The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part III Page 21

  “But how did you find this, Mr. Holmes?” stammered Neal.

  “I found it because I was looking for it. When the coroner’s report spoke of unknown poisons, and we were at an estate known for its gardens, my mind immediately linked the two. At that point, of course, I only had a suspicion, but that would soon be proven to be true.”

  “As we walked around the garden,” continued Holmes, “I noticed that many of the beds thrived with a type of planting called ‘companion gardening’. There were actually a few books on the subject in the library; the library I told you to pay attention to, Neal.”

  “During the walk, I noticed that a rose bed was fringed with parsley plants. The dark green of the parsley set off the delicate roses nicely, and the companion planting helps both thrive. In the vegetable beds, I found more parsley. However, there was one bed that had a slightly neglected look about it, despite it showing some signs of care. On closer inspection, I noticed that one parsley plant had a dead patch all around it. This is the plant I returned to and took a snippet of for my experiment.”

  “But who gave Sir Evan the poisonous parsley?” asked Neal.

  “That we shall soon discover. If I am not mistaken, that is Mr. Conti I hear in our entrance way, coming to join us for dinner. Quickly now, Watson. Cover up the two butters and follow my lead.”

  Just then, Mr. Conti entered our sitting room. The three of us rose to greet our new guest.

  “I came as requested, Mr. Holmes, although I do regret leaving my sister at such a time.”

  “And I thank you for your indulgence, sir. We were just about to sit down for dinner, if you would care to join us. Michaels was kind enough to send us a fresh-produce package,” said Holmes, striding back to the table.

  “Here we have some fresh carrots and beets from the estate’s garden, which will go lovely with this parsley butter,” said Holmes lifting the covers off the two squares of butter.

  “Won’t you join us?” asked Holmes, taking a bread roll from a heap of them on the table and slathering some of the tainted butter on it.

  Conti stared at the two butters and stammered, “These items came from the Chequers Estate?”

  “Indeed. In addition to the telegram I sent to you to come here this evening, I sent one to Michaels to let him know how we were progressing, and he was kind enough to send this fine selection back.”

  Conti rushed over to Holmes, snatched the dinner roll out of his hand and placed the covers back on the exposed dishes.

  “You mustn’t eat any of this,” he declared.

  “Come, come, I am sure it is all fine, is it not?” replied Holmes.

  “No, Mr. Holmes, I assure you it is not!” replied Conti. “This is poison and was meant for you,” he said, pointing to the parsley that had melted through the butter.

  “Time to tell your tale, Mr. Conti. Be warned, however, Neal here will take down a complete recording of that tale, and his notes may be used in court.”

  “That is quite alright. It began about eighteen months ago when I received a letter from my sister. It was clear she was no longer happy with her husband, her situation, and her future. He never raised a hand to her, Mr. Holmes, but he abused and belittled her in a hundred different ways. She wanted out and away from him.”

  “I had been planning on a visit before, but that letter sealed my plans. I was in Hertfordshire within two weeks. I used my interest in horticulture and the chance to study at the British Museum and Sir Evan’s own library as a guise for the trip and extended stay. “

  “My sister and I decided we would make a united front and approach her husband about a separation. We did, one Saturday morning a month ago. He did not take it lightly. He flew into a rage and railed at us. For a man who is often reserved, he yelled and went on, loud enough and long enough for there to be no doubt among any of the staff as to what we were discussing. It was clear that my wife’s husband was not going to let her leave. He said they could lead independent lives under the same roof, but that was as far as he would allow.”

  “We left Sir Evan in the library. As we did, Michaels went in. He seemed to always be lurking somewhere obvious in the house.”

  “After that initial discussion, if you can call it one, Sir Evan wouldn’t speak to me except on the subject of horticulture. On that point we talked often and freely. If I were to bring the subject of my sister into the conversation, he would either put an end to the conversation, or rage at me for bringing up a closed subject.”

  “While I was in the garden one day, I noticed this plant,” continued Conti. “Where I come from it is a known poison, but it is far from common. Anyone with an interest in plants, however, will have come across it and know its evil legacy. I knew that neither I nor Sir Evan planted it. Sir Evan had been far too busy with other aspects of the estate, and I would never grow something so deadly in an open garden. It is not an easy plant to remove, Mr. Holmes, or I would have pulled it from the ground then and there. The leaves, as you know, are very dangerous and must be handled correctly. I made a mental note to return with proper gloves and a spade to remove it from the garden and burn it.”

  “Later that day,” continued Conti “I returned to the bed, but before I got there, I saw Michaels tending it. It was he who had planted the Green Death; I knew then that I was dealing with a very serious-minded man and refrained from approaching him. A man who grows poisons in the open is not to be lightly dealt with. I approached Sir Evan about the matter that evening, and he was dead by morning. Mr. Holmes, Michaels murdered his employer and has tried to do the same to you!”

  “Calm yourself, Mr. Conti. I know. In addition to the telegram that I sent to yourself to join us, I took the liberty of sending another to Inspector Neal’s office with instructions to arrest Michaels. By now, he should be making himself at home in a holding cell in the Hertford police station.”

