by David Marcum
These words astonished me almost as much as they did Mr Hooker. The great Wedlake jewel robbery is, as many will remember, a traditional story of the ’sixties. I remembered no more of it at the time than probably most men do who have at some time or another read the causes celebra of the century. Sir Francis Wedlake’s country house had been robbed, and the whole of Lady Wedlake’s magnificent collection of jewels stolen. A man named Shiels, a strolling musician, had been arrested and had been sentenced to a long term of penal servitude. Another man named Legg - one of the comparatively wealthy scoundrels who finance promising thefts or swindles and pocket the greater part of the proceeds - had also been punished, but only a very few of the trinkets, and those quite unimportant items, had been recovered. The great bulk of the booty was never brought to light. So much I remembered, and Holmes’s sudden mention of the Wedlake jewels in connection with my broken window, Mr Reuben B. Hooker, and the Flitterbat Lancers, astonished me not a little.
As for Hooker, he did his best to hide his perturbation, but with little success. “Wedlake jewels, eh?” he said; “and - and what’s that to do with it, anyway?”
“To do with it?” responded Holmes, with an air of carelessness. “Well, well, I had my idea, nothing more. If the Wedlake jewels have nothing to do with it, we’ll say no more about it, that’s all. Here’s your paper, Mr Hooker - only a little crumpled.” He rose and placed the article in Mr Hooker’s hand, with the manner of terminating the interview.
Hooker rose, with a bewildered look on his face, and turned toward the door. Then he stopped, looked at the floor, scratched his cheek, and finally sat down and put his hat on the ground. “Come,” he said, “we’ll play a square game. That paper has something to do with the Wedlake jewels, and, win or lose, I’ll tell you all I know about it. You’re a smart man and whatever I tell you, I guess it won’t do me no harm; it ain’t done me no good yet, anyway.”
“Say what you please, of course,” Holmes answered, “but think first. You might tell me something you’d be sorry for afterward.”
“Say, will you listen to what I say, and tell me if you think I’ve been swindled or not? My two hundred and fifty dollars is gone now, and I guess I won’t go skirmishing after it anymore if you think it’s no good. Will you do that much?”
“As I said before,” Holmes replied, “tell me what you please, and if I can help you I will. But remember, I don’t ask for your secrets.”
“That’s all right, I guess, Mr Holmes. Well, now, it was all like this.” And Mr Reuben B. Hooker plunged into a detailed account of his adventures since his arrival in London.
Relieved of repetitions, and put as directly as possible, it was as follows: Mr Hooker was a wagon-builder, had made a good business from very humble beginnings, and intended to go on and make it still a better. Meantime, he had come over to Europe for a short holiday - a thing he had promised himself for years. He was wandering about the London streets on the second night after his arrival in the city, when he managed to get into conversation with two men at a bar. They were not very prepossessing men, though flashily dressed. Very soon they suggested a game of cards. But Reuben B. Hooker was not to be had in that way, and after a while, they parted. The two were amusing enough fellows in their way, and when Hooker saw them again the next night in the same bar, he made no difficulty in talking with them freely. After a succession of drinks, they told him that they had a speculation on hand - a speculation that meant thousands if it succeeded - and to carry out which they were only waiting for a paltry sum of £50. There was a house, they said, in which was hidden a great number of jewels of immense value, which had been deposited there by a man who was now dead. Exactly in what part of the house the jewels were to be found they did not know. There was a paper, they said, which was supposed to contain some information, but as yet they hadn’t been quite able to make it out. But that would really matter very little if once they could get possession of the house. Then they would simply set to work and search from the topmost chimney to the lowermost brick, if necessary. The only present difficulty was that the house was occupied, and that the landlord wanted a large deposit of rent down before he would consent to turn out his present tenants and give them possession at a higher rental. This deposit would come to £50, and they hadn’t the money. However, if any friend of theirs who meant business would put the necessary sum it their disposal, and keep his mouth shut, they would make him an equal partner in the proceeds with themselves; and as the value of the whole haul would probably be something not very far off £20,000, the speculation would bring a tremendous return to the man who was smart enough to put down his £50.
