The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part X

by Marcum, David;

  “I don’t mind telling you,” said Jack, “that L&N had nothing to do with the job in Frankfort. I was hired by a fellow called Rounceville - I doubt that’s his real name, and I don’t really care, because his money is good. He was a deputy to the Secretary of State in Kentucky, that fellow Powers. But I tell you honestly that I don’t know if Powers even knew what was going on. This Rounceville told me the Republicans didn’t want Goebel stealing the election, and that to stop him once and for all, they wanted him dead. They told me when and where to lie in wait and promised diversionary gunfire when I performed the work. With my silent airgun, I knew I could shoot Goebel and escape undetected.”

  Holmes nodded. “As I thought,” said he. Then he slowly stood and moved his chair to the right.

  I suppose Jack could have shot him right then, but in point of fact he himself moved opposite Holmes placing his back squarely in front of the open window.

  Holmes and I have been in some tight places together - but I cannot recall a moment that seemed more dire, a situation that seemed to offer no escape.

  “Exit Sherlock Holmes,” announced Jack, holding out his arm at full length as he pointed the pistol at my friend.

  Suddenly - without a sound - a blossom of red erupted from Jack’s white shirtfront. There was only a moment for a look of surprise to splash across Jack’s face, and then he fell forward. In a sense, it appeared that he had exploded from within. but the truth, of course, was much less fantastical. He had been struck by a bullet fired through the open window. That I had heard no report accompanying the shot made it all the more perplexing.

  Needless to say, I sprang to my feet to administer to the stricken young man. I felt for a pulse, but there was none. Jack Ferguson lay dead. The man who had killed Governor Goebel had been assassinated himself.

  Sherlock Holmes stood by the window staring silently across the street. Only then did it dawn on me that he had set up the entire deadly scheme.

  “Holmes,” I said, but he hushed me with a forefinger to his lips.

  “Come,” said he, and together we exited, leaving the body of Jack Ferguson sprawled on the floor of his flat in an ever-widening pool of blood. When we reached the pavement, Holmes hailed a hansom, and we made our return to Baker Street.

  * * *

  “Not a word till dinner,” said Sherlock Holmes in reference to our harrowing afternoon. “I have made plans with Mr. Steele to meet us in Simpson’s at 7:00. We shall discuss the matter further then.”

  Leaving me to stand in wonder, Holmes retired to his bedroom, and soon I heard the strains of his violin as he attacked some concerto or other. For my part, I tried to pass the hours by reading the latest Lancet and keeping up-to-date on medical matters. But it did little good. I could not stop myself from wondering whether Holmes had had the intention of shooting Jack Ferguson from the start. More practical queries coursed through my brain as well. The questions may appear obvious, but still I needed to learn who had actually done the shooting, and why I had heard no shot fired? For that matter, I also wanted to know what had happened to the body Holmes and I had left on the floor of the flat, and how Robert Ferguson would be told of the death of his son.

  The answers to the first two questions came immediately upon my seeing Wyatt Steele enter the dining hall at Simpson’s with the aid of a walking stick. Holmes and I were already sampling a pre-prandial sherry when the Pinkerton approached our table. As he settled into his seat, he carefully rested the stick against the chair’s wooden arm. The significance of such a piece, especially in the hands of an accomplished agent like Steele, revealed all. The stick was the weapon fashioned by the gun maker Von Herder.

  “It is a little-known fact, Watson,” said Holmes, “that the original air-rifle we’d taken from Sebastian Moran in ’94 and bestowed upon Scotland Yard for safe-keeping had been misplaced and ultimately stolen. It seems that, on his way to the Yard, Inspector Lestrade had alighted to quell some disturbance or other and left the thing in the hansom.[1]

  “One of my Irregulars happened to be near the vehicle at the time. Happily, he managed to grab the rifle and bring it to me. As the one who had presented it to Lestrade in the first place, I concluded that the thing would be far safer in my hands than in his. Since then, I’ve kept it, along with the ammunition I bought, secure in one of my London hidey-holes. Today, however, when the business with Jack Ferguson materialised, I decided it might be needed to help extricate us from a delicate situation. Fortunately, Mr. Steele, who was positioned on a rooftop across the road, was up to the task. He is, just as I had surmised, an American sharpshooter.”

