The author smiled but shook his head. "I am afraid that Alec was getting a little long in the tooth, which is why I felt the need to try something different. You are too polite to say that my last novel did not set your pulse racing, but the critics were not so diplomatic. The reason for my silence since then is that I have been endeavouring to come up with a story that would keep them, as well as my publishers, happy. It is difficult for a man to judge his own work, but I think I can promise that neither they nor you will be disappointed by The Accusing Skeleton."
"I am delighted to hear it," I said, unable to resist a covetous look at the sheets on the desk. "May I say also, that if by some chance you were willing to let me have an early opportunity to satisfy my hunger for your work, I would be forever in your debt."
He laughed rather nervously and said, "Well, like most authors I am rather superstitious and it is not my normal practice to show my work to third parties until it has finally been accepted for publication. Your words are very kind, though, and I am not immune to compliments, especially from such a quarter. I would be willing to loan you the first chapter for, say, twenty four hours if you wish to see whether it whets your appetite."
"You are most generous!" I said as he gathered a dozen sheets together and passed them to me.
"It is a pleasure to have such a celebrated reader. I await your verdict with bated breath. In the meantime, gentlemen, to what do I owe the privilege of this visit?"
As Holmes outlined the sequence of events that had brought us to the chambers, the smile faded from Hugh Abergavenny's face. He kept shaking his head and when he heard of the incident on Blackfriars Bridge he muttered, "Oh no." By the time Holmes had recounted our brief meeting with John at the office in Essex Street, it was clear that Hugh was deeply moved.
"It is as I feared," he said. "His mental state is severely disturbed."
"I wondered," I said, "about the part that drink may have played in your brother's apparent breakdown."
"You are an acute observer, Dr Watson. I have often suspected that modesty has prevented you from revealing in your narratives the extent to which you have yourself developed a detective's flair." Hugh cast his eyes down for a moment. "John has always had a weakness for alcohol. It can change him into a different person, aggressive, irrational and despondent by turns. His appalling behaviour whilst drunk was the main cause of the estrangement between us, a breach which I have lately been striving to repair. I had heard good reports of him in recent times and they led me to hope that he had turned the corner after accepting the offer of partnership in a sound practice. Sadly, it seems that my optimism was premature."
He shook his head. "Gentlemen, on any other day I would value the chance to spend a few hours in your company and
perhaps to persuade you to discuss some of your unrecorded cases. Who knows? Possibly I could seek to dress them up in the guise of fiction. However, my immediate priorities lie elsewhere. I must try to find John, even if it means trawling through every drinking den in London, and see if I can make him see reason. I owe our late mother nothing less. When I have more news, I shall let Maxwell Dowling and your good selves know. Perhaps I could call at Baker Street tomorrow and see for myself the famous consulting room."
"You will be most welcome," I said warmly. "By then, I shall have read your manuscript. It really is good of you to afford me the opportunity in advance of publication."
Holmes was quiet throughout our journey home and once we had arrived, he sank into a meditative trance. I sensed that he was disturbed by the day's events, but knew better than to trouble him with questions or idle conversation. After dealing with certain correspondence, I decided to amuse myself by turning to the first chapter of Hugh Abergavenny's novel and devoured it within minutes.
"By Jove, Holmes, this is splendid stuff!" Such was my pleasure in the tale that I could not help disturbing his reverie. "It is almost unbearable that I cannot continue reading. The description of the hero's visit to a warehouse in the East End and what he finds there — but no, I must not spoil the story.You must read it for yourself."
Holmes opened his eyes and said languidly, "I am afraid I do not count myself amongst Hugh Abergavenny's devoted admirers. His early books were lively enough, but compared to Collins or even Conway, he seems to favour contrivance ahead of the creation of plausible characters. The later stories are so dependent upon coincidence as to make it impossible to suspend disbelief. As for his hero, I fear that Alec Salisbury makes even Lecoq appear to be a master detective."
"You need not worry," I said, rather stiffly. "As we were told, Salisbury does not appear in this book. It really is rather fine, Holmes. Don't allow your prejudices to cause you to ignore it.
