Artie Conan Doyle and the Scarlet Phantom Read online

  To Judith, Gem – and Rumble!

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: The Adventures of Beresford Root

  2: The Mystery of the Invisible Robber

  3: The Sign of the Clutching Hand

  4: The Second Warning

  5: The Locked Room

  6: The Phantom Strikes

  7: The Lurking Shadow

  8: Facts Not Fancies

  9: On the Trail of the Ferret

  10: The Crimes of Cadwallader Figg

  11: The Return of Beresford Root

  12: Pure Humbug

  13: The Cogitations of Constable Pennycook

  14: The Powers of Pendragon

  15: The Fateful Hour

  16: Hard Evidence

  17: The Great Treasure

  18: The Emperor’s Carriage

  19: The Puzzles of Peril

  20: The Phenomenon Forms a Plan

  21: Digging in the Right Place

  22: The Secret of the Phantom

  23: The Game Is Afoot

  24: The Mystery Express

  25: Beyond All Hope

  26: The Victory Banquet

  Author’s Note

  Also by Robert J. Harris

  Copyright

  1.

  The Adventures of Beresford Root

  Edinburgh, August 1873

  “It’s a mystery, Artie, a complete mystery,” groaned Edward Hamilton.

  “What on earth are you talking about, Ham?” asked his friend Artie Conan Doyle.

  “I mean how your father can get excited over all those pots and vases,” said Ham. “After the first dozen or so my eyes just glaze over.”

  Mr Charles Altamont Doyle was leading his little party down a long gallery filled with Persian pottery and Venetian glass, providing them with a detailed commentary on each item they passed. His wife Mary was at his side with Artie’s two younger sisters, Lottie and Connie, trailing after them. Artie and Ham lagged behind, wishing they could be somewhere else.

  “Art is Father’s real love,” Artie reminded his friend. “His job at the Office of Works is just to pay the bills until his career as an artist begins to flourish.”

  “It’s taking a long time to start flourishing,” Ham sighed as Mr Doyle enthused over a decorative honey jar. “He’s been in that office for as long as I can remember.”

  The day had begun much better than this. While the boys were home for the summer from their school, Stonyhurst College, Mr Doyle had decided to take the whole family on a visit to Edinburgh’s new Museum of Science and Art in Chambers Street.

  Since Mr Doyle was a member of the committee that had approved the new extensions to the museum, he was given a special pass which granted them free entry. It also gave access to areas of the museum that were closed to members of the general public, such as the workshops where skilled artisans constructed detailed models of ships, bridges and steam engines for display.

  To the boys the most exciting part of the tour was the great vaulted basement, which was stiflingly hot and filled with a din like the rumblings of an active volcano. Here, huge furnaces boiled hundreds of gallons of water that provided heating for the whole building, and six enormous meters controlled gas that passed to nine thousand burners to light up the multitude of rooms and galleries.

  Once they were back up among the public displays, however, Artie and Ham’s interest had soon begun to wane. When Mr Doyle halted before a mosaic of a cypress tree surrounded by weird animals and began explaining the symbolism to his wife and daughters, Ham gave Artie a nudge.

  “Let’s sneak off and have a bite to eat,” he suggested in a whisper.

  Artie could see that his mother was doing her best to feign interest in her husband’s monologue while the two girls were sitting on the floor playing pat-a-cake. Nobody was going to pay the two of them any attention, so he nodded and followed Ham down a corridor of textiles imported from all over the world. They ducked through an archway and found themselves in a broad chamber devoted to geology.

  Bypassing a row of glass cases filled with anthracite, bitumen, bauxite and other minerals, they sat themselves down on one of the benches that ran up the centre of the room. Ham reached into his pocket and unwrapped a slice of carrot cake, which he began to devour.

  “I swear if I have to stare at one more vase,” he grumbled through a mouthful of cake, “I shall probably pass out.”

