Warlock Holmes--A Study in Brimstone (22 page)

“It is
addressed
to her, you buffoon.”

“Excuse me, it is not! It is addressed to Miss S. Cushing. What you failed to notice, Lanner—probably because you failed to inquire—is that she might not be the only Miss S. Cushing in residence.”

“But she is.”

“But she
might not be
. Her sister, Sarah Cushing, has been known to take up residence here on more than one occasion.”

Lanner looked deeply annoyed by this, yet still managed his keenest insight of the day, stating, “Even so, Sarah Cushing is married and packages to her would be addressed to Mrs. Sarah
Browner
.”

“And yet it would be correct to address her as Miss Cushing if her marriage had been dissolved, which, Miss Cushing—” and here Holmes addressed Miss
Susan
Cushing “—I believe it has been. I am sorry.”

“I am not so sorry,” Miss Susan scoffed, “not if you are correct.”

“I am,” said Holmes. “The sender is in a unique position to know that the marriage is no more, just as he is privileged with the information that Sarah is likely to return here. You see, the sender is none other than Sarah’s ex-husband, Jim Browner!”

“Ludicrous!” Lanner declared. “You know just as well as I do who is to blame for this crime! Don’t pretend it is any other man!”

“Careful, Lanner,” said Lestrade, in his iciest tone. “I know you very much wish for Grogsson to be found guilty of this crime; do you think your eagerness to see him hang has clouded your judgment?”

Lanner went red with fury and I saw my chance to play devil’s advocate. “Go easy, Lestrade,” I said. “I’m sure Inspector Lanner has ample reasons for suspecting Grogsson, else he would never have summoned half the force to his pursuit.” I then turned to Lanner and asked, “What are they?”

“Hmm?”

“Your reasons for suspecting Grogsson—what are they?”

“Well… he as much admitted it! He fled!”

“Ah, I see,” I said, raising a finger. “You think he might have fled because he felt guilt?”

“Obviously.”

“So he might,” I conceded. “Yet, we have no compelling evidence that he is guilty. On the other hand, he may have fled because the object of his affections rebuffed him—said he was a monster and that she would never love him. Might that have caused him to flee? Because we know for certain that such an exchange did occur, don’t we? What do you think, Lanner—would the Grogsson you know have stood gamely by and allowed somebody to see him cry, or would he have fled?”

Lanner’s face, so recently flushed, began to lose its color. Upon his features I began to read two words:
what if
. What if he were wrong? What if personal vendetta had just led him to mobilize four dozen constables in pursuit of their own innocent superior?

“Yes, but… she told me he had done it,” he said, leveling an accusatory finger at Miss Cushing.

“And I can certainly see how she might think so,” I said with an understanding nod to her.

“Yet it is not her job to know such things.” Lestrade grinned. “It is
yours
, Inspector. If you are lucky, it may still be yours tomorrow.”

“No,” Lanner insisted. “No. There is no evidence that this phantom of yours—this Jim Browner—is in any way connected with—”

Warlock did not let him finish. He loomed forward and pointed a long, bony finger towards the kitchen. “Tell me, Lanner, what is that parcel tied up with?”

“String!”

“What kind of string?”

“I don’t know! Just string!”

“
Tarred
string. Do you know why string is treated with tar?”

Lanner did not answer, so Holmes leaned in further and fixed him with a predatory smile—he could look terrible when he smiled like that. “To prevent salt air and salt water from corroding it. Now answer me this: do detective inspectors spend a great deal of time at sea?”

“…No.”

“Do sailors?”

“…Of course.”

“Is Grogsson a sailor?”

“You know he isn’t.”

“Is Jim Browner?”

Lanner was positively pale now. Warlock closed in upon him, grinning, practically shouting, “Sarah Browner had an army of lovers, everybody knows it! Jim Browner knows it! He caught her at it, don’t you see? He left her, sent her back to her sister—or at least assumed she’d wind up here again. But he wasn’t done yet! He found two of her lovers! Two of them! He did his deed! He worked his murders! He took the ears and he sent them to his wife, so that she could tell her next lover—tell him that the cost of touching her would be his life—that his would be the next ear in the box!”

