Notes From the Dispatch Box of John H Watson, MD

by Ashton, Hugh

  “ That confirms my suspicions that they are about to attempt the reacquisition of the cameo,” he said. “ I do not think they will attempt it in broad daylight, but will probably attempt to commit the theft after the Museum has closed.”

  “ How will they effect an entrance, do you think ? ”

  “ I am sure that in a building this size there will be many unguarded entrances. Bear in mind that they have McCoy’s experience and expertise available to them, and it is almost certain that he will be informing them of the weakest points of entry to the building.”

  zz

  Sherlock Holmes accordingly advised the new porters standing guard at the gallery that they should continue to maintain a greater than usual vigilance over the gallery, and to be prepared to raise the alarm instantly should they become aware of any suspicious activity.

  “ I do not feel that anything will occur during the daytime, but it is possible that Sir William’s impatience will outweigh his natural caution in this matter,” he told Pillstone and myself.

  As it transpired, Holmes’ predictions were proven correct, and the day passed without incident. As the time for the closing of the museum to the public approached, Holmes addressed us.

  “ Watson, you and I will stand watch in the passage leading to the gallery. Pillstone, those whom we are about to face are dangerous men, and I have no wish that you should expose yourself to peril. After all, Watson and I have faced many dangers together, and we have the combined forces of the brave Jennings and Davies at our backs. Your task will be to wait at a suitable location and listen, and to summon the Scotland Yard police in the event that you deem it necessary or if you receive such instructions from Watson or myself. I wish you to ask for Inspector Lestrade if he is available, otherwise for Inspector Athelney Jones. If neither of these two men is available, then for Inspector Gregson.”

  “ I understand,” answered the curator.

  “ Watson, you have your stick with you ? ” asked Holmes. I confirmed this, and he continued, “ Come, then, let us to the gallery. We will not take the passages, since we must instruct Jennings and Davies as to their duties.”

  When we reached the gallery where the cameos were being displayed, we discovered the two ex-soldiers already there. “ I would advise you to place yourselves where you cannot be seen from the door,” Holmes told them. “ The success of this enterprise will largely depend on surprise, and we wish to give no advance warning that we are aware of their plans.”

  “ Very good, sir,” replied Jennings. “ We had assumed the same as yourself, sir, as it happens.”

  “ I am glad to see you are men of intelligence,” Holmes assured him. “ You will have no problem staying awake and waiting for developments ? ”

  “ Certainly not, sir. We’ve both stood our share of night sentry duty, don’t you fear.”

  “ Excellent. Doctor Watson and I will be concealed in the passageway behind the door. Do you have a whistle ? ”

  “ Yes, sir,” both men answered in chorus.

  “ Good. Summon the Doctor and myself in the event of anything untoward. In the event that I discover the intruders before you—“

  “ —Don’t you worry yourself about that, sir. We will spot them first, I am sure.”

  “ To be sure you will,” agreed Holmes, “ but it is as well to be prepared for even the most unlikely of eventualities. Should the Doctor or I discover the intruders first, then we will signal for aid with the whistles.”

  “ How many are you expecting, sir ? ” asked Davies.

  “ Three, possibly four, but no more.”

  “ Very good, sir,” the former soldier answered, and he and his companion turned on their heels to take up their positions.

  “ And now we must conceal ourselves,” Holmes said to me, opening the door set into the wall. We entered the darkened passage. While during the day the passage was lit by light admitted through openings set high into the walls, which also facilitated the circulation of air and provided ventilation, at night, the amount of light in the passage was reduced to the extent that I could hardly make out the figure of Holmes, though I knew him to be little more than two feet away from me.

  We had waited some two hours. The heating in the Museum had been turned off when the visitors left, and my fingers and toes were beginning to suffer from the cold. I had started to rub my hands together in order to maintain my circulation, when Holmes gripped my arm.

  “ Hark ! ” he hissed in my ear. “ Do you not hear them ? ”

  I strained my ears to catch the sound that Holmes’ sensitive senses had detected first. “ I do,” I confirmed, in the same low tones that Holmes had used. “ But I cannot make out the direction.”

