Текст книги "Sherlock Holmes and the Alien Abduction"

Автор книги: Phillip Duke

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I said I saw little thin shreds, much longer than wide, somewhat uniform in size. This again pleased Holmes, and he again responded enthusiastically.

“Capital, Watson, capital. What we have here are fine uniform thin shreds of vegetable matter soaked in fresh water. Microscopic examination shows they came from leaves. The leaves were dried before shredding. The drying employed a wood fire. “

This last was a little too much. I asked Holmes how he could tell the drying was by fire, and a wood fire at that, rather than say by gas heat or air?

“Watson, where there is a wood fire, there is always smoke. Smoke deposits characteristic black particles. They are not very numerous, but more than enough are present to tell the story.”

“So” I said, “before being wet with water it was dried by a wood fire, and then finely shredded. The purpose of this process eludes me. I haven’t the foggiest. Holmes, what is it all about”

“Think, Watson, think about it. Why was the leaf shredded so fine? The drying process was obviously to make the fine shredding possible. You cannot finely shred fresh leaf, try to do so and a gummy mass results. Why the fine shredding?”

Here I paused to think. Like Holmes I too had been a student of chemistry, and it came to me in a flash.

“The fine shredding, I said, increases the surface area, so the water extraction of the leaf is more efficient”.

“Yes,” said Holmes, “no doubt the extraction process applied to this material was in fact made more efficient by the fine shredding. And you are also correct in saying the purpose of the shredding is to increase the surface area. However the extraction process to which this material was applied, is notits intended use. The shredding’s purpose is not to make an extraction process more efficient.”

These words of Holmes shed no light whatsoever for me on the matter. The material’s nature and function, if any other than to confuse me, remained a complete mystery, and I said so..

“My dear Watson,” said Holmes, “you surprise me.” The material we are discussing is not rare or unusual. In fact it is an item of commerce. Common commerce.”

Item of common commerce! I could barely restrain myself.

“Holmes,” I said, “for the love of God you must tell me what it is at once. At once!”

“So I shall, Watson, so I shall, and at once, as you so forcefully request. But before I do, have you anything further to add towards the solution of this mystery? Anything at all?”

“Not a thing. If I may be allowed a pun, not a shred more can I add towards the solution of this mysterious material’s identity. Holmes, please do tell me what it is, before I burst. You must tell me at once”

“Watson, I shall do as you demand. But rather than tell you, I will show you. Your own eyes will provide everything necessary.”

I impatiently waited for the coming revelation. Holmes spoke.

“Concerning this material, Watson, I believe you have some right there, in your vest pocket. Be a good fellow and check in there.”

I did as Holmes directed. I put my finger in the pocket and found nothing unusual there. “Nothing there,” I said.

“Not quite, old fellow, not quite. I have observed your habits for some time now, and in fact there is something there. Don’t you feel it? Come now, check again in your vest pocket.”

Again I put my finger in the pocket. Nothing was there except my old drawstring pouch. I said as much.

“Yes,” said Holmes, “only that. Please do take it out.”

I removed my little drawstring tobacco pouch and laid it on the table.

“But,” I said, “that is only my tobacco pouch. You can’t mean that-.”

“Precisely, old fellow, precisely. That is just what I mean.”

“But,” I said, “there is only tobacco in there. You aren’t saying that…but it’s dry, not wet. I don’t understand”

“What you say is quite correct,” said Holmes. “The material in your tobacco pouch is dry, and this specimen of tobacco I showed you is quite wet. But consider for a moment from where I obtained this wet specimen of tobacco.”

“May the Devil take it, just where did you get it from?”

‘It came from poor Mr. Fletcher’s teapot. From where he made the deadly brew that killed him. Did you not notice he had been served tea?”

“Yes, now that you mention it, I did see a tea service. That jailer was seemingly an accommodating fellow. Or did he poison Mr. Fletcher?”

“No, Watson, there was no reason for the jailer to do so. There was no motive for the jailer to kill Mr. Fletcher, and murder without a motive is as likely as a hen’s egg with hair. And, there was no attempt to conceal what happened. The tea service was left out, in plain sight. No doubt Mr. Fletcher poisoned himself. His death was a suicide.”

“But,” I asked, “how do you know for sure that Mr. Fletcher was not given the tobacco extract in his tea by the turnkey, or perhaps someone else, and drank it unknowingly?”

“Watson, Mr. Albert Fletcher could not drink tobacco extract in his tea unknowingly, because the taste is extremely unpleasant, it is very bitter. In his agitated state of mind he must have wanted to escape the memory of his terrible experience so badly, that death was preferable. He died of acute nicotine poisoning. A fact only wewill know.”

