The Gower Street Murder

Part I: A Chance Encounter

The sky that morning was as bright a blue as one could hope for, reflecting the crisp bite to the late September air. I remarked on the day’s beauty as I dismissed my cab, and the driver agreed with me. I had thought that I would walk back to Baker Street upon the completion of my errand. However, my appointment took quite a bit longer than expected, and by the time I exited the austere and imposing residence, a line of dark clouds had hove in from the south, along with a brisk damp breeze promising rain.

Still, I stubbornly decided that I would walk at least part of the way before the weather overtook me, and I set off on foot, crossing Constitution Hill before entering the tree-shaded protection of Green Park, already unnaturally dark but temporarily protected from the rising wind at my back.

Traversing the wide pathways, I glanced at the occasional man or woman who passed me, each facing straight ahead or looking fixedly at the ground before them, intent on their own personal thoughts. Several times as I crossed the Park, I patted my breast in order to reassure myself, although I had no reason to believe that the official missive tucked into my pocket had managed to work its way loose.

It had been to take delivery of this document that I had journeyed to the Palace that day, representing my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, in a matter that has no relation to the present narrative, and must remain unrecorded until such time as a future Prime Minister deems it prudent. Holmes had felt that it would be better if the final loose ends of the affair were tied up without his participation, and considering the harsh words and vile epithets that had been hurled toward him the night before by the broken and beaten nobleman, Lord D - - , in Holmes’s sitting room, I tended to agree. Therefore, I had made the excursion and subsequently taken possession of this second handwritten confirmatory confession, which - like the first that had been signed the night before by his co-conspirator - would never see the light of day, provided that Holmes’s conditions were followed to the letter.

I had no fear that anyone would try to take the document from me, as it was in everyone’s best interest, at least for the immediate future, that it be placed into Holmes’s safekeeping as soon as possible. And yet, I was beginning to rethink my desire to walk part of the way home, not because I feared that the document would be taken. Rather, I suspected that it might be damaged by the rapidly approaching rain.

As I reached Piccadilly, I looked in both directions for a hansom, but surprisingly there were none to be seen just then on that busy street. Quickening my pace, I crossed and turned toward the east.

I had passed by Brick Street and White Horse Street when the rising wind from the south increased. As I moved past Cambridge House, a young man appeared in my path, pulling the Out gate closed behind him. He was facing away from me, and did not see my approach, forcing me to shift my stride to avoid a collision. It was then that the first of the rain began.

I reached Half Moon Street, and quickly turned left and ducked into the most accommodating doorway, No.4, in order to shelter myself while I attempted to open my umbrella. I was not the only person to have this idea, as suddenly the young man who had been departing Cambridge House also dashed into my doorway, instantly placing me on my guard. Our eyes met, and we nodded at one another, with my expression rather more wary than his. He must have followed me.

“Dr. Watson?” he said softly.

As I acknowledged the fact, the wind gusted, pushing several larger drops of rain with it. My new companion, on the uphill side of the doorway, was more exposed than I, and appeared to catch the brunt of the spray. I noticed that he did not have an umbrella. At this time, after knowing Sherlock Holmes for so many years, I could not help but also observe that he appeared to be a clerk in his mid-thirties, right-handed and accustomed to writing often, as shown by his worn sleeve. He was a wiry fellow, about five feet and nine inches, and not much more than twelve stone. His clothing was modest but well-kept, and he looked like half a million other similar fellows that might be seen but not necessarily observed on any day of the week around the Capital. There was nothing unusual about him, save for the mourning band on one sleeve.

He noticed my glances up and down his figure, and he formed a faint smile. He quickly looked at the rain, now falling steadily onto the street, and returned his gaze to meet my own. I started to look away, having been discovered studying him, but the sudden smile lighting his face stopped me.

“You don’t recognize me, do you, doctor?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not,” I admitted, with wariness rather than any sudden relaxation. Working with Holmes has provided a great deal of excitement over the years, as well as numerous rewards, but unfortunately, it has also caused a number of people, including family members of criminals exposed and brought to justice along the way, to have a certain amount of antipathy towards us.

“I’m Wiggins,” he said. “Peter Wiggins. Of the Irregulars.”

A flash of recognition passed over me, as I associated this neatly dressed man with the ragged boy from so many years ago. He was the first of many of Holmes’s lieutenants, the leaders of his Baker Street Irregulars, who had carried the name “Wiggins.”

“Of course,” I replied, finally lowering my guard, and holding out my hand, which he shook heartily. “I must admit that I did not recognize you, Wiggins.” I turned my head toward the street, where the rain already seemed to be tapering into a steady soaking drizzle. “How have you been? It’s been so many years since I last saw you...”.

“Nearly twenty, doctor,” he agreed. “Then I moved on and my brother took over my duties with the Irregulars. I have been quite happy with my life since then, thanks to the assistance given to me by Mr. Holmes so long ago. I work for a man in King’s Bench Walk, near the Temple.”

“You’re quite a distance away from there to be caught without your umbrella on a day such as this,” I said.

“Oh, no sir, I’m not working right now,” he declared. He gestured toward the mourning band. “I’m making some final arrangements for the funeral later today. Will you and Mr. Holmes be stopping by? We would all appreciate it so very much.”

I confess that I was completely puzzled by his question. Holmes had made no mention of anything of this sort, and I did not have the faintest idea to what Wiggins was referring. I think that I must have shown my confusion, for Wiggins continued, “My mother, sir. She passed away last Thursday.”

“I’m so sorry to hear it,” I murmured.

“Thank you,” Wiggins replied, quietly. “I believe that she was quite ready. She had been ill for several years now, and my sister had been living with her.”

I nodded, still trying to catch up, and he continued, “Her last years were quite comfortable, certainly more so than they might have been, had not Mr. Holmes done so much for both her and our whole family.”

“Really,” I said, unsure of my ground, “I am afraid that I was not aware...”.

He smiled knowingly. “I see that Mr. Holmes has not told you the story. I’m not surprised. Well, it’s not my place, if he has chosen not to reveal it after all this time, and I must be getting on. However, you are certainly invited to my mother’s home, where we will all be gathering early this afternoon, before the funeral this evening. I know that my sister was to send a card to you both, and it will provide you with the address, although I’m certain that Mr. Holmes still recalls it.” He glanced out at the street, where the rain was already drawing to a close. “I must dash, but I hope to see you this afternoon!”

And with that, he was gone. While he returned to Piccadilly, I refolded my barely used umbrella, and continued up Half Moon Street to Curzon Street. Turning right, I worked my way into Berkeley Square, and managed to hire a hansom in front of General de Merville’s corner home, the site of Holmes’s disastrous interview with the general’s daughter, just weeks earlier.

The streets were fairly clear at that time of morning, and it wasn’t long until I was back in Baker Street. Entering the front door, I let Mrs. Hudson know that I had returned, and hung up my hat and coat. As I climbed the stairs, I could see from the window upon the landing that the day was already clearing again, returning to the bright blue skies that had initially greeted me when I started upon my errand.

As I stepped into the sitting room, I found Holmes reclining in his chair, pondering an unlit pipe. Crossing to the hearth, I removed the document that I had carried to and from the Palace and placed it into his hand.

“Any difficulties?” he asked, barely glancing at it. He had written most of it himself the night before, along with its twin, before forcing the first grudging signature from one of the guilty parties. Today’s additional signature had simply been sewing up the final stitch of the complicated tapestry that had taken Holmes two full days to complete.

“Not at all,” I replied, turning toward the sideboard. It had been a difficult morning. Holmes responded to my unspoken question by indicating that he did not wish to join me in my early restorative. “And the document’s final resting place?”

“With Brother Mycroft, I think,” he replied. “Then it will be someone else’s problem.”

“So all is well,” I breathed. “I did not like the idea that you might wish to keep it here, or that you would have me keep it with my papers.”

“Indeed,” Holmes responded. “The political mind that would create such a convoluted scheme as this would not hesitate to burgle these rooms someday, or even the vaults of Cox and Company, should he ever reconsider his confession and come to believe that a vigilant government has stopped keeping track of him and these papers.”

Turning toward him, I wanted to ask about the steps that he had taken over the past couple of days, leading from a cryptic reference about a cormorant in the Agony Column, followed by the desperate dash to the Kent lighthouse on a hastily hired Special. But I could see that his thoughts were already on some other matter as he tossed the document carelessly onto the small octagonal table by his chair. I settled into my seat across from him, and sighed as I stretched my feet toward the fire.

“How far did you walk before the rains overtook you?” he asked.

I glanced down at my damp cuffs. “Elementary,” I said. “You heard the hansom arrive, but you see that my clothing is wet from the earlier rain.”

He nodded and began to scrape inside his pipe. “As you say.”

“The deluge, though arriving and departing quickly, caught me in Half Moon Street. And can you deduce with whom I shared a doorway while waiting for the rain to pass?”

He dramatically touched the stem of the pipe to his forehead and closed his eyes. Then, with a smile, he opened them and said, “A Wiggins, of course. But I must confess that I do not know precisely which one.”

I snorted, amazed as usual, and totally at a loss to explain how he had reached his conclusion.

I did not need to ask him to confirm his supposition, as he continued, “Upon sitting down, your eyes began to look quickly from here to there, searching for something. You glanced significantly at the mantel, where my correspondence is usually affixed by a jack knife. After several seconds, you looked away, but you continued to glance about, indicating that what you were seeking was some sort of communication that you would have expected to arrive while you were gone, and what you sought was not there.

“Immediately thereafter, you spotted the black-bordered envelope which stands here upon my side table, propped against my morning coffee cup. You then showed a satisfied expression, as if your conclusions had been verified. That led me to understand that you somehow expected that such a letter would be here.

“Since it arrived while you were out this morning, neither of us could have known about it beforehand. Therefore, you had somehow learned of it while you were out on your errand. Knowing as I do that it came from the Wiggins family, and realizing that you could not have learned about it from any other source, since I have ascertained that there was no mention of the lady’s death in the morning newspapers, I concluded with near certainty that you had spoken with a member of the family. Since, as far as I know, the only Wiggins’s that you have ever met have been members at various times of the Irregulars, the only question that remains is to determine which one it was?”

“Peter,” I replied. “From 1881.”

“Ah, yes. Wiggins the First. From several years before 1881 as well, however,” Holmes explained. “He was my lieutenant for a while, before you had occasion to first encounter him during the Jefferson Hope matter.”

“There have certainly been a passel of them over the years,” I replied.

“Indeed. Even I sometimes have trouble keeping track of all of them.”

I took a sip of my brandy. “How did you meet them?” I asked. “The Wiggins family? When we first met, back in ’81, you already had your system of Irregulars firmly in place. At what point did the Wiggins clan become the official and perpetual leaders of the group?”

“My dear Watson, that is a story. And as I hear Mrs. Hudson climbing the stairs with our lunch, which I asked her to prepare early today, perhaps I can relate it before we depart for the Wiggins home to pay our respects.”

Part II: The Gower Street Murder

I did not question that he would assume I was going with him, since in fact I had planned to, once I learned about it. I agreed that an early lunch would suit me, and rose to open the door for the long-suffering landlady.

She had provided us with some cold beef left from the night before, and bread for making sandwiches. I thanked her, while Holmes nodded in a distracted way and began to prepare something small for himself. I could see that he was recalling the details of his story. In a moment, he began.

“You may recall,” he eventually related, “that when I left Oxford and came up to London following the events relating to the matter of ‘The Gloria Scott,’ I lived for several years in Montague Street, immediately beside the British Museum.”

