The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (150 page)

Holmes told the policemen, “Take these men to Inspector Lestrade. I will be there shortly to inform him as to their misdeeds. And take the boys with you.”

“Gor blimey,” Jacky cried, while Jemmy clung to him. “He's shopped us!”

“Not at all,” Holmes told them. “It isn't safe for you to return to your old haunts. Just stay with the police until I come, and I will then find a better place for you to live.”

While he was speaking, the police wagon, summoned by the whistle-blasts, came down the alley. The villains were quickly locked inside. With great reluctance the boys were boosted beside the driver and the wagon clip-clopped back up the road. Holmes brushed off his coat and straightened his cap. He then took the box from me and we proceeded to enter Signor Antonelli's shop.

It was dim and dingy inside. There was just the one room, a counter separating the front from the larger rear. There, shelves were laden with all manner of rocks, and on a long table were more, in various stages of grinding. The diamond dust recovered from grinding is the only substance hard enough to produce the necessary high polish for fine stones.

At this table, bent to his work, was a wizened old man, his face scarred doubtless from rogue bits of gemstone. His scant yellow-white hair fell below his ears and he wore spectacles with lenses of heavy magnification. If he was aware of the recent commotion outside his shop, he gave no indication. He ignored our entrance.

After a moment, Holmes spoke. “You are Signor Antonelli?” The question was ignored. Holmes continued, “I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend, Dr. Watson.”

The old man did not respond.

As the awkward silence continued, Holmes hoisted the chest to the counter and unhasped it. He took one of the rocks and held it out to Signor Antonelli. “Will you tell me what this is?”

Antonelli ceased work and shuffled over to us. He took the rock from Holmes. “I will see,” he muttered.

We watched as he carried the rock back to his worktable. With instruments which had no
meaning to either Holmes or myself, he began grinding a bit at the edge. Shortly he brought it back to the counter. “It is a diamond,” he stated.

“From the
Prince of Poona
cargo,” Holmes told him.

The Signor muttered, “I have been waiting for these. I was told you might bring them here.”

“Then I may leave the chest with you?” Again there was no response. But Holmes continued as if there had been. “I shall so advise the viceroy. He will inform you about what is wanted by the Gaekwar.”

The ancient nodded once. Without a word of farewell to us, he lifted the chest as if it were no heavier than a dog's bone, carrying it back to his working area. Holmes and I, exchanging amused glances, took our own departure.

It was necessary to walk to a more traveled thoroughfare before finding a hansom cab. “I will drop you off,” Holmes told me. “It may be that Mrs. Hudson will serve you a late breakfast. At least she will fetch something to tide you to the lunch hour.”

“And you will eat…?”

“Later,” he said. “First I must go to Scotland Yard to confer with Lestrade. From now on I am certain that he will keep a wary eye on Jicky Tar. I must also arrange a place where the boys can be safe. Thanks to Muffin they came to me with their find. If they had gone to that villain, I daresay by now the ‘rocks' would all have been flung into the river.”

It was nearing the dinner hour before Holmes returned.

“And will ye be wanting your breakfast now?” I jested him in the cook's broad Scots. “Or will ye be waiting for the dinner?”

“Lestrade and I had lunch after we reported to the viceroy,” Holmes replied. “I may just pass our dinner tonight. After the cuisine prepared by the chef of the Savoy, Mrs. Hudson's cook does not tempt my appetite.”

“Although she does prepare a bountiful Scotch breakfast.”

“True,” he agreed as he laid off his coat and cap.

“What of the boys?” I inquired.

He answered with enthusiasm. “I have turned them over to a pair of my Irregulars. Stalwart young chaps who will not only arrange a place for Jacky and Jemmy to live but will initiate them into the ways of the Irregulars. We will be seeing them again, I have no doubt.”

“Nor I,” I nodded.

