The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part II (24 page)

“I am heading over that way myself on a small errand, gentlemen. If you would like to accompany me I can show you around and introduce you to the Pattersons, father and son.”

It was but a short walk to the west side of the locks and a gentle descent from Parliament Hill (formerly Barrack Hill) to the Commissariat. Somewhat to my surprise, Sigerson cross-questioned Clarke about the changing uses of the building and the various structural additions and subtractions. This inquisition continued as we toured the three floors, with Clarke throwing open doors to reveal stores of tunics, boots, infantry greatcoats, serge trousers, forage caps, braces, brushes for hair, shoes and cloth, button sticks, eating utensils, and all else necessary to keep a battalion of soldiers well shod, well clothed and well fed.

On the second floor, Sigerson opened one door himself. “This is far neater than I would have expected,” he murmured.

“I believe that room is used for training purposes,” responded Clarke, who did not look in. My quick glance revealed a dozen or so unmatched wooden chairs arrayed around three walls, while windows in the fourth gave a view out to the Ottawa River. Several coils of heavy rope were piled in a corner, leaving most of the floor unobstructed, probably for training demonstrations as Clarke had said. This interpretation was reinforced by the spotless nature of the floorboards, which were obviously scoured regularly.

On the main floor, a storeroom held rows of wooden crates of Snider and Martini-Henry breech-loading rifles, plus metal ammunition cases. Here Sigerson again withdrew his magnifying glass and proceeded to examine the rifle crates minutely, even dropping down onto the floor to look more closely at some detail.

He paid the same close attention to the work spaces used by the armourer and carpenter. As he was finishing that inspection, the Pattersons walked in and were introduced by Clarke. He and I moved off a few paces as Sigerson engaged the father and son in animated conversation.

“Well that was two hours very profitably spent,” Sigerson said, rejoining us.

As we climbed back to street level, I informed Sigerson that he could call at the Geological Survey at his convenience to use the microscope, and he decided to go at once.

Meanwhile, I pursued my own line of inquiry. At Sigerson's request, I was to uncover everything I could about the Clerk of Military Stores, the official who had summarily dismissed the previous armourer and carpenter at the Commissariat.

This proved a more difficult task than I had imagined. Ottawa was then (and is even now) really a very small town, despite being the national capital. All persons of note are known to one another and information circulates quickly about their character and any particular foibles. But although several of my coterie could name this shadowy figure as Benjamin Saunders, none could provide any other details. Finally, through the friend of a friend of a friend, I was able to glimpse the personnel file of the man who effectively commanded the Commissariat and maintained an office there. Brimming with fresh information, I rushed back to the Russell Hotel.

Sigerson was curled comfortably into a basket chair in front of the blazing hearth in his sitting room, a darkened cherrywood pipe in one hand. From the opacity of the room's air, I hazarded that he had smoked more than one pipe.

“Yes, this is fully a three-pipe problem, my good Evans. Please tell what your inquiries have uncovered.”

Restraining my excitement I marshalled and summarized the facts as logically as I knew how, for Sigerson seemed to prize ratiocination above all other virtues.

“The Clerk of Military Stores is Benjamin Saunders, although perhaps I should say Colonel Saunders, for it was his military service in the British Army which secured him the post only last year. One of his letters of recommendation came from his superior, the commanding officer of the Irish Guards.

“But the most interesting fact lies in Colonel Saunders' outside activities. My friend Clarke confirms that the clerk is an active member of the Hibernian Debating Society. Clarke also now recollects that it was Saunders who first drew the Pattersons to his attention as possible replacement artisans at the Commissariat, whose hiring Clarke in turn recommended to his Deputy Minister.”

“Did you discover anything further about the two men who left so precipitately?” Sigerson asked casually, blowing out a smoke ring.

“They have disappeared from town so I could not talk with them. But from all accounts, they had given satisfaction right up to the time when they were summarily dismissed by Saunders.”

