The Disappearance of Daniel Question
by Barrie
Roberts
GO BACK TO SHORT STORIES
PAGEEarly this summer I went down
to Sussex, as I do often nowadays, to pass a few days
with my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes and to blow the sooty
air of London out of my lungs. He greeted me in typical
fashion. "Watson!" he exclaimed, "I do believe that you
have added a full six pounds since you were last
here."
"I had thought it more like three or
four," I said. "I see that you are still well," for he
was as upright as ever, had added no weight, and his
hair was only slightly touched with silver.
He
laughed. "The product of my little makers of sweetness
will see me through a good few years yet."
That
evening, after Martha, Holmes' housekeeper, had gone,
Holmes and I settled on either side of the fireplace in
his study, a room not dissimilar in its untidiness to
our old sitting room at Baker Street. Here were the old
brass coal-scuttle, the Persian slipper filled with
tobacco, other old friends including the shelves of
Holmes' invaluable scrapbooks, and there was still a
table littered with his chemical apparatus, though I
have no doubt it is now devoted to the mysteries of
apiculture rather than the defining of poisonous
alkaloids.
I noted with pleasure a faded,
well-worn copy of the Strand Magazine upon his desk and
mentioned it. "I see," I remarked, "that you continue to
read my accounts of your enquiries."
He finished
filling his pipe and got it well alight before he
replied. "So I do," he said. "I have been looking at
your version of the Thor Bridge case. It seems to me
that you were a little premature in describing the
Phillimore affair as unsolved."
"But it was!" I
protested. "You told me so, shortly before you left
Baker Street."
"So I did, Watson, and perhaps I
have been too hard on you. Nevertheless, I now
have a
theory of the case which, unless I have slipped into my
dotage, meets the facts. A very little research will, I
trust, clarify the small points which remain unclear.
What do you recall of the matter, Watson?"
"Very
little after two decades," I admitted. "It is certainly
in my records but, believing that I should never be able
to write it up for publication, I have not reviewed my
notes."
"Make a long arm, if you will," said
Holmes, "and pass me the second P volume on the shelf
over there."
I reached for one of his scrapbooks
and passed it across to him. He thumbed its pages for a
few moments, then began to read from a
news-cutting.
"Here we are, Watson, from July of
1903: 'The City of London is still disturbed by the
disappearance five days ago of Mr. James Phillimore, the
proprietor of Phillimore's Commercial Bank. It will be
recalled from our earlier accounts that Mr. Phillimore
set out from his home, in company with his mother, at
about 11 o'clock last Wednesday. Turning back on some
trivial pretext, he . . .'"
My mind raced back
twenty years to 1903. The previous summer Holmes had
announced his intention to retire and I had left Baker
Street. I had a sufficient income from my pen to meet my
modest needs but I missed the stimulus of the footfall
on the stair that had, so often, taken Holmes and I on
the path of adventure, mystery, and danger. Accordingly,
I lost no opportunity of visiting our old lodgings and,
indeed, accompanied my friend on many of his last
enquiries.
So it was that I was at Baker Street
when Mrs. Hudson announced Mrs. Honoria Phillimore. Our
visitor was a lady in late middle age, dressed in pale
grey linen, with a veiled hat. Holmes settled her in the
basket chair and once the veil was lifted, I could see
that her eyes were red-rimmed from weeping and her
features pale and drawn with some great
sorrow.
"Mr. Holmes," she began, "Mr. Gregson at
Scotland Yard gave me your name and suggested that you
might succeed where the police have failed."
"It
has been known to happen," said Holmes. "I imagine that
you wish me to trace your missing son?"
She
started. "You know?" she said.
"It would be
difficult not to connect your name and your evident
distress with the press reports of the missing banker.
The papers are not, however, unanimous in their details
of his disappearance. Perhaps it would assist if you
were to give me the facts as you know them."
She
drew a deep breath and began. "It was last Wednesday,"
she said. "James-my son-had agreed to accompany me to a
charitable sale for the Indian Missions and had stayed
away from the Bank. We had planned on leaving our home
in Welton Square at about half past eleven, intending to
arrive at the event at noon. Peter, our chauffeur, was
to take us in the motorcar. He brought the car to the
front of the house and James and I stepped out of the
front door. Peter was climbing from his seat to open the
door of the vehicle when the crossing-sweeper
forestalled him."
