The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (12 page)

telegram."

"Then from where?"

"Come, did I not tell you I believe her to have been a beauty-specialist? Such ladies are

seldom actually hideous-looking, else they are no strong advertisement for their own wares.

But this, if I mistake not, is our client now."

While he had been speaking, we heard a loud and decisive ring of the bell from below.

There was some delay, during which the caller presumably expected our landlady to escort her

formally to our sitting-room. Sherlock Holmes, putting away the violin and its bow, waited

expectantly until Mrs. Gloria Cabpleasure entered the room.

She was certainly handsome—tall, stately, of almost queenly bearing, though perhaps too

haughty, with an abundance of rather brassy fair hair and cold, blue eyes. Clad in sables over a

costly gown of dark-blue velvet, she wore a beige hat ornamented with a large white bird.

Disdaining my offer to remove her outer coat, while Holmes performed introductions with

easy courtesy, Mrs. Cabpleasure cast round one glance which seemed to sum up unfavourably

our humble room, with its worn bearskin hearth-rug and acid-stained chemical table. Yet she

consented to be seated in my arm-chair, clasping her white-gloved hands in her lap.

"One moment, Mr. Holmes!" said she, politely, but in a hard, brisk voice. "Before I

commit myself to anything, I must ask you to state the fee for your professional services."

There was a slight pause before my friend answered.

"My fees never vary, save when I remit them altogether."

"Come, Mr. Holmes, I fear you think to take advantage of a poor weak woman! But in this

case it will not do."

"Indeed, madam?"

"No, sir. Before I employ what you will forgive me for terming a professional spy, and

risk being overcharged, I must again ask you to state your exact fee."

Sherlock Holmes rose from his chair.

"I am afraid, Mrs. Cabpleasure," said he, smiling, "that such small talents as I possess

might be unavailing to assist you in your problem, and I regret exceedingly that you have

been troubled by this call. Good-day, madam. Watson, will you kindly escort our guest

downstairs?"

"Stop!" cried Mrs. Cabpleasure, biting hard at her handsome lip.

Holmes shrugged his shoulders and sank back again into the easy-chair.

"You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Holmes. But it would be worth ten shillings or even a

guinea to know why on earth my husband cherishes, worships, idolizes that pestilent shabby

umbrella, and will never allow it away from his presence even at night!"

Whatever Holmes might have felt, it was gone in his sense of starvation for a fresh problem.

"Ah! Then your husband worships the umbrella in a literal sense?"

"Did I not say so?"

"No doubt the umbrella has some great financial or sentimental value?"

"Stuff and nonsense! I was with him when he bought it two and a half years ago. He paid

seven-and-six-pence for it at a shop in the Tottenham Court Road."

"Yet perhaps some idiosyncrasy—?"

Mrs. Gloria Cabpleasure looked shrewdly calculating.

"No, Mr. Holmes. My husband is selfish, inhuman, and soulless. It is true, since my

maternal great-grandfather was The McRea of McRea, in Aberdeenshire, I take good care

to keep the man in his place. But Mr. Cabpleasure, aside from his vicious nature, has

never done anything without very good reasons."

Holmes looked grave.

" 'Inhuman?' 'Vicious nature?' These are very serious terms indeed. Does he use you cruelly,

then?" Our visitor raised even haughtier eyebrows. "No, but I have no doubt he would wish to

do so. James is an abnormally strong brute, though he is only of middle height and has no

more of what is called figure than a hop-pole. Pah, the vanity of men! His features are quite

nondescript, but he is inordinately proud of a very heavy, very glossy brown moustache, which

curves round his mouth like a horseshoe. He has worn it for years; and, indeed, next to that

umbrella—"

"Umbrella!"muttered Holmes. "Umbrella!Forgive the interruption, madam, but I should

desire more details of your husband's nature."

"It makes him look only like a police-constable."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The moustache, I mean."

"But does your husband drink? Interest himself in other women? Gamble? Keep you short

of money? What, none of these things?"

