The Adventure of The Magic Umbrella Read online

  Title Page

  Sherlock Holmes in

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE MAGIC UMBRELLA

  Dan Andriacco

  Publisher Information

  First edition published in 2013 by MX Publishing

  335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive,

  London, N11 3GX

  www.mxpublishing.com

  Digital edition converted and distributed in 2012 by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  © Copyright 2013 Dan Andriacco

  The right of Dan Andriacco to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

  All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not of MX Publishing.

  Cover design by www.staunch.com

  Dedication

  In Memorium

  Ralph Eppensteiner

  Introduction

  The Mysterious Mr. Phillimore

  Arthur Conan Doyle once said that it took as much effort to work out the plot of a short story as to plan a novel. In my experience, he wasn’t far wrong. The story you are about to read must have taken me months to plot. (Admittedly, I also wrote a novel and a novella during that period.)

  From the beginning it was planned as a chapter in a mystery novel, The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore. It wound up being two. My idea was to take one of the more tantalizing “untold tales” of Dr. Watson, alluded to in the opening paragraph of “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” and give it two solutions - one in a pastiche (this short story) and another in a modern-day entry in my Sebastian McCabe - Jeff Cody mystery series (the novel in which the short story forms two chapters).

  I knew early on that I wanted this fourth novel in my series to take place in London and play off of one of the untold tales. After a false start around the singular affair of the aluminum crutch, Phillimore sprang to mind. “Among those unfinished tales,” Dr. Watson writes, “is that of Mr. James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own home to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world.”

  There must be dozens of pastiches based on this tantalizing idea. I’ve only read one that I recall. It’s a radio play by Ellery Queen in which the detective solves the disappearance of a contemporary (for that time) crook named Phillimore.

  Pastiche writing is an interesting challenge. In trying to duplicate the vocabulary and writing style of the real thing, I’m steering a narrow course between parody and plagiarism. That is, I want it to seem very familiar to the Holmes reader without overreaching and without actually quoting from the originals. But that’s not all. I also want the plot, the settings, the atmosphere, and the new characters I’ve created to seem lifted straight out of the Holmes canon as well.

  It’s a very difficult task. I might not have undertaken it at all if it weren’t for the fact that my first pastiche, “The Peculiar Persecution of John Vincent Harden,” was the most popular chapter in my book Baker Street Beat and successful as an e-story. Plus, I really liked the tour-de-force of offering two solutions to this intriguing problem - one in this story and one in the novel in which it is included.

  One of the most basic decisions to make in starting a Holmes story, and one that also faced the original author, is what year the story takes place. For me, that was no decision at all. Having just finished my mystery novel The 1895 Murder, I set the tale in that year, just after the trip to Norway that is mentioned at the end of “The Adventure of Black Peter.”

  The Advetnure of the Magic Umbrella

  “What do you know of the Paradise, Watson?”

  “Very little,” I replied, somewhat perplexed. “I am not a religious man, Holmes.”

  “Good old Watson! This Paradise is a music hall. Here, read this. It came this morning.”

  Sherlock Holmes reached across the breakfast table to hand me a letter along with its envelope.

  It was July of 1895. We had just returned from Norway, where Holmes had concluded a matter of such delicacy that even now respect for the royal houses of Scandinavia stays my hand from recording the particulars. The letter was dated the night before.

  The Paradise Music Hall

  Covent Garden

  Dear Mr. Holmes,

  I am at my wit’s end. Trusting in the good sense of my friend Major Pond, it is upon his advice that I wish to consult you in the most mysterious disappearance of my business partner, Mr. James Phillimore. I will present myself in your quarters at 10:05 A.M.

  Faithfully yours,

  Phineas T. Ruffle

  “Well, what do you make of it, Watson?”

  I held up the paper to the light, attempting to apply my friend’s methods. “Strong bond and a watermark. Our prospective client is either successful in his enterprise or has another source of wealth, such as marriage or inheritance.”

  “Good, good. What else?”

  “He is greatly upset by this matter - see how he wrote quickly, in a rather shaky hand, not even bothering to blot the ink.”

  “Excellent! You are scintillating this morning, Watson!”

  Buoyed by this rare praise, I said, “I trust that I have deduced everything possible from this letter.”

  “Hardly that, my dear fellow,” said Holmes. “Surely it is obvious that the writer is a left-handed retired army colonel in his late 50s or early 60s who keeps a cat?”

  “Holmes!”

  “You don’t see a slant like that unless the writer is left handed. His age is more difficult, but I have made a special study of the effect of aging upon penmanship. I am even guilty of a small monograph upon the subject. Now consider the content of the letter. Surely only a military man used to giving orders would be so bold about setting an appointment and so precise as to the time he will arrive here. He also mentions his friend, the major. He must be of equal rank or higher. Colonel is not an unreasonable deduction.”

  “And the cat?”

  Without a word my friend pointed to the tiny chew marks on the outside of the envelope in my hand.

