by Ashton, Hugh
We escorted the weeping servant to the hospital, and left her there with the body of her late mistress, requesting her to visit us at Baker-street at the first possible occasion when she felt able to do so.
“A bad business, Holmes,” I said to him, as we left the hospital. “We seem to have uncovered a nest of iniquity, do we not?”
“Your colleague Clifford certainly seems to be one of the most cold-hearted and ruthless criminals with whom I have had the misfortune to come into contact, I agree.”
“The man is a fiend. I am ashamed ever to have had any connection whatsoever with him.”
“Come, man, we do not always choose our companions. Sometimes they are thrust upon us and we have little choice in the matter. In any event, following your and Menzies’ post-mortem and the resulting inquest, it is clear that the expected marriage between Annabel Stevens and Dr. Henry Clifford failed to take place, for the simple reason that the bride was nowhere to be found. Thwarted of the family connection, Clifford determined to put a price on his silence. However, it seemed that both he and Montpensier had somewhat misread the import of the will, and he was not able to collect the money that he had originally assumed would be coming his way.”
“Enough, though, for him to purchase that practice in Harley-street,” I pointed out.
“True. I noticed that the sums that he was demanding were quite considerable,and thereby forced the changes in Madame’s circumstances that we saw—necessitating the letting of the house at Reigate and the move to those squalid Bayswater lodgings.”
“And the servant, Hannah?”
“She is most certainly an accessory to the fact, though whether before or after it, I do not know.”
By this time, we had arrived at Baker-Street, and Holmes used his latch-key to let us enter the house. As we mounted the stairs to the room, I noticed a dark shadow on the landing above us, and I tugged at Holmes’ sleeve to alert him. Softly, we moved up the steps, Holmes keeping to the right side of the stairs and I to the left. However, our stealth was in vain. As we approached, the figure turned, and I beheld Clifford, with a look of insane fury on his face, glaring at us.
“You meddling, interfering police spy!” he spat at Holmes.
“Now then, Doctor,” Holmes admonished him. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will not hurt me.”
“Hah!” hissed the other. “It may be that this will not break your bones, but it will surely put an end to your busybody ways.” From his pocket he produced a medical syringe, tipped with a long needle. “Do you know what is in this? Of course you do not, and I am not about to tell you. If I did, even Watson here might be able to save your life once the poison has entered your blood. On the other hand, if I let it remain a secret, there may be some delay—probably a fatal one—before the correct treatment can be determined and applied. Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, it is time for you to bid farewell to your friends and to the world.”
He advanced on Holmes, the syringe gripped in his hand, and a truly diabolical expression on his face. The hand holding the syringe flashed out, but Holmes intercepted it, seizing him by the wrist, and slowly but inexorably pushing it back. I moved forward to assist, but Holmes waved me back.
“No, Watson, no. The risk is too great. Go to the street and summon a constable!” As I turned to obey, I saw Clifford twist free of Holmes’ grasp and move towards his adversary, the syringe held aloft. As he neared Holmes, he encountered empty space, Holmes having stepped aside. Seeing his attacker now off-balance, Holmes used a curious trick involving both a foot and one hand grasping his opponent around the waist (he informed me later that this was a move used in the Japanese system of wrestling known as baritsu), and Clifford fell heavily down the stairs, narrowly missing me as I stepped aside, and lay still. A moan escaped his lips.
I rushed to his aid, but Holmes veritably leaped down the staircase after him, pushing me to one side. I scrambled down, and saw Clifford’s eyes bulging with terror.
“You devil!” he rasped at Holmes. “You devil!” he repeated. I was unable to ascertain the reason for his apparent fear and hatred of Holmes until I noticed the barrel of the syringe near his shoulder. The needle had apparently penetrated his skin, and it seemed to be truly a case of the engineer being hoist with his own petard.
“The name of the poison, man,” I implored him.