  “One day I am sure that my father’s own art will begin to sell,” said Artie. “In the meantime I’ve been wondering how I can make some money to contribute to the household. What with Father’s bouts of ill health, we always seem to come up short.”

  “Another mystery or two would do the trick,” Ham commented glumly. “It seems like forever since Professor Anderson hired us to investigate the strange goings on at his magic show.”

  It had been the previous summer that this adventure had taken place, and even longer since they had investigated the theft of dead bodies from Edinburgh’s graveyards. Since then both boys had found school and home life increasingly humdrum.

  “I suppose there aren’t really that many mysteries around,” said Artie, “especially ones somebody would pay a couple of schoolboys to investigate.”

  “My mother still wants me to be a musician,” moaned Ham. “She’s threatening to buy me a glockenspiel. I’ve no idea what that is, but it sounds beastly.”

  Artie slid a notebook out of his pocket and began to riffle through the pages. “Do you remember when you had a go at writing an account of our run-in with the Gravediggers’ Club and then gave up?”

  “Do I?” Ham groaned. “That first page was hard enough, getting all those words in the right order. Then I kept making a mess with the ink. How anyone can stand to write a whole book is beyond me.”

  “Well, I thought I would give it a try,” Artie confided. “You know, since the newspapers never told the whole story. Perhaps a magazine would publish it if I dressed it up as a piece of fiction.”

  “You really should stick to the facts,” Ham advised. “I know you, Artie. You won’t be able to resist throwing in some pirates and a centaur.”

  Artie gave an exasperated snort. “Well, I’ve made a start. Do you want to hear it?”

  Ham searched his pockets but could find nothing else to eat. He shrugged. “I suppose so.”

  Artie held the notebook open in front of him and read.

  “The fog was rolling in from the river as investigative agent Beresford Root made his way through the dark graveyard. At his side was his stalwart companion, the portly seaman Odysseus Plank.”

  “Portly?” Ham exclaimed. “You’re not suggesting I’m portly, are you?”

  “No, no, of course not,” Artie responded hurriedly. “I’m quite sure that almost nobody would ever describe you as portly. Odysseus Plank is a fictional character, remember.”

  “And what about those names? Beresford Prune?”

  “Not Prune, Root,” Artie corrected. “Because he gets to the root of the problem. And Odysseus Plank is a perfect name for a sailor.”

  Ham tutted like a disappointed teacher. “Artie, real people don’t have ridiculous names like those. What are you going to call this story anyway?”

  “I thought I would call it The Adventure of the Disappearing Dead.”

  “Oh no, that’s far too creepy.” Ham shuddered. “Nobody but a ghoul would want to read a story like that. You need to give it a cheery title if you want to attract readers.”

  “A cheery title?” Artie echoed dubiously.

  Ham furrowed his brow in thought, casting his mind back to that first adventure
they had shared together. Then, raising a triumphant finger, he announced, “How a Cake Saved the Day. That’s what actually happened, after all. There, you can use that for a title and I won’t even charge you for it.”

  “I’m very grateful, I’m sure,” Artie responded sourly. “I suppose you’d like me to begin the tale in a bakery.”

  “I say, that’s not a bad idea,” Ham enthused. Then he paused and shook his head. “Still, I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t?”

  “Everybody knows that writers don’t make any money,” Ham declared sagely. “They only stick at it because they’re cracked in the head.”

  “Do you think you two could stifle your chatter?” a girl’s voice interrupted. “I am trying to concentrate.”

  Artie leaned forward to see past Ham, to where a girl was seated further up the bench with a sketch pad in her lap.

  She was wearing a short-brimmed hat of plaited straw, a walking suit of brown tweed, and a pair of stout, unladylike boots. Her straight brown hair was cut short in the style of a pageboy in a medieval painting. Sharp grey eyes framed in steel-rimmed spectacles peered sternly back at him over a small button nose. Apparently satisfied that she had made her point, she returned to her drawing.

