The Lost Casebooks of Sherlock Holmes (21 page)

‘Within forty-five minutes.' That would surely put the repository of the stolen papers within a mile or two of the Serpentine. It was little enough to go on but, as I thought then, it limited somewhat the area of the search.

‘I will wait forty-five minutes and not a moment longer,' Holmes answered coldly.

‘You would do well not to be so impatient, Mr Holmes,' said Howell with a soft chuckle. ‘I cannot make it too plain that, if our little negotiation should fail, there will be no lack of other bidders. Though I may regret it personally, two foreign governments and a number of less reputable organisations have shown a lively interest in the Windsor papers, as I call them. It is provoking to hear fornication, adultery, sodomy, and the like mentioned in the same breath as the illustrious personages against whom the accusations are levelled—often levelled against themselves in their own words.'

Holmes said something which I heard only as a growl and his companion laughed again.

‘Mr Holmes, your interests and mine are indivisible. I am, in a most unusual way, your friend. You have every reason to wish me health and prosperity. If, for any reason, misfortune overcame me, you would not be offered the same chance a second time. You would not hear of these Windsor papers again until they shamed publicly those who were indiscreet enough to pen them.'

To those strollers who passed them, these were men of affairs sitting and discussing the terms of the most innocent commercial contract. As they did so, I wondered what darker and more powerful figure stood behind the slippery and evasive presence of Mr Howell. I could see that Sir Arthur Bigge did not believe in such a master criminal. For myself, I doubted whether the blackmailer of Mr Rossetti or Mr Swinburne was a match for the present crime without a more resolute figure behind him.

It was Holmes who later repeated to me Howell's parting remark to him.

‘Forty-five minutes will suffice, Mr Holmes. Please do not think of following me or communicating with your friends. You are watched at this moment and I shall know if you have left this place for a single instant during my absence. If that is reported, you will never see me again and your employers know what the consequence will be.'

Even without this warning, it would have been quite impossible for Holmes to follow Howell as the other man left the park. The long paths, even with the trees to either side, are poor cover for the hunter. For that reason, my friend and I had agreed that any tracking of our adversary must be left to me. I did not walk straight after Howell but cut down to Rotten Row, at a right angle from him, and then turned so that our paths would converge near Hyde Park Corner. It was a weakness in their scheme that because they watched Holmes, they could scarcely keep track of me at the same time, or so I thought.

As soon as I was clear of any possible observation, I began to stride out, looking behind me from time to time to make sure that no one matched my pace. Either a pursuer must do so or lose me and I saw no sign of pursuit. As I came out of the park near Apsley House and the start of Piccadilly, Howell was ahead of me on the far side of the busy street that runs by Green Park. It suited me well. Suddenly he turned into a side-street and I dodged between the cabs and twopenny buses to keep him in sight. The side-street turned again and brought me out into the busy thoroughfare of St James's Street, the sunlight golden on the clock-face of the palace at the far end.

By now I felt sure that the destination was one of those old banking families whose premises are ranged along Pall Mall. So it proved to be. Howell looked hastily about him, seemed to scent no danger, and walked swiftly up the steps of Drummonds Bank.

I could hardly believe it would be so easy. In my mind's eye, I saw a police cordon thrown about the bank, Lestrade in his uniform presenting a search-warrant to Henry Drummond, the papers seized and returned to Sir Arthur Bigge at Windsor, where Prince George or the Prince of Wales himself would entertain us to tea as a token of gratitude.

Walking back a little down the broad street, I stood concealed by the ancient brick archway of St James's Palace itself. I kept no count of time but it was surely no more than five minutes later that Howell reappeared with an attaché case in his hand. This time I allowed him to get far ahead of me, for I knew his route.

