The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes

by Leonard Goldberg

  “High-pitched, you say?”

  Mrs. Lambert nodded. “That was his usual tone, which I easily recognized.”

  “Was his voice strong?”

  “It sounded like that of a sick man.”

  “Did you actually see the frail condition Mr. Harrelston was in?” Joanna asked.

  Mrs. Lambert nodded again. “The poor man was lying on the couch. I could clearly see his feet sticking out, for Mr. Harrelston was quite tall, as I’m certain you know.”

  “So you saw only his feet,” Joanna said.

  “And heard his voice as well,” Mrs. Lambert said. “No doubt it was him.”

  “So it would appear,” Joanna said agreeably, then thought for a moment before asking, “Are you certain no one else was in the house at the time?”

  “No one, for Mr. Morris had taken his lunch leave and the front door was locked.”

  “Is there not a tradesman’s entrance?”

  “There is at the rear of the house, but it too stays locked at all times and only Dr. Moran and I have keys to it.”

  “A wise precaution.”

  Mrs. Lambert nodded a third time. “You never know what characters might be lurking about, even in as fine a neighborhood as Curzon Street.”

  “One never knows,” Joanna agreed with a hint of sarcasm, then gestured to me. “Do you have any questions for Mrs. Lambert?”

  “Only a few,” I said. “Tell me, Mrs. Lambert, how long did it require for you and Dr. Moran to race downstairs and return to the parlor?”

  “No more than a minute or two,” Mrs. Lambert replied. “Dr. Moran urged me to hurry, you see.”

  “And what was his response when the two of you entered the deserted parlor?”

  “The doctor was quite puzzled. He checked the loo and found it empty, then came back worried. It was then he noticed the open window and—and.” Mrs. Lambert paused to swallow hard at the memory before continuing in a weak voice. “And all became clear.”

  My father patted Mrs. Lambert’s hand in a consoling fashion and said, “You are being quite helpful and we know how difficult this must be for you, but there are still several matters we feel you might be able to shed some light upon. Do you feel up to it?”

  “I will try,” Mrs. Lambert said, collecting herself.

  “The tradesman’s entrance you mentioned is of concern to us,” my father told her. “Is it possible you inadvertently left the door unlocked?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” Mrs. Lambert responded. “There were no goods being delivered that day, so I had no reason to open the tradesman’s entrance.”

  “Good,” my father said approvingly. “So no one could have entered that way.”

  “Not without me seeing them, sir.”

  Joanna’s head went up and stayed up, for something just spoken had aroused her interest. “Were there any other visitors to the house that morning?”

  “There were no visitors other than Mr. Harrelston, and only two patients who were in real need of seeing the doctor,” said Mrs. Lambert.

  “Did you know these patients?” Joanna asked casually.

  “Quite well, for the doctor had attended to them over the years. Mr. Michaels has terrible lung disease and poor Mrs. Hunter suffers from awful rheumatism.”

  “And you showed them both in and out?”

  “I did.”

  Joanna rose and walked over to a narrow fireplace no more than ten feet away and rubbed her hands together over a few smoldering logs. “You must excuse me while I ward off a slight chill I have.”

  “What’s that?” Mrs. Lambert cried out, bringing a cupped hand to her ear.

  Joanna raised her voice to a shout and called back, “I have a slight chill and wished to warm myself.”

  “Aye, this weather will do that to you, all right.”

  We thanked Mrs. Lambert for being so cooperative and walked out into a gray, fog-shrouded day. There were more than a few people on the street, all of whom seemed interested in both our fine clothes and our faces.

  “Clever,” Joanna remarked. “This Christopher Moran is one cunning devil who is surely guilty of murder.”

  “Do you doubt Mrs. Lambert’s observations?” I asked.

  “It is her conclusions I doubt,” Joanna said. “She neither saw Charles Harrelston on that couch nor heard his voice.”

  “But she described his feet,” I argued.

  “She saw a pair of feet, which may or may not have belonged to Charles Harrelston.”

  “But she distinctly heard his voice,” I countered.

  “Rubbish!” Joanna said firmly. “The poor woman is so hard of hearing she can barely carry on a conversation unless she cups her ear and you raise your voice. So please tell me how she could possibly recognize a voice ten feet away?”

  “That is a supposition that cannot be proven,” my father said.

  “It is not a supposition, but a fact, and I did prove it,” Joanna said. “That is why at the end of our interview I walked over to the fireplace, which was ten feet away from her, and spoke to the housekeeper in a normal voice. She could not make out a word I uttered. The ten feet is important here, for that is the approximate distance between the door to Moran’s parlor and the couch that lay within. Now, are you seriously contending that this hard-of-hearing woman could stand at the door and hear the distressed voice of Charles Harrelston ten feet away? Under no circumstance could this occur. So, with this in mind, there can only be one explanation for Mrs. Lambert’s statement to Inspector Lestrade. She did not clearly hear the voice of Charles Harrelston, but was only repeating what Moran told her the voice had said.”

