The Bookcase of Sherman Holmes: A Holmes and Garden Anthology Page 12

  ‘We mustn’t eat anything just yet, otherwise we’ll be starving by three o’clock. We might, however, have a cup of tea just to warm up.’

  ‘How very sensible of you, Garden.’ Holmes sounded most disappointed and was rather thinking of this as a school trip, where packed lunches were always consumed directly after exiting the school gates.

  Taking their covers, they both settled into the armchairs with books by the rather less than adequate light of the camping lights until, at about eleven o’clock, there came the definite sound of footsteps from above in the attic rooms. Both figures froze, their eyes swivelling upwards. ‘What’s that?’ whispered Holmes in alarm.

  ‘Probably our imaginations getting the better of us,’ replied Garden, also in a whisper.

  ‘What, both of us?’

  ‘Should we go up and take a look?’ asked Garden.

  ‘No. Entirely unnecessary if we just imagined it. If you want to go up there to take a look round, be my guest.’ Holmes definitely sounded jittery.

  ‘Not just at the moment, I think.’ Garden was also spooked, and tried, without much success, to concentrate on his book again.

  Just before midnight there was again the definite creaking of floorboards followed by the sound of a door slamming. ‘What in the name of God was that?’ Holmes’ voice was now high-pitched with alarm.

  ‘That couldn’t have been us imagining it. We really ought to go for a bit of a scout around. After all, that’s what we’re here for.’

  ‘What, up in those low-ceilinged attics?’

  ‘We’re being paid for this. It would be dishonourable of us not to at least take a look around up there.’

  ‘Suppose so. Look, if we each take a torch, you can take the baseball bat as well, just in case.’

  ‘Just in case of what?’

  ‘Just in case, you know?’ Holmes wasn’t going to take any chances, and if they happened on something or someone, he wanted Garden to be the one swinging the weapon while he made good his escape.

  ‘You go first,’ ordered Garden, collecting what he needed.

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because I’ve got something in both my hands. I can’t open any doors carrying these two things.’

  ‘Hell! Well, better get on with it, I suppose.’ Holmes’ voice was full of false bravado as he made this statement.

  As they slowly mounted the narrow, uncarpeted staircase, their hearts in their mouths, there came the sound of whispering voices back on the first floor, and this stopped them in their tracks. Holmes was so startled that he dropped his torch, which bounced back down the stairs and promptly went out. ‘Heaven help us,’ he muttered, catching hold of Garden’s sleeve as he did so.

  ‘Let’s just go back down, shall we?’ Garden asked.

  ‘What, back down there where that whispering came from?’ asked Holmes, noting how almost impenetrable the gloom was in this confined space and with only one torch now to light their way. Motes of disturbed dust danced in its rays, threatening to take shape and haunt them.

  ‘Look, we either go up or down. If we go back down, we’ll be nearer the front door than we’ll be up in the attics. Here, you take my torch, and I’ll bring up the rear with the baseball bat.’

  When they plucked up the courage to return to the bedroom in which they had been encamped, Holmes put both of the vacuum flasks hard up against the closed door. ‘If anyone tries to get in, should we ever be relaxed enough to doze off, that’ll wake us, when they get knocked over.’

  ‘Just before we get settled, I think I’ll pour us a cup of coffee – before replacing it, of course – and maybe that will keep us awake,’

  ‘Good thinking, old chap.

  Chapter Six

  Both the men, despite their misgivings, did succumb to sleep, and it was some time later that they were woken again, but neither was sure just what had disturbed them. A few seconds after they awoke, there came the sound of a definite evil cackle, and they jumped out of their chairs, both wondering where they were.

  ‘What in the name of all that’s holy was that?’ Holmes sounded terrified.

  ‘Night bird!’ declared Garden, with more confidence than he felt. That had been no bird he knew. ‘And, by the way, your cassette will have run out by now, and we really ought to go down and turn it over, or change it, I can’t remember what one does with those things it’s so long since I used them.’

  ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘Yes. We have to do the right thing, or we can’t give a full report to Mr Twister.’

