The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--The Instrument of Death

by David Stuart Davies

  The sound of the door closing alerted the old man to the presence of a visitor. With infinitesimal speed, he turned his head and gazed in Caligari’s direction, but all he saw was a shifting grey shadow.

  “Who is it?” he asked, the voice a mere jarring whisper.

  “It is I, Gustav,” came the reply.

  The thin cracked lips trembled into a feeble smile. “You have come to bid me bon voyage on my greatest journey, have you?”

  Caligari nodded at first, realising after some moments that a silent response was of no use to a man whose senses were rapidly failing. “Yes,” he said at length.

  “Are you not jealous, my boy? I am about to discover first hand all the mysteries of death we have read about in those dusty old grimoires and arcane tracts, and to which we could in reality approach no nearer than educated surmise.” He paused briefly to draw breath, a process which sounded like the thin wail of a pair of ancient bellows. “As I have intimated on many occasions,” he continued, his voice now weaker than ever, “true education is experience. We can learn the pathways from books and have clearer notions of hidden truths through experiments, but to really know, one must be part of it. Now, by dying, I shall be part of it. I embrace the darkness.” He gave a dry-throated chuckle and then lay still.

  At first Caligari thought he had died, but then he observed the gentle rise and fall of Bruner’s chest beneath the bedclothes. Some renegade spirit within the old man still refused to let go the feeble threads of life. With a sudden instinctive motion, Gustav leaned forward, placed his hand over the old man’s mouth and pressed down. The pinprick eyes flashed in terror and the desiccated carcass stirred in the bed, the arms fluttering like the wings of a dying butterfly. Caligari held fast until the final drops of life were drained out of Hans Bruner’s body.

  Some little time later, Gustav Caligari emerged into the street. The clouds had parted and the moon shone down brightly. Caligari gazed up at the amber sphere and smiled. It was as though the bright rays were an indication of heavenly approbation. He smiled broadly. It was surely a sign.

  Within half an hour he was sitting in a tavern with a glass of burgundy. He raised it to his lips and smiled again before imbibing the warm red liquid. He was celebrating. Today, I have stepped over the threshold, he thought. And it felt good. He followed Bruner’s precept that to know something fully, to experience the reality, one must be part of it. He raised his glass to toast himself and his achievement. Today, he told himself with unrestrained enthusiasm, I have been part of it: I have taken a life. I have committed my first murder.

  * * *

  For some considerable time Gustav Caligari repressed his dark desires and murderous inclinations, concentrating instead on his medical studies. He knew that he must master all the principles of medicine and attain a comfortable living as a specialist before he could indulge in his real passion. In a strangely masochistic fashion, he enjoyed denying himself the pleasure of following his homicidal desires. He felt it made him a stronger and more powerful individual. Nevertheless, he continued his researches in hypnotism and methods of mind control, keeping these activities from the learned professors at the medical school.

  The same year Caligari completed his studies, his father died, and Gustav inherited a considerable sum of money, which allowed him to set up a medical practice in Prague. He was now a master in the art of dissembling, subjugating his innate desires in order to develop a veneer of charm, ensuring his success as a doctor. Yet he soon grew bored and knew the time was right to kill again. He was hungry for it.

  He had been planning to kill for some time, as he considered the prospect of stalking the enveloping blackness of the nighttime streets of the theatrical district after hours and taking the life of some random young woman who should know better than to be out alone. An opportunity presented itself closer to home, however, when one such woman stepped, or rather staggered in a shiver of ostrich feathers and fur, into his consulting rooms. Her heavy make-up did not disguise the veins around her nose and cheeks, and the jaundiced eyes bespoke the toll of being a heavy drinker. Her breathing was ragged and within seconds he had guessed that she was suffering from heart failure. She grasped the arm of the chair and sat down with relief.

  “It’s my chest,” she said plaintively. “Haven’t been able to get my breath for a couple of weeks. If I don’t sing, I starve. I’m an artiste and I need to perform.” There was a desperate look in her eyes.

  “My dear lady,” he said, summoning his most unctuous charm, “and so you shall.” For me, he thought. After a swift examination to confirm his diagnosis, he prescribed pills. Knowing they would hasten her end rather than postpone the inevitable, he handed her an unmarked plain bottle from his own shelves, thus ensuring that there was no risk of any connection with the pharmacy. On dismissing her, he took her name and address and promised to call on her the next day at home.

  Late the following afternoon, under the cloak of dusk, Caligari arrived at a run-down apartment block in the east of the city. He had dismissed his cab two streets away and walked the rest of the distance, swinging his cane, his hat pulled down over his eyes, and carrying his medical bag as insurance against being seen in such an area. Taking the stairs to the second floor, he tapped on the scuffed door of Number 3A. There was no response but the door was unlocked. From the light of a single candle he saw a head thrown back and, as he moved forward, the meagre firelight revealed an assortment of shawls thrown on the floor around the figure of his victim as she lay motionless on a heavily cushioned sofa. Was he too late? Had he missed it? At his step she lowered her head, lungs rasping painfully as she shifted position. He noted the hectic spots on her cheeks and the exposed pale flesh elsewhere, glistening damply in the firelight. He smiled. The pills had done their work efficiently – it was clear that her blood pressure was dramatically raised. She was close to the end. All that was needed was a sudden shock and the woman would leave this earth while he watched. He knelt beside her and felt her pulse. Racing and erratic. Perfect. She stirred as he took her wrist and gave him a weak smile as she recognised him as the doctor.

  “Will I sing again?” she croaked, tears forming in her eyes.

  “Oh, yes, my dear,” he said, moving closer, running his hand across her rapidly rising and falling chest and pressing his powerful fingers to her throat. “Loudly. And for my ears only.”

  Confusion clouded her face as she stared into his eyes, glittering in the firelight. She screamed once before he pressed down with a tapestried cushion in his other hand, viewing the terror and then the light fading from her eyes as he transported her from this world to the next. It was satisfying beyond measure.

  He was admiring his work and wiping his hands when the door flew open and a young woman stepped inside, taking in the picture of the tall stranger and the medical bag on the table. “I heard a noise. I was worried. Is she – oh!” She gasped as she saw the staring eyes, the limp white arm hanging over the sofa. Something about the man in the room unnerved her.

  Caligari took a deep breath and edged towards the door. “I am a medical man but I am afraid I could do nothing. A sudden attack…”

  “Oh, poor dear,” she said. She had been fond of the older woman and gulped back tears. “But what kind of attack? I heard her scream. I thought it was her heart?”

  “In the last moments, fear can overtake us all, young lady,” he said smoothly, staring at her.

  She eyed him with scepticism and he sensed it. Weighing up the situation swiftly, he decided against silencing her. She looked strong and would struggle, possibly alerting other residents. He headed for the door. “I have other patients,” he said.

  “But aren’t you going to make her decent?” she said, gesturing towards the still-open eyes of her friend. “And shouldn’t there be a certificate or something? Call yourself a doctor…”

  “It will follow,” he said, as he escaped the confines of the suddenly oppressive room and broke into the cool air outside. Walking swift
ly to the main thoroughfare he hailed a cab, and within half an hour was at home.

  Only then did he discover that he had left his medical bag behind on the table of his victim’s apartment. The incriminating bottle of pills would still be somewhere in the room; not labelled, but the contents nevertheless potentially damning. Cursing his own stupidity, he debated returning to collect them. He could easily explain away his presence as the woman’s physician but somehow he feared the young neighbour’s perception of him. He debated the risks for some time but decided that he had no choice. The bag and its contents bore his name, and the longer he left it there unclaimed the odder it would appear.

  Within two hours he was back at the apartment. An undertaker’s carriage was stationed outside. Clenching his fists, Caligari entered the building. The door was ajar and two undertakers were attending to the body.

