The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (32 page)

That brandy and soda was the last the poor fellow ever drank for by some means the murderer had evidently added the entire bottle of Fowler's Solution to it. By the next morning, the last of his life, he was in such agony and sickness that it was necessary to give him a morphine injection, as well as tablets of cocaine. Carew was in a pitiful state, swearing in his delirium that he could feel worms crawling under his skin and driving him to madness. He also murmured of Mary Jacob and her secret visit to him on that final night. He blessed her as the angel who had poured brandy and soda and held it to his lips in his fever. Had she not been seen by the servants, that might be thought mere delusion. He was in such a state that, in the darkened room that last night, he would believe anyone to be his sweetheart who said she was.

‘There is no question, Mr Holmes, that my sister bought Fowler's Solution of Arsenic from the chemist,' said Dr Jacob with a sigh. ‘But she swears that she did so on Carew's orders. It was poured into the brandy and soda or into the tonic he took against the state of his liver. Now he is dead and cannot speak for her. It is said that she made evil use of the tonic, for one single-ounce bottle of Fowler's Solution contains twice the fatal dose. The other witnesses, one and all, agree that in those last days there hung about her a scent of lavender. It does not grow in Yokohama, Mr Holmes.'

Holmes's features contracted in a frown.

‘Indeed not,' he said softly.

‘But all the world knows that Fowler's Solution of Arsenic is strongly scented with lavender to make it more palatable. Dr Watson will bear me out.'

I was about to do so, but Holmes intervened before I could agree. ‘I can bear you out, Dr Jacob. I have made a little study of such matters.'

There was worse news that came to our visitor. It was discovered that Mary Jacob had been in the habit of going through the waste-paper baskets to find fragments of letters sent to her employers, especially to Mrs Carew. She took these to a friend, another nursery governess in Yokohama by the name of Elsa Christoffel, who pasted and stitched them together. Mary Jacob was later seen by a witness practising Mrs Carew's signature on a sheet of paper, also marked by the initials ‘A. L.' Indeed, Miss Jacob had shown this to the witness as proof of her skill in forgery or imitation.

The foolish young woman seemed determined to wear the rope and spring the trap. Before and after Carew's death there were letters from ‘A. L.' and ‘Annie Luke', suspected of being written by Mary Jacob. ‘Annie Luke' had been Carew's mistress, according to her claims in these letters. In the last one, written to Mrs Carew's lawyer, Mr John Frederick Lowder, the writer confessed in every detail her wicked murder of Carew. Though the letters were signed by Annie Luke, the hand was still said to be that of Mary Jacob.

Dr Jacob's sister now faced trial for murder on the far side of the world by a British consular court, whose like would never have been permitted in our own country. Any jury chosen from the few hundred members of the British community at Yokohama must already know of Miss Jacob and the Carews. They would very likely hold her guilty before the case was opened. She would be held in the British Naval Prison at Yokohama and hanged there by a military executioner, if the verdict went against her, as it now seemed that it must.

‘Mr Holmes,' said Dr Jacob softly, ‘it is a nightmare. She is beyond help, condemned by a system that I do not begin to understand. Can it be justice?'

Holmes put down his pipe.

‘It is the law,' he said quietly, ‘whether or not it be justice. Law is what concerns us, Dr Jacob. Law and evidence. The system dates from the treaty with Japan in 1858. Great Britain may exercise consular jurisdiction over her citizens in the five Treaty Ports. They live in foreign settlements within these ports. In return, they are forbidden from travelling more than a few miles from the settlements. In such cases as this, they are tried before the consul's court and acquitted or convicted there. In a conviction for murder, the trial and the execution are to be carried out by British officials in Japan.'

‘But that is not justice!' he exclaimed. ‘Can she not be brought to England?'

‘The law does not provide for that,' said Holmes in the same quiet voice. ‘It deals with such a crime in the place where it was perpetrated.'

‘How can it be dealt with?' the poor fellow asked in despair. ‘How can there be an impartial jury chosen from the few British residents in a port like Yokohama, where all know one another? They will all have taken sides by now. I fear they will listen to the doctors and the other witnesses that the Carew family will put forward, rather than to a seduced and vengeful nursery governess. Forgive me, Mr Holmes, but that is what she will be called!'

