“I am glad to hear it, Mrs. Tillotson. What can you tell me about Willie Piper?”
“He’s not in trouble, is he? A more gentle and friendly man you’ll never find.”
“I regret to tell you he is very ill. He is in the charity ward at St. Bart’s.”
The widow looked upset and twisted a bit of skirt in her fingers. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve known Willie since he first came to London. He moved here from Liverpool over twenty years ago. He told me he had a wife there but she died. He tried several jobs but he wasn’t very strong. He finally settled into the job of rat catcher. He got enough work to sustain himself but never much more. I noticed over the years that his clothes were wearing thin and he barely kept himself in boots. He wouldn’t take any handouts, but once I persuaded him to let me mend his old coat. Three days ago he came in with his traps. I shouldn’t have let him pawn them. After they were gone how could he earn a living?”
“What did he do before he came to London?” asked Holmes.
“He told me he had been at sea in merchant ships. He had traveled the world and told such stories of adventures as I have never heard in my life. A great storyteller is Willie.”
“Where was he living here in Whitechapel?”
“He moved around from place to place, as many of the people about here must. All he owned were a few clothes and his traps. When my husband was alive he stayed here once in a while, especially when the weather was bad. We were glad to have him. Oh, what stories he would tell! I told him he should write them down, for the papers but he said he never learned to read or write. Please, sirs, you say he is at St. Bart’s?”
“That is correct,” I replied.
“Do you think they would let me visit him?”
I smiled at her and touched her old wrinkled hand as it rested on the counter. “I think that would be the best medicine he could get. But you must be prepared. He is very ill.”
“Then if you will excuse me, I will shut up the shop and go at once.”
She bustled into the back. Sherlock Holmes murmured to me, “Watson, I want you to escort Mrs. Tillotson to St. Bart’s and report our findings to Stamford. I think I have done all there is to do in this case. I am nearly out of tobacco. I will meet you back in Baker Street.”
Mrs. Tillotson appeared, wearing a straw bonnet and a rose-colored shawl. I explained my mission and she thanked us both before taking my arm. Holmes handed her into a hansom with me and we started off for the hospital.
We went immediately to the men’s charity ward, where we found Stamford standing by Willie Piper’s bed. One of the nurses was feeding the old man some soup. Stamford walked up to us as we entered and I introduced Mrs. Tillotson. He asked me, “What have you discovered?”
I gave him a brief account of our findings.
“Then he does have at least one friend in Mrs. Tillotson. I’m glad to hear it. If you are quiet, ma’am, you may sit by his bed.”
I arranged with Mrs. Tillotson to escort her back to her shop after a half-hour’s visit. It warmed my heart to see that kind old woman seated by the rat catcher’s side, speaking softly to him. I fancied I saw a little color in his pale cheeks and a bit of animation in his eyes. Stamford left to continue his rounds and I walked to the hospital’s medical library to examine the latest periodicals. At the appointed time I returned and we came out into the sunshine to hail a cab for her home.
When I returned to Baker Street I bounded up the stairs to our sitting room at 221b with a cheerful heart, ready to tell Holmes about the happy reunion I had just witnessed. I was checked at the door, however, by the sounds of voices within. Holmes had a visitor. I opened the door quietly and stepped inside with a questioning air.
The first thing I saw was Sherlock Holmes standing at the window. He turned and gave me the briefest of warning glances. Then he motioned to a familiar figure sitting on our sofa.
Inspector Lestrade greeted me as I took a seat in my armchair by the screened fireplace, and then returned his attention to my friend. “As I was saying, Holmes, as a rule Scotland Yard doesn’t handle many kidnappings. That is more of an American crime. It’s easier to close all the ports on an island then to close all the escape routes in a country like the United States. Yet the boys have disappeared and the only explanation is kidnapping.”
Holmes filled his old clay pipe from a fresh pouch of tobacco from the pocket of his purple dressing gown and lit it. Smoke rose in thin trickles from the bowl. He frowned at Lestrade.
“But you say there was no note left behind.”
“It will come later. We have a man at the house waiting for it.”
“Why has Scotland Yard decided that this Willie Piper is the culprit?”
Involuntarily I gave a start. Fortunately Lestrade’s gaze was fixed on Holmes and he didn’t notice me.
“During the past two weeks no other stranger has been admitted to the house. Mr. Rufus Sellars lives in a large five-story stucco townhouse on Sutherland Street near Eccleston Square in Pimlico with his two sons. Charlie is eleven and Stephen is nine. Their mother died when they were young and for several years they were in the charge of a series of governesses. Two years ago Mr. Sellars entrusted their care to a tutor, Mr. Lloyd Thomas. Thomas is Welsh, and told me he has spent the last five years working on a manuscript on the origins of the fertility rituals of the Pre-Roman Druids of western Wales. He seems to have a bit of a pip on the subject. He graduated from Cambridge ten years ago and has an excellent reputation. His last post was as tutor to the son of Sir Peter Wappington, the financier. He was there for over three years.
