by David Marcum
Holmes sighed. He had chosen his new quarters in Montague Street because of the proximity to the British Museum, a whole building of novelties to amuse his easily bored mind. Yet the public displays had provided scant clay for his mental kiln. Infuriatingly, the curators would not allow him access to the storerooms and laboratories where the real treasures and mysteries lay. Instead, he found himself in a neighborhood where the local tobacconist, used to dealing with self-professed scholars and xenophiles, proved overly ambitious in pushing exotic blends over reliable British tobacco.
“I have no interest in Turkish leaf and I don’t believe I ever shall.”
“Someday I’ll slip it into your pouch and you will thank me. I am an artist with cured tobacco leaves. It is in my blood.” The tobacconist accepted Holmes payment, and then sighed heavily just as Holmes was walking through the door. For reasons he couldn’t explain, Holmes turned back.
“Is something the matter, Mr. Wilshire?”
“What’s that?”
“That sigh just now caught my attention. Usually you are an irrepressibly jovial sort. Too much so for some people’s taste.”
“Ta, sir. It’s just that . . . . Well, never mind. Challenges of the trade.”
“I’ve nowhere pressing to be, and could lend a sympathetic ear.” As much as the man grated on Holmes, being on friendly terms with one’s tobacconist could pay dividends. Maybe each pouch is a little fuller, the tobacco a little fresher, the price a little less dear. Holmes, having ended his time at University only recently, was still living on a student’s budget.
“It’s a bit embarrassing, to be honest. You see, one of the costs of running a shop in London is paying for insurance.”
“This tertiary business expense is what has you troubled?”
“It’s just that, well, the cost of this insurance has suddenly increased. I’m having trouble affording it.”
“Can you not negotiate with your current insurer? Or simply change to another.”
“It isn’t that kind of insurance.”
“Ah, I see. You are being extorted by criminals, and these criminals have become greedier. Surely Scotland Yard handles these sorts of things.”
“Other shopkeepers have complained, of course, but fruitlessly. The police here are not well-suited to dealing with subtle crimes, crimes of accounting, that sort of thing. A smashed window, an armed robbery – that they are prepared for. They need crimes they can see with their eyes and bludgeon with a truncheon.”
“Surely you give them too little credit. London is the finest city in the world. It must have the police force to match.”
“It may be the world’s finest police force for all I know. I’m still having my pocket picked every month.” Wilshire sighed.
“If they had the criminal delivered to them, they would effect the arrest?”
“They would have to, I should think.”
“How, exactly, does this criminal transaction take place?” Holmes approached the counter, his eyes now intently focused on the tobacconist.
“She comes to collect in person. I don’t think she trusts any intermediaries. No honor among thieves and all that.”
“She? You mean to tell me you are strong armed by a woman?”
“A woman who can hire a criminal gang at a moment’s notice and for a pittance, what with times in London being what they are. Besides, it was her husband that forged the arrangement.”
“Where is he now?”
“On the run. While he is enough to do for me, in the grand scheme he is a small time crook, who answers to another, who answers to another, and so on right back to the top.”
“The top of what?”
“There are whispers that one man in London, one master, manages all of the crime in the city.”
“Absurd,” Holmes scoffed.
“Nonetheless true.”
“I should like to meet this nefarious genius for myself.”
“That day would be your last.”
“So this man, your insurance agent, goes missing and is replaced by his wife, who presses you for an unsustainable amount of money. All this under the nose of some shadowy villain-general. I shall take the case.”
“What case? What are you talking about?”
“Back in University, I would amuse myself by solving little problems for my fellows. I wouldn’t mind taking those faculties back out of the stable for a little trot.”
“These are dangerous people, Mr. Holmes. Genuine criminals. That’s why I just pay them and go about my business. Please leave and forget all that we spoke of today.”
The bell on the front door rang as someone entered. The blood drained from Wilshire’s face. “Madame Withers, back so soon?” He shooed Holmes away with his hands.
Holmes tipped his brim to the lady as he passed. Her gaze passed over him uninterrupted, her eyes betraying no spark of life. He made sure to jangle the bell on the door loudly and to close it with a definitive bang. He then strolled casually past the front windows and, as soon as he was obscured from the people inside, crossed the street and angled himself so that he could observe their transaction in the reflection of the store window in front of him. The tobacconist was waving his hands in refusal when suddenly Madame Withers seized him by the shirtfront and pressed the point of a blade to his neck. Wilshire relented and the lady released him, letting him drop back down to the floor behind the counter. The tobacconist opened his till and the lady began seizing handfuls of money and shoving them into her dress. It looked a lot less like a payoff and a lot more like a stick-up. Miss Withers brandished her knife at the tobacconist again and then swept out of the shop.
