by David Marcum
“What, come to give up already? I promise I’ll make your ends quick.”
“I am afraid not,” replied Holmes. “I wish to know how it is you are so certain that Carmela was poisoned, and that Mr. Thorn here was responsible.”
“Simple enough. You two - fetch Edwards.” Gutterman’s minions scuttled hastily away.
“I met Carmela earlier in the evening. She complained of a headache and a poor night’s sleep. I urged her to take some sort of tonic but she refused, for she considered modern medicine so much quackery. As she was adamant, I instead went and fetched her some warm milk. No sooner had I brought it than an urgent piece of business called me away. It was some two hours before I could return.
“She was my confidant, you know,” continued Gutterman. “For the most part I simply spoke aloud my troubles, and in doing so found that it helped order my thoughts. She is... was a superb listener - an uncannily rare trait.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes.
“However, I also found that she could bring a uniquely underhanded, feminine sort of perspective to most issues. There was a crafty mind lurking beneath that lovely façade.
“In any case, I returned to Carmela’s quarters. I knocked, but there was no reply. Letting myself in, I saw her apparently asleep. But her appearance bothered me, for it was grey and ashen, and her lips were blue. Moving closer, I noticed she was hardly breathing. I called for help, but she expired in my arms before assistance could arrive.” At the end of his statement, he stared murderously at Thorn. The assassin did not shy away, but responded with a cold equanimity.
At that moment, Gutterman’s two earlier companions reentered, bringing with them a short, nervous-looking fellow, young and slight of build. “Y-yes, boss?” he stammered.
Gutterman ignored him. “Before I could even collect my thoughts, however, Thorn’s villainy was exposed for all to see. A half-eaten pudding lay on a nearby table, one of the tavern cook’s specialties. Not all of us were so overcome with grief as I.” He turned to our new arrival. “Edwards here spotted the pudding. While we stood about, attempting to discover what disaster had befallen someone so dear to me, our friend decided to help himself to a late-evening repast, didn’t you, Edwards?”
“Y-yes. I figured that she was dead and all, and it seemed a shame for Mikey - that’s the cook - Mikey’s work to go to waste. She wasn’t going to eat it, after all.” He must have noticed the thunderclouds gathering in Gutterman’s eyes, for he hurried on. “Anyways, I swallowed it all down right quick, and it tasted the same as always. But then real soon I started to feel funny. I felt sleepy, and then, well, I don’t remember much afterwards.”
“Eventually I got hold of myself,” said Gutterman. “I ordered everyone to leave, and everyone did, except Edwards. He just stood there, holding that empty bowl of pudding with the look of a sheep to the sausagemaker. I asked him what in the blazes he was doing. His responses were slow, distant - as though we communicated by telegram. At last, I told him to get out, and he did, still holding that blasted bowl, but only reached the hallway and came to a stop facing the wall.”
“In short, we soon figured what he had done and spoke to the cook. Mikey said that only one person had ordered a pudding in the past few hours - Thorn, an hour prior.” The room collectively turned to face the accused.
“Bah. That’s your evidence?” Thorn rejoindered. “Soporifics are for amateurs. You know prussic acid is my tool of choice.”
“Indeed I do, and you know that I know, which is why it made perfect sense for you to have chosen something else from your pharmacological arsenal. If you think I’m going to believe that this is all some unfortunate coincidence then you are a fool.”
“Had Carmela expressed any thoughts of suicide?” asked Holmes.
“No,” both Thorn and Gutterman said as one. They eyed each other with distaste.
“What of her health?” I asked. “Was she afflicted by any condition or illness, or had she displayed the symptoms of such in recent memory?”
“Not that I know of,” replied Gutterman.
“Very good,” said Holmes. “I would like to examine Miss Carmela’s quarters.”
“I’ll have the key brought to you. Know that all exits are under surveillance, gentlemen, including those to the roof, and the windows are barred. Any attempt at forgoing our hospitality will be futile.”
