The Misadventure of Shelrock Holmes (5 page)

I was only too happy to have the privilege of going with him. It was most interesting to watch the workings of so inscrutable a mind. As we drove under the lofty iron roof of the terminus I noticed a look of annoyance pass over his face.

"We are fifteen seconds ahead of our time," he remarked, looking at the big clock. "I dislike having a miscalculation of that sort occur."

The great Scotch Express stood ready for its long journey. The detective tapped one of the guards on the shoulder.

"You have heard of the so-called Pegram mystery, I presume?"

"Certainly, sir. It happened on this very train, sir."

"Really? Is the same carriage still on the train?"

"Well, yes, sir, it is," replied the guard, lowering his voice, "but of course, sir, we have to keep very quiet about it. People wouldn't travel in it, else, sir."

"Doubtless. Do you happen to know if anybody occupies the compartment in which the body was found?"

"A lady and gentleman, sir; I put 'em in myself, sir."

"Would you further oblige me," said the detective, deftly slipping half a sovereign into the hand of the guard, "by going to the window and informing them in an offhand casual sort of way that the tragedy took place in that compartment?"

"Certainly, sir."

We followed the guard, and the moment he had imparted his news there was a suppressed scream in the carriage. Instantly a lady came out, followed by a florid-faced gentleman, who scowled at the guard. We entered the now empty compartment, and Kombs said:

"We would like to be alone here until we reach Brewster."

"I'll see to that, sir," answered the guard, locking the door.

When the official moved away, I asked my friend what he expected to find in the carriage that would cast any light on the case.

"Nothing," was his brief reply.

"Then why do you come?"

"Merely to corroborate the conclusions I have already arrived at."

"And might I ask what those conclusions are?"

"Certainly," replied the detective, with a touch of lassitude in his voice. "I beg to call your attention, first, to the fact that this train stands between two platforms, and can be entered from either side. Any man familiar with the station for years would be aware of that fact. This shows how Mr. Kipson entered the train just before it

started."

"But the door on this side is locked," I objected, trying it.

"Of course. But every season ticket holder carries a key. This accounts for the guard not seeing him, and for the absence of a ticket. Now let me give you some information about the influenza. The patient's temperature rises several degrees above normal, and he has a fever. When the malady has run its course, the temperature falls to three quarters of a degree below normal. These facts are unknown to you, I imagine, because you are a doctor."

I admitted such was the case.

"Well, the consequence of this fall in temperature is that the convalescent's mind turns towards thoughts of suicide. Then is the time he should be watched by his friends. Then was the time Mr. Barrie Kipson's friends did not watch him. You remember the 2ist, of course. No? It was a most depressing day. Fog all around and mud under foot. Very good. He resolves on suicide. He wishes to be unidentified, if possible, but forgets his season ticket. My experience is that a man about to commit a crime always forgets something."

"But how do you account for the disappearance ot the money.-'

"The money has nothing to do with the matter. If he was a deep man, and knew the stupidness of Scotland Yard, he probably sent the notes to an enemy. If not, they may have been given to a friend. Nothing is more calculated to prepare the mind for self-destruction than the prospect of a night ride on the Scotch Express, and the view from the windows of the train as it passes through the northern part of London is particularly conducive to thoughts of annihilation." "What became of the weapon?"

"That is just the point on which I wish to satisfy myself. Excuse me for a moment." Mr. Sherlaw Kombs drew down the window on the right-hand

side, and examined the top of the casing minutely with a magnifying glass. Presently he heaved a sigh of relief, and drew up the sash.

"Just as I expected," he remarked, speaking more to himself than to me. "There is a slight dent on the top of the window frame. It is of such a nature as to be made only by the trigger of a pistol falling from the nerveless hand of a suicide. He intended to throw the weapon far out of the window, but had not the strength. It might have fallen into the carriage. As a matter of fact, it bounced away from the line and lies among the grass about ten feet six inches from the outside rail. The only question that now remains is where the deed was committed, and the exact present position of the pistol reckoned in miles from London, but that, fortunately, is too simple even to need explanation."

"Great heavens, Sherlaw!" I cried. "How can you call that simple? It seems to me impossible to compute."

