Warlock Holmes--A Study in Brimstone (21 page)

Miss Cushing was too much the gentlewoman to answer such a question, but Lanner spluttered in protest, “I say! How dare you? She is in no danger, Doctor, as a medical man such as yourself must know.”

“That does not mean she is devoid of feeling, Inspector! How long have you left her sitting here, with nothing before her but that grisly box? For shame! Let me clear this away, won’t you, Miss Cushing? I’m sure you’ve seen enough of it.”

“Oh, I have,” she agreed.

I closed the box and bundled it back into its paper wrapper, even pulling the string back over it, much as it must have lain when it was tied. I winced when I beheld the rough words scrawled on the outside of the wrapper.

The handwriting was crude, large and almost certainly Torg’s. I despaired at this, but refused to abandon all hope. I began my campaign by discrediting Lanner.

“How well do you know Grogsson, Miss Cushing?”

“Not too well,” she said. “He seems shy. Yet he’s always been kind.”

“Do you know his occupation?”

“I do not.”

“It may surprise you to learn—as it certainly surprised me—that he, like Lanner there, is a detective inspector of Scotland Yard.”

She gave a gasp that made me laugh, in spite of myself.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” I said. She nodded and smiled at the silliness of it.

“Would it surprise you to know then, that he is much better at the job than Lanner is? Last year he solved more cases than Lanner did. By a factor of three, if I recall.”

Lanner seemed rather annoyed that I knew that particular statistic; he protested, “That is untrue!”

“The numbers don’t lie,” I reminded him.

“But they do! He always uses that consultant, Holmes!”

“Whereas all Inspector Lanner uses,” I told Miss Cushing, “is his own bent wit. That is why he has been too pleased over Torg’s seeming crime to consider your feelings. I apologize that this petty workplace rivalry has worsened an already terrible day for you. This is the kitchen?”

I strode out, leaving Lanner to craft a slew of impotent apologies. I was heartened by Susan Cushing’s coolness towards him. Despite the box of ears, it seemed Miss Cushing still found Torg’s company preferable to Lanner’s. Despite the box of ears.

Upon reaching the kitchen, I threw the case of ears down upon the table and busied myself finding the kettle and a box of matches. Once the fire in the stove was lit, I turned my attention to the horrible package. Unwrapping the box, I smoothed the paper out across the table and examined the writing I had seen on the inside of the wrapping. The piece of paper had been torn from a larger whole, so most of the writing was missing. What was left of it consisted of two headings: “Traverser” and “Nantucket”. Under each of these was a list of names, followed by a simple figure, for example: E. Potter—£1 6s 9
d
—Dancer 10:1. I took it to be a betting sheet. As I knew only sailors to use tarred string, I supposed this entry must mean that Mr. E. Potter, from the sailing ship
Traverser
, had placed one pound, six shillings and ninepence on “Dancer” to win some sort of contest.

With a whistle, I realized how stilted the odds were in favor of this Dancer. Bets for two such contests were scrawled on the inside of the paper. In the first, a one-hundred-pound bet on Dancer would pay back only the original bet, plus ten extra pounds. A one-hundred-pound bet on his competitor—a man named O’Keefe—would yield nine hundred pounds. In the second contest, the odds were even longer, seeing only a three-pound payback on Dancer and three thousand on his competitor, Hanson. Given the nature of the trophies within the box, combined with the fact that the competitors had men’s names, rather than animals’, I took the betting sheet to reflect the sums that had been issued for an illegal boxing match. The docks were famous for them. I supposed Dancer to be a mocking soubriquet for Grogsson; somebody must have found out about his fondness for ballet.

Nearly every bet was against Grogsson. Here was evidence that human nature can always overrule human intellect. Though I myself could not imagine laying money against him in a contest of strength, I could understand why so many of the sailors had. After a few drinks, where is the lure in winning a three per cent payout? Wouldn’t it be more tempting to chase the luscious payout to be had if Grogsson actually lost? The chief nemesis of reason is hope.

