The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes (29 page)

“Good afternoon, Officer,” said she. “You should put a steak on that eye.”

“Too late, missus. I've got a fair riding from my fellows for coming off second best in a bout with a lady.” He chortled. “I trust you've recovered?”

Holmes, impatient as usual, interrupted this cordial exchange. “What have you for me, Holcomb?”

The constable, who had removed his helmet for Mary, clapped it back on. “Three possibilities, Mr. Holmes, within the lady's running distance in the time she estimated she was at it.” Producing a notebook from under his cape, he rattled off three addresses. “These places multiply like rats, I'm grieved to report.”

“We shan't paint them all the same shade of black. The worst you can expect from most is an unsettled stomach. Let us concentrate on the one that's closed its doors.”

“That's just the thing, sir. They was all shut up tight as a lady's”—he paused, blushing in Mary's presence—“that is to say, as the Bank of England on Sunday.”

“Hum. They must all have learnt their methods of communication by way of the Newgate telegraph. Well, there's no law against closing early, and two of the parlours may even be legitimate, hoping to avoid notoriety. We must visit them all.” He thanked the man and shut the door in the middle of his farewell. “We'll stop in Baker Street on the way and put Lysander P. Gristle back in mothballs.”

“Wherever did you get that alias?” I asked then.

“I spent a season in a music hall in Chelsea, carrying a spear under the name.”

“Good Lord, Holmes. How many lives have you had?”

He smiled. “I daresay I'm the envy of most cats.”

I excused myself, to return from the bedroom moments later with my service revolver in one pocket and a handful of extra cartridges in another. To my astonishment, Mary stood in the entrance hall, dressed for the street in a becoming hat and woolen wrap over her grey dress, parasol in hand.

“Wherever do you think you're going?” I demanded.

Her eyes were steely. “When has that tone ever worked with me, John?”

“If I may interpose,” said Holmes, interposing. “It was my suggestion. In her haste, Mrs. Watson may have forgotten something she saw that would help us pinpoint the scene of the crime. What the seers are conceited to call the sixth sense is often just a matter of jostling the memory.”

“Certainly not. It's too dangerous.”

“Your argument is with me,” said Mary. “Mr. Holmes has taken responsibility for a decision I made upon my own. If I don't accompany you, I shall spend the rest of my life asking myself, ‘Is this the place?' whenever I pass an ice-cream parlour. I shan't be able to look at a sorbet without shuddering. And I may be in a position to help.”

“It's difficult enough to defend ourselves in times of danger. Will you have one of us take a bullet for fear of what may happen to you?”

“Have I lived in this wicked city all these years and learnt nothing? I'm anything but unarmed.”

In demonstration, she drew the pin from her hat, a wicked-looking six inches of razor-pointed steel with a pearl button, replaced it, and raised her parasol. I'd never noticed before how much the end of it resembled a fencer's foil. She executed a neat flourish, slicing the air with a swish and finishing with it demurely resting upon her shoulder, her small hand gripping it near the carved ivory crook. A watch appended to a gold chain swung from the point.

I groped at my waistcoat. My watch was missing.

In all my years of association with Sherlock Holmes, this was the only time I can recall when he absolutely roared with laughter.

“Face it, Watson!” said he, upon recovering himself. “You're undone!”

“Wherever did you learn to do that?” I said sternly.

“Embroidery,” said Mary. “The basics are the same.”

I marshalled all my arguments, only to relinquish them with a heavy sigh. “Very well. It's a poor soldier who knows not when to retreat from the field.”

She smiled at Holmes. “My apologies. Until this moment I never realised John's value to you.”

He bowed. “I sometimes overlook it myself.”

We stopped at 221B just long enough for Holmes to change. He emerged carrying a heavy-knobbed stick and, no doubt, his own revolver under his frock coat. The driver (once Mary had scrutinised him and declared him “not Snipe”), took us at a canter to the first address on our list.

