The Secret in Lowndes Court

It was the coldest March that I could recall, and I was glad that morning to have no requests for my attention. In those earlier days in Baker Street, my health was still somewhat precarious, although it was then approaching three years since I had been wounded in the Battle of Maiwand. Joining Sherlock Holmes on his investigations had done wonders for my recuperation, forcing me to set forth when I might otherwise have chosen to sit by the fire and sip whisky. My own brother had started down that path for far smaller reasons than a shattered shoulder and a grazed subclavian artery, and I was always aware that such snares could entrap any man before he knew it, and if he wasn’t ever vigilant.

Having no regular practice of my own, I would divide my time between Barts as needed, and occasionally as a locum for various doctors whom I had come to know around the city. More and more I found myself participating in Holmes’s cases, as time and health permitted, and early on he had made it clear that any fees that he earned which involved my assistance were to be shared. “If you were called in by another doctor to consult on a medical case,” he had explained soon after I had assisted in the arrest of Jefferson Hope, “you would not expect to take your valuable time and offer your opinion – the result of years of training and experience – for free. Neither would you think it acceptable to pay from your own pocket any expenses incurred along the way – transportation, lodging, and so on. As a professional, you expect to be treated as one. You have earned that right. I, too, am a professional in my own way, and I demand the same. When I request your services, it is more than simply asking you to join me as a friend – although that aspect is not to be negated. Your presence and participation are part of that which is offered by my little agency, and as such, the client will be responsible for that payment.”

Then he had dropped into his chair with a rueful smile. “Although I must admit that at times my professional charges, which I never vary except when I remit them altogether, do get remitted more often than they should. It has been my experience that sometimes the most challenging and interesting cases come from those who can least afford to pay for them.” Then he sat up a bit straighter. “Nevertheless, we shall each of us, you and I, stand upon our professional dignity and demand proper remuneration whenever possible. We can but try.”

Now, looking at Holmes’s latest client, I suspected that this might be one of those instances when his fee might be remitted yet again.

Often in those days, Holmes’s mornings were not very different from those of a general practitioner who opens the door to a steady stream of patients with a variety of complaints. The difference, or course, is that a doctor quickly learns that nearly all of the complaints fall into three or four typical categories, each requiring the same type of treatment, whereas Holmes’s cases tended to be much more unusual. Of course, he would sometimes become weary of the tediousness of some of their stories, for as he’d explained once early on, “There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger-ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand-and-first.”

The amateur writer in me never tired of listening to the curious tales presented by Holmes’s clients, one after another, and finding interest in their stories, as well as their diverse backgrounds. Holmes, however, with a thousand (or more likely ten-thousand) details at hand, would strip away all the frippery and froth in an instant and see the bones of the matter exposed underneath, in the same way that Sir Jasper Meek or Penrose Fisher, or any of the best doctors in London, could instantly recognize a disease – even a rare one like Black Formosa Corruption – because they had seen it presented so often before.

As I recall, that morning had been rather typical, with three or four clients already having come and gone. One was a young woman who had a bundle of her dead grandfather’s letters, in which her recently acquired young gentleman seemed to have too great an interest. Five minutes of glancing through them, followed by a few questions about the grandfather’s seafaring background and a look through the Gazetteer, was enough for Holmes to advise her to look behind a framed map (which she confirmed that she owned, in spite of not knowing how Holmes could have been aware of it) for a set of stock documents, hidden long ago, and now no doubt worth a fortune. (As she left, I added my own professional advice: Avoid the young gentleman in the future.)

After a couple of other similar consultations and a second cup of coffee, the morning continued with the announcement by Mrs. Hudson of one Ernest Wilson. He was a compact fellow of perhaps forty-five. His suit was well-kept, but not new. He had gray hair that was perhaps overdue for a trim, and it was pressed down in a ring-shape encircling his head, no doubt from wearing the cloth cap that he had clutched in his hands. He looked from one to the other of us rather nervously, but seemed to relax quickly – although not completely – when Holmes invited him to the basket chair before the fire.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Holmes,” he said, glancing my way with a bit of uncertainty. I had seen this before, but for the most part I no longer felt the need to apologize and offer to retreat upstairs to my bedroom, as I had done when Holmes and I first began sharing rooms, or even to the present when a client of recognizable importance professed a matter to be of the utmost secrecy. Usually Holmes indicated that I should stay – sometimes, it seemed, as a way to assert his authority over the client more than a wish for my presence – but there were still occasions when I was excused. In Mr. Wilson’s case, there was no indication that I should leave, and thus I picked up my notebook to jot down a few points as the man told his story.

“You may not remember me, Mr. Holmes – ”

“Of course, I do, Mr. Wilson. You’re the manager of the messenger service in Regent Street, around the corner from the Union Bank in Argyll Place.”

Wilson’s eyes widened. “I am indeed. Thank you. Thank you.” He paused for a second, as if some great honor had been accorded and had left him speechless. Then, in an effort to regain his train of thought that was visible to both Holmes and me, Wilson continued.

