The Reichenbach Problem

  “Papers, letters, billets-doux? Lavender-scented notepaper from an amour?”

  “Nil.”

  “Oh, well. Well done anyway, Holloway, and thanks. Perhaps I might get a glimpse of this inventory sometime if I need to.”

  “If you would like. Though I doubt you will extract any more information from it than I have.”

  “You may well be right.”

  On the first floor landing, I informed Holloway that I did not feel able to join the others in the dining room that evening and that, once changed out of my soggy attire, I would arrange for a light supper to be brought to me.

  “Quite understand, old man. See you after that, then.”

  “After that? Why? What is going on?”

  “The séance. Meet in the reception area at eight-thirty.”

  With the details of that dread appointment ringing ominously in my ears, I stumped up to my room.

  I entered it and discovered on the floor, slid under the door, two telegram envelopes. Good old Steen, he’d reacted as efficiently and thoroughly as I had expected. But who was the second message from? I washed and changed and sat down on the corner of my bed to read the missives. They were both, according to the datelines, from London SW.

  The first was, indeed, from Steen.

  MY DEAR OLD THING.

  GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU.

  RE BROWN I HAVE NO IDEA.

  NOT MY TERRITORY I AM AFRAID.

  HAVE GIVEN MESSAGE TO EXCELLENT

  YOUNG FELLOW FLEMYNG.

  CAPITAL OPENING BAT.

  HE WILL WIRE YOU WITH A VIEW.

  HOSPITAL BUSINESS IN HAND.

  WILL WIRE SOONEST.

  BESTEST. STEEN

  Well, I said to myself, it was a start.

  The second was from the young chap, Flemyng, on to whom Steen had passed my enquiry about what to do regarding Brown’s demise. It was short and to the point and read:

  DEAR CONAN DOYLE.

  LEAVE IT TO THE SWISS.

  HOLMES IS SUPERB.

  KINDEST REGARDS.

  FLEMYNG

  P.S. WILL ASSIST FURTHER IF REQUIRED.

  I cast the forms and envelopes aside onto the bed. One step forward, two steps back. Further news from Steen might change the situation in due course, and I hoped I could rely on the sincerity of Flemyng’s postscript, but for the present I felt that all the hard work I had put in had led absolutely nowhere. I looked down again at those next-to-useless missives with distaste and regret. And noticed something most peculiar.

  I picked up one of the envelopes, and then the other. I inspected them both closely. I could not believe my eyes, so I inspected them both again. There was no doubt about it. They had been tampered with. Along the bottom edge of both envelopes there was a thin slit, which had been glued closed again. An opening had been made in the paper, by a razor perhaps, just large enough to extricate the message inside. Then, once read, it had been replaced and the aperture resealed.

  Someone had read my wires.

  The question was – who?

  NINE

  We departed, all together, for the séance after dinner. It was a short walk from the hotel; held in one of the village houses. As we walked, I caught up with Werner and engaged him in conversation.

  “Did you have any luck up on the mountains?”

  “No. I did not manage to shoot anything.”

  “I am sorry to hear it. Where did you try?”

  “Oh, just up there…” He indicated with his chin towards the ridge over which Holloway and I had strolled after lunch, and down which I had struggled late that afternoon.

  “Was it up that way, or that way?”

  He jerked his head again. From what I could tell, he was indeed in the same area as I had been, although by the lack of precision that is the consequence of pointing with one’s chin, he might have been a mile or two further north than the path down which I had come.

  “Did you actually see any creatures?”

  “One or two. Boar. Deer.”

  “How exciting. I would have been interested to see that. Perhaps I may accompany you on one of your next shoots?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I have been grouse hunting on the moors. Pretty good shot, if I say so myself. But I have never hunted in forest. Don’t all those trees get in the way?”

  “Sometimes. It depends on the forest.”

  I tried to picture the forest where I had become lost, in my mind’s eye. It was busy with trees, but they did not stand shoulder to shoulder. Three, maybe five yards apart at times, by and large. It would be possible, at some quite considerable distance, to lie in wait, and to pick a target some distance away at which to fire a round. Not easy. Far from easy. But possible. Especially if the target were slow-moving, proceeding at an even pace, and one knows in which direction it is travelling. Possible. Particularly with a telescope sight.

  “Do you have a good rifle?”

  “The best.”

  “What sort of sights does it have?”

  “The best.”

  “Telescope?”

  “Of course.”

  “I should very much like to see it some day.”

  “Perhaps.”

  We trudged a little further in silence. He was a most uncommunicative gentleman. There might be, I considered, many reasons for that, of course.

  “Did you fire your rifle at all this afternoon?”

  “Three or four times.”

  “Really? But you did not hit anything?”

  “Too fast. Too far away.”

  “Are you not worried that the bullets might fly off and hit something you can’t see?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I cannot see it, it means there are trees in the way. They stop the bullets.”

  “Every time?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Can you be sure of that? Can you be sure that you see everything in your line of fire for as far as the eye can see? Can you really be sure?”

  He looked at me with a fierce, defiant light in his eyes that could have been kindled by either guilt or anger.

