Sherlock Holmes Stories of Edward D. Hoch (5 page)

“Including Charles?” Holmes studied the man with his piercing grey eyes but, before he could say anything else, there came a shout from the direction of the tiger’s cage.

Philip Rover turned and started toward one of the clowns who’d yelled.

“What is it?” he barked.

The clown came running over, trying to keep his voice low. “Mr. Rover, something’s wrong! I just looked under the canvas and Vittoria’s in there with the tiger. I think she’s dead.”

The minutes that followed were a nightmare. Pushing the great beast back with long poles, the handlers finally were able to unlock the cage and pull the body out of its grasp. As a physician, it fell upon me to examine Vittoria’s body when it was removed from the cage. I had no trouble pronouncing her dead, but the sight of that clawed, bloody face, with the dress virtually torn from her body, moved me to a great sadness. From her tiny feet to the gaping wound in her neck, there were claw marks everywhere.

Holmes watched it all in silence and did not speak until I had finished my examination.

“What do you think, Watson? Did the tiger kill her or not?”

It was not the first time I had found Holmes’ reasoning a step ahead of my own. My eyes focused on the gaping neck wound.

“His claws couldn’t have made a wound like that and there seems to be no blood on his jaws or teeth.”

“Exactly my thought! The woman was already dead when she was placed in the cage. It was covered with canvas and the killer expected it would not be found until show time.” He turned to a pale Philip Rover. “Who had a key to this cage?”

“Only the animal’s trainer. And I keep a spare one in my tent.”

“Does your brother have one?”

“I don’t think so.”

Charles Rover joined us then, summoned by the ringmaster.

“What happened here?” he asked.

“Someone killed Vittoria and put her body in the tiger’s cage,” his brother told him.

“My God! Should we cancel the afternoon performance?”

Philip Rover scoffed at the idea. “We have five hundred people out there already, with more arriving every minute. The show will go on, but get this tiger cage out of here. The police will want to examine it.”

I could see something was troubling Holmes, beyond the traumatic fact of the crime itself.

“Did you gentlemen carry any insurance on the life of Vittoria Costello?” he inquired.

Philip brushed aside the question. “We have enough other expenses. I know of no circus that insures its performers. Why would you ask that?”

“In a death where there has been facial injury, one has to be certain of identification. Fraud of some sort is always a possibility.”

“Go and look at the body,” Philip told his younger brother. “Assure Mr. Holmes of its identity.”

Charles returned after a moment, the blood drained from his face.

“It’s Vittoria,” he assured us. “There’s no doubt. The Ringmaster identified her, too.”

Sherlock Holmes nodded. “Then we must go about finding her killer.”

“The circus isn’t hiring you,” Philip stated quite clearly. “This is a job for the local police.”

“Ah! But they did not do well in Oxford, did they? The death of the Spaniard is still unsolved.”

“I told you about that,” Philip insisted. “It was an accident. We have no money for you, Mr. Holmes.”

“I was hired by Vittoria Costello to protect her,” he informed them. “Now I must find her killer.”

“Hired?” the younger brother repeated. “How is this possible?”

“She came to my lodgings at Baker Street yesterday and told me of the incident with the horse and the poisoning of Diaz in Oxford. She feared the killer would succeed on his third attempt.” He repeated some of what she had told us.

“But this is untrue!” Philip insisted. “She fell off that horse, as she had done before. And I have already told you the Spaniard’s poisoning was a simple accident on his part. The poison was meant for a sick python.”

“Why would she lie?” Holmes asked. “It would seem her death is all the evidence we need that she told the truth.”

But the Rovers were already hurrying away to meet the police.

A short time later, after the body had been removed through the big top’s rear entrance, the spectators were finally allowed inside. There was a buzz of speculation among them. They had seen the police wagon draw up and they knew something was amiss. Holmes and I took seats near the front of the grandstand, waiting for some sort of announcement. When it came, it was vague and brief.

The ringmaster held up his megaphone, a voice amplifier from America, and announced, “Welcome to the Rover Brothers Circus! Due to an unfortunate accident, Vittoria, the Circus Belle, will not appear this performance. Settle back and enjoy the show!”