“As you say, I’m the manager, and have been with the company, at that location, since I was a boy. I started running messages when I was just a lad, a number of years before you two young men were born, I expect. It was a local concern then – we’ve since been absorbed by a larger organization – and as I came up, I took on more and more responsibility, so that when old Mr. Jeeter retired, I was given the reins. It’s steady work, and necessary, and if one keeps an eye on all the moving pieces, there isn’t too much that can go wrong.

“When I first started, I lived with me mum, not far out of the Seven Dials, and thank heavens I escaped from there, as many of my young mates did not. With what I earned, we were able to move to a better neighborhood, and there we stayed. Mum died a few years ago, but I remained there in our old rooms, by myself, until the middle of last February, just over a month ago, when we – that is, the other tenants and me – learned that the building had been sold to a nearby brewery so that they could demolish it and expand their building. Well, there wasn’t anything to do but look for somewhere else.

“The same day that I learned I’d have to move, I was returning from delivering a package – as I’ve never risen so high that I don’t still do some of that for myself – and I was quite fortunate to notice that a room had just become available near my place of employment – in Lowndes Court, just off Carnaby Street, not three or four blocks away from the service. It’s an easy walk, and there are probably six or eight pubs a couple of minutes in any direction, should I wish for a little something at the end of the day.

“It’s a small house, smaller than this one, and the lease is held by Mrs. Denbigh, a widow of about my age. It seems that her previous tenant, an old man who had been a bank clerk, had dropped dead at his desk one morning a week or so before, and after his sister came and cleared out his things, she needed a new lodger. The rate is reasonable, including meals and laundry, and after I saw the sign in her window and knocked on her door, we had concluded the arrangements within fifteen minutes.

“I’m not one for change, you understand, but I had no choice. I’m satisfied with where I work, and I was happy with where I lived, until I had to find somewhere else. But this is definitely a satisfactory solution to my problem.”

I could see that Holmes was becoming impatient, and to Wilson’s credit, he perceived it as well. He hurried onward toward the meat of his story.

“I’ve lived there for just a month now – at Number 8 Lowndes Court. In all that time, there’s been nothing unusual whatsoever, and I’ve simply picked up and carried on with my life the same as before – I just turn a different direction at the end of the day to walk home. But yesterday morning, as I was finishing my breakfast, Mrs. Denbigh knocked and asked to come in.

“That was a bit strange, as she usually waits until I’ve gone for the day to collect the dishes, along with any laundry which I’ve set aside. She seemed upset, and wanted to speak about something, but had a difficult time finding a way to start. I’ve seen this over the years with my lads at the service – when they’ve made a mistake, or something that should have been easy has had a complication, and they fear that they’ve handled it the wrong way. The best way forward is simply get them to tell it, and I urged Mrs. Denbigh to share what troubled her.

“‘Have you heard any… noises in the night?’ she asked.

“‘What noises?’ I asked. Truth be told, the house could burn around me and I might not wake up – it used to worry my mum something terrible.

“‘Footsteps – that’s how it started,’ she said, as if she were embarrassed about it. I couldn’t think why, until I suddenly understood what she might be thinking. She didn’t mean a burglar. ‘And then the knocking began.’

“‘Do you think that the house might have a ghost?’ I tried not to smile and make her feel foolish.

“She couldn’t look at me then, as if hearing it said out loud, in the bright light of morning, made her too ridiculous. And yet, she’d decided to ask me about it, and she pressed on, instead of letting the matter drop.

“‘Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Wilson! I’ve never heard anything like these noises before, in the entire twenty years that I’ve lived here. For the last week they’ve happened every night – softly at first. Just a single knock on the wall outside my bedroom, as if a piece of plaster has crumbled loose and fallen in the wall, or been knocked loose by the passage of a mouse. I’m a light sleeper, or I might not have noticed it – at least, when it began. But once I hear it, then in a few minutes – five or ten I suppose – there will be another, and it sounds intentional, as if someone had thumped a knuckle on the wall, and not as if the house is simply creaking as it settles for the night. Every night that I’ve heard the noises, they’ve begun the same way.’

“‘Every night, you say. And you’ve heard them for a full week?’

“‘Yes, although who can say when they started before I noticed them? They might even… might have started…’

“Her voice trailed off then, and I knew what she was implying – that old Creech, the man who had lived there before me – was back somehow. I laughed aloud then, and her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like being mocked.

“‘You’re thinking that it’s your former tenant,’ I said, trying to sound serious. ‘But that’s silly, Mrs. Denbigh. Surely you don’t believe in ghosts.’

“That made her a little angry, I think. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils turned white. ‘I am sure that I don’t know what to believe, Mr. Wilson,’ she said tightly. ‘I apologize for wasting your valuable time.’ And she would have left in anger if I hadn’t risen and asked her to stay, and to tell me more of what had happened.

“‘Has it just been the knocking, then?’ I asked.

“She shook her head. ‘The first night I heard steps, somewhere in the house, but I couldn’t tell from where, It was a sliding sound, with an occasional thump – the way that old Mr. Creech would walk around up here at night in his slippers.’ She took a step forward, and put a hand on my arm. ‘Have you heard him? Has he been up here as well?’

“I shook my head. ‘But the walking was only the first night? After that it was the knocking?’

