“Indeed we can. Now, what can you tell me about William Musgrave and his death?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Very well, sir. My cousin, Billy, as he was to me and his friends, never fully recovered from the dissolution of his marriage and the tearing apart of his family. He was still as sharp as a tack in his business dealings and he continued to prosper in that way, but his mind, his soul perhaps I should say, was crushed. He was in so many ways a broken man. He filled his life with all sorts of short-lived pursuits, anything to take his attention away for a while. If it was not pheasant shooting it was fly fishing; if not that then sailing. He joined the Theosophists and after finding them too other-worldly, he helped found the Fabians.”
Here I involuntarily interrupted. “The Fabians! But they’re a troop of socialists. He was one of the wealthiest men in England. How could he possibly be a socialist?”
Holmes smiled in his condescending way and responded quietly. “Elementary, my dear Watson. All the leading socialists are men of considerable wealth. If they did not have income from their rents and dividends how could they possibly afford to spend every working day romping around the country demanding that the poor be provided for out of the public purse?
“Pray continue, Mr. Musgrave,” he then said.
“Yes, yes. Not sure what else I can say. This is difficult for me as well, sir. Billy Musgrave was, like I said, sir, a brother to me, and I still cannot believe that he is gone.” He stopped speaking and took out his handkerchief and held it briefly to his eyes.
“You have,” said Holmes, “already covered your relationship to the deceased. Please explain what you know of his death. Were you present at the time?”
“Yes, yes. Well, actually no, not really present. I was in the manor house, in the library. It was late in the afternoon. The sun had already set as it does this time of year. I had the lamps lit and was reading. And then Master Shaw comes charging in all terribly upset and shouting that his father is lying dead outside. I rushed immediately to the site where Billy was lying.”
“You went immediately? How did you know where to go?”
“Yes, well not actually immediately. Master Shaw was in a terrible state, and I had to settle him down first, then I took his arm, and he led me to the place. That is what happened, sir. It was a very trying time for me as well, Mr. Holmes. I hope you appreciate that. Recalling it is troubling and I may be getting some of the details mixed up.”
“You are doing quite well, Mr. Musgrave. Permit me now to ask your nephew some questions concerning his account. Master Shaw, could you please tell me what happened and, if I am to assist you in proving your innocence, you will have to be entirely candid and forthcoming regardless of how difficult it may be.”
The young man gave Holmes a dark and hostile look. His voice had a taint of a snarl as he responded.
“I find it offensive, Mr. Holmes, that you would think I would be anything other than candid.”
“If I am to take your case on, young man, you will most likely be offended several more times before I conclude my investigations. Now, kindly get on with your account.”
Shaw Musgrave glowered back at Holmes, and then looked toward the window and drew a deep breath.
“I … I am a devoted scholar and reader. My home has a very large and reputable library, one of the finest in the south of the country. I spend a great deal of my time there reading and studying.”
Here he stopped and clenched his fists. Then he placed his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.
“My nephew…,” said Rochester Shaw, but Holmes cut him off.
“Your nephew, sir, is perfectly capable of giving his own account. Now then, young man, what has your attraction to old books to do with the death of your father?”
Shaw Musgrave raised his head. His eyes were tinged with red. He took another deep breath and continued.
“This fall, I have been working my way through a section of the library. I was perusing the shelf numbered one hundred and two when I chanced to come across a very old book. I looked at it and opened it. Inside, on the fly leaf, was a message. It revealed the secret of the hiding place of the treasure of King Charles I.”
Rochester Musgrave interrupted. “Allow me to explain …”
“That will not be necessary,” said Holmes, cutting him off. “I am familiar with the legend. Go on, Master Shaw.”
“I thought it nonsense, but the message was signed by some ancestor of mine and underneath the name were the words ‘written in my blood before they break down the doors and take me away to be hung.’ Well, Mr. Holmes, I suppose that even a private detective like you who is bereft of any interest in scholarship would know to take such a note seriously, so I read the message. It gave quite clear directions to a location in the family graveyard. There was not much daylight left, and I now loathe myself for not waiting until morning, but my curiosity was burning within me. So, I took a torch and followed the path. It led to a mausoleum. There are several of them in the cemetery. The final line of the message told me to ‘look under old Dacre.’ The oldest name in the edifice was one of the Barons of Dacre, and it was carved into a stone that lay in the corner of the room. I pushed the stone away and discovered a staircase leading to an underground chamber. Again, my scholarly curiosity took the better of me, and I entered. In the room, I could see at least a score of large wooden chests, and I was overcome with the thought that I had discovered the treasure of the King, hidden for over three centuries. I dashed back up the staircase eager to alert my father but alas, as I was running out of the crypt, I tripped over something…”
Here he suddenly stopped speaking and again dropped his head into his hands. When he lifted it, his eyes had reddened further, and his fists were clenched until his fingers were white. His voice disappeared to a halting whisper.
“It was the body of my father.”
