Mammoth Book The Lost Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes (Mammoth Books)

by Smith, Denis O.

  “Stand back, everyone,” cried the policeman. “It’s clear there’s been some mischief here.”

  “I am a doctor,” I said. “May I examine him?”

  “Why certainly,” returned Spencer. “I was not aware we had a medical man with us.”

  I crouched down and examined the still figure for any sign of life, but there was none.

  “He has been dead a little while,” I said, as I concluded my examination, “perhaps for two or three hours, but not longer than four or five, I should say.”

  “Do you see any indication of the cause of death?” asked Holmes.

  I shook my head. “There are no obvious signs, and certainly no signs of violence.”

  “Could he have been poisoned?” asked Spencer.

  “I can’t be certain,” I replied, “but I don’t think so. A more thorough examination may, of course, turn something up. At a guess, though, I’d say he had had some kind of heart seizure.”

  “Are these your missing flowers?” Holmes asked Claydon. “Then that is one little mystery solved, anyhow,” he continued, as the young man nodded his head. “Do you recognize this unfortunate fellow?”

  Claydon shook his head vigorously. “I have never seen him before in my life,” said he.

  “Hum! I see that the cover of his watch is open and the glass is broken,” remarked Holmes as he examined the lifeless figure. “That suggests the possibility that he fell to the floor and crushed the watch as he did so, which would tend to support your view of a sudden seizure, Watson. There are no shards of glass in the waistcoat pocket, however, so the watch was clearly out of the pocket when he fell. Either he was consulting it at the time, or it slipped out as he fell. But the watch-pocket is a tight one,” he continued, feeling in the pocket with his fingers, and trying the watch in it. “Therefore it could not have slipped out, and therefore he was consulting it at the time.”

  “What does that prove?” asked Spencer in a dismissive tone.

  “It helps us to build up an accurate picture of what occurred in the house earlier,” returned Holmes, who was examining the watch very closely, through his magnifying lens.

  “My theory,” said the policeman in a sarcastic tone, “is that he was consulting his watch because he wanted to know what the time was. I do not see the point as being of any importance whatever,” he continued, bending down and feeling in the dead man’s pockets. “Ah! This is what I am after!” he remarked, as he withdrew a leather pocket book. “This should tell us something a little more interesting about this unfortunate gentleman than whether he looked at his watch or not before he died, such as what his name is.”

  For several minutes, the policeman leafed through the contents of the pocket book, turning out tickets, receipts and the like, but evidently, as I judged from his silence, no indication of their owner’s name.

  “His cufflinks bear the initials P. S.,” remarked Holmes at length, as he continued to examine the body closely.

  What on earth was this man doing here, in the house of a total stranger, I wondered, as I went over and over the matter in my head, trying to make sense of it. My thoughts were interrupted, however, as another cry came from Claydon, who had been standing in stupefied silence for some time. I looked up and saw that he was staring out of the window, which overlooked a narrow back garden.

  “There’s another one!” cried he. “Out in the garden!”

  I stepped quickly to the window. In the middle of the garden was a scrubby patch of lawn, and in the very centre of this was the still figure of a man in a brown suit, lying upon his back, his face staring up at the sky.

  “Saints preserve us!” cried Inspector Spencer. “This place is like a charnel house! It is clear that there’s more to this business than meets the eye! Are you sure you know nothing about it?” he abruptly demanded of Claydon in an aggressive tone.

  “I assure you I know no more than you do, Inspector,” the young man replied, an expression of bewilderment upon his features.

  “Come along!” said Holmes. “Let’s take a look at the fellow outside!”

  We passed through the hall and into a small back room, where a door gave onto a short flight of steps to the garden. We had just reached the lawn, Claydon and Spencer close behind us, when, to my very great surprise, the figure on the lawn abruptly sat up and looked at us. Claydon let out a cry of alarm, and the policeman muttered some oath under his breath. The man before us, who appeared about thirty years of age, yawned, stretched and rubbed his eyes in a casual and unconcerned sort of way. A moment later, he stood up and brushed himself down.

