My Sherlock Holmes

by Michael Kurland

  When she confirmed that she had complained a fortnight prior to the sewerage company of nightly disturbances caused by vibration and muffled banging under the street, causing her house to shake, one of the workmen summoned courage to come forward. He raised a finger to his cap.

  “Begging’ yer pardon, lady, but wiv all due respect an’ that, ain’t bin none of our lads a digging dahn ’ere. No work bin done in this ’ere area fer months naw.”

  Holmes stood regarding the old woman and the workmen for a moment, and then with a cry of “Of course!” he bounded back to Glassford’s house and his knocking brought Hogan, the butler to the door again.

  “Show me your cellar,” he ordered the startled man

  Sir Gibson emerged from his study, disturbed by the noise of Holmes’s reentry into the house, and looked astounded.

  “Why, what is it, Mr. Holmes?”

  “The cellar, man,” snapped Holmes dictatorially, totally disregarding the fact that Glassford was a member of the government.

  In a body they trooped down into the cellar. In fact, several cellars ran under the big house and Hogan, who had now brought a lamp, was ordered to proceed them through the wine racks, a coal storage area, a boiler room, and areas filled with bric-a-brac and assorted discarded furniture along one wall.

  “Have any underground excavations disturbed you of late? These would have been during the night.” Holmes asked as he examined the cellar walls, Glassford looked perplexed.

  “Not at all,” be replied, and then turned to his butler. “Your room is above here at the back of the house, isn’t it, Hogan? Have you been disturbed?”

  The butler shook his head.

  “Does the Underground railway run in this vicinity?” Holmes pressed.

  “We are not disturbed by the Underground here,” replied Sir Gibson. “The Circle Line, which was completed six years ago, is quite a distance to the north of here.”

  “That wall would be to the north,” Holmes muttered, and turning to Hogan ordered the man to bring the lamp close while he began examining the wall. He was there fully fifteen minutes before he gave up in irritation. Inspector Gallagher was smiling to himself and could not help making the thrust: “Your theory not turning out as you would hope, Mr. Holmes?”

  Holmes scowled at him.

  “We will return to Father Michael’s,” he almost snarled.

  At the presbytery he demanded to see the priest, and being shown into the study asked without preamble: “Do you have a cellar?”

  Father Michael nodded.

  “Pray precede me to it,” demanded Holmes arrogantly.

  The priest did so, with Holmes behind him and Watson and Gallagher trailing in the rear. It was an ordinary cellar, mostly used for the storage of coal and with wine racks along one side. Holmes moved hither and thither through it like a ferret until he came to a rusting iron door.

  “Where does this lead?” he demanded.

  Father Michael shrugged.

  “It leads into the new crypt. As you know, we are rebuilding the church and creating a crypt. The door used to lead into another cell, but it has not been opened ever since I have been here.”

  “Which is how long?” asked Holmes, examining it carefully.

  “Ten years.”

  “I see,” muttered the Great Detective. Then he smiled broadly. “I see.” He said it again almost as if to impress everyone that be had spotted some solution to the mystery.

  “And does an Underground railway run near here?”

  Father Michael shook his head.

  “Our architect ascertained that before we began to rebuild the church. We needed to ensure strong foundations.”

  Gallagher felt he could have done a dance at the crestfallen expression on Holmes’s face. It lasted only a moment and then Holmes had swung round on him.

  “I want to see the Metropolitan Commissioner of Sewers and maps of the system under London.”

  Gallagher felt he was dealing with a maniac now. It seemed that Holmes had devised some theory that he was determined to prove at all cost.

  Mr. Bert Small, the manager of sewerage system, agreed to see Holmes and provide plans of the area at the company’s Canon Row offices, just opposite the Palace of Westminster on the corner of Parliament Street.

  “I cannot see the connection I wish to make.” Holmes in resignation said, pushing the plans away from him in disgust “There seems no way that one could negotiate the sewers from Soho Square to Gayfere Street, at least not directly in a short place of time. And the Underground rail way does not run anywhere near Father Michael’s nor Glassford’s houses.”

  It was then that Bert Small came to the rescue of Holmes, demonstrating that it was not intellect alone that helped him solve his cases but good fortune and coincidence.

  “Maybe you are looking at the wrong underground system, Mr. Holmes,” he suggested. “There are many other underground systems under London apart from sewers and the new railway system”

  Holmes regarded him with raised eyebrows.

  “There is another system of tunnels that runs under Westminster?”

