Authors: Carole Bugge
The first costermonger smiled broadly, showing teeth yellowed by years of strong tobacco and cheap beer. “Well, guv’ner,” he said, exaggerating his accent facetiously, “me an’ my mate was wonderin’ why is it that there are suddenly so many more coppers wanderin’ about certain sections of town, shall we say, than there used to be.”
“’At’s a right good question,” said Holmes. “What’re ye drinkin’?”
“Purl,” answered the man.
“Oi, barkeep, another round for these fine fellers, an’ the same for me an’ my friend,” said Holmes.
“Much obliged to you, I’m sure,” said the costermonger with the yellow teeth. He was taller than his companion, and sported a tattoo of a mermaid on his hairy forearm.
“To yer health,” said his friend, lifting his glass to Holmes. He was of
medium height and stocky, with a thick neck, a bullet-shaped head, and a dark stubble of beard upon his chin. A worn toothpick hung from his lips, which he never removed, even to drink. I feared he would swallow the toothpick along with the purl, but he was evidently accustomed to his strange habit, and took a long draught of hot purl without disturbing the toothpick.
“Cheers,” said Holmes, lifting his glass and drinking. I did the same, though reluctantly. I had never developed a taste for purl, a drink combining hot beer with gin, ginger, and sugar; for one thing, I didn’t like gin, which always tasted like medicine to me. But I lifted my glass all the same, following Holmes’ lead. I knew he wanted something from these men, though I had no idea what that might be. In spite of the sugar it contained, the drink was bitter, the gin stinging my taste buds with its medicinal aftertaste.
“Care to join us in a game of cribbage?” asked the yellow-toothed man, evidently the leader of the two.
Holmes looked at me. “Wha’ do ye say, John, shall we give it a go?”
I tried not to look surprised at his use of my Christian name; I supposed that it was Holmes’ attempt to hide our identity. I looked around the bar: through the thick haze of tobacco smoke it was difficult to tell, but I didn’t sense that anyone was paying us particular attention.
“I ’aven’t played in a while,” I said, “but I’m game enough.”
“Right,” said Mr. Yellow Teeth, producing a pack of soiled, dog-eared playing cards. “I believe there’s a table free over there in the corner.”
We followed him through the crowded, smoke-filled room over to a round, rough oak table which sat in the far corner of the saloon bar.
“Pull up some chairs for the gentl’men, won’t you, Cappy?” he said to his companion, who complied by seizing a chair in each hand and lifting them over his head. I was struck immediately by his strength; the oak chairs were thick and heavy but he handled them as though they were
made of paper. I glanced at Holmes, but he was conversing with Yellow Teeth about the terms of the game.
It was said that costermongers did not get up in the morning without a bet placed on the exact hour the cock would crow. Everywhere they went, they gambled. They were a hardworking, hard-driving sort of man, and for a costermonger to play a game of cards without gambling was unthinkable. When Holmes and Yellow Teeth had come to terms over the stakes—high enough to please our host but not so high that he would be enraged if he lost—the game began.
I could tell that Holmes was playing well enough to hold his own, but that he was not trying to win. I followed his lead, and let our companions slowly but surely rack up steady winnings. I didn’t know what Holmes’ game was, but I was certain that it was not cribbage. I said very little, lest my less-than-perfect accent give me away. However, after several hands and several more rounds of drinks, our hosts had loosened up considerably, and I doubt they would have noticed. Yellow Teeth became downright garrulous, and his stocky companion—whom he continued to address as Cappy—relaxed his muscular neck and let his bullet-shaped head loll back in his chair. Cappy was evidently a man of few words, but in between hands he began to converse with Yellow Teeth in the curious cryptic language of coster mongers, a language I had heard of but which I had never witnessed.
“Skod tienoot,” said Yellow Teeth.
“Leereel?” answered Cappy.
“Net Kolko,” replied Yellow Teeth.
“Lawcalb?”
“Tire.”
During this exchange Holmes was jotting down the score on a piece of paper.
“Well,” he said, holding up the paper, “it looks as though you’ve
just about cleaned us out. Yer a couple a good players, you are,” he continued, rising from his chair. “And now aye think we’d better be gettin’ along now.”
“Oh, don’t go just yet, guv’ner,” said Yellow Teeth, “the cards are bound to turn your way sooner or later... don’t you think so, Cappy?” Cappy nodded his assent, chewing on his toothpick.