“In case you puzzled, as I, how Jicky Tar knew of Signor Antonelli's shop; he had an informer from the
Poona
who advised him that the chest would find its way there. Once he learned that I was on the case, Jicky had me watched. Hence our being followed. All's well that ends well,” he quoted, and suggested, “Perhaps a small glass of amontillado would not go amiss?” He walked to our sideboard, fetched two wine glasses and the bottle. After he poured, I lifted my glass. “To yet another success.”

He dismissed the tribute. “Pure happenstance this time.”

“But based upon accumulated knowledge,” I amended.

“And a tweeny.” He now raised his glass. “To our Mistress Muffin,” he toasted. “You know, John,” he said as he seated himself, “I am not accustomed to accepting remuneration for help I give to those in need of solutions to their problems. But now and again, I do make a settlement. This was a time when I did. The Gaekwar can well afford it.”

He sipped his sherry. “I have in mind to send Muffin to a school—a good school for females. But how to arrange it? It is quite obvious that both she and her Mum are independent personages who would not accept charity, or anything that hinted of it.” He shook his head. “Yet for their living they find it necessary for both to go out to work.”

“With the cost of living these days, it seems to be essential,” I commented.

“I have been pondering this problem.” He
refilled our glasses. “I have thought of some kind of scholarship. Not to cover fees alone, but with enough over to at least pay for their lodgings. This way her mother could afford to have Muffin take advantage of schooling. The child has such a bright mind and unusual spirit, it would be wasteful not to allow her to better herself. Perhaps become a teacher.”

“Or perhaps a scientist,” I suggested.

“Or a doctor of medicine,” he countered.

“That day will come for women,” I agreed. “And before too long.”

“But how to devise a scholarship? And how to make sure that Muffin will make use of it? This is as knotty a problem as yet I have encountered.”

“You will solve it,” I spoke with certainty.

“I must,” he responded. “It is, if I may invent a phrase, a ‘finder's fee.' ”

The first bell sounded from below. We began to gather ourselves together, to be ready to descend the stairs before the second. Holmes smiled as he put down his wineglass. “I have a notion to play Father Christmas to our young friends. A warm coat and winter cap for Muffin, and the same for the boys. Perhaps even a new pair of stout boots for each of them.”

The second bell sounded.

“Do you not think I could pass muster, even to wise children, in a long white beard and a long red coat and a red bonnet on my head?”

I made no reply. To the boys, yes, I believed he could. But not to our Muffin.

THE PROLIFIC AND
varied career of Stuart Melvin Kaminsky (1934–2009) produced several long-running mystery series, screenplays, books on writing, and works about the film industry.

As a professor of film at Northwestern for sixteen years and at Florida State for six, Kaminsky was well-qualified to write about film genres, as well as produce biographies of such significant figures as Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood, Gary Cooper, and John Huston. He also cowrote the screenplay for
Once Upon a Time in America
(1984).

Kaminsky enjoyed great success with his twenty-four-volume series about Toby Peters, a slightly seedy private detective during Hollywood's golden age who became involved with the greatest stars of the era, including Humphrey Bogart
(Bullet for a Star
, 1977), the Marx Brothers (
You Bet Your Life
, 1978), Bela Lugosi (
Never Cross a Vampire
, 1980), and Mae West (
He Done Her Wrong
, 1983).

Equally well-received was the series about Porfiry Rostnikov, an honorable Russian police detective in Moscow, which began with
Death of a Dissident
(1981) and ran for sixteen books;
A Cold Red Sunrise
(1988) won the Edgar Award for best novel.

Kaminsky produced more than sixty books in his career, had eight Edgar nominations, and was named a Grand Master for lifetime achievement by the Mystery Writers of America in 2006.

“The Man from Capetown” was originally published in
Murder in Baker Street
, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon L. Lellenberg, and Daniel Stashower (New York, Carroll & Graf, 2001).

IT WAS RAINING
. It was not the usual slow, cold gray London rain that spattered on umbrellas and broad brimmed hats but the heavy relentless downpour that came several times a year jungle drumming on the rooftops of cabs reminding me of the more mild monsoons I had witnessed in my years in India.

