The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part II (32 page)

Holmes arrived back at Baker Street in the wee hours of the morning and devoted much of the time thereafter poring over his Index of criminals or pacing the floor of our sitting-room in his purple dressing gown, smoking his bent-billiard, briar-root pipe.

I awoke at dawn to the sound of his brewing the strong coffee that he favoured, which gave off a pleasant aroma that circulated upstairs to my bedroom. Groggy, I stumbled down to the table and helped myself to a cup while Holmes was sipping his as he scribbled a long message to Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard.

“Watson,” he muttered without looking up from the stationery, “I have deduced the identity of the arsonist and will receive confirmation of my finding today from my informant, Gunther Williams, if he follows my script.” Then, staring into my bleary eyes, Holmes warned: “Tonight will be a dangerous time. I must be off now to bait the trap.”

While he was gone, Williams was fulfilling his commitment to Holmes, rapping on the door to Smisky's coin shop about eight o'clock to roust him out of bed in a back room. Drowsy from a deep slumber and in a foul mood, Smisky unlocked the door and opened it a crack. “Well, Hobo Willie, what do you want at this ungodly hour?” he sneered.

“Let me in, Joe, I have something to sell,” Williams pleaded.

Opening the door wider and motioning with his head for his visitor to come inside, Smisky greeted him with an insult. “Something to sell? From one of your sticky finger endeavours?”

“No, Joe, it's information I'm pitching,” came the answer.

“I'm not buying. I have all the information I can use,” Smisky growled.

“This is about you and your future in the labour camp, or maybe even at the end of a rope,” Williams enticed. “What's that worth to you?”

“It's not worth one pence so far. Are you out of your mind?” Smisky, now curious, said to lead Hobo Willie on. “I see you're all spruced up, shaved, hair trimmed, and in a new suit of clothes. Come into some money, have you?”

“Yes, I've been working, and these are my working clothes,” Williams lied.

“Working at what, you tramp?” Smisky cackled.

“I've been working with Sherlock Holmes, the renowned detective, and he has the goods on you, Joe,” Williams revealed.

“Has the goods on me? For what?” Smisky clamoured.

“That's what I have for sale, the whole picture,” Williams professed. “I can give you information that will save your bacon.”

“You're doing your pandering behind Holmes's back, then, for a bit of extra cash?” Smisky wanted to learn.

“You could say that, Joe, but it's more like I'm sharing what I know with a friend,” Williams continued.

“Let me hear what you have to tell, and then I'll decide if you get anything from me for it,” Smisky specified.

“Doesn't happen that way, Joe. First, you make an offer, and, second, I make the decision if the price is right,” Williams bargained.

“Ten shillings, then, is that enough?” Smisky acquiesced.

“Not for what I have,” Williams spouted.

“How much do you want, you little crook?” Smisky smirked.

“A five-pound note will buy everything you need to know,” Williams boldly stated.

“Five pounds! Do you think I'm made of money?” Smisky protested, his face flushing.

“That's my price, take it or leave it,” Williams countered.

“I'll take it, but this better be good, you blackmailing bastard,” Smisky cursed.

“Good. By the way, Joe, this is extortion, not blackmail. There is a distinction in the law. Put the money where I can see it and I'll not touch it until you're satisfied I sang like a bird,” said Williams confidently.

Smisky, moaning, went into the back room and emerged with a five-pound note, which he laid on the counter between himself and Hobo Willie. “Now sing your song,” he demanded.

“I'll start with how you cooked your own goose yesterday,” Williams began. “The young woman who came here with rare coins to sell was in league with Sherlock Holmes. All they wanted was for you to show them you knew a 1707 crown was a phony. You did just that, which made the case against you for transacting in counterfeit. That'll probably get you a three or four-year stretch. Now for the bad news. Holmes has tracked down the party who burned your building in the East End, and the man has confessed, with the prospect of escaping the gallows if he testifies against you and the others who paid him to set fires. He told Holmes how he did them all, by rigging the gas valves. Now if he goes to court and fingers you, that could mean you'll swing from Old Bailey.”

“I don't believe it,” Smisky bellowed. “Frank Kiefer is smarter than any private detective. He wouldn't spill his guts if his life depended on it.”