  “ Nor I,” he confessed. “ Listen closely.”

  The sound of soft muffled footsteps, mixed with a metallic clinking sound, grew louder. It was plain to me that the noise of boots on the hard floor had been noted by the intruders as a result of their reconnaissance earlier in the day, and they had therefore taken appropriate precautions. The source of the metallic sound was less obvious until the light of a lantern abruptly flashed out from behind us. The villains were using the very passage in which we were concealed in order to make their entrance !

  Holmes and I appeared to grasp the situation at the same time, and we both whirled round to face the invaders, who were approaching fast. The light of the lantern made it difficult to identify their faces, but it became obvious that they had recognised us.

  “ Mr. Holmes,” came a voice that I recognised. “ How good of you to wait for us. Shall we finish the game that we started earlier ? ”

  “ You would do well to learn the manner of opponent you face before you talk about playing games,” retorted Holmes, withdrawing the whistle from his pocket, and uttering three sharp blasts. At the same time, I reached past Holmes and pushed open the door leading to the gallery. The moonlight shining through the windows came through the aperture, and we were able to see our opponents more clearly.

  There were four of them—the three who had visited Baker-street, and a fourth in their rear, whom I did not instantly recognise, but soon identified as McCoy. It was now obvious to me how the ruffians had learned of the existence of the passages, and how they had navigated them successfully to reach the gallery.

  As Holmes and I stepped out of the passage into the gallery itself, I heard the sound of two pairs of boots running towards us. Jennings and Davies had responded to the call of the whistle, and I felt easier in my mind that we were now evenly matched as regards numbers. The large man who had threatened me in Baker-street stepped forward and faced Holmes.

  “ You are not in a position to argue with us this time,” he snarled. “ This time, you will take the punishment you deserve, and take it like a man.” With these last words, he swung his heavy stick at his opponent’s head, but Holmes had sufficient time to duck down and avoid the blow, as the stick swished over his head, missing its mark by a matter of several inches. As he bent, I saw his hand dart to the pocket where I knew he carried the riding-crop. As he straightened, he darted forward inside his opponent’s reach, and the whip end of the crop shot forward, catching the giant smartly on the wrist holding the stick.

  Immediately, the stick tumbled to the ground, and the Irishman let out a strangled hiss. “ You will die for that, Mr. Holmes, even if I swing for it,” he rasped out.

  “ Don’t be a fool, Harry,” said the other. “ The other one’s got a gun, like as not, and will shoot you down if you try anything, like he did to me the other day.”

  “ I said I’d swing if I had to. Swing or die from his bullets, it’s all the same. No-one treats Harry McLeod that way and gets away with it.”

  “ Don’t do it, Harry,” urged the third man. “ You know what our job is. It’s to get the statue or whatever you call it and to take it back. There’ll be plenty of time in the future to settle scores with these two.”

  “ There are two more of them,” pointed out McCoy from the
rear of the party. “ I recognise you, Jennings and Davies. Now if you will stand aside, and you as well, Mr. Holmes and Doctor Watson, we can proceed with our business, and no-one will be hurt.”

  “ Go to H____ ! ” burst out the leader. “ I’m in charge of you lot, and I say what happens here. And what’s going to happen here is that Mr. Holmes is going to learn that it doesn’t pay to annoy Harry McLeod.”

  “ I would say, rather,” said my friend in an affable tone, “ that it is you, Mr. McLeod, who should learn both manners and prudence.”

  “ Hark at him ! ” mocked McLeod. “ Brave little bantam, isn’t he ? ” He unleashed a left hook in the direction of Holmes’ face, which would undoubtedly have felled him had it reached its target, but Holmes dodged it easily, as well as the straight right with the injured hand that followed.

  “ I can play this game all night,” jeered McLeod. “ Can you ? ”

  “ Give over,” pleaded the man with his arm in a sling. “ Let’s just do this b_____ job and get out of here.”

