by David Marcum
“What can my men do to help?” asked the policeman.
“Nothing at all. It is the assistance of young Wiggins I need now. As for the concerns of Scotland Yard, you may remove the body. It has told me all it can.”
Mr. Holmes took me aside as the police prepared to carry the dead fellow to the wagon that had only just arrived. Beth’s father would be filling a pauper’s grave before another day had passed.
“We shall need a finer nose than mine to detect one scent amongst the myriad of fragrances we will face in the city streets,” Mr. Holmes said to me. I knew straight off who he was talking about.
“Take a cab and have it wait for you,” he said, giving me another shilling to cover expenses. “Pick up our mutual acquaintance and be back here as quick as you can. The longer we delay, the more the trail will be obscured by the regular traffic of London. I shall ask after any witnesses while you are gone, but our greatest hope lies with you and the best nose in England.”
“Number Three, Pinchin Lane in Lambeth,” was the address I gave to the first cab that would stop for me.
The journey wasn’t a long one, and I soon found myself outside a row of shabby houses, picking out the one on the street filled with the calls and cries of a whole menagerie of animals.
“Can I borrow your dog?” I asked the man who came to the door.
I knew the reputation of this man who fancied himself a trainer of any beast he could lay his hands on, but he didn’t know me from any other beggar.
“My dogs are not for rent,” he said and tried to shut the door in my face. Only my foot in the frame kept him from kicking me out.
“Did I say anything about paying? No, I’m here to borrow on strict orders from Mister Sherlock Holmes.”
And it was like I had said a magic word.
“Sherlock Holmes, you say? Then it must be Toby in number seven he’s after.”
It certainly was. Toby, ugly as sin, a shaggy mess if I’m completely honest, was the finest tracker dog to be had. Not that I had much cause to compare, but Mr. Holmes always swore by him, and we were soon reacquainted once his owner handed me the leash.
The hansom driver I left waiting didn’t like carting around a boy of the street, even though I paid him good money. He liked it even less once I brought an unkempt mutt into his cab. Grumbling all the way or not, he got us back to the water in a short enough time.
Mr. Holmes took the leash from me as soon as we joined him and let the dog have a good sniff around. The body was gone, but the stink of his boots lingered and Toby soon had the scent. Didn’t much care for it neither. Never did I see a dog recoil from a smell like that. For a dog what made it his business to put his nose to all sorts of dreadful things, this was one odour that seemed to outright offend him.
“I know, Toby,” said Mr. Holmes. “Not the most pleasant aroma I have ever set you to follow, but follow it we must. There’s a boy!”
Mr. Holmes’s words of encouragement were enough to spark the dog’s interest and he put his nose to the ground and hunted for which way the trail might lead. Through walkways and streets, around corners and down alleys we went. Toby kept us on the path that was invisible to the human eye but plain as day to the nose of an expert tracker dog.
Toby was so sure of himself as we wove our way into the city, it was a surprise when he started zigging and zagging, suddenly not so clear which way to go next.
“The trail splits in two, it seems,” said Mr. Holmes. “The man who dragged Beth’s father to the river may well have doubled back on his own path and then on to a new destination. Whether we trace this to the man himself or the origin of his crime will have to be Toby’s decision.”
At last, Toby picked a branch and on we went for a few blocks more until we came to an east-end pub that was a short-walk local to anybody within a few doors. Anyone much farther away would have picked a better place to drink their worries away. It looked to be a rough place, home to nightly bare-knuckled matches, scheduled or not, but all of them bet on just the same. Mr. Holmes walked right on in like he belonged there, so I followed in case he needed my protection.
“You there! Get that dirty little mongrel out of here!” the barkeep shouted at us as soon as we stepped inside.
“I assure you, sir, he is very well trained, devoid of fleas, and will refrain from relieving himself indoors,” said Mr. Holmes.
“I weren’t talkin’ about the dog! I meant the boy.”
“As did I.”
“Beggars and thieves, the lot of them!”
“He is with me, and neither of us will be staying long.”
The barkeep made no move to toss us out on his own. You don’t give the bum’s rush to a gentleman like Sherlock Holmes.
“I won’t serve him,” he growled instead.
“We won’t be drinkin’ the piss you serve,” I informed him.
Mr. Holmes looked down at me, pardoned my French, and agreed.
“Quite.”
He led Toby around the pub, from table to table, seeing which one the dog liked best. It didn’t take him a moment to bring us to a man sitting at a booth in the corner, working his way through a pint glass I’d wager had been refilled a few times already.
Toby seemed pleased to have come upon a pair of boots that matched the smell he’d been tracking, but he still took a step back when he caught a whiff of the fresh muck crusted there.
“What have you trodden in, I wonder,” said Mr. Holmes to the man.
“What business is that of yours?”
“I am Sherlock Holmes and this is Mr. Wiggins. The dog’s name is Toby, if that is of any concern to you. Where you have been and what you have been up to is very much our business when you leave corpses lying about in public places.”
The man made a move like he might bolt, but Mr. Holmes stood in his way, blocking him in the booth.
