“It is quite strange, yet clearly decipherable. A picture of a vulture is an A and a foot is a B, and so on. Interestingly enough, a forearm responds to the letters Ah.”
“And how do you plan to use this knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphics?” I asked.
“As a way to exercise my brain, of course,” Johnny responded as he made short work of his tiramisu.
My father smiled at the lad and said, “I am not certain your grandfather would have approved of this exercise.”
“Why not, may I ask?”
“Because Sherlock Holmes believed the brain was like a small, empty attic and you have to stock it with only important information that will serve you well in the future. To his way of thinking, this space is not elastic and once filled will accept no more. Therefore, you must be very selective in what you choose to store away.”
Johnny dropped his fork and gave the matter considerable thought before asking, “Did my grandfather ever encounter a case that involved Egyptian hieroglyphics?”
“Not to my knowledge,” my father answered.
“Had he, I am certain he would have approved of my current studies.”
Joanna chuckled softly at the interchange. “I would pay a hefty sum to listen in on a conversation between Sherlock Holmes and his grandson.”
“As would I,” said my father.
I was about to signal our waiter for more coffee when my gaze went to the restaurant’s front window that overlooked Baker Street. Peering in from the darkness was a hatted figure whose neck seemed to disappear into his chest. I gestured to the nearby waiter by pointing to my cup, and when I looked back at the window the man was gone. Probably some poor chap, I thought, who could never afford the delicious meal we had just enjoyed.
“Do you think Grandfather Holmes would have taken note of my deduction on the woman’s afghan?” Johnny was asking his mother.
“He would have been delighted,” Joanna replied. “And he would have been most interested to learn how the true blood splatter led to the arrest of the murderer in the Dupont case.”
“You will recall that the hanging weight of the afghan distorted the original pattern,” Johnny said and waited for us all to nod. “Good.” He then went on, “Now, the altered pattern showed primarily pooled blood which was believed to have come from her severed jugular vein. Blood coming from a cut vein simply flows out, does it not, Dr. Watson?”
“Correct,” my father answered.
“When the afghan was rearranged to its unstretched setting, the blood splatter resembled that made by intermittent spurts, which would occur if the bloodletting came from an artery. And the poor woman had her carotid artery severed, among her other stab wounds.”
“But how did the apparent arterial exsanguination lead to the murderer?” my father asked.
“The husband’s alibi was that he was asleep in the adjoining bedroom,” Johnny explained. “When the bedroom was reexamined, the blood splatter on the walls had for the most part been washed off. But the splatter on the carpet could not be expunged and showed a pattern consistent with arterial spurting. Thus, she was obviously not murdered in the parlor, but in the bedroom, and her husband’s alibi fell apart.”
“Hmm,” Joanna hummed to herself. “I find it remarkable that a French detective would be so familiar with afghans.”
“He wasn’t,” said Johnny. “He was discussing the case with his wife who happened to be an experienced knitter. It was she who provided the clue that led to the case being solved.”
“I do not believe we will be so fortunate when we look under the afghan of Harry Edmunds’s wife,” I surmised.
“One never knows,” Joanna said. “Nonetheless, Lestrade seemed keen on the idea and will have a Scotland Yard detective accompany us to the wife’s house which gives our visit an official flavor. He, by the way, also believes the wife is every bit aware of Edmunds’s forgery activities.”
“Does he have proof in that regard?” my father asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Joanna replied. “Lestrade apparently found her pantry stocked with very expensive items, such as an abundance of beluga caviar, which would cost as much as Edmunds’s monthly salary at Hawke and Evans. In addition, there was a recently purchased dress in her closet that carried a label from Selfridges, which of course is a high-end department store. You should also know that Scotland Yard discovered two hundred pounds under a floorboard in that same closet. Thus, I think it is fair to say that the wife had to be aware of her husband’s sudden abundance of money and from whence it was derived.”
“Perhaps she was hiding money under the giant afghan as well,” Johnny suggested.
“I think not,” Joanna said. “A woman this clever would never hide such a small yet so valuable an item in the open, even if concealed by a afghan. She would find a more secure place for the stack of pounds.”
“Where then?”
“Under her dress, where Scotland Yard would never bother to look.”
“But you would.”
“Of course.”
My father inquired, “Is that the reason you seem so eager to investigate the wife further?”
“One of them,” Joanna said evasively.
“Shall John and I accompany you on this hunt?”
“John will be at my side, but I have another task I will ask you to carry out. While we are on our way to the Edmundses’ home, I would like you to travel to Number Three Pinchin Lane and fetch Toby Two, for I have work for her.”
“To what purpose?”
“If you wish to outwit a fox, my dear Watson, you must use a hound.”
On that note we departed Gennaro’s and walked out into a cold, clear night. The lampposts suddenly lost their illumination and all the homes along Baker Street went dark, for the Great War was ongoing and intermittent blackouts were required in order to dim the lighted targets, which served as a beacon for the terrifying Zeppelin air raids. In the distance we could hear the siren telling us that such a raid could be imminent. We quickly picked up our pace.
“I have an early train to Eton in the morning and can make my own way to Paddington station,” Johnny said to us. “There is no need to wake you.”
