Sherlock Holmes

by Martin Rosenstock

  He beckoned to us to take note of what he had found: a row of dull purple bruises across the back of the dead man’s neck, until now hidden by fat.

  “This is what I was looking for.” He leaned across to Bruce’s face and pulled open one eye. “I noticed that the eyes were almost completely bloodshot as soon as I examined the body, and that, combined with one or two other considerations, all but convinced me of the truth of a theory I had arrived at in Mr. Bruce’s apartment. This set of bruises is the final confirmation that I needed. I am now confident that I know the identity of our well-dressed murderer.”

  “And who is it, Mr. Holmes?” Lestrade pressed, impatient to get to the meat of the matter. “And, more importantly, how are we to find him with only so general a description? After all, there are hundreds of well-dressed but roughly spoken men in London, and I’m not such a fool as to believe Thomas Gough is his real name.”

  “I think I can be specific enough, Inspector,” Holmes replied pleasantly. “Thomas Gough’s real name is Peter Davenport, he is five foot eight, with broad shoulders, short, cropped fair hair, side whiskers and moustache but no beard, and has been known to wear a cravat with a pin and a Homburg hat. He has a small scar on his right cheek stretching from his eye to the top of his lip, and was a close friend of the deceased Mr. Bruce.”

  In the stunned silence which followed this announcement, he reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a framed photograph, one which I recognised as having, until recently, hung on the dead man’s walls.

  “In fact, he looks almost exactly like this,” he said, handing it to Lestrade.

  Wordlessly, the inspector took it and, after a brief examination, passed it to me. The image was of a man exactly as described by Holmes. He was standing in what was obviously the room we had just left, with a glass of champagne in one hand, and a golden sporting trophy engraved with the name Peter Davenport in the other. Standing behind him, and visible over his shoulder, was Alexander Bruce, also raising a glass. Both men were grinning with pleasure.

  “But why this man?” Lestrade asked, an expression of stolid puzzlement on his face.

  “The cup he holds, of course! It commemorates the winning of a wrestling competition.” Observing our puzzlement, Holmes reached out a long finger and tapped the glass of the photograph. “You see, the key to the killer’s identity lay in the very thing which first drew my attention to the case – the strange bruise at the base of Rob Rae’s spine. I have already said that until tonight I could not conceive of how Rae was so bruised, nor of the source of the fainter markings on his collarbone. In light of Dr. Booth’s belief that the bruise was not caused by a sharp blow, I had rejected the idea that he had struck himself in a fall, and thought it implausible that any shoreman had used a wooden hoe to incapacitate him. But this evening in Bruce’s flat, I saw this photograph and recalled something I had once seen done in an East End pub fight. It is called the Incapacitator amongst the wrestling fraternity, and involves flipping one’s opponent onto his front, placing a knee in the small of his back, and grabbing him by the shoulder and hair and pushing his face down into the ground. Done properly, the hold does not allow for any chance of escape and, faced with a choice of suffocation or submission, a plea for clemency almost always swiftly ensues. Rob Rae may well have wished to plead for his life, but with his face forced into the soft Thames mud he would have been unable to do so.”

  “Which is why we found mud packed into his nostrils!” I exclaimed.

  “Exactly, Watson! The downwards pressure applied on Rae would have blocked his airways immediately and suffocated him within a minute or so at most. I cannot be sure of the precise motive for killing Red Rob until I have had a chance to speak to Davenport, but it was presumably either to silence him or, more likely in my opinion, due to an argument over Rae’s fee for guiding Davenport to the bag of jewellery. One thing everyone is agreed on is that Rob Rae was excessively motivated by money. It was Rae’s tragedy that Davenport, seeking a guide into the sewers, happened upon him first.”

  “What of the bruises on Alexander Bruce’s person?” Lestrade interjected, his professional interest piqued in spite of his desire for a speedy resolution.

  “Again, they represent the after effects of a particular wrestling move. In this case, one called the half nelson.”

  “And the photograph?”

