Further Notes From the Dispatch Box of John H Watson MD (The Dispatch Box of John H Watson, MD)

by Hugh Ashton

  However, the occasion on which I first came into contact with Mr. Holmes was a case of a problem with a will. An elderly gentleman by the name of Parkins had died some two months previously, and when his will was read, it was discovered that there was a codicil. According to this addition, which had been drawn up and witnessed some six months earlier, his sons, who had expected to inherit most, if not all, of his considerable fortune, were virtually cut out of the will, and most of the money was to go to a niece.

  The sons, Reginald and Lionel by name, had questioned the validity of the codicil, but it appeared to have been drawn up in a regular fashion by a solicitor, who was also acting as executor of the estate. There was a vague connection between my parents and the old man—my father had worked in the same firm alongside Mr. Parkins at one time before the latter’s speculations on the Stock Exchange which had brought him his wealth. Because of this, the two brothers wished to consult me on the matter, knowing my occupation as a detective. I agreed to their request for a meeting, given the family connection, though I was unsure of what value I would be to them.

  I met the two at a hotel in London, following their suggestion, and though I do not as a rule base my judgements on first impressions, especially those impressions which result from a man’s personal appearance, I was not in any way well-disposed towards them. Both possessed what to my eyes was a shifty appearance, though both carried themselves and spoke as gentlemen.

  “ The point is, Lestrade,” Lionel Parkins, the younger, said to me, “ that though our father was generous in his way to us, and I don’t want to speak ill of the dead here—“

  “ Particularly about our father,” his older brother interrupted.

  “ Exactly,” the other agreed. “ The fact is that the governor, as we called him, never allowed us access to the cash in his bank account, telling us that it would be time enough for us to have it when he had gone before. Well, you see, he’s gone, and we don’t have the cash.”

  “ And the devil of it is,” broke in Reginald Parkins, “ that we were expecting him to leave us the money at some time soon—of course, we were hoping he would remain with us for a long time, but I think you understand what I mean here—but both of us have borrowed against the expectation of the money coming to us, and now it seems that this wretched girl has taken it all.”

  “ I am unsure as to what you want me to do to put things right,” I said.

  “ My dear Lestrade,” said the younger brother. “ Surely you must see that the codicil is a forgery. Our father would never have made such an arrangement without letting us know about it.”

  I have in my time known of several parents who have cut their children out of their wills, unbeknown to their offspring, but said nothing regarding this, choosing instead to turn the conversation elsewhere. “ What do you know of this Miss Jenny Whitcombe ? ” I asked.

  “ She may have been Miss Whitcombe when the codicil was written,” said Lionel, “ but she is now Mrs. Lynch. She was married to a Victor Lynch, a clerk in a provincial lawyer’s office or some such, a few months before our father’s death. Neither Reginald nor I has seen her since we were children, and she did not attend the governor’s funeral,” he added with a sneer.

  “ To be fair,” Reginald Parkins said, “ it is almost certain that she knew nothing of the codicil. However, she has made no response to our requests for a settlement.”

  I could think of no good reason why she should make a settlement, but held my peace on the matter. “ How much was your father’s estate worth ? ”

  “ It is difficult to say until the house in Henley has been sold, but there was twenty thousand pounds in the bank, and about the same amount in securities.”

  “ A goodly sum, then. You are not living in the house, then ? ”

  “ No, we set up a bachelor establishment together some years ago. The governor lived quietly with a cook and a housekeeper, whom we have been given to understand have been paid off, preparatory to the house being sold. Mrs. Lynch lives some way out of Town, in Woking. I have her address here.” He passed me a scrap of paper.

  “ Let me understand. You would like me to investigate this matter, and discover if there has been any underhand activity.”

  “ Of course there has been underhand activity ! ” exclaimed the older brother. “ Is it not obvious ? We want you to bring this woman to trial. That’s what you police fellows are there for, isn’t it ? Naturally, there will be something in it for you when we receive our rightful inheritance.”

  “ I fear you misunderstand the duties and the powers of a police officer,” I informed them, as stiffly as I could manage. “ Even if I had the time available to carry out an investigation such as you suggest, I would not be empowered to do so.”

  “ Then hire one of these private detectives who seem to be appearing all over the place.”

  “ Why can you not do that yourself ? ” I asked.

  “ It would never do for us to be seen consorting with such a person,” said Lionel Parkins. “ We do have positions to maintain, you realise.”

  “ Very good,” I said, by now thoroughly irritated at the pretensions of these two, telling myself that I would drop the matter as soon as I left them. “ I will let you know if I discover any such person who may meet with your approval. Good day to you both.”

  I walked back to my office at Scotland Yard, fuming at the manner in which I and my profession had been regarded. A young sergeant working with me, Stanley Hopkins, was waiting in my office.

  “ Yes, Sergeant,” I said to him, after five minutes of silence had passed between us, during which time I had attended to some paperwork, I fear with a very bad grace. “ I am out of sorts, and you are free to know the reason why.”

