“Not much of a recommendation,” I mumbled under my breath, looking around the sordid drinking establishment with distaste, at which Holmes tapped me most painfully on the shin with his cane.
“Pray, what are you referring to when you mention Scrooge’s meanness?” the great sleuth asked. “Presumably you’re alluding to some meanness of spirit.”
“Well, the last time ’ee showed a bit of temper was to me cat, Esmeralda, sir. Usually Ezzie’s moochin’ about in the public bar, gettin’ fussed over by the customers. The other night, though, she strayed into the private bar, where we are now. Mr. Scrooge was occupying ’is usual place, in the booth over there.” At this juncture our host pointed to a partitioned spot by a window in which two un-upholstered benches faced each other, separated by a rickety oak table on which sat a salt cellar. “Any’ow, Ezzie comes over to ’im, all friendly-like and purring, rubs ’erself up against ’is leg as ’ee’s ’eading back from the bar to ’is booth, and ’ee kicks ’er ’alf way across the bar.”
“My goodness!” I ejaculated. “I can only imagine his excuse is that he has an allergy and that the hair of a feline brings him out in a rash.”
The landlord shrugged. “Maybe ’ee’s just a cruel old geezer what don’t like cats.”
I noticed that Holmes had that peculiar twinkle in his eye which can occur either when a new fact confirms his favoured theory or when I’ve said something particularly dim-witted.
“Tell me,” said Holmes. “Is Esmeralda by any chance a black cat?”
“She is, actually,” said our host, “Black as the Devil ’imself. You don’t reckon Mr. Scrooge believes in witches and broomsticks and black cats and all that mumbo-jumbo, and that ’ee got the ’eebie-jeebies from Ezzie?”
“Not at all. I’m sure there is a much simpler explanation,” said Holmes and, turning to me, he continued, “Now, Watson, let’s get the weight off our feet and seat ourselves in the booth our friend Mr. Scrooge daily monopolises.”
The landlord made a half-hearted protest, insisting that it was close to Scrooge’s customary time of visitation when not a workday. However, Holmes was adamant, and to assuage our host’s concerns, he tipped him a florin.
Once we had ensconced ourselves opposite one another in the booth beside the window with our glasses of beer before us, and while I ruefully contemplated the flaming fireplace, devoid of any customers enjoying its heat, Holmes said: “Never mind, old chap. Eyes on the prize turkey. By now Mr. Scrooge should have left the home of his nephew. From our present vantage point, we’ll be able to spot this miraculously metamorphosed skinflint as soon as he turns the corner of Leadenhall Place onto Lime Street.”
I nodded at the sensibleness of occupying Scrooge’s booth, and then, leaning forward with earnest curiosity, asked him: “The cat. How did you know it would be black?”
“My dear Watson, apply the observational and analytical methods which you have chronicled so often in your somewhat fictionalized accounts of our adventures. Remember, Mr. Scrooge was not sitting down when he encountered Esmeralda, but was walking toward his habitual window seat.”
“The black cat crossed his path!” I said, with the abruptness of an epiphany.
“Exactly! Now bear in mind that Scrooge lives at 12A, Gilforth Yard. Is there anything in that which strikes you as significant?”
“Why, of course,” I said, feeling the triumph of sudden deduction that is so routine to Sherlock Holmes. “12A is often used by householders with an aversion to the number thirteen.”
“And what was nailed above the doorway of Scrooge and Marley’s counting-house?” asked Holmes, thoroughly enjoying himself by now.
“Why, a horseshoe!”
Holmes leaned back against the headrest of the bench, grinning at my obtuseness in not recognising earlier that Ebenezer Scrooge was morbidly superstitious.
“But how does this help you in investigating whatever nefarious or criminal activity you believe the man’s involved in?” I asked.
Holmes was about to answer, but instead gave a brisk nod toward the window. “Here comes our bird,” he said, “from the direction of his nephew’s home. Wiggins gave me a detailed physical description of him yesterday.”
