The Case of the Parcels from the Sky

0:00 An Experiment That Smelled of Bad Eggs

0:04 Watson: By supper-time on Saturday, the twenty-ninth of November, nineteen forty-seven, our household had given up on fresh air. Holmes was three days into an experiment that smelled of bad eggs and struck matches. I ate supper with a scarf tied over my nose; the sausage, like every sausage that autumn, was mostly bread. Mrs Hudson came no higher than the landing. Rain ticked at the sash.

0:30 Watson: Holmes, the butter has begun to taste of your flask. Holmes: Then the butter is learning something. Most of London never does.

0:38 Watson: I'd sooner it learned less. Can't we open the window? Holmes: A draught would cool the reaction. Keep the scarf on, Watson; it suits you.

0:47 Watson: I look like a highwayman with a head cold. Holmes: A highwayman would have shot that sausage on sight. Watson: He'd have been doing it a kindness.

0:57 Mrs Hudson: Mr Holmes! Not one step nearer that stink. A lady for you. Go on up, dear.

1:04 Assunta: Buona sera. My name is Assunta. I keep the café on Calder Street. Here.

1:12 Watson: Good Lord, real coffee! Not that bottled essence. Assunta: Not a present, Dottore. It's so Signor Holmes will listen.

1:21 Holmes: That's Watson's weakness. Listen to what, Signora? Assunta: Signor Varney's sister. The police have told her the dead man is her brother.

1:31 Watson: That's a cruel thing to carry. Assunta: Crueller. They wouldn't let her see him. And she begs you, tonight, to find who killed him.

1:41 Holmes: The Yard's already named him. Routine. Legwork for Lestrade's constables.

1:47 Watson: Is that honestly all you hear in it? Holmes: I hear three days' work going cold for door-knocking. Watson: Think. Who told the sister it was her—

1:56 Holmes: The police, Watson. Who else would? Watson: And not once did they let her look at him. They named that man before anyone who loved him had seen his face.

2:06 Holmes: Now that isn't routine at all. Assunta: Then you'll come? Holmes: Mrs Hudson, you may breathe again. The experiment can sulk on its shelf.

2:17 Mrs Hudson: Thank heaven for small mercies! Watson: And the coffee? Holmes: Bring it. We may want it before morning. Your hat.

2:25 Watson: I left the scarf on my chair, and never missed it.

2:33 A Showroom Lit by One Desk Lamp

2:38 Watson: Mrs Fenimore let us into her brother's showroom near ten, and lit only the lamp on his desk. Fenimore: Mind the step, Mr Holmes. My brother never would have it mended.

2:49 Holmes: Thank you, Mrs Fenimore. Three cars on the floor, and dust on every windscreen. Fenimore: A Rover, an Austin, a Wolseley. He polished them himself, Mondays.

3:01 Holmes: And nobody has bought one in a month. Yet the Calder Street rent is paid. The cars were never his living.

3:07 Fenimore: Half right, Mr Holmes. They were his shop window. The street borrowed from him. That was his living.

3:15 Watson: A moneylender. Fenimore: A banker, he'd say, Doctor. He took me in when the Blitz took my husband, and never once made me feel kept.

3:25 Watson: And all these keys? Fenimore: Spares for every room he let. Assunta over her café, Mr Pike out on the Finchley Road, a dozen more. I keep the board.

3:35 Holmes: What exactly did the police show you? Fenimore: A card. His fingerprints, on file from some old trouble years back. That was all. Fingerprints. As if he were a—

3:46 Fenimore: I asked to see his face, Mr Holmes. Just his face. And the young constable looked down at his boots, and wouldn't— he wouldn't tell me why.

3:57 Watson: Sit down a moment, Mrs Fenimore. Please. Fenimore: Not in his chair. I'll not sit in his chair.

4:04 Fenimore: There. He can't abide a chair left out when he comes in of a... when he came in.

4:12 Steam and Fried Bread at Assunta's Café

4:16 Watson: Next morning Assunta sat us in her corner, among steam and fried bread, while a big man in a camel coat leaned on her counter. Assunta: That table, Signor Holmes. Every morning he sat there, and the street came to him with its hat in its hand.

