Sherlock Holmes & The Master Engraver (Sherlock Holmes Revival) (26 page)

Long-accustomed as I was to my friend’s inexplicable and bizarre leaps of logic and my struggles to disambiguate them, I knew of a certainty from this odd statement that he was now so totally absorbed by the problem at hand, it must in some curious way bear upon the matter. “I have heard as much myself Holmes, but I fear you lack a piano-tuner or a perfumier with whom to explore the theory.”

“Hah!” he cried and dived into his bedroom, to return with his black silk opera scarf. “Permit me to rob you of your eyes for a moment Watson, that we may test that discerning nose of yours. I wish your opinion upon an important matter.”

Mystified, I permitted him to blindfold me, and the room became as black as the tomb, bringing to mind my insane dream on Christmas Eve of that infernal plant-house. “I am holding something under your nose; what can you determine?” I took a cautious sniff, wary of some of the noxious substances with which Holmes was wont to dabble. I detected a faint, inoffensive odour, perfectly familiar to me. “I believe I collect the smell of new paper, and printing ink Holmes. Surely this is one of those fraudulent banknotes?”

“Indeed it is Watson, but explore deeper – what more can you detect in the bouquet?” I inhaled deeply and now discerned something else, the smallest trace of a faint but familiar aroma. After a moment of hesitation I recognised it. “I do believe there is the taint of pitch about it Holmes. But then the place where it was likely printed was awash with the stuff!”

“Exactly! Capital Watson! Now indulge me a further moment-what of this?” Again I inhaled. “It seems the same again Holmes – perhaps the second note?” I sampled once more. Now I detected a subtle difference, a second undertone, but one I could not immediately place. “It is the same, but the aroma of pitch seems somehow lesser, and there is the smallest hint of something else, an unpleasant smell of decay” I inhaled again, more deeply, and then it came to me “...of rotten eggs or decomposing flesh?”

My colleague whipped away the scarf and beamed at me. “A fair description; we concur to a nice point my dear Watson! Mark that curious aroma well and remember it. A keen sense of smell can be quite as valuable as any of the other faculties in the solution of certain problems. And heightened by the complete elimination of the distraction of sight, it can be perfectly invaluable.”

He strode to his desk, rummaged in the drawer and returned with a pair of compasses and an ivory rule. “This map of the Isle of Dogs is executed at a scale of one mile to one inch. Now let us more closely locate our quarry.” He set the compasses at a radius of three inches, placed its point upon the location of Slater’s Yard in Cubitt Town, and inscribed a circle – an area around six miles in diameter “There, Watson, within that circle is where I am convinced the villains have gone to earth. It can, I am sure of it, be no further away!” Recalling my principles of mathematics from schooldays I was aware that the area of a circle is calculated by means of the multiplication of its radius squared, by
Pi
– roughly 3.14. I made a swift, approximate mental calculation. “I am not at all sure how you have reached that conclusion Holmes, but even if you are correct, by my mathematics that small circle embraces more than twenty-eight square miles of territory! In five days it would take a positive army of sharp-eyed men diligently to search all of it! What chance do we two alone stand of locating one small printing press?”

He smiled somewhat mischievously. “I believe we stand an excellent chance of locating it my dear Watson, for the simple reason that if my notion is correct, I do not believe we need to scour all of it!”

“But still I cannot fathom why you particularly believe our quarry to lie within this area at all.” I indicated the circle, centred upon Slater’s Yard. “And why this particular diameter Holmes?”

Somewhat inscrutably he replied “That remains to be proven Watson, but my thesis turns upon the reliability of our noses, the speed of a Koenig steam-driven press, and most particularly, the distance which a strong but panicked man can cover on foot in, say, an hour at his best pace, and the odd odour on the second proof. You may care to consider those factors, for they have considerable significance.

“And now I shall leave you to your own devices for I must go to the Yard and take Lestrade into my confidence, or at least so far as is absolutely necessary. In addition I intend to visit Mr Warburg. I shall return for dinner at perhaps, seven; will you join me then?”