"You are the one who should have taken up the law," my friend remarked. "You are a persuasive spokesman. Very well, pass me the chapter."
He read the first pages of the book in silence and then, before I could ask his reaction, lapsed back into his dream-like state. Suddenly he sat bolt upright.
"I have been obtuse, Watson! Quick, we need to call on the younger Abergavenny at once!"
"But Holmes, what can we hope to achieve that his brother cannot?"
His strong-set features were twisted with pain. "We must strive to prevent a terrible crime. Yet I fear that already we may be too late."
"I don't understand," I said. "What crime are you talking about?"
"The murder", he said bitterly, "of John Abergavenny."
We hailed a cab and asked the driver to take us to the tailor's shop in Lamb's Conduit Street. When we reached our destination, I saw that a small crowd of onlookers had gathered outside the door beside the entrance to the shop. As we dismounted, two familiar figures emerged from the doorway.
"As I feared," my friend muttered under his breath. "We have been out-foxed."
"Mr Holmes!" cried Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. "Were your ears burning? We have just been talking about you."
He indicated Matthew Dowling, who stood by his side. The old solicitor's face was grey and drawn.
"How is John Abergavenny?" demanded my friend.
"He was taken to hospital less than a quarter of an hour ago. He is in a coma."
"Not dead, then?" A flame of hope flickered in the eyes of Sherlock Holmes.
"Not expected to live, though," said Lestrade. "Seems that after marching out of his office, he came home and took a massive overdose of chloral hydrate. There's a half-empty jar of the stuff on his sideboard."
Holmes's shoulders sagged and so did mine. We both knew the power of the notorious sedative. Many East End publicans, to my knowledge, still kept a jar of chloral hydrate underneath their counter so that they could slip one or two knock-out drops into the drink of any customer who started spoiling for a fight. A highly effective remedy for trouble-makers, perhaps, but if administered in excess it was lethal.
"Apparently the fellow's been behaving oddly," Lestrade continued. "Mr Dowling here and his brother have explained to me his peculiar actions of the last few days."
"Hugh Abergavenny is present also?"
"Not now," said Dowling. "He arrived here a few minutes after I did. I had become increasingly concerned about John's
safety after he left Essex Street. Finally I plucked up the courage
to come out here. I wanted to talk to John, to make him see sense. I could see a light in John's room, but my knocking was
not answered. Ultimately I prevailed upon the tailor, who lives in
the back basement, to let me use the spare key. I rushed upstairs and found John in a dreadful state. It was clear that he was very
sick. I immediately made arrangements for him to be taken to
hospital and contacted the police. No sooner had I done that than Hugh turned up. He explained that he'd been searching
for John, going round the drinking dens in which he might be found. When he had no luck, he came here. Like me, he was hoping that reason might prevail. The pity is that we were too late.
I suggested to Hugh that his place was by John's side at the hospital, but we both fear that the omens are bleak."
Suddenly Holmes clapped a hand to his brow. "Lestrade, has anyone touched the jar of chloral hydrate?"
"Why, no," the detective replied. "There was no immediate need." "Mr Dowling?"
"I did not, sir. The contents are plainly marked. I fear that John knew what he was doing."
"Not John," Holmes said harshly. "Hugh."
"I don't understand, Mr Holmes. What do you mean?"
"I mean," said my friend, "that your partner was poisoned by his brother. Quick, Lestrade, let us go upstairs. The question now is whether we can prove our case."
It was late the following night before my friend and I had the opportunity to talk at length about the case over a whisky-andsoda at Baker Street. By then John Abergavenny had died, a victim of cardiac and respiratory collapse, without having regained consciousness and his brother had been arrested on a charge of fratricide.
