Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil: And Other New Tales Featuring the World's Greatest Detective

by Donald Thomas

  “Get down!” he shouted—and not for the first time he may have saved my life at that moment.

  Several more shots came in quick succession, reverberating in the darkness between the tall buildings. My revolver was in my hand but I dared not fire. I could see only silhouettes against a glare of gas. Which were Lestrade’s men and which the robbers? Worse still, the disturbance had brought out a crowd of spectators from the public house. To fire now would almost certainly mean hitting one or other of them. For twenty or thirty seconds, the obscure alley of Exchange Buildings was a scene of commotion and chaos. Where were the gunmen and who were they firing at? I picked myself up and walked cautiously forward. My presence as a marksman had been of no use but as a medical man I might now be in demand.

  If anyone had told me that in such a brief burst of gunfire—less than half a minute—five policemen could have been shot, I would not have believed it. Yet by the light of our lanterns I saw Constable Choat lying motionless outside the doorway of a tenement that had looked deserted. Constable Tucker staggered out through the same doorway and fell, almost across his comrade. Sergeant Bentley was lying on his back on the cobbles with his head on the pathway. Constable Bryant leant against the wall of the tenements. He was, at any rate, still alive. Constable Woodhams had been on his feet when I first saw him but now he fell on the cobbles, as if his legs had given way under him.

  Because our policemen do not carry guns, it is rare for criminals to do so. I had never heard of any robbery in which an entire gang had been armed, as seemed to be the case here. In my first examination of the wounded, I found that Choat had been shot six times, through the body and the legs. Tucker was wounded over the heart. Sergeant Bentley was shot through the throat and unconscious. For these three men, the only hope was a hospital. Woodhams was shot through the thigh and could not stand. Bryant was injured in the left arm and chest but less severely. I looked about for Lestrade. He had been hit in the shoulder but the bullet had lodged in the thickness of his overcoat and he had escaped with superficial injuries.

  I ordered the survivors to alert the nearby motor-ambulance at Bishopsgate, for Sergeant Bentley and Constable Choat. Even before that, a hansom cab was flagged down in Houndsditch. Its passengers alighted and the driver took Constable Tucker to St Bartholomew’s hospital at his best speed. I gave my attention to the injuries of Bryant and Woodhams.

  Such was the disorder and confusion in that half-minute of gunfire. Though we did not know it at the time, one of the criminals had shot another—Gardstein—in error. His companions managed to carry him away but he died on the following morning and a doctor who was called to attend him brought the police to his bedside. Two young women, the only other occupants of the house, were arrested.

  4

  Such were the events of that night, confused and unexplained. However, there had not been a newspaper story to rival the “Houndsditch Murders” for many years. Safe-breakers who shot their way to freedom in this manner had been quite unknown. Holmes was with Lestrade for most of the following day and when he returned to Baker Street in the evening it was with a story that even then I had not expected to hear. He threw himself down in his chair, as if it were too great an effort to remove his unbuttoned overcoat.

  “A bad business, Watson, and the press do not yet know the half of it.”

  “What they know is bad enough.”

  He shook his head.

  “No, my dear fellow. This outrage may be a precursor to civil war, a war against us all, the Anarchists against the world. Lestrade, thank God, is not badly hurt. I have sometimes been critical of his abilities but he never lacks pluck. His sergeants and I have spent much of the day in the tenement at Exchange Buildings, behind the Houndsditch jewellers. It seems the criminals had made themselves very much at home there. The remains of a fire were still smouldering in the grate when we arrived.”

  “What was their plan?”

  “They were cutting through the wall of the outside privy, which is a party-wall shared with the rear of the jeweller’s showroom. The hole they had made in the brickwork was diamond-shaped and about two feet square. They were so nearly through it that one can reach in and touch the matchboard lining of the jeweller’s back room, just where the safe stands against it. That was why we heard no more drilling or hacking at the brickwork. In five minutes more they would have been in the showroom, though concealed from the street window by the bulk of the safe. They were so accurate in their measurements that they could have touched the rear of the safe without stepping through the wall.”

