by David Marcum
He hurried to my side and knelt down at the side of the small grave. Using his gloved hands, he dug up the earth and after a moment discovered exactly what he was looking for: the remains of a black cat. It had been strangled.
“You see, Watson?” said he. “Who would say only guns and knives and poison can be instruments of murder is dull of wit indeed. See if you can find something to wrap this unfortunate creature in. I spotted some tarpaulin in the garden shed.”
“I’ll get it,” I said.
Holmes and I wrapped up the wretched creature and carried it back to the house.
“What are we going to do with this thing?” I asked.
“We shall leave it in the dead woman’s room. It will be needed as evidence.”
The front door was opened by the butler and, though obviously bemused, he assisted us to hide the bundle in the room.
“Has Major Asquith returned yet?” Holmes asked. “I thought I heard a carriage.”
“Yes, Mr. Holmes. He returned a few minutes ago. He is in the drawing room with the rest of the family.”
“And the girl, Kate?”
“No, Mr. Holmes. She’s vanished. It is very odd. See seemed devoted to Miss Catherine.”
“May I see her room?”
“Certainly.”
He led us through a series of hallways to a small room at the back of the house. It was unremarkable. The girl’s clothes still hung in the wardrobe. The chest of drawers revealed a few pieces of reddish-gold jewellery, and a sheet of paper covered in strange, flowing writing.
“Devanāgarī,” Holmes said. “The alphabet used to write Hindi. Alas, I do not know enough of the language to be able to read it.”
“Why would a gypsy girl have a paper written in Hindi?” I said.
“What do we know of her?” Holmes replied. “That she is dark of complexion and speaks English with an accent. I suspected she might be of Indian birth.”
“Then she has committed this terrible crime,” I said. “How awful. I suppose she was related to the family of that girl Major Asquith was involved with. Do you think she came all the way to England to have revenge upon his descendants?”
Holmes shook his head. “These are deep waters, Watson,” he said. “We should join the family. But first, Craddock, I need you to send for the police-”
Jane Asquith was sitting with her fiancé on the sofa in the drawing room. Ambrose Asquith had returned and was sitting in an armchair. He was around fifty years of age and had the deportment of a military man. He rose, pulled down his cuffs, and said, “Mr. Holmes, I have only just learned that my great-niece consulted with you regarding my poor late sister’s obsessions. I am afraid your time was wasted.”
“Do you think so?” said Holmes. “If so, it is my time to waste. Tell me, what has become of the girl you call Kate?”
“Wretched girl has quite vanished,” he said. “I’ve been all over the wood and went so far as Barnet looking for her.”
“Did you report her disappearance to the police?”
“No.” The man lit a cigarette and stared at Holmes with a slightly amused expression. “Whatever for? She’s a gypsy. Wandering is in her blood, I suppose. I say, you don’t think she had anything to do with my aunt’s demise?”
“Why do you ask that?” Holmes said.
The fellow laughed nervously. “I suppose your presence makes me think of strange and unfathomable things. You do have something of a reputation, you know, Mr. Holmes. But it’s not possible, surely? I mean, the girl couldn’t actually put a curse on poor Aunt Catherine.”
“Did the girl strike you as dangerous or irresponsible?”
“No,” Miss Asquith said. “She is passionate and rather foolish, perhaps, but she is devoted to my poor aunt.”
“I agree,” said Mead. “She is a lively girl and perhaps she would be better not saying some of the things that she does, but she is very kind and, as Jane says, devoted to the old woman.”
“Tell me,” Holmes said. “How did you come to engage her, Major Asquith?”
He frowned. “Well, my aunt had a bad episode several months ago, not long before Christmas. I thought she would benefit from a companion. I contacted a few agencies and asked them to send some candidates for me to interview.”
“Who had the final say?”
“My aunt did. I selected three that I thought were best suited and Aunt Catherine chose Kate.”
“I believe Kate claimed to know things about your aunt. Things she could not possibly have known.”
“Yes, it was dashed remarkable. She knew about Michael, my sister’s late fiancé, and some things about Catherine’s health.”
Holmes said, “Hardly as remarkable as all that. You told her what to say.”
“I... what?” The fellow paled.
“Oh yes, you already knew the girl. She was no gypsy but came from India. You came back to England because you had amassed such debts that India was too hot for you. You met Kaia Patel in Karnaul, where she was earning a living as a fortune teller. You wooed her. Please do not insult my intelligence by denying it. I received a telegram this morning that confirmed my suspicions.”
The fellow mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and said, “Yes, all right, what of it? I knew Kaia in India. I felt sorry for her; you cannot imagine the poverty she was living in.”
“Another lie. The girl has gold jewellery, not very expensive pieces, perhaps, but enough to prove she was not impoverished.”
“I thought she’d have a better life in England. There was no harm done.”
“No harm?” Holmes said. “You told her what to say to capture Miss Catherine Asquith’s attention. It was you who made her deliver that preposterous prediction of death.”
“No,” Miss Asquith exclaimed. “Please tell me Mr. Holmes is wrong. Why would you do such a thing?”
