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

He swung the boat round in a broad arc towards the Essex shore, the change of direction pressing our backs against the gunwale and flinging a fountain of white spray into the dark sky. Ahead of us now, I could see a small group of men upon the pier, clearly awaiting our arrival, and two police vans. In a matter of moments we were at the pier and the launch was secured. Holmes sprang on to the steps at the side of the pier and we followed him up.

‘It is as we thought,’ said he, as we reached the top of the steps. ‘Inspector Poynter of the Docks Division has been able to confirm all our suspicions. The Orient Line’s Cuzco waits to leave on the morning tide and the passenger list contains the name of one Gilbert Rowsley.’

In a moment we were in a carriage and rattling through the deserted dockyards, past dark, shadowed warehouses, and beneath silent cranes and gantries, until we drew up on the dock-side, where a large and handsome ship was moored, its funnels smoking gently, its rigging silhouetted against the night sky.

The matter was soon explained to the officer of the watch, who conducted us without delay in the direction of the passenger accommodation. Although the ship was quiet, essential work still continued, I observed, for several sailors were busy on the lighted deck, absorbed in various tasks, and a bearded crewman passed us, his back bent under a heavy-looking sack, just before we turned into the passengers’ quarters. The ship’s officer led us quickly to Rowsley’s cabin, where he knocked sharply on the door, then pushed it open. The room within was in darkness, and when Lanner took a lantern from one of his officers and held it up, we saw that there was no one there. The little cabin was in perfect order and the cover upon the bed had been turned down, but the bed had not been slept in.

‘He is not here!’ cried Lanner. ‘He has tricked us and escaped again!’

‘No,’ said Sherlock Holmes, shaking his head, ‘Rowsley is here somewhere.’ He pointed to the little shelf beside the bed, upon which lay a slim volume entitled A History of the Melbourne Racetrack . ‘One moment!’ he cried abruptly, clapping his hand to his head. ‘The last man that passed us on the deck, the bearded man with the heavy sack – blind fool that I am not to heed my own eyes! – he was wearing patent shoes!’

‘What!’ cried the ship’s officer.

‘It must be Rowsley! He has managed to acquire a sailor’s uniform from somewhere, but could not get shoes to fit him. He has evidently been on his guard, lest his escape be thwarted at the last, and has observed our approach!’

We quickly retraced our steps. Upon the deck, some distance ahead of us, we could see the sailor with the sack, walking briskly towards the gang-plank.

‘It is he!’ cried Herbert. ‘I recognise his figure, even in that disguise!’

In a moment, he had reached the gang-plank. His hand was upon the rail at the top of it when he abruptly stopped.

‘He has seen the police vans on the dock-side,’ said Holmes.

Our quarry glanced quickly round, as if in a state of indecision. Then his eyes met ours as we approached and he let out a strangled cry, dropped his sack and sprinted across to the rail on the far side of the deck. We raced after him as fast as we were able, but before we could reach him he had climbed the rail. For a long moment, he stood precariously balanced upon the top, as if nerving himself to plunge into the waters of the dock far below. Then, with a gesture of resignation, he sprang down instead on to the deck of the ship and, leaning his back on the rail in a leisurely manner, awaited our arrival.

‘It is perhaps a little too dark and cold down there for a man of my sensitive breeding,’ he remarked in a casual tone as we reached the rail. ‘I see I do not require this tasteless encumbrance any longer, anyway,’ he continued, pulling at his bushy beard, which came away in his hand and which he tossed casually over the ship’s side.

It was strange at last to be face to face with this man who had been so long sought in vain, and who had proved so elusive that it seemed possible that he would never be apprehended. He was a tall, slim man and his face was a handsome one, if a little thin and fleshless; but there was something weak and deceitful about his mouth which his dark moustache could not entirely conceal.

‘Gilbert Rowsley—’ Inspector Lanner began, as the two constables seized hold of the fugitive, but Holmes interrupted him.

‘One moment, Lanner,’ said he, drawing the police inspector aside. ‘If you arrest him now,’ he continued in a low tone, out of earshot of the prisoner, ‘the full weight of the law falls at once upon the matter with unstoppable momentum and Mr Herbert stands little chance, if any, of recovering his fifty pounds. He certainly will not do so until all due processes have been observed, which may take several months. On the other hand, as I see it, there is nothing to prevent his recovering now what he is owed, provided the transaction takes place before the arrest is formally made.’

Inspector Lanner nodded his head. ‘I quite agree, Mr Holmes. Considering the service which Mr Herbert has rendered us today, it seems the very least we can do for him.’

Holmes then stepped forward once again and requested that his client’s loan be returned.

‘Oh, certainly, certainly,’ returned Rowsley, in a careless tone. ‘I assume a cheque would be acceptable, Herbert?’

‘Under the circumstances, my client would prefer to take it in cash,’ Holmes interjected.

‘Oh, very well,’ said the other, a trace of annoyance in his voice, as if he were being put to a very great inconvenience. He took from his pocket a thick leather purse, which he opened to reveal the largest wad of bank-notes which I think I have ever seen in my life. From these he extracted notes to the value of fifty pounds, which he exchanged with Herbert for his IOU.

‘Thank you,’ said Herbert.

‘Pray, don’t mention it,’ said the other, screwing up the paper and tossing it over the ship’s rail.

Lanner made his arrest then, to which Rowsley offered no resistance, other than to remark that the whole business was ‘deuced inconvenient’, and he and his possessions were removed from the Cuzco .

The Friday evening papers were full of news of the arrest, although they gave all the credit to the official police force and made no mention of either Sherlock Holmes or his client. After a brief hearing at the Stepney Police Court the case was referred to the autumn sessions of the Central Criminal Court. Before the case came to trial, however, in an attempt to secure a reduction in his own sentence, Rowsley had implicated the rest of the gang, an action which no doubt rendered him as popular among his criminal associates as he was among the honest citizens of London. His efforts in this regard were not entirely successful, however, and the last I heard of him was that he had been committed for a term of penal servitude at Portland Prison, where, as the judge in the case remarked, he might spend such leisure moments as he had in contemplation of his past misdeeds and perhaps come to see the error of his ways.

Mr Herbert dined at our house in Paddington later that summer and attempted – with indifferent success, I must admit – to educate me in the finer subtleties of the game of chess. Later in the year, acting on Holmes’s diagnosis as to the cause of his bronchitis, he moved to Greenwich, where my wife and I visited him the following Easter, and he was pleased to show us the view from his upstairs windows, which commanded a splendid panorama of the river, with its ever-changing kaleidoscope of shipping. This, he said, would always remind him of what he described as the greatest adventure of his life.