Artie Conan Doyle and the Scarlet Phantom Read online

  At that moment a box dislodged itself from a shelf above them and crashed to the floor, smashing to pieces at their feet. Artie couldn’t hold back a yelp of alarm.

  “It’s the Phantom!” Ham squealed. “He’s trying to kill us!”

  Artie recalled how the Phantom had launched that bust at Mr Seaton and it seemed only too likely that the invisible fiend was making a similar attack on them. His heart was hammering, but he tried to stay calm.

  “Steady, Ham. We need to find a way out.”

  Step by careful step, they backed away from the unseen menace. Artie could feel Ham trembling at his side.

  There came a shattering crash as another box hit the floor and smashed open. The boys swivelled this way and that, trying to spot some sign of their enemy. Both were seized by an overwhelming panic at the prospect of falling victim to the villain’s fearsome powers.

  “He’s coming for us, Artie!” Ham cried. “Run for it!”

  He bolted, his shoulder bashing into the shelves and dislodging more boxes as he stumbled along. Artie tried to catch up but lost sight of his friend among the shadows. He ran straight into an immovable wall of packing cases, bashing his nose and reeling back.

  Above the pounding of his heart Artie could hear the rasping breath of some unseen menace closing in on him. Before he could turn, he was seized by powerful hands and flung to the floor. As he attempted to rise, he was engulfed in a coarse sack, his arms pinned to his sides. His struggles proved futile as he was lifted up and carried away as helpless as a fish in a net.

  Already stunned by his collision with the packing cases, he was enveloped in the suffocating darkness and passed out. His last thought was that he had proved to be a poor excuse for a detective and he could only hope that Ham had somehow manage to escape the doom he was now being carried towards.

  ***

  When his senses returned, Artie was still wrapped in the absolute darkness of the sack that had been pulled over his head and all the way down to his waist. He gradually became aware that he was seated in a chair and a firm pair of hands were holding him upright by the shoulders. As he stirred, the hands shifted their grip and yanked the sack from him.

  Artie blinked in the light. He had expected to find himself in a dungeon, but what he saw about him was a total surprise. It was a large, bright room with colourful landscape paintings decorating the walls. Delicate porcelain ornaments were perched on shelves at various points, and beneath his feet was a lush Persian carpet.

  He was relieved to see Ham seated in a chair to his left. He had also just been freed from a sack, and though it looked like he too had been roughly handled, he had taken no serious harm. With a start, Artie saw that looming behind them was a tall, powerful-looking man in a turban. His dark face was framed in a magnificent beard, and a gold-handled dagger was stuck in the crimson sash wrapped around his waist.

  A resonant voice spoke. “May I introduce you to Mr Rajpal Singh, an associate of mine from India.” It came from an imposing figure who regarded them steadily from the other side of a large ornate desk. He was seated comfortably in a big leather chair, designed to accommodate his huge bulk. His head was completely bald, while below his broad nose hung a long, white moustache, with a small tuft of beard decorating his round chin. He was dressed in a suit of immaculate white, a yellow shirt with a stiff collar, and a floral silk tie fixed with a jewelled pin. To his left, a caged canary tweeted happily, as though delighting in the boys’ discomfort.

  Without shifting from his comfortable position, the bald-headed man gazed back and forth between Artie and Ham. In a voice that was surprisingly soft coming from one so large, he said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Figg, Cadwallader Figg.”

  “Figg!” Ham wheezed. “But you’re a crim—” He bit back on the word just in time. “I mean you’re a notori— Er… I mean you… you…”

  “I believe you are trying to say that I am a prominent businessman,” Figg filled in placidly, “a dealer in antiques, an importer of finest-quality tea, and occasionally a wine merchant.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what he meant,” Artie agreed.

  If this man was truly the criminal mastermind Ferryman had warned them of, it might be more than their lives were worth to make any reference to his illegal activities. In fact, the less they gave away, especially about themselves, the better.

  “And you young gentlemen would be?” Figg prompted.

