The Disappearance of Daniel Question
by Barrie Roberts
Early this summer I went down to Sussex, as I do often nowadays, to pass a few days with my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes and to blow the sooty air of London out of my lungs. He greeted me in typical fashion. 'Watson!' he exclaimed, 'I do believe that you have added a full six pounds since you were last here.'
'I had thought it more like three or four,' I said. 'I see that you are still well,' for he was as upright as ever, had added no weight, and his hair was only slightly touched with silver.
He laughed. 'The product of my little makers of sweetness will see me through a good few years yet.'
That evening, after Martha, Holmes’ housekeeper, had gone, Holmes and I settled on either side of the fireplace in his study, a room not dissimilar in its untidiness to our old sitting room at Baker Street. Here were the old brass coal-scuttle, the Persian slipper filled with tobacco, other old friends including the shelves of Holmes’ invaluable scrapbooks, and there was still a table littered with his chemical apparatus, though I have no doubt it is now devoted to the mysteries of apiculture rather than the defining of poisonous alkaloids.
I noted with pleasure a faded, well-worn copy of the Strand Magazine upon his desk and mentioned it. 'I see,' I remarked, 'that you continue to read my accounts of your enquiries.'
He finished filling his pipe and got it well alight before he replied. 'So I do,' he said. 'I have been looking at your version of the Thor Bridge case. It seems to me that you were a little premature in describing the Phillimore affair as unsolved.'
'But it was!' I protested. 'You told me so, shortly before you left Baker Street.'
'So I did, Watson, and perhaps I have been too hard on you. Nevertheless, I now have a theory of the case which, unless I have slipped into my dotage, meets the facts. A very little research will, I trust, clarify the small points which remain unclear. What do you recall of the matter, Watson?'
'Very little after two decades,' I admitted. 'It is certainly in my records but, believing that I should never be able to write it up for publication, I have not reviewed my notes.'
'Make a long arm, if you will,' said Holmes, 'and pass me the second P volume on the shelf over there.'
I reached for one of his scrapbooks and passed it across to him. He thumbed its pages for a few moments, then began to read from a news-cutting.
'Here we are, Watson, from July of 1903: ‘The City of London is still disturbed by the disappearance five days ago of Mr. James Phillimore, the proprietor of Phillimore’s Commercial Bank. It will be recalled from our earlier accounts that Mr. Phillimore set out from his home, in company with his mother, at about 11 o’clock last Wednesday. Turning back on some trivial pretext, he . . .’'
My mind raced back twenty years to 1903. The previous summer Holmes had announced his intention to retire and I had left Baker Street. I had a sufficient income from my pen to meet my modest needs but I missed the stimulus of the footfall on the stair that had, so often, taken Holmes and I on the path of adventure, mystery, and danger. Accordingly, I lost no opportunity of visiting our old lodgings and, indeed, accompanied my friend on many of his last enquiries.
So it was that I was at Baker Street when Mrs. Hudson announced Mrs. Honoria Phillimore. Our visitor was a lady in late middle age, dressed in pale grey linen, with a veiled hat. Holmes settled her in the basket chair and once the veil was lifted, I could see that her eyes were red-rimmed from weeping and her features pale and drawn with some great sorrow.
'Mr. Holmes,' she began, 'Mr. Gregson at Scotland Yard gave me your name and suggested that you might succeed where the police have failed.'
'It has been known to happen,' said Holmes. 'I imagine that you wish me to trace your missing son?'
She started. 'You know?' she said.
'It would be difficult not to connect your name and your evident distress with the press reports of the missing banker. The papers are not, however, unanimous in their details of his disappearance. Perhaps it would assist if you were to give me the facts as you know them.'
She drew a deep breath and began. 'It was last Wednesday,' she said. 'James—my son—had agreed to accompany me to a charitable sale for the Indian Missions and had stayed away from the Bank. We had planned on leaving our home in Welton Square at about half past eleven, intending to arrive at the event at noon. Peter, our chauffeur, was to take us in the motorcar. He brought the car to the front of the house and James and I stepped out of the front door. Peter was climbing from his seat to open the door of the vehicle when the crossing-sweeper forestalled him.'
'Who was left in the house?' asked Holmes.
'Only the servants, Mr. Holmes.'
'Your home has steps from the front door to the pavement.'
'Yes, Mr. Holmes. James and I were on the steps when he said something about fetching an umbrella and made his way back to the house.'
'Was it raining, Mrs. Phillimore?'
'No, Mr. Holmes. It was a bright clear day with a blue sky. I found James’ remark incomprehensible and I thought that I might have misheard him.'
'He returned to the house. What did you do?' Holmes lay back in his chair with his eyes nearly closed.
'I continued down the steps to the motorcar. The crossing-sweeper held open the door for me and Peter had returned to his seat. I gave the crossing-sweeper a small coin, took my seat and waited for my son.'
She paused, then continued. 'After some time, I told Peter to see what was delaying my son. He returned to say that my son was not in the house and that none of the servants had seen him.' Her face began to crumple and tears sprang to her eyes. 'From that moment, Mr. Holmes, there has been no sign of James—no sign at all.'
I was at the gasogene in a moment and was soon pressing a brandy into her hand. When she had taken it and composed herself Holmes leaned forward. 'I am familiar with Welton Square,' he said, 'but I shall be grateful if you will describe the front of your home.'
'It is similar to all the houses in the Square,' she said. 'It has a coach-house to the left, which we now use for the motorcar. To the right of the coach-house entrance, in a railed area, are the steps to the servants’ quarters. Then there is the front door, which opens onto a pillared porch and the top of a flight of steps leading to the pavement. At the right of the house is a wrought-iron gate which leads to the garden.'
'And your son did not use the coach-house area or garden entrances?'
She shook her head. 'No, Mr. Holmes. I was beside him on the steps when he turned and went up to the front door. Besides, the garden gate is kept locked unless the gardener or his boy is about and they were away.'
'Tell me about your son,' said Holmes.
'My late husband was the grandson of the founder of the Bank. I married him in 1865. James, our only child, was born in the following year. He was educated at Chorling College in Sussex and it was always intended that he should follow in his father’s footsteps. He left school at eighteen and spent a year with the Bank before he and my husband fell out.'
'Over what matter?' enquired Holmes.
'I am not really sure,' she said. 'I know that my husband complained that James had become inattentive to his work. I attributed that to a misfortune which befell his best friend at College. The lad’s family fell into financial difficulties, and James was very upset for his friend.'
'And was their dispute a serious one?'
'It became very serious, Mr. Holmes. One night I heard them in my husband’s study. Their voices were raised in extreme anger. The next morning my husband told me that he had given James an ultimatum; he had told him that he must either sever himself from the Bank and from the household, or accept his father’s order that he should work in the continental offices of Phillimore’s until he was summoned home.'
'Then their dispute must indeed have been a grave one,' said Holmes.
'I was horrified at my husband’s proposal, Mr. Holmes. I could not imagine what James had done to so provoke his father. I asked the cause of my husband’s decision but he merely said that the Bank had lent a large sum of money against a customer’s word and had not been repaid. To prevent a loss to the Bank, he had proposed
