My stomach hurts. Threw up twice during the night. The more I think about it, the stranger the whole affair seems. Think he had a beard, though not even sure about that, average height. That was no ordinary robbery, maybe I saved a life.
Oct 14
Told Fran about everything. We were in her garret room. I like the place, it’s tiny but cozy, and you look out over the roofs. She made me open my shirt, and when she saw the black and blue below my sternum she gasped. “Wait,” she says and runs downstairs. Five minutes later she’s back with a lump of ice wrapped in cloth. Makes me lie back on her bed, places the icepack on the bruise. “How do you feel, Mr. Yankee?” “Like a million pounds.” She laughs and leans forward and kisses me!! I can feel it now! Unfortunately, then she saw where I’ve been injecting myself. Told her I was experimenting with glucose, but I think she didn’t believe me. She may have had some suspicions anyway...
Went back to the alley after lunch. It’s cobble stone, but found a foot print beside a puddle. A sturdy boot would be my guess, could have been his. Took measurements. Then checked by the garbage cans. Found a button, inch in diameter, black, clean - can’t have been there long. Certainly not from the toff’s outfit. A thread through two holes, ragged edges. Where do I go from here?
Oct 15
A wire from the parents. The usual, hope you’re learning a lot, also having a good time, etc. Can tell though something’s on their mind. Probably they’ve heard that I haven’t been showing up to work...
Oct 22
Something going on in this neighborhood. Was walking to the bookstore this morning when I saw some kids standing in a in a yard. “What have you got there?” I call.
“Someone’s killed Rupert,” one shouts. Walked over. There before his kennel lies a German Shepherd with his tongue hanging out in a pool of half-dried blood. Someone had slit his throat. Shook my head and walked on. Didn’t want the kids to see how upset I was. There is a connection between everything that’s happened. H. would see it immediately.
Fran said I need to quit smoking. Maybe she’ll be okay if I lay off the shag tobacco, only cigarettes. Ran into O’Malley on the way back home from her room. Like the old geezer. Told him my girl thought smoking a “beastly habit”. He just throws up his hands. “Give up, son. No man has ever won that fight.” She didn’t mention my injections. Will wire the parents. No intention of going through life without Fran. Don’t think I could anyway. Maybe I shouldn’t even write. Not sure I can handle any back-and-forth. Just let them know afterward, fait accompli.
At this point in my reading the sound of voices made me look up, and I saw Holmes at the door with Phillips, current captain of the Irregulars. Phillips took off his cap and entered, then followed Holmes to a cupboard that houses part of Holmes’s archive, which over the years has grown to occupy every available space in our rooms.
Holmes pulled out three boxes and placed them on the floor. He opened them and nodded.
“Yes, these are the right ones.”
He handed the boy a slip of paper. “This is the name. I’m afraid you’ll have to go through every one of them. We’ll be over at Dombey’s.”
“Yes, sir.”
Holmes turned to me. “Well, Watson, what insights bring your reading?”
“More questions than insights, but you should give this notebook some attention.”
“No doubt. Let me have a synopsis on the way. We need to pay a visit to a local tradesman.”
As I rose to fetch my coat and shoes, I saw Phillips settling himself cross-legged on the floor and begin pulling old newspapers and magazines from the first of the boxes. I knew that one reason why he had risen to his present rank was his ability to read. What name had Holmes given him, I wondered, but I did not ask.
* * *
A few minutes later, we were again walking towards Fitzrovia. It was past four o’clock by now, and the shadows were lengthening. As best I could, I provided Holmes with the salient points of Aherne’s narrative. Holmes interrupted me a number of times to ask questions and then listened silently while puffing at his pipe. We stayed on the main thoroughfare and did not turn off in the direction of Morton Road. Soon we reached a pharmacy with a sign Dombey & Son in green letters above the door.
“Let’s see what the purveyors of rapture have to say, shall we?” said Holmes and pulled open the door.
The tinkling of a bell announced us, and a heavyset man with a mass of tangled white hair looked up from a ledger that lay before him on a mahogany counter. I have always liked the atmosphere of a pharmacy, the warm brown of the paneling, the rows of porcelain jars on the shelves, the scents of cloves, sage, salts, and alcohol. I think of the pharmacy as a place where people go who have left the worst stages of suffering behind, the opposite of the ward with its ceaseless misery.
