The Adventure of the Canine Ventriloquist

Jon L. Breen

Visits by apparent madmen to the old rooms in Baker Street were not infrequent. Some of these callers actually were mad and thus beyond the help of a consulting detective, while others merely seemed to be. Our visitor that blustery Christmas Eve I would quickly have consigned to the former category, but as he so frequently did, Sherlock Holmes disagreed.

We were in the midst of a splendid dinner from Mrs. Hudson's talented kitchen when we heard voices from the stairs.

"I must see Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" came a distraught masculine shout. "Only he can help me!"

The feminine voice of Mrs. Hudson tried to calm the lunatic in softer tones. Whatever she said was undistinguishable and did not serve to soothe our determined visitor, who burst through the door of 221B and implored Holmes's aid. Mrs. Hudson offered apologies, but, overtaken I suppose by a combination of the spirit of the season and the curiosity of a hound finding the scent of game on the air, Holmes offered food, drink, and the comfort of the fire. In the confusion of welcoming our visitor, Mrs. Hudson's joyfully anticipated Christmas pudding was somehow forgotten. No comestible, however delightful, had the power to distract Holmes from the scent of a problem, but I am more devoted to the joys of the table—as well as averse to disappointing Mrs. Hudson. Still, I supposed, the pudding would keep until we heard this poor maniac's tale and arranged for his removal to an institution that could deal with his sad mental infirmity. After a few moments, our visitor had gathered himself enough to tell us, though not quickly, a lucid if fantastic tale.

"I have always enjoyed Christmas," he began, raising a cup of hot spiced cider to his lips. "The festival of Our Saviour's birth marks my favourite time of the year, a time one can feel goodwill and good fellowship toward the fellow man who so sadly disappoints one the rest of the year, a time of conviviality and generosity and song."

His face brightened, then fell abruptly into indescribable gloom, the mercurial suddenness of the change making me all the more certain of his lunacy.

"But, gentlemen, one year ago tomorrow, events were set in motion that altered the whole scheme of my happy, productive life and reduced me to the ruined hulk you see before you."

A healthy, well-fed hulk beyond the wild eyes and troubled features, I reflected, not to mention one with a gift for florid exaggeration. My observational skills having been developed over the years, admittedly more through my long association with Holmes than the diagnostic lessons of my medical education, I was about to give voice to my impressions. But, as usual, Holmes struck first—and, I must confess, more strikingly.

"Pray continue, Mr. Marplethorpe. Dr. Watson and I are eager to hear your story."

"I can't express how much 1 appreciate—" Our guest broke off, looking perplexed. "But, Mr. Holmes, I fear in my agitated state, I neglected to tell you my name. Did I mention my name, Dr. Watson?"

"You did not," I verified.

"Forgive my rudeness. I am indeed Oliver Marplethorpe, the most miserable and beleaguered man in England. But you already knew who I was, Mr. Holmes. You called me by name, and I'm damned if I know how. I sent you no communication heralding my advent—indeed, who would be so presumptuous as to request an appointment for Christmas Eve? In my distress, I neglected even to offer a calling card to your landlady. You and I have never met before to my knowledge. While my name has given me some small notoriety, my likeness has never appeared in the press, and I am not given to delivering lectures or making other public appearances. I know my clothing is innocent of so much as my initials, let alone spelling out my entire name. So how in God's name did you know my name was Marplethorpe?"

With a damnably smug glance in my direction, Holmes said, "It's a matter more in my colleague's area than my own, Mr. Marplethorpe: literary style. Unless you are a verbal plagiarist, you used nearly the very same words describing your affinity for the Christmas season in an essay in the Strand two years ago. You must remember that charming piece, Watson. I believe one of your overwrought accounts of my own trifling exploits appeared in the same number."

Marplethorpe smiled sadly, as if viewing a forgotten time and place in his mind's eye. "Yes, I was proud of that essay, I must confess. But that is what the late Mr. Dickens would have designated a ghost of Christmas past, I fear. So many things have changed since then." He fell silent and seemed to drift off into a private reverie.

"Tell us your tale, Mr. Marplethorpe," Holmes persisted. "We shall lay your Christmas ghost if we can."

"Yes, of course, but where to begin? The writing life is not an easy one, as Dr. Watson must appreciate. I began beating on the doors of book and periodical publishers, figuratively I hasten to add, when I had not yet achieved one score in age. I persisted through my university years and after, subsisting mainly on the largesse of my generous but scarcely wealthy parents, both since unhappily deceased. For a number of cold seasons, I could have papered my walls with the rejections I received from the daily newspapers, the weekly and monthly magazines, the annuals, the book publishers. The support of a similarly minded circle of friends kept my spirits from falling into despair.

