by David Marcum
“Oh, he’s a rum ’un, is he? Keeps himself shut up, perhaps?”
“Yes, sir. On’y ’as one old woman, deaf as a post, for servant, and never lets nobody into the place. It’s a rare game sometimes with the milkman. The milkman, he comes and rings that there bell, but the old gal’s so deaf she never ’ears it. Then the milkman, he just slips ’is ’and through the gate rails, lifts the bolt and goes and bangs at the door. Old Fuller runs out and swears a good ’un. The old gal comes out and old Fuller swears at ’er, and she turns round and swears back like anything. She don’t care for ’im - not a bit. Then when he ain’t ’avin’ a row with the milkman and the old gal he goes down the garden and rows with the old nurseryman there down the ’ill. He jores the nurseryman from ’is side o’ the hedge and the nurseryman he jores back at the top of ’is voice. I’ve stood out there ten minutes together and nearly bust myself a-laughin’ at them gray-’eaded old fellers a-callin’ each other everythink they can think of; you can ’ear ’em ’alf over the parish. Why, each of ’em’s ’ad a board painted, ‘Trespassers will be Prosecuted,’ and stuck ’em up facin’ each other, so as to keep up the row.”
“Very funny, no doubt.”
“Funny? I believe you, sir. Why it’s quite a treat sometimes on a dull beat like this, Why, what’s that? Blowed if I don’t think they’re beginning again now. Yes, they are. Well, my beat’s the other way.”
There was a sound of angry voices in the direction of the nursery ground, and Holmes made toward it. Just where the hedge peeped over the wall the altercation was plain to hear.
“You’re an old vagabond, and I’ll indict you for a nuisance!”
“You’re an old thief, and you’d like to turn me out of house and home, wouldn’t you? Indict away, you greedy old scoundrel!”
These and similar endearments, punctuated by growls and snorts, came distinctly from over the wall, accompanied by a certain scraping, brushing sound, as though each neighbor were madly attempting to scale the hedge and personally bang the other. Holmes hastened round to the front of the nursery garden and quietly tried first the wide gate and next the small one. Both were fastened securely. But in the manner of the milkman at the gate of the house above, Holmes slipped his hand between the open slats of the small gate and slid the night latch that held it. Within the quarrel ran high as Holmes stepped quietly into the garden. He trod on the narrow grass borders of the beds for quietness’ sake, till presently only a line of shrubs divided him from the clamorous nurseryman. Stooping and looking through an opening which gave him a back view, Holmes observed that the brushing and scraping noise proceeded, not from angry scramblings, but from the forcing through an inadequate opening in the hedge of some piece of machinery which the nurseryman was most amicably passing to his neighbor at the same time as he assailed him with savage abuse, and received a full return in kind. It appeared to consist of a number of coils of metal pipe, not unlike those sometimes used in heating apparatus, and was as yet only a very little way through. Something else, of bright copper, lay on the garden-bed at the foot of the hedge, but intervening plants concealed its shape.
Holmes turned quickly away and made towards the greenhouses, keeping tall shrubs as much as possible between himself and the cottage, and looking sharply about him. Here and there about the garden were stand-pipes, each carrying a tap at its upper end and placed conveniently for irrigation. These in particular Holmes scrutinized, and presently, as he neared a large wooden outhouse close by the large gate, turned his attention to one backed by a thick shrub. When the thick undergrowth of the shrub was pushed aside a small stone slab, black and dirty, was disclosed, and this Holmes lifted, uncovering a square hole six or eight inches across, from the fore-side of which the stand-pipe rose.
The row went cheerily on over by the hedge, and neither Trennatt nor his neighbor saw Holmes, feeling with his hand, discover two stop-cocks and a branch pipe in the hole, nor saw him try them both. Holmes, however, was satisfied, and saw his case plain. He rose and made his way back toward the small gate. He was scarce half-way there when the straining of the hedge ceased, and before he reached it the last insult had been hurled, the quarrel ceased, and Trennatt approached. Holmes immediately turned his back to the gate, and looking about him inquiringly hemmed aloud as though to attract attention. The nurseryman promptly burst round a corner crying, “Who’s that? Who’s that, eh? What d’ye want, eh?”