There were some groans from the spectators.

First came the clowns, followed by the team of acrobats with some tumbling and trapeze acts. The middle portion of the show was devoted to the traditional equestrian performers. If Edith Everage had been responsible for Vittoria’s death, she showed no evidence of nervousness as she went through her acrobatics with split-second timing. Finally, the tiger cage was wheeled back out to the center of the ring and an animal trainer brought out the magnificent tiger for all to see. There was no hint that the beast had been clawing at a woman’s body only an hour or so earlier.

The performance ended with a fine equestrian display, the riders carrying flags representing Britain and its colonies. As the crowd headed for the exits, I asked Holmes what we should do next.

“There seems to be nothing more we can learn here,” I said.

“You are correct that we have learned everything we need to, Watson. I direct your attention especially to the curious incident of the tiger in the morning.”

“What curious incident? The tiger did nothing in the morning.”

“That was the curious incident,” said Holmes.

There was no way that the death of Vittoria could be hushed up or passed off as an accident. She had been killed and placed in that tiger cage. Both suicide and accident were out of the question. By the following morning, the press had linked her murder with that of Diaz and the word was out that the famous consulting detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, was on the case. The Rover Brothers Circus had been detained in Reading pending further investigation.

Holmes and I had taken a room for the night at the railroad hotel by the station. We had barely finished breakfast the following morning, when Charles, the younger of the Rover brothers, arrived to see us.

“I must speak with you about this terrible business,” he said, pulling up a chair to join our table. “Philip and I want to hire you. He’s had a complete change of heart on the matter.”

Holmes smiled. “I already have a client. Vittoria Costello.”

“I’ve found the dead aren’t too prompt in paying their bills, Mr. Holmes. We want this business wound up as quickly as possible.”

“Very well,” he replied. “Will this afternoon be soon enough?” Charles Rover was taken aback. “Do you mean that you have solved the mystery already?”

“I believe so. Are you performing this afternoon?”

“Since the police are delaying our departure, we have added a performance at two o’clock.”

“Very good. Please hold tickets for Watson and myself.”

When he had gone, I turned to my friend in amazement. “You intend to reveal the killer this very day?”

“I need only one further piece of evidence and the case will be complete.”

He finished his tea and rose from the table.

“Come, Watson! The game is afoot!”

We arrived at King’s Meadow shortly after one. The publicity had attracted a crowd, but they were mainly adults. The expected audience of children had been kept away by fear of further violence. We could see why the Rover brothers needed help. Once inside the gate, Holmes surprised me by not heading toward the main tent. Instead, he detoured to the smaller tents, where the Rover brothers stayed. Philip Rover was just emerging from his tent with a blonde young woman who seemed vaguely familiar. She wore a long green dress and gloves, more suited to a night at the theatre than an afternoon at the circus.

“Holmes!” Philip said, perhaps a bit startled by the encounter. “I want you to meet my friend, Milly Hogan.”

I remembered the Everage girl’s description of her as Philip’s blonde doxy who traveled with him, but rarely attended the performances.

Sherlock Holmes reached out as if to shake her hand but, at the last moment, suddenly grabbed her left wrist instead.

“What is this?” she asked, with a gasp of fright. Already he was pulling up the sleeve on her forearm, revealing a small scar, faint but visible. We had seen it before.

“I believe we meet again, Miss Hogan. You came to my rooms in Baker Street on Tuesday, posing as Vittoria Costello, as part of your plot to murder that young lady.”

Both the Reading police and the Rover brothers themselves demanded explanations, and Holmes was only too glad to supply them. We had adjourned to Philip’s tent while Milly Hogan was being questioned elsewhere, and he began by describing her visit to us.

