The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--The Counterfeit Detective

by Stuart Douglas

  There was nothing to see underneath except floorboards. Holmes, however, thought otherwise, for as soon as the rug had been lifted, he was on his hands and knees, slowly crawling back and forth, his glass held steadily before him.

  Minutes passed in this manner before he came to a stop six feet or so from the chair in which he had sat. He stretched himself full-length on the floor and pressed his face almost onto the ’boards, muttering under his breath.

  “What is it, Holmes?” I asked when he gave no sign of rising. “Have you found something?”

  Whatever it was, it captured my friend’s attention, for he did not spare a glance in my direction, but instead reached for his notebook and pencil and, tearing out a page from the former and laying it flat on the floor, proceeded to rub the pencil gently back and forward over it. Only once he had succeeded in obtaining an impression of whatever had so captivated him did he rise and, brushing the begrimed knees of his trousers, favour me with his regard.

  “This,” was all he would say, pressing the piece of paper into my hand and crossing to the window, where he stood, staring at the street outside.

  I held the paper up to the light but all I could see was a triangle of dots, one large and two smaller, standing out starkly against the grey pencilled background. What they were or what they signified, I could not say. I called over to Holmes to explain their significance and he, with a soft groan of irritation, stalked back across the room towards me.

  “These three marks are tiny indentations in the floorboards, such as might be made by the placing of a tripod on that spot. The minute scratches around each indentation suggest that the tripod held something heavy, such as a photographic camera, and that the camera was used while in situ, causing a slight movement of the tripod feet.”

  Holmes’s implication was clear. “You think that someone photographed Donaldson on the day he died?”

  “I do. The police presumably failed to notice it at first, and once the death was ruled suicide they would have no reason to investigate more thoroughly. I assume that the rug was thrown in place by whoever inherited the house. The red in no way matches the green of the wallpaper, of course. Nobody with the taste to hang that splendid Cozens landscape would place it behind a door or allow the colours in a room to clash so horribly.”

  I was not convinced. “But why would anyone do such a thing?”

  “Let me ask you another question in return,” Holmes responded grimly. “Why would a man intending to end his own existence first leave his home in the early hours of the morning to buy a newspaper, and then not even open it, far less read it?”

  “The newspaper found by his body was unopened? Obviously, he changed his mind about reading it, Holmes. In view of his state of mind at the time, that is surely not too peculiar a decision?”

  Holmes was dismissive of my suggestion. “I think not, Watson. I can think of one other good reason for the presence of a newspaper and a camera with which to photograph it – to establish that an event occurred on a specific date.”

  “Why should the date matter? I’m sure that news of Donaldson’s death was widely reported. The date of his death is not a secret.”

  Holmes shrugged as he began to pull the rug back into place. “To prove that the killer was with Donaldson on the day of his murder. I think that we can now safely say that the imposter and his fake Watson have more than deception on their consciences. For a reason that temporarily eludes me, they killed James Donaldson – or forced him to kill himself.”

  I could not deny the logic of Holmes’s words, and I had rarely known him to be wrong when he was so certain that he was right, but there remained a considerable distance between knowledge and proof. Holmes’s theory, while plausible, contained no irrefutable evidence with which he might support it, and as yet we not only had neither the imposter nor his assistant in custody, we had never so much as laid eyes on either man!

  Holmes, however, was unperturbed by my objections, and in fact seemed barely to register them. “I believe that further investigation into the good Pastor Hoffmann is now appropriate,” he muttered. “There is more than murder here, far more…”

  He stood for a good while, with his eyes closed in concentration and his long fingers clasped together. I had become used to Holmes’s reflective moments over the years, and I spent the time admiring the painting, wondering what had so swiftly changed his mood. Whatever it was, it was evidently to remain a mystery for the moment, for even when Holmes snapped from his daze, it was only to ask me to stop at the police station and let Bullock know what we had discovered.

