The Adventure of the Six Napoleons: Part One

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I'm Hugh Bonneville and welcome to Sherlock Holmes Short Stories, the series where we delve into the files of fiction's most brilliant detective, following his keen mind and unerring instincts from the first subtle clue to the final dramatic revelation.

This time we investigate a most peculiar mystery in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.

When Inspector Lestrade brings news of a vandal destroying plaster busts of Napoleon Bonaparte across London, Holmes initially dismisses the case as mere mischief.

But when the strange obsession turns deadly and a man is found murdered, the detective's interest is thoroughly piqued. What could possibly connect these shattered images of the French emperor?

And why would someone risk everything to destroy seemingly worthless plaster casts?

As Holmes and Watson track the path of broken Napoleons through London's streets, they uncover a criminal plot of international proportions and a treasure hidden in plain sight.

From the Noiser Podcast Network, this is The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, Part 1.

It was no very unusual thing for Mr.

Lestrade of Scotland Yard to look in upon us of an evening, and his visits were welcome to Sherlock Holmes, for they enabled him to keep in touch with all that was going on at the police headquarters.

In return for the news which Lestrade would bring, Holmes was always ready to listen with attention to the details of any case upon which the detective was engaged, and was able occasionally, without any active interference, to give some hint or suggestion drawn from his own vast knowledge and experience.

On this particular evening, Lestrade had spoken of the weather and the newspapers. Then he had fallen silent, puffing thoughtfully at his cigar.
Holmes looked keenly at him.

Anything remarkable on hand? he asked. Oh, no, Mr.
Holmes, nothing very particular. Then tell me about it.

Lestrade laughed. Oh, Mr.
Holmes, there is no use denying that there is something on my mind, and yet it is such an absurd business that I hesitated to bother you about it.

On the other hand, although it is trivial, it is undoubtedly queer, and I know that you have a taste for all that is out of the common. But in my opinion, it comes more in Dr.
Watson's line than ours.

Disease, said I.

Madness, anyhow, and a queer madness, too. You wouldn't think there was anyone living at this time of day who had such a hatred of Napoleon I

that he would break any image of him that he could see.

Holmes sank back in his chair. That's no business of mine, said he.
Exactly, that's what I said.

But then, when the man commits burglary in order to break images which are not his own, that brings it away from the doctor and on to the policeman. Holmes sat up again.

Burglary, this is more interesting. Let me hear the details.

Lestrade took out his official notebook and refreshed his memory from its pages. The first case reported was four days ago, said he.

It was at the shop of Morse Hudson, who has a place for the sale of pictures and statues in the Kennington Road. The assistant had left the front shop for an instant when he heard a crash.

And hurrying in, he found a plaster bust of Napoleon, which stood with several other works of art upon the counter, lying shivered into fragments.

He rushed out into the road, but although several passers-by declared that they had noticed a man run out of the shop, he could neither see anyone nor could he find any means of identifying the rascal.

It seemed to be one of those senseless acts of hooliganism which occur from time to time, and it was reported to the constable on the beat as such.

The plaster cast was not worth more than a few shillings, and the whole affair appeared to be too childish for any particular investigation.

The second case, however, was more serious and also more singular. It occurred only last night.

In Kennington Road, and within a few hundred yards of Morse Hudson's shop, there lives a well-known medical practitioner named Dr.

Barnicott, who has one of the largest practices upon the south side of the Thames.

His residence and principal consulting room is at Kennington Road, but he has a branch surgery and dispensary at Lower Brixton Road, two miles away. This Dr.

Barnicott is an enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, and his house is full of books, pictures and relics of the French Emperor.

Some little time ago he purchased from Morse Hudson two duplicate plaster casts of the famous head of Napoleon by the French sculptor Devine.

One of these he placed in his hall in the house at Kennington Road, and the other on the mantelpiece of the surgery at Lower Brixton.

Well, when doctor Barnicott came down this morning, he was astonished to find that his house had been burgled during the night, but that nothing had been taken save the plaster head from the hall.

It It had been carried out and had been dashed savagely against the garden wall under which its splintered fragments were discovered.

Holmes rubbed his hands. This is certainly very novel, said he.

I thought it would please you, but I have not got to the end yet. Dr.

Barnicott was due at his surgery at twelve o'clock, and you can imagine his amazement when, on arriving there, he found that the window had been opened in the night and that the broken pieces of his second bust were strewn all over the room.

It had been smashed to atoms where it stood.

In neither case were there any signs which could give us a clue as to the criminal or lunatic who had done the mischief. Now, Mr.
Holmes, you have got the facts.

They are singular, not to say grotesque, said Holmes. May I ask whether the two busts smashed in Dr.
Barnicott's rooms were the exact duplicates of the one which was destroyed in Morse Hudson's shop?

They were taken from the same mould.

Such a fact must tell against the theory that the man who breaks them is influenced by any general hatred of Napoleon.

Considering how many hundreds of statues of the great emperor must exist in London, it is too much to suppose such a coincidence as that a promiscuous iconoclast should chance to begin upon three specimens of the same bust.

