Fantastic Metropolis

I saw Jean-Pierre Fromental, alias Linda Gallibasta, stagger backwards, arms raised, and then reach again towards the Fellini Silver before losing balance and falling backwards, with a loud crash of breaking glass and splintering timber, through the window. He seemed to hover in the very air, supported by his will, his terrible lust for the Fellini Silver, and then, with an animal cry, flail at the air and fall, disappearing into a terrible, sudden silence.

At that moment, the door burst open and in came John Mackelsworth, closely followed by our old friend Inspector Lestrade, Mrs Ackroyd and one or two other tenants of Number 2, Dorset Street.

“It’s all right, Watson,” I heard Holmes say, a little faintly. “Only a flesh wound. It was foolish of me not to know he could throw a Bowie-knife! Get down there, Lestrade, and see what you can do. I’d hoped to take him alive. It could be the only way we’ll be able to locate the money he has been stealing from his benefactor over all these years. Good evening to you, Mr Mackelsworth. I had hoped to convince you of my solution, but I had not expected to suffer quite so much injury in the performance.” His smile was faint and his eyes were flooded with pain.

Luckily, I was able to reach my friend before he collapsed upon my arm and allowed me to lead him to a chair, where I inspected the wound. The knife had stuck in his shoulder and, as Holmes knew, had done no permanent damage, but I did not envy him the discomfort he was suffering.

Poor Macklesworth was completely stunned. His entire notion of things had been turned topsy-turvy and he was having difficulty taking everything in. After dressing Holmes’s wound, I told Macklesworth to sit down while I fetched everyone a brandy. Both the American and myself were bursting to learn everything Holmes had deduced, but contained ourselves until my friend would be in better health. Now that the initial shock was over, however, he was in high spirits and greatly amused by our expressions.

“Your explanation was ingenious, Watson, and touched on the truth, but I fear it was not the answer. If you will kindly look in my inside jacket pocket, you will find two pieces of paper there. Would you be good enough to draw them out so that we might all see them?”

I did as my friend instructed. One was the last letter Sir Geoffrey had written to John Macklesworth and, ostensibly, left with Mrs. Gallibasta. The other, far older, was the letter John Macklesworth had read out earlier that day. Although there was a slight similarity to the hand-writing, they were clearly of different authorship.

“You said this was the forgery,” said Holmes, holding up the letter in his left hand, “but unfortunately it was not. It is probably the only example of Sir Geoffrey’s handwriting you have ever seen, Mr Mackelsworth.”

“You mean he dictated everything to his—to that devil?”

“I fear, Mr Mackelsworth, that your namesake had never heard of your existence.”

“He could not write to a man he had never heard of, Mr Holmes!”

“Your correspondence, my dear sir, was not with Sir Geoffrey at all, but with the man who lies on the pavement down there. His name, as Doctor Watson has already deduced, is Jean-Pierre Fromental. No doubt he fled to England after the Picayune murders and, as an actor, easily got in with the likes of Frank Harris and the Bohemian crowd surrounding Lord Alfred Douglas, eventually finding exactly the kind of dupe he was looking for. It is possible he kept his persona of Linda Gallibasta all along. Certainly that would explain why he became so terrified at the thought of being examined by a doctor—you’ll recall the postmistresses words. It is hard to know if he was permanently dressing as a woman—that, after all, is how he had lured his Louisiana victims to their deaths—and whether Sir Geoffrey knew much about him, but clearly he made himself invaluable to his employer and was able, bit by bit, to salt away the remains of the Mackelsworth fortune. But what he really craved, was the Fellini Silver, and that was when he determined the course of action which led to his calculating deception of you, Mr Mackelsworth. He needed a namesake living not far from New Orleans. As an added insurance he invented another cousin. By the simple device of writing to you on Sir Geoffrey’s stationery he built up an entire series of lies, each of which had the appearance of verifying the other. Because, as Linda Gallibasta, he always collected the mail, Sir Geoffrey was never once aware of the deception.”

It was John Macklesworth’s turn to sit down suddenly as realisation dawned. “Good heavens, Mr Holmes. Now I understand!”

“Fromental wanted the Fellini Silver. He became obsessed with the notion of owning it. But he knew that, if he stole it, there was little chance of his ever getting it out of the country. He needed a second dupe. That dupe was you, Mr Macklesworth. I regret that you are probably not a a very near cousin of the murdered man. Neither, I can assure you, did Sir Geoffrey fear for his Silver. He appeared quite reconciled to his poverty and had long since ensured d that the Fellini Silver would remain in trust for his family or the public forever. In respect of the Silver he was sheltered from all debt by a special covenant with parliament. There was never a danger of the piece going to his creditors. There was, of course, no way, in those circumstances, that Fromental could get the Silver for himself. He had to engineer first a burglary—and then a murder, which looked like a consequence of that burglary. The suicide note was a forgery, but hard to decipher. His plan was to use your honesty and decency, Mr Macklesworth, to carry the Silver through to America. Then he planned to obtain it from you by any means he found necessary.”