by Marvin Kaye
“And did your fiancé’s brother call him a cheat?” I asked.
“No, sir! Frankie caught him cheating in a match against Mr Albert Tenant, another member, sir. Lord Fletcher took an illegal drop and wanted Frankie to say that it was legal and Frankie-boy would not, God bless him. You see, sir, there was a good deal of money bet―excuse me sir―wagered on the game.”
Holmes looked quizzically at me. “Illegal drop?” he asked.
“You are penalised one stroke, and sometimes two strokes, when your ball is out of bounds,” said I. “One drops the ball and assesses the penalty to the score. It sounds as if Lord Fletcher removed his ball from a hazard of some type and dropped it on a flat lie where he could easily hit a good shot.”
“A cheat,” said Holmes.
“Yes, sir!” exclaimed Miss O’Reilly. “A cheat he was, sir, and if any man deserved what he got, it was him, God rest his soul, but my Charlie would never had done somethin’ such as that. He might have said he wished him dead and all, but he told me in the kitchen he wanted only to talk to his Lordship, to ask him to let Frankie back in, for God knows the family can use the money. Charlie hated Lord Fletcher, but he would not kill him. Charlie would not step on a bug, God bless him.”
“And has Mr Daley spoken to you since?” asked Holmes.
“Why, sir, my Charlie told me the whole story from his cell. He planned to ask Lord Fletcher near the eighteenth.”
“Eighteenth?” asked Holmes.
“The last hole in a series of holes,” I explained.
“I see,” said Holmes. “Please continue, Miss.”
“Well, they never got there, sir. You see the Lord Fletcher always hits the ball off to the right on number eleven hole, a four par, and there’s a good lot of trees there near the Blackheath Clubhouse.”
“Near the clubhouse, you say,” said Holmes.
“Yes, sir. Very near. And like always, the Lord Fletcher searches for his ball so that he’s not penalised and he, of course, finds it every time and pops it out on the short grass. Everyone knows he throws a new ball out as my Charlie will swear, knowing the man falsely uses another ball he keeps in his pocket. So this time, Charlie tells me, Lord Fletcher calls out to him that, of course, he has found the ball and so Charlie waits, like always, for it to miraculously come flyin’ out of the woods, but instead he hears three or four sharp cracks and a yell of a sort. Charlie, he waits a while and then calls out for Lord Fletcher but hears no reply, he does. So Charlie goes into the woods, and what’s there but the man dead or unconscious, he did not know, but the side of his head all covered with blood, you know.”
“Did your fiancé say which side?” asked Holmes.
“Which side of what, sir?”
“Of his head. On which side of the head was the wound?”
“Oh, that. Yes, sir. This side.” She touched the left side of her head. “And then Charlie, scared like he was, left the clubs and bag there and ran to the caddie master for help, he did.”
“The lad should have gone to the clubhouse, where perhaps a doctor was available,” said I.
“No, sir, Dr Watson. I mean, yes, sir, but my Charlie was afraid they would blame him if he went there, because of Frankie-boy and all, and they would and did, you know, but he is innocent, I know he is. Oh, Mr Holmes.”
Again, she left her chair and lay her head in Holmes’s lap. I gently lifted her back.
“He did not do it, sir,” said she through tears. “You do not believe he did, do you, sir?”
Holmes said nothing for a moment and did not speak until he had taken three puffs of contemplation on the clay pipe.
“No, Miss O’Reilly, I do not believe Mr Daley committed the crime.”
“Why is that, Holmes?” I asked.
“Well, Watson, how could someone who is about to marry one as lovely as our Miss O’Reilly risk incarceration by committing a murder with nothing to gain from the act. And besides, he went for help when he surely could have run away. Now, Miss O’Reilly, may I ask, is Mr Daley right or left-handed?”
“Right, sir.”
“Yes, as I thought he might be. Thank you for coming on such short notice. You can be assured Dr Watson and I will be on the train in the morning, headed for Eltham, where I am quite certain we will soon prove Mr Daley’s innocence to the local constabularies.”
