A Study in Sherlock

by Laurie R. King

  As the clerk, collecting his wages later, related to Chan, he followed his instructions to the letter, telling her while she signed the register that, as a lady such as herself would find the nearby streets distasteful, he would advise making the turn into Swandam Lane where a hansom cab might be found. Mrs. Neville St. Clair thanked him for his consideration and left. A few moments later the clerk, muttering to his office mates about a task with which he had been charged, left his desk and followed her. He was close behind, careful to hide himself, when the lady reached Swandam Lane. As she neared the Lascar’s establishment, the clerk signaled to the men in Zhang’s doorway, gesturing from a few steps back at the lady so that Zhang’s men, who had been waiting for this sign, would know that this figure was indeed Mrs. Neville St. Clair.

  Zhang’s men then went into action, moving as a group into the street, boisterously disputing some point as though continuing an argument. They stopped on the muddy cobblestones so as to loudly make their points with each other. This had the requisite double effect of slowing the progress of Mrs. Neville St. Clair, and causing heads to turn in their direction—including, as intended, the head of Mr. Neville St. Clair in his window at the Bar of Gold. From that window issued a loud but inarticulate cry. Zhang’s three men immediately ceased their argument as heads turned once again, people in Swandam Lane seeking, instinctively, the source of the piteous noise. Among those glancing up was Mrs. Neville St. Clair. From the confused and horrified expression that swept the lady’s features, both the clerk and Zhang’s men understood that she had seen, in that window of the Lascar’s establishment, what she had been intended to see.

  From there events continued to unfold as the men had planned them. The Lascar’s assistant, the Dane secretly in Lu’s service, forbade the entrance of Mrs. Neville St. Clair to the Bar of Gold, turning her away though she was desperate to the point of distraction. Just after that moment, alerted by the shipping clerk, an inspector and two constables of Wing’s acquaintance who had been biding their time in Fresno Street presented themselves at the corner with Swandam Lane. The lady hastened to them, and together they rushed back to the Bar of Gold, where the inspector demanded to be admitted. The small group then hurried up the stairs to the front room on the second floor, there to find Hugh Boone, a well-known redheaded beggar of singular repulsiveness. What had become of Mrs. Neville St. Clair’s husband, whom she had seen peering from the window of that very room, could not be ascertained. However, as the Dane related later, blood decorated the windowsill, certain items of Mr. Neville St. Clair’s clothing hung in a closet, and, most damning of all, a gift the gentleman had promised to bring his small son was discovered in a box on a table. The beggar Hugh Boone was taken into custody, but there the case remained. No sign of Mr. Neville St. Clair himself having been found, Scotland Yard was without charges to level against the beggar, although the fear of foul play was very strong in the heart of the unfortunate man’s wife.

  The following Wednesday evening, as fog was beginning to swirl through the streets of London, the small group of opium-house owners gathered again in Chan’s parlor.

  “It appears,” Zhang said, settling his gaunt frame upon a carved armchair, “that your plan has met with some success thus far, Chan.” This inarguable fact seemed to lighten Zhang’s perennially dark countenance not at all, though Chan noted that this time he did sip a cup of tea.

  “The next steps are all in place,” Chan assured them all, pouring tea for the other two men as well. “Mrs. Neville St. Clair, having received no satisfaction as to her husband’s fate from the assiduous but fruitless efforts of Scotland Yard, has chosen to follow the advice of the good Inspector Barton.” Chan saw Wing smile, which indulgence Chan did not begrudge him, as the inspector had been instructed in that advice by Wing himself. “This afternoon, Mrs. Neville St. Clair was received at the Baker Street rooms of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Was she indeed?” Wing lowered his teacup, licking his full lips. “Well done. What do you expect will happen now?”

