“And why do you not mention this?” said Holmes and drew from his pocket the diamond ring that the king of Nova Alba had given us.
Banquo turned very white when he saw the ring.
“Where did you get that?” he asked in a faint voice.
“No, sir. Where did you get that?”
“I have not seen that ring since the night of Duncan’s murder,” said
Banquo after a pause.
“And where did you get it then, I ask?” said Holmes.
“I was given it,” Banquo paused. “By King Duncan.”
“And why did he give you the ring?”
“The king thought that I had a taste for glittering baubles,” said Banquo very quietly after another long pause. “And so he pressed it on me.”
”Pressed it on you?”
“He made it very difficult for me to refuse it.”
“And how did you feel about having it pressed on you?”
“I felt humiliated, sir.”
“How ‘humiliated’?”
“My pride was sore wounded.”
“Anything else?”
Banquo ran his tongue nervously over his lips and said “As my pride was wounded, so I was proud to wound him.”
“So you stabbed him?”
Banquo nodded and his breathe came out with a loud hiss.
There was a long silence before Holmes said: “I think I see how the cards are falling. And where is Fleance now?”
“In our house is a cellar. I locked him in there before I came out.”
I heard Holmes take a sharp intake of breath. When he finally spoke it was with a vehemence I had never heard before from him.
“Sir, your son’s life is his own, not yours. You have no right to keep your adult son in detention. We had better get to your house as soon as possible. I shall call a cab. Watson, do you make sure that our friend makes no attempt to escape.”
But Banquo was a transformed figure after his confession and was fully seized of a desire to co-operate.
“My house is near Maidenhead, Mr Holmes, and I feel the justice of what you say. My only desire was to keep my son from mixing in company that is unsuitable for a man, but I see now I cannot hold onto him forever.”
“We shall go to Maidenhead,” said Holmes. “And may I warn you, Lord Banquo, I will have no hesitation in summoning the authorities if you make any attempt to escape or cause a disturbance.”
Banquo made no attempt to escape either from the cab to Paddington, or on the train to Maidenhead. When we arrived at his house, the door was opened by a young woman carrying a baby.
“I have remarried and have just become a father again, though we have been through a traumatic birth and my son had to be delivered with forceps,” said Banquo. “I hope my new son does not share the habits of my son by my first marriage.”
I expected Fleance to be banging at the cellar door. Instead, the house was silent. Banquo unlocked the door leading to the cellar and we went down the stairs to find Fleance writing at a desk. He turned as we came down the cellar stairs and looked questioningly from his father, to me, to Holmes.
“It is alright,” said Holmes gently. “I know everything.”
“Everything?” gasped Fleance and Banquo together.
“I know that you, Fleance, killed Duncan at Dunsinane Castle ten years ago, and I know that you only did it when the king’s friendship towards you changed to lust.”
“As my king was fortunate, I rejoiced in heart,” said Fleance calmly in a declamatory tone. “As he was my king, I honoured and obeyed him, but as his favour turned to licentiousness, I slew him. I struck out with my ceremonial dagger when he called me to his chamber and advanced on me. My intent had been no more than to warn him off in his pursuit of unusual pleasure, but his haste to grasp me meant that my blow was a sore dunt which struck home far harder than I intended and he died in an instant. After killing him, I joined my father and gave him the diamond ring that the king had sought to give to me as a token of his favour. My father passed the diamond ring onto Cawdor when we met him walking round the castle, suggesting it should be a present for his wife.”
“So why did you put the text of your play through my door?”
“For as long as I can remember, my father has told me that I would become king of Nova Alba. I had heard from my sources in Nova Alba that the present king was in Rome and that he was looking to clear his name of the suspicion of having murdered Duncan. I knew he was bound to come through London to get home and I guessed he would look to commission an independent investigator here. I went up to London and followed him off the boat-train at Victoria to the Langham Hotel, then waited outside to see where he went. I had already written my play about the murder of Duncan and had cast the Thane of Cawdor as the killer. I thought it would give any investigator something to think about and so I shadowed Cawdor’s movements. When I saw him checking out the address of the leading investigator in London, it was an obvious step to implicate him by putting a copy of my play into the hands of the investigator.”
“Why does your father think you will become king of Nova Alba?”
“He has long been talking about how he met some wild women after the battle against the Norwegians. They forecast the ascent of Cawdor to the throne and said that my father would be the father of future kings. I never took the prophecy seriously, but having the present king identified as the likeliest killer of Duncan seemed a good way to clear the path ahead.”
Holmes turned to Banquo. “I have not had a son,” he said, “but were I to have one, I would not be able to blame him for what he did when Duncan sought to misuse him. And I would not rule out behaving as you did to take the blame for a killing that he was responsible for. But I would also seek to encourage him in his pursuit of his literary interests, rather than punishing him by locking him up in the cellar. Come, Watson,” said Holmes, turning to me. “Our job is only half-complete. We must return to London.”
