A Reflection of Evil: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery Read online

  As she was retrieving the tea service Mrs. Hudson offered some concern. “Whatever you two are getting yourself into, please be careful.”

  “We will,” I happily replied. “Thank you for the concern, Mrs. Hudson.”

  “Because I would never be able to rent out these rooms to anyone else in their current state.”

  Holmes gave out a hearty laugh and grabbed a piece of cold meat from the tray as Mrs. Hudson closed the door behind her.

  Within a half-hour the little street boy, Wiggins, was back. He had followed the woman back to a dance hall called Vivian’s Variety Show in Southwark. Holmes paid the boy and turned to me and asked, “So what do you make of that, Watson?”

  “It would seem everything you have surmised has been correct. However, she mentioned having a carriage pick us up at the station in Swansea and going back herself. If this is a ruse, it would be found out quick enough when we arrive and there is no carriage and no Mrs. Merrick to meet us.”

  “That conundrum can be easily reconciled; we are not supposed to actually make it to Swansea.” Holmes consulted the Bradshaw he retrieved from the mantle. “If we hurry, Watson, we can make Paddington Station just in time for the last train at 2:00 p.m. We can further discuss our plan of action in this intriguing matter once we have our coach.”

  “Should I bring my service revolver?” I asked.

  Holmes grabbed his top hat. “Someone is going to great lengths to get us on a train to Swansea, and I cannot envision anything that will not put us in harm’s way.”

  I grabbed my revolver from a side table and, after checking it full of ammunition, put it in my pocket and grabbed my bowler hat.

  My friend opened the door to our room and waved me by with an odd excitement. “I doubt this matter will be successfully resolved without the use of such forceful precautions,” he said as he closed the door behind him. “I fear before all is done someone will end up a bit heavier with lead.”

  “My leg already carries a prize. I do not wish to add to that trophy case.”

  Chapter 2

  Lestrade was standing in front of a hole blasted in the outer wall of Wormwood Scrubs Prison looking—rather impressively—at its girth. Half of the eighteen-foot wall was strewn over several yards, and a pile of debris mounded at the bottom of the vacancy. A small, grassy yard lay between the wall and a small street, Artillery Lane.

  It would have been a relatively quick getaway, he thought. Lestrade then turned to the prison guard next to him and asked, “When did you say you heard the explosion?”

  The guard, Carl Blatty, a barrel-chested monstrosity, scratched his balding head and said, “Just before ten, if I had to pinpoint it. Yes, that would be about right.”

  “And the riot started at almost the exact moment of the blast?”

  “That’d be a correct statement, yes, Inspector—at just about the same time. The guards on duty all thought at first that the blast roused the inmates to fear, but they didn’t act like we thought they would. It was almost…well almost like the blast was a call to arms, cuz they all jumped up from their doin’s and all hell broke loose after that.”

  Lestrade wiped sweat from his bulldog features with a handkerchief he’d pulled from his breast pocket, hoping for a refreshing breeze and getting none. “And where were you when this happened?”

  “I was in the prison governor’s office giving the mid-morning briefing. It’s normally a morning briefing, but it started late so that’s why I called it a mid-morning briefing. Governor Mullenax was late into work this morning. He has been dealing with a terrible summer cold, so he has, and he’s been hard pressed to get any sleep as of late. By the time I got back to the cells, that’s when I saw several guards laying in the hall, blood spilling from them, all the cells had been opened and inmates running everywhere.”

  About this time, a uniformed constable hurriedly approached Lestrate from behind, maneuvering across a carpet of brick and mortar, calling out his name and waving an envelope. “A reply, Inspector, from Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

  He turned from the rubble with a questioning glare. “What, he’s not here?”

  The constable handed Lestrade the envelope. “No sir. It seems he and Dr. Watson had to catch a train to Swansea.”

  His face reddened. “Swansea? Bloody hell. What the devil’s in Swansea that is more important than this?”

  The constable cleared his throat and nodded at the envelope in Lestrade’s hand.

  “Oh, yes, right. Well, let us see what has got Holmes so detained that he cannot lend a hand on a real case.” He opened the letter and ran his eyes over it, nodding agreeably as he did so. “Well, yes, I suppose that would make sense,” he mumbled to himself. “It seems that if Holmes is correct, which he undoubtedly is,” he added cynically, “his excursion to Swansea will tie up with this affair, though I, as yet, do not see how.” He looked around him at all the guards and Scotland Yard officers milling about the open space between the wall and the prison. “Someone find me Jefferies,” He yelled. “We need to expand the area of investigation. In the meantime, we need armed guards at this breach and we need to restore order and find out which inmates are still on the grounds—dead or alive—and which ones are on the lamb.”

  Chapter 3

  Within an hour, Holmes and I were on the platform at Paddington Station. The five-coach train decked out in what looked to be a new coat of chocolate brown and cream paint, the livery of the Great Western Railway, waited patiently for its passengers. Ours was the last coach.

  Uniformed officers milled about, craning their necks to get better looks at the patrons, more than likely stationed to be on the lookout for any of the escapees from the prison.

