“Ain’t necessary. Nothing to see there.”
“All the same, it is only right that I view the site for myself,” Holmes said.
“Shut him up. Let’s get on with it. Let’s get on with the hanging.” The voice echoed from the dark stuffiness of the courtroom.
The tall man in black rose to his feet. “As an outsider I can only advise, but this does not seem an unreasonable request. The defending attorney needs to see the scene of the crime.”
“Oh very well. Have it your way,” the judge snapped. “Court adjourned for fifteen minutes. Maybe if we hurry we’ll have time for a quick visit to the tavern to fortify ourselves.”
Holmes waited not a moment longer. He ran out of the court room, found the stables and then the little-used walk way between the back of the stables and the fence of a private dwelling. He stared at the ground. Think, he told himself. Remember what he taught you. The land tells a story. He looked down at the sandy soil. The first thing he noticed were some flies on a black tarry area that Holmes deduced was dried blood. He dropped to his knees and examined the ground for prints. Several sets of boot prints, and then he picked out one set of the soft soled shoes that the Indian wore. He studied the ground carefully. The Indian had come that way, as he said. The prints did not proceed beyond the spot with the blood. He also noted that one pair of boots had an interesting almost heart shaped metal tip to the toe and the heel. It came down the alleyway before the Indian, as the latter’s print was over it, and then continued on. Could have been coincidence, or he could be looking at the boot print of one of the killers. From the width of the stride and the depth of the print, Holmes could deduce that the man was running.
Reluctantly he returned to the courtroom. He noticed from the raised volume of noise that many of the occupants had indeed fortified themselves at the tavern while he had been gone. Their rowdiness was now bordering on belligerence.
The trial began. The first witness was called. He gave his name as Chuck Hawkins. He told how he had heard a ruckus the night before, gone into the alleyway and seen the Indian bending over a body. The body was still warm. He and some other men had grabbed the Indian and dragged him to the jail.
“Don’t seem no need to go any further,” the judge said. “Open and shut case, like I said.”
“One moment, please.” Holmes got to his feet amid groans and cat calls. “First I would like to speak to the character of the defendant. He is no killer. Only last week he saved my life when I had been robbed and left for dead in the desert.” He let his gaze move deliberately around the courtroom. “It may surprise honest men among you to know that a gang of stage robbers actually resides in this town and are here among you today.”
Murmurs rumbled through the crowd.
“But this is not the business at hand. We are speaking of the life of a man, a human being, no matter what the colour of his skin. Like any other man here, he is innocent until proven guilty. I should first like to call the doctor who examined the body. I presume a doctor did examine the body.”
“Most certainly did,” the judge said. “It was me, son. He died instantly, stabbed through the heart.”
“Interesting,” Holmes said. “Stabbed from the front, you mean? Now I have just examined that alleyway and note that the Indian’s footprints go no further than where the man fell. So I can only deduce that he came upon the body, as he said and bent to examine it, from behind. Now, if he had just stabbed the man, he would have been standing in front of him, wouldn’t he? But there is no sign of his footprints beyond where the man fell. On the contrary, I could see two pairs of rather distinctive boots, running away, by the size of their strides. White man’s boots, mark you, not Indian moccasins.”
“Footprints don’t prove nothin,” someone near the front shouted. “Those prints could have been there for days. And the Injun could have snuck up from behind, spun the poor fellah around and then stabbed him.”
There was growled agreement to this.
Holmes took a deep breath. He could see they’d have an answer to almost any kind of evidence he produced. They wanted the Indian to be guilty and they were going to make sure he was.
“Doctor,” he said. “You examined the body. What size would you say the wound was?”
The judge thought for a moment. “About two inches, I’d say. Nasty vicious wound. Went straight into the heart.”
“And who took the Indian’s weapons from him when he was arrested?”
“I did,” a voice called from the back. “They’re locked up now, in the jail.”
“Can you please produce them as evidence?” Holmes demanded.
They waited. A few seconds later an out-of-breath deputy placed the hatchet and the knife in front of the judge.
