“From your description of him, madam. Professor Coombs is a man with a powerful build, black hair and beard, and blue eyes.”
Miriam frowned. “I hazard to say, sir, that there must be more than a few men in England who would answer to that same description.”
Holmes gave her the briefest of smiles. “Of course. But not that many who have a knife scar across the palm. The professor received that wound warding off an attack from a hashish cultist while in India some years ago. Assassins, they are called, after the drug that incites them to suicidal madness. Normally they employ strangling cords for their foul work, but I understand that the professor, who was something of a pugilist in his university days, thwarted the initial attack, so that the would-be killer had to resort to a blade. Which obviously also failed, since our Mr. Coombs is still with us.”
Miriam looked somewhat doubtful. Of course I knew that Holmes would not have engaged a taxi on this scant evidence; there would be more. It was not long in coming: “Professor Coombs is an archaeologist, attached of late to Lord Richard Penshurst’s recent expedition to the Khyber Pass. Penshurst is a gifted amateur, and wise enough to engage properly credentialed assistants when he mounts these forays. According to the Times, the group is recently returned with a plethora of items that have been donated to the British Museum.”
“Wouldn’t it be wiser, then, to check the museum first?”
A quick frown flitted across Holmes’s saturnine face, and I suppressed a smile. He did not care overmuch for advice, certainly not from those he considered his intellectual inferiors, a category which included nearly everyone. I have even heard him argue at length with his brother Mycroft, whom he considers perhaps his only superior in mental capacity, though I have my doubts upon that score.
“No, madam, for had such a document as you describe been delivered to the museum, it would have been on the list of items so donated. Since I have seen this list, and since the manuscript is not upon it, I deem it more likely that the professor has kept it for further study. East Molesy is our destination.”
To the southwest from London, an hour or so by train, Guilford is a town with an academic bent, the local college being well thought of in certain circles. Professor Coombs, who was an Oxford man and therefore not attached to the local school, lived on the outskirts of Molesy; his family owned a residential property there, and a professor’s salary, even when from private sources, is not so great as all that.
This Holmes explained to us on the train as we steamed through the intermittently sunny English countryside. The colors of autumn were upon the land—reds, yellows, and golds—quite pleasant, if such things mattered to one. Holmes, of course, never evidenced much interest in nature per se, though he did remark upon a cluster of boxy white bee hives crowning a hill we passed. The precise construction of bee society and their hives had always seemed of particular fascination to him. Having seen some men swell up like corpses left three days in the tropical sun from naught but bee stings, I held a certain medical interest in the insects, but nothing to the extent with which Holmes viewed them.
After we had journeyed for a couple of hours, Holmes appeared to doze, and once again I found myself alone, after a fashion, with Miriam. I felt the need to talk to her of our past.
“Miriam—”
“Later, John,” she said, as if sensing my thoughts. “We will speak of these things later.”
Frustrated to no small degree, I subsided. Perhaps she sensed this as well, for she said with a smile, “Do you remember a peculiar stone you showed me once? You said you found it in a dry watercourse near Khusk-i-Nakhud.”
“Yes. A strange bit of rock, evidently meteoric in origin,” I said. “Odd you should make mention of it; I fancy it rather a good-luck charm, and have brought it along.”
“Do you have it with you now?”
I produced the stone from my pocket. Her face lit with a smile, and she held out her hand. I tendered it to her.
She ran her fingers over it lightly, her eyes half closed; it seemed to be almost a sensual pleasure for her, as if the touch of it roused some pleasant tactile memory. After a moment she sighed, and offered it back to me.
“Keep it,” I said.
“I couldn’t.”
“It would please me if you did. It came from your country, after all.”
She smiled, though in her expression was a hint of mystery. “Thank you, John,” she said softly. “I will treasure it more than you can know.” After a moment, she raised her hands behind her neck, unclasped the charm that hung there, and held it out to me. “A gift for a gift. Please.”
“Miriam, you don’t have to—”
“Take it, John,” she urged me. “It will keep us close together, always, no matter the distance between us.”
Touched by the sentiment, I accepted. We said no more, but settled into a comfortable and companionable silence as the train continued.
British railways run like fine clocks, and thus we arrived in due course at Guilford Station just before evening, and engaged a hansom. The clouds that had partially obscured the sun were now thickening, and the threat of rain grew stronger during the trip to Professor Coombs’s house, which, as Holmes had said, was in the countryside beyond the town proper. By the time we arrived the rain had sent heralding drops, and we barely attained the porch before the skies opened up with a pounding, wind-lashed downpour. Through the rain I noticed, as we drove up the winding lane, the vague outlines of a small hill or mound in the fields behind the place.
The doorbell was answered by a large, rough-looking butler who, it seemed to me, would be more at home on a wharf loading heavy cargo than working as a man’s man. His clothes fit well enough, but he did not look comfortable in them. Since our visit was impromptu and without appointment, and as Holmes has always been somewhat impatient with the social graces, I took it upon myself to introduce ourselves and to inquire if the professor might be persuaded to see us. The butler took our hats and bags, showed us to a modest but well-appointed parlor, and lumbered off to speak to his master.
I have never been, nor do I expect ever to be, in Holmes’s league when it comes to observation; however, even I noticed that Miriam seemed anxious, lacing and unlacing her fingers and smoothing and adjusting her garments nervously as we waited. Twice she stood, took a few steps in different directions, then returned to her chair. Her high level of concern over the danger represented by the Arab’s manuscript was evident. I would have attempted to reassure her, but something in her manner—her movements seemed oddly formal, almost as though she were performing a series of gesticulations by rote—coupled with her earlier reticience, prevented me from doing so. Holmes seemed to have noticed it as well; he watched her with his usual clinical detachment.
A short time passed, during which the only sounds were the rustling of crinoline and the loud ticking of a grandfather clock. At length the apish butler returned. With him, judging by Miriam’s and Holmes’s descriptions, was Professor Coombs. I appraised him with my physician’s eye. He was tall, well made, and sound of limb from his motions, athletic in appearance, and tanned darkly.
Again, I made introductions. Coombs did not appear to be surprised to learn our identities.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Your reputations precede you, sirs. I am honored, if a trifle puzzled, by your visit. And Miss Shah.” He bowed. “Have we met? You seem familiar.”
“We have, sir, after a fashion. Though you would not have seen my face, as I would have been veiled.”
“Of course.” He sat, as did we, and offered us claret, to which we demurred. “What brings you two gentlemen from London? And you, madam, from the Eastern lands?”
“Come now, Professor,” Holmes said. “There is no need to be disingenuous. We are here to speak of the Kitab al-Azif.”