“Good afternoon, sir,” said Holmes, stepping up to the counter.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
Holmes extracted the flask of cocaine solution from his coat pocket. “I believe you sold this.”
Mr. Dombey took the flask and peered at the label. “Indeed, that’s from us.” He had the gravelly voice of a regular smoker. “Would you like another?”
“No, thank you. This one has come into my possession in the course of an investigation.” Holmes indicated the label. “Seven percent, it states.”
“Investigation? Are you with the police? There is nothing wrong with the bottle. It is properly labeled.”
“No, we’re not members of the force. Please be assured, you stand accused of nothing. However, something is wrong with the label. It does not match the content.”
Mr. Dombey eyed the flask with approval, then us with skepticism.
“It is not a seven-percent solution, but a twenty-percent solution,” Holmes said.
The pharmacist’s eyebrows rose. “Are you sure?”
“You needn’t take my word for it. Please, conduct your own tests. Meanwhile, you will appreciate that a mistaken label bears certain risks...”
Mr. Dombey had turned. “Joseph! Joseph!” he called through an open doorway. “Come here for a moment!”
There was some commotion, and a man stepped through the door who appeared Mr. Dombey reincarnated as a thirty-year old. Dombey Junior had his father’s build, the same features, round face, and florid complexion. The only striking difference was the colour of his hair, a chestnut red, in contrast to his father’s white.
“Joseph,” said Dombey Senior with curt authority. “The gentleman claims this bottle is mislabeled and contains a twenty-percent solution.”
Dombey Junior’s face blanched and he took the flask from his father. “That... that... that can’t be. That would be very dangerous.”
“Quite,” said Holmes.
“But look, how could it be mislabeled? The bottle is half empty, so it has been in use...”
“’Tis a mystery. What is the highest cocaine solution you sell?”
“Ten percent.”
“Are there higher percent solutions that are unavailable to the public, for the use of the professional?”
“There are fifteen- and twenty-percent solutions available from the manufacturer.”
“I understand. May I see your workshop?”
Dombey Junior looked to his father, who shrugged while in the process of lighting a cheroot. The younger man lifted a falling board that formed part of the counter and bade us step forward. Then he led the way through the door by which he had entered. It opened immediately upon a badly lit room. The window blinds were drawn almost to the bottom, a gaslight burned in a corner. There were shelves with rows and rows of labeled glass bottles on the back wall. A pill-making machine lay on a sideboard. A massive oak table occupied the centre of the room. On this table stood a good dozen white ceramic bowls, each with a pestle leaning against th
e side. I glanced into the bowls. All contained powders or crystals of various colours. Evidently, the business of Dombey & Son was thriving.
Holmes’s eyes traversed the room. They fastened on a door with six dull glass panes forming its upper third. He crossed the room and I followed. Through the glass rectangles an overgrown garden became visible in the dusk. The garden stretched back for perhaps thirty yards and ended in a mass of bramble bushes. A path of flagstones wound its way towards them.
Dombey Junior had reached up to a shelf for what looked like a quarter-gallon bottle. He placed it on the table.
“This is our seven-percent solution.”
Holmes stepped back to the table and eyed the bottle with hands crammed into his pockets. “Is this how it comes from the manufacturer or do you produce it yourself?”
“We dilute the twenty-percent solution from the manufacturer.” The chemist had already bustled back to the shelf. He reached down another bottle and now placed it beside the seven-percent solution.
“This is the twenty-percent solution.”
Both bottles were two-thirds full. I have been tempted, but have never tried the drug. I had seen its effects on Holmes in the early days of our friendship and had developed a sense of dread with regard to the substance. There was enough of the poison here, I realised, to kill dozens of men outright.
“I take it the solution, as it comes from the manufacturer, is exactly twenty percent?”
“I believe so.”
“But your own seven-percent solution could be a little higher or lower?”
There came an intake of breath on the part of the junior pharmacist and he looked over my shoulder to his father. “Not at all, sir! Our product is exactly seven percent. I will vouch for that.”
I could tell that Holmes was evaluating the young man’s response, and my friend now nodded, thoughtfully.
“Do you ever sell the twenty-percent solution?”
“We do not.”
“Has anyone ever asked for it?”
