The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (70 page)

Without ceremony we burst into the room. Before I could take in any of the detail, something bright yellow and in movement caught my eye. Flying around the room, briefly perching here and there and singing its heart out, was a small yellow canary.

Seeing that there was no immediate possibility of catching the little fellow, I turned my attention to Holmes. He was bending over the figure of a man slumped in a club armchair next to the open fireplace. His face as he rose told me the entire story.

“We are too late, Watson. I blame myself for this.”

I went over and examined the corpse. As Holmes had indicated, there was no sign of a pulse. Sir Giles's face was flushed and the pupils dilated. At a guess, I would say that he had been dead no more than a few minutes.

“Heart attack, I would imagine,” I offered, “probably brought on by his asthma.”

“That, I am sure, is precisely what the murderer would like us to think, Watson. In fact, I venture to suggest that an autopsy would reveal nothing other than that. Technically, yes, he died because his heart stopped beating. The question is—what stopped it?”

By this time he was on his hands and knees by the grate in that trufflehound position I knew so well. He was busily sifting through the still warm ashes.

“Murder? How can this be murder? No one entered or left the room or we would have seen them. And as you can see, the room is sealed as tight as a drum.”

“Exactly so, my dear fellow, and that is precisely what the murderer was counting on. Ah, Miss Lucas. I'm afraid we have failed you signally in your hour of need. You have my humblest apologies….” Mary Lucas stood in the doorway. Behind her was a dark, rather plain young woman, presumably Emily Sommersby, whose eyes never left the housekeeper for an instant.

“I grossly underestimated the urgency of the situation. I confess I did not take your concerns seriously enough—or rather, I failed to appreciate the sense of urgency motivating the other party…or parties.”

There was a pause before the significance of Holmes's words sank in and then Mary was clutching the frame of the door to prevent herself from falling. I went across and with Miss Sommersby's assistance helped her to a chair. I thought I saw the other woman flinch at Holmes's final words.

“Tell me it was a quick death, Mr. Holmes, and that he felt no pain. He was fond of joking that, as an old soldier, he didn't expect to die but only to fade away—preferably in his favourite chair with a glass of something by his side. At
least he had that. But, oh!” And then she gave way to her grief.

As she spoke, Holmes continued to prowl around the periphery of the room. When he came to the large double French windows, he paused and ran his fingers around the frame.

“Come and take a look at this, old fellow.”

As I joined him, I could see that attached to the original wooden frame was an additional construction of wood and metal which appeared to act as an extra seal.

“Oh, Mr. Holmes,” a tearful Mary Lucas said, clearly relieved to have something to distract her, “that was Robert's idea. Giles had been complaining about the ‘infernal draft,' as he put it, and Robert said ‘Don't you worry about that. I'll take care of everything.' And he did the job himself only a day or two ago. I don't think a professional could have made a better job of it.”

As she spoke, a glint of metal caught my eye. Some small object had fallen to the floor and been hidden by the heavy curtains Holmes had disarranged in his inspection. I bent down and retrieved it.

“Good heavens, Holmes,” I heard myself exclaim, “I haven't seen one of these since my Army days.”

In the palm of my hand lay a small multipurpose spannerlike tool that had seen a good deal of wear. Partly worn away was an engraving which I tried to decipher.

“The property of Her Majesty's Royal Engineers, I think you'll find, Watson.” Holmes spoke so that only I could hear. “I believe we have found the previous occupation of the would-be Young Master.”

“Of course, that would account for the ‘ranking officer' talk. Old habits die hard. Why, I know myself…”

“And does it not strike you as odd that at a moment like this the young man who is so very caring of his elders is noticeable by his absence?”

“You're right, Holmes. Why don't I go and…?”

At that moment a sudden flash of yellow distracted us once more.

The canary, which had been perched on a high bookshelf and eyeing our doings beadily, now swooped down and landed on Miss Sommersby's shoulder. She reached up and patted it in an abstracted fashion.

