“I apologise, Watson,” said Holmes. “Though I never feared for our lives, I did expect a certain amount of discomfort in the time that Wilson had us in his power.”
“But you knew that he would be there to meet us?”
“Of course. Consider the facts, Watson. Though the house was marked as being to let, our friend Nathaniel Urquhart was unable to find any letting-agent, and I was likewise unsuccessful. The notice was therefore a blind, to persuade the neighbours that the property was unoccupied. As you and I discovered, Watson, this was not the case. The place was used by Wilson’s ‘canaries’ to carry out their trade. Their customers would use the back door. You will note that the front rooms of the house remained unoccupied, and all comings and goings were through the rear of the house.”
“But the funerals that we were told took place there?”
“Tush. Pure fiction, as I suspected from the first. Wilson’s mother...”
“Whom we now have in custody,” Hopkins added, “as an accessory to Wilson’s crimes. She acted as caretaker and guardian to the ‘canaries’ who plied their trade from that address. She has already told us that she was installed in the house some months ago, and told to report the story of funerals to anyone who asked about them.”
“It was clear to me that no funerals had taken place from that house,” Holmes said. “What undertaker would ever have calmly removed a body from an empty house without asking questions? And as you yourself wondered, Watson, if Wilson were to dispose of bodies, why would he take the trouble to take them over the river? Indeed, why would he pay for a funeral? I therefore started my investigations following our visit to Belvedere Gardens with the conviction that that the woman who had informed us of them had been less than truthful in her account. I therefore made enquiries of all the undertaker’s businesses in the area, and, as I had expected, there had been no such funerals.”
“And then?”
“I had little alternative but to consider that the story was a trap designed to ensnare me. The order for a funeral in one year’s time presented to Mr. Urquhart would almost certainly bring the mystery to our door sooner or later. We explored the house, and I am sure that the birdseed and possibly the canary feather that attached itself to your coat were left there deliberately to lead us to Wilson. The account of the false funerals would confirm the suspicions in my mind.”
“And then Wilson spread the rumour of another such funeral in order to lure you to the spot?”
“Precisely. I did not, as you saw, go unprepared. Once again, though, I must apologise if the results of my actions caused you any discomfort, or seemed to place you in any danger. I had previously alerted Hopkins, who was waiting with his men in another house, unobserved by you or by Wilson. As soon as we left in the baker’s van, he followed at a discreet distance, and stationed himself outside the warehouse to which we were taken, awaiting my signal.”
“Remarkable,” said I. “You would appear to have anticipated Wilson at every move.”
Holmes shrugged. “The credit shall all go to Hopkins here. We were merely the bait, he the hunter who snared the prey.”
“Uncommonly good of you to say so, sir,” said the police inspector. “We have wanted this villain behind bars for some time now, and I am sincerely grateful to you for your help.”
“And I am sure that gratitude is shared by Wilson’s ‘canaries’,” I added. “You have performed a noble service, Holmes.”
“However,” my friend added, “I trust you will not give this account to your adoring public. The details of the crime are too unsavoury for general consumption.”
Even so, I have secretly recorded the details of this case, and will place it carefully at the bottom of my dispatch-box, to be deposited at some future date with Cox & Co. It may be that in years to come, it will be discovered, and felt to be interesting enough to justify publication.
The Mystery of the Change of Art
by Robert Perret
One of the principal dangers of becoming a practicing physician is that, as soon as one hangs his shingle, he discovers that patients choose the most inconvenient times to be in urgent need of a doctor’s care. I hesitate to even mention this, but since much is made of my willingness to abandon, as the accusation goes, my patients to aide my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I feel it is only fair to observe in turn that the ill, the injured, and the incapacitated never feel compelled to consider the hour when pounding upon my door. Worst of all are newborn infants, who seem to take a puckish delight in entering this world in the wee hours of the morning, preferably in a torrential rain or a blizzard, with not a cab to be found.
So it was that I found myself, having once again facilitated the miracle of birth and been thanked for my pains with a ruined shirt and a mother’s gratitude, sloshing ankle-deep up Baker Street, my mack soaked through, in hope of a cup of Mrs. Hudson’s formidable coffee and an hour of respite at Holmes’s hearth before facing whatever awaited me back at my surgery. I was disappointed to see that Holmes already had an early caller, for there was a beautiful carriage standing at the kerb, with impeccably polished golden accents shining against the black body. The contraption was so flawless that I would have believed this was its maiden voyage into the hardscrabble streets of London.
A coachman stood at attention in the squall as stoically as Her Majesty’s own Royal Guards. Up on the first floor, I saw the light of the very fire where I had hoped to dry my feet, flickering and dancing in defiance of the gloomy atmosphere. All of the sudden, Holmes himself was at the window. I thought perhaps he had anticipated my approach, as he had so many of our clients. Instead, I was surprised to see him slash at the window and then hold up the instrument of his assault in order to consider it in the light. He then began to pontificate to whomever his august audience was, there in the study of 221b. It was one of his complexities that he so often evaded public commendation for his efforts, and yet he would seize with relish these opportunities to pantomime for clients. Even I, who had seen my friend perform a thousand such routines, was ensnared in the flourishes of his hands and the drama of his postures.
