The Bogus Laundry Affair

by Robert Perret

The Foreign Office had rewarded Holmes handsomely after a bit of diplomatic business in Woking, and so it was that he had spent the better part of a month loitering around Baker Street. I have had no small part in making the public aware of the fruits of Sherlock Holmes’s prodigious industry, but he spent as much time in the valleys of exertion as he did at the peaks. He had thus languished in a blue cloud of tobacco smoke, calling for tea to be brought to the divan and toast to be brought to the settee. We were just reaching the tipping point I often feared, where his torpor would trickle into ennui and the needle would follow, and so I was much heartened when a constable appeared in the doorway to fetch us to Inspector Lestrade.

Holmes waved the policeman away. “If it were anything of interest, Lestrade would have come himself.”

“He is detaining a caravan and refuses to leave it,” the constable said.

“Why ever not?” Holmes sighed. “Surely such a task is a particular speciality of patrolmen such as yourself.”

“He doesn’t trust anyone else to do it, on account of there is no cause, sir.”

“Lestrade is detaining a tradesman without cause?”

“Inspector Lestrade believes there should be cause, sir, but there isn’t. That’s why he requests your presence, Mr. Holmes - in order to find it.”

“ ‘The Case of the Lost Cause’, Watson. I’m afraid it is over before it begins.”

“Why not, Holmes?” I said. “If it is nothing, you get to tweak Lestrade’s nose. If it is something, all the better.”

“I suppose.”

“You’ll come then?” asked the constable.

With a melodramatic sigh, Holmes stood from his seat and systematically stretched each muscle until he was as limber as a prize fighter. While this went on, I donned my own coat and hat and held Holmes’s at the ready. I had expected a carriage outside, but instead we were led on foot, the constable unerringly choosing the most sinister alley, the most forbidding passage, the most forsaken common, and soon we were deep within a London that I had never seen. The buildings were ramshackle piles of bricks and boards peppered with grim faces peering from the darkness within. Refuse seemed to grow like a mold upon the place, and living ghouls shuffled about, now gawking silently at the interlopers. It was as savage as the wilds of Afghanistan and it was less than a mile from where I lay blissfully next to my wife each night. My hand drifted to my pocket, but I had not anticipated the need to bring my Webley. I reconsidered the constable, but found little hope that he could protect us should these people become violent.

Ahead, I heard the familiar bellowing of Lestrade, and when we turned one last corner we saw him standing knee-deep in a pile of clothes which appeared to have spilled from the back of the caravan. A scrawny fellow paced back-and-forth while protesting to Lestrade his right to conduct legal trade. Two more men of remarkable stature stood silently in the background. They turned towards us with the blank eyes of sharks as we approached. Normally, toughs like these would be wound up for a fight, but these two seemed completely indifferent to our presence. In their pugnacious assessment, we did not rate as a threat, and I was forced to agree with them. This expedition had gone very poorly, and I silently assigned much of the blame to Lestrade, who had drawn us into this sinister tableau without consideration or warning.

“Mr. Holmes at last!” Lestrade cried. “Will you look at this? Do you see?”

“There is nothing to see, Inspector,” I said. “It is just laundry.”

“Precisely!” exclaimed Lestrade.

“Did you expect to find something else when you waylaid a laundry van?” Holmes asked, prodding at a pile of cast-off garments with the toe of his boot.

“Don’t play coy with me, Mr. Holmes,” Lestrade said. “If I can see it, you can too.”

“See what?” I said. Our presence seemed to have renewed the interest of local denizens, and we were slowly being hemmed in by the gathering crowd.

“The laundry!” Lestrade said.

“Yes, Inspector, we all see the lovely laundry.” I said. “Well done. Perhaps it is time to put in for a holiday.”

“Don’t be too hasty, Watson,” Holmes said.

“You think there is something to this, Holmes?”

My friend shrugged. “You know my methods.”

I could feel dozens of pairs of eyes watching me now. I cleared my throat and drew myself up before stepping through the cast-off clothing with as much dignity as I could muster. I walked ‘round the carriage, kicking the wheels and buffing the painted name on the side with my cuff. I took the cart horse’s head within my hands and examined its muzzle, as if that would tell me something. While it was true that I was playing for time in hopes the solution would leap to my mind, I was also watching the disreputable men who had been arguing with Lestrade. It was a feint I had seen Holmes use many times - poking and prodding in hopes of provoking a reaction from the criminal. The small man simply sneered and his comrades remained stoic in the face of my investigation. I walked around the far side of the cart and finally looked inside. It was a largely open space with shelves lining the sides, and a simple plank for a bench at the extreme end. It appeared that Lestrade had done a through job of dumping the van’s contents out on the rutted street.

“Everything seems to be in order, aside from the laundry itself being upset,” I said.

“Indeed, I’m afraid the quality of the laundering puts our own habiliment to shame.” Holmes picked up a shirt and brought it close to his face.

“I believe our charwoman is thick as thieves with Mrs. Hudson, so there’s little hope on that front.”

“At the same time, Mrs. Eddels is quite discreet and circumspect, which suits me better than a pristine collar. There is another reason why this laundry is remarkable.”

