Thirty-Nine Steps from Baker Street

by J. R. Trtek

  “I fret over the jigsaw puzzle here in London,” he said with amusement. “Only to learn that Hannay, recuperating in his dugout in France, has confirmed a key piece almost without effort.”

  He threw his coat and hat upon a chair, covering the stacks of books and clippings already piled there.

  “And it is both remarkable and delightful!” he exclaimed. “Though I am humbled by my negligence, I am overjoyed that our quest is suddenly advanced by countless leagues.”

  I set aside pen and paper and turned to address my friend. “To which quest do you refer?” I asked. “The search for the plump man or the uncovering of your missing head of Cerberus? And what piece do mean?”

  “Insofar as quests are concerned, either or both,” replied Holmes. “And it is this piece,” he said, tossing down a folded newspaper before me.

  “What am I supposed to notice?” I asked. I picked up the paper and stared at the page, which contained headlines and text that were overshadowed by a huge advertisement whose subject I immediately recalled from memory.

  “Gussiter’s Deep-breathing System,” I read. “The silly device that was advertised on the matchbook taken from the man hit by that taxicab.”

  “The very same.”

  “An apparatus that is ‘a cure for every ill, mental, moral, or physical that man can suffer’?” I said, quoting from the advertisement. “What does this add to your plate? And how did Hannay even catch notice of it?”

  “Because of these cousins,” said Holmes, reaching for his discarded coat to withdraw from a large pocket three more newspapers, all of them German. He laid them out before me, folded in such a manner to display advertisements which, though not in English, were accompanied by an illustration almost identical to that in the first paper.

  “My word!”

  “The Frankfurter Zeitung, Volkstimmes, and Volkszeitungs,” said Holmes, naming each of the publications in turn.222 “All of them carry the advertisement. Oh, the name of the company in these is Weissmann rather than Gussiter, and there are choice quotations from Schiller that you won’t find in the English versions, but they are all clearly from the same source. Bullivant is attempting to ferret out where this Gussiter or Weissmann business originates, and I believe he’s put Blenkiron onto the scent as well.”

  “But what could be the significance to all this?”

  “Communication, as suggested earlier by the matchbook alone,” replied Holmes. “The advertising text varies from one to the next in the German publications as the weeks progress. The same is true of those English newspapers in which the corresponding displays appear.”

  I thought for a moment. “And you believe that these advertisements contain coded messages?”

  “I think it is certain. You see, British agents have been doing much the same thing in Dutch newspapers, planting advertisements there that contain coded messages in order to get their information to our people here in Britain.223

  “Insofar as these advertisements are concerned, I will attempt to draw out any such messages as I can. The samples are few and short, but by comparing them to that display on the inside cover of the matchbook, I believe there is a chance of success. For the moment, it is enough to establish that messages are conveyed by this means, even if we cannot yet read them.”

  “And you say that Hannay came across all this?” I said, pointing at the foreign newspapers.

  “Yes,” said Holmes. “His division has been embroiled in the current campaign,224 but he came down with another bout of malaria, such as troubled him when he was on the run in Galloway three years ago. While convalescing in a dugout, he began reading a number of old newspapers, including some German ones sent him by our fellows in Intelligence—Hannay is fluent in German, if you recall.

  “It was then that he noticed the repeated appearance of these deep-breathing advertisements in our papers as well as those of the enemy. He got to speculating and communicated those thoughts to Bullivant, who recalled my mention of the matchbook and conveyed Hannay’s discovery.

  “There is certainly something to it, Watson, though at this point one cannot say if these advertisements for Gussiter’s Deep-breathing apparatus might be a message system for our Mr. Moxon Ivery or the third head of Cerberus—or perhaps both. But now that we have full appreciation of it, thanks to General Hannay, there will be no letting go.”

