Sherlock Holmes In Montague Street Volume 2 (25 page)

“Who took you?” asked Mrs. Seton.

Again Charley seemed puzzled. Then, looking doubtfully at his mother, he said, “Mummy.”

“No, not mummy,” she answered; and his reply was “Course not,” after which he attempted to climb on her shoulder. Then, at Holmes's suggestion, he was asked whom he went to see. This time the reply was prompt.

“Poor daddy,” he said.

“What,
this
daddy?”

“No, not
vis
daddy - course not.” And that was all that could be got from him.

“He will probably say things in the next day or two which may be useful,” Holmes said, “if you listen pretty sharply. Now I should like to go to the small morning-room.”

In the room in question the door was still open. Outside the moon had risen and made the evening almost as clear as day. Holmes examined the steps and the path at their foot, but all was dry and hard, and showed no footmark. Then, as his eye rested on the small gate, “See here,” he exclaimed suddenly, “somebody has been in, lifting the gate, as I showed Mrs. Seton when I was last here. The gate has been replaced in a hurry, and only the top hinge has dropped in its place; the bottom one is disjointed.” He lifted the gate once more and set it back. The ground just along its foot was softer than in the parts surrounding, and here Holmes perceived the print of a heel. It was the heel-mark of a woman's boot, small and sharp, and of the usual curved D-shape. Nowhere else within or without was there the slightest mark. Holmes went some distance either way in the outer lane, but without discovering anything more.

“I think I will borrow those new shoes,” Holmes said on his return. “I think I should be disposed to investigate further in any case, for my own satisfaction. The thing interests me. By the way, Mrs. Seton, tell me, would these shoes be more likely to have been bought at a regular shoemaker's or at a baby-linen shop?”

“Certainly I should say at a baby-linen shop,” Mrs. Seton answered; “they are of excellent quality, and for babies' shoes of this fancy description one would never go to an ordinary shoemaker's.”

“So much the better, because the baby-linen shops are fewer than the shoemakers'. I may take these, then? Perhaps before I go you had better make quite certain that there is nothing else about the child which is not your own.” There was nothing, and with the shoes in his pocket Holmes regained his cab and traveled back to his rooms. The case, from its very bareness and simplicity, puzzled him. Why was the child taken? Plainly not to keep, for it had been returned almost as it went. Plainly also not for the sake of reward or blackmail, for here was the child safely back, before the anonymous blackmailer had had a chance of earning his money. More, the advertised reward had not been claimed. Also it could not be a matter of malice or revenge, for the child was quite unharmed, and indeed seemed to have been quite happy. No conceivable family complication, previous to the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Seton, could induce anybody to take away and return the child, which was undoubtedly Mrs. Seton's. Then who could be the “poor daddy” and “mummy” - not “
vis
daddy” and not “
vis
mummy” - that the child had been with? The Setons knew nothing of them. It was difficult to see what it could all mean.

Arrived at his rooms, Holmes took a map, and setting the leg of a pair of compasses on the site of the Setons' house, described a circle, including in its radius all Willesden and Hampstead. Then, with the Suburban Directory to help him, he began searching out and noting all the baby-linen shops in the area. After all, there were not many - about a dozen. This done, Holmes stopped for the day.

In the morning he began his hunt. His design was to call at each of the shops until he had found in which a pair of shoes of that particular pattern had been sold on the day of little Charley Seton's disappearance. The first two shops he tried did not keep shoes of the pattern, and had never had them, and the young ladies behind the counter seemed vastly amused at Holmes's inquiries. Nothing perturbed, he tried the next shop on his list, in the Hampstead district. There they kept such shoes as a rule, but were “out of them at present.” Holmes immediately sent his card to the proprietress, requesting a few minutes' interview.

The lady - a very dignified lady indeed - in black silk, grey corkscrew curls and spectacles, came out with Holmes's card between her fingers. He apologized for troubling her, and, stepping out of hearing from the counter, explained that his business was urgent. “A child has been taken away by some unauthorized person, whom I am endeavoring to trace. This person bought this pair of shoes on Monday. You keep such shoes, I find, though they are not in stock at present, and, as they appear to be of an uncommon sort, possibly they were bought here.”

