The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (4 page)

Being an Unrecorded Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes

VINCENT STARRETT

IT SEEMS TO
me that Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett (1886–1974) succeeded in being one of America's greatest bookmen, and his young daughter offered the best tombstone inscription—“The Last Bookman”—for anyone who is a Dofob, Eugene Field's useful word for a “damned old fool over books,” as Starrett admitted to being. Once, when a friend called at his home, Starrett's daughter answered the door and told the visitor that her father was “upstairs, playing with his books.”

Starrett produced innumerable essays, biographical works, critical studies, and bibliographical pieces on a wide range of authors, all while managing the “Books Alive” column for the
Chicago Tribune
for many years. His autobiography,
Born in a Bookshop
(1965), should be required reading for bibliophiles of all ages.

He wrote numerous mystery short stories and several detective novels, including
Murder on “B” Deck
(1929),
Dead Man Inside
(1931), and
The End of Mr. Garment
(1932). His 1934 short story, “Recipe for Murder,” was expanded to the full-length novel,
The Great Hotel Murder
(1935), which was the basis for the film of the same title and released the same year; it starred Edmund Lowe and Victor McLaglen.

Few would argue that Starrett's most outstanding achievements were his writings about Sherlock Holmes, most notably
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
(1933) and “The Unique ‘Hamlet,' ” described by Sherlockians for decades as the best pastiche ever written. It was privately printed in 1920 by Starrett's friend Walter M. Hill in a hardcover limited edition of unknown quantity. It is likely that ten copies were issued for the author with his name on the title page. The number of copies published with Hill's name on the title page has been variously reported as thirty-three, one hundred, one hundred ten, and two hundred. It was selected for
Queen's Quorum
(1951), Ellery Queen's selection of the one hundred six most important volumes of detective fiction ever written.

Being an Unrecorded Adventure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes

Vincent Starrett

“
HOLMES
,”
SAID I
one morning, as I stood in our bay window, looking idly into the street, “surely here comes a madman. Someone has incautiously left the door open and the poor fellow has slipped out. What a pity!”

It was a glorious morning in the spring, with a fresh breeze and inviting sunlight, but as it was early few persons were as yet astir. Birds twittered under the neighboring eaves, and from the far end of the thoroughfare came faintly the droning cry of an umbrella repairman; a lean cat slunk across the cobbles and disappeared into a courtway; but for the most part the street was deserted, save for the eccentric individual who had called forth my exclamation.

Sherlock Holmes rose lazily from the chair in which he had been lounging and came to my side, standing with long legs spread and hands in the pockets of his dressing gown. He smiled as he saw the singular personage coming along; and a personage the man seemed to be, despite his curious actions, for he was tall and portly, with elderly whiskers of the variety called muttonchop, and eminently respectable. He was loping curiously, like a tired hound, lifting his knees high as he ran, and a heavy double watch chain bounced against and rebounded from the plump line of his figured waistcoat. With one hand he clutched despairingly at his tall silk hat, while with the other he made strange gestures in the air, in a state of emotion bordering on distraction. We could almost see the spasmodic workings of his countenance.

“What in the world can ail him?” I cried. “See how he glances at the houses as he passes.”

“He is looking at the numbers,” responded Sherlock Holmes with dancing eyes, “and I fancy it is ours that will give him the greatest happiness. His profession, of course, is obvious.”

“A banker, I should imagine, or at least a person of affluence,” I ventured, wondering what curious detail had betrayed the man's vocation to my remarkable companion in a single glance.

“Affluent, yes,” said Holmes with a mischievous twinkle, “but not exactly a banker, Watson. Notice the sagging pockets, despite the excellence of his clothing, and the rather exaggerated madness of his eye. He is a collector, or I am very much mistaken.”

“My dear fellow!” I exclaimed. “At his age and in his station! And why should he be seeking us? When we settled that last bill—.”

“Of books,” said my friend severely. “He is a book collector. His line is Caxtons, Elzevirs, and Gutenberg Bibles, not the sordid reminders of unpaid grocery accounts. See, he is turning in, as I expected, and in a moment he will stand upon our hearthrug and tell the harrowing tale of a unique volume and its extraordinary disappearance.”

His eyes gleamed and he rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. I could not but hope that his conjecture was correct, for he had had little recently to occupy his mind, and I lived in constant fear that he would seek that stimulation his active brain required in the long-tabooed cocaine bottle.