“She nodded. ‘That started the night after I heard the walking – even last night. When I’m fully awake, it stops. Afterwards, I can’t go back to sleep. It’s a wonder the last few nights that I’ve managed to fall asleep at all, afraid of what I’ll hear in the darkness, but when I do hear the knocking, I wake up, my heart racing. Are you sure that you haven’t heard anything?’

“I shook my head and forcefully kept myself from smiling this time. ‘I sleep so deeply that your Mr. Creech could be leaning right over my bed and I’d never know it.’

“I’d mistakenly made light of it once more, in spite of trying not to, and that only seemed to upset her yet again, but instead of turning to leave this time, a strange look came over her face, and she rushed on with her story. ‘But it isn’t just the knocking and the walking around. Now… now, last night – he’s written me a warning!’

“This, then, sounded more substantial. One might have thought that she was dreaming the other, no matter that she insisted she was awake. After all, I’ve only known the woman for a month, and while she’s presented herself most sensibly during that time, I cannot really say if she might be the type to hear things that aren’t there. But if there was actually a warning – something written down – well, now there was something to be going on with. As we say at the service, if it isn’t written it doesn’t exist, and this sounded like proof.

“Aware that the morning was getting away from me, I asked her to explain, but she said that she’d better show me instead. I nodded, and she led me downstairs – my two rooms are on the first floor, same as yours here, gentlemen – and then along the hallway beside the stairway to her own chambers at the rear. (The ground floor front is let to a key shop.) Of course I hadn’t been to this part of the house before, but there were no surprises about it – She has a parlor with windows looking out over a small court, and a bedroom just beside it, and a small kitchen.”

“And the basement?” interrupted Holmes.

“The door to the downstairs is underneath the steps going up to my rooms. It’s located just outside of Mrs. Denbigh’s sitting room.”

“And who lodges above you?”

“No one – I’m the only lodger. Above me is just the attic, nothing more. It’s a small house.”

Holmes nodded for him to continue.

“In the parlor, she led me over to the fireplace. The wall there is papered – some sort of pink flowers, very small – and there, alongside the mantel, was the word ‘Revenge’, written in soot.”

Holmes glanced at me. Just two years earlier we had seen something of the sort scrawled on the wall of an abandoned house in Brixton. In that case, the same word – but then in German – had been inscribed in blood, located above the body of a dead American. It had been a most thrilling affair, especially to me in those early days of my recovery, and I wondered if Wilson’s narrative might end up as another tale of vengeance spread across many decades and continents before coming to a grim conclusion in an old house in the heart of the British capital.

“Is the word still there?” asked Holmes, his features alert with interest. I knew that he would wish to examine it, and that he’d likely be able to glean a number of useful details.

Wilson shook his head. “Mrs. Denbigh washed it away later that day.”

Holmes’s eyes narrowed. “Describe it then.”

Wilson glanced away for a moment as he reviewed the image in his mind. “The letters were even – none larger than the other – and each about a foot tall.”

“All capitals?”

“That’s right.”

“And about how wide? Did they crowd together, or appear to get closer together at the end of the word, as if the writer had planned poorly and was running out of room?”

“No, they were evenly spaced – about six inches wide each, and an inch or two apart.”

“Ah, a ghost who plans accordingly beforehand. What you describe would have been over four feet wide.”

“That’s right. It was at eye-level, and you couldn’t help but notice it. There’s plenty of room on that side of the mantel.”

“And one would assume that the ghost – or whomever was responsible – dipped a finger into the fireplace to access this make-do ink.”

“I thought of that. I looked in the fireplace, but Mrs. Denbigh had already built up the fire that morning. I did see some small droppings of soot across the slates in front of the fireplace leading off to the right, toward the message.”

Holmes nodded. “A man after our own hearts, Watson! Possibly an important detail – for why would a phantasm need soot to write a message at all? Wouldn’t such a creature be able to inscribe it with green flames, or with some sort of ectoplasm from ‘The Other Side’.”

Wilson nodded. “My thinking exactly, Mr. Holmes. Someone real – not a dead man – had been in those rooms. But even if it wasn’t a ghost, it’s still something that is a worry to Mrs. Denbigh.”

“Agreed. And you say that this occurred yesterday morning?”

Wilson nodded.

“What did you do next?”

“There wasn’t much that could be done. It was a bright morning as you’ll recall, and the idea of ghosts seemed silly in the daylight. I mentioned that I needed to get on to work – Mrs. Denbigh didn’t seem too pleased about that! – but I promised to think on it during the day.”

“Does she not have anyone else that she can call upon for assistance?” I asked.

“It seems not. Her husband died fifteen years back – he was a brakeman for the railway, and there was some sort of accident. She’s mentioned that fact a number of times in passing. There were no children. If she has anyone else – a parent or brother or sister perhaps – I’m not aware of them. She doesn’t have any photographs of family in her parlor, although there might be something of that sort in her bedroom.”

“You’ve waited a day to approach me. What happened next? May I assume that there were developments last night?”

“Last night, and this morning as well. Throughout yesterday, I considered the problem, and decided that there was nothing to be done except hide myself last night and try to catch the person who was getting into the house. When I returned yesterday evening, I explained my plan, intending to settle myself in a little alcove near the front door, where I’d be out of the way when someone passed by – either entering somehow by way of the front door, or coming up from the basement.”

