Sherlock Holmes Read online

  “Yes, bad business. I understand, Mr. Holmes.”

  “See that you do.”

  Holmes helped Glave haul a hand cart back to the millenary. It was pitch black inside the flat now, but Holmes fumbled for the next candle along the wall and up they went. As they transferred the corpse onto a sheet, Graves pulled his hand away from the body’s neck and sniffed at his own fingers.

  “Hmm. Swine fat,” he observed.

  They wrapped the body like a mummy, hauled it downstairs, and onto the cart. No one looked twice at them on the way back to the coroner’s office. The kind of Londoner out at this hour was the kind who knew not to ask questions about the relocation of bodies. Holmes left the coroner at his doorstep, reminding him again to keep the body secret until Holmes directed him otherwise.

  Back in his room, Holmes bathed himself in near boiling water, running through three kettles worth and scrubbing until his skin was red.

  The next morning, he called upon Madame Withers at the Grand Royal.

  “Mr. Holmes, were you unable to find the address?”

  “I found it without difficulty.”

  “Oh. I almost expected to open the paper this morning and read that you had discovered my husband’s body.” Her soulless eyes searched Holmes’s face. “I am relieved, of course, that is not the case.”

  “Of course. I regret to report that I searched the premises thoroughly and found no sign of your husband.”

  “No sign at all?”

  “Well, there was some scraps and rubbish that suggested someone occupied the flat on occasion, but last night there was no one.”

  “You checked the flat above the milliner’s shop, front to back, every room?”

  “Every room, dear lady. Rest assured, he was not there.”

  A wave of panic washed over her face. “That’s impossible! Where could . . . ? I know . . . I just . . . .” Then her face was hard again. “You must leave, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Is there nothing more I can do to assist you?”

  “You can never speak of this, to anyone! Or else . . . .” her hand had slipped down to the knife concealed at her waist.

  Holmes managed a nonchalant air. “Or else what, Madame Withers?”

  “Never you mind. Just cease your meddling!”

  “May I remind you that you came to me?”

  Holmes was back in the hotel hallway now, the door to 307 resolutely closed to him. As he walked back to the stairs, he found a pair of maids making up one of the rooms.

  “Pardon me, do you know when Room 307 might be cleaned?”

  One of the maids consulted a list in her pocket. “Eight in the evening, as per Madame’s request. Has there been a change?”

  “I hope not,” Holmes said, skipping down the stairs. He spent an hour in the lobby reading the newspaper, just to be sure Madame Withers wouldn’t rush right out in her panic. Satisfied that she was in until the evening, Holmes went home for a nap and a light dinner. At half-seven, he was up the street from the Grand Royal Hotel, feigning an interest in the wares on display in the windows of various shops. When Madame Withers emerged, her serpentine gait was unmistakable. She slithered up into a waiting carriage and set off. Holmes hopped into the cab nearest to him and set off after her. In the yellowbacks, carriage chases seemed so exciting, but in reality the two conveyances simply clattered along at a moderate speed. Madame Withers seemed unaware that she was being followed. Her cab went straight to the millinery flat. After a few moments inside, she came out, rending the sleeves of her dress. Her already pallid face was drained of all color. Next, her cab stopped at a cemetery, and Holmes had his driver pull to the side of the road so that he might disembark unobserved. The coins Holmes left on the seat seemed to silence whatever qualms the man might have had. Cabmen probably aid in a lot of suspicious behavior, Holmes mused.

  Madame Withers moved through the cemetery with great certainty. Having to engage in various little subterfuges along the way, Holmes almost had trouble keeping her in sight. Finally she arrived at a fresh grave, where she stomped upon the ground. It seemed rather undignified to Holmes until a bell propped up by the headstone rang in response. The stomping and ringing went on for several minutes, reaching a crescendo and then seemingly winding down. Madame Withers appeared to be quite dissatisfied with the interview. She stormed back the way she came, forcing Holmes to duck down behind a memorial to remain unseen. He had a moment to decide between investigating the grave further or following the woman, and in that moment he found his feet moving after her.