"I presume, sir," retorted Mrs. Cabpleasure loftily, "that you are desirous of hearing

merely the relevant facts? It is for you to provide an explanation. I
wish
to hear this

elucidation. I will tell you whether it satisfies me. Would it not demonstrate better breeding

on your part were you to permit me to state the facts?"

Holmes's thin lips closed tightly. "Pray do so."

"My husband is the senior partner of the firm of Cabpleasure & Brown, the well-known

diamond-brokers of Hatton Garden. Throughout the fifteen years of our wedlock—ugh!—we

have seldom been separated for more than a fortnight's time, save on the latest and most

sinister occasion."

"The latest occasion?"

"Yes, sir. Only yesterday afternoon James returned home from a protracted six months'

business journey to Amsterdam and Paris, as idolatrous of that umbrella as ever. Never has he

been more idolatrous, throughout the full year during which he has worshipped it."

Sherlock Holmes, who had been sitting with his fingertips pressed together and his long

legs stretched out, gave a slight start.

"The full year, madam?" demanded he. "Yet a moment ago you remarked that Mr.

Cabpleasure had bought the umbrella two and a half years ago. Am I to understand that his

—his worship dates from just a year ago?"

"You may certainly so understand it, yes."

"That is suggestive! That is most suggestive!" My friend looked thoughtful. "But of what?

We—yes, yes, Watson? What is it? You appear to have become impatient."

Though it was not often that I ventured to vouchsafe my own suggestion before Holmes

had asked for one, upon this occasion I could not forbear.

"Holmes," cried I, "surely this problem is not too difficult? It is an umbrella: it has a curved

handle, which is probably thick. In a hollow handle, or perhaps some other part of the

umbrella, it would be easy to hide diamonds or other valuable objects."

Our guest did not even deign to look at me. "Do you imagine that I would have stooped to

visit you, Mr. Holmes, if the answer were as simple as all that?"

"You are sure it is not the true explanation?" Holmes asked quickly.

"Quite sure. I am sharp, Mr. Holmes," said the lady, whose handsome profile did in truth

appear to have a knife-edge; "I am very sharp. Let me illustrate. For years after my marriage I

consented to preside over the Madame Dubarry Salon de Beauté in Bond Street. Why do you

think that a McRea of McRea would condescend to use such a cognomen as Cabpleasure,

open as it is to comment from a primitive sense of humour?"

"Well, madam?"

"Clients or prospective clients might stare at such a name. But they would remember it."

"Yes, yes, I confess to having seen the name upon the window. But you spoke of the

umbrella?"

"One night some eight months ago, while my husband lay in slumber, I went privily into

his sleeping-chamber from my own, removed the umbrella from beside his bed, and took it

downstairs to an artisan."

"An artisan?"

"A rough person, employed in the manufacture of umbrellas, whom I had summoned to

Happiness Villa, The Arbour, Highgate, for that purpose. This person took the umbrella to

pieces and restored it so ingeniously that my husband was never aware it had been examined.

Nothing was concealed inside; nothing is concealed inside; nothing could be concealed inside.

It is a shabby umbrella, and no more."

"None the less, madam, he may set great store by the umbrella only as some men

cherish a good-luck charm."

"On the contrary, Mr. Holmes, he hates it. 'Mrs. Cabpleasure,' he has said to me on more

than one occasion, 'that umbrella will be the death of me; yet I must not relinquish it!' "

"H'm! He made no further explanation?"

"None. And even suppose he keeps the umbrella as a good-luck charm, which he does

not! When in a moment of abstraction he leaves it behind for only a few seconds, in house

or office, why does he utter a cry of dread and hasten back for it? If you are not stupid,

Mr. Holmes, you must have some notion. But I see the matter is beyond you."

Holmes was grey with anger and mortification.

"It is a very pretty little problem," said he. "At the same time, I fail to see what

action I can take. So far I have heard no facts to indicate that your husband is a criminal

or even in the least vicious."

