Sherlock Holmes & The Master Engraver (Sherlock Holmes Revival)

by Husband, Ross

  “The scrap of paper in his hand meant nothing to me at first, but I learned early this morning that Portals Paper Mill makes the special paper for printing bank-notes.” He closed his notebook and said “And that is all I have learned Mr Holmes. What it all means I cannot fathom, but I can see you know rather more than I about this tangled affair?” My friend looked up sharply at the official detective. “Tell me, Lestrade, did you explore the rest of the warehouse after finding Warburg?”

  Lestrade looked a little discomfited. “Well no Mr Holmes; you see I more or less assumed that having found the beaten man, with no culprit in view, my first job was to get him to hospital as rapidly as possible and appeal for any witnesses to the crime.” Holmes emitted a “Tut” of annoyance, clearly signalling his exasperation at a lapse in basic investigative procedure that even I saw as a glaring blunder. He took a deep breath and continued.

  “Regardless, I commend you Lestrade; in a surprisingly short time you have gathered the warp and the weft of the matter in your hand. I should not be at all surprised if at the successful conclusion of this business, and if you will follow my lead, you do not find yourself promoted a rank. However, as I have stated, I am as yet unauthorised to tell you how to weave the threads correctly into the web that will snare our quarry. Indeed, I myself lack a few vital strands for its completion, but if you have no objection, a visit to this Slater’s Warehouse may illuminate further. After, I propose to visit the unfortunate Warburg and see how he fares. Tomorrow I shall contact you and tell all.” A look of considerable relief passed over Lestrade’s tired face. “For that I should be mightily grateful Mr Holmes. The man guarding Slater’s place is Constable Clarke; you met him at Chiswick – he will be happy to assist you.” Upon this note of compromise they shook hands and Lestrade made to leave. “Oh, one more thing Lestrade, you say Warburg was stabbed – did you by any chance find the knife?”

  “I did Mr Holmes, though it wasn’t exactly what you might term a knife; it was removed by the surgeon from where it had been driven halfway through his collar-bone, a hair’s breadth from his carotid artery. It was an odd, exotic stabbing-weapon, unlike any I have seen before – certainly foreign, oriental maybe, a short slim needle-sharp blade with a wooden handle.” After Lestrade departed Holmes sat pensively for some moments, deep in thought, then sprang to his feet. “You heard him Watson? You heard him? Assume! Assume! The most basic error one may make in forensic detection is to assume! Had he explored further he may well have seen what Warburg saw, and on account of which was nearly murdered for his pains! That was intended as a clear warning to me!” He composed himself once more. “What do you make of the description of the knife Watson? It is very significant but it will also cause us very great difficulty, of that I am certain.”

  “I can cast no light upon the matter Homes; I am versed in the different wounds caused by various calibres of pistols and rifles but as to exotic oriental knives...” I shrugged. At his desk he scribbled a lengthy message on a telegraph form, summoned the lad downstairs and required him to run it along to the Telegraph Office immediately. “Now Watson, if you’re still game shall we venture to Cubitt Town and see if two unemployed printers may advance their cause?”

  And so it was, we departed the civilised calm of Baker Street for the unknown dangers of Cubitt Town...

  * * *

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Asa Bormanstein

  As Holmes had planned, we exited Blackwall Railway Station and headed southward on foot. Shortly after one o’clock, we passed a forbidding derelict building, clearly once an inn, with grimy blind windows obscured by greasy-looking grey curtains like cataracts, and a peeling sign, swinging by one hinge proclaiming somewhat apocalyptically ‘Folly House’.

  We continued warily south in silence, following parallel with the route of the dank and malodorous Blackwall Reach of The Thames on our left, eventually entering the hinterland of Cubitt Town after perhaps half a mile. The place crouched low, crawling, dark and menacing around the south-eastern point of The Isle of Dogs, forever imprisoned to the north by the glowering sprawl of the two huge import and export docks, with their forest of articulated cranes moving slowly back and forth at different angles like the legs of giant dying beetles stranded on their backs; to the south and west it was incarcerated by the black turbid waters of the Reach and to the east beyond, by the dismal flat wilderness of the Greenwich marsh.

