41. THE CASE OF THE PRIEST’S GOLD

Holmes and Watson are asked to sort out a mini crime wave in a poor corner of town.

“The case that I’m about to embark on is quite sensitive, Watson,” Holmes said to me with that serious expression on his face that rarely bodes well.

“Many of them are,” I told him.

“This has to do with the Brough Street boys,” he said, quietly, no doubt afraid that Mrs Hudson might hear and pass it on in gossip.

“The Brough Street Boys? Who might they be?” I asked.

“Do you know Brough Street, Watson?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“I rather thought not. I doubt any of the residents of that dark corner of London Town could afford the services of a medical man such as yourself,” he said. “Most of the men down there have a hag for a wife, upwards of ten scruffy urchins to support and very little honest work with which to pay their way through life. Brough Street is the last port of call for many before the workhouse!”

“Sounds pretty dire,” I murmured.

“Dire it is! Well, Watson, Lestrade of Scotland Yard has called on my assistance. Apparently two contradictory things are happening at the same time. Firstly, there has been an increase in petty crime in the surrounding area. Small but valuable things have gone missing, items of jewellery treasured by fashionable ladies who are fortunate enough to live in magnificent Georgian homes but at the same time unfortunate enough to have Brough street as a near neighbour.”

“That thinking condemns all in an area to a common criminality, and is unworthy of you, Holmes,” I told him.

“I understand, Watson, and I’m sure that you’re right, but it would seem that a large group of boys, most of them of school age but repeating truants, are responsible. Some will cause a distraction whilst others do the thieving and everything seems to be orchestrated by a devious criminal mind.”

“I see. But you mentioned the sensitive nature of the case, and the antisocial behaviour of a group of vagabonds is hardly sensitive,” I said.

“So we come to the second element on Brough Street,” muttered Holmes. “There is a church at one end, built no doubt as an attempt to spread some sort of good word amongst the paupers of the area, and Lestrade is convinced that every boy who lives on that street attends that church regularly, though at irregular times, and that there must be a connection between the thieving and the faith! I can’t see it myself, unless the priest is some kind of perverse Fagin, delighting in profiting from the activities of wretchedly criminal boys.”

“But he’s a man of God, Holmes,” I protested.

“Then I feel he and his church need looking into,” decided Holmes. “I would like to think that as a man of God he is looking after the eternal souls of those boys, but it has crossed my mind that he may be more a man of the devil!”

“I can’t see that, Holmes,” I rumbled.

“Then let us put it to the test, Watson. I have booked a cab for ten o’clock and would be delighted if you accompanied me! Your foresight and trust in the basic good of priests might come in useful!”

And so it was that we found ourselves at St Dennis’s church in the region of Brough Street later that morning.

It was a most depressing area, back-to-back terraced dwellings, all so clustered together it was a miracle that there was even room for a family in any of them, yet the street was awash with youngsters, playing simple games with make-do equipment and exuding a sense of deprived semi-starvation and a general escape from the accepted norms of hygiene and cleanliness. I noticed with surprise that they were mostly girls and that someone, their mothers I presumed, had made some attempt at washing their tatty clothes, but to very little effect.

The road itself was unmade and our cabbie stopped at the end of it and called down to us, “this is far as I go, Mr Holmes. Old Ned can’t be expected to pull us on a surface so full of pot-holes as this.”

“That’s all right,” replied Holmes, and he jumped down. I followed him.

As luck would have it the church was at the end of Brough Street where we were standing, and Holmes, after requesting that the cabbie wait for us, walked purposefully into the building.

There was a hushed sense of people. We stood at the back of the main part of the, nave. At the front, or the other end, a cleric in his robes was surrounded by a group of boys, all looking up at him with rapt attention on their faces. In contrast to the white-robed cleric with his spotless vestments, they were scruffy urchins, but hushed as though learning some deep lesson.

“There’s gold,” said the man, beaming at them, “a precious metal created by the good Lord in the beginning, and useful to those who wish to join him in Heaven when their time is up. And we all know, don’t we, lads, just how temporary life on Earth can be. There can be few who haven’t witnessed a love-one pass away.”

One boy stuck a grubby hand up. “Sir, my dad were ‘anged but a month ago,” he said, proudly. “Is ‘e wiv the good lord?”

“Much depends on what he was hanged for, Davey” said the priest, “but hearken, my good fellows! A handful of gold is worth an eternity in Heaven and is measured against all the ill that we do when our time comes. Little Timmy just here, he managed to acquire a splendid gold pocket watch only last week, and when it was melted down it made the Lord enough pounds and shillings to teach little dark boys in Africa all about him...”

“What about that sovereign I … found?” chirped another boy.

“Ah, Freddy, that was special!” beamed the cleric, “and I’m sure that all the bibles it paid for are all on their way to the dark continent even as we speak. But listen. What do you boys know of diamonds?”

“They’re like glass,” suggested one squirt of a lad, “but they reckon as they’re harder...”

“You are so clever,” beamed the cleric, “but hush, my friends, I have just spotted that we have visitors standing at the back of the church! We mustn’t share our secrets with them now, must we?”

Holmes, having been detected, marched to the front of the nave.

“Have I heard right?” he demanded, “have I just heard a lesson in theft? Is it possible that a man of God is encouraging the waifs and strays of this parish to steal and rob? And there is so much that is wrong in the world, yet you are increasing the burden of wickedness manyfold!”

“Sir, this is my church,” rasped the priest, “and you are intruders! Please leave, or I will order one of my congregation here gathered to fetch a policeman!”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I advised him, “for the policeman might ask the opinions of Mr Sherlock Holmes, my friend and compatriot, and you will find it very difficult to gainsay his opinion!”

“Sherlock Holmes, you say?” stammered the other, “well, let me explain. I have a fund that is used for the education of the ignorant in far off lands. Bibles are bought and paid for, missionaries are sent, good souls willing to save the eternal spirits of the ignorant. And that fund is being added daily to by the diligence of these boys here.”

“Who rob and steal and are responsible for a major crime wave in this area?” barked Holmes, “and if it is wealth you are trying to gather, why not spend it on the very people who live in this parish? For I have seen evidence in the street outside this church of more need and hunger in this area than could possibly exist in much of Africa, where the people are generally happy and well!”

“But the dark people, the Africans, they need to be taught about God!” explained the priest in tones that suggested he might be preaching to an ignorant child. “They need bibles,” he added, as if it was an obvious truth.

“And your neighbours need sausages!” rapped Holmes. “I must inform your reverence that I intend to report what I have heard to Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard and he will send an army of policemen down here to examine every minute detail of your good works! Come, Watson, it is solved! The Priest is a Fagin as I suspected and the boys are deceived by carefully composed words!”

Then he stepped into the midst of the little gathering of ill-fragranced boys.

“Your criminal behaviour must stop,” he ordered, “for if you carry on like you are I fear there will be more hangings than this poor boy Davey’s father had to suffer, and you will never find your way to any Heaven I’ve ever heard of.”

And we left at that, leaving behind a confused rabble of confused boys. The cab was still waiting for us and we were soon on our way back to Baker Street.

“A very stupid priest,” I muttered to Holmes.

“Ah, Watson, but it’s the boys we should sympathise with. And I do, I really and truly do.”

© Peter Rogerson 08.09.17