Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Volume 15 Read online

  © 2013.

  “I believe your technology may be sufficiently advanced to handle this piece that I discovered with the possessions of one Arthur Cadogan West. My friend has chronicled the case under the title, ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans.’”

  Holmes fingered the piece in his hand. “This object may be related to secret plans in connection with a highly advanced marine vessel. Indeed, the technology used in that vessel was suspiciously more advanced than anything created up to that time. The origin of aspects of the vessel was unknown, but experts believe the concepts could not have been developed by the individuals known in the case. Do you have an idea as to the function of this small article? It is quite inflexible and I cannot open it without destroying it. A remarkable material. Those numbers appear to be your year, 2013, which led us to travel here.”

  “Looks like a plastic memory card,” I said. “You don’t know about plastics, but I know a dude who can probably read this.”

  “Read it?” Holmes asked.

  “Yeah. It could have documents and maybe drawings or video stored in it.”

  “I hardly think even a single sheet of paper could be folded so small as to fit in a container this thin.”

  “Right you are, Sherlock.” I couldn’t resist smiling as those words came out. “Information is stored by a computer, which is too complicated to get into with you. All you need to know is it’s coded, electrically coded.”

  Watson stirred from his reverie when he heard those words.

  “Indeed,” he said in a condescending way, “we are able to analyze the most elaborate codes. Recently, for example, we had occasion to decipher a string of stick figures that represented letters. The figures appeared to dance, but…”

  “Not really the same thing,” I interrupted, hoping to be as dismissive as he was boastful. “If you give me the card, I’ll ask my guy if he can print the contents, okay?”

  “How long will this procedure take?” Holmes asked.

  “My guy is just two blocks away. I’ll take it to him now and let you know what he says.”

  Although Holmes was reluctant to let the card leave his sight, Watson convinced him to give it to me.

  “The origin and many details of a very advanced submarine may be on what you call that card,” Holmes said. “It appears to have been created, somehow, many years after the incident with which we were involved. You say it is impossible to reveal the truth without the computer device. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: once the impossible has been eliminated…”

  This time it was Watson’s turn to interrupt. “Not again, Holmes. You have said it a hundred times, and I’ve heard it at least that many.”

  Holmes gave Watson a withering look, but then continued. “How that card was transported back in time to London may forever be a mystery.”

  Holmes searched my eyes for a few seconds, as if to see if I could be trusted. I must have passed the test. Holmes chuckled and handed the memory card to me. I took off to see Dave, my computer buddy. He had some time available to check it out and told me to return in two hours with ten bucks.

  By the time I returned to the bar, a new exotic dancer had replaced the first one. Watson was equally enthralled. Holmes was still preoccupied with his surroundings.

  As the afternoon went on, we talked about crime and violence in the city. Watson mentioned Holmes’s expertise with singlesticks, whatever they are. I don’t know why he mentioned singlesticks in the first place. It was just after Holmes mumbled something about applying a space-time Lorentz derivative function of the binomial theory to travel through a trans-temporal inflection point.

  “The calculation is a simple one,” Holmes said. Now it was Holmes who was being condescending. What was with those British guys?

  “Nevertheless,” Watson said, “the trip was extremely unsettling to my stomach. I resolve to concentrate on armchair consulting from now on.” He hesitated and glanced around. “With the assistance of my friend, Mr Holmes, of course. Frankly, in my stories I gave him more sole credit for our joint observations than he actually deserves. It makes for better character development, according to my literary agent.”

  Not to be outdone by Holmes, singlestick-wise, I told Watson I was a fairly aggressive amateur juggler myself.

  “No special physical conditioning is required to juggle, just an ability to move your arms and close your hands.”

  Watson was visibly pleased with this news. His eyes opened wide and a smile formed under his mustache.

  “Indeed,” he exclaimed, “I am not without a certain athletic dexterity, having played rugby for the Blackheath Football Club.”

  “Neuromuscular facilitation, doctor,” I muttered into my beer glass.

