Fantastic Metropolis

“You know everything ahead of me telling it, Mr Holmes! I need speak no more. Your reputation is thoroughly deserved, sir. If I were not a rational man, I would believe you possessed of psychic powers!”

“Simple deductions, Mr Macklesworth. One develops a skill, you know. But it might take a longer acquaintance for me to deduce how you came to cross some six thousand miles of land and sea to arrive in London, go straight to Willesden and come away with one of the finest pieces of Renaissance silver the world has ever seen. All in a day, too.”

“I can assure you, Mr Holmes, that such adventuring is not familiar to me. Until a few months ago I was the owner of a successful shipping and wholesaling business. My wife died several years back and I never remarried. My daughters are all grown now and married, living far from Texas. I was a little lonely, I suppose, but reasonably content. That all changed, as you have guessed, when the Fellini Perseus came into my life.”

“You received word of it in Texas, Mr Macklesworth?”

“Well, sir, it’s an odd thing. Embarrassing, too. But I guess I’m going to have to be square with you and come out with it. The gentleman from whom the Perseus was stolen was a cousin of mine. We’d corresponded a little. In the course of that correspondence he revealed the secret which now burdens me. I was his only living male relative, you see, and he had family business to do. There was another cousin, he thought in New Orleans, but he had yet to be found. Well, gentlemen, the long and the short of it was that I swore on my honour to carry out Sir Geoffrey’s instructions in the event of something happening to him or to the Fellini Perseus. His instructions led me to take train for New York and from New York the Arcadia for London. I arrived yesterday afternoon.”

“So you came all this way, Mr Mackleworth, on a matter of honour?” I was somewhat impressed.

“You could say so, sir. We set high store by family loyalty in Texas. Sir Geoffrey’s estate, as you know, went to pay his debts. My reason for seeking you out was connected with his death. I believe Sir Geoffrey was murdered, Mr Holmes. Someone was frightening him and he spoke of ‘financial commitments’. His letters increasingly showed his anxiety and were often rather rambling accounts of his fears that there should be nothing left for his heirs. I told him he had no direct heirs and he might as well reconcile himself to that. He did not seem to take in what I said. He begged me to help him. And he begged me to be discrete. I promised. One of the last letters I had from him told me that if I ever heard news of his death, I must immediately sail for England and upon arriving take a good sized bag to l8 Dahlia Gardens, Willesden Green, North West London, and supply proof of my identify, whereupon I would take responsibility for the ‘Macklesworth birthright’ and return immediately to Galveston.”

“This I swore and only a couple of months later I read in the Galveston paper the news of the robbery. Not long after, there followed an account of poor Sir Geoffrey’s suicide. There was nothing else I could do, Mr Holmes, but follow his instructions, as I had sworn I would. However I became convinced that Sir Geoffrey had scarcely been in his right mind at the end. I suspected he feared nothing less than murder. He spoke of people who would go to any lengths to possess the Fellini Silver, how I must keep our secret at all costs.. He did not care that the rest of his estate was mortgaged to the hilt or that he would die, effectively, a pauper. The Silver was of overweening importance. That is why I suspect the robbery and his murder are connected.”

“But the verdict was suicide,” I said. “A note was found. The coroner was satisfied.”

“The note was covered in blood was it not?” Holmes murmured from where he sat lounging back in his chair, his finger tips together upon his chin.

“I gather so, Holmes, and since foul play was not suspected, no investigation was made.”

“Quite so. Pray continue, Mr Mackelsworth.”

“Well, gentlemen, I’ve little to add. All I have is a nagging suspicion that something is wrong. I do not wish to be party to a crime, nor to hold back information of use to the police, but I am honour-bound to fulfill my pledge to my cousin. I came to you not necessarily to ask you to solve a crime, but to put my mind at rest if no crime were committed.”

“A crime has already been committed, if Sir Geoffrey announced a burglary that did not happen. But it is not much of one, I’d agree. What did you want of us in particular, Mr Mackelsworth?”

” Yesterday, I hoped that you or Dr Watson might accompany me to the address—for obvious reasons. I am a law-abiding man, Mr Holmes and wish to remain so. There again, considerations of honour—”

“Quite so,” interrupted Holmes. “Now, Mr Mackelsworth, tell us what you found at l8 Dahlia Gardens, Willesden!”

“Well, it was a rather dingy row house, crowded with others of its kind along a little road about a quarter of a mile from the station. It was not what I had expected. Number 18 was dingier than the rest—a poor sort of a place altogether, with peeling paint, an overgrown yard, bulging garbage cans–the kind of thing you expect to see in the Houston slums, not in a suburb of London.

“All this notwithstanding, I found the dirty knocker and hammered upon the door until it was opened by a surprisingly attractive woman of the octoroon persuasion. She was unusually tall, with broad shoulders and long, surprisingly well-manicured hands. Indeed, she was impeccable in her appearance, in distinct contrast to her surroundings. She was expecting me and introduced herself as Mrs Gallibasta. I knew the name at once. Sir Geoffrey had often spoken of his housekeeper, in terms of considerable affection and trust. He had enjoined her, before he died, to perform this last loyal deed for him. She handed me a note he had written to that effect. Here it is, Mr Holmes.”