She walked over to a pianoforte and opened a massive volume whose cover proclaimed “The Ring Cycle, scored for Pianoforte and voices.” This turned out not to be a musical score, but a hollowed-out book, and recessed within it sat a painting of a woman, whose auburn hair, floating around a swanlike neck, seemed so burnished, so real, that one wished to touch it.
The servant returned with a tray, which Miss Butterworth laid on a low table. “Yes, that’s the Titian, or so we’re led to believe,” she said as she poured out cups for me and herself.
“Now, Beatrice Fontana, she’s the daughter of my good friend Alice Ellerby, who married Mr. Fontana. I don’t know what the man calling himself Frances Fontana may have told you, but Mr. Fontana is a banker. He used to be in a good way of business in Buffalo, but times have been bad with the recent slump. This painting has been in the Fontana family for centuries; they say the lady was his great-grandmother’s great-grandmother and a mistress of one of those doges in Venice.
“Be that as it may, Mr. Fontana wants to prove the picture’s value, for if it is by this Titian, then it will pay for a dowry for Beatrice and keep Mrs. Fontana in comfort besides. So when we learned about this Signor Carrera being a leading authority on Renaissance painters, Mr. Fontana decided he should come over and show the painting to the signor, get an opinion and a valuation. But he couldn’t leave Buffalo with his business in such a bad way, so young Beatrice said she’d undertake the commission, and, as she’s my goddaughter, and I enjoy foreign travel, I fixed to come with her.
“Another old friend of ours was quite a beauty when we were all young together. She married an English gentleman, and her daughter is the lady you’ve been following tonight, Chloë Someringforth. Chloë is a bit older than Beatrice, maybe ten years, and quite the society lady. When she learned from Mrs. Fontana that Beatrice was coming over, she offered to provide her a room and an introduction to society. That sounded good to Alice, that is, Beatrice’s ma. I have another old friend here in London who’s away this winter; she offered the use of this pleasant flat.”
Holmes stirred his tea with his finger, impatient with all the chatter about who was married, who was whose friend, and so on. “How came you to have the Titian.”
“Well, Mr. Holmes, I’m coming to that, and not a pretty story it makes, either. I got my goddaughter settled at Chloë Someringforth’s, but when I went to call on her a few days later, I found her in some distress. It seems that while Mr. Someringforth has been serving his country in Egypt, his lady has been entertaining a young gentleman from the Hoovering family. And it didn’t take a doctor’s eye to notice that Chloë will be presenting her husband with an interesting event on his return.”
I was so startled that I dropped my teacup, but when I bent to try to mop up the spill, Miss Butterworth told me not to mind it, that she would get to it after we left. “I can clean the area stairs, empty slop buckets, nothing ain’t beneath me,” she said.
“Yes.” She laughed, seeing our amazement. “I was the charwoman looking for to help out at Someringforth’s last evening, and I’d best get back there soon to light the morning fires and try to get my poor Beatrice out of their clutches, for it really is no laughing matter. And your help will be most welcome, Mr. Holmes, most welcome indeed.
“So to make a long story short, Chloë Someringforth has been entertaining this young lord who stole his ma’s jewels and lost all the money at gaming. And when he learned that my young Beatrice had in her hands a valuable painting, worth maybe twice or three times the price his ma’s emeralds had fetched, first he tried to sweet-talk her, and then he tried to rob her. And Chloë apparently helped him, along with her fancy-talking personal maid, or at least that’s how I interpret the stories I got from the other servants last night.
“Beatrice managed to grab the painting away from this young Hoovering scoundrel and run out into the street. She somehow made it to Bond Street and got the picture in the hands of Signor Carrera. She had left the gallery and was in Oxford Street, trying to find a cab so she could get to me, when Chloë came upon her. Beatrice cried out for help, but Chloë used all her charms to explain to the crowd that the young lady was unbalanced.”
“How can you possibly know this, unless you were there yourself?” I demanded.
