Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Three: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition (Boxed Sets Book 3)

by Craig Stephen Copland

  Holmes nodded. “And your reason?”

  “I have read,” said Holder, “in the stories penned by Dr. Watson that one of your pithy maxims runs something like: If an event occurs once, it is happenstance; if it happens twice, it is a coincidence; if it happens three times it is a criminal conspiracy. Did I get that right, Mr. Holmes?”

  “You did indeed. Pray continue.”

  “And what might you say if the same thing were to happen four times?”

  Holmes did not answer. He gestured for the story to continue.

  “Mr. Rucastle’s first wife had a significant estate for which our bank had responsibility. After her death, the proceeds went to her husband, but with the provision that we continue to manage the investments and send a monthly dividend to Mr. Rucastle. That was all quite normal and commonplace. The funds were transferred over to our correspondent bank in Winchester, the Westaway Bank of North Hampshire, and they handled matters from there. That arrangement is not one of the four in question.

  “We strongly advise our clients that if they wish to leave funds for younger sons or daughters, cousins, nieces and so on, that they stipulate that funds not be made available to them until they reach their twenty-fifth birthday, and that after that date they receive only the dividends and interest payments on their portfolios until they turn thirty-five. Otherwise the foolishness of youth could easily drain the accounts and all would be gone in a matter of months.”

  “Very wise advice and a most astute practice,” said Holmes. “Please get on with your story.”

  “Two years ago, one of the beneficiaries turned twenty-five, and we began to release the funds to her on a monthly schedule. She was living in Winchester at the time and we sent the monthly stipend, a goodly amount, through our correspondent bank, thinking nothing of it. Her name was Rosa Dartle.”

  I saw Holmes’s body stiffen and his eyes fix themselves on Mr. Holder. “Please continue, sir,” he said, quietly.

  “Back before Christmas we received notice from Mr. Rucastle’s daughter by his first wife, a pleasant and spirited young woman named Alice Rucastle. She was about to turn twenty-five and a portion of her mother’s estate would now be directed to her, significantly diminishing the amount available each month to her father. As she was living at the time with her father and stepmother, her bank account was in Winchester, at the same bank as her father’s.

  “This past February, Miss Marduchée Lesperance, a beneficiary of one of our managed portfolios, an estate from a very old French family, visited our office. She herself is of mixed race, as is common in the colonies once owned by the French and was due to receive her monthly stipend of £450 upon turning twenty-five. Now we arrive beyond the level of coincidence, sir. She was also living near Winchester, and also directed the funds to be transferred to the same bank.

  “Last week, one of our sharp-eyed secretaries brought to my attention that come September another set of funds would have to be paid out to another young woman, who would be turning twenty-five years of age. Ten years ago, a young father from Peterborough had, quite scandalously, abandoned his wife and daughter and run off to Australia. He had, however, some pangs of conscience and he set up a fund for his daughter, to be paid out to her in monthly installments once she became of age. Over the past decade the principal in the fund has surpassed £50,000. The young woman has no knowledge of this fund. Come the fall she will begin to receive £500 every month. That is far above the sweating income she had been used to receiving. If we do our job and manage the account carefully, she should continue to receive that amount for at least fifteen years. Our diligent secretary tracked this young woman and found that she had recently moved to Winchester.”

  Here he stopped. Holmes politely asked, “And would that young woman’s name by any chance be Violet Hunter?”

  “It would.”

  “And would it also be true that all four of the portfolios were, at one time, under the supervision of Mr. Jephro Rucastle, prior to his ignominious departure?”

  “It would.”

  Sherlock Holmes stood and walked slowly over to the bay window and for a full minute looked out into the vacant sky. He returned to Mr. Holder and respectfully held out his hand. “Sir, I thank you again for taking the time from your Saturday to come and give me this information. It is of a very serious concern to me and I will act on it forthwith. May I request a favor, or perhaps I should say, may I offer a suggestion?”

  “By all means, Mr. Holmes. Your altruistic probity is never in doubt.”

  “Would it be possible for you to find some excuse to withhold the transfer of any further payments related to the beneficiaries you have just named? Interest and dividends would, of course, accrue. Could that be arranged?”

  “I will be happy to look after that, although I suspect that it is not for a happy reason that you are requesting that I do so.”

  “I confess,” said Holmes, “that I fear the worst, even if I hope for the best.”

  Chapter Nine

  Violet Has Vanished

  MR. HOLDER DEPARTED. Holmes paced back and forth across the carpet for a few moments before turning to me.

  “Watson, would you mind awfully returning to Winchester one more time with me? I do not know if we can get a message to Violet asking her to skip her church service again tomorrow, but I will try to do so.”

  “I will be ready first thing,” I assured him.

  Now I was no Sherlock Holmes, but it was not difficult to piece together the facts we had just learned. It was deeply unsettling and I felt the need for a brandy. I poured myself one and sat down, only to be disturbed by a vigorous pounding on the street door and a shout of “Telegram! Urgent!” followed by another round of pounding.

