The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (66 page)

‘What are we doing here?' I asked, a little put out.

Before our escort could reply, Lestrade opened the door of the cab and we stepped out into a scene of confusion, like the rout of a great army. The broad pavement of the avenue outside the hotel was stacked with portmanteaus, cabin trunks, hat-boxes, luggage of every description. We could scarcely have reached the back entrance of Scotland Yard for hansoms and growlers ahead of us, each loaded with the possessions of those scrimmaging to escape. There was such shouting of directions, such arguments and questions bawled out, that the place was perfect bedlam. Inside the grand foyer I saw luggage strewn round the gilt-columned mirrors and across the thick carpets, while porters and page-boys endeavoured to make order out of chaos.

‘And which of all these very expensive people is our Lambeth murderer going to slaughter?' Holmes inquired amiably of Lestrade. ‘Surely not all of them?'

The inspector was bristling with indignation.

‘Each one of them, Mr Holmes, each and every one of them has received one of these.'

For a moment I expected him to produce a phial of strychnine but it was a plain printed card. I had never seen such insanity in my life as in what I read just then.

ELLEN DONWORTH
'
S DEATH

To the Guests of the Metropole Hotel

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I hereby notify you that the person who poisoned Ellen Donworth on the 13th last October is to-day in the employ of the kitchens of the Metropole Hotel and that your lives are in danger as long as you remain in this hotel.

Yours respectfully,

W. H. Murray

Sherlock Holmes was not a man much given to outbursts of laughter. They began deep in his throat, as a rising growl. Then, if the occasion warranted, he threw back his head and shouted aloud at the richness of the humour. To Lestrade's dismay, he did so now. His Olympian merriment echoed through the panic and over the luggage on the pavement, across the lavishly decorated foyer, where the hotel manager in his frock coat and striped trousers stood wringing his hands at the centre of the tumult.

Holmes laughed so long that, in the end, he was obliged to wipe his eyes before he could turn to the scowling inspector, ‘Well, my dear Lestrade, I can certainly tell you one thing. You may be sure that our man did this in order that he should be here to see the fun. I swear he is here now. Which do you suppose it can be? That horsy fellow over there in the tweed suit, the neat moustache and the barbered eyebrows? The little old lady in black velvet with her ivory-knobbed stick? That tall colonial with the brick-red face who looks as if he might be scanning new horizons in Australia or Brazil? Any of them or all of them!'

Lestrade's colour rose at the thought that the murderer might be within a few yards of him and that there was nothing he could do. He looked about him furiously.

‘Since you are always so much to the forward, Mr Sherlock Holmes, perhaps
you
would like to choose which of them it shall be!'

Holmes laughed again, more gently.

‘You had far better give it up, old fellow. Mr Bayne the Barrister, Mr O'Brien the Detective, Mr Murray from the hotel—whether they be three or one—may be stood next to you this moment, or in the foyer, and you would not know.'

I had never seen Lestrade's face so thunderous. The Lambeth poisoning had vanished from the papers but now it would be back, a story of how the hunted man had made fools of Scotland Yard. At the manager's request, Lestrade had summoned Holmes by telegram to investigate the hotel kitchens but the inspector was now so furious that he could not bring himself to ask the favour.

When we came home that afternoon, Holmes was still chuckling at the discomfiture of Lestrade, the Metropole Hotel, and its luckless guests.

‘You believe the man who sent that note was there this morning?' I asked, as we took off our overcoats and rang for tea.

‘I was never more sure of anything in my life.'

I do not know why I said it, but the next moment I blurted out:

‘It was you! It was you, Holmes! By God, you sent that circular! No wonder you were so sure that the man was there! It was you!'

He looked quickly at me with bewildered innocence. Not quickly enough, as I thought.

‘What purpose would that serve, Watson? What purpose in the world?'

‘To start the case moving again. To flush the criminal or criminals from cover,' I said doggedly, but he would discuss the accusation no further.

