More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

by Nick Rennison

  The beaten woman understood what had happened, and knew that she was helpless. With a stifled snarl of rage she fled from the room, while Sir Frederick came forward and wrung Poignand’s hand.

  ‘And now we will take the jewel-case to its owner,’ said Poignand, when he had briefly explained the origin of his discovery. ‘I shall tell her that but for you I might never have been successful, and, after all, that is but the simple truth. It is all that need ever be known of the matter – now that our American heiress has got her claws clipped.’

  It came out at the trial that the burglars had lain hid in the oak tree to reconnoitre before the robbery, and had then discovered the hollow which in their subsequent flight they used as a cache. As for the process of reasoning by which Kala Persad arrived at his unerring intuition, it never received fuller elucidation than in his own words to Poignand:

  ‘You see, Sahib, Sir Frederick only free man who could be knowing where jewels were. What for Missee American follow him into wood with box if not to do with the secret? When two curious things happen close together, they bound to have to do with each other.’

  Profound philosophy which at least had the merit of being right.

  JOHN PYM

  Created by David Christie Murray (1847-1907)

  Born in West Bromwich, Murray was the son of a printer and began his career working in his father’s business. After a brief, unhappy period in the army, he settled into the life of a journalist and worked as a foreign correspondent covering the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8. He began to write fiction in the late 1870s and, by the time of his death, he had published several dozen novels and volumes of short stories. Well-travelled, Murray lived abroad for much of the 1880s and 1890s and visited Australia, Canada and the USA on lecture tours. The Investigations of John Pym, a collection of stories previously published in magazines, appeared in 1895. ‘The Case of Muelvos Y Sagra’ is not a very good story but it is an interesting one and it reveals all too clearly Conan Doyle’s powerful impact on his fellow writers of short fiction for the magazines. John Pym is not so much a rival of Sherlock Holmes, more a copy. He has been given so many of the attributes of Baker Street’s most famous inhabitant – his mastery of arcane subjects, his experiments in chemistry, his pipe-smoking while pondering a problem, his own faithful Watson his friend Ned Venables – that Murray has difficulty establishing any individuality for him at all. And the plot of this particular story is so blatantly lifted from one of Holmes’s most famous adventures, published a couple of years earlier, that it is a wonder Doyle did not sue Murray for plagiarism.

  THE CASE OF MUELVOS Y SAGRA

  At the time of which I, Ned Venables, write, my friend John Pym gave little promise of becoming known to the world at large. I used to think him the most irritating man of my acquaintance, though he was for years my dearest friend. There was hardly a walk of life in which he might not have achieved success, and he did practically nothing. He has the largest and most varied intellectual armoury of any man I know, but he spent all his time in furbishing his weapons and adding new ones with no apparent object. He studied by turns anatomy, medicine, chemistry, natural history, geology, botany, language and literatures; amassing learning at a frightful rate, and doing nothing with it all. I am a man of action, and it has been the business of my life to lay before the public, piping hot, every new thing that I have learned and seen. To a man of my habits and my way of thinking, there was something scarcely tolerable in the spectacle of this astonishing savant grubbing and grinding among his books for ever, and leaving all the wide fields of his learning sterile and unused. When in the course of some one of our talks he would pour out on me some stream of hard-won fact and brilliant theory, I used to ask him impatiently what was the good of all his erudition whilst it lay unused. He used to laugh and confess to an insatiable curiosity. Then he would announce a new study – had a six months’ craze for hydraulics, or astronomy, or microscopy. It was enough for him that he had discovered himself to be ignorant anywhere. He would not rest until he had patched that hole in his armour.

  He came out of his books at last in a sufficiently astonishing manner.

  Pym and I were one night seated in his rooms, when our old friend Dr Macquarrie came in and joined in our talk.

  ‘Well,’ said the doctor, ‘what’s the latest addition to that palatial lumber-room of useless knowledge?’

  Macquarrie was quite of my way of thinking about Pym’s capacities, and the pity of his brilliant, useless life. Old Pym, who is an ugly man, with a nose like a crag and a brow like a cliff, has the sweetest smile I ever knew. It fairly transforms his face. He turned laughingly at the question.

  ‘I’m invading your own special ground, Mac,’ he answered. ‘I’ve turned toxicologist.’

