The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes Page 5

  ‘He is a splendid fellow,’ said Coombes. ‘He has a big heart and he does his best. I would even go so far as to say that in certain crude situations he is just the man who can . . . well, speak of the Devil.’

  A uniformed blur appeared beyond the whorled leaded panes of our sitting room. A moment later Sergeant Bundle filled the small doorway, loomed into the room, and joined us for tea.

  ‘Just a wee cup,’ said he, rubbing his hands together. ‘And then I must be on my way. Mr Coombes, I have come for the book. The crime lab wishes to take prints from the cover – I know you have been very careful with it.’

  ‘Very careful,’ said Coombes. ‘I have kept my prints off of it.’

  ‘We are thorough, Mr Coombes. Our department is small, but thorough. It is my belief that the book was owned by Mr Jenkins. His whole house is full of books. It is unusual that a murderer would bring reading material to a crime.’ Bundle laughed, and took a sip.

  ‘In this case the murderer did,’ said Coombes.

  The smile fell off of Bundle’s face. ‘Do you think so, sir?’

  ‘I have a theory that may interest you,’ said Coombes, coolly.

  ‘Ah, theories are well, theories are good,’ said Bundle, his optimism and self-confidence instantly returning. ‘Theories always interest me. But in the end what we need are practical results, Mr Coombes. Practical results – that is what our citizens always crave and cry for.’

  ‘Sometimes theories lead to practical results,’ said Coombes.

  ‘Books seldom provide much evidence at crime scenes,’ said Bundle. ‘That’s my theory. That is why I ignored that book.’

  ‘I’m afraid you were right,’ said Coombes. ‘The book disappointed me.’

  Bundle laughed, gesturing with a thick and rosy hand. ‘Well, there you are, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Still, my research into the book has not proved entirely barren,’ said Coombes.

  ‘Did it reveal something?’ asked Bundle sceptically, curiously, nervously, raising a large bushy eyebrow.

  ‘Not as much as I had hoped,’ said Coombes.

  Bundle grinned. ‘Well, I thought as much.’

  ‘It only revealed,’ said Holmes, ‘that the murderer is an actor with dark hair who very likely has lived in Afghanistan, spent his youthful years in North America, received his later education in England, and now lives in or near London. The book also suggests that he travelled from London to Hay-on-Wye by train and by bus, that he made this journey sometime since last Saturday, that he is methodical, highly educated, despises the present US Government of George W. Bush, and probably owns a very distinctive automobile – perhaps a vintage car.’

  ‘My heavens!’ cried Bundle. ‘Did he write his entire life story in the margins?’

  ‘He wrote two brief marginal notes, commenting on the text.’

  Glancing over Coombes’s shoulder I saw that the book was titled Abu Ghraib: Torture and Betrayal. On the cover was that famous picture – that all the world has seen and that has brought such discredit upon the United States of America – of a man standing awkwardly on a stool of some sort, wearing a black robe and a black hood, with wires attached to his body, as he is being tortured by US troops.

  The picture aroused all my memories of the war, and a cold bolt of fear shot through my heart, surprising me. I was almost trembling. ‘My God, Coombes!’ I murmured. ‘Then here is the significance of the black hood you found in the bushes . . .’

  ‘Exactly!’ cried Coombes, and his eyes flashed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Bundle.

  Out of a plastic shopping bag by his chair Coombes pulled the black hood made from a pillow slip. ‘I have examined this,’ he said, ‘and found in it two hairs that match the strand of hair I found in the book. Also, actor’s pancake make-up smeared on the inside of this hood will, I suspect, match smears of make-up that can be detected on pages thirty-eight and two hundred and thirteen of the book. Evidently on two occasions he inadvertently touched his face before turning a page.’

  ‘I cannot imagine how you deduced all of these things from a book,’ said Bundle, looking earnest, bewildered, and slightly defeated.

