The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures

by Mike Ashley (ed)

  be arrested. No criminal can be allowed to benefit from his crime."

  "There is a difficulty," replied Holmes. "Rachel Howells has, by using us as her instruments, effectively lodged her claim. She knows however from Watson's account that there are legal obstacles. She cannot have expected to surmount them unaided. She has certainly enlisted confidants as her agents. It is to these that the crown jewels of the Tudors and Smarts must be released. Rachel Howells undoubtedly expects to reclaim them; what arrangements she has made to that end I have as yet no way of knowing. I think it unlikely however that these surrogates yet know that they have laid, let alone established, good claim to the Crown Jewels of England; nor, I suspect, are they aware that they have a murderess in their midst."

  "But where are these confederates?" cried Musgrave.

  "In North America, the origin of this extraordinary letter." "In Canada? In British Columbia?"

  "It is not unlikely."

  "But who are they? The Scowrers? The Mafia? The Red Circle?"

  "That is what I must still discover. Now, Musgrave," said Holmes, laughing, "you are overwhelming me with your questions. Besides, you are leading me into Watson's deplorable habit of explaining matters backwards. Would it not be better if we repaired to your quarters, where I shall be happy to clarify the matter? Agreed? Come then, lead on!"

  It was a remarkable gathering as we sat in comfortable arm chairs in Musgrave's rooms. On a table before us lay the newly discovered great orb and sceptre of the kings of England, steeped in centuries of history. Beside them Nathaniel Musgrave had placed the refurbished Hurlstone crown — golden, jewel-encrusted and magnificent. Beside these objects lay the two linen bags in which they had been found. Holmes explained:

  "Before I could form a hypothesis capable of explaining the extraordinary message which directed us to these treasures, it was first necessary to assemble my data. My starting point was these two linen bags. They are, as you rightly told us, Musgrave, identical. The first, which has been kept with the crown since its recovery years ago from the mere, shows some signs of deterioration; the other little if any. On my last visit, when the

  existence of only one bag was known, I paid little attention to it, ascribing its damaged condition to its sojourn in the crypt of your cellar while ten generations of your ancestors lived out their lives above. But of course I was mistaken. I should have realized that centuries of corrosion by worms and fungi, sufficient to have eaten through the walls of the wooden strongbox, would have utterly destroyed a simple linen bag. The deterioration of the bag had of course been caused only by its comparatively short immersion in your lake. But these bags are otherwise identical and in similar condition. It must follow that the crown jewels were placed in them not at the time of Charles's trial and execution but comparatively recently."

  "At the time the first bag was tossed into the mere?" I suggested.

  "Precisely," said Holmes. "And who was the last person we know to have handled the crown and its bag?"

  "Brunton!"

  "Yes, the butler Brunton and his accomplice, the person to whom he passed up the treasure — handed it up from the crypt that was to be his coffin. But wait, we have not yet exhausted the resources of applied deduction! If the bags were not in the crypt when Brunton discovered the strongbox — and we have now established that they were not — they can only have been taken there by Brunton himself. We can be sure that it was Brunton who lowered himself into the crypt, while Rachel Howells waited above. Brunton, with the treasure at last within his grasp, was of course intent on examining it; he neither needed nor wanted a witness. It is unlikely that Howells, even if invited to descend, would have been prepared to enter the crypt herself, knowing that only a simple prop, a billet of wood, prevented the stone slab from crashing down, with none above to hear her cries. With an accomplice she trusted, her avarice might have overcome her fear; with a man who had already proved faithless, never. It was Brunton then who entered the crypt; Brunton who opened the strongbox; Brunton who discovered the treasure and Brunton who filled the bags."

  "Bags?" said I. "Plural?"

  "Yes, bags. One was retrieved years ago from the mere, the other by us today from your catacombs, Musgrave. Brunton we know never left the crypt alive. The two bags could therefore have escaped the crypt in only one way: both were handed up by Brunton to his accomplice."

  "And that could only be Rachel Howells!"

