Frank Thomas - Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword

Von Shalloway thumped his desk with exasperation.

"It had to be Shadow Schadie, but try to convince a jury when they are facing a man who has confessed. Hublein was convicted. He made no defense. The few words the lawyers could get out of him were incriminating. Then the doctors got hold of him. I agree with them. Hublein has bats in his, how you say . . . ?"

"Belfry?"

"Ja! Und now he is in the booby . . . booby . . ."

"Hatch."

"That is so, Doctor."

"You say he had no record?" asked Holmes.

Von Shalloway regarded us both with an embarrassed expression. "Tanks Gott the journals did not make much of the case. A confessed criminal is not news. Gentlemen, Heinrich Hublein was a female impersonator."

I half rose from my chair. "Come now, von Shalloway, you're pulling our legs."

"I wish it was so. But, nein, Hublein was entertainer. He had what they call 'a good act.' He is small, dark of hair with thin bones and classical features. Always, he makes himself up as a blond and he sings in high voice and pretty good, too. Then at the conclusion of his turn, when the applause comes, he sweeps off his wig and audience realizes that he is not woman at all."

"A female impersonator and a crime of the century," mused Holmes thoughtfully. "I rather feel your newspapers missed a bet. Can I see this most unusual prisoner?"

"Of course. But you will look over the four cases I mentioned, no?" Von Shalloway was leafing through his records and extracted some typewritten sheets, which he handed to Holmes.

"Study them, please. Every day I come in here and I see that file, and then I think of Hublein and it is not such a good day suddenly."

The sleuth nodded. "Might I first have a go at the Meldwesen? You know how it delights me."

Von Shalloway turned to me with twinkling eyes.

"Ach, he is looking for something." His bright eyes shifted back to Holmes. "I shall have Hammer escort you, and while you are going through files, Doctor Watson and I will have luncheon. I know a beerstube which has the best bratwurst you have ever tasted, Doctor."

I winced. The German chief of police was as trim as a dancer despite an astonishing capacity for dark beer and rich food, whereas I. . . . But Holmes urged me to accept, and so it was that I spent the better part of two hours with von Shalloway and returned to his office feeling much the better for it. Holmes was waiting in the anteroom.

"I had a delightful time in your files, von Shalloway. The good Hammer offered to take me to see Hublein, but I felt that Watson's presence would be beneficial. Medical opinion, you know."

"Of course," I said, belching slightly. "By all means, let us be off to the crazy house."

The facility for the criminally insane was adjacent to the city jail. Holmes suggested that I have a discussion with the doctor in charge while he inquired amongst the personnel as to Hublein and his attitude during his incarceration. Sergeant Hammer was taking us to the man's cell when I reported my findings.

"A model prisoner, Holmes. Makes no fuss and actually says nothing at all, symptomatic of his mental disorder. He has become a mute."

"Save on certain rare occasions, usually at night, when peals of laughter come from his cell," said Holmes. "One attendant I spoke to described the sound as devoid of mirth and of a mechanical nature, interrupted only by pauses for air."

I shuddered instinctively. "The man is not dangerous, in any case."

"But silent. The worst kind for our purposes."

We were at the cell door now, which Hammer unlocked for us.

Heinrich Hublein was as von Shalloway had described him. He was sitting erect on the cot in his room, staring at the wall in front of him with small, button-black eyes. I noted that his mouth twitched, but he made no notice of our entrance. Hammer closed the cell door and stood by it, alert. Hublein was classified as non-dangerous, but we were in a mental institution, and a complete reversal of temperament was possible.

Holmes remained motionless, studying the figure on the cot and possibly waiting for him to register on our presence. In appearance Hublein seemed fragile, with a flat chest and delicate, pipestem bones. I felt that his nervous system and sensory tissue had relatively poor protection, a contributing cause to what I diagnosed as a breakdown followed by a deliberately enforced withdrawal from a world that was unbearable. He seemed the type that would react dramatically to a shock or a situation from which he demanded escape at all costs. Like many who have fled from reason, he was youthful-looking.

"Hublein?" It was Holmes using a soft tone in an inquisitive manner.

The man nodded slightly, as though we barely existed on the periphery of his existence.

"The famous entertainer?" continued the sleuth. There might have been a sudden flash in those dull eyes. I could not be sure.

"This really will not do," said Holmes. His voice had a faint, chiding sound to it. "They will never know what you did."

Hublein's eyes slowly, reluctantly abandoned the wall, and an inch at a time his face turned in our direction, the rest of his slight body remaining motionless. It was like a diver allowing the buoyancy of his body to bring him to the surface. When his head had made a forty-five-degree turn, he seemed to be looking through us and beyond.

"They don't think you stole the tablets, you know. They certainly don't know about your great performance."

The dark eyes came slowly into focus, regarding Holmes's expressive face and, I felt, actually seeing him for the first time. The sleuth's words seemed to have drawn him from another dimension.

"It's never been done before, you know. Nobody ever thought of it but you."

There was a flicker of understanding now, of interest.

"How do you know?" His voice was husky, as though rusted from lack of use. I was conscious of Hammer stiffening. Words from Hublein had startled him.

"I am Sherlock Holmes."

The thin-boned, delicate face was fastened on the sleuth, and he pushed a lock of dark hair off his narrow forehead.

"To use the machine against itself. A revolutionary concept."

The lips twitched again, and a half-smile forced itself shyly onto the pale face with almost translucent skin.

"It was a good idea," he admitted. His words came easier this time.

"But you must have had to practice. How did you learn to use the jimmy?"

Now there seemed an actual desire to speak, to explain, to indulge a starved vanity.

"They had diagrams of the tool in the files. Besides, you meet all kinds of people when you work in cabarets."

"So you got some tips from a swag man. Also some instruction on how to use a glass cutter." Holmes might have been a professor congratulating a student on good marks.

"I can do things with my hands. I started out working with puppets."

"Before you took up female impersonating."

Irritation flitted over Hublein's face. "There was more money in the impersonating. I could sing in a high key and dance enough to get by. Men in the audience used to try to grab me. They felt like fools when I took off my wig."

"But you never liked it."

"No. People thought I was a freak."

"So you wanted to do something truly dangerous. Be a Robin Hood." Holmes corrected himself: "William Tell."

The veil was completely brushed aside from the eyes now. They glowed.

"It wasn't wooden puppets or cosmetics and wigs. It was exciting, no make-believe. The darkness, the silence, and the thrill when you got away and knew that you had done it. You'd fooled them."

"Fooled everybody," commented Holmes factually.

"But I was fooled in the end." The thought was a bitter one, and the shutters of Hublein's eyes started to close again. I sensed he was beginning to drift back into the catatonic escape, but Holmes was alert to this danger as well.