The Three Locks by Bonnie MacBird (books for 8th graders .TXT) 📗

sat defeated on the sofa. He looked like a small child who had been deprived of his favourite toy. My patience was at an end. I flung a stack of unread newspapers at him.

‘Good God, man,’ I cried. ‘Go through these newspapers. Surely there will be something to inspire you there. See who has been murdered. Check the agony columns. I guarantee you that something will engage that great heaving brain of yours.’

He looked up at me with sad, resigned eyes. ‘It is unlikely, Watson. We have hit the bottom of the barrel. Our last two cases have gone nowhere but into the dung heap of sordid love affairs.’

‘Self-pity does not become you, Holmes. It’s the drugs. Pull yourself together, man.’ I snatched one of the newspapers off the top of the pile and took it to my usual chair. ‘I will find something if you will not!’

‘What did Chubb’s say about your box?’

‘The same as Mr Boobbyer.’

‘As I expected.’

‘Then why did you suggest them?’

‘A vain wish. I had hoped to avoid the one man I fear that you do, in fact, need.’

‘What do you mean? What man? Give me the name.’

‘You cannot visit him alone.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, give me his name. You are going nowhere in this state.’

‘He is … a somewhat shifty and malevolent character. In a rather forbidding area of town. No, Watson, out of the question.’

‘Now you have piqued my curiosity. What is he – some kind of criminal?’

Holmes sat up on the settee. A change came over his face as he savoured the idea. It took on the mien of an eager fox. ‘He is a dangerous man with peculiar habits. But if anyone can open your lock, it is he.’

‘Peculiar habits, you say? Pot, kettle, black!’

‘Pot, kettle, black?’

‘An expression from my childhood. You are the pot calling the kettle black. My mother read it somewhere and she used to … never mind.’ But the idea was a good one. Getting him outside and moving could not hurt. ‘Get dressed, Holmes. I want to go there now.’

Just then Mrs Hudson entered with a sandwich and a lemonade for Holmes. She set it down before him. ‘Gentlemen, you will get out of this house or I will have you out on your ears. Mr Holmes, you will eat this first. And drink this. I have run you a bath. And then you will go out with the good doctor while I tidy this rubbish. And I will brook no objections. Get going, young man. Now.’

Mrs Hudson and I stood side by side, staring at the present shipwreck of a human being who never ceased to surprise me with his infinite and extreme variation. To my surprise, Holmes stood up, and without a word did exactly what our landlady had commanded.

And indeed it was just as well that I did not go to see Mr Knut Lossop alone.

PART FIVE

THE TUMBLERS

‘From the point of view of the physicist, a theory of matter… ought to furnish a compass which, if followed will lead the observer further and further into previously unexplored regions.’

—J. J. Thomson

CHAPTER 23

The Story Collector

In just under an hour, Holmes – refreshed, perfectly groomed and impressive in his summer city suit of impeccable linen – emerged from Baker Street, looking as though he could easily stop en route to our next destination to take tea with the Queen or confront an errant MP in Whitehall. In fact, when not lounging about Baker Street in his dressing gown, this sober, conservative elegance was his natural presentation. The transformation was both rapid and profound, but I had to remind myself that I had seen it before, and regression could be swift. With my precious box stowed in a small satchel, I hailed a cab and we made our way to Hackney.

The address was hard to find even for Holmes, who had as clear an image of the London map in his head as I had of the human skeleton. At last we narrowed it down to one building. It was missing a number on the door, and there were no signs outside.

However, it was there, on the ground floor of an ancient Tudor construction of plaster and timber, on Durham Grove near a paint factory, that locksmith Knut Lossop ran his business. We entered the shop and squinted in the dim light. The windows were small, and a few candelabra provided the only illumination.

We had stepped back in time.

The proprietor emerged from the murk and in a moment we stood before the strange, gnome-like man. Lossop faced us in the flickering light over a long counter, on which were displayed a number of locks of varying sizes, shapes and levels of complexity. He was wizened, somewhere between forty and sixty years old, but lined and greasy, with long, thin blond hair plastered to his skull and draping limply down the back of his neck. An equally desultory moustache hung down by either side of moist pink lips, but in contrast to this lacklustre presentation, a pair of rheumy, pale blue eyes focused with pinpoint intensity on whatever they found.

At this particular moment, those eyes were riveted on Sherlock Holmes, who had just said something to him in a language I could not make out.

Lossop stood very still and chewed on one side of his moustache.

‘Have I got that right, Mr Lossop?’ asked Holmes.

‘Speak only English here,’ growled this pestiferous individual.

Holmes smiled. ‘I gather, then, that your name is your own choice. Knut is common enough – it means “lock” in Norwegian, Watson – but Lossop? That sounds like an anglicization of “låse opp” – which means “unlocked”. Therefore, a kind of self-advertisement in your choice of a pseudonym.’

‘No pseudonym. Is my real name,’ said the locksmith.

‘Holmes, you speak Norwegian?’ I asked.

Holmes frowned at me and nodded curtly. ‘As you wish, Mr Lossop. I am sure there is an interesting reason for your choice to remain anonymous. Though