The Norwood Builder at 789 Yonge Street

"Drat!"

Again I checked the call number of the book. Again I checked the shelf it had to occupy. The shelves above and below it. The shelves above and below those. All were full of books, two rows deep. There was no more room for Holmes on this range.

As I shook my head and pondered desperately what to do with the new book in my hand and the others on the cart, I heard a man at my back say, with a smirk in his rumbling laugh, "Looks like you could do with more shelves, gel."

Suppressing a sigh, I turned to him. Grey haired, florid faced, truculent expression. "One of those patrons," I thought. "The kind that takes out a bad day by needling others."

I gestured around the room. "Where would they go? There's not an inch of open wall left."

"I could fix that for you," he said, eye-measuring the room. "Odd shaped … Hmm. One narrow window … . You don't get much light in here, eh?"

"We're not supposed to. This is a special collection."

"This?" His eyebrows arched and bristled like the backs of two cats. "Tosh, gel! Modern stuff."

"It's still a 'special collection'. Mystery fiction is becoming classic."

The man pulled a book off the shelf, flipped through it and snorted. "Pot boiler drivel. Libraries in my day wouldn't touch em. Shakespeare and Sermons. Textbooks. Histories. Maybe a bit of Scott and Wordsworth for light reading. That's the stuff for libraries." He pointed his finger at a shelf. "What are those?"

"Graphic novels."

"Which are?"

I stammered out some incoherent words about stories told with pictures. He snorted again.

"I never read other than blueprints, contracts and the paper. Never cared to," he said. "But if I did, I wouldn't waste good time on cartoons."

The man fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, then held out a card that had seen use more than once, so dog-eared it was. "Here. This is who I am."

I took it reluctantly and read the faded print.

Jonas Oldacre. Builder.

Choice Flats and Residences.

Big or Small, We Build Them All.

Clandestine Cupboards our Specialty.

Lower Norwood. Telegraph address: Oldacre. LowNor

"Turn Space Into Place"

I looked up at him. "Is that near Markham?"

He looked perplexed. "Where's Markham?"

He was not a local contractor, then. Markham was the latest 'growth area' around here. I glanced at the card again. "Telegraph." Not "e-mail". No web address. I took in his high celluloid collar. Definitely not from here.

He sauntered around the Room, his thumbs hooking his belt loops. "I could put a new wall crossways where that table stands," he said, "or lengthwise from this pillar to the outer wall. With shelves on both sides, that should accommodate your needs for another few years."

'Another few years' was right. The way Holmes' fame boomed, those new shelves would be filled in no time. Sir Arthur was in fashion too. Four biographies in the last two years. Where would we find room in the Room?

I handed back his card. "You'd have to -- ."

"Take it up with the powers that be, who will take it up with their higher powers, and so on and so forth," Oldacre finished, brusque.

"We intend to renovate -- ."

"I know. I've seen the plans. Got my bid in. It takes time. It always does." Oldacre swivelled round, eyed the book truck and then eyed me. "Can this place wait that long?"

"It does resemble a sausage," I admitted.

"You need some urgent renovations before then." Oldacre gave the Room another look. "Well, I have done wonders with smaller spaces. The hidden closet I made for Professor Coram, right behind the bookcase. And the secret little room I made in my house. Not much bigger than a walk in closet, yet I was snug enough. If Mr. Busy-Body Holmes had not eye-measured the upper hall and found it six feet shorter than the lower one, I could've got away with my own murder."

"But you didn't," I put in with satisfaction. Mr. Oldacre was becoming an old ache in my head.

"No, but they didn't kill me, did they? They couldn't prove I intended that milksop should hang. A good scare -- that's all it was. Just a good scare on his mum, for jilting me when we were young. Why Holmes and the coppers made so much of a little prank." He shook his head, as if he could not understand why the police were such killjoys.

Then he smiled. "The strong room I built for that old paint peddler – with the gas cocks. 'The Mousetrap'. You wouldn't know that's what it was until …" He chuckled. Then he scowled. "A masterpiece, but the miser never paid me for it."

I gaped at him. "You built that murder room?"

Oldacre grimaced. "I didn't know he'd turn it into one. 'Just a little extra protection', he said when he ordered the gas pipe installed. 'To keep vermin from nibbling my money.'" He gave a dry laugh. "He sure did that."

I confess I was intrigued. "Did you build any more like that?" I asked.

He gave me a shrewd look. "You mean Auschwitz and the others? I wasn't asked." The look added, "That doesn't mean the Nazis didn't read the story."

"I did build a few dillies though" Oldacre added aloud. "That one for Coram. Right behind his bookcase. Holmes had to smoke a full pack of cigarettes to 'smoke out' the entrance. I don't know why Coram wanted it. Not to hide his wife, though he did hide her in it, and he was a cripple. He couldn't get inside it in time. Scary bloke, that Russian.

"The little hidey-hole for Madame Adler's picture. I'm proud of that one. The joins in the moulding were perfect. I'll bet Holmes couldn't have found where it was if she didn't tip her hand. The king's men couldn't. Madame Adler told me that when she paid me. They had been through the house. Turned over everything. Didn't find it."

"Did you do any work for Mr. Holmes?" I asked.

Oldacre snorted. "For him? Hah!" His expression grew thoughtful. "You mean that alcove business, don't you? The one where Holmes snatched the yellow diamond out of Count Silly's hand? I'd love to shake the hand of the man that did that job. Holmes went from his bedroom to that window seat through a passage; but how was that passage built? It had to be along an outer wall, since that's where the window was; but … ." He threw up his hands. "I'll figure it out later."

"Did you build a hiding place for Professor Moriarty?"

"Do you think he'd let me live if I did?" Oldacre sighed heavily. "You are stupid, even for a woman. Do you remember what nearly happened to Victor Hatherley?"

"The hydraulic engineer who lost his thumb?"

"Who was glad he lost only his thumb, not his life." He waggled his thumbs at me."

"It nearly hung you. Your thumbprint, I mean."

The old man glared at me. "Do you want to be a permanent part of the Room?"

I shook my head.

"Then don't tease The Norwood Builder."

"The Norwood Builder" = in The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Professor Coram = "The Golden Pince-Nez" in The Return of Sherlock Holmes

"Madame Adler" = Irene Adler in "A Scandal in Bohemia" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ("Madame" here because she was an opera diva.)

"The old paint pedlar" = Josiah Amberley ("The Retired Colourman" in The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes)

"Count Silly" = Count Negretto Sylvius ("The Mazarin Stone" in The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes)

Professor Moriarty = "The Final Problem" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ; mentioned in "The Empty House" in The Return of Sherlock Holmes and The Valley of Fear

Victor Hatherley = "The Engineer's Thumb" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes