The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (103 page)

When Holmes returned later that evening, and we were upstairs dressing for dinner, I asked him why he'd gone into town.

“To talk to Annie,” he told me, craning his lean neck and fastening his collar button.

“Annie?”

“The maid at the King's Knave Inn, Watson.”

“But what on earth for, Holmes?”

“It concerned her duties, Watson.”

There was a knock on the door, and Eames summoned us for dinner. I knew any further explanation would have to wait for the moment when Holmes chose to divulge the facts of the case.

Everyone who had been in the drawing room when we'd first arrived was at the table in the long dining hall. The room was high-ceilinged and somewhat gloomy, with wide windows that looked out on a well-tended garden. Paintings of various past Oldsbolts hung on one wall. None of them looked particularly happy, perhaps because of the grim commerce the family had long engaged in.

The roast mutton and boiled vegetables were superb, though the polite dinner conversation was commonplace and understandably strained.

It was afterward, in the oak-paneled drawing room where we were enjoying our port, that Millicent Oldsbolt said, “Did you make any progress in your trip to town, Mr. Holmes?”

“Ah, yes,” Major Aldmont said, “did you discover any clues as to the killer's identity? That's what you were looking for, was it not?”

“Not exactly,” Holmes said. “I've known for a while who really killed Sir Clive; my trip into town was in the nature of a search for confirmation.”

“Good Lord!” Ardmont said. “You've actually known?”

“And did you find such confirmation?” Robby Smythe asked, tilting forward in his chair.

“Indeed,” Holmes said. “One might say I reconstructed the crime. The murderer lay in wait for Sir Clive in a nearby copse of trees, saw the carriage approach, and moved into sight so Sir Clive would stop. With very little warning, he shot Sir Clive, emptying his gun to be sure his prey was dead.”

“Gatling gun, you mean,” Major Ardmont said.

“Not at all. A German Army sidearm, actually, of the type that holds seven rounds in its cylinder.”

“But the rapid-fire shots heard at the inn!” Robby Smythe exclaimed.

“I'll soon get to that,” Holmes said. “The murderer then made his escape, but found he couldn't get far. He had to return almost a mile on foot, take one of Sir Clive's horses from the carriage hitch, and use it to pull him away from the scene of the crime.”

Robby Smythe tilted his head curiously. “But why would Landen—”

“Not Landen,” Holmes cut him off. “Someone else. The man Eames only assumed it was Landen when he heard a man arguing with Sir Clive earlier that evening. Landen was where he claimed to be during the time of the murder, asleep in his room at the inn. He did
not
later return unseen through his window as the chief constable so obstinately states.”

“The constable's theory fits the facts,” Major Ardmont said.

“But I'm telling you the facts,” Holmes replied archly.

“Then what shooting did the folks at the inn hear?” Millicent asked.

“They heard no shooting,” Holmes said. “They heard the rapid-fire explosions of an internal combustion engine whose muffling device had blown off. The driver of the horseless carriage had to stop it immediately lest he awaken everyone in the area. He then returned to the scene of the murder and got the horse to pull the vehicle to where it could be hidden. Then he turned the animal loose, knowing it would go back to the carriage on the road, or all the way here to the house.”

“But who—”

Phoebe Oldsbolt didn't get to finish her query. Robby Smythe was out of his chair like a tiger. He flung his half-filled glass of port at Holmes, who nimbly stepped aside. Smythe burst through the French doors and ran toward where he'd left his horseless carriage alongside the west wing of the house.

“Quick, Holmes!” I shouted, drawing my revolver. “He'll get away!”

“No need for haste, Watson. It seems that Mr. Smythe's tires are of the advanced pneumatic kind. I took the precaution of letting the air out of them before dinner.”

“Pneumatic?” Major Ardmont said.

“Filled with atmosphere under pressure so they support the vehicle on a cushion of air,” Holmes said, “as you well know, Major.”

I hefted the revolver and ran for the French windows. I could hear footsteps behind me, but not in front. I prayed that Smythe hadn't made his escape.

