Between the Thames and the Tiber (29 page)

“The rather typical remark of one who finds himself beyond his depth,” said Holmes with a smile. “There may be more to this disappearance than meets the eye.”

“There is one more point, dear Sherlock, that I must bring to your attention and that is this: one of our neighbors, Mr. McHugh, insists that he ran into Ian Rose as he was entering the station at Russell Square, but it was a very different Ian that he saw, if indeed it was Ian. The man was filthy, dressed in torn rags, his hair and beard unkempt. As soon as he saw Mr. McHugh, he uttered a cry of surprise, turned, and disappeared into the morning crowd.”

“Most interesting. Mr. Rose is most probably alive then. And where is Mr. McHugh? May we speak with him?”

“Yes, you may, but first have a look at Ian’s flat, and then we shall meet McHugh at his residence across the square.”

We followed Barbara up the stairs to the very top of the building. Rose’s quarters were very small and barely constituted what might be called a flat. They consisted of two small rooms, each with a small window, one large enough to take a bed, the other slightly smaller. It contained a desk and chair.

“I see that you have had the place cleaned,” said Holmes disappointedly. “A pity, since we might have found something of value to our investigation. Still, I shall have a brief look.”

I watched as he combed the floor on all fours, taking samples of dust and carpeting, anything that he could fruitfully test under the microscope. When he rose, he looked out one of the windows to the street below. He then examined the window frame and stared for a long time at one of the glass panes, which had some scratches on it. He called me over and asked whether they suggested anything.

“They appear to be curved, almost a circle, as if a round object had been repeatedly pressed and turned against it,” said I. “And there appears to be some soot and a bit of wax on the window, somewhat higher up.”

“Good, Watson. Now the question arises: what was the object employed and why was it used? Note, old boy, these holes in the window frame, recently filled with putty. There are four holes arranged, if I am correct, into a rough rectangle. Finally, look here, just to their right, a larger hole, about half an inch in diameter and also filled with putty only recently applied, since it appears to be soft, almost fresh. Let me have your pocket knife, Watson.”

Holmes extricated most of the putty. The hole went through the wall to the outside.

“Most interesting, Watson,” said he pensively, as if he were speaking to himself. There is some dark-colored soil, almost black, mixed in with the putty. Barbara,” said Holmes, “do you remember any of this being here before Mr. Rose left?”

“Yes, I forgot to mention to you that . . .” she paused.

“Mr. Rose was an amateur astronomer,” said Holmes finishing her sentence.

“Yes,” she replied in surprise, “but how on earth did you guess that?”

Holmes smiled. “I never guess. Watson can attest to that. I assume that when Rose first took the room he also took your permission to drill the holes—with the promise that he would do or pay for the necessary repairs. He said that he would need to do so in order to affix a small telescope, the implication being that in some vague sense he was indeed an astronomer.”

“You are quite correct. He filled the holes the day before he left. But what significance do they have? They are such a small detail.”

“My profession is based on such details, call them trivia if you will, but without them, the solution to many problems would never occur. And since we are only at the beginning of the case, they indeed may still prove to be of no significance whatsoever. The important thing is to observe them, however minute they might seem to be. One more look in this closet. Hello, what have we here? How did I miss that?”

Holmes had now noticed a loose board in the closet floor. He lifted it up and pulled out a small telescope.

“Ah, here we go. Let us see if it fits the holes we find there.”

The telescope had attached to it a wire from which a piece of metal about two inches square hung. The holes in it matched precisely those on the window frame. By tightening the wire, the telescope became fixed. Holmes peered through it.

“Interesting, dear Watson, have a look.”

I looked through it and saw the upper storey of a house on the corner of Wharton Street.

“Well, Holmes, I must say that I see nothing remarkable. It looks like a house—indeed, the one over there,” said I, returning the telescope.

“Well, my dear friends, whatever its purpose, it is not pointed at any known celestial body. The use of the instrument must have been more mundane,” said Holmes.

“But why pretend to have such an interest?” I asked.

“We do not know at this point,” said Holmes. “Let us leave it for the moment.

“And now, if we may, let us pay a visit to Mr. McHugh.”

