The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part VI

by David Marcum

  “It is brains that will find your missing professor, not hands,” Holmes replied. “Tell me, where are Gilbert’s servants?”

  “T’other side of river,” the policeman replied, gesturing vaguely.

  “Professor David, do you stay here and assist. By your leave, Dr. Watson and I shall borrow your trap. We shall meet up with you later.”

  Before the startled professor could object, Holmes flicked the reins and we took off at some speed.

  “Holmes?” I said, “What the deuce?”

  “Searching the river will avail nothing, Watson. We may safely leave that task to other men. Let us see what the missing man’s servants can tell us.”

  We learned that the man and woman searching near the bridge were Gilbert’s former valet, a fellow named Stevenson, and the downstairs’ maid Susan. They were happy to answer our questions if doing so might help find the missing gentleman. Yes, Mr. Gilbert could be eccentric. Yes, a lot of people were vexed at him. And, yes, he and his son had quarrelled the previous night about the professor’s determination to meet a man after midnight.

  “Mr. Christopher Gilbert said something like, ‘You don’t know who this person is,’” the woman revealed. “I was serving at table and they were talking openly.”

  “Hush, Susan,” Stevenson hissed.

  “It’s true,” she said. “Poor Mr. Christopher, I don’t doubt he was worried about his father. Well, he was right, wasn’t he? Now the old man’s gone missing we can see how right he was.”

  “I see you have recently had a great many other responsibilities laid upon your shoulders, in addition to being downstairs maid, Susan,” Holmes observed. “And I believe you were recently discharged, Mr. Stevenson. I gather Mr. Gilbert could not afford the sort of staff he employed in the past?”

  “I cannot speak to that, sir,” said the woman. “I only know there were twenty of us servants, indoors and out, and now there’s only eight. Young Fred will leave at the end of the month. Likely the house will be sold, too. There’s lawyers and bankers in and out of the house every day now.”

  “Very sad,” Holmes said, sympathetically. “The servants must be angry about losing their livelihoods.”

  “Not a bit of it,” said Stevenson. “The master is a good man. He found positions for everyone he let go. I’m here looking for him by choice and at my own expense.”

  “Your loyalty is commendable, Stevenson. Now, about this letter Mr. Gilbert received. You did not see it, I suppose, Susan?”

  “No, sir, I did not. I will tell you one thing, though. I am very surprised we were sent to search here and not the abbey ruins at Abingdon Gardens.”

  “Indeed? Why do you say so?”

  “I am sure that’s what Mr. Gilbert meant when he said, ‘I shall be safe enough in the gardens, Christopher.’”

  “You are sure he said ‘gardens’, and not garden?”

  She hesitated. “It may have been garden, right enough. It was just an impression.”

  Holmes studied her for a moment before saying, “Something about the conversation made you think of the abbey, I think.”

  “Well, I remember one of the gentlemen used the word ‘folly’. As Professor Gilbert liked visiting Trendall’s Folly, I suppose I just thought that was what he meant.”

  “But it could have been a comment about meeting a stranger so late would be folly, could it not?”

  “Yes, I suppose it might.”

  As we drove away from the river towards Abingdon Gardens, I said, “This is a rum business, Holmes. What do you make of it?”

  “It is still too early to answer that with any certainty.”

  “But you do have a theory?”

  “The beginnings of one.” He glanced at me. “The letter is the key.”

  “De Vere’s letter?”

  “No, no. Do pay attention, Watson. The letter that Gilbert received luring him out into a stormy night. From everything we’ve been told, it seems extremely unlikely that anyone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays. How, then, could someone claim to have evidence to the contrary?”

  “So Gilbert was deliberately lured out by someone who meant to harm him? Premeditated murder, then?”

  Holmes shook his head and I could see something was troubling him. “Let us see what these ruins tell us,” he said.

