The Bookcase of Sherman Holmes: A Holmes and Garden Anthology Page 7

  Their statements were taken early the next morning, as soon as they had arrived at the office, and Miss Everton phoned to inform them that she, too, had had a visit from a very unpleasant and ill-mannered inspector, who needed a good spanking, in her opinion.

  That afternoon, it was announced on local radio that two men had been arrested in connection with the bank robbery that had taken place in Hamsley Black Cross, although police would not release their names just at the moment, and Holmes sat straight down to make out an invoice for yet another satisfied client, asking if Garden had done the same for the woman whose car was being used without her consent.

  ‘We’re on to a good thing here, old boy,’ Holmes crowed, without actually consulting the paltry amounts they had made; but then he didn’t have to with his bank balance, which was bursting with so much health that it was almost obscene.

  The rest of the day brought only a phone call from Deirdre Matcham, to inform them that she no longer needed them to keep an eye on her husband. He had been arrested at the bank manager’s house in the early hours of the morning, accused of bank robbery and the murder of the manager’s wife, and that she would be grateful if they would send her a bill for any hours they may have spent on her behalf. It seemed that her husband had ‘crossed to the other side’ and was having a fling with the bank manager. They had intended to run off together after robbing the bank but it seems they were rumbled by the wife whom they subsequently murdered!

  ‘It seems that we helped solve a much more important case than we realised,’ said Holmes to Garden, ‘we really are on our way!’ Holmes conveniently forgot that they had stumbled upon the result rather than deducing it.

  ‘That leaves us a completely clean sheet at the end of our first week of operation,’ Holmes commented. ‘Let’s hope we get more customers soon.’

  But it was not to be, and all they had for the rest of Friday was a string of enquiries for wallpaper and gardening products, a situation that again left him in high dudgeon, as he announced that he would not be in in the morning, as he had a lot of personal things to catch up on.

  That wasn’t exactly the case, but he didn’t think he could look Shirley in the eye on the day of their date, as he was bursting with embarrassment with what had been going on in his mind, and didn’t want to see her again until it was across a dining table.

  Holmes almost regretted his decision to take the day off, as he was in a state of high anxiety, and knocked over two cups of tea and fell over Colin four times, cursing the cat to hell and back every time it happened. Colin, suspecting that his slave was out of sorts, shot out through the cat flap and went and sulked under some bushes at the end of the garden.

  As evening approached, Holmes became even more jittery, and scrubbed himself in the bath until his skin was pink and shiny, and splashed on a little aftershave, something he rarely did, thinking it unmanly to use scent, and only possessing it because someone had bought it for his Christmas present. He then spent a good two hours choosing what to wear, and had thrown three ties and two shirts across the room before he was satisfied with his appearance, having realised that he couldn’t change his basic shape and age. Maybe he should get a toupee? But there wasn’t time for fiddle-faddling like that, now.

  Having fielded two cold calls before he could finally leave his apartment, he set out into the fine evening air, his mind in turmoil about what might happen later, and he eventually had to whistle an inane tune to keep his tousled thoughts at bay. He wouldn’t take his car, so that he didn’t have to drive, and he could always order a taxi later, as he thought Shirley might have done to get her to The Sherlock.

  As he was on foot, he did not have to go round to the car park at the back, and he entered by the street door, blushing as he did so, at the thought of what might be ahead of him. He looked across the bar and saw his secretary/receptionist sitting at a table on the far side of the pub, and waved shyly to her, hoping that she could not read his thoughts which were all tangled up in bed-sheets and the like.

  As he approached the table, he beamed a smile in her direction, only to have it wiped off his face as Garden came out of the gents’. What on earth was he doing here? This was his local, after all. As he turned his face towards his date again, ignoring the presence of his business partner, Garden approached their table and sat down as if he belonged there.

