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

‘That is true. I suppose the likeliest explanation is that he had just come from visiting the Hollingworths when Herbert first met him. I wonder what his connection with them might be, if he is not a member of the family?’

Thus we chatted for some time, turning the matter over and over, and looking at it from this way and that, without arriving at any notion of what might lie behind it.

‘It almost sounds like one of the cases of your friend, Mr Holmes!’ said Mary at length, laughing.

‘Indeed,’ I concurred. ‘I am sure he would enjoy it. He is a connoisseur of such outré passages of life!’

The dinner-table had long been cleared, and I was sitting smoking my pipe and reading, when there came a ring at the bell. Moments later, the maid informed me that she had shown a bleeding patient into the consulting-room. I dropped my book at once and hurried downstairs.

The door of the consulting-room stood open and I had my foot upon the threshold, when I stopped in amazement. For there, his face cut and bruised, was my companion from earlier in the evening. Upon his forehead, just above the eyebrow, was a raised, discoloured lump, and upon his cheek was a gash from which blood had flowed down his face and neck. In his hand he held a black leather bag.

‘My dear fellow!’ I cried. ‘What on earth has happened to you!’

‘You asked me to keep you informed of developments, Doctor,’ said he, attempting a grim smile, which clearly caused him great pain, ‘so here I am!’

He put down the bag and held out the palms of his hands to me, and I saw that they were grazed and filthy.

‘Sit yourself down,’ said I, ‘and I will set you to rights, while you tell me what has happened.’

‘I have been viciously assaulted,’ said he.

‘Assaulted! Where?’

‘Fleet Street.’

‘Fleet Street! What on earth were you doing down there?’

‘My story has advanced a little,’ said he, wincing as I dabbed the cut on his cheek.

‘And have the latest developments shed any light on the mystery?’

‘On the contrary. It seems yet darker than it did before.’

I glanced at the clock.

‘I recommend,’ said I, ‘that when I have patched you up, you accompany me at once to the chambers of my friend, Sherlock Holmes. He has a vast understanding of these sorts of matters, and it may be that what is dark to us will not be so to him.’

So it was, that, ten minutes later, my companion clutching his black bag tightly, we were in a cab and rattling through the darkness to my friend’s rooms. We found Holmes sitting cross-legged upon the floor, sorting through mounds of documents, but he sprang up as we entered.

‘Watson!’ cried he in a gay tone. ‘What a very pleasant surprise! But who is your friend? He appears a little the worse for wear!’

‘This is Mr Alfred Herbert, a patient of mine. He has had need of my services this evening, and I fancy he may have need of yours, too.’

The two of them shook hands, and as they did so Herbert broke into a paroxysm of coughing.

‘That sounds suspiciously like bronchitis,’ remarked Holmes.

‘Indeed. That is what first led me to consult Dr Watson.’

‘Your work is partly to blame, of course.’

‘My work?’ echoed Herbert in surprise. ‘My work is largely clerical, Mr Holmes. It is neither heavy nor dusty and can have no bearing on the matter.’

‘Not the nature of your work, Mr Herbert, but the fact that it obliges you to travel twice a day on the subterranean section of the Metropolitan Railway. You have a season ticket, no doubt, from Paddington or Bayswater to the City. Some people, you know, with more delicate constitutions than their fellows, find that the smoke and fumes on the underground railways are more than their lungs can tolerate, and it may be that you are one of them.’

‘How can you speak so confidently of my daily habits when we have only just met?’ cried Herbert in surprise.

‘It is perfectly obvious. You might as well ask me how I know that you are a stockbroker, that you are right-handed, come from near Preston in Lancashire, but have lived in London for somewhat over a dozen years, and that you take snuff.’

Mr Herbert took a step backwards, and his features assumed a look of the utmost astonishment.

‘How on earth—?’ he began, but Holmes interrupted him, a trace of impatience on his face.

‘You evidently live in Paddington or Bayswater,’ said he briskly; ‘otherwise you would not have elected to seek the services of my friend here.’

‘Twenty-three, Leinster Gardens.’

‘Quite so. I observed as we shook hands that there are a large number of figures upon the left cuff of your shirt. You are therefore right-handed, and undoubtedly a dealer in stocks and shares, for the figures can only be stock-prices. You must therefore travel each day from the Paddington area to the City in order to undertake your duties and it seems overwhelmingly likely that you would do so on the Metropolitan Railway, which connects the two areas directly. A man of your common sense would hardly undertake this journey every day of the week without taking advantage of the savings to be had from the purchase of a season ticket.

‘As to your birthplace, my dear sir: your accent, although much modified, yet retains traces of central Lancashire. I cannot pretend to an intimate knowledge of every accent in England, but I have a tolerable acquaintance with some four or five dozen and have given special attention to the accents of Lancashire, which perhaps exhibit more variety and extreme development than those of any other area of comparable size. The profession you follow is not one into which a stranger can slip at a moment’s notice, in the middle of his life, and nor can one gain much experience of it outside of London. It seems likely, therefore, that you have been in the stock-exchange line for most of your adult life, and as you appear to be about five-and-thirty, that indicates that your employment – and hence your period of residence in London – has been for over a dozen years. The snuff-taking is a trivial matter: a small snuff-box is distending your waistcoat pocket at this moment.’

‘Amazing!’ cried Herbert.

‘Elementary,’ said Holmes. ‘Let us leave your bronchitis behind and come to the more essential matter. Your appearance suggests that it may be urgent, unless Dr Watson has simply been using you for bandaging practice. Pray, take a seat.’

Mr Herbert thereupon told his story, exactly as he had told it to me. He described his first meeting with his old school-fellow and the subsequent meeting at the Lancashire and Yorkshire Club, and also the sudden realisation that his new acquaintance could not possibly be the man he claimed to be.

‘When I returned home this evening after telling my tale to Dr Watson,’ he continued, ‘I found a letter awaiting me. It may have been there all day, for all I know, for I had not returned to Leinster Gardens since leaving Persquith and Moran’s this afternoon. It was from my recent acquaintance – of course, he still signed himself “Stephen Hollingworth” – asking me to bring the bag which he had entrusted to me down to Carstone Court, near Fleet Street. He said it was vital that I was there by eight o’clock and was confident I would not let him down. I paid the cabbie extra to whip his horse up a bit and was in Fleet Street by three minutes past the hour.

‘It took me a few minutes to discover Carstone Court and I had to ask directions in a pub, but eventually I found it, on the north side of Fleet Street. It lies at the end of a long, ill-lit passage, a by-way off a by-way, so to speak, and it was not without some apprehension that I entered it. The courtyard was narrow and dark, with tall, unlit buildings on either hand, and was as silent as the grave. It was certainly an odd place to choose to meet anyone, but I supposed that “Hollingworth” had selected it in order to keep the business private. I stood there a moment, but there seemed to be no one about. Once or twice, the sound of distant footsteps came to my ears up the long, narrow alley from Fleet Street, but they were remote and muffled, and, when they had passed, the courtyard returned to utter silence once more.