The Adventure of the Peerless Peer

  SERENDIPITOUS ENCOUNTER ...

  . . . The cobra struck, and Holmes and I both jumped, yelling at the same time.

  Something hissed through the air. The cobra was knocked aside by the impact of the missile, and it writhed dying on the ground. An arrow transfixed it just back of the head.

  "Steady, Watson!" Holmes said. "We are saved, but the savage who shot that may have preserved us only so he'll have fresher meat for his pot!"

  Suddenly we leaped into the air again, uttering a frightened scream. Seemingly out of the air, a man had appeared before us ... Holmes recovered first.

  He said, "Lord Greystoke, I presume?"

  Published by

  DELL PUBLISHING CO., INC.

  1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

  New York, N.Y. 10017 Copyright © 1974 by Philip Jose Farmer.

  All rights reserved.

  Dell ® TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co" Inc.

  Reprinted by arrangement with the author.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Dell Printing-September 1976

  Dedicated to Samuel Rosenberg,

  who has embroidered for the world

  the greatest Doylie ever.

  All the characters in this book are real;

  any resemblance to fictional characters

  is purely coincidental.

  FOREWORD

  As everybody knows, Dr. Watson stored in a battered tin dispatch-box his manuscripts concerning the unpublished cases of Sherlock Holmes. This box was placed in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co. at Charing Cross. Whatever hopes the world had that these papers would some day become public were destroyed when the bank was blasted into fragments during the bombings of World War II. It is said that Winston Churchill himself directed that the ruins be searched for the box but that no trace of it was found.

  I am happy to report that this lack of success is no cause for regret. At a time and for reasons unknown, the box had been transferred to a little villa on the south slope of the Sussex downs near the village of Fulworth. It was kept in a trunk in the attic of the villa. This, as everybody should know, was the residence of Holmes after he had retired. It is not known what eventually happened to the Greatest Detective. There is no record of his death. Even if there were, it would be disbelieved by the many who still think of him as a living person. This almost religious belief thrives though he would, if still alive, be one hundred and twenty years old at the date of writing this foreword.

  Whatever happened to Holmes, his villa was sold in the late 1950's to the seventeenth Duke of Denver. The box, with some other objects, was removed to the ducal estate in Norfolk. His Grace had intended to wait until after his death before the papers would be allowed to be published. However, His Grace, though eighty-four years old now, feels that he may live to be a hundred. The world has waited far too long, and it is certainly ready for anything, no matter how shocking, that may be in Watson's narratives. The duke has given his consent to the publication of all but a few papers, and even these may see print if the descendants of certain people mentioned in them give their permission. Gratitude is due His Grace for this generous decision.

  On hearing the good news, your editor communicated with the British agents handling the Watson papers and was fortunate enough to acquire the American Agency for them. The adventure at hand is the first to be released; others will follow from time to time.

  Watson's holograph is obviously a first draft.

  A number of passages recording words actually uttered by the participants during this adventure are either crossed out or replaced with asterisks. The "peerless peer" of this tale is called "Greystoke," but on one occasion old habit broke through and Watson inadvertently wrote "Holdernesse." Watson left no note explaining why he had substituted one pseudo-title for another. He used "Holdernessee" in "The Adventure of the Priory School" to conceal the identity of Holmes' noble client. Holmes himself, in his reference to the nobleman in his "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier," used the pseudotitle of "Greyminster."

  It is your editor's guess that Watson decided on "Greystoke" in this narrative because the pseudotitle had been made world-famous by the novels based on the African exploits of the nephew of the man Watson had called "Holdernesse."

  The adventure at hand is singular for many reasons. It reveals that Holmes was not allowed to stay in retirement after the events of "His Last Bow." We are made aware that Holmes made a second visit to Africa, going far beyond Khartoum (though not willingly), and so saved Great Britain from the greatest danger which has ever threatened it. We are given some illumination on the careers of the two greatest American aviators and spies in the early years of World War I. We learn that Watson was married for the fourth time, and the destruction of a civilization rivalling ancient Egypt is recorded for the first time. Holmes' contribution to apiology and how he used it to save himself and others is related herein. This narrative also describes how Holmes' genius at deduction enabled him to clear up a certain discrepancy that has puzzled the more discerning readers of the works of Greystoke's American biographer.

  Some aspects of this discrepancy are revealed by Lord Greystoke himself in "Extracts from the Memoirs of Lord Greystoke," Mother Was a Lovely Beast, Philip Jose Farmer, editor, Chilton, October, 1974. However. this revelation is only a minor part of Watson's chronicle, one among many mysteries solved, and this account presents the mystery from a somewhat different viewpoint.

  Your editor decided for these reasons to leave this explanation in this work. Besides, your editor would not dream of tampering with any part of the Sacred Writings.

  – Philip Jose Farmer

  1

  It is with a light heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular genius which distinguished my friend Sherlock Holmes. I realise that I once wrote something to that effect, though at that time my heart was as heavy as it could possibly be. This time I am certain that Holmes has retired for the last time. At least he has sworn that he will no more go a-detectiving. The case of the peerless peer has made him financially secure, and he foresees no more grave perils menacing our country now that out great enemy has been laid low. Moreover. he has sworn that never again will he set foot on any soil but that of his native land. Nor will he ever again get near an aircraft. The mere sight or sound of one freezes his blood.

