Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Lost Puppy
By Galaxy1001D
Based off the story 'Die Like a Dog' by Rex Stout
Additional material by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Rex Stout
Chapter Four: What Jerome Aland Had to Tell
I waited until after Gladstone had his walk and we were riding a cab to Scotland Yard before I intruded upon my friend's thoughts. "I am inclined to think––" said I.
"I should do so," Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently as the dog sitting in the hat in his lap took his second nap of the day.
I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. "Really, Holmes," said I severely, "you are a little trying at times."
He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate answer to my remonstrance. "Watson, just how far down Queer Street are we?"
Blushing at my own personal weakness, I was forced to admit: "Pretty far actually. I'm sorry Holmes; I shouldn't have gotten us in as deep as I have."
"Not to worry," Holmes murmured in a soothing voice. "Mrs. Hudson has always understood in the past."
"Hopefully I'll get my novel published," I said hopefully. "In the future we should always make the rent on time."
"It's not even a novel," Holmes sniffed. "It's barely a novella. If your friend Doyle hadn't added all that fictitious nonsense in the second half it would be a novelette."
I have no doubt that the blood rushed to my face. "Holmes!" I sputtered through grit teeth. "You have got to be the most insufferable son of a––"
"My blushes, Watson!" Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice. "No coarse language please, not while little Gladstone is with us! Show some sensitivity to the little tyke; there's a good fellow."
"You can be insensitive to the point of cruelty!" I protested. "My first foray into the publishing world is a celebration of your genius, and what kind of thanks do I get? I harp on your virtues and downplay your vices! Tell me: Did I mention your drug habit? The way you play your violin at odd hours of the night? I told my readers that you're never up after ten at night when in truth I never know when you'll be up! When you wake and when you sleep is unpredictable; the only certainty is that it has nothing to do with whether or not the sun is up! I'd call you the Bat-man but science can predict when a bat will let his roommate get some sleep you silly-!"
"A touch! A distinct touch!" cried Holmes. "You are developing a certain unexpected vein of pawky humor, Watson, against which I must learn to guard myself. But you're right, my dear fellow, I must thank you for keeping my numerous faults hidden from the public. I notice that you also omitted your habit of gambling away our money or the fact that I am so generous with mine. Perhaps if you added all those little facts to your story it would be long enough to truly be a novel."
I nearly exploded over the hypocrisy of the suggestion. "You were the one who told me that some facts should be suppressed! I distinctly remember you telling me; it was today in fact!"
"I merely wanted to impress you with the fact that if my methods fascinate you so much you should be writing a monograph on the science of deduction rather than writing a romantic adventure story," Holmes retorted in the driest of tones. "Honestly, that silly tale in Utah that young Doyle added reads like a penny-dreadful. You've reduced the scientific art with which I earn my living into a lurid, sensational story that no self-respecting criminologist will take seriously. If by some miracle your story is published, official police around the world will scoff at those who use my methods. Face facts, Watson: Your account of our first case together may sell more copies than a dry treatise, but it will be significantly less enlightening to mankind at large."
I admit at this point I was being childish, but an artist can be as protective of his creation as a parent can be to his own offspring. "You just don't want me to sell more copies of our Study in Scarlet than you sold of your monograph on how to identify the ash of various tobaccos! Admit it; you just don't want your methods or your private life to be exposed to the world, do you? That's why you let the official police take credit for your cases. You're afraid to be put under a microscope aren't you? You take great pleasure at reading others at a glance but couldn't stand it if someone else did the same to you! Admit it!"
"Watson…" Holmes began as Gladstone barked.
"Admit it!"
"You're upset," Holmes began.
"Bark!" added Gladstone.
"Admit it, Holmes! Admit it! Admit it!" I chanted childishly as Holmes tried to get a word in edgewise and the dog barked. Not my finest moment I must confess, but God did make me mortal with all the faults and weaknesses that plague mankind.