4:32 Holmes: And went away with what, Signora? Assunta: A loan of money. A lecture. Sometimes both.

4:40 Pike: Mostly the lecture. Pike, Mr Holmes. I sell motors three doors up. Sorry for the occasion.

4:47 Holmes: And which did you go away with, Mr Pike? Pike: Both, most weeks. He shut his book on me in July. Shut it on half the street, that summer.

4:57 Assunta: He shut it on whoever did not pay. That's not a— Pike: Never said it was, love. Just bad for trade.

5:03 Holmes: And since July, the longest column on your slate, Signora, is chalked under P. Pike: That's me. She's the only banker left on Calder Street now. Cheaper, too.

5:14 Assunta: I charge nothing. When the bomb took my window, he paid the glazier, and he never wrote it in his book. Pike: Then here's to him. Hard man, fair man. Mostly fair.

5:27 Watson: To Mr Varney. Assunta: Black, two sugars, from my own ration. Every day he tells me I spoil—

5:37 Assunta: Stupid old hands. Nobody told them yet...

5:43 Rain on the Roof of Lestrade's Car

5:47 Watson: Lestrade's black Wolseley waited at the kerb outside, rain on its roof, the Inspector in the back with a file on his knee. Lestrade: Shut that door, Doctor, it's perishing. I didn't send for you, Mr Holmes. The sister did.

6:02 Holmes: And yet you waited in the rain, Lestrade. The pathologist's report has spoiled your breakfast. Lestrade: It'd spoil anybody's. Stabbed in the chest, five times. Dead the evening of the twenty-fifth, near as he can say.

6:16 Watson: Good heavens. And the rest of him? Lestrade: What rest? Head and legs taken off with a saw. The trunk wrapped in carpet felt and stitched up like a parcel.

6:28 Watson: Any fractures? Lestrade: Ribs. Broken after death, the doc says, all down one side.

6:35 Watson: After death, and all down one side. That's no beating. He hit something flat and hard, from a height, as if he'd—

6:42 Lestrade: Water, the coastguard reckons. A light aeroplane low off Dunmarsh that week, no flight plan. That parcel came down from an aeroplane, sure as I'm sat here.

6:52 Holmes: And then it wouldn't sink. Wool felt holds air like a lifebelt. Whoever did it meant him for the bottom of the sea, and the wrapping floated him into the Salthorne marshes.

7:02 Lestrade: Where a wildfowler fell over him Friday morning. Poor devil's off duck for life. Watson: Well, it narrows it to a pilot, at—

7:10 Lestrade: Narrowed? Half the bus conductors in London flew in the war, Doctor. Find me who was flying, Mr Holmes.

7:18 A Letter Spread Across the Blotter

7:22 Watson: Within the hour the Inspector had the bank's letter spread across her brother's blotter, and Mrs Fenimore reading it upside down at his elbow. Lestrade: From his bank, Mrs Fenimore. Manager's laid up with his chest, so it's the chief clerk writing. Eight hundred pounds, drawn the twenty-fifth, all in fivers.

7:41 Fenimore: A hundred and sixty white fivers. In the bank's own band. Lestrade: And every number written down. They'll be in tomorrow's evening papers.

7:50 Holmes: The sum doesn't surprise you, Mrs Fenimore. Fenimore: Why would it? I knew about the eight hundred before the bank did. I wrote the cheque out at this desk, and he signed it.

8:02 Lestrade: What for? Fenimore: Cars. He bought at the kerb, cash in hand. Always.

8:08 Holmes: Yet no car came in. Your floor holds the same dusty three it held a month ago. Fenimore: He meant to collect a debt first. Six o'clock he— six, it was, he went out, coat on, money in his breast pocket, the band unbroken.

8:24 Lestrade: Whose debt? Fenimore: He never said. Never did, with debts. Their shame, not his, he'd say.

8:31 Lestrade: And you, after six? Watson: Inspector, she's lost a husband to the Blitz and a brother to God knows what— Lestrade: And I've got his money walking round London, Doctor. Mrs Fenimore?

8:43 Fenimore: Here, at these— at the books. Till ten. Alone.

8:49 A Taxi Rank by the Pier, Gulls Crying

8:53 Watson: Two days after the numbers ran, a cabman's call to the Yard brought Lestrade, Holmes and me to the taxi rank by Southend pier. Ruggles: Ruggles, sir. In you get, the three of you, out of that wind.

