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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
This collection of stories, allegedly written by Doctor Watson, includes the tragic tale of Lord Deerswood's unwanted legacy, the account of the jealous contortionist, the affair of the beautiful housekeeper, the deadly doings of the costumed Russian, the Aladdin's Cave episode, and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the deadly Sumatran rats. The discovery of these Sherlock Holmes cases - one of which reunites Holmes with brother Mycroft - represents a treasure trove for Baker Street devotees.
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Seitenzahl: 391
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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The secret files of Sherlock Holmes
In July 1939 a travel-worn and battered tin dispatchbox with the name, ‘John H. Watson, MD, Late Indian Army’, painted on the lid, came into the possession of the famous doctor’s namesake, a certain Oxford philosophy don who had read widely in the Sherlock Holmes’ canon and became an acknowledged expert.
Subsequently left in his will by the professor to his nephew, the present co-selector of the files, the box contained records of ‘some curious problems’ which the great consulting detective investigated and which were never fully related, either because the final explanation was not forthcoming or in order to protect the secrets of certain families in ‘exalted positions’.
The collection contains an investigation into the disappearance of a head-waiter, his locked wardrobe and a baker’s van; a missing medical student and a secretary to a charitable organization who contrives simultaneously to run an Australian sheep-farm; the contents of a matchbox which provokes the defenestration of a famous Peruvian journalist; the blackmailing of the indiscreet Duchess of Welbourne; the skin trade in desirable domestics; how two glasses of 1867 port led to the apprehension of an artful burglar; a bird-watching ‘holiday’ in Cornwall which leads to the unmasking of a spy.
The discovery of these secret files, never before committed to print, will be eagerly awaited by Baker Street devotees.
Aubrey B. Watson, LDS, FDS, D. Orth., as is stated above, is the nephew of the late professor, the namesake of Dr John H. Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ celebrated confidant and collaborator.
June Thomson is the author of sixteen crime novels. It is hoped that her collaboration with Aubrey Watson will lead to the publication of a further selection from this most important and fascinating cache of documents which has for so long remained undiscovered.
THE SECRET FILES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
June Thomson
(with the assistance of Aubrey B. Watson)
TO H. R. F. KEATING IN GRATITUDE FOR ALL HIS EXPERT HELP AND ADVICE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to June Thomson for her help in preparing this collection of short stories for publication.
Aubrey B. Watson LDS, FDS, D. orth.
FOREWORD
Students of the Sherlock Holmes’ canon will be familiar with the opening sentence of ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’ in which Watson, Holmes’ companion and chronicler of many of the great consulting detective’s cases, states that:
Somewhere in the vaults of the bank of Cox and Co.,* at Charing Cross, there is a travel-worn and battered tin dispatch box with my name, John H. Watson, M. D., Late Indian Army, painted upon the lid.
Watson goes on to explain that the dispatch box contains records of ‘some of the curious problems’ which, at various times, Holmes was called upon to investigate and which were never fully narrated, either because the final explanation was not forthcoming or in order to protect the secrets of certain families in ‘exalted positions’.
It was this same battered tin dispatch box which my late uncle claimed came into his possession in 1939, and the contents of which – or rather his copies of the papers it contained – he later bequeathed to me.
The story of how he acquired the box is a curious one and I shall relate it exactly as it was told to me by my late uncle, leaving it to the reader to form his or her own judgement as to its reliability.
My uncle was also Dr John Watson although, in his case, the middle initial was F, not H. He was, moreover, a Doctor of Philosophy, not medicine, and up to the time of his retirement he taught that subject at All Saints College, Oxford.
He was, of course, fully aware of the similarity between his name and that of the famous Dr John H. Watson. He could hardly be otherwise; it was the subject of much light banter among his fellow dons at High Table. Rather than let it be the cause of any personal embarrassment, he decided to turn the situation to his advantage.
Consequently, despite the demands of his own academic studies (he published several philosophical treatises, among them InPraiseofAnguish, all of which, alas, are no longer in print) he read widely in the Holmes’ canon and became an acknowledged expert. He even wrote a short monograph on his illustrious namesake which he had privately printed and distributed amongst his friends and fellow enthusiasts. Unfortunately, I have not been able to trace any copies of it.
He was also, in a modest way, a collector of Holmesian and Watsonian memorabilia and had in his possession copies of the original StrandMagazine in which Dr Watson’s accounts of Holmes’ adventures were first published.
It was, he told me, because of his reputation among students of the canon, and no doubt also the similarity of his name to the other Dr Watson’s, that in July 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, he received a visit in his college rooms from a lady, a certain Miss Adelina McWhirter, whom he described as elderly, respectable and of an impoverished, genteel appearance.
She was, Miss McWhirter claimed, related to Holmes’ Dr Watson on his mother’s side of the family and had acquired, although she declined to explain how, the doctor’s tin dispatch box, together with its contents, which had been deposited at Cox and Co., and which she was anxious to sell to someone, as she put it, ‘of proven academic scholarship who would appreciate its true value’.
