Dark Detectives Page 15

Then Barrymore stopped doing Hamlet, stopped doing Holmes. He stood still. His skin was smooth where his wound had been. Catriona thought she saw a faint light inside, as if his heart glowed. The jewel was gone.

  Edwin picked up the dagger and looked at the stricken man.

  Was he going to cut it out? As Mountmain had from the mummy. If so, would the jewel be his—with whatever that entailed—as it had been the mummy’s?

  Edwin thought it through and dropped the dagger.

  Barrymore shook his head, as if he had just walked on stage without knowing his lines or his role.

  The fires were burning out. Edwin arranged Mountmain in the coffin, tucking in his arms and legs, and put the lid on it, fitting it firmly into place.

  Barrymore looked around with a “where am I?” expression.

  “Let’s get him out of this place,” Catriona said.

  Edwin agreed with her.

  *

  John Barrymore looked at the spectre, eyes bright with fear and love.

  “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

  Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,

  Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

  Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

  Thou com’st in such a questionable shape

  That I will speak to thee …”

  Catriona’s hand closed on Edwin’s. From their box, they could see the spots of sweat on the star’s face. This was the opening night of Barrymore’s greatest triumph. He seemed fairly to glow.

  At last, she understood what the fuss was about. This was how her father must have felt when Irving gave his Dane. How the first audiences at the Globe Theatre must have felt.

  The business under the British Museum was months gone, and they were an ocean away, in New York at the invitation of the star, his debt to them repaid with tickets to the opening of the century.

  As the play went on, she wondered about the light in the actor’s eyes, and thought about the jewel in his chest. He had been good before, but he was great now. Had the jewel anything to do with that? And was there a price to pay?

  Then she was caught up in the drama, swept from her box back to Elsinore, when ghosts walked and vengeance warped the heart and soul.

  Solar Pons

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE CRAWLING HORROR

  by BASIL COPPER

  Solar Pons (whose name literally means “Bridge of Light”) is the second most famous consulting detective in London. Whether slouched in the armchair at his apartments at No. 7B Praed Street, his thin fingers tented before him and his keen eyes fixed on the door, or following a clue along the mist-shrouded cobblestones of London’s alleyways, Pons puffs thoughtfully on his pipe and uses his deductive reasoning to solve many strange cases, aided by his chronicler Dr. Lyndon Parker. Other familiar characters include landlady Mrs. Johnson, Inspector Jamison of Scotland Yard and Pons’ brother Bancroft.

  In the late 1920s, August Derleth (1909–1971)—then a young student at the University of Wisconsin—was extremely interested in classic British detective fiction. He wrote to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in England asking if the author intended to publish any more Sherlock Holmes stories. When Conan Doyle replied that he did not, Derleth wrote back asking if he could write his own Holmes tales. Conan Doyle replied with an emphatic “No!” and so Derleth sat down to write his own Sherlock Holmes pastiches.

  Solar Pons made his debut in 1929 and remained the author’s favourite detective creation. Derleth wrote one or two Pons tales a year, reportedly devoting endless hours of research and authentication of details to the London milieu his characters inhabited. Derleth completed sixty-eight stories, which were collected in “In Re: Sherlock Holmes”: The Adventures of Solar Pons (1945), The Memoirs of Solar Pons (1951), Three Problems for Solar Pons (1952), The Return of Solar Pons (1958), The Reminiscences of Solar Pons (1961), The Casebook of Solar Pons (1965), A Praed Street Dossier (1968), The Adventures of the Unique Dickensians (1968), The Chronicles of Solar Pons (1973) and The Final Adventures of Solar Pons (1998), plus the novel Mr. Fairlie’s Final Journey (1968), all originally published under the author’s Mycroft & Moran imprint.

  In the late 1970s, Basil Copper (1924-2013) was asked to revise the entire Pontine Canon by James Turner, Derleth’s successor at Arkham House. He spent two years on the task, correcting more than three thousand factual and procedural errors in Derleth’s original texts, and the massive two-volume slipcased edition of The Solar Pons Omnibus finally appeared in 1982.