  He lingered near the gate to hear her destination before flagging down his own cab. Holmes emptied his pockets, promising the driver the lot if he arrived at the Grand Royal Hotel before the carriage that had just left, and by an alternate route. The cabman grinned, and Holmes suspected he had hit upon some natural rivalry between the drivers. He held to his seat with both hands as the carriage took careening turns through crowded streets, once even taking an ill-advised shortcut under an archway and through a communal garden. When they intersected the street just up from the hotel, Holmes clasped the man on the shoulder, shouting that he had well earned his money, and leapt down onto the road. He smoothed his coat and re-settled his hat before calmly strolling into the hotel and ascending the stairs to the third floor. He planned to listen at Madame Withers keyhole to discover what all of that grave knocking was about. As he stepped out into the hall to look for some spot to hide, he was surprised to find three men already waiting outside Madame Withers’ door. They wore fine suits, but had the rough necks and thick hands of laborers. As they whispered among themselves, a cruel laugh rippled through the trio. It appeared Madame Withers had been found by her criminal betters. Still unseen, Holmes stepped back into the stairwell.

  As he did, the lift began moving, and moments later Madame Withers emerged, only to be shocked into stillness at the sight of the three men.

  “You’ve been remiss, Madame Withers.”

  “I didn’t know how to find you. My husband is missing and he handled all the business affairs.”

  “Tsk, tsk, and now you’re a liar too. You’ve been hiding from us, Madame.”

  “No, truly, I’ve tried, but it has been so hard, all alone and bereft. You don’t know what it is like for a lady in this city.”

  “You’re no lady.” The man who had been talking now cuffed Madame Withers, and she was knocked against the wall.

  Her head coiled back to face him, all the more haughty for the blood trickling from her mouth. Through a sneer she said, “More’s the pity for you.” Her blade was in her hand then, slashing up at the brute, drawing a red line across his white shirt that didn’t end until the point of her knife was caught under his chin. She laughed. The second man wrenched her arm around until she dropped the knife. The third seized her by the throat, his fingers disappearing into her flesh.

  That’s just enough, Holmes thought. He sprung forth from the darkness. “You there, stop harassing this innocent woman!” The men turned and bared their teeth at Holmes, even the one lying on the floor pressing his hands against his bloody chest. Holmes banged upon the hotel room doors as he passed, hoping at least some were occupied. “This kind of violence is unacceptable!” Holmes shouted.

  The men dropped Madame Withers to the floor and she gasped frantically for air. The two brutes standing began to advance on Holmes, who raised his fists. He had been a champion in the school boxing ring. It appeared he would discover how well that translated into the real world. Just as the blows were about to begin, there was a ringing behind Holmes, and then all around him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see some of the room doors were ajar. The other guests were yanking on the service bells in their rooms.

  “With enough witnesses, it won’t matter if the police actually catch you here.” Holmes spat through gritted teeth. The thugs silently consulted each other and then let their fists drop. They heaved their injured partner up between them and moved for the stairs. Holmes watched them until they wer
e out of sight.

  “May I call upon the ladies of this floor to tend to this stricken woman?” Holmes called out.

  “That is really unnecessary,” Madame Withers objected as she was corralled back into her room by half-a-dozen clucking hens. A contingent of hotel staff arrived on the lift.

  “What’s all this then?” the manager cried.

  “The woman in 307 has been grievously attacked in your premises,” Holmes declared. “Is it your custom to allow blackguards to roam your halls, assaulting your guests?”

  “Of course not, sir. We are most apologetic.”

  “Then I trust you will see Madame Withers to hospital and pay for her to stay there until she is completely recovered?”

  “Of course it was Madame Withers,” the man sighed. “Such a strange woman!”

