The Sensible Necktie and Other Stories of Sherlock Holmes (6 page)

“It was said that the
Cordelia
had sailed into a violent storm somewhere in the Antilles, in which it had almost capsized, and that this was where the crew had suffered its catastrophic loss. An investigation showed, however, that there were no reports of storms from other ships who had sailed in that area at the same time, and that only a week after the ship had left Caracas, one of its lifeboats had gone ashore on the island of Martinique, bearing a small portion of the ship's crew, including Captain Addleton. Addleton had claimed that some insurgent men of the otherwise loyal crew had stirred up into mutiny, which had evolved into a fight between the mutineers and those that remained supportive of the captain. In the end, Addleton and his followers had been forced to abandon the ship. This whole story was much reported in the newspapers of the time, and everyone expected a great and dramatic trial to follow, but for some reason Captain Addleton never returned to England to testify, and there was never a substantial enough case to hold the returning sailors, and so the whole thing just faded away.

“Since then, however, new information has come to light. One of the sailors who returned with the
Cordelia
confessed in his dying days that the reason for the scuffle between the men was that word had been spreading among them that their captain was bringing home with him a treasure chest that he had somehow acquired while the ship was at port. One of the men, a Mr Robert Stroke, had stirred menace by persuading his fellow sailors that they all had equal part in this treasure by making sure it came safely back to England, and the ensuing mutiny was all about this treasure. The treasure did actually exist, as the mutineers found out after Addleton and his men had left the ship. It was a chest full of nuggets of pure gold that Addleton's brother, who was an explorer and anthropologist in South America, had collected on his travels in the Andes, and which he had asked his brother to bring home to their father's estate for safe keeping. But when the ship came to Liverpool, there was no sign of the chest, even though several of the men would later confess to having seen it during the trip, and that they even managed to open it and confirm its alleged contents.

“So what happened to it? It is very simple. In the small hours of the morning before the
Cordelia
was about to sail into Liverpool, Stroke carried the chest up on deck, tied it to a long rope with a float at the other end and threw it over the side. He took a great risk, dumping the loot in such a heavily trafficked sea, but this way only he knew where it was and how to get it. He also managed to make away with the evidence that the motive for the mutiny was anything other than a sense of injustice.”

I glanced at Miss Crabb, whose face did not try to hide that she had been quite gripped by Holmes' story.

“What happened to him?” she said.

“He disappeared from view.”

“So how do you know about how he hid the chest?”

“Because a long time ago when studying this case, I spoke to the old fisherman who rowed him out to the place to pick it up.”

“Remarkable!” I cried.

“But I still don't understand,” said Miss Crabb. “If it is a famous ship, then there must be hundreds of pictures of it.”

“Not really,” said Holmes. “Paintings of that sort are not usually reproduced or copied.”

“So you mean to say that my father was on board the
Cordelia
?”

“I mean to say more than that, Miss Crabb. I mean to say that he is Robert Stroke.”

“Surely you are taking this a bit too far, Holmes,” I protested. “Only because of that painting?”

“No, not only because of that. I instantly recognised that painting because I have seen it before quite recently.”

“Where?”

“In the empty house in the village. I looked in through the windows and that painting looked familiar. It was only when I saw it once more here that I recalled the story. And then, of course, there is the evidence of the cawing crow.”

“The crow?” said Miss Crabb. “What of it?”

“You see, when you said that your father walked over to that fence at the sound of a cawing crow, it seemed strange to me, and I was certain that something more significant had made him go over there. Then on our walk back from the village we heard it again, only to me, it was not the sound of a common crow. So I looked up into the treetops and saw something truly remarkable.”

Holmes paused and studied our faces. Miss Crabb's eyes were fixed on him. I myself was eager to hear the rest of his reasoning.

“What was it, Holmes?”

“It was a parrot.”

“A parrot?” said Miss Crabb.

“Quite so. You see, in the newspaper reports on the
Cordelia
affair, Captain Addleton is repeatedly described with one conspicuous attribute - a parrot. When I saw the parrot flying about in the tree tops, I understood that this was a vital clue, but I only appreciated its meaning when I saw the picture here.”

“What do you mean, Mr Holmes? This is still not quite clear to me.”

Holmes rose.

“Miss Crabb, I think it is high time that I spoke with your father. Will you escort us upstairs?”

Miss Crabb did as he asked, even though she continued mumbling that he was unlikely to see us. As we came to the door, Holmes stopped Miss Crabb's hand in mid-air as it was about to knock.

