by Mrs Hudson
‘Flotsam,’ he purred, stepping to within inches of me so that my face, angled back by Smale, looked straight into his. ‘I had been expecting to hear from you. Your failure to report is most remiss.’ He produced a silver case from inside his coat and very deliberately lit a cigarette. The lighted tip glowed brightly as he smoked, so close that I could feel the heat of the burning tobacco on my cheek.
‘Perhaps these fine clothes of yours have put your brother out of your mind. I congratulate Mrs Hudson on the transformation she has achieved in you. Perhaps now that she is pimping you to the aristocracy, you wish to leave behind your blood ties?’
There was something in his tone that suddenly stilled my fear and replaced it with anger – flaming, violent anger at him and at his intrusion into a world that deserved better than him. The blood was rushing to my head and I began to pull and struggle in Smale’s grasp.
‘That isn’t my brother, you liar! I never thought it was! I’d already checked for myself. My brother’s dead!’
There was an awful moment of stillness. The enormity of the lie I had just told hung above me in the fog, and my struggles stopped as I raced to think of its implications. In my anger I had told Fogarty the last thing he should have heard and in doing so I had condemned the boy in his cellar to a dreadful fate. Until now, whatever the truth, he had a value to Fogarty. Now he was worthless. But much, much worse than this was a fear that made me suddenly cold – that now, thinking he had nothing to gain, Fogarty might tell me the truth.
He was watching me very closely, his eyes fixed intently on my face, weighing up the possibility of truth against the expectation of falsehood. Finally, after another draw at his cigarette, he nodded.
‘I can see no reason for you to bluff, Flotsam, so let us be honest with each other. It is as you say. I’m not a complete liar, however. I did in fact check the records as I told you. I realised a real brother would be a great deal more valuable to me than an impostor. You can imagine my frustration when the registers clearly showed the child you arrived with all those years ago was already dead in your arms. Luckily for me, you seemed unaware of this fact, so I was able to revive him for another short – and I fear short-lived – cameo.’
He paused for another taste of his cigarette, his eyes still on mine. But I was no longer looking at him. A stillness had filled me to the very centre and I could see nothing but the night. So this was it. This was how it felt. I had feared this news all my life, more than I’d feared the night or the fog. Feared what I would feel when the truth was inescapable. Now I understood the emptiness I always felt when I thought of him and the detachment in me even as I felt for the pain of Fogarty’s stand-in. And Fogarty, who had once promised to find him, had been as good as his word.
Sensing the change in me, Smale released his grip on me and for a moment I almost fell. Instead I balanced unsteadily between them in the darkness, my head hanging, waiting to be left alone.
‘Tch, I see perhaps that was news to you after all. How very foolish of me to discard a useful card before it needed to be played.’ Suddenly Fogarty’s tone grew harsh and, reaching out, he tilted my head upwards to meet his gaze.
‘What is Sherlock Holmes doing about Moran?’ he demanded. ‘What is he planning?’
‘I don’t know.’ My voice was flat.
He jerked my chin higher. ‘That’s not good enough, Flotsam. There are urchins posted, watching Moran’s house night and day. Why are they there?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t know they were there.’
Another jerk upwards and now his other hand was squeezing the back of my neck. ‘Are they there to protect him? Or to watch him? What is Holmes thinking? When is he going to act?’
‘I don’t know what he’s thinking! He’s lost Mr Neale and he set a trap that went wrong and he may not know anything for all I know!’
The grip on my neck tightened. ‘Don’t insult me, Flotsam! He must be close to the truth. But as I would expect he seems to be playing a deep game.’ Then, to himself rather than to me, ‘Very well, if he will not act, I shall. This uncertainty does not suit my plans.’
He seemed to be about to turn away, but paused and took my chin between his thumb and fingers. He’d removed his glove and his fingers were cold as they pressed into my face.
