The Secret Notebooks of Sherlock Holmes (4 page)

On several occasions in the past, Sherlock Holmes had referred briefly to a former inquiry which he had undertaken before my advent as his chronicler but he had found neither the opportunity nor the inclination to give me a full account of it, although I had pressed him to do so numerous times.

‘Oh, that old case!’ he would say dismissively. ‘A singular investigation indeed, my dear fellow. I must tell you about it one of these days. I think you will find it quite interesting.’

In the event, it was a casual remark made by Inspector Lestrade which at last prompted Holmes to make good his pledge.

Lestrade had called on him one evening in order to ask his advice on an urgent case with which he was having
difficulties, that of the missing heir to the Blackstock estate.

As he rose to take his leave, he added, ‘By the way, Mr Holmes, do you remember Whitey Johnson, the jewel thief?’

‘Whitey Johnson!’ Holmes exclaimed. From the kindling expression in his eye, I could tell his interest was immediately aroused. ‘Indeed I do remember him! But I thought he was still in prison. He is surely not up to his old tricks in there?’

Lestrade chuckled, his sharp, foxy features crinkled up with amusement.

‘Not any longer. He died in Pentonville last week; lost his balance going down some stairs and broke his neck, or so the Governor informed me. That aluminium crutch of his was to blame. It slipped out from under him. So you might say it was his downfall in more ways than one.’

The remark was evidently intended to be humorous, for Lestrade rubbed his hands together with glee as Holmes escorted him to the door.

On resuming his seat by the fire, my old friend looked across at me with a rueful expression.

‘Whitey Johnson dead! I am sorry indeed to hear that. His was one of the first cases that Lestrade asked for my assistance in solving. For a villain, he was, I recall, a very mild-mannered little man.’

‘Was he?’ I asked with a touch of asperity. ‘Although you have referred to the case several times over the years and promised me a full account of it, I have not yet had that pleasure.’

‘Then you shall have it this very minute, my dear fellow,’ Holmes replied. Pausing only to fill his pipe with tobacco from the Turkish slipper,
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he lit it and leant back in his chair, his lean features taking on a pensive expression as the wreaths of smoke rose to encircle his head.

‘It must have been in the late 1870s when I was still living in Montague Street,’
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he began. ‘By that time, my reputation as a private consulting agent was becoming better known and my clientele was spreading beyond the immediate circle of my former Varsity acquaintances and their friends. News of it had even reached as far as Scotland Yard. So it was that one morning Inspector Lestrade
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called on me to ask for my help with a case which, up to that moment, had defeated the official police. As a force, they were shockingly lacking in imagination, a quality of mind which, allied to the power of deduction, is essential if any successful detective is to make a success of his career.

‘The particular investigation for which Lestrade needed my assistance involved a pair of jewel thieves,
a man and a woman, both well spoken and respectably dressed, whose
modus operandi
never varied. Together they would go into a jeweller’s shop, one of the smaller, less fashionable premises in a busy shopping neighbourhood, where there was only one assistant serving behind the counter, usually the owner himself. They would also take care to choose a time when the shop was likely to be empty and made sure there was nothing about their manner or their appearance to draw attention to themselves. In fact, the woman always wore a hat with the veil drawn down over her face, while her male companion was variously described as having a moustache, a beard, eye-glasses, and hair that was fair, dark or red, so one could safely assume that he wore different disguises.

‘They gave the impression of being a married couple who were well-to-do and who were about to celebrate some special occasion, their wedding anniversary perhaps, or the lady’s birthday, in consequence of which the husband had decided to buy his wife a ring. The shopkeeper was delighted to serve them and laid out for their inspection a selection of his very finest rings for the lady to try on.

‘It was while the lady was making her choice that the theft took place. Without any warning, the man would suddenly snatch up a handful of the rings and run out into the street while at the same moment the lady would faint, collapsing across the counter in a swoon.

