The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (7 page)

“But,” I burst out passionately, “I told you I had given up smoking cigars.”

“Fool!” he said coldly. “That is the
second
time you have committed yourself. Of course, you
told
me! What more natural than for you to blazon forth that prepared and unsolicited statement to
prevent
accusation. Yet, as I said before, even that wretched attempt to cover up your tracks was not enough. I still had to find that overwhelming, impelling motive necessary to affect a man like you. That motive I found in
passion
, the strongest of all impulses—love, I suppose you would call it,” he added bitterly; “that night you called! You had brought the damning proofs of it in your sleeves.”

“But,” I almost screamed.

“Silence,” he thundered, “I know what you would say. You would say that even if you had embraced some young person in a sealskin sacque what had that to do with the robbery. Let me tell you then, that that sealskin sacque represented the quality and character of your fatal entanglement! If you are at all conversant
with light sporting literature you would know that a sealskin sacque indicates a love induced by sordid mercenary interests. You bartered your honour for it—that stolen cigar-case was the purchaser of the sealskin sacque! Without money, with a decreasing practice, it was the only way you could insure your passion being returned by that young person, whom, for your sake, I have not even pursued. Silence! Having thoroughly established your motive, I now proceed to the commission of the crime itself. Ordinary people would have begun with that—with an attempt to discover the whereabouts of the missing object. These are not my methods.”

So overpowering was his penetration, that although I knew myself innocent, I licked my lips with avidity to hear the further details of this lucid exposition of my crime.

“You committed that theft the night I showed you the cigar-case and after I had carelessly thrown it in that drawer. You were sitting in that chair, and I had risen to take something from that shelf. In that instant you secured your booty without rising. Silence! Do you remember when I helped you on with your overcoat the other night? I was particular about fitting your arm in. While doing so I measured your arm with a spring tape measure from the shoulder to the cuff. A later visit to your tailor confirmed that measurement. It proved to be
the exact distance between your chair and that drawer
!”

I sat stunned.

“The rest are mere corroborative details! You were again tampering with the drawer when I discovered you doing so. Do not start! The stranger that blundered into the room with the muffler on—was myself. More, I had placed a little soap on the drawer handles when I purposely left you alone. The soap was on your hand when I shook it at parting. I softly felt your pockets when you were asleep for further developments. I embraced you when you left—that I might feel if you had the cigar-case, or any other articles, hidden on your body. This confirmed me in the belief that you had already disposed of it in the manner and for the purpose I have shown you. As I still believed you capable of remorse and confession, I allowed you to see I was on your track twice, once in the garb of an itinerant negro minstrel, and the second time as a workman looking in the window of the pawnshop where you pledged your booty.”

“But,” I burst out, “if you had asked the pawnbroker you would have seen how unjust—”

“Fool!” he hissed; “that was one of
your
suggestions to search the pawnshops. Do you suppose I followed any of your suggestions—the suggestions of the thief? On the contrary, they told me what to avoid.”

“And I suppose,” I said bitterly, “you have not even searched your drawer.”

“No,” he said calmly.

I was for the first time really vexed. I went to the nearest drawer and pulled it out sharply. It stuck as it had before, leaving a part of the drawer unopened. By working it, however, I discovered that it was impeded by some obstacle that had slipped to the upper part of the drawer, and held it firmly fast. Inserting my hand, I pulled out the impeding object. It was the missing cigar-case. I turned to him with a cry of joy.

But I was appalled at his expression. A look of contempt was now added to his acute, penetrating gaze. “I have been mistaken,” he said slowly. “I had not allowed for your weakness and cowardice. I thought too highly of you even in your guilt; but I see now why you tampered with that drawer the other night. By some incredible means—possibly another theft—you took the cigar-case out of pawn, and like a whipped hound restored it to me in this feeble, clumsy fashion. You thought to deceive me, Hemlock Jones: more, you thought to destroy my infallibility. Go! I give you your liberty. I shall not summon the three policemen who wait in the adjoining room—but out of my sight forever.”

As I stood once more dazed and petrified, he took me firmly by the ear and led me into the hall, closing the door behind him. This reopened presently wide enough to permit him to
thrust out my hat, overcoat, umbrella and overshoes, and then closed against me forever!

I never saw him again. I am bound to say, however, that thereafter my business increased—I recovered much of my old practice—and a few of my patients recovered also. I became rich. I had a brougham and a house in the West End. But I often wondered, pondering on that wonderful man's penetration and insight, if, in some lapse of consciousness, I had not really stolen his cigar-case!

