Sherlock Holmes and the Giant Rat of Sumatra (11 page)

‘How so?’

‘That is because the mail packet-ships are some of the last few vessels that still make the journey from the Far East to this country without going through the Suez Canal.’ I replied.

‘Why would this be?’ Holmes asked, evidently amazed at the fount of knowledge that I had suddenly become. I was not altogether surprised at Holmes’s apparent ignorance upon the matter. Such was the man’s almost obsessive accumulating of knowledge on the subject of criminal detection that he had created a vacuum that would not allow him to concern himself with anything that was apparently irrelevant to his chosen profession.

My reply was delivered with as much pride as certainty.

‘Because mail packet-ships still operate without steam and there is always a risk that a becalmed sailing vessel might obstruct the channel for days on end. Consequently they still make the journey by going around The Cape of Good Hope which adds at least a further ten days to the journey time!’

‘Really? Well, Watson, you certainly scintillate at this early hour, I must say. This information of yours undoubtedly clears up a little problem of mine very nicely. As you say Collier – or anybody else, for that matter, would have arrived here several days before the letters possibly could have done. But hush! I hear a most familiar voice in the hallway downstairs. Not a word about letters, beladaus or “Giant Rats”, mind you,’ Holmes quietly warned me.

I nodded my confirmation just as a bedraggled Inspector Lestrade staggered into our room. I noted with some understandable relief that, on this occasion, the odious Alistair Dodd was not to be in attendance. There was an air of resigned disappointment about the hapless inspector that morning that surpassed anything that I had previously observed.

‘Gentlemen,’ Lestrade greeted us brusquely. ‘It is certainly
most heartening to witness you both so actively involved upon the matter of the
Matilda Briggs,
’ Lestrade observed with unwanted sarcasm.

‘Ah, you are, no doubt, referring to that trifling affair at Canary Wharf.’ Holmes smiled mischievously.

‘Trifling affair?’ Lestrade repeated this derogatory description in a voice that can best be described as a raucous shriek. Each sinew of his scrawny neck stood out like stalks as he vented his rage and frustration. ‘Have you seen this morning’s papers? Have you any idea how much pressure Mr Dodd is exerting upon my superiors at the Yard? Yet still you have provided me with nothing to report. Trifling affair, indeed!’

Holmes smiled condescendingly at his erstwhile adversary and directed him towards a chair by the fire.

‘Steady your nerves, Inspector, for I am certain that matters are not quite as black as you have painted them. Even now I can hear Mrs Hudson scurrying up the stairs with a tray of toast and coffee.’

Holmes immediately leapt over to the door which he flung violently open before the poor woman could have a chance to steady herself. Mrs Hudson let out a shrill nervous cry whilst she was being hustled over to the table with her tray. As she turned to leave, Holmes suddenly called her back.

‘Oh, Mrs Hudson, have there been any replies to the various enquiries that you have dispatched on my behalf?’ Holmes asked of her.

Our landlady shook her head solemnly.

‘No, I am afraid not, Mr Holmes, save for the one that you received late yesterday evening.’

‘Ah well, I suppose that one can occasionally be wide of the mark.’ Holmes’s response was as surprising as it had been frivolous and he unceremoniously ushered Mrs Hudson from our room.

‘Well, I must say!’ she could be heard protesting in the distance.

‘So you can see, Inspector, that I have not been entirely inactive in your interests,’ Holmes stated, still in an inappropriate,
light-hearted
vein.

‘That might be all very well, but where are the results? There are no results!’ Lestrade protested plaintively.

As Holmes heard these words his countenance suddenly assumed a far more severe appearance.

‘That might be your perception of things as they stand, but evidently you have not taken up the various suggestive points that I indicated to you. For example, have you realized yet the significance of the ship’s manifest? Or the shifting of Thames tides in the autumn?’

Lestrade shifted around uncomfortably in his seat without uttering a reply.

‘What exactly is the significance of the tides?’ I asked quietly on Lestrade’s behalf.

‘Ah, do not suppose for one minute that I did not observe the disparaging looks that you gave me earlier, once you had perceived my ignorance on matters concerning the Suez Canal and mail packet-ships!’ Holmes said accusingly. I could not deny that his accusation was justified, but evidently I was equally unsuccessful at concealing my sense of guilt.

