Arabella Pyemont cried, “I do not believe it, Mr Holmes!”
My friend nodded. “The premise is false. Now, will you lead the way to your fiance’s place of work?”
Charles Follett, the accountant who employed William Cropper had an office tucked away in a side street close to the railway station. Cropper himself occupied a cramped little cubby-hole at the back of the building. Scarcely an inch of the floor was not covered by files and ledgers. The contrast with the spacious and well-appointed office of his prospective father-in-law could not have been starker.
Cropper was an earnest young man with regular features and a suit and waistcoat which had seen better days. He pumped our hands with a nervous zest. “Gentlemen. I am indebted to you for your interest in this matter. Arabella promised that she would enlist your help. I counselled her against making an approach, knowing that you, Mr Holmes, had given up your investigative work. But I am doubly grateful, for her persistence and your willingness to give up time to be of assistance to me. God knows, I need help from somewhere.”
He pushed a hand through a thatch of fair hair. His face was pale and his manner was distracted, but I still had an impression of natural, unaffected charm. I could readily understand why Arabella Pyemont had chosen him as a soul-mate in preference to the cordial but ageing Noone.
“How many letters have been circulated?” Holmes asked.
Cropper sighed. “By my calculation, nine. The latest reached one of our clients this morning. I am supposed to have disclosed certain confidential information about their business plans. It is nonsense, of course, and I think my long-suffering employer has convinced them of that, but it would hardly be surprising if their confidence in my discretion was not damaged by this episode. Bit by bit, gentlemen, my career is being wrecked.”
“And your employer’s response?”
Cropper blushed. “Just as I have been luckier in love than I deserve, so too I have been supremely fortunate in my chosen employment. To think that I was so naive as to believe that I had outgrown my position here! The Greeks have a word for it, do they not? Hubris. I owe Mr Follett everything. He has permitted me to build up a practice and now, when I am at my lowest ebb, he has been willing not only to retain my services, but to offer me new terms, with a token increase in remuneration.”
He pointed to a legal document on his desk. Holmes picked it up and leafed through the pages of closely printed verbiage.
“The proposed salary is nonetheless modest,” my friend remarked.
Cropper flushed. “I have learned my lesson, Mr Holmes. Better to be paid at one’s worth than to be out of work.”
The door opened and a small fussy man wearing pince-nez appeared. “Out of work, William?” he enquired in a puzzled, high- pitched voice.
“Ah, Mr Follett, may I introduce you? Arabella you already know, of course. And this is Mr Sherlock Holmes and his companion, Dr Watson. Gentlemen, this is my employer, Mr Charles Follett.”
“The celebrated detective!” Follett’s eyebrows shot up. “I have read in the newspapers of your move to this county, Mr Holmes, but I did not expect to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance!”
As we shook hands with the newcomer, Cropper explained our purpose. Follett nodded soberly.
“The past month has been extremely trying for us, Mr Holmes, as no doubt you can imagine. For a professional man, his reputation is everything. The goodwill built up over long years of intense labour can disappear in the blink of an eye if doubt is cast upon his integrity.”
Holmes turned to Arabella and her fiance. “Would you excuse us for a little while? There are matters that I wish to discuss with Mr Follett in confidence.”
Arabella coloured and there was a mutinous set to her jaw, but Cropper nodded feverishly and ushered her back to his room as Follett led us to his office. It was at least not as cramped as his subordinate’s, although the window commanded a view of the railway line that was far from alluring. On his desk was a photograph and I recognised the attractive, if plump, features of Miss Lotty Bicknell.
“Your fiancee, I believe?” I said. “I saw a poster outside the theatre on the way here.”
Follett beamed. “We met only a short time ago when I introduced myself at the stage door, but I had the greatest of good fortune when she consented to become my wife. Gentlemen, please be seated. Now, what can I do for you?”
