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By Root 606 0

’s safety after he left Essex Street. Finally I plucked up the courage to come out here. I wanted to talk to John, to make him see sense. I could see a light in John’s room, but my knocking was not answered. Ultimately I prevailed upon the tailor, who lives in the back basement, to let me use the spare key. I rushed upstairs and found John in a dreadful state. It was clear that he was very sick. I immediately made arrangements for him to be taken to hospital and contacted the police. No sooner had I done that than Hugh turned up. He explained that he’d been searching for John, going round the drinking dens in which he might be found. When he had no luck, he came here. Like me, he was hoping that reason might prevail. The pity is that we were too late. I suggested to Hugh that his place was by John’s side at the hospital, but we both fear that the omens are bleak.”

Suddenly Holmes clapped a hand to his brow. “Lestrade, has anyone touched the jar of chloral hydrate?”

“Why, no,” the detective replied. “There was no immediate need.”

“Mr Dowling?”

“I did not, sir. The contents are plainly marked. I fear that John knew what he was doing.”

“Not John,” Holmes said harshly. “Hugh.”

“I don’t understand, Mr Holmes. What do you mean?”

“I mean,” said my friend, “that your partner was poisoned by his brother. Quick, Lestrade, let us go upstairs. The question now is whether we can prove our case.”

It was late the following night before my friend and I had the opportunity to talk at length about the case over a whisky-and-soda at Baker Street. By then John Abergavenny had died, a victim of cardiac and respiratory collapse, without having regained consciousness and his brother had been arrested on a charge of fratricide.

“My interest in the case”, Holmes said, “was aroused by the differences in the way John Abergavenny reacted when his senior partner put complaints to him. He quickly acknowledged his acts of carelessness. It was plain that he was over-tiring himself. That might have been because he went out drinking every night, but it seemed entirely out of character for him to do so. Besides, there was a possible alternative explanation. Perhaps he was continuing to work on his fiction late into the night after a full day’s legal work, keeping it a secret because of Dowling’s disapproval and a natural lack of confidence in his own literary talents. I also entertained a degree of scepticism about the incidents reported by both Bevington and Stewart – which John vehemently denied. Yet why should the witnesses lie? The contradictions intrigued me. When I mentioned the case to you originally, I drew an analogy with Stevenson’s romance and from the outset the business seemed to me to possess certain of the features of a cheap thriller. An apparently respectable man leading a double life, dipping his toe in the world of vice. It is a perennial theme.”

He took another sip from his glass. “I had only to meet Bevington and Stewart to be sure that they were not lying. On the contrary, they seemed unimpeachable. So – either John was behaving as wildly as they described, or someone was impersonating him. I noticed at once that Hugh resembled him in build and features. True, he did not have a moustache, was balding and his hair was different in colour. But any actor worth his salt could easily change all that.”

“But Hugh was a writer, not an actor,” I objected.

“He had been a court advocate,” Holmes said impatiently, “and few men are better suited to playing a part than barristers. They have the advantage of professional training coupled with constant practice. I once said to you, Watson, that when a doctor goes wrong he is the first of criminals, but I should have added the rider that a practitioner of the law comes a close second.” He gave a grim chuckle. “I hope I was not unduly prejudiced because I had found his writing slick and meretricious. It puzzled me that, as little better than a hack wordsmith, he had not published a book for some time. With that in mind, I regarded his explanation for haunting his old chambers as less than convincing.