The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part II (37 page)

HOLMES: I'm well aware of that.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Then what is there to investigate?

HOLMES: A very great deal. For instance - I know that your medicine store contains a hidden supply of concentrated arsenic.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: What?

HOLMES: And I know that the arsenic was used to kill those infants.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: But there was no trace of poison - (
in them...
)

GUTTRIDGE: (
To Holmes
) You know that?

HOLMES: Oh yes. And finally, I know that Jenny Snell was unfortunate enough to stumble on to what was happening. And was killed, to keep her silent.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Jenny's dead?

HOLMES: Unfortunately for her killer, she came to me first.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: She can't be dead. It's a lie. Toby, tell him.

GUTTRIDGE: I already have. She had to leave unexpected.

HOLMES: Oh yes.

He produces his sheet of paper.

“My Mum died sudden I have to go home”...

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: There you are.

Holmes examines the paper.

HOLMES: Actually, it's quite well done. Except for one rather significant detail.

GUTTRIDGE: What are you on about?

HOLMES: Next time you forge a farewell letter, Guttridge, I suggest you first make sure that your victim knows how to write.

A long moment.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Tobias, tell me this isn't true.

HOLMES: What did you do with the body, Guttridge? There's newly-turned earth in the back garden - shall we go and dig it up?

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Oh dear God.

HOLMES: I have you, Guttridge. There's no sense in denying it.

A long moment.

GUTTRIDGE: I'm not going to deny it.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Oh dear God. Oh dear Lord. How could you do it? Why?

HOLMES: Well? Will you tell her, or shall I?

A long moment. Guttridge reaches a decision.

GUTTRIDGE: I had to shut her up. She knew I killed those babies.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Toby!

GUTTRIDGE: Don't say nothing, Emily.

HOLMES: You admit it? You killed Jennifer Snell?

GUTTRIDGE: I said so, yes.

HOLMES: And the three children?

GUTTRIDGE: Yes.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Oh, Toby...

HOLMES: How?

GUTTRIDGE: What do you mean, how?

HOLMES: It was brilliantly done. Not a trace of poison in their systems. Tell me how you did it. (
A long moment
) Very well then, tell me why.

Guttridge says nothing.

Perhaps it was for the insurance money.

GUTTRIDGE: Yes! Yes, that's it. The insurance.

HOLMES: The insurance money goes to your wife. I checked. I ask you again: just how were the murders done? (
A long moment
) You don't know. Of course you don't know - because you were not the killer.

GUTTRIDGE: I tell you I was.

HOLMES: You found the evidence. You knew there had been foul play even though you didn't know the method - and since then, you've done everything in your power to protect the real murderer. To protect your wife.

No–one speaks. A long moment.

Only she handles the children. Only she supervises their food and their medicines. And only she stands to benefit from their deaths.

GUTTRIDGE: No!

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: (
Moving off
) I've had enough of this.

HOLMES: Please remain exactly where you are. Thank you. Since one of you can't explain and the other won't, permit me. It's been done on adults before now, but never on children - so I congratulate you on a totally original crime. You start with the smallest of amounts - almost infinitesimal, I suppose, on an infant. Then you build up the dose, a fraction of a grain by a fraction of a grain, day by day - until you have a child hopelessly addicted to arsenic. Keep administering the drug and the child lives. Withhold it - and the result is death. And not a trace of anything harmful to be detected. Clever - and diabolical.

A long moment.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: You've got no proof.

HOLMES: I have abundant proof. It's here, in this house.

GUTTRIDGE: You'll find no arsenic here.

HOLMES: Of course I won't. You've destroyed it all, just as you destroyed that innocent young girl, and for the same reason - a perverted desire to protect your wife.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Toby, my dear...

GUTTRIDGE: Don't say anything, Emily. You're right. He's got no proof.

HOLMES: Tell him, Mrs. Guttridge.

GUTTRIDGE: What? Tell me what?

HOLMES: Tell him the rest. Tell him that three wasn't going to be enough.

GUTTRIDGE: What?

HOLMES: Tell him that every single one of the babies in this house is already a drug addict - waiting to be casually snuffed out, the next time you felt the whim or the need for power or some ready cash. Tell him!

