Associates of Sherlock Holmes Read online

  “If you are asking whether he has a mistress, frequents les grandes horizontales or gambles excessively then the answer is ‘no’. The earl is one of the straightest members of the nobility that I have ever encountered. There is not one whiff of scandal about him.”

  He nodded. “Very well – I shall make inquiries of my own. I suggest you return to your club and await my instructions.”

  He turned and strode off, leaving me seething with anger. “Instructions”, indeed! What was I – his lapdog?

  I did indeed return to my club. It was night by then, and so I ate a small plate of turbot and new potatoes, drank half a bottle of Bollinger Blanc de Noirs and settled down to make notes on my next set of columns.

  It was after midnight when a small child in ragged clothes appeared at my side.

  “Does your mother know you are out and about at this time of night?” I inquired.

  “I do not know where she is,” he rejoined, “so I do not think she knows where I am.”

  “A fair point well made,” I said. “How did you get in here?”

  “Through the cloakroom window.”

  “How very enterprising. I presume that you have a message for me from Mr Holmes?”

  His eyes widened. “You as bright as ’e is, then? Cor!”

  I sighed. “What is the message?”

  He handed over a dirty scrap of paper. I doubt that Holmes would have let it go in that state; I can only assume that its passage from him to me in the pocket of this ragamuffin had caused its fall from grace.

  He kept his empty hand extended. I waited with an eyebrow raised, but he obviously was not going to feel any embarrassment, so eventually I gave him a half-shilling.

  “Thanks, mister,” he said with a smile that would have been dazzling if he had not lost most of his teeth. A moment later he was gone.

  I queasily unfolded the paper. It said, in Holmes’s characteristic scrawl:

  There followed a list of names, some of whom I recognised as being members of high society and the nobility. By sending a footman to retrieve the club’s copy of Who’s Who from the library, I discovered that the remaining ones were largely industrialists and financiers, many of them ennobled or otherwise decorated by our gracious sovereign.

  I know that Holmes keeps many files in Baker Street containing information on the criminal underclass (and, indeed, overclass, given that illegal and immoral behaviour spans all levels of society to my certain knowledge). I have my own files, but I keep them in my head. That way they cannot be stolen. Closing my eyes, I walked through the house in which I was born and lived for the first twenty years of my life. In this still-vivid memory I place different facts that I wish to remember in particular places in that imaginary house. I have found that it makes it easier to recall all of the details relating to, for instance, Lord Cathcart if I place them all in a cart, just outside the kitchen door, where the cat used to sun itself in the afternoons. Cat-cart, do you see?

  By traversing my imaginary house, I retrieved details of the lives of all the names I knew on the list. A flurry of telegrams sent by another of the club’s footmen to my various agents and informants around this fair city elicited, within a few hours, answers on the names that I did not know.

  The sun was shining over the top of the building opposite, casting an unwelcome roseate glow into the club’s writing room, when I was able to pen a simple telegram to Holmes:

  All of them on which I have been able to find information have recently taken out bank loans, pawned possessions or made large withdrawals from their accounts.

  I could just have said “All of them”, or even just “All” in order to save money, but I knew that Holmes would appreciate accuracy over brevity and I have, sadly, always managed to use a hundred words where ten would have done. Well, I say “sadly”, but when one is paid by the word then one quickly learns to describe things as completely and redundantly as possible. Even simple words like “a” or “the” are cash in the bank, and they are far easier and quicker to write than a word such as “farinaceous”.

  I looked at the clock; it was half-past nine in the morning. Assuming it would take an hour for the telegram to get to Baker Street, and that he lived twenty minutes away by cab, I expected to hear from Holmes, or even see him in person, by eleven o’clock at the very latest. Perhaps I was being grandiose (something to which I admit I am prone) but I felt that I had provided him with interesting, if not crucial, intelligence.

  It was one minute to eleven when Holmes strode into the club and up to where I was sitting, eating a madeleine cake and sipping at a small, dry sherry. To clarify: it was I who was eating the cake and drinking the sherry, not him. I’m not sure I can ever remember seeing Holmes take sustenance.

  “We do not have much time,” he snapped.

  “Speak for yourself,” I said, taking a rebellious sip from my glass. “Sit down and tell me what you have discovered. If I am to go anywhere with you then it will be in full possession of the facts, not blindly like poor Dr Watson.”

  With poor grace he flung himself into a chair. “Two lines of investigation have intersected,” he said. “Firstly, I have discovered that over the past six months there have been a spate of murders in the capital in which there has been no clear motive and no obvious suspects. All of the deaths occurred in public places, and all were shootings, apparently from a distance.”

  “Intriguing,” I said, and indeed it was. “However, given that I know you habitually scour the newspapers for intriguing or eccentric events, and given also that certain sergeants and inspectors within the Metropolitan Police appear to have hansom cabs on standby so that they can easily consult you when they have reached their intellectual limits, which seems to happen with monotonous regularity, I am forced to wonder how this list of mysterious murders has escaped your attention.”