  We entered the charming grounds of the Abingdon Gardens. The abbey was established in the seventh century, I believe, by monks of the order of St. Benedict. About twenty or thirty years ago, a local man by the name of Trendall set out the stones to mark the original site of the abbey, which were destroyed during that terrible period of Tudor excess. The grounds are perfectly charming, and at their heart stands the folly, a pair of two-bay perpendicular arcades that crown a set of circular steps. Holmes examined the ground around these with minute attention.

  “A man stood here in the rain, Watson. He smoked three cigarettes. You cannot fault his dedication.”

  He stood up and his sharp eyes scanned the area around us. “Look over there,” he pointed. “What has made those crows so noisy?”

  We hurried to the apple orchard that stands northeast of the folly. The crows squawked and scattered at our approach. The reason for their interest was obvious. Half buried under a makeshift bed of leaves, we found the corpse of a man in a black cloak with purple lining. His remarkable hat was lying beside him.

  “Professor Gilbert,” Holmes said. “Murdered.”

  “His skull has been beaten in,” I said.

  “A single blow, struck from behind. He was dead before he hit the ground.” Holmes leaned back on his haunches and studied the corpse. “Our friend here was a tall man, six foot three, I should estimate, and this blow landed square on the crown. The victim was standing when the blow fell. He had his back to his assailant. His hands were by his side and, from the position of his feet we can see he was walking away.”

  “So the killer must also be tall,” I said.

  “At least six foot, I would estimate.”

  Holmes knelt over the corpse and examined the wound more closely. “The skull is smashed in, the result of a savage blow from a rounded object.”

  “A rock?” I suggested, examining the ground for the weapon.

  “The wound is perfectly symmetrical. I should estimate the weapon was a walking cane, probably one with a brass head. A man slightly less than six foot could have done the deed if he swung a heavy stick so - ” He demonstrated by holding his own cane mid-shaft and swinging the head like an axe. “There are no splinters of wood on the body, so I surmise the entire cane is brass, or a metal of some sort.”

  He rifled through the man’s pockets. “His wallet is here containing, yes, over a hundred pounds. He was not robbed. No note or letter...”

  “Perhaps the killer took it,” I said. “It may have incriminated him in some way.”

  “Possibly...”

  Holmes was hardly listening. He examined every blade of grass around the body of the dead man. The ground here, under the cover of the trees, was soft but dry. A narrow trench, about a foot deep and three feet long, ran parallel to the man’s body. Three sets of footprints were evident, even to my inexpert eye

  “Yes,” Holmes said, when I pointed it out, “But only two men walked here. One set belongs to the victim. Observe the square heel of his boots. The other was made by the killer. This deep set when he slew his victim; the second set was made several hours later, given the depth of the thread. He is a right-handed man, between five-foot eleven and six-feet five. He has a short temper, is not physically active, and lives locally.”

  I thought about this for a moment. “The height you have explained, the temper is evident by the sudden blow to the victim’s head. But not physically active?”

  “He attempted to bury the body in soft soil but could
not complete the task.”

  “He might have been interrupted.”

  “In the dead of night in a rainstorm? I think not.”

  “So the killer struck the poor fellow and fled. Then he remembered something and came back to get it.”

  “Very likely, Watson. And what does that tell us?”

  I struggled to draw some conclusion, but I was baffled. Holmes said, “The murder was not premeditated. If it had been, the killer would have been better prepared.”

  “I’m not sure I follow, Holmes. The killer lured Gilbert here for some reason and then killed him. It must have been planned. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “Because we are missing some essential fact. All we can say with any certainty is that someone lured him here. Someone killed him.”

  “Luring a man to these ruins in the middle of the night for a secret assignation? It seems positively juvenile, like something from an adventure novel.”

  “Ha! Watson, as always, you cast light in the darkest of places,” Holmes cried. “Is it possible...? But why not?”

  “Holmes?”

  “Come, Watson, let us find the constable and tell him of our sad discovery. We have much to do.”

