The New Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes (7 page)

One Saturday morning, the last before Christmas, we were enjoying a companionable silence after breakfast. My friend was composing a letter to Francois le Villard, whose advancement in the French detective service owed so much to Holmes’ assistance. Le Villard had sought his opinion on a matter of the utmost confidentiality; to this day, all I can reveal about the case is that it concerned two senior members of the clergy and a suitcase filled with twigs. Holmes had been wrapped in thought for over an hour, but now he was writing rapidly.

For my part, I was making notes concerning the remarkable story of Jonathan Small. Having previously composed a small brochure about the first investigation where I had been privileged to watch Holmes at work, I hoped that the mystery which I had tentatively entitled ‘The Sign of the Four’ might equally attract the interest of a publisher. If so, it would be more than a celebration of Holmes’ mastery of the science of deduction; it would represent a humble token of my love for Miss Mary Morstan. I had the joy of meeting her at the outset of the enquiry and at its conclusion she consented to take my hand in matrimony. Our wedding was due to take place in less than a month’s time. I would be starting a new life, as well as a new year. Yet eagerly as I anticipated both, still I relished the final weeks of bachelorhood.

A knock at the door ruptured our serenity. Holmes frowned as he blotted the letter and subjected the unfortunate Mrs Hudson to a penetrating stare as she entered the room.

‘There’s a gentleman to see you, Mr Holmes,’ she said. ‘I told him that you’d left strict instructions not to be disturbed until mid-day, but he was most insistent. When I invited him to leave his card, he said that he would not rest until such time as you granted him a consultation. He says you met him once and he hopes you might remember him.’

She presented my friend with the brass salver.

‘Josiah Buckle!’ To my surprise, a rare flash of delight crossed my friend’s saturnine countenance as he tossed the grubby card on to his desk. ‘Of course, it will be a privilege to renew the acquaintance. Please show him up without delay!’

Our landlady was a wise woman and had learned that, with Holmes, one must invariably expect the unexpected. Within moments she was ushering the visitor into our presence. He was a small, shuffling fellow, at least seventy years of age and bent with rheumatism. The rusty black frock-coat had a couple of buttons missing and his cuffs were badly frayed. Yet at the sight of Holmes, genuine pleasure seemed to flicker in his little brown eyes. 

‘Mr Sherlock Holmes!’ he cried, offering a knobbly hand. ‘So you have not forgotten, then?’

 ‘You rendered me no small service when I was compiling my monograph,’ my friend said. ‘Without your expert guidance, I might have succumbed to an unpardonable error when it came to differentiating between the rarest Turkish brands.’

‘Not you, Mr Holmes!’ the old man said warmly. ‘You emphasised to me that you value accuracy of data above all else. You would never have made the mistake of guessing about the quality of ash. All I did was to import a few boxes so that you could make a precise comparison.’

‘Without them, my monograph would have been the poorer. That particular Latakian cheroot has never been popular in England, but I could name at least one notorious forger on the Continent who favoured it above all others. Yes, Mr Buckle, I remain in your debt. It is good to see you again, although naturally I regret the need to offer my condolences about the loss of your wife.’

‘You heard the news about Charlotte? It was tuberculosis, you know.’

My friend shook his head sadly. ‘A most wretched disease.’

I had not been idle during my time at No. 221B Baker Street. In addition to chronicling Holmes’ triumphs in connection with the Lauriston Gardens Mystery, I had relished the opportunity of observing at close quarters the methods that he employed. Often the most astonishing deductions, once understood, were based upon the simplest logic. I fancied that I myself might acquire the detective habit. Certainly, Holmes’ reasoning here was easy to follow. No respectable wife would allow her husband to make a visit in such an unkempt state. If Mr Buckle had been married at the time of his original acquaintance with Holmes, it was logical to infer that his wife was no more.

‘May I introduce you to my colleague, Dr Watson? Since we became co-tenants, he has become intrigued by the business of detection and you may speak freely before him. Watson, let me advise you that, should you ever have cause to transfer your loyalty from Bradley’s, no-one in London stocks a wider range of fine tobacco than Mr Josiah Buckle. Indeed, sir, I very much regret that you should have found it necessary to close your shop some time ago. It cannot have been for the want of custom.’

