Death by Gaslight

by Michael Kurland

  “Professor—”

  Moriarty held up his hand. “But upon reflection,” he said, “I realized that that could not be. You are not unhappy here. You are one of those who finds a necessary vitality in the practice of our endeavors. Quick thinking, fast response, the ever-present scent of danger; these things serve as anodyne and stimulant to you.”

  “I admit to feeling more alert, even more vital, when I’m risking my life and liberty in your employ,” Barnett said. “But I am not altogether sure that it is the most sensible way to achieve that result.”

  “So far my logic took me,” Moriarty said. “Some further reflection made it evident that you were preparing to propose marriage to Miss Cecily Perrine. If she accepts, you will wish to leave my employ, it being unchivalrous to ask her to wed someone who might conceivably be convicted of a felony.”

  “That is so,” Barnett said.

  “Therefore I offered you my approval and blessings.”

  “It is pointless to try to keep a secret from you, Professor,” Barnett said. “I am meeting Miss Perrine for luncheon, and I expect to broach the subject to her at that time.”

  “I doubt whether you will surprise the young lady, either,” Moriarty commented. “In my experience, although the man does the proposing, he is often the last to know.”

  “I’m afraid that I shall have to give up my services to you, except for those which come through the American News Service,” Barnett said. “This Indian venture will probably be the last effort in which I am directly involved.”

  “Are you sure you desire to take part in this one?” Moriarty asked. “After all, with only a month left, and a marriage impending—”

  “The lady hasn’t accepted me yet,” Barnett said. “I certainly hope she will, but if not I will surely need something to keep my mind off her refusal. And if she does accept, well, I’m sure the marriage will be several months off. And, after reading the newspaper description—” He paused. “Well, let me put it this way. If you are planning to remove a treasure shipment from either the Hornblower or a troop train, that’s something I wouldn’t miss for the world!”

  FOURTEEN

  THE ART OF DETECTION

  And lo, between the sundown and the sun,

  His day’s work and his night’s work are undone;

  And lo, between the nightfall and the light,

  He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.

  ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

  “If you are not satisfied with my reports, or with the progress I’ve made in the investigation,” Sherlock Holmes said, rising from his caneback chair and fixing his sharp, piercing gaze on the man across the desk, “then by all means get another investigator. I shall consider myself off the case from this moment, and I shall submit no bill. Please call your clerk and ask him to retrieve my overcoat.”

  “No, no, Mr. Holmes, you misunderstand,” the Earl of Arundale said, leaping to his feet and placing a placating hand on Holmes’s arm. “We are all distressed that this murderer has not been apprehended, but I am satisfied that no man could have done more than you in the attempt. Your reports are, indeed, full of detail that was overlooked or unseen by the regular police.”

  Holmes dropped back onto the brocade-covered seat of his chair and stared glumly across the desk. “I apologize for taking offense so easily, my lord,” he said. “But this is a vexatious problem with which you have presented me. With each subsequent murder our killer manages to make himself more obscure. This is contrary to my experience. There is something—some essential fact—which connects these killings, which I am failing to grasp. I’m certain that it is there, in those documents, staring me in the face. I have gone over them for countless hours, both the police reports and my own notes. I sense that the answer is there, sometimes I feel that I almost have it, and yet it eludes me.”

  “You have given us a description of the murderer,” Lord Arundale pointed out. “Something that the regular police have been unable to do. And that without anyone’s having seen the man.”

  “Bah! A description that would fit thousands of men walking about London at this moment.” Holmes hit his fist against the side of the desk. “I tell you, my lord, it is maddening!”

  Lord Arundale’s butler, an ancient retainer in red velvet knee breeches and a swallowtail jacket, knocked on the study door and pulled it open. “The Count d’Hiver has arrived, my lord,” he announced, pronouncing the name “Deever.”

  “Show him in, Threshampton,” Lord Arundale said. He turned to Holmes. “The name is pronounced ‘d’Hiver,’ he explained, giving it the full value of its French ancestry. “The count is interested in this affair. He has what we would call in legal terms a ‘watching brief’ from the Lord Privy Seal. Her majesty herself is quite concerned. She does not, for obvious reasons, wish this concern to become known. D’Hiver regularly travels abroad for the Home Office, I am given to understand, on assignments of a confidential nature. He is considered quite perceptive and quite able. Some people find him rather abrasive—I give you warning.”

  “I understand, my lord,” Holmes said, sounding thoughtful, “but surely—”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing—nothing important. But tell me—the Count d’Hiver? Certainly that is not a British title, neither in style nor name.”

  “The title is French,” Lord Arundale said, “but the d’Hivers are English for the last hundred years. The present count’s great-grandfather, or some such, came over one jump ahead of Robespierre. Got out of revolutionary France by a neck, if you see what I mean.”

  The count was a slight, delicate-looking man with a precisely trimmed beard that made his face look angular. His family’s hundred years in England did not show in his taste in clothing; his double-breasted blue foulard suit jacket covered a white flowered waistcoat with just a touch of lace along the collar. The effect was so un-British, so Parisian, as to skirt the bounds of taste for a proper London gentleman. But Count d’Hiver bore it well. His every move reflected an air of panache and a manner of self-assurance that made it clear that he valued no man’s opinion save his own. He strode into the room and stopped in the middle of the carpet, his gaze darting about like that of a predatory animal in search of its lunch.