  The sun had already set by the time we got back to Oxford. Holmes sent me to Broad Street to arrange lodgings for us while he called upon Professor David. I was finishing supper by the time he returned.

  “David took me to Gilbert’s university to meet his students,” he said. “A cleverer group of young men I have never met. They believe themselves kings and emperors. Future politicians, the lot of them.”

  I pressed him, but he would say no more, but busied himself sending and receiving a series of telegrams.

  In the morning, Professor David collected us and we returned to Abingdon. I was surprised to see three young men present, all of them strangers to me. Sergeant Martin joined us and said, “Everything is ready just as you requested, Mr. Holmes.”

  Christopher Gilbert greeted us with a melancholy handshake. “I understand I have you to thank for finding my poor father, Mr. Holmes,” he said.

  “I have not only discovered your father’s body, Mr. Gilbert, but I am ready to unmask his killer. I have taken the liberty of inviting three of your father’s students to join us. They are bright boys, and I believe they will find our deliberations instructive.”

  We gathered in the parlour, and Holmes began by reviewing the facts of the case.

  “Yesterday,” he said, “Professor David came to London to implore me to find his missing friend. Professor Gilbert, I was told, was a controversial Oxfordian who disputed the authorship of the Shakespeare plays. The professor’s views and the passion with which he expressed them had made him very unpopular. He had amassed considerable debts to support his hobby, to the point where he had been forced to discharge some of his servants. To put it bluntly, there was no shortage of people who may have wished him harm.

  “Last Friday, Professor Gilbert was sent an anonymous message inviting him to examine a certain document at midnight. Consider: The writer claims to have a priceless document and suggests the professor to examine it outdoors at midnight. This is not how any reputable scholar does business. Furthermore, it rained most of Friday night. Why would any man of sense expect to examine a rare document at night in a downpour? However, with respect, Professor Gilbert was not known for his sense.

  “As you can imagine, his son voiced doubts about the rendezvous and pleaded with his father not to go. A pity he did not heed your advice, Mr. Gilbert.”

  Our host seemed too overcome for speech and merely nodded.

  “Christopher Gilbert says he did not pay much attention to his father’s ramblings about the letter. He had, I suspect, heard similar tales too many times before. However, one of the maids, Susan, thought the meeting was to be at the folly in Abingdon Gardens. A place your father knew well, I take it?”

  “It was one of his favourite places for a walk,” our host replied in an anguished voice.

  “Even so, it was still a peculiar location for a midnight meeting,” I said, “Especially in a storm.”

  “So his killer lured him there to do him harm?” Professor David asked.

  “That was one of my theories,” Holmes replied. “Following the maid Susan’s observations, Watson and I searched the Abingdon Gardens and discovered the man’s body. It was apparent to me that the murder was committed on impulse.”

  “Perhaps there was a quarrel? Maybe they could not settle on terms?” Christopher Gilbert said.

  “Come, we can agree, surely, that the document never existed. However, if it had, your father would not have left without it. If money were the motive, why didn’t his assailant rob him? The Professor’s wallet was full. He was willing to pay a huge sum to obtain his ‘proof’. After years of ridicule, his reputation would be assured. He had already put himself into considerable debt, had he not?”

  Christopher Gilbert said, “I would rather not discuss such matters in public, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot deny it.”

  “I realised that the meeting and the murder were not directly connected.” Holmes said. He turned suddenly and faced the three pale and trembling young men.

  “You sent the invitation,” he said. “It was your idea of a prank.”

  “It was a jest,” one cried. “Just a lark. We thought the old duffer would spend an uncomfortable night in the park. He was always going on about Shakespeare being a load of nonsense and how he couldn’t possibly have written the plays. It was ridiculous.”

  “We meant no harm,” a second cried.

  “This is appalling behaviour, gentlemen,” Professor David cried. “I am sure your Dean will have something to say about it.”

  “Take them away, Sergeant,” Holmes said. “I shall be along directly.”