John McHugh lived directly across the square with his wife, Mary, and their two children. The family occupied a single room on the second floor of a house in almost total decay. Unlike their father, the children were thin and listless. McHugh, however, was a rough-hewn man, stout, unkempt, and out of work. His huge stomach pushed through his shirt where several buttons had popped.

He offered us a glass of ale, but we declined. He seemed incredulous at our refusal and filled his own glass. Mary McHugh, a short gray mouse of a woman, was obviously ill at ease and kept uttering apologies for the disorderly house we had entered. She repeatedly watered two wilted aspidistras in the window as we spoke. The signs of poverty—that peculiar London variety—were everywhere. Much of the furniture was broken and in tatters, and the floor of the sitting room was littered with newspapers and jagged pieces of broken glass. A filthy rug covered much of it. A young kitten sat in front of me chewing on the remains of a small mouse. The kitten was as emaciated as the children. Everything appeared to be sticky with the fingers of the two girls.

McHugh motioned us to sit and Holmes handed our host a paper left on the chair he took.

“This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his colleague, Dr. Watson,” said Barbara. “They are here to look into the disappearance of Mr. Rose. You claim to have seen him.”

McHugh spoke with assurance. “’Twas ’im I tell ya, Mr. ’olmes, no doubt of it. I’d know thet face o’ ’is anywheres. The bloody rascal popped out o’ sight as soon as ’e saw me. Poor man, ’e seems to have gone off ’is rocker.”

“Quite possibly that is the case,” said Holmes. “But tell me, Mr. McHugh, you are a singer, a tenor if I am not mistaken, and have performed at Sadler’s Wells on occasion.”

“Now ’ow did ya come ta thet conclusion? Mrs. Davies told ya all about me, eh?”

“Quite the contrary; I deduced it. I observed also that Rose owed you a large sum of money for losses at the gambling table, one hundred pounds I would say.”

“’ow did you know thet? Even my Mary ’ere don’t know thet.”

“I am a student of opera, Mr. McHugh, and I heard you on occasion years ago before you ruined your throat with the overindulgence in substances antithetical to the musical stage. Your gambling debts did not help your voice, either. I remember vividly your remarkable rendition of ‘Nessun dorma.’ As to the gambling, here: this paper, which preceded me in this chair, and which I removed as we sat down, registers the debt. I assume its veracity.”

“The money’s gone wit ’im, Mr. ’olmes. I ’ope you find ’im, the bloody thief.”

“Please tell to me again exactly what you saw, where, and when.”

“It was three days ago, Mr. ’olmes, I was goin’ to me new job at Simpson’s food market. I was mindin’ me own business when I saw ’im. It musta bin aroun’ six thirty in the mornin’.”

McHugh stopped long enough to finish his ale. He wiped his lips on his sleeve.

“It was at Russell Square. It was still dark, I remember. ’e came boundin’ off the lift when ’e almost run me down. Then I saw who ’e was and tried to grab ’im but ’e pulled ’imself free and ran off. ’e looked if anythin’ very bad, wot wid ’is ’air all shootin’ in every direction, and ’is face almos’ black wi’ dirt. But I recognized ’im I did. No doubt about it. “’Course I dint get me money, the bloody crook . . .”

“Do you remember anything else, anything at all?” asked Holmes finally.

“I do, as a matter of fact. ’e was carryin’ a shovel.”

“Thank you, Mr. McHugh. Should you remember anything else, please let me know.”

Holmes stood up and we left. We returned to Barbara’s house. As we entered her sitting room, Holmes said, “Barbara, let us open the valises that Mr. Rose chose not to retrieve.”

Holmes brought them into the light. They were locked. Holmes took a pick from his overcoat and opened them.

“How curious, Holmes, why there’s nothing here—mirabile dictu—except two pieces of an old shovel, one in each of the valises,” said I.

“Interesting. A shovel, the column of which is broken in two so that it is now useless. But it may be no ordinary shovel, Watson. Note the letters stamped on it: C and L. It has been thoroughly cleaned, indeed scrubbed, before it was placed in the valise. I suspect that it broke just before Rose was set to leave and caused him some inconvenience. Most probably it is one like the shovel that McHugh saw.”

“But why did he not just throw the shovel into the trash?” I asked.

