by Otto Penzler
She hesitated, as if it were not her job, as indeed it wasn’t, to pour the tea. I had already serviced my cup, with a generous pour of the milk, and with one lump of sugar, and stir and stir, as we were taught in boarding school. But she followed his instructions, quite as if she were accustomed to this extra duty. She knew how, I must say. She probably played Mother for her Mum of an evening.
“And where did you get that fine name, Mistress Muffin?” Sherlock inquired politely as he ventured a sip of his scalding tea.
“M’Mum named me that,” she replied. “Ever before I was born, she once saved a ha’penny from her wages, and she bought for herself a muffin from the Muffin Man. She says it was the best thing she had ever in her life. And when I came to her, she named me Muffin.” As she was concluding, she had edged her way to the door. “Excuse me, sirs, but she’ll be accusing me of twattling if I don’t get backstairs. I will return for the tray later on.”
With that she was gone like a streak.
When she was well away, Sherlock burst into laughter. “Muffin. Because it was the best thing she ever had.” Then his face became serious. “Poor woman. Waiting—how long?—until she could spare a ha’penny for her special treat. I daresay the child has not ever tasted one.”
“Not on a tweeny’s wages,” I agreed. I poured myself more tea. “You are up early. A new case?”
“It would seem so. A chest of jewels shipped from India on The Prince of Poona is missing. This morning I meet with the ship’s captain and representatives of the viceroy. After I learn more of the details, I shall decide whether or not I wish to undertake this case.”
“Not the Gaekwar of Baroda’s gems!” I had read of their worth this past week in the dallies.
“Indeed, yes. From your service in India, Watson, I daresay you know that the Gaekwar receives each year from his subjects his weight in gold and jewels. Doubtless this is why he emulates a Strasbourg goose at table.” We could exchange a smile, having seen news photographs of the present Gaekwar. Holmes continued, “It seems he has decided to have some of his treasure set in pieces—breastplates, coronets, rings and things, possibly as gifts to his ladies and to favored courtiers.”
“But why London?” The East Indians were noted for their skills as lapidaries.
“Why indeed? Because the best stone-cutters are now in London, it seems. At least the Gaekwar considers this to be so. And he will have no one else cut these gems.”
Beneath his dressing gown, Holmes was dressed save for his coat jacket. Briefly, he returned to his room, only to emerge in his stout boots, his Inverness topcoat, several woolen mufflers wrapped about his neck, and carrying his fur-lined winter gloves. On his head was a fur hat he had bought in Russia. He had lowered the ear flaps.
Because of the weather, I suggested he take a hansom cab to his meeting place. He scoffed at that. “Cold fresh air is what my lungs have needed.” And he was off. I envied him. I was still more or less housebound, nursing the wounds of my services in Afghanistan. I gathered by the fire, settling in an easy chair with my briar and the morning London Times. Sherlock claimed that the Times was read only by intellectuals, of which ilk I make no claim. But for me, the Times was the only paper which gave proper news.
I’d forgotten about Muffin until she thumped the door later and reappeared. In one breath she said, “Miz Hudson says your breakfast will be ready in one hour is that too late and will you be down?”
Holmes and I usually took our breakfast in the downstairs dining room, it being difficult, if not impossible, to keep toast and eggs and bacon properly warm when a tray has to be loaded and carried two flights from the kitchen to the first floor front, where we had our quarters.
“Yes, I will be down.” I told her. “And eight o’clock will suit me properly. And please to inform Mrs. Hudson that Mr. Holmes will not be coming to breakfast as he has already gone out.” This was not unusual when he was on a case. There were times when he actually left before early morning tea!
“Yessir,” said Muffin. She had been stacking the tray with the remains of this early morning’s. She made as if to take it up now, but I halted her.
“I want you to know,” I said, “that Mr. Holmes was not speaking of you when he spoke of greasy Joan. He was just singing one of Mr. Will Shakespeare’s songs.”