I nodded. “I lived in Bloomsbury for a time myself, while finishing at the University of London and before joining the army,” I reminded him. “South of Great Russell Street, in Southampton Street.******** Number 6 it was.”

“Quite,” Holmes said. “I have no doubt that our paths crossed many times without even knowing it.”

“Exactly,” I said, warming to memories of my younger days. “For instance, on that occasion when you and I visited the Alpha Inn a few days after Christmas back in ’87, I meant to tell you about one of the earlier times that I had been there with Stamford. We had left Barts that evening, only to discover-”

“As I was saying,” Holmes said, with no rancor while interrupting my reminiscences, “I was living in Montague Street, in a house leased by the widow of one of my father’s cousins, a Mrs. Holmes. If I ever knew her first or maiden name, it is completely lost to me now. The lease was initially in her family name, before she renewed it with the Bedford people as Mrs. Holmes. Mycroft had first resided there, when he came up to London after Oxford, and it was to that same house that I went after leaving old Trevor’s place in Norfolk in the summer of 1874.

“Over the next few years, while making Montague Street my base of operations, I set about learning my craft. I studied some at Cambridge during this time, but also spent a great deal of my energy in London, finding clients when I could, intruding into police investigations as much as I was able and allowed, and making the acquaintances of various lesser underworld figures, learning whatever skills from them that they were willing to teach. The rest of my time I spent in the British Museum, directly across the street from my meager lodgings in No. 24.

“As I recall, it was in the fall of 1877, when I had established enough of a practice that I could afford my rent, and an occasional bit of bread and cheese besides, when I first made use of the Irregulars. You understand, they didn’t have a title then. It was only when you and I moved into these quarters, and you were being introduced to my little methods, that I made some joke or other about utilizing the ‘Baker Street division of the detective police force.’ Over time, we began to refer to them by the noble sobriquet which they now use to identify themselves.

“In those early days, I would simply hire one of them here and there, as needed, and as I could afford it, to watch a house or visit an address to see if a fact could be observed or verified or extracted when I did not have the time to go there myself. Soon the two or three lads that I had initially hired told others, and it became known that a man on Montague Street was doing detective work, and paying real money for assistance.

“And so I began to be pestered quite seriously by the lads, all wanting to participate in something or other in order to earn a coin. I could not step out of No.24 to go to the Museum or the Alpha ‘round the corner without being stopped in the street with questions about ‘where are you going?’ and ‘do you need any help?’ And I can assure you that my landlady, the grim Mrs. Holmes of distant relation and dubious memory, was not nearly as tolerant of these fellows as our dear Mrs. Hudson has come to be.

“It was at this point that I turned to young Wiggins to organize these Irregulars, as they came to be known in later years. Already, I had found that he was more intelligent than his fellows, and that often I could entrust him with the complicated tasks that I would not choose to delegate to his comrades. I could usually explain in much greater detail what it was that I was looking for in any given matter, and he would grasp the object of the exercise and go forth with my complete confidence, usually returning with exactly what I needed to complete, or at least further, my case.

“I spoke to Wiggins about better organizing the group, so that he would be the leader, and more importantly, the principle person with whom I would have dealings, so that Montague Street would not be choked with street lads, waiting to catch a glimpse of me whenever I stepped out, rather like a school of South American piranha fish, hoping that some sluggish agrarian beast might wander into their river realm to be picked clean.”

I laughed at Holmes’s simile, picturing exactly what kind of agrarian beast that he would turn out to be, and reached for the makings of another sandwich. “So that was how you met the first Wiggins,” I said. “But that in itself does not explain the family’s fierce loyalty to you, or the fact that other Wiggins’s over the years have taken Peter’s place as the leaders of the group. Obviously, there must be more to the story.”

“Obviously,” said Holmes dryly, pushing back his plate with its half-eaten sandwich. “And it all relates to how Peter’s widowed mother was saved from the gallows.”

With that statement, he stood up. “Perhaps I am being overly dramatic. It was but the work of a day or so, and the gratitude of famlias Wiggins over the years has been far too exaggerated for the small effort that I made.”

He stopped for a moment to gather his thoughts, and then moved to the fireplace, where he reached for a pipe. As he began to pack it with shag, he glanced at the clock and pronounced, “We have a little time before we must depart. You will accompany me, of course? Your name, after all, is also on the note.”

“Certainly,” I said, taking a bite of the second sandwich. “I had planned on it. Pray continue your tale.”

Holmes sank into his chair, his back to one of the tall windows looking out onto Baker Street. I, having twisted myself around at the dining table to watch his progress across the room, turned back to face my plate while the story continued behind me.

“It was in August of 1879, just a few months before I would sail to America for a year with the Sassanoff Company, when Wiggins came to see me. I had no investigation taking place at that time, so I was mildly surprised that he would make such a dramatic appearance.

“He seemed quite agitated, very unlike his usual confident young self. I had only managed to get him seated in my small front room on the first floor, overlooking the street, when he bounded up and began to pace, telling me that there was no time to talk, and that I needed to accompany him immediately, because his mother had just been arrested for murder.

“I must confess that up to that time, I had not really given the idea of Wiggins having a mother very much thought. Although I was not quite twenty-six years old at the time, I was still rather insular in my thinking, and had not devoted much concern to how any of the troops in my unofficial force made their way when they were not working for me. I had observed that Wiggins seemed to be better dressed and fed than the others, but I suppose I had ascribed that to the fact that his greater intelligence had simply found a way to live a more prosperous existence.

“I attempted to calm the boy. I again directed him to a seat and began to question him in an organized manner. He explained that he lived with his mother and brothers on the first floor of a small house on George Street, north of Euston.

“I know the place,” I said. “I took Wiggins home in a cab once, years ago. Going north on Gower Street, we crossed Euston into George Street********, and it was in a small, drab house on the left side of the street.

Holmes nodded. “Wiggins’s father had been dead for several years at that time, and his mother had found work as the cook and housekeeper in the home of an old widower several blocks away to the south. The fellow seemed to have no family, and had been quite accommodating regarding Mrs. Wiggins’s need to only work during the daylight hours, in order to be home at night with her family.

“As I began to frame more questions, Wiggins sprang to his feet, having none of it. ‘You can ask me on the way!’ he cried. “I am sure the inspector is still there. Hurry, Mr. Holmes!’

“He fairly dragged me down the steps and into the street. Although he had indicated that I could question him as we went to the scene of the murder, it was obvious that I would not be able to do so, as he kept running ahead, and then stopping to make sure that I was following, rather as if he were a small dog on a long leash, out for a stroll with his master.

“We did not have far to go at all. Not long after starting north on Montague Street, we turned left into Montague Place, passing behind the Museum and so into Gower Street, where Wiggins dashed unheeding into the foot traffic there before veering right. I followed more carefully, until we had almost reached Keppel Street. There, on the eastern side of Gower Street, and almost at the corner, was our destination, as shown by the solid and unbreachable presence of a constable standing in front of the door.

“Perhaps you know those houses in that area, Watson. There is a certain sameness to that block, on the southeast corner of Gower and Keppel, all with their grim dark brick and lack of ornamentation. I had passed that way a number of times, but like so many buildings, they were simply part of the background, to be ignored as one goes from here to there.”

I had my doubts whether anything was ever part of the background to be ignored for my friend Sherlock Holmes, but I held my tongue, lest I interrupt the flow of his narrative. Pushing back my plate and dropping my napkin, I made my way toward my chair.

“In those days,” Holmes continued, “the London constabulary did not know me quite as well as they do now, and in any case, the individuals that did recognize me had no great affection for me. However, I was able to convince the constable that it would be advantageous for me to speak to the inspector in charge of the case, should he still be on the premises. After a long moment of ponderous consideration, the constable turned and went inside. There was a moderate crowd gathered outside the door of the house, as you will have seen at the presence of any London murder, and it spread beyond the width of the building in question, and past the houses on either side as well, all the way to Keppel Street on the north, one house away.

“With the temporary departure of the constable, the crowd behind me surged a step or two closer, pushing Wiggins and myself onto the small square stoop, only three or four inches higher than the adjacent pavement, and surrounded by sturdy iron bars over the area below. When the constable reappeared, he looked suspiciously at us, and glared at the restive assemblage pressing behind us. Then, he stepped aside to let the two of us in before planting himself firmly again, ready to defend the castle at all costs.

“I did not know whom or what to expect. Stepping inside, Wiggins and I followed the sound of voices upstairs, where, on the first floor, we found a small group of three men congregated in the back bedroom, two standing by the window in discussion while looking out over the mews behind the house, as the other was leaning over a still figure on the bed.

“ ‘Ah, Mr. Holmes,” said a voice that I recognized. In some ways I felt fortunate, as I had worked with this man on quite a few previous occasions. However, I also knew that he was still resistant at times to my contributions to a case, and a part of me had hoped that I might find a different inspector in charge with whom I had had no previous dealings.

“The inspector, as you may have determined, was our old friend Lestrade. By that time, he and I had known each other at least five years. We had met not long after I first set up lodgings in Montague Street, but when these events were taking place he was only then starting to realize that I looked upon what I did as a profession, and not as a dilettante seeking distraction from some other less interesting portion of my life. And, as a matter of fact, I had been quite useful to him in the past, so I do not believe that he truly resented my appearance that day in Gower Street.

“As Lestrade spoke to me, his voice was neutral, but then he perceived that Wiggins stood behind me, unable to look away from the grim figure lying on the bed near the window. ‘I told you to be gone, boy,’ he began, before realization crossed his face, as he understood that I had been brought there by Wiggins.

“ ‘I see,’ he continued gravely. ‘The boy has asked you to save his mother from a charge of murder.’

“ ‘She didn’t murder anyone!’ cried Wiggins, moving from behind me and up to Lestrade, who was forced to take an awkward step back. The man who was leaning over the bed, obviously a left-handed police surgeon, Crimean veteran, and inveterate low-level laudanum addict, snickered to himself, and continued to make a cursory examination of the dead man. The third man, a stolid constable, made no comment whatsoever.

“ ‘Hear now,’ said Lestrade, righting himself and placing a not unkind hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘I’m afraid we can’t change what’s obvious. I’ll be happy to discuss this with you, Mr. Holmes,’ he said, turning toward me, ‘but the boy must wait downstairs.’

“Wiggins started to protest, but with a glance and a wink from me he was given to understand that I would represent his interests in the matter, even in his absence. With a truculent expression on his face aimed toward Lestrade, he turned to go.

“After his departure, which was signaled by suspiciously heavy steps going down the stairs, I pushed the door partly shut, but not all the way closed. If I knew my Wiggins, he would be listening through the crack in the moment or two that it would take him to silently return up the stairs. Turning back toward Lestrade, I asked him to summarize the events that had led to the arrest of the boy’s mother.

“ ‘The dead man,’ he said, gesturing toward the figure on the bed, ‘was a reclusive fellow named Silas Raines. Comfortably well off, and not in the best of health. No close family, no demands on his time away from this house.’

“ ‘And you have ascertained this how?’

“ ‘Some we learned from questioning the neighbors, and other information we gleaned from Mrs. Wiggins herself. Before she knew that she was under suspicion.’

“ ‘How was the body discovered?’ I asked.

“ ‘By Mrs. Wiggins. Her story is that it was her duty to arrive here every morning, clean the house as necessary, and prepare the daily meals. She is a widow who lives not far away, up near Euston Station, with her children. The one that brought you, Peter, is the oldest. She indicated that Mr. Raines had no objection to her leaving in mid-afternoons, when she had completed the evening meals, which he would then eat later as the mood struck him.’

