by Otto Penzler
Sherlock Holmes continued to direct his gaze upon the button.
“Your story is interesting,” he said after some moments of silence. “It will please me to give it further thought. Perhaps you will let me look in on you later at your hotel. It is possible that in the course of the day I shall be able to give you some news.”
The visitors hereupon courteously taking their leave, Holmes and I were left alone.
“Well, Watson,” he began, “what do you make of it?”
“There is an under butler to be reckoned up,” I replied.
“You also observed the under butler, did you?” said Holmes abstractedly. After a pause he added: “Do you happen to know the address of Lord M——’s tailor?”
I confessed that this lay outside the circle of my knowledge of the nobility. Holmes put on his cap and raincoat.
“I am going out on my own, Watson,” he said, “for a stroll among the fashionable West End tailor shops. Perhaps you will do me the honor to lunch with me at the Club. I may want to discuss matters with you.”
Sherlock Holmes went out and I returned home. It was a dull day for patients, for which I was glad, and the lunch hour found me promptly at the Athenaeum, waiting at our accustomed corner table—impatiently waiting, for it was long past the lunch hour when Holmes came in.
“A busy morning, Watson,” was his brief remark as he took his chair.
“And successful?”
To this Holmes made no reply, taking his soup with profound abstraction and apparently oblivious of his guest across the table. While I was accustomed to this attitude of preoccupation, it piqued me to be left so entirely out of his consideration. A review of his morning investigations seemed, under the circumstances, to be quite my due.
“I am going to ask you,” began Holmes, when the meal had gone on to its close in silence, “to get tickets for the Alhambra tonight—four tickets. In the middle of the house, with an aisle seat. Then kindly drop around to the hotel and arrange with our friends to go with us. Or, rather, for us to go with them—in their motorcar, Watson. Request them to pick us up at Baker Street. You will undertake this? Very good, Watson. Then—till I see you at my rooms!” And tossing off his coffee in the manner of a toast, Sherlock Holmes abruptly arose and left me, waving his cap as he went through the door.
It was useless to demur at this cavalier treatment. I had to content myself with the reflection that, as my friend mounted into the atmosphere of criminal detection, the smaller obligations fell away from him. During what was left of the day I was busy in executing the commissions which he had entrusted to me, and night found me at Baker Street, where I discovered Holmes in evening clothes.
“I was just speculating, Watson,” he began, in an airy manner, “upon the extraordinary range and variety of the seemingly insignificant and lowly article of commerce known as the button. It is a device common in one form or another to every country. Its origin we should need to seek back of the dimmest borders of recorded history. Its uses and application are beyond calculation. Do you happen to know, my dear Doctor, the figures representing the imports into England for a single year of this ornamental, and at times highly useful, little article? Of horn buttons, for example—it were curious to speculate upon the astonishing number of substances that masquerade under that distinguishing appellation. Indeed, the real horn button when found—if I may quote from our friend Captain Cuttle—is easily made a note of.”
It was in this bantering vein that Holmes ran on, not suffering interruption, until the arrival of our callers of the morning, in their motorcar, which speedily conveyed us to the Alhambra, that gorgeous home of refined vaudeville. The theater was crowded as usual. A few moments after our arrival, one of the boxes filled with a fashionable party, among whom our American friends recognized some of their dinner acquaintances of the previous evening. Later I perceived Captain Pole-Carew, as he looked over the house, bow to our companions. Then his glance ranged to Sherlock Holmes, where I may have imagined it rested a moment, passing thence to a distant part of the galleries. Why we had been brought to this public amusement hall it was impossible to conjecture. That in some manner it bore upon the commission Holmes had undertaken I was fain to believe, but beyond that conclusion it was idle to speculate. At one time during the evening Holmes, who had taken the aisle seat, suddenly got up and retired to the lobby, but was soon back again and apparently engrossed in what went on upon the stage.
