The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part II (22 page)

I thought about some of the Scotland Yard inspectors, who had no love for me and Sherlock Holmes, but they did not appear to be among the policemen here. Even at that, Albert's advice was sound. We might learn more if we were discreet.

I noticed that he had said “we” should not announce ourselves.

“Are you coming with me?” I asked.

“That was my commission from Mr. Mycroft Holmes,” said he. “I am to accompany and assist you.”

“Very well. Come along and we shall see what we can discover.”

As we walked toward the club, I reached inside my coat to make sure that Mycroft's letter was still there, as indeed it was. I wanted to be sure to have it in case it became necessary to produce it. Already there seemed to be a bit of confusion at the club, however, and I thought that Albert's suggestion would prove to be the best approach.

Just as we arrived at the entrance to the club, one of the tardy members took serious offense at his arrest. He began to fling his arms about, striking several officers, while yelling in French. All the officers closed around him in an attempt to pin him to the wall. One of the other men tried to strike the Frenchman with his sign, and his companions began shouting. They appeared much more dangerous than the supposed anarchists who were being arrested, and were clearly intent on doing the Frenchman serious harm. The police found themselves very much occupied in sorting out the confusion, though they appeared to be getting the situation under control.

“A happy diversion,” said Albert. “Follow me, Doctor.”

It seemed that Albert had promoted himself from assistant to leader, but I chose not to argue. Instead, I followed him as he slipped past the busy policemen and entered the club, which was not nearly so luxurious as the Diogenes Club, nor was it as quiet. Men stood in small groups, talking in loud voices and various languages. There was no doorman, and I suppose anarchists would not approve of such a thing.

“Did you recognize any of those men outside?” Albert asked me.

“You mean the members of this club?” I responded.

“No. I mean among the others. The ones carrying the signs. It seemed to me that one of them was familiar.”

I had often wished that I had the gift for faces that Sherlock Holmes possessed, but I did not. Still, I took a few moments to attempt to recall the men we had seen outside. The light had not been good, but I had glimpsed several of them. The one who had tried to strike the Frenchman with his sign did indeed look familiar, and after a several moments I remembered why.

“One of them was Henry Starnes,” I said. “He is a leader of a group of nativists whose goal is to expel all foreigners, starting with those who have an anarchistic bent. I have seen his photograph in the newspapers. He is seeking a seat in parliament.”

“I believe you are correct,” Albert said, and then he sidled up to group of men in which the speakers were English, and I went along.

“The coppers will soon be coming in,” Albert said when there was a lull in the talking and gesticulating. “Is there another way out?”

“Of course there is,” said a big fellow with a red face and bristling hair. “But we shall not take it. We are not cowards. We have a right to assemble here and talk as we wish. And who are you, might I ask?”

“A friend of Martial Bourdin.”

“Hah. The very rascal who's brought this raid upon us. Well, you might be seeking a cowardly way out, for the police will want to have more than mere words with you if you are his friend.”

I had no idea what Albert could be up to, but he seemed to be quite comfortable in what he was doing.

“I do not fear the police,” said he. “I do care about my friend.”

“He was no friend of mine,” the man said, and the others near him nodded as if to say he was not their friend, either. “Bourdin had few friends here.”

“He must have had someone who cared enough about him to want to know the truth about what happened,” said Albert.

“Perhaps Delebeck,” said a short, stout man wearing spectacles. “He was Bourdin's landlord.” He indicated a man in middle age with graying hair and a military carriage who stood alone near the wall opposite us.

“Thank you,” said Albert. “Come, Doctor.”

Once again, I followed. Albert had hidden depths.

Delebeck saw us coming, and while he did not appear eager to speak with us, neither did he flee. When we reached him, Albert nudged me in the ribs. Clearly he expected me to know what to do at this point, so I introduced myself.

“The very same Dr. John Watson who writes the amusing stories about his friend Sherlock Holmes?” Delebeck said. He looked at Albert. “And is this the great man himself?”

