The Sensible Necktie and Other Stories of Sherlock Holmes (8 page)

I looked about to see if I could spot Holmes, but the crowd was too dense. I took my glass and tried to squeeze away from the counter, only to find myself trapped in the middle of the room, surrounded by the backs of tailcoats and jackets. I stretched my neck to get an overview and heard a mumbled outcry from another part of the establishment, soon followed by the sound of a police whistle. The moment had come! A theft had taken place. People around me started to move about, and in this confusion I managed to get to the door and rushed out into the corridor. I continued in the direction of the sounds, which was the second compartment on the right-hand side of the bar. Gregson and his men were there already, and Holmes was standing next to a stout man in a brown billycock, who was talking very loudly.

“This is an outrage, Inspector! How appropriate that you were here to see this. Only a few days ago, a friend of mine was robbed in this very establishment, and now I come here only to become the victim of the same crime. Surely there is something amiss with this place!”

The inspector implored him to calm down and explain what had been stolen from him.

“My watch and chain. A gold chain, it was.”

“And do you have any notion of how long ago the theft occurred, sir?”

“I checked the time only a few minutes ago.”

Gregson looked at Holmes, who smiled back.

“I think you can arrest this man, Gregson,” he said and laid his hand on the man's shoulder.

“What?” exclaimed the man. “I am the victim, sir, whoever you are, and you should make efforts to apprehend the culprit.”

“There is no culprit,” replied Holmes.

“No culprit? What poppycock is this?”

“There is no culprit, because you never had a watch on you. At least not since you came into this public house twenty minutes ago.”

“What are you implying?”

By this time, Mr Winstanton had come into the room and was observing the scene with much interest.

“Yes, Holmes,” he said. “What are you implying?”

“Mr Winstanton, your establishment is not the hunting ground for a gang of pickpockets. It is the place of action for a gang of wrongful accusers, like this gentleman here.”

“Wrongful accusers?”

“They are in the employ of one of your great competitors, and have been ordered to come here and deter customers by spreading the false rumour that this is a notorious haunt for pickpockets. They number three or four men, at least, but their performances are a bit flawed. For instance, it never occurred to them that pickpockets would only target the richest customers in a place as this. This gentleman would hardly be able to afford a gold watch-chain. Instead, they thought it best to make it seem that the pickpockets were everywhere. The only illustrious victim in this whole affair - Lord Logan - does not exist.”

The man in the brown hat was silent, at last, and Gregson's men escorted him out of the premises.

“But who would wish to do this, Mr Holmes?” said Winstanton.

“If we could talk privately for a moment,” said Holmes, “I will explain as much as I can.”

Winstanton brought us back into a small office next to the kitchens, where he fell into a rickety chair.

“Mr Winstanton,” began Holmes, “you know that you are in a very vulnerable position. This venture has been a large investment for you, and you have sought help from the very highest of circles. But the pub business is a seedy business at heart, and creating such a lavish public house can be very provocative. So it was quite clear to me, when I started to get a picture of your situation, that you are a likely target for acts of sabotage or attempts to create a scandal. Finding out who commissioned these men to come into your pub and claim to have been pick pocketed will be difficult, of course, but whoever it is, they will find out that their scheme has been exposed. I advise you to be wary of similar actions in the future.”

“Mr Holmes, I am extremely grateful to you. It seems to me that you never fell for this scheme in the first place.”

“I had my suspicions. When you mentioned that all of the victims had called out in just the same manner, it appeared curious to me. We think that people are very predictable and instinctive in moments of crisis, but human nature is more complex than that. Now, if you will excuse us, Watson and I wish to get out of these ridiculous clothes as soon as possible.”

“Of course, of course. There is just one more thing, Mr Holmes.”

“Yes?”

“In what way is my wife deceitful? And how do you know?”

Holmes stopped in the doorway. “She kisses you on the cheek every morning, does she not?”

“Yes. How can you tell?”

