Holmes for the Holidays Read online

  "One moment, Holmes! His Lordship was haunted the same way last night, yet he said he came straight home from work. His clerk had not the opportunity to administer the drug again."

  "But Her Ladyship did. He said himself he had a cup of tea with her before retiring."

  "You're certain they're in it together? Richard and Lady Chislehurst?"

  His expression was grave. "It was she who insisted her husband prepare his will without delay. She is the beneficiary, but Richard is the Svengali in our little melodrama. 'What evil one may do compounds when they are two.' They already have our unfortunate client walking in his sleep—mark you his sopping slippers! Who is there to say, when he is found some night murdered in an alley, that he was not set upon by some anonymous ruffian while in the somnambulant state?"

  "Good Lord! And in the season of love!"

  Holmes hissed for silence. Motioning for me to follow, he crept along the inside wall, and I realised belatedly that he was measuring the distance. Presently he stepped away as far as the outside wall would permit, scrutinising the other from ceiling to floor. He seized a stony protuberance and, with a significant nod towards the revolver in my hand, pushed with all his might. Again there was a grating noise, and then a section of wall eight feet high and four feet wide swung outwards upon a hidden pivot. Light flooded the passage. Together we stepped through.

  We were in a chamber slightly smaller than Lord Chislehurst's, with a cosy fireplace, a bed piled high with pillows and canopied in chintz and ivory lace, a vanity, and a huge oak cabinet quite as old as the house, before which stood a tall, handsome woman ten years our client's junior, fully dressed and coiffed in a manner both expensive and tasteful. She appeared composed, but upon her cheeks was a high colour.

  "Lady Chislehurst, I presume?" Holmes enquired.

  "That is my name, sir. Who are you, and what is the meaning of this invasion?"

  "My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is Dr. Watson, and unless I am very much mistaken, the gentleman hiding in the cabinet is named Richard."

  Her hand went to her throat. She took an involuntary step closer to the cabinet. "Sir! You are impertinent."

  At that moment, the door to the cabinet opened and a slender young man stepped out, whom I recognised as Lord Chislehurst's clerk. He was dressed entirely in black from collar to heels. I raised my revolver.

  "That won't be necessary, Doctor. I am unarmed." He spread his dark coattails, revealing the truth of his claim. I returned my weapon to my pocket, but kept my hand upon it warily.

  "I fled from the passage when the fireplace opened," Richard explained. "Not knowing who might be in the hall and fearful of compromising Lady Chislehurst, I took refuge in the cabinet. I thought perhaps it was the earl, and that we had been found out."

  "Then you admit you were conspiring to murder Lord Chislehurst?" Holmes's tone was stern.

  The woman gasped and swayed. Richard put out his arm to steady her. His face was white. "Good heavens, no! However did you form that conclusion?"

  "Come, come, young man. There is the business of the will, the paraphernalia in the passage between the walls, and your own admission just now that you feared you had been 'found out.' I suggest you hold your defence in reserve for the Assizes."

  "Thank you, Richard. I am quite well now." The lady relinquished her grip upon the young man's arm. Her expression was resolute. "I have been after Timothy for years to draw up his will. I saw no reason that the fortune he has worked so hard to build should be dissipated in the courts. To whom he decided to leave it was his own affair, but I thought it would be nice if he named Richard as executor.

  "I have known Richard for two years. I don't think my husband realises how valuable he is to the firm, nor how much of himself he has sacrificed to its operation. This I know from what I have seen. Richard does not advertise his worth."

  "Please, Your Ladyship," protested the clerk.

  She smiled at him sadly, dismissing his plea. "When you work closely with someone, as I have with Richard when the firm was shorthanded, you learn things his employer doesn't know. Richard's financial situation is serious. Aside from his responsibilities as a husband, he has pledged to repay the many debts left by his late father, and his mother is seriously ill.

  "Richard is the first member of his family to seek a career in business," she continued. "His father was a mesmerist upon the stage, and his mother was a magician's assistant. When I learned that he had inherited some of their skills, a plan began to form."

