by John Hall
Lestrade got down. ‘Wait here,’ he told the cabbie, and led the way into the court. A uniformed constable, looking ill at ease in those uncongenial surroundings, stood by a door. ‘She’s upset, sir,’ he ventured as Lestrade approached.
‘Oh? And who asked you?’ Lestrade pushed open the door and entered without knocking or other preamble.
The room in which we found ourselves evidently did duty as kitchen, dining room and parlour — aye, and probably bathroom, too, on very infrequent occasions. It was only a small room, and it seemed already full to capacity. Two women, both with red eyes, sat at a small deal table, while two or three ragged children, between the ages of one and three, played on the floor. As Lestrade made his way inside, all the occupants of the room glanced up at us.
‘And who are you?’ demanded the younger of the women. She was perhaps thirty, but bore the marks of a harsh life alongside the temporary signs of grief. She must once have been attractive, I thought; her colouring, which had not yet quite surrendered to the London atmosphere, together with her accent, spoke of Ireland’s greenery, and I wondered how she came to be here, among the smoke and grime of the East End.
‘Police,’ said Lestrade shortly. ‘Mrs Bates, is it?’
‘I’m Mrs Bates,’ said the younger woman. ‘This is my friend, Maggie.’
Lestrade nodded. Maggie got up, made a curious bobbing motion that may have been intended for a curtsey, and ushered the children into an inner chamber.
‘Sit down, please,’ said Mrs Bates. ‘I’m forgetting my manners.’
‘Very understandable, madam,’ said Holmes in a soothing tone, as we found chairs.
‘Now then, Mrs Bates,’ said Lestrade, ‘You reported your son missing, I think?’
Mrs Bates nodded, without speaking.
‘Last night, that was?’
Another nod.
‘And when did you see him last?’
‘Yesterday evening, sir. I sent to him the corner for a — well, for a jug of beer, for supper, you know. He went out right as rain, and never come back.’
‘What time was that?’ asked Lestrade.
‘Oh, about six o’clock.’
‘And when did you raise the alarm?’
‘Well, sir, I was busy, you know, what with the other kiddies, and my husband, so it wasn’t for a while that I missed him. Then I thought, you know, that he might just be playing outside. And then — ’ and a sob finished her sentence.
‘Was there any reason that you can think of why he should run away?’ asked Holmes.
Mrs Bates looked at him blankly.
‘He had not been scolded for being naughty, let us say?’ Holmes went on.
Mrs Bates flushed. ‘No. Not scolded, sir. No.’
‘Come, now,’ said Lestrade. ‘We can hardly help if you do not tell us what we want to know.’
Mrs Bates wiped the back of a hand over the general area of eyes and nose. ‘Well, sir, it’s like this. Mr Bates, he’s not — that is — he’s not Alfie’s father.’
‘Oh?’ said Lestrade.
Defensively, Mrs Bates said, ‘I’m what they call his “common law” wife, see? That means — ’
‘We know well enough what it means,’ said Lestrade. ‘And this Bates had done what? Scolded the lad, that it?’
‘It’s difficult for Bates, sir. You know, when Alfie’s cheeky, and Bates tries to correct him, then “You’re not my dad!” is what he gets from Alfie. I try, God knows, but — ’
‘And yesterday?’ said Holmes.
‘Well, sir, there had been a bit — a little bit of shouting and what have you, earlier on. But that was all blown over by supper time, I’ll swear to that.’
‘Where does this Bates work?’ asked Lestrade.
‘The leather warehouse, sir, by the river.’
‘I know it. He’ll be there now?’
‘Yes, sir. He was frantic about Alfie, of course, but he doesn’t get paid if he doesn’t go to work. What can you do?’
‘It is difficult,’ said Holmes. ‘It is a delicate question, I know, but what of the boy’s natural father? What is his name, and where may he be found?’
‘His name’s O’Connor, sir. Last I knew, he was working in the brewery at Seven Dials, but that was a few years ago.’
Holmes nodded. ‘Try not to be too despondent, Mrs Bates. The inspector here will put his best men on to finding your son.’