  Mr. Small rose and took down some keys, smiling with superiority.

  “I will show you.”

  It took but a few minutes for Mr. Bert Small—the man of the moment as Gallagher cynically described him—to lead them from his office around the corner to Westminster Bridge. Here Mr. Small led them down a flight of steps to the Embankment to the base of the statute of Queen Boadicea, in her chariot with her two daughters. There was a small iron door here, which he unlocked and suggested that they follow him.

  A flight of iron steps led them into a tunnel. Mr. Small seemed to swell with pride and he pointed out that it was situated just above the lower-level interceptory sewer which ran below the level of the Thames. They could see that it was built of brickwork but arched rather than circular and was about six feet high It was designed, said Mr. Small, to carry cast-iron pipes with water and gas.

  He took a lantern and shone it along the dark, forbidding way.

  Gallagher was conscious of the river seeping through the brickwork, dripping down the walls on either side and, above all, he was aware of the smell, the putrid stench of the river and the echoing tunnel before them. Holmes began to sniff with a sigh of satisfaction.

  Mr. Small pointed down the tunnel.

  “These tunnels run from here along the river as far as the Bank of England, Mr. Holmes. These are Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s tunnels, which he completed fifteen years ago,” he said proudly. “You have probably seen, gentlemen, that ,Sir Joseph died a few months ago. The tunnel system under London was his finest achievement and …”

  Holmes was not interested in the eulogy of the civil engineer who bad built the tunnels.

  “And are there other connections?”

  “Altogether there are eleven and a half miles of these sorts of tunnels. They fan out through the city,” replied Mr. Small, blinking at being cut short.

  “Do they connect with Soho Square and Gayfere Street?” Holmes demanded.

  “There are none of these tunnels that would connect directly. You would have to go from Soho Square down to Shaftesbury Avenue to find an entrance and then you would have to exit here and walk to Gayfere Street.”

  “Then that’s no good to me,” snapped Holmes irritably. “Let’s return to the surface.”

  Detective Inspector Gallagher smiled to see the Great Defective so put out that whatever theory he had could not be sustained.

  As they emerged onto the Embankment, Mr. Small, perhaps seeking to mollify Holmes’s bad humor, was prompted to make another suggestion

  “There is yet another tunnel system, Mr. Holmes,” he finally ventured. “That might pass in the general direction that you have indicated, but I am not sure. I do have a plan of it hack at the office. But it has been closed down for over a decade now.”

  Holmes asserted that he would like to see the plans.

  Gallagher believed that Hol
mes was off on another wild goose chase and, being just across the road from his office at Scotland Yard, he left Holmes and Watson with Mr. Small. He returned to report the progress to his chief, Littlechild. It was two hours later that Gallagher received a curt note from Holmes asking him to meet him at Glassford’s house within half an hour and bring a posse of armed police officers, who were to station themselves in the front and back of the building.

  Gallagher reluctantly carried out Holmes’s orders after consulting with Chief Inspector Littlechild, who checked with the Commissioner.

  Holmes met Gallagher at the door of Glassford’s house and immediately took him down into the cellar. The first thing that Gallagher noticed was an aperture to the south side of the cellar that had previously been covered by the piles of old furniture Beyond this hole was a tunnel of some ten feet in length, dug through the London clay. But within ten feet it met a well-constructed brick-lined tunnel. It was of arched brickwork some four and a half feet in height and four feet wide and a small-gauge railway line ran through it. Gallagher was puzzled, for this was certainly not a tunnel connected with the rail system. Holmes ordered a policeman to be stationed as a guard at this point and then invited Gallagher to join him in Sir Gibson Glassford’s study

  Holmes had gathered everyone in Glassford’s study. There was the Minister himself, his wife, and all the servants, nanny, cook, housemaids, and the butler, Hogan. The Great Detective was looking pleased as punch with himself and Gallagher reported that the spectacle was repulsive in the extreme.

  “The case was simple,” exclaimed Holmes in his usual pedantic style. “I drew your attention to the bruising and puncture mark over the vein in the Cardinal’s neck. To most people who have dealt with the administration of narcotics, the puncture mark was the sign of a hypodermic syringe. Usually, this is the method by which a medication or drugs is introduced under the skin of the patient by means …”

  “I think we know the method, Holmes,” muttered Gallagher. “Dr. Thomson did not agree with you. Indeed, he conducted tests which showed no sign of any foreign substance, let alone narcotics or poison, being introduced into the body of the Cardinal which would cause death.”

