by Otto Penzler
The Mr. Sherlock Holmes I had heard mentioned turned out to be the leading character in the book. A private investigator of crime, who claimed to have methods of his own, he held my interest. Even when Raffles went in to bat, I read on with increasing absorption, until a sudden collective groan from the spectators, mostly in Navy white, made me look up.
Out at the wicket, on the green expanse of flawless turf, Raffles had thrown down his bat and was pulling off his right-hand batting-glove. Blood dripped from his fingers.
“Bad luck, Raffles,” I heard Braithwaite call, as Raffles wrapped his handkerchief round his hand. “Will it put you out of the match?”
“I’m afraid so, Braithwaite,” Raffles said. He came to the pavilion. “Kicking ball, Bunny,” he told me. “Split my forefinger open. It’ll need a stitch or two, by the look of it. I’ll get changed and join you.”
I had an uneasy suspicion about the mishap and, when he rejoined me, I accused him of contriving the damage.
“Not entirely, Bunny,” he said, as we left the ground. “I intended to get out of the match, but that ball came at me very fast and I mistimed it more than I’d planned. No matter, I’m out of the game. It’s only a friendly one, and you and I have fish to fry at Cowes Regatta—goldfish!”
He hailed a passing hansom and, as the horse jingled to a standstill, asked the cabbie, “D’you know the address of a Dr. Doyle?”
“Yes, sir, Number One, Bush Villas, Elm Grove, Southsea.”
“No, Raffles,” I said. “Not that doctor!”
“Why not?” said Raffles, surprised.
“I can’t say exactly. This story of his—I just feel, somehow—”
“Nonsense! Nothing wrong with the story. It’s an interesting little tale. Besides, Braithwaite said this Dr. Doyle doesn’t get too many patients, so he’ll probably be glad of a fee. Come—hop in, Bunny!”
Bush Villas, in residential tree-shaded Elm Grove, proved to be four attached houses, tall and dignified, with lace-curtained windows and bathbricked front steps. Raffles gave the bellpull of Number One a tug with his undamaged hand. The polished brass nameplate on the door had a newish look, as though the doctor had not been long in practice; and in fact, when he himself opened the door to us, he looked to be—though tall and dignified, with a bushy brown moustache—no more than thirty, half-a-dozen or so years Raffles’s senior.
Powerfully built, frockcoated, a silver watch-chain looped across his white waistcoat, the doctor seemed to take us in at a single glance of his keen, direct blue eyes.
“Ah,” he said, “one of the Gentlemen cricketers had a knock on the hand, eh? Come in.”
“That was a quick diagnosis,” said Raffles, as we entered.
“Navy versus Gentlemen is the Match of the Week,” said Dr. Doyle, leading us into a small surgery. “You’re not in uniform, so you’re not Navy. You’re wearing a Zingari Club cravat, so you are a cricketer.”
“Hence,” said Raffles, with a laugh, “one of the Gents? I see. Doctor, my name’s Raffles. This is my friend Manders.”
“Well, let’s have a look at that hand, Mr. Raffles.”
“A study in scarlet,” said Raffles, unwinding the gory handkerchief.
“From that remark,” said Dr. Doyle, “I deduce you’re one of the dozens who’ve read my little shocker. H’m! Who did this to your finger—the Navy’s fast bowler? That fellow always leaves a trail of walking wounded. Incidentally”—he went to work on Raffles’s finger—“didn’t I see you two on the tug Jezebel yesterday?”
“We were there,” said Raffles. “What would your Mr. Sherlock Holmes make of this theft from H.M.S. Victory?”
“He’d be interested, I fancy, in the minute-guns.”
“The guns?” said Raffles.
“Everything indicates that the crime was the carefully planned, co-ordinated work of a number of men. They can have arranged to time their respective actions by noting the cannon reports of the royal salute.”
“What a novel use of the royal salute!” Raffles exclaimed.
“The crime presents several features which would have interested Holmes.” The doctor bandaged Raffles’s finger, then slid a kid-leather black finger-stall over it. “There you are, Mr. Raffles.”
“Thank you, Dr. Doyle. What fee do I owe you?”
“You won’t be able to play,” said the doctor, “but I take it you’ll be at the cricket ground? Very well, we’ll see about a fee when I take the stitches out of that finger. Drop in here towards the end of the week.”
The door of No. 1 Bush Villas, with the name Dr. A. Conan Doyle on its polished brassplate, closed on us.
