Sherlock Holmes: Before Baker Street by David Marcum (books to read to be successful TXT) 📗

The men dropped Madame Withers to the floor and she gasped frantically for air. The two brutes standing began to advance on Holmes, who raised his fists. He had been a champion in the school boxing ring. It appeared he would discover how well that translated into the real world. Just as the blows were about to begin, there was a ringing behind Holmes, and then all around him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see some of the room doors were ajar. The other guests were yanking on the service bells in their rooms.

“With enough witnesses, it won’t matter if the police actually catch you here.” Holmes spat through gritted teeth. The thugs silently consulted each other and then let their fists drop. They heaved their injured partner up between them and moved for the stairs. Holmes watched them until they were out of sight.

“May I call upon the ladies of this floor to tend to this stricken woman?” Holmes called out.

“That is really unnecessary,” Madame Withers objected as she was corralled back into her room by half-a-dozen clucking hens. A contingent of hotel staff arrived on the lift.

“What’s all this then?” the manager cried.

“The woman in 307 has been grievously attacked in your premises,” Holmes declared. “Is it your custom to allow blackguards to roam your halls, assaulting your guests?”

“Of course not, sir. We are most apologetic.”

“Then I trust you will see Madame Withers to hospital and pay for her to stay there until she is completely recovered?”

“Of course it was Madame Withers,” the man sighed. “Such a strange woman!”

“Strange or not, you’ll have the police guard her hospital room until she is discharged? If not, perhaps my friend at The Times can whisper in the right ears.”

“I assure you that won’t be necessary, sir. We will ensure she receives the best of treatment. And there will be no charge for your accommodation here as well, Mister . . . ?”

“Oh, I’m not staying here. Just look at the kind of clientele you court.”

“Then why were you here at all?” the man asked as Holmes disappeared down the stairs and out into the London night. On the way home, he stopped by the telegraph office to express to the hospital Mr. Withers’ deep concern for his wife’s well-being, and his desire for her to be observed around the clock for as long as was needed for her complete recovery, no expense to be spared. With her husband’s orders and the Hotel liable for the bill, no hospital would release such a plum for at least a week. Holmes paid for the telegram from the wallet he had lifted from one of the ruffians as they passed in the hallway. Flipping through, he saw that this little adventure would keep him in shag and spirits for a month, and it wasn’t over yet.

The next evening, Holmes visited the grave again. It was made for a recently deceased Bryan Laramie, according to the inscription, a beloved brother now resting in the peace of the Lord. Holmes stomped upon the grave as he had seen Madame Withers do. The bell gave a tentative half ring. As Holmes moved forward to inspect it, something shiny on the ground caught his attention. He stooped over it and was surprised to find a glass aperture looking down a tube to a human eye, which after a moment jerked away to the side.

“Halloa?” Holmes called. “Should I alert the caretaker, or do you mean to be down there?” The only response was silence. Holmes dug around the glass with his fingers and found it attached to a brass tube, almost as if someone had buried a telescope vertically and left one end just barely exposed. He next examined the bell, hung from a curved metal stake with a cord running down into another tube in the ground. It was akin to hundreds of service bells he had seen before, with the exception of beckoning for assistance to a very unusual place. What stood out was the odor emanating from the tube. It was rank and all too human, but not that of rotting flesh. No, only a living being produced this smell. The occupant of that box was trapped in his own filth, and assuming he was buried within a few days of the death date on this headstone, he had been for almost a week.

“What are you doing there?” came a raspy voice from behind.

Holmes turned to see a stooped man tottering on stiff legs behind him.

“I thought I heard this bell ring, and then I saw an eye in this porthole.”

The gravedigger wheezed and slapped his knee. “People see all sorts of ghosts and hobgoblins and what-not out here. Unsettles the mind to walk amongst all this death.”

Holmes looked at the strange man and silently agreed.

“Take my word for it, there’s nothing to it. A breeze tinkled the bell and your imagination put an eye at the other end of that pipe. I’ve dug up more than a handful of these safety coffins, and the result is always the same: Gruesome and sad. Was he kin to you?”

“No, I am putting my own affairs in order and looking for a likely plot for my eternal rest. I’ve never seen one of these contraptions put in place. Were you there when it was buried?”

“Dug the hole myself and filled it up too.”

“The body was unquestionably dead the whole time?”

“I don’t open any coffins I don’t have to, but he weren’t objecting, if that’s what you mean. Nice and quiet, like they all are.”

“The pipes come out I presume? I don’t see any others.”

“Normally I give them about a week. Long enough they are dead, one way or the other, and the family’s mind is at ease on the matter, but soon