“At the bedside, the physician stood and backed away without comment. I took his place, taking several moments to examine the dead man. He had obviously had a weak heart, and the froth at his lips, combined with the sour unnatural odor emanating from his open mouth, made the cause of death all too obvious. The remains of a meal, spread out on both the bedside table and spilled across the man’s sheets, further confirmed the conclusion.

“I looked at the doctor and said, ‘Poison? A fast-acting alkaloid, perhaps?’

“The man nodded. His predilection for the soothing joys of the poppy did not diminish his medical abilities. ‘Probably in the pudding, no doubt,’ he replied, indicating the bowl and its half-eaten contents that had dropped onto the bedclothes beside the body, the remains of its contents smeared down the man’s nightshirt.

“ ‘It seems obvious,’ said Lestrade, ‘that he was in the process of finishing his meal when the poison took effect. He was in poor health to begin with, so it would have been easy for him to be carried off.”

“ ‘The process was accelerated,’ interrupted the surgeon.

“ ‘Perhaps,’ continued Lestrade, ‘if he had not been elderly and alone, he might have been able to seek help as the symptoms overtook him. Instead, he died alone. I wonder if he realized who killed him.’

“The surgeon nodded. ‘At his age, and in his condition, it would have been quick.’

“I must say, Watson, that I was not convinced the poison had been in the pudding. Perhaps it was in a portion of the meal that had been consumed before he started the pudding, and it took longer to take effect than the surgeon estimated. ‘Was it usual for him to eat his dinner in bed?’ I asked.

“ ‘According to Mrs. Wiggins, it was,’ replied Lestrade. “She would arrive in the mornings, straighten up the house as needed, and usually retrieve the dinner dishes from the night before from this room. Mr. Raines did not like to eat breakfast, but he would eat a small luncheon in the dining room downstairs, looking out onto Gower Street, and then spend the rest of the day researching a book that he was writing. Something about the Lost Tribes or some such drivel. He had an arrangement with the British Library whereby they would send materials to him as needed, relieving him of the necessity of leaving the house.’

“ ‘And you say that he was comfortably well off, in order to be able to maintain such an arrangement?’

“ ‘It isn’t confirmed yet, but the neighbors who knew him - and none of them knew him very well - indicated that he had made a fortune as a young man, traveling in the Canadian provinces, before returning to London ten or twelve years ago. His health was irretrievably shattered, and he was able to use his accumulated resources to set himself up here, writing his book. Often on warm evenings he would take a turn in the mews behind the house, which are shared commonly with the other houses on this side of the street. He was quite voluble in explaining where he had come from, and what he was currently doing.’

“I gestured toward the remains of the food. ‘Will that be analyzed for poison?’

“ ‘Certainly,’ replied Lestrade. ‘Although knowing what type of poison it is won’t change the fact that he was murdered.’

“ ‘Nevertheless,’ I said, ‘I wonder if I might take a sample as well, to perform my own analysis. As you know, I am a student of crime, and every lesson, no matter how small, is valuable to me.’

“ ‘Of course,’ Lestrade agreed tolerantly. ‘As long as you share your results with me,’ he added. I removed a few of the small glass vials from my coat that I invariably carry with me, even in those early days, and began to retrieve samples of the food.

“ ‘What do you need that for?’ asked the doctor as I placed the top on the vial containing the pudding, and began to take some of the scraps of meat from the plate on the bedside table. ‘The poison is in the pudding.’

“ ‘Hypothesized, but not confirmed,’ I replied. I was curious about the remains of the unusual sauce that seemed to be on top of the last of the meat. It was a dark color, and laced with a half-dozen small specks that appeared to be fragments of some type of seed. I made sure to leave an equal amount for the doctor, should he choose to examine it. Finally, for the sake of completeness rather than because I believed that it might be revealing, I placed three of the neglected peas into a vial of their own as well.

“Standing, I said, ‘And Mrs. Wiggins found the body this morning, when she came up to retrieve the dishes?’

“ ‘That is what she says,’ replied Lestrade. ‘Her story is that she thought Mr. Raines had suffered from a fit during his evening meal. His contorted limbs, as well as the expression on his face and the matter expelled from his mouth, might seem to suggest such a thing. She ran to the neighbor’s house for help, and they in turn summoned Constable Henry here.’

“ ‘And what was her demeanor when you arrived?’ I asked the constable.

“He pondered for a moment, and then said, ‘She were upset,’ he finally said, gruffly.

“ ‘Unusually so?’

“ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘About what you might expect, I suppose. She were crying a bit.’

“ ‘A very natural reaction,’ I said. Turning back to Lestrade, I said, ‘So far, there is nothing that points to Mrs. Wiggins as the culprit behind this crime. What is there about any of this to make you specifically think that she is the murderer?’

“Lestrade appeared to become exasperated. ‘Mr. Holmes, she was the cook, the food was poisoned, and she is the only other person that the man ever had in his house. According to the neighbors, it was no secret that Mrs. Wiggins had set her cap for Mr. Raines. The neighbors that we spoke to said that it was fairly obvious. In all likelihood, Raines had given her to understand that such a marital alliance was not going to happen, and she killed him because if it in a fit of female rage.’

“I thought that I heard a low growl through the cracked door, and spoke quickly to cover it. ‘But why kill him then, Lestrade? That seems a little drastic, don’t you think? If she did hope to marry him, that would be the way that she could gain access to his money. By killing him, she not only loses any future chance to win him over, but she also loses her comfortable position as well.’

“ ‘A woman spurned, and all that,’ Lestrade replied with a rueful smile. ‘They don’t think rationally, they simply act. If you’d seen the same thing as this as often as I had, Mr. Holmes, you would have recognized it immediately for the situation that it is. And after all, poison is a woman’s favored method.’ Then his smiled broadened, as if I’d fallen into a trap. “There is one other piece of evidence.’

“I simply waited, until after a long awkward moment he reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew his leather wallet. Opening it, he pulled out a scrap of paper, originally a quarto-sized sheet that was torn along one edge. He handed it to me, and I observed that it was a very cheap paper, with fibers still obviously visible in the texture. Written on it with a dull wide-leaded pencil were the words Mrs. Wiggins did it.

“I looked at it for another moment, attempting to determine any other fact of importance. There were one or two that I docketed away for further consideration before handing it back to Lestrade.

“ ‘Exactly where did you find it?’ I asked.

“ ‘It was lying beside him on the bed, tucked down in the sheets where Mrs. Wiggins wouldn’t have noticed it when she discovered him.’ He folded it, and replaced it within his wallet. ‘I think that you must agree, Mr. Holmes, that this fact, combined with the opportunity and possible motive, indicates that there really is no question about who murdered Mr. Raines.’

“I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to question why a supposedly rejected and irrational woman would take the time and trouble to find and use an alkaloid poison, rather than some other less subtle but more immediately satisfying emotional method, such as clubbing him with a poker or pushing him down the stairs. And as far as his assertion that poison was a woman’s weapon, I had already investigated a number of cases in which poison was used by men as well as women. Besides all that, there was one fact that Lestrade was ignoring. However, all I said was, ‘It still does not hang together,’ to which Lestrade simply replied with a smug smile, similar to the many others that I had seen from him on a number of occasions, and would see again over the years.

“Without asking permission, I stepped to the bed and made a thorough examination of the bedclothes. Then, I extended my search to the floor underneath, and finished with the top and interior of the small bedside table. What I was looking for, what should have been there, was not. And Lestrade had missed it.

“I glanced around the room. ‘Have you examined his private papers?’

“ ‘I have,’ he said, misunderstanding me. He pulled a folded sheaf of papers out of his pocket. ‘These were on the dead man’s desk downstairs, in his study. They are a representative sample of his handwriting. And before you can point it out to me, Mr. Holmes,’ he added, ‘even I can see that these examples of his fist do not exactly match that which is on the note identifying Mrs. Wiggins as the murderer. However, the man was dying, and it cannot be expected that he would exhibit perfect penmanship under those circumstances.’

“I glanced at the papers, and saw that he was right: The writing did not match. I had to agree with him that under the circumstances that was not unusual. However, that was not why I had asked about his papers.

“ ‘Does the man have an heir?’ I asked.

“ ‘Not that we could determine, although we have not made a complete examination of his personal effects. All of that type of material appears to be in his study downstairs,’ said Lestrade. ‘If you would care to follow me.’

“I perceived a faint scrambling sound outside the bedroom door, as if someone had been caught surprised by our intention to leave the room and was quickly creeping down the stairs. Lestrade did not seem to hear it, and when he pulled the door open, the landing outside the bedroom was empty. He led me downstairs, leaving the doctor and the constable with the unfortunate deceased.

“We found Wiggins innocently leaning against the front door frame. Lestrade looked at him and said, in a rather sour tone, ‘Could you hear everything all right?’ Then he turned toward the back of the house, leading us behind the stairs and into a small study, piled with papers and teetering stacks of books. The room was dim, and had a musty smell to it. Heavy drapes were closed behind the desk, and I stepped around the inspector and pulled them open. It appeared that Mr. Raines had preferred to do his work in near darkness. The disturbed dust set us all to coughing, including Wiggins, who had followed us and was standing in the doorway to the hall.

“I sat down behind the desk and began quickly sorting through the papers. Lestrade watched for a moment, and then, seemingly becoming impatient, said, ‘Let me know if you find something useful.’ Then he turned and departed the room.

“Taking advantage of the opportunity, I quickly said to Wiggins, ‘Do not become angry because I ask, but did your mother truly have any hopes of marrying Mr. Raines? Be honest now. Remember that I need the truth.’

“He seemed reluctant to answer for a moment, and then said, ‘She might have. She talked several times about what a nice man he was, and so easy to take care of. But there’s no way a man like that would want to take on a family like ours, now is there?’

“I nodded, and thought how perceptive the young man was. I could see just from examining the various piles of handwritten papers on the desk that this fellow had been lost to his own interests, and the idea of tearing himself from that world and becoming a father to a brood of Wiggins chicks would have horrified him. He would not have traded his work to become the husband of his housekeeper. Wiggins had unknowingly confirmed a fragment of Lestrade’s theory, as had my own small observations.

“I examined the rest of the victim’s papers, finding very little of relevance. He had a bank book for the Oxford Street branch of his bank, showing a substantial sum indeed, but no other meaningful financial documents, if one did not count those relating to the usual household accounts, the baker, the butcher, and so on.

“I did find one small packet of old letters, resting on top of a pile of documents in one of the drawers and tied with a blue ribbon. The ribbon had recently been retied, as evidenced by the new knot in an unmarked section. The letters were all short, never more than a page or two each, and addressed to Raines. Dated from nearly thirty years before, they were written by a barely educated girl named Abigail Tremblay, replying to letters from Raines, and answering his romantic questions in the affirmative.

“While I was reading through the letters and the other material, Wiggins sat quietly in a chair on the other side of the desk. At one point I was aware of the sounds of men entering the house through the front door and going upstairs, only to return a few minutes later, moving much more slowly and carefully. The body was being removed. Soon after, Lestrade returned to the study.

“ ‘Did you find anything? A will, perhaps?’ He glanced at the boy, who scowled back in return. ‘Anything that mentions the housekeeper?’

“I shook my head, and held up the packet of letters. ‘There is nothing romantically inclined here whatsoever, except for these ill-written and awkward love letters from the last generation, addressed to our Mr. Raines when he was younger and living in Canada. However, they are mere flirtations and promises to wait for him, and there is no conclusion to the unfinished tale of whether he ever went back and found his princess.’

“Lestrade snorted, and indicated that if there was nothing else, he was going to lock up the house and leave it under the care of a constable. As he shepherded us toward the front door, he suddenly stopped and laid a hand on Wiggins’s shoulder. ‘I am sorry about your mother, lad,’ he said. ‘I would change things if I could.’

