A Study in Brimstone

by G. S. Denning

  This must have represented his entire opinion on the matter for, as soon as he had finished venting it, Warlock gave a satisfied little smile and then collapsed, face first, to the floor. Lestrade must have been used to such spectacles, for without moving to see to Holmes at all, he began to read over the strange speech he’d just transcribed into his notebook. He tapped his horrid fangs with the end of his pencil and muttered, “So, two of them, then. American—just as you guessed, Dr. Watson. Enoch Drebber, we have; now for this Joseph Strangerson…”

  “Did we… did we have a last name?” I asked from where I crouched, a comforting hand resting on Warlock’s twitching shoulder.

  “Son of Stranger,” Lestrade said. “That’s ‘Strangerson,’ almost certain. Spend more time with Holmes and you’ll start picking up on these things.”

  It boggled me, but I began considering. “If what Holmes said is true…”

  “Yup,” Grogsson grunted. “Always true.”

  “Well if they are American visitors, they must be staying somewhere,” I reflected. “Can you Scotland Yard fellows figure out where?”

  “Maybe,” Grogsson said, distastefully. “Lots uh work.”

  “Ah!” I said, snapping my fingers. “The finder! He that beheld the work! Who found the body? Is he still here?”

  Lestrade flipped through his notebook for a moment and said, “A constable, John Rance. He went home. Got his address here, if you want it.”

  “I want it,” I said. “Perhaps on the way back to Baker Street, Warlock and I might stop by to see if he really did behold him that did the deed!”

  6

  THIS IS HOW I KNOW MYSELF TO BE A MAN OF NO GREAT intelligence: in the cab, I was giddy with anticipation. When I was surrounded by doctors and nurses, who wished me to heal, I had been sullen and disconsolate. Now, surrounded by monsters and corpses, tracing the steps of a murderer, I could not have been merrier. The streets between Lauriston Gardens and Audley Court were every bit as dreary as the ones we’d journeyed through earlier. Yet somehow, in spite of the cold grayness of London, everything seemed to sparkle with possibility and intrigue. If we had not had a cab, I should have run to John Rance’s house.

  46 Audley Court was a humble dwelling, but I liked John Rance immediately, he being one of only three London constables who understood the letter H. Rance was tired. After all, he’d just come off an extra-long shift, with the added stress of having discovered a murder. He didn’t wish to speak to us at first, insisting he had already given a full report and police business was not to be disclosed to strange men who knocked upon your door just as you were beginning to dream. I’ll admit, he had me there. I began to despair of having any help from him, until his eyes fell and locked upon the half-sovereign Warlock was fidgeting with as he waited for me to conclude my business. Rance looked away from it when he addressed me, but his eyes always wandered back to the coin. He licked his lips. I had an idea.

  “Warlock, you should put that away, lest you lose it,” I said.

  “How would I lose it? It’s right here, in my hand.”

  “It is, but what if we went in and sat down with John, here? Suppose we sat in his kitchen and discussed what he saw. Why, when you got up again, you might well forget it and leave it on his table.”

  “Unlikely,” he scoffed.

  “Very likely,” said I. “In fact, I am certain that is exactly what is going to happen.”

  “Really?” asked Holmes.

  “Yes,” I said, eyeing Rance.

  Holmes regarded me with wonder and asked, “How can you tell?”

  In the end, Rance and I induced him to realize that we meant it as a bribe. I did feel a pang of guilt. Not only was I corrupting a constable (only slightly, I suppose), but I had also been rather free with Holmes’s money the previous week. Still, it was a coin well spent, for it yielded quite a story.

  Rance told us how he was drawn into the house at 3 Lauriston Gardens by the sight of a burning candle. His beat carried him past the house every day, so he knew it ought to be vacant. Drebber was quite dead when Rance found him and the room was empty of furniture and feature, other than the dead man with the note in his mouth and the pools of blood. Rance then ran back to the street and blew his whistle to summon the nearest fellow constable. When his comrade arrived, Rance sent him running to the local station for help while he himself stayed to guard the scene. It was well he did, for that is where his story took an interesting turn.