Miss O’Reilly bounded into Holmes’s arms and, once again, kissed him with such affection, I believe Holmes was set to run from the room.
“Thank you, sir. Oh, thank you, thank you!” The pretty thing prattled on until Mrs Hudson politely closed the outside door.
Holmes turned to me. “Now, Watson. Explain this foolish game to me and spare no details.”
And so, for the next few hours, that is what I did.
The next day I met Holmes at his residence and we shared a ride to the train station. Though the coal smoke blocked much of the view, it was a pleasant trip to Eltham. We rented a hansom to Royal Blackheath, where we met as prearranged with the tall, fair-haired, always eager, and always skeptical, Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard.
“Good morning, Holmes, Dr Watson,” said he. “I am afraid this is a waste of yours and the Yard’s time. The boy has not confessed as yet, but it is, if I may use a cliché, an open and shut case. The young Mr Daley was overheard in the clubhouse kitchen commenting that Lord Fletcher deserved to die for his cheating and bullying, and his part in the termination of one Francis Daley from the services of the club. That, and the blood on the lad’s hands and inside his fingernails made our work quite the easier, Holmes.”
“Ah, Inspector,” said Holmes. “As usual you have come to a conclusion that fits your hypothesis. When will the obvious points of the case steer you not to the obvious, but to the truth?”
“Yes, yes,” said Gregson, merely abiding Holmes’s criticism. “Now, how may I be of assistance to the famous Sherlock Holmes and his faithful assistant, Dr Watson?”
Holmes strode towards the clubhouse. “First sir, I would like to observe the scene of the crime. I believe Miss O’Reilly said it was the eleventh grassway?”
“Fairway, Holmes,” said I.
“Yes—fairway. I believe it is close, yes?”
“Right this way, Holmes,” said Gregson. “Mind yourself. You will not want one of the fine members of the Royal to punt a gutta-percha aside your brilliant head, now.”
“Gutta-percha?” asked Holmes.
“A golf ball, Holmes,” said I.
“Ah, yes. Fascinating sport. Like cricket, only boring.”
We walked three hundred feet or so to the wooded area lining the eleventh fairway where so many of the members struck their wayward shots. Pushing aside large bushes, we found where Lord Fletcher met his unenviable end.
“This is it, all right,” said the inspector. “The body was found here, still warm, by the caddie master. Mr Daley brought him right to it, being the murderer and what.”
“Alleged,” said Holmes.
“That’s right, Holmes. Alleged. But there is no denying how his Lordship met his demise. The boy crushed his head in badly with a golf club from the man’s own bag and did him in with several blows, it seems. You can see the blood stain still remains.” The inspector pointed to the red-tainted grass. “He smashed him with a spoon, we believe, three or four times, maybe more. The poor Lordship’s face was nearly unrecognizable from the ferocity of the attack. The boy must have been in a frenzy, yes, sir, a frenzy, to administer so many blows.”
“To the left side of the head, yes?” asked Holmes.
“’At’s right.”
“And the club the attacker used was a spoon.”
“Yes, sir. The spoon is the one club missing from the bag.”
“I see,” said Holmes, now observing the bloody grass with a magnifying glass. “Let me ask you, Inspector, why do you thi
nk Mr Daley ran back to the caddie master to obtain help?”
“Well, sir,” said the inspector, “we believe he thought the suspicion would stray elsewhere if he acted innocent of the crime and reported it hisself. A bright boy, but not bright enough. We have seen similar cases where the perpetrator tried to cover his crime by reporting it. He’s as guilty as they come. Threatened the man and then followed through with the deed.”
“Mr Daley is right-handed,” said Holmes.
“He is, but we have that resolved, sir. We believe Daley followed Lord Fletcher into the woods and waited until the man concentrated on finding his ball and then ambushed him from the front with a blow of the spoon. Once the man had fallen, Daley bludgeoned him several more times.”