A long moment.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: You are so wrong.

HOLMES: I don't think so.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: A whim? Power? Money? (
A long moment. She sighs
) That's not why I do it.

GUTTRIDGE: Emily...

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Do you know what my babies have to look forward to, Mr. Holmes? Do you know about the factories and the workhouses and the filth and the squalour? Have you seen the children begging and stealing? Have you seen them selling their bodies on the streets for a penny a time?

HOLMES: I've seen them.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Well, before it comes to that - for a time - for a tiny, fleeting time - I can give them warmth and comfort... and love. And then... Then, I can make sure the world doesn't get them and soil them and wear them down and finally destroy them like animals. And don't you tell me that what I do is wrong. It's the world that's wrong, sir. Forget about me, I don't matter. Do something about the world out there - if you can.

A long moment
.

GUTTRIDGE: What are you going do with us?

HOLMES: Take you to the police.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: And then it'll be the courts. And then the hangman.

HOLMES: I imagine so.

MRS. GUTTRIDGE: Then tell me this, Mr. Holmes: what will happen to my babies now? You tell me that.

Holmes has no answer.

A long moment.

Then cut to:

SCENE 64. INT. SMITH'S OFFICE, THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

SMITH: (
Sighs
)

HOLMES: I didn't know what to say.

A moment.

SMITH: I have one question.

HOLMES: What is it?

SMITH: The evidence of the other children - were you sure? Or was it just a bluff on your part?

HOLMES: It wasn't a bluff. One of the side-effects of progressive arsenic addiction is unnatural lethargy and calm, especially in the young. I'd seen the signs when she showed me round the house on my first visit. I just didn't recognize them for what they were until later.

SMITH: So - all the children are due for the same fate. Dear God.

HOLMES: The doctor thinks they can be slowly weaned off the stuff. They might live. If you can call the world that's waiting for them a life.

SMITH: Come now, Mr. Holmes. Whatever our experiences may suggest, I like to think that the world is basically a good place. There's still tolerance and warmth and humanity out there. Don't you believe that?

A long moment.

Cut to:

SCENE 65. INT. THE SITTING ROOM, 221b BAKER STREET.

WATSON: I'd very much like to meet that man.

HOLMES: I'm afraid that's not possible. He died, early last year.

WATSON: Oh. I'm... sorry.

A moment. Holmes doesn't like acknowledging an emotional bond to anyone. But eventually:

HOLMES: Thank you.

A moment. Watson deliberately breaks it.

WATSON: Why didn't the doctor recognise the symptoms in the other children?

HOLMES: I dare say I was lot more familiar with the signs of poisoning than he was. Besides, he had no reason to look for them. He saw clean sheets and good care and was grateful for it.

A moment.

WATSON: So - that was your story about love.

HOLMES: It was. Guttridge loved his wife, murderer or no. He loved her so much that he was willing to take her guilt on himself - and to kill to protect her. And she loved the children - and so she murdered them. Do you still insist that love is a positive force for good?

WATSON: Yes, of course I do. You can't argue from the particular to the general like that. It's... it's thinking in straight lines.

HOLMES:
Touché
, Doctor. A palpable hit.

A moment.
The fire crackles.

WATSON: What a sordid business. Poor Jenny Snell.

HOLMES: The wrong place at the wrong time - she must have walked in on Guttridge at the very moment he discovered the arsenic.

WATSON: How can a young girl's life hang on such a slender thread?

HOLMES: How, indeed?

Wearily, he gets up.

(
Moving off
) (
An exhausted sigh
)

Distant, echoing, not in the scene, a solo violin plays the
Tristan
theme.

Holmes has moved to the window. He pulls aside the curtain and looks out into the darkness. A long moment.

Was Smith right, do you think? Is the world basically a good place?

WATSON: I believe so. Don't you?

HOLMES: I wish I could, my friend. I wish I could. (
A long moment
) I think the rain's stopped. (
He peers out
) Yes, it has.

A moment. The fire crackles.

Perhaps a not-too-obtrusive hansom cab clops by outside.

The music becomes the closing sig
.

Closing announcements.

The music ends.

The End.

