The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures (18 page)

“I appreciate that the truth has now to come out. But I want to be the one to tell Hector. It is the least I can do to atone for my sins. Give me a day – twenty-four hours – to do this and also to try and persuade my son to give himself up to the authorities.”

Holmes hesitated. He was somewhat moved by the woman’s plight.

“Please be merciful,” she begged.

My companion consulted his watch. “It is now approaching four o’clock. I will send a telegram to reach Lord Darlington in the morning, indicating that I shall call on him at four in the afternoon to convey information of the greatest moment.”

“Bless you, Mr Holmes.”

As events turned out, Holmes was never to make that visit. The following morning I was late down to breakfast and I found my friend slumped in his armchair perusing the paper. His face bore a grim expression.

“Violent delights have violent ends,” he said, more to himself than me.

“Bad news?”

He shrugged. “Fate has entered the lists and we have effectively been relegated, old fellow.” He waved the paper in my direction. “I refer to a report in here. Two bodies were washed up on the shingle below Tower Bridge late last night. They were bound and gagged and their brains had been blown out. They have been identified as Lord Arthur Beacham and Rupert Darlington, the son of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lord Hector Darlington.”

“Great heavens what a tragedy. What happened?”

“It was no doubt the work of Alfredo Fellini and his cronies. Obviously Beacham, in his frustration regarding the de Granville painting, tried, foolishly, to pass the fake off as the original to the American. His treachery received the usual rough justice of the gangland courts. Rupert Darlington was seen as part of the conspiracy – which he may well have been. Ah, Watson, Scott had it aright: ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when we practise to deceive.’ ”

The Adventure of the Suspect Servant

Barbara Roden

The next case we stumbled over by sheer chance. Devotees of Sherlock Holmes will remember that Dr Watson met his future wife, Mary Morstan, when she sought Holmes’s help in the case of “The Sign of Four”. In introducing herself she reminded Holmes that he had once helped her employer, Mrs Cecil Forrester, to unravel “a little domestic complication.” Holmes had to think for a while to remember and then recalled that the case “was a very simple one”. It was so simple that Watson probably kept no record of it.

A few years ago that excellent scholar of ghost and mystery fiction, Barbara Roden, was undertaking research in a firm of insurers on another matter entirely, when she chanced upon some information about a certain Mr Forrester, and piece by piece she was able to rebuild “The Adventure of the Suspect Servant”.

It is seldom that my friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, has turned down an investigation which fell his way. There were times in our long association when his formidable brain was pre-occupied with a case of supreme importance, and such circumstances occasionally precluded the taking up of another, less pressing, matter. As a rule, however, it was his habit never to neglect an opportunity to exercise those powers of observation and deduction which it has been my privilege to observe and chronicle. No case was too small to engage his attention; and I have had cause to bless the advent of more than one client, whose misfortune, however trivial, lifted Holmes from out of the depression into which he was prone to sink when not occupied. If, in my chronicles, I have dwelt upon the macabre and the
outré
, it is because such cases, however unsatisfactory the outcome, have features which commend themselves to the reading public. I therefore set the following case before my readers as an example of an affair which was not as complex as some of my friend’s other adventures, but which was no less pressing to those immediately concerned with it.

It was a morning in late October 1886, and London was enjoying a period of exceptionally fine weather known as St Luke’s little summer. So warm was the day that I had flung open the windows of our sitting room, and was looking out over Baker Street and the bustling crowd contained therein. Holmes was perusing
The Times
, surrounded by the remnants of the
Chronicle, Standard, Telegraph
and
Post
, which lay in drifts around him.

I had been standing at the window for some minutes, watching the flow of the crowd, before I remarked casually, “We have a client, Holmes, so you might just tidy those papers.”

My friend looked up, an expression of surprise upon his face. He cocked his head towards the door, rather in the manner of a hound listening for the view-halloa, then said, “I hear nothing, save Mrs Hudson downstairs. Yet you say we have a client?”