  Artie thought for a moment, then answered, “My name is Root, Beresford Root.” He glanced over at Ham, hoping he understood the need for false names. “And this is my friend Odys—”

  “Bloggs,” Ham cut in sharply, “Dickie Bloggs. And I am not a seaman. In fact, I’ve never even been to sea.”

  Artie gave an exasperated sigh. Ham clearly disliked the name Odysseus Plank, but at least he had not given his real name.

  “We’re just harmless schoolboys out for a stroll by the harbour,” Artie continued, doing his best to sound like a simple innocent.

  “Yes, completely harmless,” Ham affirmed. “We’re so harmless it’s almost ridiculous. We couldn’t even hurt ourselves if we tried.”

  “Schoolboys, you say?” Figg quizzed.

  “Yes, we’re pupils at Whackford Academy,” said Artie, inventing an imaginary school. “School’s off for the summer, of course, so we were just out for a wander.”

  “Yes, rather aimless actually,” said Ham. “In fact, I think we got lost. I have no idea where we are and so I couldn’t possibly tell anyone about it. If there were anything to tell – which there isn’t.”

  Artie’s jaw tightened as he willed Ham to stop gibbering.

  Figg regarded them in intimidating silence for almost a full minute before he spoke again in a menacing rumble that made Artie’s blood run cold. “Whatever your intentions, I must now decide what is to be done with you.”

  12.

  Pure Humbug

  Artie swallowed hard. “Done with us?”

  A frown creased Cadwallader Figg’s expansive brow. “You were apprehended trespassing on my property. That is intolerable, young man, quite intolerable.”

  Before Artie could think of a better excuse, Ham blurted out, “We were chasing after my dog, my dog Sebastian. He got loose and ran into the building, so as you can see, we were actually trying to save you trouble by fetching him out.”

  Figg raised an eyebrow. “A dog, you say? My men made no report of a dog.”

  “He’s a very small dog,” said Ham. “They probably didn’t notice him because he’s so small.”

  “What breed?” Figg inquired.

  “A spaniel,” said Artie.

  “A poodle,” said Ham at the same time.

  “Come now, you are making no sense,” Figg chided them.

  “He’s a mixed breed,” said Ham. “It’s called a spoodle. Or a spandle if you prefer. Or… or…”

  Figg raised a hand to silence him and the barest hint of a smile touched his full lips. “You amuse me, sir, you amuse me. You are, if I may say so, a character.”

  “This has all been a misunderstanding,” said Artie, hoping to take advantage of the large man’s softening mood. “We really should go now and not take up any more of your time.”

  He tried to rise, but Rajpal Singh’s firm hand pressed him back down in the chair.

  “Come, come, Mr Root,” said Figg in a darker tone, “such flummery really will not serve you well. This notebook was discovered in your pocket.” He laid Artie’s notebook open on the desk in front of him and placed a chubby finger on the page. “Allow me to read out one extraordinary extract.”

  From The Adventures of Beresford Root

  As he strode across the dark graveyard to face his arch-enemy, Beresford Root wished he had remembered to bring his pistol. From the other side of the graveyard came the evil Captain Carlton Thrash. The villain stroked his moustache and let out a devilish laugh.

  “So, Root, I see you were foolish enough to face me alone,” he mocked. “And here am I with three ruthless henchmen, each one a skilled assassin.”

  “Even if you have an army, it will not avail you, Thrash,” countered Beresford. “Right will always triumph over crime.”

  At that moment, Beresford’s stalwart companion Odysseus Plank emerged from the shadows of a tree and stepped to his friend’s side. “Well spoken, Beresford.” He brandished the heavy wooden cudgel he always carried. “Now let’s teach these ruffians the lesson they so richly deserve.”

  Not for the first time, Beresford was glad to have the portly seaman at his side. With a companion like this, he truly had nothing to fear.

  Artie attempted a carefree laugh but was aware of how hollow it sounded. “It’s just a story – you know, a bit of fun. Nothing wrong with a chap building himself up a bit, is there?”

