by Ashton, Hugh
I concealed myself, as far as was possible, behind a pillar, from which I could observe Holmes as he talked to the porter, informing the latter in an accent resembling that of his earlier attacker that Harry McLeod wished to speak to Sir William Ferguson. On being informed that Sir William was at dinner, he emphasised the fact that he had the basket with him, and expressed his opinion that Sir William would be more than happy to see him and the basket. Eventually, the porter seemed to accept the entreaty, and left to summon Sir William, who arrived, obviously irritated at having had his meal interrupted, his napkin still tucked into his collar. He was red-faced, and a little unsteady on his feet, and I therefore judged him to be somewhat in liquor.
Holmes addressed him, with his face turned somewhat away.
“ I’ve brought them here for safe-keeping,” he said, maintaining the accent that he had used previously. “ All thirteen of them.”
“ You fool ! ” exploded Sir William in a loud booming voice. “ Why could they not have been left where they were ? Where are the other men ? And where’s McCoy ? ”
“ That nosey-parker Holmes was sniffing round too close,” my friend told him. “ We thought it best to split up and confuse him and that doctor friend of his. Don’t you want to see what we prigged from the Museum just now ? ” he invited, holding out the basket for Sir William’s inspection.
“ Oh, dash it all, if you really think it necessary for me to inspect it,” sighed the other, reluctantly, extending his hand to receive the expected valuable. In a flash, one wrist was encircled in steel with the handcuffs that Holmes had concealed in the basket.
“ And now the other hand,” said Holmes, in his usual accents, suiting his action to the words, and snapping the other cuff around his wrist.
“ This is monstrous,” protested the other. “ Help ! Pol— ! ” The Club porter moved forward, but Holmes waved him back.
“ This is official business,” he informed the servant. To Sir William he added, “ I scarcely think that calling for the police is altogether advisable in this instance, do you ? However, if you insist, let us visit the police together,” bundling his prisoner into a cab.
“ You have no right to do this ! This is illegal detention and abduction,” snarled Sir William.
“ Not so,” answered Holmes. “ This paper,” producing it from his inside pocket, “ signed by the Home Secretary himself, grants me the powers of a special constable in this case.” At the sight of the document, Sir William visibly subsided and ceased to offer any resistance. “ Watson, take these,” commanded Holmes, handing the basket containing the cameos to me, “ and follow us to Scotland Yard.”
When I arrived, and Sir William Ferguson had been escorted to a cell, Holmes confronted Lestrade and myself, who had been joined by Pillstone from the Museum.
“ These are yours, at least temporarily, I believe,” he said, presenting the basket containing the cameos to the puzzled curator.
Pillstone gingerly removed one of the cameos from its newspaper wrapping, and a delighted smile spread across his face. “ How do I ever begin to thank you ? ” he exclaimed. “ All twelve are here ? ” Holmes nodded silently, and Pillstone eagerly began to unwrap the remaining cameos, a look of delight on his face. “ These will go on display in the next few days,” he told us, “ and the exhibit will include a note of thanks to you, Mr. Holmes, for your invaluable assistance in this matter.”
“ I would prefer it if my name were not mentioned. Believe me, this affair has been much more than a mere matter of theft.”
“ A mere matter of theft, do you say ? ” cried Pillstone, incredulously. “ These cameos are priceless, as I explained to you earlier. The theft, had it succeeded, would have ranked as one of the most daring and successful of its type in history.”
“ Nonetheless,” answered Holmes, “ the theft would have been of little consequence when compared with the other possible outcomes.”
“ I fail to understand you.”
“ It is probably best that you remain in ignorance regarding this matter, Mr. Pillstone. I mean no offence to you, but there are some things which are best left unknown.”
We left the police station, and Holmes turned to me. “ It is time, is it not, that you learned the whole history of this affair ? ”
“ I must confess that I am in the dark about many of the events surrounding this,” I admitted.
“ In that case, let us take dinner at Alberti’s or some other establishment of your choosing, and I will reveal all.”
