The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars

by Anthony Boucher

  “To be exact, Lieutenant,” Maureen put it, “it’s where I went second.”

  Jackson started to ask a question, then guessed the answer, and looked embarrassed. “From this sun porch,” he resumed, “a flight of enclosed steps leads down to the ground. The door at the bottom has a spring lock. I think that this pretty much eliminates an outsider from our considerations. Although the murderer could leave with the body that way—in fact, he must have, since Mr. Weinberg was at the telephone at the foot of the front stairs all the time—he could not have entered there, unless of course he was of the household. The front-door key also opens that door. This is all a résumé of what you testified, among you, in front of Finch, and I’m just going over it for the record; but I want you to check me if anything’s wrong.”

  “Very well then,” said Dr. Bottomley. “Does that locked door eliminate an outsider so completely? Are you sure that it was locked?”

  “I checked it at five this afternoon,” Maureen explained. “I didn’t want anybody crashing the party that way.”

  “And no one,” the Lieutenant added, “admits to using that door, as entrance or exit, since then. It must have been locked unless it was deliberately left open from within, which brings us right back to the people in this house again. Now here is my rough sketch. To fill it in, will you tell me who occupied which room aside from Worth’s?”

  He penciled in the names as they gave them. When he had finished, this was the sketch which lay before him:

  This task accomplished, Lieutenant Jackson drew another sheet of paper to him and wrote nine names down its edge. “I’m putting down all of us,” he explained, “in alphabetical order, so there’ll be no hard feelings. The crucial time we’ll fix at from 11 to 11:20. Dr. Bottomley clocked the shot at 11:08, and that seems acceptable. It was about ten minutes later that Furness found Miss O’Breen.”

  “And in those ten minutes,” Harrison Ridgly interrupted drawlingly, “the body disappeared? You make this, Lieutenant, a case not for Doyle of the Holmes days, but for the later Doyle of psychic research.”

  “I was going to add,” said the nettled Lieutenant, “that the body might conceivably have been removed after Furness’ discovery, while we were all listening to Miss O’Breen’s story. One member of the group was still missing then.”

  Ridgly settled back with a smile.

  “Even at that,” Jackson resumed, “we have to presuppose an accomplice—somebody outside the house with a car. If the body had been left anywhere near this house tonight, it would have been found in the police search; and nobody here had time to drive any distance and return. But to get back to our timetable: during that twenty-minute period I can account for Herr Federhut, who was in this room with me working on the cipher of the dancing men, and for Mr. Weinberg, whose voice we could hear on the telephone. I’ll admit we weren’t listening to him carefully; but if that noise had stopped for any appreciable length of time, we would have noticed it. Now to take the rest of you in order: Dr. Bottomley?”

  “As you know, I was sitting in my room reading the Journal of the A. M. A. That is, I was attempting to read it. Most of the time I was smoking my calabash; and those who know me well will tell you that I smoke a pipe only as an accompaniment to worry.”

  “Why were you worried?”

  “Why? Because the absurd scene staged earlier by Mr. Worth seemed to indicate that what I had hoped would be merely a pleasant vacation might prove to be a damned ugly mess.”

  “Any corroboration?”

  “I suppose you consider—and quite rightly, too—that the light which Miss O’Breen saw under my door is no corroboration whatsoever? Mrmfk. I thought so. Then I can offer you no other.”

  Jackson scribbled on his paper and went on. “Mr. Evans, I guess you’re next.”

  “I am afraid, Lieutenant, that my story is a trifle less conclusive than even Dr. Bottomley’s. I was merely wandering—upstairs and downstairs and even,” he bowed courteously to Mrs. Hudson, “in my lady’s chamber.”

  “Couldn’t you be more specific?”

  “I was restless. Like Dr. Bottomley, I was worried by Worth’s scene. When our group broke up, I did not know what to do with myself; and I cannot seek consolation in a calabash. I did stop in at Dr. Bottomley’s room for a brief visit—”

  “Why didn’t you mention that?” Jackson snapped at the doctor.

