Sherlock Holmes and the Folk Tale Mysteries - Volume 2

by Puhl, Gayle Lange

  Charles Carroll was sitting behind a cluttered desk in the small office inside. Two men left as we entered. Our client explained that they were there to pick up a shipment of oysters for a famous London hotel kitchen.

  “Please tell me about your neighbours, Mr. Carroll,” said Sherlock Holmes.

  “The Seven Maids Mop Company has been in business next door since before we took over this warehouse,” replied our client. “There has been no conflict between us. Surlaw and Company is another matter. Mr. Gaylord Surlaw and his partner, Mr. Carl Pender, deal in all sorts of merchandise. They import gloves, storybooks, orange marmalade, tiny glass boxes, thimbles, pepper and lots of very clean and neat shoes. They export roses both white and red, tea sets, cucumber frames, canned mock turtle soup and packs of playing cards. Mr. Pender is handy with his hands and constructs wooden chess sets. But during the last few months activity has dropped off a great deal around the building. I haven’t seen much of either of them, which is a nice change.”

  “Why is that a nice change?” asked Holmes.

  “Over the years we have been here both of them found many reasons to bother us.”

  “How did they bother you?”

  “At first I thought it was just curiosity, but then they asked to borrow things, like tools or sealing wax. It soon got to the point where I avoided Mr. Surlaw as much as I could and finally, a few months ago, the two stopped coming around.”

  “They stopped before the oysters began to disappear?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then there would seem to be no connection between your current troubles and them. What about the businesses across the road?” I said.

  “None of them have anything to do with shellfish so there is really very little contact between us.”

  Holmes’ next request was a tour of the building. During the walk Mr. Carroll paused by the door of each room and flicked on electric lights that dangled from fixtures hung from the ceiling’s rafters.

  The large warehouse was divided up into a series of rooms, some stacked with blocks of ice covered with sawdust and stocked with crates and casks of oysters. Others were ice free and filled with empty containers. Mr. Carroll strode among his stock, explaining how the premises were set out.

  “You will notice the wide cracks in the floors. That is so the melted ice water will drain out. The water drips out onto the mud flats. These trapdoors are for the larger chunks when we clean the rooms ready to put in fresh ice. We also off-load some of the merchandise out through the trapdoors. When the tide is high, small boats come under the floors and we load or unload the oysters in and out of the different rooms. They can only be opened from the inside and they are all securely fastened. There are only a few windows, up high, because the sun shining through them would hasten the ice melt. Each cask and crate is numbered and labelled. That information is added to the ledgers and is how inventory is kept.

  “Our stock comes from many sources but mainly Ireland and France. We sell to restaurants, hotels and public houses. The casks and crates the oysters, lobsters and other fish are shipped in are sent back to us when they are empty. We return them to our suppliers.”

  “I see there are doors leading outside in the rooms on the river,” Holmes remarked.

  “That is how the inventory is delivered and sent out by larger boats. Two of the doors lead out to short piers that extend into the Thames. How the casks arrive and leave depend upon the supplier and the purchaser. The keys are kept in the office, on a ring on a hook.”

  “Are they the only ones?”

  “That ring contains the master set. These that I carry never leave my custody. Mr. Lewis and I each have one for the front door but the ones in the office are used but rarely and then only by Mr. Lewis.”

  “If you will excuse me, Mr. Carroll, I will make an examination of these rooms now.”

  “Go anywhere you need, Mr. Holmes. I will be in my office when you are finished.” Mr. Carroll gave Holmes his ring of keys.

  Sherlock Holmes motioned me to follow him and we went from room to room. His magnifying glass in hand, he made a thorough investigation of the warehouse. His energy was amazing. He climbed up the stacks of ice, brushed away the piles of sawdust then brushed them back in place, peered into dozens of empty casks and others full of shellfish. He closely examined each lock on every door in the building, unlocking and locking the ones that lead outside, and ran his fingers over every trapdoor.

