by Petr Macek
Judging by the expression on his face, however, I doubted that he was in fact pleased to see me. He looked like a schoolboy who had been caught cheating.
“Mr Cedric Parker, Holmes’s cousin, has arrived in order to arrange the detective’s estate,” I said, introducing my companion to the fat pastor. “It occurred to me that I should pay you a visit and use the opportunity to show Cedric the country where our friend lived happily for so long.”
The two men shook hands. I was numb with suspense as to whether Barlow might see through Holmes’s disguise, and those few seconds when he examined Parker seemed like an eternity. Fortunately, the pastor did not evince even the slightest suspicion. Holmes’s cousin apparently did not warrant so much as a second glance.
“Certainly, gentlemen, please be my guests,” he said nodding to the door with his eyes fixed on the departing automobile. “In a moment my housekeeper will have tea ready. Will you stay?”
“Gladly,” said Holmes. “I hope that we did not interrupt your visitor. The gentleman seemed rather upset.”
“Oh, you need not worry about him, he is one of my parishioners,” the pastor mumbled while leading us inside. “He brought a donation for our parish, which I will use to finance repairs to the roof of the church.”
The man did not look like someone who was kept awake at night by concern about the sanctuary of Fulworth’s believers nor did the pastor seem to want to talk about him. Holmes’s curiosity was supremely piqued, but he said nothing, of course, to avoid angering our host.
Indeed, a cheque was lying on the vestibule table, the ink still wet. I tried to make out the name of the donor and the amount, but Barlow tossed a newspaper and several letters onto the table.
He led us into the garden and to a sunny gazebo where the housekeeper had laid out tea, or rather what resembled an early luncheon. Judging by the size of the repast, it was difficult to imagine what the pastor’s actual luncheon might be.
So far each meeting that I had had with this man, with the exception of the funeral, had featured a culinary accompaniment of various proportions. He ate food as others breathe air. For every morsel that I swallowed Barlow inhaled four and by and by all that remained of the chicken on his plate were a few bones. No wonder he was so fat! If as yet he suffered no ill effects, I predicted he would in the near future.
“If I could not eat a fine meal which of life’s joys would remain to me?” he said. “I have no wife, my life belongs to God, and I need hardly mention other vices. Take our dear friend Holmes, the same age as I am, who ate rather poorly his whole life, and who is now with God while we sit here and talk. I think that my health is in the best of hands!”
He crossed himself and poured a cup of black coffee.
“Holmes clearly had a bad doctor,” said Holmes, screwing up his face.
I shot him a glance, but the pastor, digesting contentedly, spiritedly defended me.
“Dr Watson did everything in his power! Unfortunately, Holmes was beyond help. He paid for his genius with his weaknesses and excessive strains.”
“Weaknesses? Do you mean smoking?”
“Certainly.”
“You are right,” I said. “Unfortunately, we all encouraged him in this vice. Indeed, you recently brought him some valuable tobacco, I believe from India...”
Barlow clearly did not realise that Holmes had related this to me before his death.
“Oh, that is true,” he admitted with a wry smile and, it seemed to me, perspiring even more than usual. “Do not be cross with me. I too received it as a gift, but I do not smoke. I did not know anyone else who would appreciate it more than Sherlock, which is why I gave it to him.”
“I do not mean to take issue with you,” I clarified. “In fact, Holmes valued your friendship greatly and told me about the tobacco only in connection with the gratitude that he felt towards you as a friend.”
A blush appeared on the pastor’s baroque face and he blinked humbly. In the sunlit garden, among the blooming rhododendrons and singing birds, he seemed almost saintly. How could he have been involved in the plot to kill Holmes?
The detective coughed, put down his cup of coffee and wiped his mouth with a napkin.
“I still have not seen today’s paper. Have they written anything about Sherlock’s funeral?”
“Would you believe it, I do not know myself!” said Barlow jumping out of his chair. “I shall fetch the paper this instant!”
He hurried off and a moment later returned with the paper. He spread the local daily before us, which was full of articles about Sherlock Holmes. Although I had not seen a reporter at the funeral, several columns of newsprint were devoted to the memorial service and the ceremony.
“I regret that I was not able to attend,” said the detective.
I smiled inwardly. He sincerely meant it, not as Parker, but as Holmes.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” said Barlow. “Most dignified and touching.”
The detective raised his head and I saw his chin twitch.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” he asked the pastor, his voice trembling.
“Yes, of course,” said the pastor. “May I be of any assistance?”
Holmes turned his head away, clenching the newspaper.
“No, I just need to be alone for a minute,” he said quietly and left through the garden to the vestibule.
No doubt this was a rehearsed performance and I was relieved to see that it had impressed Barlow.
“Mr Parker must be a very sensitive man; the death of our friend has distressed him greatly,” he said, leaning back in his armchair and biting into the dessert with relish.
“He was recalling the memory of their childhood together,” I said. “He will be all right.”
