The Adventure of the STOCKBROKER’S CLARK

The year ’54 was one of exceptional activity for my friend Mr. Schlock Homes. During the early months of the year he had been busy across the Channel, for it was only through his efforts that the tulip crop of Holland was saved from being smuggled out of that country. This particular case, which earned for Homes the Hague Five-Star Man Of Distinction award, was given wide publicity at the time, and I find the details recorded in my casebook as “The Adventure of the Dutch Bulb-Snatchers.” His return in the spring immediately found him involved in the odd problem of the footballer who was being kept against his will on a second-rated team, a case I find listed in my notes as “The Adventure of the B-Leaguered Goalkeeper.” It was also about this time that he was able to be of assistance to Sir Merivale Lodge’s sister, Wisteria, and shortly thereafter he solved the puzzling problem of confused identities at Bedlam Hospital which later became known as “The Adventure of the Five Napoleons.”

When September arrived, therefore, both Homes and myself felt the need for rest, and arranged to leave our quarters at 221-B Bagel Street for a well-deserved holiday at Watts, in Middlesex, planning to spend our hours in complete inactivity. But even in this quiet rustic retreat, repose was not to be permitted the great detective, for it was here that Homes was confronted with a challenge that gave him an opportunity to once again demonstrate his exceptional powers of reasoning, in solving the problem which I find in my notes under the title of “The Adventure of the Stockbroker’s Clark.”

We had no sooner settled in our rooms at the Watts New Hotel, when a series of loud, jarring explosions drew us in haste to the window, where we were in time to observe one of the new horseless carriages grind to a halt at the hotel doorway. The driver emerged, and after studying the swinging sign above the entrance, disappeared from our view into the building. The expression of distaste on Homes’s face clearly indicated his opinion of the mechanical monster in the road below, and with a sad shake of his head he prepared to reseat himself, when a sharp rap came at the door, and our host the innkeeper ushered in a large, florid gentleman who threw off his goggles and duster and, uninvited, flung himself into a chair before us.

“You like my new Clark-4?” he asked, laughing a bit too loudly. “Best foreign motorcar on the market; it cost a pretty packet, but what of it, I say! Money’s to take and to spend, and I take it easily, so I spend it easily!” He paused as my friend eyed him in icy silence, and then continued, although his geniality appeared a bit more forced than formerly.

“Well, Mr. Homes, I finally wormed your present address here out of your housekeeper, Mrs. Essex, although I must admit I had to make up quite a story since she stupidly refused a bribe. However, I promise you won’t suffer for it financially! I’m a generous man, though people deny it, but I insist on receiving fair values for my brass!

“Now, Mr. Homes, I have a pretty problem for you to solve, but before I propound it, I understand that you pride yourself on your ability to deduce a person’s occupation from their appearance, and I would like to wager that you can’t guess mine!” Leaning back negligently, he lit a huge cigar, and allowed the match box to dangle loosely from one hand.

Knowing Homes’s dislike for ostentation and braggadocio, I fully expected my friend to eject our unpleasant visitor forthwith, but to my great surprise he studied the man before him dispassionately for several minutes before answering.

“From the soft condition of your hands, and your apparent prosperity,” remarked Homes at last, his cold eye roving over the seated figure as he spoke, “I should judge you to be engaged in commerce of some sort, most probably in the retail end. I note the match box you hold advertises the Chez One-Hoss, a well-known night club in Hertford, not far from here, and one which is largely frequented by the more successful agrarians of that area, so I would deduce that the items you handle are primarily intended for the use of farmers.

“Your right trouser leg exhibits two marks, one being greasy and deriving, I should imagine, from contact with a thin metal hoop which was some ten inches from the floor; the other showing marks of wood powder which I can readily recognize as birch, and which appears approximately four inches higher on your trouser leg.

“The items you sell, therefore, are manufactured of both wood and metal, and come in two distinct sizes: one being ten inches in height and the other fourteen inches in height. Since a metal watering bucket is exactly ten inches high, rimmed with a hoop, while the standard butter tub or bucket used by the dairy farmers of this neighborhood is exactly fourteen inches high and made of birch, I should say it is fairly easy to deduce your occupation. You, sir, are undoubtedly the operator of a bucket shop!”

“Well, now, Mr. Homes,” said our visitor, chuckling heartily, “I guess that with your reputation you can afford a miss now and then, and you were certainly bowled clean on me! These marks on my trouser leg are the result of my fixing my Clark—4 myself, for I don’t allow any fool of a mechanic to tamper with my machine, no, sir! An operator of a bucket shop! Ha! Ha! You couldn’t be further off! As a matter of fact I happen to be a stockbroker, and it is in connexion with this that I wish to employ your services.

