“The solution is actually extremely straightforward, sir,” I began. “By observing the available evidence there can only be one culprit. I also believe that you are already quite aware of the identity of this thief, but I will come back to this point later.” I tried to sound as authoritative as I could, and if I could also take some of the wind from his sails, then all the better.
“Your man of many talents, Banta, is wearing a dark brown leather belt. He is currently using the very last notch, a hole that has clearly been punched through long after the article itself was made. The other holes are uniformly sized and spaced, and all are lozenge-shaped. The last one is rough and more circular, the result of some quick work with a bradawl. It is also a good half inch further along the belt than the other holes, the result of a swiftly expanding waistline. The notch with the most wear from the buckle is actually the one two holes back, which shows just how quickly the owner has gained in girth. Only a major change in diet could cause such a weight gain. A large and sudden intake of rich cheese would be a definite suspect.”
I waited for a moment to let this sink in, but then deliberately continued just before Sir Christopher could react. “This brings me back to my former observation. When a man quickly puts on weight, the fat accumulates mainly in two places - the stomach, as we have seen, and the face. While it is unlikely that you share Sherlock Holmes’ ability to notice a weight gain of less than half a pound, I am very confident that anyone with functioning vision would notice if their close associate had gained at least two stones in weight. So, enough with this nonsense and tell me what you know regarding this case.” I finished by rather theatrically draining my glass and placing it firmly back upon the side table.
The change in Sir Christopher was as surprising as it was immediate. His face relaxed, the colour seemed to drain from his cheeks and his almost permanently manic grin was replaced by a troubled frown. I almost believed, just for a second, that the bright colours surrounding me suddenly all faded at that exact moment. In front of me, aside from his unusual clothes, now stood a sober and serious looking man, the very image of a retired civil servant.
“Doctor Watson, I must apologise most sincerely for my behaviour up to this point. I cannot, at this time, fully explain the reasons behind them, but suffice it to say that there are other forces at work here in London that require me to be extremely wary of strangers. I have deliberately created this image of benign eccentricity and incompetence to keep away prying eyes and ears.” He poured another drink for each of us and handed a glass to me, his eyes appearing to have now transformed into steel-blue sharpness.
“Doctor,” he continued. “I am actually well aware of the work of Sherlock Holmes. The next time you call here, or indeed elsewhere, you might do better to mention his name or indeed your own, rather than that of the official police,” he managed a weak smile. “If you had done so, I would have been far less suspicious. Does he ever really introduce himself as an agent of the police?”
“No, actually, he does not,” I confirmed, my cheeks beginning to redden with deep embarrassment. It was dawning on me that I was actually dealing with a man whose intelligence was on a level far closer to Holmes’ than to my own.
Sir Christopher seemed to sense my shame and quickly spoke.
“Doctor, please, we are all inferior intellectually when in the presence of the Holmes’s. I have read your accounts and I have been singularly impressed with your own contributions to the cases, despite your constant literary self-deprecation.”
I wondered, briefly, as to why he had mentioned ‘Holmes’ in the plural? I was sure that it was not a mistake, but Sir Christopher continued with hardly a pause, giving me little time to dwell on the matter.
“I was ambassador of Borundia from 1860 until 1880, for my sins. You see, I had previously held a similar position in Sweden, a great honour indeed. A major indiscretion with a minor prince led to my downfall and subsequent relegation to Borundia as a punishment, or at least so they thought.” He smiled, without guilt, throughout this admission.
“I felt particularly aggrieved, as I have always acted first and foremost as an agent and informant for England, using my influence, position and even my proclivities only in the interests of my Queen and my country. Despite my fall from grace, I still had some supporters back here in England who aided me throughout my time away. When I returned, I was swiftly re-employed in a role that more suited my abilities, but my public disgrace was never lifted as it continues, sadly, to provide the greatest cover one could ever wish for.”
“A man of my, leanings, is always somewhat of a target and a liability. I could be bitter over my treatment, but I choose to continue to serve my country because I believed it was the right thing to do then and I still believe that it is, even now.” His face was proud, defiant. “I am also a man of some means, Doctor, I have never needed to take up the salary to which I have been entitled to at any of my appointments.”
“But, yet again, I digress. Let me continue. Of course, I felt pretty dreadful about my new posting at first, but I soon discovered that Borundia was a wonderful place in which to live and work.”
He paused to refill his glass - I politely declined, but took out my notebook and pencil as I hoped he might, finally, be close to imparting something relevant to the case.
“The country is poor, of course, but there is no starvation and little disease,” he explained. “The river creates a fertile valley with plenty of good land for farming, we were actually exporting food by the time I left. The biggest irony is that despite the name of the capital, and indeed the major river, no silver has ever been found anywhere in the country. The local saying is that there is ‘less silver here than in a pauper’s cutlery drawer’. It is all a myth built upon the observations of some of the first European visitors. Upon navigating the river upstream they observed that the ‘sunlight shimmered upon the surface of the water like liquid silver.’ And from such a story, a thousand fruitless treasure hunts were launched.”