  “As Mr. Sherlock Holmes can be relied upon to be resourceful,” Chan replied, “I am confident he will call at the Lascar’s soon, in an excellent disguise. He will request a pipe, settling himself upon pillows in a secluded spot from which he will be able to observe the other patrons. He will hope thus to find, in the mutterings of those sots, a clue to the disappearance of Mr. Neville St. Clair. Being a patient man, he will continue in these efforts for two days, or more. Of course, he will learn nothing by this.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  “The subtlety of the mind of Mr. Sherlock Holmes—” Chan smiled. “—could lead one to believe he is not an Englishman at all, but one of us. The fact that he learns nothing by his stay at the Bar of Gold will be, in fact, what he learns. It will become the knot at which he will chew, eventually to unravel the problem before him.”

  Wing and Zhang considered this. Lu, with his flare for the dramatic, put down his teacup and took up the story. “The attendance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes upon the Lascar’s opium rooms,” he said, “will be useful to us in another way, also.”

  “How so?” asked Wing.

  “As soon as it became known that Mrs. Neville St. Clair had presented herself at 221B Baker Street, the young Dane in my employ at the Lascar’s made his way to the home of one Mr. Isa Whitney. There he invited that gentleman, as a regular patron of the Lascar’s establishment, to come to Swandam Lane to sample, with the proprietor’s compliments, a pipeful of the latest shipment of goods received. Mr. Isa Whitney, being much addicted to opium, appears to have found the invitation compelling, so much so that he accompanied the young man without delay. The Dane has been instructed to continue to ply Mr. Isa Whitney with a fresh supply of pipes, for which I will bear the cost.” He waved a hand to indicate that this was a mere trifle, not to be discussed. The others nodded to acknowledge his generosity, though Chan reflected that the cost of a pipeful of opium in London was not so great that Lu’s fortune was likely to be noticeably diminished by it. “By these means,” Lu continued, “the attendance of that gentleman at the Lascar’s establishment has been assured for the near future.”

  Chan observed Wing and Zhang exchanging a rare glance of sympathetic concordance. It was Zhang who expressed their mutual thought: “I fail to understand, Lu, what involvement Mr. Isa Whitney has in this affair.”

  Lu smiled. “He has none. However, it is the practice of Mr. Isa Whitney’s wife, when trouble comes upon her, to consult an old friend, a school companion. This excellent woman is one Mary Watson, whose husband, Dr. John Watson—that surgeon known to his wife affectionately as ‘James’—serves with great forbearance as Mr. Isa Whitney’s medical adviser. More than once, Dr. John Watson has been called upon to untangle Mr. Isa Whitney from the clasp of the opium pipe. It is Mr. Isa Whitney’s sojourn at the Bar of Gold that will bring Dr. John Watson there, thus making him available to attend Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Can we depend upon his discovering the detective,” Wing asked mildly, “if Mr. Sherlock Holmes will be wearing so excellent a disguise?”

  “Certainly not,” Chan responded. “He will not discover Mr. Sherlock Holmes. London’s most brilliant consulting detective will discover him.”

  As Chan had predicted it, so it transpired. Lu’s Dane having returned to the Lascar’s establishment, he sent word upon the Friday evening that Dr. John Watson had called at the Bar of Gold demanding to speak to Mr. Isa Whitney. That gentleman being found in a sorry state, Dr. John Watson paid his debt and put him in a cab for home. The doctor did not, however, accompany him, but rather lingered in Swandam Lane for some few minutes, until one of the other opium smokers emerged from the establishment. The bent old man who stumbled into the street exchanged words with the doctor, who accompanied him for a time—the Dane stealing silently behind them—until suddenly the old man straightened out and burst into a hearty fit of laughter. The Dane observed the two men as they spoke. The old and decrepit opium addict,
having miraculously recovered both his vigor and his wits, whistled for their carriage. As it rolled away, the Dane returned to his position at the Lascar’s door.

