The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories

by Otto Penzler

  “Glad to see you, Watson,” he called heartily. “Sit down here, light a cigar and cheer me up. This infernal wet spell has got on my nerves. You’re just the company I require.”

  I helped myself to a cigar, put a chair to one side of the grate and waited for Holmes to talk, for I understood that in this frame of mind he had first to relieve himself of its irritability before a naturally pleasant mood could assert itself.

  “Do you know, Watson,” he began, after some moments of silent smoking, “I don’t at all like your treatment of my latest adventure. I told you at the time that the part played by that country detective threw my methods into a comparison with his such as tends to overrate my abilities.”

  Holmes’s querulous allusion to the now famous Amber Necklace Case, to my mind one of his most brilliant exploits, I could afford to let pass in silence, and did so.

  “Not,” he added, with a suggestion of the apologetic in his voice, “not that, on the whole, you let your pen of a ready chronicler carry you too pliantly into the realm of romance—but you must be careful, Watson, not to ascribe to me the supernatural. You know yourself how ordinary my science is when the paths of its conclusions are traced after me. As, for instance, the fact that I am about to have a caller—how I know this may for a moment appear a mystery to you, but in the sequel most commonplace.”

  There came on the instant a rap at the street door, and to my surprised look of inquiry Holmes replied, with a laugh:

  “My dear Watson, it is kindergarten. You failed to hear, as I did an instant ago—for you were listening to my morose maunderings—the faint tooting of the horn of a motorcar, which it was easy to perceive was about turning the upper corner of our street; nor did you observe, as I was able to do, that in the proper space of time the unmistakable silence caused by the stopping of a motor engine was apparent under my window. I am persuaded, Watson, that a look out of that window will plainly disclose a car standing by my curb-stone.”

  I followed him across the room and peered over his shoulder as he put back the curtains. Sure enough, a motorcar had drawn up to the curb. Under its canopy top we perceived two gentlemen seated in the tonneau. The chauffeur stood at the street door, evidently waiting. At this moment Holmes’s housekeeper, after a warning rap, walked into the room, bearing two cards on a tray, which she passed to Holmes.

  “MR. WILLIAM S. RICHARDSON—MR. WILLIAM O. FULLER,” he said, reading the cards aloud. “H’m. Evidently our friend the Conqueror has many admirers in America. You may ask the gentlemen to walk upstairs, Mrs. Hudson,” he added.

  “How do you know your callers are from America?” I was beginning, when following a knock at the door, and Holmes’s brisk “Come in!” two gentlemen entered, stopped near the threshold and bowed. They were garbed in raincoats; one, of medium height, smooth-shaven, resembling in features the actor Irving; the other, of smaller stature, distinguished by a pair of Mr. Pickwick spectacles.

  “Pray come in, gentlemen,” said Sherlock Holmes, with the courtesy of manner that so well becomes him. “Throw off your raincoats, take a cigar, sit here in these chairs by the fire, and while you talk of the circumstances that have given me the honor of a visit so soon after your arrival in London, I will busy myself in mixing a cocktail, one of the excellent devices which your American people have introduced to an appreciative British public.”

  The visitors responded readily to these overtures of cordiality; from a tray on the table selected with unerring discrimination what I knew to be Holmes’s choicest cigars, and in a brief time the four chairs were drawn in a half-moon before the glowing grate. Introductions had quickly been got through with.

  “Dr. Watson, as my somewhat o’erpartial biographer,” said Holmes as he lighted his pipe, “was on the point of wondering, when interrupted by your entrance, at my having in advance pronounced upon the nationality of my callers.”

  The taller of the gentlemen—it was the one bearing the name of Richardson—smiled.

  “I was myself struck by that allusion,” he responded, “no less than by your other somewhat astonishing reference to our being but newly come to the city. In point of fact we have been here a period of something less than twenty-four hours.”

