Sherlock Holmes Stories of Edward D. Hoch (17 page)

“That’s the one! You know some authors prefer to publish anonymously, for one reason or another. Your own literary agent, Dr. Doyle, published an anonymous story in the Strand many years ago.”

“I never knew that.”

“Oh, yes. Our problem now is that the story has proven so popular a leading publisher wants to bring it out in book form. But we have no idea as to the author’s true identity.”

“How is that possible?” Holmes wanted to know. “Surely someone submitted the story. Surely someone was paid for it.”

“The author gave the name Catherine Birlstone, but, since she was using a post office address, I suspected it was a pseudonym. Later, she instructed me to publish it anonymously.”

“Where did you send the payment?”

“To a Miss Catherine Birlstone in care of the Croydon post office. She collected her mail there but, when I visited them, they knew nothing more about her. I realize this isn’t a criminal matter, but you’re our last hope of finding her, Mr. Holmes. I thought you might discover some clue to her identity in reading the story. I’ve brought you a copy.”

“Have you written her about the book offer?”

“Of course. Several times. I explained that the publisher wanted to issue it under her own name and that it would bring her a certain amount of fame, as well as money. She replied that she wasn’t interested in the offer and, since then, she has simply ignored my letters.”

Holmes considered that. “Tell me something. How soon after your first letter did this mysterious Catherine Birlstone respond?”

“At once. The very next day.”

“So, she probably calls at the post office for her mail each day,” he mused. Then, surprisingly, he turned to the boy. “Master Roddy, if you have read about some of my investigations, as written up by the good doctor here, you are no doubt familiar with my Baker Street Irregulars.”

He nodded at once. “They are local street urchins you sometimes recruit to search for clues. Their leader is young Wiggins.”

Holmes allowed himself a smile. “Wiggins is grown to adulthood now, but the spirit of the Irregulars remains. Unfortunately, their ungainly appearance makes them ill-suited to the working class borough of Croydon. Whereas you, Master Roddy, would be perfect.”

“What…what would I have to do?” he asked uncertainly.

“We will send Miss Catherine Birlstone a letter to her Croydon post office address. It will be some sort of bogus flyer in a brightly colored envelope that is easily recognized. If you can manage to linger at or near the post office and follow the woman who picks up the envelope, I believe we can locate your mysterious author with a minimum of effort. Dr. Watson can accompany you there and see that you return safely.

“A brilliant plan!” Rutherford Wilson exclaimed. “You can follow her right to her lodgings, Roddy. Once we know her true name and address, I will make an effort to convince her that she should allow publication of the book.”

When we were alone, I asked Holmes what had attracted him to such a mundane matter. “After all, no crime has been committed.”

“Birlstone,” Holmes said simply. “It has been more than a dozen years, but you must remember Birlstone Manor House, the residence of Mr. John Douglas. You should write up that affair, involved as it was with Moriarty, one of these days. Birlstone is an unusual name, and I wonder why our author would have chosen it as a pseudonym, or if it really is a pseudonym.”

The letter was dispatched the following afternoon in a bright blue envelope and, on Friday morning, I took a hansom with young Roddy to the borough of Croydon on the southern edge of the city. It was an area of factories with nearby houses for workers and their families. The post office itself was located in a soot-stained brick building near an old cemetery. While I lingered in a tea shop across the road, the lad positioned himself near the door of the building. Luckily the weather had improved for the day and London was experiencing a rare morning of April sunshine.

After a full hour of this, I was prepared to give it up. A postman leaving in his red, blue and gold uniform, carrying a large sack of mail for delivery, gave Roddy a suspicious glance. Surely Holmes could not expect us to remain there for the entire day, watching for a woman who might never come. I ordered another cup of tea and some biscuits, deciding to give it a half-hour more.

Then the lad seemed to disappear for a moment among some more postmen departing on their rounds. When I saw him again, he was talking to a young girl who couldn’t have been too much older than he was. Even as I watched, the two set off together down the road. I paid my bill and hurried outside. What had happened to cause Roddy to desert his post and go off with a girl?