A Study in Abstruse Detail

by Wendy C. Fries

“Good heavens, Watson, out with it already!”

It is a mark of my state of mind that at first I didn't hear my friend Sherlock Holmes, instead interpreting those words as my own frustrated thoughts.

It wasn't until a lean shadow cast itself over my work, and I looked up to see his scowling face looking down, that I realised he'd spoken.

I glanced at the papers in my lap, most with but a few notes, then scowled back at my companion. The January evening was cold, the fire burnt low, and I - too aware of Holmes's opinion on my record of his exploits - was in no mood to be chivvied again for my devotion to these “fairytales.”

“I'm out of sorts and mumbling to myself. It's nothing.”

Holmes collapsed into the chair across from me, peered over his steepled fingers. “My dear fellow, you've tapped out and recharged your unlighted pipe twice in thirty minutes, hoisted an empty brandy glass three times, and, most tellingly, taken four deep breaths and held them for long seconds at a time.”

Already discontent, I took nothing of my usual delight in Holmes's attentions, so I'm afraid my reply was snappish. “And what of it? The surgery was dull, I don't much care for my new tobacco, and all this snow has given me a chill.”

Holmes patted his chair and then himself, eventually unearthing a packet of shag, which he tossed to me. “You're writing, Watson,” he accused. “Or rather, those are your tells when you're
not.
”

Despite what my friend might say, I do see
and
observe, so I've both seen Holmes pick up my accounts of his adventures, and observed his frown as he scans the prose. I tossed the shag back to him and was about to make a bad thing worse, arguing for the sheer distraction of it, when Holmes stood again.

He moved with the quick and economic stride he so frequently uses to cover a crime scene, but that energy was this time expended in refilling our glasses with brandy. He glanced at my papers as he handed me mine. “Those are your notes for the Smith-Mortimer succession. What will you call this escapade?”

I recognised his solicitous tone. It was the same one he uses to relax over-excited clients, and I was resentful in the face of it. “That's just it! It wasn't an escapade at all, you barely rose from your chair or finished that terrible brew Scotland Yard has the nerve to call coffee!”

As I ranted, Holmes wandered to our dining table, peering at an experiment that looked to me like an effort to grow dirt.

“True enough, it was a very simple matter, even more so than that business with the Harpsichord Widow - really, who wouldn't have noticed the woman had no stoop? I expected more from Inspector Gregson. I don't know why I'm forever surprised by the incompetence of London's detective class.” Holmes poked at the loamy black culture with his finger, then jerked it away at the sound of a faint hiss. With a pencil he pushed the vicious flora into the bin. “Present company excepted.”

I recognised
this
solicitous tone, as well. It was the same one my companion uses when he's bored and wants distraction. I was about to take him to task for this obvious manipulation when I realised the bin was on fire.

“Holmes, the bin is on fire.”

Before my companion could answer, I rose and upended my half cup of cold tea over the small blaze; a puff of smoke followed. I watched the grey cloud drift and felt sure I was about to channel its darkness, taking Holmes to task for his carelessness, when instead we both broke into gales of laughter.

Minutes later we were in repose again, me with my papers, Holmes slumped like a discontented idler in his chair. When possessed by his nearly-frantic energy, Sherlock Holmes's limbs are a whirlwind and it is all I can do to stay at his heels. When the torpor is on him, I have more than once given in to the impulse to see if he is breathing. By his splay-legged slouch, I knew an east wind of such discontent was coming, so decided my trifling problems could provide us both suitable distraction.

“If you've nothing pressing, I'll tell you what I have so far.”

I gestured to Holmes for his tobacco pouch, which he dutifully sailed my way. “I seem to have accidentally murdered my black mould, and it'll be a few hours yet before the Mayflies hatch, so my schedule is yours. Share with me your fairytale, dear Watson, and I'll do my best to supply it with a few cold, hard facts.”

Holmes hoisted his glass and I read aloud my evening's endeavours.

“
‘Ah ha!' cried Holmes.
”

I relit my pipe and waited.

Holmes gestured for the tobacco, which I tossed back to him. He smiled sly as he refreshed his briar. “Well done, you've pared back from your usual florid embellishments.”

