The Murder of Sherlock Holmes

by David Fable

  This matter of Church and Hollocks was getting even more mysterious. It was easy to jump to obvious conclusions, that this Frenchman Hollocks was the father of Lilah’s child. Hollocks being a rather uncommon name, it would be a strange coincidence to run across two unrelated men by that surname. Still, that conclusion did not answer any questions. Hopefully, I would be able to get some information from the East Sussex constabulary and Hall of Records.

  10

  WATSON

  A fter looking through Holmes’s belongings for another two hours, I felt that melancholy descend upon me again. His violin, his scuffed Persian slipper with tobacco stuffed into the toe, his trunk filled with disguises, his boxing gloves, all conjured memories of those heady days. But I had to fight these feelings of nostalgia if I was to think clearly. Holmes was no longer here to do the sorting for me—Christopher was, and, though he had already proven his value, he was still inexperienced, and I had to consider his conclusions with caution. I thought his reasoning about the events of Holmes’s murder sounded more than plausible, but did not address all the issues nor provide many answers. I decided to bundle up the cash and pertinent paperwork in the sheet and wait out front for Christopher’s return.

  Within a quarter of an hour, Christopher picked me up. I tossed my cargo in the back and we were off. Christopher had a wealth of information gathered from his journey into town, but instead of bursting out with it in his usual torrent, he asked me what information I wanted to hear first, and if I wanted to share with him anything about my inspection of Holmes’s cottage. Clearly Christopher’s behavior was a response to some signal I had sent him about the limits of this relationship, but I hadn’t intended to dampen his spirit. It occurred to me that my recent moodiness might have created this less preferred, more mechanical Christopher. There was little to be done about it. In my present state, I couldn’t control my every emotion or remark, and so this relationship would just have to evolve in whatever way nature took it. I didn’t want to re-correct what I had already corrected and so I merely said to young Hudson, “Why don’t you tell me about this fellow Hollocks first.”

  “Records show that Hollocks purchased the cottage in June of 1891 from an Elijah St. John, who was in the furniture business,” he commenced. “I spoke to the chief constable, a William Gentle, who has been on the force for thirty-seven years. He remembered Hollocks, but never had the occasion to speak to him. He said he was a tall, thin-framed man with a dark beard, and he judged him to be in his mid-thirties at the time. Hollocks lived with his daughter and grandchild, who was an infant when they moved in. No sign of a wife. The only other person I could locate who remembered him was the lady who owns the bookstore. Her name is Elizabeth Acres. Hollocks came in and bought books on several occasions. Her description of him is similar to the constable’s, and she said he had a significant French accent but spoke English tolerably well. The daughter, whom she said was no more than eighteen, came in to buy children’s books for her son a few times.”

  “Did she remember the daughter’s name?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Description?”

  “Dark haired, thin. That was all she could say. The constable, however, also told me that, after the first year, he never saw Hollocks again. The girl and child lived there alone for a number of years, then one day the headmaster of the school came to the door and asked if the child shouldn’t be in school. The mother said she would bring him when the school year started. They moved out of the cottage a week later and never returned. He said the cottage remained uninhabited until Holmes purchased it.” Christopher glanced over for my reaction. “What do you make of it?”

  “I think that running across two different unrelated men named Hollocks is quite unlikely. If we assume that this girl was Lilah and this Frenchman Hollocks was the grandfather, that means he has to have a son who was the actual father. There’s no evidence of that. Another possibility is that when Lilah got pregnant, this man Hollocks for some reason took responsibility for her and the child.”

  “There’s a third possibility,” Christopher interjected. “Let’s assume that this Frenchman Hollocks was actually the father of the child, but, for appearances, claimed to be the grandfather. That would explain the relationship more credibly.”

  “That’s certainly also a possibility.”

  “But what’s the connection to Holmes purchasing a cottage from Hollocks and putting Lilah in his will?” asked young Hudson, with brow creased as if straining to work it all out in his head this very minute.

  “As Holmes would say, ''Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’”

  11

  M oriarty spent two hundred pounds on a custom-made suit for the funeral. According to his guard Freddy, when the garment was delivered for the final fitting, he slapped the tailor across the face, because he felt the lapel was too wide on his frock coat. All reports were that Moriarty was positively giddy about being allowed to attend the event. Lestrade had arranged for a special detail from Scotland Yard. Moriarty would be transported by armored police van to Westminster Abbey and accompanied by eight officers, who, upon seating him, would flank him two on each side and two in the rows front and back. For the entire journey, he would be shackled by his leg to Freddy, who looked to weigh easily fifteen stone. Naturally, as with all such events, there would be an abundance of security at all access ways to the abbey. With these precautions being taken, it was felt by all that Moriarty would have had a better chance escaping from the hospital than from his security detail at this event.

