by David Marcum
“I wandered about the village for some little time, and presently got hold of a boy. I made a simple excuse for asking about the Garthews - wanted to go for a sail to-morrow. The boy, with many grins, confided to me that both of the Garthews were ‘on the booze.’ I should find them at the Smack Inn, where they had been all day, drunk as fiddlers. This seemed a likely sort of thing after the haul they had made. I went to the Smack Inn, determined to claim old friendship with the Garthews, although I didn’t know Peter from David. There they were - one sleepy drunk, and the other loving and crying drunk. I got as friendly as possible with them under the circumstances, and at closing time stood another gallon of beer and carried it home for them, while they carried each other. I took care to have a good look round in the cottage. I even helped Peter’s ‘old woman’ - the lady with the broom - to carry them up to bed. But nowhere could I see anything that looked like a bullion-case or a hiding-place for one. So I came away, determined to renew my acquaintance in the morning, and to carry it on as long as might be necessary; also to look at the garden in the daylight for signs of burying. With that view I fixed that little gimlet in my walking-stick, as you saw.
“This morning I was at Lostella before ten, and took a look at the Garthews’ cabbages. It seemed odd that half a dozen, all in a clump together, looked withered and limp, as though they had been dug up hastily, the roots broken, perhaps, and then replanted. And altogether these particular cabbages had a dissipated, leaning-different-ways look, as though they had been on the loose with the Garthews. So, seeing a grubby child near the back door of the cottage, I went towards him, walking rather unsteadily, so as, if I were observed, to favour the delusion that I was not yet quite got over last night’s diversions. ‘Hullo, my b-boy,’ I said, ‘hullo, li’l b-boy, look here,’ and I plunged my hand into my trousers’ pocket and brought it out full of small change. Then, making a great business of selecting him a penny, I managed to spill it all over the dissipated cabbages. It was easy then, in stooping to pick up the change, to lean heavily on my stick and drive it through the loose earth. As I had expected, there was a box below. So I gouged away with my walking-stick while I collected my coppers, and finally swaggered off, after a few civil words with the ‘old woman,’ carrying with me evident proof that it was white wood recently buried there. The rest you saw for yourself. I think you and I may congratulate each other on having dodged that broom. It hit all the others.”
“What I’m wild about,” said Merrick, “is having let that scoundrel Gullen get off. He’s an artful chap, without a doubt. He saw us go over the side, you know, and after you had gone he came into the cabin for some instructions. Your pencil notes and the chart were on the table, and no doubt he put two and two together (which was more than I could, not knowing what had happened), and concluded to make himself safe for a bit. He had no leave that night - he just pulled away on the quiet. Why didn’t you give me the tip to keep him?”
“That wouldn’t have done. In the first place, there was no legal evidence to warrant his arrest, and ordering him to keep aboard would have aroused his suspicions. I didn’t know at the time how many days, or weeks, it would take me to find the bullion, if I ever found it, and in that time Gullen might have communicated in some way with his accomplices, and so spoilt the whole thing. Yes, certainly he seems to have been fairly smart in his way. He knew he would probably be sent down first, as usual, alone to make measurements, and conceived his plan and made his arrangements forthwith.”
“But now what I want to know is what about all those Nicobar people watching and suspecting one another? More especially what about the cases the captain and the steward are said to have fetched ashore?”
Holmes laughed. “Well,” he said, “as to that, the presence of the bullion seems to have bred all sorts of mutual suspicion on board the ship. Brasyer was over-fussy, and his continual chatter started it probably, so that it spread like an infection. As to the captain and the steward, of course I don’t know anything but that their rescued cases were not bullion cases. Probably they were doing a little private trading - it’s generally the case when captain and steward seem unduly friendly for their relative positions - and perhaps the cases contained something specially valuable: vases or bronzes from Japan, for instance; possibly the most valuable things of the size they had aboard. Then, if they had insured their things, Captain Mackrie (who has the reputation of a sharp and not very scrupulous man) might possibly think it rather a stroke of business to get the goods and the insurance money too, which would lead him to keep his parcels as quiet as possible. But that’s as it may be.”
The case was much as Holmes had surmised. The zealous Brasyer, posting to London in hot haste after Mackrie, spent some days in watching him. At last the captain and the steward with their two boxes took a cab and went to Bond Street, with Brasyer in another cab behind them. The two entered a shop, the window of which was set out with rare curiosities and much old silver and gold. Brasyer could restrain himself no longer. He grabbed a passing policeman, and rushed with him into the shop. There they found the captain and the steward with two small packing cases opened before them, trying to sell - a couple of very ancient-looking Japanese bronze figures, of that curious old workmanship and varied colour of metal that in genuine examples mean nowadays high money value.
