The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes (22 page)

“There is nothing that can be done.”

“I should decide that.” I ascended to his bedchamber, where the servant told me he lay.

He was sprawled across a four-poster, his eyes staring at the ceiling in frozen horror. An ornate letter opener protruded from his chest. Blood stained the rose counterpane. I saw all this by the light of a single lamp on the table beside the bed. I felt for a pulse, though one look confirmed the butler's statement.

I examined the room, finding nothing significant, uncertain what I hoped to find, possibly behaving out of habit from my years with Holmes. His absence was never more intensely felt than at this moment. How much he might have seen.

I returned to the ballroom to find an Inspector Thompson and a constable. The latter, a slim sandy-haired youth, never spoke, giving the impression of an avid student absorbed by his professor's lesson.

The inspector approached, smiling, hand extended. “Dr. Watson.” He was a tall, athletically built man somewhere past fifty, with a bulbous nose and pale blond hair parted in the middle. “I did not have the honor of meeting Mr. Holmes, but meeting you . . . .” The smile broadened. “Naturally, any help you might give us, based on your experiences with him, would be most welcome.”

“I might accommodate you there sooner than you think.”

He raised a brow.

“There is a gentleman I have encountered three times since my arrival in Dickencroft. He was here tonight, though I am certain he was not invited. I do not think he was on good terms with Sir Cecil, though I have learned he—at least, a man of his description—was observed several times with Sir Cecil on the Continent.”

“Perhaps you could give us this description?”

The young constable withdrew notebook and pencil from his uniform.

“I can do better than that. He gave me his name—or rather, a name: Jean-Baptiste Thibadeau.”

They stared at each other. They obviously found the name familiar and not at all pleasant.

“I should still,” said Thompson, “like a description.”

“Tall—about your height—dark hair, dark beard, prosperously dressed every time I saw him. English is most certainly not his first language.”

“That's Thibadeau, all right.” His gaze seemed fixed on something behind me. “McGregor, give the doctor a copy of our address. I should like to see you at ten o'clock tomorrow—if that is convenient?”

“Who is this Thibadeau?”

“All in good time, doctor.” He turned and signaled McGregor to follow him. “All in good time.”

The constabulary was on Cherry Lane in the middle of Dickencroft. A stone wall surrounded it. I passed through an iron gate and along a short walk to the two-storey red brick structure.

The inspector looked up as I entered. “Dr. Watson.” He had lost some of his joviality. “Please be seated.”

I lowered myself into a dark hardwood chair.

“I do not enjoy what I am about to say.” He seemed to consider. “Several witnesses claim to have heard words between yourself and Sir Cecil Dandridge shortly before the tragedy. Is this correct?”

“It is. He seemed to feel my visit here was somehow connected to him, that I knew something that might not be to his benefit. Naturally, I denied this.”

“Naturally?”

“I don't understand.”

“Your friend, the late Mr. Holmes, never mentioned him?”

“I am quite certain he did not; and what if he had?”

“Someone, who wished to avoid unpleasantness by remaining anonymous, recalled rumours about Sir Cecil—rumours which, if true, might have given you cause for animosity.”

“I swear, I knew nothing of the gentleman before last night and know of no reason to dislike him.”

“Including rumours—unsubstantiated, I assure you—of his connection with the man you must hold responsible for your friend's death?”

“Professor Moriarity?”

“The same. I should reject the suggestion that, since the man who killed Holmes died as well, your revenge might have been directed against a surviving member of his organisation, but for the unpleasantness between yourself and Sir Cecil and one other fact. There is no evidence of direct contact between Sir Cecil and Moriarity; but we have witnesses to both having been seen in the company of the same man, a scoundrel guilty of every sin that has a name, suspected of murder, selling secrets to unfriendly powers, and some unfit to be discussed between gentlemen.”

“One Jean-Baptiste Thibadeau?”

“Exactly. He avoided being photographed; but the Sûreté had a sufficiently good idea of what he looked like to be certain the body was his.”

I sat up. “Body!”

His gaze in my direction hardened. “Correct, doctor. They had a hard time making a case against him; but when they finally did, with the help of an anonymous note that arrived at their headquarters, they tracked him to a village thirty miles from Paris. He killed three gendarmes before they got him. Identification was verified by one Yvette Rousseau, who'd sheltered him for at least a year. She claimed to have known nothing of his activities—which, given her own reputation, the French authorities doubted. That was also why they sought further corroboration of his identity. Oh yes, doctor, he's dead, could not have been in that garden last night, could not have killed Sir Cecil.” I was considering all this when he added: “There is, of course, the possibility it was someone else, someone who knew what he looked like and that there were no photographs, who hoped he would be blamed when they killed Sir Cecil.”

“That is very generous of you, inspector.”

“Indeed it is. It is a straw I am clinging to rather than accuse the best friend of the late Sherlock Holmes of committing a revenge murder and trying to blame it on a dead man. There is no reason for this conversation to go beyond this room for the present. You may return to London, where you have a wife, a home, and a medical practice, all of which should keep you where we may find you, should the need arise. I hope you also have, especially after your years with Holmes, the good sense to realise how unfortunate it might prove if you were not where we might find you. Good day, Doctor.”

I took the next train home, more depressed than when I had arrived. Only one person noted my disquiet: Mary, who took it for continued grief over Holmes's death.

I have since wondered whether it might not have been a blessing that, a few months later, she passed away believing it.