  “Strange or not, you’ll have the police guard her hospital room until she is discharged? If not, perhaps my friend at The Times can whisper in the right ears.”

  “I assure you that won’t be necessary, sir. We will ensure she receives the best of treatment. And there will be no charge for your accommodation here as well, Mister . . . ?”

  “Oh, I’m not staying here. Just look at the kind of clientele you court.”

  “Then why were you here at all?” the man asked as Holmes disappeared down the stairs and out into the London night. On the way home, he stopped by the telegraph office to express to the hospital Mr. Withers’ deep concern for his wife’s well-being, and his desire for her to be observed around the clock for as long as was needed for her complete recovery, no expense to be spared. With her husband’s orders and the Hotel liable for the bill, no hospital would release such a plum for at least a week. Holmes paid for the telegram from the wallet he had lifted from one of the ruffians as they passed in the hallway. Flipping through, he saw that this little adventure would keep him in shag and spirits for a month, and it wasn’t over yet.

  The next evening, Holmes visited the grave again. It was made for a recently deceased Bryan Laramie, according to the inscription, a beloved brother now resting in the peace of the Lord. Holmes stomped upon the grave as he had seen Madame Withers do. The bell gave a tentative half ring. As Holmes moved forward to inspect it, something shiny on the ground caught his attention. He stooped over it and was surprised to find a glass aperture looking down a tube to a human eye, which after a moment jerked away to the side.

  “Halloa?” Holmes called. “Should I alert the caretaker, or do you mean to be down there?” The only response was silence. Holmes dug around the glass with his fingers and found it attached to a brass tube, almost as if someone had buried a telescope vertically and left one end just barely exposed. He next examined the bell, hung from a curved metal stake with a cord running down into another tube in the ground. It was akin to hundreds of service bells he had seen before, with the exception of beckoning for assistance to a very unusual place. What stood out was the odor emanating from the tube. It was rank and all too human, but not that of rotting flesh. No, only a living being produced this smell. The occupant of that box was trapped in his own filth, and assuming he was buried within a few days of the death date on this headstone, he had been for almost a week.

  “What are you doing there?” came a raspy voice from behind.

  Holmes turned to see a stooped man tottering on stiff legs behind him.

  “I thought I heard this bell ring, and then I saw an eye in this porthole.”

  The gravedigger wheezed and slapped his knee. “People see all sorts of ghosts and hobgoblins and what-not out here. Unsettles the mind to walk amongst all this death.”

  Holmes looked at the strange man and silently agreed.

  “Take my word for it, there’s nothing to it. A breeze tinkled the bell and your imagination put an eye at the other end of that pipe. I’ve dug up more than a handful of these safety coffins, and the result is always the same: Gruesome and sad. Was he kin to you?”

  “No, I am putting my own affairs in order and looking for a likely plot for my eternal rest. I’ve never seen one of these contraptions put in place. Were you there when it was buried?”

  “Dug the hole myself and filled it up too.”

  “The body was unquestionably dead the whole time?”

  “I don’t open any coffins I don’t have to, but he weren’t objecting, if that’s what you mean. Nice and quiet, like they all are.”

  “The pipes come out I presume? I don’t see any others.”

  “Normally I give them about a week. Long enough they are dead, one way or the other, and the family’s mind is at ease on the matter, but soon enough the dirt is still soft enough to work them out without re-digging the whole bloody grave. Besides, the smell comes right through, as you observe. Vermin can also run down in the pipe, for what little that matters. Matters to some.”

  “Then you are about to remove this pipe? I see it has been almost a week.”

  “It’s about due but that pretty widow keeps coming, so I might let it sit a little while longer. Once that bell is gone it really hits some people that it is final.”

  “Most kind of you.”

  “A little kindness is about all I have to share in this world, but I’m right where people need it the most. Let me know if you decide to plant yourself in my garden. I’ll take good care of you.” The gravedigger staggered away.