“His life did depend on it, Joe,” Williams argued. “Sherlock Holmes caught him in the act of doing another job.”

“T-t-this is terrible,” Smisky stammered. “Has he gone to the police with his evidence?”

“Not yet, because he hasn't wrapped up the package in a neat bundle, at least not until he persuades you to confess, too,” Williams informed Smisky. “Besides, he isn't working for the police. His client is an insurance company.”

“I have some time, then. I can still do something about this meddlesome busybody,” Smisky surmised. “Where can I find him?”

“He's pounding the bricks, he's on the street right now,” Williams advised. “But I know where he'll be at seven o'clock tonight - having dinner at Simpson's in the Strand with a witness on another case.”

“What's he look like?” Smisky questioned. “I think I'll have dinner with him.”

Hobo Willie described Holmes down to the clothing he would be wearing that day, picked up the five-pound note, wished Smisky good luck, and departed in a jolly frame of mind, mission accomplished. He would make his report of a successful effort to Holmes at Baker Street in the afternoon, as he had prophesied.

Meantime, Holmes was experiencing success as well. He had traced Frank Kiefer to a brothel and opium den he owned in the sleazy Limehouse district.

“Frank, I am a friend of Joe Smisky, who says you can make gravel burn,” Holmes exaggerated by way of introduction. “My name is Matthew McKinney, and I am a businessman from Baker Street, where my haberdashery is located. I have lost all my savings on the poker tables and I am in debt to the gamblers. I need you to arrange a gas leak.”

“I can do that easily enough, but the cost to you will be severe,” Kiefer foretold. “Joe had to triple the coverage on his apartment building to accommodate me and make a tidy profit at the same time. He was pleased with the results, though. The job turned out beautiful. What a sight it was! Oooo, the flames were magnificent. Too bad so many people had to die and get hurt, but, like Joe said, they were the scum of the earth. How much insurance do you have?”

“Ten thousand pounds. How much do you want for the job?” Holmes asked.

“Ten thousand is my price,” Kiefer allowed. “You'll have to do the same thing Joe did, double or triple the coverage, depending on how much you owe the sharks. What kind of building is it - what's it made of?”

“It's brick on the ground floor and wood frame on the floor above,” Holmes related.

“Brick, you say?” Kiefer said hesitantly. “That will add a thousand pounds to the price. Brick needs a powerful blast. I'll come take a look at it tomorrow afternoon - be there at two o'clock. What's the address?”

“It's 221 Baker Street in the West End,” Holmes told him. “Will you come alone?”

“My understudy, Donald Bonsal, will be with me,” Kiefer disclosed. “He is my right arm, ever since I lost mine in an explosion three years ago. I was chopping holes in the roof of a club for ventilation when my ax struck a steel beam and created a spark. That was enough to ignite the gas. The vapors are volatile. I charge a lot of money for my work because it is so hazardous. But I guarantee the results and leave the coppers scratching their heads. When Frank Kiefer finishes a job, they can't prove a thing.”

Stunned by Kiefer's callous attitude, Holmes made an excuse to exit after declining the arsonist's invitation to stay for a smoke in his opium room. Upon his return to our diggings, Holmes rubbed his sinewy hands together and fished half a cigar from the coal scuttle, lit it, inhaled, and repeated for me the incriminating chat he had with Kiefer.

“He is an amoral slouch with a haughty indifference toward the lives of the impoverished, as is Smisky,” said Holmes to preface his rendition of the dialogue. “Society will be better off with those two reprobates in their graves. And I have the material to put them there.”

Just as he completed his version of the event, Mrs. Hudson appeared on our threshold to announce that a Gunther Williams was in the foyer asking for Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

“Send him up with dispatch, Mrs. Hudson,” Holmes directed her.

“It's uncanny, Mr. Holmes, but you were on target with what you said would happen,” Williams praised. “He fell for it hook, line, and sinker. The name of the arsonist is-”

“Let me guess, Gunther, it's Frank Kiefer,” Holmes butted in.

“If you knew that, why did you put me through-” the informant went on.

“I am sorry, but it was because I needed confirmation, Gunther,” Holmes apologised. “I only had a suspicion it was Kiefer when I read in my Index at four o'clock this morning about the one-armed arsonist who was an expert with the properties of natural coal gas. Tell me more of your encounter, Gunther.”

