Sherlock Holmes & The Master Engraver (Sherlock Holmes Revival)

by Husband, Ross

  Returning to the hearth, I perceived a drawer to Holmes’ desk was, rather unusually, left open; it was the one where customarily he kept his revolver; the drawer was empty. There was a further notable absence that morning; the walking stick that Holmes had elected to take with him was the silver-handled killer, the elegant medlar-wood cane which artfully concealed a slim and lethal razor-edged Solingen steel sword, a weapon of which he was a master, and to whose skill at least two men who foolishly had challenged him could testify.

  I certainly did not have need of Holmes’ singular skills of observation and deduction to divine what dark manner of business he had embarked on alone this morning; clearly it was likely to be warm and perilous work.

  (I will confess that I felt a little hurt that Holmes had ventured out and about on dangerous business without alerting me; I felt that natural concern for a valued friend and colleague who may perhaps, for the first time, have taken solely upon himself a danger better shared by two.) I resumed my study of Thomas Pickering Pick’s Fractures and Dislocations.

  It was around a half after four in the afternoon that the parlour door opened to admit – quite unannounced – a thin, exceedingly grubby-looking, shabbily dressed and heavily bearded man. He wore a greasy, shapeless knitted Monmouth cap and a patch over his left eye. With a drunken belch he lurched unsteadily across the room and stretched out upon the sofa. He not only reeked of the sewer – the rank juniper-sharp stench of cheap one-shilling gin assailed my nostrils instantly. “Good God you dirty scoundrel!” I roared. “What the devil do you mean by this intrusion? Explain yourself this instant, else I shall summon an officer and have you arrested for trespass! This is the private residence of Mr Sherlock Holmes and unless you have a satisfactory explanation for this outrageous behaviour you will shortly find yourself spending the night in rather more confined accommodation and on something considerably less comfortable than that couch!”

  This noisome, one-eyed, gin-sodden spectre lay slack-jawed and inert, a thin trail of saliva leaking from a corner of his mouth into the filthy beard, eyes closed and snoring coarsely; he appeared to have lapsed into complete unconsciousness. Now in a considerable fury I strode to the open door and bellowed down the stairs “Billy, down there! Fetch a constable upon the instant! Tell him a drunken vagrant has forced his way into Mr Holmes’ rooms!”

  “Very good Doctor Watson!” he piped and I heard the street door open but before I could turn, a most familiar voice behind me murmured “You may call him back; forgive me my dear Watson, but you know my small penchant for the theatrical; however, I am reassured once again that if I can bamboozle my close friend, then I have remained safe from detection today!” In amazement I spun around, to see a smiling Sherlock Holmes now fully alert and sitting quite upright, eyes shining with excitement, eye-patch gone, peeling the remnants of the vagrant’s beard from his lean jowls and fastidiously wiping his chin and cheeks with a tattered, grubby kerchief; he made to stuff it back into the pocket of the grimy ankle-length overcoat, then with evident disgust he balled it up and hurled it upon the glowing embers.

  He stood, unbuttoned the gin-reeking coat revealing the sword-stick hanging concealed within, and cast it on the carpet behind the couch along with the coat. The revolver he returned to the drawer without comment, together with a half-empty bottle of gin. Beneath the dreadful outer garment, he was, if it may be imagined, even more disreputably attired. I watched perplexed as he calmly seated himself at his desk and proceeded to write a lengthy telegraph message, and a somewhat shorter letter, which he sealed in an envelope.

  The boy in buttons below responded promptly to Holmes’ brisk summons shouted down the stair-well. “Billy, here is half a guinea; take a cab with all speed – there is not a second to lose; despatch this telegraph most urgently, and be certain to point out to the clerk that it is addressed to M. Louis Lépine at the Sûreté in Fontainebleau, which is near Paris. Be most emphatic on that point. Then proceed with all haste to The Bank of England in Threadneedle Street and hand this letter to the Sergeant-at-Arms; tell him to be sure to hand it to Mr Frank May in person this day, without a moment’s delay.” The boy darted smartly from the room and clattered down the stair; a moment later I heard his piercing whistle, shortly followed by a cabbie furiously whipping up his nag.

