With poor grace he flung himself into a chair. “Two lines of investigation have intersected,” he said. “Firstly, I have discovered that over the past six months there have been a spate of murders in the capital in which there has been no clear motive and no obvious suspects. All of the deaths occurred in public places, and all were shootings, apparently from a distance.”
“Intriguing,” I said, and indeed it was. “However, given that I know you habitually scour the newspapers for intriguing or eccentric events, and given also that certain sergeants and inspectors within the Metropolitan Police appear to have hansom cabs on standby so that they can easily consult you when they have reached their intellectual limits, which seems to happen with monotonous regularity, I am forced to wonder how this list of mysterious murders has escaped your attention.”
He scowled. “Partly I am to blame for that – I have, until a few days ago, been investigating a case with international ramifications that has quite taken up my attention, involving the Archbishop of Canterbury and a basket of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Also, the police have been conspiring with the owners of the various public spaces to keep the information out of the newspapers. The police – or, rather, their government masters – fear widespread panic at the thought of a random marksman at loose in the capital; the owners of the public spaces – which include parks, theatres and funfairs – also fear a sharp drop in their revenues. While a small unit within Scotland Yard has been tasked with urgently finding this sharpshooter, efforts have been made to suppress any mentions in the newspapers and to class the deaths in other ways – stabbings, muggings and the like – and to dissuade the families of the victims from saying anything. I have also sensed, but have no proof, that bribes have been paid in order to suppress the facts. The police did not consult me for the simple reason that they were forbidden from discussing the details of the case with anybody outside the Yard. For the past few hours, I feel as if I have been navigating my way through a fog that deliberately shifts in order to confound my navigation!”
I nodded, remembering my discussion with the attendant in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. “You mentioned two lines of investigation. What was the other one?”
“It was the one provoked by your own fact-gathering activities. You recall I sent you a list of names of rich and influential personages?”
“Indeed.”
“Each name on that list has recently paid over a large sum of money to some unidentified person or organisation.”
“I know,” I said. “I told you that.”
“What you had no way of knowing was that each of those names was standing near to one of the unfortunate victims of the shootings at the exact time they were shot.”
Holmes sat bolt upright, fixing me with his challenging gaze. I felt an unaccustomed sense of burning excitement flowing through my veins. “So, what you are suggesting, I presume, is that the shootings were a combination of demonstration and warning,” I said. “I would say that the poor victims had been chosen at random, but that is not true. They were chosen because they were standing near a rich personage, and who would shortly afterwards receive a blackmail demand – ‘Pay us £5,000 or you will be next – and we have shown that we have the capability and the intent’!”
“Exactly.” He shook his head in grudging admiration. I could see a half-smile on his face. “The problem with classic blackmail, of course, is that if a potential victim refuses to pay then there is precious little reason to go ahead and publish the incriminating material. The potential victim will certainly not pay after the event, so the action makes no profit while exposing the erstwhile blackmailer to risk. The only two reasons to go ahead are to take revenge on the potential victim for failing to co-operate and to provide an example for the next victim. This scheme, by contrast, warns the target in advance of what will happen to them if they do not pay.”
“How ingenious,” I said.
“Oh,” Holmes added, “and you were mistaken. In at least some cases the victims were forewarned. I deduce that this was to deliberately ‘soften them up’, as the phrase goes, and also to potentially avoid a needless shooting if they paid up promptly. However, knowing the blackmailer’s modus operandus gives us our chance to capture the villains behind this callous scheme.”
“How so?” I asked, realising as I did so that I was falling into the same role that Dr Watson played in this relationship – asking questions and making admiring statements.
“I had been wondering exactly how and why the blackmail victims were chosen. I deduced, in the end, that they were selected after their names appeared in one of the very newspapers for which you write your shoddy little columns.”
“Have a care, Holmes,” I murmured.
“In each case, the names of the blackmail victims appeared on the front page exactly five days before the deaths of the bystanders occurred. Inevitably, the appearance of the name was connected to some mention of their wealth or importance.”
“And so you have deduced the next potential blackmail victim,” I said.
“I have,” Holmes said. “It is –”
“– The Right Honourable Quentin Furnell,” I said.
Holmes gazed at me for a long moment. I think – I hope – he was surprised, although his expression rarely gives anything away. “You obviously recall that his name was on the front page in regard to a question raised over the large number of shares he has in a coalmining company whose business affairs he recently defended in Parliament,” he said eventually.
“And I also happen to know, based on the research I do for my ‘shoddy little columns’, that he will be attending a charity benefit at the Prince’s Theatre tonight. Given the five-day gap between the appearance of his name and the event, the conclusion seems obvious.”
“Can you obtain a ticket for me to this benefit?” Holmes asked. “I could ask my brother, but he would only tell me to stay out of the affair and pass my conclusions to the proper authorities.”
“Which raises the obvious question – why don’t you?”
He leaned back in the chair and put on an air of casual disinterest. “If I were the person who might end up in the sights of the blackmailing marksman,” he said, “I would prefer to think that my survival lay in the hands of Sherlock Holmes, not the Metropolitan Police.”
“Also,” I ventured, “despite Dr Watson’s curious belief that you care little for money, and undertake these cases for sport, in fact you are running a business, and if you can demonstrate to the Right Honourable Quentin Furnell that you have saved him from attempted blackmail then he might well divert a fraction of the money he would have spent on paying the blackmailer to your account. Better that than the Police Benevolent Fund.”
“Watson is curiously naïve about the way the world works,” he said softly, “and besides, I have found it best not to mention money too often in his presence. He has –”
“Issues to do with horses,” I murmured. “I quite understand.”
“And I am sure I can count on your discretion in this case,” he added.
“Mr Holmes, you of all people should know that I have no discretion. It is how I earn the money that keeps me in cake and sherry. In this case, however, I am pleased to make an exception.” I thought for a moment. “Yes, I could obtain tickets for both of us, but alas they would not be near the Right Honourable Quentin Furnell, and thus we might be too far away to save the innocent victim. We would need to be close to Furnell, which means that we might have to take him into our confidence.”
“A fair point.” He grimaced. “As a rule, I am generally not in favour of telling those involved too much, but in this case it might be wise.”