“I could see that Wiggins was tempted to toss his shoulder and throw the hand from him, but instead he bore it, though it must have burned him to do so, and said, ‘You’re wrong. She didn’t murder anyone. You’ll see.’

“Lestrade simply shook his head sorrowfully and led us out onto the pavement. The crowds had thinned following the removal of the corpse, but there were still a number of busybodies, standing in clumps and clusters, whispering their ignorant theories to one another and pointing toward us. I distinctly recall one of them pointing a sausage-like finger directly at me and whispering to his neighbor, ‘I think that skinny one there did it.’

“After Lestrade departed with a reminder to let him know if I discovered anything of relevance, Wiggins and I spent the next hour or so knocking up the different neighbors in that part of the street, all of whom shared the common mews with the deceased’s house. None seemed to question either my right to ask questions, or the fact that I was being accompanied by a young street Arab, even one that was better dressed and behaved than most that roamed the area.

“Each neighbor essentially provided the same information. Raines had been a relatively quiet - but not unfriendly - man who had moved into that street nearly fifteen years before. He had employed a series of housekeepers over the years, with Mrs. Wiggins being the one with the longest tenure. The neighbors knew her from occasional conversations in passing. I asked each neighbor about a possible romantic association between her and Raines, although I was reluctant to do so, as Wiggins was always by my side during these interviews. However, in each case, the neighbors, who did not realize that my companion was the accused woman’s son, had no hesitation in answering the questions. They all agreed that there had never been any sign of either romance or impropriety between the employer and Mrs. Wiggins. However, the fact that the poor woman had been arrested seemed to incline them to quickly accept the notion that something must have been going on that had remained undetected.

“Only one neighbor was able to offer any additional information. Mr. Howett, who lived in the corner house situated between the victim’s residence and Keppel Street, had noticed that Raines had an occasional visitor during recent weeks. ‘I often step out my back door in the evening, especially this time of year, to have a smoke. Don’t like to do it in the house, you know. The smell gets in the draperies.’

“ ‘Starting about a month ago, I noticed on three or four occasions that Raines, who would often take a turn about the mews of a summer evening, was at the back gate, letting in a fellow. They would then sit on that bench over there, where the mews opens into Keppel Street, and talk for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then Raines would let him back out and shut the gate before going inside.

“ ‘Sometimes I would still be standing here when Raines would return to his own door, and we would speak. But he never elaborated on who his visitor was, and the young man never joined him in the house that I knew of.’

“Answering my next question, Howett said, ‘No, no signs of any arguments between them. They would simply talk. Mr. Raines was never in a bad mood after his visitor left, but never in a particularly good one, either.’

“Upon further questioning, Howett said, ‘Did I mention that he was a young man? I meant to. I guess that he was. Looked to be in his late twenties, or possibly a little older. Strongly built, dark hair, common clothing. That’s really all that I could say about him. I never heard them speak, they kept their voices low. I don’t know if they knew that I was out here, but more likely they just didn’t want to disturb the peace of the evening or be heard from the street behind them, over the wall.”

“Howett confirmed that these visits would always take place near twilight, long after Mrs. Wiggins had departed for the day. And that information about Raines’s mysterious visitor, received from his one observant neighbor, was the last data that I received at the Gower Street location.

“The constable keeping the house told me where Mrs. Wiggins was being held, and Wiggins and I set off at a brisk pace. In those days, shekels weren’t as plentiful as they are now, and hiring a hansom was a luxury that was not really a consideration.

“Mrs. Wiggins was still being held at the Bow Street station, where I managed to convince Wiggins that he would not be able to accompany me while I questioned his mother. Leaving him in a hard and uncomfortable chair, I was led back to a room where I could meet with the prisoner.

“She was a small woman, careworn and upset, and she had not yet been placed into prisoner’s clothing. She knew who I was, and immediately thanked me for the opportunities that I had given to her son, and also for taking an interest in her own problem. I knew that we would not have long to talk, and brushed aside her thanks, anxious to discuss more relevant matters.

“ ‘The police,’ I began, ‘believe that you killed Mr. Raines because you wished to marry him and he rejected the idea.’

“I expected an emotional denial, but instead she gave a reasoned nod. ‘I know it,’ she said. ‘And I must admit that the idea had passed through my mind once or twice. And why not? I certainly didn’t love the man, but he was kind in his own way, and seemed to be quite well off for someone so alone. I’m a mother, Mr. Holmes, with a great number of mouths to feed. I can’t be there for them all the time, and I know that as they get older, they will try to run wild. And they might not all be as lucky as Peter, finding work with you as he has.’

“ ‘But I realized a long time ago that a man like Mr. Raines would not be a good father to my children. He was so wrapped up with that book he thought that he was writing, and I knew that I was much better off staying on as his housekeeper, instead of taking a chance that it would all be ruined if I chased him to make him a husband.’

“ ‘You state that he thought he was writing a book. Do you mean that he was actually doing something else?’

“ ‘No,’ she said. ‘He really believed that he was working on something important. But he’d been at it since I went to work for him, and he never made any progress that I could tell. He would have books sent from the Library, and he’d start in on them as if he had received candy at Christmas. He would make notes, and talk to himself, and send for more books, often the same ones that he had borrowed only a few weeks before. But I never, in all the time that I was there, actually saw him make a start on writing a single thing.’

“This fit with my own observations of the scattered and unorganized notes on the man’s desk. I wondered if he would have ever reached the point where he considered his researches complete, and felt that he was ready to begin his opus, or if he would have happily played with his notes for the rest of his life, moving them from old pile to new pile, without accomplishing anything. As it turned out, no doubt to Mr. Raines’s most sincere surprise, it was the latter.

“ ‘If I may change the subject,’ I uttered, ‘It is obvious to both the police and to me that the man was poisoned by way of last night’s dinner, although we may have some minor disagreements as to specific details. The man had no visitors in his house that we can discover, and you were his cook. How do you explain the fact that the poison was most likely introduced into his food?’

“ ‘I cannot,’ she said. ‘Yesterday was no different than a thousand other days. I cooked his noon meal, and he ate it as usual in the dining room. Then, it being a Wednesday, I went marketing in the early afternoon, before returning to prepare the evening meal. It was a piece of beef, peas, and a little pudding. Mr. Raines liked things simple, and he was never any trouble. After the food was cooked, I set it on a plate, told Mr. Raines that it was ready, and departed like I did every day.’

“ ‘I didn’t know that anything was amiss until I returned this morning. I entered the house and went upstairs to retrieve the dinner dishes and make up the bedroom. I believed that Mr. Raines was already in his study, as he usually was at that time of the morning. Many was the time that I did not see him until his luncheon was ready. At that point, I would summon him from his work to the dining room. Then, while he ate, he would often like me to stay with him while he chattered about the progress that he thought he was making on his book. After the meal was over, he would return to the study, and I to the kitchen.’

“I thought for a moment, and then something that she had said prompted a question. ‘You said that Mr. Raines liked his food simple.’

“ ‘Oh yes. He was never interested in anything fancy, which worked out well, since I only know how to prepare good, plain food.’

“ ‘And yet,’ I said, ‘I noticed that there was some form of sauce on the remains of the beef.’

“She appeared to be genuinely puzzled. ‘Sauce?’ she asked. ‘Not from me, there wasn’t. I never made a thing like that, the whole time that I was there. Just the beef.”

“ ‘And you never purchased or prepared anything like that?’ I asked.

“ ‘Never,” she stated, emphatically.

“She did not realize that she had provided me with a thin thread. A few other questions gave me to understand that she had nothing else useful to offer. ‘It’s not my own reputation that I’m worried about,’ she said. ‘I know that nothing improper ever happened between myself and Mr. Raines. But I need to get back to caring for my boys. Please help me.’

“I assured her that I would do everything possible, both to earn her freedom and restore any stain on her reputation. And then I left her there as she stood to watch me go. The last glimpse that I had of her was when she was being warded deeper into the building by a grim matron.

“Outside, I offered Wiggins the chance to carry on with his own activities, but he made it quite clear that his path was with mine. And mine was to Barts, where I wanted to carry out my own analysis of the food samples from Mr. Raines’s last meal. For it takes no great feat of deduction to realize that I had concluded there was something about the sauce that seemed questionable. I disagreed with Lestrade when he asserted that it did not matter what type of poison it was. And in this case, it seemed that discovering whether the poison was actually in the pudding or the sauce might be an important factor in catching the true murderer. I had no doubt that the police would determine as easily as I would wherein the poison had been hidden, but I had no confidence that they would be able to do so anytime quickly, or be able to do anything with the fact once it was established.

“In those days, as you know, I had that curious arrangement with Barts wherein I was able to come and go as I wished, making use of the laboratories as needed, and attending those lectures which I thought might be useful to advancing my unusual education. All of this was due to the gratitude of a certain Mr. Blevins, whom you may recall, after the slight service for him which resulted in his son’s fortunate and timely escape to America.

“Finding the laboratory free, I was able to begin my analysis immediately. It is one of my foibles that I tend to lose track of time when involved in a chemical question, and therefore it was approaching mid-afternoon when I had settled to my own satisfaction the issues at hand. I glanced up to find that Wiggins had fallen asleep on the floor, his back against one of the walls. I was fearful that I would require another trip to interview the boy’s mother, but fortunately he knew the answer to my question, having accompanied her on several occasions when she did the marketing for Mr. Raines.

“I had expected that we would have to travel a fair distance, but I should have realized that Mrs. Wiggins would do her marketing close to home. We found the shop in question in a busy portion of the Tottenham Court Road. After receiving Wiggins’s assurance that he would remain outside, unseen, I went in. Fortunately, it was quite crowded, and I was allowed to wait my turn for several minutes, while other customers before me took care of their business and I made a number of observations.

“By the time the way was clear for me, I had learned all that I needed, and could have departed. However, in order to see things through completely, I stepped to the counter and engaged a certain fellow in conversation, asking his advice and pretending an interest in his answers. After doing so, I was glad indeed, because I saw behind the counter, an additional item that helped me to seal the guilty person’s fate.

“Departing the shop with my purchases, I considered throwing some of it away as unwanted, especially as I now had the evidence that I needed. However, I realized that I would have to spend some time considering what I had learned, and would be best served doing so in my own rooms in Montague Street. Wiggins and I returned there, and I gave the unwanted purchase to the landlady, asking her to prepare it for our early dinner. Then we went upstairs, where Wiggins entertained himself with the particularly gruesome and graphic illustrations in one of my anatomy texts, while I sat by the window, smoking, and trying to think of the best way to trap the killer.

“For I knew now who he was, and I could theorize why he had committed the murder, but there were still a great number of gaps in the narrative. And I was not sure how to snare him into an admission of guilt that would subsequently free Mrs. Wiggins.

“An hour or so later, I knew what I had to do. I realized that poor Mrs. Wiggins might have to spend a night behind bars.

“I had written the necessary note and given it to Wiggins, along with his instructions, when the landlady brought up the item that I had purchased, now cooked in her plain way. I could see that Wiggins wished to be gone, but I knew that, in his urgency to aid his imprisoned mother, he might not eat at any time in the foreseeable future. I insisted that he put off his errand for a few minutes and consume the food. As I had no appetite at that point, I did not join him. After Wiggins finished, surprising himself with how hungry he had turned out to be, I sent him on his way. I was quite anxious to see if my deductions were correct. In any case, I had to speak to Lestrade as soon as possible, and I realized that if I could not, my plan would fall apart.”

With that, Holmes turned his head toward the clock, and then stood abruptly. “And I see that the time has slipped away from me,” he said. “We must prepare for departure.”

