The Dead Assassin: The Paranormal Casebooks of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (4 page)

CHAPTER   2

THE MURDERER IN THE CUPBOARD

When the three men finally navigated their way back to the violated wreck of the war minister’s home, they found Death awaiting them. Or more correctly, Death’s henchmen: a hearse had drawn up behind the Mariah, and now four funeral attendants in black frock coats and top hats wrapped in black crepe emerged from the ruined doorway, bearing a coffin upon their shoulders. They carried their burden to the waiting hearse with the slow, underwater motion of men walking along the silty bottom of the Thames. The coffin loaded, the grooms clambered atop the boxy carriage while the driver took his place on the seat and gathered up the reins. Before he whipped up the horses, the driver cast a quick look about. Conan Doyle was watching, and by the paltry light of the streetlamps, he saw that the man had a port-wine birthmark that started on one cheek and ran down his neck below the collar. The driver flicked the horse’s ears with the tip of his whip, and the hearse swung away from the curb and rattled off into the fog, revealing a four-wheeler drawn up to the curb ahead.

“I recognize that growler,” Detective Blenkinsop said. “It’s the commissioner’s.”

Upon entering the parlor, they were met by a tall, thin, ectomorphic man with bushy salt-and-pepper sideburns and a straggle of gray hair scraped carefully over a balding pate: the Commissioner of Police, Edmund Burke.

“Why have you removed the body?” Conan Doyle demanded.

Burke flayed Conan Doyle with an excoriating stare, then looked down at a small, spaniel-faced man who lurked at his shoulder, scribbling notes in a journal. “Who is this
civilian,
Dobbs?” he boomed in a headache-inducing voice. “Remove him at once!”

Blenkinsop moved forward and tugged off his hat, eager to explain. “Beggin’ pardon, Commissioner Burke. This here is Doctor Conan Doyle, the chap what writes the Sherlock Holmes stories. I, er, I called him in, sir.”

The commissioner frosted Detective Blenkinsop with a look of icy fury but swallowed his rage with obvious difficulty and plastered on an unconvincing smile. “Doctor Doyle, I am an enthusiast of your Sherlock Holmes stories. I confess I had hoped to meet you some day, but not at the scene of an actual police investigation.”

Conan Doyle shook the commissioner’s hand and launched into a breathless explanation.

“We have found the body of the murderer. Although shot multiple times he managed to stagger several streets away before succumbing to his wounds.”

“You have found but
one
of the murderers,” Burke corrected. “This crime was obviously the work of more than one man.”

“Really? How can you say that? We found no—”

“Doctor Doyle,” the commissioner interrupted. “I have been investigating murders for thirty years and I can safely say there is far too much blood for one assailant.” Burke looked about the room, nodding at the blood trails sprayed across the walls. “Too much blood by far, and…” He eyed the drinks cabinet and stepped toward it. “… if you care to take notice, this cupboard appears to be bleeding.”

All eyes fixed upon the only intact piece of furniture remaining in the room: a very handsome drinks cabinet where, indeed, drops of blood were weeping from the bottom of the double doors. Commissioner Burke fumbled the latch and snatched them open like a conjurer performing a trick. Inside the cupboard, a man crouched in a contortionist’s pose, head tucked between his knees, legs drawn up tight to his chest. His right hand clutched his left forearm, trying to staunch the copious flow of blood from a bullet wound.

“Aha!” the commissioner exulted. “Here is your murderer. Hiding like the craven coward he is.” He nodded to the young detective. “Blenkinsop, drag him out of there.”

It took Detective Blenkinsop and another constable to pry the man, who clearly did not want to be removed, loose of his confined hiding space. It soon became evident the man had not been idle during his sequester, as a half-drunk whiskey bottle tumbled out with him and glugged itself empty on the Persian rug. Despite his injury, the man was strong and grappled with the officers, but was finally wrestled to his knees before the commissioner. He was a tall, muscular youth with swarthy good looks and a thick head of curly black hair. The young man dissolved into hysterics, gesturing with exaggerated emotion at the shattered parlor door, the toppled divan, the grotesque imprint on the wall, all the while cradling his wounded forearm and wailing with pain.

