The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters: 25 Modern Tales by Masters

by Michael Kurland

  “And you said nothing of this to me?” I cried.

  “The fewer people who knew, the better,” John replied. “Besides, Amelia, I wanted to drive a stake through the heart of the canard perpetuated by both you and Holmes that I cannot hold a secret.” He looked positively smug as he spoke this, the brute.

  “I may never speak to you again, John,” I said, indignantly.

  Now “Madame Ouida” reappeared, her long black wig having been removed, allowing her natural blonde hair to brighten her looks considerably. “I hope I did well,” she said.

  “You were devastating, Gemma,” Charles answered, taking her hand. “Your dashing out of the room in a fit of theatrical terror convinced the old girl that we had really summoned up a spectre! She confessed before she even realized what she was saying.”

  “Introductions are in order,” Phillip said. “Dr Watson, Mrs Watson, this is Miss Gemma Macaulay, the daughter of our local constable, and a young lady with aspirations to go on the stage.”

  “Who was also in on the scheme,” Edward grumbled. “Everyone but me.”

  “And me, don’t forget,” I said.

  After pouring a snifter of brandy for John and one for himself, Charles said, “Well, thank heaven that is over. So tell us, doctor, what kind of a blighter was dear old papa when he was young?”

  “I am going to retire,” Edward said, still bruised over his exclusion from the adventure. “I don’t wish to hear any more surprise revelations regarding father tonight.”

  “An excellent idea,” I said, following him to the staircase. “Good night, almost everyone.”

  When John finally returned to the bedroom—after a good hour or so of regaling the twins with tales of their father from the days of the Fusiliers—I made good on my threat of silence, refusing even to say good night. I would, of course, speak to him again, though we might be on the train and halfway to Oxford before I revealed that secret to him.

  THE CASE OF THE TARLETON MURDERS, by Jack Grochot

  Now living back at Baker Street with my fellow lodger Sherlock Holmes, I awoke early on this particular morning in 1895 with an ache in my left shoulder, where the Jezail bullet struck and shattered the bone during my service in the Afghanistan campaign.

  Holmes already had finished breakfast, evidenced by the crumbs scattered on his plate, and had gone off to the hospital chemistry laboratory to achieve a breakthrough in his latest scientific experiment—or so said the note protruding from under the lid of the half-empty coffee pot.

  Still lingering, the dull pain in my shoulder brought me thoughts of Murray, my brave orderly in the war, who saved me from falling into the hands of the treacherous Ghazis. Where was Murray today, I wondered, as I flipped Holmes’s note onto the tabletop and saw, on the reverse side, an invitation to join him to witness his discovery.

  Mrs Hudson, our landlady, must have heard me stirring, because she soon appeared with two soft-boiled eggs, bacon, and toast, which I ate with haste so I would not miss out on Holmes’s moment of truth.

  I walked briskly part of the way to the lab, which seemed to ease my suffering. I glimpsed an empty hansom on Great Orme Street near the British Museum, so I flagged down the driver and comfortably rode for the remainder of my journey. I made my way down the labyrinth of freshly white-washed hallways of the great hospital, familiar with each intersection, until I reached the dissecting room. This I entered and cut through, because the rear exit opened into the chemistry section, where I had first met Sherlock Holmes several years earlier.

  Presently, on this glorious summer day, I found Holmes hovering over a large glass globe, under which was a Bunsen lamp, a sheet of foolscap, and a vial with red liquid suspended over the flame.

  “Now, Watson,” said he, as if I had been there the whole time with him, “we shall see if my theory proves correct. The iodine solution will produce a gas that should form the effect I am anticipating.”

  In a matter of a few moments, the paper began to change colour to a pinkish purple. Then, coming into view, as if by magic, was a latent palm print, with the ridges and furrows, loops and whorls distinctly detectable now.

  “Voila tout!” Holmes exclaimed as he wrung his bony, acid-stained hands. “This surely will inspire the tongues to wag at the nascent fingerprint bureau of Scotland Yard! Imagine what this development could have accomplished in the Yard’s failed prosecutions of the scoundrel Jeremy Conway or the international swindler Benito Zito. I should think my finding will receive prominent mention in your chronicles, Watson.”