Rejecting the bait, I continued. “The problem as I see it, is that the case itself was solved so quickly that there's really nothing to it, yet I've been often asked about your involvement in this one, due to the famous lady involved.”

Holmes waved his spent match, tossed it into the fire. “The morbid curiosity of gossips who feel ever justified in hounding the exceptional.”

I won't go into whether Holmes's bitterness came from knowing this truth, for indeed the ordinary often think they have “a right to know” about the lives of the extraordinary - and Miss Mortimer was certainly that - or if his rancour was more personal.

“If you'd rather I not share these curious cases and how they highlight your talents, I promise you I'll cease this instant.” I rose with my papers and stepped to the fire.

I have mentioned that Sherlock Holmes is sensitive to flattery, and he himself admits how much he enjoys the attention when a case affords the occasional dramatic moment, so I wasn't surprised when he waved his hand in the air.

“Oh, sit back down and stop encouraging my vanity. I understand why you share some of our adventures, adventures which might show the ease with which even the complex can be understood, but why this particular case? If I recall, we were at that same time sorting out the much more interesting problem of the Hammersmith Wonder.”

While Holmes aimed blue smoke ceiling-ward I again took my chair. “Yes, but Mr. Vigor was neither rich, famous, nor a legendary beauty. Miss Mortimer was all three and was followed by many behind-the-hand whispers in her day. Your readers - “

“Your
readers,” Holmes corrected airily.

“My readers of
your
adventures have more than once taken me to task for mentioning but not detailing some of your more abstruse cases. And the many I don't mention at all are themselves mentioned by the press. For
their
absence I'm also lectured.”

“An ungrateful public is a terrible thing,” said Holmes, grinning.

“Laugh, but you can't deny it, if left to your own devices these two words-” I waved the small sheaf
,
“-would be the only colour in your report of Miss Mortimer's case. Yet what you call my florid embellishments are often nothing more than your method made clear.”

Holmes swirled a long finger through a lazy cloud of smoke. I noted that his inflammatory mould had left a chemical burn and rose to fetch my bag.

“Then forget the Smith-Mortimer problem. That was the matter of noticing one or two abstruse details, as you say. How about ‘The Affair of the Shooting Star'
or ‘The Conk-Singleton Forgery'?” he asked when I returned to treat his blistered finger.

“You know perfectly well that publishing anything of the first would lose a Lord his parliamentary seat, and an account of the second would take even less time to tell than Miss Mortimer's story. You solved that when Mr. Singleton said his watch had stopped at thirteen hundred and not at one pm. You're being no help.”

Holmes conceded every fact with an insouciant shrug. “There's that matter of the Venomous Lizard. A fascinating array of chemicals in lizard venom,” he said, inspecting his neatly-dressed wound.

“Really now! A murderously toxic creature that turned out instead to be perfectly harmless, unmasked in seconds when you tickled it with a feather.”

Holmes chuckled, as if he himself had been poked with a bit of plumage. “I knew a herpetologist in Soho and once did a rather unsystematic study of her menagerie, which consisted of fifty-seven distinct species, including both the highly-toxic Gila monster and the beaded lizard. Each creature has a forked tongue, so it was but a matter to tickle the accused in this particular case and get it to stick out its blue, bulbous one at us.”

Holmes sighed dramatically, as if unfairly put upon. “Oh, you're right as always, Watson. Sit down again and we'll craft things so that the Smith-Mortimer Succession offers a moment of distraction to your readership. Now refresh my mind on the case, would you? This January blizzard's wiped away its particulars completely.”

Whether Holmes was truthful in his forgetfulness, “my” readers no doubt remember the extensive press given this case at the time, involving as it did a distinguished family and the right of succession to their family fortune.

The last of the Smith-Mortimer line, Miss Mariam Penelope Caroline Mortimer, was once a familiar name to every reader of
The London Leader
and the
Illustrated Courier,
both of which followed the young lady's world-travelling exploits, frequently spangling their pages with her elegant, cool-eyed image. That is, until Miss Mortimer disappeared from the City's social whirl under mysterious circumstance.

The lady's departure from the public eye of course aroused speculation and suspicion, from a love affair gone wrong, to behaviours too shameful to gossip about in polite company.

