The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part III Page 8

  “That is no easy thing to do, Dr. Watson.” She smiled exquisitely.

  “So you know me then?” I asked.

  “I know of both you and Mr. Sherlock Holmes, from the most vivid descriptions that are contained within your accounts.”

  Holmes grunted impatiently during our exchange of pleasantries and he lit a cigarette by the open window. Therefore, Miss. Sinclair hurriedly began her story.

  “I have asked you not to judge me because in the very recent past, ladies who took to the stage accrued a certain kind of reputation, if you take my meaning.” We all nodded our confirmation, although with an air of embarrassment.

  “I assure you, gentleman that I received a decent education and I was, therefore, resolved to making my living in serious theatre. In recent months, I have been fortunate enough to have been offered minor roles in works by Shakespeare, Shaw, and the like, and gradually I am accruing a most positive reputation.

  “I first met John Harden when he came backstage to congratulate me after a performance of ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’. He presented me with a magnificent bouquet of roses and dramatically extolled the virtues of my performance. Despite his age, he had retained a winning charm, and I found myself being quite swept off my feet by his compliments and enthusiasm. I allowed him to escort me to the very finest restaurants, and before too long our trysts become quite a regular occurrence.”

  Holmes turned towards her suddenly and addressed her in a tone that I considered to be quite unwarranted.

  “Did you not find the clandestine nature of your rendezvous in any way suspicious? After all, to arrange meetings at a disreputable public house or to forsake a fine carriage for the underground was hardly the behaviour of a man of honour.”

  Miss Sinclair appeared to have been undaunted by Holmes’s judgemental attitude, and I was strangely proud of her for refusing to lower her eyes from his.

  “Mr. Holmes, I am not a naïve young girl, nor am I a fool! I had no doubt that he was a married man, but for so long as his intentions and behaviour towards me remained honourable, I did not feel as if we were doing any real harm. He assured me that his wife had ceased to have any interest in his comings and goings a long time ago, and that I was the only person who had ever captivated him in such a way.

  “However, it soon became apparent that every word of his had been a complete lie. I had a chance encounter with an old friend of mine from my early years upon the stage who recoiled in horror when I told her of my relationship with Mr. Harden. She had had a similar experience with him, but a few months previously, and she told me how he had forced himself upon her on many occasions, something she had to use considerable force to rebuff!

  “At once, I was resolved to bringing things to an immediate conclusion. After all, if he had lied about one thing or the other, how was I to know the immeasurable grief that our trysts may have been causing his wife? When I told him of my decision, his rage was something that I would hope never to have to experience again. He turned bright red, yelled obscenities at me at the top of his voice, and threatened to destroy my career by using unspeakable methods.”

  “The absolute blackguard!” I exclaimed. I noticed that her recollections were causing Miss, Sinclair considerable grief, and I immediately offered her my handkerchief, which she accepted with a gracious smile. After a moment’s pause, she continued.

  “He stormed out of my rooms and left me with his threats still echoing around my head, and I shuddered at the thought of having had a creature such as he within my home. I was resolved to informing his wife of his infamous behaviour, in the hope that we both might have our revenge. I donned a disguise, which I was well able to obtain from the theatre’s wardrobe and makeup departments and arrived at Chester Square once I was certain of Harden’s absence for the day.

  “To my surprise and immense relief, Mrs. Harden was well aware of her husband’s dalliances and rather than unleashing her wrath upon me, she even agreed to contribute to my conspiracy! It was agreed that she would do everything she could to unsettle him at home while colleagues of mine would confound him every time he boarded his train. He was so resolved to winning me back that he bombarded me with gifts and messages from every angle.

  “I am certain that this was to satisfy his ego, rather than an expression of any real affection that he professed to have for me. I rebuffed every effort of his, and each visit to my rooms was met with a closed and bolted door. The encounters that were distressing him on the train were intensified by design, and he was clearly becoming affected by our persecution.

