The Final Page of Baker Street (16 page)

“I hadn't the foggiest clue, old fellow,” he said. “But the more important fact is that neither did she.”

XI

If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer.

- Raymond Chandler,
The Long Goodbye

The weather turned even colder the next day; but when Inspector Youghal arrived at Queen Anne Street just after lunch, his furrowed brow signalled more than just the bad weather. We met him in the sitting room, and he offered a grim nod. I indicated a chair, but he refused, and we all remained standing.

“I owe you an apology, Mr. Holmes,” he began. “I should have got out to Marlow immediately.”

Holmes and I exchanged concerned glances as Youghal reached inside his coat pocket and produced a photographic copy of a handwritten note.

“Gentlemen,” the inspector announced in his most official tone, “you should know that Mrs. Elaine Sterne committed suicide last night. I thought you should be informed. She took arsenic - her husband had it in the house, something related to his book-writing and the study of poisons. The housekeeper, Mrs. Jenkins, found her dead this morning in bed with this note lying beside her. The original, as you can see, was written on fine stationery.”

Holmes then read aloud:
“It's all over now. I shot and killed Sylvia Leonard, watched my husband Raphael Sterne try to help me by obliterating the bullet wound, and I let my legal husband Paul Martin, later known as Terrence Leonard, take the blame. Because of my silence, Paul killed himself. For my own protection, I shot and killed Rafe.

“Three people (four, counting myself) are dead because of me. I wish I had never been born. The only person who stands out in this sordid tale is the young writer people call Billy but I know as Ray. Throughout the ordeal, he maintained his loyalty to the man he knew as Terrence Leonard. I can only pray that I was somehow deserving of some minute share of the attention he showered on me.

“It is signed,
Elaine Sterne.
”

“My word,” was all I could think of saying.

“Needless to say,” Youghal added, ‘Raphael Sterne's funeral scheduled for today has been put off.”

Holmes offered the note back to the inspector, but Youghal shook his head.

“You keep it,” he said. “Lord Steynwood doesn't want this letter made public. Hopes to avert a scandal. Wants to let Terrence Leonard - that is, Paul Martin - remain the culprit despite the fact that we now know he was innocent.”

“If I may, Inspector,” I asked, “if Lord Steynwood wants it kept quiet, why risk additional people learning what really happened by making a copy - ”

“Multiple copies, actually,” he corrected.

“ - Multiple copies then. Aren't you tempting fate?”

The policeman laid a finger against the side of his nose. “Let's just say, Doctor, that simply because a rich bloke like His Lordship wants something done a certain way, don't mean that's the way it's going to get done - if you take my point. Even us lads at Scotland Yard believe in justice.”

Holmes and I both responded with appreciative smiles. After all, the more copies there were, the more difficult it would be to identify whoever was responsible for making any one or all of them public.

“Besides,” Youghal added, “I'm simply sharing evidence with trusted colleagues. It's part of my job.”

“Speaking of evidence,” Holmes said, “any sign at the Sterne house of a Gladstone filled with bloody clothes, a pair of boots, and an antique statue?”

Youghal's eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Blimey, Mr. Holmes! You astound me. You really do. My men did find such a bag covered with
débris
and tools at the rear of the potting shed. It contained precisely the contents you mentioned.”

“So
that
part of her story was true, eh, Holmes?”

“Yes, Watson. It was just as she said: she didn't throw the bag into the river at the end; she kept it close at hand should she ever have needed to implicate Sterne even more.”

I thought of Billy; he deserved to hear the sordid
dénouement
of this already sordid tragedy. “Might we show it to - ”

Reading my mind, Holmes cut me off. “Thank you, Inspector,” he said, shaking the policeman's hand.

No sooner had Youghal taken his leave than I proposed sending a telegram to Billy asking him to come round.

“Tell him to meet us at the Crown and Eagle,” Holmes said. “Somehow, that establishment seems the appropriate place to lay this case to rest once and for all.”