"But over the five-year period leading to last Christmas, I gradually accrued some measure of success. My essays became more popular with the readership of the better magazines; my reviews were more frequently solicited by the literary journals; my occasional poems and stories became steadily better received. Just thirteen months ago I was offered, and accepted, the editorship of Vickery's Weekly, a post that paid handsomely in prestige if only tolerably in currency. My income from all these sources combined had risen to the point where, still not yet thirty years of age, though I was by no means wealthy, I finally allowed myself to entertain thoughts of taking a wife, casting off the superficial freedom of bachelorhood for the more fulfilling responsibilities of family life. Most happily of all, I had at the ready a candidate to join me in this glorious venture. Miss Elspeth Hawley is her name, the fairest and loveliest creature to whom God ever gave life."

So he was not a madman but a professional writer—literary amateurs like myself are often quite ordinary and level-headed chaps, but those who attempt to scribble words on paper for a living are another matter. Even the sober ones often seem likely candidates for institutionalization. By now I had remembered the fellow's work: clever, often amusing, but deucedly long-winded. Impatient for him to get to the point, I was tempted to remind him that Holmes and I, unlike the editors he sought to please, would not pay him by the word. But Holmes was listening with rapt attention, as if treasuring every syllable.

Marplethorpe drained his cup of cider and said dramatically, "That brings us to Christmas last... but no, not quite."

I nearly snorted but restrained myself. I might have known we weren't there yet.

"In the year preceding the yuletide season of which I speak," our visitor continued, "I succeeded in placing an article on the art and history of ventriloquism with one of the better-paying monthlies. Perhaps you saw it."

"I did indeed," Holmes said. "Fascinating topic. Do you remember it, Watson?"

I confessed that I did not, and my negative response took me still farther away from the prospect of Mrs. Hudson's Christmas pudding. It put me in line for an exhaustive account of the fellow's research.

"As I'm sure you know," Marplethorpe droned, "the term ventriloquism refers to the art of making sounds appear to come from somewhere other than their actual source. 'Throwing the voice,' it is sometimes called. The term comes from two Latin words, venter, meaning 'belly,' and loqui, meaning 'spoken,' literally 'belly-speaking.' Popular wisdom has long held that the sounds issued from the ventriloquist's abdomen, though practitioners of the art assure me that is far from being a true impression, that in fact the sounds come from deep in the throat. Ventriloquism in one form or another dates back to ancient times through evidence found in Hebrew and Egyptian archaeological studies. The most famous ancient ventriloquist was the Greek Eurycles of Athens, who I believe specialized in bird sounds.

"The art could prove dangerous to its practitioners, witness the case of a magician in fourteenth-century France known as Meskyllene. He toured Eastern Europe with a wooden box as his prop. Audience members would be invited to ask questions, and the box would appear to answer them. Poor fellow was put to death for sorcery. That was too often the fate of early ventriloquists.

"Some of the most famous 'belly-speakers' of more recent centuries had a happier lot, serving in the royal courts of Europe, filling a kind of jester function I would imagine. Louis Brabant was the voice-throwing valet of King Francis I of France in the sixteenth century, and Henry King served in the same dual function to our own Charles I in the first half of the seventeenth. In the present day, of course, ventriloquism has become a recognized form of popular entertainment, a fixture of the music halls. I saw one chap who sat a wooden doll on his knee and appeared to have a conversation with it. He displayed remarkable skill and inventiveness and indeed was the inspiration for my article."

"The production of such an article must give you immense satisfaction," I said courteously, hoping he would move on to the point of his visit, whatever it might be.

"On the contrary, Dr. Watson," he said miserably. "I wish 1 had never heard of ventriloquism nor written a word about it. I mentioned my affection for Miss Elspeth Hawley, did I not?"

"Yes," I assured him quickly, hoping to head off more expressions of rapture.

"I fear one short sentence in my article of several pages incurred my beloved's wrath. 1 had pointed out, quite accurately, that fraudulent spiritualists often use ventriloquism as a method of producing disembodied voices, one of the types of bogus spirit manifestations that are their stock in trade. One of Elspeth's keenest interests is spiritualism, and she frequently attends séances with devoted enthusiasm, a foible I had always found amusing and, though certainly foolish, essentially harmless. My suggestion that the objects of her devotion could possibly be fraudulent filled her with anger. I did my best to explain that I had not said all spiritualists were of necessity charlatans. I sought to solicit her admission that at least some of the army of individuals hosting séances in this gullible day are out to dupe the naive and innocent, that in fact their activities should be deplored by no one more than the genuine spirit mediums on whom their activities bring discredit. But she would not be assuaged, and I feared our disagreement on this matter imperilled our pending marital happiness."

