Читать книгу Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #8 - Ron Goulart - Страница 11

SUN CHING FOO’S LAST TRICK, by Adam Beau McFarlane

An unseasonably hot June brought a feverish outbreak of criminal activity, leaving Scotland Yard busy and Holmes cataloguing newspaper articles into albums with paste and scissors. Countless visitors had presented their problems at 221 Baker Street. But that summer, without any client asking him to, Holmes solved a man’s killing after we witnessed it with our very own eyes.

The sun lasted late on Whitmonday and Mary was visiting family, so I asked Holmes to join me at a variety show featuring Sun Ching Foo, the conjurer. I’d hoped that a magic show of impossible acts would entertain a man whose trade was explaining mysteries. With his straw hat and walking stick, he joined me for an evening’s entertainment.

The hall’s benches were crowded with people from all walks of life. The stage was ornately decorated and rigged with curtains. We sat through singers, dancers, and jugglers, and we ate our way through a series of roasted peanuts, Chelsea buns, and peppermint water. Sun Ching Foo was saved for the big finish—though little did we know how big it would be.

Wearing an electric blue robe embroidered with golden stars and moons, Sun levitated his assistant and plucked white hares from his wizard’s cap. His assistant, Lai Way, wore a black gown and long sable hair. Her Oriental face was yellow with dark eyes.

The grand finale was the famous bullet-catching trick. Lai Way asked for a volunteer who was a soldier or a former soldier. I raised my hand. She stepped down and waded into the crowd, picking a man and asking him to go to the stage.

While the soldier made his way forward, she asked for another volunteer. She was not near me, but I raised my hand again. Sherlock looked at me with a slight smile of amusement.

Again, I was not picked. The new volunteer marked a bullet. Lai Way thanked him, dropped the bullet into a pail, then walked the pail to the stage.

When Lai Way reached the volunteering soldier who was now onstage, he introduced himself as Alastair Franklin.

She picked the bullet from the pail. “Is this reel bullet, Alastair?” she asked in halting English. He agreed. Then Way asked, “You see how it marked with skrachis?” He agreed again.

Excitement bubbled inside me. I’d seen the trick before: the volunteer would load a gun and shoot it at Sun Ching Foo. But Sun would catch the bullet in his hand and show it to the soldier, who would recognize it by the scratches made by the other volunteer in the crowd. I thought, let Holmes try and explain this!

Alastair Franklin and Lai Way stood at the left end of the stage. Sun stood on the right end. The assistant handed Franklin a rifle. It resembled the jezail that ended my career in the Army, except this one was white, inlaid with bone or ivory and studded with jewels.

She produced black powder and a ramrod. Angling the gun upright on the stage,

Franklin poured black powder down the muzzle into the barrel. He pushed in the bullet.

Way handed him the ramrod, then he moved the bullet and powder down the barrel.

Once the ramrod was shoved from end to end of the barrel, she motioned for the ramrod. Franklin gave it back, and she stepped away, fading into the shadows in the back of the stage.

He cocked the gun and loaded a percussion cap under the hammer. As Franklin raised the gun, the band begun to play. A drum roll reeled through the air. “Ready!” Sun Ching Foo called out. “Aim!” The soldier settled the gun against his shoulder and peered down the length of the barrel. The wizard shouted, “Fire!”

The shot exploded off the walls as Sun Ching Foo dropped to his knees and cried out, “Thomasina!”

I looked at Holmes, who had a look of uncertainty on his face, then I grabbed his arm and the curtain began to descend.

“Watson, what are you doing?”

“That was not supposed to happen—he really was shot.”

When we reached the stage, Sun lay face-up on the boards with blood coating his costume. “I’m a doctor!” I exclaimed. Tearing the silk, I pulled brass buttons apart from their loops. The bullet had passed through him, leaving a wound hole in his abdomen through to his back.

The stage curtain was a scrim. On the far side of it, we could see the orchestra, the rows of chairs, and the exit doors in the back. The musicians struck up “God Save the Queen” and then the audience stood up to sing.

Sun gasped for air, choking. He coughed and splashed blood from his mouth, then he was dead. His head dropped against the floor, knocking his hat off. His queue severed from his head as a black cloth band slipped from its concealment under against his hairline. Looking at his face, I saw that his complexion and Oriental features were a careful artifice of cosmetics.