  "Just so," said Holmes. Musgrave and I remained silent, our eyes riveted on Sherlock Holmes as he continued:

  "We can now reconstruct the precise sequence of events.

  Brunton, redoubling his efforts following his dismissal on a week's notice by your cousin, discovers the site of the cache within two days. His problem is to retrieve the treasure he believes to lie below. He confers with the angry, and astute, Rachel Howells, who strikes a bargain: she is to share equally in the treasure as the price for her help — and her silence.

  She it is who provides the two linen sacks, one for each half share of the trove. Brunton takes them down into the crypt, fills one with half the treasure and hands it up to Howells.

  "The sceptre and the orb for you; the crown for me, Rachel! Fair enough, my dear?" I can almost hear the words.

  "What does Howells do then?" he continued. "Aware of the need for haste, she hastily stashes her bag in the nearby hiding place she has selected earlier: the sarcophagus from which we have retrieved it today. While doing so, she quickly examines the bag's contents. Despite Brunton's assurances she may well conclude that the discoloured old pieces of metal are worthless. I seem to hear her screaming imprecations down at Brunton, crouched below. Brunton, reaching up to raise himself from the dungeon, places his bag on the stone shelf beside the wooden billet. And then — murder!"

  "You always suspected it!"

  "Yes, Watson. Murder. No other hypothesis fits. Consider. Her means, and her opportunity, are all too close to hand. Of motives she has no lack! Revenge — for Brunton has recently wronged her — as I suggested before, perhaps much more than we know: passionate Celtic women do not take kindly to being thrown over for gamekeepers' daughters; anger — for Brunton has undoubtedly promised her that a great treasure awaits them at the bottom of the pit as a price for her help in raising the flagstone; and avarice, for Brunton's protestations that the trinkets are of immense value may — just may — be true.

  "So she, the second bag lying at her feet, murders him: murders him by dashing away the wooden billet. The heavy slab crashes down. Her faithless lover is imprisoned in the tomb. In pace requiescat avidus!"

  Musgrave and I had listened in fascination as Holmes's words vividly brought this ghastly tragedy to life. I took a deep breath to escape the spell he had cast.

  "But this can only be a hypothesis!" I heard myself cry in protest.

  "It is more than that," said Holmes. "Consider the significance of the second bag. A British jury might possibly have acquitted Howells for lack of evidence had she been brought to trial at

  the time of Brunton's death: the butler had been found dead in the crypt; the Stuart crown in the mere. There was no evidence connecting Howells directly to either. She had in any event

  disappeared. But now the second bag has been found and Howells's neck is in jeopardy for she, and only she, can have received it from Brunton's hand. Brunton never left that crypt alive. It was Howells, a jury will reason, who threw the one sack into the mere — her footsteps, leading to the edge of the lake, proclaim as much — after first secreting the other in its hiding place, a few steps from where she stood. This is no hypothesis, Watson. It is proof. This second linen bag places a hempen rope around the neck of Rachel Howells."

  "I am sure you are right," said Nathaniel Musgrave, his eyes still fixed on Sherlock Holmes. "The facts are indisputable.

  They admit of no other explanation. Murder was done in our Hurlstone cellar that day: our butler the victim; our housemaid his executioner."

  Holmes continued. "Aghas
t at what she has done, she snatches up Brunton's bag and flees to her room, her ears ringing with the sounds of muffled screams and the drumming of frenzied

  hands from the cellar. In the haven of her room she makes her plans for flight. What can she do with the bags, the evidence of her dreadful crime?Their discovery in her possession means the

  gallows. She decides to leave hers in its feudal hiding place. She spends the next two days in secreting her few belongings near the gate leading from the Hurlstone estate to the world beyond.

  On her final night she retires to bed as usual then, quietly, to avoid waking the night nurse, she leaves the house and walks to the lake — carefully leaving tracks to the water's edge to establish the possibility of her death by drowning as an explanation for

  her disappearance — flings Brunton's treasure into the mere and takes the gravel path leading from the grounds."

  "How do you know she took the path?" I asked.