  The clerk interrupted. "The plan was mine. Lady Chislehurst went along purely out of the goodness of her heart."

  "You needn't claim credit," said she. "I'm proud of the idea. My husband is a good man, Mr. Holmes, but his order of values is not always sound. When the firm suffered, he should have chosen an area to practise economy that would not affect his employees. When he told me there would be no Christmas gratuities this year, I knew from experience I could not change his mind through talk. I decided instead to work upon his conscience. I suppose you know the rest."

  Holmes appeared unmoved. "Your plan was dangerous. Any number of tragedies might have befallen him as he wandered in his sleep."

  "That was unexpected, and alarmed me greatly." Her expression was remorseful. "Richard and I decided not to use the drug again. If the mere image of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come did not bring about the desired conversion, that was that."

  "I am shamed."

  "Timothy!" Lady Chislehurst turned to face her husband, who was standing upon the threshold to the hallway. None of us had seen him open the door, with the possible exception of Holmes, whose red-Indian countenance betrayed no reaction.

  "I am shamed," the earl said again. His heavy face was tragic.

  "I'm sorry, Timothy. It was the only way."

  "I am not shamed for you," he said, "but for myself. Were I not so caught up in commerce, I would have seen what effect my measures to preserve the firm was having upon the people who work there."

  His wife stepped towards him just as he strode forwards. He took her in his arms. "I'm sorry, Beth. Can you ever forgive me?"

  "There is one way," said she.

  "Of course." He looked at his clerk. "Richard, I want you in early tomorrow."

  The young man was dismayed. "Tomorrow is Christmas Day!"

  "All the more reason to start early, so we can count out the holiday gratuities, yours first. If we work hard we should be able to deliver them all by midday. Then you and your wife will join us here for Christmas dinner."

  "Bless you, sir!"

  "Bless you, Beth!"

  "God bless us everyone!" I exclaimed.

  Four curious faces turned my way.

  "Surely you are more familiar with those words than most," I told the Chislehursts. "I am quoting His young Lordship from 'A Christmas Carol,' which Her Ladyship must have studied closely."

  "I haven't read it in years. My husband doesn't approve of the story. I thought about it, naturally, but my real inspiration came when I discovered the secret passage and the equipment inside."

  Holmes said, "Do you mean to say the apparatus was there already?"

  "The magic lantern is an old model," explained Richard; "an ancestor, as it were, of the ones employed by the magicians with whom my mother worked. I replaced the bottle of hallucinative with one my father used in his act. The original would have been useless. It had probably been there thirty-five years."

  "That is precisely when Scrooge lived here," reflected the earl.

  "Well, Watson, what do you make of our little yuletide adventure?"

  The next morning was Christmas. After I had breakfasted and exchanged gifts and greetings with my wife, I paid a call upon Holmes in the old sitting-room, where I found him enjoying his morning pipe.

  "I should say Bob Cratchit was fortunate there was no Sherlock Holmes in his day," said I.

  "Crafty fellows, these clerks. However, they are no match for a Lady Chislehurst. I perceive that package you a
re carrying is intended for me, by the way. The shops are closed, Mrs. Hudson is away visiting, and you know no one else in this neighbourhood."

  I handed him the bundle, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a cord. "It is useless to try to surprise you, Holmes. It is a first-edition copy of The Martyrdom of Man, which you once recommended to me. I came across it in a secondhand shop in Soho."

  He appeared nonplussed, a rare event. "I am afraid, old fellow, that I have no gift to offer in return. The season has been busy, and as you know I allow little time for sentiment. It is disastrous to my work." It may have been my interpretation, but he sounded apologetic. I smiled.

  "My dear Holmes. What greater gift could I receive than the one you have given me these past twenty years?"

  He returned the smile. "Happy Christmas, Watson."

  "Happy Christmas, Holmes."