‘I can assure you, friend Watson, that you are not the only person who has acquired relevant nautical knowledge. You might be interested to know that one of my destinations, when I left you, ostensibly to invigorate my cramped leg, was the office of the harbour master. Even though he poured me out a cup of possibly the most poisonous tea that it has ever been my misfortune to have sampled, I enjoyed a most illuminating conversation with the man.’

Holmes paused for a moment as he took a gulp from a heavily sugared cup of black coffee and lit a cigarette.

‘No doubt it was he who enlightened you upon the subject of autumn tides,’ I suggested with some chagrin.

I am certain that the irony in my voice was not lost on Holmes; however he now viewed Lestrade and me with a mischievous smile of triumph and he took a long luxurious draw on his cigarette.

‘We discussed a good deal more than that, I can assure you,’ Holmes eventually replied.

There was something in Holmes’s tone of voice that prompted me to take out my notebook and pencil.

‘It really has been too bad of me to have protracted things for so long. I presume that you would prefer it if I were to explain the mystery of the
Matilda Briggs
before we make our return visit to the offices of the Red Cannon shipping line in Pepys Street?’ Holmes asked, somewhat unnecessarily.

‘Well, of course! Yet how can you possibly claim to have solved the mystery? You have barely left our rooms in over forty-eight hours! Besides, what reason could you have for making a return visit to Pepys Street?’

Holmes shook his head dejectedly.

‘Watson, Watson, you ask so many questions and make so many assumptions. You of all people should not mistake my apparent inactivity for lack of progress. Do not forget that not all of my wires have remained unanswered. For example, my enquiries of the port authorities at Port Said have revealed that young Carlo Maddelena was already a member of the crew of the
Matilda Briggs
prior to her arrival there!’

‘Good heavens, Holmes, that would imply that Declan McCrory was telling us a blatant lie. But why should he wish to mislead us upon such an apparently routine matter?’ I asked.

‘Why indeed? However, that fact alone set into motion a chain of thought that led me to the inevitable conclusion that perhaps there were other matters upon which McCrory had not been totally honest,’ Holmes replied.

‘But where is any of this leading us?’ an exasperated Inspector Lestrade suddenly exclaimed.

‘It leads us, rather conveniently, to the three pieces of evidence that I uncovered on board the ship, which had so mysteriously eluded Scotland Yard’s finest.’ Lestrade turned sheepishly away as he heard this latest example of Holmes’s sarcasm, a tone that Holmes delighted in whenever he might be discussing the merits of the official force.

‘You have, no doubt, read and digested the contents of the
Matilda Briggs
manifest?’ Holmes asked, in the manner of one who already knows the answer to his question.

‘Well … yes, of course, although there was nothing there that could possibly shed any light upon the mystery of the ship’s missing crew.’ Lestrade’s embarrassment had been visibly heightened by this latest question from Holmes.

‘Ah, so you still hold to the assumption that the crew are missing?’ Holmes asked.

Lestrade laughed nervously when he heard this.

‘Well, of course, what other conclusion is there to draw when a ship is found, deserted and untethered, beside a dock that she was not scheduled to put in to?’

‘Perhaps that she had already been unloaded and then cut adrift by that same, supposedly missing, crew?’ Holmes suggested.

This time it was Lestrade who broke into a mischievous and triumphant smile.

‘Mr Holmes, while I am the first to admit that your unconventional and at times, outlandish methods have occasionally proved to be of benefit to the Yard, I fear that this latest suggestion of yours is pretty wide of the mark. For heaven’s sake, man, the cargo of tea was still on board the ship when we discovered her! Besides which, all of the docks, downstream of Canary Wharf are manned throughout the night. That form of activity would not have gone unnoticed,’ Lestrade concluded.

‘I am not speaking of the cargo of tea, nor am I referring to those docks that are further downstream. I am now aware of the fact that at this time of year the flow turns at approximately six o’clock post meridian and therefore, the Matilda Briggs could not possibly have drifted into Canary Wharf had she been cut adrift downstream. She would surely have floated in the opposite direction.’

