The Final Page of Baker Street (7 page)

“A fact which you probably didn't emphasize in arranging your tryst.”

“Right again. Nancy ambled out to the back, saw me and smoothed down her billowing black skirt. She twisted round her index finger a side-curl that had worked its way out from under her white cap.”

Anticipating that Billy was about to produce some intimate details, I reasoned that neither the constable at the front door nor anyone else with more than a passing interest needed to overhear our conversation.

“Before you provide any lurid information,” I said softly, “let's move down the road.” I held out my arm to indicate the direction, and Billy and I innocently sauntered past a couple of neighbouring houses and stopped beneath the branches of one of the kerbside oaks. The shadow of its leaves added to the darkness of the afternoon.

“And so,” I began again, “just what did you learn from the parlour maid?”

Billy took a deep breath and resumed his narrative: “Nancy told me that Violet McGee - ”

“Mrs. Leonard's maid?”

Billy nodded, annoyed by my interruption.“Violet McGee,” he began again with a dollop of sarcasm, “
Mrs. Leonard's maid
, entered the bedroom early yesterday morning with her mistress' breakfast. The room was empty. Violet couldn't find her mistress upstairs, so she proceeded to the ground floor. When she reached the smaller drawing room, she discovered its doors were locked and got Norris the butler to unlock them. When she entered, she discovered her mistress lying on the floor in her nightdress and Terence standing over her. There was blood all round, and we already know that Mrs. Leonard's head was terribly battered. Violet screamed for help. It was at this moment that Terrence pushed past Norris, who was still in the hallway, and ran up the stairs. Presumably, this was when Terrence must have picked up his wife's gun. Then he bolted. Lord Steynwood, who was summoned from his club, immediately called Dr. Goring, his daughter Cora's husband. Then Lord Steynwood called Scotland Yard. Needless to say, suspicion immediately fell on Terrence for having fled the scene.”

“A very thorough report.”

“Except that Sylvia Leonard's still dead,” he said.

“From your account, there seemed to be no great weeping in the house. People going on about their daily business. No one too broken up by Mrs. Leonard's death, were they?”

“No, none of the servants seemed too distraught - that is, except Violet who discovered the body. I was actually going to ask more questions about Mrs. Leonard's relationships with the staff, but Norris himself came outside to retrieve poor Nancy. The scullery maid had obviously done some talking.”

“And did Norris have anything of interest to say?”

“Only that the maids were to show me great distance as I was a friend of the man who had murdered their mistress.”

“And His Lordship? Where is he?”

“Not out at the back where the scullery-maid empties her water, that's certain. In a word, I don't know.”

“Given these further details,” I said, “how do you now feel about your friend's guilt?”

Billy's eyes pierced the dappled shadows created by the leaves. “I know he's a strange character, Dr. Watson, but I don't think he's a killer. I can't imagine who committed this horrible deed, and I don't know how to find out. Still, I want to help as much as I can. If the true murderer ever
is
discovered, I'm sure Terrence will return from wherever he's run off to.”

In the midst of telling him that I hoped he was correct, I detected movement up the road; in point of fact, the front door of the Steynwood house had opened, and Inspector Youghal, accompanied by two uniformed constables, was marching down the short staircase.

As they walked towards the police motor-car, Youghal spied the two of us huddling among the shadows. “Hullo,” he cried, pointing at Billy, “the very man I'm looking for.” He strode rapidly towards us, sweeping up the two constables in his wake.

“Billy the page,” Youghal announced, eyes narrowing, “also known as Mr. Raymond Chandler?”

“Yes,” Billy said.

“Inspector,” I intervened, “you know who he is; you saw him last night at my home.”

“Sir,” he addressed Billy, maintaining his official tone as if I had not spoken, “we need you to accompany us to the station. I was about to go looking for you in Bloomsbury, but you have saved me the trouble. We found your name and address on a sheet of paper sitting atop Mr. Leonard's desk, and we have reason to believe that he was seeking your help following his brutal attack on his wife. Come along, please.”

