Repeat Business

by Lyn McConchie

  Holmes talked for some time while Lestrade listened, his eyes opening in surprise or half-shutting in interest now and again as my friend explained his intentions. Holmes refused the offer of a police van once Lestrade knew all.

  “We may take no risks, the life of a child is at stake, and I have reason to believe the house of his parents is watched. No, we shall approach on foot and an hour after it is dark. Take your men in two cabs, Lestrade, and we shall meet on the second corner before the parents’ address.”

  An hour later, and leaving Lestrade and his men to wait, Holmes and I slipped in through the back door to find Tadpole and Annie waiting. Holmes raised a hand. “We have little time. The newspapers appeared an hour ago and I expect a reply at any moment, although now I do not think that Joseph will put his head out from his hiding place in case the police are waiting.”

  It was as if his words were the signal. There was a soft rapping at the door and while Holmes and I concealed ourselves, Annie ran to fling it open. A lad stood there, a boy of no more than seven or eight; he shoved a screw of paper into her hand and was gone into the dark before I could get a better look at him. Tadpole shut the door and Holmes took the paper from Annie.

  The note was brief. It said merely that Tadpole should bring the copies to a certain address where someone would be waiting for him. If he attempted to cheat the writer, Tadpole’s son would be the worse for his father’s folly. My old school friend turned to Holmes.

  “What must I do?”

  “Go,” Holmes said decisively. “But not alone; some of Lestrade’s men shall accompany you to surround the house before you approach. They shall make no careless moves, but if they can safely take up whoever is to meet you, then they shall do so. Otherwise you are simply to meet the man, hand over the paper, and return here.”

  “But where will you and Watson be?”

  “Collecting your son from those who hold him prisoner,” I told him confidently.

  Holmes nodded. “Do not waste time, they will be watching to see if you obey. Go quickly, pass without pausing at the corner where Lestrade’s men wait; they know what to do and they will follow you.” Tadpole walked valiantly into the dark while Annie turned to us. Holmes forestalled her.

  “I know, you wish to come with us to take back your son.” he nodded wryly. “I am aware of the folly of asking you to remain behind and await our return. You may come with us, but beware; any premature action you take may risk Oliver’s life. You must be silent, and obedient to my every order?”

  Annie nodded, but in her white face I saw that her eyes burned with a flame I thought lit from the very fires of hell. However, she came with us as Holmes had demanded, silently and obeying his every gesture.

  We had not far to go. Lestrade himself and five of his best men had joined us as we had previously arranged, once the other men had left to follow Tadpole as he passed.

  “Where now?” Lestrade asked my old friend in a sort of hoarse whisper.

  There was a slight twinkle in Holmes’ eyes. “Not far at all. But we must come to it by a circuitous route.” He led us in silence through the back of the Phelps’ house, climbed the wall there, and continued along the next street. There we circled until we came to a small half-flooded private dock where a boat was waiting. The owner was taciturn, but I recognized him as one of Holmes’ trusted men, and knew the other men with him would be trustworthy also.

  We entered the boat and drifted downriver, always holding close to the river wall. Only a short distance from the dock we halted, the boat held against the current by a rope. One of the boatmen, a lad of about fifteen, lithe and light of build, clambered up a second rope, and appeared to force a catch on the upstairs window on the furthest portion of the house’s back wall beyond a part of the house which bulged out oddly over the racing water. He returned and signaled all was well. Holmes nodded politely, then, taking the rope in his own hands, climbed it quickly, leaning back out of the window once he was safe up to signal that all of us should follow.

  Annie came last and we had to raise her since with her skirts it was harder for her to climb. But we did so in silence and at last we all stood on the floor within the room we had entered, and none in that house knew that we were there.

  Holmes went to the door, eased it ajar and looked out. He gestured and again we followed him silently. We walked down a dark and very dirty corridor and into a spacious room at the front of the house. There Lestrade peered through filthy glass and I distinctly heard his gasp.

  “Yes,” Holmes murmured. “Now you see why I was so careful.” I too went to the window and bit back a cry. I was looking directly down upon the front door and garden of Tadpole’s home. But there was no time for wondering. Holmes led the way down the stairs, Lestrade and I, each with a revolver in hand, were at his shoulders. Two of Lestrade’s men followed. All would have been well had not one of the men stumbled in the dark. Nor was the noise easily overlooked since he fell with a crash and a loud string of oaths as he tumbled from stair to stair.

  “Rush him!” Holmes snapped. “The room with the light”

  We rushed forward to enter the room that jutted so strangely from the back of the house. I saw as I flung myself through the door that the back portion of the room was built out over the water so that the sullen sound of the flood came up to us from beneath the floor, and I shuddered as I saw Joseph Harrison seize the boy from where he lay drugged upon the bed. He flung open a trap door, holding the unconscious child over the racing water below and smiled evilly at us.

  “I always keep back a trick to play, as Mr. Holmes knows. Reach for me and I shall release the child. This house was once a smuggler’s den and the trap door is why I took the house.”

