Sherlock Holmes and the Folk Tale Mysteries - Volume 2

by Puhl, Gayle Lange

  “You burnt these ledgers after you discovered Mr. Todd’s body when you returned to the house last night. You did that to cover your tracks, knowing that his death would mean an investigation.”

  “And the woman?” I asked.

  Sherlock Holmes picked a nearly invisible long hair off the embroidered vest of Sevilen Ottersby. “It must have been an expensive night,” he commented. “She was a natural blonde.

  “As for Professor Molesley, his story is true in every respect. His shoes and trousers display mud and dust from the streets he wandered through on his way back to here. The evidence is clear to an experienced eye. The shoe varnish found on the window sill indicates that egress was from the outside in and matches the scratches on the professor’s footwear. See, here, where the light catches the marks? Here are several pieces of packing straw left on his coat from his rummaging around the collection crates in search of his alabaster dagger.”

  “He could still have killed Mr. Todd,” said Lestrade, loath to let his triumph fade.

  “His clothing has not a trace of mummy dust on it. There are traces on the soles but nowhere else. It would have been impossible not to be covered in dust given the force that was necessary to shove Mr. Todd’s body into the case. There must have been a cloud of it raised when the murdered man was thrust onto the dried-up body. Professor, what did you do after you found Mr. Todd in the case?”

  “I… I was shocked, as I said. I think I pushed the lid back to cover the horrible sight and left through the window I had used to enter. After walking, almost running for a while, I found a cab and went back to my apartment. There I met my landlady, Mrs. Woods, on the stairs. The scullery maid had a toothache and she was tending her. I went to my room. Later the policeman found me and brought me here.”

  “That leaves us Mr. Rafferty,” said Lestrade. Holmes nodded.

  “Mr. Rafferty told us a fine story about Mr. Todd’s surprising change of heart, of how he allowed Mr. Rafferty to come into his home, examine the model ship, the object of his particular interest, for over an hour and even take detailed notes about it. But there are three witnesses, Dr. Watson, Professor Molesley and myself, who were present when Mr. Todd denied all access to his Egyptian collection and gave a good and legal reason for doing so. He said that it was no longer his property, having been sold earlier in the day. So why would Mr. Todd treat Mr. Rafferty in such a generous manner? What could have changed in the few hours after the meeting and the late-night hour when Mr. Rafferty knocked on Mr. Todd’s door?”

  “He just had a change of heart,” Mr. Rafferty protested. “I am the President of the Royal Egyptology Society. He might have thought there would be some prestige in being mentioned as the former owner of the dhow in the paper I planned to publish.”

  “Anyone’s experience of Mr. Twain Todd’s personality would not allow for such a conclusion,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It was entirely against his nature. He took great pleasure in turning us out of his house without a glimpse of the collection.

  “No, Mr. Rafferty’s great desire to examine the little boat that had become his obsession overcame his good sense. He deliberately returned to this house and talked his way in. He attacked Mr. Todd in his office when access to the collection was denied again, knocking over the plate of chicken bones in the process and breaking the plate. He then dragged his victim right out of his slippers to the collection room. When Mr. Todd refused to produce the key, Mr. Rafferty in his mania strangled him there and left his body on the carpet. He went back to the office and ransacked it in search of the key. When he didn’t find it he went back and forced open the door. He dragged Mr. Todd’s body in and shoved it into one of the mummy cases to get it out of his sight. He then opened several crates until he found the dhow.”

  “You mean to say that he then spent over an hour calmly making notes and drawing a sketch of the little boat in his notebook in that room, next to the body, risking discovery at any moment by the servants, who may have heard the noise of the struggle?” I gasped.

  “Mr. Rafferty’s obsession had reached such heights that in his frenzy to achieve his goal such trifles became of no concern. He was past reason. Yet he knew enough not to remove the little boat. That fact will not stand him in good stead later. It happened that he wasn’t disturbed by anyone because neither Baj Jhar nor Mr. Ottersby returned during the time Mr. Rafferty was in the house. He was well gone before either man came back and entered through the kitchen door. They were still absent when Professor Molesley entered, found the body and then left.”

  Mr. Rafferty sneered and said, “You can prove nothing. According to your own words, I should be covered in mummy dust. You can see that there is no dust on my coat or trousers and these were the clothes I wore earlier.”

  “You have brushed your clothing well, I admit,” said Holmes. “But there is one place you have overlooked. A woman would not neglect such a thing, but a murderer in the midst of a busy night might be excused in forgetting such a detail. Lestrade, look at his shoes!”

  The President of the Royal Egyptology Society struggled against us, but his bespoke shoes were eventually removed and found to bear quantities of grey mummy dust.

  Sherlock Holmes pointed to the footwear. “The murderer cleaned his suit and even washed his face and hands and brushed his hair but his footwear had been merely wiped, leaving the mummy dust lying hidden in the creases across the toes. This may be more of a case for the doctors than the courts, Lestrade. It is possible that Rafferty has a better chance to end up in the authorities’ care at Broadmoor Asylum than at the end of a hangman’s rope.”

