Sherlock Holmes Never Dies- Collection Four

by Copland, Craig Stephen

  His good humor did not last long.

  A knock came to the door on the street and we listened as someone plodded slowly up the stairs. Lestrade entered the room. His shoulders were slouched over and his countenance was grim.

  Without a word, he withdrew an envelope from his suit pocket, opened it, and placed two more tarot cards on the table. From my chair, I could see that they were the next two cards of the Major Arcana, The Emperor and The Empress. I reached for one and Holmes for the other.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no,” I muttered, choking on my words as a sickening feeling swept over me. The left hand of both figures had been cut out, leaving small holes in the cards. Lestrade then opened his valise, took out a cardboard box and placed it on the table beside the cards. It was about a foot square and four inches in depth.

  “Open it,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless. I did so, fearing the worst and, a second later, having those fears confirmed. Inside the box were two human left hands. They were packed in salt but even without brushing it away and making a close examination, I could see that one was from a young woman, the other a young man.

  Holmes sat back in his chair, his lower lip was trembling slightly. He made no effort to take out his glass or look at the horrific items in front of us.

  “Was there,” he said in a whisper, “any demand note? Anything?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Any other markings on the box beyond what is here now?”

  “No. None.”

  “Thank you, Inspector. I appreciate your bringing the evidence over to me. If you will permit me to examine it, it can then be taken to the morgue.”

  “That’s why I brought it.”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

  “Inspector,” I said, “What of the family? They must be in dire straits.”

  “They are, and it is most understandable. They cannot leave their door without being besieged by the press. Somehow it became known that the maid was what the press call a ‘Gladstone Girl’—you recall that our Prime Minister used to prowl the streets of Whitechapel searching for young prostitutes that he could rescue—and questions are being shouted to these devout people about their operating a brothel and all that sort. It has not helped that the maid failed to come to work this morning and has possibly returned to her former profession. I have stationed two constables at the doorway to make sure that friends may enter and leave without being impeded. Unfortunately, I can do nothing about the provocative shouts and murmurs.

  “I am not, as you know, Holmes, in the habit of darkening the door of any church, established, Romish, or otherwise, but I do give due credit to the friends of the family. They have been visiting them constantly, bringing food and offering to help in whatever is needed. And, of course, having constant prayer meetings. But even with that, the pain and suffering of the parents is pitiable.”

  “I can well imagine,” said Holmes. He then went on to explain what progress he had made in tracking down the source of the notepaper used by the kidnapper for the ransom letter. The police inspector and the consulting detective then parted for the evening, promising to keep each other informed of any advances.

  The following morning I rose at an early hour, only to find that Holmes had already had a coffee and departed the house. I was not surprised. It was in his character that once he set upon the scent of a criminal, he stopped at nothing in his dogged pursuit. I had known him to go for several days with no sleep, little food and sustained for the most part by coffee and tobacco.

  I spent the day in my medical practice, returning in the early evening to a solitary supper that Mrs. Hudson had dutifully prepared.

  “I’ll leave some cold cuts out for Mr. Holmes,” she said. “Goodness only knows when he’ll get in. If you are still up when he does, Doctor, do try to get him to eat something.”

  I promised that I would and waited up until near eleven o’clock before I heard Holmes familiar tread on our stairs. I greeted him, insisted that he be seated, and placed the food in front of him. To my relief, he ate at least a portion of it before pushing the plate back away.

  “So,” I began, quite casually. “What news? Have you found the kidnapper’s stationer?”

  He lit a cigarette, inhaled, and sighed. “I do believe I have. It was nothing brilliant on my part; merely the eliminating of all the other possible shops until only one remained. I visited there at the end of the day and confirmed that they did indeed carry this line and color of writing paper and envelopes and that they had sold a package of it recently. Unfortunately, it was only a shop girl on duty and she did not have access to the records. The proprietress was gone for the day but I am told that she comes in early in the morning. Tomorrow morning I will be there to greet her when she does.”

  “Well done, my friend,” I said, trying to offer some encouragement to my weary companion. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. The family received another ransom note. Lestrade has it but he showed it to me. The perpetrator of this horrible crime has upped his demand to two thousand pounds and has given a bank account in Zurich into which the funds must be paid within two days, or, to quote from the letter ‘All hell will descend upon you and your family.’ ”

  “But were there any other …” I hesitated to say more.

  “More cards, or body parts?” Holmes anticipated my question. “No, for which I assume we should be thankful.”

  He said no more, retired to his chair and lit up another cigarette. I sat in silence across from him, rising only to retrieve the plate of food from the table and place it on the coffee table in front of him.

  At eleven thirty, we rose to retreat to our bedrooms when there was a loud banging on our door. We both looked at each other in bewilderment and I hastened down the stairs and opened it.

  I could see no one, but on the doorstep was a box, elegantly tied with a wide red ribbon, and with an envelope attached under it. I picked it up, brought it up the stairs and into our parlor, and placed it on our coffee table, beside the still uneaten plate of food.

