by David Marcum
HOLMES:He stabbed him with the spear the mannequin carried, no doubt washed the blood off it in the pond, and put it back in the hand of the statue.
GREGSON:Then he drags the bleeding body over by the pond, the crocodile smells the blood, and comes up into the pond and... does what crocodiles do.
HOLMES:Which he claims wasn’t part of his plan.
WATSON:But what about the locked doors to the gallery?
HOLMES:Once we were inside, Pyne locked us in, not knowing about the secret side door. Then he went round to tell Quayle we were trapped.
GREGSON:And that gave Quayle a chance to turn loose his crocodile. But testimony from the two of you will help us put Mr. Quayle away for a long, long time.
HOLMES:One would hope. Well, Watson, I’ve imperiled your home life long enough. It’s back to Paddington for you, and your serene domesticity.
MUSIC:DANSE MACABRE UP AND UNDER
The Second Life of Jabez Salt
by John Linwood Grant
Despite my enduring friendship with Sherlock Holmes, there was one particular issue which caused more contention than others between us, and that was the question of what some call the supernatural. For my part, I had an open mind. I had attended a séance or two, prompted by my wife Mary’s curiosity, though with indeterminate results. Where Holmes believed all such folk to be charlatans, I was willing to concede that there just might be spiritual or aetheric realms beyond the coal gas and bus ticket world of daily life.
I have therefore been hesitant to write up one particular case in which Holmes was involved, for the supernatural was very much to the fore. On later reflection - an appropriate word, as it turns out - I have decided that it may be of some interest to my readers, and have set pen to paper once more.
My Paddington practice was going through a quiet patch, and I had taken to calling in at Baker Street more often, seeking respite from the minor coughs and complaints which were all that my patients could supply.
Thus it was that I was in our old lodgings one spring morning, browsing the paper and reading out elements of the more interesting articles, when Holmes looked up from his current experiment.
“I fancy we have a visitor,” he said, pushing aside a rack of discoloured test-tubes.
“He will need nose-plugs.”
Even though one of the windows was open, the room was a fug of tobacco smoke and chemicals. It was a situation to which I was inured, but one which was not always to the liking of Holmes’s clients.
“She, Watson. Or so I would deduce from the light voice to the cab-man, and the subsequent steps on the pavement.”
Sure enough, a minute later Mrs. Hudson rapped on the door and ushered in a woman in her late twenties, plainly dressed, but with a fine slender face and dark, emotional eyes. I threw down the paper and hastened to open another window. Holmes swept some journals from a chair and gestured that the woman should sit down.
“Good morning, madam,” he said, with a slight bow. “I trust that your journey from Leeds was satisfactory?”
This elicited a wan smile.
“I have read of your powers, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps you might break my current gloom by explaining how you came to your conclusion.” Her voice was distinctly Northern, though refined.
He waved one hand airily.
“Trifles. I have made a study of soil conditions in many parts of England. I would venture that you have Holbeck clay on your boots - the staple of the brickworks in those parts, and the prevailing terrain around the central station. Combined with your style of dress, and the fact that the Great Northern from Leeds came in a half-hour ago, it seemed a reasonable deduction.”
“It is,” she conceded.
“Would you care for some refreshment?” I made to ring for Mrs. Hudson, but she shook her head.
“No, thank you - Dr. Watson?”
“John Watson, at your service.”
“Mr. Holmes, I come to you as a last resort - and you may well turn me away.”
That had his attention. Clients who thought their cases hopeless were inclined to spark Holmes’s interest.
“Why so, madam?”
“My name is Mrs. Genevieve Salt. I live in Woodhouse, a suburb of that city, and I am in fear of my life,” she said plainly. “A man who was hanged at Armley Gaol, and duly buried these three months past, threatens to put an end to me.”
“By some agency or scheme he established before his death?” Holmes tamped tobacco into his pipe, and gestured for me to pass him the matches.
