Sherlock Holmes and the Four Corners of Hell

by Seamas Duffy

  ‘It sounds reasonably credible to me,’ I said, ‘that this lad might have gone there in a moment of hot-headeness and, knowing nothing about the movements of the household and being unaware that Burdock was absent, might have fired the shot as a warning and then disappeared. There is now an attempt to cover up for him by pretending that he has gone down to the coast to find a ship, which seems an obvious cock-and-bull story, for a twenty-minute walk would take him to the Pool of London, which has more boats than any other port in the world.’

  ‘Precisely, Watson,’ said Holmes. ‘What is it that has caused you to think otherwise?’

  Baynes laughed, ‘Admittedly, it is nothing more than a vague suspicion, but there are a surprising number of small coincidences. The incident happened about eight o’clock last night, just a few minutes after the maid went out to buy some oysters. After the shot was fired, Parlow ran straight out on to the wharf, and although there were a number of people in the vicinity, neither he nor the others saw the assailant, whoever he was, make his getaway. The only escape routes are along Grove Street by the oyster stall, or along the river path; the maid and the stallholder swore they saw no one, and a man and woman who had been standing on the river path said the same. So there was the coincidence of Burdock having left the house earlier, on what seems to have been a sudden whim; there was the coincidence of Parlow being left alone just a few minutes before the shot was fired; then there was the coincidence of not one of five possible witnesses having seen this man escape.’

  ‘You are certain that a shot was fired?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Yes, the window shutter bore the hole where the bullet had gone through. The wood was clean around the hole, showing it had been done recently.’

  ‘It could not have been fired from inside the room?’

  Baynes smiled, ‘I see you are as sharp as ever, Mr Holmes! Most of the broken glass had fallen inwards and we found the bullet in the kitchen dresser. Then we fetched down Perrins, our small-arms specialist, to look at it. There is little doubt that the shot came from outside, for the hole in the shutter matches the bullet found in the dresser.’

  ‘And both bullet holes were fresh?’

  ‘Undoubtedly. Perrins also detected some staining around the shutter, but he was unable to say whether or not it was from powder blackening. Parlow says he remembered thinking that the explosion was fairly loud and that it must have been fired by someone standing close to the window.’

  ‘Is it not possible that the intention was to kill Parlow rather than Burdock?’ I ventured.

  ‘It seems no less likely under the circumstances,’ said Holmes, ‘in which case, it would point very strongly to the maid as a possible accomplice of the assailant.’

  ‘That occurred to me, too; after all, the maid was the only person who knew for certain that Parlow was alone in the room, sitting at that very table. However, when I spoke to Parlow, he laughed and said that he had no enemies in the world. He seemed not to have the slightest concern for his own safety – rather more for his master’s; he scorned the suggestions of his neighbours that one of them should come and stay with him. He refused the offer of a pistol and said it would be useless as he had never handled one before, though he did somewhat reluctantly take a handsome heavy stick to his quarters, which was pressed upon him by an acquaintance, Nathaniel Wright, who owns a nearby public house.’

  ‘Have you been able to confirm whether Burdock was at home when this happened?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘Yes, we have already done that. I wired to Inspector Hescott of the Kent Police, who spoke to the railway porter at Margate. The porters all know Mr Burdock by sight as he travels frequently from there, and the man who spoke to Hescott confirmed that Burdock arrived at a time which would have been consistent with his leaving the Deptford Road station on the 12.38 train. The man who was on duty last night also confirmed that Burdock did not leave again before the station closed at night. Hescott questioned Mrs Burdock’s maidservant, who also attests that her master was at home all night.’

  ‘A solid, but by no means unshakable, alibi,’ said Holmes. ‘After all, Burdock could have slipped out of the house without the maid’s knowledge and then taken a train from a different station on the line.’

  ‘Indeed, but why?’ asked Baynes.

  ‘That, of course, is one of a number of things which we shall have to discover for ourselves. Well, Watson, how does a trip to the Surrey side strike you?’ Holmes asked.

  ‘It is a fine day for a drive downriver,’ I replied as I looked out of the bow window of the sitting room. ‘I see that friend Baynes has taken the liberty of keeping his four-wheeler waiting.’

  ‘I shall fill you in with some more details en route,’ said Baynes, drawing out his notebook as the cab set off down Baker Street. ‘Elias Burdock is fifty-nine years of age and was formerly the manager for Seldovich’s, the Baltic timber merchant in Bermondsey. Some years ago, having made enough money from a bit of speculation, he left the import trade and decided to buy a breaker’s yard just upriver of the Earl’s Sluice at Rotherhithe. This is a rough plan I have made of Burdock’s Wharf,’ he said, drawing out a cylinder of paper and passing it across to us. Holmes unrolled it and spread it out on his knee.