  Artie got up and made his way over to where she was sitting. Tilting his head, he examined her pad. “What is it you’re drawing here? It looks like a lot of squiggles.”

  “I’m making a sketch of that fossil,” the girl told him brusquely. She pointed her pencil towards a nearby glass cabinet where a flat piece of grey stone was on display, its surface imprinted with lines like herringbones.

  Joining them, Ham glanced back and forth between the drawing and the geological sample. “Fossil? It just looks like a lump of rock to me.”

  The girl treated him to a scornful glare. “It is all that remains of Eozoön canadense, a creature that lived upon the earth long before recorded history.”

  “That must have been an awfully long time ago,” said Artie, attempting to be pleasant.

  “With every new geological discovery,” the girl informed him, “it becomes ever clearer that the earth is far, far older than anyone ever imagined.” She sounded very proud of this fact, as if she had made all those discoveries herself.

  “Artie, you don’t suppose it’s even older than Father Flynn, do you?” Ham joked.

  “Father Flynn?” echoed the girl, wrinkling her small nose.

  “He’s one of the teachers at our school,” Artie explained. “He looks so old some people say he learned all about botany in the Garden of Eden and was first mate aboard Noah’s Ark.”

  The girl was about to say something when she was interrupted by the clumping of heavy footsteps. Artie and Ham looked up to see their policeman friend George McCorkle striding towards them with a folded newspaper tucked under his arm. He was dressed in a dark grey suit with a bowler hat perched on his head and a pair of leather brogues on his feet. His bushy moustache twitched in the suggestion of a smile.

  “Ah, Mr Conan Doyle – the very fellow I was looking for. And here is your associate, Mr Henderson.”

  “Hamilton,” Ham corrected him, with a vexed frown.

  “Exactly,” McCorkle agreed, as though he hadn’t made a mistake at all.

  At a gesture from the policeman, they followed him away from the geological exhibit, glad to be leaving the girl with the annoyingly superior manner.

  “It’s very good to see you, Sergeant McCorkle,” Artie remarked as they moved out along a gallery of zoological specimens. “I must say it’s strange to find you not in uniform.”

  Puffing out his chest, McCorkle declared proudly, “That’s Inspector McCorkle. And now that I am an inspector, I no longer wear a constable’s uniform but have been provided with this very smart police detective’s suit.”

  Artie and Ham had found McCorkle to be a very slow, plodding sort of policeman, even though there was no doubting his good intentions. Trying hard to sound sincere, Artie said, “Congratulations, Inspector. I’m sure the promotion is well deserved.”

  “Yes, well deserved,” Ham muttered under his breath.

  “As you are aware,” said McCorkle, “I have played a crucial role in one or two highly important cases, such as the graveyard robberies and the case of the Vanishing Dragon. It was my sterling work in those matters that led to my new rank.”

  Artie’s jaw dropped. Actually he and Ham had solved both the cases McCorkle referred to – and defeated the villains in the process. The full facts, however, had been covered up in the newspapers and the names of the two boys had not even been mentioned. All the credit had gone to McCorkle, who had made the final arrests.

  “I think Ham and I played some part in those cases,” Artie reminded him.

  “You were indeed of some assistance,” McCorkle conceded, “and I expect that if you were to become better acquainted with proper police procedures, you might one day make a capable pair of constables.”

  Ham let out an exasperated gasp. “Constables? Why, we’re already better detectives than – ouch!”

  Artie had elbowed his friend sharply in the ribs to silence him. “What Ham is saying is that we’ve learned so much from working with you that we’re already most of the way there.” He knew that the policeman’s goodwill might be valuable to them in the future, so he didn’t want Ham puncturing the inspector’s high opinion of himself.

  “Well, Mr Doyle,” said McCorkle with a slow nod, “I will admit that though your methods may be eccentric, they do on occasion yield results. In fact, I would go so far as to say that, in spite of your wild flights of fancy, you have something of a knack for stumbling into the right place at the right time.”

  “It’s very kind of you to say so,” Artie responded politely.

