed, early to rise... sleep well, Watson.’ Holmes closed his bedroom door quietly.

However, I lay awake some considerable time unable to sleep, going over and over again the incredible story Sir Simon had related to us. The facts defied all logic. A magician makes things disappear only by hiding them away somewhere else. This is what Rodger Hardy had caused to happen, but the means had been scientific. How could Holmes prove it, when it had taken those Chinese scientists years to achieve the means of ‘Transposition’.

I could see why the Prime Minister was so concerned. He had indeed placed upon Holmes’s shoulders a burden of unbearable magnitude. My old friend could find clues that others missed, even the combined force of Scotland Yard, but even he could not perform miracles. Sleep came to me thankfully at last.

*

After rising early and enjoying one of Mrs Hudson’s fortifying breakfasts, we took a cab to the station and caught the train with time to spare.

There were a few workers on the train leaving London for jobs outside the capital but, on the whole, the train ran back almost empty.

We had been given the key to Halam Hall before leaving No. 10 by Sir Simon and, so prepared, settled down to admire the countryside as it slid by, a wonderful changing diorama of English history. The backs of terraced houses with vegetable plots soon gave way to larger detached ones with ornamental lawns and larger ones with trees and lakes.

The vista changed to the true countryside, with fields and hedges. What a change from our everyday London scene. At last the train stopped at our destination with hardly any other passengers alighting.

It was a typical Great Western station, the village however sported a ‘Station Hotel’ where we were able to book a room and leave our cases in the good hands of the rather jovial owner and his buxom wife.

The good man was able to hire us the only horse and trap the village had, and we were soon on our way to Halam Hall.

It was a couple of miles out of the village and was exactly as Sir Simon had described it. Shabby, overgrown and even worse now, I suppose, than when he used to visit, having no staff to keep the weeds at bay or mow the lawns. Holmes instructed the driver to return later in the afternoon.

The key turned in the lock easily enough and the huge oak doors swung open. It was at that moment the elderly gardener, who looked after the place and lived in the quarters once occupied by the ginger-haired lad, appeared. He touched his forelock and quickly Holmes explained our intention of wanting to look around the property.

We had taken the precaution of bringing with us two lanterns, and with these lit we set out from the entrance hall to examine the much discussed ballroom.

Firstly though, Holmes requested the elderly caretaker to open up every shutter in every room, so we might later examine the rooms in daylight. Silver changed hands, forelock was once again touched and that worthy man ambled away to do Holmes’s bidding.

On descending the stairs, our lanterns lit up that vast empty cavern of a ballroom. Again it was exactly as had been described. Walls, floor and ceiling of bare concrete. All that remained was an electric cable, draped around the walls high up, from which every few yards a light fitting hung. How we wished we could have switched them on. However, by concentrating the lights of both lanterns and examining the walls, floor and ceiling in a systematic way, which took us a considerable time, we examined every foot.

The result was disappointing. We found nothing to give any indication the ballroom had been the site of a most remarkable event. Not a screw, not a nail, not a grain of sawdust remained. Likewise the cloakroom which, we were informed by Sir Simon, had been packed with electrical gear, cables and boards with numerous dials and switches. None of it remained.

We emerged once again into the now sun-drenched hallway. From there we searched every room, every passage. We removed dustsheets amid clouds of dust, to examine the furniture hidden beneath. We went out into the sunshine to breathe once again fresh air and sneeze the dust from our nostrils.

‘Watson, we have searched high and low. I greatly fear we shall not discover any clues here.’ Holmes kicked a stone away and continued. ‘I fear Rodger Hardy and his team of Chinamen will have gone over every inch to prevent anyone finding out anything.’ He reached out with his foot again and kicked another stone away. ‘Yet, perhaps that alone gives us our first clue. Why, if the discovery is genuine, should he take such great care to obliterate any sign of the great “Transposer”?’

I replied, ‘Perhaps he just gave the order to his Chinamen to clear away everything, and they took him at his word, being very zealous chaps, and did just that.’ Holmes nodded thoughtfully, ‘Maybe, maybe.’

We went back into the Hall and looked again at the downstairs morning-room the Chinamen had used to cook, dine and sleep in. It was obvious from the remaining aroma of oriental spices that this was so. Again outside in the grounds near the overgrown bushes a freshly covered piece of earth indicated where the privy had been sited, and a huge area of burnt grass, covered with charcoal, told us that it was the site where rubbish, shavings and discarded wood had been disposed of. We did though observe a few deep ruts left by the steam tractors near the turning circle at the front of the Hall.

Holmes suddenly turned and, striding back into the Hall, began lighting the two lanterns. ‘Watson, we must examine the ballroom again, the answer must be there.’

We spent the next half hour scraping the concrete here and there with an old rusty horseshoe he had picked up in the grounds. The corners and walls we probed with the horseshoe, but proved there was no hidden joint, no secret sliding section, only the rasp of the iron upon the concrete revealing the pebbles, sand and cement beneath years of grime and discoloration.

‘Upon my word, Watson, my dear fellow, we have found hardly a single clue to indicate the event ever happened at all, other than the obvious ones, the curry smell, the tractor tracks... any dull-witted bobby could not fail to observe these.’ He shook his head several times. ‘Without clues, I am like a bloodhound without a scent to follow.’

I had never seen Holmes so tired and dejected. I followed him up the steps. Our driver had returned and, following the instructions given us by Sir Simon, we visited the site by the riverside to which the junk had been transposed. But even the hawk-like examination by Holmes revealed nothing more than would have been expected; grass trodden down around the post upon the bank where the junk had been made fast.