“Not to my knowledge.” Again Dombey Junior looked towards his father, who shook his head.
“No one’s ever asked,” he affirmed gruffly.
Abruptly, as if he had made up his mind, Holmes turned and pointed towards the backdoor. “I should like to have a look around your garden, if you don’t mind.”
“Dear me,” said Dombey Senior. “No one’s been through that door since my wife died. The key must be somewhere upstairs.”
Holmes returned to the door and pressed down the handle. It squeaked, he pulled, and the door opened with a scraping sound. A rush of fresh air entered the room.
I looked at the two pharmacists. Both seemed aghast, the younger one more so than the older. Dombey Junior walked over to the door.
“I can’t believe this.”
Dombey Senior exhaled smoke like an ill-tempered dragon. “You must have opened it at some point, Joseph. And then forgotten to lock it again.” His voice had dropped half-an-octave with disappointment.
“No, no, I didn’t. It’s impossible.”
The father waved away his son’s protestations.
Despite what he had just said, Holmes initially seemed little interested in the garden. Rather, he bent forward to peer at the lock. After a second or two, there came a “Hmm...” It was not hard to see what had prompted this sound. Both the doorknob and the lock were covered with a thick layer of rust, but around the keyhole scratches were visible that exposed the underlying steel.
“Someone picked the lock!” exclaimed Dombey Junior.
“It would appear so.”
Holmes righted himself and stepped outside. We all followed. Holmes kept to the flagstones. Twice he stopped to look at a patch of grass to the side, but then moved on without closer inspection. After perhaps ten yards, a black iron gate in a redbrick wall to the side came into view. We walked up to the gate. It was around five feet high and composed of bars and crossbars. Holmes pressed down the handle. The gate was locked. He passed his forefinger along a section of a crossbar and some crumbs of dry earth fell off. Absentmindedly he repeated the movement on the top of the gate, with the same result.
At this moment, we all heard a voice calling from the direction of the house. “’Ello! ’Ello! Anybody ’ere?”
Dombey Senior returned to the garden path. “Boy, this is private property! Get back into the shop and wait your turn!”
“I believe he might be looking for me,” said Holmes, joining the pharmacist. “Phillips, what have you got?”
“I think I found ’im!”
I joined Holmes and Dombey Senior and saw the boy running towards us. He was holding a tabloid paper. As he handed it to Holmes, I recognised it as an issue of that most regrettably melodramatic of press organs, The Illustrated Police News.
“That was quicker than I thought.”
“Maybe I was jus’ lucky, Mr. ’Olmes,” said Philipps, beaming with pride. “Look on page five, Mr. ’Olmes!”
Holmes did as directed and nodded, quietly. Then he passed the paper to me. There was an image of Mr. O’Malley. The face was much younger, but the firemark on his cheek was unmistakable.
* * *
I was still looking at The Illustrated Police News after we had left Dombey & Son. The two pharmacists had come to the door with us. Dombey Senior had returned the bottle of cocaine solution to Holmes, who had given Philipps sixpence, and the boy had run off, presumably to rejoin the other Irregulars and spend this unexpected boon on sweets and lemonade.
“Have you ever had a professional encounter with O’Malley?” I asked as we marched along the pavement.
“Never met him before this morning. That’s why he wasn’t in my files. But I remembered the face. And that nom de guerre.”
“Merely from this?” I lifted the tabloid. The picture in question was in fact only one of a good dozen, admittedly well-executed, drawings. They were grouped under a shrieking headline, Cracksmen and Fences of London. O’Malley’s portrait had a caption: Red Paddy, Menace of the East End.
“Memorable, no? I was rather taken aback when I could not recall the exact publication. Middle-age is upon us, Watson.”
I did not comment. The paper was from 1882, which made it almost twenty years old.
My eyes dropped to the box of prose that accompanied O’Malley’s picture:
A crafty Irish rascal, well-known to sell any kind of loot, also a smuggler and cracksman. Spent two years in The Steel before breaking out. Probably he skedaddled to Ireland. Scotland Yard made our city too hot for him.
The street lamps were on by the time we once again turned into Morton Road. As we walked up to the door of No. 89, it opened and the gaunt figure of Mrs. Henslow stood on the threshold.
The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part X Page 34