The Defaced Men, page 18
Holmes began to gather documents from the table and place them into Muybridge’s case. “I think you would be more comfortable working in your own study. We will accompany you back to your house. Besides, I have another favour to ask of you, which will require the generous loan of some items from your paraphernalia.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Despite my repeated requests, Holmes preferred to keep his immediate plans to himself, though he insisted I make the next two days free of all other engagements. For the greater part of the following morning, he spent his time consulting maps, some of which appeared ancient and were ragged at the edges and at their folds. In the late morning he announced that we would leave by train at four, but then waved away further questions and rushed back to his desk. By midday he relented and revealed that our destination was to be Loudwater once again. By one he finally responded to my query about the nature of our activities, but would only agree that I ought to dress in warm clothes. At two o’clock we climbed into the waiting cab and Holmes sat silently, holding bestride his knees the plain black, bulky travelling case with which he had been presented at Muybridge’s home, the contents of which I had not been shown. At three o’clock we boarded the train, an act that I found most awkward due to the bulkiness of my dual layers of clothes beneath my overcoat, and by half past four we arrived at Loudwater, and walked past the Dolphin and then through the gates of Snakeley Manse, and I finally settled myself in the undergrowth of its driveway in preparation for a long wait.
For several minutes, Holmes observed the house in silence. As on our previous visit, all of the windows were curtained, and there were hints of illumination only in Fay’s study, and at the circular window of the landing.
I watched with interest as my friend placed the carrying case onto the ground, and then withdrew from it a variety of objects. The two identical ones I found bewildering: each was a black drum around six inches in diameter, and upon one side numerals were written in tiny script around the perimeter. The third item was more immediately recognisable, and the sight of it made me gasp in astonishment.
“Good lord, a rifle!” I exclaimed.
Such it was, evidently: there could be no mistaking the large wooden stock and the oval-shaped grip within which housed the trigger. The only oddity was that its barrel was wider and at the same time more snub than any hunting rifle I had seen, so that the overall dimensions were more akin to those of a shotgun with the barrel sawn away.
“Holmes, what on earth has possessed you?” I hissed, as Holmes set to examining the contraption. “I see no call to have brought a weapon, and even if we had cause, my revolver would surely have sufficed!”
Holmes peered down the length of the barrel, pointing it uncomfortably close to where I was standing. I edged away instinctively. Ignoring my distress, he set to work attaching one of the drums to the top of the device. Then he cast about around him, alighting upon a number of stones which he then fashioned into a rudimentary rest, upon which he placed the barrel. Finally, he lowered himself to the ground to lie behind the weapon, closed one eye and adjusted the angle until it was directed at the circular window in the centre of the house.
“Are you stark mad, Holmes?” I demanded. “Can you truly be the same man I have known all these years? I tell you, I have never known you to be so cowardly as to fire upon a man without warning, and from a position hidden in the bushes, no less! This is the behaviour of the very types of people that you and I seek to bring to justice. Put the thing away, man, I beg you!”
Holmes turned his head only a very little, still keeping the house in view. “Might you lower the volume of your voice a touch, Watson? And do be a good fellow and avoid jostling my arm. There’s a distinct possibility that you’ll upset the image.”
The meaning of his words took some time to sink in. I backed away on my haunches.
“Then this is not a true rifle, but a… camera?” I asked in amazement.
“Of course,” Holmes replied, his voice now slightly muffled, as he had turned to look along the barrel again. “It is an invention of the Frenchman Étienne-Jules Marey, and it is dubbed the ‘chronophotographic gun’. In this new era of variety-hall moving pictures, one may characterise this device as old-fashioned, but it suits my purposes to-night most admirably. It is lucky for us that Muybridge was presented with one of his own, in recognition of the inspiration that his own work on motion studies has provided to Marey. I have told you before, the two are firm friends.”
I shuffled over to the case and lifted from it the remaining cylinder. “Then within this drum are photographic plates?”
“A dozen of them. Muybridge was kind enough to load both drums for our use, but I suspect that there will be opportunity to deploy only one of them. That is, if the chance is missed, there will not be another to be had to-night.”
I turned to look at the house. “A chance to… photograph Israel Fay? But why?”
Holmes only made a muted grunting sound in response to my question. As quietly and unobtrusively as possible, I lowered myself to lie beside him, still staring in the direction of the circular window.
“Muybridge’s lecture will commence in a little over three hours,” I said. “I assume that you expect Fay to be present in Kingston, even if it is in secrecy, and that he will tamper with another of Muybridge’s glass slides?”
“My hope is that the means to provide additional motivation to pay the ransom on Sunday will prove too great a temptation to ignore.”
“So then you hope to catch a glimpse of him as he emerges from the house.” My gaze travelled around the wide, open area before the building. “I suppose a cab will call for him in due course. Do you expect it to park before the doorway, blocking our line of sight? Otherwise, why are you targeting that round window rather than the front door itself?”
Again, Holmes muttered something I could not make out. Chastened by his obvious concentration upon his task, I fell silent.