Well, I thought as you do, said Lestrade. On the other hand, this Morse Hudson is the purveyor of busts in that part of London, and these three were the only ones which had been in his shop for years.

So, although, as you say, there are many hundreds of statues in London, it is very probable that these three were the only ones in that district. Therefore, a local fanatic would begin with them.

What do you think, Dr. Watson?

There are no limits to the possibilities of monomania, I answered. There is the condition which the modern French psychologists have called the ide fix,

which may be trifling in character and accompanied by complete sanity in every other way.

A man who had read deeply about Napoleon, or who had possibly received some hereditary family injury through the Great War, might conceivably form such an ide fix,

and under its influence be capable of any fantastic outrage.

That won't do, my dear Watson, said Holmes, shaking his head, for no amount of ideas would enable your interesting monomaniac to find out where these busts were situated.

Well, how do you explain it? I don't attempt to do so. I would only observe that there is a certain method in the gentleman's eccentric proceedings.
For example, in Dr.

Barnicott's hall, where a sound might arouse the family, the bust was taken outside before being broken. Whereas in the surgery, where there was less danger of an alarm, it was smashed where it stood.

The affair seems absurdly trifling, and yet I dare call nothing trivial when I reflect that some of my most classic cases have had the least promising commencement.

You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetti family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.

I can't afford, therefore, to smile at your three broken busts, Lestrade, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you will let me hear of any fresh development of so singular a chain of events.

The development for which my friend had asked came in a quicker and an infinitely more tragic form than he could have imagined.

I was still dressing in my bedroom next morning when there was a tap at the door and Holmes entered, a telegram in his hand.

He read it aloud Come instantly, one hundred and thirty-one Pitt Street, Kensington, Lestrade.

What is it then? I asked. Don't know.
Maybe anything. But I suspect it is the sequel of the story of the statues.

In that case, our friend the Image Breaker has begun operations in another quarter of London. There's coffee on the table, Watson, and I have a cab at the door.

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In half an hour, we had reached Pitt Street, a quiet little backwater just beside one of the briskest currents of London life.

Number 131 was one of a row, all flat-chested, respectable, and most unromantic dwellings. As we drove up, we found the railings in front of the house lined by a curious crowd.
Holmes whistled.

By George, it's attempted murder at the least. Nothing less will hold the London message boy.
There's a deed of violence indicated in that fellow's round shoulders and outstretched neck.

What's this, Watson? The top step's swilled down and the other one's dry. Footsteps enough, anyhow.
Oh, well, there's Lestrade at the front window, and we shall soon know all about it.

The official received us with a very grave face, and showed us into a sitting room, where an exceedingly unkempt and agitated elderly man, clad in a flannel dressing gown, was pacing up and down.

He was introduced to us as the owner of the house, Mr. Horace Harker of the Central Press Syndicate.
It's the Napoleon bust business again, said Lestrade. You seemed interested last night, Mr.

Holmes, so I thought perhaps you would be glad to be present now that the affair has taken a very much graver turn. What has it turned to, then?

To murder.

Mr. Harker, will you tell these gentlemen exactly what has occurred? The man in the dressing-gown turned upon us with a most melancholy face.

It's an extraordinary thing, said he, that all my life I have been collecting other people's news, and now that a real piece of news has come my own way, I am so confused and bothered that I can't put two words together.

If I had come in here as a journalist, I should have interviewed myself and had two columns in every evening paper.

As it is, I am giving away valuable copy by telling my story over and over to a string of different people, and I can make no use of it myself.

However, I've heard your name, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and if you'll only explain this queer business, I shall be paid for my trouble in telling you the story.
Holmes sat down and listened.

It all seems to center round that bust of Napoleon, which I bought for this very room about four months ago. I picked it up cheap from Harding Brothers, two doors from the High Street station.

A great deal of my journalistic work is done at night, and I often write until the early morning. So it was today.

I was sitting in my den, which is at the back of the top of the house about three o'clock, when I was convinced that I heard some sound downstairs.

I listened, but they were not repeated, and I concluded that they came from outside. Then suddenly, about five minutes later, there came a most horrible yell.

The The most dreadful sound, Mr. Holmes, that ever I heard.
It will ring in my ears as long as I live. I sat frozen with horror for a minute or two.
Then I seized the poker and went downstairs.

When I entered this room, I found the window wide open, and I at once observed that the bust was gone from the mantelpiece.

Why any burglar should take such a thing passes my understanding, for it was only a plaster cast and of no real value whatever.

You can see for yourself that anyone going out through that open window could reach the front doorstep by taking a long stride.

This was clearly what the burglar had done, so I went round and opened the door.

Stepping out into the dark, I nearly fell over a dead man who was lying there.

I ran back for a light, and there was the poor fellow.

A great gash in his throat and the whole place swimming in blood. He lay on his back, his knees drawn up and his mouth horribly open.

I shall see him in my dreams.

