The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes

by Loren D. Estleman

  “I was certain it was something of that nature,” said Anstruther. “Henrietta fretted, but we had an early train, and little enough time as it was to rest before our journey.”

  Throughout this period I saw almost nothing of Holmes. He was some ten weeks on the Continent, probing an affair of such delicacy on behalf of the state that he could not share the details even with me, and then, with nothing taking place in the criminal world to excite his attention, spent many days and nights in the reading room of the British Museum and the libraries of the city’s newspapers researching The Whole Art of Deduction, his own equivalent of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. It was grueling work, and on those few occasions when I dropped in upon him I did not stay long, marking his plain exhaustion.

  Osbert the ice-cream man vanished like a drop of water on a hot stove. A likeness based upon his description appeared in all the papers, and a reward posted by The Times for information leading to his apprehension, but no one came forward with anything useful. There was no record of a man bearing that name and resembling him to be found, and it was quickly decided that Osbert was an alias as surely as Snipe. With nothing new to report (and with Gregson and Lestrade’s stern admonition not to mention the parts played by Holmes, Mary, and myself), the entire episode was soon supplanted by other items of interest.

  Soon the columns were filled with the mysterious disappearance of Jane Chilton, the grown daughter of Sir James Chilton, whose textile mills in Middlesex produced uniforms for the British military. She was an heiress, and it was at first conjectured that she had been kidnapped for ransom, but when the anticipated demand failed to materialise, a darker suggestion emerged, that she had been slain for her purse and jewels and the body discarded. Grisly sensation was the specialty of the house in those days, and the illustrators found no limit of inspiration in Eugene Aram and Sweeney Todd. Given my own recent association with a vanishing-woman case, I had suspicions of my own; however, as there was no mention of her ever having been seen anywhere near an ice-cream parlour, I assigned them to personal sensitivity.

  Holmes was abroad when the story reached its crescendo. It presented some arcane features I felt sure would attract his curiosity when he returned; but then Sir James received a letter in his daughter’s hand, postmarked San Francisco, informing him that she had eloped with that fixture of romantic fiction, a penniless young man Not Suitable for marriage with a woman of good breeding, and after the inevitable flurry of sentimental claptrap, the curtain descended upon this act as well.

  In the middle of August, with the streets hot and fetid and a white sun nailed to a burnt-out sky, I found my friend bright-eyed and cheerful, his feet propped upon an ottoman beside an open window and holding something close to his face. With a start I recognised it as the silver-plated teaspoon Mary had torn from the waistcoat pocket of the man she’d known as Snipe.

  “Not my favourite trophy by any means, in view of the unsatisfactory conclusion,” he said. “Why it should fascinate me enough to interrupt my work in my magnum opus has posed a vexation until this very hour. Exercise your faculties, Watson. What do you surmise is the reason?”

  “Dissatisfaction, as you indicated. To you an unsolved case is worse than a failed chemical experiment.”

  “The reasoning is sound, but the explanation is inapplicable. I never dwell on past mistakes, only seek not to repeat them. Does nothing else occur to you?”

  I sat down opposite him, defeated. “You’ve remarked before upon my matchless talent for grasping the obvious. I’ve fired my one round.”

  “I was a prize ass to accuse you of a crime I’ve committed myself. When the spoon first came to light, we both assumed that Snipe had stolen it out of old habit. At that time we thought him to be a thief who had expanded his operation—“changed his lay,” as the Americans say—to embrace abduction. Now that we know he owned the establishment to which the spoon undoubtedly belonged, the theory is groundless. Why, then, did he have it on his person?”

  “Perhaps it was his answer to a lucky rabbit’s foot.”

  “Possibly. Criminals are often superstitious. It’s a hazardous vocation, after all. But let us widen our loop and consider other solutions. Gogol tells us the Zaporozhye Cossacks carried their dining utensils on their belts wherever they went, but there was nothing remotely Eurasian about Osbert’s features. Judging by the lice in Snipe’s wig, he wasn’t overly fastidious, so we can eliminate any phobias about filth.”