  In the meantime, Copper was invited to continue the exploits of Pons in six further collections: The Dossier of Solar Pons, The Further Adventures of Solar Pons, The Exploits of Solar Pons, The Reminiscences of Solar Pons, The Secret Files of Solar Pons and Some Uncollected Cases of Solar Pons.

  Four of these—The Dossier of Solar Pons (1979), The Further Adventures of Solar Pons (1979), The Secret Files of Solar Pons (1979) and The Uncollected Cases of Solar Pons (1980)—were originally published in much altered paperback editions by Pinnacle Books, which the author disowned. Equally disappointing for Copper were two volumes produced in 1987 by Academy Chicago Publishers, The Exploits of Solar Pons and The Further Adventures of Solar Pons.

  At least Fedogan & Bremer issued The Exploits of Solar Pons (1993) and The Recollections of Solar Pons (1995) in the author’s preferred texts, corrected and restored, with illustrations by Stefanie K. Hawks. These were followed by the novel Solar Pons versus The Devil’s Claw (2004) and the revised collection Solar Pons: The Final Cases (2005) from Sarob Press. Forthcoming is The Complete Solar Pons from PS Publishing.

  I

  “THERE ARE SOME things, my dear Parker, into which it is better not to inquire too closely. They are far more poignant than words can express.”

  “Eigh, Pons?”

  It was a bitterly cold January day; still, with a touch of ice in the air. I had finished my rounds early, it was just dusk and I was reading the newspaper in front of a glowing fire in our quarters at 7B Praed Street awaiting tea, while my friend Solar Pons busied himself with a gazetteer at a small table near the window. He turned his lean, feral face toward me and smiled faintly.

  “I see from the headlines there that you had been reading of the Bulgar atrocities. From the expression on your face I surmise that the massacres in that quarter have moved you deeply.”

  “Indeed, Pons,” I rejoined. “It recalled to my mind my own experiences in the field.”

  Solar Pons nodded and pushed back his chair from the table. He held out his thin hands to the fire and rubbed them briskly together.

  “It is a sad commentary on mankind’s foibles, Parker, that different countries cannot learn to live together. There is crime enough, poverty enough and disease enough without nations massacring one another over the finer points of doctrinaire religion or the pink and black shadings on a map.”

  I put down the paper and looked at Pons approvingly.

  “At least you do a good deal to help the world, Pons, by bringing criminal miscreants to justice.”

  Solar Pons’ eyes twinkled as he crossed over to take his favorite armchair at the other side of the fireplace.

  “I do my humble best, Parker. But it is good of you to say so, all the same.”

  He broke off as a measured tread sounded on the stairs.

  “Here is the excellent Mrs. Johnson. By the sound of it she is heavily laden. As you are the nearest to the door be so good as to open it for her.”

  I hastened to do as he requested, admitting the smiling figure of our motherly landlady. As she bustled about setting the table, I resumed my seat, appreciative of the appetising odour rising from the covered dishes.

  “As you have a client coming at eight o’clock, Mr. Pons, I took the liberty of preparing high tea. I hope you have no objection, Dr. Parker?”

  I glanced at Pons.

  “Certainly not, Mrs. Johnson. If you wish, Pons, I can vacate the sitting room if you have private business …” Solar Pons smiled,
his eyes on Mrs. Johnson. “I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear fellow. I think it is a matter which might interest you. It promises some interesting features.”

  He tented his fingers before him.

  “Perhaps you would be good enough to show my visitor up immediately on arrival, Mrs. Johnson. From the tone of the letter I have received he—or she—is of a retiring nature and wishes the visit to be as discreet as possible.”

  “Very good, Mr. Pons.”

  Mrs. Johnson finished laying the table and stood regarding us with a concerned expression.

  “I hope you will set to at once, gentlemen, or the food will be spoiled.”

  Solar Pons chuckled, rising from his chair.

  “Have no fear, Mrs. Johnson. We shall certainly do justice to it.”

  The meal, as Mrs. Johnson had indicated, was appetising indeed and my companion and I had soon disposed of the welsh rarebit with which the repast began and rapidly made inroads into the grilled kidneys and bacon with which it continued. I put down my knife and fork with satisfaction and poured myself a second cup of tea. I stared across at Pons.

