by Lyndsay Faye
“Oh, yes, I’m certain the exact description of this misplaced potato basket is going to greatly assist us in tracking down the killer! Why don’t you solve that mystery—question the scullery maid, that’ll be a good start—and I’ll catch a murderer. I need to see whether my men have finished,” Lestrade growled, storming out.
“What on earth can be the matter with him?” I wondered, regarding Holmes in amazement.
My friend lightly framed his face with his fingertips as if in an extremity of exasperation, shaking his dark head. “I had six theories at the beginning of the evening. I’ve eliminated five of them,” he confessed, striding in the direction of the outer hallway.
“Then what is wrong?” I repeated as we donned hats and gloves.
“A conundrum even I cannot solve.”
I opened my lips to protest but found Sherlock Holmes’s face as stony as I had ever seen it; he pivoted away from me, thrusting his hands into his pockets as we made to quit the ill-fated Wiltshire residence.
“But the murder, Holmes! Hadn’t you better question more of the ser—”
“That conundrum I can solve,” Holmes interrupted me. “As a matter of fact, I just did solve it, about five minutes ago. There was never any difficulty in the matter. Come, Watson. We must see what Mr. Horatio Swann has to say.”
As circumstances had it, we could not call upon Mr. Horatio Swann until the next morning, as Lestrade had not found us at Simpson’s until well past seven after traveling from Battersea and stopping at Baker Street, and Mr. Swann lived some miles distant, in a grand house near to Walthamstow. Lestrade supplied us with a four-wheeler and a pair of constables lest matters take a dark turn, and the journey would have been pleasant enough, passing through the small brick towns with their peacefully crumbling churches and snowlike dusting of white petals from the blooming hawthorn bushes, had the inspector not been sullen and Holmes resolutely silent. I, meanwhile, was abuzz with anticipation, desperately eager to discover what my friend had made of the dreadful affair.
When we three at last stood before the stately structure in question—walled round with charming grey stone, a winding lane leading up to a curved set of steps, mullioned windows all sparkling as they reflected the dancing shadows of the white willow branches—Holmes hesitated upon the gravel. Lestrade and I by habit likewise slowed to see whether he would deign to share any of his thoughts.
Then Holmes froze entirely, his spine quivering. We waited, with bated breath, for him to speak—or at least I did.
“Well, what the deuce is the matter?” Lestrade queried, every bit as waspishly annoyed at my friend as previously.
Holmes chuckled, rubbing his hands together. “It’s all too perfect. I told you I had heard of Mr. Horatio Swann yesterday, did I not? I have followed a few of his monographs upon the subject of certain freshwater wildlife with particular care.”
“And what of it?” Lestrade demanded.
“Rather an outlandish residence for a scientist, wouldn’t you say? Call for the constables. We’ll want them.”
Brown eyes widening in astonishment, Lestrade did as he was bidden, returning a few yards up the lane and gesturing for the bobbies to follow. By the time they had done so, Holmes had cheerily knocked upon the door and been admitted, I at his heels.
The taciturn butler led us—and, after some persuasion, the Yarders—into Mr. Swann’s study. From the instant I entered it, my eyes knew not where to light: the place was a splendidly outfitted gentleman’s laboratory, replete with chemical apparatus and walls of gilt-stamped leather books and specimen jars. Of these last, there were dozens upon dozens, lining the shelves like so many petrified soldiers at attention. When my friend saw them, he smiled still wider.
Mr. Swann, surprised, emerged from behind his desk. He was a strongly built man with a shock of ruddy hair and a ruggedly handsome visage. Our host still wore a dressing gown and house slippers, as we had begun our journey as early as possible. He appeared merely intrigued at the sight of Holmes and myself—but when he glimpsed the uniformed constables behind Lestrade, his expression shifted to a rictus of pure rage.
