Denis Smith - The Mammoth Book of the New Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes

When we reached Baker Street, a commissionaire from one of the nearby premises ran up to us.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said he. ‘You have a visitor, and a rum, fidgety cove, if ever I saw one. For twenty minutes he was a-walking forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards, on the pavement here. ‘Is this where Mr Holmes, the consulting detective, lives?’ says he to me. ‘It is,’ said I. ‘Would you like me to introduce you?’ But he shook his head. ‘No, thank you,’ says he. ‘I’ll just consider the matter a little longer.’ Then he was back to walking up and down as if his life depended on it, for another ten minutes afore he went in!’

‘Excellent!’ cried Holmes, rubbing his hands together. ‘A man with a problem, evidently! Let us hope it is a stimulating one!’

A young man stood up from the fireside chair as we entered our sitting-room. A clean-shaven, slightly built man of about thirty years of age, he was neatly dressed in a dark grey City suit. He introduced himself as Sidney Potter, and was, he said, a clerk at Lloyd’s.

‘Pray be seated,’ said Holmes, ‘and tell us what brings you here. You evidently regard the matter as important, to have taken the afternoon off, and come here direct from Lloyd’s. The ink upon your finger-ends tells me that you have been hard at work this morning.’

‘Indeed,’ said our visitor, looking in surprise at his ink-stained fingers. ‘I don’t know whether my little problem will be something in your line or not,’ he continued, ‘and, to be frank, I hesitated considerably before deciding to consult you; but I will give you the details of the matter and see if you can make anything of it.’

‘You have my full attention,’ said Holmes, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes and placing his fingertips together.

‘I am a married man,’ Mr Potter began. ‘I have had a good berth in the City for twelve years now, and have lived in Lewisham since my marriage, seven years ago. My parents are both dead, I have no brothers or sisters, and my only close relative in recent years, other than my wife and small son, Horatio, has been my mother’s brother, Major Ullathorne, my uncle Henry. He was warned by his doctor some years ago that his heart was not strong, and he died, alas, eight weeks ago today, of a sudden heart seizure.

‘He had spent his entire career with the Royal Medway Regiment, and, after his retirement, lived in quiet seclusion near Woolwich, which is where the regiment has been stationed for many years. His house, a pretty little place known as “Juniper Cottage”, lies within easy walking distance of Woolwich, but is in a very rural situation, at the end of a long muddy track. He had only one near neighbour, an old friend of his, Major Loxley, a retired fellow-officer from the Medway Regiment, who writes cookery books under the name of ‘‘Major L.’’. I had visited my uncle many times, with my parents when I was younger, and, since my marriage, with my wife, and had always enjoyed the rural charm of the place. When his will was published, a few weeks after his death, I learnt that his entire estate had been left to me. There is a sum of money – not a great amount, but a pleasant surprise, nonetheless – a few little items of moderate value, and, principally, Juniper Cottage.

‘Now, my wife and I had been considering for some time whether we ought to move house. Lewisham has become much smokier since we first took up residence there, and Horatio suffers occasionally from croup. When I inherited Juniper Cottage, it therefore seemed a wonderful opportunity. It is a much healthier spot in which to bring up a child, and as all the trains from Woolwich pass through London Bridge station, my daily journey to work would be a very easy one. Mrs Potter and I discussed the matter fully, examining all the arguments for and against such a move, and, in the end, decided that we would do it. We therefore moved ourselves out there two weeks ago.

‘It is certainly a very pretty spot. The cottage is built on high ground, looking down from a distance upon Woolwich and the river, and at the back is a large garden, which faces south and has the sun upon it from dawn to dusk. The garden is beautifully kept, for Major Ullathorne was a very keen gardener. From the study, a pair of French windows leads directly on to this garden, and in the summer months he would generally leave these French windows standing open all day, so that the scents of the garden drifted into the house. We looked forward to following his example.

‘The house is at present still full of my uncle’s furniture and possessions, and it will be some time before we have sorted it all out. He was a very neat and methodical man, but he had acquired an enormous number of curios and trophies from his travels about the world, and parts of the cottage resemble a museum. For the moment, therefore, we have left most of our own furniture in our house in Lewisham, on which the rent is paid up for another two months.

‘I have described the cottage to you in some detail so that you will appreciate what an idyllic spot it is. However, from the moment we arrived there, there has seemed, also, something odd and mysterious about the place. On the day we moved in, we found that a pane of glass in the kitchen window had been broken, and it was clear that someone had forced an entry and had been in the house. The papers in my uncle’s study had been rifled, and were in a state of considerable disarray. Daisy, my wife, is of a nervous disposition, and was very anxious at the thought that the intruder might return, but the local policeman, whom we sent for, thought it unlikely. ‘‘A house standing unoccupied for several weeks is too tempting a target for some roughs to ignore,’’ said he, ‘‘but now that you are in residence, I should not think they will trouble you again.’’ Daisy was reassured by this, and we put the matter behind us, and set about making the cottage feel like home.

‘Three days later, the evening brought high winds and a very heavy rainstorm, and we were sitting cosily by the fire, listening to the racket as the wind hurled sheets of rain against the window, and hoping that the tiles upon the roof were all sound, when, to our very great surprise, there came a sudden violent jangling at the front-door bell.

‘I hurried to open the door, and found a man of about my own age standing upon the step, dripping wet. He nodded his head to me, and as he did so a stream of water fell from the brim of his hat like a waterfall.

‘“Come in, come in!” I cried, hauling him into the house and closing the door against the driving rain. “Whatever are you doing out in this weather, and at this time of night!”

‘My wife hurried to fetch a towel, and as he was rubbing his face with it, he introduced himself as Jonathan Pleasant. He was a tall, strongly built man, with close-cropped ginger hair.

‘“Come to the sitting-room fire,” said I. “I am glad we are able to offer you shelter from the storm,” I added, thinking that he had lost his way in the dark, and had simply chanced upon our house. His response, however, quickly disabused me of that notion.

‘“Are you,” said he, “Mr Sidney Potter, nephew of the late Major Henry Ullathorne?”

‘“I am,” I returned in surprise.

‘“Very good,” said he, as he warmed his hands before the blazing fire. “Then you are just the man I am looking for; and I, I may tell you, am just the man that you are looking for!” So saying, he took my hand in his and wrung it vigorously.

‘“Your meaning is not clear to me, Mr Pleasant,” said I, puzzled by his manner.

‘“No?” he returned, flinging himself down in an armchair, crossing his legs, and, I must say, making himself very much at home. “You, Mr Potter, desire to sell this house. I am correct, am I not? And I, Mr Potter, desire to purchase it. What could be simpler!” He leaned back in his chair, winked at my wife in a conspiratorial manner, as if I were a half-wit, and chuckled heartily.