  The stairs creaked on the way down, something they had not taken note of when they ascended, and the noise that the treads issued made them even more uneasy. All went well until the recorder was turned on once more, when there was a tapping at one of the hall windows, and a ghastly face looked in at them.

  Neither noticed the creaking of the stairs on their flight back up them. As they fled, an owl hooted in a sinister fashion, and the moon, smudged and misshapen, glowed through a large, begrimed window pane.

  The thermos flasks were, thankfully, unbroken after their incontinent flight from the hall and when they reached the sanctuary of the bedroom, they sat down with coffee again to bolster their nerves. ‘I wish I’d brought a hip flask with me,’ said Holmes between gulps.

  ‘We couldn’t have used it,’ opined Garden. ‘We have to drive away from here. I wouldn’t fancy fleeing into the overgrown jungle of the garden, and this is a well out of the way place, and at this hour too, we could become lost for the rest of the night.’

  Everything was peaceful again until about two o’clock, when there was some noise from the landing, and they went out to investigate only to be confronted by a ghostly figure at the head of the stairs. It seemed to be floating a few inches from the ground, and was of a lady in Victorian dress. With a yell, they both retreated back into their sanctuary, where they climbed on to the tattered remains of the bed and put their covers over their heads.

  After a few minutes, Holmes asked, ‘Would you mind most awfully going to see if that thing is gone?’

  Garden, having a very great desire for the use of the sanitary facilities, which he knew were a few doors along on the opposite side of the corridor, obliged more out of desperation than courage. At the sight of the out-of-time woman, his bowels had turned to liquid, and it had been only by a great muscular effort that he had contained himself.

  Fortunately, there was no ghostly figure at the top of the stairs, and he retired to the privacy of one of the water closets to relieve himself of a very pressing problem. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ asked Holmes, when he finally got back to him.

  ‘I had to go to the, um, loo,’ he replied, ‘and fortunately, there was some paper in there, for I forgot to put ours in it.’

  ‘And that, er, thing has gone, has it?’

  ‘It has.’

  ‘Should we, possibly, make an honourable retreat now? We have enough witness evidence, I’m sure. Let’s just leave our stuff until tomorrow.’

  ‘We can surely take the sandwiches. I’m damned hungry now.’ Garden was surprised that he had enough wits left to discern the feeling of emptiness in his stomach.

  They made their cautious way down the staircase with the aid of only one torch. Now, the stairs were the sort that started in the middle of the hall, then bifurcated into east and west flights and, when they got to the bottom, there was a sort of groaning noise behind them on the west side and, turning, they saw the outline, in the torch that Holmes held, of a hooded figure.

  Holmes yelped like a dog, and made for the escape of the front door. Garden stood his ground for a moment longer, taking the opportunity to whip out his mobile and snap a photograph, as they had not done this with the figure on the landing, before joining Holmes in his headlong flight to his car.

  Chapter Seven

  Both Holmes and Garden headed for their separate homes, having no more conversational intercourse that night. The next morning, Holmes came into the office loo
king grey with lack of sleep, only to find that Garden was in a similar state. ‘Have you tried phoning Mr Twister yet to tell him what happened to us last night?’

  ‘We’ve only got a mobile number for him, for some reason, and it’s going nowhere.’

  ‘You mean it goes straight to voice mail?’

  ‘It does. But surely he’d have told us if he wouldn’t be available, considering how important this job was to the house being able to be sold.’

  ‘I don’t think anything we could tell him would give him much comfort,’ said Holmes, still not recovered from his fright just a few short hours ago.

  Garden tried the number again every thirty minutes for the rest of the morning, and they related their tale of a haunting to Shirley, who was duly impressed with their courage – poor, deluded woman. ‘And now we can’t seem to get hold of our Mr Twister,’ concluded Holmes.

  ‘Why didn’t you get a landline number and an address when he first asked you to carry out this commission?’ she asked.

