Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Volume 13 Page 5

  “We’re going to have to have a serious talk,” he told her one evening when he found her in their condo. It was time to discuss a divorce. Charles wished now he’d insisted on a pre-nup. Then again, it hardly mattered, because he’d gladly give up half of everything he owned just to get out of a marriage that had become a living hell.

  “Yes, I agree. We’ll talk soon.” Her voice was so sweet it could have given him diabetes. He was immediately on his guard.

  He had the distinct impression that Barbara was making plans, plans he wouldn’t particularly like.

  A few days later, Guzman called him into the office. “How’s it going with Williams?”

  Charles shrugged. “I haven’t heard from him lately. You should ask Barbara that question.”

  “She phoned a little while ago. She’s out at his place now. Says Williams wants to see you again. They’re going to send a car for you.”

  He groaned. “This is insulting and unprofessional, and it wastes a lot of my time.”

  “I have two words for you: billable hours. We’re billing up the kazoo for your time and Barbara’s. So take a nap in the car and relax. You’re being well paid to do so.”

  The entire drive, all Charles could think about was how much he wanted to end his marriage. Barbara would be there. He would talk to her privately.

  The door was answered by the same unsavory character. He gave Charles a hard look.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Williams.”

  “This way,” came the gruff reply.

  Charles followed him downstairs to the basement level. The cold entered his bones almost immediately. Charles found himself back in the exercise room. And there was Barbara, waiting for him.

  “Thank you, Monroe.” The large man who reminded him of a Kodiak bear nodded and left.

  “Where’s Williams?”

  “Busy.”

  “I don’t understand. I came all this distance for what purpose?”

  “Well, you did say you wanted to talk. I think now is the perfect time.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. I think we should talk about a divorce.”

  She gave him a tight little smile. “Divorce isn’t the answer I’ve come up with.” Suddenly, without any warning, Barbara was holding up a gun. Light glistened off the steel barrel.

  Charles gaped at her in shock. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m going to kill you.” She said the words without any display of emotion whatever.

  “I’m willing to give you half of everything I own in a divorce settlement. Put the weapon away. Don’t be insane.”

  “The thing is, I’ve decided I want everything you have. Vance thinks it’s a good idea. I might marry him. I might not.”

  “What has Williams got to do with this?”

  “He shot his wife with this very gun. Then he had Monroe cut up her body into small pieces and ground it into the concrete mixer. She made a contribution to his new swimming pool.”

  Charles felt as if he were going to throw up. “You have any idea how sick that is?”

  “I thought it was pretty clever. Monroe drove her car down to Florida and abandoned it in a shopping mall. No one’s ever going to know what happened to her.”

  “He told you that?”

  “Client-attorney privilege. So Charles, before I kill you, I have one request. I want to watch you use the exercise equipment down here.”

  This was getting weirder by the second. “You get some perverse pleasure from that?”

  She pointed to one of the shiny machines located on a mat. “That one’s called an all-around trainer. Strap yourself in and get it started.”

  He studied the contraption. No way was he going to use it. She probably wanted to move up the control switch to the point where he’d suffer a major heart attack. Then she wouldn’t have to shoot him at all. It would just appear as if he died of natural causes.

  “I’m not helping you kill me.”

  “Then I will just have to shoot you.” She raised the weapon, and there was no question in his mind that she was about to use it on him.

  All of a sudden, he heard a noise, loud, thunderous. It sounded as if an earthquake had hit. The cellar certainly shook as though one had. Barbara was startled, losing her composure. Charles realized this was the only chance he would ever have to save himself. He rushed her, grabbing for the weapon.

  They struggled; she was strong, no doubt about it. But as she fought with him, Barbara moved backwards for leverage and ended up tripping on the very device of torture she’d wanted to put him into. Charles tried again to snatch the gun from her hands while she was off-balance, but it went off.

  The gunshot caught Barbara in the side. For just a moment, Charles thought of leaving her there to bleed to death, but it was just a momentary lapse. He was far from perfect, but he considered himself a civilized human being.