Time in India always moved slowly. Time in the apartment I shared with Sherlock Holmes had moved at the pace of a torpid Bombay cat during the past two weeks.

I kept myself busy trying to write an article for
The Lancet
based on Holmes's findings about the differences he had discovered between blood from people native to varying climates. At first Holmes had entered into the endeavor with vigor and interest, pacing, smoking his pipe, pausing to remind me of subtle differences and the implications of his discovery both for criminology and medicine.

Several days into the enterprise, however, Holmes had taken to standing at the window for hours at a time, staring into the rain-swept street, thinking thoughts he chose not to share with me.

Twice he picked up the violin. The first time he woke me at five in the morning with something that may have been Liszt. The second time was at one in the afternoon when he repeatedly played a particularly mournful tune I did not recognize.

On this particular morning, Holmes was sitting in his armchair, pipe in hand, looking at the coal scuttle.

“Rather interesting item in this morning's
Times
,” I ventured as I sat at the table in our sitting room with the last of my morning tea and toast before me.

Holmes made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a sigh.

“A Mr. Morgan Fitchmore of Leeds,” he said. “Found in a cemetery on his back with a railroad spike plunged into his heart. He was gripping the spike, apparently in an attempt to remove it. The night had been damp and the police found no footprints in the mud other than those of the deceased. About twenty feet from the body a hammer was found. The police are baffled.”

Holmes grunted again and looked toward the window where the rain beat heavily on the glass.

“Yes,” I said. “That is the story. I thought it might interest you.”

“Minimally,” said Holmes. “Read the rest of the story, Watson, as I have. Fitchmore was a petty thief. He was found lying on his back. The dead man appears to have left no signs that he attempted to defend himself.”

“Yes, I see,” I said reading further.

“What was a petty thief doing in a graveyard on a rainy night?” Holmes said drawing on his pipe. “Why would someone attack him with a railroad spike? Why were there no other footprints? Why did he not struggle?”

“I couldn't say,” I said.

“Railroad spikes make passable chisels, Watson. A thief might well go into a graveyard at night with a spike and hammer to chisel away
some cameo or small crucifix or other item he might sell for a slight sum. Such assaults on the resting place of the dead are not uncommon. A rainy night would ensure a lack of intrusion.”

“I fail to see…”

“It is not a matter of seeing, Watson. It is a matter of putting together what has been seen with simple logic. Fitchmore went to the graveyard to rob the dead. He slipped in the mud flinging his hammer away as he fell forward on the spike he held in his hand. He rolled over on his back, probably in great agony, and attempted to pull the spike from his chest, but he was already dying. There is no mystery, Watson. It was an accidental if, perhaps, ironically apropos end for a man who would steal from the dead.”

“Perhaps we should inform the police in Leeds,” I said.

“If you wish,” said Holmes indifferently.

“May I pour you a cup of tea? You haven't touched your breakfast.”

“I am not hungry,” he said, his eyes now turned to the fireplace where flames crackled and formed kaleidoscope patterns which seemed to mesmerize Holmes who had not bothered to fully dress. He wore his gray trousers, a shirt with no tie and a purple silk smoking jacket that had been given to him by a grateful client several years earlier.

In the past month, Holmes had been offered three cases. One involved a purloined pearl necklace. The second focused on an apparent attempt to defraud a dealer in Russian furs and the third a leopard missing from the London zoo. Holmes had abruptly refused all three entreaties for his help and had directed the potential clients to the police.

“If the imagination is not engaged,” he had said when the zoo director had left, “and there is no worthy adversary, I see no point in expending energy and spending time on work that could be done by a reasonably trained Scotland Yard junior inspector.”

Holmes suddenly looked up at me.

“Do you have that letter readily at hand?”

