The Final Tales of Sherlock Holmes - Volume 1 (2 page)

Holmes handed me a sheet of folded paper, which I duly opened to find the following words, part of which had been cut from some bible and pasted to it, and the remainder printed:

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Think on your sins, Sherlock Holmes, as you are on the list:

1. ‘wttrdhhhtaweoeeyhpipraoosopntt'.

Love and bubbles, The Goatslayer.

I read the text through several times before I grasped one of its possible implications.

‘Eh, Holmes. Surely you're not… not musical, are you?'

‘Hah! Only when I play the violin, old boy. Or enjoy a concert. No. Although I simultaneously worship and distrust the devious opposite sex, the only love between men that I can understand is the one between David and Jonathan in the Book Of Samuel. You know, one soul in two bodies.'

I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Indeed. I concur. I fear, Holmes, that we are dealing here with what the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde referred to as
the love that dare not speak its name
'.

‘Watson. Far be it for me to correct you in a matter of literature, but that quote is actually from a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas in 1894 called
Two Loves
. It was, however, mentioned at Wilde's trial for gross indecency:

‘But I am Love, and I was wont to be

Alone in this fair garden, till he came

Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill

The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame'.

Then sighing, said the other, ‘Have thy will,

I am the Love that dare not… etc., etc.,'

‘Holmes, you never cease to astonish me, even after all our years together. I never heard you quote poetry before. You really have changed greatly.'

‘There was precious little to do in Sussex during the winter evenings, and so I overcame my natural aversion to all things literary, and started reading some serious books. About other subjects, too. For instance, I am now conscious of the fact that the earth revolves around the sun.'

‘But does it have a bearing on this case?'

‘Indeed it does, Watson. Indeed it does. As you know, I am more interested in the workings of the mind, rather than the body. I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix. Apparently our murderer is unaware of such details. He is asking me to repent, and that sounds like a very real threat. Quite apart from such trivia, there are certain elements in this case that are not entirely devoid of interest. Notice the word
list
, Watson. There may be many more murders planned, not just mine. This killer of ours is a vain person, who imagines that he is smarter than Sherlock Holmes. We shall see about that. And what about those apparently meaningless letters:

wttrdhhhtaweoeeyhpipraoosopntt?
It is most definitely a puzzle worth solving. We must find this Goatslayer before he kills again.'

My old war wound had begun to throb. All this talk of men with men was making my brain ache. If Holmes couldn't understand it, how on earth could I? Then it made me think of my lovely Bea for some reason, and the black clouds descended. I paced listlessly around the tiny room to ease my aching leg, which still contained the remnants of a jezail bullet fired into it by an Afghan warrior at the Battle of Maiwand.

‘I don't understand it either, Holmes. Why isn't it possible for two men to love each other without any notion of romance, or some sort of disgusting physical contact entering the equation? Then we wouldn't have to worry about speaking its damn name at all. I'd like to think that is possible.'

‘My dear chap. Of course it is. It's good to hear you haven't lost that pawky humour of yours. You never know, Watson. Some day in the future, the love that dare not speak its name might be more acceptable to society. And deemed less disgusting. As it once was in ancient Rome. Perhaps our flesh won't seem so strange then. After all, the New Testament was written about nineteen centuries ago. Now. As I cannot risk attending Mycroft's cremation, let us away to 221B Baker Street, with me in my standard counterfeit.'

Holmes picked up a red hair and beard piece, put it on, smoothed out the ruffles, shoved out his belly, bent his knees and transformed himself into a Somerset farmer.

‘Ooooh, arrrr. Oi bain bet Miss Hudson hath readied 'nough vittels for thee an' me.'

I stared into his red face in wonder.

‘
Miss
Hudson? 221B Baker Street? Have you taken leave of your senses, Holmes? Or lost your memory?'

The accent disappeared.

‘Not at all. After our little adventure at the beginning of the war with Herr Von Bork, and while you were soldiering away, I was called upon by Mycroft to come out of retirement and help him with several petty war problems. I'll tell you about these cases some other time, my Boswell, and you can write them up as
The Secret Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes
, or some such lurid title. Once I'd published my own
Practical Handbook of Bee Culture
, I decided that I'd had enough of bee-farming – there really is a limit to the knowledge to be derived from their behaviour – and sold my cottage. I needed a place to stay in London and was fortunate enough to find our old rooms vacant. Mrs Hudson, before she went into her final domicile in the Freemason's Nursing Home on the Fulham Road, recommended her niece Lily as a suitable cook and housekeeper. She really is very good, if a trifle too interested in the opposite sex. You'll enjoy her cottage pie.'

