Death by Gaslight

by Michael Kurland

  What was wrong? Holmes went over in his mind what he had just seen. Something—

  Holmes fell backward to a sitting position on the pavement and threw the piece of chalk in the air. “Perfect!” he yelled. “Oh, perfect!” He burst out laughing.

  Detective Gordon came up behind Holmes, trying to look casual. “What is it, Mr. Holmes?” he asked out of the side of his mouth, staring earnestly down at the pink dome of St. Paul’s.

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” Holmes gasped. “You saw Moriarty go into the house.”

  “I did,” Gordon said, sounding puzzled.

  “You did!” Holmes broke out laughing again. “Oh, that is rich. I have to give him credit for this one.”

  Detectives Macy and Stevens, the two bulky gentlemen who had been in the hansom following Moriarty’s carriage, came trotting down the street, ready to take up their observation posts. “Those must be your friends coming,” Holmes said. “Call them over here, Detective Gordon. Call them over here.”

  “But Mr. Holmes,” Gordon said, “Professor Moriarty might see us together. It is very bad for an observation team to allow the subject to see them all bunched together.”

  Gordon looked puzzled when this statement also caused Holmes to laugh. He shrugged and signaled Macy and Stevens to join them, and explained to them who the ragged-looking street artist was while Holmes stood up and dusted himself off.

  “Gentlemen,” Holmes said after shaking hands with the two policemen, “no need to worry about Professor Moriarty seeing us together. No need to keep watching his house, for that matter. The professor has made fools of the three of you. He has almost made a fool of me.”

  “What’s that? What do you mean, Mr. Holmes?” Detective Gordon asked.

  “Why, man, you saw it. You just don’t know what you saw.”

  “Saw what, Mr. Holmes?” Detective Stevens asked.

  “The gentleman who just left that carriage, Mr. Stevens. The gentleman whom you have been following about for the past few days. It isn’t Professor Moriarty at all!”

  “What?” Stevens asked.

  “But,” Gordon protested, “how could you mistake that face? He is a very distinctive-looking man, the professor.”

  “Indeed he is,” Holmes agreed. “And that has been your downfall. You have been so preoccupied with his face that you never noticed his feet!”

  “His feet?” Gordon asked.

  “And his arms. You really should have noticed his arms. I should say that the motions of his arms were quite worthy of notice.”

  “But, Mr. Holmes,” Gordon protested, “as I remember, his arms didn’t move.”

  “True. They did not. And was that not quite remarkable?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Holmes,” Gordon said.

  Stevens and Macy looked uncomfortably away, as though wishing to disassociate themselves from this madman that the Commissioner of Police had temporarily placed over them.

  Holmes looked from one to the other of them, and then burst out laughing again. “Why, men, don’t you see? It wasn’t Moriarty at all. It was a wax dummy. That’s what you saw last night, and that’s what we just saw emerging from the carriage.”

  “A wax dummy, sir? Walking?” Gordon asked.

  “Judging by the stride, I should say it was being carried on the shoulders of a midget,” Holmes said.

  Gordon looked stricken. “A midget!” he exclaimed. “Mummer Tolliver!”

  “Exactly!” Holmes said. “Why, man, didn’t you see that short stride? It shouldn’t have fooled us for a second.”

  “Well, sir, what do we do now?” Gordon asked.

  “We call for some more men to surround the house,” Holmes said. “Subtly, very subtly. And then, acting on information received, we get an order from the Home Secretary and proceed to search the house from top to bottom.”

  “Information received? From whom, sir?”

  “From me, Detective Gordon, from me!” Holmes said firmly.

  NINE

  THE CHASE

  As I was going up the stair

  I met a man who wasn’t there.

  He wasn’t there again to-day.

  I wish, I wish he’d stay away.

  HUGHES MEARNS

  A mass of burly policemen in ill-fitting civilian clothes burst through the front door of 64 Russell Square when Mr. Maws answered the bell. Five of them grabbed the powerful butler and were struggling to subdue him and clap handcuffs on him when Barnett, in a mouse-gray dressing gown, armed with a large revolver, ran out of the dining room to see what the commotion was about. “What’s this?” he yelled. “Unhand him, you men, and put your hands up! Mrs. H, run outside and whistle for a policeman.”

