by Barry Day
“What we have yet to learn is—why? Why go to all this trouble? Why invent a character in ‘Flora Adler’ who is certain to be discovered with the first question I ask her ‘father’?”
“Because their homework has told them that it is the theatricality of circumstance that invariably tempts you to accept a case,” I suggested, then added modestly, “an aspect I flatter myself I have occasionlly been able to convey to some degree.”
“Precisely, Watson, precisely. By now it is a piece of theatre that has been devised. It is no longer enough to have Adler pack up his tents and silently steal away. He must be forced to do so publicly and see himself humiliated in the process. They are setting the stage—whoever they are—and they are succeeding. We shall see the play out. But there is one other problem that is concerning me, another gap I intend to fill forthwith …”
“And that is?”
“It may have escaped your attention, Watson, that we have eaten nothing since your interrupted breakfast. I suggest a small supper at Rule’s and then perhaps we might look into one of your music halls. I believe we have had quite enough culture for one day.”
When I came down to breakfast the next morning, I found Holmes sitting in his usual chair examining a somewhat grubby piece of paper. As if in answer to my unspoken question, he passed it across to me.
“It appears that we had a visitor while we were out on the town, Watson. Mr Hamilton Fiske apparently graced us with his theatrical presence, according to Mrs. Hudson. She described him as being ‘very excitable’ and rather upset to find that we were out. He left the note you have in your hand.”
The ‘note’ was, in fact, Fiske’s business card and it appeared to have had rather hard wear. Following Holmes’s practice, I should have deduced that his career was not in a particularly successful phase and that the gentleman was an inveterate snuff taker. I turned my attention to the contents of the card.
E. HAMILTON FISKE
Thespian Extraordinary
… said the front face, while on the reverse in a flamboyant and rather unsteady hand …
“I may know something of our quaint Quoter. Will call on you tomorrow early.”
At that moment there was the ring of the doorbell. “And that may well be the very gentleman now,” said Holmes, arranging the cord of his old dressing gown to receive his visitor.
Instead, Mrs. Hudson ushered in the familiar figure of Inspector Lestrade. Small, rather under average height, he had a face that had given me occasion to think more than once over the years that resembled the hunted rather than the hunter. Nonetheless, in his own plodding way he had often been useful to Holmes who, I knew, had a fondness for the man and had passed on the credit for solving many a case, when he preferred to avoid the attendant publicity.
Since he was practically a member of the family, so to speak, it never occurred to me to edit my speech. Handing the card back to Holmes, as Lestrade was in the very act of removing his hat, I said something to the effect of Fiske’s card being safer in Holmes’s keeping and my being notorious for mislaying things. If I had wished to stop someone in their tracks, I could not have devised a better stratagem.
“Did you say ‘Fiske’, Doctor? Oh, good morning, gentlemen. Forgive my early intrusion. Not Hamilton Fiske, the actor?”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” I said a little huffily. It was by no means the first time he had cut across one of my conversations with my friend and without making an issue of it, I wanted to make the point that we were used to certain standards of social behaviour.
“Why do you ask, Lestrade?” Holmes was now leaning forward in his chair, completely focused on our visitor.
“Because I’m on my way to see him, Mr Holmes. I just dropped in on my way to bring you these …” And he handed Holmes a sheaf of papers. “They’re some of the answers to the telegrams you asked us to send out last night. Not that I’ve read them,” he added hastily. “Your boy, Billy, said you’d want to see them as soon as they came in, so I thought I’d drop them in myself. Always happy to return a favour.”
“I’m most grateful to you, Lestrade. But might I ask where you are going to see Fiske? We were rather expecting a visit from that gentleman ourselves.”
“In that case, I’m afraid you’re in for a long wait, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade replied, rather pleased for once, it seemed to me, to be in a position to tell Sherlock Holmes something he did not already know. “Just as I was leaving the Yard we got word that his body had been found under rather peculiar circumstances not too far from here in Marsham Square. I’ve given instructions for the area to be cordoned off until my men and I get there.”
