Part One can be read here:
The Scrapbook of Sherlock Holmes, 5/6: The Wolf Man of Mayfair. Part 1 of 2
It was fortunate for us that George lived only a few minutes’ brisk trot away in Chagsford Sreet, a little alley of shabby two-storey houses inhabited mostly by the shopkeepers from Baker Street. Originally from Freetown in the colony of Sierra Leone, George had fortuitously arrived in London some ten years previously and found it to his liking. Now he, his wife, three children and his elderly mother were packed into four rooms, supported by George’s work as an interpreter for half a dozen West African languages.
We pelted up to the front door, Lestrade’s boots studded with Blakey’s shoe protectors striking sparks from the granite cobbles, and desperately plied the knocker. By good fortune it was George himself who answered the door with a smile that broadened into a grin when he saw Lestrade panting behind us.
Holmes proceeded on the doorstep without niceties. ‘George, we need your help urgently. A child has been kidnapped, and we have every reason to believe that he will be killed for muti medicine. Can you suggest to us where they might have taken him?’
George turned as pale as his mahogany complexion would allow. ‘Mama, kam ya kwik kwik wan!’ he shouted, and a moment later his mother bustled through from the back of the house. They engaged in an animated conversation of which we could not follow a word, but two minutes later George reported, ‘There is a shop in St Marychurch Street in Rotherhithe where they sell herbs for muti, and my mother says that for extra payment they have stronger things under the counter. It is the only place of the kind she knows.’
‘Then let us go there with the utmost speed,’ replied Holmes, with a courteous smile and nod to the old lady. ‘George, I hope you will accompany us. We may need your skill.’
‘With all my heart,’ replied George. ‘If you are correct this could disgrace my people, and we must do our utmost to halt it in its tracks.’
Pausing only for Lestrade to send a telegram from the post office in Baker Street, we were soon on the Hammermsith and City underground eastbound to St Mary’s, where we changed to the East London line and reached Rotherhithe in a few smoky minutes. Emerging from the station, we found to our satisfaction that the telegram had had its effect, and half a dozen constables under the direction of a formidably moustached sergeant were lined up to receive us.
The house was soon found, small, shabby and without any indication of being a shop except for a sinister bundle of withered leaves, feathers and bones hanging over the front door. ‘If you don’t mind,’ said George, I will stay in the background unless I am needed. I do not want to get a reputation among my people as an informer.’
The men did not stand on ceremony. One perfunctory shout of ‘Police’ and they had the flimsy door down and were streaming inside. Holmes and I followed. A few moments later there was a glad cry from upstairs, ‘He’s here!’
We rushed up and found the child mecifully unmutilated as yet, but in a deep sleep which was surely the result of drugs. I hastened to examine him and found his pulse strong. ‘Take him home,’ I said. ‘We do not know what hellish brew has been administered to him, but there can be no doubt that they intended him to wake. Let him do so in his own cot: it will do him more good to be home with his parents smiling down on him than all the medicines in the world. I am sure that they will have a doctor in attendance as a precaution.’
My advice was followed, and an elderly officer carried the child off swathed in a grubby blanket and bound for Mayfair. In the meantime a dejected straggle of folk were led out to the police van. Holmes said, ‘We are not going to make much of the contents of the house, I think. It is not our business to understand the trinkets of fetishism. But let us examine it for any remains that may point to an English crime, so that we may pursue the malefactors to the full extent of the law.’
Sad to say, the examination revealed the bones of several children, including a couple of skulls which I saw at a glance to be of distinctly African physiognomy. These were duly taken away. Nothing could be made of any of the rest of the sad jumble.
* * *
The following afternoon a much relieved Lestrade visited us to share our afternoon tea. Munching a scone, he told us that the child had woken up and seemed little the worse for his experiences. ‘With luck he will forget it all, as one forgets a nightmare,’ I said.
He also brought the news that the animal attacking the sheep had been seen by the watching constable who, armed with a shotgun, had despatched it as it leapt into the enclosure. It was an Irish wolfhound, a huge shaggy grey creature which anyone might have taken for a wolf in the dark. Its owner had bustled up indignantly at the sound of the shot and was even more indignant to find himself arrested. He was initially charged with a breach of the Larceny Act of 1861, under which his offence was a felony attracting a sentence of two years’ hard labour, though also under the Parks Regulation Act of 1872 he would have been guilty of a misdemeanour with a derisory maximum penalty of a five-pound fine. There were too, Lestrade said with relish, laws dating from the time of Henry the Eighth and never repealed whose breach which would have incurred far harsher penalties.
And that closed two of the windows of the sensational story, unrelated as they were. But one remained: the apparent sighting of the wolf-faced man.
* * *
Two days later, we had another visit from Lestrade, who arrived unexpectedly but just in time to share our afternoon tea. When he had demolished a substantial piece of lardy bun, one of Mrs Hudson’s most inspired confections, he confided, ‘Holmes, we may have found our wolf man. At least, we have a man with a hairy face, a most strange creature. He is detained at our new station in the Wellington Arch and we cannot hold him there long as he has committed no offence, but let us say that for now he is assisting us with our enquiries. Not that he can assist us much, as he is a foreigner and none of us can understand a word he says, but one of the men thinks he is speaking Spanish.’