  "Because her footsteps took her to the edge of the mere next to the gravel path. It was at their junction that her trail ended. The mere was dragged the next day so thoroughly that the linen bag was detected and brought to the surface. But they found no body! No Rachel Howells! She had not entered the lake, therefore she had taken the path. It was always my opinion," he went on, "that she had carried herself and the memory of her crime to some land beyond the sea, an opinion I now find justified. She left your grounds, Musgrave, walked to the village, thence, taking every care to remain inconspicuous, by coach to Portsmouth."

  "But would a second housemaid be capable of devising such an undertaking?" Musgrave inquired.

  "It was a formidable plan, but the Welsh have many characteristics besides passion and fire," replied Holmes. "Among them are courage, cunning, and intelligence. Your cousin had a high opinion of Rachel Howells. He told me so. Remember, too, she was engaged to Richard Brunton, a man of first rate education and intelligence. It is most unlikely that he would have allied himself to a simpleton.

  "It now appears that the land she chose," he continued, "was North America. Her transatlantic vessel's first port of call was probably Halifax in Nova Scotia, or perhaps Boston in New England. From there she has made her way west, settling in the wilderness gold-mining town of Barkerville — an appropriate haven for an avaricious murderess with crown jewels on her mind. No doubt she changed her name and has supported herself there under her new identity."

  "You think it is Rachel Howells who has sent you this letter from Canada, then?"

  "It can be no other."

  "The woman must be arrested, Holmes. She is a murderess! We know her abode. Why should we hesitate?"

  "No, Watson, we cannot arrest her until we have identified her with certainty as the sender of this enigmatic letter which has, thanks to our dutiful playing of the role she has written for us, both revealed the treasure and laid claim to it. Consider: the murderess hid the second bag in the coffin. The sender of this letter, and she alone, knows that the bag was hidden there and has directed us to it. To bring home guilt to Rachel Howells we must identify her not only as Hurlstone's second housemaid, and Brunton's accomplice, but also as the sender of the letter."

  "But how dared she send the message and risk detection?" asked Musgrave.

  "Let us put ourselves once again in her place. She has learned long ago from Watson's published account of the affair of the Musgrave Ritual that Brunton had told her no less than the truth: that the contents of the bags are indeed of immense value. Watson's narrative has told her also that her share of the treasure remained undetected when Brunton's bag was recovered from the mere. She ponders how she can lay her hands on her fortune, as she no doubt considers it. How does she reason? How can she secure the treasure but avoid the scaffold? Watson's account has told her of the legal difficulties and expense encountered by the Hurlstone estate in retaining the crown. Revelation of her own treasure will kindle a similar investigation. To reveal her knowledge of its existence is to put a noose around her neck. At the cost of her life she must not be identified as the treasure's finder. She needs an untermediary, an agent capable of dealing with the authorities and of meeting the expense necessary to retrieve the trove. She therefore finds a surrogate — or surrogates. In their name she lays claim to the treasure, relying on them to provide her with both a share of the proceeds and continuing anonymity.

  "But she cannot act! Reginald Musgrave, she knows, can identify her by sight. She cannot risk claiming her fortune, even indirectly through her agents, while the possibility remains that he might, during the negotiations for its return, meet her in broad daylight.

  "She learns of Sir Reginald's death in the shooting accident. The promptness with which she acts — within ten days; that's quick work, you know — argues against her having learned of it from the Hurlstone Village Chronicle, which she may possibly receive regularly. Musgrave's death may have been timely reported in the Canadian newspapers but more likely a Sussex crony has sent her a wire. She immediately makes her move by laying claim to the riches in the name of her confederates.

  "Our envelope, Watson, must identify her surrogates! Its senders have, by directing us to the hideaway in the Norman catacombs of Hurlstone, effectively laid claim to the crown jewels of the ancient Stuarts. The finders of treasure have important rights, which are recognized in courts everywhere." He turned to Nathaniel Musgrave. "I believe, Mr Musgrave, that your family's rights vis-à-vis those of other claimants were in any case abandoned when your cousin signed a waiver of any further title when he established your claim to the Hurlstone crown. Yes? Then it is so: the right to our discovery today resides in the sender of this message — and that can only be the confederate, or confederates, of Rachel Howells. It is they, not we, who are the true finders. Knowing what we do, you and I, Watson, have no choice but to attest to that.You, Musgrave, will be wise to consider your position with care. These surrogates will undoubtedly approach you as negotiators but they may not be unreasonable."

