The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part IX

by Marcum, David;

  * * *

  It took weeks for the combined discretion of the police and the Embassies to properly address this complexity of crime, but ultimately, an international scandal was averted. I could not finish my notes until the beginning of a cool autumn.

  * * *

  “Your notes may be finished, but it is an unfinished case, Watson,” Holmes said at last.

  “Nevertheless, I would value your summary.”

  “Well, that is small enough! Persano’s letters were as illuminating as Crosby’s. One of the dons at the hotel, an unimportant relative of what we would call a country baronet, had ties with insurgents. In the persuasion of money for his beloved horse, Persano realised this man was funneling money into these unsavoury practices.

  “The don, whom we shall call ‘Cervini’, was funneling money through Crosby. Persano had his own business with the Trusteed Bank, and must have been surprised when Cervini revealed business with Crosby. Persano had just lost a small fortune to the dissolution of the Trusteed Bank and did not wish for any scandal to burn his nose, so in order to avoid discovery, he instigated a fight amongst the dons. In the time-honoured tradition of obfuscating details, this managed to distract everyone. Only the fight went too far, and Jones was injured. Persano was still trying to think of what he could do to pass the information without betraying his hand to Cervini and any possible allies, and when Lestrade was brought in to soothe everyone’s feathers. Persano saw a better chance, and there was more strategy to his temper this time. He challenged Lestrade to a duel, solely in the hopes of a private audience where he hoped to reveal everything. His reputation for a temper worked in his favour, for who would imagine he was colluding with the very man he had challenged? He spent the night writing down what details he could give, and those were the missing papers that I sought.

  “For his part, Crosby had an innocent informant in Vezzani. The old fellow was trusting of his masters, and Crosby had always been kind to him - servants are useful sources of information. The butler didn’t completely understand our English politics, but he knew that the banker, who had so many fine friends at the hotel, was needing to avoid some ‘troubles’ and planned to go to Australia for a fresh start. For a little extra money, Vezzani delivered him food, supplies, and messages in his secret bolthole. It was in these communications that Crosby learned of Persano’s odd behavior, and he must have realised Persano planned to expose him.

  “Crosby made a dupe of poor old Vezzani and lived to regret it. He had already learned that Persano had a deep cut across his fingertips from the initial skirmish, and it was common knowledge he kept slugs to heal his wounds of honour. Somehow he arranged for his poisonous little house-guest to get to Vezzani, and then deliver it to his friend Persano on the faith that the worm was a miraculous method of healing. Vezzani’s key to Persano’s rooms was stolen at about this time.

  “Persano probably didn’t care about the negligible cuts before the duel, but he did have to keep up the appearances of a real duel and he trusted the old fellow. He accepted Vezzani’s gift. Crosby took a risk, slithered his way to the hotel with Vezzani’s key, and waited. The poison did its work and Crosby simply took the papers from the insensible duelist, but something must have startled him, some common error in judgment or an escape in haste, for he left the matchbox behind.

  “Crosby misjudged Vezzani’s honour. The old man was shaken to the core, but despite his very real grief, it did not take him long to realize how cruelly he was tricked. His key to the room was missing. Who else could have stolen it?”

  “That poor old man,” I said with feeling.

  “He would not have appreciated our pity. I did some investigation into his life. In his youth, he was a personal guard for Napoleon III in exile! He dyed his hair black not out of vanity, Watson, but because he did not want his enemies to go soft on him. He stole that dueling pistol right under our very noses! As soon as he could, he found Crosby in his bolthole and confronted him, and I believe the lung-shot was a mark of his anger to the fugitive. The thunder did, as Jones suspect, hide the sound of the shot. A healthier man would have escaped, but the strain was too much and he died before he could return the papers and key to the hotel, his honour clean.

  “This is all quite wonderful, but why did you insist on seeing Crosby’s official address?”

  “His bolthole was devoid of anything that permitted insight as to his personality, and that in itself was revealing. He was a man in hiding and determined to leave his past behind him. With Jones’s escort, I went to his ostensive rooms on Marylebone Road.

