Mammoth books presents t.., p.1
Mammoth Books presents The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter, page 1
Basil Copper (b. 1924) is a prolific writer of thrillers and supernatural fiction. He is as popular amongst devotees of hard-boiled American detective fiction, with his long-running Mike Faraday series of novels, as he is amongst the gothic-horror brigade with his excellent brooding novels Necropolis and The Black Death. Closer to Holmes, Copper continued the adventures of Solar Pons started by August Derleth in 1929 in emulation of Sherlock Holmes. Copper's Pons is, if anything, even closer to the character of Holmes, perhaps because Copper has a deeper affinity with the fogbound streets of Victorian London. His Pons collections are The Dossier of Solar Pons, The Further Adventures of Solar Pons, The Secret Files of Solar Pons, Some Uncollected Cases of Solar Pons, The Exploits of Solar Pons and The Recollections of Solar Pons.
THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF
NEW
SHERLOCK
HOLMES
ADVENTURES
PRESENTS
The Adventure of
the Persecuted Painter
Basil Copper
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012
“The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter” © Basil Copper, 1997. First published in The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures, edited by Mike Ashley (Robinson, 1997). Reprinted by permission of the author.
The right of Basil Copper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47210-062-7 (ebook)
Printed and bound in the UK
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The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter
Basil Copper
1
Watson recorded 1895 as the year in which Holmes was on top form. The earliest case he recorded for that year was “The Three Students” which took place at the end of March. Earlier that month, however, Holmes and Watson found themselves in Dorset in “The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter”. Watson may have written this case up and lost it along with his other papers, but thankfully descendants of the residents in the local village remembered the story vividly. I am most grateful to that fine scholar of Sherlock Holmes and his successor Solar Pons, Mr Basil Copper, for investigating the case and restoring it for the first time in over a century.
It was a dreary evening in early March when I returned to our familiar rooms in Baker Street. I was soaked to the skin for it had been raining earlier and I could not find a cab, and the dark clouds and louring skies promised a further downpour. As I opened the door to our welcoming sitting room, which was in semi-darkness, a familiar voice broke the silence.
“Come in, my dear Watson. Mrs Hudson will be up with a hot meal in a few minutes, as I had already observed you from the window, my poor fellow.”
“Very good of you, Holmes,” I mumbled. “I will just get into some dry things and rejoin you.”
“It must have been very damp down Hackney way,” my friend observed with a dry chuckle.
“How could you possibly know that, Holmes?” I said in some surprise.
He burst into a throaty laugh.
“Because you inadvertently left your engagement pad on the table yonder.”
When I returned to the sitting room the lamps were alight and the apartment transformed, with the motherly figure of Mrs Hudson, our amiable landlady, bustling about laying the table, the covered dishes on which were giving off an agreeable aroma.
“Ah, shepherd’s pie!” said Holmes, rubbing his thin hands together and drawing up his chair.
“You have really excelled yourself this evening, Mrs Hudson.”
“Very kind of you to say so, sir.”
She paused at the door, an anxious expression on her face.
“Did your visitor come back, Mr Holmes?”
“Visitor, Mrs Hudson?”
“Yes, sir. I was just going out, you see, and he said he would not bother you now. He said he would be back between six-thirty and seven-thirty, if that was convenient. I hope I have done right.”
“Certainly, Mrs Hudson.”
Holmes glanced at the clock over the mantel.
“It is only six o’clock now so we have plenty of time to do justice to your excellent meal. What sort of person would you say?”
“A foreign-looking gentleman, Mr Holmes. About forty, with a huge beard. He wore a plaid cape, a wide-brimmed hat and carried a shabby-looking holdall.”
I paused with a portion of shepherd’s pie halfway to my mouth.
“Why, you would make an admirable detective yourself, Mrs Hudson.”
Our good landlady flushed.
“Kind of you to say so, sir. Shall I show him up as soon as he arrives, Mr Holmes?”
“If you please.”
Holmes was silent as we made inroads into the excellent fare and it had just turned seven when he produced his pipe and pouch and sat himself back in his chair by the fire.
“A foreign gentleman with a beard and a shabby case, Holmes,” I said at length, after the débris of our meal had been cleared and the room had resumed its normal aspect.
“Perhaps, Watson. But he may be an Englishman with a very mundane problem. It is unwise to speculate without sufficient data on which to base a prognosis.”
“As you say, Holmes,” I replied and sat down opposite him and immersed myself in the latest edition of The Lancet. It was just half-past seven and we had closed the curtains against the sheeting rain when there came a hesitant tap at the sitting room door. The apparition which presented itself was indeed bizarre and Mrs Hudson’s matter of fact description had not prepared me for such a sight.
