The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (24 page)

“That,” muttered Watson, “is what you must expect to hear when you use
my
stethoscope.”

For my part I seized a bottle of seltzogene from the table and dashed it over the doctor's face. He gradually recovered, though he still clutched his side as though in great pain. It was then that I had one of those flashes of intuition which helped me so much in my career.

“Mr. Holmes,” I said, “I believe that Dr.
Watson has something which he wishes to say to us.” The Doctor nodded assent.

“Holmes,” he said, “I cannot keep silence any longer. I have been in the Army and it is impossible for me to allow a breath of suspicion to rest on a pure and lovely woman. At all costs I must clear her reputation. When Mr. Wimpfheimer dismissed me in such cavalier fashion I felt a not unnatural resentment. At that moment, as he relapsed again into delirium, my eye caught the glint of the Diamond lying on its chamois leather bag on the table. The nurse left us to bring in some cooling drink which I had prescribed. In a flash my mind was made up—indeed my brain seemed to function with abnormal speed and certainty. A complete plan presented itself to me. I would seize the Diamond and convey it to Baker Street; you would find it in our room. I had no doubt that your keen analytical brain would connect the presence of the Diamond in Baker Street with my visit to Great Cumberland Place. I felt assured that the staunchness of your friendship would shield me from any undesirable consequences; I felt certain that you would find means, when a baffled Scotland Yard consulted you, to restore the stone to its owner, and to prove that it could in fact never have left Great Cumberland Place; you would then, I knew, generously allow Lestrade to take all the credit for the recovery. With me, to think is to act. To seize the Diamond was the matter of a moment; I rolled it into its bag and thrust them both into the mouth of my stethoscope. Thus burdened, I hurried from the house and hailed the first passing hansom. Inside I felt for the first time a spasm of nervousness, and I doubted the security of the hiding-place which I had chosen. I therefore removed the Diamond from the bag, pushed the bag back into the stethoscope and placed the Diamond in my mouth—a trick of concealment which I learned on the Afghan frontier. Then another doubt assailed me. It was essential for the success of my plan that you should not fail to find the Diamond. Should I place it in the tobacco in your Persian slipper (but you might not smoke enough to reach it in time) or should I secrete it in your violin (but would you notice it there)? In this mental dilemma I allowed the muscles of my jaw to relax, the hansom gave a sudden lurch and, alas! I swallowed the Dark Diamond of Dungbura!”

“Impossible,” exclaimed Holmes. “It is too large.”

“I have swallowed much in my time,” retorted Watson with quiet dignity. A new access of pain swept over him and his face contorted with agony.

“How he suffers,” cried Holmes; “it is a tortured brain.”

“No, no. Alimentary, my dear Holmes, alimentary,” gasped Watson. “Take me to a hospital and I will stake my medical reputation that the Dark Diamond can speedily be recovered.” Holmes drew me aside.

“Watson,” he said, “has bungled shamefully, as I fear he often does—nevertheless we might still use some part of his strange plan. I could well restore the Diamond to Great Cumberland Place.”

It was then that I took command of the situation.

“No, Mr. Holmes,” said I, “that is out of the question. When the Yard undertakes a case of this kind it does not rest until success is achieved. Within twenty-four hours of taking over the case I have laid my hands on the criminal, who now writhes in your chair, and I have—within very narrow limits—located the stolen Diamond. With some assistance from the hospital I shall recover it and I shall restore it to its owner.” But I noted a look of chagrin on Holmes's face, so I tapped him on the shoulder and tried to console him. “The Yard,” I said, “cares little to whom the credit goes if only its task is achieved. After all, the confession which I extracted from Dr. Watson has saved me some hours of patient investigation; if, therefore, Mr. Wimpfheimer recovers I shall inform him that the Gifted Amateur, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, lent his assistance to us in the recovery of the Diamond.”

A happy smile passed over the great Lestrade's wrinkled face.

“I am not denying,” he said, “that my speed and efficiency in the handling of the case of the Dark Diamond was a big step upward in my professional career. Nor did I forget my promise to the Gifted Amateur. Mr. Rheinhart Wimpfheimer recovered and when, some three or four months later, I met Mr. Sherlock Holmes, he was wearing a handsome diamond tiepin which I do not remember to have seen in his possession before.”

(Published Anonymously)

JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
(1860–1937), the beloved Scottish playwright who created one of literature's iconic characters, Peter Pan, formed an unlikely friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle that survived many years and vast differences between two of the most popular writers of their time.

