The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

by Denis O. Smith

  ‘It is all arranged,’ he called out as we cast off, and, with a roar from the engine and a plume of smoke from the funnel, we resumed our surge down the river once more.

  ‘You are probably wondering what is afoot,’ said Holmes, as we flew along, ‘and why Inspector Lanner has taken up the matter with such commendable dispatch. The fact is, that, important though Mr Herbert’s fifty pounds is, there are yet bigger stakes upon the table tonight.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The enterprise is finely balanced,’ he continued with a shake of the head, ‘and it will be a close-run race. However, to explain to you how matters stand: you may have read in your newspaper of the recent burglaries which have occurred, at some of the finest houses in town. In each case the value of the goods stolen ran into many thousands of pounds. Geographically speaking, the burglaries were fairly widely separated – the first was in Mayfair, the second in Belgravia, the third in Chelsea, and so on – but in other respects they were remarkably similar, so that it is almost a certainty that they are the work of the same gang. In every case, access to the house was gained by what proved on subsequent examination to be the weakest point in the house’s defences, but which would not normally have been known to an outsider: in one instance, for example, a landing window which was warped and would not fasten properly, in another, a loose-fitting French window which a child of six could have opened from the outside. In each case, too, the items stolen were very coolly selected from what was available: only the very best things were taken, the less valuable remaining almost completely untouched.

  ‘Inspector Lanner had charge of the first case – in Charles Street, in the West End – and soon formed the hypothesis that the burglars had had assistance from within the household, at least to the extent of helpful information. His suspicions naturally fell upon the domestic staff, and in particular on the butler and the lady’s maid, for it was clear that whoever had supplied the information had had more knowledge of the worth of the household contents than is customary among domestic staff. He therefore arranged for these two to be watched closely and followed by disguised police agents whenever they went out. A setback for his theory arrived fairly quickly, however. For as his suspects were being followed about the place, a second, very similar burglary occurred in Cadogan Place, Belgravia, and shortly afterwards there was a third. Clearly the butler and lady’s maid from Charles Street could not have had anything to do with these, and Lanner was therefore obliged to modify his theory somewhat. He wondered then if there were a gang undertaking wholesale corruption of trusted domestic staff, although such a proposition seemed distinctly unlikely. Many of the senior domestic staff at the houses in question had been in their employment for upwards of twenty years and had unimpeachable records. It was almost unthinkable that such loyal and valued servants could have been persuaded by a cash bribe, however large, to have betrayed their trust.

  ‘But what, then, was the alternative? Lanner remained convinced that in each case the thieves had acted upon information received from within the household; but if the information had not come from the servants, then it must have come from guests who had visited the houses, of whom there had been a great number in the course of the London season. This suggestion seemed, on the face of it, even more fantastic, but it did have the merit of perhaps explaining more convincingly how the stolen goods had been disposed of. For many of the items stolen were of very great value, and their disposal would have required a greater knowledge and better connections than are possessed by the average London burglar. With considerable difficulty, Lanner eventually managed to compile a list of all those who had recently visited the burgled houses and found that it included two bishops, several of the most senior judges in the country, including the Lord Chief Justice himself, together with half the membership of the House of Lords, and a fair sprinkling of scions of some of the oldest and most distinguished families in the kingdom. Somewhere in the list, there might have been a villain, the criminal brain responsible for the planning of these robberies, but, if so, it was not apparent. The matter was thus a complete enigma. Unable to see how he might make progress, Lanner decided to place his researches in abeyance for the moment and hope that any further activity by the same gang might yield a fresh clue.

  ‘Now, at last, that clue has appeared. He had a wire the other day from one Inspector Clarke of the Kent force, concerning the burglary last week at the Hollingworths’ house, Wickling Place. It had struck Clarke – evidently an officer who has his finger on the pulse of things – that the Wickling Place burglary appeared remarkably similar to those in London, of which he had read. The thieves had slipped in quietly, when everyone was asleep and, from all that they might have taken, had selected only the most valuable items. Lanner went down to Kent and the two men went over the case together. Clarke and his officers had of course made extensive inquiries in the district, in case any strangers had been seen at the time of the robbery. In the course of these inquiries they had learnt from the Hollingworths themselves that they had recently been paid a visit by an old school-companion of their late son, Stephen, who had come, he said, to offer his sympathies upon their sad loss.’

