"Let us tell you what is happening, Mr. Holmes," Lord Arundale said. "There have been six men murdered in London in the past six weeks. All gentlemen of the upper classes. All apparently murdered by the same hand while they were in their own home—in some cases in their own bedrooms. The police have been powerless to stop these attacks."
"It is difficult to stop what you are unable to anticipate," Holmes commented.
"Mr. Holmes," Lord Arundale said, "the people are getting restless."
"The people," Holmes said, "only know of five of the six killings."
"And a good thing, too," Count d'Hiver said.
"Considering how selective our murderer is," Holmes commented, "it is clear that the great majority of the citizens of London would be better off worrying about being run down by a horse tram. Unless one is a male, over thirty-five, has an income in excess of twenty thousand pounds a year, and has some pretensions to aristocracy, one is almost certain not to find himself on our killer's little list."
"The point is," Lord Arundale said, "that if a mysterious killer can take these six lives without our being able to stop him, then nobody in London is safe. And the people, even the common people who are admittedly not targets, are beginning to sense that. There is a certain nervous tension building in the city."
"I concede that," Holmes said.
"The last major riots in London were over twenty years ago,"
Lord Arundale said, "but this could provoke the sort of feeling that leads to riots."
Holmes tapped his finger on the desk. "The feeling that leads to riots," he said, "is more easily provoked by the sort of behavior the police are currently indulging in. At, I believe, the instigation of the Home Office."
"We must keep them busy," Count d'Hiver said. "Let them feel that they are accomplishing something. It is necessary for their morale."
"Rounding up everyone who has ever been arrested for a crime in the past fifteen years?" Holmes asked. "Scotland Yard doesn't have the manpower for that sort of job. As a result the people they are rounding up are bullied and harassed merely because the police do not have the time to do the job right. You are making the criminal classes apprehensive, which is not a good way to maintain law and order."
"Doubtless," Count d'Hiver said. "But expediency is not the best basis for a standard of law enforcement. Tell me, what evidence have you found that indicates to you that the victims of these murders share some specific connection?"
"Aside from the dramatic evidence of their common fate?" Holmes leaned back and laced his fingers together. "I'll tell you," he said, "but I warn you that you won't be as impressed by it as I am. It is a delicate skein, only seen by the experienced observer. And right now these clues are tentative, since I don't know where they lead. I need more time. I must have additional evidence."
"You think a few more murders will provide you with the evidence you need?" Lord Arundale asked.
"Most certainly, my lord. And since there is no indication that the killer is planning to stop, I imagine the necessary clues will soon be forthcoming."
D'Hiver frowned. "A heartless viewpoint."
"If I could catch the killer now," Holmes said, "I would. On the other hand, if he were to stop the killing now without having the grace to identify himself, I should consider that preferable to his committing the one last murder that traps him. I am not heartless, merely rational."
Lord Arundale sighed. "I am glad this doesn't seem to be a political crime," he said. "I would not like to be charged with deciding which of the great European powers is killing off the English aristocracy. I would enjoy even less having to take some action against such a power or accuse it in some public forum of such a vile act."
"Accuse?" Count d'Hiver snorted. "Talking never got anyone anything but hoarse. Retaliation, that's the key to international affairs. An eye for an eye." He tapped his cane impatiently on the hardwood floor. "Come now," he said to Holmes, "tell us your theory about the connecting link between the murders."
Holmes considered. "Certain similarities point in the direction of a common cause," he said. "For example, either the room or the body of each of the victims was searched by the murderer."
"That sounds perfectly normal," Lord Arundale said. "Not that I have any great knowledge of what is normal for a murderer; but I should think that if one is going to go to the trouble of killing someone, one would want to gain something out of it."
"Robbery was not the motive for any of these killings." Holmes said.
"Quite so," Count d'Hiver said. "That much is clear from the reports. Not the primary motive, certainly. But a quick search for some extremely portable wealth? I mean, a man who commits a murder is quite probably willing to steal."
"Lord Walbine had a pocket watch on his person," Holmes said, "crafted by Pronzini and Wilcox. The cloisonné inlay work on the case alone should have made it a national treasure. I can't think of anything more portable. Even the meanest fence would feel guilty at offering less than five hundred pounds for it."
"The villain, whoever he is, might have missed it," Lord Arundale said.
"Isadore Stanhope had a ruby stickpin the size of a robin's egg," Holmes said. "George Venn had fifty pounds in Bank of England notes on the table by his bed. Sir Geoffrey Cruikstaff had a solid gold cigarette case in his pocket and an extensive coin collection in the top drawer of his secretary. None of these was disturbed."
"Then nothing was taken?" d'Hiver asked.
"I believe," Holmes said carefully, "that something was taken. The murderer searched for and found some small object at the scene of each of his killings. That object is what he took away with him."
