The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters: 25 Modern Tales by Masters

by Michael Kurland

  Holmes guided us into the gruesome crime scene, again warning us to be alert not to tread on footprints on the tile floor of the kitchen, which was adjacent to the quarters of the couple who had served as housekeeper and butler. We moved into the dining room, where the two lifeless bodies sat with their heads bent backwards.

  I estimated the victims had been dead for nearly twelve hours, judging from the stiffness of the cadavers and the condition of the coagulated blood, of which there was surprisingly little.

  Holmes pointed out the pillows on the oval rug and focused our attention on the pattern of the gunpowder residue. “The muzzles of the weapons were two different diameters,” he conjectured. “It appears from the wounds on Lord Pritchard that he was killed with one calibre, and the servants with the other.”

  In the master bedroom, Holmes turned the corpse of Lord Pritchard onto its side and shouted, “Halloa! What have we here? Two of the rounds passed through him and are imbedded in the mattress.” He took out his pocket knife to cut away some of the material, and fished with his hand into the cavity, pulling out a lead slug the size of the knuckle on the second joint of his little finger.

  “It is a .45-calibre,” Inspector Jones remarked.

  Holmes, taking his magnifying glass out of his jacket, examined the bullet scrupulously and noted that the lands and grooves etched by the barrel of the revolver twisted to the left.

  “As Inspector Jones already knows from experience, Watson, only a handgun manufactured by Colt in America twists to the left, so I would venture to say at least one of the murderous intruders has spent time in the United States.”

  “I suppose one of them is a female, or was dressed as a woman,” Inspector Jones commented.

  “That is an enigma,” Holmes added, “because we probably are dealing with experts who can change their appearance to suit the situation.”

  After conferring further, they agreed that for the time being they would concentrate their efforts on spy networks and the underworld to learn the identities of killers for hire, male and female alike, in Europe as well as on other continents. The problem they faced was a global one, and that was not the end of it. Once they found the assassins, they concurred, they would then have to snare whoever employed the pair.

  “That is a tall order, to be sure, but we can start our search locally and expand from there,” Inspector Jones continued. “Right now, however, I must make arrangements for the victims to be removed and taken to hospital for autopsies. I shall place guards around the house to keep the press and the curious at bay, and we can rummage through Lord Pritchard’s personal effects after we have had some sleep.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Inspector, I shall stay here to do just that and forego the slumber,” said Holmes ruefully.

  “Very well, suit yourself, only let me know as soon as you discover anything worthwhile,” the official conceded.

  After Inspector Jones left, I attempted in vain to persuade Holmes to join me back at Baker Street for the night, but he insisted on remaining to look for clues, so I went home alone, thinking along the way about his daunting task.

  * * * *

  In the morning, I found him dozing in the basket-chair in the clothes he wore the day before. I quietly made coffee and heard Mrs Hudson’s footsteps on the stairs, so I opened the door before she got there and put my index finger to my lips.

  “Shhh,” I sounded, and in a low voice I told her Holmes was asleep finally. She brought in a hearty breakfast for the two of us on tiptoes, placed the tray on the table, and scooted out without the slightest disturbance. I made certain I made no noise while I ate until I accidentally dropped my butter knife on the wooden floor.

  Holmes awakened with a start and sprang to his feet. “How long have I been asleep?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know when you arrived home, so I can’t give you an answer,” I said.

  “What time is it now?” he asked, raising his voice.

  I glanced at my pocket watch. “It is a few minutes after eight.”

  “Good grief! There is barely enough time for me to be there promptly at nine,” he complained, and flew across the threshold.

  Chapter 2

  THE FRAUD BEGINS TO UNFOLD

  Remaining idle while waiting for Holmes to return was an unproductive enterprise; therefore, I decided to journey to St Bart’s and observe the autopsies so I could interpret the results with first-hand knowledge. It was fortunate that I did go, because the orderly assisting Dr Uttley grew ill and left the cadaver room. I was enlisted to take his place.

