Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Ruby Elephants (9 page)

‘The world moves on without us, Watson,' sighed Holmes. ‘In Italy there is a man sending invisible energies through the air, transmitting messages that can be received and understood miles away. This is sent by telegraphy and entirely without wires. It is a wonder. Meanwhile we sit in our rooms like troglodytes shouting back at the echo of our own voices. Watson, mark me when I say the world is leaving us behind. Baker Street has become a backwater.' Holmes moved a cigarette to his lips and sunk lower still into his chair. I knew Holmes too well to bother him in a mood such as this and removing some of the larger pieces of plaster from the upholstery, I settled quietly into my own chair with a copy of The Times.

No sooner had I glanced at the front page when I started in surprise.

‘Really, Watson,' complained Holmes. ‘You are an insufferable jack in the box this morning. What is it this time?'

‘Chatburn,' I cried. ‘We are too late. He's been murdered in his bed.'

‘Murdered?' said Holmes, brightening somewhat.

‘They have found his bed sheets covered in blood. But the body has vanished.'

‘This is a tonic, Watson, a veritable tonic!'

Holmes leapt to his feet and dashed excitedly to the window.

‘The game is afoot, Watson, the game is afoot!'

Once again we found ourselves thundering through London towards Queen's Street. Holmes was feverish with excitement twisting his hands together and sitting at the very edge of his seat, a man utterly transformed.

‘Faster, I say!' he bellowed, ‘leaning out of the window,' haranguing the driver.

I noticed a crowd of children, the boy Wiggins and the rest of the Baker Street Irregulars cheering us on by the side of the road as if we were racing a highwayman.

No sooner had we arrived when my friend sprang from the carriage and bounded past the constable guarding the door. The poor man barely had a chance to lower his arm. By the time I had reached him, he put up no resistance.

‘You'll find Inspector Gregson upstairs,' he sighed.

I burst in on a ghastly scene. The room was turned upside down; drawers were upended on the floor, pictures pulled from the walls and at the centre was the poor jeweller's bed. A horrific red stain was expanding there that threatened to engulf all of London.

‘Confound it, Holmes,' the inspector cried, ‘what an absolute mess.' Gregson presided over the scene with his usual commanding presence, his arms crossed, a look of distaste and disapproval across his face. A fleck of blood had found its way into his fair hair where he had swept it back.

Holmes was still taking it all in, his eyes darting this way and that.

‘Masterful work!' he exclaimed.

‘Masterful?' questioned Gregson. ‘You have some admiration for these fiends?'

‘I wouldn't go that far,' cautioned Holmes. ‘They have taken exceeding pains resulting in a most convincing attempt. But the outcome is flawed.'

Gregson looked confused, then irritated at Holmes' remarks.

‘This is the scene of a murder, Holmes,' he frowned. ‘Not a stage in Drury Lane. If you have nothing useful to offer then I would suggest that you and Doctor Watson leave us to our work. There are certain elements of this case that are beyond dispute. The door to the room was deadlocked from the inside when we arrived. It took two constables and my own shoulder to bring it down. Not only that, the front door of the premises was also double locked and the shutters were closed all night. I have testimony from the local constable to this effect. There is evidence that the windows have not been opened anytime recently - the catches are rusted shut in fact. We have checked the floor for trapdoors and the walls are sound.

‘If you would permit me to spend five minutes here,' Holmes replied calmly, ‘I will be able to provide you with information of the greatest use to your enquiries.' Gregson glanced at his pocket watch.

‘Five minutes,' he repeated. ‘And please keep out of our way.'

‘Excellent,' said Holmes, then promptly left the room. I busied myself examining the stain and the tears in the mattress where a knife had made several rough incisions. It appeared to have been the most frightful struggle. Presently my friend re-emerged through the wardrobe on the opposite wall.

‘Good day inspector,' said Holmes coolly, stepping back into the room. ‘I appear to have found an alternative entrance.'

Gregson barely had time to raise his jaw from the ground when Holmes began his appraisal.

‘The wardrobe you will see rises to the full height of the room. It provides access, via a ladder, to the upper attic, where you will find an exotically furnished meeting room. From the attic, there is easy access to the roof.'

‘Then that is how they dragged away the body,' said Gregson, recovering his wits.