Sigerson appeared to be digesting this information and for a minute his eyes strayed toward a violin case on the window sill. With a shrug, he turned again to me.

“My own inquiries were also productive, Evans. The Survey indeed possessed the requisite microscope and I was able to identify the fibres which I took from Constable O'Reilly's wrist. They come from a particular type of tarred rope manufactured exclusively for the Royal Navy, although it is sometimes also supplied to Britain's colonies if they are raising their own fleets, as I understand Canada is.

“Making use of this information requires us to have been especially observant. Would you please provide me with a description of the empty room we saw at the Commissariat, my dear Evans?”

It was a test, and I strove to come up to the mark, repeating the details mentioned earlier.

“Have I missed anything of importance, Sigerson,” I inquired.

“Only everything,” he replied with a sigh. “You see, Evans, but you do not observe. In contrast, I immediately noticed a ladderback chair along the west wall which showed rope wear on the lower portion of the front legs. And in that pile of ropes, the top coil was a tarred hemp which I wager will match the fibres from the constable's wrists.

“As well, the spotless nature of the floor is suspicious in a room devoted to training. I fear the floor had been only recently scrubbed to remove blood stains, and that it was in that room that Constable O'Reilly received his fatal final beating. Despite poisoning myself with three pipes, however, I am no closer to understanding how he got there and why someone thought his death was necessary.”

I was beginning to lose patience with this self-indulgent performance. “Is there anything else I should have noticed at the Commissariat, Mr. Sigerson?” I asked with some asperity.

“I draw your attention to the curious use of nails in the end pieces of the gun crates. Also worth a second look are the stocks of wooden dowels beside the carpenter's bench.”

He could not be drawn further on that point. Over dinner in the hotel dining room, he instead expounded knowledgeably about an astonishing range of subjects, from the bimetallic question of Montreal to the great herd of bisons of the fertile plains and the breeding cycle of the stormy petrels of British Columbia.

“I have some private inquiries to make during the day tomorrow, so perhaps we can meet here in the late afternoon and partake of some more of the hotel's excellent cooking. As well, it would be best if you could acquire a set of clothes suitable for a labourer.”

“What sort of labourer?”

“Oh, nothing too exotic, someone along the lines of a beamster, wheel tapper, drayman, pot burner, or knacker. Even a guard lacer would do, although it might be too early in the year for their activity.”

I am positive that Sigerson was hiding a smile behind his hand as he ran through this list of occupations, still common then toward the end of the Victorian era but likely unknown to many as I write.

Late the following afternoon, dressed as a drayman, I called at Sigerson's rooms. Instead of the investigator, I was greeted by a fellow of coarse appearance, the lower part of his face obscured by a black beard and his stout body contorted from some sort of arthritic condition. His blackened fingers and stained vest front suggested daily toil with greasy machinery.

“Do you think I will pass as a plate-maker, Evans?” the apparition asked. His accent sounded like a kinsman to the Pattersons, father and son.

I was so completely deceived by Sigerson's disguise that it was some few seconds before I replied in the affirmative.

“We are bound for the Couillard Hotel, an establishment in one of the less salubrious parts of your nation's capital, an area called LeBreton Flats, I believe. The Hibernian Debating Society will be holding its weekly discussions upstairs and then adjourn to the public bar. We will watch them from a quiet corner. If there is any talking to be done, pray let me do it. As you may have noticed, I have some small facility with accents and dialects.”

The new Ottawa Electric Railway did not yet service that area, so we took a hack and had the driver let us off a short distance from the Duke Street location. As local residents, a drayman and a plate-maker obviously would arrive on foot. There was time only to settle ourselves at a secluded table with our pints before a dozen or so men descended the stairs. Among that number were the Pattersons and Colonel Saunders, but not my friend Clarke. Equally fortunate, I had been in the background when Sigerson spoke with the Pattersons at the Commissariat.

Just as I was congratulating myself on the success of our covert observations, Sigerson poured the remains of his bitter into my glass and approached the bar for a refill. While there, he made a point of talking with the Pattersons, who seemed to have no inkling of his true identity.

