Part 2
On looking back at the first part of this narrative I realize I have spent much more time on myself and Mary Morstan than I have on Sherlock Holmes, the man you are most likely reading this to find out about. I have only done so because the events which I have related had a direct effect on what was about to happen. Some of the more religious or spiritual among us may say that it was all part of some divine/cosmic plan. Sherlock would hold out that it is these coincidences in life which make it interesting and worth living. I will gladly stay out of the matter all together and let you draw your own conclusions.
The rest of that dreadfully hot summer was much happier for everyone around me. Mrs. Hudson returned from her sister's in good spirits. I was in such a state of bliss with Mary that nothing Sherlock said could irk me in the least. I continued to make house calls and to help Sherlock. It was nice to be able to examine and help live people and not just dead people all the time. Mary's show got poor reviews and closed after a short run, but she did not seem too upset by it. Most reviews blamed the production staff and had good things to say about the cast itself. Sherlock continued to hunt his thief, reveling in the game once more. I was happy that this foe had no need to hire assassins or strap bombs to people.
It was starting to cool down and turn to fall when Lestrade called Sherlock as we were having our coffee one morning. I can always tell when it is Lestrade calling by the way Sherlock answers the call:
"What do you have for me?…Address?...Nothing taken?...A body! Really?...We'll be right there."
"Where is it?" I asked.
"A jewelry store. No alarm sounded, but there's a dead body."
"You think it's Clay?"
"I don't know. It doesn't seem right. Jewelry's not his style. I hope you can join me."
"Ready when you are."
The jewelry store was a short ride away and the crime scene was still fresh. The owner of the store had been notified but had not yet arrived. Lestrade informed us that there was only the one door in and out of the store, no back entrance or windows. There was no sign of a forced entry so the burglar must have picked the locks. The dead man had been identified as the assistant manager of the store. Sherlock examined the sidewalk and the door, then we went in. The first thing you saw on entering was the bottom of the dead fellow's shoes, heavy utility type boots. He had been shot in the chest, probably dead fairly instantaneously. Sherlock motioned for me to examine the body.
"I don't see any signs of a struggle, no bruises at all. The only wound seems to be the gunshot wound in the chest. I'd actually say he's been dead a few hours, though that doesn't make sense if he caught the burglar in progress when he came in to work this morning. He's mid-thirties, in good health, looks like he works out and would be able to hold his own in a struggle."
"You're quite right," said Sherlock, "there was no struggle."
Sherlock examined the cases, the alarm system and then moved on to the office where the store's safe was.
"Who found the body?" he asked.
"An employee," said Lestrade, "Lisa Samuels. She's outside." Lestrade took us to Lisa.
"What time did you arrive, Lisa?" Sherlock asked.
"Just before eight. We open at nine but arrive at eight. I like to be early."
"Are you usually the first one here?"
"Yes. When Steve opens everyone is here before him and we all have to wait for him to get here. I can't believe he was the first one here today."
"Did you work yesterday?"
"No, I was off."
"Do you know what manager closed last night?"
"Yes, I was in the area and stopped in to say hello. It was Steve."
"The dead man?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about closing procedures."
"First we take the most valuable merchandise to the safe. Then, as the manager on duty counts the money and settles the drawers, we clean. The shelves, the glass, everything. Mr. Wilson likes a clean store."
"Mr. Wilson?"
"The store's owner. Then we all wait until everything is done and we all leave together. The manager enters the security code and we have two minutes to get out before it is activated"
"Do you clean the front door and safe as part of that ritual?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"What do you think?" asked Lestrade. "Is this your man, this Clay you're after?"
"No," said Sherlock, "but it's fairly simple I imagine so I can stay and clear it up for you."
"Simple! But the burglar didn't take anything, there's nothing to go on to find him."
"Oh, you already have your burglar. The question is who shot him?"
"What do you mean?"