“Maybe another time,” said Holmes, “but my mate and me ’ave to be gettin’ on.”
“Oh really?” said Yellow Teeth. “Something important, then?”
“Naw,” said Holmes, ignoring the fixed stare from Cappy, “but I ’spect someone’d be mad if we didn’t show.”
“Well, then, per’aps another time, as you say,” said Yellow Teeth evenly. “That would be nice, don’ ye think, Cappy?”
Cappy nodded and shifted the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. His implacable face made me uneasy, and my hand closed around the revolver in my jacket pocket. Holmes, though, acted totally unconcerned.
“Well, then, thank ye, mates,” he said breezily, and I followed him out through groups of dock workers, street hawkers, and ship’s mates, all drinking, smoking, laughing, and gambling. Out on the street Holmes turned to me.
“I wasn’t sure they’d let us away so easily,” he said.
“But you didn’t seem worried. Do you mean to say—?”
“Well, it was touch and go for a moment there. Never mind, though, Watson, we’ve no time to lose!” he said urgently, and set off at a fast pace toward the river.
“Where are we going?” I called after him.
“To the West India Docks!”
The temperature had dropped and a freezing rain had begun to fall, and cabs were hard to come by. We did close to a mile on foot before Holmes finally flagged one down on Cable Street.
“West India Docks as fast as you can,” Holmes said to the driver, who turned his horse down onto Aspen Way at a canter. Holmes looked at his watch. “I am afraid Mrs. Hudson will be upset with us; it is far past dinnertime. However, I am far more concerned that we may already be too late for something much more important than dinner.”
As we were being jostled about inside the cab, I noticed the burning sensation in my esophagus which was the result of hot gin on an empty stomach. I thought of Mrs. Hudson’s rack of lamb with mashed potatoes, and I am ashamed to admit that at that moment I couldn’t imagine anything more important than dinner. I decided to try to take my mind off of my stomach.
“Who were those men, and how did you know—?” I began.
Holmes smiled, the pallid light from the streetlamps falling upon his long face. “You remarked of course the red silk neckerchiefs that mark the costermonger as a member of his profession?”
“Yes, of course I noticed that the men wore the red neckerchiefs, but I—”
“Did you also know that they refer to their scarves as king’s men?”
“Well, I’ll be!” I exclaimed. “So
that’s
how you knew they were—”
“—the king’s men; in other words, the king’s knights. They are more than costermongers, Watson; they are also smugglers.”
“Smugglers!”
“Yes. One thing I do know about the Lancelot Arms is that it is a notorious gathering place for smugglers. Our two friends certainly have had some hand in what is about to happen.”
“I’ll be damned,” I muttered. “I don’t know, Holmes, sometimes you frighten me.” Just then the cab hit a pothole, throwing me to the floor, and I swore.
Holmes reached a hand out to me. “Steady on, Watson,” he said, chuckling softly. “I suppose you’re also wondering about that curious language they spoke,” he continued when I had regained my seat.
“Yes, now that you mention it, what on earth was that?”
“Ah, that was very careless of them. Costermongers often exchange information which they wish to keep secret in a kind of cryptic code which often involves the ability to pronounce words backwards. Do you remember that I was keeping score during the game? Well, I simply copied down what they said—pretending that I was keeping score—and reversed the order of the sounds to find out what they were really saying.” He held up the slip of paper which he had used during the scoring of the game. I peered at it and could barely make out the words in the dim light:
“Docks tonight. Really? Ten o’clock. Blackwall? Right.”
“That was their biggest mistake,” he replied. “They underestimated my ability to crack their code. And really I wouldn’t have been able to if I had not been listening for it. Some years ago a case took me to the East End; I learned a lot about the various tradesmen then, and it has always stood me in good stead.”
I shook my head in amazement. “Really, Holmes,” I said, “I am quite impressed.”
“Don’t be, Watson, until we see if we accomplish our most important task tonight.”
I was dying to ask Holmes why we were rushing toward the river at such a breakneck pace, but now the gin was making me sleepy and I was lulled into a kind of stupor by the swaying motion of the cab. I sat gazing out of the window the rest of the way. When we arrived at our destination Holmes sprang from the cab, paid the driver, and asked the man to wait, slipping him a guinea. The man looked at the coin in his hand and then he laughed.