  The Adventure of the Canine Ventriloquist

  Jon L. Breen

  Visits by apparent madmen to the old rooms in Baker Street were not infrequent. Some of these callers actually were mad and thus beyond the help of a consulting detective, while others merely seemed to be. Our visitor that blustery Christmas Eve I would quickly have consigned to the former category, but as he so frequently did, Sherlock Holmes disagreed.

  We were in the midst of a splendid dinner from Mrs. Hudson's talented kitchen when we heard voices from the stairs.

  "I must see Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" came a distraught masculine shout. "Only he can help me!"

  The feminine voice of Mrs. Hudson tried to calm the lunatic in softer tones. Whatever she said was undistinguishable and did not serve to soothe our determined visitor, who burst through the door of 221B and implored Holmes's aid. Mrs. Hudson offered apologies, but, overtaken I suppose by a combination of the spirit of the season and the curiosity of a hound finding the scent of game on the air, Holmes offered food, drink, and the comfort of the fire. In the confusion of welcoming our visitor, Mrs. Hudson's joyfully anticipated Christmas pudding was somehow forgotten. No comestible, however delightful, had the power to distract Holmes from the scent of a problem, but I am more devoted to the joys of the table—as well as averse to disappointing Mrs. Hudson. Still, I supposed, the pudding would keep until we heard this poor maniac's tale and arranged for his removal to an institution that could deal with his sad mental infirmity. After a few moments, our visitor had gathered himself enough to tell us, though not quickly, a lucid if fantastic tale.

  "I have always enjoyed Christmas," he began, raising a cup of hot spiced cider to his lips. "The festival of Our Saviour's birth marks my favourite time of the year, a time one can feel goodwill and good fellowship toward the fellow man who so sadly disappoints one the rest of the year, a time of conviviality and generosity and song."

  His face brightened, then fell abruptly into indescribable gloom, the mercurial suddenness of the change making me all the more certain of his lunacy.

  "But, gentlemen, one year ago tomorrow, events were set in motion that altered the whole scheme of my happy, productive life and reduced me to the ruined hulk you see before you."

  A healthy, well-fed hulk beyond the wild eyes and troubled features, I reflected, not to mention one with a gift for florid exaggeration. My observational skills having been developed over the years, admittedly more through my long association with Holmes than the diagnostic lessons of my medical education, I was about to give voice to my impressions. But, as usual, Holmes struck first—and, I must confess, more strikingly.

  "Pray continue, Mr. Marplethorpe. Dr. Watson and I are eager to hear your story."

  "I can't express how much 1 appreciate—" Our guest broke off, looking perplexed. "But, Mr. Holmes, I fear in my agitated state, I neglected to tell you my name. Did I mention my name, Dr. Watson?"

  "You did not," I verified.

  "Forgive my rudeness. I am indeed Oliver Marplethorpe, the most miserable and beleaguered man in England. But you already knew who I was, Mr. Holmes. You called me by name, and I'm damned if I know how. I sent you no communication heralding my advent—indeed, who would be so presumptuous as to request an appointment for Christmas Eve? In my distress, I neglected even to offer a calling card to your landlady. You and I have never met before to my knowledge. While my name has given me some small notoriety, my likeness has never appeared in the press, and I am not given to delivering lectures or making other public appearances. I know my clothing is innocent of so much as my initials, let alone spelling out my entire name. So how in God's name did you know my name was Marplethorpe?"

  With a damnably smug glance in my direction, Holmes said, "It's a matter more in my colleague's area than my own, Mr. Marplethorpe: literary style. Unless you are a verbal plagiarist, you used nearly the very same words describing your affinity for the Christmas season in an essay in the Strand two years ago. You must remember that charming piece, Watson. I believe one of your overwrought accounts of my own trifling exploits appeared in the same number."

  Marplethorpe smiled sadly, as if viewing a forgotten time and place in his mind's eye. "Yes, I was proud of that essay, I must confess. But that is what the late Mr. Dickens would have designated a ghost of Christmas past, I fear. So many things have changed since then." He fell silent and seemed to drift off into a private reverie.

  "Tell us your tale, Mr. Marplethorpe," Holmes persisted. "We shall lay your Christmas ghost if we can."

