My Sherlock Holmes Part 26

Holmes seemed oblivious to his insults and he searched through the pocket book which contained some banknotes in both French and English currencies and little else apart from two pasteboard visiting cards. They bore the name "T. W. Tone" on them and a little harp device surmounted by a crown. Holmes showed them to Watson and said quietly, "Note these well, Watson, old friend." It was as if Gallagher was not supposed to hear, but he did so and duly reported the fact to me.

Holmes then frowned and peered closely at the bundle of clothes.

"Wasn't the Cardinal supposed to be wearing a nights.h.i.+rt? Pray, where is that?"

"It was wrapped separately from the other clothing," Gallagher a.s.sured him, producing it. "As this was what the body was clad in, it was considered that it should be kept separate in case it provided any clues."

The insufferable Holmes took out the nights.h.i.+rt and started to examine it. A curious expression crossed his features as he sniffed at it. Turning, he picked up the other clothing and sniffed at that. He spent so long smelling each item alternatively that Gallagher thought him mad.

"Where have these been stored during these last several days?"

"They have been placed in sacking and stored in a cupboard here in case they were needed as evidence."

"In a damp cupboard?"

"Of course not. They have been kept in a dry place."

Half an hour later saw them at Father Michael's presbytery, where His Eminence had last been seen alive. He treated the poor priest in the same brusque manner as he had the doctor and coroner. His opening remarks were, apparently, exceedingly offensive.

"Did the Cardinal take narcotics, according to your knowledge?" he demanded.

Father Michael looked astounded, so shocked that he could say nothing for a moment and then, having regained control of his sensibilities, after Holmes's brutal affront, shook his head.

"He was not in the habit of using a needle to inject himself with any noxious substance?" Holmes went on, oblivious to the outrage he had caused.

"He was not ..."

" ... to your knowledge?" Holmes smiled insultingly. "Did the Cardinal receive any letters or messages while he was here?"

Father Michael admitted no knowledge on the matter, but, at Holmes's insistence, be summoned the housekeeper. She recalled that a man had presented himself on the door of the presbytery demanding to see His Eminence. Furthermore, the housekeeper said the man was well m.u.f.fled, with hat pulled down and coat collar pulled up, thus presented no possibility of identification. She did remember that he had spoken with an Irish accent. He had presented a card with a name on it. The housekeeper could not remember the name but recalled that the card had a small device embossed on it, which she thought was a harp.

Gallagher could not forbear to point out that Scotland Yard had asked these questions prior to Holmes's involvement.

"Except the questions of narcotics," replied Holmes, a patronizing expression on his face.

Holmes then demanded to see the bedroom where Father Michael had bade good night to His Eminence. He carefully examined it.

"I perceive this room is on the third floor of the house. That is irritating in the extreme."

Father Michael, Gallagher, and even Watson exchanged a puzzled glance with one another as Holmes went darting around the bedroom. In particularly, he went through Cardinal Tosca's remaining clothing, sniffing at it like some dog trying to find a scent.

Holmes then spent a good half an hour examining the presbytery from the outside, much to the irritation of Gallagher and the bemus.e.m.e.nt of Watson.

From Soho they took a hansom cab to Sir Gibson Gla.s.sford's house in Gayfere Street. Gla.s.sford was apparently close to tears when he greeted them in his study.

"My dear Holmes," he said, holding the Great Detective's hand as if he were afraid to let go of it. "Holmes, you must help me. No one will believe me, even my wife now thinks that I am not telling her all I know. Truly, Holmes, I never saw this prelate until Hogan showed me the dead body in the room. What does it mean, Holmes? What does it mean? I would resign office, if that would do any good, but I fear it would not. How can this strange mystery be resolved?"

Holmes extracted his hand with studied care and removed himself to the far side of the room.

"Patience, Minister. Patience. I can only proceed when I have facts. It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. True, the circ.u.mstances of this matter are strange but they only retain their mystery until the facts are explained. Watson, you know my methods. The grand thing is to be able to reason backward."

Watson nodded, as if he understood, but looked unhappy. Inspector Gallagher was pretty certain that the b.u.mbling doctor had not a clue of what the arrogant man was saying. Gla.s.sford looked equally bewildered and had the courage to say so.

"Facts, my dear sir!" snapped Holmes. "I have no facts yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has facts. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

He made Gla.s.sford, his wife, and all the servants go through the evidence they bad already given to the police and then demanded to see the bedchamber in which His Eminence had been found.

"I observe this bedroom is on the fourth floor of your house. How tiresome!"

