The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (60 page)

I was more than pleased to hear the excitement in his voice. Holmes had been restlessly unemployed for nearly a week, and neither his temper nor mine had been helped by the dull, leaden skies of March with their intermittent showers, which caused my old wound to ache abominably.

“A prosperous man,” he continued. “Purposeful and not without self-esteem. Ah, he has paid off the cab and is approaching our door. Let us hope that he brings something of interest.” He turned away from the window, and at that moment we heard a determined ring upon the front-door bell. Within a minute our good landlady had shown into the room a plump man with heavy jowls and thick grey hair.

“Gentlemen,” said our visitor, as the door closed softly behind Mrs Hudson, “my name is Henry Staunton, and I am the victim of a most audacious theft!”

“Indeed?” replied Holmes, calmly. “Pray take the basket-chair, Mr Staunton. Your name is, of course, familiar to me as that of a connoisseur of
objets d’art.
Has some item from your collection been stolen?”

“It has, sir. It has! I shall come straight to the point, for I dislike circumlocution, as, I am sure, do you. Besides, I wish to have the matter settled without even the least delay. You must know, then, that I recently acquired from old Sir Cedric Grace the celebrated golden cup known as the Grace Chalice. I may say that it cost me a very considerable sum – a pretty penny, sir! But I do not grudge it, for the chalice is unique, quite unique.

“Now, before depositing it with my bankers, I determined to retain the chalice at my house for a short while, so that I might study it thoroughly. I live at The Elms at Hampstead, a very desirable residence, near the Heath and somewhat away from the main thoroughfare. Ahem! I kept the chalice in a safe in my study, securely built into the wall, and hidden behind a looking-glass. You may imagine my distress – my utter distress, sir – when, this very morning I discovered the safe unlocked and the chalice gone!

“I am a man who values his privacy, Mr Holmes, and I have no desire to admit the official police to my property. Instead, I am resolved to rely upon your skill and discretion in the matter.” He made a little flourish with his hand, and I remembered my friend’s assessment of him as a man not lacking in self-importance.

Holmes himself sat quietly, his eyes closed and his long legs stretched out before him. “That is very good of you, Mr Staunton,” he replied blandly. “You will appreciate, however, that I must have all the details, however trivial they may seem.”

“Of course, sir, of course. Well, my maid, Robinson, called me at seven o’clock this morning, rather earlier than usual, and she was in a most agitated state. Rather than trust to her somewhat incoherent account, I went myself directly to my study, where I found that the safe door stood open and that the study window was broken. Here, plainly, the miscreant had gained entrance, inserting his hand through the broken pane and unlocking the casement. I observed also a double line of footsteps running across the bare, damp earth from the high garden wall, and returning thither.”

This case presents some curious features,” remarked Sherlock Holmes, glancing intently at our client. “Are we to understand that your study overlooks bare ground?”

Staunton permitted himself a pained chuckle. “No doubt it seems odd to you, sir,” said he, “but the matter is simply explained: the ground has been prepared for the laying of a new lawn, and the turves have not yet been laid. A fortunate thing, as I am sure you will agree, sir! Most fortunate, for now we have the clearest clues to the thief’s means of entrance and egress. Naturally, I have left strict instructions that the footsteps are to be left untouched.”

“Naturally,” agreed Sherlock Holmes. “Very well, Mr Staunton. I think that we had better come at once and investigate the scene of the crime. Watson, will you call a cab?”

On the short journey to Hampstead, we learned that our client was a bachelor, living quietly with the immediate household of a maid, a cook and a single manservant. He kept no dog, for he disliked the creatures, and his only recreation was to play cards twice a week – for money, he admitted with candour – with a cousin, a retired gunsmith named George Cresswell, who lived at Mill Hill. Under Holmes’s determined questioning, he further confessed that although none of his servants knew of his remarkable purchase he had mentioned it to his cousin. “But you may dismiss any suspicion of George,” said he, “for he remarked only that I ought to deposit the cup in a bank-vault as soon as possible. Besides, sir, my cousin would have no cause to steal from me. I should tell you that as a result of our card-playing I am in his debt for a tidy sum.”