I closed his eyelids and looked up. Peering over me, Inspector Lanners stood beside Holmes. “I was in the audience,” he said.

The stage was a grim scene as we huddled around the corpse. People filed out of the theatre. While the body of Sun Ching Foo lay still, couples were holding hands and mothers towed away their entertained children.

Holmes searched the stage. He took out his pocket lens and hovered around the wall. “Lanners,” he said, “the bullet has lodged itself,” he said, pointing. Holmes pried it from the lincrusta wallpaper and turned it around under the magnifying glass. The weapon that pierced Sun Ching Foo had been rendered into a shapeless lump of metal.

“Could it have been from another gun? Someone in the audience or secreted near the stage?” Lanners asked.

Holmes shook his head. “We would have heard a separate shot fired. Sun Ching Foo must have been killed by his own gun; otherwise, the report from another fire-arm would have revealed itself. No marksman could have timed his gun to have fired simultaneously.”

“Would you be willing to join us at Scotland Yard?” Lanners asked.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Holmes responded.

* * * *

The constabulary took the soldier and Sun Ching Foo’s stagehand to Scotland Yard while we followed in a cab. The new Metropolitan Police building was two levels of grey granite lifting red and white stripes of bricks. Windows in gables and dormers looked out from an additional five floors. Lamps along the Victoria Embankment glowed in the settling dusk.

After we arrived, Lanners allowed us to meet with Alastair Franklin. The large man had side whiskers linked to his moustache. White hairs sprouted from his blond hair and his skin had a tanned complexion.

Holmes asked, “Did you know Sun Ching Foo? Any business or relationship with him?”

“No, inspector.”

Holmes held up his hand. “Just Mister Holmes. Had you seen him before?”

“I’m in the navy, just returned from Alexandria the day before last. My wife and our son were at the show—they’ll be wondering what happened to me, I expect.” Despite his sturdy build, his hands trembled anxiously. “I don’t know what happened upon the stage; all I did was as I was told.”

“Did you know that you would be selected from the crowd?”

He shrugged his shoulders, lifting his palms up, while shaking his head. “Now how would I know that?”

Holmes turned to Lanners and asked, “Where is the gun?”

After locking the sailor into an interrogation room, the inspector led us to an office where the muzzleloader laid across a desk. The rifle butt was pentagonal with an upward curve. The whole stock was painted white and fastened with shiny buttons that looked like jewels.

“These extra screws hold an exceptionally pronounced ramrod holder substituted for the original one.” Holmes pointed to a slender tube beneath the barrel, running from breech to muzzle.

Lanners opened the door and ushered in the conjurer’s assistant. She remained wearing a black cossack. Lai Way sat then she removed her wig. Her red-gold titus hair contrasted with the cascade of her brunette wig.

“You are not Chinese, either?” I said.

Lai Way agreed. “We have been Hindoos, Muhammedans, and Injuns. Sun Ching Foo was my husband. His real name is Cecil Windham.”

“You must be Thomasina, the name he called out,” Holmes said.

She nodded as she rubbed her face. The make-up that darkened her complexion and drew out her eyes smeared away.

“How did you meet him?” Holmes said.

“I was a showgirl in America and Cecil hired me as assistant. When he came to London, he became Sun Ching Foo.”

“How does the bullet-catching trick work?” Holmes asked.

“I don’t know. Cecil never explained the trick to me,” she said.

“What was supposed to happen?” he said.

“He was supposed to catch the bullet in his hand.”

“But you cannot catch a bullet in your hand!” Lanners exclaimed.

The assistant shrugged. “Cecil did.”

“Tell me about your part in the trick,” Holmes said.

“A man in the crowd marks the bullet. As I walk to the stage, I switch the bullet with a different one. The one that I replace it with has my own markings. Then, when the bullet is fired, Sun Ching Foo catches the bullet. He shows it to the soldier—and it’s the same one that I have marked.”

“Is this the bullet?” Holmes reached into his pocket and held out his fist. Unfurling his fingers, he revealed a minie ball.

