The same could, in truth, be said of the major himself. He stood a good six foot five, with luxuriant whiskers and the final remnants of what must surely once have been a full head of curly red hair, now dotted here and there in clumps on an otherwise bald scalp, like haystacks in a field of scythed wheat. He wore the full regalia of a Highland major of fifty years before, complete with tartan trews, and red jacket decorated with gold brocade. He also affected a monocle, through which he viewed us with ill-concealed contempt. It was as though a caricature from Punch had sprung to life.
“Well then?” he barked before either of us could speak. “Country bumpkins come up to the big city for a bit of a jolly? Is that it? Hmm? Hmm?”
Without waiting for a reply he switched his attention from us to his butler, who stood to one side and slightly behind us, shuffling from foot to foot, and clearly keen to be elsewhere.
“And you, Murray! What’re you doing, inviting country plodders into my house! Get out of my sight before I take a whip to you!”
To my astonishment, he picked up an old inkwell from the mantelpiece and hurled it at the butler, who swiftly turned on his heel and disappeared down the hallway as it crashed against the doorframe by my side. It was an extraordinary performance.
Holmes, however, was unperturbed. He glanced momentarily at the doorframe and the dented inkwell then brought his hands together in a slow, loud clap.
“Quite right, Sir Campbell!” he exclaimed. “It’s the only way to treat them. Give a servant an inch and he’ll take the family silver!”
McLachlan frowned, his belligerence giving way to uncertainty. “You think so, do you, Inspector? Have much experience with servants, do you, out there in Little Chipping by the Marsh, or whatever stinking hamlet you call home? Hmm? Hmm?”
“Enough to know that you have enacted the little tableau to which my sergeant and I have just borne witness many times before, and that you had no intention of harming your butler, as he well knew. I should not be surprised to learn he is within earshot, in fact.”
McLachlan’s habit of ending every sentence with a pair of heavy nasal breaths was distracting, but in spite of the insolence in his words, his tone when next he spoke was more respectful.
“You think so, do you? And do you also expect me to be impressed by your party tricks? I’ve seen men in India run swords through their own bodies and eat supper afterwards, and holy men sleep on blazing coals as easily as you or I would on a feather bed. What are your childish games compared to that? Hmm? Hmm?”
“Neither tricks nor games, I assure you, sir. Merely the ability to take note of what surrounds us all and extrapolate truths from there. For instance, there are at least seventeen individual dents in a one-foot length of this doorframe and none anywhere else. Murray made certain of his position between the doorframe and ourselves when entering the room, and stood ready to shift to one side as soon as you launched the inkwell. Which,” he concluded, picking up the object and holding it out before him, “shows undeniable signs of being used as a projectile several times in the past. A performance, designed to unnerve and wrong-foot unwelcome visitors, in other words.”
McLachlan considered Holmes for a long moment, then smiled and said, “Murray,” in a normal voice.
Behind us, the old butler stepped into the room and took up position just inside the door. “Yes, sir?” he asked. There was no trace of the thin-voiced, near hunchback who had led us to the room. In his place was a slim man of medium height, with short-cropped fair hair, turning grey at the temples, and a back as straight as my own. A passing examination of his face confirmed that they were one and the same man, but it was difficult even so to reconcile one with the other.
“Whisky, Corporal. One for myself and the inspector – and will beer suit you, Sergeant?”
“I’m afraid we cannot drink while on duty, Sir Campbell,” Holmes replied smoothly. “Though the sergeant is, I believe, fond of a glass or two.”
There being nothing I could say, I said nothing, and instead reminded myself that it was vital Holmes gain McLachlan’s trust in order to find answers to his questions. It appeared he had made a good start, for the major was as affable now as he had been antagonistic before.