* * *

In retrospect, it really wasn't as great a coincidence as it had seemed. But arriving at the Crown and Eagle a short time before our appointed meeting with Billy late in the afternoon, we couldn't help noticing a familiar black Daimler parked at the kerb nearby. Thus it was with caution that we entered the taproom and a greater sense of alertness once we saw the profile of Colonel Sebastian Moran.

Seated at a far table and facing a stranger, Moran was easy enough to identify. One couldn't miss his drooping moustache, high forehead, thin strands of white hair curling over the collar of his black coat, and that insidious cane lying within reach on the wooden chair next to him. On this occasion, he appeared in so intimate a conversation that he didn't notice Holmes and me arrive. In his younger years, he would have been more alert to our presence.

It was the other man, literally cloaked in mystery, that we failed to recognize. Not only did he wear a long, heavy coat that blanketed his body, but a grey woollen stocking cap pulled down to his eyes and covering much of the stringy red locks that fell to his shoulders, a full ginger beard that hid his lower face, and a black woollen scarf that encircled his chin and neck. Yet despite all this concealment, there was something familiar about him, which I couldn't place.

Holmes and I quietly collected our pints at the bar; and Holmes, motioning towards a small table near the door, led us to our seats. Such a vantage point prevented our having to march across the floor directly into Moran's line of vision. After huddling behind our tankards, Holmes indicated with his head the two men we were watching. “Watson,” he whispered, “observe what the stranger is drinking.”

Moran was sampling a sherry. But the liquid in his companion's glass bore the unmistakable yellow-greenish tinge of Rose's Lime Juice. Based on our previous experience in this very pub, if I had to guess, I would identify the potation in question as a gin gimlet.

Suddenly I re-examined the stranger, erasing in my mind the hat, the hair, the beard. Even though the scarf and beard covered the scars, I now could make out the half-closed left eye.

“My God, Holmes,” I said softly, “it's Terrence Leonard.”

Holmes nodded. “I thought as much, Watson, but remember that I've never seen him. I needed your corroboration.” With that, he put his hand into his pocket and pulled something out.

Just then the two men completed their conversation and stood up. It was startling to see Sebastian Moran embrace anyone, but that is exactly what he did. It was but a moment later, as he was tossing some coins onto the table to pay for the drinks, that he saw Holmes and me.

Terrence Leonard pretended to ignore us as he made his way towards the exit just beyond our table. In leaving, he had to pass close by; and when he did so, Holmes passed whatever he was holding into Leonard's palm. Then the ghost was gone.

For his part, stick in hand, Moran strode right up to us. “Holmes,” he declared, “I won't say that all is forgiven between us because it is not. But you deserve some credit for setting the record straight. Terrence Leonard, a true British hero of Rooiwal, was no murderer. I was in that war, as you know; and a soldier with his courage deserved much better than what some threw at him here in England.”

“You speak of him in the past tense,” I offered, thinking of the man with whom we'd just seen Moran conversing. “Surely - ”

“Enough, Dr. Watson,” he snarled. “I've said too much already.”

“However oblique your compliment about setting the record straight,” Holmes said to Moran, “it is accepted.”

Moran began to turn, but Holmes blocked his way. “One more thing, Moran. Now that all this business is cleared up, I want to assure our young friend that you have no more interest in him.”

Moran smiled. “You can tell that bloody fool that he has nothing more to fear from Colonel Sebastian Moran. Would that I could say the same for you, Sherlock Holmes.”

With that, the villain whirled and marched out through the doorway, almost knocking over Billy who, at that dramatic moment, was just making his entrance into the pub.

* * *

Billy stood frozen, his back pinned against the open door. In amazement, he watched stalk by him the man who'd been responsible for delivering the bruises Billy still was wearing. Then Billy looked in our direction. Holmes, who'd been drumming a nervous finger on the table, motioned him over. “We have news for you,” he said to the lad, “and I'm not certain how you'll take it.”

Billy looked quizzically at my friend and then gently eased his body into the empty chair next to Holmes. “About Moran?” he asked, trying to anticipate what he was about to hear. “That was him I just saw, wasn't it?”

“Yes,” Holmes said. “You did just see Moran. But the news I have is about Terrence Leonard.

