Unknown (4 page)

I gazed at the sleuth with a
startled expression.

"Good heavens, Holmes, you
don't mean you burgled the place?"

"Of course not. For some
reason beyond my compre
hension,
the landlady assumed that I was of the legal
calling
and handled Barker's affairs. She was delighted
to
show me the room he had rented several weeks be
fore."

"Beyond your comprehension,
eh?" I regarded him
with
obvious disbelief, well knowing how Holmes could
inspire
and nurture a false conception without actually
resorting
to fabrication or falsehood. He chose to ignore
my
skeptical tone.

"Imagine my surprise to find
a letter addressed to
Mr.
Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street."

"The devil you say!"

" 'To be delivered should
harm befall me.' Such was the notation on the envelope."

I was at a complete loss for words
and my expression revealed that fact.

"Not so strange, Watson, that
both Nils Lindquist
and
Barker's thoughts should follow the same path.
Both
were involved in the matter and both had had pre
vious
association with us."

Holmes was consistently generous
in his use of the
word
us,
but
I well knew to whom the art expert and
the
Surrey investigator had turned as a court of last re
sort.

Holmes had crossed to the desk
with that quick nervous stride, which indicated his full powers were
chan
neled to a
matter of interest. Gone was the languid
theorist
and in his place was the finely tuned, nay pre
datory,
sleuth, hot on the scent. He again indicated the
letter,
which he had evidently been rereading on my ar
rival.

"Let me give you a brief
summation of this. Barker refers to his being employed by Nils
Lindquist, the art
expert.
He draws my attention to a familiar name,
should
harm come his way. None other than old Baron Dowson."

"Again he crosses our path,"
I exclaimed. A sudden thought caused me to switch subjects. "Barker
must have anticipated that he was in peril."

"At least we can say that he
knew that information
he
had come upon was dangerous knowledge," conceded Holmes.
"The letter is couched in vague terms,
full
of references to previous cases which only you or I
would
understand. The substance is that he had uncov
ered
a lead to Baron Dowson in connection with a job
he
had undertaken."

"The Golden Bird matter!"
I exclaimed.

"He does not specify it.
Barker secured employment
at
the Nonpareil Club as a means of investigating Baron Dowson."

"Good heavens, Holmes, I did
not even know the
place
had reopened!"

"Some time ago, as an
elaborate and completely illegal gambling club that is part of
the Baron's apparatus.
Obviously
Watson, Barker had studied those recount
ings
of our adventures which you occasionally foist on a
patient
reading public. For instance, he makes reference to a surreptitious
investigation undertaken during the
Inter-Ocean
Trust case.* What does that suggest to
you?"

*The Case of the Three Hats

"Slim Gilligan, the
cracksman."

"Exactly," said Holmes,
with a pleased expression.

"Our attention is not only
directed to Dowson and the Nonpareil Club, which now serves as the
Baron's headquarters, but we are clued in to the fact that Slim
Gilligan might provide a key to what the late Barker found."

My mouth was but half-open when
Homes antici
pated
me.

"I have already been to
Gilligan's Lock and Key
Shop
and he is not on the premises. The establishment is manned by a
friend of his, but I have reason to be
lieve
that Slim will get in touch with us in the immediate
future."

"Could the cracksman be
hiding out in fear of the
same
fate that befell Barker?"

"The possibility crossed my
mind. But Slim will ap
pear,
of that I am sure. Meanwhile, I have some, shall
we
say, staff work to do. We are in need of more information before
progressing further in this affair."

I had a few house calls to make
and was not loath to
leave
since I well knew that I could be of no assistance
at
this point in the case. Holmes encouraged me to continue my
medical practice in a somewhat limited manner. When I protested
that I was merely a part-time
practitioner,
he assured me that my calls on the habi
tues
of Mayfair frequently resulted in bits of gossip and
information
that were of considerable interest to him.
As
to whether he was completely sincere regarding this
I
could not say. Possibly he just wanted to make me feel useful or,
perhaps, my medical duties provided him with
breathing
space should he wish to work alone. During
my
absence on this day, I knew he would be following
his
usual procedure. The web that my friend had spun
spread
over London was sensitive to the slightest tug of an unusual
incident. Terminating at 221B Baker Street,
this
unofficial information machine had ears glued to
doors
and eyes to keyholes. Hansom drivers, shop
keepers,
and commissionaires vied with government ministers, industrial
tycoons and eminent attorneys in
feeding
information into this grist mill, which spewed
forth
information that Sherlock Holmes's retentive brain
devoured.
What type of relay system serviced this un
usual
mechanism I could not imagine, but little happened
among
the six million of the great city that my friend
was
not privy to in short order.