Holmes continued as though nothing had occurred. “Yes, indeed, Miss Lucas—leaving a totally sealed environment. Would you be kind enough to come over here to the fireplace, please? Watson, perhaps you will assist her?” With obvious nervousness she did so. “Do you notice any unusual smell?”

She wrinkled her nose and frowned. “Well, now that you mention it, I do—just as I have for the last couple of days. A sort of sweet, sickly smell. I must have a word with our coal merchant.”

“I don't think that will be necessary,” Holmes said gently. “The source comes from somewhere a good deal south of Sussex. Now, since I presume you are the one to lay and clear the fire, what do you make of this?” And he opened a hand to reveal the results of his researches in the grate. On his palm was a small pile of what looked like grit.

She looked at it for a moment, then took a pinch of it between her finger and thumb.

“That's strange. I noticed the same stuff yesterday morning and that was the first time I'd seen it. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it looked like—bird seed. But how ever did a bird get in here?”

“Just what we are about to ascertain.” Holmes carefully placed the pile of dust in an ashtray on a side table.

“You will, of course, have observed, Watson, that Sir Giles's chair is firmly bolted to the floor next to the fireplace. He would have been unable to change his position, had he wished to do so. Our indefatigable engineer at work again, I fancy. Miss Lucas, who occupies the room immediately above this one?”

“No one at present. As I told you, much of the house is unoccupied. But, Mr. Holmes, what do you think happened?”

“The foulest of foul play, dear lady. The locus invariably speaks for itself and this one shrieks its own story. Had I been here to listen
to it twenty-four hours earlier, I could have prevented this tragic dénouement. As it is, the events of last night are emerging with great clarity and only a few pieces remain to be put into place. But, as Watson knows, I refuse to hypothesize until I have all those pieces in my possession. Ladies, shall we?”

Not surprisingly, the upstairs room was considerably smaller than the library, but the configuration was clearly similar. Dominating one side of it was the brick extension of the chimney. Immediately opposite were a set of mullioned windows. The room itself was entirely bare of furniture and it was apparent that it did not normally benefit from Miss Lucas's domestic attentions, for there was a distinct layer of dust everywhere except the floor area immediately next to the chimney embrasure and the central window. There were signs visible even to my eye of considerable activity.

“As I told you, gentlemen, this room is unused and normally kept locked,” Miss Lucas said, looking around it in some surprise. Holmes and I followed her inside, though I noticed Miss Sommersby lingered in the doorway.

“And yet the key turned in the lock with surprising ease,” Holmes remarked, moving purposefully over to the chimney, where he proceeded to tap with his fingernail at the brickwork.

“Ah, as I thought.” His long fingers prised away a section of the brickwork exposing the chimney opening. Producing a lens from his inside pocket, Holmes examined the top edge of the exposed bricks with great care, before handing the lens to me to verify his findings.

“I think you will find clear indications that the brick has been scratched by a metal link chain, Watson. There are minute shavings of new metal embedded in the old brick and here and here are clear imprints of where the links have rested. And now…”

And with that—in the catlike manner that he invariably adopted when he was hot on the trail—he darted over to the window.

“And yes—although the rest of the windows are firmly shut and warped with age, this one”—and he demonstrated by opening and closing it—“has clearly been used very recently. And here again the metallic scratches…Now, let me see, somewhere near the chimney we should find…”

He dropped disconcertingly to his hands and knees and peered closely at the floorboards near the chimney aperture. Then, seeming to find what he was looking for, he gave a satisfied grunt, pulled two envelopes from the jacket pocket which was their invariable resting place, and carefully brushed the twin heaps of dust he had accumulated into them.

“What do you have there, Mr. Holmes?” It was Miss Lucas, riveted as anyone must be watching Holmes at work for the first time.

“The final pieces of our little puzzle, unless I am very much mistaken,” Holmes replied. “Now, why don't we all repair to the morning room—I believe the local constabulary will require the library in due course—and I will attempt to explain the series of events.”