  For answer, McLeod wheeled round and fetched a massive open-handed blow to the side of the speaker’s head that knocked him off his feet. “ Now will you all learn to shut your mouths ? ” he asked. “ Mr. Holmes, are you ready to receive what is coming to you ? ”

  “ I am ready, but I am not yet convinced that you are prepared,” retorted Holmes. With these words, he stepped forward, the riding crop once more flashing out, and catching McLeod across the eyes.

  “ You b_____ ! You have blinded me ! ” cried out the giant, staggering back and clapping his hands to his face as Holmes reversed the riding-crop and brought the weighted handle down once, twice, thrice, upon the man’s head just behind the right ear. McLeod crumpled to the ground silently, as his two accomplices and McCoy looked on in what appeared to be a kind of petrified fear.

  “ That’s it for you two,” snapped out Jennings, and he and Davies moved to secure the two ruffians, who had both by now dropped their sticks, while I moved to McCoy, and ordered him not to move. Holmes, standing beside the unconscious McLeod, blew his whistle once more. He was rewarded by the sound of footsteps, and Pillstone entered.

  “ Thank God you are safe,” he exclaimed, once he had taken in the situation. “ The police are on their way, and I have given instructions to the porters on duty at the front door to admit them and show them here immediately they arrive.” He paused. “ You have not killed him ? ” he asked, looking at Holmes’ victim.

  “ I have not,” replied Holmes, “ though if I had, it would have been justified as self-defence. I have sufficient witnesses to back my statement on that. Do you know who will head the police arriving here ? ”

  “ I was not informed, I am sorry to say.”

  “ No matter. We will take what Fate sends us,” he answered phlegmatically. “ Ah, I hear the tread of official feet, if I am not mistaken.”

  In less than a minute, half a dozen uniformed police, headed by Inspector Lestrade in plain clothes, entered the gallery.

  “ I might have guessed I would see you here,” said the inspector, smiling. “ You have some interesting company tonight. Harry McLeod,” looking down at the recumbent figure at Holmes’ feet. “ We have been after him for some time. There is a substantial amount of plate that has gone missing from houses around London recently, and we are pretty certain that these losses are the results of his efforts. And here we have Hugh Johnstone and Ian Gordon, if I am not mistaken. Yes, a pretty little bunch of housebreakers, indeed. Much indebted to you, Mr. Holmes. And this one ? ” gesturing towards my captive.

  “ This is Mr. McCoy, lately on the staff of this Museum,” explained Holmes. “ He will be joining the other three. However, I must warn you to be careful in your questioning of these men. There are issues at stake that could affect the security of the Realm.”

  “ From any other man, I would take that as exaggeration, but from you, Mr. Holmes, I will take it as a statement of fact. Will you and the Doctor here be accompanying us to the station ? ”

  “ No, I fear not, Lestrade. We have a call or two to make first.”

  “ As you wish.” The Scotland Yard detective gave orders that the four men be taken to the police station, and locked up for the night. “ On what charges, Mr. Holmes ? ”

  “ You may start with assault and illegal confinement, and in the case of this one,” pointing towards McCoy, who was being dragged, stumbling, across the floor to the door, “ of attempted murder, the intended victim being myself. Other charges may appear later, but I think these will do for now.”

  “ Very good. We will require a statement from you and the Doctor in due course.”

  “ I hope I will be able to bring you more than that, Inspector, when we come to call. I would remind you once more to keep this matter confidential.”

  We left the Museum, leaving the perplexed Pillstone to answer any further questions that Lestrade might see fit to ask.

  “ Where to now, Holmes ? ” I asked.

  “ We are going to pay a call, but I do not expect anyone to be at home,” was the strange answer to my question. “ Follow me.” We took some strange turns through streets and alleys which were unknown to me, but seemed familiar to Holmes. At length, he stopped in a narrow road, bounded on each side by high buildings, exclaiming “ This is the place.”

  “ Where do you mean ? ” I asked, looking at the warehouses around us.

  “ This is not our destination,” he smiled. “ This is the starting point of our journey. Be so kind as to hail a cab on the main street and bring it here.”