  On either side were expanses of wide, rank-smelling mud-banks featureless except for decrepit moored hulks and barges, many proclaiming their age and years of immobility by the fringes of black-green slime, etiolated grass and scrubby reed that crept ever-nearer, one day no doubt to overwhelm and strand them for ever.

  By contrast to these moribund hulks, in the wintery light I could just make out in the distance, the spidery steel skeleton of a new ironclad war-ship, rising improbably optimistically from the tangle of shipyard buildings I later learned was Samuda’s Yard. Even at a distance I could see showers of red and yellow sparks cascading like fireflies, at every blow of the heavy hammers on white-hot rivets.

  The further and deeper we penetrated this forbidding and alien place, the more grateful I felt for the reassuring heft of the loaded revolver in my right coat pocket. My sense of foreboding only increased as we entered the looming, closely-built, ill-lit streets; doors slammed shut at our approach, mongrel curs slunk after us baring their yellow fangs and snarling, and scowling men fixed us with baleful stares, then muttered quietly to each other with palpable suspicion as we passed by. Even disguised as we were, still plainly to these denizens of London’s docklands, we were strangers in a strange land.

  I murmured “It seems that our presence here is rather rattling the locals. Do you not think this adventure may be, perhaps, a little ill-advised?”

  He chuckled humourlessly. “Rattling the locals is precisely what we have come to do Watson. I strongly suspect that in this unsavoury corner of our great metropolis there are several people I am most anxious to rattle; there will be a those who are aware that some out-of-the-ordinary new venture may be operating here but will be too close-lipped or perhaps too terrified to talk; there will be some who have knowledge that strangers are at work hereabouts – and where – but for inducement may tell what they know.

  “And then there will be those we seek; a smaller, shadowy cadre of criminals who know exactly what is occurring here in Cubitt Town, and who now have conclusively demonstrated their willingness to intimidate and murder without compunction. And now they seek to hide, to vanish beneath the murk of this place.

  “But they are close Watson, mark my words they are very close – I can sense them, I can feel them, and I believe I can almost smell them! But we must be on our mettle, for assuredly after Petch’s visits to Baker Street, and Warburg’s rather ill advised sally here, they will guess we are nearby and will be preparing for close action. Nonetheless I have no doubt that we shall...”

  Holmes’ sotto-voce conversation was abruptly interrupted by two evil-looking, burly heavyweights who stepped unexpectedly from a dark side-alley and insolently and aggressively barred our passage. I made to step left, upon which they moved to block me. I stepped right and again they mirrored my move.

  They clearly intended us no good.

  The taller of the two bludgers – hideously wall-eyed – held a short length of heavy iron chain in his massive scarred fist, which he carelessly and intimidatingly swung slowly back and forth. It terminated in a large, rusty padlock.

  The shorter, likewise held a heavy chain except that it was rather longer.

  And at the end of this chain was not a padlock, but something rather more menacing – a huge, slavering brindle dog of mongrel provenance, but undoubtedly spawned from mastiff stock somewhere in its past. Judging by the recent bruises and gashes on the thugs’ faces and knuckles, both had clearly and very recently been in a violent brawl. I made little doubt that this ugly pair had most likely been involved in the murderous attack on War
burg.

  Casually, but very slowly, I slid my right hand into my jacket pocket and grasped the familiar, reassuring chequered grips of my service revolver, gently eased back the hammer and at a snail’s-pace, inched the heavy hexagonal barrel upward until I judged it to be dead-level with the two thugs’ midriffs. I was aware that Holmes also had his hand in his coat pocket.

  Dead, bestial eyes stared coldly back at us.

  For guidance I glanced swiftly at my colleague; his face was perfectly composed, even a hint of a wry smile playing on his lips. Unexpectedly, he beamed amiably at the pair of thugs and in the most urbane of tones spoke: “Ah, good afternoon gentlemen, what excellent good fortune; exactly what we were looking for – local men with local knowledge; would you be so kind as to direct us to a nearby inn where we might enjoy a hearty bite and an ale or two? The Folly House Tavern appears to be long-closed. However I have heard tell of The Cock public house, but we are strangers to your fine town – perhaps you could recommend it?”

  Evidently, being accustomed to intimidating, this quite unexpected response clearly took the wind clean out of their sails, for a look of hesitancy passed briefly over their brutish faces.