  “I’ll get some help for you,” he said.

  He took the weapon with him as a precaution, went upstairs, flipping open his cell phone and called 911, requesting an ambulance.

  Monroe came toward him.

  “I’m leaving,” Charles said.

  But Monroe wasn’t listening. He had a dazed expression on his face. “Mr. Williams was sitting by the pool when it burst like a dam without any warning. It just cracked apart. The pool split open and the water gushed out. He’s dead. The pool, it drowned Mr. Williams. It was a freak thing. Happened so fast, I couldn’t save him.”

  Charles thought of Williams’s wife, the woman killed and buried in the concrete. She had, in an ironic way, contributed to the creation of that pool. If there was any justice, her spirit finally got revenge and maybe a modicum of peace.

  Could she have somehow haunted the pool? He didn’t normally think that way. He was a man of logic and reason, not given to fanciful thoughts. Yet it did seem like a strange coincidence, the pool bursting just as Barbara was about to murder him in the same way that Williams had killed his wife.

  Did that really matter? He was still alive. That was the important thing. He knew of only one way to honor the memory of the dead woman. Charles flipped his cell phone open again. Time he had a serious talk with those detectives. He could and would share what Barbara had told him. He’d be leaving this place with a police escort.

  THE SHOCKING AFFAIR OF THE STEAMSHIP FRIESLAND, by Jack Grochot

  My friend Sherlock Holmes was, in a word, irregular in his habits of late, so it was a cause of a little concern when, at our usual lunch-time together, for three days in a row, he excused himself and went up to his bedroom. On each occasion, he returned to our sitting room about two o’clock with nothing to say and with a dour look on his lanky face.

  As in most instances, Holmes revealed the reason for his odd behaviour at a time of his own choosing. It was during lunch on the fourth day. We both were seated at the table, to which Mrs Hudson, our landlady, had brought a crock of piping-hot beef barley soup and a loaf of fresh-baked whole wheat bread. “Our neighbor, the smithy, whose activities I have been observing through my bedroom window,” said Holmes, “is apparently dissatisfied with his earnings at the forge. He has taken up a sideline, odds-making, and collects wagers from his clients every day between noon and two o’clock at the blacksmith shop.”

  Ordinarily, this would have been a matter that fell under the exclusive jurisdiction of a fire-and-brimstone preacher, lecturing about the dangers of the vices. Holmes, however, had made it his business because of a request from an elderly lady, a friend of Mrs Hudson. The old woman had asked Holmes to determine why her husband owed a substantial sum of money to the blacksmith when, in fact, her spouse did not own a horse. She believed the blacksmith was taking the money for some sinful purpose, and she wanted her husband to stay out of it.

  “Watson, this frisky lady is my rival,” said Holmes. “She followed
her husband to the blacksmith’s without either of them knowing she was onto their scent. She witnessed a transaction between the two, and she has deduced correctly that there is some devilish conduct involved. Why did she need me at all? To tell her, I suppose, that her husband is an addicted gambler and to confirm her suspicions about the blacksmith. I think that for my fee I shall demand one of her renowned blueberry cakes. It’s an appropriate payment in light of the delicious meals I have missed on her behalf.”

  “Hold that thought,” said I, looking out the window, “because we are about to have a visitor. A matronly woman has just stepped down from a four-wheeler and is approaching our door.”

  Mrs Hudson, after answering the bell, ascended the stairs to announce that Miss Mufalda Maker was down in the hall asking for Mr Sherlock Holmes.

  “Send her up in three minutes, Mrs Hudson,” instructed Holmes, still wearing his purple dressing gown. He went to his bedroom and changed into his brown gabardine trousers, white cotton shirt, and green wool jacket.

  “Please come in and make yourself comfortable,” said Holmes when Miss Maker appeared in the doorway.

  “I am bashful about this, Mr Holmes,” she answered, seating herself on the settee.

