The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (44 page)

“He would have made a fool of me and my men, Mr Holmes,” said Girac. “I owe you a debt that cannot be paid.”

“I will take that into account when I send you my bill, Inspector,” replied Holmes, solemnly.

4

We returned to London the next day, arriving back in the city to be confronted by several challenging problems that kept Holmes busy for the next few months. Our brief visit to Paris was almost forgotten until we received two final reminders of the case.

The first was a terse note from Girac. “Huret killed while trying to escape.”

“As the assassin predicted, Watson,” said Holmes, his face set in grim lines, “his case never went to trial. Though I doubt he realized he was forecasting his own murder. Huret knew too many secrets to be allowed to testify.”

The second came by messenger from the French Embassy. Enclosed in a box was an autograph letter of thanks from the French President and the Order of the Legion of Honour. It was one of many awards given to Holmes by foreign governments, most of which decorated our quarters in Baker Street. Holmes stared at the letter and the medal for quite some time. Then, he looked me right in the eye, the container resting on his knees.

“I am not a fool, Watson, placated by trinkets and certificates. A secret cabal of Jewish anarchists did not hire Huret. He was engaged by the French military, who hoped that killing the President would create even greater problems for the liberals and Jews in their country. The President’s own supporters and political allies wanted him dead, a martyr to their cause. The President’s life meant nothing to them. I suspect if he is wise, he will resign shortly.

“As for Captain Dreyfus, my readings about the affair as well as our pursuit and capture of Huret have convinced me that the Captain was completely innocent of all charges. He was made a scapegoat by his superiors because of his religious beliefs. Girac came to us not because he didn’t trust his men, but because he didn’t trust his government. As he stated, the corruption was everywhere. Many of the most important politicians and officials in France knew the truth but did nothing.”

With a sigh, Holmes dropped the container holding the autograph letter and the medal into a drawer of his desk. “When Dreyfus is a free man, I will post these awards Watson. Until then, they will remain untouched.”

For twelve long years, the medal and the letter stayed sealed in that drawer, even after Holmes moved to Sussex. Sherlock Holmes was a man of his word. And, for all of his vanity, he was a man of honor.

The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor

Stephen Baxter

Our visitor was perhaps twenty-eight: a short, broad-shouldered young man, a little prone to fat, the voice high and thin, and he moved with a bright, bird-like bounce. His face, under thinning hair, was pale – perhaps he was consumptive – and his blue eyes were striking, wide and dreaming. He could hardly have presented a greater contrast, physically and in his manner, to my friend Holmes. And yet his conversation sparked with Holmes’s, as if their two minds were poles of some huge electrical battery.

This visitor had presented Holmes with a set of rather grainy photographs, taken with one of the New York Kodaks which are so popular. Holmes was inspecting these with his lens. The visitor, with some malicious glee, was challenging Holmes to deduce, from the evidence of each photograph, the elements of some unusual situation, after the manner of a parlour game. Holmes had just finished with a blurred image of some withered white flowers. I studied this for myself, and could see little untoward about the flowers, although I could not immediately place their natural order – perhaps it was the genus
Malva
– for instance, the shape of the gynoecium, clearly visible, was rather unusual. Holmes appeared rather irritated by this harmless image, and had passed on to the next, while his young visitor was grinning. “I’m not surprised he made nothing of it. The apparatus of a classic hoaxer!” he told me.

Holmes passed me the next print. “See here, Watson. What can you make of that?”

This appeared more promising – and, I observed, the visitor was somewhat more serious about it. At first glance it seemed to me an undistinguished portrait of a commonplace luncheon party – although it was set in unusual surroundings, the table and guests being all but engulfed by bulky electrical equipment, wires and cylinders and coils and cones, and in the background I could make out the fittings of a workshop: a steam lathe, metal turners, acetylene welding equipment, a sheet-metal stamp and the like. I ventured, “I observe that our visitor this evening was a guest at the lunch. I do not know these others – ”

“They are the Brimicombes, of Wiltshire,” said the visitor. “My hosts that day: two brothers, Ralph and Tarquin. Ralph is an old college friend of mine. The brothers work together – or did so – on mechanical and electrical inventions.”

