by Cavan Scott
“Because you were concerned about him.”
“I’d heard that something was wrong—”
“And came to investigate.” Holmes turned to young Norwood. “You are fortunate to have such a diligent friend in Mr Pritchard. Why you omitted to go to him in the first place is a mystery to me.”
“I – I didn’t want to bother him,” Marcus muttered in response.
“Well, perhaps you can both help Marcus?” chipped in his uncle, speaking up for the first time since Pritchard’s arrival. “Two heads are better than one, after all.”
“I doubt Mr Pritchard requires assistance from a relic such as myself,” Holmes said, showing rare and surprising humility. “I trust that Dr Watson and I can leave the case in his capable hands.”
“Thank you, Mr Holmes,” Pritchard said, nodding sagely. “I’ve tried to warn Marcus how dangerous this game can be. Opening a club in Soho can put folk’s noses out of joint, if they think you’re muscling in on their patch. Dangerous folk.”
“You think this could be the work of another club owner?” I asked.
“The Mallard’s been something of a success, thanks to Mr Norwood. It’s attracted attention, not to mention customers. I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Intimidation. Violent attacks.”
“You don’t think they would hurt Elsie?” Marcus Norwood said, his voice laced with concern.
“I doubt it. This is probably a warning. You’re an honest man in a dishonest world, Marcus. That doesn’t always go down well.”
“Surely we can do something to help?” said I, addressing my friend.
“I would gladly offer any assistance, if our friend from Scotland Yard believes I could be of service,” Holmes replied.
“No,” Norwood cut in. “There’s no need.” The force of the interjection surprised us all. Realising his manners, he added, “I mean, Mr Pritchard will be able to help me, I’m sure he will. You needn’t trouble yourself, Mr Holmes. My uncle was right; I should have gone to the police in the first place.”
Pritchard smiled. It was hardly a pleasant sight. “I appreciate the offer, Mr Holmes, but, as Norwood says, this is police business. I’ll ask around, see if anyone saw anything yesterday and take it from there.”
Holmes nodded his agreement. “A capital idea. You know the area, after all. We shall leave you to your investigations.” Holmes turned to Marcus Norwood, and held out a hand. “I hope that you and Miss Kadwell are soon reunited, Mr Norwood.”
* * *
Minutes later, we were trudging back up Duck Lane, Holmes sheltering beneath a wide umbrella while I braved the elements in my hat and coat.
“And that’s it?” I asked, struggling to match Holmes’s stride. “We walk away?”
“I had hoped you would be able to help,” Albert Norwood added, bitterness evident in his voice.
“And what makes you think that I am not able to do so?” Holmes asked, leading the way to the end of the lane.
“But you said—”
“I know exactly what I said, Watson. Now where is that car of yours?”
“Just down here,” I replied, pointing down Broadwick Street. “Would you like a lift home, Mr Norwood?”
“Oh, we’re not going home, Watson,” Holmes announced.
“We’re not?”
“Quickly now,” he called over his shoulder as he rushed towards the Swift. “Time is against us.”
And so we found ourselves, having been bustled into the car by Holmes, parked further up the street, watching Duck Lane like a band of thieves planning a robbery.
“It won’t be long now,” Holmes observed.
“What won’t be?” I asked, not happy to be left in the dark.
“It’s Pritchard,” Norwood said, pointing over my shoulder. Sure enough, the policeman had stridden out of the lane wearing a heavy double-breasted coat and felt homburg. As we watched, the man turned to the right and walked towards Wardour Street.
“Wait,” Holmes hissed.
“For what?”
On the street corner, the policeman paused to flag down a passing taxi.
“Excellent,” Holmes said, instructing me to start the engine. “But whatever you do, keep your headlights extinguished.”
“Why on earth would I want to do that?”
“Do you wish Pritchard to know we are following him?”
“And that is what we are doing?”
“Evidently. Hurry now, Watson, before the cab gets away.”