He rubbed his hands together in glee and his eyes flashed with excited anticipation.

‘Come, Watson, come. The game, it doth be afoot. Ooooh, arrrr.'

Devil, but I had missed him.

Chapter II. The First Puzzle.

It is difficult for me to adequately convey my feelings as I limped after Holmes up the seventeen steps of our old hunting-ground, following a bone-rattling drive in one of his new-fangled motorised cabs, with their infernal combustion engines. There was conflict, right enough, as I recalled the bad old days as well as the good old days. Days when he was under the influence of a seven-per-cent solution of cocaine, and dead to all around him. Days when his violin spewed out a discordant, depressive wail. Days when he never rose from his bed. I wondered if his boredom threshold was as narrow nowadays.

‘Here we are, Watson. Well. What do you think, old man?'

If I had been expecting something similar to the room that we had shared for so many years, with his chemistry projects bubbling away in a corner, the jack-knife holding down the unopened mail on the mantelpiece and a small rectangular box containing that damned solution, I was surely surprised.

‘But it's so bright and clean. The air is so fresh. Oh, I do beg your pardon, Holmes. How rude of me.'

He had straightened up and was removing his false toupee and beard.

‘Nothing to do with me. It is the fault of Miss Hudson. She moved my chemistry bench up into your old room, and arranged for the gas lighting to be replaced by electricity. Although it didn't want for painting to my mind, she had the decorators in last year. The rug did need replacing, I must admit. Do you know, she's almost as fussy as her poor aunt.'

While Holmes hung up our coats, I completed my audit of the room and realised with a pang that the only remaining differences were caused by the absence of my chair, desk and bookcase. The files, indexes, scrapbooks and bound newspapers remained in their usual places. His Stradivarius was still beside the telephone, his cigars and the gasogene. The Order Of The Legion Of Honour hung upon one wall, which also contained his numerous scientific charts. But the redecoration had removed all traces of the bullet holes which had initialled her Most Gracious Majesty, VR, from his efforts to relieve his intense boredom years ago.

‘Don't look so downcast, Watson. At least the tyrant allows us to smoke in the room. Pull up the cane chair and share some of Bradley's finest black shag with me.'

He picked up his familiar cherrywood pipe from the coal-scuttle and his old Persian slipper from the mantel above the roaring fire and eased himself into his armchair.

‘I think I'll stick to my birds eye, thanks all the same.'

Holmes was silent as we enjoyed our smoking. His brow took on its familiar furrow, indicating a train of intense concentration that must be pursued to its logical destination at all costs. He steepled his hands beneath his lower lip. I believe he forgot I was present for a while, until the rattan chair squealed in my efforts to get comfortable.

‘Watson. There you are. We must find your old chair. I'm sure it's around here somewhere. I've just recalled a detail from my childhood, which might have a bearing on this case. But first, let us have some tea. Or would you prefer something stronger, to salute my elder brother's departure?'

‘Tea is fine, thank you.'

‘Miss Hudson! MISS HUDSON!!!'

A door clanged to in the basement. This was followed by the thump, thump, thump of heavy clodhoppers upon wooden stairs and a continuous drone that I could only identify as the muttered complaints of a young woman as she flung open the door and entered the room.

‘'ow many toimes 'ave oi asked yer to use the bleedin' bell we 'ad instawlled fer yer, Mr. 'Olmes? There's noffink oi like less than yer voyce screamin' moi naime for awll o'London to 'ear. O', 'ello, deary. Who migh' yer be?'

Miss Lily Hudson could not have been less like her aunt if she had been picked at random from a newspaper advertisement. To my tired eyes she looked more like a model than a housekeeper. Small and neat in stature, she had jet-black curly hair, bobbed in the fashion of the day, above an oval-shaped face with mauve lips that reminded me of the actress Louise Brooks. She had an ample bosom and wore breeches and boots, almost military-style. Holmes and I both stood up before we could stop ourselves. It's a wonder we didn't stand to attention.