  “And what did you see after that?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Naught worth notin’ if you take my meanin’, sir. Rain fallin’, dargs barkin’, drunks swervin’.”

  “Drunks?” I asked.

  “Just one drunk, I guess.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Well… he was drunk,” Rance began, lamely. “Come up to me cryin’ bout this donut of his.”

  “Donut?” I wondered. “Exactly what is that?”

  “Some sort of pastry they’ve got over in the United States,” Rance explained. “I take it to be somethin’ like a real sweet crumpet, with a hole poked in, cooked in hot oil.”

  “A hole?”

  “Yeah, right through the middle.”

  “And exactly why,” I wished to know, “would any man in his right mind wish to pay another man to poke a hole in his crumpet?”

  Rance shrugged again. “Might be some advantage to it…”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, just think: you could hang fifty of ’em on a rod or a wire. Dip ’em in and cook ’em all at once, then pull the rod up and hang ’em all up to cool, neat as you like.”

  I gasped. I suppose I may have shed a tear then, for England and her empire. What hope was there for us? Against a people who would destroy the stately majesty of our favorite breakfast treat; a people who had actually industrialized the crumpet—how could we compete? The decline of our empire was thus presaged to me—as plain as a hole in a crumpet.

  “Monstrous,” I muttered.

  “Anyways,” Rance continued, “that drunk was lookin’ for one. Said he left it somewhere thereabouts and missed it summat terrible. Wanted me to find it, or any trace of it. Asked if I’d seen the wrapper, even.”

  Warlock and I exchanged a loaded glance. I asked Rance, “What did you say to him?”

  “Told him to stumble off, didn’t I? Had other worries last night, I did.”

  “I wonder, Constable Rance, did you examine the note in the dead man’s mouth?”

  “No, sir! I don’t go messin’ with no scene of no crime, not when ’spector Lestrade is comin’! He’d have my skin, he would. Mind, if Grogsson’s got the case, you might as well rifle the body, rob the place and draw a moustache on the corpse; he wouldn’t mind.”

  “I suppose not,” I agreed, then asked, “What became of the drunk?”

  “Oh, he didn’t want to go. I had to load him back into his cab and send him on his way.”

  “He had a cab waiting?”

  “No, sir, it was his cab. He were the cabby. Lots o’ them fellows drink more than they ought.”

  I had a growing doubt that the man had been drunk at all. Perhaps he’d been faking to seem less suspicious, or perhaps had been overwrought with emotion, having just killed a man. No, the actions of this killer—this poisoner—were calculated and sober. The fact that he had asked after the wrapper did make me suppose that Warlock’s prognostication was correct and this cabby had indeed been the killer. I asked Rance, “What had he been drinking?”

  “How should I know?” he replied.

  “Surely a constable on a beat like that knows the smell of whiskey! And wine, and gin. Which was it?”

  “Er… I don’t recall smellin’ nothin’ like that, sir.”

  This was as I had expected, though I could hardly take it as concrete proof that the man wasn’t drunk. John Rance, though well-meaning and dutiful, was not an especially observant patrolman. Even his physical description of the subject was lackluster. The man had
been large and athletically built, he recalled, with ruddy hair and an unkempt beard. His clothes were of standard workman’s cut and quality. Rance remembered the man had an unusual accent, but couldn’t place it. In the end, there was nothing to do but thank him and be on our way. As we left, I told Holmes, “I think we have it right; given Rance’s description, the fact that the wrapper is from Missouri and the murderer’s use of the word ‘donut,’ the overwhelming likelihood is that we are looking for an American-born cab driver.”

  Holmes nodded and said, “I too believe I have discovered a fact that will be pivotal to the solution of this case.”

  “And what is that?” I asked.

  Holmes smiled. “That my new friend, John, is really good at this sort of thing.”

  7

  EVEN IN MY PRIME, THE DAY’S EXERTIONS AND excitement would have caused me some weariness. But I was not in my prime; I was still recovering from my shoulder-shot, gut-sick Afghan misadventure. Thus, the instant we reached 221B Baker Street, I collapsed into my armchair before the hearth and slept.