‘One last point. The brother I invented for you is worthless to me now. But you are a feeling girl and even without blood ties you may not want his final agony on your conscience. He shall be dead in a week, Flotsam. Without care he can hardly last longer. Before then, if you bring me clear information about Holmes’s plans, you may take him away with you. I daresay some do-good doctor may be found to save him. If you don’t come within a week, you should attempt to forget him forever – if you can.’ He dropped his hand from my face. ‘Come, Smale, let us leave her here to consider.’
I didn’t look up as he turned and moved away in the direction from which he’d come but I became aware that Smale had not followed him. Lifting my head, I saw he was leaning in the shadows from which he had originally emerged. He came forward when he saw me looking and stood close in front of me in the position Fogarty had just relinquished.
‘Just so you know, Flotsam, I shan’t care if you don’t do as he says.’ Suddenly he shot his hand out behind my head and grabbed a handful of my hair. ‘You see,’ he hissed, ‘if you fail him, you’re mine. Fogarty has given you to me.’ His breath stank in my face. Then he pulled his hand away with a sharp tug, bringing down the hair that Mrs Hudson had piled up a few hours before. ‘Think of that, girl. ‘Cos I like thinking of it. I think of it a lot. And until then I don’t think you’ll ever have seen the last of me!’
And with a curl of his lip, he turned and followed his master into the fog.
Smale would probably have been disappointed if he’d known how little his words affected me. For I was already too drained of feeling to fear him and now, alone in the street, I gave way to the weakness that had filled me since Fogarty had pronounced my brother dead. I sank to me knees and, too tired to care for my clothes, too empty even to cry, I let the fog creep around me like a mantle. Time and place seemed to have ebbed away when I heard footsteps approaching. Unsteadily I rose to my feet and a muffled male voice called, ‘Flottie?’
The night must have filled my brain. For a moment my mind turned to the house I had come from. ‘Mr Spencer?’ I breathed.
Then the voice called again, followed by the form and face of someone achingly familiar, the form and face of Scraggs.
‘Crikey, Flot! I lost you in the fog.’ He paused, anxious, trying to read the damage in my tear-stained face. ‘What have them sods done to you?’
‘Scraggs!’ I whispered, and for the second time in a week I was to be found in a night-filled street, encircled by fog, wrapped in a tender embrace.
The Night Thief
†
Dear reader, if having read this far you are growing weary of my endless tales of fog, if you find yourself longing for a little clear air and a glimpse of the stars by night, then you can be no more weary, feel no greater longing, than that loose conglomeration known as Londoners when yet another day emerged stillborn, wrapped in a shroud of preternatural dusk. The gathering in Baker Street after breakfast could as easily have been nocturnal as matutinal so closely did the dark grey air press at the windows from the outside, so brightly did the lamps burn and the fires blaze within.
Mr Holmes and Dr Watson had been abroad making investigations all the previous day and this morning our rooms radiated a sense of optimism and cheerful companionship. At eight in the morning Holmes had taken up position by the kitchen range and had remained there through the morning, lavishly dressing-gowned and generously supplied with tobacco, as if the answers he sought were to be found through careful study of our glowing coals. For all his gaunt profile, it was a friendly silence – one that seemed to welcome the domestic currents that eddied around it. By the time the clock struck ten, even the activity of the kitchen had give
n way to a rare tranquillity. Opposite Mr Holmes, on the other side of the hearth, I was at work with needle and thread while behind us Mrs Hudson was folding laundry with intense concentration. It was thus that Dr Watson found us, his ablutions complete and his affable nature intent on seeking out company.
‘Not intruding am I, Mrs Hudson?’ he wondered from the door.
‘Not at all, Dr Watson. Crowd yourself in by the fire and make yourself comfortable.’
‘Indeed, Watson,’ added Holmes, ‘but since you are about to return to the study to retrieve something from the mantelpiece, may I trouble you to also fetch the telegram that I left behind the clock?’
‘Certainly, Holmes! But how …?’
‘Childishly simple, my dear Watson. I can see from the traces of tobacco still attached to your waistcoat that you have very recently filled your pipe. You have not brought it with you, so I deduce that you have not yet lit it, for you are not the sort of man to abandon a good pipe once it is lit. That being the case, past observation leads me to suppose that you have left it, already filled, beside the clock on the mantelpiece. As, in fact, you do most mornings.’
