The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes Read online

‘Perhaps I should begin at the beginning,’ said Coombes, with equanimity. ‘I take it from the look of horrified disbelief on your face that you are interested.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and I sank into my chair. I had no intention of believing whatever it was he had to tell. But I was certainly interested. Here is what he told me. As he spoke he seemed to intoxicate me, and – for some moments at least – I became quite certain that it was really the voice of Sherlock Holmes speaking . . .

  FIVE

  Cedric Coombes and Sherlock Holmes

  I must go back a bit and refresh your memory of history, Wilson, if you are to understand the strange adventure that befell me in the year 1914. The Great War, as I’m sure you recall from your history books, was precipitated when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary visited Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, and was assassinated by a Serbian fanatic. In retaliation, Austria-Hungary declared war on tiny Serbia, and soon was backed up by its ally, Germany. Russia, in defence of its fellow Slavs in Serbia, jumped in and declared war on both Germany and Austria-Hungary. Britain and France were added to the mix, simply because they had, for many years, been loosely united with Russia. So Russia, France and Great Britain aligned themselves against the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Thus the stage was set for war. All the props were in place. All the actors were dressed up in soldiers’ uniforms and waiting in the wings, ready to unleash death on a scale never before witnessed in this world.

  Many people tried to prevent the conflict. The three people best placed to do this were Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George V of England, and Czar Nicholas II of Russia. The first two, George and Wilhelm, were grandchildren of Queen Victoria, which made them first cousins. Nicholas was married to one of Victoria’s grandchildren, which made him a sort of first cousin by marriage. The assassination of Ferdinand took place on June 28th. During the month of July few people seriously believed that war would break out. But great forces were gathering, and the three cousins sensed that a juggernaut may have been set in motion. Telegrams flew back and forth between them. They had been children and young men together, and they often signed themselves Nicky, Willy and Georgie when they wrote to each other. But all this flurry of telegraphic conversation between the cousins was to no avail. Britain followed its allies and declared war on August 4th, 1914.

  Now, if you recall my own history, as transcribed by my old friend Watson, you will know that in 1912 I had come out of retirement to track down a German spy named Von Bork. The task took two years. On August 2nd, 1914, I finally collared Von Bork and, with the help of my friend Watson, trussed him like a turkey, loaded him into a motorcar and carried him off to Scotland Yard.

  I immediately returned to Sussex, intending to resume my quiet life of retirement. But scarcely had I arrived home when Britain declared war. Soon I began to chafe that I was no longer able to help the cause of England. I was a man of sixty, but I was perfectly fit in both body and mind. I wondered how I might make shift to assist my country in this terrible moment. The answer was not long in coming. A messenger rode up my cottage lane one morning, leant his bicycle against the low wall, and handed me a letter from our King. It was dated from Buckingham Palace and was signed by the King himself. Prime Minister Asquith had visited me in my cottage two years earlier, imploring my assistance on the Von Bork case. Now the King was requesting that I come to Buckingham Palace to discuss ‘a matter of grave national importance.’

  I travelled to London the following day and was met at London Bridge Station by a representative from Buckingham Palace, a portly gentleman who introduced himself as Earnest Hobbes. Hobbes escorted me to a motorcar driven by an intense young gentleman who had a scar on his cheek and never spoke. This young chauffeur bowed punctiliously after the German manner. ‘I observe,’ I said, ‘that you have attended Heidelberg University, where I once visited Professor Grundauer. Do you know him?’ To my surprise, the chauffeur looked almost frightened. He bowed again, took my valise and set it in the boot. He lunged into the driver’s seat and drove us to Claridges Hotel in Brook Street, where my room had been arranged.

