Echoes of Sherlock Holmes Page 3

  Nevertheless, Mr. Headley was unable to assuage a growing sense of impending doom. He began to keep a very close eye on the Strand, and he paid particular attention to any and all rumors about Conan Doyle’s literary activities.

  The rumblings began in the autumn of 1903. Mr. Headley did his best to keep them from Holmes until, at last, the October edition of the Strand was delivered to the Caxton, and Mr. Headley’s worst fears were realized. There, handsomely illustrated by Paget, was “The Adventure of the Empty House,” marking the return of Sherlock Holmes, albeit initially disguised as an elderly book collector. Mr. Headley read the story in the back office of the Caxton, with the door locked and a desk pushed against it for added security, locked doors being no obstacle to any number of the library’s residents, Holmes among them. (Mr. Headley had endured a number of awkward conversations with the Artful Dodger, who the librarian was convinced was stealing his biscuits.)

  To be perfectly honest, the explanation of how Holmes had survived the incident at the Reichenbach Falls rather strained Mr. Headley’s credulity, involving, as it did, the martial art Baritsu and a gravitationally unlikely ability to topple from a cliff yet somehow land on a path, or perhaps not fall and just appear to land on a path, or appear to fall and—

  Never mind. Some business about Tibet, Lhasa, and Khartoum followed, and dressing up as a Norwegian, and it all made Mr. Headley’s head hurt, although he admitted to himself that this was due in part to the potential consequences of Sherlock Holmes’s return for the Caxton’s Holmes. He would have to be told, of course, unless he was already aware of it due to a sudden change in his memories, and a previously unsuspected ability to speak Norwegian.

  Mr. Headley felt that he had no choice but to visit the rooms of Holmes and Watson to find out the truth for himself. He moved the desk, unlocked the door, and headed into the library, stopping off in the dictionary section along the way. He found Watson napping on a couch, and Holmes doing something with phials and a Bunsen burner that Mr. Headley suspected might not be entirely unrelated to the production of narcotics.

  Mr. Headley took in the dozing figure of Watson. One additional unpleasant piece of information contained in “The Adventure of the Empty House” was that Watson’s wife, Mary, appeared to have died. This might have been more awkward had it not been for the fact that the Watson living in the Caxton had no memory of being married at all, perhaps because his wife hadn’t figured much in the stories, or not in any very consequential way, and therefore hadn’t made much of an impact on anyone involved. Still, Mr. Headley would have to mention Mary’s demise to him. It wasn’t the sort of thing one could brush under the carpet.

  For now, though, his main concern was Holmes.

  “Everything all right, Mr. Holmes?” asked Mr. Headley.

  “Is there any reason why it shouldn’t be?” Holmes replied.

  He didn’t even look up from his workbench. A sweet, slightly spicy scent hung in the room. It made Mr. Headley’s head swim.

  “No, no, none at all. Um, is that some kind of narcotic I smell?”

  “I’m experimenting,” said Holmes, quite tartly, and, thought Mr. Headley, not a little defensively.

  “Right, of course. Just, er, be careful, please.”

  There was a vent in the wall behind Holmes’s head. Mr. Headley wasn’t entirely certain where it led, exactly, but he still lived in fear of that mythical policeman sniffing the air and organizing a raid, once he’d recovered his senses.

  Mr. Headley cleared his throat and enunciated, as clearly as he could:

  “Goddag, hvor er du?”

  Holmes looked at him peculiarly.

  “What?”

  “Lenge siden sist,” said Mr. Headley.

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  Mr. Headley glanced at the small Norwegian phrase book in his hand.

  “Jo takk, bare bra. Og du?”

  “Are you speaking . . . Norwegian?”

  Watson woke.

  “What’s all this?” he asked.

  “Headley appears to have struck his head,” Holmes explained, “and is now under the impression that he’s Norwegian.”

  “Good Lord,” said Watson. “Tell him to sit down.”

  Mr. Headley closed his phrase book.

