Sherlock Holmes and the Seven Deadly Sins Murders

by Barry Day

  It was perfectly credible, therefore, that faced with such an outré occurrence, the powers-that-be should have placed the matter in this safest of safe pair of hands.

  “Victor was due to present the Opposition view on penal reform at approximately four p.m.,” Mycroft continued. “He was, like many of us …”—and here he glanced pointedly at Holmes—“a creature of meticulous habit. When delivering a prepared address such as this, he would invariably bring into the House and set beside him his notes, a carafe of water and a glass. Apparently, when called upon to speak this afternoon, he took up his place, arranged his notes in his usual fashion, poured himself a glass of water, took a sip, then began to speak.

  “Half way through his first sentence, he gasped, clutched his throat and fell forward. As you may imagine—pandemonium ensued. He was taken to the infirmary but was pronounced dead on arrival. Scotland Yard is naturally conducting an autopsy but preliminary examination suggests one of the faster acting poisons, such as cyanide, perhaps masked by the touch of lemon Victor liked to add to the water.

  “I was sent for post haste and was the only one allowed into his private room …”

  “And what did you find?” Holmes was leaning forward intently, his bony fingers clasped in front of him.

  “The room had clearly been searched but not particularly disturbed. The only things that had obviously been rearranged were …”

  “His books,” Holmes finished for him.

  “Just so.” It was as much a question as a comment but Holmes motioned to his brother to continue.

  “Victor liked to keep everything in logical order. He was something of a fanatic in that regard. It is inconceivable that he would have allowed his personal copies of Hansard to be placed on the shelf out of their chronological order.”

  “But his personal quarters told a different story?”

  If Mycroft’s amused glance had needed words, they would undoubtedly have been of the order of—“So my little brother has not lost his edge?” But there were none and he continued …

  “Victor keeps—kept—a suite of rooms just off Smith Square for when the House was in session. I made my way straight there and—as you rightly suspected, Sherlock—found them in chaos. Whoever was searching for—whatever they were searching for—had been at no pains in this case to cover their tracks. Victor’s possessions were strewn around everywhere and …”—another glance at Holmes—“particular attention had been paid to the books.”

  “And the ‘P’?”

  “Crudely traced in ink on the top of his desk. Quite ruined the leather, I’m afraid.

  “And lying in the middle of the floor was—this photograph.” Here he picked it up and looked at it thoughtfully.

  “With which you were already thoroughly familiar,” Holmes added matter of factly.

  Mycroft paused for a long moment, then spoke over our heads into the far distance.

  “The men in that photograph were all students at Christ Church College, Oxford in what our American friends would call the Class of 1867. As you will doubtless remember, Sherlock, there is something in the air during those three student years that brings out a certain childish quality in what are presumed to be grown men …”

  Looking at my friend, I doubted very much that he had experienced any such thing at first hand—and I suspected Mycroft knew that perfectly well, too, from his ironic tone.

  “The young men in this photograph considered themselves a kind of elite, superior to their fellows in every conceivable way, especially in brain power. The rules of ordinary society were not meant for them, even though, in reality, they were perfectly conventional in their everyday behaviour.

  “As a gesture of their individuality they determined to form an exclusive club that by its very name would proclaim separation from the common horde.

  “There were seven of them—so they would call themselves The Seven Sinners. Each of them would take on the name of whichever of the Seven Deadly Sins he thought most appropriate to his nature. Each of the initial letters you see on their sweaters stands for their chosen name.

  “Poor Victor was always a little full of himself, convinced he was going places. Fortunately, he was aware of it and could take a certain amount of ragging. He was ‘P’ for Pride …”

  “And Briggs, being the would-be financial entrepreneur, no doubt saw himself as Avarice—hence the ‘A’?” Holmes interrupted.

  “Correct.”

  “And the others?” I prompted.

  Mycroft examined the photograph again, although I sensed he needed no reminding of its details.