"I'm sorry Watson," my friend apologized contritely when I had finally vented my spleen. "I shouldn't have goaded you like that. You're tense," he purred in a calm soothing voice as he stroked Gladstone's head. "You're tired, and I've been taking too much of your time. You're concerned about our finances and feeling a touch guilty as well. I admit I chose a bad time to needle you. I would never get in the way of a genuine attempt to inform the world of the importance of observation and scientific analysis. You know that."
"Then why in Heaven's name are you criticizing my work?" I demanded.
Holmes frowned in thought. "I don't know," he said before he broke into a huge grin. "It just… makes me smile!" At this Holmes held his breath in an attempt to avoid laughing at the murderous glare I was giving him. So absurd was his expression as he sat there in the hansom while wearing that silly deerstalker cap that it was I myself who burst out in laughter.
Gladstone barked as we both laughed like idiots. He obviously thought we were barking and wanted to join in.
"So what did your inspection of the upstairs tell you?" I asked when we had regained our composure.
"Nothing I didn't expect to find," Holmes replied grudgingly. "Although the carpet was so thin in the halls upstairs that I'm surprised it wasn't hardwood. I couldn't get into the residents' flats of course. Breaking and entering under such circumstantial suspicions seemed a bit excessive at the time."
"So what did you see?" I prodded.
"What I expected to see," he replied evasively.
"And what was that exactly?" I continued.
"Trifles."
"Holmes," I said sternly. "You are being deliberately evasive. I promise not to give your prime suspect the evil eye."
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have evidence," Holmes sighed.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that I saw what I expected to see because I theorized far too soon," he muttered. "The imprints on that threadbare carpet were faint to the point of nonexistence, but at least I saw nothing that disproved my hypothesis."
"So what's wrong?" I asked.
"I fear I may have missed something that would challenge my theory," Holmes sighed. "My assumptions and instincts may be blinding me to the truth. If you make theories before you possess the facts, you are in danger of dismissing those facts that challenge your theories. In my own way, I seem to be tackling this case the same way as Lestrade would."
"Come now," I chided. "Surely it can't be that bad."
"We shall see when we reach Scotland Yard," my friend said. "I'd like to have another look at the dead man and his effects before I pass judgment. Ah here we are," he said as the hansom turned onto Whitehall Place.
In those days the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service had expanded from 4 Whitehall Place into several neighboring addresses, including 3, 5, 21 and 22 Whitehall Place; 8 and 9 Great Scotland Yard, and several stables. Construction on the Met's new headquarters on the Victoria Embankment overlooking the river wouldn't begin until the following year.
Holmes knew his way to Lestrade's office and navigated his way through the buildings with ease. We caught up with the good inspector in the unfriendly, confining room used for interrogation. It was lit by strategically placed gaslights that somehow managed to make the room too bright and too dim at the same time.
Inspector Lestrade was interviewing the one of the occupants of 29 Arbor Street, specifically: Aland, the performer. Jerome Aland was a short, skinny untidy individual whose messy, wild curly hair looked like it was a nest for rodents.
The good inspector looked up at us as we entered with his beady, ferret-like eyes. "There you are," Lestrade muttered. "I hope you'll forgive me for not waiting. Is it all right if we continue your majesty?"
"Of course my dear inspector," Holmes smiled while tipping his hat. My friend's false embarrassment was replaced by the genuine article when he realized that he was still wearing that deerstalker cap he had put on earlier. Blushing, he snatched it off his head but not before he received a snort of laughter from both Lestrade and myself. "Et tu, my dear Watson?" he murmured to me.
"You're always pointing out the trifling details that the rest of us miss," I snickered quietly. "It's always nice to even the ledger on occasion."
Lestrade and I laughed again before the good inspector cleared his throat and assumed a businesslike tone. "Now, then Mister Aland, where were we? How long has Richard Meagan occupied the apartment below you?"