“Why,” answered Holmes in a tone of mild surprise, “is it so uncommon to have a customer drop in?”
“I’d ha’ sworn that gate was fastened,” the old man said, looking about him suspiciously.
“That would have been rash; I had no difficulty in opening it. Come, can’t you sell me a button-hole?
The old man led the way to a greenhouse, but as he went he growled again, “I’d ha’ sworn I shut that gate.”
“Perhaps you forgot,” Holmes suggested. “You have had a little excitement with your neighbor, haven’t you?”
Trennatt stopped and turned round, darting a keen glance into Holmes’s face. “Yes,” he answered angrily, “I have. He’s an old villain. He’d like to turn me out of here, after being here all my life - and a lot o’ good the ground ’ud be to him if he kep’ it like he keeps his own! And look there!” He dragged Holmes toward the “Trespassers” boards. “Goes and sticks up a board like that looking over my hedge! As though I wanted to go over among his weeds! So I stuck up another in front of it, and now they can stare each other out o’ countenance. Buttonhole, you said, sir, eh?”
The old man saw Holmes off the premises with great care, and the latter, flower in coat, made straight for the nearest post office and dispatched a telegram. Then he stood for some little while outside the post office deep in thought, and in the end returned to the gate of the house above the nursery.
With much circumspection he opened the gate and entered the grounds. But instead of approaching the house he turned immediately to the left, behind trees and shrubs, making for the side nearest the nursery. Soon he reached a long, low wooden shed. The door was only secured by a button, and turning this he gazed into the dark interior. Now he had not noticed that close after him a woman had entered the gate, and that that woman was Mrs. Geldard. She would have made for the house, but catching sight of Holmes, followed him swiftly and quietly over the long grass. Thus it came to pass that his first appraisal of the lady’s presence was a sharp drive in the back which pitched him down the step to the low floor of what he had just perceived to be merely a tool-house, after which the door was shut and buttoned behind him.
“Perhaps you’ll be more careful in future,” came Mrs. Geldard’s angry voice from without, “how you go making mischief between husband and wife and poking your nose into people’s affairs. Such fellows as you ought to be well punished.”
Holmes laughed softly. Mrs. Geldard had evidently changed her mind. The door presented no difficulty; a fairly vigorous push dislodged the button entirely, and he walked back to the outer gate chuckling quietly. In the distance he heard Mrs. Geldard in shrill altercation with the deaf old woman. “It’s no good you a-talking,” the old woman was saying. “I can’t hear. Nobody ain’t allowed in this here place, so you must get out. Out you go, now!” Outside the gate Holmes met me.
III.
My own adventures had been simple. I had secured a back seat on the roof of the omnibus wherein Emma Trennatt traveled south from the Bank, from which I could easily observe where she alighted. When she did so I followed, and found to my astonishment that her destination was no other than the Geldards’ private house at Camberwell - as I remembered from the address on the visitor’s slip which Mrs. Geldard had handed in at Holmes’s office a couple of days before. She handed a letter to the maid who opened the door, and soon after, in response to a message by the same maid, entered the house. Presently the maid reappeared, bonneted, and hurried off, to return in
a few minutes in a cab with another following behind. Almost immediately Mrs. Geldard emerged in company with Emma Trennatt. She hurried the girl into one of the cabs, and I heard her repeat loudly twice the address of Holmes’s rooms, once to the girl and once to the cabman. Now it seemed plain to me that to follow Emma Trennatt farther would be waste of time, for she was off to Holmes’s rooms, where the housekeeper would learn her message. And knowing where a message would find Holmes sooner than at his rooms, I judged it well to tell Mrs. Geldard of the fact. I approached, therefore, as she was entering the other cab and began to explain when she cut me short. “You can go and tell your master to attend to his own business as soon as he pleases, for not a shilling does he get from me. He ought to be ashamed of himself, sowing dissension between man and wife for the sake of what he can make out of it, and so ought you.”
