Sherlock Holmes (4 page)

“A small smile, yes, and with luck I shall be able to broaden it,” Holmes continued. “This article on page ten has just caught my eye and piqued me. It is in the way of an insult and a challenge. May I read it out to you?”

“By all means.”

Holmes cleared his throat and began.

“The headline runs, ‘The Thinking Engine – A Computational Breakthrough?’ The text beneath goes as follows. ‘This last Thursday, the 14th
inst.
, saw the unveiling of a computational device whose inventor pronounces it the equal of any human brain, even the greatest.’”

“A remarkable claim.”

“‘Professor Malcolm Quantock of Balliol College, Oxford, has built a device of such surpassing sophistication that, in his words, “it makes Mr Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine seem a mewling infant by comparison”. So profound is its analytical and calculating power, according to its creator, that it will not just resolve mathematical equations and tabulate polynomial functions but also’ – brace yourself, Watson, here’s the nub of it – ‘solve crimes.’”

“What!” I ejaculated. “But that’s preposterous.”

“Is it?” said Holmes. “Well, we shall see. The article continues, ‘The professor has christened his machine “The Thinking Engine”, and it is presently installed in the new extension of Oxford’s University Galleries, the museum on Beaumont Street which was established originally in the seventeenth century to house Elias Ashmole’s and John Tradescant’s combined collection of engravings, geological samples, zoological specimens and other curiosities.

“‘The Thinking Engine is driven by a specially constructed five-horsepower petroleum-driven internal combustion motor which affords sufficient energy to operate an estimated one hundred thousand pinwheels and a similar number of sector gears. It is furthermore equipped with a printer to turn out answers in a typeset form on strips of paper.

“‘Its most substantive quality, however, if Professor Quantock is to be believed, is its ability to interpret facts and data which are input by means of an alphabetic keyboard akin to that found on a common-or-garden typewriter. The professor declares that his device can and should be employed in the pursuit of justice by identifying the culprits of crimes whose solutions have thus far eluded the police. He vows to furnish conclusive proof of this by identifying beyond all reasonable doubt the person responsible for a recent terrible set of murders in the Jericho area of Oxford, and is poised to do so tomorrow, before an audience consisting of members of the public, academics, distinguished guests, and the gentlemen of the national press.

“‘“My Engine,” the professor is on record as saying, “is the superior of any policeman, from the lowliest constable to the highest ranking detective. I would go so far as to submit that it rivals in intelligence and deductive capacity even Mr Sherlock Holmes himself, the London consulting detective of some modest repute.”’”

Holmes garnished these last three words with a snort of contempt.

“Some modest repute?” he echoed. “Said of the man who was charged by the Pope himself to enquire into the sudden death of Cardinal Tosca, and who investigated to everyone’s satisfaction the shocking affair of the Duchess of Milnthorpe’s missing toenail, not to mention the startling disappearance of Sir Edgar Beechworth MP halfway through a game of bezique, and the… the…”

My friend’s indignation reached such a peak that he was momentarily at a loss for words. Now it was my turn to be the one who felt moved to bolster the other’s spirits.

“The man is merely posturing, Holmes,” said I. “You should take it as a compliment that he has mentioned your name in the first place. ‘Even Mr Sherlock Holmes himself’ – implying that you are pinnacle to which all others aspire, the
ne plus ultra
in your profession.”

“I am the
only
one in my profession, Watson, and my accomplishments are anything but modest. It is that adjective which rankles so.”

“Perhaps you should calm yourself,” I suggested. “Here, let me pour you a fresh cup of tea. And that last slice of toast is yours, should you want it.”

Holmes waved away my ministrations with a curt flap of the hand. He readdressed himself to
The Times
article, brandishing the paper with such a tight grasp that the newsprint puckered around his fingers.

“There is still more,” he said. “It gets worse. ‘Indeed, Professor Quantock has let it be known that, were Mr Holmes prepared to travel to Oxford, he would be willing to let his Thinking Engine match wits with that esteemed sleuth.’”

“There. See? ‘Esteemed’.”

Holmes ignored my comment and carried on reading aloud. “‘In this he has been backed up by the celebrated newspaper proprietor Lord Knaresfield, whose periodicals are widely distributed across the Midlands and the north of England. His lordship has offered a wager of five hundred pounds that no man who cares to pit his intellectual prowess against the Thinking Engine, Sherlock Holmes included, will be able to outsmart it.’ And there the article concludes.”

