Secrets From the Deed Box of John H Watson, MD (The Deed Box of John H. Watson MD)

by Ashton, Hugh

  “I understand,” I replied, though in truth I understood little.

  The ball proceeded along its course, and after a few dances with Miss O’Rafferty, I suggested that we adjourn to the supper-room and partake of champagne and some light refreshment. She assented gladly, and I gave her my arm as we left the ballroom. Not altogether to my surprise, I saw Miss Katherine Raeburn in the almost deserted supper-room. She appeared to be in conversation with the footman with whom I had spoken the previous night, whose company had obviously been engaged for this occasion. Neither appeared to have noticed me, as I disengaged myself from my partner, and moved forward as quietly as I could, motioning to Miss O’Rafferty to remain silent. I was now close enough to overhear their conversation.

  “...more than you did for the last one. That was worth three thousand, and you only got seventy-five for it,” she said to the servant.

  “It’s not up to me, Beckie,” whined the footman. “I get what I can from those damned Amsterdam sheenies. What do you want me to give you? I can’t give you what I don’t have.”

  “If you can’t do better than you have been doing, I’m out of it.” She spoke in a low voice, and there was menace in her words. “I’m going to pack it all in and go back home tomorrow, and you can swing, for all I care. The Glebe Push is coming this way, and we’ve not got that long before they’re on our backs and then we’re going to have to pack it in, anyway.”

  “You wouldn’t peach on me, would you, Beckie?”

  “I’d peach if I b— (and here she pronounced a word that I had never previously heard used by a woman) well like, you b—. I know you’re getting more for the swag than you’re telling me, and I want you to know that I’m not going along with it any more. “

  “You can’t—” and the man stopped in horror as he realised my presence.

  “What have you been listening to?” asked the woman, turning and looking at me aghast. “I know you, don’t I?” as she scanned my face. “You were the bloke with the jerry in Regent Street the other day, weren’t you? And then the jerry went missing when I got back. Some b— had twigged it. What the h— are you doing here? No, Jem,” she said to the footman, who was advancing towards me. “You can’t do anything here. In any case, she’s watching us,” pointing at Miss O’Rafferty.

  “Stay where you are and do not move,” I ordered them, taking the whistle from my breast pocket and blowing three sharp blasts. Within a minute the music in the ballroom ceased as the dancing stopped, and the guests peered cautiously into the supper-room.

  “Rebecca Sudthorpe and Jeremy Atwood, stay where you are and do not move!” cried Holmes in ringing tones, as he pushed his way through the crowd to stand by my side. The two appeared stunned and frozen, but Atwood’s hand made a sudden move towards the inside of his livery coat, which was checked by Holmes’ advance on him, brandishing the life-preserver above his head. Sudthorpe’s face froze in a mask of horror as she recognised her erstwhile dancing partner of the previous evening.

  At that moment, Inspector Lestrade arrived at the head of a squad of uniformed constables.

  “Put the derbies on them, lads,” he called to his men, and in a trice, the woman that society had known as Katherine Raeburn and the footman, who was speedily relieved of his pistol, were securely handcuffed. “That was a mighty fine piece of work there, Mr Holmes, I don’t mind telling you. Maybe you can tell us how you came to make these discoveries.”

  “I would sooner that we were without an audience,” replied Holmes, waving a hand at the crowd of immaculately dressed onlookers who were thronging the entrance to the room, some with their mouths literally hanging open.

  Lestrade ordered the room cleared and the doors to be closed, but my dance partner, Miss O’Rafferty, clung to my arm and murmured to me, “It’s all so terribly exciting. Do you think that I might be allowed to stay and listen?”

  Holmes, with his keen hearing, overheard this, and smilingly nodded his assent, with (I am ashamed to say) a knowing wink in my direction.

  “It was a few days ago in Regent Street,” he explained to us, “that Sudthorpe picked the pocket of my friend Dr Watson, severing the chain of his watch with a stout pair of scissors, which, I have no doubt, will be on her person at this moment.”

  “So that’s what happened to my locket!” exclaimed Miss O’Rafferty.

  “I believe that to be the case,” acknowledged Holmes to my partner, who was now blushing prettily, seemingly at her temerity in interrupting. “It was obvious to me that the child was not hers, even before the ‘accident’ that pushed the child into the roadway. This was confirmed when I followed her cab and saw her give the child to another—”

  “You are a cunning b—, aren’t you? So it was you following me!” broke in the Australian.

  Holmes bowed ironically to her. “I had that honour,” he replied.

  “How did you know that the child was not hers?” I asked. “Forgive me for interrupting.”

  “When we were walking behind her and the child, who was walking on the outside?” Holmes asked me.

  I recalled the scene in my mind. “Of course. The child was walking on the outside closest to the carriageway. No mother would expose her child to the danger of the passing traffic in that fashion.” I noticed Sudthorpe shaking her head ruefully at Holmes’ observation.

  “When I read the list of the items stolen at the balls and dances, it appeared to me that all of them could have been removed by the same method, other than the bracelet that was reported stolen by Miss Katherine Raeburn. That was an anomaly, Lestrade, a glaring exception, that should have alerted you immediately.”

  “Never mind that,” replied the Inspector gruffly. “Why did she report a theft that never took place? And where is Miss Katherine Raeburn?”