Thomasina’s face went white. “How … how did you … ?”

“It was clutched in his hand while Watson attempted to save him. Clearly, the bullet was not meant to kill but instead, he was to hold up his bullet as if the shot traveled from the barrel and into his grasp.”

“Then where was the bullet from the gun supposed to go?” she asked.

“Perhaps the soldier was to fire away and not actually strike Sun Ching Foo?” Lanners asked.

“You mean, somehow the soldier’s aim would be off?” Holmes said.

Lanners mused. “Could Sun Ching Foo have created some kind of illusion, so the soldier would not be actually aiming properly?”

“That’s no better than saying ‘magic’,” Holmes said.

Thomasina agreed. “I have been part of every performance of the trick, but I noticed no changes to the stage.”

“Perhaps it was supposed to be arranged? Perhaps the soldier was a confederate?” I said.

“We already talked to the solider. I am convinced of his innocence.” Holmes said.

I added, “Perhaps there was a confederate in the audience. Someone who would have fired away from Sun Ching Foo. But rather, she picked someone else.”

“No, sir! This is not true,” Thomasina said.

“Perhaps someone uncovered his American identity?” I asked.

Holmes shook his head. “And this person knew the secret to the magic trick and, moreover, had enough access to bedevil it? I think it unlikely.” He continued speaking. “Did Windham have any enemies?”

She shook her head. “His only concern was other conjurers who had more business than he.”

“What about enemies within the show? You or his other assistants?”

“Not at all, Mister Holmes. I was a poor showgirl with nothing in America. When Cecil met me, he could barely afford to pay me and buy food for himself … but together, we made something special, didn’t we?” A tear caught the light sparkling in her eye.

Lanners spoke up. “Go home and rest, everyone. We’ll learn no more tonight. Come back tomorrow and we can continue with refreshed eyes.”

“A man was killed in front of us. Can I rest, Watson?” Holmes crushed his straw hat between two fists.

* * * *

We returned to Baker Street very late. I agreed to stay the night, just like old times. As soon as we finished breakfast the next morning, the pageboy presented Thomasina Windham. She removed her bonnet with trembling hands.

“Please Mister Holmes, you must help me. I am at your mercy,” she said.

Sherlock walked over from the fireplace and greeted her. “Calm your nerves and we can discuss the matter.”

Before taking a seat, Thomasina stepped over to the window, eyeing the back garden and the long shadows cast by the low morning sun.

We reclined into chairs while our guest’s nerves settled with a glass of brandy. She told Holmes, “I wish to hire your services.”

I took the brandy bottle off the mantel, re-filled her glass, then returned it to its position beside a bowl of lilies and a vase of peacock feathers.

Holmes said, “How can we help you, madam?”

“The police suspect me.”

“I do not think so.”

“But they will, Mister Holmes, they will! It’s on account that I wish to sell the Sun Ching Foo show to Miles Cavendish, a rival magician. For years, Mister Cavendish has tried to buy Cecil’s tricks or to pay for a stake. Now, I want to offer him everything—the props, the staff, the future bookings.”

“And they will see this as profiting from Cecil’s death? A profit that led you to kill him in the first place?” Holmes said. “How much money do you stand to make?”

Tears broke her face. As she wiped away face powder, I saw wrinkles worried into her face with age. Her lashes matted together in anguish. She wanted to speak, but her breath caught in short gasps.

“The show is worth nothing to me. Cecil was heavily indebted. Sale of everything will be enough to pay off his debts, but little more. The Sun Ching Foo act has been a success, but Cecil financially ruined us. He piled together bills and spent on credit in the company of women that I do not care to speak of. I am ruined! Just look at the newspapers!”

She slapped down The Morning Mirror. Its broadside read “CONJURER’S WIFE KILLS HIM DURING FINAL PERFORMANCE.”

“They’ll use someone else’s name tomorrow,” I assured her. “Better yet, this paper will forget the story and The Evening Mirror will accuse someone else.”

“Do you think he planned this? Did he take his own life?” Holmes asked.

“I wish I knew, although I don’t think so. He is not the kind of person to contemplate such a death. He does not give into bursts of emotion. Not even when angry or upset.”