  I turned back to Holmes. “You have clearly been out upon perilous business have you not? Had you woken me, I might perhaps have been of some small assistance.”

  He did not reply immediately, but gazed for several moments into the grate in that peculiar introspective fashion which was so characteristic of him, at the tiny streams of incandescent sparks which chased each other around the coarse, charring weave of the filthy rag, like frantic fiery ants in a tiny maze of warp and weft. “There before us in the coals Watson is the perfect metaphor of the official Force at work; so many busy little bright sparks racing hither and thither, randomly pursuing any and every avenue open to them, with no idea where they may lead; observe how they cross each other’s paths, collide head-on or their trail merely goes cold, but all peter out to no practical conclusion.”

  I smiled at this fanciful, but apt analogy and waited for his account of his day’s doings. He continued “As you have no doubt remarked, I did indeed venture out heavily armed, for today I entered deep into enemy territory – if you will, for the purpose of espionage, of intelligence-gathering. But my chief, most reliable weapon was this rather pungent disguise; in much the same way as you may best conceal a secret letter in Her Majesty’s postal system, or a needle in a sewing-kit of needles, so quite the best way to hide a drunken idler who wishes to observe, without himself being observed, is among numerous other drunken idlers, all of whom sit gazing aimlessly and blankly at trivial events and objects.

  “Indeed, I know for a fact that on several occasions I was charily watched by my quarry, but I was not noted in the least bit and as matters transpired, I was not in any great danger. I even engaged with others of the underworld; they clearly took me to be one of their brethren, as habitual drunks will, and for a suck on a bottle of the British stupefacient, shilling-gin, were most happy to talk about – as best they could – what events they had observed, or could recall, over the past few days.

  “A most illuminating if malodorous lot they were too; but between them their inebriated ramblings unwittingly were the tesserae of a small mosaic of important data I have pieced together. But I caution you it is a wicked, closed place Watson – in all probability the worst, most dangerous rookery I have ever had the misfortune to visit, and the villains’ present location is virtually an unassailable fortress. “Should you be interested to know more of this foul and perilous place I would recommend you consult Henry Mayhew’s excellent collected jottings on poverty and the London poor – an invaluable insight into the sad but natural environment of many of the criminal classes.” He extracted a slim cloth-bound volume from the bookshelf, sought for a page and passed the book to me. “And should you not be deterred by my description of this place, Mayhew perhaps offers a more vivid account...”

  I read the proffered page with growing horror – and this was the place my friend had visited quite alone...

  "...the water was covered with scum almost like a cobweb, and prismatic with grease. In it floated large masses of rotting weed, and against the posts of the bridges were swollen carcases of dead animals, ready to burst with the gases of putrefaction. Along its shores were heaps of indescribable filth, the phosphoretted smell from which told you of the rotting fish there, while the oyster-shells were like pieces of slate from their coating of filth and mud. In some parts the fluid was as red as blood from the colouring matter that poured into it from the reeking leather dressers’ close by.”

  I looked up at Holmes, aghast. “It is indeed a grim place Watson but happily, I believe we may be able to seize our quarry without the necessity of laying siege to their lair, which would assuredly involve significant personal danger and doubtless considerable violence. There
is an easier way, but regrettably we shall be compelled to call in Lestrade and his bright little sparks; however for the present, Watson, do you bank up the fire while I remove this noisome disguise.

  “You would be perfectly astonished at the difficulty it caused me when I decided to take tea in Belgravia – it required a good five minutes of earnest persuasion before I could gain admittance to a respectable establishment” and with this odd comment he stepped into his room. “Pshaw!” I called after him.

  “Tea in Belgravia? A likely tale! Dressed like that I doubt you could have gained admittance to the workhouse!” I chuckled to myself as I attended to the fire. The rag continued to smoulder.