  § § §

  Two days later, I returned home from a general staff meeting, one of the few occasions when my superfluous position with the medical corps required me to absent Queen Anne Street. Entering the sitting room, I saw Holmes studying a large map of London that overflowed the breakfast table.

  “The Nemesis has been sighted at last,” my friend said without prologue, looking up from the chart.

  “By Tatty Evans and Old George?”

  “Yes. And not once, but twice in the same day. Come here and let me relate their observations.”

  I put aside my valise of documents and removed my military cap. Stepping to Holmes’s side, I saw before me a depiction of the river and bands two miles wide on either side of the waters, stretching from Twickenham all the way to the Estuary.

  “It was here,” revealed Holmes, pointing on the map toward the Isle of Dogs. “Just opposite the West India Docks, where the Belisama caught sight of our Nemesis.”225

  “Twice, you say?”

  “Yes. Recall that Master Evans had begun his search much farther to the east, without success, but at regular intervals, according to my recommendation, he has been anchoring his barge at points progressively to the west of that starting point. Yesterday, he espied the Nemesis heading east. About one hour later, the launch reappeared, this time cruising in the opposite direction.” He glanced at the clock. “I am awaiting word from him regarding another possible appearance today.”

  I looked at the map for a moment and then said, “But not from the same point of observation.”

  The detective smiled. “Correct, Watson. Having determined that the Nemesis does not ply the waters to the extreme east, we can conclude that between that region and Evans’s position of yesterday lies either the place where the launch moors or a point of interest for her.”

  “A headquarters or storage place?”

  “I have entertained such possibilities.”

  Just then, our doorbell rang, and Holmes looked at me with an expectant smile. Moments later, Martha appeared, an envelope in her hand.

  “A commissionaire226 just brought this to the door, sir,” she said as Holmes crossed the sitting room to accept the letter from her. Before she left, the woman asked, “Now that you are home, Colonel, may I have cook complete dinner preparations and serve within the hour?”

  “The half hour, if you like,” I replied as Holmes tore open the envelope. Martha departed down the hallway, and I watched my friend’s face for an indication of the nature of the message.

  His smile told the tale soon enough.

  “Tatty Evans has located the eastern mooring point of the Nemesis,” Holmes declared, tossing the note down upon the map.

  I stepped to the map, and my friend pointed to a spot near its centre.

  “It is here,” said Holmes. “Just south of the gasworks.”

  “The gasworks. The parts of your elephant begin to coalesce,” I said before leaving to dress for dinner.

  * * *

  210 The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, ran between July and November of 1917. The Allies sought to take control of ridges to the south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres and, in so doing, disrupt the railroad network supplying the German army, as well as break through to the coast of Belgium, where enemy U-boats were based. Rain turned the battlefield into a sea of mud, however, and progress was stalled. This lack of advancement was blamed on the commander immediately in charge of the offensive, General Hubert Gough, who on August 25 was replaced by General Herbert Plumer. The campaign ended when Canadian forces captured Passchendaele. Meanwhile, on Septembe
r 1, the Baltic city of Riga was taken by Germany.

  211 In July 1917, the practice began of firing rockets in quick succession from the tops of all London fire stations as warning of an impending air raid.

  212 “Archie” was Royal Flying Corps slang for anti-aircraft fire. Borstal, meanwhile, was a village on the coast of southeast England near Rochester, which has since absorbed it.

  213 Completed in 1870, the Victoria Embankment is a road and walkway along the north bank of the Thames, part of a project which reclaimed marshy land next to the river. Within its borders sits Cleopatra’s Needle, an ancient Egyptian obelisk that has nothing to do with the aforementioned queen; it was transported from Africa to London and re-erected there during the nineteenth century. From the descriptions, it is apparent that this was the raid of September 4, 1917—the first nighttime London raid by German airplanes, as opposed to airships.

  214 This is the first indication in Watson’s narrative of the grim fate planned for the three German spies—and apparently carried out on two of them.