I had never before visited one of those establishments that had recently sprung up throughout London like wildflowers, and knew nothing of what to expect; based upon Holmes's sinister account I envisioned a cross between a low tavern and a pub of questionable reputation.

What I found resembled H.G. Wells's vision of a foreign future: white, dazzling, and spotless, lit brightly through large, polished windows, with shining chromed steel trim. From the pressed-tin ceiling to the ornate taps behind the counter, fashioned into shapes like elephants' heads and the curving necks of swans, there wasn't a splinter of wood in sight. The tables were glass circles the size of bicycle wheels, supported by spindles of wrought iron matching the frames of the chairs, bent into curlicues. It all belonged to the next century, or yet the next.

After speaking with the constable on the scene, Holmes approached the proprietor, a nervous-looking man of forty or so named Osbert, with ruddy cheeks, pale hair, and wrists thickened by hour upon hour of scooping hardened ice cream from zinc-lined sinks into receptacles of china and glass. He'd been roused from a back room to reopen his doors for the purpose of official enquiry.

“The police will confirm that nothing suspicious goes on here,” he said. “I know of the vipers who befoul this honest business, and I wish you every success in rooting them out. When I learned they'd struck again, I gave all my customers their money back and closed up to spare them an unpleasant encounter with the authorities.”

“Who told you what happened?”

“A stranger who poked his head in the door and said, ‘You'd best fold your tent before the peelers get here. The white slavers was at it just now.'”

“He said that exactly, ‘fold your tent'?”

“Yes, sir. I'd never heard the phrase before, and so remembered it.”

“Describe the man.”

He pursed his lips. “A ruffian, built thick and smelling so strongly of gin and onions the stench reached me behind the counter. His face was scarred from pox and he wore the clothes of a cab driver, high hat and all, but shabby in the extreme.”

Holmes looked at Mary, who nodded with certainty. He excused himself and drew near enough to us to whisper. “Did anything strike you outside as familiar?”

“No,” she replied. “I'm afraid that means nothing. I was—”

“Quite so. It's possible this fellow wishes to throw Snipe on the sword to spare himself, but he must know the man would squeak on him when captured. We shall rule him out for now.”

We bade the man good day, thanked the constable for his cooperation, and walked to the next address, round the corner and only a few squares away.

I said, “I fail to see how competing enterprises can survive in such close proximity.”

“And yet show me a neighbourhood that doesn't boast at least three tobacco shops. Sugar and milk are habits nearly as compelling as Cavendish.”

Mary tightened her grip on my arm. “If I ever grow stout, you'll know it was on marrow and potatoes, and not on sweets. Today has cured me.”

The second parlour was much the same as the first, except that in place of a man in uniform we found Inspectors Gregson and Lestrade in charge. The latter, more bull terrier than mastiff, was every bit as aggressive as his colleague. “We've got the blighter,” he rapped.

“You're out of order,” grumbled Gregson. “This is my investigation.”

I bridled. “You seemed little enough interested in pursuing it when I brought it to you.”

“It wasn't the same thing then, was it? If the Yard was to start barging in on lovers' quarrels, there'd never be an end to it.”

Mary turned my way. “Please forgive me. I thought you exaggerated when you told me of these men.”

“Thank you kindly, madam.” Gregson lifted his hat. “If I was to arrest a man entirely on appearances, I should not hesitate to clap the owner in irons. However, his piteous attempts at evasion quite settle the matter. Lestrade's in agreement.”

“If I'm not out of order.” The other was plainly seething. There was no love lost between these two comrades in arms.

“What sort of attempts?” Holmes asked.

“To begin with, he pretended not to have any English at all, but there's the bill of fare on the chalkboard, plain as the Queen's.”

“Has he no partners or employees?”

“Lestrade asked him point blank. One thing he can manage is to make himself understood. We tripped the bounder up in his own words. He's cook, bottle-washer, and the gent that sweeps the floors.”

“You translated that from which language?”

“Italian, which made him suspicious right off. They're all of them the same, these Mediterraneans, thick as chowder. He shook his head and said, ‘No, no, no' when asked if he had anyone with him in the business.”