Minutes passed, then what seemed like hours, though when I checked my watch I saw that it was still not yet six o’clock.
I was about to make a pithy remark when a suggestion of movement within Fay’s study attracted my notice. I had seen nothing directly, but I supposed that somebody had passed before one of the lamps within the room, momentarily changing the quality of light that was visible at the edges of the curtains.
“There—” I said, but stopped as it became clear that Holmes was fully aware of what I had seen. His face was pressed tight to the drum atop the rifle, and one eye was squeezed tight shut, the other squinting so narrowly that one might have taken him to be asleep. Then, a fraction of a second before I registered another movement, this time within the circular frame of the central window of the house, Holmes had depressed the trigger, and a brief fizzing sound came from the cylindrical drum. I saw for a moment the silhouette of Israel Fay pass by the circular window, but he was gone again before I could take stock of it.
One or two hushed seconds passed, and then Holmes rose from his prone position and began disassembling the mysterious rifle.
“I believe that ought to have done it,” he said, with no small amount of triumph.
“Capital!” I said. Then I added, “But what is it that you have done?”
“I have captured our quarry, though admittedly not in the usual sense.”
“Very good,” I said laconically, “although I think I am owed a little more than puns. I still don’t see why you mightn’t have waited. Fay is surely on his way downstairs, and will appear at the door, perhaps as soon as the cab arrives.”
Even so, I could not help but notice that my friend paid no further attention to Snakeley Manse. When he had put away Marey’s gun, he stretched out full length amid the undergrowth, hands behind his head and facing directly upwards with his eyes closed, as though he were sunbathing on a bright summer’s day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I was far from reassured by my friend’s distracting nonchalance, so I continued watching the front door of the house – but it remained firmly shut. After a long while I checked my watch to see that it was twenty minutes to seven, and remarked, “If Fay is to reach Kingston library in time for the lecture – or indeed, with time to spare to allow him to deface another glass slide – he will certainly have to hurry. I am not sure that he can make it there in time, given that his transport has not yet arrived. Perhaps the lure was not as great as you supposed.”
Holmes responded by easing himself to a sitting position. He, too, checked his watch, and then said, “You are right, Watson.”
“I am?”
“By any means of travel, one would have to have set off from here by now in order to reach the library before half past eight.”
“Then he had no intention of going, after all.”
“On the contrary, Watson.” Holmes stood and brushed the leaves from his suit. “The only conclusion must be that our extortioner has already left.”
I stared at him. “But nobody has left the house. Even if Fay had exited through a door at the rear, he would have to walk the length of the driveway, walking directly past our position. There is no other means of travel. Are you suggesting that he swung through the trees like an ape, perhaps from a first-floor window?”
Holmes paused and regarded me levelly. “That is an elegant solution, though I understand that your suggestion is made in jest. But no, Watson, we are not pursuing an ape. Stand up, now. It is time for us to break into Snakeley Manse.”
I struggled to my feet, intent only on better seeing my friend’s expression to determine whether he, too, was joking. However, Holmes’s eyes glimmered with fervour.
“Holmes… we cannot break into this house,” I said in a halting voice.
“Oh? There is no longer any need for caution, and I think that the locks of the rear door will not cause undue trouble. I have brought my tools.” With a flourish, Holmes produced a leather-wrapped package from his jacket pocket.
“That is not what I meant. We cannot in good conscience allow ourselves to do such a thing – and even if we were minded to do so, I still maintain that Israel Fay is within his home at this very moment. The lights of his study are still lit, and evidently he has not left, no matter what you had hoped would be the case.”
Unperturbed, Holmes set off directly across the open space before the house, making no attempt to move quietly on the loose stones. I winced, waiting for a twitch of the curtains, but thankfully none came. I hurried in Holmes’s wake, raising each of my feet high and treading carefully.
Holmes had already laid his leather bundle on the stone shelf that comprised part of the rear porch, and beside it I saw a tin box which must have been the means of Fay making payments and exchanges with his delivery boys, which we had been told about by the landlord of the Dolphin and Fay’s former housekeeper.
I watched Holmes at work for only brief periods, as I was continually distracted by the impulse to check the front of the house, and indeed all around me, for fear that Fay might approach from any angle. My friend worked with unwavering concentration, often gripping between his pursed lips whichever pick he was not currently using. Not for the first time, it occurred to me to wonder whether Holmes might have been even more profitably deployed in a life of crime rather than this most antithetical career he had chosen for himself. I was hardly surprised when, less than five minutes after he had begun, Holmes stood back with an air of quiet triumph to allow the door to swing open.
He looked at me expectantly, then gestured to the open doorway.
“I am not going first,” I hissed.
Holmes shrugged his shoulders, then produced from the carrying case a pocket-lantern, which he lit with a match. He secured the case in the lee of the porch wall, then walked into the house as easily as if it were his own. I half expected him to call out Fay’s name, and perhaps ask him to bring drinks to the drawing-room for his guests. For my part, I entered the building with an inexorable sense of being watched.
