"Well?"
"Very well, thank-you Holmes. And you?" I answered, all sprightly,
"Stop tacking about, Watson, how is she?"
"How's who?" I replied, the soul of innocence.
"Oh sweet Lord, Watson, I'd hoped we were adults and this was an age of enlightenment. Right, to save any further flummery, I'll tell you how I know that you spent the night giving Mrs Amelia Shaw reason to launder her bed linen. First, I knew you were going to see her yesterday, I told you to. Second, whilst you didn't disturb me with any of your nocturnal, Afghan shrieks last night and I assumed you were still in your room when I rose, no-one else clicks his damn cane as he walks down Baker Street like you do; you sound like a wretched drill-sergeant with his pace stick and I implore you to stop it. Third, your footsteps became silent when you reached the doorstep - you were obviously taking off your boots. Fourth, you had a whispered conversation with Mrs Hudson. Fifth, your throat is scratching your collar - you haven't shaved: you always shave, you shave as regularly as Mr Gladstone shaves the truth. Sixth, you reek of scent - no, not a lady's scent, perfume: a shop girl's perfume. Not too difficult, Watson, I'm sure you'll agree. I make no judgement." At this he dropped his paper and waved his right hand in that infuriating way that he had - his own gracious, beastly benediction. "But I'm agog to find out what you discovered - the bits you feel you can tell me, that is."
Chapter Five, Rupture.
After a morning's rest, a gentle run to find out just how bruised Lincoln had left me and some hard thinking, I'd resolved what to do. Luckily, Holmes had gone somewhere, Mrs Hudson was deliberately keeping out of my way and I had the house to myself. I met Trevelyan (who was an authority on this sort of thing) for a light supper at our club and listened to his advice.
"No, Watson, this isn’t the senior don's daughter, this is a woman who's as well versed in a hay-rick as she is on a goose-down quilt. It's a bit more complex than the needs of the flesh, I grant you, because you want more information, but that - I hardly need say - can best be obtained across a bolster. Flowers are for flattery, billet-doux for forgiveness, chocolates for persuasion: none of these is necessary, for you've already saddled this filly. Take her a copy of The Sporting Times and a twist of navy cut for afterwards if you so wish, but just go at her, she'll fall to the same charms as she did last night no matter how you left matters, see if she doesn’t."
This struck me as sound guidance. I'd half expected Bowler to show up at some time and for me to have to palm him off somehow, but he didn't, so I just went straight to Aldebert Terrace from my club but was disappointed to see the house in darkness. It was ten o'clock and cold, but I was hot, so I decided to wait for a little while in the hope that she would turn up. I stayed in the shadows of a nearby coalman's yard entry and was musing whether I should linger for very much longer when a cab drew up outside her door and waited whilst two figures got out. One was certainly Amelia, the other a solidly built and over-coated man who took her to the door and seemed to kiss her only on the cheek before returning to the cab. At first I didn't recognise the figure but, as he turned, I saw Gutteridge's skewed nose and bushy moustache in the light from the closest gas-standard. Not much affection there, I thought; not the parting of a couple who were about to elope. I needed to know more.
I went to the front door - an approach via the backdoor would be too grubby - and knocked. The half-glass above showed that a light had come on and before long I heard footsteps on the carpet followed by,
"I'm sick o' telling' you, Albert Gutteridge: no. Nothin's changed, now be off with you," said not unkindly but quite firmly with no attempt being made to open the door.
"Amelia, it is I, not The Great Pierce," I answered simply. No importuning, no explanation, she'd either let me in or send me away as well. There was a long silence, then the light was extinguished, a chain slid off, a key turned and I stepped into a dark but welcoming hall. No sooner had the door shut behind us, though, than I found two slender arms around my neck and two delightful lips pressed to mine.
"Mother of God, I'm glad you're back. I thought I'd scared you off with all that moping," she whispered as I was dragged to the parlour and shown just how glad she was.