  The murderer raved and swore. Three strong constables were required to bind him and carry him from the room. Inspector Lestrade carried away his prize in high spirits. He added Sevilen Ottersby to his bag for further questioning about Mr. Todd’s finances. The others were dismissed. Holmes and I were left in front of the Belgravia house as the sun began to set over the rooftops of Alexandria Square.

  “Shall we walk back to Baker Street again, Holmes?” I inquired. Before my friend could answer, a young woman, dressed like a servant maid, ran up to us from a nearby house.

  “Oh, please, sir, you’re Mr. Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you? Oh, please can you help us? Me wee brother is missing and I’m that worried about him. He ran off in his nightgown two nights before, me mother says, and hasn’t been seen since. Such a thing has never happened before and I’m half out of me mind!”

  “I would be glad to help you, Miss…Miss…”

  “Winkle, sir. Me brother’s name is Willy. But I can’t talk to you right now. Me mistress wouldn’t like it, me neglecting me duties. I’ll come to Baker Street this evening, after she’s gone out. Thank you, sir, thank you!”

  With that she was gone. Sherlock Holmes shrugged. “You have written that I possess only a limited knowledge of Thomas Carlyle, Watson. That may be true, but I do admit to a few relevant lines,” he remarked. “One is ’For men must work and women must weep’. Look, the sky grows darker. We shall take a cab.”

  The Case of the Classic Code

  It was a folded sheet of brown paper, without an envelope, and with the words “Sherlock Holmes of London” scrawled on one side. When Holmes handed it to me I could clearly read the lines written on it. They were quite familiar.

  “Jack and Jill went up the hill

  To fetch a pail of water.

  Jack fell down

  And broke his crown

  And Jill will tumble down after.”

  “Holmes, what can this mean?”

  Sherlock Holmes and I were seated in our armchairs before the sitting room fireplace of 221b Baker Street. The hearth now containing a brightly polished brass fire screen instead of the dingy soot-smudged one that had protected the bearskin rug from the toasty coal fire we had enjoyed all winter. A clear May morning sun sent shafts of light through t
he newly-cleaned and starched lace window curtains that hung behind our brocade drapes. During our absence of over two weeks on an unusual case that took us from Banbury Cross to Vienna and onward to Morocco, Mrs. Hudson had managed to clean all of 221b without disturbing any of Holmes’ files or instruments. The gleaming fire screen was the final touch. I had approved of the results, but Sherlock Holmes had poked around, trying to find a good reason to complain. Despite his best efforts, he had concluded that only the level of dust and the number of spider webs had changed in our absence. Mrs. Hudson had defended her actions on the grounds of sanitation, a difficult reason to refute.

  The crumpled brown paper had been brought up by the boy in buttons. He reported that he had found it thrust under the front door as he brought down the breakfast things. Now Sherlock Holmes read the note and handed it to me.

  “First, Watson, tell me your impressions of this missive.”

  I eyed the scrap doubtfully. “It is a dirty piece of brown paper, about 12 inches by 14, with uneven, torn edges. The words upon it were done roughly in pen and ink. The author printed the words clearly, but there are still a few blots from the pen. “Jack and Jill” is a child’s nursery rhyme. I cannot conceive any reason in the world why someone should go to the bother of writing it out and shoving it under your door.”

  “I can think of seven!” Sherlock Holmes declared. He snatched the scrap back and rose to his feet. He moved over to his chemistry table. For some little time his fingers moved among his chemicals and delicate instruments as he examined and analyzed the note. I had finished my post-breakfast cigar before he turned from the eyepiece of his microscope and smiled.

  “Each case can be divided into several parts. The first part of this case is finished, Watson. This is a most interesting clue.”

  “Clue, Holmes? Those are just some lines from a classic old nursery rhyme. They can have nothing to do with any wrongdoing!”

  “I beg to differ, my dear doctor. To prove my contention that this is not just the random rendering of a classic poem but instead a clue to evildoing, I point out the one thing that indicates that clearly. It is the mistake.”

  I picked up the paper and looked it over again. “I see no mistake.”

  Holmes laughed. “Read the last line again.”

  I did. “Why, it has been copied out wrong! It should read ‘And Jill came tumbling after.’ What an odd thing.”

  “It is the odd things of life that make my work so interesting. Why was this old rhyme pushed under my door? Why write “Sherlock Holmes of London” on it, when my address, due mostly to your own literary efforts, is so well known? Why have it delivered anonymously? Why choose that particular poem? And most intriguingly of all, what is the meaning of that altered last line?”

  “It may well be a clue to something, but why must that something be a crime?”

  “Because it was delivered to me and my profession is well-known.” Holmes picked up his old pipe from the table beside him and tapped the stem on the paper in my hand. “There is a dark story behind that scrap of paper, Watson, and someone has been kind enough to give it to me to decode. I have nothing on hand at the moment except that matter of the Edinburgh Gardens’ silver bells. Inspector Lestrade told me yesterday that old Mary Darnley was about to confess. So, barring a call for help from Scotland Yard, I am at leisure to pursue this problem. Please excuse me, my friend. I think this will prove to be a three…nay, perhaps a four…pipe problem and should take up at least the rest of this morning. Perhaps you would like to go to your club, since it is Thursday and Thurston is sure to be there.”