9:05 Lestrade: You rang the Yard, Mr Ruggles. Let's have it. Ruggles: Fivers go in my tin, under the seat, till the month's out and I bank. Lucky, that.

9:15 Ruggles: Number matches the evening paper. I checked it twice over my tea. Watson: Well done, man.

9:22 Holmes: And who gave it to you? Ruggles: Fare off the aerodrome, out Cray Marsh way. Evening of the twenty-sixth, that was, getting on for dark. Fella walks out the gate wanting London.

9:35 Watson: Did you get a look at him? Ruggles: Not to swear to. Hat pulled right down, collar up. Sat in the back like a sack of meal.

9:44 Holmes: And what did you charge him? Ruggles: Three pound to London. He gives me that and says keep the change.

9:51 Watson: Good Lord. Holmes: Two pounds over, from a man who wouldn't show his face. Either he's rich, or the money never felt like his.

10:02 Watson: Or he was simply glad of a cab at that hour. Ruggles: I had him write his name on the back. You do, with a fiver. Scribbled it against the window.

10:10 Lestrade: His name? Now then. We only gave the papers the numbers. Nobody's seen the back but you.

10:18 Holmes: Harrow. Flight Lieutenant, retired. Lestrade: Well, I'm blowed.

10:25 Assunta's Window Table in the Rain

10:29 Watson: We were back in Calder Street before nine, at Assunta's window table, with the showroom across the road and Pike already at the urn.

10:43 Holmes: You have the best view on the street, Signora. Straight into Mr Varney's showroom. Assunta: I didn't choose it for the view. I chose it for the rent.

10:53 Holmes: Tuesday the twenty-fifth. What did you see across the road? Assunta: Tuesday is her night for the books. Her lamp, always, and at eight I carry over a coffee.

11:04 Holmes: And that Tuesday the coffee went cold on your counter. That is why you remember the night. Assunta: I drank it myself. Waste is a sin. But yes. The showroom was dark all evening, till I locked up at ten.

11:20 Watson: Not even a light at the back? Assunta: I looked, Dottore. Three times. I wanted to scold her for working too hard.

11:29 Holmes: Ah. Pike: Funny night to miss, a Tuesday. Holmes: Funny how?

11:34 Pike: Papers say he drew eight hundred that day. She does his books. She'd have known it to the penny. Makes you wonder where she went, with that in her—

11:43 Assunta: Shame on you! She lost a husband to the bombs, now her brother, and you make jokes. Pike: No joke, love. It's what the Inspector'll ask by teatime. Better it comes from friends.

11:56 Holmes: Have you told the Inspector any of this, Signora? Assunta: Nobody asked me. Now I wish nobody had.

12:03 Pike: Customer at my Riley. Morning, Mr Holmes. Chin up.

12:08 Assunta: Stupid tongue. Stupid, like my hands. Watson: Then she— she lied to us, Holmes.

12:17 Holmes: So it seems.

12:19 A Gravel Bomb-Site Three Doors Up

12:23 Watson: Lestrade was waiting for us at Pike's pitch, a gravel bomb-site three doors up with six tired motors in a row.

12:37 Lestrade: Stanmead Flying Club, Mr Pike. A Wrenfield, hired on the twenty-sixth, signed for in their book. Pike: That's right, Inspector. Sweet little kite, a Wrenfield. Don't tell me I scratched her.

12:49 Holmes: You left a hired machine at Southend aerodrome instead of flying her home. Out of fuel, or out of nerve? Pike: Out of daylight, Mr Holmes. Fog coming off the estuary.

13:01 Holmes: Then I stand corrected. Fog. Lestrade: What were you carrying?

13:06 Pike: Parcels, for Mrs Fenimore. Her brother's ledgers, she said. The crooked set, with the Revenue sniffing round.

13:13 Watson: And it never struck you that account books don't need an aeroplane? Pike: She offered fifty pounds, Doctor. I owed half the street. Owing like that, you stop asking...

13:24 Lestrade: One of your ledgers came down from an aeroplane off Dunmarsh, Pike, and washed up at Salthorne with Varney sewn inside it. Pike: Inside— No. She said books. I never cut a string, I swear to God.

