The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (52 page)

‘Ah,' said Holmes, closing his eyes in contemplation, ‘so that was it.'

‘On being challenged, the suspect Domville admitted he was Dougal. Mr Cox then escorted him to the detective office at the bank. At the door, Dougal suddenly turned and ran, clear of the bank, and fled towards Cheapside. Cox caught him at Frederick's Place and they fell to the ground together. Padghorn, a uniformed constable, saw them. He recognized Mr Cox and handcuffed Dougal. You may be thankful, gentlemen, that you have not been briefed to defend Dougal, for there was never a clearer case against any man.'

‘I do not defend the guilty,' said Holmes gently, ‘merely the innocent.'

When Lestrade had gone, there still was one piece of unfinished business.

‘Tell me, Holmes. What is all this mystery about Professor Holmes of Cambridge? Why did that fellow call out to you on King's Parade?'

Holmes drew at his pipe and said, ‘I daresay he was mistaken.'

‘I think he was not! He called you Professor Holmes! After our talk with Marden, you were not to be seen for several hours after lunch. There was ample time to take the Cambridge train from Audley End and return with what you called a coffin-fly. It was more likely a common hedge-moth. It is the only time when you were out of my sight long enough to go to Cambridge alone.'

‘Your deduction is entirely admirable,' said he.

‘Why did you go? What for?'

‘Hold hard a moment, Watson,' he said with a laugh, ‘I do not say I was there!'

‘It was for something that would fit into your satchel. My God, it was that skull! You went to the university anatomy suppliers, as medical students do to buy a skeleton. You bought that skull! You buried it by the cart-shed, so that Marden or Bower must dig! You knew they would find it and would dig up the entire place! That coffin-fly was a harmless insect, vouched for by a telegram sent to yourself from Cambridge the next morning! There is no Dr Cardew!'

‘Such a welter of deductions, my dear chap …' His eyes shone with laughter.

‘Suppose Miss Holland had still been alive—had driven into the farm-yard in the middle of Bower's digging?'

‘She could drive nowhere, Watson. She was lying dead at the bottom of the drainage ditch, if you recall.'

‘But you could not have known—so you fabricated evidence to make them dig!'

‘Forgive me, my dear fellow, I have known she was dead since the moment that Marden mentioned the tragedy of her nephew's child.'

‘Yet the rest of what I say is true?'

He laughed again.

‘My old friend, you really must allow justice to the accused, which accords to every man the right to silence.'

‘You mean that what I do not know, I cannot tell!'

‘That is certainly true, in any event.'

For a moment we were silent. Then I put my last question.

‘There is one flaw in your hypothesis. Where is the woman whom you claim impersonated Camille Holland at the National Provincial Bank?'

He shrugged.

‘That is no flaw. I simply do not know. Alive—or dead. Perhaps not far away. Search your mind, Watson, for a demure petite of Miss Holland's type.'

‘I cannot say we have cast eyes on one.'

‘Oh, come,' he said, ‘surely we have done that, even if it be not she.'

I did not follow this at first. Then it dawned upon me what he meant.

‘Miss Pierce? The very idea of her and Dougal is outlandish.'

‘So was that of Miss Holland. The conquest of devout spinsters, no longer young, seems to have been something of a profession with Captain Dougal.'

‘She would hardly ask us to take action against him, if that were the case.'

‘As I recall, it was to avoid publicity that she came to us and not to the police.'

‘Absurd,' I said, thinking as I did so that perhaps it was nothing of the kind.

Holmes sighed and knocked out his pipe.

‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Watson,' he said, standing up and yawning. ‘Especially if she who has forfeited her virtue for love be a subscriber to the National Vigilance Association.'

The Case of the Sporting Major

I

The intuitive faculty of Sherlock Holmes was generally beyond my power to comprehend, let alone to emulate. From time to time, however, I matched him in his anticipation of regular events. One of these was the impending arrival of a certain eminent guest, whose visits had long been familiar to us. On such occasions, Mrs Hudson's nervous housemaid would open the door to make her announcement with the air of a twittering cage-bird. Or Billy the page-boy would appear with eyes bright at the excitement of an adventure to come. Even our impassive and long-suffering landlady would utter the six resonant syllables in a tone of superior awe.

