The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part VI

by David Marcum

  With a familiar resignation, I took my usual place on my chair. I was used to being outdone by my friend, though there were times when I managed to impress him by applying his methods myself. Having witnessed his efforts at such close quarters, I would be a fool not to have picked up a few of his tricks along the way.

  “How is your lady wife?” he asked, but his voice did not hold any interest and I knew he was only asking to be polite. Since my marriage to Mary, whom I had met during the episode of the parcelled pearls, I had detected a quiet sort of irritability from my friend. It was almost as if he was not at all pleased that my new life of matrimony was keeping me occupied elsewhere. I had read of cases in the papers with which he had himself been engaged and I had, I admit, felt a stir of envy upon contemplating the adventures of which he was enjoying alone.

  I can report now that I was to accompany him further but, at the time, I had every reason to believe that whatever collaboration we had shared was over. I was not aggrieved, however. In marriage, I had experienced something which I considered more than the pursuits Holmes and I had enjoyed. I had a wife who relied upon me and that felt satisfying. I had become used to a sense of pride and position. There would be no more adventures, I decided, with my friend Sherlock Holmes.

  A knock at the door broke into my thoughts. It was the page boy.

  “Please sir,” he said in a reedy voice, “but there’s a visitor for you.”

  “Show him in, Billy.”

  “He’s outside, sir, in a cab. He wants you to see him there.”

  Holmes’s brow folded into a frown. He was not amused but was, I think, intrigued. “Unorthodox, but very well,” he murmured, standing. He drew off his gown, beneath which was a suit, then unhooked his coat and top hat.

  Outside, the wind had arisen, and I was happy to shelter within the cab. The man waiting there was spindly and middle-aged, perhaps undernourished, with an ashen face and thinning, matted hair. Although well-dressed, his coat-sleeves were jagged and his shoes were clearly worn.

  Holmes gave our visitor - or perhaps we were his - a cursory glance and had barely taken his seat before he said, “You have never been married and you live alone. Despite your dishevelled appearance, you are, in fact, exceedingly wealthy, though do not rely upon many servants. You are unaccustomed to travelling, highly impatient, and are presently in fear for your life.”

  I looked at the man opposite but, to my amusement, he looked decidedly unimpressed, with not a flicker of surprise across his thin face. His brows then beetled together as though conferring with the other and seemed to decide it was time to speak.

  “Your conclusions are correct, Mr. Holmes, though you do convey them a little melodramatically. Your reasoning is also rather obvious.” I glanced back at Holmes and saw his eyes flash with irritation. “If I had been married or had servants,” our client went on, “and was used to people seeing me, I would care about my appearance. And though my clothes are rumpled and I wear them inelegantly, they are of good, expensive cloth, which means I must be wealthy. I have a pallid countenance and therefore do not often leave my home. The fact I have this morning indicates that my concerns are urgent, the reason I did not summon you by telegram is because I hate waiting for an answer, and I am fearful for my life, as I have not left this hansom, even though your residence is a mere yard away. Now we have that tiresome business behind us, perhaps you can finally help me.”

  Holmes had recovered himself, but was clearly still put out. He enjoyed his piece of theatre as any veteran primo uomo. “If the matter that so concerns you is sufficiently interesting, I may just do so,” said Holmes with no little hauteur.

  As the cab moved on, the man looked without, his eyes searching the strangers as we past them. “I do not want to stay in one place too long,” he told us. He levelled his gaze at Holmes and his expression was one of a man who was truly desperate. “My name is Erasmus Brew. This morning, I received a letter.” He fished out a piece of paper from his breast pocket and handed it across to my friend. “It was apparently penned by an assassin.” His voice was calm, despite his fantastic words. “In it, he apologises to me, his next target.”

