It was now well past sunset and we approached the smart terrace house in the dark and gave a knock on the door. A maid opened it and Holmes announced that we wished to speak to Simon. There was not much light in the doorway but I thought I saw an apprehensive look come over the maid’s face. She turned and retreated back into the house. A minute later a lady of a certain age approached us. She was nicely dressed and walked with elegant confidence. Her complexion was very fair and her hair was a rusty color. I imagined that in her youth it must have been closer to flaming red.
She smiled cheerfully. “You are looking for Simon? I am so sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen. Simon has gone to America. He departed on the weekend. A shame you did not come just a few days ago, you would have found him. But I shall be happy to let him know that you called. If you will leave your cards, I will put them in the envelope along with my first letter.”
Holmes said nothing and handed his card. The lady read the name and gave Holmes a look of fearful recognition.
“I see, madam,” he said, “that you know who I am. And I know for a certainty that Simon has not gone to America. He is not here because he fears for his life. My only purpose in this visit is to protect him. If you will tell me where I can find him, I assure you that both I and Scotland Yard will do whatever is necessary to keep him safe.”
I watched as the color faded from the good woman’s face, rendering her pale skin a ghostly white. Her hands began to tremble and she closed her eyes and took a deliberate deep breath.
“I am sorry if I attempted to deceive you, Mister Holmes. And, quite frankly, I thank God for your being here. Simon is in danger, you are correct. I begged him to go to the police but he refused. He said that he was about to write the biggest news story of the year and he feared that the police would let the news get out and some other reporter would print it before he could. So, he insisted that I not contact Scotland Yard.”
“Then if he spoke only of Scotland Yard and did not mention my name, you would not be betraying his trust by telling me where I can find him”
Mrs. Woodhouse smiled. “I cannot argue with your logic, Mr. Holmes. Although I fear Simon would not be pleased, it is all the excuse that I need. He is staying up in Holloway, not far from the prison.”
“Is he with a relative of the family?” asked Holmes.
“No. He felt that would be too easy to trace. It is just a rooming house. Most of the tenants are men who have just been released from prison. It sounded terribly dreadful but he said it was the last place anyone would look for him. I will write out the address, and please, Mr. Holmes, do try to get him to stop being so pig-headed. I am worried sick.”
“No need to worry, madam. We will find a cab and be on our way there post haste.”
“Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Holmes. And you, sir. You must be Dr. Watson. Thank you, as well. You have brought such a relief to my heart.”
We hailed yet another cab and hurried north to Holloway. The driver did not like being in the area after dark and had us pay him while the cab was still moving. He stopped only long enough for us to climb down and then laid the whip on the horse’s haunches and sped off. At the end of the block I could see that great dark archway that led into HM Prison Holloway. Holmes had sent many villains and more than one villainess off to serve time there and I was hoping that none of them had been recently released to the neighborhood.
We knocked on the door of the house whose address we had been given. A large and very rough woman, who I imagined had been in prison for a decade for murdering a dozen men with her bare hands, greeted with in a manner that was lacking in any trace of civility.
In response to Holmes’s asking for Simon, she told us, “That cocky little redhead twit is down the street at the pub. Doesn’t like the food he gets here. Doesn’t like the rest of the lodgers here, either. And he doesn’t like me and the feeling is mutual. So, you can go find the little blighter and tell him we’ll all be glad to see the back of him and not a day too soon.”
Holmes graciously thanked the landlady and we walked briskly in the dark to the Prince Edward pub. The patrons were a rough lot and I could see Holmes scanning the crowd, not wanting to encounter any of the criminals he had put away. I did not recognize anyone and apparently neither did he, so we entered and worked our way to a small table at the back. A young man with bright red hair was sitting at it writing busily. He had an opened valise on the table beside him and in it I could see a stack of pages that must have been three inches thick.
“Good evening, Simon,” said Holmes as he pulled up a chair and sat down across from him.
The fellow looked up, startled, and quickly put the paper he was writing on into the valise and closed it.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“My name is Sherlock Holmes and for your own protection I would like you to come with me immediately down to Scotland Yard. Your life is in danger and my only purpose in coming here is your well-being.”
The fellow rolled his eyes and replied. “Yeah, yeah. So, the great detective found me. Do I look like I’m running away like a coward? If you think I am going to hand over the biggest story to hit the London press in ten years to the coppers at the Yard, you’re crazy, Mr. Holmes.”
“You will not have to surrender your documents. But you will be safe.”
“Oh, really? Is that so? And since when can Mr. Sherlock Holmes, amateur detective, guarantee what Scotland Yard will or will not do? Can you give orders to Scotland Yard? Right. Didn’t think so. I’m fine where I am. So how about you just run along and forget you ever found me. By Friday this story will have hit the fan and be all over the world.”
“It will do no such thing if you are dead.”
“Right, well I’m not going to end up dead. You called on my rooming house, right? Do you think that monster landlady is going to let any thugs into the house? And behind her are six chaps who would happily eat you for breakfast. They’re the best protection available anywhere. Tell that to Scotland Yard.”
