The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part XI

by David Marcum

  Holmes moved immediately into the room that the captain informed us had been occupied by George Atkinson. It was also as orderly and immaculate as any barracks inspected by a tyrant sergeant-major that I had ever been in.

  “If you would, my good Doctor,” said Holmes. “Please, start on the books. I shall inspect his personal effects.”

  It was a pattern of inspection that I had expected, and that was to become quite familiar in the years afterward. One by one, I took a book off the shelf and examined it, page by page. Anything that struck me as noteworthy, I noted.

  Holmes slowly and methodically went through each drawer in the dresser, removing every item of clothing, jewelry, toiletries, and odds-and-ends. He had his glass at the ready and gave many of the objects a close look.

  After an hour-and-a-half, Holmes departed from the bedroom and took a seat in the comfortable parlor. The captain and I followed him.

  “Very well, Watson. Let us hear your report. Quickly through the mundane, and some detail on the anomalies, no matter how trivial.”

  “As you could see,” I said, “there were three shelves of books, each of four feet and attached to his wall above the writing desk. Quite well organized, as might be expected. Perfectly aligned. The lowest shelf was entirely reference books related to the business of the Atkinson brothers. The second row, all in order by the last name of the author, held a fine selection of the best of England’s writers. There were even a few from America.

  “The top row,” I continued, “held his memories from his boyhood. All his photographs, prize cups, and favorite storybooks. I suspect he brought a trunk full of these old friends with him and still read them during some of the long, warm nights here in the tropics.

  “The anomalies, Watson, please.”

  ‘Ah, yes. Getting to those, Holmes. None of the business books on the lower shelf were inscribed or had nameplates inserted. However, stuck inside some of them were notes, copies of memos, purchase orders, and the like. Oddly, any of them that had a name attached were addressed not to George but to his brother. Nothing to report beyond that.”

  “How very interesting, Watson. Good work.”

  “Thank you, Holmes. Now it is your turn.”

  “As you have dutifully recorded, the fellow had an exceptionally orderly mind. I have gone through all of his belongings, and they are all arranged in a regimented manner... with two exceptions.”

  “Ah, ha,” I said. “Then do deliver, Holmes.”

  “His shirts, sweaters, trousers, and jackets are all aligned perfectly. His handkerchiefs are folded in perfect symmetry and stacked as if a plumb line had been used on the edge. Even his cufflinks and studs are placed in a row along a uniform edge.”

  “Yes?” I queried.

  “His socks and underwear were tossed all together in an unholy jumble.”

  “Goodness, a man cannot be expected to be utterly faultless in all his domestic habits.”

  “True, perhaps of you, and most certainly true of me. But not, I submit, of this man. Now, as to the second item, I examined his bank book. As I have observed before, a man may lie to the police, to his wife and children, to his closest friend, to his employer, and even to his solicitor. He cannot lie to his bank book. George Atkinson made scrupulous notes in his personal ledger accounting for every cheque issued and every deposit made. One of them, however, could not be accounted for.”

  “Indeed, and what was that?”

  “He records that six months ago he paid for a wire of funds to W. J. Brooks of Northampton.”

  “The shoe people?”

  “Precisely. It was for a new set of boots at a cost of two pounds, six. There was a later note confirming the delivery three months later.”

  “Yes, go on.”

  “Those boots are missing.”

  “Maybe he was wearing them when he was killed, and they are still on his feet in the morgue,” I said.

  “No, his body was wearing a fine set of brogues.”

  Once back on the hotel patio, Holmes turned to me.

  “Watson, do you have your service revolver with you?”

  “Of course. I never go east of Aldgate without it, and I most surely would not walk the streets of a backwater town unarmed.”

  “Excellent. Now come and stand here.” He jumped out of his chair and went quickly to a place about thirty feet back from the low stone wall that bordered the patio. I followed and stood as asked, not having the foggiest notion what he was up to. He then ran out onto the beach and approached one of the many local vendors. He returned carrying two fresh coconuts. Carefully, he balanced one of them on the top of the wall.

  “Now, my friend, please take out your revolver and see if you can hit this coconut from that distance.”

  “Holmes,” I cried. “What in heaven’s name...?”

  “Oh, Watson. Just humor me. See if you can hit it. I assure you, there is method in my madness.”

  I took out my Webley and aimed. The gun has only a six-inch barrel and is not accurate in the least at any distance more than twenty feet. I raised and fired. I missed, and the bullet proceeded unhindered to some distant splash in the ocean.

  “Try again,” shouted Holmes.

  This time I pegged the coconut. A gun with a larger caliber might have splatted the target, but a bullet from a small revolver merely penetrated the side and lodged itself somewhere in the interior of the fruit.

  “Excellent,” said Holmes. “Just what I wanted.”

  He took the coconut and departed. That was the last I saw of him for the entire remainder of the afternoon and evening.

  Early the following morning, I came out from my room in time to observe the glory of the morning sunrise emerge over the eastern horizon. Holmes was already sitting at a table, sipping a cup of tea and reading the previous day’s Colombo newspaper.

  “Good morning, Watson,” he said, beaming. His face was smugly happy, a look I have seen many times in the years since that day when Holmes knew that he had solved a difficult case.