At the end of the performance we made our way through the slowly moving audience, visibly helped along by Holmes. In the lobby we chanced to encounter Captain Pole-Carew, who had separated from the box party. He greeted the Americans with some reserve, but moved along with us to the exit, near which our motorcar already waited. The captain had distantly acknowledged the introduction to Holmes and myself, and knowing how my friend resented these cool conventionalities, I was unprepared for the warmth with which he seconded the suggestion that the captain make one of our party in the drive home.
“Sit here in the tonneau,” he said cordially, “and let me take the seat with the chauffeur. It will be a pleasure, I assure you.”
The captain’s manifest reluctance to join our party was quite overcome by Holmes’s polite insistence. His natural breeding asserted itself against whatever desire he may have entertained for other engagements, and in a short time the car had reached his door in Burleigh Street.
Sherlock Holmes quickly dismounted. “We have just time for a cigar and a cocktail with the captain,” he proposed.
“Yes, to be sure,” said Captain Pole-Carew, but with no excess of heartiness. “Do me the honor, gentlemen, of walking into my bachelor home. I—I shall be charmed.”
It was Sherlock Holmes who carried the thing off; otherwise I think none of us would have felt that the invitation was other than the sort that is perfunctorily made and expected to be declined, with a proper show of politeness on both sides. But Holmes moved gayly to the street door, maintaining a brisk patter of small talk as Pole-Carew got out his latchkey. We were ushered into a dimly lighted hall and passed thence into a large apartment, handsomely furnished, the living room of a man of taste.
“Pray be seated, gentlemen,” said our host. “I expected my valet here before me—he also was at the theater tonight—but your motorcar outstripped him. However, I daresay we can manage,” and the captain busied himself setting forth inviting decanters and cigars.
We had but just engaged in the polite enjoyment of Captain Pole-Carew’s hospitality when Sherlock Holmes suddenly clapped his handkerchief to his nose, with a slight exclamation of annoyance.
“It is nothing,” he said, “a trifling nose-bleed to which I am often subject after the theater.” He held his head forward, his face covered with the handkerchief.
“It is most annoying,” he added apologetically. “Cold water—er—could I step into your dressing room, Captain?”
“Certainly—certainly,” our host assented; “through that door, Mr. Holmes.”
Holmes quickly vanished through the indicated door, whence presently came the sound of running water from a tap. We had scarcely resumed our interrupted train of conversation when he reappeared in the door, bearing in his hand a jacket.
“Thank you, Captain Pole-Carew,” he said, coming forward, “my nose is quite better. It has led me, I find, to a singular discovery. May I ask, without being regarded as impolite, if this is your jacket?”
I saw that Captain Pole-Carew had gone pale as he answered haughtily: “It is my valet’s jacket, Mr. Holmes. He must have forgotten it. Why do you ask?”
“I was noticing the buttons,” returned Holmes; “they are exactly like this one in my pocket,” and he held the dark horn button up to view.
“What of that?” retorted our host quickly; “could there not be many such?”
“Yes,” Holmes acknowledged, “but this button of mine was violently torn from its fastening—as it might have been from this jacket.”
“Mr. Holmes,”
returned Captain Pole-Carew with a sneer, “your jest is neither timely nor a brilliant one. The jacket has no button missing.”
“No, but it had,” returned Holmes coolly; “here, you will see, it has been sewn on, not as a tailor sews it, with the thread concealed, but through and through the cloth, leaving the thread visible. As a man unskilled, or in some haste, might sew it on. You get my meaning, Captain?”
Sherlock Holmes as he spoke had crossed the room to where Captain Pole-Carew, his face dark with passion, was standing on the hearthrug. Holmes made an exaggerated gesture in holding up the jacket, stumbled upon the captain in doing so, and fell violently against the mantel. In an effort to recover himself his arm dislodged a handsome vase, which fell to the floor and shivered into fragments. There was a cry from Captain Pole-Carew, who flung himself amid the fractured pieces of glass. Swift as his action was, Sherlock Holmes was quicker, and snatched from the floor an object that glittered among the broken fragments.