  The following afternoon, final confirmation as to the success of the plan was received from one of Wing’s allies in the police, a constable who provided Wing with information from time to time. Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson had called very early in the morning at the Bow Street gaol. They had spoken in private with Inspector Bradstreet; what precisely had transpired in Bradstreet’s office was not known to Wing’s informant, but the two had been taken by the inspector downstairs to the cells. There they remained for some time. Shortly after they returned to the street, to drive away in a carriage, a gentleman was escorted from the area of the cells whom the constable had not previously seen. That gentleman summoned a cab and was overheard to request delivery to the train station with all speed. The enterprising constable, thinking to learn something of what had transpired in the cells, took himself down the winding stair to the whitewashed corridor lined with doors. To his surprise, the beggar Hugh Boone was gone, his cell empty though the constable had not seen him brought up the stairs.

  “Mr. Sherlock Holmes was overheard to mention breakfast to Dr. John Watson in a most jovial manner as they left the gaol,” said Chan to the guests gathered for one final cup of tea in his parlor. “I think he will be reflecting no further upon this matter.”

  “That’s rather a shame,” said Wing, “as we might therefore be thought to be intruding if we were to express our appreciation for his help. No, Zhang, you needn’t glower, that was merely levity.”

  “Indeed,” said Chan, anxious to get the issue disposed of once and for all. “In any case, I believe that will be an end to this matter of Hugh Boone, or Mr. Neville St. Clair, renting rooms at the Bar of Gold. All that remains is for the Lascar, in the most delicate but firmest of terms, to be made to understand that it was we who engineered these events. Once it is clear we are prepared to proceed with an equal measure of subtlety, but nothing approaching this level of restraint, should we be provoked again, I think we will be able to count on the Lascar’s cooperation. Yes, I believe a discretion previously unknown will suddenly begin to show itself in the behavior of our Lascar colleague. Would you all be prepared to accompany me right now to the Bar of Gold?”

  “I am,” Lu responded instantly.

  “I also,” Wing agreed, finishing his tea.

  The three turned to Zhang, who, after a silent moment, shocked them all when he permitted his lips to twist into a smile. Answering smiles were received from the others. “I have no objection,” Zhang said, and so, still smiling, the four men of Limehouse made their way to the street.

  S. J. Rozan, a lifelong New Yorker, first encountered and devoured the adventures of Sherlock Holmes at the age of twelve during the same convalescence as when she discovered Edgar Allan Poe. S.J. is the author of thirteen novels and three dozen short stories. She’s won the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity Awards, and other honors, including the Japanese Maltese Falcon. However, none of these have been enough to entice Mr. Holmes to give her a call. She will keep trying.

  For Dr. Watson’s perspective on the events narrated in this story, see “The Man with the Twisted Lip” by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in the Strand (1892) and collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE PURLOINED PAGET

  Phillip Margolin and Jerry Margolin

  Everything about the moor made Ronald Adair uneasy. He had lived his whole life in Manhattan and he felt that there was something inherently wrong with places where you could actually see the horizon and the silence wasn’t annihilated by honking horns and pounding jackhammers. There were no Michelin-star restaurants in this wasteland, but there were bogs that could swallow a man in minutes. Ronald shivered as he imagined being sucked down into the ooze, struggling helplessly until the slime choked off his last terrified scream.

  A year ago, Ronald had flown to Hollywood to talk to a studio head who wanted to buy the movie rights to Death’s Head, the video game that had made him a multimillionaire. He’d brought his girlfriend along and she had insisted that they visit the La Brea Tar Pits. The place had given him the willies. Sixteen-foot-high mammoths had disappeared into that darkness. At his last physical, Ronald had measured exactly five foot eleven inches tall. If he was sucked into one of those pits he wouldn’t stand a chance. He wondered if he would even recognize a tar pit or a bog should he wander out upon the moor. At least the manholes in Manhattan had covers you could see.

  And then there was the Hound! Ronald knew The Hound of the Baskervilles was fiction but he was a fanatic Sherlockian—an investitured member of the Baker Street Irregulars with a complete set of Conan Doyle first editions in his library—so he also knew that Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale had been inspired by the legend of the seventeenth-century squire Richard Cabell, a monstrously evil man who had allegedly sold his soul to the devil. Cabell was buried on the moor and his ghost was said to lead a pack of baying phantom hounds across them on the anniversary of his death. Intellectually, Ronald knew there was no Hound prowling the “craggy cairns and tors” Conan Doyle had described in his story, but somewhere in the lizard part of his brain lurked the fear that an unearthly, slavering beast with glowing red eyes might roam a godforsaken place like this.