I had just time to blow on my police whistle, and then I must have fainted, for I knew nothing more until I found the policeman standing over me in the hall.

Well, who was the murdered man? asked Holmes.

There's nothing nothing to show who he was, said Lestrade.

You shall see the body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now. He is a tall man, sunburned, very powerful, not more than thirty.

He is poorly dressed, and yet does not appear to be a labourer. A horn-handled clasp knife was lying in a pool of blood beside him.

Whether it was the weapon which did the deed, or whether it belonged to the dead man, I do not know.

There was no name on his clothing, and nothing in his pockets save an apple, some string, a shilling map of London, and a photograph. Here it is.

It was evidently taken by a snapshot from a small camera.

It represented an alert, sharp-featured Simeon man with thick eyebrows and a very peculiar projection of the lower part of the face, like the muzzle of a baboon. And what became of the bust?

asked Holmes, after a careful study of this picture. We had news of it just before you came.
It has been found in the front garden of an empty house in Camden House Road. It was broken into fragments.

I am going round now to see it. Will you come? Certainly.
I must just take one look round.

He examined the carpet and the window. The fellow had either very long legs or was a most active man, said he.

With an area beneath, it was no mean feat to reach that window ledge and open that window. Getting back was comparatively simple.
Are you coming with us to see the remains of your bust, Mr. Harker?

The disconsolate journalist had seated himself at a writing-table.

I must try and make something of it, said he, though I have no doubt that the first editions of the evening papers are out already with full details.

It's like my luck. You remember when the stand fell at Doncaster? Well, I was the only journalist in the stand, and my journal the only one that had no account of it, for I was too shaken to write it.

And now I'll be too late with a murder done on my own doorstep.

As we left the room, we heard his pen traveling shrilly over the full scap.

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The spot where the fragments of the bust had been found was only a few hundred yards away.

For the first time, our eyes rested upon this presentment of the great emperor, which seemed to raise such frantic and destructive hatred in the mind of the unknown.

It lay scattered in splintered shards upon the grass. Holmes picked up several of them and examined them carefully.

I was convinced from his intent face and his purposeful manner that at last he was upon a clue.

Well,

asked Lestrade. Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
We have a long way to go yet, said he. And yet, and yet.

Well, we have some suggestive facts to act upon. The possession of this trifling bust was worth more, in the eyes of this strange criminal, than a human life.
That is one point.

Then there is the singular fact that he did not break it in the house or immediately outside the house, if to break it was his sole object.

He was rattled and bustled by meeting this other fellow. He hardly knew what he was doing.

Well, that's likely enough, but I wish to call your attention very particularly to the position of this house in the garden of which the bust was destroyed. Lestrade looked about him.

It was an empty house, and so he knew that he would not be disturbed in the garden. Yes, but there is another empty house farther up the street which he must have passed before he came to this one.

Why did he not break it there? Since it is evident that every yard that he carried it increased the risk of someone meeting him.

I give it up, said Lestrade. Holmes pointed to the street lamp above our heads.
He could see what he was doing here, and he could not there. That was his reason.

By jove, that's true, said the detective. Now that I come to think of it, Dr.
Barnicott's bust was broken not far from his red lamp. Well, Mr.
Holmes, what are we to do with that fact?

To remember it, to docket it. We may come on something later which will bear upon it.
What steps do you propose to take now, Lestrade?

The most practical way of getting at it, in my opinion, is to identify the dead man. There should be no difficulty about that.

When we have found who he is and who his associates are, we should have a good start in learning what he was doing in Pitt Street last night, and who it was who met him and killed him on the doorstep of Mr.

Horace Harker. Don't you think so? No doubt.
And yet it is not quite the way in which I should approach the case.

What would you do, then?

Oh, you must not let me influence you in any way. I suggest that you go on your line, and I on mine.
We can compare notes afterwards, and each will supplement the other.

Very good, said Lestrade.

If you are going back to Pitt Street, you might see mister Horace Harker.

Tell him for me that I have quite made up my mind, and that it is certain that a dangerous homicidal lunatic with Napoleonic delusions was in his house last night. It will be useful for his article.

Lestrade stared. You don't seriously believe that? Holmes smiled.
Don't I? Well, perhaps I don't, but I am sure that it will interest Mr.

Horace Harker and the subscribers of the Central Press Syndicate. Now, Watson, I think that we shall find that we have a long and rather complex day's work before us.

I should be glad, Lestrade, if you could make it convenient to meet us at Baker Street at six o'clock this evening. Until then, I should like to keep this photograph found in the dead man's pocket.

It is possible that I may have to ask your company and assistance upon a small expedition which will have to be undertaken tonight, if my chain of reasoning should prove to be correct.

Until then, goodbye and good luck.

Next time on Sherlock Holmes short stories, the mystery of the six Napoleons deepens as Holmes follows the trail of the broken busts across London.

A suspect with a violent past is uncovered, and Holmes discovers a precious treasure hidden in plain sight. That's next time.

Can't wait a week until the next episode? Well, listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www.noiser.com slash subscriptions for more information or click the link in

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