by J. R. Trtek
“Greetings to you, Doctor,” said the bluff former criminal, rising to offer me a hearty handshake. Now an agent several years in Holmes’s employ, he was dressed in clean if rumpled plaids, and as he self-consciously brushed the makings of a beard, his black eyes flashed with amusement. “There’s been no time for grooming in my life, as you can see, Dr. Watson.”
“Indeed not,” said Holmes, chuckling. The detective lay upon the sofa, cloaked in his mouse-coloured dressing-gown. As had been so true throughout our two decades together, it was impossible for me to discern if he had slept at all the previous night. “Johnson here has been occupied in gathering up loose ends remaining from the Preston forgery case, and I have now assigned him to the Hope Maldon affair.” He turned toward the agent. “You are clear concerning your instructions?”
“That I am, Mr. Holmes, and I reckon I’d best be about them.”
“Good,” said my companion with a faint smile, rising to see Johnson to the sitting room door. “I would appreciate receiving your report by this afternoon, if possible. Ring us up first, if you will.”
“Aye,” said the agent, who then mumbled an anxious farewell and promptly left the house.
“There are so many possibilities,” said Sherlock Holmes when we were alone. He returned to the sofa and set his head upon the cushion, fixing a melancholy stare at the faded ceiling. “We must cast the net, Watson. We must cast it as wide as…”
“Possible?”
“If you wish. As for myself, I was seeking a simile but in vain,” Holmes replied. “Your ending, however, is quick and apt, and, therefore, perhaps the more desirable.” He again rose to his feet and approached the hearth.
“Has Miss Adler—” I halted as, on the floor above us, a door opened.
Holmes crossed his arms as he stared into the fire. “No, Watson,” he said softly. “I have not heard her stir until this very moment.”
Seconds later, the woman came through the open sitting room door. “Such a wonderful morning,” were her first words. “But then, I always find hope in the day’s beginning.”
A night’s sleep had worked minor magic upon Irene Adler’s face and demeanour. The lines of strain were softened, the woman’s smile no longer a mere pose, and her hair was swept up in a buoyant, if slightly inelegant, fashion atop her head. With a manner as airy as the simple white blouse and grey skirt she wore, Miss Adler expressed her desire to sit by the fire, and Holmes, with suave ostentation, offered her the pick of the room. After a moment’s thought, she settled into his armchair.
The detective distractedly gathered the folds of his gown before, yet again, returning to the sofa. “We shall move your chair closer to the hearth if you wish,” he offered. The detective glanced toward the fogged bow window. “Perhaps we will soon have the last frost of the season,” he commented idly.
“I am quite comfortable where I am, thank you,” the woman declared. She glanced at the glowing coals and then asked, “Have you yet formed a plan with respect to Robert?”
“Plans, actually,” was my friend’s reply. “For we may have need of more than one.” He gestured me toward the basket-chair, and as I sat down, he quietly told Miss Adler, “I should inform you that your fiancé was seen in the town two evenings ago.”
Our guest turned round sharply, and I cocked my head with interest at this sudden announcement.
“Here?” Irene Adler said. “In London?”
“Yes. At the office of the solicitor you mentioned, Lucius Crabbe.”
“When did you learn of this?” I asked. “Was it Shinwell—”
“No,” Holmes answered abruptly.
“Then—”
“No, it was not Stanley Hopkins, either.” My friend rose and strode to the bow window to peer down into the street. “I merely rang up the office of the solicitor this morning and asked if Hope Maldon had lately been round. It was that simple, truly. As I have told you in recent months, Watson, the telephone may, in years to come, have a profound effect upon the art of detection. I speak with respect to efficiency, of course, but also of—”
“And what report had the solicitor of Robert?” Miss Adler asked.
“At this moment I know nothing other than that he appeared there briefly,” said Holmes with an air of benign detachment. “Mr. Crabbe struck me as, well, a bit incoherent, if you must know. You see, on the other hand, one disadvantage of investigation via telephone is the lack of physical presence, with an accompanying impairment of intuition. I fear I could not guide the solicitor into any informative direction at all during our brief conversation. There may be little to be gotten from the incident, except that your fiancé was alive and on this side of the Channel two nights ago.”