  ‘A cursory and quite superficial glance at the book reveals all I have mentioned,’ said Coombes. ‘That the man is an actor is suggested not only by the pancake make-up and the dramatic manner in which the crime was carried out, but by the fact that both of the pencilled marginal notes refer to the theatre. The first of these notes is a simple transcription of poetry from The Merchant of Venice. In the empty space at the end of chapter three he has pencilled the famous passage beginning “The quality of mercy is not strain’d,/ It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven/Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d:” and so on. Anyone can memorize poetry, but this man goes on quoting for nineteen lines. Indeed, I am almost inclined to think he has played a part in that play. To quote at such length suggests a man in love with the language of the theatre, and unable to stop before he has finished the cadence.

  ‘The second marginal note is truly in a margin, next to a paragraph discussing the role of George W. Bush in beginning a war which has resulted in the death of as many as six hundred thousand Iraqis. The note reads thus: He might play Macbeth if he could but speak the lines without stumbling. Death colours all his acts, and his only defence is ignorance.

  ‘That the murderer is a male is suggested by the handwriting, which is elegant but assertive. The style, on the whole, is an American style of handwriting, yet the spelling is British. The word colour, for instance, is not spelled with a u in America, and defence with a c is British usage. This suggests that he first learnt cursive handwriting as a child while living in North America, and that he spent his later years in Britain, or at least somewhere in the British Empire. That he also was educated in Afghanistan is suggested by the impress of four words on the back of the dust jacket, as if he had used the book for a support as he wrote something on another sheet of paper. Those words are in Pashto, the primary language of Afghanistan. It is true that Pashto is also spoken in some other countries, but to a much lesser extent. More might be learnt by translating the words, which I cannot do.

  ‘That the book was purchased at Hatchards in Piccadilly is indicated by the bookseller’s cash receipt that I found tucked between two pages in the middle of the book. The receipt indicates the book was bought last Saturday. That it was bought no earlier than last Saturday I also know because I telephoned the store and learnt that that is the first date they sold it. I was aware it was only recently published because I have been looking forward to its appearance in the bookstores myself.

  ‘That he rode the train from London is suggested by the long handwritten passage from Shakespeare. It begins fluently written but ends in a jiggle of letters. Evidently he began writing at a station stop but before he could complete the passage the train resumed its journey, and consequently the letters of the last half of the passage are spidery and hard to read. Towards the end of the book I found a small strip of paper used as a bookmark, obviously torn out of some publication. In fact, it was torn from the Hereford-London train schedule. I have a copy of that schedule here in my pocket, in anticipation of my journey to London next week to see my doctor. The several lines of print visible on the bookmark scrap exactly match those on the last page of my schedule.

  ‘The bus ride is only an educated guess. The bus is the usual mode of public transport for most who travel by train to Hereford and must journey on to Hay. He might have hired a taxi, but I think that unlikely. He has gone to great lengths to remain anonymous and unremarked, and would not wish a taxi driver to remember him. He might even have ridden a bicycle from Hereford. I have wondered why he did not drive to Wales. It occurred to me that either he had no car, or had a car that was too easily remembered. He wouldn’t wish to rent a car, for that would be a matter of record. By contrast, a train journey is an anonymous journey.’

  Sergeant Bundle looked both stunned and pleased. He was sh
aking his head, almost in amusement.

  I felt stunned and not pleased. A terrible sense of déjà vu had come over me again. I wondered – with a strange sinking feeling in my heart – where have I heard all this before?

  ‘It sounds as if we are well on the way to solving this case, sir,’ opined Bundle, swelling in his chair and taking a deep breath.

  ‘I wish I could be so optimistic,’ said Coombes.

  ‘Have you further theories?’ asked Bundle. ‘I should be very glad to hear them.’

  Coombes sprang from his chair and hobbled to the window, then turned and faced Bundle. ‘I think you will learn that young Mr Calvin Hawes was recently a military man with the American forces.’

  ‘You are right, sir!’ cried Bundle. ‘We have already learnt that he served as an infantryman with the American army in Afghanistan, and was discharged a year ago.’

  ‘I believe you will find he was lured to Hay-on-Wye by the promise that a young woman was awaiting him here. No doubt he thought her name was Lydia Languish.’

