The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part IV

by David Marcum

  “I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I was looking for a match.”

  “We have a-plenty!” Holmes proclaimed. “Come and sit! I presume you are here to bathe your bones against the cold?”

  “Aye, and then some.” Gregson complied and joined us in idle talk, for my friend is most jocular under the roof of the Hammam. My attention was soon drawn to his pipe. It was admirably cut meerschaum in the form of a brilliant white flower.

  Gregson noted my attention and smiled a little bashfully, but clearly proud of his prize.

  “My wife’s family,” he explained. “They can make some of the finest carvings in stone you ever saw. This was her nephew’s exhibition piece for his Journeyman Examination.” He passed the pipe over to Holmes, who took it eagerly, and turned it back and forth in his long, nervous fingers with the appreciative comments of a tobacconist’s passion. “His assignment was to make a fine, delicate thing that would also appeal to a man in good company.”

  “And he chose the gladiolus flower with you in mind, of course.”

  Gregson blinked. “However are you so sure?”

  “You normally smoke cheap penny-cigarettes when you are working, or when you are in company of a higher rank, one of the fine Spanish cigarillos that you keep in a separate tin with the bands removed. I can truthfully say that, though we have always seen you enjoy tobacco, I have never seen you with a pipe; therefore it would be a gift, and it is a fine one. The gladiolus is a well-established emblem of strength and moral integrity, and that would be an excellent description of you, Gregson.”

  Our friend turned deep red and was momentarily flustered, for this was his first experience with the human and amiable Sherlock Holmes in the baths. “I’ve often said your talents are on the side of the angels, and that’s just as well,” he said with a slow grin. “It is true. My nephew hoped to make something that I would use. He feels overly grateful that I helped his parents back in the day. I honour his efforts and do smoke from it, but not often. It is a fine piece and I would hate to ruin it.”

  “But you are troubled, and went to the baths in the hopes of thinking in private, away from the distraction of home or the Yard.”

  “It is hardly worth troubling you.”

  “Come, come.” Holmes had leaned half-forward upon his couch. He reached out his long arm, nearly as pale as the sheets about his lean frame, and his fingers wagged in a half-playful scold. I thought his high brow and aquiline nose added to his surroundings. We three could have easily been ancient Romans taking the waters at Sulis and debating amongst its vapours.

  Gregson caught himself with a laugh that was half-embarrassed, half-admiring. “Well, I shan’t waste your time.” He sucked on his pipe for a moment, and I watched as his yellow brows drew together in concentration. “Some of us have better things to do.”

  “Such as write speeches for the appeasement of the news,” Holmes chided. “Tut-tut! It is clear that your blunder into our room is for the better. I am in peril of rusting for lack of a proper challenge.”

  “And you think I can give it to you?” With comical bafflement, Gregson looked from Holmes to me, and back to Holmes again. “Well, Mr. Holmes, I’m not that fool, Lestrade. I’ve learned that he who argues with you does so at his own peril, but I hate to think of what your time has been like if you believe my little problem is worth your attention.”

  “De minimis non curat lex,” Holmes murmured.

  “De nihilo nihili.”

  We laughed, but our amusement was swiftly stilled upon Gregson’s pallbearer-gloom.

  “Very well,” he said at length. “If you would not object...?” He rose and placed the privacy sign upon the door.

  I sat up, my lethargy forgotten as I traded a look with Holmes. He, too, was erect and rigid, his fine white fingers traipsing upon the folds at his knees.

  “It actually started at a bath-house a few weeks ago,” the inspector began, “But not one such as this. We have several people here and there who are good for giving us useful information from what they see or hear in their everyday lives. Mrs. Lily Sword is one of our best informants from the Covent Garden area - would you happen to know her, Mr. Holmes? Doctor? No? That’s not surprising. London is a large city.

