Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Shakespeare (7 page)

It was exactly the means by which Holmes was able to make note of five matching iron trunks stacked decoratively in a corner. They were identical in every way but their size; even down to the heavy lock centered on the front. Arranged to look like a metal pyramid, the largest on the bottom to the smallest at the top, they dominated that corner of the room. A lovely Asian rug had been partially draped over them for effect.

“Rather peculiar these trunks you have over here, Lord Reginald. Rather peculiar, indeed,” Holmes said loud enough for their host to hear. As he expected, Reginald immediately made his way over to Holmes and Kendricks to boast a little.

“Yes, aren’t they quite,” he started. “They, of course, belonged to my father. I can’t recall exactly but I believe he said he brought them back with him from some war or the other. Footlockers of his command. His attendants would carry his dinnerware and other such utensils around in them. As was expected, the original contents were returned to the War Office but he was allowed to keep the boxes.”

“What a remarkable story!” Kendricks proclaimed.

“If you say so,” Reginald concluded with a very bored look on his face.

“Would you mind terribly if I took a closer look?” Sherlock had asked.

“Oh, not at all, but I think they’re all locked and the keys have long since been misplaced. Hence, their present decorative nature.”

Holmes nodded, as did Reginald before walking away to engage another man in conversation.

Holmes instinctively touched the key that resided in his jacket pocket. He stepped closer to the stack of footlockers and inspected them a little more closely and began pondering how he would manage to gain access to the strongboxes. Kendricks strolled over to the detective and offered him a glass of brandy.

“What have you come up with, Mr. Holmes?”

“A rather fascinating notion, Mr. Kendricks.”

“Which is?”

Kendricks had to wait for a fairly long time before he was finally furnished with a somewhat mediocre answer. Whenever Holmes felt that the game was afoot, the old boy never gave away the players or the strategy, only instructions.

“I am going to need you to create an opportunity for me. One in which I can get to those boxes in the corner to investigate their contents. Is it possible for you to do so before, say, noon tomorrow?”

“I believe that I can come up with something.”

“Perfect!” Holmes replied, smiling at the look of expectation on Kendricks’s face. He touched a finger to the side of his nose and concluded, “I do not need to know how you will do it, just as you do not need to know why I need you to… for the moment at least.”

Kendricks sighed, then returned the detective’s knowing smile and walked out to the middle of the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your ear, please? As you all know, next week marks the opening of the grouse season and, as is the custom in our shire, a Thanksgiving service will be held tomorrow at the village church followed by a luncheon at Harcourt Hall. The Harcourts and I insist on your presence for the festivities.”

It was a checkmate move that Kendricks had made. The express invitation from a nobleman extended to a known list of guests under his peer’s roof was not something to be taken lightly, especially when the heiress of said household was present and knew all those who’d been invited. It was as good as written in stone that everyone there would be engaged in the Harcourt’s hospitality from ten in the morning until well after two in the afternoon. Galham House would be empty and those servants who were not off duty on Sunday would be at Harcourt Hall helping with the luncheon preparations.

Holmes had his opportunity!

***

But still the old boy kept me in suspense.

The night following dinner at my home, Holmes and I were sitting in his library at Baker Street sipping coffee and going over the events of the case. I had been on tenterhooks the whole night and day waiting to hear about the great caper of his into Reginald’s game room. Finally, it seemed he was ready and I set down the coffee cup and sat forward in my seat. He took a position by the window and lit his pipe, puffing luxuriously; no doubt to build the suspense further.

Just as he was about to tell me how he snuck into Galham House to inspect the strongboxes and reveal what he had found, there was a loud rap on the door. There was a boy at the door and we both heard the housekeeper speaking to him briefly before closing the door and making her way toward the room.

“A telegram, sir,” she said, handing the folded paper to Holmes before turning to leave the room. As he read the message, my dear friend’s face grew drawn and thoughtful. Suddenly he fell into a silent mood and sat gazing out the window while I could only sit and wait.

Just a few moments after Holmes had sunk into his melancholy, he just as suddenly snapped back to reality and announced loudly, “Come Watson. The game is afoot!”

Chapter Ten:

The Game is Afoot

“My dear Watson,” Holmes said, “I believe we should be on our way immediately.” He jumped to his feet; grabbed his coat, hat, and cane, then briskly moved out the front door to the street.

