Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 15:21:38 EST
From: Tommyhawk1@aol.com
Subject: Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Diabolical Chair

			      SHERLOCK HOLMES
		   THE ADVENTURE OF THE DIABOLICAL CHAIR
			   By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		      WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
			WWW.TOMMYHAWKSROGUEMOON.COM

Holmes and I were sitting at table enjoying our luncheon. We had our
sections of the paper, I with the front page and Holmes the society
section. His own preference, he always began by reading what he called "the
important news." Given that my friend's concept of news was hardly that of
the rest of us, we shared the use of one newspaper each morning with
complete cordiality.

I was deep in the contemplation about the news on the Continent when my
friend said, "I see that we shall be spending the night in Brighton."

"Brighton?" I said, with some astonishment, as you can imagine. "Why should
we want to go there?"

"Because we are about to have an urgent visitor who will request that we
accompany him there." Holmes said.

"Indeed?" I knew that Holmes could spot a client on the street before they
came up to the doorstep, so I looked outside.

"An opportunity for you to exercise your powers of deduction." Holmes
said. "Pray enlighten me."

I studied the tall, handsome youth walking our way from across the street;
he wore a jacket bearing a coat-of-arms as an emblem near his heart. Based
upon this, I said, "A young man of good breeding, presumably the younger
son of a noble family. He must be here for something too private to confide
to a non-family member."

"Bravo." Holmes said to my attempt. "You made a wonderful deduction."

I beamed and Holmes then added. "Unfortunately, you failed to notice that
while the jacket does carry a heraldic device on it, the size and position
of it is not one of a family member, but of a retainer. The young man is
recently retained by the family, is here without their knowledge, and in
fact comes from a quite humble background."

"How can you know all that?" I inquired, as I am continually astounded at
my friend's abilities of deduction.

"Because it is the beginning of December, and yet he is still wearing a
light-weight summer jacket. He would have worn something more over it if he
had anything more, but has not been with the family long enough to be given
a heavier-weight winter jacket and does not own one for himself; thus both
his recent retention and his humble background. As for coming without their
knowledge, no family would send a retainer recently hired to bring me to
them; they would instead choose a long-time and long-trusted person."

"That explains everything except how you knew we would be summoned to
Brighton." I said.

"Because he is a member of the household of Lord Venable, as you can see
from the heraldic device." Sherlock said. "As for knowing that the Lord is
now in Brighton," he tapped the newspaper, "you can see that my reading of
the society column does have relevance to my chosen profession. I read just
this morning that the Lord had taken a house in Brighton for the winter."

"Holmes, you never cease to amaze me." I marveled.

And the knock came at the door, the young man was about to be shown into
our rooms.

The man who entered glanced about with the air of a man being hunted in the
jungles by savages. His eyes saw us without comprehension. Holmes was
quickly on his feet, and showed the youth to a chair when he entered,
"Here, rest yourself." he said kindly. "Watson, do bring this man a cup of
tea and a crumpet. He has not eaten all day."

"I...I thank you." the man said and took the tea and food from me. When he
had consumed it, he had not only restored his body, but restored his
composure. He began. "I have come here on behalf of Lord Venable, to seek
your advice about a singular occurrence that has taken place in our house
at Brighton."

Holmes considered the man and said, "Since Lord Venable did not send you,
pray do not use his name in this."

"You are right!" the man exclaimed, "I am here on my own behalf, or rather,
that of my best friend. But you are the only one I could think of that may
make sense of it all! "

"Then tell us what you will." Holmes said. "I can see that you have kept
the cab waiting for us, otherwise, the cabman wouldn't have tied his horse
to the post and slipped into the pub at the corner for a drink."

"My name is Quentin Mawther." our young visitor began. "I was retained this
last summer to work for Lord Venable. I met Mark Douglass there. He was
hired to work in the stables and I was to work as one of the household
valets. The duties weren't overly onerous, but they kept us all about the
grounds all the time. It was only natural to seek out friendships, then,
among the other servants."

I suspected that Quentin and Mark were something more than mere friends,
but among the lower classes with their compromised beliefs as a result of
their upbringing, such liaisons were more to be deplored than condemned, I
held my tongue.