Once again, he wandered around the bedroom, paying particular attention to the carpeting, exclaiming once or twice as he did so.

"Seven days, I suppose it would have been an impossibility to think anything would have remained undisturbed."

The note Of accusation caused Detective Inspector Gallagher to flush in annoyance.

"We did our best to secure the evidence, Mr. Holmes," he began.

"And your best was to destroy whatever evidence there was," snapped Holmes conceitedly.

He then led the way outside the house and stood peering around as if searching for something. But he seemed to give up with a shake of his head. He was turning away when his eyes alighted on two men on the opposite side of the road who were peering down an open manhole. From the steps of the house, an elderly woman, clutching a Pekingese dog in her arms, was observing their toil, or rather lack of it, with disapproval. An expression of interest crossed Holmes's features and be went over to them.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he greeted the workmen. "I observe by your expression that something appears amiss here."

The workmen gaped at him, unused to being addressed as gentlemen.

"Naw, guv'nor," replied. one, shaking his head. "We do reckon ain't naw'fing wrong 'ere." He glanced at the elderly lady and said in an aggrieved voice. "But seems we've gotta check, ain't we?"

The elderly lady was peering shortsighted at Holmes.

"Young man!" she accosted him, in an imperial tone "I don't suppose you are an employee of the local sewerage works?"

Holmes swung round, leaving the two workmen still gazing morbidly down the hole in the road, and he smiled thinly.

"Is there some way I can be of a.s.sistance, madam?"

"I have not seen eye to eye with your workmen there. They a.s.sure me that I have been imagining excavations near my house by the sewerage company. I do not imagine things. However, since these excavations have ceased, or rather the sounds of them, which have been so oppressive to my obtaining a decent night's repose, I presume that we will no longer be bothered by these nightly disturbances?"

"Nightly disturbances?" Holmes asked with quickening interest.

When she confirmed that she had complained a fortnight prior to the sewerage company of nightly disturbances caused by vibration and m.u.f.fled banging under the street, causing her house to shake, one of the workmen summoned courage to come forward. He raised a finger to his cap.

"Begging' yer pardon, lady, but wiv all due respect an' that, ain't bin none of our lads a digging dahn 'ere. No work bin done in this 'ere area fer months naw."

Holmes stood regarding the old woman and the workmen for a moment, and then with a cry of "Of course!" he bounded back to Gla.s.sford's house and his knocking brought Hogan, the butler to the door again.

"Show me your cellar," he ordered the startled man Sir Gibson emerged from his study, disturbed by the noise of Holmes's reentry into the house, and looked astounded.

"Why, what is it, Mr. Holmes?"

"The cellar, man," snapped Holmes dictatorially, totally disregarding the fact that Gla.s.sford was a member of the government.

In a body they trooped down into the cellar. In fact, several cellars ran under the big house and Hogan, who had now brought a lamp, was ordered to proceed them through the wine racks, a coal storage area, a boiler room, and areas filled with bric-a-brac and a.s.sorted discarded furniture along one wall.

"Have any underground excavations disturbed you of late? These would have been during the night." Holmes asked as he examined the cellar walls, Gla.s.sford looked perplexed.

"Not at all," be replied, and then turned to his butler. "Your room is above here at the back of the house, isn't it, Hogan? Have you been disturbed?"

The butler shook his head.

"Does the Underground railway run in this vicinity?" Holmes pressed.

"We are not disturbed by the Underground here," replied Sir Gibson. "The Circle Line, which was completed six years ago, is quite a distance to the north of here."

"That wall would be to the north," Holmes muttered, and turning to Hogan ordered the man to bring the lamp close while he began examining the wall. He was there fully fifteen minutes before he gave up in irritation. Inspector Gallagher was smiling to himself and could not help making the thrust: "Your theory not turning out as you would hope, Mr. Holmes?"

Holmes scowled at him.

"We will return to Father Michael's," he almost snarled.

At the presbytery he demanded to see the priest, and being shown into the study asked without preamble: "Do you have a cellar?"

Father Michael nodded.

"Pray precede me to it," demanded Holmes arrogantly.

The priest did so, with Holmes behind him and Watson and Gallagher trailing in the rear. It was an ordinary cellar, mostly used for the storage of coal and with wine racks along one side. Holmes moved hither and thither through it like a ferret until he came to a rusting iron door.

"Where does this lead?" he demanded.

Father Michael shrugged.

"It leads into the new crypt. As you know, we are rebuilding the church and creating a crypt. The door used to lead into another cell, but it has not been opened ever since I have been here."