  I do not know how we would have acted, if we would have obeyed and let him go free, or if Holmes would have risked the shot and hoped to catch the child before he fell. But before we could move another acted in our place.

  She passed us like a lethal wind, her teeth bared, her eyes filled with hatred and a rage so great it was akin to madness. Joseph Harrison cried out, made to release the child to death below and her hands were flung out. One ripped the child from his grasp; the other thrust him savagely aside. For a brief second he tottered, cried out to her to help him, but the face that turned to him as she cradled her son against her gave him only a bitter loathing of denial. Harrison fell, and the racing water took him to itself. As we ran to the window overlooking the river, we had a glimpse of his face, mouth wide in a desperate scream, his arms flailing, before he was gone on the floodtide.

  Annie returned to her home in triumph. That which had been lost was now found. Tadpole returned with Lestrade’s men to report that they had a certain Pierre Dubois in custody. Lestrade took his men and his prisoner and went back to file reports and prepare charges, and Holmes and I went home.

  “How was it?” I asked as we were driven back. “That you realized where Harrison must be hiding?”

  “There were several clues, my dear Watson. Annie Harrison wrote that her brother had always a liking to be nearby to watch the success of his schemes or his tricks. That was backed by the place in which he hid the treaty that he stole from Phelps’ office four years ago.”

  “Under a floorboard in his room?” I said.

  “Exactly so. Joseph Harrison’s whole pattern was one of desiring to see the havoc he wreaked at the very time it occurred, and also to have his plunder under his own hand. Therefore I believed he would choose a hiding place where he could gloat over those he was threatening. But he had become a cautious man in his years abroad. How could he find such a place and leave no trail to it?

  “The newspaper item you discovered showed me the way. He stole from a rent collector the man’s book, in which was a list of all occupied houses. Harrison had only to check on the rolls for those that were not listed in the rent book, and between the two records he knew which houses were empty. He could break into one and hold the child there, there where he could also watch the horro
r and anguish of his sister whom he hated for her betrayal of him.

  “I had the Baker Street Irregulars make very quick and quiet inquiries for me as soon as I knew which houses were on the ordinary rolls of ownership, and which had been rented. The boys discovered which were empty, and once I heard of one of the special features in the house opposite the Phelps’ home, I knew where to find Mr. Joseph Harrison lurking. I confess I had not expected such an ending for him.”

  “Nor I,” I confessed. “It was an accident, of course.”

  Holmes looked at me as we turned into our street. “No, my dear Watson. I do not believe so. Of all those who are dangerous, the most dangerous person is a woman defending her child. She fears not pain nor death nor hell itself. She will dare anything, face any threat. Annie Phelps’ brother was not just a threat at that very moment alone, he had shown himself to be a danger to her husband and her child so long as he lived; and so—he did not.”

  The agent Dubois was charged with a number of offences and will be in prison for many years to come, while I believe a stiff letter from the Foreign Office went to his masters—who, as usual, loudly denied any knowledge of him. My old school friend, Tadpole Phelps, and his wife have quite gotten over the events of Oliver’s kidnapping, while the child himself, having been drugged, remembers nothing of it at all and is a merry happy child. The body of Joseph Harrison washed up a week later and was identified by a tattoo. He was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave—a wholly suitable resting place for such a man.

  A LIE ONCE TOLD

  Holmes and I were sitting rather late over the breakfast table in the opening weeks of what I feared was to be a particularly long and cold winter, when he spoke. I had been sitting thinking, and so in tune with my thoughts were his comments that at first they made no impression upon me, but instead I merely replied absent-mindedly and returned to my thoughts before registering his words.

  “Yes, I fear a number of doctors will lose elderly patients from amongst the poorer people.”

  I nodded. “I saw Mr. Jackson Benfell late last night to treat another bout of his bronchitis, and he is no better and not like to be. How indeed should he improve? His room is icy and he can afford little fuel to keep it warmer, so that I fear he may not survive this winter.”

  “You did not charge him a fee then?”

  “How can I?” I said in a sort of despair, my mind still on the old man who coughed his life away in two tiny rooms. “He is nigh on eighty, has no family to support him, and all his income is only a tiny pension from the railway. He can afford food or fuel, but not enough of both, and in that case it is the fire that loses out. A fine thing it would be if paying the doctor shortens his life still further, for the money he gives me cannot be used to buy the fuel he needs for his fire.”

  I looked up to see Holmes regarding me kindly. “We do not always treat our old folk well in this country, perhaps, Watson; but still we do better than in many other lands.”

  “I know, but as a doctor there are times when it is a hard thing for me to see.” I suddenly recalled the beginning of this conversation and gave a start. “Holmes, you have been following the train of my thoughts again.”

  “Really, my dear fellow, it was not so difficult. You sat staring fixedly at the window, then you shivered. This room is warm, so that your shiver was not caused by the cold. But outside the snow is falling again and I believed I knew the direction of your thoughts. My belief was confirmed when you next stared at the calendar that shows a winter scene. You glanced at the picture of your father, and immediately thereafter turned your gaze towards the advertisement that arrived in yesterday’s post. That is from our local undertaker, and I could see you reflecting that in this weather his business would be doing well. You nodded twice to yourself as you looked at it, agreeing with your own thoughts and fears.”