  “The chubby little fellow is Pierre Pascal. French, obviously, and the son of a famous chef. I believe he returned to Paris and went into the family business. Pierre insisted on claiming ‘G’ for Gluttony. Said it was a matter of professional honour.”

  He smiled slightly at the recollection.

  “Now, Bob McKay here was a dark horse …” He indicated an earnest, thin featured young man wearing the letter ‘L’. “You’d have thought butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth at the time but in later years I hear he got himself involved in one or two—shall we say ‘compromising’ situations involving ladies, several of whom were married, and dropped out of sight. We thought Bob’s opting for ‘L’ for Lust was a great joke at the time but …”

  “Perhaps it was the title that put the idea into his head?” said Holmes and there was a brief twinkle in those deep set eyes. Then, as if to make amends for his levity—“And who is the heavy set young man glowering at the camera?”

  “Ah, now, he was aptly named. George Edward Challenger …”

  “Not the Professor Challenger?” I could not help exclaiming.

  “You mean there are two!” Now it was Mycroft’s turn to introduce a lighter note. “But you’re quite right, Doctor. The very same Professor Challenger, zoologist, anthropologist and explorer, like his father before him—the bane of every scientific society for his criticism of what he considers their pusillanimous methods and the darling of the gutter Press for the headlines he creates …”

  “When he isn’t throwing them bodily down his stairs and having to be arrested.”

  We all turned in Lestrade’s direction. It was the first thing he had said since we had entered the room but this was clearly something about which he had had first hand experience.

  “The man has the strength of a raging bull and the temper to go with it,” he continued. “I’ve known it take four of my men to hold him.”

  “In short, Doctor, yes, the Professor Challenger—even then a self-styled Renaissance Man. It won’t surprise you to hear that he chose ‘R’ for Rage.”

  “And the smaller man standing next to him and looking at Challenger rather than the camera?” asked Holmes.

  “Challenger’s doppelgänger,” Mycroft replied. “John Summerlee. Now, of course, also Professor Summerlee. Right through university and ever since he has dogged Challenger’s footsteps …”

  “If I am not mistaken, it could be said that he has challenged Challenger at every turn,” Holmes interrupted.

  “Both professionally and personally. If Challenger says ‘black’, Summerlee insists it’s ‘white’. They even argue about the time of day. It is, I confess, the strangest of relationships and yet the strangest thing of all is that, deep down, they are the closest of friends. They need each other. The one defines the other.”

  “Rather like Watson and myself?” said Holmes and I fancy he was only half joking, which pleased me more than a little.

  Mycroft let the remark pass.

  “He was not best pleased to be assigned ‘E’ for Envy, but since it was the only designation left, he had little choice. Naturally, he blamed Challenger for that, too.”

  It was then that I noticed something that should have been obvious to me earlier.

  “The seventh man. He has no initial letter.”

  “Indeed, he has not, Doctor. Evan Staunton was—how can I put it?—with the group but
not of the group. Upon its foundation it had been determined that it could have but seven members at any one time. Doubtless there could be any number of additional deadly sins that fertile young minds could devise but the group was happy enough with the conceit of the original seven.

  “Consequently, young Staunton remained a supplicant, permitted to join in certain of the group functions but denied full membership privileges—for whatever they were worth.”

  “So he never became one of the seven?” Lestrade sounded puzzled. “Then what’s he doing in the photograph?”

  Mycroft looked thoughtful. “No, he never did. When McKay was sent down—after an unfortunate business involving the wife of one of the dons …”

  “A self-fulfilling prophecy, by the sounds of it,” I offered.

  “… at that point Staunton renewed his application. Rather embarrassingly, it was blackballed. Unanimously. Staunton took it very hard and dropped out of the college’s social life completely. Some time later we heard that he had gone down.

  “Personally, I thought the whole business was rather juvenile. After all, what did we have but a dining club with a silly name. I’m sure we’d all be rather ashamed to admit to it today.”