  Without another word, he took one last look around the room, then turned smartly on his heel and left. I heard the front door open before I even realised he had finished with James Donaldson’s house or could ask where he was going.

  * * *

  By the time I had made my way to the police station and left a note for the absent Bullock, then taken a cab to our hotel, it was mid-afternoon. Holmes was nowhere to be found, though on this occasion I was not overly concerned. Something had occurred to Holmes at Donaldson’s house, and though I could not imagine what that something was, it took no great genius to guess that he had gone to see Pastor Hoffmann once more.

  So it was that, with nothing more pressing to do, I spent the hours before dinner reading and catching up on some notes, resting my increasingly painful leg, and waiting for Holmes’s return. So comfortable was I, in fact, that I must have nodded off in my seat before the fire, only to waken as my notebook slipped from my lap and landed on the floor with a heavy thump. Groggily, I struggled to retrieve it, until a Good Samaritan, who happened to be passing by, bent down and picked it up for me. I pushed myself upright in order to thank the man, who was smartly if cheaply dressed, but to my astonishment, rather than moving on, he threw himself down in the seat opposite my own and ordered a brace of whisky and sodas from a passing waiter. The waiter looked at me for confirmation that this unexpected guest was welcome, and I nodded that he was.

  It was Holmes, of course. In truth, he had not disguised himself to the extent he often had in the past. In addition to the shiny suit, he had added only glasses and a fair-haired wig. Other than that he was as always.

  “Now that was very welcome!” he declared, finishing his drink and waving to the waiter for another. “I have spent the afternoon exchanging morality tales with Pastor Hoffmann’s cook! Interminable cups of weak tea, earnest discussion of the cult of youth, and not so much as a single bowl of tobacco to be had! I have suffered in the cause today, Watson, let there be no doubt of that.”

  The wide smile on his face belied his words, however, and while he sipped at his second whisky, he recounted the tale of his afternoon to me.

  “After I left you,” he began, “I caught a cab to the pastor’s home, intending to infiltrate the back stairs area and discover what I could from the staff about Hoffmann’s employment of the pretender. Would you believe that I was actually about to pay the driver when I realised that, not only had I omitted to disguise myself in any way, but that in America I had no way of obtaining the materials needed to effect any of my usual concealments. Fortunately the cab driver was of similar build to myself and respectably dressed and, in exchange for my own trousers and jacket – plus a small financial inducement – was willing to carry out a trade.”

  “You swapped clothes with a cabman in the street?” I exclaimed.

  “Of course not!” Holmes snapped. “I dressed inside the cab.”

  “And the glasses and wig? Are you about to tell me that you purchased those from an obliging, if short-sighted, bald man who happened to be passing?”

  “Do you wish to hear what occurred, or would you prefer to continue your constant sarcasm?” my friend enquired caustically. “If you must know every detail, then know that I usually carry a hairpiece and glasses with me, for just such an eventuality. Often they are all that is required for a reasonable disguise. In this case, they combined with my new suit to create Mr David
Taggart, knife sharpener to many of the better New York households.

  “The maid who answered the back door showed me through to the kitchen where the cook was more than happy to take a break from her work and chat with a handy gent such as myself. Those were her words, not mine, I assure you, Watson! She poured us each a cup of tea and I, noting the temperance badge on her apron, took the opportunity to ingratiate myself by mentioning my own distaste for strong liquor. Unfortunately, such a gambit, while popular with the lady and successful in its own way, did necessitate the extended period of enervating conversation I mentioned earlier, from which I struggled to extract a few nuggets of value to our investigation.”

  He drained his glass and lit a cigarette from my case, which I had placed on the table in front of him.

  “You have no idea how good it is to feel tobacco in my lungs again, Watson! I have come up against some of the most vicious criminals England – the world! – has to offer, but I tell you now that three hours spent in the company of an abstemious, judgemental and puritanical colonial cook rivals any torture they might dream up. How the woman could talk, and to what little purpose!”

  He shook his head in rueful remembrance, before continuing his tale.