VII

The evening newspapers got wind of the ‘Metropole Sensation', and so it was blown about all over London. Though he would not admit it, I swore this was a subversive attempt by Holmes to ‘start the ball rolling' again by means of a clandestinely-printed circular. If the murderer of Ellen Donworth resembled the egomaniac of our fancy, he would be unable to resist a riposte. However, I never expected the ball to roll with such sudden speed or in the direction that it did. Holmes spent a day or two, lounging as languidly and jadedly as ever. A good deal of his time was passed in the old-fashioned chair, a musical score before him, easing his tedium by the mellow tone of his faithful violin.

After lunch two or three days later, he was drawing a mournful beauty from the slow movement of the Violin Concerto of Ludwig van Beethoven. His bow moved effortlessly, his eyes were mere slits, and he seemed almost to sleep. I sat in an opposite chair, listening but letting my thoughts drift over other matters.

The music stopped abruptly, in mid-phrase. The bow and fiddle rattled down on the table as he seized the score that lay open on its stand.

‘By God!' he cried. ‘What fools we have been! What blind, unutterable fools!'

He was not looking at me but at the score of the concerto, dismayed as if he had seen a ghost there. Then he glared at it and threw it down. I wondered whether the strain of the investigation was leading to some cerebral episode.

‘Do you not see?' he cried. ‘We have been looking for Matilda Clover …'

‘I daresay,' I said, rousing myself.

‘… when all the time we should have been looking for Matilda Clover!'

If I thought his reason tottered the moment before, I was even more inclined to believe it now. He looked at the score again and said, ‘Let us pray that dear old Beethoven has succeeded where Lestrade and his minions have failed.'

Then he began bustling about for his ulster, his cap, his gloves, and his stick.

‘I must go,' he said sharply, ‘I shall not be more than an hour or two.'

‘Shall I not come with you?'

‘No!' he said severely. ‘I can manage this perfectly well on my own. If I am wrong, which I entirely doubt, I shall bear the blame of error alone.'

Then he was gone, to call a cab off the rank. Holmes was often secretive and vexing, but I had never known him behave quite so outlandishly. I picked up the score. It was from Augener's in Great Marlborough Street, a German ‘Edition Peters' published at Leipzig. I saw only what I would expect to see, in gothic type upon the cover, ‘L. van Beethoven, Konzert Opus 61 D dur'.

How this could have anything to do with the Lambeth mystery was beyond me. I sat and waited for his return, so perplexed that I could neither read nor attend to any other business. More than two hours passed before I heard the cabman's voice and my friend's key in the lock of our Baker Street door. I knew that he bore success and not failure by the way his long legs measured the stairs two at a time—and by the way he came in, flung down his ulster and looked at me.

‘Matilda Clover, Watson, died in October of delirium tremens, in Lambeth.'

I could only stare and ask, ‘How the devil did you find that?'

‘By looking in the very place where Lestrade and his incompetents have been looking for a month past. Somerset House. The registers of deaths.'

‘How did you find it, when Lestrade could not?'

He picked up the musical score.

‘What a fool I have been! Look, my dear fellow! Konzert—not Concerto! How many times have I seen that word these past weeks and not recognized the truth! Of what use is a consulting detective who never considered that Klover—rather than Clover—is a not uncommon patronymic of Westphalia and Upper Saxony! Such a possibility would never, of course, have crossed the mind of Lestrade.'

‘She was German?'

‘I very much doubt that,' he said impatiently, putting away the violin in its case. ‘Her father or grandfather may have been a sailor who came ashore at the docks. Or perhaps one of the German medical students at the hospital made out her death certificate and gave her the wrong initial letter. Who can say? But at last we have her, Watson, and she brings us very interesting news.'

‘How can that be?'

He sat down and looked at me with a mad laughter in his eyes.

‘Matilda Clover, as we will continue to pronounce her, died on 20 October.'

‘Impossible!'

‘In other words, Watson, when Lady Russell came to us complaining that her husband was accused of murdering Matilda Clover—Matilda Clover was still alive. Allow that the note took two or three days to reach Lady Russell, then the death of Matilda Clover was foretold by at least a week.'

