The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part I

by David Marcum

  “Certainly,” said I, gravely, and while I spared the most awful details in deference to those others present, what I briefly described left Highford looking as grey and crumpled as his suit waistcoat.

  “He lays the razor down on the cabinet by his bed as he gulps down water to revive his senses. But that shaking hand drops the blade. To reach it, he merely has to slide the cabinet out on its casters. He sees no need to then reposition it against the wall as he commits his last hopeless act, and the killing blade falls once more to the floor. You will have observed, I’ve every confidence, those multiple marks of the casters in the dust. This is because the door, when her Ladyship burst into the bedroom that morning, struck the displaced cabinet and sent it rolling smoothly back into its usual position, inadvertently obscuring the razor and allowing a tragedy to appear an outrage.”

  “And the girl?” cried the inspector, gripping fast to the one thing he still held while the remainder of his case seemed to drift away quicker than the smoke from Holmes’s cigarette.

  “Mathilda Lodge acted out of loyalty to protect the reputation of one powerless to do so themselves. Petty though most of them were, had those stolen items come to light, what chance would Lefalque’s posthumous honour have stood? In her overwhelming grief, Lady Verity asked her most trusted servant to remove them, but with the police trampling hither and yon, there was little prospect of returning the objects unseen, as was proven when she was so suddenly apprehended. But her sense of loyalty to her mistress would not allow her to plead her own innocence, while Lady Verity’s horror of bringing dishonour to the name of her beloved friend stilled her from speaking up in her saviour’s defence. Thus two well-intentioned acts of mercy resulted in an unfortunate stalemate.”

  I fought to suppress my grin as the Scotland Yarder whined, “Can this be true?” It was evident that he wished to rail and shout at someone, but like many bullies I have seen, his tyranny of those unlucky enough to rank below him was matched only by his terror of offending those of a higher station.

  “Indeed, it is so,” replied Lady Verity. “And we are so deeply, desperately ashamed of our deceit, no matter how pure the motives.”

  “And Monsieur Dubuque and Herr von Waldbaum are coming all this way for a murder enquiry where no-one has been murdered?” A hard gleam of pleasure appeared in the miserable official’s eye, and he became noxiously confidential. “If I may speak with them first, Mr. Holmes, sir? You have somehow spirited my entire murder case away defter than an Oriental conjuror at The Alhambra, so you could at least allow me that. I understand the Parisian has been searching out suspected mistresses on the say-so of Madame Lefalque, while the German has been investigating underhand political aspects. It would be good to tell them that while they’ve chased these side issues, we’ve used British common sense to lay the case to rest.”

  “I shall leave you to explain how we did so, Inspector. And I shall prepare my own full statement, should these visitors need any clarification on the points you will present. If, of course, that is what my client wishes.”

  “By all means, it is, Mr. Holmes, thank you,” insisted Lord Sternfleet.

  “Forgive me, Lord Sternfleet, but while I appreciate the courtesy you have shown in inviting me into your home and confidence, you, sir, are not my client.”

  Leaving the nobleman to choke on his cigar, my friend beckoned to the young constable who had returned with the inspector. “Yes, Mr. Holmes, the person was there, outside the jail where you said, and I delivered your instructions, and an honour it has been, sir, to assist. And here, now, is the wagon I ordered to bring her.”

  “As I informed your Lordship on numerous occasions this morning, I already have a client, and this is she.” Just then, the young lady I had encountered briefly in my old sitting room walked in, looking warily around each face, as if suspecting her every footfall carried her further into a trap. Yet when her eyes fell on her sister she broke into the most dazzling grin and rushed to embrace her.

  “When I saw them take you from the station I was set to follow, even if I had to run every mile of the way, but then the copper said Mr. Sherlock Holmes was waiting for us here and called on a wagon to bring me to you.”

  “I’m free, Florrie!” cried her sister, laughing and sobbing all at the same time. “I don’t know how you managed it, but I’m free!”