  Bundle nodded. ‘The bouquet in the poor lad’s hands, is that it? It seems most probable.’

  ‘Few things are more potent to a young man than the promise of sex,’ said Coombes. ‘Even money pales in comparison. What better to lure him all the way across an ocean? Attraction to women is not a sensation I have personally experienced, yet I have observed that for most men it is an overpowering madness. Young men in particular.’

  ‘Very true, sir.’

  ‘If you succeed in breaking into his email you may well find that he was corresponding, or thought he was corresponding, with Lydia Languish. I don’t know how computers work, but I suspect the murderer does, and that he has covered his computer tracks better than he covered his bicycle tracks. So you are unlikely to track him down in that manner. You might, however, enquire of bicycle shops here and in Hereford to learn whether they have in the past week sold a bicycle that leaves tracks like these . . .’ Coombes handed the sergeant a small print of a photograph.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a computer!’ I said. ‘You astonish me, Coombes.’

  ‘One must keep up with the times – difficult as it is to do.’

  ‘Well, tempus fugit, Mr Coombes. I must be off and running,’ said Bundle. He rose from his chair, and seemed to fill the room. His white shirt and tie, and the epaulettes on his shirt, made him look very grand.

  A moment later he was gone.

  ‘Come, Wilson. I must show you my computer. A very strange little thing it is.’ He led me up the stairs to his room.

  ‘I had no idea you had so many books up here too!’ I cried, for they were ranged on shelves all round the room, and piled in corners. On the desk was a new laptop computer, and on the side table a small colour printer.

  ‘Certain friends have outfitted me with all the latest machinery,’ said he. ‘I have found the computer somewhat more convenient than notebooks for storing information – although for field work a notebook is indispensable.’

  ‘And what, may I ask, is the object of your researches? I have often wondered but been reluctant to ask.’

  ‘Reluctance to ask is a very English fault, my dear fellow. But there is no secret. I am trying to catch up with what I’ve missed.’

  ‘It is something I ought to do myself,’ I said. ‘Much of life has slid by me unnoticed. Now that I have leisure, I want to try to catch up on what I’ve ignored before. But what exactly are you trying to catch up on?’

  ‘Everything,’ said Coombes, and suddenly he looked a bit deflated. ‘And it is a Herculean task.’

  ‘If you try to catch up on everything, I imagine it would be,’ I said.

  ‘I must away to work, Wilson!’ he cried, seeming to gather his energy again. He began grabbing volumes from the wall.

  I went downstairs, finished my tea, ate a biscuit, then wandered into the street and up towards the centre of town, feeling more lost than I had felt in many a year. I scarcely know what I did that day, perambulating through crooked streets, into and out of bookshops, rambling in the hills, then back into town, filled with half-formed decisions, musings, uncertainty. I ate my evening meal at a restaurant, then walked to Cambrai Cottage. Coombes was seated in front of a roaring fire. ‘Greetings, Wilson!’ said he, in a cheery voice.

  ‘Good evening, Coombes – very chilly weather.’

  ‘Chilly indeed,’ said he, and he rubbed his hands together and looked into the flames.

  I set the books I had purchased on the table, five lovely volumes bound in full green morocco. I carefully placed them so that their gilt titles were in plain view of my strange acquaintance. After a few minutes I saw Coombes glance towards them. But he did not display much interest.

  I wandered to one end of the room, gazed out the window. I turned, considered making a pot of tea. Coombes seemed deep in meditation. His back was to me and he was staring towards the mantelpiece. I felt in the pockets of my sport coat, contemplating my next move. It suddenly seemed to me that I may have been wrong to buy the Sherlock Holmes volumes merely to try a foolish experiment, and that I should really have spent my money on . . .

  ‘You are absolutely right, Wilson, you should have bought The Pickwick Papers,’ said Coombes, ‘and you will regret it if you do not go to Boz Books and buy it before someone else does.’