The actual monetary value she placed on it was £500, a not inconsiderable sum in 1939. She hinted that her own straitened circumstances had forced her to part with this family heirloom.
Miss McWhirter’s excessive gentility inhibited my uncle from pressing her for too many details about her exact situation or how the box had come into her possession in the first place. However, when he examined it and the papers it contained, he was convinced they were genuine and, the £500 having been paid over (in cash, on Miss McWhirter’s insistence), both box and contents passed into his possession.
It was at this point that international events intervened.
The date, you will remember, was July 1939. War seemed imminent and my uncle, fearful for the safety of the Watson papers, decided to make copies of them which he kept in his rooms in Oxford, depositing the box and its contents, together with his editions of the StrandMagazine and other valuable Holmesian memorabilia, in the strong-room of the main branch of his own bank, City and County, in Lombard Street, London EC3.
It was an unwise decision.
While All Saints College escaped unscathed, the main branch of the City and County suffered a direct hit during the bombing of 1942 and, although the dispatch box was rescued from the ruins, its paint was so blistered by the heat that the name on the lid was totally obliterated while the papers inside it were reduced to a mass of indecipherable charred fragments.
My uncle was placed in a dilemma.
Although he still had his copies of the Watson papers, they were, of course, in his own handwriting and he had nothing to prove the existence of the originals apart from the fire-damaged box and its burnt contents, which, to those of a sceptical disposition, amounted to no proof at all.
Nor could he trace Miss Adelina McWhirter, despite strenuous efforts on his part to do so. She had given him her address in London, a small, residential hotel in South Kensington where she said she was living, but when he applied there, he was told that she had moved out in the summer of 1939 – not long, in fact, after she had visited my uncle in Oxford – and had left no forwarding address. Repeated appeals to her through the personal columns in TheTimes to contact him failed to elicit any response.
Because of this lack of evidence to prove the authenticity of the Watson archives, my uncle, careful of his reputation as a scholar, decided not to publish any of the material, and on his death at the age of 98 on 2 June 1982 – ironically, forty years to the exact day after the originals were destroyed – the copies he had made passed to me under the terms of his will.
By the way, I do not know what happened to the dispatch box and its charred contents. It stood in my uncle’s rooms in All Saints until at least 1949 for I remember seeing it on his desk when, as a child, I visited him in Oxford. What happened to it subsequently, I have no idea. It was not found among his effects after his death and may have been thrown out, as so much rubbish, by the staff at the Eventide Nursing Home in Carshalton, Surrey, in which he spent his last years.
For the same reason that made my uncle hesitate to publish the Watson papers in his lifetime, I, too, have thought long and hard for several years about what to do with his copies of them.
However, as I have no one to whom I can in turn bequeath them and being by profession an orthodontist and therefore having, unlike my late uncle, no academic reputation to protect, I have decided to risk bringing down on my head the obloquy and derision of all serious students of Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson by offering them for publication.
I make no claims for their genuineness. They are, as I have said, not the originals, if indeed the originals themselves were authentic and not mere forgeries. I can only present the facts, such as they are, as they were told to me.
There is a large quantity of these copies, all in my uncle’s handwriting: some full-length accounts to which my uncle, the late Dr John F. Watson, added his own footnotes; and some rough jottings which the original Dr Watson, if indeed it were he who made them, appeared to have recorded hastily, perhaps as a memorandum of the events which may – or may not – have occurred.
The first of these I have chosen is one of the full-length accounts, concerning an apparently unsolved case undertaken by Sherlock Holmes and also referred to by Dr Watson at the beginning of ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’. It is the investigation into the sudden disappearance of Mr James Phillimore, who, ‘stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world’.
There is no indication of the year in which the events purported to have happened may have occurred nor when the account was written down, although, from internal evidence, I tentatively suggest that the case may be placed in the late 1880s or early 1890s, but certainly subsequent to the time when Watson, after his marriage to Miss Mary Morstan, moved out of the lodgings which he shared with Holmes at 221B Baker Street.
As the account is also unnamed, I have taken it upon myself to give it the title of ‘The Case of the Vanishing Head-Waiter.’
Aubrey B. Watson LDS, FDS, D. orth.
* In February 1990, it was reported that Lloyds Bank is reviving its former Cox and King’s branch in Pall Mall, Dr John H. Watson’s bank, as a private bank for Armed Forces officers and their families. (Aubrey B. Watson)
Contents
THE CASE OF THE VANISHING HEAD-WAITER
Although elsewhere in the published accounts of my adventures with Sherlock Holmes I have referred in passing to the disappearance of Mr James Phillimore as one of Holmes’ unsolved cases, I have to confess that this was a deception on my part, carried out on Holmes’ instructions in order to protect the anonymity of Mr Phillimore’s exact whereabouts.