‘You may imagine the shopkeeper’s shock and
bewilderment. In the confusion of the moment, he was not sure what to do. Should he go to the assistance of the lady? Or should he pursue the thief who had made off with his property? In all four cases which Lestrade had investigated, the sense of ownership overrode any notions of chivalry and the victim set off in pursuit of the robber. But those few seconds’ hesitation were vital. By the time he had run out into the road, the thief had disappeared amongst the passersby. It was only then that it occurred to him that the woman was the man’s accomplice and that he had moreover left her alone in his shop surrounded by cabinets full of jewellery. It was small consolation that the cases were locked; the glass could easily be smashed. He could only comfort himself with the thought that the more valuable pieces were locked away in the safe. Immediately, he ran back to his shop but, of course, the lady had vanished.’

Holmes broke off at this point to look across at me quizzically.

‘I can tell by your expression, Watson, that some aspect of my account is troubling you. Which is it, my dear fellow?’

Although I had known Holmes for several years, he still had the capacity to astonish me by his perspicacity and the acuteness of his observation.

‘I do not understand the part Whitey Johnson played in the robberies, Holmes,’ I confessed. ‘You said nothing about the male thief being a cripple. Surely a man with a crutch would be easily identifiable, no matter how many
forms of disguise he may have used to alter his appearance. Or was he perfectly able-bodied and the crutch was merely another ploy to throw his pursuers off the scent?’

‘Excellent, Watson!’ Holmes exclaimed. ‘Your powers of deduction improve by the hour! I can see I shall soon have to look to my own laurels. For you are quite right, my dear fellow. Whitey Johnson, who was incidentally a genuine cripple, took no part in the actual robbery. His role was more of a diversionary nature, as I discovered when I interviewed the victims. In other words, to use the language of the criminal underworld, he acted as the “stall”. Two out of the four shopkeepers had been impeded in their pursuit of the thief by a man with a crutch who had stepped out in front of them at a crucial stage of the chase, allowing the robber to get clean away, although neither of them thought these incidents were deliberate and had failed to mention them to Lestrade. It was only when I pressed them for further details, however trivial, that either of them mentioned it. But, in fact, the man with the crutch played an even more significant role in the robberies than that of a mere “stall”. I wonder, my dear Watson, if you, with your enhanced powers of deduction, can suggest what that role might have been? You look puzzled. Then consider the facts. Firstly, what items of jewellery were the thieves interested in stealing?’

‘They were rings, were they not, Holmes?’

‘Quite so. They never asked to look at bracelets or necklaces or even brooches. Always rings. Now consider one other factor – the crutch which the third
member of the gang carried. What was it made of?’

‘Wood?’ I suggested, considerably mystified by this aspect of the case. What possible significance could the material of which the crutch was constructed have on the bearing of the matter?

‘No, no, Watson!’ Holmes corrected me with a touch of impatience. ‘Remember what I said to you earlier. It was an aluminium crutch.
Aluminium
!
That is of great, if not crucial importance, to the whole affair. Now do you make the connection?’

‘I am afraid not, Holmes,’ I replied, feeling abashed.

‘Pray do not trouble yourself, my dear fellow. The solution may come to you later. For the moment, allow me to continue with my account. I now knew that I was dealing with a gang of professional thieves, three in number, which consisted of a woman and two men, one of whom was possibly a cripple, although at that stage in the inquiry, I could not be positive about this particular fact.

‘Now at that time, I had already recruited my own little gang of street urchins, whom you are already acquainted with, Watson.’

‘The Baker Street Irregulars!’
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I cried, recognising them at once. ‘If I remember correctly, they found
Jefferson Hope’s cab and traced the whereabouts of the steam launch
Aurora
in that other investigation of yours into the Sholto affair.’

Knowing Holmes’ disdain for the softer passions, I did not add that it was during this latter case that I had met and fallen in love with Miss Mary Morstan, whom I was to marry later that same year.
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‘Wiggins was the name of their leader, was it not?’ I continued.