"Look at the body. It's facing away from the door. To get into that position he would have had to come in the door, get around the burglar, without any struggle, and then get shot. He's wearing heavy utility boots and is obviously not dressed for work. Add to that the fact that the alarm system, a very expensive alarm system, did not go off. This is the type of alarm system that, once set, can not be over-ridden by anybody in anyway. Both the front door and all the cases have been opened without a scratch, no forced entry. The most valuable pieces are in the safe, but it obviously hasn't been touched as it was cleaned last night and no prints are to be seen on it, even gloves leave smudges most of the time. Whoever the burglar was he knew the safe was on a clock and could not be opened, at all, between certain hours, so he didn't even bother to look at it, which most criminals would do first thing. They haven't changed the alarm code in some time so the buttons of the code are well worn, but the buttons with the freshest deposits on them are not the same ones as those of the code. As Assistant Manager Steve left last night he pushed the incorrect code so the alarm was not set and he could return later. Steve might not have known it but I'm sure that the system probably keeps a log of the codes entered so that should be easy to verify. Then there's the carpet."
"The carpet?" I asked, not knowing what the carpet could possibly reveal.
"It's not as conclusive, but it corroborates everything else. It's very new, very plush. It springs back very quickly; you can't tell at all where we have been walking. But the body, as you said, John, has been there for a few hours. His body has matted down the carpet to the point where it no longer springs back."
"So who do you think killed him?" asked Lestrade.
"I think Mr. Wilson can tell us that, and I believe this is him."
"Are you Mr. Wilson?" asked Lestrade.
"Yes. Oh my! This is just awful! Poor Steven!"
"Have you ever had any problems with the security system before?"
"No, none at all. It's just horrible, isn't it?"
"Did you sleep well, last night, Mr. Wilson?" asked Sherlock.
"I'm sorry, did I what?"
"Did you sleep well?"
"Why, yes, I did. What does that have to do with anything?"
"It has to do with everything! You suffer from insomnia, don't you? There is an empty bottle, along with a brand new bottle, of medication on your desk with a prescription and receipt in your name; a very popular brand of insomnia medication. You forgot to take your medicine home with you yesterday, but you didn't realize it until it was too late and you thought the store would be secured, didn't you? So you couldn't sleep last night and decided to take a walk, probably so you wouldn't wake your wife (wedding ring). You've had to do this before at night so you bought a hand gun to carry with you, just in case. A ballistics test will confirm the bullet came from your weapon, which I'm sure a man of your type would have registered and completely legal. The address on the prescription indicates that you live a short distance from here, on the other side of that park. There was no rain last night but it is obvious that your shoes and the cuffs of your pants have recently been wet. You came by here, saw Steve inside, and instead of calling the police you decide to approach him yourself. This is most likely because you have been upset with Steve lately; you don't like his gambling and drinking, and possibly he had been visited by some of his more unsavory associations in the store, so seeing him in the store, stealing from you, made you angry. You came in, there are clearly two sets of fingerprints on the door (the employees make sure everything is spotless before they leave), one long and slim like Steve's, the other shorter and wider, like yours (easily proven). You confronted Steve, and shot him. Then you realized what you had done and panicked, so you ran home in the shortest way possible, across the park. Our current city park manager is a tiny bit obsessive-compulsive and has ordered that all the parks be watered at the exact same time, four o'clock in the morning, even though this is bad for the water pressure. The sprinklers got your shoes and cuffs wet, but I doubt you noticed it at the time. You've been wringing your hands a lot; they're almost raw, waiting for a call about the break-in. You assumed the police would figure that Steve had got here first (though we have been informed he is usually the last one to arrive), had interrupted the burglar, and got shot that way, which of course they did, and you could come down after they called, waiting long enough to make it seem like you had been getting dressed though it's clear you have been wearing those clothes for some time, and help confirm their story. Good day, Lestrade. Please keep me informed of any other burglaries."
We left the store, got a cab, and started back to Baker Street.
"Okay," I said, "there was obviously a smell of alcohol on the man, but how do you know he gambled?"