  Holmes read it and then passed it to me. Even after so many years, I can vividly recall the menacing message as though I had received it myself this very morning. The sense of purpose, in such a few bitterly blunt words, was in itself unnerving. I read the letter aloud, as though to prove to myself that I was not seeing things and it was actually true:

  I am terribly sorry to tell you this, but I am afraid I am going to kill you. I apologise for the inconvenience, but it simply must be done. It will happen very soon, so do not plan too far ahead.

  Best wishes,

  Your Killer

  Holmes’s head was tilted back and his features looked more hawk-like than ever. “This assassin has a perverted sense of etiquette,” he said. “It is singularly unconventional. Did this arrive with - ?”

  “There was an envelope, yes,” said Brew, anticipating his question. Holmes pursed his lips and I could tell he was not amused. “It was typed,” Brew went on, “not handwritten, and it was also hand-delivered. I have no enemies to speak of, and this is the first threat I have received. I hope that has answered your next few questions.”

  Holmes gave him a cool stare. “Perhaps,” he said suavely, “you would feel better served handling this affair yourself.”

  Erasmus Brew looked as though he had anticipated this also. “I have come to you for deductions I cannot make on my own, Mr. Holmes.”

  It occurred to me that he was a churlish, undiplomatic, and disputatious man, and I was not surprised that somebody wanted him dead.

  The afternoon sun was paling as we turned a corner into a quiet salubrious district of large Georgian houses, and the cab drew to a halt. Holmes lurched out of the vehicle. I have always thought Holmes strangely feline in his movements. His smirks and quirks and sudden jerks made it seem as though he could do anything of any sort at any moment.

  Brew clambered out. As I did the same, I noticed he was staring fretfully at the horses.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  A shadow had crossed his face. “There was an incident,” he said, “about six years ago. I was nearly run over by one of these things.” He nodded weakly to the horses. “I was dawdling in the road and before I realised what was happening, the beasts was hurtling towards me. I was close enough to feel their breath.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  His eyes were dimmed with recollection, as though he could see the scene just as clearly now. “My man, Cotter, quickly pulled me away.”

  “You were lucky,” I agreed.

  Brew did not seem so sure. “I’ve rarely left the house since,” he said sadly.

  Holmes was looking at him with interest, but a moment later Brew recovered himself. “I mustn’t be out here too long,” he murmured and showed us indoors. We found several men of a considerably lower class waiting in the hallway. “My guards,” said Brew. “Courtesy of the roadhouse. They shall keep watch as I stay in here.” He moved to a door and opened it. “This study will be locked and barricaded with my desk and anything else I can push against the door. With these men on sentry too, no one can reach me.”

  I thought this a little excessive but wanted to be polite. “‘One who is wise is cautious’,’ I said, quoting Proverbs, as I often did when a patient was distressed.

  He disappeared within and I heard the lock slide across and then the heavy movement of furniture. The guardsmen stared curiously at the door as chairs and other items were pushed against it.

  “He’s certainly being careful,” I remarked.

  One of the guardsmen laughed raspingly. He was a gaunt, dark-bearded man with an angular jaw. His teeth were few, his mouth a thin line, and strands of unkempt hair dangled over his forehead.
/>   “I suppose you’re wondering what the deuce is going on,” I said to him. He shrugged as though he did not care to be told. “Have you met Mr. Brew before, Mister...?”

  “Spriggs,” he said. “’E gets us to bring ’im beer. Too lazy to come down the road himself. He never likes to leave the house.”

  I nodded. It seemed Brew had been telling the truth. He really did remain indoors.

  I looked at the other men. A couple were sitting on the steps of the stairs, staring sullenly at their shoes, while the other four were leaning against the wall.

  Just then, an elderly, diminutive woman with a pale, sagging face appeared. Holmes introduced himself and she explained she was Mr. Brew’s housekeeper, Mrs. Haggerty. With a diffident rap on the study door, she called, “Mr. Brew? Would you like a brew?”

  No sound, from what I could hear, greeted her offer. She knocked again and then returned to us, her brow knotted with confusion.

  “There’s no answer.”