  “Without the valuable testimony of this young lady to her sister’s circumstances, and her statement of the character of both your former servant and of your wife, I may not have found the thread needed to unravel this case, your Lordship. Yes, ‘former servant’, for I believe that while loyalty is said to be its own reward, you swore on oath a considerable sum - one thousand guineas? What a memory you have, Watson! - to any who would resolve this matter. That reward rightly belongs to my client. Minus, of course, the sum of five pounds, which I shall remit to cover my fee.”

  VII. A Brief Retrospection

  I may be seen as sentimental, but as I look back on those closing moments in the drawing room, it is not the wary, uncertain glances and uncomfortable, unvoiced questions that hovered over the family and guests of that house which remain most vivid in my recall, but the simple joy and warmth of those two loyal sisters, celebrating their togetherness, and not yet even aware of the fortune that was soon to be theirs. And here the distance of time allows me to report that the money was invested well, and was only the seed that grew into a great family business and also benefited many a charity that seeks to improve the lot of the supposed lower orders. And if I suppress this other tale of a “Second Stain” - that being the insidious stain of suspicion, prejudice, and guilt - it is not for the sake of preserving any clandestine espionage route, nor to protect the confidences and tribulations behind the noble façade of those influential families whose affairs lay at the heart of it. It is, instead, out of loyalty to that faithful servant and her devoted sister, whose part in events beyond their control is best left unspoken until such times as the information can have no unhappy result for them.

  I am confident that these past secrets are as secure as is the sisters’ continuing bright future, but in that July of fifteen years past, there remained one last obligation before any who knew the truth in the case might consider security remotely possible. I was present the next morning when the famous European crime specialists called at Baker Street seeking, as Holmes had predicted, some clarification of whatever coup de théâtre had occurred to render their services redundant while they were still in transit, since the account presented to them by a preening Inspector Highford on their arrival in London had singularly failed to illuminate much beyond the Scotland Yarder’s inexplicably high opinion of his own talents.

  To this day I still retain the almost verbatim report I transcribed of that demonstration, and it is this transcript that has proved invaluable in allowing me now to recall and accurately record the tangle of truths, half-truths and outright fabrications that have long-since supplanted the true facts of the case. And as I watched those gentlemen as they, in turn, closely watched Sherlock Holmes faultlessly recreate that same sequence of betrayal, tragedy, and sheer chance that he had woven the previous day - Monsieur Dubuque, large eyes peering unblinkingly over the rims of his pince-nez like a peevish, professorial owl rather than a police officer; Herr von Waldbaum alternately tut-tutting and chuckling to himself as, with a tiny pencil clamped in his huge hand, he jotted the salient points in his little notebook, before drawing a line under them with some decisive finality - a growing reassurance dawned that, as far as the various authorities whose minds had been turned to it were concerned, the Leflaque problem could now be relegated to a dossier sealed and stamped as “Resolved with no further inquiry necessary”.

  If there was any ill feeling that their energies or journeys had been wasted, neither let it show, nor allowed it to sour a sense of mutual admiration amongst the best brains each respective country had to offer
. It was, after all, Marcel Dubuque who would petition his own government to secure Holmes’s assistance in prising apart the grip of fear in which Paris was held in the summer of 1894 by the notorious Boulevard Assassin, Huret; while my abiding memory of Fritz von Waldbaum shall forever be those few deadly seconds when he and I faced one another over the barrels of our revolvers until, with a timely warning cry from Holmes and a booming laugh of startled recognition from the German, each party realised that the other was skulking in that labyrinth of tunnels below the streets of Vienna on the self-same mission to prevent the ancient terms of a blasphemous covenant from being horribly fulfilled.

  There is little more to relate with bearing to the Marleigh Towers incident, although you, my dear future reader, are no doubt asking the question that did not occur to me until I was seated with Holmes in a carriage bearing us back towards Baker Street. “In my sheer admiration at watching as you masked a suicide that had been mistaken for a murder that appeared to be disguised as suicide as an actual suicide after all, but one committed for completely different reasons - I believe I managed to get that right, but I cannot swear to it, or repeat it - I entirely forgot about these international implications that were the source of much talk whose ultimate meaning I quite failed to grasp.”