  “Might you elucidate, old chap?”

  Watson moved his eyes down the dancer’s body and focused on her upper thighs.

  “Muscle memory,” I said, watching the stripper and noticing I was getting aroused in spite of myself. “Can’t learn to juggle abstractly. No three-pipe armchair cogitation for this one, my learned friend. You’ve got to practice, practice, practice until your hands know where to go. It’s automatic, without thinking…like a concert pianist, you know? Just feel the balls, anticipate where they’ll be, without keeping track of each one in motion.”

  Watson nodded, continuing to absorb the sight, sound, and smell of the stripper.

  “I say,” he said, turning in her direction. “We really should encourage this sort of exercise in England, Holmes. I am tempted to write a paper of advantages and submitting it to the Royal Medical Society Journal.”

  “Are you referring to juggling or to the young lady in front of us?” I asked.

  Understandably distracted, Watson didn’t answer my question. He said, “Yes, yes. Quite. Indeed.”

  “My mind is like a racing engine,” Holmes said. “Engaging in a purely physical, mindless activity such as juggling does not require ratiocination, so it holds no allure for me.”

  I turned my attention again to Watson, for whom the stripper obviously did provide sufficient allure.

  “Some people are natural jugglers,” I said. “It’s best to start with an odd number of balls.”

  “Holmes,” Watson said, “shall we give it a go?”

  Holmes seemed resigned. “Surely you jest, Watson. Blackheath was years ago. But if you insist on embarrassing yourself publicly in a foreign country, I shall be happy to observe from a distance.”

  I dropped a sawbuck on the bar for the dancer and studiously avoided eye contact. Watson placed a shiny British coin next to my offering and reached out to pat her ankle, a cross between an avuncular and a perverted gesture.

  “Hey, watch it, Grandpa,” she said. “Hands off the merchandise.”

  On the way out of the bar, Watson told me he was sure he could attract women if he could do something exotic and unusual…such as juggling; and he wanted me to teach him. I told him no. He said he’d make it worth my while. He said he knew what it takes to pick up girls. You had to have a gimmick. A doctor’s bag and a British accent were good, but balls in the air were better.

  I told him my gimmick was not moving anything but my drinking elbow for hours on end. And I also shared with him my desire not to meet another woman—not ever again—after my recent four-year fiasco called a marriage with a barracuda named Mary.

  At the mention of her name, Watson grew misty-eyed. But Watson, he can be one persistent cuss and he really, really, wanted to meet American women.

  “I have enjoyed the company of young ladies in three separate continents,” he confided, “but not yet in New York City.”

  I have to admit I admire a person who reaches his goal unless, of course, his goal is to force me to have one, too.

  “I must implore you to teach me to juggle,” Watson said, pulling me by the arm, either to propel me to the door or to steady himself. And so, despite my slurred, inarticulate protests, we walked—staggered, really—out of the bar
and into bright sunlight. Watson leaned heavily on his walking stick.

  “Have you fellows remembered to take along sunglasses?” I asked, as I fished for my shades.

  “I prefer not to wear smoked glasses, what you call sunglasses,” Holmes said, inspecting my glasses before I could find my ears. “They may obscure the very details I find it important to observe.”

  “These designer glasses are polarized,” I said. “Very expensive.”

  “Do they contain precious metals or jewels?” he asked.

  “No. They’re cheap plastic and expensive glass.”

  “Plastic—similar to the memory card?”

  “Exactly, sort of. It’s material that became popular after the Second World War. Oops. Guess you wouldn’t know about that, either. We can save that discussion for another day.”

  Arm in arm, like two fat old English women strolling on the banks of the Thames, Watson and I moved downtown past 55th Street on Second Avenue as rush hour began. Holmes followed a few steps behind.

  “I am quite impressed with the revealing clothing your ladies wear,” Watson said.

  “When they wear clothing at all, you mean.”

  Holmes interrupted our intellectual conversation. “Mind these motorcars,” he said. “They appear to be unforgiving metal.”

