The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part IV

by David Marcum

  “You are early, Watson,” he said without looking up. “Come in. I left you a path to the table, and the tea ought to be hot. Mrs. Hudson just brought it up in one of her noble attempts to keep me alive.”

  Holmes’s humour could be at times unexpected and unfathomable when his head was full of unusual details. I crept to the tea and warmed myself as I watched my friend muse upon the sea of print.

  “Was your morning productive?” I asked after nearly a quarter-hour had passed without a word.

  Holmes’s snort of derision would have shamed a wild ass.

  “One might say so, Watson.” He fingered his cold pipe but did not fill it. “I have met four informative gentlemen in your absence.”

  “I thought you were joining Gregson at the morgue to examine Rees’ body.”

  “And so was I. But not before encountering a duo of Thuggee from the Foreign Office.” Holmes clicked his pipe-stem against his teeth. “You would not know them, Watson. Messiers Arkwright and Tracy. Both are quite large and prefer to blend in with their surroundings by dressing in a tasteful palette of greys approaching the same hues of London Brick. It is symbolically appropriate for their intellect. I consider them in the crowd of Steve Dixie as far as intent goes, but they are hardly as harmless or in possession of his quiet temperament.”

  One never heard of Steve Dixie in such terms, although it was true that Holmes had a unique rapport with the blow-damaged fighter of the Jago. “Did they threaten you, Holmes?”

  “Oh, certainly not! Not a hair upon my precious and greatly-admired head was harmed. They simply meant to reassure me that my health would continue in its astoundingly excellent form.” Holmes plucked up another photograph and scowled at it. “It was a poor attempt to intimidate me, I, who have been faced with their betters when I was half their age! I weep for the quality of hired persuasion, Watson. The Foreign Office is losing its fine and delicate touch, and it says something for the absolute light-and-shadow dance they are conducting, for by this point we were noticed by the constable on the beat.” Holmes patted the truncheon at his ankle. “Against his obtuse belligerence for unlawfully meeting in parties of three or more upon the property of the Yard, they backed down. When they were long gone, the good gentleman of the badge insisted I take this with me, on the grounds that my famous riding-crop would be of little use to a ‘pair o’ skulls sae thick they work fra’ likes o’ That Place.’ Really, Watson, I must remember this professional rivalry between the Home and Foreign Offices. It could be useful it I ever need to incite a mob.”

  I felt that if I did not gain some clarity of Holmes’s day, my head would burst. “What did Gregson say?”

  “Ah, I have gotten ahead of myself - Gregson was called in for questioning by the Foreign Office before we could meet. That is partially the reason why I had such a noble meeting with their men: It is Sir Reginald’s one sally against the Home Office’s arrest of Amscott.”

  “But this is terrible!”

  “He will stay in their questionable custody until this business with the Wolf is either discreetly buried or openly revealed to the light of day. At this point, I cannot say which outcome is preferred by those good men, but I, for one, am prejudicial to any outcome that makes Gregson’s release and Lestrade’s discovery a priority.”

  “How can they place him in their custody? This is the Foreign Office!”

  “Precisely, Watson! They have tipped their hand to me in all of this by seizing him! In their efforts to keep me from his information, they have reassured me this case is far more important than they ever wanted me to know.”

  “What of Mycroft?”

  Holmes was silent for nearly a minute before he replied. “They obviously wish me to go to him. And so I shall not.”

  “But Gregson and Lestrade...”

  “They will not harm Gregson, merely prevent his freedom in their mistaken belief that he will bow to their wills. Lestrade remains an improbable until he is revealed. I am versed in these foolish little ways of the Foreign Office, Watson. Their attempts at subtlety and craft are as atrocious as the German Court, but I must pretend they are as cunning as they think they are - I prefer my opponents predictable.”

  “Could not Mycroft help you at all? He has no taste for corruption, and the Foreign Office is his bailiwick.”

