Sherlock Holmes & The Master Engraver (Sherlock Holmes Revival)

by Husband, Ross

  “At the very least, I do not doubt that they could instantly, and with exceeding ease, be sold on for a very sizeable sum of money to any number of eager bidders from the shadowy under-world of criminals, both at home and conceivably, even abroad, with no requirement whatsoever even to become involved in the actual process of the printing itself!”

  Petch stared, horror-struck. “But my wife, the watchmen, myself and my partners? Sir, I do believe you overreach your mark! I will not hear of any complicity on their part or mine! Why, it was I who came to seek your assistance!”

  “That is explicitly my point, Mr Petch, and in the tediously banal case of the Billingsgate poisonings, it was the cherubic-faced architect of the murders himself who sought my help after he had administered arsenic to his wife when she had become profoundly suspicious of his clandestine, murderous activities – he sought to divert police attention away from himself by very publicly enlisting the services of Sherlock Holmes. It was a naive attempt to create a distraction, a most imprudent and transparent subterfuge. It availed him naught; I was not deceived, and he was duly hanged for his pains, regardless.

  “And desperate criminals have resorted to more deceitful courses than merely retaining a consulting detective or the police in their attempts to construct for themselves an alibi.

  “I recall the case of one Feodor Herzog – the first violin of the Württemberg Symphony Orchestra who brutally garrotted two fellow musicians with an E string, having baselessly supposed his unfortunate and innocent victims – a cellist and the timpanist – to be engaged in improper relationships with his wife, then a prima-ballerina on tour with the Bolshoi; upon sensing police enquiries pointing alarmingly in his own direction, one night he applied a like ligature deliberately and viciously to his own gullet resulting in a most spectacular, but not life threatening, wound; this in order to divert suspicion to some other quarter. His allegation that he had unaccountably been attacked by the same unknown strangler who had murdered his wife’s supposed lovers was not believed.

  “In point of fact, he was cuckolded by the orchestra conductor, a notorious Russian lothario who walks free to this day, while Herzog languishes in jail.

  “In short, Mr Petch, it is not without precedent for conniving individuals to report their own crimes, destroy their own property, or even harm themselves in an attempt to appear as injured or blameless parties. Do you now perhaps begin to take my meaning?”

  Throughout this somewhat ruthless monologue, Henry Petch sat silent, eyes downcast; he appeared to me to be staring again at his curiously evolved, sinewy right hand. Holmes continued: “I tell you these things Mr Petch simply that you may have an understanding of my commission at this early stage; I must commence with a canvas large enough to accommodate all the subjects, and use a broad brush. The fine detail, I anticipate, will be concluded in due course.

  “As to the players in this dark tableau, there are many reasons why one of them might have turned for the bad – greed, envy, pressing debt. Too, it is conceivable that a man may be complicit in a crime perhaps, for example, through imprudent talk, or falling victim to a blackmailer.

  “Now let us consider the circumstances Mr Petch. The safe was neither removed nor was the lock picked; explosives such as Nobel’s Blasting Powder were not employed, yet still the plates are missing. You assert that to copy the keys is a virtual impossibility, and that there are only four sets on the face of this earth, three held by you and your partners and a further by the watchmen.

  “Yet it remains an incontestable fact that the safe has been violated. How else, except with a functioning key? And who else could have knowledge of the plates’ existence or location? If I eliminate all those hypotheses which are impossible, then that which remains, however unbelievable, must be the truth. The believable truth is that a key was used in this theft.

  “Where, pray, would you start your search?” Petch remained silent. “But the blameless may rest easy – it is only the guilty that need fear my attentions.

  “Now as you stated, Mr Petch, delay is a luxury we can ill afford; therefore it is essential that I visit your house and speak with Mrs Petch. To our certain knowledge, she is the only one who observed the two workmen is she not?”

  “Correct Mr Holmes, she and of course, Dulcie, the maid; she will visit our house at four o’clock tomorrow, to assist my wife for the evening; then she will not return to her regular duties until Boxing Day morning, but you will be welcome to interview her if it will assist.”

