of glazed windows caked with grime, revealing only shadows within. She opens the door and they enter: the sounds from the mill are immediately muffled.
“Penny Hunt! Past seven, wench!” growls the fat foreman who whirls around in his chair, “I won’t keep you on if – Who is this?”
“Sherrinford Bell,” says Sherlock quickly, extending his hand. “I am a messenger from a stationer in London, and I am afraid that I have kept this lady from her duties. In short, her tardiness is entirely my fault.”
The man’s mouth is slightly open. Had his cigar not been sticking to his thick lower lip, it likely would have dropped on his greasy desk. He sits there, looking out of his moon-shaped face, the three rolls of fat under his chin matching in number the rolls pressing against the inside of his stained shirt. He has never seen or heard anything quite like this boy: dressed in a dirty frock coat and waistcoat, as tattered as a street Arab, yet speaking like a Cambridge University professor. He also thinks he saw a spot of blood on the boy’s waistcoat when he extended his hand.
The foreman won’t take the boy’s hand. “What do you want?”
Penny slinks out the door.
“I would like to be the agent of the purchase of a large order of paper.”
“Who do you represent?”
Sherlock has the name of Dupin’s friend and gives it. The foreman offers no recognition.
“I hain’t the boss anyways, can’t make that decision.”
“Then perhaps you can simply tell me something about your paper.”
The foreman says nothing.
“We are looking for a certain kind which I believe you manufacture. It has a watermark with two faces upon it.”
“All our watermarks is but three letters – large
Sherlock had winced when he raised it in greeting.
“Uh … I carry our materials every day, sir. Sometimes they are quite heavy. This arm takes the brunt of it … chronic aches.”
“Is that a fact? Well, we hain’t got the paper you want…. Perhaps I should send a man out to get the constable in town so you could explain your needs to him?”
The foreman stands, opens the door, and shouts a name.
Sherlock tries to get to the entrance, but the fat man blocks the way. Looking out into the mill, the boy can see who the foreman is calling: a big man with a dirty face, near-bald head, and blacksmith’s arms; Penny stops him for a moment and whispers into his ear.
Moments later, the big man is ushering the boy along the river toward the town.
“I’m not takin’ you to Constable Bradstreet,” he says, “Penny ‘unt says you is a good lad and you should just get on back to where you come from. I will figure an answer for Rumpleside. Mind, it isn’t smart for low-dressed strangers to ask unusual questions in a small town.”
Sherlock has failed miserably. And he has wasted a precious hour.
He examines the man. He’s past fifty, has thin strands of white hair and big hands curled into the shape they assume as he works with the paper.
“Have you been at this job long, sir?”
“Since I were younger ‘an you.”
Sherlock is thinking about what Sigerson Bell said: that paper mills used to have more complicated watermarks than they do now. The flabby foreman was a young man, perhaps handed his job due to family connections – he hasn’t been employed there for long.
“Have you ever seen a watermark bearing two faces at the mill?”
The man stops.
“‘ow do you know that?”
“My employer … is a paper historian … knows all about the St. Neots mill and its famous past.”
The man starts walking again.
“Well, ‘e is absolutely correct.”
Sherlock’s heart leaps.
“There was a day when all our paper used to bear the mark of the Fourdrinier Brothers. Pioneers in papermaking, they was.”
“But all that paper is gone now?”
“Afraid it is, just three letters we ‘ave these days, that’s all you’ll find on a St. Neot’s sheet of paper…. ‘old on, that ain’t exactly right.”
This time Sherlock stops.
“Used to be a man by the name of Muddle in Little Barford just south of town, who bought several dog carts full of our paper on the last day we made that watermark. I remember it well because it was such an unusual thing to do. ‘e owned a little tobacconist shop on the main road. Said that paper was the best ever made and wouldn’t ‘ave any of the new. Stupid goat, it was the same. I wonder if that old crate is still alive.”
Within an hour, Sherlock Holmes is at the tobacconist’s shop in Little Barford. The old man is indeed very much in the land of the living. And more importantly, he appears harmless.
Inside, the shop looks like no one has purchased a thing since Shakespeare’s days. The cracks in the plank floors are lined with dirt, cobwebs hang from much of the merchandise.
“You want WHAT?” shouts the wizened little owner in the long orange garment from behind his dusty counter. He places his tin hearing horn, which looks like a silver petunia, into an ear that is flowering with a mass of thick white hair. “Speak into the machine!”
Sherlock puts his lips right into the spout and loudly repeats his request for paper with a two-headed watermark.
“Fourdrinier brothers?” asks Muddle.
“The very one.”
“Or two!” exclaims the old man, almost collapsing into a paroxysm of laughter. “You see, there are two Fourdrinier brothers!” He holds onto the counter in order to keep himself from falling backwards with mirth.
“Yes, I am aware of the source of the humor,” says Sherlock.
“Speak! Into! The! Machine!”
The boy firmly grips the hearing aid again.
“Much call for it lately?”
“You haul for it bladely? That doesn’t make any sense, my boy.”
“MUCH … CALL … FOR … IT … LATELY!”
“You don’t need to shout!”
Sherlock steps back from the counter, awaiting the answer.
“As a matter of fact, yes, I have had, as you say, call for it lately; but just lately. Had one sale of this marvelous paper in the past thirteen years. It came about two months ago. I believe the folks who bought it lived up there.”
He motions over his shoulder and upwards with his thumb.
Sherlock’s pulse quickens.
“Up where?” he asks.
But the old man can’t hear. He has set down his hearing aid. The boy seizes it to bellow, but the owner snatches it back and waves him off.
“I am tired. My nap was to begin at precisely …” he fiddles around in his faded red waistcoat under the orange garment, searching six pockets until he finds his watch, “… three minutes and thirteen seconds ago. I never miss my forty winks, you know. Good day, sir. You may come back tomorrow.”
