The Execution of Sherlock Holmes (34 page)

‘The gallows?’

‘Unless we look about us very smartly indeed. Do you not observe something psychopathic about his manner of speech? There is a man who would smile and smile—and be a villain. Now will you look at that letter and that envelope. Do not read—look!’

I looked and still thought only that the letter and envelope seemed to have been typed on the same machine. I said so, but this was not what he wanted. At last I made the only comment that seemed warranted.

‘The letter is clearer than the envelope.’

‘Clearer? How?’

‘The letters are more distinct, blacker I suppose.’

‘Well done, Watson! The ribbon that typed the envelope is well worn. The ribbon that typed the letter is significantly less worn, though not new. It would seem that the letter and the envelope, though bearing the same date, were typed days apart—or more probably a week or two apart.’

‘Gurney has penciled the same date of receipt upon them.’

‘Such a jotting would be easy enough to imitate.’

‘The letter and the envelope may have been typed on the same day. The envelope was typed first, then a new ribbon was used to give the letter a smarter appearance.’

‘My dear Watson, I will wager you a small sum that not more than one in a hundred people usually type the envelope before the letter. Moreover, they would change the ribbon for both the envelope and letter—or for neither. In any case, this letter was not written with a new ribbon, merely a ribbon that was much less worn than when it was used for the envelope. You may depend upon it, this letter was written well in advance of the date now typed upon it. Indeed, if you will take the glass and look closely, you will see that the date, as it is typed, has a somewhat blurred appearance compared with the rest of the letter. I recognize the machine as a product of E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York. It is an admirable make of machine on which one may move backwards by one space and type a character again, if it has been rubbed out for correction. The date on this letter has been typed over two or three times on a worn cotton ribbon to give it superficially the same appearance as the rest of the writing done with a newer ribbon.’

‘Why should he write an undated letter admitting his fault to Gurney, withhold it for a week or two, then date it and send it?’

Holmes returned it to its envelope and placed the envelope in the bureau again.

‘Because this letter was never sent.’

‘And the envelope with its stamp and postmark?’

‘The envelope originally contained a quite different communication, something innocuous and not ostensibly from Chamberlain. Why, then, the substitution?’

‘Why could Chamberlain not simply have sent the letter we have found?’

‘My dear Watson! This letter is utter nonsense! With our own eyes we saw Chamberlain practicing his old frauds some days after it was sent. This message of reconciliation was not intended to be read by Gurney. It was to be found by others when Gurney could no longer contradict it.’

‘Found by whom and when, if not by Gurney?’

‘His executors, no doubt, or perhaps the police authorities. This whole scheme depends upon the near certainty that once Gurney has filed away his post bag he is unlikely to consult this item again in the next few days or hours merely to reread—what shall we say?—some innocuous and dreary cutting from last Saturday’s paper.’

‘And then?’

‘And then it will not matter, Watson. In this scheme of things, the next few days are all that Edmund Gurney has left to him.’

I could not see murder in all this and, for the moment, dismissed it as melodrama. We looked again at the drugged and unconscious figure on the bed. He was in no danger now, but I was reluctant to leave him just yet. Holmes had opened the medicine cupboard and was going through the contents. Inspecting the pills and powders, he called out names from time to time and asked me to identify the ingredients. We went through the list, from the Carbolic Smoke Ball remedy to Propter’s Nicodemus Pills. Holmes gave a short sardonic laugh at the promise by the latter to make ‘The Old Man Young Again.’

‘And by what means is that to be accomplished?’

‘Chicanery and imposture,’ I said, coming into the bedroom for fear of waking Gurney. ‘I have had patients who take these and many other cure-alls. They are ineffective but usually harmless. You will see that Propter’s Nicodemus capsules contain a tonic dose of arsenic, but you could eat an entire box of them and not suffer the least harm. They have a pinch of aphrodisiac cantharides, but not enough to make the old man any younger than he was before.’