  “It is no light thing to involve Mycroft, Watson. I daresay he knows what is going on, but I shall not plea for his help in the chance that could easily place his own standing in jeopardy. For some years, there has been a delicate mythology that I must hie to him over the smallest political confabulations. This calumny has been convenient to both of us, but ultimately we are our own men. There are jealousies amidst this case that make Lestrade and Gregson’s silly antagonism look like a charity boxing between the Golden Dawn and the Freemasons.”

  “I believe I understand. For reasons we cannot yet fully fathom, there is an unusual need to find the Wolf as discreetly as possible, and if we do not know the reasons, we may give it foolishly to the wrong parties.”

  “Ah, you have learned from our previous work for the government - notice I did not say the Crown itself. We may have to communicate with the King before this day is done, Watson.”

  “However can you manage that?” I cried.

  “Simplicity itself. He recently reminded me that his worthy mother’s offer of knighthood shall remain in perpetuity. I could use that as an excuse to see him.”

  Holmes looked up and laughed long and loudly at what he saw on my face. From what little of myself I could glimpse in the silver teapot, I deserved this reaction.

  “Or I could respectfully use the audience to assure him there are far worthier knights in waiting.”

  “That might be wise,” I agreed faintly.

  “Well! This was a pleasant side-trip, but the fact is, I could do very little. The Morgue Attendant is a cheerful little fellow, for all that he is recently severed from smoking, and he was quite talkative as long as I was employing my pipe to keep the noxious fumes of his trade away. Mr. Rees was indeed crushed between the car and the omnibus, Watson. To be precise, one of the new French steam-cars, a la Serpollet. I was soon able to convince the staff that I was going to suit poor Mr. Rees properly for his funeral, and in order to get his proper measurements (for the body is indeed in sorry shape,) I was able to collect his clothing and such tiny things upon his person.” He waved at the large cardboard box.

  I knelt on the floor and picked up one of the photos. “I am always impressed that an untinted black-and-white photograph has the ability to draw out the lightest contusions and make them clear to the eye.”

  “That is because you are seeing the tones. Colour is quite often a distraction to what is really there.” Holmes selected three more photos from the collection and passed them over. “What do you think of your Brother of the Blade?”

  “What do I hope to see?”

  “Anything that would seem strange or out of place. Albeit ‘strange’ seems to be the order of this case.”

  I looked at the sad remnants. The medal of the Crimean Campaign rested against the suit’s lapel. My military eye had identified the Dunnock’s egg-blue ribbon with distinctive willowgreen stripe. It was so well kept it shone like new minting, yet the clothing that bore it was all for pride with no substance beneath. “The poor fellow.” I said with feeling. “To go from honourable discharge with his wounds to an ignominious end against two machines.” I reached out to touch the sleeve, and the cheap ink came off in my fingertips.

  “A shabby-genteel can go to great lengths to hide his lack of affluence, Watson. You may see here how three separate suits created his final ensemble, all dyed with the low, water-soluble stuff that lasts no more than a day or two of common walking. He wore copious smallclothes to hide the stains from his skin, but how he must have feared damage from the raindrop! Too poor for stocki
ngs; they would have worn too far for the darner’s needles some time ago. See how the cuffs are frayed to lint at the ankles! And here, the marks of the tyres that ended his frail life. The wooden finish to the car’s sides are embedded into his clothing and helped crack his ribs and walking-stick to splinters. No amount of washing could remove these lines. His collar and cuffs were cleverly fashioned of paper whitened with rice flour, and the buttons soaked in ink overnight to hide the fact that none of them match.

  “What man may do, Watson, for pride? You may see his unfortunate ilk in the libraries or any warm social gathering in the city where the entrance fee is small to non-existent. They nibble stale rolls for nourishment, or nurse their one cup of tea or coffee in their hands as long as possible for the warmth to soothe cold-chapped hands, and drink, one sip at a time, hoping to fool their empty stomachs of full meals. They live the meanest of lives, yet they are content with their small victories of food and warmth. They will spend their time even sociably, reading the news or returning to the classics; the scrap of a violinist’s experiments upon the decks is a guaranteed expression of bliss. These harmless souls would never lift a finger against another, for they patiently endure the silent scorn of their more-fortunate fellows.” Holmes’s expression was stormy, for his logical mind could never quite reconcile with contradictions of Man.