  Sherlock Holmes laughed pleasantly. “It is the simplest of matters when explained,” he said, “as I have often pointed out to Dr. Watson. In the line of research to which I occasionally turn my attention, as he has so abundantly set forth in his published narratives, acquaintance must be had, as you will know, with a great variety of subjects. The motorcar, for instance, that ubiquitous invader of the realm of locomotion, naturally falls within the periphery of these attentions; nor could I long study its various interesting phases without coming to recognize the cars of different makes and nationalities. There are, if my memory is not at fault, some one hundred and thirty varieties of patterns easily distinguishable to one adept in this direction. When Watson looked out of the window, at my shoulder a moment ago, his investigations, pursued in quite different channels, did not disclose to him what was evident to me at a glance, namely, an American machine frequently encountered in this country. It was easy to guess that its occupants were also from the States.

  “As to the other matter—among the earliest things the American man or woman of taste does on reaching London is to give an order to the engraver for his name card in the latest London style. The card this season, as we know, is small, the type a shaded variety of Old English. The cards brought me by the hand of Mrs. Hudson were of medium size, engraved in last year’s script. Plainly my American callers had at the longest but a short time come to the city. A trifle hazardous—yes—but in these matters one sometimes has to guess point-blank—or, to quote one of your American navigators, ‘Stand boldly to the South’ard and trust to luck!’ You find this holds together, Watson?”

  I confessed with a laugh that I was quite satisfied. The American gentlemen exchanged glances of gratification. Evidently, this exhibition of my friend’s characteristic method of deduction afforded them the highest satisfaction.

  “Which brings us,” remarked Holmes, whose pipe was now drawing bravely, “to the real object of this visit, which I may say at once I am glad to be honored with, having a high appreciation of your country, and finding myself always indebted to one of your truly great writers, whose French detective I am pleased to consider a monumental character in a most difficult field of endeavor. My friend Watson has made some bold essays in that direction,” added Holmes, with a deprecatory shake of the head, “but it is a moot question if he ever has risen to the exalted level of The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

  As Sherlock Holmes ceased speaking, the visitors, who had turned grave, looked at each other questioningly.

  “It is your story,” said the one in spectacles.

  The gentleman by the name of Richardson acknowledged the suggestion.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “I would best begin at the beginning. If I am too long, or obscure in my details, do me the honor to interrupt me.”

  “Let us have the whole story,” said Holmes. “I naturally assume that you solicit my assistance under some conditions of difficulty. In such matters no details, however seemingly obscure, can be regarded as inessential, and I beg you to omit none of them.”

  The American flicked the ash from his cigar and began his story.

  “My friend and I landed at Liverpool ten days or more ago, for a summer’s motoring in your country. We journeyed by easy stages up to London, stopping here only long enough to visit our bankers and to mail two or three letters of introduction that we had brought from home.”

  “To mail—” interrupted Holmes; then he added with a laugh: “Ah, yes, you posted your letters. Pardon me.”

  “Long enough to post our letters,” repeated the American, adopting the humorously proffered correction. “Then we pushed on for our arranged tour of the South of England. At Canterbury a note overtook us from the Lord M——, acknowledging receipt of our letter of introducti
on to that nobleman, and praying us to be his guests at dinner on Wednesday of the present week—yesterday—as later he should be out of the city. It seemed best, on a review of the circumstances, for us to return to London, as his Lordship was one whom we particularly desired to meet. So Wednesday found us again in the city, where we took rooms at the Langham, in Portland Place. It wanting several hours of dressing time, we strolled out in a casual way, bringing up in Wardour Street. I don’t need to tell you that in its abounding curio shops, which have extraordinary fascination for all American travelers, we found the time pass quickly. In one of the little shops, where I was somewhat known to the proprietor by reason of former visits, we were turning over a tray of curious stones, with possible scarf pins in mind, when the dealer came forward with a package that he had taken from his safe, and removing its wrappings said: ‘Perhaps, sir, you would be interested in this?’

