The Bookcase of Sherman Holmes: A Holmes and Garden Anthology Read online

  ‘Murder?’ queried her husband. ‘I just thought you meant that someone had had a heart attack or something – and that could be bad enough for business – but a murder …’ His voice trailed away into silence, and they all looked at each other for a few seconds, before Tilly darted away, and they could hear her speaking into a phone in the hall behind the back parlour.

  She returned in just a couple of minutes and informed them that there was an Inspector Streeter who would attend as soon as he could get there, and an ambulance on its way, just in case. Both parts of this statement raised a sigh from the two private investigators. The ambulance was going to be a total waste of time, and they had had a recent run in with Streeter that still made Holmes blush at how easily he and Garden had been taken in by his cruel subterfuge.

  ‘How did he die?’ Greg Wordsworth had suddenly recovered his voice, and it boomed out now to a level where Holmes put his fingers to his lips, in case the words themselves carried out into the bar, which was nowhere near as noisy as it had been when they’d first arrived. ‘Shhh!’ he said. ‘Loose lips sink ships.’ Three puzzled faces looked at him as he uttered this anachronism, which he had heard from his parents, and his partner was the first one to pull himself together.

  ‘He was garrotted,’ stated Garden curtly, trying to erase the picture from his mind of the face that had been revealed when Holmes moved the back of the deerstalker away from it.

  ‘My Gawd!’ squawked Tilly. ‘Is there much mess to clear up?’

  ‘Not at all, my dear,’ Holmes reassured her, but her look of relief was cut short as Garden added.

  ‘Can’t say the same for after the police have been up there and dusted every surface for fingerprints.’

  ‘Saints alive!’ she exclaimed, looking pained. ‘I’ll be cleaning for a month of Sundays. Me good meeting room. It was spotless when I left it this afternoon. I suppose we’d better get back to that bar while we’ve still got customers left.’

  The Wordsworths escorted Holmes and Garden back to their proper place on the other side of the bar, and resumed their temporarily interrupted roles as mine host and his ‘lady’ wife. The barman, Dick Brownlow, was dispatched to guard the door to the staircase up to the meeting room and, within fifteen minutes, a tall, hawk-like man entered the pub by the doors to the saloon bar, accompanied by a younger, round-faced man dressed in a rather casual manner.

  The taller, gaunt, immaculately dressed individual introduced them as DI Streeter and DS Port, then cast a baleful glance at the two private investigators, who shuffled their feet in embarrassment. ‘You two again!’ he spluttered. ‘How do you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’ asked Holmes, adopting an innocent expression.

  ‘Be on the scene of just about every murder that’s committed in my manor? I thought I’d warned you off for good.’

  ‘Just a happy knack,’ replied Garden, and gave a little titter of amusement that wasn’t appreciated by the inspector, but which made the sergeant’s lips twitch with amusement. Garden was embarrassed too about meeting their nemesis again, and blushed as he tittered. They had looked such fools.

  ‘Right, lead me to this body, if it is one. I caught the ambulance outside and told them to wait for my say-so.’

  ‘I think Mr Holmes ought to go up with you,’ ventured Greg Wordsworth, with a catch in his voice. ‘I’m very squeamish about death, and I’m liable to pass out. I don’t think my wife should go up, either, and it was Mr Holmes who found the man.’

  ‘Dear God! I don’t suppose it matters who shows me, as long as I get to see it,’ retorted Streeter, glaring at Holmes. He was not a happy bunny at all. Port found his boss’s animosity towards the amateurs rather amusing, especially the way he had played such an intricate trick on them just a short while ago, and trotted off behind, grinning merrily now that his face couldn’t be seen by authority.

  Holmes mounted the stairs once more and could hear the exasperated sighing of the inspector, who was on his heels. He didn’t enjoy this any more than Streeter, but it wasn’t fair to blame him and Garden just for being somewhere when something happened. It was just fate, and not a personal attack on the DI. His sergeant seemed rather more relaxed, and Holmes hoped it would be he who took their statements in due course.

