“Oh, somebody knows about this stuff—or gives a good impression of it—but it’s not you. It’s like me being a criminal mastermind. Last night, I decided I was going to try to commit a perfectly simple crime: jeweler’s shop, window, brick. I walk to the jeweler’s, break window with brick, run away with jewels, and don’t look back.”
“And what happened?” asked Holmes.
“I couldn’t do it. I stood there, brick in hand, but I couldn’t throw it. Instead I went home and contrived an elaborate plan for tunneling into the jeweler’s involving six dwarfs, a bald man with a stoop, and an airship.”
“What has an airship got to do with digging a tunnel?” asked Holmes.
“Exactly!” said Moriarty. “More importantly, why do I need six dwarfs, never mind the bald man with the stoop? I can’t think of any situation in life where the necessity of acquiring six men of diminished stature might arise, or none that I care to bring up in public.”
“On close examination, it does seem to be excessively complicating what would otherwise be a fairly simple act of theft.”
“But I was completely unable just to break the window and steal the jewels,” said Moriarty. “It wasn’t possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not written that way.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not the way I was written. I’m written as a criminal mastermind who comes up with baroque, fiendish plots. It’s against my nature even to walk down the street in a straight line. Believe me, I’ve tried. I have to duck and dive so much that I get dizzy.”
Holmes sat back, stunned, almost dropping the revolver from his hand at the realization of his own true nature. Suddenly, it all made sense: his absence of anything resembling a past; his lack of a close familial bond with his brother, Mycroft; the sometimes extraordinary deductive leaps that he made, which baffled even himself.
“I’m a literary invention,” he said.
“Precisely,” said Moriarty. “Don’t get me wrong: you’re a good one—certainly better than I am—but you’re still a character.”
“So I’m not real?”
“I didn’t say that. I think you have a kind of reality, but you didn’t start out that way.”
“But what of my fate?” said Holmes. “What of free will? If all this is true, then my destiny lies in the hands of another. My actions are predetermined by an outside agency.”
“No,” said Moriarty, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation if that were the case. My guess is that you’re becoming more real with every word the author writes, and a little of it has rubbed off on me.”
“But what are we going to do about it?” asked Holmes.
“It’s not entirely in our hands,” said Moriarty.
And with that he looked up from the page.
• • •
And that was where the manuscript ended: with a fictional character engaged in a virtual staring contest with his creator. In his letter, Conan Doyle described letting the papers fall to the floor, and in that moment Sherlock Holmes’s fate was sealed.
Holmes was a dead man.
• • •
Thus began the extraordinary sequence of events that would come to imperil the Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository. Conan Doyle completed “The Final Problem,” consigning Holmes to the Reichenbach Falls and leaving only his trusty Alpine stock as a sign that he had ever been there at all. The public seethed and mourned, and Conan Doyle set out to immerse himself in the historical fictions that he believed would truly make his reputation.
Mr. Headley, meanwhile, went about the business of the Caxton which, for the most part, consisted of making pots of tea, dusting, reading, and ensuring that any of the characters who wandered off—as some of them were inclined to do—returned before nightfall. Mr. Headley had once been forced to explain to an unimpressed policeman why an elderly gent in homemade armor seemed intent on damaging a small ornamental windmill that stood at the heart of Glossom Green, and had no intention of having to go through all that again. It was difficult enough trying to understand how Don Quixote had ended up in the Caxton to begin with, given that his parent book had been written in Spanish. Mr. Headley suspected that it was something to do with the proximity of the first English translations of Cervantes’s work in 1612 and 1620 to their original publication in Spanish in 1605 and 1615. Then again, the Caxton might simply have got confused. It did that sometimes.
So it came as some surprise to him when, one Wednesday morning, a small, flat parcel arrived at the Caxton, inexpertly wrapped in brown paper and with its string poorly knotted. He opened it to find a copy of that month’s Strand containing “The Final Problem.”