  “My boy, I had begun to wonder if you had lost interest,” smiled Holmes from behind his pipe, “but you do not disappoint. Simply put, where an easy back and forth of workers and labourers exists across borders - and particularly borders as fractious and troubled as those in the very heart of the cauldron of nations across the narrow Channel - there lies an easy passage for all manner of others, whose work may be more enigmatic, and whose labours are decided in private rooms and silent chambers nearby. Yes, my dear fellow, a virtual open door with a ‘welcome’ mat on either side for certain covert agencies, for where man can travel freely, so too can what he holds in his pocket, his luggage, or simply in his mind. Well, I shall have our driver deposit me in the city, where I shall take my turn to play the reliable advisor in suggesting that a new route be found, be it over the Alps by elephant, or down the Rhine in a barrel. I rather think Lord Sternfleet may be delayed in relaying the news, as other, more delicate explanations must take precedence.”

  “That there should be such lack of trust and honesty between man and wife,” I mused, sorrowfully, “and such betrayal and secrecy amongst friends.”

  “I shall not let it trouble me,” said Holmes. “I have very few friends, and the best of them I trust implicitly, while I shall, of course, never marry, so need have no fear of the many dangers of that dubious arrangement. Ah, and here we are at Pall Mall, and I must leave you. And what shall you do now?”

  I cast a stern eye in his direction and murmured, “Oh, I shall armour myself against those many dubious dangers, and go back home to my new wife.”

  “Ah, Watson, you forgive me, I’m sure? There, you try to hide a smile, so you do. But if I may paraphrase the recent utterances of an individual who holds you in the highest regard, and who is therefore a wise man indeed; what purpose does it serve to pursue justice - and deserved happiness is most surely only a specific form of justice - if we cannot believe there exists good in this world? Goodbye, my dear fellow, until fate or fortune brings us together again.”

  The Two Umbrellas

  by Martin Rosenstock

  On a cloudy autumn evening, a young man in a Chesterfield coat crossed the courtyard of a Georgian-style office building and approached its gate onto Whitehall. In his right hand, he carried a satchel; an umbrella was tucked under his left arm.

  “Have a good evening, Mr. Ferguson,” called out the sentry in a wooden coop by the threshold.

  “Thank you, Palmer. You too.”

  “Oh, and enjoy your holidays, Mr. Ferguson,” the sentry remembered.

  “I am sure I will.”

  Ferguson stepped onto the footpath. He passed a brass plaque affixed to the building’s façade: Admiralty House - British Royal Navy. Taking his umbrella, he began to swing it, not quite in rhythm with his gait, as he headed down the street towards Charing Cross. The noise of cabs and coaches, delivering passengers to their supper destinations, filled the air; newspaper boys cried the evening editions. Men in suits and overcoats were moving determinedly away from their places of employ. Twice, Ferguson lifted his silk top hat in greeting and received an identical salutation in return. His features during these exchanges were controlled; the brown eyes behind a pince-nez widened briefly with practiced geniality. Once in a while though, when unobserved, a twitch passed over his face, and he would then press his lips together so as to reestablish an appearance of nonchalance.

  Ferguson was slight of build. His shoulders did not fill his coat, and the legs of his trousers flapped loosely with each step. His face, at first glance, appeared nondescript, the face of a man who had gone, or perhaps rather had been propelled, through life without encountering major discomfitures, let alone obstacles. The features were fine and suggested schooling and cultivation. One could imagine him conversing on a Turner exhibition or the quality of a tenor’s interpretation of a Verdi aria. Yet one would have been hard pressed to imagine him taking a paintbrush or stepping onto a stage. On closer inspection, though, this air of comfortable staidness appeared forced, yet perhaps not consciously so. A tightness sat around his jaws, as if his teeth were constantly on the verge of clenching in anticipation of pain. His head was fixed at a light upward angle, conveying a blend of fancy and ambition.