  They glanced at each other uncertainly, unsure as to how they should respond to this polite but banal question. As if to regain the initiative, the dog-handler menacingly uncoiled a few links of the animal’s chain and the giant hound strained forward.

  Holmes’ surprising response was to reach down and stroke the vicious-looking beast’s huge head at which, to my astonishment it vigorously licked his hand, obediently sat, and wagged its tail enthusiastically. “Good boy, good boy” murmured Holmes soothingly. Upon the instant, looking shamefaced, the thug on the other end of its chain violently hauled the errant animal back.

  Wall-eye, the taller of the two bruisers addressed us truculently. “Folk like to keep themselves to themselves in these parts. They don’t appreciate strangers nosing around – now what might be your business hereabouts?”

  Holmes smiled blandly. “I do not see that it concerns you gentlemen in the slightest, but the fact is that we are printers by trade, come to seek employment; I had heard there might be a printing concern in the area?”

  The dog-handler spoke. “There was but...”

  His partner interrupted him brusquely. “There’s no such business anywhere around here, so you are wasting your time.” Holmes turned to me and ruefully said “Oh dear, Mr Cooper, it seems our journey today is to no avail. But thank you for your assistance gentlemen – we have clearly been misinformed. No matter, let us refresh ourselves at The Cock Inn and then try our luck elsewhere.”

  “I heartily agree, Mr Brown” I replied, and with this we smartly side-stepped the two drop-jawed heavies and continued on into the centre of Cubitt Town. As we walked, Holmes murmured “Don’t look back Watson, but if you are thinking what I am thinking, judging by the cuts and bruises on those two fellows, then the mighty Mr Warburg gave a pretty respectable account of himself wouldn’t you agree?” He looked at his watch.

  We eventually found the inn a few minutes before two o’clock. It turned out to be a tolerably civilized and cleanly place, quite in contrast to its gloomy environs. I observed at this hour there were only three other customers gathered at a table by the fire, talking softly among themselves.

  They looked much like respectable working men, and glanced up only briefly and disinterestedly as we entered, then returned to their quiet conversation. The landlord seemed hospitable enough, and quickly brought us a lunch of fresh-baked bread, ham, cheese and onions and a jug of foaming ale. It was surprisingly palatable. Presently the three men bade the landlord an affable farewell and departed.

  Holmes invited our host to share a glass, which he accepted happily enough. “I understand there was a bad business here last night landlord – I believe I heard some poor fellow was beaten to death.”

  “That is correct sir, and there was I conversing with him only an hour or two before! A giant of a man, he came in for ale and enquired where he might find two acquaintances of his; when he described them I immediately directed him to Slater’s Yard near the Reach-side, for I had seen two men in and out of there, exactly matching his descriptions. Shortly after, his lad comes in looking for his Pa, and so I told him to try Slater’s.

  “And the very next thing, I’ve got some police Inspector, Bulstrode or something of the sort, knocking me up at goodness knows what hour and asking all manner of questions. I don’t know whether the poor fellow died, but there’s a police constable at Slater’s gate even now so it must be a bad business.”

  Holmes tutted sympathetically; the landlord resumed his litany of sorrow in a tone of mournful regret. “Not so very long ago, gents, this was a decent place, built by no less a man than William Cubitt, the Lord Mayor of London himself; in those days it was filled with cheerful hard-working families earning honest livings, and well-fed children playing on the pavements. No-one made a fortune, but there’s industry here a-plenty, factories and tolerable wages for those who have the appetite for hard work; the docks, the ship-yards, cement factories, potteries, pitch, even Claridges Patent Asphalte Company on Pyrimont Wharf – most offering a fair day’s money for a fair day’s work.”

  At this second reference – to pitch and asphalt – Holmes shot me a brief, meaningful glance. I took his import upon the instant. The landlord sighed, “But for those who prefer easier, swifter gains, there’s always thieving, black villainy and grievous violence and sadly this locality is becoming a bad place to be because of it.”