  “You have received a letter about this matter, then, Pons?”

  Solar Pons nodded. He raised his head from the gazetteer he had been studying at the side of his plate.

  “From Grimstone Manor in Kent, Parker. It does not seem to be marked on the map or indicated in this volume. It is my guess that it will turn out to be a remote area of the county on the marshes near Gravesend. Or failing that, somewhere in the Romney Marsh district.”

  “You expect to go there, Pons?”

  “It is highly likely,” replied Solar Pons casually. “From the tone of my client’s letter it sounds a bizarre affair indeed.”

  He reached out for the pile of bread and butter Mrs. Johnson had left on the platter and liberally spread a slice with strawberry jam from the stoneware pot.

  “It is as well to know something of the ground and the salient features of interest before one takes to the field. Though it seems as though I shall gain precious little out of it financially.”

  I stared at Pons interrogatively, aware of an ironic twinkle in his eye.

  “I had never noticed that money was a decisive factor in your cases, Pons.”

  My companion chuckled.

  “And neither is it, Parker. Except that my prospective client is either Silas Grimstone, the notorious miser and recluse …”

  He drew a soiled and discoloured envelope from his pocket with an expression of disgust and pulled from it an even more disreputable-looking enclosure. He frowned at the signature.

  “… Or Miss Sylvia Grimstone, his equally miserly niece. From what I hear the couple live together with her acting as housekeeper. They are as rich as almost anyone you care to name, yet each outdoes the other in scrimping and saving. It is something of a contest between them.”

  He smiled again as he passed the crumpled letter to me.

  “Which is the reason for my remarks. The letter, so far as I can make out, is merely signed S. Grimstone. But whichever of the unlovely pair wish to engage me as client you may bet your boots that my fee will be minimal.”

  I withdrew my eyes from the cramped writing to regard Pons.

  “Why are you taking the case, then?”

  Solar Pons shook his head, resting his hands on the table before him.

  “I have already indicated, Parker, that the matter seems to present outstanding points of interest. I would not miss it if I decided to remit my fee altogether.”

  He shifted at the table and reached out for the bread and butter again.

  “Pray read the letter aloud to me if you would be so good.”

  I started as best I could, stumbling and halting over the abominably written and much blotted text. The missive was headed Grimstone Manor, Grimstone Marsh, Kent and bore the date of the previous day.

  I glanced at the envelope and realised the reason for Pons’ sardonic attitude. He smiled thinly.

  “Exactly, Parker. Mr. Grimstone or his niece affixed a used postage stamp to the envelope, presumably after steaming it off something else.”

  “Good heavens, Pons,” I exclaimed. “It is disgraceful!”

  “Is it not, Parker,” he said with a light laugh. “The Post Office thought so too, because they levied a surcharge of three-pence on the envelope and I have had to reimburse Mrs. Johnson.”

  “Your recompense is likely to be small indeed, Pons,” I said, turning back to the letter.

  “As usual, you have got to the heart of the matter, Parker,” said Solar Pons drily. He poured a final cup of tea and sat back at the table with a satisfied expression.

  “But you have not yet read the letter.”

  “It presents some difficulties, Pons.”

  I smoothed out the crumpled paper and after some hesitant starts and re-readings finally deciphered the extraordinary message.

  Dear Mr. Pons,

  Must consult you at once in a matter of most dreadful urgency. This crawling horror from the marsh cannot be tolerated a moment longer. Please make yourself available when I shall explain everything. If I hear nothing to the contrary I propose to call upon you at eight o’clock on Wednesday evening, in absolute discretion.

  Yours,

  S. Grimstone.

  I looked across at Pons.

  “Extraordinary.”

  “Is it not, Parker. What do you make of the crawling horror?”

  I shook my head.

  “You are sure the Grimstones are not eccentric. Perhaps even a little mentally deranged?”

  Solar Pons smiled grimly.

  “Not from what I have heard of his activities in the City. But you are the medical man. I will leave you to judge of their sanity.” I picked up the paper again, conscious of the rough edges.

  “Hullo, Pons, something has been torn off here. Another small mystery, perhaps?”

