The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes (23 page)

‘I was released in 2005, for reasons as random and inscrutable as the reasons I was arrested and imprisoned. In 2004 the world had learnt of how the United States treats its prisoners, so when I came out and people learnt where I had been – the few close friends I told – they believed. They asked about the black hood that was pictured in all the newspapers of the world. I said, yes, I too had been hooded. But I told them that was nothing compared to the worst they did to us. But most people I never told. It is not something one wants to tell, for to tell it makes it happen again. And again. And again. Makes it happen not only in dreams at night but in daytime whenever they ask. Then you have no respite in waking, none in sleeping, no respite at all.

‘I was released, and I soon afterward learnt that my grandmother had died less than two weeks after the Americans had abused her and killed her dog. I had expected such news, and yet it devastated me. Fortunately I had someplace to go, and though my father had died while I was in prison, he had left my family quite well off. So I had money at my disposal. The poor are simply crushed, but the fortunate such as I must carry on the fight against injustice.

‘Do you know the plays of Webster and Tourneur, Mr Holmes, Mr Watson?
The Revenger's Tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi
. Tragedies of blood, as we like to call them, but mine would only be the last act of a tragedy concocted by other men, that killed 600,000 Iraqis and Afghans, or more. That sent American boys whirling into eternity, lifted into their graves by roadside bombs, or sent them home without limbs. Or sent them home to America (where I went to school and loved movies and ate ice cream) half mad. I saw once on the front page of the
New York Times
pictures of scores of ex-soldiers who had gone home and killed their fellow citizens. A madness has been turned loose in the first four acts of the play, and I would write the fifth, and madness and revenge would be my theme.

‘Private Calvin Hawes of Georgia had been wounded and sent home to recuperate in a VA hospital there. I managed to find his email address and I began to write to him, posing as a fifteen-year-old British girl who was, oh, so sympathetic to his plight. I wrote as a child and he responded, and when I began to indicate my passion, and when I sent him a photo of a delicious blonde who was supposedly me, he could not resist my invitation. He was young, hungry, deprived, and the madness of desire in the blood leads many a man to destruction. I did not intend to kill him, only to destroy him.

‘It was all as you said, Mr Holmes. As you so rightly deduced, I lured him to The Old Vicarage. Through the window I saw him come uncertainly up the walk, with a bouquet of flowers held behind his back. I met him at the door in my costume and I pretended in a small voice that it was a Halloween costume, and I spoke in a tiny whisper and told him that I was shy, and then I told him how I had dreamt of him, and I told him what I wanted, and I asked him to kneel and eat me. He was trembling with desire as he knelt – and suddenly he discovered his horrible mistake, and he lurched backwards in an agony of revulsion, and then I swatted him with David Jenkins's oak walking stick which I had found leaning in a corner, and he fell to the floor out cold. I tied his hands behind his back, and thrust the flowers into his hands because it seemed the thing to do, and I dragged him into the bathroom and laid him in the huge lion-foot tub. I intended simply to leave him there, stripped of his wallet and all his belongings, and let him awaken to his terrors and humiliation. Then I got to thinking he should be reminded of the dog he'd shot, and the old woman he had indirectly killed. The death of the poor dog bothered me even more than my grandmother's plight. How could that be? The image seared me; a noble creature made afraid, trying to defend herself, tail between her legs, impotent, helpless, crushed, humiliated, killed.

‘I waited until he awakened, then told him why he was there. He stared. I asked him questions. His answers revolted me. I grabbed a door with glass panes that I had seen leaning in the back hallway, and I laid it over the tub. I began to run water into the tub. He began to struggle. The water grew deeper. He grew tired of trying to keep above water. He gave a tremendous lurch, like a huge fish, and sat up violently, and his head smashed through the glass pane, and he slit his throat a huge gash as he fell back. The blood poured out. The tub of water turned red. I knew nothing could save him. Then the phone rang, and I heard a message that someone was coming, and I left quickly. It was all as you said, Mr Holmes.

