A Three Pipe Problem

by Julian Symons

  ‘Lassie. Dear old Lassie. She never went over the road except at the traffic crossing. I’d trained her.’ It was with incredulity that he heard the name. That the bitch should be called Lassie was too much, but then what is too much in life? ‘She was thirteen. She’d slept at the end of my bed for years. What harm had she ever done to anybody?’

  ‘No harm, Cassidy.’

  ‘They ran her down and never stopped. I was at the door and she’d gone on in front as she often did. They killed her, killed her on the crossing, Mr Haynes, and they never even stopped. I picked up my Lassie and took her in the house and cradled her in my arms. I just couldn’t believe she was dead, but she was. I made up my mind then.’

  ‘You’d taken the car number, and it was easy for you to find the owner through the Warden Centre. And you killed Pole.’

  ‘I punished him. He deserved punishment.’ Now Cassidy looked up, his eyes bright with certainties. ‘Should a man be able to knock down a dog in his car and drive away, and nothing happen?’

  ‘Should a man be allowed to put himself above the law?’ Cassidy did not answer. ‘And the others, Cassidy, the others. They hadn’t killed anybody.’ He was about to add, not even a dog, but caught the words in time.

  Cassidy spoke earnestly. The scarf round his neck came loose. ‘I did not act except where I had seen things with my own eyes. A car is a machine, neither good or bad, it is the man in the machine who is guilty. I saw Gladson knock over that poor old woman. It was only chance that she was not killed. I saw Halliwell when he hit the other car. He drove over a red light, and he was drugged. The other man was badly hurt. Should Halliwell have gone free?’

  ‘You could have given evidence in the case.’

  ‘What would have been the use? Halliwell was a pimp and a homosexual.’ A quick shudder went through his body. ‘He was able to bribe witnesses. The law can do nothing with people like that. They had to be punished, and I did it. They called them the Karate Killings, but they should have called it the wrath of God.’

  ‘I know how you did it, Cassidy. There was no karate. You hit them with that truncheon I saw in the car. If you knew just where to hit, the blow would be a killer. And you knew, you’d been in the army as well as the police. The only thing that showed would be the mark of a blow.’

  Cassidy seemed to shake his right sleeve, and the piece of wood was in his hand, polished and gleaming. ‘This is teak, specially made for me. I don’t know karate, it was the papers that talked about it.’

  ‘You had no right to punish them yourself.’

  ‘I have thought that. But then they would have gone free.’

  ‘You said to me that there must be rules. You’ve broken the rules.’ The scarf had fallen completely away, and Sher exclaimed at what he saw. ‘What are those marks on your neck?’ Cassidy mumbled something. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘She killed a cat. Last night. I saw her. But it has troubled me, I think perhaps I was wrong, and that she didn’t mean to kill. I punished her, but she fought. I didn’t like it, I’m afraid I was wrong.’

  Sher looked at him in horror. ‘You did it tonight? And the woman’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. I was following her. For you.’

  ‘Sarah Peters?’

  ‘Yes. She was no more than a prostitute, but I’m afraid – afraid I did wrong.’ He put his face in his hands, weeping.

  ‘Cassidy, you need help. You can’t go on.’

  ‘I can’t go on,’ Cassidy agreed, still weeping.

  ‘We have to go to the police. Together. Now.’

  Cassidy wiped his eyes, nodded, got up. They went out of the pub together.

  When Johnson got to the Centre, they told him that Mr Haynes had left a message for Cassidy to join him in the Bear and Staff. In the pub he learned that the warden had left in the company of a tall gentleman just a couple of minutes earlier. Where were they? There was a tangle of road junctions beside the flyover, with barriers put up to make sure you did not cross the road but went through the subway. If they had gone back to the Centre he must have met them. There was only one thing they could have done, gone into the subway.

  ‘The police station’s over there.’ Cassidy pointed in the direction of a dimly visible central island of stone. All the streets here were one way, and some traffic moved along them. The flyover roared almost directly above their heads, and it was possible to see the tops of lorries moving along it, turned by the fog into shapes like lumbering animals.

