The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part IV

by David Marcum

  “Charling’s involvement in the robbery would also explain why Farley had ended up at his house after his escape from prison. For if my speculations were true, one could readily imagine that Farley might have threatened to expose Charling’s part in the robbery unless he hid him away at Naxon House. One could further imagine that Farley and Charling had subsequently fallen out - probably over the gold - and Farley had murdered Charling, as I had speculated before.

  “But why should Charling have become involved in the robbery in the first place? As soon as I posed myself this question, two possible answers at once suggested themselves, both of which, I judged, could be true. In the first place, I had long suspected that Charling was not so well off as people supposed. Although he adopted the pose of ‘the distinguished local author’, and made the most of it in the district, I believe that his books were not, in fact, read very much, and brought him little, if any, income. If so, the prospect of acquiring a quantity of gold might have proved irresistible to him. In the second place, he had once told me that he had managed to produce a very small quantity of gold by one of his alchemical processes and was hoping to repeat the experiment on a larger scale. I did not believe him - I had come to feel he was both a liar and a fraud - but, out of politeness, I had not expressed my disbelief openly. It now seemed possible to me that he might have intended to melt down some of the stolen gold and pretend that he had produced it by alchemical means.

  “Of course, the men who were imprisoned for their part in the robbery would presumably have expected to receive their share of the gold upon their release from prison. But by the time they got out of prison, Charling had been dead some years and his house was in the hands of another, so perhaps they simply abandoned the idea as futile and did not pursue the matter. Anyway, as I considered all these possibilities, I became consumed with the idea of gaining entry to Naxon House in the hope that I might find there something which would prove Charling’s guilt, and my own innocence. Unfortunately, I soon learnt that the present occupant of Naxon House hardly ever went out for longer than an hour at a time, so I had to find some way of driving him from the house just long enough to allow me to get in there and look for evidence. The idea I came up with - forgive me - was to try to frighten him away by pretending to be Serenus Charling returned from the dead. The rest you appear to know.”

  “What made you think that you might be able to find any evidence after all this time?” asked Holmes. “Surely it was more likely that any evidence would be long gone, found by Charling’s relative or one of his tenants.”

  Walters hesitated. “Do you believe all that I have told you?” he asked at length.

  “Yes,” replied Holmes, at which Lidington and I nodded our agreement. With such intensity and conviction had Walters told his tale that I could not doubt for a moment that it was the unvarnished truth.

  “Can I trust that you will pursue the truth, no matter what the consequences?” he asked.

  “Certainly you can,” said Holmes. “It is in everyone’s interest that the true facts be known.”

  “Very well, then,” said Walters. “I will tell you. There is a secret room in Naxon House which I doubt anyone knows about but me. Charling himself had it constructed many years ago so he could have somewhere private in which to conduct his secret alchemical experiments. I only learned about it by chance: I had called round to see him in the early days of our acquaintance, and, finding the door open, assumed it had been left so for me. I walked straight in, calling a greeting to him as I did so, but either I was earlier than he expected, or he had forgotten I was coming, for just as I walked in, he emerged from the entrance of the secret room. He showed it to me then - he could hardly do otherwise - but asked me not to tell anyone else about it. I very much doubt he would have shown it to Farley or anyone else, and it is very unlikely to have been discovered by chance. It is just possible that there is something in there which will shed some light on what happened all those years ago.”

  Holmes rose to his feet. “Let us get down to Apstone, then, before the daylight goes,” said he.

  The sun was setting as we left the inn, and, by the time we reached Naxon House, twilight was well advanced. Cold air was drifting off the marsh, and on its surface small clouds of evening mist were forming. Lidington unlocked the front door of the house and we followed him inside.

  “Where, precisely, is the secret room?” Holmes asked.

  “It is in the attic,” Walters returned, “but one cannot get into it up there. I believe there was originally a large trap-door between the attic and one of the bedrooms when Charling was first moving furniture up there, but that was later sealed up, and the only entrance now is in the study. I’ll show you.” He led the way towards the back of the house and we entered a room which overlooked the rear garden. As I looked out of the window, I saw the large urn on its pedestal at the end of the garden, as Lidington had described it to us. Wisps of mist were drifting about the foot of the pedestal and the hedge behind it.

  “You see how peculiarly thick the walls are here,” said Walters, standing beside the window. “That is because there is a steep and narrow staircase within the wall.”

  In the corner of the room, between the fireplace and the window, a large, tall cupboard had been constructed, as high as the picture-rail. Walters opened the doors of this, to reveal broad wooden shelves on which were piled numerous books and documents. “May I move these out of the way?” he asked Lidington, who nodded his head. I lent a hand, and soon all the books and papers were piled upon the floor by the desk. Then Walters lifted up the shelves in the cupboard, which were not fastened to the brackets upon which they rested, and stacked them all against the wall by the window. “This side panel inside the cupboard conceals the staircase,” he said. “One of these little brackets is actually attached to a latch on the other side, and if we lift it, it should release the panel. Yes, there we are.” He had lifted the bracket slightly and pulled it forward, whereupon the whole wooden side-wall of the cupboard hinged forward, revealing a steep and narrow staircase behind it.

