Michael Kurland - Victorian Villainy

“She suddenly discovered that she had a sick headache and needed to go lie down. Presumably she has gone to lie down,” he told me.

“I see,” I said. “Leaving you to suffer alone among the multitude.”

“I’m afraid it must have been something I said,” Holmes confided to me.

“Really? What did you say?”

“I’m not sure. I was speaking about-well…” Holmes looked embarrassed, a look I had never seen him encompass before, nor have I seen it since.

“Hopes and dreams,” I suggested.

“Something of that nature,” he agreed. “Why is it that words that sound so-important-when one is speaking to a young lady with whom one is on close terms, would sound ridiculous when spoken to the world at large? That is, you understand, Mr. Moriarty, a rhetorical question.”

“I do understand,” I told him. “Shall we return to the college?”

And so we did.

The next afternoon found me in the commons room sitting in my usual chair beneath the oil painting of Sir James Walsingham, the first chancellor of Queens College, receiving the keys to the college from Queen Elizabeth. I was dividing my attention between my cup of coffee and a letter from the reverend Charles Dodgson, a fellow mathematician who was then at Oxford, in which he put forth some of his ideas concerning what we might call the mathematical constraints of logical constructions. My solitude was interrupted by Dean McCuthers, who toddled over, cup of tea in hand, looking even older than usual, and dropped into the chair next to me. “Afternoon, Moriarty,” he breathed. “Isn’t it dreadful?”

I put the letter aside. “Isn’t what dreadful?” I asked him. “The day? The war news? Huxley’s Theory of Biogenesis? Perhaps you’re referring to the coffee-it is pretty dreadful today.”

McCuthers shook his head sadly. “Would that I could take the news so lightly,” he said. “I am always so aware, so sadly aware, of John Donne’s admonishment.”

“I thought Donne had done with admonishing for these past two hundred years or so,” I said.

But there was no stopping McCuthers. He was determined to quote Donne, and quote he did: “‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind,’” he went on, ignoring my comment. “‘And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’”

I forbore from mentioning that the dean, a solitary man who spent most of his waking hours pondering over literature written over two thousand years before he was born, was probably less involved in mankind than any man I had ever known. “I see,” I said. “The bell has tolled for someone?”

“And murder makes it so much worse,” McCuthers continued. “As Lucretius puts it-”

“Who was murdered?” I asked firmly, cutting through his tour of the classics.

“Eh? You mean you don’t know? Oh, dear me. This will come as something of a shock, then. It’s that Professor Maples-”

“Someone has murdered Maples?”

“No, no. My thought was unfinished. Professor Maples has been arrested. His wife-Andrea-Mrs. Maples-has been murdered.”

I was, I will admit it, bemused. You may substitute a stronger term if you like. I tried to get some more details from McCuthers, but the dean’s involvement with the facts had not gone beyond the murder and the arrest. I finished my coffee and went off in search of more information.

Murder is a sensational crime which evokes a formidable amount of interest, even among the staid and unworldly dons of Queens College. And a murder in mediis rebus, or perhaps better, in mediis universitatibus; one that actually occurs among said staid dons, will intrude on the contemplations of even the most unworldly. The story, which spread rapidly through the college, was this:

A quartet of bicyclists, underclassmen from St. Simon’s College, set out together at dawn three days a week, rain or shine, to get an hour or two’s cycling in before breakfast. This morning, undeterred by the chill drizzle that had begun during the night, they went out along Barleymore Road as usual. At about eight o’clock, or shortly after, they happened to stop at the front steps to the small cottage on Professor Maples’ property. One of the bicycles had throw a shoe, or something of the sort, and they had paused to repair the damage. The chain-operated bicycle had been in existence for only a few years back then, and was prone to a variety of malfunctions. I understand that bicyclists, even today, find it useful to carry about a complete set of tools in order to be prepared for the inevitable mishap.

One of the party, who was sitting on the cottage steps with his back up against the door, as much out of the rain as he could manage, indulging in a pipeful of Latakia while the damaged machine was being repaired, felt something sticky under his hand. He looked, and discovered a widening stain coming out from under the door. Now, according to which version of the story you find most to your liking, he either pointed to the stain and said, “I say, chaps, what do you suppose this is?” Or he leapt to his feet screaming, “It’s blood! It’s blood! Something horrible has happened here.” I tend to prefer the latter version, but perhaps it’s only the alliteration that appeals to me.

The young men, feeling that someone inside the cottage might require assistance, pounded on the door. When they got no response, they tried the handle and found it locked. The windows all around the building were also locked. They broke the glass in a window, unlocked it, and they all climbed through.

In the hallway leading to the front door they found Andrea Maples, in what was described as “a state of undress,” lying in a pool of blood-presumably her own, as she had been badly beaten about the head. Blood splatters covered the walls and ceiling. A short distance away from the body lay what was presumably the murder weapon: a mahogany cane with a brass duck’s head handle.

One of the men immediately cycled off to the police station and returned with a police sergeant and two constables. When they ascertained that the hard wood cane belonged to Professor Maples, and that he carried it about with him constantly, the policemen crossed the lawn to the main house and interviewed the professor, who was having breakfast. At the conclusion of the interview, the sergeant placed Maples under arrest and sent one of the constables off to acquire a carriage in which the professor could be conveyed to the police station.

It was about four in the afternoon when Sherlock Holmes came banging at my study door. “You’ve heard, of course,” he said, flinging himself into my armchair. “What are we to do?”

“I’ve heard,” I said. “And what have we to do with it?”

“That police sergeant, Meeks is his name, has arrested Professor Maples for the murder of his wife.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“He conducted no investigation, did not so much as glance at the surroundings, and failed to leave a constable behind to secure the area, so that, as soon as the rain lets up, hordes of the morbidly curious will trample about the cottage and the lawn and destroy whatever evidence there is to be found.”

“Did he?” I asked. “And how do you know so much about it?”

“I was there,” Holmes said. At my surprised look, he shook his head. “Oh, no, not at the time of the murder, whenever that was. When the constable came around for the carriage to take Professor Maples away, I happened to be in the stables. The hostler, Biggs is his name, is an expert single-stick fighter, and I’ve been taking lessons from him on occasional mornings when he has the time. So when they returned to the professor’s house, Biggs drove and I sat in the carriage with the constable, who told me all about it.”