13:38 Lestrade: The twenty-fifth. The evening. Where were—

13:40 Pike: Out. I was out. Kilburn, chasing a buyer for that Riley round the pubs, till gone midnight. And next morning, next morning the parcels were stacked in my hall.

13:51 Holmes: Your door was locked, I take it. Then whoever stacked them had a key, and knew you'd be out. Pike: She's got a key. She's got a key to every room her brother let.

14:02 Lestrade: And how did she pay you? Pike: Cheque, dated the twenty-seventh, in her own hand. That's all the pay I ever had off that family.

14:11 Lestrade: Sign there. Varney's fivers are in every evening paper, mind. Pike: There. And you can write it under my name, Inspector. Not one of his fivers, ever.

14:23 Back at the Showroom at Noon

14:27 Watson: Lestrade brought Pike and the Stanmead hire book to the showroom at noon; Mrs Fenimore was dusting the Austin when the bell went. Lestrade: Page for the twenty-sixth, Doctor. Mr Holmes, the note.

14:40 Watson: In the book, "Pike, Flight Lieutenant, retired." On the fiver, "Harrow, Flight Lieutenant, retired." The same open loop on every capital. I've read enough patients' letters to know a man's pen. Same hand, same rank, and only the name changed on the way.

14:59 Lestrade: Evening of the twenty-sixth, a Southend cabman took this off a man with his hat pulled down. You, Pike. Pike: All right. All right, me. I'd no other way back to town.

15:12 Lestrade: This morning you signed that his money never came— Pike: And I believed it! There was— look, there was an envelope on the parcels, morning of the twenty-sixth. Expenses, she'd promised. Fivers.

15:23 Pike: How was I to know whose numbers they were? A fiver's a fiver. Fenimore: An envelope? I never—

15:30 Lestrade: You'll have your turn. Holmes: You told us he left at six with the band whole. By next morning its fivers lay on Pike's parcels.

15:38 Fenimore: Yes, but I— Holmes: So the band was broken overnight, by someone holding your brother's money and Pike's key. That key hangs on your board.

15:47 Fenimore: Every tenant's key hangs there. Anyone could— Holmes: And on Tuesday this window was black. He never got far at six, did he? He came back here, and you were waiting in the dark.

15:58 Fenimore: You think I— my own brother? He took me in. When I'd nothing left in the world but a ration book and—

16:05 Lestrade: I'm arresting you for the murder of your brother. You need say nothing, but what you say may be given in evidence. Fenimore: I came to you, Mr Holmes. I came to you...

16:17 A Deal Table and a Cup of Tea Left Untouched

16:21 Watson: The Yard gave Mrs Fenimore a deal table and a cup of tea she would not touch; Lestrade faced her, and Holmes and I kept to the wall. Lestrade: Over from Pike's bank this afternoon, Mrs Fenimore. Fifty pounds to him, dated the twenty-seventh. Your writing.

16:38 Fenimore: My writing. Lestrade: For what? Fenimore: Showroom business. It's in the books.

16:44 Lestrade: Then we'll have the books open, and— Fenimore: You'll not. Not those books.

16:48 Holmes: On Tuesday you hid behind those books. Today you hide them. Something in them frightens you more than this room.

16:55 Fenimore: You've done your guessing for one day. Lestrade: Tuesday evening. Where?

17:00 Fenimore: Not at the books. There. You've had that much.

17:04 Watson: For heaven's sake, tell him the rest. Whatever it is— Fenimore: It's mine, Doctor. That's all it is. Mine...

17:12 Lestrade: You wrote his cheque. You sat at his desk and told me, "I knew about the eight hundred." Now it's walked, and you—

17:19 Fenimore: The whole street knows it now! Twenty years he banked with them, cash every month, and they never listed a number before. Holmes: Never once? Then this list was somebody's choice, Inspector. Whose?

17:32 Lestrade: Clerk's letter doesn't say, and the manager's still in bed with his chest. I'll ask him when he's up. Lies about her evening, Mr Holmes. That's motive enough.

