PINNACLE BOOKS NEW YORK (6 page)

"Just
as well," was the detective's comment.

"I
thought you gentlemen would accompany me
to
Ledbetter's farm. He is a tough old coot and I may need assistance in
placing him under arrest."

I
was dazed. "But he has an alibi."

Holmes
explained the situation to Bennett. "Con
stable
Farquhar of Marley assured me that Horace
Ledbetter
was under lock and key in the Marley jail
the
entire night of the murder of Trelawney."

Now
it was the constable's turn to look dazed.
"Farquhar,
eh? A good man. Bit of a local
celebrity
since he is our best dancer in these parts. Considered the master of
the English Quick Step."

"Well,
he has quick-stepped our only suspect
right
out of the picture."

"Not
necessarily, my dear Watson."

"Half
a moment, Holmes. Young Charles is inno
cent,
being a left-handed man and incapable of delivering the death blow to
his stepfather in the manner in which it was done. Staley has been
murdered himself, and Horace Ledbetter has an
ironclad
alibi. Surely you cannot make anything
sensible
out of this hopeless tangle? Unless another
suspect
appears in a
deus ex machina
manner,
we
are at a hopeless dead end."

Holmes'
eyes had narrowed thoughtfully. "The
only
way of arriving at what can be true is the
careful
elimination of what cannot be true. And
there
is a glimmer of light relative to this complex
affair.
Our solution lies in following your thought,
Bennett,
and departing immediately for the Led
better
farm."

Using
the four-wheeler that Holmes had secured for his trip to Marley, we
were soon heading down a
country road
with Holmes at the reins. He set the
horse
at a good pace and it was not long before we
pulled
up in front of the substantial farmhouse that
was
our destination. We were met at the door by
Agnes
Bisbee, a comely girl with the creamlike complexion native to the
locale. Her eyes were red
from weeping.

"Agnes,
we wish a word with your uncle," stated
Bennett.

"He
is in the barn," said the girl. "Though I don't
know
in what condition. The past few days have
been
a nightmare. He was gone all of one night and
he's
been drinking steadily and is up at all sorts of
hours."

The
recounting of recent events proved too much
and
she began to sob.
"Now, now,"
said Holmes with as close to a
fatherly
tone as he could come. "Things may not be
quite
as bad as they seem. Charles Trelawney will
shortly
be released from custody and his name
cleared
of any complicity in the heinous murder of
his
stepfather."

The
girl's tears ceased at this news and Holmes
indicated
the barn.
"Now, if you will excuse
us, I believe we can
arrive at the end
of this most regrettable chain of
events,"
he said.

Holmes
and I followed Bennett, who marched
purposefully
to the barn but found the door locked.
He
knocked authoritatively.
"Lea' me
in peace," said a slurred voice from within.

"It
is Bennett, Ledbetter. Open this door in the
name
of the law."

There
was a silence for half a minute and then
the
sound of a bar being removed. Half of the large
barn
door slid open, revealing a gnarled man of six
feet
in height with a weather-beaten face topped by
a
shock of white hair. He was dressed in work clothes. His callused
hands and wide frame be
spoke of
strength and that durable power produced
by
hard manual labor.

I'm
glad there are three of us
, I
thought.
He looks
as
if he could be a bit of a handful.

The
farmer indicated with a vague gesture for us
to
enter and turned inside and made his way to an anvil on which rested
a depleted bottle and a tin
tankard. He
poured himself a considerable amount
of
whiskey and downed it in a gulp.

"'Tis
about Staley that I'm here," said Constable
Bennett.

"Aye!
I've been expectin' ya."

The
farmer's eyes were bleary and his speech
thick,
but his brain appeared to be working. I
surmised
he had drunk himself sober, a physical
peculiarity
that has been known to happen.

"I'll
no beat the bushes abaht it. 'Twas yesterday of an evening hour. I
came out here in search of
some bottles
that I had hid away from Agnes' eyes. When I opened the door, there
was Staley, curse his
black heart! He
was by the stalls with a club in his
hand.
I'd surprised him all right and he rushed at
me.
'Twas all so fast. I grabbed this here fence rail what I had been
workin' on." The farmer indicated
a
stout piece of oak on the floor of the barn. "Wi' it,
I
blocked his first blow and swung. 'Twas a lucky
hit
or I would not be talkin' to ya now. Caught him
full
on the forehead, I did, and he was dead afore he
hit
the ground. What went through my poor addled
pate
then I canna tell ya. Somehow I were plagued with the idea of gettin'
his carcass out of here, so I
saddled my
mare. She was skitterish, I tell ya, for she smelled Staley's blood,
but I got him hoisted
over her withers
and into the saddle meself. Then I
rode
into Shaw and put the body in his house. I had
the
idea that if his corpse be found in Shaw, I would
not
be involved, but 'twon't work. I been livin' wi'
the
deed and that fierce moment for these hours
past
and it will nay do. I killed him."