Following Holmes’s lead, I plucked a white cloth from the ground, which turned out to be a lady’s underbodice. Fighting back a slight blush which I knew would win Holmes’s contempt, I held it up to examine it. It was so flawless as to be practically new, though I did detect a faint scent of lye. I continued staring at the delicate thing, my mind churning for any useful observation that I might offer.

“It’s not anything about the laundry!” Lestrade bellowed. “It is that it is here at all! Do you think any of these blighters is paying for first-class laundry service?”

Indeed, most of those watching us were in filthy tatters and rags.

“I say!” I turned toward the small man, who was now twitching. “Where were you taking these things?”

“My clientele list is private!”

The two hulking men had now developed the clenched posture I most associated career thugs. Lestrade had been onto something.

“I’ve yet to see the laundry cart manned by three,” Holmes said.

“I need protection in places like this,” the small man said.

“If your business was legitimate, it would be cheaper and easier to avoid this kind of place altogether,” Holmes said. “Finally, I’ve never seen a launderer dressed so poorly.”

“Indeed?” asked Lestrade.

“For in that trade, the commission is also the collateral. Within a matter of months, any practitioner will have developed a most enviable wardrobe from those items left behind or left unpaid for.”

“Maybe I’m too honest for that,” the small man said.

“Ha!” Holmes replied. “I’m afraid both the inspector and the doctor are correct. At the same time, everything and nothing are amiss here. You’ll have to let them go, Inspector.”

“That’s not what I brought you down here for. Constables have seen this caravan all over London in places it oughtn’t be. They are up to something and I mean to prove it.”

“I concur completely, but there is nothing more to be gained here. Send them on their way.”

“Much obliged, Mister Holmes,” the small man tipped his hat. His companions scooped the errant laundry into the back of the wagon and the whole enterprise trundled off.

“Shouldn’t we follow them, at least?” Lestrade asked.

“They won’t do anything incriminating while we are trotting after them. Besides, the laundry’s address was painted right on the side of the van. Keep an eye on Upper Camphor Street, Inspector.”

“That’s it?”

“I’ll make some inquiries of my network. I have the feeling we see that petite gentleman in cuffs yet.”

“You had better be right,” Lestrade said, spinning on his heel and disappearing into the murky byways beyond.

The constable quickly trotted away behind him. Holmes and I were suddenly very much alone beneath the weight of a hundred feral gazes. I brought my shoulders back, hoping to look as imposing as possible. Holmes took a moment to survey the crowd before smiling to himself and, much to my surprise, moving to throw open one of the dilapidated doors on the edge of the square. The action sent a ripple through the onlookers. Holmes stepped through and now I was left on my own. To follow Holmes in would be to make myself subject to whatever might lie inside, and perhaps worse, it would likely trap us in. Yet I didn’t much fancy my chances of retracing our path here, nor of being allowed to egress unmolested. I made up my mind and strutted right into that mysterious void whence Holmes had disappeared. I was relieved to see there was a bolt and, as quickly as I could, I closed the door and shot it home. Rarely in London does one experience true darkness, but in this place it was absolute.

“Holmes?” I rasped.

There was a burst of light in the distance, which after a moment I reconciled as a struck match held by my friend.

“This way, Watson, but carefully.”

“Are you mad?” I protested. “It will be trivial for that lot to wait us out. Or worse, break down the door. We could have made it out the way we came in.”

“Many of those poor souls are little more than animals, relying on instinct. The moment they saw us as prey, they were not going to let us go. We may have gotten a block or so, but they would have gotten us before we left their territory.”

“Let’s hand over our valuables and be done with it. Better that than our lives.”

“I fear it would not be so simple. The calculations of life and death are different here than what we are accustomed to.”

The light between Holmes’s fingers fizzled, but I had a bearing now. Carefully I slid my feet forward until I could see his shape in the void.

“What do you mean to do then?” I asked.

With a horrible wrenching noise, Holmes pried up a section of the floor. A fetid earthy breeze now washed over me.

“London is a city built on a city built on a city,” Holmes said. “In these raw places, the strata are thinnest.”

“How did you know to look here?”

“The masonry is characteristic of the old wards. These secret passages were common means of circumventing quarantine during plague. The resurrection men made free use of these contrivances as well. I have an atlas of that macabre trade back at Baker Street.”

The door by which we had entered splintered and buckled, casting an ominous pillar of light into the room.

“Quickly!” Holmes hissed.

I scuttled through the opening and Holmes followed, letting the trapdoor close as quietly as possible.

“How far do these tunnels go?” I asked.

“They are the streets of Old London, so as far as we need them to.”

“Have you been down here before?”

“Not in some time.”

As my eyes adjusted, I was surprised to find myself in a brick lined passage, and indeed the building above appeared to be an extension, almost like a turret.

“All of this is just laying abandoned down here?”

“It is not abandoned by any means,” Holmes replied. “I suggest we step quickly.”

We walked for several minutes through eerie silence before Holmes tugged at my sleeve and led me up an almost impossibly tight stairway, which let out upon an alley. Following the city noises to the street, I was amazed to find ourselves in front of Grant and Son.

“Holmes, I had my watch repaired here just last year!”

“You might have done as well fixing it yourself,” Holmes scoffed.

