by David Marcum
He had heartfelt enthusiasm for this mechanical contraption and proceeded to insert into it a single sheet of paper taken from the drawer of the desk. I felt I had to express my obvious confusion. “I’m sorry Holmes, but I don’t see what this has got to do with the note we are trying to decipher?”
“Well, let us return indeed to that very note, before MacDonald reappears. We shall look at it afresh.” He spread the note out before us to the right of the typewriter. “Let us consider first its form. The page has been typewritten and deliberately so. Moriarty is telling Wilkes something by the mere fact that he has typed the missive. I believe that the “right, left, right, left” reference and the associated numbers are instructions related to the use of a standard typewriter. To that we will return in a moment.”
He now pointed specifically to the second part of the message and read out “NO HIDE BIRDIE ID.” “I believe there is a clear message here. Moriarty is saying: ‘We can now expose the person who has to date been undercover, unrecognised or otherwise hidden from the public gaze.’ ‘BIRDIE’ is his code for the mole, spy or agent he is referring to.”
“But what about this word ‘ID’, Holmes, what does that suggest?”
“The term ‘I.D.’ has a certain American ring to it - a slang term for identification. It is not one which our British policing colleagues have yet adopted with any great enthusiasm, but the Police Department of New York has been pioneering in its work to provide I.D.’s for all of the major felons it wishes to apprehend. Inspector Thomas Byrnes’ Professional Criminals of America was published in September last year and provides both written descriptions and photographs of the offenders concerned. I only know this because I was asked by the capable Inspector to contribute intelligence to some of the descriptions used in the book. For the purposes of our note, Moriarty is saying to Wilkes that the target’s identity can now be revealed.”
I was still confused. “So, who is the subject of the note? How could Moriarty be sure that Wilkes would know exactly who to target without risking detection if the note was intercepted?”
“A good point, Moriarty needed to be specific. But this is a clever piece of subterfuge. Alongside the main communication, there is a second, hidden message, which precisely answers your question. Let us now turn to that.”
His pointed his long index finger at the main body of the text. “I thought at first that the hidden message was a simple process of letter substitution, with each different character of the ‘NO HIDE BIRDIE ID’ line representing an alternative letter in a traditional cypher. I was quick to discard the thought though, as there were no obvious solutions and it would have been unlikely that as a mathematical genius Moriarty would have relied on such an obviously easy code.”
“Would the message be an anagram in that case?” I interjected, realising instantly that a straightforward anagram was also unlikely. “After all, the number sequence ‘2, 3, 1, 3, 3, 2’, contained within what we believe to be the instructions, do add up to fourteen, the number of letters in the main message.”
“That is true, but try as I might, Watson, I could think of no sensible anagram from the letters in the sentence. I did, however, come up with one line that I thought you might like as a medical man - ‘I’d bid heroin die.’” I ignored the jibe, resisting the temptation to castigate him as I had so often for his casual drug use. Holmes returned to the subject of the typewriter.
“I am convinced that the keyboard will provide the solution to this puzzle,” he said, placing his hands in the correct position for typing. “The sales assistant was most insistent that the fingers be positioned accordingly. Now, following the instructions in the note, we move our finger position one key to the ‘right’ and type the first two letters out as if we were routinely typing the word ‘NO’. His fingers struck the keys accordingly and the letters “MP” appeared on the paper. He then tapped a long key at the bottom of the keyboard which he informed me was the “spacebar”.
“Now we are instructed to move to the ‘left.’” He repositioned his fingers to the left of the standard typing position and typed what would have been “HIDE”, being careful to use the spacebar to separate the letters into two words - one of three letters, the second of just one. On the paper, the newly typed words read “GUS W.” At this point I remained unconvinced that Holmes” experiment would bear any useful fruit.
Following the same logic and procedure, Holmes finished typing out the short sentence. Having done so, he pulled the newly typed page from the typewriter and retrieved an ink pen from the desk drawer, adding a few words atop the typed sentence.