  ‘Have you, indeed?’ said the doctor. ‘Well since that’s your momentary line, Pym, I wish you’d do a little thing for me.’

  ‘Indeed!’ said Pym, idly, ‘and what may that be?’

  ‘I’ve a case just now,’ returned Macquarrie, ‘that worries the life out of me, or thereabouts. To tell ye the plain truth, I’m nine-tenths convinced of foul play in it. I’ll not tell ye the names, but here are the circumstances. There’s a lady patient o’ mine, by birth a Spaniard. She’s a charming woman, verging on the sixties. She has charge of a fine little fellow of about three years of age, a nephew of hers, son of a dead sister five and twenty years younger than herself. Now this child has suffered from symptoms that clean bother me. That he’s suffering from some kind of irritant poison I haven’t any manner o’ doubt in the world, but what it is and how it was administered I’m completely at a loss to guess. The symptoms are extraordinarily contradictory. There are signs of poisoning by strychnia, which have looked at moments unmistakable. Then the child has suffered from a maddening irritation of the skin, from hot sweats and cold sweats, tremblings, and a remarkable imitation of St Vitus’s dance. The latest symptom is the breaking out of a festering wound on the little wretch’s foot. Three days ago there was no sign of that to my certain knowledge.’

  I asked Macquarrie what made him suspicious of foul play.

  ‘A year ago,’ he answered, ‘the child’s infant brother died with a partial manifestation of the same symptoms. At that time a certain person was staying in the house. He is staying there now, or was until yesterday. He’s a Spanish Brazilian, this fellow, and he’s the uncle of my little sufferer. The child’s an orphan, and is now sole heir to a very considerable estate. Should he die, this saffron-coloured scoundrel inherits in his stead.’

  ‘Does the child’s aunt and guardian suspect this man?’ asked Pym.

  ‘That I know she does right well,’ the doctor answered. ‘And there’s a part of the mystery! The fellow’s so dreaded since his latest visit, and what we take for its result, that he has not been allowed a second’s intercourse with the child. He has had no opportunity, so far as we can make out, of administering anything of a deleterious nature. There’s nothing but suspicion in the former case, and nothing but suspicion in this. The fact is that this child is sick, and sick almost unto death of the very symptoms which killed his infant brother a year back when this man was in the house, and the mystery is, that the man has never been allowed near the victim. He has full motive for crime, for he is a gambler and hard-up, and if the child died he would immediately be wealthy.’

  ‘It’s a queer business,’ said Pym. He rose up to knock the ashes from his pipe, and stood thoughtfully whilst he refilled and relit it. ‘The motive’s clear enough,’ he said after a pause, ‘but the suspicion seems to rest on what may be a pure coincidence.’

  ‘The motive and coincidence together,’ cried Macquarrie.

  ‘Just so,’ said Pym, in a dull inward way, ‘just so.’ He sat, nursing his foot after a way he had, and staring into the fire, and pulling mechanically at his pipe. He roused himself to ask a single question.

  ‘Is the child
out of danger?’

  ‘I’m half disposed to hope so,’ Macquarrie answered. ‘I shall know better tomorrow.’

  ‘This fellow’s away, is he?’ Pym asked; and then in answer to the doctor’s puzzled look, ‘This Spanish Brazilian fellow. He’s away?’

  ‘Yes,’ the doctor answered. ‘He’s away. He has some mercantile business in Southampton which he says will keep him a day or two; when the rascal left the child was supposed to be in extremis. Whether he’s guilty or no, he’ll be sorry to come back and find him well again, I know, though he was mightily moved with concern for the puir thing’s welfare when he went away.’

  ‘You speak of the child’s guardian as being a charming woman,’ said Pym. ‘Why does a charming woman admit into her house a man whom she conceives to be capable of murder?’

  ‘That’s the pity of it,’ cried Macquarrie. ‘The house is not hers, but his. He is joint guardian with her, and she lives on his sufferance. He’s away in the Brazils when he’s at home, and this is his third visit to London for years past.’

  No more was said on this topic at the time, but when at a late hour Macquarrie rose to leave us, Pym asked him, with some little urgency, I fancied, to call on the following evening. I took my leave shortly afterwards and went upstairs to bed. Pym and I were old chamber chums, but when he had taken to making all manner of horrible stenches with chemicals some four or five years before, I had left him to his devices, and had rented the suite of rooms over him.