Grumbling beneath my breath, I turned onto Wardour Street, the cab by now two cars in front of us.
“Albert, has your nephew ever mentioned Pritchard before?” Holmes asked as we continued along the road.
“Not that I can recall.”
“And yet Pritchard claims they are friends.”
“Marcus certainly didn’t act as if they were close,” I commented.
“Indeed,” Holmes said, peering through the windscreen into the gloom. “The boy could barely bring himself to look in Pritchard’s direction.”
“I can’t say I took to the man, myself.”
“Nor I, Watson. Nor I.”
“I could tell. What was all that nonsense about being successful?”
“Guff?” Holmes repeated. “Really, for a man who claims to be an author your vocabulary leaves much to be desired, as do your powers of observation. Did you not notice the man’s suit?”
“I can’t say that I did.”
“A most fashionable cut, favoured by Wilkinson of Cork Street I believe.”
“Wilkinson of Cork Street? How the devil—”
“Living in the countryside doesn’t mean one loses the ability to read the papers, Watson. Leslie Garnham Wilkinson trained in Boston and, after a period operating out of Antwerp, opened premises on Cork Street earlier this year, or so a fascinating piece in The Times recently informed me. His designs are quite distinctive, and far beyond the purse of most Metropolitan Police detectives. The curious thing, however, was that the suit could not have been more than two months old, and yet is already straining at the seams. It appeared the detective is enjoying a fine diet – as well as more dubious pleasures.”
“Such as?” I asked, wishing that Holmes would at least let me turn on the lights. As if driving in these conditions wasn’t dangerous enough.
“His gum. A disgusting habit, and yet one often employed to disguise the clenching of the jaw so indicative of those who have recently taken cocaine.”
“He’s an addict?”
“An occasional user would have no need for such deception. And again, if he is funding an addiction…”
“You think he’s on the take?” asked Albert from the back seat.
“He certainly seems to have a secondary income, and for a man so intent on helping investigate a girl’s disappearance, he seems in rather a hurry to return home.”
The cab had halted in front of a three-storey house in Marylebone. I pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine.
“Pritchard lives here?”
“We shall see,” Holmes commented, as the policeman exited the cab, paid the driver and climbed the steps to the front door. Seconds later, he was inside, the door closing behind him.
“Well, we know he has a key, at least,” I said.
“Again, how many detectives do you know who could afford to live in a neighbourhood such as this? Come on.”
Without another word, Holmes opened the passenger door and was on the pavement.
“Now where are you going?” I asked, clambering out after him.
“To make a house call,” my friend replied. “Albert, find a policeman immediately.”
“A policeman?” I repeated, “Pritchard is a policeman.” Holmes was already marching towards the steps to Pritchard’s house, swinging his furled umbrella as he walked. “And besides, the man might be a rum sort, but surely—”
“We should be chasing down whoever has spirited away poor Miss Kadwell?” he interrupted, knocking sha
rply on the door.
“Well, yes,” I concurred.
Holmes was about to respond when the door was yanked open and we found ourselves staring at Pritchard’s startled face.
“Mr Holmes? What are you—”
Holmes gave the detective no opportunity to finish. “We are here to see Miss Kadwell.”
“We are?” I asked, as bewildered as the owner of the house.
“I don’t understand,” exclaimed Pritchard. “Why on earth would you think she’s here?”
“Because she was no more abducted than I am the Queen of Sumatra,” Holmes insisted. “Now, I suggest you let us enter.”
“And I suggest you clear off,” came the angry retort, as Pritchard began to swing the door closed in our faces.
Holmes thrust his foot forward, stopping the door from closing. He pushed it back against Pritchard, determined to gain entry to the house.
“Oi! What do you think you’re doing?”
“I believe I have made my intention abundantly clear.”
“As have I,” Pritchard responded, his hand flashing towards Holmes’s face. There it hovered, his police whistle between his fingers, the penknife’s vicious little blade now extended. “Leave now, old man.”