  “I haven’t hit my head, and I don’t need to sit down,” he said. “I was just wondering, Mr. Holmes, if by any chance you spoke Norwegian?”

  “I have never had any cause to learn the language,” said Holmes. “I did wrestle with Beowulf in my youth, though, and obviously there are certain similarities between Old English and Norwegian.”

  “Have you ever heard of a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson?” asked Mr. Headley.

  “I can’t say that I have,” said Holmes. He was now regarding Mr. Headley with a degree of suspicion. “Why do you ask?”

  Mr. Headley decided to sit down after all. He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad news that the Caxton’s Holmes had not begun producing new memories due to the return of his literary self. Whichever it was, he could not hide the existence of the new story from Holmes. Sooner or later, he was bound to find out.

  Mr. Headley reached beneath his jacket and removed the latest edition of the Strand.

  “I think you should read it,” he told Holmes.

  He then turned to Dr. Watson.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” said Mr. Headley, “but your wife has died.”

  Watson considered the news for a moment.

  “What wife?”

  The three men sat in Mr. Headley’s office, the copy of the Strand lying on the table before them. The occasion called for something stronger than coffee, so Mr. Headley had broken out his bottle of brandy and poured each of them a snifter.

  “If he’s me,” said Holmes, not for the first time, “and I’m him, then I should have his memories.”

  “Agreed,” said Mr. Headley.

  “But I don’t, so I can’t be this Holmes.”

  “No.”

  “Which means that there are now two Holmeses.”

  “It would appear so.”

  “So what happens when Conan Doyle eventually dies? Will this second Holmes also show up here?”

  “And the second Doctor Watson,” added Watson, who was still perturbed to have discovered that he was once married, an arrangement about which he struggled to dredge up any but the vaguest of memories after all this time, as though he had dreamed the whole affair. “I mean, we can’t have two of us—er, four of us—trotting about. It will just be disconcerting.”

  “And which of us would be the real Holmes and Watson?” added Holmes. “Obviously, we’re the originals, so it should be us, but it could be a messy business explaining that to the rival incumbents for the positions, so to speak. Worse, what if this new Holmes and Watson usurp us in the public imagination? Will we just cease to exist?”

  They all looked rightly shocked at this possibility. Mr. Headley was very fond of this Holmes and Watson. He didn’t want to see them gradually fade away, to be replaced at some future date by alternative versions of themselves. But he was also concerned about what the arrival of a new Holmes and Watson might mean for the Caxton. It could potentially open the way to all kinds of calamitous conjunctions. Suppose noncanonical versions of characters began to appear on the doorstep, making claims for their own reality and sowing unrest? The result would be chaos.

  And what about the library itself? Mr. Headley understood that an institution as complex and mysterious as the Caxton must also, on some level, be extraordinarily delicate. For centuries, reality and unreality had remained perfectly balanced within its walls. That equilibrium might now be threatened by Conan Doyle’s decision to resurrect Holmes.

  “There’s nothing else for it,” said Holmes. “We shall have to go to Conan Doyle and tell him to stop writing these stories.”

  Mr. Headley blanched.

  “Oh no,” he said. “You can’t do that.”

  “Why ever not?”


  “Because the Caxton is a secret institution, and has to remain that way,” said Mr. Headley. “No writers can ever know of its existence, otherwise they’d start clamoring for immortality for their characters and themselves. That has to be earned, and can only come after the author’s death. Writers are terrible judges of these things, and if they knew that there was a kind of pantheon for characters here in Glossom, then we’d never hear the end of it.

  “Worse, imagine what might happen if the Caxton’s existence became public knowledge? It would be like London Zoo. We’d have people knocking on the doors day and night, asking for a peek at Heathcliff—and you know what he’s like—or, God forbid, a conversation with David Copperfield.”

  There was a collective sigh. It was widely known in the Caxton that to ask David Copperfield even the simplest of questions required one to set aside a good portion of one’s day to listen to the answer.

