The Sensible Necktie and Other Stories of Sherlock Holmes (16 page)

“Thank you, Colonel. We will wait while you write that note.”

Holmes rose and led the way out of the room. A few minutes later, Colonel Wilson emerged, and handed Holmes an envelope.

“It was never my intention to break the man completely. I was, as you say, carried away by the venture. But I maintain that my mission all along was to smash his scientific pride.”

“Just as mine is to smash religious pride,” replied Holmes. “Good evening.”

It was a relief to come outside into the fresh and crisp air, such a change from the stifled atmosphere of the club. Holmes expressed a wish to walk back, which I readily seconded.

“I cannot think how you ever hit upon the idea of the curtain rod and the gas radiator,” I confessed.

“The curiosity of the curtains struck me from the beginning, but I could not fit it into any likely scenario. The rest of the story, I must admit, I put together through pure conjecture, but it was only a matter of deciding upon a natural explanation and that the colonel was the culprit, and all the parts of the story fell into place. There were really no other way of interpreting the events once Parkins' supernatural perspective had been eliminated. But the way he had done it eluded me until the last moment. It wasn't until we were on our way here that it hit me. Do you remember the cab stopped at a crossing, and there was quite a large crowd of people on the pavement?”

“I do, yes. That was when your mood changed so dramatically.”

“I looked out through the window of the cab, and saw the reason for the commotion. There is a ventilation shaft connecting to the Central London Railway which opens up into a grid in the pavement near Bond Street, and just as we were stopping next to it, a train must have blown past in the tunnel, for a stream of air suddenly came up through the grating and got hold of a lady's gown, resulting in rather an unseemly incident, if you take my meaning. The lady could not help but scream, and a couple of gentlemen rushed forward to remedy the problem before it had attracted too much notice. I saw it, however, and immediately I realised how Wilson had done it! A stream of air, or, in this case, gas, which is lighter than air, and would have the effect of turning the bed clothes into a balloon. But to anyone not aware of the actuality of it, it would be interpreted as a ghost. It is interesting, is it not, how even though ghosts do not exist, when we see its likeness, we instinctively assume it is one. In the words of the bard: ‘Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.'”

The Adventure of the Empty Box

“Watson?”

“Yes?”

“How do you hide something in an empty box?”

I looked up from my newspaper. Holmes was sitting on the other end of the breakfast table, going through the first post.

“How do you mean?”

“If I were to say to you that I had put something in a box, and you went and opened that box and found that it was empty, how would you account for it?”

I leaned back in my chair and gave the matter some thought. “Well, I suppose the only possible solution would be that you had hidden it in the walls of the box. Perhaps its insides are lined with cloth, and you have hidden whatever it is behind the cloth.”

“Yes, that sounds reasonable, does it not?”

Holmes went back to studying a small piece of paper in his hand.

“What have you there?” I inquired.

“Oh, only a note that was sent to me. It concerns just such an empty box.”

He pondered it for another short while, then tossed it to me across the table. I picked it up and read it:

“Dear Mr Holmes, I seek permission to visit you in the morning concerning a mystery that has puzzled me greatly of late. I am in possession of an old wooden box which is supposed to contain something very dear to me, but upon examination, the box proves empty. If you will see me, I would like to lay the matter before you and explain the details. Yours, M. Broker.”

“Well, Watson.” Holmes looked at me. “What say you?”

“It sounds intriguing.”

“Yes. It is almost as if Mr Broker has gone out of the way to describe his problem so that it is certain to awaken my curiosity.”

“Are you suspicious of it?”

“Well, the situation certainly raises a lot of questions. If the contents of the box are so precious to him, why does he not inspect the box in detail, perhaps even smashing it so as to see what is hidden in its walls?”

“Maybe the box is just as dear to him as its alleged content?”

“Yes. But the most likely hypothesis is probably that whatever he is looking for is not in the box at all. Theorising from so little information is useless, however. What more concrete conclusions can you draw from the letter?”

I turned the paper over a few times. “It is written in a neat hand, possibly that of an academic. It is curiously folded, which would indicate a man of eccentric qualities, and the strangely subservient tone of his writing adds to this impression. Apart from that, I think there is little to induce.”

“And if I were to say to you that our Mr Broker is a man of an extremely nervous disposition, on what would you think I based that conclusion?”Holmes smiled as if he were a little devil.

I concentrated and examined the letter once more. “On the handwriting?”