  I woke at a quarter to eight, famished and bedewed with my own drool. It was not my hunger but the slamming door that stirred me from my rest. Holmes rushed in with the evening paper in his hands and a look of terror upon his face. “On your feet, Watson, the game is afoot and the wolf at our door! Or anyway, he should be at our door in as little as fifteen minutes.”

  Rubbing the sleep from my eyes and spittle from my chin, I asked him, “Whatever can you mean, Warlock?”

  “I think I owe you an apology,” he said and flicked the newspaper into my lap. It was open to the classifieds; one of the advertisements was circled in black ink, that I might identify the source of our strife.

  FOUND: one bakery wrapper, in the street outside No. 3 Lauriston Gardens. If the owner wishes to reclaim, I shall be in my rooms at 221B Baker Street, alone, unarmed and probably drunk from 8 p.m. until 9 p.m. I am physically feeble and my neighbors cannot hear loud, violent noises. Inquire Dr. John Watson, MD. Mother’s maiden name: Constance. Lloyds Bank account number: 8720764.

  “What the deuce is this, Holmes?” I howled.

  “The Times,” he said.

  “No, this advertisement! How has this happened?”

  “Well, I posted it myself, to lure the killer here.”

  “When?” I demanded. “It takes days to get an advertisment in The Times!”

  “I know. I think it was four, maybe five days ago that I submitted it.”

  “Ridiculous! How would you have known what to say?”

  “It was a surprise to me as well, I assure you,” he replied. “Though, I must say, it is nice to know what it means. I remember being quite baffled at the time.”

  “Why have you included my bank account number?”

  “Well, how should I know, Watson? To grant you increased verisimilitude, perhaps? This way, the killer can stop in at the bank and learn that there is indeed a Dr. John Watson residing at 221B Baker Street.”

  “And clean me out while he’s there, I suppose.”

  “Oh come now, Watson! Everybody knows you have no money to steal. I’m surprised that that one detail is what should concern you in any case! What is the theft of a few shillings, compared to the prospect of your murder? Well, I suppose I had better go.”

  “What? Go where?”

  “To get Grogsson, of course. We’ll want him here to intercept the killer. He’s just down the street. Shouldn’t take me more than twenty minutes, if the streets are clear. Back in a tick!”

  Holmes was already at the door, hat in hand.

  “Warlock! I may be dead by then!”

  “Nonsense, Watson,” he scoffed. “The poison probably takes a few minutes, don’t you think? Stall him for us. Shoot him, if you must. You’ve got a gun.”

  That was true; I had my service revolver. I was already mid-lunge, heading for the case I kept it in, when Warlock added, “I stripped it all down and cleaned it for you.”

  “Where did you put it?”

  “Why it’s… hmm… where did I put it?” he mused. “Ah! I recall that the chamber is on the bathroom sink. Tata, Watson. Good luck!”

  The chamber? I went pale. How clearly my mind’s eye could picture it: Holmes in a fine mood, humming one of his absurd little ditties, cheerily cleaning this pistol component and then the next, carelessly discarding one the instant he was ready for another.

  If somebody had asked me that morning whether I might be able to ravage all our rooms in eleven minutes, I should have said no. I would have been right, too. In thirteen minutes I could have done it, I think, but I ran out of time. I had the chamber, the carriage, the barrel, both halves of the handle, the revolving pin, the advance mechanism, the trigger and four bullets when I was interrupted by a knock at the door, promptly at eight. No hammer. I had no firing hammer. I let the pieces drop onto the dining table and called, “Yes?”

  “Dr. Watson?” said Mrs. Hudson, poking her head in at the door. “Lady here to see you, Doctor.”

  She swung the door wide. There, framed against my only reasonable route of escape, was a “lady” with a bulging purse and a copy of The Times. She was a strapping six-footer with well-muscled shoulders and a prominent Adam’s apple. Obviously she’d had some hurry getting here, for her face still bore traces of the lather she had used when shaving off her beard. The dress could not have been hers, for it was made for a person barely half her size, but the bonnet actually did suit.