  “Why? Because it was several minutes before I heard the shot; I thought that it would be meaningless for your chart.”

  “Go on, Evans.”

  “Then I came downstairs again—”

  “By which stairs?”

  “The front ones, of course.”

  “Did you see him, Mr. Weinberg?”

  The executive roused himself from depths of melancholy preoccupation. “My world is crashing around me and you want I should see a little man on the stairs? Ha!”

  But you told Finch you were sure that the murderer had not come down those stairs.”

  “Lieutenant Jackson! A man carrying the corpse of Stephen Worth I should notice if my own brother was dying before my eyes. But a little man like this doing nothing but walk downstairs—who can tell?”

  “You’re sure,” Jackson turned back to Evans, “that it wasn’t the stairs from the sun porch?”

  “Quite sure,” said Jonadab Evans unmoved.

  “All right. And then?”

  “I went out into the kitchen for a drink of water. Mrs. Hudson was there, and we chatted a bit. Her sister’s girl, she tells me, is going to the University of Missouri, and we exchanged a bit of talk about Columbia.”

  Jackson looked over at the efficient housekeeper and was surprised to see an almost human smile on her face. “Is that correct, Mrs. Hudson?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “What time would you say that was?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought, of course, that anyone would ask. But I think it was about quarter after eleven. Yes, it must have been, because I remember after Mr. Evans left I looked at my watch and I said to myself, ‘There’s a good half-hour’s work left to do and I won’t get any sleep before midnight.’”

  “And how long was he with you?”

  “About five minutes, I’d say.”

  “Does that mean from 11:10 to 11:15, or from 11:15 to 11:20?”

  “I really can’t say. I hate to seem so inefficient, but heavens! one just can’t go noticing all these things.”

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Hudson. I didn’t notice the time of the shot myself. And then, Mr. Evans?”

  “I left the kitchen and walked around to the front of the house. I may have stood there a matter of minutes; I can’t say for sure. Then I saw Mr. Furness go into the house rather excitedly, and after wondering for a bit just what was going on, I followed him.”

  “Thank you. Federhut I have, so this ties right onto the next name on the list. Furness?”

  “A brief and uneventful story,” said Drew Furness almost regretfully. “I left you gentlemen, got the car out, brought it to the front of the house, waited what seemed a very long time, and at last came into the house to see what had happened to Miss O’Breen. The rest you know.”

  “Just as a check—you saw no one enter the house during your waiting period?”

  “No. And I’m certain I should have—naturally I was watching the front door for Miss O’Breen.”

  “And no one came in through the kitchen, Mrs. Hudson?”

  “No one.”

  “You were in the kitchen during the whole time in question?”

  “Yes.”

  Jackson entered further notes on his chart. “Your story, Miss O’Breen, we know well by now. That leaves us only Mr. Ridgly.”

  “As usual,” Ridgly observed smugly.

  “Mr. Ridgly,” Jackson went right on, “is probably just panting for the chance to show me once more how all-fired guilty he must be, but I don’t think we need to go into all that again. He was wandering in the streets and there�
�s no way of checking it. So that’s that.” He scribbled again and folded the paper.

  “May we see your notes, Lieutenant?” Bottomley requested.

  Jackson thought a moment. “OK,” he said at last. “What’s the harm? But don’t take that Cleared? column too seriously. That’s just a tentative listing.”

  The schedule passed from hand to hand around the eagerly curious group and finally returned to Jackson. He refolded it, slipped it in his pocket, and rose. “The Sergeant here,” he said, “will keep an eye on you tonight. Finch’ll be back in the morning, I imagine, and possibly I will, too. In the meantime, a very good night to you all. I haven’t the heart to add pleasant dreams.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Hudson nervously when Jackson had gone, “the Lieutenant must be wrong somewhere. It was a person from outside.”

  “Of course,” Harrison Ridgly assured her. The assurance would have been more convincing without the wry half-smile which accompanied it.

  Lieutenant Jackson’s schedule of the movements in 221B Romualdo Drive.