"So what has happened to your friend Mark?"

"I must explain first the rather peculiar behavior of Lord Venable the last
month. Even though the season for the beach is quite past, he did not
return to London with his family, but rather sent them back while he stayed
in the beach house with only a half dozen of us."

"Did he have business which kept him in Brighton, then?" Holmes asked.

"None but that of the chair he had ordered from Paris." Mawther said. "And
that is also very peculiar. For one thing, the chair is extraordinarily
complex, and is powered by an electrical source that His Lordship also had
installed."

"Indeed?" Holmes was interested. Electricity was still a very new science,
and expensive as a result. The scientists were gleeful about what life
would change into once it was cheap and plentiful, but those days had yet
to materialize in any but a few places.

"And there were men he brought in to assemble the chair, according to very
complex instructions. In addition to the chair itself, there are
assemblages of equipment related to it in chambers on three of the sides."

"That is peculiar, but I fail to see the relevance as yet."

"There were only the seven of us in the house, Lord Venable and six of us
servants." Mawther went on. "None of us were properly schooled in how to
keep a house. Four of us were recently retained, and the other two are as
young as we are."

"That is peculiar." Holmes agreed.

"We were all ordered to take over the servant's quarters downstairs, this
though three of us were retained to work in the stables. There is a bell
there to allow the Lord to ring for us in the night if he should need it.

"The first night after the chair was fully installed, and we were alone in
the house, the seven of us, the bell rang, and Mark was the one we had
drawn by lots to answer the bell that first night.

"Mr. Holmes, Mark did not come back for more than a half hour, and at the
end of that time, he came down with a wild look in his eyes. His hair and
clothes were disarranged and he said, 'You must all go up and see to his
Lordship at once. He is in trouble.'"

We all raced upstairs, all but Mark, and we found His Lordship sitting in
the chair." Mawther paused and gulped at his tea as if it were whiskey. "He
was naked, his wrists and thighs had bands of badly bruised flesh. We saw
him not moving and went to him. Mr. Holmes, His Lordship was dead."

When I realized, I went back to find Mark to ask him what had happened, but
he was gone. Naturally, the police are certain that he is the one who
killed Lord Venable. The doctor pronounced Lord Venable dead of a heart
attack, but still, the reason for that is assumed to be Mark."

Mawther looked at us. "I vow to you, Mr. Holmes, that I am positive that
Mark had no guilt in whatever happened. He is not of a character to murder
his master, sir, you must help me find out what really happened. The
Brighton police are searching for Mark, and refuse to even consider any
other explanation but that Mark tormented His Lordship until he suffered a
heart attack. Please, Mr. Holmes, won't you come with me to Brighton and
find the explanation for what actually happened?"

Mr. Holmes was silent and I recognized his having fallen into a study and
made shushing motions to Mawther. After a quarter-hour, Holmes stirred and
said, "As I prophesized when I saw the cab draw up, we must travel to
Brighton. The chair, whatever it is, is central to this mystery and
examination of it is all that shall explain the circumstances of Lord
Venable's death."

"Bless you, Mr. Holmes, bless you!" exclaimed Mawther, and before another
half hour was done, we were en route to Brighton.

The house at Brighton was large for a summer house, containing nearly two
dozen rooms on three floors. The house was apparently built originally on a
smaller lot within a set of similar-looking houses which had later been
dismantled to make room for the Lord's gardens, for it was quite flat-sided
without balconies or outcroppings on either side. The servants' quarters
were along the left-hand side of the first floor, which looked out onto the
stables and the vegetable garden. Lord Venable's room which contained the
chair were on the third floor to the rear of the house, overlooking the
flower garden. "An interesting arrangement, don't you think?" Holmes asked
me as we started by looking around the house. "Climbing up the wall to the
top floor would be impossible without a confederate inside. That doesn't
bode well for Mawther's comrade, does it?"

"I suppose not."

"And the rain of last night and the cloudy day which has left the house
grounds soaked, show no signs of trampling about the house's grounds, other
than the police who did their usual thorough job of mucking things
up. Still, the Brighton police have the courtesy of using a special shoe
for their policemen, and no other shoe marks are to be found. No, if we are
to find who caused Lord Venable's injuries, we must look to the seven
individuals inside the house."