“It was a sunny day,” I said. “I see a splash of light here on the tablecloth, just behind the dish containing this handsome sausage.”

“Yes,” said Holmes with tolerant patience, “but what of the sausage itself?”

I looked again. The sausage sat on its own plate, the centrepiece of the meal. “It is a succulent specimen. Is it German?”

Holmes sighed. “Watson, that is no sausage, German or otherwise. It is evidently a prank, of dubious taste, served on their guests by these Brimicombes.”

The visitor laughed. “You have it, Mr Holmes. You should have seen our faces when that giant concoction crawled off its plate and across the tablecloth!”

“A man of your profession should recognize the beast, Watson. It is an aquatic annelid, of the suctorial order
Hirudinea,
employed for the extraction of blood – ”

“Great Heaven,” I cried, “it is a giant leech!”

“You cannot see the colour in the Kodak,” said the visitor, “but you should know it was a bright red: as red as blood itself.”

“But how can this be, Holmes? Is it some freak of nature?”

“Of nature – or Man’s science,” Holmes mused. “Consider the influences acting on that wretched leech. It is drawn towards flatness by the force of the gravity of the Earth; that much we know. And its collapse to a pancake is resisted only by its internal strength. But it is hard to believe a creature as gross as this specimen would even be able to sustain its own form. Why, then, has it evolved such a magnitude? What gives it the strength to hold itself up, to move?” He eyed his visitor sharply. “Or perhaps we should ask,
what is reducing the force which drags it down
?”

The visitor clapped his hands in delight. “You have it, sir!”

Holmes handed back the photograph. “Indeed. And perhaps you might care to set out the particulars of the case.”

Confused, I asked, “Are you so sure you have a case at all, Holmes?”

“Oh, yes,” he said gravely. “For did our visitor not speak of the work of these Brimicombe brothers in the past tense? Evidently something has disturbed the equilibrium of their fraternal lives; and you would not be here, sir, if that were not something serious.”

“Indeed,” was the reply, and now the visitor was solemn. “There could be nothing more serious, in fact: my visit here was motivated by the death of the elder brother, Ralph, in unusual circumstances – circumstances deriving from the more obscure corners of the physical sciences!”

I asked, “Is it murder?”

“The local coroner does not think so. I, however, am unsure. There are puzzling features – inconsistencies – and so I have come to you, Mr Holmes – I am a journalist and author, not a detective.”

I smiled. “In fact, sir, I already know your occupation.”

He seemed surprised. “Forgive me. We have not been introduced.”

“No introduction is necessary, nor was any deep deduction on my part. Your portrait has been as common enough this year.”

He looked flattered. “You know my work?”

“As it has been featured in the
Pall Mall Budget, The National Observer
and elsewhere. I am a great admirer of your scientific romances.” I extended my hand. “It is good to meet you, Mr Wells!”

Holmes agreed to travel with Wells to the Brimicombe home, near Chippenham, and he prevailed on me to accompany him, despite my reluctance to leave London, so close was I to my bereavement. But Holmes persisted, kindly. “You know how few of my cases involve the deeper mysteries of science, Watson. Perhaps this will be a suitable candidate for your casebook! It will be quite like old times.” And so it was, the very next day, that I found myself with my valise clambering aboard the ten-fifteen from Paddington Station. We had the carriage to ourselves, Holmes, Wells and I. Holmes wrapped himself in his grey travelling-cloak and stretched out his long legs on the cushioned seat, as Wells, in his thin, piping voice, set out the full details of the case for us.

“I have known Ralph Brimicombe since we both attended the Normal School of Science in the ‘eighties,” he began, “and I remained in friendly contact with him until his recent death. He was a rather dream-like, remote figure – oddly impractical in the details of everyday life – to the extent that I was somewhat surprised when he married, when still a student at the Normal School. But his mind always sparked with creative energy. His subjects at the School were Astronomy, Astrophysics – all that sort of thing – along with Electricity and Magnetism. Even as a student he began to develop intriguing ideas about the coupling, as he put it, between electricity and gravity. Our theories of gravity were long due for an overhaul, he claimed. And perhaps there could even be practical applications. He was a delight to debate with! – you can imagine how I found him a soul-mate.”