"Then it was not a crime, I dare say, when yesterday he stole a large number of

diamonds from a safe belonging jointly to himself and to his business partner, Mr.

Mortimer Brown?"

Holmes raised his eyebrows.

"H'm. This becomes more interesting."

"Oh, yes," said our fair visitor, coolly. "Yesterday, before returning home, my

husband paid a visit to his office. Subsequently there arrived at our home a telegram sent

to him by Mr. Mortimer Brown. It read as follows:

"Did you remove from our safe twenty-six diamonds belonging to the Cowles-

Derningham lot?"

"H'm. Your husband showed you the telegram, then?"

"No. I merely exercised a perfect right to open it."

"But you questioned him as to its contents?"

"Naturally not, since I preferred to bide my time. Late last night, though little he

suspects I followed him, my husband crept downstairs in his night-g—crept downstairs, and

held a whispered conversation in the mist with some unseen person just outside a ground-

floor window. I could overhear only two sentences.
'Be outside the gate before eight-thirty

on Thursday morning,'
said my husband.
'Don't fail me!'"

"And what did you take to be the meaning of it?"

"Outside the gate of our house, of course! My husband always leaves for his office punctually

at eight-thirty. And Thursday, Mr. Holmes: that is tomorrow morning! Whatever criminal scheme

the wretch has prepared, it will reach fruition tomorrow. But you must be there to intervene."

Holmes's long, thin fingers crept out towards the mantelshelf as though in search of a pipe,

but he drew his hand back.

"At eight-thirty tomorrow morning, Mrs. Cabpleasure, there will be scarcely a gleam of

daylight."

"Surely that is no concern of yours! You are paid to spy in all weathers. I must insist

that you be there promptly and in a sober condition."

"Now by heaven, madam—!"

"And that, I fear, is all the time I can afford to spare you now. Should your fee be more

than nominal or what I consider reasonable, it will not be paid. Good day, sir.
Good
day!"

The door closed behind her.

"Do you know, Watson," remarked Holmes, with a bitter flush in his thin cheeks, "that if

I did not crave such a problem as this, actually crave it—"

Though he did not complete the sentence, I echoed the sentiments he must have felt.

"Holmes, that lady is no true Scotswoman! What is more, though it grieves me to say so,

I would wager a year's half-pay she is no relation whatever to The McRea of McRea."

"You seem a little warm, Watson, upon the subject of your own forebears' ancestral

homeland. Still, I cannot blame you. Such airs as Mrs. Cabpleasure's become a trifle

ridiculous when worn at second-hand. But how to fathom the secret of the umbrella?"

Going to the window, I was just in time to see the white bird on the hat of our late visitor

disappearing inside a four-wheeler. A chocolate-coloured omnibus of the Baker Street and

Waterloo line rattled past through deepening dusk. The outside passengers of the omnibus,

all twelve of them, had their umbrellas raised against a rawer, colder fall of rain. Seeing

only a forest of umbrellas, I turned from the window in despair.

"Holmes, what will you do?"

"Well, the hour is a little late to pursue an obvious line of enquiry in Hatton Garden. Mr.

James Cabpleasure, with his glossy moustache and his much-prized umbrella, must wait until

tomorrow."

Accordingly, with no premonition of the thunderbolt in store, I accompanied my friend

to Happiness Villa, The Arbour, Highgate, at twenty minutes past eight on the following

morning.

It was pitch dark when we took breakfast by gaslight. But the rain had ceased, and the sky

cleared into quiet, shivering cold. By the time a hansom set us down before Mr. and Mrs.

Cabpleasure's house, there was enough grey light so that we could see the outlines of our

surroundings.

The house was a large one. Set some thirty yards back from the road, behind a waist-high

stone wall, it was built of stucco in the Gothic style, with sham battlements and also a sham

turret. Even the front door was set inside a panelled entry beyond an open Gothic arch. Though

the entry lay in darkness, two windows glowed yellow on the floor above.

Sherlock Holmes, in his Inverness cape and ear-flapped travelling-cap, looked eagerly around