The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part XI

by David Marcum

  “So you’ve shot him,” said Lestrade, stating the obvious. “Why?”

  “Let me enlighten you,” said Holmes. “It is a grotesque story which your constable may care to record, for it contains a full confession. Beresford Lamb was not given that name at birth, but assumed it as one of a number of personalities in his life of crime. It became, perhaps, his dominant persona. Lamb, the successful writer, the great man of letters, famous, and now rich too because of the popularity of his stories. He has recently bought a new house in Endell Street on the profits of his writing. No doubt he has a considerable talent with his pen, but what makes Lamb remarkable is that he bases his stories, as far as possible, on realities, and the feelings of his protagonists, especially his villains, upon his own feelings. He is a sensualist, and has, I venture to suggest, so little of what a normal man would call conscience as to be practically devoid of any such virtue. He is probably the third cleverest criminal in London.”

  “Twaddle!” said Lamb.

  “And possibly the most remorseless. He has also, until now, been able to continue his career, and to write about his crimes quite openly, without detection. That is the genius of the man. His mistake, his final mistake, was to take on Sherlock Holmes. For that was what you intended to do, was it not?”

  Lamb made no answer, but gestured towards the desk where we had found the shoes. Holmes retrieved from it a sheaf of typewritten pages.

  “It would have been my greatest triumph,” said Lamb. “Or rather, Lord Pinto’s.”

  “I see the story is called ‘The Eclipse of the Great Detective’. A very lively title.”

  “It is all written,” said Lamb, “all but the last few pages, in which the famous consulting detective fails, and Lord Pinto succeeds.”

  “The crime,” said Holmes, looking through the papers, “is the murder of Ellen Charlett. I see you have given her another name, as you have to your failing detective, but the circumstances are identical. A young woman, seduced by an intelligent older man who pretends to be a failed actor, persuades her to elope with him against her father’s wishes. When he has her at his mercy in a cheap hotel, he strangles her and flees into the night.”

  “You could never have solved such a crime,” said Lamb.

  “I suppose you think that because you see me as a rationalist? For Sherlock Holmes, there must be a rational motive for every crime, while this murder was committed for no rational motive. It was not for gain, or love, or hate, or revenge, or even for expediency. Why did you kill Ellen Charlett?” Lamb was silent. “In the story, I suspect the motive was one of pure sensuality. Your heartless older man merely wished to know what it was like to have a young woman at his mercy, and to take her life with his own hands. He wanted the experience. And that was something you believed I could not understand. Sensual pleasure was part of your motive too - for we must not forget that this murder has been done twice, once in fiction and once in fact. You wanted the experience. I daresay you enjoyed it. But you had two further motives. Firstly, you wanted to live out, to try out, the plot of your story, and secondly, you wished to confound Sherlock Holmes.

  “In order for the last motive to succeed, however, I had to be brought into the case, and that was why you came to me with a forged letter in your hand. I could do nothing else but investigate the case, and fail to identify the killer - yourself - while every false move I made was noted and ascribed to your Great Detective, whose defeat was the heart of your story.”

  “Quite untrue!” said Lamb. “The heart of my story was Lord Pinto’s success.”

  “I knew I was being led a dance, and so I danced, and tried to perform in every way as you wished me to, even leading Lestrade to believe I thought poor Tom Charlett the true killer. I am heartily sorry that I had to do that.”

  “I am confused,” said Lestrade. “If this Pinto solved the case in the story, would that not reveal who killed Ellen Charlett?”

  A look of irritation came over Holmes’s face. “The story,” he said, “reveals only the name and nature of a fictional character who killed a girl for pleasure, and the cleverness of Pinto in his deductions. It would be clear enough that the case was based on that of Ellen Charlett, but this would hardly be the first time a story had been inspired by a real crime. I believe Mr. Poe wrote something of the sort forty years ago.”

