The New Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes (4 page)

Suddenly Holmes clapped a hand to his brow. “Lestrade, has anyone touched the jar of chloral hydrate?”

“Why, no,” the detective replied. “There was no immediate need.”

“Mr Dowling?"

“I did not, sir. The contents are plainly marked. I fear that John knew what he was doing.”

“Not John," Holmes said harshly. “Hugh”

“I don’t understand, Mr Holmes. What do you mean?”

“I mean.” said my friend, “that your partner was poisoned by his brother. Quick, Lestrade, let us go upstairs. The question now is whether we can prove our case.”

It was late the following night before my friend and I had the opportunity to talk at length about the case over a whiskey-and- soda at Baker Street. By then John Abergavenny had died, a victim of cardiac and respiratory collapse, without having regained consciousness and his brother had been arrested on a charge of fratricide.

“My interest in the case," Holmes said, “was aroused by the differences in the way John Abergavenny reacted when his senior partner put complaints to him. He quickly acknowledged his acts of carelessness. It was plain that he was over-tiring himself. That might have been because he went out drinking every night, but it seemed entirely out of character for him to do so. Besides, there was a possible alternative explanation. Perhaps he was continuing to work on his fiction late into the night after a full day’s legal work, keeping it a secret because of Dowling’s disapproval and a natural lack of confidence in his own literary talents. I also entertained a degree of scepticism about the incidents reported by both Bevington and Stewart - which John vehemently denied. Yet why should the witnesses lie? The contradictions intrigued me. When I mentioned the case to you originally, I drew an analogy with Stevenson’s romance and from the outset the business seemed to me to possess certain of the features of a cheap thriller. An apparently respectable man leading a double life, dipping his toe in the world of vice. It is a perennial theme.”

He took another sip from his glass. “I had only to meet Bevington and Stewart to be sure that they were not lying. On the contrary, they seemed unimpeachable. So - either John was behaving as wildly as they described, or someone was impersonating him. I noticed at once that Hugh resembled him in build and features. True, he did not have a moustache, was balding and his hair was different in colour. But any actor worth his salt could easily change all that.”

“But Hugh was a writer, not an actor,” I objected.

“He had been a court advocate,” Holmes said impatiently, “and few men are better suited to playing a part than barristers. They have the advantage of professional training coupled with constant practice. I once said to you, Watson, that when a doctor goes wrong he is the first of criminals, but I should have added the rider that a practitioner of the law comes a close second.” He gave a grim chuckle. “I hope I was not unduly prejudiced because I had found his writing slick and meretricious. It puzzled me that, as little better than a hack wordsmith, he had not published a book for some time. With that in mind, I regarded his explanation for haunting his old chambers as less than convincing.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Surely he was wise to be seeking out fresh stories?”

“If that was so, why had he been silent for so long? I wondered if he was suffering from simple inability to write. It is a curse which, I believe, afflicts many authors. I had rather the impression of a man living on past glories, a pathetic shadow of his former self, hanging around the legal world where he had scored his early successes. A sad man, too, no doubt overtaken by younger men who had not been distracted from their careers by the lure of appearing in print. Did you notice that his cuffs were threadbare?”

“I thought it a Bohemian touch, appropriate enough in a man who had given up his wig for the pen.”

“That is no doubt what he hoped people would think,” Holmes said dismissively. “He seemed alarmed to see us, which further fuelled my suspicions. Yet he was no fool. How careful he was to portray himself as a man on the brink of renewed success. I could not guess why he would wish harm to his brother - who had, according to Dowling, always envied him. I was concerned for John, but failed to realise that his life was in imminent danger. As soon as he knew of my involvement, Hugh decided that the time had come to perfect his plan.”

“The cold-blooded devil,” I said with a shiver.