  “I shall, and it will; by-the-by, do you by chance recall where in France the titled lady who furnished the maid’s reference resides?” Petch pursed his lips and furrowed his brow in thought. “Yes, I have it now; a small village called Obânes St-Amarin. I recall from her letter that it is in the south-west of the country, I believe not very distant from the coastal town of La Rochelle.” Holmes jotted a further note. “Now in conclusion, Mr Petch, be so good as to describe candidly your partners, in particular their general character, any foibles or eccentricities, their private interests and fallibilities. Please be entirely honest and direct in all respects.”

  “Very well Mr Holmes. We three are much of an age and many think, of an appearance – indeed, on occasion we have been taken for brothers -but otherwise we are quite disparate in character. “Mr Perkins I would characterise as a model of sobriety, perhaps a little gloomy, discreet, utterly trustworthy and quite indispensable in the business. He controls all expenditure and contracts for the partnership – we may always rely upon him to select the keenest quotations.

  “A confirmed bachelor, he lives quietly in Harrow and is, I understand, deeply involved in fund-raising with his local Parish. On occasion he appears to struggle with something of a moral conflict between earning a very satisfactory income from the business of manufacturing money for those who already have ample, while working assiduously to raise desperately-needed funds for those who have none.

  “Mr Bacon is cut from an altogether different bolt of cloth; his work is by-and-large diligent and satisfactory unless he is tardy in his time-keeping – an occasional failing he regrettably exhibits, particularly after playing late at cards and a little too much, ah, refreshment at The Bagatelle Club, something of which he is perhaps rather too fond.

  “He is by nature rather more flamboyant and garrulous than I or Mr Perkins, and thus the task of gaining fresh business, new clients and commissions falls within his remit. He, too, eschews the institution of matrimony, but I believe he enjoys the company of several of London’s, ah, livelier female socialites.

  “As to myself, I imagine you already know all there is worth knowing.” Holmes concluded his scribbling and looked up intently at our client. “I believe I do, Mr Petch. Now there is little more that need concern you.

  “I shall visit your business premises, and I shall also explore Clerkenwell. Perhaps it would be as well, so as to forestall idle gossip and rumour, if I were to assume another guise for these enquiries – I suggest a surveyor examining your premises with a view to further refurbishments and security enhancements?

  “In that way I shall be able to access all areas without exciting undue speculation – I suspect that gossip of Sherlock Holmes investigating the premises of Perkins, Bacon & Petch would serve only to fuel unnecessary speculation, which would be exceedingly unhelpful, both to my enquiries and undoubtedly to your relationship with The Bank of England.”

  “An excellent idea Mr Holmes; I shall send word ahead and make it so. Under what identity shall you attend?” Holmes pondered briefly. “A solid name, an English name, one unlikely to excite comment.” He glanced across at me with a flicker of amusement.“Would you object, Doctor, if I were to borrow your persona and become Mr John Watson, Surveyor, for the day?” I laughed. “Not in the least Holmes. Then I shall be your assistant, Mr…” my eye happened upon a brewer’s dray passing in the street below “…Whitbread?” And so it was that the newly-incarnated John Watson, Surveyor, along with his assistant, Mr W
hitbread, prepared to survey the Fleet Street engraving and printing works of Perkins, Baker & Petch, and then to seek out Mr Nathan Madgwick. Holmes returned his attention to our client. “Mr Petch, I will cautiously add that there is yet reason to be optimistic. Still, we must plan for the worst while hoping for the best. In passing, I would strongly urge you to double, at least, the number of occasions when the watchmen tour the premises, and replace all your locks as soon as practicable. I have a great deal to accomplish, and so I bid you goodnight; I shall contact you when I have news.” The audience was at an end; Holmes clearly had learned all that he needed to commence his hunt. Mr Petch departed, seemingly with rather greater fortitude than when we first had encountered him at lunch. As the door closed Holmes sprang from his chair, rubbing his hands in glee. Brandishing Petch’s calling card he cried: “What a splendid conundrum, Watson, and what a perfectly splendid Christmas gift has been delivered to us! I would rather sink my teeth into this tough little nut than the tenderest Christmas goose in all London! I sense it is grown from greed, coated in cupidity and liberally dipped in deceit. Noel, Noel and thrice Noel!