  Inspector Jones was in attendance, and he collected the two bullets when they were extracted from inside the skulls of the housekeeper and butler. “Mangled as they are, it appears each is a .476 calibre, with a hollow point for expansion,” he said adroitly, owing to his expertise in firearms and ammunition.

  * * * *

  The procedures completed, I travelled by cab to the tobacconist in the West End and purchased a fresh supply of my Arcadia mixture and twelve grams of Holmes’s favourite shag blend, for I had noticed he was running low on his stash in the Persian slipper on the mantle and had no spare time for a shopping trip.

  When I reached home, Mrs Hudson advised me there was no sign of Holmes, so she scooped out two ladles of chicken noodle soup into a large bowl and put it on a tray for my lunch with several slices of fresh-baked Vienna bread, one of her specialities.

  “I’m worried about him, away day and night without the proper rest and nourishment,” she said with a frown. Just as she did, Holmes appeared on the stoop and joined us in the kitchen.

  “Ah, here you are,” Mrs Hudson spoke out, “in time for lunch for a change.”

  Holmes greeted her warmly and complimented her on the aroma. She placed his bowl of soup on the tray with more bread and told us she would carry it all upstairs. “You’ll spill half of it going up the steps if I don’t keep it from you,” she said with complaint.

  While we ate, Holmes brought me up to date on his investigation.

  “Any footprints at Lord Pritchard’s home were obliterated by the rain, but I did find some interesting data when I went through his personal effects. His desk in the library had been rifled, but the killers, in their haste, neglected the safe in the wall between the shelves of the bookcase. I had some difficulty with the combination at first, but on my third try, the safe opened with ease. Inside were wads of hundred pound notes, along with a stock certificate for a hundred shares of the Netherland-Sumatra Company. The certificate was dated on the day the House of Lords adopted the unreasonable tariffs on spices imported from the Dutch East Indies, and the document was signed by the owner of the company, Baron François Maupertuis.”

  “That would suggest a link between the certificate and Lord Pritchard’s campaign for the higher tariffs,” I postulated, then notified Holmes that I also had news. “I learned at the autopsies that the butler and maid were done in with .476-calibre bullets.”

  “And that would suggest the weapon was a gate-loaded Enfield revolver, recently retired by the British military, or the new Webley-Green, the preferred choice of Army officers,” Holmes added. “We might be looking for two former soldiers, one from England and the other from America, since the .45-calibre Colt single action revolver is standard issue for cavalry troops in the western United States. Of course, it is possible, too, that the killer with the Colt .45 was a civilian, perhaps a gunslinger, or an outlaw, on the frontier. Time will tell.”

  “Did you learn anything at your nine o’clock appointment after you rushed out?” I asked.

  “I met with Mr Bynem, the spice trader, when the commodity exchange opened for business. I braced him with the stock certificate for the Netherland-Sumatra Company—a name he recognized as a new firm with a vast supply of spices not yet on the market. He said a representative of the owner was circulating contracts among all the spice traders on the exchange, trying to peddle the goods on the basis that they could bring huge profits, due t
o the fact that they reached our shore before royal assent to the new tariffs.

  “However, Mr Bynem declined to buy, because the salesman wouldn’t allow Mr Bynem’s agents to inspect the cargo on the steamship Zenith, which is docked at Pier 32 in the Port of London. I asked Mr Bynem to describe this salesman, and he told me the man was dapper, dressed in a tweed suit, was about fifty years old, clean-shaven and tall, with a gregarious personality and a crooked nose. Mr Bynem recalled his name as Barnabas Huckabee, apparently another alias of Baron Maupertuis.”

  “I suppose you plan to inspect the cargo, though, eh, Holmes?” I said hesitantly.

  “You suppose correctly, Watson, as soon as we finish eating,” Holmes proclaimed. “Your participation would be greatly appreciated. It could be a risky activity, so come prepared for trouble.”

  “What about Inspector Jones—shouldn’t he be invited as well?” I begged to know.

  “He would be invited ordinarily, but we might have to bend the law, trespass, or do something else he wouldn’t approve. No, it’s best we leave him out of this,” Holmes countered.