  “I will leave you to it, Holmes, but I still do not see how this bit of scribbling can be related to a crime.”

  “Right now neither do I, but after a few hours I may be able to tell to you more.” With that, Sherlock Holmes filled his pipe from the tobacco from his Persian slipper, then reached out and took back the note. He leaned back in his armchair and lit his pipe. When rising grey smoke showed the contents were burning finely, I took my hat and cane and left the apartment to that motionless figure.

  I played billiards with Thurston on Thursdays, as Holmes well knew, so the day passed pleasantly. After lunch I received a telegram from him, asking that I remain where I was so he could reach me later.

  Finally, as the afternoon advanced, a waiter brought me another message, instructing me to enter a four-wheeler Holmes had sent and return to Baker Street. As the cab drove up to our door, I saw Holmes leaning out of one of the sitting room windows waving a telegram form.

  “Wait there, Watson,” he called. “I’ll be right down.”

  The sun had set and the gaslights were being lit up and down the block. The dancing flames confined in the clear cases set atop tall iron poles lining the street sent out halos of gold that reflected from the glass windows of the buildings around me. I watched them flicker as I contemplated Holmes’ words of the morning. How could a child’s nonsense rhyme centuries old have anything to do with a crime of the present day? Who would write such a strange note? My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Sherlock Holmes himself, who handed the driver a slip of paper and joined me inside the vehicle.

  He sat on the cushion next to me and tucked something black next to his other side. Then he reached into his coat pocket and handed me my old service revolver. I was astonished.

  “Holmes, what is going on? And where are we going?” I inquired, as the cab lurched toward Marylebone Road.

  “We are moving forward on this case, Watson. There may be unexpected developments this evening, and I thought it better that we be prepared. Look, I’ve bought my stick. Our trusty driver is following my instructions as to our route, in case we are being followed. That is a hazard when mysterious notes are left on one’s doorstep. Since even I admit that I cannot be depended upon to foretell the future, I think it best that we talk of other things until we reach our destination.”

  Whereupon Sherlock Holmes leaned back and began to discourse upon, of all things, agricultural practices of the ancient Babylonians.

  The cab we were in twisted through the London streets until we pulled up in front of the Charring Cross Station. Dismissing the driver, Holmes grabbed his black bundle and hustled me through the waiting room and onto the platform, where he shoved me into a First Class carriage just as the train pulled out on the way to Blackheath.

  The conductor knocked on our glass door and Holmes bought two tickets. He tented his fingers and regarded me with a satisfied air.

  “I have had a most interesting day, Watson. I have spent the time on that scrap of brown paper. The first thing I needed to know was what could be found out about the paper and ink. I examined it carefully. You saw that it was crumpled and had been used. I smelled it and detected the odour of leather. There were blots on the paper from the pen that had inscribed the poem, but there were also several stains that were not from ink. Those proved to be smears of black shoe polish. Its wrinkles indicated that the paper had been fashioned into a rough package around a pair of men’s boots and tied with thin string.

  “There are four situations in which boots are treated with fresh polish. When new boots are purchased, the pair are wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a shoebox. Then brown paper is wrapped around the box and tied with thin string. This paper was not wrinkled like that. Also, in that case, the boots would never touch the brown paper.

  “When a man has his footwear polished by a bootblack, cloth rags are used in the application of polish and no paper of any kind ever comes in contact with the boots.

  “When a person stays at a hotel, the employee whose job it is to clean and polish the guests’ shoes and boots collects them after they have been left outside the patrons’ doors at night and returns them in improved condition by morning. Again, there is no involvement of brown paper.

  “But if a pair of boots need repair, a cobbler ta
ke on the task. When the boots are picked up, they are wrapped in brown paper into a rough bundle which is tied with string. Therefore the paper on which the poem was written was once used to wrap mended black boots.

  “The ink was ordinary cheap India ink, available in all stationary and department stores in England. One interesting point was the pulse points. Pulse points are tiny markers that appear when a tightly-gripped pen is carried across the paper at a very laggard rate of speed. It comes from the beating of the writer’s heart transferred though the fingers gripping the pen transferring ink onto paper. That told me that the letters were written slowly, as if the author was writing in an unfamiliar language. English is not the writer’s native tongue.”

  “Amazing, Holmes!”

  “I next proceeded to the paper’s contents. I am familiar with over one hundred and seventy different codes and ciphers. I did extensive testing to find out which one was used in this case. It became evident that this was an interpretation code, one depending on the various meanings of each word in the message.

  ‘On one side of the paper was written “Sherlock Holmes of London.” Why was it phrased that way? Why not “Sherlock Holmes of 221b Baker Street, Westminster, London”? Since this proved to be an interpretation cipher, the operative word must be “London”. Now, Watson, read the first line of the poem.”