"Who was left in the house?"
asked Holmes.
"Only the servants, Mr.
Holmes."
"Your home has steps from the front door
to the pavement."
"Yes, Mr. Holmes. James and I
were on the steps when he said something about fetching
an umbrella and made his way back to the
house."
"Was it raining, Mrs.
Phillimore?"
"No, Mr. Holmes. It was a bright
clear day with a blue sky. I found James' remark
incomprehensible and I thought that I might have
misheard him."
"He returned to the house. What
did you do?" Holmes lay back in his chair with his eyes
nearly closed.
"I continued down the steps to the
motorcar. The crossing-sweeper held open the door for me
and Peter had returned to his seat. I gave the
crossing-sweeper a small coin, took my seat and waited
for my son."
She paused, then continued. "After
some time, I told Peter to see what was delaying my son.
He returned to say that my son was not in the house and
that none of the servants had seen him." Her face began
to crumple and tears sprang to her eyes. "From that
moment, Mr. Holmes, there has been no sign of James-no
sign at all."
I was at the gasogene in a moment
and was soon pressing a brandy into her hand. When she
had taken it and composed herself Holmes leaned forward.
"I am familiar with Welton Square," he said, "but I
shall be grateful if you will describe the front of your
home."
"It is similar to all the houses in the
Square," she said. "It has a coach-house to the left,
which we now use for the motorcar. To the right of the
coach-house entrance, in a railed area, are the steps to
the servants' quarters. Then there is the front door,
which opens onto a pillared porch and the top of a
flight of steps leading to the pavement. At the right of
the house is a wrought-iron gate which leads to the
garden."
"And your son did not use the
coach-house area or garden entrances?"
She shook
her head. "No, Mr. Holmes. I was beside him on the steps
when he turned and went up to the front door. Besides,
the garden gate is kept locked unless the gardener or
his boy is about and they were away."
"Tell me
about your son," said Holmes.
"My late husband
was the grandson of the founder of the Bank. I married
him in 1865. James, our only child, was born in the
following year. He was educated at Chorling College in
Sussex and it was always intended that he should follow
in his father's footsteps. He left school at eighteen
and spent a year with the Bank before he and my husband
fell out."
"Over what matter?" enquired
Holmes.
"I am not really sure," she said. "I know
that my husband complained that James had become
inattentive to his work. I attributed that to a
misfortune which befell his best friend at College. The
lad's family fell into financial difficulties, and James
was very upset for his friend."
"And was their
dispute a serious one?"
"It became very serious,
Mr. Holmes. One night I heard them in my husband's
study. Their voices were raised in extreme anger. The
next morning my husband told me that he had given James
an ultimatum; he had told him that he must either sever
himself from the Bank and from the household, or accept
his father's order that he should work in the
continental offices of Phillimore's until he was
summoned home."
"Then their dispute must indeed
have been a grave one," said Holmes.
"I was
horrified at my husband's proposal, Mr. Holmes. I could
not imagine what James had done to so provoke his
father. I asked the cause of my husband's decision but
he merely said that the Bank had lent a large sum of
money against a customer's word and had not been repaid.
To prevent a loss to the Bank, he had proposed
liquidating the customer's company. James, it seemed,
had striven to prevent him, for what my husband called
sentimental reasons."
"Sentimental reasons,"
mused Holmes. "Was there a young lady
involved?"
"Not so far as I could determine, Mr.
Holmes. My son had no deep attachment at the time. But
do you believe his disappearance may be connected with
his difference with his father? It was eighteen years
ago."
"I do not know, Mrs. Phillimore. I merely
collect all the available data and attempt to unravel
the pattern which it forms. What did James
do?"