  ‘I suppose we both forgot in the excitement of what seemed rather a fun adventure, but turned out to be one of the most frightening nights of my entire life,’ offered Garden, and Holmes nodded sagely in agreement.

  ‘Just so. It must’ve been “The Boy’s Own” comic-paper coming out in our characters.’

  ‘And who recommended him to us?’ she asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  ‘Of course! He said he had been to see Inspector Streeter. He’ll know where to find him.’ Holmes was very satisfied with this deduction. ‘We’ll pop over and visit him after lunch. You can cope, can’t you Shirley?’

  ‘I’m sure I can. If I could deal with the hordes of children I had calling round last night, I’m sure I can cope with a minor flood of people coming in to enquire if we stock fireworks.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘”Remember, remember the fifth of November”. You know some people still mistake us for a homes and garden store, rather than a private detection agency.’

  ‘I wonder why Streeter recommended us? He doesn’t approve of what we do.’ Garden was a little too late verbalising this question.

  ‘We’ll just go to his office and report what happened in that ghastly old house, and see if he has any way we could contact our client, if only for billing purposes.’ Holmes was back in business mode. ‘We did complete our mission.’

  ‘We left halfway through the night.’

  ‘He only asked for independent corroboration. By the way, did that photo you took on your phone come out OK?’

  ‘Here, let me show you. There’s the definite shape of a hooded figure at the back of the hall depicted.’

  ‘And I have my recordings. Twister shouldn’t need any more evidence than that, and if he wants to call in someone to exorcise it, he should be able to offload it on some insensitive developer who doesn’t believe in all that bally-hooey: not that I did until last night.’

  ‘Me neither.’ Garden was in full agreement with this last statement.

  To their irritation, Inspector Streeter kept them waiting forty minutes before they were ushered into his presence. To their complete surprise, he had a triumphant grin from ear to ear. ‘What’s tickled your funny bone, eh?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Oh, nothing important. What can I do for you gentlemen?’ he asked, still unaccountably cheerful.

  ‘We understand you sent a man to us by the name of Twister. Is that correct? He certainly intimated that that was so.’

  ‘It is true that I sent him to you.’

  ‘And you couldn’t help him?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Streeter was playing his cards very close to his chest, for some reason.

  ‘Well, we have carried out the task which he requested us to, but we can’t get hold of him to report back.’

  ‘Odd,’ replied Streeter, monosyllabically, and still grinning like the Cheshire cat.

  ‘Do you have any contact details for him?’ asked Garden. ‘Address or a landline number? He doesn’t seem to be answering his mobile.’

  ‘No.’ Again, Streeter’s grin shone across the office at them.

  ‘Why not?’ Both private detectives were now intrigued at the policeman’s hesitance in providing them with information.

  ‘Because, he doesn’t exist!’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’ Holmes was furious.

  ‘He came to our offices and talked to us, dammit,’ roared Garden.

  ‘I’ll grant you that you talked to a man who stated that his name was Twister, but he was actually an old friend of mine who used to work for a television company’s special effects department. Did his name not give the game away?’

  ‘He used to what? What game?’

  ‘So what about last night?’ Holmes and Garden were dumbfounded by this last statement.

  ‘All just a bit of flim-flam. Now, let me tell you something, I’m just about sick and tired of you two sticking your noses into things that are nothing to do with you and should be dealt with by the police. Last night was just my little message that I won’t put up with it any more, and your intrusion into official investigations will be looked on very harshly.’

  ‘You mean, you set all that up? And the bloke was bogus?’ Holmes could hardly believe his ears.

  ‘Just so, and it tickled me no end to think of you with what hair you’ve got left sticking up on end in fright.’ This remark was definitely aimed at Holmes.

  ‘But Garden has a photograph.’

  ‘Of a hooded figure? Another friend from the AmDram Society.’

  ‘But what about the ghost that we stood and looked at?’

  ‘Ever heard of Pepper’s ghost? Merely an illusion. Look it up if you want to.’ And now, if you don’t mind, I’ll relieve you of the keys to what has been used as a location for a television series about the supernatural. Everything was in place, you see. How could I resist?’