  ‘Gilbert Rowsley!’ said Herbert.

  ‘So I now believe, although he introduced himself to the Hollingworths as Gabriel Tooth. Now, although this name was not upon Lanner’s list of recent visitors to the burgled houses in London, he was convinced that there must be a connection between this man’s visit to Wickling Place and the burglary which took place there the following night. He has therefore spent the past week endeavouring to discover the whereabouts of this man, Tooth, but without success. Now, if the identification of him as Gilbert Rowsley is correct, as I am sure it is, Lanner may at last be able to lay his hands on the guiding brain behind these perplexing burglaries.’

  ‘Was Rowsley’s name on Lanner’s London list?’ I asked.

  Holmes nodded. ‘Gilbert Rowsley had been a recent guest, at some function or other, at every one of the burgled houses. But his name was but one among a great number and until this evening there was no reason to suspect him any more than anyone else.’

  ‘What drew you to that name, then, rather than to any of the others on the list?’

  ‘The old album he had left behind in the house in Quebec Street. The initials upon the front were “G.R.”, and although they were correct for ‘‘George Robinson’’, the name he was going under there, it appeared to me that the album was several years old and that “G.R.” might thus perhaps be his real initials, too. You can imagine how keen I was to cast my eye over Lanner’s list, at Scotland Yard. When I did so, I quickly discovered that one of the names on it matched the initials “G.R.”. Still, I could not be certain and I must admit I was very relieved when Mr Herbert was able to confirm my speculation, by recalling that Gilbert Rowsley had indeed been one of his old school companions.’

  ‘It seems to me,’ I observed after a moment, ‘that Rowsley took a great risk in exposing himself at Wickling Place, even if he was using an assumed name. At the functions he attended in London he was but one guest among many; down in Kent he arrived alone, and his visit was bound to be recalled and speculated upon.’

  Holmes nodded. ‘That is so; but the season in London was ending, and his opportunities diminishing. No doubt when the possibility of robbing the Hollingworths occurred to him, he thought it too good a chance to pass up and worth the risk. No doubt, also, he considered, as do most criminals who have enjoyed a run of success, that he was much too clever to be caught.’

  ‘What a vile, unspeakable snake he must be, to take advantage of a family’s grief and use them so meanly!’ cried Herbert with feeling.

  ‘If the little we have heard of him is a fair sample,’ I remarked, ‘I imagine his debts are many and his creditors pressing. No doubt he was desperate to pay off some of those who were threatening him.’

  ‘I rather fancy he intended to end their persecution in an altogether more decisive manner,’ Holmes responded with a shake o
f the head, ‘by showing them a clean pair of heels. I think it likely that he has had his escape planned for some time. It seems evident that he used Mr Herbert as a decoy this evening, to give himself a clear run as he left his lodgings. The men that Mr Herbert encountered near Fleet Street are almost certainly the other members of Rowsley’s gang – the three men who were seen near Wickling Place at the time of the burglary there. Thanks to Mr Herbert, we have two of their names, and Lanner tells me that they are well known at Scotland Yard, so it should not be too difficult to lay hands on them first thing in the morning. No doubt Rowsley had promised to pay them their share of the proceeds of the robbery, once he had disposed of the stolen goods. Indeed, judging by the degree of their anger on being presented with a worthless brass figure, it may well be that Rowsley had not yet settled with them for the earlier robberies. But his great confidence in being able to escape his pursuers has led him into an error, for the use of the Indian figure incriminates him unequivocally in the burglaries. It was one of the items taken from General Appleton’s house in Chelsea a few weeks ago, no doubt in error and against Rowsley’s instructions, for it is of very little value and he evidently thought it not worth his while to dispose of it.’

  Herbert let out a long groan and clutched his head. ‘I see it all now!’ cried he in a mournful voice. ‘I have been played for a fool!’

