by John Hall
“Masters making amends for the swindle, then?” asked Holmes.
“So it seemed, sir. Not all of those who’d lost money were recompensed, though … perhaps because Masters simply didn’t know who they were? Anyway, that caused a bit of a stir, for a time, then the packages stopped arriving, and the whole business just became another unexplained crime. But now … well!”
“I see,” said Holmes. “And your theory, then, is that this Cedric Masters made good his escape, came here to Singapore, and set up in business with the stolen cash, or some of it, having changed his name?”
“Is it possible, do you not think?” asked Ellis. “The one chap vanishes into thin air, the other appears from nowhere about the same time … and then the similarity of the names, Cedric Masters and Derek Masterton. What d’you think, Mr Holmes?”
“Your account has been most interesting, Mr Ellis.” Holmes frowned. “Although there are certain points which puzzle me.”
“Still,” Ingham interjected, “it does rather cast a cloud over Mr Masterton, does it not?”
“Oh, I agree. I think that we must by all means have a word with Mr Derek Masterton,” said Holmes.
I groaned aloud. “But not right now, surely,” I protested.
Holmes glanced at his watch. “You are quite right, as always, Watson,” he said.
I gave a great gasp of relief. “Thank …”
“We must first take a look at the room in which Mrs Gerard was poisoned. Let us hope that not too much has been disarranged.”
“Holmes, I really must …”
“Thank you, Mr Ellis,” said Holmes, rising to his feet and shaking the private investigator’s rather podgy hand. “I shall be in touch, never fear. Come along Watson. Superintendent, did you wish to take another look at the scene of the crime?”
Superintendent Ingham smiled tolerantly. “If you like, Mr Holmes. See you later, Harry,” he told Ellis.
As Holmes strode out into the crowded street, he told Ingham, “I am really very glad that you have decided to come along, Superintendent.”
“It’s good of you to say so, sir,” replied Ingham, flattered. “Because, in all the excitement, I quite forgot to make a note of the address of the Gerards’ lodgings.”
“Ah.” Ingham thought about this for a moment, then smiled at me. “A warranted cure for big-headedness, is Mr Holmes.”
“That he is,” I said.
Ingham, no doubt put out by Holmes’ rudeness, looked round and hailed a carriage, and in a very short time we were rattling through streets which were unfamiliar to me, and by no means as impressive as the ones I had seen up to now.
The streets were no less crowded, though it was approaching the hour for dinner. Indeed, if anything the crowds seemed to have increased, perhaps because little stalls were appearing here and there, offering the equivalent of a seven-course banquet for a few pence. The aromas from these served to remind me that I had not yet dined, and that I had no notion as to when that happy event might occur. To keep my mind off thoughts of food, I asked Holmes, “What did you mean about having doubts as to Mr Ellis’s tale? What puzzles you about it?”
“Well, Watson, the man whom Mr Ellis described seemed almost like a modern Robin Hood, robbing the rich to repay the poor victims of a swindle. Would such an altruist kill a woman?”
“H’mm. But if that woman seemed to threaten his liberty? His life, indeed? For he will pay with his life if he is a murderer, Holmes.”
Holmes nodded, in silence, but looked far from satisfied.
The carriage stopped before a very ordinary sort of building, three storeys, in need of a lick of paint, and with a hand-written sign in one window advertising rooms to let. The place stood on a corner formed by the road and a little alley which ran down one side, and which did not seem to me the sort of little alley I should care to wander down alone on a dark night. It was not a very prepossessing establishment that the Gerards had patronized, I thought as I followed Holmes and Ingham to the front door.
A middle-aged woman, with the same air of dowdiness that characterized the outside of the building, emerged from the shadows as we entered the place. “Gentlemen?” she began, and then, catching sight of Ingham, “Oh, it’s you, Superintendent. I thought you might return, sir, to take a look at the rooms, or ask questions or something.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes, his face lighting up. “Then the rooms have not been cleaned at all?”
“No, sir,” said the landlady. “I left them just as they were when … you know. I thought it as well not to move anything, just in case. And besides, the maids are a bit nervous about going in there.”
“Excellent,” said Holmes, rubbing his hands together. “Madam, you have restored my faith in humanity.”
The landlady smiled at this, looking considerably less anxious than she had at the outset of our conversation. “Can you find your way, Superintendent, or shall I …”
“No need, madam, I remember the room. Do you have the key? Thank you.” And off went Ingham, striding up the stairs two at a time.
He paused at a door on the second floor. “Here we are.” He opened the door, and stood back to let us enter.
I followed Holmes into the room. It was plainly furnished as a sitting room and quite clean. It bore the customary traces of recent occupancy, a book on the table, a bottle of brandy and some glass bottles of soda water on a sideboard. “Bedroom through there?” said Holmes, and set off into the other room. “Where was the body?” he called back over his shoulder.
“In this little sitting room, sir,” replied Ingham. “Slumped over the table here.”
“And the box of poisoned sweets?”
“On the table as well.”
Holmes subjected the place to his usual thorough examination, scurrying here and there and emitting an occasional grunt as he thought he found something out of the ordinary. When he had done, he looked ruefully at Ingham.
