The Investigations of Sherlock Holmes

by John Heywood

“I did indeed have some suspicions, professor, although I’m sure that the sight of the octopus carrying out his work astonished me no less than it did you. You have read Watson’s accounts of my cases; perhaps you recall a maxim of mine, that once all other possibilities have been eliminated, that which remains, however improbable, must be true. That principle I applied in this instance. It was obvious from the sojourns in the hallway that the culprit could not have entered unobserved from outside; one sentinel on one occasion might have nodded, but not Kerr, Johns and you, on each of several separate occasions. My thorough examination of the laboratory and its adjoining rooms confirmed that no forcible entry or intrusion had been made. Therefore, the disappearance of the fish was effected somehow from within the laboratory. How that might be possible, I could not guess, so I then turned my attention to another matter, that of motive. I asked myself two questions: who would so desire a few mackerel as to steal and risk discovery, and why would he not buy them from the fishmonger’s? The questions were decisive. I should be ashamed to tell you for how long I puzzled over them, but eventually the only possible answer came to me.”

  “We are all grateful to you for solving our little problem, Mr Holmes,” said Hendricks, “but I must apologise for having involved you in a matter so far beneath--”

  “My dear Hendricks,” interrupted Holmes, clapping his friend upon the shoulder, “no apology is necessary, I assure you. I appreciate a worthy opponent, and your octopus is certainly one of the most gifted and accomplished thieves I have ever known. To watch him at his work has been a privilege.”

  The Case of the Apprentice’s Notebook

  It was a dark November afternoon, and I was making my way to the Baker Street rooms I shared with Mr Sherlock Holmes. As I huddled in my cab, icy blasts of rain came lashing through the window, and I was delighted to discover upon entering the flat that Mrs Hudson had already lit a fire. I was even more delighted when she brought up a tray of muffins and tea. Holmes was not at home, and while Mrs Hudson bustled about laying the table, I asked her if she expected his early return.

  “Do you suppose I can tell you?” the long-suffering landlady replied. “All these years Mr Holmes has been with me, and I’m blest if I’ve once known when he’ll be back. It might be five minutes, or it might be five weeks. With some of these cases he gets himself involved in, it’s a wonder he comes back at all. What I can tell you, though,” she added, “is that he had two visitors this morning, just after you left. But where he went, or when he’ll be back, that I truly couldn’t tell you.”

  “Two visitors, you say?”

  “Two women, sir. One young one, and the other older, as who might have been her mother.”

  “And he left with them, you say?”

  “No, sir. After a while the two of them came downstairs and left together, and then half-an-hour later Mr Holmes left. Will that be all?”

  “Thank you, Mrs Hudson.”

  I ate my tea alone, and then settled myself by the fire to read the newspaper in comfort. The heat of the fire made me drowsy as I read, and I was drifting off into slumber when the sudden slamming of the street door startled me awake. Footsteps came bounding up the stairs, and in burst Holmes, damp and ruddy-faced. He flung his cape and deer-stalker in a wet heap on the sofa, and sank into his armchair. For a few moments he stretched himself before the fire, saying nothing. The niceities of social intercourse were ever a matter of indifference to him.

  “A profitable day, Holmes?” I ventured.

  “Not entirely. Nor for you, I fancy. I see your patient died this morning.”

  “How on earth did you know that?”

  “The signs are obvious enough,” he replied with a shrug.

  “Not to me. You would do me a very great favour if you told me what they are, so that I might hide them. The death of a patient is hardly something one likes to proclaim to the world.”

  Holmes leaned back in his chair, drew on his pipe, and closed his eyes.

  “They will be easy enough to expunge, Watson. A pumice-stone and soap-and-water will suffice. Glance at the fingers of your right hand.”

  “Ah! Ink-stains. I thought I had washed them off. Still, I fail to see why they proclaim the death of my patient.”

  “Most of the ink you did wash off, but some stubbornly remains, as you see, in a little channel on the second forefinger of your right hand. That of course is where the pen rests when you write, and it requires a good many hours of writing to press that groove into the finger and engrain it with ink. Evidently, then, you spent most of the day writing. However, you had told me this morning that you were at present involved in a very difficult case; your patient’s life was in the balance, you said, and, expecting to be tending him all day, you had arranged for a colleague to undertake the care of your other patients. Now,” continued Holmes, “you had gone to some trouble to reserve the whole day for the care of your patient, and yet you spent it writing. What can that mean, but the death of the patient?