  Holmes withdrew the mystery epistle from his breast pocket and examined it again carefully. "So it is report system — together with our extra L — that we have available to us. What in the name of the devil can we infer from them?"

  It was then that Sherlock Holmes looked up at me with a startled expression. He had evidently seen something on the envelope which we had missed.

  "Watson, do you perchance have friends in the west of Canada?"

  "None that I know of," said I, "save Sir Henry Baskerville, but we have already eliminated him from the equation. Why do you ask?"

  "Because just as one inference often suggests another, one logogram can suggest another. But wait! I am not sure ..." He scribbled furiously in his notebook. "REPORT SYSTEM L rearranges to ..."

  I looked over Holmes's shoulder.

  "... to STORMY PETRELS!" he cried in triumph. Musgrave and I stared at Holmes in astonishment. I checked his scribbled notes. It was just as he said. Holmes went on, speaking rapidly, as one whose brain races ahead of his power to communicate: "What or who can these 'stormy petrels' be? It is a phrase that I have applied to you, Watson! And to myself! Could it be that this

  is a reference to us? That it is yet another of those devices which this extraordinary woman has used to manipulate us? No. It cannot be so. The envelope is addressed not to 'Watson' but to `Musgrave'. And the words appear on the top left hand corner, the space for the sender's name. 'Stormy Petrels' is therefore not a reference to us, Watson — it is the name of the surrogates themselves — the instruments of Rachel Howells!

  "Their very name tells us who and what they are: students of my methods and readers of your tales. Rachel Howells is clearly telling us so. We are dealing here not with enemies but with friends!" He paused and shook his head in comic disbelief. "What a coup-de-maitre it is! I once had occasion to chide you, Watson, in connection with the Vermissa Valley murders in America I think, for suggesting that the recreant Porlock might possibly have enclosed both cipher and key in the same envelope.
In that instance we were able to decipher the message by recourse to Whitaker's Almanack. Here we have no such advantage. The sender of this envelope has outdone even Porlock: she has combined not only the cipher and its key but the addresser of the message — her surrogates — and its true addressees, myself and the estate of Hurlstone, not in, but actually on, the envelope — leaving the contents blank! There is brilliance here, Watson — scheming, calculated brilliance!"

  Musgrave and I were at a loss for words. He appeared as stupefied as I.

  "Clearly, we must make contact with these 'stormy petrels'," said Holmes to me, briskly breaking the silence. "We must seek them in their haunts. Our enquiries must be made in Canada.

  "We know," I interjected, "that at least one of them is a lady of Welsh origin, fiery, passionate and excitable.!"

  "Yes, indeed," Holmes replied, his eyes atwinkle. "Well, Watson, what say you to a visit to the Pacific coast? Could your practice spare you for some weeks?"

  "I have no doubt I can arrange it," said I, "but what will be our aim? To identify and arrest Howells?"

  "As I read it, Rachel Howells is at present waiting anxiously in British Columbia for news of our discovery of the royal orb and sceptre, to which she has, using this flock of petrels as her unwitting agents, effectively laid claim. When she hears of it she will act. She will persuade the group to demand delivery of the

  treasure, probably by authorizing her to make the arrangements on their behalf. The claim of these petrels cannot be denied but it is within our power to thwart Howells herself."

  "How?"

  "By delaying announcement of our finding of the treasure until we can cause her arrest. You, I and Musgrave here are the only persons who know of it Musgrave, you will, I think, find it in your interests to fall in with our plans; this will give us time to visit and confront these people. Our information will startle them: that they have claim to the crown jewels of England and a murderess in their midst! Courtesy, no less than common sense and common justice, demands delivery of such a message in person."