‘Then we must see to it, Dr Jacob, that, if your sister is innocent, she is acquitted on the evidence, rather than convicted on prejudice.'

‘Acquitted, Mr Holmes? I beg you will not mock her.'

Holmes stood up.

‘I was never more serious in my life, Dr Jacob. If the facts are as you have described them, I begin to have hopes.'

But I looked at Dr Jacob and, for a moment, I thought the poor fellow might break down in tears. There was such agitation in his face as he thought of the helplessness of this poor girl—for his sister was quite ten years his junior—facing her doom alone on the far side of the world. By the fastest route, Yokohama was almost four weeks away from London. Events there were moving with a terrible speed, while he was trapped so far away. He seemed like a sleeper in a fearful dream, the course of which he could neither alter nor even influence. If Holmes could see a way through the case against the girl, I could not.

‘Someone must go to her, Mr Holmes!' Dr Jacob began again. ‘She has no family there, no friends that I can call upon. She must have help!'

Holmes stared at the stem of his pipe, his mind further away than Yokohama. A moment later he was the cold and practical thinker once more.

‘From what you tell me, Dr Jacob, there would seem little to persuade a jury that your sister is innocent. Fortunately for you, I am not that jury. I find one or two points in the evidence a little curious. I daresay they are nothing but I should like to probe them further. One, at least, has a certain air of fabrication. While Carew was dying, your sister was seen in his room alone with him. Standing before the medicine cabinet. How many witnesses are there to that?'

‘Two. Both are servants of good character. They are girls from the Tokyo Mission School, employed by the Carews.'

‘At this time, no other person, not even Mrs Carew, was permitted to be with him unsupervised?'

‘No. And I cannot tell you, Mr Holmes, how my sister came to be with him in the few minutes the nurse was absent. The windows of the room were inaccessible. The door was locked and two witnesses on guard outside it. She could neither get in nor out, unless she had a key given her by Carew when he was her lover—or she had stolen one. My sister is no magician, Mr Holmes.'

Holmes stared at him, long and steadily. At last he said, ‘I daresay she is not. However, it is not your sister who concerns me, Dr Jacob. I should like to know how these two estimable young witnesses from the Mission School saw your sister standing before the medicine cabinet, if she was alone.'

Dr Jacob shook his head. ‘There was a sound in the room, as if someone had banged the window to. They looked through the keyhole of the locked door and saw her. She was standing before the medicine cabinet on which was a triple table-mirror for dressing.'

The faintest smile of triumph touched my friend's fastidious mouth.

‘Were I intent upon being locked in with my victim, Dr Jacob, I should take care to leave the key in the lock after I fastened the door behind me. It is convenient if one needs to leave quickly and it prevents any intrusion. It also blocks the view. No one, however morally estimable, even from a Mission School, would see me through the keyhole with the key in the lock. A little curious is it not? Pray, continue.'

Just then, for the first time, I knew that Holmes was set upon Yokohama. It was a madcap adventure but he had never resisted an adventure of any sort.

‘The smell of lavender,' Holmes said quietly, ‘how was that noticed?'

Dr Jacob shook his head, as if to clear it. ‘In the days before the man's death, Mr Holmes, there was a scent of lavender that seemed to cling to my sister's clothes, to her hair. The very same smell was noticed in the sick room.'

‘Lavender water is a common enough perfume, Dr Jacob. What matter if your sister chose it—or if someone gave her a present of it to use?'

Dr Jacob looked at Holmes with the faintest suggestion of disappointment in my friend's abilities.

‘You are well informed in the pharmacopeia, Mr Holmes, as I infer from the copy at present on your table. You know, perhaps better than I, the extent to which Fowler's Solution of Arsenic is perfumed with spirits of lavender to make it more palatable.'

‘Hmmm,' said Holmes drily. ‘From where did your sister buy the Fowler's Solution that she was sent to get?'

‘Maruya's Pharmacy in the town. She went there rather than Schedel's European Pharmacy because it also sold books and stationery.'