“Some of it I had from the signor, and the rest I put together from what the other maids were saying when I was scrubbing the pots tonight. Chloë’s dresser, she put out the story that my Beatrice was delirious with fever and that Chloë picked her up in Bond Street screaming her head off. The servants were beside themselves with the extra work, for the first housemaid was waiting on Chloë, while the lady’s maid stayed in the bedroom making sure that Beatrice didn’t get out.
“They were so upset by all this turmoil, they told me the whole story, not holding anything back. They said they didn’t think Chloë’s maid was sick, they’d had to bring her up a tray themselves and she looked in the pink of health, and this made them all crosser. Then that hoity-toity man who acts as the butler came into the kitchen and warned them all against spreading tales if they wanted to get paid at the quarter, so I reckon he’s in on the plot, too. But anyone could guess the rest, and my word, servants do talk among themselves, as you know from your own work in disguise, Mr. Holmes.”
My friend sat rigid, furious at the condescension he perceived in Miss Butterworth’s compliment.
“Meanwhile, this Lord Frances Hoovering, he’d cut himself badly on the glass that was covering the painting. He went back to his hotel room and I guess he beat himself up, using one of those billy clubs that he attacked Signor Carrera with tonight. He had to alter his appearance, he’s so well known in London society. Any newspaperman who saw him would report his whereabouts on the instant, so he checked himself into this Gloucester Hotel and used the side entrance, beat himself about the face, and then blamed it all on some intruder.”
“But why would he need to disguise himself?” I asked.
“Because he knew that Beatrice was taking the painting to Carrera’s—she’d let that slip before she realized what a pair of villains he and Chloë are—and he couldn’t afford for the signor or anyone else to recognize him. I went to the gallery first thing yesterday morning, but the signor was on his guard: Beatrice had warned him that someone might try to steal the painting, and he didn’t know me from Adam or from Eve. The best I could do was to keep track of everyone. First I dressed up as that foul-smelling beggar, following the young lord around, and then back to the gallery I went to see who might show up for the opening. And then away to Chloë’s to find out what I could about my poor young Beatrice.
“I saw there was no getting near her last night, not with the manservant standing guard outside the door, so I came back to see what the art dealer was up to. He was trying to take the painting to his own home, where he could put it in a safe, when the young lord and some hired bully jumped him. The signor had buttoned the painting inside his shirt, and before they could find it on his person, those young street Arabs of Mr. Holmes up and frightened off the attackers. I was lucky enough to follow the clamor and take him up and bring him back with me here. He finally was brought to believe that I meant him no harm.
“And now, Mr. Holmes, you get out of your sulks. Even Shakespeare didn’t always write perfect plays, and even you can’t be right but nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand. You and Dr. Watson come along with me and we’ll get Miss Beatrice out of her captivity fast enough.”
We did as Miss Butterworth commanded. While she changed into her charwoman’s costume, I visited the unfortunate gallery owner, who was asleep in a spare bedroom. He had been well treated, his wounds properly bathed, and he was in a deep, drug-induced sleep.
As soon as I had finished my inspection of the dressings, I joined Holmes and Miss Butterworth and we set out for Cadogan Gardens, dismissing our cab on Sloan Street, for what charwoman can afford a hansom cab?
When the under-housemaid opened the area door, Mi
ss Butterworth, and Holmes, disguised as a coal man, followed. I came in as a doctor, claiming that I had been sent for to treat the young lady with the dangerous fever.
We freed Miss Beatrice quickly, and not a moment too soon, for the bonds with which she was restrained were taking a toll on her circulation, as was the lack of food and water on her general health. The lady’s maid and the butler we locked in the bedroom to await the arrival of Scotland Yard.
Miss Butterworth and I escorted Miss Beatrice back to the American woman’s borrowed flat, where I tended the young lady, until I had the satisfaction of seeing her color somewhat restored. Signor Carrera was much improved as well. In fact, he was almost exuberant, for he was able to confirm that the painting was, indeed, by Titian.
Holmes, in the meantime, undertook to bring the difficult news of his wife’s treachery to the Undersecretary for Oriental Affairs, sending a telegram to the Cairo office of the Foreign Secretary. When I returned to Baker Street, he was moodily playing his violin and cut off my attempts to report on Signor Carrera’s assessment of the portrait.
