by John Heywood
Flowerdew had already fled upstairs and could be heard vomiting outside the back door. Stamp and I came upstairs forthwith, brushing the flies away from our faces, and after a minute or so Holmes too came up. He locked the door to the cellar, summoned Mrs Stamp, and put her in charge of the house and her employer. Her husband was to take myself and Holmes to the railway station in the dog-cart. As soon as Stamp had harnessed the bay we seated ourselves and off we went. As we flew through the narrow lanes, Holmes pulled from his pocket a sheet of paper and contrived, despite the rocking and lurching of the carriage, to write out a message to Inspector Jones of Scotland Yard. When we drew up outside Mowl station, he gave it to Stamp, telling him to go to the local police station, alert them to the grisly discovery in the vicarage, and have them send the message immediately to Jones at the Yard. Away went Stamp, in a spray of mud from the wheels, and we turned to enter the railway station. I found upon enquiry that we had only some twenty minutes to wait for the next train to London. Standing on the platform, we naturally fell to discussing the strange and horrible turn the case had taken. I ventured to question the wisdom of our abrupt departure from the vicarage.
“No, no,” said Holmes with a dismissive wave of his hand. “ ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’ We can do nothing more here; we are needed at Camberwell now. Armstrong may return there at any hour; we must be ready and waiting for him. I hope that my note will reach the police in time for them to be with us at the end. I should prefer to have a constable or two at hand when we confront Mr Armstrong.”
“Armstrong? The apprentice-master? What is his connection with the death of young Garrity?”
“That we shall soon know. There are a number of indications that he is intimately connected with the disappearance of the boy. For one thing, he alone was positive that the lad had been at Bromley. It seems that he was lying, and that when the Bromley job started, Garrity was in Great Mowl, bricked up in the cellar.”
“Did you not tell me that Garrity’s presence at Bromley was confirmed by the company’s written records?”
“That means nothing. The records are written by Armstrong himself, and in his keeping. I already harboured some doubts about Armstrong, before we discovered the body. He was all hail-fellow-well-met with me, but speaking to the labourers and craftsmen led me to form a rather different picture of the man. They gave me the impression that beneath his bluster lay something more fearsome. It was hinted that he had nearly killed one of his men earlier in the year, and had contrived to keep the matter from the authorities, passing it off as an accident.
“Then Mrs Garrity’s mysterious visitation of yesterday cast quite a different light on the matter, and raised a number of interesting questions. Why was her home ransacked immediately after I began my enquiries? Presumably someone had panicked when a private detective named Holmes came snooping round asking questions about Garrity’s disappearance. What was the intruder looking for? It was clearly no ordinary burglary; nothing of value was taken. Perhaps he was hoping to abstract some damning piece of evidence from the Garrity apartment, and at the same time to suggest by the clumsy note that Garrity was still alive and well. Lastly, who was the intruder? For it was obviously not her son who ransacked the place. Ah, this is our train coming in, I think.”
The London train pulled in to the platform, and we climbed aboard. Once we had found ourselves a compartment to ourselves Holmes pulled from his pocket a little notebook I had not seen before. For several minutes he leafed through it carefully without saying a word.
“Here, Watson, what do you make of this?” he finally asked, handing it to me. I opened it. Inside were rows and columns of figures written in pencil, headed ‘price’, ‘quantity’, ‘del.’, ‘out’, ret’ etc. On the fly leaf was written J. Garrity.
“Good Lord, Holmes, this is the missing note-book! Where did you find it?”
‘Indeed it is. I think even Inspector Jones will grasp the significance of this little item of evidence. I found it upon the poor boy’s body, Watson, when I searched him an hour ago in the vicarage. It was in a small pocket in the lining of his pea-coat. Evidently Armstrong had overlooked it.’
“If he searched for it at all.”
“Oh, he searched Garrity.”
“How do you know, Holmes?”
“Because, when I searched the body just now, I did not find the boy’s house-key. I found this note-book, a kerchief, a pencil, and some coins, but no key. Why not? Who fails to carry his house-key with him? Somebody had found it before me, and taken it. And later that person used it to enter Garrity’s home. He was looking for something he never found, something incriminating. And what he was looking for, Watson, was this.” With a gleam of triumph in his eyes, Holmes held aloft the little notebook.
The train, though a slow one, had the advantage to us of stopping at the Camberwell station. We soon arrived at Armstrong’s office, or at least the passage that led to it, squeezed between two large, respectable establishments of the High Street. On its wooden gate was a large sign:
A Armstrong
Building Contractor
The gate being wide open, we walked down the passage to the end, where it opened out into a yard. On one side of this yard stood a kind of long, low hut. Holmes asked me to go back to the passage and stand guard there, while he went to see if Armstrong were inside the hut. In a few moments he returned, to report that there was only a clerk or accountant inside, going through some ledgers. There was no sign of Armstrong. We were standing there in the narrow defile, out of sight of Armstrong’s office, debating how we might best prepare ourselves for his arrival, when two figures turned in from the street. For a moment they were silhouetted in the passage entrance, blocking our path, and then they moved towards us. My muscles tensed in readiness. Holmes was the first to speak.