An elderly man had hoved into sight. Dressed in a fashionably cut ulster and with an Angora scarf wrapped about his throat, he strode with a stiff, business-like gait down Lime Street, his heavy cane swinging with every stride. As he approached us, I can honestly say his was one of the least friendly countenances I had ever beheld. His nose was sharp, its tip pointed at the end, and his cheeks were sallow and shrunken. As he crossed the empty road and approached the Old Goose Inn, I saw that his lips were thin and blue and his eyes an angry red. Apart from the rime of white hair crowning his head, colouring the arches of snowy eyebrows and infusing the goatee clinging to his pointed chin, his appearance was the antithesis of grandfatherly benevolence.
When the old man entered the inn, Holmes sprang to his feet and said cordially, “Mr. Scrooge? Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge?”
“Yes,” said the newcomer. “What of it? And what are you doing seated at my table?”
“My name is Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and confidant, Dr. Watson. Perhaps you have heard of me.”
“I have,” Scrooge said guardedly, his shifty eyes flitting between myself and Holmes. “A meddlesome fool who by all accounts thinks he’s better than the police. What do you want with me?”
Holmes pulled up an empty chair and placed it at the end of our table. “Why don’t you join us and drink a toast to your partner, Jacob Marley, who I believe died on this day eight years ago?” he said and instructed the landlord to bring Scrooge’s usual beverage.
The moneylender eyed us suspiciously. However, curiosity had got the better of him, and he sat down and leant his cane against the table.
“A wise decision,” said Holmes, and as he resumed his seat, his elbow jogged the salt cellar, knocking it over and causing a small quantity of salt to spill onto the tabletop.
The change in Scrooge’s composure at this accidental spillage was profound. His breath quickened, his eyes widened, and his face blanched. I was about to offer my professional attention, when his hand shot forward and righted the salt cellar. Then, between his thumb and forefinger, he took a pinch of the spilled salt and threw it over his left shoulder, only just missing the approaching landlord.
“I see you’re of a superstitious inclination,” said Holmes, as the landlord placed a tankard of ale before Scrooge before retreating back behind the bar counter.
“Everyone is superstitious to an extent. Would you deliberately walk beneath a ladder, Mr. Holmes? Would you, Dr. Watson?”
I was about to tell Scrooge that my friend would willingly act contrary to every known superstition in the world in order to prove them fallacious; however, Holmes held up a hand to stay me.
“My own beliefs are irrelevant in this matter,” said Holmes. “Yours, however, are most certainly relevant, especially with respect to the mirror that once hung from the wall of your offices and which brought you seven years of bad luck.”
At these words Scrooge leapt to his feet, grabbed hold of his cane, and with an apparent feat of willpower resisted swinging it at us. “You have nothing on me,” he spluttered, “and I won’t sit here any longer listening to your couched innuendoes and spiteful allegations.”
With that, the moneylender marched out of the Old Goose Inn, slamming the door behind him, and without so much as a backward glance disappeared into Gilforth Yard.
“Well,” said I, “I’m as much in the dark now as I was at the beginning of this escapade. What has been achieved by this contrived interview with Ebenezer Scrooge, except to forewarn him that you suspect him of involvement in his business partner’s death?”
Holmes rubbed his hands together triumphantly. “Exactly. You finally do seem to be getting th
e hang of this amateur crime detection business, Watson. Oh, and when you write up this case, kindly remember to make a note of my improvisation with the salt cellar to expose Scrooge’s superstitious bent. A deft touch, if I do say so myself. Now all that remains is to let Mr. Scrooge stew for a while. In the meantime, we’re off to Camden Town, to the abode of Robert Cratchit. Scrooge will soon realise that his clerk’s residence should also be his own next port of call, to ensure the man’s silence. So let’s hurry. There’s not a second to lose.”
Holmes paid the landlord for Scrooge’s untouched ale and for our own half-finished glasses of beer, and we hastened off to nearby Fenchurch Street. There, as the sun set and twilight set in, we took a hansom to Regent’s Park Road in Camden Town. The street proved to be close to the capital’s famous zoological gardens, and even though Holmes stopped the cab at the unfashionable end of the road, the residences were still quite respectable terrace houses, not the dilapidated tenements one would expect a lowly accounts clerk to inhabit.
“Are you sure this is where Cratchit lives?” I asked.
