Barry Day: Sherlock Holmes and the Alice in Wonderland Murders

“‘… and would not stay for an answer’ was, I seem to recall, the end of Bacon’s quotation,” Holmes replied.

“A literary man, to add to your other accomplishments, I see, Mr. Holmes? This is too intriguing. May I test you with one more? ‘When I use a word … it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more or less.’”

“Humpty Dumpty … ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’”

“‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty …’” And now Moxton looked positively triumphant — “‘which is to be master — that’s all.’”

Then, almost as if he felt he had given too much away, he added in a lower tone — “I see you are a fellow aficionado of the great — and recently late — Dodgson?”

“Dodgson?” I interrupted. “Who’s Dodgson? I could have sworn that came from that fellow — what’s his name?”

“Carroll, old fellow,” Holmes came to my rescue. “Lewis Carroll, the nom de plume of the late — and, as Mr. Moxton rightly says, great — writer, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, author of Alice in Wonderland and its sequel, Alice Through The Looking Glass …”

“I’ve often wondered why he chose that particular name. Perhaps you can enlighten me?”

This from Steel. “Elementary. Dodgson simply translated his first two names into Latin — ‘Carolus Lodovicus’ and then anglicized them into ‘Lewis Carroll’. He literally invented himself — a practice in which he was not the first nor, I suspect, will he be the last.”

“Children’s books, aren’t they?” I was determined to retrieve a little lost ground with Miss Creighton watching.

“Ostensibly written for children, Watson, but in the eyes of many incidental works of somewhat surrealistic philosophy, indicating — among other things — that few things are what they seem.”

“Well put, Mr. Holmes,” Moxton added and seemed about to take the point further, when Steel — clearly not used to being silent when two or more were gathered together — interrupted …

“So, tell us, Mr. Holmes — what do you think of today’s ‘scoop?’”

Moxton, who had looked momentarily irritated at being cut off in full flow, now looked at Holmes with even greater intensity.

“Yes, Mr. Holmes, were you persuaded by the evidence of your own eyes? Or will you wait until tomorrow’s headlines tell the world?”

Holmes paused for a moment to consider his reply. Then, looking Moxton squarely in the eye: “Watson will tell you that it has long been one of my maxims that the Press is a most valuable institution — if you only know how to use it. Having now met you, Mr. Moxton, I am left in no doubt that you of all people know precisely how to use it … Now, if you’ll excuse us — Miss Creighton, Mr. Steel — until our paths cross again. Dr. Watson and I have a train to catch … Thank you for a most revealing afternoon. Goodbye, Mr. Moxton …”

“Oh, John, please, Mr. Holmes.”

“You wouldn’t prefer — James?”

I sensed a distinct frisson as Moxton paused a moment. “Aren’t they one and the same thing? Goodbye, Mr. Holmes. I look forward to renewing our new acquaintance in the great metropolis.”

A few minutes later we were in our trap — which seemed to me to be suspiciously ready for us — and leaving the marquee behind us, glowing now with candlelight in the gathering dusk.

“What’s all this about a train, Holmes?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Watson, your supper is safe enough. It was time to make a strategic withdrawal. Besides, there’s something I want to show you before the light goes entirely.”

“I should think I’ve seen quite enough for one day,” I replied somewhat huffily.

Even after all these years it disconcerts me to have my routine disturbed quite so forcibly. If he heard my muttered complaint, Holmes paid no attention to it, merely urging the pony to make better speed.

Before I had time to sort my impressions of that disconcerting afternoon into some semblance of order, Holmes had steered the trap off the road into a small clearing and was even now hurrying towards the shore of the loch just visible through the autumn foliage.

“Come along, Watson, there’s a good fellow. We have an appointment with a monster.”

By the time I had disentangled myself from the trap and picked my way through the damp bracken, I found Holmes in an attitude I knew so well. He was spread-eagled on the bank, quite oblivious of the wet ground or the autumnal chill in the air, examining the lower bark of a nearby tree with a large round magnifying glass.

I was about to say — ‘ What monster?’ but I knew it to be pointless. He would explain to me in his own good time and not a moment before. Having apparently satisfied himself that the possibilities of the tree trunk had been exhausted and laying something he had carefully removed from the bark with tweezers on his folded handkerchief, he proceeded to crouch further along the bank, murmuring under his breath, as if he were keeping up a conversation with himself. At one point he traced a finger along the ground, then put it to his lips. Finally, he sprang to his feet and walked in my direction.

“For heaven’s sake, Holmes,” I expostulated. “What are we doing in this dismal spot? And what do you mean about the monster?”

“Where is the poet in your soul, my dear fellow?” he replied, looking more cheerful than I had seen him all day. ‘I come from haunts of coot and hern … and monsters.’ Tennyson … Or mostly. This, Watson, is the nesting ground — or perhaps I should say ‘resting ground’ of the Loch Ness Monster. Here …” And he indicated with his boot a deep, even groove in the bank that had exposed a quantity of bare mud — “is where it entered the water and there …” pointing to the tree that had absorbed him — “it was tethered …”

“You mean, somebody managed to tie the monster up?” It came out sounding absurd but the idea seemed so ludicrous.

“Just so, Watson, just so. By the depth of the groove in the bank, I should estimate a length of some twenty feet, a displacement of just over a ton — not counting, of course, the two men in its belly.”

I wondered if I could believe my ears. Perhaps all this talk of Alice In Wonderland had affected my friend’s brain. Seeing the expression on my face, Holmes finally took pity on me.

“Forgive me, Watson, but your honest reaction to events is more necessary to me than you can ever know. You curb my excesses and bring me back to basics. Take a look at this …”

He unfolded the handkerchief and lying on it I saw two small fragments of wire. “These, Watson, are torn from a high tension wire cable capable of taking considerable strain. The fact that the cable has frayed at all suggests it was restraining something of a significant mass. Restraining — or mooring. Had that object been a living creature, I think we could safely expect the groove it made entering the water to show some signs of irregularity, suggestive of whatever appendages it uses to manoeuvre through the water. Instead, the groove is perfectly smooth …”

“Like the hull of a ship?”

“In a nutshell — a ship or, more specifically, a submersible, holding, I would guess, two men — one to steer and one to manipulate the superstructure Mr. Moxton’s guests saw as the ‘monster’. You will no doubt recall, Watson, that our French friends launched a torpedo boat, the Gymnote some ten years ago. Since then I am informed that experiments have been undertaken to make such machines both lighter and more flexible. And what with the contribution of Herr Rudolf Diesel …”