Mr. Holmes, however, once inside, stopped suddenly, and began to examine
the walls of the house carefully. At one point, he actually stepped off the
size of the room most carefully. "Only fifteen feet." he exclaimed. "Such
an extraordinary room, don't you think?"

"I see nothing odd about it." I said. "Fifteen feet is a reasonable size
for a room, I should think."

"Normally, I would agree, but in this instance, I find it quite unique."
Holmes said and didn't expound further, and I was left to puzzle over his
interest in this sitting room's size.

We talked with the servants and I did find their situations
interesting. All of them as Mawther had said were new hires, all of them
were uniformly handsome, muscular and healthy as Mawther, and some of them
were quite reticent about their pasts. I found myself asking more questions
of them than Holmes, who seemed content enough with a query or two. And he
was more interested in the night before and their quite brief acquaintance
with His Lordship. He seemed to have met two of them in pubs, and two more
he picked up on the streets at night it appeared. I found that more to
speak to their own possible culpability, especially when they were silent
upon the exact circumstances, but Holmes left it at little more than that.

Mawther champed about. "But Holmes, what about the chair?" he asked after a
time.

"Yes, the chair." Holmes said. "Still, I did have to rule out all
reasonable possibilities, sir, and felt that the people, who are inclined
to flee as did your friend, Mr. Douglass, should get priority. Now, though,
having decided that none of the regular inhabitants of this house had any
hand in Lord Venable's death, we now must examine the location of his
demise and see if that leads to any further deductions."

I followed Holmes to the room where Lord Venable had placed the chair.

It was indeed an extraordinary chair. Some levers near one side apparently
operated the electrical aspects of it. I was quite out of my depth here,
having mastered medicine instead of engineering. Holmes, however, was in
his element, and I saw him measuring various parts of it.

"Mr. Mawther." Holmes asked of our young retainer, who had followed us
carefully. "Should you be so kind as to give me a physical description of
both His Lordship and of your friend, Mr. Douglass."

"Lord Venable was of a lesser stature." Mawther began. "He scarcely tipped
the scale at seven stone, I should think and his height was five foot
two. Mark was a much larger man, of course, as he dealt with the horses. He
is over six foot tall and perhaps fourteen stone."

"I should imagine he finds life in a small, cramped space to be terribly
uncomfortable, then." Holmes said, rather enigmatically.

"Yes, I think so." Mawther said, then gave a start. "Mr. Holmes, what are
you insinuating?" he said accusingly.

"Nothing at all, as of yet." Holmes smiled. "If you would give Watson and
myself some privacy here, I think I can give you your answer quite soon."

"Of course, of course." Mawther withdrew in some confusion and distress.

Holmes chuckled. "Well, that had the double benefit of both confirming my
theory and ridding us of his presence." he said.

"You have a theory?" I asked.

"Yes." Holmes said. "Mr. Douglass is not missing, but is still in this very
house, in a hiding place we aren't supposed to know about."

I remembered the measurements he made of the sitting room and understood
its purpose. "Marvelous. So once we establish Douglass as the murderer, we
can pick him up easily." I said, remembering the old gentleman Holmes had
tricked out of such a hiding place in a past adventure.

"I am certain that young Douglass is innocent, but to prove that, we must
establish the method of Lord Venable's death."

"And how do you propose to do that?" I asked.

"You and I, Watson, must place ourselves in the chair and activate it."

"Indeed?"

"You will remember that when Douglass came down last night, he was rumpled
and in a state of partial dishabille?"

"Yes." I said.

"It was occasioned by Douglass getting dressed after determining Lord
Venable was dead, and before going downstairs." Holmes said. "Both of them
were quite nude when the chair was operated."

"So you want the two of us to...get disrobed?" I said, aghast.

"And further, my dear Watson, I need you to trust me enough to sit where
Lord Venable was found, in the chair itself." Holmes said. "I will take the
position indicated by the footmarks on the space in front of the chair."

"I thought those were for the placement of the seated person." I said.

"If you'll look, you'll notice that the feet are too far forward for that."
Holmes indicated. "You could not place your feet flat in those marks and
sit properly in the chair.