  “And plastic,” I added, smiling.

  We found a novelty shop crammed to the ceiling with cheapjack items: plastic toy handcuffs, bubble gum cigars, magic card tricks, and balls, a zillion balls, from the little, solid, rubber balls that kids use to play jacks, to huge, air-filled beach balls. We had hit New York’s spheroidal jackpot. Holmes inspected one ball after another as if they held clues to the meaning of life.

  I settled on old-fashioned, pink Spaldings, the size of tennis balls, a dozen for $25. We paid for them and, on the sidewalk, loaded them into Watson’s doctor’s bag. Then we headed for Rockefeller Plaza.

  Here’s some advice: Don’t ever walk three streets down and two avenues over in Manhattan with a slightly inebriated, old-fashioned, horny doctor. He approached women with the subtlety of a bear in a honey-bottling plant, spewing obscure and ribald comments. Yet he mysteriously transmogrified himself into an irresistibly beguiling gentleman. At least he thought so.

  Holmes wanted to observe, while Watson wanted to attract the attention of women whose libidos were the size of Piccadilly Circus. And he was convinced juggling was the means to that end.

  “Now to impress some girls, old chap,” he said as we staked out a corner of the plaza.

  Watson began to remove balls from his doctor’s bag. I suggested three of them was a good start. Our corner of the plaza was in the shade with no obstructions above us.

  Rush hour can be profitable for street performers. If properly entertained, at least some passers-by will linger. For Watson—as indiscriminate a phylogynist as Holmes was distrustful of women—it was merely a numbers game. I never met an elderly gentleman who wanted to be laid so badly or who was so tenacious in executing a basically preposterous plan to do so.

  “Okay, Watson, watch me, and then you try it. Two balls in one hand like this, one in the other.”

  I started off with the standard three-ball cascade for awhile and then executed a reachacross. Watson’s eyes narrowed, but he stood absolutely still, transfixed like a three-year-old on the Fourth of July or whatever the equivalent is in merry Olde England.

  Juggling, like bicycle riding, is easy to explain, but there’s no substitute for experience. It can take months of effort to get the hang of it. In the beginning, the objects, called props, fly all over the place shooting out from the body at unexpected angles. When a juggler’s hands move automatically, he knows he’s arrived. It becomes as easy and subconscious as breathing. The student progresses from silk scarves, because they slowly float rather than fall, to bean bags, rubber balls, raw eggs, bowling balls, or chainsaws. And once the beginner can handle three props, he adds a couple more.

  Watson took the props from me gently and, as God is my witness, without hesitating, he started juggling the three balls. He was an instant and perfect juggler. Didn’t miss a beat. Didn’t bobble even one ball. Most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen, short of the man himself appearing in the 21st century, affable and sleazy as a political candidate. He looked straight ahead, barely blinking, while his hands pumped rhythmically, releasing the balls as soon as he grasped them, progressing from cascades to fountains to showers. His performance was mesmerizing.

  Most new jugglers start with one cycle and slowly work their way up to two. That alone can take weeks of practice. But not Watson. Like a ski racer who hasn’t learned to stop, he performed so many back-to-back cycles I lost count. He wouldn’t quit. His arms never got tired, even in that heavy, hot overcoat. It was as if he were born to juggle. If ever a person found his special talent, that day it was Watson. He may have been an excellent chronicler of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but he was an incredible juggler.

  “Watson,” Holmes said, as balls were tossed ever higher in the air. “Watson, I never get your limits.”

  “Elementary,” Watson said with a wink in my direction. “A wise man once told me it is a capital mistake to underestimate the importance of observation and sometimes even criminal not to act on that knowledge.”

  He began to increase speed, tossing the balls into lower orbits. Soon the balls and his hands were a blur. His look of concentration was ferocious. After only a short time, Watson was already better than I was or could ever hope to be.

  I threw two more balls at him rather forcefully, but he didn’t miss a beat. He tossed the five balls accurately and effortlessly, as if he had been practicing since 1895; and then he really left me in the dust, taking on seven, nine, and finally eleven.

