The Defaced Men, page 19
Then he rose, gazed around as if seeing the study anew and, abruptly, strode out of the room. His voice came from the landing: “Wait where you are.”
I did as instructed, listening to his footsteps upon the stairs, and a minute later Holmes returned carrying two objects: a large, rather ragged cloth and a candle.
He handed the cloth to me and said, “Be a good fellow and wrap up that slide, would you?”
I stared at him. “For what reason? I had assumed that we had broken into this house to further our investigation rather than perform a burglary. If nothing else, I had supposed that it was of primary importance that we leave no trace of our presence here.”
“It is a gamble, I admit,” Holmes replied, “but certainly a calculated one. Now, will you do as I ask, or shall I do it myself?”
I began wrapping the large slide, reassuring myself that at least the ragged cloth, which I imagined might once have been used to polish silverware, would not be missed.
When I had finished, I watched my friend perform an even less explicable series of actions. He lit the candle with a match, then waited patiently for the wick to be exposed, blowing upon the flame occasionally to feed it oxygen. Then he bent to the level of the surface of the desk and tipped the candle to allow wax to drip freely from it and onto the wood.
“Ought I to understand any aspect of what you are doing?” I asked weakly.
“I am breaking a stalemate,” Holmes said. “It is a more intrusive approach than I would like in usual circumstances, but now that I am in possession of all of the facts of the matter, and now that I have made an additional discovery that will afford us the upper hand over our opponent, I am eager to hasten this case to its end.”
“And you are convinced that wax upon a table, and the theft of a personal keepsake, will achieve that?”
Holmes stood up and surveyed his work. He had created a large heap of wax on the desk where the glass plate had once lain, and around it a series of smaller lumps.
“Yes, I am convinced,” he said.
“And yet you intend to say no more about the matter by way of explanation?”
Holmes only smiled.
“At times, Holmes,” I said, “your behaviour seems motivated primarily to infuriate me.”
My friend’s smile did not waver, and seeing that no further answers would be forthcoming, I sighed and said with affected good humour, “Well, if nothing else, we appear to have confirmation of one earlier deduction: the fact that Israel Fay is our extortioner.” I paused, then added, “Though I own that it now seems the lesser of our mysteries.”
“Which do you consider the most considerable, then?” Holmes asked.
I glanced at the new pattern of paraffin wax on the desk, but decided not to pursue that frustrating line of questioning. “Given our circumstances, surely the primary puzzle relates to the whereabouts of Israel Fay.” Then, before Holmes could respond, I added, “Or rather, I know that you will say that he is currently making his way to Kingston upon Thames, but the mystery concerns his vanishing act from this very building.”
Holmes nodded vaguely, as though he had long since dispensed with this line of thought. “Yes, I suppose I ought to explain it,” he said – but rather than return to the doorway, he approached the mantelpiece of the fireplace situated on the curved outer wall of the room. His long fingers traced its length, passing over the ornaments arranged upon it: a ceramic vase containing dried flowers, two brass busts of stern-looking men who might as well have been twins, a carriage clock and – the only incongruous items – a series of cylinders which, after momentary confusion, I recognised as large lenses taken from cameras. Holmes lifted each of these ornaments in turn, turned it over in his hands, then replaced it carefully in the precise location from which it had been taken.
Shortly, he turned and clapped his hands together. “Shall we go, then?” he said, for all the world if he had been waiting for me rather than the other way around.
He led me out of the room and down the staircase once again; I trod carefully to ensure the safety of the wrapped package I carried. As we descended, it occurred to me to say, “You went into the bedrooms earlier. Did you determine that there is truly only one occupant of the house?”
“Yes,” Holmes replied simply.
At the foot of the stairs Holmes disappeared into the blackness, but then gaslight bloomed and I was forced to shield my eyes. Now I saw that the surfaces of the cabinets, the cameras and other photographic equipment arranged on high shelves close to the ceiling, and even the wooden panelling of the corridor walls were all coated in a thin layer of dust, and motes floated in the air before my eyes.
Holmes darted into one room and then another, and returned to me within less than a minute.
“It is as I suspected,” he said with satisfaction. “There is no dark-room anywhere in the house.”
I nodded, without understanding the importance of the pronouncement. “I thought you were going to demonstrate how Fay eluded us.”
“Yes, yes,” he replied testily. He spun on his heel, then paced along the flagstones that ran alongside the central staircase. I followed to see that the passage ended bluntly at a wall of white-painted panelling. Rather than abandon his search, Holmes pressed himself against first one panel and then another, his head cocked to one side as though he were listening to the very wood itself. Presently, accompanied by a triumphant clucking of his tongue, he stepped back as the rightmost panel depressed noticeably, then slid aside in its entirety, to be tucked away beneath the staircase.
To my surprise, what was revealed was an ordinary door. A heavy-looking padlock hung from the latch that had been added beneath its handle, but its shank was loose and the latch pulled back.