But he was frantically wrestling with a crank on the front of a strange-looking vehicle. Its motor was coughing and wheezing but wouldn't supply power. When he saw me, he gave up on the horseless carriage and ran. I gave chase, realized I'd never be able to overtake a younger man in good condition, and fired a shot into the air. “Halt, Smythe!”

He turned and glared at me.

“I'll show you the mercy you gave Sir Clive!” I shouted.

He hesitated, shrugged, and trudged back toward the house.

“Luckily, the contraption wouldn't start,” I said, as we waited in the drawing room for Wilson Edgewick to return with the Chief Constable.

“I was given to understand the horseless carriage
can be driven slowly on deflated tires,” Holmes said, “but not at all with this missing.” He held up what looked like a length of stiff black cord. “It's called a spark wire, I believe. I call removing it an added precaution.”

Everyone seemed in better spirits except for Robby Smythe and Phoebe. Smythe appealed with his eyes to the daughter of the man he'd killed and received not so much as a glance of charity.

“How could you possibly have known?” Millicent asked. She was staring in wonder at Holmes, her fine features aglow, now that her world had been put back partly right.

Holmes crossed his long arms and rocked back on his heels while I held my revolver on Smythe.

“This afternoon, when Watson and I examined the scene of the murder, I found a feather on the ground near where the body was discovered. I also found a black sticky substance on the road.”

“Oil!” I said.

“And thicker than that used to lubricate the Gatling gun, as I later ascertained. I was reasonably sure then that a horseless carriage had been used for the murder, as the oil was quite fresh and little had been absorbed into the ground. The machine had to have been there recently. When Smythe here tried to make his escape after shooting Sir Clive, the muffling device that quiets the machine's motor came off or was blown from the pressure, and the hammering exhaust of the internal combustion made a noise much like the rapid-fire clatter of the Gatling gun. Which led inn patrons to suppose the gun was what they'd heard near the time of the murder. Smythe couldn't drive his machine back to its stall in such a state, and couldn't silence it, so he had one of Sir Clive's horses pull him back. If only the earth hadn't been so hard, this would all have been quite obvious, perhaps even to Chief Constable Roberts.”

“Not at all likely,” Millicent said.

“It was Smythe whom Eames overheard arguing with Sir Clive,” Holmes continued. “And Major Ardmont, who is a member of the German military, knows why.”

Ardmont nodded curtly. “When did you realize I wasn't one of your Cavalry?” he asked.

“I knew you were telling the truth about being in the cavalry, and serving in a sunny clime,” Holmes said, “but the faint line of your helmet and chinstrap on your sunburned forehead and face doesn't conform to that of the Queen's Cavalry helmet. They do suggest shading of the helmet worn by the German horse soldier. I take it you received your sun-darkening not in India but in Africa, in the service of your country.”

“Excellent, Mr. Holmes!” Ardmont said, with genuine admiration. “Mr. Smythe,” he said, “had been trying to convince Sir Clive to get the British military interested in his horseless machine as a means to transport troops or artillery. A hopeless task, as it turned out, with an old horseman like Sir Clive. Smythe contacted us, and introduced me to Sir Clive. He told Sir Clive that if the British didn't show interest in his machines, he'd negotiate with us. And we were quite willing to negotiate, Mr. Holmes. We Germans do feel there's a future for the internal combustion engine in warfare.”

I snorted. Much like a horse. I didn't care. The image of a thousand sabre-waving troops advancing on hordes of sputtering little machines seemed absurd.

“Sir Clive,” Ardmont went on, “showed his temper, I'm afraid. He not only gave his final refusal to look into the idea of Smythe's machine, he absolutely refused to have as his son-in-law anyone who would negotiate terms with us. Possibly that's what the butler overheard in part, thinking Sir Clive was referring to Landen Edgewick and Millicent rather than to Mr. Smythe and Phoebe.”

“Then you were with Sir Clive and Smythe when they clashed,” I said, “yet you continued to let the police believe it was Landen Edgewick who'd had the argument.”