My friend made an expansive gesture. “Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Mr. Charles Cutmore, the mastermind behind the infamous Drummonds Bank robbery which so confounded the Scottish authorities, the renowned author of no fewer than twenty scientific articles of note, and likewise the cunning orchestrator of the murder of Mr. John Wiltshire—whose name was actually Michael Crosby, by the by, and who some seven years ago aided this man in making off with six thousand pounds sterling. The pair of them had a female accomplice, to whom you have been introduced under the alias of Mrs. Helen Wiltshire. A pretty bow to top this strange affair, would you not say so, Lestrade?” Holmes rejoiced.
The inspector stood there stunned for an instant; but a howl of fury and a charge for the door on the part of Mr. Charles Cutmore ceased all rumination. The set of brawny constables hurtled headlong into action, and the pair wrestled their frenzied captive into a set of handcuffs.
“You’ve no right!” Charles Cutmore spat at us. “After all o’ this time, by God, how d’ye think ye’ve the right?”
“I’ve a question of a similar nature, Mr. Cutmore,” said Holmes. “After all of this time, safe in Siam with your plunder, why return?”
A steely shutter closed over the bank robber’s face even as he renewed his violent efforts to break free. He was dragged, spitting curses at the lot of us, into the adjoining parlor as the men awaited instructions.
“What the devil was that?” Lestrade cried. “A clearer confession I’ve never heard, but that doesn’t explain—”
“No, but this does,” Holmes said almost reverently, turning as he lifted one of the glass jars from its shelf.
A minuscule red creature swam within, suspended in murky green-tinged water. It was no bigger than my thumbnail, and the shape of a repulsive maggotlike larva. I felt my skin tingle with disgust when I saw that, though eyeless, one end of the tiny worm was equipped with a gaping suckerlike mouth.
“Behold the Siamese red leech,” Holmes declaimed grandly, presenting it to us. “Not our murder weapon, Lestrade, but one of its kindred. Some of my own studies regarding blood led to a side interest in leeches, and this is one of the only deadly specimens in the known world. It possesses biochemical enzymes in its mouth which render its victims numb and dazed when attacked—and, after it has bloated itself upon its unsuspecting meal, expanding to hundreds of times its normal size, the same chemicals shrink the wound until it is practically invisible.”
“How can that be possible?” I marveled, nearly as fascinated as I was repelled. “The human body contains over ten pounds of blood. Surely such a small creature could never absorb it all.”
“Incisive and to the point as ever, my dear Doctor. The metabolism of this leech harks back to primordial horrors humankind has not witnessed for some thousands of years of evolution. It essentially becomes a sponge, vessels growing and swelling and stretching to accommodate its meals—meals which might, I remind you, in the remote swamp prove to be few and far between. When it has recently eaten, it better resembles an organism along the lines of a misshapen jellyfish and can live off a single feeding for months, the way a python can digest its hapless prey at long leisure.”
“My God, how hideous!” the inspector breathed, echoing my own thoughts. “But how did you learn of all this?”
“Charles Cutmore and Michael Crosby were known to be the culprits in the Drummonds affair, but they went deep underground,” my friend explained, setting down the deadly specimen. “Crosby had never been photographed, though his description was circulated—he was the faceless banker who enabled the inside job to take place at all—but Cutmore was already making advances in his studies of marine animals, marsh grasses, freshwater habitats, and the like when the theft was discovered, and his photograph was published by the Scotti
sh authorities, which is how I came to know of him. The pair were at school together in Edinburgh. Much more was known about Cutmore than Crosby and, at the time of the robbery seven years ago, Cutmore was affianced to one Helen Ainsley, with whom we spoke. I never dreamed that Charles Cutmore and Horatio Swann were the same biologist until yesterday.”
“It still isn’t clear to me,” I interjected. “You yourself asked him why he returned. Whyever should Cutmore murder Crosby, and after all this time?”