  The following day a carriage and four arrived to carry me to the palace. October 20th it was, a crisp autumn day, a Tuesday. Purple clouds tumbled through the sky like little icebergs, and red leaves tumbled across roads, and ladies held on to their hats. The driver took the broad streets through Grosvenor Square over to Park Lane and south to Piccadilly, then into Constitution Hill and so to Buckingham Palace. I entered the Palace and a gentleman took my coat. Another gentleman led me upstairs to the White Drawing Room. He led me to the far left-hand corner of the room, straight to a cabinet surmounted by a massive mirror. He touched something and the cabinet and mirror swung open intact, giving us direct access to The Royal Closet. The time was precisely two o’clock. Barely had my eyes adjusted to the muted light when I became aware of someone slipping through the side door that led to The Throne Room. I heard the door close with a muffled thud. I felt suddenly hermetically sealed, as if in a laboratory vessel. In an instant the King stood before me looking very relaxed despite the stiff white tunic he wore. His full moustache and beard looked better up close than in pictures, and they flowed into each other so that his mouth seemed to have a life of its own when he kindly greeted me. ‘Good day, Mr Holmes, so good of you to come,’ he said. He was a fine looking man and might have been more impressive had it not been for slightly bulging eyes that gave him a look of perpetual surprise. He was exquisitely gracious, humble and firm as he explained to me the importance of what he was asking me to do. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people, he said, were in the balance. He was asking me to help save perhaps a whole generation of young Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans and Russians by carrying to the Kaiser a last appeal and final plan to end the conflict.

  At that moment came a knock, and the door opened slightly and someone handed the King a small leather case. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and the door clicked closed, sealing us up once more as if we were in a tomb. That image occurred to me. With a hurried step he came towards me and set the case on an ornate table. The case was small, made of stitched camel-coloured leather. It had two brass catches with a lock between them. It was similar to what is now called an attaché case.

  ‘I want you to take this to Kaiser Wilhelm, my cousin,’ he said.

  ‘I have met the Kaiser,’ I said.

  ‘That is one reason why I particularly need you to undertake this mission,’ said the King. ‘Cousin Willy knows you, and he is indebted to you for having helped his family avoid disgrace on that previous unfortunate occasion. He will open his door to you . . . if you can but reach him.’

  ‘If I may ask, sir,’ said I, ‘why do you not send the case through normal diplomatic channels?’

  ‘Simply put,’ replied the King, ‘I do not trust many people any more. These are far from normal times, Mr Holmes, and people change as times change. The guns have been roaring for more than two months, battles have been fought, and there are many men who, although in July they tried to prevent the conflict, now have no interest in stopping it, feeling that victory will be theirs. To be candid, Mr Holmes, I no longer trust Ambassador Lichnowsky or his staff to see that my messages are delivered to their Kaiser. In truth, I no longer trust – in the deepest sense of that word – even some of my own staff. Therefore I ask for your help. I know your reputation, Holmes. I know that if you say you will do a thing, you will do it. I trust not only your discretion but your talent. If the thing can be done, I believe you can do it. And if you tell me you will try, I believe no man on earth will try more tenaciously. But I warn you, sir, it will be a most difficult and dangerous mission.’

  ‘I hope,’ I replied, ‘I am not immodest when I say that difficulty inspires me, and that danger has always been my companion.’

  ‘Then you will undertake the journey?’ he asked.

  ‘It will be my honour to do so,’ I replied.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Holmes.’ He shook
my hand. Then he touched the case, laid it on its side, stroked it absently with his hand. ‘This case is locked, Mr Holmes, and it must never be opened by anyone but the Kaiser himself.’ The King held out a key and laid it on the case. I took it and pocketed it.

  ‘It contains,’ said the King, ‘documents recalling our childhood, which I hope may make Willy reminisce and put him in a trusting mood. It also contains documents outlining a plan for ending the conflict and for rewarding Willy if he helps me end it. And, finally, it contains a letter challenging Willy to be daring with me in making this one last desperate dash for peace.’

  We spoke then of the journey I was about to undertake, of the best routes for skirting the line of battle and entering Germany. He handed me a pouch containing money and travelling papers. Again someone knocked on the door. The King hastened to open it, said something to someone, returned to me. He explained to me that he was leaving Buckingham Palace in an hour. The affairs of state so pressed on him, he said, that he needed to get away for a few days and relax a little, but always in the last minutes before his departure there were people clamouring to catch him before he vanished. He did not wish to rush our conversation, however. It was, he said, a conversation as important as any he had had in his life. We spoke a little while longer, then shook hands again.

