The Baker Street Translation (14 page)

“Bloody hell, I don't mean kidnapped by me!”

“Oh.”

Reggie could hear Nigel saying something to Mara in the same room.

It sounded like “He claims he didn't do it.”

“I didn't,” said Reggie pointedly into the phone.

“I believe you,” said Nigel. “Does Laura?”

“The question hasn't even come up.”

“Good,” said Nigel. “Who did do it, then?”

“I've no idea,” said Reggie. “But what they're after is the letters.”

“What letters? “

“
The
letters.”

There was a pause from Nigel.

“You mean they want the letters to Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yes. And the most recent batch went out express to you a few days ago. I put the letters on the mailing cart myself. I need you to overnight them back.”

There was another pause, a longer one.

“Reggie, I haven't received a batch of letters from your office in more than two weeks.”

That news sank in for a moment.

“Bloody hell,” said Reggie.

Nigel paused for a moment and then said, “Reggie, are you sure you wouldn't rather just leave this alone? Would it really be a bad thing if no one ever heard from old Bob again?”

“It would be for Laura,” said Reggie.

“All right,” said Nigel. “I'll catch a red-eye.”

Reggie paused and looked past the office entrance to the corridor, where, he presumed, Laura had fallen asleep on the couch—but he couldn't be sure. He lowered his voice.

“Buxton bloody well better still be alive,” said Reggie into the phone. “I don't want to spend the rest of my life competing with a ghost.”

Reggie hung up the phone. As he did, he noticed that Laura's purse was on his desk.

That could be fortunate. He picked it up. He dug through it and found the little green address book that she used for practically everything. Every entry in it was perfectly legible and complete, with not only the name of the person but also the address and the best hours to call, and in some cases, precautions to take in doing so. Except for one: At the very end, alone on a blank page, was a hastily jotted number with no name, and no other information.

Reggie wrote that number down and carefully put the address book back in Laura's purse. Then he picked up the phone to ring that number.

But now there was a sound from outside Reggie's office, as though someone had bumped into a wall.

Perhaps Lois had arrived early. Perhaps Laura was awake. Reggie went to the door and looked out.

Laura was on the couch, eyes closed. The exterior office was still dark and, to all appearances, empty.

It was still early morning. No solicitor would be visiting at this hour. And the sound couldn't be the cleaning crew; they did their work at night after closing, not in the wee hours before opening. And if it was Lois who had entered—very early for her, as well—she would be heading down the center corridor toward her secretary's desk, and she wasn't.

And now there was another sound from behind the cubicles at the opposite end of the corridor.

Reggie left Laura lying on the couch and began to walk in that direction.

He reached the corridor at the opposite side.

The door to Nigel's office was open. No light was on, but the door was ajar.

Reggie stepped inside. No one.

And then he heard another noise—from the side of the office where he had just been—and he realized his mistake: While he had been coming down the center corridor, some intruder had gone back down the corridor on the north side—in the direction of Reggie's office, and Laura.

Reggie turned from Nigel's office and began running down the corridor.

At the far end, Laura was lying still on the couch. Above her, in dark silhouette, was a tall, heavy-shouldered man, leaning down, his hand showing darkly within inches of her face.

The man turned his head in Reggie's direction, but it was too late for him—Reggie had already left his feet in a flying tackle. He aimed his shoulder for the man's solar plexus and he hit his target square on.

Reggie slammed the man into the wall behind. Reggie's own head hit the wall as well, but it was only a glancing blow; he put his left arm against the man's jaw, shoved hard, and threw him to the ground.

Reggie recovered his own balance, his senses cleared, and he looked down.

Sprawled on the corridor floor, his back against one of the cubicle walls, was a man in a tan sport coat, dark blue jeans, and pointy-toed boots.

The man looked up, his deeply tanned face showing both surprise and anger. He stood. For a moment it was an open question what he would do next.

Reggie's first inclination was to knock him down again, but he held back—Laura was up from the couch now, and she had a hand on Reggie's arm.

“Wait,” she said.

