by John Heywood
“Follow me!” cried the constable, and we bounded down the stairs and across the street to the Black Bull. We found it still locked; running steps could be heard from within as we hammered on the door. Eventually a policeman opened it to us. “Hello, Jack!” he said, rather out of breath. “Evening, sir! Come inside - two fine birds we have for you, trussed up neat as you like. Your friend Mr Holmes don’t mind cutting it fine, does he?”
He led us up the stairs to the front room, where a few candles lit a strange scene. The broken lamp lay on the wooden floor, leaking oil over the scattered case notes, and a chair lay broken beside it. A constable was on his knees retrieving the papers. On the table was the suitcase I had brought, together with many of the case papers, a revolver, and an object a few inches long that I guessed to be the dried skin of a small animal, with some of its hair still attached. By the far wall stood the landlord, flanked by two constables, and not far from him, also between two constables, stood a figure partially resembling Sherlock Holmes. He was of the same height and build as my friend, and of a similarly lean and hollow face. In the manner of his dress too he was the Holmes I knew of old, but the familiar hawk-like nose seemed to have lost its prominence, and the dark hair had become fine and sandy. As I looked him over, his eyes met mine without a trace of warmth or recognition. Before I could address him the door opened again and into the room strode the other Holmes, followed by a police inspector. “Ah, Watson,” said the newcomer, “admiring my double? What do you say? Would he pass muster in Madame Tussaud’s museum?” He clapped me on the shoulder. “I must thank you, by the bye, for bringing the papers.” But for a contusion on the cheek, no doubt a result of the tussle I had just witnessed, he was very evidently in good health and high spirits. “I must thank you, too, inspector, and your men,” he said, turning to the policeman. “I should not have relished a confrontation with these fellows without your men to back me.”
“You’re welcome, Mr Holmes, I’m sure,” came the reply. “It’s as strange a case as I’ve ever seen, and I don’t expect to see another like it. I’m mighty relieved it’s over.”
The constable had gathered up the fallen case-notes and put them back in the suit-case. As Holmes went to take the case he paused to pick up the little animal skin that lay beside it on the table. “I’ll take this too, if I may,” he said, slipping it into his pocket. That done, he seized the case, and we made our farewells and left. Thanks to the kind offices of the inspector a cab awaited us outside, stationed beside the Black Maria that awaited the felons. As we drove back towards Baker Street I begged Holmes to tell me all that had happened in the six or seven weeks since I had last seen him, but to no avail. He insisted that his first requirement was a good supper, and that only then would he satisfy my curiosity. Luckily the resourceful Mrs Hudson was able to provide us with a meal within half an hour of our arrival at Baker Street, and once we both taken our fill, and Mrs Hudson cleared away the plates, we seated ourselves in comfort and Holmes proceeded to enlighten me as to the chain of events that had culminated in the bizarre scene of that evening. It was his custom when working abroad, he reminded me, to keep himself informed of matters of concern at home. To this end he had succeeded in obtaining a delivery of the Times to his Austrian hotel, and had been surprised to read, as he sat in the hotel’s lounge, that he was then in London investigating a robbery at the Hanseatic Bank. A few days later, when he was still in Austria, another paper arrived from England, recounting this time his current involvement in a police enquiry into a murder in Birmingham. He determined to find out what was afoot, and decided accordingly to return to England at once incognito, covering his tracks by having false reports spread in the English criminal world to the effect that he was to remain abroad for several weeks longer. Under cover of this pretence, Holmes returned to England and began to search out his double. It soon became apparent to him that the pretender was not acting alone, and that the operation was the work of a well-organised gang. It was, he said with some admiration, a scheme that, despite its risible appearance, presented a grave danger, for not only did the guise of Sherlock Holmes allow the gang unrestricted access to the most promising criminal opportunities, but the dishonesty and bungling carried out in his name would so damage his reputation that unless the operation were soon stopped his career would be over. He therefore wasted no time in trying to uncover the gang. At first he had little success, for their operation was careful, as well as daring; but eventually they made a mistake. They sent me a telegram, purporting to come from Holmes. The cable gave Holmes a lead that, carefully handled, would bring him to the gang. The situation was one of great delicacy, for if he moved against them prematurely, they would take alarm and go to ground; but he saw in their plan to seize his case records an opportunity to set a trap. He continued to lay low, so that they would press ahead with their plan. As he explained this to me I expressed some disappointment that he had not seen fit to entrust me with the truth of the matter, but I had to confess the justice of his answer, which was that, play-acting not being my forte, a faltering pretence on my part might have aroused their suspicions. He did, however, disclose himself to the police, and together they succeeded in infiltrating the Black Bull at Stepney without raising the suspicions of the gang. And so by my arrival with the papers the trap was sprung, with the results that I myself witnessed. I expressed my surprise that the police had allowed him to confront his double without their support, for his life had hung in the balance. I did not like to think what might have happened had his antagonist been a little quicker in his movements at that moment of reckoning I had witnessed through the window, or had Holmes’s reaction been a little slower. With a laugh he confessed that he had not acted entirely in accord with the plan of attack set by the police. The landlord, as he came downstairs from handing over to his accomplice the suitcase, had been overpowered by three constables, and the plan was that a few minutes later, once the impersonator had made himself at home and become absorbed in the papers, the three men would rush upon him too and overpower him before he had a chance to defend himself. Holmes, however, could not resist silently opening the door and spying upon his mysterious double; and as he watched the man, he could no more resist the impulse to spring upon him and bring the matter to a conclusion. My friend may have had little regard for the ordinary police officer’s intelligence, but he had the greatest admiration his fearlessness, and was never prepared to stand by in safety while a brave officer risked his life.
One more thing puzzled me, a trivial enough matter; what, I asked him, was the skin-and-fur thing that I had seen upon the table upstairs in the Black Bull? Holmes brought it from his pocket. “You saw the fellow who played the part of the great Sherlock Holmes,” said he. “When you saw him first in the snug of the Black Bull, you mistook him for me, did you not? And yet you saw later that he did not look much like me, after all; he had sandy hair, and a shallow nose. How, then, did you mistake him for me? This is how, Watson,” he said, handing me the curious object. “It fell from his face in our little fracas.” I took the unpleasant thing in my hand and examined it. “It’s a kind of half-mask,” I exclaimed. “A nose, high and hooked like your own, and above a brow with that widow’s peak of black hair.”
“Made of gutta percha, putty and horse-hair, I think. Hardly a flattering representation of me, but it served its purpose, and it will serve equally well as a memento of this case,” he said, tossing it into the tin box. He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. “Push the cigar-box my way, there’s a good fellow.” I did as he asked, first taking a cigar for myself. A grateful silence descended on the room and soon clouds of blue, fragrant smoke rose and billowed over us. “It’s a strange and unpleasant thing, Watson, to have a second version of oneself at large. I cannot recommend the experience to you. I do not always see eye to eye with the criminal fraternity, but I think we would agree that one Sherlock Holmes is quite enough.”
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