Thankfully Barlow was sitting with his back to the house and I could watch through the French windows as Holmes snuck into the pastor’s ground floor office and began rummaging through his desk.
While I watched in horror lest our host turn around or lest Holmes be caught by the housekeeper, I tried to continue the conversation in a casual tone. The detective went through the office with his usual attention to detail; he did not leave one drawer, bookshelf or closet unsearched, though he took care to not leave any traces that he had been there.
The pastor turned around to look for Mr Parker just as the detective was returning. He brought back the newspaper which he had taken with him in his fit of distress.
We lingered for another hour or so conversing politely and then bade the pastor farewell.
We returned home on foot, along the same path past the coast and cemetery.
“I am at somewhat of a loss, Watson,” said Holmes, when I asked him whether he had found anything out of the ordinary in Barlow’s study. “What I saw at the good pastor’s house has raised more questions than furnished answers.”
“What do you mean?”
“The first thing that caught my eye was the pastor’s reaction when he realised that we had seen his previous visitor. Did you see how he grew pale?”
“Indeed, he was not pleased when we mentioned it.”
“I must find out this gentleman’s name,” said Holmes.
“That will not be easy. Barlow will certainly not tell us. Perhaps we could find out by means of the automobile; surely there will not be many of them driving around Surrey!”
“A capital idea, my friend!” said Holmes. “It had occurred to me as well, but I have devised another way to find out more quickly.”
With these words he removed the front page of Barlow’s newspaper from his breast pocket. Apparently he had torn it away when he had disappeared with it into the pastor’s study. “As always, when I need to know something I can consult the daily paper!”
“Is there an article in it about that man?” I inquired.
“Certainly not, but the paper hides the answer we seek,” said the detective smiling. “The ink on the cheque over which the pastor placed this newspaper was wet. You see, the outlines of letters are visible!”
I studied the paper in the places that Holmes indicated. Though practically illegible, in several places you could nevertheless trace the mirrored print of the signature on the cheque and the amount.
“With a magnifying glass, a good light and a little bit of luck we will be able to decipher the signature!”
“So that is why you contrived to enter the house!”
“Yes, and to search Barlow’s study. I had already been in it several times, but always just for a short while, and I had no reason to search it until today. Several things surprised me.”
As usual he kept me in suspense before revealing his findings, but this time I did not urge him. I waited until he spoke, which presently he did.
“The queerest thing was his bookshelf. Barlow has an impressive collection of books and publications about beekeeping, but all of them are brand new. Untouched, unread, and judging by the dust on the shelves, unused. In the desk drawers I also found a bill for a new bee colony, which he ordered about a year ago. It seems that before that he did not have any at all!”
I realised what he was insinuating.
“Nevertheless, he always presented himself as a passionate beekeeper with years of experience. He also helped me resolve a great many problems.”
“Yes, he told me,” I said.
“But now that I think about it, I have never actually seen him in direct contact with bees. I always took his advice, and it always proved sound!”
By the end of the journey Holmes and I had come to the conclusion that the pastor could only have received the advice from a third person and had been merely dissimulating a love of bees. This, of course, could only mean one thing: his friendship with Holmes had been a calculated move. As unpleasant and painful as this thought was, the detective had no doubt.
“It grieves me, but I have encountered far stranger things,” Holmes said coldly. “It reminds me that in this world I can trust only you and my brother.”
Indeed, that evening Mycroft Holmes, about whom the detective spoke so affectionately, sent us a telegram that tested at least one part of this assertion.
9 Sherlock Holmes was the son of Siger Holmes and Violet Sherrinford, the youngest of the three daughters of Sir Edward Sherrinford. We can assume that Cedric Edward Parker was the son of one of the elder of the two Sherrinford daughters.
III: The Letter Written in Blue Blood
In the letter, which arrived in the afternoon mail, Mycroft insisted that Holmes come to London post-haste. It was impossible to leave that same day, so the detective asked Mrs Hudson to reserve a place on the morning train. He carelessly tossed aside the telegram, saying that he would devote the rest of the evening to examining the letters on the cheque imprint.
While my imagination and curiosity ran wild and I ruminated about what could have prompted the usually reserved Mycroft to write such a feverish telegram, Holmes withdrew and calmly studied the markings and lines of the ink print.
“Are you not even the least bit interested why he wants to see us?” I asked.
“There is doubtlessly a compelling reason, one that involves the search for my killer. I could pace nervously until tomorrow, but that would be to no purpose. I prefer to focus on matters of significance.”
He returned to his work and did not raise his head again until well into the night. I let him be and picked up a book, which I scarcely read. Instead I reviewed the events of the day. I had no doubt that Holmes would get even with the treacherous priest, but now it was imperative that we not frighten him off. One clue was the cheque and the signature of the unknown man, whose involvement in the plot we so far only suspected. Could the cheque have been payment for delivering the deadly tobacco?
Holmes finished his analysis only after midnight. Waverley[10] had just conquered Edinburgh, and his adventures had successfully helped me ward off sleep.
