was Ian Rose. He was an acquaintance of Dumond’s at the university, but I only knew him slightly. He was a Scot from Edinburgh, charming and witty, willing and able to pay an advance of six months. He knew my tragic story, since Dumond was among the occasional lecturers in surgery brought in to discuss special topics, in Dumond’s case the specialty being the knee.
“Mr. Rose turned out to be an ideal tenant, one considerate of others, neat in his habits, and extraordinarily helpful with my two daughters, whom he often took to the zoo when I was occupied. He kept irregular hours, and often was out for much of the night, but to his credit, he was as quiet as a mouse when he came in, sometimes in the early morning.”
“About three weeks ago,” she continued. “Mr. Rose came to my office to inform me that he would be returning to Edinburgh for advanced study and that he would soon be vacating his quarters. I was truly sorry to see him leave. I gave a small farewell party for him with his friends in the square, and on the morning of his last day in our house, I had a special breakfast prepared for him. At nine in the morning he came down those stairs with two suitcases. He placed them in the hall and told me that he was going to hail a cab to take him to the train station. We would then say our farewells. I nodded to him and went to my office, thinking that I would hear his familiar knock at my door momentarily. To make the story short, however, he never appeared. The valises were there in the late afternoon, and indeed are still there. I allowed no one to touch them. I called our mutual friends and his teachers at the university. No one had seen him. After two days of frantic searching for clues, I placed an advertisement in the paper and waited. There was no helpful reply, and at that moment I called the police. They were less than considerate, saying that missing persons were the greatest problem of the police in England. Their number had increased dramatically, and they, the police, hopelessly understaffed.”
“The rather typical remark of one who finds himself beyond his depth,” said Holmes with a smile. “There may be more to this disappearance than meets the eye.”
“There is one more point, dear Sherlock, that I must bring to your attention and that is this: one of our neighbors, Mr. McHugh, insists that he ran into Ian Rose as he was entering the station at Russell Square, but it was a very different Ian that he saw, if indeed it was Ian. The man was filthy, dressed in torn rags, his hair and beard unkempt. As soon as he saw Mr. McHugh, he uttered a cry of surprise, turned, and disappeared into the morning crowd.”
“Most interesting. Mr. Rose is most probably alive then. And where is Mr. McHugh? May we speak with him?”
“Yes, you may, but first have a look at Ian’s flat, and then we shall meet McHugh at his residence across the square.”
We followed Barbara up the stairs to the very top of the building. Rose’s quarters were very small and barely constituted what might be called a flat. They consisted of two small rooms, each with a small window, one large enough to take a bed, the other slightly smaller. It contained a desk and chair.
“I see that you have had the place cleaned,” said Holmes disappointedly. “A pity, since we might have found something of value to our investigation. Still, I shall have a brief look.”
I watched as he combed the floor on all fours, taking samples of dust and carpeting, anything that he could fruitfully test under the microscope. When he rose, he looked out one of the windows to the street below. He then examined the window frame and stared for a long time at one of the glass panes, which had some scratches on it. He called me over and asked whether they suggested anything.
“They appear to be curved, almost a circle, as if a round object had been repeatedly pressed and turned against it,” said I. “And there appears to be some soot and a bit of wax on the window, somewhat higher up.”
“Good, Watson. Now the question arises: what was the object employed and why was it used? Note, old boy, these holes in the window frame, recently filled with putty. There are four holes arranged, if I am correct, into a rough rectangle. Finally, look here, just to their right, a larger hole, about half an inch in diameter and also filled with putty only recently applied, since it appears to be soft, almost fresh. Let me have your pocket knife, Watson.”
Holmes extricated most of the putty. The hole went through the wall to the outside.
“Most interesting, Watson,” said he pensively, as if he were speaking to himself. There is some dark-colored soil, almost black, mixed in with the putty. Barbara,” said Holmes, “do you remember any of this being here before Mr. Rose left?”
“Yes, I forgot to mention to you that . . .” she paused.
“Mr. Rose was an amateur astronomer,” said Holmes finishing her sentence.
“Yes,” she replied in surprise, “but how on earth did you guess that?”
Holmes smiled. “I never guess. Watson can attest to that. I assume that when Rose first took the room he also took your permission to drill the holes—with the promise that he would do or pay for the necessary repairs. He said that he would need to do so in order to affix a small telescope, the implication being that in some vague sense he was indeed an astronomer.”
“You are quite correct. He filled the holes the day before he left. But what significance do they have? They are such a small detail.”
“My profession is based on such details, call them trivia if you will, but without them, the solution to many problems would never occur. And since we are only at the beginning of the case, they indeed may still prove to be of no significance whatsoever. The important thing is to observe them, however minute they might seem to be. One more look in this closet. Hello, what have we here? How did I miss that?”
Holmes had now noticed a loose board in the closet floor. He lifted it up and pulled out a small telescope.
“Ah, here we go. Let us see if it fits the holes we find there.”
The telescope had attached to it a wire from which a piece of metal about two inches square hung. The holes in it matched precisely those on the window frame. By tightening the wire, the telescope became fixed. Holmes peered through it.
“Interesting, dear Watson, have a look.”
I looked through it and saw the upper storey of a house on the corner of Wharton Street.
“Well, Holmes, I must say that I see nothing remarkable. It looks like a house—indeed, the one over there,” said I, returning the telescope.
“Well, my dear friends, whatever its purpose, it is not pointed at any known celestial body. The use of the instrument must have been more mundane,” said Holmes.
“But why pretend to have such an interest?” I asked.
“We do not know at this point,” said Holmes. “Let us leave it for the moment.
“And now, if we may, let us pay a visit to Mr. McHugh.”
John McHugh lived directly across the square with his wife, Mary, and their two children. The family occupied a single room on the second floor of a house in almost total decay. Unlike their father, the children were thin and listless. McHugh, however, was a rough-hewn man, stout, unkempt, and out of work. His huge stomach pushed through his shirt where several buttons had popped.
He offered us a glass of ale, but we declined. He seemed incredulous at our refusal and filled his own glass. Mary McHugh, a short gray mouse of a woman, was obviously ill at ease and kept uttering apologies for the disorderly house we had entered. She repeatedly watered two wilted aspidistras in the window as we spoke. The signs of poverty—that peculiar London variety—were everywhere. Much of the furniture was broken and in tatters, and the floor of the sitting room was littered with newspapers and jagged pieces of broken glass. A filthy rug covered much of it. A young kitten sat in front of me chewing on the remains of a small mouse. The kitten was as emaciated as the children. Everything appeared to be sticky with the fingers of the two girls.
McHugh motioned us to sit and Holmes handed our host a paper left on the chair he took.
“This is Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his colleague, Dr. Watson,” said Barbara. “They are here to look into the disappearance of Mr. Rose. You claim to have seen him.”
McHugh spoke with assurance. “’Twas ’im I tell ya, Mr. ’olmes, no doubt of it. I’d know thet face o’ ’is anywheres. The bloody rascal popped out o’ sight as soon as ’e saw me. Poor man, ’e seems to have gone off ’is rocker.”
“Quite possibly that is the case,” said Holmes. “But tell me, Mr. McHugh, you are a singer, a tenor if I am not mistaken, and have performed at Sadler’s Wells on occasion.”
“Now ’ow did ya come ta thet conclusion? Mrs. Davies told ya all about me, eh?”