Holmes turned, then paced to the other end of the hallway. He bent to the window, which I calculated must be the one beside the portico at the front of the house, and pulled back the curtain very slightly. At first I assumed he would look out in the hope of catching sight of Israel Fay, but he seemed uninterested in the view. Instead, he took the matchbox from his pocket again, and lit a match but then immediately blew it out. Next he forced the end of the match between the window and its frame. Then, with utmost care, he released the corner of the curtain to rest upon the matchstick.
Without making any remark he strode back to the mysterious door under the stairs, pulled it open and gestured for me to join him as he peered inside. Stone steps led steeply downwards.
“I take it that this leads to more than simply a wine cellar,” I remarked.
“Let us find out together,” Holmes replied cheerfully.
Again, I insisted that he go first, though as I descended after him I felt that my rear seemed intolerably exposed, and I regretted that my secondary position meant that I had to rely upon Holmes’s wielding of the pocket-lantern. The light was too meagre to be of much use to me, and I stumbled frequently, unable to put out my hands due to carrying the wrapped glass slide. I exhaled with relief when we reached horizontal ground once more.
We were in a rough passageway with a roof so low that I felt obliged to duck my head, even though the clearance was enough that I saw that I would not strike it. With a look of mild admonishment, Holmes took from me the fragile wrapped package. Undaunted by the lack of light to be seen anywhere ahead of us, Holmes took my arm and we walked together, pausing only when I tripped on a protruding stone or had any other cause to grumble.
After we had walked for what seemed an eternity, we reached an iron door. Without hesitation, Holmes pushed it open and passed through it. I hit my head on the beam, then tripped on the mossy steps that rose up immediately, and emerged cursing.
“Where in blazes are we?” I asked, turning in a slow circle. Dusk had fallen, and from the little that the pocket-lantern illuminated I could see that we were once again surrounded by trees, and furthermore that the forest was denser than the undergrowth directly around Snakeley Manse. When I turned to look at the door through which we had come, the combination of its low position, the mottled rust on its surface and the overhanging roots of the trees above made it all-but invisible.
Holmes craned his neck to see the stars. “I can only determine that we are north-east of our starting position, and I would estimate we have travelled a quarter-mile underground.”
I peered into the dark woodland. “So Fay escaped this way. That is all very well, but where did he go after that point? I see nowhere that a cab, or even a horse, might wait.”
Holmes made a tentative foray into the depths of the trees, then returned shortly. “You’re quite right. It may be that some vehicle was waiting at one of the other exits.”
“What other exits?”
Holmes subjected me to a haughty stare. “I know that it was hardly bright in that passageway, but sometimes, Watson, I fear that you go about your day with your eyes firmly closed. We passed numerous junctions on our journey to reach this point.”
I frowned as I cast my mind back. In truth, I had noticed patches of darkness that seemed more profound than others, but as I had been content to allow Holmes to lead the way I had applied all of my faculties to surviving the expedition with my head and limbs uninjured.
“How many alternative points of egress do you suppose there may be?” I asked.
“I suppose nothing,” Holmes replied in an affronted tone. “What do you imagine I have spent my time doing, while I have been examining maps of this area? By my reckoning, there are seven possible exits from the underground network. Few of them are marked on any map, but there are means of determining their locations. By way of example, the ‘fogous’, or ‘fuggy-holes’, of Cornwall, which supposedly stored valuables, or refugees from attacks, or were important to some Iron Age ritual, are visible from above as slight embankments due to the peculiarities of their construction.”
I blinked in surprise. “Are you suggesting that these tunnels are thousands of years old?”
Holmes went to the metal door and struck it with his fist. “That period may be dubbed the Iron Age, and this door may well be iron, but I do not imagine that you are suggesting that people of the time were capable of forging such a thing.”
I felt my cheeks flush. “No, of course not.”
“These passages are precisely as old as the building itself, and the reason for their existence was similarly personal to the man who commissioned its construction. Some time ago you remarked that ‘Snakeley Manse’ is an unusual name, and the reason that it so poorly reflects the appearance of the house is that both its design and its name are fanciful confections. It was built only a little over sixty years ago, the folly of a rich man whose name was not even Snakeley but Fay – an American whose understanding of Scotch Christian traditions was evidently lacking, given his naming of the house as ‘Manse’. Its dilapidated state is a consequence of Fay having owned several other, far more favoured, buildings. It seems that the fancy that gripped him when he created the specifications of Snakeley Manse left him equally quickly. Over the years, however, the other buildings were sold as the family’s fortune dwindled, and Snakeley is all that is left – and yet it is now treated no less shabbily than when it was merely one jewel among many. Still, we need not concern ourselves with the Fay family’s outlook on life. What is crucial is that these tunnels exist, and that they provide multiple ways of leaving Snakeley Manse.”
“And I suppose now we will investigate the other six exits, in the hope of determining which one Fay has used?” I asked, unable to fully disguise my misery.
“Would you like to do so?”
“I confess that I would rather sprint all the way to Kingston to apprehend him there, even if it were to take me all night.”
Holmes clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Then I will not subject you to either of those tortures. Given Lestrade’s insistence that police support will not be forthcoming, I have made no attempt to waylay our extortioner, and neither would it be fruitful to attempt to guard the passages upon his return. We will return the way we came, and lock up the house like respectful burglars.”