  He scowled. “Partly I am to blame for that – I have, until a few days ago, been investigating a case with international ramifications that has quite taken up my attention, involving the Archbishop of Canterbury and a basket of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Also, the police have been conspiring with the owners of the various public spaces to keep the information out of the newspapers. The police – or, rather, their government masters – fear widespread panic at the thought of a random marksman at loose in the capital; the owners of the public spaces – which include parks, theatres and funfairs – also fear a sharp drop in their revenues. While a small unit within Scotland Yard has been tasked with urgently finding this sharpshooter, efforts have been made to suppress any mentions in the newspapers and to class the deaths in other ways – stabbings, muggings and the like – and to dissuade the families of the victims from saying anything. I have also sensed, but have no proof, that bribes have been paid in order to suppress the facts. The police did not consult me for the simple reason that they were forbidden from discussing the details of the case with anybody outside the Yard. For the past few hours, I feel as if I have been navigating my way through a fog that deliberately shifts in order to confound my navigation!”

  I nodded, remembering my discussion with the attendant in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. “You mentioned two lines of investigation. What was the other one?”

  “It was the one provoked by your own fact-gathering activities. You recall I sent you a list of names of rich and influential personages?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Each name on that list has recently paid over a large sum of money to some unidentified person or organisation.”

  “I know,” I said. “I told you that.”

  “What you had no way of knowing was that each of those names was standing near to one of the unfortunate victims of the shootings at the exact time they were shot.”

  Holmes sat bolt upright, fixing me with his challenging gaze. I felt an unaccustomed sense of burning excitement flowing through my veins. “So, what you are suggesting, I presume, is that the shootings were a combination of demonstration and warning,” I said. “I would
say that the poor victims had been chosen at random, but that is not true. They were chosen because they were standing near a rich personage, and who would shortly afterwards receive a blackmail demand – ‘Pay us £5,000 or you will be next – and we have shown that we have the capability and the intent’!”

  “Exactly.” He shook his head in grudging admiration. I could see a half-smile on his face. “The problem with classic blackmail, of course, is that if a potential victim refuses to pay then there is precious little reason to go ahead and publish the incriminating material. The potential victim will certainly not pay after the event, so the action makes no profit while exposing the erstwhile blackmailer to risk. The only two reasons to go ahead are to take revenge on the potential victim for failing to co-operate and to provide an example for the next victim. This scheme, by contrast, warns the target in advance of what will happen to them if they do not pay.”

  “How ingenious,” I said.

  “Oh,” Holmes added, “and you were mistaken. In at least some cases the victims were forewarned. I deduce that this was to deliberately ‘soften them up’, as the phrase goes, and also to potentially avoid a needless shooting if they paid up promptly. However, knowing the blackmailer’s modus operandus gives us our chance to capture the villains behind this callous scheme.”

  “How so?” I asked, realising as I did so that I was falling into the same role that Dr Watson played in this relationship – asking questions and making admiring statements.

  “I had been wondering exactly how and why the blackmail victims were chosen. I deduced, in the end, that they were selected after their names appeared in one of the very newspapers for which you write your shoddy little columns.”

  “Have a care, Holmes,” I murmured.

  “In each case, the names of the blackmail victims appeared on the front page exactly five days before the deaths of the bystanders occurred. Inevitably, the appearance of the name was connected to some mention of their wealth or importance.”

  “And so you have deduced the next potential blackmail victim,” I said.

  “I have,” Holmes said. “It is –”

  “– The Right Honourable Quentin Furnell,” I said.

  Holmes gazed at me for a long moment. I think – I hope – he was surprised, although his expression rarely gives anything away. “You obviously recall that his name was on the front page in regard to a question raised over the large number of shares he has in a coalmining company whose business affairs he recently defended in Parliament,” he said eventually.

  “And I also happen to know, based on the research I do for my ‘shoddy little columns’, that he will be attending a charity benefit at the Prince’s Theatre tonight. Given the five-day gap between the appearance of his name and the event, the conclusion seems obvious.”

  “Can you obtain a ticket for me to this benefit?” Holmes asked. “I could ask my brother, but he would only tell me to stay out of the affair and pass my conclusions to the proper authorities.”

  “Which raises the obvious question – why don’t you?”

  He leaned back in the chair and put on an air of casual disinterest. “If I were the person who might end up in the sights of the blackmailing marksman,” he said, “I would prefer to think that my survival lay in the hands of Sherlock Holmes, not the Metropolitan Police.”

  “Also,” I ventured, “despite Dr Watson’s curious belief that you care little for money, and undertake these cases for sport, in fact you are running a business, and if you can demonstrate to the Right Honourable Quentin Furnell that you have saved him from attempted blackmail then he might well divert a fraction of the money he would have spent on paying the blackmailer to your account. Better that than the Police Benevolent Fund.”

  “Watson is curiously naïve about the way the world works,” he said softly, “and besides, I have found it best not to mention money too often in his presence. He has –”

  “Issues to do with horses,” I murmured. “I quite understand.”

  “And I am sure I can count on your discretion in this case,” he added.

