Sherlock Holmes and the Chinese Junk Affair and Other Stories (5 page)

‘“The swallow in the heavens, searching for insects in the air, is totally unaware of the mole tunnelling below the surface of the ground in search of worms. Likewise, the whale in the oceans is unaware of its land cousin, the elephant, in deepest Africa. Only man has this knowledge and more. Only man can appreciate what a wonderful world we inhabit.

‘“Sadly, only man has done more to alter the Creator’s paradise than any other creature.” Only man, he said, was capable of destroying it all. Man must learn that we are custodians only, and that we own nothing; the poor man in his cottage, the Duke his estate, we are all mere custodians.’

Sir Simon took the poker and pushed back a log that threatened to fall from the fire into the hearth and said, ‘I notice you smoke, Mr Holmes — the nicotine stains, the slight cough.’

Holmes smiled and laughed. ‘I see that I am not the only detective present.’

Sir Simon smiled. ‘Just an observation, but I remember Rodger talking at some length about his own smoking, and his cough, which eventually prompted him to consult a Chinese doctor. He told Rodger that in his view smoking was most dangerous to one’s health — “Much smoke... no hope... no smoke... much hope,” was how he put it.’

‘H’mm.’ Holmes took out his cigarette case, looked at it thoughtfully, and replaced it in his pocket unopened. ‘He may well have been correct.’

Sir Simon continued his painting of Rodger Hardy. He had sketched out the outline, now he was putting in a little detail.

‘Rodger Hardy was deeply concerned about humanity, about the creatures who share the world with us...’ but before he could continue with the finer detail, Holmes interrupted him.

Holmes leaned forward. ‘Then why do you think he wants one million pounds for his plans of the “Transposer”? It hardly seems to go hand in hand with the picture you have given us.’

Sir Simon looked a little hurt at the attack Holmes had made upon the person he still considered his friend. His voice took on a tone of hostility. ‘Why, it is obvious to me, if you knew him personally you would not ask that... he wanted it to give away. He wanted it to help those he saw as in the most need. Not to appear the great benevolent benefactor... that was not his style, but to give anonymously.’

Holmes asked, ‘Have you proof of his act of anonymous help? This generosity of nature?’

I smiled inwardly at Holmes’s breach of English, but neither Holmes nor Sir Simon seemed to have noticed it.

Sir Simon stared hard at Holmes and said quietly, ‘Yes, I have; two cases in fact. One occurred when he was at university. It was not a gift of money, because he had very little of that then, but in a considerate act that helped a desperate student. I was the unseen witness. The second occasion was to help a colleague of mine who was also a friend of Rodger’s. He saved him from financial ruin, although for over five years he was unable to repay the debt because Rodger had just vanished again.

‘I agree this help was not given anonymously, but Rodger never spoke of it to anyone. I would not have known, had my friend not revealed who had saved him.

‘You see, Rodger was a very successful business man. He made considerable monies from his inventive mind. For instance, he might come across in his travels a factory making a particular product. But, by installing a manufacturing method used in often a completely different industry, he was able to offer the owner a considerable saving in his production costs, and thus an increase in profits.

‘As he went around the world, he found this to be so time and time again. Being an engineer with a flexible innovative mind, he could see at once how an improvement could be made.

‘Rodger could, I am sure, have been a millionaire many times over had he chosen, but he had no desire to accumulate wealth just for the sake of it.’

Holmes leaned back into the comfort of his chair and said, ‘If every man and woman had his philosophy in life, how much better a place this world of ours would be. Thank you, Sir Simon. I now have a better understanding of Rodger Hardy.’

He looked very serious as he held out his hand. ‘Now, Sir Simon, we must be going and we thank you for your hospitality. I will keep you informed of events.’

I thought this unlikely, as Holmes was one to keep things very much to himself until he had tied a case up.