‘Impossible,' snapped Holmes. The ladder is inclined at a steep angle and at the top it is necessary for a man to twist and haul himself up with his own strength. It would be quite impossible to expect a dead man to accomplish such a feat.'

‘Are you suggesting-' Gregson began.

‘Chatburn is alive and if not well, then still breathing London's foul air just the same as you and I.'

‘But the bed,' Gregson said. ‘A set up? For what possible reason? An insurance scam?'

Holmes sat on the edge of the bed and placed a finger in the blood.

‘Well it is certainly human blood,' he said, holding up his fingertip. With the thumb and forefinger of his other hand, he picked up a feather, one of many jettisoned from the exploded pillow and mattress.

‘To what bird did this once belong, doctor?' Holmes asked.

‘A duck or goose, I expect,' I guessed, examining the brilliant white feather, fluffed at the edges.

‘For all your knowledge of our frail human frame, Watson, you are no veterinarian. This in fact, once belonged to swan.'

‘Rather exotic for a feather bed,' I remarked.

‘Not to mention illegal,' added Gregson, puzzled at this diversion. ‘But what possible relevance does this have?'

‘I suggest we should be looking for someone with connections in the feather trade.'

I shot Holmes a look.

‘A wild conjecture,' said Gregson. ‘Now how did you fathom the wardrobe business, Holmes?'

‘As I have often reminded my friend Dr Watson, eliminate the impossible and whatever you are left with, however improbable is the truth.' Gregson frowned once again.

‘He has no relations and no acquaintances that we can identify beyond his assistants.'

‘Well, Inspector,' said Holmes, returning his hat to his head. ‘We will leave this puzzle with you. Watson, what say you to a pipe by the river before lunch?'

‘A capital idea,' I said.

‘Not so fast, Holmes.' said Gregson slowly. Holmes stopped and turned to the man. ‘Have you ever met this man Chatburn?' Holmes froze, but betrayed no emotion whatsoever.

‘Why do you say that, Inspector?'

‘Why not try answering the question, Mr Holmes.'

‘Well as a matter of fact, I have,' admitted Holmes. ‘He fixed the lid of a snuff box for me and made an excellent job of it too. I shall be at quite a loss the next time I need a small repair. Did you know I have in my possession an emerald tie pin from Queen Victoria herself. It has a small blemish and I was meaning to ask Mr Chatburn's professional opinion before this ghastly business occurred.'

‘What sort of man did you take him for?' asked Gregson.

‘A serious minded fellow,' said Holmes. ‘Disappeared to India for a while, I heard. Now if you don't mind, Inspector, I will obey your wishes and leave you to your investigation. I make that five minutes, don't you Watson?'I produced my pocket watch.

‘Exactly right, Holmes,' I corroborated.

‘Good day, Inspector,' said Holmes and he vanished around the corner.

Holmes and I found ourselves a bench in Victoria Embankment Gardens in the shadow of Steele's magnificent statue of Robert Burns. My friend glanced up at the poet. ‘Morality, thou deadly bane,' he intoned. ‘Thy tens of thousands thou has slane.' On either side of us other statues rose like the spectres of great men dead and gone. We watched the barges slug along the murky river laden with girders bound for Tower Bridge which was slowly rising down river like the legs of the Colossus. It was a mellow summer afternoon and Holmes and I clutched glasses of lemonade bought at an extortionate price from a wily vendor in a straw hat. I peered at the river and fancied I could see George Stevenson himself at the prow of the ship being ferried towards his mighty construction. The sun glittered on the water like a scatter of shillings.

‘Well, Holmes,' I said, sipping at my concoction. ‘Will you tell me what you wouldn't tell Gregson?' My friend peered across the river to the South Bank as if in a trance.

‘I fancy you can still hear the voices from The Globe if you listen hard enough,' he said. ‘In 1600 it is probable that London thought itself the most modern place on Earth: the very pinnacle of civilisation. And yet they were baiting bears and throwing their lunatics to the wolves.'

‘Chatburn,' I said, returning Holmes to the present, ‘is he alive?'

‘Certainly he's alive,' said my friend, snapping out of his trance.

‘Then where?'