‘Sir Edward Marshall Hall!'

Before us stood that splendid figure, an athlete and philosopher of noble brow with a fine sweep of hair. Small wonder if Lord Birkenhead remarked that no man could possibly have been as wonderful as Marshall Hall appeared. His presence and voice were such as Sir Henry Irving and the great actors of the day would have given a fortune to possess.

Yet Marshall Hall had a nobler fame. He was the Great Defender in the criminal courts, equipped with sharp intelligence and eloquent address. Times without number, he saved from the gallows those whom public opinion had already condemned. He opened the gates of life for a score of men and women, in defending the humble prostitute Marie Hermann, Edward Lawrence the brewer, Robert Wood the Camden Town artist, Thomas Greenwood reviled as a poisoner, and then among his greater triumphs came the Green Bicycle case, the Derham shooting, and the acquittal of Madame Fahmy who had killed her unnatural husband.

One fine September morning in the last years of the late Queen's reign, Marshall Hall sat upon the sofa of our Baker Street lodgings, his eyes bright, his fingers drumming upon the padded arm of the furniture. That whole being was alive with a characteristic energy which wants to be up and doing—a perfect mirror of Sherlock Holmes! It might seem at first that their only common pleasure was in chaff and banter. Beneath this, however, lay an adamantine resolve to see justice done and innocence set free.

On this particular morning, Marshall Hall wore the black velvet jacket of those more casual days when he was not engaged to appear in court or chambers.

‘Whatever your business, Sir Edward,' said Holmes airily, ‘I am pleased that you first had leisure to sit and listen to your wife playing the Chopin Polonaise in A Flat Major, upon a Schiedmayer concert grand-piano. I regret that the tone of the instrument was not all that it might have been. I should recommend you to consult Messrs Chappell in New Bond Street, should you require advice in the matter.'

Another visitor might be dumbfounded that Holmes should know the very piece of music that Sir Edward had heard half an hour before, who had played it to him, the precise make of the instrument, and what had been discussed. Sir Edward merely threw back his head and laughed at his friend's cleverness.

‘My dear Holmes, you will plainly not be content until you have explained your brilliance. Put us poor mortals out of our misery!'

Holmes shrugged, disclaiming any gift except common sense.

‘I observe your jacket. Nature has designed velvet fabric as a means of collecting evidence. Upon your right sleeve, a little above the cuff, you have picked up a fleck of cream-coloured felt, somewhat worn. If one looks closely, the cream has a red inlay of a different texture along its edge. I grant the red is scarcely perceptible, but it is there. Such a combination of fabrics comes from one source only in my experience. It has been acquired from a damper of the string on a grand-piano. The precise key is close to the middle C. That particular red inlay is characteristic of the instruments made by Schiedmayer of Stuttgart, which I have several times tried in Augener's showroom. It occurs solely on the damper, where the felt is softer than the hammer and more inclined to fray. The great use made by so accomplished a pianist as Lady Hall must require the re-felting of hammers and dampers alike. The more commonly-used the key, the greater the wear, hence in the region of middle C. How easy it would have been for your sleeve to brush the mechanism as you were closing the piano-lid for Lady Hall. The fact that the lid was closed so early in the day hints—does it not?—at some dissatisfaction with the state of the instrument. Hence your discussion.'

‘Is that all?' asked Marshall Hall tauntingly.

‘Not quite. That discussion was plainly interrupted, in turn, by the arrival of a message which brought you here at once. A letter, I believe. I should say your advice has been sought urgently in a case to come before the Scottish courts. The north of England would be possible but, on the whole, I think Scotland. It would have been too early in the day for so complex a telegram as the facts of such a case require. Therefore I plump for a letter by the second post. Yesterday's post from Manchester, York, or the English counties would be delivered first thing. So we must look further afield. I observe that the Scottish courts are already sitting, the English assizes are not. It remains to decide what matter might have been referred to your particular accomplishments. I have seen in the
Morning Post
some reference to the dramatic arrest in Glasgow of a certain Major Alfred Monson in connection with the shooting dead of a fellow officer during a hunting-party. That has a ring of probability to it. I daresay I am quite wrong.'

Sir Edward laughed again.

