Slade nodded. “It’ll hurt worse in a couple of months,” he said very quietly.
Fresney let his shoes slip off the rung of the tilted chair. They dangled just clear of the floor.
“How’s that, Tim?” he asked.
Slade smiled very narrowly. “You missed out, Hugh,” he said quietly. “You’re going to go the way Walter Cresser went—tonight.”
The city editor’s body jerked a little. Jap Dyke lifted his chin from his spread arms and his eyes got more almond shaped.
Fresney swallowed slowly and said: “Tell us about it, Tim.”
Slade said: “You murdered Vaupaugh.”
Jap Dyke drew a deep breath, then sighed heavily. Fresney closed his eyes, then opened them again.
“It was Little Red Riding Hood who did that, Tim,” he said very quietly.
Slade smiled with his lips. His brown eyes were on Fresney’s small ones.
“You’ve been tough for a long time, Hugh,” Slade said. “Good and tough. But lately you’ve been getting bad and tough. Tonight you murdered Vaupaugh. You did it because you hated him—you’ve hated him for a long time. You’ve planned his murder for a long time. He was yellow, Hugh—but that yellowness was going to stop you from doing things with the sheet.”
Jap Dyke swore very softly, but he didn’t move his body. Fresney said grimly:
“Yes, yes—go on.”
Slade said: “You built up this stuff about your life being threatened. And Vaupaugh’s. You said the sheet had been hard—too hard. Maybe that was true, but it was hard where it didn’t count. You said Jap Dyke was after you because you’d forced the police to pull him in. He wasn’t after you, Hugh—he was with you. The sheet yelped until he was pulled in, but they didn’t have anything on him. And you knew that. It just made it look good. And even with Vaupaugh dead, they wouldn’t have anything on him, Hugh.”
Slade paused. Jap Dyke’s fingers made faint tapping sounds against the table wood. Someone laughed thinly, downstairs.
Slade said: “You got me on from Cleveland, because you were ready to finish Vaupaugh, and you needed more evidence that a mistake had been made, and that someone had got the managing editor instead of you. You wanted to be sure everyone knew you were afraid. You built up a lot of little hates—some of them were real enough. Then, when Vaupaugh was leaving tonight, you went after him. You shot him in the back—and because his life had been threatened, and he still trusted you, you got a break. He didn’t think you’d shot him, so he yelled to you to get whoever had shot him. Collins heard that.”
Fresney was breathing heavily, but his eyes were still very small. Slade said:
“You knew you had him. After he yelled, you put another bullet up in the wall—in a spot that put it in line with the door you were going to use in your story. Your gun was in a pocket, loaded. I don’t know what you did with the one you used, and I don’t give a damn. Maybe Vaupaugh realized what had happened, and grabbed you. Maybe he didn’t. He might have shoved you down the stairs before he went out, or you might have just let yourself go down. You’re hard, Hugh—and you can take it. Besides you’d killed a man, and you had to make it look right. Collins found you unconscious or almost unconscious, halfway down the stairs. That’s how you murdered Vaupaugh.”
Jap Dyke said: “You shouldn’t have done it, Hugh.”
His voice was very low and hard. Fresney was still breathing heavily and evenly.
Slade said: “Vaupaugh was putting a check on you. He was going to run the sheet again, and you didn’t want that. You were playing politics, Hugh—you were going to play politics. You and Jap Dyke. You needed the sheet—the two of you could have done things with it. But you went too fast, and too far. And when Vaupaugh weakened you knew you’d lost. Unless he was dead. If he was dead—there was his daughter—”
Fresney let the chair tilt forward. His face twisted. Slade said:
“Take it easy—both of you! I’ve got lead ready to rip cloth—and then some more cloth!”