We had a first-class compartment to ourselves as we bowled back to London and Holmes elucidated on the events that had unfolded with such bewildering speed.
“It was clear from the first,” he explained, “that while political advancement was the obvious motive to ascribe to the killing, it was not the only possible one. Donalbain and Malcolm, the most immediate beneficiaries of the death of Duncan, fled at the first opportunity. Cawdor seemed to me to be too hesitant a figure to carry out so heinous a crime. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff than that displayed by petty men who became willing exiles and a reluctant monarch. I considered a break-in from the outside, but the king’s description of the keep of the castle showed that access to the king’s sleeping quarters would have been so difficult as to rule out the possibility.”
“And the servants?”
“I was inclined to dismiss the thought that they had committed a crime for political ends. Even had they done so, it was by far the most likely probability that it would have been at the behest of one of the people occupying the keep. So investigating their motives, movements and current locations did not seem worthwhile. This left the thane’s wife, Banquo and Fleance as the potential killers. If it had been the wife of the thane it was unlikely to be for a political reason although it might have been for the sort of reason that Fleance did in fact kill Duncan. She, in any case, was dead, so this left Banquo or Fleance. The play I received implicated the thane and his wife, and it could only have come from Fleance once I had identified Banquo this morning. This led me to conclude that the killer probably was Fleance, however implausible an adolescent killer was. Yet a lad is capable of administering a fatal blow with a knife, so Fleance’s youth did not rule him out.”
“But Banquo confessed! What made you think that his confession was false?”
“A good detective should always test out alternative hypotheses. I had no real evidence against anyone so the only way I was going to find the killer was through surprising a confession from him, but I always knew that I would have
to test the confession’s plausibility. So when Banquo confessed, I had to ask myself some questions. Why was Duncan travelling with two page boys rather than his wife? How likely was it that he would make advances to a burly courtier who could obviously defend himself, as opposed to a youth whose silence could more readily be relied upon? How likely was a man of Banquo’s type to be impressed by a ring with a glistening stone and how much more likely was a callow youth with a head for poetry to be impressed by it? I had therefore at least to test the hypothesis that Banquo’s confession was covering for someone and the person for whom he was covering could only be his son. When Banquo said that he had locked his son into the cellar, the opportunity to tax Fleance with the killing was too good to miss. You saw how readily he confessed to the stabbing when the true motive was put to him.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I will have to talk to the present king. I assume that he will want to continue with the process he has started although he may be reluctant for the full story behind Duncan’s death to come out. Once one identifies one case of this type at such a senior level in society, one is never sure how many further cases may be left to uncover, or indeed how to investigate them.”
Events in Nova Alba do not generally receive comprehensive coverage in the London press, but readers may recall certain subsequent incidents even though, at the time, they may not have seemed to have had a common causation.
When Homes discussed the matter with him, the king of Nova Alba did not want the true reason for the stabbing of Duncan to come out. Nevertheless, Holmes armed him with sufficiently powerful arguments and reasoning for the trial established under the aegis of Alban noblemen to return a verdict of “Not proven”. A “Not guilty” verdict was withheld in the absence of a clear identification of the actual killer. This verdict was sufficient to persuade the Pope to make a fleeting visit to Nova Alba on his way to a state visit in Scandinavia and to play a minor role in the coronation. Cawdor stayed on the throne for another twenty years after his visit to London and was replaced as king by Lulach, Banquo’s younger son who, after his difficult birth, had grown to be a strapping lad. As a special gift to mark the accession to the Nova Alba throne of Banquo’s younger son, who had been resident for so many years in the area, Maidenhead Borough Council sent a gift of saplings from the famous Burnham Beeches up to Dunsinane to replace the avenue that had been destroyed in the second Norwegian invasion.
And London theatre-goers will remember the long succession of fine dramas which Fleance wrote, using as nom de plume the name of one of the Dunsinane Castle page boys, Billy Wagstaffe. This pseudonym caused considerable confusion in literary circles, with some critics inclined to ascribe the pieces to the other page boy, Frank Flitch, instead.
The Minister and the Moguls
It is with reluctance that I narrate the events that follow. In all the other stories I have told, I have been able to explain, even in the rare cases where the narrative did not conclude with the apprehension of the criminal, what happened and why it happened. While the events of this story are relatively clear, and while the final result delivered was that sought by the person who petitioned Holmes for his help, I did not understand then and do not understand now, how this was achieved, or even if the result achieved was the consequence of Holmes’s work. I am likewise at a loss to explain some of the actions that Holmes and others took following the resolution of this drama, and the extent to which they are the result of the events I describe. Holmes was always adamant in refusing to discuss this case with me and, when he heard that I was committing it to my records, asked me to delay publication of it until after the death of us both. Thus, even if some sharp-eyed reader is able to identify the solution to what remains to me an unsolved mystery, I would advise herewith that there is no point in seeking me out to explain it to me.
