Sherlock Holmes Stories of Edward D. Hoch (8 page)

Our slender visitor seemed taken aback by his words. “Do you know me, sir? Has my infamy spread this far?”

Sherlock Holmes smiled. “I know nothing about you, Mr. Dodgson, other than that you are a minister and most likely a mathematician at Oxford’s Christ Church College, that you are a writer, that you are unmarried and that you have had an unpleasant experience since arriving in London earlier today.”

“Are you a wizard?” Dodgson asked, his composure shaken. I had seen Holmes astonish visitors many times, but I still enjoyed the sight of it.

Holmes, for his part, casually reached for his pipe and tobacco. “Only a close observer of my fellow man, sir. Extending from your waistcoat pocket, I can see a small pamphlet on which the author’s name is given as Rev. Charles Dodgson, Christ Church. Along with it is a return ticket to Oxford. Surely if you had come down to London before today, the ticket would not be carried in such a haphazard manner. Also, on the front of your pamphlet, I note certain advanced mathematical equations jotted down in pencil, no doubt during the train journey from Oxford. It is not the usual manner of passing time unless one is interested in mathematics as a profession. Since you have only one return ticket, I presume you came alone, and what married man would dare to leave his wife on Christmas Day?”

“What about the unpleasant experience?” I reminded Holmes.

“You will note, Watson, that the knees of our visitor’s pants are scraped and dirty. He would certainly have noticed them on the train ride and brushed them off. Therefore, it appears he fell or was thrown to his knees since his arrival in London.”

“You’re correct in virtually everything, Mr. Holmes,” Charles Dodgson told him. “I left the mathematics faculty at Oxford seven years ago, but I…I continue to reside at Christ Church College, my alma mater.”

“And what brought you to London this day?”

Dodgson took a deep breath. “You must understand that I tell you this in the utmost confidence. What am I about to say is highly embarrassing to me, though I swear to you I am innocent of an…any moral wrong.”

“Go on,” Holmes urged, lighting his pipe.

“I am being blackmailed.”

He paused for a moment after speaking the words, as if he expected some shocked reaction from Holmes or myself. When he got none, he continued.

“Some years ago, when the art was just beginning, I took up photography. I was especially fond of camera portraits, of adults and children. I…I liked to pose young girls in various costumes. With the permission of their parents, I sometimes did nude studies.”

His voice had dropped to barely a whisper now, and I noticed that his frozen smile was slightly askew.

“My God, Dodgson!” I exclaimed, before I could help myself.

He seemed not to hear me, since he was turned toward Holmes. I wondered if his hearing might be impaired.

Holmes, puffing on his pipe as if he’d just been presented with a vexing puzzle, asked, “Was this after you had taken holy orders?”

“I sometimes use ‘Reverend’ before my name, but I am only a deacon. I nev…never went on to holy orders, because my speech defect makes it difficult for me to preach. Some…sometimes it’s worse than this. I also have some deafness in one ear.”

“Tell me about the pictures. How old were the girls?”

“They were usually prepubescent. I took the photographs in all innocence. You…you must realize that. I photographed adults, too, people like Ellen Terry and Tennyson and Rossetti.”

“With their clothes on, I trust,” said Holmes, with a slight smile.

“I know what I did was viewed with distaste by many of my acquaintances,” our white-haired visitor said. “For that reason, I abandoned photography some eight years ago.”

“Then what is the reason for this blackmail?”

“I must go back to 1879, when I published my mathematical treatise, Euclid and His Modern Rivals. Although the general public paid it little heed, I was pleased that it caused something of a stir in mathematical circles. One of the men who contacted me at the time was a professor who held the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities. We became casual friends and he learned of my photographic interests. Later, af…after I’d ceased my photography, he apparently did some picture-taking of his own. I was at the beach in Brighton this past summer when I met a lovely little girl. We chatted for a time, and I asked if she wouldn’t like to go wading in the surf. I carried some safety pins with me and I used them to pin up her skirt so she co…could wade without getting it wet.”

I could restrain myself no longer. “This is perversion you speak of! These innocent children…”

“I swear to you I did nothing wrong!” he insisted. “But, somehow, this former friend arranged to have me photographed in the very act of pinning up the little girl’s skirt. Now, he’s using these pictures to blackmail me.”