  “It is Mrs. Lily’s habit to sell her flowers at a spot she’s won by the pillar-box wall up at the Garden. She has a bright trade of it, odd as it is to think that a flower-dame could make a living and be respectable. She sells flowers for christenings, and that cools any nonsense from the customers, a penny a bundle; split posies for half.

  “At the end of her day she goes to the bath-house for women at the end of Boche Lane - I’m sure you know which one I mean, Mr. Holmes. A pair of mastiffs guard their reputations, and they have chewed their share of fools.

  “At threepence, she hires out a session and whatever tools she needs to set her hair and clean the clothes she’s wearing. She claims it guarantees good clients, for who wants to buy for their infant’s christening from a dirty hand? As she steams and her clothes are cleaned, she passes on her gleanings of information to the matron, who has a relative at the Yard. I tell you, the whole system is unorthodox and peculiar, but we can’t argue with our results. She gives good information, and watches out for the other informers on the street. It is because of her ilk that we have prevented many a crime, and most of us would rather pay out of our pockets for her assistance than not have it and not know what is really going on. And why shouldn’t we? Man is foolish, Mr. Holmes, and he talks.”

  Here Gregson paused. Under his calm I could see a deep agitation mixed with anger.

  “Two weeks ago, two gentlemen came up to purchase apples from a passing cart close by her post. They were talking amongst themselves, but as they walked by her, she clearly heard one of them say, ‘London cannot hide a half-melted wolf forever.’”

  At these words my pulse thrilled. Holmes had been listening with his eyes closed and lips pressed against the tips of his folded fingers, but now his eyes had snapped open.

  “Yes.” Gregson mourned. “We are speaking of the recently stolen Wolf of Britannia.”

  “Recent, but not wholly accurate,” Holmes said not unkindly.

  The Yarder flinched as though Holmes had struck him across the face.

  “Ah, my apologies!” Holmes leaned forward. “I am aware that the Yard keeps certain details of crime to themselves in confidence, hoping that it will expose a criminal. I bait my own traps this way.”

  “Yes, well...” Gregson swallowed. “It isn’t something we’re proud of, you know!” He complained. “Get caught not telling the truth and it looks bad for us all.”

  “One cannot catch a fox by holding a chicken in the hand. One must walk away from the prize and let the fox believe it is stealing from you.” Holmes set aside his pipe and drew his legs up like a fakir, curling his lean arms about his folded knees like so much ivy. “The archaeological find of the century was discovered in an ancient well, doubtless cast for safe-keeping by its owners as they fled before the sack of Boudicca, for there was the infamous layer of burnt clay that indicates that bloody moment in time.” He chuckled. “The face was half-melted from the heat of the Queen’s fires upon Londinium - a blaze so great, it has been said, that the Great Fire of London could be compared to a mere house-blaze. Almost as hot is the quarreling at the London Historical and Cultural Museum, Watson! They feel one confirmed victory in discovery is carte blanche to dig up the entire street - an opinion not shared with the city’s engineers, but the horrendous rains have put nearly all acts of civil engineering to a standstill.”

  “You know this much? You may know more than any of us!” Gregson fretted. He smoked in tight-lipped silence a moment, and I could see how his bright blue eyes were dull with weariness. “Based on the description of the men provided, we identified them, and that led to greater trouble. These are known and
respectable men. Why would they stand silent upon the presence of a crime? Why steal and then keep something so priceless to oneself? Of course we could ask them, but unless we can prove their identities and then catch them with the wolf, that is not likely to happen. They will deny everything to save face, and that of their family, friends, and connexions.”

  “You can hardly declare them on flimsy evidence,” Holmes pointed out. “Why do you believe that the speaker in question is a thief or party to the theft? Obviously you have already suspected him of similar actions in the past. You are a professional. You do not look for fish inside a tree.” Although he was smiling lightly with his eyes half-closed, I could tell he was refreshed and eager for this case in a way his smaller cases did not give. “You want my help, Gregson. There is no shame in it.”

