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"It is a difficult question. I despaired of solving it. I wondered if Sir Arthur wished to pit his intellect against mine. If the journalists and photographers conspired to create a story. If Constable Brown wished to draw more resources to his district-and found he enjoyed the limelight!"
"Which of them was it, Holmes? Wait! It was the photographer-only he has access to flash powder!"
"And an intimate knowledge of Surrey fields? No. The flash powder is easily purchased-or purloined. It was no one you mention."
"Then who?"
"Who benefits?"
I considered. If Sir Arthur wrote of the events, he might make a tidy sum from a book and lecture tour. But Holmes had already stated that Sir Arthur was i
"Not Lady Conan Doyle!" I exclaimed, aghast.
"Certainly not," Holmes said.
"The butler? The driver? He would know how to sabotage the car-"
"Robert Holder, Watson!" Holmes cried. "Robert Holder! Perhaps-indeed, certainly-with help from James and the butler and other tenants in the neighborhood. But Robert was the mastermind, for all his rough appearance. A veritable Houdini of the countryside!" Holmes considered. "Indeed, he used some of my own techniques. And he almost defeated me!"
"He risked all by challenging you!"
"I was unforeseen-surely he intended Sir Arthur to conduct the investigation. When you and I arrived, Robert must have realized he would stand or fall by his boldness. He offered Sir Arthur a compelling reason to dismiss my solution-and me. Sir Arthur accepted the offering. How could he resist?"
Holmes gazed out the window of the train for a moment. Unmarred fields rippled past, like miniature green seas.
"If not for Robert's misapprehension about the velocity of light," Holmes said, "a misapprehension that I shared, I would have known what happened, and I would have known how-but I never would have been certain who."
"You sound curiously sympathetic, Holmes," I said with disapproval.
"Indeed I am, Watson. Robert is clearly an honourable man."
"Honourable!"
"He refused Sir Arthur's offer to relieve him of the year's rent. He has no wish to steal."
"Only to lie."
"Like Houdini. Like any entertainer, any storyteller. Shakespeare lied. You have lied yourself, my friend, in your descriptions of our adventures."
"I have disguised individuals," I said, taking offense. "I have, yes, perhaps, dissembled occasionally… " I hesitated, and then I nodded. "Very well. I have lied."
"Life is hard for people who work the land. You and I are prosperous, now, but remember what it was like when we were younger, scraping along from season to season, with never a new shirt or a pair of boots that did not let in the rain? Imagine seeing no better prospects. For the rest of your life."
I suddenly remembered father and sons, and their new clothes.
"Who can blame them for creating a diversion, a mystery to attract sightseers, people of leisure with money to spare. People," Holmes added, "with a blind eye to turn to the evidence lying plain before them?"
"What of your commitment to the truth, Holmes?" I asked with some asperity.
"I know the truth," he said. "You know it. Sir Arthur knows it, but rejects it. I have kept the solution to other mysteries confidential; it is part of my duty. How is this different?"
I suddenly understood. Holmes's sympathy was not so much directed toward the hoaxers as away from the curiosity seekers who were willing, indeed eager, to be fooled.
"Very well, Holmes," I said. "I am content, if you are."
We rode in silence for some miles, lulled by the rocking of the train, enjoying Sir Arthur's excellent cognac and the peaceful English countryside. I wondered what the world would be like if beings from another planet did visit us.
"Holmes," I said.
"Yes, Watson?"
"Why was Sir Arthur so willing to pay you, when he did not believe your solution? What did he say to you, just as we left?"
"He said, 'I understand why you are such an extraordinary person. Like Houdini, you have good reason to hide your abilities, your true nature. I understand why Sherlock Holmes ca
"Your secret?"
"Yes, Watson." Holmes smiled. "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believes I am a Martian."
The Adventure of the Death-Fetch by Darrell Schweitzer
Darrell Schweitzer is the author of the novels The Shattered Goddess and The Mask of the Sorcerer, as well as numerous short stories, which have been collected in Transients, Nightscapes, Refugees from an Imaginary Country, and Necromancies and Netherworlds. Recent books include The Fantastic Horizon, Ghosts of Past and Future, and Living with the Dead. Well-known as an editor and critic, he co-edited the magazine Weird Tales for several years, and is currently editing anthologies for DAW, such as The Secret History of Vampires and Cthulhu's Reign, and an urban fantasy werewolf anthology for Pocket Books.
We all have days when the world seems too much to bear, and all we want to do is lock ourselves in our room and not come out. It's an illusion, this idea that a foot of wood and plaster can seal us off from the troubles that beset us, but it's a comforting illusion, and it resonates. Authors have spun some wonderful dramatic scenarios out of this notion of a safe room within a hostile universe. H. P. Lovecraft's "The Music of Erich Za
In retrospect, the most amazing thing is that Watson confided the story to me at all. I was nobody, a nineteen-year-old college student from America visiting English relatives during Christmas break. I just happened to be in the house when the old doctor came to call. He had been a friend of my grandfather long before I was born, and was still on the closest terms with my several aunts; and of course he was the Doctor John Watson, who could have commanded the immediate and rapt attention of any audience he chose.
So, why did he tell me and only me? Why not, at least, my aunts? I think it was precisely because I was no one of any consequence or particular credibility and would soon be returning to school far away. He was like the servant of King Midas in the fairy tale, who can no longer bear the secret that the king has ass's ears. He has to "get it off his chest," as we Americans say. The point is not being believed, or recording the truth, but release from the sheer act of telling. The luckless courtier, fearing for his life, finally has to dig a hole in the swamp, stick his head in it, and whisper the secret. Not that it did him much good, for the wind in the rattling reeds endlessly repeated what he had said.
There being no swamp conveniently at hand for Dr. Watson, I would have to do.
The old gentleman must have been nearly eighty at the time. I remember him as stout, but not quite obese, nearly bald, with a generous white moustache. He often sat smoking by the remains of our fire long after the rest of the household had gone to bed. I imagined that he was reminiscing over a lifetime of wonderful adventures. Well, maybe.