  “As soon as I went there, I knew I had my answers. Like Persano, Crosby had tanks of specimens, only he had the talent for keeping marine life. Most of them were ordinary fish that you or I would see in a tidal pool, but one exceptionally large tank was most interesting. It had a massive bed comprised of a lump of coral, and not a thing else.

  “Well! Considering the pleasant demeanor and habits of our sinister little red leech, I suspected this solitary tank was the cell for the beast. Examining it from the outside was not illuminating, but Jones finally understood what I needed to find, and before long he and his constables opened up Crosby’s personal safe a second time. In it I found what I was looking for.”

  Holmes chuckled, long and low around his pipe, and I asked him what he found so amusing.

  “Why, the expression on poor Jones and his men. I fear I was overly delighted at the papers, and they simply couldn’t understand why my happiness was so dependent on months of bills paid to local fishermen. Meticulous as any banker, Crosby kept his purchases on record - I doubt it would ever occur to him not to - and every week a boy was paid to deliver a pail of fresh water and live fish no larger than a child’s longest finger. It was, of course, food for this thing.”

  “But can you prove it?”

  “Ah, I suppose I could if a court wanted to bother. You see, Crosby had many healthy fish in his tanks, but the bill was revealingly vague. It only required the payee to bring him any species of fish, so long as it was a certain size. This voracious creature needed a week to clean out its offerings, and then another pail would be delivered. Even if I had any doubts at this point, Jones was convinced and, in his sanguine temperament, he had his constables lift that chunk of coral out of the tank for my examination. I admitted my surprise at his willingness to help, and his reasoning was that he would not knowingly expose the public to a possible threat like more of those bloodsuckers.

  “What I found was a long tunnel in the underside of the coral. It matched perfectly the dimensions of our little guest, as did a rather chilling collection of tooth-marks where, we may presume, this marine leech or worm struck at its prey and missed. The dimensions were exact.”

  “That is completely chilling, Holmes.”

  “Crosby managed his bolthole below the Bruce Buildings and planned to wait it out until he could flee to Australia. French is the language of accounting and diplomacy, and Crosby was fluent enough that he could retire comfortably as some fashionable foreigner. It was a dirty case, but a worthwhile test of my energies, even if it will forever remain incomplete.”

  “But, Holmes... How do you mean by that?”

  “Why, we cannot find this remarkable worm’s true origin, Watson. Without such data, a perfectly valid and existing beast is but halfway to a yeti, or the fantastical flying turtles taken so seriously by our ancestors’ cartographers. Add to this uneven mixture the scandal of an old guard of Napoleon’s conducting his own vendetta, righteous though it may be, and the vindictive murder of a man who would stoop at nothing in his cowardice... No, Watson, this is unfinished for many reasons. It shall never see print, for even your remarkable way with facts cannot create a tapestry with nonexistent thread.”

  “It may be unfinished, but it is still a useful exercise of your powers, Holmes.”

  “You are too kind, old fr
iend.” Holmes answered quietly. “But I shall risk insulting you with the low tactic of using your own words against you. ‘A problem without a solution may interest the student, but can hardly fail to annoy the casual reader.’”

  NOTES

  ACD had a lot of cross-pollination in his stories. This is only to be expected, as this was one of the world’s erudite observers. We see multiple references to secondary characters in the Canon, and in “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez” and “The Problem of Thor Bridge”, Watson mentions oh-so-casually two cases that are weirdly similar: A remarkable worm unknown to science, and a loathsome red leech. Both cases have a stricken male character attached to their existence. One is dated to 1894; the other properly vague - as proper as a dowager deflecting the rudeness of direct queries to her age - as to the timeline but we know it was not after 1900.