‘Excellent, Holmes!’ returned Watson reliably, and on returning from his errand he pulled up the kitchen stool and nestled between us by the fire.
‘Since we are all here,’ began Holmes, ‘this would perhaps be a good time for us to summarise the position we have reached. I am ashamed to admit that I have made mistakes over the last few days. I have been led astray by my own assumptions. However, I feel I now make progress.’ He nodded approvingly to himself. ‘Unfortunately, in sharing my thoughts with Gregory, I fear I have provoked one of those rare flashes of imaginative thinking that are so dangerous when stemming from Scotland Yard. He believes the case is all but solved.’
‘I say, Holmes!’ Watson stirred with interest and I paused my needle. But Mrs Hudson, after a brief glance up, continued to fold placidly.
‘Quite,’ the great detective continued. He had settled comfortably into his seat and held his pipe in front of him. ‘My first mistake in all this was eagerness to believe my own preliminary observations about Moran. Based only on his note, I made a number of statements to you about his age and situation. All of them were true except one. Unfortunately, observation of the man himself seemed only to support my initial analysis. The evidence of fever, the recent return from the tropics, the interest in fauna . . . I predicted all these correctly. But I had not reckoned on deliberate deceit on his part.’
Again I ventured a look at Mrs Hudson to see if she betrayed any sign of triumph that her own thinking was proved correct. But her face was impassive and had it not been that the pile of folded linen seemed to grow no larger I might have thought her unaware of what was being said.
‘It was Mrs Hudson who put me on to the right track,’ Holmes continued, with an acknowledging nod in her direction. ‘When you were preparing to visit Neale at Brown’s Hotel, Watson, Mrs Hudson happened to remark that it was one of our better hotels. A throw-away remark perhaps, but according to Moran’s account, supported by those of his colleagues, the three had escaped to these shores penniless. Yet both Neale and Carruthers could now afford to stay in the best hotels. Moran too, when I traced him to his current lodgings, had clearly secured a reputable address.’ Holmes shook his head. ‘You see, his note to us was little more than a lie.’
Watson frowned.
‘But, Holmes, Moran never actually stated in his note that he was in straightened circumstances.’
‘That’s true, Watson. Yet that writing paper was as much a deliberate falsehood as if Moran had told us he had come from the moon. It was all the more subtle for being unspoken. And I was, for a time, misled.’
‘But Holmes, why should he wish to mislead us in that way?’
‘Precisely the question I asked myself. We know from independent verification that the main facts of Moran’s story are true – the mysterious deaths, the precipitous abandonment of their ventures – and there is no doubting from your own observations that his colleagues lived in fear. Yet if they really arrived penniless, as they claim, they seem to have commanded a respectable fortune within a relatively short time of their return. Why should this be a fact that Moran sought to conceal?’
‘Goodness, Holmes!’ Watson appeared suddenly enlightened. ‘Were they evading the income tax?’
Mr Holmes permitted himself a smile. ‘I hardly think that was their main concern, Watson. No, I am forced to conclude that their sudden flight and their concealed wealth are in some way linked.’
‘These are deep waters, Holmes. I confess I cannot see …’
‘Think, Watson! What happened in Sumatra immediately before our clients’ flight?’
‘A series of mysterious deaths, Holmes.’
‘Aha! You are getting very warm, Watson. For some years their trading company has struggled to survive. Suddenly a series of inexplicable deaths take place and in no time at all Moran and his friends have the wherewithal to live extremely comfortably in London.’
Watson was alight with excitement and even Mrs Hudson seemed to be favouring Mr Holmes with an approving glance.
‘But, Holmes,’ Watson’s mind was clearly thinking aloud, ‘the victims were mostly natives and such like. None of them were rich. How do you explain it?’
Holmes shook his head calmly. ‘All in good time, my friend. Meanwhile, as I mentioned, Gregory has found a theory of his own. Something to do with Chinese gangs. He reasons that there was a sizable Chinese presence in Port Mary. Had Moran and his friends crossed them in some way, perhaps in pursuit of some illegal venture, they may well have feared violent retribution, and perhaps it was this fear that led them to escape to London.