  ‘I thought it would be all right,’ explained Shirley innocently. ‘Only, it’s the end of our first week of business, and I thought you’d want to celebrate with all the staff. I’m sure you meant to mention it to Johnny, and just forgot, what with all that’s been going on. It’s been a good week, hasn’t it? Perhaps you could do some more advertising when we all get back to the office, so that people can spread the word further afield?’

  Holmes’ face glowed a bright crimson, as he felt that the presence of the ‘thingies’ in his inside pocket was probably broadcasting on all wavelengths.

  THE END

  A MATTER OF HONOUR

  Chapter One

  ‘How did work go? Is there any news yet of the promotion?’ The pretty young Indian woman greeted her husband, home for the evening, with a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Not yet, my little flower,’ he replied, kissing her similarly, before hanging up his hat and light raincoat. ‘We will all know in time who is to climb the ladder of promotion. We must just trust to the gods that the most worthy candidate gets chosen.’

  ‘You are too fair. You must be more ambitious and hungry for success,’ replied Mrs Chandra, then they lapsed into their native Urdu, having left behind the world outside their home.

  This was a regular discussion when Mr Chandra came home from work. A promotion within the office had been on the cards for some time, and the vacancy had yet to be filled. There were, however, five possible candidates for the position, and Mr Chandra was only one of these. Thus, his wife asked every day if there were word of promotion yet. If her husband were not ambitious, she was certainly ambitious for him.

  ‘The others are all fine men,’ he told her. ‘I must be proven to be more suitable than them before I am offered the position. And after all, they are younger men.’

  ‘Pshaw!’ was his wife’s response to this regular claim of his. She knew who the best candidate was, and she couldn’t see why they were so long in asking him to take the position.

  In Hamsley Black Cross, on The High, the detective agency of Holmes and Garden stood with its doors open, to let in some air to counter the summer heat of the office. It may not have been a hot summer, but the central heating had got stuck in the ‘on’ position, and they were waiting for an engineer to come and replace a part so that they had some choice in the matter of the temperature of their place of work.

  In the front office, their receptionist, Shirley Garden, wore only a light cotton dress over her underwear, a cardigan drooping listlessly from the back of her chair. The welcoming flowers on her desk dropped defeated petals as the radiators continued to pump out heat, and even the merest puff of breeze from outside was a boon.

  ‘Business is very slow at the moment,’ commented a red-faced Sherman Holmes, his jacket and tie both hanging from the coatstand, his top button open and his shirtsleeves rolled as high as they would go.

  ‘You should dress for the office temperature,’ replied his partner, John H. Garden, who was attired in a sleeveless pink T-shirt and turquoise shorts. ‘You’d be much more comfortable.’

  ‘One of us has to be ready to speak to a prospective client without frightening them away. I’d never confide in someone dressed as you are.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t want to confide in someone who was so hot he was suffering from a very short fuse on his temper,’ retorted Garden, knowing his Holmes, by now.

  ‘Well, if someone does come in, you will have to nip upstairs to your flat and put on something a bit more respectable.’

  ‘Deal. But for now I stay dressed like this.’ Garden had won that one on points.

  Chapter Two
>
  Mrs Chandra did not have time to ask her dear Sanjay how the situation about the promotion was progressing at work as, when he arrived home, he was waving around his hands and obviously in a state of agitation. ‘What is it, my dear? Has the position gone to someone else?’ she asked, before holding her breath in anticipation of bad news.

  ‘It is poor Mr Andrews. He was hit by a car whilst taking a lunchtime stroll down a lane to the river – you know how narrow those little roads are – and now he is in hospital fighting for his life.’

  ‘What dreadful news, Sanjay, but we must look on the bright side: at least he will not be able to fulfil the more senior role, the right man for which they are searching.’

  ‘That is true, my little flower; I must not be downhearted when the gods are, maybe, out to help me.’

  ‘Another two missing dogs located safe and sound at the dog pound,’ stated Sherman Holmes, wiping his overheated forehead with a large, dazzlingly white handkerchief.