***
"He's a nuisance that man," said Amelia as I let the conversation take its own course after our reunion. We'd adjourned upstairs and now lay beside each other she filing her nails and my listening and gently steering her account of things when she went off on a tangent. "He'd got wind of something last night, he wouldn't accept my account that I'd sent you and your boot-black off and then retired early as widow-women are expected to do. But he wasn't having any of it; he was hinting that he knew I'd had company. Then he was pestering me again this morning - I only shut him up by agreeing to have supper with him tonight. But, fair play to the man, he didn't try anything on - not like he used to.
"But, when I first talked to Gutteridge he made it quite clear that you and he were lover," I ventured, causing Amelia to bray with laughter. "No, he did, really. He claimed that you two spent the evening of your husband's murder doing just what you and I've been doing and that was his alibi - but neither he nor the police could broadcast it because of the outcry that it would cause,"
"He's some boy, that Albert. You know, it suited my purpose when I first started working with him, knife throwing and all," she flicked the slender steel file artfully down the bedcovers against the hump made by my knees, "to let him give everyone the impression that he and me were together - it gave me some status even though it was never true. And it was a problem when my Ezekial came on the scene. He'd heard the rumours an' thought he'd have to fight Gutteridge for me. And Albert was handy wid his fists when I first met him - still is - he'd have given Ezekial a run for his money. Anyway, once it became clear that I with the brave Mr Shaw, Gutteridge calmed down a bit and kept his distance, but he was never really comfortable with either of us. Then, once Albert got to hear about my husband's straying from the straight and narrow, his tongue started to hang out again. He kept threatening to do Ezekial a mischief, caste himself as my knight in shining armour, had some terrible rows with him and it took on something rotten when he heard about Kitty Vavasour."
"Oh yes," I interrupted, pretending that the woman's name hadn't been at the very front of my mind since Amelia had mentioned it last night. "Who is she?"
"Who is she, you ask?" Amelia replied, clearly surprised by my ignorance. "Why, do you never go to the races? Have you never treated yourself to a wee trip to the theatre?"
"Well no," I answered truthfully.
"You’re an innocent yourself, you are. You’ll have to ginger up your ideas if we’re to run around together though.”
That seemed a bit premature, but I said nothing,
"She's what they used to call a courtesan - I call her a blood-sucker, myself, for she preys on the quality, not the earls and dukes and what-not, more sporting gents with houses in the shires, judges, admirals - that sort of feller. Not a bad looking piece, I'll grant you, but too old for my Ezekial, really. She hooked him about nine months ago, it broke my already broken heart when Albert told me. He'd been following my Ezekiel - or having him followed in order to give me conclusive proof, I suppose. I guess he thought that this might cause me to cut loose of me husband and run to him. Then there was even more trouble," Amelia paused and retrieved the nail file, throwing it skilfully at a spot where the weave of the blankets made a target.
"Gutteridge told me quite clearly that Ezekial had taken up with another man's wife and that the husband was fatally angry," I was trying not to rush matters, but why would Gutteridge's story story be so different?
"Married, our Kitty?" Amelia laughed in slightly too forced a way. "Wherever did Albert get that from? There's certainly a ring on Missus Vavasour's finger, but there hasn’t been a husband on the scene since she bolted back from Canada to the high life in London," she said, lighting a cheroot, pausing, almost considering what she would say next. "Then she struck
a deal with another gentleman at the same time as she was servicing Ezekial - I've never seen Albert so mad, what with him trying to treat the Champ nice and even during training sessions and present a good face to the papers whilst knowing that if the same papers got to hear about Kitty Vavasour and her double-dabbles that there'd be the devil to pay. I think the only thing that kept Albert from confronting the new man was his reputation from Afghanistan - you probably know the feller, horsey bloke who'd done great deeds up the desert."
"I doubt it," I couldn't care less who else was squiring this trollop Vavasour, I only cared about the murderer.
"Well, he was a good looking file - his face was in all the papers when Kandahar was captured, attacked, relieved or whatever it was. Much more Kitty's age than my Ezekial and more her mark of gentleman, a bloke called Moriarty."