The spell was only broken when a lady, hidden in a high collared coat underneath a smart umbrella, came bursting from the door before me. The coachman expertly bumped me out of her path as he opened the door to the cab. Neither deigned to acknowledge me, but I suppose I looked like little more than an itinerant idler in my sodden state. As the carriage clattered away, Mrs. Hudson called to me.
“Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes asks that you come in. I would have opened the door earlier and saved you a bout of pneumonia, but the Lady was quite insistent that she not be disturbed.”
“My apologies, Watson,” Holmes called from upstairs. “Lady Longetine is rather skittish, in the way that all of her type are, and it would have been tiring to regain her candor with a new person in the room. I think she was inclined to put Mrs. Hudson herself out on the street, but a minimum level of decorum prevailed.”
“It’s none of my concern...” Mrs. Hudson began.
“And yet-” Holmes countered.
“I was surprised you took the Lady as a client. It is a trivial enough matter, even to me. It is not like anything but her pride will suffer, and I reckon that can only improve her disposition.”
“It is true that the case itself offers little of interest, but her little trinket interests me.”
“Holmes!” I said. “That is hardly a sentiment worthy of you, nor is it fit for the ears of Mrs. Hudson.”
The landlady just tsk’ed as she helped me shed my outer garments. By the end of the procedure, I was still soaked at the cuffs and shins and left in stocking feet, but was otherwise much intact.
“I’ll hang these by the stove,” she said.
I entered Holmes’s study to find him running a jeweled necklace between his fingers in a serpentine motion, endlessly looping round
and round.
“A little sleight of hand I picked up in Morocco,” he smiled. “This, of course, was the trinket I referred to.”
“Holmes,” I declared, “that ‘trinket’ is worth as much as this flat.”
“Hardly,” he said, tossing it to me. “It is paste.”
“Paste?”
“Hence Lady Longetine’s embarrassment. She has worn it proudly at any number of society gatherings. Worse, it is a family heirloom, worn by four generations of Lady Longetine’s, and appraised at the time of her marriage. Isn’t true love grand?”
“Which means the legitimate article was lost on her watch.”
“And she didn’t even notice, until the paste stones began to spoil. Look. In the light, they have developed a prismatic sheen.”
“Like a pool of oil.”
“Beautiful in its own way, except that it proves a forgery.”
“I’ve never heard of such an effect.”
“Neither have I. There are a dozen easy ways to confirm a stone is paste. You saw me scratch it against the window. A diamond, or indeed any gemstone, would cut the glass. Paste does not. That proof was for Lady Longetine’s benefit. Such an unusual flaw suggests a novel means of forgery, and that is what interests me. Everything else about these paste replicas is flawless, the best I’ve ever seen. A new hand is at work which is deft at science and art.”
“How will you go about finding this new hand?”
“I suppose you are imagining boiling beakers and damning chemical reactions and the like.”
“That does seem your forte.”
“In a perfect world, I would welcome such a battle of scientific wit and guile, but I fear the next step is rather pedestrian. At some point, the authentic jewels were swapped for the replica. An examination of the Lady’s jewelry box is called for, just as it would be with any case of a light-fingered maid. Will you come with me?”
“Of course. But will Lady Longetine allow it?”
“She does not want to be inconvenienced by my investigation, and I do not want to be inconvenienced by her zealous secrecy, and so it has already been arranged that I will examine the scene while she is out, doing whatever it is that society mavens do during the day. It will be a trivial matter to overcome the objections of whatever butler or maid may greet us.”
So once again my critics can accuse me of abandoning my patients, if only for a few hours, but having added one new soul to the city this morning I felt I had earned the right to wander a little. As my own clothes were still hopelessly soaked, Holmes lent me a few items from his prodigious wardrobe.
“It is for the best,” Holmes said. “Lady Longetine has not revealed her disgrace even to her own servants. I am meant to appear in the guise of an engineer plotting the installation of a personal telephone. You can play the role of my handiest linesman, to whom I am giving explicit instructions.”
“Why can’t I be a second engineer?”
“Do you know how a private telephone line functions? Can you convincingly sketch the blueprints of a room on first sight? Have you memorized the names of the legitimate telephone agents in case they come up in conversation? No, as a linesman all you need do is grunt disagreeably, carry a toolbox, and watch for my signals.”
Despite my misgivings I went along with Holmes’s plan. To my surprise, when we stepped outside, a workman’s cart laden with spools of telephone wire and other bric-a-brac was waiting for us. Holmes hopped into the driver’s seat as if nothing could be more natural, and we were off to the Longetine Estate through a gentling sprinkle.
Even as we pulled the cart to a halt, an imperious butler came stomping out of the house, furiously waving us around the side. It took me a moment to realize what the fuss was about, for doctors are always welcomed by the front door. In the guise of tradesmen, we were shunted round to the servants’ entrance. When we stepped inside, a startled scullery maid scuttled away without so much as making eye contact.
