He had thrown off the seedy frockcoat, and now he was the Holmes of old in the mouse–coloured dressing–gown which he took from his effigy.
“The old SHIKARI'S nerves have not lost their steadiness, nor his eyes their keenness,” said he, with a laugh, as he inspected the shattered forehead of his bust.
“Plumb in the middle of the back of the head and smack through the brain. He was the best shot in India, and I expect that there are few better in London. Have you heard the name?”
“No, I have not.”
“Well, well, such is fame! But, then, if I remember right, you had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great brains of the century. Just give me down my index of biographies from the shelf.”
He turned over the pages lazily, leaning back in his chair and blowing great clouds from his cigar.
“My collection of M's is a fine one,” said he. “Moriarty himself is enough to make any letter illustrious, and here is Morgan the poisoner, and Merridew of abominable memory, and Mathews, who knocked out my left canine in the waiting–room at Charing Cross, and, finally, here is our friend of to–night.”
He handed over the book, and I read: MORAN, SEBASTIAN, COLONEL. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bangalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C. B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of HEAVY GAME OF THE WESTERN HIMALAYAS (1881); THREE MONTHS IN THE JUNGLE (1884). Address:
Conduit Street
. Clubs: The Anglo–Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.
On the margin was written, in Holmes's precise hand: The second most dangerous man in London.
“This is astonishing,” said I, as I handed back the volume. “The man's career is that of an honourable soldier.”
“It is true,” Holmes answered. “Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man–eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family.”
“It is surely rather fanciful.”
“Well, I don't insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money, and used him only in one or two very high–class jobs, which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887. Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it, but nothing could be proved. So cleverly was the colonel concealed that, even when the Moriarty gang was broken up, we could not incriminate him. You remember at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the shutters for fear of air–guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty, and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the Reichenbach ledge.
“You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my sojourn in France, on the look–out for any chance of laying him by the heels. So long as he was free in London, my life would really not have been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I could not shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at last. Knowing what I did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done it? He had played cards with the lad, he had followed him home from the club, he had shot him through the open window. There was not a doubt of it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose. I came over at once. I was seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct the colonel's attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my sudden return with his crime, and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that he would make an attempt to get me out of the way AT once, and would bring round his murderous weapon for that purpose. I left him an excellent mark in the window, and, having warned the police that they might be needed –– by the way, Watson, you spotted their presence in that doorway with unerring accuracy –– I took up what seemed to me to be a judicious post for observation, never dreaming that he would choose the same spot for his attack. Now, my dear Watson, does anything remain for me to explain?”
“Yes,” said I. “You have not made it clear what was Colonel Moran's motive in murdering the Honourable Ronald Adair?”
“Ah! my dear Watson, there we come into those realms of conjecture, where the most logical mind may be at fault. Each may form his own hypothesis upon the present evidence, and yours is as likely to be correct as mine.”
“You have formed one, then?”
“I think that it is not difficult to explain the facts. It came out in evidence that Colonel Moran and young Adair had, between them, won a considerable amount of money. Now, undoubtedly played foul –– of that I have long been aware. I believe that on the day of the murder Adair had discovered that Moran was cheating. Very likely he had spoken to him privately, and had threatened to expose him unless he voluntarily resigned his membership of the club, and promised not to play cards again. It is unlikely that a youngster like Adair would at once make a hideous scandal by exposing a well known man so much older than himself. Probably he acted as I suggest. The exclusion from his clubs would mean ruin to Moran, who lived by his ill–gotten card–gains. He therefore murdered Adair, who at the time was endeavouring to work out how much money he should himself return, since he could not profit by his partner's foul play. He locked the door lest the ladies should surprise him and insist upon knowing what he was doing with these names and coins. Will it pass?”
“I have no doubt that you have hit upon the truth.”
“It will be verified or disproved at the trial. Meanwhile, come what may, Colonel Moran will trouble us no more. The famous air–gun of Von Herder will embellish the ScotlandYardMuseum, and once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents.”
