Elementary, Canary
THE Singular Affair of Canary Wharf may rank with the Red-Headed League among our strangest adventures in the great City of London, and yet my friend would never deem it a three-pipe problem. 'The evi- dence was spread out before us,' he said. `Just as with the League, a preposterous but respectable project served but to mask another which was neither. To conjure phantasmal towers beside some Limehouse docks deserted even by lascars, to suggest that men of affairs would choose to make this their place of business, to promote the railway necessary to convey them, to prop- ose that this railway should terminate at the Bank — why, Lestrade would not have been deceived as these City fathers de- ceived themselves. Then came the crimin- als' crowning impudence. They revealed their plans in a public notice to amend an Act of Parliament! Here it is, Watson, in the newspapers for which we sent out. You see that the terminal station is supposed to be sited below King William Street — and where is King William Street, Watson?'
`Why, a little to the south of the Bank of England.' Quite so. And you see that they seek powers for an underground railway 750 metres in length commencing beneath Lothbury at the junction of Princes Street — and where is that?' At the north wall of the Bank of England, just by the gate to the bullion vault. . . Holmes, I see day- light!' My friend smiled. 'At the end of the tunnel?' said he.
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