“Every year, a handful of prospectors would arrive. Despite the warnings of both officials and locals alike, they would head off into the wilderness clutching worthless title deeds sold to them by unscrupulous dealers back in Paris or London. Some returned exhausted after a few weeks but most were never seen again.”
“Those that survived to return attempted to find employment to pay for their passage home. This was always difficult as the only work available was manual and the pay barely enough to feed and house them. The French ones sometimes found work with the military, which gave them a chance of an eventual return home. We did what we could for the British, but we had few resources and no money to speak of.”
“But Borundia is a small, tight-knit country, Argentville even more so. Half of the population knows each other personally, and all of the Europeans know each other intimately. I arrived in 1860, full of trepidation and ignorance but, within a few weeks, I had come to realise that I was living amongst the most friendly, peaceful and generous people I have ever encountered. I soon found that my hitherto essential talents for duplicity and covert activities were now worthless here. People meant what they said and did what they promised, without exception. Life was difficult but simple, if you worked hard, you could enjoy a basic, but fulfilling, existence. I settled down and slowly forgot all about London and its eternal political machinations.”
“I was soon on first name terms with most of the British community in Argentville, but was only on passing terms with Harrison and Shiner. Having arrived some ten years previously, they had bucked the trend and managed to scrape a living up in the mountains, returning every few months with a bag or two of semi-precious stones. They were conspicuously guarded about the location of their camp and never allowed anyone to travel back with them.”
“This all changed after a few years. They had saved enough to buy a small house and, more importantly, a relatively modern fish
ing boat. This enabled them to finally earn a decent income, by local standards, and were soon employing several locals to keep up with demand. Within six months, they had moved to separate lodgings, mainly because Shiner had become engaged to a local girl, Sarah Hardcastle. She had lived her whole life in Borundia and remained even after the deaths of both of her parents. She had a small inheritance and lived simply, teaching at the local school. Remember, I was still fairly new to the country at this point and most of this information came to me from other sources, much of which I learned well after the actual events.”
“Now we enter a slightly murky period. The known facts are few and what follows is all I know for certain. Shiner and Hardcastle were married in September 1852. Just over a year later, in December 1853, the new Mrs Shiner was dead, lost in an accident whilst out walking along the coast. Harrison left Borundia for good, three months later. Shiner stayed but he was now a broken man, a hard drinker and an occasional troublemaker. His business remained successful, run now by a hard-working group of local men, so he still had a regular income, although most was lost either on drink or the paying of fines for his various misdemeanours.”
“Over the years, less and less was seen of Shiner until he finally sold his business and villa and moved into an old farmhouse in the interior where he remained, living mostly alone for the remainder of my appointment and beyond. That is the absolute limit of my knowledge on the subject.” Sir Christopher let out a little sigh and sat back, relaxing as if a weight had been lifted from him.
“Thank you, Sir Christopher, for such a detailed and candid account. I must be honest with you and admit that I will have to think for a while about the possible implications of what you have shared with me. I see one obvious possibility, but it seems to ask as many questions as it answers, and then there is, of course, the long period of time between these events and the present. I think I should return to Baker Street and try to get a message to Holmes.”
I looked down at my record of the meeting and saw that I had covered maybe half a dozen pages in hastily scrawled notes.
“Doctor Watson, it has been a genuine pleasure to meet you. I hope that by opening myself up and laying the intimate details of my life before you that I have gone at least some way to make up for my initial misrepresentation, rudeness and obstruction. I sincerely hope that we meet again, in fact it may already be fated,” he finished, enigmatically.
“Thank you, Sir Christopher, I am certain that the information you have provided will be of great use to our investigations. And on a personal note, I honestly believe that you have served your country with selflessness and great dignity.”
I shook his hand warmly and left the singular residence to find that he had kindly, and somehow without any obvious communication with his servants, arranged for a Hansom to be waiting right outside. I smiled as I climbed aboard, Sir Christopher was clearly a man of many talents and one that I sincerely hoped to meet again.
Chapter Nine - Setting Course
I reached Baker Street just after half past two, ran up the stairs and burst into the sitting room. I was surprised to see Holmes sitting in his chair, smoking an unfamiliar looking briar.
“Watson, you look flustered,” he stated. “Please sit, relax, take a brandy. Fill your pipe and tell me all that you have learned. I see that your visit to Sir Christopher has yielded much that is new to you, please recount all, spare no detail.”
I spent the next half hour going through everything that had happened since I received the telegram from Gregson. At certain points, I swear that I could see Holmes nodding in agreement or raising an eyebrow, most notably when I mentioned Sir Christopher’s unexpected use of the plural of ‘Holmes’.
Once I had finished, I looked expectantly at Holmes for his response. He put down his pipe, arched his fingers and his eyes glazed over as he entered a state of deep thought. After a minute or so, he responded.