“Now that can’t be right,” said Mr. Headley, aloud. He had already received his subscription copy and had no use for a second. But the nature of the parcel, with its brown paper and string, gave him pause for thought. He examined the materials and concluded that, yes, they were the same as those used to deliver first editions to the Caxton for as long as anyone could remember. Never before, though, had they protected a journal or magazine.
“Oh dear,” said Mr. Headley.
He began to feel distinctly uneasy. He took a lamp and moved through the library, descending—or ascending; he was never sure which, for the Caxton’s architectural nature was as individual and peculiar as everything else about it—into its depths (or heights) where the new rooms typically started to form upon the arrival of a first edition. No signs of activity were apparent. Mr. Headley was relieved. It was all clearly some mistake on the part of the Strand, and the paper and string involved in the magazine’s delivery only coincidentally resembled those with which he was most familiar. He returned to his office, poured himself a mug of tea, and twisted up the newly arrived copy of the Strand for use in the fireplace. He then read a little of Samuel Richardson’s epistolary epic Clarissa, which he always found conducive to drowsiness, and settled down in his chair for a nap.
He slept for longer than intended, for when he woke it was already growing dark outside. He set kindling for the fire, but noticed that the twisted copy of the Strand was no longer in the storage basket and was instead lying on his desk, entirely intact and without crease.
“Ah,” said Mr. Headley. “Well.”
But he got no further in his ruminations, for the small brass bell above the office door trilled once. The Caxton Private Lending Library didn’t have a doorbell, and it had taken Mr. Headley a little time to get used to the fact that a door without a doorbell could still ring. The sound of the bell could mean only one thing: the library was about to welcome a new arrival.
Mr. Headley opened the door. Standing on the step was a tall, wiry man, with a high brow and a long nose, dressed in a deerstalker hat and a caped coat. Behind him was an athletic-looking gent with a mustache, who seemed more confused than his companion. A slightly oversized bowler hat rested on his head.
“ ‘Holmes gave me a sketch of events,’ ” said Mr. Headley.
“I beg your pardon?” said the man in the bowler hat, looking even more confused.
“Paget,” said Mr. Headley. “ ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze,’ 1892.” For the two men could have stepped straight from that particular illustration.
“Still not following.”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” said Mr. Headley.
“Yet here we are,” said the thinner of the two.
“I think there’s been a mistake,” said Mr. Headley.
“If so, it won’t be resolved by forcing us to stand out here in the cold,” came the reply.
Mr. Headley’s shoulders slumped.
“Yes, you’re right. You’d better come in, then. Mr. Holmes, Doctor Watson: welcome to the Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository.”
• • •
Mr. Headley lit the fire, and while doing so tried to give Holmes and Watson a brief introduction to the library. Initially there wa
s often a certain amount of shock among new arrivals, who sometimes struggled to grasp the reality both of their own physicality and their fictional existence, as one should, in theory, have contradicted the other, but didn’t. Holmes and Watson seemed to have little trouble with the whole business, though. As we have already seen, Holmes had been made aware of the possibility of his own fictional nature thanks to the efforts of ex-professor Moriarty, and had done his best to share something of this understanding with Watson before his untimely demise at the hands of his creator.
“By the way, is my archnemesis here?” asked Holmes.
“I’m not expecting him,” said Mr. Headley. “You know, he never seemed entirely real.”
“No, he didn’t, did he?” agreed Holmes.
“To be honest,” Mr. Headley went on, “and as you may have gathered, I wasn’t expecting you two gentlemen either. Characters usually only arrive when their authors die. I suspect it’s because they then become fixed objects, as it were. You two are the first to come here while their author is still alive and well. It’s most unusual.”
Mr. Headley wished that there was someone he could call, but old Torrans was long dead, and the Caxton operated without the assistance of lawyers, bankers, or the institutions of government, or at least not with the active involvement of any of the above. Bills were paid, leases occasionally secured, and rates duly handed over to the authorities, but it was all done without Mr. Headley having to lift a finger. The workings of the Caxton were so deeply ingrained in British society that everyone had simply ceased to notice them.