“Please,” he said. “Allow me.” And then he turned towards the door, exclaiming: “Robert Stroke, open this door!”

It only took five seconds before there was a rustling sound and the door was opened wide. Behind it stood a man of advanced years, but whose mixture of curiosity and guilt made him look like a young man, nay, a boy. He looked at us as if he recognised in us old acquaintances, but acquaintances that he had no wish to be reunited with.

“Mr Stroke, I perceive?” said Holmes.

“Where have you heard that name?” said the old man.

“It was all over the front pages a few years ago.”

“Many years ago! Nobody remembers.”

He was just about to close the door again, when his daughter stepped up and put her hand on it.

“Father? It's me, Madeleine. Will you not explain to me what is happening? I deserve to know the truth.”

Crabb hung his head and when he looked up again there were tears in his eyes. “I'm sorry, Madeleine. I am so very sorry.”

“But Father, what is the matter?”

“Stay away from me, Madeleine. I am a bad man.”

“I don't care what you did when you were young.”

“What about what he did two weeks ago?” said Holmes.

Miss Crabb looked at him, then at her father, demanding an explanation with her anxious gaze.

“Two weeks ago,” said Holmes, “your father committed murder.”

“What?” cried Miss Crabb. “Is this true, Father? What am I saying? Of course it is not true! Mr Holmes, how dare you!”

“Your father cannot deny it. Two weeks ago, you and he were walking when he was drawn to the fringe of the woods by the sound of a bird, a sound that he recognised all too well but had hoped never to hear again. It was the sound of Captain Addleton's parrot. Peering into the woods, Mr Crabb saw him. Addleton had come to Bridle to settle matters once and for all with Robert Stroke, and so he walked daily in the woods, hoping one day to encounter his mortal enemy. And when he did, they agreed to meet in the night and confront each other. I do not know exactly what Addleton had planned for Stroke, but whatever it was, it misfired, and the avenger once more became the victim of the resourceful Stroke, leaving the bird to fend for itself in the woods. What did you use, Stroke? Was it one of Brookshaw's gardening tools?”

“Holmes,” I said, “you are forgetting one thing. There is no dead body.”

“No, there isn't. Stroke had it all planned, as usual. Only the day before he had assisted the vicar in excavating one of the barrows on the moor. He knew that the earth there was still loose. It would not be too difficult to drag the body there. Perhaps you even agreed to meet there, thus making the whole thing easier for yourself?”

Mr Crabb's eyes had turned black, and he looked upon Holmes with what I feared was murderous intent.

“But why the dead animals?” asked Miss Crabb.

“A most necessary distraction. Firstly, it established once and for all that your father had become mad and was sacrificing animals - a ruse that was essential, both so that he could bury the body at night and avoid the one person before whom it would be difficult to lie. Secondly, the hanging animals deterred the people in the house - you especially, Miss Crabb - from walking through the woods and out on the moor until the traces of the murder were gone. Connecting his madness to his previous interest in the local archaeology was also a way of making it seem credible, you understand. But, ironically, it was the dead animals that put me on the right track to begin with, for they had been tied up with a very special knot known only to sailors.”

When Holmes concluded his explanation, there was a second when we all looked at each other in some form of anticipation, as if we were both wondering what would happen and expecting something to happen. Mr Crabb slammed his door shut as he had threatened to do a few minutes before, and Holmes tried to push it open in vain.

“This is ominous to say the least. Miss Crabb, is there any other way into this room?”

“Only through the window, but we are one floor up.”

“That would be the western wall. Unless I am mistaken it is covered in ivy?”

“Yes, but it is old and perishing.”

“Cannot be helped, there is no time to lose. Watson, come with me!”

And I rushed with Holmes out into the garden, leaving the poor young woman to bang on her father's bolted door. I knew just what Holmes was fearing, and if he was right it was only a matter of minutes before it would be too late to save the old man from death by his own hand. As we reached the western wall, I saw that the ivy did reach up to the first floor, but it was only a leafless skeleton of a trunk and I doubted that it would hold for climbing. Holmes did not hesitate, however, and was halfway up it before I could stop him. He found a foothold on a ledge just by the window in question, which allowed me to climb up after him. It was not such a precipitous effort as I had thought, and as I came to the window I saw the sight that had stopped Holmes from climbing in.

