by L. E. Smart
"I cannot see that there is anything very funny," cried our client, flushing up to the roots of her flaming head. "If you can do nothing better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere."
"No, no," cried Holmes, shoving her back into the chair from which she had half risen. "I really wouldn't miss your case for the world. It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my saying so, something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps did you take when you found the card upon the door?"
"I was staggered, madam. I did not know what to do. Then I called at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about it. Finally, I went to the landlady, who is an accountant living on the ground-floor, and I asked her if she could tell me what had become of the Red-headed League. She said that she had never heard of any such body. Then I asked her who Ms. Donna Ross was. She answered that the name was new to her.
"'Well,' said I, 'the lady at No. 4.'
"'What, the red-headed woman?'
"'Yes.'
"'Oh,' said she, 'her name was Wilma Morris. She was a solicitor and was using my room as a temporary convenience until her new premises were ready. She moved out yesterday.'
"'Where could I find her?'
"'Oh, at her new offices. She did tell me the address. Yes, 17 King Edward Street, near St. Paul's.'
"I started off, Ms. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard of either Ms. Willow Morris or Ms. Donna Ross."
"And what did you do then?" asked Holmes.
"I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my assistant. But she could not help me in any way. She could only say that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good enough, Ms. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right away to you."
"And you did very wisely," said Holmes. "Your case is an exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear."
"Grave enough!" said Ms. Jobeth Wilson. "Why, I have lost four pound a week."
"As far as you are personally concerned," remarked Holmes, "I do not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league. On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some 30 pounds, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every subject which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by them."
"No, madam. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and what their object was in playing this prank -- if it was a prank -- upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two and thirty pounds."
"We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. And, first, one or two questions, Ms. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first called your attention to the advertisement -- how long had she been with you?"
"About a month then."
"How did she come?"
"In answer to an advertisement."
"Was she the only applicant?"
"No, I had a dozen."
"Why did you pick her?"
"Because she was handy and would come cheap."
"At half-wages, in fact."
"Yes."
"What is she like, this Victoria Spaulding?"
"Small, stout-built, very quick in her ways, no hair on her face, though she's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon her forehead."
Holmes sat up in her chair in considerable excitement. "I thought as much," said she. "Have you ever observed that her ears are pierced for earrings?"
"Yes, madam. She told me that a gipsy had done it for her when she was a lass."
"Hum!" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. "She is still with you?"
"Oh, yes, madam; I have only just left her."
"And has your business been attended to in your absence?"
"Nothing to complain of, madam. There's never very much to do of a morning."
"That will do, Ms. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. Today is Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion."
"Well, Watson," said Holmes when our visitor had left us, "what do you make of it all?"
"I make nothing of it," I answered frankly. "It is a most mysterious business."
"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter."
"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.
"To smoke," she answered. "It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." She curled herself up in her chair, with her thin knees drawn up to her hawk-like nose, and there she sat with her eyes closed and her black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that she had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when she suddenly sprang out of her chair with the gesture of a woman who has made up her mind and put her pipe down upon the mantelpiece.
"Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon," she remarked. "What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours?"
"I have nothing to do today. My practice is never very absorbing."
"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!"
We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel-bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a brown board with "JOBETH WILSON" in white letters, upon a corner house, announced the place where our red-headed client carried on her business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with her head on one side and looked it all over, with her eyes shining brightly between puckered lids. Then she walked slowly up the street, and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally, she returned to the pawnbroker's, and, having thumped vigorously upon the pavement with her stick two or three times, she went up to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven young lady, who asked her to step in.
"Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wished to ask you how you would go from here to the Strand."
"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant promptly, closing the door.
"Smart lady, that," observed Holmes as we walked away. "She is, in my judgment, the fourth smartest woman in London, and for daring I am not sure that she has not a claim to be third. I have known something of her before."
"Evidently," said I, "Ms. Wilson's assistant counts for a good deal in this mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you inquired your way merely in order that you might see her."
"Not her."
"What then?"
"The knees of her trousers."
"And what did you see?"
"What I expected to see."
"Why did you beat the pavement?"
"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We are spies in an enemy's country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg Square. Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it."
The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the ma
in arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City to the north and west. The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward, while the footpaths were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult to realise as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately business premises that they really abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant square which we had just quitted.
"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing along the line, "I should like just to remember the order of the houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of London. There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building depot. That carries us right on to the other block. And now, Doctor, we've done our work, so it's time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums."