At The Elms, which struck me as a large house to be run by a staff of only three, we were first shown the windows of the upper rooms where the servants slept and then led to the far side of the building, where the crime had been committed. It was plain that if the burglar were sufficiently quiet the servants need have heard nothing. Staunton himself admitted to being a very heavy sleeper.

Holmes made a minute examination of the very clear footsteps that ran, just as we had been told, directly from the high garden wall to the study window and back. The damp earth had preserved the impressions wonderfully, and since no one had had occasion to trespass upon this smooth, bare patch there were no other prints to be seen.

“Our burglar could hardly have left plainer traces if he had intended to,” remarked Holmes to me. “There are two very singular features here, however. For instance, it would appear that our man let himself down from the wall with commendable delicacy, for there is no indication that he jumped, and we look in vain for the marks of a ladder. Hum – size ten boots, new or recently soled. A long stride. Just so! Mr Staunton, describe your cousin, if you please.”

Our client looked up hastily from a self-conscious glance at his own small feet. “Really, sir!” said he. “I fail to … Oh, very well! George Cresswell is a large and strong man, quite as tall as yourself, Mr Holmes. He is fifty-four years of age, with thick hair, still dark brown, a heavy brown moustache and – er – somewhat faded blue eyes. And – oh, dear! Yes, I do believe that he takes a size ten in boots.”

“Quite so,” replied my friend. “Now, let us turn our attention to the study. Ha! This window has been broken in a most professional manner, with the noise muffled by a sheet of strong paper smeared with treacle. Well, well. And what shall we find in the room itself?”

The furniture of the study, itself of much interest, held an eclectic accumulation of antiques, witness to Henry Staunton’s abiding pursuit. On the thick carpet were muddy patches leading from the window to the opposite wall, where the door of the safe stood open, just as our client had described it. There was little to be learned from the safe, even by such an expert as Sherlock Holmes. We could descry faint smears that might have been made by gloved fingers, and the lock was quite undamaged, indicating that it had been opened with a key. To my friend’s questions, Mr Staunton admitted reluctantly that George Cresswell might have had the opportunity within the past few weeks to take an impression of the safe key. Plainly the thought distressed him, for he seemed truly fond of his cousin, but it was clear to me that the evidence grew ever stronger against the retired gunsmith.

Shortly afterwards, Holmes and I left The Elms, with assurances of that we should certainly pursue the case. My friend was manifestly unsatisfied with his investigation so far, and I in my turn recalled an earlier remark of his that had puzzled me. “You suggested,” said I, “that there was yet another odd feature about the footsteps in the garden. What was it?”

He looked at me in his singular, introspective fashion. “You did not notice it? Why, it was simply that at no point did the steps returning from the house overlap those made in going to the house.”

While I pondered up this, he continued, “My next move must be to call upon Mr George Cresswell – I have his address – and I think that I shall go alone. Time may be of importance now.”

I returned to Baker Street to find our old friend Mr Lestrade of Scotland Yard waiting in our sitting room, positively bursting with news. “It’s the Freeling case, Doctor,” he explained. “You’ll remember that the man escaped from Chelmsford Prison a couple of weeks ago? Well, we think that we’ve found him. I put it like that because the man we have is very dead and savagely mutilated.”

I recalled the case well. Esme Freeling was a smooth, elegant and dangerous man who preyed upon the weak. He was a proven card-sharp, a known blackmailer and a suspected murderer. Holmes had been responsible in part for his arrest and incarceration, and would certainly wish to know of this strange and brutal conclusion to a wicked career.

“It’s not a nice thing, Dr Watson,” said Lestrade. “The man’s face has been quite burned off with acid. Horrible, it is. He was killed by a savage blow to the head, and then … Well, there’s not enough of his face left to identify him, but all the rest fits. He’s a big man, muscles well developed from rowing, thick brown hair. We found him, of all places, in Highgate Cemetery, behind one of the tombs. But here’s an odd thing, now – every single label had been removed from his clothes! Well, perhaps he was going about incognito, but it seems he couldn’t escape his fate.”

Declaring that he would wait until Holmes returned, Lestrade accepted a cigar from me, and we sat in companionable silence until Holmes entered the room, grim-faced, with the news that George Cresswell had not been seen for nearly two days. “Our client wished to keep this matter confidential,” he remarked, “but it seems that we shall have to call in the police after all.”