I followed as quickly as I could, being forced to make an ungraceful plunge to be able to catch the same cab as he did.

“My dear fellow,” Holmes was telling the driver, “I’ll double your rate if you can get me to Penstone Heath with the utmost haste and minimal delay.”

“Whatever you say, sir,” the driver said in a heavy Cockney accent.

The carriage leapt forward as the driver put the reins into his horses. The ringing of iron-shod hooves against the cobblestones echoed so loudly that I was barely audible over the sound.

“Holmes!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “You’d better have a good reason for trying to get me killed tonight! My wife will
never
forgive you if you do!”

“Watson, my good man, we are going to Penstone to prevent another murder,” Holmes said me.

“How in the world did you come to that conclusion? What did the telegram say?” I yelled back.

“Think, Watson!” Holmes shouted back at me. “Roger Galham’s original will must have contained all the damning evidence in existence which would ruin any claim Reginald has on the family seat. Roger did this because somehow he’d managed to unravel the fact that he was the illegitimate son of the Earl Galham and Miss Harcourt’s mother, the Countess Avon, and that Reginald is the son of Lady Edith, the dowager countess and the Reverend Jones! That was Roger’s reasoning behind cutting Reginald out of the line of succession to the Galham title. Roger may have been a bastard as well but at least, he was his father’s son; Reginald could make no such claim. That’s why, considering the new light being shed on the whole affair, if the document is proven a forgery, then all of it will be going to the Harcourts because, as we already know, they are Roger’s true family line by virtue of his mother. We have to get to Penstone before Reginald does something far worse than he already has.”

I sat dumbfounded in my seat, across from what had to be the smartest sleuth in the Empire. The man’s mind certainly worked in mysterious ways, and I could only wonder how he was able to unravel such tangled webs of deceit with what seemed to be remarkable ease.

The carriage screeched to an abrupt halt outside Harcourt Hall. The horse’s hooves struck sparks as the driver sawed hard at the reins. The carriage rocked violently. Before it had time to settle, Holmes was out the door, shoving coins into the driver’s hand. I jumped out of the carriage after him. I heard him shout, over his shoulder, to the driver, “Keep the change and thank you for the ride!”

***

The gate was closed for the night but after gaining access through a pedestrian entrance along the wall, Holmes and I ran straight up to the house. He stopped for a moment to look at the door, then pointed as he said to me in a soft voice, “Watson, what do you think of this?”

The door had been left slightly ajar. Very peculiar and very mysterious. “Holmes, you are ten steps ahead of me tonight. I can’t even begin to fathom what you make of it, so lead the way.”

“What I make of this,” he continued, “is that it would seem that there is someone in there that should not be. If that person had been invited in, they would have closed the door. So clearly, they didn’t want to be heard as they entered. That means either that person is waiting for their moment, or they already took it. However, if the crime had already happened, they would have closed the door behind them as they left, to hide anything amiss. So, we’re here in time,” Holmes said. “Perhaps exactly on time.”

“Well then Holmes, we should probably go ruin their night,” I replied in a soft voice.

“Indeed. That is precisely what we shall do,” Holmes said, and there was a wild sparkle in his eye.

I moved to open the door but Holmes grabbed my wrist to stop me from pushing on it. Holmes gestured to the hinges, and then examined them closely for a moment, then lightly ran his fingers over them. Rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, he seemed satisfied. He released my hand and gave me a curt nod. I pushed the door open wide enough for the two of us to pass through, and we found ourselves in the foyer. We quickly looked around but realized that there was nothing to be found on this floor. Holmes gestured to the grand stairwell.

He pulled me close and whispered in my ear, “Stay to the left edge of the stairs. These older houses have a tendency to creak. I’ll stay to the right. We won’t be on the runner, though, so make sure to step as lightly as you can.”

I nodded my acquiescence before proceeding to the staircase. I paused and Holmes looked at me expectantly; waiting for me to take the first step. Holmes watched me and matched my step exactly. I realized he was going to step with me. That way even if we made noise, as unlikely as that was, we would only sound like one person. We took the stairs slowly and it took us almost no time at all to make our way to the top of the staircase; sometimes you have to go slow to go fast.

