Chapter 3 ― The Disappearance of Rachel Musgrave (Part 1)

I will never forget the shock I felt that night reading “The Casebook of Irene Adler”.

I sneaked the magazine home and stayed up until dawn reading it in my examination room. There were three sections in all: “The Natsumikan Club”, “The Celebrated Major Brown”, “The Adventure of the Philosopher Thief”; and once I had finished them all I sat back in wonder. Irene Adler possessed astounding faculties of reasoning, and her incisive deductions led her unerringly towards the truth. When necessary she would draw upon her experience of the stage to transform herself into an energetic young man or a frail old woman. And for those situations when she crossed paths with the rougher inhabitants of the city, she kept on her person a specially commissioned secret weapon from a Nagahama blacksmith which would answer for her.

In other words, what Sherlock Holmes had originated, she had perfected and made her own. And Mary Morstan was at her side, not only as Miss Adler’s chronicler but as an active contributor toward her investigations.

I could not help but feel a twinge of envy towards Mary, for in the pages before me I saw exactly what I wanted to write.

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My practice was closed on that day in early December. I put on my overcoat and left to visit Shimogamo Shrine.

The mornings had turned chilly now, and as I walked the grounds of the shrine I inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of the ancient forest. After according my respects at the main shrine building I began to pace up and down the shrine road through the Tadasu Forest. Whenever I came to an impasse in my writing, I would often take a stroll here at the shrine, or along the banks of the Kamo. A brisk stroll had never failed to present a solution to whatever ailed me.

But that morning, I found that each step only brought with it a deeper despondency. “The Casebook of Irene Adler” had thrown all of Kyoto into a frenzy. The cessation of my writings on Holmes had left mystery fans hungry for something to fill the void, and it was onto this pile of tinder that the publication of the Casebook threw a lit match. Accounts of her daring exploits in the papers quickly became the talk of the town, and it soon became known that Mary Morstan’s husband was none other than John H. Watson. What had begun as a rivalry between detectives had morphed into a domestic showdown.

Mary claimed that her association with Irene Adler stretched back to their school days. She had lost her mother at a young age, and her father was an officer in an Indian regiment; consequently until she turned 18 she resided at a boarding school in Shishigatani. When she was 12 her father had returned to the country only to mysteriously disappear, though I have already written about the facts of that case in “The Sign of Four”. I was already aware of the lonely days she spent at the isolated school at the foot of Higashiyama with neither kith nor kin to depend on, and how she had engrossed herself in the school paper: these things I was already aware of. And now Mary told me that Irene Adler had attended the same school.

“She was there for less than a year. She quit the school almost immediately.”

“And you hadn’t seen her since?”

“Yes, it’s been nearly twelve years.”

“Yet she seems to have agreed quite readily to let you write about her.”

“We had our share of adventures at the paper, Irene and I,” said Mary wistfully. “We made quite a team.”

Their reunion had taken place earlier this spring, during a charity outing to a play at the Minami-za in Shijō. By sheer chance they had sat next to one another, and overjoyed to see one another again they retired to the theatre bar at intermission. So engrossed were they in their conversation that they were still sitting at the counter by the time the curtain came down at the end of the play.

Mary had heard rumours that Irene had become an actress, but it was there that Irene informed her that she had retired.

“I intend to reinvent myself as a detective.”

At first Mary smiled, thinking that she was joking. But Irene was quite serious. I have already related the events that transpired after that: Irene Adler soon flourished in her new career, threatening to displace Sherlock Holmes from his seat as Kyoto’s pre-eminent detective. And Irene Adler’s magnificent reinvention was also Mary’s.

“I told you many times to break things off with that man,” she had said to me. “Yet you never took me seriously. You put Holmes before your duties as a doctor and as a husband. That is to say, he is more important to you than our marriage. Well, if that is to be the case then I will act as I see fit.”

As I walked along the shrine road gazing up at the barren boughs, I was gripped by a feeling very close to resignation. Over the past year I had tried desperately to restore Holmes’s golden age, sacrificing my life with Mary in the process. While all the time assuring her of my devotion, the truth of it was that I had placed Holmes first, and now I was receiving my just reward. Pride goeth before destruction. The age of Sherlock Holmes and Watson was over; the age of Irene Adler and Mary had come.

