War of the Worlds Page 4

  Wace’s manner was becomingly diffident, Holmes reflected. It would flatter Challenger. The thought gave him an inspiration.

  “Suppose we consult a scientist of distinguished reputation and accomplishment, Mr Wace,” he said. “Just a moment while I telephone.”

  He rang the Enmore Park number. Challenger’s booming voice answered.

  “Holmes here, Challenger. I have just been talking to a new client by the name of Jacoby Wace, whose difficulty had best be presented to yourself — for reasons which will quickly be apparent,” said Holmes guardedly. “May I fetch him over?”

  “Does this have any bearing on the crystal?” asked Challenger, his voice falling to a guarded hush.

  “Yes,” said Holmes briefly.

  “Then bring him here immediately.”

  When Holmes and Wace arrived, they found the professor bulking behind his table. The crystal was nowhere in sight.

  “You may be seated, Mr Wace,” granted Challenger. “Now, explain this difficulty of yours.”

  With stammering uneasiness, Wace again described his acquaintance with Cave, his own rather blurred observations of the crystal, and his agony of disappointment at its loss. Challenger heard him out, occasionally jotting down a note.

  “And to whom besides ourselves have you spoken of this?” he inquired when Wace had made an end.

  “I talked about it to Mr Templeton, the dealer,” said Wace, “and I heard that the matter will soon receive some publicity. Templeton said that Mr H. G. Wells, the distinguished author, is now preparing a magazine article on the subject. Both Templeton and another dealer, Mr Morse Hudson, have given him information.”

  “Hudson?” repeated Holmes. “I have some slight acquaintance with Hudson. I’ll be interested in reading the article when it appears.”

  “I, too,” nodded Challenger. “Wells has some rather sketchy scientific background, along with a bizarre imagination. Now, Mr Wace, have you made any efforts to trace the crystal besides inquiries to the collectors’ magazines?”

  “I wrote letters to the Times and the Daily Chronicle. Both were returned to me, with suggestions that I was trying to perpetrate a hoax. Indeed, the editor of the Chronicle advised me to drop the matter, saying that publishing such material might well damage my career at St Catherine’s.”

  “A typical journalistic judgement,” pronounced Challenger. “Yet, to some degree, I agree with the editor’s advice. You will do well, Mr Wace, to be prudently quiet about the whole affair, leaving it in the capable hands of my friend Mr Holmes. Will you give us your promise to that effect?”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed Wace at once. “Thank you, Professor Challenger.”

  He took his departure. Challenger saw him to the front door and returned, to fix Holmes with earnest blue eyes.

  “There you have exactly the response we could expect should we try to interest the press or the scientific faculty in our researches at this point,” he rumbled. “Disbelief and ridicule.”

  “Yet apparently one popular magazine is taking an interest,” said Holmes. “I look forward to reading Wells’ article, if only to see how honest Hudson and Templeton have been with their information. And reflect, Wace did not have the crystal to show to skeptics, an advantage which we possess.”

  “There is more than that to our policy of secrecy,” said Challenger. “We are agreed that this crystal embodies a means of communication with another planet. If we were to share it with other scientists, what clumsy efforts would they make to establish a rapport? No, Holmes, I would never trust so gravely important a problem to limited mentalities, dulled with years in classrooms and museums. The achievement of articulate exchange with these creatures on Mars must be referred to the only mind on Earth with the requisite intelligence and method — aided in certain ways, of course, by yourself.”

  But in the months that followed, most of the observations, as well as earnest efforts to evoke a response to signals, fell to Challenger alone. Holmes found his time occupied with a series of criminal investigations.

  Inspector Merivale of Scotland Yard asked for his help that March. The police had discovered a widespread circulation of forged crowns and half-crowns, and the man suspected of coining them persuasively denied the charge. He was a respectable shopkeeper in Seven Dials, that man insisted, with no blot upon his reputation. He added that he knew his legal rights, would demonstrate that he had been falsely accused, and would instruct his solicitors to lay action for damage to his character. Holmes managed to obtain some of the accused man’s clothing for study, and from the fold of a cuff recovered tiny particles which, under the microscope, proved to be filings of zinc and copper. Confronted by this discovery, the man broke down and confessed.