  “Did you hear that, Mr. Withers?” Holmes whispered down the bell pull tube. “These devices stay in place only as long as Madame Withers continues attending Mr. Laramie’s grave. I regret to say that she finds herself otherwise engaged presently and she will not be back. If it is any consolation, this is a lovely spot in which to await eternity.” Holmes gave the bell cord a couple of jaunty tugs and headed back to Montague Street.

  Late the next afternoon, Holmes presented himself at Scotland Yard. “I would like to speak to an inspector,” Holmes told the desk sergeant.

  “Whom might you be?”

  “Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Who?”

  “Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Never heard of you.”

  “I don’t know why you would have.”

  “Upon what business would you like to consult an inspector, sir?”

  “I have identified an extortionist, and I know the location where he has accidentally confined himself by misadventure.”

  “Where might that be exactly?”

  “Within a coffin.”

  “So he’s dead then?”

  “Not as yet, but I suspect he is about at the limit.”

  “How do you come to know this?”

  “It all began in a tobacconist’s shop, when the extortionist’s wife came to wring out the proprietor so she could pay her hotel bill. It seems she was already hiding from a grander criminal organization that was trying to kill her husband.”

  “The one in the coffin?”

  “Correct.”

  “Who is not actually dead?”

  “Yes. You see, he had switched places with someone who had actually died, leaving the dead body at his old hideout for these criminal enforcers to find.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I found the dead body.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “I’ve hidden it.”

  “Why?”

  “To force the wife into drastic action. I believe both she and her husband were waiting for the other body to be found, so that the extortionist would be reported as dead and they could escape to a new life together.”

  A thought slowly formed in the desk sergeant’s brain. “Say, this isn’t about a Madame Withers in the Grand Royal Hotel, is it?”

  “Yes, that’s just the extortionatrix.”

  “Two of a kind, you are. She’s barking mad, too. Escape from the same asylum, did you? Come to think about it, she was complaining of being harried by some amateur interloper. Just one of many complaints, but we’ll have it sorted out soon enough.” The Sergeant waved to the constables across the room. “No
w, Mister . . . what was your name again? Why don’t you wait back here and you can tell the nice doctor all about it when he arrives.”

  “This is absurd!” Holmes shouted as he twisted his body around and slipped the grasp of the constables. “I’m giving you the solution to a series of crimes, and rather than thank me, you mean to lock me up?” Holmes was out the door now and into the teeming crowds of London. He doubled back a dozen times, criss-crossing roads and passing through shops until he finally felt like he was free of any pursuit. Then, circuitously, he made his way back to Montague Street. He had barely closed his door behind him when there came a knocking. Holmes was flabbergasted to find one of the policemen standing outside.

  “I guess I’m not as clever as I thought,” Holmes said.

  “You were clever enough, too clever by half. We’d completely lost you within the first few minutes. I’ve been waiting here for two additional hours for you to return.”

  “How did you find me then?”

  “Sherlock Holmes. Your name stuck with me. Not too many of those in London.”

  “I am under arrest then?”

  “Not quite yet. Maybe I’m naive, but I’ll take a look at this buried extortionist.”

  “That’s rather kind of you.”

  “I’m looking for an exceptional case to make my name, and it’s worth an evening to me to see if this is the one.”

  “Perhaps the Yard isn’t a total loss. Well met, Inspector – ?”

  “Lestrade, sir. Inspector Lestrade.”

  Holmes could not ride in a police carriage without raising suspicions, so the two walked all the way. Holmes described his adventures in detection at university, and Lestrade talked about his yet meagre career.

  “You’ve the makings of a fine policeman, Holmes. I can write a testimonial for you if you wish to join the Yard.”

  Holmes laughed. “I’m afraid I would be a very poor policeman in fact. I do have a talent for observation and deduction, but I fear a uniform would only stifle me.”

  “Do you mean to go into business for yourself then? Some sort of private detective?” Lestrade laughed heartily at the idea.