“There we enter the realm of conjecture,” Holmes admitted, “and shall know all only when Cutmore is questioned. But here is what I propose: after the robbery, Cutmore made off with considerably more than his share of the profits—note comparatively the residences of the conspirators, after all. So. Cutmore fled to Siam, publishing under an alias and waiting until such time as he could return to the British Isles without his features being so recognizable. Crosby, meanwhile, disappeared into the great cesspool of London and took Helen Ainsley with him, marrying her in Cutmore’s absence and continuing to practice banking, from time to time mourning his lost fortune. They may well have believed that the man who betrayed them would never return. But suppose that Cutmore still harbored affections for Helen Ainsley and regretted his callous abandonment of her? Or imagine that she refused to fly with him to so distant and foreign a land? The reunion last night may have purported to be a friendly one, and Cutmore may even have vowed to restore what he owed them—we have seen the results, however.”
“You think this was a crime of passion?” Lestrade drew nearer, glowering.
“Of a sort. Of a very premeditated sort. You have met Charles Cutmore,” Holmes reminded him, half-sitting on the desk. “He and Mrs. Wiltmore were once engaged. He does not seem to me the type to remain in hiding forever supposing he desires to return to someplace, or someone for that matter.”
“But what of her husband?”
“Surely you can see that her marriage to the man calling himself John Wiltmore was a matter of expediency—they knew one another’s worst secrets and were very much thrown together. I do not claim to have any practical knowledge of the matter, but whoever heard of a married couple who never fought, as Mrs. Stubbs claimed? If they seldom fought, I should merely have suspected a happy union, and the same goes for an unhappy one if they fought often. But never? It wasn’t a union at all. In fact, I should lose no time arresting her.”
“On what charge?” Lestrade demanded.
“That of ordering a bath for her freshly unsettled husband and placing a Siamese red leech in it,” Holmes replied, his piercing tenor grown grave. “You don’t suppose that Charles Cutmore marched up the stairs and dropped it in unnoticed? When I asked him why he returned, he refused to answer, though he had already given himself away—he was trying to shield his former fiancée. The urge was an honorable one, though she shan’t escape the law. I haven’t evidence enough lacking her confession to prove my findings in the mystery of the missing willow basket, but judging by her behavior at the house, she’ll crack on her own once Cutmore is charged. The pair of them have been in contact for far longer than a day, I believe, probably since shortly after his return to England and his purchase of this estate.”
“The missing willow basket? Make some sense, by George!”
“Where is the leech now, Lestrade?” Holmes spread his hands in a dramatic show of long-suffering.
“Good heavens,” I gasped. “Holmes, you’re right—you must be. They planned it together. You said she had been walking by the Thames and not in the park. She took the leech, wrapped it in the cloth, and made off with it in the marketing basket. It must be in the river now.”
“Managing to make the most distasteful body of water in the history of mankind still more objectionable.” Holmes chuckled, clapping once. “Well done, my dear fellow.”
“To think that he left Helen Ainsley behind and then never forgot her, only to lose her again,” I reflected. “It’s a terrible story.”
“And you claim,” Lestrade hissed, advancing farther on my friend, “that you knew all this yesterday?”
Holmes glared down his hawklike nose at the inspector. “Can you be serious? Are you suggesting you would have believed me if I told you last night that John Wiltmore was killed by a Siamese leech?”
“I might have believed you.”
“You might have laughed in my face. This relentless persecution grows tedious, Lestrade.”
“Persecution? I’m persecuting you? Oh, that’s rich, Mr. Holmes. Very funny.”
“Oddly, I don’t find it the slightest bit amusing.”
“Gentlemen—” I began.
“Let’s have it out in the open then, shall we? Man to man?” Lestrade’s shoulders hunched above his clenched hands as if he longed to express his emotions with pugilism.
“By Jove, yes, let’s,” my friend hissed, standing to his full height.
“Perhaps I had better give you some privacy.” Fearing nothing for my friend’s safety but feeling dreadfully awkward, I took a step backward, only to find that Lestrade was pointing at me furiously.
“That man,” Lestrade snapped, “would—no, don’t leave, Dr. Watson, you’d best hear my mind on the subject. That man there, Mr. Holmes, would have taken a bullet for you, I’d stake my own life on it.”
Holmes said nothing as I gaped at them.