“Perhaps he was the opposite, and was quiet or withdrawn as of late?”

“He is in fine spirits lately. He is as talkative and even-keeled as ever. Oh, Mary help me, I can’t bring myself to say ‘he was’ anything. ‘He is’ to me—he can’t be gone. I cannot allow it.” She began to cry again. “But we are in such debt! If I do not accept that he is gone, the collectors will take the last crumb from my pantry.”

Holmes sighed. “Send Miles Cavendish inside.”

Her crying sputtered to a stop. “How do you know?”

“You looked outside, I assume a man is waiting. If it isn’t Miles Cavendish, then surely you are followed.”

She went to the window and opened it, then she gestured. Minutes later we were joined by a stranger. He had a tiny beard growing at the tip of his chin in the fashion of Disraeli, but it started directly under his lip and sprouted downward. His eyes were black and deep-set.

“Ah, the Amazing Cavendish!” Holmes remarked. “With the signature ‘Vanishing Lady’ act. A fellow conjurer, perhaps it was you who killed Sun Ching Foo?”

His face frowned. “I assure you, nothing can be further from the truth. Sun Ching Foo was no friend, but he was no enemy, either. Suggesting I killed Sun Ching Foo for his business is like me suggesting that you should kill Lestrade to snatch more cases to solve.”

Holmes chuckled. “Very well, who do you think killed him?”

“A spurned lover, angry creditors, or even himself? If he committed suicide, shouldn’t we search for a note?”

“If he committed suicide, then what is the mechanism? Thomasina, you say you don’t know how the trick worked, but how did he set it up?” Holmes asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. We all had tasks to do—I was preparing other things while he was working on the gun.”

Holmes asked, “Did he do anything to the guns after a performance?”

She nodded. “Why yes! See, the gun was not meant to fire. So every night, Cecil took apart the rifle to extract the bullet. He would shake the powder out and put that back in the container, too.”

“Usually, the gun did not fire? If it wasn’t supposed to, then how did Cecil simulate the sound of shooting?”

She shrugged. “It was all part of the magic of Sun Ching Foo.”

“Where was he before the show? What was he doing?”

Thomasina was quiet; instead, Cavendish spoke up. “Sun Ching Foo was in the company of a woman besides his wife.”

“How is it that you know this?” Holmes asked.

“His colourful social habits were known to all at the Bixby Club, of which we were both members.”

“It is imperative that I question this woman, Mister Cavendish. Give her name to the Yard, and they will bring her in for questioning.”

Holmes turned to Thomasina. “You ask for help, madam, and I shall offer it. But even without your plea, I would see this through to the end. A man has died in front of my eyes. The honor of my trade is at stake.”

Jealousy, anger, vengeance – I saw none of that on the wife’s face. She showed only silent despair. “Thank you, Mister Holmes.”

* * * *

We returned to the Metropolitan Police. Parliament’s clock tower looked at us over St. Stephen’s House. Lanners explained to Holmes that the woman was found, and they discussed what questions had been posed already and her answers. Once Holmes had his fill of the information, Lanners walked us to the same room where Alastair Reynolds had been questioned.

Inside the office, she waited. I will spare this woman her decency by concealing a name, but I shall describe her as a young Scotchwoman wearing a Norfolk jacket with leg-of-mutton sleeves and a skirt. Her hair curled loosely over greenish-blue eyes.

“Questions from one constable were not enough, now he brings two more?” she muttered.

“I am Sherlock Holmes, an independent consulting detective, and this is Doctor John Watson, who attended Cecil Windham in the final moments of his life.”

“Well? What do you want with me?”

“How long did you know Sun Ching Foo?”

“Since the start of the summer,” she said. “When he first began performing his show, he found me working in a laundry and invited me to see a matinee for free. When I went, I didn’t know he was Sun Ching Foo. But calling on me afterward, he told me—and amused me with his sleight-of-hand.”

“Think carefully now, miss. Did he promise you anything?” His stare grew intense.

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “All men promise, Mister Holmes. Cecil was no different.”

“But what did he promise you?”

“That he loved me, that we could be together. He wanted to set up a touring company and travel with me. First, to Scotland, and then to the Continent or to South America. He promised that we could be happy together.”