“What brought you to London today,” Holmes asked, “and what unpleasantness brought you here to seek my help?”

“The professor contacted me some months ago with his threats and blackmail. He demanded a large sum of money in return for those pictures taken at the beach.”

“And what made him believe that a retired mathematics instructor, even at Oxford, would have a large sum of money?”

“I have ha…had some success with my writing. It has not made me wealthy, but I live comfortably.”

“Was your Euclid treatise that successful?” Holmes chided.

“Certain of my other writings…” He seemed reluctant to continue.

“What happened today?”

“The professor demanded that I meet him here at Paddington Station with a hundred quid. I came down from Oxford on the noon train as instructed, but he was not at the station to meet me. Instead, I was assaulted by a beggar, who pushed me down in the street after handing me an odd message of some sort.”

“Did you report this to the police?”

“How could I? My rep…reputation…”

“So you came here?”

“I was at my wit’s end. I knew of your reputation and I hoped you could help me. This man has me in his clutches. He will drain me of my money and destroy my reputation as well.”

“Pray tell me the name of this blackmailer,” Holmes said, picking up a pencil.

“It is Moriarty…Professor James Moriarty.”

Sherlock Holmes put down his pencil and smiled slightly. “I think I will be able to help you, Reverend Dodgson.”

It was then that Mrs. Hudson interrupted us with word that the Christmas goose would be served in thirty minutes. We were welcome to come down earlier, if we liked, to partake of some holiday sherry. Holmes introduced her to Dodgson and then a remarkable event occurred. She stared at him through her spectacles and repeated his name to be sure she’d heard it correctly.

“Reverend Charles Dodgson?”

“That’s correct.”

“It would be a pleasure if you joined us, too. There is enough food for four.”

Holmes and I exchanged glances. Mrs. Hudson had never even conversed with a visitor before, to say nothing of inviting one to dinner. Still, it was Christmas Day and perhaps she was only being hospitable.

While she escorted Dodgson downstairs, I whispered to Holmes, “What’s this about Moriarty? You spoke of him earlier this year in connection with the Valley of Fear affair.”

“I did indeed, Watson. If he is Dodgson’s blackmailer, I welcome the opportunity to challenge him once again.”

We said nothing of our visitor’s problems during dinner. Mrs. Hudson entertained him with accounts of her young nieces and their occasional visits to Baker Street.

“I read to them often,” she said, gesturing toward a small shelf of children’s books she maintained for such occasions. “All children should be exposed to good books.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Dodgson replied.

As we were finishing our mince pie, and Mrs. Hudson was busy clearing the table, Holmes returned to the subject that had brought Dodgson to us.

“If you and Professor Moriarty were casual friends, what caused this recent enmity between you?”

“It was the book, I suppose. Moriarty’s most celebrated volume of pure mathematics is The Dynamics of an Asteroid. When I followed it with my own somewhat humorous effort, The Dynamics of a Particle, he believed the satire was aimed at him. I tried to explain that it dealt with an Oxford subject, a contest between Gladstone and Gathorne Hardy, but he would have none of it. From then on, he seemed to be seeking ways to destroy me.”

Holmes finished the last of his pie.

“Excellent, Mrs. Hudson! Excellent. Your cooking is a delight!”

“Thank you, Mr. Holmes.”

She retreated to the kitchen while he took out his pipe but did not light it.

“Tell me about the cryptic message you alluded to earlier.”

“I can do better than that.”

He reached into his pocket and produced a folded piece of paper.

“This is what the beggar gave me. When I tried to stop him, he knocked me down and escaped.”

Holmes read the message twice before passing the paper to me.

On Benjamin Caunt’s Day,

Beneath His Lofty Face,

A Ransom You Must Pay,

To Cancel Your Disgrace.

Come By There At One,

On Mad Hatter’s Clock,

The Old Lady’s Done,

And Gone Neath the Block.

“It makes no sense, Holmes,” was my initial reaction. “It’s just some childish verse, and not a very good one.”

“I can make nothing of it,” Dodgson admitted. “Who is Benjamin Ca…Caunt?”

“He was a prize fighter,” Holmes remarked. “I remember hearing my father speak of him.”

He puzzled over the message.