17:43 Near Midnight With One Torch Between Us

17:47 Watson: Near midnight we let ourselves back in with the Inspector's key, and stood among the three dusty motors with one torch between us. It holds together, Holmes. She knew he'd drawn the money, she lied about Tuesday, and Pike's own hand spent one of the fivers.

18:04 Holmes: It holds as a story. Now make it hold as a room. Five wounds to the chest.

18:10 Watson: He'd have bled pints. Nothing on God's earth scrubs that out of a floor in one night. Holmes: Bare boards. Old varnish, dust in every crack, and not a mark under your torch.

18:22 Watson: Lestrade's men were on their knees here all afternoon. Nothing but grit. Holmes: Yet the trunk came wrapped in carpet felt. Felt is underlay. It lies beneath a carpet, and this room never had one.

18:35 Watson: Then she cut it from some other floor. Holmes: Then whose floor gave up its felt?

18:41 A Turning Lock and a Ticking Mantel Clock

18:45 Watson: Pike's rooms sat above a tobacconist's on the Finchley Road; next morning Lestrade opened them with the spare from the showroom board. Lestrade: Laboratory's report, Mr Holmes. The felt round the torso is carpet underlay, brown hair felt, cut square with a knife.

19:03 Watson: Good God. A square cut clean out of the felt, and the boards beneath it black. Holmes: Between the armchairs, facing the hearth. He was sitting, as a guest sits, when the knife came.

19:17 Watson: And alive. A dead man seeps. This went through the felt and deep into the wood. That's a heart still pumping.

19:26 Lestrade: Lab found that felt soaked right through. A living man bled into Pike's floorboards. Watson: Then the showroom— he was never killed in that showroom at all.

19:36 Lestrade: Not there, no. Boards come up tomorrow, soon as the photographer's done. I'm not letting her go on a stain. Holmes: Pike was out, he says. And Mrs Fenimore held his key.

19:48 Real Coffee, Hot, at a Café Table

19:52 Watson: Mrs Fenimore left the Yard at ten a free woman, and Lestrade brought her straight to Assunta's café, where Holmes and I were waiting. Assunta: Sit. Sit. Real coffee, hot.

20:04 Lestrade: She gave me White City this morning, Mr Holmes, once I'd told her a living man bled into Pike's floorboards. Assunta: Pike's floor? Pike?

20:14 Lestrade: And not a word to him, Signora. Tote clerk confirmed her this morning. Lady in black, three pounds on one dog in the last race.

20:22 Assunta: And I'm the one who— I told Signor Holmes the showroom was dark all evening. Forgive me. Fenimore: It was dark, Assunta. You only told the truth. Somebody had to.

20:36 Lestrade: Your petty cash tin, Mrs Fenimore. Back from the Yard, and counted twice. Holmes: And short by the very stake. That's what you wouldn't open. Not the ledgers. The tin.

20:48 Fenimore: Yes. Well. I'd sooner you'd been kind about it. The twenty-fifth was my wedding day. My husband took me to the White City dogs that night, of all places. Every year I go back, and I couldn't— how could I tell my brother why?

21:04 Watson: So you borrowed from the tin, meaning to win it back. Fenimore: All on trap four. A little black dog called Sweet Fanny. And she— she sat down in the straight, Doctor, and scratched her ear. And all that while my brother was—

21:20 Assunta: Enough now. Drink it while it's hot. Holmes: And the fifty pounds you paid Pike?

21:26 Fenimore: For the Austin on our floor. He sold it my brother in the summer. Thursday he came in, cap in hand, and said he was still owed.

21:34 Holmes: A cheque in your hand, the day after his flight. Handy, if anybody asked who'd been paying him. Fenimore: I thought him honest... A pencil, Assunta.

21:45 Fenimore: "Owed to the petty cash, by me." Signed. I always meant to pay it back.

21:51 A Dashboard Clock and an Engine Switched Off

21:56 Watson: By two the Inspector's car stood across from Pike's pitch, engine off, the three of us waiting for his Riley to come back. Lestrade: Pike's boards came up at noon. What was under them is in my pocket, and I take him the minute he parks.

22:10 Holmes: In your pocket. Money, then. And his counsel will say Mrs Fenimore laid it there. She held his key.

