How Holmes Skewered a Schemer’s Setup

Dearest detectives,

Although the Skeleton Club’s strong room situation was not without casualty, it has finally been laid to rest. Courtesy of your investigative efforts, both the killer and the Club’s shady dealings will be put to a swift stop.

Now that Holmes is back from Holland, you may also want to look at his sum-up of this case. Chances are, there was something you missed in the midst of all the Skeleton Club drama!

As always, excellent work.

The Dear Holmes Team

——

13 October, 1889

My Dear Inspector Floyt,

Herein is my retrospection of the Philip Hillcrest Nelson affair. I leave it to your discretion as to how much of my participation you include in your final report, but rest assured that being able to provide any assistance in this case is all the recognition that I require.

I am afraid your report of the 26th of September and letter of the 28th of September presented me with a rather tangled skein, one in which most of the details concerning Hillcrest Nelson’s death were provided by just two men and their statements primarily corroborated by two documents. As you noted, witnesses can lie and registers can be altered, but thankfully your correspondence also provided one thread that was sturdy enough for me to tug upon and start to unravel this mess— the personal effects on Nelson’s body.

I assumed that the Skeleton Club observed the common prohibition against visitors bringing their belongings into a vault, but I was nonetheless grateful for your confirmation of this in your letter on the 1st of October. In that same letter you mentioned Capuchin’s assumption that Nelson invaded the strong room only to get trapped inside, but this runs contrary to Mr. McCloor’s observation that anyone capable of cracking the vault’s locks to enter it should have found it even simpler to crack those locks to escape it. After all, safes are designed to thwart people from breaking into them, not out of them. And since there is nothing in Nelson’s history to indicate he ever cultivated skills in burglary, his inability to escape suggested that he had assistance in entering the vault; and that it was this person who trapped and abandoned him. This being the case, I was confounded that Nelson had not left a message identifying his murderer. This would have been the natural thing to do, and the extremely worn condition of the nub— in contrast to the honed condition of the pencils in Nelson’s vesta case— substantiated that it had recently been used for more than recording a few poker winnings. So then where was the message?

I could think of three explanations.

One: The idea of such a message somehow never occurred to Nelson. Two: Nelson did write a message but it was pinched before Crossmoor’s arrival. This possibility puts Capuchin in a bad light if he were truly alone when he opened the strong room on the morning of the 26th of September, although it is possible that someone else could have taken the note while the concierge was off fetching the constable. Or Three: Nelson did write a message and concealed it somewhere upon his person so as to prevent it from being stolen. I thought this the most likely explanation, which not only turned out to be true but I underestimated the accountant as he also encoded his message, most probably as a precaution in the event that his murderer later chanced across the cigarette case’s compartment.

As I commenced the task of deciphering Nelson’s message I took into account how neatness is “de rigueur” with accountants. You yourself mentioned Nelson’s reputation for being as professional and as tidy as any bookkeeper in London. I therefore presumed that the uncharacteristically messy handwriting on the reverse side of the folded ledger page and the rough manner in which he had torn it from its pad resulted from the duress Nelson must have assuredly been suffering as he was dying; but as stressed as he was, Nelson realized he could not risk specifically identifying his murderer, which left me to suppose that he had intended to direct attention to the villain through the extrapolation of the list of three-digit numbers and the words “Pen Wyrm”.

Thanks to your diligent work I knew that ‘Pen Wyrm’ was a veiled reference to The Swan River Serpent, between whose covers Nelson had safeguarded the copy he created of the club’s general ledger and his preliminary audit. And thanks to Inspector McPherson’s financial sleuthing I knew the list of three-digit numbers referred to the £4000 worth of CMT stock owned by the club. And thanks to you both I knew this stock was recorded in the Swan River ledger as gifts from Hux’s company, despite being recorded as investments in the official general ledger and in the preliminary audit. I also had the benefit of your reports and letters as well as the newspaper clippings that you mailed me, and armed with this data I determined that McPherson was approaching the truth when he postulated that Nelson originally delivered the preliminary audit report to Capuchin before the 25th of September. Instead of the 23rd, however, Nelson delivered it on the 20th, or 21st, of September. I say this because either date would allow for the discovery of the error in the general ledger followed by:

- the insolent panhandler on the 22nd.

