The Belgian and The Beekeeper

by Peter Guttridge

  “Monsewer,” Butler said again.

  “What is it?” Poiret hissed.

  “I think Butler wants to tell you,” Sherlock Holmes called over his shoulder as he took a quick step towards the rope, “that you are attempting to dismantle a simple walking stick. No blade is concealed within.”

  “Le Diable!” Poiret declared, hurling the stick at the men. It hit a red-faced man in the chest but before it could clatter to the floor Sherlock Holmes had sliced through the rope and the rack of umbrellas plummeted down on the intruders.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  The Princess Louise

  “It’s like Agincourt,” Holmes declared as the umbrellas rained down upon the unsuspecting men. “No offence, Poiret.”

  “None taken,” Poiret grunted.

  A couple of men looked up, which was unfortunate as both were injured in the most hideous way. The rest were beaten to the ground bellowing with pain. Hats flew, as did blood.

  “Mr Holmes, what on earth is going on?” Butler cried. “Our stock!”

  As the last few umbrellas clattered around the men huddled on the floor several of the soldiers popped their heads round the corner.

  One guffawed, his monocle popping from his eye and dropping down his chest.

  “A shower of brollies, what? That’s upside down. Capital!”

  The man beside him, a captain’s pips on his epaulettes, looked over at Sherlock Holmes.

  “Everything all right here?”

  “Few white-feather ruffians,” the detective said.

  The captain frowned and gave the nearest one a kick.

  “That true?”

  The man groaned. Beside his hand a razor lay open. The captain looked down.

  “I think it is,” he said.

  He stepped to the door and pulled it open. He had his whistle round his neck on a lanyard. He blew three sharp blasts then stepped back in. The other officers gathered beside him, blocking the escape of the ruffians who were getting to their hands and knees.

  “An ingenious use of an umbrella,” Poiret said, his voice tinged with admiration.

  “I have had reason to be aware of the potential of a sharpened ferrule before,” Holmes observed. “I recall a case too bizarre even for Watson’s florid pen. It took place on the Bakerloo and Waterloo Railway platform at Baker Street. A member of Parliament standing there as the train approached felt a sharp pain in his leg. A man who had been standing beside him with an umbrella hurried away. The MP boarded the train. By the time it reached Marylebone, the MP was dead. Poison in the tip of the umbrella.”

  “Extraordinaire.”

  “I’m surprised the method hasn’t been used more.”

  “I’m sure in the future…”

  Just then three hefty policemen bustled in. There was scarcely room for them.

  “What’s all this about, Mr Butler?” the lead policeman called across the shop. Butler indicated the toughs corralled on the floor.

  “These thugs burst in here intending harm to these two gentlemen, Constable Jones.”

  Jones looked at Holmes then Poiret. He widened his eyes.

  “Well, I’ll be. I recognise this gentlemen. Hard to miss, really.”

  Poiret flicked a look at Sherlock Holmes then pursed his lips in a little smile, inclining his head a little.

  Jones looked at the army officers gathered nearby.

  “Which one of these is Lieutenant Hastings then?”

  Sherlock Holmes found the Malacca canes of inordinate interest at that point. He turned his back on the room for a better look.

  As his colleagues were handcuffing the miscreants on the floor, Jones returned his attention to Butler. He gestured with his chin at the mace the shop manager still held across his ample belly.

  “I should treat that gently, George. I don’t think the Fellowship would be very happy if their mace arrived for the big ceremony dented.”

  Butler looked down at the mace he had clearly forgotten he was holding. He laid it carefully back in its velvet case.

  “Will you be there, Constable Jones?”

  “Bit above my level at the moment, George. One day…”

  Poiret was listening to this exchange with a puzzled look on his face.

  “It’s a Freemason’s mace,” Sherlock Holmes said. “Have you not seen Solomon’s temple on Great Queen Street? There are thousands of freemasons around the world, my dear chap.”

