The Devil's Due Read online

  ‘Stop, thief!’ I shouted.

  ‘Watson!’ Holmes whispered.

  The speaker swivelled to glare at me directly, his face melting into a theatrical portrayal of hurt innocence. But as he recognized Holmes standing next to me, a transformation came over it, which sent a chill down my spine.

  ‘That was not wise,’ murmured Holmes, looking down and adjusting his Homburg to cover his face.

  ‘There’s a policeman right over there.’ I gestured to a constable standing off to one side, presumably monitoring the situation. ‘Fardwinkle can hardly weasel out now. Police!’ I cried.

  ‘We must be off now,’ said Holmes, seizing my arm with an iron pinch.

  ‘Will you know the Devil when you see him?’ shouted Fardwinkle. The preacher was staring at me, or rather us. He raised an arm and pointed it at Holmes. ‘I can. I do. The Devil is standing here among us.’

  The crowd turned to look at us. Their gaze focused on Holmes. Admittedly, his gaunt pallor, intensity and swirling black coat were not at that moment helping to portray the angel of justice I knew him to be.

  I would not let this situation intimidate us. ‘You are an utter charlatan!’ I found myself shouting at Fardwinkle. ‘Watch your pockets, ladies and gentlemen!’ Turning to Holmes, I said, ‘How can this crowd be so gullible?’

  Holmes shook his head but did not release my arm.

  ‘There he is. The Devil. The Devil in the flesh! You know what to do!’ The speaker continued to point at Holmes.

  This was an outrage. We were in the centre of modern London. The Devil, indeed!

  ‘This is Sherlock Holmes, you fool!’ I shouted. ‘The detective.’

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ murmured Holmes. He yanked my arm, none too gently. ‘Stop talking.’

  ‘Sherlock Holmes, who sends innocent men to the gallows!’ shouted Fardwinkle in full preacher voice. ‘Charles Danforth! Just this week, an innocent man, freed only yesterday by the will of God. Sherlock Holmes, who has been taken by the Devil. The Devil is Sherlock Holmes!’

  A woman moved up to him and batted at him with her handbag. ‘The Devil!’ she announced, nodding.

  ‘Not me, madam,’ he said gently, as he sidestepped her, only to find two men blocking his way. ‘Watson, run.’

  I caught a glimpse of Gabriel Zanders across the crowd, regarding the unfolding drama with eager excitement. The crowd closed in and Holmes and I were separated. A leering man leaned in to me and shouted, ‘Who are you who walks with the Devil?’ Two more moved in beside him, giving me their hardest looks.

  ‘My name is John Watson. I am a doctor, you idiot. Now, let me pass.’

  Ahead of me, Holmes was engulfed by murmuring congregants. Only then did I realize the true danger of the situation.

  They began to push. The man near me knocked the hat from my head. I bent down to scoop it up but upon rising could no longer see Holmes.

  From the dais, the speaker continued to excite the crowd. ‘The Devil and his disciple walk among us. You know what to do. The Devil! The Devil!’

  Suddenly I felt the press of the furious crowd. The situation had ratcheted from zero to lethal in seconds.

  ‘Destroy the Devil! Destroy the Devil!’

  A woman slapped at my face and a man tried to wrench my arm behind my back.

  I yanked free, then caught a brief glimpse of Holmes, who was attempting to fend off grasping hands without hurting anyone. Above it all, Fardwinkle continued to shout, waving his preacher’s hat towards my friend, a malicious smile splitting his sunburnt face.

  Two men seized my arms but, with a sudden heave, I freed myself and pushed through the crowd towards Holmes, inadvertently bumping into a young woman. ‘Pardon me, madam!’ I said, noting the beautiful young face fixed on mine. Her hand snaked into my pocket and she smiled in triumph. I pulled away in alarm, before remembering I carried nothing in that pocket. More people intervened, and I pushed through to my friend.

  Holmes and I exchanged a look, locked arms, and rammed our way free. Before us was the path, and beyond that, Marble Arch, and the safety of others.

  We ran.

  A couple of the men followed hard on our heels, but the policeman’s whistle sounded, echoed by another, and our pursuers gave up the chase. We did not slow down until we were safe among the milling crowds near Marble Arch.