  Holmes looked at it blankly for a short time and then leaned forward and took the envelope. I watched as he opened it. The look of pain that invaded his face was message enough. He withdrew two more tarot cards and placed them on the table. They were the next two in the Major Arcana suit, The Hierophant and The Lovers. My hand trembled as I picked them up. The right foot of the Hierophant had been cut out, as had the right foot of the female lover.

  I sat motionless for a minute, then took a deep breath and reached for the box. I looked up at Holmes and he nodded. I slowly undid the ribbon and removed the lid. Inside, covered in salt, were two severed right feet. One obviously belonging to a young man, the other to a young woman. There was a note placed beside them.

  “Read it, please, Doctor,” said Holmes, his voice drained of all emotion.

  It ran:

  Dear Sherlock Holmes: Wasn’t it good of me to spare your fellow incompetent, Lestrade, the trouble of bringing these to you. Please enjoy the pain. It is your payment for interfering.

  “Might I prevail upon you, my dear friend,” he said to me, “to come with me first thing tomorrow morning? And perhaps you could bring your service revolver with you.”

  Chapter Five

  Following the Paper Trail

  THE SUN ROSE THE FOLLOWING MORNING shortly after six o’clock. Half an hour later we were out of 221B Baker St., having given breakfast a pass, and in a cab on our way to the elegant, exclusive shops of the West End. Neither Holmes nor I frequented this area often, the prices being well beyond the means of our pocketbooks. The object of our investigation, however, appeared to have rich tastes and our presence on Bond Street was required.

  At seven o’clock, the cab discharged us at the corner of Bond and Burlington Gardens. The sign above the shop we were approaching read Missolonghi’s – Stationery and Fancy Goods Emporium.

  “This is the only shop,” Holmes explained again, in case I have forgotten our conversation
from the night before, “that sells the particular brand of notepaper, and that has, in the past two weeks, sold a packet in the particular color used by our monster. I am hoping that the good lady who owns the establishment has kept a record of her customers, as should all select shops that cater to an elite clientele.”

  The shop had not yet opened for business but by peering through the window, we could see an elegantly dressed woman setting out the displays of her wares on the counters. Holmes tapped on the glass, got her attention, and beckoned her to open the door.

  “Well, my goodness,” she exclaimed, “aren’t you two chaps eager this morning. Let me guess; today is the wedding anniversary of one of you and you forgot until you woke up this morning, and now you are in a panic lest your wife be devastated yet again by your hopelessly unromantic behavior.”

  She laughed merrily as she spoke and gestured to us to enter. “Well, come on in, gentlemen. You are not the first nor will you be the last that I have had to save from well-deserved punishment. I would guess that neither of you has even had breakfast yet. There is some coffee and some sweet breads in the back office. Have a seat and I will bring some and you can tell me your desperate tale of woe.”

  She gestured to us to be seated on an elegant sofa and glided her way toward the back of the store.

  “I fear,” I said sotto voce, “that we will disappoint her when all we ask for is information about her customers.”

  “Not at all,” said Holmes, with the first trace of a smile I had seen on his face for days. “if I remember correctly, this coming Saturday is your wedding anniversary and you have totally forgotten about it, haven’t you?. Your dear Mary will be returning from Blackpool, and you had better have something elegant to express your undying love and how awfully you have missed her.”

  I was speechless. “Oh my goodness,” I whispered, “you are right. Thank you. But the goods in this emporium are far beyond my means. Just a simple set of earrings would set me back a hundred pounds.”

  “Well then, you had better ask about their elegant packages of writing paper.”

  The lady who had greeted us returned bearing a platter with a flask of coffee and some delectable rolls and pastries and set them in front of us.

  “And might you,” Holmes inquired graciously, “be Mrs. Missolonghi, the owner of this fine establishment?”

  She laughed again. “Oh no, no. I am the owner but my name is Tiffany Barnes. However, if you are not in too great a rush this morning, I will tell you how the store was named. It is a most amusing story, or, at least, it is to some people.”

  “I am all attention,” said Holmes. I knew from years of observing him that he invariably extracted more information from people from all walks of life by friendly conversation and genuine interest in them than would ever have happened had he been belligerent and demanding.

  “I must admit,” he continued, “I find it quite a puzzle to understand how a lovely lady named in honor of a posh shop in New York City, came to be the owner of a posh shop in the West End, named after some obscure village in Greece, made famous for being the last place on earth where Lord Byron was, if I may say, being Byronic.”

  “Oh, how splendid,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “A learned man. Well then sir, whoever you are, it so happens that both my mother and father were, in their youth, hopeless Romantics and entirely besotted with the poetry and stories of Lord Byron. Yes, the one who was ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know.’ They came from excellent families but were a bit wild at heart and took themselves on grand tours of the Continent, and made a pilgrimage to Missolonghi, in the south of Greece, to pay homage at the place where their hero died his tragic death. They met each other there and within an hour had fallen in love. They found a Greek priest to marry them in some old chapel on the shores of the Aegean Sea. On their wedding night, my father read Byron’s poetry to my mother which, I have to assume, positively threw her into heat and nine months later, I arrived on this planet, beginning my life on some pleasant island in the Mediterranean. I was born on the feast of Epiphany, and in keeping with Greek custom, I was named Theophania. Since that was just too much Greek for their families, they settled on the English version, ‘Tiffany.’ And so here I am, and quite pleased to have two fine gentlemen in my store so early on a summer morning. But permit me, kind sirs, who is it that I have the pleasure of assisting at this early hour?”

