The Adventure of the Dead Wild Bore (4 page)

Fortunately for all concerned, his part in the telephone conversation was brief. He managed to announce himself to Greg Wordsworth, but Wordsworth seemed to want to do all the talking, and all that Holmes had to do was agree now and then, and nod or shake his head sagely, an action that did nothing to underline his agreement, as it was just an ordinary telephone he was using.

Making rather an elaborate business of placing the handset back where it belonged, Holmes swung quite recklessly in Garden's direction, swaying alarmingly on his feet as he did so, and said, ‘There's been a bit of bad luck for Greg, but it does clari-clafiry-clarify things for us.' He stopped and shook his head from side to side, as if trying to reorder his thoughts.

Leading him to a sofa, Garden asked what Greg had said. ‘Said … 'e said …' Holmes cleared his throat enthusiastically and tried again. ‘He said,' he repeated, slowly and carefully, ‘that the'es fire-escade – a fire-escape – leadin' from that meetin' room, and tha' Street-eet-eeter had found it locked. 'E's gonna get done for that. Poor old Greg.'

Noticing tears of pity well up in Holmes' eyes, Garden gently assisted him to his feet and led him to his bedroom, where he helped him undress and get into his pyjamas. Carefully, he slid the older man under the enormously fluffy duvet – one modern idea that Holmes had grasped enthusiastically, not being a fan of bed-making – and tiptoed out of the room.

He then padded to the kitchen, found a packet of dried cat food, and filled up the plastic bowl on the floor, refilled the water container, checked that the back door was locked, then made his way to his own room. He undressed in the light coming through from the hall, placed his clothes, fairly neatly folded, on a leather armchair against the wall, and, having forgotten to bring a pair of pyjamas with him and wearing only his shirt, slid, with a sigh of relief, under his own enormous duvet. Which, uncharacteristically, bit him on the right buttock.

With a yell of surprise and pain, he sprang upright, throwing back the puffed up cover, thus letting out a lot of the heat the electric blanket had built up over the evening, and exposing what had been a very soundly asleep and contented Colin.

The cat made a lightning swiping motion with his right front paw, drawing four lines of blood from the back of Garden's left leg, shot straight up into the air, and literally flew out of the door.

Garden got out of bed, walked slightly unsteadily towards the door, and slammed it with a growl of fury at being ‘got' again by this sneaky and devious animal who obviously hated him. By the time he got back into bed, most of the warmth had left it, and he shivered, curled into a foetal position, until the blanket managed to engender a little warmth back into the mattress and the forlorn figure lying on it.

The next morning, when Garden awoke, he could hear Holmes already up and pottering around in the kitchen, clattering pots and pans and running water. He must have made a remarkable recovery, thought the younger man, as his stomach gave a lurch, and a wave of nausea washed over him. He did not have a strong head for alcohol, and had drunk more than he usually did.

Having disdainfully pulled on yesterday's clothes, he followed the noise and found his friend preparing a fried breakfast, a large cafetière already on the table, and two places set. ‘How come you're so chirpy this morning?' asked Garden, running his fingers through his rumpled hair and yawning.

‘I haven't the faintest idea, but I slept like the dead, and woke up very refreshed and ready to go on this case of ours,' he replied, putting a couple more rashers of bacon in the pan. ‘One egg or two?'

Garden nearly gagged, but took sufficient control of himself to ask, ‘What time is it?'

‘Don't worry about the time. I've phoned Shirley and told her she can manage for today. We don't get a lot of new business through the door what with the Saturday shopping crowd, so I've told her that if she needs us, she can always ring. We'll be here, solving the mystery of the … of the … of the what?'

‘Dead wild bore,' suggested Garden. ‘He was a helluva bore, he was absolutely furious at the last meeting when the others wouldn't give his short story a hearing, and he was as dead as a dodo when we came across him yesterday evening.'

