The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part I

by David Marcum

  “All done as you asked, sir.”

  “Good man!” he said, and hurried on. We ran up the second flight of stairs and found ourselves in the narrow passage Oblonsky had spoken of, with doors on either side. Holmes opened one of them. He stepped inside first, and, again enjoining us to silence with a finger to his lips, ushered in the three of us: myself, Inspector Shaw, and his constable. The room we entered was as dark as a cupboard, and not much larger, its ceiling sloping down almost to the floor. It smelt of staleness and dust, and was full of boxes, trunks, upturned chairs and other jumble. The floor was of rough planks. There was no window, but the darkness was pierced by a single beam of light in which motes of dust swirled as we disturbed the air. Holmes beckoned us over to show us its source: a hole freshly cut in the wall at about four feet from the floor. I bent down and peeped through. I saw a small room, plainly furnished, lit by a dormer window in the slope of the ceiling. Under the window was a narrow bed, and a small table with a candle and a box of vestas upon it. A fireplace stood in the opposite wall and a cupboard in the alcove. On the floor lay two cases, the lids closed.

  “Griggs’ room,” whispered Holmes. “He will be returning to it at any moment. Absolute silence is essential! The creaking of a floorboard might be enough to alarm him. Constable, do you stand by the door, and be ready to block his escape when I give the signal.”

  We did not have long to wait before we heard footsteps coming up the stairs and along the passage towards us. The steps ceased, and we heard a door-handle turn. I peered into the bedroom. At first I saw nothing, only hearing the sounds of hurried movement and a step on the wooden floor, for the door was not visible through the peep-hole. Then a figure came into view; it was the manservant Griggs. He glanced about him. Had he seen or heard something to arouse his suspicions?

  For a few moments he hesitated. Then, crouching down to the floor, he plunged his hands into one of the cases and started flinging out clothes left and right. He pulled out a small packet which he pushed into his coat pocket, and then returned to the search, rummaging frantically until he pulled out another packet. I felt a touch on my shoulder. Holmes was signing me to let him watch. I moved aside, and he bent down to the spy-hole, too dark a figure to make out except for where the light shone in a bright circle on his predatory eye. His hand was up, ready to give the constable the signal. We waited breathlessly, not daring to move.

  Suddenly Holmes dropped his hand, and the policeman rushed out, followed by the rest of us. He flung open the door, and over his shoulder I saw Griggs leap to his feet and snarl like a cornered animal. Griggs rushed to the little window, flung it open and, to my unspeakable horror, leapt out before the constable could stop him - out into a sheer drop of forty feet to the ground. I could scarcely believe what I saw when the constable immediately dived out of the window after him, and was gone.

  I ran to the window and saw the manservant and the policeman running away from me down a roof valley six feet below the window-sill, the roof sloping up on one side and on the other side a crenellated parapet. The policeman was gaining on his quarry, but before he could catch him Griggs scrambled up the roof towards its apex, grasping at a chimney-stack to help pull himself up the steep slope. The constable seemed about to follow when Griggs’ feet above him, scrabbling desperately to grip on the slippery roof, dislodged several slates. The policeman shielded himself from them with his arm as they slid and clattered down the roof and over the battlements. Griggs managed to grasp the ridge and began hauling himself upwards. I was about to climb out to help when, with a cry of, “The other side, man!” Holmes dashed out of the room and across the passage into the opposite room, Oblonsky’s.

  We opened its window and I started to clamber out when I instantly froze; on this side the roof had no parapet, but only a gutter and the forty foot drop to the courtyard. I glanced sideways up; silhouetted against the sky was the figure of Griggs, perched on the ridge of the roof. He held something in his hand, which with a vile oath he flung down at the policeman on the other side of the roof. He reached down to pick up another missile and aimed again, but this time leaned so far back for his throw that he lost his balance; waving his arms and clutching wildly at the air he slowly toppled backwards towards us and, with a hideous wail, slithered head-first down the roof, over the guttering, and out of sight.