“I’ll wait ’ere all night if need be, guv’ner.”
“Right,” said Holmes, “come along, Watson.”
We set off briskly for the quayside, Holmes in the lead, his worn
ulster flapping about him like large brown wings. We followed the wooden walkway down to the dockside, and Holmes looked around. Standing ankle-deep in the mud lining the banks of the Thames, trying to shield a lighted candle from the drizzling rain, was a small girl. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. I recognized her immediately as a mudlark, one of the poor unfortunate scavengers who combed the banks of the river at low tide, poking around looking for anything that they might sell: pieces of coal, copper nails, discarded clothing, bits of rope. It was a hard and cheerless life; most of the mudlarks were either crippled, very old, or very young, the youngest ones often being orphans.
“You there!” Holmes called out to the girl who now stood before us, a startled look on her frozen face. “What’s your name?”
“Please, sir, I ain’t doing anything wrong, sir. I was just tryin’ to pick up a few things to sell, sir,” the girl said, trembling.
“There, there,” Holmes said in a softer voice, “don’t be frightened; we mean you no harm. Here,” he said, giving her a handful of guineas, “take that and buy yourself some shoes and a proper coat.”
“Oh,
thank
you, sir!” the girl said, staring at the coins in her hand as though she were afraid they might run away. “Thank you ever so much, sir!” she said, beginning to cry.
“Now, now,” I said, removing my overcoat and placing it around her thin shoulders, “what did you say your name was?”
“Jenny, sir. Short for Jennifer, but everyone calls me Jenny.”
“Jenny—what a pretty name,” I said.
“Do you think so, sir?”
“Yes, yes,” said Holmes impatiently. “Now tell me, Jenny, have you seen any boats come into the docks tonight since you’ve been here?”
The girl scrunched up her small face in thought, and then she broke out in a broad smile.
“Yes, sir; an hour or so ago, sir, I heard a foghorn! I remember it because it frightened me and I dropped my candle in the mud. It was ever so difficult lighting it again.”
“Do you remember which way it was headed?”
The girl thought again. “I’m not sure, but I think it was headed this way,” she said, pointing east.
“Thank you,” said Holmes. “There is a cab waiting for us over there,” he said, pointing toward the road. “Go get in and warm yourself. Tell the cabby that the tall man with the guineas told you to wait there for him.”
“Yes,
sir
!” the girl cried gleefully, and shot off in the direction of the waiting cab. Holmes looked after her, shaking his head.
“It is a heartless society that allows such situations to exist.” He sighed and turned back to look in the direction the girl had pointed. “So, they’ve gone east, have they?” he muttered. “Come along, Watson. We shall see if the trail is still hot.”
I followed Holmes along the embankment for a quarter of a mile, past boathouses and wharfs, rotting piers and innumerable small river crafts sitting at their moorings. As we rounded a sharp bend in the river we saw a ship’s light in the distance.
“Quickly, Watson, we haven’t a moment to lose!” Holmes cried, setting off at a run toward the ship. I followed, coatless, the rain coming heavier now, drenching me right through my jacket to the skin. The ship was a big black freighter, and inscribed on the bow in gold lettering was her name:
Queen of India.
“The Black Queen,” Holmes muttered, and stopped. We could hear voices coming from inside the ship, though we could not make out any of the words being spoken. “I’m going around to the other side,” Holmes whispered. “You stay here.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said firmly.
Holmes looked at me. “They are probably armed.”
“I don’t care; I’m coming with you. I’ve got my revolver.”
Holmes smiled. “Good old Watson, stalwart to the last.”
“I hope not—I mean, I hope this isn’t the last.”
“I hope so too. Follow me and try not to make any noise.”
We walked quietly up to the side of the ship, where she lay tied to her moorings. My hand closed round the gun in my jacket pocket; the feel of cold metal against my palm was reassuring. Suddenly the sound of horses’ hooves came clattering across the quay, and Holmes grabbed my arm.
“Quick, Watson, out of sight!” he whispered, and we ducked down behind two mooring posts. From where we were we could see the ship, and we also saw the source of the hoofbeats: An unmarked carriage drove up to the ship, pulled by an enormous black gelding. “Ha—so we are not too late to witness the exchange,” Holmes said quietly.