The Gospel of Sheba (5 page)

Into this easy merriment I intruded, just as Watson was laughing his fullest. Despite my devastating circumstances, I could not help but smile at him in return as I clasped his hand.

“You've solved it, then?” I said to the doctor. “The … Chinese pottery matter?”

“Lomax! I'd meant to wire you on the subject—we have indeed, and no small thanks to you, my good man. Am I already delinquent in returning your book? Well, well, that's all right, then, I didn't suppose you lot made house calls. Come in at once, it's ghastly out there. Take the chair nearer the fire,” Watson greeted me, shutting the sitting room door.

“Thank you.”

“Did you see the results of the Kent match last night?”

“I've been terribly occupied, I'm afraid,” I admitted, entering the room in a sort of numb daze.

Their hearth was roaring like a chained beast, and the gleefully untidy parlour smelled of tobacco and the remnants of a curry supper. Mr. Holmes was stretched full out upon the settee, his head thickly bandaged, only trousers with white shirtsleeves and a dressing gown covering his gaunt frame. If Mr. Holmes is a bit of a scarecrow, I grant he is an impressive one—a wiry, hawk-nosed giant with a queerly abrupt grace in his movements. Seeing me, his smile dimmed but failed to disappear.

“Mr. Arthur Davenport Lomax of the London Library,” he drawled, taking a pull from the cigarette in his hand. Closing his eyes, he settled further back into the furnishings, careful of the cloth bound over his brow. “Watson's friend the sublibrarian. Cambridge, I think, cricketer, economical, genteel, bearing an object of some import—probably a book—and suffering from hyperopia, of all the vexing ailments for a bibliophile. Do sit down.”

Watson, moustache twitching in amusement, took my coat. Then his face adopted a darker cast. “By George, Lomax, have you fallen ill?”

“I think not,” I said carefully, “but that is for Mr. Holmes to determine.”

My friend took no offense, for I meant none. “I am at your service should you want me. You truly don't need a doctor?”

“I need a detective. More specifically, a detective who is also a chemist.”

Mr. Holmes half-opened one eye as I sat across from him in an armchair. I learned then that it is a quirk of his to feign boredom, for that is the best way to draw some subjects out. I had the man's full attention—from the slight quirk of his pale brow to his naked toes.

“Cambridge, cricketer, economical, bearing an important object, and hyperopia I can work out myself based on the way Watson just greeted me and the physical clues I present,” I remarked. “I read the
Strand
, everyone does. The last is the most venturesome, and even when I'm not wearing my spectacles, their imprint is probably on my nose. Why genteel? We've never had a conversation.”

Whatever else I expected the great detective to do, I did not expect him to dissolve into helpless laughter, wincing at his injured ribs. Somehow managing to bow to me from a fully supine position using only the stub of a cigarette, he cast a glance at Watson as the doctor passed me a generous spill of brandy. Sherlock Holmes would have been famous, or perhaps infamous, in any field he chose, I think. His eyes are positive razors.

“My dear fellow, what
have
you brought into our establishment?” he asked without desiring an answer. His gaze returned to me. “Of course you're genteel; Watson thoroughly enjoys your company. Out with it, then. You are being poisoned. How and by whom?”

Watson's jaw dropped in dismay as he settled into his chair with his own glass, having refilled the sleuth's en route. “Good heavens. Is this true, Lomax? What on earth can have happened?”

I told them. Watson sat, eyes bright, nodding at my every pause, mouth twisting in muted but obvious sympathy at turns in the plot. Mr. Holmes reclined, motionless, carved into his own ivory statue, his fingertips steepled before his closed eyes and his bare ankles demurely crossed at the other end of the sofa. When I reached the end, he placed one arm under his head and rolled to face the room.

“I am at your service, Mr. Lomax, but you must tell me,” he said in a slightly theatrical whisper, “what you would have me do to bring about resolution? Take this to the Yard? Decide my own penances? Watch those involved for greater misdeeds and take no action yet, only to pounce at a later date? Justice lies in your hands, you know.”

“Holmes,” Watson chided, shifting in his chair as if it were a very old argument.

“Watson,” the detective returned, eyebrow quirked.

“It's a serious matter.”

“I am treating it seriously.”