  We stood in the courtyard. On the ground behind us lay the body of Griggs, covered by a blanket, with the constable standing guard over it until the police surgeon should arrive. Inspector Shaw, showing little of his earlier hostility, was discussing the case with Holmes.

  “We were convinced at first that Oblonsky was our man, I’ll grant you,” he admitted. “Of course, we would have got round to Griggs soon enough, have no doubts on that score. But you were the quicker, Mr. Holmes, I won’t deny it. When did you first have doubts about Oblonsky?”

  “I never thought him a suspect. From the outset it seemed most unlikely to me that Oblonsky was the culprit.”

  The inspector twisted the end of his moustaches as he tried to make sense of this remark. “But it was he who poisoned the sandwiches,” he said.

  “Was it?”

  “Well, he prepared them. Much the same thing.”

  “Not quite the same thing, but I grant you that everyone must have known that, as Sir William’s valet, he was the one who prepared those sandwiches.”

  “Exactly.”

  “As you say, exactly. Tell me, Inspector, if you wished to murder a man, would you do it in the one way that you knew would immediately establish your guilt in everyone’s eyes?”

  The inspector frowned thoughtfully. “Well,” he continued, “but what about the diamonds in his bag?”

  “There again, is it likely that a murderer would leave such incriminating items in his own luggage? No, they were placed there by somebody else.

  “So I started with the likelihood that Oblonsky was not the murderer. Was there anyone else I could eliminate? Well, the guests were unlikely suspects. The theft of the poison from the scullery cupboard pointed to a servant. In the bustle of the kitchens, a servant might have found his way into the scullery without attracting much attention, but not a guest. One can hardly imagine General Lamb or the Marquess appearing in the kitchens unnoticed. So, a servant other than Oblonsky was indicated.

  “But further than that, I was at a loss. It was not until Oblonsky told me of the singular change in Griggs’ behaviour that I had my first positive clue. Griggs’ coldness, even hostility, had turned to an astonishingly warm friendship in an instant, it seemed. When had it changed so suddenly? When Oblonsky had looked through the doorway and seen Griggs rummaging in a suitcase. It was from that moment that Griggs had sworn undying loyalty to the principles so dear to Oblonsky’s heart. Oblonsky himself was clearly unaware of the significance of that moment. He had seen Griggs rummaging in a suitcase and, naturally enough, thought little of it. Yet it was evidently of the greatest importance to Griggs, if he changed so suddenly from the moment he was spotted. What was his secret? I asked myself.

  “Someone had stolen the diamond jewels from Voigt. Suppose that person was Griggs, I wondered, and that what Oblonsky had seen unawares was Griggs secreting the stolen jewels in his case. Griggs, surprised in his guilty act, did all he could to placate Oblonsky for the time being by claiming a kind of brotherhood with him. For the time being only, for while Oblonsky lived, Griggs was unsafe, as he thought. When the conversation in the kitchen turned to sandwiches, and Oblonsky announced his preference for ham sandwiches, Griggs leapt to the conclusion that Oblonsky was preparing ham sandwiches for himself. Here was an opportunity to silence Oblonsky permanently, he thought. Seizing his chance, he used the confusion of the kitchen to make his move, adding the arsenic to the mustard when Oblonsky had stepped away from the table. He was lucky enough to find the rat poison in the cupboard that should have been locked. He prepared the lethal m
ustard, with what results we know, and put some of the less valuable jewels he had stolen into Oblonsky’s case to incriminate him.

  “No other hypothesis fitted the facts, but proof was lacking. The other diamonds beside the tie-pin were, I guessed, hidden somewhere in Griggs’ effects. I therefore announced a search of the servants’ rooms, making quite sure that Griggs, in particular, heard me, and I waited for him to lead us to the hidden jewels. A crude stratagem, perhaps, but it served its purpose.”