Billy's eyes narrowed.

“Terrence Leonard's not dead,” Holmes announced softly. “In fact, not more than five minutes ago, we saw him right here in the Crown and Eagle. Watson identified him.”

Billy said nothing. A furrow lined his brow as he absorbed the information.“You're certain, are you?” he asked at last.

“Yes,” Holmes said.

“Bloody Hell!” he exploded. “Why would he have pretended suicide then?”

Holmes shrugged. “Probably because Lord Steynwood wanted to keep him dead. That way, the story about Lord Steynwood's murdered daughter would remain dead as well - Inspector Youghal's hopes notwithstanding. Maybe His Lordship paid Terrence off; maybe he'd paid Terrence from the start to take the blame.”

“But where's Terrence staying? Where does he live?” Billy began to rise as if to go out and look that very moment for his resurrected friend.

I laid a hand on the young man's arm, and he sat down again.

“Billy,” Holmes cautioned, “think about it. Terrence Leonard wants to stay hidden. He's changed his appearance as much as he can. He just walked past Dr. Watson without a nod. If he changes his mind, he knows where all of us live and could find us if he wanted. But he obviously does
not
want to. Leave him be.”

“Terrence alive?” Billy muttered more to himself than to Holmes or me. A bit wobbly, he stood up and made for the bar. “I need a drink,” he said to us over his shoulder.

Billy returned with a gin gimlet, and Holmes explained to both of us what he'd deduced months earlier in connection with his visit to the War Office. “Moran helped Leonard counterfeit the suicide. When that dynamite blew up in Terrence's face, it turned out that one of the men he'd saved was a soldier named Enoch Parker. Enoch Parker, it turns out, works for Moran. In point of fact, Enoch's the son of Parker the garrotter, the killer who stood sentinel for Moran when the colonel tried to shoot my wax figure from the empty house in Baker Street. Enoch is actually Moran's godson. In fact, you yourselves have seen them both together.”

“We have?” Billy and I cried simultaneously.

“Enoch's Moran's driver,” Holmes explained. “In the Daimler. The young man with the aquiline nose. Enoch Parker is chauffeur for his own godfather.”

“But-but,” I sputtered, “how did you know that this - this Enoch Parker - had been at Rooiwal?”

“When I unsuccessfully searched the records for Leonard's name under Kekewich's command at Rooiwal, I did come across young Parker's. I remembered that the elder Parker had a close connection with Moran and that Moran, like Enoch, was off fighting the Boers. With the help of the police, it wasn't difficult to determine that Enoch was the son of Parker the garrotter.”

“Good work, Holmes,” I said.

“Once it was obvious to me that Terrence didn't kill anyone, I assumed that his suicide must have been staged. And who better equipped with nefarious contacts to make it all seem real? I'm certain that Moran provided the boat, the writing paper, the stones, the transportation from Loch Ness, and even the rather elaborate disguise we were subjected to today. Out of gratitude for saving his godson's life, Colonel Moran proved quite the help to Terrence Leonard.”

“The Tankerville Club!” I suddenly remembered. “Where Terrence had worked. I
knew
there was some link to Moran.”

Holmes looked quizzical. Yet I was certain that he too would recall the gambling scandal he had once helped resolve in that unsavoury place.

“Billy told me,” I explained to Holmes, “that Terrence had been working at the Tankerville while he was trying to change the course of his life.”

“Yes,” Billy said, “that's true.”

“Billy,” I said, “do you recall that there was something about the club that I couldn't bring to mind? I realize now what I'd forgotten: Moran himself was a member!”

Sherlock Holmes didn't register surprise often. On this occasion, his eyebrows rose just enough to show concern. “What you
also
seem to have forgotten, Watson,” he said, “was to furnish
me
with that information. Obviously, Moran secured a position there for Leonard. Moran had been an even greater help to Leonard than I realized. Now if I had learned of that link between Leonard and Moran when
you
did, Watson...” He didn't complete the sentence; he didn't need to.

“What a coincidence that you ran into them here,” Billy said, rescuing me from my embarrassment.