The Sherlock Holmes Megapack: 25 Modern Tales by Masters: 25 Modern Tales by Masters (61 page)

“Can you put in a good word for me at the Yard?” Inspector Jones pleaded.

“I shall, if that will help,” Holmes promised, and poured him a glass of sherry from the tantalus on the sideboard. “Here, drink this down; you’ll feel better.”

The officer gulped it in three swallows and departed, somewhat encouraged. Holmes stood at a window in the sitting-room, staring at him as he ambled aimlessly down the street toward the newsstand on the corner, where he bought an evening paper and disappeared into the crowded walkway.

“’Tis a pity, Watson,” Holmes intoned, “that we now have experienced four abrupt and needless deaths, all because of my infuriation over the inflated price of cinnamon.”

* * * *

Eventually, Holmes came to learn that Inspector Lestrade, the rat-faced, dark-eyed and lean police agent with the obstinate attitude had taken over the Lord Pritchard murder case. Holmes attempted in vain to interest him in the fraud perpetrated against Compton Trading Partners, Ltd, the spice vendor, but Lestrade was adamant that the substitution scheme amounted to a mere civil dispute, not a crime.

“Yet the murder of Lord Pritchard is likely related to the violator, Baron Maupertuis,” Holmes argued.

“Not hardly,” Lestrade disagreed. “We are probably dealing with someone who held a grudge against Lord Pritchard for his politics—someone local who seized the opportunity to wipe him out during the controversy over his conduct while serving in the House of Lords. I don’t waste my time heeding the speculation in the press that the killing was intended to silence him.”

“Watson, the man is so bull-headed he snorts when he thinks he has something important to convey,” Holmes complained to me on our way out of the Metropolitan Police Headquarters building. “I shall proceed on my own theories and let him languish on his.”

That same day, Holmes left on a train to Amsterdam, via Brussels, for a reunion with former associate Jan Akers and an effort to peek into the barrels that the Netherland-Sumatra Company kept in storage along the North Sea Canal.

While he was gone, I visited Dr Verner, a distant relative of Holmes who bought my practice in Kensington when I moved back to Baker Street. Dr Verner was enthused to see me because he needed my advice on treating a patient with symptoms of dementia who hadn’t responded to the medication prescribed. I recommended that Dr Verner adjust the dosage downward and explained my reasoning, to which he replied that it seemed impractical, but my remedy was worth a try.

The next day, after a fitful night’s sleep, I twice dozed on the sofa in between periods of writing and worrying about Holmes’s physical well-being, for he had developed a sallow complexion and bags under his narrow, piercing eyes. The case was taking a toll on his health.

* * * *

Time passed slowly, but on the evening of his fourth day of absence, Holmes returned to Baker Street, triumphant.

“I have seen it all, now, Watson,” he announced as he shuffled through the doorway, pushing his heavy carry-all ahead of him. Holmes reached for the shag tobacco in the slipper and fell onto the settee, then lit his oily clay pipe. He reflected a moment and then proceeded with his story:

“Baron Maupertuis cheats everyone, despite his extensive wealth. Consequently, he fosters unfaithfulness among the very people upon whom he relies to keep his secrets.

“The security guard at his warehouse on the waterfront allowed me access to inspect the spice barrels because the baron hadn’t paid him the two months of salary owed for protecting the inventory. The owner of the building was still waiting to collect the first instalment of rent, as was the owner of an old-fashioned, white stone lodge where the ne’er-do-well occupied the entire second floor while he resided in Amsterdam to connive and arrange for shipments of the barrels—all filled with sand—to several ports in Italy and Spain, as well as England.

“This I learned from the manservant Baron Maupertuis hired, but never paid, to attend to his needs at the lodge. The manservant additionally revealed that not even the ship owners received payment in full, only a token deposit. It is no wonder the culprit employs two bodyguards who accompany him on trips to various countries, for he never knows who might retaliate after being fleeced on a grand or minor scale.

“Lord Pritchard could be counted among those defrauded, because the hundred shares of the Netherland-Sumatra Company are basically worthless—the firm is a shell to disguise the ill-gotten gains. Its official address is the post office on Champs-Elysees in Paris, according to my contact there, whose wire I received before I departed for Amsterdam.”

