Plantin gave her a friendly, but nevertheless disconcerted, glance. If it were unseemly to be thus embarrassed in public, however, he allowed himself on this occasion to be overruled by his wife’s love and concern. Long might it continue, I thought.
“This new openness will take some getting used to,” he remarked, with a rueful smile. “But it is true. It had reached such a situation that I had become furious with poor Mr Brown, who, I understand, you have discovered fell by accident – which to my mind was always the case.”
“So it would seem.” I did not volunteer any further information. None was sought.
“I am so ashamed of my ill-feeling towards the gentleman. I regret particularly that I had admonished him heartily the day of his tragic demise. I would not wish him dead. But he had been always so morose. He obstinately refused to enjoy the beauty of his surroundings and the opportunities for enjoying them. Opportunities which, in my case, were far more limited.” He tapped his legs. “But now I see that this anger was as much a fault in myself as in the gentleman. I regret to say, I similarly admonished the hotel proprietor’s young daughter, Eva. Marie, having witnessed that, began to tell me that enough was enough, and it was that event that meant we started talking. Talking properly. Eva, I am pleased to say, has forgiven me my ungracious outburst.”
I understood entirely and reminded him that while he had this beautiful landscape to enjoy, he also had other things in which he might justifiably rejoice. At which point I took the liberty of now pecking Marie on the cheek. I shook the Frenchman’s outstretched hand and Father Vernon and I took our leave of them.
We stepped out briskly along the main street. As we walked, Father Vernon fumbled through the slit at the hip in his habit into a trouser pocket beneath. He subsequently produced a piece of paper.
“Before I forget, I was asked to give this to you.”
I took it and noted that it was another telegram from Flemyng. Doubtless the answer to my questions regarding Francesca and Frau von Denecker. However, I was in no position to read it, as it was simply a ticker-tape stream of cricket scores like before. Another Netherlands match against Hull at Kingston upon Hull, it would seem. Followed by Middlesex vs Surrey at Lord’s. I was able to note, at least, that Baldwin, Richardson and Wood were in for Streatfeild, Sharpe and Clarke. None of whom had performed terribly well against Nottinghamshire. Perhaps they were replaced, or injured, or were simply otherwise engaged. I could even establish that the information referred to psalms, verses and words 7:5:11; 9:6:21; 3:2:3; 2:1:8; 4:3:17; 23:4:10; 10:2:11; 7:1:11; 3:1:8 respectively. But I was gallingly unable to extract any further information than that.
“Oh dear,” I said aloud, “unfortunately I left the materials needed to best… appreciate… this back at the hotel on the library shelf. Would it be too much of a bind if we returned for a short while?”
“No need.” The Franciscan stared playfully ahead as he spoke. “Apparently, I am told it says: Let Them Be. People Will Shadow Them. Trust Me.”
I stopped. My lower jaw hung open. “How did you…?”
He said nothing in return. He simply carried on walking and I caught him up. A moment later and he looked up pointedly. My eyes followed the direction in which his were indicating. I could see Frau von Denecker upon her balcony leaning on her silver-topped cane. She nodded her goodbye and smiled as graciously as always. I doffed my hat in return. Two ships of the line rendering passing honours could not have offered a more dignified scene. And then I understood.
My assessment of the relationship between the sensual French/Italian woman and the distinguished Prussian/Austrian woman was perhaps not as misguided as I had begun to believe. And, of course, this priest accompanying me plainly knew more about such matters than he would ever begin to admit to. Or was it simply that he was just their father confessor? Involved, yet not involved? In the world, yet not of the world? It could quite simply be that he had been concerned for me, as it was his duty to be concerned for all humankind. Perhaps Frau von Denecker had advised him, without offering any details, that he needed to be concerned for me; that his best policy, she may have told him, was to encourage me to leave the village as soon as practicable – as soon as it was clear I had not been involved in any shenanigans with regard to Brown’s death.