“He was desperate for money,” Holmes said. “I received a second telegram this morning, Miss Asquith. This one from your solicitor. The terms of your father’s will are quite clear. Your aunt had control of the house and land until you turn thirty or marry. She managed the estate with considerable acumen and integrity. You will be a wealthy woman. However, if she were to die before the estate becomes yours, its administration goes to your uncle.”
“Only until my niece marries,” said the man.
“Long enough for you to do considerable damage and swindle her out of most of her inheritance. Besides which, if Miss Asquith were to die before she marries, the estate becomes yours irrevocably.”
“But, Jane is in excellent health-” Mead began. “Surely, you cannot mean... Good God!”
Holmes said, “I would not trust Ambrose Asquith with any living thing. Even animals do not escape his cruelty. Those marks on your wrist that you are trying to hide show where the cat scratched you when you strangled it. You needed Miss Catherine Asquith to die so you could take the property immediately. You literally frightened that poor woman to death.”
“How? How could I do such a thing? Why, Jane slept in the room with her aunt. If I’d gone in there during the night, she would have woken.”
“You did not need to go into the room. You knew of your aunt’s horror of black cats. You found one and hid it in the garden shed. Then, last night, you cracked open the casement window of the morning room. The carpet around the window is wet from the rain. Your footprints are clearly visible beneath the bushes outside. You let the cat into the room. The unfortunate woman was a poor sleeper; you knew she must awaken. It happened just as you planned: she woke, saw the cat, and suffered a fatal attack.
“Miss Asquith, you said your aunt had a horror of cats?”
“Yes, indeed, she had a morbid fear of them. A black cat crossed her path the day she learned of her fiancé’s death and she had a terror of them ever sinc
e. It’s curious you should ask about cats, though. Twice in the past week my poor Aunt claimed she saw one outside her window. Each time she said it was a bad omen. Oh, that is what she meant by ‘harbinger of death.’”
“Be that as it may,” said the Major. “If there had been a cat it would surely still be in the room.”
“You lured the cat back to the window with a piece of trout tied to a string. Both fish and string were caught in the bushes beneath the window.”
He opened the envelope to reveal the items.
“There was fur on the branches and I found cat hair on the dead woman’s pillow. We found the body of the unfortunate animal where you buried it.”
The front door bell rang and Holmes said, “That will be the local constabulary. They have brought dogs to help us find the body of the girl you called Kate. You could not leave her alive to testify against you. I believe you buried her in the woods.”
Asquith lunged at Holmes, but Mead knocked him to the ground with a single blow.
In less than an hour, the dogs found the body of the unfortunate Indian girl in a shallow grave in the woods. She had been strangled.
Ambrose Asquith was found guilty of two counts of murder. The case added even more lustre to my friend’s already glittering reputation.
I was disappointed that Holmes refused to attend the wedding of Miss Asquith and Mr. Mead, but at least we had some wedding cake sent to us by our former client.
As we enjoyed the treat. I said, “One thing still puzzles me, Holmes. Who was this ‘Billy’ that Kate spoke of in her trance?”
“Ah, it was Billy that first made me wonder about the girl’s origins,” Holmes replied. “Billī is the Hindi word for ‘cat’.”
“But why say that in a trance? It meant nothing to the old woman. Unless Kate actually had a premonition.”
Holmes has been curiously silent on the subject of the supernatural ever since.
The Adventure of the Regular Passenger
by Paul D. Gilbert
“...for he was immersed at the moment in a very abstuse and complicated problem concerning the peculiar persecution to which John Vincent Harden, the well known tobacco millionaire, had been subjected.”
– “The Solitary Cyclist” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
During the course of the weeks that had immediately followed our dramatic return from Egypt and Rome, I had noted with some amusement the voracious manner in which my friend, Sherlock Holmes, had attacked each example of Mrs. Hudson’s limited cuisine.
This fact is only worthy of note because Holmes’s meal time habits were normally far more ascetic than they had been of late. This was especially true when he was engaged on a difficult case and he could therefore ill afford to expend the energy that was required for his mental faculties on a matter as trifling as the digestion of food!
One morning, during the course of a particularly cold and windy period that had been plaguing the October of ‘96, Holmes looked up from his plate and observed my amusement through a suspicious eye. He had just devoured a substantial plate of devilled kidneys and eggs, and he was in the process of wiping up the residue with a slice of bread, when his observation caused him to toss his fork down onto his plate with some annoyance.
“Really, Watson, I am surprised that after all of these years in my association you have not yet learned the simple truth, that there is nothing more harmful to a logical thinking process than to make false assumptions before one is in possession of the facts!”
I was on the point of questioning the cause of his fractious outburst when I realised the futility of such an enquiry. Holmes obviously had every intention of expanding upon his initial assertion, for he promptly stood up, strode over to the window, and struck a match for his cigarette with unwarranted violence. The flame almost flared onto the drapes, and his next few words were clouded in a plume of smoke.
He moved away from the window and turned upon me while pointing with his cigarette.