  We returned Mrs Hudson’s glassware and utensils to the kitchen and travelled on foot to the Underground, but first Holmes changed into his seafarer’s garb so he would blend in with the environment on the waterfront. We stopped at the telegraph office on St James’s Square, where Holmes sent wires to his contacts in Paris, Rome, Barcelona, and Amsterdam.

  We then rode the Underground to Woolwich Station, which was approximately two kilometers along the Thames from Pier 32, so we hailed a hansom that took us the remainder of the way. Throughout the entire trip, Holmes and I discussed his plan to board the ship and slip into the cargo hold, while I was to stand guard on deck at the top of the stairs, pretending to be a passenger—which was why Holmes had instructed me to bring along my physician’s bag and a hold-all filled with clothing.

  At Pier 32, Holmes sprang from the hansom and scampered part way up the gangplank of the steamship Zenith before I touched the ground, for he did not want anyone to see us working together. On his way up the ramp, Holmes passed two stevedores lugging a heavy oak barrel on their way to one of a dozen empty freight wagons, drawn by four horses, all positioned near the bottom of the gangplank.

  I took my bags to the top in time to see Holmes in an animated discussion with a young, curly-haired man dressed in a business suit and carrying a valise. As I drew closer, I overheard the perplexed fellow tell Holmes that it was too late to inspect the remaining barrels in the cargo hold because the entire lot already had been purchased by his company, which traded in spices.

  Holmes asked permission to remove the lid from the barrel on its way to the first freight wagon. The young man said his superior at the company would likely disapprove and refused. Holmes warned him that his decision could result in disaster for his employer, but the young man was steadfast.

  “I am here to ensure that one hundred and fifty barrels are delivered to our distributors, not to learn what is in them,” he ejaculated. “Besides, they are all labelled—ginger, vanilla, cloves, pepper, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Your distributors will hear harsh words from the grocers once these barrels reach their stores,” Holmes cautioned. “What is the name of your superior?”

  “Stanley Altmire,” the young man replied sharply.

  “I shall take up the matter with him, then,” Holmes retorted, and walked toward me. “Come, Watson, we have another errand to run before this frustrating day is over. Let’s find out if this impertinent lad’s higher-up is equally recalcitrant.”

  We boarded the Underground to the City of London and located the fourth-floor offices of Compton Trading Partners, Ltd, which had purchased the cargo, and waited in the reception area for Stanley Altmire to complete his transactions on the trading floor below.

  Altmire, too, wore a tweed suit, and his round belly protruded from under the last button on his matching waistcoat.

  “How do you know there is a problem with the shipment?” he asked Holmes after hearing the detective explain that the owner of the Netherland-Sumatra Company was a convicted confidence trickster.

  “It was a straightforward deal,” Altmire continued. “We bought the goods at a bargain and can sell them for twice, maybe three times what we paid.”

  “It was a simple matter of deduction, that is how I know there is a problem,” Holmes offered. “I can spare you considerable embarrassment if you allow me to inspect the contents of the barrels.”

  “It is too late for inspections,” Altmire contended. “We have tendered payment and the goods are on their way to market.”

  “Do you mind telling me,” Holmes inquired, “how much you paid for a hundred and fifty barrels of ocean sand?”

  “F-f-for what?” Altmire stammered.

  “For beautiful, white, beach sand,” Holmes declared.

  “How can you be sure?” Altmire moaned, to which Holmes responded thusly:

  “Because the first barrel that was carried out of the cargo hold of the steamship Zenith had been damaged on its side in transport. It leaked, leaving a trail of ocean sand all along the gangplank, across the deck, and down the stairs to the cargo hold. I deduced that if one barrel contained sand, not nutmeg as it was marked, all the rest were suspect. But to be certain that you have been swindled, I must conduct my inspection.”

  “I shall write the addresses of our distributors’ warehouses with a letter authorizing you to open the barrels,” Altmire stated apologetically. “We paid twenty thousand pounds for that shipment. I need to know the results of your inquiries as quickly as possible so that we can notify the bank to cancel the draft—if the money hasn’t already been withdrawn by Barnabas Huckabee.”