  ‘Another couple of minimal fees for the agency. I say, Holmes,’ said Garden, this time in a violet T-shirt and puce shorts, ‘I think it’s about time we got our teeth into something more meaty, don’t you?’

  Ignoring this comment, Holmes said, ‘I can’t believe it’s raining outside, and we’re in here dying of heat-exhaustion. Thank the good God that the engineer is coming before closing time to restore our working conditions to something approaching acceptable.’

  A light knock on the door brought in Shirley, Garden’s mother and the receptionist of the business, with a tray holding a jug of iced water and two glasses on it. Her hair was wet with perspiration and straggled over her forehead, and her dress, once freshly pressed, hung in limp creases where she had been sitting. ‘The heating engineer’s just phoned,’ she announced in a tired voice.

  ‘And?’ The interrogative came out in a shout, as Holmes had the feeling the man was going to slip out of their grasp, and they would be encased in this infernal pressure cooker for weeks to come.

  ‘And he said he would be about half an hour late,’ she concluded, then sighed from the sheer strain of working in such an atmosphere. ‘No need to get your knickers in a twist. Sir.’

  ‘Sorry, Shirley. It’s just this damned heat. You get yourself off home and have a nice cool shower, and we’ll finish up here,’ replied Holmes with an apologetic smile at his own irascibility.

  ‘I’ll lock up, Holmes, then stand outside the front to have a cigarette when he’s due, so that I can let him in. It’ll save me having to stay in the office to unlock the door and be boiled to death.’

  ‘Good man, Garden; good man. Well, we’ll be off, then. Do you fancy a cup of tea in the nice, cool tearooms, Shirley?’

  ‘Not meaning to be rude, but I’d rather get home and get changed out of my perspiration-soaked clothes and have a nice cool soak in a bath if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Some other time, then,’ replied Holmes, chagrin in his voice. She really was a fine-looking woman but, after what had occurred when he thought they were going to have a romantic little tete-a-tete over dinner quite recently, he had realised that she’d be a harder nut to crack than he had anticipated.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Good evening, Sanjay. Whatever’s wrong with you?’ Mrs Chandra’s husband had arrived home, not only silent this evening, but pale as well, with a worried frown creasing his forehead.

  ‘It’s Mr Davidson. He’s been killed in a car crash. It was such a shock to me when I heard what had happened. It seems our office is cursed by the gods. First Andrews is the victim of a hit and run, from which he has since passed over, and then Davidson is killed in a traffic accident. Apparently he just left the road and crashed into a tree. And these things come in threes. Whatever will happen next?’

  ‘I think the third thing has already happened. I went out shopping today and took the road through the woods, and a deer rushed out of the trees on one side of the road and landed on the bonnet of the car. It will need some work to repair the damage.’

  ‘Well, I almost think, thank goodness for that. I will take it into the garage near the office tomorrow and get an estimate for the repair work. It will be a small price to pay if it takes the curse off my place of employment.’

  Mrs Chandra adjusted her sari modestly and hurried off into the kitchen to see how the meal for her husband was progressing.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, when Garden was in the office on his own, thankfully in cooler temperatures than they had endured of late, thanks to the work of the engineer who had called the previous evening, a serious-faced Asian man in a sober business suit entered the premises.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Garden greeted him.

  ‘Good morning. Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mr Holmes or Mr Garden?’

  ‘I’m Garden. And you are?’

  ‘Mr Chandra.’

  ‘How may I be of assistance, Mr Chandra?’ Garden had caught the sober mood of the man and replied accordingly.

  ‘I think my life might be in danger,’ Mr Chandra told him, with a little frown of anxiety.

  ‘Can you explain to me what makes you think this is so?’ asked Garden.

  ‘It is the situation at my place of employment, Mr Garden. I work at a firm of accountants in Farlington Market, and I am in a position to hope for a promotion to a step higher on the management ladder. There are another two candidates who may be chosen, but there were, last week, five of us available for consideration.’