‘The case has developed a most satisfactory degree of interest,' said Holmes obliquely. ‘There are just one or two more features upon which I would like to reach a point of certainty before I draw my conclusions.'

‘Really Holmes, you are exasperating!'

‘Watson, you know that I am in the business of fact, not speculation.'

‘For example,' he continued. ‘It is a fact that the man you see there hurrying along the embankment is newly married, has recently joined the police force and is wearing his second best suit. If I am not mistaken, he is on his way to visit his brother to return a sum of money to him, the amount of which I believe to be five pounds.' I stared at the man, who looked to my eyes little different from the scores of others going about their business.

‘Explain yourself Holmes. That is an absurd conjecture based on nothing at all.'

‘Watson, you offend me!' retorted Holmes. ‘My deduction is based on the simplest observations.'

‘Such as?' Holmes lit his cigarette and exhaled a ghost.

‘He holds in his hands a bouquet of tulips rather than roses; roses are the extravagant purchase of a man who is courting; a man who has everything to gain. Tulips are the affordable flower of domesticity. His ring is a little too tight, causing some discolouration to his ring finger. He has not yet found time to have it adjusted. His shoes are police issue, of a new type provided only just this month to fresh recruits.'

I shook my head. ‘And his brother?'

‘Like our friend Chatburn, he is carrying two pocket watches. Do you see the double pair of chains and matching jade catches? They are of an identical kind; the variety a father would purchase as a pair and give to his sons as a gift.'

‘The pawn value is five pounds. He has picked it up on behalf of his brother and is returning with the sum of money.'

‘My dear Holmes,' I shouted. ‘That's impossible!'

‘Nonsense,' he smiled. ‘It is quite elementary.'

‘No, Holmes,' I urged. ‘That statue, I believe it moved.'

Holmes frowned and looked in the direction I was pointing.

‘It is merely a trick of the sun,' he said, ‘the ripple of a heat haze.'

‘I swear it moved,' I said shaking my head, looking again and seeing nothing untoward.

‘Our next port of call will be back at the feather factory,' announced the great detective, nodding slightly to himself as he set himself on his inexorable course towards the truth. It was as if I could hear the minute cogs of his mind whirring beneath his aquiline brow.

‘Holmes!' I cried. A shadow swept over us, as if a shawl had been thrown across the sun, swiftly followed by another, as two of the statues became suddenly came to life and descended on us with deadly menace. My friend had already sprung from the bench, pushed me clear and seized the cane of one of our assailants. He assumed the defensive stance I had seen before, most recently in Chatburn's attic but also, memorably in the Adventure of the Silver Thimble, which I have not yet had the opportunity to record. His legs were akimbo, the feet almost at opposite angles to each other. He held his left arm out straight before him; the other was bent above his head, holding the stick aloft.

Before us stood two of the two villains in their sinister dark eye glasses, black frock coats, each wielding a glinting blade.

Holmes glared at them as they bared their teeth like demented hell hounds.

‘Perhaps you are unaware of my reputation,' my friend warned, ‘as England's foremost practitioner of Bartitsu.' The shorter man, I later learned to be Uriel, laughed at my friend's words.

‘Your reputation as England's first detective to be diced in a public park will exceed it,' he hissed. A crowd of onlookers had gathered at a safe distance, although none had mustered the courage to come to our assistance.

‘Watson, your coat!' my friend called and before I knew it, he had torn it from my back and hurled it across the face of Michael, the other aggressor.

For a moment, the fiend flailed like a beast caught in a net, fighting to rid himself of his bonds. Holmes wasted no time landing a smart jab to his solar plexus, causing the man to buckle. Uriel rushed at Holmes from the other side and it was only my friend's fleet footwork that prevented him from being skewered on the man's lethal cane. Half hypnotised by my friend's performance, marvelling at how easily Holmes' physical prowess matched his mental agility, it was only now that I remembered I was carrying my service revolver in my pocket. But no sooner had I begun to draw it, when I felt the crack of a stick on the back of my head, a surge of dizzying pain and I crumpled to the ground. In a detached sort of way, I was still able to observe as Holmes skirmished with the other two like a superman, parrying their blows, sweeping them from their feet with his strange techniques and even hurling them through the air and down his back. But even with his extraordinary abilities I knew that the bout would not go our way if it continued with these odds.