Rather than reveal them, especially to one certain individual, Holmes, preferring not to betray Phillimore’s trust, allowed the public to believe that, in this particular case, all his deductive powers were of no avail and that he had to admit himself defeated.
However, I have his permission to write an account of the mystery and, in the hope that at some future date he may agree to the story being published, I intend preserving it among my papers.
The adventure began one Friday morning in late May when I called at 221B Baker Street soon after the post had arrived. I found Holmes seated at the breakfast table in the first-floor sitting-room among the clutter of familiar objects, reading a letter which he passed to me with the comment, ‘Well, Watson, what do you make of that?’
By that time, I had known Holmes for long enough to have acquired some of his skills of observation and I perused the letter carefully before replying.
It read:
To Mr Sherlock Holmes.
Dear Sir,
I should be most grateful if you would grant me an interview on Friday next at 11 a.m., in order that I may discuss with you the sudden disappearance of my friend, Mr James Phillimore, a head-waiter, who vanished last Tuesday morning at seven-thirty, practically in front of my eyes, and who has not been seen since.
I would not normally trouble you but the police are not willing to pursue inquiries.
As I have asked for leave of absence from my place of employment for Friday morning, I trust you can comply with my request for an interview. I remain, Sir, Your Obedient Servant, Charles Nelson.
I noticed that the writing-paper was a popular brand, available at most stationers’, and that the script was the careful, round hand of a clerk while the address, Magnolia Terrace, Clapham, suggested that the correspondent was neither distinguished nor famous.
I said as much, adding, ‘You won’t accept the case, will you, Holmes? A missing head-waiter! It seems far too commonplace to do much to enhance your reputation. Surely it is best left to the police to solve?’
Holmes, who was lighting his after-breakfast pipe, raised his eyebrows at me.
‘Come, Watson!’ he chided gently but not without an amused twinkle in his grey eyes. ‘I have told you before* that the status of a client is a matter of less moment to me than the interest of his case. And this case, even though it involves a head-waiter, is certainly a curious one. Mr James Phillimore has not merely disappeared. It would seem he has totally vanished without trace on a Tuesday morning in broad daylight and in the middle of Clapham, too! Besides, although the police have been informed, they appear not to be interested in following up the mystery. I shall certainly see this Mr Charles Nelson when he arrives and hear the full story before deciding whether or not to take up the investigation. Will you be able to stay for the interview? Or have you a more pressing appointment with one of your patients?’
It so happened that my morning was free and, once Mrs Hudson had cleared the table, Holmes and I settled down to read the morning papers while awaiting the arrival of Mr Nelson, Holmes occasionally interrupting the silence to comment out loud on some item which had caught his attention in the daily press.
‘I see share prices are still rising,’ he remarked at one point. ‘Now would seem the right time to sell one’s investments.’
A little later, he again broke in to exclaim, ‘By Jove, Watson! Another burglary in Knightsbridge, this time at the home of Lady Whittaker whose emeralds have been stolen. I am beginning to suspect a mastermind behind these thefts. It would not surprise me if one of these days we receive a visit from Inspector Lestrade of the Yard.’
Lestrade did not, in fact, call that morning although, sharp on the stroke of eleven, footsteps were heard ascending the stairs and, after a hesitant knock at the door, Mr Nelson, a tall, awkward man in his thirties, with thinning fair hair, entered the room. He was dressed in a respectable dark suit and carried a bowler hat which he twisted nervously between his hands as if awed at finding himself in the presence of the great consulting detective.
Unexpectedly, for his letter had made no reference to a companion, he was accompanied by a young woman in her mid-twenties; not unhandsome but a little too buxom and high-coloured to be considered beautiful and with a bold, imperious air about her. I could envisage her in a few years’ time developing into a formidable and overbearing matron.
Mr Nelson introduced her as Miss Cora Page, the fiancée of his friend, Mr Phillimore.
‘Miss Page’, Nelson continued, giving Holmes an apologetic glance, ‘insisted on coming with me.’
The reason for his diffidence was immediately apparent for, no sooner had Holmes invited them to sit down, than Miss Page took charge of the interview.
‘Charlie here will be able to tell you the facts, Mr Holmes,’ she began, after casting a disapproving glance about her at the clutter of books, papers and scientific apparatus which occupied every flat surface in the room and had in places overflowed on to the floor. ‘My main concern is finding my fiancé. We were due to be married next month. The church is booked, the cake ordered, the dressmaker has nearly finished my wedding gown, apart from some alterations to the bodice, that is. And now Jim has gone and disappeared! I can’t believe he’d desert me practically on the altar steps. It’s too humiliating!’
Her voice rose as she spoke, her cheeks flushing even brighter, and, as she fumbled in her reticule for a handkerchief with which to dab her eyes, Holmes turned to me.
‘Miss Page is naturally distressed at the disappearance of her fiancé, Watson, and no doubt also fatigued by the journey here from Clapham. Such a long way to come! Be a dear fellow and escort her downstairs where I am sure Mrs Hudson will provide her with tea and biscuits.’