Sir Simon saw us out and as we walked down the road to get a cab, Holmes remarked how he felt more and more that the case would be difficult. ‘Nay, perhaps impossible, Watson, and yet...’ He left the sentence unfinished and lapsed into silence as our boots rang out from the wet pavement.

‘Let us walk home, the air is fresh after the rain, it will do us good.’ I agreed with Holmes. After sitting so long it was good to exercise the legs and get the circulation going again.

That evening Holmes again used me as a sounding board for some of his theories and the seemingly endless possibilities of the case.

‘We must never lose sight of the fact,’ Holmes said, ‘that all the time dedicated men and women with brilliant minds are today building upon the discoveries of the past. Refining past theories and pushing the frontiers of science further and wider. You are aware of this as well as I am.’

‘Yes,’ I replied and feeling I too would like to expound my knowledge and perhaps even impress Holmes, I said, ‘Did you know that atomic theory was first taught by the philosopher Leucippus of Miletus in the fifth century BC? His pupil Democritus said of the wind, that it enacted great force, but cannot be seen and the invisible spread of odours, sound and heat must be made up of particles too small to be seen by the human eye.’

I warmed to my subject. ‘Clothes, he said, became wet by the rain, the sun dries them again. Therefore we must conclude the drops have been dissolved into small particles.’ I felt proud of my little contribution.

Holmes clapped his hands together. ‘Well done, Watson, I am impressed and for the record, I was not aware of those facts. However, Watson, the brief is to prove or disprove the possibility of transposing solids into a form whereby they can travel through the air and then re-form into their original state. Let us look at more recent scientific discoveries which might have, however remote, a bearing on the case for transposing solids.

‘For instance, Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen found that X-rays have very great penetrating power. He found that X-rays travelled in straight lines and were not deflected in passing through electric or magnetic fields. And you will recall, Watson, that Pierre and Marie Curie have recently discovered two other radioactive elements polonium and radium.’

Holmes tipped backward in his chair and reached a book from the bookcase behind him. He thumbed through several pages before finding what he was looking for.

‘Listen to this, Watson. In the preface to the fifth edition in 1893 John Tyndall states, “Daily and weekly from all parts of the world I receive publications bearing upon the practical applications of electricity. The telephone, telegraph, electrical illuminations. Certainly Faraday could have had little notion of what his discoveries were capable of.”

‘This bears out what I have just said. Because here in Europe and America we have no knowledge of transposing solids it does not mean that in the vast area of China, where little is known, Transposition has not been discovered.’ He closed the book and replaced it.

I brought up another subject. ‘What about “Teleportation”? Now that has been a mysterious phenomenon which has baffled learned men for centuries. People claim to have moved through time and space to reappear thousands of miles, or sometimes just a few yards, from where they originally were.

‘There was the case of Sister Mary of Agreda in Spain, who claimed to have travelled through time to spread Christianity to the heathen natives in Central America. This was in the sixteenth century. Of course at the time she was disbelieved and her account outraged her superiors.’

‘And had she not been a nun, would surely have been burnt at the stake as a witch,’ exclaimed Holmes. I agreed and continued.

‘However, Father Alonzo de Benavides confirmed to both the Pope and King Philip IV of Spain that a mysterious nun, dressed in blue, had distributed rosaries and crosses among the natives.

‘On his return to Spain, Father Benavides spoke with Sister Mary and fully supported her story. He was able to confirm, Holmes, astonishing details of people and places she spoke of, even though the convent testified she had never been absent. There was much more if I remember rightly, so much so, that this mystic phenomenon is considered unparalleled in the entire history of the world.’

‘Amazing, Watson.’ He was silent for a while. Then said, ‘This is not a case of Teleportation, but of a prophetic dream, Watson. It was to do with the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval on May 11th, 1812. It concerned a mining manager, a Mr John Williams of Redruth, Cornwall. Eight days earlier Mr Williams had dreamed that he was in the lobby of the House of Commons, a place he had incidentally never visited in real life. In his dream, he was aware of a man wearing a green-coloured coat with metal buttons. A few moments later another man came into the lobby, whereupon the other man shot him.