  Holmes twisted around to the study door. He knocked heavily and waited a few moments. His face tightened in a way I had not seen for some time. “Mr. Brew!” He balled his fist and beat the door until the lumber rattled. It took a great deal of effort to burst the lock, and even more to push the furniture aside. Even then, the door only opened a little, and I am sure only someone of Holmes’s slenderness could slide through.

  A chest, a desk, and a couple of chairs had been pushed against the door. It was not a large room and there were no windows. The wallpaper was brown and stained with smoke, and the fireplace was empty, with handfuls of coal scattered about as though dropped there carelessly. A bookcase was leaning crookedly against the wall, its narrow shelves packed tight with many heavy tomes. A small armchair was placed in the corner, mottled and hunched, as though embarrassed to be there. There was one striking feature, however, which drew all eyes and sank every heart.

  Erasmus Brew was in the middle of the room, slumped on the floor. There was a knife in his back.

  Holmes stood stock still, staring down, his gaunt face an utter blank.

  Earnestly, I stepped towards the body and bent over it. Brew’s face was a pale mask of panic. His sightless, startled eyes were wide and alert, the lips twisted grimly in a silent scream. He looked as shocked as we felt.

  “It must be suicide,” said I. “Yet why would a man frightened of dying kill himself?”

  Holmes remained wordless. His eyes rolled across the man’s body as he inspected each inch in turn.

  I ordered one of the men to summon the constabulary. Staring at the corpse, I felt the urge to close Brew’s eyes, such was the horror which haunted them, but fought the impulse. “Perhaps,” I said, “with his murder inevitable, he thought he should do it himself.”

  Holmes shook his head. “It wasn’t suicide, Watson. He could not reach his back that way.” He pointed and I followed his finger. It was true. The knife had been placed between the shoulder blades and was far too straight.

  “Then how did he die?” I asked. “Nobody could have got to him - not unless they could walk through walls!”

  I turned my head and eyed the walls cautiously. We would not be confronted by an apparent phantom until a little later that year, but my mind was recoiling even then. I like to think of myself as a pragmatic man, but I knew what science could not answer.

  As he so often did, Holmes seemed to hear my thoughts. “I have told you before, Watson: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

  He withdrew into silence again and remained that way until an official arrived in the shape of Inspector Bradstreet. We had already met him twice in the past couple of months, and he was again wearing a frogged coat and peaked-cap.

  I took the liberty of furnishing him with the facts, and the inspector’s mouth pursed in puzzlement. “It’s impossible,” he said. “Nobody could have got into the room. With the door locked and barricaded and watched from without, there is no way in which this man could have been murdered.”

  “And yet, Inspector,” said Holmes tersely, “since that is evidently the case, perhaps you would be so kind as to cease your wittering and allow me to focus on how it did happen.”

  Bradstreet looked like he was about to protest and I did not blame him. Holmes did not suffer fools gladly and he could be most impatient at times, particularly if people did not follow the same thoughts as he. I suggested we go to the kitchen.

  Mrs. Haggerty was weeping quietly as we entered it. I distracted her by asking for tea. We sat at a wooden, rickety table and I rubbed my hands together briskly. It was not cold and the fire remained unlighted. I glanced about the place. The walls were a pasty white and I detected a glimmer of rising damp crawling along the one before us. A stove, black and grimy and caked with coal dust, took up most of the space opposite, and the muddy mark of boots stained the floorboards beneath. The inspector took his cup appreciatively, but Holmes did not seem to notice his at all. He was staring at the floor, as though inspecting the dirt which had fallen there.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said to the old lady. “How long have you worked for Mr. Brew?”

  Her brow crumpled as she crossed the years. “Since ’86,” she said.

  Holmes had taken off his hat and had put it under his chair - a gesture, I believed, designed to make our listener forget about his higher status and to treat him as an equal. Deference, he had explained to me before, could conceivably cause a person to suppress information or to even forget it altogether due to anxiety. I have never met anyone who could put people at such ease - or, for that matter, rile so many others - than my friend, and in this instance he was graciousness itself. Other than those who tried his patience, Holmes respected everyone, whatever class or age or sex. From the young boys he enlisted to uncover information to the common man on the cobbles, and to royalty itself.

