The room was only about ten-foot square and remarkably barren. The desk was empty except for two ledger books and a small decorative clock. An inscribed plate on the base of it read “For twenty-five years of loyal service.” There were no photographs, pictures or other items mounted on the wall. The man himself was dressed in a clean but inexpensive black suit, a simple white shirt and a tartan tie; his only stylish adornment being a large pair of gold cufflinks. They were embossed with the initials ‘V’ and ‘M’ and to my taste were a bit gaudy, but many a man has had to wear similar objects that have been presented to him by his wife on the occasion of a birthday or wedding anniversary.
“I am Malcolm Ferguson,” he said. “But I assume that you already know that. How may I assist you?”
Holmes proceeded into his now well-rehearsed ingratiating introduction thanking the man for his time and stressing how important the project was to Her Majesty’s government.
“I am aware of all that sir,” Mr. Ferguson said in a flat voice. “Now how may I help you?”
Holmes asked him a series of question respecting the sources of income received and the expenses paid out. He answered by quoting sums to the pence and all without consulting his books or notes.
Holmes asked about Miss Ring and if there had ever been any hints of impropriety with respect to financial affairs in her actions to date concerning this project.
“No, sir.”
“Any indication that she was in financial difficulty and needing funds?”
“No, sir.”
“Was she worth what she was paid?”
“She wasn’t paid, sir.”
“She did all this work without receiving a farthing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that not rather unusual? I assume that the Parsons Company is not short of funds with which to remunerate its employees and contractors.”
“Yes, sir. That is correct. They have more than sufficient.”
“Was Miss Ring able to secure additional funds for the project from within Whitehall?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And approximately how much was she able to obtain? You do not have to be exact. Just the nearest rounded amount.”
“To date sir, nine thousand six hundred and sixty-nine pounds.”
“My that is quite a substantial sum.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is that not a very large budget on which to carry out a project at Cambridge?”
“I cannot say, sir. This is the first time I have had anything to do with a project conducted in cooperation with a university.”
I kept jotting notes as Holmes asked his questions, but I had concluded soon after we entered this office that this interview was a waste of time. The morose Scotsman was no better than a Babbage’s calculating machine. He would spit out the correct number and that was it. Holmes, who I have seen become most impatient and demanding, carried on serenely until he had exhausted his questions. He thanked the fellow for his time and we departed.
“Merciful heavens,” I sighed. “That was a complete waste of time was it not? The man is no more than an automaton.”
“Do you really think so, Watson?” came the reply. I sighed inwardly and knew better than respond.
Chapter Five
Over a Pint in The Eagle
WE MADE OUR WAY OUT of the building and on to Bene’t Street where we stood in the cool summer afternoon.
“Very well, Holmes. Where to now?”
“About twenty paces to the left.”
“Please, Holmes. A straightforward answer would be just fine.”
“Fine then. After that, cross the road.”
I looked in the direction he was indicating and my eye came to rest on the entrance to The Eagle Public House. Not a bad idea, a pint at the end of the afternoon. Would not mind that at all.
“Victor Hatherley should be waiting for us inside,” added Holmes.
A sign above the door said that the pub had been serving students and fellows since 1799. It was a dark but cheerful place inside and was not yet crowded with punters and carousers celebrating the end of classes for the day. At a table by the back wall sat Victor Hatherley. He rose to greet us and I was pleased to see that the crutches had been discarded and he was now using only a cane. His sprain would be entirely gone within a week.
“Ah, Victor,” said Holmes as we met. “We have spent an excellent day with your colleagues …”
He said no more as the young man interrupted him.
“It happened just as you said it would Mr. Holmes. Look. This letter appeared in my box this afternoon.” He held out an opened envelope as he spoke. Holmes took it and sat down. Before opening it, he lit up his pipe and called the barmaid over to the table and ordered a round of ale. Poor Victor seemed ready to leap out of his chair, take Holmes by the lapels and force him to start reading.
Holmes took several drafts on his pipe, and a long sip of his ale and then opened the letter. He read it and nodded and then handed it over to me. It ran:
Your mother is our prisoner. She is alive and being well-treated. If you ever wish to see her again, you must provide us with the information we need concerning the Admiralty project and she will be returned to you safely. If you do not, you will find your mother at the bottom of the Thames.
Within twenty-four hours you must confirm that you are willing to cooperate with us. Leave an envelope addressed to yourself under the trash bin in the arch of the first window to the left of the front door of the train station.
Any contact with the police will result in the immediate and painful death of your mother.
“Do you really think they would hurt her?” asked the distraught young man.
“No,” replied Holmes. “I think not. The threat of hurting her is infinitely more powerful than the actual act. From what you have said of her, I suspect that any physical pain inflicted is more likely to be administered by your mother upon her captors than the reverse.”
Victor gave a forced smile. “I am sure you are right, sir. But I cannot sleep and I cannot stop worrying. So please, sir, what must happen next? Can we get at the task immediately?”