“Do you think they know?”

“I shouldn’t think so. Open portals like this are well-kept secrets. There are a thousand of these, long-since boarded up and bricked over. Only a scant few remain passable.”

With that we made our way back to Baker Street, Holmes turning the curtain in the bow window to signal the Irregulars that they were wanted. By the time we had our tea, Samuel had appeared. He was chief among the Irregulars, a post that seemed to change every few years as the unfortunate children progressed from street urchins to whatever fate lay before them. I know that Holmes would discreetly exert his influence on behalf of those he felt held the most promise. He charged the boy with observing the laundry wagon, and most of all putting a name to the driver.

Shortly thereafter, Holmes noted that there was no immediate action to be taken and he suggested that I return home.

“If I keep you past your curfew,” he observed, “I’ll not see you again for a month.”

With assurances he would not do anything that would put himself in jeopardy without summoning me first, I went home with my head spinning and an unquiet feeling in my stomach. Thus it was that I expected the worst when my wife prodded me awake to tell me there was a policeman at the door. It was the constable who had come to Baker Street yesterday.

“What is it?” I cried. “What has happened?”

“I’m meant to fetch you to the police morgue, Doctor Watson.”

I clutched at the doorway as the world seemed to tilt suddenly.

“Is it Holmes?” I gasped.

“Of course, sir,” the constable replied.

“Of course, sir?” I bellowed. “Of course it is, that dashed fool! I knew I should never have left him alone last night! Curfew, indeed.”

“Are you coming to see the body, Doctor Watson?”

“Certainly, though his brother Mycroft is his next of kin. Probably can’t pry the man away from Whitehall, even for this.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, sir.”

This time there was a police carriage, and we rode in silence, for I was adrift on a sea of remorse and self-recrimination. I was a bit taken aback to see that it was business as usual at the Yard. Holmes had not been one of that fraternity, but I would have thought him dear enough that his passing would warrant at least a pause in the business of this place.

“Ah, Doctor Watson,” Lestrade said as I descended into the morgue. “Have a look, won’t you.”

The inspector’s glib manner rankled me, but every thought was stilled by the rough white laundry sack sat upon the exam table at the center of the room. The tiled floor felt as if it dropped out from beneath me as I stepped forward, and my hands trembled uncontrollably. Close upon it now there was the unmistakable odor of human death. I fumbled at the neck of the bag as I tried to open it. Steeling myself, I uncinched it and cast a steely gaze upon the tragic contents.

“This isn’t Holmes!” I said.

“Of course not,” Holmes laughed. “Why would it be?”

I turned to see my friend perched on a stool at the coroner’s desk, papers adorned with dark smudges spread out before him like painter’s palettes.

“The police came and told me I had to come down here to see a body,” I stammered. “I was told it was you!”

“It was Mr. Holmes that sent for you, Doctor,” the constable offered.

“I insisted upon it,” Holmes said. “As per our agreement.”

“I thought... you were... I’ve got my nightshirt tucked into my pants like a fool.”

“I didn’t want to say anything,” Lestrade said. “Since you have fallen back on writing, I thought you might have gone a bit eccentric. Hard times can do that to a man.”

“I have not fallen back on writing,” I said. “I’m quite successful, I’ll have you know. Never you mind. Is there reason beyond abuse that I have been dragged out of bed?”

“I don’t think you can complain about having been drug out of bed mid-morning,” Lestrade muttered.

“Was the message not clear?” Holmes asked. “I would like you to examine the body.”

“That is what I told him,” the constable said.

“My dear Watson likes his intrigues,” Holmes said. “Does this poor fellow remind you of anyone?”

“It is a bit hard to get at him like this,” I said. “May I cut the bag?”

“Of course,” Holmes said. “It has revealed to me all of its secrets.”

“Hold on a minute,” Lestrade said. “I’m the Inspector here and that’s my evidence.”

We stood about for a moment.

“I suppose the next step is to cut open the bag,” Lestrade conceded.

Holmes produced a jackknife.

“No need to dull a scalpel,” he observed.

The blade was more keen than any I’d ever wielded. The rough cloth parted like water, and inside was a man curled into a ball, packed in tight with fresh laundry.

“A transient, like the ones we saw earlier?” I said.

“So it appears,” Holmes replied.

“Body snatchers?” Lestrade asked.

“I think he was alive when he was stuffed in the bag,” I said.

“I agree,” Holmes said. “This man suffocated in the bag.”

“How?” Lestrade asked. “He looks hearty enough to me, and I don’t see any sign that he struggled.”

I pulled back his eyelid and say the trademark dilation and glassiness. “This man was plied with laudanum.”

“Poisoned?”

“Surely the effect was meant to be purely soporific,” Holmes said. “It is a needlessly complex scheme otherwise.”

“Slavery, perhaps?” Lestrade said. “Selling off transients to foreign merchant ships and the like.”

“True press ganging is rare anymore. A penny of opium would save you a pound of bother. Observe your fingers, Watson.”

The grime on the man’s face had easily transferred to my own. It was less ground-in grit and more like a paste.

“Makeup?” I conjectured.