  “Ah … mais oui. The Templars. Some say Jack the Ripper…”

  “The Templars? Jack the Ripper?”

  “Another time, monsieur,” Poiret said as Jones waded his way through umbrellas to stand beside them. All the handcuffed men were being dragged outside to be loaded into a horse-drawn Black Maria.

  “I’m going to need a statement from you two gentlemen,” Jones said. “Mr Holmes, I’ll take Mr Parrott first, if I may…”

  Sherlock Holmes watched a few men from the throng of officers leave the shop. Was there a tall, sandy-haired lieutenant among them?

  “Oh,” he said absently to Jones, “I’m sure he won’t squawk about it.”

  Promptly, at six thirty in the evening, the doors of the Princess Louise public house on High Holborn opened for business. Boisterous soldiers on leave, in gangs or partnered with girls, flooded in and lined up at the far end of the oval bar or tramped up to the bar on the next floor.

  Two men in their early sixties – one lean with a hawk-like visage, the other fuller-figured but dressed most dapperly, his face adorned with carefully tended mustachios – took occupation of one of the handful of booths radiating from the bar.

  Jules Poiret, the dandy of the two, looked up and around at the colourful tiled walls and the wooden booth.

  “We are not far from Chancery Lane and the law courts,” Sherlock Holmes – for he was, of course, the hawk-faced figure – said. “Lawyers bring their clients in here for private confabulations in an environment more relaxing than their law offices. What might I buy you?”

  Poiret’s eyes roved across the bottles stacked three shelves high behind the bar.

  “I was wondering about a glass of red wine –“

  “In a public house, the quality…” Sherlock Holmes said diffidently.

  “Quite so. Perhaps then a crème de menthe?”

  Sherlock Holmes leaned forward to peer beyond the cubicle to the boisterous soldiers and their companions at the other end of the bar. The bar staff were pulling pints and pouring gin and whisky as fast as they were able. The English detective looked back at the Frenchman who was, in his turn, looking expectantly at him.

  “Of course,” Sherlock Holmes said, exhaling – or, perhaps, giving out the slightest sigh.

  The barmaid came to them. Sherlock Holmes seemed to take a deep breath.

  Fifteen minutes later the English detective was sipping a pint of beer and Poiret was examining with suspicion the green liquid at the bottom of a brandy balloon. By now hardly anybody at the far end of the bar was laughing and jeering and even the barmaid had managed to control her giggles. The cobweb-and-dust covered bottle of green liquid was still behind the bar just in case – finding it in the cellar had slowed down service further inside the public house.

  “ ‘Ere, Fanny, make mine a mental,” a soldier shouted to the barmaid, with much laughter from his mates. However, Sherlock Holmes observed, that had been the first such request for at least two minutes.

  “How is it?” he said to Poiret.

  “It is educational.”

  “I meant the crème –“

  “I know what you meant,” Poiret said, looking down at his untouched glass on the bar.

  Sherlock Holmes observed him for a moment then took another sip of his drink.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “Perhaps if you –“

  “If I what?” Poiret flared. “If I avoided such low establishments? Quite right – that would do the trick – is that how you say it? – do the trick?”

  “It is.” Holmes looked at the
flushed cheeks of the French detective.

  “Let us find somewhere to eat and discuss the case there rather than here. This was an error. My apologies.”

  Poiret looked from the English detective to the green liquid in the brandy glass. He picked up his stick, turned and exited the booth.

  “I know just the place,” he called back over his shoulder. “But be warned, mon ami. They do not do chops.”

  Sherlock Holmes followed, a glum look on his face, the door to the booth banging behind him.

  Over the next half an hour the public house became more raucous, the voices louder and drunker, the physical interaction lewder. The empty glass for the English detective’s pint of beer had long been swept away for washing and re-use. But, on the mahogany bar, in the booth near the entrance, the brandy glass of foggy green liquid remained untouched.