‘Well done, old chap,' Holmes congratulated him, starting to serve an amazing fry-up. ‘There you go, egg, tomato, sausage, bacon, fried bread, baked beans, mushrooms, and black pudding – that'll put hairs on your chest. Just let me pour you a cup of coffee. Get that lot down you and you'll be ready for anything, John H.'

After a few solid swallows of coffee and his first forkful of bacon and egg, Garden found that he already felt better, and tucked in with a will. As he chewed, Holmes said, ‘I've just remembered something that poor old Greg said on the phone last night.'

Classing this as nothing short of a miracle, Garden replied, ‘Go on.'

‘Greg asked all his staff if anyone had been up to the meeting room since his wife had cleaned it, and they all said they hadn't. He said he definitely didn't go up there, so it looks a bit as if we're looking for the invisible man. There's no access to the snug from outside, and the fire-door at the top of the fire escape was locked, so how did whoever did for Antony get up there without being seen? This is a problem worthy of old Sherlock himself, don't you think?'

Garden halted, fork halfway to his mouth, and sat there like a statue, his face screwed up in deep thought. ‘Someone else
must
have gone up there,' he stated. ‘Did they actually see Antony go up?'

‘A couple of them said good evening to him. He didn't like to stay out of the limelight and would obviously advertise his presence.'

‘But they didn't see anyone else?'

‘No,' replied Holmes, chewing on a particularly succulent mouthful of sausage doused liberally in brown sauce.

‘So, who took up the jugs of squash and the plates of sandwiches, then? I can just picture them on the table when we went up there. And there were ice-cubes still in those jugs. I remember them distinctly,' replied Garden, with a smile.

‘By Gad, you're right. So can I, now I think of it. But how did they manage it, eh?'

Garden closed his eyes and seemed to go into a trance for a few minutes, then he shot up from his chair with a cry of ‘Eureka!'

‘What the heck is it, Garden, old chap?' asked Holmes, his eyes shining.

‘Who never gets noticed going to a front door? The postman. Who never gets noticed going to a hospital bed? A nurse. Who never gets noticed walking around with a large tray? A waiter or member of staff!'

Holmes' face fell. ‘But they all say that none of them went up there.'

‘No, I'm sure they didn't, but that doesn't stop an outsider from slipping into the black and white they wear for work, and taking charge, maybe, of their refreshments, which may have been left unattended for a moment,' declared Garden, with a note of triumph in his voice.

Holmes, most unexpectedly, got up from the table and did a little dance round the kitchen, with as much energy as his portly body would allow, then he stopped and glared at Garden. ‘If I'm Holmes, then you're supposed to be Watson, and Watson wasn't very bright. But I think you've solved the mystery of how someone got upstairs without being noticed.'

‘He could slip back downstairs again, time his moment and, go into the gents, from which he could emerge in his everyday clothes, and no one would be any the wiser. All he would have to do would be to dispose of the black and white he wore.'

‘Hang on a minute,' said Holmes, once more looking thoughtful. ‘If he only accessorised his black and white, say with a bright tie and jacket – and I've just remembered that all the staff except for Greg and Tilly have to wear baseball caps, all he'd need to do was stash his unneeded items of clothing, and “borrow” a baseball cap.'

‘And he could come straight out of the gents' and order a drink with no suspicion whatsoever falling on him,' finished Garden, following his partner's expression of victory, and doing a little war dance up and down the hall. Unfortunately, halfway through this little celebratory dance, Colin shot out of his master's bedroom, and Garden landed unceremoniously on his knees, before he could return to his unfinished breakfast. Colin howled as if he had been shot, at being thus disturbed in his flight to his litter tray, shot off down the hall, through the apartment, and disappeared through the cat-flap as if the Hound of the Baskervilles was after him.

‘Get out, you little beast!' shouted Holmes, so flushed with success that he didn't even have time to defend his adored baby Colin.

Garden got up and dusted himself down. ‘So, where does that leave us, then? I'd say that it was probably one of the Irregulars who saw Antony off. Did they go into the pub before the meeting started,
in mufti
, or did they not arrive until after the body was discovered? Can you think of anyone you saw while we were eating, just before we went up?' he asked.