  Name

  At time of murder

  Corroboration

  Cleared?

  BOTTOMLEY

  Reading in room

  Evans & O’Breen—partial only

  No

  EVANS

  “Wandering”

  Bottomley & Hudson—but sufficient gap between them?

  ?

  FEDERHUT

  In living room working on cipher

  Jackson

  Yes

  FURNESS

  Waiting in car

  Evans—but bare possibility on split-second schedule?

  ?

  HUDSON

  In kitchen

  Evans—but time enough before?

  ?

  JACKSON

  In living room working on cipher

  Federhut

  Yes

  O’BREEN

  Present at scene of crime

  Evidence checks with story—but if it was designed to?

  ?

  RIDGLY

  “Wandering”

  None

  No

  WEINBERG

  At telephone

  Federhut, Jackson

  Yes

  Chapter 10

  Drew Furness did finally drive Maureen home that night. When their ride was first proposed she had had ideas, half malicious and half—she would have been hard put to it to define that other half. But the carefree thoughts of that ride now seemed, not five hours old, but rather like something dating roughly from the Taft administration—to the celebration of whose fall by that loyal Democrat Terrence O’Breen, Maureen owed her existence. Neither malice nor that undefinable other half swayed her now. She was simply worn and weary; and she had no memories of the time between leaving 221B Romualdo Drive and being gently removed from Drew Furness’ shoulder in front of 1233 Berendo. She murmured a sleepy good night, which she hoped later was not too rude, and wove uncertainly into the house.

  She awoke in bright sunlight, to find beside the bed an alarm clock which had run down completely with as little effect on her as the wild ass had on Bahram, that great hunter. For hazy moments she lay in a vacuum. Reconstructing the past night was more difficult even than it had ever been on the morning of January 1. But the morning paper revived her memories in all their full horror, and gave her more than enough to think about while she rushed frantically to the office where she should have been hours earlier.

  The day at the studio was frightful. Mr. Feinstein had been helpless in her absence, and she was hardly more efficient herself. It was too much to cope with. At one point she entertained a haphazard thought of calling out the National Guard to form a barricade. So harassed and besieged was she that she never even noticed when Mr. Feinstein turned from the phone and said, “A Mr. Furness to speak to you.”

  “Tell him I’m busy,” she said hastily, and went back to disillusioning a too clever young man who was trying to maintain that this was all a Metropolis publicity stunt. Three minutes later she executed a double take worthy of F. X. himself, and wondered what on earth the Professor had wanted; but she had no time to ponder the question. A jaundiced individual was wanting her opinion on the theory that Worth had been murdered—justifiable homicide, he added—by a critic.

  Her one bright idea of the day came when an eager reporter was asking, “Is Metropolis going to engage a private detective to solve this case?”

  This thought had been in her own mind. It would have been a sweet job to wangle for her brother, if he hadn’t been in Arizona on a case just then; but suddenly she had a better inspiration.

  “Gentlemen,” she said firmly, “with five of the greatest authorities on detection present at the scene of the crime, why should we engage outside help? Metropolis is doubling the salaries of these Baker Street advisors in return for their services in clearing up the case!”

  So the afternoon’s headlines were really good. They ranged from the somewhat unimaginative:

  LITERARY EXPERTS TO TACKLE

  REAL-LIFE CRIME

  to the splendid banner head:

  SHERLOCK HOLMES RIDES AGAIN!

  And although Mr. Weinberg’s compliments were tempered by woeful protestations at the promise of doubled salaries, even those protests ceased when Maureen convinced him, with pencil and paper, that a salary of zero could be doubled indefinitely without imposing any further strain on the budget.

  Maureen’s first thought when she got home was a shower. Under its needling caress, she could forget for the instant Metropolis and murders and Worth and … But inevitably, no sooner was she really wet than the phone rang.

  Towel-draped and dripping (this is, regretfully, not the sort of book that will describe her further), she picked up the receiver.

  “Miss O’Breen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rufus Bottomley speaking, as Tantalus. Can you come to 221B tonight, about 8:30?”