"But do you really need to put us in harm's way?" I asked.

"My dear Watson, I guarantee that you will not suffer any harm." Holmes
said. "In fact, I am the one more likely to be injured by this chair if it
operates as I suspect."

"Then why was Lord Venable killed instead of Douglass?" I asked.

"Because Douglass placed him in the chair." Holmes said. "Now, you and I
must disrobe and put ourselves into the position."

"You are certain you understand the position?" I said.

"Yes, in fact, my understanding is why I am now convinced Douglass is no
murderer." Holmes said. "I must make some adjustments to the chair's
mechanism, though, to accommodate my larger frame." Holmes fiddled with the
chair while I gingerly began to undress. Holmes is very efficient, by the
time I had struggled out of my clothing and my undergarments, Holmes was
done with the chair and matched me in stripping out of his own more
abbreviated underclothes.

I had seen Holmes body on a good many occasions, but found myself studying
him. He was tall and thin, of course, but his body was well-exercised and
sturdy. He showed little of the damage of his former dependence upon
cocaine for relief between cases, and his patronage of the athletic club
near our Baker Street quarters was as regular as his caseload permitted. A
fine flower of English gentleman was my feeling, able to fight in the Boer
War or dance at a royal ball with equal equanimity.

For myself, I feared my love of my meals and the rather sedentary life of a
not-too-busy medical man was showing in my girth and my musculature. I
could have built myself up again upon need, but the need had not
materialized. I felt that the reason I had the chair was that Holmes wished
to preserve me having to stand while the chair's mechanism was running.

"Now, dear Watson, have a seat in those grooves that the chair's seat has
to guide your position so carefully." Holmes said. "And I shall place my
own feet upon the marks and my hands upon these places indicated. You will
find the starting mechanism just to your right, if you will throw the
switch and then place your hands upon the knobs of the arm-rests, we shall
see this machine in operation and confirm young Douglass' complete
innocence."

Did as he instructed and my pushing of the lever into the "on" position was
an alarming experience. First was the humming of the machinery into
position, then the hum increased in pitch and tone. And then the machinery
began to move.

Holmes and I both found ourselves immediately imprisoned into position. For
myself, shoulders, wrists and ankles were caught, my legs were spread apart
somewhat. Holmes, however, had the more elaborate mechanisms working on
him. His hands and feet were imprisoned, but so was a broad band around his
hips.

"Very interesting." Holmes said. "This broad band at my thighs matches
those on Lord Venable."

"But are you safe, then?" I asked in alarm. "If this machine killed Lord
Venable, will it not do the same to you."

"Lord Venable died of a heart attack." Holmes reminded me. "My body is
nearly twenty years younger than his was upon his demise, and my heart is
quite strong by virtue of my active life style. Ahh, now here we go."

And Holmes was lifted bodily into the air by the machine. I was bemused by
his motions, the machine pivoted him around so that he was moved into a
sitting position in mid-air. For myself, I had to gasp as I felt a machine
slide between my legs and some soft, sibilant feathers or silken velveteen
(I could not discern which) began to caress my testicles. The experience
was extremely pleasant, like some misguided masseuse who once worked upon
myself in the Turkish bath one day, until I disabused him of the idea that
I wished him to limber anything more than my stiffer muscles, and not the
source of my manhood. Here, though, I could not protest to this steel and
electric monstrosity, and was left feeling my male organ beginning to stir.

"My word." Holmes said. "This machine is certainly thorough." A tube had
exuded and was now inserting itself into Holmes' anus.

"What is it doing to you, giving you an enema?" I asked.

"Not at all, merely a lubrication of my nether parts." Holmes observed.

"Whatever for?" I wanted to know.

"Why, my dear Watson, it is quite simple." Holmes said. "This machine is a
French concept of sexual excess. It intends to place me upon your lap and
insert your maleness up into my sphincter."

"But Holmes." I said. "We can't permit this?"

"We must, if we are to prove Douglass' innocence." said Holmes. "We must
see to what extent this machine will take this little game."

"But...but it means to place you on my lap." I said. My own penis was quite
erect now, to my helpless horror. "And in my current tumescent position, I
fear that you are about to suffer an injury I have no wish to inflict upon
you?"

