by David Marcum
“You did not worry about him, or report his absence, Miss Sharp?”
“Doctor Watson, you may think me a terrible old cynic, but do you imagine that the over-worked police force of this city would stop for a second to investigate a man reported missing for a week by someone who is not even a relation, but merely his German teacher? Especially one of my stature?” She frowned to herself. “Besides, it had only been a week,” she ended, uncertainly.
“Could you describe Mr. Edwards, by any chance?”
“I can do better than that, Doctor. At the start of every year, I commission a photograph of the class, as a memento, a keepsake for myself. This year’s image is hanging on the wall behind you.”
The photograph was a little dark, rendering the faces slightly indistinct, but there was no mistaking the face of our, until now nameless, corpse. William Simon Edwards it was, as clear as day.
“This chap here?” I asked Miss Sharp, keen that there should be no confusion when I reported back to Holmes.
“The very same, Doctor Watson, the very same. William is a fine man, kind-hearted but also clever and diligent at his work. He is expected to go far, I believe.”
“His work?”
“He is a chemist, working with a firm from the Midlands, if I am not mis-remembering.”
Suddenly in a great hurry, I asked if I might borrow the photograph and, having gained the lady’s assent and assuring her that I would return when I had news of her missing student, I thanked Miss Sharp for her time and assistance, and made my way back to Holmes, with this new evidence to share.
In spite of my haste, Holmes’s carriage was moving away from the pavement as I arrived back in Westcott Road, and it was only through a last minute sprint that I was able to rap on the side and so bring the vehicle to a halt. As a result, I was out of breath when I eventually managed to take my seat inside, and barely managed to gasp out my findings to Holmes.
He took the photograph from me, agreeing that one of the gentleman pictured therein and the mysterious man found dead that morning were the same. “So, William Simon Edwards is our man,” he said. “And far from spying on Chapmans, he may well be an employee.” He knocked on the roof of the carriage, bringing it to a stop. “Do you know the offices of Chapmans the chemists?” he shouted up to the driver. Having received confirmation that that worthy soul did indeed know the London offices of the firm, we set off in a new direction, with Holmes’s eyes seldom straying far from the photograph he held in his hand.
Chapmans’ London office was anonymous enough; one of many similarly grand façades in a street lined with them, each button-holed with a small but highly polished gold plaque, on which was inscribed the name of the firm resident within. Chapmans was the third such door along, and no more or less grand than any of the others.
Entering the building via a set of tall glass doors, directly ahead of us lay a reception desk, manned by a thin, pale young man, whose sparse hair was combed straight across from just above his left ear to just above his right, in one solid, completely flat masse. As he turned to greet us, I was disconcertingly aware of this raft of hair moving and shifting in its imperfect mooring, but tried to avoid staring as Holmes enquired after William Edwards.
“Mr. Edwards is in Germany at present, gents,” the office boy replied, and I am sure that Holmes felt the same thrill of discovery that I did on mention of that country.
“On business?” asked Holmes, confidently then, without waiting for a reply, went on, “You surprise me. My name is Oswald Furnell, and I am lately down from Manchester to meet with Mr. Edwards, who I understood to be resident in Birmingham but currently on secondment to the London office of Chapmans.”
“On secondment, yes, sir. But to Hamburg in Germany, not here, I’m afraid. Mr. Edwards is part of the team from Chapmans who hope to come to agreement over a merger with Baumgartners, the main chemical manufacturers of that city.”
“Ah, I see my mistake,” said Holmes with a small smile of understanding. He reached into his pocket, then withdrew his hand with a shake of the head. “I have left my cards in the hotel, but never mind for now. Might I leave a message with you to pass to Mr. Edwards? I, too, am a chemist and hoped that Mr. Edwards and I might work together on a little project of my own devising. Perhaps you could let him know that I called, and was disappointed to find him out of the country. I will be in town until Friday... he will not have returned by then? No? That is a pity.” He made to leave then, as though suddenly struck by a thought, turned back to the receptionist.
