Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of The Pigtail Twist

by M J H Simmonds

  Holmes was sprawled strangely in his old armchair. He appeared not to have moved at all, he was still wrapped in his shapeless mouse brown dressing gown. He continued to puff upon the old brown Bulldog briar, the Persian slipper being within easy reach.

  I took his extended limbs to be some sort of Eastern exercise to stave off discomfort from his self-enforced immobility.

  “I know it is early days, but have you made any progress?” I genuinely worried that this time he had surely promised too much.

  “Nothing at all, my dear friend,” he replied, but added “Don’t worry, the truth is always singular. However, its arrival time can be neither predicted nor guaranteed.’”

  I must say that I took less notice of Holmes at that moment than I did of the spectacular breakfast being laid before us by the inimitable Mrs Hudson.

  We took our breakfast, and I have to admit to also having eaten at least half of that allocated to Holmes who, of course, left it almost untouched, as he was always wont to do when working a case. I say almost untouched as this was one of the very few times, when on a case, he did indulge in eating along with the rest of us, the great unworthy. He simply leaned forwards, picked up a soft-boiled egg, carefully removed the shell, and devoured it in two bites. This seemed to suffice, and he returned to his pipe with renewed gusto and indeed, gusts.

  At a little after eleven o’clock, Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard arrived in full-on bluster mode, with added pompousness. He somehow had got wind of Holmes’ boast that he could solve the case by midday and without leaving Baker Street. Holmes was, as always, courteous in his welcome and gestured to Lestrade to take a seat and await further developments.

  Less than ten minutes later, a stocky boy of about twelve or thirteen years appeared unannounced at the sitting room door, he seemed to have learned well the discipline of stealthy movement and entered the room entirely silently. He stood to attention and offered up a quick salute. He held in his chubby right hand a sheet of paper. It was dark, faintly lined, frayed and appeared to have been torn from an anonymous exercise book. This he handed directly into Sherlock Holmes’ long, bony fingers.

  “Thank you, Wiggins, you have all performed excellently.” He gestured towards a small leather pouch on the sideboard. “Please distribute as per usual - there is an extra shilling in there for you and one for the boy who found it.”

  Wiggins turned, grabbed the small coin purse and left in some haste.

  “Ha-ha!” Holmes snorted, as he gazed upon the tatty missive. “Just as I thought. Well Inspector, you can rest easy now for I have the name, and indeed address, of this present-day highwayman.” Holmes handed the grubby note to Lestrade.

  “Well, I suppose I’ll send some men round, sure enough, but how on earth did you come up with this fellow?” Lestrade’s mouth was almost hanging open in surprise.

  Holmes leaned back, took a long drag on his pipe, savoured the taste of tobacco in his mouth and across his tongue, and finally exhaled it into a huge cloud.

  “Knowledge plus data, Lestrade. It was really rather simple. I have a vast knowledge of criminals, and a fairly good knowledge of London’s cabs and their drivers. One thing I do know, for certain, about our cabmen is that they keep their carriages spotless. It is their source of income and indeed also a source of great pride. You will never see a dirty or unkempt cab first thing in the morning as they invariably attend to them, meticulously, at the end of every shift, then cover them to protect from the weather overnight.”

  “A criminal, however, is inherently lazy and would make only the smallest effort to maintain the outward appearance of his cab. A quick wipe down at the end of the day would be enough to make it look respectable to the casual observer. So, in light of this, I employed some very detailed observers and set them a simple task, to find my data.”

  “I told them to examine all the cabs operating in well-to-do areas this morning. Look at the wheels and, in particular, the spokes and undercarriage. Report any that have clearly not been cleaned for at least two days.”

  “It is testament to the London cab driver that only one dirty carriage was found amongst the many hundreds they inspected.”

  “Well, we shall see, will we not?” Lestrade looked resigned to the fact that Holmes appeared to have solved the crime in the exact manner that he had predicted. “I have doors to knock upon. Good day gentlemen.”

  I followed Lestrade out onto the landing, pulling the door half closed behind me. The Inspector appeared tired and impatient to take his leave.

  “I am far from convinced that these cases are doing anything other than fuelling his already inflated opinion of himself,” he growled, in a low voice.

  “I fear he is not himself,” I whispered.

  “He is taking short-cuts, relying on the belief that his intellect alone can solve any puzzle, rather than fully investigating the matter himself. This is a dangerous, unpredictable path. If he continues to solve these cases with such ease, or fails to find a genuine challenge, he may well return to the drugs that he increasingly craves. The alternative might be even worse; he makes a catastrophic error, one that damages both him and his reputation beyond repair.”

  Lestrade shrugged, “Perhaps he will find something more deserving of his talents in the morning,” he replied, obviously still irked by Holmes’ arrogance.

  I bid the Inspector a good afternoon and returned to the sitting room.

  “There is a fine line between confidence and hubris you know, old man,” I warned, but Holmes’ interest in the matter had already passed.

  He rose, stretched and picked up his battered, black violin case. He thoughtfully applied rosin to his bow. I was optimistic that his mood would be positive after the day’s success and I might, for once, be treated to an evening of pleasant melodies and not a cacophony born of frustration.