And then the poor woman was found dead in her large and lonely home, sitting in her favourite wingback chair, dressed for dinner and clutching new pearls. At first, foul play was suspected and once again Miss Mortimer was in every paper. It was soon discovered that criminal trespass had not cut the young lady's life short at thirty-two, but a sadly weak heart, legacy of the Smith side of her clan.

Soon after, it was discovered that this last scion of a proud family had no family after her and, despite an extensive search for cousins, nephews or nieces, none were found. Aunts and uncles, parents of parents, all had long since passed. Hope of a successor was thought lost, and within a month a new beauty captured public attention.

Then, not quite two years after, Dr. Lealand Bentham, the Smith-Mortimer's old family physician, sat nursing a gin at Simpson's long bar and let slip a very interesting fact to a very interested man.

The fact given away was this: Young Miss Mariam had been deaf upon her passing. Her hearing loss had begun soon after her thirtieth birthday, the garrulous physician told the obliging man buying his expensive drinks, and it was this early-onset deafness - a legacy of the Mortimer side of her line - that had lead the young lady to withdraw from society.

That was when the interested man, he called himself Stephen Smith Larkyns, devised a plan: He would pose as a lost member of the Smith-Mortimer clan. He knew he bore a striking resemblance to Miss Mariam herself, a fact that acquaintances had more than once remarked upon. As a matter of fact, over years of reading newspaper accounts of the family, and once exchanging a word with its matriarch, Larkyns had become more than half-convinced he must be related, and so was justified in succeeding Miss Mortimer to the family's fortune.

“Nothing gives a lie the varnish of truth quite like self-delusion, eh Watson? I remember the case now. Larkyns did indeed bear a striking resemblance to young Miss Mortimer, yet of course that wouldn't have been proof enough. He couldn't very well manifest the bad heart of the Smiths, but at all of twenty-six he did seem to suffer the early deafness of the Mortimers.”

“The executors of the estate suspected he was lying, as did Gregson,” I said. “They wanted only for a bit of proof, which you provided in seconds.”

Holmes's small smile belied his words. “You give me too much credit, as usual. It was Inspector Lestrade who solved this particular case.”

“I'm sure he'd be surprised to hear you say so.”

“It's true. You may have noticed the good inspector is quite tone deaf, and yet often amuses himself by humming, whistling, and turning perfectly serene environments into music halls.”

“He's even more bombastic when he thinks he has one up on Gregson!”

“Just so. Which explains why the inspector was lurking that day, whistling away. He was sure Gregson was about to blunder and wanted to be near when he did. Of course it was Mr. Larkyns, alias Stephan Plum, Hampton Bishop piano teacher, who did the blundering.”

Holmes tapped out his pipe, placed it on the table beside him, then brushed stray ash from his dressing gown. After his housekeeping, he looked briefly thoughtful, then slumped in his chair, eyes closed, fingers laced over his heart, looking for all the world like a man settling down for a doze.

I checked my watch. It was only a bit past eight. As I've said, the winter night was cold and neither Holmes's mood nor mine were at their highest. Yet, we'd lived long enough together to learn how to cope with one another's fuss and foibles, so I knew that, with little more to do than wait for his Mayflies, Holmes craved distraction as much as I craved a good tale to tell.

I waved my papers until the rattling opened my friend's eyes. “I was there, I've written down the climax of that blunder perfectly. ‘
Ah ha!
' You unmasked the man easily, but I'm still not sure how.”

Holmes pretended for a moment longer that he preferred a catnap to clarification, then he straightened slightly in his chair.

“It was the E-flat, Watson! You remember that Mr. Larkyns insisted that, though deaf, he could read lips well. You saw after our initial written introductions that we spoke face-to-face? As it will, this put us in fairly close proximity. While he busily insisted on his veracity, Inspector Lestrade lurked in the background, repeatedly hitting an F-sharp in the popular ditty he was whistling, instead of the E-flat for which he should have been aiming. Each time he did this and only when he did this, Mr. Plum's right ear shifted a fraction. It was after observing this that I realised how to prove our man could indeed hear. I quickly arranged what I needed, and then knew I need only depend on human reflex.”