Mr. Headley poured tea for the two guests and offered them some cake. He then returned to the bowels—or attic—of the library and found that it had begun to create suitable living quarters for Holmes and Watson based on Paget’s illustrations, and Watson’s descriptions, of the rooms at 221B Baker Street. Mr. Headley was immensely relieved, as otherwise he would have been forced to make up beds for them in his office, and he wasn’t sure how well Holmes might have taken to such sleeping arrangements.
Shortly after midnight, the library finished its work on 221B, complete with a lively Victorian streetscape beyond the windows. The Caxton occupied an indeterminate space between reality and fiction, and the library was not above permitting characters access to their own larger fictional universes, should they choose to step outside their rooms for a time. Many, though, preferred either to doze—sometimes for decades—or take the occasional constitutional around Glossom village and its environs, which at least had the merit of being somewhere new and different. The inhabitants of the village tended not to notice the characters unless, of course, they started tilting at windmills, talking about witches in a Scottish accent, or inquiring about the possibility of making a suitable marriage to entirely respectable single, or even attached, gentlemen.
Once Holmes and Watson were ensconced in their quarters, Mr. Headley returned to his office, poured himself a large brandy, and detailed the events of the day in the Caxton’s records, so that future librarians might be made aware of what he had gone through. He then retired to his bed and dreamed that he was holding on by his fingertips to the edge of a precipice while the Reichenbach Falls tumbled thunderously beneath him.
• • •
After this mild hiccup, the life of the library proceeded largely without incident over the following years, although the activities of Holmes and Watson were not entirely unproblematical for Mr. Headley. They were fond of making forays into Glossom and beyond, offering to assist bemused officers of the law with investigations into missing kittens, damaged milk churns, and the possible theft of a bag of penny buns from the noon train to Penbury. Their characters having ingrained themselves in the literary affections of the public, Holmes and Watson were treated as genial eccentrics. They were not alone in dressing up as the great detective and his amanuensis, for it was a popular activity among gentlemen of varying degrees of sanity, but they were unique in actually being Holmes and Watson, although obviously nobody realized that at the time.
There was also the small matter of the cocaine that found its way into the library on a regular basis. Mr. Headley couldn’t pin down the source of the drug, and could only conclude that the library itself was providing it, but it worried him nonetheless. God forbid that some perspicacious policeman might detect evidence of narcotics use on Holmes, and contrive to follow him back to the Caxton. Mr. Headley wasn’t sure what the punishment might be for running a drug den and had no desire to find out, so he begged Holmes to be discreet about his intake and reserve it for the peace and quiet of his own rooms.
Otherwise, Mr. Headley was rather delighted to have as residents of the library two characters of whom he was so enamored and spent many happy evenings in their company, listening as they discussed the details of cases about which he had read, or testing Holmes’s knowledge of obscure poisons and types of tobacco. Mr. Headley also continued to subscribe to The Strand Magazine, for he generally found its contents most delightful and had no animosity toward it for publishing Holmes’s last adventure since he was privileged to have the man himself beneath his roof. He tended to be a month or two behind in his Strand reading, though, for his preference remained books.
Then, in August 1901, this placid existence was disturbed by a most unexpected development. Mr. Headley had taken himself away to Clackheaton to visit his sister Dolly, and upon his return found Holmes and Watson in a terrible state. Holmes was brandishing the latest copy of the Strand and demanding loudly, “What’s this? What’s this?”
Mr. Headley pleaded, first for calm, and then for the offending journal, which was duly handed over to him. Mr. Headley took the nearest chair and, once he had recovered from his surprise, read the first installment of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
“It doesn’t mention my previous demise,” said Holmes. “There’s not a word about it. I mean, I fell over a waterfall, and I’m not even wet!”
