42. THE CASE OF THE BEACHED SKELETON

Holmes has been ill and must solve a problem without actually going forth into the world.

“You’ll do yourself permanent harm with that muck, Holmes,” I said to Sherlock, who was busy vomiting into a bowl and generally looking like death warmed up.

“It’s not the cocaine, Watson,” he managed to force out between explosions of noxious vomit, “I must have caught something.”

“It still can’t be good for you,” I informed him, as if he didn’t know.

“It sharpens the mind, Watson,” he muttered feebly, “and if all you want to do is lecture me then you might as well go to your surgery and lecture the rich old women who visit you every week only to be told they’ll probably live for another few days if they do what you tell them before shaking off this mortal coil...”

“My consultations are nothing like that, Holmes!” I snapped. “The trouble with you is you make an appalling patient!”

He was about to reply when Mrs Hudson knocked the door and pushed it open. She took one look at Holmes and said, without too much sympathy, “You ought to see a doctor, Sherlock.”

“He is a doctor,” muttered Holmes, pointing at me.

“He doesn’t take any notice of me, Mrs Hudson,” I said, despairingly.

“Well, you’d better sort yourself out post haste and get rid of that...” she pointed at the bowl Holmes had been emptying the contents, it seemed, of his entire frame into. You’ve got a visitor, and by the look of him he’s a potential client who doesn’t appreciate being kept waiting.”

Holmes waved his hand in the direction of the offensive bowl. “If you’d be so kind, Watson,” he said to me, almost wearily. Then: “Send him in, Mrs Hudson!” he ordered, a fresh vibrancy replacing the feeble self pity of his voice.

I did as I was bid, thankful for the water closet in our bathroom. Meanwhile, Holmes draped himself in the softest of our easy chairs and waited.

The potential client, if that’s what he was, came scurrying into the room. He was a little man dressed formally in a decent morning suit and carrying his bowler hat in one hand. He wore a monocle and had bristling eyebrows that seemed to be a natural accompaniment to it.

“Mr Holmes?” he enquired, looking at both of us in turn.

“I am he,” replied Holmes, suavely, “and I presume you are fresh from the coast where you have been learning something of great advantage to you in your trade as an anthropologist with an interest in the evolution of the human skeleton…?”

“You know of me?” asked the monocled man in a certain amount of confusion.

“It is elementary deduction,” murmured Holmes vaguely, “much as you have taken great care of your appearance, not wishing to look in any way dishevelled, there is a patch on you left knee where you have been kneeling in sand, some of which has adhered to the fabric of your trousers, so it must have been moist. Also, I detect from the corner of a publication sticking out of your jacket pocket that you are acquainted with Phileas Green, who has published several interesting articles on the subject of human evolution...”

“I am Phileas Green,” he told Holmes, “and your deductions are, in every respect, quite right.”

“Then what may I help you with?” asked my friend, his lips twitching to the extent that I was fearing a fresh outbreak of vomit.

“We have found bones at Bognor,” said Mr Green. “On the beach, there is a skeleton, almost intact, and it is the opinion of the local constable that it must be an ancient object, predating criminal law by many centuries, and that it was probably left on the sea bed after some tragic accident since time immemorial. His supposition is based on the fact that the skeleton looks to be that of a hominid that is different from mankind in several important ways.”

“Such as?” prompted Holmes, “after all, if it is the skeleton of a different species, maybe some great ape or chimpanzee, the local constable would hardly be involved as any judgement he might choose to make could have no bearing on any crime I can think of.”

“That’s why I’m here, Mr Holmes,” said Phileas Green, “I know a great deal about the evolution of the skeleton, both in humans and non-humans, and the constable will not take it that I am right in this when I suggest that the artefact looks wrong. I beg you, Mr Holmes, please offer me your advice, not as an anthropologist (though I know you have some expertise in the field) but as a scientist and student of detection!”

“I would have thought that any police officer, be he a humble constable or a great inspector, would happily take the advice of the renowned Phileas Green,” said Holmes generously. “But tell me, what is your opinion?”

“I am at a loss,” sighed Phileas, “I have pondered long and hard, and the skeleton, though complete and washed up by a mischievous high tide, looks like nothing I have worked on in the past. If it is a new species to science it is a truly wonderful discovery that will advance human knowledge quite considerably, but somehow I don’t think it is.”

“I had best be honest with you Mr Green,” said Holmes quietly, and I noted what almost looked like a green tinge to his complexion, “but this morning I have been most unwell and feel it would be wrong for me to accompany you to Bognor until I have recovered from whatever it is that has afflicted me,”

Cocaine, I whispered under my breath, and Holmes, hearing it, frowned at me.

“However,” he said to our guest, “I believe I can help you. I believe that the solution is in our hands here, with no need for Watson and I to take a long train journey.”

“If that is possible...” murmured Mr Green doubtfully.

“Correct me if I’m wrong in my assumptions, but is the creation on the beach intact? Is every bone where you would expect it to be even though it has the appearance of an alien humanoid?” asked Holmes.

“You put it exactly,” nodded Phileas Green,

“And are the bones all nicely smoothed and polished, as would be the case after having spent a long time on the sea bed, with waters and sands moving against them, wearing them down?” asked Holmes.

Mr Green nodded again.

“And yet they lie there on the sands ready to be discovered at a time when the foremost expert on the subject is in town?” asked Holmes.

Another nod.

“Then let us look at it like this,” said Sherlock, “the bones will have been washed up, if that’s what happened (which I very much doubt), and would be randomly scattered on maybe several miles of sandy beach and it would take more than a miracle for them to reform to make a recognisable whole?”

“I see what you mean...” exclaimed Phileas Green, “that the whole thing, because of the neatness of the recreation, is a hoax?”

Holmes nodded. “And the hoax has been contrived to be at a beach where Phileas Green and his eyepiece are in the vicinity,” he said, smiling. “I fear you are intended to be in the vanguard of a trick, Mr Green, and can be either intended to laugh at the joke and exclaim its brilliance, or, by seeming to believe it, brought down in the eyes of the scientific world and maybe henceforth referred to as a charlatan. Your reaction, sir, will be considered most important by whatever scoundrel has tried to deceive you.”

Mr Green looked troubled. “I see,” he said slowly, “but what should I do?”

Holmes smiled broadly. “Return to Bognor, my friend, and tell the constable that you have considered his joke and find it most humorous. Tell him you will write it in a paper so that all intelligent men can laugh along with him, and he will become renowned as the officer who proved that Phileas Green can tell a man from a collection of unrelated bones on any old beach!”

Phileas Green nodded slowly. “You are right, he said in conclusion, I thought there was something a little bit strange about that constable. Now you explain things to me I know what it was. It makes me sick to think about it!”

“Please, don’t mention that!” spluttered Holmes.

© Peter Rogerson 10.09.17