“Watson, you have done remarkably well. You might have learned more, but you failed to press for the gossip and conjecture surrounding Mrs Shiner’s unfortunate demise, as there would surely have been at the time.”
I sighed, resignedly at the compliment swiftly snatched away.
“But, Sir Christopher has, without a doubt, supplied us with the motive for this crime,” Holmes continued. “The murder itself was simple revenge, Watson. What is less simple is that which remains to be determined, what made Shiner believe that Harrison was responsible for his wife’s death, why it took so long to take his revenge, what suddenly prompted him into committing the crime and how was it carried out?”
“These are all questions that I rather thought were better left to you, Holmes,” I replied. “And anyway, where have you been all morning?” I asked, somewhat churlishly.
“I have paid a visit to Harrison’s solicitor, a Mr Caerwyn Williams, we saw him briefly at Bedhurst Hall. I was never entirely satisfied with Mr Williams’ behaviour. He was evasive and appeared overly keen to leave Bedhurst as soon as possible, somewhat unusual behaviour from someone who had serious and continuing obligations regarding Harrison’s estate. He also held the only copy of Harrison’s will, something that seemed to genuinely surprise even Fauwkes.”
“And what have you learned?” I asked, tapping out ash and refilling my bowl.
“That solicitors are intransigent to the point of deliberate equivocation, even when threatened with obstruction of justice. Even a telegram, sent by our old friend Lestrade directly from Scotland Yard, failed to elicit any information which he had not already divulged.”
I could sense Holmes’ obvious frustration and inwardly resigned myself to a long, painful afternoon in the bad company of an irate Holmes. However, as he relit his briar in a cloud of questionable aromas his mood seemed to brighten.
“As I was making no headway, I decided to return at a later date, preferably with the backing of the authorities, and transferred my energies to the more urgent matter at hand, that of the apprehension of Thomas Shiner. I met up with Gregson at Scotland Yard to see if the regular police had made any progress in tracking him down.”
“Gregson had not been idle and had wired every major port to be on the lookout for Shiner, hoping that he had indeed reverted to using his real name. There had been a couple of promising looking leads but they were soon discounted and it was certainly looking pretty bleak for a while. But, sometimes, simple hard work is more effective than deductive reasoning.”
“In a short period of time, we had assembled an enormous amount of data regarding the schedules of ships bound for West Africa from all British ports. We had now also added those from the major European ports. This was the point at which I realised that we were approaching the problem from completely the wrong way. It was an error which may have already cost us our quarry, although Gregson still holds out hope that if Shiner does reappear in Borundia, the French authorities may agree to his extradition. I am more doubtful, as without a confession we would be hard pressed to convince a judge here, or more importantly in France, that we have enough evidence to be reasonably confident of getting a conviction. Remember, Watson, we still have no proof that Shiner is guilty, we cannot even say how he committed the murder.”
“But what of the testimony of Sir Christopher?” I interjected.
“Hearsay, conjecture and gossip,” Holmes waved a hand, dismissively. “That is how it would be labelled in court. No, if we do not get him before he leaves the country, then I truly believe we shall have lost him for good.”
“But wait a minute, Holmes, what error is this that you refer to? I can see nothing that we could have done any differently.”
“The most efficient way to locate Shiner is not to start from his last known location.” Holmes ignored my look of dissension and continued. “No, we should have begun at his expected destination and worked backwards. Once I had realised this, I swiftly determined that there were only six sh
ips leaving English or European ports headed for West Africa in the next two days. We are watching all of the local ports closely but simply do not have the resources to stop and examine every vessel heading across the channel. There are four ships planning to leave from the continent, one from the Low Countries, one from the south of Spain and two from Marseilles.”
“I think you are onto something here, old chap. The Low Countries are the closest to England, which would allow him to attain some level of safety as soon as possible. Conversely, southern Spain would mean a shorter sea voyage. Marseille is a large port and easily reached within forty-eight hours. When do the ships leave?”
“Very good, Watson. Valencia is scheduled to leave in about,” he checked his watch, “fifteen hours, so we can certainly count it out. That leaves us with Marseilles, the first ship leaving from there has a similar issue, but the second is a definite possibility and, finally, the Dutch port of Flushing.”
“And when is that ship planning to leave port?” I asked, excitedly. “And why on earth are we sitting here smoking when we could be on Shiner’s trail?”
“Eight o’clock tomorrow evening, after the stand of the tide. The second boat from Marseilles will leave about an hour later. The reason we are still here is that we have yet to determine which route he will be taking.”
“That is as maybe, but would we not be better off being rather closer to one of these two possibilities, across the channel, at least?”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Watson, and I have, of course, booked us passage upon a fast steamer to Calais at seven this evening. But we still have some time before we need to depart and new information could arrive at any time.”
I left for my room, packed a small bag for the journey and returned to the sitting room to see Holmes grinning broadly, brandishing a fresh telegram.
Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Pigtail Twist Page 14