  “Finally, before matters got out of hand, I agreed to meet him upon the platform at West Hampstead Station. I informed Mrs. Harden of my intention, and she agreed to meet me there so that the three of us might reach a resolution. Sadly, that was never meant to be. He extended his rage and insults to the two of us, and we moved towards him to silence him in such a public place. You know the tragic outcome of our efforts, and Mrs. Harden even tried to pull him back before he reached his sorry end.”

  “So he was not pushed?” Unbelievably, there was a trace of regret in Lestrade’s voice when he asked this redundant question.

  “Mrs. Claudia Harden is a kind and gentle soul who deserved someone far better than John Vincent Harden!”

  Holmes was already making his way towards the front door, and Sophie Sinclair graciously showed us out.

  “Once again, Mr. Holmes, you have saved a potential victim of my own ineptitude from the direst of consequences! Mrs. Harden and I have much to be grateful to you for,” Lestrade admitted while we went in search of a cab.

  “No, not at all, Inspector. You are merely guilty of reaching your conclusions far too quickly and easily. A simple adjustment to your report will show that Mrs. Harden was retained in your custody to allow her time to recover from the shock of seeing her beloved husband’s tragic death, away from the public gaze.”

  Lestrade nodded his gratitude, and while we travelled back to Baker Street, I was left to speculate upon the effect that the Harden affair would have upon my friend’s misogynistic tendencies.

  I was also resolved to attending a performance at the Garrick Theatre in the not to distant future!

  The Perfect Spy

  by Stuart Douglas

  My friend Sherlock Holmes was a voracious reader, though rarely of the acknowledged literary canon. Rather, he would frequently arrive in our rooms laden down with an accumulation of penny dreadfuls, true crime magazines, and police journals, spreading them around the floor in a giant paper fan comprised of murder, assault, and theft, with little regard for my own preferences or comfort. At such times, he could happily spend an entire day armed only with scissors and glue pot, snipping out articles of particular interest and affixing them to a page in his ever expanding archive of criminality. On such occasions, I would make my apologies and leave him to his endeavours, knowing as I did that - save for those times when he was intimately involved with an interesting case - he was rarely so happy as when cataloguing the crimes of the Empire.

  Occasionally, however, Holmes would express his dissatisfaction with the contents of the various periodicals, lamenting their lack of criminal cunning as though it were a personal insult. So it proved one wet afternoon in 1896, as Holmes and I relaxed in Baker Street, following the conclusion of a somewhat protracted case.

  “Diplomatic negotiations, secret weapons, and speeches by politicians! Is this the level to which the popular press have sunk, Watson!” he stormed as he cast the newspaper in his hand to the floor in disgust. “This nation is forever making preparation for war, yet that fact is constantly reported as though it were the freshest and most unexpected of news! Meanwhile, there is nothing in any of these pusillanimous rags regarding the activities of the fiend currently terrorising the populace of Streatham, or of the spate of city robberies which have so baffled Inspector Gregson, and only a pas
sing mention of the execution of Dyer, the child killer. Really, it is not good enough!”

  I was by this point more than used to the peculiarities of Holmes’s opinions, but even so there was little I could think to say in response to so perverse a view. Consequently, I satisfied myself with a non-committal nod and was on the verge of taking up my own newspaper, when Mrs. Hudson appeared in our doorway clutching a plain brown envelope.

  “A boy just this minute delivered this telegram for Mr. Holmes,” that good lady said as she handed it over. “He waits downstairs for a reply. Shall I tell him anything?”

  Holmes had already opened and read the missive, and shook his head in response. “No, no, Mrs. Hudson, there is no reply. Give the boy a penny and send him on his way.” He turned to me with something akin to real excitement on his face. “We have a new case, Watson!” he exclaimed. “A man is discovered, dead but without a slip of identification upon him and possessing some thing – Lestrade (for it is he who writes) is no more specific than that - of a peculiarly mysterious nature. What more could one ask for on so dull a morning as this?”