  The peculiar adventure which occupies these pages began on the second day of February, 1916. At this time I was, despite my age, serving on the staff of a military hospital in London. Zeppelins had made bombing raids over England for two nights previously mainly in the Midlands. Though these were comparatively ineffective, seventy people had been killed, one hundred and thirteen injured, and a monetary damage of fifty-three thousand eight hundred and thirty-two pounds had been inflicted. These raids were the latest in a series starting the nineteenth of January. There was no panic, of course, but even stout British hearts were experiencing some uneasiness. There were rumours, no doubt originated by German agents, that the Kaiser intended to send across the channel a fleet of a thousand airships. I was discussing this rumour with my young friend, Dr. Fell, over a brandy in my quarters when a knock sounded on the door. I opened it to admit a messenger. He handed me a telegram which I wasted no time in reading.

  "Great Scott!" I cried.

  "What is it, my dear fellow?" Fell said, heaving himself from the chair. Even then, on war rations, he was putting on overly much weight.

  "A summons to the F. 0.," I said. "From Holmes. And I am on special leave."

  "Sherlock?" said Fell.

  "No, Mycroft," I replied. Minutes later, having packed my few belongings,
I was being driven in a limousine toward the Foreign Office. An hour later, I entered the small austere room in which the massive Mycroft Holmes sat like a great spider spinning the web that ran throughout the British Empire and many alien lands. There were two others present, both of whom I knew. One was young Merrivale, a baronet's son, the brilliant aide to the head of the British Military Intelligence Department and soon to assume the chieftainship. He was also a qualified physician and had been one of my students when I was lecturing at Bart's. Mycroft claimed that Merrivale was capable of rivalling Holmes himself in the art of detection and would not be far behind Mycroft himself. Holmes' reply to this "needling" was that only practise revealed true promise.

  I wondered what Merrivale was doing away from the War Office but had no opportunity to voice my question. The sight of the second person there startled me at the same time it delighted me. It had been over a year since I had seen that tall, gaunt figure with the greying hair and the unforgettable hawklike profile.

  "My dear Holmes," I said. "I had thought that after the Von Bork affair ... "

  "The east wind has become appallingly cold, Watson," he said. "Duty recognises no age limits, and so I am called from my bees to serve our nation once more."

  Looking even more grim, he added, "The Von Bork business is not over. I fear that we underestimated the fellow because we so easily captured him. He is not always taken with such facility. Our government erred grievously in permitting him to return to Germany with Von Herling. He should have faced a firing squad. A motor-car crash in Germany after his return almost did for us what we had failed to do, according to reports that have recently reached me. But, except for a permanent injury to his left eye, he has recovered.

  "Mycroft tells me that Von Bork has done, and is doing, us inestimable damage. Our intelligence tells us that he is operating in Cairo, Egypt. But just where in Cairo and what disguise he has assumed is not known."

  "The man is indeed dangerous," Mycroft said, reaching with a hand as ponderous as a grizzly's paw for his snuff-box. "It is no exaggeration to say that he is the most dangerous man in the world, as far as the Allies are concerned, anyway."

  "Greater than Moriarty was?" Holmes said, his eyes lighting up.

  "Much greater," replied Mycroft. He breathed in the snuff, sneezed, and wiped his jacket with a large red handkerchief. His watery grey eyes had lost their inward-turning look and burned as if they were searchlights probing the murkiness around a distant target.

  "Von Bork has stolen the formula of a Hungarian refugee scientist employed by our government in Cairo. The scientist recently reported to his superiors the results of certain experiments he had been making on a certain type of bacillus peculiar to the land of the Pharaohs. He had discovered that this bacillus could be modified by chemical means to eat only sauerkraut. When a single bacillus was placed upon sauerkraut, it multiplied at a fantastic rate. It would become within sixty minutes a colony which would consume a pound of sauerkraut to its last molecule.

  "You see the implications. The bacillus is what the scientists call a mutated type. After treatment with a certain chemical both its form and function are changed. Should we drop vials containing this mutation in Germany, or our agents directly introduce the germs, the entire nation would shortly become sauerkrautless. Both their food supply and their morale would be devastated.

  "But Von Bork somehow got wind of this, stole the formula, destroyed the records and the chemicals with fire, and murdered the only man who knew how to mutate the bacillus.

  "However, his foul deed was no sooner committed than detected. A tight cordon was thrown around Cairo, and we have reason to believe that Von Bark is hiding in the native quarter somewhere. We can't keep that net tight for long, my dear Sherlock, and that is why you must be gotten there quickly so you can track him down. England expects much from you, brother, and much, I am sure, will be given."

  I turned to Holmes, who looked as shaken as I felt. "Surely, my dear fellow, we are not going to Cairo?"

  "Surely indeed, Watson," he replied. "Who else could sniff out the Teutonic fox, who else could trap him? We are not so old that we cannot settle Von Bork's hash once and for all."