“Because she leaves a few hairs on the shoulder of your jacket every time she does so, and they are hairs that have been dyed. I don't think her deception goes any further than that, but yesterday when I was in the dark as to why you had called for us, I guessed that her habit of dyeing was indicative of a more profoundly deceptive personality. I was wrong.”

Mr Winstanton smiled. “I'm glad that even you can be wrong, Mr Holmes.”

The Adventure of the Tooting Pyramid

There were many issues in connection with the mystery of Albany Place that were never cleared up at the time of its occurrence, and which have many times since made me think that I should communicate my own perspective on the matter to the reading public. I have hesitated in doing so only due to my respect for the people involved and my reluctance to evoke the painful image of Miss Landseer, the reclusive spinster, and the way she sat in her large armchair, bound to it by chains of fate. The reason I have finally picked up my pen to recall the details of the case is a most heart-warming letter from Miss Brill, the old woman's young companion and live-in maid, asking me to make public my version of the story so that Miss Landseer's honour might be restored. Miss Brill, who cared so selflessly for the old woman in the last years of her life, awoke my feelings of sympathy just as much as her employer did, and I am glad to present this account as a tribute to the strength of these two women and the model of humanity that their life together comprised.

It all began on a dreary day in September, when Holmes, after a hiatus of contact for a couple of weeks, sent me a spontaneous telegram inviting me to dine with him. My wife was entertaining some female friends that evening, so she readily consented to my absence, and, having seen off the last patient of the day, I took a hansom to Piccadilly where Holmes was waiting for me in a secluded booth at the Criterion. He looked delighted to see me, and I was glad to have caught him in a cheery mood.

“You arrived at just the critical moment, Watson! Have a seat, old boy, and take a discreet look at that waiter over there. I believe he is new here and from the way he casually carries those trays of wine glasses, he wishes to impress his new employer with his ease of comportment. His lack of experience is noticeable in the small details, however, for he is a bit too casual now and then, and he almost spilled some wine on a lady's dress two minutes ago. It is only a matter of time before a serious accident occurs.”

Holmes had hardly finished his sentence before the wine glasses on the young waiter's tray started to glide as he swung round a table, and one by one they crashed to the floor. The sound was drowned out by the constant murmur from the dinner guests, but several of the closest diners were spattered by wine, and a gentleman quickly rose to scold the overconfident waiter. Holmes turned away from the commotion and glanced at me with one of his imperceptibly penetrating looks.

“I trust you are well, Watson? Jenkins back with another of his imagined maladies, is he?”

Philip Jenkins was one of my regular patients, a man of thirty-five who was in excellent health besides suffering from a most unrelenting hypochondria, and he would visit my practice at least once a month asking me to examine some ache or other that he fancied was a symptom of serious illness.

“Jenkins did see me today, yes. How could you tell?”

“You once told me about his curious habit of putting his tie-pin in your lapel when he unbuttons his shirt for you to listen to his heartbeat.”

“Yes?”

“This time he has forgotten his tie-pin.”

I looked down on my lapel and, lo and behold, there was Jenkins' tie-pin where he had left it a few hours earlier. I laughed at this foresight, but let it sit there so that I would be reminded to send it back to him at the earliest opportunity.

“Yes, well. I have been rather busy these past few days, if that is a reasonable excuse for my absent-mindedness.”

“Do not feel ashamed, my boy. Absent-mindedness is an unavoidable consequence of professional success. I am only too glad that your practice is thriving.”

“You hardly get absent-minded when your practice is thriving,” I quipped.

Holmes took a few puffs on his cigar, obviously trying to hide a contented smile. “My mind is never absent. That is my curse.”

The last remnants of the broken wine glasses were now swept up, and the diners at the other end of the room had resumed their pleasant dinner conversations. The inexperienced waiter, however, had vanished from the scene, and I sympathised for a second with his unfavourable confrontation with the restaurant manager that was most likely taking place in the kitchen. I forgot him once Holmes and I started to converse on sundry topics, and it was not until we had enjoyed a delicious meal involving guinea-fowl and trifle that he mentioned to me the real reason behind his invitation.