Mary was accompanying Irene Adler on an overnight investigation, and would not be coming home that day. Her place as Adler’s partner had become quite solidified, and it was with a feeling of great chagrin that I returned to my practice.

“A telegram for you, Dr. Watson,” said the maid, handing me a piece of paper. It had been a long time since I had received any good news, and I was sure that this latest development would not break that trend. I sighed and cast my eyes over the telegram, which ran in this way:

Sherlock Holmes missing.
Moriarty

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Mrs. Hudson greeted me cheerlessly at 221B Teramachi.

“I hear Holmes has gone missing?” I said.

“Indeed he has,” said she, taking my cane and coat. “He drifted out two days ago around noon, and since then I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him.”

“I see your concern,” I frowned. “Where could he have gone?”

Previously it would not have been unusual for Holmes to disappear for days at a time, hot on the scent of a case like a trained foxhound, or poring over cases of crime at the library, or else studying medicine at the college. In any case there would not have been any cause for concern, but our Holmes was not the Holmes of old.

“And then there’s Professor Moriarty to worry about…” fretted Mrs. Hudson.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s like a statue, waiting for Holmes to come back,” she said. “I don’t think he’s slept a wink.”

Musing on the resemblance to the faithful Hachikō, I climbed the stairs and found that the curtains were thrown wide open in Holmes’s room so that it was as freezing as the predawn moor.

Professor Moriarty was sitting in the armchair before the fireplace, wrapped in his black cloak; he looked nothing so much like a dying coal himself. I replenished the coals and stirred them, while Professor Moriarty rolled his hollow eyes to look at me.

“It has been fully two days since Holmes vanished.”

“I’m sure he will saunter back when he is ready,” I said, though there was little conviction in my words. Around Holmes’s favorite settee discarded newspapers littered the floor, each of them containing breathless reports of the adventures of Irene Adler. Within those columns I spotted several mentions of Inspector Lestrade.

Following the previous month’s incident with Madame Richborough, Lestrade had fallen head over heels with Irene Adler’s no-nonsense style, and apologizing profusely for Shinchō Yard’s previous snubbing of her eagerly sought out her advice. Now his name was mentioned with some regularity alongside hers in the papers. Holmes of course would never countenance such a betrayal, and declared he would henceforth have nothing to do with Lestrade.

Professor Moriarty stared somberly into the embers.

“An ironic tale, would you not say? The great Sherlock Holmes and the renowned physicist James Moriarty; once none could have outdone them, and now despite their best efforts, the only mystery which they cannot solve is that of their own slumps. No matter how desperately we search for an exit from this labyrinth, we only find ourselves stumbling further into the depths.”

I looked pityingly at him.

“But surely your presence was a source of consolation to Holmes.”

“I am not so sure. As you know I visited Holmes here every day; I was redeemed by him, and considered him a bosom friend to whom I could disclose my every distress. But perhaps the affection only extended from I to him; perhaps he had grown tired of me,” he groaned, burying his face in his great claw-like hands. “And that is why he has gone away.”

It was not the proud scientist Moriarty who sat before me now, but merely a lonely, elderly man. Not knowing how I should console him, I walked up to him and placed my hand on his shoulder, which convulsed with great sobs.

“I took him for granted,” he continued. “I hoped that he would remain in his slump because I was afraid of being left behind. Bosom friend, hah! I was a pestilence upon him!”

I am currently engaged with the case of myself, Sherlock Holmes had once said. I had thought it a mere prevarication, but now I was forced to consider whether it had been I who had been averting my eyes from reality. Perhaps somewhere in the labyrinth he had encountered a demon, and the only other who understood its terror was Professor Moriarty.

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There was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Hudson entered the room. Professor Moriarty took a handkerchief and wiped away his tears. His haggard face testified that he had not eaten in some time, and his ashen skin made him look like a wax figure.

“I’ve been too worried about Holmes to sleep,” he explained.

