The Adventure of the Exalted Client
Few cases did so much to enhance the reputation of my friend Sherlock Holmes as that in which he was called upon by a very exalted personage to thwart a band of ruthless criminals known only by the initials I.B.M.
It began on a gloomy morning, when Holmes and I were sitting in our office in 221B, Corn Exchange St, above the door of which are written the words 'Programming Adviser'. I was casually studying the GENSTAT manual, hoping to ascertain whether the recent 100% mortality rate among my patients was statistically significant; Holmes was injecting himself with a 7% solution of Vunderpac Cola, to which, despite my frequent remonstrations, he had become sadly addicted.
There was a knock on the door, and an imposing-looking gentleman entered, his appearance unnaturally distraught.
'Mr Holmes, SH55, or whatever you call yourself,' he blustered. 'I must consult you on a matter of extreme urgency.'
'If your Lordship would care to sit down,' replied Holmes calmly. 'I may be able to help you.'
'Amazing, sir!' said the gentleman. 'My identity should be known only to a few. I took the precaution of disguising myself with this false nose before I made my way here.'
'Come, sir!' said Holmes. 'It is an elementary deduction that you are an extremely exalted member of the Computing Service. The champagne stains on your jacket are those of a Chateau Mouton MVS 1984, a brand available only to those with access to the Phoenix Building cellars. I have been writing a small monograph on wine stains: however the machine crashed as I was typing it in. Besides, your Versatec'd portrait in the National Gallery is famous throughout the civilised world, false nose notwithstanding.'
He picked up a violin that was resting on the table and played a few haunting chords, shattering the glass of some Newbury terminals nearby.
'So much for Urglovsky,' he smiled. 'Now, tell me your business, my lord.'
'A file of the utmost importance has disappeared.' responded our client when he had settled himself down. 'You will understand how sensitive the matter is when I tell you that it contained details of a secret treaty between the Service and the Chemistry Department, which, if leaked to certain hostile users, could lead to an inter-departmental conflict.
I was updating the file late yesterday evening, when all my staff had gone home. It must have been nearly 4.30 in the afternoon. Suddenly I realised that the file had vanished, and in its place was the following cryptic message:
ICH408I SYS6.CS.CHEM.TREATY CL(DATASET ) VOL(X0SC13)
ICH408I DEFINE - USER NOT MEMBER OF GROUP
What can it mean, Mr Holmes?'
'This case presents interesting bugs - I mean features.' mused Holmes. 'Perhaps you could return tomorrow morning, and I may be able to give you some answers. Meanwhile here is a Phoenix example sheet "Advanced use of the armchairs in the User Area" which you can study at your leisure.'
Our client took his leave. 'Come, Watson! The game is afoot!' said Holmes excitedly. 'Hand me my copy of the intercontinental Bradshaw, the IBM 3081 Users' Guide, the OS reference manual, and "Teach yourself Chemistry". I fear that we are after a band of ruthless men, led by that Napoleon of Crime who calls himself "RACF".'
Holmes patrolled the User Area with a magnifying glass, picking up some minute scraps of ash. Using his "Teach yourself Chemistry" he subjected the scraps to analysis, submitting a dozen 20-minute jobs to run over lunchtime.
'Look, Watson!' he said with excitement in his voice. 'It is Phoenix ash, the ash into which a Phoenix dives when it is about to die. These men will stop at nothing, I fear.'
When our exalted client returned the next morning, Holmes was quietly confident. 'I can lay my hands on the criminals, should you want them,' he exclaimed. 'However, the publicity involved in extraditing the I.B.M. gang to England would be unwelcome, I fear. Still, I can guarantee that the file will never be made public: I hope that may suffice.'
'Anything would be preferable to the contents of this treaty becoming public knowledge,' admitted our client. 'People would ask embarrassing questions at the User Representatives' meeting.'
'Then with your permission,' said Holmes, 'I will consign it to oblivion. You have the authority to call in the STL Engineers to work on the discs? Then tonight there must be a scheduled maintenance period. No files could survive such a thing.'
Holmes's ingenious solution to the problem was perforce kept secret from the public. However I did observe a few days later that my friend took from his output tank a golden certificate engraved with the words "500 shares", which, he explained, came as a token of appreciation 'from an exceedingly gracious lady'.
Sherlock Holmes and the Great Furniture Mystery
"So what you are saying, Inspector, is that six luxurious Chippendale chairs and two Queen Anne tables have disappeared completely without trace?" enquired Sherlock Holmes, nonchalantly outlining the Apple Macintosh on our sideboard with a hail of bullets.
"That is right, Mr Holmes," replied Inspector Securic. "And the most baffling thing of all is, they have been replaced with six broken-down plastic chairs and a chipped wooden desk -- items which are in no condition to be used by anyone."