“Ah, Inspector Jones, is it not?” he exclaimed. “I believe I had the pleasure of working with you in that business at Norwood. I take it my message reached you?”
“It did, Mr Holmes. I have brought with me constable Brummer” - who saluted each of us - “from the local station here. Brummer has just been telling me something of this fellow Armstrong and his cronies, which it might interest you to hear.”
“Well, gentlemen,” began the constable, “we know of Seth Armstrong at the station. We’ve known of him for a long time. He has never been convicted, mind you, nor even charged, but we’ve had our eye on him for years. As a young fellow he was a tearaway, forever fighting. He associated with a gang of felons operating here on the Surrey side of the river. We knew he was fencing for them, but we could never prove it. He was as slippery as an eel. Later, he did well in the building trade, and he opened his office, and now he’s Mr Respectable Armstrong, and he dines with his worship the mayor, but he’s still up to no good, we’re pretty sure of that. Now he’s older, he’s fly enough to hide it, and that’s about the size of it.”
“He nearly succeeded in hiding his crime this time too,” added Holmes. “Had my enquiries not precipitated him into an unnecessary burglary yesterday, he would almost certainly have escaped detection. But it seems that you’ll have your Mr Armstrong at last, constable, if only we can hang on to him today.”
It did not take long to decide on how we would receive Armstrong when he returned. Holmes, Jones and Brummer were to wait in his office, while I was to keep watch at the entrance to the passage. As someone who was neither uniformed nor known to him, I was thought least likely to raise any alarm in his mind. Once he was in the yard I would close and bolt the gate behind him.
Accordingly I took up my post in the little passage, skulking in the corner nearest the street, and observing Camberwell pass by in all its variety. In the meantime, as I afterwards learned, my fellows had entered the office and started to go through the company’s books and records. Their searches were accompanied by protests from the secretary, but the burly presence of
constable Brummer discouraged him from taking his protests any further. For myself, I had nothing to do but keep watch for Armstrong. I had been told to look for a large, red-faced man driving an open wagon pulled by a cob. Several hours passed, and I found myself on nodding terms with a couple of the local tradesmen at their doorsteps. Still my man did not appear. It was not until it was beginning to grow dark that at last I saw him coming down the road, a big man, standing high as he shook the reins. Having quickly flung a pebble at the office to warn my colleagues, I slipped out to the street to allow the wagon into the passage. I caught sight of Armstrong’s face, heavy and crimson, as he jolted past; fortunately he was too intent on negotiating the narrow passage to notice me. Once in the yard, he jumped to the ground and marched into his office. Quick as I could, I shut the gate behind him, trapping him in the yard, and hurried to the office myself. As I reached the door a shout and a crash came from within. I entered to see the massive figure of Armstrong, Jones hanging round his neck, staggering towards Holmes. With a violent wrench Armstrong flung the officer to the ground and closed in on Holmes. As he raised his arm to strike, constable Brummer seized it from behind. Armstrong gave a roar, and twisted round, but it was too late; the constable had him in an armlock. Armstrong was doubled up, still rolling and twisting to escape, when I heard the click of the handcuffs snapping shut. It was all over. Brummer manhandled Armstrong to his feet, and Jones, having got to his feet too, took the other side of Armstrong and informed him that he was under arrest for the wilful murder of James Garrity.
That evening Holmes and I were back in our Baker Street flat. I picked up the newspaper. Famine in India, revolt in Africa; the greatest statesmen of the land confronting each other in the House; a scandal in the London theatre: these were the topics of the moment. How far they seemed from what we had uncovered that day. Would the murder of a builder’s apprentice make such a noise in the great world? I wondered.
“One aspect of the affair escapes me, Holmes. I am still puzzled as to the motive behind the murder of Garrity. Why did Armstrong kill him? And what was the significance of the notebook, that Armstrong risked everything trying to retrieve it?”
