Sherlock Holmes Stories of Edward D. Hoch (6 page)

I had no plans for the weekend and the bright August days seemed to beckon us to the countryside.

“Is it all right for you to bring a guest?”

“Sir Patrick suggested it in his message. I gather several other guests are already in attendance.”

It was still daylight when we left the train at the Reading station and found Sir Patrick’s carriage and driver awaiting us.

“Pleasant weather,” Holmes told the fairly young man.

“The best, sir,” he said with a slight accent I couldn’t identify.

“Have you been employed here long?” Holmes was always gathering information, filing it away for the future.

“Several years,” the driver replied. “Name’s Haskin. I’m just filling in with the carriage. My real job’s with the animals.”

Holmes was suddenly interested. “What animals would those be?”

“Sir Patrick maintains a small zoo at the manor. We bring back animals from his African safaris. Brought back a pair of fine lion cubs from his most recent journey.”

Before long, we topped a hill and the manor house itself came into view. It sat alone on the plain below, a three-story brick house with a stand of oak trees on the left side and a large pond about a hundred feet from the front entrance. I could see a pair of swans gliding on the water.

“Welcome to Stacy Manor,” Haskin told us, as he turned onto the long, pebbled driveway leading up to the house.

The door opened as we approached it and a butler ushered us in.

“Mrs. White will be with you in a moment.”

Holmes and I waited in the front hall, with an elephant head visible through the doorway. Almost at once, we were joined by a handsome woman of about forty who carried herself with an almost regal air.

“I am Elizabeth Stacy White,” she said. “And you would be Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

“Correct.” He smiled and seemed almost to give a little bow. “This is my close companion, Dr. John Watson. I trust we can be of some service to your husband in this unfortunate matter.”

“Has he given you the details?”

“Not as yet.”

“Pray be seated and I will give you the facts as we know them. My husband is an African traveler of some little renown. After each trip, he is in the habit of bringing home creatures from the Dark Continent to stock his private zoo at the rear of the house. You will see it later. After this latest trip, he returned with two lion cubs, and he invited a small number of friends to stay with us on a summer holiday. They arrived last Sunday and will be leaving us this Sunday.”

At that point, she was interrupted by a large, bearded man who strode in and immediately took command of the conversation.

“Excuse me for not greeting you upon your arrival,” he said, leaving no doubt that it was his house and he was in charge. “I trust my wife kept you amused in my absence.”

“She was most helpful,” Holmes said. “You are Sir Patrick Stacy White?”

“The same.”

He gestured with a motion meant to encompass the entire house. “Every creature you see here, whether living or stuffed, was personally caught by me.”

I wondered if the remark extended to his wife, Elizabeth. He was a man who would be easy to dislike. Holmes, however, took no notice of the boast and began questioning him about the killing.

“The victim was my London publisher, Oscar Rhinebeck. He was one of six houseguests we’d invited for the week. I was planning to write a book about my recent African travels and we were discussing it Sunday evening, after the others had arrived. I left him alone in the library for a time, and when I returned, I found him dead. He’d been savagely beaten with a fireplace poker.”

Elizabeth, who’d remained at his side through all this, broke in to add, “This time, we called the police at once.”

“This time?” asked Holmes sharply.

Sir Patrick seemed annoyed by his wife’s interruption.

“There’d been a previous incident shortly after Rhinebeck’s arrival. I’d just shown him my zoo and we were walking back to the main house when a cornice fell from the roof and nearly hit him. When we mentioned it to Elizabeth, she was quite concerned and wanted the local police summoned at once. I told her that was nonsense and even went up to the roof to inspect it. The cornice had simply broken away, probably weakened by the wind.”

“There was no wind last Sunday,” his wife insisted.

“But there had been the previous evening.”

I suspected they were two who might argue as to whether the sun was shining.

“Who else was in the house at the time the cornice fell?” Holmes asked.

“All of our guests had arrived by that time. Madeline Oaks, the actress, came with her manager, my long-time friend Maxwell Park. Dr. Prouty, our family physician, arrived with his wife Dorothy and her sister Agnes.”

“Dorothy and Agnes lived near here in their youth,” Elizabeth explained, “and sometimes visited at Stacy Manor.”

