Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Five: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition

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Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Five: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition Page 27

by Craig Stephen Copland


  Again, Holmes walked slowly around the house, stopping constantly to do a close examination of the impenetrable thorny hedge. Each time, he shook his head and muttered, “Impossible.”

  By midnight we were heading back to the hotel. Holmes walked in silence, his head cast down, his hands in his pockets, and his chin almost touching his sternum.

  “Data,” he said. “I am starving for data. Whenever a murder is committed, there are clues to be unearthed all over the place. So far, I have not had access to the scenes of the crimes until far too late after the fact. There are so many questions to which I need answers before I can even start to form a hypothesis.”

  “Very well then,” I said. “Since you have conscripted me for this undertaking, would you mind terribly telling me what data you do have. So far I am blind as a mole except for observing an ingenious method of scaling a dangerous fence.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I must say that you have a point there, Watson. Let me tell you what I know so far from my initial investigations. I do not expect any imaginative insights from you, but your simple questions have at times been useful in directing my thoughts in a new way. So, yes. Here is what we know so far.

  “All five of the victims were of about the same age, rather close to forty. All had served in Bismarck’s army during the last war, the one we refer to as the Franco-Prussian conflict. I have discovered that all of them were part of the same Kompanie in the Prussian army when it invaded Alsace. Thus, it stands to reason that the motive for their murders is tied to something that took place during that war. But there could be a hundred possibilities. Dark secrets hidden; money or jewels squirreled away; embarrassing secrets of intrigue; revenge … the list is long.”

  “Were those chaps the only young officers of their unit?” I asked.

  “No, they were part of a unit that included at least three others. One, I have traced up the road to Strasbourg, a Charles Friedel, and another one now lives in England. The third cannot yet be found. I suspect that the fellow in Strasbourg is now in fear for his life and we must pay him a visit before the nimble assassin gets to him.”

  “When?”

  Holmes appeared to ponder my question for a moment.

  “If we leave in the morning, our departure will be noted by the legion of spies that infest this town, so we best depart again in the late afternoon. Strasbourg is only a few hours by train, and we should be there in sufficient time to alert the chap and advise him to vacate his house if he has been so unwise not to have already done so.”

  I slept soundly that night, weary from the lack of sleep the previous night and my worried travels. Once during the middle of the night, I heard footsteps going back and forth along the hallway outside my room and concluded that Holmes was pacing whilst trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

  The following day we spent in our adjoining rooms. I used the time to review and improve my latest story about the adventures of my friend and now famous detective. Twice during the day, I checked in on my friend to make sure that he was at least eating something nourishing. On both occasions, I found him in one of the armchairs, his legs folded and drawn up under him, his hands together with his fingertips touching, and his eyes closed. I knew not to disturb him with conversation but was satisfied that the bowl of fruit and platter of cold cuts appeared to have been partially diminished.

  At one minute after five o’clock, he tapped quietly on my door.

  “Come, Watson. The game is afoot. Off to Strasbourg. Please, quickly don your disguise, and we shall be out of Nancy long before we are missed.”

  I did so and we strolled in the fashion of unhurried French bureaucrats to the railway station and boarded the train to Strasbourg. Once on the train, we removed our disguises and became English tourists. The German border agents were suspicious of French travelers but usually welcoming to the English, what with their Kaiser being the grandson of our beloved Queen and all.

  By the time we reached our destination, the sun had set. From the Bahnhof Straßburg, we walked a few blocks past the great Cathedral to a hotel that struck me as having been imported from Tudor England. It was quite a popular place nonetheless and Holmes and I were required to share a double room.

  “Our lodgings,” said Holmes, who appeared to be familiar with the establishment, “are old but very comfortable. I suspect that this city has as many spies as did Nancy but no one has followed us and we will be undetected here until we pay a visit to our monsieur first thing in the morning.”

  He was wrong.

  At seven o’clock in the morning, we were awakened by a loud knocking on our door. I quickly leapt from the bed, pulled a dressing gown over my pajamas and started toward the door.

  “Psst!” came an alert from Holmes. “Your revolver,” he whispered.

  I hastened back to my doctor’s bag and slipped the gun into my pocket before opening the door.

  “Guten Morgan, Herr Doktor,” said the chap in the hall. “Bitte, please come with herr Sherlock Holmes. Come quickly, please to room dreihundert vierzehn. We have need of your services. Bitte, sofort.”

  I turned and looked at Holmes, who shrugged and gave me instruction.

  “Tell him that we will be there as soon as we dress.”

  “I thought you said that we were not followed,” I said.

  “It is possible that I underestimated the diligence of the German spies. But let us go and see what their problem is.”

  Chapter Three

  Death in Strasbourg

  ROOM 314 was in another wing of the hotel. Standing at the door were two rather impressive looking German chaps with Polizei emblazoned on their uniforms. I greeted them but, as should be expected from the Germans, they merely glared at me and said nothing. One of them opened the door and gestured to us to enter.