Taking the hint, I accompanied Miss Page to the ground floor where I installed her in the housekeeper’s room and, having seen her supplied with the refreshments which Holmes had recommended, I returned upstairs.
With Miss Page’s departure, Mr Nelson seemed more at ease and, as I re-entered the room, I found him leaning forward in his armchair in earnest tête-à-tête with Holmes, who, holding up a hand, cut short his prospective client’s account.
‘One moment, Mr Nelson, if you please. Now that my good friend Dr Watson has rejoined us, may I take the opportunity to recapitulate the facts of the case for his benefit?’ Turning to me, he continued, ‘Mr Nelson has been telling me that it is his custom to accompany his friend, Mr James Phillimore, every morning to Clapham Junction station in order to catch the 8.05 train into Town where they both have their places of work, Mr Nelson as clerk at Murchison and Whybrow’s, the solicitors in King William Street, Mr Phillimore at Gudgeon’s in St Swithin’s Lane where he is employed as head-waiter. You have heard of Gudgeon’s, of course, Watson?’
‘Indeed I have,’ I replied, seating myself in the chair which Miss Page had just vacated. ‘It is a well-known restaurant in the City, much frequented, I believe, by bankers and members of the Stock Exchange.’
‘Quite so. Now it seems that every morning, on the dot of half past seven, as Mr Nelson described it, he would walk from Magnolia Terrace where he has lodgings …’
‘Just off Lavender Hill,’ Mr Nelson broke in.
‘… into Laburnum Grove where his old friend, Mr Phillimore, would be waiting for him at the gate of number seventeen. They would then set off together down Lavender Hill for the station. And then, three days ago …’ He looked across at Mr Nelson, inviting him to resume his account at the point where, it seemed, it had been interrupted.
Mr Nelson was eager to pick up the story.
‘Well, Mr Holmes, as I was saying, it was Tuesday morning. There was Jim – Mr Phillimore – standing at his gate as per usual. There was nothing out of the ordinary about him except, as I got close up to him, he said, ‘I fancy I can smell rain in the air, Charlie. I’m just popping back into the house for my brolly. It’s in the hall so I shan’t be more than half a jiffy.’ So he gets out his keys, walks back up the garden path, opens the front door and goes inside, leaving the door ajar. And that’s the last I saw of him.’
‘You waited, I assume?’ Holmes asked.
‘Of course I did, Mr Holmes. I hung about at the gate for a good five minutes, expecting him to come out of the house at any moment. Then, when he didn’t appear, I went up to the house myself, thinking he’d been taken ill of a sudden. I pushed open the door and went into the hall, calling out his name. But there was neither sight nor sound of him in either of the downstairs rooms. It was while I was looking and calling that his housekeeper heard me and came out of the kitchen. When I explained what had happened, she went with me up the stairs to look in the bedrooms. It’s only a small house, Mr Holmes, and I swear we searched every inch of it, under the beds, in the wardrobes, even the cupboard under the stairs. But we found nothing.’
‘What about the garden? You searched that, too?’
‘Oh, yes, Mr Holmes. It is only a few yards square but there was no one there neither. It was as if he’d vanished into thin air.’
‘Could he have climbed into a neighbour’s garden?’ I put in.
‘No, he couldn’t, Dr Watson. The fence is too high as you’ll see for yourself if you come to the house; that is, if Mr Holmes is willing to take up the case.’
He turned to look at Holmes in appeal but my old friend, puffing away imperturbably at his pipe, refused to be drawn and merely nodded in my direction to encourage me to continue my line of questioning which I did with some hesitation, anxious not to appear a fool nor to assume Holmes’ role of detective.
‘Then is there any other means of exit from the premises? A back garden gate, for instance?’
‘No, sir, there isn’t. The only other way Jim – Mr Phillimore – could have left was by a passage which runs along the side of the house to the back door. It’s the tradesmen’s entrance. But he didn’t go out that way. As I explained, I was standing at the gate for a good five minutes and I would have noticed him if he’d left by that route. There’s a few people about at that time in the morning, like me and Jim making their way to work, but I know every one of them by sight and there’s not enough of them for him to have slipped away unnoticed. Nor did his housekeeper see him pass the kitchen window which he’d have to do if he went out that way. And, like I said, by the time I went into the house, he’d already vanished.’
I could think of no other questions to put to Mr Nelson and I was relieved when Holmes, leaning forward to knock out the ashes of his pipe into the coal-scuttle, resumed charge of the interview.
‘Tell me a little about your friend. What type of man is he?’
‘Oh, a very quiet, unassuming man, Mr Holmes. Very regular in his habits.’
‘Not the sort to take it into his head suddenly to disappear?’
‘Quite out of character. That’s why I’m so worried about him. He’s a steady, reliable fellow who I’d trust with my last shilling.’
‘Any problems at his place of employment?’