“Perhaps,” said Holmes, “but I am quite certain most ambushes, as you say, would come from behind and not in front, would not you agree, inspector?”
“Not in this case, Holmes. He hit him from the front. No doubt about that. Now. Are we finished here?”
“A moment,” said Holmes. He proceeded to observe the grass with great concentration. I suspected he was reenacting the crime by way of the footprints as he had in so many previous cases. After several minutes he asked the inspector, “May I see the body?”
The inspector gestured helplessly with open hands.
“A bit unusual, Holmes, but I suppose it can be arranged. We may be too late, but I believe a trip to the morgue is possible. No next of kin as far as we can ascertain and a good deal of money and land at stake. It seems Fletcher is not who he claimed to be.”
“Fascinating,” said I. “And who is he, actually?”
“We’re not sure. Still looking into the mystery, but it seems Lord Douglas Fletcher just appeared only fifteen years ago in Glasgow, with both money and a new name. It is a puzzling question, but soon solved. Right. Now, off to the morgue.”
I must say that in my years as a physician, I had never seen a more gruesome sight than the morbidly disfigured and bloated face of Lord Fletcher, or whomever the impostor upon the coroner’s table before us was. I believed even a close relative would have been unable to identify the man. It was quite disturbing.
“And what would you deduce of our murderer from what you see before you, Watson?” asked Holmes.
“Rather gruesome. I would say the pummeling of Lord Fletcher’s face was the work of a very angry and determined man. The murderer hated Lord Fletcher quite dearly, I would say.”
“Yes, I am in total agreement. The disfigurement of Lord Fletcher’s face went well beyond a murder. This, I believe, is vengeance of the worst kind, Inspector. And he was bludgeoned with his own golf club.”
“Indeed, he was.”
“And have you recovered the murder weapon?”
“We have not found it as of yet, sir.”
“I see. You said Lord Fletcher was killed with his own spoon, because it is missing from his quiver.”
“That would be bag, Holmes, not quiver,” said I.
“Yes, of course. His bag, then.”
“That is exactly the case,” said the inspector. “The perpetrator, in this case Daley, undoubtedly absconded with the weapon to cover up the deed, but we shall find it either at the golf course or at his residence.”
Holmes lit his pipe and sucked deeply in silence. The combination of the pungent tobacco mixed with the decaying Lord Fletcher had a miserable effect on my insides. I excused myself and retired outside to inhale a bit of the clean, cold air the countryside was so famous for. Soon Holmes and Inspector Gregson joined me.
Holmes was examining something miniscule lying in the palm of his hand. After a moment, he peered at it with his magnifying glass.
“Something of interest?” I asked.
“Yes, indeed, Watson,” said Holmes. “I noticed a small sliver of wood stuck to a rather ghastly wound on Lord Fletcher’s temple and the good Inspector Gregson has given me permission to analyse the evidence back in my laboratory.”
“Against the rules and all,” said the inspector, “but I would be the first to admit Mr Sherlock Holmes has better analyzing equipment than the Yard. Besides, if it is part of the spoon Daley used on his Lordship, it will be just one more nail in Daley’s coffin, when we find where he stashed the weapon.”
“Ah, inspector, but the young lad did not stash it, as you say, because I believe he never saw the weapon. Perhaps this small and insignificant splinter will prove that, after all.”
Holmes climbed into the carriage and gestured for us to join him.
“Now,” said he, “to Blackheath, first, and then Baker Street, for experimentation and scientific hypothesizing. Then back here early tomorrow to solve the case and hand over the true murderer to the inspector.”
“I will believe that when I see it,” said the inspector.
“And you will,” said Holmes. “Oh, and, Inspector, I should like a sample of wood from one of Lord Fletcher’s golf clubs today, and then tomorrow I wish to conduct several interviews with employees and members of Royal Blackheath.”
“Do as you wish as it is a waste of your time, sir. Just return me the evidence when your tests are complete and inform me of any results that pertain to the case.”