“You should have been a storyteller,” I said with a laugh, as Holmes walked toward his room, shedding his dressing gown as he went. “You knew just where to stop to increase your audience’s dramatic interest.”

“The next chapter,” he called, “will be told in a cab, heading toward the Wiggins’s home.”

“Shall I summon a hansom?”

“It has already been arranged,” he replied cryptically.

Part III: The Inspector Joins Us

We stepped outside to find a four-wheeler waiting by the curb. Inside, to my great surprise, was our old friend, Inspector Lestrade.

“Didn’t expect to see me, did you, doctor?” he asked with a grin. Then his mirth faded as he seemed to recall our destination. He was dressed in black, and it took no great deductive feat to realize that he, too, was going to the Wiggins’s home. My only question was why? I had never noticed any great feeling between Lestrade and any of the Wiggins clan that had been around Baker Street, one way or another, for over twenty years.

We took our seats, and the cab moved away at a stately pace. No instructions were given to the driver as to our destination, and I therefore concluded that Lestrade had already indicated our route before we had joined him. Looking at both my friends in their dark clothing made me wish that I had been able to return home and change as well.

We turned from Baker Street into Marylebone Road, heading east. The streets were quite crowded, thronging with a warm London afternoon multitude, and our progress was slow. I glanced away from the teeming humanity in the streets toward Holmes, who smiled and seemed to read my thoughts.

“I believe that we have a few minutes before reaching our landing place. During that time, Lestrade, you may be willing to add a fresh perspective. I have been recounting for Watson the events of Mrs. Wiggins’s arrest, so long ago.”

“Twenty-three years ago,” said Lestrade. “I was thinking of it myself, earlier today.”

“We had reached the point,” said Holmes, “where I had approached you and asked if would throw in with my scheme.”

Lestrade shook his head. “I didn’t know you so well, then, Mr. Holmes,” he said. “Doctor, what he wanted seemed ludicrous at best.”

“And that was - ?” I prodded.

“To set a trap for the real murderer.” He adjusted himself in his seat, turning slightly to face me.

“And who was the murderer?” I asked.

“All in good time, Watson,” interrupted Holmes. “He needs to be sewn into the pattern of the story, one stitch at a time. I had to do the same thing then. And I needed to convince Lestrade that I had identified the true killer.”

“I didn’t want to believe you,” added Lestrade. “When young Wiggins brought me your note, Mr. Holmes, I must admit that I was not inclined whatsoever to meet you back at the victim’s house. But even then,” he said, “you had already been of some help to me in the past.”

“Once or twice,” murmured Holmes.

Lestrade nodded with a smile. “Once or twice. I owed you some consideration, at the very least. So off I went. When I arrived, doctor, I was led by Mr. Holmes straight through the house and out into the mews, where we sat on a bench, and he explained his theory.”

“The same bench,” said Holmes, “where Raines had reportedly met with his evening visitor.”

“First,” continued Lestrade, “Mr. Holmes told me of the results of his research, earlier that day at Barts. Would you believe that the poison was from a lowly cocklebur?”

“Pardon me?” I said. “A cocklebur? Are you referring to the Xanthium plant?”

“Very good, Watson,” said Holmes. “Native to North America, and invasive in many other regions as well.”

“As I recall from the time I spent in San Francisco, the cocklebur produces symptoms of weakness, vomiting, rapid heart rate with a weak pulse, breathing difficulties, and eventually death.”

“Correct,” said Holmes. “The entire plant is poisonous, but the seeds are the most toxic part. The particular species of seeds in this instance were quite small, not much different from a fennel seed, and would not have seemed completely out of place in a sauce, especially if the victim were trying something new and unusual, or possibly sampling a reminder of his youth in Canada, and did not know that the sauce was not supposed to have that type of seed in it.”

“I take it, then, that the seeds were the poisonous substance present in the unexplained meat sauce, and not in the pudding, as was hypothesized by the police surgeon.”

“I fear that you have been around me for too long, my friend. I cannot surprise you any longer. It was indeed the small seed that I had observed in the sauce, of which I took half and left the rest for the police to analyze. My research confirmed that it was a small example of the cocklebur seed.”

“I would like to mention,” said Lestrade, “that the surgeon also confirmed that the seed was a cocklebur, although it did take him another day or so, by which point the murderer was already in custody.”

“So,” I said, “a North American seed, and Raines had spent his youth in North America. There was a connection?”

“Quite,” said Holmes. “After I had identified the poison, and its probable location of origin, I devised at least seven separate theories which might explain how it ended up in Raines’s last meal, always going on the assumption that Mrs. Wiggins was innocent of the crime. As you recall, she had professed to have no knowledge of the sauce, and I went forward from that point. I did not find any indication of the sauce elsewhere in the house. There was not a jar of it in the pantry. In fact, there was not a jar of that type anywhere in the house, or, I might add, in the rubbish. And there was one other clue at the scene that seemed to point to where the sauce might have originated.”

“And I missed it,” said Lestrade with a rueful grin. With a nod from Holmes, he continued. “I was so interested in the note found by the body, stating that ‘Mrs. Wiggins did it’, that I neglected to notice that there was no pencil in the bedroom that Raines could have used in order to write the note.” He shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me that if Raines had been forced to arise and find a pencil in order to write the note, he could have sought help as well. It isn’t reasonable to suppose that, upon discovering there was no pencil in the room in which he was expiring, he would go downstairs to find a pencil, write a note naming his killer, leave the pencil where he found it, and then return upstairs - carrying the note - and crawl back into bed to die alone.”

“And not only that,” said Holmes. “I recognized that the broad soft-leaded strokes comprising the message were unique, and were usually found associated with certain kinds of pencils that are only used in a few professions, one of which was that of butcher. You will have noticed, Watson, butchers using that type of pencil to write on the paper that wraps cuts of meat at the time of purchase. This, coupled with the fact that an unusual sauce was found with the remains of the meat, indicated that I should visit the butcher used by Mrs. Wiggins when shopping for Mr. Raines.

“Upon locating the shop with Wiggins’s assistance, I had stood behind several customers while waiting for them to be served. It gave me a chance to observe all of the employees, and particularly the butcher’s assistant. He was a young man, in his early thirties, with a marked Canadian accent. Thus, another tie to Raines’s past. When it was my turn to receive assistance, I made an excuse to discuss cuts of meat with the man in question before making my purchase, which was the very same piece of beef that I took home and had served to young Wiggins.”

“You neglected to mention that you had specifically purchased meat,” I said. “Perhaps if that bit of information had been revealed too early, your story might have been less of an interesting tale, possibly too tinged with romanticism, and more like the Fifth Proposition of Euclid.”

“I bow to your knowledge and experience as a writer,” said Holmes, “without confirming or denying anything. But to continue with my story...”.

“As I started to leave the shop, I saw for sale, on a shelf behind the counter, several small jars of a reddish sauce. Asking what it was, I was informed by the Canadian gentleman that it was a recipe that he had brought with him from across the sea when he came to England a few months earlier. The preparation was to be placed on meat, providing a New World alternative to horseradish. His employer had allowed him to mix it up in batches and sell it in the shop to their more adventurous patrons. I myself bought a jar, and later found that it matched the color and consistency of the sauce on Raines’s plate. But without the cocklebur seeds, I might add.

“Although it seemed certain that this was the man that I was looking for, what was not certain was the exact motive for killing Raines. Possibly it was a revenge killing, for some long-ago crime committed by Raines against the young Canadian’s people. Perhaps there was some other motive that I was not even considering. However, in my opinion, the greatest probability was that he had a personal relation to Raines, and it was upon that basis that I decided to proceed.”

We were passing Park Crescent, and I knew that in just a few minutes we would arrive at our destination, assuming that the Wiggins family still lived in the same home as before. I quickly reviewed Holmes’s reasoning, and could see that, although he had made a few leaps, it generally held together.

“But,” I asked, “where was your proof? How could you find a way to connect him to the crime? The meat sauce and the butcher’s pencil led you to him, certainly, but those facts alone would not be conclusive. He could simply claim that the pencil might have come from anywhere, and that Mrs. Wiggins had bought the sauce from him at the butcher shop, and added the poisonous seeds to it herself at some later date.”

“Yes, that was a problem,” said Holmes. “And that was why friend Lestrade was asked, that evening in the mews, to take a leap of faith and go along with my plan.”

Lestrade shook his head. “Mr. Holmes had never led me astray, but it was asking a lot at the time, and I was not so senior or secure in my position myself then, either. It was something of a professional risk, but he had convinced me.”

I turned my head, indicating that he should continue. After a silent moment, and with a glance toward Holmes to see if he wished to take over, Lestrade spoke.

“As we sat on the bench, and I heard the results of Mr. Holmes’s investigations, my first inclination was to make excuses. We’ve all known each other far too long for me to pretend otherwise now. I had missed the clue about the pencil, but I didn’t want to give up my suspicions of Mrs. Wiggins. Then there was the writing on the note in Raines’s bed, which matched that on the butcher’s wrapping paper Mr. Holmes had obtained earlier in the day. Then the evidence of the sauce and the seeds, tied to the Canadian at the butcher shop, was compelling. But when the list of facts concluded with Mr. Holmes telling me the man’s name, which he had inveigled out of him during their conversation, I could no longer deny that he was likely on the right track.”

“Ah,” I said. “The confirmatory fact.”

“The confirmatory fact,” said Holmes.

“This Canadian?” I asked. “Would it be revealing too much at this point in your story to now ask his name? Was it perhaps Raines, the same as that of the dead man?”

“Now the fellow is stitched into the pattern, Watson,” said Holmes. “You see the way that this path is leading. Should I ever attempt to write up any of my investigations, as you have so often urged me, I will need to do better at hiding the clues. But,” he added, “in spite of the fact that the Canadian man did indeed turn out to be Silas Raines’s illegitimate son, his name was actually Martin Tremblay, the same last name as that of the girl, Abigail Tremblay, who had sent the small packet of letters that I had found in Raines’s study.”

“Too many connections to ignore,” interrupted Lestrade.

“At the conclusion of our conversation in the shop,” continued Holmes, “after I had obtained opinions about cuts of meat and his sauce recipe, I inquired after his name, with many thanks and a promise that I would be back in the future.” He smiled as he recalled it, that dangerous smile that has boded ill for so many over the years. “I’m sure he believed at the time that I would be returning as a customer.”

“The meat sauce and even the pencil might have been explained away, or blamed on Mrs. Wiggins,” said Lestrade. “By itself, the fact that Tremblay was living and working so near to Raines was not damning, since he had ties to the old man, and had in fact visited him in what was observed to be a friendly way. But the poisoned sauce and the old connections together became too significant to ignore.”

I nodded. “It all becomes clearer now. The son, abandoned by his father at some early age, tracks him down in England and travels here with murder in his heart, either due to motives of revenge, or perhaps intending to claim an inheritance. But you did not know any of this for sure at that time. You did not know that Raines was the man’s father. All you knew was that the sauce with the poisonous seeds had come from the butcher shop, where it had likely been prepared by Tremblay.”

“But I was proceeding from the assumption that Mrs. Wiggins was innocent,” said Holmes. “Therefore, someone else had to be guilty. Tremblay had been seen visiting Raines on a regular basis, and the poisonous seeds found in his sauce were from North America. Of the various theories that I had constructed, the family relationship seemed most likely, and it was enough to be going on with. And it was also enough to enlist the participation of our friend here.”