‘Quite the contrary. The management of Gudgeon’s are as concerned as I am about his disappearance. When I called round there to explain the situation to them, they spoke most highly of him.’
‘Then is he in any financial difficulties?’
‘Not that I know of, Mr Holmes. He lived very modestly, never spending more than he earned which, seeing as he was a head-waiter, were decent wages, not to mention the tips he’d get as extras.’
‘Tips!’ Holmes exclaimed, as if he had never heard of the word.
Mr Nelson regarded him in surprise.
‘Yes, Mr Holmes, tips; small gratuities which a satisfied customer offers for good service.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. I understand that. Pray continue, Mr Nelson. When I interrupted you, you were speaking of your friend’s modest style of living.’
‘And so it was, sir. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t gamble. His only extravagance was to treat himself occasionally to a seat in the upper circle at a music-hall. I know for a fact that he had over a hundred pound saved up. And he didn’t have to find a weekly rent neither. There’d been a bit of money in the family. His parents had owned an eating-house in the City Road. In fact, it was there where Jim got his foot on the first rung of the catering ladder, so to speak. As a lad, he’d worked for them, waiting at table. But, in his quiet way, Jim’s ambitious and gradually he moved on to higher things, eventually finishing up as head-waiter at Gudgeon’s. After his father died, his mother sold up the business and with the proceeds bought the house in Laburnum Grove, partly to retire to and partly to give Jim a home. He was living in lodgings at the time. Then, when old Mrs Phillimore died last October, he inherited the house along with its contents.’
‘Where, I assume, he intended setting up home with Miss Page after their marriage?’
Nelson gave Holmes another of his contrite glances.
‘I’m sorry about her coming with me, Mr Holmes. I had hoped to speak to you in private. But once she heard I had written to you for an appointment, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She’s a very determined young lady is Cora. And naturally, she’s upset by Jim’s disappearance. As she told you, they were due to be married next month. Jim had been putting the wedding off on account of Cora and his mother not seeing eye to eye and neither of them willing to share the same house with the other. Mrs Phillimore was a bit of a Tartar, between me and you; crippled with arthritis in her later years and as deaf as a post. But that didn’t stop her getting her own way. It was on her account that Jim took on Mrs Bennet as a live-in housekeeper so there’d be someone to look after his mother when he was out at work. By the way, sir, I took the liberty of mentioning to Mrs Bennet that you might be calling at the house to make inquiries.’
He again looked appealingly at Holmes but when he failed to respond apart from nodding encouragement to the man to continue, Nelson resumed his account.
‘Old Mrs Phillimore led him a terrible dance when she was alive. Boss him about! I’ve never heard the like of it. Not that Jim ever complained and he was a good son to her. Taught her and himself to lip-read so that the two of them could still have some means of communication. Anyway, once she died, Cora – Miss Page – insisted on Jim naming the day and the wedding was fixed for June 14th, reception afterwards in the private room over the Farriers’ Arms and a honeymoon in Bournemouth.’ Mr Nelson stared down gloomily into his bowler hat which he was nursing between his knees. ‘It don’t look as if it’ll come off now, does it, Mr Holmes? Not with the bridegroom gone and vanished off the face of the earth.’
‘It would seem highly unlikely,’ Holmes agreed.
‘So what do you say, sir?’ Nelson continued eagerly. ‘Will you take the case? I don’t know who else to turn to. The police aren’t interested. They say that as Jim is over-age and there’s no sign of foul play, there’s not much they can do. He might turn up. Or then again he might not. It’s all very worrying and bothersome. He’s been a good friend to me, has Jim, and I would be more than grateful if you would make a few inquiries. I don’t know what your fees are but I have a bit of money put aside for a rainy day which I’m willing to part with for Jim’s sake for, with him disappearing the way he did, I reckon that day has already arrived.’
Holmes seemed to come to a sudden decision for, springing to his feet, he held out his hand.
‘I shall certainly take on the case, Mr Nelson. As for the fees …’ He made a deprecatory gesture. ‘Payment will be by results. If I fail to find your friend, Mr James Phillimore, then there will be no charge. That seems a fair arrangement.’
Before Mr Nelson could protest or even express his thanks, Holmes had ushered him out of the room and down the stairs to the ground floor where presumably Nelson found Miss Page for, a few minutes later, as Holmes and I stood at the window, we watched the two of them walking away down Baker Street, the lady clasping her tall, ungainly companion by the arm and talking vociferously while he listened, head bent, to her monologue.
Holmes chuckled sardonically.
‘Unless Mr Nelson is very careful, he will find himself married off sooner or later to his friend’s fiancée,’ he remarked. ‘As he himself described her, she won’t take no for an answer. Well, what do you make of it, Watson? Not that particular relationship but the case of Mr James Phillimore, the vanishing head-waiter.’
