Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #6
Page 16
“Having got so far, my next step was, of course, to examine the details of the crime, and to see how far they would help us. I went up to the house with the Inspector, and saw all that was to be seen. The wound upon the dead man was, as I was able to determine with absolute confidence, fired from a revolver at the distance of something over four yards. There was no powder-blackening on the clothes. Evidently, therefore, Alec Cunningham had lied when he said that the two men were struggling when the shot was fired. Again, both father and son agreed as to the place where the man escaped into the road. At that point, however, as it happens, there is a broadish ditch, moist at the bottom. As there were no indications of boot-marks about this ditch, I was absolutely sure not only that the Cunninghams had again lied, but that there had never been any unknown man upon the scene at all.
“And now I have to consider the motive of this singular crime. To get at this, I endeavoured first of all to solve the reason of the original burglary at Mr Acton’s. I understood, from something which the Colonel told us, that a lawsuit had been going on between you, Mr Acton, and the Cunninghams. Of course, it instantly occurred to me that they had broken into your library with the intention of getting at some document which might be of importance in the case.”
“Precisely so,” said Mr Acton. “There can be no possible doubt as to their intentions. I have the clearest claim upon half of their present estate, and if they could have found a single paper — which, fortunately, was in the strong-box of my solicitors — they would undoubtedly have crippled our case.”
“There you are,” said Holmes, smiling. “It was a dangerous, reckless attempt, in which I seem to trace the influence of young Alec. Having found nothing they tried to divert suspicion by making it appear to be an ordinary burglary, to which end they carried off whatever they could lay their hands upon. That is all clear enough, but there was much that was still obscure. What I wanted above all was to get the missing part of that note. I was certain that Alec had torn it out of the dead man’s hand, and almost certain that he must have thrust it into the pocket of his dressing-gown. Where else could he have put it? The only question was whether it was still there. It was worth an effort to find out, and for that object we all went up to the house.
“The Cunninghams joined us, as you doubtless remember, outside the kitchen door. It was, of course, of the very first importance that they should not be reminded of the existence of this paper, otherwise they would naturally destroy it without delay. The Inspector was about to tell them the importance which we attached to it when, by the luckiest chance in the world, I tumbled down in a sort of fit and so changed the conversation.”
“Good heavens!” cried the Colonel, laughing, “do you mean to say all our sympathy was wasted and your fit an imposture?”
“Speaking professionally, it was admirably done,” cried I, looking in amazement at this man who was forever confounding me with some new phase of his astuteness.
“It is an art which is often useful,” said he. “When I recovered I managed, by a device which had perhaps some little merit of ingenuity, to get old Cunningham to write the word ‘twelve,’ so that I might compare it with the ‘twelve’ upon the paper.”
“Oh, what an ass I have been!” I exclaimed.
“I could see that you were commiserating me over my weakness,” said Holmes, laughing. “I was sorry to cause you the sympathetic pain which I know that you felt. We then went upstairs together, and having entered the room and seen the dressing-gown hanging up behind the door, I contrived, by upsetting a table, to engage their attention for the moment, and slipped back to examine the pockets. I had hardly got the paper, however — which was, as I had expected, in one of them — when the two Cunninghams were on me, and would, I verily believe, have murdered me then and there but for your prompt and friendly aid. As it is, I feel that young man’s grip on my throat now, and the father had twisted my wrist round in the effort to get the paper out of my hand. They saw that I must know all about it, you see, and the sudden change from absolute security to complete despair made them perfectly desperate.
“I had a little talk with old Cunningham afterwards as to the motive of the crime. He was tractable enough, though his son was a perfect demon, ready to blow out his own or anybody else’s brains if he could have got to his revolver. When Cunningham saw that the case against him was so strong he lost all heart and made a clean breast of everything. It seems that William had secretly followed his two masters on the night when they made their raid upon Mr Acton’s, and having thus got them into his power, proceeded, under threats of exposure, to levy black-mail upon them. Mr Alec, however, was a dangerous man to play games of that sort with. It was a stroke of positive genius on his part to see in the burglary scare which was convulsing the country-side an opportunity of plausibly getting rid of the man whom he feared. William was decoyed up and shot, and had they only got the whole of the note and paid a little more attention to detail in the accessories, it is very possible that suspicion might never have been aroused.”
“And the note?” I asked.
Sherlock Holmes placed the subjoined paper before us.
If you will only come around at quarter to twelve
to the east gate you will learn what
will very much surprise you and maybe
of the greatest service to you and also
to Annie Morrison. But say nothing to anyone
upon the matter.
“It is very much the sort of thing that I expected,” said he. “Of course, we do not yet know what the relations may have been between Alec Cunningham, William Kirwan, and Annie Morrison. The results show that the trap was skillfully baited. I am sure that you cannot fail to be delighted with the traces of heredity shown in the p’s and in the tails of the g’s. The absence of the i-dots in the old man’s writing is also most characteristic. Watson, I think our quiet rest in the country has been a distinct success, and I shall certainly return much invigourated to Baker Street to-morrow.”
d
The Shadow Train, by Mike Allen
Here is the place where I last saw it pass,
as I stood below the bridge west of the railyard
peering at the bruised twilight sky,
the heavens as ripe with grief as my sodden heart;
an urge compelled me to glance just so
as (on time, of course) the Shadow Train arrived,
a sketch of an engine towing a skeleton chain
of cars like black paper cut-outs,
like drawings on a page, their stark lines
a moving cage that penned in the waning moon.
Things moved within that cage, mournful shades,
silhouettes of passengers, some broken,
some whole, some no more than bone,
their flickering frames a magic lantern show
cast against the deepening night.
* * * *
Three times I’ve seen it now, etched onto the dark;
shift your eyes, your head just a hair’s breadth
and the Shadow Train will vanish;
thinner than atoms, it winds along one rail,
hurtling in silence down the tracks to
its gruesome destinations. The third time,
standing here, I learned who takes this phantom ride:
all those who died, who risked a short cut
and sacrificed themselves to the rusted behemoth
bearing down; who tried to shake off drunken sleep
upon the crossties, and dreamed in their stupor
of the steel serpent come to crush them in its path;
who stood passive before the oncoming light,
transforming the engineer into a weeping
executioner; these are the passengers
who flicker past in the endless night,
whom the Shadow Train speeds toward
to collect and to keep. I understood,
watching it roll into oblivion, seeing her
&nbs
p; framed in its cage, that tell-tale toss of her head,
one broken arm raised to wave, moonlight
shining through the holes of her eyes.
(Her car parked by the crossing, no note
left behind, no explanation at all.)
* * * *
Here I was shown where the answers lie,
and the price of a ticket to knowledge.
The conductor of the Shadow Train
knows who holds a boarding pass.
Cartoon, by Andrew Toos