“What of the baron’s whereabouts now?” I wanted to know.

“When he is not travelling, he occupies a villa on the outskirts of Paris,” Holmes disclosed, “but I don’t think we would find him there at this time. He is floating among the cities in Italy and Spain where the shipments are destined, probably deceiving the bankers and the investors and the commodity brokers. There is no telling how many politicians he has corrupted in the capitals to impose higher tariffs like the ones here.”

Chapter 4

CAREFULLY LAYING A TRAP

Little did she know when she surreptitiously wrote the letter to her secret lover that it would arrive too late for him to receive it and that it would fall into the wrong hands. She addressed the envelope, sealed with wax, to the lodge in Amsterdam where Baron Maupertuis had resided after he had persuaded the London bankers and investors to entrust their money to his spice enterprise.

“My husband has grown terribly suspicious of our relationship,” Madame Antoinette Baudin informed the baron in the correspondence. “He has told me more than once that he regretted arranging the party for you, and he is still displeased with my hounding him to do so. He is afraid that your little game will be traced to him, risking his position with the government of France and putting him in jeopardy with the laws of Britain. Do be cautious in your travels and wary of strangers, for the ambassador is such a powerful figure that he can exact revenge clandestinely through operatives of our country’s security forces. Hasten back to me, my darling, so we can escape together to your hideaway in America.”

“The letter goes on with risqué talk of the affair,” Sherlock Holmes spouted, “but now you have heard the meaty part of it, Watson. I tell you, the scorned manservant at the lodge was a veritable fountain of information.”

* * * *

The unfaithful wife of Ambassador Jean Baudin waited pensively at home for the two o’clock hour, when Holmes was expected for an interview. His brother Mycroft had organised it through the Home Office on the pretext that the lady was unknowingly the witness to a crime.

“I haven’t the slightest notion of how I can help, but as the spouse of a diplomat, I am obligated to cooperate,” Madame Baudin commented to the female consort who assisted her in primping for the occasion. “The gentleman is a famous detective who authored a monograph on the art of observation and the science of deduction. He can guess occupations by subtle signs on the hands or by the way persons carry themselves. This promises to be invigorating.”

She applied more makeup than necessary to her middle-aged skin, looked askance at the wrinkles that the mirror reflected, and adjusted the berets in her greying brown hair.

A butler, clad in a cutaway black morning coat, silk trousers, ascot tie, and starched white shirt with a winged collar, ushered Holmes into a spacious parlour decorated with landscape paintings and portraits of French military officers, including Napoleon Bonaparte.

Holmes remained standing, and, momentarily, Madame Baudin entered the room with a pretentious flourish. She indicated to Holmes that she was perplexed by his interest in “someone as lofty as I. Are you not accustomed to interrogating street urchins and hardened criminals?”

Holmes brushed off the condescending remark with a retort that stunned the impertinent woman: “Some of the most hardened criminals I have encountered occupied lofty positions in life, such as yourself, for example.”

“I?” she exclaimed, touching her fingertips to her gaping, thin lips.

“Yes, Madame, you. I have incontrovertible evidence that you are entwined in a conspiracy with a notorious offender in his scheme to defraud a host of businessmen. In fact, you have planned your getaway together after he has multiplied his riches with stolen money.”

“I cannot imagine who you mean,” she said in reaction to the accusation.

“I refer to your lover, Baron François Maupertuis, whom I also suspect of orchestrating the death of Lord Ashton Pritchard.”

“My lover? Where did you get such a preposterous idea?” the now-frightened femme fatale demanded to learn, blood rushing to her flushing face.

“Why from you, of course,” Holmes answered shrewdly. “Your affair and your entanglement in his designs are all revealed in a letter you wrote that never reached him. I am in possession of that letter and will soon share it with the authorities, unless—“

“Unless what, Mr Holmes? I cannot allow the contents to be disclosed,” she said sheepishly. “My marriage, my station, everything is in peril.”

“Unless you agree to work with me to bring the baron to justice,” Holmes stated.

“You want me to betray him, then?” she inquired, turning pale and closing her dull blue eyes.

“Betray him you must, or lose all you have,” Holmes foretold. “His scheme will fall like a house of cards regardless of your decision, and your desire to flee with him to America along with it.”