“My name, Mr. Homes, is Jonathan Fast, and I operate the largest brokerage firm devoted exclusively to the sale of stocks and bonds to small investors in the entire Empire. I had an associate who called himself Peter Luce—although I always knew his name had been Anglicized from Pietro Lucciani—but he proved to be too soft in his dealings with clients. I was therefore forced to squeeze—that is to say, to buy him out, although I still retain his name in the firm, out of respect for his memory, as well as the many friends he had among the poor.

“Since my firm specializes in dealing with the uninitiate in the investment business, we are often approached by people who are either illiterate, or uneducated, or both; but we never refuse an order no matter how small, and always push our firm’s motto, which is: ‘Don’t Hide Your Money In A Shoe: That’s Obtuse—We Will Handle It For You: Fast & Luce.’

“As a result of this policy, which I might mention has been singularly successful throughout the years, we are accustomed to receive messages and orders from all parts of the world, and many are so poorly written that at times it becomes quite difficult to decipher them. However, since one never knows today who can or cannot afford to dabble in stocks, we go to extraordinary lengths to properly interpret all messages, even employing translators where necessary.

“Today, however, I received a communication which is in plain English, but which frankly I am unable to understand. Our experts at the office have done their best to interpret it but without success. Knowing your reputation for solving puzzles of this nature, I therefore went to some trouble to locate you, and I should like you to decipher this for me as quickly as possible.”

He withdrew from his pocket a wrinkled sheet of paper and laid it on the table before us. It was printed in crude block letters on a torn and dirty sheet of wrapping paper, and I reproduce it below for the reader:

At the appearance of this strange letter, Homes’s boredom disappeared at once. Handling the wrinkled missive with the greatest of care, he bore it to the window and studied it carefully in the fading afternoon light. Then, to my amazement, he bent his head over the paper and carefully smelled it! Then, nodding his head as if at the verification of some private conclusion, he turned to our visitor.

“The envelope!” he demanded, his voice tight with hidden excitement. “Do you still have the envelope?”

“There was no envelope. The message was slipped under the door of my office precisely as you see it.”

Homes took this information with barely concealed disappointment, but when he again turned to face our visitor he was once again his old, calm self. “Well, Mr. Fast,” he said shortly, “if I may retain this paper for a few days, I have no doubt but that I shall be able to decipher it. It promises to be a most interesting problem, and since I am supposedly on holiday, I see no reason not to give it my full attention. I imagine that your firm is in the London Directory, and as soon as I have news, I shall be in touch with you.”

“Very well, Mr. Homes,” replied our visitor, collecting his driving equipment and consulting a heavy pocket watch, “but don’t waste any more time on it than is absolutely necessary. Sometimes we have found that the crudest messages have resulted in the greatest profit—that is, the greatest opportunity for us to be of service to our clients!”

When a new series of loud explosions indicated to us that the Clark—4 and its owner had left the hotel doorstep, Homes carefully covered the torn paper with a clean piece of glass to protect it against any possible damage, and then, relaxing in an arm chair, lighted his pipe. A slight frown crossed his brow as he turned to me.

“A most disagreeable character, Watney,” he remarked, puffing slowly. “Common politeness forced me to listen to his story, and I fully intended to show him the door as soon as, in all decency, I could; but once he produced that badly scrawled message on that quite odorous paper, I’m afraid I was lost! I can only hope that the secret it contains does not work to the advantage of our Mr. Fast, for I cannot recall a previous client who struck me so poorly!

“However, Watney, it never does to tackle a new case in the evening. Morning wakens the brain as well as the body, you know, and I therefore suggest that we relax tonight and come fresh to this problem on the morrow. The Watts Town Hall has a program of Polish folk dances this evening; I understand they begin with ‘Five Minuets’ of Latis Knuze, and finish with the famous ‘Oy Gavotte.’ Should we wish to attend the performance, Watney, I suggest we leave at once, for the country does not keep our city hours, you know!”

The following morning, well rested by ten hours sleep in the fresh Middlesex air and fortified by a huge country breakfast, Homes lighted a cigarette and withdrew the mysterious paper from beneath the glass.

“Well, Watney,” he said, his eyes twinkling, “I should like to have your opinion of this strange billet-doux. What are you able to deduce from a study of it?”

I took the crumpled sheet from his hand and scanned it closely, attempting to adopt the studious mien of my friend when he was involved in the analysis of some abstruse problem, although in truth I could see little there to give us any important lead.

“Well, Homes,” I answered slowly, “it is clear that this was written by a person of great personal slovenliness, for you will note that in handling it he was careless enough to leave his handprint, and a dirty one at that. The poverty of the writer is also apparent from the fact that he delivered it in person rather than spend thruppence on a postal stamp. However, the significance of the intended message, I must confess, completely eludes me!”