  He turned again to Lamb. “You almost succeeded. But I had three clues that guided me, and one scrap of evidence you overlooked. The first clue was in the letter which you forged from Thomas Charlett. I had no way to prove it a forgery, but I believed it was.”

  “Come now,” said Lamb. “You must admit that the letter was a masterpiece, a brilliant piece of both writing and forgery.”

  “You betray one of your greatest flaws, Mr. Lamb. You are conceited. The letter was good, but it was just a little too florid, too much the work of a man of letters, to be genuine, while at the same time the poor spelling and coarse language was too strong for a man of Charlett’s education and standing. My second clue came when Lestrade told me the name of Ellen’s lover, Elias Smith. I was reminded at once of another Lamb, the poet Charles, who assumed a pseudonym for his essays. What were they called, Doctor?”

  “ ‘The Essays of Elia’,” I replied.

  “Quite so. Lamb had suggested to you Elia, and Elia had suggested Elias. Perhaps it was merely the unconscious signature of a self-regarding man of letters. The third clue came with the second letter which you forged. This was a very clever strategy. Your intention was to bring me a letter which was sufficiently unlike the previous one to be detectable as a forgery. When I uncovered the deception, as you knew I would, your stated reasons for undertaking it would do nothing but guide me further from the truth, and quite convinced Watson here of your innocence. However, I saw something else in the second letter, which you may not have considered when you wrote it. Although it was obviously different in a number of respects from the first letter, it was also obviously similar in a number of ways. The hand and language were so similar - as they had to be, if I were not to see immediately that this was a crude fake - that I asked myself how, without the earlier letter before you, you had done it. At that time, you will remember, the first letter was safe within my pocket-book. You either had a truly remarkable memory for handwriting and words, or you had written both letters yourself. Although I could not prove it, I inclined to the latter opinion.

  “The final scrap of evidence was a few crystals which I scraped from the hem of Ellen Charlett’s dress. You removed her shoes from the hotel room because your feared there were traces on the soles which might lead me to you, but you missed a very small trace on the hem of the dress which, I will wager, Ellen wore when she last visited you here. The crystals turned out to be of saltpetre. Where would one pick up such a chemical except in a manufactory of gunpowder? There is only one such in London, and it is hardly likely Ellen would have visited the Royal Arsenal. I recalled, however, that some years ago the Woolwich Dockyard had been part of the Arsenal, but had been closed down and many of the warehouses let to private companies. In such a building, where munitions had been made and stored for decades, was it not likely that saltpetre would be found upon the floors, and picked up by the boots and skirts of a visiting lady? I spent part of this afternoon with the agent for the former Dockyard buildings, and learned that only one of them, No. 17, had been rented in recent years - to a Mr. Charles W. Holmes. Guessing a little of Mr. Lamb’s manner of choosing his noms-de-plûme, I suspect the compliment was due not to me, but to the American poet and essayist. So Watson and I came here and found your second home, your lair, in which your crimes were planned, your devices perfected, and your plots written.”

  “You have not bested me,” said Lamb. “I am still the better man. That you found me out was sheer luck, Holmes!”

  “I would expect you to believe nothing else.”

  “What of the Paradol
Chamber?” I asked.

  “That was an example of Mr. Lamb’s practical approach to the writing of mysteries. He conceived his vain-glorious magician, Paradol - we may perhaps detect another self-portrait here - but had to know whether his device would work in practice. So he built the Chamber. It was an easy task for one who had once worked as a carpenter.”

  “How the devil could you know that?” said Lamb.

  “When I first shook your hand, I remarked how much larger and stronger the right was than the left. You had clearly not developed such musculature wielding a pen, and I deduced some physical labour. Carpentry was suggested by the fragment of your story which I read, in which the construction of the Paradol Chamber was described in very precise terms. I would further venture to guess that you have worked in the theatre, both as an actor - witness your recent performances in my sitting-room - and in other roles, perhaps as a scenery-builder.” Lamb regarded Holmes with malevolence, but said nothing. “Perhaps you tested the Chamber on Ellen Charlett.”

