The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part III

by David Marcum

  “I’ve had my eye on this George Edalji for many a year, Mister Holmes.”

  We stood facing the local Chief Constable, the honorable G.A. Anson, the second son of the Earl of Lichester. He reminded me far too much of some of my army officers in Afghanistan: A lot of bluster that attempted to compensate for a lack of practical experience. We had been escorted roughly into his office after our capture. To his credit, upon recognizing Holmes, he immediately realized how improbable it was that we had intended to cut open that horse and did not place us under arrest.

  Holmes explained that we had been retracing the route that George Edalji had allegedly taken a few nights before to mutilate a horse in that very field at the Great Wyerly Colliery. He also told the chief constable why we had come from London.

  “I’m afraid you’ve come on a wild goose chase, sir. Naturally, the reverend wants you to prove his son innocent.” The way Anson said “reverend” indicated that he did not like the elder Edalji.

  He almost leered at Holmes. “Why, after he had been arrested, Edalji said, ‘I am not surprised at this. I have been expecting it for some time.’ Those were his very words, I can tell you.”

  The man actually snorted. “Now, I ask you, what better confession of guilt could we have asked for?”

  “Or perhaps it was the natural response of a man who knows he has been a suspect, be it for valid reasons or not,” Holmes replied levelly.

  A flush rose on Anson’s cheeks.

  “I happen to know that Edalji was not innocent of strange goings on at the vicarage some ten years ago.” He said this last with a knowing look, as if he had let us in on some great secret.

  Holmes was unruffled, as always. “I’m sure your men are gathering all sorts of evidence to establish Edalji’s guilt.” I thought I detected a faint inflection on the word “establish.”

  Anson seemed a bit uncertain what to make of this statement. “I’m sure with so many crimes in London, Scotland Yard is in need of your assistance. But here in Wyerly, we’ve got things under our thumbs.”

  “Yes, I’m certain there’s no doubt in your mind that you’ve secured the guilty party. We shall not trouble you any further at the moment.” Holmes sighed softly and moved a few steps to the door but stopped short. Turning, he said, “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could I see the plaster of Edalji’s boot marks?”

  Anson was startled at the sudden change of subject, just when he thought Holmes was leaving. “Why, we had no need to make one.”

  My friend stared at him in obvious disbelief. “No cast made? Surely there are photographs, then?”

  Anson was more than a bit uncomfortable at Holmes’s tone. “Not necessary. One of my men took Edalji’s boot and made an impression in the mud next to the boot marks. It was clearly a match.”

  “And he will testify to that effect in court, with no evidence to buttress his claim?”

  The chief constable seemed to come to the conclusion that Holmes was not necessarily on his side. A bit late, in my opinion. “We’ll do just fine on our own. We don’t need the help of a publicity-seeking private detective from London. Perhaps you and the doctor would do well to leave!”

  Holmes smiled thinly and I moved towards the door. “I think we’ll enjoy some of your fine country air. It’s always so refreshing to get away from London’s thick climate. Come, Watson, let us retire to our rooms.”

  With a curt nod to Anson, I followed Holmes out. A sharp glance from my friend told me to hold any questions to myself until we were in more secluded surroundings.

  It had been a long night; or rather, morning. After but a few meager hours of sleep, we had gathered in the secured environs of Holmes’s room, settled in with warm but tepid tea, courtesy of the innkeeper. “This is weak stuff, Holmes,” I commented as I swallowed unenthusiastically.

  He grunted noncommittally, ignoring the cup at his elbow. “Well, old fellow, you have now traversed the same route that George Edalji allegedly did, in almost total darkness, to mutilate a horse. Could he have done it?”

  I reflected on our nocturnal journey. Granted, I had struggled over the unfamiliar ground. Edalji, a native, would have an advantage. But there was his vision to take into account.

  “Holmes, if the degree of myopia is as severe as his father attests, I find it all but inconceivable that young Edalji could have followed that path, undetected, attacked the horse, retraced his route and commenced home without anyone the wiser, no matter the time.”

  He laughed. “As do I. You have the benefit of excellent sight and you struggled throughout.” I ignored this careless slight, the receipt of which was my burden as Sherlock Holmes’s assistant. “Edalji could not possibly have succeeded in such a mission. And for him to evade an alert police force; it beggars reason.

  “Though ‘reason’ and Captain Anson may be only nodding acquaintances,” he muttered.

  He took a drink of the lukewarm tea, made a face, and put it back down. “Parson Edalji said that the police have offered not one, but two possible scenarios. That his son attacked the horse in the evening before coming home from an errand in the village: or that he snuck out of the parsonage, which was under observation, in the middle of the night, completed his task, and snuck in, undetected.”

  I reflected on this. “It seems rather incongruous.”

  “Preposterous would be a better word, Watson. The man wears no corrective lenses. And it is implied that he was involved in the previous maimings, though the police have been careful to avoid direct mention of that.”

  “I must say, matters seem to favor the young solicitor, though I fear many facts will need to be marshaled in his defense to blunt the police’s seeming animus. I believe that we shall next look into the matter of the horse hair found on Edalji’s coat. I am sure that it will be a cornerstone of any prosecution case.”

  “Yes, gentlemen, I removed twenty-nine hairs from the jacket. There can be no doubt that they were from a horse.”

  We were conversing with the police surgeon, a Doctor Butler. He was rather nondescript, except for the somewhat disconcerting habit of looking at a spot approximately four or five inches to the right of the person to whom he was speaking.

  “Well, you certainly couldn’t be mistaken in that, Doctor,” Holmes replied, pausing. “And I understand that a portion of hide was cut from the mutilated horse and brought to you?”

  “Yes, a piece was removed from the belly.” Again, he looked at a point next to Holmes’s head.

  “Indeed.” Holmes turned thoughtful eyes to me and then casually looked to the ceiling, as if the following question was a mere trifle. “And did you find any similarity between the hairs on George Edalji’s coat and that portion of horse flesh?” His piercing gaze then centered on the doctor.

  “Why yes, I did. Nearly all of the hairs on the jacket were similar in color, length and structure.”

  I felt that Holmes was baiting a trap for the unwary police surgeon. I had seen this many times before.

  “I take it that the coat was sealed at the parsonage and brought directly to you that morning?”

  The man blinked owlishly. “No, not directly to me, Mister Holmes.”

  Holmes’s expression affected surprise. “Not directly? I would think that such a vital piece of evidence would be put into your care post haste. Surely no more than an hour or so elapsed?”

  Dr. Butler seemed somewhat discomfited. “Err... no, it was a bit longer than that.”

  Holmes stared placidly at the man. The silence hung in the air like a blanket, both of us waiting for the doctor to add more. Holmes raised an eyebrow. “I believe that the police went to the parsonage at about eight o’clock in the morning. Surely you recall when the coat was brought to you here.”

  Butler rubbed his hands together as if he were washing them. “I believe that I examined the co
at at nine o’clock in the evening.”

  “Surely not!” Holmes’s voice was like the crack of a whip. “That is some thirteen hours after it was secured at the parsonage. Where was this coat during that period of time?”

  “I... I do not know, sir. I had no knowledge of the coat until it was brought to me.”

  “According to young Edalji’s father, there were no hairs on the coat when it was examined at the parsonage. Even Inspector Campbell could claim he found only two hairs. Yet you found twenty-nine? How do you explain that, sir?”

  The man was clearly shaken. “It is not my task to explain it, gentlemen.”

  I felt sympathy for the poor doctor. I did not believe he had done anything untoward regarding the questionable provenance of George Edalji’s coat and the horse hairs. “Come now, Holmes. Surely Doctor Butler is not responsible for what happened to the coat before it came into his possession.”

  His face softened. He looked apologetically at Butler. “Of course, I intended no offense, Doctor. You have been of great assistance and I thank you.”

  He offered his hand, which Butler shook with some relief. “Yes, yes, of course. No offense taken. Please let me know if I can answer any other questions.” He seemed relieved that we were departing.

  I wished him well and followed Holmes out of the room. He chuckled as we walked along. “You played that well, Watson. I have found that sometimes having a ‘good’ inquisitor and a ‘bad’ inquisitor provides an effective balance when questioning someone.”

  Surprised, I replied, “Glad to help, Holmes. I must say, I’m rather dubious regarding the disappearance of the coat.”

  “Ha! I believe we have discredited the coat entirely. Though I wish I could get Thorndyke to examine it. Would that we were back in London.”

  I was a bit startled by this pronouncement. “Entirely? Really, Holmes?”

  His eyes gleamed. “Upon its initial examination, there is a dispute to whether any hairs at all adhere to the coat. The local police say only two are visible. The coat is taken into police custody and reappears over a dozen hours later, covered with twenty-nine identifiable horse hairs. And those hairs are consistent with the hairs on a piece of skin cut from the mutilated horse.

  “It does not take a great deal of imagination to consider that the hairs on the coat came from the sample cut from the dead horse.”

  I was shocked! “Holmes, surely you don’t mean to imply that the constabulary intentionally placed the hairs from the sample onto the coat?”

  He gave me a flat smile. “I suppose it is conceivable that the two objects came into contact with each other, or someone unintentionally transferred the hairs from one to the other. But I find that the less likely of our possibilities. The circumstance of the hairs on the coat does not buttress the case against Edalji.”

  I ruminated on this as we continued our walk. While I had seen my share of less-than-efficient police work in my years with Holmes, I found it hard to imagine the official force manufacturing guilt against someone!

  I looked around to the realization that we were near our inn. “I say, Holmes, where are we going now?”

  He stopped. “I suggest that you enjoy the local fare. I am going to delve into the case of young Edalji’s boot marks and will not require your assistance at present.”

  I took a short walk after enjoying some adequate shepherd’s pie and assorted trimmings. I was back in my room, dozing in the almost comfortable chair, when Holmes knocked and entered unbidden. I shrugged off my torpor and greeted him. “What did you discover, Holmes?”

  He carelessly tossed his deerstalker onto the small table. “Either the local force is more incompetent than I believe possible or is intent on convicting Edalji.” He shook his head. “I cannot imagine even Lestrade would have arrested the man on such specious evidence.”

  He moved over to the window and looked out upon the whitewashed walls of the shop next door to my room. “The good Inspector Campbell took a pair of Edalji’s boots at the same time as the coat supposedly covered in horse hairs.” He snorted in derision. “Then, some eight hours later, after hundreds of miners had tramped all over the area like a herd of buffalo, he located boot prints that matched those made by Edalji’s boots.”

  “Definitively?” I queried.

  “Of course not! It would appear that he spotted some likely marks, made an imprint in the ground next to them with Edalji’s boot and then declared them a match!”

  He shook his head. “It is clear that the man has not read my little monograph on the subject of footprints. As Captain Anson verified, he did not make a print, take a photograph or even sketch the muddied marks. There is no evidence of any kind that can be examined.” He paused, then added, “Or refuted.”

  I knew my friend to be angered by such shoddy police work. Something occurred to me then. “If there was rain off and on all night, and if Edalji committed the crime before returning home at 9:30, wouldn’t any prints almost surely be gone by the following afternoon?”

  His laugh was as sharp as a pistol shot. “Very good, Watson. I could wish that you were on the local force. To find a print over half a day later, with the ongoing rain and the scene unsecured; the unsubstantiated claim of finding a match is almost absurd.”

  He stared contemplatively at his hat on the table. “Surely if Anson has not already had the same thought, someone will. Which would further induce the police to favor the scenario in which Edalji snuck out of the house in the middle of the night, rather than committing the crime on his way home from the village.

  “I should laugh at the whole affair if the consequences for young Edalji were not so serious, my friend.”

  I pondered Holmes’s words. Edalji was a successful young barrister, having written a well-received manual on railway law. A conviction would surely strike him from the rolls, in addition to sending him to prison for a time. It certainly was no laughing matter.

  Holmes stared levelly at me. “The coat, the boot marks, the rusty razor that clearly could not be the mutilating weapon, his poor eyesight: it is surely a poor case they have to bring against him.”

  I had already dismissed the razor from my thoughts. Inspector Campbell had taken a razor, supposedly wet and with blood stains, from the parsonage, along with the coat and boots. It was almost immediately determined that the stains were rust, and it was wet because young Edalji had used it that morning to... shave! Regardless, the razor was not consistent with the type of weapon that could make the fatal wound.

  “Watson, I fear there is something dark under the surface here in Wyerly. Some menace for George Edalji.”

  “Foul, vile stuff.” I put down one of the letters sent to the Edalji family. Parson Edalji patted his wife’s hand, the two sitting across from Holmes and me.

  “Yes, Mister Holmes, we were subjected to a variety of accusations, vandalism and pranks malicious and harmless, beginning in 1892 and lasting for three years. Goods arrived for orders we did not place. People were summoned to our home for meetings that did not exist. Things I cannot repeat were said about ourselves and others.”

  We sat in the modest parsonage inhabited by the Edaljis. It was a humble room with no signs of ostentation. We had been served a much better tea than that from the inn, and were asking the senior Edalji about the family’s past problems.

  “And the local authorities believe that your son was behind these letters. Even the ones that maligned himself and his own family?”

  Pastor Edalji was from Bombay, raised in a Parsi family. He had been given the see in Wyerly by a relative of his wife. As the area was a rough, rural parish with a tough, mining mentality, I could guess that the locals had not been overjoyed to have a foreigner brought in to oversee their spiritual needs.

  “Yes. For example, a key was stolen from the Walsall School, several miles away. It was found on our door
step. Chief Constable Anson was convinced that George had taken it. To what end? And he did not even attend Walsall. It made no sense!”

  His wife, clearly suffering from a long history of unpleasantness surrounding her family, remained silent.

  “It certainly seems unfair,” I interjected.

  He smiled weakly at me and continued. “The letters simply stopped in 1895, the culprit never identified. Then, this past February, a horse was mutilated in the night. More attacks followed, and malicious letters began appearing. The police again believed that George wrote them.”

  Holmes had listened with rapt attention. “Of course, it is far more likely that someone else wrote the letters. And that the person left the area in 1985, when the letters ceased. They then returned, renewing their attacks on your family.”

  Mrs. Edalji gave a genuine, if broken, smile to Holmes. I sensed that she had received little support related to the persecution of her family.

  Parson Edalji nodded his head. “That would certainly...” The sentence went unfinished.

  Holmes asked some additional questions regarding who might feel such hostility towards the man and his son. We learned of the expected close-mindedness towards the Edalji’s mixed ancestry, but he could not identify anyone specific.

  “If I could take the letters you have, we shall see what we can glean from them.”

  “Most assuredly, sir. We shall help you in any way we can.”

  They clung to Holmes’s implacable stolidity like struggling swimmers to a lifeline. We made our farewells, dozens of letters in our possession.

  “Let us retire to our rooms and see what we can learn from these,” he said, waving his packet of letters at me. “If Captain Anson and his men truly believed that young Edalji was writing these scurrilous letters, he is an even bigger fool than I supposed. Even Athelney Jones would not come to that conclusion.”