  “Do have a cup and your breakfast, my dear Watson,” he said, not bothering to put down the newspaper. “We are being joined at half-eight by the people we met with yesterday. Until then, kindly do not disturb me. I have some lines to rehearse.”

  I began to say something, but he held up his hand to indicate that I should be silent. I had no choice but to wait until he deigned to speak.

  I ate my breakfast and sipped my tea in solitude, and then took myself for a stroll along the beach, returning to the patio at twenty-minutes-past-eight o’clock. Holmes was still reading and did nothing more than look up at me, smile, and return to the newspaper.

  At half-past-eight, he rose and looked toward the door that led back into the hotel. Coming through it was the police captain, followed by Misses Elspeth and Morag, Mr. Geoffrey Atkinson, and Major Robert Garton.

  “I have brought them all as requested, Mr. Holmes,” said Captain Devasenapathy. His tone and the look on his face said that he was not entirely sure why he had been so instructed.

  Holmes smiled and greeted our visitors.

  “Really, Mr. Holmes,” said Geoffrey Atkinson, “is this necessary? The ladies and the major have classes to teach, and I have a business to run.”

  “I assure you,” said Holmes, “I shall not keep you for more than a few minutes. I have an obligation to report my conclusions to you before Dr. Watson and I depart this afternoon.”

  The major was the last to enter the patio and Holmes walked toward him. Suddenly, Holmes stumbled and staggered directly into Major Garton.

  “Oh, I am so sorry, Major. My apologies, sir. I am terribly sorry.”

  His voice and face conveyed profound embarrassment, and the major forced a smile and muttered a few forgiving words. The seven of us gathered around one of
the round tables and waited whilst the mandatory morning tea and scones were served.

  “Mr. Holmes,” said the major, “please get on with your report. Tempus fugit.”

  Holmes stood, holding a small sheaf of papers in his hands, and began as if he were about to address the local parish council.

  “Captain Rajanathan Devasenapathy of the Trincomalee Police, Major Robert Garton, Misses Elspeth Linton and Morag Douglass, and Mr. George Atkinson-”

  “Geoffrey, not George,” I interrupted. “Holmes, George is the one that was killed. This is Geoffrey.”

  “No, my dear Watson, it is not. The man sitting with us is George Atkinson. It was Geoffrey who was killed. Immediately after his tragic death, his brother assumed his identity.”

  “Oh, honestly, Mr. Holmes!” said whichever of the Atkinson brothers it was. “Where did you get such an absurd idea. I assure you that I am Geoffrey and always have been.”

  “No, George, you are not. You were the first to hear the terrible news about your brother, and you reacted as any man would. You immediately sought the company and comfort of your fiancée. For reasons that I am sure you know better than I, the two of you agreed that you would assume your brother’s identity and act as if you were engaged to be married to Miss Elspeth Linton. Then you rushed back to your house and made such minor changes in your belongings as were necessary to support your ruse, and only then went to wake Miss Linton and share the tragic news with her of the death of George.”

  “Utter nonsense!” said George or Geoffrey. “You have no proof whatsoever of such lunacy.”

  “Ah, but there you are wrong, George,” said Holmes. “When you switched your rooms and re-arranged your belongings, you knew that you could wear your brother’s shirts, trousers, sweaters, and neckties, but you drew the line at wearing another man’s socks and underwear. You exchanged those items in his dresser for the ones from yours, but you failed to replace them with the obsessive neatness that you and your brother practiced in all your belongings.”

  When he said these words, I detected a momentary flash of George’s eyeballs in the direction of Miss Douglass. Holmes noticed it as well.

  “Ah, allow me to correct myself. Your fiancée who was helping you and who is not nearly as compulsively fastidious replaced those items for you. Meanwhile, you exchanged a few of your daily reference books with those of your brother, but failed to remove the odd notes addressed to Geoffrey that were hidden between the pages. And, it truly is most unseemly to steal the boots from a dead man, even if he is your brother. Yet the new boots sent recently from Brooks are now adorning your feet... George.”

  “You are proving nothing at all. This is all piffle and conjecture. George bought those boots as a gift for me.”

  “Perhaps. Men give many types of gifts to other men, but gifts of footwear? Hardly ever. Regardless, it is difficult to get around the evidence of finger marks. It is a known fact that even twins who are identical in every other way do not share identical finger marks. Fortunately, both you and Geoffrey have an array of cabinet photographs, prize cups, and various odds and ends along your top shelf. The local police officers are collecting them as we speak.”

  “The local police,” said George, “have no ability whatsoever to extract and examine finger marks. You know that as well as I do, Mr. Holmes.”

  “No, but Mr. George William Robert Campbell, the Inspector-General of the Ceylon Police, and two of his finest most certainly do have the required expertise. And they are on their way to Trincomalee also as we speak. Now, would you like to explain your reasons for disguising your identity, or shall I?”