We were now flying over northern London, and the great detective leaned back with every sign of ennui, closing his eyes. At last he spoke wearily:

"It is really too elementary, Whatson, but I am always willing to oblige a friend. I shall be relieved, however, when you are able to work out the A B C of detection for yourself, although I shall never object to helping you with the words of more than three syllables. Having made up his mind to commit suicide, Kipson naturally intended to do it before he reached Brewster, because tickets are again examined at that point. When the train began to stop at the signal near Pegram, he came to the false conclusion that it was stopping at Brewster. The fact that the shot was not heard is accounted for by the screech of the air-brake, added to the noise of the train. Probably the whistle was also sounding at the same moment. The train being a fast express would stop as near the signal as possible. The air-brake will stop a train in twice its own length. Call it three times in this case. Very well. At three times the length of this train from the signal-post towards London, deducting half the length of the train, as this carriage is in the middle, you will find the pistol."

"Wonderful!" I exclaimed.

"Commonplace," he murmured.

At this moment the whistle sounded shrilly, and we felt the grind of the air-brakes.

!2 THE GREAT PEGRAM MYSTERY

"The Pegram signal again," cried Kombs, with something almost like enthusiasm. "This is indeed luck. We will get out here, Whatson, and test the matter."

As the train stopped, we got out on the right-hand side of the line. The engine stood panting impatiently under the red light, which changed to green as I looked at it. As the train moved on with increasing speed, the detective counted the carriages, and noted down the number. It was now dark, with the thin crescent of the moon hanging in the western sky throwing a weird half-light on the shining metals. The rear lamps of the train disappeared around a curve, and the signal stood at baleful red again. The black magic of the lonesome night in that strange place impressed me, but the detective was a most practical man. He placed his back against the signal-post, and paced up the line with even strides, counting his steps. I walked along the permanent way beside him silently. At last he stopped, and took a tape-line from his pocket. He ran it out until the ten feet six inches were unrolled, scanning the figures in the wan light of the new moon. Giving me the end, he placed his knuckles on the metals, motioning me to proceed down the embankment. I stretched out the line, and then sank my hand in the damp grass to mark the spot.

"Good God!" I cried, aghast. "What is this?"

"It is the pistol," said Kombs quietly.

It was!

Journalistic London will not soon forget the sensation that was caused by the record of the investigations of Sherlaw Kombs, as printed at length in the next day's Evening Blade. Would that my story ended here. Alas! Kombs contemptuously turned over the pistol to Scotland Yard. The meddlesome officials, actuated, as I always hold, by jealousy, found the name of the seller upon it. They investigated. The seller testified that it had never been in the possession of Mr. Kipson, as far as he knew. It was sold to a man whose description tallied with that of a criminal long watched by the police. He was arrested, and turned Queen's evidence in the hope of hanging his pal. It seemed that Mr. Kipson, who was a gloomy, taciturn man, and usually came home in a compartment by himself, thus escaping observation, had been murdered in the lane leading to his house. After robbing him, the miscreants turned their thoughts

towards the disposal of the body — a subject that always occupies a first-class criminal mind after the deed is done. They agreed to place it on the line, and have it mangled by the Scotch Express, then nearly due. Before they got the body half-way up the embankment the express came along and stopped. The guard got out and walked along the other side to speak with the engineer. The thought of putting the body into an empty first-class carriage instantly occurred to the murderers. They opened the door with the deceased's key. It is supposed that the pistol dropped when they were hoisting the body in the carriage.

The Queen's evidence dodge didn't work, and Scotland Yard ignobly insulted my friend Sherlaw Kombs by sending him a pass to see the villains hanged.

Detective: HOLMLQCK SHEARS

HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES

TOO LATE

by MAURICE LEBLANC

Maurice Leblanc, creator of Arsene Lupin, conceived the brilliant idea of pitting his master rogue against the world's greatest detective. The opening skirmish occurred in the last story of THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN (New Yort(, Harper, 7907). It is this tale— "Holmloc\ Shears Arrives Too Late' -that we now bring you. Happily for posterity, Holmloc{ Shears did not arrive too late!