Buckle’s bushy eyebrows rose. ‘How did you know that I had closed for business?’

‘Oh, the inference is straightforward from the evidence before our eyes. Watson, would you be so good as to explain?’

I felt myself growing hot under the collar. ‘I’m afraid….’

Holmes allowed himself the glimmer of a smile. ‘Oh, my dear fellow. I am disappointed. You have proved such a willing pupil that I quite believed you would have mastered the knack of making such an elementary deduction. When a man with a thriving retail business arrives on my doorstep on a Saturday morning in December, at a time when his shop should be crammed to overflowing with customers seeking to replenish their tobacco pouches in readiness for the festive season, there are three possible explanations. First, the reason for his call is so urgent that it cannot wait. But in that event, surely he would arrive here before eleven o’clock? Second, he has delegated responsibility for running the shop to an assistant. But few trades are as dependent upon expert personal service as that of the tobacconist and, because of the specialist nature of his products, Mr Buckle has always taken a proper pride in attending to customers personally and at all hours. Third, the shop has closed.’

‘But why do you suggest that it has been closed for a considerable period of time?’ I enquired.

Holmes pointed to the card on the desk. ‘No successful shopkeeper will allow his supply of cards to run out, or dispose of those remaining. Mr Buckle’s business was unquestionably successful and that dog-eared scrap is plainly the last card in his possession. I infer that he has not been trading actively for some little while, an assumption reinforced by the olfactory evidence.’

I stared at him. ‘I do not understand.’

‘By the nature of his business, a tobacconist carries with him everywhere the aroma of the products that he sells. Inevitably, the strong smell of the coarsest shag impregnates his clothing, masking the fine perfume of more delicate blends. Yet unless my nostrils deceive me, I could detect only the subtle whiff of an Arcadian Mixture accompanying Mr Buckle into this room. That happens to be, as I recall, the brand he smokes himself.
Ergo
, he has not been trading for some time.’

The tobacconist shook his head in astonishment. ‘Mr Holmes, you have not lost your touch!’

‘There is one other consideration. You explained to the good Mrs Hudson that you were extremely anxious to see me. Yet, as I have mentioned, you have hardly turned up on our doorstep at the crack of dawn. From that I presume that you have spent the first part of the morning in quite a wretched state, wondering whether the problem troubling you is too embarrassingly trivial to justify calling upon me, a conclusion supported by the state of your fingernails. I recall that when we last encountered each other, they were tidily manicured. Now they are bitten almost to the quick. Yet your concern is such that, having wrestled with the dilemma, you have now resolved to seek my advice, come what may.’

‘Sir, you have it precisely!’

‘Very well, then. May I ask what brings you here?’

Our visitor’s face clouded over again. ‘I did hesitate before coming here to consult you. I thought about it several times, but you are a busy man and the matter seems inconsequential. The police have expressed sympathy, but although a crime has been committed, they have failed to apprehend the culprit and as a result I am left with nowhere else to turn.’

‘It is often an apparently minor incident which hints at the existence of the most remarkable intrigue.’ Holmes indicated a vacant chair. ‘May I beg you to take a seat and unburden yourself without delay?’

The old man passed a hand over his brow as if to calm himself before speaking. ‘Since losing my dear wife, Mr Holmes, I have devoted all my energies to my business. It is a strategem which enables me to set grief aside, at least until the small hours of the night. For all my loneliness, I am fortunate in my memories as well as in having the business to divert me. Imagine my dismay, then, when, quite out of the blue, I received this threatening message.’

He passed to Holmes a sheet of paper on which had been pasted a message composed of words cut from a newspaper or magazine: ‘
Beware the burglar. Please do not fight him. To do so would be fatal.’

Holmes raised his eyebrows. ‘A curious missive. What were the circumstances of its arrival in your hands?’

‘It was pushed under the shop door one night. I found it in the morning. There was no envelope, no clue as to where it had come from.’

‘Had your shop ever been burgled before then?’