“Brooding won’t help things, Mr. Moriarty,” said Mrs. Hudson, pouring a cup of tea. “But a bit of sunlight and a warm meal will do wonders. The tea, sir, while it’s hot, and a scone.”

Mrs. Hudson was right: with the curtain drawn aside to let the sun in, and a warm scone slathered with butter to munch on, things seemed less dour, and a flush of colour returned to Moriarty’s cheek.

Yet that did not change the fact that Holmes was missing. Mrs. Hudson said that he had left 221B around noon two days ago, bundled in his overcoat and scarf. His valise was still in his bedroom, and a litter of pipes lay scattered upon the mantlepiece, which he certainly would not have left at home if he had intended to be away for long. The drawer in his desk contained his checkbook and an amount of cash, so whatever money he carried on his person likely did not amount to more than some spare change. No money, no clothes, and not one of his beloved pipes: just how was Holmes getting along?

I recalled that Holmes had spoken fondly of retirement on several occasions after entering his slump. “Ohara-no-sato would be just the thing,” he had said. “Nothing can reach that northern village: not the clangor of the city, nor the mist that wreathes the Kamo, nor the meddling of Irene Adler. It would be a serene existence. I would chat with the moss-covered *jizō *statues, and quietly tend to my bees.”

“Bees?” I asked.

“Honey is a health-giving substance, as is royal jelly.”

“That may be so, but I am not convinced that you are cut out for the gardener’s life.”

“Perhaps I will set up my hut in a bamboo thicket, as one who has utterly renounced the worldly life. Each day I will dig up bamboo shoots, and simmer them with seaweed―ah, but man cannot live on wakatakeni alone. No, I suppose I must keep those bees. Would that be enough to sustain a man, wakatakeni and honey? I must admit my ignorance in the science of nutrition. Tell me, as a man of medicine, what do you think?”

“It is far too soon for you to speak of retirement. You will make a comeback yet.”

“Will I? Clearly you are better informed than I. And tell me, when will that be?” said he with a touch of asperity, turning away.

I was struck by an epiphany: a hut in a bamboo thicket!

“Holmes must have gone to Rakusei!”

“Rakusei?” frowned Professor Moriarty. “Why would he have gone there?”

“There is an extensive bamboo forest on the grounds of the Musgrave estate. If Holmes was to shut himself away from the world that would be the first place that he would think of. And Reginald Musgrave is an old school-fellow of his―he would surely not grudge the building of a hermitage or two.”

“But what about the incident which occurred twelve years ago? The estate holds such painful memories for Holmes: why would he retire to such a place?”

But no sooner had the words left Moriarty’s lips than his eyes widened in realization.

“No, it is *because *of his trauma that he has returned. Those memories have tormented him for twelve years, and now he has come back to the Musgrave estate to take up the case whose solution eluded him in his youth.”

A keen light shone in his eyes as he cried, “To Rakusei, Watson!”

There was a pull at the bell below.

“A client?” murmured Mrs. Hudson as she stood and hurried down to answer the door.

Professor Moriarty went up to the third floor to prepare for our excursion, while we waited in the hall by the stairs. But all my attention was captured by what was going on downstairs, for Mrs. Hudson seemed to be having a quarrel with whoever was at the door. By the time the professor descended the stairs with his cane underneath his arm, the situation seemed to have deteriorated, for we heard a violent pounding coming from below. We rushed down to find Mrs. Hudson leaning backwards against the door to keep it shut.

“It’s a mob!” she hissed.

“You mean the victims’ association?”

“I told them that he was away.”

As Mrs. Hudson was explaining the situation, I heard the crowd howling, “Come out, Holmes! You can’t hide forever!” I proposed to go out and deal with him as Holmes’ surrogate, but Mrs. Hudson said that they would only string me up in his stead.

“You just leave this rabble to me. Go out by the back door,” said she.

“We can’t leave you to face them alone!”

“I’ll have you know that I am the landlady of Sherlock Holmes. I am well accustomed to trouble,” she replied, her cheeks flushed with exhilaration. “Now you go on to Rakusei and bring Mr. Holmes back, and don’t worry about me. If it comes to it, I’ll take Mr. Holmes’s pistol and fire two or three rounds to scare them off.”