  I saw nothing of him next day, except for the chance glimpse of his face I caught as he passed me in a hansom in the neighbourhood of the Zoological Gardens. But at night, as I was sitting at work at my desk, I heard a dull battering just under my feet, and recognising a signal long in use between us, I descended to Pym’s chambers.

  ‘Here he is,’ said Pym, as I entered. ‘Now, Mac, if I wanted to go tiger-shooting, or if I ever got into a tight and desperate corner, this same old Ned Venables is the man I should like to have with me. He’s as tough as wire, he’s as cool as a cucumber, he’s as keen as a terrier, and there’s nothing on the earth, or in the water under it, that knows how to frighten him.’

  I feel a certain sense of immodesty in setting down this rhodomontade, and I feel that all the more keenly because I know how far it is from being true. I have been frightened pretty often in my time, and the only merit I claim in that regard is that I have never let anybody see it. I never knew but one man who really loved danger. I loathe it, but I have a reputation to consider.

  ‘Now, Mac,’ Pym continued, ‘if I can persuade you to introduce me to this lady, you know enough of me by this time to be sure that your confidence in me will be utterly respected. I don’t say I’m right, but I do say I may be. The theory’s so wild that I won’t expose myself to any man’s laughter by proclaiming it, until I’ve tried it.’

  ‘Well,’ said Macquarrie, ‘it’s a serious matter, but with you and Venables here I can trust it. I do suspect the Brazilian rascal, and I do believe that if he comes back again he may make another trial. If you think you can guess what fiend’s tricks he works by, I’ll give you all the authority I’ve got – and it isn’t much – to try. The lady’s name is Murios, and she’s in the Albert Road, Regent’s Park. The Brazilian rascal’s name is Muelvos y Sagra. Prefix Josef, and ye have’m in full. The child’s greatly better, but I promised to take another luik at him tonight, and if ye’re agreeable I’ll introduce you to the lady at once.’

  ‘What is this all about?’ I asked. ‘And why am I wanted?’

  ‘Ned, old fellow,’ said Pym, laying both hands upon my shoulders, ‘do this one thing for me.’

  ‘My dear Jack,’ I answered, ‘if you put it in that way I’ll do anything.’

  So I went off in contented ignorance. Whatever Pym’s game was, it was blind man’s buff to me. We boarded a four-wheeler, and were driven to the street Macquarrie had named. Pym and I were left in the vehicle whilst the doctor entered a decent-looking, retired little house, cosy, and with a feel of home about it, even when looked at from outside. I spoke once to Pym, but he returned no answer. Presently a servant came out and requested us to enter. We obeyed, and Macquarrie introduced us to a stately, sad-mannered lady, who had once been beautiful and was still venerably sweet, with her snow-white bands of hair, and her delicate brunette complexion, her fine arched eyebrows and large, short-sighted brown eyes. This was the Senora Murios. She received us in musical Spanish speech, expressing a hope that she was understood, and regretting that she had no English. Pym easily reassured her on that point, and for my own part I had had twelve months of that wretched, inactive Carlist war, and could get on well enough. I have scraped acquaintance with two or three languages in that way.

  I need not detail the conversation, but it came to this: Pym saw a possible solution to the mystery of the child’s illness. He earnestly begged the lady’s confidence, and he asked to be allowed to see the rooms respectively occupied by Senor Muelvos y Sagra and the child. The lady for her part assented, and at that moment there came a noisy summons at the street door.

  ‘That is Josef,’ said Senora Murios, rising to her feet, and clasping her hands with a look of abject terror. ‘What shall I do? What shall I say?’

  ‘These gentlemen are friends of yours.’ said Macquarrie, ‘and known to you through me. There is no cause for alarm, believe me.’