  “Ah, now I see!” exclaimed Shaw. “You had me there, Mr. Holmes, I can’t deny it.” He smiled as understanding dawned, but a moment later he was frowning again and pulling on his moustaches. “Wait a moment,” he said. “Why bother to use any of the jewels at all to implicate Oblonsky? Although the poisoned food didn’t kill the intended victim, the fact that Oblonsky prepared it was enough to have him arrested and out of the picture.”

  “We’ll never know now,” said Holmes, with a nod towards the body under the blanket, “but my guess would be that he was simply trying to be clever. He held in his hand more wealth than he could dream of, so he could afford to use some of the lesser jewels to add to Oblonsky’s apparent guilt.”

  Shaw shook his head in despair. “The Diamond King, they call him, one of the richest men in the world. They say an army of thousands protects his diamond trade. And what becomes of him? Another man’s servant steals his beloved diamonds from under his nose and then kills him by mistake.”

  Our trap drove up. Opening the door, Holmes turned to the inspector.

  “I take it you’ll be releasing Oblonsky without delay?”

  “I will indeed.”

  “Then my business here is finished.”

  Holmes and I climbed in, the driver flicked the reins, and we set off for Brailston Thorpe. As we turned into the main drive, I saw a group of four or five men gathered under one of the vast elms that lined the drive on either side. Two of the men were on horseback. One of those on foot gave a signal to the driver to pull up, and walked over to us.

  “Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

  “That is my name.”

  “Perhaps you would be good enough to step over here. Lord Ambleside would like to speak with you.”

  As he approached the group, the man on the tallest horse turned towards him and looked down. “Mr. Holmes, the detective! You have been looking into the death of my friend Voigt.”

  “I have, my Lord.”

  “It was his servant, they tell me.”

  “It was General Lamb’s servant.”

  “Another one? What a damnable business! Is he under arrest?”

  “He is dead, my lord.”

  “No, the servant, the one who killed Voigt.”

  “He is dead. He fell from the roof not an hour ago.”

  “The roof? What was he doing on the roof?” He raised his hand to forestall an unnecessary answer. “Well, it doesn’t much matter now. I won’t keep you any longer, Mr. Holmes. Rat poison!’ he sighed. “What a beastly way to go!”

  The Marquess turned back to his group, leaving Holmes and me to continue our journey home.

  The Adventure of Urquhart Manse

  by Will Thomas

  “Mr. Holmes,” our visitor said, “I must ask you to listen to my story in its entirety, without question or comment until it is done. Afterward, I will readily answer anything that you may ask. If you can accomplish this feat, I assure you, you will have succeeded already where Scotland Yard has failed.”

  Sherlock Holmes raised a brow in her direction, and eyed her speculatively. She was a comely young woman, almost too young to have the word Mrs. in front of her name.

  “Very well, madam,” he said.

  “And you, Doctor, do I have your word as well?”

  “You have it most readily, Mrs. Urquhart. Now pray tell us your story.”

  “Very well,” she said, and sat back in the basket chair in our sitting room. She was petite, and smartly dressed, but there were dark circles under her eyes signaling sleepless nights. Something of significance was troubling her.

  “First of all, I grew up in Tunbridge Wells, the daughter of a merchant sea captain, Daniel Cavell, who went down with his ship in the Indian Ocean off of Borneo when I was six. Since then I have lived with my mother, or did until I was married last year.

  “I met Alexander Urquhart at the garden party of a friend, which he admits to having been dragged to by his brother, Andrew. Alec and I were attracted to each other immediately, and within a month our courtship began. The family lives in an old estate named Urquhart Manse, on the Old Kent Road, outside of town. It is set back among trees, and has fallen on better days. Alec invited us there for lunch one day. It was a gloomy old pile, in need of a woman’s touch. While we were there, mother and I had the chance to meet Andrew, his younger brother. He must have been younger by mere minutes, for the two were twins.”