Homes laughed and retrieved the note from my outstretched fingers. “Not bad, Watney,” he chuckled, “but I was requesting information regarding the message itself, for this also eludes me at the moment. As to the writer, that worthy is fairly easily described, I should have said; for it should be obvious to the most dense that this note was written by a midget suffering from amnesia, who lives in Soho and most probably in Greek Street, and who is involved, or at least has some connexion with the publishing trade.”

I stared at my friend in complete astonishment, for I could see nothing in the torn sheet which could possibly lead to this startling conclusion. “Homes!” I ejaculated, “how can you possibly arrive at these statements on the basis of this paper?”

“Later, Watney,” he replied, arising with a smile and removing his dressing gown. “At the moment I am not prepared to satisfy your curiosity, for my own has only been whetted until now. I fear I must interrupt my holiday and travel down to town, for it is there that the answer lies. If you will be so kind, Watney, as to arrange a trap to take me into the station, I shall change and be ready in a moment.”

I had the trap at the door as he descended from our rooms, and I fear that my astonishment caused me to gape, for he was dressed in old clothes of solid black, with white shirt and string tie, and he had adapted the straggling mustache and black velour hat of the Bohemian.

“Strangers to Soho, Watney, do not garner information easily,” said he, smiling broadly at my puzzlement. “One must appear to be of the neighborhood in order to elicit relevant data from the denizens of that romantic district. I shall plan to return on the 5:12, should you care to meet me, and we can spend the evening discussing my findings.”

I passed the balance of the day exploring the historical inns and well-equipped public houses of the little town, but still I managed to be on hand at the station when Homes’s train came puffing to a halt alongside the rustic platform. I fully expected my friend to descend with that broad smile which I knew indicated the successful conclusion to a particularly involved problem, but when the train ground to a halt, Homes stepped down with a worried frown on his face, and scarcely acknowledged my greeting.

“I am afraid that my efforts today were not crowned with success,” said he bitterly as our trap bore us to the hotel. “It appears that I shall have to decipher the cryptic message after all, and with no help from the writer!”

“You were able to locate him?”

“Oh, that was no problem! I located him easily enough! But he denies having written the thing—a further proof, if one were needed, of his amnesia, but certainly of no particular aid to us in solving the problem. No, I fear that further study of that mysterious paper is indicated!”

When we had finished with our dinner, therefore, Homes pulled his chair to the table and began brooding over the cryptic note, his briar filling the room with clouds of smoke. Knowing his dislike of interruption in moments like this, I buried myself in a book, but a few seconds later Homes slammed his hand on the table and arose.

“It is useless, Watney,” he said in great disgust. “I am too tired to concentrate. I suggest a good night’s rest, after which I can tackle this again in the morning, fresh and alert!” And bidding me goodnight, he stalked off to his bedroom.

The morning, however, brought no improvement, for I entered our sitting room to find Homes staring dejectedly out of the window, his long thin body drooping with weariness, and his usually sparkling eyes dull and unseeing.

“Homes!” I cried in alarm, worried by his appearance. “What is the trouble?”

“It was the incident of the dog in the night!” he replied bitterly.

“The dog in the night?” I asked in bewilderment. “But the dog barked all night!”

“Precisely,” he said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “As a result I didn’t get a wink of sleep! However, in the course of being kept awake, I did get some glimmer of possible purposes behind this mysterious message, and since I know I shall not rest until it is solved, I shall return to the city today and follow several new leads. Possibly I can snatch a few moments of rest on the train, for my day shall be heavily proscribed. I shall return on the 5:12 unless I telegraph you otherwise.”

It was mid-afternoon, and I was lounging at the door of the public room of the hotel, waiting to see if their opening hours were in strict accordance with the law, when a uniformed messenger handed me a telegram from Homes. I ripped it open eagerly and read: “MEET ME SIX TONIGHT AT CRASHING BOAR PUB IN FLEET STREET. CASE SOLVED. BRING NOTE. HOMES.”

The Crashing Boar Pub in Fleet Street stood well back from the pavement in a little mews running between two huge printing plants, and I arrived a few minutes late to find my friend Schlock Homes ensconced at a corner table partaking of a whiskey. He called the waiter over and ordered a similar drink for me while I seated myself opposite and handed him the torn sheet of paper. Verifying it, he tucked it into his waistcoat pocket and leaned back smiling. I have never ceased to be amazed at the recuperative powers of Homes, especially when he has reached the successful conclusion of a case, for looking at his bright eyes one could never guess that he had spent two full days without sleep in pursuit of the answer to this most puzzling problem.

“Well, Watney,” said he, smiling broadly, “the answer was before my eyes from the beginning, but I was too much of a fool to see it. I have been developing a tendency lately to search for obscure and hidden meanings in the most direct things, and as a result I often waste time before coming back to the correct path.