  The Senora was right in her recognition of Senor Josef’s knock. I don’t think I should have liked the swarthy man, even if I had not come prepared to dislike and suspect him, and yet he was not altogether an ill-looking fellow. He was scrupulously dressed, though he had just come off a journey, and he wore a gold-rimmed pince-nez, perched delicately on the bridge of his thin nose. His fine arched eyebrows were black as jet, but his close-cropped hair and his dandy little moustache and imperial were almost white. There was a spurious look of good breeding about the man, to which his tall and slender figure added some affect. His eyes were a good deal too close together for my liking, and if ever I saw pitiless and greedy ‘Self’ written on a human face I saw it on his, as he stood bowing from right to left in the act of drawing off his gloves from his lean, long-fingered hands. It was easy to see that whatever else he was, the fellow was no fool. He had a fine though narrow dome of head, and his whole face was expressive of intelligence – a malignant intelligence – a snake’s deified.

  Macquarrie accepted the situation created by this gentleman’s arrival with a suave coolness which excited my admiration.

  ‘You will be delighted, sir, to learn that your little charge is out of danger.’

  ‘Delighted,’ said Senor Josef, smiling and bowing, but I saw him bite his underlip. ‘That is indeed good news.’

  ‘These gentlemen,’ pursued Macquarrie, ‘are Englishmen of eminence, whom I have taken the liberty to introduce to the Senora Murios. They have the advantage of speaking Spanish, which is not a common pleasure among my countrymen.’

  The Senor bowed and shook hands with both of us. He was enchanted to make our acquaintance. He regretted infinitely that it was absolutely necessary that he should tear himself away. He had brought home his baggage, but he had to keep an appointment at a little distance only. He bade us goodnight with sorrow, and trusted that he would have the pleasure of seeing us again. And so he bowed himself out, smiling and protesting, and all the while, as was to be seen plainly enough, wondering who we two strangers were, and casting suspicious guesses here and there as to the meaning of our presence.

  We stood in silence when he had left us, and heard the sharp click of his heels upon the pavement as he walked away.

  ‘Oh!’ whispered Senora Murios, in a frightened voice to Pym, ‘if he knew why you were here, sir, he would kill me. He is not a man to be watched or spied upon.’

  Pym begged to see the rooms at once, and for a second time she assented. But she led the way tremulously, and at Pym’s request I foll
owed. Our frightened guide led us, to begin with, to a bedroom on the first floor. It was a chamber of the most ordinary type, plainly and even rather meagrely furnished. The only thing in any degree unusual about it was that in place of the common plaster and wallpaper it was lined with plain stained deal. The ceiling was of the same construction, a fact I might not have noticed if I had not observed that Pym scrutinised it with the closest attention.

  ‘The child’s bed stood here?’ he asked after a time.

  ‘Yes,’ the lady answered. ‘The child’s bed stood there. Since his seizure it has been taken to my own room.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pym, gravely. ‘There is nothing further to look for here.’

  Our guide moved towards the door, but stopped with a face of terror at the noise of cab wheels in the street outside. The sound went by, and she led the way again.

  ‘This,’ she said, opening a door on the next landing, ‘is the bedroom of the child’s uncle.’

  We entered after her, and I looked about me again, discerning nothing uncommon in the aspect or arrangement of the room. The bed was old-fashioned and heavy, and between its foot and the projecting bulk of a heavy mahogany wardrobe there was but just sufficient space to allow of the wardrobe door being opened. Pym went straight to this antique piece of furniture and looked into its shadowed recess. It seemed at first sight to be quite empty.

  ‘The candle, madame, if you please,’ said Pym. He took the light and knelt upon the floor, with his head and shoulders projected in the wardrobe. By-and-by an odd little gasp escaped him, and he withdrew his head. His face at that instant was fully illumined, and I saw that he was ghastly pale, and that his eyes were blazing with some inward fire. He rose from his knees, and reaching his left hand towards me, held out a small clay flowerpot somewhat larger than a common tumbler. I did not understand his agitation or guess at the meaning of his discovery, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was at once shaken and triumphant. At a gesture from him I took the candle in my unoccupied hand, and he drew from the flowerpot a tangle of thin whip-cord, at the end of which was fastened a little arrangement in rusted wire. Pym examined this with a prolonged intentness, which gave me time to scrutinise it also. It was made of two pieces of wire, each perhaps six inches in length. Each piece was doubled in the centre. The centre ends then ran together for an inch, when they diverged, and each of the further ends formed a hook. The two pieces were fastened together firmly at the bend by a smaller piece of wire, which had been bound about them by the aid of a pair of pliers. Below this was a little wire circle, which could be used to bring the four curves closer to each other.