  Leeches and worms are of the Annelid phylum, Class Clitellata. They share almost as many differences as they do similarities, but ultimately (as far as science goes) the similarities rule out. Conan Doyle was not a bad jackleg naturalist, and his curiosity about the natural world inspired many of his works of fiction. He may, in the tradition of Watson, call them “poor writings” but we may respectfully disagree. That wonderful fascination with the Cosmos and the Master’s skill in telling a story without divulging sensitive details lets us extrapolate a tale that involves both - and as anyone who has dealt with (even briefly) the snake-knots of politics knows, it is more credible to add detail than it is to subtract. I am thankful that this gave me the chance to explore two under-appreciated aspects of Victoriana: The Italian culture of homosexual males, and the proper respectability of British society that allowed a woman to wear men’s clothing as a profession.

  1 Physically imposing and incredibly strong, Froest did become Superintendent. His friendship with John Nash and his wife Lil Hawthorn, the cross-dressing performer, led to the arrest of Dr. Crippen. His physical appearance is everything the parodist would wish for in a fumbling policeman, but his mind was as sharp as razors.

  2 Fifteen days or eight nights.

  The Adventure of the Multiple Moriartys

  by David Friend

  Since first I picked up my pen to describe the peculiar methods - and, it could even be said, the peculiar character - of my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, some readers have written to me in appreciation for doing so. Although most correspondents have been generous, there are those who attempt to mimic Holmes by noting a small number of trifling inconsistencies and fixating upon them. How, for example, could my bullet wound move? Additionally, have I been married more than once?

  Such questions can readily be explained: I suffered two wounds, though it was only the one which caused my discharge from the Army, while I married again after the death of my second wife, Mary. Holmes’s landlady, incidentally, was always Mrs. Hudson. Yet there was a time during the case of the cabinet card in which she was joined by Mrs. Turner, whose own husband we would later meet in the affair at Boscombe Valley.

  I have never been the most observant - indeed, Holmes has complained as much himself on numerous occasions - and there will, therefore, be moments when a lapse of focus occasions a negligible error. On some points, however, I remain correct. The brother of Professor Moriarty, for one, does indeed share his forename. This may seem irregular - even, perhaps, unlikely - but, since so many of my readers are apparently interested, I will explain how it is perfectly sound. To do so, I must relate how Holmes and I uncovered such a secret. It should not be unexpected, considering the man involved, just how dark and deviant this was.

  During the second week of April 1895, London was reeling from the arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel. I had been following the case through the papers, fully expecting Queensbury to recant his outrageous accusation. Holmes, who had recently solved the matter of the examination forgery, preferred to focus his attention on his chemical pursuits, and I heard him say little which did not concern either hydrochloric acid or olefiant gas. He had worked without pause since the end of his travels, and I had been worrying for his health and wanted him to rest. As his doctor, therefore, I forbade him from admitting any clients without my express permission.

  “If you so wish it, Watson,” he told me solemnly.

  Holmes, however, may have enjoyed the lull between cases, but I certainly did not. On the second day, working as a locum at my old practice, I was disrupted by the unwelcome appearance of a rat, and I spent a good deal of time attempting to settle frightened patients and convince them that it was not an ordinary feature of my old consulting rooms.

  “You would not believe what happened today!” I complained loudly upon my return to Baker Street. Holmes was in his bedroom, but I continued, loud and wretchedly, pacing the sitting room floor. “A rat in my old surgery! Calm as you please, sitting there as though it were waiting to be examined. Patients could be lost because of this!” I dropped heavily into an armchair and unshipped a resigned sigh. “The way Mrs. Clutterbuck gossips, the rest of London will know soon. I shall probably be reading about it in the evening papers.”

  In an effort to distract myself, I picked up The Illustrated London News. I had hidden it from Holmes, lest a potential case catch his eye, but I need not have worried. The pages were almost bare of interest, as though every figure who could have filled them had not wanted to compete with the Wilde scandal.