  “Come, come, now, Mr. Barnett,” Sherlock Holmes said, appearing in the front doorway. “You know quite well that these men are policemen. Now put down that horse pistol and behave like a gentleman.”

  “Mr. Holmes!” Barnett exclaimed. “Is this your idea? Will you please tell me what it is that’s happening? If you are responsible for the hoard of burly savages in this hallway, will you make some attempt to get them to behave in a civilized fashion? Have you a warrant for Mr. Maws's arrest? If so, on what charge?”

  “Nobody is attempting to arrest your butler,” Holmes said. “It merely seemed to us that the element of surprise might be useful. We do have a warrant to search this house. And we intend to do so, immediately.”

  “That’s fine,” Barnett said. “Show me the warrant and, if it is in order, go ahead and search the house. There is no call to manhandle the butler.”

  “Where is your master?” Holmes asked, signaling the policemen to release Mr. Maws.

  “I have no master,” Barnett said. “I am an American. George the Third was the last man to consider himself our master, and he’s been dead these past sixty-seven years.”

  Mr. Maws dusted off his jacket and trousers. “If any one of you gentlemen would like to step outside,” he said, his voice a study in exaggerated politeness, “I would be delighted to give him a lesson in proper manners. Or any three of you?”

  “I do apologize, Mr. Maws,” Holmes said lightly. “These gentlemen were merely overeager, having heard of your reputation as a pugilist, I’m sure. No harm done.”

  “Lucky thing, that,” Mr. Maws said. “Busting in here like that. Grabbing a man and tussling about with him. Where do you think you are, France?”

  “The police would like to ask some questions of Professor James Moriarty,” Holmes said. “Where is he?”

  “Not at home at the moment,” Barnett said. “Had you sent word that you were coming, I’m sure he would have stayed around to greet you.”

  “Where has he gone?” Holmes asked. “And when did he leave?”

  “Why?” Barnett asked.

  “What do you mean, why?” Holmes demanded, eyeing Barnett closely. “Exactly which of the words did you fail to understand?”

  “I mean, why do you want to know?” Barnett said, glaring back at Holmes, his arms crossed across his chest and his voice even. “What right have you to burst in here, attack a resident of the house, and demand to know anything at all about Professor Moriarty? Why did you bring fifteen policemen? On what basis did you get a warrant to search this house? Mr. Holmes, I think perhaps you have gone too far.”

  “I think not, Mr. Barnett,” Holmes said, brandishing a folded-up document at him. “Here is the warrant. On information received, the police are to search the premises at 64 Russell Square, and any surrounding adjacent area. They are to look for any items, objects, personal possessions, dunnage, household furnishings, weapons, or other articles not specified herein, which would serve to connect Professor James Moriarty or other persons as yet unspecified in this instrument with the murder of Sir Geoffrey Cruikstaff, or with other crimes relating to or growing out of the specified murder.”

  “Murder?” Mr. Maws sniffed. “So now it’s murder you are accusing us of!”

  “Dunnage?” Barnett
asked. “Dunnage? Why not flotsam and jetsam?”

  “You may laugh,” Holmes said, “but you will also stand aside while we search the house. And where is Professor Moriarty? We would very much like to speak to him in regard to this murder.”

  Barnett unfolded the paper and glanced at it. “So this is what a warrant looks like,” he said. “I suppose it is in order, I’ve never seen one before. It certainly looks official, with a red seal in one corner and a blue seal in the other. Done at her majesty’s order, eh? Why, I’ll bet that if I were to ask her majesty right now, she wouldn’t know anything about it. What exactly is this squiggle down here, this ink blot?”

  “That is the magistrate’s signature,” Holmes told him. “I assure you it is quite in order. And stalling us will get you nowhere. The house is completely surrounded and nobody is going to get in or out until we have completed our search.”