“The black wig was nothing to an actress of course, nor was the assuming of Victoria’s character. If her plan went well, we would never meet the real Vittoria, so no comparisons would be made. Perhaps she had even intended to keep her face veiled until I guessed wrongly at her identity. As it was, both Watson and I noted how little she resembled the drawing on the posters, but we thought little of it. I believe the death of Diaz was indeed an accident, but it must have suggested the entire plan to her. She came to me two days later with her story of the previous attempts on Vittoria’s life. Her whole point was to have me present the following day when the real Vittoria was killed, supposedly by the tiger the circus had just acquired.”

I remembered his words of the previous evening. “You said the tiger did nothing in the morning, Holmes.”

“And he did not. We established quickly enough that Vittoria was killed before being placed in the cage, but that still meant the murderer had to open the cage to do it. Opening the cage of a strange tiger, only just arrived with its trainer, would be a highly dangerous undertaking. The fact that the tiger did nothing to attract attention meant that the person who opened the cage was no stranger to him. The trainer could be ruled out. He only just arrived the night before, and would hardly have had a motive for killing Vittoria. But Edith Everage saw you, Philip, along with Milly, playing with the new tiger yesterday morning. That was probably no more than an hour or two before the murder. The tiger knew and remembered Milly.”

“This whole thing is ridiculous!” Philip insisted. “The tiger cage was outside of our tents, in full view. How could Milly or anyone else have killed Vittoria and placed her body in there without being seen?”

“The cage may have been in full view, but it was covered with canvas. I would guess that Milly lured Vittoria there to see the new tiger. Once under the canvas for a better look, Milly stabbed her in the throat before she could scream, then opened the cage and pushed her in. You told us, Philip, that you had an extra key to the cage in your tent.”

“Why would she do it? What was her motive?”

“The Everage woman told me you were fond of both of them. Jealousy has led to more than one murder. Of course, Milly planned to pin the crime on Everage, which is why she came to us impersonating Vittoria.”

I asked a question now. “How did you know, Holmes? After all, you deduced our client was Vittoria and then canceled out your own deduction.”

“I was deceived, Watson, until we pulled Vittoria’s body from the tiger cage and I noticed her tiny feet. The woman who called on us in London had feet as big as yours, as you must have noticed. Foot sizes don’t change overnight, so I knew it was a different woman. When Philip and Charles and others assured us the body was Vittoria’s, that meant it was an imposter who’d visited us. I asked myself who it could have been, and the answer was obvious. The imposter had to be Vittoria’s killer, or a close accomplice. We learned that the extra key to the tiger cage was kept in Philip’s tent, where Milly Hogan also stayed. And we learned that Philip and Milly were playing with the new tiger yesterday morning. Milly had been an actress, performing at the Lyceum Theatre in London. And Milly had reason to be jealous of Vittoria. Such a motive made it unlikely that you were involved, Philip. If the two of you were close enough to plot a murder, she would have had no reason for jealousy in the first place. I also felt certain that if you had wanted to kill Vittoria, you would have done it away from the circus grounds so as not to harm business. And surely you would not have insisted Diaz’s death was accidental if you were party to a plot to link the two deaths as a double murder.”

It was later, on the train back to London, after Milly Hogan had confessed, that I remarked to Holmes, “We never did meet Vittoria, the Circus Belle.”

“No,” he agreed. “But we met Milly Hogan twice and, in my profession, I find a murderess more fascinating than a circus belle.”

A
S I LOOK OVER
my notes for the summer of 1888, I come upon a singular adventure that is quite unlike the usual problems that came to the attention of Mr. Sherlock Holmes during this period. My inclination was to title this investigation “The English Manor Mystery,” but, since virtually all of Holmes’ cases took place in his homeland, the name might have seemed redundant.

The manor itself was the home of Sir Patrick Stacy White, the well-known African explorer just recently returned from a perilous journey retracing the route of Stanley in his search for Livingston. He’d sent an urgent message to Holmes inviting him to spend a weekend at the manor house, located about an hour west of London, near Reading.

“Are you going?” I asked, when he told me about it on Friday morning.

“His message says there has been a mysterious death and he fears others will follow. He suggests a stay of at least two nights in order to fully investigate the matter. If we catch the evening train, we could be there tonight. Are you game, Watson?”