“I would it were so. No, he has been seen - and heard. Mr. Holmes, my late husband, Jabez Salt, walks the earth again.”
Holmes did not deliver the scornful laugh I might have expected. Drawing on his pipe, he indicated that she should continue.
It was a sorry tale. Genevieve Salt (née Morton) was a young woman of good standing, with a living of her own from an elderly aunt and a modest house in Leeds. Whilst at dinner with friends, she had been introduced to a rakish fellow, Jabez Salt, who seemed to make his money in stocks and shares. Although warned off by others, she had fallen for him - perhaps because he was so very different from the usual circle. They had married in ‘88, but within months she saw that it was a mistake. He drank to excess, and kept her in the dark as to many of his activities.
“You suspected liaisons?” asked Holmes.
“Yes. And I was right to do so.”
Much had come out at trial - the trial for Jabez Salt’s murder of a young woman, one Claire Benning. Her body was found at her lodgings, stabbed three times, and the police eventually found the murder weapon, along with Salt’s blood-stained shirt and jacket. Incontrovertible evidence had been produced that Salt had kept Miss Benning as his mistress for at least a year after his marriage, even siphoning off some of his wife’s funds for that purpose.
“The devil!” I exclaimed.
“Or the Devil’s hand at work.” Mrs. Salt glanced from Holmes to myself.
She explained how all manner of stories had come out - of Salt’s dubious business dealings, debauchery in certain low taverns, and worse. She became a figure of pity, but made it through the trial and the publicity with the support of her cousin, Francis. It had been Francis who sought out the truth behind Salt’s other life, and he who led the police to where the murderer had cached the tell-tale items for future disposal.
I remembered the case vaguely, though I had been much occupied with medical work at the time, and had not followed it in detail.
“There was some affair at the prison, was there not?”
She lowered her face.
“My... husband declined a chaplain, and made such statements to the prison warders that the newspapers picked up the details. Before they led him out, he stated that he would return to exact his vengeance on his foes - including my cousin Francis Morton, Detective Inspector Parry, who led the investigation, and myself. Even as they put the noose around his neck, the papers were printing his terrible oaths of retribution.”
Holmes took his pipe out of his mouth. “He would not be the first man hanged with threats and not contrition. Mrs. Salt, you have my condolences, but what exactly did you wish of me? If you believe yourself haunted by your late husband...”
She clasped her hands together.
“Mr. Holmes, I have seen him myself, twice! The very likeness of him, pale and with the rope mark around his neck, outside my house at twilight. And on a crowded tram, not five days ago, I heard his now-hoarse voice whispering to me, promising that I would pay. It was Jabez, I would swear. His vile presence has returned to keep his promises.”
An over-heated test-tube chose that moment to give off a crack as it cooled - both I and the young woman started, but Holmes was unaffected. He contemplated his pipe, his eyes hooded.
“If,” he said
at last, “You are convinced that this is a supernatural affair, then I can be of no use to you, Mrs. Salt. I neither give credence to such things, nor do I investigate them.”
She sighed.
“I understand. Mr. Carnacki said that you might not help.”
Holmes looked up sharply. “Carnacki? You have been to see him?”
“I have corresponded with him. He is presently otherwise engaged, and ventured that I might seek you out. ‘A sharper mind than mine,’ he wrote, ‘And one which might better discern if this is merely man’s devilry. He is a proud chap, though, averse to matters ab-natural, and may not help.’ After his latest letter, I took his advice and came down to beg assistance from that ‘sharper mind’.”
My friend’s face was a mixture of pleasure and disdain.
“Well, Holmes?” I prompted.
Of all the supernaturalists in London, Holmes had the most time for young Thomas Carnacki, whose scientific methodologies had already proved a number of hauntings to be mere trickery. Holmes applauded the young man’s application of science and logic, and yet abhorred Carnacki’s conviction that the supernatural might still be in play at times. Knowingly or not, Mrs. Salt had placed my friend in a dilemma. A certain degree of pride was at stake.