“I wonder if I might have a word with one of his superiors, actually? It may be that they can provide me with the same information, vital to my work, that I hoped to gain from Mr. Edwards.”
The receptionist appeared doubtful. “I don’t think so, sir. Only Sir Peter is actually on the premises today, and he is busy with meetings all day.”
“Sir Peter Warburton?” Holmes asked with every sign of enthusiasm. “Why, he and I were at University together.” He looked round and quickly spotted a door with the words “Managing Director” on a plaque on it. Before he could be stopped, he strode over and threw the door open, revealing an expensively decorated office. “Come along, Watson,” he shouted as he entered, “let’s go and visit old Peter Warburton!”
With a sheepish shrug in the direction of the receptionist I did as he asked and followed him through the door.
The little receptionist, of course, hurried along in our footsteps, protesting that we could not enter Sir Peter’s office, that he would be forced to call the police and other, similar protestations, of a sort I had become immune to during my years of acquaintance with Sherlock Holmes. He stood in the doorway, as indecisive as I was sure he would be, shuffling from one foot to the other, while Holmes took a seat and I stood behind him.
“I’m sorry, Sir Peter,” he said, “but these gentlemen just barged-”
“It’s quite alright, Jones, I heard. I will see them.” The figure seated behind the desk was every inch the English patrician. Tall and slender, with short grey hair and moustache, he dressed conservatively but well, and to my surprise regarded us with some amusement, rather the nervousness one might expect in a man suddenly confronted by two strangers in his own office.
“Now gentlemen, what can I do for you?” he asked, giving every impression of a man asking two treasured guests what they would like to drink.
“You do not care to know who we are, Sir Peter?” Holmes asked.
The man shook his head. “Well, I know that you did not go to University with me, but other than that, no - I can’t say I care particularly who you are, specifically. Nor which newspaper you represent.” He laughed and waved a finger at Holmes. “I shall tell you exactly what I have told every other hack who has attempted to inveigle himself into my confidences. Chapmans has no comment to make on the rumours that we are conducting work for the Government. Now, I mean you no hard feeling, but I am a busy man and my time is precious, so if you will excuse me...”
Curiously, throughout this extraordinary speech, I had felt myself redden, almost as though I were exactly the sort of scandal chasing newspaperman of his accusation. As he finished and indicated the door with one hand, I actually began to bid him good-day, so powerful was the sensation.
Holmes, however, was unperturbed, and even happy to play his role to the full. “Very well, Sir Peter, but one question before we go, if I may?”
Warburton smile widened at Holmes’s cheek, but he waved a lazy hand in assent. “One question then, as repayment for the bravado of pretending to have gone to Oxford with me.”
“Where is William Edwards, Sir Peter?” my friend asked quietly.
All good humour vanished from Warburton’s face in an instant. He rose from his chair, knocking a selection of papers to the floor in his haste to speak, but once he was on his feet, his voice appeared to desert
him and he stood, staring at Holmes and myself in silence. He walked across to a tantalus on a nearby side table and poured himself a whisky before he spoke. “That fool!” he snarled finally, “That ridiculous, ungrateful idiot! I’ve no conception of why anyone would trouble himself with such a worthless individual, but if you must know, I received word a day or two back that he had been caught behaving in a drunken and ungentlemanly manner while in Germany and, following a series of foul-mouthed attacks on senior members of the merger team, had been dismissed. I believe that he intended to make his own way back to England, and may well already be here somewhere, though I cannot tell you where exactly.” He frowned, though I felt there was something unnatural about the gesture. “Now, I have told you what I know of the man. It is your turn to tell me why you seek him, and how that might impact upon Chapmans. You may quote me about his drunkenness and lack of a gentleman’s manners, incidentally,” he concluded, now almost restored to his former humour.