  ‘We have to go through the subway.’ Cassidy led the way down the slope into what looked like total darkness, and Sher felt a twinge of anxiety. As if he had sensed this the other man said, ‘No need to worry, Mr Haynes. I don’t have anything against you, why should I? Anyway, I’ve done enough. Too much.’ When they got farther down the slope – it was a slope that he had descended in his dream – small bulkhead lights were visible in the subway itself. ‘I shall be glad it’s finished. Everything has got out of hand since Lassie was killed. I’m not in control any more.’

  When they entered the subway, Shorty and Drummond were coming down the slope. For once there had been no difficulty in getting Shorty out of the pub, but he had been shaken to find that Haynes now had a companion, and that the man was in uniform. Drummond, on the other hand, was exultant.

  ‘Number two’s as easy as number one, my mother used to say. And look what I’ve got for him.’ He took out of his jacket pocket a flick knife which opened to a long stiletto point. ‘My knitting needle.’

  ‘If he’s fuzz I’m packing it in. We’ll have the whole force on our backs. Wait a minute though.’ He had seen Cassidy’s peaked cap. ‘He’s not fuzz, just a bloody traffic warden.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about.’ He saw Haynes and the warden enter the subway. ‘Come on, this is it. We won’t find anything better.’

  The subway smelt musty, but the fog was thinner here, with better visibility than up above. As Sher and Cassidy went on the tunnel branched out and expanded. A sign said ‘Bakerloo Line. Buses to Victoria and Oxford Circus.’ Where the tunnel widened there was a shop that called itself a boutique, and another that said ‘Rings an’ Things’. Both were closed. Three tunnels led off in different directions, and with a consciousness of absurdity Sher asked Cassidy which way to go.

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve been down here before, but it was daylight and there were people–’

  He broke off at the sound of running footsteps behind, and they both turned. Drunond and Shorty were within a few feet of them. Drummond was grinning, holding his right hand in front of him, and waving it occasionally in the air. He said as he advanced, ‘Mr Sherlock Holmes, I presume. We’ve got some unfinished business.’

  Shorty spoke to Cassidy. ‘Get out. We don’t want any trouble with you.’

  ‘Mr Haynes?’

  ‘You’d better get out, Cassidy.’ It was extraordinary advice to give to a murderer, but what else could he say?

  ‘And leave you with this rubbish?’ Cassidy crew the truncheon from his sleeve. Shorty, as if enraged beyond the point of no return, shouted ‘All right’, and moved forward, with the weapon in his hand showing silver. At the same moment Drummond lunged for Sher, his right arm describing an arc. His left held the flick stiletto.

  What followed was like a ballet. Sher, used to facing Riverboat, evaded Drummond’s rush with ease, and turned to meet Shorty. The aluminium club caught in the cloth of his sleeve as Shorty threw it, and tore the cloth as he pulled away. Drummond was left off balance, and Cassidy brought down the miniature truncheon on his exposed right arm with a thwack like an exploding tyre. Drummond’s arm dropped to his side and he whimpered with pain.

  Shorty backed away from Sher and threw his chain again, aiming for the face. He missed, but the hooks caught in the other’s shirt, where it showed above his raglan overcoat. Cassidy, confident now that he had neutralised his opponent’s right hand, closed with him. He caught his man a blow with the trunc
heon that broke his knee-cap, but at the same moment Drummond used the stiletto, striking deep into Cassidy’s chest and then turning the knife for maximum effect. Afterwards he dropped to the ground, screaming.

  Cassidy stood for a moment apparently unhurt. Then blood welled from his mouth. He tried to speak and failed. Slowly he sank to his knees, with both hands held in front of him as though in supplication.

  At the moment when Sher saw this he was conscious of agonising pain as Shorty pulled downwards with the chain. The hooks, piercing through coat and shirt, raked the front of his body from chest to stomach. Before he succumbed to the pain he heard feet running towards him and saw Johnson. He saw also in these last moments Shorty looking disgustedly at Drummond before he started to run, and Cassidy’s body unfolding slowly from the kneeling position to curl up on the ground. A coil of blood came from his mouth, like – what was it like? – like the plastic blood that had come from Sarah’s mouth in Hyde Park. He wanted to make a joke about this, but felt his eyes closing.

