Sherlock Holmes (14 page)

The journalist ventured to make a second attempt, but Lord Knaresfield waved him off.

“Mr Holmes obviously does not want his picture taken. We must respect his wishes.”

“Thank you, your lordship,” said Holmes. “I am not wholly averse to publicity but neither am I wholly comfortable with it, certainly not to the extent that you are. I have a high enough profile as it is without my face appearing in the papers.”

“We see it regularly in
The Strand
.”

“That is different. Mr Paget’s illustrations convey the idea of me rather than an accurate likeness. It is an acceptable compromise. I would prefer that the criminal fraternity not know exactly what I look like, if it can be avoided.”

“A lesser man might regard that as a poor excuse.” Lord Knaresfield’s habitual joviality hardened just a little, his voice gathering a rime of frost. “He might presume that you simply did not wish to be seen with him.”

“If I am to be honest, I should not like it to appear as though I was to some extent condoning the Thinking Engine and your zeal for it, and the two of us together shaking hands with the device prominent in the background would do just that.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“When the Engine has been set up as a direct opponent to me? I think so, yes. I think, too, that for all your fine talk of technology and the latest advances, Lord Knaresfield, what drives you in this particular instance isn’t any of that. It isn’t even the increase in circulation of your newspapers, such as it is, that you are deriving from this story. Doubtless there is some curiosity about Quantock’s machine amongst your readership but not enough to warrant the time and effort you have been putting into promoting it. You do not live in Oxford, yet you have been here since last week, away from home and hearth, away from your business. I know this because you, too, are a guest at the Randolph – in its grandest suite – and your private landau has been parked on St Giles’ all this time. The golden ‘K’ monogram on the doors is a nice touch, by the way. Not ostentatious at all. No, something else is impelling you to stay and supervise press coverage of the Thinking Engine, some other motive.”

“And what might that be?” Knaresfield said, an eyebrow arched.

“At present I am unsure,” replied Holmes. “But I intend to find out.”

With that, he spun on his heel and re-joined Tomlinson and myself. Lord Knaresfield fixed him with a hard stare, which Holmes studiously ignored until at last the press baron uttered a loud, affronted harrumph and paced across the room to Professor Quantock’s side.

“All done?” he demanded.

“N-not quite,” replied Quantock, still pecking at the typewriter keys. “Nearly.”

“Well, get a move on, man. Time’s wasting.”

“Don’t badger me. I’m con-concentrating. One can’t r-rush the inputting procedure.”

“You didn’t make a friend there, did you, Mr Holmes?” said Tomlinson.

“I didn’t intend to. I resent Knaresfield using me as a puppet in his sideshow. I am under no illusion that Slater came over to the Randolph of his own accord. He was sent to fetch me. This event is being carefully stage-managed, even more so than the last one.”

“All for the greater glory of Lord Knaresfield?” I said.

“That and something else besides. The man has more than a financial stake in all of this. At the risk of sounding paranoid, I get the impression I am being singled out in some as yet indefinable way. Targeted, even.”

“You mean he has a grudge against you? What for? What have you done to him?”

“I cannot for the life of me say. We have hitherto never met. It is something I shall have to look into. In the meantime, it would seem that Professor Quantock is ready. He has finished typing, and the Thinking Engine has started to grind its gears and gnash its cogs in earnest.”

Shortly afterwards, tickertape was disgorged from the slot. Lord Knaresfield read out the message. Allowing for the fact that it originated from a machine, nothing on the tickertape came as any surprise to us. The Thinking Engine enumerated the facts of the case much as Holmes had, right down to the tell-tale Latin cipher revealing the identity of the sender of the three letters.

“The Engine states that Aubrey Bancroft was a dupe,” said Knaresfield. “Somebody egged him on. Somebody incited him to get his own back on Dr Merriweather and confected for him the wherewithal to do it. This same person then turned on Bancroft and tried to kill him, evidently in order to protect their own identity.”

“Does it say who?” Holmes asked.

“No. It does not. Why, Mr Holmes? Do
you
know?”

Holmes, with barely disguised chagrin, shook his head.

