Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet and searched along the fireplace mantle for a pipe and matches. He drew out tobacco from the toe of his Persian slipper and tamped it down in the bowl of his oily clay. He began to pace up and down the room, his long legs moving rapidly under the swirl of his dressing gown. Great clouds of tobacco smoke puffed out into a veil around his head. As he walked he clasped his hands behind his back and sank his chin upon his chest.
Both of us waited silently. After several minutes he laid aside his pipe. Sherlock Holmes turned a smiling face to our client and spoke in a confident voice.
“Mr. Service, I have rarely heard of such an unusual case. I accept it with pleasure. Pray do not worry about my fee. The pleasure of this case will be payment enough. But our time grows short. This is what we shall do. Your employers know you have left the office?”
“I told them I was inspecting a building site today.”
“So you shall. Proceed to your building site, Mr. Service, and concentrate your mind upon those matters that earn you your bread and cheese. I must go out. I have several errands. We will meet this evening at six o’clock at Battersea Station.”
“What will we do then, Mr. Holmes?”
Holmes paused from exchanging his dressing gown for a frock coat. “We shall find the truth, Mr. Service, and the truth shall set you free. Watson, you will be there?”
The door closed behind him and we heard his footsteps on the stairs. Justin Service looked at me and drew a ragged breath. “Dr. Watson, I don’t understand any of this.”
Privately I also had my doubts, but it would not do to express them to our client. “I trust in Mr. Holmes, though he can be inscrutable at times. Our best decision is to do what he says. I will see you this evening, sir.”
I occupied the rest of the day in my own concerns. But first, before I left the sitting room, I spent time carefully cleaning and reloading my old service revolver.
I saw no sign of Holmes or Justin Service when I boarded the Battersea train at Waterloo. There was a delay upon the line and my anxiety increased as time ticked past while I was forced to sit in a stationary coach. It was well past six-thirty as my train pulled into the station and I found Sherlock Holmes and Justin Service waiting for me on the platform. They had a four-wheeler waiting and we started off at once for the offices of Lawler and Kingman.
Holmes looked at me ruefully. “It is too bad your train was delayed, Watson. I had hoped to examine Lawler and Kingman’s offices before Mr. Service’s appointment. As it is, we do not enter this edifice blind. I have spent the day going to several places in London and Battersea. As a result I have learned that the building where Lawler and Kingman have their rooms was designed by Mr. Lawler as his own magnum opus. He was concerned with security and had built in several unique features. I also found out that the draftsman who helped him draw up the plan had the initials R. S.”
I pondered these facts as we drew near our destination. What kind of security features could have been provided by Mr. Lawler? Who was R.S.?
The address we sought was a large handsome modern building across from a small public park. Shaped cream and white stone dazzled the eye and the sun behind us gleamed off many wide windows. Mr. Service led us up the broad steps and through a pair of tall carved doors.
A large electric chandelier illuminated a foyer that had several corridors leading away from it. The building appeared deserted. “The staff has gone home by this hour,” Justin Service murmured. “The cleaning people will be done by eight. That is why the doors weren’t locked.”
“Pray show us your office,” said Sherlock Holmes. “Watson, be very quiet. It is nearly seven and Mr. Service is supposed to be here alone.”
Silently we went up a marble staircase to the first floor and down a corridor on the left. Halfway down Justin Service opened a door and ushered us into his plainly-furnished room. Sherlock Holmes lingered on the threshold.
“Mr. Kingman was carried past your door toward the main staircase. Where was his office?” he whispered.
Our client answered in a like manner. “It was at this end, Mr. Holmes, with windows facing the park. My window, as you see, looks out upon the back.”