  “Why yes. Is anything wrong?”

  A Gargantuan sigh made the receiver tremble. “My dear young lady, if I were to tell you all that was wrong, you would never believe me. Neither should I. Not unless you had met Miss Belle Craven. Mrmfk. But you will come? We want to resume last night’s conference.”

  “Of course,” she told him.

  It was, she assured herself, simply a draught that made her shiver.

  The cast was almost the same as that of last night’s conference. But the atmosphere was no longer tense and weary. A certain lively expectation, almost a festive quality was in the air.

  The five Irregulars were in conference over papers at a table. Lieutenant Jackson sprawled in an armchair, reflecting on certain notes. Mrs. Hudson presided over the bar, a reluctant Hebe, for such duties had never been included in the course leading to her bachelor’s degree. Sergeant Watson sat by the door, on a straight chair propped back at a parlous angle. Only F. X. Weinberg was missing; and Maureen, knowing the hysterical rush of business that day, was not in the least surprised.

  She accepted a beer from Mrs. Hudson and wondered a little at some subtle change in that woman’s appearance. She was as deliberately unattractive as ever, but something in her eyes was warmer. “She’s been through something,” she murmured as she sank into the chair next to the Lieutenant.

  “They all have,” he said. “Look at them.”

  “And are you here officially tonight?” she asked.

  “No. Just one of the boys. I’m on vacation. You see—”

  But now four of the Irregulars resumed their seats and Dr. Bottomley, still standing behind the table, rapped for order.

  “Mrs. Hudson,” he began, “Miss O’Breen, Lieutenant, and my dear Watson. You four have been signally honored tonight by being chosen to attend an extraordinary session of the Baker Street Irregulars. Wonderful and incredible things have befallen all of us today; and it has seemed best to call this conference, where each of us may tell his story. What these stories have to do with
the death of Stephen Worth seems to be a matter for conjecture. My own adventure, for instance, demonstrates little more than that my poise and command of situation is not what I had thought it. However, Lieutenant Jackson, and you too, Sergeant, I hope that you will listen to these narratives with attentive ears, and that you will perhaps aid us in sifting the wheat from the chaff. After we hear your advice, we shall know definitely whether or not we have any evidence to lay before Lieutenant Finch. Mrmfk. Now without further preamble, I give you the first narrator: Professor Drew Furness.”

  Furness rose and went to the table. A typescript quivered aspenlike in his hands. As he looked over the audience, Maureen caught his eye, and deliberately winked.

  This wink was intended as a gesture of confidence and encouragement. As such, it was a lamentable failure. Maureen’s blue eyes, in repose or in action, had never made a man look quite so helpless and sheepish before.

  But resolutely Drew Furness cleared his throat, gave an extra twitch to the collar which had left his Adam’s apple in shameless nakedness, and began to read his narrative.

  NOTE TO THE READER

  Do not distrust these following narratives simply because they are told in the first person by the Irregulars rather than in the third by the author. Each adventure forms an integral part of the Worth case; and each took place, the author guarantees, exactly as its protagonist recounts it.

  A. B.

  Chapter 11

  THE SINGULAR AFFAIR OF THE

  ALUMINIUM CRUTCH

  being the narrative of Drew Furness, M.A., Ph.D.

  The scholar is inevitably, of all men, the least versed in recounting details of his own life. Every belletristic writer, be he poet, novelist, dramatist, or essayist, is to some however small extent an autobiographer. The writer in other professions, whether it be the surgeon relating a singular operation, the lawyer preparing a brief, or the chemist reporting his researches, is describing an event of his life in which, to his own mind at least, he is the protagonist. Even the popular biographer records himself in portraying his subject, as the image of the beholder may be seen mirrorwise in the glass before a portrait. But the scholar, that most rigidly self-effacing of individuals, must write nothing but the facts of others. Even his own critical judgment, his sense of balance, must be held in abeyance while he struggles to set down, with minute exactitude, what others have said and thought and done before him.