“Certainly not. It’s too dangerous.”
“Your argument is with me,” said Mary. “Mr. Holmes has taken responsibility for a decision I made upon my own. If I don’t accompany you, I shall spend the rest of my life asking myself, ‘Is this the place?’ whenever I pass an ice-cream parlour. I shan’t be able to look at a sorbet without shuddering. And I may be in a position to help.”
“It’s difficult enough to defend ourselves in times of danger. Will you have one of us take a bullet for fear of what may happen to you?”
“Have I lived in this wicked city all these years and learnt nothing? I’m anything but unarmed.”
In demonstration, she drew the pin from her hat, a wicked-looking six inches of razor-pointed steel with a pearl button, replaced it, and raised her parasol. I’d never noticed before how much the end of it resembled a fencer’s foil. She executed a neat flourish, slicing the air with a swish and finishing with it demurely resting upon her shoulder, her small hand gripping it near the carved ivory crook. A watch appended to a gold chain swung from the point.
I groped at my waistcoat. My watch was missing.
In all my years of association with Sherlock Holmes, this was the only time I can recall when he absolutely roared with laughter.
“Face it, Watson!” said he, upon recovering himself. “You’re undone!”
“Wherever did you learn to do that?” I said sternly.
“Embroidery,” said Mary. “The basics are the same.”
I marshalled all my arguments, only to relinquish them with a heavy sigh. “Very well. It’s a poor soldier who knows not when to retreat from the field.”
She smiled at Holmes. “My apologies. Until this moment I never realised John’s value to you.”
He bowed. “I sometimes overlook it myself.”
IX.
A Triple Scoop of Detection
We stopped at 221B just long enough for Holmes to change. He emerged carrying a heavy-knobbed stick and, no doubt, his own revolver under his frock coat. The driver (once Mary had scrutinised him and declared him “not Snipe”), took us at a canter to the first address on our list.
I had never before visited one of those establishments that had recently sprung up throughout London like wildflowers, and knew nothing of what to expect; based upon Holmes’s sinister account I envisioned a cross between a low tavern and a pub of questionable reputation.
What I found resembled H.G. Wells’s vision of a foreign future: white, dazzling, and spotless, lit brightly through large, polished windows, with shining chromed steel trim. From the pressed-tin ceiling to the ornate taps behind the counter, fashioned into shapes like elephants’ heads and the curving necks of swans, there wasn’t a splinter of wood in sight. The tables were glass circles the size of bicycle wheels, supported by spindles of wrought iron matching the frames of the chairs, bent into curlicues. It all belonged to the next century, or yet the next.
After speaking with the constable on the scene, Holmes approached the proprietor, a nervous-looking man of forty or so named Osbert, with ruddy cheeks, pale hair, and wrists thickened by hour upon hour of scooping hardened ice cream from zinc-lined sinks into receptacles of china and glass. He’d been roused from a back room to reopen his doors for the purpose of official enquiry.
“The police will confirm that nothing suspicious goes on here,” he said. “I know of the vipers who befoul this honest business, and I wish you every success in rooting them out. When I learned they’d struck again, I gave all my customers their money back and closed up to spare them an unpleasant encounter with the authorities.”
“Who told you what happened?”
“A stranger who poked his head in the door and said, ‘You’d best fold your tent before the peelers get here. The white slavers was at it just now.’”
“He said that exactly, ‘fold your tent’?”
“Yes, sir. I’d never heard the phrase before, and so remembered it.”
“Describe the man.”
He pursed his lips. “A ruffian, built thick and smelling so strongly of gin and onions the stench reached me behind the counter. His face was scarred from pox and he wore the clothes of a cab driver, high hat and all, but shabby in the extreme.”
Holmes looked at Mary, who nodded with certainty. He excused himself and drew near enough to us to whisper. “Did anything strike you outside as familiar?”
“No,” she replied. “I’m afraid that means nothing. I was—”
“Quite so. It’s possible this fellow wishes to throw Snipe on the sword to spare himself, but he must know the man would squeak on him when captured. We shall rule him out for now.”
We bade the man good day, thanked the constable for his cooperation, and walked to the next address, round the corner and only a few squares away.
I said, “I fail to see how competing enterprises can survive in such close proximity.”
“And yet show me a neighbourhood that doesn’t boast at least three tobacco shops. Sugar and milk are habits nearly as compelling as Cavendish.”
Mary tightened her grip on my arm. “If I ever grow stout, you’ll know it was on marrow and potatoes, and not on sweets. Today has cured me.”
The second parlour was much the same as the first, except that in place of a man in uniform we found Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade in charge. The latter, more bull terrier than mastiff, was every bit as aggressive as his colleague. “We’ve got the blighter,” he rapped.
“You’re out of order,” grumbled Gregson. “This is my investigation.”
I bridled. “You seemed little enough interested in pursuing it when I brought it to you.”
“It wasn’t the same thing then, was it? If the Yard was to start barging in on lovers’ quarrels, there’d never be an end to it.”
Mary turned my way. “Please forgive me. I thought you exaggerated when you told me of these men.”