  “Any other staff?” he asked, but the old woman shook her head. “Are you not lonely?”

  Mrs. Haggerty shrugged. “Since Levi passed, I stay here a lot, where I have Mr. Brew.” She handed Holmes a china cup.

  “Indeed,” I said. “What took your husband, if I may ask?”

  The housekeeper suddenly looked grim. She had been reaching for my cup but now paused. “Scurvy,” she said with regret. “I wanted to take him back to Altnaharra in Sutherland, where he was born.”

  I nodded understandingly. “My father was from Spinningdale.” She did not seem to have heard me, lost as she was in her memories.

  “He’d always wanted to see it again. If Levi had to die anywhere, it should have been there. But,” she said on a sigh, “he was too stubborn. Didn’t want to leave Mr. Brew in the lurch, he said. Saw it as his duty to stay on, even at the very end. That was just like Levi, that was. I was very grateful to Mr. Brew for letting him stay on.” Her eyes filled with tears. “So very grateful.”

  I stood up and patted her on the shoulder consolingly. Holmes, who did not approve of emotion at the best of times, decided it was time to leave the rest to Inspector Bradstreet.

  “Why send a letter to someone you are about to kill, apologising for the very deed?” he said as we walked down the street. “Surely, all that would do is warn them!”

  He hailed a cab and I wondered where we were to go. I was surprised, though a little disappointed, to discover it was Baker Street. I had hoped for something less leisurely, but Holmes, it seemed, wanted nothing more than to seat himself in his armchair, lift his knees to his chest, and cogitate. I stood at the window, the wind picking up as the night fell across the city. Deep, dull fog pressed against the glass as though it wanted to be let in.

  I left my friend filling his pipe, returned home to my wife, and did not go back again until morning. Upon entering, around eleven o’clock, I thought the fog had indeed intruded upon the rooms, as I couldn’t see for greyness.
The whole place seemed caught in a heavy cloud of acrid smoke. It only began to clear when I threw open the windows and waved a Bradshaw at it.

  “I thought you only had three pipes!” I complained as the last of the tobacco smoke reluctantly drifted without.

  Holmes was sitting, languid as ever, in his chair. His clothes were unchanged, his expression just as abstract, and his hand was clutching the briar as though he were determined to die with it.

  “I do not mind admitting,” he said casually, “that this particular case is proving altogether more taxing than I anticipated.”

  I moved out into the hall and collected the papers which Mrs. Hudson had left there. “Let us see what the press has made of it,” I suggested.

  Holmes threw back his head and barked with laughter. It had a cynical hardness to it, though no doubt he was genuinely amused that I should be seeking guidance from such dubious quarters.

  “My dear Watson,” he said jovially, his mouth still twisted with mirth, “I beg you to desist. No doubt I will already have to suffer an account of this case in one of your colourful chronicles.”

  I returned with the papers, and also the post. My friend was often inundated with requests for help. I offered an envelope to Holmes, but he dismissed it with a wave. I was used to opening such correspondence myself and sat down on the opposite chair to do so. The letter staring back at me, however, was nothing like the kind we had received before.

  “Holmes,” I rasped. “This is...”

  I unhooked my eyes from the dreadful note and turned to him. He was looking at me most keenly, having detected from my voice that something was wrong and even suspecting, I believe, the cause of my consternation. I handed the letter to him wordlessly.

  The letter had come from the apologetic assassin.

  Finally, Holmes cast the note aside and stood up. “If you would, cable Inspector Bradstreet and inform him that I will not be troubling with the case any longer. Ask him also to convey my apologies to Mrs. Haggerty.”

  I stared at him, perplexed. “You are saying...” The words stuck in my craw. “You are giving up?”