My Sherlock Holmes

by Michael Kurland

  “What did you say, dear?” I asked.

  Alice sniffled. “I said that I realize that I have made many mistakes in my life. Perhaps this robbery was another. I certainly did not think of consequences, of how this theft might ruin our lives. Only one thought ran through my brain, that I must get the money somehow. I am now ready to admit my crimes to the police and go gladly to prison for bigamy and robbery, happy to be rid of that horrible man. My only regret is for how this fiasco will affect your reputation. I care nothing for my own, which is just as well. Surely when the police learn that I committed the crimes, and that you had no part in either of them, you will not suffer too badly. I still love you, my darling, and when I am released from prison I will attempt somehow to make up this travail to you.”

  “Perhaps it is not too late to get the money back,” I suggested. “Do you know where Mr. Harvey Maynard may be found?”

  She shook her head wearily.

  An idea came to me. It would require a certain subtle theatricality on my part, but it might save us both. .

  “There is no reason,” I said, “that either of us should suffer for the actions of Harvey Maynard.” I took her two small hands in mine. “Will you trust me, my dear?” I asked.

  “With my life,” she said.

  “I am hoping our adventure will not come to that,” I said. “Now, you must quickly pack and be off for your sister’s in Kent.”

  “But—”

  “Quickly, now. I will take care of everything tomorrow morning.”

  “Very well, dear. I leave it all to you.”

  While she packed I checked the train schedules. In less than an hour I put her in a hansom and she was on her way to Kensington Station.

  I knew that I would arouse suspicion of my part in the robbery not only because of my knowledge of the safe’s combination, but because I would not appear at my office the next morning. I had no doubt the police would look for me at home. Quickly I prepared for their arrival.

  The next morning I arose early. Much to their surprise and delight I dismissed Cook and Mary Anne for the day. They did not ask me questions, but seconds later they were gone. I put on the cap and ill-fitting painter’s smock I had found in the storage shed along with a gallon or two of white paint, climbed a ladder at the side of the house, and began to apply paint to the outside wall. The cap fit all right, but the smock billowed around me like a tent. Applying paint to the outside wall of my house was pleasant enough work, and I might have enjoyed it had I not known what was yet to come.

  Mr. Morehouse would soon open the office and the clerks who audited the contents of the safe would report the shortage. There would be hurried discussions, first disbelieving and then furious. My absence would be noted. The police would arrive at my home, perhaps with Mr. Morehouse accompanying them. Only then would I know for sure whether my plan worked.

  I did not have long to wait. A hansom drew up in front of my house followed by a drag drawn by a four-in-hand. A lean, ferretlike man leaped from the hansom, and at his direction a gang of officers emerged from the drag and spread out, surrounding the house. I stopped painting while I watched all this activity with much interest. My heart beat like a drum in my chest, and my blood churned rapids like through my body.

  The man directing the activity of the police was about to knock upon the front door of my house when he was hailed by a tall slim man who approached walking at a brisk pace. The intensity of his gaze was unlike any I have seen before or since. This was, of course, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I had not had occasion to meet him, but one of my clients had pointed him out to me on the street. The policeman and Mr. Holmes spoke together for a moment, and then the policeman used the door knocker to announce his presence.

  I climbed in at the second floor window, hurriedly threw off the paint er’s smock, and deposited it and the workman’s cap into a chest. I tore off a mustache I had applied earlier with spirit gum, and stuck it inside the lid of the chest. I had been wearing my usual suit of clothes under the painter’s attire, so it was but the work of a moment to go downstairs as myself to see who had knocked.

  “Mr. James Phillimore?” the policeman asked in a loud voice.

  I admitted I was that person.

  “I am Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. I’ll have to ask you to come with me, sir.”

  “Why? What is the matter?”

  “There has been a robbery at Morehouse & Co., sir, and you are under suspicion.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “That remains to be seen, sir. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Ask away, then,” I said, allowing a righteous irritation to enter my voice.

  “Down at the Yard, if you please, sir.”