‘Leave that one with me and I'll give it some thought,' replied Holmes. ‘What else do we know?'

‘That the murderer either stole that disgraceful short story from the dead man and shoved the title page into his waistcoat, or he'd already got his hands on it, and brought along the title page to make a point. Whichever way it was, it means the story was taken from Antony, because he never let it out of his sight, and it could be anywhere by now. Do you have a record of all their addresses?' asked Garden, but Holmes' answer was cut off by the ringing of the doorbell.

Holmes opened the door to find Detective Inspector Streeter and his sidekick, Detective Sergeant Port, standing on the doorstep, a uniformed constable at the foot of the small flight of steps that led up to the ground floor apartment. Holmes made a face like someone sucking a lemon, and invited them in. ‘What can we do for you?' he asked, adjusting his expression to one more akin to that of someone welcoming guests.

Streeter came into the hall, followed by the shorter, rather tubbier man, pulled himself up to his full height, gave a smug little grin, then announced, ‘Having coordinated all the notes from the questioning we did yesterday evening, and examining all the circumstances very carefully, it is my sad duty to inform you that – oh, Mr Garden is here, too. That makes life easier for me. Now where was I?'

‘Examining all the circumstances very carefully,' prompted Port.

‘Ah, yes. In light of all the evidence we have, to date, we find that our chief suspects are you two. You are the only ones known to have mounted that staircase after Mrs Wordsworth left it, and Mr Richard Brownlow, the barman, says that you didn't turn around and come straight back downstairs. He reckons there was a gap of a few minutes, which we consider was just enough time for you to do away with Mr Antony and wipe off any fingerprints you may have left.'

‘That's the most preposterous thing I have ever heard in my life,' exploded Holmes, going almost purple in the face with indignation. ‘Garden and I are private investigators, uncovering crimes, not committing them. Why on earth should we want to kill someone like him; Garden had only met him on the evening of our last meeting. He'd never seen him in his life before that.'

‘Says he,' sneered Streeter, glaring Holmes in the eye, then giving Garden the same Paddington stare.

‘Says me, too,' Holmes challenged him ungrammatically. ‘And do you have a warrant for our arrest, or is all your evidence just in your own twisted imagination?'

Garden smiled, as if to say, ‘take that'. ‘Have you spoken to any other members of the Quaker Street Irregulars?' he asked.

Streeter blustered and Port blushed, answering for his superior officer. ‘We've not had sufficient time, so far, but DI Streeter wanted to come round here just to mark your cards,' he offered.

‘I think you'll find that I'm holding the aces of spades and clubs, and my colleague here is holding the aces of hearts and diamonds. When I played poker as a younger man, four aces beat anything you could have in your hand,' Holmes crowed in triumph. The man was bluffing. He'd just wanted to put the wind up them, and it wasn't going to work. They were innocent, and would uncover the guilty party without his help.

Streeter left with his plans in complete disarray, and Port, as he followed him through the door and down the outside steps, looked over his shoulder, and winked at a surprised Holmes and Garden. He wasn't taken in by his guv'nor's behaviour and accusations, either.

Garden followed them down to the street to have a quick word with the uniformed constable, to find out why he was there in the first place. ‘I think he had high hopes of clapping you both in handcuffs and frog-marching you down to the cells,' he explained, good-naturedly. ‘Do you know what we call those two down at the nick?'

‘Enlighten me,' Garden encouraged him.

‘They're known, as a pair, as “Janet.”'

‘Why's that?' Garden had no idea why this should be so.

‘Janet Street-Porter – Janet Port-Streeter. Geddit?'

Garden did, and laughed merrily, going indoors to explain this to Holmes. Of course, he had to explain who Janet Street-Porter was first, before Holmes could become aware of why it was funny, but he got there in the end. And when he'd had a quick look on the internet, he laughed until he nearly became reacquainted with his breakfast.