‘You are quite right Holmes, and you know it, otherwise you would not have dared the deduction. And, indeed, Lady Hall's practice-piece this morning was the Chopin Polonaise.'

‘I thought as much,' Holmes said reassuringly. ‘Its rhythm is exceptionally well-defined. When a man fingers his impatience on the arm of a sofa, he is very likely to imitate unawares the last melody he has heard. But enough of these games. Precisely what has occurred in this case to bring you here at a time when you might otherwise have been in chambers?'

The laughter went from the fine eyes of Marshall Hall.

‘The evidence against Major Monson, gentlemen, is indeed of murder and the case is as black as it could be. My friend Mr Comrie Thomson holds a watching brief. It was impossible that I should do so. I have other commitments and am neither a member of the Scottish bar nor sufficiently conversant with Scottish criminal law. To speak frankly, on the evidence available to me, the major's situation appears hopeless.'

‘Excellent!' said Holmes with relish. ‘Do, pray, continue.'

‘Alfred Monson is a middle-aged, down-at-heel retired major who tutors young officers to pass War Office examinations and so advance their careers. The pupils that he chooses are men with quite a little money. They live with Monson, his wife, children, and nursemaid. They are coached for these War Office tests and in every case appear to have been systematically plundered. His latest dupe was one Lieutenant Cecil Hamborough. Hamborough's father soon guessed the major's intentions. He resented the influence of the Monsons and sought to end the association. Unfortunately, young Hamborough would not see sense. He appeared blind to reason, even though he was bled white by Monson and a criminal scoundrel known variously as Edward Scott, Edward Davis, and Edward Sweeney.'

‘The disgraced bookmaker from Pimlico, who two years ago lost his licence for fraud!' cried Holmes, as if recognizing an old friend.

‘Precisely. Monson and Scott worked hand-in-glove with a so-called money-lender, Captain Beresford Tottenham, lately and briefly of the 10th Prince of Wales Hussars. Hamborough's money was obtained by IOUs combined with an extortionate rate of interest. The last of his funds was used to rent Ardlamont House near the Kyles of Bute, where he, the Monsons, and Scott would spend the summer and the August shooting season. After they had drained the poor young devil, I daresay they meant to be rid of him one way or another.'

‘What a story to put to a jury!' Holmes said thoughtfully.

‘That is by no means the worst of it.' Marshall Hall inspected and removed the fluff on his velvet sleeve. ‘Some time after their arrival at Ardlamont there was a boating accident in which young Hamborough was nearly drowned. Next morning he was shot dead, apparently by accident, while out hunting rabbits with Monson and Scott,
alias
Davis,
alias
Sweeney.'

Holmes reached for a pencil and made two or three notes on his shirt-cuff as Marshall Hall continued.

‘Both men swore that Lieutenant Hamborough was walking alone and must have stumbled in the woods, jarring his short-barrelled 20-bore, which had gone off and shot him through the head. The local doctor, never having seen such a thing before, accepted the story and signed a death certificate. Scott then left Ardlamont, that same afternoon, and has not been seen since. It appears, however, that he cannot have fired the shot. Perhaps he feared that the publicity surrounding Hamborough's death would result in prosecution for certain past offences of fraud and embezzlement, if he waited for the police. Young Hamborough was interred a few days later in the family vault on the Isle of Wight. Now I must tell you what the world does not yet know.'

‘Pray do so.' Holmes reached a spill to the fire to light his pipe.

‘On the day of Hamborough's funeral, two life insurance companies alerted the Procurator Fiscal to a demand by Major Monson for £30,000. Cecil Hamborough's life had been insured in this sum, which he had assigned and made payable to the Monsons in the event of his death. A third company had declined a further proposal for £50,000. Monson had been the intermediary on each occasion, attempting to secure an interest of £80,000 all told, in the event of the young man's death.'

‘Making Hamborough worth a good deal more dead than alive,' said Holmes softly.

‘Quite. The day after the policies for £30,000 came into effect was the one upon which Monson took Hamborough out into Ardlamont Bay in a rowing-boat, from which the bung had been secretly removed. Nothing was seen amiss at first but water poured in under the boards from the moment the boat was pushed into the sea. The young fellow was nearly drowned. The very next morning he was shot dead in Ardlamont woods, while the three men were hunting rabbits.'