  215 This refers to an entrance of the London Underground, the public transit system which incorporates the world’s first underground railway, opened in 1863.

  216 “Pony” is slang for £25, while “monkey” means £500. Both terms may have been introduced by British soldiers returning from India in the nineteenth century.

  217 The Royal Naval Air Service was the air arm of the Royal Navy, just as the Royal Flying Corps served the corresponding role for the British Army. Both services were merged in 1918 to form the independent Royal Air Force.

  218 These travails are chronicled in detail in Mr. Standfast by John Buchan.

  219 Widened in the 1960s, Park Lane has become one of the busiest and noisiest roads in London. At the time of this narrative, however, it was a fashionable residential address bordering Hyde Park.

  220 The Air Board was one of three successive panels intended to oversee military aviation in Britain prior to the creation of the Air Ministry in 1918. It was partially reorganized in January 1917.

  221 “Whiz-bang” was a term for the shell of a small-caliber, high-velocity gun.

  222 The Frankfurter Zeitung was apparently a real newspaper, but the other two may be fictional. Tellingly, however, those same two publications are referred to in Buchan’s Mr. Standfast.

  223 Like Switzerland, The Netherlands remained neutral in the First World War. Consequently, it became a hotbed for espionage activity.

  224 This would be the Third Battle of Ypres, mentioned in footnote 210.

  225 Now a part of Greater London, Twickenham is about ten miles southwest of the center of the metropolis, while the Thames Estuary is the area where the river meets the North Sea. The Isle of Dogs, meanwhile, was originally a peninsula in the East End of London and became the site of the West India Docks, first opened in 1802 and closed to commercial traffic in 1980.

  226 Martha is probably referring to a member of the Corps of Commissionaires, a security firm founded in 1859 by Sir Edward Walter as a means of supplying employment for former servicemen.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: A SPURNED WATCHMAN

  “Yes, Watson,” said Sherlock Holmes the next morning as he entered our sitting room in Queen Anne Street. “I will gladly consider venturing out in order to acquire some marmalade, in the improbable hope that any can be found.”

  I looked up from the breakfast table, moved the leg I had stretched out before me, and gave my friend a jaundiced eye. “Why would you ever think that I should—?”

  “Ask such a favour of me?” Holmes said, finishing my thought. “I believe the evidence is all in plain view, old fellow.”

  Grasping the arm of my chair, I drew in my leg and hoisted myself into a more upright sitting position. “Am I now to receive the most recent deductive enumeration of these past thirty—no, thirty-six years?”

  “The decades have groomed your expectations to a tee,” said the detective as he strode past and assumed the chair opposite mine at the table. “And the enumeration, as you term it, will be mercifully brief. We both know that marmalade is your first choice of material to spread over toast in the morning. Indeed, for years it has been your only willing choice; yet, there on your table, I see no container of the beloved substance, only an untouched knife beside a piece of toast that lies quite naked and only partially consumed.” He glanced round the table. “Evidently, you will deign to put neither butter nor berry preserves upon your bread this morning.”

  “Or any morning. It is personal preference.”

  “Of course it is, and your right to that choice I shall defend to the death. I am certain that the bitter memory of dry toast has caused you to resolve that, by tomorrow’s breakfast, the situation will not repeat. That will require someone to travel to a grocer’s, however. You might have considered requesting Martha do the deed, but she is wandering about burdened with the after-effects of a rather nasty cold, and you would never send her out of doors in that state. And since acquiring your new cook, you have taken care not to impose on her, for fear that she may leave as did the previous one.”

  That the first cook left because of Holmes’s impositions I did not mention.

  “This month’s maid is so distracted in personality that you would never entrust her with such a task.” Holmes continued. “Of course, you would have no compunction about completing the errand yourself, but it appears that venerable jezzail bullet from the late Afghan War is once again making itself felt, for when I entered, you had positioned yourself with an outstretched leg, which is your habit when that old wound acts up. It would make for a painful journey in search of marmalade, Watson, and so your thoughts naturally gravitated toward me as possible errand boy,” he declared as he stood up from the table.