  Holmes had lit a lamp which stood on the desk. This he handed to Walters, who set off up the stairs holding the lamp in front of him, as we followed behind. It was so very cramped that one’s shoulders brushed the side-walls as the staircase twisted round in a tight spiral, and so extremely steep that our ascent seemed almost as vertical as climbing a ladder. At the top of the stair we entered one of the strangest chambers I have ever seen. It was surprisingly large, and must have occupied half of the loft space. That we were immediately beneath the roof-tiles was apparent from the steeply-sloping ceiling. All about us were large, highly-coloured and mysterious-looking pictures, covered with strange figures and symbols, and in the centre of the room were various chests, cupboards and tables, on some of which stood items of chemical equipment and bottles of vividly-coloured chemicals. Over everything was a thick layer of dust, and uncountable numbers of old, dusty cobwebs.

  “A little more light would be helpful,” said Holmes as he lit two lamps which stood on one of the tables. “Now let us see what we can find,” he continued, pulling open a drawer in a small bureau which stood by the wall. “There are a lot of papers in here,” he said, “and a number of newspaper cuttings relating to the bullion robbery. Ah! Charling’s vanity may have betrayed him! He has underlined those parts of the newspaper reports that say what an ingeniously planned robbery it was! And here is something in a different hand: ‘A Critical Examination of the Claims of Alchemy’.”

  “That is my essay!” cried Walters in delight.

  “I wonder why he kept it,” I said.

  “I cannot imagine,” said Walters, “but perhaps it was because he recognized that the arguments it contained were valid, and he had never succeeded in countering them. Anyway, it’s the essay I brought him on the evening I was supposed to have been involved with the robbery.”

  �
��May I have a look at it?” asked Lidington.

  “By all means,” returned Walters. “What is it, Mr. Holmes?” he asked, as Holmes let out a cry of surprise.

  “There is a drawer full of gold coins here,” replied Holmes.

  “These look like gold, too,” I said as I opened the lid of a small chest and lifted out two small bars, each stamped with an assay symbol.

  Thus we continued searching this strange room until we were certain there was no hiding-place we had missed. Then Holmes stood for some time in silence, his chin in his hand.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Walters.

  “I am considering what to do about all this,” replied Holmes. “I think you had best let me handle the matter, Mr. Walters. I may not yet have much of a reputation in Ashford, but I am well known to some of the senior officers at the headquarters of the Kent Constabulary, and am very well known in London. If I give an account of what you have told us and what we have found here, I am more likely to be believed straight away than you are. We don’t want to run the risk of your being suspected of knowing about this gold all along and simply wanting to get your own hands on it.”

  “Good Lord!” cried Walters. “I had not thought of that! You do believe what I have told you, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” said Holmes. “I believe every word you have spoken. I have never doubted you for an instant.”

  At this, much to my surprise, Walters abruptly put his hands up to his face and burst into tears. “Do excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket. “Do forgive my weakness.”

  It is always a surprising and striking thing to see a grown man weep, and is nearly always of some special significance. In this case, it was evident that Holmes’s prompt and unreserved declaration of belief in Mr. Walters had completely undermined the hardened natural defences of one who had been disbelieved, abused, and vilified for so long.

  “No apology is necessary,” said Holmes, ushering the other to a chair. “Sit down here and compose yourself for a moment. Courage, Mr. Walters! Fate certainly dealt you a bad hand, but it may be that some of the cards in it are not quite so weak as they appeared. Tomorrow we shall go to the best solicitor in Ashford and swear an affidavit of all that we have learnt, and then present the facts to the authorities.”

  Once we had completed all the formalities, and the police had examined and searched Naxon House to their satisfaction, Holmes and I returned to London. As our train sped along through the Vale of Kent, Holmes was in a thoughtful, reflective mood, and when I remarked how deeply moved Walters had been by Holmes’s generous expression of confidence in him, he turned to me in surprise.

  “I had no intention of being ‘generous’, as you put it,” returned my friend; “I was simply stating a fact.”

  I asked him then why he had been so confident in Mr. Walters’s veracity.

  “It is an instinctive thing,” said he at length, “and not easy to put one’s finger on. You may as well ask me how I know that two and two make four. That they do is instantly clear, but explaining precisely why they do takes a little longer. I suppose his eyes played a part in it.”

  “His eyes?”

  “Well, the look in them, at least. One can generally tell an honest man by the look in his eyes.”

  “I seem to remember your saying that one should never trust to generalized impressions, as they can be misleading.”

  “There is no contradiction, Watson. I had already moved beyond my first general impression of Walters when I looked into his eyes and knew at once he was an honest man. It has been said, as you are no doubt aware, that the eyes are the windows of the soul, and when you have scrutinized as many faces as I have, you know that to be true.”