“How long have you employed William Cropper?” Holmes asked. Follett pursed his lips. “Two and a half years. He trained with Melchett in Hastings before joining me. I had a vacancy for a hard-working assistant and he seemed to fit the bill.”
“You have been satisfied with his performance of the duties assigned to him?”
Follett steepled his fingers. “Indeed. He is a capable young man, assiduous in cultivating good relations with those clients with whom I was too busy to deal regularly. I had envisaged that the day might come when I would be able to offer to take him into partnership. Now, of course, the letters cast matters in a somewhat different light.”
“Do you believe the allegations made against him to be true?”
“Of course not! Had I done so, I would not have entertained his continued presence in my firm. As matters stand, I regard it as my duty to consider him, as would the law of the land, innocent until proven guilty of the charges laid at his door.”
“Your tolerance does you credit,” Holmes said. “Ah, forgive me.
I seem to have kept hold of the agreement you have given to the young man for signature.”
He tossed the document on to Follett’s desk and said with a gentle smile, “You have shown rather more sympathy towards your servant than might many a master in similar circumstances.” Follett lifted his head. “It may be an old-fashioned sentiment, but I do not believe that one should kick a man when he is down.”
“All the same, clients have expressed their concern to you?”
“Indeed. So far, fortunately, the matter has been contained. Only a handful of letters seem to have been sent to clients for whom Cropper has acted. They are all respectable business people of the town, men I have known for a good many years. I am glad to say that they have been prepared to accept my assurance that there is no substance in what has been said about my assistant. Naturally, I have promised to take personal charge of their affairs and on that basis they have consented to allow my firm to preserve its retainer with them. I can only thank the Lord that their regard for me has been such that I have not suffered lasting damage.”
“What if young Cropper continues to be the subject of such relentless attacks?” Holmes asked.
“I trust that will not happen,” Follett said. A wary look had come into his eyes and I surmised that he was speculating about the possible contents of further anonymous letters.
“But if it does?” Holmes persisted.
Follett uttered a heavy sigh. “Then the time may come when I am forced to reconsider whether I am able to permit his continued employment. Candidly, Mr Holmes, I am not a rich man.”
I watched my friend as he surveyed our surroundings. Their dinginess confirmed the truth of the accountant’s disclaimer.
Suddenly Holmes drew a matchbox from his inside pocket and struck it. As the light flared, he reached out for the agreement he had dropped on to Follett’s desk. Picking it up, he touched a corner with the flame.
“In Heaven’s name, Holmes!” I cried.
“What on earth are you doing?” cried the accountant in anguish.
As the document blackened and began to curl, my friend said calmly, “I think that it will be William Cropper who reconsiders his employment with you, Mr Follett. Would you not agree?” Follett gazed at Holmes and slumped back in his chair. A few moments passed before he spoke again, forcing the words out in a croak. “How did you guess?”
“I do not guess, Mr Follett,” said Holmes, blowing out the flame and tossing the charred agreement into the empty fireplace. “I deduce. Cropper, like yourself, had become engaged to be
married. He was contemplating leaving your firm for London. I gather that while you have been otherwise occupied, he had been establishing first class relations with clients of the firm. You woke up too late to the realisation that if he left you, the clients might follow him. A disastrous prospect at a time when prosperity was more important to you than ever before. I suspect Miss Lotty Bicknell does not come cheap.”
“That is a monstrous thing to say!” said Follett in a low, dreadful whisper.
“Perhaps. At all events, you conceived a most cowardly campaign. You would discredit Cropper - not just in his business life, that might raise suspicion, but also personally. As his world collapsed around him, you would seize the opportunity to retrieve day to day contact with the principal clients for whom he acted. At the same time you would masquerade as a caring master. With the new contract, the devil was in the detail. I have spent a little time in the study of English jurisprudence and I noticed that Cropper was barred from working for any clients of this firm if he left. Had he signed those covenants in restraint of trade, he would have been handcuffed to you. He would no longer have been your servant, he would have become your slave.”
