“It has not. I agree with you and persuaded the police to permit me to enter the cottage. That is, they have given me a key and say I may enter, with the caveat that if Moore appears and complains, whatever I have done will be upon my own head.”
I gave an indignant grunt. “I see. You’re their cats-paw. If you make any discovery it redounds to their credit, yet if the owner comes back and catches you, you receive the blame, while they are seen as pursuing all avenues, in case of foul play.”
“Exactly so,” Holmes agreed. “Would you care to come with me on the morrow, Watson?”
I gave him a decided affirmative and we retired in perfect charity with one another.
I freely admit that I looked forward to the excursion. It is rare to have the chance to look through someone’s home in their absence and without their knowledge, but with police sanction.
We arrived at the cottage mid-morning, Holmes employed the key, and we entered. Originally, the place was built as a single room for a coastguard, however, they moved into the nearby town. It was offered for sale, purchased by an elderly, single man, who expanded it to three rooms and lived there for nigh on twenty years. When he died, his heirs placed it on the market again and Moore purchased it.
The house was what I have heard termed three doubles. That is, the bedroom had a small alcove off one corner, in which stood a washstand with the usual utensils. The kitchen-dining room had a mud-room leading to the outside, and a third, center room, combined the offices of parlor and study. It was well-made, and all the windows bore heavy shutters with brass fittings, which could be latched back or closed to cover the windows in case of a storm. The cottage was not large, but very snug in winter. Moore had done well for himself when he bought it.
The place smelled musty, but it was dry enough, despite its three-year abandonment, and everything within was orderly. I started my search in the kitchen, while Holmes turned to the bedroom. The cupboards were, as we had heard, empty. I carefully sounded the back of each but came to the reluctant conclusion that no secret panel existed. The washing-copper was clean, showing no indications that it had been used since the last time it was polished and the ash removed, and the few plates, dishes, pots, and pans were all in place and covered by a light film of dust. I gave up on the kitchen and turned my attention to the center room.
Holmes was still in the bedroom, and whatever he was doing made no sound. Curious, I peered in, to find no sign of him. I looked about and discerned his soles protruding from under the bed.
“Holmes? What are you expecting to find under there?”
“Not what you might expect, Watson,” came his reply. “Come and look at this.”
I lay full-length on the rag rug, then inched along to join him under the bed. The only window in the room provided sufficient light to see that Holmes had partially displaced a short length of floorboard. It could not have been nailed down, since I heard no sound of its being forced.
My friend inched out again, and I followed. We moved the heavy bed to one side, where we could get at the board more easily. It slipped out of the groove. Stooping again, Holmes moved a second short board. Beneath them was a square tin box. I lifted it, startled at the weight.
“Holmes? There’s something heavy in this.”
I heaved it up until I could set it on the floor. The lid, to my surprise, opened freely. Within the box were as many as twenty dull-colored, wedge-shaped ingots.
“Gold!” I cried.
Holmes smiled. “Tin, I think, Watson.”
“Tin?” I said incredulously. “Why would he keep tin a secret?”
“He may have believed there was more. Tin of this sort is likely to come from a very old shipwreck, indeed. He could sell the information to an archaeologist—many are wealthy men who would pay well.”
I frowned, removed the ingots, and delved deeper into the box. I found an old brooch, two buckles, several tarnished coins, and an odd length of metal. I held that up.
“What do you think this is?”
“A blade, possibly a dagger,” my friend said casually.
I looked at it again. He could be right. “Shall we inform Temberton?”
“Yes, Lord Temberton is likely to be interested. If it is not quite in his line, he will know who should be told,” Holmes agreed. “I’ll telegraph him once we are done here.”
“What made you think of looking under there?” I waved at the bed.
“Logic, Watson. Moore lost one valuable find because too many knew of it and he attempted to sell it openly. I reasoned he would hide subsequent finds, and would want them, even if securely hidden, under his eyes. He would wish to have them where a thief would find access impossible without betraying his presence.”
“I see. So you looked under the bed.”
“Yes. I observed that, while most of the boards had dirt filling the cracks between them, the two boards under the head of the bed did not. And they were shorter than the other floorboards. It was always possible they were a patch, but the absence of dirt between them indicated not. It required only my penknife to lever one up sufficiently to see something beneath. At that point, Watson, you appeared.”
I held up the coins, “They’re so black I can’t see what they say, but they seem to be old. And that brooch… I saw one like it in Temberton’s collection, a cloak brooch. The buckles look bronze.”
“Yes. The question is going to be asked rather more urgently now, to whom does this cottage belong? Who is Moore’s heir, supposing it can be proven he is dead?”
“It doesn’t matter yet,” I commented. “He has to be missing another four years before he can be declared dead.”
“For someone to inherit, yes. But the knowledge that out there,” he pointed towards the sea, “may rest an ancient shipwreck, that information is both invaluable and without an owner. That is why I intend to telegraph Lord Temberton the moment I can.”
“What of the police?”
