The Seventh Bullet (19 page)

“Really, Holmes,” I said, “there are others who might be
flattered to have so faithful a biographer.” I then proceeded to unfold the paper addressed to me. To my surprise, it was from William Randolph Hearst, a reminder that, if I so desired, he was still prepared to make me a handsome offer to write for his newspaper—a very handsome offer indeed. Wondering how this proposition compared to the one with which Hearst had convinced Phillips to write
The Treason of the Senate,
I said, “You see, Holmes—”

But Sherlock Holmes was no longer at my side. He had stopped a few paces behind me to read the message he himself had received.

“It’s from Senator Van den Acker,” he explained. “He wants to talk with me as soon as possible.”

“What? Now?”

“It would appear so, Watson. He says he lives alone and has given the servants the night off to ensure our privacy. ‘It can’t wait till tomorrow,’ Holmes read. “He refers to a message sent to him from someone we talked with in Washington.”

“But who, Holmes?”

“That’s what we must find out from Mr. Van den Acker. What’s more, Watson, one does not need Scotland Yard to detect that this envelope containing the message has been opened and amateurishly resealed. Just look at how easily the flap came up. It is obvious that someone else knows where we will be going tonight. Take along your pistol, old friend. I have the feeling that our presence here has finally set in motion such activities as will lead to a break in this case.”

Mr. Hearst’s inducement remained attractive, and I could well understand how the publisher had lured Phillips himself
away from writing fiction to take on the Senate. But tonight—like so many nights in years gone by—the game was afoot, and no pecuniary offer of any size could make me vacate my position in the hunt alongside the tenacious figure of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. It was indeed like old times.

________

*
Author’s note: By the end of 1911, at least nine silent films concerning the adventures of Sherlock Holmes had been produced. For further information on Holmes and the cinema, see David Stuart Davies,
Holmes of the Movies: The Screen Career of Sherlock Holmes
(New York: Bramhall House, 1978).

“A great financier ... must build up a system—he must find lieutenants with the necessary coolness, courage and cunning ... to efface completely the trail between him and them, whether or not they succeed in covering the roundabout and faint trail between themselves and the tools that nominally commit the crime.”

—David Graham Phillips,
The Deluge

T
he address in the message from Van den Acker led us thirty miles to the west into historic and fashionable Morristown. New Jersey is another state, to be sure, but the trip was a manageable if tedious journey first by ferry across the Hudson, then by railway through the countryside, and finally by cab to the former senator’s imposing residence. By the time we reached our destination on that cool spring night, complete darkness had descended. Only one lone light cast its glow through a window onto the flagstone footpath winding round the left side of the building. Holmes strode quickly up the brick walkway leading to
the front door and twice lifted the knocker, a large brass American eagle, letting it fall each time with a resounding clang.

There was no response.

Holmes tried twisting the doorknob, but it would not turn, and the door itself would not open when he pushed.

“Come on, Watson,” he said. “Around to the side where the light is shining. And keep your pistol ready.”

Patting my coat pocket to see that my revolver was still there, I had no time at all in which to think. I followed Holmes, who surprised me with his agility by fairly bounding over a small hedge, an obstacle that I could get past only by pushing through a break in its clutching branches. Once on the other side, however, I immediately found myself on the flags that led in the direction of the light we had seen earlier.

When I caught up with him, Holmes was transferring his walking stick from his right hand to his left and withdrawing his pistol from within the folds of his inverness; I did likewise, pointing my Eley’s No. 2 upwards as I inched along behind him. With our backs pressed against the outer wall just before the window, we sidled towards the single source of illumination like a pair of cracksmen. Holmes peered cautiously round the edge of the double-hung sash window and then, moving to his left, bade me join him. We both looked in at the brightly lit room as if we were viewing a stage set under the blaze of spotlights.

As much as I should like to expunge it from my memory, I shall forever recall the grisly sight that greeted us that March night. At first glance, the study, for it was that chamber into which we were staring, seemed undisturbed. Countless leather-bound tomes stood at attention in the shelves that surrounded most of the room, and
embers from a recent fire glowed red hot in the grate. Opposite the brick hearth stood a cherrywood desk upon which lay a single open book, its pages fluttering gently in a semi-circular arc.

After witnessing the spectacle at the centre of the room, however, one could not for a moment longer regard the scene as placid; for seated in a tall, black chair of cracked leather, his upper body folded over the top of the desk, his bloodied head glistening red like a sparkling ruby that reflected the light from the hearth, were the remains of him who must have been in life Senator Peter Van den Acker. A small bullet hole was apparent in his right temple; the left side of his head was a gaping hole of bone and tissue, much of the matter being thrown on the rear wall to his left. What appeared to be a six-chambered revolver lay on the floor just inches from where his right hand hung down.

“Follow me,” Holmes said, proceeding to push upwards the bottom window sash, which was open now but half an inch.

With not a little difficulty, we created enough of a crawl space to enable us to help each other scramble through the window, experiencing, if the truth be told, much less ease than we used to enjoy in our younger days. Once inside, it didn’t require my many years of knowledge as a doctor to recognise that the man before us was dead. Nonetheless, I felt for the pulse.

Unable to find one, I shook my head. “Suicide,” I concluded aloud.

“Apparently,” Holmes said, “yet ... “

We both replaced our pistols, and then Holmes immediately began that ritual of pacing, peering, studying a death scene from every conceivable angle. In addition to the corpse and the desk, neither of which he actually touched, he scrutinised with the aid
of his lens the mahogany table that stood behind the desk. Blood had spattered most of the area to the rear of the body’s left side, including the wall, which was covered in light blue-and-ivory patterned paper, and two large-framed oil paintings depicting what appeared to be outdated frigates in full sail.