  Officials in high places praised Holmes’ method of uncovering this evidence. He thanked them modestly and telephoned Challenger. But Challenger was unwontedly cryptic. “Please wait until you hear from me,” he said. “For the present, I want to work entirely alone.”

  Again, late in April, Holmes was asked to help in another seemingly baffling investigation. A policeman had been murdered in the St Pancras area, and his fellows fiercely yearned to find and punish the killer. The only clue was a cloth cap found near the body, and again a suspect was brought in, a maker of picture frames. But, like the coiner, he steadfastly denied the crime, saying that he did not own the cap and knew nothing of the murder.

  The cap was brought to Holmes on Monday, May 5, about the time the mail included a letter from one James Mason. This man was a trainer of racehorses at the ancient manor of Shoscombe Old Place, and he wrote rather guardedly to say that he would come to discuss with Holmes a matter of great importance. Holmes was up betimes on the following day, ate breakfast quickly, and sat down to transfer certain particles retrieved from the lining of the mysterious cap to a microscope slide. Adjusting this in his instrument, he began to make his examination. He could detect tiny fibres, evidently of tweed, and it was known that the suspect habitually wore a coat of that material. There were also small brown blobs, puzzling at first. Becoming fatigued, he left the microscope and sat in his easy chair. He selected a smooth Havana cigar and opened a book. Watson entered and began to eat his own breakfast.

  “Extraordinary,” said Holmes after he had been reading for several minutes. “My conversational French is no more than passable, yet reading in French is much easier than speaking or writing it.”

  “What is your book?” asked Watson, stirring sugar into his coffee.

  “A collection of the writings of Guy de Maupassant. The section I am reading is a chronicle — it is almost like non-fiction — in the form of diary entries.”

  Watson’s mouth drew thin under his moustache. “Maupassant was a man of dissipated life,” he remarked austerely. “I have always thought that he preached immorality in his stories.”

  “I fear I must disagree with you,” said Holmes. “Maupassant, as I think, has always striven for objectivity. In any case, much of what we consider immoral is merely pathological. Oscar Wilde, for instance, was imprisoned under our English laws for a morbid aberration. He would have been shown more mercy in France.”

  “But what is this particular chronicle you are reading?” asked Watson.

  “It is entitled ‘Le Horla,’ fully laying bare the soul of the diarist. It tells how he came under the power of some unknown, invisible being. Apparently the power departed, for the writer in the last entry is threatening suicide in despair, yet there is no evidence that the threat was carried out.”

  Watson bit into a buttered crumpet. “Maupassant died a hopeless madman. I’ve read that Horla story you mention. It struck me as complete proof that he was losing his mind as he wrote it.”

  “No, Watson, it is too well organised for that. Even if we choose to read the story as fiction, as a highly imaginative tale, I must argue that only a clear, sane mind could have conceived it so artistically, written it so vividly. Here, let me read you an entry in this diary, under date of Augus
t 17 — the year 1886, I deduce. Forgive my offhand, amateurish translation.”

  His eyes on the page, he read aloud:

  “No moon. The stars in the depths of the dark heavens darted their rays. Who inhabits those worlds? What forms, what living creatures, what animals, what beings are out there? Those who think in those distant worlds, what do they know more than we? What can they do more than we? What do they see that we do not understand? Will one of them, some day or other, traverse space, will it not appear on our Earth to subjugate it, as the Norsemen crossed the seas to enslave feebler peoples?” Holmes looked up from the book. “Confess, Watson, is that not a fairly sane and rational proposition?”

  “If it is fiction, I consider it high-flown, fanciful writing,” said Watson stubbornly. “I remember, incidentally, that the diarist burns his house at the end of the account. Wasn’t Maupassant’s house burned?”