“Then—” I began, hope rising within me.
“Then we may return to London.”
“To Kingston upon Thames?”
“No, Watson. To Baker Street, to home, to a good dinner and then to bed.”
During our career together, the occasions upon which I have entertained the impulse to embrace my friend have been few, but this was certainly one of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Holmes hurried into his room the very moment we arrived at Baker Street, and before he shut the door I saw him yank the curtains of the windows closed. Though I was somewhat gratified to know that our adventure of that evening had tired my friend as much as I, when Mrs. Hudson brought to our rooms an improvised supper of cold boiled ham, fried eggs and thick slices of bread, I felt obliged to inform Holmes, for fear that he had actually fallen asleep.
The moment my hand rested on the door handle of his room, Holmes bellowed from within, “Do not enter!”
I froze. “I only wanted to tell you that food is on the table. Are you not asleep, then?”
The only response was an indecipherable muttering sound. I pressed my ear to the door, and was surprised to make out sounds that were entirely unexpected: the faint sloshing of water. Could it be that Holmes had installed a bathtub within his room? Absurd though the idea may have been, I found that it took no great stretch of the imagination to picture Holmes lecturing me about the virtues of rolling directly from bed into a cold bath of water, first thing every morning.
“What on earth are you doing in there, Holmes?” I called out.
“I am nearly finished,” came the hasty reply. “I will show you the results presently. Do not open the door!”
I retreated to the table, and managed some small amount of ham and a mouthful of bread, though my eyes remained fixed on Holmes’s door all the while.
Fifteen minutes later, it opened and Holmes emerged in his shirt sleeves, blinking in the lamplight. The room behind him at first appeared entirely dark, but then I saw that a gauze-covered bulb provided meagre illumination.
I rose and went to the doorway. Inside, I saw that Holmes’s make-up table and the cupboards upon which he normally kept his boxing gloves were both littered with beakers and trays that appeared to contain liquid – these must have been the source of the sounds I had heard. Above these surfaces was strung a cord rather like a washing line, and this fanciful image was heightened by the fact that a number of items hung from the line, fixed with pegs. However, rather than clothes, the items were sheets of paper.
I moved into the room, squinting in an attempt to make out what was on the papers.
“You can bring one of them out here if you wish.” Holmes’s voice came from behind me. “Take the left most, which appears the most successful. The images are all identical, and it is only the quality of their development that differs. I had supposed that if I were in possession of all of the necessary chemicals, I would make short work of producing acceptable prints. I now see that there is some amount of skill to the endeavour.”
I smiled despite myself, and told myself not to turn around to face Holmes, who would certainly react badly if he saw my satisfaction at proof of his fallibility. It was unusual for Holmes not to excel at an activity on his first attempt, and in the past I had found myself exasperated and not a little envious of his preternatural abilities. With exaggerated care, I took down the left most print and brought it to the light, and said in a deliberately placating tone, “Well, at least you managed it in the—”
I stopped speaking as I passed into the light and looked down at the picture I held. Its outer part was dark, and I at once recognised the circular frame of the window in the centre of Snakeley Manse. However, everything within that frame was a jumble of shapes and shades of grey.
Still staring, I murmured, “I’m sorry to tell you, Holmes, that something has gone terribly wrong. Perhaps you could not see the image well enough even after it was developed in the chemical bath. I’m afraid it is a nonsense.”
Holmes took the paper from me and held it to the light. He inhaled thoughtfully.
“Perhaps I might assist you, if you make another attempt?” I said. “Or perhaps we could approach somebody more knowledgeable about such matters.”
“There is no need. It is near perfect,” Holmes replied.
I let out an involuntary bark of laughter, undermining my pledge to be kind. “How can you say so, Holmes? It’s entirely indecipherable.”
“Look again.” Holmes took the print to the table, then piled the dishes together (to my great annoyance; Holmes might not have been hungry, but I had not yet had my fill of supper) to clear enough room to spread it out.
Grudgingly, I did as I had been instructed, positioning myself directly above the image with my hands resting on either side.
Somebody with a weaker constitution might have described the contents of the circular frame as nightmarish. Now that I looked more carefully I saw numerous heads bobbing at the upper parts, yet they were all overlapping as though they belonged to spirits capable of passing through one another. Similarly, the lower part of the image was a tangle of ghostly limbs.
“I see what has happened,” I said confidently. “Holmes, you told me that the Frenchman’s gun was capable of taking a dozen pictures in a short space of time. Inadvertently, you have reproduced all of them in a single picture!”
Holmes smiled. “That is precisely as it should be. Marey’s device produces a single image, within which are superimposed all of the individual frames of a sequence. A modern moving-picture camera may be capable of the same feat translated onto a celluloid strip, but its accuracy – in terms of sighting through the lens as well as the film stock one would be compelled to use – is far lesser. What I require is to see the fine increments in the movements of the occupant of Snakeley Manse, and that is exactly what I have produced.”
I looked in wonder at the picture once again. “Then you can make sense of this unsightly thing?”