“Why... should... I... tell... you...?” His breath was now a series of laboured gasps, and it was pitiful to hear him. “Better... this... than... the gallows.”
“He means to die,” said Holmes coldly. “Do not interfere with his plans.”
I was shocked at Holmes’ reaction, and I struggled to free myself from the iron grip with which he now restrained me, as he gazed down impassively at the dying man. I could do nothing except watch alongside him. I do not know how long I stayed, unable to perform my duty, as Holmes clutched my arm, and I kept my eyes fastened on those of my erstwhile colleague, which were fixed on my in a curious unseeing gaze. At the last, there was a croaking gurgle, and a spasm of the limbs, and Henry Clifford departed this life.
Holmes released his hold, and I bent down to examine the body, confirming that life was indeed extinct. When I rose, I confronted Holmes, and I confess that I felt a considerable anger towards him.
“Holmes, that was unworthy of you. Whatever he may have done in the past, he was a fellow human being who was in pain, and it was my duty to attempt to alleviate that suffering.”
“I can make few apologies, Watson,” he replied. His voice was distant as he spoke to me. “He had betrayed his Oath as a doctor. Why, then, should you insist on keeping your own in order to help one who had already proved himself a traitor to your ideals?”
I had no immediate answer to give him, except to ask a question in reply. “What are we to do here?”
“Why, we will call the police and inform him that this intruder attacked me, and died in the scuffle. It is no more than the truth.”
“And a good deal less!” I exclaimed hotly.
“Could you have saved him?” Holmes asked me. The question appeared to be genuine on his part, and was not, as far as I was able to determine, a sarcastic one.
“It is unlikely,” I admitted.
“In that case, your medical reputation remains untarnished, which it might not have done had you attempted an unsuccessful treatment.”
Holmes was obviously still in no mood to be trifled with, and he merely assented briefly when I suggested that I fetch a policeman and report Clifford’s death, adding briefly that we should confine our initial report, at the least, to the boundaries which he had sketched earlier.
I was lucky enough to discover a pair of constables on the street corner, and requested one to inform Scotland Yard of the discovery, requesting that Inspector Lestrade be summoned to inspect the corpus delicti, since he was the officer who had originally been in charge of the case some six months earlier.
Lestrade duly arrived some twenty minutes later, and after a brief inspection of the body, ordered it to be taken away.
Holmes gave a curt explanation of the circumstances under which Clifford had met his death, to which Lestrade listened in a baffled silence.
“I am unclear as to why he wished to do you harm, though,” enquired the official agent.
“That, my dear Lestrade, is a rather long and painful story,” answered Holmes. “I had discovered his complicity in a fraud intimately connected with the Reigate case.” He proceeded to relate the circumstances leading up to the event.
“It seems to me, Mr. Holmes, that your handling of this case does not altogether resound to your credit,” remarked Lestrade, when Holmes had finished his account.
“Nor does that of the official force appear to its credit,” replied my friend sharply.
I could sense an altercation brewing between the two men, and hastened to intervene. “It seems to me,” I broke in, “that there was no way that any of us can be blamed for this. We started from a false premis
e, it is true, that of the identity of the body, but we were misinformed from such seemingly unimpeachable sources, and the truth was so improbable that it is hard to imagine that either you, Holmes, or the official police, Inspector, could have acted otherwise. After all, did we not hear a confession from the maid, and another from Montpensier’s bigamous husband? I cannot see that the case could have been conducted in any other way, given such evidence as was presented to us.”
“You may have a point there, Doctor,” admitted Lestrade, “but the situation is at the very least embarrassing, do you not agree?”
“I am sure that to an experienced officer such as yourself,” I replied, “the correct course of action will recommend itself to you soon enough.”
To this, Lestrade replied with a mere grunt, and sat in silence, clearly deliberating the matter in his mind. At length he rose. “I suppose I must thank you for these facts,” he said to Holmes, but his manner was grudging. “I must return to the Yard and make my report.”