I chuckled, for I must confess that I enjoyed seeing my friend puzzled. He rose and joined me at the window, scanning the street for whoever had caught my eye. There was still no sound of footsteps upon the stair, and he looked at me quizzically.

“There,” I said, gesturing to a woman who stood gazing into the window of a shop across from our door. “She is our client.”

“And what leads you to that conclusion? Pray elucidate.”

“When I see a lady,” I began, emulating my friend’s manner on such occasions, “alight from and dismiss a cab, I infer that she has some business to conduct which she anticipates will take more than a few minutes, or she would have kept the cab waiting. The fact that the cab stopped immediately outside our door shows that her business lies in our vicinity. When the lady then proceeds to pace the pavement opposite us, not once but four times, I deduce that she is deeply disturbed about something, and is endeavouring to reach a difficult decision. Although she has been gazing into the window of the bookbinder’s shop opposite for the past few minutes, it is unlikely that anything there is causing her such consternation. What else, then, but a client for Mr Sherlock Holmes?”

“Your reasoning is certainly sound, Watson – ah, but here comes the lady herself, to silence all doubt.”

She had indeed turned and, with an abruptness which signalled an end to indecision, crossed the road. We heard a ring of the bell and then a voice at the door, enquiring if Mr Holmes was at home, a signal which caused my friend to gather up the untidy papers and thrust them into his bedroom. He had exchanged his dressing-gown for a jacket when Mrs Hudson knocked at the door and announced, “Mrs Cecil Forrester.”

The lady was middle-aged, yet her slim figure and graceful air gave her an air of youth that many a younger woman might have envied. She was well and fashionably dressed in a navy-blue costume which combined elegance with restraint. Her features were attractive, yet drawn with worry and fatigue, and there were still traces of indecision marked upon her countenance. She looked from one of us to the other, and my friend stepped forward.

“Mrs Forrester, I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my friend and colleague, Dr John Watson. Pray take a seat, and tell us what difficulty brings you here.”

Our client took her seat in an armchair and Holmes sat opposite her. For a moment she remained silent, her eyes fixed on the rug and her hands twisting nervously in her lap. Then she took a deep breath, as one who steels herself for the worst, and looked up.

“Mr Holmes, I have come to you because I do not know what else to do, and there is no one else to whom I can turn. Over the past few weeks several items of value have disappeared from our home, and I need you to find the culprit.”

“Surely the police would be …,” began Holmes, but our client interrupted.

“The police have not the first idea as to the truth,” she said with some anger. “My husband called them in at my urging, and all they have been able to do thus far is upset the staff and accuse my maid, Sarah, who I am sure knows nothing of the matter.”

“Perhaps,” said Holmes soothingly, “you might explain to us exactly what has occurred, so that we may form an opinion.”

“Certainly, Mr Holmes.” She paused for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts, and then launched into her tale.

“My husband is the assistant manager of Williams and Co., a firm of insurers in the City. He commands an excellent salary, and as I am not without some income of my own we live, quite comfortably, in a house in Camberwell. We were married twelve years ago, and all has gone smoothly with us until recently.

“My husband’s business has increased a good deal in the past few months, and as they are short of staff at the moment Cecil has had to spend more time than usual in the City, so I have not seen him as much as I formerly did. It was two months ago that I first noticed something amiss. I was looking for a receipt in my husband’s desk at home, and found that one of the drawers would not open properly. I managed to work it loose, and found that a box which had been placed at the back of it had jammed. I recognized the box as one which had contained a pair of gold and diamond cufflinks which I had given Cecil on his last birthday. The box was empty, and I thought that odd, as I knew Cecil wore the cufflinks on formal occasions only, and was hardly likely to wear them to work. I meant to ask him about them, but he was again late in arriving home. I had arranged to attend the theatre with friends and, as I was myself late in returning, the matter slipped my mind before I could mention it.