Readers may be curious to \now the farther development of this epic conflict — Holmes vs. Lupin, The second duel, assuming grander proportions, required a full-length novel to recount all the delicious details. This novel appeared in England as THE FAIR-HAIRED LADY (London, Richards, 1909), was almost immediately retitled ARSENE LUPIN VERSUS HOLMLOCK SHEARS (London, Richards, 1909), and was reincarnated in the United States as THE BLONDE LADY (New Yor\, Doubleday,

Page, 79/0).

Of the final page in this boo\, T. S. Eliot, the famous poet, has as{ed: "What greater compliment could France pay to England than the scene in which the great antagonists, Holmes and Lupin, are lying side by side on dec^-chairs on the Calais-Dover paquebot, and the London Commissioner of Police wal{s up and down the dec\ all unsuspecting?'"

The third and last contest too\ place in the closing chapter of the novel, THE HOLLOW NEEDLE (New Yor{, Doubleday, Page, 1910; London, Nash, 1911). "The encounter appeared all the more terrible inasmuch as it was silent, almost solemn. For long moments the two enemies too{ each other's measure with their eyes"

In the final desperate struggle, when Shears was aiming his

revolver at Lupin, the woman who loved the great Arsene flung herself between the two men. The shot intended for Lupin filled her, and the scene that followed is one of the most tragic in all detective literature. "Night began to cover the field of battle with a shroud of darkness. . . . Then Lupin bent down, too\ the dead woman in his powerful arms . . . and bearing his precious and awful burden . . . silent and fierce he turned toward the sea and plunged into the darkness of the night." So ended the death-struggle between the two great masters.

A point of explanation about the various names under which Sherloc^ Holmes appears in the Lupin saga: The original French version is Herlock Sholmes. This was changed in English editions to Holmloc^ Shears. Both forms have been used in American booths— Holmloc\ Shears in the Harper editions, and Herloc^ Sholmes (without the accent} in the Donohue and Ogilvie reprints.

But Shears or Sholmes, he is the only detective whom Leblanc considered a worthy adversary for his clever and resourceful Arsene. For while Lupin consistently vanquished Ganimard, Guerchard, and all the other Gallic sleuths, he never achieved more than a draw against the great Englishman — a monumental tribute indeed from that true French gentleman, M. Leblanc, who for a time controlled the destiny of Britain's man of the ages.

I

T'S REALLY curious, your likeness to Arsene Lupin, my dear Vel-mont."

"Do you know him?"

"Oh, just as everybody does —by his photographs, not one of which in the least resembles the others; but they all leave the impression of the same face . . . which is undoubtedly yours."

Horace Velmont seemed rather annoyed.

"I suppose you're right, Devanne. You're not the first to tell me of it, I assure you."

"Upon my word," persisted Devanne, "if you had not been intro-

duced to me by my cousin d'Estavan, and if you were not the well-known painter whose charming seapieces I admire so much, I'm not sure but that I should have informed the police of your presence at Dieppe."

The sally was received with general laughter. There were gathered, in the great dining room of Thibermesnil Castle, in addition to Vel-mont, the Abbe Gelis, rector of the village, and a dozen officers whose regiments were taking part in the maneuvers in the neighborhood, and who had accepted the invitation of Georges Devanne, the banker, and his mother. One of them exclaimed:

"But, I say, wasn't Arsene Lupin seen on the coast after his famous performance in the train between Paris and Le Havre?"

"Just so, three months ago; and the week after that I made the acquaintance, at the Casino, of our friend Velmont here, who has since honored me with a few visits: an agreeable preliminary to a more serious call which I presume he means to pay me one of these days ... or, rather, one of these nights!"

The company laughed once more, and moved into the old guardroom — a huge, lofty hall which, occupies the whole of the lower portion of the Tour Guillaume, and in which Georges Devanne has arranged all the incomparable treasures accumulated through the centuries by the lords of Thibermesnil. It is filled and adorned with old chests and credence tables, fire dogs and candelabra. Splendid tapestries hang on the stone walls. The deep embrasures of the four windows are furnished with seats and end in pointed casements with leaded panes. Between the door and the window on the left stands a monumental Renaissance bookcase, on the pediment of which is inscribed, in gold letters, the word THIBERMESNIL and underneath it die proud motto of the family: Fats ce que veulx.