“Don't you think I should ask Robert to join us?” Miss Lucas asked, looking around her as if she had suddenly mislaid him. “I don't know where he can be.”

“I hardly think that would prove a very profitable request,” Holmes replied, studying his watch. “I would estimate that Master Robert, realising that the game was up, and that a little bird would soon be telling us all we need to know, will have caught the—let me see—the 9:05 train to town. Watson, you might like to telephone our old friend Inspector Lestrade and ask him to have the gentleman in question met on his arrival. Main line stations can be so impersonal, especially to people who have been wandering the wild blue yonder and may even now be contemplating doing so again. Oh dear, Miss Sommersby appears to have fainted.”

“It was obvious that Robert Halliford had to find some means of disposing of Sir Giles that appeared to be entirely natural.” Holmes was
sitting in an armchair covered in colourful chintz—a far cry from the battered Baker Street equivalent. Mary Lucas and I were opposite him on a sofa with Miss Sommersby propped among cushions on another. We had moved to the conservatory to allow the local constabulary I had called earlier to do their routine work in the library.

“Sir Giles's asthma gave him the idea. That, together with the fact that he invariably fell asleep in his usual chair conveniently placed by the log fire. At Robert's insistence, by the way. After that—like all good ideas—it was simple enough.

“First, he had to make sure the room was completely insulated. It wasn't, strictly speaking, a locked room. For his purposes it was better—it was a completely sealed room.

“I would be prepared to wager a small amount that we shall find ‘Master Robert' or ‘Tommy'—or whatever his real name turns out to be—was cashiered from the Royal Engineers for conduct unbecoming—though I somehow doubt he was either an officer or a gentleman—and thrown on his own dubious devices.

“So here we have a trained engineer who is also familiar with the strange and exotic ways of the Far East—even as my friend Watson is…” And he gave me an ambiguous little smile. “Many's the time he has regaled me with stories of how his more rakish friends were inclined to experiment with the inhalation of—shall we say—somewhat outré substances. This particular potion crossed my path during some rather extensive researches into perfumes and their origins. It is a particularly potent derivative of a species of the coriander, known to have an hallucinogenic effect on certain subjects. Its odour is particularly distinctive.

“I think we may assume that the young man brought a quantity of it back with him in powdered form for his personal use. But then it occurred to him that here at Halliford Hall he might find another and more deadly use for it.

“What a strong young constitution might tolerate in moderation might have a very different effect when administered in excess to a man in Sir Giles's condition, sitting captive in an alcohol-induced slumber. Literally a sitting target. It was certainly worth the experiment.”

“But, Mr. Holmes, why wasn't I overcome with the same fumes when I went into the room the next morning?” Miss Lucas cried.

“You were witness to what turned out to be a failed test, my dear Miss Lucas. Halliford wasn't entirely sure that his mechanism would prove effective and did not use enough of the powder on that first occasion to have the desired effect. What it did prove was that the insulation worked. None of the fumes escaped and when you entered the room, all you detected was a faint residual odour, almost like a perfume.”

“But how had he introduced the powder when, as you say, there was no one else in the room?” I asked.

“Simple. He had waited until Sir Giles was safely asleep and the fire down to its ashes, then poured it down the chimney from the room above—probably using a rubber tube. Traces of it remain in the room above and can easily be analysed. The heat from the embers created the fumes and Sir Giles, being in such close proximity, was the unknowing recipient. The first night he survived. The second, unfortunately, he did not.

“Robert Halliford's principal problem,” Holmes continued, “was to remove the evidence—the poisonous smoke. And this is where his engineer's training came into play. For such a man it was child's play to obtain a simple bellows pump and convert it, so that instead of pumping air out—it would suck it in. With a simple hose attachment he could hope to drain the heavier, fume-laden air back up the chimney.”

“And out of the open window,” I cried.

“Precisely, Watson. So the evidence literally vanished into thin air. We find an ailing old man dead in his favourite chair in a room where he had palpably been alone. Who would think to analyse the ashes from the dead fire?”