As we left the station and turned east, the fog seemed even thicker and dirtier than at Paddington, and with a shiver I turned my coat collar up and followed my companion through the greasy, swirling coils, which drifted like a sea about us. We had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile at a fairly brisk pace when Holmes indicated a narrow side street on the right. “The Cocked Hat is along that way,” said he. A little further on, we turned off left, down a lane that led to the river, where the dank, pungent smell of the waterside competed with the stench of the fog. Immediately ahead of us, revealed through brief rifts in the filthy veil, lay the great heaving breadth of the Thames. Close by the riverside, Holmes stopped before a low grey building on the right. Above the heavy oak door hung a grimy, weather-worn wooden sign, on which I could just make out seven faded yellow stars. Holmes pushed open the door and I followed him inside, glad to be out of the fog.
Inside The Seven Stars, several lamps were lit, and the brightness seemed at first almost dazzling after the gloomy murk outside, but even in here the reek of the foggy river seemed to fill one’s nostrils. A cheery fire was blazing away in a very large old fireplace, however, and we stood for a moment warming our hands before it. As we did so, two women emerged from a doorway behind the bar. The first was a broad, comfortable-looking middle-aged woman whom Holmes addressed as Mrs Prentice, and behind her was a slightly shorter young female of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. She was dark-featured and raven-haired, and was evidently the Spanish girl, Maria, of whom Holmes had spoken. They were wearing their hats and coats, and carrying baskets, and Mrs Prentice explained that they were on their way out to the market. Holmes introduced me as a professional colleague with whom he wished to discuss the case, which seemed to satisfy her, and it was evident from her manner that my companion had made a very favourable impression upon her the previous day, although her face fell when he informed her that he had as yet no news of her husband.
“We’ll get off now,” she said, peering out of the window at the murk outside. “It’s not going to get any better. We’ll not be more than forty minutes, Mr Holmes. I’ll lock the door so you won’t be bothered by customers while we’re out. If you do need to go out, you can use the spare key on the hook behind the bar.” A moment later, the two women had gone and we were alone.
“Having the place to ourselves makes things somewhat easier,” said Holmes in a brisk tone, as he took off his coat, then reached up and took down a brass candlestick from the mantelpiece. “This is the partner of the one that has disappeared,” said he. He lit a spill in the fire, then lit the candle with it. “I’m going to take a look downstairs in the cellar, to test the hypothesis I mentioned to you,” he continued. “You had best wait here, Watson, in case the women come back.”
I sat down on a chair by the fire, wondering what was in my friend’s mind. Perhaps, I conjectured, he considered it possible that the first candlestick had been used to illuminate something in the cellar, and had then been left down there. That certainly seemed more likely than that it had been used as a hiding place for something. I had very little time for reflection on the matter, however, for in less than two minutes Holmes had returned.
“It is as I thought,” said he. “The hypothesis is confirmed. Now,” he continued, as he snuffed out the candle and replaced it on the mantelpiece, “I have another task for you, Watson, if you would be so good. I shall look after things here, if you would kindly run along to the police station. Ask for Inspector Quirke, or whoever is in charge today, and give him my card, with the message that the matter is most urgent.” He took a visiting card from his pocket and scribbled something on the back, then handed it to me. A moment later, after he had given me directions, I was hurrying along the road, back the way we had come. The fog seemed particularly cold and unpleasant after the friendly warmth of the fireside, and I drew my muffler up over my nose and mouth. As I passed a brightly lit shop window, I turned Holmes’s card over, to see what he had written on the back, and read “New development in Prentice case. Come at once. S. H.”
At the police station, I handed the card to the officer on duty, who disappeared through a doorway with it, but returned a moment later and conducted me to Inspector Quirke’s room at the back of the building. There, a large uniformed police inspector was seated behind a desk; but it was the other occupant of the room who caught my attention, for, with a start of surprise, I recognized our old friend Inspector Athelney Jones of the detective division of Scotland Yard.
“Dr Watson!” said he, rising to his feet and shaking my hand. “I did not know you were still hunting with Mr Holmes! We heard that you had thrown yourself entirely into medical matters since your marriage.”
“So I have,” I returned, “but Holmes needed a companion today, and I was glad to be of assistance. I am to tell you that the matter is very urgent,” I added, sensing that Jones was about to enter upon a leisurely general discussion of life.
“I don’t doubt that,” interrupted Inspector Quirke, tapping Holmes’s card on the edge of his desk. “I must say, I have never once known Mr Holmes to waste anyone’s time. The difficulty, however, is that we have something of our own planned for this afternoon, and that, too, is very urgent. I wouldn’t want this Prentice business to interfere with the other. What do you think, Mr Jones?”
Jones considered the matter for a moment. “You understand exactly what you are to do this afternoon?” he asked his colleague at length.
“Perfectly.”
“Very well, then. What I propose is this: I shall go with Dr Watson and leave everything else to you. I should like to take one of your men – Constable Griffin, if you can spare him – but I think I shall ask him to follow us at a distance so as not to excite curiosity in the street. No doubt I shall get the matter sorted out in a few minutes and be back here before you leave, but if I am not, you go ahead as we agreed, and I shall see you later.”
A minute later, Inspector Jones and I were making our way through the fog to The Seven Stars, with a very large constable following some distance behind us, his footsteps a dull, muffled echo of our own. As we walked along, I told Jones all I knew of the matter, which was not very much, and he nodded his head sagely. “They believe hereabouts,” he remarked, “that Prentice has been on the straight and narrow for the last dozen years or more, but perhaps it’s not so. Perhaps he’s been deceiving them all along.”
Our knock at the pub door was answered by Holmes. He then lit the candle once more, and the three of us descended to the cellar. Even halfway down the cellar steps, it was much colder than upstairs, and in the cellar itself the icy cold seemed to rise up from the old flagstones and penetrate to one’s very bones. Holmes led us to a dark corner behind two very large barrels, where he lifted a tarpaulin sheet to reveal what he had discovered. With a thrill of horror, I saw it was the body of a man.
“Is it Prentice?” asked Jones, rubbing his chin.
“Yes,” said Holmes, “and here, I think, is the weapon that struck him down – which solves another little mystery.” He picked something up from the floor beside the body, and I saw it was the second brass candlestick. As he held it up, I could see that it was bent slightly out of shape and smeared with what looked like blood. “How long would you say he has been dead, Watson?”
“This is certainly the cause of death,” I said as I examined a savage wound on the side of his head, where the hair was darkly matted with blood. “His skull has been fractured. As to the time of death, I am no expert, but it is evident that rigor mortis has already begun to dissipate, so he must have been dead at least forty-eight hours, I should say, and probably longer, as the cold air in this cellar will have slowed the whole process down.”