The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective

Seventeen

A single gas mantle burned low in Stangerson’s room at Halliday’s Hotel. The man himself lay face downwards on the bed, in an alcohol-induced slumber. On his bedside table there was a bottle of bourbon containing less than a third of its contents. He had taken to drinking in the mid-afternoon when he finally accepted that Drebber was not coming back. Something must have happened to him. Something dreadful. It was what he had feared all these years. Without his overbearing companion to dictate and organise, Stangerson was like a rudderless boat. He feared leaving the womb-like safety of the hotel room in case whatever terrible fate had overtaken Drebber might befall him also. And so he escaped into the fragile safety of alcohol.

He stirred in reaction to the shifting pattern of the gaslight, caused by the cool draught of air from the opening door. However, he did not hear anyone enter, or perceive the dark shape moving towards the bed, and only became aware that he was no longer alone in the room when the gas mantle was turned up full. The shabby chamber was suddenly thrown into bright relief.

Shaking his head to dislodge the bourbon woolliness from his brain, he pulled himself up into a sitting position and found himself facing a tall, thin man, whose features were veiled in shadow.

“Hope?” he croaked, but as soon as the word had left his mouth, he knew that this stranger was not Jefferson Hope. He was too tall, too slender, and from what he could see of him, he appeared more youthful.

The stranger affirmed this impression. “No, I am not Jefferson Hope, merely his emissary.”

“Who are you?”

The stranger sat on the bed, his face now within the rim of light cast by the mantle. Stangerson observed gaunt, cadaverous features and bright piercing eyes peering from either side of a thin, hawk-like nose. The thin lips slid into a casual, mirthless smile.

“I am Sherlock Holmes.”

“I don’t know you...”

“No. But I know you, Joseph Stangerson. Or, to be more precise — and precision is a passion with me — I know all about you and the part you played in the death of Lucy Ferrier and her father.”

What colour there was left in Stangerson’s face drained away, and his mouth opened in a guttural gasp. Holmes could see that the man was too terrified to deny the accusation.

“I... I’ve got money,” Stangerson said at length, his voice trembling with fear.

“I am not interested in your money, Stangerson. What brings me here is justice. Mr Jefferson Hope, whom you wronged all those years ago, died tonight before he had a chance to administer the kind of justice you deserve. And so I have taken it upon myself to carry out his wishes.”

Stangerson’s eyes widened in terror and his hand flew to his mouth to stifle another groan. “You mean to kill me. To murder me!”

Holmes shook his head. “I do not intend to kill you. We shall let Fate decide.” He withdrew a pill-box from his waistcoat pocket. “You shall have your chance, just as your confederate had his chance.”

“Drebber? Where is he now?”

“On a slab in the police mortuary.”

“No!” Stangerson attempted to move, but Holmes pressed him back against the bedhead with one firm hand. “You must stay and play the game. There is no escape.” He held the opened pill-box before Stangerson’s face. “One of these pills is poison; the other is harmless. The choice is yours.”

“I can’t... It isn’t right.”

“It isn’t right?” Holmes’ voice was like a guillotine, and his features darkened with anger. ‘What do you know of right, you who shot a defenceless old man in the back? What claims can a cold-blooded murderer have to right? Take one of these pills — for, if you refuse, I swear I will kill you myself with my bare hands.”

Stangerson was mesmerised by the fury of this stranger whose eyes flamed with a wild, righteous madness.

“Take one,” came the injunction again.

Stangerson’s trembling fingers hovered over the box, not daring to pick one pill in case it was the fatal one.

“Take one!”

Gingerly, he lifted one of the pills from the box.

“Now swallow it.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Stangerson placed the pill on his tongue and gulped it down.

“We shall know within a few minutes,” said Holmes quietly, his anger now dissipated.

And so they waited in silence. Stangerson lay back on the bed, his face awash with perspiration and his eyes screwed tight shut.

It was just over a minute before he felt the stabbing pain in his stomach. With a cry, he fell from the bed on to the floor, curling up in a foetal position.

“No, God, no!” he moaned. “For pity’s sake, help me!”

“I have no pity for you. It has all been spent on Lucy and her father.”

Stangerson writhed for a further thirty seconds or so, his hands clutching his stomach, his utterances now faint and unintelligible, and then all movement ceased.

Sherlock Holmes knelt down and felt the man’s pulse. His mission was complete. Joseph Stangerson was dead.