  He leapt to his feet and strode across to hat and coat. “Come along, Watson!” he chided. “We must make haste if we are not to arrive after Lestrade and his minions have trampled across each and every piece of evidence.”

  It being simpler to follow him than to make enquiry as to further details of the case upon which we now embarked, I did so, with alacrity.

  Confounding Holmes’s fears, Lestrade had made secure the entire street in which the body lay, positioning uniformed constables at every point of ingress and standing guard himself over the deceased. Holmes took one look at the wealth of policemen on display and jumped from our hansom while it was still moving, evidently of the opinion that there was no time to be lost. I paid the driver and followed at a more sedate pace, arriving at the scene several minutes after my friend.

  So it was that I made my entry just in time to witness Holmes lambast Lestrade in no uncertain terms - and to the obvious amusement of nearby constables - regarding the waste of his time occasioned by the Inspector’s foolish over-reactions. Of course, I knew of old that Holmes had little respect for even the more senior of Scotland Yard’s officers, but it was rare to find him engaged in quite such a public display of that lack of respect.

  “A suicide, Inspector Lestrade, nothing more than that!” he raged as I pushed my way past the ring of uniformed men. “All identification abandoned and no sign of violence, you say? I do not need to examine the body to know that self-murder is certainly the cause of death. Bereft in love or some similar foolishness, this man throws his wallet into the river, then takes himself to a quiet place and anonymously ends his own life. Some little interest may be gained from the manner of his death which, as you say, is not immediately plain - but otherwise it is utterly banal and commonplace. I would hazard, indeed, that there is nothing here which might confuse even someone with the limited intellectual capacity of a Scotland Yard Inspector!”

  With that he turned smartly round and would certainly have left the street entirely, had not Lestrade, with a smug smile, called him back. “There is more, Mr. Holmes, much more than meets the eye.”

  Holmes faltered for a moment as curiosity over-matched irritation, and Lestrade took his opportunity. “There was a paper found on his person, Mr. Holmes, hidden in a secret place. A paper which might well have led this man to the noose, had he not ended up face down in the gutter here.”

  Amidst the noise of this argument, I had not taken a second to examine the dead man, but I did so now. He lay on his back on the pavement, but the dirt on his face and shirt front confirmed what Lestrade had said, that he had been found otherwise. I looked over at the Inspector for permission to look more closely, which he gave with a wave of his hand and a muttered “Be my guest, Doctor.”

  On closer inspection, the man proved to be in the region of twenty-five years old, about five foot eight and of good, strong build, with fair hair, worn slightly longer, in the current fashion. His eyes were closed, but his mouth lay half open, exposing a full set of healthy, white teeth. It was clear that, whatever else he might have been, his past contained respectability and reasonable fortune. His face and hands were entirely unmarked, and a cursory check suggested no obvious cause of death.

  I cast an eye around the surrounding ground, as Holmes always did, but besides the common detritus of any London street, there was nothing to be seen. I rose to my feet and brushed myself down. Holmes, however, had spotted something and crouched down by the body in my stead, removing his gloves as he did so.

  Carefully, taking care to disturb nothing, he folded back the man’s jacket and inspected the inner pockets for a moment. Apparently satisfied, he forced his hands beneath and, with a heave, flipped the unfortunate man round, restoring him to the position in which he was found, face down. Lestrade raised a quizzical eyebrow in my direction, but I was as much in the dark as the little detective, and could only offer a shrug in reply to his unspoken question.

  Our confusion only increased as Holmes proceeded to pull back the waistband of the man’s trousers, exposing a row of discoloured metal studs, and nothing else which I could imagine might be of significance. Holmes, however, had seen something else, and now rose to his feet.

  “You noted the studs, and that the tailor’s tags have been removed from both jacket and trousering, Lestrade?”

  The frown which crossed the Inspector’s face was answer enough.