Holmes nodded. “Stacy is your middle name, Sir Patrick.”

“Quite correct. The house was my mother’s ancestral home, which I inherited upon her death eight years ago.”

“Let us return to the murder of Oscar Rhinebeck. Were there no clues at the scene?”

“Only one. My publisher was clutching a playing card in his hand—the ten of spades. It appeared to be a dying message.”

“How quaint,” Holmes remarked. “Does the ten of spades have any meaning to you or your guests?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Perhaps its presence was only a coincidence.”

Sir Patrick shook his head. “It seems like more than that. There was a bloody trail on the carpet indicating that the dying man dragged himself to the card table and managed to select the ten from a deck of cards.”

Elizabeth glanced at the room’s big grandfather clock as Holmes asked, “Do the police have no suspects in mind?”

“Not really,” our host told us. “They mentioned a convict recently escaped from Reading Gaol and believed he could have entered the house undetected, perhaps bent on robbery.”

“What is this convict’s name?”

“James Adams, serving a long term for assault and robbery. He escaped about ten days ago and has not been recaptured.”

Elizabeth was nervously watching the clock.

“I’m sorry you missed dinner, but our guests will be assembling in the library for brandy at nine. Perhaps you’d want to freshen up and join us.”

It seemed like a good idea, and Holmes and I allowed the butler to show us to our room.

When we were alone, and I was unpacking my overnight bag, I asked Holmes, “What do you make of it? Is there a killer under our roof?”

“It would seem so, Watson. It is obvious that Sir Patrick’s wife is greatly concerned, and she is probably the one who urged him to appeal for help. As for Sir Patrick, I am struck by the fact that his left boot has a thicker sole than the right one. If one leg is longer than the other, it would make walking great distances on a safari painful, if not impossible.”

“Perhaps he was carried in a sedan chair,” I suggested.

“We shall see, Watson. I am most interested in meeting our other guests, all of whom chose to remain for their visit even after a murder was committed in the house.”

We went downstairs promptly at nine o’clock and found the others gathered in the library. The men held brandy snifters, though the women were indulging in something lighter. My attention was immediately focused on the actress, Madeline Oaks, whom I’d seen recently in a London production of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.” She was even more striking at close quarters, a rare beauty of the sort to take one’s breath away.

It was her agent, Maxwell Park, who immediately recognized the name of Sherlock Holmes. He was a slender man, with glasses and mutton chop whiskers, and he shook my friend’s hand vigorously when introduced.

“The popular press has been filled with your exploits, Mr. Holmes. This is indeed a pleasure!”

I was interested in meeting Dr. Prouty, a small, quiet country doctor who sipped his brandy with a bit of uncertainty.

“Do you have a practice in London, Dr. Watson?” he asked.

“A small one, very limited. I assist my friend Holmes in his work, and I do a bit of writing.”

His wife Dorothy was a plain-looking woman with large bones and an athletic appearance. She sat on a red plush sofa with her sister, who was introduced as Agnes Baxter. Miss Baxter, more comely in appearance than her older sister, was probably still in her mid-twenties.

“I understand you lived near here when you were growing up,” I said to Agnes.

“Indeed we did. Dorothy and I played here as children, though, of course, there was no zoo at the time. The Stacy family was very nice and this is a wonderful house. We moved into the city when I was ten and I so missed it!”

“Will you be riding with us in the morning?” her sister Dorothy asked.

The thought appalled me. “I doubt it. I believe Sir Patrick wants to show us his animals.”

“And that I do!” our host said, coming over to join us.

“It’s quite an animal collection,” Dorothy Prouty admitted. “The best I’ve seen outside of London.”

Later, trying to fall asleep in a strange bed, I was reminded of her words when I heard the chilling laugh of a hyena.

I awakened to find Holmes’ hand upon my shoulder, and I was surprised to find him fully dressed.

“What time is it?” I asked sleepily.

“Seven-thirty. Sir Patrick’s wife is assembling her guests to go riding. Perhaps we should dress and go down to breakfast.”