Holmes reflected on that for a moment, and then went on.

“At autopsy the brown liquid stomach contents will no doubt be passed off as tea, and with no signs of foul play, death will be certified as due to natural causes, and left at that. By now the teapot’s contents have been discarded, and it and the teacup are no doubt washed, and ready for service again. All the evidence other than ours has been destroyed. I was careful to leave some tobacco in the teapot, more than enough for identification, should the idea of looking there ever occur to the authorities. Oh, what fools they are! Watson, scientific crime investigation is still in its infancy.”

However I was not yet fully convinced, and gave voice to my doubts.

“How can you be sure it was tobacco, and not something else that killed Fletcher? And what induced you to look in the teapot?”

“Ah,” said Holmes, “I see doubt still lingers in your mind. Then let these facts put it to rest. Regarding the tobacco, there is no other leaf that merits the application of first large scale drying, and then expensive shredding machinery, in order to produce such fine, uniform shreds.” Holmes paused briefly, and then went on.

“The drying is by wood fire, rather than the more convenient and readily controlled natural gas, because the very large quantities involved make gas drying prohibitively expensive, and some in the industry believe drying by wood fire adds to the product’s flavor.

The shredding’s purpose is to increase the leaf’s surface area, so that when packed in a pipe or cigarette, it still accesses enough air to continue burning, that is, to be smoked.

On testing the leaf I obtained a positive test for nicotine. Nicotine, the natural alkaloid ingredient that gives tobacco its soothing and addictive properties. Nicotine, a deadly poison in quantity, the basis of the widely used, powerful agricultural insecticide Black Leaf 40.

With no signs of foul play on the body, I immediately suspected poison. He had pipe and matches, but his tobacco pouch, by the way bigger than yours, Watson, was empty. There was no tobacco on his lips, or in his mouth. Then I looked in the teapot, and there it was. Obviously the tobacco pouch’s contents had been emptied into the teapot, and with a little stirring the hot tea had efficiently extracted the deadly nicotine poison.”

I was fully convinced by Holmes’s detailed explanation, and proceeded to say so.

“Holmes,” I said, “I have never witnessed a finer piece of detective work. You have solved the case, and are to be highly commended for doing so.”

“Thank you, Watson,” Holmes said, “but I fear your heartfelt congratulation is a bit premature.”

Why premature? It came to me that there was still a question as to motive. Why did Mr. Fletcher kill himself? According to the information we received, he was a sober, steady man. What was the reason for his death? I must have been speaking out loud again, because Holmes immediately replied.

“Yes,” he replied, “the reason is somewhat puzzling, but not entirely so. For a man of sober and steady habits as Mr. Fletcher was, and a bachelor to boot, the experience he described must have been very disturbing. And then in addition, finding himself alone in the gloomy Cheltenham jail cell, may well have been enough, to make him decide to kill himself. Mr. Fletcher’s suicide is tragic, but no reason to keep the case open.”

“Holmes, you have indeed solved the case. And, if I may say so, brilliantly.”

It seemed to me everything that needed to be said had been said, and the matter was closed, to everyone’s satisfaction, including Holmes’s. Imagine my great surprise at the next words that issued from Holmes’s lips, words that I had never heard before, and that I hope never to hear again. Holmes first pursed his lips together, and then he spoke to me at once, with great force.

“Watson, there is a great mystery here, a mystery beyond solution!”

I was absolutely astounded. I was dumbfounded. In my entire association with Holmes, I had never heard him use the words “a mystery beyond solution.” Shocked speechless, I sat down and waited for what might come next. Holmes did not keep me in suspense, but began speaking at once, in slow, carefully measured words.

“Watson,” he said, “I bring to your attention the incredible circumstance of the great speed with which Mr. Fletcher transited from Woking to Cheltenham.”

I found my voice and replied.

“Great speed you say?” A distance of 20 miles, covered in one hour and 10 minutes. Any fast horse or coach can do that.”

“Not so Watson, not so. It is true the distance covered was only 20 miles. But the time, Watson, the time! The time required was not 70 minutes, but only 10 minutes.”

At Holmes’s request I had carefully verified the times involved. Mr. Fletcher was last seen in Woking by a reliable witness, shortly before 11:00 P.M., and on his own account, based on the church bell’s ringing, he was abducted at 11:00 P.M. According to the police report he was clocked into Cheltenham jail at 12:10 A.M. that same evening. I had personally checked both the church’s and the jail’s clocks, they were both correct, and more important, since a difference in time was involved, they agreed with each other to the minute.

“Only ten minutes Holmes? How can you say that? Upon my word, something is wrong with your mathematics.”