—
Late that afternoon found us, not at the cricket ground, but over in the nearby Isle-of-Wight, observing the millionaires’ steam-yachts anchored off Cowes—among them, Commodore Vanderbilt’s; the Duke of Westminster’s, with Mr. Leonard Jerome and Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill in his party; the S/Y Achilleion, property of the Greek merchant-shipping magnate, Mr. Aristotle Andiakis; and the luxurious yacht flying the candy-striped burgee of the wealthy ocean-racer and ichthyologist, Prince Albert of Monaco.
“Fine, Bunny,” said Raffles, as the puffing-billy train rattled us back through the buttercup meadows to Ryde, to board the paddle-steamer ferry across to Clarence Pier, Southsea. “Tomorrow, as captain of the Gentleman team, I must put in an appearance at the cricket match for a few hours. While I’m there, you can pick up a few things we shall need, and in the evening we’ll return, suitably attired, to Cowes, then make our move as opportunity offers. There’s a small fortune in sparklers to be picked up in the ladies’ cabins of any one of those yachts.”
Next morning, while Raffles was at the cricket ground, I hunted Old Portsmouth for a sailors’ second-hand slopshop, and found one in Landport Terrace, childhood home of Charles Dickens when his Mr. Micawberish father had been a civilian clerk employed by the Navy. I bought a couple of blue jerseys and well-worn peaked caps of the longshoreman type.
Just as I was about to leave the shop, I saw Dr. Doyle and Mr. Watson. They were on the other side of the street, looking in at the window of a foreign-looking little restaurant—The Corfu Restaurant, according to the name on the window—where lobsters waved languid antennae among kegs of oysters and pickled vine-leaves on a bed of seaweed. The two men went in.
“You can get good shellfish across the street,” said the slopshop man, seeing the direction of my gaze. “Belongs to a Mrs. Miranda Hayter, widder of a Royal Navy gunner-rating.”
“It’s far too early for lunch,” I said, which was in fact so true that, as I slunk out of the slopshop with my parcel, I wondered what Dr. Doyle and Mr. Watson were doing in the restaurant across the way.
Suddenly I remembered something. I hailed a cab, went to The Lord Nelson Inn, locked the parcel into the valise in my room there, then continued to the cricket ground. I found Raffles watching the cricket from a deckchair on the pavilion terrace. I told him I had just seen Dr. Doyle and Mr. Watson.
“The name of the woman who owns the restaurant they went into is Hayter,” I said. “Raffles, the name of the sailor who fell from Victory’s yardarm is Able-Seaman John S. Hayter!”
“Splendid, Bunny!” said Raffles. “Dr. Doyle’s obviously stumbled on to something to do with the Victory crime. He’s following it up. The game’s afoot for him. And the major part of the Hampshire Constabulary’s fully preoccupied with the same crime. Nothing could suit us better! As opportunists, you and I’ve never had such a chance as this. Over in the Isle-of-Wight to-night, we’ll be on an easy wicket, and you’ll see—something will turn up for us.”
“That,” I said, thinking uneasily of the Dickens house in Landport Terrace, “is what Mr. Micawber used to say.”
I still felt uneasy when, dressed as jerseyed longshoremen, we stepped off the little puffing-billy island train at Cowes Station that evening. The small town, all yacht-building yards, sail lofts, rope-walks, and ship’s chandler stores, was en fête
for the Regatta.
We sauntered around the harbour. The beautiful racing-yachts, their masts a forest of bare poles, lay moored against the harbour-wall. The millionaires’ steam-yachts, lying out at anchor, were ablaze with lights. In evening dress, jewelled women and elegant men were dining under the deck-awnings. Music drifted to us from the instruments of the millionaires’ private trios and quintets. Much farther out, in the Channel, twinkled the lights of warships, British and visiting foreign ironclads lying at anchor.
Throngs of sailors, many of them on liberty from the foreign warships, were roistering in and out of the waterfront taverns.
“We haven’t a chance, Raffles,” I said. “There are too many people on those millionaires’ steam-yachts.”
He put a hand on my arm. “Bunny, there’s a boat putting ashore from the Achilleion, and there’s a carriage pulling up on the wharf along there and a crowd of sailors gathering round it. Let’s see what’s going on.”
