The Defaced Men, page 17
I noted that Muybridge’s understanding of both Fay’s and Griffin’s fortunes and recent occupations was in stark contrast to his original claim of ignorance. Once again, I wondered whether a simple matter of professional rivalry was at the heart of the strange events we had uncovered.
“I think it is time that we stopped skirting around the principal question,” Holmes said. “Let us go directly to the source of the matter. Watson, what is the single question now uppermost in your mind? Feel free to ask anything without fear of saying the wrong thing.”
Despite his reassurance, this seemed a test of my comprehension, and I did not enjoy the sense of expectation from both men. I kept my thoughts to myself for almost a minute, before finally blurting out, “For how long has Israel Fay been attempting to extort you?”
After I had spoken, my eyes went to my friend rather than Muybridge. To my great relief, Holmes’s mouth curled upwards at either side in the merest hint of a smile.
For his part, Muybridge responded like a pricked balloon: his body seemed to slump more and more until I feared that he might topple onto the tabletop, unable to hold himself upright.
“Then you know all,” he said quietly.
I did not, of course, and yet I gave a stiff nod.
Muybridge tugged at his long beard. “Our relationship has had as many highs and lows as his personal fortune. At times I have considered him the closest of friends, and at others…” His voice trailed off, and he looked around the room, blinking as though he had forgotten that we were in a library. Then he opened his lapel and produced a pocket-book, from which he drew two telegram slips. I recognised one, which read:
NO. FULL ON SUN. IF
The second – or rather, I perceived it must be the first, in chronological terms – was equally brief, but more immediately decipherable:
100 POUNDS TO KEEP SECRET.
PAY MIDDAY NEXT SUN. BOX AT REAR OF HOUSE. IF
“So it has all been a sham!” I exclaimed. Then I put my hand over my mouth and looked over Holmes’s shoulder at the other occupants of the study room, who, thankfully, slumbered on. In a hiss I said to Muybridge, “Why did you engage Holmes’s services if you knew all along what was occurring?”
Muybridge shook his head vigorously. “I did not, I swear. And it was not my idea.”
Holmes interjected, “Then it was Israel Fay himself who recommended that you consult me?”
The absurdity of this suggestion made me laugh out loud. The body of one of the elderly scholars jerked in an unconscious response to the abrupt sound.
“Yes,” Muybridge said. Then, in response to my obvious surprise, he pointed to the dates in the corner of each slip of paper. “I received the first of these telegrams after my lecture at the town hall in Liverpool. Before that event, I had no idea who was the culprit. But Fay himself had at the start of this month suggested that I speak to the famous Sherlock Holmes after I told him of the attacks upon my person by horse-and-carriage drivers and the first of the threats made via a vandalised glass slide – though I only did so almost a fortnight later, after the second such threat was made against me.”
“Though during the Liverpool lecture you determined Fay himself was responsible for those same threats,” Holmes said.
“Of course. I suspected it when the pigeon was released – the frustration of the interfering pigeon was a private joke between myself and Fay, harking back to our work in Philadelphia. Then, at the moment of the appearance of the defaced slide, there was an additional projection—”
“The letters ‘IF’, representing Israel Fay’s initials,” I said, eager to prove that I was keeping up.
Muybridge’s eyebrows rose. “Very good, Dr. Watson.”
I allowed myself a flush of pride, despite the information being second-hand. Then I frowned. “But still, what would be the purpose of revealing to you the identity of your extortioner… and what earthly reason could Fay have had for desiring Sherlock Holmes to investigate the crime at the very moment it was being perpetrated?”
“There is a very simple explanation,” Holmes remarked.
“Then I’d be delighted to know of it,” I retorted. “And furthermore, what is this secret to which Fay alludes in his messages?”
Muybridge’s body sagged. “The answers to each of those three questions are ultimately one and the same. The word ‘secret’ in Fay’s message simply refers to the very knowledge that he himself supplied to me at Liverpool: the fact that he was my torturer. He knew that I would not expose him, because ultimately his tampering would benefit me.”
I stared at him without comprehension. “Benefit you? He has been destroying your glass slides, ruining your livelihood and making a mockery of you!”
Muybridge gave a long, slow nod.
“But people have begun to notice,” he said quietly.
My eyes darted as I took in this statement. I looked around the room, recalling once again Holmes’s comments about our client’s tendency to self-promote. “Are you saying that the defaced slides are intended as a means of advertisement?”
“Indeed. Just as, I now understand, were the near-miss encounters with horses in the street. Fay hoped that the public would find accounts of those events particularly memorable, given my own association with horses in the past. I suppose there is a delicious irony in the idea of my being struck down by the very beast that made my name and fortune, and indeed the event might also have recalled the stagecoach accident that befell me so long ago. If Fay had only dared to allow me to be truly injured, the newspapers might have taken up the story there and then, so that Fay might not have decided to amplify his threats.”
I glanced at Holmes, whose expression was impassive. “Then,” I began slowly, “the engagement of Sherlock Holmes… that, too, was a part of the ruse?”