Though the betting sheet did not record the winner of either contest, the two severed ears testified that perhaps things had not gone well for Mr. Hanson and Mr. O’Keefe. It seemed Grogsson must have won both fights and taken the ears as trophies. With so many bets placed against Dancer, whoever was running this fight must have been making a positive fortune on Grogsson.

I shook my head sadly. The water for the tea had not yet boiled and here was proof of my friend’s guilt. If one needed further evidence, one need only examine the ears themselves. They had not been severed cleanly, as by a sharp blade or skilled hand. They had been yanked—just
yanked
—from their victims with such extremity of force that I found myself wincing.

Was there nothing here to save my friend?

As I stepped back into the hall, I practically bumped into a picture-laden curio cabinet. Miss Cushing had not one but two such assemblies in her hallway, bedecked in photographs of absent friends and family. I think she must have been a lonely person, indeed, to have kept two such shrines to her isolation. My eye fell across a photograph of three ladies dressed in holiday frocks. The oldest was perhaps twenty-five, the youngest still in her teens. The family resemblance was palpable. I called out, “Miss Cushing? Do you live here by yourself?”

“I do,” she called back. “Mama has passed on. My sisters used to live here, but they are both wed now.”

“Is this the three of you?” I asked, leaning into the sitting room and waving the picture.

She blushed and answered, “Yes. Sarah is the eldest, Mary in the middle, and I am the child.”

Sarah? The sister’s name was Sarah? It was my first, faint glimmer of hope. I fished for more.

“Look at you!” I said. “You are all so beautiful… all so carefree.”

“Yes. Those were happier times.”

“Oh? What happened?” The kettle was boiling now, so I headed back to the kitchen and dropped the steeping ball into the teapot, then poured the water in atop it.

“You don’t care to hear it,” Miss Cushing said. “It is of no matter to the case. Family drama, you know.”

At this, I leaned through the doorway again to shake a finger at my host, declaring, “Nothing is unimportant, Miss Cushing! The truth can hide in any detail. Tell me all! Oh… and where might I find the sugar?”

“In the left-most cabinet, on the top shelf,” she said, then added, “It’s just that my sisters and I fought. Mary wed Dr. Armstrong, who I… rather thought… might have had eyes for me.”

After a little scrabbling I found a picture of the middle sister and her groom. To my surprise, I recognized him. I’d attended one of his lectures once. He’d presented himself as a perfect quack.

“I was a foolish girl,” Susan chided herself. “Then Sarah married that Jim Browner. Oh, we all told her not to, but Sarah was always the willful one.”

I located a picture of Sarah Cushing, standing next to a gruff-looking man in a battered peacoat. My chest swelled with sudden hope. I leaned into the sitting room again to ask, “Is this him?”

“It is.”

“He looks like a sailor.”

“Sometimes a sailor, often a porter or a deckhand,” she said. “Usually onboard ship, and it’s better for everybody when he is.”

“Not the best husband?” I hazarded.

“Well, look at him! He’s a brute!”

“How your sister must suffer…”

“Oh! She is far from blameless, let me assure you! The way she carries on! The moment Jim is on board a ship—the very
moment
his watchful eye is removed—oh it is scandalous, the way she behaves!”

This was something! This was good! With raw material such as this, I was sure I could craft a narrative where someone else—anyone else—was guilty. My hands shook as I picked up the teapot and called out, “So, the marriage is troubled?”

“Ha! At the very least!” she scoffed.

“Has she ever left him?”

“She’s been back here a few times, but they always make up. Then they’re off again, to some port or other. I have no idea where they are now. I only see her when she needs a place to stay.”

I carried the tea tray into the sitting room and set it on the table before her. “How do you take your tea?” I asked.

“Sugar, please. One lump. And a dash of milk.”

“Just as I do. Inspector?”

“Black. Two sugars,” he groused.