P. G. Wodehouse
(1881–1975)
The creator of the wonderfully witty and urbane stories about addlepated aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves, was a lifelong devotee of mystery and detective fiction. One of Pggelham) Gggrenville) Wodehouse's early novels, The Little Nugget, is a genuine (if minor) detective yarn narrated by Peter Burns, a “rich, good looking, amiable, brave, and certainly not stupid” amateur sleuth. It was published in the United States in 1914, the same year “Death at the Excelsior” appeared in the English magazine Pearson's under the title “The Education of Detective Oakes” and in slightly different form. This, too, is a true detective story, the only other written by Wodehouse. Its featured players are a young operative named Elliot Oakes and his boss, Mr. Paul Snyder of the Paul Snyder Detective Agency, who undertake to untangle a case that baffles everyone involved, including the coroner, who can't quite make up his mind if a murder has been committed or not. Although it cannot be said to be among Wodehouse's finest tales, it does have a clever locked–room gimmick that makes use of a unique weapon, and both Oakes and Snyder are engaging
enough to make one wish the author had seen fit to provide additional samples of their talents.
P. G. Wodehouse published close to one hundred novels and more than a score of short–story collections during his remarkable seventy–year career. He was once called “the best living writer of English”; true or not, he was certainly one of the foremost humorists in any language. The world he created was one entirely his own, peopled by such endearing characters as Jeeves and Bertie, Mr. Mulliner, Lord Emsworth, Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, and the members of the Drones Club. It is a measure of Wodehouse's genius that he was able to freeze time in that world at about 1927, where it remained in crystalline tranquillity even in his final book, which he was working on at the time of his death in 1975 at the age of ninety–three.
Despite his fascination with the detective story and his early excursion into the form, his broad fictional world is generally crime–free. A few of his novels have elements of mystery and detection, among them Piccadilly Jim (1918) and such later efforts as Ice in the Bedroom (1961) and Do Burglars Burgle Banks? (1968), but those elements are all relatively minor. A number of his short stories may be classified as criminous, particularly the Lord Emsworth novelette and title story of his 1937 collection, The Crime Wave at Blandings. Most of the best of these were posthumously collected under the title Wodehouse on Crime: A Dozen Tales of Fiendish Cunning (1981). The collection is a delight, though more so for its characters and its gentle and nostalgic humor than for its rather thin links to the mystery genre.
DEATH AT THE EXCELSIOR
PAUL SNYDER AND ELLIOT OAKES
ENGLAND 1914
I
The room was the typical bedroom of the typical boarding–house, furnished, insofar as it could be said to be furnished at all, with a severe simplicity. It contained two beds, a pine chest of drawers, a strip of faded carpet, and a wash basin. But there was that on the floor which set this room apart from a thousand rooms of the same kind. Flat on his back, with his hands tightly clenched and one leg twisted oddly under him and with his teeth gleaming through his grey beard in a horrible grin, Captain John Gunner stared up at the ceiling with eyes that saw nothing.
Until a moment before, he had had the little room all to himself. But now two people were standing just inside the door, looking down at him. One was a large policeman, who twisted his helmet nervously in his hands. The other was a tall, gaunt old woman in a rusty black dress, who gazed with pale eyes at the dead man. Her face was quite expressionless.
The woman was Mrs. Pickett, owner of the Excelsior Boarding–House. The policeman's name was Grogan. He was a genial giant, a terror to the riotous element of the waterfront, but obviously ill at ease in the presence of death. He drew in his breath, wiped his forehead, and whispered: “Look at his eyes, ma'am!”
Mrs. Pickett had not spoken a word since she had brought the policeman into the room, and she did not do so now. Constable Grogan looked at her quickly. He was afraid of Mother Pickett, as was everybody else along the waterfront. Her silence, her pale eyes, and the quiet decisiveness of her personality cowed even the tough old salts who patronized the Excelsior. She was a formidable influence in that little community of sailormen.
“That's just how I found him,” said Mrs. Pickett. She did not speak loudly, but her voice made the policeman start.
He wiped his forehead again. “It might have been apoplexy,” he hazarded.
Mrs. Pickett said nothing. There was a sound of footsteps outside, and a young man entered, carrying a black bag.
“Good morning, Mrs. Pickett. I was told that—Good Lord!” The young doctor dropped to his knees beside the body and raised one of the arms. After a moment he lowered it gently to the floor, and shook his head in grim resignation.
“He's been dead for hours,” he announced. “When did you find him?”
“Twenty minutes back,” replied the old woman. “I guess he died last night. He never would be called in the morning. Said he liked to sleep on. Well, he's got his wish.”