“Five hundred pounds.” I let out a low whistle.

Holmes shrugged. “I have earned greater sums than that from a single case. All the same…”

“All the same, you consider that a gauntlet has been thrown down, one with very lucrative potential.”

“Money has nothing to do with it, Watson. It is a matter of honour. This Professor Quantock has virtually sent me an invitation. Lord Knaresfield’s wager merely adds a kind of vulgar glossy sheen to it. Doubtless his lordship expects to sell a few more newspapers on the back of his shabby act of opportunism. In that respect he reminds me of Wallace Rubenstein, the mummy charlatan. What is it about newspaper proprietors that they are so shameless and vain? They seem unable to stand idly by if presented with a chance to draw attention to themselves. Knaresfield has been ennobled, he is fabulously wealthy, but even that is not enough for him. He must make us notice him at all times.”

“Come, come,” I said. “Maybe to him it is all just entertainment, a harmless piece of fun.”

“Harmless? That is open to debate. No, there is only one thing for it.” Holmes slapped the paper down on the table so hard it made the breakfast things jump – and me too, for that matter. “My friend, we are travelling to Oxford forthwith.”

“But, Holmes,” I protested, “I have appointments. My midday rounds…”

“Cancel them.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then call in a locum. That Anglo-Indian fellow, what’s his name?”

“Mukherjee.”

“Yes. Him. You’ve told me your patients are fond of him, not least the female ones who praise his nice eyes and warm hands. You won’t be missed for a day or so if Dr Mukherjee is there to take your place. Don’t you fancy a spot of detective work?”

“But you have prior commitments of your own. The matter of the Austro-Hungarian ambassador’s diamond tiepin.”

“Solved. The housemaid has buried it near the bandstand in Hyde Park, where it awaits recovery by her merchant sailor fiancé when he next puts in at Tilbury. The clue is in the arrangement of the curtains in the windows of the embassy, which sends a coded message akin to the system of international maritime flag signals. I will send His Excellency a letter informing him as much.”

“The anarchist cell in Ealing. What about that?”

“A farce. Amateur revolutionaries at best, completely incapable of making a bomb, let alone launching an insurrection. Inspector Lestrade is halfway to realising that, and his bovine brain will surely get him the rest of the way soon.”

“That queer business of the skull-patterned butterflies in Dorset?”

“A problem for the lepidopterists of this world, not the consulting detectives. No, my slate is more or less clean, Watson. Clean enough that a trip to Oxford can easily be fitted in. You cannot deny that there’s something intriguing about Professor Quantock’s machine and what he asserts it can do.”

“You certainly appear to think so. I’m withholding judgement. I don’t see how a confection of cogs and sprockets can hope to emulate the infinitely complex workings of the human brain.”

“My point precisely!” said Holmes, as he hurried off to his bedroom to begin packing a valise. “It is quite impossible. And you know how much I like to eliminate the impossible.”

So it was that, that very afternoon, we journeyed by train from Paddington to Oxford station, whence we made our way on foot the short distance to the Randolph Hotel, at which Holmes had booked us rooms. Directly opposite the hotel stood the University Galleries, a large, long, well-proportioned building designed in the classical style with a portico over the main entrance supported by lofty Ionic columns.

It was not to there that we then proceeded, however, but rather to the city’s police station, which was situated some half a mile away down an alley behind a half-timbered Tudor house on the High Street. Holmes had arranged an appointment with an Inspector Eden Tomlinson. He proved to be a tall, lean, rather spare-looking man whose impressively luxuriant moustaches almost compensated for the lack of hair elsewhere on his head. As we entered his office he greeted us – Holmes especially – with a cordiality that was unfamiliar to us, given his profession. We were accustomed to frostiness, even scorn, from the policing fraternity, who as a rule resented Holmes, both because he was not an anointed officer of the law and because he was invariably better at the job of detection than they were. Tomlinson was refreshingly delighted to make our acquaintance.

“Mr Holmes,” he said, “a pleasure to meet you in the flesh. You too, Dr Watson. Your chronicles of Mr Holmes’s investigations have been inspirational to me. Inspirational!”