LITTLE APPEARS TO
be known of the elusive Arthur Whitaker (1882–?) other than that he was an architect and was writing between the years 1892 and 1910, with a brief reappearance in 1949. Whitaker's only connection to the Sherlockian world is the pastiche “The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted,” which was shrouded in mystery itself when it was first published in 1948 in
Cosmopolitan Magazine
.

In 1942, the Associated Press released the news of a previously unpublished, long-lost Sherlock Holmes story, which it believed was written in Arthur Conan Doyle's hand. It was rumored that his son Adrian Conan Doyle had discovered the manuscript in a chest of family documents. However, it was later revealed that the manuscript was not handwritten, but typewritten, unlike any of Conan Doyle's Sherlockian manuscripts.

For several years, Adrian refused to release the story for publication, as Conan Doyle's daughter Jean claimed she knew it was not written by her father. The Baker Street Irregulars launched an appeal for its release, which was published in the
Saturday Review of Literature
, and in August 1948
Cosmopolitan Magazine
obtained the manuscript and published it under Arthur Conan Doyle's name with great fanfare about the great detective's final adventure being published now for the first time. It was also published in London's
Sunday Dispatch
in January 1949.

Soon afterward, Conan Doyle's biographer, Hesketh Pearson, received a letter from Whitaker, explaining that he was the true author of “The Case of the Man Who Was Wanted” and he had sent the manuscript to Conan Doyle in 1911 with the hope that it be published as a collaboration between himself and the famous author. Adrian, obviously, refused his suggestion, but did send Whitaker a check for ten guineas. To prove the authenticity of his claim, Whitaker produced a carbon copy of the manuscript and, after a brief threat of legal action, the Conan Doyle family finally accepted that Whitaker was the true author of the pastiche.

DURING THE LATE
autumn of 'ninety-five a fortunate chance enabled me to take some part in another of my friend Sherlock Holmes's fascinating cases.

My wife not having been well for some time, I had at last persuaded her to take a holiday in Switzerland in the company of her old school friend Kate Whitney, whose name may be remembered in connection with the strange case I have already chronicled under the title of “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” My practice had grown much, and I had been working very hard for many months and never felt in more need myself of a rest and a holiday. Unfortunately I dared not absent myself for a long enough period to warrant a visit to the Alps. I promised my wife, however, that I would get a week or ten days' holiday in somehow, and it was only on this understanding that she consented to the Swiss tour I was so anxious for her to take. One of my best patients was in a very critical state at the time, and it was not until August was gone that he passed the crisis and began to recover. Feeling then that I could leave my practice with a good conscience in the hands of a
locum tenens
, I began to wonder where and how I should best find the rest and change I needed.

Almost at once the idea came to my mind that I would hunt up my old friend Sherlock Holmes, of whom I had seen nothing for several months. If he had no important inquiry in hand, I would do my uttermost to persuade him to join me.

Within half an hour of coming to this resolution I was standing in the doorway of the familiar old room in Baker Street.

Holmes was stretched upon the couch with his back towards me, the familiar dressing gown and old brier pipe as much in evidence as of yore.

“Come in, Watson,” he cried, without glancing round. “Come in and tell me what good wind blows you here?”

“What an ear you have, Holmes,” I said. “I don't think that I could have recognized your tread so easily.”

“Nor I yours,” said he, “if you hadn't come up my badly lighted staircase taking the steps two at a time with all the familiarity of an old fellow lodger; even then I might not have been sure who it was, but when you stumbled over the new mat outside the door which has been there for nearly three months, you needed no further announcement.”

Holmes pulled out two or three of the cushions from the pile he was lying on and threw them across into the armchair. “Sit down, Watson, and make yourself comfortable; you'll find cigarettes in a box behind the clock.”

As I proceeded to comply, Holmes glanced whimsically across at me. “I'm afraid I shall have to disappoint you, my boy,” he said. “I had a wire only half an hour ago which will prevent me from joining in any little trip you may have been about to propose.”

“Really, Holmes,” I said, “don't you think this is going a little
too
far? I begin to fear you are a fraud and pretend to discover things by observation,
when all the time you really do it by pure out-and-out clairvoyance!”