‘Miss Hudson, may I introduce my old friend and colleague, Dr John Watson?'

‘Charmed, oi'm sure. Ye're the gent wot wrote all them detective stories, ain't ja? Oi read them in the Strand Mag. My auntie Martha told me all abaht yer. She said yer was quihe a one for the goils, an' oi were to watch moi step if oi ever meh yer. So oi'm watching moi step, Watsey. Oi've go' moi eye on yer.'

I'm not sure whether Holmes was laughing at the colour of my face, which was either a bright crimson or deep purple, but he certainly seemed to be enjoying himself at my expense. I decided that elderly dignity would be my safest response to this spirited young woman, who must have been at least forty years my junior, if not fifty.

‘Eh, delighted to meet you, Miss Hudson. Those stories were not made up by me, you know. They were accurate renditions of Mr Holmes' cases. They were not fiction, but fact.'

She dangled a hand at me flirtatiously. Yes, flirtatiously!

‘O', ge' away. Were there really awll them orange pips an' the six nappyoleons? Yer could 'ave fooled me. An' did 'e die at the Rykenback Wowterfall, oi arsk yer? Anyways, if Mr. 'Olmes is a detective, then oi wanna'be in on 'is nex' case. Oi'd be ableedin' good sniffer, oi would. An' oi'd do it for free. Well, almos' free. Noffink oi'd like behher than a bi' of action. Wot ja wan'?'

‘Tea for two, please, Miss Hudson.'

‘Righ'. See this ov'r 'ere?'

She had moved to the fireplace and was pointing to a press-button bell in the wall.

‘This 'ere's a bell. If yer push it, oi'll hear it dahn in the slave quawters, an' yer won' 'ave to shou' moi name awll the bleedin' time. Bell. B.E.L.L. Two teas comin' up. Will Watsey be stayin' for lunch?'

‘He will,' replied Holmes.

As she passed by me, she stopped to straighten my tie, looking me in the eyes as she said, ‘Oi used to 'ave a teddy bear loike yer when oi were lihhle.'

The room seemed to shrink after she'd left. I sighed with relief. There was a time, I thought, but sadly that time was long gone. Did she know I was seventy-two, I wondered? Then: there's no fool like an old fool.

Once Holmes had finally recovered his customary gravitas and settled himself on his armchair, it was back to the business of Mycroft's murder.

‘Now, Watsey,' he said. ‘I am expecting young Lestrade at any moment. I need to know the details of Mycroft's autopsy. He should also have a list of all the Diogenes Club members and guests for the previous week, although I doubt if the Goatslayer has been considerate enough to lend us his real signature. While we wait for him, I suggest we examine this note in more detail. I haven't had time to do so, what with my clerical duties. I'll get my lens and we should go over to the table.'

‘Yes, Holmes, all right. Provided you stop calling me Watsey.'

His reply was a warm smile, raised eyebrows and a gesture with his pipe that promised nothing but further baiting down through eternity.

‘First, what can the paper tell us,' he said, holding it up to the light and turning it around. There was nothing on the other side. To my mind, all we had to work with was the bible quote, and the handwritten scrawl, signed by The Goatslayer. But I had forgotten about my friend's knowledge of all things trivial and his capacity for abductive reasoning, wherein he would use existing facts to generate an hypothesis about unknown events.

Several minutes had passed before he spoke again.

‘I spent some time studying the different types of paper once,' he murmured. ‘I may even have written a short monologue on the subject. I can't remember. Brain cells too damaged by all those years of cocaine abuse, I suppose. You'll be glad to know, Watson, that I have not yielded to the temptation of the needle for several years now. I am self-rehabilitated.'

So it wasn't just Royal Jelly that gave him his energy. Noted.

He continued. ‘This is a common form of book text paper, used by the publishing industry. No watermark. The serrated edge on one long side tells us that it was obviously torn from a book itself. Which book, it is impossible to tell, although the other, shorter torn edge at the top suggests either a self-publication on a hand press, or a book that has been published in uncut royal octavo form, sixteen pages to a sheet. The size is, let me see…'

Holmes pulled a wooden rule from a drawer in the table and set about measuring the paper.

