All three of us were settled in chairs around the fire as Holmes told the tale.
Lestrade, to his credit, kept his incredulity under tight rein until near the end of the story.
“Dash it, Holmes, this is Alexander the Great we are talking about, isn’t it? What in blazes is he doing up and walking about in this day and age?”
Holmes smiled sadly. “It was not his choice,” he replied. “Northwich and his cronies disturbed Alexander’s own plan—and it is never wise to try to second-guess a master tactician.”
“What do you mean, Holmes?” I asked. “What kind of plan could Alexander possibly have?
He puffed at his pipe before answering, and when he did, a smile played on his lips.
“I would like to think that Alexander obtained exactly what he wished for—the last desire of a man who had achieved everything he wanted to.” He took a sheet of paper from his pocket. “This is my transcription of that last portion of Greek on the sarcophagus—Homer again.”
He read aloud:
“Sleep, delicious and profound, the very counterfeit of death.”
4
SHERLOCK HOLMES:
THE LOST HUSBAND
by John Hamish Watson, MD
William Meikle
Chapter One
EF
Holmes would normally have dismissed such a matter out of hand as a job for the constabulary, so I was quite surprised on a morning in early August when he agreed to see a Mrs. Pemberton who had come up from Clapham specifically to seek his help.
The lady in question was a small, quiet woman—one might almost call her mousy if one were being indelicate. I did not need Holmes’ powers of observation to tell me that she did not come from money. Her skirts were patched and frayed, her bonnet had clearly seen better days, and her purse was worn smooth in places such that a good poke with a finger would have split the material. Furthermore, she had already shown us that the purse was almost empty save for a few coins and a single white five-pound note.
“It is all that I’ve got in the world, Mr. Holmes,” she said. “We saved it for a babbie that never came. Is it enough for you to help me? Please say you’ll help me find my George.” She started sobbing.
Despite her outpouring of sorrow, I could not see Holmes taking the case, which did indeed seem to me to be a routine police matter. Although the woman was most distraught, such displays of emotion never had much impact on Holmes, who preferred to stand above them and maintain a cold detachment.
But this time he was about to surprise me and lead us into a case that was to prove altogether different from any other we had ever undertaken.
3
He waited for the latest bout of weeping to subside.
“Tell me again, Mrs. Pemberton,” my friend said, leaning forward on the edge of his chair, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled at his lips. She had his full attention. He had heard, or seen, something I had not; but Holmes always sees things that others would never notice, not if given a decade in which to do so. It is what makes him Holmes.
Given a glimmer of a possibility of help. Mrs. Pemberton brightened up considerably. Her sniffles ceased, and she became almost voluble.
“He ain’t been home for two days now, and if you knew my George, you would know that just ain’t right. It were after his night shift, Mr. Holmes, sir, the last of a long run, and we was hoping that he’d have a day off so that we could take a trip to Margate and get some sea air, like back in the old days. I had his breakfast set out and ready just the way he likes it. Only he never came home, see. And my George, he always comes home. He’s not a man for the pub or the ponies. Simple things for a simple life, that’s my George. And I’m right worried, so I am, for he told some fearsome stories these past few months about what’s going on in them there tunnels. Stories that fair made me skin crawl. I’m feart that he’s come to some kind of a mischief down there in the dark, Mr. Holmes. You will find him, won’t you? I heard tell that you’re the best man in England for finding that which is lost.”
It all came out of her in one breathless rush, and she was quite flushed by the time she came to a halt, enough for me to put down my cup and move to her side. She waved me away and paused to catch her breath.
Holmes spoke first. I knew the signs—he had heard what he needed to hear. At that precise moment he had already started work on the case, although Mrs. Pemberton would not be aware of it for some time yet.
“Vauxhall, you said? Your husband was employed in the workings that are digging out the new underground lines?”
“That’s right, Mr. Holmes, sir. Six months’ work, they said. And we jumped at the chance. George lost an eye at the docks two years back, see—and he’s not had much steady work since. I wasn’t keen at first, for I never liked the thought of him spending all his time down there in the cold and dark and damp. But my George ain’t no shirker, and he talked me round soon enough. ‘Annie,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to take this job. It is a gift from God.’ And so it seemed at first. The money came in—good money, and always paid on time. George came home every morning, tired and worn out, but never too tired to go back out the next night, and the one after that. But now it seems like six months of Hell itself. My George has been down there for three of those months now—and he says the next three might kill him. He …”
She stopped, realizing what she’d just said, and burst into tears. Holmes showed no signs of doing the chivalrous thing, so I went once again to her aid. This time she leaned against me—only for a second—before regaining her composure.
“And you are sure he has not merely taken himself off to a tavern?” Holmes asked, speaking softly. Something in this woman had curbed his natural harshness, and he was as close to being gentle as I have ever seen him.
“I have told you, sir,” she said indignantly. “My George ain’t like that. He ain’t like that at all. A drop of beer on a Sunday, and no more than one bottle—that’s all he takes. And no hard liquor at all—his old dad was the man for that, and it put George off for life. No—he’s come to a mischief—I know it—I can feel it in my water.”