"First of all he obviously needed money, and quickly. He could be behind on his rent or credit cards, but most people would rather declare bankruptcy than turn to crime. So I checked his hands."
"His hands?"
"They were very smooth. He didn't do a lot of hard labor so his hands were un-callused, except for the outsides of his thumbs where they were callused from…"
"Shuffling cards."
"It takes a lot of shuffling to create calluses like that, so he was obviously addicted."
It was getting late in the year and had turned cold before we heard about the next big burglary. Sherlock continued to help on a murder here and there, and I continued to blog about them in case this man Clay was reading. It was another early morning when a news story caught Sherlock's attention. A lumber yard had been broken into, trashed, and burglarized. He immediately called Lestrade. He was busy with some experiment so he asked me to dial the number and put it on speaker-phone.
"Lestrade."
"I need you to get me into the lumber yard. Why didn't you tell me there had been a break-in?"
"It's not my division. I only just heard about it myself and was just about to call you."
"I need to get in. We'll meet you there."
"I can't just let you in to someone else's crime scene."
"Well who's in charge then?"
"Bradstreet."
"Ugh! Will you talk to her for me?"
"Yes, but it's not going to be easy, you know. Not after the wild goose chase you sent her on last time. Good morning John, by the way."
"Good morning, Greg," I said. "I was on that goose chase with her as well, you know. I wouldn't let you help again either if I were her."
"I had to send her somewhere," said Sherlock. "She was in the way."
"Head down there," said Lestrade. "I'll try to 'sweet talk' her, but be nice this time. Maybe I can get her to let John in if not you."
The lumber yard was a good distance from Baker Street, in the southern part of the city, but traffic was light and we made good time. It was a small yard, looked like a family-run type of establishment. We had to push through the usual crowd of gawkers and on-lookers to get to the building where we were met by a policeman.
"We're here to see Detective Inspector Bradstreet," said Sherlock.
"Your names sir?" asked the policeman.
"Sherlock Holmes and John Watson."
"One moment please." He radioed it in and a moment later Detective Inspector Bradstreet came out to meet us.
"Well, Mr. Holmes," she said, "here we are again."
"Detective Inspector Bradstreet," said Sherlock, trying to sound as polite as he could.
"Nice to see you again, Dr. Watson."
"You as well, Detective," I said.
"You're lucky, Mr. Holmes. I owe Lestrade a favor, otherwise I would be inclined to send you back to where you came from, but he says this is important to you, so in you come."
We went in and Sherlock had his look around the place. The criminals had made a nice mess of the place, wiping shelves clear of their contents and slicing open bags of concrete mix and sand. We walked through the building, then out the back dock to the lumber yard where the bolt of the gate had obviously been cut, and back into the building to a pile of sand.
"There are foot prints in this sand," said Sherlock. "Have photos been taken?"
"Yes," said Bradstreet. Sherlock stood motionless.
"Is it him?" I asked.
"Yes," said Sherlock.
"Him who?" asked Bradstreet.
"John Clay," I responded.
"John Clay! Are you sure? He's in London!"
"Yes," said Sherlock. "Do they have any security cameras?"
"No," said Bradstreet. "They have an alarm system, but it was disabled. Not sure how they got in without tripping it, all the doors are wired."
"Through there." Sherlock pointed at a skylight.
"How do you know it's Clay?"
"Clay only steals small stuff for one reason: he needs it in order to steal the larger stuff he's after. They had a large truck, that's how they carried away all the lumber and got onto the roof, but they didn't steal anything big that they could sell; all of the heavy tools and equipment are still over there next to the wall, untouched. Clay climbed on top of the truck and onto the roof and came in through the skylight. He disabled the alarm, his specialty, grabbed a bolt cutter, and went and opened the back dock garage door and the gate. While he loaded the lumber he had his accomplice, probably someone local who knew the lay of the store, come in and grab the stuff he needed from in here. The accomplice had a little too much fun, though; I'm surprised he's not dead, but then maybe he is. Most likely it was the accomplice who owned the truck, so Clay needed him alive. You have his footprints here in this sand, but this isn't just any sand, it's swimming pool filter sand. Find a man with pool filter sand on his boots and in his truck and you have your accomplice." Something on the register counter caught Sherlock's attention. "Who uses this register? Bring them in here." An officer brought over two nice looking people in their early sixties and a younger woman in her late thirties or early forties.
