“I was not aware of it.”
“Nor was he.”
My mind was centred upon a broader prospect. “Holmes,” said I, “this whole affair is curiously unsatisfactory. Surely this journey was not motivated by a simple desire on your part to restore lost property?”
He gazed out the carriage-window. “The surgeon’s-kit was delivered to our door. I doubt we were mistaken for a lost-and-found bureau.”
“But by whom was it sent?”
“By someone who wished us to have it.”
“Then we can only wait.”
“Watson, to say that I smell a devious purpose here is no doubt fanciful. But the stench is strong. Perhaps you will get your wish.”
“My wish?”
“I believe you recently suggested that I give the Yard some assistance in the case of Jack the Ripper.”
“Holmes―!”
“Of course there is no evidence to connect the Ripper with the surgeon’s-kit. But the postmortem knife is missing.”
“The implication has not escaped me. Why, this very night it may be plunged into the body of some unfortunate!”
“A possibility, Watson. The removal of the scalpel may have been symbolical, a subtle allusion to the fiendish stalker.”
“Why did the sender not come forward?”
“There could be any number of reasons. I should put fear high on the list. In time, I think, we shall know the truth.”
Holmes lapsed into the preoccupation I knew so well. Further probing on my part, I knew, would have been useless. I sat back and stared gloomily out the window as the train sped towards Paddington.
Ellery Tries
Ellery looked up from the notebook.
Grant Ames, finishing his nth drink, asked eagerly, “Well?”
Ellery got up and went to a bookshelf, frowning. He took a book down and searched for something while Grant waited. He returned the book to the shelf and came back.
“Christianson’s.”
Grant looked blank.
“According to the reference there, Christianson’s was a well-known stationery manufacturer of the period. Their watermark is on the paper of the notebook.”
“That does it, then!”
“Not necessarily. Anyway, there’s no point in trying to authenticate the manuscript. If someone’s trying to sell it to me, I’m not buying. If it’s genuine, I can’t afford it. If it’s a phony―”
“I don’t think that was the idea, old boy.”
“Then what was the idea?”
“How should I know? I suppose someone wants you to read it.”
Ellery pulled his nose fretfully. “You’re sure it was put into your car at that party?”
“Had to be.”
“And it was addressed by a woman. How many women were there?”
Grant counted on his fingers. “Four.”
“Any bookworms? Collectors? Librarians? Little old ladies smelling of lavender sachet and must?”
“Hell, no. Four slick young chicks trying to look seductive. After a husband. Frankly, Ellery, I can’t conceive one of them knowing Sherlock Holmes from Aristophanes. But with your kooky talents, you could stalk the culprit in an afternoon.”
“Look, Grant, any other time and I’d play the game. But I told you. I’m in one of my periodic binds. I simply haven’t the time.”
“Then it ends here, Maestro? For God’s sake, man, what are you, a hack? Here I toss a delicious mystery into your lap―”
“And I,” said Ellery, firmly placing the notebook in Grant Ames’s lap, “toss it right back to you. I have a suggestion. You rush out, glass in hand, and track down your lady joker.”
“I might at that,” whined the millionaire.
“Fine. Let me know.”
“The manuscript didn’t grip you?”
“Of course it does.” Reluctantly, Ellery picked up the journal and riffled through it.
“That’s my old buddy!” Ames rose. “Why don’t I leave it here? After all, it is addressed to you. I could report back at intervals―”
“Make it long intervals.”
“Mine host. All right, I’ll bother you as little as I can.”
“Less, if possible. And now will you beat it, Grant? I’m serious.”
“What you are, friend, is grim. No fun at all.” Ames turned in the doorway. “Oh, by the way, order some more scotch. You’ve run out.”
When he was alone again, Ellery stood indecisively. Finally he put the notebook down on the sofa and went to his desk. He stared at the keys. The keys stared back. He shifted in his swivel chair; his bottom was itching. He pulled the chair closer. He pulled his nose again.
The notebook lay quietly on the sofa.
Ellery ran a sheet of blank paper into the machine. He raised his hands, flexed his fingers, thought, and began to type.
He typed rapidly, stopped, and read what he had written:
“The LordI”said Nikki, “choves a leerfulgiver”
“All right!” said Ellery. “Just one more chapter!”
He jumped up and ran over to the sofa and grabbed the notebook and opened it and began to devour Chapter III.
Chapter III
Whitechapel
“By the way, Holmes, whatever became of Wiggins?” I asked the question late the following morning in the rooms at Baker Street.
We had had a buffet supper the previous evening at the station after our return from Shires Castle, whereupon Holmes had said, “The young American pianist, Benton, plays at Albert Hall tonight. I recommend him highly, Watson.”
“I was not aware that the States had produced any great pianoforte talents.”
Holmes had laughed. “Come, come, my dear fellow! Let the Americans go. It has been more than a century now, and they have been doing quite well over there.”
“You wish me to accompany you? I should be delighted.”
“I was suggesting the concert for your evening. I have a few investigations in mind which are better made at night.”
“In that case, I prefer the easy-chair by the fire and one of your fascinating books.”
“I recommend one I recently acquired, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by an American lady named Stowe. A lugubrious work, meant to stir the nation to correct a great injustice. It was, I believe, one of the causes of the War Between the States. Well, I must be off. Perhaps I shall join you in a night-cap later.”
Holmes, however, returned very late, after I was abed. He did not awaken me, so that our next meeting was at breakfast. I hoped for an account of his night’s work, but none was forthcoming. Nor did he appear to be in haste to get on with things, lounging lazily in his mouse-coloured dressing-gown over his tea and clouding the room with heavy exhalations from his beloved clay pipe.
Came a sudden clatter upon the stairs, and there rushed into the room a dozen of the dirtiest, most ragged urchins in all London. They were Holmes’s incredible band of street Arabs, whom he called variously “the Baker Street division of the detective police force,” his “unofficial force,” and “the Baker Street irregulars.”
“ ‘Tention!” snapped Holmes; and the urchins struggled into a ragged line and presented their begrimed little faces in what they evidently took to be a military posture.
“Now, have you found it?”
“Yes, sir, we have,” replied one of the band.
“It was me, sir!” cut in another eagerly as he grinned, showing gaps where three teeth were wanting.
“Very good,” said Holmes, sternly, “but we work as a unit. No individual glory, men. One for all and all for one.”
“Yes, sir,” came the chorus.
“The report?”
“It’s in Whitechapel.”
“On Great Heapton Street, near the pass-over. The street is narrow there, sir.”
“Very good,” said Holmes again. “Here is your pay. Now be off with you.”