“There is no doubt,” replied Holmes, “that your fellow lodgers are a fearful group and will protect whomever they like. However, I will wager that they do not like you.”
That comment was met with a stunned silence as the fellow absorbed the implications of what he had just been told. Holmes continued.
“The one person who does care for you is your mother and you have placed her under terrible stress and worry. For her sake, if not for your own, please come with me.”
That appeared to give the man pause and replied in a much more congenial fashion.
“I agree. I will go with you to the Yard. And I thank you for your concern. But I still have several hours of writing to do so I can turn in this story tomorrow morning. It will run every day for at least a week in the FT and will get picked up by Reuters and the AP and be all over the world. It will hit the City like an earthquake. Believe me, I am not exaggerating. Heads will roll and kingdoms will fall. I’m talking at least a million pounds. Maybe three million. It’s the worst fiasco to hit the City … ever. But I need to get it finished and I’ll have to work through the night to do that. So, if you can meet me at the house tomorrow morning at seven thirty I will go with you first to my office and then on to Scotland Yard. I promise.”
Holmes sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “I assure you that I do not care a fig about your story. I do care that three of your friends have been murdered. I agree to wait until morning if you will tell me here and now who you suspect is responsible for those deaths. I work in complete confidence and I have no interest whatsoever in stealing your thunder or publishing one word of any reporter’s story. I am interested only in bringing criminals to justice.”
There was a stony silence between them for a part of a minute before Simon Woodhouse answered.
“All right, then, Mr. Holmes. I’ll give you what I know. Is the name of the firm London and Globe known to you?”
“I have heard the name. I am not familia
r with its operations.”
“If you will look into it, you will find the people who have very good reasons for wanting my friends and me dead.”
“And,” asked Holmes, “might one of those people be a fellow with a gold tooth?”
Here the young man’s mouth dropped open. “Why yes. How did you know that?”
“That, young man, is the part of my story that I choose not to disclose. I bid you good night. I will be at your door at seven thirty tomorrow morning.”
We left Simon Woodhouse at his table in the pub and took a cab back to Baker Street where I bedded down for the night. I was weary from a long day and the travel that we had done and took myself off to my old room straight away. I left Holmes sitting in his usual chair with his pipe in his mouth.
At six o’clock the following morning I woke to the sensation of my shoulder being rocked.
“Come Watson, time to get back to Holloway.”
“Good heaven’s Holmes. It is only six o’clock. Could you not have given me another half an hour?”
“Perhaps, but I am feeling very apprehensive about our arrogant young reporter. Anyone could have gone to his mother and given her a card bearing my name and she would have revealed the location of her son. I fear we have no time to lose. Please. We can find coffee and breakfast after we get Simon delivered to Lestrade.”
I was quite sure that all my early rising would accomplish would be a much longer time of standing on the sidewalk outside of Simon’s door while we waited for seven thirty to arrive, but Holmes was insistent and there was no point arguing. So, I rose and bathed quickly and by six thirty we were in a cab making our way through the early morning darkness back through Camden Town and into Holloway.
The cab turned off Camden Road and I heard the driver shout an abrupt stop. I quickly opened the door to see what had caused the obstruction, and then my heart died. In front of the rooming house that Simon Woodhouse was staying in were three police wagons. I feared the worst. Holmes followed me out of the cab and said nothing. He strode quickly up to the house and I tagged along behind him.
Emerging from the house was the familiar figure of Inspector Lestrade. He saw the two of us and looked honestly amazed.
“Good Lord, how in the name of all that is holy did you end up here? I only got the call twenty minutes ago.”
“I fear, Inspector,” said Holmes, “that our number of dead young lads who did their mathematics at Cambridge has just climbed to four.”
“Not unless Cambridge is graduating large nasty landladies and monstrous ex-convicts. And those two in there are far from young.”
Holmes hustled into the house. In the hallway and the kitchen were two bodies. Both had been shot several times in the chest and abdomen. The body in the hallway was that of the fearsome landlady. The one in the kitchen I did not recognize. Simon Woodhouse was nowhere to be seen. We scampered up the stairs to the rooms that had been let to lodgers. The door to Simon’s room was open. The sweater he had been wearing the previous evening was draped over a chair. The valise that he had guarded so diligently was lying on the stairs. It was empty.
“So, Holmes, would you mind telling me what went on here?” barked a bleary-eyed Lestrade.
“I admit that I was wrong once again,” said Holmes. “These poor souls apparently did try to protect the young man. They hardly knew him, and they did not even like him. Yet they stood in harm’s way so that he could escape.” He paused and sighed. “I can only hope that the Almighty recognizes true Christian sacrifice when it is standing in front of Him.”
Between Holmes’s account of the previous evening and the accounts of the other borders, Lestrade was able to discern that two men had entered the house just before midnight, immediately after Simon’s return from the pub. They followed him into the hallway, but the landlady had blocked their passage. After a struggle during which she punched one of them in the face, they had shot her. Simon had been grabbed as he tried to ascend the stairs and one of the other lodgers had come to his aid. Simon was able to bolt up the stairs, but without his valise. The assailants had shot the nameless large tattooed fellow who had staggered back to the kitchen before collapsing and dying. Simon must have escaped through a window on the upper floor. Descriptions of the murderers were confused and contradictory. After seeing their fellow borders shot dead, the other inhabitants of the house took cover. No one attempted to get a closer look at or follow the killers.
