by David Marcum
“Captain James Winslow, I presume,” smiled Sherlock Holmes at our visitor.
The other appeared thunderstruck. “In the name of all that’s damnable, Mr. Holmes, how could you possibly have guessed my identity?”
“There was no guesswork involved, my dear fellow. Pray take a seat.” Our visitor, seemingly still confused, sat as Holmes continued. “Your gait as you mounted the stairs was that of a seafarer. Your face, albeit with a beard, was reproduced often enough in the newspapers following the loss of the barque. Your complexion is weather-beaten, other than for the parts where you have worn a beard in the past, telling me that it was removed relatively recently. Add to these trifles your physique, which was likewise remarked upon in the Press, and the nautical flavour of the tattoo on your right wrist, and it is clear that I am talking to a former mariner - one who has no intention of sailing the oceans, at least in the near future, if the lack of a beard is to be taken as any indication. Nor, I guess, does he wish to be recognised, if the turned-up collar and low-brimmed hat on a warmish day have any significance. Your mourning for your former shipmates does you credit.”
“Well, you are indeed a magician, Mr. Holmes. Maybe you can say to me why I am here?”
My friend smiled. “My talents do not extend to discovering your thoughts, Captain. May I assume that your visit is connected with the recent loss of your ship?”
“You are perfectly correct. I now wish to God that I had never set eyes on that dratted Monsewer.”
“A Frenchman?”
“A Belgian, damn his eyes! A Monsieur Malmaison, who promised me and my crew large sums of money in return for delivering what he described as ‘a special cargo’ to Morocco.”
Holmes raised his eyebrows. “Have you any idea as to the nature of that cargo?”
The other sighed. “I fear I must tell you the whole story.”
“That would seem to be advisable.” Holmes leaned back in his chair, and half-closed his eyes. “Watson, if you would be kind enough to take notes, I would be much obliged.”
Winslow sat up straight, his hands clenched in his lap, as he began to relate his tale. “The Sophy was coming to the end of her useful life. Her keel had been laid down some forty years ago, and she had been allowed to deteriorate over the course of time. Her owners, Hillbrook & Co. of Gravesend, had determined that she be sold off for scrap some time later this year.”
“And your feelings with regard to this?”
“I am not as young as I was. It would be difficult for me to find another command. In addition, I had my crew to consider. They were all good men, hand-picked by myself, with two exceptions, these last being men whom had been placed on board by the owners to replace those of my choosing who had died of fever in the West Indies on the previous voyage. If the Sophy was to be no more, I felt it would have been my responsibility to ensure that my men had employment in the future. I therefore refused to entertain the idea that the Sophy should be sold, and argued my case with the owners.” Here he paused. “There is more,” he stated, but failed to expound further, as he sat in our chair, his head hanging on his breast.
“Come,” Holmes, told him. “You must need my services, or you would not be here. But for me to provide them, you must tell me all that is pertinent to the issues that beset you. Watson, let us offer our guest some refreshment.”
After enquiring his preference, I served Winslow with a brandy-and-soda, which he accepted gratefully, and resumed his narrative.
“The infamous suggestion put to me by the owners was that I should scuttle the Sophy at some convenient location offshore where the coast was close and the water deep, and take to the boats with my men. In that way, the owners would be free of the Sophy, and be able to collect the insurance on her, which would be significantly more than the amount they could expect to collect were she to be scrapped.
“I refused. As a man who has spent his life on ships, the idea that I should be party to the deliberate destruction of one was repugnant to me, as was the idea that I should take part in a fraud. I am a churchgoing man, Mr. Holmes, and despite what you may have heard of seafarers, we are for the most part a moral group of men.”
“What recompense was offered to you, should you have decided to take part in this plot?” Holmes asked him.