  Suddenly he vanished, and it was over. I stepped out of the room. I was led downstairs. The gentleman who had taken my coat now presented it back to me, and helped me into it. I walked past the guards towards a black carriage with four huge white horses at the ready. I climbed briskly inside the carriage and settled myself. A clattering of hooves, the gentle rattle and creak, the smell of leather. I felt a pleasurable rush of anticipation, the same I always feel when a great adventure is about to begin.

  But even as we joggled through the great Buckingham Gate I sensed my adventure had already begun, for I noticed amidst the crowd on the pavement a tall man in a top hat who looked at my carriage most strangely. A few yards later my eye fastened on a youth who gazed at me through my carriage window. His dark eyes met mine only for an instant, but there was something strange in his glance. The youth wore black trousers, a shabby cloth coat . . . and new military boots. The great beasts began to clatter in different rhythm and the carriage swayed as we turned left and picked up speed. We spun up Constitution Hill. Already some vague tension told me it would be unwise for me to stay this night at Claridges.

  I must pause, dear Wilson, to explain something that you, having been born in the age of the motor, may not quite appreciate. For centuries the roads on every continent were ruled by horses. But in London, beginning about 1912 (as I recall), suddenly the roads began to play host to a number of vehicles powered by motors. You would look down a road and see an old horse-drawn omnibus side by side with an identical two-storey omnibus powered by a motor. The motorized versions looked very odd, at first. They looked lacking, like an omnibus whose team had run off. And I can tell you that these new motor versions aroused at first a measure of antagonism. For one thing, as more and more motor vehicles mingled with horse-drawn vehicles, confusion ensued. Look down a major artery and you would see two horsemen trotting along, a motorcar wheezing behind them, a hansom cab springing along past a motor-powered omnibus, a four-wheel wagon pulled by a horse, a bicyclist speeding by a crowd of lady pedestrians with parasols, and so on. As you may imagine, accidents were common.

  Such was the sort of confusion we encountered as we boomed up Constitution Hill between the greenery of the Palace Gardens on our left and the trees of Green Park on our right. I sat alone on the right-hand side of the carriage looking out the window. Suddenly I saw a ‘four-wheeler’ cab veer crazily and overturn just ahead of us . . . a wheel came off. The cab horse began to fight to get out of the tangle of harness. The driver was thrown clear. A motorcar came to a halt in front of our carriage, blocking us. We lurched to a stop. A moment later a fight broke out, evidently between the cab driver and the motorcar driver. The two men were brawling and howling all the vilest language. Suddenly one of them was thrown up against the side of our carriage. He slammed hard into the door beside me. I gazed down at him, saw his hat tumble into the dust, yet I could see he was not really hurt and was almost smiling. Then I sensed that the door on the other side of the carriage had opened. Turning, I saw an arm in a threadbare wool coat sleeve reaching into the carriage . . . but then the thief was snatched away by our guard, who had leapt off the box. The guard struggled briefly with the thief, but the thief squirmed, hit the guard, escaped. Instantly the guard leapt back up on to his seat by the driver. The driver shouted, the great horses whinnied, the carriage lurched ahead, I was thrown to the side . . . my eyes glanced down and I saw something amazing: on the floor beside me were two camel-coloured leather cases. Identical.

  In a flash I understood what had happened. The whole elaborately staged scene played back through my brain. The perpetrators had timed their attack nearly perfectly, but not quite. Although the youth had managed to insert the duplicate case into the carriage, he had not managed to grab the original – for just at that point the guard had leapt on him. As the young man had struggled to break free I had heard him cry out a single word in Russian – not a polite word. Then he had run into Green Park and vanished.

  Our carriage accelerated with the power of four great horses. Motor vehicles, carriages, wagons and pedestrians scattered as they saw us coming. We reached Park Lane and resumed the normal dignified pace. I was delivered to the door of Claridges without further difficulty.

