Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (14 page)

“If he’s been burgled tonight, I’m a Dutchman,” volunteered Lewis.

But Lewis was no Dutchman, Morse knew that. “You get off home, Lewis. I’ll walk from here.”

“You sure, sir? It must be all of three hundred yards.”

“Less of the sarcasm, Sergeant!”

“Night, sir.”

* * *

Morse had put out his two Co-op semi-skimmed milk tokens, and was pouring himself a touch of the malt—when he suddenly knew that something was terribly wrong. Why hadn’t he spotted the short note on the kitchen table immediately?

That was all.

Morse bounded up the stairs, where on the landing he surveyed the empty square of unhoovered carpet upon which, until so very recently, had stood the one
objet d’art
that had been passed down from one generation of the Morse clan to the next—the family heirloom—the nest of tables—Chippendale—1756.

It was Sergeant Dixon on night duty. “Thank goodness you’ve rung, sir. We’ve been trying to get you but your phone’s not been answering—”

“I’ve been
out
, man! You don’t
mind
, do you?”

“Course not. It’s just that you’ve had burglars, I’m afraid—”

“That’s exactly what I’m ringing to tell you!”

“No need to worry though, sir. They didn’t pinch anything. We’ve caught ’em—the pair of ’em.”

“You’ve done
what
?”

“You see this fellow rang us and said there was somebody in your flat, but when our boys got there they’d scarpered. This fellow’d got the number though—white Self Hire van—and we stopped it out on the A40 near
Wheatley. Just a few old tables in the back—don’t think they could’ve taken anything of yours, sir. They must have got wind of us somehow, I reckon.”

“Who
was
this fellow?”

“A Dr. Ullman, sir—lives quite near you, so he said.”

Morse was shaking his head yet again as he put down the phone. Everything—almost everything—was becoming clear at long last. The same thought must have struck the two of them, both himself and Ullman, in the King’s Arms that lunchtime; the same strange thought that far from being a gesture of courtesy and gratitude, the letter and the opera ticket were merely the appropriate stages in a subtle strategy of deception.

Yes!

And Morse’s thinking had gone one step further.

And Ullman’s thinking had gone
two
steps further.

Morse locked his front door very carefully behind him and walked out into the night.

“A wee drop of the malt, Chief Inspector?”

“Excellent!”

“I was hardly expecting you
tonight.”

“Did you ever think of joining the police force, Doctor?”

“I’m not tall enough.”

“You were always a move or so ahead of me!”

“Ah! But to be honest with you I
did
have one little advantage over you. I’ve got a pair of wrens nesting in the front garden, you see, and I was watching them through the field-glasses recently when I noticed a woman, at the bus stop just outside; and I could see that
she
was watching something, too—watching the house,
the drive, the garage … Then two days later I saw her again, and I looked at her
very
closely through the field-glasses and I could see she was copying something down in a red notebook, writing with her left hand—and I noticed that she had a white scar on the nail of her middle finger, as if she’d trapped it in a door. And then I saw her
again
, didn’t I …?”

Ullman smiled, and as he did so his features momentarily took on an almost sinister appearance.

“And you felt pretty certain that it was
me
who was going to get burgled tonight,” said Morse slowly.

“It seemed logical, yes. After all, if you were watching
my
property, you couldn’t be watching your own as well, now could you?”

“You took a huge risk though.”

“You think so?” The little man appeared puzzled.

“Well, if they burgled
you
, while you were round at my place watching
me …”

“Oh no. I’ve finished taking risks, you see. The private detective I hired to keep a look-out here was the very best in the business, so they told me: black belt at judo, Lord knows what else.”

“He must have been pretty good—we certainly didn’t spot him.”

“Her
, Chief Inspector. She said she’d probably do her ‘free-newspaper-delivery’ routine—”

“Bloody ’ell!” mumbled Morse to himself.

“—and I told her she could pack it in for the night just after I’d rung the police—just before I got back here—about nine o’clock.”

“Ten past nine, to be accurate—that’s when we spotted you.”

“Er”—Ullman coughed modestly and drained his
malt—“if we’re to be accurate, Chief Inspector, shouldn’t it be when
we
spotted
you
?”

For the last time that day Morse shook his head. Then draining his own glass and making his farewell, slowly he walked the three hundred yards back home.

Long as had been my acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes, I had seldom heard him refer to his early life; and the only knowledge I ever gleaned of his family history sprang from the rare visits of his famous brother, Mycroft. On such occasions, our visitor invariably addressed me with courtesy, but also (let me be honest!) with some little condescension. He was—this much I knew—by some seven years the senior in age to my great friend, and was a founder member of the Diogenes Club, that peculiar institution whose members are ever forbidden to converse with one another. Physically, Mycroft was stouter than his brother (I put the matter in as kindly a manner as possible); but the single most striking feature about him was the piercing intelligence of his eyes—greyish eyes which appeared to see beyond the range of normal mortals. Holmes himself had commented upon this last point: “My dear Watson, you have recorded—and
I am flattered by it—something of my own powers of observation and deduction. Know, however, that Mycroft has a degree of observation somewhat the equal of my own; and as for deduction, he has a brain that is unrivalled—
virtually
unrivalled—in the northern hemisphere. You may be relieved, however, to learn that he is a trifle lazy, and quite decidedly somnolent—and that his executant ability on the violin is immeasurably inferior to my own.”

(Was there, I occasionally wondered, just the hint of competitive envy between those two unprecedented intellects?)