I kept my distance, pretending to watch the riders on Rotten Row. What I saw of the encounter was Holmes, Howell, and the attaché case on a park bench. A sheet of paper was handed to my friend, presumably for verification. By accident or design, Holmes seemed to let go of it. The light breeze carried it several feet into the air and then let it drift slowly to the grass a yard or two further off. Howell was after it, like a greyhound from a trap. He seized it, came back, and picked up the attaché case to restore the document. Soon after this the meeting ended and the two men went their separate ways. Holmes walked in my direction. I waited at the edge of the riders' avenue, so that he passed behind me. As he did so, there was no slackening of his pace and no movement of recognition. I heard only the crisp tone of his voice.

‘Get after him, Watson! See where he goes!'

You may be sure that I did so, as unobtrusively as I could, Holmes striding away in the other direction. I was certain that, if we were spied upon, no one would guess that there had been any communication between us.

I knew quite well what would happen next. Charles Augustus Howell walked back the way he had come, a somewhat overweight figure with his soft face and wavy hair. He carried the attaché case up the steps of Drummonds Bank and I waited for him to reappear. He did so a few minutes later, still carrying the attaché case. Had he deposited the papers in the bank vault already—or was he still carrying them?

What made his reappearance the more curious was that he came down the steps into Pall Mall at almost the same moment as a second man, who carried an identical case. Picture a tall and stooping figure, a gaunt spectre, clean-shaven and pale, his forehead forming a white dome-like curve and his eyes appearing all the more sunken for that. I had no idea who this might be. Yet he and Howell carried attaché cases so alike that it was impossible to say which of them had been taken into the bank a moment before.

This appearance might have been a coincidence but I was sure it was not. At the foot of the steps, the stranger turned right towards Charing Cross and Howell turned left towards St James's Palace. It was impossible to follow them both. If Howell had reappeared without an attaché case, I should now have shadowed the stranger. As it was, I heard in my mind the last instruction of Sherlock Holmes and obeyed it. ‘Get after him, Watson! See where he goes!'

He went smartly under the brick archway of the palace towards the Mall. I knew I must not lose him now and so I cared little if he saw me or not. Across the Mall he went, Buckingham Palace quiet in the sunlight at the far end. He dived into St James's Park and began to cut across towards the ducks on the lake, as if he was making for Birdcage Walk. He was hurrying but not sufficiently for me to lose sight of him. Then he paused. I stepped aside behind a chestnut trunk. Howell looked about him, as if to see whether he was alone. Then he thrust the attaché case into a box at the edge of the path, a green wooden receptacle in which the gardeners deposit grass clippings and fallen leaves.

What the purpose of this could be, I had no idea. As he strode off, I made my way as quickly as I could to the box and took out the leather case. It was not even locked. I opened it, expecting a bomb or a bundle of state papers, I know not what. It was empty. I might have followed either of the two men who came out of Drummonds Bank into Pall Mall. I knew now that I had followed the wrong one.

IV

‘Let it be a consolation to you, my dear fellow, that they have made fools of us both.'

Holmes was examining the empty attaché case by the morning light that filled the sitting-room windows from above the Baker Street chimney-pots.

‘Then who is he?' I asked. ‘Which is the other man?'

‘The client, I should say.' Holmes frowned and threw down the leather case as yielding no further clue. ‘I know you will forgive the deception, friend Watson, but as you followed Howell back to Pall Mall, I followed you. When Howell came out again, I watched you shadow him and I went after the other man. The same trick was played in the Strand. My man went into Grindlays and two men with cases came out. By instinct, I followed the new man. He led me east to Cheapside, to the City and Suburban Bank. Our opponents were playing a game and did not care if I knew it. Two of them came out again into Cheapside but the second one was that same tall stooping man whom I had lost the last time in the Strand. I followed him again and lost him at the Banque Indo Suez in King William Street. That is how they play it and they can play it until doomsday. One man goes in and two come out. It would take Lestrade and fifty of his officers to keep track of them all. They are playing the game because they believe they hold every card in the pack. A dangerous folly.'

At this point, several days had passed since the meeting between Holmes and Howell. If there had been progress, I had seen none.

‘Then it is all a wild-goose chase?' I said.