  Without looking up, Figg turned the page. “There are also a number of references to the crimes of the so-called Scarlet Phantom.”

  Feeling himself cornered, Artie decided he had to confess some of the truth. “We’re investigators, amateur investigators of course. It’s sort of a hobby.”

  “Yes, wherever there’s a mystery,” Ham chimed in, “you’ll find us there, messing about.”

  “Ghosts, legendary monsters, that sort of thing,” said Artie.

  “We were going to go fishing for the Loch Ness Monster,” said Ham, “but my rod broke.”

  Artie wished, not for the first time, that he could make Ham keep his mouth shut and leave the talking to him.

  Figg raised an eyebrow. “So you decided to investigate this Phantom?”

  “Yes,” Artie agreed, “just for a lark, of course.”

  “Why then do you have the addresses of two of my business establishments listed here? Is this unconnected with your investigation or did you hope to discover the unseen robber hiding on my property?” Figg jabbed his finger at the page so forcefully, Artie almost jumped.

  As his mind raced to invent an excuse, the door opened to admit an elegant Chinese woman in patterned silk with a rose tucked into her silver hair. Artie had never in his life been so thankful of an interruption. She set a tray with a porcelain tea set and a plate of sesame-seed cakes down in front of Figg.

  “Thank you, Mrs Chen,” said Figg politely, as she poured him a cup of aromatic tea.

  When the woman cast a questioning glance in the direction of Artie and Ham, Figg shook his head. “No, Mrs Chen, nothing for my guests at present.”

  Mrs Chen made a tiny bow and departed, gliding over the carpet as silently as if she was walking on air. Even the door barely made a sound as it closed behind her.

  Figg took a sip of tea and began feeding pieces of cake to the canary through the bars of its cage. It tweeted merrily in response.

  “As you are a man of some means,” said Artie, hoping that his afternoon tea would put the emperor of crime in a merciful mood, “it occurred to us that you… might be the Phantom’s next victim.”

  “Yes, yes,” Ham added in support, “and we certainly wouldn’t want that to happen.”

  “Me? A victim?” Figg gave a rich chortle. “I think not. My security, as you have discovered, is absolutely first class.”

  “Against us,” said Artie, “but would it be so effective against an invisible man?”

  “Who can walk through walls,” Ham added.

  “Pshaw!” Figg scoffed. “Invisible man indeed! It is pure humbug! If anyone were capable of such prodigious feats, don’t you think I would know about it?”

  “Of course you would,” said Ham, “because you are the emp—” He stopped himself just in time. “Because you are… a tea merchant.”

  “Exactly.” Figg regarded them pensively. “Do you take the two victims of these crimes for honest men?”

  “We’ve no reason to suppose they’re not,” said Artie, though he had wondered about this himself.

  Figg paused to nibble on a piece of cake. “No, I suppose you have no such reason. But then there is no insurance against dishonesty.”

  He pulled a yellow kerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed a crumb from his lip. “As a businessman, I am of course interested in the activities of this supposedly invisible cutpurse. It disturbs me that such criminal opportunism should be carried out under my very nose, so to speak. That being the case, should you find some evidence of the identity of the Phantom, I hope you will be so kind as to share that information with me.”

  Artie froze for a moment, feeling the full force of Figg’s intense gaze press upon him. “Well, yes, of course,” he managed to say at last, nodding convulsively.

  “In that case,” Figg concluded, “our business here is done. Mr Singh will escort you to the front door.”

  The towering Sikh bodyguard grabbed them each by the shoulder and pulled them to their feet. At a signal from Figg, he retrieved the notebook and thrust it into Artie’s pocket.

  As they were ushered out of the room, Artie heard Figg say, “I shall, of course, be following your activities with great interest.”

  Once they were out on the street, Artie breathed an immense sigh of relief. They walked briskly away, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the criminal mastermind’s unusual household.

  “Artie, you’re not really going to report back to Figg, are you?” Ham asked.