  “This, perhaps, casts a different light on matters, or at least a more confounding one,” Holmes continued after a pause. “A self-murderer may desire to remain anonymous and so save his family shame. In such a case, the disposal of a wallet is sensible, in order that identification may be hampered and, perhaps, eventually abandoned altogether. But to cut from your clothes every scrap which might lead an investigator even to so remote a connection as a tailor’s premises? That is more effort than a sane man would contemplate.”

  “A self-murderer is not a sane man, Holmes, by definition,” I offered.

  “There is something in that, of course, Watson, but even so there is also...”

  Lestrade had stood silently during this exchange, but now he spoke up.

  “Very interesting, Mr. Holmes, but as I mentioned a moment ago, I have some additional information which would appear to lend weight to the idea that this man did not take his own life.” He beckoned to a waiting constable to step forward. “Apprise the gentleman of what it said on the note which was discovered on the deceased, Drake,” he said, prompting the uniformed man to pull a Police notebook from the pocket of his jacket.

  “A scrap of lined note paper was found in the dead man’s outer breast pocket, crushed at the very bottom of said pocket. Both sides had been written on, sir, with but a single word on one side, and a few words in a foreign language of dubious provenance on the other.”

  “Specifics, man!” barked Lestrade. “Mr. Holmes needs specifics!”

  Drake reddened and cleared his throat before continuing his interrupted recital. “Sorry, sir. I have a note further on... yes, the word on one side of the paper was the name ‘Chapmans’, while the reverse contained the name of a town in Southern Africa and several lines in German.” Eager to be of assistance, he closed his book and, in a less formal tone, continued, “I don’t have a record of the original words, Mr. Holmes, but one of the lads at the station had a school teacher came from Berlin or somesuch, and so he knows a bit of the lingo. He wasn’t sure, but he said that ‘flowing blood’ was mentioned, and something about smashing our fetters. That means irons, sir,” he concluded helpfully.

  “Thank you, Constable,” Holmes replied, drily. “I was aware.”

  Lestrade’s impatience during this exchange was unmistakable. “As you no doubt realise, Mr. Holmes, the name on that paper is one whose significance is known only to you and one or
two other private citizens. A name, the very whispering of which is of concern to all of Her Majesty’s servants.” He coughed. “It is that name which leads you to be roused from your morning pipe and slippers and brought here, Mr. Holmes, at the request, I should add, of my superiors and not of myself. Whether this man has murdered himself or been dispatched by persons unknown, Scotland Yard would know what interest he had in Chapmans - and quickly!”

  Holmes seemed distracted, nodding his assent without looking at Lestrade. “The original missive is not to hand?” he asked eventually.

  Lestrade smile was sympathetic but unhelpful. “No, Mr. Holmes. My superiors felt it safer to have the original returned to the Yard. Is that a problem?”

  Holmes shook his head. “Not at present, but I would be obliged if I could examine the original. Perhaps Dr. Watson could make his way to Scotland Yard and collect it? It will be entirely safe in his hands, I assure you.”

  Seizing the opportunity to be more than a dumb - and largely uninformed - observer, I hastily agreed to Holmes’s request. Lestrade, after a moment’s thought, also assented. I was pleased to have a more active role in the investigation to come, having been largely supernumerary until that point, but still, I preferred to armour myself with a little knowledge before I went any further.

  “But what does this all mean?” I asked. “Who is this Chapman, and why is his name of such fascination that its very mention has us roused by the police and rushed to inspect the body currently lying before us?”

  Before Lestrade could reply, Holmes interjected. “Chapman is not the name of a person, but that of a company. A chemical works, primarily, though with significant investments in explosives, armaments, and engineering.”

  “And the government’s interest in them?”

  Before Holmes could reply, Lestrade intervened, ordering everyone to step away then lowering his voice before speaking. “I know that you have, in the past, been privy to certain secrets of a political nature,” he murmured. “Indeed, I am certain you have been made aware of many things, regarding which a humble Police Inspector like myself is kept unaware, but even so, I must stress upon the you the vital importance of what I am about to tell you.”