"This is Mr. and Mrs. Avery, the store owners," explained Bradstreet, "and Margaret Jameson, their only other front-of-house employee."
"Mr. Avery, can you get me a precise list of everything that was taken?"
"Yes," said Mr. Avery with confidence in his voice.
"You're sure?"
"Yes. This is our slow season so we always take inventory around this time. We just did it last week; our records should still be accurate."
"Good! Send it to Detective Inspector Bradstreet as soon as you can. Who worked the register last night?" asked Sherlock.
"I did," answered Mrs. Avery.
"Everything on this counter is nice and straight except this box of cards. Do you remember leaving them like that?"
"No, I like things to be lined up."
"What are they?"
"They are customer reward cards, for our loyal customers. We write down each purchase they make, then, when they spend so many pounds, we give them a gift certificate."
Sherlock started looking through the cards. "Can you look up purchases on the computer, to verify them?"
"Yes," said Mr. Avery. "I can do that right here." He went over to the cash register. Sherlock was flipping through the cards and every so often would pull one out. Mr. Avery knew his system well and was able to tell him just as fast whether they were legitimate. I looked at the cards he had pulled out and saw he was looking for people who had been in the store several times in the past few weeks.
"Ah! Here we are!" Sherlock exclaimed as he found a card. "What about this one?"
"No," said Mr. Avery, "this last purchase is not in the system. Who's handwriting is that?"
"Looks like a Mr. Turner decided to give himself a few extra points while he was ransacking your store. The address is on the back here, Bradstreet."
"I know Mr. Turner," said Ms. Jameson, the Avery's employee. "He has been in a lot lately. He said he bought a new moving van, to make some money on the side, and has been fixing and 'sprucing' it up."
"Excellent. He'll have pool filter sand on his boots and in the truck. It hasn't rained lately and I doubt he would think to wash them for just a little sand. That is if he's still alive." This statement rather shocked the Averys and Ms. Jameson, but we were on our way out and left Bradstreet to smooth it over. We were out the door when Bradstreet caught up to us.
"Sherlock," she shouted, "I'd like to have a word with you, alone." I turned to leave but Sherlock grabbed my coat sleeve.
"We are alone," he said.
"All right then. If this really is John Clay I'm not going to let a silly little thing like what you did to me the last time stand in the way. Even helping to catch him would be a gold star on my record. I know you like to work closely with Detective Inspector Lestrade, but, as long as there are no other murders, this is my case. I will be happy to work with you and keep you in the loop if you'll extend the same courtesy to me."
"Certainly. Tell me if you find this Mr. Turner alive and when you get the list of what was stolen we'll go over it together. When you find Turner tell the press you have your man, don't make any mention of Clay; we need him to think we don't know he's here. Good day, Detective."
"Good day, Mr. Holmes. Dr. Watson."
We had the list of what was stolen by that evening. Sherlock had pictures of the items printed and they hung scattered across our wall. He stood before them trying to make a connection.
"No date tonight, John?" he asked out of the blue. I think he often hoped I would break up with my girlfriends so he would have my undivided attention once again.
"No, the Morstans are all in the Alps."
"You weren't invited?"
"I was. Little early in our relationship for a week in a secluded mountain cabin with her entire family."
"Ah," he said, but he was no longer listening to me.
It was March before anything else turned up that could possibly be associated with John Clay. Sherlock was certain that he was still in town, I don't know why, but I had started to think he had caught Sherlock's scent and moved on. Then there was a robbery at a car dealership, again in the southern part of the city. Upon arrival Bradstreet informed us that two sports cars had been stolen about half an hour apart from each other. The lot had cameras pointing in every direction, so this time we had something to go on at least, or so we thought. We went to the security office and watched the playback. One moment the cars were there, the next they had vanished into thin air. We watched the footage several times and slowed it down; there was never a sign of any person on the lot.