  “I did!” said Lamb. “That was back in February when I had first made her love me, and was initially drafting that great story. I had just told her my real name - well, I had revealed that I was Beresford Lamb, the very writer she admired with such a passion. I swore her to secrecy, and she was willing, eager even, to step into the Chamber and try my experiment. It worked wonderfully. Within a minute she was quite unconscious and I could enter and draw her sleeping body out. You cannot imagine my delight. Ellen came back here many times after that, to serve me. ‘The Eclipse of the Great Detective’ required that we elope - which I effected easily - and that she be strangled by her lover - which was also a simple matter. I brought her here that evening, so that I could tell her the story of the great victory of Lord Pinto over Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Did you tell her that you intended to take her life?”

  “No, though perhaps she guessed. Had I asked her consent, I am sure she would have given it and offered her throat gladly. But it was important to me that she did not give her consent.”

  “You know,” said Holmes, “in some ways, the letters you wrote in the person of Tom Charlett were your most truthful expressions. When you told yourself, ‘You are a bastard and murderer!’ and ‘You are responsible for my Ellen’s death, as surely as if you had strangled her with your own hands’, you were, for once, writing the literal truth.”

  “I should kill you for that,” said Lamb in a low voice. “I regret that I will probably not have the opportunity to do so.”

  “Probably not,” said Holmes. “After you had taken her back to the hotel and done the deed, you thought to remove her shoes, just in case they bore traces which might lead the police, or an astute sleuthhound, to your door. But you missed the smear of saltpetre on her skirt, and that was your undoing. I wonder if you had another motive for taking the shoes? Did you wish for a memento of Ellen? Or of your sensual experience in bringing about her end?”

  “I will not answer that,” said Lamb. “I see that the constable has been taking notes, and there will no doubt be an official report on the case, and perhaps a confession which I shall be called upon to sign. I will do so, but on one condition. That my story, ‘The Eclipse of the Great Detective’, be published in Blackwood’s as it stands, with my confession included as its termination.” There was a moment’s silence. “I had hoped to write more stories. I had a dozen plots in mind - all ingenious, all delightful - but I have done enough that the name Beresford Lamb will live for ever.”

  Lamb would say no more, and soon afterwards was taken away by the police surgeon. He stood trial for the murder of Ellen Charlett, and was convicted, but his sentence was commuted to one of life imprisonment as the judge believed him a lunatic. Holmes believed differently. He thought Lamb neither mad nor wicked, but a curious anomaly of nature, a man born without a conscience who regarded his mind, imagination, and senses, as the centre of all things. The case had been a triumph for Holmes’s powers. He had defeated a great intellect in a game played by his opponent’s rules. Thomas Charlett was naturally released by the police, and attended Lamb’s trial, but betrayed no emotion when the sentence was passed. It is said that Lamb continued to write in the asylum, but his stories were always burned on the orders of the Governor. “The Eclipse of the Great Detective” was never published.

  For my own part, I returned to our rooms after the adventure, and picked up again The Mystery of a Hansom Cab. I read it to the end, but found it dull and flat after the excitement of recent adventures with Holmes. This set an idea loose in my mind. These stories, these tales of murder and romance, had always an emptiness at their centre. Even those of Beresford Lamb had proved unsatisfying, because they were, in the end, untrue. What if I could write stories, based not on imagination but on fact, on the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which had often been reported in the press with such scant regard for the truth? Some few years before, I had written a memoir of my time in India and Afghanistan and of my return to England, which had been lost in circumstances associated with the case I later called “The Adventure of Nightingale Hall”. I had included short accounts of three of Holmes’s cases in that lost book. Perhaps now was the time to recall those cases, and seek to publish those accounts, and others. I certainly had notes enough, and fancied I could write as fluidly as Beresford Lamb, and a good deal more honestly. I decided then to try to publish an adventure or two of my own. It did not occur to me until some days later, when I had completed the draft of the first such story, to wonder what on earth Holmes might make of the idea.