As Holmes finished speaking, the doorbell echoed through the house; then hurried feet were sounding on the stairs, while the wailing voice of Mrs. Hudson, raised in protest, could only have been occasioned by frustration of her coveted privilege of bearing up our caller's card. Then the door burst violently inward and the object of our analysis staggered to the center of the room and pitched headforemost upon our center rug. There he lay, a magnificent ruin, with his head on the fringed border and his feet in the coal scuttle; and sealed within his motionless lips was the amazing story he had come to tell—for that it was amazing we could not doubt in the light of our client's extraordinary behavior.

Sherlock Holmes ran quickly for the brandy, while I knelt beside the stricken man and loosened his wilted neckband. He was not dead, and when we had forced the flask beneath his teeth he sat up in groggy fashion, passing a dazed hand across his eyes. Then he scrambled to his feet with an embarrassed apology for his weakness, and fell into the chair which Holmes invitingly held toward him.

“That is right, Mr. Harrington Edwards,” said my companion soothingly. “Be quite calm, my dear sir, and when you have recovered your composure you will find us ready to listen.”

“You know me then?” cried our visitor. There was pride in his voice and he lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

“I had never heard of you until this moment; but if you wish to conceal your identity it would be well,” said Sherlock Holmes, “for you to leave your bookplates at home.” As Holmes spoke he returned a little package of folded paper slips, which he had picked from the floor. “They fell from your hat when you had the misfortune to collapse,” he added whimsically.

“Yes, yes,” cried the collector, a deep blush spreading across his features. “I remember now; my hat was a little large and I folded a number of them and placed them beneath the sweatband. I had forgotten.”

“Rather shabby usage for a handsome etched plate,” smiled my companion; “but that is your affair. And now, sir, if you are quite at ease, let us hear what it is that has brought you, a collector of books, from Poke Stogis Manor—the name is on the plate—to the office of Sherlock Holmes, consulting expert in crime. Surely nothing but the theft of Mahomet's own copy of the Koran can have affected you so strongly.”

Mr. Harrington Edwards smiled feebly at the jest, then sighed. “Alas,” he murmured, “if that were all! But I shall begin at the beginning.

“You must know, then, that I am the greatest Shakespearean commentator in the world. My collection of
ana
is unrivaled and much of the world's collection (and consequently its knowledge of the veritable Shakespeare) has emanated from my pen. One book I did not possess: it was unique, in the correct sense of that abused word, the greatest Shakespeare rarity in the world. Few knew that it existed, for its existence was kept a profound secret among a chosen few. Had it become known that this book was in England—anywhere, indeed—its owner would have been hounded to his grave by wealthy Americans.

“It was in the possession of my friend—I tell you this in strictest confidence—of my friend, Sir Nathaniel Brooke-Bannerman, whose place at Walton-on-Walton is next to my own. A scant two hundred yards separate our dwellings; so intimate has been our friendship that a few years ago the fence between our estates was removed, and each of us roamed or loitered at will in the other's preserves.

“For some years, now, I have been at work upon my greatest book—my magnum opus. It was to be my last book also embodying the results of a lifetime of study and research. Sir, I know Elizabethan London better than any man alive; better than any man who ever lived, I think——.” He burst suddenly into tears.

“There, there,” said Sherlock Holmes gently. “Do not be distressed. Pray continue with your interesting narrative. What was this book—which, I take it, in some manner has disappeared? You borrowed it from your friend?”

“That is what I am coming to,” said Mr. Harrington
Edwards, drying his tears, “but as for help, Mr. Holmes, I fear that is beyond even you. As you surmise, I needed this book. Knowing its value, which could not be fixed, for the book is priceless, and knowing Sir Nathaniel's idolatry of it, I hesitated before asking for the loan of it. But I had to have it, for without it my work could not have been completed, and at length I made my request. I suggested that I visit him and go through the volume under his eyes, he sitting at my side throughout my entire examination, and servants stationed at every door and window, with fowling pieces in their hands.

“You can imagine my astonishment when Sir Nathaniel laughed at my precautions. ‘My dear Edwards,' he said, ‘that would be all very well were you Arthur Rambidge or Sir Homer Nantes (mentioning the two great men of the British Museum), or were you Mr. Henry Hutterson, the American railway magnate; but you are my friend Harrington Edwards, and you shall take the book home with you for as long as you like.' I protested vigorously, I can assure you; but he would have it so, and as I was touched by this mark of his esteem, at length I permitted him to have his way. My God! If I had remained adamant! If I had only——.”

He broke off and for a moment stared blindly into space. His eyes were directed at the Persian slipper on the wall, in the toe of which Holmes kept his tobacco, but we could see that his thoughts were far away.

“Come, Mr. Edwards,” said Holmes firmly. “You are agitating yourself unduly. And you are unreasonably prolonging our curiosity. You have not yet told us what this book is.”