Conan Doyle was a sportsman. Fond of skiing, he has been credited with introducing that vigorous activity to Switzerland. An aficionado of pugilism, he was praised for his skill as a boxer and wrote two books with boxing themes:
Rodney Stone
(1896), which focused on bare-knuckle fighting during the Regency era, and
The Croxley Master: A Great Tale of the Prize Ring
(1907), about a boxing medical student. Famously, Conan Doyle was asked to referee the racially charged Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries heavyweight championship fight in 1910. Johnson, the new champion, was an arrogant black man, so Jeffries, the old former champion, was called out of retirement in the interest of white supremacy. Conan Doyle declined the offer, stating that it was more likely to foster bigotry than combat it.

Barrie, on the other hand, stopped growing when he was still quite small (5′3½″ according to his passport), was extremely introverted, and though he was married, his relationship was apparently unconsummated. “Boys can't love,” he explained to his wife.

Nonetheless, Barrie and his friends, Jerome K. Jerome, Conan Doyle, P. G. Wodehouse, and others, founded a cricket club, called Allahakbarries. Conan Doyle was the only member who could actually play cricket. Barrie's friendship with Conan Doyle undoubtedly inspired him to write three Sherlock Holmes parodies, all of which are included in this collection.

“The Late Sherlock Holmes” was first published anonymously in the December 29, 1893, issue of
The St. James's Gazette
; it was first published in book form in the anthology
My Evening with Sherlock Holmes
, edited by John Gibson and Richard Lancelyn Green (London, Ferret Fantasy, 1981).

WATSON ACCUSED OF THE CRIME.

(By Our Own Extra-Special Reporters.)

12:30 p.m.—Early this morning Mr. W. W. Watson, M.D. (Edin.), was arrested at his residence, 12a, Tennison-road, St. John's-wood, on a charge of being implicated in the death of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, late of Baker-street. The arrest was quickly effected. The prisoner, we understand, was found by the police at breakfast with his wife. Being informed of the cause of their visit he expressed no surprise, and only asked to see the warrant. This having been shown him, he quietly put himself at the disposal of the police. The latter, it appears, had instructions to tell him that before accompanying them to Bow-street he was at liberty to make arrangements for the carrying on during his absence of his medical practice. Prisoner smiled at this, and said that no such arrangements were necessary, as his patient had left the country. Being warned that whatever he said would be used as evidence against him, he declined to make any further statement. He was then expeditiously removed to Bow-street. Prisoner's wife witnessed his removal with much fortitude.

The disappearance of Mr. Holmes was an event of such recent occurrence and gave rise to so much talk that a very brief
resume
of the affair is all that is needed here. Mr. Holmes was a man of middle age and resided in Baker-street, where he carried on the business of a private detective. He was extremely successful in his vocation, and some of his more notable triumphs must still be fresh in the minds of the public—particularly that known as “The Adventure of the Three Crowned Heads,” and the still more curious “Adventure of the Man without a Wooden Leg,” which had puzzled all the scientific bodies of Europe. Dr. Watson, as will be proved out of his own mouth, was a great friend of Mr. Holmes (itself a suspicious circumstance) and was in the habit of accompanying him in his professional peregrinations. It will be alleged by the prosecution, we understand, that he did so to serve certain ends of his own, which were of a monetary character. About a fortnight ago news reached London of the sudden death of the unfortunate Holmes, in circumstances that strongly pointed to foul play. Mr. Holmes and a friend had gone for a short trip to Switzerland, and it was telegraphed that Holmes had been lost in the terrible Falls of Reichenbach. He had fallen over or been precipitated. The Falls are nearly a thousand feet high; but Mr. Holmes in the course of his career had survived so many dangers, and the public had such faith in his turning-up as alert as ever next month, that no one believed him dead. The general confidence was strengthened when it became known that his companion in this expedition was his friend Watson.

Unfortunately for himself (though possibly under the compulsion of the police of
Switzerland), Watson felt called upon to make a statement. It amounted in brief to this: that the real cause of the Swiss tour was a criminal of the name of Moriarty, from whom Holmes was flying. The deceased gentleman, according to Watson, had ruined the criminal business of Moriarty, who had sworn revenge. This shattered the nerves of Holmes, who fled to the Continent, taking Watson with him. All went well until the two travellers reached the Falls of Reichenbach. Hither they were followed by a Swiss boy with a letter to Watson. It purported to come from the innkeeper of Meiringen, a neighbouring village, and implored the Doctor to hasten to the inn and give his professional attendance to a lady who had fallen ill there. Leaving Holmes at the Fall, Watson hurried to the inn, only to discover that the landlord had sent him no such letter. Remembering Moriarty, Watson ran back to the Falls, but arrived too late. All he found there was signs of a desperate struggle and a slip of writing from Holmes explaining that he and Moriarty had murdered each other and then flung themselves over the Falls.

