Elementary - Blood and Ink E-Book

Adam Christopher

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The CFO of a secretive NYC hedge fund is found murdered—stabbed through the eye with an expensive fountain pen. Holmes and Watson discover a link between the victim and a charismatic touring management guru with a doubtful past. But is the solution so clear-cut or is the guru being framed? As secrets are revealed and another victim is found murdered in the same grisly fashion, Holmes and Watson begin to uncover a murky world of money and deceit...

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Adam Christopher

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

  1. The Adventure of the Poisoned Preserve Pot

  2. Death’s Fine Hand

  3. The Men in Black

  4. The Suspects

  5. The Lion’s Den

  6. No Love Lost

  7. Dead Ends

  8. The Secret in the Diary

  9. Gregory Smythe’s Mysterious Appointment

10. The Lecture

11. The Publicist and her Husband

12. The Bees, They do Nothing

13. The Courier’s Photograph

14. Identities Revealed

15. The Birds have Flown

16. The Death of Alex Kovalev

17. The Second Murder

18. The Noble Art of Trigonometry

19. The Secret of the Pizza Parlor

20. Clarity Gained

21. Watson’s Examination

22. Late Night Puzzle Play

23. With a Little Help from Some Friends

24. Holmes Makes a Request

25. The Warehouse

26. The Standoff

27. Sophie’s Choice

28. The Confession

29. Links Uncovered

30. Once Upon a Time in New York City

31. A Little Problem in Newark, New Jersey

32. The Best Laid Plans

33. The Rise and Rise of Chemical Elements

34. Word Games

35. The Scheme Revealed

36. To Catch a Thief

37. Vinnie Talben Talks

38. The Boss

39. The Fall of Gregory Smythe

40. An Interrupted Performance Resumed

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Elementary: The Ghost Line

ELEMENTARY: BLOOD AND INKPrint edition ISBN: 9781785650277E-book edition ISBN: 9781785650284

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark St, London SE1 0UP

First edition: April 201610 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright © & TM 2016 CBS Studios Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

TITANBOOKS.COM

For Sandra, always.

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

1

THE ADVENTURE OF THE POISONED PRESERVE POT

“Of course,” said the great detective, “it was the emeritus professor’s tiepin that was the final clue, the last piece of the puzzle that had, thus far, proved to be so very elusive.”

Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his leather chair, practically vanishing between the high wingbacks of the seat, his elbows locking as his hands pulled tight on the uppermost knee of his crossed legs. With a slight smile, he glanced to his left. There, standing next to him, Joan Watson lifted her hand and opened it, before walking forward to show the rest of the assembled group. Lying across her palm was a silver tiepin set with a brilliant purple gem.

“Amethyst,” said Watson. She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head at the old man with mutton-chop sideburns who stood, slack-jawed, against the mantelpiece on the opposite side of the room. “Your birthstone, isn’t that right, Professor?”

The gasp that followed did a complete orbit of the room, passing from one person to the next as the revelation sank in. Watson half-turned to glance at Holmes, still ensconced in the ridiculous chair, and she saw his eyes move with the sound, traveling around the group they had assembled in the luxurious expanse of the penthouse suite of the Starling Hotel—the lounge of which, Watson thought, was actually far larger than most of the apartments in the buildings that surrounded the exclusive and discreet hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

As Watson watched her colleague survey the group, she knew that behind those eyes and the cool, unflustered expression, the synapses of his remarkable brain were firing, one final round of observation to confirm what he already knew to be correct.

Because they had solved the case. They had found the killer and they had discovered how she had done it. Already Watson knew this was a case Holmes would keep in the forefront of his mind for years to come, a case to be savored and recalled when the moment struck. Complex, twisted, intriguing; a case that highlighted the lengths a person would go to, the depths of evil into which they would plunge, if they had reason to.

Watson turned back to the emeritus professor, a wiry man in his mid-seventies with an expansive bald head and face framed by those wild sideburns. For a moment the professor stared at her palm, open-mouthed, before reaching a tentative hand forward. He snatched the tiepin and examined it, holding his hand away from him, as if the tiepin were electric. Then, with a sheepish look to the woman standing next to him—Mrs. Eleanor Pyr, a twenty-something socialite dressed like a 1940s Hollywood star, complete with nearly intact fox draped around her shoulders—the professor slipped the pin back onto his tie, which he then straightened. He cleared his throat and stood with his hands neatly clasped, as if nothing had happened at all.