‘Mrs Carew was a customer of Schedel, I take it?'

‘I daresay she was,' Dr Jacob looked up a little sharply. ‘But spirits of lavender are a characteristic ingredient of Fowler's Solution of Arsenic.'

‘In England,' Holmes said, as if finishing the sentence for him.

‘But Fowler's Solution is universal, Mr Holmes.'

‘Indeed, it is, Dr Jacob but the British Pharmacopeia is not.'

He stood up, pulled a pamphlet from the shelf, and handed it to our visitor.

‘You would perhaps care to consult this most interesting monograph by Professor Edwin Divers of the Chemistry Department of the Imperial University of Tokyo—late of the Medical School of Middlesex Hospital. Dr Divers, being expert in the toxicology of tropical medicine, is something of an inspector-general of pharmacies in the Far East. His analysis establishes beyond question that neither spirits of lavender nor sandalwood tincture are used in Japanese Fowler's Solution, such as Maruya's would sell. You will find the comment on page eighteen at the end of the second paragraph.'

He handed the open pamphlet to our guest. Dr Jacob looked up.

‘I had no idea, Mr Holmes, that Fowler's Solution from a Japanese pharmacy would be differently constituted, nor would most of my profession.'

‘No,' said Holmes languidly. ‘Nor did the person who sought to incriminate your sister by so foolish a trick. That alone does not acquit her nor incriminate Mrs Carew. From what you tell me, much of the evidence and motivation is still against Miss Jacob. Yet this point has a certain interest, does it not?'

Dr Jacob drew a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose bravely.

‘Then you cannot promise anything, Mr Holmes?' he asked, standing up like a man of courage to face his executioners. Holmes remained seated.

‘I did not say that, Dr Jacob. I said that much of the evidence and the motivation appears to be against your sister. Appearances, however, invite investigation. I must urge you not to entertain false hopes but, if you wish, I will see what can be done for Miss Jacob.'

‘You will go to Yokohama?' It was plain that Dr Jacob could not credit this. Nor could I. Holmes, however, inclined his head.

‘If that is what you wish.'

‘To Yokohama, Holmes?' I could not restrain my interruption. ‘To Japan?'

‘I understand that it is where the port of Yokohama is to be found.'

Dr Jacob still stared at him, as if he thought my friend would qualify such a promise. Then he saw the truth.

‘Mr Holmes, I did not dare to believe that you would—or could! That you would do this for a stranger, whom you never saw until today!'

Holmes laid down his pipe. ‘I ask no thanks, Dr Jacob, and I make no promises. I would not go at all if it were only to please you. I confess, however, that the case against your sister intrigues me. It is so strong—almost too strong—and yet the matter of the keyhole and the impeccable Mission School witnesses, like the perfume of lavender and the irreproachable nurse, possesses a certain undeniable attraction.'

The continuation of the analysis was lost upon our visitor, weary with grief and bewildered as he was. He reached into his pocket and drew out the amply filled note-case. Holmes held up a hand.

‘If you please, Dr Jacob, we will have no payment and no discussion of fees as yet. When I bring your sister safely home, you may repay me. If I do not, then I fear I should be unable to accept anything for my services.'

II

‘What the devil is this, Holmes?' It was ten minutes later and we had parted with our visitor until the next day. ‘We are to set out for Yokohama, with all that remains to be done here? We are to chase after a foolish girl, who from everything we are told is probably guilty of the crime with which she is charged? We are to do all this without any certainty of having so much as our expenses paid?'

‘We are to do all that, Watson, just as you say.'

‘But why?'

‘My dear Watson,' he said smiling, ‘have you learned nothing of the criminal mind in all these years of our acquaintance? In this case, all my instincts are one way and almost all the facts are the other. Yet there are one or two curiosities. Did you ever hear of a devious poisoner, who calculates dosages and times with such care, but deliberately takes the key from inside the door so that she may be broken in upon at the moment that will reveal her guilt?'

‘That means nothing, Holmes. It may happen all too easily in the stress of the moment, when the crime is so monstrous and the criminal lacks experience or thought.'

‘Does it not strike you, Watson, as a little too convenient?'