  “But how would they have opened the safe?”

  Holmes stood up, shrugged off his overcoat and stooped to warm his hands before the fire.

  “They certainly did not propose to pick the lock. How could they with the strong electric light illuminating them to the street? However, a gas pipe runs through the tenement. We found that they had tapped it, using black tape and a rubber tube sixty-three feet long, still in place. It was more than enough to reach the back of the jeweller’s safe. When they fled, they also abandoned three diamond angle-pointed drills, a large cold-steel chisel, three crowbars and a combination wrench and cutter. This collection was enough to burn or hack a hole in the rear of the safe without being seen from the street. The light illuminating the front of the safe as it faced the window would eclipse the glow of the flame as they cut through the back.”

  As we sat that evening in the quiet of our Baker Street rooms, it was hard to imagine that the horrors of the previous night were anything but a bad dream. Holmes went on to describe how an urgent call that morning had brought Scotland Yard men to a house in Grove Street, a mile east of Exchange Buildings. In an upper room, a young man lay dead upon a blood-soaked mattress. He was George Gardstein, a young Russian Anarchist gunman and one of the police-murderers. He had been accidentally shot in the darkness by one of his own friends as he struggled with Constable Choat, receiving a bullet aimed at the policeman.

  “Gardstein would have certainly been hanged,” said Holmes philosophically, turning from warming his hands at the fire, “had one of his companions not saved us the trouble. When his pockets were turned out there was a seven-cartridge magazine clip for a 7.65mm. pistol, a drill, a pair of gas-pliers, welder’s goggles and a key to fit the new lock which they had put on the door of the tenement to prevent unwelcome interruptions of their work.”

  “Damning evidence,” I said reassuringly.

  His lips contracted.

  “And yet not the most interesting. The true discoveries, my dear Watson, were a violin and a small oil-painting of a Parisian street scene, showing considerable skill. It bore a signature that is not unknown.”

  “Was Gardstein a painter—or a collector?”

  Holmes shook his head again and sighed.

  “For several years I have made it my business to be an unobtrusive listener to talk in the political clubs of Whitechapel and Stepney. Few people had met or even seen George Gardstein. Like all the Anarchist leaders, he is a ‘name’ as they call it. In this case he is Poloski Morountzeff, a revolutionary and a fugitive from the police in Warsaw. In that city he is better known as a robber and murderer.”

  “And what of the painting?”

  He stood up and vawned

  “That, my dear Watson, is the work of a man who is far beyond Morountzeff and his kind. A man who might be a leader of nations if revolution should ever enthrone the philosophy of Anarchism or Communism. His name sends a shiver down the backs of Kings, Kaisers and Tsars. He warms the blood of political debaters and cut-throats alike. He is Peter Piatkoff and he is known in the Anarchist underworld as Peter the Painter. Oh yes, he might have made his name as an artist but he is too pure for that. In the name of the stern justice of a virtuous republic, he would cut a throat as readily as you or I would slice an apple.”

  “Another Robespierre!”

  He looked at me as if I had not understood.

  “Robespierre wanted only France. Piatkoff
will settle for nothing less than the world.”

  “And he is here, in England?” I asked uneasily.

  Sherlock Holmes smiled to himself.

  “He is not here—but he is coming. Oh yes, he is coming. And when he comes, England will know all about it. My information is recent and particularly reliable.”

  I was more than a little unnerved by this. Holmes seemed to take a strange pleasure in his promise. It was as if he anticipated single combat of some kind, alone against a terrible enemy. I went to bed and slept badly. There was something in the air—or rather in the manner—of Sherlock Holmes, which disturbed me. It was rare indeed that in any of our cases he had thrilled to the prospect of a personal duel. But now I was reminded of the terrible day when he went to meet his fate at the hands of Professor Moriarty, remarking that the world could no longer hold both of them and that if his own life must be forfeit to destroy his enemy, he would think the price well worth paying.