  For the sake of appearances I blustered for another minute or two, then retrieved my coat from the hall closet. During the preceding scene, Mr. Holmes had moved off to one side and carefully examined the walls and floor of the entryway—I could not imagine why.

  “If you’re quite finished here, Mr. Holmes,” Lestrade said with a note of sarcasm in his voice.

  “Quite,” Mr. Holmes said, and rejoined us at the door.

  I allowed myself to be escorted outside, and when we reached the street I glanced critically at the sky. “I suspect rain,” I said. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to allow me to go back for my umbrella?”

  “The house is surrounded,” Lestrade said. “Escape out a window or a back door is impossible.”

  “The thoroughness of the Yard is well known,” I said. “I will only be a moment. May I go?”

  Lestrade grunted in assent.

  Trying not to show the excitement I felt, I marched back into the house, the picture of affronted virtue. When the door was closed behind me, I ran up the stairs and into the room where I had left my painter’s garb and other accouterments. I threw on the tentlike smock and the cap, carefully applied the mustache, and climbed out the window, where I once again began painting. A few minutes later I heard a disturbance in the street. The policemen swarmed all around and through the house as if it were a disturbed anthill. There was a great deal of interrogative shouting, followed by answers in the negative.

  A policeman ran by and looked up at me. “Have you seen Mr. Phillimore?” he called.

  “Oo?” I asked. “The bloke wha’ lives ’ere in this ’ouse?”

  “Yes, yes,” the policeman said impatiently.

  “Went back into ’is ’ouse then, didn’ ’e?” I answered as if Mr. Phillimore’s whereabouts were no concern of mine. “Wha d’ou want ’im for, theen? ’ee didn’ ’ook it, did ’ee? The bloke still owes me money!”

  “Never you mind,” the policeman said, and ran on. Moments later the policemen drained out of the house like so much black water and soon all was silence. The policemen, their hansom and their drag were gone, to search for me far and wide, no doubt believing that I had somehow slipped through their professional fingers. And so it seemed that I was “ … never more seen in this world.”

  I was overjoyed to think that I had been successful in my attempt to deceive the police. All that remained now was for me to join my wife in Kent. Though I had no plans beyond that, I was certain that an opportunity to ensure our safety would present itself. Perhaps someday I would even be able to return the thousand pounds Alice and I now owed to Morehouse & Co. I was about to climb back in through the window when someone hailed me from below. “Excuse me, my good man.”

  I looked down and was surprised to see Mr. Sherlock Holmes staring up at me and gesticulating with his stick!

  “Yes, gov?”

  “I’d like to speak with you,” Mr. Holmes went on. “Perhaps you would be good enough to climb down here for a moment.”

  I could not imagine what he might want from me, but I did what any tradesman in my position would do. I climbed down and joined him on the ground.

  “You succeeded in throwing off the police,” he said quietly, “but I am not so easily fooled.”

  “What’
s it all about, then, gov?” I asked, not feeling so confident. I had heard of Mr. Holmes’s talents—as who in London has not?—but I continued my performance because I could think of nothing else to do.

  “Come, come, Mr. Phillimore,” Mr. Holmes said jocularly. “A painter without splatters of paint on his shoes is a curiosity, indeed. Don’t you agree?”

  In shock, I looked down at my clean shoes, freshly brushed that morning. I’m afraid I looked at Mr. Holmes rather dumbly. I had been fairly caught. All that remained, I thought, were the arrest and other legal formalities.

  “Things will go better for you if you return the money,” Mr. Holmes said.

  “Without question,” I replied. “But I do not have it.”

  “You know where it is, then,” he accused.

  I had no doubt that Harvey Maynard had it. “Only in the vaguest possible sense,” I admitted.

  “I see.” Mr. Holmes studied me for a long moment, no doubt analyzing all he could see about my body for clues. Suddenly he laughed sharply once. “Leave your disguise in the bushes there,” he said, “and come along with me to my rooms. I do not believe the police will disturb us. They are out looking for you at the train stations and docks.”