“Well, Superintendent, you did say there was nothing here worth seeing.”
Ingham nodded. “Without boasting, I think I’d have spotted anything untoward, Mr Holmes. Still, nothing like a first-hand demonstration, is there?”
“Indeed not. Well, a quick word with the landlady, and we can think about our dinner.”
“Thank Heavens for that,” I told myself, as I followed Holmes back down the stairs.
The landlady, evidently alerted by some mysterious sixth sense, appeared as we descended into the reception area. “Everything satisfactory, gentlemen?” she asked.
“Most satisfactory, madam,” Holmes replied. He glanced around him. “You have the telephone, I observe?”
“The guests expect it these days, sir, even in a modest establishment such as mine.”
“And it was you who called the police yesterday, after … when the tragedy occurred?”
“It was, sir. Poor Mr Gerard was in such a taking, as was only natural, poor man, him having just found his poor wife in that shocking fashion.”
“Dreadful, indeed, and understandable, of course,” agreed Holmes in his most soothing tones. He looked round the little corridor once again. “But, as I understand it, Mr Gerard did not at once ask you to call the police? He himself went out into the street, to begin with?”
“Yes, sir, that’s right. Poor Mr Gerard came racing down the stairs, and he shouted something at me … I couldn’t say what it was, not to save my life … and then he rushed out into the street there. He was back at once, though, and said ‘There’s been a dreadful accident. Can you telephone to the police at once?’ and so I did.”
“Yes, I see. Mr Gerard went out there, presumably he looked for a policeman and failed to see one, and then he came straight back in here.” Holmes nodded, then smiled at the landlady. “Thank you, madam, that is very clear. We’ll bother you no longer, so good evening to you.” And he nodded to Ingham and me to indicate that we should leave.
Just outside the door, Holmes halted on the pavement. He looked round, then smiled. �
��As I thought.”
“Holmes?”
Holmes nodded down the road, by way of answer. The road on which the apartment house stood was not a main road, though it was still crowded with people going this way and that, all, presumably, heading for their dinner. But not fifty yards off it ran into a much busier thoroughfare, and on this corner stood a policeman, directing the traffic, which was considerable. “Would there have been a constable there yesterday?” Holmes asked Ingham.
“Yes, sir, there would,” Ingham replied, his face grim. “Which does raise an interesting question.” Holmes looked round. “If Gerard did not come out here to look for a policeman … and the fact that there was a policeman just a short way off rather suggests that he did not … then what did he come out here for?” Holmes nodded at the little alley that ran on one side of the apartment house. “Let us take a look down here.” And off he went, Ingham and I following.
As we entered the alley, a couple of very suspicious characters in very dirty rags cast us a sidelong glance as if summing up our personal wealth, then, evidently seeing in Ingham a person of authority, shuffled away rapidly. A few yards down the alley and it became positively sordid, a half dozen dustbins leaning drunkenly against the wall, their lids askew and their contents spilling on to the very roadway.
Holmes indicated these squalid containers. “Superintendent, it occurs to me that if a man desired to conceal something from the official gaze, something which he had taken from his hotel room, perhaps, but he had only a little time at his disposal, he might well dash out here upon some pretext and place this something in one of these dustbins.”
Ingham gazed at the vile congeries in some dismay. “D’you want me to get a couple of constables to take a look, sir?”
“Well, if it becomes necessary. But let us first try to reconstruct events. He comes along the alley, sees these dustbins. He does not choose the first, for that is what any searcher would look at immediately. The second … h’mm, full though it is, there is still enough space for an undiscriminating householder to insert yet more refuse, and that might lead to detection. The third … ah! This is more like it, full to overflowing, and far enough away from the entrance to the alley to escape all but the most determined inspection.”
He stood as far away from the dustbin as he decently could, and gingerly lifted the lid with the end of his walking stick, probing gently at the festering contents. I was just thinking that this was no way to work up an appetite for dinner, when Holmes stiffened, and darted forward. “I was right,” he crowed, holding aloft a small object.
I offered him my handkerchief, to clean the object up slightly, and this he did, afterwards handing it to me. Ingham came close to me, staring over my shoulder.
The object was a tiny bottle, six-sided and of dark blue glass. It contained a white powder, and it bore the remains of a label, very grimy after its sojourn in the dustbin, but upon which could still be seen a skull and crossbones, and the legend, ‘Arsenic. POISONOUS’
Chapter Eight: Charles Gerard Reconsiders
“Holmes?”
We were on our way back to the police station, and Holmes was holding the little blue poison bottle on his knee, both hands clasped around it as if it were some precious jewel. He was not looking at the bottle, though, but staring out of the carriage window, oblivious to the crowds round about.
I tapped the little bottle. “Holmes?” I said a second time.
He turned slowly, and a smile crept to the corners of his mouth. “Well, Watson? What are your thoughts on the matter?”
“It makes no sense at all,” I said bluntly. “When a man poisons a box of sweetmeats in order to kill his wife, he surely doesn’t leave the poison bottle lying around until the very last minute before getting rid of it.”
Ingham, seated opposite me, nodded agreement. “And what’s more, having at long last removed the bottle, he doesn’t leave the poisonous sweeties there to be found by the police analyst.”