“Most certainly,” came the reply from Holmes. “We may get started. As I told you yesterday, it will be necessary for us to draw out the process and in doing so give these criminals sufficient opportunity to give themselves away. That does not negate having you begin now to write an anguished desperate letter, full of passion and irrational emotional outbursts calling these chaps every nasty name you can think of and demanding irrefutable proof that your mother is still alive. Otherwise, you will have come to the conclusion that these blackguards have done her in. So, very well, young man, start writing.”
Holmes’s instruction were met with a blank look, bordering on bewildered helplessness from the young scientist.
“Sir,” he pleaded. “What you are asking me is impossible. I am a scientist, not a writer of sensational pot-boilers. I only know how to write with precision and concision and my writing is totally and deliberately void of everything you are demanding. I simply do not know how to write that way.”
“Fret not,” said Holmes. “Dr. Watson does and he is exceptionally successful in doing so. The two of you can draft out your letter while I focus my thoughts with a pipe or two and stroll along the River Cam. I will return in an hour.”
Had we been sitting beside the River Cam instead of inside The Eagle I would have been tempted to give my dear friend a kick right into it. Instead, I merely gagged on my ale and watched him walk out of the pub.
Victor and I went to work and by the time Holmes had returned we had what I considered to be a convincing return letter to those who were holding his mom. Holmes read it over and gave his assessment.
“Brilliant. Such a pity, Victor, that you have not learned the secrets of writing sensational drivel. It has the wherewithal to bring in a reliable stream of income. Does it not, Watson?”
I glared back at him but held my tongue.
Instead, I offered, “Shall we place it under the trash bin as requested?”
“Heavens no. When dealing with criminals, one must never appear to be too eager. I think that tomorrow around this time would be quite in order.”
“But sir,” gasped Victor, “they said twenty-four hours or else they would kill her.”
“My dear young man, the last thing they want on their hands is a dead mother and no useful information. Let them bite their nails for an hour or two thinking that you have either run to the police or abandoned your mom. Criminals who are on edge are much more entertaining to joust with. So, put the letter there after tea time tomorrow and wait until you hear back from them. Advise me as soon as they respond. And now, young scientist, back to your lodgings and get some sleep. There is important work for you to do in your laboratory. I bid you good-day and will await your next contact with me.”
Holmes rose. “Come, Watson, this game is on a time out for a day or two. Back to London.”
I put a hand on Victor’s shoulder and assured him that following the instructions given to him by Sherlock Holmes was the best course for rescuing his mother. He did not appear to be at all at ease.
On the train while returning to London, I finally had a chance to tackle Holmes on his comments to me earlier in the day.
“Really Holmes,” I began, “you can play cat and mouse with your suspects all you want, but I am not keen on your doing it with me. Now out with it. What in the world did you see in those people that I did not?”
“With whom did you wish me to begin?”
“Oh, for pity sake, start with Professor Lysander Stark. That was his full name was it not?”
“Really? Was that indeed his name?”
I felt a bit confident in responding to that one. “I observed,” I said, with some emphasis on my verb, “that his name in his younger years was Ludwig Zimmerman.”
“Excellent Watson. There were certificates all over his wall, some in English and some in German. Those in German all bore the name of Ludwig Siegfried Zimmerman.”
“A perfectly normal German name,” I replied. “Quite a mouthful for a career in England. Quite understandable that he would change it to something more acceptable when he moved to Cambridge.”
Holmes tilted his head to the side and gave me a sidewards look. “By the good Saint Andy, Watson, did they not teach you even the basics of the German language up there in Edinburgh?”
I paused and reflected and then a veil was parted in my memory. “Aha! Zimmerman. Yes. The German name for a carpenter. The same as the family name of Professor Elise Carpenter. So, yes. As Victor said, they could indeed be related to each other.”
“And did you happen to notice the family photo in the upper left corner of the wall?”
I confessed that I must have missed that one.
“It showed an older gentleman, Herr Reinhard Zimmerman, with a much younger wife and two children. The boy was already a youth and the girl was still a toddler.”
“Yes, keep going, Holmes.”
“The boy’s name was Ludwig and the girl was Elise.”
“Why then they are brother and sister.”
“Yes, and they are living as husband and wife.”
I was speechless. “Merciful heavens,” I sputtered. “That would be against the laws of all civilized countries as well as the laws of nature. That is a very serious charge to make, Holmes. I saw no evidence of that at all. Can you prove that?”
“Easily, since unlike you, I was not merely looking while failing to observe. In the first place both of them had a few short dark hairs attached to the lower parts of their clothing. I managed to pluck one off Professor Carpenter’s skirt as she passed. It was a canine hair, from a German Shepherd. Professor Stark had the same type on the legs of his trousers.”
“Really Holmes, that proves nothing. If they are both of German heritage, then it is quite possible that they both own that breed of dog. The Germans are all quite fond of them.”
“Both his shirt and her blouse had small spots of a dark wine. I have not yet made the same intense study of wine markings as I have of tobacco residue, but I observed that they had the exact same coloring and I would venture to guess that they both came from a glass of Dornfelder.”