The arrest of Watson this morning will surprise no one. It was the general opinion that some such step must follow in the interests of public justice. Special indignation was expressed at Watson's statement that Holmes was running away from Moriarty. It is notorious that Holmes was a man of immense courage, who revelled in facing danger. To represent him as anything else is acknowledged on all hands to be equivalent to saying that the People's Detective (as he was called) had

We understand that printed matter by Watson himself will be produced at the trial in proof of the public contention. It may also be observed that Watson's story carries doubt on the face of it. The deadly struggle took place on a narrow path along which it is absolutely certain that the deceased must have seen Moriarty coming. Yet the two men only wrestled on the cliff. What the Crown will ask is,

Watson, again, is the authority for stating that the deceased never crossed his threshold without several loaded pistols in his pockets. If this were so in London, is it not quite incredible that Holmes should have been unarmed in the comparatively wild Swiss mountains, where, moreover, he is represented as living in deadly fear of Moriarty's arrival? And from Watson's sketch of the ground, nothing can be clearer than that Holmes had ample time to shoot Moriarty after the latter hove in sight. But even allowing that Holmes was unarmed, why did not Moriarty shoot him? Had he no pistols either? This is the acme of absurdity.

Watson says that as he was leaving the neighbourhood of the Falls he saw in the distance the figure of a tall man. He suggests that this was Moriarty, who (he holds) also sent the bogus letter. In support of this theory it must be allowed that Peter Steiler, the innkeeper, admits that some such stranger did stop at the inn for a few minutes and write a letter. This clue is being actively followed up, and doubtless with the identification of this mysterious person, which is understood to be a matter of a few hours' time, we shall be nearer the unravelling of the knot. It may be added, from information supplied us from a safe source, that the police do not expect to find that this stranger was Moriarty, but rather

who has for long collaborated with him in his writings, and has been a good deal mentioned in connection with the deceased. In short, the most sensational arrest of the century is on the
tapis
.

The murdered man's

are in possession of the police. Our representative called there in the course of the
morning and spent some time in examining the room with which the public has become so familiar through Watson's descriptions. The room is precisely as when deceased inhabited it. Here, for instance, is his favourite chair in which he used to twist himself into knots when thinking out a difficult problem. A tin canister of tobacco stands on the mantelpiece (shag), and above it hangs the long-lost Gainsborough “Duchess,” which Holmes discovered some time ago, without, it seems, being able to find the legal owner. It will be remembered that Watson, when Holmes said surprising things, was in the habit of “leaping to the ceiling” in astonishment. Our representative examined the ceiling and found it

The public cannot, too, have forgotten that Holmes used to amuse himself in this room with pistol practice. He was such a scientific shot that one evening while Watson was writing he fired all round the latter's head, shaving him by an infinitesimal part of an inch. The result is a portrait on the wall, in pistol-shots, of Watson, which is considered an excellent likeness. It is understood that, following the example set in the Ardlamont case, this picture will be produced in court. It is also in contemplation to bring over the Falls of Reichenbach for the same purpose.

The evidence in the case being circumstantial, it is obvious that motive must have a prominent part in the case for the Crown. Wild rumours are abroad on this subject, and at this stage of the case they must be received with caution. According to one, Watson and Holmes had had a difference about money matters, the latter holding that the former was making a goldmine out of him and sharing nothing. Others allege that the difference between the two men was owing to Watson's change of manner; Holmes, it is stated, having complained bitterly that Watson did not jump to the ceiling in amazement so frequently as in the early days of their intimacy. The blame in this case, however, seems to attach less to Watson than to the lodgers on the second floor, who complained to the landlady. We understand that the legal fraternity look to

in the case for the motive which led to the murder of Mr. Holmes. This dark horse, of course, is the mysterious figure already referred to as having been seen in the vicinity of the Falls of Reichenbach on the fatal day. He, they say, had strong reasons for doing away with Mr. Holmes. For a long time they were on excellent terms. Holmes would admit frankly in the early part of his career that he owed everything to this gentleman; who, again, allowed that Holmes was a large source of income to him. Latterly, however, they have not been on friendly terms, Holmes having complained frequently that whatever he did the other took the credit for. On the other hand, the suspected accomplice has been heard to say “that Holmes has been getting too uppish for anything,” that he “could do very well without Holmes now,” that he “has had quite enough of Holmes,” that he “is sick of the braggart's name,” and even that “if the public kept shouting for more Holmes he would kill him in self-defence.” Witnesses will be brought to prove these statements, and it is believed that the mysterious man of the Falls and this gentleman will be found to be one and the same person. Watson himself allows that he owes his very existence to this dark horse, which supplies the important evidence that the stranger of the Falls is also a doctor. The theory of the Crown, of course, is that these two medical men were accomplices. It is known that he whom we have called the dark horse is still in the neighbourhood of the Falls.

Dr. Conan Doyle is at present in Switzerland.

reaches us as we go to press, to the effect that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, at the entreaty of the whole British public, has returned to Baker-street, and is at present (in the form of the figure 8) solving the problem of The Adventure of the Novelist and His Old Man of the Sea.