by Ron Weighell
Holmes hunched himself over the crackling fire, as if he felt in his bones the dank, February weather that had settled upon London. His face, in the glow of the flames, was grim and drawn.
‘So,’ I said, in an effort to cheer him, ‘you may correct a miscarriage of justice.’
‘Perhaps, Watson; perhaps. Yet it is a dreadfully dull business, picking over the botched cases of Scotland Yard; and the follies and oversights of our constabulary are pitifully easy to expose. Such mundane matters do not kindle the fires of enthusiasm. The spark is not there.’
‘Perhaps the gentleman you are expecting will bring a case of greater interest,’ I suggested.
‘I doubt that, Watson. Something about a burglary, if the garbled message I received is anything to go by. Common robbery, no doubt. Just the kind of matter to which our friend Lestrade should confine himself!’
He took up his pipe and lit it with a coal held in the tongs. Between puffs he said, ‘A Persian philosopher-poet has written that the bowl of the pipe is the sphere of Heaven, the tobacco the benevolence of God. The live coal is His Glory, the smoke the perfume of His Spirit, and’—here he drew deep—‘inhalation the enlightenment of the soul.’
I had heard him recite this conceit before, when a melancholy mood was on him, but said nothing. Better a eulogy on tobacco than recourse to the small case that still lay in a locked drawer close by. A knock at the door roused him sufficiently to look at his pocket watch.
‘At least he is punctual. Come in!’
Mrs Hudson opened the door to admit a tall gentleman, who was well wrapped against the winter chill. Holmes remained paralysed by boredom, so I saw our guest into a chair, offered him tea, which he refused, and asked him to tell his story. The man was in some distress, but steadied himself with a deep breath and began.
‘This is very difficult. I should explain that I am here on the confidential advice of a police constable, who is at this moment standing guard outside my place of employment.’
Holmes betrayed no interest in this, but I saw him remove the pipe from his mouth and set it aside.
‘He said that you should be informed of this matter as soon as possible.’
‘And what,’ I asked, ‘is this constable’s name?’
‘I do not know. He whispered to me while Inspector Lestrade was examining the body.’
Holmes turned away from the fire and straightened in his chair ‘If you want me to help you,’ he said fiercely, ‘you really must present the facts more clearly. Tell the whole story from the beginning.’
‘My name is Thomas Hodgson. I work for . . . for an eminent man who must remain anonymous. He is a great collector of Renaissance sculpture, and possesses many manuscripts, letters, and incunabula. A substantial part of the collection resides here in Burleigh Square. I am cataloguing his library, and am responsible for the safety of the collection. Indeed, I possess the only key to the room in which it is displayed.’
‘Your employer does not have one then?’ Holmes queried. Hodgson wiped his face with a handkerchief
‘Of course; I’m sorry, he does have one—but he is not in England at present. The lock is specially made, of no less than ten levers, and cannot be picked. Early this morning I found the door wide open, though I know it was locked last night, and the key had not left my possession.’
Holmes was hardly concealing his interest now.
‘What did you find when you entered the room?’ he asked. Hodgson showed fresh signs of distress.
‘A man . . . a man who had been working in the house some days before, repairing a bookcase. He was dead, with his throat cut from ear to ear. That was the most terrible part, Mr Holmes, but the strangest was that only one thing was stolen. The thief, and murderer, had walked past dozens of very valuable Renaissance statuettes of bronze, silver, and gold, only to steal a single page of manuscript.’
‘A document of great value?’ I asked.
‘On the contrary. A document of comparatively little financial value. It is a single page, part of a cache of assorted letters purchased recently at auction. They date from the sixteenth century, sent from Italy to Stansford House. The page in question is significant only in so far as it contains references to a bronze now in the collection and so provides provenance.’
‘Could loss of the document compromise identification of the bronze?’ asked Holmes.