  "Yes, of course, but where to begin? The writing life is not an easy one, as Dr. Watson must appreciate. I began beating on the doors of book and periodical publishers, figuratively I hasten to add, when I had not yet achieved one score in age. I persisted through my university years and after, subsisting mainly on the largesse of my generous but scarcely wealthy parents, both since unhappily deceased. For a number of cold seasons, I could have papered my walls with the rejections I received from the daily newspapers, the weekly and monthly magazines, the annuals, the book publishers. The support of a similarly minded circle of friends kept my spirits from falling into despair.

  "But over the five-year period leading to last Christmas, I gradually accrued some measure of success. My essays became more popular with the readership of the better magazines; my reviews were more frequently solicited by the literary journals; my occasional poems and stories became steadily better received. Just thirteen months ago I was offered, and accepted, the editorship of Vickery's Weekly, a post that paid handsomely in prestige if only tolerably in currency. My income from all these sources combined had risen to the point where, still not yet thirty years of age, though I was by no means wealthy, I finally allowed myself to entertain thoughts of taking a wife, casting off the superficial freedom of bachelorhood for the more fulfilling responsibilities of family life. Most happily of all, I had at the ready a candidate to join me in this glorious venture. Miss Elspeth Hawley is her name, the fairest and loveliest creature to whom God ever gave life."

  So he was not a madman but a professional writer—literary amateurs like myself are often quite ordinary and level-headed chaps, but those who attempt to scribble words on paper for a living are another matter. Even the sober ones often seem likely candidates for institutionalization. By now I had remembered the fellow's work: clever, often amusing, but deucedly long-winded. Impatient for him to get to the point, I was tempted to remind him that Holmes and I, unlike the editors he sought to please, would not pay him by the word. But Holmes was listening with rapt attention, as if treasuring every syllable.

  Marplethorpe drained his cup of cider and said dramatically, "That brings us to Christmas last... but no, not quite."

  I nearly snorted but restrained myself. I might have known we weren't there yet.

  "In the year preceding the yuletide season of which I speak," our visitor continued, "I succeeded in placing an article on the art and history of ventriloquism with one of the better-paying monthlies. Perhaps you saw it."

  "I did indeed," Holmes said. "Fascinating topic. Do you remember it, Watson?"

  I confessed
that I did not, and my negative response took me still farther away from the prospect of Mrs. Hudson's Christmas pudding. It put me in line for an exhaustive account of the fellow's research.

  "As I'm sure you know," Marplethorpe droned, "the term ventriloquism refers to the art of making sounds appear to come from somewhere other than their actual source. 'Throwing the voice,' it is sometimes called. The term comes from two Latin words, venter, meaning 'belly,' and loqui, meaning 'spoken,' literally 'belly-speaking.' Popular wisdom has long held that the sounds issued from the ventriloquist's abdomen, though practitioners of the art assure me that is far from being a true impression, that in fact the sounds come from deep in the throat. Ventriloquism in one form or another dates back to ancient times through evidence found in Hebrew and Egyptian archaeological studies. The most famous ancient ventriloquist was the Greek Eurycles of Athens, who I believe specialized in bird sounds.

  "The art could prove dangerous to its practitioners, witness the case of a magician in fourteenth-century France known as Meskyllene. He toured Eastern Europe with a wooden box as his prop. Audience members would be invited to ask questions, and the box would appear to answer them. Poor fellow was put to death for sorcery. That was too often the fate of early ventriloquists.

  "Some of the most famous 'belly-speakers' of more recent centuries had a happier lot, serving in the royal courts of Europe, filling a kind of jester function I would imagine. Louis Brabant was the voice-throwing valet of King Francis I of France in the sixteenth century, and Henry King served in the same dual function to our own Charles I in the first half of the seventeenth. In the present day, of course, ventriloquism has become a recognized form of popular entertainment, a fixture of the music halls. I saw one chap who sat a wooden doll on his knee and appeared to have a conversation with it. He displayed remarkable skill and inventiveness and indeed was the inspiration for my article."