“Inspector,” I said, my voice full of exasperation, “this is not new information. Leonard told me he went looking for Billy after he'd left the house. It was only when he couldn't find Billy that he came to my surgery.”

Still paying me no mind, Youghal nodded at his men; and the two constables grabbed Billy's upper arms and escorted him to the awaiting car.

“Get Mr. Holmes!” Billy was able to shout before they unceremoniously shoved him into the vehicle.

“My thought exactly,” I said to myself as the car was rumbling off down the road, belching clouds of black smoke.

I turned and walked rapidly - indeed, almost ran - to the nearest telegraph-office.

“
Come quickly
,” I wired Holmes in Sussex, “
Billy is in trouble
.”

* * *

A hansom brought me to the Victoria Embankment where looms the Victorian-Gothic police headquarters commonly known as Scotland Yard. The massive structure is imposing enough to the innocent bystander; one can only imagine how ominous its red and white stonework and turrets must look to someone being taken inside for questioning. I didn't believe for a moment that, beyond Billy's friendship with Terrence Leonard, the lad had any connection to the murder of Lord Steynwood's daughter. But the risk of Billy's being manhandled by an overly zealous constabulary prompted my concern. At the very least, I wanted Youghal to know that Billy was being looked out for.

After making my way through a warren of indistinguishable hallways and offices, I found the Criminal Investigation Department. A beetle-browed sergeant sat ata desk near the doorway, and I told him that it was imperative that I saw the inspector.

“Not accepting visitors today, is he, Guv?” the sergeant replied calmly.

“Now see here,” I responded angrily, “I must - ”

“Try again tomorrow, yeh?” he said with a wink.

His relaxed demeanour irritated me all the more. “Tell him - ”

“Inspector Youghal?” he added with a chuckle, “he might be receiving guests tomorrow at tea time.”

It was obvious that I wasn't getting past this Keeper of the Gate. Exasperated, I marched out of the building.

Muted sunlight still washed the summer sky in shades of pastel pink, but the afternoon was turning into evening - too late, I thought, for a visit to my solicitor. Yet I couldn't forsake Billy. I returned to Scotland Yard twice that evening to send notes in to him, and I was troubled that my communications had gone unanswered. I could only assume that the police were detaining him over night to badger him into giving them the information they wanted to hear.

While Billy remained uppermost in my mind, I also had my surgery to consider. With patients scheduled for Friday morning, I tried reassuring myself that at least I knew where Billy was. In police custody, he couldn't get into any more trouble playing detective. On the other hand, I didn't want to leave him to the mercy of the police - not with Inspector Youghal's interrogation methods in mind. As soon as I'd seen my patients, I would return to Scotland Yard and renew my demands for his release.

Truth be told, although I hadn't yet heard from Holmes, I was still hoping that he might end up accompanying me. Not that I was worried that he hadn't responded to my wire. While Holmes could always be relied upon to furnish immediate aid, he wasn't the most punctilious of correspondents. Indeed, he regarded the contents of needless communications as useless facts. “It is of the highest importance, Watson,” he told me long ago, “not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

* * *

“Mrs. Titmus,” Miss Shelvington whispered to me Friday morning as I entered the surgery. She was referring to a new patient, the heavily made-up, elderly woman dressed in sombre black who was seated in my waiting room. Although no rain seemed imminent, Mrs. Titmus was accoutred with a baggy parasol, which just then was leaning against a neighbouring chair. I introduced myself; and picking up from the flat box near the doorway my nurse's report, invited Mrs. Titmus into my consulting room. After she'd grasped her parasol and got to her feet, I could see that, despite her mild stoop, she was quite tall and thin.

We settled opposite each other at my desk, and I quickly read over Miss Shelvington's notes.

“It would appear, Mrs. Titmus, that you suffer from a sore throat,” I observed.