"What do you think of that, Watson?" Holmes asked me. "You know something of spiritualism, I believe."

"Poppycock," I muttered. "My literary agent has an interest in it. I can't imagine why."

"I had no belief in it, either," Marplethorpe hastened to reiterate. "But in trying to make my argument to Elspeth, I had to at least counterfeit an open-mindedness on the subject."

Our visitor had shifted from spiced cider to whisky, but the advent of the Christmas pudding seemed no nearer when he said, "That, I believe, brings us to Christmas last."

I bit back an ironic rejoinder.

"Elspeth and I were again on terms of concord and happiness when we gathered for Christmas at the country house of our friend, Charles Vickery. The gathering is an annual tradition. Charles is much the wealthiest of our circle, and indeed it was the literary weekly he publishes that gave my career part of its newly achieved stability. There are several regular guests at these functions, mostly those who like Elspeth and myself no longer had living parents or other close family near at hand when the holiday season comes. While the guest list has varied from year to year, Colin Ragsdale, another of my closest friends, has been a constant. Colin ekes out a living as an estate agent. He. Charles, and I were inseparable at university. We all had literary aspirations, and I remember remarking to Charles last year that the success he and I had achieved surely would soon be matched by Colin, whom I think we all believed, whether we said so or not, to be the most talented of the three of us.

"Charles Vickery is a man of generosity and kindness whatever the season, but he knows the art of keeping Christmas like no person of my acquaintance, and his home is annually a veritable lightning rod for the yuletide spirit. The towering tree, hung with shining baubles and candles and cloved oranges, the sprigs of heavily berried holly, the brightly wrapped gifts, the romantic lure of the mistletoe, the garlands on the mantelpiece, the Yule log, the roasting chestnuts, the wassail bowl, and the food, oh, the glorious food, the succulent brown goose with its sage-and-onion stuffing, watercress garnish, brown gravy and gooseberry sauce, roasted potatoes arrayed around it; the glazed parsnips, the nuts, the dates, the mince pies—"

"And the Christmas pudding," I offered.

"Yes, yes, that as well, most memorably. I found the coin in my portion last year, and though I am not of a superstitious inclination, I was happy to take it as a harbinger of continued luck for the year to come. How gay we were those Christmas weekends with Charles, and how free of every care we were—or seemed." His face fell with such tangible sadness, I began to feel a tug of sympathy. However extravagantly stated, his desolation was very real.

"My friends had all read my ventriloquism piece, of course. It was only a small part of my prolific output for the year, but it was certainly the one that most captured their fancy. I had faintly hoped no allusion would be made to it during the Christmas weekend, since it remained somewhat of a sore subject between Elspeth and myself. But of course, with high-spirited friends, full of boisterous humour, I was resigned that the spectre of 'belly speaking'—not by that indelicate term in mixed company, of course— had inevitably to raise itself, probably as an elaborate practical joke of some sort.

"Christmas morning, we all exchanged our small gifts, one to another, an annual tradition attended by much laughter and affection. But when the gift exchange appeared to have run its course, I was informed that another gift was to come my way, one that was a token of esteem from all of my gathered friends. Charles led us into the drawing room, where an easel was set up with a white sheet covering the picture it held. I looked from face to face and saw only eager and good-humoured expectation.

"With a flourish, Charles unveiled one of the strangest paintings I had ever seen. I must describe it to you in careful detail, Mr. Holmes, because the appearance of it, the very spirit of it, are central to my sad tale. It seemed at first glance cheerful and bright, a happy addition to a wall of art, but the more you looked at it, the more sombre and troubling it came to appear.

"It depicted a man and a dog. The man was formally dressed, seated in a chair of rich scarlet fabric, the dog, a short-haired white terrier, lying on his knee. But closer inspection showed a blankness of expression on the man's face, a false brightness to his features, rather like a cartoon or a puppet. And when you looked closely, you could see that his jaw appeared to have a wooden hinge, like that on the ventriloquist's doll I had seen sitting on that music-hall performer's knee. The dog by contrast had a knowing intelligence to its features and far more character and personality in its face than its putative master. I mention the other details of the painting because they are important: a bright green handkerchief in the man's—or should I say man-sized doll's—pocket; a glittering jewelled collar around the dog's neck.

" 'Well, what do you think, Oliver?' Charles demanded, his twenty-five-December jollity not reduced a whit by the sight of the picture.

" 'It's . .. it's a remarkable piece of work,' I stammered, and I was by no means lying. However perverse its subject matter, it bespoke sound fundamental draftsmanship and a daringly original talent. That did not mean I relished the notion of hanging it on my wall and having to look at it every day, however. 'And who, may I ask, is the artist?' I inquired, looking without success for some signature on the canvas.