‘But escape would prove harder than they thought. It might have become apparent to them that even in London they were not safe from those they had crossed. Finding themselves threatened, in their fear they turned to us.’
Watson was following intently. Mrs Hudson was arranging the folded laundry by colour.
‘Of course, Holmes! And if they had been engaged in something disreputable, they wouldn’t be able to tell us the truth, would they? Not without confessing their own murky activities.’
‘Indeed, my friend. That is the beauty of Gregory’s theory. Moran and his friends need help but they cannot explain why without raising awkward questions about their own behaviour. So they seize upon the native superstitions and use them to camouflage the truth.’
Holmes put down his pipe and stretched his arms above his head.
‘The upshot of all this theorising is that Gregory has posted men outside Moran’s rooms with orders to pay particular attention to any Chinaman seen passing the building. And yet for all Gregory’s elaborations I cannot think this is the best advice, so I have promised Moran that you will drop in on him from time to time to check that everything is in order.’
Dr Watson nodded enthusiastically, but before he could reply Mrs Hudson had cleared her throat.
‘If you will excuse us, gentlemen, seeing as you two are so cosy here, perhaps you will have no objection to Flotsam and I dusting the study?’ And with some impressive bustling, she manoeuvred both myself and a large pile of dusters into the hall.
‘Mrs Hudson, ma’am,’ I asked as soon as the door was shut behind us, ‘can all that be true? About the Chinese, I mean?’
‘I think not, Flottie. Though Mr Holmes is certainly asking the right questions. All that sudden wealth, Flottie. How do we explain it? And why are we being told such improbable tales?’
But before I could answer, Mrs Hudson had opened the door to the study and revealed, to our joint astonishment, a tall, slim gentleman lounging casually by the fire. Seeing us enter he rose to his feet with languorous grace and a smile of semi-concealed amusement.
‘Ah, Mrs Hudson!’ he smiled. ‘I’m slightly disappointed it is you, even though it is of course you I have come to see. Is old Sherlock in?’ He was a darkly good looking man of about t
hirty and beneath clothes cut to the height of fashion he moved with the casual ease of an athlete.
‘Mr Holmes is in the kitchen, Mr Raffles. I see you have let yourself in.’
‘In the kitchen, is he? I hadn’t picked him as the domestic sort. But perhaps he’s looking for clues in the tea leaves or something.’
‘Now, Mr Raffles, we’ll have none of that. I know that you and Mr Holmes have never exactly seen eye to eye.’
‘Well that’s not entirely true, Mrs H.’ The gentleman took a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and tapped it against the mantelpiece with studied care. ‘I know he thinks I’m a frivolous ne’er-do-well, but the truth is we got on well enough once upon a time, until I ran him out at Lord’s one summer in a match against the Gentlemen of Kent. I did it to win a bet of course, but Sherlock couldn’t see the funny side. Lost his temper completely, resigned from the MCC and never played cricket again. Now he makes out he has no time for sporting pursuits. Damn shame, really. He could play the leg glance better than Ranji.’
‘Mr Holmes is certainly a man of many talents, sir.’ Mrs Hudson smoothed down her apron and allowed a glimpse of a smile to slip out from under her frown. ‘It’s good to see you again, Mr Raffles. It’s been nearly a year. Now the two gentlemen were comfortable enough when we left them, so why don’t we sit down here while you tell us what you’ve found out. I don’t think we’ll be disturbed for some time yet.’
‘Of course, Mrs H. As you would expect, I’ve helped myself to a cigar. Not a very good one, I’m afraid, but the best I could find.’ Before sitting down he leaned towards me with his hand extended. ‘Mrs Hudson, you haven’t yet introduced me to your charming assistant.’
She turned to me with another trace of smile. ‘This is Flotsam. Flotsam, Mr Raffles. Since, like Mr Holmes, you don’t read the sporting papers, you may not know that Mr Raffles has gained some small amount of fame as an amateur cricketer.’