  “Mr Holmes, you of all people should know that I have no discretion. It is how I earn the money that keeps me in cake and sherry. In this case, however, I am pleased to make an exception.” I thought for a moment. “Yes, I could obtain tickets for both of us, but alas they would not be near the Right Honourable Quentin Furnell, and thus we might be too far away to save the innocent victim. We would need to be close to Furnell, which means that we might have to take him into our confidence.”

  “A fair point.” He grimaced. “As a rule, I am generally not in favour of telling those involved too much, but in this case it might be wise.”

  And so it was that, several hours later, I found myself in the front row of the Circle of the Prince’s Theatre. Tragically, I was not wearing my finest evening dress – the one that has been known to make grown men weep with the extravagance of its material and the skill and daring of its cut. Neither was I wearing the deep violet cummerbund and bowtie that set it off so beautifully. Sadly, neither of those items were baggy enough to cover up the undergarment of varnished leather and multiple layers of silk that I was wearing underneath, which is why I was wearing a cheap ensemble of the kind that I would normally not have been seen dead in – an unfortunate phrase, I know, but it seems apposite. Following my intervention, Holmes had thrown himself wholeheartedly into a plan to catch the killer in the act without risking the life of a member of the public. With the baffled collaboration of the Right Honourable Gentleman in question, several of his party, including his stately wife and almost equally stately daughter, were dropped from the trip to the theatre, leaving several empty seats, while the occupied seats around him were filled with other agents and associates of Holmes wearing protection that would apparently be proof against bullets of the calibre used. I, sadly, was one of those associates, which meant I was sitting there sweating and looking almost as large as the Right Honourable Gentleman’s wife would have done.

  “My research indicates that the marksman invariably shoots someone within six feet of his blackmail target,” Holmes assured me, “and one who is not related or known to the target. All of the seats within that range are occupied by my people. There is no risk to anyone else in the theatre.”

  “If you are right,” I pointed out.

  He looked at me as if he did not understand my words. “Of course I am right,” he said.

  “I cannot help noticing that the protection is confined to my torso, leaving my head and limbs exposed.”

  “The marksman has, to date, always shot the body rather than the head. The body is a larger target, of course, but there may also be an intention to make it less obvious that something has happened. With a bullet to the body, the victim slumps or falls, and that might be blamed on all manner of things. With a shot to the head the effects are… let us say… considerably less ambiguous.”

  The performance was a collation of short scenes from Shakespeare, Marlowe and Johnson, interspersed with sonnets set to music by various well-known composers. It was not really my cup of tea. I spent much of the first half surreptitiously gazing around the theatre looking for the marksman, knowing that Holmes would be restlessly exploring the front and rear of house.

  And all the time I was anticipating the impact of a bullet to my chest or, worse, to my head. I was sure I could trust Holmes’s deductive powers, but it was not him the killer was aiming at.

  Two seats to my right, Quentin Furnell was looking distinctly sick. He kept sipping from a hip flask; I thought I could smell brandy. I noted that down for future use.

  It was during a dramatic interpretation of the storm scene from King Lear that I noticed something amiss. To each side of the stage and further back, above the second box on either side, incandescent electrical spotlights were being controlled by men in hanging chairs. They were dressed entirely in black, so as not to distract the audience from events occurring on stage, but that process seemed to be
breaking down on my right, where one of the spotlight operators was engaging in a tussle with a man who had apparently climbed down from the upper circle and clambered across to the spotlight. The tussle was causing the light to swing wildly around. I realised two things simultaneously: the man who had clambered down from the Upper Circle and instigated the fight was Holmes; and the man he was fighting with was clutching what appeared to be a rifle.

  The audience had noticed something amiss by now. Some were leaving their seats, but others were craning their necks to get a better view. On stage poor Lear and his Fool were stuttering to a halt.

  I saw Holmes swing his fist. The black-clad murderer and blackmailer ducked and twisted, trying to send Holmes falling to his death. The wildly swinging spotlight suddenly played across my face, blinding me momentarily. I heard several shots – the struggle between the two men had probably caused the marksman’s finger to inadvertently tighten on the trigger. I presumed that his plan had been to use the sound of the theatrical thunder to cover the noise of his shot. By the time my vision cleared the audience was panicking, and the marksman had Holmes’s throat in one hand while his other hand was still clutching the rifle. Quentin Furnell had sprung from his seat and was struggling along the row away from me and towards the nearest aisle.

  The marksman swung the rifle and caught Holmes in the face. As Holmes automatically raised his free hand to protect himself the marksman swung the weapon around, aiming straight at Furnell’s chest.

  “Down!” I screamed at Furnell, abandoning, for the sake of brevity, “Mr Furnell”, which is the Debrett’s approved form of address for a Privy Councillor. I dived towards him and pushed him in the middle of his Right Honourable back. He sprawled forwards, pitching into the velvet seats. I looked back up at the suspended fight, just in time to see a flash of light. Something struck me in the centre of my chest, pushing me back. I fell. My chest felt as if a horse had kicked it. I could hardly take a breath, the pain was so intense.