" 'An amateur,' Charles said, 'another of whose canvases you won't find if you comb every gallery in London.'

" 'A weekend painter,' agreed Colin Ragsdale.

" 'Is it someone here?' I ventured.

" 'You'll have to guess, Oliver,' said Elspeth playfully.

" 'And if I guess correctly, you will tell me?'

" 'No,' they all chorused as a single voice. 'It's from all of us, you see,' Colin explained, 'in celebration of your deserved success. The artist chooses to remain anonymous.'

"When the weekend was over, of course, I had no choice but to transport the thing back to my newly acquired rooms in Kensington. But I still didn't want that wise dog and man-doll looking at me day and night. Elspeth, however, insisted, stating that a refusal to hang it would be an insult to my friends. Perhaps, I ventured, I could keep it in a back room and take it out for hanging whenever one of them called. 'No,' she said, 'it must hang there all the time, to give you inspiration. You will grow to love it, Oliver.'

" 'And when we marry,' I inquired, 'are you prepared to live with it as well?'

" 'Certainly,' she said.

" 'And when will that wonderful event finally occur?' I inquired. Though definitely engaged, we had not yet set an official wedding date.

" 'It must be next Christmas,' she said, 'with our friends around us.'

" 'Must we wait so long?'

" 'Only a year. We can be patient. I am determined to be a Christmas bride.'

"Despite the long period of time, I was delighted to have a definite date finally set. I put aside my distaste and hung the painting in the sitting room of my flat, over the fireplace."

"You say Miss Hawley had no family?"

"No, she was an only child and her parents had died when she was ten years old and she was raised by a guardian. I and our circle of friends were her family, insofar as she had one."

"Pray continue your story."

"At first the year seemed to offer a continuation of my recent success. The editorial duties at Vikkery's Weekly took a sizable part of my working time, but I still managed to continue placing articles and reviews in decent number, and my prices were rising as my volume lessened. Through January and February, I gradually achieved a kind of truce with the painting. 1 did not like it; I did not look at it more than I could help; but still it was not casting a pall over my life. In March, however, that began to change.

"For my birthday, Elspeth surprised me with a little dog. A kind gesture, you might say, and I would agree, but disquietingly the dog proved to be a white terrier identical in markings to the one depicted in the painting. I found it disturbing but realized that to say so would make me appear ungrateful and cause hurt to Elspeth.

"So, as light-heartedly as I could manage, I said, 'This lad is obviously the model for my Christmas painting. Tell me who the previous owner was and I shall identify the phantom artist.' She answered with similar lightness of tone but provided no information. When I asked her if the dog had a name, she said I should call him Eddie."

"Could Miss Elspeth Hawley herself have been the artist?" I ventured.

Marplethorpe shook his head. "I am certain not. We spent much of our time together, and she evinced no artistic proclivities. While my knowledge of her domestic arrangements certainly did not extend beyond the boundaries dictated by decency and propriety, I never associated any accoutrements of the artistic life with her. And if she had been keeping a terrier, I surely must have known.

"From the day that Eddie entered my household, my life began its unutterable descent. To begin with, I began hearing strange, faint voices in the night. 'Speak for me, master.' 'Sit me on your knee, master.' 'Take me to the music hall, master.' And if I looked for a source, the voice seemed to be coming from the terrier curled up at the foot of my bed!

"I confess I didn't take it seriously. From earliest childhood, I have had strange dreams. Indeed I have often been thankful for the spur they give my creativity. Thus I well know how easy it is to imagine bizarre, inexplicable things at night that seem to vanish in the light of day. The voices, I told myself, could only have been a dream, the deceptive product of a state somewhere between sleeping and waking. I surely could not blame the dog. Eddie was a good little fellow really and a welcome companion.

"But other manifestations were more troubling and harder to put aside. To put it bluntly, the painting began to change.

"First the change was subtle. The face of the man-doll had seemed blank and expressionless when I first saw it. But each time I looked at it now, it seemed to be taking on more character and feature. It began to look more and more like me. That it should resemble me was not so odd a notion; it would fit right in with the humour of my friends and of the mysterious artist, who I believed surely must be one of them. I told myself it was my imagination, that it had always looked like me, that this was part of the joke and I was only gradually coming to realize it. But each time I looked at the picture—and now I somehow felt compelled to look at it each time I entered the sitting room—it seemed the resemblance became more and more striking.

"The disturbance the painting was causing in me led me to avoid the sitting room. I spent more and more time at the desk in my study, even when I was not actively pursuing my writing and editing chores. This change of habits did not, as you might think, increase my productivity, however. It became more and more difficult to concentrate on my work. For the first time in my career, I began missing deadlines, and my hard-won reputation for reliability and professionalism began to erode. How can one keep his attention fixed on such mundane matters as writing and editing when he fears he is going mad?"

