Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Was Not

by Christopher Sequeira

  “How do you mean, Holmes?”

  “Considering the absurdity of the murder’s timing, I’ve ruled out any thought of a third party having hired Tennant or Bailey to commit the act.”

  “Because if that were the case, they most likely would have accomplished it weeks ago.”

  “Exactly, Doctor. With only two days remaining before Sparks’ public execution, all of this smacks of a final, desperate act meant to thwart the cold and unemotional sentencing and replace it with an act of obsessed, violent passion.”

  “Meaning one of them wanted to personally bring about Sparks’ death with their own two hands.”

  “So I surmise, until we have facts to prove otherwise.”

  “But damn it, Holmes! Which one of them?”

  “And thus the carousel turns, Van Helsing. Let us forego any further discussion until we are back in my office. Allow our minds to work in silence for a while and enjoy this splendid autumn day.”

  “For a copper, Sherlock, you have a great deal of the poet in you.”

  “One of my many fine qualities.”

  “Of course,” she laughed. “Humility being another.”

  Once back at the station, we went directly to my office. Van Helsing removed her jacket and hat and made herself comfortable on the settee while I took a moment to glance into the open squad area. It being long after noon, both of us were hungry and I sought to remedy that situation by sending Officer Donald Smite to Jake’s Tavern at the end of the street to procure us sandwiches and several bottles of his finest ale.

  That settled, I returned to my cluttered desk, took hold of the guards’ folders and handed them to my colleague.

  “I want to you read these very carefully, Doctor.” Amelia Van Helsing’s mind is as brilliant as my own and anything she reads is instantly committed to memory; a trait most useful in our line of work.

  “And what will you be doing, Sherlock?”

  I returned to my desk and there, amidst the several layers of paper debris, withdrew four police folders and held them up for her to see. “These are fact-sheets on our Sparks’ victims. I believe somewhere in these records and those of the two prison guards there is a connecting thread. If we can uncover it…”

  “It will reveal a possible motive for the murder.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Then let’s get to it.” She leaned back on the padded sofa, opened one of the folders and began to study it while I made myself comfortable in my swivel chair behind my desk and proceeded to do likewise with my own records.

  Smite returned twenty minutes later with two meatloaf sand­wiches and four brown bottles of strong beer. We continued our reading while enjoying this late but tasty lunch. The clock on the wall over Van Helsing’s head was tipping two o’clock when I finished perusing the last of the four reports of Josiah Sparks’ sad victims.

  I looked up to see Van Helsing starting to sip on her second beer, both prison folders closed on the cushion beside her.

  “So, are we ready to continue?” I asked, wiping my mouth with a paper napkin.

  “Fire away, old boy.”

  “Alright then.” I pushed away from my desk and turned to stretch out my legs while extending my arms over my head to relax the muscles in my back. “Why don’t you start by telling us who the two guards are.” I brought down my right hand and put it over police folders. “If any single item is repeated in the dossiers I’ve just read, I will stop you.”

  “Very well, let’s begin.” She took one more swig from her beer, adjusted herself on the sofa and then laying her head back, began her recitation.

  “Leo Hiram Bailey was born in Saco, Maine, fifty-eight years ago. He went to the Saco Peremptory Academy. Upon graduation enlisted in Her Majesty’s Navy and served for eight years aboard the gunship, Excelsior. Upon his discharge, here in Boston, he entered the Cambridge Police Force and shortly thereafter met his wife, Maude Mary Daniels. They have two children, Walter Riley and Alice Kay…”

  “How old is the girl?”

  Without opening her eyes, Dr. Van Helsing, counted the fingers on her left hand and then said, “She would be twenty-nine at this time.”

  All the victims were no more than twenty, according to the coroner’s reports. Still, without proof of documentation, which was unavailable for three of the four deceased women, affixing an age to a lifeless body is in the end mere guess work.

  “Continue, Doctor.”