“No, you are playing at judge, jury, and executioner, and it's not even October yet. He gets this way in winter, especially close to Christmas, but not usually so early,” Watson added to me, shifting a rueful hand across his moustache. “He just ruined a wedding by breaking and entering, followed by theft, and I confess I'd hoped it might hold him for a week.”

“You were every particle as dead set against that wedding as I was, and a fully apprised participant in the charade!” Mr. Holmes exclaimed in an affronted tenor.

“Chinese pottery,” Watson explained to me on a sigh. “Fully apprised, Holmes? No, that is not quite right, something sounds amiss about your phrasing … ah, yes, the word
fully
. And also the word
apprised
.”

“You have never previously shrunk from such tactics. Why grow squeamish over feigning an expertise in Chinese pottery of all things?”

“Because, Holmes, such enterprises on our part do not usually dissolve into utter chaos. Usually, when I am assisting you at housebreaking, you are not badly injured and subsequently questioned by the police on the topic, having allowed the man of the house to discover you in the act of stealing his lust diary. And let me remind you that the only reason Baron Gruner failed to shoot us both is that he was the
victim of a vitriol–throwing enacted by your accomplice Miss Winter
. No! No, not a single word from you about my lack of aptitude when impersonating a lover of Oriental antiquities. I haven't the stomach at present.”

Mr. Holmes had the grace to look, if not chastened, then magnanimously sympathetic regarding his friend's chaotic whims. Frowning, he splayed his fingers across his breast in an unconvincing but nevertheless droll protestation of innocence. “I am not playing at judge, jury, and executioner. I am asking your friend Mr. Lomax to do so—he solved the crime, he knows best what's to be done about it.”

“No, he doesn't!” Watson exclaimed, waving his brandy glass. “No offense, Lomax, there's a good fellow.”

“None taken.”

“You aren't following me. If he's right about this crime, which he is, which I shall determine once and for all tonight, I presume, or else why would he be here, none of it can be proven in court,” Mr. Holmes protested, a scowl distorting his lean features.

Watson sat forward, moustache bristling. “Why the devil can't it be? Attempted murder I should think would do nicely. Any one of these four men—Pyatt, Huggins, Grange, and now Lomax—could easily have been killed over this dirty business.”

“Not Pyatt,” I suggested, sipping at the brandy. Its pleasant burn distracted me from other, deeper aches.

“No, I rather think not,” Mr. Holmes agreed, his thin mouth quirking.

“Why …” Watson began, and then his eyes lost themselves in the crackling flames. “Oh!” he said softly, glancing back at Mr. Holmes. “The swiftness of Pyatt's recovery. The dismissive attitude Scovil evinced towards presidency of the Brotherhood of Solomon. Yes, I see.”

“Do you really, or shall your sublibrarian friend explain it?” Mr. Holmes asked pettishly. “Go on, Mr. Lomax, I believe your reasoning is quite sound. Put it in order, and tell me whether you think a jury would swallow it.”

Hesitating, I turned to Watson, who sat with his head angled in expectation. If he was piqued by the detective's remark, he failed to show it.

“Scovil really did discover a centuries-old grimoire hidden in a secret room in his family manse and saw a rare opportunity,” I said slowly. “The book itself is genuine. I honestly don't think he believes in ritual magic himself—it's a pastime, not an art. If he could introduce his grimoire to the Brotherhood and then insinuate that he was the only mage righteous and disciplined enough to wield it, however, they'd naturally desire him for their leader. So he picked the right toxin and sent the book off with his comrades one by one, poisoning them. But lest he be suspected of a power grab, and lest he create an obvious motive for himself which would be noticed should a death occur, he brought Pyatt into his scheme. Scovil would shun the presidency as a true holy priest might—but Pyatt, who had believed in him, would be chosen in his stead. Pyatt claimed to have suffered the same symptoms when he studied
The Gospel of Sheba
, but he was probably shamming all along, spreading rumours so the club would be primed when Huggins fell ill. Pyatt and Scovil meant to rule that club with an iron fist.”

“To what specific object, I wonder, though I doubt not you are right,” Mr. Holmes mused, tapping his index fingers together.

“Would you like my friend the sublibrarian to explain it to you?” Watson asked in a tone dryer than their fireplace.