  “Davenport is the only wrestler on Mr. Bruce’s wall amongst a host of the more common sort of pugilist.”

  “Well, if that isn’t as neat as—” Lestrade was a policeman by nature as well as occupation, a terrier born to the hunt. As soon as Holmes had finished speaking, he sprang into action, calling his men to him and making arrangements to return at once to Scotland Yard, and from there to take steps to locate Davenport. He was actually in the doorway when he hesitated, remembering his more pressing case.

  “Ambassador Cesnauskas, Mr. Holmes?” he called. “You will not forget him?”

  “I need only check one last thing,” Holmes responded over his shoulder, as he walked across to the Ambassador’s shrouded body. “All being well, I should have an answer for you tonight, if you would care to call into Baker Street once you have dealt with Davenport.”

  “That is excellent news, Mr. Holmes,” Lestrade beamed and, with a wave of farewell, he was gone.

  Whatever Holmes needed to check, it took only a moment, for by the time I had gone across to him he had already placed the sheet back in place over Cesnauskas.

  “Have you seen all that you need, Holmes?” I enquired. I recalled the list he had given me, and his claim that it contained all that was required to find the Ambassador’s killer. I fancied it had been lost in our trip down the sewers, and said so to Holmes.

  “It is of no matter, Watson,” he said. “However, if you are agreeable, I will save my explanation for Lestrade’s visit tonight.” He shivered. “Shall we go? I confess I have had quite enough of this place, and long for a pipe by the fire.”

  * * *

  It was five minutes to nine when Mrs. Hudson showed Lestrade into our rooms at Baker Street. In contrast to his usual saturnine countenance, the little inspector was so excited that he began to speak as soon as he was through the door.

  “Davenport collapsed like a house of cards, Mr. Holmes! As soon as we fetched up at the door of his lodgings, all the life went right out of him and he slumped to the ground with enough of a clatter that I wondered if his heart had given way, and he’d managed to escape the noose!

  “He wasn’t so lucky though, and when he came round he confessed straightaway, before I could even put the accusation to him. It seems that Alexander Bruce was a pretty big man in boxing circles, standing patron to youngsters hoping to make a living from the game, and personally managing those who showed any promise. He’d seen Davenport at the gym and taken a shine to him, and branched out into wrestling on account that it was the lad’s game.”

  “But there was a falling out?” Holmes asked, in the tones of one who already knows the answer.

  “That there was! Davenport won a couple of local tournaments, but it appears he let that success go to his head and stopped training, or discovered a fondness for the drink. Something of that nature anyway. Whatever he may once have been, he is certainly no athlete now, though still strong enough, I’d wager. In any case, Bruce had invited Davenport to his home to tell him that he would no longer be supporting him financially, and Davenport killed him for it. He tried to claim he was temporarily insane, if you’ll credit it! But he soon gave that up when I asked if he was still mad when he smothered Robert Rae the next day.”

  “He admitted to that murder too?” I asked.

  “He did. He says he paid Rae a sovereign to guide him down the sewer to where he lost his rings, but when Rae saw how valuable they were, he asked for more. There was a fight, and Rae ended up face down in the mud. An accident, according to Davenport.”

  Lestrade finally took a seat and lit the cigarette I offered him with the air of one
who has won a rather fine watch. The cause of his amiability was soon made clear.

  “I may add,” he announced, “that Mr. Alexander Bruce was a close acquaintance of the Chief Constable, who is apparently a keen sportsman and follower of the noble art. He was understandably shocked to hear of the murder of his friend, but was considerably mollified when I was able immediately to present him with the culprit, already behind bars.”

  He blew smoke towards the ceiling, his rat-like face wreathed in uncustomary smiles. “And don’t think that I’ve forgotten your promise, Mr. Holmes,” he went on. “You said that you would turn your attention to the late Ambassador Cesnauskas if I helped you with your investigation, and now that case is complete, it’s time for you to pay the piper!”

