Sherlock Holmes--The Vanishing Man Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

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  PHILIP PURSER-HALLARD

  TITAN BOOKS

  Sherlock Holmes: The Vanishing Man

  Print edition ISBN: 9781785658426

  Electronic edition ISBN: 9781785658433

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: June 2019

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Philip Purser-Hallard. All Rights Reserved.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  To all those who have preceded me in John Watson’s footsteps,

  but especially Stuart Douglas, Kelly Hale and George Mann.

  FOREWORD

  I recently received through the post a package sent from my friend Sherlock Holmes’s retirement retreat in Sussex, which upon inspection proved to contain a bundle of papers relating to an investigation that occupied Holmes and myself during part of the September of 1896. Some of them I remember my friend showing me at the time; others are new to me. Though Holmes has made occasional annotations, there was no letter accompanying the enclosed material. I have nevertheless taken this as conveying his view that the time has come for the story of the case to be told.

  In preparing this account for publication, I have remained faithful to my contemporary impressions, resisting the temptation, beyond some necessary tidying and polishing and the checking and correction of certain facts, to elaborate upon the notes I set down shortly afterwards. However, some of those papers which Holmes must have acquired in the years since demonstrate that the incident of the Evolved Man was one with ramifications that I at least, and perhaps even he, did not fully grasp at the time.

  Although their relevance is sometimes tangential, it is clear that Holmes considers all these documents to be of potential interest. I have therefore interspersed them between the chapters of my own account, to provide the reader with a more complete understanding than was available to us then.

  John H. Watson, MD, 1928

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘In the space of an hour’s walk this afternoon,’ Sherlock Holmes told me, ‘I have observed three pickpockets, a housebreaker and a man who disappeared.’

  I stared at him, a little befuddled. He had returned from his constitutional, to all appearances energised and invigorated, to find me in the chair by the fire in the cosy fug of our rooms. I had earlier declined to join him on his perambulations on the grounds that the afternoon was wet and chilly, and my old war-wound had been troubling me. Though I had certainly been reading the newspaper when he left, I confess that I might have fallen into a light doze during his absence.

  ‘Disappeared?’ I asked, struggling to think of an intelligent reply. ‘That hardly seems possible on a London street in daylight, even when the sky is so dark with cloud. But what,’ I added, ‘do you mean about the pickpockets and housebreaker? I can’t believe you’ve seen four crimes committed during one short walk.’

  The time was, I noted with a surreptitious glance at the clock, about five-thirty in the afternoon. The day was a damp Tuesday in September. After a sunny morning, heavy clouds had swept in over London during lunch, surrendering a burden of water which had had our window-panes resounding like a drum – albeit a peculiarly soothing one – all afternoon. Outside, I saw as I opened the window for a breath of air, the gutters still flowed murkily. Cabmen and their horses grumbled beneath their oilskins, while pedestrians jostled their way through the puddles under umbrellas, or with droplets cascading from their hats. It seemed an inauspicious day for crime, let alone for unnatural disappearances.

  ‘Alas,’ said Holmes, vigorously stoking the fire, ‘I saw none of them breaking the law. I merely inferred their intentions from their behaviour and manner. The pickpockets were fleet-footed, nimble-fingered fellows, walking briskly at the side of the pavement nearest the road, unencumbered by umbrellas. Their coats were too light for the weather, short in the arm and tight-fitting about the cuffs, with deep pockets. Their eyes darted about as they walked, sizing up each person they passed.’

  He threw himself down into his armchair and continued. ‘The housebreaker was a different specimen, thin as a wire with large, strong hands. Though he could have moved as quickly as any of the pickpockets, he instead trudged slowly through the rain, gazing up at the buildings around him with a rustic’s curiosity. He lingered for a while on Baker Street, lit a cigarette, took in his surroundings along with his leisurely smoke, then trampled the cigarette-end and went his way.’

  As I re-seated myself I wondered,
not for the first time, how Holmes could be certain of such firm convictions based on what were surely mundane observations. ‘Anyone might take an interest in his surroundings while enjoying a quiet smoke in the street,’ I admonished him. ‘I’m sure I’ve done it myself.’

  Holmes smiled. ‘I would venture, Watson, that you have not chosen to linger opposite a bathroom window which hangs ajar on a broken catch, and which might with judicious footwork be reached from the street at dead of night.’

  ‘Not chosen, no.’ I added obstinately, ‘But I might happen to.’