  At the head of the stairs, he stood aside to let the policemen enter, then started to descend the flight again. ‘Not so fast, Sherlock!’ yelled Streeter over his shoulder. ‘I want you in here. I want a word with you about just what happened when you found the body.’

  ‘We just came up here prior to our monthly meeting, a bit early, actually, and this is how we found him,’ Holmes blandly informed the detective, keeping his face as straight as possible.

  ‘What meeting? And who the hell is he? That’ll do for starters,’ retorted Streeter roughly.

  Attempting to stop grinding his teeth, Holmes, as calmly as he could, informed him, ‘There is a meeting of the Quaker Street Irregulars in this room once a month, and this man is … was … one of its members. His name is … was … still is, I suppose, Cyril Antony.’

  ‘And what, in the name of God and all his angels, is, or are, the Quaker Street Irregulars?’ Streeter’s face was beginning to redden with impatience at what he saw as not a very straightforward answer. He thought he had taught this upstart not to meddle, and here he was, again, at the scene of a murder.

  ‘We’re a club of like-minded people who get together regularly to discuss Sherlock Holmes: the books, televisual representations, and films.’

  ‘A bunch of fantasists, then,’ stated Streeter, somewhat rudely.

  ‘If you wish to describe us as such.’ With difficulty, Holmes maintained his temper and poker face.

  ‘I do. And you and your so-called business partner were first up here?’

  ‘After the victim and his murderer, yes.’

  ‘Don’t be a smart-arse. Just answer the questions.’ Streeter’s temper had now well and truly risen, and Holmes managed the ghost – how ironic - of a smile in recognition of this last request. ‘What happened when you got up here?’

  ‘I just opened the door, saw what was inside, and stopped. Then Garden and I checked to see that life was extinct’ – Holmes was rather proud of this expression and smirked just a tiny bit – ‘Then, we went downstairs and alerted the landlord and his wife to what had happened, and asked him to put someone on duty at the bottom of the stairs to stop anyone coming up and messing with the crime scene.’ He felt he had acquitted himself well here, but Streeter was not quite so easily mollified.

  ‘And what exactly did you do? Did you touch anything: interfere with the scene at all, or did you just go back downstairs like good little citizens?’

  ‘We went back downstairs.’

  ‘Without touching anything?’

  ‘That is correct.’ Holmes was not happy with untruths, but he deemed it necessary, in these circumstances, not to inform Streeter of their inspection of the piece of paper tucked into Antony’s waistcoat. He justified this by the thought that he was just saving the man from having a stroke due to the level of his blood pressure, induced by absolute fury.

  The answer seemed to be enough, however, and the only other question he asked before dismissing the private investigator was, ‘Are you sure your partner touched nothing either?’

  ‘Absolutely sure,’ was his answer, and this time it was truthful.

  He was peremptorily dismissed while the inspector, an official of the services of law and order and not a rank amateur, got on with his very important job before summoning a SOCO team. As a parting shot, he ordered Holmes to give his and his business partner’s details to the uniformed officer – which he knew very well - who should have arrived by now, and go home, where he would catch up with them later. Summarily dismissed, Holmes stomped off to do as he was bidden.

  Chapter Three

  Streeter started by sealing the crime scene and the door to the stairs and requesting that the door through to the snug be locked. There wa
s no access from outside to this particular small room in the pub, so everything should be secure.

  Next, he asked for the landlord to be brought to him at one of the tables in the saloon bar, got the uniformed constable to take names and contact details of all those still present – oops! – and set up his base with DS Port, demanding that the pub be closed for the remainder of the evening.

  Greg Wordsworth came to the table with Tilly, only to have her sent away, as Streeter wanted to question them separately. The landlord was still shaken, and had a large brandy in one hand. ‘Sit down!’ the inspector ordered in an authoritarian manner. ‘Just what’s been going on in your establishment, Mr Wordsworth?’

  ‘I really have no idea what’s happened,’ returned Wordsworth, to this abrupt question, his plummy voice filling the vacant space round them. ‘The first the wife and I knew about it was when Mr Holmes and his associate called us to the bar – not the legal bar, you understand, ha ha – and we all went through to the back parlour for him to break the news to us.’