“ . . . ‘Here's
British Birds,
and
Catallus,
and
The Holy War
—a bargain every one of them. With five volumes you could just fill that gap on the second shelf. It looks untidy, does it not, sir?'

“I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. When I turned again, Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table . . . ”

We watched the police hansom bearing away the second most dangerous man in London.

“Let us hope,” said I, “our next adventure proves less catastrophic.”

“This one is not quite over,” said Holmes. “There is one more link in the chain—at least, I hope there is. It will involve a short trip, after a good night's sleep, to a village called Dickencroft.”

This was my second shock of the day, equal to that following the “strange old book collector” indicating the gap on the second shelf. “Holmes, since we are going there anyway—”

“It's the same matter, Watson.” He raised a hand as I stared at him. “I should prefer discussing it tomorrow.”

The train was well underway the following morning when Holmes gave me the account. “I was in the beautiful city of Antwerp a year and a half ago, partly to relax, partly to consider my next move. Given Belgium's proximity to England, I wore one of my favourite disguises—” He grinned. “—which I shall discuss in greater detail later. I am tempted to say what happened there was due to some clue that drew me to a certain sidewalk café; but the fact is, it was—I blush to say I, of all people, should benefit from such—blind, stupid luck. A man approached my table at a sidewalk café, greatly chagrined. It seems I was supposed to have lain low after killing a man, a certain Leonard Trelawney, in Lyon a few months earlier.”

“Trelawney—I recall the case.” Leonard Trelawney was an officer at the Royal Lion Bank, one of the most prestigious in England. He was married with three children and lived in a country house not far from the City. He was thought to be the soul of discretion until he left one spring morning and never returned. Seventy thousand pounds in securities disappeared with him. Scotland Yard learned of several alleged business trips, about which the bank knew nothing, and holidays with his wife and children, about which they also knew nothing. His body, with a dagger in the back, was found floating in the Saône early in June. The case was more than two years old, the assassin and the securities yet to be located.

“Though this opportunity had been due to blind chance, instinct gave it a little help. I claimed I'd had no choice but to come here; and that it was dangerous to talk openly. I made an appointment to meet him that night at a certain corner where I would tell all. Naturally, I slipped out of the city, changed disguises, and looked into the matter further. The investigation took a little over a year. There wasn't that much to it; but you know my methods—learning all the details, separating rumour from fact, then verifying and re-verifying everything I'd learned. The facts are basically these: Leonard Trelawney had made the acquaintance of a certain peer, who had squandered enough of his fortune to be willing to enter into certain questionable enterprises to restore the life to which he had become accustomed. They had met through another officer of the Royal Lion Bank—like Trelawney, a gentleman with an apparently unimpeachable reputation. His friends knew he liked an occasional game of whist. Others knew how completely cards had possessed him, despite his miserable luck.

“This associate was undoubtedly the one who brought Trelawney into the operation. He would have known of Trelawney's beautiful wife with expensive tastes, who insisted that her children be educated at only the best schools and that she and her husband live in such a fine house.

“The question was how this associate had come in contact with the peer; not a large detail, but helpful in making a connection between all involved. Imagine when blind fortune led me to that which I should have sensed all along. The associate played cards with an acquaintance of the peer—one Sebastian Moran, which meant that, at the end of this chain of embezzlement and murder, was almost certainly the late Professor Moriarity. But Trelawney was still alive and healthy when the Professor and I battled at the edge of the Reichenbach, which meant the operation continued after its founder's death.”

“Obviously Moran.” I threw up my hands. “Which means the whole affair is at an end.”

“Then who killed the peer, Sir Cecil Dandridge, five months ago? Because I was following Moran when that tragedy happened; and he was nowhere near England that night.”

“How about this associate?—who, by the by, you haven't named yet.”

He smiled. “I try not to name names until I have proof, especially against those with pockets deep enough to launch slander suits. You may now have guessed Professor Moriarity was behind that business of the Valley of Fear; and you may recall Inspector MacDonald and I seemed reluctant to name the man we believed to be behind the presumed murder of John Douglas. Ah, I see by the way you stare at the opposite wall, it has all come back to you.”

“I—uh—I don't know what you mean.” I did—at least, I thought I did—but it seemed too insane to enunciate.

He leaned back. “Many years ago, in an area of California known as the Vermissa Valley, there existed a group of men known as the Scowrers. They claimed to represent Irish miners, but were actually hoodlums spreading terror and death throughout the area, causing that valley to be called the Valley of Fear. A man named Jack McMurdo insinuated himself into the gang, aided by erroneous reports of his criminal activities in Chicago. He was actually a Pinkerton detective named Birdy Edwards, who effectively brought down these wretches, including their leader—or Bodymaster—McGinty. He then fled the States to avoid reprisal.

“Some time later, a man named Jack Douglas was shot in the face; and as it was connected to a man I was investigating, whom I did not choose to name at the time, I looked into it, only to discover the real victim was a man sent to kill Douglas, whom Douglas accidentally shot during a struggle. Douglas was not tried, since it was obviously self-defense. He and his wife fled England. He was later reported washed overboard. We had no doubt the Scowrers or this unnamed mastermind—more likely both—were involved.”

“I am aware of the story. I had some idea of writing it someday as a remembrance of you.”

“Feel free to pretend you knew about Moriarity at the time. How many of your readers will quibble about your claim to have only heard of the man before our departure for Reichenbach? But please, for the sake of a noble, gallant man, do not mention having seen McMurdo-Edwards-Douglas alive and healthy on a street in Dickencroft a few months ago.”