‘That is all very well, but you have not, as yet, explained the nature of the evidence that you so miraculously discovered on board the ship, much less its significance.’ Lestrade interrupted impatiently.

‘Yes, come along, Holmes, besides which I am burning with curiosity to learn why you attach so much importance to the ship’s manifest,’ I encouraged.

With a deep sigh of resignation Holmes seemed to accept and recognize that the time for reticence and secrecy was now over. This was confirmed to me when Holmes took down his cherry-wood pipe and began to fill it slowly and deliberately from the Persian slipper.

‘Inspector Lestrade, may I humbly suggest that you dispatch two of your more stalwart constables to the offices of the Red Cannon shipping line, in Pepys Street, without a moment’s delay, there to ensure that Mr Declan McCrory remains securely within its walls until the time of our arrival. In the meantime I shall attempt to explain to you, as clearly and as succinctly as I can, my reasons for requesting you to do so.’

Such was the awe in which Lestrade held him and the respect that he accorded to Holmes’s judgement that he did not hesitate for even the briefest instant; he dashed from the room to implement Holmes’s instructions at once. By the time Lestrade made his breathless return to our room and threw himself back down into his chair, both he and I could sense that Holmes was now ready to lay bare the mystery of the
Matilda Briggs.

‘To begin with, I must offer to you both a thousand apologies for having maintained my silence for so long, upon this most singular affair. However, as I am sure that you both must have realized by now, I am not wont to divulge my thoughts or opinions upon a matter until I am absolutely certain of their factual grounding.

‘You might remember that when I eventually emerged from the
Matilda Briggs
I had extracted three pieces of evidence from below her deserted decks. Each one of these was suggestive in itself; however, when viewed collectively they became conclusive. Furthermore, each one caused me to broaden the field of my enquiries to the extent that I dispatched wires to the port authorities both at Port Said and Banda Aceh, in northern Sumatra.

‘It will come as no surprise to you when I tell you that the first link in my chain proved to be the apparently indecipherable markings that had been etched into the ship’s decking. These were no random scratchings, but rather a cleverly disguised message in the ancient Vedic language of Sanskrit. The inscriber presumably used such an obscure script because he assumed that there would be nobody aboard who could translate it, but that any educated reasoner who might come afterwards would understand its meaning. In that he was undoubtedly correct.

‘However, before I divulge to you the significance of my translation, it might mean more to you once I have explained the nature of my other discoveries. Watson, I am certain that you are about to ask me about the dust that I so painstakingly brushed into a small envelope that you obligingly held open for me. Those particles were more than mere dust, however, for they were nothing less than small grains of black peppercorns, which were to be found in more copious amounts on the lower deck.’

Holmes suddenly became aware that Lestrade and I were exchanging glances of surprised puzzlement.

‘Ah, so you think my discoveries to be of nothing more than trivial significance, but you should know that black peppercorn is
the principle export of Sumatra, and that not a grain comes to these shores from India! I then had to ask myself why the
Matilda Briggs
would deviate from her designated route and run the risk of becoming caught up in the violence that is engulfing Aceh, merely to take on board a cargo of black pepper. Of course, at this stage my conclusions were nothing more than mere speculation, hence my wire to Banda Aceh.

‘The reply that I have received confirmed that the
Matilda Briggs
did indeed make an unscheduled call at Aceh and took on board a cargo of black pepper and a new crew member.’

‘Carlo Maddalena!’ I exclaimed excitedly.

‘Exactly Watson, and of course my reply from Port Said has confirmed that Maddalena was already on board when the ship arrived there,’ Holmes readily confirmed.

‘This is all very well, but where is this information about the cabin boy getting us?’ Lestrade asked, with evidently increasing frustration.

‘It is getting us closer to the truth, Inspector. Despite his most youthful countenance, Maddalena was certainly no cabin boy. He was in the employ of our friend Declan McCrory and it was he who arranged for the cargo of black pepper that the crew of the
Matilda Briggs
undertook such enormous risks to procure. The question I now had to ask myself was, why run such a risk merely for the sake of such a relatively insignificant prize?