“Suffice it to say we had best prepare for anything. In any event, I don’t suppose either of us will ever again fail to remember the fifth of November.”
We strode down a slick side street littered with whimsical configurations of rubbish gathered into heaps, which I gradually perceived were actually for sale. Broken pipes, cracked cookware, split boots, rusted keys, and twisted cutlery spilled onto the cobbles, and all the smells of the thrice-mended clothing permeated the air. Through this purgatory of lost objects Holmes picked his way easily, until we emerged onto an open byway, edged with warehouses whose smokestacks churned black exhalations into the night. Here numerous bonfires blazed, with crude Guy Fawkes effigies roasting above them, and the locals turned spitted potatoes over the coals as they cheered the roar of distant detonations.
My friend stopped at a corner and pointed without hesitation to a rickety structure which leaned against its neighbour for succour in its extreme old age. Though the street was unmarked at that juncture, I had no doubt but that Holmes’s encyclopedic knowledge had led us directly to Blackstone’s dwelling place.
“You have your weapon about you, I trust?”
“My service revolver is in my pocket.”
“Very good.” He plunged off the pavement, such as it was, and we approached the sagging grey door. The detective’s knock produced nothing more than a hollow thumping which died away the instant it was produced.
“There seems to be no one on the ground floor,” he whispered, cracking the lens of his dark lantern. “Let us see if there is any sign of life on the upper levels.”
We tried the door and found it latched, but with the aid of his pocketknife, Holmes had it open in a few seconds. A mouse squeaked in the corner and then fled through shafts of lunar illumination to its sanctuary under the stair. My friend crept toward the staircase and ascended, I at his heels, each of us straining our ears for any indication that the floor we approached was occupied.
Two doors, each slightly ajar, presented themselves upon the next landing. The further one sat in shadow, the nearer lashed with bars of silver light from the cracked roof high above us. Without a sound, Holmes moved through the closer door and into the room.
Inside stood a perfect representation of a family’s living quarters, with a pot on the stove, a pile of clothing half folded on the floor, even a string of carefully collected, brightly coloured bits of broken glass hung over a tiny basket draped with blankets in the corner. A thin film of dust lay over the entire room. I caught Holmes by the wrist.
“Out. Quickly,” I ordered, and in a few steps we were back in the hallway. Holmes’s searching expression swiftly cleared when he had deduced the cause behind the uncanny scene that I, as a doctor, had once encountered before.
“Cholera or smallpox?”
“It seems to be no longer worth finding out.”
My friend nodded and immediately diverted his attention to the other door, which he opened with a gentle push before poking his head inside.
“This one is uninhabitable, at least in the winter. A fire seems to have eaten away the outer wall some years ago. Our man resides upstairs on the second floor.”
Grasping the butt of my revolver firmly, I advanced up the final set of stairs behind Holmes. Though dustier and fallen into further disrepair, I did not need his finely honed senses to inform me that someone was in the habit of passing this way.
A single unmarked door appeared at the end of the second-floor corridor. My friend strode forward without a backward glance and threw open the final unlatched portal.
I saw at once, despite the poverty of light caused by strips of cloth hanging over the two tiny windows, that no one was there. Holmes opened the full flood of the lantern’s brilliance and handed it to me. Remaining just outside lest I trample some fragment vital to his investigation, I replaced my revolver in my pocket and examined the room from the hallway. Filth encrusted every surface and a sickly sweet smell, like burnt sugar that had been allowed to decay, permeated the very walls of the place.
Holmes set instantly to exploring every inch of the chamber with an expression of the utmost gravity, and I very soon determined why. Apart from a blanket and a broken chair, not a single object remained in the room. And despite the noxious atmosphere, I failed to spy either pipe or bag which might have contained any opium.
“There has been some deviltry at work here,” Holmes said in his coldest, most impassive tone. “Come in— there’s nothing to be learned from the floor.”
“Our bird appears to have flown,” I commented.
“But in heaven’s name, why? I was meticulous. I am prepared to swear that no one has the least idea I am even searching for him.” Holmes gestured dispiritedly with a wide sweep of his lean arm. “A blanket, and a chair. They tell us nothing. And yet…in a sense, it is very peculiar. He has clearly taken all he possessed. Why should the blanket remain? No holes, no mice…Everything else is gone. Why leave this behind?”
“Perhaps he was determined to lighten his load.”
“That is possible. But there is something about it I do not like. Let us leave this wretched place.”
My friend’s expression was set and neutral as we retraced our steps, yet somehow it was as dejected as I had ever seen. But our time in that house would not end so quickly as we had imagined, for as we descended the last set of stairs, the outer door swung forward to reveal a hollow-eyed woman, thin and spindly but with fiery red hair, accompanied by two children whose paper-thin complexions loudly declared their ill health.
Holmes, to his credit, held the lamp so that she could clearly see us and relapsed immediately into the charming seafarer whose identity he had laboured so long to establish.
“Oh, dear God!” the woman cried at seeing two strangers in what were, presumably, her rooms.
“Now, don’t take on so,” Holmes began in his most hypnotic tones. “We’ve come to see a friend, but we mean you no harm. He ain’t here, so we’re making our way back out again.”
“What on earth do y’ mean skulking about in here at night?”
“We made a poor job of it—please accept our apologies, ma’am. My name is Escott, and this here is Middleton.”
“Timothy, Rebecca, go along to the room, now,” she breathed in the lilting tones of the northern Irish native. “Take yer bundle, and eat yer share.” When the children had run off clutching a small rag, she returned her gaze to my friend. “What’s yer business, then?”
“We only wished to see your lodger.”
“He owes you money, does he?”
“Nothing of the sort, ma’am.”
She crossed her arms. “You truly are friends o’ his, then? Or are you kin?”
My friend smiled. “I promise you we neither of us would dream of breaking into your house meaning any harm. We wanted a word with him, and that’s the end of it.”
“Well, you won’t be having a word with him now.”
“So it seemed to us upstairs,” Holmes acknowledged, his eyes as sharp as knife points in the moonlight. “And why not?”
“Because,” she said flatly, “if your friend is Johnny Blackstone, there’s not a soul as can speak to him this side of the grave. Johnny Blackstone is dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The Lie
It was a great blessing for Holmes and me that we appeared in the character of Blackstone’s friends, for the stunned expression that flitted across both our faces thus required no explanation.
The woman’s thin lips parted sympathetically. “My name is Mrs. Quinn. I’ve naught to offer you for refreshment, as we’ve fallen lately upon some hard times. But if you’ve no objection to sitting a moment, I’ll make it all as clear to ye as I can.”