He was of great height, and his dark beard, turning slightly grey at the edges, now flecked with rain, hung down over his plaid cloak like a mat. His eyes were a brilliant blue beneath cavernous brows and his eyebrows, in contrast to the beard, were jet-black, which enhanced the piercing glance he gave to Holmes and myself. I had no time to take in anything else for I was now on my feet to extend a welcome. He stood just inside the door, water dripping from his clothing on to the carpet, looking owlishly from myself to Holmes, who had also risen from his chair.
“Mr Holmes? Dr Watson?” he said hesitantly in a deep bass voice.
“This is he,” I said, performing the introductions.
He gave an embarrassed look to both of us.
“I must apologize for this intrusion, gentlemen. Aristide Smedhurst at your service. Artist and writer, for my pains. I would not have bothered you, Mr Holmes, but I am in the most terrible trouble.”
“This is the sole purpose of this agency – to assist,” said Holmes, extending a thin hand to our strange guest.
“Watson, would you be so kind? I think, under the circumstances, a stiff whisky would not come amiss.”
“Of course, Holmes,” I said, hastening to the sideboard.
“That is most gracious of you, gentlemen,” said Smedhurst, allowing himself to be led to a comfortable chair by the fire.
As I handed him the whisky glass his face came forward into the light and I saw that he had an unnatural pallor on his cheeks.
“Thank you, Dr Watson.”
He gulped the fiery liquid gratefully and then, seeing Holmes’s sharp eyes upon him, gave an apologetic shrug.
“Forgive me, Mr Holmes, but if you had been through what I have experienced, it would be enough to shake even your iron nerve.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes in reassuring tones. “Pray do not apologize, my dear Mr Smedhurst. I observed when you first entered that your cape and trousers were covered in mud, as though you had fallen heavily. You have come all the way from Dorset today, I presume, so the matter must be serious.”
Our strange visitor gazed at Holmes open-mouthed.
“I did indeed have a nasty fall in my anxiety to catch my train. But how on earth could you know I came from Dorset?”
My old friend got up to light a spill for his pipe from the fire.
“There was nothing extraordinary about my surmise, I can assure you. Watson and I attended your exhibition at the Royal Academy last summer. Those extraordinary oils, water colours and pencil sketches of those weird landscapes remained long in my memory …”
“Why, of course, Holmes …” I broke in.
“And the exhibition catalogue, if I am not mistaken, gave your address in Dorset and said that you habitually worked in that fascinating part of the world,” Holmes went on smoothly. “But you have a problem, obviously.”
“Yes, Mr Holmes. I thou
“But you called earlier and then went away. Why was that?”
A haunted look passed across the bearded man’s face.
“I thought I was followed here,” he mumbled, draining his glass. He eagerly accepted the replenishment I offered him.
“You are among friends, Mr Smedhurst,” Holmes went on. “Pray take your time. You are staying in town, of course.”
“At the Clarence, yes.”
“An admirable establishment. Which means you are not pressed for time this evening?”
“No, sir.”
The haggard look was back on our visitor’s face.
“For God’s sake, Mr Holmes, help me! This ghastly thing has appeared again. Both my sanity and my life are at stake!”
2
There was a long silence in the room, broken only by the distant clatter of a passing hansom. Holmes waited until our visitor had regained his calm and then gently asked him to continue. Draining the contents of his second glass of whisky with one fierce gulp, Smedhurst plunged straight into his story.
“I had grown tired of London, Mr Holmes, and felt the need of country air. There was also a young lady with whom I had formed an attachment. We had met at one of my exhibitions and I had escorted her to several functions in London. She lived at Parvise Magna, a small village in Dorset, so when I went down I searched for a suitable dwelling in the area. I soon found what I wanted. It was an ancient cottage and needed a lot of repair but stood in its own land about a mile from the village. It had belonged to an old man, Jabez Crawley, who had let it go to rack and ruin, and who had died the previous year. However, I negotiated a fair price with a local lawyer who had handled Crawley’s affairs, and moved in. At first, all went well and when my renovations had been completed I was extremely happy.”
Here Smedhurst paused and flushed slightly. Holmes leaned forward in his chair, a gentle smile softening his austere features.
“You had come to an understanding with this young lady.”
“Exactly so, Mr Holmes. A Miss Eveline Reynolds, a very charming person.”
“I can well imagine, Mr Smedhurst,” I put in.
Holmes’s smile widened.
“Ah, there is your romantic streak again, Watson.”