"Which is how long?" asked Holmes, examining it carefully.

"Ten years."

"I see," muttered the Great Detective. Then he smiled broadly. "I see." He said it again almost as if to impress everyone that be had spotted some solution to the mystery.

"And does an Underground railway run near here?"

Father Michael shook his head.

"Our architect ascertained that before we began to rebuild the church. We needed to ensure strong foundations."

Gallagher felt he could have done a dance at the crestfallen expression on Holmes's face. It lasted only a moment and then Holmes had swung round on him.

"I want to see the Metropolitan Commissioner of Sewers and maps of the system under London."

Gallagher felt he was dealing with a maniac now. It seemed that Holmes had devised some theory that he was determined to prove at all cost.

Mr. Bert Small, the manager of sewerage system, agreed to see Holmes and provide plans of the area at the company's Canon Row offices, just opposite the Palace of Westminster on the corner of Parliament Street.

"I cannot see the connection I wish to make." Holmes in resignation said, pus.h.i.+ng the plans away from him in disgust "There seems no way that one could negotiate the sewers from Soho Square to Gayfere Street, at least not directly in a short place of time. And the Underground rail way does not run anywhere near Father Michael's nor Gla.s.sford's houses."

It was then that Bert Small came to the rescue of Holmes, demonstrating that it was not intellect alone that helped him solve his cases but good fortune and coincidence.

"Maybe you are looking at the wrong underground system, Mr. Holmes," he suggested. "There are many other underground systems under London apart from sewers and the new railway system"

Holmes regarded him with raised eyebrows.

"There is another system of tunnels that runs under Westminster?"

Mr. Small rose and took down some keys, smiling with superiority.

"I will show you."

It took but a few minutes for Mr. Bert Small-the man of the moment as Gallagher cynically described him-to lead them from his office around the corner to Westminster Bridge. Here Mr. Small led them down a flight of steps to the Embankment to the base of the statute of Queen Boadicea, in her chariot with her two daughters. There was a small iron door here, which he unlocked and suggested that they follow him.

A flight of iron steps led them into a tunnel. Mr. Small seemed to swell with pride and he pointed out that it was situated just above the lower-level interceptory sewer which ran below the level of the Thames. They could see that it was built of brickwork but arched rather than circular and was about six feet high It was designed, said Mr. Small, to carry cast-iron pipes with water and gas.

He took a lantern and shone it along the dark, forbidding way.

Gallagher was conscious of the river seeping through the brickwork, dripping down the walls on either side and, above all, he was aware of the smell, the putrid stench of the river and the echoing tunnel before them. Holmes began to sniff with a sigh of satisfaction.

Mr. Small pointed down the tunnel.

"These tunnels run from here along the river as far as the Bank of England, Mr. Holmes. These are Sir Joseph Bazalgette's tunnels, which he completed fifteen years ago," he said proudly. "You have probably seen, gentlemen, that ,Sir Joseph died a few months ago. The tunnel system under London was his finest achievement and ..."

Holmes was not interested in the eulogy of the civil engineer who bad built the tunnels.

"And are there other connections?"

"Altogether there are eleven and a half miles of these sorts of tunnels. They fan out through the city," replied Mr. Small, blinking at being cut short.

"Do they connect with Soho Square and Gayfere Street?" Holmes demanded.

"There are none of these tunnels that would connect directly. You would have to go from Soho Square down to Shaftesbury Avenue to find an entrance and then you would have to exit here and walk to Gayfere Street."

"Then that's no good to me," snapped Holmes irritably. "Let's return to the surface."

Detective Inspector Gallagher smiled to see the Great Defective so put out that whatever theory he had could not be sustained.

As they emerged onto the Embankment, Mr. Small, perhaps seeking to mollify Holmes's bad humor, was prompted to make another suggestion "There is yet another tunnel system, Mr. Holmes," he finally ventured. "That might pa.s.s in the general direction that you have indicated, but I am not sure. I do have a plan of it hack at the office. But it has been closed down for over a decade now."

Holmes a.s.serted that he would like to see the plans.

Gallagher believed that Holmes was off on another wild goose chase and, being just across the road from his office at Scotland Yard, he left Holmes and Watson with Mr. Small. He returned to report the progress to his chief, Littlechild. It was two hours later that Gallagher received a curt note from Holmes asking him to meet him at Gla.s.sford's house within half an hour and bring a posse of armed police officers, who were to station themselves in the front and back of the building.