  “Except that there are two less of you to have that option open to them,” said Holmes sharply. “And when you use the word ‘we’, you are merely confirming what had been implicit for much of your narrative. You, I take it, were …”

  “‘S’ for Sloth.” And had the light in the Strangers’ Room been brighter, I would have sworn that Mycroft blushed.

  Chapter Four

  “By rights I should have been the seventh man in that picture. It transpired, however, that Staunton, who was supposed to have been taking the portrait, didn’t quite know how to work the camera and so it was left to me. Quite a good effort, even if I do say so myself.”

  Holmes had risen from his chair and was pacing the room, his hands clasped behind his back—a sure sign that a line of thought was preoccupying him.

  “And you say that Staunton dropped out of the university. Have you any idea what happened to him?”

  “Not really. I did hear that he tried his hand as a war correspondent. Alas, there always seem to be an ample supply of them in this Empire on which the sun supposedly never sets. There was talk of his being seen in Afghanistan and India—your old haunts, Doctor—but that was years ago.”

  “And what happened to the Seven Sinners?” I interjected. “Did you all meet again over the years? Annual reunions … passwords, secret handshakes—that sort of thing?”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Doctor, but I’m afraid nothing of the kind. You are confusing the Sinners with the Masons. As I say, it was a misconceived idea in the first place and it soon palled. All of the members were highly intelligent and soon regretted their rather pretentious behaviour. But since we were all vain, too, we found it difficult to come out and say so. The consequence was that we began to pick foolish quarrels with one another. What with one thing and another, the club simply fell apart and we all went our separate ways. Nothing was actually said but there was certainly no reason for any of us to keep up contact with any of the rest. I have had a limited amount of contact with Victor Pelham, admittedly, but strictly on Commons business. As for the rest …”

  It was Lestrade who spoke next. Mopping his brow with a none-too-clean bandana—adequate ventilation not being high on the Diogenes’ list of amenities—he turned towards the man who had solved so many of his conundrums for him.

  “It’s a rum do and no mistake. What do you make of it, Mr. ’Olmes?”

  Holmes stopped his pacing and spoke from the gathering gloom.

  “If the club were to be reconvened—which I sincerely hope will not be the case—it would have to add an eighth sin. ‘M’ for Murder.

  “Two of its members have been murdered, ostensibly for what they were thought to have possessed but, in fact, apparently did not. From this I believe it is fair to deduce that it is a singular object and that the murderer will continue until he finds it. However, the means of the killings and particularly the use of the initial letters suggest something else. Our killer wishes to send a personal message to the rest of the Seven Sinners …”

  “And that message is …? I asked.”

  “Whichever of you has it, I shall find it.” He paused and looked at Mycroft. “And yet it may very well be that none of you knows what ‘it’ is or that you have it.

  “Tell me, Mycroft—what do we know of the whereabouts of the other four Sinners?”

  “Pascal, I presume, is in his native Paris and that is something we can easily check. McKay, as I say, is something of a recluse and may take a little more finding, but I have little doubt that our resources …” He left the sentence unfinished. If McKay was breathing Her Majesty’s good fresh air, Mycroft’s ‘resources’ would run him to ground.

  “Challenger and Summerlee, I believe, are off on one of their endless expeditions up the Zambesi or Limpopo or somewhere such. Again, I shall make enquiries as to their itinerary.”

  “Which leaves your good and very visible self,” Holmes added. Then seeing his brother’s expression. “No, Mycroft, I would strongly advise against your taking this lightly. You may be above the petty concerns of running the country but I doubt that will cut too much ice with a man as daring and determined as the one we are now seeking.

  “How, for instance, did he gain access to Pelham’s room in the House? The Palace of Westminster is not exactly a public thoroughfare, unless you have changed the rules recently?”

  Mycroft looked thoughtful.