  “It was a curious bit of antique workmanship—a gold bar bearing the figure of a boy catching a mouse, the whole richly set about with diamonds and rubies, with a large and costly pearl as a pendant. Even in the dingy light of the shop it sparkled with a sense of value.

  “ ‘It is from the personal collection of the Countess of Warrington,’ said the dealer. ‘It belonged originally to the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, and there is an accompanying paper of authentication, showing its descent through various hands for the past three hundred and forty years. You will see engraved here, in the setting, the arms of Mary.’ ”

  Holmes, a past master in the science of heraldry, his voice exhibiting a degree of interest with which I was quite familiar, here broke in:

  “Or, a lion rampant within a double tressure flory and counter flory, gules. Mary, as Queen of Scotland and daughter of James I, would bear the arms of Scotland. I know the jewel you are describing—indeed, I saw it one time when visiting at the country seat of the Countess, following a daring attempt at burglary there. You know the particulars, Watson. I have heard that since the death of the Countess, the family being straitened financially, some of her jewels have been put into discreet hands for negotiation.”

  “So the dealer explained,” the visitor continued, “and he added, that as the jewels were so well known in England, they could be sold only to go abroad, hence the value of a prospective American customer. I confess that the jewel interested me. I had a newly married niece in mind for whom I had not yet found just the wedding gift that suited me, and this appeared to fit into the situation.

  “ ‘What is the price?’ I asked.

  “ ‘We think one thousand pounds very cheap for it, sir,’ said the dealer, in the easy manner with which your shopkeepers price their wares to Americans.

  “After some further talk, our time being run out, my friend and I returned to the Langham and dressed for dinner. It was while dressing that a knock came at my room door. Opening it, I found a messenger from the curio dealer’s, who, handing me a small package, explained that it was the jewel, which the dealer desired me to retain for more convenient examination. In the embarrassment of the moment I neglected to do the proper thing and return the package to the messenger, who indeed had touched his cap and gone while I yet stood in the door.

  “ ‘Look at this, Fuller,’ I called, and stepped into his room—it is our traveling custom to have rooms connecting. ‘Isn’t this quite like an English shopkeeper, entrusting his property to a comparative stranger? It’s a dangerous thing to have credit with these confiding tradesmen.’

  “My friend’s reply very clearly framed the situation.

  “ ‘It’s a more dangerous thing,’ he said, ‘to be chosen as the safe-deposit of priceless heirlooms. It is scarcely the sort of thing one would seek to be made the custodian of in a strange city.’

  “This was true. The dinner hour was close on our heels, a taxi was in waiting, there was no time to arrange with the office, and I dropped the package into my inner pocket. After all, it seemed a secure enough place. I could feel its gentle pressure against my side, which would be a constant guarantee of safety.

  “We were received by Lord and Lady M——with the open-handed cordiality that they always accord to visitors from our country. The company at table was not so large but that the conversation could be for the most part general, running at the first to topics chiefly American, with that charming exhibition of English naïveté and ignorance—you will pardon me—in affairs across the water. From this point the talk trailed off to themes quite unrelated but always interesting—the Great War, in which his Lordship had played a conspicuous part; the delicious flavor of wall-grown peaches; the health of the King; of her ladyship’s recipe for barleywater; the recent disposal of the library and personal effects of the notorious Lord Earlbank. This by natural steps led to a discussion of family heirlooms, which speedily brought out the jewel, whose insistent pressure I had felt all through the courses, and which was soon passing from hand to hand, accompanied by feminine expressions of delight.

  “The interest in the jewel appeared to get into the air. Even the servants became affected by it. I noticed the under butler, while filling the glass of Captain Pole-Carew, who was holding the trinket up to catch the varying angles of light, in which it flashed amazingly, fasten his eyes upon it. For an instant he breathed heavily and almost leaned upon the captain’s shoulder, forgetting the wine he was in the act of decanting, and which, overflowing the glass, ran down upon the cloth. The jewel continued its circuit of the table and returned to my inner pocket.