We walked along the cobbled wharf, added ourselves to the throng around the carriage, and saw at once why it had attracted interest. The tophatted driver and groom on the box wore the royal livery; on the doors of the carriage were the initials V.R. surmounted by a crown.
“The Queen sending a carriage to take somebody to Osborne House?” Raffles murmured. “Bunny, it’s extremely unusual for Her Majesty to receive a visitor at her summer residence.”
Alongside the seaweedy, water-lapped steps of the harbour wall, the S/Y Achilleion’s boat drew in. Oars were shipped and the boat held steady for a tall man of striking appearance to step out. His face leather-dark, aquiline, with a square-cut iron-grey beard and a monocle, he wore full evening-dress, the ribbon of some foreign Order of Chivalry slanting across his shirtfront, on his scarlet-lined cape a glittering jewelled star.
He was the Greek merchant-shipping millionaire, Mr. Aristotle Andiakis.
With the demeanour of a king, he came up the steps and, the groom holding the door open for him, mounted into the carriage. The groom climbed back up to the box, to sit stiffly there with folded arms, as the driver touched up the two magnificent black horses with his whip and the royal carriage clattered off along the wharf.
The boat’s crew from S/Y Achilleion tied up their boat and, like the sailors who had gathered around, repaired to the nearest tavern.
“Bunny,” Raffles said, “I told you something would turn up. Look at Achilleion out there. Very few lights on board. Mr. Andiakis evidently has no party of guests. The owner and half the crew are now ashore. The yacht will only be keeping an anchor watch. Now’s our chance! Let’s borrow a dinghy. There are dozens moored around the harbour-wall.”
From a lampless section of the harbour we commandeered a dinghy. I took the oars and, with Raffles instructing me so as to avoid the lights reflected on the water from the other millionaires’ steam-yachts, pulled out towards S/Y Achilleion. From the Greek yacht, as we neared it, I heard laughter—and a sudden sharp report.
“Champagne-cork,” Raffles whispered to me. “There are a couple of men on the yacht’s bridge. They’re excited about something—seem to be drinking toasts. Pull on your right oar a bit. Now, both together—gently—to bring us under the yacht’s counter.”
As the jut of the counter loomed shadowy over us, Raffles was gone, rocking the dinghy as he leaped up, gripped the yacht’s scupper-edge, and pulled himself soundlessly on board. Letting my oars trail in the rowlocks, I checked the dinghy against the yacht’s stern. And here, in the deep shadow cast by the S/Y Achilleion’s counter, the sultry thumping of my heart measured out my vigil.
It seemed interminable. Reflected ribbons of light trembled on the harbour water. Music, laughter, voices reached me faintly from the other millionaires’ steam-yachts. Sweat stung my eyes, salted my lips. My throat grew parched. What in God’s name was Raffles doing? I strained my ears. No sound from Achilleion. I cursed Raffles. He had been gone too long. I cursed him again. I wished I never had met him. I consigned him to nethermost hell.
And there, suddenly, he was—not in hell, but a dark-jerseyed figure in a peaked cap, dangling by his hands in front of my eyes. I brought the dinghy under him. He dropped into it almost without sound.
“Shove off, Bunny,” he whispered. “The quicker we’re off this island, the better!”
I asked no questions. All seemed quiet on S/Y Achilleion, but I knew from Raffles’s tone that something had gone wrong.
We tied up the dinghy where we had found it. In the distance, a train whistled officiously.
“Puffing Billy coming in from Ryde,” said Raffles. “It’ll start back in a few minutes, and we’ll be on it!”
We were on the wooden platform of the station as the diminutive train approached, steaming and clattering, and I ventured to ask, “What happened?”
“Most of the cabins seemed unused, Bunny. But I found Mr. Andiakis’s day cabin—furnished as a study, luxurious. There was a small safe in it—combination-lock—fairly simple. I got it open—” He broke off, gripped my arm, jerked me into the tiny Waiting Room. “Look there!”
The train had pulled up. Getting off it were Dr. Doyle, pipe in mouth, and Mr. Watson. They strode with an intent, purposeful air out of the station.
“What on earth brings them to Cowes?” I whispered.
“It can only be one thing, Bunny—the contents of Mr. Aristotle Andiakis’s safe. That Southsea doctor’s got on the trail somehow.”
“The trail of what?”
“Horatio Nelson’s blood-stained uniform, Bunny—in the safe on the S/Y Achilleion.”