‘So it would seem.' Holmes spoke as if he did not greatly care. ‘Matters cannot be left as they are, however. I must invite Mr Howell to ask his client to name his terms. Howell may bring them to me tomorrow night. I will communicate them to Sir Arthur Bigge and leave the issue there.'

‘Then we are not to get the better of these scoundrels?' I asked incredulously.

Holmes nodded at the empty attaché case. ‘As the score stands now, Watson, it seems that we are not.'

This indifference was so unlike him that I wondered if Holmes might be unwell. I decided to test him.

‘Then you will not require my further services? If not, I have a practice to attend to and preparations to make for Mrs Watson's return.'

He nodded, as if he quite understood. Then he looked up at me.

‘One more thing,' he said, ‘I should be grateful for. If Howell comes tomorrow night, I should prefer these rooms to be under observation. If it will not inconvenience your practice and Mrs Watson, perhaps you would keep Lestrade company.'

‘Keep Lestrade company? Where?'

He gestured at the window. ‘I have taken a room in Camden House across the street. It will give you a good view of these apartments. Should anything untoward take place, my signal for assistance will be the turning down of the gas.'

He was not himself, I now felt sure of it. That the great Sherlock Holmes did not dare be alone in his rooms with a spineless wretch like Howell, unless I and a Scotland Yard man were within call, was quite out of character.

‘Has Lestrade agreed?'

‘Yes,' said Holmes quietly, ‘Lestrade has agreed. He knows only that it is a confidential matter.'

‘Then I shall keep him company.'

‘Thank you, my dear old friend,' he said in the same quiet voice. ‘I never doubted that I could count upon you.'

V

The next evening it was dusk at about seven o'clock. Lestrade and I found ourselves in a first-floor room, which looked directly across to the Baker Street lodgings. Camden House was between ‘lets' and this room contained little more than two chairs with a plain table. Holmes had pulled down the cream blinds and put up the gas. He was sitting in his chair, the shadow of his sharp features and square shoulders thrown upon the blind by the gaslight. Indeed, if Howell or one of his confederates intended some desperate act, Holmes might have made a perfect target from one of the buildings opposite or from the street itself. Presently he got up and moved about the room beyond our vision. A light rain began to fall in the long street, and the people on the busy pavements wore coats and cravats, collars turned up and umbrellas open.

‘Tell me,' I said to Lestrade, ‘do you find anything unusual in Holmes's behaviour of late?'

Our Scotland Yard man sat in the twilight, puffing at his cigar, his pea-jacket and cravat giving him a somewhat nautical air.

‘There's no use denying that, Dr Watson. It's not like him to want protection from me against whatever twopenny-halfpenny scoundrel that calls on him.'

‘Indeed it is not!'

‘Nor to have these fancy ideas about spoiling the paintwork of the London banks.'

‘Oh?'

‘Seems to have some bee in his bonnet about a man going round London defacing the paintwork and the fittings of the banks. I've not seen such a thing, sir. Have you?'

I assured him I had not. Before I could say more, the hooves of a cab horse slowed and stopped as a hansom drew up outside 221B Baker Street. Holmes's visitor had arrived. We could see little of him beyond the door opening and closing again as he was admitted. Holmes himself was still upstairs, turning in his fireside chair as he heard the footsteps. The cab moved off, to return again at its appointed time. Someone, Holmes presumably, now drew the curtain part-way across the window.

There was very little more to be seen. From time to time Holmes or his visitor threw a partial shadow on the blind. It was, I suppose, an hour later when the cab returned and the visitor left. As if in salute to the departing guest, there was the faint but unmistakable sound of Holmes striking a little Mendelssohn from his violin.

We waited twenty minutes more and then, as I had expected, the gas was turned down in the opposite room. Lestrade picked up his black canvas bag.

‘Well, Dr Watson, I can make neither head nor tail of the business, nor shall I try.'

We crossed the street and Holmes greeted us—or rather met us—at the door. He was subdued and pale as a ghost. Lestrade refused his invitation to brandy and water. I remained for no more than an hour.

‘The matter is concluded,' he said, ‘so far as Howell is concerned.'

‘Concluded?'