“I think, Mr. Richardson,” he said calmly, recovering himself, “that, as a judge of jewelry, this is something you will take particular interest in.”
Before any one of us was over the surprise of the thing, Captain Pole-Carew had quite regained his poise, and stood lighting his cigar.
“A very pretty play, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “I am indebted to you and your itinerant friends for a charming evening. May I suggest, however, that the hour is now late, and Baker Street, even for a motorcar, something of a distance?”
—
“Naturally,” said Sherlock Holmes, when we had reached his rooms and joined him in a goodnight cigar, “you expect me to lay bare the processes and so rob my performance of its sole element of fascination. Watson has taught you in his memoirs to expect it. My button quest was certainly directed against his Lordship’s under butler, but at the first inquiry it turned up, to my surprise, the entirely unexpected valet of quite another person. It was a curious fact, the tailor declared, that he should twice in one day have calls for that identical button, and he innocently alluded to the valet of Pole-Carew. This was sufficient clue to start upon.
“Investigation in proper quarters not only established the palpable innocuousness of the under butler, but afforded such insight into the existent relations between the captain and his valet as I doubt not will again bring them into the sphere of my attentions. It was plainly the brain of the master that conceived the robbery, but the hand of the valet executed it. I even paid a most enjoyable visit to our friends at the Langham, as I had promised.”
The Americans looked at each other.
“That could hardly be,” they said. “We were not out of our rooms, and our only caller was a clerk from the curio shop with a message from the dealer—an impertinent old fellow he was, too, who followed us about the rooms with many senile questions as to our tour.”
“In this profession I have to adopt many disguises,” Holmes smilingly explained. “Of course I could have called on you openly, yet it amused me to fool you a bit. But a disguise would not serve my purpose in getting into Captain Pole-Carew’s apartments, which was the thing now most desired. Looking back upon the achievement, I flatter myself that it was rather ingeniously pulled off. You know, Watson, of my association with the theaters and how easily under such a connection one can learn who has reserved boxes.
“I confess that here things played into my hand. I perceived that Pole-Carew recognized me—that is your doing, Watson—and I was not surprised when I saw his glance single out a person in the gallery, with whom he presently got into conversation. I say conversation, for Pole-Carew I discovered to be an expert in the lip language, an accomplishment to which I myself once devoted some months of study and which I have found very helpful in my vocation. It was an easy matter to intercept the message that the captain from his box, with exaggerated labial motion, lipped above the heads of the audience.
“ ‘Hide the vase!’ was the message, several times repeated. ‘Hide the vase!’
“That was the moment when I left the theater for consultation with a friendly detective in the lobby. I strongly suspect,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a chuckle, “that the reason the captain failed to find his valet at home could be traced to the prompt and intelligent action of that friendly detective. Our foisting ourselves upon the reluctant captain was merely a clever bit of card forcing, arranged quite in advance, but the rest of it was simplicity itself.
“Inasmuch as you declare that it is the property only, and not a criminal prosecution, that you desire, I do not think anything remains?”
“Except,” said the gentleman warmly, taking the jewel from his pocket, “to pay you for this extraordinary recovery.”
Sherlock Holmes laughed pleasantly.
“My dear American sir,” he replied, “I am still very much in your debt. You should not lose sight of Edgar Allan Poe.”
The Adventure of the Wooden Box
LESLIE S. KLINGER
ONE OF THE world’s foremost experts on Sherlock Holmes, Leslie Stuart Klinger (1946– ) has written extensively on the subject and, more significantly, has edited some of the most distinguished scholarly works about Holmes of recent years.
His magnum opus is The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, published in three massive volumes (2004–2005), in which he provides background information for virtually all references, no matter how arcane, within the sixty Holmes adventures written by Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as numerous maps, photographs, and other illustrations. The first two volumes, released together, won the Edgar Award for the Best Biographical/Critical Work of the year; the third volume was issued the following year. This three-volume edition, aimed at the general public, followed his annotations for the ten-volume Sherlock Holmes Reference Library (2001–2009), produced for more scholarly Sherlockians, with even more esoteric information.