“Ah yes, the notebook. That little notebook is the key to the whole affair. As you know, it contains all the details of Armstrong’s building supplies. On a cursory examination it seems to be of little interest. You saw it yourself, Watson; long and tedious lists of goods, dates and prices of sale, deliveries, and so on. A careful reading of it reveals something much more interesting, though, as I discovered on the train back to Camberwell this afternoon. During the journey I had time to examine some of the entries carefully and collate them with each other, and a most fascinating picture emerged: a long history of materials ordered and paid for but not delivered, materials vanishing inexplicably, materials appearing unordered and not paid for, payments for non-existent goods - in short, the detailed account of systematic fraud practised by Armstrong. He must have been horrified to find that evidence of his dishonesty had been so carefully recorded, and on his own instructions. It cannot have occurred to him, when he instructed his apprentice to keep lists of the materials, that his young assistant would prove so thorough a book-keeper. Did Armstrong perhaps try to bribe or threaten the lad, and find himself rebuffed? Did Garrity threaten to inform the police, or Armstrong’s cheated clients? We will never know. In any event, at the end of the job at Great Mowl vicarage, when most of the tradesmen and labourers were elsewhere, a confrontation of some kind took place between the two, and Armstrong struck the boy a mortal blow. Suddenly he found he had a body on his hands, but the resourceful brute quickly lit on a place to hide it. Partly dismantling the wall he had built only a few days before in front of the cellar boiler, he stuffed Garrity’s body behind it. First he rifled the boy’s pockets, but the notebook lay hidden in an inner pocket of the coat, and Armstrong in his haste failed to find it. He must have guessed it to be in Garrity’s rooms, and have therefore taken the house key from the pocket, planning to retrieve the book when lad’s mother was out. He rebuilt the damaged wall with the corpse now behind it, knowing that the stench of the body as it rotted would rise up the flue and remain undetected. Armstrong left the vicarage, leaving behind, as he thought, his dead apprentice, safely bricked in. But the poor lad, although too weak to escape from his immolation, was not quite dead. He lived on behind the furnace for a week or more, his dying moans, heard by the Stamps above, taken for the noises of a ghost.”
The Case of the Quiet Crescent
Sherlock Holmes stood by the window of our Baker Street flat, peering closely at a small envelope. Round and round he turned it in his long fingers, scrutinising it from different angles; he held it up to the light; he sniffed at it; finally he flung it over to me. “What do you make of it, Watson?”
Years of assisting in his enquiries had given me the opportunity to observe his methods, and I did my best to follow them now. The envelope was cream-coloured and lightly scented. “Written by a woman,” I concluded. “Not a rich woman - nor poor.” I noticed the franking on the stamp: “Ah! It was posted in the NW district this morning.” At this point inspiration deserted me.
“You deduce the lady’s financial state from the quality of the envelope, I take it. I agree with you. The quality of the perfume - an artificial synthesis in imitation of Parma violet - might have led you to the same conclusion.”
“Did I miss anything?” I asked.
“Only that the lady is self-possessed and precise in nature, that she is probably single and in daily employment, and that the matter on which she writes does not directly concern her.”
“Do you really learn all that from the envelope, Holmes?”
“I suppose you want an explanation, Watson, don’t you, so that you can shrug your shoulders and tell me how childishly simple my deductions were. Let me oblige you. The self-possession is evinced by the lady’s hand, which, although she has sufficient occasion to turn to a private detective, remains clear and unhurried. It is a hand that proclaims neatness too, of course, as does the placing of the stamp.”
“Holmes, we all stick the stamp in the top right-hand corner.”
“And we all have the same number of limbs and bodily organs in the same places, doctor. Are your patients therefore all identical? Do you skate over their symptoms with scarcely a second glance? Look again!” He thrust the envelope back into my hands. “I tell you, Watson, I could write a sizeable monograph on the placement of stamps upon envelopes. There are stamps like cornered rats backed up against the very edges of the envelope, stamps sallying forth halfway into the middle of the envelope, stamps at rakish angles, carefully aligned stamps - then there are the thumbprints on them, greasy or grimy, the not-quite-stuck-down stamps peeling up at the corner - and how are they taken from the sheet? Some are removed carefully along the perforations, others hurriedly torn so a corner is ripped off. There are still a few to be seen that have been cut from the sheet with scissors. They all have something to tell. Well, look at this one. You see it has no rips, no oddities of position, no dirty thumbprints - everything about it suggests that the lady is neat, balanced and self-possessed.
“What were the other points? Ah yes; let us take firstly her being employed. That I deduce from the hour the letter was posted; shortly before eight in the morning, when she may have been on her way to work. That is only supposition, of course, but few ladies of leisure, I think, would be posting their correspondence at that hour. Her single state I deduce in turn from her being in employment. Another supposition, therefore; dear me, what loose habits of thought I seem to be slipping into! That the matter does not directly concern the lady I infer partly from the calmness I have already mentioned, and partly from the fact of her writing a letter. She would surely have called in person or sent a telegram had the matter been pressing.”
“The matter might not be pressing and yet be her own case,” I countered.
“Very correct, Watson! So it might; but the likelihood, I think, is as I suggest. Pressing troubles are usually one’s own; it is those of others that can wait. Well, we have examined the envelope. Let us now look inside.” He picked up the paper-knife, opened the envelope with a flourish, and took out a single sheet of note-paper.
“ ‘Mr Sherlock Holmes,’ ” he read, “ ‘I beg you will forgive my writing to you, but I am at a loss to know where to turn for help. I am alarmed by recent events here in Belford Crescent. Had I not witnessed them myself, I should have said they were impossible. I will call on you on Thursday morning at ten o’clock, if I do not inconvenience you.
Yours truly
Miss Rose Davies’
“Well, Watson, we have had the grotesque, the bizarre, and the mysterious, over the years, but I think this is the first time that we have been promised the impossible. I shall be interested to see what it is like. The lady does not allow us much time; she will be here within an hour. Will you stay for her visit?”