Her face lighted. “Oh. I have heard some of them before. When I was little, m’Mum took me to see some of his plays at the Lyceum. There was one where a father’s ghost appears to a prince named Hamlet. Ever so scary. And another one called Twelfth Night where a girl pretends to be a boy and where there are two old gentlemen who sing and dance. Very comical they are.”
I wondered, “Your mother is in theatre?”
“Oh, no, Dr. Watson, sir. It was when she was charing at the Lyceum. It is not far from the docks, just off the Strand. The usher let her bring me in if I would sit quiet on the steps.” She tossed her head. “I can tell you, young as I was, I was much more quiet than the folks in the stalls or the balcony.” She hoisted the tray, it was not so heavy with the teapots empty. “I’d best hurry before Miz Hudson gets crotchety again.” And off she went.
That evening by the fireplace I regaled Holmes with the further revelations of Muffin. He was as impressed as I at her knowing of Shakespeare. “I wonder can she read and write,” he reflected.
Education for females was still scarce to non-existent, although the National Education Act was initiated by Parliament some years before. To a goodly extent, Parliament had acted because of John Stuart Mill’s movement for the improvement of schools for females, to which Miss Florence Nightingale had added her influence. Both Holmes and I were staunch supporters of education for all.
That night Holmes did not talk of his new case, save to say he had accepted it and would be leaving early in the morning for the docks. Possibly the docks were somewhat improved now, in the late 19th century, but they were still unsavoury at best and dangerous below that. Not that Holmes was ever fearful walking even the meanest alleys. His lean frame gave no hint of the muscular power beneath. Holmes was as fine a boxer as any professional, and with exercise and proper diet, he kept himself fit. Nevertheless, he did not rely on brute strength alone. The stick he carried was weighted, as more than one malefactor could testify.
He did remark, “It is to be hoped that the cache is not in the hands of a dredger. It might be somewhat difficult to retrieve.”
For the most part dredgermen were steady, hardworking men of the lowest class, searching among the flotsam for objects of possible value. They also had the duty of recovering drowned bodies from the river. For this latter they were paid “inquest money.” Unfortunately, smugglers larded themselves among the decent dredgers. These were most active when East Indian ships rode at anchor in the river.
Holmes puffed placidly on his after-dinner shag. “Certainly, with diamonds the stakes, time is of the essence.”
“Diamonds!” I could not help but exclaim.
“The cache contains diamonds, in weight near 500 stone.”
“And you are to recover it?”
“I intend to try.” His lips were unsmiling. “I do not intend to fail.”
II
The following morning Muffin did not linger after bringing our early morning tea. I daresay Mrs. Hudson had dressed her down for yesterday’s lapses. Holmes had his tea with his customary before-breakfast pipe, filled, as always, with the day-before dottle, which he dried on his bureau overnight. With it he had his usual two cups with two sugars, but he did not linger over them. He was off to his room in no time to dress, eager to get himself down to the docks.
I lighted my briar and poured myself a third cup. Without warning, without even her customary thump, Muffin burst into the room. In each hand she held a man’s walking boot. “Is not Mr. Holmes here?” she demanded.
“He is here. In his room, dressing,” I replied.
She gasped, “Someone put his boots in the dustbin. I went to empty the kitchen baskets int
o the bin and saw them atop the leavings. The dust cart comes this afternoon, and they would have been taken to the dust yard.” She tossed her head. “If the dustman did not keep them to sell.”
From his doorway, Holmes called out, “What is this you say?”
Muffin spun around, and the boots fell from her fingers. In a moment, she gulped, “Gor, Mr. Holmes. You gave me such a start.” She let out a deep breath. “I took you for a lascar.”
Holmes was now concealed in the guise of one of those fierce East Indian sailors. An angry scar slanted down his entire left cheek. His face was colored as brown as coffee. Even to me, a medical man, and in these close quarters, it appeared to be an actual scar.
“You are familiar with the lascars?” Holmes asked her.
“Oh yes, m’Mum and I live near the docks. My Da was a seafaring man until his ship was lost in the Indian Ocean, all hands aboard. I never knew him; I was just a babe.” She shook off memories and returned to the present. “Lascars are mean. They’d as leave knife you as give you the time of day.”
