The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part X

by Marcum, David;

  He banged his fist on the cab roof. “The American Exchange.”

  * * *

  “Have you watched your forger at work?” I asked Dark Harry.

  “What’s your point?” he answered. He tipped out the cylinder of his revolver and replaced a spent cartridge. “One bullet gone,” he said with a grin, “and one copper down.”

  “Have you?” I sipped my whisky and tried to control my breathing and my racing heart.

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know that your artist is left-handed, or perhaps double-handed.”

  Dark Harry narrowed his eyes. “How do you know? You’re making it up to save your skin.”

  “Come and see.” I put down my glass and led the way back to the bedroom.

  Dark Harry stood by the bed, his handkerchief over his mouth, as I held up Benny’s uninjured left arm and indicated his spatulate thumb, characteristic of the print compositor or, in this case, the forger. Ink was ingrained in his calloused finger ends, and ink stains extended up to and beyond his wrist. His right hand was soft, its bloated fingers unmarked. “Your engraving artist is left-handed.”

  “Will you amputate, Doctor?” Mr. Lowe asked from the doorway.

  “If you will make no other effort to save the wretch’s life, I will.” I took a pencil and pad of notepaper from the sideboard and sat on the side of the bed, by the lamp. “I need some surgical equipment.”

  “We have Chloroform,” Dark Harry said with another dangerous grin.

  “I am very much aware of that. I will make a list of the other items I require.”

  “Where’s your medical bag?” he asked.

  “I did not have it with me when you attacked me. I was carrying my contribution to The Strand Magazine, the product of a week’s creative endeavour, which I very much hope was not lost.”

  I handed the list to Mr. Lowe, and he frowned at it. “Where can we get this stuff?”

  “The address of a medical instrument and supplies merchant is on the back. I strongly advise you to move with alacrity. Time is very short, and this man’s life hangs in the balance.”

  * * *

  Holmes leapt from the cab and pushed though the door of the American Exchange, one of the principal money exchanges and advice and service centres for tourists in London. A queue that looked to be mostly composed of foreign tourists wound from the doors to a long counter manned by clerks.

  Holmes marched past the line, followed by Inspector Lestrade and Sir Henry, and he summoned a clerk to an empty place at the counter. “Nordstrom, initials J. N., letters to be picked up.” Holmes laid his pistol on the counter top. “Fetch.”

  The clerk frowned, his gaze flicking from the pistol to Holmes. “Are you Mr. Nordstrom, sir? I will need some identification - a passport, letter of recommendation or business card-” He tailed off as Holmes slammed his fist on the counter.

  “I am interested in this man Nordstrom in one particular, and one only,” Holmes said in a menacing tone. “If he knows where my friend is being held, then his life is worth that much and no more to me. Do not you dare to obstruct me.” The clerk gaped wide-eyed at Holmes, who glared back at him, breathing deeply for a tense moment, before he smiled a jaguar smile and held out his hand to Lestrade. He received a handful of gold coins which he slid across the counter. The clerk’s jaw dropped.

  Lestrade pursed his lips. “I think I might take a little stroll.”

  He and Sir Henry were waiting by the cab when Holmes strode from the Exchange holding two letters. “Awaiting pick up.”

  Lestrade winced as Holmes tore open the first envelope and held the letter to the light of a street lamp. “Rubbish, from a purported wife.” He ripped open the second. “From a business partner, more rubbish.” He threw the letters onto the pavement. “We have no time for such nonsense.” He held up the envelopes. “But here is something. His forwarding address is Conway’s Hotel, in Lambeth, south of the river. That corresponds with what Harker admitted.”

  Sir Henry took the envelopes, picked up the letters, and peered at them. “This letter might be in code.”

  Lestrade scribbled on a telegram form. “I’ll have the hotel checked.”

  “The gang will have flown the coop,” Holmes said, looking up and down the Strand. The street was lit by a double line of streetlamps, bright shop windows, and the lamps of the carriages, omnibuses, and cabs that thronged the carriageway. “They cannot stay at an hotel, encumbered by the wounded man. No, they have rented alternative premises. Perhaps they already had a house where they’d set up their printing press.” His eyes narrowed. “We need to focus-”

  Holmes struck his forehead with his hand. “Of course. Watson spoke to me of the Army Surgeons’ training centre at Netley, where he completed his military surgeon’s qualification. He was provided with an instrument set before he set sail for India, which was lost in Afghanistan when he was wounded. The Army required reimbursement for the loss until I let a Queen’s Counsel loose on them. Watson called the set a - let me think - a Davies’ set. No, a Down’s set.”