“Is there a back entrance?” Holmes asked.

“Yes, but it’s in the basement, so if someone were to enter that way, he or she would still have to climb the stairs and pass me in the alcove.”

“Is there a separate entrance into the house by way of the key shop?” I interrupted.

Wilson nodded. “I thought of that, but I examined the connecting door in the front hall quite closely after I returned home, and it was locked and seems to be secure. The light wasn’t the best there, but I could see that cobwebs across the doorway were too old to have been made since the night before, and they are unbroken.”

Holmes nodded appreciatively, and Wilson continued. “I also looked around a bit down in the basement, but saw nothing that seemed unusual. The rear door was locked up tight, and the door to the front areaway beneath Lowndes Court has a couple of solid locks, and while someone might be able to pick them, or even have copies of the keys, there’s nothing there that revealed itself to me.

“After my little supper, I read for a bit and then went downstairs, knocking on Mrs. Denbigh’s parlor door and letting her know that I was getting on station for the night watch. She seemed concerned that I’d be too far away, being near the front door, to know if anything happened, but I’d already arranged a comfortable chair in the alcove, and settled in to wait for whatever happened. However, gentlemen – and I hate to admit it – but… well, I fell asleep. I never heard a thing. This morning I awakened early, rather shamed that I’d been unable to stay awake for one night, and crept down the hall toward Mrs. Denbigh’s parlor. She wasn’t up yet, and the house wasn’t making a sound. There, written in the same place as the morning before, and duplicating it as if traced in the same spot, was the word ‘Revenge’, again spelled out in soot.

“It was quite early, and the fire wasn’t built up yet, so I looked closely and saw where there were places in the soot where a finger had likely dipped in to be re-inked. I took the time to examine the letters more closely, and it was apparent to me then – and I should have noticed it the first time – that each letter would have taken a number of strokes to complete, for a little bit of soot inked on each finger doesn’t go far when writing seven letters that are each half-a-square-foot in size.”

“What was Mrs. Denbigh’s reaction when she saw this morning’s message?” asked Holmes.

“Or more specifically,” I amended with a smile, “when she learned that you had fallen asleep at your post?”

Wilson looked rather sheepish. “She said she’d heard the knocking again, and when I first spoke to her, she was a bit scared. When she saw the writing, she clung to me in fear. But then, when she heard that I’d slept through it all, she wasn’t as upset with me as I would have thought. It seemed to please her in some strange way – proof that an intruder could enter once again, even with someone nearby. I believe that it further solidifies her belief that she has acquired a ghost.”

“A ghost,” Holmes added, “who dips a phantom finger into fireplace soot in order to physically convey his thoughts.” He uncrossed his legs and straightened in his chair. “So you have now decided to consult with me.”

Wilson rubbed his face. “I don’t know what else to do. The woman asked for my help, and I could certainly hide again tonight, and this time make much more of an effort to stay awake, but then what? I want to stay in Mrs. Denbigh’s good graces, and help her if I can, but I’m not sure just what I’ve gotten myself into. Suppose I do catch some fellow slipping through the house tonight. Do I try to trap him? Do I hit him over the head? Do I try and hold him until the police arrive, taking a chance that he’ll do me an injury in the meantime?” He shook his head and sighed. “This is not my line at all. That’s when I thought of you.”

“And Mrs. Denbigh? Her thoughts about this consultation?”

Wilson shook his head. “I didn’t tell her. I hadn’t really decided when I left for the day. Instead, I simply said that I’d take care of things tonight for sure. That seemed to please her. Then, not long after I walked into work, I recalled you, Mr. Holmes – you were there last week, I believe – and my mind was suddenly clear on the matter.”

Holmes tapped his lips two or three times, and then said, “This almost certainly falls into two or three likely categories. I’m aware of something like it ten or fifteen years ago in Saxe-Altenburg.”

Wilson’s eyes lit up. “That fills me with great confidence, Mr. Holmes! Although this matter has only intruded into my life for a couple of days, I’ll be happy to have things return to normal. I don’t like change, you see.”

“Yes, I believe you mentioned that.” He stood. “Doctor Watson and I will do a bit of research and let you know something before the end of the day.”

Wilson and I rose as well, and he offered his hand, first to Holmes and then me. “Very good. I’ll look forward to seeing you.”

When the manager had departed, I looked at Holmes with an expectant raised eyebrow. “Pah!” he cried. “I shouldn’t interfere at all.”

“Indeed? Then why do so?”

“Because that messenger service is well-run and convenient, and I don’t want to get on Wilson’s wrong side. I fear that this will end badly for one of us.” He glanced at the clock. “Nearly noon. Surely Mrs. Denbigh can be found at home. Would you care to accompany me?”

I did, and in ten minutes or so we were well-bundled against the cold and making our way by hansom toward the client’s lodgings. We had held to our own thoughts down Baker Street and then into Marylebone Road, and it was only as we turned along Park Crescent, and so into Portland Place, that I sensed that Holmes was ready to speak.

“You indicated some familiarity with the matter.”

“I did. It’s as clear as if she’d pretended to fall into a stream so that he would rescue her, and then fall hopelessly in love.”