  Rubbing his bruised ribs, Ham glowered at his friend. “Yes, very kind,” he muttered in a tone that was considerably less polite.

  “Which brings me to the matter at hand,” said the policeman, raising a dramatic eyebrow. With a furtive gesture he beckoned to the boys to follow him into a secluded corner behind a large stuffed polar bear. Once he was sure they were out of sight of prying eyes, he unfolded his copy of today’s Scotsman newspaper and presented it to Artie.

  “I wondered if you might have some insights into this particular business. It appears we are confronted by…” – the inspector hesitated and Artie was sure he gave a shudder – “by an invisible menace.”

  2.

  The Mystery of the Invisible Robber

  The policeman pointed sombrely to an article in the upper right-hand corner of the newspaper. The two boys crowded together to see it. Peering closely, Artie began reading out loud:

  MYSTERY OF THE INVISIBLE ROBBER

  At approximately midday on Monday, August 11th, the streets of Edinburgh bore witness (if ‘witness’ is the correct word under such circumstances) to the most extraordinary and inexplicable crime in the city’s long and colourful history. A prominent diamond merchant, Mr Royston Kincaid of Kincaid Jewellers, George Street, was walking along that very road when he was suddenly seized, thrust against a wall then knocked to the ground. This assault was carried out by an assailant who was entirely invisible both to Mr Kincaid and to the several passers-by who observed the incident with understandable incredulity. Two of them rushed to the stricken man’s aid and helped him to his feet. Upon searching his pockets, Mr Kincaid discovered that he had been robbed of a valuable necklace he had been on his way to deliver to a wealthy client.

  Several of the witnesses accompanied Mr Kincaid to the Police Office, where he stated that he saw no assailant, yet he had been both assaulted and robbed. The astonished witnesses confirmed the veracity of Mr Kincaid’s account.

  The matter has been placed in the capable hands of the recently promoted Inspector George McCorkle, who has a reputation for solving the most unusual crimes and arresting the most elusive of villains. Perhaps he can shed light on these shocking events.
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  “Well, that’s a whopper of a mystery!” said Ham.

  The two boys turned to the inspector, who was tugging at his bushy moustache in an agitated manner.

  “Do you have any clues, Inspector?” Artie asked.

  McCorkle shook his head unhappily. “I confess, Mr Doyle, that I find myself quite at sea with regard to this business. My first thought was that it must be a hoax, that this Kincaid concocted this fictitious crime. However, a number of completely reliable witnesses swear they saw him being knocked about.”

  “And if he wanted to fake a robbery in order to keep the necklace for himself,” said Artie, “why would he not just stage a burglary in his shop? This ludicrous notion of an invisible man is bound to draw attention to him.”

  “Exactly my thinking,” the inspector concurred gloomily. “And yet there are only these two options: that Mr Kincaid has staged a false robbery of the most impossible kind, for reasons that can hardly be guessed at, or that there is an invisible thief abroad on the streets of Edinburgh.”

  “An invisible thief!” Ham gave a low whistle. “What a corker!”

  Artie slid a hand into his pocket to finger his notebook, hoping to gain some inspiration from his fictional detective, Beresford Root. Nothing sprang to mind, however. “I can’t say that I have any other ideas, Inspector,” he said. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Well, given your experience with what I might call the more outlandish class of crime,” McCorkle began gruffly, “and that your methods lie outside the bounds of traditional police work, I would appreciate it if you would make inquiries of your own and share with me any information you unearth.” From inside his jacket he pulled out a blank envelope and handed it to Artie. “Here is a document which will smooth your way.”

  Artie opened the envelope and took out a single sheet of paper, which he read with Ham peering over his shoulder.

  The bearer of this letter, Mr Arthur Conan Doyle, in spite of his youth, has been of great assistance to the police in previous investigations. I would ask therefore that you give him your fullest cooperation in this particular matter. I can vouch for both his character and his discretion.