“Well, Smisky is planning something, probably to harm you fatally,” Williams postulated. “Like you told me to say, I mentioned that you would be having dinner at seven o'clock at Simpson's. He asked me to describe you and said he might join you.”

“Excellent, Gunther!” Holmes extolled. “Here are three guineas for your trouble. Let us fix you a ham and cheese sandwich, for I am certain you've had no lunch.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Holmes, I am awfully hungry,” Hobo Willie admitted. “I'll take it with me and eat it on the way home - in a cab, no less, now that I have the fare.”

“Wait! Before you leave, Gunther,” Holmes boomed with concern, “I feel obligated to warn you to keep a low profile for a day or so - don't patronise your usual haunts, don't follow your usual pattern. Smisky is sharp and he could smell a rat, meaning you. He is capable of violence against you, too.”

“He is an idiot and a weasel, Mr. Holmes, and he'll never think to suspect me,” Williams quarreled. “He is the least of my worries.”

As Williams left, devouring the sandwich, an incensed Joseph Smisky was standing at the entrance to Frank Kiefer's brothel and opium den in the Limehouse district, summoning up the courage to do what he had come to do: eliminate the threat of a hardened criminal testifying against him at a trial that surely would spell his doom. He would silence Kiefer before he had the chance to speak under oath the words that would sway a jury to find the coin dealer guilty and send him to the gallows.

Smisky burst through the door and was immediately confronted by a Chinese attendant, who asked him in broken English if he wanted a girl, a smoking room, or both.

“I'm here to see Frank, that's all,” Smisky barked.

“I fetch Master Frank, you sit,” ordered the Chinaman, sensing an altercation. He climbed a stairway and opened a door.

“Master Frank, angry man downstairs to see you, very mad,” said the agitated Chinaman.

Kiefer retrieved a six-shot revolver from a drawer and leveled it at his waist, then went to the bottom of the staircase and saw Smisky stewing on the sofa.

“Joe!” he hollered. “Yung-se says you're upset. Excuse the pistol. What's the matter?”

“I came here to choke you to death, Frank,” Smisky acknowledged. “What's this I hear about you cooperating with Sherlock Holmes?”

“With who? Never met the man,” Kiefer insisted. “But I did meet a friend of yours today, Matthew McKinney, who wants me to pulverise his haberdashery.”

“A friend of mine? I don't know the name. What did he say about me?” Smisky queried.

“He said you recommended me to him. He knew I took care of business for you,” Kiefer informed a puzzled Smisky.

“What did this McKinney look like?” Smisky asked.

“He was tall, skinny, a bird's beak for a nose, piercing eyes, with dark hair that was perfectly combed,” Kiefer recalled.

“That was no Matthew McKinney. That was Sherlock Holmes,” Smisky wailed.

“Who is Sherlock Holmes anyway?” Kiefer wanted to know.

“He's a beastly private detective who is investigating us for the fire,” Smisky said to enlighten him.

“That evil rodent! Let's take care of him before he can do us in!” Kiefer roared.

“He'll be at Simpson's in the Strand at seven o'clock. We'll kill him there,” Smisky agreed. “We'll make minced meat of him. But there's somebody I want to dust before him, Hobo Willie. He set me up for Holmes. Lend me a gun and twelve rounds of ammunition.”

Smisky and Kiefer made plans for the murder at Simpson's, then Smisky left to hunt down Gunther Williams.

Finding him at the same cafe where Holmes ran across him, Smisky sneaked up behind him as he drank coffee on a stool, knocked the cup out of his hand, pointed the muzzle of the weapon in his pocket at Williams's ample belly, and coldly instructed him to walk outside. From there he escourted the victim to an alley, where he accused him of a double-cross.

“You are a traitor, and traitors are shot!” Smisky howled, then pulled the trigger six times, pumping Hobo Willie full of lead even after he was dead. “Let that be a final lesson to you, you maggot,” Smisky seethed with abject bitterness, hovering over the corpse, “I'll see you in hell.”

Word of Gunther Williams's demise would not reach Holmes that day, for the newspapers already had published their late afternoon editions, and the body was not discovered by constables until their evening rounds.