“Exactly,” Major Ardmont said. “To see Mr. Smythe off to the hangman wouldn't have given Germany first crack at a war machine, would it?”

“Contemptible!” I spat.

“But wouldn't you do the same for your country?” Ardmont asked, grinning a death's head grin.

I chose not to answer. “The feather?” I said. “Of what significance was the feather, Holmes?”

“It was a goose feather,” Holmes said, “of the sort used to stuff pillows. I suspected when I found it that a pillow had been used to muffle the sound of the shots when Sir Clive was killed. Which explains why the actual shots weren't heard at the inn.”

“Ah! And you went into town to talk to Annie, then.”

“To find out if she'd missed a pillow from the inn lately. And indeed one had turned up missing—from Robby Smythe's room.”

“An impressive bit of work, Mr. Holmes,” Ardmont said. “I'll be leaving now.” He tossed down the rest of his port and moved toward the door.

“He shouldn't be allowed to leave, Holmes!”

“The good major has committed no crime, Watson. English law doesn't compel him to reveal such facts unless questioned directly, and what he knew about the argument had no exact bearing on the crime, I'm afraid.”

“Very good, Mr. Holmes,” Ardmont said. “You should have been a barrister.”

“Lucky for you I'm not,” Holmes said, “or be sure I'd find some way to see you swing alongside Mr. Smythe. Good evening, Major.”

Two days later, Wilson and Landen Edgewick appeared at our lodgings on Baker Street and expressed appreciation with a sizable check, a wedding invitation, and bone-breaking handshakes all around. They were off to Reading, they said, to demonstrate the Gatling gun to the staff of British Army Ordnance Procurement. We wished them luck, I with a chill of foreboding, and sent them on their way.

“I hope, somehow, that no one buys the rights to their weapon,” I said.

“You hope in vain,” Holmes told me, slouching deep in the wing chair and thoughtfully tamping his pipe. “I'm afraid, Watson, that we're poised on the edge of an era of science and mechanization that will profoundly change wartime as well as peacetime. It mightn't be long before we're experimenting with the very basis of matter itself and turning it to our own selfish means. We mustn't sit back and let it happen in the rest of the world, Watson. England must remain in the forefront of weaponry, to discourage attack and retain peace through strength. Enough weapons like the Gatling gun, and perhaps war will become untenable and a subject of history only. Believe me, old friend, this can be a force for tranquillity among nations.”

Perhaps Holmes is right, as he almost invariably is. Yet as I lay in bed that night about to sleep, never had the soft glow of gaslight, and the clatter of horses' hooves on the cobblestones below in Baker Street, been so comforting.

FINDING PLEASURE IN
combining his favorite writing subjects—mystery, horror, and history—Peter Berresford Ellis (1943– ) has enjoyed enormous worldwide success following this formula. Ellis was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, and his family can be traced back in the area to 1288. Ellis, most of whose fiction has been published under the Peter Tremayne pseudonym, followed his father's footsteps to become a journalist. His first book was
Wales—A Nation Again: The Nationalist Struggle for Freedom
(1968), a history of the Welsh fight for independence, followed by popular titles in Celtic studies; as a leading authority on Celtic history, he has thirty-four nonfiction titles to his credit. He has served as International Chairman of the Celtic League (1988–1990) and is the honorary Life President of the Scottish 1820 Society and honorary Life Member of the Irish Literary Society.

He has produced nearly one hundred books, a similar number of short stories, and numerous scholarly pamphlets. As Tremayne, he has written twenty-three internationally bestselling novels about the seventh-century Irish nun-detective Sister Fidelma, with more than three million copies in print. As Peter MacAlan, he produced eight thrillers (1983–1993). In the horror field, he has written more than two dozen novels, mostly inspired by Celtic myths and legends, including
Dracula Unborn
(1977),
The Revenge of Dracula
(1978), and
Dracula, My Love
(1980).

“The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey” was first published in
Villains Victorious
, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers (New York, DAW, 2001).

Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co., at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch box with my name, John H. Watson MD, Late Indian Army, painted on the lid. It is filled with papers, nearly all of which are records of cases to illustrate the curious problems which Mr. Sherlock Holmes had at various times to examine.

—“The Problem of Thor Bridge”

THIS IS ONE
of those papers. I must confess that there are few occasions on which I have seen my estimable friend, Sherlock Holmes, the famous consulting detective, in a state of some agitation. He is usually so detached that the word
calm
seems unfit to describe his general demeanor. Yet I had called upon him one evening to learn his opinion of a manuscript draft account I had made of one of his cases which I had titled “The Problem of Thor Bridge.”

To my surprise, I found him seated in an attitude of tension in his armchair, his pipe unlit, his long pale fingers clutching my handwritten pages, and his brows drawn together in disapproval. “Confound it, Watson,” he greeted me sharply as I came through the door. “Must you show me up to public ridicule in this fashion?”

I was, admittedly, somewhat taken aback at his uncharacteristic greeting. “I rather thought you came well out of the story,” I replied defensively. “After all, you helped a remarkable woman, as you yourself observed, while, as for Mr. Gibson, I believe that he did learn an object lesson—”

He cut me short. “Tush! I do not mean the case of Grace Dunbar, which, since you refer to it, was not as glamorous as your imaginative pen elaborates on. No, Watson, no! It is here”—he waved the papers at me—“here in your cumbersome preamble. You speak of some of my unsolved cases as if they were failures. I only mentioned them to you in passing, and now you tell me, and the readers of the
Strand Magazine
, that you have noted them down and deposited the record in that odious little tin dispatch box placed in Cox's Bank.”

“I did not think that you would have reason to object, Holmes,” I replied with some vexation.

He waved a hand as if dismissing my feelings. “I object to the manner in which you reveal these cases! I read here, and I quote…” He peered shortsightedly at my manuscript. “ ‘Some, and not the least interesting, were complete failures, and as such will hardly bear narrating, since no final explanation is forthcoming. A problem without a solution may interest the student, but can hardly fail to annoy the casual reader. Among these unfinished tales is that of Mr. James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world.' There!” He glanced up angrily.

“But, Holmes, dear fellow, that is precisely the matter as you told it to me. Where am I in error?”

“The error is making the statement itself. It
is incomplete. It is not set into context. The case of James Phillimore, whose title was Colonel, incidentally, occurred when I was a young man. I had just completed my second term at Oxford. It was the first time I crossed foils, so to speak, with the man who was to cause me such grief later in my career…Professor Moriarty.”

I started at this intelligence, for Holmes was always unduly reticent about his clashes with James Moriarty, that sinister figure whom Holmes seemed to hold in both contempt as a criminal and regard as an intellect.

“I did not know that, Holmes.”

“Neither would you have learned further of the matter, but I find that you have squirreled away a reference to this singular event in which Moriarty achieved the better of me.”

“You were bested by Moriarty?” I was now really intrigued.

“Don't sound so surprised, Watson,” he admonished. “Even villains can be victorious once in a while.” Then Holmes paused and added quietly, “Especially when such a villain as Moriarty enlisted the power of darkness in his nefarious design.”

I began to laugh, knowing that Holmes abhorred the supernatural. I remember his outburst when we received the letter from Morrison, Morrison, and Dodd which led us into “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.” Yet my laughter died on my lips as I caught sight of the ghastly look that crossed Holmes's features. He stared into the dancing flames of the fire as if remembering the occasion.

“I am not in jest, Watson. In this instance, Moriarty employed the forces of darkness to accomplish his evil end. Of that there can be no shadow of doubt. It is the only time that I have failed, utterly and miserably failed, to prevent a terrible tragedy whose memory will curse me to the grave.”

Holmes sighed deeply and then appeared to have observed for the first time that his pipe was unlit and reached for the matches.

“Pour two glasses from that decanter of fine Hennessy on the table and sit yourself down. Having come thus far in my confession, I might as well finish the story in case that imagination of yours decides to embellish the little you do know.”

“I say, Holmes—” I began to protest, but he went on, ignoring my words.