‘Thank you, sirs.’ Mrs Bates hesitated, and then, as we rose to leave, she asked, ‘You don’t think he has anything to do with it? That man who was just out of prison? Only Maggie was saying — ’
‘There!’ said Lestrade, with a triumphant glance at Holmes. He laid his hand on Mrs Bates’ arm with considerably more gentleness than he had shown thus far. ‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ he told her, ‘we’re already looking into that.’
As we went out into what served the inhabitants of that dreary region for daylight, there was a sort of subdued muttering, and I noticed a small knot of people standing round the court. Lestrade nodded at them. ‘Same as last time,’ said he. ‘The news has soon got round, you see.’ He walked over to the crowd, and in a loud voice told them, ‘We’ll do what’s necessary. You go home, and let us get on with it.’
This was not what the little crowd wanted to hear, and there was a certain amount of grumbling, although they seemed not entirely antagonistic. After a few more words from Lestrade, they began to disperse.
Lestrade came back to us. ‘A bad business,’ said he. ‘If we don’t find something soon, they’ll be after taking the law into their own hands, and there’s no telling what unpleasantness might arise.’ He asked the young constable, ‘Did you ask at the pub if they’d seen the lad?’
‘Yes, sir, but they hadn’t. He had evidently never got that far.’
‘H’mm. And what about the neighbours?’
‘Nothing as far as I could see. I didn’t get the chance to ask properly. And in any case a lot of them round here aren’t exactly friendly to us, sir, as you know. Some of ’em just won’t talk to us.’
‘Well, they’ll bloody well have to!’ said Lestrade with some warmth. ‘Look, get out of here, find Sergeant Miller, he’s expecting to hear from me, and say that I want every house, every tenement, visited. I want to know if anyone round here can tell us anything at all.’
‘Sir.’ The constable saluted, and went off.
‘It looks as if we have another possibility for your list, Holmes,’ said I as we got back into the cab.
‘What, the natural father? Yes, indeed.’
‘You think the boy may have gone off to try and find his real father?’ said Lestrade.
‘That, or the natural father may have decided to come and take the boy away. That would be quite understandable, would it not?’
‘H’mm.’ Lestrade thought a moment. ‘Would we be better trying to see this O’Connor, think you?’
‘We must certainly try,’ said Holmes. ‘But Mrs Bates was vague as to where he might be, and moreover, if he has taken the boy, he may well be on his way back to Dublin or somewhere now. The leather factory is nearer, so let us see this Bates first, then continue on to Seven Dials and try to track down the other one.’
‘Right enough,’ and Lestrade called out an order to the cabbie.
SIX
The leather warehouse was a great, gloomy place, and the air was heavy with the pungent but invigorating smell of oak bark. Lestrade quickly found the foreman, and asked for Bates to be sent to see us.
Bates proved to be a sturdy fellow, somewhat above middle height and with great broad shoulders on him. He looked anxiously at Lestrade. ‘Found the boy, have you?’
‘Not yet. We wished to ask you a few questions.’
‘Me? I don’t know nothing about it. I wasn’t even in the house when the missus sent him to the pub.’
‘No?’
‘I was still here. You can ask the foreman. He was gone, gone out of the house, I mean, by the time I got home. Th
en it was a while before we got worried, like.’
‘I see. Now, then, had there been any sort of argument, a quarrel, anything of that sort earlier yesterday?’
‘No more than usual. Alfie, he gets a bit out of hand sometimes, on account — ’ and he broke off, and stared at the ground.
‘Mrs Bates told us how matters stood,’ said Holmes gently.
‘Ah. Well, gents, you know how it is. Alfie gets a bit cheeky, sometimes, like I say, but nothing too bad. Matter of fact, I almost like him better than my own kids, he’s a cheerful little devil, gives as good as he gets, and I like that.’ He turned his head away from us, and coughed noisily to hide his emotions.
‘And yesterday?’ asked Lestrade.
Bates looked at him and shrugged. ‘We’d had a bit of a barney in the morning. I was up late, I’m usually gone by the time the kids are up, and he was cheeky. Gave him the back of my hand, but nothing serious.’