  It was only when the drizzle became a sudden downpour that I realized I had lost my umbrella in the mob at Speakers’ Corner. ‘Devil take it,’ I said in exasperation. ‘My umbrella!’

  ‘Devil did take it indeed, Watson.’

  We took shelter under the arch, but the rain slanted in to pelt us, nevertheless. Water poured off our hats and shoulders as crowds of businessmen hurried past under their umbrellas without a thought. We were back in modern London. Holmes and I eyed each other for one tense moment, then … burst out laughing.

  ‘You do look a touch satanic,’ I said, eyeing the rain dripping from Holmes’s black Homburg.

  ‘Apparently so, Watson.’

  ‘What’s this?’ I had put my hands in my pockets against the cold when I discovered a small card in the left one. I pulled it out. It had a strange, ornate blue and white pattern on one side. I turned it over.

  ‘Look at this!’ I exclaimed. ‘A young woman in the crowd – she must have placed it there.’

  For there, in my hand, was a Tarot card, with a leering, horned figure, ornately drawn in black and white and blood red. The Devil!

  CHAPTER 5

  Brotherly Love

  Twenty minutes later, the fire roaring and our wet clothes set before it, Holmes and I sat smoking in our dressing gowns in the sitting-room of 221B. Holmes perused the Tarot card I had been given and retrieved his magnifying glass to have closer look.

  ‘Anything, Holmes?’ I asked. ‘One of those fortune-telling cards, isn’t it?’

  ‘Tarot, yes. Fairly common type; I’ve seen this deck before. Delarue Franc, it says here, exported from France. The Devil. How apropos.’

  I stared at the gruesome horned figure dancing on the card. ‘Hmm. I see no resemblance to you. Well, maybe around the eyes—’

  ‘Watson!’

  ‘All, right, not the eyes. But you could both use a bit more meat on the bones.’

  We sat in silence as he continued to examine the card.

  ‘What do you say to my idea of Simpson’s, Holmes? A bit of sustenance?’

  ‘I do not like this, Watson. A card like this was found at that Anson murder. Who gave you this card? Was it one of the two dippers?’

  ‘The pickpockets? Not one of the two boys, no. It was a young lady, barely more than a girl,’ said I. ‘I am not sure she was working with them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. Better dressed, perhaps?’

  ‘Did you get good look?’

  ‘Yes. Long dark hair, blue eyes, quite beautiful, unafraid. Bold even. Hard to tell her age, perhaps eighteen or so.’

  ‘Have you seen her before?’

  ‘No, and I think I should have remembered,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘That lovely?’

  I nodded. ‘She had a mole here.’ I pointed to my right cheek. ‘And truly unafraid. Triumphant, almost.’

  ‘Well, she did manage to plant this card on you. Did she get anything in return?’

  ‘No. I keep nothing in my overcoat pockets.’

  ‘Wise. How did you lose your umbrella?’

  ‘I – I must have dropped it in the melee. Nothing else is missing, I checked, Holmes,’ said I, growing annoyed.

  ‘If you are sure then,’ said he, turning back to examining the card.

  ‘What of that reporter, Holmes? Do you think it coincidence that Zanders was there?’

  ‘I do not believe in coincidence. I told you that he is having me followed. I shall be more careful. This incident will appear shortly in some rag, no doubt.’

  ‘He is going to a great deal of trouble about you, Holmes. You must have truly inf
uriated him.’

  ‘Leave it, Watson. He is simply fishing. He will tire of it when a better story comes round.’

  A knock sounded on the front door and in a moment Billy, our page, stood dripping in the doorway, cap in hand.

  ‘Mr Holmes. Dr Watson. I have a message from Mr Mycroft Holmes, sirs. He would like to see you both, er …’ he squinted at a small white paper … ‘Towdee-sweetie?’

  Holmes laughed. ‘Tout de suite? Ah, urgent, is it? Well, Watson, our comfort is short lived. The Diogenes awaits.’

  An hour later, dressed once again in our city finest, Holmes and I sat near the fire in the Stranger’s Room at the Diogenes, the only room where conversation was allowed in his brother’s most unusual gentlemen’s club. It was a masculine, elegant room, designed to impress with a row of antique globes, thick carpeting, and gilt-edged books. A window looked out on Pall Mall, where rain continued to flood the streets.