“Yes,” she answered in what amounted to a stage whisper. “It hurts to swallow.”

I thought I detected a Yorkshire inflection.

“Allow me to have a look, won't you?” I asked as, wooden tongue depressor in hand, I made my way round the desk.

She visibly stiffened when I approached her mouth, and from so close a distance I could easily see the thick rouge applied to her cheeks. I peered into the cavern of her afflicted throat, but could detect no signs of inflammation or infection. Indeed, I began to wonder whether she was some sort of hypochondriac who was wasting my time. The world is full of patients who seem to enjoy their occasions in a doctor's surgery; to them, it is like sitting for tea. While Billy remained in confinement, I had to humour this woman's whims. And then there was the whereabouts of Sherlock Holmes to occupy my thoughts.

“Frankly, Mrs. Titmus,” I said, stepping back, “I find very little to comment on in your throat. Are you sure that is what truly bothers you?”

“Here,” she responded in a hoarse voice, “What do you take me for - some sort of charlatan? I tell you that my throat has reduced me to whispers.”

I felt most unprofessional to have so forcefully challenged a patient seeking help. “Let me consult a medical book, Madam. Perhaps I need to reconsider my diagnosis. Some oesophageal affliction may have escaped my memory.”

I turned to the bookshelf behind my desk to survey a series of spines bound in green leather. I had just fingered the tome likely to contain what I was seeking when from behind me I was astounded to hear a familiar voice, “I can only hope, Watson, that you haven't erased
me
from your memory as easily as some ‘oesophageal affliction'.”

With a hearty laugh, Sherlock Holmes, swept the grey curls from atop his head and straightened to his true height. Although still made up in that garish face paint, he no longer resembled the old lady who had entered my office.

“H-Holmes,” I gasped, forced to take a seat, “you - you never fail to surprise me.”

“Not even with this?” he asked, raising before me the baggy parasol. “It is, after all, the old brolly from Baker Street - the same one I used to fool Negretto in recovering the stolen diamond.”

I remained speechless, fooled once again by my old friend.

“You remember, Watson. ‘The Mazarin Stone'? Billy described the brolly in that story he wrote all those years ago?”

“Billy!” I said. Immediately composing myself, I quickly reported to Holmes all that had transpired the day before - the murder of Sylvia Leonard, Terrence Leonard's appearance at my surgery, my meeting with Billy in front of Lord Steynbrook's home, and the young man's subsequent detention by the police.

“I assumed this
charade
, Watson, to prevent the eyes and ears of Lord Steynwood or anyone else from interfering with my journey to London. But now that I am here, I can dispose of this paraphernalia. We must go see Youghal as soon as possible.”

I showed Holmes to his room where he could wash the make-up from his face and change his clothing. He had kept his more traditional attire in a Gladstone carefully hidden near the front door of my surgery.

The duplicitous Mrs. Titmus turned out to be my only patient that morning, the two others who were scheduled having failed to arrive. When my friend re-appeared as Sherlock Holmes, therefore, the two of us could immediately set off for Scotland Yard. On the way, I furnished Holmes the details that Billy had secured from Nancy the parlour maid relating to the murder of Sylvia Leonard. I also reported to him on the valiant service to her Majesty that Terrence Leonard had performed in South Africa. With the charges against Leonard so bleak, I thought some attempt should be made to balance the books. Although Holmes and I spent most of the trip to Scotland Yard discussing Terrence Leonard, it can't be said that our thoughts ever strayed too far from the well-being of Billy the page.

V

What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? ... You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that.

- Raymond Chandler,
The Big Sleep

Clearly, the name of Sherlock Holmes opened more doors at Scotland Yard than did mine. With the beetle-browed sergeant from the day before nowhere to be seen, Youghal himself brought Billy out to us at the long counter at the front of the C.I.D office.