“Such a suspicious turn of mind, Gutterman,” prodded Thorn. “Have you ever considered a life of crime?”
“I’ll treasure your jests come the dawn, as I watch your corpse bob up and down in the Thames. Now go.”
The chamber where Carmela had spent her final hours upon this earth was large for a tavern; I suspect Gutterman had provided the best available. It was modestly appointed, with few fripperies or other feminine elements besides the faint scent of hyacinth still lingering in the air. A small shelf above the bed contained well-thumbed volumes of Thackeray and Caballero, and later works by Posada. A hefty writing desk dominated the room, facing the window. The room showed signs of having hosted a large number of visitors recently, no doubt all those which responded to Gutterman’s initial hue and cry.
“You might well have marched a herd of Jersey’s finest through here, for all the damage done,” lamented Holmes.
Though we had left Baker Street in haste, no coat of his was without a lens. Producing one from his pocket, he set to the room, minutely examining the skirting, the headboard of the bed, and then beneath it. He emerged from underneath holding a glass, presumably knocked over in yesterday’s confusion, which looked to have contained milk. Giving it a sniff, he pondered a moment before setting it down on a nearby end table and diving underneath once more. Thorn and I could but watch, uncomfortably aware of the ticking clock.
Once his more exacting investigations had been completed, he strode to the desk and began rifling through its drawers. All he produced was an especially fine pen.
“Curious,” said Holmes.
“What is it?” asked I.
“What do you see in this desk?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Precisely, Doctor. We have the room of an educated woman, a fine writing desk, and an expensive pen. And yet there is no foolscap or other writing materials to be found. I can believe that someone might have made off with the pudding, but not even the most itchy-fingered of fellows would be tempted by paper.”
We began digging about, searching under the mattress, in the closet, and, to my embarrassment, through her clothing. Nothing was concealed amongst a host of lacy unmentionables, and Thorn’s pleasure at my discomfort only heightened my dislike of the man.
“Ah!” cried Holmes. His investigations had revealed a false bottom to the desk’s centre drawer. Within lay a small journal, filled with page after page of neat, spindly writing.
“I was not aware she kept a diary,” said Thorn, with evident unease. “Perhaps if I had a look...”
Holmes ignored him, rapidly flipping to the later entries. Soon he began to read aloud.
Heinrich Gutterman is admittedly repulsive, but beneath his brutish exterior lie hidden depths. He had been eying me for some time, this I know, but had made no overt gesture. Until now. Yesterday the man approached me as I drank alone in the Arms. He bluntly warned me that the life I had fallen into was a dangerous one, but would be markedly less so should I have a protector.
“Oh?” I said, my scepticism plain, I have little doubt. “And just what is the price for this oh-so-generous patronage of yours?” I have had similarly altruistic offers time and again. In hindsight it was foolish, for what could I have done should he have pressed the point, there in the heart of his power? But I’ve little patience for imbeciles.
Blessed Mary, would you believe the man blushed? This thief and blackmailer and coiner, this man who would gamble away his own mother, he redd
ened and averted his eyes! “I remember you, girl, at your father’s deathbed,” he said. “I knew him well, worked with him in the old days, before the sickness and the laudanum took hold, and owed him a mighty debt. I would tell everyone that I have taken you for a lover, though it need not be true if you do not wish it. The business of crime is a lonely one. Should you merely consent to accompany me from time to time, I would consider that more than reward enough.”
“Oh ho ho!” cried Thorn. “Gutterman the bashful, Gutterman the prince charming! My heart fills to bursting at his nobility.”
I did my best to ignore him. “Holmes, I presume there is more?”
He flipped further along.
“And now you enter our little tableau, Mr. Thorn.”