“Three weeks ago I noticed that a gold repeater watch he had inherited from his grandfather was missing from its case. I remembered, however, that it had not been striking properly, and Cecil said that he would have to have it cleaned and repaired. I naturally assumed that it was at the watchmaker’s, and thought no more about it.

“It was last Wednesday when matters came to a head. I had planned to do some shopping in the afternoon, and then take tea with a friend, as it was the servants’ half-day. I took a brooch out of my jewellery case before I left, and placed the case back in the drawer of my dressing-table. When I returned home and went to replace the brooch in the case, I noticed that the contents had been somewhat disturbed, and was horrified to find that a valuable emerald ring which had been in there had vanished. I searched the case and drawer thoroughly, thinking that perhaps it had fallen out, but could not find it anywhere. The ring has great sentimental value to me, as it belonged to my mother, and I was terribly distraught when Cecil arrived home.

“He saw at once that something was wrong, and went dreadfully pale when I told him about the ring. However, he did his best to console me, saying that he was sure I had merely misplaced it, and that it would come to light soon. It was then that a terrible thought struck me. I remembered the empty box where the cufflinks should have been, and the missing watch. Could there be some connection with my missing ring?

“I asked Cecil if he had taken the watch to be repaired, and he seemed very surprised that I should ask. His surprise gave me all the answer I needed, and I told him what I had found. It seemed obvious to me that a thief had been at work, and I urged Cecil to call in the police. A policeman came out to the house the next day, and we soon discovered that other items were missing, such as a tie-pin and a gold snuff-box.”

Our client paused for breath. Holmes, who had been listening carefully to her tale, said, “Your husband has been working long hours for some time, you said. For how long, exactly?”

Mrs Forrester looked somewhat surprised at the question. “Really, Mr Holmes, I cannot see what that has to do with the matter.”

“Nevertheless, Mrs Forrester, I repeat the question. The smallest matter may have a bearing upon the case.”

“Well, it began in June, as far as I can remember.”

“And has continued until the present time?”

“Yes.”

“Have the hours remained unchanged?”

“No–no, he began working even later towards the end of August.” Mrs Forrester had appeared puzzled by the line of questioning, but now understanding broke over her face. “I believe I see the reasoning behind your questions, Mr Holmes. You think that someone has been watching the house from outside, someone who has noted the long hours my husband works and knows when the house will be empty.”

“Possibly,” said my friend in a noncommittal voice. “I cannot theorize before I have all my data. The items that have gone missing thus far – cufflinks, a watch, a tie-pin, a snuff-box – all have belonged to your husband?”

“All except my ring, Mr Holmes.”

“Quite so. Has anything else been missed?”

“No.”

“Yet you must have many more items of value. Has none of your other jewellery vanished?”

“No, Mr Holmes. I am sure I would have noticed.”

Holmes stretched in his chair. “Surely the official force found no difficulty in seeing to the bottom of this affair, for if you will pardon my saying so it hardly seems complex.”

“Well, complex or no, Mr Holmes, the man accomplished little beyond turning our house upside-down before telling us that my maid, Sarah, was the most likely culprit, and that if he could search her belongings he was sure the missing items would be found.”

“Upon what did he base this conclusion?”

“He had been told that Wednesday was the servants’ half-day, and he checked on their actions during the afternoon. We employ four servants – a cook, a housekeeper, a governess, and Sarah. The cook had been visiting her family, and they all confirmed that she had been with them for the entire afternoon. Mrs Lodge, our housekeeper, had spent her afternoon with a friend, and again it was proved that she had been away from the house for the entire time. Mary, our governess, had been out with the twins, who were attending the birthday party of one of their young friends, and her whereabouts are above question. Poor Sarah, however, had been feeling rather poorly, and had spent the afternoon in her room, resting. Of course, she had no proof of this, and the policeman fixed on this point, as he could see no signs of anyone from outside forcing an entry into the house.”

“That seems eminently reasonable, if a trifle mundane,” said Holmes. “What makes you so positive that your maid is innocent?”