"What object?" Lord Arundale asked.
"That I don't know," Holmes said. "Inferential evidence suggests that it was small, unremarkable, easily concealed on the person, and of little intrinsic value."
"You say the killer took something from each of his victims?
What sort of thing do you suppose it could be?" Count d'Hiver asked.
"A key, perhaps," Holmes said. "Or a medallion or signet of some sort."
"Key to what?" Lord Arundale asked.
Holmes smiled. "I would welcome ideas as to that, my lord. The only thing I would suggest is that whatever the object is, it was an identical object for each of the victims."
Count d'Hiver stared silently at Holmes, his thoughts clearly somewhere else. Lord Arundale tapped his fingernails on the polished surface of his desk thoughtfully. "Some small object," he said, "taken from each of the victims, and identical in each case. Why do you feel that it's the same object in each case?"
"The murderer was certainly looking for some specific object," Holmes said. "Such insistence would indicate that the object, whatever it was, must be in some way part of the motive for the crime. Surely it would be stretching the bounds of credulity to suggest that it was a different object in each case."
"I don't know about that," Count d'Hiver said. "Perhaps our killer is some sort of fetishist. Perhaps he merely wants some small memento from each of his victims. Something to wear on his watch chain."
"Perhaps." Holmes stood up. "Is there any further way in which I can assist or enlighten either of you gentlemen at the moment? No? Then I shall get back to my investigations. It may be that with luck I can prevent another killing. But I am not sanguine, my lords. I am afraid that there will be more blood shed before we reach the bottom of this."
"Keep us informed," Lord Arundale said. "I shall, my lord," Holmes assured him.
FIFTEEN — A MODEST PROPOSAL
When Chloris to the temple comes,
Adoring crowds before her fall:
She can restore the dead from tombs,
And every life but mine recall.
I only am by love designed
To be the victim for mankind.
—John Dryden
When one is in the grip of a powerful emotion, small events can hold magnified significance. Benjamin Barnett paused at a flower stall on h
is way to lunch with Cecily Perrine and purchased a bunch of violets. Then, as he walked the last few blocks to the restaurant, he found himself staring at the flowers and thinking what a paltry, inappropriate gift they were for the woman one intended to marry. This thought grew into a conviction, and so he paused at a confectioner's and selected a pound of mixed chocolates, which were wrapped in fancy paper and tied with a bow. But then, after he had paid for the chocolates, the indecision returned, and he found himself unable to choose between the flowers and the chocolates.
The problem, Barnett realized, was not with the gifts. He would have liked to have given her something major, something important—a ring, a pendant, a brooch speckled with precious gems—but he couldn't very well do that. It would be in very bad taste until after he had asked her father formally for her hand. But under the circumstances, limited to a token gift, flowers were nice. Chocolates were acceptable. It was the imminent proposal itself that was making his hands go clammy and his heart beat triple-time against his chest. He certainly wanted to ask her—more than anything in the world he wanted Cecily Perrine to be his wife. He fully intended to ask her.
But he wasn't sure that he actually could. He felt his heartbeat increase in speed and pressure as he just walked along with a bunch of flowers under one arm, a pound of chocolates under the other elbow, and thought about proposing to Cecily.
What if she turns me down? he thought. What if she smiles at me gently and says, "Benjamin, you know that I do love you—but it is like a brother. I've never thought of you the other way!" After all, it could happen. He knew she was fond of him, but he had no assurance that it went beyond that. What if she laughed at him?
On the whole, Barnett decided, women had it much better in this society than men did. Men had to do the asking. Everything from "May I have this dance?" to "Will you marry me?" If a woman was rejected it was indirect, by not being asked; and if no one knew that she expected to be asked, then it remained a private, personal grief. Romantic traces of such past opportunity lost could be seen as a secret anguish in love-haunted eyes. A man was rejected as a public act, a direct holding up of one's innermost desires and most private feelings to the jeers of the crowd, a humiliation that could be felt as a physical wrenching, like a knife in the pit of the stomach.
When Barnett reached the front door of Hempelmayer's, he still had to choose between the chocolates and the flowers. Walking in with both, he was convinced, would make him look ridiculous. And if there's anything a man in love cannot stand, it is to look ridiculous. Especially since he realizes that in word and deed, he is already sufficiently ridiculous with no external aid. Or so Mr. Wilde, the American News Service's favorite epigrammatist, would maintain. But then, Mr. Wilde didn't seem to like women very much.
Barnett looked at his two purchases and realized that he would have to make an arbitrary decision.
"Are you married?" he asked the elderly doorman who pulled open the ornate brass-on-glass door for him.
"For these past twenty-eight years, sir," the doorman told him. "Nine little ones. Some of 'em nary so little anymore."
"Well then, here," Barnett said, handing the man the elaborately wrapped box of chocolates. "A present for your wife."