And with this he descended to the street. I returned to my study of the map, vaguely aware of his stentorian tones summoning a cab. I allowed my mind to range freely over the disparate matters he had drawn to my attention; the curious blindfold experiment, the circle now precisely scribed on the map, the operating speed of a steam-powered printing press and the pace at which a man might travel on foot.

After much deliberation, I remained unable to organise these factors into any workable theory, or even a coherent speculation, save to estimate that a man might cover perhaps three or four miles on foot in an hour. Somewhat frustrated I set the problem aside against the hour when Holmes returned, heaped more coals upon the fire and contentedly immersed myself in Thomas Pickering Pick’s excellent new volume,
Fractures and Dislocations
.

Little more of note occurred that afternoon save that Mrs Hudson brought tea at four, and at six a telegram message was delivered.

It was addressed to Holmes; I set it upon the mantelshelf and went back to my studies. He burst in at seven o’clock and seemed to be in high good humour occasioned it would appear, by his afternoon excursion; I knew of old that he would apprise me of progress in his own good time. “There you are Watson.” He shrugged off his Ulster and tossed it carelessly upon the chair. “I should not wish to be out and about much later than this – there is a wickedly thick fog brewing up out there.” I parted the curtains and peered out and indeed it appeared to be gathering fast, coalescing into an evil greasy shroud that hung low over the rooftops and showed dull brown-yellow by the barely visible gaslights below. Only yards along Baker Street they were obscured completely. It would be a night of rich pickings for thugs and footpads.

Despite the perpetual state of apparent chaos and disorder that existed throughout most of Holmes’ papers and possessions (with the sole exception of his meticulously maintained indices of news-clippings and his fastidiously organised wardrobe) he possessed an uncanny knack of spotting upon the instant if anything had been moved, removed or added.

Thus I was not in the least bit surprised when I was upon the point of mentioning the telegram to him, he strode to the fireplace and retrieved it from the mass of paperwork piled on the mantel.

“Ah, we may expect company this evening Watson. It seems Mr Frank May requires to consult once more upon ‘a matter of the greatest urgency’ to which end he proposes to visit around eight o’clock this evening. I very much hope that this does not signify a change of heart to pay the ransom demand! That would be a most foolish course of action.”

Presently, over a simple dinner of the thick-end of a cold ham and mustard piccalilli Holmes described his afternoon between surgically-dissected, precise bites.

“For one generally so impulsive, so disposed to leap into precipitate action at the earliest apparent clue or the first sign of criminality, Lestrade seems for once Watson, prepared to show quite remarkable restraint in this case. Initially, when I apprised him of most of the backdrop to the murder of Hobbs and the attempted murder of Warburg – who, by the by is recovering at a most encouraging rate – he was seized with his usual reckless notion of reinforcing failure with failure.

“He would have launched a nationwide manhunt complete with a detailed statement to the newspapers accompanied by a veritable deluge of, no doubt, quite unrecognisable and useless posters and handbills, largely based on vague second-hand accounts, depicting sketches of various wall-eyed thugs and a miscellany of distinguished-looking men sporting different styles of moustache!

“It is my unvarying experience that such vague images have more utility in a general treatise on anthropology!”

I chuckled at my friend’s permanent frustration with what he considered to be, with very few notable exceptions, the hopeless ineptitude of most Scotland Yarders. “How then, did you disabuse friend Lestrade of his madcap plan?”

Holmes smiled happily. “Oh, I simply pointed out to him that Warburg’s interference, quite apart from earning him the fearful beating he suffered, merely served to drive our prey from where we suspected them to be, to a new location yet unknown to us; indeed, they might even see fit to make good their threat and commence circulating their counterfeit notes in order to hasten the Bank’s decision.

“But I believe he truly appreciated the gravity of the situation when I informed him that our client was now no less a body than The Bank of England itself, reporting directly to the first secretary of The Treasury, the Chancellor of The Exchequer, and Lord Salisbury, and it would be to those gentlemen he would become accountable; I further suggested he might conceivably fall foul of the new Act to prohibit disclosure of official documents and information, which you may be aware received Royal assent this summer and has now passed into law – although candidly Watson, that was somewhat of a bluff on my part!