I bowed with what grace I might, and retired. The other cab bad gone, so I set forth to find one for myself at the nearest rank. I could think of nothing better to do than to make for Crouch End Police Station and Endeavour to find Holmes. Soon after my cab emerged north of the city I became conscious of another cab whose driver I fancied I recognized, and which kept ahead all along the route. In fact it was Mrs. Geldard’s cab, and presently it dawned upon me that we must both be bound for the same place. When it became quite clear that Crouch End was the destination of the lady I instructed my driver to disregard the police station and follow the cab in front. Thus I arrived at Mr. Fuller’s house just behind Mrs. Geldard, and thus, waiting at the gate, I met Holmes as he emerged.
“Hullo, Brett!” he said. “Condole with me. Mrs. Geldard has changed her mind, and considers me a pernicious creature anxious to make mischief between her and her husband; I’m very much afraid I shan’t get my fee.”
“No,” I answered, “she told me you wouldn’t.”
We compared notes, and Holmes laughed heartily. “The appearance of Emma Trennatt at Geldard’s office this morning is explained,” he said. “She went first with a message from Geldard to Mrs. Geldard at Camberwell, explaining his absence and imploring her not to talk of it or make a disturbance. Mrs. Geldard had gone off to town, and Emma Trennatt was told that she had gone to Geldard’s office. There she went, and then we first saw her. She found nobody at the office, and after a minute or two of irresolution returned to Camberwell, and then succeeded in delivering her message, as you saw. Mrs. Geldard is apparently satisfied with her husband’s explanation. But I’m afraid the revenue officers won’t approve of it.”
“The revenue officers?”
“Yes. It’s a case of illicit distilling - and a big case, I fancy. I’ve wired to Somerset House, and no doubt men are on their way here now. But Mrs. Geldard’s up at the house, so we’d better hurry up to the police station and have a few sent from there. Come along. The whole thing’s very clever, and a most uncommonly big thing. If I know all about it - and I think I do - Geldard and his partners have been turning out untaxed spirit by the hundred gallons for a long time past. Geldard is the practical man, the engineer, and probably erected the whole apparatus himself in that house on the hill. The spirit is brought down by a pipe laid a very little way under the garden surface, and carried into one of the irrigation stand-pipes in the nursery ground. There’s a quiet little hole behind the pipe with a couple of stop-cocks - one to shut off the water when necessary, the other to do the same with the spirit. When the stopcocks are right you just turn the tap at the top of the pipe and you get water or whisky, as the case may be. Fuller, the man up at the house, attends to the still, with such assistance as the deaf old woman can give him. Trennatt, down below, draws off the liquor ready to be carried away. These two keep up an ostentatious appearance of being at unending feud to blind suspicion. Our as yet ungreeted friend Geldard, guiding spirit of the whole thing, comes disguised as a carter with an apparent cart-load of linoleum, and carries away the manufactured stuff. In the pleasing language of Geldard and Co., ‘smoke,’ as alluded to in the note you saw, means whisky. Something has been wrong with the apparatus lately, and it has been leaking badly. Geldard has been at work on it, patching, but ineffectually. ‘What you did was no good’ said the charming Emma in the note, as you will remember. ‘Uncle was anxious.’ And justifiably so, because not only does a leak of spirit mean a waste, but it means a smell, which some sharp revenue man might sniff. Moreover, if there is a leak, the liquid runs somewhere at random, and with any sudden increase in volume attention might easily be attracted. It was so bad that ‘F.’ (Fuller) thought Geldard must light another pipe (start another still) or give up smoking (distilling) for a bit. There is the explanation of the note. ‘Tomorrow, to carry’ probably means that he is to call with his cart - the cart in whose society Geldard becomes Cookson - to remove a quantity of spirit. He is not to come late because people are expected on floral business. The crosses I think will be found to indicate the amount of liquid to be moved. But that we shall see. Anyhow Geldard got there yesterday and had a busy day loading up, and then set to repairing. The damage was worse than supposed, and an urgent thing. Result, Geldard works into early morning, has a sleep in the place, where he may be called at any moment, and starts again early this morning. New parts have to be ordered, and these are delivered at Trennatt’s today and passed through the hedge. Meantime Geldard sends a message to his wife explaining things, and the result you’ve seen.”