  “The dapper, cheery chap with the crooked nose?” Holmes queried.

  “Yes, he’s the one,” Altmire answered, then excused himself to go to his desk.

  Sherlock Holmes expended the next day-and-a-half exploring the warehouses on Stanley Altmire’s list, reporting the findings of ocean sand everywhere to the distraught trader, who failed in his attempt to cancel the bank draft before it was negotiated. The cash was gone.

  “Our company can hardly afford the loss,” Altmire told Holmes sorrowfully. “I’ll be sacked.”

  “When my case is complete, perhaps the courts will order the funds returned,” Holmes said to ease his pain.

  “That means getting the lawyers involved, an additional expense that might come to nothing in the end,” Altmire cried out. “By then I shall be without an income, and I have a family to support.”

  “Tragic as that sounds, learn a hard lesson from it,” Holmes directed. “In business, as in life, trust only those who have earned it. I once gave this same advice to an old Russian woman, who nearly was slaughtered because she placed her trust in a scoundrel without first testing his loyalty to her noble pursuits.”

  Chapter 3

  INSPECTOR JONES MAKES A DREADFUL ERROR

  “There is more to this scheme than meets the eye, Watson,” Holmes surmised while he read a reply to one of his wires. “What I have discovered so far is a simple bait-and-switch fraud, far beneath the shady capabilities of Baron Maupertuis.” The dispatch came from a private detective in Amsterdam with whom Holmes had collabourated in the case of the reigning family of Holland, a matter too delicate for publication.

  Holmes quoted from the telegram: “My former colleague, Jan Akers, tells me the Netherland-Sumatra Company has amassed a fortune in bank loans and investment capital from across Europe, and its inventory of spices occupies an enormous storage facility in a shipyard on the North Sea Canal.”

  “What if all the barrels in that conglomeration contain sand?” I proposed.

  “That would be more consistent with the grandiose character of a Maupertuis plot,” Holmes guessed, “especially if he borrowed immense sums to finance a bogus supply of spices, using the same spurious collateral over and over. It has always amazed me how businessmen, bankers and investor
s are so quick to believe a charming swindler, never doubting his word when a windfall of profit is dangled in front of them.”

  Holmes wrote back to Akers to express gratitude for the information and to impose on him further, asking if he could make discreet inquiries as to the whereabouts of Baron Maupertuis, in particular if he maintained a residence in the Netherlands.

  “We can go by the telegraph office on our way to Scotland Yard,” Holmes said to me as he replaced the cap on the inkwell. He had no sooner spoken than we heard Mrs Hudson coming up the stairs, then stopping in the open doorway, where she announced that Inspector Peter Jones was waiting in her parlour to discuss an urgent problem.

  “By all means, send him up, Mrs Hudson,” Holmes instructed her.

  Our visitor’s slow, heavy footfall on the steps foretold of bad news, for he was usually agile and fast-paced.

  “Oh, Mr Holmes, I’m afraid I have bungled the job,” he began as he entered our rooms.

  “Come, take up one of the armchairs and fill me in,” Holmes implored, seeing that the man was in distress.

  Inspector Jones slumped into the seat and covered his pale face with his pudgy hands. “The situation couldn’t be worse,” he howled. “I killed a man, an innocent human being, thinking he was one of our prime suspects in Lord Pritchard’s murder, but it turned out he only resembled the one posing as the butler.”

  “How did this happen?” Holmes broke in.

  “I was engaged in talk with an informant on Cold Harbour Lane in South London,” Inspector Jones explained, “when the man in question walked past me. He looked so much like the imposter butler that I left the informant in mid-sentence and accosted the gentleman. I told him I was investigating the murder of Lord Pritchard and wanted to take him to headquarters for interrogation. ‘You’ll not pin that crime on me!’ he shouted, and turned to run.

  “I snatched the back of his jacket and spun him around. He grappled with me and was getting the better of it, so I drew my revolver and clobbered him on the forehead as hard as I could. He collapsed in a heap—I had no idea he was a bleeder, and the force of my blow caused his brain to haemorrhage. He died on the spot, almost instantly.