  “Down Brothers,” said Sir Henry, “of St. Thomas’s Street, London S.E. I know them well.”

  Holmes rubbed his hands together. “Watson will bait our trap.” He glared at our four-wheeler cab. “We must make haste to be in our hide before the gang visit the shop.” He scrutinised the line of cabs waiting outside the Exchange. “These cabs are all pulled by old nags. We need a fast carriage.” He scanned the traffic passing along the Strand. “That one looks fresh.”

  Holmes darted into the road and grabbed the traces of a closed, four-wheel carriage with a coat of arms emblazoned on the door pulled by a magnificent pair of greys. The coachman wrenched at the reins and raised his whip. Holmes brandished his pistol. “This is a national emergency, and you and your equipage are requisitioned. I require you to drive to St Thomas’s Street in the Borough, just by the hospital.” He indicated Lestrade and then Sir Henry. “This person is a veteran officer of the law, and the other gentleman is a famous doctor.” He looked up at the driver. “And I am a vexed man with a hair-trigger pistol.”

  He, Sir Henry, and Inspector Lestrade jumped aboard the coach, and it turned across the traffic and picked up speed.

  Holmes settled on the Morocco leather bench on the left, and Sir Henry and Lestrade slumped down opposite him. An empty game bag and a monogrammed leather gun case lay on the bench beside them.

  Holmes opened the gun case, handed one finely chased shotgun to Lestrade, and hefted the other. “Purdey hammerless .410’s, the monogrammed property of the Duke of Holderness.” He handed the other shotgun to Sir Henry with a bandolier of cartridges. “I shall stay with my pistol.”

  “I am no stranger to firearms or to stalking,” Sir Henry said as he took the second gun and bandolier from Holmes. “I shot a poacher on my Highland estates two years ago at two-hundred yards, on the run and in flitting moonlight.” He blinked at the inspector’s set expression. “Using bird shot, naturally.”

  “What is your intention, Mr. Holmes?” Inspector Lestrade asked in a stiff tone.

  “I will enter the surgical instruments shop and bribe the shopkeepers to hide me in a place where I can see the counter. When our man comes with his list, I shall emerge from my hide and-”

  Inspector Lestrade and Sir Henry exchanged pitying glances and shook their heads. “No, no, Mr. Holmes,” said Inspector Lestrade. “That will never do. What if the miscreants are watching the premises. Your face and your general demeanour are far too well-known-”

  “What then?” Holmes cried. “We must have someone inside to spot the man with Watson’s list of instruments and give us the signal to strike.” He frowned. “You are known to them, Doctor, and the inspector is no stranger to the penny papers.”

  The carriage stopped, and the coachman called down that the
y were in St Thomas’s Street. Sir Henry borrowed Inspector Lestrade’s coat and grey scarf and Holmes’s top hat, and Holmes handed him the leather bag of gold coins.

  Sir Henry hefted the bag. “Good Lord, whom do you intend to bribe, the Lord Chancellor?” He opened the bag, took out two half-sovereigns and tossed the bag back. “That will be ample. We are south of the river, after all.”

  * * *

  Less than a fifteen minutes later, Sir Henry had marked their quarry, a short man in a heavy, astrakhan-trimmed overcoat and wide-awake hat, and he sauntered behind him as he carried a heavy package from the surgical instrument shop. The man turned into a narrow street, then looked back for a moment, and Sir Henry had the sense to cross the road away from him and stroll towards the carriage, whistling a music hall tune.

  The man stopped at a newsagent’s for a moment, and looked carefully up and down the street before he set off again, crossing the road and hailing a hansom. Sir Henry instructed the driver to follow at a discreet distance and climbed into the carriage.

