Read Online The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes by Donald Thomas - Free Book Online
Authors: Donald Thomas
Tags: Suspense
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had paid a previous visit, when they tried by brute force to smash their way into this strong-room through the ceiling above. Concrete and steel girders defeated the assault. You may be sure that their object was not Sir Arthurâs modest collection of English silver or his library of genealogy. The raiders believed that in the vault at Kilmorna lay a treasure-house of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, all set in gold, the regalia of St Patrick and the Crown Jewels of Ireland, which the world had not seen for fourteen years. Such was the prize for which Sir Arthur Vicars died. His murderers were not patriots of any sort, but common robbers.
I could not hear of this outrage without recalling another death in the same family. Seven years earlier, when Sir Arthurâs nephew, Peirce Mahony, was shot through the heart in the grounds of his fatherâs house at Grange Con, south of Dublin, Captain Moonlight was nowhere to be found. But like his uncle, the young man had held office in the court of King Edwardâs Viceroy at Dublin, Lord Aberdeen.
The circumstances of his death were these. On Sunday, 27 July 1914, Peirce Mahony was with a family party at Grange Con. The talk was of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, the mobilisation of the Austrian army on the Russian frontier, of what France and England would do. After lunch, Mahony took his gun and went out to shoot duck. By dusk he had not returned. A search of the grounds revealed the young manâs body lying in the lake. Mahony had been shot twice through the heart by his own gun. There was very little spread of shot. The gun had been fired when the mouths of the barrels were more or less touching his chest, perhaps pressed against it.
Suicide was impossible, since Mahony would have been unable to reach the trigger if the muzzle was pressed above his heart. It was assumed that there had been an accident when he climbed over the wire fence to reach the lake. Perhaps he propped his gun against the fence. Perhaps he unwisely reached over to lift it by its muzzle with the mouths of the barrels pointing at his chest. A strand of wire caught in the trigger-guard and pressed the trigger back. The barrels were discharged simultaneously and he was knocked back into the water by the force of the impact.
Sherlock Holmes was far away from this tragedy but he later examined the trigger-guard of the shotgun with great care. There were no scratches on the metal, such as barbed wire might have made. All the same, why should anyone choose to murder a decent young fellow like Mahony? Holmes guessed that Mahony was a man who had learned some truth about the loss of King Edwardâs Crown Jewels and was too honest to keep that truth to himself. My friend was of the opinion that the young man boldly threatened to unmask the thief who had stolen the regalia of St Patrick. If so, the thief had now murdered his accuser. If this version of events was correct then the killer, as Holmes judged him, escaped justice only for one more year before being seized after he had shot a policeman dead in a Hampstead street.
Of the three public figures involved in the 1907 scandal of the Crown Jewels, two had met violent deaths. Only one remained alive. Frank Shackleton. He was known to Mayfair society as the younger brother of the famous Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton. Sherlock Holmes described him to me more bluntly as âa man of the worst reputation and a disgrace to a fine familyâ.
The deaths of Peirce Mahony and Sir Arthur Vicars were the last acts of the drama that had begun in the early summer of 1907 and involved Sherlock Holmes and myself in one of our most sensational cases. To that drama, I shall now return.
II
A reader of these sketches of the life of Sherlock Holmes would find it remarkable, perhaps incredible, had my friendâs talents not been employed by the authorities in the more dangerous world of the new century. The long reign of Her Majesty had
I could not hear of this outrage without recalling another death in the same family. Seven years earlier, when Sir Arthurâs nephew, Peirce Mahony, was shot through the heart in the grounds of his fatherâs house at Grange Con, south of Dublin, Captain Moonlight was nowhere to be found. But like his uncle, the young man had held office in the court of King Edwardâs Viceroy at Dublin, Lord Aberdeen.
The circumstances of his death were these. On Sunday, 27 July 1914, Peirce Mahony was with a family party at Grange Con. The talk was of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, the mobilisation of the Austrian army on the Russian frontier, of what France and England would do. After lunch, Mahony took his gun and went out to shoot duck. By dusk he had not returned. A search of the grounds revealed the young manâs body lying in the lake. Mahony had been shot twice through the heart by his own gun. There was very little spread of shot. The gun had been fired when the mouths of the barrels were more or less touching his chest, perhaps pressed against it.
Suicide was impossible, since Mahony would have been unable to reach the trigger if the muzzle was pressed above his heart. It was assumed that there had been an accident when he climbed over the wire fence to reach the lake. Perhaps he propped his gun against the fence. Perhaps he unwisely reached over to lift it by its muzzle with the mouths of the barrels pointing at his chest. A strand of wire caught in the trigger-guard and pressed the trigger back. The barrels were discharged simultaneously and he was knocked back into the water by the force of the impact.
Sherlock Holmes was far away from this tragedy but he later examined the trigger-guard of the shotgun with great care. There were no scratches on the metal, such as barbed wire might have made. All the same, why should anyone choose to murder a decent young fellow like Mahony? Holmes guessed that Mahony was a man who had learned some truth about the loss of King Edwardâs Crown Jewels and was too honest to keep that truth to himself. My friend was of the opinion that the young man boldly threatened to unmask the thief who had stolen the regalia of St Patrick. If so, the thief had now murdered his accuser. If this version of events was correct then the killer, as Holmes judged him, escaped justice only for one more year before being seized after he had shot a policeman dead in a Hampstead street.
Of the three public figures involved in the 1907 scandal of the Crown Jewels, two had met violent deaths. Only one remained alive. Frank Shackleton. He was known to Mayfair society as the younger brother of the famous Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton. Sherlock Holmes described him to me more bluntly as âa man of the worst reputation and a disgrace to a fine familyâ.
The deaths of Peirce Mahony and Sir Arthur Vicars were the last acts of the drama that had begun in the early summer of 1907 and involved Sherlock Holmes and myself in one of our most sensational cases. To that drama, I shall now return.
II
A reader of these sketches of the life of Sherlock Holmes would find it remarkable, perhaps incredible, had my friendâs talents not been employed by the authorities in the more dangerous world of the new century. The long reign of Her Majesty had
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