Hers was an alarming statement in many ways, but I was glad to have her on my side. I left her with my thanks, then nodded to Professor Moriarty, and together we proceeded down the hall to the back of the building. Turning around, I saw Mrs. Hudson wave at me to go on.

“Well, well,” exhaled Moriarty. “What a woman!”

From the back door we exited into the garden, a little space containing nothing but Mrs. Hudson’s herb pots, a scrawny poplar tree, an outhouse, and the drying racks. We quickly passed through the wicket gate out into the alley. The sky was an enigmatic watery blue, and the wind which nipped at our cheeks brought upon it the scent of winter.

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We took a carriage to Shijō Ōmiya, where we caught the Randen. The train rumbled through the busy streets of Ukyō, where low close-packed homes of brick and mortar and long temple walls passed by languidly beneath the bright sunshine.

“I must apologize to you,” said Moriarty sincerely, “for the cruel words I have said to you.”

“The fault is equally mine.”

“We must work together if we are to save Holmes.”

The railway station in Arashiyama was thick with tourists from all over Kyoto, as well as purveyors of the local variety eager to prey upon their pocketbooks. The mountains were engulfed in a layer of magnificent red leaves, and sightseeing boats traversed the Katsura River. At the end of the Togetsu-kyō Bridge we hailed a cab and directed the driver to proceed south along the ancient road. The trace of history was palpable in the close-set shops and inns that lined the path. Wispy clouds stretched along the pale canvas of the sky as though painted by a brush.

Eventually the buildings fell away to be replaced on our left by a vast parade ground, beyond which was visible a steam locomotive running hard for Osaka, drawing behind it a line of black smoke. In the distance it appeared no larger than a child’s plaything. On our right, fallow fields and pastures were soon swallowed up by bamboo thickets. “We’ve entered the Musgrave grounds,” announced the driver.

Professor Moriarty claimed prior acquaintance with Robert Musgrave, the previous head of the family.

“In fact I have stayed at Hurlstone manor more than a few times before.”

“What was Robert like?” I asked.

“He always was more suited to be a magnate than a stuffy old aristocrat. His ken for business was undeniable; the Great Exhibition was made possible through his shrewd facility. It was he who made the Musgraves what they are today. Yet at the same time he was an arrogant man, unpleasant to share company with for very long. After the Moon Rocket debacle our contact ceased altogether.”

“I remember that project. It caused quite a sensation.”

Five years ago Robert Musgrave had announced the commencement of the Moon Rocket Project, in which he proposed to transport man to the surface of the moon on an enormous artillery shell. This latest flight of fancy proved to be too much, and people began to whisper that the indomitable Robert Musgrave had finally cracked. Undaunted, Lord Robert mounted a massive publicity campaign, and before long he had supporters all over Kyoto. “To the moon!” was their rallying cry, and for a brief time stargazing and “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” experienced a surge in popularity. Calls abounded to add the moon to the possessions of the empire, on the basis that it was a strategic location which would surely be humanity’s next frontier. An official committee was convened, composed of leading members from government bureaus, the East India Company, the army ballistics research board, and university applied physics laboratories. A section of the Musgrave bamboo forest was cleared in order to serve as a launchpad for rocket prototypes. But the path towards the moon was a long and arduous one.

“Humanity is not ready for the moon,” declared Moriarty. “An enormous quantity of energy is required in order to escape the gravity of the earth. At first the plan called for an enormous cannon to fire the rocket into the sky, but even that would not supply the required amount. More acceleration was required, and so they proposed that the moon rocket carry fuel in sealed compartments, to be detonated in a series of stages. But such a tractable fuel is not easy to come by, nor have we the capability to construct a vessel which can withstand such tremendous shocks. With the resources of modern science it is simply impossible. Many times I told Robert Musgrave as much, but he would not listen, and instead insisted that he would make it possible.”

With little to show for these furious efforts, the interest of the public waned. Even the abundant coffers of the Musgraves could not bear those enormous expenses indefinitely, and following the death of his father last summer Reginald Musgrave announced that the Moon Rocket Project was suspended indefinitely.

“What drove him to such obsession?” I wondered.

