by David Marcum
“Mr. Holmes!” he exclaimed. “Thanks to Dr. Watson here, I have read so many accounts of your remarkable talents that I did not expect to be so dumfounded by anything that I might have heard here today. I beseech you to explain yourself sir, for it is almost as if you knew of me already.”
Holmes was barely able to subdue a smile of self satisfaction upon hearing Harden’s words of veneration, although he was also clearly irritated by this slight delay to the proceedings. Consequently, his response was as curt as it was brief. He turned abruptly towards our client and demonstrated his explanation by pointing towards the tips of Harden’s fingers
“The browning of your finger tips betrays the fact that you despise the prevailing trend for the use of cigar holders, while the light dusting of ash on your shoulder indicates the brand. As Watson will assure you, I have made an extensive study of cigar and cigarette ash and its use in the detection of crime, and Havanas are very distinctive. Your hat bears a thin layer of a type of soot that is unique to the Metropolitan line, and your gold watch and chain show of your very recent retirement.”
In answer to our questioning glances, Holmes then added:
“The initials on the back of your watch, HTI, surely stand for Harden Tobacco Industries?”
At this juncture, Harden threw himself back into his chair and clapped his hands joyously.
“Mr. Holmes, I see now that there is nothing within Dr. Watson’s accounts of your work that exaggerates your powers. You are correct on every count, although I cannot, for the life of me, understand how you could possibly have identified the name of my company merely from a set of initials.”
No doubt fuelled by the enthusiasm of our client, Holmes was now clearly warming to his task. He suppressed a mischievous smile and lowered his voice, as if he was about to divulge a most singular secret.
“Mr. Harden, I must inform you that my friend, Dr. Watson, read of you in a recent morning paper, and he passed this information on to me, but a moment before your arrival!” Harden appeared to be both surprised and disappointed by Holmes’s confession, a fact that did not go unnoticed by my friend.
He clapped his hands repeatedly and laughed uproariously, although Harden and I were somewhat slower in reacting in this way.
“I fear that if I continue to betray my secrets in this way, any reputation that I might have accrued will disappear in a thrice!” Holmes’s amusement slowly subsided, and he soon turned towards Harden with a steely intent.
“Mr. Harden, as gratifying as this brief interlude has been, we have surely wasted enough valuable time by examining this commonplace trivia!”
Harden drained the remains from his coffee cup before clearing his throat. He looked anxiously towards me, for affirmation that he should now begin to recount his problem to us. I raised my pencil and smiled at him reassuringly.
“Thank you. I assure you, gentlemen, that I shall put this matter before you both, with as much brevity and accuracy as I can.” Holmes smiled gratefully at Harden when he heard this declaration.
“As Dr. Watson so correctly pointed out, I am indeed John Vincent Harden, and I have been, until very recently, the most successful tobacco tycoon that this country has ever produced.
“Despite my success and the inevitable wealth that this has produced, I have always lived a most frugal and abstemious existence. My wife, Claudia, and I remain childless to this day, and we have lived in a modest town house in Chester Square these past twenty years, with barely a handful of servants”
“A most humble existence, indeed.” Holmes stated quietly, with an understandable sarcasm, for the fine town houses of Chester Square are among the most sought after residences in one of the better parts of Belgravia.
Harden chose to ignore Holmes’s irony and pulled out his cigar case, which he proceeded to offer around. Holmes and I declined in turn.
“Although they are undoubtedly most fine, I find my cherrywood pipe to be more conducive at the outset of a case.” Holmes explained.
Harden removed the tip from a huge Havana and smiled long and indulgently while he slowly brought it to light. He waved a huge cloud of smoke away from his face before continuing.
“Throughout that time, my daily routine barely altered. My company had its main office in the City, and we kept our accounting department in somewhat smaller premises at West Hampstead. I liked to visit both of them on a regular basis, and often travelled from my club, which is situated just behind Gower Street, to West Hampstead via the Metropolitan. As you so correctly deduced, Mr. Holmes, I became a most regular passenger, and barely a day went by that did not find me within one of its carriages.”
“Excuse me Mr. Harden, but surely, for a man in your position, a carriage would unquestionably prove to be a more agreeable proposition?” I found myself asking.
“We do keep a small brougham, Dr. Watson, but I find the running costs to be prohibitive and I reserve it for those rare occasions when I escort my wife to a social engagement and the like.”
Just then, I noticed Holmes eyeing our guest a good deal more quizzically, and he ran his finger around the rim of the old man’s hat.
“This layer of soot on your hat is still quite fresh!” Holmes stated with some emphasis.
Harden drew on his cigar and viewed my friend with some confusion.
“You appear to be making a point, Mr. Holmes, but I fail to see what it might be.”
“Surely, now that you have retired, there is no real need for you to travel to West Hampstead and subject yourself to the grime and discomfort of the Underground?”
“Although I am retired, the company is still in full operation, and the accountant has requested my assistance in executing the transition of ownership. The work is almost complete and in any event, it only occupies two or three hours of my time each day. Once everything has been signed over, Claudia and I intend to travel extensively, for the first time in twenty years!” Harden declared joyfully.