  The wheels of justice are sometimes very slow to turn, and it was many months before Mr. Walters’s attempt to clear his name received a proper hearing. Even then the result was indecisive, and the matter was passed on to a higher court. Eventually the case reached the House of Lords. There, the judicial committee declared at length that although his original conviction had not been unreasonable on the evidence available at the time, it was now clear that it was mistaken, and should be struck from the record. Mr. Walters was at last, therefore, granted a complete and unconditional pardon.

  As for Mr. Lidington, whose mystery had brought us into the case in the first place, he did not renew his lease upon Naxon House. He also gave up the study of alchemy, which he said he had quite lost the taste for, and, the last I heard, he had applied for and succeeded in regaining his former post with the South Eastern Railway.

  The Wargrave Resurrection

  by Matthew Booth

  Over the years of my intimate acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes, I have seen a great number of illustrious clients cross the cosy threshold of those Baker Street rooms which we shared but, likewise, it is true to say that I have seen a large number of the lower classes consult the eminent criminologist with whom I was associated. I think that I have remarked elsewhere that Holmes was a man who loved his art for its own sake. He was neither flattered nor impressed by the social standing of his clients. It was the peculiarity of the case upon which he concentrated, to the extent that I have known him refuse to help those of the most exalted positions in society where the problem failed to engage his interest. Conversely, I have known him go for days without sleep or food, applying the most intense applications of those powers which I had admired for so long to the affairs of a humble parlour maid or suchlike, whose case especially appealed to his unique and capricious nature.

  It was one such client who called upon us early one brisk spring morning in the year 1888. Recent months had been somewhat sterile with us and I had begun to grow concerned at Holmes’s lack of activity. I knew well to what dark alternatives he could turn when his mind was not engaged, and in my own way I had sought to attract his attention and divert his mind from those pursuits which I deplored so much. And yet, my efforts were in vain, for he merely sneered at those crimes which had been reported in the newspapers.

  “What is the use of seeking a master’s views and opinions on the mere sketches of a schoolboy, Watson?” he had said to me on one occasion. “The London criminal appears to be keen to develop into a dull creature, capable only of committing some crude villainy whose method and motive are so translucent that even a constable on the beat could detect them.”

  “The last few months have not been entirely devoid of interest,” I had replied. “We had the Keswick haunting and the madness of old Cranston, which you said presented unusual features of its own.”

  “One cannot live on one’s past glories alone, my dear Watson. One must have new challenges.”

  This was the Holmes with whom I was sharing rooms at the time. In such moods, he was not an easy man to live with. I had come to know him well over the years of our comradeship, but it was still difficult to discern how to converse with him without saying that one indiscreet thing which would tip the balance of his mood too far and compel him towards that horrific morocco case and its infernal contents. It was, then, with some relief that I ushered Mr. Henry Collins into our chamber, for I hoped that whatever storm had blown him to our door would by its own gales blow away the dust of tedium which was settling on my friend.

  Collins was a small, ruddy-faced man, whose complexion was intensified by the stark whiteness of his hair and whiskers. He was shabbily dressed, after the fashion of a labourer, and he turned his battered hat around in his hands, as though its very existence was a comfort to him. He stared from one to the other of us with wild, grey eyes, and it was evident to me that he was in the grip of some sort of great fear. Holmes rose from his armchair and showed his visitor to the settee.

  “There is no cause to be hesitant, sir,” said he, “for you are not the first to come here either for guidance or assistance. Perhaps my colleague here can get you some
refreshment, for I observe that you are somewhat distressed.”

  “I should like that very much, sir, if I am not too much of a trouble for it,” said Collins. “I wonder whether I might take a small whisky, for my nerves have had a terrible shock.”

  I obliged the little man and handed him a measure, which he accepted gratefully. The amber fire did its work and he sat back on the cushions with a small sign of gratitude.

  “I trust that you are now feeling a little more composed,” said Holmes. “Perhaps you would be able now to say clearly and concisely what has brought you here.”

  “Henry Collins is what they call me, Mr. Holmes, and I have made my living in many trades over the years. I didn’t have no formal education and I’ve had to take money where I could find it and make it in whatever way I could turn my hand towards. I have no complaint about it. I don’t think I could spend my days sitting behind a desk in an office in the city, looking all day long over legal documents or the like. I am a man of the outside world, if you take my meaning, and I like to feel I’ve done a full day’s labour at the end of the day. But it is not a matter of my own personal circumstances which force me to trouble you, beyond the fact that one of my jobs a few years back was doing some building work at a publishing house in the city.

  “You may have heard of the Wargrave Publishing Company, gentlemen? Aye; I see that you have. It was one of the most prestigious names in its field, well respected by the academic folk and well-liked by those who read for pleasure. Leastways, that’s what I was told, though I’m not much of a reader myself. It was run by Theodore Wargrave, a man who built the company up from scratch. From what he liked to recall as being those humble beginnings, Theodore Wargrave developed his publishing empire and made it into one of the leading producers of books and journals which this country has ever seen.