“First,” said Lestrade, “The fact that the man’s unusual name, Tremblay, was mentioned prominently in the package of letters was quite convincing. I cabled the Canadian authorities and queried them regarding this butcher’s assistant. And then-”

He stopped and looked down at his hands, shaking his head. “I still don’t believe that you talked me into it. We just did not do things like that in those days.”

“You always were the best of the Yarders,” said Holmes quietly. Lestrade looked up quickly. He gazed intently at Holmes, and then swallowed. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes,” he said after a moment. Then, clearing his throat, he said more clearly, “Thank you very much for that. It means a lot.”

We did not speak for a moment, each lost in our thoughts. Finally, as the cab rattled across Tottenham Court Road, I was moved to state, “Gentlemen? How did you catch him?”

Holmes straightened in his seat and said, “I’m afraid Watson, that the explanation must wait a little longer, as we are rapidly approaching our destination, and have still more history than journey left. Perhaps, Lestrade, you would care to join us afterwards, as we raise a glass to Mrs. Wiggins, and recount the trapping of Martin Tremblay in the Keppel Street Mews?”

Part IV: We Pay Our Respects

Lestrade readily agreed to Holmes’s proposal, and we spoke no more of the matter then. However, my thoughts continued to dwell on that long-ago case, when these two men had worked together to prove Mrs. Wiggins’s innocence. I doubt whether Holmes could have imagined that saving the woman would have led to so many years of devoted service by the various members of the Wiggins family. It had probably been no more than another problem to him, as so many others had been throughout his career. And yet, even as that thought passed across my mind, I remembered all the times that his great heart, which he labored to hide behind that cold and logical veneer, had been moved to action when someone in trouble had needed his help.

The cab swayed as we turned out of the bustle and energy of Euston Road and north into the relative quiet of George Street********. It was only a moment until we stopped before a narrow brick building on our left. As we alighted, Holmes dismissed the cab, tossing a coin to the driver.

“Many thanks, Mr. Holmes,” said the driver, a bluff fellow named Giles who would have died on the gallows in ’97 for a murder he didn’t commit, if not for the timely intervention of Holmes, who had produced a plaster-of-Paris cast of a third left footprint, found at the scene of the brutal crime.

There were several men standing near the door of the house, smoking in grim silence. As we approached, I recognized all of them as Wiggins’s that I had known over the years. There was Michael, now a shopkeeper, and young Henry, who had been instrumental in the successful resolution of the incident at Colwyn Bay, and some of the others. I nodded to Warren, now recently returned from the Navy.

There were a half-dozen of them all told, and I knew that they were not all Peter Wiggins’s brothers. Rather, there were some cousins of the first and second order mixed in, and to a man, they all pulled themselves a little taller and straighter as Holmes approached them. Holmes nodded as we passed amongst them to reach the door. One said, respectfully, “Mr. Holmes,” and reached by him to turn the doorknob.

We stepped inside the dark interior and removed our hats, which we hung on pegs. Removing and hanging our coats as well, we started up the stairs. I was aware that the men who had been loitering outside were following us in.

As we turned at the first floor landing, I could see the large front room overlooking the street. The shades were drawn, and the room was in shadow. Underneath the windows was a coffin, supported by a bier. A number of people were sitting in the dark places around the perimeter of the room.

I identified some of the other faces seated around us. There was Joseph Wiggins, who had led the lads during the search for Mordecai Smith’s boat along the Thames back in ’88. And there was Sally Peake, nee Wiggins, who had been of such vital assistance during the affair of the kidnapped costermonger’s daughter. She had been so fearless on that cold night, when she took it upon herself to disobey Holmes’s instructions and cut the tarred rope around the frightened child instead of just locating her, while the killers argued with increasing ferocity in the adjacent room. It was hard to believe that this girl, who had shielded the kidnapped child when the shooting began, was the same person, a woman now, singing softly to the tiny baby held in her arms.

There had been the low buzz of conversation as we came in, but it stopped, replaced by the sound of every man and woman in the room rising to their feet to acknowledge the presence of Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes seemed unaware of the great respect directed toward him. He glanced around the darkened room until his eyes rested on Peter Wiggins, my companion this morning in the doorway in Half Moon Street.

Peter took a step forward, saying, “Thank you for coming, Mr. Holmes. I know that your being here would have meant a lot to my mother.” He looked toward Lestrade and me as well. “Thank you.”

We nodded, and Peter led us to the coffin, where we stood for a moment in silent contemplation. Mrs. Wiggins had been a tiny woman, even before the age-related wasting illness that had eventually claimed her. Her white hair was combed neatly, straight back from her forehead, and her gnarled and veined hands, reflecting a lifetime of hard work, were folded peacefully.

“If you hadn’t saved her that day,” said Peter, “her life would have turned out much differently. It would have for all of us.”

“That’s right,” said one of the shadowy figures behind us gruffly. Whoever had spoken cleared his throat, but spoke no more. I believed that it was Albert Wiggins, formerly one of Holmes’s bravest irregulars, and now a constable on the Surrey Side.

“She never forgot what you did for us,” said Peter. “We always toast you at Christmas, Mr. Holmes.”

“She was innocent,” replied Holmes simply. “I would have done the same for anyone.”

“But it was more than that,” said Peter, taking a step forward, closer to the coffin, so that he might face Holmes directly. “After you obtained her release, and discovered the real murderer, you found her new employment at Cambridge House. And I cannot even begin to tell you what opportunities you have provided for me, and my brothers and sisters, and my cousins as well. You gave us an income, and more importantly, a purpose, and respect, and when we outgrew our usefulness as Irregulars, you found us professions. Truly, and speaking for my mother in her presence here today, as well as all the rest of us, we thank you.”

Behind us, Simon Wiggins, formerly trained by Holmes in the art of pickpocketing, and now a newly ordained minister, said softly, “Amen.”

Another voice, one that I did not recognize, muttered, “Hear, hear!” and several others repeated it. I was moved to notice that one of those voices belonged to Lestrade.

Holmes lowered his head for a moment, and then raised it to face Peter Wiggins. And then he turned to the others as well. I wondered what he would say. It had only been a couple of years before that Holmes had been deeply moved after receiving praise from Lestrade, following the masterful recovery of the stolen Borgia Pearl. “We’re not jealous of you at Scotland Yard,” Lestrade had said then. “No, sir, we are very proud of you, and if you come down tomorrow, there’s not a man, from the oldest inspector to the youngest constable, who wouldn’t be glad to shake you by the hand.”

Holmes had awkwardly thanked him that day, and had then abruptly changed the subject, dismissing Lestrade by requesting that I search his files for a case that had already been completed. Lestrade had understood Holmes’s difficulty, and had left with no hard feelings.

And now Holmes was facing a room full of men and women who thought the world of him, in the presence of their departed mother. Would he say something abrupt or awkward? If he did, it would not surprise or offend these people who had known him for so long in so many different circumstances, and it would not diminish their feelings for him in the least.

But Holmes simply said, “Thank you,” in a quiet and sincere voice. And, after laying a hand on Peter Wiggins’s shoulder, he said, “I am very sorry for your loss.” Then, nodding to several of the standing figures around him, he turned to go.

The occupants of the room remained standing as we made our way back to the head of the stairs, and so on down. After retrieving our coats, we found ourselves in the street, and I wondered to myself why we had dismissed our cab, if our intention was to leave so soon after our arrival. My unspoken question was soon answered.

“We are not too far from the Alpha Inn, at the Museum,” said Holmes. “Shall we stroll down that way and have some refreshments, and finish telling the rest of our tale?”

Lestrade and I agreed immediately. Some of the Wiggins men had followed us downstairs and had resumed their places by the doorway. Peter was standing with us nearer the edge of the sidewalk, and he nodded as well, realizing that Holmes’s invitation had also included him. He turned and spoke to his brothers and cousins for a moment, informing them that he would be back in an hour or so, before the funeral, and then joined us as we began walking to the south.

As we waited to cross Euston Road and on into Gower Street, Holmes told Peter the subject of our earlier discussions, as he and Lestrade had related to me the events of his mother’s arrest, years earlier. “We had reached the point in the narrative where I was convincing Lestrade to help trap Martin Tremblay. My plan was to use his greed, plus the surprise of learning that someone knew about his connection to Raines, to trick him into revealing what had happened.”

“You make it sound so simple,” muttered Lestrade.

“It was,” interjected Wiggins. “You see, doctor, Mr. Holmes simply made Tremblay believe that Silas Raines had another son who was set to inherit, possibly ruining all of Tremblay’s plans.”

“And this other son was ...?”

“Why, it was Mr. Holmes, of course.”

Part V: The Trap

We walked for several blocks down Gower Street, with Holmes setting a pace that did not encourage conversation. After a very few minutes, we crossed Keppel Street, and he abruptly pulled up in front of the second house on the left, south of the intersection.

“There it is, Watson,” he said. “That is the house where Silas Raines was killed.”

It was a plain-looking place, with dark-colored bricks and a door set in the right side of the building, under a simple fan light. It was three stories tall, and there was an area-way leading down beneath the walk. The stoop was only a few inches high, and I could almost see Holmes and young Wiggins as they approached it, those many years ago, identifying themselves to the constable before being admitted, where Lestrade waited inside with the body.

“There is not much to see here,” said Holmes. “Even if we intruded upon the current residents and made an examination of the interior, I do not believe that it would add anything to your understanding of the matter. However, let us walk around to the next block, behind this one, and I will point out one or two places of interest in the mews.”

We went down Keppel Street, along the side of the buildings. In the distance in front of us, I could hear an atonal ringing sound, almost musical, and the voices of children at play. About halfway to the next street, the house ended at an opening into the Mews. There was nothing unusual about it at all.

A little way in front of us, we could see a number of children running up and down the walk, banging the lampposts with sticks. Each rang with a unique tone, and the faster the children ran, the more musical the glissando of tones became.

It was a pleasant sound, encountering the laughter of children on that quiet back street. And then I glanced at Wiggins, who had a look of sadness on his face. I realized that his childhood had been quite different from the one shared by these well-dressed and carefree children. Although he had experienced many unique adventures as a child, before growing into an adult with a secure job, it could not have been an easy life. Again, I understood how grateful the entire Wiggins family was toward Holmes, and for the opportunities that he had provided for so many of them.

Holmes stepped to the entrance to the mews********, and the children, eyeing us with suspicion, retreated to the far end of the block, although they did not leave entirely. Turning into the mews, he glanced around before waving me over as well. “There, Watson,” he said. “Do you see that bench?”

I moved to his side. It was a low marble affair, quite stained, and unusually wide from side to side. It would have been able to comfortably seat three or even four people, instead of the usual two-person bench of similar construction. It was placed very near the wall that we had just passed, along Keppel Street.

I indicated that I had spotted the bench, and Holmes said, “And over there, the back of the row of houses? That second door, the red one at the top of the steep steps? That was Raines’s house.”

He shifted back and brushed his hands. “Now you know where the trap was laid. The rest of the story will make more sense now. On to the Alpha Inn. Faces to the south, then, and quick march!”

Passing through the Mews, we turned left into Montague Place, quickly reaching Russell Square. I realized that we were entering Montague Street. Holmes was feeling sentimental today, although he would never admit it as such, and was revisiting several old points of interest along our way.

It was only a moment before we reached the white front of No.24, where he had lived when he first came up to London after deciding to pursue his vocation as a Consulting Detective.

I wondered if he would pause there for a moment, or decide to keep walking around the corner to the Alpha Inn. The decision was taken away from him, however, when Lestrade, who happened to be in the lead at that moment, stopped and looked up at the first-floor window, directly over the door.

“It has been a long time,” he said, nodding his head toward the building. “Whatever happened to that landlady that was your distant relation?” he asked. “She did not like me.”