  For some reason his expression reminded me of one of the rare common grounds he shared with Lestrade: the two were both humanitarian, yet each man had his own unique way of expressing their values. By contrast rested Gregson, who painted all humans with the same equilateral brush for good or for ill.

  “He still had purpose, Holmes.”

  “Of that we may be certain, but what a poor end, Watson, for a man who had hoped to join his father’s police force when he was finished serving the Crown. It was not a complicated dream, and yet it was fragile against a crippling shard to the leg that ruined his right foot.”

  “He died a soldier, Holmes.” I barely heard my own voice as I spoke, but Holmes of course heard me. I studied the clothing hard, hoping to find a clue. “He was crushed as you said. Like an insect.” The photographs showed a mire of bruises and broken bones and distended organs. We were seeing these tragedies more and more often, as metal machines became the conveyance and the loyal horse went to the farms. As always, I swallowed outrage at the loss of life being the price for progression. Amscott’s hand may not have deliberately snuffed out this frail spark, but metal and mass always won against the impact of flesh and blood. As a solider, I flattered myself that I knew this more than most - as if any war would be different from the next.

  As a medical man, I was curious as to how Rees could have walked with his withered foot, so I searched among the floor for an image of his feet. “But what is this, Holmes? I thought the man was a veteran?”

  “He was indeed.”

  “Then how he could walk?” I turned the photo around. “These stripes here, cut cruelly into the flesh of his feet. Those are foot-wrap wounds! I saw plenty of them in my service days, but only among the novices and green recruits who did not know how to wrap properly. If he was as poor as the papers say, he would have been far more likely to use foot-wraps instead of stockings.”

  Holmes’s grey eyes narrowed to knife-blades, and he grabbed up my photograph along with three others. “Do you know, you are right, Watson!” He twisted like a fish and dropped the heavy box between us. After a moment’s digging he produced two squares of grimy cloth, one much larger and thinner than the other. It had been folded over thrice, for the creases remained in the cloth.

  I felt a stab of pity, for these dirty cloths were how Rees had been able to walk with some semblance of normal motion. Not only were the foot-wraps in need of a sturdy washing, the one that was doubled-up had been the cause of cutting into his feet. Here and there were drops of blood, and spotty smears of some dark material speckled the once-clean cloth.

  “Now that is curious, Watson.” Holmes mused. “I have examined every article myself but saw nothing. It is because you, a fellow soldier, saw something you and Rees would both understand, that my world is enlightened. I told the Yard they needed to spend a year doing nothing but study - would a year be enough without the experience?” Before I could speak he turned to me again. “As a soldier, what are all the possible causes for this injury?”

  “Perhaps not carelessness.” Now that I thought about it, I was reluctant to paint my unfortunate fellow veteran in a poor light. “I have seen similar wounds in the field when men were caught by surprise. One must move quickly to avoid the enemy. Hastily-wrapped feet can undo in a few hours. Perhaps this is the cause, for he appears to have well-built callouses and thickened skin about the pads and arches of his feet.”

  “I assure you he was properly designed for walking, uneven as his gait may be. His skin was like the hide off a Swiss cow.”

  “But even if I can solve that riddle, Holmes, I cannot understand why his wraps are dirty! That is one reason why the soldiers use them over stockings in the first place - easily worn, easily removed, easily washed and dried at a mere fraction of the time required to dry stockings.”

  “Allow me to think on it. Summon Mrs. Hudson, would you? It is time for supper.”