  After the students had been led out, he said, “These gentlemen were not content with sending that preposterous message to the unfortunate Gilbert. They wanted to witness his humiliation. Instead, they became witnesses to murder. What do you say to that, Mr. Gilbert?”

  The dead man’s son shook his head but his ghastly pallor left no doubt as to the truth.

  “A jest?” he cried. “Dear God, what have I done? It was an accident, I swear it. Father had not returned by one o’clock and I went looking for him. He was just standing there in the downpour. Dogged. I asked him to be reasonable. He had already squandered most of our fortune. He would have given everything of his and mine to obtain this preposterous document, the latest in a long line of hoaxes and swindles. He became angry with me and walked away. I followed, still beseeching him to put his honour and his son before this nonsense. He only walked faster... I lost my temper and struck. I did not mean to kill him. By the good Lord, I did not! All for a jest...”

  “You fled in horror of what you had done. Then, later, you decided to go back and bury him,” Holmes said.

  “You are the very devil!” he cried. “Yes, I did! I could not bear the thought of him lying there in the rain. I decided if I could bury him and persuade the police that he had gone to the river, they would think the current took him and he would never be found. I took the childish note, too. It was an afterthought. Perhaps if he was found, no one would doubt that I believed he’d gone to the river. I was not thinking clearly. The rain, even under the trees, was still falling, and I had not thought to bring a shovel. I tried digging a grave with my bare hands, but I am not meant for such labour. Forgive me...”

  As the sobbing man was led away, I said, “Holmes, surely those boys couldn’t have seen anything.”

  “Of course not. They would not have ventured out in such weather, but the mere suggestion was enough to provoke Gilbert’s guilty conscience. I arranged with Sergeant Martin to lead them out before they could say anything else.”

  “What a terrible tragedy,” Da
vid said drying his eyes. “I might even call it Shakespearean.”

  “Indeed,” Holmes said. “It was you, Watson, who helped me see the truth when you pointed out the mysterious rendezvous seemed the stuff of an adventure book. Professor David told us Gilbert’s students saw him as a bit of a fool. How like undergraduates to pull a prank on an insufferable professor? When I went to the university to meet them, I saw all the Professor’s students were shocked to hear of his death, but only these three were frightened. They tried to bluster their way out of it, but guilt was obvious. I invited them to today’s gathering and you saw how their guilt betrayed them.

  “The students sent the letter, but the murderer had to be someone else entirely. When we spoke with Christopher Gilbert, I was struck by the fact that he repeatedly spoke of his father in the past tense. He dissembled about the contents of the letter, but because he knew the servants had overheard his squabble with his father, he used the word ‘folly’ to mislead us.

  “The maid gave us a different version, and she had no reason to lie. Her interpretation of the folly made more sense, or as much sense as I could make of such a ridiculous situation.

  “I must thank you, Professor David, for bringing me such an intriguing case. I am sorry I never met your late friend. I think I would have enjoyed his conversation.”

  “You would, indeed, Mr. Holmes. Poor Malcolm. He had a good mind, for all his foolishness. As Shakespeare said, ‘best men are moulded out of faults, and, for the most, become much more the better for being a little bad.’”

  The Case of the Vanishing Venus

  by S.F. Bennett

  In looking back over those cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes which I have been allowed to recount for the edification and interest of the public, it occurs to me that of all his clients, few have made so startling an entrance as Mr. Edwin Pettigrew.

  This is no small achievement in a field of sturdy competition. That well-known daredevil, Horace Overly, once landed not twenty feet from us in Hyde Park in a hot-air balloon in the hope of securing Holmes’s services, while Sir Lionel Fitzhammond memorably arrived at our door in a hearse. A martyr to agoraphobia, he was solemnly conveyed up to our rooms in a coffin by his attendants. Only once the blinds were let down, the curtains drawn, and the door locked did he feel confident enough to come out of his confinement.