And with that, the tears threatened to come again. She wiped them away angrily. “The police ain’t been no help at all. ‘Come back on Saturday and we’ll check the drunk tank,’ they said. And they laughed at me, Mr. Holmes. But you ain’t laughing. I can tell you’re a good sort. Say you will help me? Please? I have nowhere else to turn.”
Holmes smiled thinly. “It would be an honor to reunite you with your husband, Mrs. Pemberton. It is clear that the two of you are meant to be together, and that is something that is not lightly torn asunder. I will start immediately.”
When she reached for her purse, Holmes leaned over and gently closed it, leaving the five-pound note inside.
“There will be time enough to worry about payment later, Mrs. Pemberton,” he said. “Go home, and do not fret unduly. I will do all that I can to bring your George safely back to you.”
I am afraid to say I was still gaping in some astonishment as she stood, but I recovered sufficiently to take her arm, and she allowed me to accompany her to the door. Mrs. Hudson, with her usual almost-preternatural grasp of when she would be needed, was already standing in the hallway waiting to show the woman out.
But Mrs. Pemberton had one last thing to say. She turned, wiping away more tears.
“You’ve got to find him, Mr. Holmes. He’s all I’ve got in the world that’s worth living for.”
After she’d gone, I quizzed Holmes as to why his interest had been piqued by the woman’s visit. At first he did not answer, merely sat there, as if locked in position. Then he jumped to his feet.
“I shall tell you on the way, Watson,” he replied.
Chapter Two
EF
I caught up with Holmes on the pavement out on Baker Street, where he attempted to hail a carriage. The weather had been hot for a long string of days, and the traffic was throwing up fine dust in my face so that I almost ch
oked at the first breath of it.
“What’s so bally important that it cannot wait for more clement weather?” I asked, but did not get an answer, for a carriage stopped for Holmes at that precise moment.
I was still pulling on my jacket as Holmes stepped up to the door and gave directions. It appeared we were heading for Vauxhall. It was only after I’d climbed inside and was settled with a freshly lit pipe that Holmes spoke.
“I have let this Vauxhall matter stew long enough, Watson,” he said “I have known for several weeks that something was amiss in the area. I have not been able to put my finger on the exact nature of the problem, and it is by no means clear that there is any criminal activity involved. But now we have a client, and I have an excuse to indulge myself in the matter.”
“And what precise kind of matter might that be, Holmes? Mrs. Pemberton’s missing husband scarcely qualifies as something in which you would normally take a personal interest.”
“In this matter, it is the geographic location itself that is the focal point for some out-of-the-ordinary reports,” Holmes said. He ticked things off on his fingers as he spoke. “A missing child in April; a record set in tunnel-building in June, and a severe drop in criminal activity in the whole area in July, among several other minor matters. Would it surprise you to hear that the crime rate in Vauxhall is currently lower than in any part of the city—indeed, lower than in most parts of the country as a whole? I—and, I suspect, many of the Members of Parliament who pay attention to such things—would like to know how that came about. And not only that, Watson—and this is something that might interest a medical man—the reported death rate is significantly below the national average—very significantly. I am not saying that people are not dying in Vauxhall—of course they are—but they are not getting reported to the authorities in the numbers they should be. Something is amiss, Watson. And I intend to get to the bottom of it.”
That speech was the longest I’d heard from Holmes in several weeks. Work had been scarce, and that was anathema to a man like my friend, who needed mental distraction in much the same way that a lotus-eater needs the poppy. Just the previous day Holmes had spent hours sawing plaintively on his violin and staring out at the city, as if willing someone to have need of his services. Now that this latest matter had reared its head, Holmes was like a snake woken from a torpid slumber, and he looked much more like his old self.
As yet, I could not see how this new case would provide much more than momentary satiation of his need for brainwork, but I was happy to have at least some action, although I did not expect anything that would tax Holmes unduly.
In that I was to be proved more wrong than I knew.
3
The streets were rather quiet on the way through the city center. It had been the warmest summer for many a year, and the stifling heat served to both slow the blood of the populace and raise noxious odors and fumes from the more congested sewers under the Old Lady’s skirts. The stench was often so foul that many chose to stay indoors, at least until after nightfall. In recent afternoons it seemed as though the whole of London had adopted the Mediterranean habit of taking a siesta during the hottest part of the day and retired to their beds. At several points during that dashed hot and uncomfortable carriage trip, I envied them the relative shade to be had behind curtains in quiet rooms.
The city’s torpor, however, meant that our trip to Vauxhall met little traffic, and we arrived well before lunch, the carriage leaving us by the side of the road just to the south of the Thames. I had not been down that way for several years, and it was immediately obvious that some large-scale works had completely changed the landscape since my last visit.
I saw no landmarks that sparked a memory. Where there had been a warren of tumbledown river-workers’ cottages and inns of ill repute there was now a long scar of broken earth, rubble, and grass that was too dry in this heat to have taken much of a hold. It looked as if a giant foot had trampled everything into the dirt and scuffed it over before moving on.