I laughed at the image. “So that reference to some matter in Saxe-Altenburg… ?”

“That’s real enough. The second daughter of Ernst I – the Duke – contrived something along the same lines to catch the attention of an aloof young man that she’d picked as a husband. The fellow was too dim to realize that he was being played like a fiddle, and set about trying to ‘protect’ her from the ghost that was following her about – that only she could see, mind you. I believe that they now have four children, and someone wrote a rather dull epic poem about it.”

“I doubt,” was my response, “that Mrs. Denbigh has read that poem. We must give her credit, I suppose, for coming up with the scheme on her own – if you’re right.”

“Oh, I’ll admit it could be something else. Old Creech could have, in his misbegotten youth, stolen the Lost Fire Emeralds of the Yupik and hidden them within in the house, and now a vengeful tribesman, the last survivor of his people, has made his way on foot across the frozen wastes of the polar icecaps to chase Mrs. Denbigh out of her bedroom so that they can be retrieved. But the simplest solution is best: After a month, the widow has set her cap on the new lodger, who is too unaware to see the fate that she has planned for him. He did say, I believe, that she chided him for staying too far away from the parlor – and her bedroom – last night. I suspect that, in her own ineffectual way, she probably hinted that he should wait in her chambers for the ghost to arrive – a fact that probably eluded him, and thus he didn’t feel the need to mention it. When he instead went the other direction, toward the front of the house, and in fact then fell asleep, it was easy for her to reload her guns with another message. Tonight, but for our intervention, the poor man might have been lost!”

“Holmes!” I said with mock surprise. “You hinted that this might end badly. I can agree that he might need to move if he finds this distasteful, which would be a bad ending for him – for you’ll recall that he doesn’t like change – but matrimony with the woman might end up being the best thing for the man! Don’t disparage it, and don’t charge in like wild bull and spoil something just because of your cynicism.”

He glanced at me with a glint in his eye. “No promises, Watson. We’ll see what sort of impression this woman makes. In the end, you might agree what saving Wilson is of the utmost importance.”

And in fact the woman in question made a rather winning and pleasant impression after all. The hansom let us out in front of a small house, rather mashed between two larger buildings, as if in the past age when the city was being constructed, builders had started from either end of the court and worked toward each other, and when they met in the middle, their poor planning hadn’t left quite enough room for a full-sized structure, and so the modest little house was built instead. The door to the residence was crowded to its left side, while the right held a modest little key shop – now dark, and with a sign on the door indicating that the owner would return by two o’clock. The entrance to the shop was reached by a little concrete “bridge” over the open space of the areaway below, and it had been added some years after the house’s original construction, whenever the front ground floor was converted into a business requiring a second entrance. Those in the countryside might not have seen such an arrangement before, but in London it is rather common. A steep little metal stairway went down between the two doors to the areaway.

Holmes rang the bell of the residence door, and within a few moments it was opened by a slender and somewhat careworn woman in her middle-forties. The lines on her face, however, seemed more likely to have been caused by smiles rather than frowns – although when Holmes introduced us and explained our purpose, a frown was what presented itself.

“I had thought,” she said, with rather tight lips, “that Mr. Wilson would be taking care of this matter for himself. I didn’t expect that he would confer with outsiders.”

“I understand,” said Holmes smoothly. “But he had some legitimate concerns that whatever is going on might be more than he could handle – and he wanted to make sure that you didn’t come to any harm along the way.”

I glanced at Holmes to see if there was any sarcasm to his comment, but his face was open and without guile. When he then asked if he might look around the house to see if he could determine what was going on, the woman allowed it, although clearly she still wasn’t pleased.

After closing the door, she led us back along the hall to her parlor. I noticed the closed and locked door to the key shop on the right side of the entry way, and then the stairs on the same side, leading up to Wilson’s rooms. The left side of the hall ran smoothly to the back of the narrow building, where it ended at a widened area consisting of four doors. One, directly in front of us and closed, presumably led to the lady’s bedroom. A second, on our right, was well-lit by sunlight from the south-facing window, and was clearly the parlor. The third door beside it led into a small kitchen, and the fourth was underneath the stairs – leading down to the basement, according to our client.

The parlor was small but pleasant. The papered walls, tasteful decorations, and comfortable-looking chairs made it seem like a good place to spend time, and the warm little coal fire was a treat after our cold journey from Baker Street.

I didn’t venture too far into the room, instead leaving things as untouched as possible for Holmes. Although I’d only been accompanying him on his investigations for a couple of years, I’d long-since learned the correct way to behave when entering an area where interpretations of evidence might be possible – and crucial.

It was quite obvious that, unlike the previous day, Mrs. Denbigh hadn’t yet wiped away the word which defaced the wall to the right of the mantel. Holmes slowly made his way across the distance between the doorway and the fireplace, while I simply watched. Our hostess noticed my gaze, and stated, “I have no idea why anyone would seek revenge against me, Doctor.”