  “Those ink-stains tell me more,” he continued. “You use black Chinese ink for your medical records, whereas the blue-black ink whose traces remain on your hand is the ink you use for correspondence, and for recording the detection cases in which you are kind enough to help me. You would hardly have spent all day on your private correspondence, I think. So,” he said, pointing at me a long, bony, admonitory finger, “I conclude that you have spent most of the day writing up some new case to inflict on your public. Come now, Watson, confess that you have been found out. What instance of the science of detection you have been embroidering this time with the gaudy colours of adventure and romance?”

  “You shall know that when it is finished. I am pleased that I still have one or two secrets hidden from your analytic gaze.”

  Holmes smiled, and said no more, merely gazing into the fire as the wreaths of smoke that rose from his pipe gradually filled the room. I was waiting for him to tell me something of his visitors earlier in the day, but he was not forthcoming.

  Eventually my curiosity became too much for me. “Mrs Hudson tells me you had visitors this morning,” I said.

  “So I did,” he replied, throwing a fresh log onto the fire, and sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. He leaned back again in his chair and sighed. “Alas, Watson, I seem to have come down in the world since the summer, when I was advising half the governments and royal houses of Europe. My visitors today were Mrs Mary Garrity and Miss Nelly Moore, of Walworth, who sought my advice about the disappearance of Mrs Garrity’s son, a builder’s apprentice.”

  I was not pleased to hear that Holmes was already interesting himself in a new case, however humble, before he was fully recovered from his excessive efforts earlier in the year. Once decided to act, he would spare no efforts, and would trace a builder’s apprentice as tirelessly as he would the son of a Duke. Yet I fought back my impulse to advise him against taking on the case, for I knew that once his mind was made up, nothing I could say would dissuade him; one might as well whistle back the greyhound that has sighted a hare. I was resigned to hearing the worst when I asked Holmes if he would be taking up the case.

  “I have decided to look into it, yes. And you need not trouble to express your disapproval, old fellow. Your face is as an open book. Would you nevertheless like me to rehearse the few facts I have been able to ascertain?”

  “I should be most interested to hear about it, Holmes.”

  “Then you shall. Mrs Garrity, my visitor this morning, is a widow, and the mother of one son, James, a lad of seventeen years. Nelly Moore, the other visitor, is a particular friend of James - his sweetheart, I should say. Some twenty years ago Mrs Garrity, newly married, came with her husband to England, and settled in London. Her husband was more of a drinker than a worker, it seems. He died when James was five years old, leaving Mrs Garrity alone to fend for herself and her infant son. She found work in the st
eam-laundry in Brixton, where she works to this day. She and her son live in Walworth. Early this year young James was apprenticed to a local builder. The firm is a thriving one, and the position offered a fair future to the lad. All seemed well until three weeks ago, when James failed to come home from work. He has not been seen since. Such behaviour is entirely out of character, they assure me, and neither mother nor sweetheart can think of any reason for his sudden disappearance. The constabulary has not been able to help, and as a last resort they came to me.

  “As you know, I am not presently engaged in any case, and I took up the matter immediately. Don’t shake your head in that disapproving way, Watson. I appreciate that you are concerned lest I overtax myself, but I think you will admit in the first place that I have a pretty strong constitution, and in the second that to a nature such as mine idleness is a greater evil than overwork. As I say, I accepted the case, and my first point of enquiry was the boy’s apprentice-master. The man’s name is Seth Armstrong. He has his builder’s yard and office in Camberwell, at a short walk from the Garritys’ rooms in Walworth. I went there this morning, after my visitors had left, but I found that Armstrong was in Bromley, where he had a job in hand. To Bromley I went, and spoke first to the labourers on the site. They remembered Garrity well, and with some affection, but they were not as a group quite unanimous about when he was last seen. All were sure that he was at the previous job, in Hampshire, which had finished three weeks earlier, but whereas some seemed to think he had been at the present site of work, if only for a few days, others could not remember seeing him there at all. I then introduced myself to Armstrong, a tall, strong man in early middle age; a confident, affable kind of fellow. He was able to give me more definite information about the boy than had his men: Garrity had indeed been present at Bromley for the first day, he told me, but had not presented himself for work again. The date of the boy’s disappearance may well be of some importance, of course, so I asked to see the firm’s time-sheet records. They confirmed what Armstrong had told me.