  “It is my job as a hunter to be sure. It is why I am allowed to be a hunter. Because I am sure all the time.”

  I decided I would call his whole hunting brotherhood into question, since he thought it was so perfect.

  “A bullet from a hunter’s gun just missed my head by this much.” I spread thumb and forefinger apart. “Up on the mountain this afternoon. Was it you?”

  “Nein.” He didn’t look at me, but continued his trudge.

  “Well, it must have been someone. How many hunters were there on the hill? Do you know?”

  “It was not me. It was not anybody I was with. It could not have been a hunter.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “A hunter does not miss.”

  “You missed.”

  “Not like that.”

  He was, by now, positively seething again under that bluff Bavarian exterior. Wiser counsel prevailed and I decided to desist in my questioning. We were nearly at our destination anyway.

  It was an old Italianate thickset house with shutters, like those I had seen on the Ligurian coast. It was not a chalet, since it was in the centre of the village. Whatever it was once, it now did not seem to have any community function other than as a residence. I imagined in the past it might have been an artisan’s dwelling or, perhaps, some kind of shop. It did not occur to me immediately that it was the house from which had fallen, or had been flung, a terracotta flowerpot on the day of my arrival. I only recognized the sullen, well-built and gruff man from that incident when the door was opened. He stood there eyeing us all with suspicion. If this was our medium, we were in for a very melancholy evening indeed. Plantin introduced himself and the purpose of our visit. The fellow stood grudgingly aside to let us pass. We all gathered in the hall and, as we did so, were met by his wife.

  The hall lights were dim and this, perhaps,
added to her mystery and charm. She was not porcelain pretty, rather very attractive. Not tall, but neither was she petite. Not slim, but not large. Her attractiveness lay in her being of average build and average height. But to employ the word “average” did not do her justice. The words “perfectly proportioned” might have been closer to the truth. I had never met a woman that had been perfectly proportioned. Not in the way a Michelangelo or a da Vinci might have portrayed perfection. But this certainly was the nearest example in real life I had ever encountered. Tangled raven black hair framed her oval face and her almond eyes, and contoured itself decorously over her bare shoulders.

  She seemed genuinely pleased to see us, and her eyes shone with excitement and promise. She introduced herself as Francesca, and her husband as Hugo. She spoke in a faltering, lilting English that hinted at Mediterranean sunshine and olive groves. I could not decide if the accent was French or Italian. Latinate, definitely.

  She was one of those women in whose company every male delights, and whose intimacy they covet. She was someone who was well aware of her charms but did not abuse them; at least, not deliberately. Her femininity was something that came naturally to her. At risk of willingly or unwillingly becoming infatuated with her on the spot, as I am sure men had done for many years, I reminded myself of the fiery temper that she also possessed. The one which had been evidenced by the terracotta pot incident.

  She said that she was nearly ready to commence, and asked Hugo to take us through into the room she had prepared for us. This her husband did with diffidence. She, meanwhile, repaired upstairs to complete whatever it was she had started before we arrived.

  We were brought through into a back room, just off a kitchen hung with pots and pans, cured meats, fowl, herbs and onions. The room was spare and dark. It had only one window, which was redundant as it looked out onto a dingy back yard. It was night time anyway.

  There were thick velvet curtains which, once upon a time, would have graced a larger, more opulent house. Dried flowers were placed decorously in front of the blacked iron fireplace. There were no coals or logs, although some ash lay beneath the grate. There was a table. Disappointingly, it was neither round nor steeped in mystic mystery. It was deal, and plain and scratched. Vessels of hot and cold liquids had been placed upon this surface over many years and had left their blanched, circular autographs upon the stained wood. I imagined that it had been wiped for the occasion. Nevertheless, flecks of ancient varnish gave the table a rough, uncomfortable feel. It looked, for all the world, as though it had some untreatable and contagious skin complaint. When one rested one’s hands and wrists upon it, one developed an overwhelming urge to scratch.

  Hugo, in the desultory manner he had apparently adopted for the evening, motioned for us to settle around the table. He then left us to our own devices. We took our places around this curious item of furniture and sat, expectant.

  Francesca had not reappeared. She was presumably still preparing herself. Having said that, from what little I knew of these events, preparation was not wholly necessary. If one had the gift, the gift came unbidden. It was the gift’s choice and not the medium’s. No amount of preparation could summon it.

  Presently we heard raised voices, in Italian. The words were muffled by at least one closed door: ours. The strength of the argument swiftly increased, as did its volume, if not its clarity. I began to wonder whether this had anything to do with our presence in the back room. I rather suspected that it had.

  Eventually, there was a loud thud, which was the slamming of a distant door. There followed an uncomfortable silence and a long wait. At length, our door opened and Hugo presented himself with a face like fury and a thunderous brow. There was a simple pine armchair with turned legs tucked away in the corner of the room. He stalked straight across to it and threw himself into it. He then folded his arms in a perfect portrayal of an immoveable object and stared, unseeing, directly before him.

  Having observed his arrival, attention turned back to the table. Sitting with my back to him, knowing he was quietly stewing there, was most intimidating.