Compared to Heinrich, Julian Thorn is a brute of a different sort. I know he kills for a living. That I suspect he enjoys it is what I find most disconcerting. Heinrich kills, as have I, but it is always a part of business, a fate meted out to those who willingly play our game and understand its rules. Somehow, I find that more palatable. And yet, I cannot deny how handsome he - “Yes, yes,” Holmes said, with some exasperation. “Let me see now... ah! This is interesting.”
Whereas the others see me as a bit of decoration, Julian realises just what I must hear in all my time with Heinrich. He presses me for details, but he shares my affections, not my confidences.
Holmes searched further. “Here we are. Roughly what I expected.”
“What is it?” asked I.
Julian brought a lovely pudding today, a new creation of Michael. It proved delicious.
“Yes, what of it?” asked Thorn. “It was indeed delicious. She expressed obvious delight at the concoction, and I continued to bring them.”
“All well and good, but consider this.” Julian has been returning more regularly, though we continue to be secretive, for to be caught would be to undermine Heinrich’s authority, triggering his wrath. Always he brings with him Michael’s delicious pudding; it has become our little ritual. Oddly, I remember little of our evenings together as of late, or even of preparing for sleep and the like. I wake up, wondering how I found my way into bed. I dare not tell Heinrich, for the man would insist on forcing some useless snake oil upon me.
“It would appear that the proof truly was in the pudding,” said Holmes.
“My God, Gutterman was right,” I said in horror. “You did poison her.”
“No, I can explain!” cried Thorn. “As you witnessed in our initial interview, I have some skill with mesmerism. It is excellent for bending the will of others to your own, but a recurring difficulty has been that the exceptionally slow or strong of will frequently prove immune. Now, are you familiar with hyoscine?”
“It is an anti-spasmatic, amongst other things,” I recalled, “commonly administered to women in labour, as it induces a sort of reverie in which pain is mitigated.”
“Exactement. What you won’t find in The Lancet is that it has a further property. Recently I discovered that those who take hyoscine become fantastically vulnerable to suggestion. Combined with mesmerism, it has enabled me to pry information loose from even the most recalcitrant of subjects. And, most wonderfully, the subject does not even recall the episode afterwards.”
“Such as Miss Carmela?” I said.
“Yes. I planned to move against Gutterman, to take hold of his enterprise, for why should I slave away to earn my keep when I could instead sit in a fine manor and watch the profits roll in, as that fat oaf does now? I loved Carmela, but she had the information I needed to unseat Gutterman, and would not part with it. I would thus dose her puddings and extract what I required. She revealed a great deal about Gutterman’s affairs.”
This grotesque violation horrified me, but for Holmes there was only his investigation. “Describe last night’s meeting with your paramour, beginning from the moment you entered the room,” he instructed. “Focus on her behaviours and, most especially, her actions, no matter how seemingly trivial.”
Thorn closed his eyes as he tried to recollect. “Let us see. I entered. She was poring over her Thackeray... she complained again of her headache. I gave her the pudding, and we made small talk while she ate. She washed it down with some milk. Really, it all seems very mundane.”
“And how went your interrogation of Miss Carmela?” Holmes asked.
He winced. “You make it sound so sordid. If you must know, badly. She seemed unable to focus. I halted early and put her to bed.”
“And so your amateur chemistry killed her,” I accused. “And in doing so, you have killed us all.”
Thorn shook his head, a look of panic in his eyes. “It can’t be. I did not confess to this earlier because I knew it would cast suspicion upon me. But I am a master. I know my doses, sir!”
“Indeed you do,” said Holmes, pocketing the journal. “It is time to call upon Herr Gutterman once more.”
“What for?” I asked.
“I know who killed Carmela.”
Holmes had requested a private meeting, and so we assembled in another decrepit side chamber. Seated at the wine-stained table were Gutterman, Thorn, Holmes, and myself, while Dudley guarded the door.
“The sands run down, Mr. Holmes,” crowed Gutterman. “Make things easy on yourself. Admit your defeat.”
“The basis of your case against Mr. Thorn is that Carmela ate half of the pudding, and subsequently died, correct?” asked Holmes.