“Mr. Matthews, I presume?” The butler was addressing us from a door to the main house, set several steps above the servants’ work area. “I take it you are not accustomed to clients of the Longetines’ calibre?”
“To the contrary,” Holmes replied with a rolling lilt, “all sorts are taking to the telephone, sir. Mark my words, there will be one in every home one day.”
“Absurd,” the butler said. “What does the common fool have to natter on about, and who would want to hear it?”
“You may be right, sir. In any case, a telephone is de rigueur for a personage like Lady Longetine.”
“Just mind where you park your cart. And wipe your feet. I’ll not spend half my day cleaning up after the likes of you.”
“Ta, Mister...?
“The name is Goldstone - not that it will be much use to you. I expect this to be our one unfortunate meeting. Follow me to her Lady’s chambers.”
With that, Goldstone turned on his heel and disappeared.
“There’s a pleasant chap,” I said.
“No doubt it takes a certain force of personality to withstand the Lady herself.”
Goldstone was up the main stairway by the time we entered the foyer. Holmes took three stairs at a time to close the distance. I, lugging a toolbox that weighed at least two stone, resigned myself to ascending at the prescribed rate. By the time I had gained the landing, Goldstone had already returned from where he had deposited Holmes. He turned his nose up at me as he passed as if I had come straight from working in the sewers.
“Never mind that, Watson,” Holmes hissed from down the hall. “Come here.”
A short hallway opened up into Lady Longetine’s chambers, which appeared to be as large as 221b. The mistress of the house was very much present, in that her likeness met my gaze at every turn. A great oil painting, nearly life-size in its depiction, took pride of place. It depicted Lady Longetine in the bloom of youth, posed like a queen, gazing across the Longetine grounds with a beatific look that I feel safe in wagering had never appeared upon her actual face. Around this were a dozen photographs, some posed, some in fancy dress, all seemingly placing her in important company. Littered about were a few pencil sketches, a striking charcoal piece, and several studies in watercolor.
“Make some noise over here,” Holmes said, indicating a spot of wall next to a fine cherry-wood end table.
“Make some noise?”
“Bang your tools around, knock on the wall, give the definite impression of manual labor. That should keep Goldstone at bay.”
“And you?” I asked, making a production of measuring and remeasuring the wall.
“I will ply my own trade.”
Through the passage to the bedroom, which had as many mirrors as this room had portraits, I could see Holmes begin by careful examination of the floor and then the windows. He then stepped to an ornate vanity and produced a vial of powder from this pocket. This he gently dusted over the contents of the vanity’s top. He then produced strips of paper that became adhesive when moistened. Running them delicately across his tongue in turn, he took impressions of the dust he had sprinkled. When he was satisfied, he blew the residual powder away and gently opened the Lady’s jewelry box. With an expert eye, he quickly appraised the contents, and then he closed it again.
“Well?” I asked when he returned.
“There are exactly two sets of finger marks on that vanity. One a woman’s and one a man’s. I think it is safe the assume the woman is Lady Longetine.”
“Could the man be Goldstone?”
“Perhaps. The rugs only show one set of marks large enough to be a man, while at least three women have recently been in that room. I would hazard that her boudoir is off-limits to Goldstone, and the vanity is off-limits even to her maids.”
“But if there are a man’s finger marks, then couldn’t it be Goldstone?�
��
“More likely to be the Lord of the manor. At the same time, only one of the smaller sets of marks appears directly in front of the vanity, but there are dozens of such impressions about the room. Those I take to be of the Lady herself. Come, Watson.”
To my surprise, Holmes plucked a silver candlestick from the table beside the chamber door and laid it atop the pile in my toolbox.
“What is this, some vital piece of evidence?” I asked.
“A means to an end, Watson. Shall we?”
Quietly Holmes led the way downstairs, where he proceeded directly to the front door. He knelt down and blew his vial of dust against the inside of the door around the handle. Nodding to himself, he now let out a tremendous cough, and began fiddling with the lock on the door. As an expert lockpick, he surely could have sprung the thing without a creak, but now he was cranking the handle about like he meant to snap it off.
“Hold it right there!” Goldstone shouted from behind us. “What are you doing?”
“Nevermind the rest of it now, just grab the toolbox and run!” Holmes said, throwing the front door open and letting a lump of putty fall to the ground. He dashed off and left me stammering as Goldstone gathered his nerve and stared me down. In a state of utter confusion, I fumbled for the toolbox at my feet and ran after Holmes. As I did, the silver candlestick tumbled free.
“Thieves!” Goldstone called as he chased after me. I had almost made it to the street when a bullet whizzed by my head. I looked back and saw Goldstone at the front door with a rifle. From the way it swayed in his uneasy grip, I could tell he was not used to the gun. He shuffled forward onto the drive in hopes of bettering his aim. The horse drawing our cart roiled when the butler fired his second shot. As he fumbled to reload, I leaped up into the seat and Holmes, already with reins in hand, whipped the startled beast into a brisk trot. We were barely around a bend in the lane when Holmes brought the cart to a halt and hopped off.
“Where are you going? We barely escaped with our lives.”
The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part X Page 40