“Let us see what we now have Watson! Put together, two sentences read: ‘No hide birdie ID - MP Gus W not for us.’”
Recollecting the earlier article in The Times, the message now made perfect sense to me. “The dead politician Holmes! The MP for Chippenham East, Augustus Waldringfield - he was found murdered last night!”
“So it would appear, dear fellow. And his demise was at the hands of Wilkes and not the Fenian Brotherhood. That invention was most likely promulgated by Moriarty himself to throw the suspicion off his criminal associates. What you might not yet have read, Watson, is that Waldringfield has also now been linked to the major fraud case involving the Surrey Shires Bank, of which he was one of the directors. I think we can take it that Moriarty or one of his associates had found out about the bank’s fraudulent activities, and had then tried to blackmail the MP with the information, threatening to reveal both the crime and the politician’s link to it, if he did not bend to Moriarty’s will. The outcome of the matter suggests that Waldringfield had refused to yield to the Professor’s demands, and Wilkes was therefore instructed by this note to go public with the information about the MP’s nefarious activities. Whether or not Moriarty had gone as far as to sanction murder we may never know.”
At that point, a heavy footfall on the stairs alerted us to the return of Inspector MacDonald. When he entered the room, the detective looked tired and dejected. “I have bad news, I’m afraid. It seems that sometime this morning, after I had left him to come here, Wilkes received a visit at Scotland Yard from someone purporting to be his legal representative. Having spent just a few moments with Wilkes, the man asked to be released from the holding cell and left the building. The supervising officer said that Wilkes had appeared to be fine at that point and had expressed his confidence that he would soon be released from custody. However, when the same officer returned to check on Wilkes some twenty minutes later, he found the banknote forger in the last throes of death. It seems his visitor had dispensed some form of poison to the hapless prisoner and Wilkes died shortly afterwards. I guess that puts an end to our speculation about the puzzling note, Mr. Holmes.”
It was Holmes’s turn to look dejected. “That is troubling news, MacDonald, and I can only apologise for having underestimated the extraordinary lengths that Moriarty would go to in covering his role in this sad state of affairs. Doctor Watson will no doubt convey to you over lunch the full details of what we have uncovered, having deciphered the note, and our speculation as to its links to some of the recent stories which have appeared in the press. For my part, I will leave you in his excellent company. I find myself suddenly without an appetite and in need of some fresh London air.”
With no further explanation, Holmes left us to the fine spread which Mrs. Hudson had prepared, and we spent the next hour discussing the meaning of the note and the ramifications of the case.
In the two weeks that followed, I saw very little of my colleague, immersed as I was in the celebrations for my wife’s birthday. That, at least, had been a great success - the chaise longue being considered a most perfect centrepiece for our new yellow parlour.
When I did eventually feel comfortable to bring up the subject of the Wilkes note, Holmes was demonstrably reticent to discuss the matter in any further detail. With a dismissive shake of the head, he req
uested only that I promise him two things - firstly, never to make public the strange case of the typewritten missive, and secondly, to never let him forget that Moriarty might one day be the cause of his undoing. It is with more than a tinge of sadness that I convey to you, dear reader, as I sit here reflecting on the terrible events that have occurred at the Reichenbach Falls, I fear I have let Holmes down on both counts.
The Case of the Vanished Killer
by Derrick Belanger
It was a late Saturday morning on the first of October when I heard word of the double murder of the Smith siblings, a crime which held the attention of all of England for a few brief weeks in the waning months of 1887. Although the case is now well known throughout the Commonwealth, the role my friend played in solving the crime has been ignored and credit given to our own Scotland Yard. While England’s brave officers deserve their fair share of credit for assistance on this adventure, I believe the murder would still be an unsolved crime, possibly one as famous and with as many outlandish theories as that of Jack the Ripper, if it weren’t for Sherlock Holmes bringing the case to a swift conclusion.