Mr. Holmes's head drew back fractionally. “Yes, do go on, Mr. Lomax,” he suggested, and I knew it a peace offering, for all that the entire exchange had been encoded. Watson smiled briefly before returning his attention back to me.

“Money,” I said. I twisted my shoulders in apology for my class. “There are some for whom it is a religion. More money, always more. Scovil was of the type who hide the avocation well—outwardly open, inwardly grasping. He loved treasures, he told me, and such objects have their price. Pyatt was more obviously greedy, but no matter; Scovil's mask was complete enough that they could milk the Brotherhood for all they liked. It was always more of a businessmen's club than an occult academy. As for potential challengers, well, send
The Gospel of Sheba
home with any upstarts and they would at once fall ill and surrender. Frankly, though, Mr. Holmes, I agree with Watson—I don't see why they shouldn't be prosecuted for poisoning their supposed friends.”

The sleuth waved his hand in the air bonelessly. “Watson does, though, now you've stated the case so clear. Explain the legal difficulties to your friend the sublibrarian, there's a good fellow.”

Watson's face gave the oddest twitch imaginable as he stifled a laugh while half-rolling his eyes. “I am afraid,” he confessed when the fond exasperation had passed, “that no one can say when or where the poison itself was introduced. The book was discovered, the book was presented to the group, and later the book was lent out. Therefore, among the Brotherhood—”

“Everyone touched it, thus everyone is a suspect,” I realized, wincing. “After all, they are convinced Pyatt likewise was sickened by the text. And Scovil professed to abhor the notion of presidency to me, but later, he could simply claim he failed to study his find altogether due to business obligations or some such, and thus escaped unscathed. Nothing ties him to the poison directly.”

“When did you suspect him first?” Mr. Holmes inquired, head listing towards me as he pulled a cigarette case from behind a settee cushion. “You've a keen eye and a wit to match, but you're no detective. As a fellow man of science, I can understand your hesitancy to believe a supernatural agency at work, but what led you to decide Scovil was the mastermind?”

“He warned me to handle the book with care explicitly when he lent it to me,” I recalled. “I found it … superfluous. I'm a bibliophile and a sublibrarian. It was a nonsensical thing to say.”

Nodding, Mr. Holmes pulled matches from the pocket of his dressing gown and lit a fresh cigarette, watching the smoke spiral upwards. Watson crossed his legs, cogitating. We were quiet briefly.

“There's something else troubling you, Mr. Lomax,” Mr. Holmes said after several long seconds. “Can I help?”

“Not unless you can remove all the canals from Strasbourg.”

“Pardon?”

“No,” I said hoarsely. “You can't.”

A quicksilver flash was all it was, without any movement of his pale profile, but the famous detective glanced at me. There was a great deal in that peripheral stare—catlike curiosity, intellectual interest—but also sincere goodwill, which confirmed what I had long suspected as a reader. Dr. Watson tolerates the company of Mr. Holmes not because they are very different and thus complimentary, but because they are at heart very similar.

A disquieting thought occurred. I would have to like Mr. Holmes, in that case, I realized. I'd have to like him despite his theatrics, his glib remarks, and his almost childlike demand that all attention be riveted upon him perennially, achieved alternately by fluid, frenetic movement and by absolute stillness. I'll confess the prospect was a little daunting.

“Never mind, then,” Mr. Holmes said, half-stifling a yawn with the back of his hand, and once again it was a cryptic message. He did not mean he was uninterested; he meant that I need not speak of what pained me. Almost at once, I relaxed my brittle bearing.

“Friend Watson, are you yet convinced we are clearly the law of the land in this matter?” the detective continued in a more grave tone. “I ask for efficiency's sake as much as anything. Do we pass judgment ourselves, or do we tie up the courts with aristocrats who'll be declared innocent after all of three minutes of jury deliberation? I leave the matter to you and the sublibrarian.”

The appellation “the sublibrarian” was ostensibly dismissive, of course. But it was not an empty compliment, as I have so often experienced. It was instead a tribute disguised as a dismissal. Despite myself, I laughed. Neither noticed me. Mr. Holmes resumed contemplating the ceiling as he smoked while Watson rubbed at his brow with his knuckles.