“Well, Mr Holmes,” our visitor continued, “as I have indicated things went admirably. I had my studio on the first floor of the cottage and was turning out good work. Eveline – Miss Reynolds, that is – was a frequent visitor to the cottage and I also visited her home. She is an orphan and lives with an elderly aunt, the latter making me welcome enough. The first indication that something was wrong occurred a few months after my taking up residence. I returned home from a visit to Eveline one evening to find the premises in some disarray. Things had been moved from their familiar places, there were muddy boot-marks on the stairs, and some canvases in the studio had been disturbed.”
“In other words a search had been made,” said Holmes, a gleam of interest in his eyes.
“Exactly, sir. To say I was extremely annoyed, let alone alarmed and dismayed, would not adequately describe my feelings. I lit every lamp in the place and made a thorough search but found nothing.”
“The front door had been securely locked?”
“Certainly, Mr Holmes. I would never leave my home in that lonely place without first making all secure.”
“Perhaps your domestic help …” I put in.
Smedhurst shook his head.
“I have a woman who comes in twice a week to do some cleaning and cooking but she arrives only when I am there.”
“No one else has a key?” said Holmes.
“Not that I am aware of, Mr Holmes. There is only one key, an enormous thing more suited to the Bastille. The lawyer explained that the old man was terrified of being robbed and insisted on one key only and had a special lock fitted.”
“And the back door?”
“Firmly locked and bolted.”
“Nothing was stolen?”
“I made a thorough inventory but nothing was missing, so far as I could make out.”
“Did Miss Reynold have a key?”
Again the vehement shake of the head.
“I offered to have one made for her but she did not wish it. We both felt it might compromise her.”
“Quite so,” I put in.
Holmes got up to knock out his pipe in the fender, his face alive with interest.
“Hmm. This is intriguing. There is more, of course?”
“Much more, Mr Holmes, but I will be as concise as possible. The next thing that happened was strange noises around the house. Heavy footsteps as though someone were on the prowl. Then the front door latch would be tried. That was the most frightening thing of all, Mr Holmes. In a lonely cottage, late at night, all sorts of thoughts pass through one’s head.”
“Quite so.”
“And then there were ghostly tappings at the window. I can tell you, Mr Holmes, that by that time my nerves were considerably on edge. These things continued for some months. In the interim Miss Reynolds and I had become engaged to be married.”
I was about to offer my congratulations when I was arrested by the warning look on Holmes’s face.
“You told your fiancée nothing about these unnerving incidents?”
“Certainly not.”
“You did not investigate these happenings?”
“I did, Mr Holmes. I have a very powerful hand lantern and I lit that and went outside. But I left the front door open, so that the light spilled across the garden, and I never moved more than three yards from the door.”
“You were very wise, Mr Smedhurst. Someone was evidently attempting to lure you from your home.”
Smedhurst turned white and caught his breath with a little gasp.
“I had not thought of that, Mr Holmes. This happened on several occasions, but I could never find anyone though there were occasional traces of boots in the mud when the weather was wet. Thank God, all these activities stopped when spring came.”
“Obviously, Mr Smedhurst. The person who was trying to frighten you could not carry out his activities during light spring and summer evenings.”
“But what is the point of all this, Mr Holmes?”
“Hopefully, we shall see in due course,” said my companion.
“Well, with the cessation of these manifestations, I regained my spirits somewhat and Miss Reynolds and I formally announced our engagement. In the meantime I visited the lawyer and in a roundabout way asked whether the former occupier of the cottage, Jabez Crawley, had ever mentioned anything out of the way there.”
“And what was this gentleman’s reaction?”
“Oh, he simply asked me a few questions about faulty drains, draught and damp and so forth and then queried whether I wished to sell the cottage.”
Holmes clasped his thin fingers before him and sat studying my client’s troubled face in silence for a long moment.
“Last winter the things began again,” said Smedhurst. “Only it was worse this time. Not only weird noises, footsteps and tappings but one evening a fortnight ago a ghastly face like crumpled parchment appeared at the parlour window. I had left the curtains drawn back and you may remember the severe weather in February, so that there was a rime of frost on the panes. I caught a glimpse only for a moment but it turned my soul sick inside. A hideous white idiot face like a dwarf. I sat slumped for what must have been an hour without stirring outside. Nothing else happened or I should not have been able to answer for my sanity.”
“You may well say so. But you have other troubles also, Mr Smedhurst.”
The bearded man looked startled.
“I have heard that you can work miracles, Mr Holmes, and that you can almost see into people’s minds.”
Holmes gave a short laugh.
“Hardly, Mr Smedhurst. But I know a deeply troubled man when I see one. There is something beyond all this business, is there not? Something connected with Miss Reynolds?”
Smedhurst half-started from his chair and gave a strangled cry.
“You are right, Mr Holmes. There has been a growing estrangement because of all this. She wanted to know why I had changed but I did not want to involve her …”