Holmes shook his head. “I do not know. She was only a Holmes by marriage to some cousin of my father’s, and after I moved out in early ’81, I lost track of her whereabouts. Several years later, when Watson and I were called here to investigate a murder in my old rooms, there was a new owner who knew nothing about her.”

“Gregson’s case,” said Lestrade. “He never visited here in the old days as often as I did.”

“Only a few times,” said Holmes. “Inspector Plummer was often here, but he retired soon after I moved away. I liked to think that he had put in a good word for me down at the Yard before he departed.”

“He did,” said Lestrade. “It made things easier for the rest of us when we started to make use of your abilities more and more often. He paved the way for us at the Yard to consult with you.”

“Gentlemen,” said Wiggins softly, “we appear to be attracting attention.”

I followed his gaze to the Museum which loomed behind us. There were a number of people gathered in one of the tall windows, pointing excitedly toward our party, and more specifically at Holmes. In his unique fore-and-aft and Inverness, which he insisted on wearing both in the city and the country, he had become quite recognizable.

With a final glance up at the window over the door to No.24, Holmes said, “Let us be off, then. We’ll join together to tell Watson how we removed Mrs. Wiggins from under the shadow of suspicion.”

Entering Great Russell Street, I glanced over toward the gardens in Bloomsbury Square. I could not see through them, but I knew that Southampton Street was on the other side. I had lived there at No.6 for a short time in 1878, earning some small fees as a new doctor before deciding to leave England and explore the world. I knew that Holmes and I had frequented this neighborhood at the same time in the late seventies, and was certain that we must have encountered each other before Stamford introduced us in the lab at Barts on New Year’s Day in ’81, following my return to London after Maiwand. However, for the life of me, I could not recall a single instance when I had taken notice of him.

Reaching the corner entrance of the Alpha, Wiggins held the door while we preceded him inside. It was quiet this time of day, which suited our moods, and there were very few patrons. Holmes walked unerringly down the narrow path between the bar on the left and the tables under the windows on the right, reaching a small table just past the bar at the back. Fortunately, it was empty, and he began to divest himself of his hat and coat.

I noticed that he had intentionally passed several other empty tables, aiming for this one. With sudden perception, I said, “Was this your favorite table in the old days?”

Holmes smiled. “It was. Although I was never a social creature, even in my youth - or perhaps especially in my youth - I did have a certain set of cronies that I would meet on random occasions. And this is where we would sit.”

“I remember you!” I cried. “It was winter, and I had come in with some of my friends. This was our favorite table as well, and you and some others had already occupied it. My friends and I sat nearby instead, over there by the window, but I recall that you looked up and noticed my obvious disappointment. You raised a glass of beer to me!”

Holmes nodded. “I recollect that incident. Your dismay when seeing that table was occupied was palpable. I considered offering to move, but my companions, which you may not recall, were too far gone at that time to suggest it. I hope that the evening was not spoiled for you.”

“I must admit that I don’t remember anything else from that night,” I said with a smile, seating myself in a chair.

Holmes motioned to the man behind the bar, holding up four fingers. In a moment, the fellow was placing a glass of beer before each of us. “The beer is excellent here,” said Holmes.

“As good as their geese?” asked Lestrade softly. I looked at him with surprise, and he was smiling in my direction. “I read The Strand, doctor,” he said. “back when you were still publishing the stories. I remember that you stopped here while following along after that jewel thief, nearly fifteen years back.” He shook his head. “And I also remember that you let him go because it was Christmas.”

“Enough of that,” interrupted Holmes. “We are here to conclude the post-mortem examination of the matter of Silas Raines, and not to rehash the matter of the Blue Carbuncle.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Tell me then of this trap, and how it relates to the mews behind Raines’s house.”

Lestrade seemed ready to take up the tale. “First I wired to America for details regarding our Mr. Tremblay. They didn’t arrive in time to provide us with any additional facts before his arrest, but we did receive enough information later that helped us know that he was the right man, which we already knew by that time anyway. It was no secret where he came from that Raines was his father. His mother never married, waiting for Raines to come back for her. She lived in her father’s house until she died young, and then the old man, her father, had brought Tremblay up the rest of the way. Cruel he was, too, it sounded like.

“In the meantime, I went around and talked to my superior, explaining Mr. Holmes’s plan. I also made sure that Mrs. Wiggins was comfortable, and was not treated as a regular prisoner, since it was likely that we would have her there until late that night, after the trap was sprung.

“In the meantime, Mr. Holmes had holed up in Raines’s house for over an hour, forging documents after Raines’s handwriting.”

“Even at that age, I had the gift,” murmured Holmes with a smile.

“Lord help us all,” Lestrade muttered. Wiggins laughed.

“I required something to show to Tremblay when I approached him that evening - something that would shake him loose from his confidence that his plan was working. I needed a document indicating that Raines had two sons, and that - unknown to Tremblay - I was the second.”

“Our plans were in place by early evening,” said Lestrade. “It was then that Mr. Holmes waited outside the butcher’s shop as it closed for the night.”

“I stayed well back,” said Holmes, “as Tremblay and the butcher came out together. The butcher locked the door, and Tremblay said good night and started south down Tottenham Court Road. I followed discreetly behind him.

“By this time we had ascertained that he lived not too far away. I let him get almost to his lodgings before I increased my pace and approached him, calling his name.

“He turned, and for a moment I could see him try to place me. Then he recognized me, although he still appeared puzzled, wondering why someone from the butcher’s shop earlier that afternoon would now be at his place of residence.

“ ‘Yes?’ he asked good-naturedly, ‘Was the cut of meat to your satisfaction? I’m afraid the shop is closed, but I’ll be happy to speak with you tomorrow.’

“ ‘I’m not here about the meat’, I said. ‘That was an excuse to get a look at you. We have something else to discuss, which will benefit us both.’

“ ‘And that would be?’

“ ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Thomas Raines.’

“He made no connection for a moment, and then I could see that the last name meant something to him. ‘Raines?’ he said.

“ ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘You knew my father. I am Silas Raines’s son. And your half-brother as well.’

“That rocked him back right away, and with a shake of his head he backed up against the steps leading to the door. Finally, he muttered, ‘Not possible. It’s not possible.’

“ ‘Ah, but it is,’ I said, pressing forward. ‘Come over here, away from the street, and I’ll show you.’

“He followed me to the side of the building. There was still light enough to see the document that I pulled from my pocket, the very one that I had forged not an hour earlier. He read it quickly, and then again, more slowly this time. At times his lips moved as he mouthed the words. I knew the parts that were causing him the greatest consternation. I had written them to do so.

“Essentially, the document, supposedly written by Silas Raines, stated that he had two sons, one by Abigail Tremblay in Canada years before, and me, Thomas Raines, from a short marriage after he had arrived in England. Thomas’s fictional mother had died soon after giving birth, and Silas had placed me in the care of trusted friends, since he was in no position to raise me himself. However, he did not want to neglect either of his sons, and had written this statement in order to record his acknowledgement of both of us.

“ ‘He left this with me several months ago. You’ll notice,’ I added, as he finished re-reading it for a third time, ‘that we have to claim the inheritance together, and vouch for one another, or neither one gets anything. I think that he meant to introduce us to one another before he died so suddenly last night. He had told me about you, obviously, and how you found him after coming over from Canada. I’m guessing that he hadn’t managed to get around to telling you about me.’

“I reached out and took the forged sheet back, replacing it in my pocket. He shook his head, trying to get his thoughts in order. Then, he said, ‘That paper won’t be enough,’ he said. ‘I have the letter that he wrote to my mother in Canada, after she let him know that I had been born. That will be enough to prove that I’m his son and heir. He acknowledges it, and I know that there is not a will. What other proof do you have?’

“ ‘How do you know there isn’t a will?’ I asked.

“He shook his head and asked, ‘Where is your proof?’

“I pulled the second forged sheet out of my pocket. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid that it’s rather like a treasure map.’

“He grabbed it, and I let him take a good look at it. ‘It won’t do you any good to take it from me and use it by yourself without me,’ I said. ‘We both have to be present to inherit. It says so in the letter. And there is a will, as you can see from that drawing, which tells where to find it. I think that he was trying to be clever, but it isn’t too hard to see that he buried it by the bench in the mews.’

“He looked at the sheet, a crude hand-drawn map that made clear in the simplest terms possible that the ‘treasure’ was indeed buried under a paving stone by the bench in the mews, the same bench where Raines and Tremblay had met on several occasions. Tremblay stared without speaking for the longest time, and then nodded once, and again. Finally, he said, ‘What do you suggest?’

“ ‘Simply that we go and get it,’ I replied. ‘We may have to hold on to the will for a while, until things calm down, before we can use it. I was in Gower Street today and heard that they had arrested our father’s housekeeper for poisoning him. But the crowd outside the house said the poison was in the meat sauce. What with you working for a nearby butcher and all - you can see the connection, I’m sure - that made me curious, and I thought that I’d step around and get a closer look at you.’

“ ‘The housekeeper killed him,’ he asserted. ‘Everyone in the shop today was saying so. I heard that the old man wrote a note accusing her before he died.’”

“ ‘I didn’t hear anything about them finding any note,’ I said, thinking to make him a little uncertain about the success of his plan. ‘All I know is we’ll have to time things right to make sure the police are happy with the person that they have arrested, but not so late as to let the estate get away from us. Now, are you with me? Shall we go?’

“He looked over his shoulder uncertainly, as if he wanted to go into his lodgings and shut the door, pretending that I had never accosted him. But I was there now, and he did not know what I might do if he let me get away. I had hinted that I knew of his complicity in the murder, and in spite of the conditions of the forged letter, saying that we had to inherit together or not at all, I might be able to throw him over if it could be proven that he had been the killer. He really had no choice but to come with me.

“We walked the few blocks back to Gower Street, as the sun dropped behind the buildings, and the streets fell into shadow. We went past Raines’s house, and I noted with satisfaction that there were no lights showing inside, and no sign of a constable keeping watch.”

“We had removed him,” said Lestrade, “and also warned Howett and the other neighbors to keep inside and to themselves, no matter what they heard outside in the next few hours.”

Holmes continued, “Turning down Keppel Street, Tremblay said, ‘Perhaps we should wait until it’s later.’

“ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It would be more suspicious if we came back and were caught out digging in the middle of the night. Right now, people are inside and distracted. The map shows right where it is. We’ll just get in and out, and then we’ll discuss what happens next over a pint.’ Then, I added, ‘Surely you can see the sense in that, brother.’

“That startled him, but he nodded, and we turned into the mews. He walked straight to the bench. ‘When did you first come over from Canada?’ I asked, in a voice a little louder than the situation called for. Tremblay, obviously very nervous by this point, hissed for me to be quiet, and turned on me as if he were going to strike me. It was then that Lestrade, wearing a very suitable set of old clothes, walked up out of the darkness.

“Tremblay nearly jumped back in surprise. ‘Who is this?’ he whispered.

“ ‘My friend, Geoffrey,’ I replied. ‘He doesn’t know what’s going on exactly, but I wanted him to know that I was here, and to get a good look at you, just in case. I’m sure that you understand. Have you seen him, Geoff?’ I asked. Lestrade nodded, but did not speak. ‘Good. Go on to the pub then, and we’ll meet up later.’ ”

Lestrade interrupted. “I walked away and out of the mews, and then kept on going slowly, whistling as I went. But as soon as I was out of their hearing, I ran around through the next street, and so on until I was able to sneak back into Keppel Street, where I took up my position with the others, right outside the wall, just alongside the bench where Mr. Holmes and Tremblay were standing inside. When I got back, the two of them were having some kind of argument.”