Hooker, very distrustful, skeptically demanded more detailed particulars of the scheme. But these the two men (Luker and Birks were their names, he found, in course of talking) inflexibly refused to communicate.
“Is it likely,” said Luker, “that we should give the ’ole thing away to anybody who might easily go with his fifty pounds and clear out the bloomin’ show? Not much. We’ve told you what the game is, and if you’d like to take a flutter with your fifty, all right; you’ll do as well as anybody, and we’ll treat you square. If you don’t - well, don’t, that’s all. We’ll get the oof from somewhere - there’s blokes as ’ud jump at the chance. Anyway, we ain’t going to give the show away before you’ve done somethin’ to prove you’re on the job, straight. Put your money in, and you shall know as much as we do.”
Then there were more drinks, and more discussion. Hooker was still reluctant, though tempted by the prospect, and growing more venturesome with each drink.
“Don’t you see,” said Birks, “that if we was a-tryin’ to ’ave you we should out with a tale as long as yer arm, all complete, with the address of the ’ouse and all. Then I s’pose you’d lug out the pieces on the nail, without askin’ a bloomin’ question. As it is, the thing’s so perfectly genuine that we’d rather lose the chance and wait for some other bloke to find the money than run a chance of givin’ the thing away. It’s a matter o’ business, simple and plain, that’s all. It’s a question of either us trustin’ you with a chance of collarin’ twenty thousand pounds or you trustin’ us with a paltry fifty. We don’t lay out no ’igh moral sentiments, we only say the weight o’ money is all on one side. Take it or leave it, that’s all. ’Ave another Scotch?”
The talk went on and the drinks went on, and it all ended, at “chucking-out time,” in Reuben B. Hooker handing over five £10 notes, with smiling, though slightly incoherent, assurances of his eternal friendship for Luker and Birks.
In the morning he awoke to the realization of a bad head, a bad tongue, and a bad opinion of his proceedings of the previous night. In his sober senses it seemed plain that he had been swindled. All day he cursed his fuddled foolishness, and at night he made for the bar that had been the scene if the transaction, with little hope of seeing either Luker or Birks, who had agreed to be there to meet him. There they were, however, and, rather to his surprise, they made no demand for more money. They asked him if he understood music, and showed him the worn old piece of paper containing the Flitterbat Lancers. The exact spot, they said, where the jewels were hidden was supposed to be indicated somehow on that piece of paper. Hooker did not understand music, and could find nothing on the paper that looked in the least like a direction to a hiding-place for jewels or anything else.
Luker and Birks then went into full particulars of their project. First, as to its history. The jewels were the famous Wedlake jewels, which had been taken from Sir Francis Wedlake’s house in 1866 and never heard of again. A certain Jerry Shiels had been arrested in connection with the robbery, had been given a long sentence of penal servitude, and had died in jail. This Jerry Shiels was an extraordinarily clever criminal, and traveled about the country as a street musician. Although an expert burglar, he very rarely perpetrated robberies himself, but acted as a sort of traveling fence, receiving stolen property and
transmitting it to London or out of the country. He also acted as the agent of a man named Legg, who had money, and who financed any likely looking project of a criminal nature that Shiels might arrange.
Jerry Shiels traveled with a “pardner” - a man who played the harp and acted as his assistant and messenger in affairs wherein Jerry was reluctant to appear personally. When Shiels was arrested, he had in his possession a quantity of printed and manuscript music, and after his first remand his “pardner,” Jimmy Snape, applied for the music to be given up to him, in order, as he explained, that he might earn his living. No objection was raised to this, and Shiels was quite willing that Snape should have it, and so it was handed over. Now among the music was a small slip, headed Flitterbat Lancers, which Shiels had shown to Snape before the arrest. In case of Shiels being taken, Snape was to take this slip to Legg as fast as he could.