  “ ‘A not over-safe repository, if I may venture the opinion,’ said the captain, with a smile. I had occasion later to recall the cynical remark.

  “We returned to our hotel at a late hour, and fatigued with the long day went directly to bed. Our rooms, as I have said, adjoined, and it is a habit in our travels at the day’s end to be back and forth, talking as we disrobe. I allude to this fact as it bears upon the case. I was first in bed, and remember hearing Mr. Fuller put up the window before his light went out. For myself, I dropped off at once and must have slept soundly. I was awakened by hearing my name called loudly. It was Fuller’s voice and I rushed at once into his room, hastily switching on the electric light. Fuller sat on the edge of the bed, in his pajamas—and as this part of the story is his, perhaps he would best tell it.”

  The visitor in the Pickwickian spectacles, thus appealed to, took up the narrative.

  “I also had gone instantly to sleep,” he said, “but by-and-by came broad awake, startled, with no sense of time, but a stifled feeling of alarm. I dimly saw near the side of my bed a figure, which on my suddenly sitting up made a hurried movement. With no clear idea of what I was doing, I made a hasty clutch in the dark and fastened my hand on the breast of a man’s coat. I think my grip was a frenzied one, for as the man snatched himself away, I felt the cloth tear. In a second of time the man had crossed the room and I heard the window rattle as he struck the sash in passing through it. It was then I cried out, and Mr. Richardson came running in.”

  “We made a hasty examination of the room,” the first speaker resumed. “My evening coat lay on the floor, and I remembered that when taking it off I had hung it on the post of Fuller’s bed. It is to prolong an already somewhat lengthy story not to say at once that the jewel was gone. We stared at each other with rueful faces.

  “ ‘The man has gone through that window with it!’ cried Fuller. He pointed with a clenched hand. Then he brought his hand back, with a conscious air, and opened it. ‘This is a souvenir of him,’ he said, and he held out a button—this button.”

  Sherlock Holmes reached quickly for the little article that the speaker held out and carefully examined it through his lens.

  “A dark horn button,” he said, “of German manufacture and recent importation. A few strands of thread pulled out with it. This may be helpful.” Then he turned to his callers. “And what else?”

  “Well—that is about all we can tell you. We did the obvious thing—rang for the night clerk and
watchman and made what examination was possible. The burglar had plainly come along a narrow iron balcony, opening from one of the hotel corridors and skirting the row of windows that gave upon an inner courtyard, escaping by the same channel. The night watchman could advance only a feeble conjecture as to how this might be done successfully. The burglar, he opined, could have made off through the servants’ quarters, or possibly was himself a guest of the house, familiar with its passages and now snugly locked in his room and beyond apprehension.”

  “Did you speak of your loss?” asked Holmes.

  “No; that did not appear to be necessary. We treated the incident at the moment as only an invasion.”

  “Exceedingly clever,” approved Holmes. “You Americans can usually be trusted not to drive in too far.”

  “We breakfasted early, decided that you were our only resource and—in short,” concluded the visitor, with an outward gesture of the hands, “that is the whole story. The loss is considerable and we wish to entrust the matter to the discreet hands of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

  My friend lay back in his chair, intently regarding the button poised between his forefingers.

  “What became of that under butler?” he asked abruptly.

  A little look of surprise slipped into the countenance of the visitor. “Why, now that you call attention to it,” he returned, after a moment’s reflection, “I remember seeing the head butler putting a spoonful of salt upon the red splotch the spilled wine had made, then turning his awkward assistant from the room. It was so quietly done as to attract no special notice. Afterward, over our cigars in the library, I recall his lordship making some joking allusion to Watkins—so he called the man—being something of a connoisseur in jewelry—a collector in a small way. His Lordship laughingly conjectured that the sight of so rare a jewel had unnerved him. Beyond regarding the allusion in the way of a quiet apology for a servitor’s awkwardness, I gave it no particular thought.”