“And what about his wife?”

She looked away. “I knew he was married, but he never mentioned her. And I never asked. I said that all men promise, but I don’t think that they keep their promises.”

“Did you know that his wife lived with him, here in London?”

She shrugged noncommittally.

“A Chinese woman who could not speak the language, who knew nothing of our land or culture?”

She grimaced and her gaze fell. “Please stop, you make me ill. I am ashamed.”

He muttered quietly, “The poor woman has no family here nor a penny in her own name. She will most likely die in the gutter. She is a prisoner without walls.” Then Holmes’s voice grew hard as steel. “Your womanly scheme killed her husband, the one man she trusted with her wretched life!”

A whimpering cry erupted from the woman’s lips. “No, Mister Holmes! I will confess all of my sins to you, but I didn’t hold plans against Cecil! I had nothing to do with it! I beg you to believe me!” She threw her hands over her face and cried.

Holmes looked at Lanners. “Take her away. She is of no use to us.”

As he escorted her out of the office, I remarked, “Holmes, you are a cold-blooded liar.”

“Nevertheless, I produced the truth in her. We should re-examine the gun next.”

Lanners returned and led us back to the jezail. Holmes held it up and inspected it, turning it around in his hands.

“These screws seem strangely placed,” he said. He reached into his satchel for tools, then slowly removed the screws. Without them, the barrel and ramrod tube fell away from the breech.

He picked up a screw and carefully eyed the threads, then he focused his magnifying glass upon the holes in the pieces of rifle.

“Eureka, gentlemen!” Holmes chuckled and reassembled the jezail.

A mixture of puzzlement and relief washed over Lanners’s face. “What is it Holmes?”

“The soldier, Alastair Dayton, loaded gunpowder and the bullet,” Holmes said, sliding a finger from the hole down the length of the barrel.

“Yes, go on,” Lanners said.

“The rifle’s firing mechanism, however, is blocked off from the barrel. Instead, it looks connected to this tube which, as I remarked yesterday, is bigger than a ramrod holder.” He touched the extra compartment.

I nodded. “And Lai Way – Thomasina – took the ramrod back. The soldier didn’t rest it there after the bullet was loaded. The gun itself was part of the trick?”

“Right. This was an extra firing chamber. There must have been gunpowder inserted here by Sun Ching Foo before the show. When the trick works correctly, a soldier pulls the trigger and the powder in this chamber ignites. But the powder in the barrel remains untouched.”

“So what happened in this case?” Lanners asked.

“It starts with the use of an old gun. The false chamber and real barrel must have been assembled years ago. To hold them together against the breech of the stock, holes were drilled in. The screws go from the stock, through the extra chamber, and into the barrel. Slowly, rust accumulated between the screw and the holes holding the pieces together.”

Lanners’s gaze became unfocused. “All very interesting, Holmes but—”

“Patience, inspector! As I was saying, when that connection deteriorated, a slight opening formed. Gunpowder from the barrel leaked into the hole where the screws fastened the gun together. Sun Ching Foo never cleaned it properly, but he just shook out the powder. Over time with successive performances, excess particles accumulated to form a charge through the hole. So now, when the flash from the percussion cap travelled down to the secret chamber, it also went up into the barrel. Thus, the whole gun shot off and the bullet was fired.”

To prove his point, Holmes took a pitcher of water off the desk and slowly poured water down the barrel. After a moment, drops dripped from the attached tube. “Poor Cecil Windham had no idea what happened when he died.”

By day’s end, Lanners released Alastair Dayton. Cecil Windham’s body returned to the United States with his widow later that month.

By the next morning, newspapers barely mentioned Sun Ching Foo. There was no mention of his wife, nor any mention of Holmes, either.

He laughed. “An error I’m sure you will correct!” Closing his eyes with a smile, he said, “I’ve helped countless people, Watson, but I don’t expect to be remembered. No, the only memories made on Baker Street will be from Madame Tussaud’s waxen people or in a childhood visit to the zoo in Regent’s Park.”

I chuckled with him, promising to myself to write this adventure some day to ensure the memory of Sherlock Holmes as well as the tragic death of the man London knew as Sun Ching Foo.

* * * *