This just slipped out, I had not planned to be disrespectful, and besides I knew Holmes was an expert mathematician. I was never a whiz at mathematics, but it seemed perfectly plain to me, that one hour plus ten minutes later was 70 minutes. Holmes was an expert at mathematics, and I had never known him to be wrong, so while he waited I took paper and pen in hand, and wrote it down. One hour was sixty minutes, sixty plus ten was seventy, and 12:10 A.M. minus 11:00 P.M. was one hour and ten minutes, or seventy minutes. There it was, in black and white, and figures don’t lie.

My statement about his mathematics being wrong must have luckily run off Holmes like water off the proverbial duck’s back, because he immediately spoke on, in good spirits, without the least sign of annoyance.

“Right you are, Watson, right you are. Figures do not lie, but they can deceive.” He paused for a moment, and then fixing me with his piercing direct gaze, said this.

“Are you familiar with the concept of Daylight Savings Time?”

“No, I must say I am not. But I expect to be enlightened soon enough.”

“Yes old boy, you are correct, you are about to be enlightened regarding Daylight Savings Time. For your information Daylight Savings Time is a means of providing more useful daylight hours. In early spring when morning begins to come earlier, a date and time are selected on which timepieces are set forward one hour. For late fall the process is reversed. In the common vernacular, by this method of time keeping adjustment, time springs forward in the spring, and falls backwards in the fall. You are not familiar with it, because at present these time changes are limited to official agencies. All jails are of course affected.”

This information made my head swim, and I said so. Holmes replied, “just stay with it, old boy, just stay with it.” And he went on about Daylight Savings Time.

“The date and time selected to advance the time is by coincidence the same as Mr. Fletcher’s abduction. At exactly 11:00 P.M. the clock at Cheltenham jail was set forward one hour, from 11:00 P.M. to 12 midnight. When Mr. Fletcher was clocked in there, at 12:10 A.M., only ten minutes had passed, because the real, astronomical time elapsed was from 11:00 P.M. to 11:10 P.M., just ten minutes. Mr. Fletcher transited from Woking to Cheltenham, a distance of 20 miles, in 10 minutes. Ten minutes is one sixth of an hour, and so Mr. Fletcher’s minimum speed must have been six times 20, or 120 miles per hour.”

Here Holmes paused a moment, to reflect on the even more amazing thing he was about to say next, and then went on.

“I say minimum speed, because there is the matter of the times elapsed. Time elapsed in Woking during his abduction, and time elapsed at Cheltenham, before he was clocked in at the jail. These elapsed times must be subtracted from the ten minutes that were available for him to transit from Woking to Cheltenham. Altogether I estimate only five minutes were available, perhaps even less, for him to travel from Woking to Cheltenham. The five minutes travel time makes his speed to have been 240 miles per hour.”

“But,” I protested, “even the fastest steam train travels at less than 100 miles per hour, and there are no train tracks between Woking and Cheltenham. There is no earthly way of doing anything like that, no earthly way of going anywhere near that fast.”

“Precisely, my dear fellow, precisely. You have hit the nail right on the head, as usual. No earthly way…”

I was nonplused by this amazing revelation from Holmes, rendered entirely speechless. Based on what he had told me, his logic was impeccable, his conclusion flawlessly inevitable. This was an example in action of Holmes’s famous dictum: “When all other possibilities have been logically excluded, what remains is necessarily the truth, no matter how unlikely it seems.”

Holmes saw I was struggling to accept the truth he had arrived at, astounding and impossible as it was. Evidently he decided it was better to unload the whole nine yards on me at once, rather than proceed bit by bit. There was still more to come, something even more astonishing, and come it did.

Holmes paused a moment, took a draw on his pipe, and looked at me to see if I was ready for his next and final revelation. Evidently satisfied, he began speaking, this time softly, in a low voice, as if to cushion the shock value of his words, or so that no one else could hear them.

“Watson, has it ever occurred to you, that there may be life, intelligent life, on other worlds?” This greatly surprised me, coming from a person who I knew had no use whatsoever for astronomy, but then this was a time of surprises, no doubt about it.

“Can’t say I have. Never gave the matter any thought. No reason to.”

“Exactly, old boy, exactly so. No reason. Very few people have any reason, and even fewer have any cause to do so. Unfortunate Mr. Fletcher was one such. His experience was very disturbing, very disturbing indeed. I don’t think they meant him any harm, and they did not intend he should die. But nevertheless that was the result.”

“But Holmes, who do you mean by they?”