  “Armstrong said that he had taken on young Garrity as an apprentice builder, but in fact the boy’s work was more that of an apprentice works surveyor.”

  “A ‘works surveyor’?” I queried.

  “Ah, there I have the advantage of you, Watson, having spent the day amongst the building trade. A works’ surveyor checks on quantities and types of materials used, when and where the materials were delivered, and at what cost, how much returned to suppliers, and so on. Such were Garrity’s duties, and in this matter at least the master’s word was corroborated by his men, who had told me that it was something of a standing joke among them, that Garrity might turn up anywhere with his notebook, and start jotting down notes upon the size and provenance of some pile of sand or bag of nails.

  “I told Armstrong that I would like to see this note-book, whereupon he replied with a sudden oath that he would like to see it himself, and roundly cursed the boy for having run off with it.

  “And that, Watson, is all I could find out today. Try as I might, I could establish no more than the background picture I have just given you. A poor day’s work for England’s foremost consulting detective,” he said with a bitter smile. “Lestrade would have done as much.”

  Holmes, who had been filling his favourite meerschaum as he spoke, now seized a live coal in the fire-tongs and lit his pipe at it. “So there you are,” he said between puffs. “Well, perhaps tomorrow will bring more. Where do I start? That is my problem. It seems an ordinary case of a missing person, and it is always these ordinary cases that are the most difficult. A point d’entrée, Watson, that is what these commonplace cases lack, some oddity, some little anomaly on the surface that will lead to the rotten core. Without such a clue I am unable--”

  Holmes stopped in mid-sentence.

  “The front door! Who can it be at this hour?’

  Mrs Hudson opened the door and announced: “Mrs Garrity.”

  A small, sharp-faced woman of some forty years took a few steps into the room. Her face, that had once been handsome, was care-worn and lined, and her hair was silver. She bore every sign of agitation in her manner, and the poor woman was dripped with rain as she stood before us.

  “Come in, Mrs Garrity!” said Holmes. “You may lay your coat before the fire. What brings you across London in this weather?”

  “He’s been back, sir, he’s been back!” she cried, clasping and unclasping her hands before her in her excitement.

  “This is excellent news,” replied Holmes, “after these three weeks. My felicitations! James is well, I hope?”

  The question gave our visitor pause, and a shadow passed over her face. “That I cannot say, for I never saw him. Back, and straightway gone away again!” She looked from one of us to the other, wringing her hands.

  “You are naturally upset, Mrs Garrity,” said Holmes. “Pray sit by the fire here, and compose yourself. I shall fetch you a glass of port-wine. When you are settled, you will tell me and Dr Watson what has happened.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I have been looking into your case today,” said Holmes as he unstopped the decanter, “and I am sorry to say that I have so far made little headway. It seems that you know more of the recent whereabouts of your son than I,” he continued, handing her the glass. “Are you ready to tell us what happened today? You may speak quite freely before Dr Watson.”

  She sipped her wine, put down the glass, and began her narrative:

  “It was when I got back from the steam-laundry this afternoon. I was working an early shift, and arrived home just after four o’clock. I went to unlock the door as usual, but it wouldn’t unlock, as it was already unlocked, do you see, and just pulled to.”

  “One moment, if you please,” interrupted Holmes. “Do you say that it was unusual for the door to be left unlocked?”

  “Oh, indeed. We always keep the door locked.”

  “Proceed.”

  “The moment I went in, I knew right away someone had been there before me. I’ve never seen the place like it. There were things lying all over, most of all in James’s room. Then in the kitchen I found this note from James. I brought it to show you, Mr Holmes. Here it is.” Mrs Garrity handed over a torn sheet of paper:

  HAVE MOVED AWAY. ALL IS WELL

  DO NOT WORRY

  J

  Holmes looked at it carefully, frowning. “I should like to keep this for the present. Is this your son’s hand?”

  The question brought a look of puzzlement to Mrs Garrity’s face. “I have been asking myself the self-same question, Mr Holmes. It is hard to say, it being in great letters. Sometimes I think it is, but then sometimes again I think not.”

  “I suppose you have no other example of his handwriting here?”