  Streeter had not reacted to this weak witticism, but was surprised by the refinement of the voice. Accents like that automatically got under his skin and made him feel inferior, so Wordsworth’s surmised upbringing immediately nettled him.

  ‘There’s no cause to treat this situation so flippantly, Mr Wordsworth. A man has lost his life upstairs in your meeting room.’

  ‘I do realise that, Inspector, but the wife and I were having a bite of supper when the body was found. Do you know how long he’d been …? At what time he was …?’ Wordsworth really seemed to have a phobia about death. ‘… When it happened?’ he concluded lamely.

  ‘We’ll not have an accurate idea of the time of death until after the medical examiner has seen him, and possibly not until after the post-mortem, but I shall need to confirm your whereabouts, and those of your wife, from, say, lunchtime onwards.’

  ‘But, my wife was there only this afternoon giving it a good polishing and vacuuming. There was nothing amiss when she was up there, to my knowledge,’ Wordsworth replied defensively.

  ‘I’m not implying there was, but I shall need her word for confirmation, and that of anybody else who could confirm that the body wasn’t up there much earlier than it was found.’ His voice had risen in volume, and Tilly had scurried over to the table to see what was going on.

  ‘I ’ope you’re not bullying my ’usband,’ she shrilled at him. ‘I fink ’e ought to consult ’is solicitor if you’re goin’ to go accusin’ ’im of anyfink.’

  Streeter’s temper had been tried almost beyond endurance since he’d got here, and he was very close to losing it, what with those two private investigators being on the spot – again – Holmes’ look of debatable innocence when asked if he’d touched anything at the scene, this upper class twit’s silver spoon accent, and now this little bird of a woman having a go at him and threatening him with their solicitor.

  ‘I shall require both of you to attend the police station to make statements tomorrow – no protests. I’m sure you’ve got enough staff to cover for your absence. I shall require the names and contact details of all your staff, and my sergeant and the uniformed constable will then take their statements. Now, who works here?’

  Wordsworth cleared his throat and took up the reins of the conversation. ‘We have four members of staff. Dick Brownlow – whom I dispatched to guard the staircase.’ The word ‘whom’ immediately got up the inspector’s nose, as he didn’t know when to use it and when to leave it well alone. ‘We’ve got Micki – short for Michaela – Shields, who’s our barmaid, Suzie Peake in the kitchen doing the food orders, and Tony Richardson is waiter and glass collector.’

  ‘Not short for Antonia, I suppose?’ asked Streeter sarcastically.

  ‘No, Tony’s a chap,’ replied Wordsworth, perplexed at this question, and not realising it was just Streeter’s entrenched inferiority complex flexing its muscles in public.

  ‘I shall need all their addresses and phone numbers, landline and mobile, but I’ll leave this in the very capable hands of my DS, and the constable. Good evening to you both. I shall now dismiss the ambulance.’

  As he rose, Port gave him a quizzical look. Whatever was wrong with the old man, saying his hands were very capable ones in which to leave anything – before now, he wouldn’t have trusted him with so much as a chocolate bar, though that was for a very good reason – he’d have eaten it without a second thought.

  By the end of the evening, Port left The Sherlock with a long list of customers for uniform to check out, and the statements of all the employed workers at the pub that evening, all of whom denied having been up to the meeting room since they had come on shift at lunchtime. The pub did have other staff, but some were casual, only called on when there were members of staff off sick, and others, who worked different days to the ones who were on duty that Friday.

  When Holmes and Garden got back to Holmes’s apartment, the host immediately opened a bottle of very acceptable wine – he wouldn’t countenance drinking plonk, unlike Garden, who would drink anything if he was in a mood to – and went into the guest room to switch on the electric blanket.