“I’m afraid I know no more than you,” sighed Moriarty. “Some theorize that it was the disappearance of Miss Rachel. Robert did change after that; he never had been one to throw himself after flights of fancy. He was positively inhuman in his practicality, which was also his greatest strength. Yet in his final years Robert Musgrave thought nothing of profit, or loss; he was like a man possessed.”

The carriage turned right and entered a narrow lane which passed through the bamboo thicket. On both sides we could see nothing but that sea of green. The Musgraves had a particularly deep relationship with bamboo; it appeared on their family crest, and they counted among their heirlooms the oldest known existing manuscript of “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter”.

“In a forest this vast one would certainly be able to build any number of huts.”

“But the winters are cold, and in the summer the grove is swarming with mosquitoes. It would not be an easy place to live.”

As we drove up the path a large iron gate appeared before us. The carriage halted in front of it, and an elderly man in gardener’s garb came out of a brick guard shack on the left. Professor Moriarty leaned out of the cab and named himself, upon which the elderly man bowed, hobbled to the gate, and opened it, all at an excruciatingly slow pace. Past the gate the path turned into gravel, and the bamboo forest was replaced by a well-trimmed lawn dotted by various shrubs.

Hurlstone stood in a broad elliptical clearing in the midst of the bamboo grove. It was comprised of the original wing, which had been standing since the estate was constructed far back in the mists of time, and the modern wing, which had been added about a century prior, taking the shape of an L. The horizontal part of the L was the original wing, and its sixteenth-century roots were apparent in its old, gloomy appearance. Nowadays it was seldom used, and served only as a root cellar and a storehouse for the Musgraves’ collection of heirlooms. The vertical shaft of the L was the modern wing, which in comparison was a cheerful sight, with the smoke puffing from the chimneys serving as a testament to the human presence within. Reginald Musgrave and all the servants slept there, and it was in front of this brighter of the two wings that the carriage stopped.

A middle-aged butler emerged to greet us.

“Good day, Brunton. It is good to see your face again.”

“It is a pleasure to welcome you to Hurlstone once again, Professor,” said the butler courteously, bowing his head. He appeared to be exactly the type of butler you would find serving an old family, as unflappable as weather-beaten granite. After hearing the object of our visit, he nodded and said, with no change at all in his expression, “Master Holmes is indeed on the premises.”

Moriarty and I cried aloud and clasped each other’s hands in joy. Brunton explained that Sherlock Holmes had obtained Reginald’s permission to erect a little hermitage in the bamboo, refusing his offers to stay in Hurlstone and instead employing a stable-boy to transport his belongings to the hut.

“I should be happy to escort you to see him, if you will only follow me to first see Master Musgrave,” said Brunton, and so we proceeded after him into the foyer.

While he went to summon his master, I had a look around my surroundings. It was a high-ceilinged room, furnished almost as a museum with glass cases which told the veritable history of the Musgraves: battle-tested weapons, samples of the many goods produced by the companies of the Musgrave conglomerate, commemorative medallions from the Great Exhibition, an exquisite scale model of the Crystal Palace. At the rear of the hall I saw a sweeping staircase, and on the wall of the landing were hung splendid portraits of the former heads of the Musgrave clan.

“An impressive display,” I remarked.

This corridor leads to the old wing,” said Moriarty, indicating with a jerk of his chin a hallway on the right side of the hall. “From what I hear there it holds a great many treasures which have never left the premises. After all, this is an ancient house.”

Presently Brunton returned to fetch us, leading us through a door on the left of the hall to a study, a long, bright room with wide windows on the left looking out onto the lawn. On the right were bookshelves and cabinets, but what really drew the eye was an enormous map of the surface of the moon. It was made from a photograph taken through a telescope, a detailed relic of the obsession which overtook Robert Musgrave in his final years. Before the fireplace at the far wall stood Reginald Musgrave, conversing with two ladies perched upon on a settee.

“Professor James Moriarty and Dr. John Watson,” announced Brunton.

The two women on the settee turned, as if they had been awaiting our arrival. I sucked in my breath, for they were none other than Irene Adler and my wife Mary.