‘It is certainly very strange,’ I replied. ‘Phillimore seems a man from a respectable enough background …’
‘Who also possessed a very keen sense of smell,’ Holmes added in a jocular fashion. ‘As I remember, Tuesday morning was particularly fine with not a cloud to be seen. And yet he assured Mr Nelson that he could smell rain and insisted on going back to the house for his umbrella. I think I detect a whiff of conspiracy. Come, Watson, get your hat. We are going out.’
He was already striding towards the door.
‘Where to?’ I demanded, snatching up my hat and stick and hurrying after him.
‘Where else but seventeen Laburnum Grove, Clapham, to examine the scene of Mr James Phillimore’s extraordinary disappearing act?’
The house, as we discovered when the hansom cab deposited us at the gate, was a small, red-brick villa of the type erected in such areas as Clapham and Brixton for clerks, shop-assistants and minor tradesmen and their families. A narrow strip of front garden, just wide enough to accommodate two rose bushes and a tiny patch of lawn, separated it from the road where a few trees, too young yet to have developed beyond the sapling stage, grew out of the paving-stones between the gas lamp-standards.
The garden path, a mere few yards in length and paved with red and yellow tiles, led up to the front door where Holmes banged on the knocker.
The door was opened by an elderly, grey-haired woman, dressed in clean but shabby black, with tired, lined features – Mrs Bennet, the housekeeper, I assumed.
‘Come in, sir,’ she said, dropping a little bob of a curtsey. ‘You must be Mr Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective. I’ve read about you in the illustrated papers. Mr Nelson said you might be calling on account of Mr Phillimore’s disappearing. He said I was to answer any questions – Mr Nelson, that is.’
After Holmes had introduced me and Mrs Bennet had dropped another curtsey, a difficult manoeuvre in Phillimore’s narrow hall, still further encumbered by a large hat-stand, she showed us into a small sitting-room which overlooked the back garden where she waited just inside the door, her work-worn hands folded on the front of her apron.
I have remarked elsewhere* on Holmes’ skill at putting a humble witness at ease. It was so with Mrs Bennet. It is also worth recording his own ability to appear totally relaxed in whatever surroundings he may find himself, whether it be the splendours of a panelled library in a ducal mansion or the fetid basement of an opium den in Limehouse.
On this occasion, he drew out an upright chair and, seating himself upon it, crossed his legs as if perfectly at home in Mr Phillimore’s cramped but tidy living-room, with its ugly furniture, too large for the space yet polished to a high gloss, its potted plants and its family photographs, most of them featuring a heavy-chinned, disagreeable-looking old lady who could only be the late Mrs Phillimore.
‘There is no need to be nervous,’ Holmes said, addressing Mrs Bennet and giving her one of his most cordial smiles, for when Holmes is in a good humour, there is no kinder nor more charming man in the whole world. ‘I shall ask you a few simple questions, nothing more. First of all, I should like you to tell me in your own words exactly what Mr Phillimore did on Tuesday morning from the time he rose until he left the house.’
‘Rose, sir?’ Mrs Bennet seemed surprised that the great detective should have come all that way to question her about such trivial domestic happenings. ‘The same as he always did. He got up at half past six as usual, washed and shaved – I took him up a can of hot water – dressed and came downstairs for his breakfast.’
‘And then?’
‘He put on his coat, called out goodbye to me and went out by the front door to wait at the gate for Mr Nelson.’
‘Nothing else happened before he left? No post came? No messages?’
‘Only the paper, sir, which he glanced at over his breakfast.’
‘Ah, the morning newspaper!’ Holmes seemed unwarrantedly pleased by this information. ‘And which morning newspaper does Mr Phillimore subscribe to?’
‘TheTimes, sir.’
I was surprised to hear this. It seemed an unusual choice of reading matter for a head-waiter and one which I could only ascribe to Phillimore’s contact with Gudgeon’s City clients who no doubt had influenced his taste towards a more superior daily paper. Holmes himself, however, appeared not to find the information significant for, when I glanced at him to observe his response, apart from commenting ‘Really?’ in an uninterested voice, he passed on to other matters.
‘Tell me what happened after Mr Phillimore left the house.’
‘Why, nothing at all, sir, until I heard Mr Nelson in the hall calling out Mr Phillimore’s name. I was in the kitchen, washing up the breakfast things and, when I went out to see what Mr Nelson wanted, he told me that five minutes before Mr Phillimore had come back into the house to get his umbrella and hadn’t come out again. We looked all over and Mr Nelson searched the garden but there was no sign of him.’
‘I see he did not, in fact, take his umbrella,’ Holmes remarked. ‘It is still in the hall-stand.’
‘Is it, Holmes?’ I interjected. ‘I had not noticed.’
‘He didn’t take nothing!’ Mrs Bennet burst out, her mouth beginning to tremble. ‘He’s left everything behind – every stitch of clothing he owned down to his winter overcoat and his best boots. Oh, sir, what’s happened to him? And what’s to happen to me and the house? My wages is paid up until the end of the month and the police have told me to stay on in case he turns up. I can’t think where he can have gone to or why. He’s never done anything like this before. He’s so regular, I swear you could set Big Ben by him. He’s not even so much as gone away on a holiday except for that week he spent in Margate after his mother died and the doctor ordered him a complete rest and a change of air.’
