‘I have made a study of philately,’ Holmes said, ‘and my knowledge has assisted me on more than one occasion, most notably in the matter of the Duke of Leinster’s baubles. I was already aware that the error on this particular scrap of paper had achieved the status of legend amongst collectors. It dates back to 1854, precisely the time when your son might have purchased a stamp to place on one of his letters home. When I learned of Kilner’s connection with Charles Gillibrand, the explanation for the mystery became clear. Gillibrand was a hoarder of scarce and valuable items as omniverous as he was obsessive. Kilner had gained some knowledge of philately from Sir Titus, who was himself a stamp collector of repute. When you showed him your son’s letters, he saw a means of ingratiating himself with his former employer by telling him of how he could lay his hands on a famously scarce and valuable item.’
‘But why did he not speak to me?’ the tobacconist said.
‘You described him as an impulsive fellow. I surmise that he decided to kill two birds with one stone. He thought that Charles Gillibrand would be glad to buy the stamp from you, but had not reckoned for the speed with which the son had squandered the family fortune. His house was decaying and he depended for personal service upon a thug. He could not afford to pay the fabulous sum that the ‘Inverted Swan’ would command and threatened Kilner with Cave if he breathed a word to you. Perhaps he offered Kilner a bribe, perhaps Kilner thought that you would not miss a mere envelope. Hence the anonymous warning. At all events, Cave stole every envelope, together with its contents, that he could find. Kilner was undoubtedly in a state of terror and when he learned that you intended to consult me, he made the mistake of alerting Charles Gillibrand. He succeeded only in guaranteeing his own death. A terrible end, and the perpetrators richly deserve to hang for what they have done. It is at least some consolation that they are now in the hands of the authorities.’
Josiah Buckle took a reflective puff from his cherrywood pipe. ‘Well, Mr Holmes, within the space of a few hours I have lost a friend who betrayed me and made a fortune for which I care nothing. But I have my son’s letters, which mean more to me than all the wealth in the world. And what have you gained from today, except from the satisfaction of solving a riddle?’
Holmes shrugged. ‘I have repaid my debt to you and staved off boredom. I ask for nothing else. Except, perhaps, for the opportunity to sample another of those remarkable Alexandrian cigarettes to which you introduced me half an hour ago. A touch self-indulgent, perhaps, but then – it will soon be Christmas! Watson, will you join me?’
The Case of the Eccentric Testatrix
My friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, was dismissive of his achievements in relation to the Stubbings will. True, the case brought him satisfaction for a peculiarly personal reason. Nevertheless, as an example of the art of detection, in his opinion, the bizarre trappings of the case merely served to complicate an otherwise elementary problem. He contended that, during the twelve remarkable months of ’87, he was confronted by numerous more testing challenges to his gift for analytical reasoning, not least with regard to the business of the Grice Patersons, and the tragedy of the five orange pips.
I begged to differ. The Stubbings affair introduced me to that extraordinary gathering, the Amateur Mendicant Society, and if the adventure had possessed no other feature of singularity, our visit to the Society’s bizarre underground lair provides a justification for me to set down the circumstances surrounding the death of Miss Alicia Stubbings.
It was early on a blustery afternoon in March when, having seen my last patient of the day immediately after luncheon, I determined to call at my former quarters in Baker Street. My wife was away on a visit to her family and I was curious to see how my old friend fared following his recent exploits in connection with the Paradol Chamber. I had picked up no more than a few cryptic references to the puzzle in the newspapers. Upon my arrival, I anticipated finding him engrossed in the interminable task of cross-referencing his records of crime, but the landlady confided that he was already in conference with an important visitor.
‘A client?’
The deduction was simplicity itself. Sherlock Holmes had few intimates and no interest in idle conversation. Other than myself, his brother Mycroft and certain gentlemen from Scotland Yard and others concerned with the investigation of crime, he discouraged visitors.
