The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars

by Anthony Boucher

  Most of her trade was harmless and even beneficial—herb teas to cure or to ward off colds, poultices to heal the wounds following upon too vigorous a vodka bout. Some was of a shadier nature—love philters, potions to restore virility. And one branch of her activities was downright criminal—she had a varied and masterly collection of abortifacients. All of her trade save this last was carried on merely within the confines of the Russian colony, among the poorer and more ignorant immigrants who could bring themselves neither to trust an Americansky doctor nor to pay his bills. But the infallible efficacy of her abortives brought her many customers from other walks of life, who dreaded the pain and danger, but even more the possible scandal attendant upon an illegal operation.

  She never asked names in these transactions; but she could tell from the clothes and the cars of her clients that many of them were of the highest social (or at least financial) standing. Had she chosen, she could doubtless have made a thriving business of blackmail; but she was content with her simple lot and went quietly about her business in her dreary little shop.

  A few months ago (Anna Trepovna’s time concept was of the vaguest, and we could place the episode no more definitely than that), an exceedingly lovely and smartly dressed girl-very young, Anna thought, not more than eighteen—began calling at the shop. She seemed at first only a curiosity seeker, delighting in the strange names and stranger purposes of the wares displayed. She made occasional small purchases of freakish items for which she could have no possible use, and chatted lightly with Anna Trepovna (as much as chattering was possible in the old woman’s broken speech).

  She was a lovely girl, this, Anna Trepovna told us: fresh and bright and utterly entrancing—like a little bird singing on the first flowering branch of spring, she said. So pure, so sweet did the child seem that the herbwoman was shocked beyond measure when she finally dropped the pretense of idle curiosity and found courage enough to reveal her real need. But business is business; Anna Trepovna conquered her shock and sold a packet of the requisite herbs with full instructions, and that night said a prayer for the girl and invoked a small curse on the man who had driven her to needing Anna’s herbs.

  The next day a man came into the shop. It was the man whom the priest had described to us—the man Anna had seen at 221B. He demanded to know if a girl had been there, and described the child whom Anna had come to think of as her ptenchik—her little bird. The old woman asked what business it was of his, and he replied that he was the girl’s brother—it was his duty to watch over her.

  Anna Trepovna discounted this reply—“brother” was easily said, but she had her own ideas of the relationship—but saw too late what a mistake she had made in her own answer. Simply to have said, “No,” would have settled the matter then and there; to ask what business it was of his implied that his suspicions were true. She tried to remedy matters, but to no avail; the man departed with the ugly frown of knowledge on his brow.

  For several days she thought no more of the affair. And then the ptenchik returned. She was afraid—perhaps it was too late—did Anna have anything stronger? Most reluctantly Anna gave her another packet. As the girl—not so fresh and bright now, but troubled and fearful—left the shop, the old woman saw a man leave a doorway across the street and follow her. It was the same man.

  It was again a matter of days before she learned of the ptenchik’s death, and then only because she saw the girl’s photograph in a newspaper which she was using as wrapping paper. She asked a customer to read the caption to her, and learned that this was one of the most renowned debutantes of the season—she could not remember the name—who had been killed by a speeding automobile on the very evening when Anna Trepovna had last seen her. The driver was being held for manslaughter but was protesting that he had been helpless—the girl had seemed to jump or be thrown directly under his wheels. Anna Trepovna remembered the face of the “brother,” and wondered. But as always she kept her thoughts to herself and said nothing.

  The next day three gangsterish toughs entered her shop and told her that she was going to California. Her protestations were as fruitless as her clients after treatment. In the space of a few hours she found herself bundled onto a train with a ticket to Los Angeles and bags containing her few personal belongings and the cream of her stock. She was repeatedly warned that return to New York meant death. No reason was given, there were no specific commands of silence, but again Anna Trepovna had her own ideas.