“Honestly Holmes. That is even more tenuous than the dog hair. Of course, they would share the same taste in wine and no one expects anyone from the continent to be as careful not to spill a drop as we do of decent English folk. What next? The same cigarette tobacco?”
“Well done Watson. Yes. In the ashtray, there were four cigarette stubs, all from the Cigaretten Laferme Dresden variety.”
“Very well then, the Professor enjoys his favorite tobacco, as do you.”
“One of the stubs had a trace of lipstick on it.”
“So, they both are patriotic to their tobacco as well as wines and dogs.”
“Did you not notice that she bore the distinct scent of Farina perfume?”
“No. And you cannot tell me that he was smelling of the same German perfume.”
Holmes again gave me a bit of a look and a sly smile. “Yes, my dear Watson, I can. It was faint, but it was unmistakable. Not sufficiently intense to have been applied directly, only to have been acquired in an amorous embrace of one who was wearing it.”
I shook my head at what was now a most unsavory conclusion. “If they are indeed brother and sister and living conjugally then it is indeed a very dark secret that they are hiding.”
“I would not leap to that conclusion,” said Holmes. “From the family photograph, it would appear that Herr Zimmerman married a young widow after the death of his wife. The children were stepsiblings but with no issue of consanguinity between them. The law is murky on such relationships as there are no genetic reasons for forbidding such marriages, although it is strongly frowned upon.”
I thought for a moment. “Do you suspect,” I asked, “that that was the reason they were willing to hint at the possibility that he is spying for the German government? To send you down that path and divert you from their true secret?”
“Oh, well done, Watson.”
“Of course, they could still be spies.”
“Well done, again Watson. You are excelling yourself.”
Chapter Six
Cheaters Never Prosper
FOUR DAYS LATER A NOTE CAME to me from Holmes. It ran:
Received reply from Victor. Please drop by this evening. Your literary skills again may be needed.
Although I was still inwardly fuming over Holmes’s opinion of my stories I could not resist the thrill of the chase and so showed up as requested. He handed me a letter that Victor had expressed from Cambridge. In it was a photograph of an older lady, that I assumed was Miss Gertrude Ring, holding the front page of The Times from two days earlier along with a note repeating her captors’ demands.
“It looks as though they have complied,” I said. “Very well. What happens next?”
“Really Watson, you cannot possibly be willing to roll over that easily. Look at the photograph. The woman’s face is blurred. They could have used any lady and with the appropriate dress and hair made her look like Gertrude Ring. They have not complied adequately at all. At least, that is what you are going to put into writing back to them. Another anguished letter, please sir.”
“But who else could it have been? Surely you do not believe that the photograph is of anyone else other than her?”
“Of course, it is her,” said Holmes. Then he beamed a smile at the photograph and added, “And the spirited old girl is not cooperating at all. She has deliberately refused to keep still while the picture was being taken. I will wager that she is serving these chaps misery for breakfast. But enough, please sir, a letter. This time demand that she send something in her own handwriting conveying some fact that could only be known and recognized by her son so that he will know that she truly is alive. Yes, I think that will suffice.”
I did as requested, deliberately making
Victor come across as a bit more controlled and calculating and not merely an emotional mess. Holmes approved and we dispatched it back to Victor.
Four more days passed and then another note arrived from Holmes:
Reply received. Victor is delivering in person at six o’clock. Could you kindly join us?
By six o’clock I was seated in my familiar armchair on one side of the fireplace with Sherlock Holmes seated across from me. There was a knock on the door of 221B Baker Street and I could hear Mrs. Hudson opening it. Then I heard as our seventeen stairs were ascended in five quick steps and felt quite pleased that my treatment of a sprained ankle had been successful.
Victor Hatherley entered the room. He was huffing and puffing, having run all the way from King’s Cross. It was a wise man, I thought to myself, who observed that youth is wasted on the young.
“Victor,” exulted Holmes. “Do come in and share your news. We are all attention.”
“Sir, I am still waiting for a letter in return for the one I sent. But just before I was set to leave the laboratory this afternoon a most unexpected turn of events took place.”
“Ah, do tell,” said Holmes.
“I was alone in the laboratory and was closing the door. As I came into the hallway, I heard someone approaching me.”
“Mr. Jeremiah Hayling-Kynynmound,” suggested Holmes.
Victor looked surprised and Holmes continued. “And what did master Jerry want?”
“He grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the laboratory and closed the door behind us. And as he did he said, ‘Hey there Plum Face, running off early are we? Going to try and find Momsy?’”
“I just glared at him and demanded to know what he wanted. He said, ‘Your Momsy has been kidnapped, you know. She could very well be killed. Or maybe worse, if the nasty boys who ran off with her are practitioners of the ancient arts of necrophilia.’ And he laughed in my face. He said, ‘It so happens Vicky, my boy, that I know where she is. And I can help you find her, all safe and sound.’
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Three: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition (Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 5
