Watson’s notes reveal that on several occasions Sherlock Holmes was brought in to clear things up after blunders by the regular police. One such instance arose from the violent yet avoidable death of the well-known London criminal Charles Stannard-Smith, aka ‘Culture Charlie’.
Smith was acknowledged as one of the most intelligent – and eccentric – criminals of his generation. The suave and sophisticated Old Etonian made money from clever swindles, most connected to the operations of his ‘Spinner’ gambling clubs. The police knew he broke the law, the press knew he broke the law, the politicians and the civil service knew he broke the law, yet he managed to evade arrest for over forty years. Indeed, he was often seen in the highest society, regularly attending the opera, in which he was an acknowledged expert, at Covent Garden.
Unlike most who made their fortune through illegal activities, Smith invested his ill-gotten gains in profitable businesses. He owned four Parisian-style cafés – the Ace, the King, the Queen and the Knave – and four smart hotels named after the suits in a pack of cards. Whether the Hearts Hotel in Soho Square was actually a brothel was never quite clear. Nor did Smith attempt to clarify the matter, explaining that a little bit of mystery was good for business.
It was not the Hearts that finally brought about Smith’s demise, but the Diamonds, his flagship hotel in Hanover Square. All Smith’s cafés and hotels were decorated with a lavish jumble of what can loosely be described as ‘works of art’. These ranged from straightforward paintings to carved elephant tusks, mechanical toys, and mannequins dressed (some scandalously undressed) in exotic costumes from various corners of the globe. The central feature of the Diamonds Hotel was a large glass case at the head of the main stairway bearing the label ‘Reserved for the World’s Most Beautiful Diamond’.
For five years, the case remained empty while Smith, in his own words, ‘searched for a jewel sufficiently elegant to grace my fine hotel’. He let the criminal underworld know that he would be happy to pay handsomely for a stone of suitable brilliance, whatever its provenance. The police blamed the offer for a sharp rise in the number of thefts, actual and attempted, from high-class jewellers throughout the capital.
In the most daring of these robberies, the thieves got away with a four-carat Radiant diamond worth many thousands of pounds. When arrested a week later, the thieves confessed to the crime and said they had passed the diamond on to ‘a gentleman who worked for Culture Charlie’.
Unwisely, the job of questioning Smith about the stolen jewel was given to a young detective of abrupt manner and considerable physical strength. The conversation between the muscular policeman and the sleek, overweight criminal-businessman became heated. Frustrated by Smith’s condescending attitude and obvious scorn for his ignorance of both the law and English grammar, the detective sprang to his feet and grabbed his tormentor by the throat. The action proved fatal – Smith suffered a massive heart attack and never recovered consciousness.
The officer was dismissed from the force. More significantly, the whereabouts of the diamond remained a mystery.
At this point, Scotland Yard asked Sherlock Holmes for help. The great detective, who had made a private study of Smith’s intriguing personality and jocular habits, was sure he would have left a clue as to the diamond’s whereabouts. He began his search in Smith’s vast and cluttered bachelor bedchamber in a suite on the fifth floor of the Ace Café. Magnifying glass in hand, he scrutinized every objet d’art and gaudy knick-knack. He was intrigued by a gold and ivory inlaid musical box. Finding a key beneath the pillows on Smith’s luxurious bed, he opened the lid and allowed the strangely formless music to play. He repeated the action, this time using his knowledge of music to jot down the notes:
After listening to the music a third time and amending what he had written, Holmes walked over to a silver birdcage containing a stuffed macaw that hung beside the wash basin. Beneath the cage was a large, Chinese-style porcelain egg somewhat faded by age. It was exquisitely decorated with a dozen beaded mouldings representing the life cycle of the bee. The last of these showed a dead bee, on its back with its legs in the air.
Holmes carefully pressed the body of the final bee, and the top of the egg sprang open to reveal the missing diamond nestling in a bed of cotton wool.
How on earth had he worked out what to do?
Find the answer/s here.