‘A Yorkshireman,’ the landlady murmured, as if to originate from the county of broad acres were in itself cause for suspicion. ‘Well-dressed, mind, and possessed of a splendid half-hunter, but a Yorkshireman all the same.’
Without more ado, she showed me in. Holmes sprang up and hastened to introduce me to his companion.
‘Watson, old fellow! Your arrival is timely, your instinct for a conundrum as unerring as ever. May I introduce you to Mr Hubert Stubbings?’
A large man who had been ensconced in my old armchair clambered to his feet. Hubert Stubbings’ bald pate was fringed by white hair and I estimated his age at seventy. His nose resembled a raven’s beak, and his chin was as sharp as an axe. I recognised the assiduous tailoring of Messrs Gieves & Hawkes, and guessed that the even the silver-tipped cane that lay on the carpet, let alone the gold half-hunter to which Mrs Hudson referred, had cost as much as the contents of my entire wardrobe.
‘Dr Watson! I am glad to make your acquaintance.’
He wrung my hand, his grip as firm as that of a man half his age. Lacking spectacles, he peered at me so intently that I felt like a specimen on a slide, subject to a scientist’s microscopic inspection.
‘I am pleased to meet you, Mr Stubbings. Your name is familiar to me, and yet…’
‘Stubbings’ Sauce,’ the man said at once. ‘Don’t tell me that you have never sampled one of our products, for that I cannot believe.’
‘Ah, yes.’ I cast around for a diplomatic phrase. ‘Very…pungent.’
‘Flavour!’ Stubbings proclaimed, rolling the word around his tongue as though it were savoury. At once I gained the impression of a man who enjoyed the sound of his own voice, and was accustomed to a dutifully appreciative audience for his words. ‘There is no substitute for a flavour that gives the taste-buds what-for, my good Doctor. The success of Stubbings’ Sauce was founded upon flavour.’
‘Quite so,’ I murmured, striving to forget the one and only time I had ever sampled the product.
Stubbings wagged a thick forefinger at me. ‘My grandfather started the family firm. It was his passionate belief that an Englishman expects his sauce to be pungent and that it was his duty never to disappoint expectation. A sound business tenet, Dr Watson. It has served us well for nigh on three-quarters of a century. Not that I take an extensive part in the business nowadays. I have no children and following the death of my wife three years ago, I sold my holding to a company determined to make Stubbings’ Sauce a staple not only of the Englishman’s diet, but equally popular across the Channel. I remain on the Board as Chairman, but my principal concern is to ensure that the quality of our…’
‘Yes, yes,’ Sherlock Holmes interrupted. ‘You were about to explain the relations between your cousin and yourself.’
‘Alicia, aye.’ Stubbings grunted. ‘Her father, Percival Stubbings, fancied himself as an art lover and critic, a latter day Ruskin if you please. He travelled widely on the Continent, but thankfully took no part in the business. Nevertheless, his mother doted on him and she persuaded my grandfather to leave Percival a handsome sum in his will. Within five years of Jethro’s passing, both my Uncle Percival and Aunt Eliza were dead. In consequence, Alicia was left comfortably off, but she was by temperament eccentric, and a malcontent. I’ll be candid with you, Mr Holmes. Never mind about de mortuis, a man in your profession requires the facts, not a tactful fiction. Alicia was ill-tempered and her tongue might have belonged to a viper. She liked to think of herself as a benefactor of good causes, but frankly the majority of the ramshackle organisations on which she squandered her money would be better described as lost causes.’
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‘Where did she live?’
‘In Dismore Street.’ Stubbings shook his head. ‘If it was ever a fashionable address, that must have been many years ago. Alica’s parents, like mine, moved from Leeds to London when we were children, but we never sought out each other’s company. For years I have thought little about her and heard less. Until the tenth of this month, that is.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘A stranger called at my home in Holland Park at half past nine in the evening. My man was reluctant to admit him, since I was about to retire for the night. Early to bed and early to rise, Mr Holmes, that makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.’
‘Indeed,’ my friend said. ‘Be so good as to describe to Dr Watson the events of that night.’