Holmes now turned to me. “And do I pass inspection with you, Doctor Watson?”
“You’ve passed a stiffer test,” I informed him. “It is more difficult to deceive children than it is their elders.” I then explained to him, “Muffin rescued your boots from the dustbin.”
Having recovered them from the floor, she held them out to him.
“How good of you to look out for me, Mistress Muffin. However, these are boots I have discarded.”
“But Mr. Holmes,” she protested. “The leather is not broken. Look. And the soles! Yet strong—”
“I no longer need them,” he told her. “My Jermyn Street bootmaker delivered my new ones this week. These you may consign again to the dustheap.”
“If you say.” Reluctantly she turned to depart, still rubbing her thumb on the smooth leather. And then she turned back to him again, asking in a small voice, “Would you mind if instead of the dustbin, I kept them myself?”
He was taken aback for a moment. “Not at all. But I fear they would be rather too big for you, Mistress Muffin.”
“Oh, not for me, sir. For m’Mum. Her feet are that cold when she comes home late at night from her charing, like sticks of ice they are. When it’s damp out her shoes are wet clean through to her skin. Her soles are paper cardboard.”
“Won’t they be too big for her?” I put in dubiously. “A woman’s foot is different from a man’s.”
“Not with new-old stockings. Maybe two pair to fill the chinks.”
“New-old stockings?” It was an expression I had not heard.
She told me, “All the Mums make them. They cut off the worn foot and sew together what’s left. And then they cut a top piece off another old stocking and sew that to the top to make them long enough. And you have a new-old stocking.”
A peremptory knock on the door silenced her. It was Mrs. Hudson’s knock. I noted only then that Sherlock had made an unobtrusive exit while Muffin and I were engaged.
I opened the door to our landlady. She bade me goodmorning, then directed her gaze to Muffin. “You are needed below.”
“Yes’m,” the child said meekly and scuttled away.
“I am sorry I kept her this long helping me,” I assumed the blame, hoping it would be of some help to Muffin. I noted that she had managed to conceal the boots under her overall before her quick exit.
“Any time you need help, Dr. Watson,” Mrs. Hudson said graciously, “just inform me. I will spare one of the maids.”
With that, she rustled away. From the fullness of her skirts she must always wear several petticoats and at least one of taffety. I had no doubt that, by now, Muffin would have the boots well secreted below until she departed that evening.
It was after dark before Holmes returned. From his morose visage, his day had not gone well, and I asked no questions. Not until he had scrubbed away all vestiges of the lascar, and was comfortably by the fire, wrapped in his purple dressing gown, did he discuss the venture.
“The docks were teeming with lascars, Watson. Although I speak several of their dialects, none were willing to talk with me. Otherwise the area was near deserted of its denizens. Whether for fear of them or on orders from one Jick Tar, I was unable to ascertain.”
“Jick Tar?” I repeated. The name had no meaning to me.
“Or Jicky Tar. He has a chandler’s shop down there and seems to rule the neighborhood as absolutely as an Oriental potentate.”
I continued to puzzle. “Not Jack Tar? Jick Tar.”
“Possibly once he was a Jack Tar and changed the name when he left the Royal Navy. For good and sufficient reasons, I have no doubt. I did discover him to have been a dredger, or to have used that cover for his operations. I understand he lost a leg in one such and could no longer work in the water, and therefore opened the shop. I made to enter it but was thrust away roughly by one of the bullies at his door.”
“You will not need to return?” I hoped.
“I must if I am to discover the jewels. But I shall vary my guise.”
Our dinner arrived at that point. I had ordered it sent up when I realized he would not return in time to dress for the dining room. I was pleased to see that far from retreating into the doldrums, he had good appetite. After the sweet, he opened a bottle of claret, and I brought out the Havana cigars. The day’s setback obviously only added to the challenge of solving the case.