"My interest in the case", Holmes said, "was aroused by the differences in the way John Abergavenny reacted when his senior partner put complaints to him. He quickly acknowledged his acts of carelessness. It was plain that he was over-tiring himself. That might have been because he went out drinking every night, but it seemed entirely out of character for him to do so. Besides, there was a possible alternative explanation. Perhaps he was continuing to work on his fiction late into the night after a full day's legal work, keeping it a secret because of Dowling's disapproval and a natural lack of confidence in his own literary talents. I also entertained a degree of scepticism about the incidents reported by both Bevington and Stewart --which John vehemently denied.Yet why should the witnesses lie? The contradictions intrigued me. When I mentioned the case to you originally, I drew an analogy with Stevenson's romance and from the outset the business seemed to me to possess certain of the features of a cheap thriller. An apparently respectable man leading a double life, dipping his toe in the world of vice. It is a perennial theme."
He took another sip from his glass. "I had only to meet Bevington and Stewart to be sure that they were not lying. On the contrary, they seemed unimpeachable. So — either John was behaving as wildly as they described, or someone was impersonating him. I noticed at once that Hugh resembled him in build and features. True, he did not have a moustache, was balding and his hair was different in colour. But any actor worth his salt could easily change all that."
"But Hugh was a writer, not an actor," I objected.
"He had been a court advocate," Holmes said impatiently, "and few men are better suited to playing a part than barristers. They have the advantage of professional training coupled with constant practice. I once said to you,Watson, that when a doctor goes wrong he is the first of criminals, but I should have added the rider that a practitioner of the law comes a close second." He gave a grim chuckle. "I hope I was not unduly prejudiced because I had found his writing slick and meretricious. It puzzled me that, as little better than a hack wordsmith, he had not published a book for some time. With that in mind, I regarded his explanation for haunting his old chambers as less than convincing."
I raised my eyebrows. "Surely he was wise to be seeking out fresh stories?"
"If that was so, why had he been silent for so long? I wondered if he was suffering from simple inability to write. It is a curse which, I believe, afflicts many authors. I had rather the impression of a man living on past glories, a pathetic shadow of his former self, hanging around the legal world where he had scored his early successes. A sad man, too, no doubt overtaken by younger men who had not been distracted from their careers by the lure of appearing in print. Did you notice that his cuffs were threadbare?"
"I thought it a Bohemian touch, appropriate enough in a man who had given up his wig for the pen."
"That is no doubt what he hoped people would think," Holmes said dismissively. "He seemed alarmed to see us, which further fuelled my suspicions. Yet he was no fool. How careful he was to portray himself as a man on the brink of renewed success. I could not guess why he would wish harm to his brother — who had, according to Dowling, always envied him. I was concerned for John, but failed to realize that his life was in imminent danger. As soon as he knew of my involvement, Hugh decided that the time had come to perfect his plan."
"The cold-blooded devil," I said with a shiver.
"The legal world is small and enclosed. He must have known Bevington and Stewart or known of them and he successfully used them as his dupes. He was intent on creating the impression that his brother was on the downward slope and contemplating suicide. His own visit to Dowling ensured that the calumny seemed credible.Yet in his haste he made a crucial mistake. After he left us, he called on his brother — who had returned home to cool his temper after quitting Essex Street — and pretended to sympathize with him about Dowling's behaviour in calling on my assistance. They had a drink together. When a chance came, he slipped a murderous dose of chloral hydrate into his brother's glass. But in his haste to be away before the poison took effect he forgot to wipe the jar containing the sedative."
"Leaving his fingerprints on it, then!" I exclaimed.
"As Lestrade has now established, I am glad to say. Do you recall that as recently as last December, Lord Belper's committee of enquiry recommended that Edward Henry's method of identification of criminals by fingerprints be adopted in place of anthropometry and dactylography? The details are in my scrapbook, if you care to consult it. The decision is an excellent one, by the way. Henry is a sound man and he has been kind enough to acknowledge the assistance of a monograph of my own in compiling his textbook for police on the science of fingerprinting. Hugh Abergavenny was back in King's Bench Walk before it occurred to him that it would be prudent to clean the jar. Thankfully, by the time he returned to his brother's rooms, Dowling was on the scene and Hugh had no opportunity to make good his mistake without arousing suspicion."
