The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (68 page)

“I am delighted to see you again, Mr Holmes – Dr Watson,” said our visitor, settling himself into an armchair.

“And we, you”, replied my friend cheerfully. “It was only last evening that we were speculating on the effects, beneficial or otherwise, of the new
Literary Supplement
on the fortunes of publishing houses such as yours, and on those who, like Dr Watson, supply the grist for your mills.”

“It certainly introduces a new element into the novelist’s equation,” commented Garrison Bolt, with a wry smile, “the effects of which will be felt throughout the world. Indeed, there is an international aspect to this singular and tantalizing matter that has come up in our offices, which I believe will be of interest to you.” Holmes and I leaned forward. Both paused, as though seeking the words that would best secure our attention. “It appears to me that the matter already does relate to you!”

“How so?” asked Holmes, laying aside his pipe.

“I have had in my employment, head of one of our departments, a Mr Musgrave,” the publisher explained. “Some years ago he died.”

“How?”

“Of natural causes.”

“What type of man was he?”

“A hard-working person, of a religious bent but with no other special feature in his character. I have had no occasion to think of Newman Musgrave since – until a month ago, when we received a letter addressed to him care of ourselves. I have it with me now.” Garrison Bolt handed an envelope to Sherlock Holmes. It appeared thus:

“As you see, the letter has been addressed not to Newman, but to Norman, Musgrave. We have had no other Musgraves in our employ so I feel sure that the letter was intended for Newman. It has been registered, carries Canadian postage and has the note ‘CONFL FILMS’ upon the outside of the envelope, with the words ‘REPORT SY’ in the top left hand corner, in the position where the sender’s return address is usually given. No such return address, or any indication as to the sender, however, appears. The postman, after some demur, agreed to leave the envelope with us.

“As we had no note of the dead man’s relatives we naturally opened it. To our surprise we found inside only these two blank pieces of paper.” He handed these to me. I passed them to Holmes, who glanced at them cursorily and returned them to our visitor.

“Thinking that the sheets might have some connection with ‘films’, or perhaps ‘confidential films’ ”, he continued, “and not trusting them only to my own examinations, I employed the best expert advice I could secure by submitting them to Scotland Yard for analysis by every possible chemical and heat test – all without any result.”

“Tut, man,” cried Holmes, glancing at the envelope. “You surely received the letter at least a month ago. Have you not been tardy in submitting it for testing?”

“I fear so, sir. I had not read any emergency into the matter. It was only when the police laboratory failed me that I realized that if the mystery was to be solved more specialized advice was needed. It was then that I thought of you, Mr Holmes. Like all Londoners I am aware of your extraordinary ability to solve the insoluble, and to bring light into darkness. You will recall that our house had the pleasure of publishing one of Dr Watson’s first accounts of a
tour de force
in your astonishing career. I was struck, too, by the postmark ‘Baskerville’ on the envelope, mindful that the name is associated with another of your recent adventures. The name of my employee, Musgrave, of course is to be found in yet another of Dr Watson’s accounts.”

I interjected, “How the correspondent could have something so secret to say to Mr Musgrave and yet not be aware that this person had been dead for several years is very hard to understand – or why blank sheets should be so carefully registered through the mail.”

“Quite so. To a man like me the matter is an insoluble mystery.” He turned to Holmes. “Well, Mr Holmes, you are not a man like me, and there is my hope! May I leave this conundrum in your hands? I cannot see that even you will be able to find the key to it, and the matter may perhaps be of no importance but I, for one, find it intriguing.”

“And so do I!” responded Holmes cheerfully. “I will turn my mind to it – aided, I hope, by Dr Watson. The part of suppliant biographer is not his only role in this agency. You will hear from us as soon as we are ready to report.”

Our visitor thanked us and left. Holmes picked up the envelope and its enigmatic contents and examined them with his lens.

“There are points about this little problem which promise to make it unique – but an insoluble mystery? What think you, doctor?”

“I would not admit as much without first making some effort,” I replied. “We have the Baskerville postmark and the reference to Musgrave to go on. Of Musgrave I know only what you told me years ago; as to Baskerville I suggest we contact Sir Henry without delay. He spent some years in Canada before he inherited his Dartmoor estate; he may well be able to throw some light on this letter and its origins.”

“Right, Watson! We do have these two starting points. And we may have more! Let us leave Baskerville and Musgrave for the moment, and first see what the power of reason, applied to this billet-doux, will reveal. You opined, and Garrison Bolt agreed with you, that it is very hard to understand how the correspondent could have something so secret to say to Mr Musgrave and yet not be aware that he had been dead for several years. With respect, you make two assumptions – you advance two hypotheses – which enjoy the support of no data. Why should we assume that the correspondent is ignorant of Newman Musgrave’s death? We know no such thing. It is quite possible that he is well aware of it but has had some good reason for not writing until now. Some recent event may have removed the impediment. I do not say that this is probable; only that it is possible. As to your first surmise, there is no certainty that this transmission was intended for Newman Musgrave at all. Indeed, as I turn my mind to it, the less likely does that premise become.

“Second, you find it hard to understand why blank sheets should be carefully registered through the mail. There you are certainly right. Such a mailing is absurd. If the message – for a message it must be – is not contained inside the envelope it follows that it must be found upon it.”

“On the envelope itself?”

“Yes!”

“That is logical,” I admitted, after a moment’s consideration, “but why do you question that the message, however it is constituted, is intended for Newman Musgrave? If not for him, for whom?”

“For us!”

“For you and me?”