  Holmes could hardly contain his excitement, so he persuaded me to help carry the glass globe, the burner, and the vial of iodine solution to Scotland Yard, where, with his flare for the dramatic, he recreated the scene in the hospital laboratory and demonstrated the technique for the incredulous fingerprint bureau personnel and a handful of sceptical inspectors. They were astonished, to say the least, at the result.

  “I shall hazard a guess that one or two of you might find this somewhat useful in the future,” Holmes predicted, an understatement he intended for emphasis.

  * * * *

  Little did we know then that Holmes’s new method would play a key role in the adventure that awaited us upon our return to the flat at Baker Street, a ghastly case that took us to the sleepy farming village of Tarleton in the marshy Lancashire District, three hundred kilometers to the northwest of London.

  When we arrived home, Mrs Hudson greeted us at the door to inform Holmes that a young special constable from the distant country town was in our sitting-room with a problem he chose not to discuss with her.

  “I can’t tell you what it’s about because he wouldn’t confide in me,” she sniffed. “His name is Hubert Roddy.”

  We went up the stairs and into our apartment, Holmes extending his hand and introducing himself. He told Roddy who I was and said I was helpful in many of the investigations Holmes had undertaken. Roddy, standing erect and alert, told Holmes no introduction was necessary because he had read my accounts of the exploits and admired how Holmes had solved the crimes.

  “I hope my visit here will cause the same successful consequences in Tarleton,” he began. “I implore you, Mr Holmes, to lend your assistance in an urgent matter.” Roddy explained that what appeared to be a routine missing person enquiry had evolved into a grisly murder mystery over the last several weeks.

  “Tell me more, Constable Roddy, I am all ears,” Holmes commented. “I am unoccupied for the time being and a trip to the hinterlands could be invigorating as well as challenging.”

  Roddy continued: “This is my first exposure to a killing, Mr Holmes, and I am afraid that I must admit I am at a total loss as to how to proceed. If only the victim, James Harley Carroll, could talk, I wouldn’t be here to trouble you. But he can’t talk for two reasons, the first being that he is dead, of course, and the second because he has lost his head. Mr Carroll, one of our most prosperous grain farmers, was decapitated when his body washed up on the shore of the River Douglas to the east of the village.”

  “Without a face to recognise,” Holmes interrupted, “how did you come to learn the identity of the remains?”

  “As I said, Mr Carroll had been reported missing two weeks prior to the torso washing ashore,” Roddy answered, “and our town doctor who examined it noticed a fresh surgical scar on the abdomen. He reported that the incision had been made by him when he operated on Mr Carroll to repair a hernia just two months before. In addition, the clothing on the body was identified as what Mr Carroll was wearing when he was last seen.”

  “Last seen by whom?” Holmes wanted to know.

  “By the stable boy at Mr Carroll’s farm, a lad eighteen years of age—the person who filed the missing person information.”

  “Pray tell,” Holmes went on, “what have you learned of Mr Carroll’s history?”

  “He had led an interesting life, Mr Holmes,” said Roddy, “and only a fraction of it in Tarleton. Mr Carroll was raised there as an only child.
His parents died of the plague when he was in his early twenties, and they bequeathed to him the expansive farm of nearly five hundred hectares. He left it in the care of a neighbour, who treated it as his own, while Mr Carroll went off to America to seek his fortune. He prospected in the western state of Utah and located a rich silver deposit, becoming the owner of a mine and a man of wealth.

  “Mr Carroll bought cattle ranches in the Wyoming territory and eventually retired a millionaire, returning to his estate in Tarleton to spend the last of his years as a country gentleman.

  “When Dr Brem performed the autopsy, Mr Carroll’s signature leather wallet, made from the hide of one of his steers and engraved with his initials, was not in his pocket, nor was there on his hand a gaudy silver ring with the letter C on the top. I have been working on the theory that the motive for this homicide was robbery, but I have no suspects. In a nutshell, that is where the case stands. Needless to say, I am experiencing severe pressure from community leaders and my superiors in the county police force to make an arrest, which is why I am turning to you, Mr Holmes.”