  Baynes continued, ‘The premises consist of a yard for storing the dismantled parts, mainly timber, ships’ components and scrap iron, and there is a short wharf where the hulks are actually broken up. There is also a narrow slipway for smaller craft. The wharf house is a two-storied building with an outhouse which is used for keeping coal and oil, and there is a shed in which the tools are kept. As you can see, the subjects are enclosed by a nine-and-a-half-foot high fence surmounted by barbed wire to the north and west; to the east is the river; and to the south there is the sheer wall of the disused naval victualling yard. There is a main gate in front of the house, which is always kept locked except on the rare occasions when wheeled traffic has to come in or out, and a small front gate to the side of this which is the usual means of entry for the labourers in the yard. There is a rear gate to the yard set into the palings by the riverside which opens on to a path in the close vicinity of the Dog and Duck public house, kept by the aforesaid Mr Nathaniel Wright; a few of the labourers from the Rotherhithe Street area come in this way. Both pedestrian gates are opened about eight o’clock in the morning to allow the labourers in and are then locked again at night after the last man has gone home. Only the three people in the wharf house have keys to the gates. They are Burdock, the proprietor, Parlow, the foreman, who is some twenty years younger than his master and Esther Cromley, the maid, who comes in during the day to do the cooking, cleaning, and provisioning. She is normally at the house from 8.30 in the morning until about the same time at night, with a three-hour break in the afternoon from two o’clock until five o’clock. The two men live on the premises, and Burdock goes home to Margate on a Friday afternoon and returns on a Monday morning by the first train. Parlow lives permanently at the wharf house. Mrs Burdock rarely visits the wharf, and never stays at the wharf house overnight. Burdock has taken recently to going home in the middle of the week if business is slack enough to leave in the hands of his foreman.’

  ‘Therefore his departure at midday yesterday, whilst rather sudden, was not without precedent,’ interjected Holmes.

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘One moment; did Burdock send a wire to his wife to say that he was coming home?’

  ‘No, he did not.’

  ‘Do you know at which point Burdock actually decided to leave the wharf?’

  ‘Yes, apparently he intimated his intention to Parlow the previous evening, and the following morning both men agreed that Burdock should return home as things were quiet.’

  ‘We are justified, are we not,’ said Holmes, ‘in inferring from this that there must be some considerable degree of trust between the two men? Especially as the trade in used timber and small scrap iron is conducted largely on the basis of on-the-spot cash.’


  ‘Yes. In fact, Parlow obtained the post through his sister, who was Esther Cromley’s predecessor, some two years ago. He worked at first as a general hand purely for board and lodgings, then Burdock offered him the foreman’s job at thirty pounds a year when the previous one left. Parlow said he later obtained an increase his wages to a hundred a year, though with some adjustments in his duties and in his boarding arrangements to take account of the extra salary; all this was confirmed with Burdock. From that point onwards it seems that Parlow has been running the business from day-to-day. The new arrangement seemed to suit both parties, for according to the maid, they rub along pretty well.

  ‘Yesterday seems to have been a fairly uneventful day at the wharf. Business was slack, as I have said, and a number of the labourers had been laid off, so Burdock departed to catch the train from Deptford Road station which entailed one further change en route to Margate. At about eight o’clock in the evening, the maid asked Parlow if he was hungry, and upon receiving a reply that he was, she went out to fetch him a dozen oysters. His intention was that when he had finished making up the books for the day, he would walk across to the Dog and Duck to bring home a jug of porter to wash down the oysters. The maid had left on her errand, and Parlow had just sat down at the table in the sitting room at the rear of the house when a shot rang out. He suddenly realized that a bullet had come through the window frame and lodged itself in the dresser opposite to where he was sitting. He immediately sprang up and dashed out on to the wharf, but in the dark, and what with a slight mist drifting in from the river, he could see no one. Then he ran round to the front gate only to find Esther, who had left the gate open, coming back. If the attacker had escaped that way, she must have seen him, but she had, she said, seen no one, nor had she heard the shot. Now, as you see, there are only two ways in or out of the wharf by foot – through the front gate or through the side gate that leads by the river path to the Dog and Duck, which was by that time locked. The man and woman whom I mentioned were conversing outside the tavern, and they said that although they had heard the shot, they were certain that no one passed that way. I was puzzled at first as to why neither the maid nor the oyster woman heard the shot, but the report may have been muffled by the bulk of the house, whereas the river path is open and has nothing to block the sound.’

  ‘It is possible, though, that the culprit got away over the palings is it not?’ I asked.

  ‘In theory, yes. But Parlow says he was on the wharf within a very short time after the shot was fired, and it would be no easy job for someone to shin up the palings without being seen. Even so, once the escaping man has come down on the other side of the fence he still has, for practical purposes, only two means of escape – the river path or Grove Street. I think we can rule out the sheer twenty-foot wall of the dockyard.’

  ‘What about the yard itself; surely with piles of timber and scrap iron, a fugitive could easily conceal himself there?’ Holmes said, pointing to the plan. ‘There are sheds and piles of timber and there is the crane too.’

  ‘Yes, you could hide a regiment in that yard in the dark, and there is the old boat which is being broken up at the wharf. We searched them all and found nothing.’

  ‘Then there is the roof of the house,’ Holmes interjected.