“Expensive makeup at that. I’ve narrowed the source down to a couple of likely candidates. Note also his shoes. While somewhat worn, they are expertly constructed - in Naples if I don’t miss my guess - and that pair is worth as much as every other shoe in this building combined. I’ll hazard much the same can be said for his undergarments. We’ve all seen our fair share of the disenfranchised. Apply your senses once again, gentlemen.”

We all stepped forward to look at the figure now laying slack upon the table.

“There’s no smell,” I said.

“There is a bit of an odor,” the constable replied.

“Of death, but not of vagrancy,” Lestrade said.

“While his costume looks the part, the clothes he is wearing are as cosmetic as his face.”

“You are thinking of Neville St. Clair,” I said. “The man with the twisted lip.”

“There are superficial similarities,” Holmes said, “But also significant points of departure. St. Clair essentially lived a double life. When he was Hugh Boone he was a vagabond - his clothes were filthy, his weather-beaten features were real, and so were the begged coins in his pockets. This gives every indication of pure costume.”

“Perhaps a pantomime,” I said.

“I commend that possibility to your attention, Lestrade. It might explain the makeup, and the laundry service, and perhaps even the strange locations we know that laundry van to have been.”

“You sound unconvinced, Mr. Holmes,” Lestrade said.

“That eventuality does little to explain how this man came to be suffocated in this bag.”

“Those theatre folk get up to all sorts,” Lestrade offered.

“I leave it in your dogged hands then, Inspector. I can suggest a few cosmeticians who might have concocted the makeup. Kindly leave my name out of it, as I still avail myself of their services on occasion.”

“And you, Mr. Holmes?”

“I want to know what this laundry business is all about. Leave that to me for the time being.”

When we returned to Baker Street, we found Samuel waiting on the stoop.

“Did Mrs. Hudson leave you out here on the street?”

“If I go in, she makes me scrub every inch of myself until I shine like a penny.”

“That sounds quite beneficial to me,” I said.

“Right, well, if you live out here, it ain’t a favor. Besides, then she just sets there and looks at me all queer, like I’m going to make off with the silverware if she takes her eyes off me.”

“I’m afraid she has had some experiences along those lines,” Holmes said. “The Irregulars have come in all stripes, like any other men. What did you discover?”

“The bloke’s name is Peter Grande. He’s a sharpie from down south.”

“Peter Grande, eh?” I said. “A pseudonym surely. He’s not any taller than Samuel here.”

“Still,” Holmes said, “it is something with which we can work. Anything else?”

“That laundry van don’t go where it says on the side. It spends the night in a warehouse down in the docks.”

“Slavers after all,” I said.

“It don’t go the right way,” Samuel said.

“It doesn’t?” Holmes replied.

“They pick up the laundry in posh places like Chelsea and Kensington, but they deliver it to places like Barking and Islington. Then they take it back again, one bag at a time.”

“We saw the back of the wagon,” I said. “It was stocked full of laundry.”

“I’m telling you they only ever touch the one bag.”

“How can you be sure?” Holmes asked.

“Because it is heavy. They’ve two large lads carrying it, and between the two of them they still staggar about.”

“The bag is always heavy?” Holmes asked.

“As far as we can see.”

“It begins to take shape,” Holmes said. He pressed a handful of coins into Samuel’s hands. “See that your comrades are well compensated.”

The boy scampered off and we continued inside. “What is taking shape, Holmes?”

“Clearly the bogus laundry service is being used to transport people back and forth, but I now suspect it is with their consent. You were very near the mark when you suggested that there was a bit of theatre at hand.”

There came a knocking at the door. Moments later, Mrs. Hudson appeared on the landing. “One of your gentleman friends, I presume, Mr. Holmes.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. Please send him in.”

The figure that replaced her in the doorway was almost comic in his appearance and tragic in his mein. He wore a collection of the finest cashmeres and silks I had ever laid eyes upon, but in a riot of colors and patterns, like he was the King of the Fortune-tellers. Likewise, his hands were gnarled and cracked, yet his swarthy face was as cleanly-shaven as a politician.

“Now this,” Holmes said, “is a genuine launderer.”

“You must be Mr. Holmes,” the man replied. “My name is Aldridge.”

“Please, Mr. Aldridge, have a seat. I take it that recent events are far beyond what you bargained for.”

“Ha, I certainly wouldn’t call it a bargain, Mr. Holmes. It seems that you know all, just as they say.”

“It is a simple enough deduction when a man shows up on my doorstep the same day his business is implicated in a murder. You know that things look bad for you, and you fear that the police will find just enough to stop looking once they have you in cuffs.”

“A murder?” Aldridge cried.

“Did you not know that a dead man was found in one of your laundry bags early this morning?”

“Oh, this is terrible news!”

“But news to you nonetheless. Why are you here, if not for that?”

“There is no use in trying to hide any of it now,” Aldridge said. “I am afraid I am at the mercy of very bad people, Mr. Holmes.”

“Including Peter Grande.”

Aldridge was completely shaken by the mention of that name.

“It is true, Mr. Holmes, Grande is the devil in my home. My family have been in the laundry business for generations, but times are changing and we needed to change with them. We were no longer able to make a living with only a handful of workers, each with only a handful of clients. Laundry, like all things, is becoming a business of scale. We needed a commercial building, and washing machines and wagons and horses and so on. We took out a small loan and were able to quickly pay it back.”