“Quite so.” Holmes stepped into Justin Service’s office and cast his keen eyes over its interior. There was a wooden desk and office chair, a drafting table in one corner, an empty coat rack and several cabinets containing rolled-up plans and drafting materials. The double window behind the desk was hung with a thick plain curtain. A few pictures hung on the walls and a framed photograph of two women stood on the desktop next to an electric lamp. Sherlock Holmes held an battery torch in one hand as he silently surveyed the furnishings. Then he took out a large magnifying glass from his pocket and began to examine the walls, pressing and prodding with his thin fingers at the wainscoting. It lacked but a few minutes to seven when he ceased his silent search, glanced at his watch and turned to us.
He drew our ears to his lips and spoke very softly. “Mr. Service, please step outside your door and enter the room in your customary manner. Take off your hat and sit at your desk. Turn on the light. Watson and I will stand behind these curtains. It is time for your appointment. Do not mention us to your visitor. Follow the instructions I gave you at the station. When the time is right, read this aloud.”
He pressed a slip of paper into Justin Service’s hand and pulled me behind the curtain. We had barely arranged ourselves so that we were invisible from the room when we heard Justin Service re-enter his office and close the door. A soft rustling and a low creak indicated that he had hung up his hat and seated himself at the desk. A light clicked on. The next few minutes crawled by in utter silence. I watched Holmes, his eyes bright and gleaming, his mouth tensed into a straight, tight line. His ear was turned to the curtain and his entire body seemed to be listening for the faintest sound. I fingered the revolver in my coat pocket as I waited.
Suddenly Justin Service spoke. “How did you get in here?”
“You haven’t yet figured that out, Mr. Service? Dear me. If you spent less time with your head buried in your hands, you might find out. Have you,” and here we heard a hideous chuckle, “determined my name yet?”
“Please, can’t we stop this now? I’ve offered to pay for the work you did making up those plans. Somehow I will find the money, if you just stop tormenting me!”
“We had a bargain, Mr. Service. Or should I call you Justin, since you are to become my brother-in-law?”
“That will never be!” A chair scraped the floor.
“Stay where you are! The time has come. I give you three last guesses, sir!”
“Is it Tillotson?”
“No,” the voice chuckled.
“Waxflatter!”
“No,” and we heard an odious laugh.
“Could your name be… RumpelStiltskin?”
A dreadful scream rang through the room. “What? How did you find out?”
“You lost your job as draftsman here at Lawler and Kingman six months ago! Your last address was 42 Underhill Lane which you left last week!”
Suddenly we heard a crash and a thump. Holmes and I burst out from behind the curtain to see the desk swept bare and Justin Service on his knees scrabbling at a section of wainscoting. He looked up at Sherlock Holmes. “He went through here!”
Our client fell back as Holmes attacked the wall. Soundlessly a panel slid back. He plunged into the aperture and we followed him. He had his torch turned on and the circle of light slid over a narrow passageway lit by slits high up on the walls. At the end of the passage, Holmes dashed up a set of stairs to the next floor. Mr. Service and I ran up the steps behind him and found Holmes pulling down a collapsible ladder from an overhead hatch.
“The rope handle was still swinging, Watson! His footsteps in the dust end here! He went up!”
We cl
imbed into a small room under the eaves. I saw a drafting table and chair, cabinets piled with architectural drawings and electric lights hanging from the rafters. A pallet on the floor and some old blankets made up a crude bed. Sherlock Holmes and I ran to an opened skylight in the angle of the roof and thrust our heads and shoulders out into the clear air. I pointed my revolver at a pair of hands which slipped out of sight over the edge of the leads.
We heard a clatter and a rush down below. “Gone down that drainpipe and out through the alley, Watson!” Holmes cried. He craned his neck. “It’s no use to follow him. He’s halfway to the Thames by now. By God, look at this!” He pulled in his head and flourished a large handful of white hair. He tossed it to me and turned his attention to the piles of papers heaped on the closest surface.
I stepped under a light and examined Holmes’s trophy. It was a long white wig and beard, spreading out and down my arm and clinging to my coat. Justin Service gasped and said, “It is his! He must have used it as a disguise. But why?”