  “Nevertheless,” said Holmes, “I can see no other option for us. This is our existence that is at stake—and, perhaps, that of the Caxton too.”

  Mr. Headley drained his glass, and paused for only a moment before pouring himself another generous measure.

  Oh dear, he thought. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

  Preparations for the journey were quickly made. Mr. Headley locked up the library, having first informed a few of the more balanced residents of the reason for the trip, even though he knew that his absence would barely be noticed by most of others. They could spend weeks and months—even years—napping, only waking when a publisher reissued their parent book in a new edition, or when a critical study caused a renewal of interest in their existence.

  “Please try not to attract too much attention,” pleaded Mr. Headley, as he paid for three first class tickets to London, although even as the words left his mouth he realized how pointless they were. After all, he was boarding a train with two men, one of whom was wearing a caped coat, a deerstalker hat, and shiny new shoes with white spats, and could not have looked more like Sherlock Holmes if he had started declaring loudly that—

  “The game is afoot, Watson!” shouted a cheery voice from nearby. “The game is afoot!”

  “God give me strength,” said Mr. Headley.

  “Your friend,” said the ticket clerk. “Does he think he’s, you know . . . ?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Headley. “In a way.”

  “Harmless, is he?”

  “I believe so.”

  “He won’t go bothering the other passengers, will he?”

  “Not unless they’ve committed a crime,” replied Mr. Headley.

  The ticket clerk looked as though he were seriously considering summoning some stout chaps in white coats to manage the situation, but Mr. Headley grabbed the tickets before he could act and hustled his charges in the direction of the carriage. They took their seats, and it was with some relief that Mr. Headley felt the train lurch and move off without anyone appearing to haul them away.

  Many years later, when he had retired from the Caxton in favor of Mr. Gedeon, the new librarian, Mr. Headley would recall that journey as one of the happiest of his life, despite his nervousness at the impending encounter with Conan Doyle. As he watched Holmes and Watson from his seat by the door—Holmes on the right, leaning forward animatedly, the index finger of his right hand tapping the palm of his left when he wished to emphasize a point, Watson to the left, cigar in hand, one leg folded over the other—Mr. Headley felt as though he were part of one of Paget’s illustrations for the Strand, so that he might have stepped from his own life into the pages of one of Conan Doyle’s adventures. All readers lose themselves in great books, and what could be more wonderful for a reader than to find himself in the company of characters that he has long loved, their lives colliding with his own, and all being altered by the encounter? Mr. Headley’s heart beat in time with the rhythm of the rails, and the morning sun shone its blessings upon him.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stepped from the crease at Marylebone Cricket Club, his bat cradled beneath his right arm. He had enjoyed the afternoon’s out-of-season practice, and felt that he had acquitted himself well, all things considered. He was by no means good enough for England, a fact that troubled him only a little, but he could hit hard, and his slow bowls were capable of disconcerting batsmen far more capable than he.

  Conan Doyle had also largely forgotten the shock caused some years earlier by the apparent somnambulistic use of his left hand to write a scrap of Holmesian manuscript. For many months after, he had approached the cricket field with a sense of trepidation, fearing that, at some inopportune moment, his left hand, as though possessed, might attempt to take control of his bat, like some horror out of a story by Hauff or Marsh. Thankfully, he had been spared any such embarrassment, but he still occasionally cast his left hand a suspicious glance when his batting went awry.

  He changed, made his farewells, and prepared to return to his hotel for he had work to do. Initially he had returned with a hint of resignation and a mild sense of annoyance to writing about Sherlock Holmes, but “The Adventure of the Empty House” had turned out better than anticipated: in fact, he had already begun to regard it as one of the best of the Holmes stories, and the joy and acclaim that greeted its appearance in the Strand, combined with the honor of a knighthood the previous year, had reinvigorated Conan Doyle. Only the continued ill health of his beloved Touie still troubled him. She remained at Undershaw, their Surrey residence, to which he would travel the following day in order to spend the weekend with her and the children. He had found another specialist to consult about her condition, but secretly he held out little hope. The tuberculosis was killing her, and he could do nothing to save her.