"How did you hit upon the truth?"
"By reading the manuscript.The first chapter of the new book was written too beautifully and boasts a plot too original for it to have been the work of a man who could never aspire beyond the pot-boiler. I realized at once that Hugh Abergavenny had lied when he claimed it as his own. It must have been the story which his brother had lent him for an opinion. Hugh told John it was worthless at the same time as he was covertly transcribing it in his own hand."
Holmes sighed. "I shall always regret my inability to save John Abergavenny, Watson. There is only the crumb of consolation that his novel will serve as a fitting memorial to him."
"It is a kind of justice," I said.
My friend's sallow cheeks flushed. "And I sincerely trust that Hugh Abergavenny, too, will receive his just deserts when his case comes to trial.
It was a sentiment that I echoed, but the murderer contrived to cheat the law. Five days before his trial, Hugh Abergavenny hanged himself in his prison cell. It emerged that he, rather than his younger brother, had a long history of nervous trouble and he had once before attempted to take his own life, when the last book he managed to complete was rejected by every publisher in London.
The Legacy of Rachel Howells - Michael Doyle
Preface
Another very singular case came within my own observation. It was sent to me by an eminent London publisher. This gentleman had in his employment a head of department whose name we shall take as Musgrave. He was a hard-working person, with no special feature in his character. Mr Musgrave died, and several years after his death a letter was received addressed to him, in the care of his employers. It bore the postmark of a tourist resort in the west of Canada, and had the note "Confl films" upon the outside of the envelope, with the words "Report Sy" in one corner.
The publishers naturally opened the envelope as they had no note of the dead man's relatives. Inside were two blank sheets of paper. The letter, I may add, was registered. The publisher, being unable to make anything of this, sent it on to me, and I submitted
the blank sheets to every possible chemical and heat test, with no result whatever. Beyond the fact that the writing appeared to be that of a woman there is nothing to add to this account. The matter was, and remains, an insoluble mystery. How the correspondent could have something so secret to say to Mr Musgrave and yet not be aware that this person had been dead for several years is very hard to understand — or why blank sheets should be so carefully registered through the mail. I may add that I did not trust the sheets to my own chemical tests, but had the best expert advice without getting any result. Considered as a case it was a failure — and a very tantalizing one.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"Some personalia about Sherlock Holmes"
The Strand Magazine, December, 1917
Over the years in which I have been associated with Mr Sherlock Holmes many players have appeared on our little stage at 22 lb Baker Street. The appearance of each was, of course, closely scrutinized by Mr Holmes and myself but once the spotlight has shifted these actors have all too often exited through the wings, never to return. I have often wondered what has become of these clients, and those associated with them in the cases which I have recorded — and in the hundreds which still await the attention of a competent biographer.
To this pattern there have been several exceptions. Professor Moriarty is a constant presence: his influence, if not the man himself, is likely to continue; the dark side of human nature will, it seems, be always with us. His colleague Colonel Moran, spectator of the Reichenbach drama, has appeared more than once on our stage as have Inspector Lestrade, his colleagues at Scotland Yard, our dear Mrs Hudson, our page boy Billy, my wife Mary and some few others. Of the majority however we have heard no more. For Sherlock Holmes, whose interest wanes rapidly with the solving of each problem, this is of little moment: friendship, like any other emotion, is to him distractive and to be avoided. To me however the passing of these ephemerae is a matter of regret; I am glad therefore for this opportunity to lay before the public a case which returns to the limelight a woman whose intelligence and avarice — Sherlock Holmes had grievously underrated when he first had occasion to be involved in an investigation in which her wicked hand had played a part. This intriguing affair has not yet been brought to a conclusion. Tracing the final threads, and the identification and arrest of the murderer, whom neither Holmes nor I have yet met face to face, appear likely to provide a bonus: a visit to the Americas, and to the splendid young country of Canada. I have every hope of being accompanied, if the activities of the London criminal permit, by Sherlock Holmes himself.
The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures Page 51
