The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories (149 page)

“I am sorry I kept her this long helping me,” I assumed the blame, hoping it would be of some help to Muffin. I noted that she had managed to conceal the boots under her overall before her quick exit.

“Any time you need help, Dr. Watson,” Mrs. Hudson said graciously, “just inform me. I will spare one of the maids.”

With that, she rustled away. From the fullness of her skirts she must always wear several
petticoats and at least one of taffety. I had no doubt that, by now, Muffin would have the boots well secreted below until she departed that evening.

It was after dark before Holmes returned. From his morose visage, his day had not gone well, and I asked no questions. Not until he had scrubbed away all vestiges of the lascar, and was comfortably by the fire, wrapped in his purple dressing gown, did he discuss the venture.

“The docks were teeming with lascars, Watson. Although I speak several of their dialects, none were willing to talk with me. Otherwise the area was near deserted of its denizens. Whether for fear of them or on orders from one Jick Tar, I was unable to ascertain.”

“Jick Tar?” I repeated. The name had no meaning to me.

“Or Jicky Tar. He has a chandler's shop down there and seems to rule the neighborhood as absolutely as an Oriental potentate.”

I continued to puzzle. “Not Jack Tar? Jick Tar.”

“Possibly once he was a Jack Tar and changed the name when he left the Royal Navy. For good and sufficient reasons, I have no doubt. I did discover him to have been a dredger, or to have used that cover for his operations. I understand he lost a leg in one such and could no longer work in the water, and therefore opened the shop. I made to enter it but was thrust away roughly by one of the bullies at his door.”

“You will not need to return?” I hoped.

“I must if I am to discover the jewels. But I shall vary my guise.”

Our dinner arrived at that point. I had ordered it sent up when I realized he would not return in time to dress for the dining room. I was pleased to see that far from retreating into the doldrums, he had good appetite. After the sweet, he opened a bottle of claret, and I brought out the Havana cigars. The day's setback obviously only added to the challenge of solving the case.

He was by the fire in our sitting room before I was up, next day. For all of my knowledge he may have sat there through the night. But he was far from disheartened, which I took as an indication he had thought of one or more other plans of procedure.

At promptly six thirty, Muffin arrived with the morning tea tray. She looked worried. After setting it down, she approached Holmes. “I have done you a wrong,” she quavered. “It was the boots. When I was carrying them home last evening, I met up with Jacky and Little Jemmy and they said I had stole them and I said indeed I had not and that Mr. Sherlock Holmes had given me them.”

Holmes was endeavoring not to laugh at her childish agitation. “Not so fast,” he pleaded.

She gulped a breath. “They said they were going to tell Jicky Tar, but when I spoke your name they took off like rabbits. Only—” she took breath again, “they followed me this morning. I fear they mean harm to you. And m'Mum was so grateful for the boots, she even cried tears.”

Holmes asked, “Where are these boys?”

“Across the roadway.” She led us to the broad front windows and pointed down and across. “There, by the second dun house.” In the morning darkness we could just make out the shapes of two small figures huddled together on the cold kerb.

“They are Jicky Tar's boys?” Holmes inquired.

“Oh no, they are Mud Larks.” This was the name given to those miserable children who scavenged the muddy verges on the banks of the river for bottles or lumps of coal or whatever lost articles they might sell for a few pence. In spite of modern reforms, there were still too many street children in London, those whose parents, unable to care for them, had turned them out to beg or otherwise do for themselves. “But Jicky Tar buys some of their findings,” she said. “And they fear his displeasure.”

“I will see them,” Holmes stated. “Go tell Mrs. Hudson to send up the fireboy to do an errand for me.”

The fireboy turned out to be a dour old man whom I had never seen before, as he came to build our fire before I was awake. He stumped up the
stairs and Holmes met him at our door. “There are two boys across the road. I want you to bring them along to me. I would speak with them.”

With neither aye nor nay, the man stumped off again, down the stairs.

Holmes left the door ajar and came to the table. “Today greasy Joan has indeed keeled the pot.”

“I'll ring for more hot water,” I said.

