Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #12 Page 8

  The day was another bright and breezy one, which prompted me to suggest a walk through the park. Half way through, Holmes took a route leading to a side street that brought us to the nearest telegraph office, where he sent a wire. “That should shore up one end of this mystery,” he declared, and then clapped his bony hands together once.

  We had not long to wait for the next development, a more grisly one we had never encountered.

  It was about six o’clock when a stout commissionaire delivered a note, obviously scrawled in a hurry. We read it together:

  Mr Holmes:

  Worst fears materialized. Come to abandoned meat packer’s building in Upper Swandam Lane.

  Lestrade

  In a flash we were in a hansom heading toward the fateful alley. Holmes’s whole figure was alert and responsive to every awkward movement of the cab. When we rounded the corner at Regent Street, the sun shone into the passenger compartment and I noted the disappointment in his face.

  Soon we were slowing along Fresno Street, where it intersects with Upper Swandam Lane, and then snaking our way along the narrow alley toward the abandoned packing plant. Lestrade, the whites of his beady eyes protruding into the shadow of the building, was pacing out front.

  “Some school children playing inside found him, Mr Holmes,” Lestrade reported before our feet hit the ground. “It is the Cardinal all right. He’s still wearing his cassock and Roman collar, but the rest is almost too gruesome to tell. To think how we’ve combed this neighborhood backwards and forward, and there he was all along, dead as a doornail.”

  Holmes glared at the walkway as we approached the interior of the building, making mental notes of the boot impressions on the dusty surface.

  “How many men have been in to see the Cardinal? A herd of cattle would not have made a bigger mess!” Holmes bristled, not giving Lestrade an opportunity to respond to an admonishment he had endured before. “Halloa! Halloa! What have we here?” Holmes had noticed two faint parallel lines among the marks of the soles and the heels.

  “There are similar ones, Mr Holmes, clearer than these, the farther in you go,” said Lestrade. Holmes followed the broken lines to a shocking and horrible scene inside.

  The frail body of Cardinal Tosca, his arms drooping and his hands clenched, hung from a meat hook implanted in his back. His swollen tongue parted his lips and extended down toward the pointy chin.

  “It is the work of the Black Hand, the Mafia, Mr Holmes, for that’s the sign of one who defies the organization—they make him into a side of beef,” said Lestrade. “Their message is plain. We’ll be fortunate to solve this one, for sure. We know little more now than we did when this was merely a missing person case.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Lestrade,” said Holmes matter-of-factly.

  “You have a clue, then?” Lestrade begged.

  “I have a line of inquiry, an indication, and it is far too premature for me to discuss here,” Holmes responded. He whipped a convex lens along with a tape measure out of his jacket pocket to begin a meticulous examination of the area and the corpse.

  The light had gone out of the room and Holmes called for dark-lanterns from the policemen milling about outside. He began his examination on his knees, mumbling to himself. He was down on the ground for ten minutes at least, making notes and moving about the area in such a way that he was careful not to disturb any evidence. Once he shouted “Voila!” and said nothing more that our ears could discern, save for the mumbling.

  Next, he called again for the constables, this time to remove the body from the hook and lay it on the stone floor. They did so gently, with reverence. Holmes pried open one of the fists and with great pains he scrutinized the nails with his lens. Finally, he withdrew his penknife, took a small envelope from his inside breast pocket, scraped underneath the nails of the middle finger and the ring finger, and deposited some minute debris into the container, which he returned to his breast pocket. Then he repeated the process with the other fist.

  Afterward, he took several minutes examining the throat, once taking his index finger and rubbing it along the blue line that a garrote had caused, for the victim had been strangled. He took his index finger and held it under his nose to smell it, as if some substance had adhered. “Remarkable,” said he, but nothing more.

  Lestrade and I watched from the background while the artist constructed his masterpiece, ignoring his surroundings, isolated from the rest of the world. In the end, he got back up on his feet and addressed Lestrade:

  “This dreadful crime was committed by one man only, not a gang of men, a very strong man over six feet in height and wearing a size twelve boot with a square toe. I have calculated his height by measuring the length of his stride and the distance from the ground to the hook. The murder took place somewhere other than this meat packer’s shop. The body was dragged here after the Cardinal was dead, for there’s no mark of his own boot anywhere on the ground, only the backs of his heels. Robbery is a possible motive, for his purse is empty, unless that’s a blind to throw you off the scent. I suspect a blind because only a venomous bandit would go to such a length as to hang his victim by a meat hook.”

  “Well, Mr Holmes, that gives us a start, but it doesn’t rule out the killer being hired by the Mafia. This fellow Sacco could have ordered the execution after the Cardinal paid him a visit,” Lestrade asserted confidently.

  “Do pursue that line of inquiry, Lestrade, and I shall pursue mine, until one of us shows the other how it was done and by whom,” said Holmes.

  With that we departed, my sympathies flowing to the devoted Monsignor Rossi, while I wondered aloud to Holmes how the priest would accept the news of the Cardinal’s tragic end.