“I shall send the telegram first.”
Holmes’s telegram brought our friend Lord Temberton post haste. The man is classified as an amateur archaeologist only because he is not employed in that capacity, however, he is knowledgeable, experienced, does no damage to a site, and has no interest in making money from such artefacts as may be found. On the contrary, the British Museum has received a number of his donations and is suitably grateful.
With Temberton on the way, Holmes informed the police, who looked at the stack of tin ingots and the miscellaneous other items, shrugged, and took them into custody.
Temberton arrived a few days later on a yacht belonging to a fellow archaeologist and spent all of the next summer looking for an ancient wreck. He found further ingots, many coins, and three heavily corroded swords, but nothing more. He and his colleague concluded that the ship may have broken apart in a storm, items washing ashore over the centuries.
As for the “tin ingots and other miscellaneous items” in police custody, there was no proof they were discovered by Moore, since they could have been there before he purchased the dwelling. They were sold four years later, and the monies received went to the Government—from whom Temberton bought the finds and donated them to the British Museum—where they remain.
But that is by the by. Holmes asked questions and was beginning to embarrass the police. He even unearthed a fourth man who appeared to have walked out of his house one day and vanished. Holmes pointed out that, from his investigations, not only had four men vanished, but that they had done so at intervals of every third year. That, to say the least, looked suspicious, for coincidences do not occur so regularly in nature, he said, and the police were forced to agree.
Holmes, having started a hare, left the police to chase it and returned to Baker Street. I listened to his story over breakfast, as he explained what he uncovered thus far.
“There is always work the police can do better, Watson. Let them run about and ask questions, harass those who know nothing, or who insist they do not. My mandate was to d
iscover how Lily Klimpton and her sister-in-law came to their deaths, and that is what I shall investigate.”
I eyed him sharply. I knew that tone. Holmes had found a trail and he was not about to tell me of it.
I assumed a casual air. “Oh, well. I can leave my patients for a day should you find me useful, but if not, I must be away.”
I finished my cup of tea and stacked the breakfast dishes on the tray before retiring to my room, donning an overcoat and taking up my medical bag. I then departed our rooms and commenced my rounds, leaving my friend to consider his next move.
It is never any use pushing Holmes to talk. He often likes to make a mystery of what he knows and to spring it on you once the solution is wholly in his hands. However, I thought from his attitude that he could be near to the answers he sought, although I was at a loss to know on whom he had set his sights. Nor did I know if the disappearing men were related to the deaths of the two women.
I spent my day profitably, however, since two patients who had been quite ill were recovering nicely—and one even paid his bill.
I came home to find Holmes gone again, to the Isle his note said. I ate my dinner alone, wondering when I would see or hear from him next. That was not to be for three days, but fortunately, I could manage a day off when the summons came. I caught the next ferry.
Holmes met me when the ferry docked, indicated I should follow without asking questions. In silence we were driven to his rented abode, and once there he paid the driver. In silence we entered and sat at the kitchen table.
“The police are at a standstill,” he informed me, once it was certain no one was within earshot. “They agree that both women were likely murdered but having at last relinquished the idea that the Simeses were responsible for Lily’s death, they can settle on no other possible perpetrator. They did cast a look at the Farrells and ascertained that both have alibis, as does Wright, and others who might profit in some minor way from either death. I believe they are on the wrong track and have decided to go back to the beginning.”
“What is the beginning?” I inquired.
“Johnson’s death,” Holmes snapped. “There are other places in which one could start, but that was the event that led me to query events, and it is there we will begin anew.”
I began to see some light. “And it is as a doctor that you wish me to consider his death?”
“I do. The Farrells are good doctors in their way, but they have not your experience. In addition, you have established a friendship there, and I’m sure you can produce a reason for asking details of Johnson’s illness and death without them turning obstinate.”
I whistled softly—and rather vulgarly. “You think he, too, was murdered.”
“It is a possibility. If that is so, it is for you to find the proof.”
“And if that is not possible, Holmes?”
His face fell into harsh lines. “Then we must make shift without it.”
11
No easy task, I thought, but Holmes was right. I had established a moderate friendship—based on my liking for the older man, and his respect for my ability—with the Doctors Farrell, and if I asked tactfully, it was possible I would be permitted to look over the case notes.
Kyle Johnson explained that his brother had a weakness of the lungs, and that, while still in London, a specialist—a Mr. John Ward, of whom I knew—diagnosed that his patient suffered from a slight debilitation of the heart and a pulmonary weakness. Armed with this information I walked to the surgery and found the elder Farrell ready to chat. His son was on his rounds and not expected back before lunchtime, if then.
I accepted Farrell’s offer of a drink, sat in their kitchen and allowed him to talk. By degrees I shifted the discussion to the death of Alistair Johnson and enquired respectfully as to his own diagnosis of what caused the death and the symptoms the patient exhibited. He produced his case notes and read from them, happily talking of the man since, as he explained, Johnson was dead, and I was a colleague. It could do his patient no harm and might turn up something that would aid future patients.