  “Now that you mention it, Victor’s Private Secretary did mention that he had a visitor not long before he was due to make his speech. The Secretary suggested that, as the gentleman did not have an appointment and in view of the importance of the occasion, it might be preferable to ask him to return on a subsequent occasion.”

  “And why did this not happen?”

  “Apparently, the visitor asked him to pass on the message—‘Ask him if he can not spare a minute for a poor sinner who has repented?’ When he heard the message—the Secretary said—Victor looked puzzled for a moment, then said the man was to be shown in. “Tell him that, of course, I can spare a minute—two, if necessary.”

  “Did he recall anything else? Think, Mycroft—the slightest detail may be important.”

  “Ah, now I recall. When the man entered the room, he heard Victor say—‘Oh, it’s you?’ And then the door shut behind them. Later he thought he heard raised voices when he knocked to advise Victor that he was due in the Chamber. Since it was his duty to accompany his master and hand him his notes for the speech, he did not see the man actually leave the building.”

  “Leaving our ‘Sinner’ ample time and opportunity to search Pelham’s rooms and leave his signature. I think you will find, Mycroft, that he went straight from there to the Smith Square accommodation and ransacked that.”

  Mycroft’s expression told me that, once again, Holmes had surmised correctly.

  “But ’ow did he manage to poison this M.P. feller?”

  Holmes made a dismissive gesture.

  “A mere detail, Lestrade. I would assume Pelham used the standard water carafe made available to all members—in which case it would be simplicity itself to make a simple substitution of a ‘doctored’ carafe while he was temporarily distracted. Had he used a carafe that had an out of the ordinary design, it would be easy enough for someone in the Visitors’ Gallery to discern that fact—and I’m sure our friend has been a frequent ‘Visitor’ in recent days or weeks. Then the poison would have to have been introduced during the course of the ‘visit’. In either event, arranging the death posed no significant problem for him.

  “The question with which we must now concern ourselves is—who is the next victim to be? ‘M’—as I now prefer to call him—has killed twice and on both occasions in what can only be termed a dramatic fashion. More than that, each of the murders is orch
estrated to the ‘sin’ appropriate to the individual concerned. The financier is immured with his booty; the high-flying politician is the victim of his own hubris. It may be that the murders are incidental to his search. Once he has ascertained that the subject does not have what he wants, that man knows his purpose and cannot be allowed to live to tell it and almost certainly warn others.

  “And yet I wonder …” His voice trailed away, as if he were lost in his own speculation. Then he snapped abruptly back to life.

  “Well, gentlemen, we shall not find our man by sitting in the comfort of these luxurious surroundings. Lestrade, I have a small favour to ask.”

  “Right you are, Mr. ’Olmes.”

  “Could I ask you to use your good offices to have a section of this photograph copied …”—and here he picked up Mycroft’s copy and indicated an area with his forefinger—“… and enlarged as much as possible without losing the clarity of the image? Time, I need hardly add, is of the essence.

  “Mycroft, I mean it most sincerely when I urge you to take every precaution concerning your personal safety. I would advise you to stay here at the club for the time being and not to go about your daily business unaccompanied. Your acquaintance is wide and among it, almost certainly known to you—though not necessarily by his overt identity—is our killer.

  “Come, Watson, Baker Street calls. And since my parsimonious brother is clearly not minded to offer us dinner, we must hope that Mrs. Hudson’s good plain cooking will suffice.”

  And he swept from the room, leaving the rest of us to follow in his wake.

  Chapter Five

  If Mrs. Hudson was put out by our returning unexpectedly with a request from Holmes for “Your finest cold table, Mrs. Hudson and a bottle of the ’92 Fleurie Dr. Watson was keeping for a special occasion!”—she showed no outward sign of it. Within ten minutes of our arrival she was bustling around our sitting room, pointedly pushing Holmes’s assorted paraphernalia out of the way so that the dining table could be put to its intended use.