Part Four

Holmes did, indeed, have a list of the members' addresses and home telephone numbers – hardly any of them relied on a mobile – these being the only records that the society seemed to keep. Leaving Holmes to ring round to see if the other men could provide alibis for the time before the meeting was due to start, Garden went on to the computer to see what he could dig up.

Apart from the odd ‘oh!' ‘really?' and ‘how very interesting,' Garden more or less worked in silence, tapping away at the keys and making notes on a pad to the right of the keyboard of the laptop that he had, thankfully, thrown into the back of Holmes' car out of force of habit. In their occupation, one simply didn't leave the office without one's laptop, although they had yet to find one that Holmes felt happy with.

Holmes, on the other hand, made quite a bit of noise over his phone calls. Sometimes he spoke to the member himself, at others, to wives or house-mates, and he, too, took copious notes of what was being told to him.

It was one o'clock before they both came up for air, and Holmes suggested a spot of lunch before they compared notes. He was feeling so hungry that he could eat a scabby donkey; not that he counted such an expression in his vocabulary.

After a scratch meal of ham salad sandwiches washed down with a cup of tea, they each took their notebook, and sat opposite each other on the twin sofas. ‘What have you got, Holmes?' asked Garden, deciding that the host should go first.

‘The chair, Stephen Compton, is a widower and lives alone: retired doctor. Specialist area, the short stories. He returned a spade he had borrowed from his neighbour, however, on his way out, and got talking. By the time he looked at his watch, he really had to rush, and arrived at the pub to find us at the bar hatch, waiting for the Wordsworths to come through.

‘Here's the members' list. Could you write in pencil underneath his name, “check with neighbour”. Next, we have Ludovic Connor, a forty-year-old single bank clerk. Specialist area, the longer stories like
The Hound
. He worked overtime, and was five minutes late, arriving while we were in the back parlour, from what he tells me, as he remembers us coming back through. Under his name, put “check with employers”, although how we're going to do that, I have no idea. You know what secretive buggers – pardon me – bank staff are and how loath they are to give out any information whatsoever.'

‘We could always chat up one of the other employees there, and see if they worked late last night or knew of anyone who had,' suggested Garden.

‘Excellent idea, Watson, er, Garden: first-class thinking. Next, we have Aaron Dibley, a divorced probation officer: specialist area, just the written stories. He says no one can confirm when he left the house, because he lives alone, so we may have to do a bit of checking with the neighbours there. Make a note: “check with neighbours”.

‘Next, we have Peter Lampard, gas engineer and single, although I know he lives with another gentleman, and I've never looked too closely at their living arrangements. The other gentleman said Lampard didn't leave until twenty minutes before the meeting was due to start and, although he doesn't live far away, by then we were already on our way upstairs. He's the one that's potty about the series starring Benedict Cumberbatch: thinks it's sheer genius. Make a note, Garden: “check on relationship”, not that it's any of our business what he does behind closed doors. Whether he's telling the truth or not, I don't know. He did sound a little furtive.'

‘But if Lampard is gay, he might have felt that the story was written just to get him and to “out” him. Or he may even have felt annoyed that Antony had depicted an obviously straight character as a gay. Some people can be very sensitive about their particular foibles, you know,' said Garden, and winked at Holmes, sparking a memory of the only time Holmes had seen Joanne in full fig, and causing a blush to rise to his face, as he remembered how attractive he thought she looked. This, coupled with the fact that he found Shirley Garden a very attractive woman was something that he needed to keep suppressed in Garden's presence.

He cleared his throat in embarrassment, glad that Garden couldn't read his mind, and continued, ‘Dave Warwick was much too taken up with his new baby to have even considered attending. Similarly, Bob Wiltshire, a generalist, as far as Holmes was concerned, and a social worker by profession, had been called out to an emergency case conference, and wouldn't have turned up either.

‘Along the same lines, Christopher Cave, a cabbie whose specialised area was the oddball works about the great detective, had actually dropped a fare off at the pub, then simply parked his car round the back in the car park, and entered the bar just as the clock was chiming the hour.' That was another perfectly good suspect down the drain, thought Holmes. Garden was relieved. They didn't want too long a list when they'd been through everyone, or they'd never get to the bottom of things.