  Chapter Nineteen Sherlock Lives

  Voices, among them a voice from the dead. Sarah Peters’ chiselled articulation came through the veil of unconsciousness, although the words were not distinguishable. Were they both dead, joined in a permanent squabble in some Sartrean hinterland? Another voice alternated with hers, and this was surely the voice of somebody left alive. Listening carefully, he heard a few words: ‘Mr Haynes…the message…lucky I got there…’ Johnson! Of course Johnson had arrived on the subway scene, but what was he doing here in the hinterland? To be the companion forever of Watson-Johnson and Irene-Sarah might be more than he could endure. At the thought he chuckled, felt a pain in his chest, and opened his eyes.

  ‘He’s awake.’ The two faces looking down on him were undoubtedly real. Sarah’s head was swathed in a black and white scarf, Johnson looked cherubic as ever.

  ‘You’re dead, Cassidy said so,’ he said to Sarah.

  ‘Not me. I clawed him, and it must have put him off his stroke. I was knocked out, that’s all. Cassidy’s dead though. Drummond knifed him.’

  ‘I remember.’ He said to Johnson, ‘You came up, saved me.’

  ‘Oh I don’t think so, Mr Haynes–’

  ‘Sher.’

  ‘Though perhaps it was as well I arrived when I did. After our talk on the phone, see, I got to thinking about those questions you’d asked about Cassidy’s old dog, and where could you find him, and it worried me. So I came along to the Centre.’

  ‘In the fog. Good old Watson.’

  ‘Johnson, Mr Haynes.’

  ‘I know. What happened to Shorty and Drummond?’

  ‘Cassidy broke Drummond’s knee-cap, and he couldn’t move. Shorty got away.’ He produced a square box. ‘Emmy made you a cake.’

  ‘Very kind. Thank her. And thank you.’ He felt the scene slipping away from him. ‘My wife. Does she know?’

  ‘She was here at the hospital all night, she’s resting.’ That was Sarah, who came close to him now. ‘Sher, I’m sorry for everything. That joke in Hyde Park, and mucking up the show, and everything. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘No need. Behaved badly myself.’ He summoned up his last resources of energy for a couple of lines from Blake:

  ‘And throughout all eternity

  I forgive you, you forgive me.’

  His eyes closed, but he felt the touch of her lips on his, the first and only kiss given by Irene Adler to Sherlock Holmes. Then he was asleep.

  Val and a nurse were by the bed. The nurse said, ‘You’re with us again then, hero. I’ll leave him to you, Mrs Haynes.’

  ‘What did she mean, hero?’

  Val was wearing a dark blue suit, and looked neat and competent as ever. ‘I wasn’t going to show these to you yet, but I dare say you’re up to them. You’re big news.’ She showed him two headlines: sherlock gets his man and sheridan haynes catches ‘karate killer’.

  ‘What’s happened to the fog?’

  ‘Gone. It’s raining. And warmer.’

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  ‘Since last night. It’s two in the afternoon. Do you want to know your injuries? Lots of lacerations, some of them fairly deep, but nothing serious. And some shock of course. But they’re letting you out tomorrow. Mind if I smoke?’ She lighted a cigarette. ‘I came back yesterday evening. If that’s all right.’

  ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘It turned out Willie didn’t want me, and I didn’t want him either. And do you know what I did then? Went to a sexy revue, I don’t know why. Nasty. I’m back for good. You’re sure you want me?’

  ‘Of course I want you. Shall I tell you something, Val? Sherlock Holmes is finished, the series, everything. And accept it.’

  The late afternoon brought Willie, accompanied by a gigantic mass of roses. ‘One thing you must accept, Sher, you must take it like a man. Sherlock Holmes is finished. Finito. Kaput.’

  ‘I do accept it.’

  ‘I have done my best, I have talked to Dryne, said to him that this publicity is marvellous, incredible. But that man is a monster. A machine. He has figures inside him, not blood, he is made of statistics. He would not listen. Sher, I must tell you something else that is finished too. The apartment, Baker Street. Since there is no show they say there is no point in it any more.’ Willie bounced out of his chair, walked around quickly on his short legs. ‘I tell you, Dryne is not human.’

