3
It was two days later when Inspector Lestrade paid us an evening visit in response to the story of Mrs Hedges, which Holmes had forwarded to him. The Scotland Yard man with his “bulldog features,” as Holmes called them, was sitting before the fire with us, a glass in his hand. He was in philosophical mood.
“I must acknowledge you were right, Mr Holmes, when you said the birds-except for the canary-would have flown by the time our inquiry was made. So they had. Nor do I think they will be back, which is the best news for Mrs Hedges and her little girl. These scoundrels have been a little in front of us all.”
“A little in front of you, to be precise,” Holmes said coolly.
Lestrade shot him a glance, shook his head, and lit the cigar which had been offered him.
“We could make very little of them. They appear to have been Russian, rather than German, but then so is half the population of that area. They call themselves Anarchists but, to tell the truth, their real enemies are the brutes who persecuted and ill-used them back in Russia. A few of them may be criminals born. The rest have no cause for a quarrel with us.”
“Precisely,” said Holmes, “and the born criminals are those who now seem to have slipped through your fingers.”
This bickering ran on for a moment or two, then the whisky took its effect. Before the evening was over, my two companions had settled back into a discussion of the late Dr Crippen, hanged three weeks earlier for the poisoning of his wife. Lestrade had played a part in tracking him down. Holmes rode his latest hobby-horse, insisting that Crippen was unjustly executed-indeed, wrongly convicted. He had never intended to kill Belle Elmore with hyoscine, merely to render her unconscious while his young mistress Ethel Le Neve was in their house. Rather than put Miss Le Neve in jeopardy by calling her to the witness-box, he had saved her and taken a terrible penalty upon himself.
It was well past nine o’clock and we were deeply immersed in this debate before a well-laid fire. Holmes had just reached for the poker, when there came an extraordinary hammering at the front door of 221 B Baker Street, accompanied by repeated ringing of the door-bell. My friend was out of his chair and down the stairs before our landlady, Mrs Hudson, could reach the hall. He had guessed, correctly, that this was no caller of hers. We heard voices and then the tread of two men on the stairs. Holmes entered, followed by a uniformed constable.
“A visitor for you, Lestrade.”
“Mr Lestrade, sir? 245D Constable Loosemore, Paddington Green. An urgent message, sir, relayed from Commissioner Spencer, Scotland Yard. A suspected major safe-robbery is in progress in the City of London.”
“Where?” asked Holmes sharply.
Loosemore handed a police telegraph form to Lestrade.
“Exchange Buildings, sir, back of Houndsditch. They think it must be a safe-breaking. Constable Piper, the beat officer, put through a call to Bishopsgate police-station after complaints from local residents. Bishopsgate called Scotland Yard. Officers are on their way from Bishopsgate but the commissioner understands Mr Lestrade has a current inquiry in Houndsditch. If you could be found, sir, he would be obliged if you would attend to co-ordinate the investigation at Houndsditch itself.”
Lestrade did not look as if he welcomed this diversion from a warm fireside and a glass of hot toddy on a cold December night. Holmes, however, was already half-way into an Inverness cape.
“There’s only a police van available,” Loosemore explained, “but that’s at the door. The driver says he can have you at Houndsditch in twenty-five minutes.”
“Come on, Lestrade!” said Holmes cheerfully, “Watson and I have a stake in this inquiry as well. We must go, whether you do or not. Much better make up your mind to it, old fellow.”
The three of us were presently following Constable Loosemore down the stairs to the street. Holmes, just behind me, said sotto voce,
“It will be no bad thing, Watson, if you have remembered to pack your service revolver in your overcoat pocket.”
“I have,” I said aloud, “I have no intention of venturing into the alleys of Houndsditch at this time of night without its protection.”
The police motor-van was no more than a “Black Maria” commonly used for transporting prisoners from the cells to the criminal court, two benches facing one another down its length. There was little view of the city outside, as the motor clattered down the Euston Road and City Road, until it stopped abruptly in Houndsditch. We scrambled out at the back into a dark and cavernous thoroughfare. Most of its tall buildings housed jewellers and fancy-goods merchants on the ground floor with warehouses above. Yet if Houndsditch seemed menacing in the darkness, the cul-de-sacs which ran off it were far less welcoming.
The only blaze of light was down Cutler Street, where a gin palace called the Cutlers’ Arms was doing a busy trade.
In Houndsditch itself there were three lanterns showing, from officers who had already arrived. The man who approached us was Constable Piper. He saluted Lestrade.
“Mr Lestrade, sir? We had a report just after nine o’clock from Mr Weil, owner of the fancy store at number 120, just over the road there. He and his sister live above the shop. There’s noises from somewhere at the back of building, sir. Drilling and sawing, and someone using a crowbar on brick. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary when I walked round there, but after I came away the noise started again.”
“How many men have you got?” Lestrade demanded.
“I left Constable Woodhams and Choat to watch the front here and went straight to Bishopsgate. Sergeant Bentley and a constable came back with me. Martin and Strong from the plain-clothes patrol are on their way. There’s seven of us all told.”
“Enough to deal with common robbery, in all conscience,” said Lestrade irritably. He shivered in the cold wind of the December night. If the dark street was eerie, that was precisely because there was at present nothing to be seen or heard of the suspects. Yet they must still be somewhere close at hand.
Sherlock Holmes walked across to the window of Harris the Jeweller, next to Mr Weil’s premises. At the rear of the shop stood a large and efficient-looking safe with an electric light shining above it night and day. Anyone who tried to attack the lock must do so in full view of the street. Holmes turned back, hands thrust deep into his overcoat pockets for warmth. However much hammering and drilling there may have been earlier, there was no sound of it now. I said as much.
“No sir,” said Constable Piper, “The noise stops the minute anyone goes near Mr Weil’s counting house. It’s the safe next door they’re after, I’ll be bound.”
Lestrade looked about him.
“We’ll take a good look at the back alley-way. Sergeant Bentley and you men, come with me.”
Our bulldog set off with Sergeant Bentley and five constables following, leaving Piper to watch the front. Holmes and I followed at a little distance, denying Lestrade the opportunity to tell us to keep back. The Cutlers’ Arms was immediately ahead, down the side street, and its glaring gas-lamps blinded us to all else. Having reached it, Lestrade turned right into Exchange Alley, whose tenements ran along the back of the Houndsditch shops and warehouses. It was very probable that safe-breakers would make their attempt from the rear of one of these cramped dwelling houses.
In this cul-de-sac of Exchange Buildings, several of the dingy tenements were decrepit in the extreme, lightless and apparently deserted. My abiding memory is of a damp cold in the air and a chill street-wind between tall shabby buildings. At the far end, the alley was blocked off by a tall packing-case warehouse. We reached its wooden doors without hearing any sound of drilling or sawing. There was only the same cold and eerie stillness. Then, as we faced the doors of the packing warehouse, there was a shout from somewhere on our right and a little behind us. I guessed it came from one of our men who had got through the ground floor of a deserted tenement into a yard at the back, sharing a wall with the rear of the Houndsditch shops. The cry came again.