  I returned to the main road where I hailed a hansom, and ordered it to the place where I had left Holmes standing. He mounted, and we started in the general direction of the East End, Holmes giving directions to the jarvey through the trap in the roof as we drove along. I did not hear him provide any address at any point in our journey, with his instructions being restricted to “ Left here,” “ Straight on for a hundred yards and then right,” and directions of that nature. Eventually, he called a halt, and we paid off the cab.

  “ Wait here for us,” said Holmes, slipping a sovereign into the man’s hand. “ If we have not returned in one hour, you are free to leave, but in that case I would ask you to give this to the nearest police station.” He scribbled in his note-book, tore out the leaf, folded it and handed it to the driver. “ Do you understand ? ”

  “ I do.”

  “ Good. Watson, follow me.” We made our way down a stinking alley, with Holmes pausing and examining the door of every house on the left of us. At the fifth such door, he stopped.

  “ This is the place, Watson,” he said, trying the door, but finding it locked. “ I had suspected as much,” he remarked. With a deft movement, he extracted a jemmy from his coat pocket. “ Hold the door to stop it from flying open while I force the lock,” he instructed me. “ Do not fear, this is in a good cause. The jury is sure to acquit you, Watson,” he added, jocularly.

  A few seconds’ prying were all that was needed to burst the door open, and Holmes and I entered the darkened hallway. There was just enough light for us to see our way to the stairs, which Holmes mounted before entering the back room. The only furniture there was an iron bedstead without a mattress. A used unmentionable stood beside it. As we approached the bed, I noticed a pair of handcuffs, with one cuff secured to the frame, and the other, open, dangling free. Holmes approached the bed, and dropped to one knee, inserting the blade of his knife between two floorboards. He removed one of the boards with a grunt of satisfaction, and extracted a few sheets of paper from the cavity so revealed, thrusting them into his pocket. He then used another attachment of the knife on the handcuffs, removing them from the bed, and thrusting them into his jacket pocket.

  “ And now for the crowning glory of this abode,” he announced, leading the way down the stairs. “ That is, if my calculations in this matter are correct.” We entered the back room, where Holmes went straight to the mean dresser standing by the wall.
“ Yes, they are still here, it would appear,” he told me. “ Take a look for yourself.”

  He reached to the top shelf of the dresser, and handed me a small wad of folded newspaper. It was somewhat heavier than I expected, and Holmes marked my surprise.

  “ Open it carefully,” he advised me, “ preferably over the kitchen table.”

  I followed these instructions, and was astounded to discover one of the cameos within the paper. Even in the dim light filtering through the dirty window, it was apparent to me that the workmanship was of the same quality as the one depicting Our Lord which Holmes had restored to the Museum.

  “ How did you know this was here ? ” I asked Holmes, but he declined to give a response, instead passing me eleven more newspaper packages.

  “ Let us leave this place,” he said, shuddering. “ I do not wish to remain here longer than is absolutely necessary.” It was not like my friend to take such a strong dislike to a place in this way, but I refrained from questioning him further, and engaged myself in placing the twelve Apostles into a basket which I discovered under the table.

  “ And now onward,” Holmes urged me. Carrying the basket, I followed him out of the house to where the cab was still awaiting our return.

  “ The Savile Club,” ordered Holmes. He glanced at his watch. “ A quarter after eight. He should be there now.”

  “ Who ? ”

  “ Sir William Ferguson, of course.”

  During the course of our journey, Holmes undertook an extraordinary transformation, removing his collar and tie. Shrugging off his topcoat and cutaway, he doffed his waistcoat, replacing it with his cutaway alone, turning up the collar, and pulling down his hat to shield his face. “ It will have to suffice,” he remarked. Give me the basket with the cameos,” he requested as we drew outside the Club and dismissed the cab. “ I want you to wait there, Watson, out of sight, but in a position where you may see what is going on. Take my coat and be ready to lend your assistance, as it is quite possible that I will require it should events proceed adversely.”