by Geri Schear
“Precisely! You see, gentlemen, Doctor Watson frequently builds up my reputation at the expense of his own. Your explanation is the most likely, I agree,” I said. “You may be right that the fellow is a Catholic, Glaser. He is tall and fair and not Jewish. A Catholic would not eat meat on a Friday, but he could have dined on fish, could he not? Moreover, while poverty might explain the lack of meat, it does not explain why the fellow consumed so much alcohol. As Watson says, there are no indications the fellow is an alcoholic. So why drink so much so early in the evening? Conclusion: he was steeling his nerves.”
Glaser sucked in his cheeks and breathed in deeply, trying to contain his ire. “Then he planned to kill Schwartz all along.”
“Almost certainly, I’m afraid. I’m sorry, Glaser. I know you were fond of him.” I indicated the stinking puddle at our feet. “He was prepared to kill Schwartz. He fortified himself with alcohol and he brought a weapon. When it came to it, he did the task efficiently enough. But Bing surprised him. That was a killing he was not prepared for and it distressed him.”
“Distressed him?” Stevens said.
“He vomited just moments later.”
“Yes,” Glaser said. “Killing Bing was unplanned. He reacted to that murder by being ill; why did he not react the same way to the first?”
“Perhaps it was cumulative,” Watson said. “The shock of not one but two murders overcame his nerves.”
“Perhaps...” I straightened my back.”Well, we need to ponder the matter. Let us return to Hatton Garden and I shall resume my examination.”
Leaving Hill and three other policemen to handle Bing’s case, Glaser, Watson, Stevens, and I returned to the scene of Schwartz’s murder.
Saturday 30 April 1898
Around six this morning, weary and discouraged, Watson and I convened with the two inspectors in the rabbi’s home. The rabbi’s daughter Esther served us coffee and pastries then left us alone to discuss our grisly business.
“You are obviously familiar with this Rickman fellow, Mr Holmes,” Hill said. “It might help if you could tell us about him.”
“I’m afraid I know very little.”
At my nod, Watson told the story of Mrs Prentiss and the Camden Town ‘ghost’. He did so discreetly and avoided mentioning Kidwell’s name. Other than that, he covered all the pertinent details admirably.
“So you don’t even know if Rickman is his real name?” Hill asked when Watson concluded.
“I would be astonished if it was,” I replied.
“But at least we know what he looks like,” Glaser pointed out. “Mr Holmes caught a good look at him that night he was shot, and so did young De Vine last night.”
“De Vine is lucky to be alive,” Watson said. “I’m surprised Rickman didn’t just shoot him.”
“He was taken by surprise,” I said. It was a fair point, though. After a moment’s contemplation I added, “It’s possible that Schwartz was his first murder. He may have been in a state of shock. Still, it did not take him long to recover as the unfortunate Constable Bing discovered.”
“Did the wife of the first victim know anything that might help?” Hill asked.
“She was too full of grief to offer much,” Glaser said.”But she did say her husband had a meeting last evening with someone about the Fathers, and that is very curious.”
“Why so?” Watson asked.
“We do no work on the Sabbath. That includes even discussing any sort of business matter. That Schwartz should be willing to take such a meeting after sunset on Friday suggests he did not consider it business. That’s not to say there wasn’t a work-related aspect to it. Schwartz was religious but he was also pretty single-minded. He may have persuaded himself that the meeting was simply to gather information. Yet...”
“Yes?” I urged.
“I don’t understand why he’d want to meet someone in his business premises. Why not bring the man to his home where it was warm and comfortable?”
“When I examined the body, I found Schwartz had a bruise on his right hip,” Watson said. “From its position and shape, I think he went into the building in the dark and bumped into something. He would not have put the light on and was trying to feel his way around. I don’t know if that’s significant.”
“Everything is significant until we can prove otherwise,” I said. “I think you and Glaser make some excellent points, Watson. Schwartz entered the building in the dark. He did not put on the gaslight because it was in violation of the Sabbath. Hill, your thoughts?”
“Well, I don’t understand the religious aspect of things like Glaser here, but everything you’ve said makes sense. But why would Rickman want Schwartz dead?”
“That is, indeed, the question.”
The door opened and my wife entered. Though her features were perfectly composed I sensed she was vexed. I cannot say I blame her: I should be exceedingly annoyed to be kept away from such a deliciously interesting case merely because of my sex.
“Good morning, Beatrice,” I said. “I do not believe you’ve met Inspector Tavistock Hill?”
She shook his hand. “Mr Holmes has spoken of you, Inspector,” she said. “He holds you in high esteem.”
Hill beamed. “Most kind,” he muttered.
“Did you have a successful night?” she asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Not very. Two murders and the elusive Avery Rickman seems to be responsible for both.”
“Two?” she said. “Who?”
“A jeweller by the name of Schwartz, and a young policeman by the name of Bing.”
“How dreadful,” she said, but I could see the same excitement in her eyes that burned in my own heart. She sat at the table beside me and asked, “What have you learned so far?”
