I have had cause to remark before now that my friend Sherlock Holmes was possessed of an almost supernatural excess of energy when in the midst of an interesting case. When bored he was capable of the most foolishly self-destructive acts, preferring to render his brain useless during periods of enforced indolence, rather than suffer tedium for a moment longer than necessary. When in hot pursuit, however, he was unstoppable, and the only possible action to be taken by one such as I, caught up in his wake, was to try to hold on.
So it proved in this case. No sooner had I announced the name of the shop to which Mrs van Raalte forwarded the imposter’s mail than Holmes was pushing past me and out the door, a bellowed “Come on then, Watson!” the only indication he had even remembered my presence. Bullock too rushed from the post office, and it was left to me to thank Jessie for her help, and to promise that the inspector would ensure that no harm befell her because of it. I made a mental note to be sure to remind him of that fact very soon.
I hurried after my two colleagues. I had seen that look on Holmes’s face many times before; he was wholly concentrated on the case, and would forget even to eat if I did not remind him. The mood might last an hour or a week, but at that very moment all that mattered to him was that he should speak to the recipient of Mrs van Raalte’s mail.
The driver of the police wagon must have sensed Holmes’s impatience, for he drove his horse hard through the streets to Five Points, though there was no particular need for haste. As a result of his endeavours, however, we soon found ourselves standing outside the filthy window of a dirty shop not two hundred yards from the tenement in which Mrs van Raalte’s body had been discovered. There was no sign in the window, nor above the door, but Bullock informed us that it was known locally as Bill’s Place, a combination of grocer, wine supplier, hardware retailer and post office, serving several of the especially impoverished sections of the Points.
“Criminals use it a lot,” Bullock confided in us, laying a hand on Holmes’s arm to prevent him going inside before he had said his piece. “We know that Bill himself is a fence, and probably worse, but we can’t prove it and, though I shouldn’t say it, he’s a handy man to have in plain sight, if you know what I mean.”
As we delayed on the pavement outside, the truth of Bullock’s words was made clear. Several shifty, unkempt men approached the shop, then, seeing Bullock waiting by the door, turned on their heels and disappeared again into the warren of back alleys from which they had moments ago emerged. I found myself wondering just how much legitimate trade was ever carried out within its walls. Bullock apparently decided that we were drawing undue attention, and led us inside.
“I’ll leave the talking to you, Mr Holmes,” he murmured as we entered, “but I’m known here and I know Bill, and I’ll step in if I think I have to.”
“Understood,” replied Holmes with the smallest of nods. I closed the door behind us and took a moment to look around the interior.
In comparison to the shop we had just left, which was clean and airy, if over-stocked and cramped, Bill’s Place was a hovel. The window proved to be so engrained with dirt that it might as well have been coated in paint or covered with thick brown paper, for it permitted no light whatsoever to enter. All illumination, therefore, was provided by half a dozen misshapen candles, which sputtered and spat and added black smoke to the already polluted atmosphere. The stock, such as it was, consisted of a variety of alcoholic liquors, and an unappetising selection of cheap cuts of meat displayed on old newspaper. A box of pencils and another of matches completed the entire visible inventory of the shop, and I wondered afresh about the owner’s less legal activities.
A small, hard-faced man whom I took to be the owner sat on a stool behind the sole counter, which dominated the rear of the room. Completely bald, he sported an unkempt black moustache, just beginning to turn to grey, which curled from his upper lip to his ears and disappeared behind them. As we entered, he looked up from a chunk of wood he was idly whittling.
“Inspector Bullock, this is a pleasure,” he said, “and a surprise, also.” His accent was Teutonic, I thought, and if his grasp of the English tongue was occasionally idiosyncratic, it was perfectly comprehensible; besides, it was a good deal better than my own German.
“Bill,” the inspector replied cautiously, with a nod. I was aware of an undercurrent, both in Bill’s greeting and Bullock’s response: two professionals about their business, exchanging courtesies.
“I am thinking that you are needing some information, Inspector? This is correct, yes?”
Holmes chose that moment to assert his presence. He had been standing to one side of Bullock, but now he stepped in front of him and, without preamble or salutation, asked if Bill knew anyone named Sherlock Holmes.
The German cocked his head to one side, for all the world like a small bird, and considered Holmes’s question. Finally, he rose from his seat and leaned across the counter, until his face was close to my friend’s. “Who is this one, Inspector?” he asked, never taking his eyes from Holmes.
Bullock’s reply was slow and clear, allowing for no misunderstandings. “This gent is a friend, Bill. Think of him as like a brother to me.” He too leaned forward over the counter. “Just like Benjamin is your brother. And young Benji would still be locked away if it weren’t for me. Remember that.”
“I remember.” Bill was obviously unhappy at the reminder, but equally he was aware that whatever debt Bullock referred to still needed to be repaid. “I do not know any Sherlock Holmes, but I know the man who collects his packages.”
“It is not Holmes himself?” Holmes interrupted, but the little man continued to ignore him and addressed his reply to Bullock.
“Did I not just say this? No, I do not know Sherlock Holmes. But I know the man who comes to my store to collect packages with Sherlock Holmes’s name on them, even if he says nothing to me.” He pulled a tobacco pouch from under the counter and began to roll a cigarette. “What is it you want to know about this man?”