  The two days prior to the funeral, I had been consumed by the arrangements. I was made arbiter of everything from flowers to seating assignments. We planned to set up four hundred chairs for the mourners in the abbey and had requests for five times that many. There had been inquiries from dignitaries as far away as Burma and Bulgaria. I hadn’t the time or knowledge to prioritize them all, so I turned over all matters of protocol to the prime minister’s office. The government had graciously offered to pay all expenses relating to the funeral, but still I felt that despite the growing grandiosity of the event, Holmes would have wanted something simple and brief. To complicate matters, Holmes was a professed atheist, but one could hardly have a ceremony in Westminster Abbey without having a cleric speak, and so I gave that honor to Reverend Jonathan Goodsill, as warm and cordial a man as I have ever met. The other three speakers for the relatively short service would be, of course, Holmes’s brother, Mycroft, the prime minister, who had requested to “say a few words,” and finally myself.

  I had managed to take the time during those few days to pursue the most curious item I had found in Holmes’s cottage, that being the matter of the monthly check to Beatrice Smithwick. Through the bank I was able to trace Mrs. Smithwick to her home at 140 Warwick Road in Kensington. She was an elderly, wrinkled woman who conducted herself with a suggestion of aristocracy. She answered the door wearing a rather fancy hat with a veritable bouquet of silk flowers. She seemed to be the kind of woman who dressed for an occasion even if there wasn’t one. I asked her why Sherlock Holmes wrote her a monthly check for twenty-two guineas. Initially, she seemed rather reluctant to answer. When I told her that matters related to her relationship to Holmes could be subpoenaed as there was an ongoing murder investigation, she relented and told me that the payments were for an apartment she owned on 422 Averill Street in Fulham. Holmes had been renting it from her for the last five years. When I asked her what cause Holmes might have to rent a flat on the outskirts of the city when he lived in Sussex, she became evasive again.

  “I’m sure it’s none of my affair what Mr. Holmes should want with the apartment,” she dodged.

  I was growing impatient with this woman. There was barely half an hour of daylight left, I had a myriad of things to accomplish for the funeral, and, at this point, I planned to make a visit to the apartment regardless. It seemed, however, that some background information w
ould be helpful. I reiterated that I was now executor of all of Holmes’s affairs and no one valued his privacy as much as I, and this was a matter that had to be tidied up one way or the other. I informed her that I wasn’t going to continue paying rent for an empty apartment in Fulham.

  “It’s not empty, Doctor Watson,” said Mrs. Smithwick with sudden candor.

  “What is in it?” I asked impatiently.

  “It’s not 'what.’ It’s who.”

  “All right then,” I said. “Who is in it?”

  “Miss Church and her son. Mr. Holmes took them under his protection five years ago.”

  A thick fog had rolled in off the river when I arrived in Fulham. The sun was not completely set, but, given the light it provided, it might as well have been past dark. Four twenty-two Averill Street was an unwelcoming, three-story Gothic building that seemed quite at home in this thick gloom. I looked up at the windows facing the street. No lights shone from them. I walked up the stone steps and found the front door unlatched. I entered a cramped, dimly lit lobby with an apartment marked “A” to my left and a stairway in front of me. I mounted the steps and climbed to the second floor. There I found no sign that anyone inhabited this building. No light, no mats in front of the doors, no smell of cooking at this dinner hour. Indeed, the whole place had a stale, deserted smell. I ascended the next flight and arrived at a hall with two apartments, D and E, at opposite ends. I immediately had an intuition that someone was watching me. I stood still and listened. The building was absolutely silent. I moved to the door of apartment E and knocked gently. I could see a faint mist of light through the crack at the bottom of the door, but there was no response from inside. Holding my breath, I listened very carefully for any sign of life from inside the apartment. After a moment, there was the slight sound of creaking, like the shifting of weight on the floorboards. I knocked again, louder. “Is anyone at home?” I called, with unconvincing authority. There was something dark and unsettling about this building. I waited. Still no response. But I saw a waver in the light from the crack beneath the door, and I thought I smelled a faint whiff of perfume. Gardenia. I felt sure there was someone in that apartment.

  “Who are you?” A voice shattered the silence. I whirled around to see a troll-faced woman standing in the shadowy hall, glaring at me like I was a trespasser. She must have come up the stairs behind me, or perhaps she came from the apartment at the other end of the hall. In either event, she startled me, as she resembled something you would encounter in the woods in a German fairy tale.

  “Good evening, ma’am. I am Doctor John Watson, and I am looking for Lilah Church.”

  “No one lives in that apartment. And I don’t know no Church,” she said hoarsely.

  I could see that neither my show of courtesy nor my authoritative introduction had softened the demeanor of this woman. “I spoke to the owner of this building, and she told me that Miss Church had a residence in this apartment,” I said gently, determined to win over this old crone and imply that there were higher authorities than she that I had access to.