The door that Mr Crabb had bolted was now open again, and father and daughter were standing on the threshold, locked in each other's embrace. Somehow, in the time it had taken Holmes and me to go out of the house and climb the ivy, Miss Crabb had persuaded her father to open the door, and, with the aid of her female powers of conciliation, generated by herself the idyllic family reunion that we were now witnessing.

Holmes would say to me, when we were reminiscing over this case a few days later, that Miss Crabb's pacifying abilities had an equal share to his own logical reasoning in seeing the case to a fulfilling conclusion. Had it not been for Wilfred Crabb's love for his daughter, he might very well have completed his regression to the devious plotting shipmate that his reunion with Morgan Addleton had triggered, but in between his sailor youth and his autumn-years murder, Robert Stroke had become Wilfred Crabb, a decent and good-natured politician and family man, and it was this second nature that made the man confess his deeds and give himself up to the local police. It was never reported in the newspapers at the time, however, that the unexpected return to public life of shipmate Robert Stroke sprung from the retirement of the Right Honourable Wilfred Crabb, and it was for the benefit of his daughter that this connection was never made known. Sadly, however, Crabb only survived a year in the harsh conditions of Dartmoor prison. His daughter eventually changed her name and emigrated to Canada where I understand she married and now lives in blissful obscurity.

It always seemed to me curious why Wilfred Crabb should go to such extreme and strange lengths to divert the attention from his crime and give him time to bury the remains of Captain Addleton, but although his madness was a deception, the thing it was designed to hide was a madness in itself, of sorts. The ancient barrow on Pettigrew moor was eventually excavated by the police, and Addleton's corpse retrieved so that it could be given a proper burial. To my great surprise, his anthropologist brother was still alive, and attended the funeral along with Madeleine Crabb, who insisted upon compensating him from her own inheritance for the gold that her father had once stolen from him.

The Adventure of the Deprecated Publican

One spring evening - I think the year was ninety-six - Holmes made a suggestion I believe he had never done before.

“Do you want to go to the pub, Watson?”

I was a bit taken aback by this query, but since I was well aware that Holmes was the most unpredictable person one could imagine, my surprise was only mild.

“Are you thirsty?” I said. “If it's a drink you want, my club…”

“I have no interest whatsoever in the beverages provided by public houses,” he replied.

“What induces your proposal, then?”

“Only this.”

He handed me a crumpled piece of paper. It read:

“Please Mr Holmes, if you would pay a visit to Princess Louise in the near future, I promise to provide you with a problem that might satisfy your thirst for the unusual. A. Winstanton.”

I looked over the curious message a few times, but it puzzled me and it seemed like the person who had written it was being deliberately obscure.

“Well,” I said, “I would venture to say that, since this is obviously a royal commission, the messenger - this Winstanton fellow - has written it in some sort of code, which I am sure is apparent to you, but completely baffles me.”

Holmes knitted his brow. “Code, you say? And wherein lies the code?”

“I have no idea. But the message has virtually no information in it, so I fancied the real message was somewhere between the lines. In the amount of words or something of that sort.”

“Ha! What an interesting interpretation, Watson. You never cease to astound me.”

“Am I anywhere near the truth?” I asked, exposing my lack of belief in my theory.

“Afraid not, old man.” Holmes took back the paper. “Your theory of a royal commission is most intriguing, not to say flattering, but if this really was a commission from the actual Princess Louise, then why would the only real piece of information in the message be the stating of her name? No, I am more inclined towards the simple interpretation.”

“I thought mine
was
the simple interpretation.”

“The interpretation of the name as referring to one of Her Majesty's daughters was the simple part, then it forced you into considering quite unlikely things, including ciphers.”

“All right, I got the point the first time.”

“No, the name ‘Princess Louise' must surely refer to the celebrated public house of that name which opened a few years ago in Holborn. It is not an ordinary pub, in the sense that it caters to a somewhat higher class of people than most London public houses, and as such it is rather lavishly furnished. Mr Winstanton I take to be the proprietor of the establishment, and although his message is vague on the details, the writing does betray some of the pub-owner's habitual taste for banter, what with referring to my ‘thirst for the unusual'.”

“You don't think it is a trap of some sort?”

“You are right to be suspicious, Watson. It does seem like an attempt to lure me into a trap, but who would trap me in such a public place as that? The purpose of the note is probably just to arouse my curiosity, and in this endeavour, it has succeeded. So, how about it, Watson?”