  “But discover a nugget or two I did. It seems that the charlatan using my name was a complete stranger to the household until he appeared at the front door one day several months ago, asking to see the master of the house. Clean and tidy, but seemed more used to entering by the back door, according to the cook, with a threadbare suit and polished but elderly shoes. Mr Isherwood, the somewhat sepulchral butler, would have closed the door in his face, in fact, were it not for a large envelope he held, which he said must be shown to the pastor immediately. ‘A matter of life and death,’ he is alleged to have said.

  “Fearing the possibility of harm to his master, no matter how unlikely, Isherwood did as he was bidden and took the letter in to the pastor. What happened next was, in the words of my friend the cook, ‘the loudest scream heard in this house,’ before the pastor’s study door was thrown open and the stranger, who had waited patiently in the hall, was invited to come upstairs at once. The two men remained cloistered together for over an hour, the pastor’s voice raised in occasional anger, though what was discussed remains a mystery, for the door was bolted throughout and the good pastor did not call down to the kitchen for refreshments.”

  “And after they left the study? Did they seem friendly?”

  “An excellent question, Watson. However, I cannot respond definitively, for cook was busy preparing dinner when the imposter left and was not present at their parting. Suffice to say, however, that they did not part as sworn enemies, for the man returned to the house three days later.”

  “Did he indeed!”

  “And left not ten minutes afterwards, clutching a heavy carpet bag that he had not brought into the house with him.”

  “Containing something of value, you think? Payment for services rendered?” I asked.

  “Payment of a sort, certainly,” my friend replied. “But if a service was rendered, what was it? The man spoke to the pastor twice only, for a total of little over an hour.”

  A horrible thought had been forming in my head ever since Holmes had revealed the presence of a camera in Donaldson’s home and now, as he expressed his puzzlement, I was emboldened to give voice to it. “Could your double be an assassin? A hired killer?”

  “Because of the camera?” Holmes asked, with a frown. “You wonder whether he used the photograph of Donaldson on the day he died as proof of the efficacy of his work? That the imposter shot Donaldson, or forced him to shoot himself, and that Pastor Hoffmann then made use of his services in similar vein?”

  “Exactly, Holmes!” I agreed enthusiastically. If I was slightly chastened by the fact that Holmes had clearly already considered the matter, that sensation was wholly ameliorated by his agreement with my hypothesis.

  Or rather, apparent agreement, for no sooner had I spoken than he resumed his initial thought, which entirely clarified his own belief in the matter. “Of course he did not, Watson! If Hoffmann hired himself a killer, why then did the man present himself openly at the front door, rather than surreptitiously, as one might expect from a man engaged in such a profession? Why did Hoffmann not inform his butler that a visitor was expected? Why, for that matter, was Hoffmann heard to rail at the imposter? No, my double is no assassin…”

  At that moment, Holmes’s brow furrowed slightly and the fingers cradling his cigarette tightened sufficiently to bend it at an angle. His eyes, normally so piercing, became unfocused. “Not an assassin, no,” he whispered, so quietly that I wondered if he even remembered I was present. “Something worse than that, in many ways. Less clean, certainly. Less honest. The newspaper in one pocket as he spoke to Donaldson, the revolver in the other. Secrets exposed, dredged up and displayed in the grey light. And the camera, too, with which to commemorate the occasion. In a long bag, perhaps, stored with the tripod.” I had to lean close to catch these last few words, while Holmes allowed his cigarette to burn low, leaving a tower of ash behind which trembled and fell to the floor. “A dirty, cold business all round,” he declared, and though he still spoke in an undertone, I could sense the fury in his voice. “Bloodless. Reptilian…”

  Rarely had I heard Holmes speak in such a manner. In fact, the only other time I could recall was when we had stalked the blackmailer, Charles Augustus Milverton, not six months previously. Holmes’s rage against the man he called the worst in London had been as fierce as it had been unexpected, and there was a flavour of that anger in his words now.