To Tavistock Hill’s astonishment, I related the details of the murders. Beatrice listened intently then said, “So the killer apparently met with Schwartz, killed him, and then fled. Why kill the second policeman? Surely he could have hid. Would that not have been easier than murdering a policeman? And why kill Schwartz... Inspector Glaser, you said your friend was fascinated by the Patriarchs. Is it possible his inquiries attracted the attention of the killer?”
“I think that’s probably what happened, yes.”
“But if Rickman is looking for the coins, wouldn’t Schwartz be more valuable to him alive? How many people would be able to authenticate them? Why kill one of the few people who seemed able to help him?”
I slapped the table and chuckled. “As always, Beatrice, you get to the crux of the matter. All excellent questions.”
“They could have argued over money,” Hill said. “Perhaps Schwartz wanted a larger share of the profits than Rickman was willing to give him.”
“No,” Beatrice said, firmly. “No observant Jew would haggle on the Sabbath. You’ll correct me if I’m wrong, Inspector Glaser.”
“No, you are quite correct,” Glaser said. “Reb Mordechai was very observant. He would not have discussed money on the Sabbath.”
“Which brings up a point Watson made earlier,” I said. “Why choose Friday night for a meeting? Unless...”
“Unless?” Hill urged.
“Rickman knew enough about the area to expect most of the community would be indoors. Once people got home from Friday evening services they would be inside having dinner...”
“Which means there would be no one around to identify him,” Beatrice said. “Still, even in a community like this there must be people who are not observant?”
“True,” Glaser said. “We have our share of the irreligious just like any other community, not to mention it’s not only Jews who live in the area. Still, it would lower the risk considerably.”
I was tired and I suddenly wanted to be gone, to be back home in my familiar seat and able to just th
ink my thoughts without interruption.
Watson, glancing at me, said with eerie prescience, “Well, I think we should head back to Baker Street, Holmes. We all need some rest.”
“If you do not mind, Sherlock, and if the rabbi has no objection, I think I will stay here.” Beatrice said the words so innocently. I have learned over the past several months that it is when my wife sounds innocent that she is most dangerous. I had a sudden ghastly surge of unease. I said, “For what reason?”
Watson and the two policemen made some excuse and left the room. B and I faced each other.
She said, “I thought I should call upon the wife of the dead man. I’ll go with the other women so you need not worry about me.”
“Beatrice-”
“Sometimes a woman will tell things to other women that she will not tell a man. Especially if the man is a police official.”
“Beatrice-”
“No reflection on Inspector Glaser, of course. He’s perfectly charming. Handsome, too. But he is still a policeman.”
“Beatrice!”
She seemed not at all dismayed by my sudden shout. “Please, Sherlock,” she said calmly. “You’ll wake the household.”
From the sounds above it was evident we had already done so.
She rested her hand on mine and said, “Please do not worry. I promise I will do nothing dangerous. I shall merely be one of several women who makes a condolence call upon a widow.”
I took a deep breath then slowly nodded. “I have no right to tell you what to do,” I said. “But I must confess I am not easy about you staying here when there is a murderer at large.”
“You’ve never told me what to do,” she said. “You have followed the terms of our contract to the letter. And you are not telling me now; you are expressing concern, which you are perfectly entitled to do as my friend if nothing more. But, my dear Sherlock, you must see there is no cause for worry. It is broad daylight, I shall not be alone, and I give you my word I shall be careful.”
I swallowed back my irrational fears. “That is all I ask,” I said.
We both took a breath as if we had just overcome some great challenge. After a moment I said, “Something about this case does not ring true. There are too many oddities, too many things that do not seem to belong to the same puzzle.”
“Like someone mixed up a box of chess pieces with draughts?” she said. “Yes, I see what you mean. And it’s even worse than that, isn’t it, because there are still pieces missing?”
“True. I have a knight, a couple of bishops and some draught men...”
“But you’re missing a pawn and a queen.”
“Exactly.” I couldn’t help but laugh at her description.
“Never mind,” she said. “You’ll sort it out.”
“You will not forget this man has killed twice? He seems to have adjusted to the terrible deed with unsettling ease.”
“I forget nothing, my dear,” she said. She kissed my cheek.
Chapter Twelwe
Saturday 30 April 1898
About an hour after we returned to Baker Street there was a knock on the door. Stevens arrived, still resplendent in his uniform, and as cheery as he was last night.
“Well,” I said. “How did you get on?”
“Not as well as I would have liked to be honest, Mr Holmes, but it wasn’t a total loss.
“I spent the night keeping watch with de Vine, just as you said. He was a bit bossy at first, saying he knew what was what, but after a while he started to relax. He told me about the borough - he hates it, by the way, and thinks it’s beneath him.
“I asked him about the dead man and he said he didn’t know him. ‘All those black-hatted fellows look the same. They wouldn’t give you a cup of water if you were parched, not unless you could pay for it.’
“I swallowed all this nonsense down and acted like I just wanted to learn from his experience.”
“You sound sceptical about what this fellow had to teach you, Stevens,” Watson said with pretended surprise. “Not an ideal mentor then?”