At the police station a telegram had already been received from Somerset House. That was enough for Holmes, who had discharged his duty as a citizen and now dropped the case. We left the police and the revenue officers to deal with the matter and traveled back to town.
“Yes,” said Holmes on the way, after each had fully described his day’s experiences, “it seemed pretty plain that Geldard left his office by the back way in disguise, and there were things that hinted what that disguise was. The pipes were noticeable. They were quite unnecessarily dirty, and partly from dirty fingers. Pipes smoked by a man in his office would never look like that. They had been smoked out of doors by a man with dirty hands, and hands and pipes would be in keeping with the rest of the man’s appearance. It was noticeable that he had left not only his clothes and hat but his boots behind him. They were quite plain though good boots, and would be quite in keeping with any dress but that of a laborer or some such man in his working clothes. Moreover the partly-smoked cigars were probably thrown aside because they would appear inconsistent with Geldard’s changed dress. The contents of the pockets in the clothes left behind, too, told the same tale. The cheap watch and the necessary keys, pocketbook and pocket-knife were taken, but the articles of luxury, the Russia-leather card-case, the sovereign purse and so on were left. Then we came on the receipts for stable-rent. Suggestion - perhaps the disguise was that of a carter.
“Then there was the coach-house. Plainly, if Geldard took the trouble thus to disguise himself, and thus to hide his occupation even from his wife, he had some very good reason for secrecy. Now the goods which a man would be likely to carry secretly in a cart or van, as a regular piece of business, would probably be either stolen or smuggled. When I examined those pieces of linoleum I became convinced that they were intended merely as receptacles for some other sort of article altogether. They were old, and had evidently been thus rolled for a very long period. They appeared to have been exposed to weather, but on the outside only. Moreover they were all of one size and shape, each forming a long hollow cylinder, with plenty of interior room. Now from this it was plainly unlikely that they were intended to hold stolen goods. Stolen goods are not apt to be always of one size and shape, adaptable to a cylindrical recess. Perhaps they were smuggled. Now the only goods profitable to be smuggled nowadays are tobacco and spirits, and plainly these rolls of linoleum would be excellent receptacles for either. Tobacco could be packed inside the rolls and the ends stopped artistically with narrow rolls of linoleum. Spirits could be contained in metal cylinders exactly fitting the cavity and
the ends filled in the same way as for tobacco. But for tobacco a smart man would probably make his linoleum rolls of different sizes, for the sake of a more innocent appearance, while for spirits it would be a convenience to have vessels of uniform measure, to save trouble in quicker delivery and calculation of quantity. Bearing these things in mind I went in search of the gentle nurseryman at Crouch End. My general survey of the nursery ground and the house behind it inspired me with the notion that the situation and arrangement were most admirably adapted for the working of a large illicit still - a form of misdemeanor, let me tell you, that is much more common nowadays than is generally supposed. I remembered Geldard’s engineering experience, and I heard something of the odd manners of Mr. Fuller; my theory of a traffic in untaxed spirits became strengthened. But why a nursery? Was this a mere accident of the design? There were commonly irrigation pipes about nurseries, and an extra one might easily be made to carry whisky. With this in mind I visited the nursery with the result you know of. The stand-pipe I tested (which was where I expected - handy to the vehicle entrance) could produce simple New River water or raw whisky at command of one of two stop-cocks. My duty was plain. As you know, I am a citizen first and an investigator after, and I find the advantage of it in my frequent intercourse with the police and other authorities. As soon as I could get away I telegraphed to Somerset House. But then I grew perplexed on a point of conduct. I was commissioned by Mrs. Geldard. It scarcely seemed the loyal thing to put my client’s husband in gaol because of what I had learnt in course of work on her behalf. I decided to give him, and nobody else, a sporting chance. If I could possibly get at him in the time at my disposal, by himself, so that no accomplice should get the benefit of my warning, I would give him a plain hint to run; then he could take his chance. I returned to the place and began to work round the grounds, examining the place as I went; but at the very first outhouse I put my head into I was surprised in the rear by Mrs. Geldard coming in hot haste to stop me and rescue her husband. She most unmistakably gave me the sack, and so now the police may catch Geldard or not, as their luck may be.”