‘The piece is by Cellini. Its authenticity is not to be doubted. Quality is sometimes its own signature. The letter merely adds more information to its history. In any case, why steal the proof of a sculpture’s provenance, yet not steal the piece itself? The thief would have had to walk past it to get to the desk where the letters lay.’
Holmes took up his pipe and craned forward like a hawk.
‘So the thief committed murder and stole a page that referred to the provenance of an object, but made no attempt to steal the object itself!’
‘That is so. It is beyond all understanding.’
‘Let us hope not, Mr Hodgson. All this occurred this morning, you say?’
‘Within the last two hours. The constable said the sooner you were called in, the better. He led me to believe you could be trusted to treat the matter in the utmost confidence.’
‘Oh rest assured, the name of Sir Reginald Thurston will not enter into the matter.’
Hodgson looked stricken.
‘How could you know . . .?’
‘I have some little interest in manuscripts myself. The auction catalogues are a useful source of information, so I keep up with recent sales. Sir Reginald has also published a fine monograph on Italian Renaissance documents, and donated a bronze to one of our great national collections. You mentioned the street where he lives. But this is wasting valuable time. Come, Watson, we shall need your assistance I think!’
The transformation that had come over Holmes was remarkable. He seemed like a resting predator galvanised by a glimpse of prey. In no time we were in a hansom, heading for the scene of the crime.
Burleigh Square was composed of fine Regency houses built around a small private park. We stopped outside a door guarded by a formidably bearded constable, who showed every sign of being a doughty guardian until he recognised us. Holmes and 1, in turn, realised that we had been visited by a remarkable stroke of good fortune in the identity of the officer on duty. His face broke into a wide smile of delight as he called out, ‘Mr Holmes! Dr Watson! Very good to see you, gentlemen.’
Holmes shook him warmly by the hand.
‘Constable Spare, I might have guessed! This officer, Mr Hodgson, has been of inestimable help to us in the past. How are your family? Your second son . . . the little artist?’
‘Austin, sir? Still won’t be separated from his pencils and paper. Drawing all the time.’
‘This man’s son will hang in the Royal Academy one day,’ I observed to Hodgkins, and meant it. I would never forget how one of our darkest cases had been illuminated a little, on a visit to constable Spare’s house, by his tiny son’s lightning sketch of Holmes in profile.
‘Now Spare,’ said Holmes, ‘may we enter the house?’
Spare shook his head solemnly. ‘I have express orders to admit no one until Inspector Lestrade returns.’ A glint came into his steely eye. ‘But if I was looking down the road, I couldn’t stop someone from slipping in, could I’
Holmes chuckled. ‘Good man, Spare.’
In the entrance hall, Holmes dropped to his knees and scoured the floor with his glass, then arose with sounds of exasperation. Hodgson then led us to the study, which looked to me like an annexe of the British Museum. All the fine furniture in the room had been chosen to show off a magnificent collection of statues and statuettes in bronze, marble, silver, and gold, depicting Classical gods, goddesses, and mythological creatures of all kinds.
The walls were lined with shelves of fine books, and cabinets full of plaquettes, medallions, and coins of antiquity. A single, great chair and a side table stood in one corner, from whic
h spot it would be possible to enjoy a view of the whole room. Angled across another corner was an elegant desk with one drawer open. On the floor between the chair and the desk lay a body, on its back in a large pool of blood, arms thrown out, throat cut wide open.
Holmes peered over my shoulder.
‘A clean, fine cut, running from the right hand side of the body to the left, our left to right as we look at it.
‘A left handed man, from behind?’ I suggested.
‘Perhaps, but the angle of the cut looks odd. And the blade has cut deeper in the centre than at the outside edges. As if the blade was travelling in an arc in front the victim.’
He stood a moment lost in thought, then positioned himself some six feet from the body and executed a mime. First he held his clenched fists together at his left side, then drew them apart, as if unsheathing a sword, and swept back-handed with his right hand in a wide arc. Checking the position of his left hand, which had swung out behind him, he turned his attention to a cabinet some three feet away. Falling on his face, he squinted at the bottom edge, gave a grunt of satisfaction and reached underneath. Hopping to his feet, he held aloft a small metal object.