“Pity. That little nugget of information might have reaped you a pretty sum. As things stand, you and the Thinking Engine are again at level pegging. You have not demonstrated yourself its better yet, and at this rate, I don’t reckon as you will.”

The Thinking Engine let out a weird, hiccupping clatter that startled everyone in the room, not least Quantock, who leapt bolt upright in his seat with an elaborate flutter of the hands. Another few inches of tickertape scrolled out of the slot.

“What’s this, then? An afterthought?” Chuckling at his own witticism, Lord Knaresfield tore the strip of paper free. “Hmm. Just a couple of words. ‘Parson’s Pleasure’. By heck, anyone know what that’s supposed to mean? Sounds like a racehorse.” He turned to Quantock. “Is your machine functioning properly? What’s it up to, churning out a random phrase like that? Maybe it’s in need of an overhaul. Cogs slipping or whatnot.”

“W-well,” said the mathematician, “I can’t ex-explain why the Engine f-felt the need to attach an addendum to its analysis. That’s certainly u-unusual and unprecedented. But the words themselves are a n-name well known to all Oxonians, especially academics. Parson’s Pleasure. It’s a p-place. In the P-Parks.”

Holmes and I proceeded there forthwith, having obtained directions from Inspector Tomlinson. Tomlinson himself did not accompany us, on the grounds that he had spent enough of his weekend absent from home and Mrs Tomlinson would take it amiss if he stayed away a single hour longer. His wife understood that police work imposed heavy demands on his time and he must answer the call of duty even on a Saturday, but not for
all
of a Saturday.

“Sometimes I envy men like you,” he said to us, “unencumbered by marital obligations.” He corrected himself immediately. “Forgive me, doctor. I spoke out of turn. I forgot that you are lately a widower.”

“Think nothing of it. I understand what you are saying.”

“It’s simply that a man who can devote all his time to his vocation is a man who succeeds greatly in that vocation – such as yourself, Mr Holmes.”

“A man who can adequately discharge his professional responsibilities as well as keeping his spouse happy is no less successful,” said Holmes in return. It was a rare, magnanimous gesture coming from someone who eschewed marriage and found the fairer sex, by his own admission, inscrutable. I think he had developed a fondness for Tomlinson that was akin to his toleration of our regular Scotland Yard sparring partner, Inspector Lestrade. Both were, to him, wayward whelps that might through patient training develop into useful working dogs.

Parson’s Pleasure was situated in the University Parks, not far from a narrow island in the middle of the Cherwell nicknamed Mesopotamia. Reached by a gravel walk, it was a bathing area for men only and was frequented exclusively by dons who were in the habit of entering the water nude.

I did not anticipate that anybody would be indulging in that pastime today, given that it was early spring and the river was still freezing cold. However, there were half a dozen swimmers at the spot when we arrived. They splashed and sported in the weak afternoon sunlight, hurling themselves about with abandon, their pale bodies almost blue and their mouths giving vent to yelps that were equal parts delight and anguish. Nearby a weir gurgled, decanting the river from a higher level to a lower.

“Holmes, perhaps we should not be here.”

“Nonsense, old chap. Don’t be prudish. It is a perfectly harmless, healthful recreation. They are not ashamed, so why should we be? The naked human form is not
per se
offensive. Do you look at Michelangelo’s
David
and recoil in disgust?”

“No, but then none of these fellows, with the best will in the world, is on an aesthetic par with that sculpture. I would not put any of them at younger than fifty, and their physiques bespeak decades of fine dining and good wines.”

“If we cannot admire them as prime physical specimens, we can at least admire them for their courage in braving water whose temperature, as we know only too well, is capable of stopping the heart.”

I thought of Nahum Grainger and did indeed feel a little more generously disposed towards these bathers, and at the same time less assured of their sanity.

“Gentlemen, good day to you,” Holmes declared from a ramshackle wooden platform which protruded from the riverbank and served as a diving board. “I apologise for interrupting your recreation, but may I crave a moment or two of your time?”