  “It was burned, as a matter of fact, but Maupassant never admitted to setting the fire, unless in this account,” said Holmes. “If he is confessing that act, we may take the whole as offered for fact.”

  “Suppose it is factual and sane,” said Watson. “If beings such as the Horla did actually exist, do you think that you could be subjugated by one of them, like Maupassant or his fictional diarist?”

  “Perhaps not,” said Holmes. “A man of sufficient intellect and will might resist such subjugation, or find a way of defeating it.”

  Holmes marked his place with a pipe cleaner and set the book aside. Returning to the microscope, he resumed his examination of the slide.

  “It is glue, Watson,” he cried triumphantly. “Unquestionably it is glue. Have a look at these scattered objects in the field.”

  Watson came to adjust the eyepiece and gaze through it while Holmes explained about the cap picked up beside the dead policeman and pointed out visible factors of the brown blobs. “The accused man denies that the cap is his,” he said. “But he is a picture-frame maker who habitually uses glue.”

  The question resolved, he poured another cup of coffee and turned the conversation to horse racing. Watson, a devotee of the turf, was able to inform him of the racing stables at Shoscombe Old Place and of the Shoscombe kennels where prize spaniels were bred. In the midst of their talk, Billy knocked to announce John Mason, a tall, clean-shaven man of intensely worried manner. He pleaded that Holmes come and discover, if possible, the reason for mysterious happenings at Shoscombe Old Place and in particular the enigma of the strange behavior of Sir Robert Norberton, the proprietor. Holmes agreed to take the case and found Watson eager to accompany him. Before noon they boarded a train for Shoscombe, carrying fishing tackle to simulate carefree anglers on holiday.

  A day and a half sufficed to expose a melancholy story, involving the death of Sir Robert’s sister and his effort to conceal the corpse. The big, blustering sportsman made trembling explanations and pleaded for sympathy. Coldly, Holmes said that he must inform police authorities, but that he would recommend compassion. Watson took pleasure in the assurance that Sir Robert’s splendid colt, Shoscombe Prince, would run in the Derby on May 21, and as he and Holmes journeyed back to London he vowed he would be present at the race to venture a considerable sum on Shoscombe Prince to win.

  That night, as Holmes sat alone in his quarters, Martha came in.

  “You are alone, dear?” she whispered.

  “Watson is visiting his old friend Stamford.”

  She sat down opposite him. Her rosy face looked earnest.

  “My dear, I know that something is weighing on your spirit. Is it some case you are investigating?”

  “A most unusual case, Martha. How well you diagnose my behaviour.”

  “It is only that I have never seen you so wrapped up in a thing, to the exclusion of all else. Of course, I never ask you to confide in me—”

  “And that, my love, is one of your thousand or so charms. Let me say that the present case concerns happenings at a great distance.”

  He tried to sound light and cheerful, but her eyes widened, as usual when she felt worried.

  “I have never interfered with your work,” she said. “But let me ask, will this investigation make you go travelling far away?”

  He shook his head, smiling. “No, I venture to predict that I can conduct all possible observations here in London. Travelling far enough to be away from you is always unhappiness to me.”

  “And to me.” She put out a hand to take his. “You have never said it so strongly before. My dearest, they say that as people grow older their love cools, but ours remains constant and warm.”

  “It will always remain so,” Holmes assured her. “And we are not old, we are in our prime. I am forty—eight — a trifle older than you, several years younger than Watson — but the good Watson avers that many an agile and athletic man of forty is slower and more breathless than I am.”

  “You respect Dr Watson’s medical judgement.”

  “I do, of course.”

  He rose, and so did she. They kissed warmly.

  “And now,” said Holmes, “let me say that last week I was able to find a bottle of Beaune, of an excellent year, across the street at Dolamore’s. Suppose we have a glass together, and I promise to forget for a while this curious problem on which I am working.”