  Without skipping a beat, she did so. “And they currently reside at 27 Westchester Avenue, in Cambridge proper. Bailey left the police department ten years ago receiving several citations of merit upon his departure and an enthusiastic letter of recommendation which he used to gain his guard position at the prison.”

  She paused. “That’s all we have on Bailey. Shall I go on to Tennant?”

  “Please.”

  “George Arnold Tennant, born in Quincy, attended public schools and then enlisted in the military; the Colonial Forces to be exact. Served with distinction in the Western Territories Uprising where he was wounded and later discharged with the Victoria Medal for Meritorious Service. Became a constable in the Chelsea Police Department, and while there married one Grace Ann Dupris of Mantapan…”

  “What was that maiden name again?” I cut in.

  “Dupris, she was of French Canadian ancestry.”

  “Was?”

  “She died four years ago.”

  “Does it state a cause of death?”

  Van Helsing opened her eyes and sat up straight. “No, it does not. Is there something here?”

  I tapped my victim’s reports. “The name of the fourth and final victim was Helen Dupris. No known address or other vital information.”

  Van Helsing picked up one of her folders and opened it on her lap. “George and Grace had two daughters; Samantha, now age twenty-two and…Helen. She would be nineteen.”

  “Then it is possible she is our fourth victim and sometime in the past, most likely after becoming a prostitute, adopted her mother’s maiden name.”

  “That’s rather flimsy at best, Sherlock. It could merely be a coinc­idence.”

  “Balderdash, Doctor; you know my feelings about coinci­dences.”

  “The sheerest veneer of any lie,” she recited, having heard me say it repeatedly. At the same time she pulled a small pack of cigarillos from her vest pocket along with a wooden match.

  I wrinkled my nose watching her light the foul thing. “Must you?”

  “Don’t start,” she countered blowing out a puff of smoke. “You have your vices and I have mine. If it bothers you so much, crack open the window.”

  I spun about in my chair and was just about to do as she had suggested when I inhaled a small whiff of her tobacco. I instantly forgot about the window.

  It was the smell of the tobacco that had finally triggered what I had barely picked up in Josiah Spark’s cell.

  “Laudanum!” I blurted out, slapping my hands together.

  “What?”

  “My lovely, sweet Van Helsing. I could kiss you.”

  “Contain yourself, dear boy,” she blew out another puff of smoke. “What the blazes are you getting at?”

  “I know how he did it!”

  The young woman who answered the door at the Tennant residence the next day was plain in appearance but had lovely blue eyes that hinted at a warm and loving soul.

  “Yes?” she smiled at us; curiously wondering who would be calling on such an early hour on a Saturday morning.

  “Miss Samantha Tennant?” I politely removed my derby and bowed slightly.

  “Yes, I am she.” Spoken like the prim and proper elementary school teacher she was.

  “Inspector Sherlock Holmes,” I announced. “And this is my associate, Dr Amelia Van Helsing. I was hoping we might have a word with your father.�
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  Her confusion expanded and she was about to question us further when George Tennant’s voice was heard from within the small cottage home. “It’s alright, Sammie, dear, I’ve been waiting for the Inspector’s visit.”

  Ushered into the main parlour, we found it both quaint and neatly kept. An old, worn, Persian carpet of faded colours covered most of the hardwood flooring. There were potted flowers everywhere and a large over-stuffed sofa facing several padded chairs over a small coffee table.

  George Tennant appeared from a connecting hallway which I surmised led to the kitchen and dining area at the back of the house. Upon seeing us, he stiffened his resolved and confronted me in the middle of the room, head slightly bowed.

  “Please forgive me for lying to you,” he began in a soft voice. “After what I’d done, my nerves got the best of me, Guv’nor, and for that I am deeply ashamed.”

  “Father, what is this all about?” Samantha Tennant was shaken by her father’s words and I hoped Van Helsing and I could continue in a delicate manner. Neither of us wished to cause these people any further pain and suffering.