  “Hello there,” he began in a friendly tone. “Who might you gentlemen be?” Then, as if he had all at once recalled something, he glanced about him, an expression of puzzlement upon his features. “Where am I?” he asked of no one in particular. “And what am I doing here?”

  “That is what we should very much like to know,” returned the policeman in a stern tone. “Who are you?”

  “Me?” returned the other in surprise. “You must excuse me,” he added, rubbing his eyes again. “I have been asleep.” He pulled a small card from his breast pocket and handed it to the policeman. “Falk of the Standard,” said he.

  “Well, Mr Linton Falk,” said Inspector Spencer, reading from the card, “just what are you doing here?”

  Again the other man looked about him. “I can’t tell you what I’m doing here,” he returned at last, “for, to be honest, I don’t know where I am. But I can tell you what I was doing earlier.”

  “We are all ears,” said the policeman, whereupon Falk explained that he had received a letter that morning at the newspaper office. This had informed him that if he wanted to learn something of very great public interest, he should come to 14, Kendal Terrace, North Clapham, at five o’clock in the afternoon.

  “Who sent the letter?” interrupted Holmes.

  “A woman calling herself ‘Mrs Robson’, although she admitted that that was not her real name.”

  “Do you get many such letters?”

  “A few. It is usually fairly easy to detect if the writer is simply a crank, with nothing of interest to say. This letter was different, and I thought it might be worth looking into, as did my chief.”

  “Do you have the letter with you?”

  “I should have,” replied the newspaperman, feeling in his pockets, “but it’s gone. Someone must have taken it.”

  “Very well. Pray, continue with your account.”

  “I arrived at the address given a little after the time stated, and was admitted into the parlour by a maid. Several minutes passed before the lady of the house entered the room. She was a tall woman, with strong features. She seemed very agitated, and was breathing very heavily, but I put this down to nervousness. She identified herself as the ‘Mrs Robson’ who had written to me, and said that another guest she had been expecting had been delayed and would not be arriving for a further ten minutes. She would rather not go into the matter until this other person arrived, she said, at which point I privately began to wonder if she was not perhaps, after all, a deranged crank with no information of interest. However, there was something in her manner and speech, some refinement or education, which persuaded me to at least wait until this other person arrived before making a decision as to whether to leave or not. In my profession, one encounters a large number of strangers, and one learns instinctively to assess them and to assess the information they might possess. In this case, I was convinced that ‘Mrs Robson’, as she continued to call herself, was sincere, and that her intentions were considered and serious.

  “A few moments after ‘Mrs Robson’ had entered the parlour, the maid returned with a tea tray, which she set down on a little table. She poured out the tea and handed me a cup, as ‘Mrs Robson’ began to ask me about parliamentary reporting in general, and whether I had ever found that the private lives of Members of Parliament impinged upon their public duties.”

  The newspaperman paused. “Do you know,�
� he said after a moment: “I can’t remember anything I said to her. It has all quite gone from my head. All I remember is hearing her voice, going on at some length, although I cannot recall what she was saying, either. I do remember her taking the teacup and saucer from my hand, but after that, all is a blank, until your arrival just now woke me up. I can only suppose that I fell asleep as she was speaking to me, incredible though that seems. I feel rested enough now, anyhow,” he continued in a more vigorous tone, rubbing his hands together, “and ready for anything! But you haven’t told me who you are, nor what you are doing here. I can see that this gentleman is a policeman, but what is happening? And where are we?”

  “One moment,” said Holmes. “Did you find that the tea you were given was somewhat bitter?”

  “Why, yes, it was,” returned Falk in surprise. “She explained that the maid had made it a little too strong, and offered me more sugar, which I took. Even then it was not the best cup of tea I have ever had, but I drank it out of politeness.”