“This is correct,” Holmes said. “During the time I was with this man he was carrying only these two weapons. The hatchet could not have been used for stabbing. It wouldn’t make a cut deep enough to kill. Now, let us examine the knife. It is a throwing knife, you will note. Light, designed with a tear drop shape for flying swiftly and easily through the air. But at its widest the blade is only—what would you say, doctor—one inch wide?”
The judge leaned forward to examine the blade. “Yep. About that.”
“So it could not have been the blade that killed Mr Fletcher, could it?”
Another rumble went through the crowd. “And what’s more,” Holmes went on, emboldened, “I believe I can prove which knife in this room did kill him. If you’ll follow me outside…” They complied, jostling for position.
Holmes walked behind them, checking their footprints in the soft sand of the street. “Would you step forward, sir?” He went around touching shoulders apparently randomly. “And would you place your knives on the bed of this buckboard?”
He had summoned ten men. He recognized two of them.
The knives were placed. Holmes waited.
“What you goin’ to do, a magic trick? Goin’ to make the dead man appear and point to his killer?” Mr Jensen demanded and got a general laugh, although not from the men standing in that line.
“While we wait,” Holmes said, “Let me fill you in on a little background so that you understand better. Last week I was in a stage coach that was robbed in the desert. I tried to protect a young woman and was knocked unconscious. I was left for dead. I should surely have died if this Indian had not found me and brought me to safety. Imagine my surprise when I came into town and saw the men who robbed me. It is true that they were masked but they each had something about them that gave them away—a peculiarly deep, rumbling voice, for example, or bright orange freckles on a forearm and a high pitched laugh. One of them had a smooth, English sounding accent. I surmise that he is Mr Robert Fletcher who now lies in your morgue. I also surmise there was a falling out among thieves. Mr Fletcher was overheard to say, ‘No more. This has gone on long enough.’ I suspect his conscience was getting the better of him and he wanted out. But he could not be allowed to leave the gang, in case he betrayed his fellow bandits. So they killed him. It was purely fortuitous that the person who happened to stumble upon the body was an Indian. An obvious scapegoat, wouldn’t you say?”
“Utter rubbish,” one of the men standing in that line said. “Come on, judge. This has gone on long enough. What’s the fellah think he can prove? He’s just making things up to protect his Indian pal. I say we string ’em up, both of ’em.”
Holmes held up his hand. “Only one more minute of your time, I promise you. The proof has arrived. While I was staying with Mr Tucker, he taught me a good deal of things, including that flies will always home in on blood. The killer thought that he wiped his knife clean, but not clean enough. The flies still smelled the traces of blood on it. If you will turn your attention to the knives, you will now see which knife killed Robert Fletcher.”
There was a gasp from the crowd. One knife now had five or six flies on it. The others did not.
“Would the other men now retrieve their knives?” Ho
lmes instructed.
He looked at the young red-headed man whose face was now ashen. “Mr Jensen junior, is it not?” Holmes said, “And if I’m not mistaken, your boots have distinctive metal tips. I saw your prints as you ran away from the scene of the crime.”
As hands went to grab him, Jensen whipped out a gun. “He made me do it,” he shouted, waving the pistol at the big man in the red shirt. “He said we had to make sure Fletcher didn’t talk.”
“What nonsense is this?” Mr Jensen senior stepped forward. “Accusing my boy? That’s a mighty stupid thing to do, stranger. You’ve been nothing but trouble since you came into town. And if you men know what’s good for you, you won’t listen to a word he says.”
“On the contrary.” The federal agent pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “I believe he has put his case extremely well. I for one am satisfied that he has arrived at the truth. If you wish to deal with him, you will have to deal with me first. And I can assure you that my colleagues in Washington would have the cavalry here in a flat minute and would take over the running of this town if anything happened to me.”
He moved to stand beside Holmes. “Judge,” he said. “I think it behooves you to release this Indian.”