‘Yes, and a more intelligent and resourceful youth one could not hope to find. The police would do well to recruit young men of Wiggins’ calibre into their own force. It was Wiggins who made enquiries on my behalf into the gang of three among the members of London’s underworld and came up with a positive identification.

‘The couple posing as the husband and wife were, in fact, a brother and sister, George and Rosie Bartlett, a good-looking pair who, because of their stylish appearance, had worked as pickpockets in the West End, George acting as the “dip”, Rosie as the “stickman”, or
in her case the “stickwoman”. As soon as George had “lifted” a wallet or a lady’s purse, he would immediately pass them to Rosie who would hide them about her person. Thus, if by an unlucky chance, George was apprehended and searched, the stolen goods were never found on him and he was allowed to go free. No one thought of stopping and searching Rosie, who looked the very picture of a well-dressed, respectable young lady. And anyway, by the time the hue and cry had been raised, she had already disappeared among the throngs of shoppers or theatre-goers.

‘Their partnership worked successfully for a number of years and then their luck changed. George fell and broke his wrist and, although it mended, it was stiff and was therefore no longer any use to him for “dipping”. Consequently, they had to earn their living some other way. It was then that they came up with the idea of stealing from small jeweller’s shops and recruited Whitey Johnson to act as their “stickman”. As I have already mentioned, he was a genuine cripple, having been born with a withered leg. In the past, he had acted as a “fence” for them, when they had a gold watch or tie pin to dispose of. It is most likely that it was this connection with stolen jewellery which put the idea of the robberies into their minds in the first place.

‘Johnson was also useful as a “stall” in obstructing anyone, in particular an irate shopkeeper, by limping out in front of him. No one would suspect him. The last person one would expect as being part of a gang of
thieves was a cripple, although I must confess the part played by the crutch in their
modus operandi
did not occur to me until much later.’

He paused to raise an eyebrow at me.

‘Are you any nearer to deducing it yourself, my dear fellow?’

‘I am afraid not, Holmes,’ I replied, a little crestfallen.

‘Never mind. It may come to you later in a sudden flash of inspiration. To continue. The resourceful Wiggins was also able to give me the Bartletts’ address in Notting Hill, an interesting piece of information in itself, for the first robbery had occurred in that very same district and all subsequent robberies had taken place within a mile radius. They evidently preferred to operate in familiar territory where they knew which alleyways and side roads to use if they had to make a quick escape.

‘They were sharing a small house in a turning off Ladbroke Grove, a street in which nearly every other window contained a card advertising rooms to let, so I had no difficulty in finding lodgings which practically overlooked the Bartletts’ residence. That room was, in fact, the first of several secret addresses I acquired where I could go to change my appearance when the need arose.
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‘In this case, I passed myself off as a clerk, temporarily unemployed but respectably if shabbily dressed. My
landlady, a widow with two young children, had no reason to doubt my story. Besides, she was too grateful for the few shillings I paid a week for my board and lodgings to ask any questions.

‘I had insisted on having the bedroom at the front of the house from which I had a clear view of the comings and goings of the Bartletts and, within a little over a week, I had established their routine. We are all creatures of habit, Watson, and thank God for it because it made my task of keeping watch on my suspects all the easier. I knew the days and the times Rosie Bartlett went shopping or her brother left the house to visit the local public house. I also saw their visitors come and go, including Whitey Johnson, who called on them on a regular basis.

‘I was also able to observe all three of them at closer quarters and make myself familiar with their appearances.

‘Bartlett was a tall, slim man in his early thirties, with pleasant rather than handsome features, and a certain air of distinction about him. Dressed in the right clothes, he could easily pass himself off as a successful member of the lower middle classes: a head clerk in a solicitor’s office, say, or a senior cashier in a bank.

‘His sister Rosie was of a shorter stature but had the same upright deportment and confident demeanour, although her appearance was somewhat marred by a rather prominent nose. However, with her veil down to hide this feature, she and her brother could be taken
for a respectable married couple, comfortably off and thoroughly trustworthy.