‘Margate?’ Holmes inquired. ‘Do you happen to know whereabouts in Margate he stayed?’
‘I couldn’t say, sir, except it was a boarding-house with a funny, foreign-sounding name.’
‘I see. And apart from his holiday in Margate, have there been any more recent changes in Mr Phillimore’s routine?’
‘Well, not really …’
Seeing her hesitate, Holmes asked quickly, ‘But you have noticed something?’
‘Only his wardrobe, sir. He took to locking it over the past few days. I noticed on Monday morning when I went to his room to hang up a coat I’d sponged and pressed for him.’
‘But it is unlocked now?’
‘Why, yes, sir, so it is!’ Mrs Bennet exclaimed. ‘How did you know that?’
‘It seemed a possibility,’ Holmes answered carelessly before continuing, ‘There is one more question and then I shall not need to detain you any longer, Mrs Bennet. After Mr Phillimore left by the front door, did you notice anyone pass by the kitchen?’
‘No, sir; I did not. I was stood by the sink in front of the window from the time Mr Phillimore left the house until Mr Nelson called out and not a blessed soul went past it. I’d take my Bible oath on that.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Bennet,’ Holmes said gravely. ‘You have been most helpful.’
‘Has she, Holmes?’ I asked, after Mrs Bennet had left the room. ‘I can’t see she has added anything of significance to our knowledge of the case apart from reiterating the same information we have already learned from Mr Nelson.’
‘You underestimate her contribution, Watson. There is the matter of the locked wardrobe.’
‘Oh, that!’
‘Never dismiss the smallest fact, however unimportant it may appear. It is the basis on which all successful deduction is founded.’
‘Then what about TheTimes?’ I asked eagerly. ‘I thought, when Mrs Bennet mentioned it, it seemed an odd choice of paper for a head-waiter to read.’
‘Ah, TheTimes! One should certainly never dismiss TheTimes. A most worthy publication,’ Holmes remarked with an abstracted air. He had wandered across the room to examine a pair of french windows which led into the back garden before turning his attention to the two drawers of a large and ugly sideboard which occupied the adjoining wall. ‘Ah! What have we here? Take a look at these, Watson.’
He handed me a small bundle of printed sheets.
‘They’re music-hall programmes,’ I replied, glancing through them briefly. ‘The Tivoli. Collins’s. Oh, I say, Holmes! Look at this one. Lottie Lynne was playing at the Alhambra in February. I wish I had known. I might have gone to hear her. Such a delightful voice!’
‘I have noticed before, Watson, that you have a predilection for small, blonde young ladies,’ Holmes commented with an amused air, putting the programmes back into the drawer and shutting it. ‘I myself prefer the acrobats. Well, I think I have seen all I need down here. I suggest we examine the rest of the house and then the garden.’
The house was so small that the search took a mere ten minutes, Holmes only pausing to open Phillimore’s wardrobe, still containing his abandoned clothes, but apart from the brief remark ‘Roomy, I see!’, he made no other observation.
The garden was smaller even than the house, a mere few square yards of lawn bordered by narrow flower-beds, all neatly kept, and surrounded on all sides by an eight-foot-high fence which had additional two-foot lengths of trellis nailed to the top of it, making escape by that route impossible, as Mr Nelson had pointed out.
There was not even a potting-shed nor a decent-sized bush where a man might conceal himself. Nevertheless, Holmes stalked all round its perimeter before examining the passage which ran along the side of the house.
It was a narrow path, squeezed in between the building on one side and a continuation of the fence on the other. At the far end, it ran at an oblique angle to join the tiled path which led from the gate to the front door. At the near end, it opened out on to a small paved area outside the kitchen door where presumably tradesmen would make their deliveries.
We left number seventeen Laburnum Grove shortly afterwards, Holmes striding off so briskly down the road towards Lavender Hill that I was hard put to keep up with him. At the bottom of the hill, we turned into the main thoroughfare, where Holmes hailed a cab.
When Holmes had given instructions to the driver and the hansom had started off, he turned to me to ask unexpectedly, ‘Tell me, Watson, what would you say would be the lifetime’s ambition of a hotel or restaurant employee?’
‘To retire, I should imagine, and never have to fold another napkin again.’
‘But suppose, like Phillimore, he was the type who wished to rise in the world?’
‘Well then, to own the establishment in which he’d worked and watch other people fold the napkins.’
‘Exactly, Watson!’ Holmes said with an air of satisfaction and, settling himself back against the upholstery, folded his arms and closed his eyes, his lean, aquiline features taking on an expression of such intense concentration that I knew better than to interrupt his train of thought.
