“Oh, was he?” I asked. That was, indeed, worth the money. “And what did he do?”
“Like everyone else, sir, he legged it.”
“As one would,” I observed.
I waited, watching the crowd and thinking, until Holmes returned.
“Some scratches on the stonework,” he said, his face contorted into a frown, “and some scuffing in the moss suggestive of footprints, but nothing I could use to make an identification or further the investigation.”
“I have found out something rather interesting,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Indeed?”
“You can remove that sarcastic tone from your voice. I have an intellect, you know, even if I use it in ways you disapprove of.”
He smiled slightly. “I apologise if I gave offence. I am too used to being with Watson. You do have a fine mind, Mr Pike, otherwise I would not have let you join me on this investigation. And as for disapproving of what use you make of it… well, on the list of people in London whom I disapprove of, your name appears far down the list.”
“I shall take what crumbs of comfort I can from that,” I said. “What I discovered is that the Earl of Montcreif was also in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens at the time the fatal shot was fired, and was standing very close to Mr Drake.”
Holmes shook his head. “I have already established to my own satisfaction, based on the accuracy of the shot, that Mr Drake was the intended victim. This was not an accidental shooting, with the shooter firing at the Earl of Montcreif and missing.”
“I would agree with you,” I said, “except that I happen to know that the earl’s valet took several items of jewellery belonging to his master to a pawnbroker’s in Mayfair yesterday morning. The cash value was in the order of ten thousand pounds.”
“And how do you know this?”
“I have my sources. Knowing when the gentry are short of cash or in need money in a hurry has led to a number of my columns.”
He stared at me fixedly, but I could see that his mind was elsewhere. “There is no connection that I am aware of between the Earl of Montcreif and the unfortunate Mr Drake, although now that I have been made aware of this information I will need to check. I cannot believe that the earl would have paid for Mr Drake to be shot and then stood beside him – he would have been far better off establishing an alibi some distance away.” He raised his head and gazed upwards, eyes half-closed, seeking inspiration. “Does the Earl of Montcrief have any, let us say, ‘habits’ that would require him to spend a great deal of money in a surreptitious and rapid way?”
“If you are asking whether he has a mistress, frequents les grandes horizontales or gambles excessively then the answer is ‘no’. The earl is one of the straightest members of the nobility that I have ever encountered. There is not one whiff of scandal about him.”
He nodded. “Very well – I shall make inquiries of my own. I suggest you return to your club and await my instructions.”
He turned and strode off, leaving me seething with anger. “Instructions”, indeed! What was I – his lapdog?
I did indeed return to my club. It was night by then, and so I ate a small plate of turbot and new potatoes, drank half a bottle of Bollinger Blanc de Noirs and settled down to make notes on my next set of columns.
It was after midnight when a small child in ragged clothes appeared at my side.
“Does your mother know you are out and about at this time of night?” I inquired.
“I do not know where she is,” he rejoined, “so I do not think she knows where I am.”
“A fair point well made,” I said. “How did you get in here?”
“Through the cloakroom window.”
“How very enterprising. I presume that you have a message for me from Mr Holmes?”
His eyes widened. “You as bright as ’e is, then? Cor!”
I sighed. “What is the message?”
He handed over a dirty scrap of paper. I doubt that Holmes would have let it go in that state; I can only assume that its passage from him to me in the pocket of this ragamuffin had caused its fall from grace.
He kept his empty hand extended. I waited with an eyebrow raised, but he obviously was not going to feel any embarrassment, so eventually I gave him a half-shilling.
“Thanks, mister,” he said with a smile that would have been dazzling if he had not lost most of his teeth. A moment later he was gone.
I queasily unfolded the paper. It said, in Holmes’s characteristic scrawclass="underline"
There followed a list of names, some of whom I recognised as being members of high society and the nobility. By sending a footman to retrieve the club’s copy of Who’s Who from the library, I discovered that the remaining ones were largely industrialists and financiers, many of them ennobled or otherwise decorated by our gracious sovereign.
I know that Holmes keeps many files in Baker Street containing information on the criminal underclass (and, indeed, overclass, given that illegal and immoral behaviour spans all levels of society to my certain knowledge). I have my own files, but I keep them in my head. That way they cannot be stolen. Closing my eyes, I walked through the house in which I was born and lived for the first twenty years of my life. In this still-vivid memory I place different facts that I wish to remember in particular places in that imaginary house. I have found that it makes it easier to recall all of the details relating to, for instance, Lord Cathcart if I place them all in a cart, just outside the kitchen door, where the cat used to sun itself in the afternoons. Cat-cart, do you see?
By traversing my imaginary house, I retrieved details of the lives of all the names I knew on the list. A flurry of telegrams sent by another of the club’s footmen to my various agents and informants around this fair city elicited, within a few hours, answers on the names that I did not know.
The sun was shining over the top of the building opposite, casting an unwelcome roseate glow into the club’s writing room, when I was able to pen a simple telegram to Holmes:
All of them on which I have been able to find information have recently taken out bank loans, pawned possessions or made large withdrawals from their accounts.
I could just have said “All of them”, or even just “All” in order to save money, but I knew that Holmes would appreciate accuracy over brevity and I have, sadly, always managed to use a hundred words where ten would have done. Well, I say “sadly”, but when one is paid by the word then one quickly learns to describe things as completely and redundantly as possible. Even simple words like “a” or “the” are cash in the bank, and they are far easier and quicker to write than a word such as “farinaceous”.
I looked at the clock; it was half-past nine in the morning. Assuming it would take an hour for the telegram to get to Baker Street, and that he lived twenty minutes away by cab, I expected to hear from Holmes, or even see him in person, by eleven o’clock at the very latest. Perhaps I was being grandiose (something to which I admit I am prone) but I felt that I had provided him with interesting, if not crucial, intelligence.
It was one minute to eleven when Holmes strode into the club and up to where I was sitting, eating a madeleine cake and sipping at a small, dry sherry. To clarify: it was I who was eating the cake and drinking the sherry, not him. I’m not sure I can ever remember seeing Holmes take sustenance.
“We do not have much time,” he snapped.
“Speak for yourself,” I said, taking a rebellious sip from my glass. “Sit down and tell me what you have discovered. If I am to go anywhere with you then it will be in full possession of the facts, not blindly like poor Dr Watson.”