I was tempted to ask – simply making conversation – whether she had seen any vengeful Yupik lurking in the neighborhood, but I feared that my attempt to privately amuse myself would only make for an awkward exchange. Instead, I asked her how long she’d lived there, and she began to chat more freely, stating that she and her husband had obtained the lease nearly twenty years before, not long after their marriage, by way of a small inheritance combined with what he earned from the railway. When he was killed, a small settlement had given her a bit of financial security, and enough besides to remodel the larger front area of the house into a shop. With the income generated from that source, and also taking in a lodger to fill the space upstairs that she didn’t need for herself, she’d maintained a comfortable-enough living.

Holmes finished examining the carpet, and then moved wider afield, still looking down as he criss-crossed the room, even investigating the window opposite the fireplace where it was unlikely the “ghost” would have needed to venture. After only three or four minutes of this, he finally turned his attention to the sooty message upon the wall. This received less attention than I would have suspected, and he never looked into the fireplace at all – knowing that the day’s new fire would have likely destroyed the signs that Wilson had seen where someone had dipped a finger into the ashes.

Murmuring something about with Mrs. Denbigh’s permission he would now examine the rest of the house, Holmes briefly visited the kitchen and then opened the door to the basement – without actually receiving said permission – and vanished downstairs. He was gone for quite a bit longer than I would have expected, and my conversation with the landlady went from polite to strained to conclusion, and we stood in silence for an awkward long time awaiting Holmes’s return. We finally heard him climbing back upstairs, whereupon he shut the door to the basement and, without a word, turned and went down the hall before then ascending to Wilson’s rooms.

Mrs. Denbigh seemed about to object, but then she held her tongue – perhaps uncertain of her ground when she considered that Holmes was acting as Wilson’s agent. Her dilemma was short-lived, as my friend returned almost immediately, joining us in front of the fire, which had remained quite pleasant to me, even in my coated condition.

“It’s a very curious situation,” he said, rather noncommittally, I thought, considering his earlier theory as to the source of the threatening message. Perhaps there was more to it than he’d let on, or possibly he simply wished to present his findings to Wilson, and thereby let the manager decide how to proceed. Additionally, he spoke rather quietly – or so it seemed to me – as if he didn’t want to be overheard. It gave the conversation a seriousness that had previously been missing.

“We can see the writing on the wall. Can you tell us more of the noises on the first night?”

She nodded. “I described it to Mr. Wilson as if someone were walking, but that’s not quite right, I suppose. It was a sliding noise, and it seemed to be all around – I couldn’t say that it came from within this room, or the hall, or anyplace with certainty.”

“And he also mentioned knockings.”

It seemed as if she had momentarily forgotten that. “Oh, yes. There’s that too. But the noises seem less important somehow than if someone – some thing – is inside the house and writing threats upon my wall.” Her eyes pointedly glanced toward the fireplace. “Yet I’m certain that Mr. Wilson can manage this. I… I don’t have money to hire a detective to spend hour after hour here trying to catch my ghost. In fact, you might scare him away.”

“Wouldn’t that be the purpose of the exercise?” asked Holmes with an innocent tone. Only someone who knew him would spot the humor in his narrowed eyes.

“Why, yes. Of course. But if the ghost does decide to leave, you will still keep investigating, day after day, to make certain he’s gone, and I can’t afford that kind of expense.”

“I believe that Mr. Wilson took on that capital outlay for this matter when he hired me, madam, but I do see your point. In any case, I suspect that this matter will resolve itself rather sooner than later. Tell me,” he added, “do you have a relative, or a friend, whom you might visit this afternoon? The doctor and I want to keep an eye on the house when it’s empty, to see if anything unusual occurs.”

Mrs. Denbigh frowned and seemed to want to ask a question, but then she nodded. “Anything to get this finished, I suppose. I can go see my old aunt in Norbury. I’ve been meaning to do so – it’s been several months.”

“Promise me that you will go? Excellent. Then for now the doctor and I will leave you, but we hope to have news for you by this evening.”

She seemed puzzled, but also relieved that we were departing. After she shut the door behind us and we reached the pavement, I intended to stop and question Holmes, but he took my arm and led me down the street. Glancing back, I saw that the door had reopened, and the lady of the house was looking our way. Nearby, a stout man was unlocking the key shop, apparently having returned early from his errand, as it was still somewhat before noon.

When we were several blocks away, Holmes hailed a hansom and directed the driver to drive north along Regent Street. It was crowded, and we made poor progress.

“Your mood changed,” I said. “After you had been downstairs.”

He nodded, his face grim. “As you recall, Mrs. Denbigh told Mr. Wilson that the ‘walking’ sounds occurred about a week ago. I believe that those were real, even if she wrote the message on the wall herself.”

“So that’s established then?”

“Without a doubt. The pattern of her footsteps beneath the message tell the whole story.”

“She might have stood there to examine it.”

“No. The footprints shifted slightly from left to right, back and forth, as would someone who was carefully writing each letter, and then turning back repeatedly to the fireplace, bending down and obtaining more soot.”

“And the knocking that she reported?”

“That was false, to gin up her story. She nearly forgot to mention it until I asked, and her facial expressions were clearly less sincere than when she described the initial walking sounds. I suspect that she truly heard the mysterious noises a week ago, and probably was made sincerely nervous. From that, she developed the idea of a full-blown haunting, intended to serve as an excuse to lure Wilson into her clutches.”

“But back to my original question: What changed your level of interest after visiting the basement?”

