The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (10 page)

“I've no idea. Who could know what to do? The whole thing is impossible, perfectly impossible; it's an insoluble mystery. I came to you to see if you could, by any chance, suggest some entirely fresh line of inquiry upon which I might begin to work.”

“Well,” said Holmes, cocking his eye mischievously at the bewildered Lestrade, “I can give you Booth's present address, if it will be of any use to you?”

“His what!” cried Lestrade.

“His present address,” repeated Holmes quietly. “But before I do so, my dear Lestrade, I must make one stipulation. Mr. Jervis has treated me very shabbily in the matter, and I don't desire that my name shall be associated with it any further. Whatever you do you must not hint the source from which any information I may give you has come. You promise?”

“Yes,” murmured Lestrade, who was in a state of bewildered excitement.

Holmes tore a leaf from his pocket book and scribbled on it: Mr. A. Winter, c/o Mrs. Thackary, Glossop Road, Broomhill, Sheffield.

“You will find there the present name and address of the man you are in search of,” he said, handing the paper across to Lestrade. “I should strongly advise you to lose no time in getting hold of him, for though the wire I received a short time ago—which unfortunately interrupted your most interesting narrative—was to tell me that Mr. Winter had arrived back home again after a temporary absence, still it's more than probable that he will leave there, for good, at an early date. I can't say how soon—not for a few days I should think.”

Lestrade rose. “Mr. Holmes, you're a brick,” he said, with more real feeling than I have ever seen him show before. “You've saved my reputation in this job just when I was beginning to look like a perfect fool, and now you're forcing me to take all the credit, when I don't deserve one atom. As to how you have found this out, it's as great a mystery to me as Booth's disappearance was.”

“Well, as to that,” said Holmes airily, “I can't be sure of all the facts myself, for of course I've never looked properly into the case. But they are pretty easy to conjecture, and I shall be most happy to give you my idea of Booth's trip to New York on some future occasion when you have more time to spare.

“By the way,” called out Holmes, as Lestrade was leaving the room, “I shouldn't be surprised if you find Mr. Jabez Booth, alias Mr. Archibald Winter, a slight acquaintance of yours, for he would undoubtedly be a fellow passenger of yours, on your homeward journey from America. He reached Sheffield a few hours before you arrived in London and, as he has certainly just returned from New York, like yourself, it's evident you must have crossed on the same boat. He would be wearing smoked glasses and have a heavy dark mustache.”

“Ah!” said Lestrade, “there
was
a man called Winter on board who answered to that description. I believe it must have been he, and I'll lose no more time,” and Lestrade hurried off.

“Well, Watson, my boy, you look nearly as bewildered as our friend Lestrade,” said Holmes, leaning back in his chair and looking roguishly across at me, as he lighted his old brier pipe.

“I must confess that none of the problems you have had to solve in the past seemed more inexplicable to me than Lestrade's account of Booth's disappearance from the
Empress Queen
.”

“Yes, that part of the story is decidedly neat,” chuckled Holmes, “but I'll tell you how I got at
the solution of the mystery. I see you are ready to listen.

“The first thing to do in any case is to gauge the intelligence and cunning of the criminal. Now, Mr. Booth was undoubtedly a clever man. Mr. Jervis himself, you remember, assured us as much. The fact that he opened banking accounts in preparation for the crime twelve months before he committed it proves it to have been a long-premeditated one. I began the case, therefore, with the knowledge that I had a clever man to catch, who had had twelve months in which to plan his escape.

“My first real clues came from Mrs. Purnell,” said Holmes. “Most important were her remarks about Booth's auditing work which kept him from home so many days and nights, often consecutively. I felt certain at once, and inquiry confirmed, that Mr. Booth had had no such extra work at all. Why then had he invented lies to explain these absences to his landlady? Probably because they were in some way connected, either with the crime or with his plans for escaping after he had committed it. It was inconceivable that so much mysterious outdoor occupation could be directly connected with the forgery, and I at once deduced that this time had been spent by Booth in paving the way for his escape.

“Almost at once the idea that he had been living a double life occurred to me, his intention doubtless being to quielty drop one individuality after committing the crime and permanently take up the other—a far safer and less clumsy expedient than the usual one of assuming a new disguise just at the very moment when everybody is expecting and looking for you to do so.

“Then there were the interesting facts relating to Booth's picture and books. I tried to put myself in his place. He valued these possessions highly; they were light and portable, and there was really no reason whatever why he should part with them. Doubtless, then, he had taken them away by degrees and put them someplace where he could lay hands on them again. If I could find out where this place was, I felt sure there would be every chance I could catch him when he attempted to recover them.

