“Having escaped the Group,” Bones said, “or so they thought, Joe Fur and Lucy – accompanied by Jefferson Hope – were soon on the move. When there was no evidence of anyone trailing them by the next morning, the Furs gave sighs of relief and began to relax. Jefferson Hope, however, was not the sighing or relaxing sort. He urged them to move faster, to put more time and distance between themselves and the Group.”
Bones sighed here.
“There are times when I think,” he said, “if only they knew what people know now, that they can talk to animals. If only they could have talked to the horses, like I can … ”
“Talk to the horses?” I snorted. “Like that would ever do anyone any good!”
“You know, Catson,” he said, considering, “someday, you will have to overcome all your prejudices – ”
“I?”
“And when you do, you will learn that there is always something to gain through peaceable conversation with other creatures.”
“And what could have been gained in this instance by ‘peaceable conversation with other creatures,’ pray tell?”
“If the humans could have talked to their horses, perhaps they would have learned that their horses had been talking to other horses. That information, if followed, could have saved so many people so much heartache.”
I opened my mouth. I shut my mouth. I can’t say my opinion of horses had improved very much, but I couldn’t fault his logic.
“Moving on,” Bones said, “our little party of three did gain more distance between themselves and the Group. And with that increased distance came greater relief.” Bones sighed again. “If only they knew … ”
If only they knew … ? That was just as bad as “or so they thought!” Does any good ever come following either phrase? If you ask me, it’s even worse than or else … At least with or else, there’s always the possibility of a positive outcome, however slim, as long as one party gives in to the other party and does whatever the or else was put there for in the first place. But if only they knew and or so they thought – those phrases never bode well, the words their very selves indicating that misfortune is soon to call.
Having originally thought all this to myself, I then spoke it all out loud, to which the dog replied:
“It never occurred to me before that you gave such philosophical matters so much thought.”
I glared at him. Just how many insults had he shot at me with that single sentence?
“Then what happened?” Waggins asked. What, did the puppy not want to see a cat-and-dog fight?
“Thinking that they were relatively safe for the time being,” Bones said, “Jefferson Hope took leave of the others. You see, their supplies were running low and he was the most capable among them to hunt for food. After all, if Joe Fur had been any good at that, he and Lucy would not have nearly starved to death in the desert, so many years ago.”
“You say hunting,” Mr. Javier said. “I hope it is not fish that we are about to see Mr. Jefferson Hope hunt.”
“I can safely assure you,” Bones said, “it was not fish. He had a rifle with him and no one uses a rifle on fish unless those fish are in a barrel.”
This was possibly the most inaccurate thing I had ever heard the dog utter, but the turtle seemed satisfied, so I let it pass.
“It took a long time for Jefferson Hope to find what he was seeking,” Bones said, “which, in a way, you could say was also the story of his life. By the time he finally returned several hours later, to the campsite where he’d left Joe Fur and Lucy earlier in the day, do you know what he found there?”
We stared back at him. How should we know?
“Nothing,” Bones said. “He found nothing.”
“Nothing?” I half-shrieked at the dog. “How could he have found nothing? The mountains, the trees, the stones, the shrubbery, the very earth itself: did it all just – poof! – disappear?”
“Fine,” he said, clearly annoyed at my exactness. “Of course, he found all those things you just mentioned and more, no doubt. But he didn’t find three horses. He didn’t find two people. He didn’t find Lucy.”
“So, what?” Puppy #4 said dumbly. “Did they go poof?”
“Of course not!” said the dog. “Listen, and you shall learn!”
Could he not see, we were listening?
“As I said,” the dog said, “Jefferson Hope did not find any traces of his own party. But he did find traces.”
“Of?” I prompted.
“Many other horses’ hoof prints, perhaps too many to count, not to mention many different men’s footprints. They were leading up to the campsite from the direction of the Group and there were clearly just as many traveling in the direction from whence they had just come – back toward where the Group had settled.”
“So, many people from the Group had been there?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “but that was nowhere near the worst part.”
I’m not going to ask, I’m not going to ask, I told myself. But then, I couldn’t help it.
“And what was the worst part?” I demanded to know, on my behalf, on all our behalves.
“Searching the area more closely, poor Jefferson Hope came across a mound of freshly turned earth – a grave, if you will.”
Oh, this was bad. Still:
“Poor Jefferson Hope?” True, even I’d been pulled along by the tale of young Jefferson Hope in love, but: “Should we really be feeling bad for the man we know to be a double murderer?”
“But he wasn’t that then, was he?” Bones said. “Imagine him, finding the grave, wondering if the woman he loved lay beneath it. Of course, as it turned out, she didn’t, but it was nearly as bad.”
“How nearly?” I asked warily.
“No sooner had he found the grave, than Jefferson Hope spied a piece of paper on a stick, sticking out of the ground as sticks stuck in the ground are wont to do. On that flimsy piece of paper was the name Joe Fur accompanied by that day’s date, the day of his death.”
“The Group killed Joe Fur?” I said, shocked.