“That alone should be cause for rejoicing,” I said to soften Holmes’s tone. “And are you then going to call upon this Mr. Lucius Crabbe?” I asked him.
“Of course. The story must be got straight in person. I hope you shall add your company, Watson. Would a generous sample of ham, eggs, toast, and a smattering of marmalade sustain you for the next few hours? And you, Miss Adler,” my companion went on. “Do you care to join us, both in breakfast and travel?”
“I gladly accept the former, but I think it best to stay here,” she answered. “My nerves at present could not possibly sustain—”
“Of course,” I said comfortingly. “We shall, I am sure, bring you glad tidings.”
“Allow me to ring Mrs. Hudson,” continued the detective. “Fortunately, this house is between cooks also, and so we shall enjoy one of Mrs. Hudson’s breakfasts, as in the old days.”
After a hearty morning meal, Holmes and I left Miss Adler at Baker Street and took a cab to the Tottenham Court Road, upon which hunched the sombre offices of Lucius Crabbe. We were escorted to the solicitor’s inner sanctum by a young skeleton of a clerk, who awkwardly kept offering to take our coats.
“No, thank you,” said Holmes one final time as we entered Crabbe’s study. “We shall be pleased to keep them. Solicitor Crabbe, I am the Sherlock Holmes who spoke to you via telephone earlier today,” he said as the clerk closed the door behind us. “We wish to interview you concerning—”
“Young Hope Maldon, yes. I remember our talk, you see,” the man replied, offering us chairs with one veined claw of a hand. The seats he indicated were filled with jumbles of paper, but after a delicate relocation of the piles, among still other heaps of pages, Holmes and I were able to lift the weight from our boots. Crabbe himself was a stooped, near-sighted man of perhaps seventy, with black hair utterly devoid of grey, for artificial reasons, which were all too obvious.
“Noxious Scot invention,” Crabbe said, clenching his fist at the telephone across the room while gently lowering himself into a chair. “My sons insist on keeping it, you know. Don’t like it going off so, however, and inside your own rooms as well. But it’s going to be their office someday, isn’t it?” Crabbe said, gazing about. He stopped and looked off into space. “Yet I suppose they’ll fight over it as well, eh? Who’s going to be king of the hill and all that, don’t you know?”
“Mr. Crabbe?”
“Eh? What?”
“Solicitor,” continued Sherlock Holmes. “Let us return to Mr. Robert Hope Maldon. You are retained by him, I understand.”
“ Yes...Oh, yes. His father’s in the cabinet, you know. A few say he’ll make premier, but I can’t see it myself. Used to think the boy’s business would be a feather in our cap, but what good has he been to the firm, eh? None at all, really.”
“If you recall, sir,” my friend went on. “You said to me this morning that young Hope Maldon had been to this office two days ago.”
“Oh, yes. Left his card, left his card. His card, where is his—”
“Could you describe—”
“His card? Oh, yes! It is rather on the lesser side, you know…Here!” Crabbe shouted, pulling from his vast deposits of legal papers the personal card of Robert Hope Maldon.
“Thank you,” said Holmes, taki
ng it from Crabbe. With mild disappointment, he handed it to me. “Could you tell me about Mr. Hope Maldon’s appearance here?”
“Yes, he was here. At least, that’s what they told me.”
“They?”
“The Henrys.”
“The Henrys?”
“Yes. The Henrys were the ones who told me, sir.”
“And who might these Henrys be?” inquired my friend.
“Two clerks: young Henry and old Henry.” The solicitor smiled and shook one finger as if to scold. “Not related, though, I can assure you.”
“It was they who spoke to Robert Hope Maldon?” asked Holmes. “Not you?”
“Indeed, yes, they did. Never saw the runt myself. No, I tell you; I did not. I had left long before he arrived, you see.”
