Free The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures by Mike Ashley Page B

a degree because they thought he was too lazy and undisciplined!”
    The chairman of the club signalled the uniformed club doorman and his assistant. They looked ex-military men.
    “You will find Colonel Moran in the dining room,” he instructed. “Ask him to join us immediately. If he will not comply, you have my permission to escort him here with as much force as you have cause to use.”
    The two men went off briskly about their task.
    A moment later the colonel, whose appearance suggested that he had polished off the rest of the wine, was firmly propelled into our presence.
    His red-rimmed eyes fell on his Ulster and on Cloncury holding his precious leather case. The man’s face went white in spite of the alcoholic infused cheeks.
    “By Gad, sir, you should be horsewhipped!” growled the Duke of Cloncury and Straffan menacingly.
    “This is a fabrication!” bluffed Moran feebly. “Someone put the box in my inside coat pocket.”
    I could not forbear a grin of triumph.
    “How did you know that it was the box which had been stolen? And how did you know it was found in your inside coat pocket, colonel?”
    Moran knew the game was up.
    “Moran,” the chairman said heavily, “I shall try to persuade His Grace not to bring charges against you for the sake of the reputation of this club. If he agrees, it will be on the condition that you leave Ireland within the next twelve hours and never return. I will circulate your name in society so that no house will open its doors to you again. I will have you black-balled in every club in the land.”
    The Duke of Cloncury and Straffan gave the matter a moment’s thought and then agreed to the conditions.
    “I’d horsewhip the beggar, if it were me. Anyway. I think we all owe young Mister Sherlock Holmes our thanks in resolving this matter.”
    Moran glowered at me.
    “So you tipped them off, you young interfering …” He made a sudden aggressive lunge at me.
    Mycroft inserted his large frame between me and Moran. His fist impacted on the colonel’s nose and Moran went sprawling back only to be neatly caught by the doorman and his assistant.
    “Kindly escort Colonel Moran off the premises, gentlemen,” ordered the chairman, “and you do not have to be gentle.”
    Moran twisted in their gasp to look back at me with little option but to control his foul temper.
    “I have your measure, Sherlock Holmes,” he glowered, seething with an inner rage, as they began to propel him towards the door. “You have not heard the last of me.”
    It was as Mycroft was sharing a cab in the direction of my rooms in Lower Baggott Street that he frowned and posed the question:
    “But I cannot see how you could have identified Moran as the culprit in the first place?”
    “It was elementary, Mycroft,” I smiled. “When we left the luncheon room and passed behind Moran’s chair, I saw that the colonel had dandruff on his shoulders. Now he had jet-black hair. But with the dandruff lay a number of silver strands. It meant nothing to me at the time for I was not aware of the facts. When I discovered that the missing case contained a hairbrush and comb, everything fell into place. The duke not only had silver hair but, I noticed, he also had dandruff to boot. By brushing his hair in such a foolhardy gesture, Moran had transferred the dandruff and silver hair to his own shoulders. It was easy to witness that Moran was a vain man. He would not have allowed dandruff and hair, if it had been his, to lay on his shoulders when he entered a public dining room. Indeed, I saw him rise from his table and go out, brushing himself as he did so. The sign of a fastidious man. He had, therefore, unknowingly picked it up during his short absence. Everything else was a matter of simple deduction.”
    As Moran had been thrown out of the Kildare Street Club, he had called out to me that I had not heard the last of him. Indeed, I had not. But I could not have conceived of how our paths would meet at that