Holmes gave her half-a-block and began following her, fearing she might hop into a passing cab. To his relief, she instead entered the Grand Royal Hotel. Watching her through the entryway, Holmes saw her proceed to the reception desk, where she surrendered much of the money she had just stolen. The manager retrieved, a bit too graciously, one might almost say obsequiously, a key from the cabinet behind him. Holmes carefully noted which hook from which the key came. After Madame Withers disappeared up the lift, Holmes proceeded into the lobby, where he picked up a newspaper and propped himself against a column in easy sight of the key cabinet. A few minutes later, an arriving guest prompted the cabinet to be opened again, and Holmes saw that Madame Withers had received the key for 307. When the manager was free again Holmes approached.
“I say, would it be possible to have a message dispatched to one of your guests?”
“But of course. One of our wait staff would be happy to oblige. May I ask to whom you wish to send a message?”
“To the gentleman in Room 307. We were meant to meet here this afternoon so that we might settle the matter of his boasting in regards to the snooker table. He was an unbearable boor at dinner, and I mean to put him in his place.”
“My apologies, sir, but there is no gentleman in Room 307.”
“Are you absolutely certain?”
“Most assuredly. A woman has been occupying that room alone for a week. She rarely leaves but for brief constitutionals, and the maids say she has a widow’s attire hanging in the wardrobe. I dare say she is in tragic and dire circumstances. She had not paid since the first night, until today when I began, however regretfully, to evict her. Suddenly she was able to satisfy her bill, and pay for another week besides. That ends the matter as far as I am concerned. Listen to me, gossiping away. Perhaps if you described the man to me I might be of further assistance?”
“No matter,” Holmes said. “He’s half-an-hour late as it is, and gave me a false room number to boot. There’s no need to humor a liar and a coward any further. You’ve been a great help.” Holmes tipped his hat and was out the door before the manager even realized the interview was over. On the way home Holmes stopped into the offices of The London Times to place an ad:
Mr. Withers – I have found what you left behind at the Grand Royal Hotel. Please apply S. Holmes, No. 24, Montague Street.
She turned back towards Holmes, but only incrementally, first her head, then her body, and finally her feet. The strange action reminded Holmes of a cobra uncoiling. He renewed his grip on the riding crop but kept it tucked up his sleeve.
“Mr. Holmes, the gentleman from the tobacconist’s.”
“I was not certain you had seen me, Madame Withers.”
“Of course I saw you, I simply did not notice you. Until your little missive in the paper.”
“I thought that might catch your attention. Locked up in your room all day, I assumed you must take the paper to which the hotel subscribes.”
“Indeed. I am a lonely woman.”
“I understood you to be married.”
A smile pulled at the woman’s lips, but did not affect her eyes. “You are a clever lad. It would be more accurate to say I am a woman alone in the world.”
“Your husband has abandoned you?”
“I fear my husband has abandoned this mortal coil.”
“Suicide?”
“Never!” Now some emotion did reach her eyes: Fury. “My husband would never leave me like that. However, he has had some difficulties in his line of business.”
“I understand it is now your line of business.”
Again came the mirthless smile. “I have not heard from my husband in a week. Even under our current circumstances, that is unexpected and distressing. Since you feel the need to interject yourself into my business, I thought you might at least make yourself useful.”
“A gentleman is always at the service of a lady.”
“I fear for my safety as well as my husband’s, and so I am hesitant to leave the hotel for any prolonged period of time. Even this interview distresses me greatly.” Holmes noted her relaxed pupils, the gentle pulse in her throat, the soft breath on her lips. “There’s a place we used to live, a place I think he might retreat when in fear for his life. We are too well known in the area, which is full of cut-purses and cutthroats, for me to dare venture there. Might you check and see if Mr. Withers is present, and safe? It would bring some small relief to my fevered mind. I could pay you, of course.”
“No need, dear lady. I am honor-bound to see this through, and besides, you make the destination sound so alluring.”
“Here,” she handed Holmes a note already written. “This is the address. Be sure to check thoroughly, even if there is no answer. I hate to think of my poor husband lying undiscovered in some back room.”
She left then, without another word. Holmes examined his trusty map of London, memorizing three different routes to and from the address. He then exchanged his current clothes for a threadbare suit from his days before University. It was moth-eaten and well out of style. Rubbing up against the walls of a few alleys would complete the desired effect. There was an important difference between a country squire with empty pockets and a genuine unfortunate. One would attract much less notice than the other where Holmes was heading. He secured the crop inside the jacket, as well as putting his lock-picks, a folding knife, and a whistle in his pockets. He left all but a pittance in his room. Duly prepared, he slipped out into the flow of London, the streets becoming darker and the people more desperate as he went. Overhead, the sun dipped below the rooftops, and Holmes found himself relying on ever sparser gaslights, and spillover from the windows of homes, pubs, and other less reputable establishments.