“I am due to go out to Tooting in a few minutes. I have received a pleading letter from a poor young woman, and her appeal is too pathetic to ignore.”

“What does it concern?”

“As far as I can ascertain, it concerns loneliness, melancholy, lack of love, and defencelessness - matters that, judging from their occurrence in people's lives, are trivial and mundane, but which our time seldom takes enough of an interest in to broach. There is neither scandal, drama nor adventure in these topics, only the drawn-out smouldering tragedy of people who are moderately unfortunate, and thus will never warrant the charity of the Salvation Army.”

“It sounds positively deplorable, Holmes. Although I must say I am a bit surprised to see you taking an interest in something based on sympathy.”

There was a twitch in the side of Holmes' mouth that could be interpreted as both amusement and ache.
(Nice touch)
“You do not think me sympathetic?”

“Of course I do. But you have said yourself that it is the rational challenge and not the human aspect that draws you to your cases. Humans are mere factors in a problem, I think were your words.”

“Did I really say that? Hm, well, I am an odd sort, am I not?”

“You mean you have altered your opinion?”

“Not quite, but I am surprised that I was so categorical in my statement. Perhaps we may attribute it to the folly of youth. Now I would say that the domain of ratiocination does not stop at the threshold of human passion. The emotions are also subject to the laws and systems of logic, and the close study of the minutes of details in an individual's inner life will reveal the most fascinating patterns of cogent structures. I have always considered both the rational and emotional side of the human mind in my methods, but for a long time I struggled to reconcile the two. I devoted a paragraph to this problem in my article ‘The Book of Life', if you recall.”

“This sounds more like you,” I commented.

“I strive for consistency, my dear Watson. Now then, will you accompany me to Tooting?”

“Am I permitted to read this letter of yours?”

“After we have left. I prefer that you base your decision upon your loyalty to me rather than your sympathy for a woman you have never met.”

“Then I will be more than glad to come with you, if I can be of service.”

Holmes patted me on the shoulder as he would an obedient child, we settled our bill, and stepped into one of the broughams that were waiting for fares outside the restaurant. Just as we were rattling down Waterloo Place in the direction of the river, Holmes produced an envelope from the inside pocket of his overcoat, and handed it to me. The letter was written in the neat and distinct style of someone who does not write very often, and read thus:

“Dear Mr Holmes,

I write to you on behalf of my employer, who is in great need of your help. Miss Dorothy Landseer is an old spinster and invalid. I have nurtured for her and cared for her since I was a young girl, first as a hired companion, and successively as a loving friend, which is why I wish to give her the assistance she requires and deserves. I have heard of your accomplishments and your habit of assisting those unfortunates who are otherwise unable to remunerate an external adviser, and if anyone can help my poor mistress, it is you. As she is old and infirm, we beg that you pay us a visit at your soonest available moment. The matter is most pressing and troubling.

Yours faithfully,

Miss Constance Brill

Albany Place, Tooting.”

“What do you say, Watson?” said Holmes as I looked up from the letter.

“It is certainly pleading and piteous, but I cannot see how it has attracted your interest. You must receive dozens of letters like this each week.”

“I do indeed. Only the other day I was asked by the Crown Prince of Denmark to help him retrieve a lost terrier, but the whole case was so obvious from his letter, that it only required a brief telegram to resolve the matter. Here we have something more promising, however. A well-composed although slightly awkward-sounding letter from a woman whose modesty seems to sit at the heart of her personality. And yet she feels so passionately for her employer that she mobilises the strength to write to Sherlock Holmes, the famous investigator, to ask for assistance. This Miss Landseer is her whole world. She probably meets very few other people, and so the bond between these two women, presumably separated in age by several decades, has grown exceedingly strong. If there is no interesting problem at the heart of this, there is a most fascinating relationship to be studied at close range.”

“I agree with you. But how can you be so sure that the relationship is such a strong one? Certainly this Miss Brill seems to care for her mistress, but there is nothing unusual about that.”

Holmes took the letter and held it up close to his eyes.