"He bowed to his father's order, albeit with
a poor grace. He went abroad and continued working for
the Bank. It seemed to satisfy my husband. The reports
of James' work were favourable. He wrote to me regularly
and, in a little while, I think he began to enjoy his
situation. I only wished that he might come home
occasionally, but my husband was adamant. He said that
it had always been his intention that James should learn
the work of the continental offices thoroughly in any
event. He said that when he believed James was
completely versed in the Bank's foreign affairs, he
would call him home. My husband was not a cruel man, Mr.
Holmes, but he would brook no interference."
"How
long was it before Mr. Phillimore brought him back?"
asked Holmes.
"He never did, Mr. Holmes. When he
was stricken with his final illness I wired to James-he
was at the Rome office at that time-to return
immediately, but he had taken leave and gone to Naples.
I wired him at Naples and, eventually, he replied. My
poor son travelled day and night to reach his father's
bedside and be reconciled with him, but it was not to
be-he was just too late."
"So your son inherited
the Bank and took up his father's
position?"
"Yes, Mr. Holmes. James was a changed
man. I say man-perhaps I should say that he had grown
from a headstrong boy into a thoughtful and able young
man. He has applied himself to the business, I am told,
with great experience and acumen and has made the Bank
into one of the foremost concerns of its kind. If I have
a complaint it is that he works too much and is
sometimes forgetful in small matters. That is why I was
the more pleased that he had agreed to accompany me last
Wednesday."
We accompanied Mrs. Phillimore to
Welton Square, a quiet area lined with prosperous houses
such as she had described. Holmes questioned each of the
servants, but learned nothing. He examined every inch of
the garden, lens in hand, swooping, plunging, and
peering like some great dark bird seeking its prey under
the shrubs. He examined with great care the lock of the
gate in the rear wall of the garden.
As we took
our leave of Mrs. Phillimore, Holmes asked, "Were there
any persons in the Square apart from yourself, your
chauffeur, and the crossing-sweeper when your son
disappeared?"
"No," she said.
"Can you
describe the sweeper?"
She thought for a moment.
"He is a tall heavily bearded man and walks with a
stoop. I believe that he is some kind of native, for he
wears a religious mark on his forehead."
"What
manner of mark, Mrs. Phillimore?"
"A small mark
like a hand. It seems to be scarred, as though it had
been burned on. It is quite unpleasant."
"And can
you recognise his accent?"
"He never speaks, Mr.
Holmes. I believe him to be dumb."
"Is your son
familiar with the crossing-sweeper?"
"I doubt
it," she said. "The sweeper tends to arrive after my son
has left for the Bank."
As we left the house, a
police constable appeared around a corner of the Square.
Holmes approached him and introduced
himself.
"The crossing-sweeper," mused the
constable in response to Holmes' question. "They call
him Dumb Danny because he can't talk. He's been sweeping
hereabouts for a year or so. But you won't find him, Mr.
Holmes. He lives in the Mission at Wharton's Row in the
East, but the Yard went looking for him there and he's
gone."
Holmes sat silent in our cab after
directing the cabbie to Wharton's Row. At last I asked,
"Why are you so interested in the crossing-sweeper,
Holmes?"
"Because," he said, "James Phillimore
left his home voluntarily and abruptly."
"How can
you be sure?"
"The only way out, apart from the
three front exits, was through the garden. There is no
leaf disturbed, no branch broken, no twig out of place,
Watson. The weather has been clear and dry since the
disappearance, but there are no signs of a struggle,
such as would remain if an unwilling adult was forced
across the garden."
"Were there no footmarks?" I
asked.
"The mark of a man's left boot was
impressed into the path beside the rear door of the
garden," he said. "On the lock was a mark where the
right foot had rested. Someone had must have clambered
over the locked door into the lane behind. Who else but
the missing banker?"
"And you believe that the
crossing-sweeper was involved?"
"I have warned
you before, Watson, that coincidence is the ready
servant of the lazy mind."
"Coincidence?" I
said.
"Only four people were in Welton Square
that morning, Watson. Two of them have
disappeared."
"But what would be the cause?" I
asked.
"If I am right in my surmises," he said,
"we are in very dark waters indeed, Watson." But he
would vouchsafe me no further comment or
explanation.
Continued...GO BACK TO SHORT STORIES
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