Elliot Jordan, the librarian whose field of expertise was the films, had walked from the library, but he'd seemed to have taken an unconscionable time to get there, but as long as they had confirmation of the time he left the library, there was nothing more they could do, in all reality.

The last one on the list, apart from Holmes himself and the victim, was Kevin Wood, a married teacher who doted on the last series but one. He had claimed to come straight from a staff meeting, without the time to go home and get changed, but that was confirmed by his wife, who happened to be in when Holmes rang his home after speaking to him on his mobile. ‘Who does that leave still on the list?' he asked, at last running out of steam.

‘If we ignore all the follow-ups and queries?' queried Garden.

‘Just so, John H. Who's definitely still in our sights, then? And then you can tell me about what you found out.'

Garden consulted the pencilled notes he had taken while Holmes had been talking, and said, ‘The only ones who can't prove an alibi are, firstly, Elliot Jordan, who seems to have taken four times longer than he needed to, to walk the short distance to The Sherlock. Secondly, there's Aaron Dibley, who lives alone and hasn't anyone to vouch for when he left the house.

‘Thirdly, you seem to want me to include Peter Lampard, because we think his house-mate may be lying, and he may be more than his house-mate, coupled with what I said about him taking a scunner to the man and/or the manuscript. Who knows, maybe he wanted to steal and peddle it as his own work – the gay re-creator of Holmes.'

‘I'm afraid we'll just have to trust our hunch on the last one. It's a gut instinct thing,' said Holmes, twirling the ends of his moustache thoughtfully. ‘Where should we start first?'

‘I think we should start by leaving any personal visits till this evening. I could do with a shower and a change of clothes, and a lot of people who aren't working on a Saturday go out shopping. These are no fly-by-night youngsters we're looking at, and I shouldn't think they'd be out on the razz on a Saturday night.'

Garden was feeling a bit jaded after their ‘bit of a binge' the night before, and a fairly sleepless night at not being in his own bed. ‘Just let me tell you what I came across. I think you'll find there's food for thought in it. That's another reason why I don't want to act precipitately. We need to think this through, and not act on the spur of the moment.'

‘So, what have you got in that notebook of yours, before you scoot off back to the flat?'

‘I checked on the possibility that there were other Sherlock Holmes appreciation societies that might have an online presence, and I found a few.'

Holmes whistled softly, though he had no idea what this could possibly mean. ‘Go on.'

‘I e-mailed them – hey,
E-mail
and the Detectives!' Holmes looked puzzled. ‘Never mind … A couple of them have actually replied, and confirmed that Cyril Antony turned up at one of their meetings asking to join, sat in on a meeting, and tried to read them his story.'

‘So, he was definitely out for some sort of glory, though how he could achieve it …' Holmes fizzled to a halt.

‘I decided to follow this theme a little bit further, and looked on line for recently self-published short stories, and there it was, bold as brass: ‘A Study in Cerise', available at – get this – six pounds ninety-nine, as an e-book.'

‘Scandalous!' spat Holmes. ‘What's an e-book?'

‘You're pulling my leg, aren't you?'

‘Yes,' confirmed Holmes, ‘and what a lot to charge for a download where there's no physical product, and it's only a short story.'

‘I know. He'll never sell any at that price,' mused Garden, relieved that he didn't have to describe this particular reading revolution to his older partner.

‘I meant that he'd had the brass neck to publish it at all, and inflict that piece of absolute rubbish onto an unsuspecting world.' Holmes' indignation was on the part of Conan Doyle's character, rather than that of a gullible public who were about to be relieved of much too large a sum of money for what had seemed like far-fetched drivel.

Garden calmed down his partner and summed up the situation by stating, ‘The way I see it, we've got to check out a divorced librarian – the library doesn't close till seven – a possibly gay gas fitter, and a probation officer who doesn't have a witness to when he left home. I'll come up with a plan, and come back here about six-ish. We can always go to the chippie later.'