  ‘You can’t have back the keys until we’ve collected our possessions from last night. You haven’t heard the last of this, Streeter!’

  ‘Did you run away without collecting up all your stuff?’

  ‘How dare you!’ This accurate but highly embarrassing accusation of cowardice had really got Holmes’ goat.

  ‘What are you going to do about it, come back and haunt me when you’re dead?’

  ‘There’s no answer to that,’ replied Garden, as the two men stalked out of the inspector’s office.

  On their way back to Holmes’ car, its owner said, ‘You know what this means, don’t you, Garden?’

  ‘Eh? No.’

  ‘It means war! I’ll out-detect that man if it’s the last thing I do! I won’t stand for being duped like that and made to look a fool.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Garden. There could be trouble ahead.

  THE END

  The Adventure of THE DEAD WILD BORE

  Members of the Quaker Street Irregulars

  – a Sherlock Holmes appreciation society:

  Antony, Cyril

  Cave, Christopher

  Connor, Ludovic

  Crompton, Stephen

  Dibley, Aaron

  Jordan, Elliot

  Lampard, Peter

  Mitchell, Rupert

  Warwick, Dave

  Wiltshire, Bob

  Wood, Kevin

  – and Sherman Holmes

  Chapter One

  Sherman Holmes put down the telephone handset and stared around him with satisfaction. He was at his desk in the dining room of his apartment, which was furnished and decorated in homage to his fictional hero, the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes.

  He gazed fondly at the violin mounted on the wall above the fireplace and the row of meerschaum pipes displayed on the mantelpiece. He smiled at his slightly battered leather Chesterfields facing each other across the pathway of the fire’s welcome heat, and he thought about his new, cloaked overcoat, which hung out on the hallstand, a deerstalker hanging above it. He was very pleased indeed with his late Edwardian time-warp apartment
at 21B Quaker Street, in the relatively quiet town of Farlington Market.

  Holmes was in his mid-fifties, fairly short and plump, and with a fine moustache that was definitely ‘of the era’, and he spent a lot of his time reading Victorian or Edwardian novels and re-reading the fascinating tales that Conan Doyle had related about his genius detective.

  As he smugly contemplated his cosy residence, his cat, Colin – he of the mercurial temper – strolled in and began to rub his face on the leg of Holmes’ trousers. ‘Hello there, old boy,’ he greeted his pet, not particularly acknowledging what a fine mood the animal was in, as, in his eyes, Colin never suffered from a bad temper and could do no wrong, no matter what house guests told him to the contrary.

  He did not have a busy social life or many visitors, but even his new friend Garden had complained of being ill-treated by this feline, and Holmes believed, contrary to the evidence of his own eyes, that this was merely playfulness on Colin’s part, and that the cat meant no real harm – even when he’d decorated the inside of one of Garden’s shoes in a most unpleasant way.

  ‘He was just putting his mark on it, to show that he likes you,’ Holmes had told Garden, but his partner knew better, and avoided Colin as much as good manners allowed. If it was possible for a feline to look malevolently at a person, then Colin certainly did so with Garden, and Garden wisely kept his distance.

  John H. Garden had received Holmes’ call on a cold, misty, damp November afternoon in his bijou flat above their offices in Hamsley Black Cross, and had been delighted to receive an invitation to accompany him that very evening to a meeting of a local branch of a Sherlock Holmes appreciation society.

  He was as big a fan of Conan Doyle’s detective as his colleague, and was grateful for the opportunity of something to do and some company, for he did not get out much either.

  The threads of fate had drawn them together, then threw murder in their pathway, and in the light of this, they had made an unlikely alliance. At the time they had met, John H. was thirty and still living with his mother, with whom he did not get on. He had a very unhappy working life with an insurance company, and a huge secret life locked in his bedroom and wardrobes, consisting of frocks, skirts, blouses, ladies’ shoes, wigs, make-up, and costume jewellery, and yet only his mirror had seen his alter ego, Joanne.