liquidating the customer’s company. James, it seemed, had striven to prevent him, for what my husband called sentimental reasons.'
'Sentimental reasons,' mused Holmes. 'Was there a young lady involved?'
'Not so far as I could determine, Mr. Holmes. My son had no deep attachment at the time. But do you believe his disappearance may be connected with his difference with his father? It was eighteen years ago.'
'I do not know, Mrs. Phillimore. I merely collect all the available data and attempt to unravel the pattern which it forms. What did James do?'
'He bowed to his father’s order, albeit with a poor grace. He went abroad and continued working for the Bank. It seemed to satisfy my husband. The reports of James’ work were favourable. He wrote to me regularly and, in a little while, I think he began to enjoy his situation. I only wished that he might come home occasionally, but my husband was adamant. He said that it had always been his intention that James should learn the work of the continental offices thoroughly in any event. He said that when he believed James was completely versed in the Bank’s foreign affairs, he would call him home. My husband was not a cruel man, Mr. Holmes, but he would brook no interference.'
'How long was it before Mr. Phillimore brought him back?' asked Holmes.
'He never did, Mr. Holmes. When he was stricken with his final illness I wired to James—he was at the Rome office at that time—to return immediately, but he had taken leave and gone to Naples. I wired him at Naples and, eventually, he replied. My poor son travelled day and night to reach his father’s bedside and be reconciled with him, but it was not to be—he was just too late.'
'So your son inherited the Bank and took up his father’s position?'
'Yes, Mr. Holmes. James was a changed man. I say man—perhaps I should say that he had grown from a headstrong boy into a thoughtful and able young man. He has applied himself to the business, I am told, with great experience and acumen and has made the Bank into one of the foremost concerns of its kind. If I have a complaint it is that he works too much and is sometimes forgetful in small matters. That is why I was the more pleased that he had agreed to accompany me last Wednesday.'
We accompanied Mrs. Phillimore to Welton Square, a quiet area lined with prosperous houses such as she had described. Holmes questioned each of the servants, but learned nothing. He examined every inch of the garden, lens in hand, swooping, plunging, and peering like some great dark bird seeking its prey under the shrubs. He examined with great care the lock of the gate in the rear wall of the garden.
As we took our leave of Mrs. Phillimore, Holmes asked, 'Were there any persons in the Square apart from yourself, your chauffeur, and the crossing-sweeper when your son disappeared?'
'No,' she said.
'Can you describe the sweeper?'
She thought for a moment. 'He is a tall heavily bearded man and walks with a stoop. I believe that he is some kind of native, for he wears a religious mark on his forehead.'
'What manner of mark, Mrs. Phillimore?'
'A small mark like a hand. It seems to be scarred, as though it had been burned on. It is quite unpleasant.'
'And can you recognise his accent?'
'He never speaks, Mr. Holmes. I believe him to be dumb.'
'Is your son familiar with the crossing-sweeper?'
'I doubt it,' she said. 'The sweeper tends to arrive after my son has left for the Bank.'
As we left the house, a police constable appeared around a corner of the Square. Holmes approached him and introduced himself.
'The crossing-sweeper,' mused the constable in response to Holmes’ question. 'They call him Dumb Danny because he can’t talk. He’s been sweeping hereabouts for a year or so. But you won’t find him, Mr. Holmes. He lives in the Mission at Wharton’s Row in the East, but the Yard went looking for him there and he’s gone.'
Holmes sat silent in our cab after directing the cabbie to Wharton’s Row. At last I asked, 'Why are you so interested in the crossing-sweeper, Holmes?'
'Because,' he said, 'James Phillimore left his home voluntarily and abruptly.'
'How can you be sure?'
'The only way out, apart from the three front exits, was through the garden. There is no leaf disturbed, no branch broken, no twig out of place, Watson. The weather has been clear and dry since the disappearance, but there are no signs of a struggle, such as would remain if an unwilling adult was forced across the garden.'
'Were there no footmarks?' I asked.
'The mark of a man’s left boot was impressed into the path beside the rear door of the garden,' he said. 'On the lock was a mark where the right foot had rested. Someone had must have clambered over the locked door into the lane behind. Who else but the missing banker?'
'And you believe that the crossing-sweeper was involved?'
'I have warned you before, Watson, that coincidence is the ready servant of the lazy mind.'
'Coincidence?' I said.
'Only four people were in Welton Square that morning, Watson. Two of them have disappeared.'
'But what would be the cause?' I asked.
'If I am right in my surmises,' he said, 'we are in very dark waters indeed, Watson.' But he would vouchsafe me no further comment or explanation.
The Mission in Wharton’s Row was a dark and insalubrious place, close to the docks. There we met the Reverend Bledlow, a thin, pale, exhausted cleric, who told us that Danny the street-sweeper had come to the mission about a year earlier.
'He was brought here by a seaman from the docks,' he said. 'Were you aware that he could not speak?'
Holmes nodded and the clergyman went on. 'When our nurse came to examine him, she found that he was not naturally speechless. At some point his tongue had been removed.'
'Great Heavens!' I exclaimed. 'What monster would do that?'
'Exactly, Dr. Watson,' said the missionary. 'I assumed him to be the victim of some savagery abroad.'
'Was he able to write?' asked Holmes.
'I gave him paper and pencil in that hope, but he merely covered pages with scribblings. There was nothing intelligible, though his writing was that of an educated man. I could not determine his nationality, though I thought him European. We named him Daniel Question, but I’m afraid his fellows called him Dumb Danny.'
'And you have no idea of his present whereabouts?' asked my friend.
'No,' said the clergyman. 'He has left his few belongings here, which makes me fear that he has met with some harm. I have enquired of the hospitals but they have not seen him. I fear he may be dead.'
We examined the pathetic items which the crossing-sweeper had left. There was a seaman’s pocketknife, a cheap tin tobacco box and a few rags of clothing. I recall that among them was a greasy, tattered strip of necktie which my friend examined and held up to the light, even turning it inside out. We left the Mission no wiser than we had come.
That is all I recall of the affair. Months later when I enquired of his progress on the case, Holmes informed me that he had come to a dead end.
I recited my recollection to Holmes and he nodded. 'Excellent, Watson,' he said. 'You do not, I think, know how the matter ended as far as the public was concerned. Some months after Phillimore’s disappearance, a body surfaced in the Thames. The man had been struck about the head and apparently murdered. Mrs. Phillimore identified her son by a signet ring. By then an examination of the Bank’s affairs had revealed a series of abstractions of funds by James Phillimore. The combination was too much for the poor lady and she died shortly afterwards.'
'So he robbed his own bank,' I said. 'But what on earth made him run on that morning? And what became of the money?'
'It was the sight of the crossing-sweeper that provoked his flight,' said Holmes. 'The Bank of England attempted to trace the money but was not, I believe, successful.'
'But why should the crossing-sweeper have driven Phillimore to flee?' I asked.
Holmes smiled. 'You may,' he said, 'consider that question until we return to London, for at the end of your