"An injury?" Holmes said as the machine began to lower him. "I doubt that,
Watson. An indignity, assuredly, a discomfort, possibly. But given the long
comradeship we have shared, I misdoubt that anything more will occur here."

Holmes' anus contacted my glans and I moaned. Such a warm hotness, such as
I had not experienced since the passing of my dear wife some years
before. I had known, in a medical way, that having sexual relations in this
way was possible, and even pursued avidly by some, but until I felt that
hot softness engulf my tower of manhood had I thought of it in anything but
a doctor's disinterest, now I was experiencing it, and the delight was
sweet, so sweet indeed. Had it been a stranger there instead of Holmes, I
doubt I would have felt such a flowering of passion's fruit in my heart,
but this was my friend, and now I was sharing this with him.

"Ahh, ahh, ahh, ahhh!" was Holmes' only vocalization as his body settled
down upon my lap, my entire length imbedded within him. "Now it begins in
earnest, I think. The machine will not be gentle with us, I fear, my dear
Watson, know that I hold you blameless in this entire, take the joy it
gives you without guilt."

"I shall, I shall!" I gasped as the machinery began to bob Holmes' entire
body up and down upon me. "This is quite pleasurable to me, I must
confess!"

"It is a normal...uh!...physical reaction to the circumstances." Holmes
gasped. "If it helps you, I am also...uh!...finding this to be more
exciting than I had thought."

"Oh, Holmes!" I gave myself to the joy racing through my body. The machine
was speeding up in its movement of Holmes above me. He was also gasping and
groaning in undeniable pleasure as my prong was driven up into him to the
very base each time, and the revolution of the cog which moved him up and
down was a speed of nearly a hundred revolutions per minute. This is the
athletic movements of a young man with his lover, as you can imagine, a
rate I had not managed for myself in my long years of marriage, and only
for short periods of time with my hand when I pleasured myself. Now I had
the delight of my cock buried inside Holmes' bowels, my sexual senses were
being stimulated to the maximum, I was in a state of passion I had rarely
reached, and this one was enhanced by the steady and unchanging rhythm of
the machinery, Holmes was also moaning, his cock, I could see as it bounced
up and down in the machine's movements, saw it dripping long stringy ropes
of clear precome down to swing about and land upon his legs as it bounced,
until he was coated with the strands and the very air was ripe with the
odor of his sexuality, the smell filled my nostrils and ignited my
pleasure.

"Oh, Holmes, I...uhhhh!...I am nearing my...uhh!...my finish!" I maundered
out. "I...cannot...hold back...much longer?"

"Watson!" Holmes groaned. "Do not keep...yourself from...your joy. Give
it...to me...your friend...without stinting!"

"I shall, I shall!" I moaned. "I cannot bear it longer. I must...I must
ejaculate!"

"Spend yourself, spend yourself now!" Holmes guttered out. "I shall join
you now, I shall!"

"Ah-huh, uh, guh!" I felt orgasm like a spider upon my spine! "Here it
comes!"

"Ah-HAH-HAH-AH-HAH-HUHHHHH!" Holmes' sperm splattered the wall of the small
niche the chair occupied, Holmes was spurting his hot pearls of manhood
about the chamber.

I had made Holmes ejaculate, I knew, for he had no stimulation other than
my manhood inside himself, I knew the joys the prostate could deliver when
stroked by the virility of another, and I knew that, too, this only
occurred when the passive partner relishes the joining. Holmes wanted me to
have sexual intercourse with him, he wanted it enough to ignite his delight
here, in this dreadful machine, because it was me that he was joined with.

And in that delirium of discovery, I climbed the Mt. Kilimanjaro of my
ecstasy and I burst upwards into Holmes, him thrashing and moaning in the
bonds of the machinery, and I was hunching upwards as I could within the
confines of the chair. I was rapturous, I was senseless...I was done, left
gasping and wheezing as the chair held me upright, for without it, I should
have fallen over.

"Mr. Holmes? Mr. Holmes?" came the voices of several men. I blinked to
clear my eyes of the tears that had formed in my rapture, and I looked to
see Mawther, and with him, three policemen. They had come to the house for
some reason and heard our cries of delight, and come up to witness our use
of the chair.