  Six

  For the next several days, Holmes was busy talking to officers at Scotland Yard and to Sir Robert Norberton’s creditors and solicitors. All of these listened to Holmes’ sober suggestion that compassion be shown to the desperate sportsman, whose fine colt was bound to run well in the Derby and bring his master money enough to settle a vast indebtedness. On such terms the case was settled, and on the evening of May 10 Holmes was grateful to find himself with no pressing duty. He sat in his easy chair while Watson scribbled away at the desk.

  “Another of your flattering accounts of my cases?” asked Holmes.

  “Only notes, to add to my files for the Shoscombe Old Place matter, and something on a professional event,” said Watson. “I have been asked to conduct a seminar on tropical diseases at London University.”

  “Which you will do well, I am sure.” Holmes reached for the Maupassant volume, but instead picked up a current magazine and leafed through it. His eye was caught by the title at the top of a page ‘The Crystal Egg’. He began to read with deep interest:

  There was, until a year ago, a little and very grimy-looking shop near Seven Dials, over which, in weather-worn lettering, the name of ‘C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities’, was inscribed...

  “More recently than a year ago, I should think,” mused Holmes aloud.

  “What did you say?” asked Watson, looking up.

  “I had begun to read a story by Mr H.G. Wells.”

  “Wells,” repeated Watson, with something like asperity. “A sensation-mongering hack, suspiciously revolutionary in his notions.”

  Holmes smiled. “You dislike him as you dislike Maupassant.”

  “Not in the same way.” Watson shook his head emphatically. “Maupassant, I told you, is objectionable because of his deplorable private life. Wells I dislike for his manifest disapproval of our civilisation and our government. Of his private life I know nothing. Perhaps it is best not to inquire into it.”

  “Not inquire?” repeated Holmes, smiling more broadly. “A man in my profession does not hear such things happily. But I won’t interrupt you again.”

  Watson resumed his writing. Holmes read ‘The Crystal Egg’ through. It seemed offered as fiction, but the names of Cave and Wace appeared in it, and there was mention of “a tall dark man in grey” who had vanished with the crystal. Plainly neither Templeton nor Hudson had dared identify Holmes when questioned.

  Holmes pondered the matter, then and on days to follow. He hesitated to interrupt Challenger with further questions. The study of the crystal egg might have advanced as far as possible, unless the Martians could be induced to give and receive signals. And Challenger had seemed irritated when Holmes had su
ggested that to view the Martians only as of a more advanced culture, comparable to that of terrestrial humanity as a European city might compare to a savage community, was too optimistic. Increasingly Holmes felt that mankind was a race of creatures much lower in evolution than the Martians.

  The problem was unpleasantly perplexing. He made no progress in solving it alone. On May 13 he sat moodily at breakfast while Watson read a newspaper opposite. Suddenly Watson leaned across the table.

  “What do you make of this, Holmes?” he asked, pointing to the page.

  The headline read: STRANGE ERUPTION OF MARS, and underneath:

  An observatory in Java reports that a sudden eruption of glowing gas was seen on the planet Mars at about midnight. Dr Lavelle, who compares the phenomenon to “flaming gases rushing out of a gun”, reports that the spectrograph showed it to be a mass of superheated hydrogen, moving toward Earth with tremendous speed. The light became invisible in about fifteen minutes.

  “Singular,” said Holmes, with strained calm.

  “So I thought. But excuse me, I must not be late at my seminar.”

  Watson departed. Holmes telephoned Challenger.

  “I was on the point of putting in a call for you,” came back Challenger’s great voice. “Can you come here? I have summoned Stent, the Astronomer Royal. I think it is time that we acquainted the world with what we have discovered.”

  Holmes caught up his hat and strode into the hall. Martha met him there. “You are disturbed about something,” she said.

  “No, my dear, I am only in a hurry. I shall be back for lunch with you.”

  Outside, he took a hansom for Enmore Park. Mrs Challenger herself opened to him.

  “I hope you can calm George,” she said tremulously. “He’s in a furious mood—a quarrel with a visitor, I don’t know why.”

  Holmes entered the study. Challenger stood there, bearded face scowling. He tramped and swayed like an angry elephant.