27. THE CASE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Sometimes even great detectives go to church....

“Today, Watson, it’s Sunday and we’re going to church,” said Holmes as he munched on a kipper for breakfast.

You could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather. I have never heard Sherlock voluntarily opt to go to an ordinary Sunday church service in all the years that I’ve known him.

“Why the sudden turn to faith?” I asked, befuddled.

“This is more a case than the need for divine worship,” he replied, his mouth almost twitching, “but the rector called yesterday and convinced me that it might be worth looking into the disappearance of moneys from the weekly offertory plate at his church.”

“Why, Holmes, I should think it’s only a matter of pennies if that much, and your charges are certainly a lot more than that!” I told him.

“Be that as it may, Watson, I have decided to investigate. The money raised weekly at St Gerald’s will eventually pay for essential repairs to the church roof, which has been leaking since time immemorial, if we are to believe the good reverend. That is a worthy enough cause whether you believe in their faith or not, and remember, a crime is still a crime whether it concerns pennies or millions!”

“True enough, Holmes, but surely it won’t be worth the church employing the leading criminal investigator in the whole of England when the sums involved are merely trifling.”

“Watson, I have agreed,” he said curtly.

At the appropriate time of the morning we were to be seen walking down Baker Street in our Sunday coats, the air being a little chilly still, and rain threatening.

“If the bounder is allowed to get away with coins from the offertory plate now, he may well hone his skills until he is robbing the lead from the roof and eventually the crown from the monarch’s head,” explained Holmes as we strode along. “He must be stopped at all costs!”

“If you say so, Holmes,” I replied shortly, his walking speed stretching my older bones until I was almost gasping for air.

The church was a draughty old stone building and none too warm. We are blessed to live in a Christian country of men and women scared for their immortal souls, and as we sat there at the back, inconspicuous, it slowly filled up until there was a muted hum of different conversations all in whispered and sombre tones. At the front, in their stalls, the choir shuffled. Most of the choristers were boys of school age, though there were a few gnarled older men in their white surplices standing, bored and eager to stretch their vocal chords.

The rector started the service, and we sung to our hearts content and then proceeded to pray as though the words we parroted might actually be listened to by a mighty deity, though I was sure that wasn’t the case. After a man has experienced what I have experienced, man’s inhumanity to both his own species and others, it becomes ever more difficult to contemplate the reality of a loving god and his precious ways.

Finally came the time for the plates to be circulated whilst a hymn was being sung, and it was then that I discovered that my estimation of the cash sum involved was way out. Even the odd five pound note found its way into the plate, weighed down by half sovereigns and crowns until the plate, when it reached us, was full to overflowing.

“This is no beggar’s meal-ticket,” I whispered to Holmes as those around us all sang to their heats content.

“There are many pounds in each plate,” he acknowledged, also in a whisper, “and it seems to me there is more money circulating in this congregation than I would have thought possible.”

I nodded. Looking around me there were a considerable number of men and women dressed almost raggedly, and bearing in mind the tendency of people to wear their finest apparel for church I was surprised they could afford farthings let alone half crowns.

The offertory plate passed along our row and then, we being at the back and it having nowhere else to go, was collected by the verger and carried along to an anteroom, as were two or three others, where the coin and notes were supposed to be counted and offered somehow to the Christian god in return for goodness and light and maybe a leak-proof roof.

“That fellow. I know him!” hissed Holmes indicating one of the men responsible for the plates.

The man he was pointing at had a sallow complexion and a haunted expression.

“You do?” I hissed back at him.

“I had the good fortune of apprehending him some years back,” replied Holmes quietly, “and he was taken before the magistrate before being ordered to spend some time at Her Majesty’s pleasure! The man’s a scoundrel if there ever was one! And look: see who’s following him!”

As I watched I saw a woman in a thick and heavy overcoat leave her seat and make as though she was leaving the church by its main entrance, glancing coolly about her and nodding apologies to any she disturbed as though she was responding to a call of nature, only at the last moment she veered away and darted behind a curtain, out of sight.

“There’s something wrong there,” muttered Holmes. “The man’s a crooked villain, and I doubt she’s much better.”

“But they may have seen the light,” I suggested. “After all, this is a house of God.”

“The man’s never caught the least glimpse of any light, not in all his days, the blackguard, and I doubt that she has either!” snapped Holmes. “Come, Watson, let’s see what is afoot.”

He led the way and we sidled along the back row of pews until we were at the entrance to the very room where the man had taken his plate, one of those overflowing with riches. Holmes boldly pushed the door open and burst in, me just behind him.

And only just in time! The sallow man was busy cradling coin and a couple of notes in a huge fist and pushing the whole lot deep into a pocket hidden in the woman’s bulky coat.

“So that’s where it goes!” snapped Holmes. “The good people here make a gift to the Heavens, freely and for the good of their eternal lives, and you steal it from them like the thief you always were, Cardew!”

“Who’re you?” screeched the woman, fear dimming her eyes as she saw there were two of us, and no easy escape for the two of them.

“It’s that blasted nark, Sherlock Holmes!” gasped the man called Cardew.

“And I see you’ve not changed your ways,” said Holmes, “you prove the old adage, once a thief, always a thief! What do you think you’re doing with that money? Eh? Isn’t it a gift by the good people hereabouts to the Lord, and aren’t you putting the whole of your afterlife at risk, condemning yourselves to a good roasting in satanic fires while the rest of us sit on gentle fluffy clouds and sing our praises to the Almighty?”

“Bah! What good are clouds and fluffy singing to us when we can’t afford a crust to fill our bellies here on Earth?” whined the thief Cardew. “Where’s Christian kindness when it comes to feeding me and my misses and our bairns? And what good’s a few repairs to a church roof when those as might come and worship here are being buried, their kids dead of starvation?”

“You have a point,” replied Holmes to my surprise, “and I have a gift for you, Cardew, take it or leave it. I know a builder who will take you on and pay you some wages, and set you on fixing this church’s leaking roof, and I happen to know you were in that trade once upon a time, and in return you will return the moneys you’ve stolen, all of them from over the months, shame on you, and also not return to this place or any like it, for the remainder of your days, unless it’s to say prayers and chant your psalms.”

“Little Bobby’s got the croup,” whispered the woman, and I could tell, from the little experience I have of such things, that her expression was a troubled mixture of fear and worry and past heartbreaks.

“Pass the money!” ordered Holmes, and they had no choice. If they were taken back before the magistrate Cardew would doubtless be sentenced to a great deal of hard labour, and if that were to happen, what would become of the woman? And her children? So the money, all of it, was replaced into the plate and passed to Holmes.

“You’ve had a nice little game going here,” he said. “Now you must pay the price. But the good book they talk about mentions in its pages a good Samaritan, so let’s see how good he can be.”

He then handed, from the plate, a silver half-crown, to Cardew and said, “take this, and spend it wisely. I’ll know that you do, for I have eyes everywhere as you well know. And turn up tomorrow at eight to Johnson the Builder. Tell him that Sherlock Holmes sent you and he will know what to do. He’ll set you on and pay you. It will be hard work and long hours, but you will gain strength from it and at the end of every week you will have more than enough to heal Bobby’s croup.”

“Thatnk you, Mr ‘Olmes,” gasped Cardew.

“And thank you, Mister,” echoed his wife, “and the Lord praise you for your m’nificence,” she added.

And she bowed far too many times as the two of them made their way past us, into the body of the church and out into the big world outside.

“The good Samaritan, Holmes?” I said, and laughed quietly to myself as we returned to Baker Street.

© Peter Rogerson 16.08.17