I was not one to go against Holmes' wishes when he was on the scent, and I was just as intrigued by the prospect of adventure as he was, so I threw away the newspaper I had been reading, and within a quarter of an hour a hansom deposited us at the patriotically named establishment of the message. It was only six o'clock, but already the place was filling up with a colourful collection of assorted clerks from the surrounding office buildings, as well as academics and intellectuals streaming down from nearby Bloomsbury. But this collection did not automatically mean a mixture, for as Holmes had mentioned, this was a more sophisticated pub than the average one, and as we entered through one of its two entrances, a corridor led into four separate rooms, all of them abutting onto the same counter, but divided by high walls decorated with panes of frosted glass. The first room that we looked into was the noisiest, and the men assembled there could be described as skilled workers, or what some have termed the “labour aristocracy”. Here, however, they were at the bottom of the pyramid, for the next room contained a more modest group of well-dressed men who looked to me like lowly clerks and the odd office boy, and the ascension continued in the next rooms, until the back room, which was very much like stepping into the lounge of the Athenaeum.

It was here that a man approached us. He seemed a bit out of place among the distinguished gentlemen scattered around the room, as his appearance rather called to mind a dubious businessman or vulgar music-hall proprietor, with flamboyant ginger side-whiskers and a gold-embroidered waistcoat.

“Ah, Mr Holmes,” he said in a strong voice which reverberated throughout the room. “My name is Arnold Winstanton, the proprietor of this humble establishment. I'm glad my note managed to lure you here.”

“It lured me this far,” said Holmes, “but I proceed no further without more information. The note was sparse in the extreme. Why this secrecy?”

“Well, if you will at least proceed up the stairs with me, all will be explained.”

Mr Winstanton showed us to a flight of stairs at the back of the lounge, and we climbed up to a private bar which, it seemed for our benefit, had been emptied of people. Winstanton invited us to sit in a couple of comfortable leather armchairs by a roaring fire before taking a seat himself, inspecting us with a pleased, almost jeering, smile. “So, gentlemen, you were wondering why I asked you here.”

“Is it anything to do with the thieving barman?” asked Holmes.

“No.” His smile vanished in less than a second. “Certainly not. What barman would that be?”

“The one downstairs, big fellow, short black hair and handlebar moustache. He has been stealing from your register for at least a few weeks now.”

“Burleigh? What nonsense! What makes you think that?”

“He hides the money in a secret pocket inside his waistcoat which bulges conspicuously. The fabric on the front of the waistcoat has become stretched as a result of it.”

Winstanton impatiently sidestepped the matter. “No, it is not about that.”

“I see,” said Holmes. “Then is it perhaps the matter of your deceitful wife?”

“What?” Winstanton's eyes looked as if they were going to fall out of their sockets.

“Very well. Proceed.”

Winstanton now looked utterly confused. “Why do you think my wife is deceiving me?”

“It is of no consequence. Please state your case.”

The man took a few deep breaths to compose himself. “It is simply because I have the highest respect for your powers of observation that I have asked you to come here, Mr Holmes, and I hope that you may assist me.”

“I shall certainly do my best.”

“All right, then. Mr Holmes, I believe the Princess Louise is haunted. On four consecutive nights now, customers have complained of being robbed of their possessions, but despite exhaustive efforts to obtain the missing items and to apprehend the pickpockets, there has been no solution to the mystery. After the first two incidents, an Inspector Gregson came to investigate, and he suspected that a gang of pickpockets is operating in the premises. He had four of his men in civilian clothes infiltrating the visitors an entire evening, but nothing came out of it. Not even when a gentleman complained of having lost his pocketbook and Gregson ordered all the customers not to leave. Mr Holmes, each and every one of the customers that night were thoroughly searched, but nothing was found! Despite this, Gregson arrested three men on suspicions grounded upon the fact that the infiltrating policemen had not been able to survey them sufficiently. But all three men had to be released, since all of them proved to be entirely respectable City clerks with not a flaw in their character. And yet it goes on. Last night, three customers had their pockets picked, one of his purse and two of their watches.”

“And what of the staff?” inquired Holmes.

“I trust them all, including Burleigh. He has a seedy past, and maybe he takes a few notes from the till now and then, but he nor any of the others could have picked the customers' pockets since they are all behind the counter, and the counter, as you know, is circular and never opens up into the rooms. I employ a young girl who goes around and picks up the empty tankards from the tables, but naturally I have searched her belongings as well as the kitchen and the kitchen staff without success. I can but think that whoever snatches things from our visitors has the ability to become invisible. A ghost!”