“Are officers of the law involved in Leeds?”
“Detective Inspector Parry placed a constable outside my house for a few nights, but nothing was seen. He says that he has no firm thoughts on the matter, but he is not a happy man - as I say, he was named in Jabez’s threats.”
She shivered as she spoke those words. Holmes nodded.
“I see. Mrs. Salt, whilst I have no truck with ghosts and fairies, this is clearly a distressing situation. I do have a case,” he indicated the racks of test-tubes, “But it should be wrapped up in the next week. If you would leave your details, I will come to Leeds after that, to examine the lay of the land.”
The young woman thanked him, and left to seek a cab back to King’s Cross station. Holmes was silent for some time, until I could bear it no longer.
“Come now, Holmes, tell me what you are thinking.”
“Thinking? My dear Watson, I am ordering the possibilities.”
“Such as a vengeful ghost? A phantom?”
“Nonsense. There are a number of quite mundane possibilities. The young lady herself may be confused and mentally unwell, given her recent experiences-”
“Didn’t strike me that way.”
“Possibilities, I said, Watson. No, she seems sound enough of mind - at first glance. We shall see.”
“A shame that Thomas Carnacki was otherwise engaged,” I said with a touch of a smile. “Very much up his street, this one.”
Which elicited only a harrumph from my friend, and a return to his chemical experimentation, whilst I returned to the papers.
I received a summons to Baker Street only three days later. A note in Holmes’s handwriting asked if I could arrange time away from my practice. As a medical friend of mine was in town for protracted legal business, I suggested he might try his hand at a city practice for a change. He said he would readily cover any urgent cases for me. Mary was less agreeable, but used to Holmes’s ways.
“The paper,” said Holmes as I entered his rooms. “Observe the news.”
I picked up the paper laid across the breakfast things. “The Leeds Mercury?”
“I had the early editions sent down from Leeds this morning,” he said. “Local colour. And in this case, a dark one.”
It was not difficult to find the focus of his attention. In the section kept for last-minute events, the paper reported that a Francis Morton, accountant’s clerk, had been found dead in his lodgings at dawn that morning. Three stab wounds. The paper had no hesitation in linking this to the murder committed by Jabez Salt a few months earlier.
“Good God!” I rubbed tired eyes (a difficult birth had occupied the previous night), and read the piece through again. “The young lady’s cousin.”
“Just so. We are Yorkshire bound, Watson, on the two-eighteen from King’s Cross. Had it not been for a certain Duke’s requirements, I might have moved more quickly - and perhaps averted this tragedy.”
The journey north was uneventful, and the city of Leeds thrummed with activity, with many fine buildings at its heart. Less appealing were the endless rows of cramped back-to-back houses which clustered around the city centre, especially to the south.
“Holbeck,” said Holmes, standing by the station and pointing his cane. “Brickworks and mills, engineering and railway sidings, poverty and squalor.”
“And that’s where we are going?”
He laughed. “No, Woodhouse is a leafier area to the northwest. We shall take a cab.”
Coming out of the city centre, we were driven alongside a pleasant park with gardens, around which lay modest but respectable housing. Directly opposite the park, which the cabman told us was called Woodhouse Moor, we were deposited in the shadow of a church. At the nearby crossroads stood a photographic studio, a greengrocer, and a bakery, with the usual passing trade.
“Hyde Park Corner, and Hyde Park Road,” said Holmes. “Auspicious for London visitors, perhaps.”
A police constable served to identify No. 83 Hyde Park Road better than any plaque. He stared at our approach, but directed us into the house when he learned our names.
There were no servants in evidence, but the large front room was occupied by two people - Genevieve Salt, and one who quickly identified himself as Inspector James Parry. A thin man with oiled-back hair, I could see the pink gleam of his scalp. As he shook our hands, I would have placed him in his forties, only a few years older than myself.