Holmes chuckled. “Knowing you as I do it's absurdly simple,” said he. “Your surgery hours are from five to seven, yet at six o'clock you walk smiling into my rooms. Therefore you must have a
locum
in. You are looking well, though tired, so the obvious reason is that you are having, or about to have, a holiday. The clinical thermometer, peeping out of your pocket, proclaims that you have been on your rounds today, hence it's pretty evident that your real holiday begins tomorrow. When, under these circumstances, you come hurrying into my rooms—which, by the way, Watson, you haven't visited for nearly three months—with a new Bradshaw and a timetable of excursion bookings bulging out of your coat pocket, then it's more than probable you have come with the idea of suggesting some joint expedition.”

“It's all perfectly true,” I said, and explained to him, in a few words, my plans. “And I'm more disappointed than I can tell you,” I concluded, “that you are not able to fall in with my little scheme.”

Holmes picked up a telegram from the table and looked at it thoughtfully. “If only the inquiry this refers to promised to be of anything like the interest of some we have gone into together, nothing would have delighted me more than to have persuaded you to throw your lot in with mine for a time; but really I'm afraid to do so, for it sounds a particularly commonplace affair,” and he crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it over to me.

I smoothed it out and read: “To Holmes, 221
B
Baker Street, London, S.W. Please come to Sheffield at once to inquire into case of forgery. Jervis, Manager British Consolidated Bank.”

“I've wired back to say I shall go up to Sheffield by the one-thirty a.m. express from St. Pancras,” said Holmes. “I can't go sooner as I have an interesting little appointment to fulfil tonight down in the East End, which should give me the last information I need to trace home a daring robbery from the British Museum to its instigator—who possesses one of the oldest titles and finest houses in the country, along with a most insatiable greed, almost mania, for collecting ancient documents. Before discussing the Sheffield affair any further, however, we had perhaps better see what the evening paper has to say about it,” continued Holmes, as his boy entered with the
Evening News, Standard, Globe
, and
Star
. “Ah, this must be it,” he said, pointing to a paragraph headed “Daring Forger's Remarkable Exploits in Sheffield.”

Whilst going to press we have been informed that a series of most cleverly forged cheques have been successfully used to swindle the Sheffield banks out of a sum which cannot be less than six thousand pounds. The full extent of the fraud has not yet been ascertained, and the managers of the different banks concerned, who have been interviewed by our Sheffield correspondent, are very reticent
.

It appears that a gentleman named Mr. Jabez Booth, who resides at Broomhill, Sheffield, and has been an employee since January, 1881, at the British Consolidated Bank in Sheffield, yesterday succeeded in cashing quite a number of cleverly forged cheques at twelve of the principal banks in the city and absconding with the proceeds
.

The crime appears to have been a strikingly deliberate and well thought-out one. Mr. Booth had, of course, in his position in one of the principal banks in Sheffield, excellent opportunities of studying the various signatures which he forged, and he greatly facilitated his chances of easily and successfully obtaining cash for the cheques by opening banking accounts last year at each of the twelve banks at which he presented the forged cheques, and by this means becoming personally known at each
.

He still further disarmed suspicion by crossing each of the forged cheques and paying them into his account, while, at the same time, he drew and cashed a cheque of his
own for about half the amount of the forged cheque paid in
.

It was not until early this morning, Thursday, that the fraud was discovered, which means that the rascal has had some twenty hours in which to make good his escape. In spite of this we have little doubt but that he will soon be laid by the heels, for we are informed that the finest detectives from Scotland Yard are already upon his track, and it is also whispered that Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the well-known and almost world-famed criminal expert of Baker Street, has been asked to assist in hunting down this daring forger
.

“Then there follows a lengthy description of the fellow, which I needn't read but will keep for future use,” said Holmes, folding the paper and looking across at me. “It seems to have been a pretty smart affair. This Booth may not be easily caught, for though he hasn't had a long time in which to make his escape we mustn't lose sight of the fact that he's had twelve months in which to plan how he would do the vanishing trick when the time came. Well! What do you say, Watson? Some of the little problems we have gone into in the past should at least have taught us that the most interesting cases do not always present the most bizarre features at the outset.”

“ ‘So far from it, on the contrary, quite the reverse,' to quote Sam Weller,” I replied. “Personally nothing would be more to my taste than to join you.”

“Then we'll consider it settled,” said my friend. “And now I must go and attend to that other little matter of business I spoke to you about. Remember,” he said, as we parted, “one-thirty at St. Pancras.”

I was on the platform in good time, but it was not until the hands of the great station clock indicated the very moment due for our departure, and the porters were beginning to slam the carriage doors noisily, that I caught the familiar sight of Holmes's tall figure.