  I explained my recent encounter with the Parkins brothers, and how they had attempted to misuse the police force for their own purposes. “ If I felt any better disposed towards them, I would indeed seek out a private detective.”

  “ If you change your mind about that, Inspector,” Hopkins said to me, “ I can recommend the very man for your purposes. He is a young man, just down from University, though I believe he did not take his degree.”

  “ What is he doing for a living ? Is he a private detective ? ”

  “ He prefers the term ‘consulting detective’. He has handled one or two affairs for friends with some success, I believe, but he is not the usual type that you and I run across.”

  “ In what way is he different ? ”

  “ He has the most extraordinary mind that I have ever encountered. He has the most amazing capacity for knowledge on all manner of out-of-the-way subjects, and he is able to link seemingly unconnected facts in an remarkable fashion. He also has a talent for observation which is unique in my experience.”

  “ If he has all these talents, and he wishes to be a detective, surely he should join the Force ? ”

  Hopkins laughed at this. “ If you had ever met Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for that is his name, you would not ask such a question. His habits and lack of regard for authority and correct conduct would ensure that he was thrown out of any official body immediately.”

  I was intrigued by this description. “ How do you come to know him ? ”

  “ I was walking past the British Museum one day, when I noticed a tall lanky fellow looking upwards. I stopped and followed the direction of his gaze, but could see nothing of interest, and remarked as much to him. Whereupon, he suggested, since I was a police officer, that I might be interested in the doings of the occupant of the top room in the house which he had been observing.”

  “ You were in uniform ? ” I asked.

  “ No, that is the extraordinary thing about it. I asked him how he had me marked as a police officer, and he gave me an answer which involved the way that I walked, and held myself, which to his eye, so he said, was unique to the officers of the Metropolitan Police.”

  “ And the occupant of the room ? ”

  “ I hailed a beat constable, and we made ou
r way to the room, with this Holmes following us. We obtained permission from the landlord to break down the door, the room being seemingly unoccupied, and discovered a small printing press which had been creating five pound notes, of a somewhat inferior quality.”

  “ This was the Ridgmount Gardens counterfeiting case, then ? ”

  “ Yes, it was, sir.”

  “ I never saw any mention of this Holmes in your report,” I said.

  Hopkins looked abashed. “ He particularly wished his name not to be mentioned, sir. He told me that he did not wish to be associated with what he regarded as such a trivial matter, and he would be obliged if his part in it was withheld. He was perfectly polite about it, and presented me with his card.”

  It surprised me that man starting to make his way in a profession of this kind did not wish to take credit for his successes. “ Did he tell you why he suspected the occupant to have committed a crime ? ”

  “ Yes, he did. He told me that he had remarked the fire being lit in the room at odd times, as he could tell from the smoke emerging from the chimney. He appeared to be aware of which rooms were connected to each chimney, living, as he told me, in lodgings occupying a similar design of house. He had also marked the appearance on fine days of sheets of paper outside the window, seemingly drying.”

  “ And his conclusions ? ”

  “ That the fire was needed to dry some material on wet days, and he concluded that they were these sheets of paper that appeared on fine days. From what he could see, the sheets were blank, but he had noticed water dripping from them, meaning to his mind that a watermark was being applied to them.”

  “ And from that, he assumed that an act of counterfeiting was in progress ? ”

  “ He admitted to me that he had followed the inhabitant of the room to an artists’ supplier, where he had purchased a number of fine burins such as are used to engrave copper plates. That, in his view, clinched the matter. Following this case, I confess that I have occasionally met Mr. Holmes, and sought his opinion on a number of puzzling details. In every instance, his guesses have been proven correct by the facts. The extraordinary thing is that he seems to seek no reward, or even credit, for this assistance, declaring that the solution of the problem is itself a reward in his eyes.”

  “ Well, well,” I answered. “ You should introduce me to this remarkable person.”

  My feelings regarding this matter were such that although I had no particular wish to assist the Parkins brothers, at the very least the facts of which I had been informed allowed me to consider the possibility that a crime of some kind had been committed. While I had no official permission to investigate the matter, it seemed to me that the employment of an amateur—one who was not involved in the business of detection simply for financial gain—would at one stroke both fulfil any possible obligations to the Parkins family and satisfy my professional curiosity.

  Accordingly, Hopkins arranged for himself and me to meet Sherlock Holmes in a Bloomsbury restaurant.

  “ This is Mr. Lestrade, my friend,” Hopkins introduced me to the thin-faced man who was awaiting our arrival at the restaurant table, idly making notes in a memorandum book. I had specifically requested that Hopkins not mention my occupation, instructing him that I was to be introduced merely as one seeking his assistance on a matter concerning a friend’s inheritance.

  “ The rank is Inspector, is it not ? ” were Sherlock Holmes’ first words to me, as he rose to his feet, towering over me, and shook my hand warmly.

  “ You have been talking to Mr. Holmes about me,” I accused Hopkins, somewhat annoyed. I had hoped that I could have avoided being identified as a police officer.