“By they, Watson, I mean, to quote from Mr. Fletcher’s statement, the ‘little grey men with big egg shaped heads, no hair, noses or ears, and very large oval eyes, all black’” Holmes continued on.

“Their actions in this matter do not show a higher intelligence, but only a more advanced state of technology. They obviously desired secrecy, yet their actions readily brought this matter to the attention of the authorities, and to us. No doubt the last thing they intended. There was no intention to harm Mr. Fletcher, and yet he is dead.”

“But” I said, “what was this whole affair about? Why did they abduct him in the first place?”

“Obviously their purpose was to obtain Mr. Fletcher’s semen, and evidently they were successful in this. It was intended that Mr. Fletcher would recover from the experience in a locality where he was not known, making him and his strange story less credible when he communicated it to the authorities. In this they were also successful.”

“But why should this experience have resulted in Mr. Fletcher killing himself?”

“My dear Watson, for a man of principle who is a life long bachelor, and perhaps quite ignorant and inexperienced concerning sexuality, to be handled in this extraordinary manner must have necessarily been very disturbing. And then for him to also be arrested, and confined in Cheltenham jail, at night! You saw what a dreary, depressing place it is. Altogether it was just too much for poor Mt. Fletcher to cope with. He chose to escape into death.”

I was reasonably satisfied, but had one last question.

“Holmes, why did they take his semen? What did they want it for? What will they do with it?” Holmes paused in reflection, reviewed his thoughts, and went on.

“Watson, they are studying us. They are studying us, and not just from afar. Evidently they can breathe our air, and our force of gravity suits them. History on Earth repeats itself, the lesson it teaches is always the same, and I reasonably assume it is the same everywhere. First comes exploration, and then colonization. Evidently they are only exploring now.” Holmes paused a moment to consider this, and then went on.

“As to why they might want human semen, there are a number of possible reasons. Since semen is a reproductive fluid, they are studying our reproduction. And, certain infectious diseases are transmitted through the sexual fluid. Concerning this possibility, we shall have to wait and see whether at some time in the not so distant future, a new, sexually transmitted disease appears, as if out of nowhere.”

Sherlock Holmes, the world’s best and most famous detective, paused for a long moment to sum up the situation, and then said this.

“Watson, at present we can only speculate further. To speculate publicly on this matter would only bring disbelief, followed by disrepute. Since nothing more can be deduced from the available evidence, there is nothing more to be done. Write this case up as usual, and since the circumstances of Mr. Fletcher’s death have been established, it can be considered closed.”

After a brief pause for consideration, he then continued on.

“However, due to the loose end of the matter relating to his abduction by space aliens, for no doubt that is what they were, I am far from satisfied, and think it best that the matter be closed at this time. To this end, the case is not to be published. It is closed, but not to my satisfaction, not to my satisfaction at all. It does not merit publication, and it is best that it not be published at this time.”

Everything proceeded just as Holmes had predicted. The coroner’s report stated, “The specific cause of death is unknown, but death is due to natural causes following alcohol intoxication.” Mr. Fletcher’s strange experience was ascribed as due to “alcohol intoxication,” and quickly forgotten, just as he, being a bachelor, was also quickly forgotten.

There was no scandal, and Miss Hotchkiss was very grateful. In addition to a large cash honorarium, we both received honorary Theosophical Society in London memberships, entitling us to attend any and all educational programs without charge. I could hardly wait, and said so to Holmes. The case of Sherlock Holmes And The Alien Abduction was closed.

It was closed, however, as Holmes had clearly stated, “not to my satisfaction, not to my satisfaction at all.”

I was instructed to withhold the case’s publication until 100 years after Holmes’s death, and this has been arranged.

Mr. Fletcher’s handwritten signed statement now graces Holmes’s study, along with many other curious mementos of other cases. On occasion Holmes’s gaze comes to rest on it, and his reaction is always the same; he lifts his eyes up to beyond the ceiling, obviously looking into the heavens above, while attempting to wrest more information from that uncooperative source, and failing to do so.

So Ends The Case Of Sherlock Holmes And The Alien Abduction.

Author’s Afterword

The Human Immuno– deficiency Viruses, the HIVs, are transmitted primarily through the male sexual fluid, the semen, and suddenly appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to cause the terrible disease AIDS. There are a number of theories regarding the origin of HIVs. One theory is that they are the creation of the little grey men with big egg shaped heads, no hair, nose or ears, and with big, oval all black eyes, who abduct people and take their semen.

The author of this book has examined the evidence concerning these theories, and in his opinion the evidence best supports the belief that the HIVs were created and initially spread by the little grey men, with the object of sickening and killing so many people, that effective, socially organized resistance will not be possible prior to colonization.

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