  At last he straightened up from the last door, on the west side of the building in a room filled with casks of oysters. He examined the casks and the blocks of ice, at one point picking up something from one block’s surface. Then he bent and pried slivers of wood off the floor at two places. These items he carefully placed in envelopes from his pocket. He stared up at the rafters for a long time while I stood waiting, the dank of the ice cooling the shellfish soaking into my clothing. Finally he pulled out his watch and checked the time.

  “Let us rejoin Mr. Carroll, Watson. I think I have seen all there is to see here.”

  True to his word, we found our client back in the cluttered office. At the sight of us, our clothes spotted with damp and sprinkled with sawdust, he pulled out a bottle of brandy from a drawer and produced some glasses. When he offered cigars from his own humidor and I accepted one Holmes pulled out his pipe and lit it. For a few minutes we were silent as we warmed up before the electric fire that glowed in the office’s corner.

  “I have one more question,” drawled my friend. “May I see the keys that you keep in this office?”

  “Certainly,” responded Mr. Carroll. He took down a large ring that hung on a nail near the door and handed it over to the detective. Holmes peered at each key with his lens, then pulled out a handkerchief and began to methodically polish each one in an absent-minded manner. He didn’t appear to notice what he was doing, however, because he spoke only about the various suppliers and customers for the oysters of Carroll and Lewis.

  Charles Carroll was puzzled by Holmes’ distracted air, but he answered his questions politely. When we were finally warm and dry, Holmes handed back the keys and thrust the handkerchief in his pocket. Mr. Carroll escorted us out of the warehouse, exchanging a few last words with Holmes as I hailed a cab. Our horse clip-clopped through the city streets as we returned home in the early evening twilight.

  Back in our sitting room, Holmes went straight to his chemical table. He brought out the handkerchief he had used to clean the warehouse keys and the envelopes he had filled during his search. For half an hour he sat on a stool at the table, busy with his instruments. Again as he had many times before he reminded me of some lank, thin bird of prey hunched over his perch, deciding in which direction he would swoop to pluck up his victim. Finally he pushed away from the acid-stained surface.

  “Have you any engagement this evening, Watson? No? Then you will be able to accompany me back to our client’s business tonight after dark.”

  “I am always glad to be of service, Holmes.”

  “That reminds me. Please bring your revolver. When confronting knaves in the dark it is better to be prepared with more than imagination.”

  We made a simple dinner off the joint and fruit on the sideboard as we waited for the time to pass. The clock had already struck eleven o’clock and the moon was up when we flagged down a hansom and set off for the Carroll and Lewis warehouse.

  By prearrangement, a side door was left unlocked for us. Inside, the ring of keys from the office lay on a crate along with two candles and a box of matches. Holmes led the way through the building, unlocking and locking doors behind us. Beneath our feet we could hear the gurgle and splash of the tide coming in. The atmosphere was steeped in the smells of seafood, sawdust, melting ice and the river. Finally he paused before the last room we had examined earlier that day and raised a finger to his lips. Under the door shone a faint
, wavering light. Holmes leaned close to my ear and whispered.

  “Put out your candle and I will do the same. After I unlock this door, slip in and go to the right. The electric switch will be above your head. Don’t touch it until I give the signal. Have your revolver at the ready.”

  Soundlessly I entered the storeroom and crouched behind a stack of crates. Carefully I laid my revolver on top of the lowest one. I felt rather than heard Sherlock Holmes lock the door and move to the left. My attention was drawn to the centre of the room, where two men’s faces were illuminated by the light of a single candle. They were seated on a blanket covering another block of ice, with two casks of oysters before them. Also on the blanket were loaves of soda bread, tubs of butter, a pepper pot and a bottle of vinegar. There was a sizable midden of opened shells on the floor at their feet. I watched as the smaller of the two men picked up a knife and sliced into one of the loaves.