  Well, almost untouched. A few moments after the two detectives had exited the booth a sandy-haired army lieutenant had slipped in. He had picked up the brandy balloon and looked at the murky green liquid against the light. He had sniffed it, taken a sip, then put the glass back on the bar.

  He made just one remark as he turned to follow the two men out of the public house.

  “I say.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  A New Suspect

  “How well do you know your religions?” Poiret said.

  “I am not a religious man,” Sherlock Holmes replied.

  “I am the same. But I do know that all Sikhs have Singh as what we would call their last name. And that Khan and Akbar are Muslim names. And that anyone called Mahomet Singh – as one of the Sign of the Four was – would be a most confused person. He would be both a Sikh – that last name – and a Mohammedan. Given the way these different religions are so carefully separated at the Royal Pavilion that would be most unusual. Indeed, I would say it was impossible.”

  “Sepoys Khan and Akbar did say they were Muslim. Small simply got confused and Watson was following his story.”

  “Curious. Most curious.”

  Sherlock Holmes said nothing. He was looking intently at the meat on his plate. Poiret followed his look then continued:

  “And, further, what does this confusion over names mean?”

  “What is this?” Sherlock Holmes said, lifting the lump of meat from its sauce with his knife.

  Poiret, perhaps surprised that the English detective did not want to discuss the case, said:

  “It is le cheval, maitre. A most delicate meat.”

  “Horse?”

  “Yes. Since you did not like the snails with which we started I thought you would feel more at ease with meat as a main course. Is it not to your taste?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “May I continue?”

  “By all means. But perhaps I’ll have a little more of the wine.”

  “Bien sûr.” Poiret reached for the bottle and topped up Holmes’s glass. “I had hoped that those gentlemen would be more forthcoming about who hired them to attack us. Do you believe it is connected to our current investigations?”

  “I would not wish to theorise before the facts but I would hazard a guess that it may be to do with the work I did uncovering the spy network of Von Bork at the outset of the war.”

  “And therefore nothing to do with our present case? I am not so sure. But at least, thanks to your McBride, we know the cane used in the attack on George Adlam is of Romanian manufacture.”

  Holmes had carved a slice of his meat as he spoke. He looked at it on the end of his fork then put it in his mouth. Poiret seemed not to watch as Holmes chewed on the meat, at first with caution then with satisfaction.

  “I think not,” the Great Detective said when he had swallowed the first portion and was cutting a second. “I have many enemies, as I’m sure you do – it is the nature of our work. Because I treat criminals with fairness does not mean they always respond in kind.”

  “However, a revenge attack some two years after the affaire Von Bork seems oddly-timed. I wonder about George Adlam – or, indeed, Dr Watson.”

  “My dear fellow,” Holmes said through his mouthful of food, “you cannot seriously suggest that Dr Watson would commission an attack on his friend and colleague!”

  “It is my observation that a cornered man is capable of any betrayal.”

  “How is Watson cornered? If your theory is true and Mary Morstan did inherit a fabulous treasure then Watson, as her widower, is entitled to inherit it. All he is guilty of is falsifying the record as to the fate of the treasure and he may have done that for an honourable reason.”

  “And, according to your Indian visitors, he may have falsified the date when he first became aware of the Agra treasure and also first aware of Miss Morstan. If he married her more callously than heretofore believed then the small matter of the murder of his wife begins to have a context.”

  Sherlock Holmes put down his knife and fork.

  “You waft this accusation around in far too airy a manner, monsieur. You offer no evidence except the vaguely circumstantial.”

  Poiret dabbed at his mouth with the napkin tucked into his collar.

  “Dessert? No sad cake, alas, but Monsieur Bertoux does a particularly fine crème brulee.”

  “I feel we are missing something that will either shed new light on the circumstantial or give it proper credence.”

  “And what might that be, Monsieur Holmes?”

  Sherlock Holmes spooned sugar into the coffee that had been put before him. Poiret watched with a pained expression on his face as the liquid got thicker and thicker. Sherlock Holmes caught him watching. He stopped spooning and started stirring.