Holmes asked, “A coupling?”

“Gravity, as you know, is that force which imbues our bodies with weight. Ralph became convinced that the gravity of a large mass such as the Earth could be mitigated by a suitable arrangement of large currents and magnetic fluxes. Mitigated, or reduced.”

“Reduced?” I said. “But if that were true, the commercial possibilities would be enormous. Think of it, Holmes. If one could reduce the weight of freight goods, for example – ”

“Oh, to hang with commerce and freight!” Wells exclaimed. “Doctor Watson, Ralph Brimicombe claimed to have found a way to have removed the influence of gravity altogether. Without gravity, one could fly! He even claimed to have built a small capsule, and flown himself – alone, mind you, and without witnesses – all the way to the moon. He showed me injuries which he said were due to an exhaustion of his food and water, an exposure to the Rays of Space, and burns from the lunar Vacuum. And he gave me a small vial, of what he claimed was moon dust, as ‘proof of his journey. I have it about me.” He patted his pockets.

Holmes raised a thin eyebrow. “And did you believe these claims?”

Wells hesitated. “Perhaps I wished to. But not entirely. Ralph was never above exaggerating his achievements, so impatient was he for acceptance and prestige.

“But I run ahead of my account. Ralph, for all his ability, could only scrape through the examinations at the Normal School, so distracted did he become by his gravitational obsession. After that, no respectable institution would take him on, and no journal would publish the revised theories and partial experimental results he claimed.” Wells sighed. “Perhaps Ralph’s greatest tragedy was the untimely death of his father, some months after he left the Normal School. The father had made a fortune in the Transvaal, and had retired to Chippenham, only to die of recurrent malaria. He left everything, with few tiresome legal complications, to his two sons: Ralph, and the younger Tarquin. This sudden legacy made Ralph a rich man. No longer did he need to convince peers of the value of his work. Now, he could plough a lone furrow, wherever it might take him.

“Ralph returned to Wiltshire, and devoted himself to his studies. He privately published his results which – while of great interest to students of the esoteric like myself – were roundly and rudely rejected by other scientists.”

“And what of Tarquin?” Holmes asked.

“I knew Tarquin a little. I never much liked him,” Wells said. “He was quite a contrast to Ralph. Full of vanity and self-regard, and not nearly so intelligent, though he has some smattering of an education, and, as I understand it, a crude grasp of his brother’s accomplishments. Tarquin squandered his own inheritance in trying to follow his father’s footsteps in Southern Africa, failed roundly, and came home pursued by debtors. Eventually his brother took him on as a species of senior assistant. Tarquin acquired equipment for Ralph’s experiments, arranged apparatus and so forth. But even in this he proved less than competent, and Ralph was forced to demote him, effectively, to work as subordinate to Ralph’s own engineer, a stolid local chap called Bryson.”

I remarked, “It looked as if your lunch party took place in the midst of Ralph’s apparatus.”

“Yes.” Wells smiled. “He was fond of such spectaculars. And I must describe the purpose of that apparatus to you, for it will be of significance to your investigation.

“I have mentioned Ralph’s attempts – partially successful, he claimed – to nullify gravity. But this proved possible only over a small volume. To extend his abilities – to build greater ships which might carry teams of men across the Void of Space – Ralph pursued studies of more subtle aspects of the gravitational phenomenon, notably the Equivalence between Intertial and Gravitational Mass. You see – ”

I held up my hands. “I cannot speak for Holmes, but I am already baffled, Mr Wells. I know nothing of gravity, save for its slow dragging at the lower spines and arches of my patients.”

“Let me explain by analogy. Mr Holmes, can I trouble you for some coins? A sovereign and a farthing should do – there. Thank you.” He held the two coins over the carriage floor. “Look here, Watson. The sovereign is considerably heavier than the farthing.”

“That is clear enough.”

“If I release these coins simultaneously they will fall to the floor.”

“Of course.”

“But which will arrive first? – the farthing, or the sovereign?”