  ‘We sent a man up there, too. However, even if the culprit could somehow have concealed himself in any of these places, he would still have to escape from the yard at some point. Now, the whole neighbourhood was turned out in the street and on the river path within minutes, and soon the yard itself was swarming with police. People had brought torches and dogs, and I can assure you that my men turned the place upside down, but found nothing. If the assailant had been hiding in the wharf, it is inconceivable that he would not have been discovered.’

  ‘But you have only the maid’s word for it that the assailant did not pass onto the street through the gate she had left open?’

  ‘The maid and the oyster woman. However the constables took some trouble to make enquiries at all of the neighbouring houses and no one reported seeing anyone suspicious at the time. The gate of the yard is within sight of the oyster stall, and they spoke to the owner, a Mrs Taylor, who says she saw no one. However, I feel that there remains just the slightest chance that the assailant could somehow have got himself quickly out of the street gate whilst the attention of the maid and the fishwife were distracted – after all they did not hear the shot and so there was nothing to alert them to the fact that there was anything amiss. The assailant could possibly have hidden somewhere in the badly-lit surrounding area, and then could have slipped away unseen before we arrived at the scene. The difficulty is that Parlow is adamant that when he reached the gate, the maid was already returning, and she must have seen anyone leaving. Of course, she may be lying,’ said Baynes.

  ‘Let us consider all the points,’ said Holmes. ‘If this assailant was after Burdock, he was well enough acquainted with the ways of the house to know where his quarry would normally be sitting; on the other hand, he appears not to have known that Burdock had suddenly gone home to Kent. That would suggest he was acting alone. If, however, he was after Parlow, then it would favour the theory that the maid is implicated. And if the maid is lying – that is to say she has deliberately misled you and is not simply mistaken – then it can only be because she is either in league with the assailant or is in fact the assailant herself, which would explain why no one was seen escaping. It would also suggest that the oyster woman is part of the conspiracy, too, which is beginning to stretch credulity, and so the entire accomplice theory begins to fall apart. Even if we assume, then, for one moment that the maid is in league with this person and that the target is Parlow, she lets the killer into the yard and somehow manages to distract the fishwife’s attention long enough for him to escape. Why then did he, the assassin, not simply walk into the kitchen and blow Parlow’s brains out? Why did he fire through a closed window?’

  Baynes shrugged. ‘A warning shot, perhaps, as Doctor Watson suggested? To frighten him.’

  ‘Surely not,’ Holmes said, ‘for the tendency would be to fire a warning into the air where it would do the least harm, whereas by firing through a closed shutter one could not be certain that it would not be fatal to the occupant.’

  ‘I suppose it is highly unlikely that girl could have been the target,’ I asked.

  ‘I should think so, though I would not entirely rule that out until I have spoken to her,’ replied Holmes. ‘Now, let us address the possibility of the assailant having some other means of escape: what about the river, for instance? Could he have left by boat? After all, there is both a wharf and a slipway; surely a small boat could easily have been launched very quickly from the slipway?’

  ‘The letter “A” on the plan marks the window through which the shot was fired,’ said Baynes. ‘Parlow swears that as he ran out of the house through the main door – at “B” – in the direction from which the shot came, he came immediately within sight of the slipway, and he saw no sign of anyone.’

  ‘Well, that seems certain enough. It is a most interesting problem, and we have summed up all the difficulties and inconsistencies,’ said my friend. ‘I am afraid that I must reserve further judgement until I have more data.’

  Holmes sat absorbed in the corner of the cab as we trundled on in silence over London Bridge and then eastwards through the riverside districts where the swirling Thames could be glimpsed only here and there through a dock gate, or at the end of a small jetty which ran down to the murky water’s edge; occasionally a subterranean culvert revealed the ghost of an ancient forgotten tributary. The river could be smelt, though, for the incoming tide had brought with it the salty tang of the marshes and the clammy air of our sultry Indian summer was thick with coal smoke, tar, and wet rope. The roads by the canals and docks were busy and cramped, and we passed by what seemed like miles of timber basins, railway sidings and the blind, high walls of dock warehouses where the smell of raw timber and acrid reek of cre
osote assaulted our senses. In the narrow dockside streets where small dingy shops supplied the wants of the riverine populations, the masts and funnels of ships seemed to sprout from the roofs of the low, dilapidated weather-boarded houses huddled together at odd angles. Foreign sailors of every sort – Malays, Lascars and Chinese – abounded, but the Nordic types were most numerous, and there were enough rough dockside taverns to supply the wants of half of London, for every second building, it seemed, was an alehouse or gin shop. In the back alleys lurked opium dens as numerous and as vile as their counterparts in Ratcliff or Limehouse. Holmes, attentive as ever to the peculiarities of the populace, would here point out a deal porter by his headgear, or there declare a workman to be a cooper or a stevedore by the tools he carried. Each deduction was invariably followed by an explanation of his reasoning to an appreciative Baynes.

  ‘A gift you have been born with,’ said the Inspector in admiration.