“I have made a chemical examination of this paper at Baker Street, and there is reason to believe that the letter has been written on a dressing table. Upon the backside of the paper are traces of face powder and salicylic acid. The face powder is of a fabrication that has only just recently come into circulation, which suggests that it is the powder of a young woman, for an old one would surely use the trusted make that she has been using for decades. But when we add to this the little blotches of salicylic acid noticeable on one corner of the paper, a medication that is commonly used to prevent rheumatic pains, the presence of an old person in the same household is apparent. That they make use of the same dressing table for what are rather personal businesses to me indicates a very close relation between the two.”

“I was not aware that you have made women's face powder a subject of your research.”

“My dear Watson, I cannot limit myself to varieties of cigarette ashes and moustache wax. If you look in my bookshelf, you will see a number of well-thumbed copies of the yearly catalogue from Derwent's Lady's Emporium. And, as you know, I have on several occasions put my knowledge of the female toilet to practical use.”

“And with some success in the opposite sex, as I recall.”

“Yes, yes. But how do you find my deductions?”

“Reasonable, I suppose.”

“I see no other explanation to account for these concurrences. And so the main mystery at this point is not what Miss Brill is referring to in her letter, but the imaginary quandary that has taken shape in her mind from mixing the actual problem with her impassioned sympathy for her charge. It will be quite a challenge to separate the one from the other.”

As we rattled southwards, I began to get infected by Holmes' enthusiasm, and was fascinated by his ability to extricate the enticing aspects of a case that, on the surface, looked commonplace and a little slight. When Holmes was in this mood, there was indeed very little that he could not cultivate an interest in, and I had seen him exercise this enthusiasm on everything from the construction of railway engines to the motets of Lassus. In due course, we arrived at the dispersed and slightly unfashionable suburb of Tooting, a place where few people with a wish to make a name for themselves would choose to reside for very long. I pondered over the fate that had caused a decrepit old lady to end up in such an odd corner of the outer fringe of suburbs, but when we approached Albany Place, I realised that the erection of the house predated with some years the erection of the suburb. It was surrounded on all sides by a wild and unattended garden, and a thick wisteria covered a large part of the exterior, with the exception of a slim turret rising from the heart of the edifice, giving it a peculiar tapered shape.

“Someone has taken great care to draw and build a characteristic house, which someone else has taken great care to neglect,” mused Holmes as we walked up the front path.

The ground floor of the building had barely any windows, and the two small stained-glass windows on either side of the front door did not show anything of the interior. We rang the door bell, having concluded that the door was too thick to allow the sound of knocking to penetrate it.

“A ramshackle old house and impenetrable fortress at the same time?” Holmes commented.

We were let in by a discreet and courteous young woman, looking quite plain in a muslin tea-gown and braided hair, but with a lustrous face that made us feel welcome.

“I received your wire forewarning us of your arrival, Mr Holmes. We are most grateful that you have found time to look in on us.”

“I try to find time for every pressing matter that comes in my way.”

“And the matter is certainly most pressing. I am Miss Constance Brill, companion of Miss Dorothy Landseer of the Dorset Landseers. I can see from your puzzled faces that you wonder how such an illustrious lady has ended up in this remote corner of the metropolis. It is a long story, but as I doubt that Miss Landseer is willing to tell it herself, I will say that her family was once very wealthy and renowned, supplying no less than three peers in the reign of George III, but due to an epidemic of tropical fever that was brought home from Africa by Miss Landseer's explorer cousin, her whole family perished within months, and Dorothy, who was then away in Switzerland attending a girls' school, was the only member of the family left untouched by the dreadful illness. There was only very little for her to inherit, however, as her father had been heavily in debt at the time of his demise, and it was only enough for her to purchase this house, which was already out of fashion at that time, and had been abandoned by its previous owners. Here she has lived in solitude for the past forty years, and I have been with her for fifteen years, caring for her. Now she is past ninety, and has not long to live, but she is much troubled by the events of the past few weeks, which she will tell you about herself.”