  I ate and browsed through the papers again while Holmes continued his perusal of the foot wraps. It was late, and I was reaching for my last pipe when Holmes leapt to his feet. To my alarm he had the foot-wraps around his lean forearm like so much ivy.

  “Watson, see!”

  With that exclamation he catapulted to the table and held out his arm. I was shocked to see that, coiled around his arm, the cloth wrappings settled the markings of dirt and grime into connected letters. For the dirt was not dirt so much as the marks of a fat grease-pencil. Now that some letters were connected, I could read:

  T H K... F MQ

  “What do you think, Watson?” Holmes’s eyes sparkled with mischief and mirth.

  “Gregson’s message!” I exclaimed. “Is it a scytale, Holmes?”

  “A scytale indeed! But like all scytales, what we need is the right stick to go with it.” Holmes picked up his stout walking-stick and wrapped the cloth around the stem, and before our eyes a different string of letters appeared:

  G D U F M W W B CK TL

  “I had hopes,” Holmes murmured, “That we could use my stick. Poor Mr. Rees’ own cane is splintered to shards and foolishly thrown away. It would have been a reasonable gauge.”

  “This is quite brilliant, Holmes! Who would think to create a secret message using an old trick from ancient Greece?”

  “Gregson. He is the smartest of the lot, but knowing the risk of discovery, he added a second layer of cleverness to it.” Holmes held out the wrapping, and let it drape loose. “What he did was wrap the cloth around an assortment of different sticks, each varied in length and width. Unless we find the corresponding stick for his use, we shall not find the real message. The question is, what sort of stick would Gregson have at hand?”

  It is rare that I have a moment of reasoning on par with Holmes. It is even rarer that Holmes and I experience this moment at the same time. As one we turned to the humble policeman’s truncheon propped by the fire.

  With flying fingers, Holmes snatched up the truncheon. My heart pounded with a new excitement as Holmes lined up the cloth code from the bound handle, and from there spiraled it upwards.

  For the first time, we could see a clear message:

  WHEN SHALL HE BE RICH?

  My heart sank. “I do not understand the message.”

  Holmes frowned, tapping his bare foot against the carpet. His brow cleared without warning. With an exclamation he ran to his room. “Watson, get your coat!”

  We hastened out, and despite the lateness of the hour found a cab. “To The Prince of Shoreditch!” Holmes threw up a sovereign and promised him another if he
could make good time and to avoid anyone who appeared they might be following us. The driver was an old client of ours, so he took this as a personal challenge and tossed us back and forth like plum-pits against the sides of the cab as I imagined our possible fate before another driver such as Amscott. There was no breath to spare to ask Holmes why he was so certain.

  My friend sat taut as a spring, with the truncheon in his lap and the foot-wraps stuffed tightly within his coat pockets. Excitement quivered in his white face, but I was well versed in his ways and I knew when he was concerned about something I could not see.

  We stopped after a bruising half-hour and limped out to throw up the rest of the promised fare. Holmes vowed him a full crown if he would be willing to wait for us, but if his services were not needed he would pay him for his time when he emerged.

  I struggled to follow after Holmes, for my limbs were stiff from the ride. How I wish I could give the true powers of the moment, for I saw my friend, nothing less than The Great Detective, striding on his long legs to a glowingly lit inn beneath a broadly painted prince in piebald, holding a spilling money purse in each hand. Despite the proximity of the establishment to this side of East London, it was clean enough to please a sailor. Temperance coffees or Adam’s Ales were advertised in loud paint upon the walls. Tall vases of white flowers with an occasional blotch of red or blue in the patterns of the Union Jack sparkled before mercury-backed mirrors, and a gasolier gleamed without a speck of dust. Before this fascinating court, populated with curious sailors in hues of white, black, blue, and grey, Holmes walked as naturally as a Lord entering his own realm. All heads turned at his entrance, and he took their regard as proudly as accolades.

  “Two coffees, if you please!” Holmes announced loudly, and sank into a spot by the mirror-backed bar. “It is a bitter time to be out!”