  “There was no need to introduce such foreign matter,” Holmes went on, looking like a cat that has devoured cream. “The hypodermic contained no substance whatsoever.”

  “But how … ?” began Sir Gibson.

  “It contained nothing but air,” went on Holmes. “It caused an air embolism—a bubble of air—to be introduced into the bloodstream. That was fatal. Cardinal Tosca was murdered.”

  Gallagher sighed deeply.

  “We already suspected that … ,” he protested.

  “I have now demonstrated your suspicion to be a fact,” replied Holmes scornfully. “Now that we know the method, the next question is how was the body transported here?”

  “You have been at pains to prove your theory that there is a passage through the underground sewers from Soho Square to here,” muttered Gallagher.

  Holmes smiled condescendingly.

  “As you have now observed, it is no theory. It was obvious that the body had to be removed from Soho Square to Gayfere Place. Hardly through the streets in full view, I think, eh, Watson?” Holmes chuckled at his own humor. “It was clear to me that the body had been removed through a dank, smelly sewer. A tunnel where the clothes the body was being transported in, in this case, his nightshirt, had come into contact with the excretions running from the walls. The odors were still apparent after some days in police storage There was no odor on the Cardinal’s other clothing Those transporting the body had carried them wrapped separately in a bag or some other casing, which protected them. The only question was—through what manner of tunneling was this achieved?”

  He paused, presumably to bask in their admiration of his logic. He met only bemuserment

  “The body was transported not through the sewers as it happened, Gallagher. In 1861 the Pneumatic Dispatch Company built an underground rail system. The plan was to transport only mail. However, two years later the Post Office opened its own system and this, coupled with the fact that the Pneumatic system had begun to develop mechanical faults and air leakage, caused the plans to extend it to be shelved. Ten years ago that entire system was abandoned and was also forgotten.”

  Holmes paused, waiting like a conjuror about to pull a rabbit from a hat.

  “Except by Mr. Small,” pointed out Gallagher, not wishing Holmes to claim the approbation.

  “And by the group of people intent on mischief. The body of the Cardinal was carried, with his clothing, from his bedroom in the presbytery down to the cellar. In spite of assurances that the door had not been opened in ten year, I observed scuff marks showing that it had been opened recently. The body was removed into the new crypt where workman had, in their excavations, made contact with the old Pneumatic tunnel The tunnel came directly towards Westminster. In preparation for this ghastly event, which had been well planned, a tunnel had been excavated in advance into the cellar of Sir Gibson’s house. I was alerted by the complaints that had been made to the local sewerage company by the old lady opposite who had been disturbed by it. I subsequently found out that, being elderly, she had removed her bedroom to a lower floor, near ground level. That was how she had been disturbed in the night. I found it curious that her concerns were not shared by anyone in this house.”

  “But I have already told you that only the butler lives on the lower floor,” pointed out Sir Gibson, “and Hogan has not complained of any such noises. Have you, Hogan?”

  The man shook his head morosely.

  “Well,” went on Holmes obliviously, “our conspirators, for that is what they are, had enticed their victim from France on the pretense that he was wanted to mediate in some negotiations between this government and members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The idea appealed to Cardinal Tosca’s vanity and he came here obeying the conspirators’ exhortation not to tell anyone else. He was killed and the body brought through this underground system.”

  “But for what purpose?” demanded Glassford. “Why was he killed and placed in my house?”

  “The purpose was to achieve exactly what this has nearly achieved. An attempt to discredit you as a member of government, and to stir up antagonism against any movement by the Irish Party to press forward again with its political campaign in parliament.”

  “I don’t understand”

  “What group of people would best benefit by discrediting both a government pledged to the Unionist cause and to those who seek only Home Rule within the United Kingdom? Both those objectives would receive an irrevocable blow by the involvement of a Tory Minister in the murder of a Cardinal and the suspicion of some conspiracy between them? Where would sympathy go to?”

  “I presume the more extreme Irish Nationalists—the Republicans.”

  “Watson, your revolver!” cried Holmes suddenly.

  It was too late. Hogan had pulled his own revolver.

  “Everyone stay where they are!” he shouted.

  “Don’t be a fool, Hogan,” snapped Gallagher, moving forward, but Hogan waved his weapon threateningly.

  “I am not a fool,” the butler cried. “I can see where this is leading and I shall not suffer alone.”

  “You’ll not escape,” cried Holmes. “The police have already surrounded this place.”

  Hogan simply ignored them.