“Well then,” said Sherlock Holmes. “May we see these two clerks, both with the name of Henry?”
“Certainly, gentlemen,” said Crabbe. “It was young Henry himself that led you here. Mr. Henry!” he called out to the closed door. “They can tell which one it’s for by my tone of voice, you see,” he confided. “Got them trained that way.”
The door was opened by the young clerk who had escorted us to Mr. Crabbe’s sanctum.
“Come here, please, Mr. Henry! These gentlemen wish to speak to you, as well as the other Mr. Henry. Take them out, and talk all you want to them. That all? Good day then, I say.”
We left the midnight-haired solicitor to his papers and mutterings and returned to the anteroom, where Holmes explained our purpose to the younger Henry.
“It will be no difficulty to tell you all I know,” the clerk said. “For there’s precious little in that pile. Mr. Henry!” he called, and from yet another room appeared a second clerk, an older but far more vigorous individual, whose head bore a halo of bright blond hair encircling a florid, shiny scalp.
“These gentlemen are seeking information about the Hope Maldon fellow’s visit here the other night,” the young clerk advised.
“I am James Henry,” the older man declared. “What is it you wish to know?”
“Well—might I call you James Henry, rather than Mr. Henry?” asked Holmes.
“Of course, sir. That style is usually the easiest for those not acquainted with our offices here.”
“And I am William,” volunteered the younger of the two. “William Henry.”
“Fine,” said Holmes. “Now, James Henry, both you and William Henry saw and spoke to Mr. Hope Maldon two nights ago?”
“Yes, we did,” replied James. “He knocked upon the door—the two of us were working late that day, the solicitor having already gone home early as usual—and he gave me his card. ‘Get your employer,’ he said rather gruffly. It was painfully hard to make out his exact words; the man was so deathly hoarse.”
“He did not appear well?”
“Can’t really say how he appeared, I suppose, only how he sounded,” the elder Henry replied. “He remained in the street and never entered the office to give us a good look at him, and he was all muffled up. But as to sound, well, his voice was but a few shouts from the grave, if you were to ask me.”
“He was coughing all the time,” young William Henry added. “Coughing as if to lose his insides.”
“That he was,” James Henry agreed. “Well, sir, since Solicitor Crabbe was not in, there was nothing for us to do but ask Mr. Hope Maldon if he wished to leave a message. That he declined to do, saying he needed to speak to Mr. Crabbe in person, and then he left.”
“With no further conversation?”
“Not a word, sir,” affirmed the older Henry.
“Hum. Tell me, did Hope Maldon carry anything with him, such as a valise or luggage of any kind?”
“No, sir,” William answered at once. “He was unencumbered,” said the youth, with pride in his vocabulary. “Unencumbered, that’s what he was.”
“He did not, for instance, make use of a cane perhaps?”
“Nothing at all. His hands were empty, save for the card, I suppose.”
“I see,” Holmes said as James Henry nodded in agreement. “Tell me, were his hands gloved?”
“Yes,” said the younger Henry. “Nice new gloves they were, all tan and shiny.”
“Might I ask what the visitor did with his empty hands?”
The younger clerk shrugged. “Didn’t do anything with them except keep holding them together, like this,” he said, wringing his own pair together slowly.
“Yes, that’s all he did,” agreed James Henry. “I remember watching it, because of those shiny, new gloves.”
“And he never stepped into the offices here at all?”
“No,” answered James Henry. “He stayed outside, as I’ve already told you, and then he left.”
A few more questions were posed; then my friend thanked both for their time, and without further inquiry, we left the solicitor’s premises and regained the street, where Holmes whistled for a cab.
“To Baker Street, please!” my friend said as we boarded.
In time we again found 221, where Mrs. Hudson informed us that Miss Adler had retired to her room almost immediately after our departure, and she directed Holmes to a card lying upon a table in the vestibule.
“A very portly young gentleman came to see you, Mr. Holmes. As you were out, he left that.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” said Holmes, taking the card.
“Robert Hope Maldon?” I asked facetiously.