The lady looked at them. “Yes,” she said, “this pattern of shoe is made especially for me. I do not think you can buy them at other places.”

“Then may I ask you to inquire from your assistants if any were sold on Monday, and to whom?”

“Certainly.” Then there were consultations behind counters and desks, and examinations of carbon-papered books. In the end the proprietress came to Holmes, followed by a young lady of rather pert and self-confident aspect. “We find,” she said, “that two pairs of these shoes were sold on Monday. But one pair was afterwards brought back and exchanged for others less expensive. This young lady sold both.”

“Ah, then possibly she may remember something of the person who bought the pair which was
not
exchanged.”

“Yes,” the assistant answered at once, addressing herself to the lady; “it was Mrs. Butcher's servant.”

The proprietress frowned slightly. Oh, indeed,” she said, “Mrs. Butcher's servant, was it? There have been inquiries about Mrs. Butcher before, I believe, though not
here.
Mrs. Butcher is a woman who takes babies to mind, and is said to make a trade of adopting them, or finding people anxious to adopt them. I know nothing of her, nor do I want to. She lives somewhere not far off, and you can get her address, I believe, from the greengrocer's round the corner.”

“Does she keep more than one servant?”

“Oh, I think not; but no doubt the greengrocer can say.” The lady seemed to feel it an affront that she should be supposed to know anything of Mrs. Butcher, and Holmes consequently started for the greengrocer's. Now this was just one of those cases in which dependence on information given by other people put Holmes on the wrong scent. He spent that day in a fatiguing pursuit of Mrs. Butcher's servant, with adventures rather amusing in themselves, but quite irrelevant to the Seton case. In the end, when he had captured her, and proceeded to open a cunning battery of inquiries, under plea of a bet with a friend that the shoes could not be matched, he soon found that
she
had been the purchaser who, after buying just such a pair of shoes, had returned and exchanged them for something cheaper. And the only outcome of his visit to the baby-linen shop was the waste of a day. It was indeed just one of those checks which, while they may hamper the progress of a narrative for popular reading, are nevertheless inseparable from the matter-of-fact experience of Holmes's profession.

With a very natural rage in his heart, but with as polite an exterior as possible, Holmes returned to the baby-linen shop in the evening. The whole case seemed barren of useful evidence, and at each turn as yet he had found himself helpless. At the shop the self-confident young lady calmly admitted that soon after he had left something had caused her to remember that it was the other customer who had kept the white shoes, and not Mrs. Butcher's servant.

“And do you know the other customer?” he asked.

“No; she was quite a stranger. She brought in a little boy from a cab and bought a lot of things for him - a suit of outdoor clothes as well as the shoes.”

“Ah! now probably this is what I want. Can you remember anything of the child?”

“Yes; he was a pretty little fellow, about two years old or so, with curls. She called him Charley.”

“Did she put the things on him in the shop?”

“Not the frock; but she put on the outer coat, the hat and the shoes. I can remember it all now quite well - now I have had time to think.”

“Then what shoes did the child wear when he came in?”

“Rather old tan-colored ones.”

“Then I think this is the person I am after. You say you never saw her at any other time before or since. Try to describe her.”

“Well, she was a lady well dressed, in black. She had a very high collar to hide a scar on her neck, like the scars people have sometimes after abscesses, I think. I could see it from the side when she stooped down.”

“And are you sure she had nothing sent home? Did she take everything with her?”

“Yes; nothing was sent, else we should know her address, you know.”

“She didn't happen to pay with a bank-note, did she?”

“No; in cash.” Holmes left with little more ceremony, and made the best of his way to his friend the inspector at the police station. Here was the woman with the scarred neck again - Charley's deliverer once, now his kidnapper. If only something else could be ascertained of her - some small clue that might bring her identity into view - the thing would be done.