Stubbings frowned at the terseness of the request, but if he contemplated bestowing upon us further nuggets of his home-spun philosophy, a glance at Sherlock Holmes’ expression caused the words to die on his lips.
‘Very well, Mr Holmes. My visitor was a formidable individual, six feet tall, with a substantial paunch and an even more substantial flowing black beard to match an untamed head of hair. He presented a card introducing himself as Mr Peter Mueller of Messrs. Mueller and Trott, Solicitors and Attorneys-at-Law in Bedford Row. It was plain from his guttural accent that English was not his first language, but he spoke fluently enough. His message was simple. My estranged sister Alicia was on the point of death and she wished to make her peace with me. She also intended to make a new will and wanted me to witness it and act as her executor.’
‘Was it common knowledge that the two of you were estranged?’ I asked.
Stubbings shook his head. ‘Few people of my acquaintance would have the remotest idea that I possessed a sister. For her part, as I have mentioned, she had few if any friends in whom to confide.’
‘We can take it, therefore, that Mueller was to an extent in her confidence,’ Holmes said.
‘Surely that might be taken for granted in the case of a legal adviser,’ I suggested.
‘My advice is to hear Mr Stubbings out, Watson, before you make any such assumption,’ my friend murmured. ‘Now, sir, were you aware that Mueller was your sister’s solicitor?’
‘I had never heard of him, but that signified nothing. In my life, I have taken pains to avoid members of both the legal and medical professions. Saving your presence, Dr Watson, they can at best be described as a necessary evil. In my opinion, lawyers and medical men are to be avoided unless one has no choice but to avail oneself of their services – and to hold one’s wallet at their disposal.’
‘Yet you consented to accompany Mr Mueller to your sister’s house?’ Holmes asked.
‘Aye, that I did. My sister had shown me scant affection during her lifetime, but that was no reason to deny her dying wish. During the journey, the solicitor explained that Alicia had become increasingly truculent and eccentric in recent weeks. She had always been moody and inclined to unpleasant fits of temper, but by all accounts this natural predisposition had become ever more apparent. One by one, she had dismissed all her servants save for a maid called Effie Pawson and her husband John, who did the rough work about the house and garden. She had changed her will time without number, and on each occasion she engaged a different firm of lawyers to transact her business. Mueller’s impression was that this was due not so much to lack of trust, but rather to a natural fickleness. Knowing Alicia as I did, this rang true. Mueller said he had received instructions from her for the first time that very afternoon. Her heart had long been weak and now it was expected to give way at any moment.’
‘Yet she was lucid enough to possess testamentary capacity?’ Holmes asked.
‘According to Mueller, the doctor had confirmed this.’
‘And did she change doctors as regularly as she changed legal advisers?’
‘I gather so, but Mueller said that the fellow – his name was Burr – seemed competent. He practises in Harley Street, so he must be sound enough.’
I could not entirely suppress a cough of derision, for I have encountered a number of denizens of Harley Street who, for all their airs and graces, possess no more expertise than a quack from the East End.
‘Did you enquire about the provisions of the latest will?’ Holmes asked.
Stubbings lifted his chin. ‘I asked out of natural curiosity, nothing more.’
‘Yet you realised that you were not due to inherit from her?’
‘I may be many things, Mr Holmes, but I’m not a fool. I’m well aware that if she wished me to witness her will, I would not receive a legacy. A witness cannot inherit, that’s the law.’
‘Did that not dismay you?’
Stubbings laughed, a raucous noise. ‘Not in the least. The moneys that I inherited from my own father have been well looked after, I can assure you, and I sold my shares in the business for a pretty penny. To have profited from the estate of a woman for whom I never had sympathy would have been an embarrassment.’
‘Was her estate substantial?’ I asked.
‘Mueller said that it had been much diminished over the years. Her house, and the possessions within it, would be of some value when sold, but he understood that her investments had fared miserably over the years. All told, he gathered she was worth barely more than nine hundred pounds.’
