Sherlock Holmes

by Lyn McConchie

  I settled back comfortably into my seat. “So where do we go from here, Holmes?”

  “I have one last thing to do, then I shall know all.”

  I smiled. “And you’ll call all those involved in the case together to explain what really happened,” I said. “I always enjoy those meetings. But in this case, I think I may know the direction of your thoughts.” My friend raised an eyebrow in invitation to proceed.

  “I think that Wimbledon’s diaries are a mixture of truth and lies. In his most private place he could enjoy himself supposing that they were true. He would never have known they would be found, for he had taken great precautions that they should not be, so therefore I think they were a secret pleasure only. However, I suspect that either someone caught a glimpse of one, or in his cups he told someone—claiming them as truth—the lies he had written down. Threatened or outraged, that person killed him.”

  Holmes clapped lazily. “Bravo, Watson, a well-thought-out plot. Tomorrow you shall hear how right you are.”

  I was content. He had said I was right, and I looked forward to the denouement.

  Holmes was gone when I rose, and I attacked my breakfast with good appetite. Mrs. Hudson said he had gone to Mayfair, doubtless to arrange for the use of Wimbledon’s house. The ground floor had a large room that would hold more than twenty listeners in comfort and I thought it would be there that we gathered. A lad came with a note that afternoon and in it Holmes had written that he was delayed. We would gather now on the following morning at ten. I felt some disappointment, but consoled myself with the reflection that one should make haste slowly.

  I was ready at ten the next day. The note had asked me to come alone, saying that Holmes would await me. After a brief cab ride I found that he was already at the house, along with Purdon, Harrison, a number of others who Wimbledon had injured, including the four businessmen and the Goodwinnes. Merrin stood by the kitchen door with a leashed black and tan Manchester terrier that I assumed to be Senator Brutus Cassius, and I could only wonder what purpose my friend had for the animal. We were seated after some chatter and Holmes moved to the front of the room, studying our attentive faces.

  12

  “You all knew a man you believed to be named Gerald Barnes Wimbledon,” he stated, looking at those gathered slightly apart from Purdon, Harrison, and myself. “Before he became Wimbledon, however, he was named Melville Warner, valet to a reclusive gentleman. It is now twenty years and we can prove little, but there is some evidence that as Warner he caused the death of his master’s previous valet to obtain the position, and five years later he murdered his master to obtain a reference and make off with cash and a number of his master’s possessions without anyone knowing. He then became Wimbledon, claiming to be a gentleman distantly related to the family of that name, and a businessman of some fortune.” He waited out the exclamations.

  “As Wimbledon, there is reason to believe that he murdered the young man who proposed him for his club. There is proof that nearly three years later he murdered an elderly man who had sold him a property. Wimbledon had enticed him to his home, where he killed the man and interred him in the back garden. This was for the purpose of reclaiming the money he had paid. Some of it had been a mortgage, which was returned within days. The remainder was used as an initial deposit to purchase this house. Thus Wimbledon became the owner of an excellent property he could use as surety on later loans, and in repaying the monies owed the bank so promptly, he left them with a good impression of his business acumen.”

  Holmes and I, as well as the police, knew all this, but some of it was new to the others and they sat, mouths agape, in astonished horror.

  “Wimbledon kept a diary from the time he became Wimbledon. And in those diaries he lied again and again, because the diaries were not diaries in the true sense—they were his fantasies. He wrote often of life as he wished it to be and not as it was. He wrote of his associates, innocent men, making them villains, and of a woman who had rejected him, he wrote of as having been his. I think it gave him pleasure to re-read his entries and make believe that things were as he wrote them. However a year before he died, his life changed. His doctor, after making a great many tests, gave Wimbledon the news that he was dying.”

  “Dying?” Inspector Purdon’s voice rang out in the silence.