It did explain who was reading my wires and why they had been so keen that I leave. In my investigation, anything might have been uncovered. Things that had nothing to do with the puzzle that needed to be solved but were nonetheless highly sensitive; dangerous, volatile, even. I realized that mine was a simple code, after all. One eminently decipherable with the kind of resources available to a great state and its intelligence machinery. I supposed that they would move on soon, too, Francesca and Frau von Denecker. Find another country. Lay low until the great wheels of history turned and Francesca’s “uncanny” powers were needed again. Deep, deep and turbulent waters indeed. It was best a simple doctor and writer stayed clear of them, for fear of slipping over the edge and drowning.
We had, by now, reached the end of the village and were beginning to turn our toes eastward. My way passed along the great ridge above the valley that ran like a giant’s spine beneath the austere gaze of the great mountain range south of us. At that moment we were hailed from behind. We stopped and turned. Francesca ran to catch us up. She looked as beautiful as ever in the bright morning sunshine.
“I wanted to say goodbye. I saw you out of my window. I wanted to say goodbye.”
We looked at each other for a moment.
“I am sorry about Hugo,” I said. “Tell him I apologize.”
“I will tell him. And he apologizes also.”
“Does he?”
“I will tell him that he apologizes. He is a good man. But he is also very stubborn.”
“This much I realized.” I could still feel the bruises.
“So.”
“So…”
“I am glad that you are going. For you. But I am sad that you are going. For me.”
“Thank you. That means a great deal to me.”
“And I wanted to thank you…”
“For what?”
“For being honest. When you came to see me.”
I looked at her steadily before I replied. “Honesty is the best policy.”
“Sometimes it is not possible to be honest.”
“I understand.” I looked into her deep brown soulful eyes and wished that I could linger there a moment longer. But that too was not possible.
“Well, goodbye then.” I held out my hand.
She stepped forward daintily, and rose up onto her toes so that I might kiss her proffered cheek. I leaned forward and, as I did so, she turned her face slightly. As a result, in the act of kissing her cheek, I also caught the corner of her mouth and I tasted her lips. It was electric and I knew, at that moment, though we might never meet again, I would always remember her fondly. She was undoubtedly very good at making men remember her.
Then she turned on her heel and walked quickly back to her home, and her husband; whom, despite everything, it was clear she loved.
As we walked, we discussed the Bible. Father Vernon talked about the work being done to unpick that which appeared anomalous in Scripture. Why one Gospel might say one thing and another Gospel might contradict it. It was down to how Scripture had come to be put together. The work also involved looking deeply into the beliefs and customs of the people who had written the words down for future generations to cherish. He told me about the quest to unearth the historical Jesus. That extraordinary man who really had lived and breathed and walked upon the earth. The friar told me a little of the extensive research being undertaken by theologians and historians throughout Europe. Work as fascinating and as gripping a detective story as anything any author might come up with. The world had not caught up with this work yet. And it would be a very painful experience when it did. It did not mean that miracles did not happen, nor that Chri
st did not rise again, he said. But it required many new perspectives and even the church, he noted ruefully, would have difficulty coming to terms with all of it. It could take years, decades, centuries perhaps. Revelation was not static, it was emergent. Otherwise it would be a dead religion. God walked alongside humankind. He did not simply set them adrift in a boat to fend for themselves.
“And your moral?”
“Be flexible. Be flexible like me, otherwise you will break.”
We marched on in silence for a while. I could hear the crickets rasping like rubbed straw and the hillsides ringing with cowbells.
“Thank you for restoring my faith,” Father Vernon said, at length.
“In God?”
“No, I always have faith in him. Or rather, he always has faith in me. No… my faith in humankind. Although ‘kind’ may not quite be the appropriate word.”
Physician, heal thyself, I thought.
We heard a distant gunshot. The report reached the mountains and made them shout it out among themselves.
“Werner.”
Father Vernon nodded. “Possibly. He is a very complicated fellow. But noble, despite his bluff exterior.”
“I believe you are right. Mevrouw van Engels had received a violent mark upon her cheekbone. You do not think he could have advanced upon her and she threw him off?”