But as chance would have it, on that very day Legg himself was arrested, and soon after was sentenced also to a term of years. Snape hung about in London for a little while, and then emigrated. Before leaving, however, he gave the slip of music to Luker’s father, a rag-shop keeper, to whom he owed money. He explained its history, and Luker senior made all sorts of fruitless efforts to get at the information concealed in the paper. He had held it to the fire to bring out concealed writing, had washed it, had held it to the light till his eyes ached, had gone over it with a magnifying glass - all in vain. He had got musicians to strum out the notes on all sorts of instruments - backwards, forwards, alternately, and in every other way he could think of. If at any time he fancied a resemblance in the resulting sound to some familiar song-tune, he got that song and studied all its words with loving care, upside-down, right-side up - every way. He took the words Flitterbat Lancers and transposed the letters in all directions, and did everything else he could think of. In the end he gave it up, and died. Now, lately, Luker junior had been impelled with a desire to see into the matter. He had repeated all the parental experiments, and more, with the same lack of success. He had taken his “pal” Birks into his confidence, and together they had tried other experiments till at last they began to believe that the message had probably been written in some sort of invisible ink which the subsequent washings had erased altogether. But he had done one other thing: he had found the house which Shiels had rented at the time of his arrest, and in which a good quantity of stolen property - not connected with the Wedlake case - was discovered. Here, he argued, if anywhere, Jerry Shiels had hidden the jewels. There was no other place where he could be found to have lived, or over which he had sufficient control to warrant his hiding valuables therein. Perhaps, once the house could be properly examined, something about it might give a clue as to what the message of the Flitterbat Lancers meant.
Hooker, of course, was anxious to know where the house in question stood, but this Luker and Birks would on no account inform him. “You’ve done your part,” they said, “and now you leave us to do ours. There’s a bit of a job about gettin’ the tenants out. They won’t go, and it’ll take a bit of time before the landlord can make them. So you just hold your jaw and wait. When we’re safe in the ’ouse, and there’s no chance of anybody else pokin’ in, then you can come and help find the stuff.”
Hooker went home that night sober, but in much perplexity. The thing might be genuine, after all; indeed, there were many little things that made him think it was. But then, if it were, what guarantee had he that he would get his share, supposing the search turned out successful? None at all. But then it struck him for the first time that these jewels, though they may have lain untouched so long, were stolen property after all. The moral aspect of the affair began to trouble him a little, but the legal aspect troubled him more. That consideration however, he decided to leave over for the present. He had no more than the word of Luker and Birks that the jewels (if they existed) were those of Lady Wedlake, and Luker and Birks themselves only professed to know from hearsay. At any rate, he made up his mind to have some guarantee for his money. In accordance with this resolve, he suggested, when he met the two men the next day, that he should take charge of the slip of music and make an independent study of it. This proposal, however, met with an instant veto.
Hooker resolved to make up a piece of paper, folded as like the slip of music as possible, and substitute one for the other at their next meeting. Then he would put the Flitterbat Lancers in some safe place, and face his fellow conspirators with a hand of cards equal to their own. He carried out his plan the next evening with perfect success, thanks to the contemptuous indifference with which Luker and Birks had begun to regard him. He got the slip in his pocket, and left the bar. He had not gone far, however, before Luker discovered the loss, and soon he became conscious of being followed. He looked for a cab, but he was in a dark street, and no cab was near. Luker and Birks turned the corner and began to run. He saw they must catch him. Everything now depended on his putting the Flitterbat Lancers out of their reach, but where he could himself recover it. He ran till he saw a narrow passageway on his right, and into this he darted. It led into a yard where stones were lying about, and in a large building before him he saw the window of a lighted room a couple of floors up. It was a desperate expedient, but there was no time for consideration. He wrapped a stone in the paper and flung it with all his force through the lighted window. Even as he did it he heard the feet of Luker and Birks as they hurried down the street. The rest of the adventure in the court I myself saw.