  “Your dilemma,” Holmes informed the special constable, “arouses considerable curiosity in me. But before I agree to assist you in your probe, please answer some basic questions. One, did Mr Carroll have any enemies or feuds with anyone in the village?”

  Roddy paused to think, then: “No enemies, for certain, Mr Holmes, but he was on the outs with Mr McNaughton, the local grain merchant, over the amount Mr McNaughton paid Mr Carroll for ten wagon-loads of oats.”

  Holmes asked if Mr Carroll had associated with others in the village.

  “He was friendly with everyone, but he was particularly close to his neighbour, Sir Ethan Tarleton, a boyhood friend whose ancestors founded the village. Mr Tarleton is in extremely poor health and Mr Carroll would visit with him frequently to cheer him up. It was Mr Tarleton who acted as caretaker of Mr Carroll’s farm while he was in the United States. Mr Tarleton has a son who lives with him and cares for his needs, along with a sister who lives in the village. The son, Zachary, is very protective of the family heritage and has held the family farm together ever since Sir Ethan’s health failed.”

  “Did Dr Brem establish the cause of death to be anything prior to the beheading?” Holmes asked.

  “There were no other fatal wounds or marks on the torso,” Roddy responded, “but without the head the autopsy was rendered incomplete.”

  Holmes enquired if Mr Carroll left any heirs or a last will and testament.

  “He was a man alone in this world, Mr Holmes, with no descendants or kin. I personally searched thoroughly his home and effects, but found nothing to indicate who would inherit Mr Carroll’s farm and his money. I suppose it’s a matter for the lawyers to haggle over as to who will benefit from Mr Carroll’s demise.”

  Holmes concluded the interrogation with this question: “Was the neck wound jagged, as if the head had been hacked off with an axe, or was it a single, clean cut, such as what might be dealt by a sharp instrument, a knife or a wire perhaps?”

  “Mr Holmes, it was as if he had been executed with a guillotine,” Roddy revealed.

  “This puzzle beckons me to find the missing pieces,” Holmes said. “You are welcome to have dinner with Dr Watson and me, rest here tonight, and accompany us on the train tomorrow.”

  Roddy politely declined the invitation, saying he had been away long enough and that he would board a train leaving Clapham Junction that evening.

  “I had best be on my way if I am to be on time—and thank you both for your attention to my problem,” he said, adding as he departed: “You won’t find a hotel in Tarleton, but you may take up lodging in Mr Carroll’s empty house, because it is still in my custody. I shall leave the key in the postman’s box.”

  Afterwards, Holmes said little. He was deep in thought. Once, he blurted: “As I have said before, Watson, there is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.”

  And later, during supper at Simpson’s: “As in the case of the killer Jefferson Hope, what is out of the common is usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a difficulty like Constable Roddy’s, the grand thing is to be able to reason backward.”

  That night we packed our luggage while Holmes studied the train schedule aloud. “The train for Birmingham leaves at ten o’clock in the morning, and if it is not late arriving there, we can make a connection to Stoke-on-Trent, then Manchester, and finally to Southport, near Tarleton, a trip of five hours total duration. We shall likely find it necessary to hire a drag to take us from Southport to Mr Carroll’s former home.”

  * * * *

  It was late afternoon the following day when the horse-drawn cart turned onto the long, winding drive to the low Tudor-style house that had belonged to Mr Carroll. Our route had taken us through the centre of the village, with its two-story brick dwellings and shops, a pub, a post office, and grain storage facilities all built close together, as if in a city. Outside the town limits, the countryside exploded into vast crops of wheat, oats, corn, green vegetables, and a variety of flowers growing in black soil rich with peat. We could glimpse only the peaked rooftops of farmhouses scattered among the fields.