  I’d say the disguise was insufficient to fool anybody, were it not for the fact that Mrs. Hudson had been taken in entirely. She fixed me with the first friendly smile I’d ever seen her perform and chirped, “Well, I’ll be off then. I hope you’ll not be wanting anything, Dr. Watson. It’s scrap-metal night and I’m just off to fire up the grinder. No, I won’t hear you call, I don’t think. Why, that old contraption would beat a brass band, wouldn’t it? Anyway, sure it’ll drown out any noise you two could make up here. Night all.”

  For a second, I thought Mrs. Hudson was leaving us alone because she would be happy to see me murdered, but the spritely glint in her eye gave me to realize she had other reasons. The idea that young, unmarried doctors might be willing to rendezvous with aged spinsters, unchaperoned in their quarters at night, was a source of great hope to her. Doubtless, she had several scandalous novels that began in exactly that manner. Her rusty old heart swelled with optimism, she tripped lightly down the stairs and was gone. The killer smiled and stepped through the doorway.

  Realizing my only hope lay in playing along, I croaked, “Good evening, Mrs…?”

  “Sawyer,” the killer said, effecting a pathetic impersonation of an elderly crone. “I come about the advertisement. Do you still got that wrapper?”

  “Just there, on the table; you’re welcome to it,” I said, nodding my head to where the bakery wrapper lay, beside the ineffectual pile of pistol parts.

  “Oh, God-a-mercy, thank ’ee, good sir.”

  “You’re very welcome. Good day.”

  “It belongs to me daughter, you see,” the murderer continued, visibly counting off his rehearsed speech on his fingers, point by point. “She married that Tom Dennis—regular fellow, he is, so long as he’s not in his drink. He’s true enough at sea, but in port, well, the women and the liquor they get the better of him. Oh sure, my good daughter was due for a savage beating had you not recovered her missing wrapper.”

  “How lucky that I did. Please, take it back to her.”

  “She lives at 3 Mayfield Place, Peckham and I live at 13 Duncan Street, Houndsditch. She was on her way to a circus that night, when she dropped the wrapper.”

  “Ha!” I cried. “3 Lauriston Gardens does not lie between Mayfield Place and any circus that was open on the night of… Wait… I don’t care. Please take it.”

  “Sally Sawyer, that was her name; now Sally Dennis since Tom Dennis wedded her. I have their marriage license here, if you care to see.”

  “Not necessary, please�
��”

  “Now ’ave a look, sir, and ye’ll know I speak true.”

  “Please, I believe anything you say, no matter how preposterous!” I pleaded. “I have no intention of fact-checking any of this! Just take the wrapper and go!”

  But he ignored me utterly and continued, “It was a token of their love you see.”

  I gave a deep sigh and muttered, “How odd, yet perfectly credible.”

  “It’s off the first donut what he bought her.”

  “I’m sure it was a very nice donut,” I said, which turned out to be a terrible mistake.

  The killer’s face went pale. A look of remorse and longing that would have drawn sympathy from the very stones crossed his face for a moment, but was chased away by a flood of vengeful hate that froze me where I stood. He howled with a rage so intense he managed to drown out Mrs. Hudson’s scrap grinder for a moment, then turned away to punch the wall. His fist shattered lath and plaster and sank in so deep I half fancied he’d broken through the opposite side as well.

  “That it was,” he told me, all pretense of the fictional Mrs. Sawyer gone from his voice. “The best one ever.”

  He closed his eyes, hung his head, withdrew his fist from the wall, then promptly plunged it through again, setting a second hole just six inches from the first.

  With trembling hands, I picked the wrapper up from the table. Inch by inch, though terror gripped my heart, I approached him. A sudden inspiration took me; as stealthily as my unsteady fingers could manage, I tore a tiny corner from the wrapper and placed it in my pocket. I forced myself across the room to where he stood, with his fist in the wall and his petticoat all in disarray. I placed the wrapper in his free hand, closed his fingers over it and squeaked, “It’s yours.”