Luker and Birks kept Hooker in their lodgings all that night. They searched him unsuccessfully for the paper; they bullied, they swore, they cajoled, they entreated, they begged him to play the game square with his pals. Hooker merely replied that he had put the Flitterbat Lancers where they couldn’t easily find it, and that he intended playing the game square as long as they did the same. In the end they released him, apparently with more respect than they had before entertained, advising him to get the paper into his possession as soon as he could.
“And now,” said Mr Hooker, in conclusion of his narrative, “perhaps you’ll give me a bit of advice. Am I playin’ a fool-game running after these toughs, or ain’t I?”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders. “It all depends,” he said, “on your friends Luker and Birks. They may want to swindle you, or they may not. I’m afraid they’d like to, at any rate. But perhaps you’ve got some little security in this piece of paper. One thing is plain: they certainly believe in the deposit of the jewels themselves, else they wouldn’t have taken so much trouble to get the paper back.”
“Then I guess I’ll go on with the thing, if that’s it.”
“That depends, of course, on whether you care to take trouble to get possession of what, after all, is somebody else’s lawful property.”
Hooker looked a little uneasy. “Well,” he said, “there’s that, of course. I didn’t know nothin’ of that at first, and when I did I’d parted with my money and felt entitled to get something back for it. Anyway, the stuff ain’t found yet. When it is, why then, you know, I might make a deal with the owner. But, say, how did you find out my name, and about this here affair being jined up with the Wedlake jewels?”
Holmes smiled. “As to the name and address, you just think it over a little when you’ve gone away, and if you don’t see how I did it. You’re not so cute as I think you are. In regard to the jewels - well, I just read the message of the Flitterbat Lancers, that’s all.”
“You read it? Whew! And what does it say? How did you do it?” Hooker turned the paper over eagerly in his hands as he spoke.
“See, now,” said Holmes, “I won’t tell you all that, but I’ll tell you something, and it may help you to test the real knowledge of Luker and Birks. Part of the message is in these words, which you had better write down: Over the coals the fifth dancer slides, says Jerry Shield the homey.”
“What?” Hooker exclaimed, “fifth dancer slides over the coals? That’s mighty odd. W
hat’s it all about?”
“About the Wedlake jewels, as I said. Now you can go and make a bargain with Luker and Birks. The only other part of the message is an address, and that they already know, if they have been telling the truth about the house they intend taking. You can offer to tell them what I have told you of the message, after they have told you where the house is, and proved to you that they are taking the steps they talked of. If they won’t agree to that, I think you had best treat them as common rogues and charge them with obtaining your money under false pretenses.”
Nothing more would Holmes say than that, despite Hooker’s many questions; and when at last Hooker had gone, almost as troubled and perplexed as ever, my friend turned to me and said, “Now, Brett, if you haven’t lunched and would like to see the end of this business, hurry!”
“The end of it?” I said. “Is it to end so soon? How?”
“Simply by a police raid on Jerry Shiels’s old house with a search warrant. I communicated with the police this morning before I came here.”
“Poor Hooker!” I said.
“Oh, I had told the police before I saw Hooker, or heard of him, of course. I just conveyed the message on the music slip - that was enough. But I’ll tell you all about it when there’s more time; I must be off now. With the information I have given him, Hooker and his friends may make an extra push and get into the house soon, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to give the unfortunate Hooker some sort of sporting chance - though it’s a poor one, I fear. Get your lunch as quickly as you can, and go at once to Colt Row, Bankside - Southwark way, you know. Probably we shall be there before you. If not, wait.”
Colt Row was not difficult to find. It was one of those places that decay with an excess of respectability, like Drury Lane and Clare Market. Once, when Jacob’s Island was still an island, a little farther down the river, Colt Row had evidently been an unsafe place for a person with valuables about him, and then it probably prospered, in its own way. Now it was quite respectable, but very dilapidated and dirty. Perhaps it was sixty yards long - perhaps a little more. It was certainly a very few yards wide, and the houses at each side had a patient and forlorn look of waiting for a metropolitan improvement to come along and carry them away to their rest.