  All night, Holmes, clad in his mouse-coloured dressing gown, paced the floor, his chin on his chest, his brows furrowed, and his hands clasped behind his back. He was in that condition when I went to bed and in the same condition when I awakened the next morning, but more agitated. He criticized the results of my shaving and my choice of a necktie. “Please pardon my temperament, Watson. My irritability will soon end, however,” said he. “By today we should know something positive.” I poured a cup of coffee and settled in at the table with the newspaper to see what version of events it contained. There were details of the murder missing from the account, but the writer was nonetheless ready to attribute the killing to a robber. I read the article aloud to Holmes.

  “The newsies have jumped to an erroneous conclusion, as usual,” he observed, amused by the situation.

  A little later there was a ring at the bell, followed by a patter of light footsteps on the stairs, and then a light knock at the door. “It is undoubtedly one of the Baker Street Irregulars,” Holmes guessed, and sure enough an overwrought street Arab who was one of Holmes’s spies appeared on the threshold when he opened the door. “Come in, Andrew, and tell us what all the excitement is about.”

  “I have come with word from Mr Shinwell Johnson,” said the lad. “He wants to see you as soon as possible at the Rialto Café on Leadenhall Street near the post office.” Holmes tossed the boy a shilling from the mantel and went to his room to change into the sailor clothes. “I shall return when I return, Watson, for there is no telling what Porky Johnson has unearthed,” said Holmes when he came down from the bedroom. “I would invite you to join me but it would arouse suspicions if two were seen discussing business with him,” he explained on his way out the door. “I knew today would bring us a fresh avenue,” I heard him say as I closed the door and his feet were on the stairs.

  It was an opportune time for me to catch up on my medical journals. There was an article about the treatment of brain fever that I was particularly interested in reading. Nevertheless, time passed slowly.

  * * * *

  About three o’clock, a messenger delivered a note.

  Watson (it read):


  Join me for a glass of claret at Simpson’s.

  S H

  I put on my waterproof, for it had begun to rain hard shortly after Holmes’s departure, and I took a cab to our favourite restaurant in the Strand. Holmes had a table by the window and was smoking a cigarette, a wine bottle and two glasses in front of him. “I have already christened the bottle, with your indulgence, my friend,” said he. I poured myself a glass and could not resist asking how the case was progressing, seeing a brightness in Holmes’s expression.

  “It is solved,” said he, “except for a few loose ends—one that will require my making a trip to the Continent.”

  I knew better than to ask the solution before Holmes was ready to divulge the information. “Shinwell Johnson has provided the key evidence, then?” I asked instead.

  “Hardly so, Watson. I had deduced the outcome when I examined the body of the Cardinal. Johnson, simply put, has confirmed it.”

  Holmes was gone almost three days, and when he came back the expression on his gaunt face had changed to a sternness that foretold a grim ending. I met him at Waterloo Station the afternoon of the third day and we hurried to the office of a messenger service before it closed. He sent word to Ambassador Panzini and Lestrade, instructing them to meet him at ten o’clock in the morning at Baker Street. Monsignor Rossi already had left London, accompanying the remains of Cardinal Tosca back to Rome for burial.

  “Our client at the Vatican is not going to appreciate the resolution of this matter,” said Holmes as we awaited the arrival of the Ambassador’s brougham. Lestrade, who came about a half hour early, chided Holmes for his penchant toward the dramatic. “Why don’t you just tell us what you know and be done with it?” he complained.

  “Did you bring the three strong constables as I instructed?” asked Holmes.

  “Yes, they are standing down at the corner, as you can see from your window,” Lestrade replied.

  Holmes pulled back the curtain and double-checked, nodding his approval.

  “Here is the Ambassador now,” said he. “I dare say Mrs Hudson was expecting him—she has the door opened before he is even out of the carriage,” Holmes remarked wryly.

  In a minute, the elegantly dressed diplomat stood in the doorway, fixing his cuffs and straightening his collar. He was all formality as he introduced his assistant, Angelo Saccani.

  “I presume you have fresh word of the Cardinal’s murder,” the Ambassador intoned.

  “I see you have brought along the murderer,” said Holmes with coolness.

  “What? What is the meaning of this?” the Ambassador demanded, glancing at his aide.

  “No, no, not him!” Holmes answered, smiling. “It is he, Pietro Guidotti, who killed Cardinal Tosca,” cried Holmes as he went to the window and pointed at the huge coachman.

  “Perhaps you should explain this theory of yours, Mr Holmes, before we get too excited,” said an unconvinced Lestrade.

  “I shall, in due course, Inspector,” said Holmes, “but do you not think the constables should take him into custody first?”

  “I’ll send them onto him after I blow this whistle,” Lestrade replied.

  “Very well,” said Holmes. “Let me enumerate the facts that will persuade a jury to render a verdict of guilty.

  “First of all, Guidotti and the Cardinal go back a long way together. Guidotti was born and raised in Pistoia, a village north of Florence near the Swiss border. It so happens that Pistoia is the place Cardinal Tosca was assigned as a parish priest after his ordination, according to a biography furnished by Monsignor Rossi. Such a coincidence was too suspicious to ignore, and it led to the discovery of a sinister relationship when I traveled to the Continent.