  “Go ahead,” Barnett said. “I’ve already told you to go ahead. But this paper had better be legit. I intend to send it to Professor Moriarty’s solicitor, and if he informs me that this thing is a phony, or that you have in any way exceeded your authority under it, we shall certainly see what sort of legal trouble we can cause you and your friends of the police.” He turned. “Mrs. H!” he called.

  The housekeeper appeared in the dining-room door, her fingers laced together at her waist. “Yes, Mr. Barnett?”

  “Would you please show Mr. Holmes and his friends whatever they would like to see in the house,” Barnett told her. “Discourage them from making more of a mess than is absolutely necessary.”

  “Very well, Mr. Barnett,” Mrs. H said, her face expressionless.

  “Have Lucille clean up the breakfast things,” Barnett added. “I shall go up and dress now.”

  Mrs. H nodded, and then turned and focused her gaze on Sherlock Holmes. “Mr. Holmes,” she said.

  “Mrs. H,” Holmes said.

  “One cannot expect gratitude in this life,” she told the detective, “but one has a right to expect civility. I consider this sort of behavior most ungracious and uncivil.”

  “I owe you no gratitude, Mrs. H,” Holmes said, “nor any more civility than is common between the sexes in this day and age.”

  “I was not speaking of any debt to myself, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” Mrs. H said, “but to the debt of gratitude that it might be thought you owe to your old friend and mentor, Professor James Moriarty—the man who took you in and treated you like a son. The man whose house you are now so rudely invading and ravaging.”

  “Ravaging, Mrs. H? Hardly ravaging, I daresay.”

  “No? What else do you call knocking poor Mr. Maws about? And look at all those men with their muddy boots grinding the dirt into the carpeting.”

  “Well, call it what you will, Mrs. H,” Holmes said. “Anything that happens to this house, or to Professor Moriarty, for that matter, he has brought on himself. In his pursuit of crime to further his own secret desires, in his delight in evil, he has placed himself and his associates outside the human pale. And any ill results that he suffers, he brought on his own head with his own hand.”

  “What are you talking about, Sherlock Holmes?” Mrs. H asked. “Never in fifteen years has Professor Moriarty so much as lifted a finger to harm you, and yet you continue this senseless vendetta past all reason. And now you bring in the police on some kind of trumped-up warrant! I rather think that is going too far, and I’m sure that the professor will think so also.”

  “What Professor James Moriarty thinks is of no concern to me,” Holmes said. “Not now, and not ever again. Will you show us around, Mrs. H, or shall we find our own way?”

  Mrs. H sniffed. “This way,” she said. “Mind your boots on the rug.”

  The search began on the top floor, where Mummer Tolliver slept under the eaves, and slowly worked its way downstairs. Large policemen were stationed at each landing of both the front and rear staircases to make sure nothing was removed in one direction while the searchers looked in the other.

  Nothing of interest was found on the top floor.

  On the second floor Mrs. H protested loudly when Holmes’s minions stamped their big feet into Professor Moriarty’s bedroom. Barnett merely watched with interest as the search proceeded. He thought that Moriarty would be more enraged at the coming invasion of his laboratory than at the search of his bedroom.

  Sherlock Holmes directed the endeavor, and kept himself busy tapping on walls and measuring the space between closets in search of hidden passageways or secret panels. The search seemed thorough and complete, but Barnett became more and more convinced, watching Holmes, that the detective’s heart was not in it. Holmes went through the gestures with the regard for minutia that was his hallmark, having every drawer pulled out and looked under, peering under rugs, thumping at cracks in the flooring, sending someone down the dumbwaiter to see what might be concealed in the shaft. But somehow Barnett sensed that he knew he was beaten before he began; that the professor was not lurking about the house and that there was nothing in the dunnage to connect Moriarty with any crime.

  The search of the house took most of the day. Holmes himself spent two hours in the basement laboratory, poking into retorts, peering into dusty jars and canisters, looking through stacks of photographic plates, and otherwise searching for clues.