  “Now let’s see what we can learn about our visitor from the index.” Holmes pulled down from a shelf the great volume in which he had for many years docketed items of potential interest. He paged through the combination of news accounts and case notes that, in his unique filing system, he had bracketed together under the letter R. “Russian crown jewels. Red-headed League. Redstone, the blind archer. Cincinnati Red Stockings - a sporting team, mind you, Watson, not an article of clothing! Jephro Rucastle. Rembrandt Van Jones. Ah, here we are - Colonel Phineas T. Ruffle. So my inference was not so very bold after all! Served in South Africa . . . mentioned in the dispatches during the Boer rebellion of ’80 . . . now co-owner of the Paradise Music Hall. But surely here is the man himself!”

  Our visitor was a stout fellow, taller even than my companion, with gray hair and a walrus mustache. He strode into our room as if he owned it, clutching a top hat tightly in his right hand. His eyes darted from Sherlock Holmes to me and back again.

  “Mr. Holmes?”

  “I am Sherlock Holmes. This is my friend, Dr. Watson.”

 
He pumped our hands vigorously. “Good to meet you, Mr. Holmes. Major Pond never stops talking about how you solved that rum business of the singular suicide at the Cavendish Club.”

  “It was a trifling affair, though not without interest,” said Sherlock Holmes, but I could tell that my friend was pleased by this praise. “Someday friend Watson may wish to share an account of the matter with the public, but not until certain august personages involved have departed the stage. Please sit down and tell us your problem, Colonel Ruffle. Aside from the obvious fact that you are a widower with a young child or children and an inattentive manservant, I know very little about you.”

  Colonel Ruffle’s eyes bulged with almost comical surprise. “How in the world - ?”

  “Come, come,” said Holmes briskly. “When I see a man whose coat is unbrushed in a way no loving wife would ever tolerate and he is wearing a small black ribbon on the hat he carries in his hand, I should be a dull fellow indeed if I did not mark him down as a widower whose manservant nods. And when there is a bag of marbles sticking out of his coat pocket, it is no great leap to infer a child to play with them.”

  “Remarkable, sir! Most remarkable! Indeed, my dear wife died a year ago and I mourn her still. It may interest you to know, however, that the child in question is a cat named Freddy.”

  Sherlock Holmes laughed heartily, though with a rueful expression on his face. “Well, Watson, we were right about the cat, at any rate! Now, Colonel Ruffle, your story.”

  “And a strange story it is, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Leave nothing out, I beg you. We are all attention.” Holmes opened his notebook and began writing.

  “Well, sir, after I left the army I made my way into business. Found I had a talent for it. I dabbled in a number of different ventures, as you might call them, until I met Mr. Charles Kenworthy. He owned the Paradise Music Hall. Had a wonderful head for entertainment - he’d been a magician himself. But he was no businessman, Mr. Holmes, no businessman at all. He was losing money and needed help. I invested a goodly sum in the hall and we became partners. The Paradise was thriving when Mr. Kenworthy sickened with consumption about three years ago and died.”

  Holmes looked up.

  “And you did not inherit his interest?”

  “No, sir. His wife had died many years ago, but he had a daughter, Jane, and he left her his share. She became my partner.” Colonel Ruffle shook his head. “She was clever, Mr. Holmes, I admit that. But she was a woman! I could not tolerate a woman as my partner. Could not tolerate it at all. I tried to buy her out, but she wouldn’t have it and I couldn’t force it. Fortunately, she married within a few months. Her husband, Mr. James Phillimore, assumed the role at the Paradise formerly held by her father. He was a bit of an odd one, but he knew the acts.”

  “Odd in what way?”

  “He spoke very little, for one thing. And he always carried a large purple umbrella. Called it his magic umbrella. I guess it was magic at that - it made him disappear, you see.”

  “What!” Holmes and I interjected together.

  “It happened a week ago. We were to go to a meeting together at the City and Suburban Bank on a small matter of business. I picked him up at his home, The Windings, in Surrey. He’d barely settled into the cab next to me when he suddenly became very distraught. ‘Oh, drat,’ he said. ‘I forgot my umbrella.’ ‘Well, it doesn’t look like rain,’ I said. ‘Surely you can go to the bank without it.’ ‘No, no,’ said he, ‘I must have my umbrella.’ He hopped out of the cab and went into his house. I waited ten minutes, twenty minutes. Finally after half an hour I knocked on the front door. The maid answered. She said Mr. Phillimore wasn’t in. That was preposterous, Mr. Holmes, preposterous! I demanded to see Mrs. Phillimore. She told me her husband had left the house half an hour before and she hadn’t seen him since!”

  “This is a most interesting narrative,” Holmes said. “Pray continue. Obviously, Mr. Phillimore is still missing.”

  Our client nodded. “I went to the police right away but they said they could do nothing until he had been missing longer. Now that a week has passed they have still done nothing that I can see. I am quite lost without my partner, quite lost. Major Pond suggested that I should come to you for help in this dark matter.”