“I suspect, dear Watson, that when we learn that we shall have found Mr. Rose.”

We accompanied Barbara to her door, and then walked south and west to the edge of the square. Holmes stopped for a moment and glanced towards the Davies residence, then turned and looked upwards at the house in front of which we were standing.

“This one is empty, Holmes,” said I.

“Yes, indeed. I thought as much. And vacant for a long time. Now, Watson, let us walk down the hill to Kingsway.”

We had not gone far down the hill on Wharton Street when Holmes stopped again, this time in front of a small iron gate. It appeared to mark the entrance to no house or yard in particular, but opened upon an unkempt dirt path that went between two houses.

“Come, let us enter,” said Holmes.

We found the gate to be unlocked. Holmes closed it after us.

The path turned north and we walked now between two windowless walls that belonged to adjacent houses, one of which I realized was the vacant house we had just seen from the square. We walked to the end of the path, where it opened up into a grassy plot of weeds and trash, mainly pieces of rotted wood interspersed with which there were piles of filthy rags and what looked like the remains of an upholsterer’s shop. It was a silent piece of isolation in the very heart of the city, invisible from the street.

“Nothing of interest here,” I said.

“Quite the contrary, Watson. This pile of wood and other castoffs may have some connection with the circular marks on the window and the putty-filled holes in Barbara’s establishment. But let us continue.”

What struck me as an outlandish conjecture on Holmes’s part produced a wide smile on my face.

“Holmes, you’re going daft, old boy.”

As I spoke, Holmes climbed the stairs to the back of the nearest house and turned the knob. The door was unlocked.

“You may be right, but let us see. Remain here while I take a look.”

I stood firmly on guard of this unexpected melancholy spot between two houses. Holmes returned very quickly.

“It is all beginning to fit together quite nicely. Come, Watson, we haven’t a moment to lose. My only fear is that we will be too late. It is the new moon tonight, and our quarry will want to act in complete darkness.”

He pulled at me so strongly that I dared not ask him what he had found. He closed the gate and we continued our walk to the bottom of the hill, where he hailed a cab. When we reached Museum Street, he told the driver to halt and jumped out.

“Watson,” he said in almost a whisper, “I must spend a few hours on some questions related to this case. Meet me at home at six this evening. Call Lestrade and have him come. Tell him it is urgent, and both of you bring your revolvers.”

I watched as Holmes walked into the museum, and then directed the cabby to Baker Street. I called Lestrade and he arrived immediately.

“What’s he up to this time?” he asked as we sat and waited.

“I don’t really know,” said I, “except that Holmes left me at the museum and seemed somewhat excited, shall we say?”

We were both silent for several minutes as we pondered Holmes’s intentions.

“Then he’s onto something rather big, I should think.”

“Rather big indeed,” said Holmes as he came through the front door at that very moment.

“Here, gentlemen, put these rags on and we shall be off.”

The rags were an old shirt, torn trousers, and black handkerchiefs to hide our faces. Holmes was wearing the same.

“Gentlemen, let me explain part, at least, of what we are doing dressed this way. A few moments in the museum examining the architectural plans of this square when it was first built in 1820 gave me the clue that I needed. You may recall, Watson, that in the suitcases left behind by Ian Rose there were two parts of a shovel with the letters C and L?”

“I know that one, Mr. Holmes. Any bobby can tell you what that stands for: City of London. Those shovels belong to the city.”

“Indeed, Lestrade. And the old plans and maps I found in the museum pull all the clues together.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“I’m afraid that we haven’t time for me to explain it all. Let us say only that a number of thieves, gravediggers to be exact, may be on their way to Lloyd Square, as I speak. We must get there before they do. As soon as we arrive, Watson, the two of you go to the cellar of the house we visited and hide in the dark corners far from the door. If I am correct, a group of men will begin to gather. By all means stay out of any light. One of the thieves, their leader, may address the men. As he leaves I shall arrest him. I shall be carrying a large kerosene lamp. When I light it, pull out your revolvers. I shall do the same. At that moment, Lestrade, identify yourself and put the whole group under arrest. If all goes well the men will be caught by surprise and will offer no resistance. If you have to fire, fire into the air. I shall see you in a little while, and I shall share my deductions with you.”