“Ah! here you are Watson,” he cried cheerily. “I fear you must have thought I was going to be too late. I've had a very busy evening and no time to waste; however, I've succeeded in putting into practice Phileas Fogg's theory that ‘a well-used minimum suffices for everything,' and here I am.”

“About the last thing I should expect of you,” I said as we settled down into two opposite corners of an otherwise empty first-class carriage, “would be that you should do such an unmethodical thing as to miss a train. The only thing which would surprise me more, in fact, would be to see you at the station ten minutes before time.”

“I should consider that the greatest evil of the two,” said Holmes sententiously. “But now we must sleep; we have every prospect of a heavy day.”

It was one of Holmes's characteristics that he could command sleep at will; unfortunately he could resist it at will also, and often have I had to remonstrate with him on the harm he must be doing himself, when, deeply engrossed in one of his strange or baffling problems, he would go for several consecutive days and nights without one wink of sleep.

He put the shades over the lamps, leaned back in his corner, and in less than two minutes his regular breathing told me he was fast asleep. Not being blessed with the same gift myself, I lay back in my corner for some time, nodding to the rhythmical throb of the express as it hurled itself forward through the darkness. Now and again as we shot through some brilliantly illuminated station or past a line of flaming furnaces, I caught for an instant a glimpse of Holmes's figure coiled up snugly in the far corner with his head sunk upon his breast.

It was not until after we had passed Nottingham that I really fell asleep and, when a more than usually violent lurch of the train over some points woke me again, it was broad daylight, and Holmes was sitting up, busy with a Bradshaw and boat timetable. As I moved, he glanced across at me.

“If I'm not mistaken, Watson, that was the Dore and Totley tunnel through which we have just come, and if so we shall be in Sheffield in a few minutes. As you see I've not been wasting my time altogether, but studying my Bradshaw, which, by the way, Watson, is the most useful book published, without exception, to anyone of my calling.”

“How can it possibly help you now?” I asked in some surprise.

“Well it may or it may not,” said Holmes thoughtfully. “But in any case it's well to have at one's fingertips all knowledge which may be of use. It's quite probable that this Jabez Booth may have decided to leave the country and, if this supposition is correct, he would undoubtedly time his little escapade in conformity with information contained in this useful volume. Now I learn from this
Sheffield Telegraph
which I obtained at Leicester, by the way, when you were fast asleep, that Mr. Booth cashed the last of his forged cheques at the North British Bank in Saville Street at precisely two fifteen p.m. on Wednesday last. He made the round of the various banks he visited in a hansom, and it would take him about three minutes only to get from this bank to the G.C. station. From what I gather of the order in which the different banks were visited, he made a circuit, finishing at the nearest point to the G.C. station, at which he could arrive at about two eighteen. Now I find that at two twenty-two a boat express would leave Sheffield G.C., due in Liverpool at four-twenty, and in connection with it the White Star liner
Empress Queen
should have sailed from Liverpool docks at six thirty for New York. Or again, at two forty-five a boat train would leave Sheffield for Hull, at which town it was due at four thirty in time to make a connection with the Holland steam packet, Comet, sailing at six thirty for Amsterdam.

“Here we are provided with two not unlikely means of escape, the former being the most probable; but both worth bearing in mind.”

Holmes had scarcely finished speaking when the train drew up.

“Nearly five past four,” I remarked.

“Yes,” said Holmes, “we are exactly one and a half minutes behind time. And now I propose a good breakfast and a cup of strong coffee, for we have at least a couple of hours to spare.”

After breakfast we visited first the police station where we learned that no further developments had taken place in the matter we had come to investigate. Mr. Lestrade of Scotland Yard had arrived the previous evening and had taken the case in hand officially.

We obtained the address of Mr. Jervis, the manager of the bank at which Booth had been an employee, and also that of his landlady at Broomhill.

A hansom landed us at Mr. Jervis's house at Fulwood at seven thirty. Holmes insisted upon my accompanying him, and we were both shown into a spacious drawing room and asked to wait until the banker could see us.

Mr. Jervis, a stout, florid gentleman of about fifty, came puffing into the room in a very short time. An atmosphere of prosperity seemed to envelop, if not actually to emanate from him.

“Pardon me for keeping you waiting, gentlemen,” he said, “but the hour is an early one.”

“Indeed, Mr. Jervis,” said Holmes, “no apology is needed unless it be on our part. It is, however, necessary that I should ask you a few questions concerning this affair of Mr. Booth, before I can proceed in the matter, and that must be our excuse for paying you such an untimely visit.”