  “No, I will,” came the unexpected response from Miss Morag Douglass. “It was my idea. We did it for the sake of my dearest friend, my sister, Elspeth. She is the most generous and kind and pure soul on earth, an angel. But she has a spirit like a frail reed that would have been crushed by the news of the death of the man she was pledged to marry. I could not let that happen to her. When we first met them, Elspeth and I flipped a coin to decide who would become smitten with whom. For her to marry George instead of Geoffrey would make no difference. She would have a loving husband and father of her children, regardless. Giving up my betrothed in return for the love she has given me for all my life was the least I could do. That is why I insisted that George become Geoffrey.”

  Miss Elspeth Linton had sat throughout this entire exchange in shocked silence, her face becoming paler by the minute. Now, she reacted.

  “Morag! Oh, Morag. My darling, Morag!” Elspeth Linton cried out. “Oh, my sweet, sweet sister. You did that for me? Oh, my darling...”

  Miss Linton had risen from her chair and thrown her torso, somewhat awkwardly, against the sitting torso of Miss Douglass. She was now clutching her friend tightly and sobbing loudly. Miss Douglass was using her restricted arms to pat Elspeth on the back, much as one might burp a baby.

  “Elspeth, my dearest, Please. I had no choice. I had to do it for you.”

  The scene was full of emotional intensity, even if not with convincing sincerity. Elspeth slowly disentangled herself from Morag’s arms and, with the help of a firm upward push by Morag, staggered to her feet. No sooner had she done so than she swooned and collapsed back onto her friend’s lap. I shouted for the hotel staff, who came running and immediately carried Elspeth Linton to an empty bed somewhere in the interior of the hotel. Morag made as if to follow her, but Holmes stretched a long arm in front of her body.

  “The staff will look after her,” he said. “Your presence is required here.”

  She glared back at him, but the police captain rose to his feet and gestured her back to the chair she had been sitting in.

  “Let us continue,” said Holmes. “I shall begin by acknowledging that Miss Linton is legally named Miss Lipton. Upon her marriage, she will come into the possession of a small but significant fortune. That fortune, Miss Douglass, would have been shared with you had Elspeth married Geoffrey, and you had married his twin brother, George. But when Elspeth suddenly lost her prospects for marriage whilst you remained engaged to the surviving brother, I assume you saw the shared enjoyment of that fortune vanish. Is that correct, Miss Douglass?”

  “You may assume whatever you wish, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “If you make your questions more explicit, I shall attempt to answer them.”

  “A point well taken. Very well, we shall move on to what you did to avoid your imminent loss. Were Miss Lipton to be married to a capable young businessman and you to his twin brother, you would all soon be managing the affairs of the Lipton enterprise, up and out of your missionary posting, and off to a villa and a fine life in Colombo. With one of the brothers dead and the region reeling from the murder of the two students, that lovely future position was put in jeopardy. So you did what any intelligent young woman would do, in addition to making sure that your dear friend would still be married and receive her fortune: You blackmailed the man who was relied upon to send reports to the governor - our friend here, Major Robert Garton.”

  Garton immediately stiffened in his chair. “Holmes, that is absurd. No one blackmails me, and no one has ever had reason to. Withdraw your accusation immediately!”

  “I fear I cannot, Major. You see, you left yourself open to being blackmailed when you murdered Geoffrey Atkinson, followed by murdering two student members of the St. Joseph’s senior cricket team. The secret of your abusing them for your sexual pleasure whilst they were members of your junior cricket team was confessed to Mr. Geoffrey Atkinson. He confronted you that evening in the tavern on Orr’s Hill. You followed him and shot him, and the following day shot the two students.”

  “Enough!” shouted Garton. He leapt from his chair and strode over to Holmes. He towered over him and pointed a finger an inch from Holmes’s eyes.

  “You have slandered me, Holmes. I shall see you in court and, if you are man enough, I will se
e you immediately behind the hotel. Now get up and prepare to defend yourself!”

  Holmes did not move but began to chuckle.

  “Oh, dear me. Am I being threatened with fisticuffs? Why not, instead, threaten to shoot me with your service revolver, the one you used on all three of your victims. Oh, dear me, your revolver is no longer in your pocket, so I fear you cannot do that.”

  Instinctively, Major Garton shoved his hand into his jacket pocket. He then took it back out again, empty.

  “You bloody thief. You picked my pocket when you bumped into me. Give me that revolver back immediately!”

  “Mr. Holmes does not have your revolver, Major. I do,” said the captain.

  “Then give it to me. Now!”

  “I am very very sorry, Major, but it appears that your gun is now considered evidence in the case of the murders. So, it must remain in my possession, not yours.”

  “You have no reason whatsoever to keep it and no reason for these insulting accusations. I demand the return of my gun and an immediate apology!”

  “Captain,” said Holmes. “Do you happen to have the two bullets that Dr. Watson extracted from the heads of Mr. Geoffrey Atkinson and one of the murdered students.”

  “I do, Mr. Holmes.” From one of his pockets, he took out a small paper packet and from it removed two bullets and laid them on the table.

  “And,” said Holmes, “what about the bullet that Dr. Watson eventually managed to leave in the coconut? I gave that one to you also.”

  “It is here.” From another pocket, he took out a packet, removed a bullet, and placed it beside the previous two.

  “What can you tell me about the bullets, Captain,” asked Holmes.