  I did not resist when he gripped my arm tightly and guided me toward Baker Street. I could not have escaped if I’d wanted to.

  Mr. Holmes and I did not discuss the topic that was then uppermost in our minds. I, because I wished to organize my thoughts and the street did not seem to me to be the proper venue for any explanation I might offer. He—well, I’m sure Mr. Holmes had his reasons. I had been told that he always did. In any case, I was silent while Mr. Holmes commented on the prospects for the weather, and the various musical entertainments that were being performed in London’s many theaters. It was only after we’d reached his rooms and he’d settled me in a chair with a cup of tea that I said, “I admit that I am quite curious as to how you happened to be walking past my house this morning.”

  “Nothing easier to explain,” Mr. Holmes said. “I have been hired by Morehouse & Co.—your employers, I understand—to retrieve the money they believe you stole.”

  “And yet,” I said, “even after you’d guessed that I was the one painting the house, you still did not turn me over to the police.” I was, frankly, astonished.

  “I never guess,” Mr. Holmes admonished me. He chuckled. “And I must say that I was quite charmed by your simple subterfuge.”

  I thought the subterfuge was quite ingenious, myself, but I did not see any profit in arguing about it with Mr. Holmes.

  “Besides,” Mr. Holmes continued, “there is always time to bring in the police. My main concern this morning was the return of the money.”

  “I don’t—” I began.

  Mr. Holmes interrupted me with a raised hand. “You have only the vaguest notion where it is. So you said. And it is true that a man in your position at a house such as Morehouse & Co. is not often a criminal type. I suspect that you were forced by extreme circumstances of some nature to steal from your employer. I brought you here because I am curious to hear the details of your story.”

  “Very well, then,” I said. And as the sun rose toward noon and shadows crept across Mr. Holmes’s Baker Street flat, I told him the story of Mr. Harvey Maynard as I’d heard it from Alice, holding nothing back. If Mr. Holmes was going to trust me a little, then I must trust him in return.

  Mr. Holmes listened while he puffed his pipe, occasionally asking a question to clarify matters. Frequently I could see no reason for his question, but I always did my best to answer it. Perhaps he could find the money Alice had stolen, or even Mr. Harvey Maynard himself.

  When I finished Mr. Holmes puffed for a few minutes more, apparently lost in one of his famous thoughtful funks. At last he spoke. “Your wife is a victim of the worst sort of small-time crook,” he remarked. “And your only crime, Mr. Phillimore, is not allowing the police to suffer the embarrassment of arresting an innocent man.”

  I was overjoyed by Mr. Holmes’s words. “You would have no objection, then, to bringing this small-time crook, Mr. Harvey Maynard, to justice?” I asked.

  “None whatsoever. And I believe we may also expect to recover the money—or a good portion of it at any rate. As a matter of fact, I have already begun my investigations along those very lines.”

  “Your close scrutiny of my entryway?” I suggested.

  “Very good, Mr. Phillimore. I believe you to be as apt a pupil as Watson, himself!”

  I didn’t know whether to be complimented by the comparison to Dr. Watson, or insulted by Mr. Holmes’s tone.

  While I was still puzzling this out, Mr. Holmes pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it before me on a small table. “Here,” he said, inviting me to look at the handkerchief more closely, “what do you make of this?”

  There was a small yellow grain of something in the center of the cloth. I looked at it closely, holding my breath so has not to disturb it. “What is it?” I asked.

  “It is,” he said, “a single mote of sawdust. If you inhale gently of its aroma, you will no doubt notice, as I did, the stale odor of swipes.”

  I detected no odor of any kind, certainly not of cheap beer, but undoubtedly Mr. Holmes was correct. “Hm,” was all I said.

  “Since I would not presume to believe that you or anyone else in your house is in the habit of patronizing low public houses I feel safe in suggesting that this bit of sawdust was left behind by our friend, Mr. Harvey Maynard.”

  “Perhaps,” I said cautiously. “But there must be hundreds, even thousands of such establishments in the city.”