Holmes saw the look on my face and laughed. “Welcome to the bright new future. Progress, Watson. It is a wonderful thing. And here, it is mostly occurring out of sight far below us. Come, shall we descend into Hades and pay the ferryman for some gossip?”
The whole scene reminded me of nothing less than a cleared battlefield; baked earth, high sun and oppressive odors brought back far too many memories from my days in the service. I was more than happy to follow Holmes to a dark tunnel that provided almost immediate respite from the heat, although the stench lingered for a while longer as we went deeper inside.
The tunnel narrowed considerably almost immediately below the entrance and we were soon picking our way down a steep slope of discarded stone and rubble, our way lit only by a chain of flickering oil lamps, every second or third of which was extinguished and dark. The air grew hot and heavy, and I took to breathing through my mouth to disguise the smell. It tasted not unlike tar and reminded me greatly of the poor-quality tobacco we had often smoked in the Afghan foothills. Having been reminded yet again of my service days, I was relieved when I had to push all such thoughts away and concentrate lest I lose my footing and send us tumbling in an avalanche of dirt and rubble.
“I say, Holmes,” I said, after several minutes of descent had only served to bring us to another set of empty tunnels. “Do you have the slightest idea where you are going?”
“Have no fear, Watson,” Holmes replied. “It seems we have become a race of ants, burrowing our tunnels in service of the Queen. And where there are queens, there are workers. We only have to find them.”
Luckily, they found us several minutes later.
3
We were alerted to their presence by a shout from somewhere below us. “Hey—you gents shouldn’t be down here. It ain’t safe. It ain’t safe at all.”
A small, stout man with the gait of a waddling child came halfway up the slope to meet us. He had a bluff, open face that looked more accustomed to smiling than to the frown he was showing us.
“It ain’t safe,” he said again, but now he seemed slightly puzzled, as if our presence had disturbed his daily routine. One thing he did not look like—you would be hard-pressed to find a man who looked less capable of criminality. He appeared exactly what I suspected him to be—a foreman or shift-leader who had a deadline to meet and did not want anyone disturbing that goal.
Holmes brazened it out. “Safety is precisely why we are here. This is official business,” he said. “We are here to undertake an inspection of the works to ensure that the men are not being put in undue danger in this phase of the project. Lead on—this should not take long if you allow us access to all areas.”
Holmes’ tone brooked no argument and the man took him at his word, although he muttered a few choice curses under his breath about ‘interference’ and ‘form-fillers’ as he led us down the slope and then deeper into the workings.
It quickly became clear that the digging and tunneling was an undertaking of quite some scale, and I lost track of the route we had taken through the warren of passageways and corridors. The flickering lamps were further apart down here, yielding just enough light to allow me to watch my footing, and the air grew heavy and stifling, almost as bad as monsoon season in the tropics. At that point I would have welcomed a blast of the dusty street air above, instead of what we currently walked through. Holmes seemed calm and unperturbed, barely breaking a sweat, but I was becoming so overheated and uncomfortable that I seriously considered leaving Holmes to it and heading for the surface.
I was glad when the man leading us stopped at a point where fresher air flowed; a cooler breeze that rather incongruously smelled of cut grass and flowers.
“Well, here you are, gents. Inspect away—though you will not find anything out of order. If you need me, I’ll be over at the cut doing some real work.”
Holmes chuckled at the man’s heavy sarcasm as we watched him head away to where a group of some thirty men seemed to be attack
ing rough stone with pickaxes and shovels. The noise grew to a deafening clamor as we walked closer. We now stood in a chamber some thirty feet wide by almost two hundred long. Despite his rebuff of us mere seconds earlier, our new guide turned back, and seemed eager, almost proud, to tell us what we were looking at.
“This here is going to be the station,” he said. “And where you gents are standing is going to be the platform. It’ll be all shiny new tiles and gleaming rails in a few months’ time, just you wait and see. But will we get any praise for it? Will we, hell. We’ll just get moved along the line to the next working. We dig. That’s what we do. And it ain’t a job for the faint-hearted, I’ll tell you that for nowt. Come and see.”
The noise of pick on stone sounded like gunfire—and was almost as loud, sending my ears ringing and my gut into a knot of tension in memory of old battles. I followed Holmes to the work-face.
The men did not stop digging—indeed, they took no notice of us at all apart from one man. He had stopped for a smoke, and he stared at us as if we were something extraordinary as he flicked his butt away into what was rather a large pile of spent smokes and matches. I suppose we must have looked rather out of place in our street clothes down there, where each of the men wore little but a thin vest and overalls, their skin coated thick with dust and grime, their eyes too white, looking out from amid the mire.
Dirt had never bothered Holmes. He clambered over a pile of rubble and examined the work area, doing a fine impersonation of an over-officious inspector.
“And tell me,” he said, once he had done a tour of the men, their tools, and the face they were working on. “Does the night shift simply take over from you and work the same spot?”
Sherlock Holmes: The London Terrors by William Meikle Page 19