  The journey was a short one. The hansom pulled up at the mouth of an alley halfway down the New Cut in Lambeth and the carriage stopped a few yards farther along, shielded by a furniture van. Inspector Lestrade jumped down and took up the surveillance, his face wrapped in Sir Henry’s scarf. He slipped into the alley, and a moment later he reappeared and waved for the carriage to join him. “Third house on the right, with the scraggy garden in front and netted windows.”

  Holmes checked his pistol. “Sir Henry, you will join me in a frontal assault. Inspector, I suggest you work your way behind the premises and enter from the rear.”

  Sir Henry held his shotgun at half-port. “I will gladly take post with you, Mr. Holmes. I sniped a Rebel colonel at Appomattox Station in the American War. The Union Army advanced, and he was brought to my surgery tent where, unfortunately, he died under my knife.”

  Lestrade crooked his shotgun over his arm and addressed Holmes. “Is that pistol loaded, sir?”

  “With .44 Boxer cartridges.”

  “Might I strongly represent to you that you release the action? We don’t want anything going off at half- or even full-cock, now do we, Mr. Holmes?” Inspector Lestrade mopped his brow with his handkerchief, turned, and slipped along the fence beside the house.

  * * *

  I inspected the instruments and the bottles of chemicals brought by Mr. Lowe, then I rolled up my sleeves and addressed Dark Harry. “Fetch hot water, clean towels, and the Chloroform.”

  I laid out my scalpel, saw, and forceps on a disinfectant soaked towel on the pillow next to my patient, together with ligatures, needles and thread, and Chloroform. I mixed a strong disinfectant solution, filled the glass barrel of a spray device, and handed Dark Harry a rubber bulb of phenol solution. “Soak my hands and the wound, then the patient’s skin up to the shoulder,” I ordered. I took a smaller syringe and injected the solution directly into the wound. Dark Harry seemed to blanch to a grey colour, and he dropped the spray on the bed and retreated to the door of the bedroom.

  “Middleton Goldsmith, a surgeon in the Union Army during the American Civil War, meticulously studied gangrene,” I mused as I stropped my scalpel on a patch of chamois. “He developed a revolutionary treatment using debridement and topical and injected bromide solutions to reduce the incidence and virulence of what he called ‘poisoned miasma’. That is the method I learned at the British Army training centre at Netley and used in the field before Lister revolutionised our understanding of disease agents.”

  I dipped the scalpel in phenol solution. “Come here and make yourself useful,” I said to Dark Harry. “Keep the patient down and immobilise his good arm.”

  Dark Harry eyed my scalpel warily. “Don’t try no funny business with the toothpick, eh?”

  “The only comedian in the room is you,” I replied.

  He fingered his pistol. “Don’t push me - there are other doctors.”

  “Not immediately to hand.”

  Dark Harry laid his arm across Benny’s chest and glared at me.

  “Take it easy,” Mr. Lowe told him from the doorway. “Let’s not do anything stupid. You were lucky with the bank guard. The papers say he’s recovering. Don’t risk your neck.”

  “Keep a firm hold,” I instructed Dark Harry. “If he jerks at the wrong moment, I might sever an artery.”

  Dark Harry smiled a cold smile. “That would be a pity, Doctor, both for us and for you.”

  I paused, my scalpel raised. “I should say before we start that if you gentlemen do intend to remunerate me for my work, my fee is one hundred guineas. You will understand that in the circumstances, I would prefer gold to a printed cheque.”

  I made the first incision in the flesh above the elbow, ligating the limb, transecting the flesh and tying the blood vessels with ligatures. When the bone was clear, I picked up the saw and cut through the humerus, the grind of bone under my saw provoking a flood of unhappy recollections of my days with the Berkshire Regiment in Afghanistan. I removed the arm and placed it on the bed out of the way as I filed the rough edges of bone smooth and folded the first two flaps of upper-arm skin together. “Pass me the needle and thread.”

  Dark Harry’s face glistened with sweat, and his eyes were closed. I reached for the needle and paused as gunshots echoed from downstairs. I turned to Dark Harry. “Drop your weapon. Those shots herald the arrival of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who will not hesitate to shoot you down if you defy him.”

  He hesitated, backing from the bed and raising his pistol.

  “Do you want to be in the dock for forgery, or kidnapping and murder? The choice is yours.”