The streets were nearly abandoned by the time Holmes arrived at the address that Mrs. Withers had given him. He began to have the uncomfortable suspicion she had sent him to his own execution, and like a lamb he had let himself be led merrily along. The address was for a defunct milliner’s. Holmes easily found the door to the residence above, and even in the dark he could see the grime covering the rest of the door had been wiped away from the knob. It wouldn’t budge, so Holmes turned to scan the street. There were the ambient sounds of city life all around him, but no obvious eyes upon him. He fished the picks from his pocket and went to work upon the lock. Sweat ran into his eyes, and his hands throbbed with the beating of his heart. He had trouble finding the pinion points for the tumbler, but at last the lock was sprung. Holmes eased the door open, its whining creak seeming as loud as a constable’s whistle to him.
Inside, he found candles in fixtures along the wall. He broke the first one free and lit it with a lucifer from his pocket. The pasteboard walls bulged under the bubbling wallpaper. The building had been cheaply constructed and poorly maintained. In the brighter parts of London, these tenements had long since been razed to the ground and replaced. The stairs creaked beneath his feet and one fully snapped, sending Holmes reeling for a moment. At the top, in the candlelight, he could clearly see recent footprints in the dust. There were a few going in every direction, but most carried through down the hall to a back room. Cautiously, Holmes followed the trail and looking through an open doorway, he saw trash and fallen plaster from the walls and ceiling. In the middle of the room, he observed a pile of discarded clothes. Then he noticed the flies buzzing about it. He stepped closer in, now smelling a pungent, fetid stench, much stronger than the odor of mold and dust in the rest of the building. Tentatively, Holmes nudged the pile with his shoe. Something solid was inside, so he heeled the top of the bundle over and it collapsed out into a body. A man whose flesh, that not eaten away by vermin, was a nauseous rainbow of purples and greens. Holmes’s stomach lurched, and somehow he was on the floor himself now.
Leaning heavily on the walls, Holmes staggered down the stairs and into the relatively fresh air of the slums of London. At least it was cold, and that snapped his rational mind back into action. He breathed deeply and walked away the disgust. There was one thing he was sure of: Madame Withers had sent him there knowing he would find the body. He was a pawn in her game, and Holmes would be a pawn for no one. More than the decaying body, more than the probable murder, what really rankled Holmes was that anyone would take him for a fool. He had been attending some esoteric lectures during his time in London, and at those lectures he’s made some eccentric contacts. Not friends exactly – Sherlock Holmes would never go down in the annals of friendship – but like-minded individuals. Others for whom the spirit of inquiry trumped the demands of propriety. One of these was a coroner, a freelance ghoul who would relish an invitation to macabre intrigue. Holmes proceeded at a quick step, now oblivious to the everyday predators stalking London’s shadows.
“Young Sherlock, won’t you come in?” Hershel Glave had his smock on. To little effect, Holmes thought. Glave was soaked in effluvia up past his elbows. The stench from inside his morgue was almost unbearable. Looking past Glave’s shoulder, Holmes saw the mangled cadaver the coroner must be working on, with two more set off to the side. There were always more bodies in London. Some Glave examined for the police. Others he merely disposed of. Yet others . . . . Holmes had gathered enough oblique references to know that Glave earned most of his coin as a kind of purveyor-cum-broker. The demands for human remains are myriad, and
to let good produce go to waste in a potter’s field ran contrary to Glaves’ eminently practical sensibilities. The man repulsed Holmes to the quick, but his absolute detachment from all human sentiment was also fascinating in its own way. The things this man accomplished due in part to his radical emotional disassociaion were remarkable. Perhaps it was possible to become morally disentangled while retaining one’s ethical self, Holmes thought.
“Doctor Glave, I’m afraid I cannot stay long, and I do not wish to impose upon your hospitality.”
“No one ever does.” A grin split the man’s face, revealing rotten brown teeth, worse than most of his subjects.
“I know the location of a body that the Yard doesn’t even know it is looking for yet. I promise you that in a couple of days, it will be quite valuable. It is associated with a lurid scandal that will make the front page of every rag in London.”
“Oh, you do, do you? This isn’t your handiwork is it, young Sherlock?”
“Of course not! Why would I come and admit a murder to you?”
“You’d be surprised at how understanding people think I can be. How understanding I can be for the right price.”
Holmes’s lip involuntarily curled. “You’ll get your pay from the Yard, assuming you agree to my conditions.”
“Ha ha! And what are those, pray tell?”
“You will keep the body secret until I tell you otherwise. That means waiting after the reward is announced. Maybe a day or more.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m giving you a gift. Fast, clean money, and some favor from the Yard besides. You can have this body in your cellar within the hour. It is good business.”
“Ha ha! Okay, it is a deal.” Glave held out a filthy, repugnant hand.
Without hesitation Holmes took it. “To cross me would be bad business.”
“Yes, yes, very bad business. Ho ho!”
Holmes began crushing the man’s hand in his grip and boring his hawk-like gaze into the other man’s eyes. The coroner faltered and went slack.