“Come all the way up from Sussex for your pageboy, have you, Mr. Holmes?” Such was the detective's greeting to my friend. “Well,” he said, opening the little gate at the end of the counter, “you can have him back.” And Youghal gave Billy a little shove in our direction. “We still think he knows where Mr. Leonard got himself off to,” the inspector said, “but a night of questioning didn't get it out of him, so we'll cut him loose for the time being.” Dark half-circles beneath the policeman's eyes suggested that he himself had been personally involved in the so-called interrogation session.

It was with a grateful sigh that a haggard-looking Billy stumbled over to Holmes and me on our side of the wooden railing.

“If any harm has come to this lad - ” I began.

But Holmes cut me off. “Now that I'm here in London,” he said to the Inspector, “I should very much like to see the scene of Sylvia Leonard's murder. I expect that you can arrange admission for us to Lord Steynwood's town house.”

Holmes' suggestion seemed to revive Billy. At the same time, a smirk worked its way into the policeman's tired face. “I won't say that I'd turn down your help, Mr. Holmes, but I don't believe that you'll be uncovering anything that my lads haven't already found. Terrence Leonard beat his wife to death, and there's the end to it. Still, I can't deny that you've been an aid in the past, and I don't see why you shouldn't give it a go.”

“His Lordship won't object?” I asked, focusing on Holmes' plans instead of Billy's ordeal.

The inspector's tired face smiled more broadly this time. “Oh, Dr. Watson,” he said, “I have no scruples when it comes to disturbing the leisure time of the idle rich.”

Or the falsely accused
, I thought. But rather than prolonging my outrage, I turned to Billy. “Are you feeling fit enough to make the trip?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, straightening up. “I'd love to try my hand at examining the murder scene.”

With a sarcastic snigger, Youghal led us outside. We followed him across the road to the nearby police garage and stables where he requested a vehicle. We had to wait a few minutes, but eventually we heard the slow clip-clop of hooves. Moments later, a pair of matching coal-black horses pulling an enclosed black van came to a stop before us.

“Surely, not for us?” I said. No modern motor-car like the one Youghal had commandeered the previous day, the so-called “Black Maria” was a wagon usually reserved for the transporting of prisoners.

“We make do,” Youghal shrugged, nodding at the driver. We followed the detective round to the back where he opened the rear door and climbed into the small, dank compartment. Holmes, Billy, and I followed. At least, the thick wooden door, through whose small barred window in its middle a few rays of light penetrated, thankfully remained unlocked. Accompanied by the plodding hooves of the horses, we clattered our way across the city to Mayfair.

* * *

Nothing had changed. Despite the shade from the trees in the front of the house, I could easily discern the burly constable with his arms behind him still standing at the front door. Once he espied Inspector Youghal climbing out of the van, he straightened his stance. The rest of us followed suit, extricating ourselves from the tight quarters, then stretching our legs and swinging our arms to get the circulation flowing again. The inspector marched up the front steps where Norris the butler spoke to him. Norris had opened the door only halfway but after a few hushed words with Youghal, pulled it wide and ushered us in. The butler led us through the entry hall and past the sweeping grand staircase, the cavernous north drawing-room, and the multi-volume library. He stopped before a small, salon with three sets of large French windows.

“The south drawing-room,” Norris announced.

As soon as the butler left us, we four converged just inside the threshold. Sparsely furnished, the bright chamber might easily have been renamed the White Room. Its walls were papered in white floral patterns while white velvet curtains framed each of the three windows. A white jacquard settee and matching chair stood on one side of the room; a cherry-wood desk and chair, on the other. A light-blue oriental carpet with a flowery white border covered the floor, but it was the inharmonious claret-coloured stain at its centre that immediately caught the eye. The stain told us the obvious: that it was in this room that Sylvia Leonard had died. The family and staff had been ordered to stay out until Scotland Yard had completed the investigation; and Youghal insisted that, with the exception of the body, nothing had been moved or altered.

“At least, not intentionally,” Holmes smirked. “With all those policeman traipsing about, who knows what damage has already been caused?”