"Did you speak of this to anyone?" Holmes asked.

"Not to that point, no. Not when I could still attribute the odd happenings to my imagination. Not until I could no longer deny that either the manifestations were real... or I was descending into madness.

"One morning in early May, I left my bedroom and walked into the sitting room. On a small table near the doorway, the usual repository for gloves and items of mail, I saw a bright green handkerchief. I was puzzled, for I owned no such handkerchief, and I recalled having no visitor who might have left it. As I looked at it, it occurred to me it resembled the handkerchief the man-doll wore in the painting. Once again, my eyes were drawn unwillingly to the picture over the mantel, intending to compare them. But now there was no green handkerchief in the seated figure's pocket! It was gone!"

By now I was convinced my first diagnosis had been correct. The man was clearly out of his senses.

"Did you examine the painting closely, Mr. Marplethorpe?" Holmes inquired.

"Really, Mr. Holmes! How close an examination was necessary? It did not take any more than a glance to tell that something as striking as a bright green handkerchief was missing from the painting."

"You misunderstand me, sir. If we eliminate a supernatural explanation, which my training, experience, and personal philosophy require me to do, we must look for a natural one. If what you have told us is accurate, the only conclusion is that someone must have touched up the painting. Was there any sign of fresh or wet oil on the canvas?"

"My apologies, Mr. Holmes. That possibility did occur to me later, but in this first instance, I was too upset to notice."

"There were later similar events?"

Marplethorpe nodded. "A few weeks later, I awoke to find a jewelled collar had appeared around Eddie's neck. As soon as I saw it, I rushed to look at the picture, terrified of what I would find. My fears were realized. The dog in the picture now had no collar." He paused. "And, Mr. Holmes, there was no sign of fresh paint on the canvas."

"At what point did you tell someone about all these unusual occurrences?"

"I delayed for weeks, torn with indecision. Finally I invited a party of three to luncheon at my club. My intention was to share with them the singular happenings, take them up to my rooms to show them my evidence, and ask them if they could offer any possible explanation."

"And who were the three?"

"The three persons closest to me in the world, of course: Charles Vickery, Colin Ragsdale, and my own beloved, Elspeth."

"Had none of them been in your rooms since the first of these odd events?"

"No. Charles had been spending most of his time outside London, and Elspeth had recently expressed an increasing concern about visiting my bachelor quarters unchaperoned, though I hasten to assure you our relations were never other than completely proper. As for Colin, we often met for drinks and talk in Fleet Street pubs but for one reason or another had not visited each other's rooms in that period.

"It was not a happy gathering we had over lunch. My work for Vickery's Weekly had become erratic, and I knew Charles was concerned. My friends had perceived alterations in my personality for which I had offered no plausible explanation. I had always been regarded as a moody, volatile person, and it had been attributed to my artistic temperament, but lately my mercurial moods had become worse. Elspeth and I had quarrelled over trivialities. Even Colin's insouciant manner was sometimes strained by my erratic behaviour. And of course, as I told them my story, they could only think me as mad as you must think me now."

"Not at all," Holmes said, speaking for himself alone.

"I was glad finally to have told someone else about it, however, and of course, I knew once we got to my rooms and I showed them the painting, they would know I was not losing my senses. Then we could have a reasoned discussion of possible explanations."

"But when you arrived at the flat," Holmes ventured, "the painting had been restored to its original state."

Marplethorpe looked amazed at this, but it seemed quite an obvious deduction to me. Surely the poor man's friends would not share his delusion, and when they saw no change in the painting, he would no longer see it either.

"You are uncanny, Mr. Holmes. That is exactly what occurred. My first indication was when Eddie greeted us at the door. He did not have the collar around his neck, though I had never removed it. We moved into the sitting room and gazed at the painting. The collar was in place on the neck of the knowing dog; the green handkerchief was in the man-doll's pocket; and the face of the doll had returned to the wooden blankness we had seen on Christmas Day, with the resemblance to me erased. There was little I could say. I felt a fool, and yet I knew what I had seen. I determined to show them the handkerchief, but it was gone from my drawer. My friends departed with meaningless words of comfort, advising me to get some rest, not to work so hard.

"A note from Elspeth arrived a day later. She said she was taking a long ocean voyage with a distant cousin for her own peace of mind. Though she still claimed the greatest of affection for me, she begged to postpone our nuptials. And I thought her note was oddly impersonal in tone, as if she were attempting to distance herself from a situation beyond her understanding.