“It was,” Muybridge said, and his ordinarily pale cheeks flushed. “Mr Holmes, I can only apologise – though I think you have suspected the truth for some time.”
Holmes nodded. “By what means did Fay make his suggestion that you come to visit me?”
“By letter. At that point I had become afraid, and angry. None of the account I gave you upon my visit was a lie – or, at least, I did not know then that it was not true. The threats against my life appeared to me entirely real.”
I groaned as realisation dawned upon me. “But then, after the lecture in Liverpool, you hurried away, and you have been avoiding Holmes and I ever since, due to your shame about having engaged us under false pretences.”
“Yes – and due to my great shame that Fay’s ugly plan has worked,” Muybridge replied sorrowfully. “The newspapermen have indeed paid attention to me after ignoring my work for a number of years, and my public profile has been restored, or perhaps it is greater than ever it was. Even this very hour, the staff here at the library received me with such delight and attention… I am ashamed to confess that I enjoyed it very much.”
Holmes surprised me by laughing. “You may find there is more than one ruse at work, in that respect.”
Muybridge scrutinised my friend, but before he could ask a question, Holmes said, “Let us get to the heart of the matter. The book that Israel Fay has occupied his time writing – is it an account of your life and work?”
Muybridge’s eyes became wild. “How did you—” Then he sighed, and settled back into dejection. “Yes. He pleaded with me to be allowed to write my biography.”
Holmes held up a hand. “Forgive my interruption. Was that by letter, too?”
“Certainly not. He made his request over dinner, at Christmastime. It has been our custom to meet every month, though it is a great irony that his dedication to his work on the book has since prevented him from doing so. I found that I could not refuse his request, in part due to my guilt that where I have profited, he has singularly failed to make his mark, and partly… well…”
“Partly because you relished the idea of his creating a legacy for you,” I said.
Muybridge’s pale eyes met mine. “I am growing older every day, but I am secure in the knowledge of my great contribution to both the sciences and the arts, and I am proud of my work. My life has been a string of successes.”
I was tempted to remind him of his killing of his wife’s lover in California. His omission of this aspect of his biography said much about his ability to mythologise his own history, so it was no wonder that Fay’s proposal had appealed to him.
Muybridge continued, “However, my career is reaching its end. This task which occupies me, the collation of images that will comprise my book Animals in Motion, is a matter of curation alone. I have no original work ahead of me. Others have already taken my mantle and are progressing far beyond what I envisaged.”
“You are referring to the new industry of moving pictures, I take it?” I asked.
Muybridge nodded. “I had hopes of striding ahead with them. But Edison saw through me immediately – he recognised my desperation. Fourteen static images upon a glass slide, presented in quick succession, may trick the eye into perceiving motion – but it is a child’s illusion. The ambition of Edison, or, better still, of Mr. Robert Paul, or of those Parisian Lumières, and of many other men, is not simply to show repeating series of actions, but stories. I have given the public the thrill of introducing motion to pictures, but I can testify from my dwindling audiences that motion alone is no longer spectacle enough. We have resolved the matter of whether a horse’s hoofs all leave the ground during its gallop; we have determined how the spine flexes when a man catches a ball, or swings an axe, or the precise motion of a woman’s limbs when she descends a staircase, or pets a dog. These actions are simply constituent elements of something far grander and more absorbing: life itself. And life is comprised of tales, and an understanding of those tales lies in the understanding not of motion but of human minds. We all crave to know one another, and the cinematograph will allow us to watch and learn.”
He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes.
“But, of course, Fay reversed all of that decline, if only for a time,” he continued. “The town hall at Liverpool was filled to capacity. No doubt, audiences would now flow into other venues to see me, if only I responded to the requests to conduct additional lectures.” He looked at each of us in turn, his eyes pleading silently. “I have refused all of those requests. I am not so callous as to accept the gift that Fay has given me, unbidden. At least, not entirely.”
“But neither have you been prepared to reveal Fay’s plot,” I said, unable to disguise my accusatory tone.
Muybridge shook his head. “I considered that what had happened was in the past. It could not be reversed, therefore I must accept it and move along.”
Once again, the name of Major Harry Larkyns came to mind. That other crime had also been relegated to Muybridge’s past, and the notoriety it gave Muybridge himself had been used, arguably, for profit.
“I only wish,” Muybridge said sombrely, “that I had not agreed to request your services, Mr. Holmes. It has been a torment, knowing that you have been on my heels, rightly seeking the truth. I wonder… now that you have acquired it, might we part ways without recrimination, and as friends?”
Holmes rose from his seat to loom above our client, and an image flashed into my mind of Holmes as presiding court judge, and Muybridge as the accused awaiting a sentence.
“I accepted your case in good faith,” he said sternly, “and now I am bound to see it through.”
“But I… I release you!” Muybridge protested. “There is no further obligation. I only ask that you do not advertise the, ah, confusion that has marred your investigation. I will pay you an additional amount as recognition of the lengths to which you have gone.”
“Those lengths have taken Watson and I further than you realise.”
Muybridge blinked as though stunned. “Are you threatening me, Mr. Holmes?”