  The Earl of Arundale rose and performed the necessary introductions. “Mr. Holmes was just about to discuss with me some of the conclusions he has reached,” he said.

  “I have read your reports,” d’Hiver said, looking down his aquiline nose at Holmes, “and those of the police. The police are bunglers. You show a little imagination, Mr. Holmes. But still, we don’t seem to be any closer to apprehending our killer.”

  “That is, unfortunately, the truth,” Holmes admitted. “There has been very little to work on so far. The first four killings took place before I was called in. Thus I was unable to examine the scenes of the crimes until well after the most suggestive evidence had been handled and tramped over by a dozen other people. Three of the murder rooms had been cleaned before I got to see them. Nonetheless several facts of interest have been uncovered. I have initiated several lines of inquiry, but so far they have all proved fruitless.”

  “In your last report there is a description of the man you claim is the killer,” d’Hiver said. “How much of it is guesswork?”

  “I never guess,” Holmes said. “And if I were prone to guesswork, I certainly wouldn’t do it in my reports. What I have given you is my considered opinion, based upon investigation and deduction. It may prove to be wrong in one or two particulars, but on the whole it is accurate.”

  Count d’Hiver perched himself on one of the caneback chairs, his body rigidly erect and tilted slightly forward, his hands crossed over the massive gold knob on his ebony cane. “Accurate it may be,” he snapped, “useful it is not! Your description is as vague as the fortuneteller’s fabled ‘tall, dark man.’”

  “Sketchy, perhaps, Count d’Hiver,” Holmes said, “but hardly vague. The man is between five feet ten and s
ix feet tall, weighs about twelve stone, is neither adolescent nor aged—I estimate his age at forty to forty-five, but there I could be off. He has light-brown hair of medium length, dresses like a gentleman, is not obviously disfigured, and is probably Eastern European. If so, he speaks English fluently.”

  “Really?” D’Hiver said, his voice showing aristocratic doubt. “And this description of a man who has not been seen is pieced together from your examination of rooms where the experts of Scotland Yard can find no clues. Tell me, is there anything else that has eluded the professionals?”

  “A few items,” Holmes said, apparently oblivious to d’Hiver’s sarcastic tone. “The man is in good physical condition, athletic and robust. He picks his victims carefully, not at random. All of the murdered men have—for the killer—something in common.”

  D’Hiver leaned forward in his chair, his eyes like dark gimlets peering at Holmes. “And that is?”

  Holmes shook his head. “That I cannot tell you. That is the point which has succeeded in eluding me.”

  “Then this is not the work of a lunatic?” Lord Arundale asked.

  “On the contrary, my lord,” Holmes said. “This is clearly the work of a lunatic. But the killings are not random. This lunatic has a pattern, a goal, a fixed purpose. And he knows something that we do not.”

  “What do you mean?” Lord Arundale asked.

  “Look at it this way, my lord. Let us say that the killer hates the color red, and is killing everyone he sees dressed in red. Well then, the pattern should be obvious, but we don’t see it. We are colorblind. We cannot solve this hypothetical case until someone who is not colorblind happens to mention that all of the victims have been clad in red.”

  “You believe these victims are tied together in some fashion?” Count d’Hiver asked.

  “Yes, I would say so. Something definite and precise, beyond the obvious similarities of sex and class.”

  “Why? What evidence have you of this?”

  “Evidence? I have nothing so strong as to be called ‘evidence.’ I have, rather, hints, suggestions; nothing better. However, I also have my knowledge and experience, and upon that I base my conclusion.”

  “You have found nothing that would support my fears of a foreign connection?” Lord Arundale asked.

  “None,” Holmes said. “It was in following that possibility that I got led astray some days ago and ended up at the country estate of my old friend Professor James Moriarty.”

  “I read of that,” Lord Arundale said. “The police report of the raid did not go into much detail. I had the feeling much was left out.”

  “It doesn’t matter, my lord. It was a mistake. Sometimes specialized knowledge can lead one astray. The knowledge that there is one great villain yet unhanged can temporarily blind one to the fact that other villainy can coexist. I am not yet totally convinced that Moriarty is not involved, but I must admit that the preponderance of evidences would so indicate.”

  “These ‘hints’ of a common tie between the victims,” Count d’Hiver said. “Upon what sort of facts, of clues, are they based?”

  Holmes turned to face the count. “I would rather wait until I have had a chance to assemble a few more facts,” he said. “I dislike presenting my conclusions piecemeal in this fashion. I agreed to keep you informed as to my progress only because of the unusual circumstances, and because her majesty is interested. This is not my usual way of proceeding, and I don’t like it.”

  “My dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” Count d’Hiver said, “we don’t have time for you to assemble. There are decisions that must be made now, and to make them intelligently we must have all the available information. I’m sure you understand.” He smiled. His teeth were even and white, and gave the impression of being sharp.

  “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.