‘Me? Go to a fish and chip shop?' asked Holmes, in righteous indignation.

‘Oh, lighten up, old man. It won't kill you, and you might actually enjoy it,' Garden said, as a parting shot. He then shot out as quickly as he could to the waiting taxi that he had called, as he'd heard the ominous clatter of the cat-flap in the kitchen door, and knew that Colin had now entered the building.

Garden, cerise and steaming from his shower, wrapped himself in a thick towelling robe, and padded in his slippers towards his wardrobes. Flinging open a door, he fingered his way through the items hanging there, and finally selected a kingfisher blue blouse and a cream linen skirt before having a bit of a rumble through Joanne's undies drawer. A pair of black ballet pumps would set off the outfit, if he wore his black woollen jacket against the weather.

He dressed and sat in front of his dressing table, selecting the make-up that would go with his chosen items just as carefully as he had chosen the clothes, and treated the choice of his jewellery to the same careful consideration. He wanted to look smart and official, but friendly enough to have a real chat too, for Garden had a plan.

Holmes wouldn't like it, but he didn't know what else they could do. He'd just have to wait until he got back to Farlington Market before he could put it to him, for he didn't want to give him a whiff of what he proposed they should do until he was there in person to judge his reaction.

At half past five, a very different figure from that that had entered by the front door just a while ago slipped out of the back door of the office. The first Holmes knew of his partner's return was a short ring on the doorbell, but when he answered the summons and opened the door, he was puzzled.

Standing on his doorstep was an attractive young woman, quite tall and with blonde hair which was highlighted by the light from the street lamp situated outside the property next door. ‘How may I help you?' asked Holmes, noticing that she carried a clipboard. Some sort of survey, perhaps?

The young lady winked at him, causing him even more confusion, then greeted him in quite a deep voice. ‘Come on, Holmes, old man, let me in for God's sake. It's perishing out here.'

Holmes' mouth dropped open as he admitted his visitor, who whispered, ‘Shut your mouth, Holmes, you look like you're catching flies.'

‘Garden? Is that really you?' asked the astonished Holmes. He'd seen Garden in his female gear before, but it never ceased to amaze him how believable he was. And he must have a selection of wigs, because that wasn't the one he had seen him in when he was ‘in Joanne's skin' once before. He felt himself reddening again at the thought.

Garden seemed to have the knack of shaving his face so closely that there was never the hint of a five o'clock shadow or a stray whisker. Maybe that, in itself, should have been confirmation that he was not female, as most women of his age or older seemed to have the odd wiry hair or two – or dozen – protruding from their chinny-chin-chin or top lip.

‘I have a cunning plan, Holmes,' announced Garden with a smirk.

‘That's just as well, because I haven't thought of any way we can check out what we need to,' replied Holmes. ‘Come and sit down for a moment, and you can put me in the picture.'

Once seated opposite each other, the fire blazing away merrily between them, and not a Colin in sight – Holmes had put him out, lest he snag Garden's tights – Garden suggested that they sum exactly what they needed to ascertain.

‘We need to find out who killed Cyril Antony,' stated Holmes, simplistically and baldly.

‘We also need to find out if the rest of the original manuscript of “A Study in Cerise”' – Holmes winced at the title – ‘still exists, but whoever has it in his possession must be the murderer.'

‘But surely he'd have destroyed the whole thing,' said Holmes.

‘Maybe not if he doesn't know it's out on the internet yet. Maybe he wants to retitle it and publish it in his name, under a new title,' suggested Garden.

‘Like what?' asked Holmes abruptly.

‘Perhaps … “The Secret Life of Holmes and Watson”.'

‘But Cyril had read it to people,' countered Holmes.

‘I'd be willing to bet he never got as far as the second page, as he didn't with your group, and only the first few pages may have to be re-written. Or maybe he just wanted to destroy it. With these two things in mind, I offer you my plan for this evening.'