Not only do I not profit from the vile trade of blackmaiclass="underline" my services are, in fact, taken advantage of by various guardians of law and order in London – the police, and the increasing number of consulting detectives setting up shop in Paddington and Pimlico. It is often crucial to their investigations to know that this suspect has been having a torrid love affair with that maid and that his recently murdered wife had, just prior to her death, discovered them locked in an amorous embrace. In the interests of telling the complete truth I have also, I admit, been approached by those who labour at the other end of the spectrum of legality. They, of course, do not share my repugnance at blackmail. I try my best not to get involved with these insalubrious characters. We have something of an armed standoff – I know the details of their dirty little schemes and could expose them to the police if I so chose. In fact, I have collections of information lodged with several solicitors scattered around London like so many infernal devices. If anything were to happen to me then that information would be released, and for a while the streets would be a great deal cleaner. But only for a while.
The only exception I make in this regard is a certain, shall we say, academic gentleman who occasionally seeks out my services. He is the kind of man whose mild requests have the force of barked orders, and unpleasant things happen to those who ignore those requests. Fortunately, he regards blackmail as trivial and beneath his intellect. The information with which I provide him is used in other ways that I rarely get to see. He also invites me for lunch every now and then at his club. He is a surprisingly pleasant conversationalist.
Talking of this gentleman brings me in a circle, back to the consulting detectives who seek me out and pay me for information. One in particular – a Mr Sherlock Holmes – frequently takes advantage of my services. He does not approve of me, but I am well past the time in my life when I require anybody’s approval. He finds me useful, however, and it does amuse me to see the daemons of his practical side fighting with the angels of his better nature. The poor man does suffer so.
I keep up to date with the cases undertaken by Mr Holmes by reading the accounts written by his fellow lodger and amanuensis, Dr John Watson. Often I can see within those accounts elements that I provided to Holmes but that he has, I presume, failed to explain properly to Dr Watson – preferring instead to take the credit for discovering them himself. And, who, frankly, can blame him? I trust, by the way, that Dr Watson’s skills as a physician exceed those he displays as a writer of prose. Or perhaps I am just irritated by the way his lumpen phraseology seems to catch the public imagination. Those of us who make a professional living from journalism tend to look darkly upon the fortunate amateur.
Perhaps that is why I have turned my attention now to writing up one of the times when Holmes required my assistance – and, as it turned out, for more than just information. This was during one of the periods when Watson was living separately from Holmes, thanks to a recent marriage. It was his third, I believe. Holmes seemed to have a blind spot where Watson was concerned: the man was a serial womaniser with a serious gambling problem, but Holmes never criticised him for this, as far as I know. He certainly had enough reason: Watson was always criticising Holmes for his dalliance with the needle.
At the time this particular case came to my attention Watson was out of London – holidaying in Eastbourne with his new wife. I already had a thin file on her, but I saw no need to spoil the good doctor’s marital bliss by telling him anything of his wife’s rather colourful past. Perhaps he already knew. At any rate, it was early one morning at my club when Holmes appeared, accompanied by a footman and a young woman who looked as if she had been crying for some time.
I nodded to the footman, and as he withdrew I gestured to my visitors to sit down.
“Mr Holmes,” I said, “it has been too long.”
“Not long enough for me, Pike,” he rejoined. “I apologise, by the way, for the timing of my visit. I know that the hours you keep tend to run completely counter to the hours of the civilised world.”
“And I know that you keep whatever hours you choose, without recourse to looking at any clock,” I responded. “We are both as bad as each other.”
“Certainly not,” he snapped. He had thrown himself into a chair when he arrived, but now he drew himself up and nodded his head towards the lady with whom he had entered. “This is Miss Molly Morris,” he said. “Miss Morris has consulted me on a problem, and I find I am in the regrettable situation of requiring your unique brand of assistance.”
I gazed at Miss Morris, who was wiping her eyes with a lace handkerchief. She was dressed quite cheaply, but well. I would have put her down as an assistant in a haberdasher’s shop, rather than one of those women often and confusingly described as being “no better than they should be”, and I am rarely wrong on these matters.
Holmes continued: “Miss Morris’s fiancé was killed several days ago in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, down near the Embankment. The exact nature of his death is odd; odder still has been the reaction of the police.”
“He was shot,” she interjected forcefully. “My family has worked in fairgrounds for generations, and I’ve seen shooting galleries. I know what a rifle shot sounds like. Gordon was standing in front of me, just opening his mouth to say something, when he was shot in the chest. He clutched at the wound, and keeled over.”
“I’m terribly sorry for your loss,” I said, leaning forward and patting her hand. “I fear that Mr Holmes may have misled you, however. I know he disapproves of the way I make my living, but I do not, I assure you, either commission shootings or know anyone who carries them out. Nasty, unpleasant, noisy things.”
“You make your living by making other people unhappy,” Holmes snapped. “Nevertheless, I am aware that you have a finely tuned ear for gossip and innuendo. Miss Morris’s fiancé is of, shall we say, a higher social station than she. I would like to know whether there is any family feud, any argument over a legacy, any dubious business arrangements, or any other reason why young Mr Gordon Drake might have been shot.”
“Drake is a common name,” I pointed out.
“Indeed. But this particular family have been involved in maritime insurance for generations.”
“Ah – the Cheyne Walk Drakes, with offices in Fenchurch Street and Deptford.” I nodded. “I have indeed heard of them, but not in any way that would help in your investigation. There is, as far as I am aware, no hint of scandal in that family.” I smiled at Holmes. “I would consider them to be consumers of the work I do, rather than the fuel for it.”
“The police tried to tell me he was stabbed,” Miss Morris interjected. “They told me that some mugger tried to take his wallet, and that when he resisted was knifed through the heart, but that’s just not so.”
I patted her hand again – I wasn’t sure if I was helping, but I had to do something. “Perhaps his family were unhappy at the impending marriage,” I said, “and they were trying to kill you, but missed. Had you thought about that possibility?”
Miss Morris looked at me in shock, then buried her face in her handkerchief and descended into a peal of sobs.
Holmes gazed at me sternly. “I have made investigations,” he announced, “and I am quite certain that Mr Drake’s family were happy that he was happy, and that they had taken Miss Morris to their bosom.” He held up a hand. “And, before you attempt to suggest that someone in Miss Morris’s family – perhaps a funfair shooting booth operator – was the guiding intelligence behind the shot, I have found only happiness in the extended Morris clan at the forthcoming nuptials.”