“From a private financier?” Holmes asked.

“English banks still see me as a foreigner, although my British roots run as deep as yours. With our contacts and reputation, we quickly needed to expand our business again, and then again. It was this third expansion that was our misfortune. We were successful enough that our benefactor accepted shares in the business as collateral. I was blind to the conflict of interest in that arrangement. I thought we both only benefited if the laundry business was successful. My whole livelihood was wrapped up in it.

“Of course, to Lord Mickleton - my creditor - my business was but one small cog among many. I honestly believe that he managed events so as to ruin my business. I found I was unable to make good on my debts, even as I was busier than ever. As one default followed another, my business fell under his control. Suddenly he had his own men running their own side business, but with my name plastered all over it. That was when Peter Grande appeared. He slinks around my family, making thinly veiled threats towards me, and taking an interest in my wife and my daughters that I can only describe as loathsome. Yet I am shackled to the whole business.”

“Why have you have chanced coming to me?”

“Mr. Grande has a strange venture indeed,” Aldridge said. “I’ve justified looking the other way because it has been harmless, up to now.”

“What has happened?”

“While I’m not sure I fully understand it, I know Grande was secreting people in and out of certain neighborhoods. To what end I’m not sure, but he used my carriages to do it.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I’m speculating, of course, but I can tell you no one looks twice at a laundry cart, and we go everywhere in London.”

“Surely not everywhere,” I said.

“You would be surprised at the strange little hideaways the well-to-do have secreted away all over.”

I thought about Holmes’s claim to have five or six boltholes about London. I could not imagine him sending out for laundry service, but then again, I was certain that Sherlock Holmes did not do his own washing. What an interesting profession laundry suddenly became to me. Holmes smiled behind his tented fingers as if he were reading my thoughts.

“In any event, one of my tasks was to clean Grande’s special laundry. The bag associated with his personal business. Every week or so there would be a collection of rags covered in filth and paint, and I would personally launder them.”

“But not today.”

“Grande’s special van just went out last night. It shouldn’t have been back for days. When I asked why it was here, he told me to mind my own business, so I left it alone, but the situation nagged at me through the night. I came in early to take a look at the wagon and I found the smoldering remains of a fire in the street.”

“He burned the wagon?” I gasped.

“No, but in the coals were remnants of clothes I had never seen before. A young woman’s clothes. Why would Grande be burning those? If nothing else, they would be worth a few pounds. They must be evidence of a crime. Now you tell me there is a dead man? It must be true. Grande has done something awful and I am ruined!”

“Have you seen Mr. Grande, since? Or his colleagues?”

“No, Mr. Holmes, but I came here straight away.”

“Return to work under the pretense that you know nothing, or failing that, that you only know what rumors you have heard being called out by newsboys. Cooperate fully with the investigation, but leave your suspicions with me. You only know Lord Mickleton and Peter Grande as unpleasant business partners. We’ll look into the possibility of a missing woman.”

“Thank you, Mr. Holmes!”

After Aldridge had retreated I turned to Holmes. “What are you playing at?”

“As it stands, there is an exposed incident, and a secret one. The first was clumsy, the second calculated.”

“You hesitate to say murder.”

“I think the nature of the first incident is unresolved. However, the disposition of it is suggestive. I’ll wager that Peter Grande is not a squeamish man. Had that body been a victim of his, I doubt we should have seen it again. He is already in the human smuggling business. Yet that dreadful sack was found discarded on the side of the road.”

“Was it? Then why is Lestrade so sure it came from one of Aldridge’s wagons?”

“Witnesses saw the bag being dumped from a moving carriage with Aldridge’s name on it.”

“That does seem a bit sloppy.”

“So sloppy that I’d assume it was a frame-up without Aldridge’s own testimony. No, I think Grande’s helpers panicked when they found that the man had died and dumped the sack from the back of the wagon while Grande was up top driving. By the time Grande realized their horrible mistake, it was too late to recover the body. So he burned what evidence that he could and hoped that no one was the wiser.”

“What of the woman?”

“We know nothing of her or that she existed. A challenge even for me, but certainly far beyond Lestrade, and so there is no need to tip our hand. It seems that Lord Mickleton, who is behind all of this, is a cunning villain, and I mean to catch him wrong-footed. While all eyes are looking one way, we shall look the other.”

Soon we were outside the address that Samuel had provided. I tightly gripped my Webley in my pocket, but Holmes assured me the place would be abandoned. While at first glance it matched the slapdash riverside constructions around it, the windows had been newly boarded up and the doors were perfectly plumb in reinforced jambs. Holmes approached and began feeling his way around the door. With a shake of his head, he then began knocking along the wall.

Looking up and down the street, I quietly freed my gun from my coat. I expected a gang of surly toughs to come bursting out at any moment. Instead I watched Holmes make his way around the corner before stopping to kneel down. He hooked his fingers under the lower edge of the siding and began wrenching at it. After a few sharp tugs, the board worked free. We heard muffled screams inside.