  “Quite right,” Mr. Holmes said. “However, I believe we can separate the wheat from the chaff.” From a convenient shelf he pulled down G. W. Bacon’s New Large-Scale Ordnance Map of London & Suburbs. Mr. Holmes opened the book and I saw that nearly every page was annotated with handwritten notes. After briefly flipping through the tome, Mr. Holmes found the page he wanted and he sighed with satisfaction.

  “Here we are,” he said. “You remarked that when Mr. Maynard left your house the one time you two met he passed a brace of unengaged cabs instead of hiring one of them.”

  “That’s right. Is this fact significant?”

  “It is. But only because Mr. Maynard’s actions may tell us in which establishment he picked up this speck of sawdust.”

  I thought for a moment. “Of course,” I cried. “The place must be very near my house—walking distance, you might say.”

  “Elementary, my dear Phillimore. Let us consult Mr. Bacon’s estimable book.”

  We bent over the volume and Mr. Holmes ran one thin finger along the streets of St. Marylebone, stopping now and then to read a notation he’d made in his spidery hand. “Here,” he soon said as he thumped the book with his peripatetic finger, “in this alley just off East Street is a low place rejoicing in the name of The Twin Lambs.”

  “I am astonished to hear of such an establishment near enough that we may walk there.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Holmes said. “It lies in a small infected abscess in the healthy tissue of our fair borough. We are fortunate there are not more commercial hotels like it in our neighborhood, not least because we would have to search all of them until we found Mr. Harvey Maynard. As things have fallen out, I am fairly certain that we will find our culprit here.” He closed the book and returned it to its shelf. “Now,” he said. “It is nearly noon; and though a man such as Harvey Maynard may start drinking in the morning, he will certainly still be at it in the afternoon. I believe we have time for breakfast, which I, at any rate, have not yet eaten. Would you care to join me?”

  “Feeling, as I do, that the situation is now well in hand, I would be delighted.”

  “Then I will ring for Mrs. Hudson.”

  We finished our breakfast and prepared for our adventure. Mr. Holmes pocketed a pistol, and he insisted that I carry one of Dr. Watson’s. “Though,” he admitted, “I do not believe we will h
ave occasion to use them.”

  I nodded, hoping he was correct.

  “Very well, then, Mr. Phillimore. Come along. ‘The game’s afoot!’”

  Mr. Holmes ushered me from the room and out to the street, where he walked along the sidewalk so briskly I had difficulty keeping up. Our breath plumed in the early spring air. I admit that excitement and fear mixed in my breast. I certainly wanted to bring Harvey Maynard to justice, so I felt as if I was on a virtuous mission, but I also knew my own shortcomings. My dealings with criminals and other violent types were limited to reading about them in the Times. How would I react when confronted with Mr. Maynard again? I had no idea. I attempted to keep the face of my dear Alice forefront in my memory. It was for her that I was doing this.

  We turned up Paddington Street, along which we proceeded a short way to East Street. Almost immediately we strode into a much smaller street, nearly an alley, which made a sharp angle as it turned away from the street we’d just left. We now stood at the head of a quarter that was, as Mr. Holmes had described it earlier, indeed “a small infected abscess in the healthy tissue of our fair borough.” Ramshackle houses stood cheek by jowl, interspersed with commercial establishments of increasingly forlorn aspect. How such a place might exist so close to the more refined atmosphere of Baker Street, I have no idea. I leave that question to the city planners. I do know this: Except for the errand on which we were employed I would have been pleased to return to the high street that was still only a few steps away.

  “Just along here, I think,” Mr. Holmes said as we walked along being eyed by poor street mongers and disheveled loafers. Much sooner than I would have liked, Mr. Holmes and I stood before a dilapidated commercial hotel with a dirty sign hanging over the door proclaiming it to be The Twin Lambs.

  “Come along, Mr. Phillimore,” Mr. Holmes said brightly, as if we were about to stroll through St. James Park. He took my arm, and together we entered the establishment.