“I see. Lestrade spoke slowly and loudly, which as we all know transcends all tongues, and interpreted the response as an answer to his question. As to his ethnicity as evidence for conviction, we must consult with Plutarch and Garibaldi before we lay it before the bench. May I speak with him?”

Gregson looked at Lestrade, who shrugged. “He's in back with a constable, though what good it will do you I can't say.”

Holmes asked to be alone with the man, to which Mary and I agreed, although we were able to watch the interrogation through a circular window in the swinging door leading to a storage room. There among the sacks, jars, and cartons, he drew a chair so close to where the proprietor sat that their knees almost touched, with yet another stalwart in blue standing by wearing an expression of determined comprehension. Dumb show that it was for us, the discussion was clearly no more within the officer's grasp.

The man under guard was youthful in appearance, with black hair cut close to the crown, a long, sallow face, and modest moustaches by the standards of his people. He wore an immaculate white smock and a military stripe on his trousers. That the pair were conversing in Italian seemed obvious by the way both men waved their arms energetically while speaking; the Romans are a demonstrative race. The fellow being interrogated shook his head violently to some questions, nodded animatedly to others, listened with a thoughtful mien when he was silent, and, when Holmes leaned closer and appeared to whisper in his ear, responded with a show of gravity. Presently Holmes shook his hand and returned to the main room.

“His name is Antonio Valardi,” he reported. “He came here from Genoa when he was fourteen years old, after his parents perished in a diphtheria epidemic, and saved his labourer's wages for ten years until he had enough money to lease this space and purchase equipment and supplies. He hopes to make enough to bring all his cousins here from Italy, and knows nothing of the white slave trade.”

“Why wouldn't he?” said Lestrade with a snort.

“He said also that he employs a boy part-time to sweep up and write the bill of fare on the chalkboard. When you asked him if he had anyone with him in the business, he shook his head and said ‘no' because he didn't understand the question.”

Gregson said, “He's changed his story.”

“It's easy enough to confirm or deny. He expects his boy to report to work any moment.”

“How can anyone live in London ten years and not pick up a word of English?” barked Lestrade.

“The Italian Quarter is an insular society. Many have lived their entire lives there communicating entirely in their native dialect.”

“We'll break him yet,” said Gregson.

“I have no doubt you will, if you employ your usual methods. However, you will be helping the true criminal to escape justice. He has a good memory for phonetics. When I whispered the phrase ‘fold your tent' in his ear, he told me that's exactly what the stranger said.”

“What stranger?” Both inspectors spoke in unison.

“The one the constables who visited the two other parlours will tell you about, who warned the proprietor to close up shop for his own good. You'll find he answers to the name of Snipe.”

“He does, does he?” Gregson said. “What's this ‘fold your tent' business, I should like to know?”

“‘Let us fold our tents and steal away.' It's an Arab saying, not well known in Britain. Of course it made no sense to
Signor
Valardi, but it was said with such urgency he thought closing up the better part of valour. But here, if I'm not mistaken, is the lad who will confirm at least part of his story.”

Outside the plated-glass entrance stood a boy of sixteen or seventeen, whose surprise at finding the door locked at that hour was evident on his face. On his way out, Holmes held it open for him, and we left the inspectors blaming each other in strident tones.

Our visit to the third and last parlour is swiftly summarised. The manager was a lady of genteel manners who operated the establishment for her absentee employer, a Welsh entrepreneur well known to the press, and a confidant of the Prince of Wales. She told the same story as the others, and nothing about the neighbourhood awakened anything in Mary's memory.

“Perhaps the first constable underestimated the length of her flight,” I suggested. “The search must be widened.”

Holmes's face was dark. “I am the one who is guilty of underestimation. I misjudged the cunning of our enemy. We have already met Snipe this day.”

We fairly leapt aboard the first four-wheeler that stopped, Holmes first, I gripping Mary's wrist, effectively pulling her over the stirrup-step.