I rushed forward and the pair of us made short work of the next few boards, allowing us to enter. The low hole we had just made was the only source of light. I was momentarily startled when I saw a figure lurking with a gun on the far side of the room before I realized that I was seeing myself in a mirror. At the rear of the space, a woman was bound to a post. She thrashed and wheezed at us, and I slowly approached her while making calming gestures. Holmes had turned to the doors, throwing the bolts and lifting the cross-arm. When he pushed it open, the light revealed a strange place.

It was primarily a stable, with hitch and tack, mounds of hay, and a trough still full with water. And yet there was a corner laid with a fine oriental rug, and upon that two polished wardrobes and a vanity that might have come right from the Savoy. No less than four gas lamps surrounded the small space and several canisters were piled high. I put my Webley in my pocket and again made calming gestures towards the lady. Gently I slipped the gag from her mouth and she drew in great gasping breaths.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

“Who?” Holmes replied.

“My fiancé, Ronald Sumerton. He was with me.”

“I’m afraid-” I began.

“I’m afraid you are the only person here,” Holmes interrupted. “Do you know how you came to be here?”

I worked at the knots of the rope as she spoke.

“No. Well, I know a bit.”

“Please,” Holmes gestured.

“Ronald hired a driver to take us on a trip,” she said with a moment of hesitation.

“Was this your intended destination?” Holmes gestured. The woman’s gaze drifted to the floor. “A strange kind of elopement,” he added.

“How did you know?”

“When a young man and a young woman run off in secret, what else can it be?”

The rope fell to the floor and she followed. Holmes offered his hand. “Miss ...?”

Her jaw clinched for a moment but then she said, “Vidalia Hayes.” She rubbed her arms to work blood back into them.

“Miss Hayes, why did you resort to this most unusual scheme?”

“I don’t see how that is your concern, Mr. ...?”

“Forgive me. I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my colleague, Doctor Watson.”

“Is this part of it? Ronald was so secretive about it.”

“Part of what?” I asked.

She screwed up her face before saying, “Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. I hope I can rely upon your discretion.”

“There will be no worries there, love,” a voice said from the doorway. “Dead men tell no tales.”

Grande was there, laughing, flanked by his fellows.

“We just wanted to see to the girl. What a pleasure to find a plump hare caught in the mousetrap. It weren’t nothing to buffalo the Yard, but Lord Mickleton was concerned when he heard Sherlock Holmes was involved. Turns out you were just smart enough to get yourself killed. Ta.” With that he struck a lucifer and tossed it into the hay. As I stomped at that, the doors were thrown closed. Holmes threw himself against them to no avail.

“Barred from the outside somehow,” he said.

We could hear the popping and cracking of burning wood.

“They’ve set the place on fire,” I said. “Are they mad?”

One of the beams above us shuddered and collapsed.

“A question for another time,” Holmes replied. “Quickly, back out the side!”

We turned just in time to see a flaming bottle shatter in the gap we had created, igniting the whole opening.

“There must be another way out!” Holmes declared. “A rat like Grande never traps himself in a dead end. That’s it!” Holmes threw back the corner of the rug, revealing a trap door.

“This must be part of the show!” Vidalia said. “Look, this is really unnecessary! Just take me to Ronald.”

“This is no show, Miss Hayes!” Holmes said. “Down you go!”

She was poised to continue her protest but Holmes swept her up and leapt down into the darkness. I grabbed the nearest lantern and followed, closing the door above us. I lit the wick and we moved further down the tunnel, fearing a fiery collapse. We found ourselves entombed in dirt.

“This makes the last passage look absolutely palatial.”

“Most of the network looks like this,” Holmes said. “No one is paving the warrens of sailors and fishmongers. Quickly!”

Where the other tunnel had seemed almost sterile, this one was fecund, a riot of roots and mosses and stagnant puddles beneath our feet.

“It is a funny thing how our steps echo down here,” I said.

“What’s that?” Holmes asked.

“I mean, the dirt floor, all the foliage, should act as dampeners, but our steps are echoing up and down the tunnel.”

“Those aren’t echoes,” Vidalia hissed.

“But that would mean we’re... surrounded,” I sighed.

Almost as if sprouting from the walls, dark figures emerged at the edge of the lamplight, both before and behind us.

“Who are you people?” Vidalia cried. “What do you want?”

“You shouldn’t have come here,” said one of the figures, with an accent I couldn’t quite place.

“We don’t want to be here!” Vidalia said. “There is a madman chasing us!”

The shadowy figures guffawed.

I had my revolver pointed at the group behind us as Holmes squared off against the shadows in front.

“We don’t want any trouble,” I said. “Just let us go and we’ll not trouble you again.”

I found my arm wrenched around hard and my wrist on the point of breaking. My hand went involuntarily slack, and Peter Grande suddenly had me at the mercy of my own weapon.

“How?” was all I could muster.

Then they were upon us, and I soon found myself pinned to the earthen wall while Holmes was being dragged to the floor. For a moment, I was agog at the possibility that all of our adventures should end under these truly bizarre circumstances when Vidalia suddenly sprung into action, seizing my Webley from an unwary Grande. She waved it around frantically.

“You let me go! You let me go this instant!”