  He pointed the spoon at me, like a conductor his baton. “Do you remember something I said about fraternal organisations? I thought it profound at the time.”

  I produced the notebook I am seldom without. In time it will join its hundreds of ancestors in the box I keep at my bank for the edification of future generations. I paged back four months, scanning my personal shorthand. “Of Snipe, you said, ‘He is a white slaver, and this, like the Freemason’s apron, is the symbol of his order.’”

  “Hum. I remembered it as more lyrical. I should have listened more closely to myself in any case, because I believe I had hit upon the truth. In the absence of a more compelling argument, I consider this to be Snipe’s bona fides, providing access to others in his racket. These types haggle and trade amongst themselves, bartering in human chattel, and they are constantly on the lookout for infiltrators. A tangible badge of office saves paragraphs of challenge and response.”

  “Surely anyone can obtain a spoon.”

  “All the more reason to keep it secret. And should a suspicious constable waylay and search you, a cheap utensil would hardly be cause for arrest. For want of a better name, let us call this baleful brotherhood the Society of the Spoon, and put the hypothesis to the test.”

  “What sort of test?”

  He remarked that it was hot, and asked if I had a yearning for ice cream.

  XII.

  The Leopards Change Their Spots

  “I shall go with you,” said Mary.

  I shook my head. “Not this time. If you won’t heed my advice about the danger, consider that having a woman along would tip our hand.”

  “Will you dress up as gypsies, with rings in your ears and bandannas wrapped round your heads?”

  “Holmes says no, as regards me. My face is not as well known as his, thanks to the illustrators at The Strand, so no disguise is necessary in my case. I think also he sought to spare my feelings, as there is more to carrying off a role than fancy dress and a false nose.”

  “I have never known him to give any thought to your feelings at all.” Her expression softened. “I withdraw that remark. I saw quite a different side of him last spring. But surely you’re dressed too well to masquerade as a brigand.”

  She excused herself, to return from the pantry a minute later, dragging a bulky burlap sack. “Here are some of your old clothes I’ve been saving for charity. See what suits your pretense.”

  I retired to the bedroom, where I found the favourite pullover I’d missed for weeks. There was plenty of wear left in it in spite of the tiny balls of wool that had erupted upon its surface, but it was too heavy for the season. After clucking my tongue over some other unpleasant revelations (women are born for subterfuge), I selected a seersucker suit, a pair of brogans worn round at the heels, and a bowler beyond blacking. The crowning touch was a cravat a patient had given me one Christmas, with a Balinese dancer hand-painted on it in bright colours. Standing before the glass, I saw a shady character staring back, ready to pick my pocket or offer to sell me the Tower. I stepped back into the parlour and asked how I looked.

  “Like something I’d expect to see at the races. Whatever possessed you to buy that suit in the first place?”

  “You were away visiting a sick friend, and it seemed a bargain at the time.”

  At the door she kissed me with particular affection and admonished me to be careful. I lowered one eyelid and patted the revolver in my pocket.

  “I keep forgetting you were in the army,” she said.

  “Would that
I could.”

  On this particular clandestine occasion, I had no trouble recognising Holmes when we met in his sitting room. Although a light dusting of freckles and a red wig altered his appearance enough to throw off the casual observer, I was surprised to see that he looked less shabby than I, in broad chalk stripes and a crushable hat with a feather in the band. He took one look at me, shook his head, and relieved me of my cravat.

  “Fasten your collar and go without,” he said. “These men are low, not stupid.”

  “I’m sorry, Holmes. This is all new to me.”

  “Save your apologies, old fellow. Why should the salt of the earth develop a talent for dissembling?”

  “But surely you can be recognised.”

  “Our quarry is doubly suspicious than the ordinary culprit, and double more so since Snipe’s close call. They’ll be looking for tricks of theatrical magic, whilst the gay attire will throw them off the scent after the fashion of Poe’s purloined letter. In any wise, I am counting upon that. This affair is heavy enough with false whiskers and cobbler’s wax as it is.”