  ‘When does he want us out?’

  ‘He said a month. But of course if you need longer, you will take it. I shall insist.’ His open arms made a present of extra days. ‘And now I must say something very personal. About Val.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘What happened was an aberration, a misconception, a few moments of madness.’ He put his hand on his heart. ‘I regret it deeply. But it is you she loves, you she has always loved.’

  ‘Willie, you’ve been reading all that in a novel.’ Willie looked offended. ‘Anyway you needn’t go on. I’m not sure that sex is so important to most people after all. Not after they’re forty.’

  ‘I am sure you are right. We are still friends, Sher?’

  ‘Still friends.’

  Willie going out almost passed Devenish coming in. ‘Just a few minutes,’ the nurse said. ‘None of your interrogations now.’

  ‘No interrogations, just congratulations.’ He pulled a chair up to the bedside. ‘So Sherlock beat the professionals. By inspiration, I suppose you might say.’

  ‘In a way. Although of course I had some clues. And you might say I was helped by the unconscious.’ He told Devenish about the dream. ‘It struck me that if Pole had knocked over a dog, that wouldn’t have been reported in the press. And I knew Cassidy was very keen about his dog. So when I learned that he lived in Purefoy Road, I put the two things together. Of course, if you hadn’t told me about the Poles’ accident–’

  ‘I did a bit more than that, I put a man on to keep an eye on you. He got done up by those two villains, but he very likely stopped them from getting at you in York Street.’ He saw no reason to tell Haynes that he had been considered as a suspect. ‘It was smart of you to think of the truncheon as a weapon.’

  ‘Yes, but then I’d seen the thing itself in Cassidy’s car,’ Sher said modestly. ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. Just as well in a way, we could never have made a case stand up in court.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have had to. He was on his way to the station to make a confession.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Haynes was a man who had a comeback for everything, but Devenish was determined not to leave him with the last word. ‘It’s worked out very well all round. We’ve picked up Shorty, and although he won’t talk Drummond has spilled his guts. With any luck we’ll put Harry Claber where he belongs.’ He got up, those menacing thumbs very visible as he shook hands. ‘A word of advice. It worked out for you this time, but I shouldn’t try it again. Stick to being Sherlock on TV, it’s safer.’

  When he went hom
e on the following day the lacerations on his chest and stomach were much less painful. He had to return to the hospital for a change of dressings, that was all. Mentally, however, he had suffered a relapse, and his depression increased at the thought that they would soon have to move from Baker Street. Perhaps Val’s sensing of this was responsible for her suggestion that they should go on a cruise. After all, she said, they had saved money, there was no need for Sher to work for some time, he could think about what to do next.

  From the depths of his Holmesian chair he asked, ‘What am I fitted to do next? Go back to provincial rep?’

  Before she could reply, the telephone rang. The voice at the other end had a mid-Atlantic accent, classless and enthusiastic.

  ‘Mr Haynes, my name is Chester Franklin. You won’t have heard of me, but I operate the Chester Franklin Bureau, which is the only lecture agency that covers all five continents. I have a proposition I want to put to you. Can you give me two minutes of your time now, Mr Haynes? It’s in connection with Sherlock Holmes. Shall I continue?’

  He told the voice to continue, and it did. ‘You’ll remember the readings that were done from Dickens and Oscar Wilde in recent years? Very successful, real money-spinners. Now, what I want to ask is whether you would consider doing a series of such readings from the Holmes stories, acting the parts and telling the stories. Can you imagine the Hound of the Baskervilles done like that, with the atmosphere of those dark moors conjured up, and the great hound striding over them? But of course you can, Mr Haynes, much better than me. Now, there’s tremendous enthusiasm for this idea. We’d start in the States, go on to Canada and Australia, and that’s only the beginning. I mean, I don’t see any end to the demand for Sherlock Holmes. Not to beat about the bush I’d be ready to sign a contract now, and then get the show on the road in three months’ time say, when you’ve had a chance to work out a programme. And terms, obviously I’d like a chance to talk about them with your agent, but at the moment you could almost write your own…’