The time has come to ask the right question. Sherlock has the right person in front of him, while the police are lost, as usual.
“Is the guard a young man? Would you say he admires you?”
“’e is, and ’e does, talks to me every time I come ’ere.”
“Did he ever tell you anything about his job, brag about it?”
“Yes.”
“Did he speak of it that day?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“’e said there’d be one hundred thousand pounds in the vault by two o’clock that day.”
Sherlock tries not to show his excitement.
“Anything else?”
“And that ’e keeps the combination for the lock in a notebook in his coat pocket. Said it was very complicated, as though ’e wanted to give us all a sense of ’is importance.”
“Us all?” asks Sherlock as soberly as possible. “Who else was party to this particular conversation?”
“Two others.”
“The members of the Brixton Gang?”
The Swallow is reluctant to answer, but he’s promised.
“Yes.”
Sherlock is finding it even more difficult to stay calm. He has to keep to his line of questioning.
“Did the guard tell you and your friends anything else of interest?”
“Not really.”
“Anything else at all? Trivial matters are sometimes things of immense importance.”
The Swallow thinks for a moment.
“I recall that ’e spoke of how much ’e enjoyed the cold lemon drink they make at the Refreshment Department’s dinin’ room ’ere.”
“Did you see the guard again the next day, the day of the accident?”
“I recollect seein’ ’im walkin’ along the floor of the transept just before I commenced to climb me tower.”
“What was he doing?”
“Starin’ at me, smilin’, steppin’ toward the vault.”
“Anything unusual about him?”
“No. ’e was just walkin’, carryin’ a cup o’ that lemon drink.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“Just waved ’ello, raised the cup to me, mentioned that one of me old Brixton mates bought it for ’im.”
Sherlock now has a flock of clues, all flying around in his mind, unconnected. He drifts into one of his characteristic moments of thought, his chin dropping onto his chest, his eyes almost closed, trying to put it all together. The Swallow’s voice breaks his concentration.
“I figured me friends might be tryin’ to rob the vault, I’ll tell you frankly, Master ’olmes. And I didn’t interfere. But I tell you again, I did naught wrong. I didn’t tell ’em anythin’, I didn’t help ’em, I didn’t gain one farthing from anything they may ’ave done. I am guilty of naught. You’re concerned with Mercure, anyway. What does this ’ave to do with ’im?”
It is an excellent question.
“May I go?” pleads The Swallow, “I ’ave all this work to do,” he points up at the apparatus.
“Yes, you may,” answers Sherlock, “but I forbid you to take down the equipment. Don’t remove or lower anything until I tell you that you may. Bear in mind that I still have the means to connect you to this crime. And tell your two accomplices the same. I am sure they did not enjoy their overnight stay at Scotland Yard. I have the power to return them there. You may convey as much to them.”
The Swallow has grown to respect the young detective’s abilities. He isn’t sure what this clever boy knows or doesn’t know, but he understands that he shouldn’t underestimate him. He nods and heads off toward his fellow acrobats.
Sherlock turns toward Lestrade and the Bobbies and marches directly at them. He isn’t going to move on the exterior of this investigation anymore. He is going to enter the lions’ den. In the last few minutes, the Mercure problem has begun to unravel. He has a question for the Force, and he is going to ask it straight to their stupid faces. The time has come. He can almost feel the money being placed in his hand. He will present them with his proposition, and then solve this crime … right before their eyes.
THE ART OF AERIAL OBSERVATION
Inspector Lestrade is taken aback by the sight of young Sherlock Holmes wearing a confident smile. That isn’t a good sign. The detective has been examining the area in and around the vault room and is standing outside its door, set in its unusual walls, which don’t quite reach the glass ceiling.
“Mr. Lestrade,” intones the upstart, as if he were the plainclothes policeman’s equal. The Inspector has learned to be suspicious of this lad. This is a boy who knows far too much about everything. But he decides to play along, at least until he discovers whether or not he has anything to gain.
“Master Sherlock Holmes, can I be of any service?”
“As a matter of fact you can. And I can be of greater assistance to you.”
A couple of the Bobbies snort and turn their faces away. Young Lestrade steps closer to his father, his face betraying his interest in this conversation. They form a little circle of three.
But Sherlock intends to speak up in a confident voice so that all within earshot can hear. He glances at the room behind the Lestrades, obviously the one that houses the vault. That’s curious, he thinks, the walls don’t quite reach the ceiling. For some reason that seems significant to him, but he can’t think why, so it passes through his mind and exits.
“I am in a position to make an exchange with you, sir,” declares the boy.
“Are you now?” replies Lestrade, tipping his brown billycock hat back and putting his other hand up to his bushy mustache, just in case he is inclined to laugh.
“You tell me one simple fact,” announces Sherlock, “which I am guessing you are in possession of, and I shall solve at least one of the two crimes you are investigating.”
“Two crimes? How kind of you. Didn’t know there were two. Which one?”
“The robbery. I know who did it … and I shall prove it. All you will have to do is hunt them down. I don’t expect a large reward for the information, perhaps fifty pounds?”
This time the Bobbies don’t hide their laughter.
But Lestrade would like to hear the boy’s theory. He has little intention of giving him what he wants.
“The police are not in the habit of awarding funds to citizens with theories about crimes, real or imagined. If you were indeed to have the information you assert, Scotland Yard might, at the most, find ten pounds for someone such as you.”
Sherlock doesn’t blink.
“Thirty,” he says.
“Twenty would be exorbitant.”
“Twenty it is, then.” Sherlock hides the excitement bursting inside him. Twenty pounds would both pay for his education this coming term, and keep Sigerson Bell in business for another year.
Lestrade wants to get on with this. “What ‘simple fact’ do you require first?”
“I assume that the guard who was on duty the day of the robbery is in there now?” Sherlock points at the vault room.
“He is.”
“Those who handle the Palace funds must check the vault regularly and, therefore, must know almost exactly when they were robbed.”
Lestrade clears his throat. “You keep leaping over one point, lad. Who says they were robbed?”
“Come, come now, Lestrade,” remarks Holmes airily.
His tone and attitude are almost enough to bring things to a halt. The detective feels like thrashing the boy and sending him on his way. But he knows what remarkable things Sherlock Holmes accomplished concerning the Whitechapel murder and cannot bring himself to miss seeing this little episode to its conclusion.