I knew the letter of which he spoke and in the hope of engaging his interest I retrieved it from the portmanteaus near the fireplace which crackled with flames which cast unsettling morning shadows across the sitting room.

The letter had arrived several weeks ago and aside from the fact that it bore a Capetown postmark, it struck me as in no way singular or more interesting than any of a dozen missives that Holmes had done no more than glance at in the past several weeks.

“Would you read it aloud once more, Watson, if you please?”

“Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” it read:

I have a matter of the greatest importance to set before you. I have some business to attend to here in Capetown. It should take no more than a few days. I will then set forth for England in the hope of seeing you immediately upon my arrival. I must hurry now to get this letter on the next ship bound for Portsmouth. This is a matter of money, love, and a palpable threat to my life. I beg you to give me a consultation. Cost is no object
.

The letter was signed,
Alfred Donaberry
.

I folded the letter and looked at Holmes wondering why this particular correspondence, among the many so much like it he had received over the years, should draw his interest and why he had chosen this moment to return to it.

As he had done so many times before, Holmes answered my unspoken questions.

“Note the order in which our Mr. Donaberry lists his concerns,” said Holmes, looking in my direction and pointing his pipe at the missive in my hand. “Money, love, and life. Mr. Donaberry lists the threat to his life last. Curious. As to why I am now interested in the letter, I ask a question. Did you hear a carriage stop in the street a moment ago?”

I had and I said so.

“If you check the arrival of ships in the paper from which you have just read you will note that the
Principia
, a cargo ship, arrived in Portsmouth from Capetown yesterday. If our Mr. Donaberry
is as concerned as his letter indicates, he may well have been on that ship and braved the foul weather to make his way to us.”

“It could be anyone,” I said.

“The rig, judging from the sound of its wheels on the cobblestone, is a large one, not a common street cab and it is drawn by not one but two horses. I hear no other activity on the street save for this vehicle. The timing is right and, I must confess to a certain curiosity about a man who would venture from as far as Capetown to pay us a visit. No, Watson, if this man is as anxious to meet me as his letter indicates, he will have been off the boat and on his way catching the seven o'clock morning train.”

A knock at the door and a small smile from Holmes accompanied by a raised eyebrow in satisfaction were aimed my way.

“Enter, Mrs. Hudson,” Holmes called.

Our landlady entered, looked at the plate of untouched food in front of Holmes, and shook her head.

“A lady to see you,” she said.

“A lady?” Holmes asked.

“Most definitely,” Mrs. Hudson said.

“Please tell the lady that I am expecting a visitor and that she will have to make an appointment and return at a future time.”

Mrs. Hudson was at the door with tray in hand. Over her shoulder she said, “The lady said to tell you that she knows you are expecting a visitor from South Africa. That is why she must see you immediately.”

Holmes looked at me with arched eyebrows. I shrugged.

“Please show her in, Mrs. Hudson, and, if you would be so kind, please brew us a fresh pot of tea,” Holmes said.

“You've eaten nothing, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “Perhaps I can bring you some fresh biscuits and jam?”

“Tea and biscuits will be perfect,” Holmes said as she closed the door behind her, the tray balanced carefully in one hand.

“So our Mr. Donaberry is not the only one who would willingly venture out in a storm like this,” I said, pretending to return to the newspaper.

“So it would seem, Watson.”

The knock at the door was gentle. A single knock. Holmes called out, “Come in,” and Mrs. Hudson ushered in an exquisite dark creature with clear white skin and raven hair brushed back in a tight bun. She wore a prim black dress buttoned to the neck. The woman stepped in, looked from me to Holmes and stood silently for a moment till Mrs. Hudson had closed the door.

“Mr. Holmes,” she said in a soft voice suggesting just the touch of an accent.

“I am he,” said Holmes.

“My name is Elspeth Belknapp, Mrs. Elspeth Belknapp,” she said. “May I sit?”

“By all means, Mrs. Belknapp,” Holmes said, pointing to a chair near the one in which I was sitting.

