by David Marcum
“The accounts of the Baron’s downfall in the papers were, I fear, a little purple. But I can count the case among my successes. Now, what can I do to assist you, Mr. Lamb?”
“I have received a letter,” he said, “which has troubled me. It came last Friday, and I have been wondering ever since how to understand it. This morning I decided my best course would be to show it to you.” Lamb took a sheet of folded paper from his pocket and handed it over. Holmes read it carefully, then took the sheet to the window and used his glass to examine the paper in the summer sunlight which shone in. Then he handed the sheet to me and, for the second time that afternoon, I found myself reading a letter addressed to another man. This time, however, the text was not a little shocking. It read in this way:
Mr. Lamb
You are a bastard and murderer! You are responsible for my Ellen’s death, as sure as if you had strangled her with your own hands. She would never have left the comfort and safety of her own home and gone off with that man but for you and your wicked story of the Dashing Carman. Be sure, Mr. Lamb, that I will have my revenge, if it takes all my skill and cost my life. Yours is forfit, Sir, for the wickedness you have done.
Your most bitter and determined enemy
Tom Charlett
Having read the text, I studied the physical properties of the letter, attempting to follow the actions I had seen Holmes take. It was written with a sharp-nibbed pen with such force that at times the nib had quite broken through the paper, which was smooth and white, octavo in size. It had been folded twice, clearly for insertion into an envelope, since there was no sign of a seal, address, or stamp upon the back. I held it up to see the watermark and read “Joyn” and “Super”. Holmes would surely have recognized this at once, as I did - as all that remained of “Joynson Superfine”, the mark of one of the commonest writing papers in the Empire.
“Well,” said Lamb at length. “Should I take it seriously? It seems a very bitter threat to me - and yet I cannot believe the writer is quite in earnest...”
“Do you still have the envelope?” Holmes asked.
“Regrettably, I threw it away. I remember it was buff and was addressed to me, care of Blackwood’s London office, using the same handwriting.”
“What is this reference to your story of ‘The Dashing Carman’?”
“Have you not read it, Mr. Holmes...?”
“I regret not, but perhaps Dr. Watson?” He glanced in my direction.
“Yes, indeed,” said I. “I remember ‘The Adventure of the Dashing Carman’ very well. It concerned the beautiful daughter of a cruel Banker, who was loved by an ugly Viscount, who was far above her station, and a handsome Carman, who was far below. Lord Pinto was consulted by the Viscount when the young woman disappeared. He discovered that she had secretly married the Carman and was living with him in a humble place. When the Viscount learned this, he attempted to murder the girl, which had been his intention all along, as revenge for her rejection of him, while her father hunted down the Carman with the same end in mind. Pinto saved them both, defeating the Banker - who was ultimately reformed - and the ugly Viscount, who ended by fleeing into the path of a locomotive at Paddington Station. I have noticed, Mr. Lamb, that your stories often involve a beautiful daughter, and an elopement.”
“You are perfectly right,” said Lamb. “My readers like nothing better, and I try to please them. The other factor in my stories is, of course, crime, most usually a murder or abduction, and here too I do my best to satisfy my public.”
“How very admirable,” said Holmes. If he was being sarcastic, Lamb did not detect it.
“You are most kind,” he said. “And Dr. Watson - though he has omitted all the most interesting and original points in my story - has put it into a nutshell and touched upon the vital element - that this tale might be seen as an encouragement to a romantic young woman to defy the wishes of her father and elope with a good man of lowly station.”
“What of the woman, this ‘Ellen’?”
“I know only what can be inferred from the letter,” said Lamb, “that she was among my readers, eloped, and was later murdered.”
“And Tom Charlett?”
“A relative, I presume. Most likely her father. I have never met the man, and yet he blames me for Ellen’s killing. It is perhaps one of the hazards of the occupation of writer, that some deluded person may read a great deal more into your words than was ever there. It is as if Macbeth were to be blamed for a case of regicide, or Mr. Dickens for a cruel gynaecide.”
“Not quite,” said Holmes. “I do not believe either Shakespeare or Dickens could be said to have encouraged murder. Both Macbeth and Sikes suffered for their crimes, while your story, if I understand it, might encourage not homicide, but elopement.”
“You are quite right, Mr. Holmes. But what should I do?”
Holmes took up the letter again and peered at it narrowly. “Since we cannot know, at present, whether this letter is real or its writer’s extremity of feeling continues, we must, I think, treat the threat as very serious indeed. For the time, Mr. Lamb, I would advise you to lock your doors securely and keep a pistol always to hand, to guard yourself most carefully and, if possible, never to venture from your house except in the company of some trusted male friend.”
“Thank you, Mr. Holmes.”
“There is one further course of action I should advise. You should take this letter, and your fears, to the official police. A very serious crime may be in contemplation, and the police would, I am sure, take these threats most seriously.”
“I hesitate to go to the police, for I know what fools they are.”
“I am surprised to hear you say so.”
“As you know, my experience, reflected in my stories, is that there is nothing more slow-witted and slow-moving than the average British policeman. They are inclined, I believe, to see crime everywhere except where it is actually taking place, and to judge by the merest appearances all cases that come before them.”