  Tennant started to reply but I quickly touched his arm and said, “Why don’t we all sit down and sort all this out quietly.”

  Assayed for a moment, the school teacher and her father sat down on the sofa while Van Helsing and I sat in the matching chairs.

  “Very well, let us start at the beginning, shall we, Mr Tennant?”

  He merely nodded.

  “I take it Helen Tennant was your youngest child?” Samantha’s eyes reacted to my use of the past tense. “Is that correct?”

  “Was?” she couldn’t help but utter, turning to the little man beside her. “What does he mean by that, Father? Has something happened to Helen?”

  “Miss Tennant,” Van Helsing, God bless her, spoke up, real­izing that what was needed here was a woman’s touch. “When was the last time you saw your sister?”

  Detoured from questioning her father, the now perplexed school teacher nervously touched the back of her brown hair and a sad look came over her face. “Let me see, it must be over three years now. Helen took Mother’s passing so hard and no matter what we said, she wouldn’t be reconciled with it.”

  “May I ask how your mother died?”

  “It was consumption. Mother was always a fragile person and she’d suffered several bouts of pneumonia in the past. The attending physicians said it was the damp and cold of our New England winters that brought on her early…passing.”

  “Helen always blamed me,” George Tennant added, taking hold of his daughter’s hand. “You see, it was suggested we move to the dry climates of the southwest to help Grace’s condition. But we couldn’t, don’t you see. What with my meagre salary…”

  “Stop that, Father, you know full well Mother never entertained the idea. Even had you been able to gather the funds, she was determined to live out her life here in the Commonwealth.”

  “But your sister did not share that opinion?”

  “No, I’m afraid not, Doctor.” Samantha Tennant was doing her best to keep herself composed. “After Mother’s passing, she became sullen and moody, staying out at all hours of the night and eventually she fell into the wrong crowd.

  “When she was arrested with a group of her peers for vand­alism, Father brought her home and did his best to correct her, but by then Helen wouldn’t listen. She accused him of being responsible for…for Mother’s death, and that very night she fled; never to return again.”

  And there it was, in so short a tale. Van Helsing nodded to me. Now it was upon my shoulders.

  “Miss Tennant, it is my sad duty to inform you that your sister has died.”

  She released her Father’s hand and brought it up to her mouth to stifle a gasp. “How?”

  “She was murdered several months ago in Boston, the victim of a sadistic killer named Josiah Sparks.”

  “Josiah Sparks? The cult leader I read about in the papers.” She turned to her father again. “Wasn’t this the man who was to be executed tomorrow?”

  George Tennant’s eyes began to water. “Yes, my dear. He was the monster that killed our sweet Helen.”

  “And how did you learn of this?” I asked, doing my best to keep things moving forward. “From the papers as well?”

  “Yes, Inspector. An edition of the Gazette published a photo of all the victims shortly after Sparks had been apprehended. Of course it was hard to recognize her after all these years and…the picture of her…body…was so horrible to look upon,” said George Tennant.

  “So what did you do?”

  “I visited the morgue by myself, sir. I know a few of the blokes that works there on the graveyard shift. They let me take a look at her.”

  “Thus confirming she was in fact your lost daughter.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Samantha Tennant began to sob and her father put his arm around her. “There, there, Sammie. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t tell you before. My heart was broken and I feared I would lose you as well.”

  “Oh, Daddy.” She hugged him all the tighter.

  I pressed on. “And so the man who had murdered your daught­er came to be in your charge at the prison for the last week prior to his sentencing.”

  “Yes, sir.” He looked at us over his daughter’s shoulder. “You can’t imagine how hard it was to look at him every day, Inspector. He and that smug attitude of his. Always laughing and jeering as to how he’d done in those poor girls…as if it all were some silly joke and all.”

  “Never realizing he was confronting the father of one of them.”