  “Shame, no. I’m not Lestrade. And my superiors are nervous. It is ugly work. I’m not allowed to bring anyone from outside in... at least, not get caught doing it. There is too much risk.”

  “I am listening.”

  Gregson gnawed on his pipestem. “I shall need a guarantee,” he said firmly. “From you and from Doctor Watson, I beg your pardon.” He said this so reluctantly that I wondered anew what thoughts plagued him. “As I said, I am not Lestrade. I do things in a way that has proved correct to me.”

  “You have my guarantee, and I believe Watson’s as well.”

  “That you do,” I said, for though I was not certain I understood the meaning, it was clear that Holmes did, and I trusted him to guide this murky mystery.

  Gregson slumped in relief. “I am glad of it. I will send our report by tonight if that is convenient. Time may be of the essence, sirs.” With a final nod, the big man rose to his feet. “And if you’ll excuse me, I shall go on and enjoy my steam.”

  “Holmes,” I asked when we were alone, “What is this guarantee?”

  “Our friend is willing to overlook the smaller details if it means a successful end to a case. It is interesting that he has mentioned Lestrade so often. What would be your theory?”

  “I thought nothing of it. He frequently disparages Lestrade. I first noticed it over the Lauriston Gardens Mystery.”

  “And they were working together at the time.”

  “They are working together again?” It was a feeble guess, but my answer came in the form of one of Holmes’s slow, silent laughs. His thin shoulders trembled and his eyes opened to regard me, sparkling with mischief.

  “Rarely have I been so entertained outside of the occasions when the Yard’s two greatest rivals are placed upon the same case. Gregson was not openly saying it, even as he wished me to know it! Well, well! I look forward to his report. We have another two hours here and I shall enjoy it to the utmost! Home for Baker Street and supper?”

  With that odd comment, Holmes shut his eyes and he rested, content for the rest of our visit. I considered the particulars of the case.

  As Holmes said, it was no ordinary crime when Lestrade and Gregson were together. Both were formidably jealous of each other’s meretricious successes, but willing to put aside their differences for important cases. Gregson was one of the few policemen capable of seeing Holmes’s mental powers. He did it with the skill and understanding of an intelligent man who may recognize the greater quality in another. He was also capable of calmly manipulating people to get his goals, whilst Lestrade would still be protesting Holmes’s lack of compassion or calling his actions cruel. I had no idea what the true nature of this matter would be once its outer layers were peeled away.

  “You are studious, Watson.” Holmes did not open his eyes, but his thin lips almost curled, and I could tell he was both thinking and collating within his brain. “What do you recall of the Wolf?”

  I pride myself on a good memory, but though I combed through my recollections, I could recall nothing unusual in the newspapers. “Anyone who lives in London must eventually accept the fact that their beloved city was once a Roman necropolis. Statues are not the least to be unearthed. There are lost wells and rivers, forgotten bones of marble temples buried under centuries of road, and of course, cemeteries.

  “I recall more details than what is usual for me, Holmes. My publisher was hoping I would add an essay of non-fiction on the subject for his magazine, but I was too pressed for time to oblige him. There is a dearth of interesting materials in the papers regarding the Wolf, but The London Regale, which can be relied upon to produce news from the Museum, was a steady source of information.”

  “As the paper is partially owned by one of the Museum’s chairmen, I should hope so,” Holmes interrupted.

  “I was getting to that, Holmes.”

  “Do not let me stop you. Pray continue.”

  “Early this spring, before the rains, there was a tragic fire along the Bodkin Mews. The citizens of East London felt it inevitable: it had been left forgotten by a succession of railways and left crooked and crumbling for the last half of the century. Once the worst of the rubble was cleared, the owners decided to sell the strip of land to The London Regale, as the paper was in severe wont for a new office. It was in re-building the connecting road that a timber-shafted square well was exposed.