“You know that it is.”
“You have made the mistake of confusing correlation with causation. If half the pudding was enough to result in death, then why did Edwards - he of the inappropriate appetite - not also fall prey to it? A small man, his weight was similar to Carmela’s, as was his age.”
Gutterman had apparently not considered this. “Innate resistance, his sex, or other irregularities may have been responsible,” he hazarded.
“Perhaps,” Holmes allowed, the touch made. “Tell me of Carmela’s father.”
“Old Man Espina? The better cracksman has yet to be born, but he’s been dead for well-nigh twenty years. How does he figure in this?”
“His last days were not pleasant, were they?”
“No, no, they were not,” recalled Gutterman with a grimace. “A malignancy wasted him away to nothing in the space of a year. Despite the best efforts of any number of doctors, he spent the last long weeks of life split between terrible agony and a laudanum-soaked fog. How I miss that crazy Spaniard.” His eyes, grown distant, snapped back to the here and now. “What’s the meaning of this, Holmes? Do you seek to distract me with memories of a dear friend? It won’t work.”
“No. I simply raise the matter because Carmela witnessed her father’s last days, did she not?”
“She did.”
“And this ordeal gave her a great dislike of doctors, medicine, and especially laudanum, correct?”
“I won’t say she made any secret of it, but how on earth did you learn of this? And what is the point? Damn your eyes, who killed Carmela?”
“You did. And Thorn. Together.”
The two criminals faced one other, dumbstruck.
“Mr. Holmes,” said Gutterman in a clipped, emotionless tone, “you have but seconds before Dudley wrenches your head from your shoulders. I suggest you employ them wisely, explaining the meaning of that statement.”
“When I searched Carmela’s room, beneath her bed I found a glass which had contained milk. As I recall, you confessed to personally fetching her such when she complained of a headache and insomnia.”
“Milk, that most deadly of agents. Yes, I did.”
“Did you see her consume any?”
Gutterman frowned. “No.”
“She had a glass of milk when I arrived,” recalled Thorn. “It appeared untouched. I observed her drink it with the pudding.”
“As I suspected,” said Holmes. “Carmela disliked medicine, and especially laudanum, so you knew that you could never convince her to take any, Herr Gutterman. At least, not voluntarily. You surreptitiously added a heavy dose of laudanum to the milk, with a bit of honey to conceal the flavour. I noted a residual odour in the glass. It is quite distinctive.”
“Very well, I did. But I have been using laudanum for years. I know that the dose I administered would have sent her into a deep sleep, but it was nowhere near enough to kill her.”
“True. However, enter Julian Thorn.” The assassin tensed as Holmes unexpectedly raised the spectre of his involvement. “Mr. Thorn was also aware of Carmela’s dislike of medicinals. She spoke freely of her discomfort, and he brought her a pudding laced with an agent which also induced a deep sleep. You witnessed its effects when young Edwards consumed the remnants.”
It was the truth, judiciously edited. Thorn stared at Holmes in astonishment, but thankfully remained silent.
“Half the pudding did not kill Edwards because its agent was never intended to kill,” continued the detective. “Only an amateur would leave behind evidence so readily traced. But, coupled with the milk, it meant that there were two agents. Consumed simultaneously, and each a soporific, when combined they had a multiplicative effect. Either would have produced a sound slumber. Together they produced the sleep of death.”
Holmes stood, addressing Gutterman one final time.
“I was to prove Mr. Thorn not guilty of murder. This I have done. His actions were your actions. To condemn him would be to condemn yourself. Neither of you respected Miss Carmela’s wishes. Each of you thought you knew best, and your casual disregard resulted in her death. Good-evening, gentlemen.”
And with that, Holmes and I vacated the premises.
Our exit was unhindered, Dudley escorting us to the surface. Halting at the threshold, he gave us a small, respectful nod before descending back into the bowels of that horrid place. Rarely had I been so glad to breathe the London air.