  “ Calm yourself. He has done no such thing,” remarked the amateur detective. “ It was obvious from your manner of walking, and from the way that you observed and took in your surroundings as you walked into the restaurant just now, that you are a policeman. I would venture to suggest, without any attempt at flattery, that you are more than proficient in your profession, and when I likewise observe a certain deference towards you from Sergeant Hopkins here, I assume that you are his superior in the force. Hence it is Inspector Lestrade, is it not ? ”

  Of course now you and I, Doctor, became used to these little tricks that Mr. Holmes used to play. But this was the first time that I had encountered him, and his methods, and I was forced to chuckle at his words. “ Correct, Mr. Holmes. What else can you tell me about myself ? ”

  He looked me over with what I can only describe as a critical eye. “ You are left-handed, as is obvious from the merest glance. You have been in the Army, almost certainly as a sergeant in the sappers, and you served overseas, probably in India. So much is obvious from your overall bearing, your stature, and you bear the marks of having suffered some tropical disease. Among other interesting facts that I may remark about you, I would observe that you are at present unmarried, but hope to change that at some time in the near future. You have also, if you will permit me to remark the fact, recently consumed a boiled egg, some fragments of the shell of which are still adhering to your waistcoat.”

  I looked down at the offending garment, and brushed away the fragments of my breakfast which were still unfortunately present. I could not help but laugh. “ Truly remarkable,” I said to him. “ All that you have told me is gospel truth. I suffered from the cholera while I served with the sappers in Madras, and I was lucky to escape with my life from that dreadful disease. On one point, however, you are slightly at fault. The rank that I held when I was discharged was merely that of corporal.”

  “ Well, I cannot expect to be always correct. I flatter myself that I have a certain talent in this field, but I am as yet a beginner in the science of detection.”

  “ You regard it as a science, then ? ”

  “ Indeed I do. How do you, as a professional, regard it ? ”

  “ It is a matter of painstaking method and hard work. I hardly think that my superiors would find it worthwhile for me to engage in flights of speculative fancy.”

  “ Well, we may agree to disagree on this matter,” he said. “ I believe you wish to consult me on some affair. May I enquire whether this is a police case ? ”

  I gave him the details of the situation, and he listened to me in silence, his fingertips pressed together in a way that I came to know well over the years. At the end of my recital of the facts he spoke.

  “ I take it that you have made no investigations of your own so far ? You have not, for example, examined the document in question—that is to say, the codicil ? ” I shook my head. “ Or visited the dead man’s house, which is currently unoccupied, according to your account ? No ? Then I shall make it my business to do so.”

  “ Before you proceed further with this matter,” I interrupted, “ it will be necessary for me to know what fee you expect to charge for your services.”

  His response to my query was a smile. “ My dear Inspector, I am at present learning my trade. It would be singularly inappropriate for an apprentice to demand financial recompense from a master.”

  You may imagine that I was relieved to hear these words. As Mr. Holmes had deduced, though to this day I am still unsure as to how exactly he had arrived at that conclusion, I was engaged to be married, and money was at that time a matter of some concern to me. Although the Parkins brothers had promised me a share of whatever legacy could be obtained as the result of my efforts, I was not convinced that any such money would be forthcoming.

  The rest of this, my first encounter with Sherlock Holmes, was taken up with providing him with the details of the case as I understood them. At the end of the meeting, he stood up, shook my hand, and assured me that he would let me know of any developments in the case within the next few days.

  In the event, I received a telegram at my office in the Yard the next afternoon.

  “ MEET ME TONIGHT AT 8 SAME RESTAURANT. S. HOLMES.”

  No doubt you, Doctor, have become accustomed over the years to our late friend’s impetu
ous methods of communication. At that time, however, I was unaware of Sherlock Holmes’ predilection for telegrams, and I therefore assumed that this was a matter of extreme urgency and importance.

  I arrived at the restaurant some ten minutes before the appointed hour, and precisely on the stroke of eight, Sherlock Holmes strode into the restaurant and seated himself at the table.

  “ I trust that you are free to accompany me tomorrow morning,” were his first words to me. “ I wish to examine the house of the dead man. Be at Waterloo station at 10 o’clock, and we will make our way to Parkins’ house in Henley together.”

  I was completely taken aback by this request, as well as the abrupt manner in which it was made. “ You cannot expect me to drop my current work and accompany you simply because you wish it,” I said to him. “ You may not be aware, not being a police officer yourself, of the amount of work that accumulates on my desk and the responsibilities that accompany it.”

  “ Not even if it is in the interests of investigating a possible crime ? ” he answered me.

  “ What in the world do you mean by that ? ”

  “ I believe there has been some wrongdoing, but as yet I am unsure as to exactly what crime, if any, has actually been committed, let alone the perpetrator. However, I am reasonably certain that some of the answers lie in the dead man’s house in Henley. I have no right to request entry as a private citizen, but the presence of a police inspector from Scotland Yard should open doors which would otherwise remain locked to me.”