“You can talk to us, or you can be arrested for murder. It is entirely up to you.”
That settled the man down a bit. Mr. Holmes handed me Toby’s leash and sat down across from him.
“We have introduced ourselves. Who do we have the pleasure of addressing?”
“The name’s Seaver. Edward Seaver.”
“And the dead man?”
“That would be Albert Ewart. A good friend, he was.”
It was the first time either of us had heard Beth’s father called anything other than “Da.”
“A tosher of late,” said Mr. Holmes, “but formerly a coal miner, was he not?”
“Aye, he was in the mines. And it was coal in the end, once the ore mine he was in ran dry and closed. Mining is dark, dangerous work any way you look at it. But ore don’t give you the black lung like coal does. Old Bert couldn’t take it more than two or three years before he got out and came here.”
“Tell me, did Mr. Ewart keep in touch with any of his fellows?”
“He did. One of them came through town only a few days ago.”
“Bringing more than news from the mines, I expect. You were partnered with Mr. Ewart?”
“We’d do some toshing together from time to time.”
“Last night, for instance. Until it all went horribly wrong. Of course, that means you no longer need to share, and what a windfall Ewart’s death must be to you!”
Mr. Holmes and that Seaver fellow both seemed to know what they was talking about, but me, I was lost.
“It was an accident, I swear it!” Edward Seaver blurted out before he ran.
Mr. Holmes went right after him, with me and Toby on his heels, shouting and barking for him to stop. It were no use. There was a tiny window up on the wall in the back room and Seaver wormed his way through it like he was greased. I could have fit just fine and offered to go after him, but Mr. Holmes stopped me.
“No use in it,
Wiggins,” he said. “Seaver will not drift too far astray from the object of his desire. Blood has already been spilled for it, accidentally or not. And he has risked exposure in order to move a body far from it. He will not leave it be now. Especially since he has no idea we have the means to discover it for ourselves.”
“Discover what, Mr. Holmes?”
Mr. Holmes laughed and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Treasure beyond your wildest dreams, young Wiggins.”
Mr. Holmes had us out on the street again, retracing our earlier steps. His eye weren’t on the path, though. He was looking up at the dark sky. Storm clouds were rolling in over London.
“We must follow the other branch of the trail while time remains. More rain is coming, much heavier than last night. Even Toby’s talented nose has its limits. The last of the scent will be washed away before the day is done.”
Back at the spot where the trail had split, Mr. Holmes set Toby on the second branch. That one didn’t lead very far at all, taking us into a flophouse nearby. The place was brimming with poor souls trying to scrape by on whatever work they could get. If they couldn’t afford a room, they might at least rent one corner of a room, shared with as many as ten others.
Invited inside, we were glad to get out of the downpour that was just beginning. One of the tenants confirmed this was where Beth and her father spent their nights between days clawing a living out of London’s castoffs. Nobody had seen Albert Ewart leave, dead or alive, during the night, but he could well have been spirited away down the hall while everyone else in the building was asleep behind closed doors. We were offered to be shown to the upstairs spot where they kept their bed rolls, but Toby insisted the trail led down to the basement instead. Mr. Holmes didn’t argue and followed the dog.
The foundation weren’t dug very deep, and it was more of a crawlspace than a basement we found at the bottom of the steps. Even I had to duck down, and Mr. Holmes had to crouch and support himself on his fingertips as we made our way along the earth floor. A lantern had been left at the bottom of the stairs and we used it to light up the black space for a look. The only thing down there other than a lot of cobwebs was a squat punt, tied to a support beam as though someone thought it might drift away, even on dry land.
“Why tether a boat in a basement, so far from the water’s edge, I wonder?” said Mr. Holmes, though I suspect he already had a notion.
There were a series of loose boards set across the floor that looked like they had been left behind by workers when the house was first built. When Mr. Holmes started to set them to one side, he revealed the large hole they had been covering. Someone had tunnelled their way out of the basement.
“Where do you think they was digging to, Mr. Holmes?” I asked.
“Apparently our deceased miner was keen to go mining under the city in tunnels already dug out for him.”
Mr. Holmes held the lantern over the dark hole so we could peer down into it. I could see the excavation went straight down through the dirt and broke through an arch of brickwork, offering entry into the sewer line that ran right under the building.
“This is the sort of vandalism toshers have been reduced to since the new London sewer system was completed. Rather before your time, Wiggins, but access used to be a far simpler matter when it ran freely into the Thames. Now such intrusions are forbidden by law, and if they’re caught in the act, they face fines they can ill-afford to pay.”
“What’s so worth the risk and the stink of rummaging down there?”
“We shall see in short order,” said Mr. Holmes, bidding me to help him lower the punt into the stream of filthy water below us.
The climb down was precarious, but we were cautious every foothold of the way, making sure nobody took a dip we’d long regret. Mr. Holmes carried Toby down in his arms, mangy but manageable in size as he was. We were soon all aboard the punt. A long pole tucked inside let Mr. Holmes push us off the side and set us down the slow-moving stream.