“Someone did,” Bones said. “With Lucy gone and all the evidence before him, Jefferson Hope could only conclude that the Group, having killed her father, had then seized Lucy Fur, with the intent to bring her back to wed either the Secretary or, er, John Smith.”
“The scoundrels!” I said, clenching my paws tightly.
“I must agree with you there,” Bones said. “No doubt, Jefferson Hope shared that sentiment, which is why – right then and there – he vowed to take his revenge.”
“Revenge,” I echoed. “I recall that in the first case we worked together, when we found the body of, er, John Smith, someone had written on the wall in blood the word ‘RACHE’. The public human detectives assumed it was the partially written name of a woman, Rachel, but you said it was in fact the German word for ‘revenge’.”
“How wise of you to remember,” Bones said.
I took the compliment in stride with a slight bow, neglecting to add that it was all fresh in my memory because I’d written of all this in Case File #1: Doggone, which I didn’t want him to know because who knew what he’d think if he did? Probably the most he’d do was criticize me for not making him appear even smarter, but why take that chance? In all likelihood, he’d just be so flattered to discover me writing about him in books, it would go to his head. His head was so big already. Did it really need another reason to grow any bigger?
“So,” Bones said, “as I said, Jefferson Hope set out for revenge. First, though, there was the small matter of even getting back to the Group. With his own horse gone too, he had no choice but to set off on foot. And, while it had taken him just a little over a day on horseback to arrive at his present location, it now took him several days on foot to return to where he’d been.”
“Isn’t it always just like that?” Waggins said, with a rueful wag of his head. “I always find that the journey out to a place is always
faster and better than the journey back.”
Who knew the puppy was such a philosopher? No wonder he was leader of the pack. It might not have been much as observations go but it was pretty impressive coming from a puppy.
“After several days of journeying,” Bones said, “having drawn close to where the Group resided, Jefferson Hope came across a man. Although Jefferson Hope had never been particularly friendly with anyone from the Group outside of the Furs – Jefferson Hope was an outsider and the Group was decidedly unfriendly to outsiders – as I said before, during his time at the inn he had made a few acquaintances and this man was one of those. In fact, he was closer to this man than any of the others.”
“Name, please?” I prompted.
But the dog just waved a dismissive paw. “In this instance, the name of the man does not matter. In this instance, the man will only be with us for this very short part of the story and then he shall disappear from it entirely.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Go ahead then. Just keep referring to him as ‘the man’ if you want to.”
“Thank you, I shall. Although the man was clearly terrified at the risk of being seen with Jefferson Hope, Jefferson Hope prevailed upon him to tell him what had happed to Lucy Fur, and that is when he learned of her fate.”
“What happened? What happened?” more than one voice cried out.
“Why, she had been married, of course,” the dog said. “Only just the day before, while Jefferson Hope had been hurrying to reach her, she’d been married.”
“To who?” we cried, some of us more correctly amending that to “To whom?”
“Why to, er, John Smith of course.”
“No!” I reeled back in horror.
To their credit, the puppies and Mr. Javier reeled back in horror too.
“Oh, yes,” Bones said. “I wish I could tell you a different story but I fear I cannot.”
“So then,” I said, “Jefferson Hope was too late?”
Too late! Oh, the tragedy of too late!
“Well, for that, he was,” Bones said. “The man told Jefferson Hope that both the Secretary and, er, John Smith had been part of the large group within the Group that had trailed Jefferson Hope and the Furs into the mountains. He further said that upon returning to the Group with Lucy, there had been quite a fight over who should then get to marry her.”
“My,” I said, “for a man who hasn’t even been given a name, he said an awful lot.”
“Indeed, he did,” Bones said, wholly missing my sarcastic tone. “The man further said that it was the Secretary who had killed Joe Fur and that he thought that – somehow! – this meant he had a greater claim to marry Lucy, but the Leader ended up giving her to, er, John Smith.”
“Gave her?” I did not even know this Lucy Fur, but it galled me to think of men fighting over her in such a way, giving her no choice in where she would go, or whom she would go there with.
“I do realize that empathy has never been my strong suit,” the dog said, showing rare self-insight, “but in this instance, I can empathize wholly. No being or animal should be treated in such a fashion.”
“How did she react to it?” I asked.
“I’m afraid there was no fight left in her. The man told Jefferson Hope that when she was brought back to the Group, she looked close to death. And, in fact, she was dead within thirty days.”
That last thing Bones said was so awful, it hurt me to even write it down. But it is what he said. And, worse was to come.
“As it turned out,” he said, “er, John Smith was not upset by her passing at all. As it turned out, he’d only ever wanted to marry her so he could get his hands on her wealthy father’s property.”
That was what was worse.
After a sad sigh, ever practical, Bones continued on with, “But there is nothing to be done about that now, so let us not dwell upon that part. Let us turn our attention back to Jefferson Hope, who had vowed his revenge.”
Funny, before this day, I’d thought of Jefferson Hope with the same scorn I would give any common villain. Now, I almost pitied the man.