- the nondescript messenger on the 24th.

- the threatening note on the 25th.

- the “conte cruel” death of Hillcrest Nelson on the 26th.

I then plotted these incidents to the link between them all, the Tarot Room poker game, and re-examined everything that had occurred before, during, and after it. The result was that there was only one person directly or tangentially involved in the game who possessed the necessary knowledge, resources, motive, and opportunity to kill Hillcrest Nelson.

Let me assure you that I did not overlook the possibility that Behan or Hux suspected Nelson of cheating or that Nelson suspected one of them of the same, and that a fatal confrontation could have ensued, but I ruled this out. Behan’s losses were too steep for him to have been cheating, and it would have been folly for Hux to risk such a scandal for so paltry a reward, especially with the Streatham vote on the horizon. Much the same could be said for Nelson. £99 is not so princely a sum to justify the possible damnation of his career. A case might be cobbled together that Behan and Hux had the opportunity to dispose of Nelson, but it would be a rickety one at best. Nelson was the one person in the Tarot Room not resented by Behan or Hux. Neither man even protested that Nelson was keeping notes during the game. Beyond that, there is no evidence that Hux was even aware of the error in the general ledger at the time. I therefore eliminated both Behan and Hux as suspects.

In contrast, Capuchin and Bethany did have the opportunity and, as I will explain in a moment, Capuchin could have had a motive. In spite of this, neither man possessed the resources to mount a clandestine hunt for Phillip H. Nelson, so I cautiously eliminated them as suspects too.

The honourable Mr. Wesley did not play in the game, but as Inspector McPherson so adroitly laid out, he did possess a motive. Or I should say, he might have, had he been aware of the error, but we have no evidence that McTurk ever informed Wesley about it. This leaves McTurk as the one person who we definitely know possessed the opportunity, resources, knowledge, and, as I shall now explain, motive, to kill Nelson.

Your report of the 26th of September notes McTurk’s explanation for residing at the Skeleton Club since the 5th of August, but there is no further mention of it in your report of the 29th of September nor in your correspondence of October 1st. I had to assume that for whatever reason you were not trying to confirm its unspoken assumption that McTurk is an adulterer, which is why I requested you inquire with Langdale Pike, even though I realized this would put him in a delicate dilemma. Pike pays for his bread and cheese by being the all-seeing eye of the Metropolis’s scandals, so, unlike the members of the Skeleton Club, his survival depends upon maintaining precious access to St. James’s clubs. Nevertheless, Pike succeeded in communicating the information we needed. Pike would have told you if Georgiana McTurk was not an alias for Felisa Ankers as such a confirmation could not injure him. By playing coy Pike in essence confirmed that Ankers and McTurk are the same woman. Pike also trusted that we would be able to employ the data you collected from the Court of High Justice to discern the reason behind McTurk’s bare bones explanation and its apparent self-accusal. It was better to reconcile himself to estrangement and an undeserved but minor stigmatisation than embroil the child and relegate himself to a cuckold. But then the error in the general ledger presented McTurk with an opportunity to settle the books with the co-respondent, albeit in a brutal and Pyrrhic fashion.

It is possible that if McTurk did nothing to correct the error in the general ledger then the official half-year audit may have questioned the reason CMT had gifted the club £4000 worth of stock. If word of this suspicion got out then Bulling or some other scribbler at the Central News Agency would have likely pounced upon the news and written articles that could have hinted at Wesley’s reputed proprietorship of the Skeleton Club, Behan’s accusations against Hux, and Wesley’s well-documented influence with the Tories. If that happened then the upcoming Streatham vote could have been placed in jeopardy, and Wesley’s reputation might have been impaired beyond polite society’s ability to pooh-pooh. The problem was there was no guarantee that the gifted shares would be called into question. After all, Nelson apparently saw nothing untoward about them. If McTurk wanted to be certain that this series of unfortunate events became a reality then he could not leave matters to chance, even if it necessitated an innocent man’s life.