Watson, the professor, and Mrs. Pyr were the only three people standing. Holmes sat in the wingback chair; across from him, separated by a marble-topped coffee table about as big as a king-sized bed—on which was set a classic afternoon tea, complete with delicate bone china cups and teetering cake stand, upon which a selection of patisseries and dainty English scones were so delicately balanced—sat Hal Clarke, a retired something-something from the US Air Force who was as old as the professor, if not older, but who looked to Watson to be twenty—no, thirty—years his junior.

Next to Hal was Bradley Grant, a young man with a thick neck, square shoulders, and a haircut to match, a man who didn’t say much but who had been of invaluable help during the case. He sat with his legs spread wide, the heel of one boot tapping to a rhythm only he could hear.

At the end of the table, separate from the rest, was Olivia Peel. She was young—maybe Watson’s age, maybe a little younger, but dressed in the simple, elegant black-and-white uniform of hotel management, her makeup and hair immaculate, she looked a lot older. Like Holmes she had her legs crossed but unlike Holmes, she was leaning forward, balanced on the very edge of her chair, her entire posture uncomfortable, tense.

Which is entirely understandable, thought Watson. Because she knew what was coming, she knew what Watson and Holmes had uncovered, what they had observed, what they had deduced.

It was to Olivia that Holmes slowly turned, sliding his whole body into a new angle on the leather seat so he could see the hotel manager past the chair’s wing.

Nobody else moved. Half the people in the room had their eyes fixed on Holmes; the others all stared at Olivia.

Then the emeritus professor cleared his throat, and the spell was suddenly broken. Mrs. Pyr sighed and adjusted the fur around her neck. She looked at Holmes, then at Watson, then sighed a second time. Now everyone was looking at her.

“Well?” she asked. “Can’t we just get on with it? All this melodrama just makes me hungry.”

She ducked forward and picked up a small cake plate from the table. Then, lifting the silver tongs from the base of the cake stand, she went for one of the English scones that sat in a proud pyramid on the very top tier, before laying her plate on the table with a heavy clatter. She reached for the open jar of strawberry preserve from a nearby tray, a silver spoon deeply embedded in the bright, sticky jam.

“I would suggest a honey cake instead, if I were you, Mrs. Pyr.”

Eleanor Pyr froze. Holmes hadn’t moved, his eyes still locked on the hotel manager’s. But the tone of his voice left no doubt as to his warning. Mrs. Pyr dropped the preserve jar back onto the tray with a shriek and retreated quickly to the mantelpiece, flexing her fingers as though the cold preserve pot had somehow burned her. Beside her, the professor began puffing his cheeks like a steam engine, his eyes wide in horror. Seated on the other side of the table, Hal Clarke exchanged an uncomfortable look with Bradley Grant.

There was a single knock from the double doors of the penthouse lounge. Watson turned as the doors opened, and two men entered. They were each the size of football linebackers and were squeezed into identical tan suits. The one in front caught Watson’s eye; she gave him a slight nod, which he returned. Behind them, in the penthouse entrance hall, Watson could see two uniformed police officers.

Watson walked over to Olivia and looked down on the hotel manager—the fake hotel manager, in the stolen uniform, with the stolen passkey, the stolen money and a grudge she had kept for more than a decade.

Olivia Peel, the murderer.

Justice was served.

“Once we had discovered the professor’s gambling debts,” Watson said, “it was simple to trace your own involvement back to the Bratislava crime syndicate.”

“But even they might be surprised to find out who you are really working for,” said Holmes. “Lacing the strawberry preserve with strychnine was an effective, if old-fashioned, method of eliminating your CIA handler, Dormer.”

The group gave a second collective gasp.

“It must have been a shock when you found Dormer undercover as a hotel porter,” said Watson. “Especially after you found him and the professor arguing in the elevator that night.”