‘I think the man was killed with a swordstick, swiftly unsheathed, and swept backhand across the throat. As the blade was drawn, the stick struck the cabinet here, leaving a graze and pulling the ferrule off the end.
‘It is fine workmanship indeed. Continental, but not imported, I would say. Good as it is, the decoration is—what shall we say—a little too gorgeous for the English gentleman’s taste. Bought abroad, then. There is an embossed maker’s mark in the form of a letter “R” in a circle. It may yield some information pertaining to the man who is so handy with a blade, and who flees the scene of his crime in so careless a fashion. Now, before we are interrupted by Lestrade, let us see how he obtained entry.’
It took no time to establish that all the windows were barred, and intact. Holmes turned to the door and looked at the handles and lock-face.
‘Be so good as to lock me out,’ he said, stepping into the hall. Hodgson did as he was asked. A second later the lock turned and Holmes walked in. Hodgson was a picture.
‘How is that possible?’
‘With my key from 221B. The explanation is simple. Look at the face of the lock and the surrounding wood in the edge of the door. A screwdriver has been used to prise out the lock when the door was open. That cannot be done unless the spindle that joins the handles is removed. To do that one must remove the handles. The shiny slots tell me this was done recently; undoubtedly by our victim during his recent period of work here. If you were to remove this mortice lock and open it up, you would undoubtedly find that most of the levers, perhaps all but one, have been removed and replaced with blank packers, thus rendering your expensive ten lever lock little better than a one lever, cheapjack toy. Your key would continue to open the door. Unfortunately, so would anyone else’s. It could probably be opened by a bent nail.’
The realisation that the collection had lain completely unprotected all but overwhelmed Hodgson. His voice shook as he whispered, ‘Why, Mr Holmes?’
‘To give someone access to this room for some while. He had to search for what he wanted. What I would give for a look at the document in question.’
‘In a way, you can, Mr Holmes. I have a copy of the page among the notes for a catalogue I am compiling.’
‘Let me see it. Ah, my Italian is not good. What do we have here? A decorative line of many geometric shapes, acting as a border around the page. Some apparently irrelevant account of an argument with a . . . worker in gold? . . . a goldsmith who evidently has the pride of the devil, but must be forgiven because of his . . . alchemy? Magic in metal? He will “persevere”. More of that decorative border, then a reference to the bronze study by Cellini which the writer has just obtained.’
‘That is the provenance I spoke of.’
‘This tells me a little, but I really need the paper itself. So much can be learnt from ink, paper, and watermarks. Even handwriting might tell us something.’
‘We have other fragments from the same cache of documents.’
‘Let me see—it is better than nothing. Thank you. Heavy, handmade paper, untrimmed, with a winged lion watermark. Mid-sixteenth century from the handwriting and the ink. A few things are falling into place.’
Returning to the body, he added, ‘This poor soul had done his part, and was despatched, though why here, I cannot say. It looks as if Spare has done a good job of steering Lestrade’s size twelves away from the evidence. There is still hope.
‘Let us see. Not one man, I think, but two. One, at least, may have smoked; there is a faint sprinkling of ash on the carpet. Not readily identifiable, unfortunately. Partial traces of blood prints in the pile. One a big man in heavy work boots; the other a smaller, lighter man in very stylish, fashionable shoes. See the toe outline here—quite up to date. They left the way they entered, of course; down the hall. Needless to say all clues there are obliterated by pounding feet. Let us see if they left any traces outside.’
Spare was still on guard at the entrance. As we stood saying our farewells, Lestrade arrived. His face fell when he saw us already present at ‘his’ crime scene, but Holmes was equal to the moment.
‘Lestrade, we have been trying for five minutes to get past this officer, but he absolutely refuses us entry! I hope you will discipline him severely.’