After a few seconds he spoke softly. “I went to the Schenley tonight and talked to Vaupaugh’s daughter. She hates you, Hugh—she hates your insides. Why? Because I told her what I figured. And she figured the same way. The chances are she would have married you, Hugh. She sort of liked you, and her father, who didn’t like you, would have been dead. She wouldn’t have known she was marrying his murderer. And you’d have had the paper, Hugh—the whole damn’ sheet to use the way you wanted.”
Fresney said in a hoarse voice: “You’re lying, Tim—you’re lying like hell. If you’d gone to her tonight and told her what you thought—she’d have laughed at you. You haven’t any evidence—you just think—”
Slade interrupted. “She didn’t laugh at me—she believed me. She had to believe me.”
Fresney said thickly: “You’re lying—”
Slade shook his head. “I called you on the phone and asked you if you knew a small man with a limp. I told you that I’d thought he had tipped that you were inside the paper. You said you weren’t interested. And then you changed the story. You did know such a man. You said his name was Garrow, and that he was working with Jap Dyke’s mob, you’d heard. He wouldn’t turn up anything against them, anyway.”
Fresney said: “Well?”
Slade’s smile faded. “There wasn’t any man with a limp. He didn’t pick up any paper and hand it to a blonde. I was just feeding you, Hugh—just seeing whether you’d use it. And you did use it, when you figured it would help.”
Fresney ran his tongue-tip over a lower lip. He looked at Jap Dyke and said:
“Is he safe, Jap?”
The slant-eyed one nodded. Fresney looked at Tim Slade and spoke in a very soft voice.
“You certainly earned the money you owed me, Tim. I hate to see you get still.”
Slade tightened the grip on his Luger. “Sure,” he said with sarcasm. “But you got worried, Hugh. I was away from the paper too much. I think you had me tailed—and spotted the Schenley visit. So guns were turned loose on me, on the bridge. They didn’t take.”
Fresney smiled thinly. “That’s so, Tim,” he said. “They didn’t take.”
Slade spoke quietly. “I think the police would have got around to you pretty soon, Hugh. But they were willing to believe you were hated enough for someone to have made a mistake—and have smeared Vaupaugh instead. I wasn’t so willing to believe that.”
Fresney said steadily: “All right, Tim. You’ve made your speech. About the gun—I took on a new reporter three days ago. Jap here recommended him. He was at the bottom of the stairs, with his coat spread like a blanket. I tossed him the gun, then did the dive. It hurt like the devil. The reporter went through the pressroom and out the truck entrance. He had the gun with him. The rest was the way you’ve told us.”
Jap Dyke looked at Fresney, and Fresney nodded. Dyke called loudly and thinly:
“Terry!”
Slade shook his head. “No good,” he said. “The police have been over here since I started across the first time. They let me work it my way. Terry and the rest are downstairs—they’ve been talking and laughing once in a while. But the police guns are making them act that way. Your bunch weren’t so strong for you taking up with Fresney, anyway, Jap. They’re being good and saving their necks.”
Jap Dyke let his body roll to one side and jerked at a pocket. Slade swung his body a little and squeezed on the Luger. Dyke moaned, went to his knees and fell forward. Hugh Fresney shoved over the table and leaped for Slade.
There were pounding footfalls on the wooden stairs as Slade jerked his body to one side. Fresney’s arms were swinging; a fist struck Slade and knocked him off balance, to one side. Fresney swung and pounded at him again. Slade said hoarsely:
“Stop—it—I’ve got—a gun—”
Fresney wasn’t armed, and he hated to shoot. The city edi
tor had fingers on his right wrist now. They swayed backward, their bodies close. Fresney twisted the gun so the muzzle slanted towards his face—then jerked Slade’s wrist. His finger slipped with the sharpness of the jerk—the gun crashed.
Fresney’s body sagged, and he slipped slowly to the floor. O’Hafey came into the room, followed by two plain-clothesmen. They had drawn guns in their hands. Fresney was half propped against a wall. Slade said:
“He did it—and dropped the gun to one of Jap’s men he’d taken on as a reporter.”