I had returned to our lodgings from my club, where I had been spending a lot of time. This was because Holmes had been largely absent from Baker Street for some weeks and had not involved me in any of his recent cases, if indeed there had been any.
When I opened the door to our living room, Sherlock Holmes was sitting with a man who subsequently became a household name in one of the two main political parties. He held a relatively lowly Cabinet position at the time of this story. Afterwards, he left government altogether for a period while remaining a backbench Member of Parliament, but returned to a Cabinet role later, and eventually attained the high office for which he was being already widely tipped even at this early stage of his political career. His true identity I shall withhold, just as I will withhold both the year and even the decade of the events which this narrative relates.
“Ah, Watson!” called out Holmes as soon as I had entered the room. “You could not have come back at a better time! Mr Lawler is engaged in outlining a problem which promises to be both unusual and of the greatest interest.”
I was not a little shocked to find our humble lodgings hosting Mr Lawler, but I took my seat and waited to hear what he had to say. At Holmes’s request he started to explain his problem from the beginning.
“Our government is in the process of drawing up its budget for the next financial year,” said Mr Lawler smoothly, as he lit a cigarette. “It will be delivered to the House in two weeks from today. Drawing up a budget is normally a question of so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing, but this year we have a pressing requirement to increase our revenues so as to meet some particular government needs. The Royal Navy, the principal reason for this country’s lofty international power, is in urgent need of strengthening and we are looking to raise extra money next year to do this. One of the government’s principal sources of revenue is from the taxation of tobacco, but we seem to have reached a limit on the amount we can extract from this source. Our tobacco retail prices are the highest in Europe. We cannot therefore obtain more money by forcing up the retail price of tobacco further, as all that will happen is that demand for home-sourced tobacco would decline, with the shortfall met by increased smuggling of lower-priced product sourced from overseas.”
“Could you not impose a special levy on the tobacco companies’ profits so as to raise the tax you need without raising the retail price?” I asked.
“We have already had some discussions with the tobacco companies on that idea and they have said that they will add any levy on their profits onto the retail price as they will need to maintain their level of profitability in this country. They have also launched some of their products with the same brand names and packaging in overseas markets where lower excise taxes mean they command a much lower retail price, although it is also fair to say that the companies obtain lower margins. This price differential makes it easy for smugglers to bring them over here and sell them at a profit. This also means that the government does not get any of the excise duty that would arise on a regular sale. A levy would merely accelerate the amount of smuggling and so the gain to the government from the levy would be offset by a decline in the tax take from a lower volume of products sold.”
I could tell that Holmes was starting to feel impatient. He stood up and began to pace the room with smoke trailing from the cigar he was holding. Finally he turned to Mr Lawler and said “My dear Mr Lawler! I am not clear what you want me to do. On the one hand you want to raise more money from the tobacco companies. On the other hand you say the obvious routes to achieve this are blocked. I fail to see what purpose this discussion is serving.”
“There are only three major tobacco companies in this country: Commonwealth Tobacco, Thompson’s and International Tobacco. Between them they control over ninety-eight per cent of the market and the first two of them have over eighty per cent. We want you to find evidence of anti-competitive behaviour by these companies. If we can demonstrate market collusion between them, then we can impose a one-off fine, and the bad publicity it would generate would make them most reluctant to pass the fine on in the form
of higher tobacco retail prices. And so we can invest in our fleet to make this country great.”
“You would like me to find hard evidence of market collusion? Surely, Mr Lawler, you have armies of sharp-pencilled civil servants who can generate evidence of any such practices?”
“The people to whom you refer are excellent at generating data and extrapolating trends, Mr Holmes. It is like those protesters who worry about the recent spate of cold winters. They confidently state that it is caused by the slow pace of industrialisation which is failing to offset the cyclical growth of the polar ice-caps. From this they predict that if trends continue as at present, we will in fifty years time once again have frost fairs on the Thames.” Mr Lawler laughed at this improbable prognosis and lit another cigarette before continuing. “But they are unable to predict what the weather will be like next week. And so it is with our data analysts: If you wish to know what the annual volume of tobacco to be sold in the country will be in a couple of decades’ time, they can give you an excellent and well-reasoned response. But ask them how much is being consumed now and how much is purchased through irregular outlets, then they are a good deal less confident. What we need is something more tangible. Something that I can use to bring the tobacco companies to heel.”
Holmes looked very doubtful. “Mr Lawler,” he said. “I am already engaged by your government on a separate project which you may or may not know about, but of which I cannot mention the nature in case you have not. I accordingly do not have the resources at my disposal to undertake an investigation of the kind you are suggesting. What I can suggest is that my friend Dr Watson here does some initial research on my behalf but under my supervision, and it may be that by the time he has completed this, I will be free to become more closely involved.”
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