  “But to the business at hand Watson; no matter in how high a regard I hold both your company and your invaluable assistance in these matters, I doubt much that your new domestic estate would be improved if you did not immediately telegraph Mrs Watson and inform her that you may, perhaps, be occupied here for some days longer.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A Night in Bedlam

  Sleep came hard to me that night, and when finally Morpheus grudgingly admitted me to his salon of somnolence, he served me not with that sweet nocturnal interlude of rest and blessed oblivion, but instead, with a night-long pageant of nightmarish and bizarre tableaux.

  No doubt the day’s surfeit of overly-rich food, sweetmeats, strong cheese and wine took its due toll, and so it was that my first night back at 221B was broken by the most troubling of images, occasioned – I realised the next morning – unquestionably by the disturbing revelations of the elderly master engraver.

  Mr Freud, I am led to believe, proposes the notion that dreams may be the brain’s subconscious attempt to bring order and understanding to the tangled chaos of matters which the conscious, analytical mind is unable to comprehend.

  Eventually, a strange form of sleep overtook me...

  ...I stood in night so black I might have been a blind man. The air was suffocatingly humid, tropical and heady with the thick, cloying scent of exotic flowers. Steadily the temperature was rising – the ground beneath my feet was becoming hellishly hot at a fearful rate!

  Cautiously I felt down through the gloom to investigate the cause – and cried out aloud in mingled pain and shock; nursing my seared fingers, I realised I was standing over a serpentine maze of giant gurgling metal pipes as fiercely hot as Dante’s inferno! To my horror I felt my scorched right hand blistering and tightening into a malformed sinewy claw, although, curiously, I no longer felt pain.

  Warily I stepped forward, feeling before my face with my good left hand. The footing beneath me became blessedly cooler.

  Something large fluttered past me so close I felt the touch of its wings; suddenly I was engulfed in a swarm of huge soft, furry insects – giant moths or butterflies I calmly decided; not so alarming – indeed, perfectly reasonable; after all I was apparently in some tropical jungle...

  Just when the swarm seemed never-ending, abruptly it passed by. I felt my way on through the humid heat, along a seemingly endless path bordered with what felt refreshingly like cool damp foliage; thousands of leaves seethed around me as if trying to identify this alien intruder in their private, exotic and rarefied domain. My investigation was halted abruptly when I encountered a smooth hard wall; I explored it cautiously and found it, perhaps, to be cold glass – so I was not after all in a jungle, but mayhap in the palm house at Kew or some-such? Much reassured I resolved to continue my journeying.

  Abruptly and shockingly, and with an enormous report, the glass wall shattered inward, cascading razor sharp daggers all around me but I, strangely, remained quite unscathed.

  Peering through the resultant jagged hole I was confronted by a cheery, ruddy-cheeked workman; grey dawn light and a bitter cold wind assaulted me, pungent with the distinctive odours of his trade – paint, burnt paraffin, putty and linseed oil.

  All around me the tender seductive flowers shrivelled, drooped and died in face of the icy blast. The workman grinned demonically:

  “If you’ll just step aside through here Sir – mind the glass – I’ll get on and fix this lot up in short order.”

  That seemed to me to be an eminently sensible proposal and so I unquestioningly complied. Passing by his tall moustachioed companion, whose features I was not quite able to discern in the gloom, I observed that outside, dawn was breaking and it had started to snow exceptionally heavily – gigantic flakes drifted down all around me. I reached out and caught one, but no sooner had I seized it than it turned to paper – a ten-pound banknote. Wonderingly I caught several more and all at my touch transformed into real money, so I gleefully pocketed as many as I could. This seemed to me quite splendid sport.

  I had just determined to track this unusual torrent of incessant money to its source, when a smartly dressed lady, evidently much distressed, accosted me. I noted that I now found myself to be outside the doorway of a large fashionable villa on a smart suburban street.

