There was a little pause and The Thinking Machine shifted his position slightly.
‘Here I had a motive – jealousy of one man who was thrown over for another; the method of death, through the lattice; a clue to the murderer in the stiletto, and the name of the man. It seemed conclusive but I had overlooked a figure one. I saw that when Mr Oliver assured me that Miss Eleanor Oliver did not know the nobleman whose name I wrote for him; that she could not have known him. The entire structure tumbled. I was nonplussed and a little rude, I fear, in my surprise. Then I had to reconsider the matter from the beginning. The most important of all the connecting links was missing, yet the logic was right. It is always right.
‘There are times when imagination has to bridge gaps caused by the absence of demonstrable facts. I considered the matter carefully, then saw where I had dropped the figure one. I ’phoned to Mr Hatch to know if Miss Oliver had a sister. She had. The newspapers to which Mr Hatch referred me told me the rest of it. It was Eleanor Oliver’s sister who had the affair with the nobleman. That cleared it. There is the name of the murderer.’
He laid down a card on which was scribbled this name and address: ‘Count Leo Tortino, Hotel Teutonic.’ Hatch and the detective read it simultaneously, then looked at The Thinking Machine inquiringly.
‘But I don’t see it yet,’ expostulated the detective. ‘This man Knight –’
‘Briefly it is this,’ declared the other impatiently. ‘The newspapers carried a story of Florence Oliver’s love affair with Count Tortino at the time she was travelling in Europe with her mother. According to what I read she jilted him and returned to this country where her engagement to another man was rumoured. That was several months ago. Now it doesn’t follow that because the Count knew Florence Oliver that he knew or even knew of Eleanor Oliver.
‘Suppose he came here maddened by disappointment and seeking revenge, suppose further he reached the theatre, as he did, while the anvil chorus was on, the party started into the wrong box and the usher mentioned casually that the Olivers were in there. We presume he knew Mrs Oliver by sight, and saw her. He might reasonably have surmised, perhaps he was told, that the other woman was Miss Oliver – and Miss Oliver meant to him the woman who had jilted him. The lattice work offered a way, the din of the music covered the act – and that’s all. It doesn’t really appear – it isn’t necessary to know – how he carried the stiletto about him, or why.’
The detective was gnawing his moustache. He was silent for several minutes trying to see the tragedy in this new light.
‘But the threats Knight made?’ he inquired finally.
‘Has he explained them?’
‘Oh, he said something about the girl being ill and wanting to go home, and he urged her not to. He told her, he says, that she mustn’t go, because he would have to do something desperate. Silly explanation I call it.’
‘But I dare say it’s perfectly correct,’ commented The Thinking Machine. ‘Men of your profession, Mr Mallory, never believe the simple things. If you would take the word of an accused man at face value occasionally you would have less trouble.’ There was a pause, then: ‘I promised Mr Knight that he would be free by midnight. It is now ten. Suppose you run down to the Teutonic and see Count Tortino. He will hardly deny anything.’
****
Detective Mallory and Hatch found the Count in his room. He was lying face down across a bed with a bullet hole in his temple. A note of explanation confessed the singular error which had led to the murder of Eleanor Oliver.
It was three minutes of midnight when Sylvester Knight walked out of his cell a heartbroken man, but free.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, I would like to thank Ion Mills, Claire Watts, Clare Quinlivan, Lisa Gooding, Hollie McDevitt, and Ellie Lavender at Oldcastle Books for their help while I was compiling this book, and for their hard work in bringing it into print and putting it into the hands of readers. Thanks also to Elsa Mathern who has created just as eyecatching a cover design for the book as she has done for my earlier anthologies. Jayne Lewis has once again demonstrated her brilliant copy-editing skills in making my original manuscript much more readable and error-free and Steven Mair proved, as always, an exceptionally sharp-eyed proof-reader. As always, I am grateful to family and friends for their encouragement while I have been engaged in reading hundred-year-old crime stories. Particular mentions must go to my sister, Lucinda Rennison, my brother-in-law, Wolfgang Lüers, my nieces, Lorna and Milena Lüers, my mother, Eileen Rennison, and to David Jones, a close friend for more than forty years. Finally, I would not have finished this anthology without the love and support I receive each day from my wife, Eve.
ALSO BY NICK RENNISON
Freud and Psychoanalysis
Peter Mark Roget – The Man Who Became a Book
Robin Hood – Myth, History & Culture
A Short History of Polar Exploration
Bohemian London
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
The Rivals of Dracula
Supernatural Sherlocks
More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock’s Sisters
noexit.co.uk/nick-rennison
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
(Author Photo: David Lawrence)
NICK RENNISON is a writer, editor and bookseller with a particular interest in the Victorian era and in crime fiction. He is the editor of six anthologies of short stories for No Exit Press: The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The Rivals of Dracula, Supernatural Sherlocks, More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock’s Sisters and American Sherlocks, plus A Short History of Polar Exploration, Peter Mark Roget: A Biography, Freud and Psychoanalysis, Robin Hood: Myth, History & Culture and Bohemian London, published by Oldcastle Books. He is also the author of The