“Don’t shoot!” I pleaded, but to no avail. Grande grabbed at the gun and she pulled the trigger, missing over his shoulder but deafening us all in the confined space. My attackers dropped away and I cupped my ears, staggered by the concussion. Vidalia was scrambling down the tunnel wildly. “Don’t shoot!” I begged again. She tripped and, in a complete panic, let off three more shots. My stomach churned and my vision swirled. Holmes was able at last to lunge forward and disarm her. I turned to see Peter Grande looming with a knife. Reflexively I put my knuckles to his jaw and he dropped. The four of us appeared to be alone in the tunnel now. Holmes was saying something to me but I couldn’t hear over the ringing in my ears. He gestured at Grande and I nodded before slinging the man over my shoulder. It was no minor effort to haul him out, but Holmes soon had us above ground again, where the area was crawling with police on account of the fire. The villain was in metal cuffs before he awoke.

At Scotland Yard, Holmes explained how Peter Grande, working for Lord Mickelton, had contrived the unique scheme to secretly move people around London, carrying them for hire in hidden laundry bags - both for legitimate and illegal purposes. He broke the sorry news of her fiancé’s death to Miss Hayes, relating how the accidental smothering of Ronald Sumerton, innocently attempting to get her away from her parents, had resulted in all the events that followed, including her subsequently being kept prisoner. He could be inimitably sensitive and kind when the occasion called for it. I think Miss Hayes already had her suspicions, for she showed great resilience upon learning the truth. She was adamant upon the point of not returning to her parents, but Lestrade would not hear any objections and had soon sent a constable to fetch them. While he was out of the room, Holmes whispered to her and then demanded loudly to speak directly to the Commissioner. In the resulting confusion, Vidalia slipped away.

“This is unbelievable, Mr. Holmes!” Lestrade said when he discovered the subterfuge. “I’ll have you in stocks for this!”

“On what basis?” Holmes asked. “Miss Hayes is an adult who has committed no crime. She was under no obligation to stay here.”

“So you send her out on her own, do you? She doesn’t know her way about out there. She won’t last a week. And what of her parents?”

“What of her parents? Do you not find the lengths to which she went to escape them suggestive? And yet you would condemn her to return to their dominion?”

“What do you know of parents and children, Holmes?”

A wry smile crossed my friend’s face. For all I knew about his parents, he and Mycroft were orphans. Had he too escaped his familial shackles?

“In any event,” Holmes said, “she is no longer present.” He produced a calling card. “I will meet with the parents tomorrow and we will see where the business stands.”

“But they are on their way here now.”

“I will meet with them tomorrow or not at all. Only I know of Miss Haye’s whereabouts, and even then only for the moment.”

As we exited the Yard, Holmes waved away my many questions, asserting simply that all would be clear soon, and entreating me to be present at Baker Street at the appointed time tomorrow.

The next morning found Holmes draped across his favorite chair with an impish glee twinking in his eye. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes were stomping around the sitting room, taking turns in hurling invective at Holmes. Near the door shrugged a sheepish Inspector Lestrade, who I imagine had spent much of yesterday enduring a similar onslaught. At long last the pair seemed to run out of steam.

Holmes flicked open The Daily Mail. “I see here you have offered a reward for the safe return of your daughter.”

“What else can I do?” Mr. Hayes bellowed. “A perfectly respectable girl goes missing for days, presumably in the clutches of this blackguard Ronald Sumerton. The police finally rescue her and you, a charlatan and a cad, secret her away. I can’t poke my nose in every dark corner of London, and clearly men of your ilk cannot be trusted. Fifty pounds will buy me every pair of eyes in the city, and I consider that cheap.”

“It is a certain kind of father that spares his wallet when searching for his daughter,” Holmes said.

“Don’t you judge me, Mister Holmes! I’m a businessman and I’ll pay what it takes to see the job done and not a penny more.”

“May I ask why, in your opinion, Miss Vidalia ran away?” Holmes asked.

“She’s a foolish girl,” Mrs. Hayes said. “She always was. Got swept away with her romantic notions, no doubt. I shudder to think what abuse she has suffered at the mercy of that man.”

“That man paid for his love of your daughter with his life,” I said.

“I consider that cheap, too,” said Mr. Hayes.

“I take it you had notions of a less romantic nature,” Holmes said.

“I had the opportunity of a lifetime to expand my Oriental trade. Those foreigners still practice their savage ways, you know. A well-placed marriage in Calcutta is worth more than catching the eye of some dangling whelp from the peerage.”

“An arranged marriage, then?” I asked.

“Of course. She knows not a soul on that Dark Continent.”

“That sounds little better than servitude to me,” I said.

“Now see here! I am a preeminent merchant in this town, and you will recognize your place, sir.”

“The language in your advertisement suggests that any person responsible for the safe return of your daughter is eligible for the reward,” Holmes said.

“So it is about money, after all,” Mrs. Hayes clucked. “It always is with these types.”

“As much as it rankles me, I will honor the reward should you effect a reunion with my daughter,” Mr. Hayes said.

“I would like that affirmation in writing, witnessed by Inspector Lestrade here,” Holmes said.

“The impertinence!” Mr. Hayes bellowed.