“You recall that Wilson said he examined the basement to see if intruders had entered that way? What he failed to mention, no doubt thinking it of no importance, is that a portion of the basement under the key shop is walled off from the part used by Mrs. Denbigh – no doubt done when the shop itself was built following the death of the lady’s husband. There is also a connecting stairway between the shop and their segment of the basement.

“There is a connecting door between the two sides of the basement, and it was well locked, with no signs of recent passage as Wilson said – which is likely why Wilson didn’t mention it as a factor. Knowing that the key shop upstairs was closed, I had no hesitation at picking the lock to see what was going on in that half of the basement.

“Do you recall what happened just a week ago?” he asked, seemingly switching course midstream. I wracked my brain. Did he mean one of his own cases? Or something more generalized? Then it hit me.

“The Fenian bombing in Mayfair!” I exclaimed. “On the fifteenth, I believe. And they placed a second bomb at the offices of The Times, but it failed to explode.”

“Precisely. And what do you think that I found in the basement of the key shop?”

“Good Lord,” I muttered. “Dynamite?”

“Nine full cases of it. Enough to destroy several blocks in every direction around that woman’s house should it go off – not to mention countless public structures if they have a chance to use it elsewhere.”

“And she isn’t aware of it,” I said, half as a question, and half hoping it to be true.

Holmes agreed. “If she was a part of such a thing, she’d have no need to take in a strange lodger, just weeks before the plot was due to be executed. If she needed a lodger to complete the picture that she is just an innocent landlady, one of the Fenians could have filled the bill. I’m surprised that they didn’t think of it – putting one of their own there when she advertised the rooms – but perhaps the timing was wrong. Possibly Wilson arrived right after she placed the sign, just in time to rent the rooms before someone else could present himself as another lodger. In any case, if she was in on the plot, she certainly wouldn’t have started all this foolishness about having a ghost, and taking the chance on attracting attention to the place, in the very week that the bombers were laying low and sitting on a deadly amount of explosives.”

At that point, he spotted something and had the driver pull to the side and wait. Then he hopped down and danced through the crowd until he reached an idling lad of twelve or so – whom I recognized as Silas Thurber, one of his more steady Irregulars. They spoke for a moment and coins were exchanged before the boy dashed away and Holmes regained his seat in the cab, informing the cabbie to now take us to Scotland Yard with all possible speed.

“Gregson, I think,” he said. “I believe that he’s been involved in the formation of some sort of special branch to address the bombing problems.”

The inspector was in a conference related to the very issue of which we’d been speaking, and when he heard that Holmes was there to see him, he immediately excused himself and led us along a hallway to an unused office. There, Holmes told him succinctly about our initial skeptical visit to examine Mrs. Denbigh’s house for evidence of ghosts, and then what he’d found in the basement.

The inspector instantly perceived the gravity of the situation. “Are you sure that this landlady isn’t involved? And what about this Wilson fellow?”

Holmes explained his reasoning as to why they weren’t connected with the dynamiters. “No doubt this key shop was set up to appear as an innocent cover for the Fenians, right in the heart of London.” Gregson nodded, and was all for immediately raiding the place, but Holmes had a different plan.

“I asked Mrs. Denbigh to get out of the house later today. One can only hope that she will do so as promised. If she doesn’t, we can still proceed, but I’d feel better if she was gone. In any case. I propose that we get an anonymous message to the owner of the key shop – Randall, according to the name upon the door – that all is known. It should convey just enough to get him moving without really telling him anything. He may flee on his own, in which case we follow him, or he may assemble his men in order to move the dynamite, and we’ll follow them – rather like spotting a single bee and marking his path until he leads you to the hive. We can try to take the whole nest of them. Granted, arresting Randall now and confiscating his cache of explosives will solve the immediate problem, and we might very well get some more names out of him – but then again we might not. I believe that in this way we can bag most, if not all, of the gang.”

Gregson rubbed his face with one of his big hands and nodded. “I’ll get some men around the place.”

Holmes shook his head. “No – or at least not too close. I’ve already taken care of surrounding the building, as well as the neighborhood in every direction, with a veritable army of my Irregulars. Let them work in close to these men as they escape, so that no suspicions are raised. Have your men ready to arrest them when they’ve gone back to ground elsewhere in their other hidey-hole.”

The inspector reluctantly agreed and returned to his meeting to quickly brief those who were waiting to learn why he’d been called away. Within a half-hour, we – along with the inspector – were on our way back to the area around Mrs. Denbigh’s building.

We left our vehicle several blocks away, and Holmes stood patiently for a moment until Silas Thurber came out of a nearby alleyway to report. “The lady left not long after we got there,” he said. “It’s just the man in the key shop now.”

“Good. And Dungiven?”

“We’ve fetched him. He should be here in just a few minutes.”

And he was. Michael Dungiven was one of Holmes’s agents that I’d met on a few previous occasions. He was from Ireland, and could lay on the accent so thick that he became nearly unintelligible when needed. Fiercely loyal to the Crown, he often provided information about Irish criminals when requested by Holmes. (Interestingly, he hadn’t yet met Gregson, and after these events he was recruited into the newly formed Special Branch, serving with great heroism and distinction until his tragic death some nine years later, during the period following Professor Moriarty’s death when the London underworld violently fought to fill the vacuum left by the destruction of that criminal’s evil web of crime.)