  I jumped up out of my chair and descended the stairs. The delivery boy was panting for breath and held in his hand a telegraph form marked with the highest level of priority. He told me that he was supposed to receive a reply before leaving. I raced back up the stairs two at a time and entered the room where Holmes was standing by the window.

  “Please read it, Watson.”

  I did. It ran.

  MOST URGENT.

  To: Sherlock Holmes

  From: Spence Munro

  Please sir. I beg you. Return immediately to Winchester. Violet Hunter has vanished. I called on her last evening and was told that she had departed earlier in the day on route to Nairobi. I knew I was being lied to and protested. They threatened to turn the dogs on me. I suspect foul play and Violet to be in grave danger. Please, sir. Come at once.

  I looked up from reading it to see Holmes with the palm of his hand held against his forehead. He looked over at me and said, “My dear friend, if you ever suspect that I have allowed my ego and pride to interfere with deductive reasoning, I ask you to give my face a hard slap. I should have known that situation was too good to be true, and the disappearance of the two other women was all that was needed to indicate foul play. I ignored those facts out of my anger at having been emotionally manipulated by the remarkable, even if infuriating, Miss Violet Hunter.”

  “I believe,” I said, “that I could be ready to depart within thirty minutes.”

  “With you service revolver, if you would not mind.”

  “I will bring along a second one for you and send a note back to the Colonel to let him know that we are on our way.”

  An hour later, we boarded the train at Waterloo, and arrived in Winchester by four o’clock. As we entered the courtyard of the Black Swan, Holmes stopped his rapid pace.

  “That bicycle,” he said, pointing to an alcove beside the door. “It is the same one we saw by the tree near the Copper Beeches.”

  He said no more and we entered the hotel. The fellow behind the front desk greeted us and handed Holmes an envelope.

  “This arrived here yesterday evening,” he said. “The groom from the Copper Beeches brought it in asking that it be forwarded to you. We were about to do that when we received your telegram saying that you
would be here later today, so we just held it for you. I trust that was acceptable to you, Mr. Holmes.

  Holmes assured him that it was and then stepped away and read the letter. He then handed it to me. It ran:

  My dear Sherlock Holmes:

  You said that I could contact you if I were fearful and in need of your help sooner than a week from now. Sir, I have once again become filled with fear and I beg you to come and help me. I told you that Edward had said that his sister Alice was a zombie and neither alive nor dead and could be heard screaming at night. On Sunday evening after you departed he repeated this to me and he added, “She lives in the graveyard beside the old church. She is neither dead nor alive and that’s why she lives there. My nurses lie there too. Listen, and you can hear them.”

  That night, sir, I opened my window but heard nothing, but the next night I tried again, and just as I was ready to close the window and go off to sleep, I heard a scream coming from the old ruined church. It was as if someone were shouting “Help” but as soon as the first sound arrived the dogs began to bark and the rest of whatever it was I was hearing was lost. I knew however that I had heard something. So, the following evening, after the entire household had retired, I climbed up into the turret of the house. Once there I opened a window and stepped out to the roof, and then pulled myself up onto the top of the turret. At that height I could see partly over the wall of the cemetery and into the farthest portion of it, the part that is adjacent to the church.

  That is when I saw it, sir. I saw a human form, completely white in the moonlight, moving amongst the grave markers. It would appear and move slowly for a few seconds, and then vanish out of my line of sight. Once it looked up, as if it had seen me, and for a part of a second, I heard the scream, interrupted immediately by the barking of the dogs.

  I knew it could not have been a ghost, because ghosts cannot be stopped by stone walls and this apparition was trapped in the graveyard. Then I thought that this must be the zombie that Edward had spoken of; his sister who was neither dead nor alive.

  I was overcome with a mad, unreasoning terror, sir, and was about to run back to my room in horror and panic. Then I got hold of myself and forced my will so that I looked again into the graveyard, determined to make sense of what I had seen. The figure appeared one more time and I could see that it was a human, a young woman. She was slender and had long hair but had not a stitch of clothing on her body.

  Sir, please do not think that I have gone mad, but I know that someone is a prisoner in the old church and graveyard. I do not know what to do. Tomorrow night I will climb again to the top of the turret and be keenly on the lookout. I will take some matches with me and try to send a signal to this creature.

  I beg you, again, please come immediately.

  Respectfully,

  VIOLET HUNTER

  I returned the letter to Holmes and said, “It is a fortunate thing that we have the Colonel here with us. Reinforcements may be necessary.”

  We entered the hotel’s bar and dining room. At a table in the corner sat Colonel Spence Munro and beside him was a younger man. Both stood as we approached them. The younger chap was a good-looking fellow with a powerful body, blue eyes, and wavy chestnut hair. His bearing indicated a scion of an upper-class family, and I was immediately curious as to who he might be.

  “Mr. Holmes, Doctor Watson,” began Munro, “thank you for returning. Allow me to introduce Lieutenant Paul Fowler.” The seaman extended his hand to each of us.

  “Ah yes,” said Holmes. “Our man on the bicycle. And who, if I am not mistaken was in Brazil last fall and is in love with Alice Rucastle since long before that.”