“This case is a perfect example. As you so cleverly noted when you first saw the note, the message was obviously written by a person of slovenly habits, as witness the handprint left by a dirty hand. But what you failed to note was the size of the hand; clearly it was too small to be that of an adult, and yet a child could not have been responsible for the written words. Ergo, it was written by an adult with a hand the size of a child’s; in other words, by a midget! The fact that he failed to sign his missive could not have been the result of oversight, since the laborious forming of the block letters showed that he had put much effort into the composition. The only possible reason which I can deduce for this failure to append his name, is that at the moment he was unable to recall it—a classic example of amnesia, and not as unusual as we might like to think.

“When I was first handed the note, I was struck by the rather pungent odor that arose from the paper, and being somewhat of an expert on strange odors, I was able to immediately identify it as being of Parmesan cheese, used for the greatest part in the cooking of Sicilian pizza and encountered to my knowledge only in the Italian restaurants of Soho, and most probably in Greek Street itself!”

“But, Homes,” I interjected, “how were you able to deduce the connexion with the publishing trade?”

“The handprint, Watney! It was not ordinary dirt from the street; the most casual examination would have shown it to be printer’s ink. Shortly before inadvertently leaving that mark upon the paper, the writer had handled fresh newsprint, and some of the ink had come off on his hands.”

“A masterful analysis, Homes!” I exclaimed in admiration, grasping his hand across the table. “Once you have explained it, it all seems so clear and obvious. But the meaning of the message itself—how were you able to decipher that?”

“Quite by accident, as a matter of fact, Watney. Once I had arrived at a description of the writer, I came at once to Greek Street and began interviewing various residents. In short order I found myself directed to a corner newsstand where I encountered the owner, a midget, busily handling journals, which explained the dirty hands. He denied completely having written the message, which was the final proof of my identification, for it confirmed conclusively his amnesia. Being unable to shake his story, however, I was forced to return to Watts unsuccessful.

“Today I returned determined to revive the failing memory of that poor man, bringing with me for the purpose a small battery-operated hand buzzer, which I stopped and obtained in a fun shop in Shaftesbury Avenue, for it is a well-known principle that sudden shock works wonders in these cases. I was about to offer my hand, in which I had concealed this mechanism, when I chanced to note a magazine for sale on display there. The magazine was called Time. At once the entire affair became crystal clear!”

Taking the torn sheet from his pocket, Homes spread it on the table before me. “‘Your Time Is Running Out,’ it reads,” said he, “and it means exactly what it says! I immediately taxed our small newsdealer with selling subscriptions to magazines as a sideline, and he freely admitted that he did, indeed, augment his income in this fashion. He continued, however, to forcibly deny that he had reminded Mr. Fast that his subscription was running out, so I once again offered him my hand, as if in leave-taking. Unfortunately, the fun shop seems to have mounted the buzzer in an inverted position, and I am afraid that my reactions caused him some suspicion, for he threatened to call a policeman unless I left at once.

“However, his admission was not essential, for I knew now the truth of the matter. As you know, my conviction is that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!”

“Marvelous, Homes!” I cried enthusiastically. “What do you intend to do now?”

Homes shrugged indifferently. “Actually nothing,” he said, yawning deeply. “There is no need for action that I can see. Obviously the message does not effect Mr. Fast either adversely or otherwise, and if this obnoxious boor is so careless as to allow a magazine subscription to pass the renewal date, I do not consider it my duty to so advise him. However, if you feel that our responsibility to a client demands an explanation, you might drop him a line in the morning explaining the steps we have taken and the results of our investigation.

“But now, Watney, we have interrupted our rest long enough with this minor matter. I suggest that since the hour is late, we pass the night in our own beds in Bagel Street, and return to Middlesex tomorrow to continue our holidays!”

The following morning we caught an early train back to our sylvan lodgings in Watts, and as the train passed through the beautiful Middlesex scenery, I unfolded the journal I had purchased in Euston station and carefully scanned the news. Suddenly an article claimed my attention and I began to delve into it with increasing interest.

“Something in our line, Watney?” came the relaxed voice of my companion. “I see that you appear to be quite impressed by whatever you are reading.”

“Nothing criminal; no, Homes,” I replied, folding the paper to the article and handing it to him. “But I fear there will be no need for us to give Mr. Fast a report on his query. It appears that as he was cranking his new Clark–4 yesterday, it gave an explosion more violent than usual, and as yet the police have been unable to properly separate the tangled parts of Mr. Fast and his motorcar.”

“It was bound to happen sooner or later,” said Homes, taking the paper from my hand and reading further into the article. “While I hold no brief for Mr. Fast, who was patently offensive, still I would be derelict in my duty if I did not express my views on these gasoline-driven monstrosities that are rapidly threatening us all with monoxide poisoning, explosions, and other ills!

“A letter to the Times, if you will, Watney!”