Moriarty

At first glance, the room was unpromising. There was a bed, freshly made, and a closet, empty. Another door led into a bathroom with both a water closet and a gas-heated bath. The Bostonian certainly knew how to look after its guests and I could not help feeling envious, remembering my own shabby hotel. The wallpaper, curtains and furnishings were all of the highest quality. We began a search, opening the drawers, pulling up the mattress, even turning the pictures, but it was clear that once Jonathan Pilgrim had left, the room had been stripped and cleaned.

‘This is a waste of time,’ I said.

‘So it would seem. And yet … what have we here?’ As Jones spoke, he leafed through a pile of magazines that stood on an occasional table at the foot of the bed.

‘There is nothing,’ I said. ‘I’ve already looked.’

It was true. I had quickly thumbed through the magazines — The Century, The Atlantic Monthly, The North American Review. But it was not the publications that interested Jones. He had pulled out a small advertising card from one of them and showed it to me. I read:

POSITIVELY THE BEST HAIR TONIC

HORNER’S ‘LUXURIANT’

The world-renowned remedy for baldness, grey hair

and weak or thin moustaches.

Physicians and Analysts pronounce it to be perfectly safe

and devoid of any Metallic or other injurious Ingredients.

Manufactured only by Albert Horner

13 Chancery Lane, London E1.

‘Jonathan Pilgrim was not bald,’ I said. ‘He had a fine head of hair.’

Jones smiled. ‘You see but you do not observe. Look at the name — Horner. And the address: number thirteen!’

‘Horner 13!’ I exclaimed. They were the words we had found in the diary in Scotchy Lavelle’s desk.

‘Exactly. And if your agent was as capable as you suggest, it is quite possible that he left this here on purpose in the hope that it would be found. It would, of course, mean nothing to anyone cleaning the room.’

‘It means nothing to me either! What can a hair tonic possibly have to do with Clarence Devereux or with the murders at Bladeston House?’

‘We shall see. It seems that for once, and despite his best efforts, Lestrade has actually helped our investigation. It makes a change.’ Jones slipped the advertisement into his pocket. ‘We will say nothing of this, Chase. Agreed?’

‘Of course.’

We left the room, closing the door behind us, and made our way back downstairs.

TEN Horner’s of Chancery Lane

It was just as well that Horner’s advertised itself with a red and white barber’s pole for otherwise we might not have found it. To begin with, it wasn’t actually on Chancery Lane. There was a narrow, muddy thoroughfare that ran down to Staples Inn Garden with a haberdasher’s — Reilly & Son — and the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit Company on the corner and a little row of very shabby houses opposite. The barber shop occupied the front parlour of one of these with a sign above the door and a further advertisement in the window: Shaving 1d; haircut 2d. On one side was a tobacconist that had closed down. The house on the other side looked fairly abandoned too.

A hurdy-gurdy man was playing in the street, perched on a stool and wearing a ragged top hat and a worn-out, shapeless coat. He was not very accomplished. Indeed, had I been working in the vicinity, he would have driven me quite mad with the almost tuneless howling and tinkling of his instrument. The moment he saw us, he stood and called out: ‘Hair tonic in the ha’porths and pen’orths. Try Horner’s special hair tonic! Get your cut or your shave here!’ He was an odd fellow, very thin and unsteady on his feet. As we approached, he stopped playing and handed us a card from a satchel slung over his shoulder. It was identical to the one we had found at the Bostonian.

We entered the building and found ourselves in a small, uncomfortable room with a single barber’s chair facing a mirror so cracked and dusty that it barely showed any reflection at all. There were two shelves lined with bottles of Horner’s Luxuriant as well as other hair restorers and cantharides lotions. The floor hadn’t been swept and tufts of old hair were still strewn across it — as unsavoury a sight as one could wish to see, though not as bad as the soap bowl, a congealed mess which still carried the spiky fragments of men’s beards. I was already beginning to think that this was the last place in London I would wish to come for a haircut when the barber himself arrived.