FIFTY
Mrs Cartwright stepped out of the motor taxi and turned back to her son. ‘You stay there, boy. All right?’
She knew the driver had instructions to wait and take her back home. The extravagance of it was unbelievable. She couldn’t imagine how much this round trip was costing. Still, it had piqued her curiosity.
The cottage before her was decidedly modest. It was not at all the home that she had imagined, the house of a man who could lavish pounds on taxi fares. There was smoke coming from the chimney, the glow of light in the window, even though it wasn’t yet dark. But they could be gloomy, these old places. The door, she noted, could do with a lick of paint and nobody had blacked the doorstep in months.
She glanced back at Bert, who waved her on. She raised the knocker and let it drop and almost instantly came an imperious command. ‘Enter!’
The door was unlocked. She stepped into a room that smelled of tobacco, woodsmoke and mildew. It was piled high with boxes. There was a fire in the hearth, but her eyes were drawn to the chimneybreast where multiple pieces of paper had been thumb-tacked into the rough plaster. In some cases lengths of cotton had been stretched between the pieces of paper. Most of them had but one thing written on them. A person’s name.
‘Ah, Mrs Cartwright. How kind of you to come. Forgive me for not getting up.’
He was lying on a slightly raised wooden platform on the floor, just in front of the sofa. He was dressed in a red smoking jacket and loose-fitting trousers, with oriental-patterned slippers on his feet. Next to him was the paraphernalia for his pipe, a bottle of whisky, a bottle of tablets, several notebooks, a jar of pencils and several mounds of shavings where they had been sharpened. There was also a tottering stack of books that looked ready to collapse at any moment. ’I have to do this for several hours a day, so the doctor says. I have damaged my back, Mrs Cartwright. At a most inconvenient time.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it,’ she said, looking around at the stacks of boxes that held yet more books and magazines. It was likely where the smell of mildew was coming from.
‘Please make yourself at home. Did young Fredericks find you all right?’
‘Young Fredericks’, the cab driver, was sixty if he was a day. But that was younger than the man lying prone in front of her. He was clearly in some pain, as his features were drawn and every so often he winced. ‘I would offer you some tea or coffee, but . . .’
‘Shall I make some?’
‘Would you mind? My girl has been today, but that was some time ago. It’s all laid out.’
As she busied herself in the kitchen, which was simply one end of the main room, a step down, she said: ‘My Bert has told me about you, sir.’
‘And he has told me about you and your sterling work in the munitions factory.’
‘Has he?’
‘He has. Your Bert is a smart boy, you know. And better, keen as mustard. You must be very proud.’
She nodded. ‘I hope all this is over before he is of an age to serve.’ She hesitated. ‘Does that sound terribly unpatriotic?’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Not at all. Now, Bert has already been of assistance to me.’
‘With the Zeppelin? Full of it he was.’
‘The Zeppelin, indeed. Well, Mrs Cartwright, not to put too fine a point on it, I need him now. I need his wit, his passion and most of all I need his youth,’
Mrs Cartwright stopped what she was doing and walked back over to where he lay, so she could look him in the eye. ‘And what exactly do you mean by that, sir?’
She was no woman of the world, she knew, but she had heard of things that went on in London with young lads. And this man was a Londoner.
‘I mean, I need a strong back. Someone who can fetch my books from that shelf up there. Answer the telephone without taking an age to cross the room.’
She looked around the room. There was no telephone.
‘Which will be installed presently.’ He had pulled strings at Mycroft’s former department, trading shamelessly on old connections and the now-faint echoes of his success in the Von Bork case. It had worked. The Post Office’s six-month or longer wait for connection to an exchange had magically disappeared. The cost, however, remained astronomically high.
‘And someone,’ Holmes continued, ‘who can help me with that wall.’ He caught her confused expression. ‘It is a visualization of my methods. I find it helps these days. I need to add items to it ten, fifteen times an hour, often more. Even when I am up and about, it takes me some considerable time each day. Bert can read and write, I assume?’
‘Like a dream. He’ll be good enough for the Civil Service exam, mark my words. But—’
‘I am a detective, Mrs Cartwright. A retired detective who has been given the opportunity for one last hurrah. I shall be honest, I am used to having a companion, a sounding board. I find I miss that. Then there were my Irregulars. Also no longer available. Being a solitary detective is a lonely path, Mrs Cartwright. Of course, I will pay for his services.’
‘I haven’t said yes as yet,’ she retorted.
‘No. True. We can discuss that over the tea now the kettle has boiled. I can get references if you wish. From the police. There must be someone at Scotland Yard who remembers me. Sometimes Bert might have to stay over – there is a boxroom I can have made comfortable – or even travel. At other times, Fredericks can pick him up and deliver him home.’
Mrs Cartwright had returned to the kitchen to make the tea. ‘He’s at school,’ she said over her shoulder.
‘Ah. I can assure you, Mrs Cartwright, he will receive an education with me no school in the land can hope to match. But I will speak to his headmaster and ensure I cover any areas he might miss. But I hope to keep his absences to a minimum. I think after school and weekends might suffice.’
‘If I were to agree, when would you want him to start as your apprentice?’
Apprentice? Nobody had mentioned that word. But it would do as well as any other description. Bert Cartwright, Detective’s Apprentice. It had a ring to it. ‘Why right away, Mrs Cartwright. Right away. This very evening.’ He lowered his voice, revelling in the drama of the moment. ‘I believe there are lives at stake even as we speak.’