  With that, Holmes removed the tainted parsley from the table and invited our guests to dine with us.

  “But how did you know it was Michaels?” asked Neal.

  “My first suspicions naturally fell on yourself, Mr. Conti. However, when I saw the dead patch around the suspected poison, I realized it couldn’t be you. You would be aware of what plants can co-exist with the Green Death and would have been able to hide it better.”

  “I also surmised that when you and Sir Evan were discussing a member of such a small staff, it may have been Michaels. I also noticed that Michaels kept very close at hand when we were questioning Lady Elizabeth. It seemed more than usual staff curiosity. When Michaels entered and Lady Elizabeth left, the look in his eyes was unmistakable. He is in love with your sister, Mr. Conti. He was angered that Sir Evan would not allow her her freedom. I believe he had seeds for this plant from when he visited Italy with Sir Evan years ago. Why he kept it all this time is difficult to say. A look at the history of this plant does show that more than one staff member has murdered their employer with it. Maybe he found the history of it before and kept it in the back of his mind. It is not always an easy thing to plumb the depths of the mind of a murderer.”

  “Another murderer brought to heel,” I said to Holmes later that evening, after our guests had departed. “Not often you bring down a villain by watching parsley sink in butter.”

  “Very true, Watson. This may be a fine study for your chronicles. The parsley not only brought down a murderer, but I was also able to garnish a fine fee from Lady Elizabeth,” added Holmes with a chuckle.

  The Strange Case of the Violin Savant

  by GC Rosenquist

  The language of music can solve crime, if one only listens.

  As I sat in my chair by the fire enjoying my evening cheroot, I watched Holmes with an intense fascination, studying his every move as he quietly set up the cherrywood music stand in front of the parlour window in our flat in Baker Street.

  The
window behind stood black and featureless, while outside in the cool November night, spackles of rain tapped out time on the glass like a metronome.

  Holmes, with the rapt single-mindedness he so often demonstrated in the past during his most difficult cases, grabbed up a stack of sheet music from a nearby table and placed it on the stand. Then he moved an oil lamp from one area of the table to another, so that it shined on the pages without giving shadow. Satisfied, he reached down and lifted his Stradivarius out of its case with such care it might have been a living thing. He took the bow up in his other hand then gently placed the violin under his chin.

  He stood there a moment frozen in time, his eyes closed, his mouth clenched so tightly it was nothing more than a small slit, his right arm out front and high but bent at the elbow, the violin bow motionless in his hand, suspended above the strings like a storm cloud ready to burst. I waited expectantly for that first delicate but commanding touch of horsehair upon catgut.

  Then Holmes took in a deep breath, lowered the bow, and she sang. Her voice cut through the silence of the room like a bolt of lightning. Rising up through the octaves, she trilled with laughter and joy, electrifying the molecules in the air with bright white light. Then her mood suddenly changed, her voice dropped like a falling star, spinning down into the murky depths, wailing mournfully. The room suddenly grew dim, the air thick and heavy with foreboding. After a tear here and a sob there, she finally recovered, coming up out of the darkness, howling like a banshee, defiant and victorious.

  I’d never heard Holmes play with such passion before. He seemed possessed by the music, at one with the profound tragedy of its story, and it brought to my recollection the recent case of young master Eric Leighton, whose way of playing the violin was so powerful, so unearthly, it provoked murder...

  It was a mild late summer evening in London as I was making my way back to Baker Street after completing a house call when a cab rolled up to me and stopped. The side door opened and out leaned Holmes’s head. “Get in, Watson,” he said. “We’re needed.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, I did as he ordered and sat down next to him. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  He handed me a note from Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. I read it in silence.

  Good Evening, Mr. Holmes,

  Scotland Yard once again has urgent need of your skills. Please meet me at the Leighton Estate in Watford immediately. Young Master Eric has disappeared.

  Regards,

  Lestrade

  “It’s happened again!” I ejaculated, folded the missive, and handed it back to Holmes.

  “I’m afraid so, Watson,” Holmes said. “First, a month ago, both of his parents go missing, now the boy. Something is amiss in Watford, but I promise you that we shall get to the bottom of it this time.”

  As the cab hurried through the streets of London, heading north for the country, I tried to remember everything I could about the Leighton family, especially the boy, Eric. He was a pure savant, genius in everything concerning the violin. He could read or hear a piece of music once and play it back with perfect recall. His own compositions were so sophisticated they were nearly impossible for other violinists to play. He’d played his first private recital at four years of age, completed a command performance for the Queen at Earl’s Court at five, and had since locked in a lucrative contract for five performances a week at the Garrick Theatre on Guilford Street. The boy, nine years old now, was a curiosity and was celebrated across Britain, becoming one of its wealthiest citizens. Indeed, Holmes and I had attended one of the boy’s performances back in the spring and he was magnificent. I found myself moved to tears half a dozen times.

  But as is so often the case with savants, their genius came at a terrible cost. He was mortally shy and completely incapable of speaking even a single word. It seemed only Conrad Dyson, his violin instructor, knew how to communicate with him on the most rudimentary level - through music. And then the boy’s parents mysteriously disappeared back in August, leaving a note for authorities, claiming they couldn’t handle the difficulties of raising such a special child so they were going abroad, away from all the excitement and demands the boy’s genius manufactured. The note went on to say they thought it best to leave the boy in the hands of a person who knew how to deal with a savant - Conrad Dyson.