“Nonsense,” I insisted. “We shall be there to give you a proper send-off.”
“And we shall be there for your return as well,” Joanna promised.
“With a little good fortune, perhaps your case could be solved by then,” said Johnny.
“Which would make for a most merry Christmas indeed,” my father chimed in.
We paused to allow traffic to go by before crossing over to our rooms at 221b Baker Street. Our window was well lighted, for there was no alert for a blackout when we departed for dinner. We had left the lamp on and logs ablaze in the fireplace, awaiting our return. I was about to suggest we hurry to our rooms when my gaze went to the roof above our parlor. I saw a small, flickering light that seemed out of place. It was too small to be a torch.
I pointed to the light and asked, “Is that a candle or perhaps someone striking a match?”
As we hurried across the street, Joanna’s eyes followed my line of vision. The small light now appeared to be moving to the very edge of the roof.
“What do you make of it?” I asked.
“Run!” Joanna cried out at the top of her voice. “Run for the vestibule!”
We sprinted for the entrance and managed to reach the door just as a lighted bottle hit the pavement and exploded into a wall of flames. I pushed Joanna, Johnny, and my father into the antechamber and slammed the door behind us, with only a moment to spare before the flames reached the entrance of the building. We waited anxiously to see if the door itself would catch fire, but it did not and remained surprisingly cool to the touch. Outside, we could hear brakes being applied so that the occupants of the passing automobiles might view the flames. Someone was shouting, “Stand clear! Stand clear!” We all took long, deep breaths to gather ourselves and allow our racing pulses to slow.
“Should we wait for the firemen?” I asked.
“Not if my assumption is correct,” Joanna replied and cautiously cracked open the door. The fire was for the most part out, with only a few lingering flames remaining on the footpath. But the odor of solvent hung heavily in the air. “It was a bomb, which was thrown from the roof by Harry Edmunds.”
“I may actually have seen him,” I recollected and told of the man peering into the restaurant whose neck seemed to disappear into his chest. “It gave that appearance because he no doubt had a scarf wrapped around his neck. I thought he was a poor chap hungrily looking into the fine restaurant, but I was mistaken.”
“It had to be Harry Edmunds, surveilling us prior to his bomb making,” Joanna asserted.
“He no doubt used a lighted candle as a trigger mechanism,” I noted. “And his timing was nearly perfect.”
Joanna nodded and opened the door widely as neighbors looked out of their houses at the disturbance. “Exactly so, for Edmunds is an expert when it comes to making explosive devices from solvent, as his former cellmate Derrick Wilson could attest to were he still alive.”
“Bravo to the junior Dr. Watson for spotting the flame on the roof,” Johnny praised.
“Good show indeed!” my father lauded.
“It was happenstance,” I said honestly. “It was simply a matter of me gazing up at a most opportune moment.”
“Which sounded the alert and no doubt saved our lives,” Joanna insisted. “This should be a warning to all of us, for a man who has killed once will have no hesitation to kill again.”
“But why now?” I asked. “What suddenly goaded him into action?”
“The newspaper articles,” Joanna replied. “They put a target on our backs, you might say. This was an attempt to kill us or at least frighten us off, but it failed in the former and it will fail in the latter as well.”
“But all the same, I shall now carry my service revolver at all times,” said my father.
“Better safe than sorry,” Joanna agreed.
“Indeed,” my father concurred, with a grim expression that told me he would have no hesitancy in dispatching Harry Edmunds should the occasion arise.
22
The Wife
Harry Edmunds’s wife lived in a shabby, two-story brick house on the eastern edge of Brixton. Its shutters were in need of repair and a small shed in the back garden had not seen a coat of paint for years on end. After allowing us entrance, a stoic Charlotte Edmunds returned to her oversized chair and went back to knitting without saying a word. Within the parlor, there were no signs of newfound wealth other than the excellent copies of paintings by French impressionists that hung on every wall. Even as Joanna examined a Renoir with a magnifying glass, the wife showed no concern and continued to knit the giant afghan which covered her lap before dropping down to the floor. I had difficulty not gazing at the afghan in anticipation of Joanna searching beneath it.
“The Renoirs are of course unsigned,” she reported.
“So they would not appear to be forgeries that would eventually be placed on the black market,” I noted.
If Charlotte Edmunds was troubled by the term black market, she showed no hint of it as she effortlessly knitted a large loop.
“I wonder whether he planned to place Renoir’s signature on them later,” I said.
“Most unlikely, according to Edwin Alan Rowe,” Joanna replied. “Apparently newly placed pigment is difficult to age and match the paint which has already been applied.”
“So many Renoirs,” I remarked.
“That is where his talent lay,” said Joanna, while turning a painting to examine its backing. “Harry Edmunds was a master of details, which are the hallmarks of Auguste Renoir’s works.”
My gaze went from one painting to the next to the next. “Edmunds must have enjoyed viewing his own forgeries. I would agree that he is truly an egotist.”
“Or perhaps hanging the copies was a convenient way to store the forgeries until he decided to dispose of them,” Joanna surmised. “In all likelihood, these were copies which were not nearly as good as other finished products and were thus of no value to him.”
