The Veiled Detective (15 page)

“Why was it written there?” I asked.

“The candle on the mantelpiece was lit at the time, and this would have been the brightest corner of the room,” explained Holmes.

“And what does it mean, now that you have found it?” asked Gregson, in a deprecating manner.

“Oh, I can answer that,” crowed Lestrade. “It means that the writer was going to put the female name Rachel, but something prevented him from finishing it. You mark my words, when the case comes to be cleared you will find that a woman by the name of Rachel will feature in the
business. It’s all very well for you to laugh, Mr Sherlock Holmes; you may think you are very smart and clever, but I think you will discover that in the end the old hound is the best.”

Holmes, who had exploded with rude laughter at Lestrade’s assertions, attempted to curb his natural amusement.

“I am sure you are correct,” he beamed, his voice heavily tinged with sarcasm. “Please let me know how your investigations go. I shall be happy to give you any help I can. In the mean time, I should like to have words with the constable who discovered the body.”

“He’s off duty now,” said Lestrade.

“Can you give me his name and address?”

Lestrade glanced at his notebook. “John Rance. You will find him at 46 Audley Court, Kennington Park Gate.”

Holmes took note of the address.

“Come along, Doctor,” he said, taking my arm. “We shall go and look him up.”

Gregson stepped forward. “Before you go, Mr Holmes, have you learned anything from your investigations here that would help us?”

“Oh, certainly.”

The two police officers looked at each other and then back at Holmes, waiting for his words of enlightenment.

“I can tell you that a murder has been done, and the murderer was a man. He was more than six feet in height, was in the prime of life, had small feet for his size, wore coarse squaretoed boots and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off foreleg. In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and the fingernails of his right hand were remarkably long. These are only a few indications, but they may assist you.”

For a moment, the two policemen were rendered speechless by this
authoritative recital, and then Gregson roused himself. “If this man was murdered, how was it done?” he asked.

“Poison,” said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off. “One thing more,” he added, turning round at the door. “RACHE is German for revenge, so don’t waste your time looking for a lady by the name of Rachel. Goodbye, gentlemen.”

N
ot only did Ishare Sherlock Holmes’ great amusement at confounding Lestrade and Gregson as we left Number 3 Lauriston Gardens, but also Iwas excited at the great possibilities which had been bubbling away in my brain as Ihad watched and listened to my new friend demonstrate his remarkable powers. Despite his pomposity and his unabashed love of the limelight, Sherlock Holmes was not only a unique individual, but also he had fascinating personal qualities which, if presented in a dramatised form in an exciting narrative, would make him a heroic figure. With some felicitous alterations to his character traits, Ibelieved that Icould portray Sherlock Holmes as a dynamic detective hero. Indeed, this case in which he was engaged would make an excellent introduction for the reading public. Creating a semi-fictional account of the investigation would both add zest to my time with him and provide me with a more legitimate reason to observe him and his methods.

I felt a warm glow of satisfaction at this revelation. While Moriarty would receive the unadulterated accounts of the doings of Mr Sherlock Holmes, at the same time Iwould be turning them into dramatic stories.
Here was an honest and reasonably noble purpose to my miserable existence. From now on, I reasoned, I had to memorise conversations and incidents, and keep copious notes. I was about to become the biographer of London’s greatest private detective.

Holmes interpreted my beaming smile as amusement at his deductive
tour de force
in front of the open-mouthed police inspectors.

“I take it from your expression, Watson, that you do not believe all I told Gregson and Lestrade back there,” he observed, as we settled back in a cab.

“I suspect you embellished the truth a little, and indulged in some guesswork for effect,” I responded honestly.

“Not a bit of it. Everything I said was true. My conclusions were based firmly on all that I observed. The very first thing that caught my eye on arriving at Lauriston Gardens was that a cab had made two ruts with its wheels close to the kerb. Now, up to last night we’d had no rain for a week, so those wheels which left such a deep impression must have been there during the night. There were marks of the horse’s hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than the other three, indicating that it was a new shoe. Since the cab was there after the rain began, and was not there in the morning — we have Gregson’s word for that — it follows that it must have been there during the night, and, therefore, it brought both the murderer and his victim to the house.”

“Well, that seems straightforward enough,” said I, “but what about the other man’s height?”

“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be determined by the length of his stride. I was able to gauge this fellow’s stride on the clay outside and on the dusty floorboards within. To strengthen this deduction, we had the writing on the wall. When a man writes in such a fashion, his instinct leads him to write at about the level of his own eyes. Now, that writing was at just over six feet.”

“And his age?” I asked, determined to follow through all the statements
he made, storing them in my memory bank as Holmes explained.