“Thank you kindly, madam.” Gregson lifted his hat. “If I was to arrest a man entirely on appearances, I should not hesitate to clap the owner in irons. However, his piteous attempts at evasion quite settle the matter. Lestrade’s in agreement.”
“If I’m not out of order.” The other was plainly seething. There was no love lost between these two comrades in arms.
“What sort of attempts?” Holmes asked.
“To begin with, he pretended not to have any English at all, but there’s the bill of fare on the chalkboard, plain as the Queen’s.”
“Has he no partners or employees?”
“Lestrade asked him point blank. One thing he can manage is to make himself understood. We tripped the bounder up in his own words. He’s cook, bottle-washer, and the gent that sweeps the floors.”
“You translated that from which language?”
“Italian, which made him suspicious right off. They’re all of them the same, these Mediterraneans, thick as chowder. He shook his head and said, ‘No, no, no’ when asked if he had anyone with him in the business.”
“I see. Lestrade spoke slowly and loudly, which as we all know transcends all tongues, and interpreted the response as an answer to his question. As to his ethnicity as evidence for conviction, we must consult with Plutarch and Garibaldi before we lay it before the bench. May I speak with him?”
Gregson looked at Lestrade, who shrugged. “He’s in back with a constable, though what good it will do you I can’t say.”
Holmes asked to be alone with the man, to which Mary and I agreed, although we were able to watch the interrogation through a circular window in the swinging door leading to a storage room. There among the sacks, jars, and cartons, he drew a chair so close to where the proprietor sat that their knees almost touched, with yet another stalwart in blue standing by wearing an expression of determined comprehension. Dumb show that it was for us, the discussion was clearly no more within the officer’s grasp.
The man under guard was youthful in appearance, with black hair cut close to the crown, a long, sallow face, and modest mou
staches by the standards of his people. He wore an immaculate white smock and a military stripe on his trousers. That the pair were conversing in Italian seemed obvious by the way both men waved their arms energetically while speaking; the Romans are a demonstrative race. The fellow being interrogated shook his head violently to some questions, nodded animatedly to others, listened with a thoughtful mien when he was silent, and, when Holmes leaned closer and appeared to whisper in his ear, responded with a show of gravity. Presently Holmes shook his hand and returned to the main room.
“His name is Antonio Valardi,” he reported. “He came here from Genoa when he was fourteen years old, after his parents perished in a diphtheria epidemic, and saved his labourer’s wages for ten years until he had enough money to lease this space and purchase equipment and supplies. He hopes to make enough to bring all his cousins here from Italy, and knows nothing of the white slave trade.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” said Lestrade with a snort.
“He said also that he employs a boy part-time to sweep up and write the bill of fare on the chalkboard. When you asked him if he had anyone with him in the business, he shook his head and said ‘no’ because he didn’t understand the question.”
Gregson said, “He’s changed his story.”
“It’s easy enough to confirm or deny. He expects his boy to report to work any moment.”
“How can anyone live in London ten years and not pick up a word of English?” barked Lestrade.
“The Italian Quarter is an insular society. Many have lived their entire lives there communicating entirely in their native dialect.”
“We’ll break him yet,” said Gregson.
“I have no doubt you will, if you employ your usual methods. However, you will be helping the true criminal to escape justice. He has a good memory for phonetics. When I whispered the phrase ‘fold your tent’ in his ear, he told me that’s exactly what the stranger said.”
“What stranger?” Both inspectors spoke in unison.
“The one the constables who visited the two other parlours will tell you about, who warned the proprietor to close up shop for his own good. You’ll find he answers to the name of Snipe.”
“He does, does he?” Gregson said. “What’s this ‘fold your tent’ business, I should like to know?”
“‘Let us fold our tents and steal away.’ It’s an Arab saying, not well known in Britain. Of course it made no sense to Signor Valardi, but it was said with such urgency he thought closing up the better part of valour. But here, if I’m not mistaken, is the lad who will confirm at least part of his story.”
Outside the plated-glass entrance stood a boy of sixteen or seventeen, whose surprise at finding the door locked at that hour was evident on his face. On his way out, Holmes held it open for him, and we left the inspectors blaming each other in strident tones.
Our visit to the third and last parlour is swiftly summarised. The manager was a lady of genteel manners who operated the establishment for her absentee employer, a Welsh entrepreneur well known to the press, and a confidant of the Prince of Wales. She told the same story as the others, and nothing about the neighbourhood awakened anything in Mary’s memory.
“Perhaps the first constable underestimated the length of her flight,” I suggested. “The search must be widened.”
Holmes’s face was dark. “I am the one who is guilty of underestimation. I misjudged the cunning of our enemy. We have already met Snipe this day.”
X.
Snipe’s Flight
We fairly leapt aboard the first four-wheeler that stopped, Holmes first, I gripping Mary’s wrist, effectively pulling her over the stirrup-step.
“A sovereign to you if you can get us there in five minutes,” he called out to the driver.
As we lurched forwards, flung back into our seats, Holmes fetched the floor a sharp blow with the ferrule of his stick. “I am a dunderpate, Watsons, worse than Lestrade and Gregson rolled into one arrogant fool! I count myself clever for taking in the doctor with a simple disguise and then fail to detect one far more obvious.”