The tale begins with me stirring bleary eyed in my bedroom at 221b Baker Street. My wife was overseas visiting her mother in Missouri, and I moved back in with Holmes for a few weeks to spend extra time with my dear friend. I had difficulty sleeping the previous evening as the weather was excessively chilly, and I awakened to find frost on my window and the sun already high in the morning sky. I joined Holmes in the dining room, where he had already imbibed two cups of Darjeeling tea and completed the morning edition of The Times.
“Good morning, Watson,” Holmes said while folding up the paper. “You have risen just in time for a breakfast certain to warm you on this frigid autumn day.”
Mrs. Hudson had prepared a fine meal of poached eggs on toast, grilled ham that was slightly crispy, and browned tomatoes. We drank orange juice with our breakfast and talked briefly about the recent cold spell which had enveloped all of England. This pleasant start to the day was interrupted by a ringing of the doorbell and Mrs. Hudson delivering Holmes a note.
I could tell by Mrs. Hudson’s wide eyes and slight smile that this was no ordinary visitor.
Holmes looked at the note and handed it back to Mrs. Hudson. “Well, Watson,” he stated, “it looks like we have a celebrity in our midst. Please, Mrs. Hudson, show the gentleman in.”
It did not take Holmes’s powerful reasoning skills to know the identity of his guest. Mrs. Hudson opened the door and a man in a rather dour black suit entered. Even out of costume, his notorious Van Dyke beard and long, flowing brown hair clasped back in a ponytail would leave any Londoner no doubt as to the gentleman’s identity.
“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Holmes,” the man started in a drawl only spoken by natives of the American West. He turned to me and offered his hand. “Hello, my name is-”
“Buffalo Bill Cody,” I said rising from the table and meeting his hand in a firm grip. “Thank you, my name is Dr. John Watson.”
“Ah yes,” Mr. Cody said as we shook hands then released our grip. “Heard about you. You’re the guy writing that novel about this fella dealing with those Mormons,” he said, referring to my forthcoming book, A Study in Scarlet.
“Let me assure you,” Holmes responded, “that the actual solving of the case was not as dramatic as its portrayal in Dr. Watson’s telling. Now, please have a seat, and let us know what brings a famous entertainer such as yourself to my residence.”
Mr. Cody sat down in an easy chair, and we three pulled our chairs around in a circle. “First off, let me apologize for bothering you on the weekend. Know that I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t mighty important.”
Holmes silently motioned with his wrist for Mr. Cody to get to the point.
“Anyway, I need your help sir, very much sir. You see, this Inspector Lestrade is threatening to keep my whole show from going on tonight. I can’t afford to have a cancelled performance, but without my Indians, I’m not sure what to do.”
At the mention of Lestrade, Holmes’s ears perked up and the detective leaned forward clearly interested in the cowboy’s tale.
“Mr. Cody, before I can tell you if I can help you, I must know the details of why Inspector Lestrade, a man I can assure you I know quite well, and a man I have, on many occasions, shown the error of his ways, is interested in keeping your Indians from performing.”
“Well sir, did ya’ll hear about the murder committed last night?”
“Murder?” I said raising my eyebrows in surprise.
“Yes, Watson,” Holmes calmly informed me. “It is the headline of this morning’s Times. As usual, the article includes all the grisly details, but none of the important aspects of the crime. Last night, or should I say, early this morning, a brother and sister with the last name of Smith were brutally murdered in their tenement building. The building is on Old Montague Street, in the Whitechapel district. There was no apparent sign of a break in. No money was stolen. The brother was found dead with a hatchet in his head, and the sister was found on the fourth floor landing, stabbed to death. At the time of the newspaper’s publication, the police had no witnesses and no suspects. I assume that has changed.”
