Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

‘I cannot comment on the family’s reputation here or anywhere else,’ said Holmes, ‘but only on what I learn with my own eyes and ears.’

‘And what, precisely, have you learnt?’ asked Lestrade.

Holmes hesitated a moment. ‘Do any of you gentlemen have an account at Churchfield’s Bank?’ he asked at length. ‘No? That is fortunate. What I am going to tell you is in the very strictest confidence. You must not breathe a word of it until these people have been apprehended. I have one or two very good sources of information in the City of London, and yesterday, after Mr Ashby had consulted me, I made some very detailed enquiries. It is common knowledge there that Churchfield’s bank has been in difficulty in recent months over some very large loans they made last year in Brazil and Uruguay. They themselves have stated that there is no problem and have taken out loans from other financial institutions to cover any possible defaults. My source informs me, however, that these latter loans are all specifically short-term and the time for their repayment or renewal is this coming week, which is also the time that Churchfield’s are due to announce their annual financial results. What will happen then, no one knows, but there are strong rumours circulating in the City that the bank will not be able to honour these loans and may collapse altogether. This, I believe, is the background to the little drama that has been played out here in the past two days.’

‘I do not understand,’ said Inspector Welch in a tone of perplexity. ‘What can these financial rumours have to do with the fire here, or the dead man?’

‘They must be related,’ returned Holmes with emphasis. ‘Mr Ashby saw Churchfield’s sister in this boathouse on Friday evening – I don’t believe for a moment that he could really have mistaken an oil-painting for a live woman – which means that the story of the family’s travels on the Continent is a lie. But if they are not on the Continent, where are they? The fact that there has been a large houseboat moored here, which has vanished in the past twenty-four hours surely suggests the answer to that question.’

‘But why on earth should they hide in the houseboat?’ cried Lestrade in disbelief.

‘Because, I should say, they know the bank will collapse on Monday and thousands will lose every penny they possess. It is Sunday today, when every bank and business in the country is closed, which of course gives them their best chance of escape. I think that everything that has happened here has been planned with precision. Had it not been for Mr Ashby’s blundering into their meeting here on Friday evening, we should have had no idea what was afoot and they would probably have got clean away.’

‘What can they hope to achieve by running away?’ I asked.

‘A life of ease and luxury, in all probability, Watson. I imagine their intention is to drop completely out of sight, perhaps even change their names, and to be never heard of again.’

‘This all seems wild speculation,’ said Welch. ‘How does the dead man fit into your view of things? And what became of the Churchfield boy? Is he dead, too?’

‘I imagine he is on the boat with the rest of his family,’ said Holmes, shaking his head. ‘Something that struck me in my client’s account was that when Churchfield came to his room last night and asked him to give the alarm, Mr Ashby threw on his dressing-gown and hurried off to rouse the others, only returning to dress when he was sure they were all awake. He recognised instinctively, you see, that the preservation of life is far more important than being correctly dressed. But Mr Ashby said that when Churchfield appeared in his room he was fully dressed. This strongly suggests to me that Churchfield’s apparent air of alarm and urgency was completely false. If he had just discovered the fire as he said, would he really have stopped to get dressed and do up all his buttons before warning his friends? Of course not. In fact, I doubt if he ever got undressed at all last night. More likely, he just waited until he judged the others were all asleep, then set about making the fire, no doubt watching it carefully to make sure it had taken hold and was blazing strongly before going to wake Mr Ashby. Also, his talk of trying to save something from the house, and then going to fetch the fire-brigade, was, I’m sure, nothing but a tissue of lies. I strongly suspect that after he had spoken to Mr Ashby, he came straight down here to join his family. He would have expected the house to burn down and for the remains of the dead man – if they were ever found – to be taken for his own. It is significant that the centre of the fire seems to have been directly beneath the room in which the body of the dead man lay. Of course, Churchfield did not expect that anyone would break down the locked bedroom door. That was the second thing that went wrong with their plan, the first, of course, being my client’s surprise arrival in this boathouse on Friday evening. As to this poor fellow, Wilkinson, we cannot yet say who he is, but it would not surprise me if we learnt that he was an employee at Churchfield’s Bank – and probably a fairly senior one, too.’

‘What makes you think that?’ I asked.

‘If the Churchfields were loitering here when they were supposed to be abroad – which seems to me a certainty – then there must have been some good reason for it. The likeliest explanation is that they were waiting here for something and the fact that they have now gone suggests that that something arrived yesterday. If so, who could have brought it but the unfortunate Mr Wilkinson? What I suspect is that at close of business at the bank – which is early, of course, on a Saturday – he brought sufficient funds here to keep the Churchfield family in comfort for the rest of their lives. That, of course, is why Mr Ashby was told to go directly to the football ground when he returned from London. Churchfield did not want to risk Ashby running across his family or Wilkinson.’

‘What exactly are you suggesting?’ queried Lestrade. ‘Do you think that Wilkinson came here with a satchel full of banknotes?’

‘I doubt it, especially considering the family’s probable destination. More likely it was internationally negotiable bonds, which the family could sell anywhere on the Continent, whenever they wished. If so, it is theft on a very grand scale: the money is not theirs, but belongs to their customers.’

‘I can scarcely credit what you are saying!’ said Inspector Welch in a tone of amazement. ‘Such upright and correct people! Such esteemed figures in the district! What about Wilkinson, though? He must have been in it with them, so why is he dead?’

Sherlock Holmes shook his head. ‘That we cannot say. Perhaps he had scruples about the whole business, or had only just realised what they were up to and threatened to make the matter public, or perhaps he had no scruples but demanded money from them to buy his silence. In any event, I imagine a quarrel blew up, blows were exchanged and one blow cost Wilkinson his life. Alternatively, they may have intended to murder him all along when he had served his purpose. They certainly intended to burn the house down. I can think of no other good reason why the members of the XYZ Club should have been invited here on this particular weekend, except to act as scapegoats and take the blame for the fire. Presumably there were things in the house – documents and so on – that the Churchfields wished to destroy. Wait a moment!’ said Holmes, abruptly breaking off.

He slipped past the policemen, bent down and pulled something out from the dusty jumble of litter beneath the work-bench by the back wall. As he stood up, I saw that it was a black silk hat, bent and crushed out of shape. ‘The name on the inside is “T. Wilkinson”,’ said Holmes. ‘He was right-handed and spent much of his time using a pen,’ he added, indicating a small inky stain on the front right edge of the rim. ‘There is also a trace of blood inside the hat, at the back. It was here in this boathouse that Wilkinson was probably murdered.’