  I smiled. “It is always so simple when you explain it.”

  “It is for that reason that I infinitely prefer not to explain,” Holmes said dryly.

  I was about to speak again on the subject when I heard sounds and turned towards the door. “Is that—?”

  “Yes, Watson. I think we are about to have a visitor.”

  “It is very early,” I commented doubtfully. I had time to say no more before a faintly familiar figure was being shown in, and Holmes was greeting him.

  “My dear Mr. Staunton, or perhaps I should address you as Lord Mount-James?”

  The young man gave a low groan and dropped uninvited into a chair. Then he stood up again and flushed. “I do beg you to forgive my rudeness, but I am done in and I was not thinking.” I moved forward and, without asking permission, took his pulse. It was faster than it should have been and rather weaker. I frowned.

  “Yes, you have been overdoing things. Please be seated, and Holmes, do you pour this young man a glass of something restorative.” I waited until the lad had drunk most of the proffered glass before I took his pulse again. This time it was stronger and steadier as the warmth of our rooms and the drink took effect. I moved back and nodded to Holmes.

  He sat opposite the lad and spoke thoughtfully. “I saw the recent notice in the newspapers that your uncle had died and you have succeeded to his title and estate.”

  “Yes, and that is the problem.”

  I bit my lip and said nothing, but I was thinking of my patient. For want of a shilling’s worth of fuel a week, he was likely to die this winter, whereas this pup inherited a title, a country estate, a town house, and a great fortune, and still he whimpered of problems. Holmes cast a quick look in my direction and I knew his thoughts were similar—but his voice remained quiet.

  “A problem that brings you here. I know nothing of it save that it is so great that you left before it was completely light and took the first train to London from your new country estates.” I was amused to note that the new Lord Mount-James never ever noticed my friend’s deductions, but merely nodded.

  “You speak of my title, my estates, and my fortune,” he groaned. “The first two I have, but not the third.”

  I spoke in some bewilderment at that. “My dear Lord Mount-James, how can you have the first two and not the third? Surely they go together?”

  “No, they do not.” The young man raised his head to stare at me. “Do you remember me, Doctor Watson?”

  I nodded. At first I had not, but after a short time my memory had returned, and I recalled the case in which he had been the object of our search. His great friend, Cyril Overton, of Cambridge, had called us in some four or five years ago to find this man when he had vanished before a vital football match.

  The end of the case had been a tragic one. We had found Mr. Godfrey Staunton mourning wildly at the bedside of his just deceased wife, a girl he had loved passionately. We had left him to his grief and come away then, and although Holmes had drawn the death of the young man’s uncle to my attention just a short time ago, I had not seen or heard of the lad since.

  “I remember, Lord Mount-James,” I said gently. “More than once I have wondered what happened since last we saw you.”

  His smile was bitter. “Please, call me Staunton, I am not yet accustomed to the title. And when you saw news that my uncle was dead, you thought I had been compensated for my loss?”

  I frowned. “No, my dear Staunton. I did not. I too have lost my loved one to death, and I fully understand that such a wound is not quickly healed.”

  The boy flushed. “Forgive me. I should not have spoken so, I forget that others too have suffered. But let me explain.” He turned to look at Holmes. “Everyone says that Lord Mount-James was my uncle—even he used that form in addressing me as his nephew—but in truth he was my great-uncle and almost ninety when he died, while I am just twenty-five. It is that which is my problem.”

  Holmes nodded. “The estates and title are entailed,” he said thoughtfully. “Of that I am aware. Are we to understand that Lord Mount-James’ fortune was private, and not included in the entail?”

  “Yes, si
r. What is worse, while I am the undoubted and undisputed heir to titles and estates, there is a claimant for the fortune.” He smiled ruefully at us both. “I would not care so greatly for myself. But estates require money to keep up. If there is no money, then I must sell a portion of the estates, and many of those who have worked for the family all their lives must lose their employment, and what is worse, their homes. It is for them I have come to you to beg your aid.”

  Holmes nodded. “Tell us the entire story; begin before your great-uncle’s death. How did he receive his fortune and from whom? Include anything he may have told you about his intentions for the disposal of his fortune, and tell us all you know also about the other claimant.”

  Godfrey Staunton, Lord Mount-James, sighed and began. “It is quite a long tale but I will cut it as short as I may. My great-uncle came of an old family, but was not the original heir. His father died in one of the French wars, as did his elder brother, and it was then that my great-uncle inherited. The estates were impoverished and for some years he had an enormous difficulty in continuing to keep them in his hands.

  “But some seven years after he inherited the title and estates, he received also a very large sum of money from the presumption of death of another relative, a second-cousin to my great-uncle’s father. Lord Mount-James built the smaller sum that he received into a great fortune which has enriched his estates since, for while he spent almost nothing upon himself, he spent generously upon his estate and upon the care and housing of those who ran it or worked there for him. I am certain he intended to leave his wealth to me as well; he was aware that it would be required to continue his policies there.”