  “Now, now, Miss Maker,” Holmes said to reassure her, “there is no need to feel awkward. Whatever story you have to tell cannot be any more self deprecating than other stories that have been told within these walls.”

  Miss Maker was attired for business. She wore a charcoal grey, broad-brimmed felt hat with a black feather. Her jacket was checkered black and white with a fuzzy black fringe, and her dress was light grey with lace trim at the neck. The clothing and her bearing complemented the rest of her appearance. She had short-cropped straight brown hair that protruded slightly from beneath the hat, high cheek bones, full lips, and sullen brown eyes that darted between the two of us.

  Holmes introduced me as a friend who assisted him in some of his investigations, and then his attention was drawn to her hands and her clothes.

  “You are a seamstress, I see, one who designs what she makes.”

  “Why, yes, but how on earth did you know?”

  “It is a peculiarity of mine, Miss Maker. I have made a study of how the hands can give away a person’s occupation. Your right forefinger, for instance, shows the mark of a needle prick, which you must have inflicted accidentally upon yourself today. But I confess that I have seen the sign above your shop in the Strand. ‘Mafalda Maker, Seamstress and Designer,’ it reads, if my memory serves me correctly.”

  “It sounds simple now that you have explained it.”

  “I have vowed in the past to stop explaining myself, and this is the last time I shall do it,” said Holmes with a wry smile, charming her in his special way with women. “Our digression has made your visit a deeper mystery.”

  “Then I shall tell my story, although it does embarrass me to do so,” said she, glancing at the floor. “I received a parcel by messenger yesterday. I had been expecting one because I had ordered four dozen tulip bulbs from Holland to plant in my garden this fall. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found not tulip bulbs but money—ten bundles of American one hundred dollar bills, a hundred bills to a bundle. It was more money than I had ever seen at any one time.”

  “Your situation,” Holmes interjected, “reminds me of a case Dr Watson and I successfully resolved last year, one in which the postman delivered to a lady, single like yourself, a cardboard box containing two freshly-severed human ears. Let us hope the conclusion of your puzzle is far less grisly than that of Miss Cushing, of Cross Street, Croydon.”

  “I recall reading about that episode in the newspaper, Mr Holmes,” continued Miss Maker, “but I do not remember the mention of your name in connection with it. I believe it was an inspector from Scotland Yard who solved the crime, a murder by a jealous lover, I think.”

  Sherlock Holmes looked disappointed. “If pressed, Inspector Lestrade would concede that I made a noteworthy contribution to the Yard in the Croydon affair. He has a penchant for attracting all the attention in the dailies,” Holmes said after some hesitation. “Yet again we digress. Please go on with your narrative.”

  “Of course. When I saw what was in the package, I had no idea what to do, Mr Holmes. I had no one to ask for advice. I thought about notifying the police, but decided to wait until after I had spoken with one of the solicitors on Bond Street whose wife I sew for.

  “Later in the evening, my plans were changed by a man who came to my door. He was polite and professional in his manner after he identified himself as Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard. He was also quite emphatic. He wanted to take custody of the money, for the bills were counterfeit and he needed them for his inquiry. Naturally, I complied and handed over the hundred thousand dollars, believing it was worthless. He placed the bundles inside a canvas bag he had brought with him.

  “I thought it queer that he didn’t require me to hand over the box and wrapper, but I said nothing about them and he left. I asked him first how he knew I had received the package. That was classified information, he said, and it would come out in court.

  “The longer I thought about it, Mr Holmes, the more strange the circumstances seemed, and it became even more so today. After conferring with the solicitor, a Mr Henry Daubner, I called upon Inspector Jones so I could ask him the questions that have occurred to me since his abrupt visit. You can probably picture the alarm on my face when I was shown to the desk of Inspector Jones and saw an altogether different person than the one who knocked at my apartment door. Insisting that there must be some mistake, I was assured there was no other Athelney Jones at Scotland Yard and that the man who took the money must have been an imposter.”

  Holmes realized that she had finished and so he guided the conversation with a question. “Would you kindly describe the man who came to your door?”