A man who writes that his head began to spin is usually guilty of exaggeration. In my own case, at this moment, I swear that the Lambeth case spun my brain like a child's top. I could not see that even Sherlock Holmes would make sense of it. When I looked up at him, he was chuckling like a schoolboy.

‘We must inform Lestrade at once!' I said sternly.

He shook his head, still chuckling.

‘Oh no, Watson. Miss Clover is to be ours alone for the next day or two. Finders keepers, as the saying is.'

VIII

Despite my misgivings, perhaps it was as well for our investigation that we gave ourselves a few days of grace. On the following afternoon, Holmes had gone to examine a skull, to be purchased in his pursuit of criminal phrenology. It was said to be that of the famous highwayman and informer, Jonathan Wild, hanged at Tyburn in 1725. A little before three o'clock there was a scampering on the stairs, a hurried knock at our door, and the entry of Master Billy. There was generally a ‘Master Billy', employed by Mrs Hudson as what she liked to call a ‘page boy' but whose duties were merely to fetch and carry. They were all known as ‘Billy' and the present holder of the office had proved himself a useful source of information on two or three occasions.

‘Medical gentleman to see you, Dr Watson, sir,' he gasped, catching his breath, ‘most immediate.'

The young imp handed out a card on his salver. I took it and read ‘Dr Thomas Neill, M.B., B.Ch., Faculty of Medicine, McGill University.' I did not know the name but, naturally enough, I assumed that this was a matter concerning one of my own consultations. I told Billy to show the gentleman up. As he did so, I turned the card over and saw two words pencilled on the back:
MATILDA CLOVER
.

It seemed indeed that my heart missed a beat. At that moment the door of the room opened to admit a pale, rather scholarly figure, wearing a cape and holding a silk hat in his hand. He had the myopic look of an earnest student and wore a pair of pince-nez with strong lenses.

‘Dr Watson?' he said, in a voice that was low and deferential. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, sir, and so good on your part to receive me without an engagement.'

I shook his hand, which had a lean and sinewy grip, then ushered him to a chair.

‘If you wish to discuss the matter of Matilda Clover,' I said hastily, ‘it is my colleague Sherlock Holmes whom you should see.'

He looked up at me with a nervous smile.

‘To meet Mr Holmes would be a great privilege,' he said earnestly, ‘and one that I greatly look forward to. However, to speak frankly, I am not sorry to have an opportunity to speak first as one medical man to another. For some reason I cannot pretend to understand, I seem to be the victim of a plot—or hoax—involving the death of a young woman whose name you may already know but I do not. It is rumoured among members of the Christian Guild that Mr Frederick Smith himself was similarly insulted and that he came to you for advice. Indeed, his name is now linked with scandal in the very streets and lodging houses round the hospital. Hence my concern for my own reputation. If you were able to assist Mr Smith, perhaps you can advise me.'

‘You are pursuing your studies at St Thomas's?'

He inclined his head.

‘I have that honour, sir. However, I am mostly in the country, reading and taking notes. I have rooms near Lambeth Palace, when I am in town.'

Without further ado, he handed me a letter in an envelope. The postmark was two days old. Though I read it with some dismay, its contents now saved us the trouble of searching for the last dwelling-place of Matilda Clover.

Dr Thomas Neill

Sir
,

Miss Clover, who until a short time ago lived at 27 Lambeth Road, S.E., died at the above address on the 20th October through being poisoned by strychnine. After her death a search of her effects was made, and evidence was found which showed that you not only gave her the medicine which caused her death but that you had been hired for the purpose of poisoning her. This evidence is in the hands of one of our detectives, who will give the papers either to you or to the police authorities for the sum of £1,000
.

Now, sir, if you want all the evidence for £1,000 just put a personal in the Daily Chronicle, saying you will pay Malone £1,000 for his services, and I will send a party to settle this matter. If you do not want the evidence, of course, it will be turned over to the police and published, and your ruin will surely follow. Think well before you decide on this matter. It is just this—£1,000 sterling on the one hand, and ruin, shame, and disgrace on the other. Answer by personal on the first page of the Daily Chronicle any time next week. I am not humbugging you, I have evidence enough to ruin you forever
.