  I froze. He had broken in on my mental processes. He had replied to my unspoken thought. A thrill of coldness ran through me. I knew where I had seen this trick before. ‘Ye gods!’ I cried, walking round to where I could face him. ‘That is just what I was thinking. But how in the world did you know it? I think you really must be Sherlock Holmes! Or else I’m losing my mind—’

  ‘Elementary, my dear Wilson.’

  ‘I am losing my mind,’ I said, and I sank into a chair with my head in my hand. ‘This is some sort of giant charade, to which I have fallen victim.’

  ‘Nothing of the kind,’ said Coombes. ‘All this while that you thought I was staring and vacantly contemplating, I was in fact watching you in that mirror by the mantle. I saw you place those Sherlock Holmes volumes on the table, in hopes that they would cause some sort of reaction in me. You carefully angled the books so I could see the titles. When I did not react as you had hoped, you gazed at your newly purchased books ruefully, then turned away and walked to the window. Then you turned back into the room again as if uncertain or upset. You looked again at the set of books you had just bought, and then you looked down at the Boz Books pamphlet protruding so flamboyantly from the pocket of your jacket, and you gave a deep sigh. Your train of thought was obvious: you were thinking that instead of buying the set of Sherlock Holmes you should have purchased the first edition of Pickwick Papers that you have so often mentioned. You have often said that a Pickwick with both of the cancelled Buss plates is a rare find, and that you will never get it at a better price.’

  I stared like a man bereft of his wits.

  ‘There is hardly anything at all in my observation,’ he added. ‘You have been mentioning that Pickwick Papers volume so frequently in the last ten days that anyone could have guessed your thought.’

  ‘But I have seen this done before only by one person,’ I said. ‘You even look like him. For weeks I have been trying to remember where I have seen you before, and now it has come upon me. And yet it cannot be so!’

  ‘It was inevitable that you would discover me,’ he said. ‘I have seen it coming for a long time. And I have feared it, Wilson . . . I have feared it a little.’

  ‘What is it you have feared, Coombes?’

  ‘I have feared you would find out who I am.’

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Since you have become my friend, I might as well confess,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you already know.’

  ‘Know what?’ I said, trying to project a manly voice. But the words came out almost a whisper.

  ‘It is too late at night for confessions,’ said Coombes. ‘Tomorrow morning, if you still desire it, I will tell you
everything.’

  That night I again slept fitfully, wondering what strange tale I might hear in the morning. I arose early but Coombes had arisen earlier. He was already shaved and dressed. We went out to breakfast together and only chatted on commonplace topics – the quality of food in England versus food on the continent, Welsh myths in relation to Greek myths, and whether the notion that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny might apply to psychic development. But when we returned to our cottage the subject could be avoided no longer. I stoked the fire. My friend leant back and, placing his elbows on the arms of the chair, he touched all his finger and thumb tips together and gazed at me steadily, with a kindly and curious gaze. ‘I have seen you struggling with this problem for weeks, and now you have guessed, and guessed correctly, my dear Watson . . .’

  ‘Wilson.’

  ‘. . . that I am Sherlock Holmes.’

  ‘Sherlock Holmes!’ I murmured.

  ‘Is not that what you have been thinking?’

  ‘Yes – but that’s impossible!’

  ‘Improbable, certainly. But as a man of science I am not terribly surprised that good Dr Coleman of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, with the help of his many able assistants and all his modern equipment, has been able to bring me back to life – presuming, of course, that I was actually dead . . . a point upon which the metaphysicians of the scientific fraternity seem unable to agree.’

  A fit of nervousness came over me. My hands were actually trembling. I arose and walked to the window. I gazed out at the commonplace and comforting street. I gazed a long while. At last I said, ‘You are a very good actor, sir.’

  Coombes ignored my evasions. ‘Awakening my brain was relatively easy, they tell me. But bringing my body back to function, after ninety years lying frozen in a glacier, was a long, complicated and painful ordeal – indeed, I am not at all sure I would have gone through it if they had given me a choice. But of course I had no choice.’

  ‘A glacier!’ I cried.