Youghal ignored the point. “Anything else, Mr. Holmes? Otherwise, I shall leave you to your devices.”

“One final question, Inspector. When you got here after the murder, were the curtains drawn or open?”

“Why, they were open,” the detective answered, pulling on his moustache, “as they are now. We haven't touched them. ‘No tampering with the evidence,' as you consulting detectives might say.”

Holmes ignored the sarcasm, and Youghal went on: “The murder took place at night. When we arrived, the sun was about to rise; and when it did, obviously, even with the lights turned on, the open curtains would allow a better view of the crime scene.”

Youghal paused to survey the room he and his men had already scrutinized. Predictably content with his work, he said to Holmes, “It's all quite clear, really, Mr. Holmes. The doors were locked from the inside, so Leonard must have entered through one of those French windows, picked up some bulky object - which we still have to locate - and bludgeoned his wife to death. As I say, we don't have the murder weapon yet, but I'm sure that after we find Mr. Leonard, he will enlighten us on that single, unexplained detail.”

“Thank you,” Holmes said. “You've been quite helpful. Please close the door on your way out.”

Youghal pulled on his moustache again and seemed about to say something else. Evidently he changed his mind, for he turned, shut the door as Holmes had asked, and left the three of us alone.

I was well aware of how closely Holmes would scrutinize a murder scene. What surprised me, especially in light of Billy's weakened condition, was how eagerly the lad attempted to do so. From his position near the door, he surveyed the entire room. His eyes travelled from floor to ceiling, and then his head turned to take in the windows and walls. What he was looking for I had no idea, but as he began to step forward, I motioned for him to stand back and remain silent in order to give Holmes the opportunity to explore. I knew the ways of my friend when he was on the hunt; he needed as much freedom as possible to complete a thorough investigation, the very kind, which years of experience had taught him, the police could never seem to get right.

Sherlock Holmes removed his magnifying lens from a coat pocket and bent down on his hands and knees to examine the dark blood spot and spatter at the centre of the blue carpet. Moments later, still on hands and knees, he crawled in a spiral direction radiating away from the central stain, keeping his lens focused on the carpet in the process. As Youghal had already indicated, thanks to the numerous windows, there was plenty of daylight to illuminate the scene.

Next, Holmes walked slowly towards the French windows that opened onto the garden. Despite the greyness of the day, there had been no recent summer rainstorms and consequently no mud in the garden to produce any random footprints nearby. Nor would one expect to find any mud on the floor. Still, Holmes persisted. At one point, he let out an “aha!” when he discovered what appeared to be a strand of light-coloured hair. Picking it up with tweezers, he carefully placed his trophy in a small envelope he had produced from his pocket. But since white-haired Terrence Leonard also lived in this house, the alleged prize seemed unimportant to me. At last Holmes rose and observed the scene in its entirety. Then he carefully walked over to the cherry-wood desk and lifted from it a foot-tall metal statue of a woman in some sort of long toga affair. Finally, he closed the heavy drapes that were currently bunched in the spaces between each of the three sets of windows.

Instantly, the room was completely enveloped in darkness. Actually, it was
almost
completely enveloped in darkness because, as soon as the curtains had been drawn, three lances of daylight, like the beams from three well-focused bull's eye lanterns, immediately shot across the room some five feet above the floor, the result of a trio of small horizontal holes inches apart in the white velvet.

“As I expected,” Holmes murmured cryptically. Reopening the damaged curtain to flood the room with brightness once more, he began inspecting the wall behind the now gathered cloth at the corresponding height of the hole in the velvet. To Billy's and my great amazement, we watched Holmes discover a tiny cavity in the plaster.

Taking out a small blade from another of his pockets, Holmes pried out of the hole what looked to be a bullet. Dropping the missile into another envelope, he said enigmatically, “I
thought
there wasn't enough blood.”

Holmes placed the envelope back in his coat and looked round the room once more. Apparently satisfied, he patted his pockets for reassurance. “We can go now,” he said with an air of finality. “There's nothing here left to be discovered.”

