He could be as charming sometimes as he could be misanthropic at others, usually more charming with a poor seamstress than with a peer of the realm or a captain of finance. With his guessing game, he had certainly charmed Mrs Hedges. Now that everything had been explained she relaxed-and even smiled. Holmes smiled back at her and continued with the same reassurance. The game had been played to good purpose.
“After all, Mrs Hedges, I deduced nothing about the yellow canary. As to your little girl, there are still two fair hairs adhering to the darker wool of your outdoor coat. You would hardly see them where they are. They are shorter than your own and of a lighter hue. They have adhered to the material a little above waist-height. That is where they would have attached themselves had they been brushed from the head of a child who is some twelve inches shorter than you. Or had she clung to you very determinedly just before you left her. That suggests you have been obliged through circumstances to leave her on her own.”
Mrs Hedges shook her head in admiration, pleased now but wondering. Holmes continued.
“The two strands of hair are on your outdoor coat. This indicates that you brushed her hair shortly before leaving home. By then it was much too late for her to go to school today. Yet the Education Act would require her attendance there, except in the case of a communicable or other disease. I could be more elaborate but I really think we must proceed to business.”
Again Mrs Hedges relaxed a little.
“Louisa,” she said at last, “Our Louisa is just gone eight years old. Whooping-cough was what she had. They won’t have her back until the doctor signs a certificate.”
Holmes touched his fingertips together and became the listener.
“And what is it that troubles you?”
Our visitor looked at him doubtfully.
“The foreigners, Mr Holmes. They moved in at the back four weeks ago.”
“At the back?”
“Yes, Mr Holmes. We live at Deakin’s Rents in Exchange Buildings, in what they call a cul-de-sac off Cutler Street that runs off Houndsditch. It’s no use pretending it’s a palace, one room up and down at the front and the same at the back. At the back we look straight out on the opposite backs of the fancy-goods makers and tailors in Houndsditch. Their windows ain’t ten feet from ours. In between us, each of our tenements has a yard with a privy and a bit of paved space about ten foot square, for a washing line.”
“Yes,” said Holmes quietly, as Mrs Hedges outlined the domestic arrangements of her poverty, “I understand. Please continue.”
“Well, sir,” she leant forward now, anxious that he should miss no word, “In consequence, the back upstairs window of each tenement overlooks the yard next to it as well as its own. When you see other people in their yard, it’s about the only time you do see them, now that so many are foreigners. Russians and Germans, I should think.”
“Those in the tenement adjoining yours are Russian or German?”
“About a month ago,” said Mrs Hedges, “some new people moved in there, German or Russian, as I say. Them being at the very end of the row, only us overlooks their yard.”
“I understand.”
“Not a family. About eight or ten of them just come and go. I never know who’s stopping there. There’s one plays music in the house-and in a club they go to, in Jubilee Street.”
“Have they bothered you?”
She shook her head.
“Not at first, sir. I’m at work all day, so’s my man Harry. I don’t do close work any more, but I help with packing. He works down Millwall docks. The long and the short of it is-Louisa has to be indoors on her own just now.”
“And they have bothered her?”
“About three weeks ago a man-Russian, perhaps-came round one morning. He offered my girl a threepenny bit if she’d run an errand for him. She was to go down to the bird-shop in the Commercial Road and buy a canary for him. It had to be pure yellow with no brown on it. If they hadn’t got such, they was to tell her where she might get one and she was to go there instead. They hadn’t got a pure yellow in Commercial Road, as it happened, but she found one in St Mary Axe.”
Up to this point Holmes had treated her visit good-naturedly. At the account of the yellow canary, he was alert and attentive. He drew out his small black notebook and began to make jottings.
“And how long was she away upon this errand?”
“I should think perhaps an hour and a half,” said Mrs Hedges, “perhaps a little longer even. Next day, the man it turned out was called something like Mr Lenkoff came round again. He asked Louisa if she wouldn’t mind going and getting a cage and some seed for his little bird, from the same shop in Commercial Road. So she did. Later that week he asked her to go again for some seed and to get him a twist or two of tobacco. Promised her threepence for herself again. Not wishing to disoblige, she went.”
Mrs Hedges paused and Holmes looked at her as keenly as if she was revealing a plan to rob the Bank of England.
“Pray continue, madam. Take your time. Omit no detail. This is most, most interesting.”
His keenness seemed to disconcert her a little and I caught a glance of alarm.
“Two things happened, sir. On the evening of the day when the bird was bought in the morning, the lady on the other side of us found a yellow canary in her yard, like it was lost or someone had let it out. She took it in and cared for it. But still the next day, and the next, Mr Lenkoff sent my little girl for bird-seed. My friend kept the little bird because she thought they put it out unkindly. Deliberately.”
“Perhaps it was not the same bird?”
Mrs Hedges almost guffawed at the absurdity. “There ain’t that many yellow canaries round Deakin’s Rents! Anyhow, Louisa swore the one she bought had a white and blue ring on his leg-sort of pedigree-and so had this one. Why should they want bird-seed and a cage for a canary they hadn’t got any more?”
I intervened at this.
“You cannot be certain that it had not escaped of its own accord.”
Mrs Hedges sat back and folded her arms.
“That’s true, sir. But why go on buying the seed? See here. They could buy birds or not, for all I cared. Even if they let them go free, that was their business. I got plenty to worry me apart from that. But I swear they were up to something else. What if this was some plan to steal my Louisa?”
“Louisa was too useful to them as she was,” said Holmes softly, “That was three or four weeks ago and they have not harmed her, you say. What happened next?”
“I arranged for Louisa to stay all day with my sister-in-law in Altmark Square or at home while I was out. That was the finish of running errands for them. But then I came home last Friday and the back drainpipe next to our little yard had gone.”
There was a slight flush in Holmes’s customary pallor and a pulse beat visibly in his cheek.
“Be very careful, Mrs Hedges, I beg you. Let me have this from you in precise detail.”
Her bounce had gone now and I thought she looked a little frightened.
“Well, sir, there’s a water pipe goes down from each tenement at the back, from the rainwater gutter on the roof to the drain in the yard. Halfway down, it goes into an iron box with water from both tenements. Then it goes in a single pipe to a drain in their yard, just the other side of our party wall. That pipe had been there in the morning and it was gone by that evening-though it was dark then and we didn’t see until next day. By that time it was raining. Both yards was collecting water, and it was rising round our back-door step.”