  The Mummer insisted upon following two of the policemen about, telling them that they were getting warmer or colder at random until they finally tried to chase him away. At which he indignantly reminded them that it was his house, after all, not theirs, and he would go where he liked. Mr. Maws settled down to ostentatiously count the silver service in the pantry after the policemen had finished searching in there. Mrs. H stayed ahead of the group, pointing out things they should examine and sniffing with disdain when they did. She kept warning them to mind their feet, and not brush things with their shoulders, until she made one constable so nervous that he knocked over a four-foot Tseng vase while trying to avoid an armoire.

  There was a flurry of excitement when one of the policemen discovered the bust of Moriarty in the study. Holmes went over and examined with interest the arrangement of straps that enabled Mummer Tolliver to wear the device on his shoulders. Then he called Barnett over. “What, exactly, is this doing here?” Holmes asked, pointing an accusatory finger at the offending object.

  “It doesn’t appear to be doing much of anything,” Barnett replied.

  “That may be,” Holmes said, “but we both know what it has been doing for the past few hours. It and Tolliver. Exactly how long has he been parading about with that device on his shoulders?”

  “Ask him,” Barnett said.

  The Mummer was called for, and the question was put to him. “Blimey!” he said. “Ye’ve discovered me secret. I goes about in me professor disguise all the time.”

  “And for how long?” Holmes demanded.

  “Oh, years and years.”

  “I see,” Holmes said. “To give Moriarty an alibi while he is off committing some deviltry, no doubt.”

  “None of that!” Tolliver said. “’Ow dares you talk about the professor that way!”

  “Then why do you wear the dummy?”

  “It gives me stature,” Tolliver explained. “’Ow would you like to go about being barely four feet high all the time?”

  “Bah!” Holmes said.

  “Exactly the way I feels about it,” the Mummer agreed.

  Three hours later, Holmes, having found nothing of official interest, gathered his minions about him in the front hall and prepared to leave.

  “I hope you are quite satisfied,” Mrs. H said, her voice frigid.

  “Not entirely,” Holmes told her. “But then, we are not yet done with the investigation.”

  “What now?” Barnett asked. “Are you going to tear the house down brick by brick?”

  “Not at all,” Holmes said. “We are done with this house. But I have a second warrant, which I am now going to execute. I was, as you see, prepared for this!”


  “What are you talking about?” Barnett asked. “What second warrant?”

  Holmes pulled another piece of official-looking paper from inside his jacket and flourished it. “To search the premises and outbuildings of Moriarty’s holdings on Crimpton Moor!” he exclaimed, a note of triumph in his voice. “Didn’t think I knew about that, did you?”

  “In truth,” Barnett said, “the question had not occurred to me.”

  “There is a special train awaiting us at Paddington to take us to Crimpton,” Holmes said. “We should be there at dusk. And if we have to spend the whole night and all of tomorrow searching, why then we shall do so.” He turned and stalked out the door, followed closely by the Baker Street regulars.

  Barnett turned to Mrs. H as the door closed behind the last burly man. “The professor is not going to be pleased,” he said.

  TEN

  DRAWING THE COVER

  On approaching a cover, one whip should go on in advance and station himself on the lee side of it, where he may often see a fox steal away as soon as the hounds are thrown in.

  E. D. BRICKWOOD

  Sherlock Holmes studied the map of Devon which lay open across his knees as the special police train sped west. In the orange-yellow beam of a bull’s-eye lantern borrowed from one of the constables to counter the approaching dusk, he peered through his four-inch glass at the web of black lines and crosshatches on the stiff paper. Inspector Lestrade, who had joined Holmes at Paddington, contented himself with sitting silently in the opposite corner of the carriage.

  “Bah!” Holmes said finally, casting the map aside. “This is useless.”

  Inspector Lestrade stirred himself and eyed Holmes. “Useless?” he asked. “I could have told you that before you opened the map. What do we need a map for? We know where we’re going.”

  “As you say,” Holmes said. “But you have your ways and I have mine. I would give five pounds right now for a large-scale ordnance map of the area.”