“The picture couldn't have gone far for he had taken it out with him on the very day of the crime…I needn't bore you with details…I was two hours making inquiries before I found the house at which he had called and left it—which was none other than Mrs. Thackary's in Glossop Road.

“I made a pretext for calling there and found Mrs. T. one of the most easy mortals in the world to pump. In less than half an hour I knew that she had a boarder named Winter, that he professed to be a commercial traveler and was from home most of the time. His description resembled Booth's save that he had a mustache, wore glasses.

“As I've often tried to impress upon you before, Watson, details are the most important things of all, and it gave me a real thrill of pleasure to learn that Mr. Winter had a cup of chocolate brought up to his bedroom every morning. A gentleman called on the Wednesday morning and left a parcel, saying it was a picture he had promised for Mr. Winter, and asking Mrs. Thackary to give it to Winter when he returned. Mr. Winter had taken the rooms the previous December. He had a good many books which he had brought in from time to time. All these facts taken in conjunction made me certain that I was on the right scent. Winter and Booth were one and the same person, and as soon as Booth had put all his pursuers off the track he would return, as Winter, and repossess his treasures.

“The newly taken photo and the old blotter with its tell-tale note were too obviously intentional means of drawing the police onto Booth's track. The blotter, I could see almost at once, was a fraud, for not only would it be almost impossible to use one in the ordinary way so much without the central part becoming undecipherable, but I could see where it had been touched up.

“I concluded therefore that Booth, alias Winter, never actually intended to sail on the
Empress Queen
, but in that I underestimated his ingenuity.
Evidently he booked
two
berths on the boat, one in his real, and one in his assumed name, and managed very cleverly to successfully keep up the two characters throughout the voyage, appearing first as one individual and then as the other. Most of the time he posed as Winter, and for this purpose Booth became the eccentric semi-invalid passenger who remained locked up in his cabin for such a large part of his time. This, of course, would answer his purpose well; his eccentricity would only draw attention to his presence on board and so make him one of the best-known passengers on the boat, although he showed so little of himself.

“I had left instructions with Mrs. Thackary to send me a wire as soon as Winter returned. When Booth had led his pursuers to New York, and there thrown them off the scent, he had nothing more to do but to take the first boat back. Very naturally it chanced to be the same as that on which our friend Lestrade returned, and that was how Mrs. Thackary's wire arrived at the opportune moment it did.”

WHILE THE SCOTTISH
author James Matthew Barrie (1860–1937) remains universally loved for having created Peter Pan, he had many other extraordinary literary achievements in drama, novels, and short stories. Beginning his literary life as a journalist, first for the
Nottingham Journal
, then as a contributor to such popular magazines as
The Pall Mall Gazette
, in 1888 he published his first novel,
Better Dead
, a mystery that had minimal success. The publication of
Auld Licht Idylls
(1888), charming sketches of Scottish life, brought him recognition and critical praise, but it was three years later with the release of his sentimental novel
The Little Minister
(1891) that Barrie enjoyed enormous success. When he dramatized it, the ensuing popularity made him a devotee of the theater, and he began to write plays, many of which drew large and enduring audiences. Among those still produced are
The Admirable Crichton
(1902), about a butler who saves the family for whom he works when they are all stranded on an island after a shipwreck, and
Quality Street
(1901), about two sisters who start a school for upper-class children.

His adult novel
The Little White Bird
(1902) introduced Peter Pan, the character that inspired him to write the play
Peter Pan
, which debuted in London in 1904; the section of the novel about the boy who escaped being human at the age of seven to become a fairy was published separately as
Peter Pan in Kensington Garden
(1906). Barrie then wrote a full-length book using the same character titled
Peter and Wendy
(1911). The play has been produced countless times and made into several films, most notably the much-loved animated feature produced by Walt Disney in 1953.

Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle collaborated on the book for an operetta,
Jane Annie
(1893), which by all accounts was a miserable failure. After it quickly closed, Barrie inscribed a copy of his book,
A Window in Thrums
(1889), to Conan Doyle, with this little parody written on the flyleaves. Conan Doyle claimed that it was the best parody of Holmes ever written (a generous assessment) and included it in his autobiography.

“The Adventures of the Two Collaborators” was first published in
Memories and Adventures
by Arthur Conan Doyle (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1924).

