A Study in Murder, page 32
Watson was only half listening. ‘I never got to say goodbye to Georgina. Not properly. He denied me that, your brother.’
‘When this is over we’ll bring her body back for a proper burial and service. But the Dutch were furious about their neutrality being compromised. Although the Holland 6 was in German waters, technically at least, when it picked you up, it had to pass through Dutch sections of the river to get away.’
‘I don’t give a fig for Dutch neutrality.’
‘I realize that. My brother did it for the best, you know.’
‘I didn’t even get to see her face!’ Watson snapped. ‘Just for a second would have been enough.’
Mycroft sighed. ‘I appreciate that you must miss her. Even I understand that.’ Mycroft indicated the newspaper. ‘That’s not the way forward, though.’
‘What isn’t?’ Watson asked suspiciously.
‘A séance. Or any other bogus way to contact the dead. Wherever they are, the dead are always beyond us.’
Watson looked puzzled. ‘How did you . . . ?’
‘When I asked Matron how you were doing, she said you were strong enough to consider a trip to Brighton this Saturday. I see from the newspaper there that there is a public meeting of the British Society for Psychical Research, with a famous author or two speaking on the matter of life after death, on that very day. It will be very busy. You aren’t alone in hoping this life isn’t the end. Not by a long chalk.’
‘I don’t believe. And yet, there was one case in the camps that I keep wondering about.’ Watson outlined the details of Brevette and the séance where he apparently told Hulpett that the captain had not made it home. Hulpett, apparently, was not one of those who knew the truth about the fate of the men who entered the trick coffins. He was onboard solely for his experience as a solicitor. And so he had told Lincoln-Chance about his qualms, sealing Archer’s fate and, for good measure, the medium’s fellow voyagers to the afterlife.
‘It could be a coincidence,’ offered Mycroft when Watson had finished.
‘Do you believe in coincidence?’
‘On the 30th of June 1916, The Times crossword had clues that gave the answers “Somme”, “offensive” and “Albert”. And the next day the Battle of Albert began, the first part of the Somme Offensive. The poor man who set the clues was hauled off and virtually hung by his ankles. Turned out to be a complete coincidence. So, yes, sometimes the stars do align and coincidences do occur. Look, you know that Harry Houdini has spent much of the last few years debunking mediums and the like. Sherlock has done his fair share of explaining supernatural phenomena. Good Lord, man, you were there for most of them.’
Watson’s chin dropped onto his chest. ‘I know. I am a foolish old man.’
‘And, as I said, you miss her.’ There was a touch of impatience in the voice. ‘It might have been for the best, you know, that you didn’t see her on the bridge. She was already dead,’ said Mycroft, putting a hand on Watson’s knee. ‘Sherlock knew that. He wanted to save the living . . . there was no time for mourning.’
Watson did not answer.
‘If you insist on exploring the possibility of the continuation of sentience, there was always one case that baffled Houdini and every other investigator, including Madame Curie.’
Watson turned and looked at Mycroft. ‘Don’t mock me.’
‘It’s true. A woman in Paris, Eva Carrière, has received some acclaim, although I also hear she is something of a sexual exhibitionist. Personally, I am not convinced, but I think it might be more interesting than the hysteria that will ensue in Brighton. People want to believe so badly, you see. It doesn’t make the dead come calling.’
‘Well, thank you all the same. I shall do some research on this Carrière woman. But perhaps you are right. It is just so hard to accept that I will never see her again.’
‘That is the worst part.’
Watson’s head flicked up. ‘Until now?’
‘What?’
‘You said, about the shots on the bridge, the wild firing. You said you had no idea what she was firing at “until now”.’
‘No.’ Mycroft chewed his lip. ‘This is . . . difficult.’
The matron appeared with some tea and biscuits, interrupting them. When she had left, Watson asked: ‘How is it difficult exactly?’
‘To reopen old wounds.’
‘The old wounds are not yet healed, Mycroft, they will reopen easily enough. What do you have?’