  ‘Perhaps, Watson, perhaps. By that time I was wanting the comforts of home, or I should have followed the man and seen whether the coincidence repeated itself further down the street. In any case, Mrs Hudson must advise her counterpart at Number 213 to have that catch mended with all haste.’

  I recalled the rest of his peculiar statement. ‘But what did you mean about the other man?’ I asked, allowing a note of amusement to enter my voice. ‘Did he fade away before your eyes, or did you merely infer from his manner an intention to disappear at some time in the future?’

  Holmes said good-naturedly, ‘Ah, but that case was different again. I confess that the man I speak of did not vanish in front of me. I could discern, though, that he had recently disappeared from his previous life. The number who do so might surprise you, Watson, steadfast and reliable as your own presence is.’ He stood again and paced across the room, to gaze out of the window into the Baker Street drizzle. ‘Some leave wives and families, of course, whether for some new infatuation or simply because they feel oppressed by their obligations. Others flee the consequences of a crime or scandal, or from debt. And where better to remain invisible than in a city of so many million souls?

  ‘The man I saw was dressed like a workman and his hands bore cuts and the beginnings of calluses, of the kind one sees on operators of machinery – but all were recent, while the shape of the same digits showed the deep groove of a pen, telling of years spent as an office clerk. His chin was raw from unaccustomed shaving, and he sported whiskers of perhaps a month’s growth, inexpertly kempt although they were the kind in which the wearer normally takes some pride. He doffed his cap to ladies, but with a sense of novelty to the movement, as if used to wearing a different kind of hat entirely.’

  I remained sceptical. ‘It seems a rather flimsy chain of reasoning on which to base such a conclusion. Perhaps the man had simply suffered a recent change of circumstances.’

  Holmes continued. ‘As he passed beneath a clock I saw him absent-mindedly reach to his midriff, thinking to take out a pocket-watch and set it, before recalling that he wore no waistcoat and carried no watch. He glanced nervously at the faces of those around him to see whether he had been observed. When he saw my eye on him he blanched and hastened away. He had become visible again, and that is what a vanished man fears the most.’

  Holmes turned to me and smiled again. ‘But here we are, Watson, discussing the disappeared when we are about to be favoured with an unexpected appearance.’

  I went to the window. In the street beneath were two figures, picking the way through the puddles to our doorstep. The rain persisted still, and all we could see of them were their legs and the black domes of their umbrellas.

  ‘There’s not a lot you can deduce from that,’ I observed, knowing as I said it that I was in all likelihood handing Holmes another opportunity to prove me wrong. He barked an amused ‘Ha!’ and, shutting the window against the cold, crossed the room to stand before the fire.

  A few moments later the sitting-room door opened and Mrs Hudson ushered in two gentlemen, now divested of their outer garments. The senior of the two was a handsome man of about sixty, clean-shaven, with bright eyes and swan-white hair flowing from a high, intelligent forehead. His companion was under thirty years of age, tall and slight, with dark curly hair and large eyes.

  ‘Ah, Sir Newnham Speight,’ said Sherlock Holmes at once, before Mrs Hudson could introduce them. ‘May I present my associate, Dr Watson?’

  The older man nodded politely to me and said, ‘But I wasn’t aware we’d met, Mr Holmes. I’d have thought I would have remembered.’

  I recognised Sir Newnham’s name, of course. The reader will doubtless recall him too, as the inventor lauded by a grateful nation for such practical boons as Speight’s Self-Igniting Tinder-Pipe, Speight’s Doubly-Adjustable Bedstead with Integrated Mattress, Speight’s Rotary Clothes-Press Wardrobe, and Speight’s Miniature Bedside Tea-Urn with Integrated Alarm Clock. I owned one of the last myself, a present given in gratitude by an eccentric patient, which I had never yet used.

  ‘No more we have,’ Holmes replied, gratified by the man’s perplexity. ‘But I had the opportunity to observe your umbrellas as you arrived outside. Each is unmistakeably a Speight’s Super-Collapsible Pocket model, but with certain ingenious adjustments. I take it that today’s inclement weather has been an opportunity for you to test out a prototype for a more advanced design?’

  ‘Two different prototypes, in fact,’ the younger man said in a light, musical voice. He seemed amused by Holmes’s odd manners, and introduced himself as Talbot Rhyne, Sir Newnham’s assistant. ‘Sir Newnham has the brolly with my improvements, and I the one with his. We’re carrying out a comparative field-test.’

  ‘Capital!’ cried Holmes. ‘Do you hear that, Watson? The perfect marriage of the entrepreneurial and the empirical spirit.’