Holmes was equally calm. “No particular reason, Sir Peter. Word has reached The News of... well, let us leave my employers unnamed, shall we, that this Edwards was a rising star in the chemical manufacture industry, and we hoped to use him as a form of human interest story.” Holmes held out a hand, “But if he has ruined himself in the manner you describe, our readers would have no interest in him.”
With that, Holmes shook Warburton’s hand and we left the office before he could say anything further. For a moment, I thought he had sent the receptionist Jones to follow us, but whoever it was I glimpsed from the corner of my eye as we walked down the stairs outside the Chapmans’ office was gone by the time I turned to look properly.
If I expected Holmes to be abashed by our failure at Chapmans, I was to be disappointed. No sooner had we rounded the corner of the road than he called for the hansom driver to stop. He opened his jacket and pulled from it a collection of crumpled papers which he sat and read, without deigning to explain his actions to me. I knew where the papers had come from, of course. Sir Peter had knocked them to the floor as he raged at us, and Holmes had slipped some of them into his coat as the distressed knight of the realm had poured himself a drink. I reflected that while I could admire Holmes’s ability at sleight of hand, I could not necessarily evince a similar degree of admiration for his personal morality.
As Holmes scanned each page, he discarded it on the floor of the hansom, until finally he came to a page which interested him. “Aha!” he cried with delight, “This is the one!” He stabbed a long finger at the page, indicating one small section. “See here,” he crowed, “this paragraph. ‘The company is presently engaged in the development of new weaponry for the army, in case of war. The most promising of these experiments involves W.S Edwards’ work on an odourless and colourless form of poison gas, based on Hydrogen Sulfide’.”
“Perhaps Lestrade is in the right then, Holmes?” I queried. “Edwards dismissed with no reference and a definite blot on his character, and the company working on a secret gas weapon to which he might well have had access. Is it so much of a jump to have him sell his secrets to a foreign power, and then be killed by agents of that power, eager to leave no loose ends?” A sudden thought occurred to me. “By God, Holmes, don’t some of those Boer types speak German?”
“A west Germanic language, certainly, but rooted in Dutch rather than classical German.”
“Even so,” I insisted.
“Perhaps,” said Holmes, though a look of doubt crossed his face as he spoke. “We shall learn nothing more here though. Let’s pick up an evening paper and return home. A pipe or two and a browse through the reports of the Criminal Court may serve to loosen something useful from my brain.”
With that, he lapsed into that blind concentrative state which marked portions of so many of his cases, leaving me to stare out of the carriage window at the London streets flying by.
We has been at home for no more than five minutes when Holmes gave a great cry and dashed his newspaper to the floor.
“I have been a fool, Watson! Remind me of this moment when next I lord it over the likes of Lestrade and Gregson.” He struck the arm of his chair a great blow in his annoyance with himself, then snapped out a request for the original letter found on Edwards’ body. I handed it to him and watched as he re-read it, then did the same to the discarded newspaper. “So simple a solution, and yet I allowed myself to wander in entirely the wrong direction.” He handed me both letter and ‘paper. “See for yourself, Watson!” he groaned.
The letter was short enough that I had no need to reacquaint myself with its contents, but I read the article indicated by Holmes with great interest, and greater confusion. It was merely a standard announcement of the engagement of two young people - the Hon. Michael Warburton and Johanna Baumgartner. The future marriage of the son of the Managing Director of Chapmans and, I assumed, a member of the family of German chemists, was something which Holmes was bound to find interesting, but I could see no other reason for his behaviour, and no link whatever to the lines of poetry. I said as much to Holmes, who was already taking up his coat and scarf, preparatory to going out.
“Not the poetry, Watson!” he barked as he threw my own coat to me. “Come though, there is no time to explain, or lose. Put that on, and let us make our way to Scotland Yard, stopping only at the telegraph office, where I must send an urgent wire to Germany.”