“The legal world is small and enclosed. He must have known Bevington and Stewart or known of them and he successfully used them as his dupes. He was intent on creating the impression that his brother was on the downward slope and contemplating suicide. His own visit to Dowling ensured that the calumny seemed credible. Yet in his haste he made a crucial mistake. After he left us, he called on his brother - who had returned home to cool his temper after quitting Essex Street - and pretended to sympathise with him about Dowling’s behaviour in calling on my assistance. They had a drink together. When a chance came, he slipped a murderous dose of chloral hydrate into his brother’s glass. But in his haste to be away before the poison took effect he forgot to wipe the jar containing the sedative.”

“Leaving his fingerprints on it, then!” I exclaimed.

“As Lestrade has now established, I am glad to say. Do you recall that as recently as last December, Lord Belper’s committee of enquiry recommended that Edward Henry’s method of identification of criminals by fingerprints be adopted in place of anthropometry and dactylography? The details are in my scrapbook, if you care to consult it. The decision is an excellent one by the way. Henry is a sound man and he has been kind to acknowledge the assistance of a monograph of my own in compiling his text book for police on the science of fingerprinting. Hugh Abergavenny was back in King’s Bench Walk before it occurred to him that it would be prudent to clean the jar. Thankfully, by the time he returned to his brother’s rooms, Dowling was on the scene and Hugh had no opportunity to make good his mistake without arousing suspicion.”

“How did you hit upon the truth?”

“By reading the manuscript. The first chapter of the new book was written too beautifully and boasts a plot too original for it to have been the work of a man who could never aspire beyond the pot-boiler. I realised at once that Hugh Abergavenny had lied when he claimed it as his own. It must have been the story which his brother had lent him for an opinion. Hugh told John it was worthless at the time as he was covertly transcribing it in his own hand.”

Holmes sighed. “I shall always regret my inability to save John Abergavenny, Watson. There is only the crumb of consolation that his novel will serve as a fitting memorial to him.”

“It is a kind of justice,” I said.

My friend’s sallow cheeks flushed. “And I sincerely trust that Hugh Abergavenny, too, will receive his just deserts when his case comes to trial.

It was a sentiment that I echoed, but the murderer contrived to cheat the law. Five days before his trial, Hugh Abergavenny hanged himself in his prison cell. It emerged that he, rather than his younger brother, had a long history of nervous trouble and he had once before attempted to take his own life, when the last book he managed to complete was rejected by every publisher in London.

The Case of the Persecuted Accountant

Mr. Sherlock Holmes’ abrupt retirement from practice as a consulting detective in the autumn of 1903 provoked intense relief among the criminal classes. It also, regrettably, gave rise to much ill-informed speculation on the part of the public at large. I am not at liberty at the present time to disclose the reasons for my friend’s decision to quit his rooms at Baker Street and to take up residence on the Sussex Downs. Suffice it to say that many of the rumours concerning the matter were not merely deplorable but also patently absurd.

Gossip is always mischievous, and from the time of Holmes’ departure, I found the swirl of whispered calumny deeply offensive. It was also shocking to me that certain individuals should so quickly forget the debt that the law-abiding citizens of our country, and further afield, owed to my friend. When I intimated as much to Holmes, however, he dismissed my concerns with a wave of the hand.

“My dear Watson, I have never entertained the slightest interest in the opinions of others about me. Why should I, at this stage of my life, change that habit of mind? You are a splendid fellow, but you pay too much heed to that which is here today and gone tomorrow.”

It was a bright Tuesday in spring. I had, with my wife’s reluctant agreement, arranged to stay with my friend at his villa for a few days. Other than on a short visit one week-end in January, it was the first time that I had seen him since his abandonment of the capital’s hurly-burly. Looking back, I see more clearly with the aid of time and distance that the relations between us were beginning to change. I should say at once that there was no question of a personal estrangement between us. The hints which I have heard to the contrary are as unfounded as those slanderous suppositions about the cause of Holmes’ retirement at a period when, in the view of many eminent authorities, he remained at the height of his intellectual powers.

The truth was, as Holmes himself might have said, elementary. I, like my friend, had entered a new phase of my life. My practice at Queen Anne Street was flourishing as never before and, in addition, marriage placed upon me its own inevitable constraints.