We were off in a flash to Royal Blackheath and then to the depot, and a good thing it was, as Mrs Watson dislikes tardiness when she cooks a well-cut piece of lamb. I did not ask Holmes to join us, for I was certain his experiments would keep him from dining at all that night.
It took Mrs Hudson a great deal of time, I fear, to wake Holmes the next morning, as the detective spent most of the previous night experimenting on the two slivers of wood. Holmes bounded down the final three steps of his residence where Inspector Gregson and I met him.
“Good news, my friends,” said Holmes.
“And what news would that be, Holmes?” asked the inspector.
“Ah, excellent news, and especially for young Daley.” Holmes held out two slivers of wood. “I have here evidence that Lord Fletcher was not murdered with his own golf club.”
“How in heaven were you able to deduce that, Holmes?” said I.
“It was a simple experiment, but one I performed numerous times to be sure of the results. I checked for the specific gravity of both the sliver of wood removed from the late Lord Fletcher and the sample from one of his golf clubs. Though similar in appearance, the sample from the golf club tested at .650 which would be in the range of say, a beechwood, whereas the wood sample removed from the wound tested at .760, which would be more consistent with American hickory, which I believe you said is becoming more popular in the sport, Watson.”
“Um—yes. I did mention it in our long discussion of the game.”
“I don’t see how that proves the innocence of Daley,” said the inspector. “He could have used a wood of hickory, couldn’t he?”
“Unlikely,” said Holmes. “Why go to the trouble of retrieving a club from, say, the caddie area, when there were clubs aplenty in Fletcher’s bag. Unlikely.”
“Yes, well,” said the inspector, “that doesn’t explain the missing spoon.”
“That has me baffled, also,” said Holmes. “But I can assure you, wherever it is, it was not used to bludgeon Lord Fletcher. Perhaps he lost it previously, or never had one.”
“I suppose that could be the case,” said the inspector. “Well, you will have to go without me, Holmes. We are close to finding Fletcher’s true identity. Word from Scotland should arrive soon. If you wish to secure Mr Daley’s freedom, it will help if you found the true criminal.”
“And I shall, Inspector. Come, Watson. Off to find the culprit. I believe he will have in his possession a chipped, hickory wood golf club.”
Instead of going directly to Royal Blackheath to search for a marred club, Holmes insisted we visit Daley in the local gaol. What he hoped to gather from the accused I could not su
rmise. The boy had a worried, somber look upon his face as he sat pensively across from us in a visiting area. A local constable stood nearby. Daley was as handsome as Miss O’Reilly was beautiful. Once wed, I should say they would have quite attractive offspring.
“I had nothing to do with Lord Fletcher’s murder,” the boy started. “I heard him yell from the thicket and ran to help. He was dead before I pushed through the brush. I lifted his head. It was horrible, Mr Holmes. I ran back right away for help. The caddie master was nearby. There was no delay. And then they arrest me, because someone had heard me say earlier I wished him dead, but I was angry, though it was not in my mind to do him harm. You believe me, sirs, do you not?”
“Yes, of course,” said Holmes. “I came only to ask you what happened to Lord Fletcher’s spoon.”
“The police have already asked, sir. I told them what I will tell you. Lord Fletcher took it with him into the woods, but it was not with him when I found him all—” The boy held his head in his hands.
“Now, now, lad. You need not worry. The lovely Miss O’Reilly has brought me to your rescue, and that is what Dr Watson and I intend to do.”
“How is Mary? They only let me see her the one time.”
“She is admirable,” said I. “Soon, we will have her in your arms.”
“Oh, thank you, sir, and you, Mr Holmes.”
We said our goodbyes and took a hansom to the golf club. There, in the caddie house, the master allowed us to inspect the members’ golf clubs. Holmes found the murder weapon almost immediately. He held it out to me.
“Hickory, Watson. Notice the small chip of wood missing.” He placed the sliver of wood removed from the late Lord Fletcher over the bare spot. It fit perfectly. “And it is a left-handed club, as I expected.”