"Nine days," Aland replied in his nervous squeaky voice. "He took it a week ago Tuesday."
"Who was the previous tenant?" Lestrade asked. "Just before him."
"There wasn't any. It was empty."
"Empty ever since you've been here?"
"No, I've told you, a girl had it, but she moved out about three months ago," Aland explained. "Her name is Jewel Jones, and she's a fine artist, and she got me my job at the music hall where I work now." His mouth worked. "I know what you're doing, you're trying to make it nasty, and you're trying to catch me getting my facts twisted. Bringing that dog here to growl at me - can I help it if I don't like dogs?"
At that remark, I looked at the bulldog puppy in my hands. Gladestone barked once and then whined before licking his lips.
Aland ran his fingers, both hands, through his hair. When he had managed to make his hair even more disheveled, he gestured like the music hall performer he was. "Die like a dog," he said. "That's what Phil did, died like a dog. Poor Phil, I wouldn't want to see that again."
"You said," Holmes ventured, "that you and he were good friends."
His head jerked up. "I did not. Did I say that?"
"More or less," my friend purred. "Maybe not in those words. I'm sorry. Weren't you?"
"We were not," Aland announced miserably. "I haven't got any good friends."
"You just said that the girl that used to live in Mister Meagan's flat got you a job," Holmes shrugged. "That sounds like a good friend. Or did she owe you something?"
"Not a blessed thing," Aland blushed." Why do you keep bringing her up?"
"I didn't bring her up, you did," Holmes shrugged. My good friend Lestrade only asked who was the former tenant in the apartment below you. Why, would you rather keep her out of it?"
"I don't have to keep her out," Aland said in a defiant sulk. "She's not in it."
"Perhaps not," Holmes shared a wink with Lestrade. "Did she know Philip Love?"
"I guess so," Aland shrugged. "Sure she did."
"How well did she know him?" Lestrade interjected.
He shook his head. "Now you're getting personal, and I'm the wrong person. If Phil was alive you could ask him, and he might tell you. Me, I don't know."
Lestrade smiled at him. "All that does, Mr. Aland, is make us curious. Somebody in your house murdered Love. So we ask you questions, and when we come to one you shy at, naturally we wonder why. If you don't like talking about Love and that girl, think what it could mean. For instance, it could mean that the girl was yours, and Love took her away from you, and that was why you killed him when he came here yesterday. Or it could - "
"She wasn't mine!"
"So you say," Lestrade's manner indicated that he was not convinced. "Or it could mean that although she wasn't yours, you were under a deep obligation to her, and Love had given her a dirty deal, or he was threatening her with something, and she wanted him disposed of, and you obliged. Or of course it could be merely that Love had something on you."
"Blimey!" Aland waved his hands in surrender. "You're in the wrong business!" he asserted. "You ought to be writing for the theatre with an imagination like that!"
Lestrade stuck with him only a few more minutes, having got all he could hope for under the circumstances. Holmes didn't bother chime in and the interview ended quickly. As for myself, I didn't see where the performer's testimony had got us. The only further item I gathered from Jerome Aland was that he wasn't trying to get from under by slipping in any insinuations about his fellow tenants. He had no opinions or ideas about who had killed Phillip Love.
"He's hiding something," Lestrade grumbled after Mister Aland had been escorted out. "Too bad it doesn't mean anything."
"How so?" I asked.
"My dear Watson, he's in the theatre!" Holmes chuckled. "A music hall performer is bound to have a bagful of embarrassing secrets that would condemn him in the eyes of the public, even if the law doesn't take notice."
I nodded in surrender. The Bohemian lot who perform in the music halls could make even Holmes' eccentricities seem commonplace. But still, I couldn't shake the suspicion that we should have asked what kind of performer Jerome Aland was. If he was an actor he it meant that he made his living with a skill tailor made for deception. Who better to hide a guilty conscience than a man who surrendered his identity every time he went to work?
Next: The Tenants' Testimony