"Within a month, I had been discharged as editor of Vickery's Weekly. Charles was kindness itself, but said he had no other choice, that he would see what he could do for me when I regained my robust health. Sanity, he meant but did not say. The commissions for articles and reviews stopped coming, as if some tap had been turned off. I had to give up my Kensington accommodations and take cheaper rooms."

"And the painting?" Holmes inquired sharply. "What did you do with it when you moved to cheaper rooms?"

"Mr. Holmes, the very day I was to move, the painting vanished. I have not seen it since."

By this time, I could hardly contain my impatience with the fellow's tale. But Holmes merely said, "Certainly the painting vanished. It had to vanish. And the dog?"

"Still with me," Marplethorpe said. "My one consolation in a way. I cannot blame my miserable condition on Eddie. He's a loyal little fellow, more so than my supposed friends."

"Have you lost all contact with them?"

"I did not advertise my whereabouts when I moved. I heard nothing from any of them until this very day. And that is why I came to see you. I received a note in the post from Charles Vickery. He expressed regret he had failed to locate me until now, said all the old circle were already gathered at his country house, and assured me the celebration was incomplete without me. I feel drawn to go, Mr. Holmes, Charles's house parties having been such a happy part of my life, my old life in any case. And yet I feel a sense of foreboding at the same time. If you could come to Charles Vickery's country house, talk to my friends, investigate the odd occurrences, and perhaps come up with some reasonable explanation for them, the whole downward plunge of my existence might be reversed on the very anniversary of my unhappy decline's beginning."

It seemed to me that Marplethorpe was asking a great deal, but Holmes seemed to regard the request as a mere trifle. "Certainly, Mr. Marplethorpe, but first you must give us some directions."

"To Charles's country estate," he said, his face brightening with hope.

"Yes, but first to your old rooms in Kensington."

On occasion during my association with Sherlock Holmes, he asked me to represent him at some point in an investigation—the adventure of The Hound of the Baskervilles was one such instance. It was a flattering responsibility I always accepted with serious purposefulness. Thus it was that I attended Charles Vickery's Christmas celebration the following day. Holmes, who had swiftly departed the Baker Street rooms with Marplethorpe the previous night, did not explain why he could not appear at the Vickery house in person, merely admonished me to be on my guard.

By arrangement, a carriage met me at the railway station.

"A happy Christmas to you, sir," the coachman said. "Dr. Watson, is it?"

"Yes, and a happy Christmas to you."

"I had understood there were to be two passengers to the house, sir. Mr. Sherlock Holmes—"

"Mr. Holmes was called away on business related to an investigation," I said, quite accurately, as it happens.

Following a bracing if bumpy ride through the tree-lined countryside, I had my first view of Vickery's stately country house. The young man, I realized, must be wealthy indeed.

The host, who was waiting for me at the door to offer a hearty greeting, was a jolly and affable young man, who concealed his disappointment at my conveying of Holmes's regrets more successfully than had his servant. He assured me he was delighted to make me welcome. While his friendliness seemed quite genuine, the holiday gaiety was obviously somewhat forced. I detected an expression of concern in his eyes.

"Have you had any communication from Oliver Marplethorpe?" he asked.

"No, indeed, not since last evening," I said. "Do you mean to tell me he is not here?"

"No. When he telephoned last night, he advised me to expect him on the earlier of the two morning trains and to expect you and Mr. Holmes on the later. I was delighted and relieved to hear that he was coming. Oliver has not had the easiest of times in the past year. Indeed he unaccountably cut off all contact with those of us who most value him. When he asked leave to invite two additional guests as distinguished as yourself and Mr. Holmes, my delight increased. Imagine our disappointment and concern when he did not arrive this morning as expected. I had hoped he would prove to have accompanied you on the later train."

"I am as puzzled as you are, sir."

"Well, it's Christmas Day all the same, and we must celebrate as best we can."

The Christmas decorations proved as elaborate and festive as Marplethorpe had promised. In the shadow of an enormous tree thick with ornaments, I was introduced to several revellers of about my host's age, though they acted a decade younger. Several were clearly disappointed not to have the opportunity to meet the celebrated Sherlock Holmes, but only two of them seemed to share my host's deep concern about Marplethorpe.

Miss Hawley proved a comely young woman indeed. When smiling and vivacious, she undoubtedly could melt any masculine heart. Even in her current pale and distracted state, her amazing beauty shone through and her helpless desolation created an almost automatic desire to shield and protect her. That others felt the same was emphasized by the phalanx of young men that surrounded her. Seeing Elspeth Hawley for the first time made me feel all the more sympathy for Oliver Marplethorpe, madman or not. Next to the loss of her, the loss of income and literary reputation, even of sanity, might seem secondary.

"Dr. Watson," she said gravely, "I am heartened to know Oliver has made such a friend as you. But where can he be? What new misfortune can have befallen him to prevent his being here?"