‘It is not an inconsiderable sum.’
‘A pittance,’ our visitor snorted, with a dismissive wave of a spade-like hand. ‘She squandered a small fortune on idle fancies. People who did not know Alicia well thought her impulses charitable if undiscriminating and often unwise. In reality, she allowed her money to dribble away to the undeserving. And for what? As I say, she changed the objects of her supposed benevolence almost as regularly as she changed her bed-linen. At one time she favoured the cat lovers of Croydon, later the flat-earthers, to say nothing of the Association of Indigent Vegetarians. It was a means of wielding a little power, I suppose. All her life, she positively relished any opportunity to be difficult.’
‘Pray proceed.’
‘Mueller admitted us to the house himself. He explained that Effie, the housemaid, had been dismissed that very afternoon. When Dr Burr announced that Alicia was unlikely to survive another twenty-four hours, Effie was unable to contain her distress and dropped a teapot, smashing it into little pieces. It is typical of my sister’s habitual contrariness that she gave the poor woman notice on the spot and insisted that she leave her house at once, rather than recognising her genuine concern. John Pawson felt he had no choice but to accompany his wife to her brother’s home in Richmond and was not expected back until the morning. My sister had not bargained for that, Mueller said. She retained her confidence in Pawson, despite the dismissal of his wife, and pleaded with him not to leave her, while refusing to allow his wife to remain in her home for a moment longer. Ridiculous behaviour, sir! At all events, the lawyer had arranged for a woman who lived next door to sit in the house while he fetched me, in case Alicia raised the alarm in his absence. The neighbour scuttled off as soon as we arrived and Mueller led me upstairs.’
Stubbings mopped his brow. ‘Alicia’s room was in darkness. The atmosphere was musty and unpleasant. As we entered, I feared we might be too late, but she was still alive. Her breath rasped dreadfully, however, and I did not doubt that the end was near.’
‘Was she able to speak?’ I asked.
‘Faintly,’ Stubbings replied. ‘I had to bend over the bed to catch her words. She was well wrapped up, but even so, she was shivering. She whispered that she would never feel warm again.’
‘She recognised you?’
‘When I told her my name, she inclined her head and murmured her thanks. Merely to speak was an effort that cost her dear. I asked if she was sure that she wished to make a change to her will, and she said that she was.’
‘You had no cause to suspect that she was of unsound mind?’
‘No more than ever,’ Stubbings said with a grimace. ‘She was a sick woman, but h
er mind was no more addled than it had ever been, to that I would swear.’
‘Did she speak about the provisions of the will?’
‘No, save to murmur the name Bertram. All was clear to me, however, because Mueller had outlined the main provisions to me, in confidence. Of course, as a witness, I had no right to such information, but I suspect he felt the need to justify dragging me from my fireside.’
‘Who inherited the estate?’
‘Previously, it was divided into ten parts. One-tenth went to Effie Pawson, in recognition of her loyal service. Ninety pounds, Holmes, a handsome sum for a servant! The remainder was bequeathed to the Amateur Mendicant Society.’
Holmes arched his eyebrows. ‘An organisation with which you are familiar?’
‘Certainly, Mr Holmes. Alicia told me about it almost half a century ago. I have little time for the Society, but I cannot help but respect its longevity, as well as its discretion. It is one of London’s best kept secrets.’
Holmes contented himself with a nod.
Tantalised, I said, ‘Well, then? What is this Society?’
‘Membership,’ Stubbings said, with a self-made man’s frown of disapproval, ‘is confined to students of Christ Church College in Oxford – mind, for some unfathomable reason, the term ‘student’ does not mean the present generation of scholars, but rather the fellows of the college. Their objects are twofold. First, to masquerade as beggars in the streets of London and thereby to raise money for charitable causes dear to their heart. Second, and at least as important, to indulge their taste for the finest wines in civilised company – which they deem to be the company of their college peers. How much the good causes actually receive, as compared with the city’s vintners, is no doubt a matter for conjecture.’
The New Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes Page 8