Instead of answering me with a yes or a no, Holmes asked, “How much do you imagine an accounts clerk earns?”
“Around fifteen shillings a week,” I hazarded.
“According to the proprietor of a rival moneylender’s whom I spoke to yesterday, that was indeed Bob Cratchit’s weekly salary until eight years ago. Then, after Jacob Marley died of blunt force trauma to the head in an accidental fall, his salary tripled to just over two pounds a week.”
“It’s a princely sum,” I remarked as we clambered down from the hansom cab and paid off the driver.
“And yet,” said Holmes, “as the Gazette noted, Scrooge’s conversion to munificence occurred only one year ago. What does that suggest to you?”
“My God! Cratchit has been blackmailing Scrooge over the circumstances surrounding Jacob Marley’s death. But how will you prove it?”
“Yes,” said a voice close by us. “How will you prove it?”
“Ah, Inspector Lestrade,” said Holmes, totally unsurprised at the policeman’s sudden appearance. “You got my message. How good of you to join us. Are you armed, and do you have your handcuffs on your person as instructed?”
“I do, indeed,” said the tenacious Scotland Yard inspector, tipping his hat to us by way of greeting.
“Then let us proceed at once to number thirty-two, Regent’s Park Road, and hopefully extract a confession.”
Before we had moved a couple of yards, though, a young lad swung past us on crutches. In an instant Holmes thrust forward his cane and swept one of the crutches away. I dare say my look of dismay mirrored that of Lestrade’s, and yet, instead of falling headlong onto the paving stones, the boy stumbled, regained his balance, threw down his crutches, and glared at Holmes.
“What the ’ell do you think you’re doing?” said the youngster. “You could’ve crippled me. I’m telling me dad on you.”
“Timothy, isn’t it?” said Holmes, picking up the boy’s crutches. “Yes. Do lead the way to your father.”
As we followed the boy, Holmes explained. “Wiggins and his compatriots discovered the whereabouts of the Cratchit household yesterday. They also spotted the purportedly disabled younger son, Timothy, a.k.a. Tiny Tim, some distance from here, running around playing football with a group of roughs. Ironically, they were using his crutches to mark the goal posts.”
“But to what end would he pretend to be crippled?” asked Lestrade.
“Let us ask the young charlatan’s father,” said Holmes.
Timothy Cratchit had stopped on the doorstep to number thirty-two and was in animated discussion with a balding, middle-aged man dressed in a silk shirt and finely tailored trousers.
We stood by patiently while the darkness grew around us and the gaslights were being lit.
“My boy has nothing to do with this affair,” said Robert Cratchit eventually, and instructed Tiny Tim, “Go to your aunt’s house. Your mother and your siblings have gone there for Christmas evening.” Then, once Holmes had handed Tiny Tim back his crutches and the lad was disappearing down the road, Cratchit stood aside, letting us enter his home.
He directed us to sit in three ostentatiously upholstered armchairs in the living room. He, however, sat before us on a simple, straight-backed chair, looking dejected and penitent.
Myself and Lestrade watched as Sherlock Holmes took in the room’s rich décor, which included a Welsh dresser filled with Royal Doulton china and silver cutlery. However, it was the glassless, eighteenth-century French Rocaille mirror on the wall, one side of its metal frame buckled, that captivated his attention.
“It is my habit, if you will indulge me,” said Holmes, once he had introduced himself, Lestrade, and me, “to reveal what I already know and what I have deduced. If you wish to be treated leniently by the authorities, I advise you to fill in any gaps.”
“I am in your hands,” said Cratchit. “This reckoning has been a long time in coming. I’ve not had a proper night’s sleep since the business with Mr. Marley started.”
Leaning forward, his fingers steepled as if in prayer, Holmes began. “Eight years ago, an altercation occurred between the two proprietors of the Scrooge and Marley counting-house. Scrooge took the heavy French mirror from the wall and smashed Marley over the head with it, staving in his skull, and, in the process, damaging the mirror. Cratchit witnessed all this from the adjacent cell where he was working. I also see that he retained the murder weapon as a bargaining chip. However, I must confess I’m a little hazy about the cause of the altercation.”