And then she stepped between the two men.

“You wait, too,” she said to the Texan.

Then she turned back to Reggie. She took a moment to brush her hair out of her eyes, and then said, “He was here earlier. His name is Stillman. I think he's just trying to make an appointment.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Stillman. “Thank you.”

The man flashed a quick grin at Laura, then immediately let it lapse when he looked at Reggie.

Reggie wasn't buying any of it. “Call back after nine,” he said.

“You'll pardon me for insisting,” said Stillman. “But I'm looking for a man here who is claiming an association with Sherlock Holmes. I'm guessing that's you?”

“No,” said Reggie.

“Sorry for the mistake. His name is Reggie Heath, and I'm told these are his law chambers. Maybe you can point me to him?”

“I am Reggie Heath, but I claim nothing of the kind. And you are on my premises uninvited and before hours, so I suggest you explain quickly.”

The man gave Reggie an appraising look, then nodded.

“It's about a letter,” he said.

Reggie and Laura exchanged a glance.

“Go on,” said Reggie.

“I represent Ms. Hilary Clemens of Shady Oaks, Texas. Do you know the name?”

“I'm sure we've both heard of Texas,” said Laura. “I might have even been there once.”

“I meant the name Hilary Clemens,” said the man.

“No,” said Laura.

“No,” said Reggie.

“Never heard of Clemens Copper?”

“I believe that was one of the largest mining operations in the States at one time,” said Reggie.

“I thought you'd know it,” said Stillman. “Though I wasn't sure you'd own up to it so quick. Ms. Clemens was only twenty years old when she inherited the entire fortune. That was eighty-two years ago. Her net worth now is almost incalculable—and she recently decided to change her will.”

“And what does that have to do with me? Or the letters?”

“Ms. Clemens never married. She has no children. She had a mind as sharp as a tack when she was younger, and you've never met anyone as careful in her relationships, or as cautious with her fortune. But in the last few years—well, she got kicked by her favorite horse three years ago; that might have had something to do with it—she's become just a little quirky about some things. But not so much as to be indisputably legally incompetent. She can tell you what the opening price of copper was this morning, and she can tell you the name of her favorite cat when she was a young girl. But if you ask her who she spent New Year's Eve with last year, she's as likely to name a character from fiction as anything else.”

“I think I see where this is headed,” said Laura.

“This nice old lady decided to bequeath her entire fortune to Sherlock Holmes,” said Stillman. “And she sent a document here to that effect. I'm here to see that she doesn't get taken advantage of.”

“Or to take advantage of her yourself,” said Reggie. “But I can't see what you are concerned about in any case. A bequest to a character from fiction can't be enforced.”

“Exactly,” said the man, glaring hard at Reggie. “Which is why you wrote a letter back to Ms. Clemens, suggesting that she instead bequeath her entire fortune to you. So that, in the same way that courts in the past have delivered money into the hands of a custodian for, say, a cat with an inheritance, you would be put in charge of the money as custodian for the letters that foolish old people write to Sherlock Holmes.”

“Nonsense. I wrote no such letter.”

“Reggie would never do such a thing,” says Laura.

“He already has,” said Stillman.

Stillman reached inside his coat pocket; Reggie took a precautionary step toward him, and the man put up both of his hands, palms out.

“Tell you what,” said the man, “Why don't we all just sit down somewhere businesslike, and I'll show you what I'm talking about. The little lady looks like she might want to get off her feet anyway.”

Reggie didn't like the Texan's presumption in mentioning that, but before he could respond, Laura did.

“I'm fine,” said Laura, “But yes, why don't we all just pretend we're perfectly reasonable people discussing some perfectly reasonable business transaction.”

A few moments later, all three sat around a table in the chambers conference room.

Stillman took a letter out from his jacket and unfolded it on the table.

“Last week I paid a visit to Ms. Clemens just to see how she was doing. She was very happy. Excited. She told me she had solved the problem of what to do with all the money and property and invaluable possessions that would be left just lying around after she was gone. She showed me this.”