“Mr. Harden, with your life seemingly in such fine order, I fail to see what prompted you to seek my consultation with such urgency.” Inexplicably, Holmes was taking an obvious dislike to the elderly tobacco baron and he seemed intent on drawing matters towards a speedy conclusion. He tapped out his pipe against the side of the fireplace, lit a cigarette in its place, and turned away from Harden to face the window.
“Oh, Mr. Holmes, do not turn away from me at such a time, for I am being hounded and persecuted to the point where I am at my wits end!” Harden suddenly exclaimed while clambering back up to his feet.
“Steady your nerves, Mr. Harden, steady your nerves, persecution is a most unusual turn of phrase. You do not appear to be maltreated, so explain to me in what manner you have been interfered with,” Holmes suggested, while striding back towards the centre of the room.
“It began harmlessly enough. Indeed, the unusual incidents were so slight and commonplace that individually they were hardly worthy of note, and might have even be put down to my own ineptness. Accumulatively, however, they became quite tiresome, and over a period of time, a cause of great concern.”
“To what type of incident are you referring, and over what period of time?” Holmes asked grudgingly.
Harden returned to his seat and appeared to be most put out when Holmes applied more concentration to the task of scraping out his pipe than he did to Harden’s unusual problem.
“Initially, when various items that I use on a regular basis, such as my umbrella for example, began to disappear, I put it down to an oversight on my part. However, I soon realised that another hand was at play, especially when these items suddenly turned up again, but in the most unexpected of places. A silver plated trophy, which I had won for playing golf many years ago, suddenly reappeared in the coal cellar!
“The first incident occurred over four months ago, but it has only been over the past fortni
ght that I have been plagued beyond the four walls of my house.” It was only now that Holmes ceased his incessant scraping and turned his attention towards our visitor once more.
“As I explained earlier, for reasons of prudence and convenience, I have become a regular user of the Metropolitan Underground line. I travel between Gower Street and West Hampstead stations during the course of the same schedule every day. Consequently, I have become used to seeing some very familiar faces occupying the seats very close to my own, every time that I step upon the train.
“It has only been of late, however, that I have found myself drawing some undesirable and intimidating attention. I am constantly being stared at, sometimes in a most threatening manner, but my stalkers never seem to be the same person. They occupy the same seat as each other, they even present an identical pose and menacing demeanour. However, I have never seen any of them more than once. It is almost as if I have somehow become the victim of a gigantic and inexplicable conspiracy!” At this juncture Harden became understandably agitated and he reached into his jacket pocket for his Vesta box.
“Although they now appear to be different to each other, do you recognise any of these conspirators as being amongst your fellow passengers from the time before your persecution began?” Holmes asked.
Harden thought long and hard before shaking his head and answering in the negative.
“Are there any obvious visual similarities between any of them, say their age or size, for example?”
“No, not at all, and that is the thing that is most damnably strange about the whole business! One day it might be a middle aged lady, the next a dapper business man and the next a pretty young nanny. The only thing that they all share is an unwarranted and disturbing obsession with me.”
“Yet you still persist in making this journey, despite the discomfort that this strange behaviour is causing you?” I decided to ask.
“Yes, Doctor. I did not see why my daily routine should alter, just because a disparate group of characters have decided that I make an interesting subject of their scrutiny.”
“However, that situation has now changed for the worse and quite recently, I think,” Holmes proposed. Then he added, in answer to our questioning glances: “Why else would you come to me, after all of this time, unless you now feel that you have come under some kind of threat?”
“You are quite correct, Mr. Holmes, events have certainly moved in another direction of late. My stalkers are now no longer content to merely stare intently towards me; they have started to talk to me, from under their breath, and making contact of quite an aggressive nature. A whispered threat to my life, a clumsy elbow to my rib cage, these are just two of the most recent examples of their outrageous behaviour.
“As you might suppose, I took the matter up with the police, but as no crime has actually been committed, there is very little action that they can take. So I now turn to you, Mr. Holmes, in the hope that you might explain to me what this strange persecution can possibly mean. Do you think that my life might actually be in jeopardy?”
Holmes thought long and hard before making his pronouncement and he pursed his lips with pressure from his right forefinger. He cast Harden an oblique and anxious glance before slowly replying.
“You must be strong, Mr. Harden, but I think it to be not unlikely. Do you believe that the most singular occurrences in your home are in some way connected to the more threatening behaviour of your fellow passengers? After all, the disappearance of your personal possessions could only be attributed to your servants and family, and you would surely be able to identify them were they to suddenly join you on the Metropolitan.”
“Our servants have been with us for many years, Mr. Holmes, and I cannot, for one minute, believe that they would collude with those scoundrels on the train. I have recognised nobody from my household during my journeys, of that I am certain.”
“In that case, I suppose it has not occurred to you that your wife might be behind the temporary misplacement of your cherished objects, as some form of practical joke perhaps?” Holmes suggested mischievously.