“I fear not, Watson. A person named Jasper Girthwood,” he said, reading the card before handing it to me with a twinkle in his eye. “He is not one of your friend Finney’s associates, is he?” he asked as we stood at the foot of the stair.
“I have never heard the name before,” I replied, returning the card and following behind him in our ascent toward the sitting room.
“Nor have I,” said my friend, holding the card up to the light. “Observe the notation scribbled upon the back. ‘I must consult on a matter of urgency.’ Our casebook seems fairly brimming now, Watson,” he added, placing the card in his coat pocket.
“What of your current business, the Hope Maldon affair?” I inquired as we entered the sitting room. “What is your strategy?”
“Grasp for a solution,” Holmes said, “and then hang onto it.”
“If I ask for your tactics instead, will you be more forthcoming?” I asked, reaching for my pipe and Arcadia mixture.
Holmes smiled. “Sorry, old fellow. You weaned me from the needle, but I fear impishness is incurable.” He threw himself down into the armchair and made a steeple with his fingers. “You see, our problem is not yet well defined. Were it so, both strategy and tactics would be more clearly cut. Instead, we must keep casting the net, as I told you earlier. Cast the net, and see what form takes shape beneath it. Then I shall have my definitions and my stratagem.”
Holmes looked past me suddenly. I turned round and saw in the doorway Irene Adler, once more, to my eyes, transformed.
“What news?” she asked. Now all colour was once more drained from her face, and her motion across the room to the basket-chair was both nervous and hesitant. I stood looking at my full pipe for a moment, then walked to the mantelpiece, where I set down both pipe and my vestas.
“Please, Doctor, do not abstain on my account,” Miss Adler told me.
I turned and shyly looked at the woman with a questioning glance.
Her eyes narrowed, as if observing me observe her. “Please do as you would in my absence,” she continued, attempting a smile. She turned to Holmes, who had taken to his armchair. “I have worried all morning about Robert. I have been speculating, gentlemen, on what news of him you might bring from Mr. Crabbe. If I have lost some of the gaiety I had this morning, that is the reason,” she said, once more looking at me, nodding as if to give me permission to light my Arcadia.
I slowly took a vesta and did so.
“Well, our news is perhaps neither good nor bad, merely indifferent,” said Holmes, who then rela
ted the meagre results of our interview at the solicitor’s.
“You pursued no inquiries other than that one?” the woman asked.
“At present, I have no other targets of inquiry,” replied Holmes, crossing his arms. “Though I have operatives in the field even now, and I will myself be going out shortly once more.”
“Oh?” I said. “What is our destination to be?”
“On this occasion, Watson, I fear I must leave you behind,” said Holmes as he sprang to his feet. “There are matters I must pursue alone.”
“As Sherlock Holmes?” I asked.
My friend only shrugged. “Miss Adler,” said he. “Forgive me when I agree that you do look unwell. Perhaps you should retire to your room again for the balance of the day. May I ask if our hospitality has been adequate?”
“Why, of course. It has been far more than merely adequate. I could not ask for better accommodations, and Mrs. Hudson is the best, most cheerful of companions.”
“As I mentioned a moment ago, the doctor will, for the moment, be remaining here at Baker Street, if that gives your mind additional ease,” Holmes continued.
“Yes,” said our guest. “I would most appreciate that. And I also appreciate your concern, Mr. Holmes.”
The detective smiled. “Watson,” he said. “Please accompany Miss Adler up to her quarters. Then come back down to the sitting room; I shall give you instructions before leaving. And do tell Mrs. Hudson to follow the usual procedures in my absence,” he added as he entered his own room.
Laying my pipe upon the mantel, I offered the woman my arm and led her up the stair.
“Will Mr. Holmes go out about the town in disguise, as you sometimes related in your stories?” she asked as we ascended.
“Perhaps,” I replied as we gained the top of the stair. “He does so now far less frequently than in the old days. There were instances, back fifteen years ago or more, when he would become as many as five people in the course of a single afternoon. I wondered then who the real man was.”
