A Study in Sherlock

Street was a criminal to be reckoned with.

“Back at four, dear!”

The front door closed behind the two women, and the grandmother could be heard padding along to her chair in the drawing room, the one by the window where a warming shaft of sunlight soothed her bones as if she were an old dog. The boy rose from his bed fully clothed, shoved the pillow under the covers, and set off on his quest for truth. It was day two of his investigation, and he had much to accomplish. He stopped at the bakery and bought four jam tarts, then went on his way again.

“Madam!” He smiled as the woman opened the door and peered at him over the chain. “You were so very kind yesterday, I thought I should repay you with a small treat. Do you like jam tarts?”

Her eyes lit up. “I most certainly do.”

He held out the bag, and she wavered as she reached to take it from the boy. “I thought you looked like a nice sort of boy yesterday. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?”

Indeed he would.

Mrs. Richmond—she had revealed her name as he followed her along the passageway—busied herself in the kitchen. It was a kitchen not unlike the one at the house in Auckland Road where he lived with his mother, aunt, and grandmother, though the kitchen at home was more spacious and better appointed. In Mrs. Richmond’s kitchen a kettle boiled on a black cast-iron range, above which various towels and cloths were hung over a wooden clothes airer. A vase of paper flowers, now faded and brown, had been set in the center of a wooden table that was bowed in the middle from, he thought, many decades of use. Mrs. Richmond laid out two chipped cups and a plate with the jam tarts, and poured tea from a brown pot. She put milk and sugar in his cup without first asking.

“Do you live alone, apart from lodgers, Mrs. Richmond?”

The woman nodded. “Since I lost my Jim in the first Transvaal war. He was out there at the beginning. Regular army.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’re you sorry for?” She reached for a jam tart. “Weren’t your fault. And I get a bit of a pension, just a few pennies, but it helps. We never had any children, and Jim was a good one for putting something away, so I’m not for the workhouse yet.”

They sat in silence for a moment, then the boy spoke again. “I was wondering, after we spoke yesterday, if the room was still available. A friend of my mother is at this very moment looking for accommodation, and I thought it might be serendipitous that I was so taken with thirst yesterday, and in knocking at your door discovered you had a room to let.”

“What with all the trouble that last lodger caused me, I only take gentlewomen of good standing now—no men.” She looked at him as if weighing up his social station.

“I would imagine your mother’s a fine woman, and any friend of hers would be cut from the same cloth.”

“Might I see the room, so that I can best describe it to my mother’s friend?”

The woman sighed. “I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm.”

She took a key from a hook on the wall above the sink, and motioned toward the passageway along which he had walked to the kitchen from the front door. As they reached the staircase, the woman leaned on the banister and sighed.

“Young man, I’m not as nippy on those stairs as I was, and I don’t feel like running up and down more than once or twice a day. Here’s the key. It’s the room at the front; the door’s directly behind you when you get to the landing. Don’t be more than five minutes, or I’ll think you’re a thief.”

The boy laughed, if somewhat nervously. “Can’t imagine my struggling downstairs with a chest of drawers, Mrs. Richmond.”

“I can.” She gave him the key and ambled back toward the kitchen.

The boy could not believe his good fortune. Having made his way up twenty steps to the landing, he unlocked the door to the front bedroom. He was about to walk in and begin his investigation, when he stopped. Holmes would perhaps linger, he would consider the room. He would clear his mind. After all, didn’t he tell Watson that most people allow too much clutter to invade the clear processes of deduction? A large sash window at the front of the house needed a good clean, that was the first thing he noticed. Dust motes hung in the sunlight, which also served to draw attention to smears across the panes. He took out the magnifying glass in anticipation. The walls were clad in anaglypta, known for its sanitary properties and ease of cleaning, though it appeared that they had received only a cursory wipe of late, decorated as they were with tidemarks of nicotine.

A bed—wide enough for two, he noted—was set against the wall in such a way that anyone languishing there would be able to look out if the curtains were drawn back. A green-tiled washstand stood adjacent to the wall on the right, with a bowl and ewer atop the marble. A single grayish white cloth was hung on the towel rail. A fireplace directly opposite had been laid with newspaper and kindling, and a scuttle filled with coal placed alongside. Next to the bed, a dressing table supported a goodly layer of dust and in a recess in the wall neighbouring the fireplace stood a wardrobe of plain oak. The carpet had seen better days, but had been swept, though he recognized another hallmark of less than vigilant housekeeping—there were dust balls under the cast-iron bed. He stepped into the room and went straight to the window and looked out onto the street. This was the room. This was where something untoward—perhaps a murder—had taken place.

The problem was that there was precious little else for him to use as evidence. With the glass in hand he inspected the walls, the bed, under the bed, in the wardrobe, in every drawer of the dressing table, along the windowsill, under the windowsill, in the folds of the curtains. Nothing to suggest a murder. He was perplexed. The villain was clearly well versed in his trade, and a crafty sort. He would have to question Mrs. Richmond to a greater degree, perhaps tomorrow. As he completed his notes and made his way downstairs, he had the distinct feeling that he had missed something, but he could not imagine what it might be.

Mrs. Richmond took the key and returned it to the hook above the sink.

“I will definitely tell my mother about the room. I think it might do very well, though I might be late with the news, as the lady in question could already have secured accommodation.”

“Well, if she comes, you just remember to tell her to remind me who sent her. There’ll be a special consideration for a friend.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Richmond.” He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece above the stove. “Oh dear, I must be on my way.”

Having bowed to Mrs. Richmond, the boy ran all the way back to his home in Auckland Road, and having washed the powder from his face and hidden the magnifying glass and tape measure under the bed, he was betwixt the covers looking suitably flushed and feverish by the time his mother came in with tea and two oatmeal biscuits. Taking stock of his countenance, she sent the maid out to summon the doctor. This case of measles appeared to be taking quite a toll.

The following day, the aunt and mother decided that they would remain out for only one hour rather than take their customary long walk for good health. The boy sighed. There was precious little to be done in one hour, so it appeared the only course of action would be to alert the police to his suspicions before all necessary evidence was to hand. Such a leap of faith would be unacceptable to Sherlock Holmes, who would have had all the facts—no suppositions, no ifs, no buts—to hand before calling upon Lestrade. He could imagine Holmes chastising him: You need more data!

“Back in an hour, my dear—we’re going out now,” the mother called from the bottom of the stairs.

Within ten minutes the boy was closing the front door with as much stealth as possible, and was soon on his way to visit the Upper Norwood constabulary. A police sergeant was on duty at the desk as he entered, though it was the latest edition of the Daily News that claimed his attention, and not the doings of the local criminal element.

“Yes, young sir, what can I do for you today? Lost your dog?”

“I would like to see the detective inspector on duty, if I may.”

The sergeant’s eyes grew wider, and he grinned. “Oh you would, would you, sonny? Our Detective Inspector Stickley is a very busy man, so I’m assuming your purpose is genuine.”

The boy straightened his shoulders. “I am here to report what I believe to be a genuine murder, witnessed by myself a week ago. I have been in my sickbed since then, however, I would like to see Detective Inspector Stickley as a matter of some urgency.”

“Right you are. Sit yourself down over there, you’re looking a bit peaky, if you don’t mind my saying so.”