“There is some truth in what you say,” said Holmes. “But not all policemen are such imbeciles, and a few, a very few, come close to being able in their profession. In any case, the official force can assign a man or two to your protection and can put the entire metropolis on watch for this Tom Charlett.”
“Very well,” said Lamb. “I will do as you ask. But I do not trust the police to get at the truth.”
“I will do my best to find the truth,” said Holmes, “both about the letter, and about the murder. Once the killer is apprehended, Tom Charlett will have a more just focus for his bitterness.”
“Thank you.”
“You will not mind if I keep the letter for a while?” said Holmes.
“Will I not need to show it to the police?” Lamb asked.
“If you tell them of its content, and that I have the original for safe-keeping, the police will take your story seriously enough.”
Lamb rose and bowed to each of us in turn. Holmes put the letter away in his pocket-book then fetched Lamb’s coat, cane, and hat. Without another word, the famous author left our sitting room.
“Well,” said Holmes, “what do you make of our writer and his story?”
“It seems serious to me,” I replied. “If this Charlett blames Lamb, however unjustly, then his life must be in danger.”
“Indeed. That ‘if’ is a most important word. I cannot help but feel that we have had today, from start to finish, nothing but fiction. Yet parts of the story may be, indeed must be true. I did not mention the fact to our client, but I well recall the case of the murder of Ellen Charlett. It was reported early last week. As you know, I make it my business to keep up with the criminal news, and read especially the more sensational literature on the subject, though pure fiction concerning crime I have always considered beyond the pale. I docketed the crime and no doubt have
a few notes upon it my index. Perhaps you would reach over to the shelf to your left and draw out the volume for ‘C’? Thank you.”
I passed the heavy, green-bound volume to Holmes who turned through the pages slowly, smiling and muttering to himself. “Camden Theatre Mystery. Castle Graham Imposture. Cats, Seven Black. Cervical Vertibrae... Ah, here she is, the Charlett Murder, lying neatly between the Chadlington Horror and my late lamented friend Charlie Peace - a long entry for him, but only a scrap for the unfortunate Ellen Charlett.” He passed the book to me and I found a very brief newspaper clipping from The Daily News of the twenty-seventh of June, 1887, which ran in this way:
The murder, by strangulation, of Miss Ellen Charlett, daughter of Thomas Charlett, master-tanner, of Clerkenwell has been reported this morning. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard told The News that it was a simple case and he expected to announce the arrest of the killer imminently.
“Well,” said Holmes, “that gives a little useful information. Our friend Lestrade is on the case, and we have Mr. Charlett’s address and profession. In the morning I will summon Lestrade and we can begin our investigation. But for now we may perhaps best occupy ourselves with a little reading. I will assay the final episode of Lamb’s “Paradol Chamber” in Blackwood’s. You may perhaps have some similarly uplifting work to occupy your mind.”
I remembered the copy of Hume’s Mystery of a Hansom Cab in my bag and needed no further prompting to draw it out and begin the story.
The next morning, Holmes’s telegram brought Lestrade to our rooms, where he told us what he knew of the Charlett case. It seemed the manager of Willis’s Private Hotel in Highbury had reported the death of a young woman in one of his chambers. Lestrade had been called in to find it a clear case of murder. The girl had been strangled with a bootlace. The hotel register showed that the room had been taken by “Mr. and Mrs. E. Smith”, but of Mr. Smith there was no sign. His clothes and possessions were gone from the room, while the girl’s remained. The body was identified as that of Ellen Charlett, the daughter of Thomas Charlett, who had reported her missing a few days earlier. Charlett believed his daughter had run away with her lover, an unsuccessful actor named Elias Smith, whom he had forbidden his daughter to marry. Lestrade sought a description of Smith, but Charlett had only seen him once, and that from a distance, as he had been afraid to come to the house. The hotel clerk and porter gave similarly unhelpful accounts of his appearance, as he had worn a long coat and scarf, though the night was warm. All Lestrade could gather was that Smith was tallish and of middling build. The inspector enquired around the theatres of the city, but no one had heard of Elias Smith, so that he must either have given Ellen a false account of his profession, or a false name.
“We are still looking,” concluded Lestrade, “but I wish you would give me a hint or two as to how, or where, to look.”
“I believe I can help you best,” said Holmes, “by suggesting that you may never find Elias Smith, at least not alive.”
“What, you mean that he has done away with himself?”
“Not at all. I think it quite possible that he too has been murdered, by the same hand that did for Ellen. I am reminded of a story I heard recently of a Dashing Carman whose beloved was the focus of a rival’s jealousy and a father’s anger.”
“Why, yes. A rival for the girl’s affections... or perhaps her father - he had cause to hate Mr. Smith, well enough, and perhaps his own daughter too...”
“It is a thousand pities that I was not able to visit that hotel room myself after the body had been found. The killer must have left some marks. I suppose the room has now been cleaned and re-let, and the girl is buried?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“What of her possessions and clothes?”