I delivered the teacups with quaking hands; only one line of questioning remained to me and on it rested Grogsson’s fate. I waited until Susan had enjoyed a few sips of her tea, then said, “I must ask, Miss Cushing… Lanner here says the package was found on your doorstep. Do you have any certain knowledge that Mr. Grogsson delivered it, or are you merely assuming so?”

She thought about that for a moment, then answered, “Well… I suppose he never confirmed it had come from him, but he did not deny it.”

“Strange,” said I.

“He didn’t have much of a chance, you see. I… Oh, this is awkward, Dr. Watson, very awkward. But I supposed he might be
courting
me with them. It sounds grotesque, I know, but that is what I supposed. When I found what lay within the package, I ran next door and confronted him. I told him that such thoughts were disgusting and that he was a monster and then he left, almost without a word.”

Here she stopped and stared guiltily at her teacup for a moment, as if she had a secret and was wondering whether to tell it. I knew that in these moments silence is the greatest prompt. I waited.

“I think he may have been… crying,” she muttered.

I smiled. “Miss Cushing, on the second day I knew Grogsson, I saw him shot twice in the chest, point blank. He shed not a single tear. Do you suppose you did what the pistol could not?”

She stared down a moment more. Finally, she whispered, “Yes.”

“As do I, Miss Cushing. As do I.”

I placed my cup and saucer on the table and rose to leave, adding, “Yet do not fret, my dear. A lady has a right to rebuff any suitor she will—we would live in a savage land indeed if that were not the case. England would be reviled the world over as a living hell for her entire female population and the only bright aspect that I can think of would be this: I would be married to a duchess. Well, I think I’d better check on Holmes and Lestrade. Thank you for the tea.”

I found the two of them just outside the door; they had removed Miss Cushing’s upstairs shower rod and sharpened one end. I sighed.

“Out of the way, Watson!” Holmes declared. “It must look like an accident! It must appear as if Lanner has carelessly slipped and impaled himself while showering!”

“In the living room? Fully clothed, in front of a witness?” I hissed. “Holmes, nobody will ever believe such an act to be accidental.”

“No, they won’t,” Lestrade agreed, with a snarl, “but I just need to
stab that little bastard, right in the face
.”

“No!” Holmes insisted. “Straight through the heart; I thought we agreed.”

“Face.”

“Heart!”

Holmes and Lestrade stood staring angrily at one another for a moment, until Holmes at last blinked and suggested, “Throat?”

“I suppose… Yes,” Lestrade decided. “Because you have always been kind to me, I will settle for stabbing him through the throat.”

“We have a gentlemen’s accord,” Holmes said, starting for the sitting room.

I leapt betwixt them and the door and declared, “Wait! We have had a dark day, surely, but I think I can see some light. You might not know it, Holmes, but you have just solved this case. Come, let me tell you what you’ve figured out…”

When we entered the sitting room a few moments later, Lanner was holding forth on how the arrest would go and how he would be sure to keep Miss Cushing safe from any further advances by her brutish neighbor. He smiled when he saw us and called out, “Welcome back, gentlemen. If you are quite done upstairs, I wonder if I might borrow Inspector Lestrade for a moment. I need a second detective’s signature on this arrest warrant, you see, and I thought he might at last be willing to do his duty.”

“I might,” Lestrade said, “but Holmes has formed his own theory…”

“He always does,” I added, clapping Holmes on the back.

“We thought you might like to hear it,” Lestrade finished, then he and I propelled Holmes forward into the sitting room.

Miss Cushing stared expectantly up at him. Lanner gave a derisive snort. Holmes licked his lips nervously. We really had given him too many lines and far too much coaching to expect him to remember it all. Nevertheless, he began. “Miss Cushing, I will thank you to surrender that package to Inspector Lestrade; it does not belong to you.”

“It will be entered into evidence when the time is right,” Lanner protested. “Until then, you have no right to demand it.”

“I do,” Warlock said. “It should never have come into her possession. It was not intended for her.”