He closed his eyes and said nothing more for a full minute. I started to stand up out of my chair to get him a glass of water or brandy, but Holmes held up his hand in silence to bid me halt. I did so and another full minute passed before the lad opened his eyes and began to speak again.
“I had dropped the torch when I tripped, and it was now nearly extinguished, but I could tell that it was he. His face was contorted in frightful terror. The body was still warm, but his breathing and his heart had stopped. For some time, I shouted at him and slapped his face, desperate to bring him back. Then I held his head to my chest and sobbed. I was beside myself. I cannot say how long I stayed in that position, but I finally stood up and returned to the house, where I came upon Uncle Rochester and told him what had happened. We took two more torches and returned to the graveyard. That was when I saw the message that my father had carved into the dirt beside him. It was not terribly legible, but it clearly read, ‘the ghost.’ Uncle Rochester can vouch for what I have said as he saw it as well.”
“Yes, yes. That I did,” said the Uncle.
“Where,” demanded Holmes, “is this book?”
The young man said nothing but opened his satchel and extracted a small leather-bound volume. He held it out in his hand but not did not rise from his chair. Holmes did not stand up to walk over and fetch it and the lad, with a brief sneer and a shrug, tossed it across the room. Holmes caught it and handed it over to me. It was a slim volume bearing the title Bellamira, or The Mistress, by Charles Sedley. I remembered it from my school days as one of the earliest of the Restoration Comedies, howbeit one we were not, as schoolboys, permitted to read owing to its infamous and licentious contents.
“Who then,” asked Holmes, “called the police or a doctor?”
“Yes, I looked after that,” said Rochester Musgrave. “Poor young Shaw was beside himself, and I summoned Sinden, the butler, and a groom and had them harness one of the faster horses to a dogcart and run off into the village. The estate is a ways out of the village, and it took just over an hour for them to return. Both a doctor and the local constable came.”
/>
“And what did they accomplish?”
“Yes, yes. Well, the doctor pronounced Mr. William Musgrave dead, as you might expect, Mr. Holmes.”
“What cause was recorded?”
“He put it down to heart failure. He said it was common in men of his age who had a habit of eating too much rich food and never getting adequate exercise. So, heart failure it was, sir.”
“And the constable, what did he report?”
“Yes, the constable. Well, you see, Mr. Holmes, not much exciting ever happens in a small village and having the richest man in the county dropping dead and scrawling a message about a ghost, well, sir, you can imagine that our village constable was quite exercised by what he had observed. So, he gave an order that no one was to leave the premises and that he was going to call in Scotland Yard. So, he must have done that, yes, since a chap from London appeared the next morning.”
“Who?”
“An Inspector Lestrade.”
“And what did he say?”
“I assume you know the man sir, and even if he might be a friend of yours, I must say that he was most disagreeable.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was plain to all that my nephew was beside himself with grief. He did not sleep the entire night and, in the morning, he was not capable of enduring questions from a police inspector. But that did not stop that Lestrade chap, no sir. He made it right clear that he suspected that Shaw had murdered his father. He accused him of killing him so that he could gain the inheritance immediately. He is the sole heir according to the will and the inspector said, terribly unfairly I must say, that my nephew could not wait another twenty or thirty years to get his money and wanted it all now.”
“Has he been charged?” asked Holmes.
“No, no. Not officially. But he may as well have been. Inspector Lestrade must have slipped a note to the press and by the next day a dozen of those miserable louts from Fleet Street were crawling all over the property, knocking on every door, and peering in every window. I had to threaten to let the dogs out if they would not withdraw beyond the gate. But by the following day, you must have seen it, Mr. Holmes, the story was in all the papers with all fingers being pointed at my nephew and scorn heaped upon the final message of Billy Musgrave regarding the ghost. Poor Shaw was accused of having written that himself. And Mr. William Musgrave suddenly became a great hero of the common man, seeing as how he was an ardent socialist, and the papers were stating, as if it were holy writ, that he had intended to give away his fortune to the poor and the Fabian cause and that his son had must have murdered him to make sure that could never happen.”
“And had that,” asked Holmes, “been William Musgrave’s intent?”
“The answer to that question depends on who you ask, Mr. Holmes. There are some local socialists who claim that Billy showed them his new will with those instructions included in it, but no one else has seen such a document. None of his staff or family could locate it, and a search of his records showed no sign.”
“And why are you seeking my assistance?”
“Yes, yes, well, Mr. Holmes. Two parties recommended that to us. You did some work a few years back for another member of the family, Reginald Musgrave of Hurlstone. He lives about thirty miles from us and, as news travels quickly, he was there by the next day giving his consolations and his advice, and the first and foremost piece of his advice was that we needed to contact Mr. Sherlock Holmes straight away. He spoke most highly of you and gave us your address, Mr. Holmes, and so here we are.”
“Who was the second?”
“Inspector Lestrade. It came second hand from the constable. He said that Lestrade said that this case was passing strange, what with ghosts and mysterious secret books and crypts and all that, so he would just as soon as have you go prowling amongst the tombs as he. So he said we were to call on you.”