Mycroft reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a piece of paper. ‘Three days ago the body of one of Kell’s men was discovered in his London chambers. He had hanged himself. Robert Nathan. You know him?’
Watson indicated he didn’t.
‘I met him briefly. Competent enough fellow, although rather in thrall to—’ Mycroft pulled himself up short and cleared his throat. ‘He was assisting Mrs Gregson. He left a note. Much of it is rambling – he had drunk a fair quantity of alcohol before he did the deed. But this is the relevant page.’
Watson took it and, with a shaking hand, read the scrawl, which was blobbed with water stains. Tears, he guessed, dropping as the man wrote.
Some say evil is a contagion. That it can infect others, like influenza or typhoid. I believe that now. I believe the woman Pillbody to be a creature of pure evil, capable of corrupting all who come into contact with her. Why else would I have conceived of such a wicked plan? Wicked and foolish. It was I who arranged her escape in Holland. I who gave her the means of picking the locks to the manacles that bound her. I did not know she was going to kill Farleigh and Buller. That was not my intention. Before I released her, I gave her a price, which she agreed to. Kill Dr Watson on the bridge. Oh, how depraved it seems now. But at the time it seemed the perfect solution. If Watson were dead then there would be no exchange – Sherlock Holmes would not fall into German hands. And Mrs Gregson would be free of her infatuation for the man. And I would be free to pursue her without
Watson refolded the paper and handed it back, struck numb by the words. ‘I wish Pillbody had killed me, not Mrs Gregson,’ he said. ‘The man was right. It would have solved the dilemma at a stroke.’
‘He is also right about Miss Pillbody being evil,’ said Mycroft. ‘Cruelty is her currency. She had one accurate shot. By killing Georgina, she struck at both you and at Nathan.’
‘It was stupid of him. You might as well try and control a hungry tiger as Miss Pillbody.’
‘Those shots on the bridge, from the hunting rifle, I suspect they were meant for you. Mrs Pillbody probably thought she might as well kill you as agreed. So Sherlock saved your life by pulling you into the water before she got her range.’
Mycroft concentrated on drinking his tea, biding his time until Watson had composed himself and dried his tears once more.
‘How is he?’ Watson asked at last. ‘Sherlock?’
‘Back in London for the time being. He, too, suffered from his submersion. And from the events on the bridge.’
‘He knows about this Nathan and what he did?’
‘I told him this morning.’
Watson remembered his tea and took a sip. It was almost cold.
‘He’s outside,’ said Mycroft softly.
‘Who is?’
‘Sherlock.’
A shake of the head. ‘I don’t want to see him.’
‘He said you wouldn’t.’
‘It’s all too painful.’
‘He said that too.’
‘Then why did he come?’ asked Watson tetchily.
Mycroft frowned. ‘He said the most extraordinary thing to me when I pointed that out.’
‘Which was?’
‘I quote: “I am not always right, you know, Mycroft. And on this occasion, I would very much like to be in the wrong.” Imagine that. Admitting to me that he was fallible.’
‘Imagine,’ Watson repeated sourly.
‘There is something else you should know,’ said Mycroft cautiously, as if tiptoeing through a minefield. ‘There is a case he needs help with.’
‘A case? Isn’t he past taking cases?’
‘An old adversary has apparently reappeared,’ he replied solemnly.
‘Really?’ Watson tried to feign disinterest, but he knew Mycroft would have picked up on the signs of his curiosity being pricked. Some time passed before he could wait no longer. ‘Which one?’
‘He didn’t say. I am merely his brother, not his . . .’ Mycroft let Watson’s exact status hang in the ether.
Watson drank the rest of his tea in silence. Eventually, he put down the cup and saucer and picked up a biscuit. He felt a strange mixture of emotions. The weight of years and shared experiences, a near-lifetime with Holmes, pressed down on him physically like a great weight, but somewhere deep inside he could feel something – his soul? His spirit? – floating with a lightness he had not known for many weeks now.