"There are any number of explanations, Miss Hawley," I said, not really believing it. "I'm certain he will appear before the day is out, with an amusing story on his lips."

She shook her head distractedly. "How I wish I could share your confidence. But I feel things, Dr. Watson. I always have. It is an uncanny ability and not always a welcome one. Oliver is dead. I know it."

"Surely not, Miss Hawley. You must not lose hope."

"Thank you for your comforting words, Dr. Watson," she said, not seeming at all comforted. "You gentlemen will excuse me, I know. I must prepare."

Without revealing what she was preparing for. Miss Hawley drifted away. A moment later, my host introduced me to the third of the persons on whom it was my duty to concentrate my attention, Colin Ragsdale.

"Dr. Watson," the slight, red-bearded Ragsdale assured me, "I for one am even more honoured to meet you than the absent subject of your remarkable stories."

"In that, you are most unusual, sir."

"In many ways he is most unusual," Charles Vickery said humorously, earning him a sardonically arched eyebrow.

"I cannot but ask," I said. "Why on earth would you rather meet me than Holmes?"

"Because of the value I place on the written word. While I am sure Mr. Holmes is a talented man, it is your accounts that have made him famous—and made him rich, I suspect."

"You flatter me, sir," I said, quite sincerely. "Holmes was already well known long before I put pen to paper."

"To thief-takers and villains, perhaps, but not to the general public."

"I suppose there is something in what you say."

"What a strange thing is fortune, Doctor," Ragsdale said reflectively. "If I had met you as recently as one month ago, I would have ascertained whether you were in the market for larger rooms, but happily I have left all that behind me." A shadow appeared over his face. "I believe I would be the happiest man in England at this moment, if I weren't so concerned for my old friend Oliver Marplethorpe. Where can he be do you think?"

"I had expected to find him here."

"And are you joining us for the séance, Dr. Watson?"

"A séance? On Christmas Day?" I cast a puzzled glance at my host. "It seems vaguely sacrilegious, somehow."

"Not to one who believes," Charles Vickery said. "I am not one such, I hasten to add, but Elspeth insists. And we all find it hard to deny Elspeth anything, especially on a day that once was intended to be her wedding day. She has brought her own medium for the occasion, and I have the delicate task of providing a suitable circle of participants."

"We must not laugh," Colin Ragsdale said gravely, "much as we might want to. Charles has to keep out the open scoffers—of whom I confess I would be one, were it not for my tender regard for Elspeth. We also must not have anyone likely to be too much affected by the proceedings. We don't want any deaths by fright, do we, Charles?"

"Nor any deaths at all," Charles said solemnly, apparently thinking of his absent friend. "Will you join us then, Doctor?"

To refuse would have been to ignore my duty.

We sat in a circle of six, our hands joined on a round table, the only illumination a series of candles on a side table and a fitfully burning fire on the other side of the very large and oppressively dark upstairs room. The sparsely furnished chamber was innocent of seasonal decoration and far from the noise of the Christmas revellers. Our group consisted, reading clockwise round the table, of Charles Vickery, Elspeth Hawley, myself, a Miss Cavendish, who was a contemporary of Miss Hawley and apparently a fellow believer in spiritualism; Colin Ragsdale, and the spirit medium, Madame Larousse, a tall, slender, heavily veiled woman whose French accent did nothing to counter my scepticism.

"Hear us, O spirits of the departed," she said, in a sort of chant. "We seek your wisdom and your comfort, you who have gone to the other side. Bring us your messages of advice and guidance."

The medium suddenly halted her chant, her head dropping forward in the dim light as if she had suddenly lost consciousness. Then another, higher voice, issued eerily from her mouth, its unaccented English in sharp contrast to her normal heavily Gallic tones. "I want to go home, master. I want to go home. Please let me go home, master."

The medium's head shifted from one side to another. We heard a new voice, and though the medium's lips moved, the voice seemed to issue from the corner of the room farthest from the table where we all sat.

"Eddie! Eddie!" the hollow voice cried, like a lost soul begging for release.

On my left, Elspeth Hawley's hand gripped mine harder. She breathed softly, "Oliver. Oliver, is it you?"

"Elspeth," the voice croaked. "I loved you, Elspeth, but Eddie took me away from you. Why, Eddie? Why?" The medium's lips were still moving, but surely even the most gifted ventriloquist could not throw her voice that far. "Eddie," the haunted voice continued, "what can your full name be? Is it Edgar or Edward or Edmund or Edwin? Tell me, Eddie."

The medium's head shifted violently to the other side and the high-pitched voice came again from her lips. "None of those, master, none of those. Eddie denotes not my name but my position in life. The position 1 took from you. I was your better, master. I was always your better. You knew that." With a sudden ear-splitting shrillness, the medium shrieked out, "Editor! Editor! Oh, let me go home, master!"