  “What a cunning scoundrel!” I roared. “It was all rapidly rehearsed down to the very letter. And now that I think of it, why did Moran bother to mention Mrs. Lambert’s presence and assistance before dashing downstairs? If I were the attending physician and Charles Harrelston was truly ill, I would not have wasted a moment on conversation and simply rushed downstairs for water and whatever instruments I required.”

  “Well put, John,” Joanna said, clearly pleased with my deduction. “That very thought crossed my mind as well. The reason Moran mentioned Mrs. Lambert’s name was to alert the person on the couch that the housekeeper was close at hand. Moran was no doubt blocking her view into the parlor, and this gave the accomplice time to set up the charade.”

  “An accomplice!” my father hissed under his breath.

  “But who?” I wondered aloud. “And where would Moran find such a villain?”

  “On the dark streets of London where such a man is easily found and bought,” Joanna replied.

  “And who will now slink back into the shadows and never be discovered,” my father predicted.

  “Do not be so certain of that,” Joanna said.

  “Is there some clue to his identity?” I asked hurriedly.

  The indecipherable Mona Lisa smile came to Joanna’s face and she asked, “Tell me, John, aside from Charles Harrelston, how many visitors entered Moran’s house that fateful morning?”

  “Only two longtime patients, both of whom were shown in and out by Mrs. Lambert,” I replied.

  “That is the clue that should draw your attention,” Joanna said.

  I looked at her oddly. “But all it does is to exclude the two patients as suspects.”

  “Precisely,” Joanna said and, with her parasol, signaled a passing carriage.

  16

  The Code

  The three of us were again summoned to the Harrelston mansion by a message that promised new information on the coded note. This was most welcome news, for despite our best efforts the code remained a mystery. We had worked individually and together as a group in an effort to decipher the note, but could not come up with even an inkling of success. Joanna had consulted two texts on code-breaking while my father had spoken with yet another language expert at the Imperial College, all to no avail. Thus, a major clue in the murders of Charles Harrelston and Benjamin Levy continued to elude us.


  As our carriage approached the Harrelston home, we were startled to see Christopher Moran departing on foot. He appeared to be in a great hurry.

  “I fear the worst,” my father said dejectedly. “Whatever evidence there was is now in the hand or mind of Christopher Moran.”

  “How did he learn of the information so quickly?” I asked.

  “It must have been an informant,” my father surmised.

  “It was not an informant, but us,” Joanna said. “During Moran’s visit, I suspect he glanced down and studied the contents of Sherlock Holmes’s workbench while on his way to the loo.”

  “He did,” my father recalled. “And something there caught his interest.”

  “It was no doubt a text on code-breaking and our notes and attempts to decipher the message,” Joanna said.

  “But the dinner was days ago,” I queried. “Why did Moran wait until now to see the Harrelstons?”

  “I would wager this is not his first visit, but one of several,” Joanna replied.

  I nodded at Joanna’s suggestion. “It would be just like him to come fishing around the bereaved.”

  “Fishing, indeed,” Joanna agreed. “And he has caught a big one, for now he has the information that was meant for our eyes only.”

  “A foolish mistake on our part,” I grumbled. “We should have removed everything from sight.”

  “Yes, we should have. But that is now water under the bridge,” Joanna said. “Let us hope that Moran has not distorted or somehow destroyed the new information.”

  As we alighted from our carriage, the door to the mansion opened and we were shown directly into the library where Sir William awaited us. The room was cold and no fresh logs had been added to the dead ashes in the fireplace. I wondered if this was another indication of the Harrelstons’ financial woes.

  “You have just missed a good friend of Charles’s,” Sir William told us. “Christopher Moran stopped by to pay his respects. He is a most pleasant chap.”

  “So I have heard,” Joanna said, without so much as a hint of a blush. “May I ask if he was of any assistance in decoding Charles’s last message to him?”

  Sir William smiled briefly through his quite evident sadness. “Your father-in-law told me of your deductive skills and how easily you display them. And the answer to your question is that he was of little help. The message was a complete riddle to him.”

  What a liar! I thought. The man lied almost as well as he killed.

  Joanna asked, “Did you show him the new information you summoned us to examine?”

  “Oh, yes,” Sir William replied. “But he explained it as a game he and my son and the others played. It is called anagrams, in which lines are laid out in a random fashion, then assembled to construct letters. The line of letters make no sense and have to be rearranged to form recognizable words. They invented the game to amuse themselves while recuperating in Afghanistan.”

  Joanna and I exchanged quick, sharp glances, both of us surprised by Christopher Moran’s revelation. Was this the clue to solving the code? Was it truly an anagram or was the cleverly dishonest Moran fabricating a story to throw us off track?

  “In Afghanistan, you say?” Joanna asked.

  “Yes. From many years ago.”

  Joanna squinted an eye, which was her habit when encountering an important fact. “Pray describe in detail the new information you have come upon.”

  “Better yet, I shall show it to you,” Sir William said, and reached for a letter on his desk. “Here is the message Christopher Moran wrote to my son. I do not know if it was a reply to my son’s last note to Moran, for it is not dated. In any event I happened on it last night while going through my son’s remaining effects.”

  He held it up for us to view, for it was a very short note written on Christopher Moran’s high-quality stationery. It read:

  SOME OF YOUR ALIGNMENTS ARE AGAIN OFF THE MARK

  “A puzzle within a puzzle,” I commented.