I grumbled something and strode over to the window. On the gravel drive below, I could see Elizabeth White in riding costume, just mounting a grey mare, while their man Haskin held the reins for her. Madeline Oaks and her manager were already mounted, as were Dr. and Mrs. Prouty. There was no sign of Mrs. Prouty’s younger sister. As the five of them prepared to ride off, I washed and dressed quickly.

Sir Patrick was awaiting us in the dining room, lingering over a cup of morning tea.

“Ah, there you are! I was beginning to fear that our country air had lulled you into a bit of extra slumber.”

“No, no,” Holmes assured him. “Both Watson and I are anxious to see your collection.”

We ate sparingly and then followed our host through the large kitchen to the rear of the house.

“I’m pleased you could come,” he said, “though this whole matter has upset Elizabeth more than myself. Naturally I am disturbed by the death of my publisher, but the idea that one of our house guests could be a murderer seems preposterous to me. I am perfectly willing to accept the police theory of an escaped convict.”

Haskin was waiting for us at the backdoor, wearing the same dark pants and work shirt he’d had on the previous day.

“They were a bit restless during the night,” he said. “Could have been a prowler, though I saw no one.”

Our host made no comment until we reached the first of a dozen cages set within the grove of trees at the side and rear of the house. Inside were two small lion cubs, rolling over and playing with each other like a pair of kittens.

“These came from my latest trip,” he said. “You’ll see a fully grown one a bit later.”

Our next stop was the large and ugly hyena that had kept me awake. It had a massive head and red coat covered with brown oval spots.

“This is the fellow I heard in the night,” I remarked.

“He was restless,” Haskin remarked again.

We went on down the line to some monkeys and a glass cage that held a pair of small pythons that seemed to be asleep. Then there was a large pen with a fully-grown zebra, an animal that always fascinated me. It was followed by more monkeys and finally another large cage, where an adult lion paced back and forth.

“This one needs more space,” Sir Patrick told us.

While we were studying the lion, I noticed that Dorothy Prouty had returned alone on her horse. She dismounted and strode toward the front of the manor.

“All of these animals need more space,” Holmes was saying. “But, on my rare visits to the London Zoo, I have found conditions to be little better than this. Our large elephant, Jumbo, was sold to an American circus partly because of space problems.”

Sir Patrick nodded. “Before his untimely death, my publisher expressed much the same view. He wanted me to set aside several acres of land for the zoo, to enlarge it, hire a professional staff and actually charge admission. He felt my reputation as a big game hunter and collector would attract the public.”

“Is this lion contented?” Holmes asked Haskin.

“Hardly, sir. He’s a dangerous…”

The words were interrupted by a sudden scream from the house. Sir Patrick stood frozen in his tracks, but Holmes broke into a run. I followed as fast as I could. When we reached the rear door, we saw that the butler and the cook had heard the scream too and headed up the back stairs. We found Dorothy Prouty passed out on the floor of the upper hallway. She was by an open bedroom door and, when I looked in, I saw the terrible sight that had confronted her. Agnes Baxter, her younger sister, was sprawled across the bloody bed, a kitchen knife buried in her chest. In her hand, she held a playing card, the jack of spades.

While I determined that the young woman had died instantly, Holmes was busy loosening Mrs. Prouty’s riding habit and trying to revive her. When Sir Patrick arrived and found him thus, Holmes was rubbing her hands and cheeks.

“Do not concern yourself, Sir Patrick. I am trying to help her breathe. I fear the shock of finding her sister’s body was too much for the woman.”

“Another killing!” our host gasped, clinging to the door frame. For an instant, I feared he might pass out, too.

“And another playing card,” Sherlock Holmes remarked. “I suggest you dispatch a servant to summon the local authorities.”

When Dorothy Prouty was at last revived, she told her story in a tearful, breaking voice.

“I…she was going to ride out and catch up with us. Sh…she had her riding costume on. When she didn’t turn up, I came back to the house, worried she might be ill. I found her like this. Who could have done such a terrible thing?”

The local constable, when he arrived, asked the same question. Scotland Yard men came out from London later in the day and suggested a search of the entire manor. There was always the possibility that the missing convict was concealed somewhere on the premises. While the search went on, Holmes took no part in it.