  ‘Do not judge yourself too harshly, Mr Herbert,’ returned Holmes in a sympathetic tone. ‘From the very first, he has calculated and sought to deceive you, in case you might ever prove useful to him. Among the very first words he spoke to you, he gave you the false name of “Stephen Hollingworth”, which he evidently judged might be more advantageous to him than revealing to you his true identity. I am afraid he is a man who uses people as other men use tools, to procure that which he wants.’

  ‘And now?’ I enquired.

  ‘Now,’ returned Holmes in a grave voice, ‘we approach what should be the last act of this little drama. Despite all his efforts to cover his tracks, Mr Rowsley has made a little slip. You recall the scrap of paper we found in his study?’

  ‘The one with the very precise amount of money recorded upon it?’

  ‘Exactly, Watson. It was in his own hand. I could see no reason why he should record his debt to another, especially as, from what we know of him, he would be unlikely to repay it. Perhaps, then, I conjectured, it was the cost of something. But what?’

  ‘We have no way of knowing.’

  ‘Well, it is a moderately large sum, marked specifically for Friday morning; we may surmise from his actions that Rowsley intends to vanish completely on Friday and leave all his creditors with nothing; and the note is endorsed “O.L.”.’

  ‘I cannot see that there is any clue there,’ Mr Herbert remarked with a shake of the head.

  ‘No? But what if “O.L.” stands for “Orient Line”? They carry the mails to Australia, their boats leaving from the Albert Dock every second Friday and the price of a second-class passage from London to Australia is somewhere in the region of the sum noted on the paper.’

  ‘Of course!’ I cried. ‘That must be it!’

  ‘They are leaving early in the morning,’ Holmes continued, ‘so all the passengers will already be on board.’

  ‘Do you know if Rowsley is among them?’

  ‘There has been no time to verify the matter; but we shall soon find out, for we are almost there.’

  We had passed Greenwich and were racing down the long broad expanse of Blackwall Reach. Now, as we reached Blackwall Point, a wide, dark opening came into view on the north bank of the river.

  ‘Bow Creek,’ said the helmsman, following our gaze. ‘And there,’ he added, ‘is the Victoria Dock Pier.’

  He swung the boat round in a broad arc towards the Essex shore, the change of direction pressing our backs against the gunwale and flinging a fountain of white spray into the dark sky. Ahead of us now, I could see a small group of men upon the pier, clearly awaiting our arrival, and two police vans. In a matter of moments we were at the pier and the launch was secured. Holmes sprang on to the steps at the side of the pier and we followed him up.

  ‘It is as we thought,’ said he, as we reached the top of the steps. ‘Inspector Poynter of the Docks Division has been able to confirm all our suspicions. The Orient Line’s Cuzco waits to leave on the morning tide and the passenger list contains the name of one Gilbert Rowsley.’

  In a moment we were in a carriage and rattling through the deserted dockyards, past dark, shadowed warehouses, and beneath silent cranes and gantries, until we drew up on the dock-side, where a large and handsome ship was moored, its funnels smoking gently, its rigging silhouetted against the night sky.

  The matter was soon explained to the officer of the watch, who conducted us without delay in the direction of the passenger accommodation. Although the ship was quiet, essential work still continued, I observed, for several sailors were busy on the lighted deck, absorbed in various tasks, and a bearded crewman passed us, his back bent under a heavy-looking sack, just before we turned into the passengers’ quarters. The ship’s officer led us quickly to Rowsley’s cabin, where he knocked sharply on the door, then pushed it open. The room within was in darkness, and when Lanner took a lantern from one of his officers and held it up, we saw that there was no one there. The little cabin was in perfect order and the cover upon the bed had been turned down, but the bed had not been slept in.

  ‘He is not here!’ cried Lanner. ‘He has tricked us and escaped again!’

  ‘No,’ said Sherlock Holmes, shaking his head, ‘Rowsley is here somewhere.’ He pointed to the little shelf beside the bed, upon which lay a slim volume entitled A History of the Melbourne Racetrack. ‘One moment!’ he cried abruptly, clapping his hand to his head. ‘The last man that passed us on the deck, the bearded man with the heavy sack – blind fool that I am not to heed my own eyes! – he was wearing patent shoes!’

  ‘What!’ cried the ship’s officer.

