I nodded, respecting my friend’s wishes.
“Then all is well. The world has one less villain preying upon it. The museum has her treasures. Sally Green has a new life, filled with opportunity, and is free to return home unashamed. You may congratulate yourself on a job well done.”
“And what should I do now?” Holmes asked, finally meeting my gaze.
I hesitated. Anyone else would have filled the rest of their day with friends or a lover, but not Holmes. He had only his violin, his pipe, and a large supply of alkaloids.
“I am sure another case will be along soon,” I said.
“I do hope so,” Holmes replied, as he strode away. “I should hate to become bored.”
The Dulwich Solicitor
By Martin Daley
One
Of all the cases I presented to The Strand magazine that involved the singular talents of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, its editor chose to publish what might be described as the more lengthy, complex adventures. I should stress that this is not a criticism of his judgement, nor of that wonderful publication. After all, I have personally been involved in, or have had knowledge of, over a hundred cases during my acquaintance with him, and Holmes once stated that he had been involved in five hundred investigations of capital importance before we even met. Decisions had to be made therefore as to which adventures were deserving of publication, and I believe Mr. Greenhough-Smith’s judgements were as good as any.
I was reminded of this recently when I had cause to visit my bank, Cox and Co. at Charing Cross. I had misplaced a keepsake given to me by my beloved Mary not long after we first met, when I suddenly remembered I had placed it with other valuables in the vault of the bank. While I was there, I could not fail to be tempted by the contents of my old, battered dispatch-box, containing the notes of my adventures with the great consulting detective. I sat for over two hours glancing through the piles of papers and recalling every possible emotion experienced as a result of my association with Sherlock Holmes.
As I did so it struck me that, as well as the adventures that the public are familiar with due to the aforementioned judgements of our editor, there were many others that probably were not considered, due simply to my friend’s brilliance in resolving the matter in double-quick time. The keepsake I referred to earlier reminded me of one example, and I found myself sifting through my old papers until I rediscovered the record of the investigation concerning Mr. Silas Wagstaff.
It was late September 1888 and Holmes had, two weeks earlier, completed the strange case of Mr. Jonathan Small and the great Agra treasure. During the course of his investigation, I met the sweet and sensitive Miss Morston for the first time, and once the matter had been concluded, I was delighted when Mary accepted me as her husband in prospective. A few days later, I received a letter from her, inviting me to be a guest of hers and of her employer Mrs. Forrester’s family at their home in Lower Camberwell. I am not ashamed to admit that my heart skipped with joy upon receiving the letter, and I had no hesitation in accepting.
As a matter of courtesy, I asked Holmes if he could do without my assistance for a few days. He had been lukewarm at the news of my engagement and further demonstrated a lack of feeling as he barely looked up from his newspaper and sent me off with a dismissive wave, announcing, “I have all the company I need in the form of the cocaine-bottle.”
Ignoring the reference to this foul habit, I left and enjoyed enormously a wonderful week in the company of Mary; I was even more delighted to find that she enjoyed my company just as much as I did hers. On the final day of my holiday, she gave me a signet ring belonging to her father, which was apparently a gift to him from her mother on the day of their wedding. I was touched that she would even consider parting with such a memento and was honoured to accept it.
I returned to Baker Street’s brooding autumnal skies the following morning, but even they could not dull my feelings—as far as I was concerned, it could have been the first week of May. That was to change, however, upon entering our old rooms at 221B. Such was my demeanour that I virtually bounded up the stairs, eager to see my friend and share the news of my holiday. Not for the first time, however, I was to be disappointed.
“Morning, Holmes!” I shouted from the landing as I hung up my hat and coat on the stand. There was no reply.
I entered our sitting room, only to be engulfed in a cloud of thick pipe smoke. Coughing, I made my way over to the window and raised the sash. After regaining some composure, I looked across the room to see my friend with his eyes closed, sitting in the wicker chair by the fire with what seemed like several days’ worth of newspapers strewn all around him. He was in his grey house coat and sat with his knees up under his chin. Protruding from his mouth was the small oily clay pipe he would invariably turn to when he was in pensive mood.
“Good morning, Holmes,” I repeated.
Raised eyebrows and a creased forehead were all that I received by way of a response. Already feeling my jovial mood dissipate, I sat down opposite, snapping open one of the newspapers as loudly as I could in order to elicit some form of acknowledgement. Again, I was to be disappointed.
My eyes inevitably travelled toward the Persian slipper that hung to one side of the fire, and then to the morocco case I knew contained a hypodermic syringe, sitting on the mantelpiece above it. I was appalled at the thought of Holmes stagnating like this over the past week.
The newspaper was folded open at the obituaries page. It was one of the few pages that was not dominated by the two stories that had horrified the nation over the previous few weeks: the theft of the favourite for the Wessex Cup and the tragic murder of its trainer was now rivalled by the recent dreadful murders in Whitechapel. I wondered if either of these matters were the cause of my friend’s noncommunicative mood. Without remembering the detail, I did recall him making some comment about the first of the Whitechapel murders some weeks earlier but, when he was not consulted by Scotland Yard on the matter, and then when the case that was brought to our door by Miss Morston took the following three weeks to complete, his attention and mine were naturally focused elsewhere.