  “Sir?” said the short, bewhiskered gentleman.

  “I am Miss Stein’s doctor. I left my medical bag here earlier this evening and only realised when I reached my next patient. Perhaps her neighbour explained? May I?”

  The other man, tall and thin, nodded. “Ah, yes. Said she had some sort of attack while you were there. Have you a certificate? Need to have everything in order.”

  “It’s in my bag,” Caligari said carefully, moving to the table and scanning the room for a pill bottle anywhere in sight. His grip closed on the handle of his medical bag. Perhaps he could distract them while he searched for the bottle?

  “There’ll be a post mortem, I expect,” said the thin man. “Sudden death and all. The doctor who lives round the corner was called. He couldn’t tell what happened. Said she had some marks, like, on her face. Doesn’t look right, see?”

  Caligari made his decision. The pill bottle was nowhere to be seen. He needed a couple of minutes to search the room. “You might want to check on your carriage before you finish here. There was a young man loitering around it when I arrived – very suspicious-looking. It would be safest if you both go – he may become violent if you challenge him.”

  The two men stood reluctantly, unwilling to leave their task but conscious of the possibility of their livelihood being damaged or stolen. They headed towards the door, just as the young neighbour entered with a police constable. She failed to see Caligari at first, the undertakers masking her view of the room. He slipped behind the door, but she spotted him easily.

  “That’s him!” she said to the constable. “He went off real quick, like, without seeing to her properly. He’s no doctor.” She stared at Caligari; seeing the hatred in his eyes and remembering the scream, she declared, “He must have killed her!”

  The constable reached out to block Caligari’s exit but he swung past and bolted down the stairs. Without thinking, he leaped into the driver’s seat of the undertaker’s carriage and whipped up the horses, putting some distance between himself and the accursed apartment. He slowed as he hit a main street, ditched the carriage and then took a cab home, trembling with rage. As he rode, he assessed the situation. He had done badly, acting out of voyeuristic greed and opportunism. He had omitted to plan thoroughly. The pills, no doubt, would be found and analysed. The bottle would contain no material evidence to link him to the crime, but several people would be able to provide a description of his striking appearance, and his own guilty behaviour as much as condemned him to the noose.

  Gustav Caligari had to do two things. First, he had to leave Prague within the next twenty-four hours to avoid capture. Fortunately, he had long ago prepared for such an eventuality. A criminal mind always takes precautions. And the second thing made him smile. He would bide his time and on the next occasion he would put a distance between himself and the killings. He would acquire an instrument of death.

  * * *

  Having decided that a complete change of environment was necessary for this next stage of his career, Caligari travelled through Europe and made arrangements to move to London. It was in this dense sprawling city that he would find his victims.

  Chapter Three

  From the journal of Dr. John H. Watson

  In the spring of 1896, I had been feeling out of sorts. My old war wound had been troubling me and so I decided to take a brief holiday away from the grime of London to revive my spirits. After spending four glorious days in the tranquil Surrey countryside, fishing and walking and breathing in the good clean air, I had felt both revitalised and renewed – until, that is, I stepped from the train at Euston Station. The great shifting crowds, the noise of people and machinery, the thunderous cacophony of the place began to overwhelm me after my solitary pastoral holiday; then, on emerging into the gloom of the evening, the thick foggy air of the metropolis seemed to dispel all the freshness from my body. By the time I had battled my way through the throng and eventually secured a cab, I had already begun to feel tired and worn out.

  It was not until that moment that I realised how draining city life was. The pace of existence and the close contact with the mass of humanity certainly places pressures on an individual which, it seemed to me, are not present in the blessed countryside. On reaching Baker Street, as I climbed wearily up the stairs to the rooms I shared with Sherlock Holmes, I was conscious that the spring in my step had completely faded away.

  I entered our sitting room to find Holmes in his usual chair by the fireside. He turned to me with a bright smile.

