"Why, to study the Chaldean language, my dear fellow." But the words were kindly spoken, not with the mocking sharpness of the last few weeks.
In a jolting restaurant carriage on the Great Western Railway I ventured to press for an explanation of our sudden departure. Even The Times had remained unread today.
"Come, Watson, surely with this excellent sole before us you can adopt Mr Auguste Didier's methods, even if mine remain unfathomable to you?"
"Isn't he that cook fellow at Plum's Club for Gentlemen who solved one or two cases?"
"Indeed he is I was curious enough to pay him a visit in `ninety-six after the remarkable affair at Plum's. I cannot approve all his methods, since he will have it that detection is not purely a science, whereas I maintain that it is entirely a process of logical deduction. He holds that cookery is akin to detection in the assembling of ingredients and their selection, and fashioning into a palatable dish requires a measure of creativity. I doubt if Mrs Hudson would agree. However, consider, Watson, the ingredients in the puzzle before us."
"The letter, the Baroness – "
"And other bidders, Watson. That is deduction, not creativity. We may also deduce that the Baroness would assume that this affair is too important for my services not to be called upon. It follows, if the Baroness acknowledges this, then so do the other bidders. I have been an ass, Watson." His bantering tone returned to its former anxiety.
"I assumed," he continued, "that the message which sent us scurrying so precipitately to Cornwall was from the Baroness. It was not. It was placed in order to throw me off the scent, no doubt by another bidder, and it succeeded."
"But nothing has appeared in The Times."
Holmes replied sombrely: "How do we know the summons will be in The Times? The original instruction stated merely the daily newspapers. Fortunately Mrs Hudson is under instructions to throw nothing away in any circumstances. Let us trust that two months' supply of the London newspapers from the Daily Graphic to the Financial Times awaits us in Baker Street. By God, Watson, if I have thrown our chance away -' He broke off, rare emotion consuming him.
"Who might such a bidder be?" I asked quietly.
"You will recall the matter of the Bruce Partington Plans in `ninety-five; Mycroft informed me there were few who would handle so important an affair. The only contenders worth considering were Adolph Meyer, Louis La Rothière and Hugo Oberstein. The villainous Oberstein now resides in prison, and thus we are left with La Rothière and Adolph Meyer."
"Meyer must surely be our man," I exclaimed.
"For once I agree, Watson. He still resides in London at 13 Great George Street, Westminster. La Rothière has been known to me for some years, and I believe we may dismiss him. I have made it my business, however, since 'ninety-five, to find out what I can of Adolph Meyer. The gentleman is plump, portly, a friendly soul, with a passion for music though his execrable taste runs more to Mr John Philip Sousa than to the classical. He favours the tuba, not the violin. Inside that affable shell, however, beats the heart of as evil a man as ever lived. He is unofficial agent to the Baron von Holbach. The name means nothing to you, Watson? I am hardly surprised. He does not seek the limelight, but his Machiavellian hand was behind Bismarck's dismissal, the Kruger telegram, and countless other intrigues. He has the ear of the Kaiser, whereas the Chancellor himself remains unheard. He is no friend to England, and Meyer is his tool. Watson, if I could choose my enemy, send me one that wears the face of evil."
"And you are convinced he is involved in this affair?"
"Yes. He now knows me well enough to fear my powers though how can I call them powers when my wits have deserted me? Two months in Cornwall, and the Empire at risk!"
He remained plunged in gloom until the train steamed into Paddington station. I shall long remember his long figure hunched at my side as if to spur the cab the faster to Baker Street. On entering the familiar rooms, he did not even wait to remove his ulster (for although it was May, the cool night air had been chilly) and despite the late hour plunged towards the tidy but huge piles of newspaper carefully stacked by Mrs Hudson.
Seldom have I felt more useless. No sooner had I read and absolved a newspaper of containing anything to do with our current problem than Holmes would seize it from me to ensure
I had missed nothing. After three hours I could endure no more and retreated to my bed for what remained of the night. I left
Holmes surrounded by newspapers, now in untidy heaps all around him, and occasionally scribbling a note on a pad. When I awoke in the morning, he was still where I had last seen him, red-eyed but still alert.
"I have it, Watson." He pushed the pad towards me.
I stared at his work in horror. It consisted merely of childish doodles; circles, squares, dots, crosses, and pin men and women. "Holmes, my dear fellow, what is this?"
"Hah!" he cried, as he saw the expression on my face. "You believe I have over-indulged in the syringe! No, my dear fellow.
See, this may be the saving of us." He thrust a copy of the Daily Mail before my eyes, stabbing with his finger at a message on the front page personal column. The issue was dated 9 March.
"The circle contains a stop," I read. "A cipher, Holmes?" I tried once more.
"You think of nothing save cryptograms, Watson. No, no, this explains why we may yet be in time. There is nothing more until the messages resumed early this month." He placed a second sheet before me.
"Turpin has a dog," I read. Against it, in Holmes's neat handwriting, was written: "issue of 6 May." Underneath were
more senseless jumbles of words. "Cupid strikes the right fox
four times"; that was the issue of Monday, the 10th. Thursday the 13th bore the legend: "The smiling cook bears a cross".
Friday the 14th: "The pinman and the pageboy take nine paces", and yesterday's, the 18th, the day of our return: "The circle has a cross."
"Surely you are mistaken, Holmes? I have passed over many such messages in the personal columns. Why pick upon these?"
"My dear fellow, have you no eyes?" He thrust under my nose the sheet of doodles to which I have already referred. "We
await only the time of our rendezvous. The date we have."
He paced the room in a state of combined exhilaration and disquiet, ignoring my request for further enlightenment. "Thank God we are in time."
"You speak in riddles, Holmes."
"Cannot you see," one finger impatiently jabbed at the doodles. "Well, well, perhaps you cannot. Argot, my dear Watson,
is a language even more worth studying than the Chaldean, and of more practical use. Consider what profession our Baroness follows."
"Lady-in-waiting?"
"Burglar, Watson. She has joined the underworld, what more natural than that she should amuse herself with burglar's argot? How often have you passed a garden fence with such childish scrawls chalked upon it? Frequently no doubt, and thought nothing of it. Yet such scrawls are the living language of two groups of outsiders in our world, burglars and tramps. Each has their own code – yes, Watson, your code at last, but these marks are the code of the illiterate. Since prehistoric times, drawings in simple form have portrayed messages left for those that come after. A burglar or a tramp goes about his trade with the same dedication as Mr Didier for his. Where the latter collects ingredients, our lawless and vagrant friends deal in information: which servants have been squared, for example."
"Ah! The cook bears a cross."
"You excel yourself,Watson," Holmes murmured. "Similarly they convey how many live in the house, whether there are dogs, how many servants, the best means of access; tramps have a similar code, more concerned with what their brethren might expect from the house. Here before us is all we need to know."