“I pray you, promise never to reveal this story until my clay has mingled with the earth from which I am sprung.”

If there is a preamble to this story, it is one that I was already knowledgeable of and which I have already given some account of in the memoir I entitled “The Affray at the Kildare Street Club.” Holmes was one of the Galway Holmes. Like his brother, Mycroft, he had attended Trinity College, Dublin, where he had, in the same year as his friend Oscar Wilde, won a demyship to continue his studies at Oxford. I believe the name Sherlock came from his maternal side, his mother being of another well-established Anglo-Irish family. Holmes was always reticent about this background, although the clues to his Irish origins were obvious to most discerning people. One of his frequent disguises was to assume the name of Altamont as he pretended to be an Irish-American. Altamont was his family seat near Ballysherlock.

Armed with this background knowledge, I settled back with a glass of Holmes's cognac and listened as he recounted a most singular and terrifying tale. I append it exactly as he narrated it to me.

“Having completed my first term at Oxford, I returned to Dublin to stay with my brother Mycroft at his house in Merrion Square. Yet I found myself somewhat at a loose end. There was some panic in the fiscal office of the chief secretary where Mycroft worked. This caused him to be unable to spare the time we had set aside for a fishing expedition. I was therefore persuaded to accompany Abraham Stoker, who had been at Trinity the same year as Mycroft, to the Royal to see some theatrical entertainment. Abraham, or Bram as he preferred to be called, was also
a close friend of Sir William and Lady Wilde, who lived just across the square, and with whose younger son, Oscar, I was then at Oxford with.

“Bram was an ambitious man who not only worked with Mycroft at Dublin Castle but wrote theatrical criticism in his spare time and by night edited the
Dublin Halfpenny Press
, a journal which he had only just launched. He was trying to persuade me to write on famous Dublin murders for it, but as he offered no remuneration at all, I gracefully declined.

“We were in the foyer of the Royal when Bram, an amiable, booming giant with red hair, hailed someone over the heads of the throng. A thin, white-faced young man emerged to be clasped warmly by the hand. It was a youth of my own age and well known to me; Jack Phillimore was his name. He had been a fellow student at Trinity College. My heart leaped in expectation, and I searched the throng for a familiar female face which was, I will confess it, most dear to me. But Phillimore was alone. His sister Agnes was not with him at the theater.

“In the presence of Bram, we fell to exchanging pleasantries about our alma mater. I noticed that Phillimore's heart was not in exchanging such bonhomie nor, to be honest, was mine. I was impatient for the opportunity to inquire after Phillimore's sister. Ah, let the truth be known, Watson, but only after I am not in this world.

“Love, my dear Watson. Love! I believe that you have observed that all emotions, and that one in particular, are abhorrent to my mind. This is true, and since I have become mature enough to understand, I have come to regard it as opposite to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I have never married lest I bias my judgment. Yet it was not always my intention, and this very fact is what led to my downfall, causing the tragedy which I am about to relate. Alas, Watson, if…but with an
if
we might place Paris in a bottle.

“As a youth I was deeply in love with Agnes Phillimore who was but a year older than I. When Jack Phillimore and I were in our first year at Trinity, I used to spend time at their town house by Stephen's Green. I confess, it was not the company of Phillimore that I sought then but that of Agnes.

“In my maturity I could come to admire
the
woman, as you insist I call Irene Adler, but admiration is not akin to the deep, destructive emotional power that we call love.

“It was when Bram spotted someone across the foyer that he needed to speak to that Phillimore seized the opportunity to ask abruptly what I was doing for recreation. Hearing that I was at a loose end, he suggested that I accompany him to his father's estate in Kerry for a few days. Colonel James Phillimore owned a large house and estate in that remote county. Phillimore said he was going down because it was his father's fiftieth birthday. I thought at the time that he placed a singular emphasis on that fact.

“It was then that I managed to casually ask if his sister Agnes was in Dublin or in Kerry. Phillimore, of course, like most brothers, was ignorant that his sister held any attraction for the male sex, least of all one of his friends. He was nonchalant. ‘To be sure she is at Tullyfane, Holmes. Preparing for her marriage next month.'