“The Simeses tell me their mother was happy that her employer was never in pain,” I informed him. “It takes experience to ensure that is so. So often young doctors are not able to do so, as you will be aware.”
“I would not quite agree with that way of putting it,” James Farrell said, nevertheless looking flattered. “I provided him with laudanum, which aided in keeping the occasional harsher pain at bay. Yet he suffered considerable discomfort at times, and he had certain symptoms that, as a gentleman, he found distressing. I believe he hid most of those episodes from Lily. And some of the effects were such that she may not have liked to recount them to her family had she even known of them.”
I enquired further, and Farrell was forthright in his explanation. “He suffered from both vomiting and diarrhea. The latter was sometimes of an explosive nature, without much warning. Either symptom tended to appear within an hour after he ate, and oftentimes also after he returned from being out of the house. I assumed those episodes were brought on by physical exertion, since he still often walked wherever he was going. I warned that he should walk less and only shorter distances, but he took no notice.”
I showed no sign, but I came to attention at the symptoms. They were most emphatically not those of heart or lung weaknesses.
Dr. Farrell continued. “He made certain to avoid Lily when he returned from town, or immediately after a meal. He also donned additional undergarments to prevent his plight being obvious, should it occur while he was out.”
“He told you of this?”
“Yes.”
“Were there other symptoms allied to such events?”
Farrell looked surprised. “Perhaps half such occurrences were accompanied by…”
He became technical, and I listened closely. Once I mined all the information I could, I moved the discussion on to a patient of mine and received, with apparent gratitude, James Farrell’s—rather old-fashioned—suggestions as to treatment. We then discussed a recent advance in medicine I had read in a journal and I promised to send him a copy of that issue. I made my way home, after bidding my colleague a mutually amiable farewell, while excusing myself from remaining to share his lunch and see his son again.
I bounded up our path, shouted for Holmes, and on his appearance, I cast myself into a chair and sighed.
“You were right. Kyle Johnson said his brother had trouble with his heart and lungs, and the specialist agreed. There was nothing else wrong with his health. If that was what the man died from, however, I’d be amazed. The symptoms are far more akin to…” and here it was my turn to become technical.
“You endeavored to discover how often such symptoms came on?”
I had and could give particulars.
“And the occasions when that happened, was it usually after he had been out?”
“Yes. From that Farrell put it down to his catching a chill on the lungs. The heart pains he thought brought on by walks outside on colder days, those lung spasms straining the heart. I disagree most strongly. Mr. John Ward, a London specialist and an excellent man who is unlikely to have made a mistake in his diagnosis, treated Johnson for a weakness of heart and lungs. However, I consider it most probable that Johnson died from another cause entirely,” I said, and took a deep breath. “I agree that there was a minor congenital weakness of the heart, and that Alistair Johnson had also some trouble with his lungs. Yet his symptoms are not from those causes.”
“How then did the Farrells mistake them?”
“To be fair, with such dual health problems there can be a considerable range of indicators,” I explained. “One problem can act upon the other, and together produce other effects that one alone will not show. John Ward is known and esteemed, and they would not think to question his diagnosis. This conditioned them to see only what fitted with such a verdict. They ignored the symptoms that did not fit his account, and their only real error was that, since Ward did n
ot indicate the patient was likely to die from his troubles, they should have been more surprised when Johnson’s health worsened for no apparent cause and that he did die.”
“It took fifteen years for that to occur,” Holmes said neutrally.
“I do not consider that completely true,” I told him. “He showed no increase in his weaknesses for most of that time. They should have noticed that it was only in the last two or three years that he declined, and that occurred quite swiftly from the original onset.”
Holmes steepled his fingers and surveyed me over them. “Two or three years. And you think Johnson died neither from heart nor lung trouble?”
“That is so.”
“You think it poison of some sort, instead?”
“I do.”
“But the man has now been dead and buried for some months. Lily Klimpton, who might have given evidence as to the severity, duration, and some aspects of his demise, can no longer do so, and the Farrells will say, should they be asked officially, that Johnson died from natural causes. Both will be adamant, so along with the letter from this specialist, the police have no case,” Holmes summed up.
I could only nod my agreement. “You have suspected this possibility from the beginning?” I charged him.
“No, but my suspicions grew as more evidence came to light. The sequence of events made sense only if Johnson had been murdered. That fitted in with the pattern of disappearances, as did Lily’s death. Someone wanted her silenced urgently, as they did with her sister-in-law. Something we said suggested Grace Klimpton should ask questions of a certain person. She did ask them, and it cost her life.”
“You know who is responsible for all this?”
“I suspect. As yet I have no convincing proof,” was my friend’s reply. “However, I know where I may find some of what is required, and I shall, myself, provide the other portion.” He stood up. “Return to Baker Street.” I protested. “No, Watson, be sure I shall call for your assistance if you are needed.”
And that assurance I accepted.
* * * *
Sherlock Holmes - Found Dead Page 26