I assented readily, and within thirty minutes we were seated in a quiet corner of an excellent French restaurant in Soho which had been recommended to me by one of my patients. The food and wine were first-class, and Holmes and I were contentedly puffing on our cigars when he began to speak of the business that had just concluded.
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This was, in my opinion,” he began, “ a case in which I have been at my most stupid and blundering.”
“ You can hardly lay that charge at your door,” I retorted. “ Surely, with all the thieves now safely behind bars, and the mastermind of the plot with them, you can congratulate yourself on a successful conclusion.”
“ Even so,” Holmes said, “ I was culpably negligent in my handling of the business, as you will hear. In the first place, in your opinion, Watson, who do you consider it was who stole the cameos and substituted those caricatures ? ”
I was under the impression that this was some kind of test of my reasoning abilities, and therefore endeavoured to give as good an account of myself as possible. “ I had my suspicions that it was McCoy—“
“ Pah ! ” expostulated Holmes. “ Suspicions ?
Surely it was obvious ? ”
I ignored the outburst and continued, “ —but I have little or no clue as to why he did it.”
“ Really ? I had expected more of you than that, Watson. I confess to being sadly disappointed in you.”
Though the criticism stung, I managed to refrain from making a reply, and attempted to think charitably of Holmes.
“ Surely you noticed the man’s name ? ” continued Holmes. “ As well as his place of origin ? ”
“ What of them ? ”
“ McCoy is surely a name associated with the Protestants who live in the northern part of Ireland. This group is strongly opposed to Home Rule, as you are no doubt aware.”
“ This is true,” I conceded.
“ And the cameos came from the Vatican, which I have no doubt McCoy as a staunch Protestant would see as a nest of enemies, to be discomfited or worse.”
“ I agree that he might have some motive there. But the means, Holmes ? ”
“ You saw for yourself the secret passages by which it is possible to move silently and invisibly through the museum. We established, did we not, that McCoy was wearing slippers and stayed late on the night before Pillstone visited us ? That is, on the night that the cameos were stolen. You will remember that when we visited the gallery, the metal quarters of our shoes rang on the floor. Slippers would allow him to move silently through the gallery towards the cabinet.”
“ Would he not have required the key to the cabinet ? Pillstone kept that key in his possession all the time.”
“ He had no need of the key, Watson. Remember that I enquired of Pillstone regarding the replacement of the glass in the cabinet ? There was glazier’s putty still soft between one of the glass panels and the wooden frame. Some of that putty had fallen to the floor, and it was that which I picked up and saved in the envelope. When you went out earlier today to purchase my tobacco, I placed some of the putty from the cabinet and the floor and examined it through the powerful microscope that stands on the table by the window. This was not a definite proof,” he admitted, “ but in my experience there are considerable differences between the different types of putty available on the market. There was another sample on the floor of the office beside McCoy’s boots. When I examined this sample in its turn, although it would not constitute pr
oof that McCoy was the thief, I would take my oath in Court that the samples of putty from the cabinet and from the office are from the same batch. This microscopic examination was really only necessary for my own peace of mind, as I was convinced that McCoy was guilty, and the mere existence of putty in two locations was sufficient to confirm my deduction that he had removed the glass and replaced it after having removed the cameos.”
“ The sample in the office might have been introduced after McCoy had first examined the cabinet with Pillstone, rather than at the time of the theft,” I objected.
“ You make a good counsel for the defence, Watson, but I consider it far more likely, in the absence of other evidence, that the putty was carried in on his slippers, once he had removed and replaced the pane of glass, and was deposited on the floor when he removed his slippers to change into his boots. The deed was obviously carried out after the floor of the gallery had been cleaned.”
“ You would find it hard to prove all of that in a court of law.”