“What do you mean?” I was far at sea, for the address he’d given the driver belonged to the first parlour we’d been to.
“Of course, I did not meet Snipe in his fancy dress, but I should have marked the signs in his alter ego. I attributed the redness in his cheeks to high emotion, or possibly accelerated circulation, a medical condition, when I should have taken note of his overall fairness and the likelihood of an allergic reaction to greasepaint.”
“Osbert, the ice cream man?” said Mary. “Snipe in disguise? Impossible!”
“That was no disguise; not in the physical sense of the term. There is no Snipe.”
“No Snipe!” we exclaimed together.
“He is a wig, putty, and paint, with a dash of gin and onion to taste: an old country recipe for impersonation. I ought to have known from Mrs. Watson’s description, echoed by Osbert, that the man is a caricature out of Dickens, too broad for truth.”
“Surely Gloriana described her accomplice to you,” I said.
“Letter perfect. Salt in the wound, and well earned. Of course she would not provide me with the picture of the real man, lest he return for retribution. Pray, Watson, write this one up. No man can live up to the paragon you’ve made me out to be.”
He lit a cigarette, took two nervous puffs, and threw it outside. “Beekeeping in the South Downs looks better and better. To err this way or that would cost but the lives of two or three hundred Apidae, which regenerate by the month.”
I squeezed Mary’s hand, communicating to her the futility of any attempt to draw Holmes out of his characteristic bouts of melancholy.
Finally—within the requisite five minutes, but hours in the imagination—we arrived at our destination. Holmes tossed the driver his disk of gold whilst the coach was still rocking on its springs, and was at the door of the parlour before I could help my wife down to the pavement.
The constable who had greeted us before let us in. When Holmes demanded the whereabouts of Osbert, he said, “Why, he’s in back, sir. When I told him the inspectors will want to ask him some questions, he went in to settle his nerves with a pot of tea. There it goes now.”
The kettle could be heard whistling from the other side of the door behind the counter. Holmes raced that way with Mary and me close upon his heels.
It was a plain storage room much like the one at Valardi’s, but with a coal stove in one corner, atop which the kettle was pouring steam towards the ceiling. No one was inside. As I removed the noisy thing from the stove, Holmes snatched up a shaggy wig from a pile of soiled clothing, padded ticking, and a disheveled tall hat on the floor. Mary took one look and nodded.
“Here is the rest of him,” said Holmes, indicating a stained rag on a table with a shaving mirror propped upon it surrounded by sundry jars and bottles. “Cold cream to strip off the makeup, and peppermints to cover the spirits and onions that finished the disguise. I’ll wager a quid our man Osbert trod the boards at one time or another.”
He held a palm above the stovetop. “Ten minutes at least to bring the pot to a boil at this temperature. Ten hours would not be less convenient to us.” He opened a door that looked into an alley behind the building.
“He seemed quite harmless,” suggested the constable, who had followed us into the room. “I overheard you say it yourself.”
“So I did. You are not the blunderer.” He turned towards Mary. “I failed you. Believe me when I say that whatever disappointment you feel about my performance I share tenfold.”
She shook her head. “You have been instrumental in foiling a foul business. Osbert, or Snipe, can hardly continue his activities while he is in hiding.”
“At all events,” said I, “it would take much time and money to create another establishment such as this. You must consider this a victory, measured in the number of women you have saved potentially from his clutches.”
“Osbert was a flea on the back
of the hyena, Watson, and a trained one at that. There are others. I shall not rest until I make an example of him that will shatter their complacency.”
“Surely the fellow will never again show his face in England.”
“He may never have shown it anywhere else.”
“But, ‘fold your tent’—”
“Snipe, of course, alarmed his legitimate competitors in order to stir up dust to cover his tracks. Don’t you think he’d choose his language towards the same purpose? Anyone casually acquainted with The Thousand and One Nights knows the phrase. Our lecherous sheikh is a comforting image, lulling us into the belief that no fellow countryman would ever stoop to manipulate a machine so vile, yet the brothels are always recruiting, and the poorhouses are never in short supply of broken women. We look at Snipe and think, ‘There’s a fellow worthy of his work,’ and look right past an Osbert because of his tidy appearance. Our culprit may have shared a box with the Anstruthers, and gone backstage to shake Irving’s hand and bow over Terry’s.”
“Perish the thought,” I said with a shudder.
Mary lifted her chin. “Mr. Holmes, you may count upon us.”
He smiled for the first time since we’d left the third ice-cream parlour. “Then Mr. X must be on his guard, for we are a formidable force.”
XI.
The Society of the Spoon
I must now ask the reader to consider that four months passed after my wife’s adventure, with little but the usual to occupy our time. When our friends returned from Scotland, curious about the reason for our abandonment of them on theatre night and my mysterious wire, we explained that I had been called away to attend to a patient, and Mary had stayed home with a sudden headache. Upon returning home and finding no sign of her, I’d acted without stopping to consider that she had gone to a chemist’s for powders. They were an amiable couple, who accepted our apologies for neglecting to cancel, and there seemed no point in troubling them with the truth.
The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes Page 21