“I shall retire, Watson. I am clearly no longer fit for this work. If I had taken your first suggestion to heart and looked into the theft of the Duchess of Hoovering’s tiara, none of the rest of these events need have occurred. I should not have been shown up by an untrained middle-aged American woman.”
Before I could do more than mumble some incoherent phrases, Mrs. Hudson came up the stairs in great excitement to announce the Duke and Duchess of Hoovering. The noble couple wished somehow to convey the shame they felt on having a cadet who had so disgraced their lineage and their country.
“We are sending him to Kenya to work on our coffee plantation there,” her grace said, “in the hopes that having to work for his livelihood will give him a greater respect for the wealth that he squanders at play. In the meantime, Mr. Holmes, we hope you will undertake a most delicate mission for us in Budapest. As you may know, my sister is one of the Empress Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting. My sister believes that someone is attempting to poison Her Majesty, but it is impossible for her to mount an investigation herself.”
Holmes bowed and said he was, of course, her grace’s servant to command.
My wife having telegraphed her imminent return to London, I stayed at Baker Street only long enough to help my friend pack his bag. I escorted him to Waterloo for the night train to Paris. You may imagine how eager I was to put the sorry business of Lord Frances Hoovering and Chloë Someringforth out of my mind, although I was of course delighted that my friend’s weakness for royalty had caused him to put down his violin and return to the chase.
My one cause of unease was the sight of a beggar woman wrapped in numerous shawls boarding the third-class carriage of the Paris train. But surely, I thought as I sped through the streets toward my own home, Miss Butterworth would not leave her young charge alone in London.
Note
Amelia Butterworth was the amateur detective created by American crime novelist Anna Katharine Green (1846–1935). Miss Butterworth assisted and, indeed, outshone Green’s investigative detective Ebenezer Gryce, whose methods of observation and deduction were similar to those of Holmes. The first Gryce novel, The Leavenworth Case, was published almost a decade before Sherlock Holmes first appeared. At the height of her popularity, Green’s novels sold in the millions of copies. At the start of his career, Conan Doyle corresponded with Green, wanting to meet her in person to discuss her methods of publicizing her work.
I have always felt some annoyance that Green’s work has disappeared from public awareness. Many of Holmes’s methods were pioneered by Green’s detectives, and so when Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger asked for a story for their collection, In the Company of Sherlock Holmes (Pegasus, 2014), I seized on the opportunity to have Amelia Butterworth show up the Great Detective.
Wildcat
1
The heat in the attic was so heavy that not even the flies had enough energy to move. The two children lay on the floor. Sweat rose on their skin, gluing their clothes to the linoleum.
Normally on a hot August Friday, they’d be at the beach, but Marie Warshawski had decreed that her son must remain close to home today. Normally the cousins would have disregarded this edict, but today Victoria was nervous, wanting to hear as much of the grown-up gossip as possible.
She and Boom-Boom—Bernard to his mother—often spent afternoons together: that was when Victoria’s mother gave music lessons in the minute front room of her own South Chicago bungalow. If Victoria stayed home, she either had to read quietly in her attic room or sit primly in the front room to watch and learn from her mother’s few good singers.
Just as a student was starting to warm up, Victoria would announce glibly that she would visit Aunt Marie, choosing not to notice her mother’s prohibition against running wild with her cousin.
In the winters, Victoria followed Boom-Boom to the makeshift ice rinks where he played a rough brand of pickup hockey. No girls allowed, period, which caused some fights between the cousins—away from the other boys, Boom-Boom wanted Victoria to help him perfect the slapshot of his idol, Boom-Boom Geoffrion.
“Tough,” she’d say before skating to the other side of the rink. “Girls can’t play hockey, remember?” He’d skate after her, they’d argue and even wrestle, until he went down on one knee and said, “Victoria, please help me. When I’m a star with the Blackhawks, I’ll get you free tickets to every game.”