I heard some creature skittering across the floor. The table rocked as one of our number broke the chain of hands and pushed back his chair. Miss Cavendish squeaked slightly and Charles Vickery uttered an exclamation. The lights in the room came up full and we saw Colin Ragsdale sitting, a horrified look on his face, a small white terrier leaping excitedly at his feet. Ignoring the dog, he rose from his chair and charged toward a black-clad figure in the newly illuminated corner.

"I should have killed you, Marplethorpe," Ragsdale roared. "And I will—!"

I leapt from my chair to intercept maddened Ragsdale, but the medium proved quicker, coming between the two of them and knocking Ragsdale to the floor with the skill of a practiced boxer. The French medium, freed of her veil, was none other than Sherlock Holmes.

#       #      #

Back in the rooms at Baker Street, I demanded of my friend why I had not been given more idea of what to expect.

"You could not have played your part as effectively, my friend, and I knew if I could fool an observer as keen as you, our quarry surely would not see through me."

Somewhat mollified, I inquired, "How did you get onto him?"

"Starting from the supposition that our client was telling the truth—and as you have pointed out, I was not the person to help him if he was not—I knew his tormentor had not only to be a gifted if secret 'weekend artist' but someone with access to his rooms. Since there was no wet paint on the canvas, there had to be multiple, nearly identical versions of the dog-ventriloquist painting extant, and there had to be some place to secret them near to where they were hanging, in a hidden closet or some other hiding place unknown to the occupant of the rooms. Only then could the nocturnal switches be made when needed. An intruder was also necessary to produce the voices Oliver Marplethorpe heard—and of course to steal the painting when Marplethorpe was to make his move to lesser quarters. Naturally Marplethorpe could not be allowed to take the picture with him, for the maddening effects could not be reproduced in his new quarters and having an unchanging version of the picture might cause him to reclaim his reason more quickly.

"Colin Ragsdale as far as we knew seldom left London, unlike Vickery or Miss Hawley. When I heard he had worked as an estate agent, I wondered if he had by any chance gotten Oliver Marplethorpe his new Kensington accommodations. When I learned that he had, the identity of the tormentor seemed clear.

"As we now know, Ragsdale was intensely jealous of Mapplethorpe's success. He felt his own capabilities were greater, and yet he saw Marplethorpe getting all the writing assignments. Ragsdale also was in love with Miss Hawley, and here, too, Marplethorpe had outdone him. The appointment of Marplethorpe to the editorship of their friend's journal was the final blow. At that point, Ragsdale determined to bring Marplethorpe down, ruin him as a writer, get back everything he believed had been taken from him by his old university friend. What progress he had made toward winning Miss Hawley's affections I do not know, but he had recently been named the new editor of Vickery's Weekly, thus his reference to you of his recently improved fortune."

"Did the others know Ragsdale was the creator of the painting?"

"Certainly, but they didn't realize the nature of the macabre joke he had in mind. And the gift of the tauntingly named Eddie was also quite innocent on the part of Miss Hawley, who never suspected what Ragsdale was doing. They all liked Ragsdale, as indeed did Marplethorpe himself. They never suspected what vengeful bitterness simmered beneath the surface. Miss Hawley has confirmed that it was Ragsdale's careful manipulation that led her first to cease visits to Marplethorpe's rooms on grounds of propriety—it being essential to Ragsdale's plan that no one of their circle visit while the changes in the painting were being engineered—and later to postpone the engagement and depart on a holiday. One of his ploys was to convince her that her presence only made Marplethorpe's mental affliction worse, that it would be good for the poor fellow not to see her for a time.

"When Marplethorpe dropped out of sight, Ragsdale was delighted, thinking he'd seen the last of his ruined nemesis. But Vickery and Miss Hawley still had warm feelings for the unfortunate Oliver Marplethorpe and were determined to draw him back into their circle for the annual Christmas celebration. Ragsdale, of course, had to pretend to concur and join them in their search. When Marplethorpe and I arrived here by hired carriage in the early hours of the morning, we managed to attract Miss Hawley to her bedroom window. We related our plan of attack to her and she was happy to cooperate in our exposure of Ragsdale. I must say she was very surprised to hear Oliver Marplethorpe suggest a Christmas Day séance, but in the circumstances, she readily agreed to it, as well as to sponsoring my masquerade."

"And now they are again to be married," I remarked. "But Miss Hawley has given up the notion of being a Christmas bride and has agreed to settle for the New Year instead."

"Now then, Watson," Holmes said, "do my nostrils sense that much-delayed Christmas pudding?"