Holmes gave a barking laugh. “Not in the least. I am inviting you to give your assistance to solve a true case of criminal wrongdoing.”
Muybridge turned to me with a questioning look. Though I understood what my friend was alluding to, I could not think how to begin to explain it to Muybridge.
It transpired that Holmes’s answer to that conundrum was to speak plainly.
“The newspapers reported that a man named Martin Chrisafis burned to death in the fire at the home of Elias Griffin,” he said. “I should remind you that the body was discovered within a few feet of a hanging print of your own photograph of Mirror Lake in the Yosemite Valley, upon which was a forged version of your signature. I ask you to lend assistance to reveal the crime that has been perpetrated.”
Now Muybridge stood, too, and ran his hands through his hair. “The crime of the forgery of my signature?”
“Certainly not.”
Muybridge stared at him. “But you must believe that I know nothing of the rest of that business! The name of the man who died carries no meaning to me, other than having read it in the report of the fire. And I have already told you that I did not condone or know of the forgery of my name before that point, either, though it was certainly made by…” He stared at Holmes for several seconds. “Do you suggest that Israel Fay had some part to play in that awful accident?”
“I am suggesting that it was no accident at all,” Holmes replied.
For a time, Muybridge appeared to have lost the power of speech. Finally, he managed to say, “He is no murderer, Mr. Holmes!” Then Muybridge clapped a hand over his mouth and swung wildly to look around the room. One of the elderly scholars had left before we had discussed anything of importance, and the other had now slumped fully over his books. In a much lower tone, Muybridge insisted, “I will say it again: Israel Fay is not a murderer.”
“No man begins life as a murderer,” Holmes noted calmly. “It is only after the crime has been committed that he becomes one.”
Muybridge shook his head, but conviction seemed to be abandoning him rapidly. As if speaking to himself, he said, “His actions have been extreme, I grant you. And each of those horses really did almost strike me down…” Looking up again, he asked, “Might it have been the case that I have underestimated my old friend? That I have been sending him accusing telegrams, when all along my own life has truly been in the balance?”
“These are some of the questions I hope that, together, we will answer,” Holmes replied.
A sharp tug of his beard seemed to indicate that Muybridge had come to a decision. “Then I will help you. But by what means?”
“By luring the extortioner out of his house.”
Muybridge gaped at my friend. “You have just told me, or at least intimated, that I am personally at risk.”
Holmes made a gesture to me, and I rose to stand above Muybridge.
“We are not armchair detectives,” Holmes said, “and frequently we are required to put ourselves in danger in pursuit of our goals. You have agreed, now that you can hardly be considered our client in the ordinary way, that you will assist us. Naturally, that assistance harbours some small risk. However, all that you are required to do is the very thing you have done regularly these last years. You will give another lecture.”
“I refuse!” Muybridge said instantly. “You have no interest in a lecture, only in allowing me to offer myself as bait!”
Holmes tapped his lips twice with a long index finger. “Yes. I suppose that is a fair summary of the situation.”
“But—” Again, Muybridge appealed to me. “This is monstrous! You have told me that Fay is a desperate man, capable of killing in cold blood. The very idea of bringing him out of his den to threaten me openly is—”
“Surely, though,” I said thoughtfully, “he can present no true threat to your life, until the deadline of Sunday that he has given.”
Muybridge froze. I imagined that I could chart the thoughts passing through his mind: first relief that what I said afforded him effective invulnerability, then the recollection that he was as yet liable to pay one hundred pounds to the extortioner within two days, and then the awful understanding that he would, after all, be compelled to act as ‘bait’.
“Where?” he said in barely more than a whisper.
“Here, at Kingston library,” Holmes replied immediately.
Muybridge looked around the room blankly. “Why?”
“A lecture anywhere else, arranged at short notice – it will be tomorrow evening – would not be plausible,” Holmes said. “Here, the circumstances are entirely understandable. You will let it be known that you had not intended to give a lecture, but that the staff here requested it with such humility, and that it seemed only fitting to agree, coinciding as it does with your gift of your papers to the library—”
“What?” Muybridge exclaimed, slamming his palms upon the table and then rising to his feet. “Why the devil would I do that?”
Holmes seemed entirely unperturbed by the explosion of anger. “To ensure your posterity, I suppose. And because you have already promised to do so.”
“I tell you I’ve done no such thing.”
Holmes raised an eyebrow. “The library received a letter only yesterday afternoon, in which your offer was made abundantly clear.”
Once again, Muybridge’s body seemed to deflate. “So that explains my warm welcome here,” he said distantly. Then his expression hardened. “Then you, too, have stolen my identity. Just like Fay, you have forged my signature.”
Holmes pursed his lips, affecting concern. “I was under the impression that I was simply enacting your wishes. Was I wrong to do so?”
For a time, Muybridge continued staring at my friend as he considered his options. Presently, his shoulders slumped and he said in a dejected tone, “No. Those are my wishes. I look forward to my papers being held here for all to see, despite their very personal nature, and I look forward to this blasted lecture I’m to give.”
He sat down heavily. “Might I be allowed to get on with my work now? Though I suspect my mind will be rather distracted after all of these revelations.”