  I was forced to suppress a chuckle as Holmes stared icily across at the inspector. “Yes, your perspicacious theory that the murder must have been carried out by the tosher, Crooked John, proved most helpful indeed.” It was an unkind sally, but if Holmes believed it would irk Lestrade, he was mistaken.

  Instead, the inspector grinned even more broadly as he leaned forward and flicked his cigarette into the fire.

  “Perhaps not, Mr. Holmes,” he replied happily, “but only because it transpires that these toshers do not name themselves after their appearance after all: I’d hazard that Long Bill is not especially tall, for instance, nor is Crooked John gnarled and bent over.

  “It was young Constable Lawrence who explained it to me. He was brought up in the area, and knew the shore community as a boy. Toshers are named after their workings, it seems; their tunnels and sewers and such like. Long Bill, being the boss of them all, works the longest tunnel, this Crooked John probably works a tunnel with lots of twists and turns, and so on.”

  He came to a sudden stop, aware that Holmes was staring at him, his face suddenly pure white. “There’s no need to take it so badly,” Lestrade chided him. “We all must contend with gaps in our expertise.”

  Holmes, however, had already dismissed Lestrade from his mind.

  “Your overcoat, Watson!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “The one which was ruined in the tunnels! Where is it? Do you have still have it?”

  “It’s in a bag in the corner,” I said, confused but in no doubt of the seriousness of the situation. “I’m unconvinced that even Mrs. Hudson will be able to clean it.”

  Holmes dived across the room. Tipping the bag upside down, he tumbled out my overcoat, which lay, crumpled and much the worse for wear, on the tabletop. Looking at it, I knew that I was right – the red ochre stain across the shoulders and down the right arm would never come out.

  The red…

  But Holmes was already ahead of me. “I see you understand, Watson,” he said as he spread the coat out and used a pencil to pick at the staining. “The red mark on Mackay’s coat, the coat he was so keen to remove and hide away in Long Bill’s presence! We know he had recently been down Red Rob’s tunnel for innocent reasons, working on their leverage system. But the shoremen have no such knowledge. If Long Bill noticed the mark, he will have realised that Mackay was lying and had been in the sewer, and from that will draw an erroneous and wholly sinister conclusion. James Mackay is in the gravest of danger!”

  Holmes hurried towards the door. Stopping at the top of the stairs, he turned back long enough to shout a final instruction to Lestrade.

  “If you wish to elicit a confession, Inspector, simply go to the Ambassador’s assistant and tell him you have found his umbrella.”

  “His umbrella?” Lestrade repeated, dumbly.

  “Just that. Tell the assistant that you have found his umbrella, and he will confess.”

  I caught a glimpse of Lestrade’s bemused expression as I swept past him, and then I was on the stairs in pursuit of Holmes, and gave the matter no more thought.

  * * *

  I had expected Holmes to tell the hansom driver to take us to Matty Gray’s, but instead he directed the man to drop us as near to Red Rob’s tunnel as he could get.

  “Both Long Bill and Mackay warned us,” Holmes explained as the cab bumped along the riverside. “A man can be lost in the sewer network and never seen again. If the shoremen have discovered that Mackay lied, that is where they will mete out their justice. We may be too late, however. The tide is coming in, and they will not risk being caught underground when it is at its fullest.”

  The cab drew to a halt and Holmes jumped out. He pressed an additional silver coin into the driver’s hand and then loosened a lantern from the cab. As we scrambled down the embankment, I reflected on how I had hoped never to set foot in those infernal tunnels again. But no one deserved to die in such misery; we were morally bound to do what we could.

  We had only travelled a matter of a quarter of a mile up the tunnel when the sound of a man crying in pain reached our ears.

  When first Mackay hove into view, I could not make sense of what I was seeing, for the man seemed to be lying down on his side in the deepening stream of effluent which ran along the floor of the tunnel. Only once we were within a few feet of him did I realise that he was locked in place by the weight of the very tosh ball he had shown us previously, which lay on top of his left arm, pinning him to the ground. The head lay in six inches of water which flowed swiftly along his body. His eyes were closed and long ribbons of blood extended out from him into the stream. I feared that we were too late, but as I knelt down, his eyes flickered open. His face was flushed but his eyes were clear. Even so, he began to shiver and his teeth clattered together audibly, preventing further speech; if we did not get him out soon, hypothermic collapse, not drowning, might prove the cause of his death.