  “I have not, sir. I’m sorry for that. Do you think he did not write it himself?”

  “That I cannot say. Will you tell us more about the state in which you found your rooms?”

  “What can I tell you? But that they were all awry, things pulled onto the floor and scattered abroad. Poor James, he must have been in a dreadful hurry to have left our home like that. He’s a neat boy, you understand, always tidy. I’ve never known him to leave his room in such a state.”

  “Did you notice if anything was missing?”

  “I did not, sir, no.”

  “And did you tidy your rooms before you came here tonight?”

  “No, I came here straight away, Mr Holmes.”

  “Excellent! You did well to come here and tell me of this, Mrs Garrity, and to leave your rooms as you found them. I want you to leave them untouched tonight also. I shall come round to you in the morning, and see them for myself. In the meantime, I suggest you take another glass of port-wine. It is a cold, wet night.”

  But Mrs Garrity refused, saying she must get back to Walworth. W
e could hear the rain falling outside, and the wind gusting. My friend gave Mrs Garrity a sovereign for a cab to take her home. That too she refused at first, but in the end Holmes prevailed upon her, and away she went into the night.

  We returned to our seats by the fire. “Poor creature!” I said. “She hardly seemed to know what to make of her son’s return. Is he her only son?”

  “He is. Well, Watson, It seems I am for Walworth tomorrow.”

  “Would my presence be of any help? I should be pleased to accompany you.”

  “That is what I hoped to hear, Watson. Your presence would be of the greatest help to me.”

  “Then of course I shall come. I do not look forward with enthusiasm to another day cooped up in my consulting-room.”

  “Good man! We shall go down to Walworth first thing in the morning.”

  The sky had cleared, and the sun was shining on the wet pavements of Walworth, as Holmes and I made our way to Mrs Garrity’s. We had turned off the main road into a tangle of narrow streets, and threading our way through them we finally came to the address we were seeking. The street door was opened to us by Mrs Garrity herself. She led us up a flight of stairs to a dark landing smelling of onions, opened her apartment door, and led us in.

  We found ourselves in a narrow corridor, with four rooms leading off it, two on each side. The floors were of wooden boards, with rush matting laid over them in the parlour. Holmes, with his usual disregard for social pleasanteries, sprang into action immediately. He had Mrs Garrity light the gas in the passage and knelt down to examine the boards with his magnifying lens. Like a dog following a scent, he moved back and forth across the hall, and in and out the rooms, following, it seemed, some invisible track that led him all over the little flat. Twice he took from his pocket a tape-measure and measured some mark or object on the floor too small for me to see, and once he scraped up with his knife something which he put carefully into a fold of paper and into his pocket. When he had finished his examination of the floor he sprang to his feet and asked Mrs Garrity about the disruption to the rooms. It was her son’s room that had been disturbed most, she said, as if he had been looking for something of his - perhaps clothes. While she was talking, Holmes moved into James’s room, Mrs Garrity and I following him. He fell to examining the chest of drawers, trying how the drawers ran in their grooves. Some seemed to be wedged tight, but moved smoothly once Holmes had carefully unjammed them. Noticing his efforts, Mrs Garrity explained that her son would regularly wax the drawers with candle-ends until they ran easy. Holmes nodded absently, as if little interested in her remarks, and then knelt down to look under the bed. He would be lucky to find anything there, Mrs Garrity warned him, as her son never kept anything under the bed, and she was proved right. Clothes and a pair of the lad’s shoes were next to be inspected. That done, Holmes turned his attention to a notebook of the boy’s that had been in one of the drawers. He took it over to the window and, producing from his breast-pocket the note Mrs Garrity had left at Baker Street the previous evening, compared the two, holding them this way and that, at different angles to the light, peering from one to the other through his magnifier. At last he was satisfied that he had seen all he could. Pocketing his glass and the papers, he turned from the window and thanked Mrs Garrity for her trouble. She was so delighted her son had returned, she told us, but her delight was of course spoiled by her having missed seeing him. She believed and hoped fervently that she would see him soon. Holmes’s response was honest, even to the point of harshness: “I hope so, too, but these, I fear, are murky waters, too murky to see what lies ahead. Still, I have reason to believe we shall shortly know what has become of your son. You may expect some news soon, Mrs Garrity. Goodbye.”