“I have come…this is most delicate and embarrassing,” she said as she sat. “I have come to…”

“First a few questions,” said Holmes, folding his hands in his lap. “How did you know Donaberry was coming to see me?”

“I…a friend in Capetown sent me a letter, the wife of a clerk in Alfred's office,” she said. “May I have some water?”

I rose quickly and moved to the decanter Mrs. Hudson had left on the table. I poured a glass of water and handed it to her. She drank as I sat down and looked over at Holmes who seemed to be studying her carefully.

“Mr. Holmes,” she said. “I was, until five months ago, Mrs. Alfred Donaberry. Alfred is a decent man. He took me in when my own parents died in a fire in Johannesburg. Alfred is considerably older than I. I was most grateful to him and he was most generous to me. And then, less than a year ago John Belknapp came to South Africa to conduct business with my then husband.”

“And what business is that?” Holmes asked.

“The diamond trade,” she said. “Alfred has amassed a fortune dealing in diamonds. Though I tried not to do so, I fell in love with John
Belknapp and he with me. I behaved like a coward, Mr. Holmes. John wanted to confront Alfred but I wanted no scene. I persuaded John that we should simply run away and that I would seek a divorce citing Alfred's abuse and infidelity.”

“And was he abusive and unfaithful?” asked Holmes.

She shook her head.

“I am not proud of what I did. Alfred was neither abusive nor unfaithful. He loved me but I thought of him less as a husband than as a beloved uncle.”

“And so,” said Holmes, “you obtained a divorce.”

“Yes, I came to London with John and obtained a divorce. John and I married the day after the divorce was approved by the Court. I thought that Alfred would read the note I had left for him when I fled with John and that Alfred would resign himself to the reality. But now I find…”

“I see,” said Holmes. “And what would you have me do?”

“Persuade Alfred not to cause trouble, to leave England, to return to South Africa, to go on with his life. Should he confront John…John is a fine man, but he is somewhat on occasion and when provoked given to unconsidered reaction.”

The woman removed a kerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.

“He can be violent?” asked Holmes.

“Only when provoked, Mr. Holmes. Alfred Donaberry is a decent man, but were he to confront John…”

At this point Mrs. Hudson knocked and entered before she was bidden to do so. She placed biscuits and jam upon the table with three plates, knives, and a fresh pot of tea. She looked at the tearful Elspeth Belknapp with sympathy and departed.

“Next question,” Holmes said, taking up a knife and using it to generously coat a biscuit with what appeared to be gooseberry jam. “You say your former husband is a man of considerable wealth?”

“Considerable,” she said, accepting a cup of tea from me.

“Describe him.”

“Alfred? He is fifty-five years of age, pleasant enough looking though I have heard people describe him as homely. He is large, a bit, how shall I say this…Alfred is an uneducated, a self-made man, perhaps a bit rough around the edges, but a good, gentle man.”

“I see,” said Holmes, a large piece of biscuit and jam in his mouth. “And he has relatives, a mother, sister, brother, children?”

“None,” she said.

“So, if he were to die, who would receive his inheritance?”

“Inheritance?”

“In his letter to me, he mentions that his visit is in part a matter of money.”

“I suppose I might unless he has removed me from his will.”

“And your new husband? He is a man of substance?”

“John is a dealer in fine gems. He has a secure and financially comfortable position with London Pembroke Gems Limited. If you are implying that John married me in the hope of getting Alfred's estate, I assure you you are quite wrong, Mr. Holmes.”

“I am merely trying to anticipate what direction Mr. Donaberry's concerns will take him when we meet. May I ask what you are willing to pay for my services in dissuading Mr. Donaberry from further pursuit of the issue?”

“I thought…Pay you? John and I are not wealthy,” she said, “but I'll pay what you wish should you be successful in persuading Alfred to return to South Africa. I do not want to see him humiliated or hurt.”

“Hurt?” asked Holmes.

“Emotionally,” she said quickly.