  “He was tall and thin, like yourself, Mr Holmes. He was balding with salt and pepper hair on the sides of his head. I would estimate that he was fifty years old. He had a Vandyke beard, rounded shoulders, sallow skin and penetrating, icy-blue eyes that were close together against a long, beak-like nose. I gave this description to the real Inspector Jones, who promised to look into the matter. He was very interested in the box and the wrapper, I might add, but they were thrown out with the trash.”

  “And what is it that you would have me do, Miss Maker?” asked Holmes.

  Miss Maker said Jones had recommended that she engage Holmes’s services to recover any reward that might be offered for the return of the money to its rightful owner. “Inspector Jones doubted my caller had a lawful claim to the sum,” said Miss Maker.

  Miss Maker, in response to another question, recalled that the parcel came from Johanssen Flowers of 1425 Etna Avenue, Strotherdam, South Holland, the Netherlands.

  “Were there no tulip bulbs at all in the package?” asked Holmes.

  “No, none, just a few dried skins of tulip bulbs.”

  “And the flaps on the top of the box, were they loose or glued shut when you received it?”

  “They were loose, I am sure.”

  “Those two facts tell us a great deal,” declared Holmes. “They tell us that the box was unwrapped and opened in transit and that the money was not placed there by the sender. Someone between the sender and yourself, Miss Maker, broke the seal, removed the contents, replaced them with the money, and re-wrapped the parcel. Did you save the string by any chance?”

  “No, I tossed it out with the trash also.”

  “Pity, for I might have been able to learn some things from the knots, as I did in the case of the severed ears,” said Holmes. “Perhaps you can retrieve the box, the wrapper, and the string from the trash bin,” he added hopefully.

  “No, the trash was collected this morning, Mr Holmes,” said Miss Maker.

  “Well, Miss Maker, this case is o
f interest to me because it has some uncommon aspects that could be instructive,” said Holmes. “In addition, there is the obvious possibility that you have been drawn into some criminal affair. Otherwise, why the substitution of the money for the tulip bulbs and why the charade by the bogus Inspector Jones? Unfortunately, we have less to go on than in the Croydon matter. Nonetheless, I shall do what I am able to keep you clear of scandal. I shall be in touch.”

  The gaslights were being lit outside, so Holmes asked me to escort Miss Maker to the street, where I hailed a cab for her. Once she was on her way home, he and I walked to Cavendish Square for a nice meal at a new Greek restaurant we both had wanted to try. Over a dish of hummus and unleavened bread for an appetizer, we discussed Miss Maker’s experience and came to the conclusion that if she had not given up the money, the man probably was prepared to do her harm. For the rest of the meal, Holmes talked of concerts, performers, boxing matches, the microscopic differences in animal blood compared to human blood, and the gauge of the wheels on the new Victoria carriage, which leaves a print in the dirt more narrow than the brougham or the hansom.

  The fall air was distinctly cooler on the walk back to Baker Street, so we decided to have a fire when once we were inside. We finished our cigars at the same time that we got to our lodgings, and we spent a pleasant night at home. Little did we know that the events Holmes had undertaken to investigate would nearly cost us both our lives.

  The next morning Holmes had gone off on a line of inquiry before I came down to breakfast. I had plenty of time to complete several pages of a manuscript before he came through the door. “I have wasted most of the day trying to single out the messenger service that delivered the parcel to Miss Maker,” Holmes complained. “But I was successful at last when I inquired at McPherson and Son, Limited, in Barclay Square. Their records for the day before yesterday showed a delivery to 122a Church Street, and Miss Maker’s signature was on the slip. The origin of the package was shown to be the Dutch steamship Friesland, which is docked at Southampton. Persistence, my dear Watson, is a virtue that at times out-does ingenuity in the art of detection. Now, I would be obliged if my chronicler accompanied me to Southampton, both to relieve the boredom of traveling alone and to take note of the twists and turns of an investigation when it seems to have come to a dead end.”