“ Indeed, but there is more. When McCoy went to the gallery to prepare the way for us, while I was drinking the tea he had prepared, I examined his desk in as unobtrusive a manner as I could accomplish. On the desk I chanced to see a receipt from an ironmonger’s in Camden. The items purchased by McCoy and listed there were a tin of glazier’s putty, a glazier’s palette knife, and a sheet of glass of the same dimensions as that in the cabinet. I assume that the latter was purchased as a precaution, should he chance to break the original in the course of removing it using the palette knife. As it happened, he did not appear to require it, since the cabinet glass seemed to be of the same composition as the other panes there.”
“ You appear to have at least determined the identity of the thief in a remarkably short pace of time,” I remarked.
“ I had also gained a little time to examine the office without McCoy’s being present by upsetting the exhibit in the gallery, as you must have noticed. I am afraid that I let my triumph show in my eyes, and as we saw, McCoy slipped away from the Museum to join his colleagues in crime. As I mentioned before, it was clear to me that McCoy was not acting alone. I had already consulted brother Mycroft on the matter immediately after Pillstone had related the details of the theft, suspecting that there was more to the matter than mere theft, and he had informed me of the existence of Ferguson’s group, immediately pointing out to me the political connections—an area in which Mycroft, as you know, is an expert. He had also furnished me with an appointment as a special constable, which you saw proved so useful to me when we finally came to settle matters with Sir William.
“ As soon as McCoy had flown the coop, it was obvious to me that I had to locate the whole gang if the cameos were to be recovered. I had only one starting point to go on, and that was Sir William Ferguson. I therefore determined to watch his house, and was soon rewarded by the sight of McCoy paying a call. When he emerged ten minutes later, I was faced with a dilemma. Mycroft had impressed upon me the importance of keeping the whole business a secret, should Ferguson prove to be involved, as he now was. There was therefore no possibility of my involving the police. I had two choices, the first being to ransack Sir William’s house and retrieve the cameos—a plan that would have to wait until nightfall were I to carry it out. The second was to follow McCoy and apprehend him before questioning him closely about the group with whom he was working, in an attempt to force Sir William’s hand. This was the course I chose.
“ Foolishly, I did not take sufficient precautions. Maybe the cold from which I was suffering prevented me from clear thought. In any event, I had just turned down a deserted side-street to follow McCoy when I was seized from behind, and a harsh voice spoke in my ear.
“ ‘You think that you are a clever man, Mr. Holmes,” it said. ‘Show us how clever you can be. Just keep quiet for a few days and no harm will come to you.’ A foul gag was stuffed in my mouth, and some sort of bag was placed over my head, so I could not cry out for help, or see where I was. My arms were gripped tightly from behind, and in this condition I was forced into some sort of carriage. Happily, I had an exact knowledge of my location at the point that I had been taken, and I forced myself to remember every turn and movement of the cab.”
“ I remember that you had no address to give our driver earlier. You were remembering the route you had taken while blindfolded ? ” Though I was well aware of Holmes’ powers of memory and concentration, the feat of remembering the journey he had undertaken under such circumstances filled me with a certain wonder.
“ We arrived at our destination,” Holmes continued, “ and I was bundled out of the cab, and into a house, where, the bag still over my head, I was marched up the stairs. Abruptly, the bag was removed from my head, and my hands were released. Immediately, I removed the gag from my mouth, and then beheld my captors. They were the same three that we have already encountered, and it was to their leader, whom we now know to be named Harry McLeod, that I addressed myself.
“ ‘I do not expect you to tell me your name, or that of your friends,’ said I to him, ‘but I would appreciate your letting me know how long I may expect to be your guest.’
“ ‘If all goes well, you will be free to work your mischief in a few days. It all depends on the generosity of another.’
“ I was intrigued by this pronouncement, but forbore to enquire much further. It was clear to me that this man was the leader, and his countenance bore the look of a man with a little more intelligence than his fellows. If I were to find out more, it was not to my advantage to be questioning him.
“ I had not much time to consider the matter, for my left wrist was seized, and I was handcuffed to the bed that you saw in that room. ‘Food and water will be provided,’ my captor told me, and I was left alone to consider my fate.
