The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [267]
Extract from The South Warwickshire Advertiser
for Thursday, 26 August 1875
My friend Sherlock Holmes had recounted the Phillimore case to me in only the briefest terms, for he was disinclined to discuss his rare failures. I knew only that the incident had occurred very early in his detective career, shortly after the Gloria Scott affair. Mr Phillimore of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, had vanished quite as if the Earth itself had swallowed him up, and he might never reappear unless the Earth itself should open and regurgitate him.
On the afternoon of 18 April 1906, I was examining a patient in my London surgery when word arrived that a great earthquake had lain waste to the mighty city of San Francisco. By nightfall the grim toll was confirmed: several hundreds were injured or dead, and many thousands were homeless. For the next thirty hours, the transatlantic cable relayed further news: the coal-gas lines beneath the San Francisco streets had ruptured in the earthquake, in consequence of which the entire city was now engulfed by fires that raged unchecked. In the safety of my Harley Street surgery, I resolved myself to make a modest contribution to any public subscriptions which might be set up in London to aid the San Franciscan victims.
Scarcely a fortnight later, a telegram bearing a familiar return address in the Sussex Downs was delivered to my rooms. The message consisted of only three words: “Come at once“ and the signature “Holmes“. No further text was necessary.
I made haste to Victoria station and purchased a first-class return for the down train to Brighton. After an unusually long wait for my train’s arrival, the railway journey passed quickly enough. At the Brighton cab-rank, a coachman conveyed me to the gateposts of my destination.
The house of Mr Sherlock Holmes was outwardly like any bachelor’s domicile, but the gardens surrounding it provoked astonishment. The house was flanked and garrisoned on all sides by long thin wooden cabinets which – upon closer inspection – were in fact bee-hives, oozing the pale beeswax and darker secretions of their insect inhabitants. The constant buzzing was a thousandfold Babel. As I strode up the front path amid an escort of inquisitive bees, I glimpsed the face of my friend and summoner at a nearby window. Before I even had time to make use of the boot-scraper beside the doorstep, I was ushered within. The bees, fortunately, elected to remain outside. A moment later I was cross-legged on a haircord settee, in the parlour of my good friend Sherlock Holmes.
“Delighted you came, Watson.” He passed forth his cigar-case, and I accepted a black perfecto. Whilst I cut this and lit it, Holmes resumed: “You must pardon my bees. One of the hives has just today produced a new queen, and she has been kept busy murdering all of the dormant queens.”
“I had not known that bees could be persuaded to live in wooden cabinets,” I said.
Holmes selected a Havana panatela, and lit his cigar without cutting it. “The bees live in a nearby hollow oak. Those cabinets are my own creation, inspired by the devices of an American beekeeper, the Reverend Langstroth. Each honeycomb occupies its own cabinet, and may be removed without disturbing the other combs.” Without warning, my friend changed the subject abruptly: “Watson, I regret that you were obliged to wait so long for your train at Victoria station.”
“You were aware of the delay, then?” I asked him.
“Not at all,” said Sherlock Holmes. “As soon as you entered my house, I observed that your train was delayed.”
I smiled indulgently. “You must have memorized Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, and you inferred the tardiness of my train from the hour of my arrival.”
“I never memorize idle data, Watson. My mind is a workroom, not a storage room.” Holmes pointed his long fore-finger towards my feet. “Your shoes, I observe, are freshly polished. Owing to the urgency of my telegram, you would not have chosen to delay