  Steele’s face flushed. “This gun is a fine piece, Mr. Holmes. Make no mistake. You did your part by manoeuvring Ferguson to the window, but I never would have fired if he hadn’t pointed that pistol at you.”

  “I believe I also speak for Dr. Watson when I say that we are both extremely glad that you did.”

  I raised my glass in appreciation, and the three of us drank to Steele’s timely marksmanship.

  “In anticipation of the other questions I assume you have concocted,” Holmes said to me, “you will be pleased to know that I have anonymously notified the police of the presence of a body in the Hanover Buildings. I leave it to the Yarders to inform Robert Ferguson of the death of his son. I don’t believe he wants to hear anything more from you or me.”

  I felt a pang of guilt at not addressing Ferguson myself, but I have come to agree with Holmes’s assessment of our intrusion into his life.

  “I will also give to Mr. Steele,” Holmes continued, “a note in my own hand to pass along to his employers at the L&N Railroad. To protect Robert Ferguson’s good name, I’ve written that, whilst not offering the identity of the prime mover in the plot, the assassin exonerated L&N in the planning of Goebel’s murder. I believe my reputation in the States is strong enough to alleviate any anxieties at the railroad. It is, of course, nearly impossible to put an end to the common gossip and speculation that will no doubt go on indefinitely.”

  “I’m much obliged to you for putting the record straight,” said Steele. Holding up his glass once more, he added, “To Birdy Edwards. It was he, after all, who set me on the track that revealed Goebel’s true killer.”

  “To Birdy Edwards,” Holmes and I chorused, both of us in agreement that the late Pinkerton would have been duly pleased at the outcome of our investigation. No sooner had Holmes put down his glass than he signalled for the waiter to have one of the domed silver trollies brought to our table.

  “One final question, Holmes,” I asked before the carver arrived. “Do you not feel responsible for leading Jack Ferguson to his death?”

  My friend stared into my eyes. “The man had become a hired killer, Watson, a paid assassin. However much I am to blame for his departure from this world, the regret does not give me much pause.”

  With that, we all turned our attention towards the trolley that was just then arriving before us.

  * * *

  Following Holmes’s retirement in 1903, he and I saw each other only sparingly. Yet long after our involvement in the death of Jack Ferguson had ended, we continued to keep track of the latest legal developments regarding the assassination of William Goebel.

  Thanks to the accounts of pressmen like Irvin Cobb and our friend David Graham Phillips, (himself the victim of an assassin’s bullet in 1911), we could follow the evolution of the legal entanglements related to primary figures in the case. It was on 21 May, 1900, just a few months after Goebel’s death, that the United States Supreme Court ruled on the legitimacy of Goebel’s gubernatorial victory over Republican William Taylor. Citing the argument of states’ rights, the Court refused to overturn Goebel’s election that had earlier been upheld by the Democratically-inclined Supreme Court of Kentucky.

  On the other hand, appeals courts dominated by Republicans nullified the convictio
ns of Caleb Powers and James Howard. In point of fact, however, Powers would face three more trials. Although he was convicted twice, sympathetic courts demanded new trials both times, the last concluding with what the Americans term a “hung jury” - that is, the members of the jury were not in agreement.

  Like Powers, Howard - the presumed gunman - also faced another trial, but though unlike his associate he was convicted, in 1908 both he and Powers were finally pardoned. For his part, Youtsey, the alleged go-between, was paroled in 1916 and pardoned three years later. In the end, Caleb Powers, who had been tried four times for murder without success, was elected to the United States Congress in 1911. He would go on to serve four successive terms.

  One evening not long thereafter, Holmes came up to London for a visit. Whilst enjoying cigars together in my sitting room, we found ourselves discussing the contradictory resolution of the entire Goebel affair.

  “If I recall correctly, Watson,” Holmes observed, “in the case you titled ‘The Abbey Grange’, you recorded an observation of mine regarding the law. At the time, I said that I would rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience. Is that not right?”

  “Yes, Holmes,” I said with a nod, “I believe you quote yourself correctly.”