  I had to remind myself to breathe.

  Holmes settled himself, cross-legged, on the pavement, finally lighting his pipe. He observed people gawking in awe and delight at Watson and managed to identify three pickpockets and an under cover cop along the way. He noticed the types of women who responded to Watson’s maneuvers. They tended to be brunettes, were of Victorian girth, and were shorter than average. I sensed him filing people and their characteristics away in his mind. I mentioned that to him.

  “I place knowledge in my attic which might be useful,” he said, “and make sure it is not jumbled up with a lot of other things. That way, I have no difficulty in laying my hands upon the important facts.”

  Meanwhile, balls shot out of Watson’s hands like cannonballs, twenty feet into the air, two per second. He performed a pirouette, launched three between his legs—which I informed him is called an Albert—and bounced them off the ground, off the wall, and off his head, never blinking, never faltering, never dropping.

  Holmes was as excited as the onlookers. He rose from his place on the sidewalk with one fluid motion and began to walk through the appreciative crowd collecting donations in the shopping bag that had held the Spaldings. We made almost 400 hundred bucks before a cop broke up the party.

  I intended to return with my share of the profit directly to the secure comfort of the bar where it had all begun for a few more rounds before I passed out. I had retained my recent, post-divorce talent for getting blotto, thank goodness.

  First I visited Dave, my computer guy again, who had downloaded the contents of the memory card. He printed the text and drawings of a patent application for a submarine navigation and control system. The inventors were Fred Bruce and James Partington. They worked for General Dynamics.

  “Here you go, my friend,” I said, returning to the bar and handing Holmes the sheaf of papers and his memory card. “As I suspected, the computer had no problems with this. You owe me an Andy Jackson.”

  “Andy Jackson?”

  “Twenty bucks. Oh, just buy me another round and we’ll be even.”

  “This information is worth a good deal more than currency,” Holmes said. “The security of England was at stake and the origin of the highly advanced
submarine is now unveiled by 21st century technology. We arrived at the precise time and place to get the missing piece for our little puzzle.”

  Holmes was clearly satisfied with his day’s achievement.

  As for Watson, the greatest juggler who had ever lived, I never saw him again after he hooked up and disappeared that afternoon with two working girls.

  As for me, I’m proud I taught John H Watson something. Many would probably consider juggling a useless skill, but who’s to say it isn’t as important as discovering a hidden tunnel or exposing a murderer or recovering plans for a modern submarine?

  I’m sure Holmes would agree.

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE WHITE PYTHON, by Adam McFarlane

  While I sat for breakfast one summer morning, my wife Mary ushered my old friend Sherlock Holmes to our table.

  “What an unprecedented surprise!” I exclaimed.

  Holmes’s disappointment over my marriage had resulted in an absence of nearly a year. Although Holmes was the reason that I first met and fell in love with Mary Morstan, for she came to him with a case I recounted in A Sign of Four, she wisely finished her breakfast alone in the drawing room. Sherlock Holmes had no interest in romance and distrusted women altogether.

  The sun warmed the dining room. Blue and white china spread across the table linen, and pink roses reflected in the silver epergne.

  Our maid Sally entered and laid out a knife, a fork, an egg cup, plates and glasses for Holmes. He poured himself a cup of coffee. He inhaled the smell through his hawk-like nose and he smiled, crinkling the corners of his grey eyes. His long fingers wrapped around the cup.

  “Thank you, Watson. I’ve eaten nothing today, having just woken up with a telegram awaiting my reply.”

  Scraping a spot of char off the rashers, I asked, “What did the telegram say?”

  “A pet shop’s prized albino python disappeared, and the proprietor wants me to find it.” Holmes encountered many animals in his cases, including a horse named Silver Blaze, the Giant Rat of Sumatra, and in my absence, the Lion’s Mane jellyfish. A Christmas goose held the clue to the theft of the Blue Carbuncle, but never before had Holmes been called upon to find a missing pet.