Holmes and I crouched, almost instinctively, for no real reason. Holmes grinned roguishly at me. We could hear voices drifting down the hall. One was deeper, and one was higher in pitch. We both came to the same conclusion, a man and a woman, before proceeding, again, in lockstep down the hall.

We got closer, and could begin to make out words; snippets of conversation. It was not a conversation that Holmes would be comfortable hearing. It was clearly a declaration of love. It made me nostalgic for my wife. It sounded very similar to the night I declared my love for her and asked for her hand in marriage. I looked over and saw the bachelor’s grimace on Holmes’s narrow face.

As we got closer to the room, I was suddenly forced to stop as quickly as I could. Holmes took immediate note and he stopped as well, one foot hovering inches above the ground. He looked at me inquisitively and I mimed laying down, and pointed ahead of us. Several feet ahead, against the darkened hallway, there was a human shape lying down with their arms extended out ahead of them. Based on their position, and from my time in the military, I had an instinctive notion that this someone was preparing to take a shot at the occupants of the bedroom through an opening in the cracked door.

It only took Holmes a moment to come to the same conclusion. He was in motion faster than I would have thought possible. Normally, Holmes avoids fights unless they are essential to his plan, the way sensible men avoid the plague. But in this case, neither of us had much time to lose. Stealth was no longer an option as Holmes charged toward the gunman. Hearing us, he turned and saw Holmes. In the backlighting, I could clearly see it was Reginald. The raw, unadulterated anger in his eyes told me he wasn’t going down without a fight. I wanted to shout out a warning to Holmes but I didn’t risk it in fear of breaking my friend’s concentration.

Reginald rolled to his right to avoid the toe of Holmes’s boot, and, in the process, let loose with an ear-splitting gunshot. The bullet shattered the trim right behind where Holmes had just been. Reginald, to his athletic credit, rolled straight away to his feet, only to be met by the back of Holmes’s right hand. Remarkably, Reginald pivoted and struck Holmes on the side of the head with a hard elbow blow. My friend’s knees buckled, giving me the clearance to lash out with my cane. I cracked it down on Reginald’s arm as he leveled the gun at Holmes’s chest. He cried out in unexpected pain and I swung again, this time for his knee. Reginald slipped around the cane, thus throwing me dangerously off balance. He delivered a savage kick to my previously crippled leg, and I collapsed with a grunt of real pain.

Recovering himself, Holmes delivered what should have been a crippling blow to the man’s jaw. Apparently, Reginald had received training in boxing, because he turned his head and allowed Holmes’s punch to merely slide across his chin. Holmes, who was no amateur himself, expected Reginald to try following up with an uppercut. He wasn’t disappointed. Holmes moved his head back and caught Reginald’s arm as it came up past his head. Holmes wrenched the arm around and pulled it behind Reginald’s back. The man tried to pivot with Holmes but my friend’s footwork was impeccable. Anticipating the move, Holmes shoved him up against the wall, pinning him there nicely.

“Watson? A hand,” he said cavalierly.

“What, exactly, would you like me to do?” I asked. “You seem to have the situation quite under control.”

“Your wit, as ever, Watson, is very droll. Would you be so kind as to take Reginald’s other hand—” which at the time was flailing around, trying to strike Holmes “—in order to help me restrain him?”

I responded promptly, grabbing his wrist. At this point, we realized that the couple inside the room had become aware that something was amiss, ruining their moment. Forcing Reginald into the room, Holmes was able to reveal to them the cause of the fracas and what the perpetrator’s intent had been for them.             

“What, precisely, is going on here?” Gerald Fitzwilliam asked Reginald. The Marquis of Tach Saggart’s face was flushed bright red in outrage as he waited for Reginald to explain himself.

“Ha! You should know. You of all people, you upstart bastard,” Reginald spat back. Fitzwilliam grew even more red, if that was even possible.

“Don’t you use that word in reference to me. Don’t you dare use that type of language in front of your betters and especially in the presence of a lady! You insolent, rotten, piece of...” Fitzwilliam glanced at Lady Jessica Flora of Harcourt and Avon, and then thought better of finishing his barrage of name calling.

“Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes, “perhaps we should call the constable.”

“I wholeheartedly share that sentiment, old boy,” said I.