“In short, I impressed upon him the many hazards entailed in haste, and the great virtues in delay; thus for a very few days at least, he is now under my advice and will stay his hand.

“Finally, I gently hinted that all the honours would still be his for I shall, of choice, remain in the wings when the last curtain falls on this drama.” Holmes was clearly much pleased by the skilful diplomacy he had wrought, and I chuckled at the smooth cunning with which he had muzzled the famously headstrong Lestrade and so, tactfully restrained him from leaping into rash action. I was upon the point of asking him to explain the significance of the smell of the banknotes and the meaning of the circle on the map when the doorbell announced the arrival of our visitor. Rapid footsteps on the stair indicated a degree of some great urgency.

There was a single sharp rap on the door but before Holmes could answer, it opened to reveal Mr Frank May. His jaw was tight, his brow furrowed with concern, and it seemed to me that he too was now exhibiting all those symptoms of immense stress so familiar in Henry Petch. Clearly, the increasing strain of this grave situation was playing havoc with his nervous system. “Good evening Mr May” said my colleague. “You have done well to be so prompt in view of the great fog brewing out there.” May made no comment. Without taking his eyes from Holmes he slowly reached into his inner pocket and produced an unsealed envelope, clearly blazoned with The Bank’s emblem. With a hand that showed rather more than a tremor he passed it over, uttering only eight words, in the dead tone of a man speaking as from beyond the grave.

“God help us Mr Holmes, it has begun...”

*        *       *

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Judas Silver

Sherlock Holmes snatched the proffered envelope and having spared its exterior only the most cursory of examinations, removed the contents.

What he held up to the light caused him to furrow his brow in deep perplexity. It was, it appeared to me, yet another – now the third – of the fraudulent ten pound banknotes. Eyes closed, with the closest deliberation, he raised it to his nose, inhaled several times deeply, nodded once and then proceeded to examine it minutely upon both faces with his lens. He offered it to me. “You will not require the blindfold to assay this one Watson.”

I sampled its odour. It was the same rotten, sulphurous scent again, perhaps even more pungent than the sampling of the morning? Holmes returned his attention to the Chief Cashier.

“Mr May, when and how came you by this third note, for I see it was clearly not sent to you by our criminal printers?” For a brief moment I pondered how Holmes could so confidently bar it from being yet another signal from the villains. Our visitor consulted his watch. “You are perfectly correct in that Mr Holmes.

“This note was brought personally and urgently by one of the cashiers to my desk precisely two hours and thirty minutes ago. Along with other notes and coin, it had been presented for payment into one of our smaller business accounts at the Bank by one Mr Julius Kauffmann, the senior partner of Kauffmann Brothers in the Whitechapel High Street.” He winced almost imperceptibly and continued in a tone of faint distaste “I am told by my staff that they are... pawnbrokers, merchants in second-hand trinkets, jewellery and... the like.” He spoke the words in a low tone and reluctantly, as if they savoured of something objectionable and might choke him with their mere utterance. Holmes carefully replaced the banknote in the envelope and set it aside upon the occasional table.

“I shall, of course, require to retain this for the present. Who brought the note to your attention so promptly, Mr May, and why? Was it some curiosity about Mr Kauffmann’s demeanour, or was it perhaps the banknote itself?” The Chief Cashier brightened momentarily. “That may be the only stroke of good fortune I have enjoyed today Mr Holmes. Fortunately Mr Kauffmann presented himself and his takings at the desk of one of our brightest cashiers, a rising young man, Hugh Tenbury-Ripon. It so happens that he is an ardent notaphilist, and extremely sharp-eyed into the bargain. Aware that our new issue of ten pound notes was not due to enter circulation until sometime after May this year, he examined this note rather more closely and observed that the cipher and serial number appeared to be an illogical, strange and radical departure from the Bank’s secret and long-established formula.

“Pleading some small administrative query he asked Mr Kauffmann to wait momentarily and came directly to my office for instructions. He told me that Mr Kauffmann had not personally been handed the note, but that it had been accepted in settlement of a purchase by one of his employees.” Holmes was attending closely to this tale of an unexpected third advent. “And what advice did you give to Tenbury-Ripon Mr May?”