  He pulled out his watch, looked at it, then increased his pace, now swinging the umbrella with more gusto. He did not hear the bicycle which, swerving between pedestrians, was approaching him from behind. At the last moment the rider shouted a warning, but too late. He hit Ferguson’s shoulder at almost full speed. The umbrella slipped from his grasp, described an arc through the air, and landed clattering by the entrance of a whitewashed house that stood unimpressively next to Admiralty Arch. The satchel fell in front of him. As Ferguson’s outstretched hands struck the footpath to either side of the satchel, it luckily prevented his face from hitting the pavement. His pince-nez detached itself, glanced off the satchel, and slithered two yards across the stones before coming to rest on the curb.

  A middle-aged gentleman in a rumpled beige suit, who was emerging from the entrance in front of which the umbrella came to the ground, rushed to the victim.

  “Are you all right, Sir?”

  “Yes, yes. I... I think I am...” The middle-aged gentleman helped Ferguson to his feet, who, on rising, gripped his satchel.

  He exhaled loudly, then surveyed the footpath in alarm. Some pedestrians slowed their steps, but as the crisis had already passed they continued on their way.

  “Can you see my spectacles, by any chance?”

  “Oh dear. I’m afraid not...”

  “I am rather dependent on them, unfortunately.”

  “These ruffians on their bicycles. They are a menace. The police need to do something about these newfangled things,” muttered the man, gripping the edges of his suit and looking around. “There they are,” he exclaimed and stepped up to the curb. He settled down on his haunches with a wheeze. “And you’re lucky. They are not even broken.” Having retrieved the pince-nez, he stood up. “A little scratched merely.” He wiped the spectacles clean against the arm of his jacket.

  Ferguson had remained immobile, staring into the distance. On now receiving his accoutrement, he hurriedly squeezed it onto his nose. “Thank you, Sir. Much obliged.”

  “You are most welcome. And the umbrella.” The middle-aged gentleman picked it up from the footpath in front of the entrance. “I say, you were rather lucky, all things considered.”

  “I believe I was,” agreed Ferguson, taking the umbrella and giving it an anxious glance. Apparently satisfied, he assumed his former expression, chin lifted, his features showing determined equanimity. “Thank yo
u again, Sir. You have been most kind.” He looked ahead to the corner where the bicycle must have disappeared and shook his head in anger. “Well, what can one say...? I must be on my way. I am in a bit of a hurry...” He pointed to a line of hansom cabs that stood waiting at Charing Cross, then raised his hand in good-bye and resumed his walk.

  The crowd absorbed Ferguson’s figure. The man in the rumpled suit remained behind, a few waxy blotches forming on his jowly face. Finally, he stepped back through the door out of which he had emerged. It had only been leaned to. Inside the foyer was another man. He had a cigar in his mouth and stood bent over a walnut table on which lay an umbrella whose handle had been detached as well as a few sheets of tracing paper. These the man held pressed down on the edges. The top sheet showed what appeared to be a construction plan of a warship.

  “Looks as if everything were here, Mycroft,” said the man around his cigar. “As you had expected.”

  The middle-aged gentleman approached the table. “Well,” he said with stern contentment, “now things are back where they belong. And Ferguson is our deliveryman.”

  “Are you certain he will not mention his accident to his friends? They might form a suspicion.”

  “Rest assured, he will not. He was able to brush himself off. Vanity will seal his lips.”

  “Look at these!” The man turned to another page, and the ash shook precariously at the tip of his cigar. “As good as the originals! I’d love to wring his thin neck! The cab will follow him?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s waiting at Charing Cross,” smiled the man called Mycroft. “If we’re lucky, he will board it. If he takes another one, ours will follow the one he takes. All is going according to plan.”

  The man with the cigar voiced another doubt: “What if Ferguson looks at the new version and realizes it’s not his...?”