  For two months Anna had lived quietly here in Los Angeles. The priest had helped her to become established in a strange city and had even found clients for her, on the condition that she should restrict her trade to its more harmless aspects. Then yesterday, while hunting for the home of some relatively prosperous Russian exiles who like her herb teas, she passed 221B and saw The Man. She was not sure then that he had seen her, but later she was certain; for nothing could make her believe that the automobile struck her by chance. She knew The Man’s secret, and even shipping her out of New York no longer seemed safe enough to him. She was not yet dead, but she knew that he would see to it that soon she was.

  Mrs. Hudson and I looked at each other as the old voice trailed off. I could see in her eyes much the same thoughts which I knew must stand revealed in mine. What could we do? There was no doubting the old woman’s sincerity; but her story was at best supposition, and even if one granted its truth, what was one to do? The accusation involved was too horrible to treat lightly, but too scantily supported to justify any serious action.

  As we stood there meditating, before we could say a word, the course of our thoughts was abruptly halted. We heard footsteps on the ladder. Anna Trepovna heard them too, and huddled down fearfully into her rags until she seemed an inanimate part of them. The priest glanced at the painted saint as though to fortify himself, and then turned and resolutely faced the hole in the floor to which the ladder led.

  Heavily the sound clumped up toward the garret. A head appeared above the floor level. A felt hat was pulled over the forehead, and a small black beard obscured the lower half of the face. Now the shoulders rose into view. On this hot day the man was waring an astrakhan-trimmed overcoat. A shudder of memory and recognition ran through me.

  He stood beside the hole now and faced us. His right hand remained in his overcoat pocket—the attitude familiar to habitués of gangster films. He spoke quietly and without an accent.

  “I can’t see in this damned hole,” he said. “Where is she?”

  “She is not here,” said the priest. “Friends sent her to hospital.”

  Obviously the man was not to be taken in so easily. I saw that his eyes had marked the bundle of rags, but he did not move toward it yet. “And who are these?” he asked.

  “They are good friends from my church. Sometimes they help me to visit sick people.”

  “Why should I ask these questions?” the man demanded of no one in particular. “The lies aren’t even good.” He turned to us with quiet menace. “Get out of here,” he said. “I’ve got work to do. It won’t be pretty. God knows what the old woman’s told you, but it doesn’t matter. Judges don’t like hearsay evidence. All the same, I’d advise you to keep quiet. Now get out.”

  Mrs. Hudson looked at him with contemptuous self-possession. Much though I admire her assurance, I must plead that it was most unwise; for in this calm arrogance she said what I had known ever since his entrance but sternly refrained from uttering. “And why should we obey you,” she asked, “Mr. Ricoletti?”

  The hand in his pocket twitched, and a nasty light glowed in his eyes. “Just a friend from the church!” he quoted in an ugly voice. “And how did you know about Ricoletti? You’re pretty smart for your size, aren’t you, sister? Maybe just a little bit too smart, huh?”

  Throughout this muttered speech he had been drawing nearer to Mrs. Hudson. Now, on that final “huh?” he whipped his free left hand across her face.

  Then I acted. It was not perhaps an action worthy of Derring, but I feel sure he
would have appreciated my motives. I threw myself at Ricoletti’s feet and pulled him on top of me, at the same time contriving to seize his right wrist as firmly as I could. We tossed and writhed on the floor. Twice I felt the metal rod dig through his pocket into my ribs, and each time I expected his finger to pull the trigger. I still do not know whether my grip on his wrist was paralyzing or whether I owe my life to some perverse compunction on his part. As we thrashed about, I could see Mrs. Hudson hopelessly searching the room. I cried to her to escape, but she seemed intent upon remaining and finding some weapon to aid me. In that bare garret, however, there was nothing—not even a stool with which to strike a blow.

  At last I felt my hand tiring. In another moment his wrist would be free, and then I knew not what fate awaited us all. I had all but despaired when I looked up and saw the priest standing over us. In his hand was the flickering red vigil light. He leaned over. The flame licked Ricoletti’s hand directly below my grip. My antagonist gave a sharp cry of pain, loosened his hold on the revolver. The priest seized; I heard a crack! as he brought it down on Ricoletti’s skull.