‘Then let us go there at once,’ replied Holmes, setting down his cup and rising to his feet. ‘Watson, do you think our friend Juan will assist us?’ He referred to the Spanish proprietor of a greengrocer around the corner in Melcombe Street who supplied Mrs Hudson’s kitchen, and with whom we were all on familiar terms. Lestrade rose with a regretful glance at the remains of the large bun and we set out at once, pausing only to visit the shop. Juan was delighted to accompany us, leaving the business in the care of his wife and four children, and we strode down Baker Street to reach Hyde Park Corner in less than twenty minutes.
It should be explained for those who do not know London well that the Wellington Arch is a large triumphal arch erected in the middle of Hyde Park Corner after the Iron Duke’s great victory at Waterloo, and in front of Apsley House which was presented to him in gratitude and is still inhabited by the present Duke. The arch was originally topped by a colossal but strangely un-triumphal statue of Wellington peacefully seated on his horse Copenhagen, but recently this was banished to Aldershot and replaced by a grandiose group of a winged figure in a four-horse chariot who is supposed to represent Peace at the reins of the chariot of War. But what concerned us was that recently a need had been expressed for a police station at this busy corner and, since no other premises were available, this had been housed in the north leg of the arch.
Even in the largest arch there is not much room in the supports, and we found ourselves in a room compared to which which Mrs Hudson’s kitchen was of palatial extent. But there was enough space for a desk and two chairs, one of which was occupied by a burly police sergeant and the other by one of the strangest people I have ever seen. Even the impassive Holmes seemed startled by his appearance.
He was a small man of spare build, His face, which was of normal human proportions, was completely covered with dense black hair reaching from his forehead to his chin. The hands extending from the cuffs of his coat were similarly hirsute.
I had read of this condition, which is known medically as hypertrichosis and is extremely rare. However, there is one village in Mexico where it affects many of the inhabitants. In all other respects they are perfectly normal and, without interference from the outside world, can carry on their daily business undisturbed by curious stares. It is only when they leave the village that their unusual appearance causes them dfficulty.
Juan was already conversing volubly by the man, who was clearly relieved by being understood. Through Juan’s agency we informed him that we considered him guilty of no crime and thay he was free to leave, but before he went we would be gateful to hear how he came to be in the West End of London. This is his account, translated for us by Juan. I have omitted the name of his village, to avoid idle attention to a place whose inhabitants only wish to be left alone.
‘My name is Miguel Aceves, and I was born in the village of X— in Mexico. Here many of us, men and women alike, are born with hairy faces like mine, and it is no longer considered remarkable. We simply accept the will of God, though it may work in strange ways, and proceed with our life.
‘But you will understand that it is a hard life scratching a living from a poor and stony land. By the time I was eighteen I was sick of the unending toil and the confinement of village life, and I determined to seek my fortune elsewhere. I travelled eastward mostly on foot, enduring many hostile looks on the way, until I reached the port city of Tampico. Here I was fortunate to find employment as a deck hand on a cargo ship, the Esmeralda, plying up and down the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the south-eastern United States. The crew soon accepted me and I was known to them as Miguel Peludo, or Peludo (Hairy) for short. The captain was a good man, and soon I got my able seaman’s certificate, and I was content. I was used to hard work, and after the village it was a good life.
‘But it is the will of God that all things, good or bad, must come to an end. Our ship was overcome by a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina, and sank in the open ocean. Five of us clung to the wreckage, and we were rescued by a British merchant ship, the Hilda, heading for the Port of London. Here we found ourselves on shore penniless and ignorant of the language. I am not ashamed to say that I survived by pilfering vegetables from market stalls until I found employment with a rich Mexican who took me to his house here as a servant. He is a harsh master, and in many ways it is worse than my life in the village, for I am among strangers who look on me as a monster.
‘Yet I cannot endure being cramped up in his house, and at nights I walk in the streets, hoping that darkness will hide me from the gaze of the public. It could not last, and you have me here. But I swear to you that I have done nothing wrong.’
After Juan had translated this account, he conversed with the man for several minutes, during which we noticed that the expression of his strange features had eased from gloom to hope. Juan told us, ‘I believe that I can lighten this man’s burden. At my shop, my father is getting too old to help us much and I am in need of an assistant. I have offered him the job. He will have to face the customers, but they will become accustomed to his face in time. And he will learn English, which will greatly assist him in his life. He has agreed, and as soon as the police release him he will come with me.’
The sergeant was only too pleased to discharge him and we all proceeded back to Baker Street, attracting the odd curious glance on the way. But Miguel walked with a lighter step, and we were all much relieved that the matter had been resolved.
That evening, as we were enjoying our port and cheroots after a heroic supper of Mrs Hudson’s fiery mutton curry and Sussex pond pudding, I said to Holmes, ‘Often, we have found that disparate clues lead to a single solution. Here it has been quite the opposite. Three events, concatenated into a tale of horror by the press, have turned out to be wholly unrelated.’
‘And yet,’ he replied, ‘good has come from the affair. If it were not for the prompt announcement of the child’s abduction we might not have been able to save him in time. The honest shepherd has been relieved of a persecutor, and I hope we have made a poor Mexican’s life happier. Mysteries may find a neater explanation, but this untidy case is closed.’
© Tachybaptus 2026
