Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

"It is like a pretty problem in geometry," went on Wells. "The two versions are symmetrical, like mirror images. But which is the original and which the false copy? What about motive, then? Could Tarquin's envy of his brother – plain for all to see – have driven him to murder? But there is no financial reward for him. And then there is the engineer. Bryson was driven to his dalliance with Jane Brimicombe by the tenderness of his character. How can such tenderness chime with a capability for scheming murder? So, once again, we have symmetry. Each man has a motive – "

Holmes puffed contentedly at his pipe as Wells rattled on in this fashion. He said at last, "Speculations about the mental state of suspects are rarely so fruitful as concentration on the salient facts of the case."

I put in, "I'm sure the peculiar circumstances of the death had something to do with the nature of the Inertial Adjustor itself, though I fail to understand how."

Holmes nodded approvingly. "Good, Watson."

"But," said Wells, "we don't even know if the Adjustor ever operated, or if it was another of Ralph's vain boasts – a flight of fancy, like his trip to the Moon! I still have that vial of Moon dust about me somewhere – "

"You yourself had lunch in the chamber," Holmes said.

"I did. And Ralph performed little demonstrations of the principal. For instance: he dropped a handful of gravel, and we watched as the heaviest fragments were snatched most rapidly to Earth's bosom, contrary to Galileo's famous experiment. But I saw nothing which could not be replicated by a competent conjurer."

"And what of the mice?"

Wells frowned.

"They were rather odd, Mr Wells," I said.

"We can imagine the effect of the distorted gravity of that chamber on generations of insects and animals," Holmes said. "A mouse, for instance, being small, would need the lightest of limbs to support its reduced weight."

Wells saw it. "And they would evolve in that direction, according to the principles of Darwin – of course! Succeeding generations would develop attenuated limbs. Insects like your ant, Watson, could grow to a large size. But larger animals would be dragged more strongly to the ground. A horse, for example, might need legs as thick as an elephant's to support its weight."

"You have it," said Holmes. "But I doubt if there was time, or resource, for Ralph to study more than a generation or two of the higher animals. There was only his wife's unlucky labrador to use as test subject. And when Watson opens the envelope in his pocket, he will find the assay of the urine samples from that animal to display excessive levels of calcium."

That startled me. I retrieved and opened the envelope, and was not surprised – I know the man! – to find the results just as Holmes had predicted.

"The calcium is from the bones of the animal," Holmes said. "Trapped by Ralph in a region in which it needed to support less weight, the bitch's musculature and bone structure must have become progressively weaker, with bone calcium being washed out in urine. The same phenomenon is observed in patients suffering excessive bed rest, and I saw certain indications of the syndrome in those discoloured patches of lawn."

"Then the means of his death," Wells said, "must indeed be related to Ralph Brimicombe's successful modification of gravity itself."

"Certainly," said Holmes. "And similarly related are the motive behind the crime, and the opportunity."

Wells grew excited. "You've solved it, Holmes? What a remarkable man you are!"

"For the morrow," Holmes said. "For now, let us enjoy the hospitality of the landlord, and each other's company. I too enjoyed your Time Machine, Wells."

He seemed flattered. "Thank you."

"Especially your depiction of the crumbling of our foolish civilization. Although Iam not convinced you had thought it through far enough. Our degradation, when it comes, will surely be more dramatic and complete."

"Oh, indeed? Then let me set you a challenge, Mr Holmes. What if Iwere to transport you, through time, to some remote future – as remote as the era of the great lizards – let us say, tens of millions of years. How would you deduce the former existence of mankind?"

My friend rested his legs comfortably on a stool and tamped his pipe. "A pretty question. We must remember first that everything humans construct will revert to simpler chemicals over time. One must only inspect the decay of the Egyptian pyramids to see that, and they are young compared to the geologic epochs you evoke. None of our concrete or steel or glass will last even a million years."

"But," said Wells, "perhaps some human remains might be preserved in volcanic ash, as at Pompeii and Herculaneum. These remains might have artifacts in close proximity, such as jewellery or surgical tools. And geologists of the future will surely find a layer of ash and lead and zinc to mark the presence of our once-noble civilization – "

But Holmes did not agree -

And on they talked, H.G. Wells and Sherlock Holmes together, in a thickening haze of tobacco smoke and beer fumes, until my own poor head was spinning with the concepts they juggled.

The next morning, we made once more for the Brimicombe home. Holmes asked for Tarquin.

The younger Brimicombe entered the drawing room, sat comfortably and crossed his legs.

Holmes regarded him, equally at his ease. "This case has reminded me of a truism I personally find easy to forget: how little people truly understand of the world around us. You demonstrated this, Watson, with your failure to predict the correct fall of my sovereign and farthing, even though it is but an example of a process you must observe a hundred times a day. And yet it takes a man of genius – a Galileo – to be the first to perform a clear and decisive experiment in such a matter.You are no genius, Mr Brimicombe, and still less so is the engineer, Bryson. And yet you studied your brother's work; your grasp of the theory is the greater, and your understanding of the behaviour of objects inside the Inertial Adjustor is bound to be wider than poor Bryson's."

Ralph stared at Holmes, the fingers of one hand trembling slightly.

Holmes rested his hands behind his head. "After all, it was a drop of only ten feet or so. Even Watson here could survive a fall like that – perhaps with bruises and broken bones. But it was not Ralph's fall that killed him, was it? Tarquin, what was the mass of the capsule?"

"About ten tons."

"Perhaps a hundred times Ralph's mass. And so – in the peculiar conditions of the Inertial Adjustor – it fell to the floor a hundred times faster than Ralph."

And then, in a flash, I saw it all. Unlike my friendly lift cabin of Wells's analogy, the capsule would drive rapidly to the floor, engulfing Ralph. My unwelcome imagination ran away with the point: I saw the complex ceiling of the capsule smashing into Ralph's staring face, a fraction of a second before the careening metal hit his body and he burst like a balloon…

Tarquin buried his eyes in the palm of his hand. "I live with the image. Why are you telling me this?"

For answer, Holmes turned to Wells. "Mr Wells, let us test your own powers of observation. What is the single most startling aspect of the case?"

He frowned. "When we first visited the Inertial Adjustor chamber with Tarquin, I recall looking into the capsule, and scanning the floor and couch for signs of Ralph's death."

"But," Holmes said, "the evidence of Ralph's demise bizarre, grotesque – were fixed to the ceiling not the floor."

"Yes. Tarquin told me to look up – just as later, now I think on it, you, Mr Holmes, had to tell the engineer Bryson to raise his head, and his face twisted in horror." He studied Holmes. "So, a breaking of the symmetry at last. Tarquin knew where to look; Bryson did not. What does that tell us?"