He was by the fire in our sitting room before I was up, next day. For all of my knowledge he may have sat there through the night. But he was far from disheartened, which I took as an indication he had thought of one or more other plans of procedure.
At promptly six thirty, Muffin arrived with the morning tea tray. She looked worried. After setting it down, she approached Holmes. “I have done you a wrong,” she quavered. “It was the boots. When I was carrying them home last evening, I met up with Jacky and Little Jemmy and they said I had stole them and I said indeed I had not and that Mr. Sherlock Holmes had given me them.”
Holmes was endeavoring not to laugh at her childish agitation. “Not so fast,” he pleaded.
She gulped a breath. “They said they were going to tell Jicky Tar, but when I spoke your name they took off like rabbits. Only—” she took breath again, “they followed me this morning. I fear they mean harm to you. And m’Mum was so grateful for the boots, she even cried tears.”
Holmes asked, “Where are these boys?”
“Across the roadway.” She led us to the broad front windows and pointed down and across. “There, by the second dun house.” In the morning darkness we could just make out the shapes of two small figures huddled together on the cold kerb.
“They are Jicky Tar’s boys?” Holmes inquired.
“Oh no, they are Mud Larks.” This was the name given to those miserable children who scavenged the muddy verges on the banks of the river for bottles or lumps of coal or whatever lost articles they might sell for a few pence. In spite of modern reforms, there were still too many street children in London, those whose parents, unable to care for them, had turned them out to beg or otherwise do for themselves. “But Jicky Tar buys some of their findings,” she said. “And they fear his displeasure.”
“I will see them,” Holmes stated. “Go tell Mrs. Hudson to send up the fireboy to do an errand for me.”
The fireboy turned out to be a dour old man whom I had never seen before, as he came to build our fire before I was awake. He stumped up the stairs and Holmes met him at our door. “There are two boys across the road. I want you to bring them along to me. I would speak with them.”
With neither aye nor nay, the man stumped off again, down the stairs.
Holmes left the door ajar and came to the table. “Today greasy Joan has indeed keeled the pot.”
“I’ll ring for more hot water,” I said.
“This will do. There isn’t time to be particular.” Even as he spoke we could hear voices below, and shortly thereafter the door op
ened wider and an urchin, bundled in all manner of mufflers and mittens, peered in. He was about the size of Muffin, but better fed, with a round nose and round blue eyes in a round face. His cheeks were red from the cold.
Holmes said, “Come in, boy. You are—”
“Jacky, sir.” His voice was hoarse with cold.
“And where is Jemmy?”
“M’brother’s over there,” he gestured. “Minding the box.”
Holmes contained his excitement. “The box—”
“It’s too heavy to carry far.”
“What is in the box?” Holmes queried.
“Rocks,” the boy said. “Nuffin but rocks.”
“Then why did you bring it here?”
The boy looked about the room suspiciously, particularly at me.
“Why?” Holmes repeated.
“I want you should see it. I want you to see it’s nuffin but rocks. I don’t want Jicky Tar to be saying I stole from it.”
“Fetch it,” Holmes directed. “Can you carry it up the staircase?”
“Me and Little Jemmy together can. Like we carried it all the way to Baker Street.”
Holmes waited at the head of the stairs, just in case Mrs. Hudson should not allow Jacky to return with Jemmy. Not that she was unused to the queer company which Holmes often kept. I moved to the doorway and watched as the two boys appeared, hoisting a wooden box step by step until Holmes took it from them up top. Little Jemmy scarcely reached to Jacky’s shoulder. He could not have been more than seven or eight years. Like Jacky, he was bundled, but his thin face seemed parched white from the bitter weather. All of us entered the sitting room and Holmes directed the boys to the hearth by the fire. He set the box before them on the floor. “Will you open it?” he asked.
The box or chest seemed to be made of fine heavy teak, although much abused from having been immersed in river water. It was perhaps half the size of a child’s traveling trunk. Jacky lifted the latch and raised the lid.
It contained rocks. Nothing but dirty rocks. Some were small as a cherry but most were large as plums.