“Over the next months and years, Jefferson Hope made many attempts to exact his revenge – and the Secretary and, er, John Smith made similar attempts to remove him from the picture before he could remove them – but it was all to no avail, on all of their parts. At last, having run near out of money, Jefferson Hope gave up and left, going yet further west to remake his fortune.”
“Only he didn’t give up,” I said.
“That,” Bones said, “he did not.”
“Years later,” Bones said, “having finally remade his fortune, Jefferson Hope returned to the area where the Group had been only to find that, while most of the Group were still there, the Secretary and, er, John Smith were no longer among them. For whatever reasons, the Secretary and, er, John Smith had chosen to leave the Group. And so, like Jefferson Hope himself, they were now considered by the Group to be outsiders.”
“So then what happened?” I asked.
“By this time,” Bones said, “er, John Smith was still a very wealthy man – he did still have Joe Fur’s money, after all – but things had not gone as well for the Secretary, who had far less money.”
“Ah!” I said, understanding finally clicking in. “So that is how he became the Secretary.”
“Just so,” Bones said. “At any rate, now armed with his own fresh and large supply of cash, Jefferson Hope dogged the traces of the two villains, like a dog with a bone.”
“Only the two?” Waggins said. “But there were other men involved in the kidnapping of the Furs. I mean, when you think about it, the whole entire Group was responsible, in one way or another, for what happened to Lucy and her adopted father.”
“But that’s just it,” I said. “Earlier, Bones said the Group numbered ten thousand. Even a man as determined as Jefferson Hope couldn’t hope to avenge himself on ten thousand. He could, however, do so with the two men he blamed most.”
“Precisely,” Bones said. “Your deductive powers are increasing by the day, Catson.”
Kiss him. Kill him. It’s always fifty-fifty.
“Jefferson Hope tracked all over the United States of America. Anytime he would draw close, though, somehow they would get wind of him and get away. He then traced them from the States to Europe, and across that continent from country to country until he found them finally – finally! – here in England.”
We all stared at him, waiting for him to continue. While we stared at him, he pulled out his pipe and played with it; he never smokes the thing, thankfully, for it is a filthy habit. Then he studied his manicure … all four paws. For good measure, he pretended to box and fence his way across the living room even though he hadn’t bothered to get out either his gloves or sword. He even picked up and began to play a song on his violin. But no amount of staring appeared to induce him to speak again.
Therefore, I was forced to say:
“And?”
“And what?” He appeared perplexed, stopping his bow mid-strum.
“And what else happened?”
“You know what happened, my dear Catson.” He set his violin down, resumed his seat. “It happened at the beginning of our last case which is somehow now part of this case too.”
“Yes but – ” I started to object, but from the look on his face I realized there was little point. He’d said as much as he would for now. If there was more, it would come later. “Well!” I said. “That is quite a tale!”
“Yes.” He was obviously pleased with himself. “It is, isn’t it?”
“But what I would like to know is … ”
“Yes?” he jumped on this. Was there ever, in the history of the world, a creature who so liked being asked questions? Who so liked knowing, more than anyone else, the answers to everything?
“But how?” I said, unable to stop myself from asking. “The last I checked, I knew everything you knew about the case, but now yo
u know all this. You know all this … information, some of it going back decades! So how? How do you know all these things?”
“Because I read.” More pleased. “Because I read and observe.” More pleased still. “Plus, I’m incredibly nosy, and you take some incredibly long naps.”
“What does that mean? The events you have been discussing mostly took place in America.”
“That is true. You are no doubt deducing that as long as your naps may be, they are not long enough for me to make my way to America and back again. If so, you are deducing correctly.”
I nodded firmly in response.
“Elementary, my dear Catson. During your naps, I made use of the telephone, calling America frequently to further my investigation. You may not care for the device, but I am rather fond of that invention of mine.”
He –
Just how big was my telephone bill going to be?
Finally, most pleased of all: “Also, I visited Jefferson Hope in prison, not long after his arrest, one day while you were busily occupied with one of your longer naps.”
Knock.
“Oh, and also?”
Knock. Knock.
“I know who that is at the door,” he said smugly.
How could he? I looked around: the puppies, Mr. Javier, him, me. Wasn’t everyone we knew already in this room? And yet:
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
“I’ll get it, Bosses! I’ll get it!” Mr. Javier cried, rising from where he’d been taking a break from pretend dusting and, powered by his jetpack, flying with great speed down the stairs.
And …
… crash.
I know I said he had gotten much better with the device and it’s true –he had – but there were still these occasional glitches.
After the expected “Ouch!,” we heard the sound of the door opening, followed by Mr. Javier’s enthusiastic greeting and the sound of muttering. Then came the heavy, clodding tread of human footsteps on the stairs. Soon, Mr. Javier was back amongst us and – with him – the two public detectives: Inspector Strange and Inspector No One Very Important.
Sherlock Bones 2: Dog Not Gone! Page 6