  Osbert’s parlour, we knew, had been padlocked by order of the superintendent of Scotland Yard. We ruled out the other places we’d visited, first because we’d have been recognised, second because we’d eliminated their personnel as suspects. Holmes, I was not surprised to learn, had acquired an encyclopedic knowledge of all the similar establishments in the city, but when we introduced ourselves to the people in charge—as the Messrs. Sherrinford and Sacker—they regarded with open bewilderment the spoon he produced from his pocket.

  One, a burly Irishman, accused us of pinching it from his parlour and demanded its return. When Holmes refused, he tried to snatch it from his hand, much to his immediate regret, as presently we left him lying on the floor upon his back, no doubt wondering how he came to be in that position. In truth, it had all happened so fast I all but missed it, and on our way out I said, “Baritsu?”

  “A refined version, which I picked up in Tibet. Kung fu is the name. It reaches back to the Zhou Dynasty, a thousand years before Christ.”

  We had no success in the other half-dozen places we went to, and returned to Baker Street, where I removed my broken-down brogans and massaged my aching feet.

  Holmes poured whisky. “I feared this. The Osbert business attracted too much attention for comfort, driving the other slavers to some other cover. There’s an argument to be made in favour of allowing one or two known dens of iniquity to remain open, so that justice always has a place to fish.”

  “Holmes, these creatures trade in human beings, not stolen watches.”

  “You’re right, of course. Meanwhile, we’ve foundered.”

  “Perhaps the flesh pedlars were sufficiently frightened to abandon the practice entirely.”

  “Good old Watson. If I could distill and bottle your optimism like these spirits, I’d be as rich as Gladstone.”

  I finished my drink and left him in a brown study. I was concerned for him. He was like a horse with the bit in its teeth and no place to gallop, and I knew all too well where that might lead. It was ironic, then, that the most foul of all the foes we’d ever opposed should be the one to rescue him from the lure of the needle.

  XIII.

  The Chilton Affair

  We were experiencing one of the hottest summers in memory, and the English being what they were, I was soon busy treating patients for sunburn and heat exhaustion, prescribing cocoa butter, salt tablets, and cold compresses to wretches more accustomed to overcast skies and declining mercury than sunshine and eighty-degree temperatures. Reverse the situation and imagine South Sea Islanders building snowmen in a freak blizzard, and you may have a fair picture of the epidemic of temporary insanity. As a result, it was a fortnight before I saw or heard anything of Holmes. When I did, it was he who initiated contact.

  The telegram arrived as I was explaining to a sufferer that an umbrella was quite as necessary in an August such as we were having as in rainy November. He left, muttering something about a “dashed parasol,” and I slit open the envelope.

  WATSON

  WHAT SAY YOU TO A SPOONFUL OF ADVENTURE

  HOLMES

  “Really, John,” said Dr. Anstruther, when I stopped at his office on my way to Baker Street. “I’m up to my knees as it is in patients scarlet as red Indians. I suppose you’re off on another frolic with your friend the bloodhound. You’re the only good physician I know who finds time for a hobby.”

  “All the more reason to bless my good fortune to have such a generous colleague.”

  I hastened away before he could protest further. As opaque as I find things Holmes regards as elementary, “a spoonful of adventure” to me meant only one thing.

  My friend met me at the street door. He was dressed for the country, in his ear-flapped cap and tweeds, but waved off my reservations about my city dress with impatience. “Our client won’t issue you any demerits. He’s misplaced his daughter, and has engaged us to secure her return.”

  I accompanied him to Baker Street station, where we caught the four o’clock train north. No sooner had the conductor announced the stops than I said, “Middlesex! It’s Jane Chilton then.”

  I shall treasure forever the look of astonished admiration that appeared upon his face. However, lacking his flair for theatre, I told him all, summarising the newspaper accounts of the search for the textile heiress. Disapproval displaced surprise.

  “A chance strike. Five counties were announced, each with a bevy of country homes with grown daughters in residence.”