Albert and I chuckled. “No,” said I, “this is Albert, who drives a cab, which we may be able to use, by the way.”

“Use?” said Delebeck. “For what purpose? And for that matter, why are you here, Dr. Watson?”

“I am looking into the death of your boarder, Martial Bourdin.”

“Indeed. In what capacity?”

“On behalf of Her Majesty's government,” I thought to say as I reached for the letter from Mycroft, but then I remembered that Delebeck was an anarchist or at the very least an associate of anarchists. The letter would be more likely to anger him than to impress him.

“I am simply interested in the case,” I said after a moment, trying to think what Holmes might say. “It has certain elements that intrigue me.”

“I can understand why it might,” Delebeck said. “I do not trust the police to find out anything about my friend's death. However, Dr. Watson, if your stories are not exaggerated, I believe I can trust you.”

I tried not to take offense at his remark about the stories, though I thought I heard a low laugh from Albert.

“Your trust would not be misplaced,” I told Delebeck.

“Then we should be leaving,” Albert said. “For the police are now entering.”

His hearing was sharper than mine, but I turned to see that he was correct and that the officers were now coming in through the front door.

“There is a back entrance, I believe,” said I. “Let us take advantage of it.”

We edged around the men grouped in the room and found a dark corridor that led to a stair going down to a door. We passed through the hall and then the doorway without hindrance and found ourselves in an odorous alleyway, enfolded in fog.

“Wait here,” said Albert, “while I fetch the cab.”

I was not happy to be left there, and I could see that Delebeck felt the same. However, we had little choice, as Albert walked away and was almost instantly lost in the fog.

While we stood there, I tried to think of the kind of questions that Holmes would be asking, were he standing beside me, and in that moment I missed him more keenly than ever. However, even as I wondered how he would have managed the situation, something occurred to me.

“Were you at home today when your boarder left?” I asked.

“I was, but you must know that I had nothing to do with this sad affair. I was entirely ignorant of anything concerning a bomb. While Martial and I both distrust the government and would like to be rid of it, neither of us is violent in any way. We have made protests. We have agitated, but resort to violence? Never.”

He sounded as if he were telling the truth, though one can never be certain about such things.

“Have the police searched Bourdin's rooms?” I asked.

“No, but I have been expecting them all day. Surely they must know by now where he lived.”

Having experienced the methods of Inspector Lestrade, I was not so sure, and I was happy that we would have the first look at Bourdin's lodgings, even though my own search of them would never match one that Holmes would conduct.

“What about money?” I asked. “Was Bourdin quite rich?”

“Not at all. I have heard that he had a large sum with him when the bomb exploded, but I cannot say where the money came from.”

“He did not have it with him when he left?”

“He may have,” Delebeck said. “I broke my fast at the club this morning, and when I returned, he came out of his room and brushed past me without a word. That in itself was unusual. He had two parcels with him, but he was out the door before I could ask about them.”

This was all interesting information, though I knew not what to make of it. I had no time to inquire further, as Albert came into the alley with the cab and stopped for us. He asked Delebeck where he lived, and Delebeck gave an address on Fitzroy Street. As soon as we were seated in the cab, Albert took us out of the alley and down the street at a sedate pace, turning away from the Autonomie Club and easily avoiding detection by the police, who by now were all occupied on the inside of the club. The men with the signs had all been sent on their way, and the foggy sidewalks were quiet.

I tapped on the small door between me and Albert, and he opened it at once. I smelled pipe smoke and heard him puffing away. On an impulse I did not quite understand, I conveyed to him what Delebeck had told me. He made no comment other than to say that we would do well to be careful of how we handled matters from this point forward, as it appeared that powerful forces were involved. I was about to ask his meaning, but he shut the door and cut off our communication.

“Have you and Bourdin talked often about the overthrow of the government?” I asked Delebeck. “In a theoretical way, of course.”