I fell into step about fifty yards behind them, feeling just a bit like a foolish uncle keeping track of his wayward nephew. Then I saw a sudden flash of blue and all became clear. Roddy had struck up a conversation with the girl because it was she who had called for the mail. She was carrying it now, protruding from the top of her small purse. I guessed correctly that she had not come far, and she turned in at the first house beyond the cemetery, giving a little goodbye wave to Roddy. The front door opened and I saw a young blond woman greet the child, keeping a wary eye on Roddy as he hurried away.

I kept walking, trying to seem inconspicuous, until both the lad and I had rounded a corner out of sight of the house. When he realized I was following, he waited for me to catch up.

“That girl picked up the mail,” he told me excitedly. “Her name is Jenny and she lives with her big sister Catherine. I told her I’d just moved in down the road.”

“You did very well,” I assured him. “Holmes will be pleased.”

I was able to gather some information of my own by speaking with a neighbor down the street who happened to be out in her yard. She eyed me with some suspicion at first, but finally informed me that Catherine Crider and her younger sister Jenny indeed lived in the house by the cemetery. Miss Crider was a teacher at a private school in the neighborhood.

On Saturday morning, when Rutherford Wilson paid a second visit to our lodgings, Holmes was able to tell the Strand editor everything we’d learned.

“Roddy was a great help,” he informed the boy’s father. “I would welcome him into my small band of Irregulars at any time.”

“I don’t know how to thank you, sir! I will call upon Miss Catherine Crider this very afternoon.”

While I had been out the previous day, Holmes surprised me by reading the magazine Wilson had brought for us. It was one of his rare ventures into popular fiction, and he said now, “Her tale of the man who disappears on a train to Rome is a really good detective story. I would very much like to meet the author sometime.”

Rutherford Wilson took up the suggestion at once. “Come with me now, Mr. Holmes. And Dr. Watson, too! Perhaps the three of us together can convince her that ‘The Missing Passenger’ deserves book publication under her own name.”

Holmes pondered the suggestion and then, to my surprise, he agreed. He had become convinced that this singular case warranted his attention. In a moment, he had donned his greatcoat and deerstalker against the chill April air and we were on our way to Croydon by carriage.

The blond young woman who answered the door to face three strange men was the one I’d glimpsed briefly the previous day, though her face seemed older when viewed up close. Wilson identified himself and asked to speak with her. She ushered us into a plain sitting room with some reluctance.

“And these two men?” she asked, motioning toward us.

“This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the renowned private inquiry agent, and Dr. Watson. They were instrumental in locating you.”

“Did you ever consider that I might not wish to be located, Mr. Wilson?”

“Your novel that we published at Christmas time engendered a good bit of praise, Miss Crider. A leading London publisher, John Milne is offering to bring it out in book form for a generous sum of money.”

“But only if I allow it to be published under my own name.”

“What’s so wrong with that? Catherine Crider is a perfectly good name.”

“So is Catherine Birlstone. If you insist on a name, use that one. Or let them publish it anonymously, as you did in the Strand.”

“I can tell you that the publisher would prefer a real person who might be interviewed in the press. They have high expectations for your novel.”

“I’m sorry, no.”

Rutherford Wilson sighed. “Do you fear repercussions from the school where you teach?”

Her expression hardened. “You have learned a great deal about me, Mr. Wilson. I simply do not want my name on it, or my name made public in any manner.”

Her sister Jenny came into the room then, carrying a textbook of English grammar. I guessed her age at about fourteen, with long blond hair and pretty blue eyes, like her sister. “Cathy, can you help me with this?”

“Not now, Jenny. After our company has left.”

“It must be quite a task looking after a growing sister,” Holmes commented, as the girl returned to the next room.

“Indeed it is! Our parents died when I was eleven and Jenny was but a year old. I have looked after her ever since.”

“How long have you been teaching?”

“Three years. I try to help Jenny with her studies at home, too.”

“How old is she now? About fourteen?”