  “It is an odd fact that the Romans had the ingenuity for building square wells, and this was what led the diggers to alert the inspectors and news reporters. Before the dusk of that day, they were pulling up not just charred timbers and warped nails, but the preserved plank used to line the well, fragments of its chalk coating, bones, and glazed pottery. It was in seizing the latter that a man was pulling up what he thought was a clay statue of a toothed monster, and found himself with an unwieldy lump of black metal, much crusted with the detritus of time and baked clay.

  “This lump was soon named the Wolf of Britannia, and the Museum collected it under its learned bosom. Its actual appearance was difficult to explain, for only a few muddy photographs and one hasty cartoon were released to the public. Of course, we were eager to know more, but the viewing was twice delayed for cleaning, and rumours flew that the wolf had been stolen. When the curtains were finally raised, fresh gossip emerged after the satisfaction of the first day: That the wolf they were seeing was a copy, and not the one seen to emerge dripping from that dark well. This was vociferously countered by the Museum’s reminder to the public that a cleaned item often bears little resemblance to its original form. Abashed, and not wanting to argue with the likes of the Museum, the wags faltered. Real or not, there is a Wolf of Britannia on display, and the public tongue is slowly finding other targets to wag over. This was no mean feat of fate, and many hope to return to examining the well - but with the well-known soaking of rain it has been declared impossible, for the well was discovered to be connected to one of the Lost Rivers. (The Black Ditch is currently the best candidate). Excavation has been postponed until the water-table has lowered.”

  Holmes was laughing throughout my recital, and finally recovered enough breath to pluck his pipe away in order to speak: “With age you have grown sharp with mellow overtones - like a fine wine that can only ripen into a comet vintage. Bravo, Watson!”

  I was surprised at his praise but also cautious. “I am uncertain if I deserve your praise, for I was only relaying what was in the papers.”

  “Which is what I needed. I have little patience for the overly desiccated and parched articles of hoary old academics!” Holmes returned to his pipe for a few hearty puffs as the embers were brought back to life. “My enemies watch the public venues and I must do the same. It is half-courtesy, half-intelligence.”

  “Holmes, I am sure I do not understand you.”

  “And I am equally sure that you will.”

  We walked home to find the foul weather gone, in the treacherous ways of London, as if it had never been. Holmes hooked his arm through mine and hummed arias as we passed drifts of leaves and rubbish piled into the gleaming wet gutters and against the hems
of the buildings like so many skirt-ruffles. Here and there, a scrap of starlight peeped through the smoky firmament. The great city had grown quiet and reflective. Our favourite telegraph office was the only hub of excitement, as reporters scurried back and forth like so many bees to wire their editors on the latest triumphs of the stage. The operas and theatres were open, and we passed through groups of earnest young patrons speaking of their arts as they lifted their gloves for cabs. These men, strutting in their finest like anxious peacocks, were a pleasant sight, and we slowed to better enjoy it. Vendors ran up with sweets and trinkets, hoping to ensure each swain’s favour with his lady. A charms-hawker limped in and out of the milling crowd, and, in the outer ring of light beneath the lamp-post, huddled the less savoury element whose salesmanship interfered with the full approval of the law.

  I was turning to admire the entrepreneurial spirit of a bootblack who polished canes with shoes when my eye was caught by a small woman standing by a pillar-box. Against each knee rested two large baskets overburdened with creamy blossoms, well wrapped in paper against withering chills. In the gloom, she wore dove-grey trimmed with delicate blue, and a lock of hair almost as white as the men’s boiled shirt-fronts peeped out from the edge of her cloth cap.

  I nudged my companion to look.

  “Gregson does not waste time,” Holmes approved. “I daresay he left his bath before us, and designed an impromptu meeting.”

  “Perhaps this is one of her usual areas?”

  “We would remember such a flower-seller, Watson. She clearly wants to be seen.” With no more warning, he turned and strode to the tiny woman, his fingers around a coin. “Halloa! I see you have violets.”

  “White violets, sir!” Was the reproachful reply. “Proper for christenings an’ funerals both.”

  “And very thrifty.”