“From what I know of Moriarty, it would be in character for him to reveal everything in this verse, and challenge us to decipher it.”

“What of Caunt’s lofty face?” I asked.

“It could be a statue or a portrait in a high place. His day could be the day of his birth, or some special triumph, or perhaps the day of his death? I have nothing about the man in my files upstairs, and it will be two days before the libraries are open.”

“And what is this about the Mad Hatter?” I inquired.

Mrs. Hudson had returned from the kitchen at that moment and heard my question.

“My niece prefers the March Hare, Mr. Dodgson,” she told him. “But, then, little girls usually like soft, furry animals.”

She walked over to the little bookshelf and took out a slender volume.

“See? Here is my copy of your book. I have the other one, too.”

She held a copy of Alice in Wonderland.

Holmes put a hand to his forehead, as if pained by his failure. “My mind must be elsewhere today. Of course! You are the author of Alice and Through the Looking Glass under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll!”

Charles Dodgson smiled slightly. “It seems to be an open secret, though it is something I neither confirm or deny.”

“This puts a whole new light on the affair,” said Holmes, laying down his pipe and turning to Mrs. Hudson. “Thank you for refreshing my memory.”

He looked again at the message.

I puzzled over it myself before turning once again to our client. “Moriarty must know of your writing, since he makes reference to the Mad Hatter.”

“Of course he knows. But what does the message mean?”

“I believe you should remain in the city overnight,” Holmes told him. “All may come clear tomorrow.”

“Why is that?”

“The message speaks of Benjamin Caunt’s Day, and he was a prize fighter…a boxer. Tomorrow, of course, is Boxing Day.”

Charles Dodgson shook his head in amazement. “That is something worthy of the Mad Hatter itself!”

Mrs. Hudson found an unoccupied room in which Dodgson spent the night. In the morning, I knocked at his door and invited him to join us for breakfast. Holmes had spent much of the night awake in his chair, poring over his books and files, studying maps of the city and lists of various sorts. Dodgson immediately asked if he had discovered anything, but my friend’s answer was bleak.

“Not a thing, sir! I can find no statue in all of London erected to the boxer Benjamin Caunt, nor is there any special portrait of him. Certainly there is none in a lofty position as the verse implies.”

“Then what am I to do?”

“The entire matter seems most odd. You have the blackmail money on your person. Why did not this beggar simply take it, instead of giving you a further message?”

“It’s Moriarty’s doing,” Dodgson insisted. “He wants to humiliate me.”

“From my limited knowledge of the good professor, he is more interested in financial gain than in humiliation.”

Holmes reached for another of his several guidebooks to the city and began paging through it.

“Have you ever met Moriarty?” our visitor asked.

“Not yet,” Holmes responded. “But someday…Hello! What’s this?”

His eyes had fallen upon something in the book he’d been examining.

“A portrait of Caunt?”

“Better than that. This guidebook states that our best known tower bell, Big Ben, may have been named after Benjamin Caunt, who was a famous boxer in 1858 when the bell was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry. Other books attribute the name ‘Big Ben’ to Sir Benjamin Hall, chief commissioner of the works. The truth is of no matter. What does matter is that Big Ben, the clock, certainly does have a lofty face looking out over Parliament and the Thames.”

“Then he is to meet Moriarty at one o’clock today—Boxing Day—beneath Big Ben,” I said. At last it was becoming clear to me.

But Charles Dodgson was not so certain. “The Mad Hatter’s clock, meaning the watch he carried in his pocket, told the day of the month, but not the time.”

Sherlock Holmes smiled. “I bow to your superior knowledge of Alice in Wonderland.”

“But where does that leave us?” I asked, pouring myself another cup of breakfast tea. “The number one in the message must refer to a time rather than a date. Surely you are not to wait until New Year’s Day to pay this blackmail when the first line speaks of Benjamin Caunt’s Day. It has to be Boxing Day!”

“Agreed,” Holmes said. “I suggest we three travel to Big Ben and see what awaits us at one o’clock.”

The day was pleasant enough, with even a few traces of sunshine breaking through the familiar winter clouds. A bit of snow the previous week had long since melted, and the day’s temperature was hovering in the low forties. We took a cab to Westminster Abbey, just across the street from our destination, and joined the holiday strollers out enjoying the good weather.