Sherlock Holmes said nothing as we sat in the cab and returned to Baker Street. I occasionally looked at him and observed his expression change several times. I could see the look of steely determination and the hardened eyes that I had come to associate with his single-minded pursuit of the criminal. But twice I noticed that his face softened and his head shook slowly. He looked perplexed, as if having no idea what steps to take next. As we were rounding the park he turned to me.
“Do you know anything of this firm, London and Globe?”
I had heard of it and, in truth I knew a little. Thirty years ago, when I completed my medical studies I did not know the difference between a stock and a bond. What had changed over the past three decades was that both Holmes and I had become moderately wealthy men. My medical practice returned a gentleman’s income, but the success of my stories about Sherlock Holmes had brought in surprising royalties, and it kept growing. I had, quite rightly, shared this income with Sherlock Holmes, on top of which he not only had his professional fees as a consulting detective, with the freedom to pick and choose amongst a long list of clamoring clients, but he had been the recipient of numerous rewards and awards. While I had, rather sensibly, left most of the decisions as to where to invest our assets to my wife, I did make it practice to scan the financial pages once I had finished with the racing news.
“It is,” I said, “often in the news. Always announcing yet another discovery of gold somewhere, or an upgrading of their assay results. The driving force behind it is something of a character, but his Board of Directors is as blue ribbon as any mining company on the exchange.”
Holmes pondered this information.
“How might we gain intimate knowledge of its operations?”
I thought about that and gave what I thought was a clever answer. “By becoming well-heeled investors. If we indicated that we, wealthy chaps that we are or at least can pretend to be, are interested in becoming major shareholders, I suspect we will be welcomed.”
Holmes nodded and smiled. “There are times, my dear doctor, when I unfairly underestimate both your rational and creative abilities. An excellent suggestion.”
I said nothing.
.
Chapter Eight
The Folly Under the Lake
THE NEXT FEW DAYS were uneventful. I returned to my home and medical services and enjoyed quiet evenings with my lovely wife. Holmes dropped by twice to keep me up to date and to see if I had managed one more time to develop new insights into the case, using my newly appreciated ability to be both rational and creative. I had not.
Simon Woodhouse was tracked to Southampton and was on his way to America. Lestrade had been to see Holmes several times to discuss the matters of the case but had made no headway on any of the five murders that were now in his docket.
Then, on Friday, the twenty-eighth of September a note arrived from Holmes. It ran:
Tomorrow afternoon, as I am sure you have nothing pressing on your calendar, please dress in the most impressive manner you are capable of. We have been invited to pay a visit to the most pretentious estate in Surrey.
I shall come by at one o’clock. Kindly implore your dear wife to join us as she is far more convincingly elegant than you are.
Holmes
My darling wife, Mary (née Morstan), was delighted to join us but declared that she would need a new fall frock and accessories if she were to play the part of the wife of a serious investor. Thus, we found ourselves at ten o’clock on Saturday morning celebrating Michaelmas in a most unholy manner by enjoying the
view of her in a mirror in a shop on Bond Street. Forgive my bias, but I could not help but be proud of being married to one of the most attractive women in all of London.
However, a minor financial disaster was rapidly approaching my pocketbook.
Mary and I stood side by side looking at ourselves in a large shop window. Her stunning appearance unfortunately rendered my habit dull and terribly uninspired by comparison. So off we went to Saville Row and I was outfitted off the rack with as fine a morning suit— “un-bespoken for” as the tailor explained—as could be secured on such short notice. It was not inexpensive.
At precisely one o’clock a handsome brougham pulled up to our door and Holmes waived to us to join him. He was wonderfully attired and complimented my wife endlessly and me economically on our appearance. He had even brought along a photographer who took our likeness and promised that we would appear in the society pages of the Sunday newspaper. I, rather uncharitably, assumed that Holmes had bribed yet another editor.
We giggled our way from Paddington to Waterloo Station and found the South West Railway train for the Milford-Witley station in Surrey. Comfortably ensconced in a first-class cabin, we rehearsed our lines and laughed heartily at the notion of our impersonating the twits and toffs that move idly through the lofty realms of England’s parasitical rich. We tried to appear convincingly absurd and utterly snobbish.
“So, Sherlock,” said my wife to our dear friend, “do tell. Who is this character that has invited us to tea in Surrey?”
Holmes smiled, removed his top hat, and leaned back.
“His name is James Whitaker Wright. He has dismissed the ‘James,’ reduced it to a mere ‘J’ and no one has called him Jim or Jimmy since he has been out of short pants. You are welcome to call him Whitaker or Whit. The word on the street is that he soon expects to be elevated to Sir Whit. He is a native of Stafford. His father was a clergyman and our man became one as well, but very briefly.
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Five: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition Page 5