“Yes! Consider. The letter was brought to us by Garrison Bolt, an established publisher with whom you have done business, and are known to have done business. His name and address appear in every copy of your original work. As my brother Mycroft has remarked, your tales are to be found everywhere. It should not be surprising if the sender of this message from Canada has access to them; in fact, she clearly has.”

“She?”

“The writing is in a woman’s hand. The emotional characteristics – the swirling M’s and E’s, and the ambivalent C’s in particular – are unmistakable. She, yes, she, is clearly aware of the reputation our agency enjoys. What more natural than that the publisher should refer her enigmatic communique to us? Bolt, provided he gave her letter his attention, must surely equate ‘Baskerville’ and ‘Musgrave’ to ‘Sherlock Holmes’. She could be sure that he would. Indeed, to make certain of his attention she has sent it by registered post.”

“You mean that she has deliberately addressed the envelope to a man she knows does not exist?” I asked.

“So I read it. This message is, and always was, intended for us, Watson!”

“Astonishing!” said I. “But what of the Baskerville postmark? Of the Canadian stamps? And what of my suggestion that we contact Sir Henry? Does it have merit?”

“I fear not,” said Holmes.

“May I ask why?”

“Well, your suggestion is that he may be able to throw some light on the matter. But what light can he possibly throw?” Holmes paused. He gazed first at the ceiling, as though in concentration, then at me, in a manner reminiscent of my old school master when explaining a complicated matter to his class. “As you say, he once lived in Canada. So do some five million others. And how could this postmark possibly connect with him? Sir Henry’s post office is not at Baskerville, but at Grimpen. You and I have used it frequently, as our Canadian reader of your tales is clearly aware. The seat of the Baskerville family for centuries has been in Devon, not Canada. There is, to the best of my knowledge, no town or village of Baskerville in Canada. No! Sir Henry is not involved here.”

“But if the postmark is not genuine,” said I, “it must be bogus!”

“Your reasoning does you credit, doctor,” said Holmes with an encouraging chuckle. “You are an island of common sense in a bewildering sea of uncertainty!” He took up his lens and examined the postmark with intensity. “See here!” he exclaimed. “See that S in ‘Baskerville’? What do you make of it?” He handed the lens to me.

“It is smudged and indistinct,” said I. “It appears to have been tampered with.”

“Exactly! The letter has been substituted for another. It appears first to have been the letter R.”

I peered through the lens again. “Yes – R,” I agreed.

“So we have not
Baskerville
but
Barkerville.
Is there such a place? Make a long arm for our Gazetteer if you please, Watson. Thank you. Now … Baskerville. No. Nothing. But here! ‘Barkerville’,” he read, “and in the west of Canada too! ‘In British Columbia; part of the Cariboo Gold Fields; the site of a major gold strike in 1862, second in importance only to the recent Yukon strike of 1898; a colourful frontier gambling town; an attraction to visitors; a tourist resort.’ ”

“But what could be the sender’s object in tampering with the postmark?”

“To ensure that the envelope, with its striking allusions to Baskerville and Musgrave, would be brought to me. In this she has succeeded. Our correspondent in British Columbia has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure delivery of this message to us, Watson.”

“But why did she not communicate with you directly?” I asked.

“Why not, indeed!” Holmes leaned back in his chair, placed his forefingers together, with Garrison Bolt’s envelope between them, closed his eyes and continued. “Two minds are better than one, Watson. Let us reconsider what we have deduced: This envelope is a message. Its contents are irrelevant. Its sender is an intelligent, imaginative, resourceful and determined woman. She lives in, or within travelling distance of, Barkerville in the west of Canada. She has deliberately sent it to a man she knows to be dead. She has sent it in such a manner, by registering it, by misspelling the dead man’s first name as Norman, and by altering the postmark to ‘Baskerville’ to ensure – nay, to guarantee – that it reaches the hands not of the defunct addressee but of ourselves. She has deferred posting the letter until the occurrence of some event which has removed the reason for her not doing so before.”

“Excellent!” said I.

“Have we reached the limits of what reason and energy can supply?”

“I fear that we have.”

“Surely you do us an injustice. We have further avenues to explore. Do you provide the energy, Watson, and I the reason. Be good enough to make inquiries through the post office as to the origin, and if possible the sender, of this envelope. Records are kept of registered post. Now that we have ascertained the true location from which the letter was dispatched the task may not be an impossible one, especially since the postmaster who registered this envelope in Barkerville is left-handed, and therefore identifiable.”

“Holmes!”

“Well, surely it is self-evident?”

“How?”

“Observe the two circular cancellation stamps. They are produced by a metal strike which, grasped by a right-handed man, naturally produces an imprint tilted to the left. These are tilted to the right.”

“But is this single instance conclusive?”

“Corroboration is afforded by the registration stamp. The R, unlike the cancellations, which are upside down, is not inverted. The envelope faced the sender, not the postmaster, when handed over the counter and was turned round for the act of registration. You observe that the R stamp also tilts to the right. Cancellation and registration were therefore both effected by a left hander, and both by the postmaster.
Voilà tout!
The steps in this reasoning are so elementary as to be facile, but the induction itself may prove of the utmost importance. Why? Because this postmaster has faced the letter’s sender across his counter. He may, even now, be able to recall and identity her.”

“Holmes,” I ejaculated, after a moment, “this is yet another of those occasions when I feel an overwhelming urge to rise in embarrassment and to knock my head against our ceiling in sheer frustration!”

“Worry not, friend Watson,” replied Holmes with a smile. “Levity is not your forté! Do you gravitate to the post office and let us see what the high principles of deduction, allied to some common sense research, can produce.”

“I will do so at once,” I replied, laughing, as I turned to the door.