‘So vivid was the dream that it woke John Williams up and, waking up his wife, he described the dream to her, but his wife did not share the horror of the dream and so dismissed it, as indeed most of us would. During the same night, he was to have the same event in detail again in two further dreams.

‘The next day, so upset by the dreams he had had, he could not help but discuss them with all and sundry. He did not, of course, know Spencer Perceval by sight and knew little of his politics. His son-in-law did know; he felt sure who the victim was: the Prime Minister.

‘John Williams was inclined to go up to London and warn the Prime Minister, telling him about the shocking dream he had had, but his family talked him out of it, saying he would be ignored.

‘In fact he would have been received very seriously, as the Prime Minister all week had been haunted by a premonition that he would be killed. He had told his wife about it, and on the night of May 10th he had dreamed about it, and it was almost identical to that of John Williams. A man wearing a green coat with brass buttons. It, too, had been so vivid that he had told the Earl of Harrowby about it, who had advised him not to go to the Commons that day.

‘However, he ignored that advice and perhaps with misgivings, we can only assume, was rushing through the Commons to cast a vote, when a man wearing a green coat with brass buttons stepped out and pointing a gun at him, shot him dead. Of course, John Williams bitterly regretted that he had not followed his first inclination and gone up to London and warned the Prime Minister of his dream.

‘A few weeks later he did visit the House of Commons, pointing out the exact spot where it happened. It is still a mystery today why this stranger to the Prime Minister should have this prophetic dream which tragically came so true.’

Holmes took hold of the poker and broke up a large piece of coal, to make it burn better. ‘Unfortunately, Watson, the Teleportation is concerned with people, and belongs to the realm of the occult, whereas our problem is with the scientific.’

The broken-up coal burst into flame and Holmes continued to examine the case.

‘Why did Rodger Hardy go over Halam Hall afterwards with a fine-tooth comb to remove every shred of evidence?’ He looked at me.

‘If he has perpetrated a gigantic confidence trick, then he wanted no clue as to how it was carried out to be found.’

Holmes added, ‘Equally, of course, if the thing is genuine, he would want to leave no clue which might lead to the discovery of its secret.’

I added quickly, ‘And I suppose the same reasoning can be used on why the junk sailed away, giving no one a chance to inspect it further.’

Holmes agreed, adding, ‘And the wooden poles supporting the copper wire were a charade to mislead investigators. The means of how transposition actually is achieved could have been built into the junk, and therefore it was essential to remove it from prying eyes.’

Holmes was silent for some time, rubbing his long chin, then suddenly looking at me exclaimed, ‘How other than “transposition” could that huge wooden junk weighing thirty or forty tons, have been removed from that underground tomb?

‘Sir Simon observed it being built month after month. Vast amounts of timber were used, fresh supplies arriving weekly were stacked around the walls, work benches, tools, shavings, sawdust, evidence enough of construction on a grand scale. The village people witnessed huge traction engines pulling loads of supplies to the Hall. Yet in less than two hours, it had vanished through thin air. You and I can vouch that the walls, ceiling and floor were solid concrete.’ He seemed to slump back into his chair.

‘We appear to be faced with a feat which defies normal logic or understanding. Again, we must fall back on the old axiom, that when all other contingencies fail — in this case, our investigation and the minds of learned scientists — whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. In this case, the discovery in China of the means of “Transposition” is fact, but impossible to prove without the scientific knowhow.’

It was a glum pair of gentlemen Mrs Hudson found when she brought in our evening drink. Sensing our mood, Mrs Hudson withdrew, quietly closing the door behind her.

*

The next morning, to make matters worse, I received a telegram informing me that I was urgently needed by a patient who was very ill. He now lived in Brighton since his retirement. He would have no other doctor but me, so I was obliged to be away at a time when I considered Holmes needed my support most.