The swimmers obligingly gathered below him, treading water. The murkiness of the river obscured their bodies from the chest down, somewhat to my relief. I am not a prude, as Holmes had asserted, nor am I squeamish about the human body – as a doctor, how could I be? – but I have never gone in for public nudity or this “naturism” business so beloved of continentals such as the Germans and the French, and have no truck with American writers like Whitman and Thoreau who have extolled the virtues of being outdoors unclothed in order to commune with the landscape. In the privacy of one’s home one may do as one wishes, but elsewhere civilised society demands decorum and dress.

I can only speculate what these Oxford dons, amongst the wisest heads in the country, derived from their mutually disrobed state. Perhaps, cloistered in every sense, burdened by tradition, ritual and fustian, they relished the opportunity to cast off their constraints and revel in a wild, primitive liberty. At Parson’s Pleasure, if only temporarily, they were emancipated from their lives of hidebound learnedness.

Holmes introduced himself to the men at his feet and enquired if they had seen or heard about anything untoward occurring at this location in recent days. Wet heads were shaken. Bare shoulders shrugged.

Then one of the swimmers piped up, “There was that theft, wasn’t there?”

Holmes’s ears pricked. “Pray tell.”

“We presume it must have been a prank,” said another of the swimmers. “Students. You know.”

“I’m not convinced we should be confiding in you,” said a third, addressing his colleagues as much as Holmes. “This is a place where privacy is valued and we prefer that word of anything that goes on here does not spread. It is an unspoken rule. Hence, we did not report the pilferage to anyone. We kept quiet about it then, and it is my view that we should keep quiet about it now. We are aware that you are a gentleman of repute, Mr Holmes, and you honour Oxford with your continued presence.”

“You are too kind, sir.”

“All the same, we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we did not adhere to the policy of discretion which enables us to behave in a free and uninhibited fashion here.”

“That is the consensus amongst you?” Holmes said.

All heads nodded.

“How regrettable. This theft you speak of has piqued my curiosity and I would like to know more. What can I do to persuade you of my sincerity and trustworthiness? How might I convince you to supply me with further details? Ah. I have it.”

So saying, Holmes doffed his overcoat and jacket and commenced unbuttoning his shirt.

Some of my readers, perhaps the majority, may find what Sherlock Holmes did next uncharacteristic of him, unbelievable, even shocking. I must say I had a hard time accepting it myself. In retrospect, however, I can see that it was the only logical way to ingratiate himself with the dons. To be accepted into their club, as it were, he had to fulfil the membership criterion.

I looked on agog, before averting my eyes, as my friend stripped off all his clothing until he had not a stitch on. He then retreated a few paces, took a running jump, and executed a graceful swan dive, plunging headlong into the frigid Cherwell.

He broke the surface spluttering and gasping. “Enlivening!” he exclaimed. “Quite bracing! I can see the attraction now. Sets the heart pumping, the blood racing. I haven’t felt this invigorated in some while.”

He breast-stroked over to join the assembled swimmers, who seemed pleased and a tad impressed. He had won their approval, and it wasn’t long before they and he were in a bobbing huddle together, talking in low tones, while I in the meantime kept a polite distance, feeling out of place, somewhat as though I had turned up for an informal garden party clad in white tie and tails.

When they were done conferring, Holmes bade the dons adieu and clambered out of the river. He was shivering hard as he dressed, and I distinctly heard his teeth chattering. Still, he was bullish. “You should have a go, Watson,” he said, plastering his hair down into some semblance of tonsorial order. “It isn’t so bad. The sensation of all-over numbness fades after, oh, four or five minutes.”

“And catch my death of pneumonia? No fear. You’ll need to get yourself dry and in the warm as soon as possible, Holmes.”

“All in good time. First, I need to check something.”

He hastened over to a row of rough-hewn changing cubicles which faced the river. He inspected one of them inside and out thoroughly until, satisfied, he indicated that we could leave.

As we headed at a brisk pace through the Parks, Holmes said, “Initially I expected this to be the proverbial wild goose chase. The Thinking Engine, I assumed, had blurted out the name of an Oxford location at random owing to some flaw in the mechanism. Now it seems that the damned thing is cleverer than I thought and the theft at Parson’s Pleasure does have some relevance to the Merriweather affair.”