"This case presents interesting features, Watson," commented my friend. "Note that the thieves chose to operate at a time when they knew that few users would be around to stop them. I think we should consult my brother Pecrofts."
I had met Holmes's brother Pecrofts before and no two members of a family could have afforded a greater contrast. Whereas my friend was an active user, logged on regularly, and was always willing to listen to suggestions, his brother Pecrofts had not logged on for two months and took little notice of users' views. Nonetheless he was a high-up member of the government, one of whom Holmes had said "To all intents and purposes, he IS the government."
We went round to Pecrofts' rooms, which bore the welcoming notice: "No admittance without an appointment. To book an appointment, gain admittance." It was here that my friend showed his true greatness, and brushing the logical dilemma aside with a cry of "Catch 22, unless I am much mistaken, my dear Watson", opened the door and entered.
We found Pecrofts Holmes lying on a couch composed of six luxurious chairs. Nearby were two tables, and a small notice in one particularly bare corner of the room said "We plan to put more equipment in this area." Seeing our entrance, he got up with a guilty cry, put down his National Trust Guide to Furniture Worth Taking, and gave a gasp of "Sherlock! I was just working on a plan to resurface the User Area floor with asphalt at a time maximally inconvenient to all users."
"I think perhaps you had better leave us, Watson," said my friend. "Pecrofts and I would prefer to settle this matter confidentially."
Holmes never referred further to the case, and I never did discover whether the furniture was recovered. However, on reading the London Gazette a few weeks later, I noticed with joy that my friend had been awarded the Star of Vunderpac (3rd class) although Holmes never explained the reason to me.
The Final Problem
I was sitting in our rooms at Baker Street one afternoon, reading a newspaper and awaiting the return of my friend Sherlock Holmes, when the door opened to admit what appeared to be a fearsome-looking gorilla. Naturally my training in Afghanistan had prepared me for such an eventuality and I had just drawn my old service revolver prior to shooting, when the creature spoke.
"Watson, old man. Don't fire. It's me, Holmes."
It was indeed my old friend, in an another of his masterly disguises (only the previous week he had turned up fetchingly dressed as a lady of the streets and had only revealed himself after I had offered him half a crown to throw custard at me -- but that's another story, for which the world is not yet ready).
"Holmes!" I gasped. "This is astounding. And I thought you were David Hartley. Why the disguise?"
"Watson," replied my friend, "we are in the greatest of danger. I adopted this little disguise in order to be able to walk the streets unrecognised. Have you ever heard tell of Professor Moriatiyah?"
"No, I don't think so," I replied. "Who is he?"
"Hardly anyone has heard of him," was the reply, "but he is my deadly enemy. The Jacques Derrida of crime. No, not Derrida. Some other French chap. Small, cocked-hat, sticks his arm in his waistcoat. Mitterrand? No, it's slipped my memory."
"Napoleon?" I suggested.
"I knew I could rely on you Watson. Yes, Napoleon it is. The Napoleon of crime. In fact he even looks like Napoleon. But he is the leader of the greatest gang of rogues the world has ever seen. He even calls it the Royal Society, taking in vain the name of our glorious Majesty."
"God bless her."
"God bless her indeed, Watson. If Moriatiyah gets his way, the safety of the monarchy itself is threatened. His history is remarkable: at the age of 13 he wrote a treatise on the Binomial Theorem, as everyone does at that age, but the next year he devoted his life to Topology, Knots, String Theory and World Domination. He had a chair at an obscure University in Oxfordshire, but he was forced to resign it in mysterious circumstances to become Master of Trinity and Director of the Newton Institute."
"Very sinister, Holmes. But surely not illegal?"
Holmes puffed on his pipe, and continued: "Many mysterious things have been happening in the Mathematical community, but none of them could ever be traced to Moriatiyah. Whenever a crime was committed there was always someone else to be arrested -- a research student, say, or a humble lecturer. Small fry. But nobody has ever made the link with Moriatiyah.
Who shot Galois in a duel? Was it really a quarrel over a woman, or was it the work of someone who wanted to stop Algebra in its tracks in order to obtain more funding for Knot theory? Did Abel really have tuberculosis, or was it the action of a little-known Asiatic poison?
There have been many such events. The so-called 'suicide' of Alan Turing, strangled with his own Turing machine and dressed in a mini-skirt. The case of Ramanujan -- who was the driver of the mysterious taxicab number 1729 that Hardy saw? It all becomes much more mysterious the harder you look at it."
"So you lay all these crimes at the door of Moriatiyah?"
"I have been spying on him, Watson. Remember the case of Ruth Lawrence, the 14-year-old schoolgirl who obtained a degree? That was one of my more effective disguises. It enabled me to watch his every step. But there are still questions we cannot answer:
Why is he never seen at the Department of Pure Mathematics? Why does Trinity no longer elect Research Fellows in Pure Mathematics? And, most mysteriously of all: Why has he invited me to a conference at the Reichenbach Falls?"