“I can almost feel pity for Lestrade,” Holmes said, when the policeman had left us. “He has a responsibility to his superiors which happily is absent in my case. I foresee a few future problems for him in this area.” He turned to his desk and resumed his studies of the documents relating to another case on which he was working.
Though his words were spoken in a light-hearted enough manner, it was clear to me that the matter of Clifford was weighing on his mind, and this was confirmed to me when he suddenly stood up abruptly, flinging the papers on which he had been working to the ground, and let out a most uncharacteristic oath.
“My dear Holmes!” I exclaimed. “Do you feel able to let me know what is troubling you?”
As was his wont, his quick temper had subsided almost immediately, but it was with a look of sadness that he turned to me. “Watson,” he said in a low voice. “However much I may attempt to deny the fact, I am subject to many of the human vices and frailties that affect us all. Not the least of these is pride, and my pride is hurt that I was deceived by that ignoramus of a doctor, and that shallow fool of a vain woman. As a result, a man went to the gallows, and was hanged for a crime he did not commit. Whatever I may have said to you in the past on the subject, the fact of the matter is that it does indeed weigh heavily on my conscience.”
I made no answer to this, but listened in silence.
“Indeed, it was almost as if I wished to be deceived,” he went on. “I have often said to you that I am immune to the gentler passions, but I confess to feeling some sympathy for Madame Montpensier, for entirely the wrong reasons.”
I digested this confession for some time, and then a thought struck me. Holmes. “What of this Mademoiselle Carère in New York?” I asked. “The message from your contact in the Pinkterton Agency which started all this business?”
Holmes considered my words. “An excellent question, Watson. It would seem to me to be best to let sleeping dogs lie in this instance. I shall send a telegram to Pinkerton to the effect that she is an impostor and her claims are to be ignored. However, I shall also use my own independent channels to inform her that all is known, and that any further attempt on her part to pursue the matter will be met by a full exposure of her part in this foul business, and possible extradition to this country, and prosecution as an accessory to murder.”
Once this had been done, we heard nothing more of the matter. It appeared that somehow Lestrade had succeeded in burying the whole business in the Scotland Yard files, as no more came to the public eye in this regard. The inquests on both Montpensier and Clifford were conductedin camera, and though both Homes and I were called to give evidence, the verdict in both cases was given as “death by misadventure”. As to the maid Hannah, it came to my ears that she had taken service with a family in the North country, well away from the dreadful scenes that had taken place earlier.
Holmes never spoke of the case again, but I believe that this incident was indeed a matter which weighed on him heavily, and my belief is that this was not simply on account of the flaw in his judgement that led him to an erroneous conclusion, but it was also, as he had said earlier, on account of the execution of a man who was innocent of the crime for which he had been hanged.
-oOo-
From: The Finsbury House
An extract from The Finsbury House (contained in Further Notes from the Dispatch-Box of John H. Watson MD)
My friend, the famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, had often displayed to me his interest in and knowledge of the musical world. I was, however, unaware of his interest in the more visual arts until the events related here, which formed the prologue to one of the more sensational and dangerous adventures in which he and I found ourselves involved.
I had recently been away from London, taking the air at a seaside resort. Holmes claimed to be immersed in a case of extraordinary delicacy, and did not accompany me. On my return following a week away from the metropolis, I entered our rooms at Baker-street to discover Holmes stretched at full length on the floor, face-down, examining what appeared to be a large painting through one of his lenses.
He greeted me with an absorbed air, without, however, bothering to turn his head or even to glance in my direction. “Welcome back, Watson. Home is the sailor, home from the sea. I trust that your little holiday romance ended satisfactorily?”
Though it was true that I had made the acquaintance of a charming young lady during my time at Broadstairs, I had not mentioned this to Holmes in my communications to him, and my astonishment must have registered in my face.