  “Yes. Thanks to a comment by Dr. Watson, it occurred to me as a possibility. I found the doctor who had attended Wimbledon, and once I had told him of the circumstances, he agreed to give me some information. He would not go into detail, but he confirmed that his patient had been told he might have little more than a year to live. He was given a list of symptoms that would tell him when his end was approaching. In fury that, having achieved his goal of living in luxury and as a gentleman, it would all be taken from him, Wimbledon decided to punish those who would outlive him, and against whom he held an assortment of grudges. He would continue with his diary, but it would no longer be a mixture of truth and lies; now it would be solely lies, and the will that he made would add to them.”

  “Those two beneficiaries?” Harrison asked sharply.

  “Yes. What was two hundred pounds compared to the wealth he had accumulated? He chose two men, one with a bad reputation, and the other poor, yet known to be an honest and decent man. To each he left a hundred pounds. He would be murdered, and where might the police look, if not at those who benefited?” Here he looked at Purdon. “I found that he disliked both men for particular reasons. The sweep had repeated something he overheard and in a manner that precisely mimicked Wimbledon’s way of speaking. Those present laughed. The tale came to Wimbledon’s ears, and he was not a man to forgive those who mocked him.”

  “And the shopkeeper?”

  “There was a trivial argument quite some time back, dissention over the price of candles, I believe. But he remembered it, and his butler mentioned that the man was believed to be a receiver of stolen goods. Wimbledon thought the police would doubly take interest because of that. They would search the Mayfair house, discover his diaries, and seek out those within their pages who stood apparently revealed as criminals or adulterers. It is my belief that Wimbledon died, delighted to know the distress he would cause, the pain, the bewilderment, the shame and embarrassment that those who had offended him would have brought upon them.”

  From where he sat, Edmund Pembroke growled. “The man was a monster, and as for his diaries, if they were so well hidden, how did he think they would be discovered?”

  “Wimbledon was no monster. He was a man, no worse than others I have known. But in that last year, knowing what would be his end, he determined to bring down all those he disliked. His diaries would sow a crop of sorrow, which the police would harvest for him. And here was the beginning of his failure,” Holmes said quietly.

  “He left the door to his secret room ajar, for upon his murder being discovered, he knew that the police would diligently search the house. He planned that they would come upon his secret room, they would enter and discover the diaries, and his enemies would suffer as he planned. He did not take into consideration a great gale that struck the area after his death, but before the police had time to search. The gale blew down the bedroom chimney, and the falling bricks struck the house such a blow that the lightly balanced door to the secret room clicked shut and would not be found until later.”

  “By you,” Purdon said, giving credit where credit was due.

  “By me and by Harrison. You were more honest and cautious than Wimbledon expected, Inspector. You did not leap to unsupported conclusions, nor by hasty action embarrass those named in the diaries.”

  That, I thought, had been fear of the powerful; however, Purdon had reddened at the cheekbones and was looking proud, while those about him looked approval. If what Holmes said was not entirely true, it was kind, and would do no one any harm.

  “So, one half of his plan lay in ruins. Inspector Harrison did me the kindness to tell me of this case, and once he was done, I believed at once and
for one reason that it was not murder. The incident of the dog.”

  I remained silent. I’d been caught by that comment before, but Purdon was not so cautious. “The dog did nothing.”

  “Exactly. The animal is a black and tan Manchester terrier that Wimbledon treated well, took with him often, and the dog would have regarded him as his master. If an intruder entered and threatened Wimbledon, the dog would have attacked. If the intruder had a gun and the dog attacked him, would he not have shot the dog? That was what made me curious: why did the dog do nothing? The lady to whom the animal was bequeathed told me that it was protective and a fine watchdog. Yet Wimbledon’s neighbor heard no sound. A single gunshot can be overlooked. One may only half hear it, wait to hear the sound again, and when nothing occurs, that shot may be written off as a cracking whip or some sound from the street. But a dog that barks and barks and may only cease if it too is shot? Why would the dog stand and watch its master murdered while making no sound?