  “Something terrible occurred in Pistoia when Guidotti was nine years old and serving as an acolyte at Mother of Sorrows Church for young Father Tosca.

  “Knowing there was this connection between the two, I sent a wire to the pastor there now, asking what might cause Guidotti to harbour ill will toward the Cardinal. I received an intriguing reply, saying only that the coachman’s parents might shed some light on the topic. I took the pastor at his word and journeyed to Pistoia, learning from the Guidottis that their son, when he was nine, made an accusation that the young Father Tosca molested him. They recalled how the boy sobbed bitterly when he told the story, but they do not believe it to this day. They attribute the story to an over-active imagination and a need for attention.

  “Revenge is the motive here, revenge for an abuse that Guidotti has endured alone since childhood, unable to share its abominable consequences even with his skeptical mother and father.

  “During my investigation of the body of Cardinal Tosca, I noticed two peculiarities. The first was that he had shards of hay under his nails on both hands, indicating that in his agony he grasped at whatever was in front of him. Secondly, there was a deposit of oil on his neck, which likely came from a set of leather reins in the Ambassador’s stable. It was there, I concluded, that the murder was done and that the whole idea of the Cardinal asking for a ride to Upper Swandam Lane was fabricated by the coachman. The Cardinal had never been to London, so how could he have known the streets so intimately? None of the coachman’s statements had the ring of truth, which is the reason I asked certain questions of Guidotti that gave him the chance to make up more preposterous lies than he told to the police.

  “After he killed the Cardinal, Guidotti deposited the body onto the floor of the brougham, which he drove to the familiar alley near London Bridge. Still in a fit of rage, he used his great strength and height to hang the Cardinal on a meat hook to avenge the molestation and the years of bearing the burden alone. He next took the Cardinal’s money and calmly walked out of the building.

  “One of my agents has located a prostitute who remembers seeing the coachman, an occasional customer at her brothel, going from the building to the brougham about midnight on Tuesday last. She had just come out of the house to have a cigarette on the back stoop because the madam forbids smoking inside. She recognized the coachman when he went into the light of a lantern on the side of the carriage. She also recognized the horses.

  “It is conjecture on my part, but it can be verified—if Guidotti talks—that when the Cardinal went to the stable that night to say prayers he didn’t recognize Guidotti, who is now a middle-aged man. But Guidotti obviously knew the Cardinal and probably heard his name mentioned as a guest by the servants. It is more than likely that Guidotti revealed his identity to the Cardinal, probably in the last remaining moment of his life.

  “Have I failed to make any of the events clear?”

  “Only on one point am I confused,” said Lestrade. “How came the Cardinal and Guidotti to be in the stable so late at night?”

  Holmes provided this explanation:

  “About ten-thirty is the hour when Guidotti prepares to retire, and he goes to the stable to replenish the water buckets and fill the hay racks for the last time. That is his habit, according to my agent, who conducted a surveillance of the coachman from the laurel bushes. It was about ten-thirty when the Cardinal would have finished praying with the servants in the house. He made the stable his next stop. If the coachman had not been there, chances were that a light still would be burning in the apartment.”

  Without a word, Lestrade went to the window. He lifted the latch and opened it.

  Then he blew three times on his whistle.

  LAST MAN STANDING, by Dianne Ell

  Anticipating a great weekend in the Hamptons and the rolling greens of the Atlantic Golf Course, Howard Frazier had risen earlier than usual. Buoyed by the blue skies visible through the early morning mist rising above the Hudson River, he finished his last minute packing. At six forty-five on that first Friday in May, he left his West End Avenue apartment for the garage and by a little after seven was in his office o
n the fortieth floor of the United Broadcasting Systems building overlooking Rockefeller Center.

  As Executive Vice President of News and Sports for the media giant UBS, as it was known, Frazier’s day began without variation whether he was in the office or on the road. The routine gave order to his day and an advantage over the competition. Having been in the business a long time, he had fingers into all the nooks and crannies where news could originate, whether it was in Miami, Malaysia, or Moscow, and having sophisticated electronic roadways that connected field reporters to New York, made him, and UBS, number one.

  He got his cup of coffee, sat in his usual comfortable chair and turned on the six television monitors that spanned the side wall. First he reviewed the loglines and clips for each of the shows where news would be running: the morning show, post morning show, local, national, and international news programs. Then he read through the stories that were under development. He saw nothing that would give him anxious moments over the weekend, or worse, cause him to cancel his plans altogether.

  When he finished, he stood, stretched, then walked back to the coffee pot to refill his cup halfway. He had one last news update system to go through. The one that logged in the phone calls and emails that came in from ordinary folks during what the news department called the ‘zombie hours’—eleven p.m. to six a.m. If anything of interest was in the log, the reporter who picked up the story would leave one. There were no messages which made it tempting to skip the last step. But as he watched the rays of the early morning sun slide across the floor and up the side of his desk, an instinct born of years in the business told him not to.