“His glance was distracted by a man jostling through the foyer, and so he missed the effect that this intelligence had on me.

“ ‘Married?' I gasped. ‘To whom?'

“ ‘Some professor, no less. A cove by the name of Moriarty.'

“ ‘Moriarty?' I asked, for the name meant little to me in that context. I knew it only as a common County Kerry name. It was an Anglicizing of the Irish name Ó Muircheartaigh, meaning ‘expert navigator.'

“ ‘He is our neighbor, he is quite besotted with my sister, and it seems that it is arranged that they will marry next month. A rum cove, is the professor. Good education and holds a chair of mathematics at Queen's University in Belfast.'

“ ‘Professor James Moriarty,' I muttered savagely. Phillimore's news of Agnes's intentions had shattered all my illusions.

“ ‘Do you know him?' Phillimore asked, observing
my displeasure. ‘He's all right, isn't he? I mean…he's not a bounder, eh?'

“ ‘I have seen him once only and that from a distance in the Kildare Street Club,' I confessed. I had nothing against Moriarty at that time. ‘My brother Mycroft pointed him out to me. I did not meet him. Yet I have heard of his reputation. His
Dynamics of an Asteroid
ascended to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that no man in the scientific press was capable of criticizing it.'

“Phillimore chuckled.

“ ‘That is beyond me. Thank God I am merely a student of theology. But it sounds as though you are an admirer.'

“ ‘I admire intellect, Phillimore,' I replied simply. Moriarty, as I recalled, must have been all of ten years older than Agnes. What is ten years at our age? But to me, a callow youth, I felt the age difference that existed between Agnes and James Moriarty was obscene. I explain this simply because my attitude has a bearing on my future disposition.

“ ‘So come down with me to Tullyfane Abbey,' pressed Phillimore, oblivious to the emotional turmoil that he had created in me.

“I was about to coldly decline the invitation when Phillimore, observing my negative expression, was suddenly very serious. He leaned close to me and said softly: ‘You see, Holmes, old fellow, we are having increasing problems with the family ghost, and as I recall, you have a canny way of solving bizarre problems.'

“I knew enough of his character to realize that jesting was beyond his capacity.

“ ‘The family ghost?'

“ ‘A damned infernal specter that is driving my father quite out of his wits. Not to mention Agnes.'

“ ‘Your father and sister are afraid of a specter?'

“ ‘Agnes is scared at the deterioration in my father's demeanor. Seriously, Holmes, I really don't know what to do. My sister's letters speak of such a bizarre set of circumstances that I am inclined to think that she is hallucinating or that my father has been driven mad already.'

“My inclination was to avoid opening old wounds now by meeting Agnes again. I could spend the rest of my vacation in Marsh's Library, where they have an excellent collection of medieval cryptogram manuscripts. I hesitated—hesitated and was lost. I had to admit that I was intrigued to hear more of the matter in spite of my emotional distress, for any mystery sends the adrenaline coursing in my body.

“The very next morning I accompanied Jack Phillimore to Kingsbridge Railway Station and boarded the train to Killarney. En route he explained some of the problems.

“Tullyfane Abbey was supposed to be cursed. It was situated on the extremity of the Iveragh Peninsula in a wild and deserted spot. Tullyfane Abbey was, of course, never an abbey. It was a dignified Georgian country house. The Anglo-Irish gentry in the eighteenth century had a taste for the grandiose and called their houses
abbeys
or
castles
even when they were unassuming dwellings inhabited only by families of modest fortune.

“Phillimore told me that the firstborn of every generation of the lords of Tullyfane were to meet with terrible deaths on the attainment of their fiftieth birthdays even down to the seventh generation. It seems that first lord of Tullyfane had hanged a young boy for sheep stealing. The boy turned out to be innocent, and his mother, a widow who had doted on the lad as insurance for comfort in her old age, had duly uttered the curse. Whereupon each lord of Tullyfane, for the last six generations, had met an untimely end.