Holmes drew an envelope from beside the bottles. It contained slips and receipts from the firms that had supplied Gurney through the post with the nostrums of the hypochondriac. He had no doubt kept these scraps of paper so that the addresses were to hand for his next order. ‘The Carbolic Smoke Ball Company begs to assure its clients that £100 has been deposited with the City and Suburban Bank to be paid out to any who shall suffer influenza for six months after using the smoke ball three times daily before breakfast during four weeks.’ ‘Learmount’s Patent Chocolate Iron Tonic is best taken in warm water upon rising. A further tablespoonful may be administered before retiring. It is entirely safe for children at five years of age.’

Kaolin-and-Opium of Hackney Downs and Propter’s Nicodemus Pills of Fortess Road, Kentish Town, both contained a leaflet of praise from various invalids throughout the country whose health, if not their lives, had been saved by resorting to these concoctions. Propter’s added a circular to long-established clients, accompanying a complimentary box of twenty ‘improved’ capsules, ‘designed to prevent the nighttime restlessness that may previously have been consequent upon their use. To obtain this effect, it is of the utmost importance that the capsules should be taken in the order indicated, twice daily.’

‘At any rate,’ I said, looking into the box, ‘he can come to no harm from these, for he has taken eighteen of the twenty already and there is another box unopened.’

We went back to the sitting room and occupied the two armchairs. It was close to the hour when Gurney might safely be left to sleep off the remaining effects of the chloroform. I proposed to read a lecture to him in the morning on the folly of meddling with anaesthetics.

‘As for that last letter of Chamberlain’s,’ I said to Holmes, ‘we can hardly discuss it with Gurney, unless you choose to confess to having broken open his bureau.’

‘There was no breaking,’ he said indifferently. ‘However, as you say, it is not a matter for discussion. I think we must take the fight to the enemy. Tomorrow morning we shall have Chamberlain’s lodgings at the Marine Parade apartments in our sights and we shall not lose him from that moment on. I require to know everything about him—where he goes, what he does, who keeps him company. For that, I shall need your assistance. It is too easy for a man to give the slip to a single pursuer. Chamberlain is a most dangerous, I would almost say pathological, villain. I do not believe that he would stop at murder, if it truly suited his purposes. Do not tell me, Watson, that I am neglecting Miss Effie Deans. I swear that the solution to that poor girl’s difficulties lies somewhere in all this.’

It was almost two o’clock in the morning before we summoned the manager to assure him that Edmund Gurney was in no danger and might safely be left. The courteous Italian was effusive in his thanks and assured me that whatever was in his power by way of obliging me for my help should be done. Prompted by Sherlock Holmes, I said there was one thing. On no account must Mr. Gurney be asked to leave the hotel until I had had the chance of a serious discussion with him. I undertook that I would settle the matter before the following night and would, I trusted, put paid to his pernicious habit of self-anaesthesia. I think the gaunt
maitre d’hotel
, with his pale features and black suiting, was a little uneasy at this, but he assured me that everything should be done as I instructed.

Holmes and I returned to our suite at the Royal Albion a little after two in the morning. I had earned a night’s rest and wanted no assistance in dropping off into a profound sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. It seemed to me that this had lasted for no more than an hour or so when I was roused by a sudden tugging at my shoulder. I woke to find the electric light full on and Holmes standing over me, his face shining with energy. Before I could ask him whether Gurney had taken a turn for the worse, he said:

‘Come, Watson! It is gone six o’clock and we must be up and doing! If the game is being played as I suspect, our birds will have flown before long.’

He was talking about Professor Chamberlain and Madame Elvira, of course. Despite the ungodly hour, he had already been downstairs, roused the night porter, and sent a further telegram to Inspector Gregson at Scotland Yard, to follow his letter as soon as the post offices should open.

‘We ourselves cannot wait for such offices to open, my dear fellow. We must be on the Chain Pier as soon as its gates are unlocked for the seven o’clock steamer to Boulogne.’

‘They surely cannot be going to Boulogne. Their last performance is tonight.’

‘I have just taken the precaution of walking a little distance down to the theatre billboard. Another flyer was pasted across it late last night or early this morning. There is to be no more mesmerism nor mindreading. The Aquarium management regrets that tonight’s performance is cancelled in consequence of the indisposition of Madame Elvira. If they attempt to take the steamer, we shall catch them. More to the point, the deck of the pier looks diagonally across to those apartments on the Marine Parade. They cannot leave without our seeing them.’