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is my colleague, Dr. John Watson.”

  The woman again clapped her hand in front of her bosom. Then repeated the gesture, causing her sparkling diamond necklace to bounce up and down. “Oh my! Oh my! The Sherlock Holes has come to my shop. Oh my! How wonderful. Does this mean that my store is going to be in one of your stories, Dr. Watson? Is somebody about to be murdered here? Oh my! Think of the traffic that would create. That would bring record sales. Oh my! How utterly gorgeous. Or did some foolish husband buy some lovely diamonds for his mistress? And his wife found out? Did she poison him? Oh my! Do tell. What happened? This is beyond my dreams. The shop will be overrun with the curious. All those bluebloods just cannot resist a mystery, especially if diamonds are involved. It would all be so … well … so deliciously Byronic. My mom and dad would be so proud of me. Oh please, do tell, sir. What has brought Sherlock Holmes into my shop?”

  I was at a loss for words and briefly so was Sherlock Holmes. He recovered, cleared his throat, and replied in his practiced gracious manner.

  “My dear Miss Tiffany, you are correct in deducing that my visit is part of an investigation and we are in need of your help. Please understand that the matter is extremely delicate and I am precluded from giving any details. I can, however, promise, that should you be able to help us, my colleague, Dr. Watson, will most certainly give full credit to you and your shop.”

  She beamed back at him and, yet again, clapped her hands. “Well then, sir, just ask away. I never imagined that someday I might be interviewed by Sherlock Holmes. Oh, it is such a shame that our photographer is not here. Having a photo of you looking in through the shop window while sipping your coffee would be such a splendid advert in the Times. But that cannot be helped. Just go ahead with your questions, Mr. Holmes.”

  Holmes leaned forward and looked directly as Miss Tiffany Barnes. I took out my notebook, ready to take down every word.

  He pulled out the note that bore the ransom demand and handed it, with the writing side down, to the lady.

  “I believe that you sold a packet of this fine stationery during the past fortnight, did you not?”

  “Yes, I did. I remember it exactly. It was on the Monday of the week before last. Well, possibly it was the Tuesday. Not really sure what day. But I do remember the fellow who bought it. Fine looking gentleman. Nicely dressed. His suit was most certainly an Italian cloth, sold only on Saville Row. His handkerchief was Chinese silk. It differs from the Indian variety and has a finer weave. White, it was. Yes. Or was it ivory? Oh pooh, the color is not important. What mattered is that it was top drawer Chinese, and not something from the Punjab. He asked for a simple package of stationery. Well, I took one look at him and I knew right away that I was not going to sell him just any old bunch of paper and envelopes. No, sir. I could see that he had very fine taste and so I brought out our most expensive line. Fine linen. Twenty-four pound it was. He paid for it with a five-pound note and waved me away when I offered him the change. And then he departed. Yes, sir. I remember him exactly.”

  “Did he give you his name?”

  “Oh no sir, we never ask for names when gentlemen come in her unaccompanied by their wives. Why all sorts of chaps come here to buy gifts for their mistresses and they do so having full trust in our ability to protect their anonymity. So no sir, of course we did not ask for his name.”

  I could see Holmes countenance and body become more tense, but he put on his friendly face and continued.

  “Miss Tiffany, it is of critical importance that we locate this man. It is a matter of life
and death. Please try to remember anything else you can about him.”

  “Honestly, Mr. Holmes, I have told you everything I can remember about the fellow.” She stopped and looked distressed. I perceived that she might have imagined her role in a mystery story vanishing.

  “I am so sorry, sir, that I have no idea who he was. But would it help if I gave you the address to which I had the package delivered?”

  Holmes looked intently at her and then his face relaxed into an unfeigned smile.

  “Yes, miss, that would be most helpful.”

  “Oh, well you should have said so sir. We keep all the delivery addresses on record, just not the names of the men who make such purchases. Let me look it up for you.”

  She rose and retreated to the back office. She was gone for over five minutes and when she reappeared, she was bearing yet another tray with coffee and pastries.

  “Here you go, gentlemen. You enjoy another round while I look up the record.”

  From under the plate of pastries, she extracted a ledger book and opened it. She ran her finger down the page, muttering comments about the items and the purchasers as she did so. I poured us two more cups of coffee and enjoyed another portion of my breakfast.

  “Oh, oh! Here it is. Yes. Here. Look. On Thursday of two weeks ago: one package of Vergé of Paris. They have a very select line, they do. Delivered to 85 Montpelier Square, Knightsbridge. Oh now, wasn’t that ducky? He came all the way to us instead of just dropping into Harrods’s. A man with very demanding taste. Do you not agree, Mr. Holmes? Is that of some help to you, sir?”

  “It is indeed, Miss. Very helpful. You may have helped solve a terrible crime and even prevent a murder.”

  One more time, she clapped her hands and beamed with joy.