  “But there is a helpful clue here,” Joanna noted, still carefully studying the letter. “It is the word alignment, for it reinforces my belief that it is the angle of the lines that dictates the message.”

  “How will you proceed?” Sir William asked.

  “By consulting an expert,” Joanna said evasively.

  We had not heard Mary Harrelston enter the library nor noticed her standing in the background. She approached us with virtually silent footsteps and spoke to Sir William. “Father, I have heard parts of your conversation with Dr. Watson and his associates, and wonder if I might make a comment or two.”

  “Of course, my child.”

  “First, there are a number of contradictions that I feel I must address. You should know that dear Charles and Dr. Christopher Moran were not such close friends. Their relationship was civil, but not much beyond that, for they often quarreled. So if there was any real friendship between them, it was strained.”

  “Was that also true of your late brother’s ties to Benjamin Levy and Derek Cardogan?” Joanna asked.

  “Oh, no. Quite to the contrary,” Mary Harrelston replied. “Charles and Benjamin Levy were particularly close. When Mr. Levy learned of his death, he wept.”

  “Was your brother’s relationship to Derek Cardogan equally close?” Joanna inquired.

  “Nearly so,” Mary Harrelston answered. “But we have seen little of Derek Cardogan recently, for he is quite ill from his repeated bouts of malaria.”

  “Has he not been treated?” I asked.

  “On many occasions,” Mary Harrelston said. “But, according to my brother, poor Cardogan’s disease has become resistant to all remedies. He has consulted with the very finest specialists in London, but to no avail.”

  “I suspect he could throw some light on these coded messages,” Joanna suggested.

  “As do I,” Mary Harrelston agreed. “But he was so ill with jaundice when we saw him last. I have doubts he could think clearly.”

  “It is worth asking,” Joanna said. “Would you happen to know where he resides?”

  Mary Harrelston shrugged. “He has a home in Knightsbridge, but I am not certain he will be there. The last we heard, he was on his way to Paris for some new form of therapy.”

  “When was this?”

  “Close to a month ago.”

  Joanna squinted an eye. Something said by Mary Harrelston was of importance. “You mentioned there were several contradictions in our earlier conversation. Might I be made aware of the others?”

  “It was the anagram game. I can assure you that game would be of no interest to my brother who was a poor speller of words. He had struggled with this flaw his entire life. Thus, it is fair to say he would have avoided a game of complex anagrams as if it was the plague.”

  Joanna and I again exchanged knowing glances, both of us realizing that something was obviously off-key here. Why would the message be in the form of an anagram if Charles Harrelston was so poor at the game? At this point I had the distinct feeling that Christopher Moran was toying with us and deliberately leading us astray.

  “That is most helpful,” Joanna said, then thought for a long moment before asking, “Where there ever any financial dealings among the four men?”

  “Not that I am aware of,” Mary Harrelston replied. “My brother had suffered some recent financial reverses, which would have made his participation impossible.”

  “What about in the past?”

  Mary Harrelston was in the process of shaking her head when she abruptly stopped the motion and said, “Some time ago I overheard my brother and Mr. Levy discussing a future business venture. But it was only to occur after they had cashed in. I do not know what they were referring to.”

  The contents of the safe! I immediately thought to myself.

  Joanna’s expression remained unchanged but I was certain she had reached the same conclusion. “Do you recall the nature of this business venture?”

  “I believe it was of the import-export type.”

  �
��Did they happen to mention what merchandise would be involved?”

  “I do not think that was mentioned.”

  “Thank you for being so helpful,” Joanna said. “Now we must be on our way, for your last note, Sir William, will require a great deal of study. I believe there is a clue within the new message that will greatly assist us in solving this riddle. If you do not mind, I would like to take the note with us.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then we shall wish you good day.”

  Sir William accompanied us to the door, promising to search further through his son’s belongings for any additional messages.

  As we approached our carriage, my father remarked, “A most peculiar game, I must say.”

  “Pshaw!” Joanna said at once. “This is no game, my dear Watson, but a deliberate attempt by two individuals to hide a message, the content of which led to the death of one of the participants.”

  “But what could be so sinister or valuable as to require such concealment?”

  “What, indeed, for therein lies the key to our mystery.”

  “Yet if secrecy was so important, why did not Moran send his last message in code as well?”

  “A very good question, Watson, and one that crossed my mind earlier. There are a number of possibilities, of which two seem the most likely. Either the coded message contained new symbols that could have provided guidance in unraveling the code, or Moran was concerned Charles Harrelston, who was a poor speller, would have difficulty assembling the word alignment. I favor the former, but both are guesses, neither of which advance our cause.”

  We rode in silence during the first half of our journey back to Baker Street. For the very first time, I observed Joanna scribbling notes to herself. She had taken a mechanical pencil and small writing pad from her purse and was jotting down either ideas or thoughts, and giving each an underlined number. I stole a glance at the top item on the list. It read “(1) Malaria.”

  “Give me another moment,” Joanna requested. “The Harrelstons have provided us with some most instructive information and I do not wish to lose even a fraction of it.”