‘Nothing that would make him run away?’ asked Lestrade.
Bates shook his head. ‘Never run away before, has he? And we’ve argued plenty of times.’
‘Now,’ said Lestrade, ‘this is a bit awkward, but do you know the lad’s natural father?’
‘Never seen him, as far as I know. That was all over when the missus and me first took up. I wasn’t to blame for them splitting up, or anything.’
‘I see. Does the boy talk about him at all? What I mean is, would he run off to see him? Has he ever done that, or talked about it?’
‘Never.’
‘And the father’s never threatened to come and take the boy, nothing like that?’
‘Nothing like that. Matter of fact, I think he was kind of grateful to me, you know, taking the boy off his hands, as it were.’
‘Well,’ said Lestrade, ‘so far we’ve discovered nothing. But I’m sure it’ll all come right, so don’t you worry too much.’
‘No.’ Bates hesitated. ‘But some of the lads were saying that that bloke — you know, the one who was in clink for them others, a few years ago — they say he’s on the loose again.’
‘You may be certain we have our eye on him,’ said Lestrade.
‘I’m sure you have, Inspector. Only — well, you do wonder, don’t you?’
Holmes said, ‘Tell me, Mr Bates, did Alfie know where you work?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course.’
‘This place is no very great distance from your house. I wonder if he could perhaps have set off in this direction, intending to meet you as you came home?’
‘Bates looked doubtful. ‘I suppose he might,’ he agreed.
‘But he never has before?’ asked Lestrade.
‘No, sir.’
‘Thank you, Bates, that was all.’ Lestrade laid a friendly hand on Bates’ broad shoulder. ‘Try not to brood about it too much.’
Bates nodded without any real conviction, and went back to his work.
‘I’ll join you in a moment,’ Lestrade told us, and wandered off in the same direction as that just taken by Bates.
Holmes and I returned to the cab. ‘This fellow seems genuine enough,’ said I.
‘He does. But that is not an infallible guarantee, is it? Ah, here is Lestrade.’
‘The foreman confirms that Bates was here until six,’ said Lestrade. ‘Nothing there, then, is there, Mr Holmes?’
‘It would appear not.’
‘Seven Dials next, then?’ said Lestrade, and he called an order to the cabbie.
As we rattled back through the squalid streets from whence we had just come, Lestrade recognized a familiar face, and halted the cab whilst he spoke to a uniformed sergeant, who told us that the search had begun in earnest.
‘Every house, mind,’ Lestrade reminded him. ‘And all empty premises, too, because he may well have slipped in somewhere for the night and got trapped or something.’
‘Very well, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘But I don’t like the fact that we’re so close to the river. If he went down there, and got into trouble, there’s no telling how long he’d be there before someone spotted him,’ and he looked worried.
‘Best alert the river police,’ said Lestrade. ‘Though I’m sure they’d have told us if they’d found anyone.’
We spent the rest of the journey in a gloomy silence, each of us busy with his own thoughts. The cab rattled along until we reached the insalubrious area of Seven Dials, worse by far than the East End from whence we had come, and halted before the great gates with the stone leopard atop them.
Once again, Lestrade sought out someone in authority, and determined that O’Connor did still work there. Before very long, O’Connor himself came out to meet us. He was a cheery looking soul, and he shook our hands heartily. ‘I hear you’re wanting to see me?’ he said.
‘Police,’ said Lestrade.
‘Oh?’ O’Connor looked puzzled, but unworried; if he were acting, then it was well done. ‘And why would you want to see me?’
‘You have a son, I understand? Alfred?’
‘Alfie? That I have. Wait though, has something happened to the lad?’
‘He’s vanished,’ said Lestrade.
‘How d’you mean?’ O’Connor looked as puzzled as before, and again it seemed genuine enough to me.
‘Just what I say,’ said Lestrade. ‘He’s disappeared. Went out on an errand and never came back.’
O’Connor shook his head without speaking.
‘When did you last set eyes on him?’ asked Lestrade.
