The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [113]
“Yes,” said Hardcastle. “I see how he did it – and why. But how in heaven’s name did you know the devil was concealed inside the chimney?”
Holmes walked slowly up and down the room. “As in science, the solution to a crime often arrives inexplicably in a flash of inspiration, what the scientific or criminal investigator must then do is extract the hard evidence to substantiate what betting men call a hunch.”
The professor’s eyes widened behind the pince-nez. “You mean you guessed immediately?”
“Let us say I explored, imaginatively, areas within a house that a man of very small stature might conceal himself, yet be able to eavesdrop, and learn what evil affect his machinations are having on the family. Of course, then I proceeded to seek clues. The man must eat and drink. No doubt he slipped out at night to steal small enough amounts that would not be noticeable from your larder. The man had become fond of drink.” Holmes gave a wave of a hand that took in the decanters on a table. “You’ll see a dirty thumbprint on the crystal stopper. I saw, also, fine speckles of soot upon the fireplace that escaped the attentions of your chimney sweep, and that were dislodged by Columbine’s entrance and egress to and from the chimney.”
“But you deduced from the thyme leaves that they’d been plucked from alongside the King’s Cross line?”
“Ah! My final test. The deduction was entirely spurious. There are no coal particles. The black particles upon the card are nothing more than common London soot. Moreover, you should have noticed the Great Western Railway is served not by King’s Cross station, but by Paddington station. Our viciously intelligent madman would have known that. And I realized that although our man could conceal himself inside the chimney, and not reveal his position by remaining silent, unmoving as a statue, even he had to breathe. And the more heavily he breathed, the more he moved within the chimney breast, even if it was nothing beyond a more pronounced rising and falling of his breast. Therefore, my patently absurd deduction wrongly linking the Great Western company with King’s Cross station was deliberate. In short, you can imagine the man curled tightly there in the throat of the chimney, eyes blazing in the darkness, clutching his stomach and laughing silently over the supposedly great criminologist Sherlock Holmes’s foolish errors; this caused a more pronounced movement of his body; enough to dislodge a single bread crumb from his clothing, or from the hammock arrangement, which I observed fall down into the hearth. Ergo: within the chimney breast was a living, breathing creature!”
“Then it is over?” asked Professor, hardly daring to believe it so. “My boy is safe?”
“Quite safe.” Holmes picked up The Rye Stone. “Here is your aerolite, Professor; your very own fallen star. For countless aeons it drifted through space only to happen by chance to fall to Earth in a streak of fire. It did not will itself to engage in such a spectacular and dramatic display; it happened by pure chance, gentlemen. Such a pure chance, perhaps as a microbe in our water supply, or perhaps minuscule defect at birth brought the fiery genius of Dr Columbine crashing down into such a vile state of madness. He was no lucid criminal. He did not will his evil, any more than the stone willed itself to fall to Earth in a fiery and dramatic display of flame and thunder. It is impudent of me to suggest such a thing; however, perhaps you and your brethren, Professor, might consider creating some modest trust fund to enable your once illustrious teacher to live out his final days in a sanatorium where he can dream harmlessly of what astronomical wonders might lie in the depths of our universe. Now, Watson, if you concur, lunch at the Spaniard!”
Part III