  He returned ten minutes later in his favourite old mouse-coloured dressing gown. I was applying a match to a cigarette when the door opened to admit Mrs Hudson, followed by an all too-familiar figure. “Excuse me Mr Holmes, but Inspector Lestrade wishes to speak with you.” We both turned in some surprise. “Good day Inspector” said Holmes affably. “An unexpected pleasure – you have news?”

  Lestrade’s next words caused Holmes’ eyebrows to shoot heaven-ward, and left me in stunned amazement. “Oh I have news alright Mr Holmes; my word yes I do indeed have news – the very best of news! The villains are taken! The case, d’you see, is all but solved, for today I arrested the culprit and his chief accomplice – even now they are in custody! One of them even had a loaded six-barrelled barker in his pocket.” I glanced at Holmes in astonishment at this momentous announcement. I swear he winked at me, but perhaps it was just an involuntary flicker of his eyelid; he stood and grasped the Yarder’s hand, pumping it vigorously. “Well done Lestrade, well done indeed! I will own that even an amateur like me does not take much pleasure in being bested, but nonetheless, I offer my heartiest congratulations!”

  Lestrade basked in this rare moment of victory over Holmes the amateur, Holmes the dabbler, Holmes the madcap theorist, for such he perceived my great detective friend to be. “Come Lestrade, draw a chair to the fire and tell all – I am certain that Watson will be as entertained as I to hear your resolution!”

  Lestrade seated himself, pursed his lips and steepled his short, stubby fingers beneath his chin; I was amused to note that he appeared unwittingly to be imitating the master.

  After a theatrical silence, he began rather self-consciously; “Well, if I may say so Mr Holmes, I’m really a little surprised you didn’t see what was going on right under your nose, perhaps on account of all that theorising and observing and deducing you’re so fond of, but you see this wasn’t a theoretical crime and it wasn’t observed so I don’t see there’s much deducing to be done.” He loaded these words with as much thinly-veiled sarcasm as decent manners would permit.

  Holmes smiled ruefully and nodded, apparently in acquiescence.

  “You see Mr Holmes, the Force deals in facts, not theories, and the fact of the matter is that the perpetrator of any crime must have three most important qualifications; the means, the motive, and the opportunity!” My friend pondered this illuminating revelation as if he had been presented with a new and startling, hitherto quite unconsidered notion which had never before struck him.

  “Now the point is, Mr Holmes, while you have been busy theorising I have been hard at work doing some good old-fashioned plodding detective work – you know the sort of thing; questioning suspects closely, corroborating statements, establishing alibis; perhaps not to your strange tastes, but I assure you it cannot be beaten for yielding sound results. And the fact of the matter is that there were only two people in all of London who had the means, the motive and most importantly, the opportunity to commit this audacious crime at the precise time it occurred...”

  “So with or without your assistance Mr Holmes, and with all due respect, I do believe I may anticipate some small recognition from my superiors! Chief Inspector may yet be my next rank.” Holmes beamed radiantly at Lestrade. “Splendid news Lestrade! I give you joy of it! And as you well know, nothing delights me more than to see a true villain fairly and squarely laid by the heels by a better man!”

  Holmes gazed for a moment at the fragment of rag in the grate; a single spark still crawled blindly around the threads of black, charred fabric. He looked up and fixed Lestrade with a kindly smile.

  “Then I presume you have now not only the criminals under lock and key, but also the stolen plates and paper, and any currency already printed?” Lestrade shifted in his chair. Equivocally he answered “Not quite at this precise moment Mr Holmes; they are still stubbornly denying any involvement in the matter – but then again they would, would they not? They’ll be singing like canaries in a day or so; I know from long experience when a man is guilty – and mark my words, these two are as guilty as blackest sin – the only pair who could possibly have pulled off the caper – and I’ll hear the truth of the whole matter soon enough.”

  Holmes turned and gazed vacantly at the window, a droll expression on his lean features, and with that so-familiar gesture of a bony fore-finger to his pursed lips said in a perfectly neutral tone “Oh, of that Inspector, I am more than certain, but then, after all, you do have the reputation of being one of the brightest sparks at The Yard.” Involuntarily my eyes darted back to the fragment of charred rag in the fire.