  So far, Holmes was keeping his promise to her, but was writing furiously upon his cuff with a small, silver pencil.

  “Alec works in London as a stock-broker, but Andrew - I’m afraid he doesn’t do much of anything. He claims to be an actor, but on most days he makes small repairs on the estate which, frankly, he has no skill in making. Both he and Alec are tall and red-haired, but while Andrew is clean-shaven, Alec has a becoming moustache.

  “We were married before Christmas, and I moved into the manse. Sometimes I think there is an air of tragedy about the place. Alec admitted to me that he had assumed he and Andrew were the last of the family in his line, but that my arrival had given him hope for the future. I took the house in hand, trying to brighten it up a bit, but I have been aided in no way whatsoever by the housekeeper, Mrs. Petrie. She is a dour old Scotswoman, who seems to resent my presence in the house. She used to be the boys’ nanny, however, and Alec wouldn’t think of getting rid of her. She has a wing all to herself, the east wing, which Andrew claims has been water damaged by holes in the roof which he hopes to eventually patch. That is how matters stood until last week.”

  Holmes cleared his throat. I had at least a dozen questions, and I was sure his must approach the century mark at least. However, he had made a promise. He gestured for her to continue.

  “Monday morning I arose early, intending to look over the kitchen accounts before Mrs. Petrie arrived. I found Andrew dead at the foot of the stairs. The staircase is old and worm-eaten, and some of the boards are loose. I have tripped on them myself, and had taken Andrew to task for not tending to them. Obviously he had come down in the middle of the night too quickly, and fallen. I woke everyone with my cry. Mrs. Petrie made some rather rude remarks in her grief. She claimed she knew my presence in the old house would bring tragedy.

  “Alec was beside himself with grief. He ran into the hall in his dressing gown and held his brother’s stiff body until the police and an inspector arrived. Of course, I cannot say what it must be like to lose a twin brother, but my husband was more broken up than I have ever seen him.

  “Since then he has been very polite, but distant. When I taxed him about it, he told me it was grief. He seems very distracted, and once or twice he has barked at Mrs. Petrie, which I’ve never seen him do before. It’s obvious he has been under a great deal of strain. I suggested he take a few days off from his firm to grieve properly, but he dismissed the idea out of hand. Two nights ago, I awoke to find Alec standing in my bedchamber, glaring at me. I almost cried out, but he merely turned and left the chamber. It gave me a strange, unsettled feeling. I almost wished I had never come there. That’s all, I’m afraid. Yesterday I called our solicitor and asked for the name of a good detective, and he gave me yours. I made the appointment and here I am.”

  “Good?” Holmes asked.

  “Well, competent rather. He said you were the best in London.”

  Holmes gave a thin-lipped smile.


  “That is a pretty little story. May I ask questions now?”

  She gripped the hand rails of the basket chair.

  “Ask away, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Did you immediately suspect the man dead at the foot of the stairs was your husband, or did that come later?”

  I suspect some women would have fallen apart at the bluntness of the question, but she swallowed and answered.

  “It wasn’t immediate, no, but his manner was so different afterward that I began to think he might not be Alec at all.”

  “Did Andrew Urquhart give you any indication that he might be attracted to you?”

  “I fear he did. He watched me all the time. Sometimes I found him standing in a doorway just watching me. At meals he was very loquacious, quite unlike Alec, and he tended to flirt, even in front of his own brother. Twice he told me he wished he had been the first to meet me at the garden party.”

  “I assume Alec is the heir.”

  “Yes, Mr. Holmes. Alec owns all the property, such as it is, but he is also responsible for it. He provides the sole income we all live upon.”

  “May I take it Andrew had no knowledge of stocks and bonds or brokerage?”

  “Not a whit,” Mary Urquhart said. “Or so I assume.”

  “The only physical difference between them was the moustache your husband wears? There was no birthmark or other feature which might help you determine which brother is now living with you?”