“We’ll have to wait and see,” said Mr. Headley. “From my reading, it seems to be set prior to the events at the Reichenbach Falls, as otherwise Conan Doyle would surely have been forced to explain your reappearance. Don’t you have any memory of this case, Holmes—or you, Doctor Watson, of recording its details?”
Both Holmes and Watson told him that the only details of the Hound of which they were aware were those they had read, but then admitted that they were no longer entirely certain whether those memories were the result of reading the first installment, or if their own personalities were being altered to accommodate the new story. Mr. Headley counseled caution and advised Holmes and Watson not to overreact until they learned more about the tale. Mr. Headley made some discreet inquiries of the Strand, but the magazine’s proprietors were tight-lipped about the return of Holmes to their pages, grateful only for the spike in subscriptions brought by his reappearance, and Mr. Headley’s efforts were all for naught.
So he, along with Holmes, Watson, and the British reading public, was forced to wait for the arrival of each new monthly installment of the story in order to try to discern Conan Doyle’s intentions for his creations. As time went on, though, it became clear that the story was indeed historical in nature, preceding the events of “The Final Problem.” As an experiment, Mr. Headley withheld the conclusion from Holmes, and then questioned him about its contents. Holmes was able to describe in detail how Rodger Baskerville had embezzled money in South America, taken the name Vandeleur, and opened a school in Yorkshire that closed following a descent into infamy, all of which was revealed in the final part of the story that Holmes had yet to read. From this they were able to establish that Conan Doyle, by revisiting his characters, was effectively creating new memories for Holmes and Watson which, although mildly troubling for them, was not a disaster.
Nevertheless, Mr. Headley was unable to assuage a growing sense of impending doom. He began to keep a very close eye on the Strand and smilar jounals, and paid particular attention to any and all rumors about Conan Doyle’s literary acti
vities.
• • •
The rumblings began in the autumn of 1903. Mr. Headley did his best to keep them from Holmes until, at last, the October edition of the Strand was delivered to the Caxton House, and his worst fears were realized. There, handsomely illustrated by Paget, was “The Adventure of the Empty House,” marking the return of Sherlock Holmes, albeit initially disguised as an elderly book collector. Mr. Headley read the story in the back office of the Caxton, with the door locked and a desk pushed against it for added security, locked doors being no obstacle to any number of the library’s residents, Holmes among them. (Mr. Headley had endured a number of awkward conversations with the Artful Dodger, who the librarian was convinced was stealing his biscuits.)
To be perfectly honest, the explanation of how Holmes had survived the incident at the Reichenbach Falls strained Mr. Headley’s credulity, involving, as it did, the baritsu martial art and a gravitationally unlikely ability to topple from a cliff yet somehow land on a path, or perhaps not fall and just appear to land on a path, or appear to fall and—
Never mind. Some business about Tibet, Lhasa, and Khartoum followed, and dressing up as a Norwegian, and it all made Mr. Headley’s head hurt, although he admitted to himself that this was due in part to the potential consequences of this Sherlock Holmes’s return for the Caxton’s Holmes. He would have to be told, of course, unless he was already aware of it due to a sudden change in his memories, and a previously unsuspected ability to speak Norwegian.
Mr. Headley felt that he had no choice but to visit the rooms of Holmes and Watson to find out the truth for himself. He moved the desk, unlocked the door, and headed into the library, stopping off in the dictionary section along the way. He found Watson napping on a couch, and Holmes doing something with phials and a Bunsen burner that Mr. Headley suspected might not be entirely unrelated to the production of narcotics.
Mr. Headley took in the dozing figure of Watson. One additional unpleasant piece of information contained in “The Adventure of the Empty House” was that Watson’s wife, Mary, seemed to have died. This might have been more awkward had it not been for the fact that the Watson living in the Caxton had no memory of being married at all, perhaps because his wife hadn’t figured much in the stories, or not in any very consequential way, and therefore hadn’t made much of an impact on anyone involved. Still, Mr. Headley would have to mention Mary’s demise to him. It wasn’t the sort of thing one could brush under the carpet.