‘I had not intended to kill Private Hawes. I wouldn't have killed him. But he's dead now. And my grandmother is dead, her dog is dead, my village is dead, three of my cousins' children are dead. A lot are dead. For many, hope is dead. They live on, but they are dead.

‘I had not intended to kill Private Hawes, but I did intend to kill Colonel Davis. After torturing him, of course. You see this rag I brought? With it I would have made him know he was drowning. You see this cord I brought? Oh, I have several sweet ideas for Colonel Davis, but none sweet enough to pay him for all the horror he has caused to innocent men. Have you read, gentlemen, how the army person in charge of the prison has now said publicly that probably ninety per cent of the people there were innocent? 'Tis true.

‘I did intend to kill Colonel Davis tonight. I have been caught in a kind of madness. Always I have known I am ruining my own life with revenge. Revenge is sweet but only for a moment or two. Yet I cannot help myself. I'd like to sup on horror for an hour or two more. But you gentlemen have thwarted me . . . pardon me . . .'

Here he broke off in a fit of coughing. He had been half-sitting on the edge of the little table in the window alcove, with the revolver in his hand. Holmes and I sat in two chairs across the room, facing him.

‘To thwart you is our duty,' said Holmes.

‘And what,' he said, ‘do you think my duty may be, Mr Holmes?' His voice was very hoarse.

‘That is your affair.'

He nodded. He looked very balanced and graceful in body, standing up straight now, his head tilting. His black pants and turtleneck made him seem both elegant and dangerous. ‘I could kill you, Mr Holmes. Poof! Gone. With scarcely any effort.'

‘I have been dead once and it wasn't so bad. Maybe it is even easier the second time.'

‘But I can't,' said Simon Bart. He laid the revolver on the table and walked away to the far end of the room and turned. ‘Is there no solution for my problem, Mr Holmes?'

Holmes stared at the blank window. ‘I can't think what it would be,' he said, at last.

‘If you cannot see a solution, I suspect there is none.' Simon Bart began to pace the floor. He sank into a chair as if a weak spell had come upon him. He sat like a rag doll, leaning far back, limp, as if someone had flung him there. He coughed, and his voice seemed to have become more hoarse. ‘C'est la vie. “The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft agley.” I had hoped to spend Christmas with my mother.'

Holmes looked at his watch. ‘You ought to be able to make Leeds by noon, if you get moving quickly. In that Jag of yours, maybe you'll get there even sooner.' He glanced towards the window. ‘It will be getting light soon. Watson and I are off to Wales.'

‘Holmes!' I cried. ‘Think what you are doing!'

‘It is all right, Watson.'

‘I wonder,' I said. ‘I wonder if it is all right!'

Simon Bart got slowly to his feet. He looked intently at Holmes, as if waiting for a cue. He coughed, fell into a fit of coughing. He muffled his mouth with a handkerchief and looked at Holmes. His eyes above the handkerchief looked frightened. ‘Why?'

‘The first reason I shall keep to myself,' said Holmes. ‘The second is that I suspect you agree by now that revenge is a poison cup, and mercy – even to the merciless – a better choice. How does it go, Mr Bart? “The quality of mercy is not strain'd, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven . . .”'

Holmes stopped, seemed puzzled to continue.

Bart paced. He rubbed the back of his neck. Little beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He was nodding, waiting, as if the unfinished quotation disturbed him – as an unresolved chord disturbs a musician. He said, ‘“It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd; / It blesseth him that gives and him that takes . . .”' Then he trailed off, still rubbing the back of his neck, still pacing. Suddenly he halted. He looked up, as if at the first balcony, and held out his right arm – ‘“Though justice be thy plea, consider this, / That in the course of justice none of us / Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy, / And that same prayer doth teach us all to render / The deeds of mercy.”'

Beyond the window the dawn was just breaking, making visible the twisted black limbs and barren branches of the trees, bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

FIFTEEN

New Lodgings in Baker Street

A
black car from Scotland Yard met us at the Baker Street tube station. Lestrade and Holmes sat in the back seat and I sat up front with the driver as we rode the short distance to Paddington mainline station where we would catch our train to Wales.