  Conan Doyle had just turned onto Wellington Place when a small, thin man approached him. He had the look of a clerk, but was well dressed, and his shoes shone in the sunlight. Conan Doyle liked to see a man taking care of his shoes.

  “Sir Arthur?” inquired the man.

  Conan Doyle nodded, but didn’t break his stride. He had never quite grown used to the fame brought upon him by Holmes, and had learned at an early stage of his literary career never to stop walking. Once you stopped, you were done for.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Headley,” said the man. “I’m a librarian.”

  “A noble profession,” said Conan Doyle heartily, quickening his pace. Good God, a librarian. If this chap had his way, they might be here all day.

  “I have some, er, colleagues who are most anxious to make your acquaintance,” said Mr. Headley.

  “Can’t dawdle, I’m afraid,” said Conan Doyle. “Very busy. If you drop a line to the Strand, I’m sure they’ll see what they can do.”

  He made a sharp turn to the left, wrong-footing Mr. Headley, and quickly crossed the road to Cochrane Street, trying to give the impression of a man with life or death business to contract. He was almost at the corner when two figures stepped into his path, one of them wearing a deerstalker hat, the other a bowler.

  “Oh Lord,” said Conan Doyle. It was worse than he thought. The librarian had brought along a pair of idiots who fancied themselves as Holmes and Watson. Such men were the bane of his life. Most, though, had the common decency not to accost him on the street.

  “Ha ha,” he said, without mirth. “Very good, gentlemen, very good.”

  He tried to sidestep them, but the one dressed as Holmes was too quick for him, and blocked his way.

  “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” said Conan Doyle. “I’ll call a policeman.”

  “We really do need to talk, Sir Arthur,” said Holmes—or “Holmes,” as Conan Doyle instinctively branded him in his mind. One had to nip these things in the bud. It was why quotation marks had been invented.

  “We really do not,” said Conan Doyle. “Out of my way.”

  He brandished his walking stick at his tormentor in a vaguely threatening manner.

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes—” said “Holmes.”

 
; “No, it isn’t,” said Conan Doyle.

  “And this is Doctor Watson.”

  “No, it’s not. Look, I’m warning you, you’ll feel my stick.”

  “How is your left hand, Sir Arthur?”

  Conan Doyle froze.

  “What did you say?”

  “I asked after your left hand. I see no traces of ink upon it. You have not found yourself writing with it again, then?”

  “How could you know of that?” asked Conan Doyle, for he had told no one about that unfortunate experience in August 1893.

  “Because I was at Benekey’s. You put me there, along with Moriarty.” “Holmes”—or now, perhaps, Holmes—stretched out a hand.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you at last, Sir Arthur. Without you, I wouldn’t exist.”

  The four men sat at a quiet table in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese off Fleet Street, to which they had traveled together in a hansom cab. Mr. Headley had done his best to explain the situation to Conan Doyle along the way, but the great man was clearly still struggling with the revelations about the Caxton and his characters. Mr. Headley could hardly blame him. He himself had needed a long lie-down after old Torrans had first revealed the nature of the Caxton to him, and he could only imagine how much more traumatic it might be for Conan Doyle with the added complication of witnessing his two most famous creations lunching before him on pea soup. Conan Doyle had settled for a single malt Scotch, but it looked like another might be required before long.

  At Conan Doyle’s request, Holmes had dispensed with the deerstalker hat, which now hung on a hook alongside his long coat. Without it, he might simply have been a regular client of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, albeit one with a certain intensity to his regard.

  “I must admit, gentlemen, that I’m struggling with these revelations,” said Conan Doyle. He looked from Holmes to Watson and back again. Almost involuntarily, his right hand moved, the index finger extended, as though he wished to poke them to confirm their corporeal reality, the sound of Watson slurping his soup notwithstanding.