‘I thought so. Ten inches by six and a quarter. This is the conventional royal octavo size. The paper does not have the same texture as the extract from the bible, which is thin, opaque and heavily loaded. So. A bookworm, bookshop owner, writer, publisher? Perhaps. Now for the Bible extract. What does it tell us about our killer?'

‘Well, it's definitely from the King James Version, as the others are slightly different. As you have already observed, it's the New Testament, the Epistle Of Jude, Chapter One, Verse Seven. God rained down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah because of the depravity of their inhabitants and He didn't want the Jews to be infected by it.'

‘Watson. I'm impressed. Don't tell me you've got religion in your old age.'

‘No, Holmes. Just a misspent childhood studying the Bible closely, before abandoning it for a life of science.'

‘So our pal might be of the Anglican persuasion. But the extract could be from any King James bible. There must be a few of them around. The message is clear. Musical men must fear the Almighty, as they are destined for Hell and eternal damnation. Usual psychological intimidation. It might be a religious freak.'

‘Or it might be someone pretending to be a religious freak, with other motives entirely,' I pointed out.

‘Good, Watson. Presumably relationships between musical men are subject to the same nauseating complications as those between dissonent men and the fair sex. If it were not for the ‘murder method', that is. It suggests a hatred of the tribe, and their practices. Let's remove the gum, examine it, and see what's on the other side.'

Just then the door banged open and Lily clumped in with a huge tray, which she deposited on the end of the table.

‘Tea fer two, an' two fer tea, me fer yer an' yer fer me alown,' she sang, winking at me. ‘Wo' ja go' there?'

Holmes immediately folded over the sheet of paper.

‘Thank you, Miss Hudson. That will be all.'

There was no possible way that either Holmes or myself would have involved this innocent young girl in such a sordid affair. She finally left the room in high dudgeon when we made it clear that her assistance was not required on this particular case.

‘Yer jes' wai' an' see,' she said. ‘The day'll come when the pair of yer'll need the 'elp of Lily 'Udson. An' maybes she won' be aroun' then. So there!'

The door slammed shut, to be followed by a cacophony of hurried clumpings down the stairs.

Holmes took the lid off the teapot, held the paper over the aperture and waited while the paste melted. Then he lifted a pair of tweesers from the drawer and proceeded to pick delicately at the Bible quotation. Once it had been removed, he laid it upside down on the table and bent over to sniff the paste on the upper side.

‘Gum arabic. Used in lithography, printing, paint, cosmetics and ink control. Edible, too.'

Holmes licked the glue and made a face.

‘But not particularly tasty.'

‘Printing and ink connects to the idea of the paper being used by a publishing company, doesn't it?'

‘Watson, you haven't lost it, you know.'

‘Yes, well. What about the quote and the Goatslayer signature?'

‘Think on your sins. The word sin suggests Roman Catholicism, rather than the Church Of England, which doesn't know the meaning of the word. His message is carefully printed, even his signature, so we can't analyse his handwriting in any way. Now for the string of letters:
wttrdhhhtaweoeeyhpipraoosopntt
.'

Holmes stared vacantly into space, as though the meaning of the letters lay somewhere over my shoulder, on a wall chart. Now it really did seem like old times, and I felt a sudden surge of energy at the prospect of adventure and danger. The thrill of the chase. My friend seemed to have got himself a new lease of life. Why couldn't I?

He held the paper up to the light. ‘There are no needle marks to indicate a pinprick cipher. As you know, Watson, I am an expert in all branches of cryptography. My trifling monograph on the subject, which analyses one hundred and sixty separate ciphers –
On Secret Writings
– has garnered considerable plaudits from around the world. Because of this, I was involved briefly in breaking a rather special grid cipher for the government towards the end of the war, concerning a certain shipment of arms to the enemy. Indeed, it may be that our work was instrumental in ending the conflict. That is not for me to say. What if this is something similar?'

‘What on earth is a grid cipher, Holmes?'

‘Well, it's nothing to do with dancing men, you will be pleased to know. We have thirty letters, so the grid might be 5×6. I'll create a simple matrix of the letters. Here.'

His nib scratched noisily over the paper. ‘That's not quite it, but I think we're on the right track. We'll try 6×5 next.'

Holmes handed the sheet of paper back to me, with the letters from the message looking like this: