The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 1 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  “Just to talk. My name is Arthur Conan Doyle.”

  The name obviously meant nothing to the man. “You a Limey?”

  “I’m from England, yes. I am over here to referee the fight tomorrow.”

  “Yeah?” This interested him.

  “I believe you know a man named Tom Andrews.”

  Draco muttered an obscenity.

  “He was murdered here in Reno three nights ago. Did you know that?”

  “If I’d been in town I’d of done the job myself.”

  “But you weren’t in town?”

  “Just got in today. Come for the fight.”

  Doyle was inclined to believe the man. Besides, his statement could be easily checked. “I have been told you drug race horses. Wouldn’t think of trying your skill on a prizefighter, would you?”

  “Not a chance! Listen, I’ll tell you about your friend Tom Andrews, in case you still think he’s some sorta saint.” The man stepped a bit closer, and Doyle could smell gin on his breath. “Sure, I doped a horse or two in my day. Andrews found out about it and wrote his story. But he didn’t turn it in to his editor right away. Oh, no. He came to me first and showed it to me. Said he’d tear it up if I’d give him five thousand dollars.”

  “Interesting. What did you do?”

  “Told him I wouldn’t be blackmailed and kicked his butt outa my office.” He smiled at the memory. “I didn’t have no five grand anyhow.”

  “So he printed the article?”

  “Damned right! Ruined my racing career.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Picking up a buck any way I can.”

  “Do five rings mean anything to you? Five rings in Reno?”

  Draco looked blank. “Not a thing.”

  Doyle put down money for another gin and left the man there. In the street, fighting to keep her place on the crowded sidewalk, Monica was waiting. “What did you find out?” she demanded.

  “Nothing. Draco only just arrived in Reno.”

  “So he says!”

  “Let me escort you back to your hotel, Miss Malone. The city is growing more crowded by the hour, and the streets may not be safe for a young woman.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I am sure you can. But the person who killed Tom might find it very easy to knife you in a crowd. Your inquiries could be worrying him.”

  She paled at his words. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “Come along.”

  “I was foolish to think of you as Sherlock Holmes. There’s nothing you can do for me or Tom.”

  “I never pretended to be Holmes,” he insisted. But was it true?

  Five gold rings . . .

  He started humming it to himself as they walked. Seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five gold rings, four colly birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

  Ahead of them a boy set off a string of firecrackers in the gutter. It was the eve of America’s Independence Day, an odd time to be humming Christmas carols to oneself.

  Five gold rings . . .

  “You’re right,” he told her at the door of the hotel. “I’m not Holmes.”

  She turned to gaze into his eyes. “I only wish that you were.”

  The morning dawned warm and sunny. There would be a shirtsleeve crowd at the fight in a few hours. Doyle hoped the decision would be clean-cut. Any uncertainty as to the outcome could only carry over into the streets of Reno.

  Charlie Summons called for him promptly at nine, escorting him out to the motorcar. “Beautiful day for it, Dr. Doyle.”

  “That it is, Charlie.”

  “The Colonel has a tent up on the fairgrounds, for his celebration dinner afterwards.”

  “Too bad you’re not included on the guest list.”

  Charlie snickered. “Colonel Grayson said he might include me, if one of the fighters doesn’t feel up to eating.”

  Though the fight was still some hours off, people were already streaming into the grandstand. Many carried picnic lunches and bottles of beverage. And the crackle of fireworks had become almost constant. “Is this how they celebrate your Fourth of July?” Doyle asked.

  “You’ll get used to the noise,” Summons assured him.

  In the striped tent set off beyond the parking lot they found Colonel Raff Grayson making last-minute preparations. “I will have chefs to prepare dinner after the main event,” he told Doyle. “By that time I’m sure you’ll have worked up an appetite.”

  Doyle nodded.

  Nevada Wade came in with a young woman clinging to his arm. “The press is searching for you, Dr. Doyle. They want an interview with Sherlock Holmes!”

  “I’m not – ” Doyle began, then fell silent. What difference did it make? He could be Sherlock Holmes if they wanted him to be.

  Outside, heading toward the press tent, he came upon Monica Malone. “Here for the fight?” he asked.

  “I’m here to settle with Tom’s killer.”

  “What?”

  “One of the reporters told me Tom was on Draco’s trail. He was sure Draco was heading for Reno to close some sort of crooked deal. I have a gun in this handbag, Dr. Doyle, and when I see Draco – ”

  “My dear, don’t even talk such foolishness!” He grasped at the purse, feeling the metallic weight of it. “I’d better take that.”

  He slipped the small weapon out of the purse and dropped it in his pocket.

  “That won’t stop me,” she insisted. “If you can’t do anything, I will!”

  The crowd was thickening around them. Spectators mingled with souvenir vendors, and at that moment Doyle’s eyes were caught by a gold American eagle on the cover of an Independence Day program. “Birds,” he muttered to himself.

  “What did you say?” Monica asked.

  “Of course! They were all birds! I remember now!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The excitement welled within him. “Hurry, woman! Find some police-officers and bring them to Colonel Grayson’s tent!”

  Then he was on his way. The first person he saw as he burst into the tent was Draco. The ugly man turned from his task, surprised at the sudden intrusion. “You again!”

  And then Colonel Grayson came forward. “Can I be of service, Dr. Doyle?”

  “On the contrary, Colonel. I came to assist you in dressing those birds for dinner.”

  Grayson shot a glance at the table behind him. “You needn’t concern yourself – ”

  Doyle felt the hardness of Monica Malone’s gun in his pocket, and he drew it out. “Just stand there, both of you. Police-officers will be here soon enough.”

  “Police? For what?”

  “To arrest you for murder, Colonel. You killed Tom Andrews when he tried to blackmail you.”

  “That’s insane!”

  “Is it? Andrews was killed near the railway station, because that is where he found you awaiting your delivery. Just as I found you yesterday morning. He left a message for Monica Malone, telling her to remember the fifth day of Christmas. In the old carol the fifth day’s gift was five gold rings. Not wedding rings, or prize rings. I finally remembered something I read long ago. In the carol the gifts of the first seven days are all birds. The five gold rings referred to five ring-necked pheasants – like those on the table behind you. I didn’t count the birds at the station yesterday, but I remembered you had enough to feed ten guests, at two servings per bird. Therefore, five birds – five ring-necked pheasants.”

  Grayson started to move then, but Monica lifted the tent flap and entered with the police. “What’s all this?” one detective asked. “Aren’t you Arthur Conan Doyle?”

  Doyle handed over his weapon and picked up a carving knife instead. “If you’ll cover the Colonel, we’ll see what’s in these five birds.”

  He slit them open, one after another, and carefully extracted a number of small hard objects. “Wash them off and you will find they are diamonds – no doubt from
that New York robbery a few weeks back. Colonel Grayson was acting as a fence for the loot, and probably planning to resell it to Draco here. Somehow Andrews found out about Draco’s involvement and tried to blackmail the Colonel. That’s when he was killed. I should have known those birds were valuable. Grayson sent Charlie Summons to meet me at the station, but he went himself – and alone – to pick up a heavy cage of pheasants.”

  But how did you know there were jewels in the birds?” Monica asked.

  Arthur Conan Doyle smiled. “The diamonds? Well, you see Sherlock Holmes once solved a case in which a carbuncle was hidden inside a Christmas goose. But come, it is almost fight time and I must be in the ring.”

  Jack Johnson stopped Jim Jeffries in the fifteenth round, thus retaining the heavyweight championship of the world. And Jack London wrote, “Jeff today disposed of one question. He could not come back. Johnson, in turn, answered another question. He has not the yellow streak.”

  His article made no mention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

  AFTERWORD: OLD-TIME DETECTION

  Arthur Griffiths

  The following article appeared in the April 1902 issue of Cassell’s Magazine, and I thought it might be of interest to readers in showing the historical development of the real-life detective. Arthur Griffiths (1838–1908), was a renowned army officer who rose to the rank of major. Noted for his discipline he entered the prison service in 1870, first as deputy-governor at Chatham and later as one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Prisons, a post he held until 1896. He retired from the army in 1875 and turned to writing and editing in his spare time. His early novels, starting with The Queen’s Shilling (1873) drew upon his experiences in the Crimean War, but he later turned to a series of popular detective thrillers, and a number of sensational tales of prison life, including the very popular Criminals I Have Known (1895). He was one of the noted experts of his day on the history and development of the police service.

  The modern detective, whether of fact or fiction, had no exact prototype in the past. The constable was an officer of the law attached to a particular locality, but except to raise the hue-and-cry, take up the criminal when he was caught, he exercised few of the functions of the police officer. A century ago there were a round dozen of Bow Street runners whose services might be engaged by private parties, but they cannot be said to have been remarkable for astuteness. The ingenious piecing together of clues, and the following up of light and baffling scent, was the work, generally, of the lawyers engaged by the parties aggrieved.

  One of the earliest cases on record of this clever detection of a great fraud was the upsetting of the claim made in 1684 by a certain Lady Ivy to a large property in Shadwell. The contention was over seven acres which her ladyship, who was the widow of Sir Thomas Ivy, claimed on the strength of deeds drawn, or purporting to be drawn, in the 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, or 1555–6, and which gave her ancestors the land. The case was tried before the “famous,” or rather infamous, Judge Jeffreys, and it was proved to the satisfaction of the jury that the deeds were forged. It had been discovered that the style and titles of the king and queen as they appeared in the deed were not those used by them at that date. In the preambles of Acts of Parliament in 1555–6, Philip and Mary were styled “King and Queen of Naples, princes of Spain and Sicily,” not as in the deed, “King and Queen of Spain and both the Sicilies.” Again, in the deed Burgundy was put before Milan as a dukedom; in the Acts of Parliament it was just the reverse. The style did in effect come in later, but the person drawing the deeds could not prophesy that, and as a fair inference it was urged that the deeds were a forgery. Other evidence was adduced to show that Lady Ivy had forged other deeds, and it was so held by Judge Jeffreys. “If you produce deeds in such a time when, say you, such titles were used, and they were not so used, that sheweth your deeds are counterfeit and forged and not true deeds. And there is Digitus Dei, the finger of God, in it, that though the design be deep laid and the contrivance sculk, yet truth and justice will appear at one time or other.”

  Accordingly, my Lady Ivy lost her verdict, and an information for forgery was laid against her, but with what result does not appear.

  Fifty years later, a painstaking lawyer in Berkshire was able to unravel another case of fraud which must have eluded the imperfect police of the day. It was an artful attempt to claim restitution from a certain locality for a highway robbery which had never occurred.

  Upon the 24th March, 1847, one Thomas Chandler, an attorney’s clerk, was travelling on foot along the high road between London and Reading. Having passed through Maidenhead thicket and in the neighbourhood of Hare Hatch, some thirty miles out, he was set upon by three men, bargees, who robbed him of all he possessed – his watch and cash, the latter amounting to £960, all in bank-notes. After the robbery, they bound him and threw him into a pit by the side of the road. He lay there some three hours, till long after dark, being unable to obtain release from his miserable situation – although the road was much frequented, and he heard many carriages and people passing along. At length he got out of the pit unaided and, still bound hand and foot, jumped rather than walked for half a mile up hill, calling out lustily for anyone to set him loose. The first passer-by was a gentleman who gave him a wide berth; then a shepherd came and cut his bonds, and at his entreaty guided him to the constable or tything man of the Hundred of Sunning, in the County of Berks.

  Here he set forth in writing the evil that had happened him, with a full and minute description of the thieves, and at the same time gave notice that he would in due course sue the Hundred for the amount under the statutes. All the formalities being observed, process was duly served on the High Constable of Sunning, and the people of the Hundred, alarmed at the demand which, if insisted upon, would be the “utter ruin of many poor families,” engaged a certain attorney, Edward Wise, of Wokingham, to defend them.

  Mr. Wise had all the qualities of a good detective; he was ingenious, yet patient; cleverly piecing together the facts he soon picked up about Chandler. Some of these seemed at the very outset much against him. That a man should tramp along the road with nearly £1,000 in his pocket was quite extraordinary; again, that he should not escape from the pit till after dark, and that his bonds should have been no better than tape, a length of which was found on the spot where he was untied. He seemed, moreover, to be very little concerned by his great loss after he had given the written notices to the constable, concerning which he was strangely well informed, with all the statutes at his fingers’ ends as though studied beforehand, and he ordered a hot supper and a bowl at the Hare and Hounds in Hare Hatch, where he kept it up till late in the night. Nor was he in any hurry to return to town and stop payment of the notes at the banks, but started late and rode leisurely to London.

  It was easy enough to trace him there. He had given his address in the notices, and was found to be the clerk of Mr. Hill, an attorney in Clifford’s Inn. It now appeared that Chandler had negotiated a mortgage for a client of his master’s upon certain lands in the neighbourhood of Devizes for £500, much more, as it was proved, than their value. An old mortgage was to be paid off in favour of the new, and Chandler had set off on the day stated to complete the transaction, carrying with him the £500 and the balance of £460, supposed to be his own property, but how obtained was never known. His movements on the days previous were also verified. He had dined with the mortgagee, when the deed was executed and the money handed over in notes. These notes were mostly for small sums, making up too bulky a parcel to be comfortably carried under his garters (the safest place for them, as he thought), and he had twice changed a portion – £440 at the Bank of England for two notes, and again at “Sir Richard Hoare’s shop” for three notes, two of £100 and one of £200. With the whole of his money he then started to walk ninety miles in twenty-four hours, for he was expected next day at Devizes to release the mortgage.

  Mr. Hill had kept a list of the notes made out in Chandler’s handwriting, which Chandler got back, in or
der, as he said, to stop payment of them at the banks. His real object was to alter the numbers of three notes from Hoares’, which he wished to cash and use, and he effected this by having a fresh list made out in which these notes were given new and false numbers. Thus the notes with the real numbers would not be stopped on presentation. He did it cleverly, changing 102 to 112, 195 to 159, 196 to 190, variations so slight as to pass unnoticed by Mr. Hill when the list (as copied) was returned to him. These three notes were cashed and eventually traced back to Chandler. Further, it was clearly proved that he had got those notes at Hoares’ in exchange for the £400 note, for that note presently came back to Hoares’ through a gentleman who had received it in part payment for a captain’s commission of Dragoons, and it was then seen that it had been originally received from Chandler.

  While Mr. Wise was engaged in these inquiries, the trial of Chandler’s case against the Hundred came on at Abingdon assizes in June, and a verdict was given in his favour for £975, chiefly because Mr. Hill was associated with the mortgage, and he was held a person of good repute. But a point of law was reserved, for Chandler had omitted to give a full description of the notes as required by statute when advertising his loss.

  But now Chandler disappeared. He thought the point of law would go against him, that the mortgagee would press for the return of the £500 which he had recovered from the Hundred, that his master Mr. Hill had now strong doubts of his good faith. The first proved to be the case; on argument of the point of law, the Abingdon verdict was set aside. There was good cause for his other fears. News now came of the great bulk of the other notes, which reached the Bank from Amsterdam through brokers named Solomons, who had bought them from one “John Smith,” a person answering to the description of Chandler, who, in signing the receipt, “wrote his name as if it had been wrote with a skewer.” The indefatigable Mr. Wise presently found that Chandler had been in Holland with a trader named Casson, and then found Casson himself.

  Mr. Hill was in indirect communication with Chandler, writing letters to him by name “at Easton, in Suffolk, to be left for him at the ‘Crown’ at Ardley, near Colchester, in Essex.” Thither Mr. Wise followed him accompanied by the mortgagee, Mr. Winter, and the “Holland trader,” Mr. Casson, who was ready to identify Chandler. They reached the “Crown” at Ardley, and actually saw a letter “stuck behind the plates of the dresser” awaiting Chandler, who rode in once a fortnight from a distance, for “his mare seemed always to be very hard rid.” There was nothing known of a place called Easton, but Aston and Assington were both suggested to the eastward, and in search of them Mr. Wise with his friends rode through Ipswich as far as Southwold, and there found Easton, a place washed by the sea, and “being thus pretty sure of going no further eastward.” But the scent was false, and although a young man was run into, whom they proposed to arrest with the assistance of “three fellows from the Keys who appeared to be smugglers, for they were pretty much maimed and scarred,” the person was clearly not Chandler. So finding “we had been running the wrong hare, we trailed very coolly all the way back to Ipswich.”