The other flushed a deep red with apparent anger. “Sir, that is an infamous suggestion.” Holmes said nothing, but sat calmly, his eyes half-closed. “Very well,” Winslow continued in a calmer voice, after a minute had elapsed. “I was offered an undisclosed sum, to be shared out with my men, were I to concur in this nefarious plot. I was given to understand that the amount would be considerable.”
“And the leaden alternative?”
“I do not understand you, Mr. Holmes.”
“There is a saying in Spanish, commonly used in Mexico and other places, I believe. It is plata o plomo, which may be translated as ‘silver or lead’. In other words, when requesting a favour of one who is unwilling to comply, there are two alternatives being offered - enrichment or punishment - in the case of this saying, the punishment being a lead ball fired from a gun.”
“The proverbial stick-and-carrot, then?”
“Precisely, Captain, but in a more direct form.”
“No direct physical threat was made against me or against my family. I do not suspect Hillbrook & Co. of employing such tactics. However, it was made clear to me that if I refused to go along with their plans, I would no longer be in command of the Sophy, or any of their ships. Indeed, as a result of my refusal, the voyage on which the Sophy met her end was to be her last voyage with me as her captain.”
“As indeed it was,” remarked Holmes. “Now to this Monsieur Malmaison, whom you mentioned earlier, if you please.”
“It was to be, as I have just told you, my last voyage. Though I am not an improvident man, I do not have enough money saved to be able to support my family as I would like. Any chance of earning extra money, short of outright fraud, such as Hillbrook & Co. were proposing, would therefore be most welcome.
“I encountered M. Malmaison in a public house, the Hope and Anchor, near the East India Docks. He was in business attire, which caused him to stand out from the others there, who were for the most part officers of merchant vessels, and dressed accordingly. I had marked him down in my mind as being foreign, and when he came over to the table where I was eating and started to address me, I was in no doubt.
“The extraordinary thing was that he appeared to know my name, and many things about me, including the proposal to scuttle the Sophy, and the fact that I had turned it down.
“‘Might I suggest that it would be to your advantage to consider another proposal?’ he asked me, in that strange English of his.
“Well, as you might imagine, I was prepared at least to listen to what he had to say to me, and invited him to share the last of the bottle.
“‘Captain Winslow,’ he said to me in a low voice. ‘Word has it that you are a discreet man.’
“‘Who told you that and how do you know me?’ I asked him, but he merely replied that there was no need for me to be aware of these things.
“‘I can count on what I am about to say to you to go no further?’ he asked me. I assured him on that point, and he continued. ‘I am a Belgian, as you have probably worked out for yourself, and I am concerned about the plight of the blacks in the Congo, of which you may have heard.’
“I shook my head, and he went on. ‘News is reaching us that they are being sorely exploited by some of my fellow countrymen since the establishment of the Congo Free State. I and a group of philanthropists are ready to help these poor benighted sufferers by supplying them with arms to use against their oppressors.’
“‘Very good,’ said I, ‘but I fail to see where I may be of use. My ship is not bound for Africa, and I have no intention of going there.’
“‘Ah, but you see,’ said he, ‘all we require of you is that you make a delivery to our agent in Morocco, who will ensure that the weapons reach their intended destination. You are bound for Malta via Cadiz, I believe?’ I confirmed this. ‘In which case, all that you need to do is to unload the crates and hand them over in Tangier. You will, of course, be paid handsomely for your services - enough to share generously with your crew, I might add.’
“He named a sum, which was considerably in excess of what Hillbrook & Co. had offered me to scuttle the Sophy, and I had been led to believe that the last was no mean amount, I can assure you.
“‘One-quarter to be paid in advance,’ he told me, ‘and the balance to be paid on conformation from our agent that the delivery was made satisfactorily.’ Naturally, I wished to have some guarantee that the balance would be paid, and would you believe, cool as a cucumber, he brought out a contract, setting out the terms, and requiring only our signatures to be complete. I am no lawyer, gentlemen, but I have seen enough legal papers in my time, and this appeared to meet my demands.