We passed through a dark kitchen, then made our way along a passageway with an uneven floor that seemed designed to wrongfoot and therefore keep one in a wary, panicked state. Evidently, Holmes shared none of these qualms: he strolled to the main staircase and bounded up the steps two at a time.
I found little solace in the thought that, if Fay truly was still in the building, Holmes would be waylaid by him first. My legs were heavy as I ascended the stairs, passing shelves laden with bulky cameras that appeared to be considered decorative objects. Upon the landing at the head of the staircase I stopped before the circular window, staring at it blankly and fighting the odd sensation that I was in a dream, and that it had been I, and not Israel Fay, whom Holmes had photographed from the bushes outside.
I started as a figure appeared from the gloom to my left – but it was only Holmes emerging from the direction of the unlit bedrooms. He crossed the landing and made for the door of the study, from the edges of which lamplight still leaked.
“Careful, Holmes!” I whispered, but my fear made my voice so quiet that I felt sure my friend had not heard me. And what good would it have done, anyway? Holmes was intent on acting in the most foolhardy manner imaginable.
He opened the door and immediately cried out, “Halloa!”
At first I was convinced that he had encountered Israel Fay, despite his assurances. But no – his remark was simply an exclamation of delight. I made my way to the doorway, then squinted due to the light from two lamps within the study, one beside a trio of armchairs and the other in the centre of the room, standing beside and above a pair of mahogany desks which had been pushed together to form a single large surface.
The items that had evoked Holmes’s excitement lay upon the twin desks. I counted a dozen circular glass plates, identical in size to those that Eadweard Muybridge had shown us at Baker Street and then used during his Liverpool lecture. As I moved closer I saw that their subjects were primarily human, mostly naked forms, and the leaner male bodies, with knotted muscles and white hair, may well have been Muybridge himself. None of the slides appeared to have been damaged, but I reminded myself that if Fay had indeed vandalised any slide in such a way, it would now be upon his person, en route for Kingston library. Alongside the glass slides were books and printed pamphlets, some of which I recognised as Muybridge’s published works, whereas others appeared to be private journals. It was only now that I recalled the more reputable of Fay’s occupations of recent months: not the writing of his own memoirs as his former housekeeper had attested, but rather the preparation of Muybridge’s biography.
I pointed at the few glass slides that did not feature images of Muybridge. “Unless we suppose that the threats against Muybridge might take the form of defaced animal pictures or people other than Muybridge himself, perhaps the presence of these slides indicates a conflict in Fay’s attitude. That is, he really has been studying Muybridge’s life and work, even at the same moment he has been making these threats.”
Holmes nodded. “Or it indicates sentimentality.”
“Because these were shared triumphs, these sequences of pictures?”
“I suppose one might suggest so. But rather I was referring to this slide.” Carefully, Holmes raised one of the large discs to the light, and we looked at it from either side so that, from my perspective, Holmes’s own face was eerily superimposed upon the miniature images.
In this sequence, a figure, who I presumed was a younger Eadweard Muybridge, was clothed in a light suit and walked directly towards the camera – that is, he appeared to move closer towards me in each image.
“Why do you speak of sentimentality in relation to it?” I asked.
“Because this is not Muybridge in these pictures. It is Israel Fay.”
Startled, I looked closer. Now I saw that it was true that it was not the same man as in the other sequences. I had been used to seeing a Muybridge a decade more youthful than he was now, but I realised that this man was younger still. However, his face did not have the innocence of youth. His blonde beard was neatly trimmed, his hairline was high, and his nose was off-centre, perhaps indicating an old sports injury or a violent episode in his life.
“I confess I am surprised that Fay ever acted as model for Muybridge’s studies,” I said. “Though we must remind ourselves that their relationship was close for many years.”
Holmes hummed absently. He brought the glass plate to his face and peered at it for a long while. Then he put it on the surface of the desk again, and used his thumbnail to scrape at a point near to its centre. I saw something come away.
“What is that?” I asked.
Holmes held up his thumb. “There are traces of paraffin wax.”
“You seem surprised, Holmes, but surely it can be easily explained. Candle wax has simply been transferred to the disc during projection.”
“Certainly not,” Holmes retorted.
Rather hurt, I said, “It is only a suggestion.”
“And it is one based on nonsense. Firstly, I see no zoopraxiscope here, which indicates that the slides have been studied but not projected. Secondly, the lantern used in the device is a variation of the Drummond light, operating by limelight rather than candlelight, which would provide too little illumination to produce the required effect. Thirdly—”
“I rather think a third refutation is hardly required,” I said wearily.
Holmes ignored me. “Thirdly, during projection the lantern is kept well apart from the housing of the slides. Even if a candle were used as a rudimentary light source, it would require great contortions to have it come into contact with any of the slides.”
I bowed my head. “Very good. You have certainly put me in my place, Holmes. I hope you are well satisfied.”
However, Holmes appeared satisfied to no degree. He continued staring at the slide, moving around the desk to view it from different angles, and then he once again bent close to examine the wax, which I now saw formed a conspicuous crater-like shape near to the centre of the disc.