  Holmes unlocked the door, which opened into a foyer with a slate floor and walls decorated with landscape paintings depicting scenes from the American West. Beyond the foyer was a large sitting-room with an immense fireplace, above which hung the antlers of an elk, plus the horns of a steer and a mountain goat. Bookshelves lined one side of the room, each packed with volumes on American law, the classics, history, as well as fiction and nonfiction that told stories of Western heroes and outlaws. The opposite end of the room was a veritable museum of Western artefacts, with a well-worn, silver-studded riding saddle on a wooden rack, a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots beside it, and a small table holding a bulky chunk of silver. Horse tack, a lasso, and fancy spurs covered the wall.

  “I daresay the man was obsessed with his life abroad,” I remarked to Holmes, who was seated at a desk, rummaging through the documents on the top. He found more papers in the drawers and was examining them when there came a knock from the clapper on the carved oak door.

  I answered the call, and standing on the stoop was a young, dark-skinned fellow dressed in Western attire, complete with fringed chaps and a wide-brimmed hat, and strands of hay clinging to his sleeves.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” he said humbly, “but I’m the late Mr Carroll’s barn hand, Alexander McRae. You can call me Tex. Mr Carroll always did, ever since he hired me on in Wyomin’ when I was just nine years old and runnin’ away from the orphanage.”

  I escorted him inside to meet Sherlock Holmes, and Tex continued in his quiet manner: “Constable Roddy said you’d be arrivin’ today, and I wanted to offer you any he’p you might need to git familiar with the surroundin’s. He told me you’d be solvin’ the murder of Mr Carroll, who was like the father I never had. I hope whoever did it gits his neck stretched by a rope on a tall tree branch.”

  Holmes and I were charmed by Tex’s unassuming, blunt way. He replied to Holmes’s questions frankly and without hesitation. We learned that Mr Carroll had risen at sunrise daily to assist Tex with the feeding of the livestock, then he would return to the barn in the evening to do the same. He usually cooked breakfast, prepared lunch, and cooked supper for the two of them. In between those times, Mr Carroll would supervise the labourers in the fields, walk the trails between them to visit with Sir Ethan Tarleton, ride to town on his favourite gelding, Bullseye, and at four o’clock sharp stop at the tavern for a mug of beer.

  “I can’t disappoint the barkeep—he expects me there at the same time every day,” Mr Carroll would jest.

  One day about a month ago, Tex recalled, Mr Carroll was nowhere to be seen around the farmhouse at the noon hour and failed to make an appearance at dinnertime. Worried, Tex tried to pinpoint Mr Carroll’s whereabouts by tracing his known footsteps, discovering that Mr Carroll hadn’t kept his four o’clock
appointment at the pub. Tex checked inside the barn and found Bullseye in his stall, with no indication that he had been ridden. When the farmhouse remained empty that night, Tex was certain something dreadful had happened to Mr Carroll, so in the morning Tex fed the horses alone, went to his quarters above the stable to don a clean shirt, and sought out the police to report Mr Carroll as missing.

  “What Tex had to tell us disclosed a great deal,” Holmes muttered after the youngster had gone off to his chores. “I believe I shall call upon Sir Ethan Tarleton first thing tomorrow. For now, I shall resume my inspection of Mr Carroll’s effects.”

  That evening, after Holmes had finished his research, we were readying for bed when Constable Roddy came with news that would keep us awake half the night.

  “Sorry to trouble you gentlemen so late, but I thought you would want to know as soon as possible, Mr Holmes, that another headless body has surfaced,” he announced. “This one was found along a seldom-travelled path that leads from the outskirts of town past a shack inhabited by the village drunkard, George Beidler. It appears he is the victim, although we have no one to make a positive identification. Poor old George—he was harmless. Who would want to kill him? He could have been lying there a number of days, and if it were not for one of our residents taking a short-cut home tonight, the discovery could have been delayed even longer.”

  “Take me to the scene of the crime immediately,” commanded Holmes, “because there may be clues that will vanish by morning.”

  We rode in Roddy’s surrey about two kilometers on narrow roads and through a small forest, at the end of which was a cart path. When we were near the scene of the crime, Holmes ordered Roddy to stop so as not to disturb any evidence.