"Do you suspect a trap, Holmes?"
However my companion's next remarks were cut off, as Mrs Hudson entered with a telegram. Feverishly Holmes tore it open and read the message.
"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA EXCLAMATION MARK SIGNED A WELL WISHER STOP."
"This is diabolical, Holmes! The villain must be stopped at all costs. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"But what about your practice, Watson? Your patients?"
"Oh the last one died in agony this morning. The worst case of writer's cramp I've ever seen. I am at your disposal, Holmes."
"In that case, Watson, the game is afoot! Call a cab and we shall visit the Newton Institute in the guise of experts in Prime Numbers. I am particularly keen to inspect the bust of Dirac: I think it may conceal a poisonous snake, capable of wiping out Britain's entire population of Number Theorists in one fell stroke..."
(Not to be continued.)
Sherlock Holmes and the missing packet
By Arthur Conan Doyle with additional material by Edmund Crispin
It was a hot June day in Baker Street and I was dozing by the fire while Holmes checked his E-mail on the Moriarty 6400 P.C. compatible that he had recently been given by a grateful client.
"What do you make of this, Watson?" exclaimed my friend suddenly. I strolled over to his computer and read the following message.
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Newsgroups: ucam.cl.announce Subject: Small thefts/losses Date: 27 Jun 94 12:32:00 GMT A packet of crisps went missing from a Marks and Spencer bag in room TP2 of the Tower between Sunday 26th June and Monday morning 27th June. This may be a recurrence of similar small losses a few weeks/months ago. Whilst trivial in itself it is of course rather disturbing. Please let me know if you can throw any light on the subject. Peter Crofts
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"What audacity, Holmes!" I exclaimed. "To steal from your brother Pecrofts! Who do the Police think is responsible?"
"Lestrade seems to think that it is the work of an unscrupulous gang of international crisp thieves," replied the detective. "Myself, I am not so sure. Pecrofts himself lacks the energy to make any serious investigations, so it is up to me to help. Shall we take a trip down to the Diogenes club and see the scene of the crime?"
"By all means," I assented. "As it happens I have a full schedule of patients booked today, but they don't really expect me to turn up. I don't normally."
We arrived at the Diogenes club, a large building filled with computer terminals where the members were engaged in capturing some of the deepest thoughts known to mankind and turning them into Ph.D. theses on subjects as varied as Custard Symbolism in Wordsworth or the Petrol Stations of Aberdeen. We went into a private room allocated to Pecrofts, who, as I have already noted in these chronicles, was one of the few members to have a personal chair -- in fact, several dozen of them.
Pecrofts woke as we entered, muttered, "Oh hello, Sherlock. Can you catch this thief for me? Shifty-looking, vagrant, probably about 60," and promptly dozed off again.
Holmes took out his glass and examined the contents of Pecroft's bag -- some dirty washing, two withered sandwiches and a theft claim addressed to Lloyd's of London, where the stolen property was described as "one valuable packet of crisps".
I watched in fascination as Holmes examined a small stain on the floor. "Hmm, Vunderpac Cola. One of the deadliest poisons known to mankind. These are deep waters, Watson."
That evening Holmes and I returned to the Diogenes Club, where my friend took a mysterious package from his pocket and left it on a nearby table. Holmes and I concealed ourselves behind the Vunderpac drinks machine and waited. By midnight the area was nearly deserted: in one corner a strange-looking Indian with a polythene bag was busy typing letters of complaint to the Duke of Edinburgh, whereas elsewhere a small group of younger members was talking loudly about someone called Groggs.
At 4 a.m. Holmes nudged me. We watched in fascination as a tramp shuffled into the Diogenes Club main area and hobbled over to the table where we had left the packet. As he snatched it up, we leapt out of hiding, brandishing our revolvers. The tramp saw that resistance was useless and with a cry of "It's a fair cop, guv," slumped down at the table and began to sob uncontrollably.
"Amazing, Holmes!" I gasped. "I know this man."
"So you should, Watson. For thirty years he held a position of supreme power in the Diogenes Club. Then the club members finally got rid of him by telling him that they were sending him on holiday to a new Soviet Republic called Ukerna. Needless to say, there is no such place. The poor man is now unemployed and reduced to wandering round the Diogenes club at the dead of night, living on the most meagre scraps of food -- Pecrofts' crisps, Vunderpac Cola, even my ancient chocolate bar. Come, Watson, it is not for us to trample on the mighty when they are fallen -- stop that at once, Watson -- I said it was NOT for us to do that -- oh, all right, one last kick -- let us go and leave the poor man to his shame."
Officially the case was never solved, but ever after Holmes ignored the taunts of the police and merely commented that there were some crimes which the law could not touch.
Jonathan Partington, c. 1986-1994.