  “Well then,” said he, stretching out his long legs and exhaling a plume of blue smoke, “allow me to also say that, judging from all we have learned in the Goebel case, it would appear that in America it is the law that plays the tricks and one’s conscience that suffers.”

  I nodded, and both of us, ever contemplating the protean relationship between England and the United States, proceeded to fill the room with ever-thickening clouds of smoke.

  1 In his essay, “Colonel Moran’s Infamous Air Rifle”, (The Baker Street Journal, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1960), Ralph A. Ashton corroborates the theft of Moran’s weapon.

  The Case of the Dead Detective

  by Martin Rosenstock

  My story begins late one winter morning. I had gone to see a girl with whooping cough, but as I now walked towards Baker Street, my patient was no longer topmost on my mind. I was living through one of those periods in which Mary’s dear face and the gaze of her blue eyes seemed constantly present in my mind. My heart was leaden as I considered and reconsidered what might have been. When I entered our lodgings, Holmes was finishing breakfast. We exchanged a few words, and then he disappeared into his room, a piece of toast between his teeth. I had a cup of tea and a boiled egg before pushing back my chair and reaching for The Chronicle. Mrs. Hudson gave me a disapproving glance when she cleared the table, but the good woman had come to know my moods after all these years.

  I had worked my way through The Chronicle and was on to The Times when I heard light steps on the staircase. I lowered the paper. There was one perfunctory knock, and before I could so much as utter a word, the freckled face of Little Charlie, one of Holmes’s Irregulars, looked into the room.

  “Dr. Watson,” he piped, stepping up to me with all the self-importance of an agent with momentous tidings. “I ’ave a message for ya.” He uncurled his little fist and held out a crumpled piece of paper.

  I smoothed it out and read a few words in a clear, functional hand:

  If you are free, come to 89 Morton Rd - a strange sight.

  Lestrade

  I was struck by the lack of urgency in the message. The tone of confusion that generally attends the Inspector’s communications was notably absent. I rose and dug tuppence from my pocket.

  With a “Thanks, guv’ner!” the boy scampered off.

  I went to see Holmes in his room.

  * * *

  We were on our way a quarter-of-an-hour later. During the night, the temperature may have dropped below freezing, and the wind blowing up from the Channel had a Siberian touch. People’s cheeks were ruddy, and the city’s din, the clatter of hooves and wheels, the shouts and jingling of shop bells, reached one’s ear with pristine clarity. Holmes remained silent as we headed towards Fitzrovia.

  We arrived at Morton Road in twenty minutes. The houses to both sides were well-kept. They stood wall-to-wall, a terrace of flat-roofed, four-storey buildings with porticos and souterrains. The gate to No. 89 was open. As we stepped onto the property, a voice called to us from behind. “Gentlemen.”

  We turned and saw a man coming towards us. I guessed him to be in his mid-twenties. He had a well-groomed appearance. His light hair was parted fashionably at the side, and sideburns reached down to his jaw. He was wearing a single-breasted blue frock coat and matching trousers. A woolen scarf was slung around his neck. He now switched a shopping bag from his right hand to his left.

  “Jacob Henslow.” A flicker of amazement crossed his face. This reaction is not uncommon with people encountering Holmes for the first time outside the pages of The Strand Magazine, though unlike most, Jacob Henslow made no remark. “You must be Inspector Lestrade’s associates,” he continued blandly.

  “Indeed we are,” replied Holmes.

  We shook hands. Mr. Henslow had the firm grip of someone who is no stranger to manual labour. He pointed to No. 89.

  “My mother owns the building. Such a pity what has happened to Mr. Aherne. I will show you upstairs.”

  Henslow led the way, and we entered a bright stairwell and began to ascend. As we approached the third floor, a constable blocking a closed door to the right came into view. We heard another door opening, and a few more steps revealed an elderly couple in a door across the landing. She was wearing a tea gown, he a morning coat. They must have been waiting behind the door. Both were pale with grey, tousled hair; I noticed a florin-sized firemark on the man’s right cheek.

  Henslow tilted his head in exasperation. “Please, Mrs. O’Malley, Mr. O’Malley. The police need to do their work. You mustn’t disturb them.”