  He was clean-shaven, with a big nose and a square hat made of newspaper on his head. He wore a white apron under an old jacket. His companion was bulkier, clad in a rusty old evening suit with a shabby white waistcoat. He had an enormous moustache billowing out from his upper lip. His hand was like a flipper as he dipped it into the cask before him and drew out a bivalve. Expertly he shucked the oyster, added some pepper and swallowed it down with a smack of his lips.

  “I must say, my dear Pender, even though we have gone through two of these casks tonight, the lure of the oyster never fades. Would you pass me a bit of bread? I have the butter here. There are still several oysters left at the bottom of my cask and I must send them to join their fellows before they grow lonesome.”

  Pender bent over and watched his companion apply a generous gob of butter to the slice of bread. “You’re spreading it too thick, Surlaw,” he growled. “There won’t be enough to go around.”

  “But it is only the best butter,” protested the other.

  “Nevertheless, have a few with vinegar. It will be a nice change for you and the oysters won’t mind.”

  “Did I ever tell you, my friend, that oysters were the particular favourite food of King Henry the VIII? He used to have them boiled with cabbages and pigs’ feet. He ate them so often the Ambassador from Spain used to refuse dinner invitations for fear that dish would be featured.”

  “So would I. What do you have under that handkerchief?”

  “What handkerchief?”

  “That one, you old fraud. Ah, just as I thought. You have sorted out some of mine, and of the largest size, for yourself. I’ll just eat them now, before you can try to talk me out of them.” Noisily Pender gobbled up the treats, butter dripping down his chin.

  “These casks are empty. I’ll get two more.” Surlaw lumbered to his feet. At that moment a chunk of ice flew out of the darkness and knocked over the candle. The flame guttered out on the wet floor. Instantly the room was dark, lit only by the moonbeams that glittered through the windows high above and the wavering reflected lights of the waters showing through the floor cracks.

  I stood up, my revolver in my hand, and turned on the light. The glare revealed Surlaw and Pender, frozen in place, and Sherlock Holmes standing between them and a door that led outside.

  “Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Sherlock Holmes. You will notice that my friend Dr. Watson has a weapon trained on you both. I advise you not to move. He is a very capable shot. The time has come,” said Holmes, “for some matters to be resolved. Since I have discovered you here, in a warehouse not your own, in the middle of the night and picnicking on oysters belonging to my client, I must strongly suspect you two of being oyster pirates.”

  Mr. Surlaw drew himself up with a shop-worn air of dignity. “I might point out to you, Mr. Holmes, that I have found you and your friend over there by that door in a warehouse not your own, in the middle of the night and threatening to arrest two solid…”

  “Very solid,” murmured Pender.

  “…Englishmen who have every right to be here.”

  “What?” I was astonished by such effrontery.

  For a minute the four of us stood staring at each other. Then Holmes burst out laughing. Surlaw and Pender laughed too, and I watched in amazement as the reprobates settled back on the blanket-draped block of ice and each slapped a knee.

  Holmes turned to me. “Watson, put away your revolver. I need to confer with these two gentlemen. It won’t take long. Cabs in this neighbourhood are hard to find. Please get one and bring it back here.”

  I was confused, but as always, I did what Holmes asked. I left. Walking through the moonlight, eyes peeled for a carriage, I thought about the scene in the warehouse. Obviously Surlaw and Pender had taken the missing oysters. How had they gotten into the warehouse undetected? What could be their motive, besides a great appetite for the little bivalves? Why did they believe they had a right to be in the Carroll and Lewis warehouse at midnight? What was Sherlock Holmes planning now?

  I found a cab and came back to find Holmes standing on the pavement, the ring of keys still in his hand. There were no signs of Surlaw and Pender.

  “I’ll just return these to their rightful owners at Baker Street at breakfast, Watson.”

  “Are those two expected also?”

  “It will be a jolly little party. The moon is starting to go down. To Baker Street, cabby.”