“She had little enough, but what she had is still in store at Highbury Station. There is a little jewellery, a book, a couple of magazines, some money, and several sets of clothes. You can see it all, all except her shoes. We never found those.”
“That is a curious circumstance, is it not?”
“I thought nothing of it at the time,” said Lestrade, “assuming Smith had taken them with him by mistake, among his own things.”
“Possibly... Yes, Lestrade, thank you, I should like to examine the young lady’s clothes and possessions.”
“You can come to the Highbury Station, any time you like, and see them.”
“Perhaps you would be a very good fellow and have them packed up and sent to me here. Thank you. Now, before you leave, I wonder if I might ask one more question? You mentioned that the lady had been strangled with a bootlace. What sort of bootlace?”
“A common brown bootlace,” said Lestrade laconically.
“A leather bootlace?”
He brightened. “Why yes, I see. Thank you, Mr. Holmes. I am sure I would have thought of it in time, but I am most grateful for the hint all the same.”
Lestrade rose and bade us farewell. As soon as he was gone, Holmes said, “I, too, must leave for a short while.”
“Really?” I replied. “I believed you had quite made up your mind to solve this case without leaving your chair, as you have done once or twice before.”
“I would like to get to Mr. Charlett before Lestrade arrests him. Perhaps you would pass me the London Directory? Thank you.”
I handed him the great red book and he opened it near the beginning and turned over a few pages. “As I suspected,” he said. “There is only one T. Charlett listed as a tanner, at No. 5 Ray Street, Clerkenwell.”
“Would you like me to accompany you?” I asked.
Holmes shook his head. “Thank you, no. You would help me most materially by remaining here, in case there should be any correspondence or visitors to receive.”
I thought this rather unlikely, but perceived that Holmes would rather make this journey alone. I was not entirely unwilling to fall in with his plans, as in truth I felt indolent that morning, and relished the opportunity to idle in our rooms for a few hours. The prospect of another chapter or two of The Mystery of a Hansom Cab had more than a little appeal. So I said farewell to Holmes and settled myself in my favourite chair with Mr. Hume’s excellent story.
I was to be disappointed, however, in my fancy for a spell of idleness, for Holmes turned out to be correct in his prediction of both correspondence and visitors to our rooms. I had not been reading for more than twenty minutes when a telegram arrived. It was from Beresford Lamb, who wrote as follows:
New Development. Coming Baker Street Soonest.
I tried to settle to my reading again, but my concentration had been broken and I had hardly turned another page of the mystery before I heard a cab in the street, and within a minute the great author was again in our sitting room.
“Thank you,” he said when I had taken his hat and cane. “Dr. Watson, I have received another frightful letter. Is Holmes not here to help me?”
“He will be back presently,” I said. “Will you wait?”
“I wish I could speak with him now,” he replied. “I have an appointment with my publisher in a quarter-of-an-hour and had hoped to see Mr. Holmes at once. May I leave the letter with you, and return later to discuss the matter with Holmes?”
“Certainly.”
Lamb handed over a small buff envelope which had been rather carelessly torn open. It bore a penny stamp and Lamb’s name and address in Endell Street written in what looked like the same hand as the letter we had seen the previous day.
“I must depart if I am to make it to Bloomsbury in time, and so I bid you farewell, Doctor. Please do read the letter. I will return after lunch to discuss it with Holmes.” I returned his hat, coat, and cane to him and, with a nod of farewell, the author quitted our rooms.
I felt, a little ruefully, that it was my lot in this case to read important correspondence intended for other
men, but I drew the letter from the envelope:
Bastard, prepare to meet your maker! So end all murderers! I see before me every moment the sweet face of that innocent girl whose life you have ended with as much certainty as if you had killed her with your own hands. Indeed, you did just that, albeit your weapons were pen and ink instead of the power your grip. Damn you for the Dashing Carman! Damn you! Your life is forfeit, and I will take it, for Ellen’s sake.
Your most bitter and determined enemy
Tom Charlett
I examined the thing closely. It seemed in every respect the brother of the previous letter. There was the same heavy pressure of the pen which had scored and torn the paper, as if the writer were squeezing out his fury through the nib, and there was the familiar watermark of Joynson. I put the letter aside, all thoughts of reading Mr. Hume’s narrative now quite expelled from my head by the real mystery which lay before us. I turned the matter over in my mind, but as so often when I considered the tangle of evidence which Holmes seemed to cut through with such ease, I found only questions which I had no power to answer.
Holmes returned to Baker Street shortly before lunch. He threw off his coat and hat and wiped his face with his handkerchief. “I have endured two cab journeys,” he said “and a painful interview with the bereaved tanner of Ray Street, on one of the hottest days I can remember. I have also smoked no fewer than seven cigarettes and my mind has turned upon our little problem.”
“I have had a busy morning myself, having received Mr. Lamb. He has been sent another threatening letter, which he left with me, and promises to return to talk with you after lunch.”
“Well, well,” said Holmes rubbing his hands together. “How very interesting.”
I handed over the buff envelope and Holmes examined it and its contents carefully for some minutes. Then he took out the earlier letter from Charlett and laid the two side by side upon the table, comparing first the paper, then the writing.