Conan Doyle stepped forward and gently loosened the man’s grip on his injured arm to examine it. “Shot clean through the forearm. Shattered the bone most likely. He must be in considerable discomfort.”

“The man is a murderer,” Commissioner Burke snarled. “He has assassinated a patriot and hero of the empire. Let him howl all he wants; he warrants no sympathy from us.”

The man at once unleashed a torrent of indecipherable words, his face animated with fear and despair.

“And he’s a foreigner! Talking in some foreign babble. An anarchist, no doubt.”

Oscar Wilde stepped forward and coughed politely to draw the commissioner’s attention. When all eyes had fixed upon him, he spoke in a calm voice. “I should point out the young fellow is wearing a servant’s uniform. And I happen to speak that ‘foreign babble.’ The gentleman is Italian. Although he speaks in a dialect I am not entirely fluent in, I can tell you that his name is Vicente, and that he is Lord Howell’s personal valet.”

“Well, there you have it,” Conan Doyle said. “The poor chap likely received the bullet wound trying to defend his master. After which, he crawled into the cupboard to hide.”

The commissioner sneered. “Italy is a hot bed of anarchy.” He threw a piercing look at his adjutant. “Dobbs, find the servant’s quarters. Search the foreigner’s room for subversive materials.”

“Yes, commissioner, sir.” Dobbs shouldered his satchel and hurried from the room.

All the while the Italian tore at his hair with his good hand, weeping and muttering.

“See here, Commissioner Burke,” Conan Doyle said, “something extraordinary took place in this room. This man is likely our only witness—”

“Yes,” Burke interrupted. “Something extraordinary did take place. Clearly this foreigner has conspired in the murder of his master.”

“But he himself is wounded!”

“Proof conclusive I would say that he was a party to the crime.”

Conan Doyle could not suppress a grunt of exasperation, but Burke was just gathering steam. “It would not surprise me if the man murdered Lord Howell and then shot himself as a ruse to divert our suspicion. After all, he’s had hours to prepare this fantastical tableau.”

Conan Doyle threw a disbelieving look at Wilde, who shook his head and discreetly touched a finger to his lips in a
shush
gesture. The Scottish author’s throat clenched around the words queued up there, but Wilde was right—the argument was devolving into a wrestling match of egos. Edmund Burke was an unctuous buffoon whose mind was closed to anyone’s opinion other than his own.

The adjutant returned, clutching a fistful of broadsheets. He handed them to the commissioner, who gave them a cursory, lip-curling glance, then thrust them in Conan Doyle’s face. “As I suspected, subversive literature. The man is an agitator. An enemy of the British nation.”

Conan Doyle took the broadsheets and examined them. Most were emblazoned with anarchist slogans and calls for revolution and uprising. He thumbed through them until he found one broadsheet in particular: a sheet of black paper with a simple graphic in white lettering.

He flashed it at Wilde, whose eyebrows shot up in consternation—it precisely matched the symbol scribbled on the front gatepost.

The valet looked at the broadsheet, and then at the faces around him. Clearly, he understood what was being said about him and unleashed an excited torrent of Italian.

The commissioner watched the valet’s histrionics with a face drained of empathy and finally swiveled his jaded gaze to Wilde. “Mister Wilde, is it not? Your language skills may prove useful. Please ask our Italian assassin how many of his confederates took part in the murder.”

Wilde touched the man’s shoulder to corral his attention and said,
“Quanti assassini hanno attaccato il tuo padrone?”

The Italian valet shook his head, emphatically,
“Solo uno. Solo uno. Ma era il diavolo! Il diavolo!”

At the reply, Wilde’s face hardened to stone.

“What did he say, Oscar?” Conan Doyle asked.

“He said there was only one assassin … but he was the Devil.”

CHAPTER   3

FENIANS, ANARCHISTS, AND DYNAMITARDS

“We found the body just up here…” Detective Blenkinsop said, and added in a muttered breath, “… somewhere.”