“She has just turned fifteen, a difficult age for any girl. I have tried to instill in her a love of music.” She stood up and motioned for us to follow. In the parlor where Jenny studied, there was an upright piano, its finish scarred and dented with use. “Will you play something for our guests?” she asked her sister.

Jenny smiled and went to the piano. She played a selection from the opera Carmen with surprising skill and when she’d finished, we applauded.

“That’s very good!” I congratulated her.

Catherine Crider was pleased. “When I was very young, my father took me to a concert by Bizet, the composer of Carmen. I never forgot it. But I do not have the gift for music that Jenny has.”

When we returned to the sitting room, Rutherford Wilson again urged her to permit book publication of her story. “The money you earn could be used for your sister’s music education,” he argued.

For the first time, his words seemed to have an effect on the woman. Perhaps she was considering her sister’s future, rather than her own.

“I promise to give it some thought,” she said at last. “If I decide to do it, there is something I would have to attend to first.”

Holmes studied her with hawk-like eyes. “Could I ask you one question, Miss Crider? How did it happen that you chose the name of Birlstone as a pseudonym? Might it have any connection with Birlstone Manor House or Birlstone Village in Sussex?”

“I was a governess at the Manor House a few years back,” she admitted, “before assuming my present teaching position. The name came into my head and I thought to use it.”

“Were you acquainted with the late Mr. John Douglas, owner of the house?”

“No. He had sold it to a younger couple with two small children.”

“You must have been quite young yourself.”

She flushed slightly. “I was just out of school.”

We departed soon after, and I could see that Wilson was encouraged by her words.

“You have been a great help, Mr. Holmes,” he said on the ride back to the central city.

“I did nothing,” Holmes replied modestly. But I could see that something was troubling him.

The middle of the following week brought us startling and unexpected news. We’d had a telephone for some four years and Baker Street even had its own telephone directory that I found useful at times. Holmes himself rarely used it and, on this day, the ringing of the phone startled us both. Holmes answered it with some irritation, which gradually gave way to a concern that furrowed his brows.

“That was Rutherford Wilson at the Strand, Watson. There has been an unforeseen development. A man has been found murdered in the cemetery adjoining Miss Crider’s house. She telephoned him from the post office and seemed quite disturbed. He’s going out there now and requests that we join him.”

“What can this mean, Holmes?”

“Perhaps nothing; an unrelated event.” But he was already getting out his coat, and I knew that he meant to pursue it.

We were back in Croydon within the hour. It had rained earlier and a morning mist still hung over the graveyard.

“I feared something like this, Watson,” Holmes said, more to himself than to me, as we walked among the gravestones toward a small circle of uniformed bobbies and Scotland Yard men.

We found one of the Yard men, Tobias Gregson, conducting the investigation. Holmes had always admired him, considering him the smartest of the Yarders. Gregson, a tall, white-faced man with flaxen hair now turning white, seemed surprised to see us.

“It’s Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson, isn’t it? Been some years since you helped me on an investigation. Are you involved with this one?”

Holmes glanced toward the man’s body. “I may be. Who is the victim?”

Gregson consulted his notebook. “Identification in his pocket says his name is William Knox. He played in the orchestra at the Gaiety Music Hall, lived up in Islington.”

“Far from home,” my friend commented. “How did he die?”

“Knife wound to the stomach. It wasn’t deep, but he seemed to have collapsed here and bled to death. He’d been dead for hours before a postman spotted the body back here.”

Then I noticed Rutherford Wilson making his way in our direction from the street. The Strand editor had his arm around Catherine Crider’s shoulders as if protecting her from the chill in the air. Holmes hurried over to intercept them before they reached the body.

“What can you tell us about this, Miss Crider?” he asked.

Her face was pale and I could see now that she was trembling.

“It…it happened just outside my house. The killer might still be in the neighborhood. The police said he stabbed that man. I felt I had to call someone.”

“I’m glad you phoned me,” Wilson said. “What do you think, Mr. Holmes?”

“I think we should get Miss Crider, and tell us what you know.”