On one fragment he could discern the best part of the word ‘Sherlock’. Dibley had not yet reappeared, but Garden was suddenly aware of a frantic fanfare being played on a car horn, which he recognised as his. Stuffing the paper fragments unceremoniously into his handbag, he fled through the front door and towards his vehicle.
Outside in the darkness of the garden, Holmes had had an initial swearing fit because there were no lights on in the back room, and he was going to have to search only by the light of the moon and the stars, then a hand in his coat pocket came across a small torch that he used to carry when he had bonfires in the garden, and the batteries seemed to still be in working order.
Shading its light with his hand, he walked round the garden, finding no evidence whatsoever of any signs of a fire or an incinerator. He moved on towards the dustbin, his shoulders slumped. He didn’t reckon there was any chance of him coming across any incriminating evidence. He absolutely reeked of curry, his hands and clothes were filthy, and his skin was crawling at what he might come across in this festering collection of household refuse.
The noise Garden had heard had been Holmes trying to smother the sound of the metal dustbin lid as he put it on the ground. Damn these old-fashioned dustbins. Why couldn’t everyone have a wheelie bin or a plastic one; it would make this current episode in his life a damned sight easier.
He quietly cursed all these men who lived alone for relying on ready-cooked food, as the remains of a Chinese meal landed on his shoes, and he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to change them, and these were his good brown brogues. He’d have to take them into the cobbler’s to see if they had any magic solution for removing chow mein stains from leather. Blast!
Next, he opened a parcel of newspaper, at first only revealing a pile of potato peelings, and nearly gave up in disgust, when he moved the topmost peelings just to make sure there was nothing else in the parcel, and bingo – there were some fragments of torn and burnt paper, one of them showing the letters ‘Wats …’
Just stopping himself in time from shouting with triumph, he bundled up the parcel again and inserted it back into the bin, scooping up the Chinese food as best as he could, put back the lid, and hurried off to the car as quickly as possible. When he got inside it, he began to lean on the horn to get Garden’s attention, and it wasn’t long before he saw the man – woman – him/herself, streaking down the garden path towards the vehicle.
Garden threw himself into the driver’s seat, told Holmes he had evidence in his handbag, thus stealing the older man’s thunder, and drove like the very devil himself to get back to his flat, so that he could change back into men’s clothing and they could go to the police.
Less than an hour later, they were sitting in DI Streeter’s office putting their case to him. Garden, still with the slightest touch of ‘panda eyes’ from his hasty removal of mascara, had handed over the papers that had, not so long ago, dwelt in one of his many handbags, and Holmes was telling him about the contents of Dibley’s dustbin.
‘This could all be circumstantial,’ Streeter hedged, not at all liking the fact that they were way ahead of him in finding the killer. Again!
‘But these fragments were actually taken from his fireplace, and the others are still in his dustbin partly burned,’ persisted Holmes.
‘His specialist interest is the books and stories of Sherlock Holmes, and I bet he knows nothing about e-books. He’d probably think that if he destroyed the original, that would be the end of that. There wasn’t even a television in his house, as far as I could see,’ added Garden carelessly.
‘You’ve actually been in his house?’ This did arouse Streeter’s interest.
‘Would you, please, just go round to his house and take the newspaper package from his dustbin, then compare any fingerprints on that with any you found on the sheet of paper that was with Antony’s body? If they match, and you confront him with that evidence, I’m sure he’ll confess,’ pleaded Holmes. Nobody must find out about Garden’s alter ego, or their secret member of staff would be blown, and they couldn’t use him for undercover work in the future.
‘And if they do match, and he doesn’t sing like a canary?’ asked Streeter, looking for some sort of deal as to these two rivals’ sources.
As Holmes and Garden left the police station with obvious relief, Garden said to Holmes, ‘You know they say fact is stranger than fiction?’
‘Yes, old man?’ replied Holmes.
‘Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s certainly less dangerous than fiction.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I read quite a lot of contemporary murder mysteries …’ At this, Holmes raised his eyebrows in disapproval.
‘Whatever for?’ This was anathema.
‘New stories. I can’t exist for the rest of my life on Conan Doyle.’ Holmes looked scandalised. ‘Anyway, when it gets towards the end of the story, the hero or heroine always get themselves into a tight spot with the murderer, and their own life is endangered, then the intrepid policeman, or whoever, comes along and saves then. We’ve hardly been put in any peril in this case, have we? In fact, when I get to that bit of the modern formula now, I usually just stop reading. It’s obvious that the main protagonist isn’t going to be killed, and it just seems a bit too formulaic.’
Holmes nodded solemnly, then said, ‘We did get in a bit of bother at The Black Swan.’
‘I prefer to think of that as the exception, rather than the rule. Let’s hope things continue the way they’ve gone in this case. I don’t want to end up with high blood pressure, or a hole in the head.’
‘Just so, old chap. Just so,’ agreed Holmes, sagely. He could hardly argue with that, could he?
The fingerprints did match, Dibley had sung like the proverbial canary, and everything had happened just as Holmes and Garden had surmised, with it later being reported in the local paper that Dibley had entered The Sherlock public house, sneaking in by the outside entry to the gents, where he’d removed and hidden his tie and jacket. He had then gone into the bar and seen the jugs and tray waiting to go upstairs, unattended, in the hatch from the kitchen.
Moving behind the bar, the crush of young people meaning he didn’t bump into anyone he knew, he came back out again, through the snug, and upstairs, where he knew Antony to be, having kept watch for him arriving. His crime was, indeed, premeditated.
Having seen off his intended target, and used the deerstalker that had been hung on the wall of the meeting room, he then left the tray in the upstairs room and calmly came back down again, went out by the saloon bar door, stashed the slim briefcase with the disgusting manuscript inside it in his car, entered by the outside door to the gents’ for a second time, re-donned his tie and jacket, and came out into the pub as if he’d only just arrived.
It was an audacious crime, but one in which he had carelessly neglected to remove his fingerprints from the title sheet of the story, and the man had been shattered when told that Cyril Antony had already unleashed it on an unsuspecting public in e-book form and that, furthermore, there was nothing he could do about it at all. Once self-published, it stayed published, unless the author unpublished it.
DI Streeter, of course, took all the credit, and just referred to the sudden and unexpected solution to it as ‘acting on information received from an unnamed source’. But it still rankled when he thought of the identity of that unnamed source, and the credit he’d received soured in his mouth.
Holmes and Garden, meanwhile, had put it behind them, after a couple of mutual pats on the back, and were interesting themselves in ways to disguise the human face and form. That was much more fun. Maybe they’d get to try it out soon, on their next case. Garden had really been a trail-blazer with his portrayal of Joanne, although he decided he may have to make himself a little less attractive on his next venture out in that persona. He didn’t want to be ravished by some macho man who was out for a good time. The poor fellow would end up in therapy.
THE
END
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Published by Accent Press Ltd 2014
ISBN 9781783753147
Copyright © Andrea Frazer 2014
The right of Andrea Frazer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN
The Adventure of the Dead Wild Bore Page 7