  He did have an advantage over Streeter in that he was familiar with some of the staff of the pub, and felt it unlikely that one of them could have killed Cyril Antony; although he could not be certain. As he went back to his sitting room, collecting two crystal glasses on his way, he said to Garden, ‘So, what do you think of our new little puzzle? We seem to have fallen right into this case. That’ll stick right in Streeter’s craw. He can’t do anything about serendipity.’

  Garden thought quite a lot, actually. Firstly, he didn’t consider that murder was at all a little puzzle and, as for having fallen right into it, he didn’t really know whether he wanted to get involved or not. They had their own business to consider, and investigating this wouldn’t pay any bills, as well as the fact that Holmes had declared war on the inspector, and he didn’t know how his partner would react in the circumstances.

  Giving himself a mental nudge, however, he remembered that it didn’t matter how well or how badly the business did; Holmes was a millionaire who didn’t need to rely on paltry little cases of divorce or lost doggies and moggies. He could do exactly as he pleased with no financial consequences, and Garden would still receive his monthly salary. Maybe he needed to lighten up a little bit. And Streeter was a nightmare when it came to uncovering the truth; he should carry some sort of written warning about his general incompetence.

  With hardly a breath between Holmes’ input, Garden replied, ‘I couldn’t agree with you more. I presume, with the wine, we’re going to sit up and discuss the matter.’

  ‘Hardly sit up, old chap. It’s only half past eight, but I feel we should look at the thing from an investigative point of view before we watch that film. After all, we were the ones who found the body. We owe the slandering scoundrel something, even if it’s only justice. And, in fact, he was libellous as well, but let’s put that to one side in the interests of finding out who did him to death.’

  Only Holmes could use a phrase like ‘did him to death’ in all seriousness, and Garden tried to arrange his thoughts. ‘Could it have been one of the staff?’ he asked, going for the obvious, as the meeting had not yet convened.

  ‘Unlikely,’ relied Holmes. ‘I think it’s much more possible it was one of the members of the Quaker Street Irregulars.’ He began to tick off the points on the fingers of his right hand. ‘One: nobody outside the club really knew about the meetings.’ The forefinger of his left hand held down the forefinger of his right hand, but then he fell silent.

  ‘Two?’ prompted Garden.

  ‘Do you know, for the life of me, I can’t think of any other reason. We don’t really know anything about him, other than that he had that bee in his bum – excuse my language – about the relationship between Holmes and Watson, and that he’d written that dashed shameful story which he tried to read to us at the last meeting, before he wa
s shouted down and left in a huff.’

  ‘But you were going to get him black-balled?’

  ‘Too right, I was. I wasn’t going to let him get away with a thing like that, and I’m sure all the other members would have been in agreement.’ Holmes’ fine moustache was bristling with indignation, as he remembered last month’s meeting.

  Garden clapped his hands together loudly, prompting a sudden clatter from the cat flap in the kitchen. ‘That’s it! There’s your motive. If hardly anybody knew about the club and its meetings, the only people that would have been positive that he would be going there were members of the Quaker Street Irregulars.’

  ‘But their families would have known where they were, and their friends,’ countered Holmes.

  ‘And do you think many of those really cared? I don’t wish to belittle your creation, but it was only a dozen men getting together once a month to waffle on about Conan Doyle’s books. Please don’t take this personally, but it’s not as if it were a government think-tank or anything, is it?’

  Although Holmes’ face fell, he took it on the chin and had to, however reluctantly, agree that the Irregulars were, in the great scheme of things, pretty small potatoes.

  ‘What do we actually know about the murderer?’ asked Garden, and as Holmes had nothing forthcoming, began to tick points off on his own fingers. ‘One, he had access to violin strings – nothing to say these were recently purchased, but the presence of one makes me think this was a pre-meditated act. Nobody but a professional strings player would walk about with something like that in his pocket without evil intent, and you didn’t mention that any of them played in an orchestra.

  ‘Two, we can take it as read, I think, that it was a member of your little society or club, or whatever it is.’ He moved down a second finger, then went on, ‘Thirdly, as there was the title page of his short story manuscript shoved into the waistcoat of his suit, that whoever killed him has, or had, the manuscript itself.’