  “Sorry, Poiret. Sugar has been in short supply.”

  “You were saying that we had missed something.”

  “Yes,” said Sherlock Holmes, taking a small sip of his coffee and then a longer one. “Or somebody.”

  He put the cup down.

  “Somebody else linked to the original case. Here we have the grandson of Jonathan Small and the grandchildren of the other members of the Sign of the Four. Miss Morstan is dead so there are no descendants of Captain Morstan to concern us.

  “The other character in this drama was Major Sholto. His only surviving son, Thaddeus, died some years ago. A bachelor, he left his eccentric collection of anthropological material to the British Museum and the rest of his estate to the Diogenes Club. My brother Mycroft was not even aware he was a member of the club for the most unclubbable men in London – not surprising, I suppose, given its nature.”

  “So there we have all the main players,” Poiret said, sipping at his own small black coffee.

  “Well, there was Inspector Athelney Jones,” Sherlock Holmes said. “If he discovered that he’d been hoodwinked by Dr Watson he might want to see the wrong righted.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “I believe so but long-retired home to Wales. However, I can’t imagine such a stolid man taking the law into his own hands.”

  “There was the inspector Watson left in the cab whilst he took the treasure box in to Miss Morstan,” Poiret said.

  “No – he got his reward from young Sholto and was happy enough.”

  Sherlock Holmes spread his hands.

  “I find myself at a loss.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out his watch. “And I fear I must leave you if I am to catch the last train back to Hassocks.”

  “You cannot possibly walk from the station to your home in the pitch of the night!” Poiret declared. “You must stay with me in Mayfair.”

  Sherlock Holmes shook his head.

  “It is a kind offer but these days London is a foreign city to me. I cannot think here. For that I need the Downs.”

  “Then at least stay in my suite at the Metropole. There is a spare bed. I shall phone ahead.”

  Sherlock Holmes thought for a moment.

  “That I will gladly do.”

  Sherlock Holmes caught his train with seconds to spare but th
at meant that he reached Brighton in a short time. The streets were lively though the pubs had closed an hour before. He regretted that he had no stick with him and stuck to the main thoroughfares in his descent to the seafront. Halfway there he was aware that a couple of ruffians had detached themselves from a doorway to follow him but he hailed a policeman across the street by name and they melted back into the shadows.

  The night porter at the Metropole was expecting him. He welcomed him in and handed over the key to Poiret’s room. When Sherlock Holmes entered the room, he wondered if he had been given another by mistake. This one was immaculate, as if it had been unoccupied for days.

  One of the two beds was turned down so he assumed that was for him. A book lay on the table between the beds. He picked it up. The Sign of the Four. When he had done his ablutions and slid beneath the covers, he picked up the book and started to read.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  A Gathering

  Sherlock Holmes was woken at six by the daylight flooding into Poiret’s hotel room. He stretched his long limbs and allowed himself a broad grin.

  “I have it,” he said softly.

  Jules Poiret woke a little later in his Mayfair apartment. In the course of his careful and fastidious toilet he suddenly addressed his reflection in the mirror of his spotless bathroom.

  “Ah – it all becomes clear.”

  At that moment Dr Watson slipped naked from Lady F—‘s bed, bundled his clothes in his arms and tiptoed into the ante-room of her suite. He cursed under his breath when a shoe dropped and landed with a dull thud on the Persian rug. He looked back into the bedroom at her slumbering form. She did not stir. Then, the penny, rather than the other shoe, dropped.

  “That’s it,” he murmured.

  Sepoys Akbar, Singh and Khan stood to attention in the grounds of the Royal Pavilion as their Major informed them that their regiment’s duties in the trenches of the Western Front were over forever. The War Office had concluded that they would be better deployed elsewhere. In three days their convalescence would be over and their regiment would form part of a new expeditionary force to Mesopotamia to fight the Turks.