  “Excellent timing, my dear Watson,” he cried enthusiastically. “You come at a crucial moment. What do you make of this?”

  Holmes held an object out to me for inspection. It was as though I had slipped out of the room for one brief moment rather than being absent from Baker Street for four days. My friend seemed to have made no note of my holiday. I knew that he certainly would not enquire whether I had had a pleasant time. That was the nature of the concentrated focus of Sherlock Holmes’s mind. Such incidentals as a friend’s absence held no interest for him.

  “Give me a moment,” I replied brusquely, dropping my suitcase on the floor with a bang. “If you’ll allow me to remove my hat and coat before you interrogate me.”

  “You know how your observations often help me to illuminate the truth.”

  “Do they?” I replied, my ill humour still prevailing. At length, somewhat sullenly, I took the object that Holmes was holding out for me: it was a man’s brown leather glove.

  I turned it over in my hands. “What should I make of it? Is it a clue?”

  My friend gave me one of his mischievous grins. “That is for you to decide. Examine it and tell me what conclusions you reach.”

  “A test,” I said sharply.

  “Hardly that. Indulge me, eh?”

  “Very well,” I said. I studied the glove for a couple of minutes, but to my disappointment could discover nothing of note from my examination. I passed it back to my friend with a shrug. “Well, to my eyes there is very little to be gleaned from it. It is a gentleman’s glove of fine lamb’s leather, so the owner is likely to be comfortably off in order to be in the possession of such an item. It is quite new and of medium size, suggesting that the fellow is of average build. That, I am afraid, is as much as I am able to deduce from it. No doubt you are now going to list a wide range of details that I have missed.”

  Holmes chuckled. “Tut, tut, don’t be petulant, my dear fellow. Not a wide range, I assure you. And indeed your inferences, limited though they may be, are correct. However, I am disappointed that you did not turn the glove inside out for further inspection. The interior of this item is in fact more informative than the exterior.” With a deft motion, he exposed the inside of the glove. “Here, for example. Down this side seam you will see some small hieroglyphics.” He held it towards me and I observed in small print the legend “S&W R 357”.

  “What on earth does that mean?” I asked.

  “Well, Watson, you were quite right to assume that this is an expensive item to be found only in the possession of a wealthy individual. As such it would have been made by a bespoke glover to the
exact measurements of its owner’s hand, and these measurements would be kept on record. Now there are only three such establishments in London serving the gentry, one of which is Sawyer and Walters on the Strand. That would explain the ‘S & W’. The ‘R’ would indicate the right hand.”

  “And the 357?”

  “That will be the customer’s individual reference number. As I intimated, the dimensions would be kept on file and used for future purchases.”

  “So you can easily trace the owner of this glove by calling on Sawyer and Walters.”

  “Indeed.”

  “What is the significance of the glove? Is it connected with some crime?”

  “It is indeed. As you have been out of town, you may not have heard of the theft of Sir Jeffrey Damury’s ruby.”

  I shook my head. I had known nothing but fresh air and rippling waters for the last few days.

  “Are you engaged in the case?” I asked.

  Holmes nodded. “Indirectly, through the offices of friend Lestrade. Once again he fears that the affair requires a sharper brain than his to disentangle the matter – not that he would admit it outright.”

  I threw myself down in the chair opposite my friend. “Do put me in the picture. Tell me all about it.”

  “With pleasure,” said Holmes, rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm. “Recounting the details of a case often helps give one a fresh perspective on the matter.” He took a few moments to light his pipe before beginning his recital. “At first glance the case seems a simple one, mundane even, but there are complications which raise it above the commonplace. Sir Jeffrey Damury is in the possession of a remarkable ruby… That is to say, he was in possession of it, until it was stolen. The ruby was presented to his father, Sir Basil Damury, by the Caliph of Ranjapur for his services in the region following the Mutiny. It fell into Sir Jeffrey’s hands on the death of his father. As in the way of these things, the stone was stored in a safe and rarely seen in public.”