With
a groan, Ledbetter sank onto a bale of hay
and
buried his face in his hands.

"There
seems to be ample grounds for a plea of
self-defense,"
stated Holmes. "You said Staley had
a
club. Is it still here?"

Ledbetter
just gestured toward a wall of the
barn.
Holmes crossed to the indicated spot and
secured
a stave of seasoned wood, which
he studied care
fully.
"This,
gentlemen," he continued, "will prove
to
be the murder weapon which did away with
Ezariah
Trelawney. The series of events seems
clear.
Impelled by blind rage, Vincent Staley stole
into
the Trelawney house and murdered his enemy.
He
felt that suspicion would fall on Ledbetter here,
as
well as himself, but when the authorities moved
against
young Charles, his plans went awry. Therefore, he left the
anonymous message at your door,
Bennett,
where he knew you would find it, and then
came
out here with the murder weapon. He was in
the
process of concealing the weapon in Ledbetter's
barn
where it could be found without too much difficulty. However, being
surprised in the act, he
sprang upon
Ledbetter with intent to kill."

Holmes
turned his attention to the farmer.
"The
fact that you have made a clean breast of
the
matter will carry considerable weight in court, my good man. While
you do have the death of
another human
being to weigh on your conscience,
the
fact remains that Vincent Staley could have
faced
the same fate from the law, though by
different
means."

Chapter
4

The
Matter
of the Missing Gold

ON
OUR RETURN trip from bucolic Shaw, Holmes
was
in excellent spirits, standard at the satisfactory
conclusion
of a minor case, and especially true if
the
solution was a rapid one. When a matter
dragged
on, my friend felt it a slur on his reputa
tion
and indulged in self-castigation for not having
solved
the puzzle sooner. As I have noted on more
than
one occasion, the life of a perfectionist is
seldom
tranquil. The matter of Ezariah Trelawney
and
the blood feud that had festered for so long in Herefordshire was
patterned to his liking. A clear
set of
facts, an appearance on the scene followed by
a
rapid and satisfactory solution.

I
was not prompted to share Holmes' carefree attitude, since the
Trelawney affair ranked in my
mind as
the third in a row in which financial remu
neration
had not played a part. Not that our life or the machine that my
friend had painstakingly constructed would be sore pressed. Holmes
could
secure an assignment—and at
a dazzling fee—in a
trice, but
such was not his way. He relished the
complete
freedom to pick and choose among the
problems
that invariably beat a path to his door. Still, his expenses were
enormous. In addition to
our quarters,
presided over by the ever-patient Mrs.
Hudson,
there were at least four other domiciles he
maintained
around London, as a convenience in
assuming
various identities he had established.
Five,
if the house next door was included, since he
owned
it—and a most rewarding investment it had
proven
in one instance in particular. Then there
was
the staff at 221 B Baker Street as well as
various
specialists, mainly from the shadowland of
the
lawless, that he kept on retainers. If that were not enough, my
intimate friend was known as an
easy
mark for some wayward soul attempting to
rejoin
the honest segment of society. Though his
generosity
in this respect was sharp-toothed. Woe
be
it to the former transgressor if he chose to revert
to
his previous way of life, for the specter of Holmes
would
be upon him like a mastiff on a hare.

It
crossed my mind that I might curtail my
wagers
on equines that I fancied and make some
moves
toward reactivating my dwindling medical practice. The patients that
still clung to me were a loyal group, but their ranks had been
depleted. It occurred to me that I could well appeal to a more
youthful group. Though my friend was
most fre
quently pictured in the
deerstalker and Inverness that he wore on our Shaw excursion, he was
really a bit of a dandy. With his thin, whipcord frame enhanced by a
tail coat and topper, we could have made something of a dashing pair
had I possessed
the strength of
character to minimize my consump
tion
of Mrs. Hudson's excellent fare or withstand
the
blandishments of the menus at Simpsons or the
Café
Royale. Along with thoughts of a stringent diet, I was entertaining
the distasteful idea of
abandoning my
occasional billiard playing at
Thurston's
when we arrived at our chambers and I
learned
that my thoughts regarding frugality were
not
necessary after all.

Holmes
had dispatched a cable from Shaw alert
ing
Mrs. Hudson to our time of arrival, as was his
custom.
This thoughtfulness proved of value. As we
alighted
from our hansom, Billy was, again, await
ing
our arrival. Taking our valises, the page boy informed us that a
visitor was, even now, in our
chambers.
Billy had developed an instinct for such
things
and brushed off our topcoats before we
ascended
the seventeen steps to our first-floor sitting room.