“Absolutely not, Mr. Holmes. Indeed, I find the very idea totally preposterous and not a little insulting!” Harden protested while rising to his feet again. Undaunted, however, Holmes persisted with this line of questioning.
“Mr. Harden, what other reasonable conclusion is one to draw? Given that you trust your servants so implicitly, no one from outside of your household is likely to have run the risk of breaking and entering merely to move a golf trophy from one place to the next! If you cannot see that, perhaps you have formulated a theory that might explain your persecution on the trains?”
“Mr. Holmes, that is precisely why I have come here today, to seek your advice. Is there none that you can give me?” Harden asked pleadingly.
“Only that it would be in your best interest were you to start telling me the truth!” With that, Holmes turned away from him once more and disdainfully waved him away and in the direction of the door.
Harden stamped down his foot in his rage, and made for the door.
“Well, I never, Mr. Holmes. I am not used to being spoken to in such a fashion. If you are not able to help me, then I am certain that I shall find someone, of similar ilk, who is able to.” Harden turned on his heels and he slammed our door behind him with a resounding crash. The door onto Baker Street was dealt with in a similar fashion a moment later.
“Well, I must say, Holmes, your dismissal of a potentially intriguing case, in such a cavalier fashion, goes somewhat against the pale! Are you so certain that Harden has been withholding the truth from you deliberately?”
“Of that, Watson, I am in no doubt. While I am not suggesting for an instant that Harden’s story is a complete fabrication, there are certain aspects of his statement that simply do not hold water. The fact that he is so reluctant to reveal them to me suggests that he has been guilty of an indiscretion so shameful that he cannot bring himself to declare it to me.
“Nevertheless, there are certain aspects of this case that are unique in my experience, and Mr. John Vincent Harden has nowhere else to turn. He will return before too long, of that you may be assured. In the meantime, Watson, there is nothing to prevent us from making a few inquiries of our own, in the hope that we can put together the pieces of this puzzle before the next stage of Harden’s persecution is revealed.”
“Why are you so convinced that Harden has been withholding the truth? I did not see anything in his manner that would have suggested that to you.”
“I am familiar with West Hampstead and I can assure you, Watson, that there is no accountancy in that vicinity capable of handling a client as considerable as Harden Tobacco Industries. Furthermore, a company on the scale of Harden Tobacco Industries would undoubtedly incorporate an accounts department within its own head office, so I rejected that notion from the outset.
“I was equally dismissive of the suggestion that Harden would subject himself to the tribulations of the underground merely to save a few pounds, when he had already confessed to having a perfectly good brougham at home, at his constant beck and call. I would suggest that there lies a far more tempting reason that would induce Harden into making that journey.”
“Well, for one thing, there is far less chance of his own household discovering his whereabouts, by his using the underground service. After all, if he is perpetrating an indiscretion, there is little point in his advertising that fact to his driver and footman!” I suggested.
“Excellent, Watson, they were my thoughts exactly! Although, of course, I had the added advantage of having noticed the corner of a lady’s handkerchief protruding from Harden’s inside pocket, when he reached inside for his cigar case. It had been badly stained with makeup and bore the initials S S, not C H as one would expect.” With that, Holmes dashed into his room and reappeared a moment later wearing his coat, a muffler
and bearing his small bag and cane.
“Holmes, are we to assume that the next phase of Harden’s persecution might involve a threat to his life?” I asked before Holmes had reached the door.
“As you surely know by now, Watson, I never assume. However, it would be a grave folly were we to exclude all possibilities, no matter how unlikely they might seem to be. There is not a moment to lose!”
“Where are you off to?” I asked, while remaining firmly rooted to the spot.
“Why, to Gower Street, of course, in the hope that Dave ‘Gunner’ King and his cohorts might aid me in ascertaining the true course of Harden’s daily routines, and perhaps the identity of the mysterious lady who is now down one handkerchief.”
I should point out that King was, without a doubt, the finest cabbie in London, and his vast knowledge and fortitude had proved to be invaluable to Holmes on many such occasions.
“Holmes, would you like me to travel to West Hampstead? Who knows, Harden’s final destination might prove to be every bit as important as his starting point?”
Holmes appeared to be genuinely appreciative of my suggestion.
“Oh, Watson, if you would not mind. Ultimately it might prove to be a thankless task, but the time that it would save me could prove to be of immeasurable assistance.” With that, Holmes was through the door, and he departed from 221b with a cursory call to Mrs. Hudson as he slammed the front door behind him.
My own departure was no less urgent than that of Holmes. I hurtled towards Baker Street Station while still fastening my heavy overcoat. I decided to forsake the relative speed and comfort of a cab in favour of taking the very same journey as had our beleaguered former client.
During the course of that long and uncomfortable journey, I inquired of the guard to see if he could recognise my description of Harden, but I was greeted with a look of bewilderment and a deliberate shaking of the head. Consequently, I arrived upon the cold, windswept platform of West Hampstead Station, with only the ticket clerk to turn to for a clue.