“I taught him all he knows,” Follett said feebly.
“I doubt it. Now you must survive or perish on the strength of your own labours. Cropper is free to exercise his professional skills elsewhere. As well as to marry the woman he loves.”
Follett put his head in his hands. “I shall be ruined. Lotty has done more than taken up all my time, she has spent all my money.”
Holmes shrugged. “Perhaps the time has come for the two of you to part. You should be free to concentrate your energies on rebuilding your practice. Or what is left of it once you have written to the clients whom you sought to entice away from Cropper, saying that you can no longer handle their affairs and commending the young man to them.”
“I cannot!” Follett cried.
“It will be easy,” Holmes said, pulling his chair up to the table. “To help you, I shall even dictate the text. But this time, please, no cuttings from the newspaper, and you must sign your name at the foot of each letter.”
“Shall you go to the wedding?” I asked when we were back at Holmes’ villa.
“I think not, Watson. These days I seldom like to stray too far from home.”
“You were willing to accompany Arabella to Brighton,’ I pointed out.
“Yes,” he said, “but a man’s good name was at stake.”
His voice faded away and I wondered if, despite himself, he was brooding about the malicious rumours concerning his move from London. Wanting to cheer him, I said, “It was just like old times. The two of us together, seeking out an unknown adversary.”
“Good old Watson,” he said, and I thought I detected the welcome hint of a smile. “Ever constant, ever true. Come, if this is to be an evening for nostalgia, let me look out my violin and I shall play to remind you of the days we spent hunting together in 221b. Happy days, Watson, a more innocent age.”
And for a terrible moment as his voice broke, I feared he might shed a tear.
The Case of the Sentimental Tobacconist
Mr Sherlock Holmes possessed a mind unlike that of any other man I have met. Events of the profoundest political significance meant nothing to him, yet his knowledge of minutiae was encyclopaedic. He could converse fluently on an extraordinary range of topics and it was by no means uncommon for his conversation to traverse the works of Goethe, the latest developments in toxicology and the geography of London’s East End within minutes. The treasure-house of information in his brain was supplemented by the wealth of detail stored within the twenty-six indexed volumes lining the bookshelves in our sitting room. The index married a concise record of hundreds of investigations to a compendium of strange and neglected facts and items clipped from newspapers and magazines. Nothing which caught his eye was commonplace, nothing bizarre and out of the ordinary failed to excite his interest.
One Saturday morning, the last before Christmas, we were enjoying a companionable silence after breakfast. My friend was composing a letter to Francois le Villard, whose advancement in the French detective service owed so much to Holmes’ assistance. Le Villard had sought his opinion on a matter of the utmost confidentiality; to this day, all I can reveal about the case is that it concerned two senior members of the clergy and a suitcase filled with twigs. Holmes had been wrapped in thought for over an hour, but now he was writing rapidly.
For my part, I was making notes concerning the remarkable story of Jonathan Small. Having previously composed a small brochure about the first investigation where I had been privileged to watch Holmes at work, I hoped that the mystery which I had tentatively entitled ‘The Sign of the Four’ might equally attract the interest of a publisher. If so, it would be more than a celebration of Holmes’ mastery of the science of deduction; it would represent a humble token of my love for Miss Mary Morstan. I had the joy of meeting her at the outset of the enquiry and at its conclusion she consented to take my hand in matrimony. Our wedding was due to take place in less than a month’s time. I would be starting a new life, as well as a new year. Yet eagerly as I anticipated both, still I relished the final weeks of bachelorhood.
A knock at the door ruptured our serenity. Holmes frowned as he blotted the letter and subjected the unfortunate Mrs Hudson to a penetrating stare as she entered the room.
‘There’s a gentleman to see you, Mr Holmes,’ she said. ‘I told him that you’d left strict instructions not to be disturbed until mid-day, but he was most insistent. When I invited him to leave his card, he said that he would not rest until such time as you granted him a consultation. He says you met him once and he hopes you might remember him.’
