Read Online The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes by Barry Grant - Free Book Online

ate a biscuit, then wandered into the street and up towards the centre of town, feeling more lost than I had felt in many a year. I scarcely know what I did that day, perambulating through crooked streets, into and out of bookshops, rambling in the hills, then back into town, filled with half-formed decisions, musings, uncertainty. I ate my evening meal at a restaurant, then walked to Cambrai Cottage. Coombes was seated in front of a roaring fire. ‘Greetings, Wilson!’ said he, in a cheery voice.
    â€˜Good evening, Coombes – very chilly weather.’
    â€˜Chilly indeed,’ said he, and he rubbed his hands together and looked into the flames.
    I set the books I had purchased on the table, five lovely volumes bound in full green morocco. I carefully placed them so that their gilt titles were in plain view of my strange acquaintance. After a few minutes I saw Coombes glance towards them. But he did not display much interest.
    I wandered to one end of the room, gazed out the window. I turned, considered making a pot of tea. Coombes seemed deep in meditation. His back was to me and he was staring towards the mantelpiece. I felt in the pockets of my sport coat, contemplating my next move. It suddenly seemed to me that I may have been wrong to buy the Sherlock Holmes volumes merely to try a foolish experiment, and that I should really have spent my money on . . .
    â€˜You are absolutely right, Wilson, you should have bought The Pickwick Papers ,’ said Coombes, ‘and you will regret it if you do not go to Boz Books and buy it before someone else does.’
    I froze. He had broken in on my mental processes. He had replied to my unspoken thought. A thrill of coldness ran through me. I knew where I had seen this trick before. ‘Ye gods!’ I cried, walking round to where I could face him. ‘That is just what I was thinking. But how in the world did you know it? I think you really must be Sherlock Holmes! Or else I’m losing my mind—’
    â€˜Elementary, my dear Wilson.’
    â€˜I am losing my mind,’ I said, and I sank into a chair with my head in my hand. ‘This is some sort of giant charade, to which I have fallen victim.’
    â€˜Nothing of the kind,’ said Coombes. ‘All this while that you thought I was staring and vacantly contemplating, I was in fact watching you in that mirror by the mantle. I saw you place those Sherlock Holmes volumes on the table, in hopes that they would cause some sort of reaction in me. You carefully angled the books so I could see the titles. When I did not react as you had hoped, you gazed at your newly purchased books ruefully, then turned away and walked to the window. Then you turned back into the room again as if uncertain or upset. You looked again at the set of books you had just bought, and then you looked down at the Boz Books pamphlet protruding so flamboyantly from the pocket of your jacket, and you gave a deep sigh. Your train of thought was obvious: you were thinking that instead of buying the set of Sherlock Holmes you should have purchased the first edition of Pickwick Papers that you have so often mentioned. You have often said that a Pickwick with both of the cancelled Buss plates is a rare find, and that you will never get it at a better price.’
    I stared like a man bereft of his wits.
    â€˜There is hardly anything at all in my observation,’ he added. ‘You have been mentioning that Pickwick Papers volume so frequently in the last ten days that anyone could have guessed your thought.’
    â€˜But I have seen this done before only by one person,’ I said. ‘You even look like him. For weeks I have been trying to remember where I have seen you before, and now it has come upon me. And yet it cannot be so!’
    â€˜It was inevitable that you would discover me,’ he said. ‘I have seen it coming for a long time. And I have feared it, Wilson . . . I have