“I thought he might be,” McLachlan was saying as I refocused my attention on him. “He has the look about him. Saw a lot of it in the army, of course. Just a whisky for me in that case, Murray,” he dismissed the butler, then, “So you’re here to assist Potter, are you? A good man, but he can’t seem to get anywhere with poor Aunt Sarah. And he knows more about the gangs who stalk these streets than any man other, perhaps, than myself.”
“Corporal Murray served under you for some time?” Holmes asked at an apparent tangent.
“Murray? He certainly did. Twenty-two years in the regiment, eight of them as my batman. Saved my life near Peshawar, and when the army turned us both out to pasture, I asked him to continue keeping an eye on me. Brave as a lion, loyal as a hunting dog – and I believe loyalty is a lane best travelled in both directions. I would trust Murray with my life – or those of any member of my family,” he concluded firmly, leaving us in no doubt that he had understood the purpose of Holmes’s question.
“Regarding your family, Major,” Holmes continued, unabashed. “The only other relation now staying at the house is your brother, Alistair? Is that correct?”
If McLachlan had been prompt and certain when describing Corporal Murray, he was anything but when considering his own brother. Even confirming that he was resident seemed an effort, the words almost needing to be dragged from the major.
“Yes,” he said finally, then fell silent while Murray brought in his whisky, added soda and presented it to him on a polished silver tray. Once the corporal had left, he sipped at his drink before asking whether Holmes was certain that I would not like a glass of beer. “In the kitchen, perhaps? We have lost a servant or two recently for… well, for one reason or other, but Cook can still rustle up something to satisfy a man of good appetite like your sergeant, I’m sure.”
Had Holmes laughed, I might well have walked out, regardless of the consequences, but instead he simply shook his head gravely. “The sergeant is needed to confirm my own memory of our conversation, Sir Campbell. Far more reliable than the old method of one man scribbling in a notebook.”
McLachlan was less than completely mollified but, left with no choice, he acquiesced with reasonably good grace.
“Very well, Inspector. I have always believed that the expert should be given his head.” He gestured across to a pair of matched sofas in one corner of the room. “We should take a seat if my brother is to be the topic of conversation, I would suggest.”
Once we were seated – myself included, to my satisfaction – McLachlan began to speak in a low but steady voice.
“Alistair lost his way when he was a young man, Inspector, and he has never been able to find himself again.” He raised a hand as though forestalling a protest that did not come. “I am not being poetic, believe me. I am not by nature a poetic man. When I say Alistair lost his way, I mean it quite literally.
“You see, Alistair was a late birth, born long after our parents had ceased to expect any further addition to their family. I was already a young subaltern by then, stationed near Kabul, and by the time Alistair came to adulthood I had made a good career for myself in the army and had no time – nor inclination, I admit – to return to England, even when my father died.
“Alistair was sixteen at that point and, with my father gone, the absolute focus of my mother’s attention. She spoiled him in every meaning of the word, Inspector, indulging his every whim; funding, however unknowingly, his every vice, and telling him at all times that he was destined for a special fate.
“Perhaps if I had come home, things would have been different? Perhaps Alistair would have been different? But there is nothing to be gained by posing unanswerable questions, and the fact is that Alistair went quickly to the bad. By eighteen he was consorting with
young men far beneath his own class, ruffians and criminals, and by twenty he had left the country entirely, with at least two outraged fathers on his heels.
“I heard none of this until years later when I retired from the army and returned to the family home. Nor did I hear of Alistair’s years on the continent, one of a group of well-known debauchees, infamous even in the fleshpots and drug dens of Italy and France. My mother denied any wrongdoing on the part of her beloved younger son and died secure in the belief that he was a successful continental businessman.”
McLachlan’s voice fell away and his gaze seemed to pass through Holmes and myself, to focus on some distant, sorrowful part of his own past. I would not have intruded on this private grief but Holmes felt no such compunction.
“Your brother returned home after your mother’s death?” he asked.