  Again we waited. I began to wonder if, even at this eleventh hour, the whole event might be called off. The whole concept had been pure folly from the start. I really could not see how there would be anything of value to be gained from it all. I looked around to see if there were any others with corresponding thoughts working through their minds.

  The Pivcevics, I could see, were sitting patiently with blank features. Assuming, from our conversation in the hotel when discussing this event, that they were dyed-in-the-wool sceptics, I supposed this was a form of politeness. They did not wish to simply sit and scoff, and they could not feign interest, so they resorted to indifference.

  Holloway twitched with nervous anticipation. But of course, he was hoping to become the vessel into which the spirit of Sherlock Holmes was to be poured. If it were possible for a human body to hum like a telegraph wire, then that was what he was doing. I felt sure that if I touched him on the arm, he would leap ten feet into the air and lodge his head into the ceiling.

  Both van Engelses sat patiently. They appeared to have the capacity to switch themselves off at any time. If they were capable of switching themselves on again at any time during the proceedings remained to be seen.

  Werner sat looking about the room in his solid way, as if he were waiting for a tram. He passed the time by wheezing a Bavarian folk tune to himself under his beery breath. He perhaps thought no one could hear him. Or perhaps he didn’t care.

  Even Monsieur and Madame Plantin had been moved to cease their lovers’ whispers. She sat with her hands lightly resting on his arm, which in turn rested upon the arm of his rolling chair. Occasionally they would look at one another and raise an eyebrow or allow the flicker of a conspiratorial smile to pass between them.

  My companions duly surveyed, my thoughts moved to other occupations. I began to assess the wait. Why was it happening? What was it for? I did not mean to disparage Francesca and her kind, but was it all part of the performance? I had witnessed a few séances before, when living in Southsea, and had noticed that every medium had their own particularities. Might I describe these as methods? Was this leaving us in silence, bringing us to the verge of indolence, part of her routine? Was Hugo and the row all part of it? There were, I knew, countless charlatans masquerading as psychics. They all had their little stage acts. One or two that I had encountered, in my limited investigations, had even led me to guffaw at their flummery. Capes covered in mystical signs draped across the forearm and held in front of the bridge of the nose. Eye-rolling and strangulated voices. I suppose they imagined these tricks gave them the appearance of being other-worldly. In truth, they were simply risible.

  The idea that this evening might end up as being just such another elaborate hoax or confidence trick began to exercise me. I had had an uncommonly tiring and emotionally draining day. I had traipsed up hill and down dale, been soaked by a waterfall and a rainstorm and been insulted by someone for whom I had little or no respect. I had nearly disappeared over the edge of an abyss. I had nearly had a stray bullet, if it was stray, gouge a channel through my brain. I was therefore in no mood to be trifled with. The image of my own bed began to rise before my eyes and, although I pushed it aside, it returned.

  And then Francesca entered.

  We all stirred and settled again in that “at last” way people have when they have sat still for a particularly long time – before the overture begins, or in a doctor’s waiting room. It was clear by the puffiness around her eyes that she had been crying, and had been waiting until she had stopped before attempting to make her face as presentable as possible for visitors. It was also clear by the way she fired a baleful glower across at her husband, ensconced in his armchair in the corner, who was the reason for the tears.

  “We shall begin,” she announced.

  She sat in her chair. It was the usual medium’s property: high back, arms.

  “Do you require
‘tyraps’?” I asked, using a word which I imagined was English but which I thought might have been universal in the world of the medium. She looked at me quizzically.

  “The bonds to secure your arms to the chair.”

  “No, that won’t be necessary. I do not feel that I am under scrutiny. I have no need to prove my truth. I am also not proposing that I am a physical medium.”

  “What’s that?” asked Holloway.

  “A physical medium sometimes has manifestations of a physical nature,” I explained, like the scientist and rational human being that I believed myself to be. “Things moving about the room, strange noises, ectoplasm, that sort of thing…”

  “Ah,” said Holloway, seemingly disappointed.

  “Usually séances are conducted in the dark, and the medium does not wish to be accused of getting up from his or her chair to perform these so-called manifestations personally, if you see what I mean?”

  Francesca was looking at me again. Was that curiosity in her eyes? Or was it concern that I knew this much?

  “So, we are not going to do this in the dark?” asked Marie, also expressing disappointment. I suspected that this was for a different reason. Perhaps, for her, everything must conform to the stereotype or it would not be the full authentic experience.

  “Yes, we will have it dark,” said Francesca, “but I do not need to be secured to my chair. I am merely going to report what it is that I hear.”

  “And what is it that you do hear?” asked Pivcevic, disarmingly.

  “This I cannot say.”

  “Because you do not want to, or you cannot because there is nothing there?” This time is was Anna who spoke, more challenging than her husband.

  “No, I cannot say because it is difficult to describe. It is like knowing something you did not know. Hearing something you have not heard. Understanding something no one has ever explained to you.”

  “And what is it that you don’t know, don’t hear and don’t understand?” Pivcevic asked, playfully.

  “We shall find out, I hope,” said Francesca and turned the oil lamp, which had been standing patiently in the middle of the table all this time, right down.