Holmes glanced at the penknife and actually smiled, before feinting to the side and attempting to barge past the policeman. Pritchard lunged with the knife, but Holmes was already pivoting to the side. He pushed Pritchard’s knife-wielding hand aside using the edge of his umbrella, before cracking the policeman on the nose with the curved handle. The younger man staggered back, but not before Holmes had hooked the end of the umbrella around Pritchard’s neck. With a practised move, Holmes pulled Pritchard off balance, the policeman landing at Holmes’s feet.
A cry went up from inside the house, a woman’s voice, shrill and alarmed. “Charlie, are you all right?”
“Stay in there,” Pritchard spluttered from the floor, but Holmes had stepped over the flailing policeman and was darting into the hallway. I followed him through an internal door to find a pretty young woman wearing little more than a silk slip and a surprised expression.
“Miss Kadwell, I presume,” Holmes said, bowing slightly.
Behind me, Pritchard crashed, still dazed, into the doorframe.
“Don’t say anything, Elsie,” he commanded, drawing a chuckle from my friend.
“What exactly do you expect her to tell me, Mr Pritchard? Nothing that I don’t already know, I’ll be bound.”
“Is that right?”
“It was clear that you lied back in Miss Kadwell’s dressing room. You claimed never to have visited her room before, but the moment I mentioned the missing hairbrush your eyes flicked towards the dressing-table drawer. How would you know the lady kept it there if you had never been in the room before?
“Then, there was my intentional misnaming of Miss Kadwell’s dear departed sister, Beatrice. Despite my colleague’s over-zealous correction, I noticed a twitch in your lips, detective. You knew that I had made an error, perhaps because you first met Elsie when investigating Beatrice Kadwell’s unfortunate cocaine overdose. Even if I hadn’t recalled your name from the newspaper report at the time, you certainly knew that Beatrice was dead, even though no one in the room had mentioned the regrettable fact. ‘Her late sister’, those were your exact words.”
“But why kidnap Miss Kadwell at all?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” Pritchard insisted, nursing his swollen nose.
“Of course not,” Holmes concurred. “The abduction was well staged, but not a bottle smashed on the floor? No, they were placed there carefully by Miss Kadwell herself, who also ensured that she took her beloved hairbrush before fleeing the scene. As for why, Watson, Mr Pritchard told us himself.”
“He did?”
“Marcus Norwood is an honest man in a dishonest profession. As Mr Pritchard noted, he did attract attention. Not, however, from his rivals—” Holmes turned to face the scowling policeman, “—but from an unscrupulous officer of the law. I would suggest that Pritchard here approached young Mr Norwood, offering protection for the right price. When Norwood turned down this generous, and no doubt expensive, offer, Mr Pritchard decided to show him exactly why he needed protection in the first place. What better argument than the apparent abduction of the Mallard’s star turn, aided and abetted by the lady herself? I wonder how many other clubs in Soho have been forced to employ Mr Pritchard’s dubious services. Someone has to pay for this house and those fine suits, after all.”
“I’ll kill you,” Pritchard started, and instinctively I placed myself between the disgrace of a police officer and my friend. However, there was no need for any further heroics.
“I think not, sir,” came a voice from the hall. Pritchard whirled around to see a stern-looking police officer in a rain-soaked cape, standing beside Albert Norwood.
CHAPTER FOUR
LIVING IN THE PAST
“A bittersweet success, Holmes,” I observed as I drove us back to Chelsea. It was well past midnight, now that we had furnished the police with our statements. “Young Marcus Norwood is in for a shock when he discovers that his lady friend plotted against him.”
Even in the gloom of the witching hour, I could see the grin that tugged at my companion’s lips. “I swear that you adhere to the sensibilities of the last century as firmly as a limpet clings to crumbling rock.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped, my temper shortened by the lateness of the hour and the distance to my bed.
“I can hear it in your voice, Watson; your disdain for our client’s romantic entanglement. His lady friend, indeed.”