I was stunned. I'd only been half listening, trying to sort out all the contradictions that she was outlining, but now I was hurled back to the ghastliness of that retreat from Maiwand and my chance meeting with a colonel of dragoons who'd behaved with such callous disregard for both me and my and comrades' lives that I'd threatened to thrash with him there and then. The fact that I was shot and faint and half coherent with thirst only made the cad laugh harder at me. It was a name and face I'd never forget.
"Yes, I do know him a little," I remarked, trying to sound unconcerned.
"Well you ought to be spending your time getting to know him better, not putting me over the jumps, because he's your man," Amelia laughed out loud at this and pinned me against the pillow, pushing her nose up to within an fraction of an inch of mine and staring at me with those great, blue, hard as nails eyes. "No, Mister detective man, you can't cod me. I saw quite well that you was raring for me yesterday when I was soothing your brow. But even if you weren't, you'd have pretended to be because, despite your lovely kissing and things and all your wanton ardour, I know what you’re about. You want to find my man's killer, so you do, and make your name and fortune and see off that great, long streak of pump water Shylock Whatsit at the same time. Well, you're right, I know it all. Some of the papers are for Albert Gutteridge and some are against but, whilst his jealously may have fired him up, he didn't do it for he was here in this house dining with me. No, it's that stuck-up soldier that did it - clear as fleas on a dog. Used to killing, probably got a taste for it after all them poor musselmen he's butchered. He didn't care that his rival was the Champion of all England, just furious that he was tupping his piece of fluff. Crept up on him near her house, he did, with one of them heathen knives I dare say and just let the daylight in to our Ezekial's back - never gave him a chance."
"Are you certain about this?" I asked.
"Course I'm sure. Go and see Kitty Verysore, she'll tell you she was with Moriarty all that night. What she won't tell you is that she'd been expecting Albert Shaw who didn't turn up, but her soldier boy did. What difference did it make to her, she still got to ring the till, didn't she?
"I hope you don’t think I’m akin to Moriarty, and I think of you as a Kitty. Or I just..." I started to protest.
"Doctor, I've got your number." Amelia was now pressed hard against me, her cheek fast against mine, her breath and scent sweet, warm, overpowering. "I know precisely what you want and I should never have let myself get carried away like this. But when I saw you prancing about in the ring and then getting your lovely face all knocked in - well, I'm a woman, am I not? I thought to myself, I'll help him with his enquiries, so I will, and he'll help me with mine. But now you can go running off to talk to every whore in creation for all I care; you can even go and have some craic with Colonel Moriarty but have a care, for Albert's already tangled with him. But not just quite yet; I've taken a real fancy to you, so I have…"
***
It wasn't hard to find. I knew where in Belgravia Ezekial Shaw's murder had happened and a few, simple questions at the nearest grocers soon led me to Mrs Kitty Vavasour. The shop was one of those new types of places that had become so fashionable once many of the grand houses in that part of the world had started to be divided up. The merchants soon learnt to cater to their customers' needs with each 'flat' (as some people chose to call these sets of rooms) only needing one or two members of staff whilst the owners lived a much more hand-to-mouth style of existence than had been the case in the past. So, the shopkeepers stayed open late, expecting to sell small quantities of goods very frequently, with servants nipping in and out at short notice looking for every sort of ware under one roof. It was easy for me, therefore, to pose as some damned cloth merchant looking for the address of one of my most fashionable clients. I tied my comforter in one of those working man's knots, put an aspirant on my h's and before I knew where I was, the honest burgher behind the counter was looking over his lettuces at his newspaper and periodicals' account and had no difficulty at all in finding the young madam's whereabouts.