No sooner had Holmes embarked on the case, which I subsequently titled The Sign of the Four, than another brutal murder took place in Spitalfields. Little did we know that the following week would see a further two horrific attacks. Again I wondered if Holmes was reproaching himself for not getting involved in the matter.
Just then, the doorbell rang, and my friend instantaneously leapt from his chair, as if propelled by a giant spring hidden under the wicker seat.
“Ha!” he cried, “Mrs. Hudson! MRS. HUDSON!”
I heard the footsteps of our long-suffering housekeeper on the stairs as Holmes made it to the door.
“Yes, yes, Mr. Holmes,” said Mrs. Hudson’s voice as she turned and hurried across the landing. Handing a telegram to Holmes at the threshold of the room, she saw me and attempted to add, “Oh, hello Doctor, I didn’t hear you come—”
But the poor woman was gone, the door of the sitting room having been closed in her face by surely the most infuriating lodger in London. Completely oblivious to his rudeness, Holmes was ripping open the telegram.
“Excellent!” he cried, “Watson, back into your coat, we have work to do!” He headed toward his own room to collect his outdoor wear but stopped in the doorway and turned, “Oh and by the way, no, I wasn’t contemplating the actions of the Whitechapel maniac when you entered—nor indeed the interesting developments at King’s Pyland.”
I stood there for the umpteenth time, open-mouthed. “How on earth…” I began, and then realised there was no point in trying to extricate myself from the mischievous trap I had fallen into yet again. Holmes turned again toward his room with that familiar twinkle in his eye.
Among the thousands of words I have written over the years to describe my friend, the one I mentioned earlier deserves a prominent p
lace—infuriating.
Two
“Where are we going?” I asked as our hansom picked its way through the busy traffic of Baker Street.
“First we must call at the Post Office on Marylebone Road,” replied Holmes, “and then it is on to Dulwich, Watson; we are going to Dulwich to trap a villain who is more cunning than Roylott and more cold-hearted than Rucastle.”
“Good heavens!” I was shocked by the reputation afforded to this man by Holmes. After gaining some composure, I couldn’t resist adding icily, “I’m pleased you haven’t spent the whole time locked away with your cocaine and tobacco.”
A brief smile plucked at the corners of my friend’s mouth as he prepared to tell me about the matter.
“You will remember when I employed the Irregulars to find the steamboat Aurora two weeks ago, during the Jonathan Small case?”
“Of course,” I replied. “I’ve never seen such a group of sad, grubby-looking characters. What their lives have been like to date, I cannot begin to imagine.”
“And that brings us to the point at hand, Watson,” said Holmes, leaning forward to elaborate on his narrative. “When the boys entered our sitting room, did you notice anyone or anything in particular?”
“Not particularly,” I said, “they all descended like a plague of locusts! I remember poor Mrs. Hudson was none too pleased at the intrusion.”
Holmes smiled at his recollection of the event. “Yes, but among the excitement there was one boy who stood out from the rest.”
“You mean Wiggins? He seemed to be doing all the talking.”
“No, no. Like the rest of his companions, Wiggins had bare feet, rags for clothes, and an eager sparkle in his eye, attracted as he was by the prospect of earning himself a guinea. But there was one boy who was distinct from the rest. He was the last to enter; he stood slightly apart from the others, as if he didn’t really know them. Most distinctive of all was his appearance: he wore shoes, his clothes were not as worn as his friends’, and his skin and hair were not as pitted with the grime and filth of London as the other poor wretches.”
“I can’t say I particularly noticed,” I said, not for the first time in my long association with my friend.
Holmes widened his nostrils and exhaled loudly in disappointment at my failure. “No,” he drew out the word before continuing. “The sight of the boy troubled me, and I later called Wiggins back to ask about him. It transpired that he had only been with Wiggins and his associates for little more than a week prior to us receiving them in Baker Street.
He’s called Simon,” said Wiggins, “Simon Rutherford. I found him begging down Rotherhithe way, where I had a bit of business.”
“A bit of business indeed!” Holmes threw his head back and roared with laughter as he recalled the conversation. “The little tyke!”
“Simon Rutherford?” I queried. “Hardly the moniker of your average street urchin.”
“Exactly, Watson. His name, his appearance, everything was incongruous with the situation he found himself in. It transpired that the boy was recently orphaned. Wiggins told me he thought he was from a quite well-to-do family, but his parents died, leaving him destitute.”
“Surely a decent middle-class family would have provided for their offspring with a will?”
“And this is what intrigued me still further. In the absence of my trusted biographer, I resolved to carry out some further research into the matter and discovered that the boy’s father had died suddenly within six months of his mother, and he did indeed leave a will.”
Holmes reached into his inside pocket and brought out a piece of newspaper torn from the Times. It was part of the obituaries page and recorded the:
Sudden passing of Mr. Gerald Rutherford of 13 Tewkesbury Avenue, Dulwich. Husband of the late Sarah Rutherford and father of Simon James Rutherford. The reading of the will is due to take place at the offices of solicitor Mr. Silas Wagstaff on August 15, 1888.
