George Mann - Associates of Sherlock Holmes

Holmes pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket. Unfolding it, he glanced at the illustration upon its surface. He glanced around.

“According to this picture, which I had Miss Morris draw for me, she and her fiancé were standing about a hundred yards away from here, in this direction.”

He set out in a straight line across the grass, nearly stepping on plates of food or knocking over bottles as he went. A chorus of complaints rose in his wake. Instead of following and apologising – which I suspect Dr Watson would have done – I diverted around the edge of the grass until he stopped, and then found a path to him that offended the least number of people. I have no problem with offending people, by the way – I merely prefer to do it at long range, in print, and to get paid for it.

“This is the spot, as near as I can tell,” he said, looking around. We were over towards the edge of the grassy area, near to the bushes that marked one of the Pleasure Gardens’ borders. “Miss Morris stated that her fiancé was facing her, and she was facing away from the bushes. She said that she remembered seeing that church steeple –” he pointed into the distance “– directly behind his head. Now, you shall be Miss Morris and I shall be her fiancé.”

“I would not have it any other way,” I murmured as he grabbed me by the shoulders and positioned me. He was a tall man – taller than Miss Morris’s fiancé – and so I could not see the church spire behind his head, but I found that if I moved my own head then I could spy it over his shoulder.

Holmes pointed over my own shoulder. “Based on the downwards trajectory of the bullet, the shot can only have come from the roof of that building.”

I turned to see where he was pointing. Over the hedges I could see the top of a brown stone building with thick sills above narrow windows. They made the building look as if it was frowning heavily. “We need to gain access to that roof, in case the shooter has left any evidence behind.”

“You do that,” I said, catching sight of one of the Garden’s attendants, obvious in his striped shirt and cap. “I shall go and question the natives.”

Holmes bounded off without a backward glance, while I raised a hand to attract the attendant.

“Can I help you, sir?” he asked, approaching. “Directions to various entertainments or cafes, perhaps, or just a potted history of the gardens themselves and the famous people who have visited in the past and continue to do so?”

“Perhaps another time,” I rejoined. “I am assisting the police with their investigations into the recent death of a young man.” I felt no guilt at saying I was assisting the police – I was assisting a man who was assisting the police, and that seemed good enough. I once danced with a man who’d danced with a girl who’d danced with the Prince of Wales, which leads me to tell people that I got close to dancing with the Prince of Wales – it is a similar situation.

He winced. “Ah, yes. We have been instructed not to talk about that, sir. Bad for publicity, if you see what I mean. I believe the owners of the gardens have impressed upon the owners of the city’s newspapers that their regular advertisements would be stopped if the newspapers carried anything more that a cursory report. People would not like to go to a place where someone has recently died.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “The general public, in my estimation, have a vein of morbid curiosity running through them like the letters in a stick of Blackpool rock.” I slipped a coin into his hand with a well-practised motion. I suspect I could be a theatrical magician and prestidigitator with little or no practice. “Was this where it happened?”

“It was, sir,” he said, slipping the coin into his pocket with a similarly smooth motion. Perhaps we should form a double act. “The young man was just over there, on that patch of grass. Some say that he was shot. With a bullet! Others say he was stabbed, or suffered a sudden haemorrhage.”

“Indeed. And if a gun was fired, did you see where the shot might have come from?”

He shook his head. “There was nobody around holding a gun, and nobody did a runner.”

“Thank you,” I said, and started to turn away.

Perhaps he did not think he’d given me enough value for my money, because he added: “Of course, if the man was shot then another two feet to the left and it would have been a greater tragedy. Not that this was not a tragedy, but the Earl of Montcreif was standing just beside the young man.”

“Oh, was he?” I asked. That was, indeed, worth the money. “And what did he do?”

“Like everyone else, sir, he legged it.”

“As one would,” I observed.

I waited, watching the crowd and thinking, until Holmes returned.

“Some scratches on the stonework,” he said, his face contorted into a frown, “and some scuffing in the moss suggestive of footprints, but nothing I could use to make an identification or further the investigation.”

“I have found out something rather interesting,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Indeed?”

“You can remove that sarcastic tone from your voice. I have an intellect, you know, even if I use it in ways you disapprove of.”

He smiled slightly. “I apologise if I gave offence. I am too used to being with Watson. You do have a fine mind, Mr Pike, otherwise I would not have let you join me on this investigation. And as for disapproving of what use you make of it… well, on the list of people in London whom I disapprove of, your name appears far down the list.”

“I shall take what crumbs of comfort I can from that,” I said. “What I discovered is that the Earl of Montcreif was also in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens at the time the fatal shot was fired, and was standing very close to Mr Drake.”

Holmes shook his head. “I have already established to my own satisfaction, based on the accuracy of the shot, that Mr Drake was the intended victim. This was not an accidental shooting, with the shooter firing at the Earl of Montcreif and missing.”

“I would agree with you,” I said, “except that I happen to know that the earl’s valet took several items of jewellery belonging to his master to a pawnbroker’s in Mayfair yesterday morning. The cash value was in the order of ten thousand pounds.”

“And how do you know this?”

“I have my sources. Knowing when the gentry are short of cash or in need money in a hurry has led to a number of my columns.”

He stared at me fixedly, but I could see that his mind was elsewhere. “There is no connection that I am aware of between the Earl of Montcreif and the unfortunate Mr Drake, although now that I have been made aware of this information I will need to check. I cannot believe that the earl would have paid for Mr Drake to be shot and then stood beside him – he would have been far better off establishing an alibi some distance away.” He raised his head and gazed upwards, eyes half-closed, seeking inspiration. “Does the Earl of Montcrief have any, let us say, ‘habits’ that would require him to spend a great deal of money in a surreptitious and rapid way?”

“If you are asking whether he has a mistress, frequents les grandes horizontales or gambles excessively then the answer is ‘no’. The earl is one of the straightest members of the nobility that I have ever encountered. There is not one whiff of scandal about him.”

He nodded. “Very well – I shall make inquiries of my own. I suggest you return to your club and await my instructions.”

He turned and strode off, leaving me seething with anger. “Instructions”, indeed! What was I – his lapdog?

I did indeed return to my club. It was night by then, and so I ate a small plate of turbot and new potatoes, drank half a bottle of Bollinger Blanc de Noirs and settled down to make notes on my next set of columns.