“Right you are,” answered Cody. “At just about dawn this morning, this Inspector Lestrade and half of Scotland Yard comes bursting into my Indians’ sleeping quarters. They’re hollering and screaming that one of my performers is guilty of killing these Smith siblings in cold blood. Fortunately, Red Shirt was there and was able to keep the peace. With all that at six in the morning, after my troop had rightly stayed up late celebrating, we’re lucky no fights broke out, and no one got arrested.”
Red Shirt was the name of the famous Lakota-Sioux leader who was part of Bill Cody’s Wild West show. The press loved the Indian, and he was almost as famous as the cowboy before me. I was baffled as to why Mr. Cody was telling us about how Inspector Lestrade connected the Indians to the murder, and said as much to the gentleman.
“Well, apparently it wasn’t no ordinary hatchet that killed that Smith boy. It was a tomahawk they found in his head, and that’s not all. They also claim they found a few arrowheads on the floor of the apartment. That was what led the inspector to jump to the conclusion that an Indian had killed the Smiths. And, of course, where else to find an Indian but at my Wild West show?”
Holmes leaned back in his chair for a moment, taking in the description of Mr. Cody’s situation. “Lestrade,” the detective stated, “does have some rationale for his actions. Can you vouch for the location of all of your Lakota members?”
Mr. Cody’s spine stiffened, and I feared my friend had insulted the celebrity, but when he spoke his voice was quiet and serious. “Mr. Holmes, I assure you that there ain’t a one of my tribesmen who would commit such a crime. After last night’s performance, as I said, they celebrated something fierce. I don’t see how any of them would have had the capabilities to trek halfway across London, commit a murder, and return back to camp without anyone, including Red Chief, knowing they had gone missing.”
“You admit there was a celebration that evening. In the general mood of celebrating, one could-”
“On my honor, sir!” Buffalo Bill interrupted my companion sternly, and he placed his right hand upon his heart. “On my honor, my men are innocent.”
Holmes was silent for a moment. Then he nodded his head. “I cannot guarantee that my conclusion will satisfy you, nor that I will have solved the crime within your allotted time frame; however, I will be happy to provide my full attention to this matter.”
The long haired cowboy gave a solemn nod of his head and the two men shook hands.
After bidding Mr. Cody adieu, Holmes and I quickly dressed and hailed a cab. We moved swiftly through the streets of London from Baker Street to Old Montague. Holmes was quiet at the beginning of the ride, his el
bows resting on his knees and his hands resting, palms together before his face, as if my friend were in a meditative prayer. I knew he was deep in thought, preparing himself for the case at hand.
“The details of the case,” the detective suddenly began, “do have some points of interest, at least as far as their description in The Times and by that of Mr. Cody. A brother and sister in a fourth floor apartment, murdered. The brother was killed with an axe; the sister with a throwing knife.
“The sister, a Miss Olivia Smith,” Holmes continued, motioning me to be silent, “managed to stumble out into the hallway and call for help. As she lay dying, she pointed up the stairs, indicating that her accoster had escaped by ascending. The murderer fled to the roof, a seeming dead end, yet when some tenants climbed the stairs and searched the roof, they could find no trace of anyone. How does one ascend a set of stairs to the roof of a building and simply disappear?”
“Why, Holmes,” I started, “it boggles the mind.”
“Indeed,” Holmes continued. “But we have not had a chance to visit the crime scene ourselves. My only hope is that ten hours after the crime was committed, the constables have left enough clues untrampled for my assistance to be of value. Aaahhh, Watson, we have arrived at our destination,” Holmes said as the coach came to a stop in front of a large tenement building. Holmes paid the cabbie and we were greeted by the constable out front. He ushered us into the building, and we climbed the stairs to a front room on the fourth floor.
Waiting outside the door was a bleary eyed sergeant, reflecting on his notes, and shifting his eyes nervously about. Two other constables were wandering around, making sure no residents approached the crime scene. When the sergeant saw Holmes, he stepped back in surprise. “Sherlock Holmes, so glad to see you!” the sergeant warmly greeted my friend. “Has Inspector Lestrade sent you?”