  It was one of a handful of such meetings I had attended. In each case, I found myself acutely uncomfortable. There was an unsettling discord, a tension between the two brothers that I did not understand. Mycroft wielded great power and influence at the highest levels of government. He and Holmes worked together frequently, but not always amiably. In this very room, I had witnessed Mycroft Holmes once threaten my friend with a gaol term, and worse.

  Today’s meeting had started badly, and it was not sitting well with Sherlock Holmes.

  ‘Mycroft, you are full of advice and admonitions today!’ said my friend, striding around the room. ‘Do not confront this Titus Billings, you say. Steer clear of journalist Gabriel Zanders. Drop my work following the French anarchists. What is it that you do want?’

  ‘I am looking out for your best interests, Sherlock,’ drawled Mycroft Holmes as he fingered a small gold pocket lens dangling from one of two heavy watch chains stretched across his ample girth. He was, as always, impeccably tailored, from his mirror-polished shoes to his professionally barbered countenance, implacable, and mountainously heavy, so unlike his brother. I felt a small pleasure that the Double Albert watch chain was perhaps somewhat tighter across Mycroft’s growing girth than the last time we had seen him.

  ‘First, you must hear a few things, Sherlock. Titus Billings is connected at the highest levels, I believe to a close relative of the Royal Family. One of the Queen’s cousins. Steer clear. He is out of my reach for the moment.’

  ‘Extend your reach quickly then, Mycroft. The Danforth case was horribly bungled,’ said Holmes bitterly. ‘An innocent young woman died as the result.’

  Mycroft sighed. ‘Sit down, Sherlock.’

  ‘And Billings’s aim to arm the police?’ continued Holmes. ‘The man is a philistine. Most of them should not be trusted with their truncheons, much less a gun.’

  ‘In time, I will discover the wedge, but you must be patient.’

  The long thin wedge. I had heard Mycroft speak of it before. It was a metaphor, I suppose, for whatever he did at Whitehall. In the past, Holmes had hinted at his brother’s Machiavellian manoeuvring, but always in service of the greater good. However, it has been my experience that the more power a man has, the more challenging it is to retain the moral high ground. Whatever Mycroft did or didn’t do in service of the ‘greater good’, I only hoped that he shared the admirable code of honour of Sherlock Holmes.

  I was never sure.

  Mycroft Holmes lit a cigarette and offered the box to each of us. We declined and I moved the ashtray closer to him. At last Holmes sat down.

  Despite their differences of physique and temperament, the Holmes brothers did share uncanny skills of observation and deduction, and an astonishing ability to store an encyclopaedic range of facts. And both had developed mysterious, though I wager very different, ways of monitoring the events of their relative spheres of operation. I had no idea how Mycroft knew nearly every move made by his brother. It was not a comfortable idea to contemplate.

  ‘I have asked you here today, Sherlock, primarily to discuss this recent spate of unusual murders.’

  ‘At last. Which exactly?’

  ‘First, give me your further thoughts on that Danforth case.’

  ‘Curious. An act of remarkable violence on the part of the son.’

  ‘Out of nowhere, then?’ asked Mycroft.

  ‘I think not. There were strong signs of Charles Danforth’s instability, the family were aware of it, but the incident must have been set off by something. I do not know yet what that was.’

  ‘Someone gave a push, perhaps?’

  ‘Possibly. I do know that the killer was under the impression that his father’s will had been recently revised to favour the younger brother.’

  ‘Had it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That is all you have?’

  ‘I have been busy.’

  ‘And working alone. Perhaps now that Dr Watson has rejoined you, you will be more successful.’

  I could sense Holmes’s suppressed anger. He sprang up again and moved to the bookshelves where he appeared to become unusually interested in the antique globes.

  Mycroft continued to goad. ‘Up and down. Since you were a child. What about that Horatio Anson case? Unsolved?’

  ‘I was away when that came up. Curious, though, that a former shipbuilder was found dead in bed, fully clothed and dry, yet drowned. I intend to look into it further.’

  ‘And Clammory?’ said Mycroft.

  ‘Fellow who made a fortune with a series of barber shops, found with his throat slit with a razor?’ I exclaimed. ‘That was a strange one!’

  ‘Mmm,’ mused Mycroft. ‘Sherlock? You did not investigate that either?’