Olivia Peel said nothing. She just looked up at Watson with cold, narrow eyes. Watson returned the look, then nodded toward the door. “I think your house detectives would like a word with you.”

Holmes nodded sharply. “And after that, the good detectives of the New York Police Department, as well. Oh, and if you are very, very unlucky, the enforcers of the Bratislava syndicate, should you be unfortunate enough to escape the protective custody of the NYPD.”

As Olivia was escorted out by the two house detectives, the others all watched in stunned silence as Holmes untangled his legs and slid forward in his seat, reaching for the teapot. He poured himself a cup of steaming tea, and then, balancing his teacup and saucer on one knee, the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, carefully chose one of the fruit tarts from the bottom tier of the cake stand.

“Help yourself, everyone,” he said. “I think we have all earned this.” He leaned back, and then he quickly jerked forward again. “But, ah… avoid the scones and jam,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

Then he turned on a broad smile.

“Chin-chin!” he said, sipping his tea.

2

DEATH’S FINE HAND

“Nice of them to give us a souvenir,” said Watson, as she and Holmes exited the elevator and headed out across the acre of dark oak paneling that formed the Starling Hotel’s impressive—and, in Watson’s mind, oppressive—lobby.

Next to her, Holmes smiled and lifted the silver preserve spoon in his hand. It was elegant, and quite possibly a genuine antique, given the particular echelon of society the hotel catered for, although Watson hadn’t had much of a chance to take a look. What she did know was that the fine metalwork of the spoon was curled and fluted, the flat head set with a disc of striated blue-green stone—perhaps agate—and that there was a hallmark on the underside.

Holmes stopped and lifted the spoon between finger and thumb, finding the perfect balance point.

“A fine specimen of kitchen cutlery, yes, although the plastic variety from corner bodegas fulfills much the same function.”

Watson sighed. Okay, so now Holmes was in one of those moods. “Would it hurt so much to, I don’t know, just sometimes be appreciative? It’s not often that you actually get to keep the murder weapon from a case.”

Holmes pursed his lips and nodded, and then he glanced at his companion, a furtive smile floating around the corners of his lips. “Quite true, Watson, quite true.” He tilted his head as he turned back to the spoon, lifting it high in the air. “But what is this, really? A spoon. An implement. True enough, it was used to dispense the poisoned strawberry preserve, but after the crime is committed, what is it? Is this truly the means by which a vicious, evil act was committed, or is it just an innocent bystander, one merely caught in the machine of evil, unaware of the new use to which it has been put?”

Watson blinked a couple of times and watched Holmes as he looked at the spoon with what was quite possibly reverence.

“I think you’ve had too much sugar today,” she said, finally. “How many of those preserve pots did you have to taste test to prove your theory?”

Holmes’s eyes narrowed and he jutted his chin out in what Watson knew was annoyance. “It was not a theory, Watson, it was a hypothesis. You of all people should know the difference between the two.”

“Okay, fine—”

“And it was twenty-six. At first I found it oddly moreish, but I admit that even I have a limit to my sweet tooth. But, as I believe you are aware, I am the foremost expert on all types of poison, and not only that, I have over the course of many years of careful and controlled dosing developed a tolerance to many toxic agents, several of which can only be detected by taste, by which point it is far too late for the intended recipient. I had to taste every preserve jar coming out of the kitchen—there was simply no other way to conduct the screening.”

There was an insect-like buzzing from Holmes’s pocket. He pushed the spoon unceremoniously on Watson while reaching with his other hand into his jacket to extract his phone. He cast a cursory glance at the screen, then nodded to himself, before thumbing the answer button.

“Captain Gregson.”

As Watson waited, she slipped the silver preserve spoon into her shoulder bag. Looking back at Holmes, she saw him frown, then glance sideways at her. He looked around the hotel lobby, phone still pressed to his ear, then he gestured with a nod toward an alcove near to where they were standing, occupied only by an ornate antique table topped with an extravagant arrangement of fresh-cut flowers. Together they moved into the small space for a little more privacy. Holmes lowered the phone and hit the speaker function.

“Watson is listening, Captain.”