I knew enough not to distract Holmes in such intense activity, but when, by looking up, he signalled he was finished, I suggested that we should ring the police. There was a telephone next to the corpse.

“Yes,” he said abstractedly. Then he added, “But first, Watson, observe the book.” Not handling directly the slim, claret-coloured volume that was lying open on the desk, he employed the tapered end of the ebony walking stick to flip its pages. In spite of the book’s proximity to the dead man, it appeared remarkably free of blood. Its title,
The House of the Vampire,
stood out ominously in bold, black letters.

“The book Goldsborough had read,” I remembered.

“The book we were to
believe
he had read, Watson,” Holmes corrected. After riffling through the opening pages with the aid of his stick, he turned back to the flyleaf. “Note the inscription,” he directed.

I leaned closer to my friend to read the finely penned handwriting on the inside cover. “Dear Senator,” it read. “Herein are more chills for your collection.” It was signed by the author, George Sylvestre Viereck.

“Holmes!” I cried, pointing at the deceased. “The case is settled then. We see before us what’s left of the mastermind of the Phillips assasination.”

“Really, Watson?”

“Of course,” I said. “Van den Acker wanted to confess,
summoned you, then became frightened and took his own life. After all, each of the senators we met in Washington linked him to a conspiracy.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “but I wonder if ...”

Whatever Holmes had in mind, to me he seemed to be complicating the issue.

“Holmes,” I said impatiently, “postpone your idle speculation; let us ring the police.”

“A moment, Watson,” he murmured. “Why did you say suicide?”

“It’s perfectly obvious,” I said, eager now to show him my own powers of detection. Enumerating my data like a zealous science professor explaining an experiment to a slow class, I rushed into my presentation: “The gun lies near his right hand; there are gunpowder burns surrounding the hole in his right temple and in his right palm; and since the small watch with the leather strap he is wearing on his left wrist indicates that he is right-handed, one can easily surmise that the unfortunate Senator Van den Acker held the pistol in his right hand, pointed the barrel slightly rearward at his right temple, and proceeded to blow off the back left side of his skull.”

“And where is the bullet—or what is left of it?” Holmes asked.

After scrutinising the wall for a moment, I pointed to a jagged little hole near one of the seascapes. “There!” I said, feeling pleased with myself.

“Yes, Watson, that’s true. But you haven’t gone far enough, old fellow. You haven’t asked why a patch of wallpaper to the right of that picture is brighter than the rest of the wall.”

I looked again, admittedly having paid little attention to the paper itself.

“Behold,” he said, again using his walking stick, this time to lift away from the wall the painting to our right, which, I now could plainly see, was suspended from the picture rail by means of two fine wires extending upwards to a rosette-like hook that saved as their apex at the wall’s juncture with the ceiling.

With his free hand, he pointed to a second splintery hole that was apparent behind the painting to the immediate right of where the left edge of the burnished frame had been hanging. “Just as I expected, Watson,” he said. His eyes shone keen and triumphant at the same time. “Van den Acker was shot first at close range, the bullet implanting itself to the right of the picture, here.” He punctuated the point with a rap of his knuckle on the wall next to this new bullet hole he had just revealed to me. “The assailant then placed the gun in the dead man’s hand and fired again at the corpse’s head, resulting in the powder burns, the wound that masked the first one, and that other hole in the wall which we both had identified earlier. It was mere child’s play to stand on that table and move the hook a few inches to the left, thereby allowing the painting to conceal the additional aperture on the left but revealing the telltale bright patch on the right. Our suspect was a tall man, by the way. He had to be to reach the hook. And I’m sure you’ll find that his left boot has a nail askew; you can see where it scratched the varnish on the tabletop. Two bullet holes and a moved picture can mean only, of course, that Senator Van den Acker was in fact murdered.”

But Holmes didn’t have time to relish his deductive powers, for no sooner had he completed his last statement than the slam of the front door could be heard reverberating throughout the empty house.

“Blast!” Holmes ejaculated, letting the painting swing back against the wall, “I am indeed getting old, Watson. Whoever that was must have heard everything we said. Quick, man!” And withdrawing his pistol, he ran through the corridor to the front door.

“But the police!” I cried.

“No time!” he shouted in response. “You ring! But let them discover that second bullet hole on their own. And for God’s sake, don’t tell them who you are!”

Holmes was out of the door before I could pick up the telephone receiver; fortunately, he did not need to remind me that I should hold the instrument with a handkerchief in order to leave no incriminating fingerprints.

It seemed an eternity until the operator who had responded connected me with the local police. I quickly reported the horrible deed, gave the address but not my name, and rang off. A moment later, following Holmes’s trail, I withdrew my revolver from my coat pocket for the second time that night, left the house through the front door, and plunged down a dark road to the right where I had heard the diminishing echo of footfalls. I continued my pursuit for some hundred yards but, owing to my age and my old war wound, soon began to tire.

Almost immediately, Holmes was at my side. Bracing his stick against my chest, he whispered, “Be on your guard, old fellow. The footsteps stopped abruptly. No doubt he is stalking us now; we know too much, it would appear.”

A street lamp down the road, too far away to do us much good, cast a dim glow in our direction. It was at least bright enough for us to determine that we were standing in front of a long, high, tree-lined, wrought-iron railing, not unlike that which circumscribed
Gramercy Park. This fence, however, was interrupted every ten feet for as far as we could discern by rectangular brick columns some eight feet tall. These columns supported two horizontal bars that in turn supported numerous vertical rods, each of which was topped by an individually mounted and sharply pointed
fleur-de-lis.