“The flower in your buttonhole, Watson. I have noticed that when a young man’s fancy, or even when your fancy, strays in the direction of romance, unaccustomed foliage tends to sprout in that area. There is also a decided spring in your step which cannot be wholly attributable to the effects of the sea air.”
“You have hardly taken the trouble to look at me since I entered the room,” I pointed out.
“The trivial details that I have just remarked are perfectly clear to me, even when reflected in the surface of this lens, which constitutes an excellent mirror,” he retorted.
“Leaving the question of my affections entirely to one side, may I enquire what on earth you are doing? I confess that I had no idea that you are interested in matters such as this.”
“All is grist to my mill where a case is involved. I have found myself in this position of being an expert in the arts owing to the force of circumstances, rather than as a result of choice on my part, though I confess that the subject of forgery in art presents its own particular interests, which could well repay further study at some time in the future. What do you make of this?” He asked me, springing to his feet and taking the picture, leaning it against the back of the sofa for my inspection.
“I do not pretend to be any kind of expert in these things,” I told him. I regarded the picture, which was a portrait of a man in Stuart costume, somewhat in the Dutch style. “If I was asked to give any kind of opinion, though, I would say that this was a 17th-century work, possibly the work of van Dyck, or one of his contemporaries.”
“Bravo, Watson! Bravo indeed. This portrait is indeed attributed to van Dyck. However, it is my considered opinion that it has been painted in the last few years – possibly even in the last year.”
“And the owner of the painting wishes to verify its authenticity?” I asked. “Surely it would be better for him to employ an expert in these matters? Meaning no offence to you, my dear Holmes, but you are hardly widely regarded as being an authority on matters of art.”
“By no means. This is a matter which has come to my attention almost by accident, as the result of my investigations into a case which would appear to have no connection at all with the world of art. Until two days ago, this painting was hanging in the gallery of Amberfield House.”
“The London home of Sir Godfrey Leighbury?”
“The same. Sir Godfrey had employed my services in a most delicate matter. His wife, Lady Celia, appe
ared to have mislaid a valuable diamond brooch, but was unable to tell him, or so it would appear, where the loss had occurred. On my examining the case, it was obvious to me that she was perfectly able to inform him of the whereabouts of the brooch, but was unwilling to do so. After a little time I was able to locate the brooch—she had inadvertently given me some clues as to its whereabouts—but it proved to have been set with false stones.”
“I take it that originally it had been created using real diamonds?”
“So I was informed, though, of course, I have no way of confirming this, other than the fact that the jewellery was insured, and that presumably the insurance company had made an accurate estimate of the brooch’s value. I informed Sir Godfrey of my findings, though it is not usually my place to come between husband and wife in such matters.
“I took the opportunity of investigating further, and my suspicions were aroused when I observed that at least one of the paintings in the gallery had recently been removed and replaced. I enquired of Sir Godfrey whether any of the paintings had been taken down for restoration or for any other reason, but he was unable to confirm this. With his permission, therefore, I removed the painting which had originally attracted my attention, and arranged for it to be sent here where I could examine it at leisure. From what I can see, it appears that my suspicions were well founded.”
“You believe it to be a forgery, then?”
“I am almost certain of it. Oil paintings of a certain age exhibit cracks in their surface, the technical term for which iscraquelure. Within those cracks, it is natural for dust to accumulate over the years. Although this painting exhibits cracks resembling the type of pattern I would expect to see on a work of art of this age, there is little or no dust within the cracks. This leads me to believe that the painting is a recent one. Will you accompany me to the National Gallery, where I wish to make a similar examination of a painting which is authentically that of van Dyck?”
“By all means. Do you wish to leave now?”
“No, no. I wish you to observe for yourself the phenomenon about which I speak. There are also one or two other small matters to which I must attend. Here,” passing me the lens, “although it is somewhat easier to see the dust when the painting is lying flat, as it was when you entered the room, you should still be able to make out the fact that there is little of the accumulated debris that one might expect in a painting over two centuries old.”