“Yet, for all his cleverness, he still made a mistake in his forgeries,” I recalled.
That comment caused the wife’s eyelids to open just a fraction, but they quickly resumed their previous half-lidded position. Charlotte Edmunds was a rather attractive woman, in her midthirties I would guess, with catlike features and auburn hair that was severely drawn back into a tight bun. But there was a coldness about her that was unmistakable. For some reason she reminded me of the tricoteuse, the knitting women who sat around the guillotine waiting for heads to roll during the French Revolution.
Joanna examined and replaced the last of the Renoirs, then strolled over to Charlotte Edmunds and asked, “Would you be good enough to lift the unfinished afghan from your lap?”
Charlotte did so without hesitation. Her lap was empty.
“Now, if you would, please stand,” Joanna requested.
Again Charlotte did so without hesitation. There was nothing beneath the chair’s cushion or under the oversized chair itself.
“And now please allow me to frisk your clothing.”
Charlotte raised her arms above her head instantly, as if she knew the routine for being searched. She had an ample bosom and broad waist, both of which showed through her tight-fitting sweater. The skirt of her dress was far more expansive, with multiple pleats and folds. Joanna gently ran her hands down the garment from collar to hem and found nothing of interest.
“Disappointed, are you?” Charlotte finally spoke.
“It was what I expected,” Joanna replied. “Scotland Yard no doubt caught you unaware on their initial visit and you were forced to improvise. I suspect you learned from that experience.”
“You are wasting your time,” Charlotte said in a neutral tone.
“We shall see.” Joanna gave the parlor a last, careful survey before requesting the wife follow us into the kitchen. The sergeant from Scotland Yard stayed at the door, his posture erect, his holstered revolver partially visible.
The kitchen itself was quite small, but had a surprisingly large pantry that was packed with expensive goods. There were jars of Fortnum & Mason marmalade and tins of beluga caviar from Harrods. On a top shelf were assorted spices from Asia and basmati rice from India.
“You live well,” Joanna remarked. “These items are far beyond the reach of most people.”
“These goodies bring me a bit of cheer,” Charlotte said. “What with my husband facing jail time and all.”
“I take it they were purchased by your husband well before he was apprehended for forgery,” Joanna surmised.
“Oh, months before,” Charlotte said. “Harry went to the fancy stores after work on numerous occasions. He once told me that the excess money came as a bonus for the restoration he did on a most important painting. I had no idea he was involved in anything illegal. Why, he even encouraged me to spend more and more, for there were yet additional bonuses coming his way.”
“Was it also his suggestion that you purchase an expensive dress from Selfridges?”
“He insisted on it.”
This Charlotte Edmunds was a most clever woman, I thought to myself, and certainly not one who could be easily outwitted. But then again the answers she was giving were in a way rehearsed, for they were no doubt asked earlier by Scotland Yard.
“He was most generous,” said Joanna.
“To a fault,” Charlotte agreed.
“Does he still tell you to continue your extravagant ways?” asked Joanna.
“Oh, no,” Charlotte replied at once. “He has instructed me to—” She caught her first mistake and quickly backtracked. “Before his death he instructed me to be very careful with my spending, for I could no longer depend on his income or any surprise bonuses.”
So, I deduced, Charlotte knows her husband is alive and that was obvious from her use
of the present tense—“he has instructed me.” Were she to have believed him dead, she would have spoken in the past tense—“he had instructed me.” For the moment Joanna decided not to follow us and pursue Charlotte’s miscue. I glanced over at Charlotte who was trying to keep her face expressionless, but a hint of concern showed itself for the first time.
Joanna peered into the adjoining room where Harry Edmunds produced his forgeries. It was well stocked with canvases and stands and various pigments. Off to the side was a chair and next to it a large oven that Edmunds used to bake his paintings and give them the tiny cracks and creases that are associated with considerable aging.
“We know there are additional forgeries hidden away in this house,” Joanna cautioned. “For you to continue to conceal them makes you an accessory to the crime.”
Charlotte shrugged, emotionless. “I know of no others.”
“I wonder how a hard-nosed British jury would respond to that obviously false statement,” Joanna pressed.
“But it is the truth,” Charlotte said firmly.
“I can assure you that you will be singing a different tune before we leave here today, but by then your recanting will be of little value.”
“And let me assure you, Sherlock’s daughter,” Charlotte scoffed, “that I am not moved by your threats or those of Scotland Yard.”
“The last person to utter those words was a rather charming woman who killed her two children for their insurance money,” Joanna responded. “She is currently an inmate at Pentonville where she awaits a date with the hangman.”
“Last I heard being the wife of a forger is not a hanging offense,” said Charlotte.
“But being an accomplice to murder is,” Joanna countered. “You see, we know your husband planned and executed the death of Derrick Wilson as a means of escaping from Wormwood Scrubs. And he did the same to James Blackstone, for his share of the masterpiece.”
“I know of no such events,” Charlotte refuted calmly.
“We shall see,” Joanna said again.
The sergeant from Scotland Yard looked into the kitchen, saying, “Madam, Dr. Watson is here with the hound.”
The Art of Deception Page 20