  “Doctor Watson, please will you help my husband? He is suddenly overtaken by the most dreadful turn! I fear he may not last out the hour!” Not in the least bit mystified by this perfect stranger knowing me by name, I rushed instinctively to oblige.

  A pretty young woman in smart maid’s attire brought a glass of water for the gentleman who, to my great relief, speedily recovered. I waved a cheery farewell to the grateful couple as they continued upon their journey.

  When I turned to thank the maid, unaccountably she had vanished. Thinking little or nothing of this, I – quite naturally – continued to follow the wondrous, never-ending, blizzard of money; whenever the fancy took me, I reached out and further augmented my fast-growing wealth – indeed, my pockets were soon stuffed to overflowing, and still the great magical ice-crystals fell thick and fast around me. If only Holmes could be with me upon this grand adventure, we could both garner our fortunes with little more application than is required to pick cherries from the tree! I trudged steadily on, and soon noted that I was approaching close to Baker Street.

  Turning a corner, I encountered some young rascals engaged in the age-old game of snowballs; one mischievous lad launched his projectile at me.

  Deftly I caught the ball of ice crystals in my bare hands, whereupon it instantly metamorphosed into a great cloud of crisp ten-pound notes that fluttered to the ground around me.

  Chuckling, I walked on, followed by the gleeful cries of children and adults alike as they harvested the magical currency that seemed to materialise only when I touched the snow.

  Stepping around a group of uncouth labourers engaged in stirring a vast cauldron of boiling pitch, I was halted in my tracks by a news-vendor’s bill:

  ‘OFFICIAL–

  BANK OF ENGLAND

  GOES BROKE!’

  Dumbfounded at such a startling event, I handed the customary few coppers to the vendor, that I might learn more of this astonishing news.

  “When was you born Sir? Everyone knows The London Times is a tenner a copy! ’As bin for ages!”

  Wonderingly I handed over a £10 note, a mere fraction of my crisp new-found affluence, to the news-vendor which he added to a huge and fast-growing mountain of notes piled high behind his stand.

  As I scanned the front page, a tall, skeletal, well-dressed silver-haired gentleman wearing monstrously thick gold-rimmed eyeglasses, whom I somehow felt I had met previously, also purchased a newspaper. “Sorry Sir; it’s twenty pounds a copy now. Best buy one nippy ‘cos it’ll be thirty in a few minutes.” The vendor pointed at me; �
�Mebbe that gent there will let you have a quick gander at his for a fiver.”

  I decided to depart this scene of lunacy and headed for the familiar, comforting sanctuary of my old lodgings at 221B, Baker Street.

  The door opened unbidden at my approach. Mrs Hudson gravely offered me several huge bundles of crisp new ten-pound banknotes on a silver tray and said: “Mr Holmes gave me this Doctor but I’ve got so much already, perhaps you would like some?”

  “That is most considerate of you Mrs Hudson but I, like you, have more than sufficient of my own.” I reached out and captured a handful of snowflakes. “And here is ample money to cover Mr Holmes’ rent for some years ahead” and I mounted the stairs. As I approached the door to the parlour, I became aware of a metrical hammering noise issuing from within, the most astonishingly raucous musical performance, and a Babel of voices in animated discussion.

  Tentatively I opened the parlour door and peered within; I was greeted by a most curious sight. Holmes was seated before the fire, furiously playing his violin, a manic grin on his face, fingers mere blurs as they flew over the strings. He was accompanied by a cellist and a timpanist, who beat his kettle-drums fit to bring down the walls of Jericho, all conducted at an insane tempo by a rakish-looking conductor of eastern European aspect with extravagantly pomaded moustache and sleekly oiled hair.

  I noted with detached professional interest that all but Holmes, of this odd musical troupe appeared to have fresh ligature wounds on their necks, although this did not appear to inhibit their extraordinarily spirited performance. A prima-ballerina pirouetted at possessed speed to the frenzied rendering – a favourite of mine by Boccherini, but rather comically played in at least four-four time.