Other Sherlock Holmes–related books edited by Klinger include the two-volume tome The Grand Game (2011–2012), coedited with mystery writer Laurie R. King, with whom he also edited two anthologies of short stories inspired by the Holmes canon: A Study in Sherlock (2011) and In the Company of Sherlock Holmes (2014).
Klinger has also edited The New Annotated Dracula (2008), The Annotated Sandman in four volumes (2012–2015), and The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft (2015).
“The Adventure of the Wooden Box” was originally published as a chapbook by the Mysterious Bookshop (New York, 1999).
THE ADVENTURE OF THE WOODEN BOX
Leslie S. Klinger
IT WAS IN October 1900, with the turn of the century nigh upon us, that I shared with Sherlock Holmes the most bizarre case of our years together. That morning, the fog swirled languidly against the bay window as Holmes passed over the newspaper. “There, on page three, Watson. I believe he was a school chum of yours.” I glanced at the headline to which Holmes’s long finger pointed: “SURGEON ROBBED, SLAIN AT DOCKS.”
“Smithfield and I were at Netley together,” I said, after I had scanned the article. “Poor old Smithfield, stabbed to death.”
“Did you know him well?”
“Hardly. He was a queer fellow, always afraid that someone was getting the better of him. It appears that someone finally did.”
“Hmmm…” mused Holmes. “The description of the knife wounds is most suggestive of…”
Holmes’s reverie was interrupted by a knock at our door, which I recognized as Mrs. Hudson’s signal.
“Mr. Holmes—Inspector Hopkins is wanting to see you!” she announced.
“Send him up, Mrs. Hudson,” cried Holmes. He turned to me, revealing that rare luster that sparked his penetrating eyes at the beginning of a case. “So, Watson, we may soon know more of your friend’s demise. Ah, come in, Inspector Hopkins!” Holmes sprang from his chair, taking the wet, troubled-looking Scotland Yard man by the arm. “Watson, some brandy for our chilled friend!”
“Mr. Holmes, I don’t know what to make of it,” said Hopkins, after he warmed himself. “It looks to be a si
mple case of robbery and murder, but it troubles me. Have you read the account in the papers?”
“I trust you mean the Smithfield case,” said Holmes.
“Why, yes,” stammered the young detective. “I’m sorry.”
“I thought as much,” said Holmes. “Your name was mentioned in the account, and I rather thought those knife wounds might send you ’round.”
“Mr. Holmes, you constantly amaze me! How did you know what was bothering me?”
“Tut, Inspector, even Scotland Yard may find it hard to explain as armed robbery a murder case in which the victim was found lying in the open with knife wounds in his chest!”
“I don’t follow, Holmes,” I interrupted.
“In the chest, my dear Watson! If one were set upon in a dark alley, such wounds might be possible. But chest wounds imply a frontal attack, Watson. If one’s attacker approached from the front unexpectedly, signs of flight would surely be expected. Were there such signs, Inspector? I thought not from the newspaper account. Therefore we must consider the possibility that Dr. Smithfield allowed his assailant to approach him. Hardly consistent with armed robbery!”
“Exactly, Mr. Holmes! I had not thought it through, but even though the doctor’s money was taken, my report of armed robbery did not sit right with me. What troubles me most, Mr. Holmes, is why the doctor was down at the docks at so strange an hour.”
“Splendid, Hopkins! You have stolen my next suggestion from my lips! Let us consider under what circumstances a gentleman would be out strolling by the docks at midnight and yet allow a brigand armed with a knife to come within striking distance. What do you say, Watson?”
“A beggar, perhaps?” I ventured.
“Or rather that he knew the man, eh?” Holmes paused to relight his pipe. “Does not an assignation suggest itself? Well, enough supposition. If I am to assist you, Hopkins, I must have facts. Theorizing before knowing the facts is not only useless; it may narrow one’s view to the point where one ignores facts.”