“Precisely, Watson! Look at the careful and tidy printing. He has been writing so slowly and neatly that the shaking he is endeavouring to evade instead becomes visible in the unsteady appearance of his lines. At first glance, the writing is exquisite, and I would agree with you that our man is an academic, but he writes so slowly that, when scrutinised up close, the pen strokes look like little zigzag patterns.” Holmes clapped his hands and bolted from his seat. “Now then! I believe our Mr Broker will be here any minute.”

“You mean to say you've already answered his letter?”

“Of course. It arrived yesterday afternoon. I sent him a telegram last night. His letter was postmarked in Ealing, which would mean that if he went on the morning train from Ealing Broadway, he will be here within ten minutes.”

And sure enough, only five had passed before we heard the sound of the bell and our visitor being greeted by the landlady. By then, Holmes and I had advanced from the breakfast table to the group of easy-chairs by the fire, and our leisurely dressing-gowns had been replaced by morning coats. The visitor was a robust type of medium height, looking much less the scholar than the athlete, and his shoulders were considerably broader than his waist. His face, however, was covered by a wild beard that lent him some of the air of the book-learning man.

“Mr Broker?” said Holmes.

“Masterman Broker at your service,” said the man in a foghorn-like voice.

We introduced ourselves and the man was invited to sit down.

“I thank you for receiving me, gentlemen, although I know the matter that I described briefly in my letter to you may seem to be of a much too trivial nature to warrant your valuable time.”

Holmes grabbed the armrests of his chair. “Trivial - yes. Uninteresting - absolutely not!”

“Well, perhaps you will see when I have explained further, that what appears trivial on the surface hides something very crucial.”

“Such is, according to my experience, generally the case.”

Broker's eyebrows changed into a formidable dark wall as his face assumed an air of gravity and he began his narrative:

“As I said, my name is Masterman Broker and I live in Ealing in a large detached villa in one of the suburb's leafier areas. I work as a school teacher and sometime private tutor, and am married since two years. I met my wife Eleanor while on a walking tour in the Swiss Alps, and we took an instant liking to each other. We are very happy together although our marriage is as yet childless. The house we live in is called Peregrine House and has belonged to my wife's family for some years. You see, it dates back to the time when that area was still just a country village, and since then suburban houses have sprung up all around it, altering the appearance of the district entirely. Since it is such a large house, and since my income is moderate, we live there together with my wife's brother and their elderly aunt, both their parents being deceased since a few years. In spite of this, we live comfortably and I get along very well with my brother-in-law. His name is George Falmer, and he works in the City. In fact, when I met my wife in Switzerland, she was holidaying there with him, so my acquaintance with George goes back just as far as my attachment to Eleanor.

“I tell you these things mainly to draw you a picture of my comfortable life and make you understand why the recent events strike me as so odd and inexplicable. Peregrine House lies surrounded by a large garden which has a high fence and thick shrubberies, making it virtually impossible for a thief to gain entrance to the house unnoticed. You see, I am not a wealthy man, and though my wife's father ran a prosperous shipping company which allowed him to build the house, their fortunes lie in the past. Therefore it came as a very welcome surprise to us all when I received the news that a distant cousin of my late father who emigrated to New Zealand at an early age and made a fortune in the gold rush of the '60s, is coming to London to spend his old age in his country of birth and settle his will which, as he made quite clear in his letter, will make me, being his only living relative, the sole benefactor. His letter was meticulous in its detailed instructions on how our meeting upon his arrival will be arranged, and how I will make myself conspicuous in order that he, having never met me before, will recognise me. The instructions involved me wearing a special type of flower native to New Zealand as a buttonhole, standing in a special pose, and other little eccentric details that I cannot now recall.

“I will now explain to you as clearly as I may how this vital letter disappeared right under my very nose. I am in the habit of opening my letters in my study, a large murky chamber that used to belong to my wife's father. The contents of that room are mainly his old things, including his desk, his chair, his bookcases, and a small sideboard upon which stands an old wooden box which I believe is of oriental manufacture. It was given to him as a present from one of his associates and everyone who has seen it ensures me that it is most exquisite and probably quite valuable. My father-in-law was in the habit of keeping valuable documents in it, and I have taken up the tradition. Yesterday afternoon I was in the study together with George, who sometimes keeps me company after coming back from work. We were chatting about commonplace matters while I dealt with my correspondence, and suddenly I had in my hand the letter from Uncle Bertrand. I read it to myself while George impatiently wondered why I had gone quiet. When I had finished reading it carefully, I explained to him in outline what it had said. He reacted in his usual rumbustious way, getting up from his chair, congratulating and embracing me. Realising that everything depended upon this letter, the instructions it contained and my uncle's demand that I produce it upon our meeting as a final proof that I am who I claim to be, I grew anxious and wanted to hide it.