“Of course. Naturally, we are opposed to the government. But we are also opposed to violence, Martial more than I. I cannot imagine him planning to use a bomb.”

“Is it possible he would not have discussed such plans with you?”

“Yes, as he was a secretive sort, he might have kept it from me, especially knowing my nonviolent leanings. Yet I believe he would have told me of some plan to bomb the observatory.”

Delebeck might have said more, but we had arrived at the address on Fitzroy Street. Albert stopped the cab, and Delebeck and I alighted. Delebeck let us into the house and showed us the rooms where Bourdin lived.

They were quite neat, and searching them would not take long, I presumed. There was something of an odd smell in the air, but it was so faint that I could not identify it. I could tell that Albert noticed it, too, though he said nothing. Delebeck seemed to be unaware of it.

I began my search by looking at the desk and its contents, I peered into the closets, into all the drawers, and even looked underneath the bed.

“Excellent work,” Albert said when I was done. “I can see why Sherlock Holmes relies on you in all his investigations.”

“Er, yes,” I said, “but what exactly do you mean?”

Albert walked over to the desk and pointed to a book. “To begin with, this book. When you moved it, you revealed the rail schedule underneath it.”

I had not moved the book much, merely pushed it aside, and I had not noticed the paper beneath it. But before I could mention that, Albert had picked up the rail schedule and walked to the wardrobe.

“And here,” said he, “you discovered that the arrangement of clothes suggested that some of them were missing. No doubt they are in the valise you spied under the bed.”

In truth, I had not spied the valise, as the dim light of the room hardly reached underneath the bed, but Albert had bent over and seen it. His eyesight must have been incredibly keen. He pocketed the rail schedule and pulled the valise from beneath the bed. Setting it on the bed, he opened it.

“Ah. Neatly packed,” he said. He closed the valise.

“Did Bourdin mention travel plans?” I asked Delebeck, who had been watching the proceedings.

“No, but he did miss his home in France. He had traveled in America, and he liked it even less than he likes England.”

“There is something more,” Albert said. “Or something less. There is something missing.”

“Missing?” Delebeck said.

“Yes,” Albert said. “As Dr. Watson has so cleverly revealed to us by his search, there is nothing in this room, nothing at all, that could have been used to make a bomb. No plans and no chemicals.”

I thought again about the smell I had noticed upon entering the room, but I could no longer detect it, so I made no mention of it.

“He could have made the bomb elsewhere,” said I.

“Doubtful,” said Albert, and he removed the rail schedule from his pocket. He opened it and laid it on the desk. “Look at this.”

He placed his finger on the schedule. The times for departures to Dover were circled.

“Bourdin was going to France,” I said.

“Excellent, Dr. Watson,” Albert said, and I gave him a sharp glance. He had not removed his slouch hat, and it shadowed his face. I could not see his expression.

“He had money when he died,” I said. “Along with the bomb.”

“Yet we can infer that he had neither in his room until someone brought them here,” said Albert. “He would not want to leave the money here, even though I am sure he trusted you, Mr. Delebeck.”

“But who could have brought the money?” asked Delebeck.

“That is indeed the question,” I said. “Perhaps we should convey our information to the authorities, Albert.”

“Very well, sir,” said Albert, and we prepared to leave.

As I passed through the doorway, I brushed the jamb with the sleeve of my coat.

“Ah!” cried Albert. “Dr. Watson, you have done it again!”

“I have?”

Albert pointed to a spot or stain of some kind on the door jamb about level with my elbow. Otherwise the wood was quite clean.

“See here,” said he, looking at the spot. “As you have indicated, Dr. Watson, it is likely to be of importance. Do you have an envelope?”

“Er, no, I do not.”

“Never mind,” Albert said, producing one from a coat pocket. “I happen to have one.”

He carefully scraped a bit of the stain from the wood into the envelope. When he was done, he sealed the envelope and handed it to me.