“As a businessman, you should have no objection to the formal observance of the particulars of this transaction.”

“You are testing my restraint, Mr. Holmes,” Mr. Hayes said.

“Let us just be through with this,” Mrs. Hayes said. “Write the agreement.”

“What do you have in mind then?” Mr. Hayes said.

“Nothing particular onerous,” Holmes said. “Simply, ‘I, Harold Hayes, affirm before witness that I shall honor my pledge of fifty pounds to any person who affects the return of my daughter, Vidalia Hayes, promptly and without reservation’.”

“Fine, fine,” Mr. Hayes said, writing the document out upon my desk.

“Inspector Lestrade, if you would be so kind as to set your signature as witness and keep safe the document.”

“You are playing at a strange game, Mr. Holmes,” Lestrade said as he complied.

“Do you have the cash?” Holmes asked.

“We don’t walk around with that sum upon our person!” Mrs. Hayes said.

“It is held in an envelope at the National Bank, available upon reliable demand from the manager.”

“The paper made us do so before it would print the advertisement,” Mrs. Hayes said.

“Very good,” Holmes said. “Everything is satisfactory,” he called out.

After a moment of confusion, Vidalia appeared, down from my old room.

“She was here all along in this unsavory bachelor’s flat!” Mrs. Hayes sobbed. “We are ruined!”

“Actually, Madame,” I said, “I was as surprised as anyone to find Miss Vidalia at my own lodgings yesterday evening, taking tea with my wife, who has more of a sense of humor about such things than she must. She spent the evening quite secure in a private room of my house. My maid could testify to as much, as could my wife.”

“But of course neither will,” said Holmes, “for your daughter’s conduct is no longer any of your concern.”

“Dash it all, Vidalia, you are coming home at once!”

“I loved him, father,” Vidalia said. “And he loved me, more than I thought I ever deserved. He is dead now, because of some dreadful mishap, but as far as I am concerned, you forced us into it, and you killed him.”

“Be reasonable, dear,” Mrs. Hayes said. “We’ll talk about it when you are less hysterical.”

“I will not!” Vidalia said. “I have made my own arrangements for my future, and I do not believe you shall hear from me again.”

“What do you mean, dear?” Mrs. Hayes said.

“Inspector,” Holmes said. “Will you see that Miss Hayes receives her reward unhindered, please?”

“Reward?” Mr. Hayes scoffed. “What reward? The girl walked in her of her own accord.”

“And thus met the terms of your offer,” Holmes said. “Miss Hayes, I call to your attention that it is rather difficult to recall a person from a ship that is already underway, and I have noted upon this timetable some likely prospects departing within the day.” He pressed a scrap of newspaper into her hand. “Bon voyage, Miss. I regret that sorrow will be your traveling companion, but I hope a well-earned peace will await you in your new life.”

A single tear fell down her cheek. “Thank you, Mr. Holmes.”

Lestrade held the door for her and then they were gone. The elder Hayes quickly recovered and made to follow but with a spritely dash I filled the doorway.

“Get out of the way,” Mr. Hayes said.

“Won’t you have some tea before you go?”

In response, he seized my lapels and attempted to pull me off my feet. Having learned a trick or two from observing Holmes, I slipped his grasp and he himself ended up on the floor. Graciously, I extended my hand to assist him up, but he smacked it away and clamored up the wall.

“You haven’t heard the last of this,” Mrs. Hayes said as the pair scurried out.

“We weren’t able to give her much of a head start,” I observed.

“It will be enough,” Holmes said. “Lestrade is nothing if not stalwart in upholding the law, and I dare say my own name will carry some small weight with the banker.”

“Still, was it wise to advise Miss Hayes of her escape plan right in front of her parents?”

Holmes smiled. “I quite enjoy the thought of Mr. and Mrs. Hayes turning the port of London upside down in an effort to shake out their daughter.”

“She will not be there?”

“Indeed, what I passed to her was in fact the schedule of trains that will take her north where she can be on a French ferry before her parents are the wiser. From there, I suggested that North America or Scandinavia were both places relatively friendly to independent women.”

“Do you think she’ll manage the trick?”

“I expect the memory of her beloved Ronald will carry her through the next few trials.”

I regret to say that despite Peter Grande’s best efforts at condemning the man who came up with the scheme of moving people around in laundry bags, Lord Mickleton escaped the inquiry mostly unscathed. In protesting his innocence, he disavowed his interest in Aldridge’s business, and the eccentric launderer was so grateful he offered his services to us gratis in perpetuity. As I suspected, Mrs. Hudson had soon told Mrs. Eddels, who made it clear upon her next visit that she had seen far too much of Holmes’s dirty laundry for him to ever consider giving his business elsewhere. Nonetheless, it was some small satisfaction to me whenever I saw one of Aldridge’s wagons trundle by. As for Vidalia Hayes, I never heard another word about her. However, I did notice that Holmes’s case notes for the matter moved from his cabinet to his lumber room a few weeks later, which I took to mean he considered the Bogus Laundry Affair settled.

“He is a big, powerful chap, clean-shaven, and very swarthy - something like Aldridge, who helped us in the bogus laundry affair.

Inspector G. Lestrade - “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box”