“So presumably this took place and, as a result, the poor child received nothing and was kicked out onto the street?” I asked with some alarm.
“I am certain of it,” replied Holmes through gritted teeth. “There is something quite despicable about crimes against the most vulnerable of our society, Watson, and they are invariably perpetrated by the wealthy and privileged.”
“And you obviously suspect this Wagstaff is guilty of wrongdoing against the boy Rutherford?”
Holmes looked squarely at me. “I know it Watson,” he said, “I know it.”
At that moment, our hansom drew to a halt outside the post office, and Holmes leapt from the vehicle onto the pavement and into the building in a single movement. I saw him through the window speaking with the postmaster behind the counter, and he took an envelope from him, in exchange for some form of payment. Within seconds, he was back in the hansom and with a rap on the inside of the roof with his cane, we lurched back up to speed.
“I know it, my dear Watson, because of this,” he announced, showing me the envelope he had just collected. “It is the final piece in the puzzle of evidence against this wretched creature.”
The envelope was addressed to a Mr. John Radford, c/o Marylebone Road Post Office, NW1. “I don’t understand,” I said. “Who is Mr. John Radford, and how have you come to receive his mail?”
Holmes once again flashed me that mischievous glance of his before announcing, “I am Mr. Radford. I have already visited Wagstaff during your absence, Watson, and this letter is the result.”
Naturally, I was at a complete loss as to what Holmes was up to and asked my friend to elaborate.
“Every fibre in my body told me that there was something sinister concerning the passing of Gerald Rutherford, so from the newspaper room at the British Library I went straight to the Registrar’s Office in Dulwich to view the recorded deaths. In Rutherford’s case, the cause of death was listed as a heart attack and organ failure.”
“What age was he?” I asked.
“Forty-six,” replied Holmes, “an unusually young age for one’s organs to completely shut down, wouldn’t you say, Doctor?”
“I agree.”
“And less than ten entries before that of Gerald Rutherford was the recording of his wife’s passing. The cause of her death was typhoid fever.
“I leafed back through the ledger still further and found no less than six entries during the previous three years where causes of death were listed as either a heart attack, organ failure, or both. Six weeks prior to each death, it would appear that the respective spouses of the deceased had also passed away. I made a list of the names concerned and then visited neighbouring registry offices. I found a similar pattern of spousal deaths in Norwood, Kensington, and Norbury: one passing away first and the surviving spouse outliving them by no more than two or three months. All enough to form a pattern but not enough to particularly arouse any suspicion of wrongdoing.
“From there I returned to the library to discover that, in each case, there were children orphaned by their parents’ passing, and of those cases that were heard at a coroner’s inquest, it was judged that the deaths were as indicated on the respective death certificates.”
“You naturally do not believe this?”
“I do not,” Holmes said gravely, as our cab rattled over Waterloo Bridge, “and in each case, the solicitor involved in dealing with the deceased’s estate was the same.”
“Silas Wagstaff.”
“Precisely.”
“But surely it should be a matter for the police, Holmes,” I suggested. “After all, no one has actually commissioned your services in the matter.”
“I am not interested in money when it comes to such matters, Watson. There are some cases worth pursuing simply because it is the correct thing to do. If this ends up with this odious specimen at the end of a rope, then that will be my reward.
“But you are co
rrect about the police; the telegram I received earlier was from Inspector Stanley Hopkins, who has obtained a magistrate’s warrant and will meet us at Wagstaff’s offices this morning.”
Three
For the remainder of the journey, Holmes completed the gaps in his narrative concerning his meeting with Silas Wagstaff.
“I first contacted him claiming to be a Mr. Radford, who had recently lost his wife. As it was too painful for my young daughter and myself to remain in the family home in Dulwich, we had moved out and were temporarily staying with friends north of the river. I explained that I had not made a will, and my dear wife’s sudden passing had prompted me to give the matter some serious thought. Not surprisingly, he was all too willing to help. I visited him first last Monday in the guise of the grieving widower.”
Having witnessed—and been taken in by—many of Holmes’s disguises over the years, I could picture him playing the part to perfection. I have thought on many an occasion that the stage lost one of the finest actors when Holmes turned his attentions to the art of detection.
“Like most villains of his kind,” resumed my friend, “Wagstaff is certainly a plausible character. You have often complimented me on my thespian abilities in the past, Watson, I must grudgingly pay tribute to his.
“ ‘Come in, my dear Mr. Radford,’ he said when we first met, ‘and let me express my heartfelt condolences to you and your daughter for your devastating loss.’
“ ‘Thank you, Mr. Wagstaff, it has been an extremely difficult time for us both.’
“ ‘Let me get us some refreshment. Mr. Kent!’
“The solicitor’s clerk answered his employer’s call.
“ ‘Ah, Kent, would you be so kind as to bring us some refreshment please? There’s a good chap.’
The Return of Sherlock Holmes Page 21