“But what have you learned, Mr. Holmes?” Billy asked. “What do you know that the police don't?”

“Other than the fact that Terrence Leonard's wife was
not
bludgeoned to death - that, in fact, she was shot in the head and then beaten with a small bronze statue of the Roman figure Pyramus - not much.”

“Holmes!” I ejaculated. “How - ?”

“Watson,
you
can see the blood stains. Certainly, there is no spatter large enough to suggest the woman had her skull stove in. And what do you make of the spots a few feet distant from the body?”

I looked round the floor where his spiral crawl had ended, but saw no blood. “There are no blood spots a few feet distant of the body,” I stated.

“Precisely,” he said. “When someone is bludgeoned to death, the repeated strikes create a cast-off pattern. After the initial blow that causes the victim to bleed, each successive hit will cause the weapon to pick up blood and fling it behind the killer as he prepares to strike again. Since, besides a few random drops, there is no such pattern to speak of, one must conclude that Sylvia Leonard must have been dead before the blows were administered.”

“Brilliant!” Billy said.

But Holmes wasn't finished. “I imagined a bullet had done the job; the regularity of the stain at the centre of the carpet suggests she bled while lying on the floor. Because the police found no bullet in the poor lady's skull, any simpleton could conclude that there must be a bullet hole somewhere else - in the place where the bullet, after passing through her head, eventually ended up - that is, behind the bunched up folds of fabric. Since the authorities never thought to close the curtains - let alone to look for a bullet - the damage made by a single missile passing through the folds and ending up in the wall went undetected.”

“Fantastic, Holmes,” I offered.

“But I don't follow,” Billy said. “If there was only one bullet, why are there three holes in the cloth?”

Holmes walked over to the curtain in question and pulled the fabric taut between his two hands so that the material appeared flat and the holes were readily apparent. Then he folded the velvet in such a way that he could demonstrate with the little finger of his right hand how the tiny projectile would have to penetrate three different layers, leaving a trio of holes in its wake.”

“I get it now, Mr Holmes,” Billy said. “But let
me
tell you about the statue. I did study classics, after all.” He pointed at the small bronze figure on the table, a woman draped in robes standing under a leafy tree. “This Roman statue,” Billy explained, “represents the woman Thisbe of Babylon. She is part of a pair. Without Pyramus, her lover, the statue has no meaning. Therefore, the mate has obviously gone missing.”

“Just a moment,” I said. “How do you know it's Thisbe and not some other woman from mythology?”

“Good question, Doctor.” It was suddenly easy to picture Billy teaching in a Dulwich classroom. “As you can tell from the tiny clusters of fruit, the tree next to the woman is a mulberry; and according to Ovid, when Thisbe stabbed herself to death upon discovering the body of her lover Pyramus, her blood mixed with the roots of the nearby tree and turned the mulberries deep red.”

“Precisely,” Holmes observed.

“Like Romeo and Juliet,” I mused.

“And not like Terrence and Sylvia Leonard,” Holmes said. “Judging from the weight of Thisbe here, Pyramus must have made a formidable truncheon.”

Billy shook his head. “I know Terrence. First shoot her? Then mash her head to pulp? He couldn't have committed this appalling atrocity; he didn't contain the rage that could produce so heinous an act. No, I'm sure he's innocent.”

“When we find him, we'll know more,” Holmes observed. As he spoke, he was already drawing the drapes across all of the windows in the room except the one he'd examined. “In the meantime, let us offer the police, if they choose to return, the opportunity to reach the same conclusions I did.” With this pronouncement, as if about to close the final curtain on some macabre stage play, he raised his hand to the side of the velvet drapery that contained the bullet holes and dramatically pulled it across the window. Immediately, the room grew dark again. Last to exit, I closed the door, which allowed me one final look at the three tell-tale lines of light and the tiny motes of dust that were now dancing in the parallel beams.