“George calmed me, walked across the room to the sideboard and took the oriental box. He brought it over to the desk and lifted the lid.

“‘This old thing has proved trustworthy for a long time,' he said.

“I tossed the letter into the box.

George closed the lid and carried it back to the sideboard. Then he turned to me with a beaming smile.' I will run down to the corner and pick up a bottle of champagne!'

“I smiled in response and he disappeared from the room. I sat there in my chair for a good while, pondering the sudden fortune that had fallen upon me. Then I began to nurture feelings of apprehension, and an impulse made me rise from my chair and walk over to the box. I knew I would feel a lot safer if the letter was in the inside pocket of my jacket. It was not that I doubted the safety of the box, but I knew that once I had left the room, I would start feeling nervous. Furthermore, there is no way of locking the box. In the unlikely event of a burglary, the letter was completely exposed.

“I lifted the lid, and what I saw filled me with horror and confusion. The box was empty! Inside it was nothing but the bottom and four walls of rough wood. I had put the letter there myself. I had seen it lying on the bottom before George closed the lid. There is no way it could have disappeared. I ran out into the hallway and managed to stop George before he went out. He came back and together we examined the box and searched the floor of the study, but to no avail. The celebratory glass of champagne instead became a calming glass of brandy.”

Mr Broker sank back into his chair with an expression of sorrow, as if relating the events had made him relive the emotional process all over again. I was as puzzled by the story as the man himself, but one possibility struck me.

“How trustworthy is your brother-in-law?” I asked.

“I have prepared myself for the eventuality that such a question would arise,” said he, “as I suppose that would be the most probable solution to someone who hears the story without being part of it. But I assure you, gentlemen, that I have complete confidence in him. He has become to me something of the brother I never had. As to the scenario of him purloining the letter through some feat of dexterity, I can only say to you that that is not a possibility. I put the letter into the box myself, he closed it without touching the inside of the box, and the box has no holes nor can it be opened in any other way than through the top lid. The box never left my sight. The whole thing is simply impossible.”

“Tell us more about the box itself,” enquired Holmes.

Mr Broker shrugged his shoulders. “There is not much to tell. It is shaped like a cube, about fifteen inches wide and fifteen inches deep. The outside has some carvings that have been smoothed out with age. The inside of it is undecorated, however, and apart from the decorations it is quite simple and unadorned. I have no knowledge of antiques, but to me it seems to be the work of a common village artisan, and I doubt that it would fetch a high price at an auction.”

Abruptly, Holmes drew his legs up into the chair he was reclining in, changing his position into that of a Buddha. He pressed his fingertips together and pointed them at our client. “Mr Broker. Since so much of this problem hangs upon what happened between your putting the letter in the box and your reopening of the box, it is of the utmost necessity that you think hard about those few seconds and tell us any details about what occurred in them that might have bearing upon the case.”

Holmes spoke slowly and severely, and Mr Broker evidently appreciated the gravity of his words, for he thought long and hard before saying anything. “There is nothing. I did not look away from the box even for a second, of that I am certain. George turned from the desk, the box in his hands, and walked the few paces to the sideboard. I think he stumbled on the edge of the carpet that lies in front of the desk, but there was no more drama to it than that.”

“I understand. What exactly is it that Mr Falmer does in the City?”

Mr Broker looked uncomfortable upon hearing the question. “I believe he works for a stockbroker's firm called Sanderson & Cox. I have little knowledge of the type of work he does there, but I understand that he is highly thought of by his superiors, and his wages were recently increased.”

“That sounds both dull and interesting at the same time,” replied Holmes. “Are he and his sister very close?”

“Oh yes. Before I came into the picture, they only had each other. Eleanor is George's senior by three years, and that makes her a bit domineering in their relationship. George, on the other hand, has the role of the raucous impulsive youth, but in a harmless way, and he infuses a sense of humour into their relationship which makes it very sympathetic.”

“You do not happen to have a picture of your brother-in-law on you, do you?”

Broker raised his eyebrows, and hesitated for a moment. “I am not in the habit of carrying photographs of every male acquaintance on my person.”

“Then maybe you will give us a brief description of what he looks like?” insisted Holmes.

“I really do not understand what purpose that will serve.”

“Simply trust me, Mr Broker. The whole case may depend upon it.”

He sighed and did what Holmes had asked of him. “George is medium height, slim, fair-haired, with side whiskers and a moustache. His most distinguishing feature is his right forefinger which misses its outer phalanx as the result of a childhood injury.”