The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures - Mike Ashley [16]
Mountcey’s companion stepped across the room and grabbed Holmes by the sleeve. “Shall I teach this fellow some manners, Huffy?” he enquired. The next instant he was lying flat on his back holding a hand to his nose from which a trickle of blood was oozing.
Holmes rubbed the knuckles of his right hand. “I assure you that I have no interest in making life difficult for you. My only concern is to clear up this tiresome business of the missing painting so that I can resume my own studies. If you will be good enough to answer a few questions I will take my leave.”
“And what do you intend doing with your information?”
“I shall place such items as are relevant before the authorities at New College.”
“That might not suit my book at all. I certainly have no intention of informing on my friends.”
“By friends I take it that you mean those responsible for the escapades at Oriel, Merton and here in Magdalen.”
Mountcey nodded.
“I don’t think it will be necessary for me to reveal their identity.”
The dark-haired young man stared at Holmes for several seconds. Then a smile slowly suffused his features. He crumpled the letter he was still holding and tossed it into the fire. “No, Mr Holmes, you are a nobody and I am inclined to tell you to go to hell. Report whatever you like to the New College people. You have no proof. If it comes to a contest between you and those of us who count for rather more in this life it’s pretty obvious who will end up being sent down, isn’t it?” He waved his visitor towards the door and his friend held it open.
Holmes stood his ground. “But it isn’t just you and your friends who are involved is it? It’s your father and his associates.”
Mountcey was caught off guard. “You can’t possibly know …” he blurted out, leaping to his feet.
Holmes took a pencil and paper from his pocket, wrote a few words and passed the paper across to the Honourable Hugh.
“Damn!” Mountcey sank back onto the chair.
“So, sir, about those questions,” said Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes called upon Mr Spooner shortly after eleven the following morning as the latter was returning from lecturing.
The don came up close and peered through his thick lenses. “Ah, Mr Grenville of Holmes, is it not? Come in, sir. Come in. Do sit down. I suggest you will find the seat in the window more than comfortable.”
Holmes deposited himself upon the cushions in the window embrasure. “I have come to report the successful conclusion of my investigation,” he announced. “About the theft of the painting from the chapel,” he added as Spooner gazed vacantly into space.
“Ah, yes, excellent.” The fellow’s pallid features broke into a smile. “So you have discovered who was responsible. Was it Rembrandt?”
“No, sir.” By now Holmes had discovered that the way to prevent Spooner’s train of thought running into frequent sidings was to keep him concentrating hard on the matter in hand. “Perhaps it would be best if I explained, from the beginning, the sequence of events which led to the disappearance of the painting.”
“Excellent idea, young man. Play the part of Chorus and leak your spines clearly.”
Holmes began his explanation, hurrying on when his audience showed signs of wishing to question or interrupt. “First, I must suggest to you that your reading of Dr Giddings’s character owes more to charity than objective observation. I fear that the senior fellow was furious at being passed over for the wardenship and that that is why he gave his painting to New College.”
“But, surely …”
Holmes scarcely paused for breath. “It was to be his revenge. You see, the painting was a fake, or more probably the work of an inferior artist touched up by the hand of an improver. I realized this when I spoke with Mr Simkins. He was puzzled because the painting which another of his clients had seen about the time Giddings bought it was “vibrant” with “warm, glowing colours” as he described it. Yet when Simkins, himself, viewed it in the chapel it was apparently