“But… but no! The writing, on the package! It looks like Grogsson’s hand! His spelling!” Lanner stammered. “Miss Cushing, is that your brother-in-law’s handwriting?”

Miss Cushing, glad for an excuse to leave the fray, ran to the kitchen to examine it, calling back, “It doesn’t look like his.”

“I wonder, Miss Cushing,” Holmes laughed, “have you ever seen his handwriting when he is drunk? When the fury is on him? When he is knee-deep in the gore of two men he has just murdered?”

“I… well… no, I haven’t,” she said, then a moment later asked, “What is all this written on the inside of the paper?”

“A betting sheet,” said Holmes. “It is the record of sailors, betting on a fight. Do you see the names of the ships they were on?”

“Is that… is that
Nantucket
and the
Traverser
? Are those ships’ names?”

“They are. Has Jim Browner ever served on one of those ships?”

“I don’t know,” came Miss Susan’s doubtful voice from the kitchen. “He’s been on so many ships…”

“I think he has,” said Holmes. “And I know that Inspector Lanner here—being a skilled observer—will have noted that the wrapping paper is only one part, torn from a larger whole. He now suspects that, if I were to find that sheet, Browner’s name would be on it. He knows that I will find that sheet…”

Since Susan was in the other room, Holmes allowed some of the terrible green fire into his gaze as he closed the gap between him and Lanner, adding, “…
because he knows me and he knows how strangely apt I am at finding such things!
”

The look on Lanner’s face was most satisfactory and I think Lestrade and I did not mind that Holmes was betraying a hint of his true nature, until he slipped too far. Suddenly he rose from the ground to hover a few inches from the floor. All the shadows in the room bent in towards him and his deep voice boomed, “
FOR I AM THE SEER OF HIDDEN TRUTHS! THE FINDER OF LOST THINGS! AND MY NAME SHALL BE KNOWN ACROSS THE LAND FOR I AM COME TO—
”

But he did not finish, for Lestrade and I jumped onto the tails of his overcoat and pulled him back to earth. Lestrade hushed him and stroked his brow while I nervously proclaimed, “Yes… well… I think that’s enough for now, don’t you, Holmes? I suppose the only thing to do is to wait for them to bring Grogsson in. Unless, of course, Lanner wishes to forswear his warrant…”

“He can’t. He needs a second detective’s signature to cancel the arrest,” Lestrade smiled, “but I think I could sign my name to that.”

* * *

Five minutes later we were in a carriage, bound away from the shaken Lanner and Miss S. Cushing.

“Phew. I am glad that’s over with,” said Holmes, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief.

“It isn’t,” I said. “Most of the force won’t know the warrant is cancelled. They may still find him. Even if he comes quietly, it won’t take them long to realize he’s guilty.”

“Wait!” cried Holmes. “He is? After all those facts… After making me recite that venomous rebuttal, Grogsson actually did do it?”

“By God, Holmes,” I shouted, “were you not in that house? How could you go there and not realize? Yes! He is guilty!”

Lestrade shook his head and muttered, “So guilty.”

“We must find him,” I said. “We must coach him before he speaks to the police. Remember: Grogsson never lies.”

“I think, perhaps, we can persuade him to remain silent, though,” Lestrade suggested.

“That is my hope,” said I.

“Yes, but where will we go?” Holmes asked. “He isn’t at home. He might be anywhere.”

“He might,” I admitted, “but at least we have a starting point. He left a clue.”

My gaze fell upon the grisly package, which bounced on the seat beside Holmes. Our first stop was St. Katharine Docks. The light was already fading, so we sped from berth to berth, asking after the
Nantucket
and
Traverser
. We had no sign of them, until at last the wizened old dock-master told us, “Not here, sirs, but I know the
Traverser
was due in at Tilbury… oh… two, three days ago.”

I was dismayed. The journey to Tilbury was more than twenty miles. There were no trains until the morning, so we were forced to hire a coach.