  ‘What happened to the other two?’

  ‘One of them was sadly killed in a hit-and-run accident, and the other one had the brakes or something equally vital fail on his car, and, unfortunately, did not survive the ensuing accident.’

  ‘And you think someone wants to kill you, too?’

  ‘I fear that is so, Mr Garden. My dear wife Indraani thinks that these are not rational thoughts, but it seems such a sad coincidence that these two men should die so close together, leaving only three candidates for the promotion. Is there anything you can do to help me?’

  ‘Have you informed the police of your fears, Mr Chandra?’

  ‘You think I should do so?’

  ‘Definitely. Maybe they already know that the two deaths were connected but, if not, they should be grateful to know what you have just told me.’

  ‘I shall do so immediately. Thank you very much for your time and advice, Mr Garden.’ Mr Chandra rose, bowed his head slightly in Garden’s direction, and left the office.

  When Holmes came in, Garden informed him of the early visitor’s fears, but said he didn’t think anything would come of it. ‘Probably just a touch of paranoia on his part. Coincidences happen more often than we acknowledge them.’

  ‘Maybe, Garden, but you never know.’

  The morning brought only a case of a woman who thought she was being stalked, but she was so self-obsessed in the time she spent in their office that both men thought it was probably vanity on her part that had made her visit them. However, it would have to be investigated, and Garden said he would get straight on to keeping a watch on her after she had returned home late that afternoon, as she was on her way to the hairdressers and the beauty parlour after consulting with them, and she didn’t think her stalker would follow her there, for some reason.

  After the postman had been, Garden sat twitching and fidgeting in his chair. A small parcel had arrived with his name on it, and he was sure it was the black suspender belt with matching panties and padded bra he had ordered. It was an obsession of his to dress up as his alter ego Joanne, and he longed to put on the silken garments to see how they felt. While he was at it, he might as well put on an outfit as well, to see how the new items sat under clothing: he simply couldn’t abide visible panty line.

  When lunchtime arrived, he disappeared off upstairs without a word, so eager was he to try out his new delivery. If he hurried he could put the water on a Pot Noodle, and not waste too much time eating. He would pull on a wig as well, and select
appropriate jewellery. He had not spent as much time as he would like to have done in Joanne’s clothing of late, and he needed a fix.

  Oh, yes, the new undergarments felt luxurious beneath his outer-clothes, and the part of him that was Joanne purred in appreciation, as he walked up and down his living room feeling the soft material against his skin. Good God, was that the time?

  Pulling off his wig and throwing himself into his male attire, he wolfed down his meagre snack and rushed down to his desk again. He still had an hour or so before he set off for their new client’s home to watch out for the man she said was stalking her, and he needed to show his face in case new business showed up; and he wouldn’t want Holmes to think he was slacking because his flat was just up a staircase from their office quarters.

  Garden had taken the early lunch break today, and Holmes the middle one, so it was to an empty office that he returned, but he made a point of going through to say he was back for the benefit of his mother, and to prove that he wasn’t bunking off – even though he had been ten minutes or so late in returning, he had padded down the staircase as quietly as possible so as not to alert his mother to his return.

  On Holmes’ return, he put his head into the back office to let Garden know that he was back before taking her place at the receptionist’s desk, as it was his turn to cover for their secretary. He had made an astonished face when Garden had looked up at his greeting, but Garden didn’t take much notice, still being in the thrall of the silky undergarments that had just arrived into his possession. Maybe he could order a couple more sets in other colours? Thus preoccupied, he was surprised how quickly the time had passed when Holmes came back to his desk.

  After a few minutes he was conscious of being watched, and looked up to see what was catching his partner’s attention, only to have Holmes make a horrified face again and return his attention to his notes. Five minutes later it happened again, and this time he held Holmes’ gaze.