  “I should say not.” Artie repressed a shudder. “I intend to keep as far away from that gentleman as possible.”

  “You don’t think he’s the Phantom then?”

  “He’d have a lot of trouble making his bulky body invisible. Also, if he’s already at the centre of as much crime as the Ferret says he is, as well as running a couple of legitimate businesses, why should he go to the trouble of inventing an invisible man just to get his hands on some jewels?”

  “Criminal or not,” Ham grumbled, as they followed the road back into town, “you’d think he might have offered us some of that cake.”

  “We’re lucky he didn’t have us nailed inside a crate and tossed into the harbour,” said Artie with feeling.

  “Lucky? Artie, are you forgetting that in the storehouse we were actually attacked by the Scarlet Phantom?”

  Artie recalled the shadowy figure that had seized them in the dark, but wondered now what had actually happened. “Are you sure of that?”

  “He was tossing boxes at us just the way you said he threw that bust at Mr Seaton,” Ham insisted. “What more proof do you need?”

  “That wasn’t the Scarlet Phantom, you dunce,” said a familiar voice, “it was me.”

  The boys whirled round to see Peril gazing at them with a superior look on her face.

  “What are you doing here?” Artie demanded. He didn’t know whether he was more outraged than surprised that she had sneaked up behind them unnoticed.

  “I was making some inquiries of my own about this man Figg,” Peril informed them, “when I spotted the two of you creeping about like a pair of incompetent burglars. I decided to watch what you were up to, and, of course, you got yourselves in trouble.”

  “Are you saying you got through that window all by yourself?” Ham was affronted. He couldn’t believe a tiny girl like her could make the climb.

  “Don’t be so silly,” Peril answered, taking a thin piece of wire from her pocket. “I picked the lock with this and came in through the back door.”

  “You picked the lock?” Artie stared at her. “That’s rather an unusual talent.”

  “For an honest person,” Ham added accusingly.

  “My mother is constantly mislaying her house keys,” Peril explained, “so I taught myself to pick locks to keep from ever being shut out of our own house. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say.”

  “Do you always carry a lock-pick with you?” Artie wondered.

  “If you two are going to be real detectives,” Peril told him primly, “you will need to get yourselves the proper equipment.”

  “So what about the falling boxes?” Ham reminded her. “Why were you dropping them on us?”

  “Oh, yes, well, that was an accident,” said Peril, somewhat embarrassed. “It was very dark and I stumbled into those shelves while you were on the other side. I must have jarred some of the boxes so they fell off.”

  “Well, you scared the life out of us!” Ham fumed.

  “And you brought Figg’s men down on us,” said Artie.

  “Yes, I’m sorry about that, but you don’t seem any the worse for wear.”

  “But you told me the Ferret was just making up all that stuff about Cadwallader Figg,” said Artie.

  “I just wanted the chance to investigate him on my own without you two blundering into it,” said Peril haughtily.

  “It seems like you were the one doing the blundering,” said Ham.

  “Alright, alright, but did you find anything out?” Peril asked.

  “Well, if Figg is involved with the Phantom, he’s doing a good job of covering it up,” said Artie. “Look, we’d best go and see if Inspector McCorkle has any new leads.”

  On the way to the Police Office Artie gave Peril a brief account of their conversation with Cadwallader Figg.

  “So did you find anything out?” he asked her.

  “I’m afraid not. When I heard those men coming to investigate the falling boxes, I squeezed myself into a corner and stayed hidden until I was sure the coast was clear. I heard them carrying you off, so I waited outside for you to come out.”

  “And supposing we hadn’t come out?” said Ham.

  “I would have fetched the police, of course,” Peril assured him.

  “From now on,” said Artie, “we need to stick together. This business is starting to get dangerous.”

  “You’re right,” Peril agreed. “From now on we’ll pool our resources.”

  As soon as they walked through the front door of the Police Office they were greeted eagerly by Constable Pennycook. “Ah, Mr Doyle, it is very good to see you. And these friends of yours are…?”