  Ronald scanned the eerie countryside through the window of the jet black SUV that had been waiting for his private plane at Heathrow. The moor was shrouded in a thick, impenetrable mist that would cloak any ravenous fiend lurking near the dark pools of liquid peat. He pulled his gaze away and checked his cell phone. There were still no bars. They had disappeared as soon as the SUV passed through a small village which, the driver informed him, would be the last sign of civilization he would see before they arrived at Hilton Cubitt’s estate.

  There were two other SUVs and a chauffeured limousine in the caravan that was headed toward Cubitt’s manor house. Ronald had seen the passengers in the other SUVs at Heathrow when they walked to the vehicles from their private jets. He had one thing in common with them: an outstanding Holmes collection. The limousine had joined the convoy as it left the airport and Ronald had no idea who was riding in it.

  In the SUV directly behind Ronald was William Escott, a heavyset, dissipated Texas oilman who had inherited his wealth from his father. Ronald had disliked the collector the first time their paths had crossed at an auction. His low opinion of the man had never changed. Escott was a foul-mouthed slob who drank too much and talked too loudly. He had actually gotten into a fistfight during the Baker Street Irregulars’ annual meeting in New York in a dispute over the date of the action in “The Musgrave Ritual.” Escott did not limit his collecting to Holmes. He had an ownership interest in the Houston Astros and one of the best collections of baseball memorabilia outside of Cooperstown.

  Robert Altamont was in the SUV that was following Escott. He was a chubby five-ten with a ruddy complexion, straw-colored hair, and bright blue eyes. The inventor had grown up on a farm in Oregon and had made his fortune after graduating from Boise State, but he dressed like a Boston WASP, affected a Haavaad accent and tried to create the impression that he’d been educated at places like Andover, Princeton, and MIT. The veil was easy to penetrate. Ronald had seen him use the wrong fork more than once at the BSI banquet and had caught numerous grammatical errors when Altamont tried to throw French phrases into a conversation.

  Altamont had never confirmed the gossip about the source of his wealth but it was rumored that he had invented an electric car that really did what it was supposed to do and had sold the technology to a consortium of car manufacturers who now held the patent and the design in a vault in a secret location. The deal had supposedly made him a fortune.

  Altamont was as avid a Sherlockian as Ronald. He had been turned on to Holmes by his older brother when he was ten years old and had started collecting on a small scale when he was still poor and in college.
After he became rich Altamont not only built one of the world’s best Holmes collections but expanded his interests to Shakespeare First Folio, signed first editions of famous literary works, and French Impressionist paintings.

  The caravan rounded a curve in the road and a pair of wrought-iron gates attached to weather-worn stone pillars suddenly appeared out of the fog. The gates and the house they protected looked familiar and Ronald had no trouble figuring out why. Hilton Cubitt had chosen this desolate stretch of the moor for his manor house because he wanted to model it after Baskerville Hall but the description in Doyle’s story did not provide enough detail, so he’d had the architect study the plans for Cromer Hall, which had inspired Doyle’s fictional architectural creation. Cubitt’s manor house was a variant of Tudor Gothic. There was a central three-story section with two-story wings on each side. The manor was gray stone. Octagonal stone chimneys rose at several points along the slate roof. The gray stone blended into the sullen surroundings and looked rather foreboding. For a brief moment, Ronald imagined that the high windows at the front of the house were watching him arrive.

  The SUVs and the limousine stopped in front of a high, carved door fashioned from weather-worn oak. The driver opened Ronald’s door and he stepped out. The chill wind that swept across the desolate landscape stung his cheeks and he turned up the collar of the motorcycle jacket he wore over a black turtleneck and worn jeans. Ronald knew he was underdressed for a stay at a British manor house, but one nice thing about being filthy rich was that he could dress any damn way he pleased.