IN BRINGING TO
a close the adventures of my friend Sherlock Holmes I am perforce reminded that he never, save on the occasion which, as you will now hear, brought his singular career to an end, consented to act in any mystery which was concerned with persons who made a livelihood by their pen. “I am not particular about the people I mix among for business purposes,” he would say, “but at literary characters I draw the line.”

We were in our rooms in Baker Street one evening. I was (I remember) by the centre table writing out “The Adventure of the Man Without a Cork Leg” (which had so puzzled the Royal Society and all the other scientific bodies of Europe), and Holmes was amusing himself with a little revolver practice.

It was his custom of a summer evening to fire round my head, just shaving my face, until he had made a photograph of me on the opposite wall, and it is a slight proof of his skill that many of these portraits in pistol shots are considered admirable likenesses.

I happened to look out of the window, and, perceiving two gentlemen advancing rapidly along Baker Street, asked him who they were. He immediately lit his pipe, and, twisting himself on a chair into a figure 8, replied:

“They are two collaborators in comic opera, and their play has not been a triumph.”

I sprang from my chair to the ceiling in amazement, and he then explained:

“My dear Watson, they are obviously men who follow some low calling. That much even you should be able to read in their faces. Those little pieces of blue paper which they fling angrily from them are Durrant's Press Notices. Of these they have obviously hundreds about their person (see how their pockets bulge). They would not dance on them if they were pleasant reading.”

I again sprang to the ceiling (which is much dented) and shouted: “Amazing! But they may be mere authors.”

“No,” said Holmes, “for mere authors only get one press notice a week. Only criminals, dramatists, and actors get them by the hundred.”

“Then they may be actors.”

“No, actors would come in a carriage.”

“Can you tell me anything else about them?”

“A great deal. From the mud on the boots of the tall one I perceive that he comes from South Norwood. The other is obviously a Scotch author.”

“How can you tell that?”

“He is carrying in his pocket a book called (I clearly see) ‘Auld Licht Something.' Would anyone but the author be likely to carry about a book with such a title?”

I had to confess that this was improbable.

It was now evident that the two men (if such they can be called) were seeking our lodgings. I have said (often) that Holmes seldom gave way to emotion of any kind, but he now turned livid with passion. Presently this gave place to a strange look of triumph.

“Watson,” he said, “that big fellow has for years taken the credit for my most remarkable doings, but at last I have him—at last!”

Up I went to the ceiling, and when I returned the strangers were in the room.

“I perceive, gentlemen,” said Mr. Sherlock Holmes, “that you are at present afflicted by an extraordinary novelty.”

The handsomer of our visitors asked in amazement how he knew this, but the big one only scowled.

“You forget that you wear a ring on your fourth finger,” replied Mr. Holmes calmly.

I was about to jump to the ceiling when the big brute interposed.

“That tommyrot is all very well for the public, Holmes,” said he, “but you can drop it before me. And, Watson, if you go up to the ceiling again I shall make you stay there.”

Here I observed a curious phenomenon. My friend Sherlock Holmes
shrank
. He became small before my eyes. I looked longingly at the ceiling, but dared not.

“Let us cut out the first four pages,” said the big man, “and proceed to business. I want to know why—”

“Allow me,” said Mr. Holmes, with some of his old courage. “You want to know why the public does not go to your opera.”

“Exactly,” said the other ironically, “as you perceive by my shirt stud.” He added more gravely: “And as you can only find out in one way I must insist on your witnessing an entire performance of the piece.”

It was an anxious moment for me. I shuddered, for I knew that if Holmes went I should have to go with him. But my friend had a heart of gold. “Never!” he cried fiercely. “I will do anything for you save that.”

“Your continued existence depends on it,” said the big man menacingly.

“I would rather melt into air,” replied Holmes proudly, taking another chair. “But I can tell you why the public don't go to your piece without sitting the thing out myself.”

“Why?”

“Because,” replied Holmes calmly, “they prefer to stay away.”

A dead silence followed that extraordinary remark. For a moment the two intruders gazed with awe upon the man who had unravelled their mystery so wonderfully. Then, drawing their knives—

Holmes grew less and less, until nothing was left save a ring of smoke which slowly circled to the ceiling.

The last words of great men are often noteworthy. These were the last words of Sherlock Holmes: “Fool, fool! I have kept you in luxury for years. By my help you have ridden extensively in cabs where no author was ever seen before.
Henceforth you will ride in buses
!”

The brute sank into a chair aghast. The other author did not turn a hair.