“Gentlemen, a pleasure. Or it would be, I should say, in other circumstances.”
Mrs. Salt was silent, perched on the edge of a worn settee, and the inspector ushered us into the back parlour.
“The death of her cousin has hit her hard,” he said.
Parry was brisk and efficient. “I thought at first of nightmares, the general gloom after such a case...” he explained. “We can be our own worst enemies in this game.”
He had placed a watch on No. 83 after Mrs. Salt had reported seeing a figure opposite the house, on the edge of the park, a figure she was certain was Jabez. No one else had been present, and there was no way he could act on what she thought she heard on a busy tram.
“And the cousin?” asked Holmes.
“A decent man.” His moustache twitched. “I can tell you there was genuine good-will between Mrs. Salt and her cousin. She profits nothing by his death, and she profited nothing by Jabez Salt’s hanging - except to be rid of him, of course.”
“So you believe we can dismiss the possibility that this is some complicated charade which she has engineered.”
“Quite so, sir. The lady was with friends the night of Morton’s death. He himself was settled on a sweetheart from Ilkley.”
I could see that Holmes was impressed by Parry’s thinking, which others might have dismissed. I thought, ruefully, that I myself was too easily convinced of women’s virtues, and slow to seek their vices.
Francis Morton’s body was discovered by the maid, in the lodgings he occupied about a mile away from Woodhouse Moor. On turning up for her duties at the usual hour of six a.m., she let herself in, only to find her master prone on the bedroom floor, already cold. He had died from three stab wounds, each to the upper abdomen.
“Exactly the same as Claire Benning, the mistress of Jabez Salt,” said Parry.
Holmes steepled his long fingers beneath his chin. “Witnesses? Signs of coming and going?”
“Not a one. The back door was locked, the windows stiff with old paint. None of the neighbours saw or heard any visitors. It was as if-”
“-As if a phantom had been and gone,” I said, to be s
ilenced by Holmes’s glare.
The inspector swallowed. “Gentlemen, there is such talk. I doubt that we can restrain the press over this one. Today they link the matters; tomorrow they will say that the ghost of Jabez Salt walks Woodhouse.”
“Inspector Parry, I am a mere consulting detective. Do you wish my involvement in this case?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Holmes. You have my authority behind you.”
“Very well. I assume that Mrs. Salt will be watched?”
“A man at the front, and one at the back, at all times.”
Holmes nodded. “Then I must see the scene of the Morton murder. Watson, we shall require accommodation.”
“I should first see to Mrs. Salt - in my medical capacity.”
Whilst Holmes and Parry went to Francis Morton’s lodgings, I made a pot of tea in the kitchen, and sat a while with Genevieve Salt.
“My maid will be back,” she said as I brought in the tray. “I... I let her have the afternoon off, to compose herself.”
I poured us both a cup. “And you, Mrs. Salt? I might prescribe you a powder, something to help you sleep.”
She waved away the suggestion. “I sleep, Dr. Watson. If I seem distant, it is because I struggle with the possibilities. If Jabez is somehow responsible for poor Francis’s murder...”
“Has he appeared to you again?”
She was more willing, it seemed, to speak in only my company. “The evening before Francis was killed. An ashen-faced figure in the back yard. I went to the window, no further, and heard the hoarse croak of a hanged man. ‘Jenny, dear, not long now,’ he said. And then he was gone.”
“You are certain it was him?”
She thought long on this. “It was his very image, as vile and theatrical as ever.”
My heart went out to her. “The scoundrel!”
“Scoundrel, yes.” She managed a bitter smile. “When he courted me, I thought him daring, full of character. I was a fool.” She ignored my protests. “I soon saw the effect he had on others. The tradesmen kow-towed, thinking his custom an advantage, and others were in awe. The local publican boasted of his patronage, and so forth. The local police sergeant turned a blind eye to some of his carousing. Even the photographers on the corner sought to please him.”