Reggie and Laura both leaned it to read the letter.

It was short and to the point. It presented itself as being from Sherlock Holmes, but it acknowledged that Sherlock Holmes was not a good choice for a bequest. The letter writer suggested that it would be better to leave the entire inheritance to Reggie Heath.

“I did not write this,” said Reggie.

“You have motive to do so,” replied Stillman. “It resolves to your benefit. And I had a look at some correspondence at your secretary's desk. This looks to me like your hand trying to sign ‘Sherlock Holmes.'”

Reggie and Laura both stared hard at the signature.

“Well, I suppose that does rather look like your
H,
” said Laura doubtfully.

“No, it isn't. It—well, it does sort of look like it, I'll admit, but it isn't. It can't be. You know whose script this looks like?”

“Whose?”

“Lord Buxton's.”

“Oh, please,” said Laura.

“Have you ever really looked at his signature? I've seen that ham-handed scrawl on tons of legal documents. I expect half the corporate lawsuits in London—well, maybe not quite that, but tons—involve him in one way or another. Libel, invasion of privacy, plagiarism, hostile takeovers. And he practically punctures the paper every time he puts pen to it, undoubtedly some sort of Freudian compensation. Look there, he actually broke through the paper on the
S.
”

Laura was looking perturbed.

“Why on earth would Robert do that?”

“To get me in trouble, of course. Bloody hell, I wouldn't put it past him to have faked his whole bloody—”

“Reggie!”

Reggie stopped himself just in time. He looked at Laura to acknowledge her warning: He had almost said the word
kidnapping.

Then they both looked at Stillman to see if he had any reaction.

“Uh-huh,” said Stillman. “Well, you two can work that out between you. I actually don't give a damn who wrote that initial letter. We're way past that now. Ms. Clemens told me a few days ago that when she received the letter, she immediately executed a new will. I wasn't in town that day to stop her. She lined up witnesses and got the whole thing done up right, bequeathing her entire fortune to Reggie Heath as custodian of the Sherlock Holmes letters, and she fired it off in express mail.”

“To this address?” asked Reggie.

“Yes.”

“And so you sneaked in before hours to try to find it and take it back?”

“I didn't sneak. I woke the guard at the lobby security station, told him I was here about a letter to Sherlock Holmes, and he just waved me on up. Said it happens all the time.”

“And did you find the letter that's supposed to contain this will?” asked Laura.

“No,” said Stillman. He looked directly at Reggie. “Where is it?”

For a moment, there was tense silence. Reggie still wasn't sure he believed Stillman's excuse for being on the premises. But quite aside from that, the man's tone was a demand, and Reggie didn't like it.

“Two things,” said Reggie now, tightly. “I mean, aside from the fact that you are trespassing uninvited on my premises regardless of what the lobby welcoming committee said, and in a moment I will throw you out.”

Reggie was on autopilot now—in his pretrial, last-chance, conference-in-the-corridor mode.

“First,” said Reggie, “It occurs to me, just as a theoretical point of law, that perhaps Ms. Clemens is entitled to will all of the copper in the United States to Sherlock Holmes if she chooses to do so. As you acknowledged, people have bequeathed fortunes to their cats, and the courts have enforced that intent, appointing custodians to handle the wealth on the animal's behalf. The lady can do what she chooses, and it's at least even odds that the court will enforce it. Second thing—”

“In other words, you did write the letter asking for the inheritance,” said Stillman.

“Of course he didn't,” said Laura.

“No,” said Reggie. “I did not. But just on matter of principle, the woman has a right. And second thing—if indeed the will you speak of is your only concern—why don't you simply ask Ms. Clemens to change it?”

“I would,” said Stillman. “I drove from Austin to Dalhart two days ago to do exactly that. But I couldn't. Because that very same evening after Ms. Clemens had excitedly done her best to dispatch her entire fortune to Sherlock Holmes for the purposes of catching the evildoers that lurk apparently everywhere in your fine city, she suffered a massive stroke. She died.”