In the summers, the cousins spent hours together. With the rest of the neighborhood, they played pickup baseball in Calumet Park. Or they pooled their coins to take bus and train up to Wrigley Field, where they climbed over the wall behind the bleachers and sneaked into the park. Or they dared each other to jump off the breakwater into Lake Calumet, or rode their bikes past the irate guards at the South Works, playing a complicated hide-and-seek among the mountains of slag.
This Friday, Victoria was too worried about her father to stray from Aunt Marie’s home. Tony Warshawski was a police officer. Along with every other cop on the South Side, Officer Warshawski had been ordered to Marquette Park to help keep the peace.
Martin Luther King had come to Chicago in January 1966. He was living in an apartment, a slum, the newspapers called it. All summer long, there had been marches in different parts of the city, with Negroes and their white supporters demanding open housing, an end to real estate covenants, access to Lake Michigan beaches, access to city jobs.
“What are real estate covenants?” Victoria had asked her mother.
“White people who own apartment buildings or houses made a law that Negro people can only rent apartments in one part of the city,” Gabriella said. “They cannot be our neighbors here in South Chicago, for example.”
“And they don’t want to be!” Aunt Marie exclaimed. “They know their place, or they did, until that Commie King showed up here. And we’re supposed to call him a doctor and a reverend? He’s just a troublemaker who can’t live without seeing his face on TV or his picture in the paper. We don’t need him here in Chicago, stirring people up, causing trouble.”
And trouble there’d been, by the truckload. Everywhere the marchers went—Negroes along with their white supporters, including nuns and priests, to Aunt Marie’s fury—riots had followed. White people, who’d only ever seen Negroes on public transportation or cleaning the bathrooms in their office buildings, were furious at the thought that Negroes might become their next-door neighbors, swim at the same beaches, even become bus drivers. They threw bricks and bottles and cherry bombs while the police tried to keep order. Tony Warshawski had been away from home for three days at a time, working treble shifts along with every other cop in the city.
Today would be worse, Tony had told his wife and daughter Friday morning before he left for work: everyone’s nerves were on edge. Nothing Mayor Daley said could stop the marchers, and nothing Dr. King said could get the real estate board to change their laws against open housing.
<
br /> Anger in the Lithuanian and Irish and Polish neighborhoods grew when the city’s new archbishop, John Cody, made every priest read a letter to the parish on open housing as part of a Christ-like life.
“They kicked Cody out of New Orleans,” Marie fumed. “He made the Catholic schools take in colored children, but the people hated him for doing it and forced him to leave the city. I don’t know why the pope thought we need him here! When he left New Orleans, the priests sang a thanksgiving hymn as soon as they saw him get on the plane. He’s been here a year and he thinks he knows better than us what we should be doing? We’re the ones who built the church here! Why doesn’t he listen to his priests?”
Her own parish priest at St. Eloy’s read Archbishop Cody’s letter, since he was a good soldier in Christ’s army, but Father Gribac also preached a thundering sermon, telling his congregation that Christians had a duty to fight Communists and look after their families.
Aunt Marie repeated the gist of Father Gribac’s remarks when she dropped in on Gabriella earlier in the week. “Everybody knows this King person is a Communist.”
“He is a pastor. He cannot be a Communist,” Gabriella objected.
“They chose to make him a preacher as a cover, that’s how the Communists operate,” Marie rebutted. “Father Gribac says he’s tired of the archbishop sitting in his mansion like God on a throne, not caring about white people in this city. We’re the ones who built these churches, but Archbishop Cody wants to let those ni—”
“Not that word in my house, Marie,” Gabriella had said sharply.
“Oh, you can be as high-and-mighty as you like, Gabriella, but what about us? What about the lives we worked so hard to make here?”
“Mama Warshawski, she tells me always how hard it is to be Polish in this city in 1923,” Gabriella said. “The Germans have been coming here first, next the Irish. They want no Poles taking their jobs away. Mama tells me how they call Papa Warshawski names when he looks for work. And Antony, he has to do many hard jobs at the police, they are Irish, they aren’t liking Polish people at first. It is always the way, Marie. It is sad, but it is always the way, the ones that come first want to keep out the ones who come second.”
Love & Other Crimes Page 24