He spoke with a soft burr, indicative that he was a local man born and bred, for here is where the West Country begins, in my opinion – not at the borders of Somerset and Dorset but somewhat further east, in the hills and wide valleys of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. The Oxfordshire accent may not be as broad as that of Cornwall, say, nor the dialect as full of regional colloquialisms, but it has that drawn-out, curlicued quality which tells the traveller quite firmly that he is no longer in the true Home Counties. It is also very reassuring, redolent of hard work, integrity and steadfastness.

Tomlinson, it transpired, had for some while been in regular correspondence with Holmes. It had started when the policeman sent my friend a letter of admiration, saying he wished half the men on his force had even a small fraction of Holmes’s insightfulness and acumen. This had developed into a prolonged, if sporadic, epistolary exchange during which Holmes had given Tomlinson tips on various cases that were baffling him, and the official had reciprocated by offering nuggets of inside information about police politics and proposed alterations to bylaws.

“May I say, I was more than a little upset by the news of your demise back in ninety-one,” Tomlinson said, “and more than a little elated when you returned so miraculously from the dead just last year.”

“There was no miracle about it,” said Holmes. “It was simply a matter of removing myself temporarily from the field of play, in order to wrongfoot my enemies and protect myself and those nearest to me.”

“Still, I wore a black armband and was properly distraught. You ask Mrs Tomlinson. ‘A miserable moper’, she called me, although she was not unsympathetic. Perhaps we shall one day learn the nature of your self-imposed exile and what you got up to during that time. Dr Watson? Will you be publishing an account of it?”

“When I am ready, and so is the world,” I replied. “Not just yet.”

“No indeed. It is, nonetheless, an honour to have you, both of you, visit our fair city. Although not, I might add, a complete surprise. Unless I am much mistaken, Mr Holmes, you have risen to the bait a certain Balliol professor of mathematics has dangled.”

“It would have been remiss of me not to. The fellow is quite clearly keen to draw me into his orbit. How could I be so lacking in manners as to ignore him?”

“He’s a queer sort, that Quantock. They almost all of them are, the dons round here. All that brain power clogging up their noggins, they quite forget how to behave like normal folk. But Quantock’s amongst the worst for it. Strictly between the three of us…”

Tomlinson leaned across his desk and his voice took on a conspiratorial note.

“My men have had to pull him in more than once for odd behaviour. Nothing sinister or criminal, mind. Just odd.”

“Oh? In what way?”

“Well, there was that time – I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, Mr Holmes, not very ethical, but we are more or less in the same occupation, brothers in law as it were – when Quantock was caught wandering down the middle of St Giles’ at three in the afternoon, weaving to and fro amongst the traffic. He was lucky not to get mown down by a passing carriage. We would have had him up on charges of drunk and disorderly, but there wasn’t a whiff of alcohol about him. He excused himself by saying that he was performing mental arithmetic, calculating the frequency and trajectories of the vehicles around him, or some such. ‘Testing the variables’, he said. We cautioned him for reckless endangerment and let him go.”

“The head-in-the-clouds academic,” I said. “As blessed with intellect as he is devoid of common sense.”

“Quite so, doctor. We see it a lot here, believe you me. On another occasion, he climbed the clock tower of St Mary’s church, just across the road from us on the High.” He was using the local abbreviation for Oxford’s High Street. “There’s narrow stairs all the way up the inside and public access to a terrace at the top. Views all across the city rooftops from there. He perched himself on the parapet, sitting with his legs hanging, like as though he was minded to cast himself off. Drew quite a gaggle of onlookers, he did, both Town and Gown. Several of the students, I’m afraid to say, were shouting up to him, encouraging him to jump. Students and their sense of humour…”

Tomlinson grimaced.

“They call them ‘gentlemen’, the undergraduates here, but the appellation is not always apt. At any rate, a sergeant of mine arrived on the scene, brave and conscientious sort, and went up to join Quantock. They had quite a friendly chat, by all accounts. The professor told my man he was listening to the peals of the many different bells that ring out across the city. You’ll have heard them. Oxford is nothing if not a place for church and chapel bells. Quantock said he was looking for moments of overlap when the chimes created chords and, what’s it called? The opposite. Dissonance.”