  At the same time a high scream rang out. The priest hastened to the ragged couch, bent over the still figure, and turned back to us with a woeful face which needed no words to make its meaning clear. “Go,” he said simply. “I stay here with her. I must say prayers now.”

  “I’ll send the police for this man,” I promised. “But supposing he comes to while you’re alone with him—”

  “I have this.” He touched the revolver. “And I am watched.” His gaze went heaven-ward.

  Reluctantly we left. As we descended the ladder-steps we were almost blinded; even the relative obscurity of the garage was dazzling to eyes that had stayed long in that garret. That is why I did not see the sack until it had descended over my head and shoulders.

  And that, I regret to say, is all of our story. We never saw our captors nor, indeed, did we know who they were; for if they were accomplices of Ricoletti’s, why did they not come to his aid when they heard the struggle overhead? All I know is that they released us from their car, still hooded, some two blocks from here. By the time we had freed ourselves from the sacks, the car was gone. Mrs. Hudson, whose admirable sense of direction was not in the least shaken by the episode, guided me back here. A phone call to Lieutenant Finch brought a squad car, with the aid of which I finally located the garret.

  And here my story seems to duplicate that of Professor Furness. The garret was empty. Not only were the priest, Ricoletti, and the dead woman gone, but so were the few inanimate objects—the rag pallet, the saint, the vigil light. Only a few drops of fresh wax on the floor indicated what had happened there. The men in the squad car looked at me in none too flattering a manner.

  It is with some misgivings that I close this narrative. The accusation embodied in it is far more serious than any other that has been made this evening. But I can only say, “This is what happened,” and wait hopefully for an explanation that will make all clear.

  During this last narrative Harrison Ridgly had been drinking with a quiet persistence remarkable even in him; but he seemed sober enough when he rose to resume the chair—sober enough, that is, until you noticed the whiteness of his neck and the tense insistence with which his slim fingers clutched the table.

  “Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “we have been privileged to hear five extraordinary narratives this evening. I had thought that my own experience, embellished as it was with the grotesque, the macabre, and the beautiful, was a singularly colorful one; but I fear that it has grown pale indeed beside the other episodes which we have heard. I am certain that after the indignation of Drew Furness, the huffing withdrawal of Rufus Bottomley, and the diffident confession of John O’Dab, you expect me to show some interesting reaction to the unusual accusation just hurled at me.”

  The expectancy was obvious without this comment from the chair. As Harrison Ridgly III coolly poured himself yet another straight shot, there was not a sound in the room. A sudden irrelevant and irreverent malice prompted Maureen to find a pin to drop; but Sergeant Watson chose that moment to crush his current Lifesaver, and the reverberation of that crunching crack was enough.

  “The only observation possible,” Ridgly resumed, “is that Jonadab Evans has fully redeemed himself in my critical eyes. The incredible young gentlemen who leaps on Gila monsters may indeed have furnished the plots of the Derring Drew novels; but there remains no doubt in my mind now that Mr. Evans is an exceedingly accomplished creator of imaginative crime fiction in his own right.”

  The little writer was not disconcerted. “It happened,” he said simply.

  “I was there,” Mrs. Hudson broke in. “I heard all that poor old woman had to say. And the squad car saw the grease from that vigil light.”

  Ridgly indulged in his twisted smile. “A few drops of red grease are readily planted. I shall not speak of the suborning of housekeepers.”

  “It happened,” Mr. Evans repeated stubbornly. “That’s all I have to say.”

  “Which is as well, the laws of slander being what they are. Such scurrilous imaginings—”

  “Scurrilous?” This adjective seemed really to offend the novelist. “And the editor of Sirrah dares to complain of scurrility?”