The judge shot an anxious glance at Mr Jensen. “Oh, very well. Bring out the Indian. But you guys better get him out of town pretty danged fast, or I’ll not be responsible for what happens to him, or to any of you.”
“As it happens, I planned to leave today anyway,” the man in black said. “Would you care to join me, Mr Holmes? I am on my way to Phoenix and then to the West Coast.”
“My dear sir, I’d be delighted,” Holmes said, “if we can give my good friend Shadow Wolf a ride to safely.”
“We most certainly can,” Mr Cleveland replied.
“Before I go,” Holmes said, turning back to the crowd. “I should like to retrieve my pocket watch. I don’t know what happened to the rest of my belongings but that watch was dear to me.” He walked up to the big man in red and held out his hand. “I noticed it in court,” he said.
“Hey, I bought this watch fair and square from a trader,” the man snapped. “Ain’t no way you can prove it’s yours.”
“I think that the inscription, inside the back cover might convince some people that it is mine,” Holmes said. “To my dear brother Sherlock on his twenty-first birthday.” It is signed Mycroft.”
Hands removed the watch, opened it and a murmur of recognition went around the crowd. The watch was handed to Holmes.
“Now take it and get out while you’re still alive,” Mr Jensen barked.
Shadow Wolf was brought out and climbed onto the buckboard. Holmes and the federal agent climbed up beside him.
“I fear that justice will not be served in that place,” Holmes said.
“We have done the best we can do without reinforcements,” Mr Cleveland said. “You should be glad the outcome was so positive. Had I not been there I rather fear that both of you would be swinging from a noose at this moment. I will report the case to my superiors in Washington, but I doubt that much can be done. We shall have to wait until more women come out West. They are always a civilizing influence.”
The buckboard started off. As they swung to take the road out of town, young Jensen ran forward and drew his pistol. “Take that, ya’ damned meddler,” he yelled. A gunshot reverberated in the clear air.
Then a surprised look came over his face and he slumped to the ground. A surprised smile spread over Holmes’s face as he replaced his smoking pistol into its holster.
“One of the things Mr Tucker taught me during the time of my recuperation was how to shoot one of these things. I must have mastered it remarkably quickly.”
The horses picked up speed as the town fell away behind them.
THE STAGECOACH DETECTIVE, by Linda Robertson
“…we are here in a land of stage-drivers and highwaymen: a land, in that sense, like England a hundred years ago.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson, The Silverado Squatters
The Royal Family of Silverado, as I called us that summer, were as raffish a dynasty as ever disgraced the most dubious Balkan principality—an invalid literary man (myself), Fanny, my ravel-haired American bride, and my stepson Sam, then a Crown Prince of eleven years.
On a bright day late in July we were making our daily progress from our camp on the mountain to the little hotel on the toll road where the mail coaches stopped. Rounding the last turn in our path, we saw the Lakeport stage stopped before the hotel, earlier than usual and empty of passengers. The dust from the coach’s passage stood in a chalky cloud above the road.
In the yard, a group of men stood talking urgently among themselves. I saw Corwin, the landlord, dark and hollow-chested, and McConnell, the stagecoach driver, the tallest and broadest of them, glowering and turning his big blond head from side to side, like a caged bear. The landlord’s wife was shepherding a couple of women down the veranda to the hotel door.
“Mr McConnell,” she called out, “can you wait for a bit before going on? I think the ladies could use a little rest and a chance to calm down.”
McConnell turned and fixed his bear-like gaze on her. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere, Mrs C,” he answered, resentfully. “Gotta wait for the sheriff.” He turned away and spat on the ground. “I guess we’ll have to spend the night here. Be hell to pay in Lakeport,” he added, shaking his head.
Trailed by Sam, I walked to the edge of the group to hear more, while Fanny joined Mrs Corwin in the hotel.
“Who’s gonna ride to Calistoga and tell the sheriff?” one of the men asked.
“My boy Tom,” said Corwin. “I sent José back to saddle up one of our ponies.”