I could no longer behave like a selfish bachelor and come and go as I pleased. As for Holmes, he did not hunger for the excitement of the days when he was retained in some of the most sensitive as well as many of the most baffling cases that can have confronted any professional detective. He was wise enough to let the past alone. Never a man to indulge in false sentiment, he concentrated his still considerable energies on his new environment. Increasingly, he became something of a recluse, but in my judgement a contented recluse.

Yet one of the reasons why I take up my pen to relate the tale of the persecuted accountant is to dispel the widely held view that, after leaving full-time practice, my friend had scarcely any opportunity to exercise his gifts as a detective. Holmes has himself, albeit with much hesitation and far too modestly, chronicled the manner in which he solved the mystery surrounding the bizarre death of Fitzroy McPherson. I have personal knowledge of certain other investigations which he consented to undertake. Quite apart from the little conundrum which forms the subject matter of the present narrative, these included the shocking case of the chorus girl’s hair and the sequence of tragedies which followed the establishment of the Hayhurst Tontine. Holmes did not lose the taste for detection when he left his rooms in London. He merely reordered his priorities. When he pursued new interests - for example the fascination with photography which played such a critical part in the case of the blind woman and the Eastbourne bicycle race - he did so with the single-mindedness which had always been his hallmark.

He demonstrated his altered outlook on that balmy April morning, after his elderly housekeeper had cleared away the breakfast things. I had enquired as to his progress with the book which, he had often assured me, he would compile once the other calls upon his time diminished.

“Ah, Watson, your aim is unerring.
The Whole Art of Detection,
yes! I recall swearing to you that it would be my most signal contribution to the elucidation of criminal mysteries.” He raised his eyebrows in gentle mockery. I could see that he was not in the least discomfited. “A vade-mecum which would prompt even the most seasoned investigator to reappraise his methods, root and branch. I shall not attempt to deceive you, my dear fellow. For all my boasts, I have found the task as challenging as any that has faced me. There is so much to be said. If I were not to edit my notes with a ruthlessness worthy of Moriarty, the resultant text would make a vast encyclopaedia seem like a flimsy pamphlet. Thus it is that I have for the moment embarked on a different task, albeit one that may prove even more fulfilling.”

He pointed to a sheaf of manuscript notes on the sideboard and I walked over to glance at the title page.

“A
Practical Handbook of Bee Culture
?”

“Do not sound so disapproving, Watson!” He chuckled. “I trust you are not about to chide me for wasting the talents which you have so lauded in your somewhat sensational accounts of certain of my more remarkable enquiries.”

“I should have thought - I began stiffly.

“Yes, you should most certainly have done so,” he rejoined, with a touch of the familiar asperity. “May I assure you, Watson, that there is a deal to be learned from those fascinating creatures. As much, perhaps, as from a lifetime’s observation of the curious behaviour of our fellow human beings. As to which, perhaps you might care to cast an eye over this letter and to advise me as to whether I should consent to the see the lady who wrote it.”

He tossed a note across to me. It was dated from Brighton upon the preceding day, and read as follows:

“DEAR MR. HOLMES,
- I am sorry to trouble you at a time when, as I am aware, you have retired from active life. I would not do so if I had any choice in the matter. But another's future may be at stake, as well as, beyond doubt, my own happiness. The source of the threat to everything I have dreamed of is beyond my imagining. I shall call at your villa at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, when I trust you will consent to take an interest in the case and track down the perpetrator of the foul lies which have brought me to despair, the like of which I have never encountered before. - Yours truly,

ARABELLA PYEMONT"

“She sounds very insistent," I remarked. “Yet I am well aware that of your immunity to the charms of the fair sex. As to whether you should listen to her..."

I was interrupted by an urgent knocking at the front door. Glancing at my friend, I saw his mouth curve in a sardonic smile.

“Perhaps it is already too late,” he said. “I hear the scurrying of Mrs Langridge’s little feet. I suspect that Miss Pyemont has already announced her arrival.”