  I managed to catch a few hours sleep before Holmes called up the stairs to wake me. I came down to find our landlady fussing with a full breakfast service laid out on the table in our sitting room. There were place settings for six. A fine fire was taking the fall morning chill from the room. She had barely set out the last covered dish when the doorbell rang and she left to answer it.

  Up the stairs came our client Mr. Charles Carroll, and his partner, Mr. Tenniel Lewis. There was no sign of Bill. A minute later Mr. Gaylord Surlaw and Mr. Carl Pender entered, their attention immediately fixed on the breakfast table.

  Holmes waved everyone to their seats and snapped open a serviette.

  Surlaw was reaching for a silver-domed cover when Mr. Lewis said, “Mr. Holmes, Carroll made me accept this invitation to breakfast with you, but I don’t know these other gentlemen. What is going on?”

  Holmes refolded his square of damask and laid it on his plate. “I can see that Mrs. Hudson’s excellent meal must wait to be appreciated until this problem of the oysters is cleared up. Mr. Lewis, you have met these two men before. They hold your son’s gambling markers. You were paying off the debt in oysters.”

  Mr. Carroll’s face grew red. “Lewis?”

  His partner’s face was white. He shot a furious glare at Surlaw and Pender. “You blabbermouths!”

  Surlaw shrugged. “What could we do? They caught us in the act and that one was armed.”

  “So you got rattled, eh?” snarled Lewis. He turned to his partner. “If you had agreed to sell out to me, this never would have happened. Bill bet on the ponies, trying to put together a nest egg to marry on, but he’s no judge of horseflesh. These two came to me with a fistful of paper, but I didn’t have the cash. I offered them free oysters for a month, but not for resale. When you started to complain, I thought you might get so fed up you would sell your shares to me. Then I could bring Bill into the business, he could marry Alice, and the markers would be cancelled by a few casks of shellfish. But you had to consult Mr. Sherlock Holmes!”

  Holmes addressed Mr. Lewis. “You took a mould of the room’s entrance key on a slab of clay and gave the duplicate to Mr. Surlaw. I found the clay residue on the original key by cleaning it with my handkerchief. I looked for it because there was no sign of any of the locks being picked on any of the outside doors, yet the thieves had to get in somehow. The trapdoors were secured from the inside. I found threads from the blanket they brought frozen to the block of ice they used as a bench, and scrapings of candle wax and butter on the floor boards by the
ice block. The deduction was simple. Mr. Surlaw and Mr. Pender were dining by invitation of Mr. Lewis, and felt protected by the laws of hospitality.

  “I explained to Mr. Surlaw and Mr. Pender that my client is Mr. Charles Carroll. Half of the warehouse, the business and the oysters belong to him. He was not party to their arrangement with Mr. Lewis. They feasted on Mr. Lewis’ oysters for fifteen nights. By any calendar reading that would equal half a month. Tenniel Lewis only has ownership of half the stock. They had eaten all the oysters he could offer them per the contract. I told them that the next one that slid down their throats belonged to Mr. Carroll and they could be charged as oyster pirates.”

  Gaylord Surlaw looked at the hot dishes on the table with a covetous eye. “I told Mr. Holmes he was as clever as he had been painted. I told Mr. Pender that we must fold our blanket and steal away. We’ve had a pleasant run. Now we would be trotting home again.”

  “I invited them to breakfast today because I thought Mr. Lewis might need a bit of prodding to admit his part in this conspiracy. He might dispute my deductions and my account of our meeting. In that case Mr. Carroll would be compelled to take this affair to court where Mr. Surlaw and Mr. Pender would be forced to testify against Mr. Lewis. I asked them if that a wise move for a couple of men just establishing themselves as gambling marker brokers.”

  Pender pulled on Sherlock Holmes’ sleeve. “No courtroom, Mr. Holmes,” he muttered. “No police, no lawyers, no constables, no judges, no gaol. You promised.”