“Well, if a man can stride four and a half feet without the smallest effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth of the puddle on the garden path. Patent leather boots, our victim, had gone round it, and square-toes had hopped over. There really is no mystery to this. I was merely making observations and drawing logical conclusions from them. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”

“Yes, yes. The length of the fingernails and the Trichinopoly cigar, for instance.”

“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in blood. My magnifying-glass revealed that the plaster was slightly scratched by the lettering — because the fellow had long nails. You no doubt saw me collect some scattered ash from the floor. It was dark in colour and flaky — such an ash is made only by a Trichinopoly cigar.”

“Oh, come now!” I cried. “How can you be so precise? The ash could be from
any
type of cigar.”

Holmes gave me an indulgent grin. “I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any well-known brand of cigar or tobacco. It is in just such details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”

“And the florid face?”

“Ah, well that was a more daring shot — although I am in no doubt that I was right. I’ll keep that to myself for the moment.”

“All these facts are interesting, of course, but they do not take us further down the road of explaining the mystery. How came these two men to the empty house? If one was the murderer, how did he persuade his intended victim to enter? You saw no signs of force.”

Holmes shook his head.

“And,” I continued, “what has become of the cabman who delivered them? How could one man compel another to take poison? Where did
the blood come from? What was the object of the murder? What significance does the woman’s wedding-ring have? And, above all, why should the second man scrawl the word RACHE on the wall?”

“Bravo, Watson. You have a sharp mind. You sum up the difficulties admirably. I agree that there is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up my mind on the main facts.”

“You have?” I was astounded by this arrogant boast.

“Oh, certainly. But do not ask me to divulge them to you just yet. There are certain pieces of the puzzle I wish to see in place before I reveal all. You know that the conjuror receives no credit once he has explained his trick, and if I show too much to you of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual.”

This trick of tantalising me with some details of a case, but withholding the vital ones, was one that Sherlock Holmes was to perform with annoying regularity through our association together. It was appropriate that he referred to himself as a conjuror, for certainly there was a strong streak of the theatrical artiste running through his vain personality. He wished always to be centre-stage, to be in charge, and to mystify and astound. I gradually learned to tolerate his performance.

“However, I will tell you one more thing,” he added, warming to his act of titillation, “the word RACHE is simply a blind intended to put the police upon the wrong track, by suggesting Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The ‘A’, if you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion, but a real German invariably prints in the Latin character. Therefore, I suggest that we can safely say that this was written by a clumsy imitator as a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong channel. No doubt he has been successful with Lestrade and Gregson.”

Joseph Stangerson was frightened. When Drebber failed to turn up at the station, he had not been surprised or unduly worried. It would be a
woman. It always was with Drebber. Wherever they went, he couldn’t keep his eyes or his hands off a pretty woman. Stangerson had lost count of the number of scrapes they’d landed themselves in because of Drebber’s sexual urges. It was his unwanted attentions towards Mrs Charpentier’s daughter that had caused them to be evicted from their last place of residence. The brother of the girl had threatened to kill Drebber if he ever set eyes on him again.

No doubt, he mused, Drebber had found some tart in a drinking-saloon somewhere and was indulging in the pleasures of the flesh once again. But when his partner failed to turn up as dawn broke, the chill hand of fear started to take hold of Stangerson. In his coward’s heart he always knew that some day retribution would catch up with them for their rash deeds out on that blazing hot desert twenty years ago — when they had shot old man Ferrier in the back and dragged Lucy back to Salt Lake City. He couldn’t block the guilt out with alcohol as Drebber could. They never spoke of that time to each other, but they both knew that the cursed memories of those events were never far from their thoughts.

Stangerson always seemed conscious that someone was following them. They could never rest for long for fear that the avenging force caught up with them. And now Drebber had disappeared.

Stangerson pulled back the lace curtain of his room in Halliday’s Private Hotel and looked out on the grey street. It was empty, save for a lone hansom cab some ten yards away from the entrance. There was no sign of his companion. He knew that he had to wait. Wait for another day at least, sitting in his room, hoping and praying that Drebber would turn up with an innocent explanation for his delay. If only his faith had not left him, he could have prayed. But even in this desperate state he knew that it would be a futile gesture. Hugging himself for comfort, he threw himself down on the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling.

Outside in the street, Jefferson Hope sat hunched up in the driver’s
seat of his cab, watching the hotel, a thin cruel smile fixed upon his features. After all these years he was now very close to avenging the death of his beloved. One of the bastards was dead. Now there was just Stangerson. He knew the coward would not dare leave the hotel during the daylight hours. Stangerson would wait to see if his partner returned and then attempt his escape under the cover of darkness.

Hope threw the butt of his cigarette into the street, and with a gentle slap of the reins he set the cab in motion. He would come back at dusk to complete his task.