  The next day’s newspapers confirmed Holmes to have been correct in every detail. That Lestrade accepted the credit seemed, to me, to be fair recompense for Holmes’ questionable treatment of the good-intentioned Inspector.

  Case 3: The Hobnail Boots

  Wednesday 14th of May, 1884

  The Chelsea jewel theft of May 1884 was highly unusual in that it was a case that had to be first unsolved before it could finally be truly solved. Lestrade had positively beamed with delight when we met him at Scotland Yard on that sunny Wednesday morning and proceeded to inform us that the case had already been solved, the jewels recovered and the suspect in custody.

  “All rather straight forward, I am sorry to say, Mr Holmes. Shame that you came all this way for nought”.

  My first instinct was to complain that Lestrade had failed to send a telegram to inform us of his success, but I held my tongue for the sake of diplomacy.

  “Yes, a passing mendicant had spotted an upstairs window left open and thought he would chance his luck by shinning up the drainpipe and seeing what he could pinch. We caught the man from his footprints, you see. He was wearing a pair of hobnail boots, ones that he had clearly repaired himself, several times. The nails were all over the place, not at all evenly spaced, as a real cobbler would have nailed them. The heel iron looked like it was made from a small horseshoe. So, all in all, he had left a pretty distinctive impression in the flower border by the downpipe.”

  “Well done Inspector, nothing more for us to do here then, I gather.” Holmes’ smile was a little too broad to be genuine. “But may I just trouble you for, perhaps, one small favour, Inspector? We have travelled all this way,” Holmes pleaded, as fawningly as he could muster. “Could I please see the suspect? For a brief moment, no more. It would just put my mind at ease.”

  Lestrade gave his assent and nodded towards the Duty Sergeant who gestured that we should follow him down to the cells. As we moved into the depths of the building, the brightly painted plastered walls gave way to bare brick and then finally
naked stone as we reached the holding pens.

  The Sergeant brought out the suspect and he stood before us. I looked at him, then at Holmes and finally back to the man in front of us.

  “Do you deny all knowledge of this crime?” demanded Holmes, unexpectedly. The man nodded. He seemed confused and I wondered if he was even mentally balanced.

  The man was much older than I had expected. I know that a life on the streets prematurely ages, but I am sure he had seen at least sixty winters. His clothes were old and threadbare and hung off his spare frame, much in the manner of a scarecrow that has lost its stuffing. His head had but a few patches of spiky white hair and his thin face was covered by a beard, which was unevenly trimmed and stained yellowish from tobacco. He certainly did not look like a man prone to shimmying up drainpipes. However, as I looked downwards, I saw that on his feet were, indeed, a pair of old black hobnail boots.

  “Sir, please try not to worry, for I fully expect to have you out of here before the day’s end.” Sherlock Holmes spoke these words in his most sincere and comforting tone.

  The old man gave a gentle smile and managed a quiet “Right you are, sir,” as a response, before being led back to captivity. Holmes turned on his heels and left at an electric pace.

  I struggled to keep up. “This is monstrous, Holmes. That man could not possibly have climbed up a drainpipe and stolen those jewels. It is preposterous. His age, his condition. It would be difficult for a young man, let alone a sexagenarian.”

  “Well done, Watson. You are quite right, but for mostly the wrong reasons.”

  We left the Yard and Holmes ordered me to try to flag down a cab on the increasingly busy street. He announced that, in the meantime, he would visit the nearest post office and dispatch a telegram. When he returned to our waiting cab, two minutes later, it came as no surprise that he ordered the driver to take us the three and a half miles, or so, to Chelsea.

  Whilst we headed along the King’s Road, he expanded upon his earlier comment.

  “The age of the man is irrelevant, and his physical condition is masked by his ragged clothing. I have known men far older who have been capable of amazing physical feats. Remember ‘The Great Giuseppe’? Still performing as a trapeze artist well into his seventies.”

  “And still just as capable of murder, as I recall,” I added, remembering the case from the previous summer.

  “Exactly, Watson, but I also believe that you did notice the most important detail. How could you miss it, after all, Lestrade has made it the very heart of his case?”

  “The hobnail boots, of course!” I exclaimed. “I must admit that when he first mentioned them I did think they were an odd choice of footwear for a dangerous climb up the outside of a house. But I just assumed that, as a beggar, he simply had no others and had to make do. Maybe, he simply left them behind altogether and chanced it without any footwear.”

  “Very good reasoning, my dear friend, but I do not believe that any of the theories we have, so far, heard are as simple, or as obvious, as the actual truth.”

  “Which is?” I asked, encouragingly, but we had arrived at the leafy street where the robbery had taken place. Ignoring my plea, he sprang from the cab and skipped towards the house.

  Holmes knocked sharply on the large black front door while I stood back a few yards and surveyed the house. It was a typical Chelsea villa. Recently built and quite handsome, in a familiar kind of way. I made a special note of the high wall, which surrounded a smallish garden giving a good level of privacy to anyone living within. Only the lack of mature bushes and trees allowed anyone to see into the grounds at all.