  “Holmes, you make it sound as if I view you—”

  “It is no bother to me, old fellow. I have just told you it is a task I will gladly perform for you, though with wartime shortages becoming rather acute, there is no guarantee that any marmalade is to be found.” Holmes smiled while grasping a poker with which he stirred the coals. “If I am successful, however, you may take the purchase price off my rent.”

  I viewed my friend with mock dismissal. “You do not pay rent!”

  “I have offered to, on more than one occasion.”

  “It is out of the question. However, the marmalade is not—if you do not mind.”

  “I do not. It will be a pleasure to repay you for your invaluable assistance these past months—indeed, years.”

  “By my count, it is decades, but no matter. The task will not take too much away from your pondering of Gussiter’s Deep-breathing System?”

  “Not at all,” replied Holmes cheerfully, as he continued to rake the coals, now without necessity. “I am, after all, capable of transporting myself by foot and thinking, both at the same time.”

  Just then, there was a knock upon the sitting room door, which by custom had been left ajar. Both Holmes and I turned to witness Martha’s head appear in the opening.

  “It’s Mr. Johnson and Mr. Farrar, sirs,” our housekeeper said with a nasal voice. She gave a quick sneeze. “They are with another gentleman.”

  “Send them in,” commanded Holmes, setting aside the poker. “That is,” he added in a whisper, “if your marmalade can wait, Watson.”

  “Of course it can.”

  “Mr. Holmes? Colonel Watson?” came a voice from the doorway.

  Frank Farrar, hat in hand, entered and then stepped to one side to allow Shinwell Johnson and another man entry into the sitting room. Farrar’s brilliant blue eyes sparkled, and his mouth turned up in its usual coy smile as he announced, “Porky and I have brought you a most intriguing story, we believe.”

  “Oh?” said Holmes, stepping away from the hearth. “Well, I am eager to hear it.”

  I stood up from the table to greet the two agents and their companion: a short, clean-shaven man of late middle age, who wore an old-fashioned, multicaped ulster. He held a billycock
hat in one hand and shifted his feet back and forth against the carpet.

  “Hello, sir,” the stranger croaked in a hoarse voice.

  “Retired hansom drivers seem to go for a shilling a dozen these days,” remarked Sherlock Holmes as he stared at our visitor, “though I suppose that one who has traded driving horses for work in a mews227 and then yet other employment may still have some few choice experiences to relate.”

  “Yes,” said the beady-eyed stranger in a casual voice. “Driving a hansom cab was my calling in life, I suppose, but I’ve few stories to tell about it, and it’s a chapter that’s sadly ended for me now.”

  Shinwell Johnson, who had been observing the man, gave a slight start when his as yet unnamed companion evinced no surprise at Holmes’s comments. “Do the owner’s conclusions about you not shock and amaze?” he asked.

  “Why should they?” replied the man in his crackling voice. “You two told me he was Sherlock Holmes. Is that not what he is supposed to do? Draw conclusions from little or nothing?”

  “I would not call it either little or nothing,” said Johnson with a defensive air. “Rather, we usually found, when he was still in the business, that Mr. Holmes’s clients were rather astounded by—”

  “I am not looking to be set back on my heels,” announced the man impatiently. “I do not seek stupefaction but rather satisfaction. Though,” he added with an air of annoyance, “at the moment, I believe I most earnestly desire a simple introduction.”

  “Mr. Holmes,” said Frank Farrar with deliberate slowness, “this is Mr. William Grace.”

  Holmes and Grace nodded to one another, and the detective gestured for the newcomer to take the basket chair, positioned between the sofa, which Holmes now claimed, and the table, at which I once more sat down.

  “This is my colleague, Colonel Watson,” Holmes added, nodding in my direction.