  “As to your first, Inspector, it was dust thrown in our eyes. It blinded you successfully, Lestrade, and it nearly blinded me. As to the second, I believe that Katherine Raeburn was murdered by the members of the Bradfield Push – ‘Push’ is an Australian colloquialism meaning ‘Gang’ – and Sudthorpe took her place. Her hands are not those of a lady – I am unsurprised that she habitually wears gloves, but I noticed the redness and roughness when she removed the gloves to partake of the refreshments. Your table manners, Miss Sudthorpe, if I may venture a personal remark, are also hardly those of a lady.”

  “That’s a lie about the murder!” cried the woman. “Thief I may be, but murderer never. I was maid to Miss Raeburn, working as an indentured servant. She was a good mistress to me, but on our journey from Australia to England she suddenly took sick and died of a fever in Cape Town, where we had only just arrived and we were completely unknown. She had told me that no-one in England knew what she looked like, so it was easy for me to take her body, dress it in the clothes I wore as her servant, and lay it in my bed. She took my place, as it were, and I took hers, dressed in her clothes, and copying her voice and her ways, and took my opportunity to lead a good life here in England. She had a decent burial in Cape Town, in case you’re wondering. Her gravestone has Rebecca Sudthorpe on it, and I paid for it all with her money. The ship for England sailed the week after she died, and none on board knew me from Adam’s wife Eve, except Jem here, who by pure chance happened to be on the same boat.”

  “Ah yes,” replied Holmes. “Jeremy Atwood, the leader of the Bradfield Push, as I discovered from the records in the Colonial Office earlier today. How did you come to know Rebecca Sudthorpe?”

  It was the woman who answered. “My father was under Jem in the Push, and Jem had been close to our family. I swear to you that I was going to lead a good life here, and then go back to Australia, but Jem came up with this idea that you have discovered. He was to dispose of the jewels I stole at these dances and we would split the proceeds.”

  Holmes nodded. “I knew that there had to be some way of disposing of the loot. No pawnbroker or jeweller had ever reported any items being offered to them – I must congratulate you, Lestrade, on your thor
oughness and tenacity in verifying this – and it was obvious that the jewellery was being passed to a confederate at the very events where it was being purloined. There was too great a risk of discovery if Sudthorpe were to retain them on her person, let alone in Upper Grosvenor Street. Either the goods were being held by a third party, or, as I judged more likely, they were being sold abroad.”

  “Amsterdam, I believe,” I added.

  “Indeed?” asked Holmes. Atwood nodded sullenly in confirmation. “Amsterdam, then. Given the diamond trade there, I should not be surprised, I suppose. So Atwood, in his intervals of serving at the gatherings to which the supposed Miss Raeburn was invited, slipped across the Channel and raised the cash by selling the loot passed to him. And with the Glebe Push arriving in London in a month or two, it was obvious that they would have to work fast before the competition, as it were, arrived on the scene. For now, I would be interested to see what is concealed on their persons in the form of tonight’s takings.”

  “I have a woman here who will search Sudthorpe if a room can be provided,” announced Lestrade. “Atwood will be searched by the constables.”

  The two were led away by the police officers, and Lestrade turned to Holmes. “Well, Mr Holmes, maybe there is something to these methods of yours, though I dare say I should have reached the same conclusion in the end.”

  “I dare say,” commented Holmes absently.

  “All this excitement has made me quite hungry,” complained my little companion. “Doctor Watson, may I presume on your kindness,” she smiled up at me, “and request that you take me to supper at a restaurant somewhere?”

  “I will be more than delighted to do so,” I replied, taking her arm. “I am sure that Mr Holmes and Inspector Lestrade have many points of the case that they wish to discuss.”

  -oOo-

  I was informed later by Holmes that the search had revealed three pendant brooches, valued together at over ten thousand guineas, as well as the stout pair of scissors used by Sudthorpe to acquire the items. The other stolen items, apart from one that had been abstracted on the previous night, were never recovered, and my little Irish lass had to be resigned to the loss of her locket.

  “The moral of the story is, Watson,” Holmes remarked to me with more than a touch of cynicism, “that one should never trust the fair sex.”

  I objected to his misogyny at the time, but had cause to remember his words a few weeks later, when Miss Eileen O’Rafferty announced her engagement to Captain Lucan of the Connaught Rangers.

  About the Author

  Hugh Ashton came from the UK to Japan in 1988 to work as a technical writer, and has remained in the country ever since.

  When he can find time, one of his main loves is writing fiction, which he has been doing since he was about eight years old.

  As a long-time admirer of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, Hugh has often wanted to complete the canon of the stories by writing the stories which are tantalizingly mentioned in passing by Watson, but never published. This latest offering of four such stories brings Sherlock Holmes to life again.

  More Sherlock Holmes stories from the same source are definitely on the cards, as Hugh continues to recreate 221b Baker Street from the relatively exotic location of Kamakura, Japan, a little south of Tokyo.

  Look for Hugh’s other books:

  Tales From the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD

  More from the Deed Box of John H. Watson MD

  and

  Tales of Old Japanese

  (all from Inknbeans Press) as well as his novels:

  Beneath Gray Skies

  At the Sharpe End

  Red Wheels Turning

  All available as paperbacks and ebooks from fine booksellers everywhere. See http://hughashtonbooks.info

  Contact Hugh at hashton@inknbeans.com.

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