  Several men were standing in the room and I quickly understood the reason for our having been summoned. Lying in the bed was a body and the area around the pillow was covered with blood. One did not have to be Sherlock Holmes to put together what must have taken place during the night.

  A tall blond and broad-shouldered police officer approached Holmes.

  “Herr Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “I am Hauptkommissar Max Ballauf of the Police of Strasburg. Not coincidental is it that you are staying at this hotel? The case that of you is being investigated has to you been delivered. In the bed is Herr Charles Friedal, and dead he is. Stabbed in the eye, like all of the others. We are made aware of your reputation and welcome your assistance in the solving of this crime.”

  Without another word, he stood back and pointed Holmes toward the bed and the body. I followed.

  The unfortunate victim was a man in his mid to late forties and in rather good physical condition. If one can judge by his hair style and facial hair, one might assume that he was a former military officer. His eye socket was gory and now blackening with the dried blood. Curiously, he also had a wound to his eyebrow. There was no doubt as to how he had died. A dagger must have been inserted into his eye and pushed through to his brain. Death would have been almost immediate.

  Holmes had taken out his glass and took a full half hour to examine the body, the bed, and the room. I noticed him paying close attention to several deposits of tobacco ash and some sort of German word scratched into the top of the bedside table.

  “Commissar Ballauf,” he said. “Did one of your men or the hotel staff open the window?”

  “Nein. It was open we arrived. The maids reported hearing some disturbance being made in this room just after one o’clock in the morning, felt herself concerned, and came to knock on the door to make sure the guest was not having difficulties. There was no answer and they departed. Herr Friedal had ordered early morning coffee and strudel to be delivered at five thirty. He did not make an answer at the door when the maid arrived and she used her key to make it open. As soon as she saw what had happened she rushes out and runs to the nearest police station. I am called and, knowing that you were staying in th
e same hotel, I give instructions that nothing in the room be disturbed. Everything is as you see it. The window was open.”

  Holmes walked over to the window and leaned out. The morning sun had risen and I could see that the window opened to the courtyard below. Once Holmes had withdrawn, I also peered out and observed an entirely unobstructed wall of the building, four stories above the ground level. The only uneven features of the wall were the dark planks that had been affixed to the stucco, giving the hotel its distinctive Tudor appearance. If our killer had entered by the window, he must have been exceptionally adept at scaling walls. A cat indeed.

  “The staff of the hotel,” said the Commissar, “claim that no one suspicious comes into the hotel after eleven o’clock. He must have climbed up the wall and made the window open. No other explanation am I seeing.”

  I looked at Holmes and detected the familiar unmistakable faint trace of a smile on his face. “Aha,” I said to myself. He’s on to something.

  “I am honored,” he said to the police officer, “to have been invited to assist in this case. I will continue my investigation and report to you tomorrow morning if that is acceptable to you. Your station, I believe, is located just east of the cathedral, is it not?”

  “Ja. There it is.”

  “Splendid. I shall report in at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  Holmes then turned to me, smiled and nodded and walked toward the door.

  Once we were out of earshot, I demanded an explanation for the smile that had broadened into a grin.

  “I was thinking how a fine cup of German coffee and a generous slice of brötchen would make for a delectable breakfast. Perhaps a hard-boiled egg or two. What say, Watson?”

  “Enough, Holmes,” I replied. “I did not come racing to the Continent to be teased.”

  “Oh, very well. Let us find a pleasant café, and I will be more forthcoming once breakfast is served.”

  After crossing over the Rhine, we found a pleasant café not far from the palace. We English consider German coffee to be a close cousin to sealant for Macadam, but in small sips it is quite palatable. We sat in silence until we had finished our breakfast and then Holmes again smiled at me in the condescending manner to which I have become accustomed even if annoyed.

  “You inspected the pierced eye socket, did you not?” he said.

  “I did. Obviously stabbed with a dagger through to the brain.”

  “And was the eye open or closed when stabbed?”

  I had to stop and think about that one. “Open,” I said, “there was no damage to the eyelid. But that is very odd. What man just lies on his back and looks at a dagger as his assailant is about to plunge it into his eye?”

  “Very odd, indeed,” said Holmes. “And the wound above the eye? What of that?”

  I had taken a close look at it as well and was only a bit less perplexed.

  “It did not appear to be from the dagger as it was not a single cut. Rather it was more like a triangle, as if a small chisel had been pushed into the skin.”

  “Excellent. And that is the first calling card left behind,” said Holmes.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “Come now, Watson. Where have you observed a triangle and an eye in close proximity to each other?

  I thought for a moment, and then it came to me.

  “On the back of the American dollar bill?”

  “Precisely. And to which fraternal organization does that symbol belong?”

  “The Masons,” I said.

  “And they wish to let us and all other inquirers know that they are behind these killings.”

  “Why would they do that?” I asked.

  “That, we do not yet know. But let us move on to the other evidence. How might the killer have gained entry?” he asked.