One of the plain-clothesmen crossed the room and bent over Dyke. He straightened and said:
“He’s dead.”
O’Hafey stared down at the city editor, and Slade said:
“He twisted my gun—and jerked my wrist. It was his way of—”
Fresney’s eyes were staring, his lips were colorless. He tried to smile.
“The kid’s—good—O’Hafey,” he said very slowly and weakly. “And I—broke him in—taught him to use his eyes—”
His eyes closed, then opened again. He said with an effort, in a hoarse whisper:
“Inside—job—but it didn’t—work—”
His head fell forward, and his eyes stayed open. O’Hafey bent down and after a few seconds said:
“Well—that’s all for him.”
Tim Slade shook his head slowly. “He was a good, tough city editor,” he said slowly. “But he got greedy.”
O’Hafey nodded. “That’s the way with a lot of good tough guys,” he philosophized. “And after they get too greedy—they get dead.”
* * *
—
Tim Slade had dinner with Dana Jones. He needed someone to cut up the meat for him. He had a pretty bad left hand. It was a quiet dinner, but they got along nicely together. She’d never been to Cleveland, and they finally got around to wondering if she’d like it there. They were both fairly sure that she would.
The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
THE STORY
Original Publication: Collier’s Weekly Magazine, April 30, 1904 (it was later published in England in the May 1904 issue of The Strand Magazine); first collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes (New York, McClure, Phillips, 1905, and the following month in London by George Newnes)
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859–1930) had determined that the extraordinary success of his Sherlock Holmes stories was ruining his opportunities to produce his far more significant work, the historical novels, such as The White Company (1891), The Refugees (1893), and Rodney Stone (1896), so he wrote of Holmes’s death in a struggle with his nemesis, the evil Professor Moriarty, at the edge of the Reichenbach Falls in “The Final Problem” (December 1893).
The public uproar (one distraught woman wrote to Doyle as “You Beast”) was so intense that he wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles (serialized in 1901–1902) as a case that occurred before his death. Doyle finally was persuaded to write more stories when Collier’s offered the then-staggering sum of $25,000 for six stories, $30,000 for eight, or $45,000 for thirteen. Although he was concerned about the quality of the stories, Doyle completed all thirteen, collecting them in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, which includes some of the most creative and memorable of his output.
In “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons,” Lestrade brings a seemingly trivial but nonetheless perplexing problem to Holmes, who is intrigued by its bizarre nature. An apparent lunatic is traveling all over London, burgling homes and shops, to steal plaster busts of Napoleon—then smashing them.
The British public still feared and hated Napoleon, even eight decades after his death, and Lestrade believes that a Napoleon-hater is responsible for the havoc. It is a nice red herring but nothing more and Holmes deduces the true reason for the vandalism.
THE FILM
Title: The Pearl of Death, 1944
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Roy William Neill
Screenwriter: Bertram Millhauser
Producer: Roy William Neill
THE CAST
• Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes)
• Nigel Bruce (Doctor John H. Watson)
• Dennis Hoey (Lestrade)
• Evelyn Ankers (Naomi Drake)
While The Pearl of Death has much to recommend it, its adherence to the short story is not among those virtues. A pearl with a sinister reputation is at the center of a serial killer plot featuring the rather grotesque Rondo Hatton as the Creeper, who murders his victims by breaking their backs.
Many of the Rathbone/Sherlock Holmes films, made during the World War II era, were fashioned as propaganda vehicles, but The Pearl of Death is closer than most of the others to Doyle’s traditional tales of the observation and deduction that Holmes employs to solve mysteries.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIX NAPOLEONS
Arthur Conan Doyle
IT WAS NO VERY UNUSUAL THING for Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, to look in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to Sherlock Holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all that was going on at the police headquarters. In return for the news which Lestrade would bring, Holmes was always ready to listen with attention to the details of any case upon which the detective was engaged, and was able occasionally, without any active interference, to give some hint or suggestion drawn from his own vast knowledge and experience.