  Holmes scrutinized the flurry of commuters as they poured into their respective coaches. A curt “Hmph” told me that nothing or no one had caught his eye as suspicious. “It will be intolerably difficult to gauge the face of the enemy with the police force keeping them at bay.”

  “Maybe the mayhem will begin once we take our seats in the coach,” I replied, not trying to hide my sarcasm.

  Before boarding, Holmes momentarily engaged the ear of one of the uniformed constables then met me as we climbed into our coach. “It seems due to the impropriety at The Scrubs, there will be officers at all stations. This will most assuredly put a damper on our own little investigation. Our poet might be less likely to show himself with the ever-presence of the police force looking for wayward prisoners. Come, let us take our seats and examine that little dirge a bit closer. Maybe it will afford a bit more clarity.”

  As the train herked and jerked out of Paddington and slowly gained a steadier rhythm, Holmes took from his pocket the note the woman passing for Mrs. Merrick had given him. He examined it momentarily then handed it off to me. “What do you make of it Watson?”

  I looked over the paper, trying to employ my friend’s methods. “It is a thick stock, usual commercial grade, I would say. Not something that anyone with money would have at their writing desk. The handwriting is extremely immaculate, nice strokes, tidy yet not flowery; I would say by the nature of it that it was penned by a woman, yet without the usual eloquent flourishes that are typical of the fairer sex. That would tell me that she was in a hurry when she wrote it.” Triumphantly I then declared, “I would say that it was written by the same woman who handed it to you.”

  Holmes sighed disappointedly. “You are right on the first point only, Watson. You are forever trying to fit the facts to your theories instead of finding theories to fit the facts. I believe it was written by a man.”

  What about the note would make you think it written by a man?” I asked a bit wounded.

  “The person writing the note pressed heavily upon the paper. Turning it over you can practically read what it says from behind because of the indentations made by the pen. Even strokes, correct. Tidy, yes, but why assume that only a woman’s hand can be neat and tidy? Assuming my first deduction is correct and it is a man, what kind of man would have
—or more precisely need—to have tidy, extremely legible handwriting?”

  I paused a moment in thought then postulated, “Someone whose situation dictates that they have easily discernable script?”

  Holmes slapped me on the knee and exclaimed, “Precisely, my dear Watson! You do yourself a disservice when you say my ways are unlearnable.”

  “So, that narrows it down a bit, but not enough. Clerks, lawyers, bankers, teachers, professors—anyone of these professions would need a steady, legible hand. Knowing this does not get us any closer to the who.”

  Holmes looked around the cabin with what resembled an absentminded glaze in his eyes. Yet I could almost see the gears winding away in his brain. “Who, indeed,” was all he said. Coming out of this momentary reverie and placing his suddenly acute gaze upon me once more he then added, “Solving this will be a bit like trying to put together a puzzle with some of the pieces missing. You have all the multitude of pieces laid out before you, yet you do not know which ones are absent until you need them and they do not present themselves. We shall continue putting this puzzle together until we know which pieces we are missing. Even without them we may still be able to clearly see the picture.”

  Pointing excitedly back at the paper Holmes went on, “Now what can you tell me about the verses themselves?”

  I sighed wearily. “I am sure you have already figured that out. Would it not be easier to just tell me what you no doubt already know?”

  “Tut, tut, Watson, where is the sport in that? We are going to be on this train for a while; we may as well make good use of our cloistered predicament.”

  “Fine,” I scoffed. I narrowed my eyes, as though that would somehow afford me deductive powers I did not currently possess, and set my eyes on the verses themselves. After a moment, I started, “Okay, well, Two people the same in each and every way. That seems obvious to me that the two individuals being referred to are very close, best friends or—”

  “Wrong,” Holmes interrupted. “The second verse gives you the clue. They are brothers.”

  “I was getting to that, but you interrupted me.”

  “You were taking too long. Yet born in different years and born on a different day.”

  “Yes, one was older than the other,” I added.

  “No, Watson. One would naturally surmise that one brother would be older than the other without having to add the ‘different year and different day’. That is unless…”

  He rolled his hand at the wrist eagerly as if to say hurry up. There were some things, such as lying in wait to snare a criminal, with which Holmes had the utter patience of Job; however, when it came to following the trail of his rather circuitous thought process, he was as exasperated as a hungry infant.

  “Unless they are twins!” he finally said not waiting for my mind to catch up to his.

  I was still some distance from him. “How could they be if they were born in different years and on a different day?”

  “Elementary, Watson; one was born just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, and the other came into the world just after midnight on New Year’s Day.”

  I am not at all afraid to say that I felt like an imbecile once Holmes pointed out to me the obvious.

  Not wishing to test his patience any longer, my friend filled in the rest of the meaning for me. “One is quite busy while one rests his head, revenge is a dish that is best served dead. The former stanza indicates, and the latter stanza verifies, that one of the brothers is dead. The one busy is the one who has set this whole affair in motion. The one resting his head is the one for whom he is exacting his revenge.”

  “So, we have—”

  “—I have—”

  “So, you have now interpreted the verse, yet we are still in the dark about its author.” I tapped my chin thoughtfully for a moment. “I cannot think of any cases we have been a part of where twins were involved, much less one in which one died on our account.”