Holmes looked up from a sheaf of papers. “It was an added precaution in case someone from the firm saw him in the building. My researches today showed that RumpelStiltskin had worked for Lawler and Kingman since old Mr. Lawler hired him in the early days. In fact, he was Lawler’s favorite draftsman. He assisted in the drawing up of the plans for this building. Only he and Lawler knew about these secret corridors and rooms. Lawler meant to use them to guard against industrial sabotage. After he died, I think Stiltskin used the system to spy on his fellow employees.
“Without friends or family, he spent many private hours in this room drawing up plans like those orders given to the real architects. He developed a backload of common assignments. See, here they are in this cabinet. When he decided to wreak his revenge on the people he saw as taking his job, he lurked inside the walls and chose plans from his supply.”
Holmes picked up a dusty, half-filled wine bottle from a shelf and sniffed at the contents. “This has been drugged, as I thought. That was the reason for your deep slumber after each bargain, Mr. Service. Hello, what have we here?” He found a notebook amongst the litter and flipped through the pages.
“According to this journal he has left behind, Stiltskin knew the reorganization was coming even before he was fired, so he persecuted Mr. Kingman by whispering to him through the walls as Kingman sat alone in his office. That convinced Kingman that he was going mad and drove the poor man to drink even more. It was that mysterious voice that commanded Kingman to give Justin Service those impossible assignments.”
Our client dropped into the one chair. “But why persecute me? I never even met the man.”
Holmes regarded the young architect gently. “Pardon me, Mr. Service, but you are young and inexperienced. This was your first job. Add to that your financial situation and your devotion to your family, facts which he could have easily found out by listening from the hidden passageways, and you were fated to become the subject of Stiltskin’s dark and devious plans.”
“But, Holmes,” I protested. “What did he hope to gain with such activities? It would not get him his job back.”
“I believe his job had become his life, Doctor, and when one ended, so did the other. Pure malevolent revenge became his raison d’être. I do not think he ever intended to meet your sister, Mr. Service, much less marry her. He knew that the very thought of such a thing was enough to force you to despair. Your pain was what he was after and when he saw it he rejoiced. Mr. Kingman’s death, perhaps brought on by his evil whispering campaign, must have satisfied his black soul for months.”
“But he has escaped us, Mr. Holmes!”
Sherlock Holmes put down the journal and carefully closed and locked the skylight. “Yes. He was a younger man that he appeared, especially in that white wig and beard, and he swarmed up and down that drainpipe with quite a sailor’s skill. You must inform your employers of this room and the hidden corridors tomorrow morning, Mr. Service, so that they may take steps to secure every last bolt hole against his return. It is possible that he may never come back now that his secret is out. Eventually such a twisted brain is bound to express itself in some manner, however. I shall just drop a word in Inspector Lestrade’s ear for future reference.”
Justin Service stood and wordlessly wrung Sherlock Holmes’ hand in gratitude. Holmes turned to leave, pausing at the top of the ladder.
“Now it is back to my researches into that interesting South American poison, Watson. I wonder what would happen if it were injected into a subject? “
A horrible image sprang into my brain. “Holmes, I must insist that you…!”
Sherlock Holmes smiled and raised his hand. “Alright, Doctor, do calm yourself. I think Mrs. Hudson’s traps caught a couple of mice in the back scullery last night. I promise to try my experiments out on them first.”
I climbed down from the hidden room silently resolving to lay out some crumbs in the back scullery every night from now on.
The Case of the Secluded Stepchildren
Late one August evening Inspector George Stone unexpectedly called upon us in our sitting room at 221b Baker Street. He found a pretty domestic scene; Mrs. Hudson bearing away the remains of a late cold supper and me at my desk with my notes before me, my mind still pre-occupied with the details of the case we had concluded just that evening. Mr. Sherlock Holmes stood before the curtained window, pipe in hand. Holmes stopped attempting to light his old clay and regarded George Stone with interest.
