Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective by Donald Thomas Page A
Authors: Donald Thomas
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Mystery, Private Investigators, Mystery Fiction, England, Short Stories, Fiction - Mystery, Holmes; Sherlock (Fictitious Character), Detective and Mystery Stories; English, Watson; John H. (Fictitious Character), Traditional British, Private Investigators - England, Mystery & Detective - Traditional British, Mystery & Detective - Short Stories
Ads: Link
any help that might be offered. It is better so. Justice moves in mysterious ways. I cannot deny that it has dealt with Septimus Podgers as he deserved. The man was the architect of his own murder. He planned it to the last detail.”
“Planned his own murder?”
Holmes began to button his coat and draw on his gloves.
“To be sure.”
“How?”
He looked at me, his head on one side in a gesture of despair.
“My dear Watson, if a palmist were to tell me that I was preordained to commit murder—and if I believed him—I should rid myself of the burden at once by murdering him. What else? It is only because Lord Arthur is so soft-headed or soft-hearted that he chose victims who were likely to die before long in any case.”
“Then we are to do nothing?”
“There is nothing that requires doing, my old friend.”
“Ought we not at least to search the lodgings of this man Podgers in West Moon Street and remove any compromising documents or evidence relating to the case?”
He chuckled.
“It is only to their victims that blackmailers pretend to have an archive of incriminating evidence. They know too well that such documents are like a knife which is more likely to injure its owner than his victims. It is the invariable practice of these scoundrels to carry the important or crucial items in their heads—or in the case of Mr Septimus Podgers what remains of his head now that the tugboat and its barges have passed. We will, if you please, take our leave of Lord Blagdon and return to Baker Street. I daresay it will be as well to keep an eye upon the columns of the press for a week or two.”
With a sense of foreboding I followed his advice. The next week brought a letter from Lord Blagdon informing us that Lord Arthur Savile had suffered a nervous collapse and was now in the care of a keeper at a clinic for such disorders in Bexhill-on-Sea. He was well cared for in every way and, so far as he could ever be, he was happy. It was not thought that he would be released at an early date, therefore the services of Holmes and myself would no longer be required for his protection. Lord Blagdon added his thanks and enclosed fifty guineas in settlement of his account.
There the matter stood for a further week. Then, as the breakfast-table was cleared on a fine September morning with a hint of autumn in the air, I opened the pages of the Morning Post and knew that our anxieties for Lord Arthur Savile were at an end.
On Sunday morning at seven o’clock, the body of Mr Septimus R. Podgers, the eminent cheiromantist, was washed on shore in Greenwich, just in front of the Ship Hotel. The unfortunate gentleman, whose mortal remains appear to have been in collision with a steamer of the river traffic, was identified by the contents of his pockets and the prints of his fingers. He had been missing for almost a fortnight, and considerable anxiety for his safety had been felt in London’s cheiromantic circles. It is supposed that Mr Podgers committed suicide under the influence of a temporary mental derangement, caused by overwork. A verdict to that effect was returned this afternoon by a coroner’s jury. Mr Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of the Human Hand, that will shortly be published, when it will no doubt attract much attention. The deceased was sixty-five years of age and does not seem to have left any relations.
Holmes read this. Ile put the paper down and gazed at the mellow sunlight beyond the window.
“I was a little short with you, old fellow, in the matter of a week or two at Ilfracombe or Tenby. September is not too far advanced and the sunny days are not yet too misty. I have for some time been meditating a monograph on criminal aberrations of the benevolent impulse, what the poet Browning calls ‘the honest thief and ‘the tender murderer.’ Warm autumn days on an Atlantic coast would do as well as anywhere for the composition I have in mind.”
Before he had a chance to
“Planned his own murder?”
Holmes began to button his coat and draw on his gloves.
“To be sure.”
“How?”
He looked at me, his head on one side in a gesture of despair.
“My dear Watson, if a palmist were to tell me that I was preordained to commit murder—and if I believed him—I should rid myself of the burden at once by murdering him. What else? It is only because Lord Arthur is so soft-headed or soft-hearted that he chose victims who were likely to die before long in any case.”
“Then we are to do nothing?”
“There is nothing that requires doing, my old friend.”
“Ought we not at least to search the lodgings of this man Podgers in West Moon Street and remove any compromising documents or evidence relating to the case?”
He chuckled.
“It is only to their victims that blackmailers pretend to have an archive of incriminating evidence. They know too well that such documents are like a knife which is more likely to injure its owner than his victims. It is the invariable practice of these scoundrels to carry the important or crucial items in their heads—or in the case of Mr Septimus Podgers what remains of his head now that the tugboat and its barges have passed. We will, if you please, take our leave of Lord Blagdon and return to Baker Street. I daresay it will be as well to keep an eye upon the columns of the press for a week or two.”
With a sense of foreboding I followed his advice. The next week brought a letter from Lord Blagdon informing us that Lord Arthur Savile had suffered a nervous collapse and was now in the care of a keeper at a clinic for such disorders in Bexhill-on-Sea. He was well cared for in every way and, so far as he could ever be, he was happy. It was not thought that he would be released at an early date, therefore the services of Holmes and myself would no longer be required for his protection. Lord Blagdon added his thanks and enclosed fifty guineas in settlement of his account.
There the matter stood for a further week. Then, as the breakfast-table was cleared on a fine September morning with a hint of autumn in the air, I opened the pages of the Morning Post and knew that our anxieties for Lord Arthur Savile were at an end.
On Sunday morning at seven o’clock, the body of Mr Septimus R. Podgers, the eminent cheiromantist, was washed on shore in Greenwich, just in front of the Ship Hotel. The unfortunate gentleman, whose mortal remains appear to have been in collision with a steamer of the river traffic, was identified by the contents of his pockets and the prints of his fingers. He had been missing for almost a fortnight, and considerable anxiety for his safety had been felt in London’s cheiromantic circles. It is supposed that Mr Podgers committed suicide under the influence of a temporary mental derangement, caused by overwork. A verdict to that effect was returned this afternoon by a coroner’s jury. Mr Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of the Human Hand, that will shortly be published, when it will no doubt attract much attention. The deceased was sixty-five years of age and does not seem to have left any relations.
Holmes read this. Ile put the paper down and gazed at the mellow sunlight beyond the window.
“I was a little short with you, old fellow, in the matter of a week or two at Ilfracombe or Tenby. September is not too far advanced and the sunny days are not yet too misty. I have for some time been meditating a monograph on criminal aberrations of the benevolent impulse, what the poet Browning calls ‘the honest thief and ‘the tender murderer.’ Warm autumn days on an Atlantic coast would do as well as anywhere for the composition I have in mind.”
Before he had a chance to
Similar Books