—
I felt stunned as we boarded the train. We had a compartment to ourselves. Raffles lighted a Sullivan as the train clattered along towards Ryde and the ferry-steamers. Never had I seen him so tense.
“What did you do?” I said.
“I shut the safe,” said Raffles, “re-set the combination, wiped off everything I’d touched, and got off that yacht. I don’t know what’s going on, Bunny, but you and I want nothing to do with the Victory crime. As captain of the visiting cricket team, I must be at the ground when the match ends, then we’ll get out of Portsmouth—and follow the Victory crime developments in the newspapers.”
Next morning, in the newspapers, there was not one word about the Victory crime. The sudden, total silence on the subject seemed unnatural and sinister.
The cricket match ended just after five o’clock that afternoon, the Navy winning by six wickets. Raffles excused us from the usual post-match carouse. We went straight to The Lord Nelson Inn and packed our valises.
I carried mine into Raffles’s room, added it to his valise and cricket-bag on the fourposter bed where many a bygone seacaptain had slept. His grey suit immaculate, a pearl in his cravat, Raffles was standing in the window-bay with its wide-open leaded-paned casements. He was smoking a cigarette and gazing out over Portsmouth Harbour.
“Look at the old Victory, Bunny,” he said, as I joined him at the window, “lying peacefully at anchor out there—and keeping her secret.”
Horse’s hooves clacked on cobbles, harness jingled, wheels ground. A hansom pulled up below. Two frockcoated, silk-hatted men stepped out—Dr. Conan Doyle and Mr. James Watson. They entered the Inn. We looked at each other.
“Can’t be anything to do with us,” Raffles said.
But we waited tensely. A firm knock sounded on the door. I had a sense of doom. Raffles called, “Come in,” and the door opened. His silk hat, which he did not remove, almost touching the beams of the low ceiling, the Elm Grove doctor came in, followed by Mr. Watson.
“Just leaving?” Dr. Doyle said, noting instantly our luggage on the bed. “Mr. Raffles, there’s a bill outstanding.”
“Doctor,” said Raffles, and I sensed and shared his relief as he glanced at his fingerstalled hand, “I’d clean forgotten this. How much do I owe you?”
“That depends. Watson, make sure that door is quite closed.” The big doctor, his blue, direct eyes fixed on Raffles,
took pipe and pouch from his pocket. “Mr. Raffles, let’s discuss the Victory crime. First, the enigma of the Admiral’s hat. Why was it not taken? Reflection suggested to me that the large, stiff hat was not amenable, like the blood-stained garments, to being tightly rolled-up for concealment in some receptacle—a receptacle that would have to be very quickly spirited off of Victory, since a minute search of the ship would have been in progress even before the distinguished guests left her. Perforce, those guests had to be regarded as above suspicion. They were neither questioned nor searched. Yet, even had one of them been guilty, in what receptacle could the uniform have been concealed?”
“One of the distinguished ladies’ reticules?” Raffles suggested.
“Not big enough. However, Mr. Raffles, recall the scene of the fallen sailor’s rescue. When we saw him pulled into the whaleboat, a number of objects bobbed around on the water—objects flung from Victory and from several sightseeing craft, including the tug Jezebel. I refer to lifebelts.”
The doctor lighted his pipe, exhaling smoke under his bushy moustache, his steady eyes always on Raffles.
“I came to the conclusion that Nelson’s bloodstained uniform left his old flagship inside one of her own lifebelts—prepared beforehand by cutting out part of the cork, thus hollowing the lifebelt, then plugging the orifice with part of the cut-out cork and roughly stitching back the canvas cover. The prepared lifebelt was then concealed in Victory’s wardroom. All the man who chloroformed the Marine sentry had then to do was slash the stitches of the canvas, pull out the cork plug, thrust the tightly-rolled uniform into the orifice, and replace the cork plug. Meantime, every eye on board Victory—except his own—was watching the Queen pass. But for that lifebelt to be thrown overboard by the man, almost certainly a member of Victory’s crew, somebody had to fall into the water.”
“Able-Seaman John S. Hayter,” said Dr. Doyle’s companion.
“Just so, Watson. The intrepid foretopman and his crewmate confederate coordinated their respective actions to the minute-guns of the royal salute, while other confederates, in one of the sightseeing small craft, watched for their fellow-conspirator, the chloroformer, to throw the relevant lifebelt, so that they could retrieve and make off with it in the confusion of the rescue.”