  ‘Away during that one as well. Upon my return, I found that Titus Billing had blocked my access to police files. I have asked Lestrade for a few in particular and expect to receive them shortly. Mycroft, this Billings is most inconvenient.’

  He returned and sat down again next to me on the sofa. The two brothers faced each other for a long moment. Something passed between them. I became aware of an enormous clock ticking on the far wall. The clop of horses and sounds of carriage wheels hissing through the wet and icy streets made their way faintly through the curtained windows.

  ‘Anson, Clammory, Danforth,’ murmured Mycroft Holmes.

  I took a sip of coffee. Something was being considered by the two brothers, I had no idea what. Holmes nodded, then remarked, casually. ‘All right. Yes, I see it. Of course.’

  Mycroft smiled. ‘The philanthropy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Significant philanthropy. All of the victims.’

  ‘Horatio Anson as well?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Medical research, I believe. A rather large donation.’

  ‘And, of course, Clammory and the Veterans of the Boer War Fund,’ said Holmes. ‘That got quite a bit of publicity.’

  ‘And Danforth?’ asked Mycroft. ‘Any philanthropy?’

  ‘Literacy programmes for the poor. Very different modus operandi in each killing, though.’ said Holmes.

  Mycroft nodded again.

  What was this about? I wondered. All of the murder victims were philanthropists? That seemed a spurious connection.

  ‘And other deaths in the family, immediately attendant,’ said Mycroft. ‘All apparently suicide.’

  ‘That is most interesting. Let’s see … with Danforth, yes. Clammory, unsure. No other deaths related to Anson?’

  Mycroft smiled. ‘A sister in Dover jumped off a cliff, I read.’

  They lapsed into silence, allies once more. Most puzzling. A minute passed. The Holmes brothers would explain themselves in due time, I supposed. I needed more coffee and looked around for the attendant.

  ‘But then we are missing a B,’ said Holmes.

  ‘Yes,’ said his brother. ‘Perhaps there has been a B’.

  ‘One that may not have appeared to be a murder.’

  ‘But was taken for an accident or a suicide.’

  ‘Precisely. I shal
l have a look,’ said Holmes.

  ‘What kind of bee are you talking about?’ I interjected at last. ‘I am not following.’

  ‘Watson, we are considering that these murders are linked, and by the same perpetrator,’ said Holmes.

  ‘Yes, but a bee?’

  ‘Perhaps done in alphabetical order. We have an A, a C, and a D. But no B.’

  I laughed. ‘Well, that is far-fetched.’

  ‘People who murder in series often leave some kind of sign so they will be credited for the kill. They want to be caught, ultimately,’ said Holmes. ‘Alphabet killings are not unknown. The “Alfabeto Mortale” in Rome in the last century comes to mind.’

  ‘And don’t forget the “Alfabetmord” in Norway,’ said Mycroft. He laughed, a mirthless huffing sound.

  ‘Ah yes, the “Norwegian Capper”. Left clown hats on all his victims. All quite famous cases, Watson. I cracked the Norwegian one myself three years ago.’

  ‘Clown hats?’

  ‘A double signature, Watson. The alphabet. And the hats,’ said Holmes.

  ‘What of that Tarot card, The Devil? Found under Anson’s pillow,’ said Mycroft. ‘It was in the papers. A signature of sorts?’

  ‘I read that, yes. But found at none of the other murders,’ said Holmes.

  ‘Unless it went unreported. Or Titus Billings missed it,’ said Mycroft.

  ‘Which is credible. He is careless,’ said Holmes.

  ‘But not stupid, Sherlock. Take care.’

  ‘A Tarot card?’ I interjected. ‘Like the one planted on me?’

  ‘Ah, interesting,’ said Mycroft. ‘Planted? At the park? Do you have it?’

  At the park? How had he known this?

  Holmes produced it from his pocket and held it up, facing his brother.

  Mycroft smiled, not deigning to take it. ‘Yes, interesting.’ He turned to me. ‘Who planted it? Did you notice?’

  ‘A young woman.’ I said. ‘I didn’t recognize her.’

  ‘It was placed in Watson’s pocket as we were set upon by a crowd at Speakers’ Corner, clamouring to find the Devil in me.’

  ‘Ah yes, I heard about that. I understand Zanders was there. He is employing fellows to follow you, you know.’

  ‘Yes. It is a veritable crowd, with your man following as well.’