The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (79 page)

“You are a clever man, sir,” she said, her voice still retaining traces of a Scottish burr worn thin from disuse. “A very clever man who makes a body remember things she had forgotten.”

“What made you remove it?” insisted Holmes.

The heavy shoulders heaved in a helpless shrug.

“Who can say? I was that shocked to see the poor lass lying on the floor. I just had to do something. Ma'am was always so fussy about that comb, never a place she went to without taking it along with her. So…”

“So you automatically picked it up and put it back in its place, as a well-trained servant should,” concluded Holmes for her, a glint of savage delight shining on his face. “Thank you, Mrs. Grant; your testimony has aided us materially.”

“The comb will of course figure in the trial, Inspector,” remarked my friend after the maid had left. “I entrust it to you. Remember, a careless movement resulting in the slightest scratch or abrasion will cause a frightful death. So handle it gingerly and advise your men accordingly.”

Patterson nodded gravely. “I'll take proper care of it, never fear, Mr. Holmes, and so will my men.” Then, shaking his grizzled head from side to side in wonderment, he added: “Wish I knew how you get your results.”

“Yes, Holmes,” I put in, “how did you discover it was the servant who had replaced the comb?”

“Simply by observing the dust on the dressing table,” he replied. “As you can see,” he went on, pointing with his finger, “a four day accumulation covers its surface, outlining every article. Upon lifting the comb, however, I could distinctly see that the dust beneath, although scuffed and disturbed, did not show the same clear imprint as the rest of the objects. Hence I deduced that it had only recently been placed there. The police would never have touched it. Who, then, had preceded them? The only person who met all the requirements was Mrs. Grant—the first person to enter the room and find the body.”

“Holmes,” I said, after a long silence, my voice quivering with emotion, “you have seldom risen to greater heights!”

“Best bit of detecting I've ever witnessed!” was Inspector Patterson's only comment, but it sufficed to bring a glow of pleasure to my friend's ascetic features.

“Well, Patterson,” remarked Sherlock Holmes some time later as we were leaving the Staunton House, “there is your case. It is still incomplete, and some obscure details remain to be cleared up, but in the main, I believe you have got enough to hold Henry Staunton for questioning.”

“Enough to hang him,” said the Inspector grimly, tapping the leather case in which lay the tortoise-shell comb.

Three months had gone by. Henry Staunton, the Oakley Crescent murderer, had been tried and convicted of the poisoning of his wife and of her lover, Arnold Foote. The most dramatic trial of the decade had ended after four tempestuous weeks of controversy and debate. With the execution of the poisoner early in February, the whole sensational affair that had rocked the country was already in the process of being forgotten in the never-ending swirl and bustle of everyday life.

I had not seen Sherlock Holmes since that eventful evening in November. A hurried note from him which reached me on the 25th informed me that he had been called in by the French Government on a matter of grave importance. I could only conjecture as to what it was, for his terse messages which reached me from time to time conveyed only that his investigations might be of long duration.

I was, as a consequence, agreeably surprised on a late afternoon in mid-February to learn through Mycroft Holmes that my friend was back in town and wished to see me. My practice being quiet, I wasted no time but went to Baker Street the same evening.

As I knocked upon the well-remembered door, the sound of his strident voice made my heart leap with pleasure, and on entering, my eyes dimmed as I caught sight of the lean pale face, the faded bathrobe.

“Ah, Watson!” he exclaimed, “it is good to see you.”

His face was thinner, more deeply lined than I ever remembered seeing it. His cheek bones were more prominent, and his thick, black eyebrows stood out against the pallor of his skin. Yet his keen, ever-alert eyes retained their old fire, his voice all of its commanding power and resonance.

He was seated at his desk, his long nervous fingers deftly inserting various papers and documents into a large blue envelope.