“‘And what is it exactly that you wish me to carry to Tangier?’ I asked.
“‘A hundred or so modern rifles on the Chassepot model, together with ammunition and appropriate parts and supplies,’ he told me. Well, that sounded to me like a cargo I was willing to carry, especially given its final destination, so I agreed with him that I would sign his contract to carry his rifles and deliver them to Tangier.
“Accordingly, we called over a fellow captain, who had been a shipmate of mine in the past, and whom I trusted absolutely, and he acted as a witness to our signatures. Here is my copy.”
So saying, he withdrew from his coat a folded piece of paper, and handed it to Sherlock Holmes, who unfolded it, and raised his eyebrows.
“It is scarcely legible,” he said.
“It suffered a bath in the Channel,” explained Winslow. “It is possible, I assure you, to make out some words, and this was of great assistance to me, or so I believed at the time. Allow me to continue with my story.
“Malmaison paid me the agreed amount on the spot, in gold French Napoleons. That very evening, a cart drew up at the Sophy’s berth, and the three men on the cart proceeded to unload the crates of rifles from it and to carry them into the hold. I noticed, however, that they did not allow my crew to touch these boxes, but insisted on stowing them in the hold themselves, giving strict instructions that they were not to be moved from those positions.
“We set sail at the appointed time, and had soon rounded the Isle of Thanet and were beating upwind along the Sussex coast. At about the time we passed Beachy Head, I was at the helm, standing alone on the quarterdeck. There was a sudden flash and a deafeningly loud noise, and I knew no more, until I came to, floating in the sea. Of my poor Sophy, there was no sign other than a few shattered timbers, but some way off, I espied the ship’s boat, seemingly in one piece, but capsized. I am no great swimmer, but by clinging to one of these planks I was able to keep afloat, albeit with some difficulty, owing to the gold I had received from Malmaison still being in my inner pockets, along with the signed contract, from which I had never taken it. I clung to the hope that some of the crew might still be alive, perhaps hanging onto the upturned boat, and so I hailed my shipmates, but there was no answer, and I was forced to the melancholy conclusion that whatever force had torn apart my Sophy had also claimed the lives of my crew.
“I do not know how long I drifted in this condition, but from the accounts of the wreck that I read in the newspapers, it cannot have been more than thirty minutes at most, though it appeared to be an age to me. A French trawler discovered me and took me aboard, but I was not keen that I should be identified as a survivor of the wreck. After all, I had performed a legally dubious act in accepting weapons to be transported, supposedly to a cause which might be approved by any humanitarian. But upon reflection, I considered that in actual fact the ultimate destination might be to any group, perhaps even to Russian anarchists. Also, by accepting a cargo of ammunition and failing to inform my crew of its nature, I had placed them in danger. For all I knew, one of them might have been smoking in the hold, albeit contrary to orders, and set off an explosion of gunpowder.
“I therefore desired the trawler’s captain to report that no survivors had been rescued, and to complete the deception, tore off my captain’s cap and cast it into the water. The trawler crew, though bemused by my words and my actions, nevertheless carried out my wishes when the lifeboat came on the scene, their deception being encouraged by the presentation of one of the gold Napoleons I was carrying, and so it was that the newspapers told the public that there were no survivors of the Sophy Anderson.
“I was put ashore at Dieppe, and my first thought was to find Malmaison, and claim the missing portion of my fee. I tried was to confirm the address in Brussels which I remembered seeing written on the contract, but on examining the paper, I discovered, as you have just done, Mr. Holmes, that immersion in seawater is not kind to legal documents. However, I was in the end able to make out the address, and using some of Malmaison’s gold, made my way by train to Brussels.
“There, my hopes were sorely dashed. There was no-one by the name of Malmaison at that address, or in any of the houses in that street. Nor had anyone there any knowledge of a man resembling the description I gave of him.”
“Is it not possible,” I asked, “that you misread the name of the street, and you were enquiring in completely the wrong area?”