“Under the circumstances you won’t mind if Watson and I join you?” said Holmes, swiftly exchanging his dressing gown for a jacket. It was more a statement than a question and Lestrade took it as such. “It’s just possible that we may be able to be of assistance to each other. Not …” and he inclined his head towards the Inspector—“for the first time, as I recall. I imagine you have your vehicle waiting outside …?”
A few minutes later we found ourselves alighting in a rundown square somewhere in the back of Islington. It was an area I had never had occasion to frequent in either my personal or professional capacity and nothing about it suggested that I had missed a great deal. It spoke of lives lived on the edge of poverty but more than that, it suggested a poverty of hope. Some of the houses were boarded up with windows that looked like nothing so much as missing teeth. And yet the elegance of the architecture indicated a more affluent past. It was altogether a depressing picture as the early morning sun struggled to make its presence felt.
Two uniformed constables greeted Lestrade deferentially and one of them clearly recognised Holmes, for he blurted out—“Morning, Mr Holmes. You remember me, sir? Baker? I was with you and the Doctor in that Coburg Square bank business with the red-headed fellows. We’ll soon have this sorted out now that you’re here.” If he had been about to say anything further, a glance from Lestrade changed his mind. Instead he led us over to the centre of the square, where several other policemen were gathered.
The main feature of Marsham Square—and its original pride, I have no doubt—was an impressive equestrian statue of some long forgotten statesman. “It has always been my conviction that fully half the men who grace a sculpted steed would lose their seats within seconds were the horse flesh and blood,” Holmes murmured to me as we approached it. It was then that I noticed something the sculptor had hardly intended. Behind the rider whose outstretched arm pointed to far horizons another figure was seated, its arms around the stone figure. The second man had his face turned in our direction and the strengthening light was good enough for me to recognise the florid features of the man we had seen on the Globe stage the previous day. Then the expression had been animated but now it was frozen in the rictus of a dead smile. My immediate impression, a quite unworthy one, I confess, was of an actor playing the part of a corpse.
Then Holmes interrupted my reverie. “So Richard found his horse but it cost him his kingdom, I fear.”
”Richard?” It was a puzzled Lestrade. “I thought his name was Hamilton. Edward Hamilton Fiske, according to our files.” “You’re quite right, of course, Lestrade,” Holmes replied. “It was something Watson and I were discussing earlier. Pray continue.”
Lestrade consulted a paper handed to him by a uniformed sergeant. “It seems young Baker here was going though the square on his normal rounds in the early hours when he happened to shine his lamp up to check the upper windows. We get a lot of vandalism in these back streets, though why they bother beats me. Well, you might as well tell us in your own words, Baker. Just don’t make a meal of it.”
“Right, sir,” said the young constable, addressing himself to Holmes. “I don’t shine the light up on every round, so I might have missed him the previous time. But when I did see him—must have been around …” “Four-thirty, should have been.” This from Lestrade, consulting the sergeant’s notes
.
“That’s right. Four-thirty. I blew me whistle for help. And do you know, I had the strangest feeling somebody was watching me from the shadows but, if they were, the noise must have frightened off whoever it was. Then, while I was waiting, I shone the lamp around and looked very carefully—just like I seen Mr Holmes do that time—being careful not to interfere with any clues there might be.” He looked at Holmes for approval.
“You did quite right, Baker—didn’t he, Lestrade?” said Holmes. “Now, let’s see what else the statue has to tell us.” And with that he began to circle it like a dog on the scent. It was Holmes as I had seen him so often, his brows drawn in lines that could have been etched and the eyes beneath them gleaming fiercely with the concentration he summoned up. He walked around twice, first clockwise, then anti-clockwise, finally dropping to his knees and examining a particular patch of earth with the powerful lens he always carried. At length, he seemed satisfied. Rising to his feet he dusted his knees, rolling a little of the dirt between his long fingers.
“Very well, Lestrade, perhaps you will ask your men to bring down the body? I’d be obliged if you would allow Dr Watson to make a preliminary examination before the coroner performs the usual post mortem.”
As one constable was given a leg up by his colleagues, he was able to dislodge Fiske’s body. Reluctantly, it seemed, the actor gave up his embrace of the unknown rider and was lowered to the ground, where he was placed on a waiting sheet.
“As you see, gentlemen,” said Holmes, while this procedure was taking place, “this was the work of two men. Even with his co-operation in life, Fiske was too heavy for one man to lift him in place. There is ample confirmation in the footprints around the base of the statue. Two men approached it, supporting a third who was altogether larger. Although the latter’s feet were dragging, he appears to have had some means of locomotion. Then there are clear signs of scuffing and two sets of deeper footprints, as they heave him into position. Finally, they depart. Interestingly, one of them at a run—perhaps losing his nerve—while the other’s return tread is more measured. The body’s weight kept it in position—and I would venture a guess that Mr Fiske made his final exit, leaving us his too, too solid flesh, while he was actually in the saddle. Oh, and he left us one more thing …”
And Holmes handed me a small glass capsule half full of a clear liquid. “This almost certainly fell from Fiske’s pocket as the body settled.” As I took it gingerly, Lestrade—feeling that it was time he made some contribution to the proceedings—interjected: “But how do we know it was anything to do with Fiske? How do we know it hadn’t been there for days?”
“Because this is normally a busy square and something as obvious would certainly be picked up, if it were not first trodden under foot. Second, the outside of the capsule is dry, yet the ground and the footprints are damp. I believe it rained slightly in the early hours, did it not, Baker?” “Indeed it did, sir.” “At which point,” Holmes continued, “I deduce the body shifted due to rigor mortis, dislodging the evidence. You’ve found something, Watson?”
While Holmes was talking, I had been giving the body a cursory examination. Dead about four hours, it appeared, taking the warm night air into account. No apparent signs of violence. From the man’s general appearance and what little I knew of his way of life, I would have been inclined to suspect a heart attack. Searching through his pockets I found a small card, which made interesting reading. It was this which caught my friend’s eye and I handed it to him. He read the small print that was the password to many a man’s life or death.
“So, our friend was a diabetic. And this, I assume”—indicating the capsule—“the injection of insulin that he should have taken, had he not been otherwise occupied.”
Before Lestrade could stop him, Holmes had unscrewed the capsule, taken a drop on the tip of his finger and tasted it. “As I thought.”
“Seems pretty cut and dried, then, Mr Holmes,” said Lestrade, trying to reassert a degree of authority. “These three fellows go out on a bit of a spree—you see, Doctor, I did notice the smell of alcohol as they brought him down. One thing leads to another and for a lark he decides he wants to get up on his high horse, so to speak. The other two help him up, he comes over queer, they lose their nerve and make a run for it. Don’t you think so, Mr Holmes?”
“As ever, Lestrade, you have a few of the facts but little of the truth. As to what Fiske drank or what was in the drink we shall have to wait until the results of the post mortem but I doubt that a simple excess of alcohol will prove to be the answer. I’m afraid that lies here …” And leaning over the corpse, Holmes removed the small white rose that adorned its buttonhole.
“Good heavens, old fellow, how did I come to miss that?” I apologised. “Because you were looking where any trained medical man is bound to look—at the body in question,” Holmes replied. “Ah, yes, here we are.” His fingers had been searching Fiske’s clothes with a brisk thoroughness and now from an inside pocket he produced a familiar piece of folded white paper. I stood up and read it over his shoulder.
AN TWO MEN RIDE OF A HORSE, ONE MUST RIDE BEHIND
Much Ado About Nothing
“A great deal of ado, I fear, and about something which has now taken the irrevocable step over the edge of the abyss. I had hoped our literary friend would be content to play his conundrums but it seems his plans have taken a more lethal turn. Due, I have little doubt, to this gentleman’s involvement in the plot.” And he indicated Fiske’s body, which the policemen were now busy covering with a sheet.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Lestrade pleaded, leading us towards his cab. And on the journey back to Baker Street Holmes did give him an edited version of events …
Chapter Five
We were in our sitting room and Lestrade was on his way back to Scotland Yard and the inevitable paperwork attendant on sudden death: “Come, Watson, I know your moods well enough, I think, after all these years. You think I confided too much in our friend, Lestrade?”
“Well,” I replied, “since you ask, I was rather surprised you were so forthcoming, since you know who is involved.” I hesitated to be more specific even in the privacy of our own room. And, to be fair to Holmes, the name had not passed his lips in briefing Lestrade.
“I must confess that, had he not been so embroiled already, I might have been a little more reticent. As it is, I have no wish to see the official bloodhounds blundering about and confusing what promises to be a most interesting scent. They have their limitations, to be sure, as we have seen more than once in the past, but the thoroughness of the British policeman is without parallel. I have no wish to see them off the leash. On the contrary, we must harness them to our purpose. Fiske’s murder means that time is running out.”
“Murder? What makes you so sure it was murder?” I replied. “Why couldn’t it have been a drunken spree? Fellow has a heart attack and the other two panic and leave him. Oh, no, that doesn’t explain the note and the rose—unless it was another warning that got out of hand …?”
“Nor does it explain the capsule.”
“You mean the insulin?”
“Except it wasn’t insulin.” “But you said …” I objected. “I said it was as I thought,” Holmes interrupted. “The capsule contained nothing more than good old London tap water. You may have observed that I put it in my pocket. No need to confuse Lestrade further. No, Watson, this was murder just as much as if he’d swallowed poison. Murder by omission if not by commission. A diabetic needs his needle regularly. I think you will grant I have some personal knowledge of that particular experience? To be deprived of it … but we must await the results of the post mortem which Lestrade—now our partner in this crime—will bring us post haste.”
“Which reminds me, we have yet to see what news he brought us earlier.” And with that he snatched up the sheaf of papers he had set on the table when we left with Lestrade and began to peruse them attentively. What he read seemed to satisfy h
im, for he passed one of the sheets over to me. “This begins to disperse the mist from the American connection, I fancy. What strikes you, Watson?”
The sheet was a cast list from a theatre programme. Ford’s Theatre, Washington. April 1865. Our American Cousin. That much we already knew. Florenz Adler in a supporting part. That we also knew. But ‘Miss Ivy Fosdyke’? That we certainly didn’t know, and here was another familiar name …’ Addison Trent’. I must have been speaking my discoveries aloud, much to Holmes’s amusement.
“Quite right, Watson. A few of the pieces do seem to be falling into place. The Chicago police have been kind enough to provide me with a little background commentary”—he flourished some of the other pages he’d been reading—“and it would appear that Dame Ivy—or should I say ‘Miss Ivy’?—was not always the pillar of society, or indeed propriety, that we know today. The local rumour at the time was that she may have been engaged in a liaison with Adler, who happened to be married at the time to a lady in New York but, more interestingly, there was a scandal about some poison pen letters the leading lady was receiving and which our Miss Fosdyke was suspected of sending. The President’s death obviously disrupted normal processes and the company disbanded. Now, all of this was a very long time ago but one cannot help but feel that the lady who has since become a revered figure of the English stage would hardly welcome the thought that some of those suppositions might be aired all over again. Do I not detect a whiff of brimstone and blackmail in the air—enough for someone to persuade the good lady to play a part in an alternative drama?”
“Yes, and what about this other fellow—Trent? Is he any relation?”
“The father of the young man we met yesterday. Quite right, Watson. Addison Trent, Like Adler, he appears to have lost the taste for appearing on the boards after this traumatic experience and also turned to promoting plays. You remember Adler spoke of him as being one of his oldest friends and associates? Well, it appears that Trent was also a significant competitor to Adler for quite a while, then suddenly went out of business. He apparently committed suicide a few years ago. That’s all they were able to discover in the time but they’ll keep on looking. This is a rich vein, Watson, and I sense we have merely scratched its surface.”