McLachlan blinked heavily and nodded. “Somewhat earlier, in fact. It seems even the continent had become a little too ‘hot’ for him. But with my mother gone, he had no choice but to come, cap in hand, to me. Without the generous stipend she allowed him, he had, at that point, no income at all. As the elder son, I had inherited everything from my father on his demise, and though I had been content to live on my army pay and leave all the capital with my mother while she lived, I had no intention of extending the same courtesy to my brother, word of whose dissolution reached me as soon as I arrived in England. I ordered him home, and informed him that his previous sybaritic existence was at an end.”
“And he has remained under your control since then?”
“Control is not how I would put it, Inspector. ‘Influence’ is perhaps a better word.”
“The word is immaterial. Has his behaviour improved?”
I could see McLachlan’s back stiffen at Holmes’s dismissive attitude, and wondered that Holmes himself could not. Even if he had not, McLachlan’s reply should have warned him to show more circumspection in his questioning.
“I fail to see what my brother’s behaviour at home has to do with the murder of my aunt,” the major said frostily. “Is that not what you are supposed to be investigating?”
“He has forced a maid or two to resign her position, though?”
McLachlan’s face flushed with genuine anger. “How can you possibly know that?”
“I did not until now. But you mentioned a recent problem retaining servants. The connection between that fact and the presence of a notorious rake in the house is an obvious one.”
McLachlan sagged at the shoulders and placed his empty glass on the table between us. “There have been one or two… incidents,” he admitted quietly. “I was forced to have Murray dismiss a maid.”
“Was violence involved?”
The reluctance in McLachlan’s voice was palpable. “The allegations were that Alistair had made improper suggestions to certain of the younger female servants,” he muttered, almost too quietly to hear. “But suggestions were the whole of the matter, I am certain. Nothing more. And I have since taken steps to prevent any recurrence. My brother is a changed man, I can assure you, Inspector.”
“Hmm,” was all that Holmes said in reply. He rested his hand on his crossed legs and tapped one long finger against his knee, apparently lost in thought.
“Did the late Miss McLachlan have a favourite painting?” he asked unexpectedly.
McLachlan frowned in confusion, but replied readily. “Why, yes, Inspector, she did. A gift from my father. He painted it himself, and she cherished it. It is a rather fine watercolour, and popular enough in the local area to be available as a print. There are several copies in this house, in fact.”
“And did your brother know of the painting?”
“He did, though he was not alone in that.”
“Of course,” Holmes murmured, half to himself. “You said that your brother had no income at the time your mother died. The implication being that his fortunes have improved recently?”
McLachlan seemed increasingly confused by Holmes’s rapid changes in tack, which was obviously my friend’s intention.
“He… that is… well, yes, they have. Alistair was the sole beneficiary of Aunt Sarah’s will and has inherited a goodly fortune on her demise. As I said, she had no children of her own, and made no secret of the fact that he was to inherit on her death. She moved into this house when her faculties began to deteriorate – sadly, she became ever less lucid and I was forced to constrain her to remain within the house at all times. Still, she was the older sister and in her right mind when she made her will – and she remained a woman of substantial means. Those means have now fallen to Alistair, who tells me he will be moving out within the week. But why are you so fascinated by my brother, Inspector? I have already told you that he is a changed man. Would you not be better served focusing your attention on this disgusting creature, Watson? Potter tells me he is certainly the killer. A gambling sort, apparently, who killed my aunt to pay off his debts to one of the gangs who would like nothing better than to force me to cease my investigations into their activities.”
I could not help but stiffen at this description, but fortunately Major McLachlan had long since forgotten my presence, and gave no sign of noticing anything amiss. In any case, Holmes barely let him finish before continuing his interrogation.
“You place a great deal of trust in Inspector Potter, it would seem.”
“I do. He has proven himself to be a truly moral man.”
“Morality is important to you, of course.”
“As it should be to every man!”
“Of course. And Inspector Potter is a moral man, in your opinion?”
“Have I not just said so? And that is not mere opinion, I might add. His bona-fides are irrefutable.”