  “I was asked to investigate quietly, to ascertain if there was truth in any of the tales that Wimbledon wrote in his diary. I found that to the best of my belief there was not. Several times I was able to find strong proof that his entries lied. That accusations made were entirely false, and I came to the conclusion, as I have said, that up until a year ago his diaries were mostly fantasy, wish-fulfillment writ down. After that the entries became either more obscure, mere notes, jottings, memoranda to himself, or they were long, often detailed accounts about people.”

  He fixed his gaze on Purdon. “You were certain his death was murder, and from the first I was equally certain that it was not.” Purdon started angrily. “No, you had good reason for your belief, ones that I accept, yet your belief grew from the trappings Wimbledon had draped about his death. He had provided suspects in his will and he had given you a host of them in his diaries. There he had skillfully mixed truth and lies, so that in discovering the truths, you would accept also the lies. You knew that a man may shoot himself in the manner that occurred to Wimbledon. It is not impossible to hold a revolver backwards in one’s hands, and while holding it tightly and a short distance from the head, still shoot with accuracy.”

  “That is true,” the inspector acknowledged. “However,” he added dryly, “it’s more difficult if you have instantly died where you fell, yet managed to rise and walk along your corridor and around an angle to the back door, there to toss down the gun.”

  “No,” Holmes said quietly. “Yet an accomplice may provide that service.”

  “The doors were locked, and there was no sign of illegal entry.”

  “Because the accomplice did not leave; indeed, he was found here.”

  “What?” That question was uttered by both Purdon and Harrison in concert.

  To Merrin, who was waiting in the kitchen for this sole purpose, Holmes called, “Let Cassius go.” And a moment later the terrier bounded into the room to stand panting, his eyes on my friend. Holmes’s gaze swept the room. “A dog may be a companion, a good watchdog, and,” he said significantly, “he may also be well-trained in other areas. A dog does not ask why you wish him to do something; he knows only that if he does it correctly you will be pleased with him, and therefore to please you he will do a trick taught him to the best of his ability.”

  He reached into his pocket and brought from it a packet that he opened to reveal a long strip of meat. “Merrin told me that the morning Wimbledon died, Wimbledon said that he would feed the dog. Instead Wimbledon left his dog hungry, since he had not eaten since the afternoon of the day before.” Here Holmes looked at us again. “Do not be alarmed, I merely reenact Wimbledon’s movements. The gun is empty, and I shall use a small cracker to produce the necessary sound.”

  He took a revolver from his other pocket and twisted the strip of meat about barrel and stock. Then, moving quickly, he produced a small cracker, lit the fuse, laid it behind him in a brass tray on the table and held the gun to his head. The cracker exploded. Holmes immediately dropped the gun and slumped to the floor. Cassius darted forward and snatched the meat, dragging it away through the door and down the hall. By that time the meat had slipped free from the gun, which landed by the back door, leaving the dog to eat his prize with every appearance of relish.

  “That,” Holmes said, “is how suicide was made to appear murder. I was told that there were traces of blood along the hall to the kitchen door, and it was assumed that the killer left them. The dog had blood on his muzzle—from sniffing at his master’s wound, it was said. Instead the blood was from the meat he took from the gun, having been taught it as a trick. That when his master stood in such a place, when there was a sharp crack, and something fell before him, it was his meal, he should take that, carry it to the kitchen door, shake free the metal thing wrapped within it, and he might then assuage his hunger knowing his master would to come to pat and praise him. He must have been puzzled that final time when it did not happen.”

  “Infamous!” said Goodwinne, his face twisted into a ferocious scowl.

  “That, yes, and clever, but not clever enough. I knew from the beginning that it was murder. No man seeing someone raise a gun to his forehead stands quietly, accepting his fate. He would thrust up an arm, strike the gun aside, fling himself away, he would not stand so motionless that the bullet would go home in his forehead between his eyes without a slant to left or right. Only Wimbledon himself could have fired the shot that killed him. And if the gun were found far from the body, too far to have been flung, and my friend, Dr. Watson, assured me that the victim could not have moved from where he fell, then an accomplice must have moved it to where it was found.”