“Mr. Sellars is a widower. He is a woolen merchant with offices in several British and Scottish cities and with connections on the Continent. He travels a great deal and depends on his household staff for the day-to-day running of his home. He was told by his butler that the house had become infested with mice. A week and a half ago he hired this Piper to remove them. The man had been spending time in the neighborhood, asking for such work. Mr. Sellars admitted that Piper looked sort of ragged, but he needed the job done as soon as possible. The staff was raising a fuss about the vermin. Rufus Sellars ran a busy import-export business and didn’t want to be bothered with household matters.
“It took five days to clear the house and apparently Willie Piper spent most of his time on the job, setting out traps and waiting in the kitchen for them to spring. The cook said he told amazing stories and the boys followed him everywhere, listening to them and asking for more. She admitted that she listened to them herself and had never heard such tales in her life.
“What kind of stories?” asked Holmes.
“What does that matter?” Lestrade was annoyed at being interrupted. “She didn’t say and I didn’t ask. That’s not important. The man was spending his time casing the house planning how he could pull off the abductions. Having to set traps in every nook and cranny of the building was a perfect cover. By the time he was done, he probably knew the place better than the men who built it.
“After five days, when he said that the mice were gone, Mr. Sellars called him into the library and told him to come back in two days for his pay. Mr. Sellars said he wanted to test the quality of the work before he handed out the fee. By the time Piper came back, a housemaid had reported an odd sound in one of the upstairs back bedrooms, and Mr. Sellars refused to give the full amount of money agreed upon. “
“What a shabby trick!” I exclaimed.
“Well, according to reports from his own butler, Mr. Rufus Sellars didn’t build his business up being overly generous with his brass. Piper objected, but finally he accepted what was offered, less than half, and left. Everything went on as usual until this morning, when the tutor went into the boys’ room to rouse them for breakfast and found the room in disarray and the boys gone. One thing that stuck in his memory was that the boys’ moneyboxes
were on the floor in the center of the room, opened and empty. He told Mr. Sellars, who hadn’t left for the office yet, and the servants were dispatched to search the house. The two boys had vanished, and a window in a ground-floor box room in the back of the house was found open. Rufus Sellars called the police immediately and gave them the name of Willie Piper.”
“Are there no other suspects?”
“Five men have worked on this case all day. All the servants and the neighbors on either side have been interviewed. No other name has come up. Rufus Sellars has a wide acquaintanceship due to his many business interests. He has a reputation for sharp dealing but no one can claim he has done anything to warrant the attention of the authorities. We did discover that Piper lived in Whitechapel, which is no recommendation, and hasn’t been seen there since just before the crime was discovered. I’ve come to you, Mr. Holmes, to see if you had any ideas about the case. Will you help us?”
Sherlock Holmes slowly knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “Inspector, this problem has aspects I’ve never encountered before. However, right now I have several other cases that occupy my time. It seems that Scotland Yard has this one well in hand. It calls for a strong application of shoe leather, and waiting for clues to appear, and no one else does that as well than the Yard. Yet my interest is piqued. Please keep me informed as to your progress.”
Lestrade looked disgusted. He stood up and jammed his hat on his head. “Of course, Mr. Holmes, I would like nothing better than to trot back and forth between the Yard and Baker Street telling you all the developments of a case you’ve refused to handle. If you will excuse me, I’ve got work to do. Somewhere out there are two frightened children depending on me to bring them home. Please, stay in your comfortable chair and smoke another pipe. No, thank you, Dr. Watson, I’ll see myself out.” He slammed the sitting room door behind him and we heard loud footsteps stomping down the stairs. A moment later the street door crashed shut.
I turned to Holmes. Before I could speak a word, he jumped up and shouted for Mrs. Hudson. He scribbled something on a sheet of paper and looked up at a knock at the door.
Our landlady appeared. “Mrs. Hudson, please send up some sandwiches and fruit. We are leaving in a short while and our next meal is uncertain. Also, have this telegram sent at once. Thank you. Watson, you understand what has happened. I could hand Willie Piper over to Lestrade now, but then this misguided search would be over. I believe Scotland Yard has done a much better job than usual in disregarding the clues and going off in the wrong direction. Lestrade was right about one thing, however. Two boys are missing and must be brought home as soon as possible. Do you think Piper abducted them?”
“I do not. For one thing, with his age and in his state of health he was too weak to force a pair of healthy young boys to do anything they didn’t want. I do believe that since his stroke he is in no shape to be questioned by the authorities.”
“Those are excellent points and I concur. Mark the abandoned moneyboxes, Watson.”
“You consider them important?”
“Very much so. Five possibilities have occurred to me to explain the boys’ disappearance, but Lestrade has decided upon Willie Piper. I haven’t the time to convince him he is wrong right now. The only way I can clear Piper is to uncover the real circumstances.”
He disappeared into his bedroom. In a few minutes the food appeared. I ate two sandwiches and an apple and drank a hasty cup of tea. Sherlock Holmes came out dressed in a shabby suit and a shirt with no collar. He put two sandwiches wrapped in sheets of my writing paper in the pocket of his coat, then added a pair of pippins.