‘All right, Mycroft. It would give me considerable pleasure to prove the Great Detective wrong.’ He took a bite of the ginger nut to mask his smile. ‘Send him in, will you?’
APPENDIX
The Girl and the Gold Watches
by John H. Watson
It was April 1890 (and not 1892 as some accounts would have it), as the debilitating bone-chill of a lengthy winter had finally begun to relax its grip on the metropolis, when my friend Sherlock Holmes turned his attention to what the daily press were calling The Rugby Mystery and some others The Girl and the Gold Watches. Holmes had recently completed his investigation into a most gruesome business, involving jealousy and murder. The solution to the case had put him in a rather sombre mood. ‘What is the meaning of it, Watson?’ he had exclaimed, not for the first time. Peering into the darkest corners of the human soul often caused him to recoil in revulsion at the depravity of his fellow man. ‘What object is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which is unthinkable. But what end? There is the great standing perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever!’
That resultant brown study, a cloud of melancholia that wrapped itself around him like a winter fog, persisted for some weeks, to the point where I feared he might reach for solace once more in the seven per cent solution. I sought permission – freely granted – from my wife to move back to our old rooms in Baker Street that I might keep an eye on him until the black dog was driven away. And sure enough, as the thermometer rose on a certain bright Monday morning, Holmes stirred himself from his regular position, curled on the sofa with a newspaper, and began to pace the floor of our Baker Street lodgings, a practice I knew sometimes drove Mrs Hudson on the floor below us to distraction, for it could last many hours.
I lowered my own newspaper – I was studying an article about the recent rash of card-sharping incidents across the city and the methods the fraudsters preferred – and peered at him. He looked like a freshly coiled spring and something burned in his eyes. I knew that look of old and it warmed my heart. ‘Yes, Watson, you are thinking that my hibernation is at an end.’
I felt a surge of relief course through me. ‘You don’t have to be the world’s only Consulting Detective to deduce that, Holmes.’
‘Quite so. But, as your faculties are in such good order, you’ll be well aware that we are about to have a visitor.’
I listened for a footfall on the stairs, but could hear nothing. And as he had not been near the bow window that overlooked Baker Street and often provided him with an early indication of our visitors – not to mention their profession, history, dietary preferences, whether or not they owned a dog and were married or no – I was perplexed as to how he could be so certain our morning reading would be interrupted. Holmes frowned, as if his timing was a little off, and then smiled when there was a ring at the bell.
‘Well, Holmes,’ I said, with, I admit, a little sarcasm in my voice, ‘are you going to tell me anything about our visitor, even before he enters the room?’
‘Well, he came to London by train, arriving at Euston, of that much I am certain. He will be smartly, but quite cheaply attired. Prominent whiskers, probably in his thirties, I would surmise, and a little portly for his age—’
‘Holmes,’ I said. ‘Really. It’s too much.’
‘You know of The Girl and the Gold Watches Mystery?’
‘Of course,’ I said. The singular events on the Manchester-bound express train had been the subject of much speculation in the press for weeks. ‘The Rugby Mystery. In fact, I do believe I first brought it to your attention.’
‘In the hope of arousing my curiosity.’
‘Indeed,’ I confessed.
He snatched up the folded newspaper from the couch and waved it at me, as if trying to shake the newsprint loose. ‘But I knew that, should no solution present itself, the case would eventually find itself at the door of this very building. And so it has proved, if somewhat tardily. It says in here that the railway authorities and the police are seeking outside help this very week.’
‘And you have assumed this outside help is you?’
Holmes rose to his full height and peered down that thin, hawk-like nose of his. ‘My dear Watson, who else is there to turn to?’ The slightest of twinkles in his eye served to undercut the arrogance of his remark. But not the truth of it.
Mrs Hudson showed our visitor into the sitting room. He was indeed in his thirties, ruddy faced and stout, with mutton-chop whiskers and wearing a suit that, although clean and pressed, was not of the best quality. He already had his bowler in his hands. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, looking from one to the other of us. ‘Excuse my calling without an appointment.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Holmes, beckoning him to a chair. ‘You gave more than adequate notice of your arrival, Mr Henderson.’ He gave the newspaper a tap and tossed it aside.