Winstanton broke off and produced a handkerchief to wipe his brow. Holmes was silent and did not move a muscle in his face.

“But surely,” I said, “it must be very difficult to keep track of everybody who comes and goes. I'm sure the explanation must be that the culprit is extremely skilled at sneaking away inconspicuously and was even able to do so when the police was present.”

“Impossible!” cried Winstanton. “The moment that gentleman noticed his pocketbook was gone, the inspector blew his whistle and his men stopped everybody from passing through the doors.”

“I see.”

Winstanton looked at Holmes. “You are a man of few words,” he said.

Holmes looked up from his thoughts. “The problem is interesting, but the solution can only be a simple one. The stolen goods must be hidden somewhere in the premises since they have not been taken from here, at least not when the police was present. The thief is, as you said, Watson, most professional, and the secret to his success must be a very special trick of the trade. Tell me, Mr Winstanton, how would you describe the men that fell victim to the thefts?”

The publican shrugged.

“Quite ordinary, I suppose, like most of our customers. Some I would say belonged to the lower office working class, respectable but hardly men of means. But most of the afflicted men were very distinguished gentlemen indeed. One of them was a Lord, if I'm not mistaken.”

“And have the thefts occurred in any special compartment of the pub or in different rooms?”

“There have been incidents in both the front and back rooms.”

“And how did the victims call attention to their thefts?”

“By calling out, of course, as is the custom. ‘Stop thief.' ‘I've been robbed.' Something like that.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. It is of course the time lapse between the actual pocket picking and the discovery of the theft that is critical. Most street pickpockets operate in gangs and the party who actually does the stealing immediately hands over the stolen goods to an accomplice who passes by and then walks off in a completely different direction than the first party. This second man also generally hands the goods over to a third person as a precaution. Thus the man that is most easily apprehended - namely the actual thief - is almost never the man who has the loot, and so there is seldom any evidence against him. But why would a gang of pickpockets choose the interior of a public house instead of the street where it is so much easier to get away? Admittedly it is a public house with a wealthier clientele than most others, but the public street also has a wealthy clientele. No, I think we can exclude the possibility that we are dealing with a gang of pickpockets. The thief works alone.”

“I find that quite unlikely,” said Winstanton.

“There are other ways of disappearing after the act has been committed.” Holmes lowered his gaze. His next words were directed to himself. “Yes. Yes. That must be it.” And then he looked up again. “Well, I thank you, Mr Winstanton, for providing us with a most intriguing case. If you don't mind, Dr Watson and I will now go down into the saloon bar and have a couple of beers.”

“At my expense of course, Mr Holmes!” said Winstanton. “I trust I will hear from you?”

“Sooner than you might think.”

And so we were escorted back downstairs, and Winstanton left us to take care of other business. Holmes, having been slightly pensive while listening to the publican's story, now seemed more cheerful, and he knocked his pot of beer against mine with the fervour of a drunken sailor. “Your very good health, Watson!”

“You sound very optimistic all of a sudden.”

“Well, yes and no. I am optimistic concerning this case and its potential of becoming an interesting one, but at the same time, all vital clues point to a very tangled skein indeed, and one that may have dark dimensions.”

“How so? You suspect the involvement of some sort of criminal organisation?”

“That is a question of definition. I think we are dealing with a very cunning adversary here, and I suspect that he may not be quite what we expect. But I'm afraid I have no working hypothesis as yet. What about you, Watson? You were pretty silent up there. What theories do you have?”

“Well, if this man really is working alone, as you think, then I would guess that he makes use of disguises rather than accomplices.”

“Brilliant, Watson. Why do you think so?”

“A lot of pickpockets do it. Why, almost every week the papers report on the latest deeds of the ‘swell mob'. In this case, however, it is a question of one man and several disguises. At least, that would be my guess. One man snatches a pocket watch, sneaks into the next compartment before the theft has been discovered, and while doing so, changes some small but vital detail in his garb so as to transform him from, say, a Chelsea ‘toff' into a low-ranking office assistant.”

“What change would that be?”

“Oh, perhaps removing a fancy cravat to reveal the simple tie behind it, putting on or removing a false moustache, wrapping a worn muffler around the neck - things like that.”

“I see. This theory really does you credit, dear friend.”

“Thank you, Holmes.”

“It really is most creative.”