  Solar Pons shook his head, little glinting lights of humour in his eyes.

  “Ordinarily, I would agree with you, my dear fellow. In this instance the answer is elementary.”

  I stared at him, my puzzlement self-evident.

  “The Grimstones’ habitual meanness, Parker. They have merely torn their disgraceful old sheet of notepaper in half, in order that they may use the remainder for something else.”

  I was so taken aback that I almost dropped the letter.

  “Good heavens, Pons,” I mumbled. “Apart from the mystery, your clients promise a study in comparative psychology in themselves.”

  “Do they not, Parker.”

  Solar Pons rose from the table and crossed over to his favourite chair by the fire. He glanced at the clock in the corner and I saw that it was almost a quarter to seven. He tamped tobacco in his pipe and waited politely until I had finished. The measured tread of Mrs. Johnson was soon heard on the stairs and in a few minutes our estimable landlady had expertly cleared the table and had spread a clean cloth upon it.

  “I hope that was satisfactory, gentlemen.”

  “You have excelled yourself, Mrs. Johnson,” said Solar Pons gravely.

  Our landlady’s face assumed a faint pink texture.

  “If there is anything further, Mr. Pons?”

  “Nothing, thank you, Mrs. Johnson. On second thoughts, if you would just leave the front door on the latch my client will let himself up.”

  “Very good, Mr. Pons.”

  She closed the door softly behind her and presently her footsteps died away down the stairs.

  “An excellent soul, Parker,” Solar Pons observed.

  “Indeed Pons,” I replied. “I don’t know what we should do without her.”

  My companion nodded. He leaned over for a spill and lit it from a glowing coal on the hearth. He sat back in the chair, contentedly ejecting a stream of aromatic blue smoke from the bowl, dreamily watching the lazy spirals ascend to the ceiling. It was one of the most pleasant periods of the day and I did not break the reverie into which we had fallen but quietly resum
ed my own fireside chair and my interrupted reading of The Times.

  II

  It was a quarter to eight when we were interrupted by the distant slamming of the front door and an agitated tattoo of feet on the drugget of the staircase.

  The man who first timidly knocked at our door and then entered the sitting-room was a most astonishing sight. Pons had risen from his chair and even his iron reserve was visibly breached as I saw the slight trembling of the stem of the pipe in his mouth.

  The old gentleman who stood blinking and peering about him, first at Pons and then at me, was dressed in a long overcoat of some bottle-green material and of an ancient cut. When he had been in the room some minutes I realised that the coat was old indeed, for the green was not the colour but mildew and a miasma, heavy and polluting, hung about him, bringing the atmosphere of an old-clothes shop into our cosy chambers at 7B.

  “Mr. Pons? Mr. Solar Pons?” he said in a high, piping falsetto, his trembling right hand extended to my companion.

  “The same, Mr. Grimstone,” said my companion, gingerly taking the shrivelled claw so proffered.

  “Will you not be seated, sir?”

  “Thank you, thank you.”

  The old man looked at me with fierce suspicion, until Pons made the introduction.

  “My valued friend and colleague, Dr. Lyndon Parker.”

  “Proud to make your acquaintance, sir.”

  Our visitor bowed frostily and I half rose from my chair but was glad that he did not offer to shake hands with me. Even from where I was sitting I could smell the dank, malodourous stench which emanated from his clothing. At first I suspected that Grimstone suffered from paralysis agitans but after a short interval I concluded that nothing but common fright was responsible for the twitching eyes, nervous tics and sudden starts he exhibited in our company. He shied away and made as though to quit the room at any sudden and unexpected noise and once, when a motor-vehicle backfired in the street below our windows, I thought that he would have fled to the door. I had never seen a man with such a look of fear on him.

  For the rest he wore a mildewed hat that must once have answered to the name of homburg and when he removed it in our presence, his long white flowing locks hung about his brows like hoary weeds overflowing from some untended garden. His black and white striped shirt, greasy and dirty, was held in place with two rusty safety pins and he was devoid of either collar or tie. He opened his overcoat with the heat of the fire and I could see a musty suit of the same shade as his outer garment beneath.