The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes (23 page)

“Then, he was not lost overboard near St. Helena?”

“And his wife, despite her heart-wrenching letter, knew it. Moriarity undoubtedly took credit for it, because one cannot take credit for too many murders if one wishes his power; and he cannot be paid for a murder he had nothing to do with. Moriarity probably assumed someone else killed him. Birdy Edwards had, and undoubtedly still has, many enemies—another good reason to pretend he fell, or was pushed off, the boat to Palmyra that night.”

“How long does he think this is going to work, pretending to be dead again—if Moriarity's people are still out there?”

“It worked for me; and I have reason to believe our troubles with him and his people are coming to an end.”

Something else struck me as we neared Dickencroft station. “But hiding out a short distance from where they tracked him down before?”

“From what I know of Birdy Edwards, it is conceivable he saw himself as a human purloined letter.” I settled back when something occurred to me, something I had meant to mention before we had gotten on the subject of Edwards. “Holmes.”

“Yes?”

“Speaking of men who are supposed to be dead . . . .” I glanced at him. He retained the stony look I had so often seen. “Do you recall a man named Jean-Baptiste Thibadeau?”

“I know of him well, much more than I'd like to.”

“I know that the Sûreté was supposed to have tracked him down and killed him; but I encountered him, or someone claiming to be him, the night of the murder. He indicated he had ways of dealing with Sir Cecil and that Dickencroft might be made highly undesirable for me, and that any unpleasantness I might suffer might be at his hands. Inspector Thompson insisted the man was dead, but conceded that whomever I had encountered matched his description.”

“Thibadeau had an understandable aversion to being photographed; but many knew what he looked like, and there are a number of police sketches. A disguise that might fool someone like yourself who had never encountered the real man is conceivable.”

There was something odd about Holmes. I may not have seen him for several years; but he seemed strangely uninterested in the mysterious Frenchman.

We sat in Inspector Thompson's office late that afternoon.

“This is an honour, Mr. Holmes. I only wish we had met under happier circumstances.”

“I take it you do not mean the death of Sir Cecil Dandridge. If you know me at all, you know that is the sort of thing I live for; but from the way you glanced at Dr. Watson, I take it you mean that my friend is a suspect?”

The inspector studied the back of his left hand. “He did give a satisfactory explanation for his quarrel with Sir Cecil; and while I would not ordinarily give great weight to his suggested motive, he did try to steer suspicion from himself with what must almost certainly be a lie.”

I rose, snarling: “I did see that man. As God is my witness, I did see Jean-Baptiste Thibadeau.”

“Sit down, Watson,” said Holmes. “That is hardly prudent behaviour for a murder suspect.”

I resumed my seat.

“My reputation was not built on being blind to a man's guilt even if he is my dearest friend. Watson did not sneak into Maple Meadow. Sir Cecil invited him; and as for that disagreement, it is consistent with everything I know about the man, about his fears that I was still alive and on his trail, that my friend might be there at my behest. In other words, if Watson lied, it was based on information he could not possibly have had. And the evidence shows Sir Cecil repaired to his bedchamber with some unnamed person who, since there was no sign of a struggle, he trusted sufficiently for this person to get close enough to plunge that letter opener into his chest. Does that fit your theory of Dr. John H. Watson, avenging angel?”

“And I did speak to this Thibadeau.”

“
Imbecile
. If
Monsieur l'inspecteur
says I am dead, I am dead.” I could not mistake Thibadeau's voice even months later; but as I looked about, I saw only Inspector Thompson and a grinning Sherlock Holmes. “As I said on the train, one of my favourite disguises. I tried to warn you away from danger; and you thought it was a threat. I assured you I had my own ways of dealing with Sir Cecil Dandridge; and you thought I was hinting at my intention of killing him—which, by the way, the real Thibadeau would have been far too crafty to do.” He shrugged with a chuckle. “I rather suspected something of that sort. That said, he was rather a disappointment as members of Moriarity's organization go. He would never appear in public without false eyebrows, attached with the aid of spirit gum, his own being rather thin. He would alter his voice and his nose; and he had an encyclopedic memory of whom he had encountered with which voice and which nose. He grew the beard to draw the eye to it and, of course, those brows. He would dispose of both should the police ever make a case against him. There was some talk of his having a pair of spectacles on hand, just to make recognising his real self the more difficult.”

“Sounds ingenious to me,” said I.

“And to me,” said the inspector.

“It was—unless, of course, someone like myself is on one's trail, in his own disguise, with the notion of impersonating one. Jean-Baptiste Thibadeau did such an excellent job of confusing everyone he came in contact with that it was simple to deceive those who'd encountered him several times. He might have gone on forever had the organization, for their own reasons, not betrayed him to the Sûreté. I have speculated how much trouble I might have saved them by telling him what a fool I'd made of him, handing him a pistol, and reminding him what honourable Frenchmen do when they have been so humiliated.” He sighed. “He probably would have done so after shooting me. Anyhow, I am certain I should have recalled plunging a letter opener into Sir Cecil Dandridge's chest.”

