Someone stood. I could not see his face, and he moved towards the door. A detective stood before it, his arms folded. The man hesitated, as Holmes resumed his narrative.
“As I considered the deaths of Lily and Grace Klimpton, and that of Alistair Johnson, I saw that all had a person in common. In the case of Grace Klimpton, it was someone she allowed to enter her house after dark, when she was alone. Therefore, he must be a man she knew and trusted. Lily Klimpton was murdered by the ingestion of a distillation of laudanum, which is neither easy to procure nor to make. Alistair Johnson, too, was murdered, for although it was stated that he died from a weakness of lungs and heart, that was not so.”
Dr. James Farrell rocketed to his feet with a protesting shout. “It was!”
“No.” Holmes addressed him directly. “Many of his symptoms did not agree with that diagnosis, something you might have deduced had you done the autopsy. The police have an exhumation order and I, at least, and my colleague, know what it is likely to reveal.”
From the back of the hall a commotion arose. A man sprang forward and was now fighting desperately to reach the door. Several detectives struggled to hold him.
Dr. James Farrell stared at the melee, and then at us. “But—but Morgan did an autopsy. He said it was Johnson’s lungs and heart. Johnson had been ill for years, his own specialist in London informed us.” He added sharply to the detectives, “Let go of my son! What are you doing?”
“They are arresting him,” Holmes said gently. “For the murders of Lily and Grace Klimpton, and for conspiracy in the death of Alistair Johnson.”
James Farrell staggered. “No, he couldn’t! He wouldn’t. You said, you suggested that their deaths were of a piece with those others! He was away in London, he could not have…”
“No,” Holmes agreed. “Those deaths are the responsibility of another, the one who persuaded your son into the conspiracy, who shared stolen monies with him, and convinced him they would never be discovered. Once the talk about recent deaths died down, he would ensure your son was silenced the same way. Perhaps with another perfectly forged letter, this time confessing to murder. That man is far more dangerous than your son, for he has killed undetected many times, and profited thereby.”
He looked hard-eyed at a man sitting in a middle row, and all eyes followed his gaze.
Lawyer Paul Wright surveyed Holmes coldly. “You should not make accusations without proof,” he said.
A detective, disheveled from restraining Morgan Farrell, moved down the row of seats and took his arm.
“That’s all right, sir, we have the proof. You weren’t always as careful as you thought. We found your own cache. ’Sides, we got that specialist over, and he says Johnson didn’t die from heart nor lung trouble. Once they knew where to look, t’ bank turned up some interesting papers about an account as had been emptied and closed on your authority. An’ there’s more.”
Wright attempted to shrug him off and was restrained.
“Now then, Paul Wright, I am arresting you on charges of forgery…” The constable frog-marched the sagging lawyer from the hall as he recited the string of offences. His voice faded into the distance.
* * * *
I do not care to recall this case often. I initially suspected Wright myself, but hearing he had an alibi for Grace Klimpton’s death, I discounted him. I certainly had no suspicion that Morgan Farrell was his confederate. I quite liked that young man and thought him a fair doctor. Besides, I could see no reason for his actions, until Holmes explained more.
“A weak man, Watson, and one who wanted to live more comfortably. He desired the luxuries of life. Wright promised him explainable wealth, saying he could see to it that one of his patients apparently left him a considerable legacy. Morgan Farrell looked forward to a house of his own, to hiring a young doctor as his assistant. He also wanted a higher place in society. Yet all he’d have found would be an early death at Wright’s hand. But even now he laments what he lost and blames everyone but himself.”
Dr. Morgan Farrell and Paul Wright, Esq., were tried, convicted, and hanged. James Farrell suffered a heart attack when the sentence was read and passed away only a month after his son died. He blamed himself for much of his son’s actions. He also had taken and retained a specimen of Lily’s stomach contents, that specimen allowing us to discover the distillate that killed her, and which further incriminated his son.
Morgan Farrell’s unaltered will left everything to his father, but James Farrell remade his will before his death and left everything to be shared between the Simes family and Kyle Johnson: in reparation, he said. The will included a brief, pathetic letter that offered his apologies.
Wright died without a will, so far as could be ascertained, and on being petitioned, the court reduced his estate to cash. After all debts and taxes were paid, the sum remaining was divided between such relatives of his victims as could be found and verified. Johnson and the Simes family benefitted again, and Florence Simes and her husband were able to repay the bank and own their house without let or encumbrance. Kyle made a deed that left a sum of money equivalent to the value of his brother’s house to be shared between the two Simes children upon their reaching the age of twenty-five.
To the Simes family’s joy, Lily’s minister accepted the evidence of her murder, and she was therefore entitled to a burial in consecrated ground. Her exhumation and reburial were carried out only a week after the guilty verdict was read in court.
Mrs. Rogers came to see us at our rooms before she returned home.
“May I ask a few questions?”
I nodded, after a glance at Holmes.
“The will, the one Johnson wrote, leaving everything to the lady. I don’t understand how the lawyer changed it?”
Holmes left it to me to explain. “It was simple, Mrs. Rogers. He sent his clerk away for the day and wrote the original will. The will was carefully written on several sheets of paper, in such a way that listed the bequests on one sheet only. All he did later was to write those out again, omitting his bequest to Lily. Then, once he knew Johnson was dying, he merely substituted that single page. The witnesses’ signatures were unchanged, the handwriting was the same, and the only difference was a single omission.”
“I see. And Grace was killed because she guessed, or as Mr. Holmes said, she heard something, and would never stay silent.” I nodded. “She was a good woman,” Mrs. Rogers said firmly. “I can’t say about all the other people those wicked men killed, but she wouldn’t stand by and let people be cheated. She was a good woman, and she was my friend.”
With that declaration, she bade us farewell and departed. I may add, as an addendum, that Mrs. Rogers ordered and paid for a marble tombstone. which was erected over her friend’s grave. While in the area a few months later, I read its simple words:
In Memory of Grace Klimpton
Beloved Friend, and a Good Woman
That said all that was needed in fewer than a dozen words. I hope that where ever she is, Grace Klimpton appreciates the sentiments, because they are no bad memorial.
Sherlock Holmes - Found Dead Page 28