“Hey,” said Watson. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, just the usual,” said Gregson, his voice small and thin as it came from the phone’s speaker. “I need you both up here ASAP. We have an active crime scene, and I think you’ll want to take a look.”

Holmes bristled, bouncing a little on his heels as he held the phone in one hand, his eyes scanning the lobby.

“And where is here, Captain? Please try to be a little more precise.”

There was a pause. Watson shook her head.

“Ignore him, he’s had a lot of sugar today,” she said. “I’m assuming you’re talking about a homicide?”

“There’s been a murder, yes. We’re in room 262 of the Athena Hotel in Washington Heights. And it’s a real nice place, rooms by the hour and everything. I’ll text you the address.”

“Does this really require our assistance, Captain?” asked Holmes. “Crime is unfortunately not unusual in hotels that rent rooms by the hour, no matter what mythical Greek goddess they’re named after.”

“Oh, I think you will want to see this. The hotel may be a dive, but the victim has been identified as one Gregory Smythe, the Chief Financial Officer of a hedge fund firm called Mantis Capital Investment.”

Watson frowned and looked at Holmes. “A hedge fund? What was he doing at a place like the Athena?”

Holmes snorted. “Money can buy you a lot of things, Watson. Sometimes such proclivities are only available in certain kinds of establishment and require a certain level of discretion.”

“Yeah, well, if that’s the case then these ‘proclivities’ have got our Mr. Smythe killed,” said Gregson.

“As I said, Captain,” said Holmes, “this is a big city. Crimes happen, whether it be homicide in Washington Heights or financial corruption in the boardroom of a hedge fund management firm.”

“Look, Holmes, I know you don’t like big business—”

“Captain Gregson, we will make a detective of you yet.”

“But listen, this is not just another murder. Whatever reason Smythe was up here, he was stabbed to death.”

Holmes’s jaw opened a little, then closed. Watson raised an eyebrow. Whatever her partner’s views of hedge funds—and merchant bankers, investment lawyers… in fact, anyone involved in the financial industry—he couldn’t resist a mystery. And when Captain Gregson said the victim was stabbed to death…

“I’m assuming the murder weapon was not a knife,” said Holmes, his voice suddenly quieter as he voiced the very thought Watson had.

“No,” said Gregson. “It was a fountain pen. The victim was stabbed through the eye, and the weapon is still here.” There was a pause. “Like I said, I think you will want to see this.”

Holmes nodded. “Captain Gregson, we shall be there presently.”

Holmes ended the call without a goodbye, then hefted the phone in his hand a couple of times before returning it to his inside pocket. Then he turned to Watson. And…

There.

She could see it. The light in his eyes, the way he was holding his mouth, the set of his jaw, the tendons on the side of his neck now just a little more defined.

Sugar overload or not, Holmes was on the case.

His phone buzzed again. He pulled it out, then tilted the screen so Watson could see. Gregson had texted the address of the Athena Hotel, Washington Heights.

“Come on,” said Holmes. “We can take the A train most of the way, then we are on foot. The walk will do us good.”

Holmes patted his stomach, then strode out of the alcove and across the lobby of the Starling.

Watson adjusted her bag on her shoulder and followed.

3

THE MEN IN BLACK

The evening was drawing in by the time Watson and Holmes reached the Athena Hotel. Holmes had been right, his encyclopedic knowledge of New York City leading them on the A-train subway all the way to 168th and Broadway. From there, it had just been a short walk to the hotel.

Gregson had been right too. The place was… well, it was a dive. In her time with Holmes, Watson had seen her fair share of the seedy side of Manhattan, but the streets here were a real mess, a mix of industrial, low-rent office space, and apartment buildings that were practically tenement blocks. The entire island was being gentrified, but that insidious process had yet to reach this particular part of the city.

The building they were heading toward was the same as all the ones around it—pale brick blackened by decades of grime and pollution, the structure only five floors in height but narrow, making it look taller—and gloomier—than it really was. The sign over the entryway—which said THE ATHENA and HOURLY RATES AVAILABLE at an angle that didn’t seem quite right—was only half-lit, the remaining neon letters faint and flickering. There was a drugstore next door and that at least was brightly lit, but Watson wasn’t really sure that was much comfort.