  The couple stared at Holmes and me, but then the husband laid a hand on his wife’s shoulder, and they retreated into their rooms. The door closed behind them.

  “I will leave you here, gentlemen.” Henslow nodded to us, as if to suggest we ready ourselves for a surprise, and then proceeded to descend the stairs.

  The constable had turned and knocked, and now Lestrade’s strident voice responded, “Come in!”

  The door gave onto a short corridor, at the end of which stood the inspector, dressed as usual in a natty three-piece suit. “Ah, Mr. Holmes. Doctor.” He made an inviting gesture. “Glad you could come. I believe you will find this interesting.”

  We passed along the corridor and into the sitting room. On first impression, the room appeared unremarkable. A well-stocked bookshelf lined the far wall, three armchairs and a sofa were grouped around a tea table. In the corner stood a walnut Davenport desk. A door next to the bookshelf led to a bedroom.

  A further step or two revealed the body of a man. It was lying behind one of the armchairs. The body lay on its back, torso twisted, left hand half open, right clenched to the chest. The left sleeve of the man’s shirt was rolled up. A loosened brace circled his upper arm. A syringe hung by its tip from the crook of his elbow and lay against his shirt. The man’s face was a hideous grimace. His lips were peeled back, exposing clenched teeth, the skin on the ridge of his nose stood folded in steep creases. His clouded eyes stared at the ceiling. I put his age at no higher than twenty-five. His expression was one of horror, as if in his final moment he had understood a cruel truth.

  Half-a-dozen puncture wounds dotted the inside of his lower left arm. The plunger of the syringe had been pressed down to the tip. I turned to the table on the right. A dark flask stood there. The label read CO 7%. My eyes traversed the room. An Inverness cape hung on a hook beside the door. On a mantelpiece lay a pipe and cleaner, beside them a Persian slipper. A black violin case stood beside a music stand with an open score on the rest. Through a doorway into another room, I could now see a workb
ench, on it a Bunsen burner and a rack with test tubes.

  Holmes was looking at the dead man’s fingertips. They were covered with acid burns and other discolourations, like Holmes’s own. My eyes swung to the dead man’s face. Death does strange things to a human being’s features. Paradoxically, it both sharpens them and reduces their individuality, as if the type to which the person had belonged were laid bare. The dead man’s head was round with a broad forehead and a curved chin. The nose too was broad and a little bent, as if it had been broken at some point. The eyes were set wide apart, the mouth was large. The impression of rotundity and ampleness though was counterbalanced by a lack of fleshy substance. The cheeks caved inward and the contours of the skull stood out clearly.

  Naturally, the thought crossed my mind that the drug had been wasting away his bodily substance, but this was not the case. The exposed arm was muscular, the chest and shoulders were broad; in fact, he appeared to have been in excellent condition. There was something incongruous about the whole figure, as if this man had with intense effort been shaping his body into a form at odds with its nature. I noticed another feature: His hair was cut in the same fashion as Holmes’s, though the colour was somewhat lighter than my friend’s.

  “Well, Mr. Holmes, what do you say?” came Lestrade’s voice.

  “I take it his own Mrs. Hudson discovered him.”

  “She did. She has rooms on the ground floor. She brings... used to bring him his breakfast.” Lestrade pointed to a tray on the table. A basket of scones stood there, next to a glass dish of marmalade, a teapot, and the usual breakfast utensils. “She found the body when she came in this morning.”

  I reached down and touched the back of the dead man’s hand. It was cold. I closed his eyes. Feeling strangely agitated, I walked over to the bookshelves to scan the backs of the volumes. There was Faraday’s Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics, as well as Frankland’s How to Teach Chemistry, Gray’s Anatomy, a few of Alexander Bain’s writings, Lombroso’s study on the female criminal, Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, and a whole array of writings that aimed to explain the natural world and the surroundings mankind has created for itself. This was the library of someone trying to understand both the times in which he lived and the unchanging laws of science and of the human soul. All of Holmes’s publications, from his studies on cigar ashes and footprints onward, were also there, separated from the other volumes by a marble bookstand.