  Holmes nodded to the door through which Cassius had gone. “The Merrins were both out of the house. It was Wimbledon’s custom to keep the doors locked any time he was alone, and even had he admitted someone, what I have said applies, for he would not have passively stood and waited for death. No. The only living creature within his house was Cassius. Could a dog be taught to move a gun? Of course. My mind turned to the blood found along the hall and about the animal’s muzzle, and I understood. Wimbledon was the killer and Cassius was his accomplice.”

  Harrison was on his feet. “Marvelous!” He received a glare from his superior and sat again.

  Purdon frowned. “What of this Irene…”

  Holmes overrode the words. “I can tell you of that, but later.” His significant glance implied that Purdon might not wish civilians to hear what might be said and the inspector fell silent. “So,” Holmes said, “do any of you wish to ask me a question? No? Then I suggest you adjourn. The inspector wishes to discuss other aspects of this case with me.”

  They filed out, some talking to others in tones of amazement, as they glanced back at Holmes’s austere figure. The Goodwinnes left, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm, his gaze bent upon her, warmly affectionate. Once they were all gone, Purdon turned to eye Holmes.

  “Come now, what of Irene Jarvis?”

  “I investigated her,” Homes said quietly. “She never knew her brother had stolen his friend’s name. She knew only that Melville Warner knew where Wimbledon was and that when Warner died, she lost all hope of ever finding her brother.”

  “So Warner knew Wimbledon was passing under his name?”

  “I think it likely that Wimbledon paid him during the time from when he became a valet until the true Warner’s death. There is proof that Irene Jarvis was working and some distance away the day that her brother died. And finally a woman who has known her all her life swears both that Miss Jarvis has never ceased to mourn the loss of her brother whom she idolized, and that that she is so honest that if she knew the fraction of what her brother had done she would not touch a penny of his bequest to her.”

  “And you believe that, Mr. Holmes? No woman would refuse such a sum.” Purdon’s tone was half-scoffing.

  “I do.” Holmes was decisive.

  “Then what should I do?”

  “I have proved that some at least o
f the diaries’ entries are false. You know your superiors, they would feel that being so, that no case could be brought.” Purdon nodded. “Let the man be buried as Wimbledon, since you cannot charge him with suicide, and if you attempt it your superiors will refuse. You cannot charge him with any of the crimes you know him to have committed, for in most cases there are neither witnesses nor proof. In other cases the victim is long dead and had no heir. Will you seek out Mr. Fitzrather’s lawyer? Then what? You know not what sum was stolen from his client, nor would Wimbledon’s lawyer allow you to disburse indeterminate sums from his client’s will. To whom would you give them?”

  “That old man we found in the garden?” Purdon said doubtfully.

  “He had no close heir, and his will left his estate to be divided between several charities. And again, Wimbledon’s lawyer would not be inclined allow you to disburse sums from his client’s will without a charge of murder being brought against Wimbledon and a conviction recorded. It may be that if you show him proof that his client committed that murder and for profit, if you show him the bank’s records, that he may agree to refund the stolen amount, but I consider it unlikely.”

  “But the man’s fortune was founded on murder,” Purdon said, exasperated. “There should be something that can be done.”

  “What?” Holmes asked, waiting while the inspector stood, opening his mouth to speak, shutting it again as some objection occurred to him and opening it again, with another objection coming to mind. At length my friend spoke quietly. “There is nothing you can do, Inspector. Let Irene Jarvis inherit with no knowledge of her beloved brother’s villainy. Let her believe that his last thought was of the sister he had wronged so grievously so long ago. She has suffered and endured, let her be at peace.”

  Purdon sighed. “I suppose so, Mr. Holmes. As you say, there’s little else can be done, and if the poor woman is innocent both of wrong-doing herself and of any knowledge of her brother’s actions, I expect I should stand back.”