"Thank ye, sir." The doorman touched the brim of his uniform cap with his knuckle. "Thank ye very much."
Cecily was perched like a princess on an overstuffed plush couch in the anteroom, waiting for Barnett. "About time you arrived," she said. "You are a quarter of an hour late."
"I'm sorry," Barnett said. "I didn't realize the time. My watch must be slow. I stopped to get you some flowers. Violets. Here." He thrust the bunch at her.
"Well, that's very nice," Cecily said in an insincere voice. "Quite thoughtful of you." She rose and took the tissue-paper-wrapped bunch, holding them at arm's length, as though they had a bad odor. "I'll just leave them in the cloakroom until after our meal."
"I'll do it," Barnett said, retrieving the vegetation. "I have to hang up my topcoat anyhow." He disposed of his coat and the flowers in the cloakroom and returned. A short, fussy man with a prim mustache showed them to their table, presented them with their menus, and pranced off. Barnett looked across the table at Cecily. "Would you have preferred chocolates?" he asked. "It will just take me a second to switch with the doorman."
Cecily looked up from the menu. "What's that?" she asked. "Switch what?"
"The violets. I didn't know you disliked violets. Very few people have a natural antipathy to them. It's just my misfortune that you are one of them. Well, live and learn, I always say. Now that I've learned, I shall never offend your delicate nostrils with the scent of violets again."
"Benjamin, my dear, I like violets," Cicely said, looking over her menu at him. "I assure you I am very pleased that you have brought me violets. I shall put them in water as soon as I can, and carry the vase about with me everywhere until the poor things wilt and the petals fall off. I love violets."
"The way you treated the poor things when I handed them to you, I had formed quite a contrary opinion," Barnett told her.
"I am sorry," Cecily said. "I was distracted. I was angry. I still am, if it comes to that. But I do apologize for taking it out on you."
"Angry?" Barnett asked. "Why are you angry? Listen, Cecily, if someone has offended you, tell me about it and let me be angry too."
"Circumstances conspire to offend me, Benjamin," Cecily said. "This most recent circumstance has, I fear, provoked a reaction quite out of relation to its cause. The fault, I believe, lies in the fact that I was raised by my father. And my father is a man most intolerant of the stifling stupidity of convention and the rigid imbecility of custom."
"I see," said Barnett, who didn't at all. "Some custom has angered you? What sort of custom?"
"Have you ever stopped to realize how unequal is the relationship between men and women in our society?" Cecily asked, staring intently across the table at Barnett. "Have you ever considered how much freedom men have in everyday discourse and commerce, and how stifling it is to be a woman?"
"I am not sure what you mean," Barnett said, taken slightly aback by the intensity with which his loved one was speaking on a subject to which he had never given much thought.
"I arrived at this restaurant fifteen minutes before you did," Cecily said.
"I told you I'm sorry—"
Cecily raised a hand to stop him. "Not you," she said. "I asked to be seated when I arrived. The manager informed me that unescorted women are not seated in his establishment. The way he said 'unescorted' was, of itself, an insult. I told him my escort would be along shortly. He replied that when my escort arrived he would be pleased to seat us both."
Barnett thought about this for a moment, and then his face turned red, and he started to rise, but Cecily reached across and put her hand on his shoulder. "Please don't make a scene," she said. "That would accomplish nothing except to make me feel worse."
"Someone should teach a boor like that to have proper respect for a lady!" Barnett exclaimed.
"Perhaps," Cecily said, "but an altercation in a public place will not accomplish that end. If I thought it would, I would have started one myself."
Barnett relaxed on his seat. "Yes," he said, "I guess you would have."
"This is merely a symptom of the condition of women in our society today," Cecily said. "That's what makes me angry!"
"Now, I don't think that's fair," Barnett said. "This boob, this scoundrel, is obviously non compos mentis. Anyone who is capable of confusing a lady like you with a, ah, woman should not be in a position where he has to make such fine discernments."
"That is not my point," Cecily insisted. "It's the inequality of the situation that frustrates and angers me. If a man wants to eat in here alone, and is reasonably well dressed, the manager doesn't ask to see proof of his gentle birth. If a woman, no matter how well dressed, wishes to eat lunch but is not currently in possession of an escort, the manager feels free to assume that she's 'no better th
an she ought to be.' In the first place, what authority has he to assume any such thing? In the second place, even if it were so, is that any reason to deprive her of the right to eat lunch?"
"Now, Cecily," Barnett said. "Women in this society are protected, guarded; all in all, they are treated far better than men."
"Protected from whom?" Cecily demanded. "Guarded from what?"
"You are an intensely independent person, Cecily, quite determined to have your own way in everything. And I admire you for it," Barnett said. "But most ladies enjoy the protection of their special status."
The Infernal Device & Others: A Professor Moriarty Omnibus Page 44