‘I assume I am addressing Mr Sherlock Holmes?’ the man said, unperturbed that Holmes already knew his name. Perhaps, in no small part to my writings, the public had come to expect him to be something of a mind-reader. If so, it was his own fault. For my part, I could only assume that Henderson was mentioned in the newspaper account, that Holmes had deduced that a railway police inspector – for that was what I assumed he was – from Rugby would not be a young man nor, being a policeman and a provincial, particularly smartly dressed. (The whiskers comment baffled me, although I wouldn’t admit it; it was only much later that I discovered the newspaper in question had published one of the new experimental half-tone photographs of Henderson, which I thought was a shabby trick on Holmes’s part.)
‘You are correct. And this is my friend and companion, Dr Watson. Now, what can we do for the railways?’
‘I am employed by several railway companies in the role of detective. I do have police training, you understand, but I am engaged in a private capacity as an investigator.’
So not a police inspector. ‘And for your discretion, I would imagine.’
Henderson sat down. ‘It is true that many cases are resolved without recourse to the civilian police. But not the matter I have come to consult you about. I am sure you are familiar with the facts regarding The Rugby Mystery.’
Holmes now folded his frame down onto the sofa, one arm running along the back. ‘I know of the case, but the facts . . . no. I know only what I read in the daily press, which, as you appreciate more than most, Inspector, hardly amounts to the same thing. Facts are often smothered by speculation and innuendo, not to mention mischief and prejudice.’
Henderson smiled knowingly, showing yellowed teeth. ‘Quite so, Mr Holmes.’
‘As Watson will no doubt point out, I have said on previous occasions that it is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. It bears repeating, Watson.’ The detective twirled a hand in my direction. ‘Now, Mr Henderson, I have but the vaguest grasp of the details, so assume we know nothing. Lay out the relevant facts as if to a jury. I will only interrupt to clarify a point. Should I ask Mrs Hudson to fetch you some tea before you begin?’
‘No, thank you, Mr Holmes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The known facts of the case begin on the 18th of March. That is, almost a month ago.’
Holmes made a slight sucking sound, which I assumed was displeasure at the length of time it had taken to consult him. The crime scene would be very, very cold ground at this remove.
‘There is a five o’clock train to Manchester every weekday evening from Euston Station.’
‘I know it from Bradshaw’s,’ said Holmes. ‘Just three stoppages and an approximate travelling time of four hours and twenty minutes. Very popular with businessmen from the North who wish to save the expense of a hotel in London. The weather?’
‘Inclement. Squally, I would say.’
‘Yes,’ I began, ‘wasn’t the 18th the day we spent the night watching for—’
Holmes shot me a glance that pierced me like a jezail bullet. At first I thought he was annoyed at the interruption (even though he had hardly stayed true to his statement of not interjecting unless to clarify a point). Then I realized he did not want me to mention the persons at the heart of the case to which I referred. It was still to reach the divorce courts. ‘We were soaked through,’ I finished feebly.
‘Despite the poor conditions, the train was fairly well filled,’ continued Henderson. ‘The guard on the train was a tried-and-trusted servant of the company. His name was John Palmer and he had worked for the railway for twenty-two years, without a blemish or a complaint. The station clock was upon the stroke of five and Palmer was about to give the customary signal to his driver, when he noticed two belated passengers. A man and a woman.’
‘The guard furnished a description, I believe.’
‘Indeed he did. The man was exceptionally tall, dressed in a long black overcoat with astrakhan collar and cuffs. As I have already said, the evening was an inclement one, and the tall traveller had the high, warm collar turned up to protect his throat against the bitter March wind. He appeared, as far as the guard could judge, to be between fifty and sixty years of age. But vigorous with it. In one hand he carried a brown leather Gladstone bag.’