‘I’m not sure I could tell you. Two years? Maybe more. His mother and myself, we didn’t exactly see eye to eye, we had our differences, and I — well, I moved on, as you might say. Then she took up with some other fellow, and that was that.’
‘So it’s a couple of years since you saw him? And you haven’t tried to see him?’
O’Connor gave a sort of defensive shrug. ‘It wouldn’t have been altogether befitting, would it? The other fellow in the house, and all? No, I wished them luck and left them to it.’
‘And the boy has never come to see you?’
‘No. No doubt his mother thought it best that he should regard the other fellow as his father. Very understandable, don’t you think?’
‘Never mind what I think,’ said Lestrade. ‘Where are you living at the moment?’
‘Just down the street. I can tell you the address if you like. But why would you ask that?’
‘You won’t mind if we take a quick look at your lodgings?’
‘Not a bit. Though you’ll not find anything there. Wait, though! You weren’t thinking the boy might be there, were you?’
‘Just an ordinary precaution,’ said Lestrade. ‘Now, where were you last night, about six o’clock?’
‘I was here. You can ask the foreman.’
‘I will.’
O’Connor gave us his address, and after Lestrade had confirmed that he had indeed been at work the previous evening, we visited O’Connor’s lodging, but without any outcome. There was no sign of anything untoward, and the other inhabitants all swore that O’Connor would never harm a fly, that is unless he were the worse for drink. ‘And that’s pretty often, I imagine,’ said Lestrade sourly. ‘These fellows get a regular allowance from the brewery, you know.’
‘Be that as it may,’ said Holmes, ‘we have no reason to suspect that either of these men has anything to hide.’
‘No, we haven’t,’ said Lestrade. ‘And that being the case, I propose that we return to the Yard, and have a friendly little chat with the one man who I think does have something to hide. Our friend Clayton.’ And he gave us a lead by climbing back inside the cab.
At Scotland Yard, Lestrade paused to speak to a uniformed sergeant. ‘Get one of your lads to call upon Tatton,’ he told him. ‘You know, the fellow who keeps threatening Clayton? He’s been arrested a few times, so you’ll find his address soon enough.’
The sergeant nodded, and went off. Lestrade then sought out MacDonald, who was looking very worried. ‘Did you bring Clayto
n in?’ asked Lestrade.
‘I did. Together with his solicitor.’
‘Oh?’
‘The two of them were together when I got there,’ said MacDonald, ‘and the solicitor chap insisted on accompanying his client.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said Lestrade grimly. ‘Where are they?’
‘In the interview room.’
‘Not a cell?’
‘The solicitor said that unless I was arresting Clayton, he wouldn’t have him in a cell.’
Lestrade sighed. He led us down a dingy corridor and stopped before a door, the paint of which was in a somewhat distressed condition. He threw open the door without ceremony, and led the way inside.
Clayton was lounging at a table, talking to another man. As we entered the room, this second man rose greet us. He was a young man, somewhat below the middle height, and dressed so very fashionably as to be almost a caricature of the current style.
‘Who are you?’ asked Lestrade in his blunt way.
‘My name is Augustus Hector Wickham-Montrose.’
‘Blimey!’ said Lestrade involuntarily.
‘It often provokes that reaction,’ said the young man. Under some circumstances I might have admired him for that response, but his delivery was so offensively listless, so clearly intended to show that Lestrade was a lesser mortal who must be put firmly in his place, that the words had the effect of making me take an instant dislike to the man. He produced a silver card case, and handed a card to Lestrade. ‘You will observe that I am a solicitor,’ he said, ‘and Mr Clayton here is my client. There will therefore, I trust, be no objection to my remaining here whilst you speak to him?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Lestrade told him.
MacDonald added hastily, ‘It is merely a matter of a few simple questions, sir.’
‘Then there should be no objection to my being here?’ the solicitor, whose name was so lengthy that I had forgotten it, asked Lestrade. He glanced at Holmes, and went on, ‘I have already made the acquaintance of Inspector MacDonald, but may I ask who these gentleman may be?’
‘This is Mr Sherlock Holmes, and this is Doctor Watson.’