I have often had cause to complain that Holmes could be as fond of the melodramatic revelation as the most humble of stage conjurers, but in this case it was clear that haste alone prevented his explaining further. He all but ran to the corner of Baker Street to flag down a growler, and leapt from it and into the telegraph office when we pulled up outside that establishment. I had scarcely had time to re-read the marriage announcement, which I still held, when Holmes re-appeared in the door once more.
To my surprise, he was followed into the carriage by another man. The newcomer’s face was hidden by a heavy scarf, but his eyes were hard and cold, and the gun he held was steady and pointed directly at my own midriff. I had seen enough killers in the army and in my time with Holmes to know that I was in the presence of another who would not baulk at murder, if he felt it needful.
“Tell the driver to take you back to Baker Street,” he ordered, in a heavy accent. “We have need to talk, Sherlock Holmes.”
“In which case, I must apologise in advance, for I have no intention of speaking to you at all, beyond this current exchange.”
“That is a great shame, Mr. Holmes, for if you will not tell me what I wish to know, I will be forced to fire a bullet directly into your companion’s stomach.” He smiled, without warmth. “That is not a good way for any man to die.”
“No, I believe it is not.” Holmes banged on the roof of the carriage and directed the driver to return us to Baker Street, then sat back, his fingers steepled before him, and observed the interloper. “You are a Boer?” he asked.
“I am.”
“And what do you seek from me?”
“Come now, do not play the fool. You know what I want. Details of the weapon being constructed to use against my people.”
“I know nothing of any such weapon, I assure you.” Holmes was calm and gave no indication of nerves, but the Boer was unwilling to accept anything less than the information he desired. He leaned forward in his seat and jammed the barrel of his gun into my ribs, cocking the hammer as he did so.
“As I said, that would be a shame, Mr. Holmes. Perhaps you would care to re-consider?”
Holmes looked up at me, and I did my utmost to communicate to him that he should say nothing. I have never thought of myself as a particularly brave man, but a choice between death and betrayal is no choice at all. Holmes, though, either did not recognise the message I was trying so hard to convey, or chose to ignore it.
“Very well,” he said, waving away my by now vocal attempts to prevent him from spea
king. “If you will remove your gun from the vicinity of my friend, I will tell you what I know.”
I should have had more faith in my old friend. For the next ten minutes, Holmes told a long, convoluted and entirely fictitious tale of a factory near Edinburgh which had, for several years, been working on a motorised flying machine, from which the British intended to drop bombs on enemy troops. Recent progress, he said, had been more than encouraging, with successful live testing having taken place within the previous month.
As he spoke, the Boer agent’s face fell further and further, as he digested what to him must have been the most terrible of news. For myself, it was only the immediate danger of our situation which prevented me from laughing aloud as Holmes’s fancy took him to ever greater levels of imagination. He described specially modified Maxim machine guns able to fire from the air onto lines of marching soldiers, and troops being carried for miles behind enemy lines, safe above the clouds and out of sight. He spoke of war being carried hundreds of mile inland, without the necessity of land-based assault, and of assassins being dropped from flying machines into noblemen’s palaces and politicians’ country homes. By the end, his picture of escalating destruction and chaos was so real, even to me who knew it to be false, that I had no desire to laugh anymore, and instead found myself pondering the fate of Europe should such innovations ever move from imagination to reality.
Still, I silently applauded Holmes’s ingenuity, even though I knew that, while his story would prevent immeasurable harm being visited on Great Britain, it would do little to save us, once it had ended.
As the carriage drew up outside our Baker Street home, Holmes trailed to a stop, and sat back in his seat, seemingly entirely composed.
The white faced Boer, conversely, was anything but calm as he railed against the barbarism of the English. He thudded into Holmes’s back as he pushed us both out of the carriage and directed us towards our front door. “Do nothing to arouse suspicion and I may just tie you up in your sitting room, rather than dispensing the justice which you English pigs deserve,” he muttered under his breath as the carriage drove away.