McTurk had access to the club’s membership roll, so he either knew or could look to see that it listed Hillcrest Nelson as “Phillip H. Nelson,” which presented him with a legitimate excuse to dispatch an acolyte on a search for Nelson. (I use the singular because the averageness and similar dialect of the messenger and panhandler strongly suggests that McTurk only enlisted one acolyte.) Most likely McTurk dispatched this acolyte on the 20th or 21st and then informed Hillcrest Nelson about the error in the general ledger on the 22nd or 23rd. This would explain why Nelson sojourned to the Skeleton Club on a Monday rather than his usual Wednesday or Friday, as he needed to retrieve his audit report and the club’s general ledger to “correct” them. Nelson then returned these on the 25th of September, but only after creating and concealing his own copy of the general ledger and his original audit report.

We must pause here a moment to ask why Nelson did this. If he harboured ideas about holding the gifted shares over Wesley then a copy of the general ledger would have been of no benefit. Without the genuine ledger the matter would eventually boil down to his word against Wesley’s and there is little doubt whom the authorities and the public would believe. I theorise that Nelson did not sense he was in peril, rather, he simply created the copy as a precaution in the event he was ever forced to defend his professional reputation. Unofficial as the copy is, it does plausibly explicate how Wesley could have been reimbursed for suborning MPs.

Returning to McTurk’s plan, at this point it was impossible for him to proceed without Capuchin’s assistance, but he had a valid excuse for requesting the concierge’s aid, which was preventing the official auditors from learning about the gifted stock certificates and the possible damage this might cause. What is more, the error in the general ledger was likely due to an oversight by Capuchin, who is competent enough to perform day-to-day accounting duties such as making the club’s deposits, but not so proficient that a professional accountant wasn’t needed to prepare the twice-yearly preliminary audit report. So if need be McTurk could have coerced Capuchin into assisting him by pointing out that it was the concierge’s oversight that had placed the club, its owner, and even Hux in peril. (This is the potential motive I alluded to earlier for Capuchin.)

Once the concierge’s assistance was procured, McTurk was able to arrange the Tarot Room poker game, which served two purposes: isolating Nelson from most of the club that night, and providing McTurk an opportunity to surreptitiously approach him to request a private conference after the club closed. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, however. McTurk did not foresee Nelson keeping notes during the game, which thwarted McTurk from approaching the accountant without arousing Hux and Behan’s curiosity. McTurk also did not foresee Nelson wanting to deposit his winnings in the strong room, but McTurk adroitly pivoted by having Capuchin approach Nelson in the foyer. All Capuchin had to do was inform Nelson that McTurk still had some concerns about the audit report and wished to discuss them in private after Nelson had stored his winnings. By then, Hux would be in his room, Behan would have departed, and Capuchin could have made certain the establishment was otherwise vacant. As for gaining entrance into the vault, McTurk simply had to borrow Capuchin’s guard key under the excuse that he did not want to alarm Wesley possibly unnecessarily by asking the owner for his key.

Once Nelson entered the vault McTurk was free to shut and lock the door behind the accountant. Then once he returned upstairs McTurk could forge Nelson’s outgoing information in the attendance register, if Nelson hadn’t already signed and dated the register at Capuchin’s request. From there McTurk had only to return the guard key to Capuchin on the way back to his room and go to bed.

As soon as Capuchin reported finding Nelson’s body the gears of vengeance were set into indefatigable motion. In short order the clandestine hunt for Phillip H. Nelson was discovered, aided in no small part to the panhandler’s sauciness, the messenger’s extreme ordinariness, and the perplexing timing of the threatening note, all of which were designed to call attention to the search and Wesley’s ostensible part in it.

This, then, is the course of events surrounding the death of Phillip Hillcrest Nelson based upon the established facts and circumstances. I can only hope that McTurk as well as Wesley will soon stand in the dock for their crimes. Perhaps the wheels of justice will catch up with them, or public outcry will demand it, or Capuchin may be persuaded to break his resilient silence regarding the matter. Loyalty can be admirable, but perhaps the Skeleton Club’s concierge will come to realize that misplaced loyalty can be terribly tragic.

Very sincerely yours,