I knew that his work was finished when he set aside the magnifying glass, stretched out and cracked his knuckles. I hated that sound, but he did it unwittingly.
“Did you find what you expected?”
“Only partially.”
He switched off his desk lamp and brought a piece of paper covered in writing to the light of the fire. On it he had copied the lines of the ink print from the pastor’s newspaper in order to decipher the signature.
“The first thing that I discovered, under the assumption that the cheque was indeed a payment for Barlow’s services, is that the market price for my death is two thousand pounds,” said the detective. “That is a rather handsome sum for a retired beekeeper, wouldn’t you say? Some of my contemporaries do not command even a fraction of this price.”
I did not find his dark humour amusing, but he cackled with delight.
“As for the rest, the results are inconclusive.”
“You were unable to determine the name?”
“Not entirely, though I have narrowed the possibilities. The ink print is of poor quality. I dare say, however, that the man’s first name is Robert or Rupert. Do you see, the first letter R is visible, and the second letter must be either o or u.”
He showed me the paper on which he had examined and connected the lines.
“The third letter is illegible, but is clearly followed by an e. The last two letters are without doubt r and t. Alas, it is impossible to decipher more of the first name.”
Indeed, the rest was only some illegible squiggles.
“On the other hand, I am certain that the initial of his middle name is H,” Holmes continued. “The surname then starts with the letter D, the next several letters are unclear, and the last four letters are without a doubt ford.”
“At least this can lead us in the right direction.”
“Certainly. Another clue is that luxurious automobile. Perhaps I can deduct even more from the letters, though of course only trifles.”
“What else besides the man’s name can be determined?”
“My dear fellow, I see that you are unfamiliar with the field of graphology! I need hardly be surprised, however; from the empirical perspective it is considered a highly hypothetical discipline. Nevertheless, despite being reproached for its unscientific method, it has many proponents.”
“I am not qualified to judge,” I said, shaking my head. “I only have the most superficial knowledge of it.”
“Well then, you know that graphology is a branch of psychology that focuses on the study of handwriting and its relationship to human behaviour. It is based on the assumption that it is impossible to find any two people who have exactly the same handwriting. Handwriting is unique, and according to graphologists, expresses the human personality.”
As a doctor, this naturally interested me. Until then I had assumed that graphology was simply a method for determining the authenticity of signatures. I had no idea it could conceal such information.
“The size of the letters corresponds to the author’s status and self-confidence,” said Holmes, explaining that the foundations of the theory had been laid by Aristotle himself. “Larger letters belong to important authors, smaller ones to those who are cautious. Very small letters are written by people who are timid and have low self-confidence. Larger letters, about four millimetres, belong to people who have a sense of detail. They are critical, practical and realistic. Large letters are used by those who are dynamic and have a healthy sense of self-confidence; they tend to be optimistic and magnanimous. Our man has a tendency to be wasteful and one-dimensional. Overly large letters testify to a loss of self-control. But as you yourself can certainly concede, these are not very demonstrable conclusions.”
“Nevertheless, it
is fascinating what just a few letters can suggest!” I said.
“Indeed,” the detective nodded. “Except that a larger sample is required for a truly precise evaluation; we would need at least a page of written text. One examines the overall structure of the written text, the pressure of the pen, the size of the letters, their width, slant, spaces between words, distance and direction of the lines and many other factors. The age and gender of the writer also play a role as does whether he is right- or left-handed. From what I have available and from our cursory meeting with this person, I can gather only very little. In my opinion, we are dealing with a maniac.”
Thus Holmes closed the investigation for the evening and went to his room. Barlow, the mysterious guest, the failed murder attempt and Mycroft’s letter would all have to wait until the morning.
***
The fresh wind from the Thames welcomed us to London with its embrace shortly after Big Ben struck noon. Holmes and I stood on the northern embankment in front of Westminster Palace[11] at the entrance of peers, he in his disguise and I in my best suit. After all, it was not every day that I visited Great Britain’s house of parliament, and I regarded Mycroft’s invitation as a great honour.
I had always had an odd and somewhat personal relationship to the parliament building. After the tragic fire on October 16, 1834, when most of the palace had been destroyed, my uncle had become a member of the committee in charge of its reconstruction. Only Westminster Hall, the Jewel Tower, and the crypt in the chapel of St. Stephen were spared. The committee then selected from among some hundred designs, and the foundation stone for the reconstruction of the palace in the neo-gothic style was placed in 1840, on the day when my parents met.
Mycroft’s office was in this building. Although I never learned exactly what position he occupied in the government hierarchy, it must have been very important and in some way connected with state security. Holmes once even mentioned something about the secret service.
We did not wait for him long; Mycroft met us at the entrance exactly at the agreed time. He greeted us quickly with a nod of his head, and as was his habit, did not waste time with common pleasantries. He immediately led us into the palace, where we were searched by an officer of the metropolitan police. Neither I nor Holmes protested; it had long been an obligation of every British citizen who entered the building.
