Ted Riccardi - Between the Thames and the Tiber

“Ah, here we go. Let us see if it fits the holes we find there.”

The telescope had attached to it a wire from which a piece of metal about two inches square hung. The holes in it matched precisely those on the window frame. By tightening the wire, the telescope became fixed. Holmes peered through it.

“Interesting, dear Watson, have a look.”

I looked through it and saw the upper storey of a house on the corner of Wharton Street.

“Well, Holmes, I must say that I see nothing remarkable. It looks like a house—indeed, the one over there,” said I, returning the telescope.

“Well, my dear friends, whatever its purpose, it is not pointed at any known celestial body. The use of the instrument must have been more mundane,” said Holmes.

“But why pretend to have such an interest?” I asked.

“We do not know at this point,” said Holmes. “Let us leave it for the moment.

“And now, if we may, let us pay a visit to Mr. McHugh.”

John McHugh lived directly across the square with his wife, Mary, and their two children. The family occupied a single room on the second floor of a house in almost total decay. Unlike their father, the children were thin and listless. McHugh, however, was a rough-hewn man, stout, unkempt, and out of work. His huge stomach pushed through his shirt where several buttons had popped.

He offered us a glass of ale, but we declined. He seemed incredulous at our refusal and filled his own glass. Mary McHugh, a short gray mouse of a woman, was obviously ill at ease and kept uttering apologies for the disorderly house we had entered. She repeatedly watered two wilted aspidistras in the window as we spoke. The signs of poverty—that peculiar London variety—were everywhere. Much of the furniture was broken and in tatters, and the floor of the sitting room was littered with newspapers and jagged pieces of broken glass. A filthy rug covered much of it. A young kitten sat in front of me chewing on the remains of a small mouse. The kitten was as emaciated as the children. Everything appeared to be sticky with the fingers of the two girls.

McHugh motioned us to sit and Holmes handed our host a paper left on the chair he took.

“This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his colleague, Dr. Watson,” said Barbara. “They are here to look into the disappearance of Mr. Rose. You claim to have seen him.”

McHugh spoke with assurance. “’Twas ’im I tell ya, Mr. ’olmes, no doubt of it. I’d know thet face o’ ’is anywheres. The bloody rascal popped out o’ sight as soon as ’e saw me. Poor man, ’e seems to have gone off ’is rocker.”

“Quite possibly that is the case,” said Holmes. “But tell me, Mr. McHugh, you are a singer, a tenor if I am not mistaken, and have performed at Sadler’s Wells on occasion.”

“Now ’ow did ya come ta thet conclusion? Mrs. Davies told ya all about me, eh?”

“Quite the contrary; I deduced it. I observed also that Rose owed you a large sum of money for losses at the gambling table, one hundred pounds I would say.”

“’ow did you know thet? Even my Mary ’ere don’t know thet.”

“I am a student of opera, Mr. McHugh, and I heard you on occasion years ago before you ruined your throat with the overindulgence in substances antithetical to the musical stage. Your gambling debts did not help your voice, either. I remember vividly your remarkable rendition of ‘Nessun dorma.’ As to the gambling, here: this paper, which preceded me in this chair, and which I removed as we sat down, registers the debt. I assume its veracity.”

“The money’s gone wit ’im, Mr. ’olmes. I ’ope you find ’im, the bloody thief.”

“Please tell to me again exactly what you saw, where, and when.”

“It was three days ago, Mr. ’olmes, I was goin’ to me new job at Simpson’s food market. I was mindin’ me own business when I saw ’im. It musta bin aroun’ six thirty in the mornin’.”

McHugh stopped long enough to finish his ale. He wiped his lips on his sleeve.

“It was at Russell Square. It was still dark, I remember. ’e came boundin’ off the lift when ’e almost run me down. Then I saw who ’e was and tried to grab ’im but ’e pulled ’imself free and ran off. ’e looked if anythin’ very bad, wot wid ’is ’air all shootin’ in every direction, and ’is face almos’ black wi’ dirt. But I recognized ’im I did. No doubt about it. “’Course I dint get me money, the bloody crook . . .”

“Do you remember anything else, anything at all?” asked Holmes finally.

“I do, as a matter of fact. ’e was carryin’ a shovel.”

“Thank you, Mr. McHugh. Should you remember anything else, please let me know.”

Holmes stood up and we left. We returned to Barbara’s house. As we entered her sitting room, Holmes said, “Barbara, let us open the valises that Mr. Rose chose not to retrieve.”

Holmes brought them into the light. They were locked. Holmes took a pick from his overcoat and opened them.

“How curious, Holmes, why there’s nothing here—mirabile dictu—except two pieces of an old shovel, one in each of the valises,” said I.

“Interesting. A shovel, the column of which is broken in two so that it is now useless. But it may be no ordinary shovel, Watson. Note the letters stamped on it: C and L. It has been thoroughly cleaned, indeed scrubbed, before it was placed in the valise. I suspect that it broke just before Rose was set to leave and caused him some inconvenience. Most probably it is one like the shovel that McHugh saw.”

“But why did he not just throw the shovel into the trash?” I asked.

“I suspect, dear Watson, that when we learn that we shall have found Mr. Rose.”

We accompanied Barbara to her door, and then walked south and west to the edge of the square. Holmes stopped for a moment and glanced towards the Davies residence, then turned and looked upwards at the house in front of which we were standing.

“This one is empty, Holmes,” said I.

“Yes, indeed. I thought as much. And vacant for a long time. Now, Watson, let us walk down the hill to Kingsway.”

We had not gone far down the hill on Wharton Street when Holmes stopped again, this time in front of a small iron gate. It appeared to mark the entrance to no house or yard in particular, but opened upon an unkempt dirt path that went between two houses.

“Come, let us enter,” said Holmes.

We found the gate to be unlocked. Holmes closed it after us.

The path turned north and we walked now between two windowless walls that belonged to adjacent houses, one of which I realized was the vacant house we had just seen from the square. We walked to the end of the path, where it opened up into a grassy plot of weeds and trash, mainly pieces of rotted wood interspersed with which there were piles of filthy rags and what looked like the remains of an upholsterer’s shop. It was a silent piece of isolation in the very heart of the city, invisible from the street.

“Nothing of interest here,” I said.

“Quite the contrary, Watson. This pile of wood and other castoffs may have some connection with the circular marks on the window and the putty-filled holes in Barbara’s establishment. But let us continue.”

What struck me as an outlandish conjecture on Holmes’s part produced a wide smile on my face.

“Holmes, you’re going daft, old boy.”

As I spoke, Holmes climbed the stairs to the back of the nearest house and turned the knob. The door was unlocked.

“You may be right, but let us see. Remain here while I take a look.”

I stood firmly on guard of this unexpected melancholy spot between two houses. Holmes returned very quickly.

“It is all beginning to fit together quite nicely. Come, Watson, we haven’t a moment to lose. My only fear is that we will be too late. It is the new moon tonight, and our quarry will want to act in complete darkness.”