The Enigma of the Warwickshire Vortex

"The Enigma of the Warwickshire Vortex" is a short story about Sherlock Holmes written by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre. It was originally published in "The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures", a 1997 anthology edited by Mike Ashley for Robinson Publishing and Carroll and Graf (ISBN 0-7867-0477-2).

The story begins with an extract from a Warwickshire newspaper article in August 1875, reporting the bizarre disappearance of businessman James Phillimore, age 33. When two bankers called for him at his residence at 13a, Tavistock Street in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, he stepped out of his house's front door to join them, then turned and went back inside for his umbrella. The bankers heard Phillimore shout: "Help me! I can't --" ... then no more. When the bankers rushed into the house's foyer, they found that one section of the floorboards -- a circle six feet in diameter -- had been deeply scorched by some unknown energy discharge. Mr. Phillimore's muddy footprints led directly up to this circle: half a footprint intersected the circle's edge. A portion of his umbrella was found at the edge of the scorched circle, the umbrella's shaft neatly sheared ... the other portion was missing, along with Mr. Phillimore.

Sherlock Holmes, in 1875 near the very beginning of his detective career, visited Leamington Spa and investigated the case personally but found no answer, later regarding the case as one of his few failures.

Three decades later -- in April 1906 -- Holmes is in retirement in the Sussex Downs when he receives news of the San Francisco earthquake. A San Francisco committee engages Holmes to investigate political graft which led to that city's lack of firefighting equipment. Holmes departs for America, bringing Doctor Watson along to help care for the earthquake's wounded.

Reaching New York City in May 1906, Holmes and Watson learn that the next train to California departs the following morning: they have an evening to divert themselves in Manhattan. They visit the Edisonia Amusement Hall at 1367 Broadway, where Edwin Stanton Porter is exhibiting early motion pictures. As they seat themselves for the show, Holmes tells Watson that he is suddenly reminded of James Phillimore ... because motion pictures were invented by Louis Le Prince, who vanished mysteriously in 1890 ... and, like Phillimore, was never seen again.

The program of films concludes with a Manhattan street scene, filmed earlier that day. Suddenly, in the darkened cinema, Holmes tensely grips Watson's arm. Among the figures milling through the Manhattan street on a morning in 1906 is a man in his early thirties, wearing clothing more appropriate for 1875. "Watson!" shouts Holmes, ignoring the protests of the cinema audience. "That man on the screen! "He is James Phillimore!"

As if hearing Sherlock Holmes, the man on the movie screen strides forwards, looking directly towards where Holmes and Watson are seated in the darkened theater. James Phillimore smiles, raises his hand in a salute ... then once again "vanishes".

The solution to "The Enigma of the Warwickshire Vortex" involves several bizarre but true cases of synchronicity, interweaving historic fact with this story's fictions. Author MacIntyre points out, among other odd facts, that the sudden death of Pierre Curie in a Paris traffic accident occurred the morning after the San Francisco earthquake. In the spring of 1874, American journalist Ambrose Bierce moved to 20 South Parade, Leamington Spa ... but he abruptly left for California at about the same time that James Phillimore fictionally vanished in August 1875. Two months later, Aleister Crowley was born in his parents' home at 30 Clarendon Square, Leamington Spa. (James Phillimore's fictitious residence in Leamington's actual Tavistock Street would lie directly between those two genuine addresses.) These facts culminate in a fictional conclusion, with Sherlock Holmes discovering circumstantial evidence that Ambrose Bierce was Aleister Crowley's biological father! While that theory is unlikely to be true, one other detail of this story is fact: Ambrose Bierce (visiting from Washington, D.C.) and Aleister Crowley (traveling east on a round-the-world tour) were both in Manhattan on the same day in May 1906.