“Now, Watson, here are your marching orders. Return to Whitechapel and hunt up Mrs. Tillotson. Ask her to help you find out where Piper has been staying. Search his room. Question his cronies as to his activities during the past two weeks. Find out as much about his past as you can. Here is some money,” he said, opening a drawer in his desk. “The most effective coin with the people of that neighborhood may be liquid. Return to St. Bart’s charity wards by six o’clock and wait for me there.”
“What will you do, Holmes?”
“I have several questions for the servants of Mr. Rufus Sellars. Since I have no official standing, I think that a little covert work is called for. An itinerant broom seller, going from door to door with his wares, and chatting with the kitchen staff or a housemaid or two, would not be suspected of any nefarious purpose on a fine June day.”
I laughed. “I suppose that Mrs. Hudson’s new broom, which I noticed in the hall this morning, will accompany you on this mission?”
“Also that excellent mop she brandished at the cat from next door last night. We must not tarry. There has been no answer to my telegram. I had hoped for faster results but I will leave instructions with Mrs. Hudson if word arrives after we have left.”
A moment later we had left the sunny sitting room of 221b Baker Street and I descended to the pavement. Holmes walked back to the kitchen and emerged in a moment with the aforesaid broom and mop. Our landlady made little protest at the request, having become used to his strange ways, but she followed him outside to enjoin him to bring them back unharmed. Just then a hansom cab pulled up to the kerb. A boy shot across the cobblestoned street and stopped at Holmes’ side. It was Wiggins, the dirty little leader of Holmes’ auxiliary force, the Baker Street Irregulars.
“Ah, I’m glad to see you, Wiggins. So you did get my message. Off you go, Watson,” declared Holmes. He gave the address to the cab driver and the cab rattled away with me inside. I looked back to see my friend bending down from his great height to confer with the eager street urchin.
I found Mrs. Tillotson’s establishment with little difficulty. She had just finished her lunch and was happy to help me in my quest. Within half an hour we had found his last residence and with a little monetary persuasion I was allowed to look through the simple room. The room had been swept out since Willie Piper had last spent a night there and I found nothing.
I had better luck when I sat down with Mrs. Tillotson at a table at the nearest public house, the “Drowned Rat”, where Piper was known to the landlord.
Due to the money Holmes had given me earlier, I could afford to be freehanded and genial. My actions quickly drew a crowd and no one took offense at my interest in the old rat catcher. I was told by several men that Piper was a long-standing resident of the neighborhood, renowned for his travel stories, and warranted harmless by all. He drank moderately, when he had the money, was continuously looking for work with his traps, and had no romantic entanglements with any of the local women. He apparently still carried a torch for his late wife. There was more than one female in the bar who proclaimed an interest in the rat catcher, for he was more polite and courtly around them than were the other men, but he remained a loner. The late pawn shop owner Theodore Tillotson and his wife appeared to be his closest friends.
As for his activities during the past two weeks, there was little to tell. He had taken his supper at the “Drowned Rat”, as was his wont, and had spoken of a big house full of vermin where he was setting traps. At the end of that week, he had entered the pub and ordered a strong whiskey, declaring that “rich men were all thieves” and bemoaning the fact he had been shortchanged on his fee for the job he had done. After a few more drinks, much more alcohol than he usually drank, he had shouted that he would “get back” at the “old miser” who had withheld his money, and make him “wish he had treated me fairly”. After another drink or two the landlord ordered a couple of the men to carry Piper back to his rented room, where he could sleep it off.
No one had seen the rat catcher after that. Then he had appeared at Mrs. Tillotson’s shop, pawned his traps, and spoken vaguely of returning to Liverpool. The next that was heard of him was that he had collapsed in the street and had been taken to St. Bart’s.
This information left me with an uneasy feeling. Willie P
iper had clearly felt cheated by Rufus Sellars’ close dealings and felt he had a legitimate complaint against the merchant. Clearly a mild-natured man, he had been upset enough about the unpaid fee balance to utter public threats against his former employer. A few days later the Sellars children had disappeared. Could the injustice of the situation have caused the old man to go against a lifetime’s practice and devise some sinister revenge against the man who had cheated him? Would it have driven him to harm two innocent young boys? If it were not Piper who abducted the children, then who had? Could it be a competitor, a disgruntled servant, or a stranger with evil designs? Could Holmes have been wrong? My heart sank. Could Lestrade have been right?
I pulled out my watch from my waistcoat pocket and glanced at it. It was time to return to St. Bart’s. I escorted Mrs. Tillotson back to her shop nearby and then set off to the hospital at once.
My footsteps echoed down the flag-stone corridors of the building as I made my way to the men’s charity ward. Willie Piper was asleep in his small white bed in the corner, and the nurse on duty sent for Stamford at my request. Soon he appeared and joined me. There was no sign of Sherlock Holmes.
“He still suffers the effects of the stroke and can’t talk, but his spirits are greatly improved since Mrs. Tillotson visited him,” said Stamford. “The nurse told me he finished two bowls of broth and seemed to rest a little easier.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I replied. “But a situation has arisen. Scotland Yard suspects him to be involved in the abduction of two young boys.”
Sherlock Holmes and The Folk Tale Mysteries Page 12