“Money,” said Cratchit. “Marley had always been as stingy with money as Scrooge, but came to believe that when he died, he would be punished for his tight-fistedness. A change of heart came over him. Until then, Scrooge and Marley had been the sole beneficiary of one another’s wills, but now Marley planned on writing a new will and giving his fortune away to the needy.”
Holmes nodded and continued. “Marley’s sudden demise left Scrooge still sole beneficiaries. But there were three problems. Firstly, the murder had been witnessed. The solution was for Scrooge to pay the monetary consideration Cratchit demanded to corroborate his employer’s version of events, vis-a-vis that Marley fell by accident and hit his head. Hence Cratchit’s inflated salary and salubrious living conditions. Am I right so far?”
The accounts clerk nodded.
“Secondly, during the perpetration of Jacob Marley’s murder, the glass in the mirror shattered. To Scrooge’s superstitious mind, seven years of bad luck was now attached to the small fortune in gold which I have learned Marley kept in the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank. Scrooge could not therefore access the windfall bequeathed him until seven years had elapsed.”
“And thirdly?” said Lestrade, enthralled by the great detective’s skillful reasoning.
“Thirdly,” said Holmes, “Scrooge needed a cover story once the seven years was up, to explain away his changed spending habits after a lifetime of parsimony. He therefore concocted a fairy tale about Christmas, and ghosts, and redemption to give credence to any uncustomary spending habits that might throw suspicion on him. These sprees of spending included money to treat Tiny Tim’s fictitious affliction—money which in reality went into your pocket, Bob Cratchit—and a few charitable donations. However, this was merely camouflage to mask the investments Scrooge has been making this past year in acquiring London tenements and purchasing shares in South African gold mines using the inheritance money.
“How am I doing so far, Cratchit?” asked Holmes.
“You have me, sir,” he said unhappily, “for the cowardly blackmailer and extortionist I am. And as for Mr. Scrooge…”
As Cratchit spoke, there came a loud rapping on the front door, causing Lestrade to jump out of his seat.
“That would be Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge,” said Holmes, and instr
ucted Lestrade to admit him.
The scene that followed unfolded swiftly. Scrooge barged past the police inspector, saw us in Cratchit’s living room, and knew the game was up and that he had been betrayed. He was not about to go quietly, though.
“Fiends!” he cried, and aimed a blow at poor Bob Cratchit’s head with his cane, knocking the man senseless.
It took the three of us to wrestle Scrooge away from his vengeance, and only then because the villain perceived that myself and Lestrade had drawn our revolvers.
“The picture is complete,” said Holmes, once Scrooge had been subdued. “What good is it to you now that you hoarded the assets of your murdered partner for seven years, fearing the money cursed?”
Scrooge was unrepentant. “You’ve got nothing on me, Holmes!” he shouted over his shoulder as Lestrade led him away in handcuffs, and as I tended to the cut on Cratchit’s forehead. “The question of who murdered Jacob Marley is my word against Cratchit’s, if indeed it can be proven not to have been an accident.”
“Then we’ll need a confession from you, Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge. May I suggest that Inspector Lestrade incarcerate you in cell number thirteen in the basement of Scotland Yard until you come to your senses?”
Suffice to say that within an hour, Lestrade had extracted a full written confession, and shortly after Scrooge had dotted his last i, Sherlock Holmes and myself were sitting in the nave at Westminster Cathedral, enjoying the annual Christmas carol concert.
The New Messi
By Nick Sweet
Holmes might have been secretly jealous and wounded by the thought of Watson’s forthcoming marriage; but then, when little Leroy was abducted, the green-eyed monster that had risen in the great detective’s breast disappeared without trace.
Young Leroy was the product of a liaison, as brief as it was doomed, that his mother, Julia, had with a Black tribesman-cum-rapper she became involved with while carrying out research in the Congo; and the man disappeared from her life before he had the chance to learn he was on the road to becoming a father. Enter dear Watson, who met and promptly fell in love with Julia, some eight years later, after her return to London; and being the warm-hearted sort that he was, he took young Leroy to his heart, too. He duly asked Julia for her hand and she accepted his proposal of marriage, and they were to be married in June.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes Page 7