‘Colonel Davis is still in some danger,' said Holmes. ‘I recommend you keep him in a safe house somewhere for the month of December.'

‘I will see to it,' said Lestrade. ‘But he won't like it.'

‘Excellent,' said Holmes.

‘He doesn't like being cooped up,' said Lestrade.

‘Excellent,' said Holmes.

I turned in my seat and looked at the two of them sitting side by side. I said, ‘You'll have to admit, Lestrade, that Holmes is back on his old form.'

‘Yes, yes, I think he is,' said Lestrade. ‘Yet I sometimes wonder about his motives, a little. He is taking rather longer to lay hands on the suspect than used to be his custom.'

‘This case requires more discretion than most,' said Holmes. ‘I will deliver your man to you no later than January first of the New Year.'

Lestrade laughed. ‘You always were a secretive sort – reluctant to reveal all that you knew till the final moment that suited you. That habit drove my grandfather almost to distraction, but always he pursued his own course, even knowing he would likely be one-upped at the end. And I am afraid, Holmes, that I, like my grandfather, must pursue my own course in this case. You say Colonel Davis may be in grave danger, and therefore we will put him on ice for a while in an obscure safe house. But my own informants tell me that the man responsible for The Old Vicarage murder is very likely a Hungarian fanatic named Franz Pistek who publishes pamphlets decrying the presence of American forces in nations all around the world. We have agents looking for him in Bratislava at this very hour, and they expect a break in the case soon.'

‘That's a comfort,' said Holmes. ‘With both of us working on the case, I am sure one of us will solve it.'

At Paddington Station we parted from Lestrade and not long afterwards Holmes and I were in a comfortable train carriage, sipping vile tea from paper cups and trying to pretend it was drinkable, while watching English countryside slide away behind us as we rushed towards Wales. ‘Well, well, so you are not quite confident of Simon Bart after all,' I said, stirring more sugar into my tea. ‘You have put Colonel Davis out of his reach.'

‘Trust everyone – but always cut the deck,' said Holmes.

‘And yet I'm surprised you let Bart go, Holmes. Square with me, now.'

‘I let him go, my dear Watson, because Simon Bart is only a small fish, and if we allow him out of our net for a little while, it is no great loss to justice, and perhaps even a gain. For if Colonel Davis is inconvenienced by being required to live in cramped and secret quarters for a month, then I can only say that Colonel Davis has kept numerous innocent men living in cramped and secret quarters for years, while he supervised their torture – and I fear that this little inconvenience I have arranged is the only punishment he will ever suffer for his crimes. We need not be overly concerned with netting little fish like Bart, nor even bloodsucking fish like Davis. We ought to be concerned with harpooning the killer whales who have roiled the waters of the world and set up this huge pattern of death, destruction, hate and horror. But, alas, I fear harpooning them is impossible.'

‘Killer whales? What killer whales? And why would it be impossible for a man of your talent to impale them and gaol them?' I said.

‘You know my history, Watson, and I suppose you are remembering the clash I had with the greatest criminal mind of an earlier day, Professor Moriarty. You are remembering how, in the end, I brought him down and destroyed his whole organization.'

‘Exactly so,' I said. ‘Moriarty was the mad and almost omnipotent intelligence at the centre of a web of crime that entangled the whole of London. Though it took years of trying, you did finally manage to end his career by throwing him to his death in the Reichenbach Falls. His lieutenant, Sebastian Moran, the best shot in the Indian Army, then came after you in retaliation, and you collared the villain while he was trying to kill you with an air gun. If you could do it then, you can do it now. That is my point. I don't believe for a minute that your age will impede you.'

‘Not my age,' said Holmes. ‘The difficulty is not my age, but
the
age. We live in a different world. There are superficial similarities, of course, to that earlier battle against evil. In this case, too, there is a master criminal and his lieutenant at the centre of a web of crime, horror and terrorism that ravage our modern world. These two malevolent brains are directly responsible for the death of Calvin Hawes and many another innocent victim. But I have no way, no possibility, of bringing these men to justice. They are beyond the reach of justice. They are too powerful to touch.'