  “I think it likely that a few drops of chloral, or something similar, had been added to your cup before it was brought into the room. Would you agree, Watson?”

  “Definitely,” I replied. “Just a few drops of chloral are generally sufficient to induce a deep, refreshing sleep, and it does have a decidedly bitter taste. A chemical analysis of the remains in the teacup will no doubt confirm the matter if necessary.”

  “Quite so,” said Holmes. “As to where we are,” he continued, turning to Falk, “we are in the garden of the house you called at earlier, 14, Kendal Terrace. This gentleman is Mr Claydon, whose house it is. He arrived home from work today to find that his wife and servants had disappeared and strangers had taken over the house. No doubt the woman you saw, who called herself ‘Mrs Robson’, was one of them. We have only recently arrived and have found a dead man in one of the downstairs rooms.”

  “What!” cried Falk.

  “What do you know of the matter?” demanded the policeman fiercely.

  “Nothing whatever, I assure you. My whole connection with the place is as I described to you. During the short time that I was in the house, I never saw any man, just the lady and her maid.”

  “Come and take a look at him,” said Holmes, “and you can tell us if it is anyone you know.”

  “Certainly,” returned Falk, “although I should think it highly unlikely.”

  Claydon went to make a quick survey of the rest of the house as we followed Holmes back into the dining room. The newspaperman leaned down and scrutinized the dead man’s face for a moment, then I saw his mouth fall open with surprise.

  “Do you recognize him?” asked Holmes.

  “I cannot be certain,” returned Falk, frowning, “but I think it may well be Percival Slattery, Member of Parliament for New Bromwich in the Midlands.”

  “You must be right,” said Holmes, nodding his head, “for the initials P. S. are on his cufflinks.”

  “Good Lord!” I cried. “What on earth is a Member of Parliament doing here?”

  “You know something of him?” Holmes asked Linton Falk.

  “A little. We have never been personally introduced, but I have heard him deliver a speech or two. As you may know, he has a reputation for being extremely radical. When he was first elected, he announced that he would be ‘the New Broom from New Bromwich’, and declared that it was his intention to sweep away ‘the cobwebs of history which the centuries have bequeathed us’. He has made a great show of supporting those whom he considers to be downtrodden or oppressed, which is no doubt admirable, but there has always lurked the suspicion that he has done so more with a view to drawing public attention to himself than in order to actually alleviate anyone else’s hardship. His speeches have always been very flowery and have certainly roused his audiences, but their content has often been slight, so that his opponents generally refer to him as ‘the New Bombast from New Bromwich’.”

  Claydon returned from his survey of the house as Falk finished speaking. He shook his head when Holmes asked if he had found anything more amiss. “Everything seems in order upstairs,” said he, “but of my wife and servants there is no sign.”

  “Did you notice if the woman who denied you entry earlier had a Midlands accent?” Holmes asked him.

  “I do not think so,” replied Claydon with a shake of the head. “I am familiar with most Midlands accents, and hers was quite different. I could not quite place it.”

  “I would agree with that,” interjected Falk. “The woman I saw – if it was the same woman – certainly did not have a Midlands accent. Besides, if you are thinking of a possible connection with Slattery’s Midlands constituency, you are barking up the wrong tree, for he himself does not come from those parts, and had probably never been there before he became MP for New Bromwich. As far as I remember, he was born and bred in Australia.”

  “This is getting us nowhere,” interrupted Inspector Spencer in an impatient tone. “I shall have to make arrangements to have the body removed at once. And then you, Mr Linton Falk, must accompany me to the police station, to answer further questions.”

  “Me?” cried the newspaperman. “But I have told you all I know. I have nothing more to add.”

  “We shall see about that. If you will not come willingly, I shall arrest you, and you will be taken there under guard.”

  “Arrest me?” repeated Falk. “On what grounds, pray?”

  “On the grounds that you were found to be present on premises where a suspicious death has occurred, and that you are obstructing the police in the execution of their duties.”

