Free Sherlock Holmes Stories of Edward D. Hoch by Edward D. Hoch Page B

client. “Moriarty must know of your writing, since he makes reference to the Mad Hatter.”
    “Of course he knows. But what does the message mean?”
    “I believe you should remain in the city overnight,” Holmes told him. “All may come clear tomorrow.”
    “Why is that?”
    “The message speaks of Benjamin Caunt’s Day, and he was a prize fighter…a boxer. Tomorrow, of course, is Boxing Day.”
    Charles Dodgson shook his head in amazement. “That is something worthy of the Mad Hatter itself!”
    Mrs. Hudson found an unoccupied room in which Dodgson spent the night. In the morning, I knocked at his door and invited him to join us for breakfast. Holmes had spent much of the night awake in his chair, poring over his books and files, studying maps of the city and lists of various sorts. Dodgson immediately asked if he had discovered anything, but my friend’s answer was bleak.
    “Not a thing, sir! I can find no statue in all of London erected to the boxer Benjamin Caunt, nor is there any special portrait of him. Certainly there is none in a lofty position as the verse implies.”
    “Then what am I to do?”
    “The entire matter seems most odd. You have the blackmail money on your person. Why did not this beggar simply take it, instead of giving you a further message?”
    “It’s Moriarty’s doing,” Dodgson insisted. “He wants to humiliate me.”
    “From my limited knowledge of the good professor, he is more interested in financial gain than in humiliation.”
    Holmes reached for another of his several guidebooks to the city and began paging through it.
    “Have you ever met Moriarty?” our visitor asked.
    “Not yet,” Holmes responded. “But someday…Hello! What’s this?”
    His eyes had fallen upon something in the book he’d been examining.
    “A portrait of Caunt?”
    “Better than that. This guidebook states that our best known tower bell, Big Ben, may have been named after Benjamin Caunt, who was a famous boxer in 1858 when the bell was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry. Other books attribute the name ‘Big Ben’ to Sir Benjamin Hall, chief commissioner of the works. The truth is of no matter. What does matter is that Big Ben, the clock, certainly does have a lofty face looking out over Parliament and the Thames.”
    “Then he is to meet Moriarty at one o’clock today—Boxing Day—beneath Big Ben,” I said. At last it was becoming clear to me.
    But Charles Dodgson was not so certain. “The Mad Hatter’s clock, meaning the watch he carried in his pocket, told the day of the month, but not the time.”
    Sherlock Holmes smiled. “I bow to your superior knowledge of Alice in Wonderland.”
    “But where does that leave us?” I asked, pouring myself another cup of breakfast tea. “The number one in the message must refer to a time rather than a date. Surely you are not to wait until New Year’s Day to pay this blackmail when the first line speaks of Benjamin Caunt’s Day. It has to be Boxing Day!”
    “Agreed,” Holmes said. “I suggest we three travel to Big Ben and see what awaits us at one o’clock.”
    The day was pleasant enough, with even a few traces of sunshine breaking through the familiar winter clouds. A bit of snow the previous week had long since melted, and the day’s temperature was hovering in the low forties. We took a cab to Westminster Abbey, just across the street from our destination, and joined the holiday strollers out enjoying the good weather.
    “There’s no sign of anyone waiting,” I observed as we walked toward Westminster Bridge.
    Holmes’ eyes were like a hawk’s as he scanned the passersby.
    “It is only five to the hour, Watson. But I suggest, Mr. Dodgson, that you walk a bit ahead of us. If no one attempts to intercept you by the time you reach the bridge, pause for a moment and then walk back this way.”
    “Do you have a description of Moriarty?” I asked, as Dodgson walked ahead of us as instructed.
    “He will not come himself. It will