‘Never. As you know, many of the varieties that I keep for customers are rare and expensive, but for the most part they are an acquired taste. A common thief is unlikely to regard them as a prize. He might choke on certain unfamiliar brands if he smoked them himself and there is scarcely a thriving market for them in the taverns and back streets of the city. A few of the smokers’ accessories that I stock are costly, but they have never attracted the attention of any felons, let alone burglars with homicidal intent.’

‘So,’ my friend said, ‘you had advance warning of an improbable crime. How singular. What steps did you take?’

‘I found the message unsettling in the extreme, but what could I do? I thought it might be a hoax, although when I confided in a friend, he advised me to take it seriously.’

‘On what basis?’ Holmes asked.

‘In his opinion, the message must have come from a villain with a conscience who had learned of a ruthless confederate’s plan to raid my business.’

I nodded vigorously, glad to show that Holmes had not discouraged me from attempts to practise the science of deduction. ‘That does seem the only logical conclusion.’

‘My friend said that he doubted that the police would show any interest in such a vague threat, but I decided to speak to the local constable. Unfortunately, my friend’s pessimism proved correct. There was nothing the police could do to assist me. Their resources did not permit the mounting of a guard outside my shop, on the off-chance that it might have attracted a burglar’s attention. The constable offered to look in  regularly, but understandably he could do no more.’

‘Did you continue to trade?’

‘At that point, yes. I shall admit to you frankly that the message made me fearful, but what else could I do? Since losing Charlotte, I seem to have lost all confidence and it is rare for me to go out at all. Yet, by an irony, on the one occasion that I was persuaded to take a drink or two at a local hostelry, I found upon my return that someone had broken into my premises.’

‘Ah!’ Holmes leaned forward in his chair. ‘Pray tell me exactly what happened.’

Josiah Buckle cleared his throat noisily. ‘I did not stay out late. It was barely ten o’clock when my companion Kilner and I came back to Maynard’s Court. Kilner, well aware of my apprehension, was kind enough to insist on accompanying me back home. How glad I am that he did. As I was about to take out the key to the door at the side of the building which leads to my private accommodation, I became aware that the lock was broken. At once I knew that the message had not been a hoax. This was the predicted crime. Yet something caused me to throw caution to the winds and although Kilner tried to hold me back, I shook him off and hurried into the house.’

The old man was breathing hard. Although he spoke of hurrying, he could not have been fit enough to move at more than a snail’s pace and he had already admitted the dread that he had felt following receipt of the anonymous note. Yet the instinct to protect his home and business had prevailed and, not knowing whether the miscreant was still inside, he had been brave enough to investigate. My heart went out to him, but upon Holmes’ features I could discern merely an intense concentration upon the unfolding facts.

‘What did you find?’

‘Nothing untoward,’ came the melancholy reply. ‘The shop was deserted and so too were my private rooms at the back and upstairs. I could find no sign, at first, that anything had been taken. I have never made a habit of acquiring elaborate possessions. Some of my stock is valuable, as I have mentioned. You will remember that I keep cigar cutters imported from America. They are ingenious mechanical contraptions which cost a pretty penny. Equally valuable are the silver vesta holders and porcelain match-holders. But Mr Holmes, not one of them had been taken.’

‘Perhaps the burglar was disturbed,’ I suggested.

‘I thought the same. Even when I discovered that something had, indeed, been stolen from me. Yet nothing of value to anyone but myself.’

‘What was it?’ Holmes demanded.

Mr Buckle dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief that had seen better days. ‘A handful of family letters that I kept in a box in the parlour. A couple were written by my dear Charlotte, prior to our marriage. But the majority – perhaps a dozen – came from my late son, George.’

‘I recall that you once mentioned him to me,’ Holmes said. ‘He was a sailor, wasn’t he?’

‘What a memory you have!’ our visitor exclaimed. ‘He was our pride and joy. A fine, upstanding lad.’

‘He was lost at sea, was he not?’ In Holmes’ voice was a note of sympathy that startled me. I had never heard him speak with such tenderness before.

‘That is correct.’ At this point, emotion overwhelmed Mr Buckle and he blew his nose with some violence. ‘He was only twenty years old. There was a terrible gale in the Tasman Sea. Many hands were lost, including George. That was in 1855, and I have thought about him on every day that has passed since then.’