At the station, however, there was something new. A man had just come in, very drunk, and had given himself into custody for kidnapping the child Charles Seton, whose description was set forth on the bill which still appeared on the notice-board outside the station. When Holmes arrived, the man was lolling, wretched and maudlin, against the rail, and, oblivious of most of the questions addressed to him, was ranting and sniveling by turns. His dress was good, though splashed with mud, and his bloated face, bleared eyes and loose, tremulous mouth proclaimed the habitual drunkard.

“I shay I'll gimmeself up,” he proclaimed, with a desperate attempt at dignity; “I‘ll gimmeself up takin' away lil boy, I'll shacrifishe m'self. Solemn duty shacrifishe m'self f'elpless woman, ain't it? Ver' well then; gimmeself up takin' 'way lil boy, buyin' 'm pair shoes. No harm in that, issher? Hope not. Ver' well then.” And he subsided into tears.

“What's your name?” asked the inspector.

“Whash name? Thash my bishnesh. Warrer wan' know name for? Grapertnence ask gellumshname. I'm gellum, thash wha' I am. Besht of shisters too, besht shis'ers” - sniveling again - “an' I'm ungra'ful beasht. But I shacrifishe 'self; she shan' get 'n trouble. D'y'ear? Gimmeself up shtealin' lil boy. Who says I ain' gellum?” Nothing more intelligible than this could be got out of him, and presently he was taken off to the cells. Then Holmes asked the inspector, “What will happen to him now?”

The inspector laughed. “Oh, he'll get very sober and sick and sorry by the morning,” he said; “and then he'll have to send home for some money, that's all.”

“And as to the child?”

“Oh, he'll forget all about that; that's only a drunken freak. The child has been recovered. You know that, I suppose?”

“Yes; but I am still after the person who took it away. It was a woman. Indeed, I've more than a suspicion that it was the woman who brought the child here when he was lost before - the one with the scar on the neck, you know.”

“Is that so?” said the inspector. “Well, that's a rum go, ain't it? What did she bring him back here for if she wanted him again?”

“That I want to find out,” Holmes answered. “And now I want you to do me a favor. You say you expect that man below will want to send home in the morning for money. Well, I want to be the messenger.”

The inspector opened his eyes. “Want to be the messenger? Well, that's easily done; if you're here at the time I'll leave word. But why?”

“Well, I've a sort of notion I know something about his family, and I want to make sure. Shall I be here at eight in the morning, or shall we say nine?”

“Which you like; I expect he'll be shouting for bail before eight.”

“Very well, we will say eight. Goodnight.”

And so Holmes had to let yet another night go without an explanation of the mystery; but he felt that his hand was on the key at last, though it had only fallen there by chance. Prompt to his time at eight in the morning he was at the police station, where another inspector was now on duty, who, however, had been told of Holmes's wish.

“Ah,” he said, “you're well to time, Mr. Holmes. That prisoner's as limp as rags now; he's begging of us to send to his sister.”

“Does he say anything about that child?”

“Says he don't know anything about it; all a drunken freak. His name's Oliver Neale, and he lives at 10, Morton Terrace, Hampstead, with his sister. Her name's Mrs. Isitt; and you're to take this note and bring her back with you, or at any rate some money; and you're to say he's truly repentant,” the inspector concluded with a grin.

The distance was short, and Holmes walked it. Morton Terrace was a short row of pleasant, old-fashioned villas, ivy-grown and neat, and No.10 was as neat as any. To the servant who answered his ring Holmes announced himself as a gentleman with a message from Mrs. Isitt's brother. This did not seem to prepossess the girl in Holmes's favor, and she backed to the end of the hall and communicated with somebody on the stairs before finally showing Holmes into a room, where he was quickly followed by Mrs. Isitt.

She was a rather tall woman of perhaps thirty-eight, and had probably been attractive, though now her face bore lines of sad grief. Holmes noticed that she wore a very high black collar.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Isitt,” he said. “I'm afraid my errand is not altogether pleasant. The fact is, your brother, Mr Neale, was not altogether sober last night, and he is now at the police station, where he wrote this note.”