  The year ’87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the adventure of the Paradol Chamber...

  Dr. John H. Watson - “The Five Orange Pips”

  The Bishopgate Affair

  by Mike Hogan

  I stood at the window of our sitting room on a pleasant September day, sipping a last cup of coffee and idly looking down at the street below.

  “I say, Holmes, there is a young lady on the opposite side of Baker Street holding a small child who-”

  “She in the grey?” Holmes said from his chair by the fireplace where he read his morning paper.

  “Yes. She is in obvious distress. I shall go down to her.”

  “No need,” Holmes turned the page. “I saw her dithering on the pavement before breakfast. Give her time to make up her mind, and she will come up.”

  The lady looked up and met my eyes. Even from across the street, I could see her face was pale and drawn and that she was holding back tears. I put down my cup and strode to the door. In a moment, I had returned with her.

  “May I present Mrs. Towers,” I said, ushering the young lady into the sitting room.

  Holmes frowned. “Perhaps the child might be deposited with Mrs. Hudson?”

  “Holmes, she is a baby, not a parcel.”

  I led Mrs. Towers to our sofa, offered refreshment, which was politely refused, and watched with a benevolent eye as she settled back with her child on her knee, a quiet baby of a year or so in age. I had earlier elicited that the child’s name was Violet.

  Mrs. Towers wore a grey ensemble of coat and walking dress with a matching hat, ornamented with a red feather. Her face was oval, and on closer inspection wan, puffed, and marked with the damp traces of frequent tears. He eyes were red-rimmed, and as she blinked at us, more tears ran down her face.

  I proffered my handkerchief, which she accepted.

  “My father, Thomas Towers, has been arrested by the City Police,” Mrs. Towers began when she had assembled her faculties. I pondered that her married name was the same as that of her father, while she continued. “He had spoken of you, Mr. Holmes, and I pray I may put the matter before you.” She sobbed into my handkerchief.

  “On what charge?” Holmes asked.

/>   “Burglary of a jewellery shop,” Mrs. Towers answered softly.

  “The theft is all over the newspapers,” I said. I picked up The Daily Telegraph that Holmes had dropped on the carpet and turned to the domestic crime page. “The safe at Barratt’s, the jewellers on Bishopsgate by St. Katherine’s Workhouse, was blown open with explosives early this morning and robbed of a thousand or more pounds worth of jewellery. The explosion smashed the window glass to smithereens and blew out the metal shutters.”

  I looked up as the baby whimpered. Mrs. Towers tended to her child, teasing her blonde curls.

  “PC Hanson of the City Police arrived on the scene at the run,” I continued, “and he found the safe burst apart, the door embedded in the far wall, and the room awash.”

  I frowned at Holmes. “Awash? There was no rain last night. Later in the article, the writer describes puddles of water, so perhaps a water main was cracked, and it drained away. He concludes that the matter is in the masterful hands of that scourge of the criminal classes, Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard.”

  “Ha!” Holmes cried.

  “Barratt’s.” I frowned. “I looked at their display of watches in the shop window once when I was early for a train at Liverpool Street and I took a stroll along Bishopsgate, but I never entered the premises.” I addressed Mrs. Towers. “What evidence is there against your father? Has he been in trouble before?”

  “He has, sir.”

  “Towers,” Holmes mused. “Is he Long Tom Towers, the cracksman?”

  Mrs. Towers nodded, her eyes downcast.

  “Long Tom,” Holmes said with a smile. “One of the best yeggmen in the country in the seventies. I had thought him long retired. He originally used drills, levers, and wedges to get into safes. Vaults have become harder to crack over the past decade or so with various patented improvements, and it seems he has branched into dynamite.”

  “My father assures me that he has retired from all that,” Mrs. Towers said in a low voice. “He is not an easy man, as you might say, and he has a temper on him, especially these recent months, but he has never lied to me.”