  ‘It must be Rowsley! He has managed to acquire a sailor’s uniform from somewhere, but could not get shoes to fit him. He has evidently been on his guard, lest his escape be thwarted at the last, and has observed our approach!’

  We quickly retraced our steps. Upon the deck, some distance ahead of us, we could see the sailor with the sack, walking briskly towards the gang-plank.

  ‘It is he!’ cried Herbert. ‘I recognise his figure, even in that disguise!’

  In a moment, he had reached the gang-plank. His hand was upon the rail at the top of it when he abruptly stopped.

  ‘He has seen the police vans on the dock-side,’ said Holmes.

  Our quarry glanced quickly round, as if in a state of indecision. Then his eyes met ours as we approached and he let out a strangled cry, dropped his sack and sprinted across to the rail on the far side of the deck. We raced after him as fast as we were able, but before we could reach him he had climbed the rail. For a long moment, he stood precariously balanced upon the top, as if nerving himself to plunge into the waters of the dock far below. Then, with a gesture of resignation, he sprang down instead on to the deck of the ship and, leaning his back on the rail in a leisurely manner, awaited our arrival.

  ‘It is perhaps a little too dark and cold down there for a man of my sensitive breeding,’ he remarked in a casual tone as we reached the rail. ‘I see I do not require this tasteless encumbrance any longer, anyway,’ he continued, pulling at his bushy beard, which came away in his hand and which he tossed casually over the ship’s side.

  It was strange at last to be face to face with this man who had been so long sought in vain, and who had proved so elusive that it seemed possible that he would never be apprehended. He was a tall, slim man and his face was a handsome one, if a little thin and fleshless; but there was something weak and deceitful about his mouth which his dark moustache could not entirely conceal.

  ‘Gilbert Rowsley—’ Inspector Lanner began, as the two constables seized hold of the fugitive, but Hol
mes interrupted him.

  ‘One moment, Lanner,’ said he, drawing the police inspector aside. ‘If you arrest him now,’ he continued in a low tone, out of earshot of the prisoner, ‘the full weight of the law falls at once upon the matter with unstoppable momentum and Mr Herbert stands little chance, if any, of recovering his fifty pounds. He certainly will not do so until all due processes have been observed, which may take several months. On the other hand, as I see it, there is nothing to prevent his recovering now what he is owed, provided the transaction takes place before the arrest is formally made.’

  Inspector Lanner nodded his head. ‘I quite agree, Mr Holmes. Considering the service which Mr Herbert has rendered us today, it seems the very least we can do for him.’

  Holmes then stepped forward once again and requested that his client’s loan be returned.

  ‘Oh, certainly, certainly,’ returned Rowsley, in a careless tone. ‘I assume a cheque would be acceptable, Herbert?’

  ‘Under the circumstances, my client would prefer to take it in cash,’ Holmes interjected.

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said the other, a trace of annoyance in his voice, as if he were being put to a very great inconvenience. He took from his pocket a thick leather purse, which he opened to reveal the largest wad of bank-notes which I think I have ever seen in my life. From these he extracted notes to the value of fifty pounds, which he exchanged with Herbert for his IOU.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Herbert.

  ‘Pray, don’t mention it,’ said the other, screwing up the paper and tossing it over the ship’s rail.

  Lanner made his arrest then, to which Rowsley offered no resistance, other than to remark that the whole business was ‘deuced inconvenient’, and he and his possessions were removed from the Cuzco.

  The Friday evening papers were full of news of the arrest, although they gave all the credit to the official police force and made no mention of either Sherlock Holmes or his client. After a brief hearing at the Stepney Police Court the case was referred to the autumn sessions of the Central Criminal Court. Before the case came to trial, however, in an attempt to secure a reduction in his own sentence, Rowsley had implicated the rest of the gang, an action which no doubt rendered him as popular among his criminal associates as he was among the honest citizens of London. His efforts in this regard were not entirely successful, however, and the last I heard of him was that he had been committed for a term of penal servitude at Portland Prison, where, as the judge in the case remarked, he might spend such leisure moments as he had in contemplation of his past misdeeds and perhaps come to see the error of his ways.