On this particular evening Lestrade had spoken of the weather and the newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his cigar. Holmes looked keenly at him.
“Anything remarkable on hand?” he asked.
“Oh, no, Mr. Holmes, nothing very particular.”
“Then tell me all about it.”
Lestrade laughed.
“Well, Mr. Holmes, there is no use denying that there is something on my mind. And yet it is such an absurd business that I hesitated to bother you about it. On the other hand, although it is trivial, it is undoubtedly queer, and I know that you have a taste for all that is out of the common. But in my opinion it comes more in Dr. Watson’s line than ours.”
“Disease?” said I.
“Madness, anyhow. And a queer madness too! You wouldn’t think there was anyone living at this time of day who had such a hatred of Napoleon the First that he would break any image of him that he could see.”
Holmes sank back in his chair.
“That’s no business of mine,” said he.
“Exactly. That’s what I said. But then, when the man commits burglary in order to break images which are not his own, that brings it away from the doctor and on to the policeman.”
Holmes sat up again.
“Burglary! This is more interesting. Let me hear the details.”
Lestrade took out his official notebook and refreshed his memory from its pages.
“The first case reported was four days ago,” said he. “It was at the shop of Morse Hudson, who has a place for the sale of pictures and statues in the Kennington Road. The assistant had left the front shop for an instant, when he heard a crash, and, hurrying in, found a plaster bust of Napoleon, which stood with several other works of art upon the counter, lying shivered into fragments. He rushed out into the road, but, although several passers-by declared that they had noticed a man run out of the shop, he could neither see anyone nor could he find any means of identifying the rascal. It seemed to be one of those senseless acts of hooliganism which occur from time to time, and it was reported to the constable on the beat as such. The plaster cast was not worth more than a few shillings, and the whole affair appeared to be too childish for any particular investigation.
“The second case, however, was more serious and also more singular. It occurred only last night.
“In Kennington Road, and within a few hundred yards of Morse Hudson’s shop, ther
e lives a well-known medical practitioner, named Dr. Barnicot, who has one of the largest practices upon the south side of the Thames. His residence and principal consulting-room is at Kennington Road, but he has a branch surgery and dispensary at Lower Brixton Road, two miles away. This Dr. Barnicot is an enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, and his house is full of books, pictures, and relics of the French Emperor. Some little time ago he purchased from Morse Hudson two duplicate plaster casts of the famous head of Napoleon by the French sculptor Devine. One of these he placed in his hall in the house at Kennington Road, and the other on the mantelpiece of the surgery at Lower Brixton. Well, when Dr. Barnicot came down this morning he was astonished to find that his house had been burgled during the night, but that nothing had been taken save the plaster head from the hall. It had been carried out, and had been dashed savagely against the garden wall, under which its splintered fragments were discovered.”
Holmes rubbed his hands.
“This is certainly very novel,” said he.
“I thought it would please you. But I have not got to the end yet. Dr. Barnicot was due at his surgery at twelve o’clock, and you can imagine his amazement when, on arriving there, he found that the window had been opened in the night, and that the broken pieces of his second bust were strewn all over the room. It had been smashed to atoms where it stood. In neither case were there any signs which could give us a clue as to the criminal or lunatic who had done the mischief. Now, Mr. Holmes, you have got the facts.”
“They are singular, not to say grotesque,” said Holmes. “May I ask whether the two busts smashed in Dr. Barnicot’s rooms were the exact duplicates of the one which was destroyed in Morse Hudson’s shop?”
“They were taken from the same mould.”
“Such a fact must tell against the theory that the man who breaks them is influenced by any general hatred of Napoleon. Considering how many hundreds of statues of the great Emperor must exist in London, it is too much to suppose such a coincidence as that a promiscuous iconoclast should chance to begin upon three specimens of the same bust.”
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 222