Holmes considered this last comment for a moment, then continued on a fresh path of enquiry.
“Regarding your work with Inspector Potter, Sir Campbell. You have been responsible for the passage through the Commons of several bills concerning gang activities?”
“I have.”
“I have not, I fear, been able to keep up with news from the capital as well as I might. Am I correct in saying that you have thus far concentrated your efforts primarily on the continental gangs?”
“That is indeed the case. In speaking to senior policemen, it was made clear to me that we must first eradicate the criminal fraternity who hail from outside our own shores, before moving on to what I would term the home-grown troublemakers.”
“Because the methods they bring with them are alien to us, and so more difficult for the police to curtail?”
“Exactly so.” This sort of questioning was clearly more to McLachlan’s taste and he had settled once more into his earlier amiability, exactly, I suspected, as Holmes intended.
“And has this approach proven successful?”
“I wonder you have to ask, Inspector. Surely news of our successes has reached even your country parish?”
“Quite so, Sir Campbell, quite so. I ask merely for clarification. But now, if we might return to the matter of the assaulted maids, I wonder—”
“HOLMES! What on earth are you doing here?”
Potter’s voice resounded about the room. He stood in the doorway, red in the face, his fists clenched in fury, with a police constable beside him.
“Holmes…?” Major McLachlan glanced from Potter to the two of us, confusion writ large on his face. “What is the meaning of this, Potter? This is Inspector Alexander and his sergeant – or so they led me to believe!”
I stood quickly, feeling every inch a villain, and suffused with embarrassment. Strange to say, I had all but forgotten that we were guests in this house under false pretences, and had almost begun to believe myself Inspector Alexander’s trusty colleague. No excuse came to mind, and I suspect I would still be standing there in mute shame, had Holmes not similarly risen and given McLachlan a tiny bow.
“I apologise for the deception, Sir Campbell, but it was vital that I had the opportunity to speak to you. As you just
said, Inspector Potter has already closed his mind to alternatives to his own flawed theory. In doing so, I very much fear that he will allow the real killer of your aunt to go free, and send a good and innocent man to the gallows.”
“Innocent man—” McLachlan might like to present himself as an eccentric to his visitors, but he had not risen to the rank of major in the British Army, and survived as a parliamentarian in the adversarial atmosphere of the House of Commons, without a fair degree of natural intelligence. He whipped round towards me. “You! You are Watson! How dare you, sir! Murray! Murray!”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than his former batman appeared at Potter’s side. “Sir?” he asked calmly.
“Escort these two blackguards out at once, and do not worry yourself to be too gentle. They are never to be allowed within these walls again! And you,” he exclaimed to Holmes, “may consider yourself lucky that I do not pull one of the weapons from these walls and take the flat of a blade to your miserable hide!”
Potter had watched developments with a smile, but now stepped forward to add his own views. “I would have you arrested for impersonating a police officer, were it not for your willingness to call upon certain influential people at the first sign of difficulties. Genuine policemen do not have time to waste on foolish play acting, Mr. Holmes, no matter how malicious.”
Murray closed on us, but before he could lay hands on either of us, Holmes quickly asked a question. “Do you have a kukri knife in your collection, Sir Campbell?”
McLachlan, surprised I think by the question, answered automatically. “I have several, though only one in pristine condition.”
Murray was but a step away as McLachlan frowned in irritation, and it was plain that we needed to leave immediately. Potter’s self-satisfied smile followed us as we made our way from the room with as much dignity as we could muster. It was, in truth, little enough.
I was full of nervous excitement as we travelled back to Baker Street.
“Finally, we have a suspect, Holmes! Alistair McLachlan had both the means and the motive to murder his aunt. He had access to the knife used to kill her – you noticed that the major said that only one of the examples he owns is unblemished? – and moreover there is the large legacy he has inherited on her death.”
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--The Improbable Prisoner Page 11