“We need to put together a posse—go out and hunt him down,” another man said. “Mr Corwin, how many horses do you have?”
“Not enough,” the innkeeper said. “Besides, the fella’s got a good hour’s start. We’ll need a tracker and bloodhounds, and they’re in Calistoga.” He caught his son Tom’s eye and pointed over his shoulder to where José, the stableman, was walking up with a saddled horse.
Tom ran over, took the reins, swung lightly into the saddle in true western style, and started at a gallop down the toll road.
“Sweet Jesus, Tommy, don’t kill the pony!” Corwin shouted after him, as horse and boy disappeared into the woods. He looked around the bare, dusty yard at the little crowd of passengers, hotel guests, workers and idlers, and announced, “Come inside and have a beer—it’s on the house. Been a rough morning.”
As we passed down the veranda, I saw one of the hotel’s residents leaning back in a rocking chair, a newspaper in his lap, watching the happenings in the yard with half-closed eyes. He looked up at us, as we walked across the creaking boards.
“Your Majesty. Your Highness,” he said, sitting straighter and tipping his battered straw hat.
“Interesting morning, Joe,” I said. “What’s going on out there?”
“Stagecoach was robbed again.”
“Wow!” Sam said beside me.
“Again?” I asked.
“Twice in the last two months.”
The last few men were clumping across the worn boards of the veranda and through the door of the saloon. “Free beer,” I said to Joe as we turned to follow them. Folding his paper in half, he rose, casually, onto stork-like legs and drifted after us.
The barroom was cooler than outdoors. A couple of opened windows at the back brought in a little air and the purling of water in the creek behind the hotel. The reek of old whisky and stale beer rose like mist on a marsh from the sanded floorboards and the varnished bar, stained with the rings of countless glasses. A few flies moved sluggishly through the warm air, as if biding their time until dinner. Corwin and Hoddy, the barman, drew pints of beer and slapped them down on the bar.
“It’s a bad business,” Hoddy said. “Second time this year. McConnell thinks this one was done by the same fellow did the last. Ain’t that righ
t, McConnell?”
“He sure looked the same.”
“What did he look like?”
“Hard to tell much,” broke in a mustachioed man in a new miner’s outfit. “He was wearing a bandanna, blue one, tied across his face.”
“I thought it was red,” said a red-faced, balding man in a rumpled grey suit.
“And a broad-brimmed hat,” the first man added.
“Some kind of serape over his clothes.”
“Looked to me like one of them green Army blankets.”
“How tall was he?” Corwin asked.
“Tall—a big fellow,” said a stout man in a linen jacket.
McConnell disagreed. “He wasn’t that big—kind of skinny, I thought. Couldn’t really tell much, though, under that blanket.”
All of them remembered he had a large-calibre pistol. “Silver coloured,” said the stout man, and another agreed.
“No—gun metal, with wood grips,” McConnell said, with conviction.
Near me, another man spoke up, in the familiar accent of an Englishman. “He was about five feet six inches in height, dark eyes, reddish hair, very nervous. Brown wide awake hat, with a broad brim, blue bandanna, blue work shirt under a serape made from an Army blanket, denim trousers, black boots. He wore black riding gloves, and the gun was a .45 calibre Colt Arms Company cavalry model, blue metal with darkened wooden grips—nice observation, Mr McConnell.”
We all looked at him blankly.
“And how do you know all that?” The miner asked, with the exaggerated suspicion of a fool. “You a friend of his or something?”
The Englishman turned and fixed him with a look of polite scorn. “I looked.”
The miner was undaunted. “Well, shee-it,” he shot back with what I assumed he thought was wit, then turned and spat on the floor. A couple of the other men shifted uncomfortably.
Corwin broke the tension. “Come on, everyone, get your beer and settle down.”
As the men moved toward the bar, the Englishman stayed where he was, watching them. I turned to him, introduced myself, and made some comment about being far from home. He shook my proffered hand. “Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “You’re from Edinburgh, I take it?”
The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters: 25 Modern Tales by Masters Page 41