“Far from it. More likely she advanced upon him for comfort and in confusion. Being despite outward appearances very much the gentleman, he may have tried to extricate himself and she stumbled. Something like that. Despite all his hunting rifles, his is a gentle soul.”
“Is it possible that this landscape might eventually make anyone gentle?”
“It is more than a possibility. It is fact. Everyone succumbs eventually.”
We reached the Reichenbach Falls a short time later. I was looking forward to my first hearty meal in Meiringen. But there was something I had to do first.
“What are you doing with that?”
“I am going to throw it down into the waters, where it belongs.”
We stood in silence for a moment.
“Did you not tell me how you tried to conjure up the spirit of Holmes? Do you think you managed this?” the priest asked.
I thought long and hard about all that had happened. “I don’t know.”
“Spirits and phantasms. Murders, victims, criminals. They all have risen out of nowhere. You must ask yourself if this was a trick of the mind or are there, indeed, other forces beyond this, beyond our understanding?”
I looked again at all the events of the past week. From one perspective it was absolutely true. I had conjured something out of nothing. Not wholly my fault, of course, but nevertheless the fact remained. A complete Sherlock Holmes case had risen as a wraith out of the mist and, for a while, had taken a very real shape. It had become painfully tangible. Then, almost as quickly as it had come, it had simply dissolved like the morning dew. Undoubtedly there were issues and concerns. But they belonged to another time and place; the realm of high politics and diplomacy and cloak-and-dagger people. The people who truly belonged to that other, fantasy world were the best equipped to dwell on those planes of existence.
But there was something else. I had enjoyed it. The whole experience had been confusing, frustrating, dismaying, terrifying and outrageous. I had never been so frightened or so scandalized in my entire life. Yet, and this was perhaps the most outrageous thing of all, I would not have missed it for worlds. As far as the investigating was concerned, I had been both a bumbler and an oaf. But I had, it had to be said, bumbled and oafed my way to a reasonably satisfactory and justifiable conclusion. I had not been as prescient as I might have wished throughout the whole affair. But then I was just a rank amateur, after all. What had happened, though, was that I had acquired the taste for detection. Heretofore, it had been a diverting pastime to write my stories. All the adventures through which I had forced my hero had resulted in the experiences being vicarious ones for me. Holmes and Watson enjoyed the thrill of the chase on my behalf, so to speak. Experiencing it for myself, I had found that there was much to relish, much to learn and many techniques to acquire. That brought out the eternal student and scientist in me. It was my opinion that plainly, with my reputation as a constructor of detective fiction, I might well find that others may also choose to bring their real-life cases to my attention.
Holmes, I realized, standing there at the top of the Reichenbach Falls, had changed my entire life. Even in these last few days, despite the exasperations and even the terrors I had undergone, there was no doubt that he had acted as something of a restorative. He had reinvigorated me. He had swept away my growing cynicism and world-weariness. He had reintroduced me to my enjoyment of my own humanity and humankind in general. Yes, unlike Father Vernon, I did mean kind. Always kind, as a species, despite the efforts of individuals and groups to sully that reputation. I had much to be grateful to Mr Sherlock Holmes for. But, it was also clear, he must now be put behind me. Just as this whole affair would be. I did not know how I would do it. I was committed to a further sequence of stories, but I resolved there and then, perched at the edge of that great force of water, that I would find some way of finishing the Holmes stories for ever. Something spectacular, perhaps. Noble and courageous and highly moving. Having said that, I told myself, even if I were to dispose of Holmes there was no reason why I might not also bring him back to life again. If the time were right. When the world needed him again. When everything in my life was in better perspective.
Who knows? I thought. As Father Vernon advised, be flexible.
I cast the pipe tool down into the chasm. I watched it briefly glint silver, and flash like a leaping salmon in the watery sunlight. It spun and plummeted, skipped off a couple of crags, performed a final exultant cartwheel, and plunged into the milky green froth, to disappear for ever from view.