“His name and where he lives, to start with. We believe that Holmes and another man receive their mail here, forwarded on from a Mrs van Raalte on 106th Street.”
The German looked from Holmes to Bullock and back again, then shook his head. “No letters for no other man. Only Holmes gets letters. Big ones also, every few days. Only Hans collects them. No other man.”
Holmes turned to Bullock and me, his voice low: “Large envelopes. Doubtless, Mrs van Raalte was in the habit of putting several items of mail into one large envelope and sending it that way, thus saving on extra postage.” To Bill he said, “Do you have any of these envelopes just now?”
Bill shook his head again. “Nothing here now. Hans comes yesterday, takes his letter. And no more letters today.”
It was plain from the way that he shuffled from foot to foot that Bill was keen for us to leave, but Holmes was not finished.
“Do you know where Hans lives? Also, his surname, if you know it.”
“Piennar is his name. Hans Piennar. It says this on the card he shows me on the first day he makes collection.”
“His card?” I exclaimed in surprise. “He gave you his card? Do you still have it?”
“I do not. He takes it back once I have read it. Why should I keep it, when only he has a use for it?”
I admit I was confused by this, but Holmes clearly was not. “Why did only he have use for the card?” he asked eagerly.
“It has his name on it! Have I not just said this? Without it, how else does anyone know his name? How else can he tell anyone?”
“Because he cannot say his name!” Holmes clapped his hands together with pleasure. “Hans Piennar is a mute, Watson. That is the truth of it, is it not, Bill? This man cannot speak!”
The little man shrugged, as though uninterested in Hans Piennar or those who were looking for him. “I have said. He does not speak. He lives near. Two blocks down. The door, it has been smashed. In splinters. He is on the third floor. That is all I know.”
Holmes glanced at Bullock, who gave the smallest of nods. We had discovered all we would from the shopkeeper.
“Thank you for your assistance, Bill. The city of New York thanks you, and I thank you. Mind, we’ll speak again should this information turn out to be less than one hundred per cent correct.”
“It is one hundred correct, Inspector. One hundred!” He glared at the policeman for a second, then his shoulders sagged and he sat back down on his stool. “This means that the help of my brother is repaid?”
He looked up at Bullock, who gave no indication he had even heard. “Let’s go,” he said, and led the way out of the shop and back into the street.
Outside, I noticed several passers-by glance at us suspiciously as Bullock ordered Holmes and me to wait while he quickly checked the tenement identified by the shopkeeper. He returned within a minute or two.
“It’s as Bill said, gentlemen. The door’s been smashed in, though not recently. It’s not unusual in these parts,” he assured us, “but it’s not exactly a good sign. We’d be well advised to get ourselves out of the Points for the moment, and come back first thing in the morning with a few lads as backup.”
“Is there a reason we cannot investigate further today?” Holmes asked, quite reasonably, given that it was not yet noon.
In reply, Bullock removed his hat and, under cover of doing so, quickly flicked a finger in the direction of two young men – little more than boys, really – ostensibly lounging against a wall nearby, smoking tiny rolled-up cigarettes that threatened to burn their fingers at any moment. “Behind us too,” Bullock muttered so quietly I almost missed it. “Those ones are better hidden, but you can bet your last dollar that they’re there. No, sir, the time to go into the tenements with an arrest in mind is dawn, when the man you’re after – and his friends – are all still asleep.”
Holmes considered this for a second. “What about the middle of the night? Would that not be even better, while the miscreants are asleep?”
“Far too dangerous, Mr Holmes. Get caught inside a room in one of those tenements and you might never get out again. You recall the mob yesterday? Now picture the same mob, except place yourself with your back to a filthy wall, in a room as black as the devil’s heart, and no means to escape except directly through the very mob baying for your blood.”
The inspector painted a vivid picture and I, for one, was pleased that we would not be attempting any heroics until the morrow. I could tell that Holmes felt otherwise, and I thought that he was about to protest, but there was nothing we could do without Bullock’s assistance and so, with reasonably good grace, he acquiesced to the policeman’s suggestion and agreed that we should be dropped off at the hotel while Bullock returned to work.
* * *
In the end, we spent a pleasant afternoon walking in the vicinity of our hotel and then, as the early autumn night drew in, we dined in the hotel once more, before Holmes roundly defeated me at chess, in spite of a two-pawn handicap. After several days of hectic business, it was exactly what we needed, I felt sure.
The only minor thorn during our perambulation was a small group of young men who seemed to be following us at one point as we walked. I mentioned them to Holmes and contrived to point them out at the earliest possible moment, but he dismissed my concerns and noted that we were walking along a busy and well-used thoroughfare, rendering it unsurprising that we should happen to see the same individuals now and again. I was unconvinced, but a few minutes later I looked around and they were gone.
Later, sitting in front of a roaring fire with a glass of brandy in one hand and a more than decent cigar in the other, I reflected that the life of the consulting detective (and his faithful chronicler) was not always an unpleasant or a hazardous one, and that perhaps I should be more accepting of that fact. I bade Holmes a good night and made my way upstairs, fuzzily content with my lot.