“This will do. There isn't time to be particular.” Even as he spoke we could hear voices below, and shortly thereafter the door opened wider and an urchin, bundled in all manner of mufflers and mittens, peered in. He was about the size of Muffin, but better fed, with a round nose and round blue eyes in a round face. His cheeks were red from the cold.

Holmes said, “Come in, boy. You are—”

“Jacky, sir.” His voice was hoarse with cold.

“And where is Jemmy?”

“M'brother's over there,” he gestured. “Minding the box.”

Holmes contained his excitement. “The box—”

“It's too heavy to carry far.”

“What is in the box?” Holmes queried.

“Rocks,” the boy said. “Nuffin but rocks.”

“Then why did you bring it here?”

The boy looked about the room suspiciously, particularly at me.

“Why?” Holmes repeated.

“I want you should see it. I want you to see it's nuffin but rocks. I don't want Jicky Tar to be saying I stole from it.”

“Fetch it,” Holmes directed. “Can you carry it up the staircase?”

“Me and Little Jemmy together can. Like we carried it all the way to Baker Street.”

Holmes waited at the head of the stairs, just in case Mrs. Hudson should not allow Jacky to return with Jemmy. Not that she was unused to the queer company which Holmes often kept. I moved to the doorway and watched as the two boys appeared, hoisting a wooden box step by step until Holmes took it from them up top. Little Jemmy scarcely reached to Jacky's shoulder. He could not have been more than seven or eight years. Like Jacky, he was bundled, but his thin face seemed parched white from the bitter weather. All of us entered the sitting room and Holmes directed the boys to the hearth by the fire. He set the box before them on the floor. “Will you open it?” he asked.

The box or chest seemed to be made of fine heavy teak, although much abused from having been immersed in river water. It was perhaps half the size of a child's traveling trunk. Jacky lifted the latch and raised the lid.

It contained rocks. Nothing but dirty rocks. Some were small as a cherry but most were large as plums.

“What do you want me to do with these?” Holmes inquired of the boys.

“Do what you like,” Jacky told him. “But don't tell Jicky Tar we brought them to you.” Little Jemmy cautioned fearfully, “He give you a clout with that stick of his to knock you down, and he stomp you like a bug.”

Holmes assured them, “I shall have none of him.”

After the boys had departed, each clutching a new sixpence within his mitten, Holmes turned to me. “Come, Watson. We must dress and be off at once. If these rocks are what I surmise them to be, I need you for a witness.”

“And our breakfast?” I reminded him.

“We will breakfast later.”

I did not dispute him. In record time both of us were ready to depart. I went ahead, carrying his stick, while he carried the chest down. I was fortunate in procuring a hansom cab for us almost immediately. Holmes directed the driver, “To Ironmonger's Lane.”

When we were underway, Holmes explained, “I am taking the chest to a certain Signor Antonelli, who is, I have been informed, the finest lapidary in London. For centuries the East Indians were the only lapidaries in the civilized world. As you doubtless learned in your years in India, that country was the only known source of diamonds until the early 18th century and the discovery of them in Brazil.”

“Indeed yes,” I recalled. “The best and most famous stones have come from the Golconda area near Hyderabad. The Kuh-a-Nur, which was a gift from India to our royal crown, is the longest diamond known. The Darya-i-Nur, another of the great stones, is in Persia. It was taken there along with all those now known as the Persian Crown Jewels, by the Nadir Shah when he sacked Delhi in 1739. They say the Persian jewels surpass all others in vastness of number, size, and quality, although our own crown jewels contain some of the most precious gems, particularly in diamonds.” The toe of my boot nudged the chest. “You believe these rocks are diamonds?”

“I do,” replied Holmes. “Both in India and Brazil, diamonds were found only in gravel deposits. As sedimentary rocks come from some deeper deposit, obviously this was not the original source. But only with the discovery of diamonds in South Africa, less than twenty years ago, have we learned that they come from within deep pipes of igneous rocks. In its uncut form, the diamond cannot be distinguished from any sizable rock.”