‘There are so many questions, Watson, I would like the answers to. For instance, assuming it all happened as described by Sir Simon, how did the junk suddenly appear from seemingly nowhere? Did someone in the darkness hear the splash as it arrived? How did the Chinamen know exactly where to find it and make it fast before it floated away?

‘One moment I am convinced it is the confidence trick of the century, and the next moment, when I think of the impossibility of moving the junk out of the ballroom and transporting that huge heavy vessel over three miles of countryside, I become more and more convinced of the “Transposer” discovery.’

I had never seen Holmes so concerned and serious. We returned to the trap and went back to the Hall making sure all was secure and, after again tipping the elderly caretaker, returned in the gathering dusk to the Station Hotel there to be greeted by the jolly proprietor and his wife.

Their humour and general bonhomie lifted our low spirits and the fine meal followed by a steaming hot pudding revived our flagging weary bodies. The stairs and the endless passages we had gone along in the Hall had taken it out of us, but we were returning back to our normal selves by the minute.

Holmes opened up a little after the rest by the fire and a glass of the local brew. He began to think out aloud, using me as usual as a sounding board to bounce off ideas and theories.

‘As I said before, Watson, it may be difficult to prove it is a confidence trick, but well-nigh impossible to prove it is genuine.

‘The Prime Minister will expect a definite answer one way or the other. I am beginning to smell the unpleasant odour of failure. I feel it in my bones, Watson, I really do.’

I had never known Holmes in this mood so early in a case. He always enjoyed the challenge. The more impossible the odds, the greater he enjoyed the case. Then I remembered the words the Prime Minister had spoken about this being much, much more serious than the missing Bruce-Partington naval plans. The balance of world power could be altered and Britain and the Empire threatened.

It was a heavy responsibility to place on his shoulders, and one I knew I could do little to share. That evening, Holmes continued expanding upon the subject. Holmes considered, rightly so, that the first law of the hunter is to know all about the hunted. This is of course the basic law of all poachers. To know the habits and ways of all the creatures he wishes to take.

I remember as a boy being given a demonstration by the most skilled poacher I was ever to have the pleasure of knowing. I watched from the cover of the hedge as he walked across a grass field where, in the centre, a hare crouched. He did not approach the hare directly, but walked in a direction which gave the hare the impression it had not been seen and, provided it remained still, was safe.

As the poacher passed the point nearest to the hare, he took off his jacket and placed it in a bundle so the hare could observe it. Then he continued walking on well past the hare, but began to swing around in a curve, so eventually he was approaching the hare from behind.

The hare was now confused. It observed the jacket on the ground as a threat, but before it could make up its mind about the approaching danger from the rear, the poacher had pounced, and had the hare quickly despatched.

I digress, but I have always considered that Holmes too was a poacher, but on a higher plane. He considered that, as no clues had as yet been obtained, knowing more about Rodger Hardy would not be unhelpful.

The person who knew more about him than anyone was Sir Simon, so on returning to Baker Street a meeting was arranged with him.

The following evening saw Holmes and me being welcomed into the home of Sir Simon. It was situated in one of London’s most desirable areas, a typical town house of Georgian elegance, with interior furniture and soft furnishings to complement it. A comfortable drawing-room with a welcoming fire was the scene of our meeting.

Holmes soon outlined why he had wanted the meeting, and Sir Simon saw the logic of it and agreed to help.

‘Well, pray, where shall I begin? You want me to give you a picture of the man, what his ambitions are, is he trustworthy? Do I think it is in his nature to mount what could be nothing more than a huge confidence trick, and lastly what appears to be his philosophy?’ He looked from one to the other of us.

Holmes took the opportunity to encourage him. ‘Just talk about him, the picture of the man will emerge. It will be easier that way.’

Sir Simon looked keenly at Holmes. Then the professional politician came to the fore.

‘Rodger Hardy,’ he began, ‘was always well liked. I don’t think he ever crossed swords with anyone in the whole time I knew him at university. He was the kind of man who, if he couldn’t say a good thing about a person, then he wouldn’t say anything. He was always one for a joke and a bit of horseplay, but it was never in spite, of course. He could take a joke too, and laugh about it.

‘In debate he would put forward original ideas and surprised many of us with the depth of his thinking. He had an inventive mind; it was a family trait.

‘He didn’t seem to have changed much in his outlook and manner over the years and I found it easy to take up our friendship again, almost as though the years between had never been.

‘His philosophy of life had been conditioned by what he had seen around the world. The cruelties and ill-treatment, to and by people, and the same cruelty extended to animals. The wickedness and injustices he had witnessed had made him wonder, he said, why one person has a happy, interesting and useful life, whilst another is born to dread each waking day, and has to carry that burden to the end of their lives, experiencing none of the pleasures and comforts of life that others take for granted.’

Sir Simon looked at us both in turn. ‘I am sure we have all had those same thoughts, but have never expressed them. One evening after dinner when we were both well into the frame of mind when friends reveal their deepest private thoughts, Rodger remarked, “Have you ever wondered why the Great Creator decided, after hundreds of millions of years, when only plant and animal life had inhabited the earth, why he chose to create mankind? Was it, do you think, that only He, the Great Creator, was at that time able to appreciate the beauty and glory of the morning sunrise and the magnificent skies of the setting sun? All the wonders of the forests and the lakes, and all the creatures that do dwell upon the earth?