"This is outrageous!" One of the policemen declared. "This is a most
unseemly display, not to mention the tampering with evidence in a criminal
trial."

"Quite the contrary." Holmes gasped as he gestured. "If one of you will be
so kind as to turn off the machine."

Mawther did so and the humming slowed down. As it did, the bonds holding us
released themselves and withdrew back into the chair and the walls, freeing
us.

"Whatever do you mean?" A second policeman wanted to know.

"There is no criminal trial here, as there was no murder." Holmes
said. "Young Douglass was not an assailant, and indeed, was a victim of
Lord Venable. Lord Venable tricked him into placing himself within this
machine and then died in its operation, leaving Douglass bewildered and
helpless. He had to figure out how to turn off the machine and then free
himself, free Lord Venable, probably attempted to resuscitate him, and then
left him most charitably in the chair which had confined him."

"In the chair?" Mawther said.

"Yes, it was Douglass who occupied the position Watson did in our little
experiment." Holmes had found his breath and his state of dishabille didn't
seem to faze him as he explained to the gaping onlookers. "The marks on my
own flesh, you will note, match those on Lord Venable's body. You will see
upon Watson's own body that he bears a quite different set of markings." I
looked and saw that I did have marks upon my wrists, ankles and shoulder
blades where I had been restrained. Holmes' thighs were indeed bearing a
rather prominent set of marks.

"What was charitable about that?" the policeman demanded.

"I had to shift the machine's sizes to match my frame." Holmes went on. I
am a similar height to Douglass, if he had been in the frame that had me
impaled upon Watson's manhood, I shouldn't have had to move a thing. No,
Lord Venable tricked him into disrobing and placing himself in the chair,
and naked before him, into pressing that lever. From that point on, the
only thing that Douglass experienced can be described as, is that of
rape. Lord Venable forced himself upon the strong young stableman, using
him for his sexual pleasure. But Lord Venable's heart wasn't strong enough
to bear up under the machine's exertions, and suffered a quite normal
effect of sexual excess, that he had a heart attack. Poor Douglass couldn't
think of what to do, but he felt that putting Lord Venable in the chair
would spare him at least some of the humiliation at his own cost, that of
being the passive sexual partner in a homosexual liaison.

"He's right." I put in, determined to be of some use here. "I watched
Holmes lengthen the machine's arms to hold him. A big man such as Douglass
is described to me would never have been trapped in the machine, it would
have missed his arms as it reached for him."

The policemen conferred. "If you are willing to give affidavits to that
effect, I suppose we can take this as authoritative." one of them
said. "Given Mr. Holmes' undying devotion to the truth upon all occasions,
and with the knowledge that there have been times he has turned his own
client over to the authorities, we can forgive him his unorthodox approach
here."

"And now, Mr. Mawther, if you will be so kind as to bring Mr. Douglass out
of his hiding place." Holmes said. "I should like to confirm some minor
details with him in this matter before we return to London."

Mawther didn't pretend to misunderstand. "I'll bring him here at once." he
said with immense relief. "I knew he was innocent, I knew it."

We arrived back in London in the early morning hours and retired to our
respective beds. I awoke about sundown and joined Holmes for supper.

"A most interesting case." Holmes said. "I had heard something about the
chair Lord Venable had obtained, but considered it to be more myth than
fact. I shall have to revise my opinions about the course of modern
technology. Perhaps one day, nobody shall bother with sex at all, but
rather will have a machine to nurse his potency upon demand."

"I am sure I should not prefer that." I said.

Holmes looked at me and I felt myself blush. Rather than taunt me, he
smiled. "I find the old-fashioned method to be preferable myself, I should
think. In fact, if you are quite restored after our little adventure,
perhaps we should reacquaint ourselves with the manner in which nature
intended that we should express our sexual needs."

I nodded, then started, "You don't mean, Holmes?" I asked him imperfectly.

"I do indeed." Holmes said. "That is, if you would like to."

"I most assuredly would." I enthused.

And I followed Holmes into his room, my heart pounding in my breast, as the
sun sank and night fell upon London once again.

				  THE END
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