  “You suspect blackmail?” I asked. I spoke loudly, hoping to snap Holmes from his brown study. The attempt was successful, and my friend blinked heavily and, in a voice rendered dull by dismay, agreed that he feared just such a crime.

  “From the moment I heard that Pastor Hoffmann had been surprised by the imposter’s arrival, I have suspected exactly that. A consulting detective – even a fake such as the man we seek – is consulted. He does not present himself at random doors and offer his services, in the manner of a salesman of mops and brushes! If that was not enough to raise my suspicions, there was also the matter of his entry into the household. Unless butlers are considerably less formidable in the Americas than in England, it is surprising how easily the imposter effected an entrance past Mr Isherwood. A glib tongue and a convincing manner are, you will agree, two of the key hallmarks of the successful blackmailer?”

  “Undoubtedly, Holmes,” I concurred, “but is that the sole basis for the accusation?”

  “Not the sole, but the most telling. As you know, my methods are based in part on the observation of the overlooked, on examining the totality of a scene, with equal emphasis placed on the minutiae as on the glaringly obvious. Consider. The man was smartly but cheaply dressed, suggesting either a fortune on the wane or an attempt to present a respectable appearance. He initially bore bad news, hence Hoffmann’s anguished cry on receipt of his envelope, but was swiftly able not only to calm his host, but also – after but one more brief visit – to turn pain into profit.”

  “You mean the carpetbag?” I asked. I was sure I could see a flaw in Holmes’s reasoning, but equally sure that I had missed something self-evident. “But there’s nothing to say that that contained a payment of any type and, even if it did, still less to suggest an illicit element to the transaction. For all we know, the pastor may simply have been settling an old debt. That would account for his unexpected arrival, his less than friendly welcome and his second visit – when Hoffmann, having had time to raise the necessary amount, was able to repay the debt in full.”

  I had known Holmes too long to feel entirely at ease as I settled back in my chair and lit a cigarette. Too often in the past I had been certain of one thing only to have Holmes demonstrate another to be true. This instance was to prove no different.

  “Admirably hypothesised, my dear fellow!” Holmes exclaimed. “You have proposed a
solution that is both elegant and convincing, and which – in the absence of fresh evidence – I cannot gainsay in any way. That said,” he smiled roguishly, “I happen to know that Pastor Hoffmann barely waited until the imposter was in the street before calling for his carriage and following his erstwhile guest for some time.”

  “You mentioned nothing of this before!” I protested.

  “It is a mistake to formulate a theory without all the evidence, Watson,” he replied, still smiling. “Had you allowed me to complete the narrative of my visit to Hoffmann’s kitchen, you would have heard cook describe to me the abominable mood in which the pastor returned home that day and the inexplicable change in his entire character since then. Below stairs knows nothing else of the affair, but my friendly cook was definitely troubled by the change in her master. ‘Like a man lost,’ she said. Mark my words, Watson – blackmail lies at the heart of this.”

  “If you are certain, then we must speak to the pastor again. That this villain was impersonating Sherlock Holmes is one thing, of interest to few people save ourselves, but if he is also using your name in pursuit of an actual crime, and a particularly vile one at that, then we must accelerate our efforts.” I spoke with emotion, for, as much as Holmes, I too detested blackmail in all its insidious forms. Only the most repellent murders approached the sheer cruelty of the blackmailer in my opinion (which I knew Holmes shared), and if the imposter was involved in such a scheme, we had more reason than ever to put a stop to his activities. One bright point did occur to me, however: “At least this means that Inspector Bullock will be far more able to assist us. Impersonation may be outside his purview, but blackmail surely is not!”

  By now Holmes had entirely shaken off his brief despondency. Still, he tutted to himself at the mention of Bullock’s name and waved a hand dismissively in the air. “If Inspector Bullock had left well alone yesterday evening I would have been spared the discomfort of a night in his cells, and I might well have obtained a new avenue of investigation on the heels of Hans Piennar.”