  “If no one was observed coming or going past the front desk, then he must have come through the window.”

  “Precisely. That is exactly what the killer wishes us to believe. And even you could tell that unless we are dealing with someone with superhuman skills in scaling walls, that is impossible.”

  “How then?”

  “Through the door.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. Holmes smiled at me yet again.

  “I believe that I have said to you before, that once you eliminate all other …”

  “Confound you, Holmes!” I said. “I know what you have said countless times. But the staff reported no one coming or going late in the evening. So that is impossible.”

  “No, my dear chap. The staff reported that they saw no suspicious men entering or leaving late in the evening or in the early hours of the morning. However, we know that in every hotel in the civilized world there are certain people who do enter and leave during those hours but are not considered suspicious. And who might those people be, my good man?”

  The answer was obvious. “Prostitutes,” I said. “Are you saying that a woman was the murderer?”

  “There was,” he said, “a faint scent of perfume on the pillow. Not something a German man would ever dream of putting on himself.”

  “So, you believe that a woman entered the room and then stabbed these chaps? They were all former soldiers. They could have easily defended themselves against a woman.”

  “Of course, they could if only they were thinking and behaving rationally during the seconds before one eyeball was so violently abused. And, furthermore, did you notice what the chap was wearing.”

  I had noticed and said that he must have been very tired to fall into bed without changing into his bedclothes.

  “Tired enough not to have removed his shoes?” Holmes queried.

  He did not permit me to answer but carried on.

  “He had removed his suit jacket and his cravat. His shirt and his trousers were somewhat disheveled. He was obviously in a physical state that led him to momentarily close his eyes, permitting his killer to stab him with no defense having been thought necessary.”

  “What sort of horrible, evil woman would do such a thing?” I said.

  Holmes smiled, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.

  “I have heard some rumors,” he said. “Prior to this morning I considered them without credence, but my thoughts are changing. There have been stories circulating throughout the police services and press of Europe of a young woman who works in secret as a paid assassin. She is reported to be stunningly beautiful, a master of the art of seduction, irresistible to susceptible males, and utterly ruthless. These murders may be her handiwork.”

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “She is known as Annie Morrison and is said to come from America, but no one knows for sure. Some stories have her as French, others as German, others yet as Italian. She could easily have passed as a woman of the evening and entered and left any fine hotel along with a score of other such ladies without causing any suspicion.”

  “Who paid her?”

  “The Masons, most likely. Or perhaps some renegade lodge of their organization. Generally, they do not engage in murder. Extortion is their preferred method of accumulating wealth, which is why so many of them own banks.”

  “Well then,” I said, “if you know who she is and she does not yet know about you, it should not be all that difficult to track her down.”

  “On the contrary, my good man,” replied Holmes. “She knows that I am on her trail.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Her calling cards.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The tobacco ash.”

  “Holmes, enough.”

  “On the coffee table in the hotel room, there were four distinct little piles of tobacco ash.”

  “Which means,” I said, “that she smokes and, being American, is not well-mannered enough to use the ash tray but drops the drops the ashes on the table.”

  Holmes chuckled. “Would it were only that. But each of the four deposits was a different ash. One was Virg
inia Gold, one from a French Gitaines, one was a Burley blend from Turkey, and the fourth a rather vile, rough monstrosity favored by the Australians.”

  Yet again, my observation was, “How very peculiar.”

  “And the word scratched into the lacquer on the table. Did you read what it said?”

  I acknowledged that I had glanced at it but could not decipher what is said.

  “It was hastily scratched,” said Holmes, “but it appears that it was the word rache.”

  I was startled. “Why that’s the same word that Jefferson Hope wrote on the wall years ago. What a bizarre coincidence. So, this is all about revenge as well.”

  He gave me yet another of his condescending smiles.

  “Not at all, my friend. This brazen fiend is taunting me. Like every criminal in England or America, she has read your romanticized sensational story about our Study in Scarlee, and she is obviously aware of my monograph on the one hundred and forty varieties of tobacco ash. So, she is rubbing my nose in it. She is utterly daring me to try to track her down and stop her.”

  “Can you?”

  “In my entire career, I have only been bested by one woman, the woman, and it shall not happen again. Irene Adler was a noble woman in her own right. This woman is a cold-blooded assassin, and I will see her hang for her deeds.”

  The smile had long departed Holmes’s face and in its place was a set jaw, eyes as hard as steel, and a furrowed brow. As he spoke, his fists slowly clenched until his knuckles whitened. The assassin who had hunted down these soldiers had become the hunted.

  The pleasant interlude that we had enjoyed over coffee on at the edge of the Rhine had vanished. Without saying anything, Holmes rose from the table, left some coins beside the unfinished breakfast and turned and walked away. I hastened to follow him.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Back to England.”

  “Pardon me if I ask why. She’s killing Germans in France and Alsace. Why England?”

  “Because that is where she will strike next.”

 

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