“And what do you do?” Lestrade was turning crimson with fury. “Instead of seeing it through together, you leave the doctor out entirely, and then you make him think you were dead. You stood up there at the altar with him on his wedding day, for the love of all that’s decent, and do you suppose he enjoyed being written out of the picture? For that matter, how do you suppose I felt when I learnt about your demise from a common news hawker? Or when I discovered down at the Yard that Inspector Patterson was dashing about rounding up the scoundrels you had apparently been trying to capture for three long months? I should have thought we deserved better from you, Mr. Holmes, and you ought to know it.”
Sherlock Holmes, always remarkably pale-complexioned, had turned absolutely pallid during this speech, though his face betrayed no expression whatsoever otherwise. Meanwhile, my heart was in my throat. I had hardly begun to speak when Holmes held up a perfectly steady hand demanding my silence and said frostily, “You want to know why I left the papers needed to destroy the Moriarty network with Patterson and not with you?”
“I’d find the subject of interest, yes,” the small inspector seethed.
Holmes towered over him with that air of aristocratic mastery only he can assume. “I selected Patterson for the task because he was not you.”
“Of all the . . .” Lestrade spluttered in outrage.
My friend commenced idly examining his fingernails. “Professor Moriarty was proved to be directly or indirectly responsible for the murder of no fewer than forty persons, though I suspect the true death count to be fifty-two. I chose Patterson in part because he’s above the common herd—for a Yarder anyhow—but also because he’s a member of the herd: I hardly knew the man, having previously worked with him only twice. Whereas you and I, Inspector,” he continued, pretending to struggle for the exact accounting, “have worked together on . . . Let me think. Dear me—thirty-eight cases, today marking the thirty-ninth. Now, I realize that so many figures in a row must be difficult for a man of your acumen to grapple with, but I shall add one more and have done. Ask me how many times I was shot at during the course of this very interesting little problem we are discussing.”
“How many?” Lestrade inquired faintly.
“Nineteen,” my friend reported, though this time fire underlay the ice of his tone. “And if you think I am not aware of the fact that ‘that man,’ as you referred to him, would take a bullet for me, then you are still denser than I had previously supposed.”
So saying, Holmes swept out of the room.
We were
silent for a moment.
“Oh, good Lord,” Lestrade groaned, rubbing his hand over his prim features. “I’m the biggest fool in Christendom. That was . . . God help me.”
“I’m going to . . .” said I, gesturing helplessly.
“Yes, yes, go!” the inspector urged, pushing my shoulder. “I’ll just confer with the constables while I reflect on the fact that Mr. Holmes is right to call me dense. Go on, quick march.”
Hastily, I gave chase. Not imagining my highly reserved friend had any wish to remain in a house where such a scene had just been enacted, as his levels of detachment border upon the eerie, I dived for the entryway and the faintly blue atmosphere of the mild spring morning beyond.
I found Sherlock Holmes some thirty yards distant, leaning against the ivy-draped stone wall. He seemingly awaited my arrival, although he confined his eyes to the smoke drifting skyward from his cigarette. When I had reached him, I halted the words which threatened to leap from my tongue, knowing this situation required more careful handling. Several tacks were considered before I settled on the one likeliest to succeed without causing further harm, and immediately, I breathed easier.
“Well, my dear fellow?” Holmes prompted in a tight voice when I said nothing. Crossing his sinewy limbs, he lifted a single eyebrow although he still failed to look at me. “Have you any salient remarks to add to this topic? Come, come, I am eager for all relevant opinions upon—”
“Holmes,” said I, gripping him warmly by the forearm. “Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind.”
He did peer at me then, searching my face with the sort of razor focus he ordinarily devotes to outlandishly complex and inexplicable crime scenes. After what seemed an age of this scrutiny, a sorrowful smile crept over the edges of his mouth.
“Then possibly my answer has crossed yours,” he continued to quote in an undertone. “You stand fast?”
“Absolutely,” I vowed.
A flinch no one save I would ever have caught twitched across his aquiline features; he then clapped my hand, which still grasped his arm, and broke away to stub his cigarette out against the wall.