The silence continued until, as we were rattling across Batter-sea Bridge, he roused himself to remark, ‘You know, Watson, there are several unusual elements in this case but the one which strikes me as most extraordinary of all is the timing of Mr Phillimore’s disappearance. Why Tuesday? Why not Monday or Friday? If one wished to vanish, it would seem more logical to choose either the beginning or the end of the week. As far as I can ascertain, nothing remarkable happened on Tuesday morning to make Phillimore decide it was time to disappear.’
‘Perhaps he couldn’t on Monday. Something may have happened to detain him.’
I saw Holmes’ keen features suddenly light up.
‘My dear old fellow!’ he exclaimed. ‘I believe you may have put your finger on the key to the whole mystery!’
‘Have I, Holmes?’ I asked, highly pleased, and was further gratified when Holmes continued, ‘I should value your opinion on the case. Tell me, what aspect of it most intrigues you?’
‘I must admit that I find Phillimore’s motivation the most puzzling feature. A man of regular habits suddenly takes it into his head to vanish without a word of warning, abandoning not only his house, his job and his life’s savings but his clothes …’
‘Together with his fiancée,’ Holmes reminded me with a smile. ‘Perhaps Miss Cora Page was the reason for his disappearance. Phillimore would not be the first man who, faced with the imminent prospect of marriage, showed a clean pair of heels just before his wedding day. Should I ever find myself in such an unlikely and unfortunate situation, I should be strongly tempted to do the same. And, by the way, Watson, if we succeed in running Phillimore to earth, I want you to say nothing to him about the possibility of Miss Page’s transferring her affections to Charlie Nelson.’
‘Why?’
‘My dear fellow, is it not obvious?’
‘You mean he would be jealous?’
‘I mean Phillimore, who appears a decent enough individual, might come out of hiding in order to save his friend from the same dreadful fate which nearly overtook him. “Greater love hath no man …” and all that. I have your word?’
‘Of course, Holmes. So you think we shall find Phillimore?’
‘I believe there is a very good chance of our doing so. You remarked a little earlier on Phillimore’s regularity of habits and I think that it is in this aspect of his personality that we shall find the answer to his secret. But first I want to return to Laburnum Grove at the same hour of the morning in which Phillimore disappeared. Although Charlie Nelson and Mrs Bennet both swore they saw nothing unusual, I am convinced something must have occurred but so ordinary that neither of them noticed it. Whenever there is an apparent mystery, one should always look to the commonplace in order to solve it. But few people do. They prefer the mystery to its solution. It is this tendency on the part of human nature on which depends the success of the stage magician or illusionist.’ He gave me an oblique glance as if inviting my comment but, as I did not then understand the significance of his remark, I said nothing and, after a brief silence, he continued, ‘Will you be free early tomorrow, Watson? I propose taking a cab to Clapham and observing for myself exactly what occurs in Laburnum Grove at half past seven in the morning.’
‘I shall be delighted to accompany you, provided it won’t take too long. I have an appointment at ten o’clock with a patient.’
‘A patient!’ Holmes exclaimed, throwing up his hands in mock surprise. ‘This is such a rare occurrence, Watson, that I shall make myself personally responsible for seeing that you are returned to your consulting room in good time.’
The following morning, I again presented myself at 221B Baker Street where I joined Holmes for an early breakfast. A hansom had been ordered for seven o’clock and we set off once more in the direction of Clapham, through half-empty streets, looking clean and dazzling-bright in the morning sunshine after an overnight shower which had laid the dust and left the leaves on the trees glistening as if newly washed.
As we turned into Laburnum Grove, Holmes instructed the driver to draw up on the opposite side of the road to number seventeen and a little distance from it, from which position we had an excellent view not only of Phillimore’s garden gate but a good stretch of the street as well.
Several people passed down the road in the direction of Lavender Hill, by their appearance and attire mostly clerks and shop-assistants on their way to their respective places of employment and, after a few minutes’ wait, we were rewarded by the sight of Charlie Nelson turning the corner from Magnolia Terrace, at precisely half past seven.
I saw him hesitate at the gate of number seventeen and glance across at the house, as if reminding himself of his erstwhile companion’s extraordinary disappearance and then, on drawing level with our hansom, cast another glance in its direction, surprised no doubt at the presence of a cab in the area at that hour of the morning. But I comforted myself with the thought that Holmes and I were sitting too far back inside the vehicle for him to see us.
It was as this idea struck me that I heard Holmes give an involuntary exclamation but not, as I first thought, at Nelson’s interest in our cab. His gaze was fixed on another vehicle which had come slowly plodding into view on the opposite side of the road.
It was a baker’s van, drawn by a tired-looking pony, not the type of conveyance to attract anyone’s attention and yet Holmes was watching with keen interest as the bread delivery man, a tall youth of about eighteen or so, dressed in a cap and a long white apron, climbed down off his seat and, taking his basket from the rear of the vehicle, opened the gate to Phillimore’s house, walked down the path and disappeared from sight into the passage which ran along the side of the building.