"Look at that screen there," said Sherlock. "Watch the tree. It was windy last night, but there…." The tree stopped moving.
"He paused them," I said, "or had someone else pause them."
"Could be an inside job, but Clay could certainly get in here and do it himself, so I doubt he would use someone else, and the breaks are long enough for him to move the car somewhere out of sight and come back and restart them. What is wrong with this camera here?" One of the screens was blank.
"The employees say it went out a couple days ago," explained Bradstreet. "There was a technician here about a week ago that said everything checked out fine. The company that sold them the cameras and maintains them denies sending a technician, but they haven't been around to fix this one yet."
"Number five," said Sherlock and he headed outdoors.
"Why would he need two sports cars?" asked Bradstreet.
"He didn't. You'll find those abandoned later today. There, in that row of vans, there's a gap." Sherlock pointed towards a row of used vehicles, mostly vans.
"He stole a used vehicle as well?"
"Where's camera number five?"
Bradstreet checked the map of the lot she had been given. "It would be this one here," she indicated the pole closest to us. "The one that would be pointed towards the used vehicles. The sports cars are just a distraction."
"John, give me a lift." The camera pole had metal rungs, but they started a fair distance from the ground, so I had to lift Sherlock up until he could reach them. He climbed up the pole, dismounted the camera, and then came back down. He opened the camera up; it looked as if a bomb had exploded inside. "He used a small timed explosive."
"The technician was Clay," I said.
"Yes. He comes a week ago, posing as a technician, puts an explosive in this camera, a few days later it goes off disabling the camera, so it can't even be proved for sure that a vehicle was sitting in that spot. We'll need to find out what kind of vehicle it was and ask every employee who saw the 'technician.'"
"The 'technician' came between four and five in the morning, so no one was here to see him," said Bradstreet. "He can be seen on a few of the cameras but his face is always concealed. Finding out what vehicle it was will be difficult because the cameras only keep forty-eight hours worth of footage. Add to that the fact that their computers were hacked and the entire inventory erased."
"They didn't have it backed up?" I asked.
"Yes, but so far the computers are refusing to restore it. We have people working on it."
"Oh, clever!" said Sherlock as he turned to leave. "I'll be in touch."
Now I realize I have gotten a little ahead of myself. I must go back and tell you of a most extraordinary event which occurred on New Year's Eve. I had been invited, by Mary, to the Morstan Estates to celebrate the New Year. It was a lovely evening, unseasonably warm but with just the right amount of chill in the air. The main Morstan house was a huge, rambling Tudor mansion; it faced south and you could just see the glow of London in the distance behind it. Vineyards lay on one side of the house and stretched out in the back beyond the yard. Out in the vineyards was the caretakers 'cottage,' which I should also have labeled a mansion if I hadn't been told it was a cottage, and a number of other small buildings used for various things. On one side of the main house there was a large patio area surrounded by a pergola. Beyond this there was a wide, elliptical reflecting pool. It was nearly midnight and Mary and I had bundled up and were sitting on a bench beside the pool. She had declared that this was her favorite spot for watching her father's annual New Year's firework display. The rest of the party was on the patio where a great fire burned and space heaters warmed it enough that they didn't even need coats. The fireworks started at five minutes till midnight, and it was warm enough that the reflecting pool was not frozen over. The wind was calm so we could see every colorful explosion twice, once in the air and once in the water. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect setting.
"Mary," I said, "I know we haven't known each other for all that long, but I've never been surer of anything in my life." I got down on one knee and took out the ring which, thankfully, I had managed to sneak out of my blazer pocket and into my coat pocket before we came out. "Will you marry me?"
"John, yes, of course I will!" she said as the great explosion that ushered in the New Year went on above us. She pulled me up and hugged me and I could see on the patio that no one was paying any attention to the fireworks.