  “Yes, we are the court of last appeal,” Holmes said dryly. “Well, let’s see what we can do to shed some light. I am most anxious to see the home from which Mr. James Phillimore disappeared and to speak with his wife. How fares Mrs. Phillimore?”

  “As you would imagine, she is quite worried and puzzled over her husband’s disappearance.”

  “Doubtless. Does she know that you have come to see me? No? Well, that’s no great matter. Can you go with me to Surrey, Watson?”

  “Nothing would please me more, I assure you.”

  “Capital!”

  Within the hour we were in the train to Surrey, Holmes having promised to rejoin our client later at the Paradise.

  The Windings was a handsome villa in the Queen Anne style about three miles from Aldershot. The solid reality of the red brick building seemed far removed from the strange tale we had heard of the vanishing showman. We were met at the door by the maid, an Irishwoman of advanced years. She looked at us skeptically, took my companion’s card, and asked us to wait in the hall. “I’ll see if missus is receiving visitors,” she sniffed in a thick brogue. I tried to imagine Mr. James Phillimore walking through this door to fetch his large purple umbrella and then . . . what?

  We were not kept waiting long.

  The woman who swept down the staircase was a tall, handsome woman with jet black hair done up in ringlets. She was solemnly dressed in a dark blue frock as if almost but not quite in mourning.

  “I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes,” she said without preamble. “Please tell me that you bring good news.”

  “I bring no news at all, madam. I have been retained to look into the disappearance of your husband.”

  “That is itself good news. I suppose that Colonel Ruffle hired you?”

  Holmes acknowledged the accuracy of her guess. “And this is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of considerable help to me in my investigations.”

  “Yes, of course. I know his name as well. Please come and sit down.”

  We moved into the parlour.

  “Colonel Ruffle has given us his account of the morning your husband disappeared,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I should be pleased to hear what happened on this side of the door.”

  “There is little to tell, I’m afraid. James told me at breakfast that he and Colonel Ruffle were going to their bank to conduct some business. The colonel was to come by at nine o’clock. At the appointed hour James left and I went upstairs. That’s the last I saw of him.” She wiped her eyes with a lace handkerchief.

  “You did not hear him return to get his umbrella?”

  “No, but that is not surprising. This is a big house and I do not hear the door opening when I am upstairs in my room.”

  “How about the maid?”

  “Annie heard nothing. I hope she wasn’t too rude to you when you arrived. This was my father’s house and she has been in service here most of my life. She’s very devoted to me and very protective.”

  “May I speak with her later?”

  “Of course. She has already talked to the police.”

  “The police!”

  “Yes, I had reported James missing. An Inspector Hopkins came to make inquiries yesterday.”

  “I see. Our client was unaware. Well, better late than never. I’m sure we will cross paths with friend Hopkins eventually. Can you explain your husband’s apparent attachment to his umbrella?”

  Mrs. Phillimore smiled faintly. “His magic umbrella, as he called it? I have no idea, Mr. Holmes. He would never tell me. I believed it was some sort of superstition, perhaps a good luck charm. He took it with him everywhere.”

  “And yet, there it is now in the umbrella stand in the hallway. Your husband has been parted from it a
t last.”

  The missing man’s wife shivered. “That is the most unsettling fact of all.”

  “May I look at it?”

  “Please do.”

  Holmes fetched the large brolly and examined it closely. “Other than the fact that the owner had a small hand, a cautious nature, and medium stature, I can deduce nothing. How did you come to know your husband, Mrs. Phillimore?”

  “His late father was an old friend of my father. We met when he came to offer me condolences after Father’s death. He was so kind that we formed an attachment very quickly.”

  Holmes nodded. “I see. Do you have a photograph of Mr. Phillimore?”

  “Yes, up-stairs in my room.”

  “Would you please bring it here so that I can see it?”

  “Certainly.”

  As soon as she left, my friend threw himself upon the floor and pulled out a tape measure. “Watch the stairs, Watson! Let me know when she’s coming back.”

  With amazement I saw that Holmes was measuring the floor. When he finished that he whipped out his lens and studied the point where the floor met the walls.

  “Whatever are you looking for?” I asked.

  “A discrepancy in room sizes that would indicate there is more to this house than meets the eye.”

  “A hidden room, you mean! Then you think James Phillimore engineered his own disappearance by hiding in a concealed chamber?”

  “I think that is certainly a possibility,” my friend said. “It wouldn’t be the first time in our experience that something of the sort happened.”

  Before he could comment further, I alerted Holmes in an urgent whisper that Mrs. Phillimore was coming down the stairs. She entered the parlour with her hand extended, giving Holmes a cabinet-size photograph. James Phillimore was a soft-featured man with a full beard. In the photo he stood erect, umbrella in hand, wearing a bowler hat.

  “Is this the only photograph of your husband?”