Holmes quickly explained the situation, and Dungiven nodded. He really only needed to convey one thing to Randall, but his quick intelligence perceived the deeper aspects of the matter. He turned and set off for Lowndes Court, while we waited impatiently. He was gone for no longer than ten minutes, before approaching us from a different direction than that in which he’d departed.

“Any difficulties?” asked Holmes, while Gregson balanced impatiently from one foot to another.

“None,” said Dungiven. “He was curious about who I was, but I dropped a couple of names he’d likely know, and that seemed to convince him. I was in and out in two heartbeats nearly. He’s on the telephone, and he was starting to call someone as he watched me leave. I believe that things are in motion.”

That proved to be correct. We strolled until we reached an alley, whereupon Holmes led us through to the Lowndes Court end, where we had a view of Mrs. Denbigh’s building. Within half-an-hour, a dray wagon with a couple of draft horses drew to a stop in front of the key shop, and half-a-dozen men leapt down and pressed inside. Within a minute they were lugging crates to the back of the wagon like ants carrying cake droppings back to their hill.

“The question,” said Holmes, “is whether Randall shall stay or go – Ah! He’s locking the door and joining his fellow plotters.”

“I’m glad that we listened to you, Mr. Holmes,” said Gregson in a low tone. “That dray wagon could be followed by a man in a bath chair. We’ll have them, and no mistake.”

“You might want to hold off, Gregson – at least for a few hours – once you know their destination. You can pick off the ones that leave, and perhaps others might arrive in the meantime, even someone higher up in their organization.”

Gregson frowned, considering whether it was worth taking the chance of possibly losing track of those that he’d just seen over the reward of a bigger catch. Then he nodded.

It was a gamble that paid off. The Irregulars followed the wagon as it crossed London to an old warehouse in Hackney, not far from Sutton House. There, Randall supervised the unloading of the dynamite, which was carried inside without incident. The Irregulars kept up a running contact with the police during the journey across the city, racing ahead on side streets and anticipating where turnings would occur. Later that evening, several other big fish did arrive as Holmes had suggested, and Gregson decided then to make his move. The raid swept up nearly a dozen men, including two who were definitely implicated in several previous bombings. More important, an additional quantity of dynamite was discovered in the warehouse that dwarfed that which had been moved from the key shop. We had found the Fenians explosives depot.

That night, Holmes and I knocked on Mrs. Denbigh’s door. She answered with a surprised look, explaining that she had just returned a few minutes before from visiting with her aunt and was in the process of preparing Mr. Wilson’s dinner. When asked if she could pause that and fetch him, she agreed, and soon we were in her little parlor, where Holmes was explaining the full details of the arrest of the lady’s storefront tenant.

Both were shocked, and they glanced at one another as if they had just survived some great tragedy. “You’ve saved our lives is what you’ve done, Mr. Holmes!” said Wilson. “What if that dynamite had blown up during the night?”

“Or what if the police had caught wind of it on their own,” added Mrs. Denbigh, “and arrested us without the benefit of your deductions that cleared us beforehand?”

“That’s right,” added Wilson. “You not only saved us, but you cleared our good names as well.”

The two of them then chattered together, sharing remembrances of Randall that each recalled, indications that should have let them know what the man was really about. I waited for some mention of the knocking ghost and the warning of “Revenge” to be uttered, but they never seemed to get around to it, and neither Holmes nor I were inclined to remind them. In a very short while, we excused ourselves, and they seemed happy to let us go, as their conversation now was of the type that excluded all but themselves.

“Perhaps,” I said, outside and pulling my coat tighter against the chill, “they’ll recall in a few minutes that the question of the writing upon the wall wasn’t adequately explained.”

Holmes shrugged. “She’ll likely concoct a reason that satisfies him – that Randall was somehow getting into the main house and trying to scare them away. It won’t make any sense, of course, but people in love don’t have any respect for logic.”

“You saw it too, then,” I said. “The dam between them has been breached.”

“Indeed. Mrs. Denbigh’s plan might have worked anyway without any of this, but the addition of a dash of danger in the form of dynamiters was just the extra ingredient to make Wilson gobble down the whole cake.”

I laughed. “A curious metaphor. Perhaps it will be a wedding cake.”

And so it turned out to be. Later that year I saw the announcement of their marriage in the newspaper. I mentioned it to Holmes, who was expectedly indifferent, but I found myself the tiniest bit peeved, as if we should have been invited somehow for helping them, in our own modest way, to complete the arrangements. However, after another moment’s thought, I found that I was relieved that we hadn’t been asked to attend. Perhaps, I realized with a start, just a bit of Holmes’s antipathy was rubbing off on me – something that I vowed to resist with more effort than before.

He turned into one of the district messenger offices, where he was warmly greeted by the manager.

“Ah, Wilson, I see you have not forgotten the little case in which I had the good fortune to help you?”

“No, sir, indeed I have not. You saved my good name, and perhaps my life.”

– Dr. John H. Watson, Sherlock Holmes, and Wilson

The Hound of the Baskervilles