“But perhaps I am intruding upon you,” I remarked, after having warmly responded to his greeting. “If you are busy…”

“No, Watson, only a preliminary weaving of my web. There is nothing more to be done at this stage.” He held up the pale blue folder on the surface of which I noticed a large letter ‘M.' “My case is almost complete, but I cannot spring into action for several weeks.” He rose to his feet, placed the folder into one of the pigeonholes of his desk, then crossed over to his favourite chair by the fireplace.

“You must forgive me,” he resumed, as I followed to take my accustomed place across from him, “for not notifying you earlier of my return. My present investigation necessitates the utmost secrecy. No one, save only those I trust implicitly, must know of my presence here in London at this time. I came back in disguise; the only persons with whom I have communicated are my brother and Police Inspector Patterson.”

“This investigation, then, is of great importance?”

“So important,” he replied very earnestly, “that if I bring it off successfully it will be the crowning achievement of my career.”

“I need hardly have to say that I am at your disposal, Holmes. Should you need…”

“Rest assured, my dear Watson,” he broke in, “that when the time comes I shall most certainly have need of a faithful ally. It is a waiting game that I play, against a formidable foe whose every move must be carefully weighed if I am to land him in the net I am preparing.”

I experienced a pang of disappointment which I attempted to conceal. I ought to have known that it was not his nature to send for me just for the pleasure of seeing an old and trusted friend. His proud, self-contained personality and unemotional character made him shun any display of sentiment towards anyone, even his only friend.

“Come, come, Watson,” he cried, a mischievous
twinkle lurking in his eyes. “What I have to say will amply reward you for any time you may have to spend away from your patients.”

“I am always happy to see you, Holmes,” I said quietly, the bitterness thawed by the cordiality in his voice, “and to listen to whatever you might have to say. At present, having no serious cases to attend to, I am quite free to help you in any way I can.”

“Splendid!” he exclaimed, crossing his thin knees and settling back more comfortably in his seat. “I suppose,” he said, after a pause during which he sat thoughtfully puffing his pipe, “I suppose that you are wondering why I have asked you to drop in today?”

“You have a case to go over with me?”

“Right, Watson,” he replied, glancing keenly in my direction, his heavy brows drawn low over his eyes, as if expecting a reaction from me. “The Staunton affair.”

I started up in my chair in surprise.

“Is not that an unusual departure from your customary methods of work?” I asked, for none knew better than I that, in his clear and orderly mind, each case displaced the last, and present problems invariably blurred all recollections of past ones.

“It is,” he agreed, “but there were unusual aspects about the case which prompted me to deviate from my rule.”

“But what feature could have induced you to dwell upon the Oakley Crescent Murders at this time, three months after the conclusion of your investigations?”

“The significance of the tortoise-shell comb,” he answered gravely, “in connection with the death of Mrs. Edna Staunton.”

“I was not aware that there existed any significant aspect in connection with her death,” I observed, my mind reverting to the grim scene in the Staunton bedroom. “The poisoned comb, I concede, was an extraordinary method of committing a crime, without precedent, perhaps, in modern criminal annals. But…”

“No, no, Watson,” he said quickly, “say unusual if you like—even grotesque if you prefer it, but not entirely unprecedented, for there
are
parallels in modern criminology.”

“Indeed? I should like to hear some.”

“Very well.”

A reminiscent light came to his eyes as he resumed after a momentary reflection.

“I might mention, by way of illustration, the Wurlitzer Case at Salzburg, in 1877, in which a poisoned earring was used. The fact that the victim—a woman of means whose wealth was coveted by the murderer—had recently had her ears pierced at his insistence, was chiefly instrumental in bringing the poisoner to justice. Another, differing only in the method of application, is the Selmer Poisoning Case of Brittany, some two years ago. You may recall that a sharpened nail, driven through the sole of the boot, then smeared with a deadly acid, caused the death of its wearer, Francois Selmer, a rich cattle merchant. His nephew was later convicted of the crime when it was proved that the marks on the leather could only have been made by his own hammer. There are others, less striking perhaps, but these will suffice to bring out the various points of resemblance existing between them.”

Holmes paused while he crammed his pipe with fresh shag, then tossed his pouch over to me as he continued.