  A young man answered the door. He was dressed in the casual, modern style of a sportsman, white shirt and trousers with an old striped school tie worn as a belt, and lightweight shoes. He was of average height, slim with a good bearing. His most distinguishing features were his jet-black hair and dark eyes. He had a long fringe that dropped so often before his deep-set eyes that his habit of continual brushing it away with his fingers made him appear rather dismissive to any enquiries.

  “Mr Pemberton Lythe?” inquired Holmes, politely.

  “Ah, no sir, sorry. I am his nephew, Galton, Samuel Galton.” He replied, with a slight air of disinterest. “My uncle is bed-bound these last few years and sees no one outside the immediate family.”

  “I am Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, and this is my colleague Dr John Watson. We are here regarding the recent theft of items from this property. Although we understand that the matter has been resolved to the contentment of Scotland Yard, you would be doing me an enormous service if you could let us have a look around the grounds for just ten minutes, or so.”

  “I am not sure what that would achieve. The matter is closed and besides, we have important business of our own to attend to within.” He swiped his errant hair away yet again as he spoke, his air of indifference had not lessened upon hearing our request.

  “I do understand, good sir, but I promise that I am asking this favour simply to keep my own personal records up to date. My livelihood depends on gathering details of all notable and singular criminal activity. Just five minutes, we can enter and let ourselves out through the side gate.” Holmes gestured to the dark red wooden gate at the side of the house, which gave access directly to the garden.

  Holmes’ politeness and persistence were paying off. After a short pause, Galton acquiesced. “Alright then, but be quick. I have important legal papers to sign.”

  He stopped speaking abruptly and just a hint of reddening appeared in his cheeks. It seemed to me that he may well have said a little more than he intended. With a curt “Good day, gentlemen” he closed the door and left us alone on the doorstep.

  If Holmes had also sensed anything in Galton’s manner, he kept it to himself as he strode directly to the gate. For one moment, I thought it might be locked and that even now Galton may be inside laughing at having put one over on us, but Holmes simply lifted the latch and entered.

  The garden was simple and neat. A well-kept lawn was bordered on one side by a small vegetable and herb garden and some young-looking fruit trees to the other. Holmes, of course, gave this picture-perfect English kitchen garden not a single glance as he had not moved from the right side of the house, less than twenty yards from the gate where we had entered.

  Silently, he began his examination. He searched both the flowerbed that ran the full length of the house and the yard or so deep ribbon of grass that lay between the border and the path, which led from the gate to the garden. Occasionally, he dropped to his knees for an even closer inspection.

  After a few minutes had passed, I felt I had to say something.

  “Found anything?” I asked, rather redundantly.

  Holmes sprang up like young buck and looked skywards. There was the drainpipe, and it did indeed pass close by a second-floor sash window, which was, on this occasion, firmly shut.

  Feeling rather foolish for not having even thought of examining the drainpipe I looked at it as closely as I could.

  “I am not sure I would trust that pipe to hold my weight, not even in my significantly lighter army days.”

  Holmes smiled, but he let any jibe on my weight pass without comment.

  “You may well be right, Watson,” he stated, but offered no further elucidation. “There is nothing more to be learned here for now.”

  “I now have nearly all of the pieces I require, but the last few will be difficult to obtain.”

  Holmes was being as enigmatic as usual, as we sat in the carriage on the way back into town.

  “I fear that, whilst I have to all intents and purposes solved the case, there is little I can do to bring the actual perpetrator to justice. I know what he did. I know how he did it. I may also know why he did it. But there is insufficient evidence to make an accusation let alone convince Lestrade to
issue a warrant for arrest.”

  “So, what can we do now?” I asked, now totally bewildered. “We cannot simply give up, surely?”

  “I will just have to tell Lestrade all that I know and hope to heavens that he takes it in. He is many things, the Inspector, but he is not a total fool.”

  We arrived back at the Yard shortly after one o’clock in the afternoon, via a quick stop off at Baker Street where Holmes picked up what I assumed to be the reply to his earlier telegram. The sun was high and the day had warmed sufficiently to have made the journey back from Chelsea a rather pleasant one. Despite being completely in the dark about the case, I felt better than I had in a long while, the warmth spreading through my bones and soothing my old injury. Even the fact that Lestrade was busy, and we had to wait a good hour to see him, did little to dampen my spirits. Instead, we headed over the road for a light lunch of poached fish and vegetables. Holmes refused to discuss the case, instead he insisted upon detailing, and planning for, the forthcoming summer concert season.

  By the time we returned, Lestrade was waiting for us in his office. It was a plain, sparsely furnished room with a desk, three chairs, a large filing cabinet and a bookshelf filled with many hundreds of files. It spoke of a man who performed his job upon his feet, it appeared very much to be a room in which he liked to spend as little time as was humanly possible.

  “My apologies for keeping you waiting, gentlemen”, said Lestrade, his tone unusually serious, with none of the sneer or sarcasm with which we had become accustomed, “but something has occurred to make me wonder if this case might not be quite as black and white as I had previously thought.”

  “Has it really? Oh, do pray tell, Inspector,” asked Holmes. He seemed to come back to life in that instant and was suddenly as keen and eager as he had been first thing this morning.