  “That is one of our missing pieces, Watson,” said he. “We know nothing regarding the families of scores of the cases we have been involved in where either the victim or perpetrator met their demise. Which means,” he added, “that we have quite the field of suspects to whittle down. I shall put my mind to it and see if I can untangle any strands from this matted mess in which we currently find ourselves. In the meantime, I would appreciate some silence on your part.”

  With that, he sank his chin upon his chest, closed his eyes, and folded his hands in his usual contemplative way. He said nothing for the next hour.

  Chapter 4

  Armed sentries were posted at the breach in the outer wall to prevent further losses. Some guards, with the help of local constables and men from Scotland Yard, began the process of corralling the remaining inmates and removing the dead. Ambulances lined up along the main entrance, waiting for the dead bodies, nine in all, brought out in a line like ants at a picnic. The process was slow but steady. In an hour and a quarter The Scrubs was secure, once more; the investigation could now start in earnest.

  Lestrade had taken up a command post in the governor’s office while the heavy lifting was being done by others. He was there, going over a schematic of the prison layout with Governor Mullenax when Jefferies knocked on the frame of the open door then lurched his bear of a body quickly through with the guard Blatty at his back. The two large men together were like two grizzly bears on the hunt for prey. Any inmates seeing them approach would have gladly put bars between themselves and these two officers of the law.

  “Inspector, I think you need to take a look at this,” Jefferies exclaimed. He wore an anxious look and in his hands, he held a clipboard.

  “What am I looking at?” Lestrade asked, his eyes searching the paper for what had gotten Jefferies so aroused.

  “Everyone is back in their cells. Five inmates are still unaccounted for; look at number three.”

  When Lestrade’s gaze found its mark, his eyes widened in shock, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Are you sure about this?”

  This time Blatty spoke up. “All inmates on the premises have been accounted for. We’ve double checked all possible places where a crafty bloke might hide and recounted and rechecked the cells, twice. Theirs are the only cells without a body occupying it.”

  “Why isn’t he on the main roster, Mullenax?”

  The governor looked at the list of names on the clipboard thrust in his chest by Lestrade. Coughing to clear his rough throat, he said, “All five of these prisoners are part of the transfer from Brixton. We haven’t had time to put them on the main roster. We have a separate one for the transfers, at the moment.”

  “Well this is certainly worrisome,” Lestrade lamented. “I doubt Holmes even knows the danger that pursues him. This escape is for revenge, of that I have no doubt. We need to get a message to him before he reaches the Swindon station.”

  Jefferies replied, “Knowing how you would want to keep Sherlock Holmes apprised of the investigation, I took the liberty of writing down his train schedule earlier. If the train is running on time, they are probably leaving Swindon station as we speak.”

  “Bloody hell!” Lestrade tapped his finger anxiously at his chin as he paced the floor. “Where and when does it pull in next?”

  Jefferies consulted a paper he withdrew from his trouser pocket then consulted his pocket watch. “It looks like we have some time before his train is due in at Gloucester. We can send a telegram there. He will have his message in less than an hour. After that, the train does not stop again until it pulls into Swansea.”

  The inspector wiped his face again with his now damp handkerchief; the perspiration wasn’t entirely of the warm day’s making. “I only hope it’s enough time.”

  Governor Mullenax, grey-faced and disheveled, wiped his nose and cleared a new hoarseness from his throat. “It seems we have things more or less in order now on this end. If you want to leave a few of your men here to continue any inquiries, the Yard might take this fight elsewhere.”

  “Y
es, that is a capital idea,” Lestrade said. “Jefferies, find Blakeslee and put him in charge on this end. You and I have a train to commandeer. Sherlock Holmes has saved my skin more than a few times. It is high time I try to return the favor.”

  Chapter 5

  Holmes roused himself from his thoughts as the train slowed into the Swindon station. I’ve known my friend for a long time and have come to an intimate knowledge of his expressions. “You look as though you have made a breakthrough with our little dilemma.”

  There was a hint of apprehension in his demeanor when he replied, “I believe I have narrowed the field down considerably, yet there are still too many loose strands in my way to completely untie the knot.”

  He then turned his determined gaze upon the patrons on the platform as the train came to a complete stop.

  I immediately noticed that contrary to what Holmes had been told by the constable at Paddington, there were no uniformed officers present and said as much.

  “Ha, Lestrade has taken my advice,” remarked Holmes. “Stay in your seat, Watson, and do me the kindness of watching, not me, but others as I walk across the platform. Take note of anyone standing about that seems to take more than just a passing interest in me. I am going into the station to see if Lestrade has left me the telegram I had asked him to.”

  “When did you ask him to telegram you?”

  “When I spoke to the officer at Paddington. I also requested that any constables stationed on the platforms be in plain clothes and not in uniform. That should help our cause immensely. I will be back momentarily, and we can discuss your findings.”

  Sherlock Holmes left the coach and casually walked along the platform then walked through a wide, arched entranceway into the station. As he made his way, I watched for any sign of his being watched.