  “I never told him, Inspector. No, sir.”

  “But ultimately you came to desire revenge.”

  “Yes, sir. As much as I prayed, the anger in me would not be denied.”

  “And it seemed unfair to you that this fiend should meet his end at the hands of an unfeeling, court appointed executioner. Is that the gist of your reasoning?”

  “It wasn’t right, sir. That he should die laughing about it all. Where was the justice in that? As the days grew closer to the hanging, I determined I couldn’t let that happen. I vowed that this foul creature would die by my hands.”

  “Which is when you fell upon the idea of using the laudanum to incapacitate him.”

  Samantha Tennant stopped her crying and took the white linen handkerchief I leaned over and offered her. “Laudanum? Isn’t that a drug of some kind?”

  “Yes, Miss Tennant. It is a tincture derived of opium,” I explained. “When Doctor Van Helsing and I examined the body of Josiah Sparks, I detected a trace of its odour about him. Then, later in my office, I recalled that the prison kept a supply of laudanum on hand in their medicine supplies to be used on those inmates to help steady them before their fateful encounter with the gallows.”

  “And my father administered this drug to this Sparks fellow?”

  “Yes, Miss Tennant,” Van Helsing picked up the narrative. “Josiah Sparks was a giant of a man and the Inspector and I were at a loss to understand how someone of your father’s stature could possible overcome him. Until Inspector Holmes fell upon the idea of the laudanum. He surmised your father had laced Sparks’ evening meal with a higher dose of the drug and it acted as a powerful sedative making him virtually helpless.”

  “That’s what I done, Doctor. Just as you say. It was easy enough to pour almost an entire bottle into his lamb stew when old Leo Bailey was in the Loo.”

  I rose to my feet and slowly walked behind the sofa while still addressing the Tennants. “So that by the time you returned thirty minutes later, Josiah Sparks was in a drug induced stupor and you murdered him in his bunk.”

  “Yes, Inspector, that’s what I done. Afterwards, I made sure to keep Leo out of the corridor so that I was the only one making periodic rounds.”

  “On a dead man.”
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  “Yes, sir. After I’d done it, I didn’t feel right. All night long, whenever I went in there and saw him, I knew there would be no escaping my punishment. By the time our shift ended, I acted as if I’d only then discovered the body and…well…you know the rest, sir. That’s how it all happened.”

  A thick silence fell over all of us. With the story told, all that remained was to arrest the man and bring him into custody.

  Samantha Tennant got to her feet and stood before the crumbled old man behind her. “What are you going to do now?” she asked me. “Are you going to lock him up too? Must I lose all of my family, Inspector?”

  I began to reply when I caught Van Helsing’s look. It was one I’d grown quite familiar with over the years.

  I looked back at George Tennant’s remaining daughter and sighed. Maybe in a perfect world, perfect justice exists. This is no such world.

  “Mr Tennant.” I looked past his daughter at where he sat. He lifted his tear-stained face.

  “I’m ready to go with you, Guv’nor.”

  “That will not be necessary.”

  “Sir?”

  “Josiah Sparks was sentenced to death by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and for all practical purposes, that sentencing has been carried out. Regardless of the circumstances, the court order was executed.”

  “But, sir…”

  “Allow me to finish, Mr Tennant.”

  “Sorry…sir.”

  “You will report to work on Monday and there submit your resignation to Warden Alper. From your file, I see you are eligible for a fair retirement stipend.”

  “That is so…”

  “And you will never again make mention of this to another living soul. Nor will you ever seek employment elsewhere. Is that absolutely clear, Mr Tennant?”

  “Ah…yes…I…yes, sir. I understand.”

  I looked to my associate who had gotten to her feet. “Then we will bid you both a good day. Our business here is concluded.”

  We had just started through the front door when I felt Samantha Tennant’s hand on my elbow.

  “Inspector Holmes…I…don’t know what to say?”