  But I was too intrigued to be put off by his chiding. “The investigation was closed when Sir James Chilton received a letter telling him of her runaway marriage. He swore it was written in her hand.”

  “He is no graphologist; and my own William Thackeray has taken in experts. One dabbles, Watson,” he said with a smile. “I had a sabbatical with a book forgery ring in Manchester. I may boast, but given the proper materials I could dash off a Shakespeare First Folio that would put me up comfortably in Sussex for the rest of my days, quietly tending to my bees.”

  It was the second time in the process of this case he’d mentioned beekeeping and the Downs. In all the years of our association, I never knew when he was having me on.

  He returned to the subject. “Sir James is no one’s fool, or he should not have beaten out dozens of competitors for his contract with Whitehall. He engaged an American private enquiry agent to investigate the source of the letter posted in San Francisco. The man, whose reputation even I am aware of, could find no trace of the sender. Until convinced otherwise, I suspect some colleague of Osbert’s, if not the man himself, had an accomplice in California forge the letter. How he obtained a sample of her script may prove the solution to the affair.”

  “Still, the gulf between the girl’s vanishing and the white slave trade is a long leap.”

  “I concur. But when a knot reveals the end of the rope, one pulls upon it, on the off chance it’s the authentic Gordian.”

  After this pronouncement he changed the course of the conversation, drawing upon his pipe and directing my attention to some anomalies in the compositions of Sarasate.

  We were met at the station by a grey-faced man with impressive white side whiskers, who wrung Holmes’s hand, took mine in a grip less fervent, and introduced himself as James Harvey Chilton, Bart., founder of Chilton Mills and father of Jane. Beside him stood a young man, muscular but not bulky, in a sporty suit of a decidedly American cut with a pearl stickpin in his cravat and a tan bowler—derby, as it was called on that side of the pond—and displaying a broad handsome face with a determined chin. His slim hand mangled my knuckles in a steely grip.

  “This gentleman is the enquiry agent I wrote you about,” said Sir James. “He was kind enough to cross the ocean at my request to consult with you.”

  “How do you do?” said the stranger, in a pleasant, middle-register voice devoid of the broad, nasal tones I associated with American spee
ch. “Nicholas Carter, at your service. Please call me Nick.”

  XIV.

  Mr. Nick Carter

  Sir James’s carriage conveyed us all to Chilton Hall, a sprawling manor of red and yellow brick laid in chessboard fashion in the midst of rolling green country, dotted with thatched tenant farmhouses and the inevitable sheep. Once ensconced in the library, surrounded by volumes shelved from the floor to the ceiling sixteen feet above, we sat in deep leather chairs and made free with the cigars offered by our host.

  “I’m restless, I admit,” said Nick Carter, drawing with pleasure upon a dark Havana. “One may be absent from Paris for two or three years, and from London almost a lifetime, and find little changed on his return. But in a few months, New York City will have reinvented itself beyond recognition.”

  “I can’t decide whether you’re casting aspersions or singing the praises of any of those places.” I was somewhat nettled by his ease of manner in what must have been intimidating surroundings for most of his countrymen.

  “Neither, John; I hope I can call you John? We’re informal in the States. It comes from twice sending you Brits packing bag and baggage back to Old Blighty.”

  I felt the blood rise to my face; but Holmes assumed the role of diplomat.

  “Gentlemen, we’ve drawn our lines in the sand. For myself, I envision a future in which the ghosts of our two Georges, Hanover and Washington, address each other as equals, and unite in the commonality of our shared language.”

  “I’m swell with that.” Having delivered this puzzling declaration, Carter unstopped a grin of dazzling American workmanship and sincere good fellowship. “You must make allowances, John.” He hesitated. “John, eh?”

  I nodded hesitantly.

  “Where I come from, we test a man, probing for weakness. A thin skin often means a weak nature; which is nothing you want to take with you into a game of stickball where winner takes all.”

  Holmes cleared his throat. “I can attest that while Watson may swing at a bad pitch, he can hit a fast ball over the fence.”