Upon hearing Lestrade’s information, he shrugged his thin shoulders and said, “Then let us go and see the last of the Freeling case.”

I had seen many unpleasant sights during my time as an Army Surgeon, but nothing quite as grisly as that which lay on a white marble slab in the mortuary at Highgate. Yet to Sherlock Holmes this hideous and pitiful object was not the mutilated shell of a fellow man but merely an object of professional study. Gently he raised the dead head and carefully scrutinized the great bruises at the base of the skull. Then, after a brief glance at the raw wound that had once been a human face, he turned his attention to the muscular arms. He ran his sensitive fingers over them and, taking the hands in his own, he closed the fists.

“Feel those forearm muscles, Watson,” he commanded. “Their condition should be of interest to a medical man.”

The muscle of the right forearm indicated considerable strength, consistent with what we knew of Esme Freeling, but that of the left astounded me. It stood out like an egg, and was by far the most highly developed I had ever seen.

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed. “This man must have been left-handed and immensely strong.”

“Freeling was strong, sir,” said Lestrade, in response to my friend’s questioning glance, “but there’s nothing in the files about his being left-handed. Besides, his only sport was rowing, and that would tend to develop both arms equally. Are we to take it, Mr Holmes, that this is
not
Esme Freeling?”

“Just so,” replied Holmes. “I know of only one activity that can cause such muscular development in a man. The muscle swells like that through years of taking the recoil of a rifle. You know little of this as yet, Lestrade, but Watson is informed. Look at the man, Doctor! Look at his tall stature, his thick brown hair, his large feet. Imagine the moustache and the pale blue eyes, and now tell me who he is.”

“Why,” said I, “surely this can only be the retired gunsmith, George Cresswell!”

“Precisely. We have encountered a singularly brutal and fortunately unsuccessful attempt on the part of a very wicked man to disguise the identity of his victim. Lestrade, I must ask you to restrain your natural impatience until later this evening, for I have to make a few further enquiries. Then, I think I can promise that you shall have your murderer.”

My own impatience must have been quite as great as the police detective’s, and how either of us contrived to bear the waiting I cannot say. Holmes had left us directly, and did not return to our lodgings until the evening was far advanced, but the expression upon his face was one of satisfaction. The three of us proceeded immediately to Hampstead, where we were joined by two uniformed constables from the local Police Station.

Henry Staunton was not pleased to see our companions, but his demeanour changed upon hearing Holmes’s bleak announcement of the disappearance of Mr George Cresswell. This fact, said my friend, meant that the theft of the Grace Chalice must inevitably become a matter for the police.

“Dear me,” observed our client, sententiously. “Such a wicked crime – wicked, sir! Who would have thought it?”

“Who indeed?” replied Sherlock Holmes. “Murder is a very wicked crime, Mr Staunton. And when you add to that the attempt to defraud the insurance company …”

Staunton’s face had turned very pale, and his fleshy features seemed to sag. “Really, sir, I – I fail to understand you!” he blustered.

“Oh, it won’t do, you know. Really it won’t. Mr Lestrade here has a warrant, and we intend to search this house until we find the Grace Chalice – Hold him, gentlemen!”

Staunton, his face twisted with inexpressible malice, had sprung for the door, but in a flash the two constables were upon him. He put up a considerable struggle, but at last I heard the satisfying click of handcuffs.

“I told you,” said Holmes later, when the precious cup had been retrieved from its hiding-place beneath a flagstone in the cellar of The Elms, “that I had some more enquiries to make this afternoon. Well, I discovered, as I had suspected, that our client had gambled heavily upon the Stock Exchange in recent years and, not to mince words, he was now over head and ears in debt. This, of course, was in addition to the large sum that he owed to his easy-going cousin. His plan, clearly, was to stage this false robbery, collect the insurance money, and then to sell the chalice. His cousin was murdered to provide a scapegoat for the crime, and to ensure that the gambling debt need not be paid. The escape from prison of Esme Freeling was merely a fortunate coincidence. There was more to the murder, however, for Henry Staunton hated his cousin as only a mean man can hate a generous and contented one.