  I watched as the single remaining spark sputtered into extinction.

  Holmes’ words appeared to please Lestrade greatly; he rose, rubbed his hands together in satisfaction and said “Well then Mr Holmes, I’ll be off now, for I have some more questioning to do to tidy up the case. If you watch the papers over the next day or so I’m sure you’ll read the full details.” Holmes and I rose from our chairs. “Just one more thing, Lestrade” said Holmes; “precisely who do you have under arrest?”

  “You still can’t deduce Mr Holmes? On suspicion of aiding and abetting a felony, and conspiracy to steal we have arrested a real bad’un – one Sergeant Jacob Gunton, the watchman on duty at Perkins Baker & Petch at the only possible time of the robbery.” My colleague’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. I made to speak but he stilled me with a tiny gesture. “Good Heavens Lestrade, you truly amaze me. But if Gunton was an accessory, who was his principal, the mastermind behind the affair?”

  “Ah, now Mr Holmes, I rather expect I shall startle you both.” Holmes stared at the burned-out scrap of rag in the grate and murmured “I am sure we may depend upon that.”

  Lestrade retrieved his coat from the back of his chair and replied flatly: “On suspicion of theft, conspiracy to forge currency of the realm, and of uttering said forged currency, I am holding Mr Henry Petch of Messrs Perkins, Baker & Petch; there will likely in due course be added the grave charges of murder and attempted murder. I fear you have been duped by your client.” There was a lengthy silence.

  “Good Lord Lestrade, I am more than startled – I am almost speechless. But perhaps you will allow that such an outlandish outcome is one which I could never have imagined in a lifetime of investigation. Why, I must be blind! I tip my hat to you!” Lestrade smiled thinly.

  “That’s as maybe Mr Holmes, but it would do no harm perhaps to bear in mind my little motto – Means, Motivation and Opportunity: you won’t go far wrong. Meanwhile, I expect you have other cases to, ah, theorise over...”

  Holmes beamed. “Indeed, as it happens, I have Inspector. Even now I am pondering a curious matter which has only very lately come to my attention. In the unlikely event that I ever fathom it out I expect Doctor Watson may perhaps one day fancifully publish it as The Adventure of The Demented Inspector.” Lestrade departed, looking distinctly puzzled. Holmes sat silent for some time, eyes closed, frowning.

  Abruptly he barked “I will not have it! It just cannot be! If Lestrade were to be given the slightest credibility, then Petch has deceived me! But consider, Watson, are we soberly to believe that a frail septuagenarian and a one-armed, hook-handed, sixty-five year old invalided soldier between them spirited away two dozen heavy boxes of security paper and the printing plates without
being observed?”

  He paused. “Sadly, however, Lestrade’s deluded conclusion will soon be vindicated in his own mind. He will shortly be more confident than ever that he holds the culprits, for unknowingly he holds most damning evidence.”

  “I quite agree it does seem most improbable Holmes, but you must admit that they certainly had the opportunity. The means could easily have been hired labour – Mustachios and Wall-Eye – and the motive is self-evident – vast financial gain.”

  My companion snorted. “Nonsense Watson. Petch is in his twilight years, he has all a man could wish for – a fine house, ample money, a comfortable marriage and his beloved orchids; no, there is no motive there. Consider further, could two elderly men, with only three arms between them conceivably have subdued Dulcie Hobbs, and then lifted her several feet up to a hangman’s noose?

  “And might they credibly have been two of the four who attacked the mighty Warburg? I rather think not. Warburg was stabbed in his right shoulder from behind and Gunton lacks his right arm – it would be a most unnatural action for a left-handed man, who, from behind, would surely aim for the left carotid?

  “And Petch has only strength sufficient to scratch on metal shims and snip at orchids. But sadly, although Lestrade does not yet know it, he will soon be parading his trump card, his proof absolute. Just as soon as he learns the nature of the weapon removed by the surgeon he will be certain he has his man!” I was deeply puzzled. “But how can he have taken the wrong men, yet possess proof absolute of their guilt? The two notions are quite inconsonant.”