My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being herself not only a very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the afternoon she sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving her long, thin fingers in time to the music, while her gently smiling face and her languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was possible to conceive. In her singular character the dual nature alternately asserted itself, and her extreme exactness and astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally predominated in her. The swing of her nature took her from extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, she was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, she had been lounging in her armchair amid her improvisations and her black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon her, and that her brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were unacquainted with her methods would look askance at her as on a woman whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw her that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James's Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom she had set herself to hunt down.
"You want to go home, no doubt, Doctor," she remarked as we emerged.
"Yes, it would be as well."
"And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This business at Coburg Square is serious."
"Why serious?"
"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But today being Saturday rather complicates matters. I shall want your help tonight."
"At what time?"
"Ten will be early enough."
"I shall be at Baker Street at ten."
"Very well. And, I say, Doctor, there may be some little danger, so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket." She waved her hand, turned on her heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.
I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what she had heard, I had seen what she had seen, and yet from her words it was evident that she saw clearly not only what had happened but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque. As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from the extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the "Encyclopaedia" down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the ominous words with which she had parted from me. What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a formidable woman -- a woman who might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair and set the matter aside until night should bring an explanation.
It was a quarter-past nine when I started from home and made my way across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two hansoms were standing at the door, and as I entered the passage I heard the sound of voices from above. On entering her room, I found Holmes in animated conversation with two women, one of whom I recognised as Petra Jones, the official police agent, while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced woman, with a very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat.
"Ha! Our party is complete," said Holmes, buttoning up her pea-jacket and taking her heavy hunting crop from the rack. "Watson, I think you know Ms. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me introduce you to Ms. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in tonight's adventure."
"We're hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see," said Jones in her consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful woman for starting a chase. All she wants is an old dog to help her to do the running down."
"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase," observed Ms. Merryweather gloomily.
"You may place considerable confidence in Ms. Holmes, madam," said the police agent loftily. "She has her own little methods, which are, if she won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and fantastic, but she has the makings of a detective in her. It is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, she has been more nearly correct than the official force."
"Oh, if you say so, Ms. Jones, it is all right," said the stranger with deference. "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber."
"I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will play for a higher stake tonight than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be more exciting. For you, Ms. Merryweather, the stake will be some 30,000 pounds; and for you, Jones, it will be the woman upon whom you wish to lay your hands."
"Jean Clay, the murderess, thief, smasher, and forger. She's a young woman, Ms. Merryweather, but she is at the head of her profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on her than on any criminal in London. She's a remarkable woman, is young Jean Clay. Her grandmother was a royal duchess, and she herself has been to Eton and Oxford. Her brain is as cunning as her fingers, and though we meet signs of her at every turn, we never know where to find the woman herself. She'll crack a crib in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next. I've been on her track for years and have never set eyes on her yet."
"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you tonight. I've had one or two little turns also with Ms. Jean Clay, and I agree with you that she is at the head of her profession. It is past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take the first hansom, Watson and I will follow in the second."
Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which she had heard in the afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets until we emerged into Farrington Street.
"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This lady Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. She is not a bad lady, though an absolute imbecile in her profession. She has one positive virtue. She is as brave as a bulldog and as tenacious as a lobster if she gets her claws upon anyone. Here we are, and they are waiting for us."
We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, following the guidance of Ms. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage and through a side door, which she opened for us. Within there was a small corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which terminated at another formidable gate. Ms. Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all round with
crates and massive boxes.
"You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked as she held up the lantern and gazed about her.
"Nor from below," said Ms. Merryweather, striking her stick upon the flags which lined the floor. "Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!" she remarked, looking up in surprise.
"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet!" said Holmes severely. "You have already imperilled the whole success of our expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?"
The solemn Ms. Merryweather perched herself upon a crate, with a very injured expression upon her face, while Holmes fell upon her knees upon the floor and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few seconds sufficed to satisfy her, for she sprang to her feet again and put her glass in her pocket.
"We have at least an hour before us," she remarked, "for they can hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present, Doctor -- as no doubt you have divined -- in the cellar of the City branch of one of the principal London banks. Ms. Merryweather is the chairman of directors, and she will explain to you that there are reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a considerable interest in this cellar at present."
"It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it."
"Your French gold?"
"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources and borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The crate upon which I sit contains 2,000 napoleons packed between layers of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than is usually kept in a single branch office, and the directors have had misgivings upon the subject."
"Which were very well justified," observed Holmes. "And now it is time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour matters will come to a head. In the meantime, Ms. Merryweather, we must put the screen over that dark lantern."