“Holmes,” said I, “what about that other fellow? You know, the one involved in that other business we were discussing on the train—” I glanced uneasily at Inspector Thompson, uncertain how many people Holmes would want to let in on that particular secret. “—the one who is supposedly no longer with us?”

“You mean,” inquired the inspector, “Jebediah Watts?”

“Who?”

“His latest
nom de guerre
,” said Holmes. “You don't suppose, after all the trouble he went to, convincing Moriarity and his crew that John McMurdo, Birdy Edwards, and John Douglas were dead, that he would be so foolish as to use any of those names again? His wife is now Mary Watts. He makes his living as a blacksmith; they have one child. What about him?”

“How long could he and Sir Cecil reside in the same area before Sir Cecil discovered his secret? And could our friend of the many names have decided to get rid of Sir Cecil—”

Holmes's fit of laughter was nearly apoplectic. “Forgive me, my friend.” He took a moment more to gain full control. “I—I suppose he had something of a motive; but in making deductions, it is always best to think them through before speaking.” He leaned over and squeezed my arm. “Again, forgive me. But there are so many objections to it. Dandridge was not one of Moriarity's best men; but he would have given Watts no hint he had been exposed until blow fell against Watts. And you have been to
soirées
like that one often enough to know that no one but invited guests, and their guests, could have gotten past that butler.”

“I recall,” said I, “a gentleman calling himself Jean-Baptiste Thibadeau who seemed to get in without going through the butler.”

“Ah, Watson's revenge—I feel so much better, though you must admit someone as cunning as I could manage it, where many couldn't. But even if he could have procured evening clothes—on a blacksmith's salary?—and blended in with the rest, we have the same objection I offered in your defense: getting close enough to Sir Cecil Dandridge in the man's own bedchamber to deliver the fatal blow without a sign of a struggle.”

“Actually,” said the inspector, “we knew this fellow's secret and kept an eye on him. He and the victim did business several times over the years—no sign of suspicion, no unpleasantness between them.”

“Speaking of the actual guests at this gathering,” said my friend, “was one of them an employee of the Royal Lion Bank, one Trevor Atkins?”

“I recall his being there,” said I, “along with a most charming companion.”

“I also remember him, Mr. Holmes. You suspect he may have been involved in the crime?”

“I strongly suspect it.”

“Then I have bad news. Mr. Atkins was engaged in a discussion of the status of the pound, beginning before Sir Cecil went upstairs and lasting until the crime was announced. There are a number of reliable witnesses.”

Holmes chuckled. “You see, Watson, why one should not blurt out one's deductions?” He rose.

“Good day, inspector. I have no doubt we shall talk again.”

Holmes and I had taken a room at The Laughing Friar. We had each ordered shepherd's pie, along with the house red wine, when he leaned across to me. “Now, Watson, I wish every detail of that evening, everything you can recall.”

I may not read faces as well as he; but I pride myself I read his rather well that night. He listened to my narrative without expression, inserting what seemed trivial questions here and there, until his face suddenly brightened. “They are all alike, these scoundrels who plot crimes, then arrange flawless alibis. We must return to London.”

He seemed deep in thought on the train, but did not discuss the matter again until some time later, as we stood on the platform at Norwood, having completed a case with some features similar to the Birlstone affair. “We are not going home, Watson. We are returning to Dickencroft.”

The train was leaving the station when he handed me a photograph. “This came from the Sûreté just before our departure from Baker Street. Does she look familiar?”

I recognised her almost immediately. “This is Atkins's companion—I believe her name is Marie L'Espanaye?”

Holmes suppressed a laugh. “Ah, yes, you did mention him comparing me to Dupin. Why shouldn't he give her the surname of the victims in that fellow's first case, and the given name of the title character in the second?”

“I take it you know her real name?”

“Yvette Rousseau.”

“The woman who was sheltering Thibadeau just before the French police tracked him down and killed him?”

“Their relationship went far beyond that. She loved him passionately enough to kill the man who'd betrayed him, which proved convenient for Trevor Atkins, who had his own reasons for disposing of Sir Cecil Dandridge or, more likely, was following the orders of those who did.”

“I don't recall seeing her with him at the time of the crime.”

Neither, it turned out, did most of the witnesses.

We laid the case before Inspector Thompson, who immediately alerted Scotland Yard.

Sadly, we were too late. Atkins and the woman had not been seen for months. His body was later found in an alley off an obscure boulevard in Paris. He had been stabbed hours before. Mlle. Rousseau/L'Espanaye also met a violent end, beaten to death and found in a small pasture not far from Marseilles. She had so many enemies, particularly male, that there seemed little hope of solving it.

“I shouldn't care to look into it,” said Holmes when he read the account.

“Because you couldn't solve it, or wouldn't want to?”

He considered. “I don't know.”

A
lthough a newcomer to pastiche, Larry D. Sweazy is an award-winning writer of historical western short stories, novels featuring Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger, and a forthcoming mystery novel that promises to become a series. “The Adventure of the Rounded Ocelot” presents us with, in addition to a priceless cat sculpture, a story of close friendship, an exotic client, and the blue Caribbean, in contrast to the fog-laden streets of London. Published for the first time, by permission of the author.