“That’s right,” I said, warming to my work. “If Charles Gerard had poisoned the sweets, he would … well!” And unable to think of anything more dazzlingly impressive, I added lamely, “He’d have made a damned sight better job of it than that. Why, even I could have made a better job of it than that!”
Holmes nodded. “You are both right, of course. Indeed, I confess that much the same thought had occurred to me. And yet … and yet, Charles Gerard put this poison bottle in the rubbish in the alley, that it might not be discovered in the rooms. One might possibly have believed his story of looking for a policeman, had there not been a perfectly acceptable policeman not a hundred yards away. True, he may have been too distraught to think straight, but then he would have been more likely to dash off down the street tearing at his hair and gnashing his teeth. No, he must have raced down those stairs and outside for the express purpose of concealing this little bottle. Nothing else makes sense. But why? Why on earth …” and he broke off, much as I had done a moment before, thereby making me feel considerably better. For if Holmes could make no sense of it, I could hardly be expected to do any better.
Then a thought struck me. Perhaps, just this once, I could see the solution where Holmes had entirely failed to do so? “Holmes,” I said, casually, “how’s this? Gerard is indeed telling the truth. He really did dash outside to look for a policeman, but, being distraught, as you put it, he failed to see the chap on duty at the road junction. Or perhaps the constable had left his post for a moment, one of the drivers may have been blocking the road or something, and so Gerard could not see him? It’s the sort of thing that could be explained easily enough, under the circumstances. Anyway, suppose that someone else … the real murderer … had put that bottle in the dustbin?”
“And why, pray?”
“Why, to implicate Charles Gerard, of course.” And I sat back in my seat, enjoying my little triumph. After all, it isn’t very often that I score over Holmes.
“H’mm. It is an interesting line of thought. But then,” said Holmes, a twinkle in his eye, “would it not have been just as easy … and perhaps, indeed, more certain of success … to have put the bottle in Charles Gerard’s suitcase, or his wash bag, say, rather than in an alley where it might never be found?”
“Oh!”
Holmes patted my shoulder in a kindly, if patronizing, fashion. “Although it has flaws as a theory,” he said, “I can really think of nothing better.” And then, all of a sudden, he stiffened, sat rigid on his seat, and stared straight ahead with eyes that saw nothing. “Unless …” and he stopped.
“Holmes?”
But not another word would he say, and a couple of minutes more saw us at the entrance to the police station.
* * *
“Can’t a fellow have any rest at all?” complained Charles Gerard, as he sat down on the hard deal chair in the little room where Ingham had caused the prisoner to be brought. Gerard wiped the sweat from his face, for the evening was sweltering by now. “There’s some drunk in the cell next to mine, and he keeps singing and cursing, and then just as I’m getting accustomed to him, I’m dragged up here for the third interview in one day … or is it the fourth? I’ve quite lost count.”
Without saying a word, Holmes took the little blue glass bottle from his pocket and placed it on the scarred and discoloured surface of the table. “Do you recognize this at all?” he asked quietly.
Gerard glanced at the table without thinking, and then looked quickly away. If ever I saw recognition on a man’s face, I saw it in his. Recognition, aye, and guilt to boot. He could not prevent himself from flinching. He licked his lips nervously, and still avoided looking at the table.
“Perhaps if you were to study the bottle more closely, you would be able to say if you knew it or not,” said Holmes gently.
With a perceptible effort, Gerard turned his head and glanced again at the little bottle. “No.” It was almost a shout, but then he added, more quietly, “No, I don’t believe I ever saw it before.”
“
And what if I said that you were seen concealing this bottle in a dustbin in the alley at the side of your lodgings? Not the first dustbin, nor the second, but the third?”
Gerard stared at Holmes, and for a moment it almost looked to me as if he were about to deny everything a second time. Then he just collapsed, not literally, but the spirit seemed to go out of him. He slumped in his chair, and for a moment I thought he was going to faint, and that my professional services might be called upon. I half rose, but Gerard looked up at me and shook his head. “No need for that, Doctor,” he said, with a valiant attempt at humour. And to Holmes, he said, “Well, sir, if you have a witness, there is little use my denying it.”
Ingham said, “Charles Gerard, do you admit concealing this bottle of arsenic?”
“Yes.” His tone was dull, as if he saw no sort of hope for himself.
“The bottle was in your rooms?”
“Yes.”
“And you used it to poison your wife, Emily Gerard?”
There was a pause here. Gerard stared at the Superintendent, as if he did not properly understand the question. Then, in a tone that was no more than a hoarse whisper, he answered, “Yes.”
“And what about the poisoned sugarplums?” It was Holmes who asked this, his voice incisive.
“What?” Gerard stared at him. “Oh … those! Oh … well … that is, I …” and he ended the incoherent sentence with a shrug, as if he were well rid of it.
“And, more to the point, what about the note?” asked Holmes quietly.
If Gerard had seemed first guilty and then indifferent, he was now visibly shocked. Indeed, he almost leapt from the chair he sat in. “Note?” he stammered. “What note? What d’you mean, Mr Holmes?”