He was leading police commissioner Edmund Burke and his fawning assistant, Dobbs, through the fog-blind streets to the place where they had discovered the corpse of Charlie Higginbotham. Conan Doyle and Wilde trailed behind at a respectful distance.

“And this lone assassin was somehow able to stagger this far with five bullets in him?” Burke quibbled, releasing a skeptical snort. “Highly unlikely.”

“No, I’m sure of it, sir. You’ll see. And it’s Charlie Higginbotham, no mistaking.”

But when they reached the streetlamp where they had discovered the corpse, it had vanished.

“It’s gone!” Detective Blenkinsop gasped.

“Gone?” Chief Burke exploded. “What do you mean,
gone
?”

“It was right here. I swear it was.” The young police detective dashed about, frantically searching a widening circle around the streetlamp, but the corpse was nowhere to be found. “This is the spot. It was right here! These gents will back me up, won’t you?” He looked for support from Conan Doyle and Wilde, who hurried to reassure the commissioner that they, too, had seen the body on this very spot.

“Then where is this corpse now?” Burke demanded. “Dead men are not in the habit of getting up and walking away.”

“It is difficult to explain,” Conan Doyle quickly put in. “But what the detective says is true. Both Oscar and I would verify that this is the location.”

The commissioner turned to his adjutant and remarked in a sarcastic tone: “Do you see a body, Dobbs?”

“No, sir.”

“And neither do I. Come, let us go.”

Conan Doyle interjected, “Might I borrow your bull’s-eye lamp, detective?” He took Blenkinsop’s lamp and crouched at the edge of the curb shining the lantern light obliquely across the road. Two thin, silver trails gleamed on the cobbles.

“Look!” Conan Doyle said. “See the frost that’s forming? If you look at the right angle, you can see hoofprints and the wheel marks of a carriage. Two horses, I’d say.” Conan Doyle stood up and looked at the police commissioner, his face animated. “We need a measuring tape. The gauge of the wheels looks quite narrow. By measuring the wheel tracks we could determine what kind of vehicle removed the body: a carriage, a dray cart, a—”

“
Mister
Doyle,” the commissioner interrupted in a booming voice. “If you please, this is not one of your silly Sherlock Holmes stories; this is a real investigation. We have no time for dazzling and ingenious explanations. This road sees all kinds of traffic—”

“But the frost is forming even as we speak. These wheel tracks can only have just been—”

“Enough, Mister Doyle!” the commissioner roared, cutting him off.

“
Doctor
Doyle, if you please—”

“Forgive me,
Doctor,
” Burke corrected sourly. “Your fictions may be filled with inexplicable crimes that warrant fantastic explanations, but I’m afraid in the real world the explanations for most crimes are quite prosaic.”

Detective Blenkinsop stepped forward, his face earnest. “Sir, I know what I seen. I’d swear to it. The dead man was Charlie Higginbotham. No question.” He tapped the back of his neck. “Charlie had this tattoo of a butterfly—”

The commissioner silenced Blenkinsop with a raised hand and then crooked his fingers in a beckoning gesture. “Step closer, Detective.”

“Sir?” Blenkinsop took a step and the commissioner leaned into his face and sniffed.

“Do I smell strong spirits on your breath? Have you been drinking on duty?”

“No!” Blenkinsop shook his head. “I mean, well … I suppose … yeah, but—”

“I’m afraid that was my doing,” Conan Doyle interrupted, quickly coming to Blenkinsop’s defense. “When I first saw the detective tonight, he was in a state of shock—hardly surprising given the horrific nature of the crime scene. In my role as a physician, I insisted he drink a brandy, purely for medicinal reasons. But I can testify that he only had the one—”

“Undoubtedly,” the police commissioner snarled, cutting him off. Burke cleared his throat with a sound like tumbrel wheels grinding across cobblestones. When he spoke again, his tone made it clear he believed that the young detective’s word was no longer to be trusted.

“Detective Blenkinsop, you are clearly suffering from mental distress that is causing your judgment to be skewed. I am, therefore, suspending you from active duty—without pay, naturally—until your mind clears and you are better able to serve the force.”