Holmes could not resist a smug smile. “Of course, if you engage my services and not the Yard, then he knows to whom I must send my bill.”
Holmes sat up straight and placed his hands on his knees as one does when about to stand up, but he stopped before doing so.
“Oh, one item I forget to ask about. Young man, if I may call you that, what were you doing during the three hours prior to coming to my door?”
The lad looked taken aback but quickly responded, “We were on the train to Victoria Station and then on our way here.”
“Do not lie to me, young man,” snapped Holmes. “You have an LBSC train ticket in your pocket, and I can see from here that you took the one o’clock train out of Eastbourne. It arrives at Victoria at a quarter past four. You knocked on my door at seven o’clock. Now, where were you? If you cannot tell me the truth, then kindly leave this room and do not return.”
Holmes’s rebuke was followed by an awkward moment of silence, but then Rochester Musgrave let out a sigh and took on a smile of chagrin. “I can answer that, Mr. Holmes, as it is embarrassing for my nephew. I felt that an hour or two of, shall we say, ‘comfort measures’ would be in order to help remove some of his stress and we spent some time and some money at the Princess of Prussia over in the East End. I assume that I do not have to say any more, sir, and I know that our confession will not leave this room.”
Holmes gave both of them a hard look and then said, “It will not, and I will take on your case. Three days from now I will visit your estate in Sussex and shall arrive at noon. Please be waiting for me.”
On that note, we all rose and the latest clients of Sherlock Holmes departed from 221B Baker Street.
“Very well, Watson,” said Holmes after they were gone. “Your Dickensian deductions, please.”
I had expected as much and not wanting to be the victim of his disdain, I collected my thoughts.
“The older chap seems a decent sort. Nothing to raise any suspicions. Not afraid to look you in the eye. Quite comfortable and self-assured but not putting on airs. Seems like a decent Englishman.”
“At first blush, I would agree,” said Holmes. “Now, the nephew. What of him?”
“Hard to decide if he is arrogant, angry, fearful, or just plain nasty. Bit of a weasel, if you ask me. And very high strung. Dickens might say he was as nervous as a drunkard desperate for his glass of wine.”
“Yes, he might say that,” agreed Holmes. “Or, if I were to borrow a line from the American writer, Mr. Twain, he was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
I laughed at the image and agreed that it was rather fitting.
“Being ill at ease,” Holmes continued, “does not necessarily equate with not to be trusted. But do you think, Watson, that I was too quick in agreeing to take the case?”
“Oh, come, come, Holmes. What with vast fortunes, inheritances at risk, affairs of the heart and bitter divorces in the past, ancient secrets in mysterious books, dead bodies at the entrance to a crypt, and murderous ghosts of decapitated kings, you know perfectly well you could not resist it.”
This time, he laughed. “My dear doctor, I fear you have come to know me all too well. Then let us have another glass of brandy to welcome this most promising case.”
I poured us each a nightcap. He sipped at his whilst poring over the old book that our client had left behind. I watched him as his eyes slowly widened and his face took on an intense glare. He quickly reached inside his jacket for his magnifying glass and began to scrutinize the front matter pages. Suddenly he stood up from his chair and walked to the back section of our main room where he kept his chemicals. Inwardly I groaned, fully expecting that my nose and lungs were once more to be assaulted by noxious fumes and my eyes made to water.
“Kindly relax, my friend,” he said, once again reading my mind. “There will be no odors or vapors.”
“Then what, Holmes, are you going to do?”
“Your medical bag is beside you on the floor. Might I bother you for the use of your surgical scissors? I am certain I have another pair somewhere, but yours are the
closest at hand.”
I did as requested and brought them, remaining behind him in order to observe what he could possibly be doing. He took the shears and rapidly cut out a portion of the front flyleaf page.
“Good heavens, Holmes,” I gasped. “That is an ancient book from a private collection. You cannot just go destroying it like that?”
“Is that what it is, Watson? I would not have known. And would you mind terribly handing me the glass-stopped bottle the fourth from the left on the counter? Yes, that’s the one. Thank you, my friend.”
“Holmes, what are you doing?”
“The very same thing I was doing the day you first met me, my friend. You will recall how excited I was to have finally, by painstaking trial and error, discovered a test for confirming the presence of blood at a crime scene.”
“I do.”
“Well then, I am about to test my reagent on this message which purports to have been written in blood. A drop on the sample followed by warming it over the alcohol lamp should tell me in a few seconds.”
He proceeded to carefully place a drop from the bottle on the sample cut from the page and spread it out over a section of the writing. Then, holding it gently in a pair of tongs, he waved it slowly over the flame. I watched, spellbound, as the clear-colored liquid turned distinctly red.
“Ah ha!” he exulted. “Yes. It proves that this message telling the reader where to find the treasure was indeed written in blood.”
“So, the book is authentic,” I said. “Well done, Holmes.”
“No, my dear doctor. It is not authentic at all. It is utterly fraudulent.”
This I found highly confusing.
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Five: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition Page 18