“What did he die of, sir?” asked the policeman.
“It's impossible to say without an examination,” the doctor answered. “It looks like a stroke, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. It might be a coronary attack, but I happen to know his blood pressure was normal, and his heart sound. He called in to see me only a week ago, and I examined him thoroughly. But sometimes you can be deceived. The inquest will tell us.” He eyed the body almost resentfully. “I can't understand it. The man had no right to drop dead like this. He was a tough old sailor who ought to have been good for another twenty years. If you want my honest opinion—though I can't possibly be certain until after the inquest—I should say he had been poisoned.”
“How would he be poisoned?” asked Mrs. Pickett quietly.
“That's more than I can tell you. There's no glass about that he could have drunk it from. He might have got it in capsule form. But why should he have done it? He was always a pretty cheerful sort of old man, wasn't he?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Constable. “He had the name of being a joker in these parts. Kind of sarcastic, they tell me, though he never tried it on me.”
“He must have died quite early last night,” said the doctor. He turned to Mrs. Pickett. “What's become of Captain Muller? If he shares this room he ought to be able to tell us something about it.”
“Captain Muller spent the night with some friends at Portsmouth,” said
Mrs. Pickett. “He left right after supper, and hasn't returned.”
The doctor stared thoughtfully about the room, frowning.
“I don't like it. I can't understand it. If this had happened in India I should have said the man had died from some form of snakebite. I was out there two years, and I've seen a hundred cases of it. The poor devils all looked just like this. But the thing's ridiculous. How could a man be bitten by a snake in a Southampton waterfront boarding–house? Was the door locked when you found him, Mrs. Pickett?”
Mrs. Pickett nodded. “I opened it with my own key. I had been calling to him and he didn't answer, so I guessed something was wrong.”
The Constable spoke: “You ain't touched anything, ma'am? They're always very particular about that. If the doctor's right, and there's been anything up, that's the first thing they'll ask.”
“Everything's just as I found it.”
“What's that on the floor beside him?” the doctor asked.
“Only his harmonica. He liked to play it of an evening in his room. I've had some complaints about it from some of the gentlemen, but I never saw any harm, so long as he didn't play it too late.”
“Seems as if he was playing it when—it happened,” Constable Grogan said. “That don't look much like suicide, sir.”
“I didn't say it was suicide.”
Grogan whistled. “You don't think——”
“I'm not thinking anything—until after the inquest. All I say is that it's queer.”
Another aspect of the matter seemed to strike the policeman. “I guess this ain't going to do the Excelsior any good, ma'am,” he said sympathetically.
Mrs. Pickett shrugged her shoulders.
“I suppose I had better go and notify the coroner,” said the doctor.
He went out, and after a momentary pause the policeman followed him. Constable Grogan was not greatly troubled with nerves, but he felt a decided desire to be somewhere where he could not see the dead man's staring eyes.
Mrs. Pickett remained where she was, looking down at the still form on the floor. Her face was expressionless, but inwardly she was tormented and alarmed. It was the first time such a thing as this had happened at the Excelsior, and, as Constable Grogan had hinted, it was not likely to increase the attractiveness of the house in the eyes of possible boarders. It was not the threatened pecuniary loss which was troubling her. As far as money was concerned, she could have lived comfortably on her savings, for she was richer than most of her friends supposed. It was the blot on the escutcheon of the Excelsior
—the stain on its reputation—which was tormenting her.
The Excelsior was her life. Starting many years before, beyond the memory of the oldest boarder, she had built up the model establishment, the fame of which had been carried to every corner of the world. Men spoke of it as a place where you were fed well, cleanly housed, and where petty robbery was unknown.
Such was the chorus of praise that it is not likely that much harm could come to the Excelsior from a single mysterious death but Mother Pickett was not consoling herself with such reflections.
She looked at the dead man with pale, grim eyes. Out in the hallway the doctor's voice further increased her despair. He was talking to the police on the telephone, and she could distinctly hear his every word.
II
The offices of Mr. Paul Snyder's Detective Agency in
New Oxford Street
had grown in the course of a dozen years from a single room to an impressive suite bright with polished wood, clicking typewriters, and other evidences of success. Where once Mr. Snyder had sat and waited for clients and attended to them himself, he now sat in his private office and directed eight assistants.
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