Madame Baudin slouched in the high-back armchair she had taken up, and she paused to contemplate her fate. “It was all only a wistful dream, to tell the truth. What would you have me do?” she eventually whimpered.

“First,” Holmes began, “you can inform me of the baron’s itinerary—in what cities of Italy and Spain he intends to weave his web, and in what order. Then, you must lure him back to London; and, finally, engage him in a conversation in which he confesses his role in the murder of Lord Pritchard and how it was carried out.”

“Is that all?” she asked sarcastically.

“For the time being, that will be sufficient,” Holmes replied. “I shall devise a plan to help you accomplish your end of the bargain.”

“And how can I keep this a secret from my husband?” she wanted to know. “At the moment, he doesn’t even know you are here, but if I do all you are asking, he is sure to find out.”

“It might not be possible to conceal the information from him, so you had best be prepared to admit everything in one of your intimate times together,” Holmes advised.

“We have no intimate times together—that is one of the reasons I was so attracted to François,” Madame Baudin allowed. “We revealed our innermost thoughts to each other.”

“That is what I had hoped,” Holmes said excitedly. “All the more cause for him to confess the circumstances of Lord Pritchard’s demise.”

“Rome, Naples, Venice, Madrid, and Barcelona—those were the places Baron Maupertuis was to visit after he left Amsterdam,” she volunteered. “He pledged to return to London to whisk me away to his paradise once the scheme was consummated.”

“Excellent! Bravo!” Holmes chortled. “All that remains is for him to implicate himself and two others in the assassination. Now furnish me with the details of your part in the drama, Madame.”

“My part? I played no part in it, Mr Holmes,” she insisted.

“Oh, but you did!” Holmes countered. “You introduced the baron to the financiers at the party, and, after Lord Pritchard’s arrest and confinement, you provided the location of his home, an address which you obtained from the invitation list. Have I not deduced correctly?”

“Yes, I did do those things, but I had no inkling that François harboured evil intentions,” came the response. “I still can’t believe that he ordered the murder of Lord Pritchard. François is such a gentle soul. It would be totally out of character for him to do harm.”

“Desperation can alter the character of a coward—and that is what he is, deep down,” Holmes proclaimed. “Any man who resorts to underhanded methods and machinations through surrogates is essentially a coward, unwilling or unable to deal with another in a forthright manner.”

“Oh, Mr Holmes, I am so ashamed,” Madame Baudin said sadly, and wept, daubing her tears with a monogrammed satin kerchief that she nervously had squeezed into a crumpled ball.

Full of himself after having recruited Madame Baudin as an informant, Holmes breezed through our doorway and gave me a word-for-word rendition of the conversation, predicting at the end of it that Baron Maupertuis was within grasp. “My stratagem is in place, and I shall soon spring the trap,” he declared, without a hint of his cunning tactic.

* * * *

Meanwhile, Madame Baudin made herself comfortable at a desk in the parlour, and, aware that her husband was away from the mansion, composed another letter to her beloved François.

“It is with a heavy heart, my dearest, that I send you this message of danger and intrigue,” she wrote. “I was confronted today by a well-known private detective, Mr Sherlock Holmes, who is fast on the scent of your behaviour in England, Italy, and Spain. He has come to suspect you of three murders in London and proclaims rather boldly that he will prove it in court, once he has gathered but a few more relevant facts.

“I am terrified for you, my darling François, and, try as I have, I cannot perish the thought of you imprisoned, or worse, sentenced to hang. I foresee no alternative other than for you to deal with Mr Holmes in a way only you can fashion—before he fulfils his prophecy, dashing our hopes and destroying our wish to spend the remaining years of our lives together.

“I fear it won’t be long until he presents his case to the police, so there is little time on your side. Act swiftly but surely, for Mr Holmes is a foe with commensurate abilities. He resides in an apartment at 221B Baker Street, a location from which he conducts his business as well.”

Madame Baudin addressed the envelope to the Casa Garcia luxury hotel in Barcelona, where she knew the baron was due to arrive shortly at the end of his numerous journeys. She rang for the butler, instructed him to summon her coach, carried the letter in her gloved left hand, and rode to the Great Peter Street post office to make certain the warning went on its way quickly and securely.