  5

  Two days later, I came down to breakfast to find Holmes already there and unusually cheerful. As I sat down, he put aside his knife and fork, extending his palm.

  “And what, Watson, do you make of this? I fear I purloined it yesterday in Morountzeffs room. Lestrade and his merry men had overlooked it on their visit.”

  I saw a round lead bullet for a muzzle-loading rifle, which I recognised from my days of military service.

  “A twelve bore!” I said at once. He chuckled.

  “Well done, Watson! It was not at all what Lestrade and his sergeants expected to find. Because they did not expect it, they overlooked it.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “Evidently Gardstein and his friends are looking for rifles of any sort. So far they have been content with revolvers. After all, you cannot carry rifles through the streets of London without causing comment! Yet rifles mean something quite different to handguns. They can be used to defend a strong-point. They will do it with a terrible accuracy which revolvers lack. Lee Enfields are the easiest to come by and our opponents are clearly in the market for them. But if they are prepared to defend—or even to attack—strong-points in this manner, then the revolution is probably much closer than we believe.”

  This did not reassure me in the least. Holmes, however, was in excellent spirits. He glanced through the newspaper and then said,

  “Here is something for your scrapbook, my dear fellow!”

  It was a report of the incident on Friday night, the terrible night-time drama of Exchange Buildings and Houndsditch. Holmes waggled his fork at me with a little impatience.

  “The third paragraph in the editorial, old fellow. This is precisely what I had hoped to avoid.”

  A curious coincidence in the terrible events of Friday night was the presence among the police officers in Houndsditch of the well-known consulting detective, Mr Sherlock Holmes. Scotland Yard will say only that Mr Holmes chanced to be in company with Inspector Lestrade at the time and was in no way connected with the case. Most of our readers will surely hope that this is not the truth. Our nation and our society are under attack by the scourings of Europe’s political gutters. We have tolerated too much for too long on our own soil. If Mr Sherlock Holmes were to purge England and the civilised world of such unprincipled villainy, the civilised world would rally to him and he would earn the sincere gratitude of all decent men and women. If Mr Holmes has not been invited to exterminate this menace, let that invitation be issued now.

  I laid the paper down. Never had I read an editorial which adopted so strident a tone.

  “A little strongly put,” said Holmes brightly, “but then I have not been invited to do anything except to have dinner this evening.”

  “Where?”

  “I was remiss in not mentioning it last night. By-the-by, I shall be a little late home. Lestrade, sensible fellow that he is, has decided to call upon the advice of brother Mycroft in this case. Our friend is in deeper water than is usual. Even the Political Branch at Scotland Yard has not been able to help him much. Mycroft, on the other hand, lives, moves and has his being in the world of politics and conspiracy. He keeps an eye upon it, on the government’s behalf.”

  “An eye upon Russia?” I inquired sceptically. Holmes smiled.

  “Mycroft is particularly fluent in the Russian language, and deeply read in Russian history and culture. His translations of the poetry of Alexander Blok are, I understand, highly regarded. I have also agreed to do what I can for Lestrade. In consequence, Brother Mycroft is giving us dinner in a private room of the Diogenes Club. Please, do not wait up.”

  And that was all. After he had gone out, I was left to wonder what labyrinth we were invited to explore. By the time that evening came, I was ready for an early dinner. Then I took down a volume of Sir Walter Scott from the bookshelf—The Heart of Midlothian—and was presently far away in the North, the Edinburgh of a hundred years since and the drama of the Porteus riots. The narrative carried me along so easily that at the end of every chapter, I resolved to read just one more before the early night that I had promised myself.

  It was, I think, gone eleven o’clock when I first heard the noise in the street outside—or rather on the outside wall of the room. Something like an empty tin-can hit the wall of the building with a clang and clattered back into the street.

  “Mr Hoolmes! Mr Share-lock Hoolmes!”

  A first blow of the knocker on the front door was followed by a second.

