I was with my dear friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes late one evening. We were sitting in the living room enjoying a quiet time by the fire. Holmes was reading a book. I could just make out the title: The world that nobody sees. He read a lot of strange books. As usual he was smoking his opium filled pipe. I strongly disagreed with this and told him so regularly. Suddenly a knocking at the door filled the silence. Who could that be at this hour? “Come in” said Holmes. His voice was calm and relaxed as always. It was the serving girl. Apparently there was a desperate gentleman by the front door, and Mrs. Pennystone, the housekeeper, was seeing to him. Holmes and I headed downstairs to where a man in a great overcoat and a bowler hat was standing. He seemed to have calmed down a bit. As soon as he saw Holmes he ran towards him explaining that he had been sent, for his master had been murdered and that Holmes was to come at once. Upon a closer inspection of the man I saw that he was a butler-in-training. A fully fledged butler would not be clinging, panic-stricken, to Holmes's jacket.
So we headed out with the now somewhat calmer butler in the lead. After a short walk we arrived at a manor house. I saw Holmes glancing down a ditch at a small lump. I had no idea what it was. The young soon-to-be butler pulled Holmes away from the ditch toward the house. Once inside I noticed that the place was crawling with panicked servants and somewhat calmer policemen. No shortage of either. The body lay in the living room. It would appear that he had been doing more or less the same thing Holmes and I had been doing before meeting our messenger and escort. A policeman lifted the sheet so Holmes and I to could see the corpse. It was a bloody mess. He had been shot through the head at short range and been stabbed in the chest by a long sharp object, like a sword or a long knife. Someone really wanted him dead! Holmes started questioning the servants about whether he had been having any mysterious visitors lately. The head butler explained that he had been having tea and toast with a gentleman named Ben Hughes. The master had sent all his servants out of the room so he could talk with the man in privacy. I then questioned a maid and found out that the victim's name was Victor Freeza, and that he was from Iceland (Holmes presumably knew this already). Apparently the servants called him Freeza Sama. Sama is a Japanese honorific for a master.
“I was unable to extract any more information out of the servants”, Holmes told me coming up from behind. “However I believe I have found us some leads” he continued. “Come with me. Oh and put your coat on” I nodded, wondering what he had found out. We snuck out of the tradesman's entrance so as not to be noticed by the police who were blocking the front door. Holmes took us back to the ditch he had been peering at earlier. By the light of an oil lamp he suddenly produced I was able to see what he had been looking at. It was the body of a dead street urchin. I was confused. Why was a dead street urchin so special? They were all over the place. Holmes gestured for me to look closer. The skinny beggar had been stabbed through the heart and shot in the head. I gasped. Maybe he was killed by the same man as Victor Freeza! There was a rustling in the bushes and another urchin jumped out. “Ere, wut d'ya think yur doin wi ol Jonny?” he shouted “E did'n see noffin an I did'n see nuffin either!” I was rather put out by his strong accent and all his shouting. Street Urchins normally ran away down dodgy looking alleys or would nip down into to sewers if he saw someone important. Holmes however remained calm. “Do you know who killed your friend?” he asked softly looking straight at the boy. “Yea, no, so what if I do?” he seemed kind of panicked. “You won't get into trouble, if you do know who the murderer is, please tell me.” Holmes's voice seemed almost hypnotic. The urchin nodded slowly “It wa ol Jonny. E wa wachin this man go inte this ere ouse. He wa gonna try pickpocketin is wallet. After a wee while this man stepped oot an e ad bloody ands and e were carryin this gun an a bloody knife. Ol Jonny tried t nabb is wallet but e were spotted an got killed. While this were happenin I nabbed the wallet. E did'n ave much cash on im.” The street urchin seemed more upset at the lack of money then at his friend's death. “Thank you young man. Fear not, you may keep the money, I desire only a method of identification.” Holmes said indicating toward the street urchin's bulging trouser pocket with his pipe. The urchin sheepishly produced the wallet and looked inside. He pulled out a business card. “Like this?” he asked waving it in the air. Holmes inspected it. The clever street urchin was covering the name. “Ere, I'll let ya buy it off me” he said, a sneaky grin appearing on his face. Holmes nodded. “I would not steal it. How does half a shilling sound?” The street urchin grinned and handed Holmes his open palm. “Lemme see ya money first” he said. Evidently the urchin had no desire to be ripped off. Holmes fished half a shilling out of his pocket and they completed the trade successfully. It then struck me that dead street urchins aren't normally gallantly protected by others. Upon questioning I came to find out that he hadn't been through Jonny's pockets yet and you never know what you can find.
Holmes handed the card to the police. It belonged to a certain Mario Solborg (also from Iceland). Ben Hughs had clearly been a false name, Holmes, had of course, been aware of this the entire time. How had he known about the street urchin being killed in the same way as Mr. Freeza, and his death holding possible clues to the real identification of the murderer? That brought me on to wonder why Mr. Freeza had been killed in the first place. What motive did the murderer have? Holmes smiled at me; he knew what I was thinking again. Storm it!
We returned to Baker Street and Holmes handed me a large pile of documents. “Victor Freeza and Mario Solborg should be in there. You can find Solborg's motive for murder if you look in the right places” he said. I sighed, it seemed like Holmes really could read my mind!
After hours of searching and putting together scraps of clues I found out that Solborg and Freeza were cousins and both would inherit a factory that their Fathers had owned together. Solborg didn't want to share his future profits with Freeza so he had killed him. But some things didn't add up. If Freeza and Solborg's Fathers were brothers then why did they have different surnames? And why were they here in London if the factory is in Iceland? Why didn't Freeza recognise his own cousin when he came pretending to be Ben Hughs?
I told Holmes my conclusion and what I felt was missing. He grunted puffing at his pipe. “Freeza and Solborg grew up as next-door-neighbours. They would play together as children. There was only a one year difference between them. When they reached adulthood they were still close friends, when their Fathers grew ill with the same illness there was talk of who would inherit the factory. The Fathers decided to give them half each. The one we now know as Solborg was older so he felt he should inherit more of the annual profit, so he turned on the younger cousin and tried forcing him to give up his inheritance. The one we know as Freeza refused so Solborg tried brute force. When this failed Freeza fled the country, fearing for his life. He changed his name from Andre Skogen to Victor Freeza. After a while his cousin found him. He changed his name from Halgrim Skogen to Mario Solborg and stalked Freeza. After a while Solborg had changed his appearance enough not to be recognised. He then arrived at Freeza's manor pretending to be a businessman by the name of Ben Hughs then a few hours ago he killed him. But he was seen by Jonny the street urchin, so to cover his back he killed the him as well.” Holmes puffed his pipe a few times in satisfaction. How he knew all this was a mystery to me, and still is to this very day. Solborg was caught and arrested. The factory in Iceland fell into debt with no proper owner and eventually closed down.
That still left the question of how Holmes had known about Jonny. I then remembered the book Holmes had been reading. The world that nobody sees.