I had just called at 221B Baker Street on a fog-laden November afternoon in 188–, after taking part in some research at St. Thomas’s Hospital into suppurative tonsilitis (I had earlier acquainted Holmes with the particulars). Mycroft was staying with Holmes for a few days, and as I entered that well-known sitting room I caught the tail-end of the brothers’ conversation.

“Possibly, Sherlock—possibly. But it is the
detail
, is it not? Give me all the evidence and it is just possible that I could match your own analyses from my corner armchair. But to be required to rush hither and thither, to find and examine witnesses, to lie along the carpet with a lens held firmly to my failing sight … No! It is not my
métier.”

During this time Holmes himself had been standing before the window, gazing down into the neutral-tinted London street. And looking over his shoulder I could see that on the pavement opposite there stood an attractive young woman draped in a heavy fur coat. She had clearly just arrived, and every few seconds was looking up to Holmes’s window in hesitant fashion, her fingers fidgeting
with the buttons of her gloves. On a sudden she crossed the street, and Mrs. Hudson was soon ushering in our latest client.

After handing her coat to Holmes, the young lady sat nervously on the edge of the nearest armchair, and announced herself as Miss Charlotte van Allen. Mycroft nodded briefly at the newcomer, before reverting to a monograph on polyphonic plainchant; whilst Holmes himself made observation of the lady in that abstracted yet intense manner which was wholly peculiar to him.

“Do you not find,” began Holmes, “that with your short sight it is a little difficult to engage in so much type-writing?”

Surprise, apprehension, appreciation, showed by turns upon her face, succeeded in all by a winsome smile as she appeared to acknowledge Holmes’s quite extraordinary powers.

“Perhaps you will also tell me,” continued he, “why it is that you came from home in such a great hurry?”

For a few seconds, Miss van Allen sat shaking her head with incredulity; then, as Holmes sat staring towards the ceiling, she began her remarkable narrative.

“Yes, I did bang out of the house, because it made me very angry to see the way my father, Mr. Wyndham, took the whole business—refusing even to countenance the idea of going to the police, and quite certainly ruling out any recourse to yourself, Mr. Holmes! He just kept repeating—and I
do
see his point—that no real harm has been done … although he can have no idea of the misery I have had to endure.”

“Your father?” queried Holmes quietly. “Perhaps you refer to your step-father, since the names are different?”

“Yes,” she confessed, “my step-father. I don’t know
why I keep referring to him as ‘father’—especially since he is but five years older than myself.”

“Your mother—she is still living?”

“Oh, yes! Though I will not pretend I was over-pleased when she remarried so soon after my father’s death—and then to a man almost seventeen years younger than herself. Father—my real father, that is—had a plumbing business in the Tottenham Court Road, and Mother carried on the company after he died, until she married Mr. Wyndham. I think he considered such things a little beneath his new wife, especially with his being in a rather superior position as a traveller in French wines. Whatever the case, though, he made Mother sell out.”

“Did you yourself derive any income from the sale of your father’s business?”

“No. But I do have £100 annual income in my own right; as well as the extra I make from my typing. If I may say so, Mr. Holmes, you might be surprised how many of the local businesses—including Cook and Marchant—ask me to work for them a few hours each week. You see” (she looked at us with a shy, endearing diffidence) “I’m quite good at
that
in life, if nothing else.”

“You must then have some profitable government stock—?” began Holmes.

She smiled again. “New Zealand, at four and a half per cent.”

“Please forgive me, Miss van Allen, but could not a single lady get by very nicely these days on—let us say, fifty pounds per annum?”

“Oh, certainly! And I myself live comfortably on but ten shillings per week, which is only half of that amount. You see, I never touch a single penny of my inheritance. Since I live at home, I cannot bear the thought of being a
burden to my parents, and we have reached an arrangement whereby Mr. Wyndham himself is empowered to draw my interest each quarter for as long as I remain in that household.”

Holmes nodded. “Why have you come to see me?” he asked bluntly.

A flush stole over Miss van Allen’s face and she plucked nervously at a small handkerchief drawn from her bag as she stated her errand with earnest simplicity. “I would give everything I have to know what has become of Mr. Horatio Darvill. There! Now you have it.”

“Please, could you perhaps begin at the beginning?” encouraged Holmes gently.

“Whilst my father was alive, sir, we always received tickets for the gas-fitters’ ball. And after he died, the tickets were sent to my mother. But neither Mother nor I ever thought of going, because it was made plain to us that Mr. Wyndham did not approve. He believed that the class of folk invited to such gatherings was inferior; and furthermore he asserted that neither of us—without considerable extra expenditure—had anything fit to wear. But believe me, Mr. Holmes, I myself had the purple plush that I had never so much as taken from the drawer!”

It was after a decent interval that Holmes observed quietly: “But you
did
go to the ball?”

“Yes. In the finish, we both went—Mother and I—when my step-father had been called away to France.”

“And it was there that you met Mr. Horatio Darvill?”

“Yes! And—do you know?—he called the very next morning. And several times after that, whilst my stepfather was in France, we walked out together.”

“Mr. Wyndham must have been annoyed once he learned what had occurred?”

Miss van Allen hung her pretty head. “Most annoyed, I’m afraid, for it became immediately clear that he did not approve of Mr. Darvill.”

“Why do you think that was so?”

“I am fairly sure he thought Mr. Darvill was interested only in my inheritance.”

“Did Mr. Darvill not attempt to keep seeing you—in spite of these difficulties?”