  Dark Harry blinked down at the severed arm on the coverlet and dry-retched. He wiped his face with his sleeve and lowered his gun as the door opened.

  “There you are at last,” I said, “and with Inspector Lestrade, I see. Holmes, would you mind pressing your thumb on this skin flap while I rethread my needle? And Inspector, you might relieve this gentleman of his pistol.”

  Ten minutes later, I patted the stump and leaned back, pleased with my efforts. I smiled at Holmes. “What a cacophony of gunshots. I thought we were under attack by the Brigade of Guards.”

  * * *

  “The Canary Trainer papers?” I asked as I dried my hands with a towel and I helped myself to a whisky in the sitting room downstairs.

  Holmes smiled. “Mostly lost, I’m afraid. We might put that down to benign providence, and leave Wilson and his canaries for our sere and yellow years.”

  “You may be right.” I slumped onto a sofa and returned Holmes’s smile. “Amputation is not quite like riding a bicycle, but it is a simple enough procedure, not easily forgotten, and I am owed a hundred guineas. Not bad for an afternoon’s work. We can pay our arrears, wipe the eye of the coal agent, and treat ourselves to Amati’s for supper tonight.”

  Inspector Lestrade and a gentleman with a shotgun crooked over his arm joined us, prodding the forgers and the two buckshot-peppered bruisers before them. I recognised Sir Henry Ballantyne. “The amputation went quite smoothly,” I said, after the introductions. “I have hopes that my patient will do very well.”

  Sir Henry smiled. “Unlike some of my more conservative colleagues, Doctor, I always consider the survival of the patient one of the hallmarks of a successful surgical procedure, but I’m afraid in this case, the patient’s existence on this earth may not be prolonged.”

  “The guard died,” I murmured to myself. I frowned at Mr. Lowe and Dark Harry. My captors faced The Rope.

  “All clear,” said Inspector Lestrade, “there’s just the four of them, plus the invalid. I sent the carriage driver to fetch a police van. Their printing press is in the basement.”

  “How did you find me?” I asked as Holmes and I led our party outside, preceded by our prisoners carrying the woun
ded forger on a door.

  “Oh, it was a perfectly straightforward case,” Holmes answered, “solved by strict adherence to the tenets of deduction and logical synthesis.” He sniffed. “Your abduction was a simple, secondary element.” He smiled and took my arm. “I am so glad you are safe, old friend. Mrs. Hudson and Billy were becoming a little anxious.”

  Holmes weighed in his hand a heavy leather bag that clinked agreeably. “We might think of the roast at Simpson’s.” He turned to our companions. “A table for four, if you gentlemen are free?”

  A Case of Embezzlement

  by Steven Ehrman

  Chapter I

  It was a cool autumn morning. I was reading one of the many daily newspapers to which Holmes subscribes. He was languidly smoking in his chair, seemingly lost in thought. Suddenly, there was a sharp knock at the door to our digs, followed by the entrance of our page-boy. He handed a note to Holmes and stood by, apparently waiting for an answer. Holmes quickly scanned the message. He then scrawled a return and gave it to the lad who left with a bow. I set my paper to one side and turned to Holmes.

  “It would seem, Doctor, that we can expect a visit from Inspector Hopkins tomorrow morning,” said Holmes in answer to my unspoken question.

  “Does the Good Inspector say what it is he wishes of you?”

  “He does. We are about to meet Mr. Gordon Whitworth. Are you familiar with the case, Watson?”

  “It would be difficult to remain ignorant of it,” I replied. “There is the matter of a missing twenty-thousand pounds.”

  “I see that you have indeed followed the publicity that Mr. Whitworth has generated. Will you tell me the particulars as you understand them?”

  “Holmes, surely you have followed the events as closely as I.”

  “True, but hearing the facts of the case through the words of another can be quite illuminating at times.”

  “Very well,” said I, concentrating my mind and attempting to recall all that I had read. “It would seem that Gordon Whitworth, late of the Capital and Counties Bank, was caught executing a plot to embezzle a large sum of money from his employers. When arrested, he held himself mute, admitting nothing. No money was found, and Scotland Yard is apparently at a loss to explain what happened to the stolen sum.