“Let us ascertain what befell Albert Ewart while he was seeking his fortune. Here is a new scent for you, Toby. See if you can sniff it out amongst all the other odours down here.”
Mr. Holmes took a thumb-sized item from his pocket and held it under Toby’s nose.
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“Something the dead man had tucked under his belt. It is a vital tool in the mining industry, and was recently supplied to Beth’s late father by his visiting friend. Undoubtedly he wrote to request it and several more just like it. It is called a blasting cap.”
“What does it do?”
“Why, it explodes, of course. Not as grandly as dynamite, for instance, but it offers a smaller controlled charge to set off its more devastating cousins when much stone needs to be moved. Used on its own, it can still produce quite a powerful bang.”
Drifting on a punt, Toby couldn’t put his nose to the ground, yet he seemed able to catch the scent of recently detonated powder in the tunnel as he perched on the bow. It lingered in the still air, even hours later, and I thought I could smell it mixed in with the strong ammonia stink myself.
When Toby seemed excited about a certain bend in the tunnel, Mr. Holmes poled us in that direction, taking us down a split lane. The current seemed to be picking up as the rain water from above filtered down into the sewer. Mr. Holmes had to work the pole harder to keep us from being swept along too quickly to give the tunnel a thorough search by lantern light.
After Toby’s keen sense directed us to make a couple more turns, we happened upon a dark mass jutting out of the water. I might have missed it entirely, but Mr. Holmes seemed to know what he was looking for.
“There it lies, Wiggins. Riches more than we could hope to have to our names combined and multiplied. Who would have thought that such a treasure trove would be found in so foul a place!”
I leaned in for a closer look by the light of the lantern. There was more money in front of me than I ever dreamt existed, all fused together into one rusted mass - an entire boulder of it, jutting out of the sewage like a monument a madman might have sculpted for no one to ever see.
“I don’t understand, Mr. Holmes. How could such a thing even exist?”
Mr. Holmes had an explanation, sure enough. He always had everything figured out.
“Think of all the coins that are dropped and lost in the streets of London each day. Some are discovered and picked up again, but many others are washed away into the gutter, down drains and into the sewers. All it takes is for one or two of them to get their edges caught in the gap between bricks under the waterline and they will collect others, like silt in a steady flow. They gather and rust together there for years, even decades, until they create a vast structure like this one, tempting to the toshers who come down here looking for lost valuables, but impossible to move. Such a waste.”
“I’ll not waste a penny of it! That you can be sure of!”
There was a lamp approaching us from down the tunnel, with footsteps splashing through the water beneath it. We couldn’t see the face behind the bright light, but we recognized the voice of Edward Seaver.
“It’s not the first lump of rusted coinage toshers have come across down here, but it’s the grandest. And can we ever profit from any of them? No! Even if we could break them free, they’re too heavy to drag up top.”
Mr. Holmes was expecting he’d turn up, and turn up he did.
“Albert Ewart had a solution, did he not? A certain expertise that came from his mining days.”
Closer now, I could see Seaver had the lamp fixed to his coat to light his way no matter where he turned or bent. He had his tosher’s hoe with him, but had no plans to go raking for lost valuables ever again if he could come away with the pile of money that didn’t want to go anywhere.
“He thought we could break it up, blow it into smaller pieces we co
uld carry off,” he said.
“With a number of these,” said Mr. Holmes, holding up the blasting cap for Seaver. “As you can see, you failed to pilfer all of them from your fallen friend.”
“It were his poor luck the one piece he blew loose came right at him when the fuse burned too quick and he couldn’t run far enough. Shot down the tunnel like a bullet it did, with only his head to stop it. I couldn’t leave him down here for the rats, but I couldn’t leave him in the flophouse neither. Not looking like that for his own daughter to see. So I dragged him down to the river to let the tide take him away. A long, heavy trip it was, in the dark and rain. By the time we made it to the banks, the rain had let up and the morning sun was coming out. People would spot us, I was sure, and think I done it.”
I looked at the mass of coins again. Near the top, you could see the spot where the charge went off. It looked like a bite had been taken out of it, but only a nibble compared to how much remained.
“If you want your proof I weren’t the one that killed him, the piece that struck him down must be here somewhere,” said Seaver, turning this way and that, shining his light around the water and walls.
“Your evening might have been more profitable if only you had bothered to examine Albert Ewart’s wound,” said Mr. Holmes. “I found a fair sum imbedded there this morning.”
“Oh, I see now,” Seaver hissed suspiciously. “You come to take the rest for yourselves! Well it’s mine, I tell you, and I’ll have at it by hammer and chisel till I’m old and grey if I must!”
Seaver came at us with his hoe raised as if he might try to beat us away from his treasure. Even as he pushed forward through water up to his knees, he seemed to make hardly any progress.
Mr. Holmes had his punting pole jammed into the side of the mound of money, keeping us anchored in place even as the flow of water picked up its pace. I’d hardly noticed the lazy current go from a steady trickle to a rapid river while the two men talked, but when Seaver, standing right in the middle of the flow, started to lose his footing, I knew something was wrong.