Our visitor smiled. “I had indeed considered that possibility,” he told us, “and accordingly I asked at the city offices if there were any other streets whose names resembled the one I had deciphered. They were kind enough to provide me with three such names, but my search in those was as fruitless as my first.
“I was nearly at the end of my tether. I had lost my ship, my position, my shipmates, and it appeared that I had thrown away my future. I therefore determined to return to England, and seek out a new direction for my life there. I had taken out insurance on my life some years ago, and I trust that my wife has been able to claim the sum owing to her from the insurance company.”
“She is still unaware that you are alive?” Holmes asked.
“I am worth more to her dead than alive, at least financially,” Winslow replied simply. “My heart is aching to see her, but if she knew that I am alive, she would be duty-bound to return the insurance money, and she would be left with me on her hands, without a job, and without hope.”
A long pause followed this last statement, during which Sherlock Holmes filled and lit his pipe.
“And yet you have come to me, Captain Winslow. How may I be of assistance to you?”
“I have not yet come to the crux of my tale. I have been posing as a widower, having shaved off my beard, as you remarked, and unrecognised, save by you, up to now. I have been spending my time at the docks and in the vicinity, attempting, with no success so far, I may say, to establish the facts concerning this M. Malmaison. It was only yesterday, though, when I received the greatest shock to my system since the loss of the Sophy.
“I was turning a corner in Limehouse, when I saw, as plain as I see you now, Mr. Holmes, Jim Porter and Dick Sweethowe, the two members of my crew whom I had not selected personally, but who had been thrust upon me by the owners. Both appeared to be in liquor, and I am certain that they did not recognise me, but for my part, there was no mistaking them.”
“And yet, you tell us, there were no survivors of the wreck other than yourself. Is that correct?”
“There were none that I could see, and I am certain if there had been any such, I would have perceived them.”
“Well, well,” chuckled Holmes. “Three dead men rise up from the deep and are walking the streets of London. Not an everyday occurrence, would you say, Watson?”
“By no means. But exactly what is it tha
t you require of Sherlock Holmes, Captain?”
“I would like him to discover exactly how this pair come to be alive, and to discover this M. Malmaison. I can pay,” he added.
“And then?” asked Sherlock Holmes. “Do you wish me to turn them over to the police?”
“I wish to pursue the matter myself.”
“I trust, Captain, that you are not proposing to make me an accessory before the fact to a crime of violence.”
“I believe that if I do not furnish you with any details of my plans, no possible blame can attach to you,” answered the other, coolly.
“Very well, then. This may well turn out to be a case where the problem and its solution provide their own reward,” said Holmes. “I fear, though, that searching for two men in London is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“These are somewhat uncommon needles, and the size of the haystack is limited to the areas around the London docks, I believe,” smiled Winslow. “Porter and Sweethowe are quite distinctive in their appearance. Porter, for example, is of medium height, and a swarthy, heavily bearded appearance. When I saw him yesterday, he was wearing heavy hooped earrings. He is missing his left eye, which is usually covered by a patch, and the last two fingers of his left hand are likewise missing. Sweethowe is perhaps less distinctive, but he may be known by a picture of a mermaid tattooed on his left forearm, and one of Britannia on the right, as well as a scar which reaches from the outside of his right eyebrow to his right ear, the lobe of which is missing. He makes no attempt to hide it.”
“Very good,” said Holmes. “Watson, you have these particulars noted? Excellent. And Malmaison?”
“Dark, slightly long hair, and a waxed moustache. He wore pince-nez for reading and writing, but otherwise he did not need them. He had a habit of touching his nose at frequent intervals for no apparent reason.” I duly noted these details as well. “I have a little skill as an artist,” Winslow went on, “and I have with me some sketches of the men in question.” He reached in his pocket and produced three sheets of paper, on which were skilfully drawn the portraits of three men, corresponding to the verbal descriptions we were given.