She presented my friend with the brass salver.
‘Josiah Buckle!’ To my surprise, a rare flash of delight crossed my friend’s saturnine countenance as he tossed the grubby card on to his desk. ‘Of course, it will be a privilege to renew the acquaintance. Please show him up without delay!’
Our landlady was a wise woman and had learned that, with Holmes, one must invariably expect the unexpected. Within moments she was ushering the visitor into our presence. He was a small, shuffling fellow, at least seventy years of age and bent with rheumatism. The rusty black frock-coat had a couple of buttons missing and his cuffs were badly frayed. Yet at the sight of Holmes, genuine pleasure seemed to flicker in his little brown eyes.
‘Mr Sherlock Holmes!’ he cried, offering a knobbly hand. ‘So you have not forgotten, then?’
‘You rendered me no small service when I was compiling my monograph,’ my friend said. ‘Without your expert guidance, I might have succumbed to an unpardonable error when it came to differentiating between the rarest Turkish brands.’
‘Not you, Mr Holmes!’ the old man said warmly. ‘You emphasised to me that you value accuracy of data above all else. You would never have made the mistake of guessing about the quality of ash. All I did was to import a few boxes so that you could make a precise comparison.’
‘Without them, my monograph would have been the poorer. That particular Latakian cheroot has never been popular in England, but I could name at least one notorious forger on the Continent who favoured it above all others. Yes, Mr Buckle, I remain in your debt. It is good to see you again, although naturally I regret the need to offer my condolences about the loss of your wife.’
‘You heard the news about Charlotte? It was tuberculosis, you know.’
My friend shook his head sadly. ‘A most wretched disease.’
I had not been idle during my time at No. 221B Baker Street. In addition to chronicling Holmes’ triumphs in connection with the Lauriston Gardens Mystery, I had relished the opportunity of observing at close quarters the methods that he employed. Often the most astonishing deductions, once understood, were based upon the simplest logic. I fancied that I myself might acquire the detective habit. Certainly, Holmes’ reasoning here was easy to follow. No respectable wife woul
d allow her husband to make a visit in such an unkempt state. If Mr Buckle had been married at the time of his original acquaintance with Holmes, it was logical to infer that his wife was no more.
‘May I introduce you to my colleague, Dr Watson? Since we became co-tenants, he has become intrigued by the business of detection and you may speak freely before him. Watson, let me advise you that, should you ever have cause to transfer your loyalty from Bradley’s, no-one in London stocks a wider range of fine tobacco than Mr Josiah Buckle. Indeed, sir, I very much regret that you should have found it necessary to close your shop some time ago. It cannot have been for the want of custom.’
Buckle’s bushy eyebrows rose. ‘How did you know that I had closed for business?’
‘Oh, the inference is straightforward from the evidence before our eyes. Watson, would you be so good as to explain?’
I felt myself growing hot under the collar. ‘I’m afraid….’
Holmes allowed himself the glimmer of a smile. ‘Oh, my dear fellow. I am disappointed. You have proved such a willing pupil that I quite believed you would have mastered the knack of making such an elementary deduction. When a man with a thriving retail business arrives on my doorstep on a Saturday morning in December, at a time when his shop should be crammed to overflowing with customers seeking to replenish their tobacco pouches in readiness for the festive season, there are three possible explanations. First, the reason for his call is so urgent that it cannot wait. But in that event, surely he would arrive here before eleven o’clock? Second, he has delegated responsibility for running the shop to an assistant. But few trades are as dependent upon expert personal service as that of the tobacconist and, because of the specialist nature of his products, Mr Buckle has always taken a proper pride in attending to customers personally and at all hours. Third, the shop has closed.’
‘But why do you suggest that it has been closed for a considerable period of time?’ I enquired.
The New Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes Page 5