“Hardly! Lazy as sin if you want my opinion. He can’t stand Inspector Glaser because he keeps after him and makes him do his work. De Vine has a secret place down on Saffron Hill where he skips off for a ‘rest’, as he put it. In the middle of his shift!”
The young man’s outrage was delicious. Watson and I suffocated our laughter with the greatest difficulty.
“But you were spot on about this fellow, Mr Holmes,” he continued. “He knows something about Schwartz’s murder that he’s not saying, and no mistake.”
“Has he given you any hints what it might be?”
“Only that he feels guilty about something. He started to say he was to blame but then the inspector came back to check on us and he clammed up. I wasn’t able to get him back on the subject, I’m afraid. Oh, he did say the deceased was an old fool to think it would work.”
“To think what would work?”
Stevens shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr Holmes. That’s as much as I got.”
“You did very well, Stevens. There were too many holes in his initial statement to be credible. He feels guilty, then. That is very interesting.”
“Begging your pardon, Mr Holmes, but what sort of holes?”
“Hmm? Oh, well he said, for instance, his attention was drawn by the light of a torch in the window. He was in the process of crossing the street when he heard the gunshot. But if that is true it means Schwartz and the killer were already in that inner room, and it doesn’t have a window that looks out on the street.”
“So how could he have spotted the torch?” Watson said. “Ah, I missed that. Very well reasoned, Holmes.”
“De Vine also claimed to know none of Schwartz’s neighbours, and yet he seemed to know the dead man by sight.”
“He didn’t know him, not by name, before last night,” Stevens said. “He told me he’d never so much as exchanged a word with the man before yesterday.”
I sat upright in my chair. “Were they his exact words? Be specific, Stevens.”
“He said, ‘They all look alike, those Jews, and they’d never give you the time of day. That fellow, Schwartz, I never even got so much as a hullo out of him before yesterday.’”
“Sounds like he and Schwartz had a conversation some time yesterday, then,” I said. “You have no idea what it was about?”
“I said wasn’t that an odd thing. I got the feeling de Vine was about to say something but shut right up and I got no more out of him.”
“You’ve done very well, Stevens. My trust in you was not misplaced. Can you shadow de Vine again this evening?”
“If you wish it, Mr Holmes.”
“But you’d rather be in the thick of things, eh?” I said. “I sympathise. Never fear, Stevens, we shall find better use for your talents. Just stick with de Vine for now. I would dearly like to know what he’s been up to.”
Stevens rose to leave. “I’m glad to be of help and I shall do as you ask. There’s just one thing...”
“You’re wondering why I have kept Inspector Glaser in the dark? Yes, I understand. The inspector is a good man and I have great faith in him. But he is an inspector and has protocols that he must follow. Besides which, Schwartz was his friend. If he had a suspicion that de Vine had been even tangentially involved, he would react with great passion and I am not sure that is wise. Best stay with this lazy policeman for a while. Become his friend, Stevens. I shall deal with Glaser.”
After Stevens left, I spent several hours sitting in my chair by the fire. The morning turned into afternoon and then into a russet-coloured evening. Watson dozed and finally decided to surrender to his bed.
At the door, he turned and said, “She’ll be all right, Holmes. She’s a clever girl and won’t take any unnec
essary risks.” That word, unnecessary, stuck in my brain and it was some time until I was able to ignore it and move on to the case in hand.
I went back to the beginning and pondered the questions that were in the forefront of my mind:
Assuming Rickman, or whatever his name was, had courted Connie Kidwell simply to gain access to the Prentisses’ house, why had he not discovered the document he was looking for? True, Mrs Prentiss had already returned the original document to her employer, but she had kept a copy. Did Rickman simply not know about that? Perhaps. It is doubtful Kidwell knows much about her former mistress’s business. In any case, it certainly seems likely that Rickman was looking for information on the Patriarchs. Nothing else appears to fit. But how did he know that Mrs Prentiss had that document in the first place? Well, I obviously need to learn more about that peculiar paper. Does it serve as provenance of the coins? I shall proceed with that as my hypotheses until evidence proves otherwise.
Why did Rickman fail to kill me in the Prentisses’ house? He had a weapon and, for the briefest of moments, had the opportunity. Yet he failed. Was he merely squeamish? Surely I prove a far more dangerous threat to him than Schwartz or the unfortunate Bing. These were my thoughts. I closed my eyes, puffed on my pipe, and replayed that unpleasant night in my mind.
It was cold and dark, I remember. Around one o’clock I was alerted by the sound of the front door opening and by a sudden draft. Watson woke the instant my hand touched his shoulder. He frowned at me, as surprised as I that the sound came, not from the cellar, but from the front hallway.
So Rickman had a key to the front door. I was taken aback by that at the time; though in hindsight I should probably have anticipated it. I assume he stole Kidwell’s and made a copy. I doubt she knew; why else would he continue the charade of entering through the cellar? Was it that it seemed mysterious and therefore romantic? That sort of thing might appeal to a gullible young woman.