‘Well, well, Mr Holmes,’ chuckled Lestrade, ‘the constable is only doing his duty. I will be glad to let you in later today, when we have finished our inquiries.’
‘If that is your last word, Inspector, so be it. As for you,’ Holmes added, looking at Spare, ‘you will hear from us again!’
Spare risked a wink before Lestrade turned round. As we walked off, I heard the Inspector whisper, ‘Well done, lad.’
‘As I suspected,’ said Holmes, ‘there are no clues to be found on a much-trodden pavement. However, they may have had a carriage waiting for them. If so, it would hardly wait right outside the house.’
He pointed over to the small area of grass and trees in the middle of the square. ‘Over there, on the far side, would be my choice.’
We all crossed over, and Holmes scanned the ground.
‘Yes, here are both our old friends, big boot and small shoe. Big boot went first, because small shoe is stepping into his prints. I really would not have guessed how effective damp leaf mould is for the retention of imprints! Look at the clarity! Now big boot stops, steps back a pace, and makes way for small shoe, who steps up, rolls onto the ball of one foot and disappears off the face of the earth. Big boot then follows him into oblivion. This is the spot where they climbed into the carriage. Notice the servant made way for the master, who entered first.
‘Now, what does the leaf mould tell us of the carriage? From the axle width, a hansom, with a very distinctive notch out of the offside wheel rim. It could be traced.’
‘Surely well nigh impossible without weeks of searching,’ Hodgson observed.
‘It would be for us, but a less daunting prospect for the Baker Street Irregulars. With a sovereign at stake for the winner, I’ll wager they find that cab within twenty-four hours. Mr Hodgson, I think we can find your murderous thief for you. We will be in contact.’
With that we made our farewells and, at Holmes’s suggestion, walked away.’
‘I need to think, Watson, and walking is a fine aid to thought. Why go to such trouble to gain entry to a treasure house and steal only a single document? Consider the Venetian figure of Charity, no more than eight inches high. Or the dancing faun only six inches tall! Why, the thieves could have filled their pockets with treasures and still carried hats full of medallions and plaquettes! Money was clearly not the object here. It is a challenge, Watson.’
Back at Baker Street, Holmes set the Irregulars on the search for the cab with the damaged wheel, and despatched the ferrule, along with a covering note, to an address I did not see. Then he sett
led down to examine the ash taken from the room.
An hour later he jumped up in exasperation.
‘This is not tobacco ash, Watson. There seem to be minute fragments of shell in it! I fear my monograph may have to be revised.’
Then he began pacing the room, trailing clouds of pipe smoke and muttering angrily.
‘I knew we had given the Irregulars a task too difficult to be completed in a few hours, but I had hoped to receive an answer on the matter of the ferrule before now!’
‘To whom did you send it?’
‘To the highest court of appeal on such things: the greatest collector of walking sticks in the Country—Mycroft Holmes.’
‘Your brother!’
‘Oh yes, an emiment collector. His grotesques are legendary, and his curiosa the envy of all England.’
A day was to elapse before word came back from the Irregulars. Wiggins was no longer running in the streets, having entered an apprenticeship with Holmes’s assistance, so their representative took the tattered form of little Medwin, who had assumed Wiggins’s coveted role of Holmes’s ‘Dirty Lieutenant’. He had proved himself well up to the challenge in both leadership and matters of personal toilet.
‘Well done, Medwin,’ said Holmes. ‘The usual rates apply. Have you earned your extra sovereign?’
‘I ’ave indeed sir,’ replied the child proudly. ‘You set us a fair old dance vis time. I fort it was gonna be like that Aurora boat wot we never found for yer, but I dun it awrite.’
‘Very well done, Medwin. Just how did you manage it?
‘’Ard work findin’ all the ’ansoms in sarf London, so I let the ’ansoms come to us. We waited at the troughs. They all got ter come there fer a gargle sooner or later. An wot der yer fink? It wos my trough ’e come to!’