  The newspaperman began to protest in the strongest terms at this, and the exchange between the two of them quickly became heated. Holmes, meanwhile, after standing a moment in thoughtful silence, had slipped from the dining-room, and into the sitting-room. Two minutes later, when I was just about to see where he had got to, he returned, a glint of triumph in his eye.

  “What is it, Mr Holmes?” asked Inspector Spencer, breaking off from his dispute with Falk. “You look pleased about something.”

  “The situation has become clearer to me.”

  “Oh? Have I missed some clue, then?”

  “That is not for me to say.”

  “Well, then, what do you consider the most significant clue?”

  “The matter of the clocks.”

  “What ‘matter’?”

  “As you have probably observed, there is no clock here in the dining room, but there are two in the sitting room, both showing the correct time.”

  “What of it?”

  “That is it. You asked what I had found the most significant clue, and I have now told you. It is undoubtedly the business of the clocks – in conjunction, of course, with the watch and the slivers of glass on the sitting-room carpet. What? You did not observe them? They are there, I can assure you, near the little table on which the tea things are laid.”

  “All this seems nonsense to me,” snorted the policeman. “We have a dead man on the floor in here and a suspicious character found in the garden” – at this Falk began to protest again, but Spencer ignored him – “and the fact that someone has broken a glass in another room seems neither here nor there to me!”

  “I think, Inspector,” began Holmes, but he stopped as there came a sudden sharp rat-a-tat-tat at the front door. The inspector hurried to open it, and found one of his constables there.

  “I’ve got two women here, sir,” said he to his superior, “who claim that they live in this house.”

  Before Spencer could reply, a young woman in a grey costume and bonnet pushed past the constable and in at the front door. Her small, pretty face, framed by tightly curled brown hair, bore an expression that spoke both of fatigue and determination. “Henry!” she called out loudly as she reached the hall. “What on earth is going on?”

  “Lucy!” cried Claydon, a note of overwhelming relief in his voice, as he ran forward to greet her. “Where in Heaven’s name have you been? I have been so
worried.”

  “I have had a terrible, exhausting day,” replied the woman. She turned and waved to another woman, who was struggling to get past the constable on the doorstep. “Come along, Rosemary!” she called.

  “This is my wife,” said Claydon to us, “and here,” he added as the other woman, taller and more angular than the first, pushed past the constable, “is Rosemary, our housekeeper.”

  Mrs Claydon looked from one to the other of us, an expression of puzzlement upon her features. “Who are all these men, Henry? What are they doing here? Why are there policemen outside? Why are you not in Manchester?”

  “I, too, have had a terrible experience,” returned her husband. “I should not go in there,” he added quickly as she made to push open the dining-room door, but he was too late to stop her. She marched into the room and the next moment the air was rent by a piercing scream, which faded away abruptly and ended with a dull thud.

  “What is it, madam?” cried the housekeeper, rushing forward impulsively into the room. “Oh, my goodness!” she cried in a wailing tone. “There is a strange man in here, and Mrs Claydon has fainted!”

  I hurried after them and found Rosemary bending over her mistress, who lay insensible on the floor, beside the body of the dead man. “Have you any sal volatile in the house?” I called to Claydon. “Then fetch it at once, and some brandy, too!”

  The next quarter of an hour was a period of some confusion, but there were some positive achievements. Mrs Claydon was eventually restored to her senses, and gradually recovered her composure, and Inspector Spencer directed the removal of the body, which was taken away in the police van. Outside in the street, meanwhile, a large crowd had now gathered, pressing forward to peer in through the sitting-room window, and through the front door each time it was opened, perfectly heedless of the exhortations of the single constable who remained on duty there that there was nothing to be seen and that they should all move along at once.

  At length, perhaps half an hour after Claydon’s wife had arrived, we were all gathered in the sitting room, Holmes and I, Claydon and his wife, Inspector Spencer, Linton Falk, and the housekeeper, Rosemary Quinn.