  I now had in my possession two identical cases. And I didn’t know which was which. Usually I am a keen observer, but in the haste and hurry of leaving the King and mounting the carriage and being spirited away into the streets of London, I had not had time to examine the King’s case closely. If I had, undoubtedly I would have noticed small points that would have allowed me to distinguish it. What to do? It occurred to me that I might return to Buckingham Palace and ask the King to open the two cases. Trouble was, the King was on his way somewhere and probably had already left. Then too, one hates to trouble a king. I decided my best course was to deliver the two cases to the Kaiser, explaining to him that one was false, the other true. It was plain to me that he would easily discern the one from the other, particularly since the true case included documents relating to the Kaiser’s childhood.

  When I reached my room at Claridges I realized I had lost one of my gloves. I knew it had been in my pocket when I had entered Buckingham Palace . . . the loss seemed minor. Other matters pressed on my mind, most especially escaping Claridges unseen and finding a safe place to stay the night. Hastily I put on face make-up and false eyebrows to make me look fifteen years older. I packed the two camel-coloured leather cases into my old travelling valise, along with my clothes, disguises and Webley service revolver. I jerked a sheet off the bed and spread it on the floor, then lay my valise and a wadded blanket in the middle of it. I gathered the four corners and made the sheet into a beggar’s sack, tying the corners in a knot. Carrying my sack over my shoulder, I crept into the hallway and shuffled along, stooped, looking furtive. Soon one of the hotel staff accosted me indignantly, questioned me angrily, and threw me bodily into the dusky autumn street.

  A sliver of white moon hung like a needle on the sky. As I limped away with the painful gait of a cripple, I peered from beneath my false brows to see who might be lingering near the hotel. A woman with a parasol held a tiny white poodle on a leash – the creature barked at me as I passed. A number of carriages were lined up along the kerb, their uniformed drivers lounging nearby. A tall man in a long coat stood beneath a tree, smoking a cigar. A boy ran shouting. A huge, bearlike bald man with a handlebar moustache knelt by the axle of a wagon and strained to replace the wheel. A Bobby stood near him, lifting an arm and urging him to hurry his task and get out of the traffic.

  I hobbled north across Oxford Street, pulling off my false eyebrows and wiping the make-up off my face. I intended to throw off my disg
uise at the first opportunity and find a small hotel where I could stay the night, but suddenly I realized that my old lodgings at 221B Baker Street were quite near. I wondered whether Mrs Hudson might still live there, and whether she might, just possibly, lend me her spare room. Worth a try. I crossed the edge of Portman Square, passed into Baker Street and soon I was at the old familiar front door, which was just exactly as I had remembered it, although it wanted paint. I knocked, waited, and by and by the door opened a crack and a shrivelled face appeared. ‘Mr Holmes!’ she said. ‘Why are you prowling about in that get-up? Oh, do come in, do come in!’

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Hudson,’ said I. ‘You look as bright as you always did, though a little thinner.’

  ‘I am frail but energetic,’ she proclaimed.

  Her struggling old figure preceded me up the stairs, and she tossed words over her shoulder as she explained, in an excited voice, that she had someone she wanted me to meet. ‘You will be very glad to see him, Mr Holmes!’ she said.

  Could Watson have returned and be living again at 221B? Impossible!

  She knocked on the door of my old apartments. When the door opened I gazed upon a complete stranger. I did not recognize the man at all. He was a robust fellow in his early forties, with a hearty manner and a long, smiling face.

  ‘Mr Holmes,’ he cried when he saw me, and his eyes lit up with surprise and joy. ‘What are you doing prowling about in that get-up!’ And then, to my astonishment, this stranger stepped forward and grabbed me, and he hugged me. I was like a doll in his powerful arms. Then he pushed me away and held me at arm’s length, held me by the shoulders, and he shook me a little, and he said, ‘How very good to look upon your face again, sir! You have not changed at all!’

  I was utterly bewildered.

  The man laughed. ‘Can it be that you, the famous Sherlock Holmes who can discern, at a single glance, the complete life history of a complete stranger – can it be that you cannot recognize your old colleague in crime detection! It is I, sir! It is Willie Wiggins, the captain of your Baker Street Irregulars!’