The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [119]
“Macklesworth!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly, Watson.” Holmes paused to light his pipe, staring down into the street where the daily business of London continued its familiar and unspectacular round. “The thing was stolen about ten years ago. A daring robbery which I, at the time, ascribed to Moriarty. There was every indication it had been spirited from the country and sold abroad. Yet I recognized it – or else a very fine copy – in that bag James Macklesworth was carrying up the stairs. He would have read of the affair, I’m sure, especially considering his name. Therefore he must have known the Fellini statue was stolen. Yet clearly he went somewhere today and returned here with it. Why? He’s no thief, Watson, I’d stake my life on it.”
“Let us hope he intends to illuminate us,” I said as a knock came at our door.
Mr James Mackelsworth was a changed man. Bathed and dressed in his own clothes, he appeared far more confident and at ease. His suit was of a kind favoured in his part of the world, with a distinctly Spanish cut to it, and he wore a flowing tie beneath the wings of a wide-collared soft shirt, a dark red waistcoat and pointed oxblood boots. He looked every inch the romantic frontiersman.
He began by apologizing for his costume. He had not realized, he said, until he arrived in London yesterday, that his dress was unusual and remarkable in England. We both assured him that his sartorial appearance was in no way offensive to us. Indeed, we found it attractive.
“But it marks me pretty well for who I am, is that not so, gentlemen?”
We agreed that in Oxford Street there would not be a great many people dressed in his fashion.
“That’s why I bought the English clothes,” he said. “I wanted to fit in and not be noticed. The top hat was too big and the morning coat was too small. The trousers were the only thing the right size. The bag was the largest of its shape I could find.”
“So, suitably attired, as you thought, you took the Metropolitan Railway this morning to – ?”
“To Willesden, Mr Holmes. Hey! How did you know that? Have you been following me all day?”
“Certainly not, Mr Macklesworth. And in Willesden you took possession of the Fellini Perseus did you not?”
“You know everything ahead of me telling it, Mr Holmes! I need speak no more. Your reputation is thoroughly deserved, sir. If I were not a rational man, I would believe you possessed of psychic powers!”
“Simple deductions, Mr Macklesworth. One develops a skill, you know. But it might take a longer acquaintance for me to deduce how you came to cross some six thousand miles of land and sea to arrive in London, go straight to Willesden and come away with one of the finest pieces of Renaissance silver the world has ever seen. All in a day, too.”
“I can assure you, Mr Holmes, that such adventuring is not familiar to me. Until a few months ago I was the owner of a successful shipping and wholesaling business. My wife died several years ago and I never remarried. My children are all grown now and married, living far from Texas. I was a little lonely, I suppose, but reasonably content. That all changed, as you have guessed, when the Fellini Perseus came into my life.”
“You received word of it in Texas, Mr Macklesworth?”
“Well, sir, it’s an odd thing. Embarrassing, too. But I guess I’m going to have to be square with you and come out with it. The gentleman from whom the Perseus was stolen was a cousin of mine. We’d corresponded a little. In the course of that correspondence