  All this while I was thinking longingly of the familiar, reassuring, gently-faded comfort of 221B Baker Street with its cosy flickering fire, mis-matched easy chairs, eclectic clutter, and my favourite old burgundy-velvet smoking jacket; Holmes murmured our thanks along with a few comforting valedictory words to our gloomy host, upon which we hastily departed his small oasis of comparative civility, which he plainly felt was drowning in an ever-deepening morass of impoverishment and social evil.

  I would have been hard-pressed to disagree with him.

  We departed the inn and its doleful landlord shortly before three and after threading our way uncertainly through some singularly insalubrious side-streets – I noted in passing a large establishment on the corner of Manchester Street called The Cubitt Arms – we arrived at our destination around a quarter after three in the afternoon. Dusk was already approaching as we neared the gates.

  Slater’s Yard was an unkempt, dismal acre of muddy scrubland, enclosed by a high dilapidated wooden paling fence, broken down in places, within which stood a two-storey brick-built warehouse, apparently derelict and chained shut, with a crudely hand-painted sign proclaiming ‘DANGER – KEEP OUT’. It was fringed with the desiccated skeletons of last year’s nettles and thistles, witness to years of neglect.

  Adjoining the warehouse to the right was a large, shabby lean-to tar-painted shed or workshop affair; its sagging wooden doors hung drunkenly open. Beyond it was a brick-built shelter, open to the yard on one side and surmounted by a rusty tin smoke-stack; within sat a small antiquated steam engine on a brick pier, beside which was a large wooden bunker filled with coal. The slack canvas drive-belt appeared to run from the engine’s pulley through a hatch in the wall into the main building.

  Outside on the broken pavement, thorny tentacles of leafless winter bramble groped blindly through gaps in the rotten palings as if seeking to snare unwary passers-by and drag them inside the gloomy place; a large emaciated yellow dog, ribs protruding like a toast-rack, rooted through a pile of rotting waste, but slunk reluctantly away at our approach. On the street outside, a cold and bored-looking Policeman, the same PC Clarke we had encountered outside 64 Chiswick High Road, stood guard.

  “Good Day Constable Clarke” Holmes addressed him; “I may tell you that I am now working officially with Inspector Lestrade in this little matter – and a pretty grim business it is too from all accounts?”

  “Grim enough Mr
Holmes if you count beating a man nearly to death with a four-pound hard-wood block and tackle and sticking him with some kind of Chinee knife. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if this hasn’t become a murder scene by nightfall. It’ll be a miracle if the poor fellow lives out this night – you’d need the constitution of an ox to survive a hammering like that, Mr Holmes.”

  “Indeed, Clarke” replied my colleague sombrely. “And let us hope that that is exactly what the redoubtable Mr Warburg possesses. Now with your permission Constable, I will examine the scene where you first found Warburg. It will be inside yonder large workshop I believe?”

  “That is quite correct Mr Holmes. Nothing has been disturbed, nothing removed except poor Warburg, and it’s been under guard since we arrived last night.”

  Holmes nodded approvingly; we set off across the squalid, rutted yard, where Holmes paused several times and carefully studied the ground between the workshop doors and the pavement, which to me appeared no more than a maze of footprints and wheel-ruts of varying depths. But from his intent, preoccupied expression, I knew he had observed something of significance. We entered the dilapidated building, the scene of last night’s murderous attack. A dirty amber glow penetrated through the open doors, leaching reluctantly from the nearby flickering gas-lamp on the street.

  Once within and when our eyes became accustomed to the winter-afternoon gloom, two things immediately struck me most powerfully: the first was the scene of complete chaos – mute witness to the violent brutality of the attack and the desperate resistance offered by the mighty Warburg. Clearly he had been aware that he was fighting for his very life.

  The second, immediately striking thing was the overpowering, all-pervading, resinous stench of pitch. Barrels and black-crusted buckets lay overturned, brushes and shovels were scattered like fallen boughs after a violent storm; a substantial pulley and tall iron tripod of some sort lay across all like a fallen tree, and tangled coils of hempen rope writhed like vines throughout the wreckage of the battlefield; a heavy wooden bench lay on its side. Embedded in a puddle of fast-setting tar was an overturned Irwin paraffin lamp and also a darkly discoloured heavy wooden block-and-tackle attached to a length of stout rope. I examined it closely, and swiftly realised that the crusted stains were not tar, but the dried red-brown of a man’s life-blood.