  “Just a minute, boys.” Lieutenant Jackson rose to his full rangy height and placed himself between the disputants. With a gently forceful twist he wrenched the bottle from Ridgely’s hand and set it on the farther end of the table. “We aren’t here to talk personalities. I don’t care if one of you is a ghost writer or another is a spy or another has all the Jukeses and the Kallikaks in his family tree. All I want to know is which one is a murderer—and I don’t mean a murder that maybe happened months ago in New York either. I want to know—and the rest of you ought to be with me on this—who killed Stephen Worth, and I’m damned if I see where all these stories get us. With me, Sergeant?”

  Sergeant Watson nodded.

  “And the first question,” Jackson went on, “is this: where’s the body?”

  Chapter 16

  “Where’s the body?” Lieutenant Jackson was still saying an hour later in the somewhat diffrent surroundings of the beer garden known as the Rathskeller.

  Judith (a trim little blonde whose sole connection with this story is that she lived halfway between 221B and the Rathskeller, a location the great convenience of which Jackson was just realizing) smiled. “It doesn’t go with the waltz, darling. It jars.”

  Jackson frowned. “Worse things than murders have jarred with Viennese waltzes. So much worse that this Worth business seems clean and wholesome and refreshing.”

  “Don’t go all-over earnest, Andy. I never can remember which Strauss waltz is which, but I do know this is one of my favorites. Wouldn’t you sooner dance?”

  Jackson shook his head. “Listen, Judith. I didn’t drop by tonight just because I’m off duty and wanted some beer. I’ve got to talk this thing out, and I can’t say the Irregulars were much help tonight. I’m on a spot because of my personal mix-up with Worth; but if I can dope this case out, it’ll mean a lot to me. Now why,” he clicked down the pewter lid of his stein, “should a murderer abscond with the body?”

  “He might be a cannibal,” said Judith helpfully. “Remember that sweet little piece in the book you lent me about the family that lived in caves and dined off the bodies of the people they’d robbed?”

  “A woman!” Jackson snapped. “Why can’t you say things directly? If you mean Sawney Bean, why not say Sawney Bean—not ‘that family in that book.’”

  “Well, he might be,” Judith went on unheeding. “And then there was that man Gene Fowler wrote about in Colorado.”

  “Sure,” said Jackson. “He might be a cannibal. And he might be a ghoul or a werewolf or a necrophile.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Never mind. But,” Jackson grinned to himself, “a necrophile with Stephen Worth’s corpse would top any man-bites-dog story that I ever heard.
He could be any of these things; but it seems to me a damned sight more likely that he’s a shrewd and clever man who had a smart reason for carrying off that corpse; and it’s my job to find out what that business was.”

  The earnestness of his voice impressed Judith. “All right, darling. Go ahead. I won’t heckle any more. I’ll just sit here and drink my scotch and you tell me the reasons why people carry off corpses.”

  “The trouble is,” the Lieutenant frowned, “that there’s a lot of reasons and they just don’t fit this case. The chief reason for disposing of a corpse is to make it appear that no murder ever happened—make it seem like an ordinary disappearance. Crippen’s probably your prime example—though I suppose the primest are the ones we don’t know about because they got away with it. But that reason can’t apply in this case because the O’Breen girl saw him shot, and the murderer knows it.

  “Another reason might be to conceal the means of death. Supposing you killed a man with a peculiar poison which only you could get hold of, or with some strange weapon that only you could handle. You might want to get rid of the body, even if the fact of murder was known, because an autopsy would point straight at you. But that can’t apply here either, because Worth was shot.”

  “How about ballistics?” Judith wondered (going with a detective teaches you a lot of things). “If the bullet could be traced directly to the murderer, mightn’t he want to get rid of that evidence?”

  “It’d be so much simpler to get rid of the gun than the corpse. Besides, unless the murderer was an outsider—which is just about incredible in view of Weinberg on the phone and that locked back door—the gun must have been disposed of, unless it was that fancy one under the window. The only weapon in the house, and we made a thorough search, was Harrison Ridgly’s automatic.”

  “And isn’t that suspicious?”

  “All in order. He had a license to carry it and it hadn’t been fired recently. No, that angle’s no use. Now why else—You might dispose of a corpse to raise some doubt about identity.”