“Well, Evans, at last I am beginning to see the light,” he said as he returned.

“I fear the case is still all dark to me,” I replied.

“It is not my custom to divulge the outcome of my investigations until they are complete, a practice which sometimes causes distress to a regular companion in London.” Sigerson paused and gazed briefly into the distance. A smile flickered across his bushy face.

“But matters stand differently with you, who have not had the opportunity to become inured to my difficult moods. So I will tell you the key to the whole puzzle. Those men are not, as you think from their speech, natives of the Ottawa Valley. They are in fact Irish Americans.”

Not another word of explanation could I wrest from him that evening, as we sat and watched for another two hours until all the Society members had departed. As we stepped outside, Sigerson gave a triumphal cry and bent down to scoop up a finger's worth of the muddy clay protruding beside the boardwalk.

“The last piece of the puzzle,” he ejaculated in triumph.

All I learned, however, was that I was to call at his rooms the next morning and also arrange through my friend Clarke for a ten o'clock rendezvous at the Commissariat to include the Pattersons, Colonel Saunders, and Clarke himself.

I remember that I did not get much sleep that night and called so early that Sigerson had only just completed his toilet. He insisted on ringing for breakfast, and shortly we were joined by Detective Inspector Wells. Yet Sigerson's only reference to the case was to ensure that three constables from the Ottawa force would be present at the Commissariat.

On our walk to the Canal, he spoke of Archibald Lampman, a poet who was a public servant in Ottawa and whose work appeared in
Atlantic Monthly
,
Harper's
, and
Scribner's
. Both the Inspector and I confessed that we had never heard of Lampman or his book,
Among the Millet
. But Sigerson was an admirer and had called upon the young poet at the Post Office Department, offering praise and encouragement.

“Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms,” he remarked enigmatically.

At the Commissariat, a choleric Colonel Saunders and a brace of truculent Pattersons awaited us.

“What is the meaning of this? Why am I being mustered like this on the say-so of some pettifogging youngster,” the Colonel demanded, glaring at Clarke and then at the three uniformed constables hovering in the background.

Sigerson took charge masterfully, abandoning his Norwegian persona. He led the group to the room containing the workbenches and crates of rifles. There he explained that he was acting on behalf of Sir John Thompson, and indicated me as the Prime Minister's private secretary (a post I would, in fact, occupy later but with a different man.) His remit was to investigate the origin of recent anti-American feeling and discover how deep it went.

“And I can now answer those questions,” he announced in a restrained tone. “The anti-Americanism is an elaborate hoax, a ploy to camouflage a much more sinister purpose. That goal was to stage an inconsequential armed attack against the United States, one in which no one was harmed, which would appear to have been carried out by forces from Canada, acting with official sanction. And the Commissariat served as the planning and training centre for all this.”

Bedlam erupted. Who was behind such a plot? What was the intention? When would it be carried out? How? And did he have any evidence for this fantastical suggestion?

“You are looking at it,” said Sigerson, pointing to a crate labelled as containing a dozen Martini-Henry rifles. “Rifles have been removed and cached for the putative assault, after which they will be abandoned as evidence of Canadian involvement.”

“This is preposterous,” Colonel Saunders exclaimed, stepping forward. “Try to lift that crate with the rope handles on the ends, and the weight will prove the rifles are there.”

Sigerson continued in the same quiet voice. “Yes, I concede that the crate feels heavy enough to suggest nothing is amiss. The men behind this plot, although in my opinion seriously deluded, are at least cunning. Yet they were undone, as in that old adage, by something as common as a nail.”

He tapped the end of the crate with his walking stick.

“I tried to draw Mr. Evans' attention to the peculiar nails in these endpieces. They are of a larger size than the nails used elsewhere in the crates. That is because the original nails have been extracted to remove the endpieces, which were modified and replaced. If you look carefully, you will also notice a few holes from the original nails in which someone failed to properly place the larger nails.”