“The singular circumstance which I alluded to just now concerns the presence of the sharpened comb at the side of Mrs. Staunton's body.”

“Then the different theories,” I put in, “evolved by the more sensational sheets to explain away that very aspect of the case were all inaccurate?”

“Do you mean those wild and absurd explanations advanced by unimaginative reporters?” he cried impatiently. “That Staunton suffered a mental lapse? That he lost his nerve? That he became careless and overconfident?” He gestured angrily. “Piffle, Watson, sheer piffle! Such implausible solutions outraged every logical faculty I possess! I read them all and found them to be wholly inconsistent with the facts, and with the character of the criminal himself.”

He leaned forward in his chair, an intent look
on his face as he added: “Because it was the cunning and resourceful manner in which he murdered Arnold Foote and disposed of his body that gave me my first clear insight into the workings of his mind. This, in turn, enabled me to forge the links in my chain of reasoning which led me eventually to true solution.”

“How did you bring this about?” I asked.

“By referring to my notes on the case, and the reading of a staggering pile of newspapers which carried a complete day-by-day account of the court proceedings. Having thus gathered in my harvest—and a goodly crop it proved to be!—I surrounded myself one evening with a motley assortment of shag, cushions, and hot coffee, and proceeded to thresh it out. It cost me a night's sleep, but at dawn I had my solution to the mystery.”

“I should be very glad to hear what it was.”

“And you shall, Watson, but all in good time. First, I should like to recapitulate briefly the sequence of events in the murder of Foote. It will serve to refresh your memory and thus enable you to obtain a firmer grip on the essentials.”

He snuggled more deeply into his chair, and made certain that his brier was drawing properly before resuming.

“The true facts in the death of the 'cellist came out, as you know, in Henry Staunton's confession made soon after his arrest at Newhaven. This document is of particular interest, for not only did it tell us how the crime was done, but it also served to cast a revealing light upon what was to come.

“Staunton contrived, by a simple yet effective ruse, to entice this none-too-bright musician to his home on Oakley Crescent and there killed him by plunging a steel bodkin impregnated with an alkaloid into the base of his skull. Following a preconceived plan, the murderer then hid the body and calmly went to spend some hours with acquaintances in a near-by cafe.”

“One moment, Holmes,” I broke in, “there is one aspect of this which has never been clear to me. Where was his wife on this particular evening?”

“Have you forgotten that, following upon a last bitter quarrel, Mrs. Staunton had left him?”

“By Jove!” I exclaimed, “you are quite right! It had completely slipped my mind.”

“Yet, it was of enormous importance,” he observed. “But to return to Staunton. Having now established some sort of alibi, he returned some time around two a.m. leading a horse and cab which he had cooly appropriated without the owner's knowledge, and used it to carry the body to the river.”

“Now that I come to think of it,” I interjected, “that cabby never found out the grisly service his cab had rendered a murderer that night.”

“Neither did he ever learn that a would-be murderer had been spying his movements, and knew of his habit of spending some time indoors on wet nights,” added my friend. “And took full advantage of it later. Doubtless, the bad weather aided him, but his having donned the cabby's own hat and waterproof, which he had flung inside his vehicle—thus affecting a perfect disguise—was a master stroke of daring and of quick thinking, besides demonstrating a swift grasp of opportunity. Barely ten minutes after he had hurled Foote's body over the hand railing of the bridge, the cab was back at its place and no one the wiser.”

I gave a reminiscent nod. “Staunton actually bragged about that exploit, I remember.”

“And with some justification. The crime had been so cunningly planned, and had been carried out with such careful regard to detail and timing, that not a hitch occurred to mar it. I tell you, Watson, that the police might have been hard put to secure his conviction had he not made that wild, damning admission when he was arrested.”

I had not forgotten the incident. Staunton, caught off guard when tendered the customary warning, had hotly denied all responsibility for the death of his wife, while conceding by his denial implications of guilt for the murder of Arnold Foote.