Sherlock Holmes and the Four Corners of Hell
Page 23
‘There is no surer way of getting someone to do something than to get someone to appear to suggest it themselves.’
‘Indeed, Watson, it’s quite an art in the Civil Service you know: Mycroft calls it “Tidbury Syndrome” after one of the ostensibly meek, mild-mannered, bumbling clerks in his department who rules his superiors with an iron rod of pure suggestion. Norbert Tidbury never forgets the deferential shake of the head when he tells them how amazed he is at their ability to come up with such clever stratagems.’
‘But why did Parlow shoot Burdock in the back? A bullet in the brain would have been a surer, and more humane, way of killing him. How was Parlow to know that the old man would not recover?’
‘That is the strange part, and I have come to the conclusion that Parlow was partly telling the truth when he said he could not handle a gun. His nerve may have failed at the last moment and perhaps his aim went awry. Still, even if the old man recovered, there would always be another opportunity once Parlow had established the general belief in some bizarre vendetta against Burdock.’
‘Baynes will no doubt be kicking himself for having gone after the wrong suspect.’
‘To be fair, he had established the correct motive right from the beginning, and he was pretty quick to realize the possible significance of the ownership of the Wharf. What he lacked, however, was a Watson for a trusty auxiliary!’
On the evidence produced by Holmes and presented by the prosecution, the jury took less than half an hour to find Richard Parlow guilty of wilful murder when the case came up for trial. The night before Parlow was hanged at Wandsworth Prison, Inspector Baynes upheld an old and venerable tradition by visiting him in the condemned cell. At the end of the visit, the man asked Baynes to convey to Holmes his regards to ‘a very fine specimen of the detective profession,’ and expressed the hope that they would meet again in the hereafter. Not for the first time in our long association did Holmes shake his head in wonder at the kaleidoscopic disposition of the human soul.
‘It occurred to me,’ he remarked at length, ‘that the affair has encompassed all the symbolic elements of the classical tragedies of antiquity: the discontent; the temptation and the dream of owning Parlow’s Wharf; the opportunity; the tragedy of the murder and the fixing of his guilt and finally, repentance and death.’
In the same week, the Southwark Observer reported on the first of the demolitions of the slum dwellings in the Rotherhithe and Bermondsey districts.
‘A cleaner, better London,’ I said, ‘will arise from the dust.’
‘I must confess,’ my friend replied, ‘I did permit myself a slight chuckle at your portrayal of the place as a kind of Tartarus. Rough, dirty, and dangerous as it may have been, I really think it wasn’t half as bad as you made it out to be. The four corners of hell,’ he mused, ‘yes, that could almost be a metaphor for criminal London.’
© Séamas Duffy
First published in Great Britain 2015
ISBN 978 0 7198 1784 7 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1785 4 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1786 1 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1499 0 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
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