  I was studying the crossword, trying to remember what a female mallard is called, when I suddenly sensed a movement in my peripheral vision, somewhere towards the mantelpiece. It was a sort of intermittent scurrying. I lifted my head and, to my utmost horror and outrage, saw another rat. It was smoothly brown, its back hunched in a parody of an Arabian camel, with pink ears and a worm of a tail. I stared distastefully as it scuttled past the clock.

  With cold anger, I moved to the desk, opened the drawer and groped inside. I kept an eye on the vermin as my fingers fumbled through a pile of letters and curled gratefully around the metal handle of my Webley Bulldog revolver.

  The rat was scratching softly towards the end of the mantelpiece. I levelled the gun and squinted. Suddenly, somehow, it froze. Maybe it wanted mercy from an old soldier. Even in war, however, I had never wavered, despite the grip on my heart and the roar in my head. Without a pause, I squeezed the trigger and the gun gave a loud and resolute retort.

  I missed it cleanly and the damn thing scurried out of sight. As it did so, I heard a movement and the door to his bedroom was yanked open. Holmes stood there in his purple dressing gown, a cigarette dangling from his lips and a quizzical frown upon his face.

  “Whenever I do that,” he said wryly, “you tell me off!”

  I returned the revolver to the drawer. “That wasn’t shooting practice,” I told him. “I saw a rat.” I pointed to where the rodent had been running only moments before. Holmes did not seem at all alarmed. “I already had to deal with one at my old surgery,” I said. “It is as though the damned things have been following me arou-”

  I paused.

  My friend continued puffing innocently on his cigarette.

  I turned on him. “Did the rat at my surgery come from here?” I asked him harshly, realising how easily one could smuggle itself in my consultancy bag. “Are they something to do with you? It’s not possible!”

  Holmes gave a careless shrug. “Not at all, my dear Watson. It is perfectly possible to purchase a mischief of rats and examine their behaviour. It is not as though I am experimenting on them.” He gestured limply to the room. “There are a few others running around and you would do well not to shoot at them.” He had reached the end of his cigarette and was looking about for an ashtray. “There are pleasanter ways to be awoken.”

  Quite carelessly, he folded himself into the chair I had vacated and crunched his cigarette out on my newspaper. He seemed buoyant, untroubled, and it was a mood I could not match.
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br />   “You do realise that people will be avoiding the practice for weeks now!” I said in outrage. “It is supposed to be a place of cleanliness.”

  Infuriatingly, Holmes did not seem in the least sympathetic. “If you will prohibit me from accepting cases,” he said airily, “I must lend my time to something else. The psychology of vermin is as interesting a topic as any.”

  I recoiled in disbelief. “You are saying this is my fault?”

  Fortunately for Holmes, we were interrupted at this point by a knock at the door.

  “That had better not be the arrival of a client!” I warned, pointing an officious finger towards him.

  Holmes shook his head blandly. “It isn’t,” he said and, with an unexpected dignity, added, “That will be my tuba.”

  “Your... tuba?” I repeated, off-guard. “You no longer enjoy the Stradivarius?”

  “A change is as good as a rest, and you do so insist on the latter. Admit Mr. Heppenstall, Watson. And carry it up, won’t you? He isn’t as young as he was.”

  I made to protest. I had been working, after all, and despite his convalescence, Holmes had the energy of ten men. He was, however, already picking up my paper and splitting it open.

  Downstairs, I found Mr. Heppenstall on the doorstep. He was a short, lean old man with a frogged jacket, leathery skin, and wrinkles that curved towards a small, bland smile. I was surprised a man of his years and build had managed to carry such an unwieldy instrument, but he did so well and without any visible effort.

  I took it from him and - to my surprise - felt my whole body sink with the weight.

  “Good of you,” Mr. Heppenstall nodded and, his assignment completed, turned around and strolled merrily away.

  I spluttered something in response - a plea for help, perhaps, followed swiftly by an oath - but no assistance was forthcoming and I had little choice but to tackle the stairs alone. I could not see anything below my chest and tapped an exploratory foot about for the stair. Somehow, I managed to place it correctly and began my weary ascent.