I was wide awake now and soon ready for the pursuit of our suspects. A little before seven o’clock, we were at the pier, where the steamer for Boulogne was alongside and the first passengers were filing aboard over her paddlebox. It was a fine cool morning, the mist still clinging over the sea and a band of pale sun along the eastern horizon. None of the passengers was recognizable as Chamberlain or Madame Elvira. Presently the ropes were thrown off, the gangway was pulled aboard, and the paddles of the
Sea Breeze
churned the green channel water to a hissing froth as she went astern and swung round towards the French coast.

Holmes and I were the first to take deck chairs on the pier that morning. I had with me my neat Barr & Stroud precision field-glasses in their military leather case, with which he could almost have read a newspaper headline on the promenade. We waited, under the pretext of reading our copies of the
Times
and the
Morning Post
, as the sunlight grew warmer and the first promenaders appeared on the esplanade. I was about to say pessimistically that we might sit there all day and see nothing, when Holmes exclaimed quietly, ‘There he is! And so is she! I would say that she looks worried but not indisposed.’

He handed me the glasses. I saw that Chamberlain and the girl had come out of the doorway of the apartments and were standing on the pavement in earnest conversation. Holmes snatched the glasses back and adjusted the focus a little.

‘He is going, I think, and she is staying. Let us be thankful there are two of us. She is giving him a pair of books.’

‘I daresay he will find a chair in the sun and spend the day reading.’

‘No, Watson, no! One book might be for reading. If he has two, the odds are that he is taking them somewhere.’

‘At this hour of the day? The libraries will not be open, nor will the bookshops.’

‘Then his destination is evidently a place where such institutions will be open by the time of his arrival. There is, I think, a label pasted on the cover of one book. An orange oval with black writing. We have him!’

I was intrigued by this, but still far from understanding how we had him!

‘The St. James’s Street Library, in the shadow of the great palace, founded by John Stuart Mill and his friends for the public good almost fifty years ago. A treasure house of learning and the arcane, a scholar’s paradise. For many years I have been a member. So it seems has friend Chamberlain, though I imagine he has only temporary privileges there. You may depend upon it, Watson, he is going to London—and so are we.’

It was hard to realise that we had only left London two days before. Yet every instinct told me that Holmes was right. Chamberlain was opening a Gladstone bag and adding the two books to whatever else it might contain. Then he swung round, striding toward West Street and the long climb that leads to the railway station at the top.

‘Watson! Quick as you can! Cut through the little streets to the side, past the Royal Pavilion! Book two first-class returns to London before he can get to the railway ticket office and see you. I doubt whether he will recognise us among so many of his audience, but we must not take the chance. I shall follow him, in case he should have other plans, but I swear that Gladstone bag has the look of the London and Brighton railway about it.’

I did as he asked, Holmes following the fugitive westward while I strode at my best pace past the lawns and Georgian houses of the Steyne, the oriental onion domes of the Prince Regent’s palace by the sea. My years of playing rugby for Blackheath have served my constitution well. I cut through quickly by way of the little streets where our client Mrs. Deans and her family lived. I came out at the lower level of the station, the smoky air leaving a gritty deposit of soot between the teeth. The booking hall was empty when I arrived and took our tickets for London. I had beaten Chamberlain to it! I saw him approach up the long slope of Queens Road, and by loitering I overheard him take one single ticket for London. Holmes was right. Professor Chamberlain had no intention of coming back to Brighton. What of Madame Elvira?

There was no sign anywhere of Holmes as the pursuer. Only when I walked toward the departure platform did I hear a quiet voice behind me.

‘The ticket, if you please, Watson. We shall travel as strangers and meet at the far end in an hour’s time.’

And so it was. I chose a compartment on one side of Chamberlain with Holmes on the other. He could not leave the train without being seen by us both. As our train crossed the Thames below Chelsea Bridge and began drawing into Victoria Station, our quarry was on his feet, the bag in his hand, ready to be one of the first to alight.