By the time we reached our goal, the night was well on—and it was a cold and biting one. Lestrade did not mind at all; he was quite at home in the frigid dark. Holmes pulled his overcoat tight around him and began to hum snatches of random tunes. From time to time, a wisp of stinking smoke would escape his collar. I realized he must have called upon the fires of some distant hell dimension to warm the lining of his coat, which infuriated me. I hated it when he did that. For my part, I shook with cold.

I led my two companions on a quick search of the neighborhood, until I found what I was looking for. Dockside doctors keep their signs always alight, they must rise and tend the sick and stricken whose ship might dock at any hour. Espying one such sign, I pounded upon the door until the sleepy-eyed doctor opened it.

“Last night you tended two sailors—Hanson and O’Keefe—they’d had their ears torn off.”

The surprised look in the doctor’s eye told me he knew of no such cases, but the second doctor we found proved to know more. I could tell because, upon hearing my description, he slammed his door shut, declaring, “I don’t know a thing about that! It’s none of my business! Go away!”

“Dockside fights are illegal,” I reminded him, through the closed door. “A man could lose his practice if it came to light he’d been patching up the brawlers.”

After a moment of silence, a voice behind the door asked, “What do you want?”

“Where is Dancer?” I asked. “Where is tonight’s fight?”

We could hear him scratching about behind the door for a few seconds, then a scrap of paper slipped out through his letterbox. We had an address—a squalid little warehouse two streets down from the waterfront.

By the time we arrived I was breathless and so cold I could not feel my feet. Each gasp sent the burning frost deeper into my lungs so it came as a magnificent relief when the warehouse doors parted to allow us entry to a steaming, sweating crowd of sailors, clustered around a makeshift ring. Pallets and boxes had been stacked along the walls of the warehouse, leaving the center of the space bare. Lanterns hung from every post and beam to light the scene. There, in the center of the ring—quite alone—stood Grogsson. He was stripped to the waist and his fists were wrapped in tattered bandages, stained with dried blood of the previous night’s competitors. He had been crying. He still was, a little, but his red and puffy face was contorted with rage as well as pain.

“McCullogh will not fight!” cried a barker from the side of the ring. He wore a garish jacket and a green bowler. “McCullogh will not fight! Who will step inside the ring? Who will face the Dancer?”

It didn’t appear that many were eager for that particular honor.

“Gwwwaaaah! Gwwwwwwargh! Cowards!” Grogsson bellowed. If he was trying to convince anybody to take the risk, he was doing a poor job of it. The crowd began to mutter and sway, but none stepped forward.

“Any weapon!” Grogsson offered.

“Do you hear that, friends?” the ringmaster called. “Any weapon you like! The Dancer will face you with only his fists! The house will pay ten-to-one odds against the Dancer, and the challenger will receive a quarter share of all bets rendered, win or lose! You must like those numbers, eh? Who will fight? Who’s good with a knife? Who’s good with a pistol? Have you got a rifle, friend? Have you got a cannon? Step forward!”

Nobody did.

Grogsson screamed his frustration and threw his fists against his chest and his own, swollen eyes, “Three men! Any weapon!”

“Three men!” the ringmaster cried. “Three, armed however they will, at five-to-one odds! For centuries now, England has huddled behind her wooden walls, kept safe by ships and sailors! Are there not three men left? Are there not three sailors in all England to answer this call?”

Apparently, there were not.

“Perhaps things had not gone well for Mr. Hanson.”

“You can win!” Grogsson howled, lashing out with a fist against one of the beams that held the warehouse’s roof. I heard it crack. The entire building shook with the blow and the two hundred or so sailors within ducked and scuttled, fearing the roof might come down around their ears. I heard shingles clatter to the ground outside.

“Torg will let you win!” Grogsson promised, but still the crowd was too terrified to face him.

I knew better. Or, I knew Grogsson. He held honor as the most sacred virtue—far more important than life itself. I knew he was not lying. Was he seeking to be punished for his misdeeds? Was he seeking death? I began to push my way through the crowd.