  Suspicious? Yes, but the note was proven to be written in the mother’s hand and since authorities couldn’t locate the parents, either in America or the Continent, to confirm the contents of the letter, nothing legally could be done about it.

  This infuriated Holmes, who knew foul play had occurred but couldn’t prove it. It had taken the heavy hand of Commissioner Carruthers of Scotland Yard to force Holmes to stand down from any further investigation. The case went cold quickly, but with this disturbing new event, I knew my compatriot would warm it up again, this time with the blessing of Scotland Yard.

  When we arrived at Leighton Manor, it was well after dark had fallen. The grounds, as well as the exterior of the monolithic seventeenth century stone dwelling, were lit by a neat, continuous line of gas lamps that surrounded the perimeter of the mansion like an army guarding a King. This was what all that new money the boy had earned had bought him. He would have done better to purchase a real army.

  As Holmes and I got out of the cab, we were met on the drive by a well-dressed butler, a man over six feet tall, with a face seemingly carved out of living granite. All the lines in his face were sharp and angular, his eyes were deeply set in two cavernous pits that were constantly hidden in shadow, his mouth and chin were stern and unmoving. I had the feeling that if I’d seen the man stub his toe, no evidence of the incident would appear anywhere on his face. He held a blazing lamp high in his left hand.

  Holmes handed the man Lestrade’s note. After a short perusal the big man nodded.

  “My name is Killkenny, sir,” the butler said. An unfortunate name, I thought. “Everyone is in young master Eric’s rehearsal parlour waiting for you. Please follow me.”

  As we followed Killkenny up the steps and into the mansion, I listened as Holmes, unbeknownst to the butler, subtly began his first interview.

  “Killkenny, I hadn’t seen you here a month ago when we first investigated the disappearance of the Leightons. A man named Wyckoff was in your position. Where did he go?”

  “I don’t rightly know, sir,” Killkenny replied, his voice monotone and calm. I didn’t like it at all. He continued. “Mr. Dyson hired me on two weeks ago. I’m not aware of anyone named Wyckoff.”

  “Two weeks, you say? So, you know the boy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you close with him?”

  “Not particularly, sir. My duties center mostly on running the household. It’s Mr. Dyson who mainly interacts with young master Eric.”

  “I see. So you hadn’t met Mr. and Mrs. Leighton before their disappearance?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Were you aware of the suspicious circumstances surrounding their disappearance?”

  “I was told that they had left young master Eric in Mr. Dyson’s care and went abroad. All this about a suspicious disappearance is news to me. I fully expect Mr. and Mrs. Leighton to return to the manor in proper health.”

  “Did the boy share your optimism, Killkenny?”

  “I wouldn’t know what young master Eric thinks, sir. He is an enigma to me. I don’t understand his genius at all.”

  “Oh, yes, I’d forgotten, Killkenny. You said earlier that you aren’t particularly close to the boy, is that right?”

  We came to a pair of huge, closed, elaborately gilded doors. I could hear angry men’s muffled voices rising and falling in the chamber beyond them. The big man stopped, turned and faced Holmes. Without the least bit of emotion, he said, “I have already answered that question, sir.”

  Holmes smiled then n
odded. “And so you did, Killkenny. Shall we go in?”

  As Holmes and I stepped into the dimly lit room, we saw three men standing in front of a massive fireplace arguing. Their faces were red and pinched, and so completely involved in their grievances they didn’t notice our presence. Lestrade was between them, trying to keep them separated with outstretched arms.

  Two of the men we’d already become acquainted with from interviews taken when Mr. and Mrs. Leighton first disappeared. The first of the two men was Alger Archer, owner of the Garrick Theatre, where young master Eric fulfilled his contract. He was a short, pudgy man, and wore a dark green suit that desperately needed to be let out in certain places. He was entirely bald except for a pair of slate-colored sideburns that fanned out from his face like extended pigeon wings. The features of his face were delicate and rounded and seemed too small in relation to the large size of his head. It looked as if his head had continued to grow after puberty but his face failed to follow suit.

  The other man Holmes and I knew was Conrad Dyson, the boy’s violin instructor, and now guardian. He was as tall as Killkenny but had a body reminiscent of a whooping crane - long legs with knobby knees, thin lanky arms, hands with unnaturally long fingers. His face was compact, lacking a chin, but his beak of a nose more than made up for that. Even when he moved, it was distinctly birdlike.

  The third man, unfamiliar to Holmes and me, was of medium build. He wore a gray suit jacket that went all the way down to his shoes, and a neatly folded white handkerchief stuck up out of the breast pocket, pressed and as perfectly smooth as his suit coat. A thick beard of blazing red hair lined the man’s aged face, slivers of silver woven through the hairs flashing in the lamp light whenever he moved his chin. His eyebrows were the same fiery red, framing a pair of clear green eyes that nearly popped out as he shouted down the other two men. He wore a tall black top hat which lent him an aura of dignity.