  “Mr Hoolmes, it is I—You know who I am!—and I know you for a lackey and a lick-spittle! A craven flunkey of your monarch and his ministers! An oppressor of the people, one who must share the fate of his paymasters!”

  It was so preposterous and unexpected that for a moment I sat and was not sure what to do. There was a pause and I thought the bawling lout had gone on his way. Perhaps he was disconcerted at getting no response. Perhaps he thought it was the wrong house, though the address of Sherlock Holmes was certainly no secret. The curtains were closed. I moved carefully towards them and, at the side, made a tiny gap which gave me a view of the street below by lamplight.

  The man was still standing on the far side of the roadway, outside the unlit florist’s shop. He was not in the least the ragged trousered fellow I had expected. His smart black overcoat had what looked like an astrakhan collar and he carried a broad brimmed hat in his left hand. There was something in his right hand which looked like a stone. He was tall, neatly and quite expensively dressed. His hair was dark and trim, he had fine whiskers, his features were more aristocratic than not, indeed his nose was beaked almost to the point of disfigurement.

  “You know me! You know me, Mr Hoolmes. When I tell you the name Piatkoff, you will know. You cannot answer? That you are a friend of tyrants, I have known. That you are such a coward, I did not think! A policeman’s lackey!”

  I had been completely caught on the hop, as they say, dragged from the comfortable pages of Scott’s novel to face this ruffian. I tried to remember what Holmes had said about Piatkoff the previous night. At that moment, the fellow’s long right arm hurled the stone with the power of an out-fielder returning a cricket ball towards the wicket-keeper. There was an impact and a sound of glass falling on the floor below. I thought of Mrs Hudson but just then dared not take my eyes off this hooligan. He was lounging against the opposite wall now, not the least concerned for the disturbance he had caused. Lights had sprung up in two windows opposite and, at this quiet time of night, the din would surely attract a policeman on his beat.

  I remembered that, among his souvenirs, Holmes had a police whistle which he had acquired during our pursuit of Dr Neill Cream, the Lambeth poisoner. I pulled out the drawer below the bookcase to rummage for it. By then, however, someone in the opposite house was shouting into the night to draw the attention of the Baker Street constable, who must therefore be in view.

  I went back to the window, astonished to find that Piatkoff, or whatever his name might be, was still leaning against the florist’s wall as if h
e had not a care in the world. I had a terrible fear that perhaps he carried a revolver in his overcoat pocket and was waiting to shoot any policeman dead, as his compatriots had done on the previous Friday night. However, he was cleverer than that. With his Bohemian broad-brimmed hat on his head he waited a moment. He was evidently able to see something of which the policeman who strode towards him in helmet and gleaming waterproof was unaware.

  The lighted interior of a red double-decker motor-bus was coming down from the Regent’s Park towards the Metropolitan underground railway, like a ship illuminated in the darkness. The man waited until it was almost level and the policeman was hardly twenty feet away. Then, in two or three steps, he came forward and sprang on to the moving platform at the rear of the bus, as deftly as if he had practised for this moment all his life. He and the constable stared at one another as the distance between them widened. I could not be sure but I believe he dropped off again as the bus stopped at the railway station, which was just in sight. The policeman had seen the last of him.

  I thought of Holmes’s last instruction to me. “Do not wait up.” I was in no mood to do anything else. He came in a little before midnight, full of Mycroft’s ideas, though curious about the broken pane of glass in the downstairs window. I told him my story and he became more subdued, though caring nothing for his own safety.

  “We had not counted on his arriving so soon,” he said at length, “though of course if they plan some spectacular violence he was bound to be close at hand. Our people have been watching him in Paris. Indeed Monsieur Hammard, the Chef du Service at the Sûreté, has a private line to the Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard on such matters. Brother Mycroft assures me that Piatkoff was last seen in Paris not a week ago. For he really is a painter and had two pictures hanging in an exhibition which opened in a private gallery near the Quai d’Orléans.”