Now it was my turn to pick up on Holmes’s words. “Our client, eh? Now who’s living in the past? I thought you were retired.”
Holmes waved away my admittedly feeble taunt. “Force of habit, nothing more, although I would wager that your puritanical tendencies are more deeply rooted. When will you learn that times change, and so must we? Are you even aware of the year?”
I took the corner to Cheyne Walk faster than I ought, clipping the kerb in the process.
“Have a care, Watson. You nearly had us over.”
“If you don’t like the way I drive, next time I suggest you take a cab.”
“Come now. There’s no need—”
“No need?” I cut him off, screeching the Swift to a halt in front of the house, no doubt attracting the notice of several of my more inquisitive neighbours. Since Holmes’s arrival the curtains of Cheyne Walk had twitched so much you could be forgiven for thinking that they had developed a life of their own. “You drag me out in the middle of the night—”
“I would hardly call eight o’clock the middle of the night,” Holmes interjected, clambering out of the passenger seat.
“What you call it is neither here nor there. You summon me to a sordid little nightclub—”
“If you think the Mallard is sordid, I dread to think what you would make of the rest of Soho.”
“A sordid little nightclub, without a word of explanation, and have me charging around the streets of London on a personal crusade that has little if anything to do with me.”
“Watson, you do yourself a disservice.”
“Do I? Exactly what purpose did I serve this evening, other than that of chauffeur? Or perhaps I was just there so that, once again, I could be dazzled by your brilliance as you remind me how dull-witted, ignorant and laughably out-of-touch I am.”
I punctuated my last sentence with a slam of the driver’s door, not caring a jot if it attracted the attention of our regiment of nosy neighbours.
“Watson, you are tired.”
“Outstanding, Holmes,” I said, barging past the detective and marching up to my front door. “However did you know?”
I turned the key and pushed the door open, stepping inside. Holmes followed me, a look of smug amusement written across his face. I knew I shouldn’t rise to the bait, but could scarcely help myself.
&nbs
p; “And for your information,” I continued, hanging my still damp hat and coat on their customary pegs, “I am all too aware of the age that we live in, and what the last few years have done to our country. You say I cling to the last century? Well, maybe I do. Maybe I yearn for a time when the police could be trusted, when a woman stood by her man rather than stab him in the back, and when an honest chap who had defended his country was rewarded, not broken by the very powers that have pledged to protect him.”
Holmes merely laughed, shrugging off his own coat and stowing his umbrella in the stand. “And when exactly did this fairy-tale age exist, Watson, outside your rose-tinted imagination? Have you learnt nothing from our various misadventures over the years? The purity of the human spirit is a dangerous myth, as are the restraints of polite society. Time and time again, the gullible fall prey to those who truly understand human nature with all its complexity and foibles.”
“Folk like you, I suppose.”
“Folk like criminals, con-artists and swindlers,” Holmes replied, his voice as infuriatingly calm as my own was agitated. “Not to mention the patrons of clubs such as the Mallard. Those young men, dancing the night away, they have stared horror in the face, Watson; they have seen beyond the lie of a happily-ever-after, seen what man will do to man. No wonder that they lose themselves to the primitive beat of a drum or a line of white powder.”
“No wonder you find yourself so at home,” I threw back, pushing past him to take the stairs.
If Holmes was stung by my words, he had no chance to show it.
“John Watson, what in heaven’s name do you think you are doing, shouting the odds at this hour?”
I looked up to see my wife at the top of the stairs, hands on hips.
“I am sorry, Mrs Watson,” Holmes replied in my place. “The blame is mine, not your husband’s. Watson was merely pointing out that I have overstayed my welcome somewhat.”
My tirade interrupted, I found myself becoming flustered at Holmes’s words. I turned back to face him. “Now, I never said—”
“He is, of course, correct,” Holmes continued, expertly avoiding my gaze. “It appears that I am living in the past: expecting our partnership, and indeed our friendship, to resume where we left off, and for that I also apologise. I shall leave first thing in the morning.”