  Holmes, I observed, was still in the habit of using Americanisms, I suppose because he had thrown himself so thoroughly into the role of an Irish-American while tracking down Von Bork in that adventure which I have titled "His Last Bow."

  "Unless," he said, sneering, "you really feel that the old warhorse should not leave his comfortable pasture?"

  "I am as good a man as I was a year and a half ago," I protested. "Have you ever known me to call it quits?"

  He chuckled and patted my shoulder, a gesture so rare that my heart warmed.

  "Good old Watson."

  Mycroft called for cigars, and while we were lighting up, he said, "You two will leave tonight from a Royal Naval Air Service strip outside London. You will be flown by two stages to Cairo, by two different pilots, I should say. The fliers have been carefully selected because their cargo will be precious. The Huns may already know your destination. If they do, they will make desperate efforts to intercept you, but our fliers are the pick of the lot. They are fighter pilots, but they will be flying bombers. The first pilot, the man who'll take you under his wing tonight, is a young fellow. Actually, he is only seventeen, he lied to get into the service, but officially he is eighteen. He has downed seven enemy planes in two weeks and done yeoman service in landing our agents behind enemy lines. You may know of him, at least you knew his great-uncle."

  He paused and said, "You remember, of course, the late Duke of Greystoke?"*

  [*This is the line in which Watson inadvertently wrote "Holdernesse" but corrected it. Editor.]

  "I will never forget the size of the fee I collected from him," Holmes said, and he chuckled.

  "Your pilot, Leftenant John Drummond, is the adopted son of the present Lord Greystoke," Mycroft continued .

  "But wait!" I said. "Haven't I heard some rather strange things about Lord Greystoke? Doesn't he live in Africa ?"

  "Oh, yes, in darkest Africa," Mycroft said.

  "In a tree house, I believe."

  "Lord Greystoke lives in a tree house?" I said.

  "Ah, yes," Mycroft said. "Greystoke is living in a tree house with an ape. At least, that's one of the rumours I've heard."

  "Lord Greystoke is living with an ape?" I said. "A female ape, I trust."

  "Oh, yes," Mycroft said. "There's nothing queer about Lord Greystoke, you know."*

  [*Under normal circumstances your editor would delete this old joke. Doubtless the reader has heard it in one form or another. But it is Watson's narrative and it is of historical importance. Now we know when and where the story originated.]

  "But surely," I said, "this Lord Greystoke can't be the son of the old duke? Not the Lord Saltire, the duke's son, whom we rescued from kidnappers in the adventure of the Priory School ?"

  Holmes was suddenly as keen as an eagle that detects a lamb. He stooped toward his brother, saying, "Hasn't some connexion been made between His Grace and the hero of that fantastic novel by that American writer — what's-his-name? — Bayrows? Borrows? Isn't the Yank's protagonist modelled somewhat after Lord Greystoke? The book only came out in the States in June of 1914, I believe, and so very few copies have gotten here because of the blockade. But I've heard rumours of it. I believe that His Grace could sue for libel, slander, defamation of character and much else if he chose to notice the novel."

  "I really don't know," Mycroft said. "I never read fiction."

  "By the Lord Harry!" Merrivale said. "I do! I've read the book, a rattling good yarn but wild, wild. This heir to an English peerage is adopted by a female ape and raised with a tribe of wild and woolly ... "

  Mycroft slammed his palm against the top of the table, startling all of us and making me wonder what had caused this unheard-of violence from the usually phlegmatic Mycroft.

  "Enough of this time-wasting chitchat about
an unbalanced peer and an excessively imaginative Yankee writer!" he said. "The Empire is crumbling around our ears and we're talking as if we're in a pub and all's well with the world!"

  He was right, of course, and all of us, including Holmes, I'm sure, felt abashed. But that conversation was not as irrelevant as we thought at the time.

  An hour later, after receiving verbal instructions from Mycroft and Merrivale, we left in the limousine for the secret airstrip outside London.

  2

  Our chauffeur drove off the highway onto a narrow dirt road which wound through a dense woods of oaks. After a half a mile, during which we passed many signs warning trespassers that this was military property, we were halted by a barbed wire gate across the road. Armed R.N.A.S. guards checked our documents and then waved us on. Ten minutes later, we emerged from the woods onto a very large meadow. At its northern end was a tall hill, the lower part of which gaped as if it had a mouth which was open with surprise. The surprise was that the opening was not to a cavern at all but to a hangar which had been hollowed out of the living rock of the hill. As we got out of the car men pushed from the hangar a huge aeroplane, the wings of which were folded against the fuselage.

  After that, events proceeded swiftly-too swiftly for me, I admit, and perhaps a trifle too swiftly for Holmes. After all, we had been born about a half century before the first aeroplane had flown. We were not sure that the motor-car, a recent invention from our viewpoint, was altogether a beneficial device. And here we were being conducted by a commodore toward the monstrously large aircraft. Within a few minutes, according to him, we would be within its fuselage and leaving the good earth behind and beneath us.

  Even as we walked toward it, its biplanes were unfolded and locked into place. By the time we reached it, its propellors had been spun by mechanics and the two motors had caught fire. Thunder rolled from its rotaries, and flame spat from its exhausts.