“ They had omitted to remove the contents of my pockets, and had I been carrying a revolver, or indeed, any kind of weapon, I could easily have escaped. As it was, with some difficulty I managed to extract a small slip of steel from my waistcoat pocket, and contrived to slip the pawl of the handcuffs. It is an easy trick to accomplish, provided one has the right tools. At this point I determined to hide the warrant giving me authority as a special constable. Such an official document would undoubtedly have tipped my hand as regards the value of the prize I knew to be at stake. This was among the papers I retrieved earlier from under the floor of the room where I had been held.
“ After I had replaced the floorboards, I crept to the door of the room, and listened carefully. I did not anticipate that a sentry would be posted outside, and indeed, I could hear no sign of one. There was a confused sound of voices coming from down the stairs, but I could make out few of the words, and those I was able to distinguish appeared to be chiefly concerned with a dispute regarding who should go to buy beer for the group.
“ After a short while I heard footsteps starting to ascend the stairs, and I returned to the bed, re-securing the handcuff about my wrist. I feigned sleep, until my gaoler, who was one of the smaller men who had appeared earlier.
“ ‘Here’s your grub,” he said to me, placing a piece of stale bread and a tin cup of water beside the bed.
“ ‘How long do you expect me to be here ? ’ I asked, as pleasantly as I could manage, given the circumstances.
“ ‘When his nibs has got rid of the sparklers, or whatever you want to call them,’ was the answer I heard. This news was exciting to me, as you can imagine. This gang of low-born ruffians was being controlled by someone else.
“ ‘Sir William Ferguson ? ’ I asked. The Irishman’s eyes grew narrow.
“ ‘Ask me no names and I’ll tell you no lies,’ was his only answer, by the tone of which I knew that I had scored a hit. I felt it inadvisable to pursue any further enquiries, so thanked him for the vile repast, and he left me. The bread was stale and the water foul, and I merely nibbled and sipped at them, following which I lay on the bare bedstead, and dozed. As you know, I am accustomed to some hardships from tim
e to time in the course of my work, so this lack of sustenance was little more than an inconvenience that I hoped would be merely temporary. I had satisfied myself that I could set myself at liberty within the confines of the room, but I was unsure as to whether I could escape from the building where I was confined. The window of the room where I was being held captive had been boarded up, with only a small gap at the top to admit light, and it was impossible for me to remove the boarding—believe me, Watson, I attempted this—and equally impossible for me to see anything except a patch of sky, no matter from what angle I attempted to make my observations. I had, unfortunately, omitted to being with me my hand-mirror, which would have assisted me in this latter regard, but it was useless for me to reproach myself for this omission.
“ At one point, I heard the front door of the house being opened, and the sound of a visitor being welcomed. The only visitor to the house of whom I could conceive was the man who had been referred to as ‘his nibs’ by my gaoler, Sir William Ferguson. I slipped out of the handcuffs, and listened with all my attention to the sounds coming from below. Happily, the visitor, whom I was now certain was Sir William, had a distinctive loud voice, as you probably remember from the incident outside the Club, and I was able to distinguish most of the words.
“ ‘Keep them wrapped up and keep them here,’ came the voice. ‘Old Engelhart will be along to see them in a few days.’ The name was familiar to me as an American collector of art. I had heard once from Leverton, of the Pinkerton agency, that Engelhart was suspected of being the ultimate owner of the Rubens that disappeared from Applethorne House—a little before your time, I believe, Watson—but there was not enough proof to justify a warrant. At that moment, I knew that the theft of the cameos was not simply a matter of embarrassing the parties involved, but that there was a very large sum of money involved. This was confirmed by the next words I heard. ‘And when that Yankee hands over the money, we’ll have enough to put a gun in the hands of every mother’s son who loves his country and hates Rome.’ I knew then that I had to act to stop this transaction taking place. Once the money had been handed to Sir William, I knew that there would be little chance of its ever being retrieved.”
