‘Was the bank fully secured when Clevedon eventually returned?’ Holmes asked quietly.
‘It was necessary for Clevedon to unlock each lock in the sequence,’ Lestrade confirmed.
‘Sequence?’ Holmes repeated quietly and enigmatically. As he did so he raised himself on to a large chest that stood in a corner of the room. Once there he sat down, crosslegged and with his eyes tightly shut. Lestrade glanced quizzically at him and I turned him away to ask further questions of him.
‘What is this sequence you speak of?’
‘The main locking device has been arranged in such a way that the final bolt can only be activated provided that the others have been thrown in a particular order. Interestingly, only Clevedon and Crosby were in possession of this sequence and they have both committed it to memory.’
‘Well then!’ I exclaimed. ‘Surely this confirms Mrs Crosby as the murderess. She must have observed her husband lock the door on a previous visit to the bank, and retained memory of the sequence!’
Lestrade shook his head slowly and despondently. ‘Ah, but there is the mystery, Doctor. Clevedon knows of no such visit, the device cannot be fathomed merely by chance and there was not time for her to try every permutation.’
As Lestrade said these words I glanced once again at the forgotten form in the centre of the room. ‘This man has only been dead for a little under an hour!’ I declared. ‘Yet his pallor is that of a far older corpse.’
At this, Holmes’s grey, glistening eyes burst suddenly open. He unravelled himself and dropped to the floor in a single, fluid motion.
‘Watson, I am nothing more than a dull-witted incompetent!’ he raged.
‘Whatever can you mean?’ I asked.
‘It is not possible to explain now. Lestrade, would you, Watson and your two fine officers carry the body to the street above? There is no time to lose, for surely there are only the last glimmers of daylight left to us!’
‘Glimmers, daylight? I do not understand,’ the bemused inspector replied, though straining at the body just the same. We all shared Lestrade’s bewilderment, yet my own experience assured me that every one of Holmes’s actions and instructions would have a perfectly logical motive behind them. The climb up to street level was not made without some difficulty, so Holmes had to squeeze between us in order to support our efforts. Once there Holmes had us lay the body gently down upon the pavement and remove the covering from over Crosby’s head.
Within an instant the effect of what remained of the gloaming was visible to us all. The sight of Crosby’s skin awakened in my own dull reasoning something that Holmes had already foreseen. Large, unsightly red welts began to blemish the dead man’s face, although, I am certain, they would have been considerably brighter and more grotesque had the sun been high.
Holmes was visibly moved at this sight. ‘By underestimating the dark, devious nature of this woman, I have surely condemned this man to his untimely death,’ he snarled through gritted teeth.
Although I had a greater understanding of these symptoms than Lestrade, I still felt compelled to ask: ‘How has this tragedy occurred?’ while the inspector merely stood there in bemused silence, his lips slightly parted.
Holmes’s answer was brief and impatient.
‘My own naïvety led me to enable Randell to arrange a meeting with his brother who used the forthcoming audit as the excuse, to his wife, for his having to work so late. Evidently his subterfuge failed and his wife broke in upon this meeting. An argument then ensued, as audibly witnessed by Mr Clevedon, resulting in a blow to the back of Randell’s head, probably from the large spanner used to bolt down the lid of the chest on which I meditated when we were in the vault.’
‘But whatever made you so certain that the body was Randell’s and not that of his brother? After all, his appearance could not be more different from that of the man who visited our rooms,’ I asked whilst glancing furtively towards Lestrade, who was, by now, becoming aware of our having suppressed prior knowledge.
‘I am certain that, at the behest of his wife, Nathaniel swapped clothes with the corpse of his brother and then proceeded to trim his hair and beard with a pair of blunt nail scissors.’ In answer to my questioning look he added: ‘There were still traces of this unseemly operation on the vault floor when I examined it earlier.’
‘Gentlemen!’ Lestrade suddenly cried. ‘There is, evidently much more about this grim affair of which you have withheld prior knowledge. This is a most serious obstruction of the police and I insist upon an immediate explanation!’
I could see that Holmes was still greatly affected by what he would undoubtedly regard as a terrible failure on his part.
‘Inspector, I will be more than pleased to accompany you back to the Yard and provide you with whatever information that may be of use to you,’ I offered.
Holmes placed a grateful hand upon my shoulder as he called to George, who was still waiting at the corner. ‘I would suggest, Lestrade, that you cast a wider net than the Crosbys’ now abandoned new home,’ was his parting comment.
As an interesting postscript, I should mention that within a few days, of Randell’s murder, a more potent motive than simply withholding his allowance was revealed to us by virtue of the completion of the bank’s audit report. This revealed a shortfall of funds of close to £30,000! I can also reveal that the mortgage, on their new home was in default from the very first month and that their present address is still, alas, a complete mystery.
Holmes will always regret having underestimated Crosby’s appalling wife and most certainly this incident has done nothing to dispel my friend’s almost pathological mistrust of the female gender of our species.
THE MYSTERY OF THE MUMBLING DUELLIST
‘A third case worthy of note is that of Isadora Persano, the well-known journalist and duellist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox in front of him which contained a remarkable worm said to be unknown to science.’
(The Problem of Thor Bridge by A. Conan Doyle)
My initial introduction to the Isadora Persano affair occurred during the conclusion of the adventure of the Red Leech. Just a few moments before the murder of Crosby was brought to our attention I came upon Holmes, who was hunched in deepest concentration over a glass jar containing a most singular-looking worm.
The tragic demise of poor Crosby had left me with a feeling of forlorn emptiness for a while, which was only dispelled when I eventually returned to my old rooms at Baker Street, to find my friend Sherlock Holmes still engrossed by that unusual specimen.
On this occasion, however, the object of his attention was not to be found within a jar, for its dismembered parts were now dispersed amongst various items of laboratory apparatus with which Holmes had completely littered the room. Furthermore, a murky green liquid, which I subsequently discovered was a sample of the creature’s blood, was merrily simmering over a Bunsen flame The noxious smell that this emitted was overwhelming and in an instant I threw open the curtains and raised the sash to allow some of this to disperse.
Once I had recovered my breath I turned to face my friend, I found him laughing in my direction.
‘Really, Watson, it has long been a source of puzzlement to me that a man of medicine can be so encumbered with faculties as sensitive as yours. Surely a soup of worm’s blood mixed with a touch of morphine is not such a heady brew?’
‘You must have the constitution of a locomotive,’ I retorted breathlessly. Then, once I had replenished my lungs with fresh air from the open window, I asked: ‘Would you mind explaining to me the purpose behind this toxic experiment?’