  ‘You chose a day that suited the experiment, anyway,’ I said. ‘Won’t you sit down and take some tea?’

  ‘Tut, Watson,’ insisted Holmes, ‘they haven’t come for tea.’ My view was that given their chilly journey they might welcome it nonetheless, but Holmes was unlikely to succumb to persuasion when gripped by such an enthusiastic mood. ‘Take a seat, gentlemen, and tell Dr Watson and myself what is on your minds this sodden evening.’

  ‘It’s a very peculiar affair, Mr Holmes,’ said Sir Newnham as they both settled into chairs. Though perfectly articulate, his voice retained echoes of the working-class Londoners outside on the street, and I recalled reading that Speight, a millionaire several times over and knighted by the Queen to boot, was a self-made man of humble origins. ‘I fear it’s not really in your usual line, but if there’s a man in London who can explain it to me, it’s yourself.’

  ‘I am already intrigued,’ said Holmes. ‘If there is one thing guaranteed to endear a case to me, it is that it should be peculiar. Pray proceed.’

  ‘Well, that’s part of the question,’ Sir Newnham Speight said. ‘It may not even be a “case” in the criminal sense. Something has happened, certainly – something decidedly out of the ordinary – and the explanation may well involve a crime of some sort. But at the moment it’s impossible to say whether Thomas Kellway is missing or dead.’

  ‘That is distressing,’ I suggested sympathetically, remembering Holmes’s earlier comments about men who abandon their positions in life, ‘but perhaps not so very unusual.’

  ‘It’s the possibilities that make it so, Dr Watson,’ Talbot Rhyne put in eagerly. ‘You see, it may be that Kellway is one of the greatest hoaxers in history, or it may be that he has somehow managed to transport himself to the planet Venus. I think that puts it in the realm of the remarkable, at least.’

  ‘The planet Venus?’ I repeated in astonishment.

  Holmes smiled tightly. ‘In principle, gentlemen, it is a trivial matter to guess which of your alternatives is the more likely. I have known a considerable number of hoaxers during my career, but am yet to meet a single interplanetary traveller. I imagine, though, that you have more to tell me. Watson, I believe we may after all benefit from some tea, while Sir Newnham recounts this surprising story to us from the beginning.’

  Our guests settled themselves while I rang for Mrs Hudson and outlined our requirements. As she departed, Sir Newnham began his tale.

  ‘Among my other interests, I am the Chairman of the Society for the Scientific Investigation of Psychical Phenomena.
Our aim is to investigate through experiment and observation those phenomena commonly ascribed the label “psychic” – thought-transference, mental action at a distance, clairvoyance, et cetera – with a view to either proving or disproving their existence.

  ‘I see you frown, but you must understand that my own interest isn’t in the mystical mumbo-jumbo with which imaginative people so often surround such claims – the spirit world and Druids from Atlantis and the like. I’m a scientist, not a metaphysician. My interest lies in research, and that obliges me to be as open-minded on this question as on any other.

  ‘I will admit that the Society attracts members of various types, with varying philosophical and even religious persuasions. Provided they pay their dues and don’t interfere with the experiments, they’re all welcome. My own view is not fixed as to the veracity of those exceptional phenomena that witnesses in history have from time to time reported – levitation, precognition, bilocation and what-have-you. So far I haven’t seen compelling evidence one way or the other.

  ‘I am firm, though, that if such things exist then they are neither magical nor miraculous, but can be measured and observed like everything else in the universe, and on that basis analysed, predicted and eventually reproduced. If ever that were done successfully, then the potential contribution to future science would be incalculable. Alternatively, there may be nothing at all to measure – but to the scientist a discovery of truth is never truly a failure.

  ‘Over the years I have found it helpful to set up the facilities for my researches in the more conventional sciences at my home, Parapluvium House in Richmond, and among these I’ve constructed an annexe where claims of extraordinary phenomena may be tested under a variety of controlled conditions. Its most salient feature is a set of three Experiment Rooms in which subjects may be isolated from one another, and from any necessary experimental materials, so that we may be sure that any interaction between the rooms is exclusively mental.

  ‘For such trials we need subjects, and it is necessary to encourage those who believe themselves to be gifted in the psychical arena to come forward. Such persons are generally reluctant to subject themselves to a full scientific investigation, but this is not always because they are dishonest. Many may be quite sincere in their claims, but mistrust our motives, or lack the education to understand our aims, or fear that the experiments will be invasive or painful.