  The young fellow looked startled and the Colonel put a friendly arm on his shoulder. “At ease, sailor. This is Sherlock Holmes and that’s what he does for a living. You should read the stories.”

  We seated ourselves and ordered some lunch. The Colonel began the conversation.

  “I met Lieutenant Fowler yesterday afternoon after being expelled from the grounds of the Copper Beeches. He was waiting for me at the gate and asked concerning the reason for my visit. I told him my situation and my worry about a young woman who had been living there. He expressed a similar concern. For a few minutes we were confused, thinking that we were competitors for the interest of the same young lady, but we soon sorted that out and understood that two young women, similar in age and appearance, had both mysteriously vanished. I suggested that we get hold of you promptly and he agreed.”

  The young Lieutenant now spokes. “I met Miss Alice Rucastle while on leave last summer at a party hosted by a mutual friend. We became very attracted to each other and in the fall announced our engagement. We exchanged letters and telegrams frequently, but over the Christmas season her letters ceased. In January my ship was in port briefly in Southampton and I came immediately to Highbridge to speak with her. I was told by her father and step-mother that she had departed from Hampshire and emigrated to Philadelphia. I was terribly upset and arranged an extended leave and took myself to Philadelphia in search of her. She was nowhere to be found, and there was no record with any of the lines that offered an Atlantic crossing of her ever having been a passenger. I returned to England and have searched again for her. You came upon me during your visit to the Copper Beeches. I had observed a young woman, who I took to be Alice, with the boy, Edward, and I asked at the door to speak with her. I was told again that she was not there and had moved to America. I purchased a spyglass and again observed her and discerned that the woman I was seeing was very similar in appearance to Alice but was, indeed, someone else. The only explanation I can offer, sir, is that this other woman, who I now understand must be Miss Violet Hunter, was put in place in order to deceive me. I can think of no other reason.”

  Holmes confirmed his agreement with the young seaman and then gave him the letter we had just received from Violet Hunter. The Lieutenant perused it and handed it on to Colonel Munro. After both had read it, Holmes recounted our conversation with Alexander Holder.

  The colonel looked at Holmes and said, “It would appear, sir, that we are dealing with a very cunning and ruthless set of criminals. They have possibly engaged in prostitution, blackmail, forcible confinement, fraud, and maybe even murder. The lives of two young woman are at risk. Would you agree, Mr. Holmes?”

  “I would, and it is imperative that we move quickly to rescue them before something dreadful takes place. If Miss Hunter has been confined, it is likely that she deduced that something illegal was taking place. Most likely, her life is now in peril. I suggest that the four of us pay a visit this evening to the Rucastle property and attempt a break-in and a rescue. Forgive my being presumptuous, we will have no locus standi, but I am counting on your being part of that attempt.”

  Both men nodded their agreement.

  “And may I also assume that both of you, being military men, have a revolver and are prepared to use it, if necessary?”

  Again, both assented.

  “Excellent. While you are retrieving and loading them, I shall make a visit to the kitchen and assemble a weapon to be used against Carlo. Dr. Watson will arrange our transport.”

  Chapter Ten

  Once More

  Unto the Breach

  WE GATHERED IN THE COURTYARD fifteen minutes later. It was now late in the spring season and we still had several hours of sunlight in which to act. The driver let us off some distance from the main entry and we worked our way around the perimeter of the property to one of the small locked gates. Holmes withdrew his set of locksmith’s tools and sprung the lock within minutes. By the time he had succeeded, Carlo was on the other side of the gate greeting us with ferocious barking. Holmes opened the gate just a sliver and pushed the bowl of victuals through to the massive beast. The bowl was emptied within a minute and then we waited patiently for the contents to have their effect. After ten minutes, the mastiff was stretched out and asleep.

  “Please do not report me,” said Holmes, “to the RSPC
A. I suspect they do not look kindly on the administering of two vials of a narcotic solution to a dog, even if it does render the animal much happier for a few hours.”

  We pushed the gate open the rest of the way and entered. I stopped in my tracks when I saw that the other two large dogs, the ridiculously adorned bitches, were standing close by and had begun to bark at us.

  Holmes paused as well. “They are not threatening us,” he said. “They are beckoning us. Come.”

  The bitches led us to a wall of the ruined church. There was an old portal in which a new door had been inserted. It was locked, and Holmes went to work on it and opened it. We found ourselves standing in the back of the nave; the roof was open to the sky, and the entire floor covered in grass and small shrubs. Holmes held his finger to his lips, indicating that we remain silent. We made our way through the building until we reached the entry to a small side chapel. In it, huddled against the wall and each clutching blanket around herself, were two young women. Both had leg irons around their ankles that were attached by a coil of chain to an iron ring on the wall. One of them was Miss Violet Hunter. The other, I concluded, must be Miss Alice Rucastle.

  In the dim light within the room I could see that Violet Hunter’s face was bruised and disfigured. She had suffered a vicious beating and I immediately began to attend to her. Lieutenant Fowler rushed over to Alice Rucastle. To her credit she smiled and greeted him with, “Well, hello Paul, darling. Some fiancée you are. I’ve been in here for nearly three months. What took you so long?”