It was later than I had
anticipated when I returned to our chambers. The day had been clear
though cold and
the
fog of the previous evening had retreated to the
Thames.
As I looked at the warm lights that beckoned
the
homeward-bound I thought of Holmes's remark
years
before about a magical flight over the great city
and
the fact that if the roofs could be removed one
would
view a vast tapestry of love, hate, and passion,
along
with incidents that would make
The
Thousand and
One
Nights
of
Scheherazade seem like a child's primer
on
unusual events. The sleuth was a great believer that
man
was the most fascinating and unpredictable of all
the
creations in the universe and, considering our adventures
throughout the years, who was I to deny this
theory?

When I reentered our chambers, I
found my eccen
tric
friend pacing the floor of our sitting room and emit
ting
clouds of acrid smoke from the pipe he fancied
when
dealing with a baffling problem. His manner was
almost
abrupt as he indicated a single place set at the
table.

"I had Mrs. Hudson prepare a
sandwich for you, old friend, and there's stout to wash it down
with."

Realizing that Holmes was bent on
action, I swiftly
removed
my great coat and followed his instructions. As
I
devoured the roast beef sandwich, Holmes selected a
walking
stick from his collection, speaking all the time
to
fill me in.

"My investigations of the
afternoon have not been singularly productive, so we are forced to
abandon the realm of speculation in favor of frontal assault. I must
inform you that Lindquist died in his quarters at midday."

I half-choked on a mouthful of
stout. "Murdered?"

Holmes shook his head negatively.
"Considering his
condition,
it is amazing the man lasted as long as he
did.
However, as he pointed out, dedication is a spur
with
long rowels. This case is now a bequest. We must not fail."

"Good show, Holmes! Matter of
honor and all that."

"Then there's Barker to be
considered. From the
message
which he left for me, it is obvious that he
earned
the money Lindquist paid him. There can be no
doubt
that he uncovered a connection between Baron
Dowson
and the Golden Bird."

"Else why would he have
secured employment at the Nonpareil Club?" I agreed, disposing
of the last remnants of my sandwich.

Holmes paused to favor me with a
smile.

"Excellent, my dear Watson. I
note an improvement
in
your inferential thinking."

Imbued with this praise, I went
one step further.
"Since
Barker was investigating matters at the Nonpa
reil,
no doubt that is where you plan to launch your own inquiry."

"Exactly," replied
Holmes. "This point of embarcation
suggests a trump card in our favor." Noting my
look
of puzzlement, he hastened to explain; "It was in
1888
that our attention was directed to the atrocious
conduct
of Colonel Upwood and the card scandal at the
Nonpareil.
Surely you recall that the club was a haven
for
card sharps and others of larcenous intent. Since it
served
as a hideout for wanted men, there were en
trances
and exits not recorded in the original designer's
blueprints."

My mind flew back to this
notorious case, one of the
most
unusual in Holmes's career up to that point.

"Of course. The secret
entrance from the warehouse behind the club through which Victor
Lynch, the forger, attempted to make his escape."

"You are in rare form, ol'
fellow. Fortunately, you
never
chose to make that case history available to the
reading
public and the matter was not dealt with in de
tail
by the journals of that period. My thought is that
we
may be privy to information regarding the Nonpareil
Club
that Baron Dowson, its present owner, is not."

3

The
Battle at the Nonpareil Club

19

And so it was that we departed
shortly thereafter
from
Baker Street, looking for all the world like a cou
ple
of swagmen. Holmes had a bull's-eye lantern, an as
sortment
of first-class burglar tools in a valise, and his walking stick that
concealed the vicious blade of Toledo steel, which he was capable of
handling with such dex
terity.
The weight of my Smith-Webley was reassuring
in
my overcoat pocket. My intimate friend had a dis
taste
for firearms and I often contended that he had
been
born several centuries too late as regards lethal
weapons.
However, if called upon, he could be ex
tremely
accurate with a revolver of small recoil, as evidenced by his
occasional indoor target practice with his ridiculous single-shot
Continental "salon" piece.