  She lit a cigarette with a wooden match and the glow illuminated her wrinkled face. “I’m the manager of this building, and you’ve got no business here, Doctor John Watson.”

  “So you’re saying I’ve been misinformed about Miss Church?”

  “Say that if you’d like. Misinformed…yeah, you’re misinformed. Now get going.”

  Inwardly, I had a deep desire to dislodge that cigarette from the old hag’s mouth. “What would you think if I had Scotland Yard come down here and take a look around?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.” She inhaled deeply then blew a white stream of smoke toward the ceiling.

  Courtesy prevented me from telling the old woman how disagreeable I found her. This whole Lilah business had become extraordinarily vexing and what was even more galling was that she had been within an arm’s reach only days before.

  I took a last look at the door of apartment E and surrendered to more pressing matters. I walked past the old witch and down the stairs.

  12

  F rom above, the funeral must have looked like a mass of squirming humanity. Mourners clogged the entrance to Westminster Abbey, traffic choked Victoria Street to a standstill and the church bells rang forcefully, as if to emphasize the stature of the man who was being honored.

  I felt a bit like a ringmaster at a circus. I stood in the midst of the throng in my black frock coat and greeted dignitaries, who were abandoning their limousines and taking to foot to make their way down the impassable street. King Ormstein of Bohemia, Lord Robert St. Simon, now ascended to Duke of Balmoral, and the prime minister himself all paid their respects and entered the abbey as the constables cleared the way.

  Contributing even more to the commotion, the newspapers had all sent tripod-wielding photographers to document the event, and they ducked and dived about the crowd in an effort to catch photos of the notables in attendance.

  An hour earlier, Holmes’s body had arrived in a simple horse-drawn hearse. The coffin had been taken in through the side entrance, the same that would be used for Moriarty. Gregson would personally escort him along with his phalanx of Scotland Yard police. It was decided that handcuffing him would create too much of a spectacle, and so only his legs were shackled with an additional manacle connecting him to the right ankle of his guard, Freddy Carson. The chains were wrapped in black velvet to prevent them from rattling. He would be led in after all the guests were inside the abbey. This would not create a protracted distraction. There would be enough of a disturbance created by his presence as it was. It was decided that minimizing that time frame was the more desirable course.

  Suddenly Wiggins emerged from the crowd and leapt to my side. He was wearing a stiff morning coat and top hat with his yellow scarecrow hair sticking down below his collar. In the daylight his skin looked exceeding pale with dark bags beneath the eyes. He furtively handed me a slip of paper and whispered, “’Ere’s where Lilah lives.” I glanced at the paper. It was the same address in Fulham that I had already located. I pocketed the address and thanked him. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked directly into my eyes, his own bloodshot eyes pooling with tears. “’E was a father to me. The greatest man I’ve ever known.” He quickly moved off through the funnel of people shuffling toward the church door.

  When the last of the guests had entered, scores of mourners still lingered on the pavement and lawn of the abbey looking forlorn and aggrieved. I thanked them for honoring Holmes and told them how much I regretted that there was not room for everyone to join us inside. With that, I turned and walked toward my grim task.

  Funerals are designed to be comforting events. They are supposed to provide closure. But this event gave me a greater sense of discomfort and incompleteness. Holmes’s murderer was still at large. Perhaps he was even in attendance, since, as Christopher had pointed out, the murderer very likely knew Holmes. Perhaps he was there in plain sight, inside the abbey, making a mockery of this ceremony with a secret sneer of accomplishment.

  When I entered the abbey, the organ was playing a slow and somber version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The ushers closed the doors behind me.

  13

  CHRISTOPHER

  I was sitting in the eighth row with my mother next to me and my father on her other side. Mother wept freely, leaning into my father with his comforting arm wrapped around her shoulder. She had been bearing up well the last several days, but she melted again at the sight of Holmes’s coffin draped with the flag and flowers. The last of the line of mourners were walking by the closed casket, paying their respects while the organist played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” in a notably joyless way. Watson walked down the aisle looking distracted and melancholy and took a seat in the first row next to Mycroft Holmes and the prime minister.

  I know I am in the minority in this thinking, but I’ve always found funerals of dubious benefit. I know the ceremonies are meant to soothe the living and hono
r the deceased, but I find the over-glorification of the dearly departed to be a somewhat insincere and uncomforting practice. It seems to me that, with all the heaping of praise on the honoree, we are only encouraging bad behavior since all our secrets and shortcomings get buried with us without mention at such ceremonies. It would be more honest and preferable to sum up a man’s attributes and deficiencies in order to accurately pay him tribute. “Old Joe drank too much and once slept with his wife’s sister, but you could always count on him for a fiver when you were short before payday.” That’s the kind of eulogy I would like to hear.