22:17 Lestrade: Then what's your— Holmes: Three sayings. Hers: her brother went out at six, the band unbroken. Ruggles's: one of its notes paid his cab the next day, at dusk. And Pike's, in ink: none of that money ever touched him.

22:34 Watson: Then count the days. Tuesday at six, the band whole. Wednesday at dusk, a fiver in Pike's hand. Thursday, her cheque, the only pay he signed for. So he had Varney's money before anybody paid him a penny.

22:50 Lestrade: And swears she slipped it him in an envelope. Holmes: He's gone back on his own ink once already. Give me five minutes with him before your handcuffs.

22:59 Lestrade: Five. Not six. That's his Riley.

23:05 Holmes: Which of those, Watson, can Mr Pike afford to unsay?

23:10 The Corner Table and a Hissing Urn

23:14 Watson: Pike had his camel coat half off at Assunta's counter when Holmes called him to the corner table, where Mrs Fenimore sat beside the Inspector. Pike: Mrs Fenimore! They've let you go, then. Good. Coffee, love, on the—

23:27 Assunta: Sit, Pike. The slate can wait. Holmes: The felt round Mr Varney was cut from your underlay, Mr Pike, between your armchairs. He died in your front room.

23:38 Pike: Then that's where she did it. She holds my key, and I was in Kilburn till gone midnight. Lestrade: She was at White City till the last race. Tote clerk swears to her.

23:48 Pike: She— what? Holmes: And the envelope of fivers on your parcels? Fenimore: I never paid him cash. A cheque, for the Austin, because he asked for one.

23:59 Holmes: You told the Inspector not one of his fivers ever touched you, then found an envelope the moment Watson laid your signature beside the note. Same hand, same rank, the Doctor said, and a false name. Why false, Mr Pike? No paper printed a number for nearly three weeks.

24:16 Pike: Not on that money, I wouldn't. He'd told me the bank had every number written— Holmes: He told you. And yet a fiver was a fiver, you said. When did he tell you?

24:26 Pike: Months back. It's a thing he— a thing he'd say. Fenimore: There was no list months back. The bank wrote those numbers down that Tuesday, and never before.

24:36 Holmes: Then he told you that evening, with the money on him, sitting in your armchair facing your hearth. Pike: You can't hang a man on a thing he— Lestrade: Then I'll hang it on this. Up from under your hearth boards at noon, in the bank's own band. A hundred and fifty-nine fivers.

24:52 Pike: That's not— I never... Watson: And the hundred and sixtieth in a cabman's tin at Southend. The only one you dared spend.

25:02 Fenimore: With all that on him, he went to you. He went to you. Lestrade: Pike, I'm charging you with the murder of Leo Varney. You're not obliged to say anything, but whatever you do say goes down in writing.

25:16 Pike: Keep my coffee hot, Assunta. Put it on the slate. Assunta: No. No more slate.

25:23 One Last Page From the Journal

25:28 Watson: One last page from my journal: a week on, Lestrade came up our stair at teatime, and Mrs Hudson showed him in like a bailiff. Mrs Hudson: The Inspector, Mr Holmes. Boots on the mat, Inspector, if you please.

25:41 Lestrade: Straight from Bow Street. Pike stands charged with murder, and grinning at the dock rail. Watson: Then settle what's nagged me all week. Mrs Fenimore said that bank never listed a number before. Why this once?

25:56 Lestrade: Manager's off his sickbed, and I had it from him myself. Varney's own idea. Every number, he said, written down. Told the manager a man had promised him the lot back that night, and he'd believe it when he counted it. That man was Pike.

26:13 Mrs Hudson: And he still went to him? Holmes: As a banker goes, Mrs Hudson: to collect, with his own security. The bank had never kept a list. He had them keep this one, to guard himself.

26:25 Watson: And he told Pike so, to his face. That's why Pike signed a false name in the cab. Holmes: And why his tongue tripped him in the café. Only Varney's host that evening could have heard of that list. The felt had already told us the room.

26:40 Holmes: The only moneylender in London, Lestrade, who goes on collecting after he's dead. Mrs Hudson: Not over the tea things. Holmes: Forgive me.

26:50 Lestrade: Magistrate committed him for trial. And the fivers from under his boards go home to Mrs Fenimore, band and all, once the jury's done with them.