“On more occasions than I care to remember, you have berated me for my abstinence during a long and arduous case, little realising how beneficial this can be to my faculties. Now you have formulated the notion that, because I am not gainfully employed at the moment, I am merely eating to compensate for my lack of activity.” Holmes shook his head dismissively while putting his cigarette to his lips once more.
“It has not even occurred to you that our adventure abroad might have drained, even I, of every drop of the mental and physical energies that I might possess. Perhaps I am eating so ravenously of late merely because I am hungry. To assume that my dining habits have changed because I am being starved of work is to dismiss the thought that I might actually be glad of this temporary respite. However, as you will soon see, it is also a grave error! Hah!” With a broad smile Holmes suddenly held up a small sheet of paper tantalisingly in front of me.
“Now deduce, friend Watson, do not assume!”
“You have a client.” I stated flatly.
“Indeed, a John Vincent Harden to be precise, and he is due to arrive to seek our consultation in precisely five minutes time! Mrs. Hudson!” Holmes called for our landlady to clear away our breakfast things with understandable urgency, and he soon hustled her from the room once she had done so.
“Our consultation?” I queried, for I had often remonstrated with Holmes at the way he took for granted my participation without prior invitation.
“Well, if you would be so kind, allowing, of course, for any previous engagement that might inhibit you.” Holmes smiled, fully aware of my current status and therefore of the nature of my final response.
“I would be honoured,” I confirmed with a smile, “and I will fetch my note book at once!”
I returned in an instant, and there was even a moment or two for me to look over Harden’s short note of introduction, prior to his arrival. There was little of significance within Harden’s brief request, save for a hint of urgency in its tone. Inevitably, Holmes’s appraisal was at total variance to my own.
“These few words certainly tell us much about the man who wrote them, would you not say, Doctor?”
I was, no doubt, exhibiting an expression of confusion, for Holmes continued without awaiting my non-plussed response.
“Look at the care than has gone into the formation of each of his letters. Each twist and curve is accurate and precise, and there is not a dot or a cross that misses its mark. It is reassuring at the commencement of any case, Watson, to realise that we are dealing with a person of a remarkable nature. You can be assured of the accuracy of John Vincent Harden’s evidence!” Holmes pronounced.
“And of his punctuality!” I confirmed, for at the very moment of his appointed time, we could hear Mrs. Hudson greeting our new client at the door to 221b Baker Street. At that moment, I recalled where I had heard his name before, and I hurriedly pointed out to Holmes that Harden was one of the most powerful men in the tobacco industry.
Barely a second later, John Vincent Harden walked tentatively into our room, and Holmes leapt up to greet him with a broad and charming smile. At once, Holmes could sense the elderly gentleman’s apprehension and hesitancy.
“Calm yourself, Mr. Harden!” Holmes declared. “Have no fear, for I can assure you that you are amongst friends here. Perhaps a cup of coffee will have the desired reassuring effect?”
I decided to save Mrs. Hudson from being subjected to one of Holmes’s strident orders and I called down quietly for a tray of coffee.
By the time that I had returned to the room, Harden was already perched, somewhat uneasily, on the edge of our visitor’s chair while Holmes was busy filling his cherrywood pipe. No one uttered a single word until after the coffee had been safely delivered and Holmes had ushered our landlady from the room, in a somewhat unceremonious fashion.
Once his pipe was fully alight, Holmes
turned towards our guest and, with an ironic grin, he held the note of introduction immediately in front of Harden’s face.
“Mr. Harden, your letter was somewhat scant of detail,” Holmes stated in an accusing tone.
“I apologise for that, Mr. Holmes, but I was certain that if I betrayed even one word of the nature of this affair, you would immediately dismiss me as some kind of madman and then refuse to grant me this interview.” Harden’s words immediately fuelled Holmes’s love of the unusual and bizarre, and his attitude visibly softened as a brief smile of satisfaction played upon his lips.
I took my notebook over to my chair and I observed how perfectly Harden’s appearance mirrored the pedantic nature of his note. Despite his advanced years, for he was surely not a day younger than sixty-five years, Harden was impeccably turned out. His worsted suit had clearly been hand tailored, his tie and shoes were equally immaculate, and his neatly clipped moustache and grey thinning hair told of a very recent visit to the barber shop. When he spoke, each word was clipped and precise.
Holmes took to his chair, while his keen eyes did not leave our client’s face for an instant.
“Now Mr. Harden, I implore you to recount, as exactly as you can, the events and circumstances that have led you to seek my advice upon this matter. You may also be assured that you can rely as much upon Dr. Watson’s discretion as you can upon my own.
“Please bear in mind that, apart from the very obvious facts that you smoke a very expensive brand of Havana cigar without a holder, that you have recently retired from the tobacco industry, and that you travel extensively upon the Metropolitan Underground line, I know nothing about you whatsoever!”
Upon completing this astonishing statement, Holmes turned his face away from our client, ostensibly to light his pipe but also, no doubt, so that he might evade the inevitable looks of admiration and amazement upon our faces, that he often found to be so tiresome.
His precaution was certainly warranted, for the reaction of both Harden and myself was precisely the one that he had sought to avoid. Harden added voice to his astonishment.