Mr. Harrington Edwards gripped the arm of the chair in which he sat. Then he spoke, and his voice was low and thrilling.

“The book was a
Hamlet
quarto, dated 1602, presented by Shakespeare to his friend Drayton, with an inscription four lines in length, written and signed by the Master, himself!”

“My dear sir!” I exclaimed. Holmes blew a long, slow whistle of astonishment.

“It is true,” cried the collector. “That is the book I borrowed, and that is the book I lost! The long-sought quarto of 1602, actually inscribed in Shakespeare's own hand! His greatest drama, in an edition dated a year earlier than any that is known; a perfect copy, and with four lines in his own handwriting! Unique! Extraordinary! Amazing! Astounding! Colossal! Incredible! Un——.”

He seemed wound up to continue indefinitely; but Holmes, who had sat quite still at first, shocked by the importance of the loss, interrupted the flow of adjectives.

“I appreciate your emotion, Mr. Edwards,” he said, “and the book is indeed all that you say it is. Indeed, it is so important that we must at once attack the problem of rediscovering it. The book, I take it, is readily indentifiable?”

“Mr. Holmes,” said our client, earnestly, “it would be impossible to hide it. It is so important a volume that, upon coming into its possession, Sir Nathaniel Brooke-Bannerman called a consultation of the great binders of the Empire, at which were present Mr. Riviere, Messrs. Sangorski and Sutcliffe, Mr. Zaehnsdorf, and certain others. They and myself, with two others, alone know of the book's existence. When I tell you that it is bound in brown levant morocco, with leather joints and brown levant doublures and flyleaves, the whole elaborately gold-tooled, inlaid with seven hundred and fifty separate pieces of various colored leathers, and enriched by the insertion of eighty-seven precious stones, I need not add that it is a design that never will be duplicated, and I mention only a few of its glories. The binding was personally done by Messrs. Riviere, Sangorski, Sutcliffe, and Zaehnsdorf, working alternately, and is a work of such enchantment that any man might gladly die a thousand deaths for the privilege of owning it for twenty minutes.”

“Dear me,” quoth Sherlock Holmes, “it must indeed be a handsome volume, and from your description, together with a realization of its importance by reason of its association, I gather that it is something beyond what might be termed a valuable book.”

“Priceless!” cried Mr. Harrington Edwards. “The combined wealth of India, Mexico, and Wall Street would be all too little for its purchase.”

“You are anxious to recover this book?” asked Sherlock Holmes, looking at him keenly.

“My God!” shrieked the collector, rolling up his eyes and clawing at the air with his hands. “Do you suppose——?”

“Tut, tut!” Holmes interrupted. “I was only teasing you. It is a book that might move even you, Mr. Harrington Edwards, to theft—but we may put aside that notion. Your emotion is too sincere, and besides you know too well the difficulties of hiding such a volume as you describe. Indeed, only a very daring man would purloin it and keep it long in his possession. Pray tell us how you came to lose it.”

Mr. Harrington Edwards seized the brandy flask, which stood at his elbow, and drained it at a gulp. With the renewed strength thus obtained, he continued his story:

“As I have said, Sir Nathaniel forced me to accept the loan of the book, much against my wishes. On the evening that I called for it, he told me that two of his servants, heavily armed, would accompany me across the grounds to my home. ‘There is no danger,' he said, ‘but you will feel better'; and I heartily agreed with him. How shall I tell you what happened? Mr. Holmes, it was those very servants who assailed me and robbed me of my priceless borrowing!”

Sherlock Holmes rubbed his lean hands with satisfaction. “Splendid!” he murmured. “This is a case after my own heart. Watson, these are deep waters in which we are adventuring. But you are rather lengthy about this, Mr. Edwards. Perhaps it will help matters if I ask you a few questions. By what road did you go to your home?”

“By the main road, a good highway which lies in front of our estates. I preferred it to the shadows of the wood.”

“And there were some two hundred yards between your doors. At what point did the assault occur?”

“Almost midway between the two entrance drives, I should say.”

“There was no light?”

“That of the moon only.”

“Did you know these servants who accompanied you?”

“One I knew slightly; the other I had not seen before.”

“Describe them to me, please.”

“The man who is known to me is called Miles. He is clean-shaven, short and powerful, although somewhat elderly. He was known, I believe, as Sir Nathaniel's most trusted servant; he had been with Sir Nathaniel for years. I cannot describe him minutely for, of course, I never paid much attention to him. The other was tall and thickset, and wore a heavy beard. He was a silent fellow; I do not believe that he spoke a word during the journey.”

“Miles was more communicative?”

“Oh yes—even garrulous, perhaps. He talked about the weather and the moon, and I forget what else.”