When Holmes investigated a subject, he did it with thoroughness. “Diamonds are pure carbon. True, some poorer stones have small crystals of other minerals embedded, but these are not used as gem stones, only for diamond dust and other mean purposes.” He mused. “The history of diamonds is fascinating, Watson. They are known to have been worn as precious stones as far back as 300
B.C
. In ancient documents it is recorded that Alexander, the Macedonian Greek who conquered Persia, and added ‘The Great' to his title as he proceeded to take over all the mid-east, decked himself in diamonds. The very name is from the Greek,
adamas
or ‘invincible.' ”

Holmes had evidently found time, along with all else he was engaged in, to visit the reading room of the British Museum. He continued, “The diamond is the hardest of gemstones, therefore the most difficult to cut. It alone ranks ten, the highest point, on Mohs's recently tabulated scale. Of special interest to me are the differences in judging the beauty of a diamond. In the East the beauty is primarily in its weight, whereas in the West it is in color and form. The Indian lapidaries devised the rose cut, which best preserved the weight. But they found it next to impossible to polish this cut to bring out its fire.

“It was the Venetian lapidary, Vincenti Peruzzi, who in the late seventeenth century began experimenting with adding facets to the table cut. The result was the first brilliant cut. Cutting is a science. Peruzzi had studied with East Indian lapidaries. As has Signor Antonelli. And that is why we are here,” he concluded as the cab drew up before a very old shop on Ironmonger's Lane.

Holmes alighted. While he was paying off the driver, I pushed the chest over to where he could lift it out more easily. I then stepped down to the walk and started across to the shop door. At that instant I saw a man who was approaching at a rapid pace, despite the hindrance of a peg leg.

“Holmes!” I warned quickly.

At the alarm in my voice, he turned, and he too recognized who this person must be. None other than Jicky Tar. He was large although not tall, and his seaman's knit jumper could not conceal his bulging muscles. His visage was a malevolent mask. He brandished a cudgel, knobby as are those heavy clubs which come from the village of Shillelagh.

One glance, and Holmes thrust the box at me. He extricated his stick from under my arm, then advanced a few paces and stood waiting. Only then did I see the two bully boys who had come round the corner in Jicky Tar's wake. One had Jacky immobilized in an arm lock, the other had a viselike fist around Jemmy's small arm.

Holmes saw them as I did, and he thundered, “Release those boys! At once!”

“Not until you return my property,” Jicky snarled. He had advanced to a distance of several yards from Holmes before taking his stance. It was obvious that he was accustomed to street fighting, where striking distance was needed in order to swing a cudgel for the fullest impact.

“What property of yours do you claim I have?” Holmes asked.

“The box.” Jicky gave a quick glance to where I was standing. “The box those picaroons stole from me and gave to you.”

The boy Jacky shouted atop his words. “He's lying, Mr. Holmes! He's lying! It wasn't his, it was ours. We found it. Not him.”

Jacky was twisting and straining to release himself from his captor, aiming his kicks to where they would do the most good. One found its mark. The bully howled, and for a moment his grip on the boy was loosed. Jacky wrenched away and darted at high speed up the lane.

The bully shouted, “Jicky, he's got away! The bloody little wretch got away! I'll go after him.”

“No,” Jicky ordered. “Stay! We'll get him later. He won't go far. Not without his sniveling little brother.” He then turned his full attention to Holmes. “Will you give me the box or do I take it?”

Holmes stated with authority, “The property belongs to the Gaekwar of Baroda and I shall return it to him.”

Without warning “on guard,” Jicky Tar swung his cudgel, while the unencumbered bully came under it toward Holmes. Holmes's well-aimed feint at Jicky became a blow to the bully's head, felling him. It was then just the two men, both experts, in this tit for tat, manoeuvering as swordsmen, one to disarm the other. The bully came to his feet too soon and moved in to join the fray. I feared for Holmes with two against one, but I need not have. With enviable deftness, Holmes's stick struck and dropped the bully again. Holmes's stick was then raised to disarm Jicky Tar when a police whistle sounded.

“It's Jacky,” Jemmy cried out. “He's brought the Peelers.”

It was indeed Jacky, running ahead of one bobby while another followed, blasting his whistle. The police quickly took charge of Tar and his henchman. The one who had mishandled Jemmy had faded away during the rumpus, releasing the boy, who ran to his brother's side.