“Hello, Inspector, do come in. Mrs. Hudson, bring back the joint. Mr. Stone looks as if he could use some of it. Sit down, man, before you fall! Watson, bring a chair and get him a drink. All work and no meals make for a very long day, sir.” Holmes filled a plate from the sideboard and placed it before our visitor.
The Scotland Yard detective, whom Sherlock Holmes had previously mentioned to me as one of the young up-and-coming men of that stately institution, attacked the meal without apologies. I placed a glass of port by his plate. Holmes shook his head and gently chastised our visitor.
“Inspector, you must remember to take a moment and eat. Your body cannot take the strain of continuous work without nourishment. Have an apple.”
I stared at my friend in disbelief. “Holmes, I have been telling you that for years!”
Holmes laughed at my indignant expression. “And you can see that I have been listening, Watson. Inspector Stone hasn’t yet developed the bad habits that I nurture. If you had been around to drop a friendly word in my ear at a tender age, I might be a better man today.”
Stone looked up at us. “Speaking of a tender age, that’s why I’m here, Mr. Holmes,” he said.
“It’s the missing Woods children, isn’t it?” Holmes lit his pipe.
“Yes. I’ve been looking into it all day and I came here as soon as the search broke up. It will resume early in the morning and I’m hoping you will be able to join us. I’m baffled, Mr. Holmes, I will admit it, and there is no time to spare.”
“I am not aware of any missing children,” I said.
“You have not been looking out the window at the news seller across the street, Watson,” Holmes said. “The latest edition appeared ten minutes ago, and the placard is easily visible by the light on the corner.”
“I have all the details here,” said Stone, as he laid his notebook on the table.
“We have been busy all day, Inspector, and I know only of the headline I saw.”
The Scotland Yard detective began flipping through his notes. “At seven o’clock yesterday morning Mr. Cutter Woods of the village of Smaller Chippings walked to his job as a forester in Bushy Park. His home, Starvelings, is on the edge of the Park, southeast of Richmond. At noon his wife sent the children, six-year old Henry and five-year old Gladys, out with a lunch for him as was the custom. The children never arrived, although they had brought him his lunch the day bef
ore at the same place. Mr. Woods wondered at this, but he was engaged in a complicated tree-felling operation and decided not to return home before the end of the day. Upon reaching home at dusk, he discovered that his wife had sent off the kiddies at the regular time, but they had not returned. She naturally thought that they had stayed with him, as they have done before. They both searched the surrounding area and inquired of the neighbors, but found no sign of them. The alarm was raised and the police began an investigation at once. Small bands of men roamed through Smaller Chippings and the nearest part of Bushy Park but found nothing before it became too dark to see.
“Smaller Chippings called in Scotland Yard, but we couldn’t do much last night. This morning search parties were formed and the entire day has been spent looking for the children. I was able to interview Cutter Woods a little, but his wife was too upset for questions. Everything will begin again tomorrow morning. Could you be there, Mr. Holmes? I would count it as a particular favor. I haven’t forgotten your help with that affair of the poor Knights of Windsor.”
“This case has its points of interest, Inspector, and I will join you tomorrow at Smaller Chippings. How about it, Watson? We have had a long day. Would you be too fatigued to accompany me?”
“Of course not, Holmes. Those poor children must be found as soon as possible.”
“Staunch old Watson! If you have finished your supper, Inspector Stone, you must excuse us to get what rest we can. You may count upon us both. Do try to get some sleep yourself. The sun rises early these August mornings.”
I got a good look at the morning sunrise the next day, as our train pulled into Smaller Chippings well before my accustomed breakfast time. When we stepped off the carriage we could see a large crowd of townsmen, police and a few small boys milling about in front of a public house opposite the platform. Inspector Stone came out of the building under a large sign that read “Le Chapelure” and pushed through the crowd to us. He grasped our hands gratefully. He introduced us to the local constabulary and the mayor, but Holmes was able to disengage himself from them with ease. He led Stone down to the other end of the platform with me at their heels.
Sherlock Holmes and The Folk Tale Mysteries Page 4