  In fact, the speed at which the tunnel was filling with water was an immediate concern for all of us. As Holmes scrambled about for a lever with which to move the ball, I put my hand behind Mackay’s head and lifted it clear, checking as I did so that he had no injuries bar his trapped arm. I had just confirmed this to be the case, when Holmes let out a cry of satisfaction and plunged his arms into the filthy water. He pulled out a thick wooden plank: the broken board from Mackay and Red Rob’s leverage system.

  “Yes, this should do the trick,” he said to himself, then, turning his attention to me continued, “You will need to be quick, Watson; all I will be able to do is rock the ball, and this wood may not be sturdy enough to hold the weight for long.”

  He gave me no time to reply and moved the wood into place, but I stopped him. “Wait! I need both hands to pull Mackay free, but if I release his head he’ll drown.”

  Holmes wasted no time, but wrestled off his wet jacket and crumpled it into a rough mound, which he jammed beneath Mackay’s head, allowing me to release him. That done, he resumed his position above the tosh ball and wedged the end of the board between ball and ground. I gripped Mackay’s shoulder in both hands and readied myself to pull him free. I signalled to Holmes and he pressed down with all his weight upon the end of the board.

  At first it seemed that Holmes’s improvised lever would not work. Even in the dim light I could see the muscles on his neck standing out but I felt no lessening of the pressure on Mackay’s arm, nor any slackening in the grip which the tosh ball had upon him. As Holmes sagged back down, I wrapped my arms around Mackay, and wriggled to one side in the filthy water, until I was all but lying full length. With some difficulty, I pressed my boot against the side of the ball.

  “Again, Holmes!” I exhorted. “After three. One. Two…”

  At “three’”, I pushed with all of my might, forcing my body backwards, my arms still wrapped tight around Mackay. At the same moment, Holmes laid his entire long frame against the wooden board, causing it to bow in the middle. For one terrible second, I thought it would snap, then I fell backwards into the stream, now really a small river, and felt the water close briefly above my head.

  I struggled to the surface and was delighted to find that I still held Mackay and that he was free of the tosh ball. I propped him against the far wall, where he
sat, breathing heavily as he slowly recovered his senses. After a while, he managed to speak through his chattering teeth. “Thank you for saving me, gentlemen, but please, help me up. We’d better start walking, or we’ll soon drown.”

  * * *

  Holmes had told our cab to wait for us, and I expected that we would go straightaway to somewhere that we might change into dry clothes, but first we sat on the hillside by the tunnel, catching our breath and tipping the water from our boots.

  After a few minutes, I felt myself begin to shiver. It was time to move, lest we all catch a chill in our soaking clothes. Mackay, though, had other ideas.

  “Thank you again, gentlemen,” he said, and his voice was steady if not yet strong; a reasonable indicator that he was essentially unhurt. “I’d just about given up hope when you came along.” He reached for his shirt, which he had pulled off the second we were out of the tunnel, and wrung it tightly in his hands. “I’ve no idea what tipped Long Bill off – if I’m being honest, I did wonder if it was you – but something I said or did must have, for him and his boys knew I’d been down there and they were out for blood on account of it. I got a good lick in at Long Bill, though.” He grinned at the memory, and reached up to wipe a wet hand across his face. “They weren’t best pleased when I wouldn’t say a word to them, not even when they dragged me down here and rolled that tosh on me. Lucky for me there was a little bit of space underneath, where Rob and me had been working on moving it, and though my arm was trapped it wasn’t crushed. Still, I’d have drowned as they intended if you hadn’t come along.” He frowned and squinted in the dull light. “Though I have to ask, what were you doing down there?”