It was just as I imagined it would be. I walked past the garden square where Shaw had bled his life away and found the house less than a hundred yards' distant. Mrs Vavasour lived at number six, on the third floor if the little paste card in the brass frame was to be believed and I hung back for a moment trying to make up my mind about how I should enter. The communal front door was firmly closed, so there was no opportunity to get inside and have a look around before knocking directly on her own door. I dithered for a while and then decided that there was nothing for it but to ring the bell. At worst a maid might answer, at best the lady herself, but just as I had my thumb on the button in the pillared entrance, I heard voices behind the door, a man and a woman. I should have been quicker, but I was rooted there, stooped over the name card when the door opened to reveal a young woman in maid's dress passing a hat and cane to a man who was clearly about to leave. He was a big, suntanned fellow. A heavy moustache only accentuated a supercilious look - the maid's silent dislike was obvious - and it was a look that was hugely, horribly familiar.
"Colonel Moriarty," I blurted, unable to stop myself.
Moriarty stood there, as stunned as I was, "I have nothing to say."
"What in God's name are you talking about? I haven't come to speak to you." He couldn't have been expecting me, could he?
"I'll say not a word to you or any of your cronies on whatever rag you represent. And neither will Mrs Vavasour, so you can take your bitten little fingernail off her polished brass right now."
"I'm not from Fleet Street, how could you think I was?" I was defensive with the man - I already knew that was a mistake.
"Because you look tacky, that's why. If you're not a damn scribbler, who the devil are you, sir?"
"I’m Watson, we met in Afghanistan when I was with the 66th," I answered, far too meekly.
"Watson, 66th - those foot johnnies who ran at Maiwand?" he replied. "Watson. Never heard of you."
"Ran at Maiwand? Why you rogue, I should have thrashed you there and then," I exclaimed, hardly the way to gain intelligence, I grant you, but my fury was uncontrollable (just as it had been when we first met in that godforsaken desert) and I found myself advancing on the creature. I wish I hadn't.
"Thrash me would you?" and before you could blink, he'd side-stepped, brought his cane back over his head and delivered a classic sabre cut on my wounded shoulder. Well, I fell like a ripe plum, rolling in the corridor whilst the maid shrieked, trying to shield myself from his next assault. It never came; instead he stood over me and snarled.
"I know what you're up to, Mister foot-slogger, bloody Watson. Keep away from her; she's mine for the moment - you may hope to dine when I've had my fill - but I don't care to share my table. Others have already found that out to their cost. I trust your evening ends better than it started," and with that he gave me a painful poke in the belly and strode over me and away.
***
The maid couldn't get me out of the door fast enough and, I can tell you, I felt pretty ropey. The bang on the head from Lincoln had been most unwelcome, then a lack of sleep occasioned by my cros
s-examination of Mrs Shaw had left me below par and now Moriarty's stroke had sapped me even further. As I've said, it was a classic sabre cut and it's only when you see just how a sword slash from a well trained, hefty man can carve and hew the human body, that you begin to realise how much energy and force is put into such an attack. I found myself reeling down a broad pavement as the light began to fail, moaning quite audibly and clutching my injury like a malingering sepoy.
"You're in a state, ain't you, sir?" I was so distracted by pain that I hadn't heard the hooves of an approaching cab-horse. "Get in, Doctor, before someone thinks you're a bloody drunk."
"It's you again, Bowler. How in the name of God," -
"Happy coincidence, Doctor. Let's just get you away from the scene of the crime, so to speak, then I'll have a look at you," and, true to his word, Bowler trotted us a few streets before he pulled up and came into the back of the hansom with me. "Lucky you was wearing such a thick coat, sir." He'd eased my overcoat, jacket, vest and shirt off my shoulder and was probing it with the same expertise that I'd seen when he was an orderly in my medical section. "Don't think owt's broke, but we'd best get you back to my quarters and have a good squint."
So we rode along to King's Cross to the really rather comfortable set of rooms that he and Mrs Alyisha Bowler and their two children shared. Even in my pain, even in her post pregnant state, I could appreciate Mrs Bowler's beauty. Certainly, she was fatter and perhaps a little coarser than she had been when I first met her at Maiwand more than two years ago, but she was still a head-turner. The youngsters were abed and there was some surprise that the master of the house was home so early, but Bowler hushed all that and I soon had a pair of nut brown hands and delightful, polished nails gently working my elbow and holding my clavicle for his inspection.
Doctor Watson's Casebook Page 10