“A very quiet argument, indeed,” said Holmes. “I had repeated my question concerning when Tremblay had first come over from Canada. He turned it over in his mind for a moment and did not see any harm in answering. ‘Three months ago,’ he finally whispered. ‘In the spring.’

“He then turned back to the bench, and in two steps was kneeling beside it, scrabbling his fingers in the dirt around the paving stone that had been identified on the map. In just a moment, he had found the small iron box, which I had placed there myself just before starting off to follow him from the butcher shop to his residence.

“He stood up with it, and tried to open it, but it was locked. He shook it in anger, and we could hear something inside, presumably the will. I had known that it would be locked. When I had chosen it from among several similar boxes in Raines’s house for just this purpose, I had made sure that it was sturdy, and that it would keep him out until I was ready to let him in. As he groaned in frustration, I gained his attention and held up a key. ‘This,’ I said, ‘was with the map and the letter.’

“He made to reach for it, but I yanked it back. ‘First,’ I said, ‘another question.’ He neither agreed nor disagreed, but simply stood there, clutching the box, and beginning to give off the smallest hints of panic. His plan, which must have seemed to have started so well for him, was falling apart, and he was quite off balance. Another son of Silas Raines, who knew so quickly of his connection to the dead man, was not supposed to have appeared.

“ ‘Earlier you said that you knew there wasn’t a will. What made you think so?’

“He frowned, and then said, ‘What?’

“ ‘You said there wasn’t a will. How do you know?’

“Because I looked for it, and didn’t find it,” he said, his stress becoming a little more obvious and pronounced with each passing minute.

“ ‘When?’ I asked. ‘When did you look for it? On some night when the old man was asleep in the house? He told me that he always visited with you out here, at this bench, and that you didn’t go inside.’

“ ‘That’s right,’ snarled Tremblay. ‘He wouldn’t even invite me in. Oh, he would talk in the mews ‘til the sun went down, but I wasn’t fit to soil his castle.’

“ ‘And did he tell you there wasn’t a will? Because if he did, then he must have lied, since we just found his treasure box where he said it would be.’

“ ‘He never said a word about a will, one way or another. I thought, however, from the things he said to me after the first time I met with him, that he wasn’t going to give me anything.’

“ ‘So if he didn’t tell you there was no will, how did you know that there wasn’t one? When did you look for it?’ I asked.

“ ‘At night.’

“ ‘When he was asleep?’

“ ‘No, last night.’

“ ‘Last night, after he died?’

“That stopped him, as he realized what he was about to admit, and I thought that I had overplayed my hand. To distract him, I handed him the key to the box. With a lurch, he grabbed it and turned toward the dim lights coming from Howett’s windows.

“He twisted the key, and with a wrench had the box lid open. He reached in and drew out the false will that I had created, duplicating Raines’s handwriting and phrasing as well as I could in the short amount of time that I’d had.

“He dropped the iron box with a clatter, by then seemingly oblivious to the need to stay quiet. He was nearly panting as he unfolded the document, and then turned it this way and that as he tried to read it. In a moment he gave a little cry. I knew what he had just read.

“ ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Here, let me see.’ I made as if to move toward him, but he pivoted and took a step back. There was a new look of madness in his eyes.

“ ‘It doesn’t mention me,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t mention me at all. It simply refers to his only son, Thomas Raines. You inherit everything.’

“ ‘Here, let me see,’ I repeated to him.

“ ‘It was supposed to be me,’ he said softly. ‘It was my mother that died of a broken heart, waiting for him to come back. It was me that was raised fatherless by that evil old man, while over here he was starting a real family.’ He took a step toward me.

“ ‘So you poisoned him?’ I asked.

“ ‘All that stands between me and the old man’s money,’ he replied, ‘is this will and that piece of paper in your pocket naming both of us as his heirs.’ He took another step, and I fell back to match it. “If I get rid of those, all that will be left will be my letter that he sent to my mother, telling the truth!”

“ ‘Did you poison him?’ I cried.

“ ‘Yes, damn you, I poisoned him!’ He was reaching for me, and I backed toward the gate to the street. ‘And when I came in last night to leave the note and take away the jar, he was still alive. He was looking at me when he died, and I cursed him to hell when he drew his last breath. He knew it as he went. I could see that he did.’ I stopped retreating, and he closed the distance toward me.

“ ‘And then I spent all night looking for the will, so very carefully, so that no one would realize that I had ever been there, but I couldn’t find it! I thought that there was no will, but I had to make sure before I told anyone about my letter! Sometimes I would go back upstairs and look at him there. I wanted to spit upon him, but I couldn’t leave any indication that anyone had been there. Then I looked some more for the will. And all along he’d buried it out here, naming you as the heir!’

“It was then that his hands touched my throat. Before he could squeeze, however, before he could exert any kind of force or pressure at all, a hellish shriek shattered the quiet night. It seemed to echo off the walls of the mews and the backs of the houses, and there was no way to tell where exactly it originated. Even I, who had expected it, was momentarily struck with a kind of paralysis and terror. Tremblay jerked as if he had been shot, stood upright, and would have bolted if Lestrade and his men, who had been hiding behind the wall right outside the gate, had not boiled around us at that instant and taken him into custody.”

“We had heard everything,” said Lestrade. “His entire confession. He fought like a madman, and it took six big men to bring him down. He nearly bit off Carter’s thumb in the process.”

“And the scream?” I asked. “The one that stopped Tremblay for just a crucial second?”

“That was me, doctor,” said Wiggins. “A talent that - sadly - gets little demand these days in King’s Bench Walk.”

“The confession was as clear as could be wished for,” said Lestrade. “He broke down later that night and told the whole thing. He had been raised by his grandfather, a sinister old man who had whipped him often simply because he was his father’s son. Eventually, as we confirmed from information in the cables received from Canada, he had beaten his grandfather to death. Thus, the provinces had become too hot for him, and he fled to England, intending to find his lost father along the way. Even then, he had devised his basic revenge, as he had brought the poisonous seeds with him. Once here, he located Raines, obtained employment nearby, and began to observe and make more detailed plans.”

“After living here for some little time, he had finally approached the old man,” Holmes continued, “and identified himself as his son, but he was not as warmly received as he had hoped. This only confirmed in his mind the designs that he had made for his father, and he bided his time, waiting to determine the best circumstances in which to carry them out, and also whom he could frame for the crime.

“Finally, he felt that he could wait no longer, and he met with his father for what seemed like just another usual visit in the mews. Tremblay, knowing that Mrs. Wiggins had bought meat that morning at the butcher’s, brought along the poisoned sauce, and suggested that his father try it, indicating that it might remind him of the old days in Canada. As we know, Raines did try the sauce, that very night. Tremblay made his way into the house, picking the lock without leaving any evidence that I could detect, using skills that he had acquired during his younger days in Canada.

“By the next morning, Tremblay had not found any will, and was convinced that none existed. He retrieved the poisoned jar and left the accusatory note in Raines’s bedclothes, stupidly forgetting to leave the pencil with which it was written. Then he made his way out of the house before Mrs. Wiggins’s usual arrival time. He went to work as if it were simply another day, intending to bide his time for several weeks, certainly until after Mrs. Wiggins’s guilt was firmly established, and then he would make his claim as Raines’s heir, using the old letter that acknowledged him as Raines’s son as his only proof.”

“As you may be sure, we released Mrs. Wiggins later that night,” said Lestrade. “Tremblay’s plan was full of holes, but it was the best that he could come up with.”

“And even if the true villain had eventually been unmasked,” said Wiggins, “my mother would have had to suffer untold horrors before the truth was discovered, if it ever was.” He turned toward Holmes, holding up his nearly empty glass. “A toast to you, Mr. Holmes.” Lestrade and I raised our glasses as well.

The tale having been told, we looked at one another. There did not seem to be anything left to say. The fine beer was gone, and we all stood and prepared to depart.

“I’m sure it would not inconvenience Mrs. Hudson too much if you were to all join me for dinner,” said Holmes as we walked along the bar toward the door.

“I truly appreciate the offer, but I must return for my mother’s service,” said Wiggins. “The minister will be arriving soon. But she would have wanted me to spend this time with you, of that I’m certain.”

“I must be getting home as well,” said Lestrade. “The missus will be expecting me.”

“I, too, should be getting back,” I agreed. “My wife returns from her visit tonight.”

We stepped outside into the twilight, only to be confronted by a tall man, wearing evening clothes, and weaving slightly from side to side as if in the grip of strong drink. In his right hand was an Italian dagger, the blade long and thin.

“You’ve ruined me, Holmes!” growled Lord D - - , looking much worse than he had this morning at the Palace, when he had grudgingly affixed his name to the second confession that I had carried there. “It has all come crashing down! I’m a ruined man! You must make amends!”

Lestrade and I separated ourselves slightly on either side of Holmes, as the three of us tensed to make whatever defense was necessary against the raving criminal. However, before we could make any sort of move whatsoever, a piercing scream shattered the early evening around us. It echoed far to the Museum walls, and back again onto the pub behind us. It was everywhere at once, and terrifying. Lord D - - jerked back to see who or what had made such an ungodly noise. Before he could determine its source, however, Wiggins stepped quickly past us, grabbing the enraged peer’s knife arm, and deftly using the man’s weight against him, throwing him over and onto the pavement. Holmes stepped forward, stomped a foot onto Lord D - -’s arm, and with the other foot kicked away the knife into the street.

As Lestrade blew on his police whistle, bringing constables running from all directions, Wiggins cleared his throat and grinned. “Just like you taught me, Mr. Holmes?”

“Exactly like that, Wiggins,” replied Holmes.

“And did he teach you to scream like that?” I asked, astounded that a human throat could make such a noise. Wiggins simply tried to look humble, and then laughed.

Later, after Wiggins had said his goodbyes and started back toward his mother’s home, Lestrade stood with us for a moment while Lord D - - was loaded into a growler by two burly constables. “He’ll be out by tomorrow,” Lestrade said with disgust.

“Nevertheless,” said Holmes, “he is a broken man. Look at him. He won’t find the fortitude to try anything like this again.”

Lestrade nodded to both of us, climbed in the four-wheeler, and departed.

“Well, Watson,” said Holmes. “Are you up for a walk?”

We were quiet as we wound our way gradually west, over to Wigmore Street before turning toward Queen Anne Street. Finally, pausing before No.9, we stopped. The lights were on inside, and I suspected that my wife was already home from her travels.

“Would you care to come in?” I asked, but I knew that Holmes would decline.

“Another time, perhaps.” The gaslight threw shadows across his face, hiding his eyes underneath his fore-and-aft cap. “Give Mrs. Watson my regards.”

“I shall.”

“And do stop by in a day or so. I’ve received an interesting letter from a man in Exeter with a rather unique problem. He is the verger at St. David’s Church. The current building was completed only two years ago, but there are reports of a hooded figure from Anglo-Saxon times rising from the crypts of the former church, threatening the nearby residents, especially the children. It sounds ... intriguing.”

With that, he turned and walked away towards Baker Street. I stood on the pavement for another moment until he vanished from sight, and then turned and went inside.

******** Editor’s Note: Several locations mentioned by Watson in this particular narrative now go under different names in modern London. For instance, Southampton Street, located south of Great Russell Street, the British Museum, and Montague Street in Bloomsbury, is now known as Southampton Place.

******** Editor’s Note: George Street, the location of the Wiggins home, is now known as North Gower Street.

******** Editor’s Note: Again, this is now known as North Gower Street.

******** Editor’s Note: These mews are now a portion of Malet Street and specifically the Malet Street Gardens.