Brasyer vanished: there was too much chaff for him to live through in the British mercantile marine after this adventure. The fact was, the steward had come across the bargain, but had not sufficient spare cash to buy, so he called in the aid of the captain, and they speculated in the bronzes as partners. There was much anxious inspection of the prizes on the way home, and much discussion as to the proper price to ask. Finally, it was said, they got three hundred pounds for the pair.
Now and again Holmes meets Merrick still. Sometimes Merrick says, “Now, I wonder after all whether or not some of those Nicobar men who were continually dodging suspiciously about that bullion-room did mean having a dash at the gold if there were a chance?” And Holmes replies, “I wonder.”
Editor’s Note and Chronology
The twenty-five Sherlock Holmes cases that were eventually rewritten as “Martin Hewitt” adventures by Holmes’s neighbor and journalist friend, Brett, had numerous facts altered before publication. In addition to changing Holmes’s name, description, and location of residence, Brett also altered a number of dates in these stories as well, making it appear that the narratives were spread out over a number of years, rather than over just one year.
This chronology for the “Martin Hewitt” stories shows when the adventures actually took place throughout 1876, during the time that Brett lived at upstairs from Holmes at 24 Montague Street:
1876
Jan 19-20
“The Case of the Dead Skipper”
Late Jan
“The Nicobar Bullion Case”
Feb 15-18
“The Affair of Mrs. Seton’s Child”
Late Feb
“The Case of the Dixon Torpedo”
Early Mar
“The Stanway Cameo Mystery”
Mid-Mar
“The Case of the Late Mr. Rewse”
Early Apr
“The Case of the Lost Foreigner”
Mid-Apr
“The Case of Ward Lane Tabernacle”
Apr 17-18
“The Affair of the Tortoise”
Apr 24-25
“The Quinton Jewel Affair”
Apr 28
“The Ivy Cottage Mystery”
May 1
“The Case of Laker, Absconded”
June 21-23
“The Loss of Sammy Crockett”
Mid-July
“The Case of the ‘Flitterbat Lancers’ ”
July 25-27
“The Case of Mr. Geldard’s Elopement”
Early Sept
“The Lenton Croft Robberies”
Early Sept
“The Case of the Missing Hand”
Mid-Sept
“The Affair of Samuel’s Diamonds”
Mid-Sept
“The Case of Mr. Jacob Mason”
Mid-Sept
“The Case of the Lever Key”
Sept 23
“The Case of the Burnt Barn”
Sept 25
“The Case of the Admiralty Code”
Sept 25-27
“The Adventure of Channel Marsh”
Early Oct
“The Case of Mr. Foggatt” Part I
Late Nov
“The Case of Mr. Foggatt” Part II
Nov 29-30
“The Holford Will Case”
About the Author
Arthur Morrison (1863-1945) was born and raised in the East End of London. He became a journalist and novelist, writing realistic stories telling of the lives of slum residents.
In 1894, Morrison created the character of Martin Hewitt, a London detective whose adventures were first published in The Strand. Morrison would go on to write twenty-five Hewitt tales.
Gradually, Morrison ceased writing fiction, and became a noted expert and collector of Japanese art.
About the Editor
David Marcum began his study of the lives of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as a boy in 1975 when, while trading with a friend to obtain Hardy Boys books, he received an abridged copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, thrown in as a last-minute and little-welcomed addition to the trade. Soon after, he saw A Study in Terror on television and began to search out other Holmes stories, both Canon and pastiche. He borrowed way ahead on his allowance and bought a copy of the Doubleday edition of The Complete Sherlock Holmes and started to discover the rest of the Canon that night. His parents gave him Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street for Christmas and his fate was sealed.
Since that time, he has been reading and collecting literally thousands of Holmes’s cases in the form of short stories, novels, movies, radio and television episodes, scripts, comic books, unpublished manuscripts, and fan-fiction. In addition, he reads mysteries by numerous other authors, including those that he considers the classics, Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, Hercule Poirot, and Holmes’s logical heir, Solar Pons.
When not immersed in the activities of his childhood heroes, David is employed as a licensed civil engineer, and lives in Tennessee with his wife and son. He has finally traveled to Baker Street in London, the location he most wanted to visit in the whole world, as well as other parts of England and Scotland on an incredible trip-of-a-lifetime Holmes Pilgrimage.
Questions and comments may be addressed to:
[email protected]
Also available