Doctor Watson's Casebook

by Patrick Mercer

  Smethwick puffed with pleasure at this.

  "Then how did you get him to desist, Ma'am?" asked Bowler.

  "It was very simple, gentlemen." De Horsey looked at all of us in turn, a slight smile on her handsome face. "I told the tumescent little man that unless he left me quite alone that I would pen a very intimate article for The Times that would tell the world not only how he defamed me within weeks of dear Cardigan's funeral, but that he had left me carrying his child! I asked him to imagine the effect not only on his crone of a wife but also on his political career."

  And all this was delivered without any sort of blush from her. She might just as well have been telling us what she planned to give her next dinner guests rather than explaining one of the most shameless yet boldest schemes I had ever heard.

  "And you know," she continued, "it worked. I wondered, in his state of infatuation if anything would deter him. You see he had moved into the local hotel and would present himself at the front of the house three, four times a day, taking no notice of the butler or any of the rest of the staff until I invited him in for dinner, a deux. We'd not even drunk our first glass of claret before he was down on one knee promising eternal love and fidelity. So, I stood up, ripped my bodice till I stood there like a damned ship's figurehead, produced pen and paper in front of him and began to scribble away to some poor sap in Fleet Street. He wasted no time, I can tell you, for he grabbed the servants who had come with him and rattled off down the drive as if the devil himself was in hot pursuit. The Lewis woman died three years later, I think, and I half expected to have another visitation from the man then – but not a thing from that day until they nailed him in his box."

  "So let me be clear, ma'am, you believe that the former Private Stagg had been in Benjamin Disraeli's service and that the one-time Prime Minister sent the man first to inveigle himself back into Lord Cardigan's employ and then to murder his Lordship with a view to removing your husband and leaving the way open for him to press his suit?" I asked.

  "Exactly, Doctor Watson. But toy with this, he would not only marry me," and at this she dropped her eyelids most fetchingly, "but he would inherit the Brudenell estates, giving him both freedom from the debts that had always beset him and also lands fit for his station…"

  "And before you ask, Watson," Smethwick cut in, "I have no doubt that the inconvenient Lady Disraeli could have been cast aside – one wonders exactly what her 'wasting disease' was anyway. Then, secondly, why we've waited so damn long to try to reveal this whole, horrid business – it's nearly fourteen years, after all, since this happened."

  "Indeed, Smethwick, why has it taken you so long to raise this suspicion?" I asked obligingly.

  "Because, Sir, we might talk about this man as the commoner that he was; we – here in the fastness of Deene Park under the protection and patronage of the Countess – may think nothing of him, but at the time that this happened he was the Chancellor and after that twice Prime Minister. Who would believe us? Who knew about the loathing of His Lordship for Disraeli for their arguments had always been discrete? Who knew about this politician's infatuation with the Countess for she had never revealed it, even when she threatened to? Would a Tory Prime Minister really order the murder of another of his creed? And who knew about Stagg, about the flogging in Turkey and why the man would dislike Lord Cardigan to the point of hatred? No, Doctor Watson, our cries would not have been heard, we would have been laughed to scorn and that is why we have waited for Disraeli's death before we tried to find the murderer, Private Peter Stagg, and to bring him to the gallows."

  Chapter 4.

  "Well, Doctor, what d'you make of all that, then?" Bowler asked me as the cab that I'd called for from the station pulled away from the front of Deene Park and along the drive.

  "I was going to ask you the same question, Mister Bowler," I replied.

  "Ehm sure an' I dunt know, my good Doctor…" We had fallen into mocking Captain Smethwick's careful vowels and mannerisms when we'd been comparing notes over the past couple of days, "…damn yer eyes," as well as his frequent lapses back into best barrack-yard parlance. "An' why are we in this 'ere cab, Doctor, an' not one of our best pals the Brudenells' ones? Have we put their noses out of joint? I bet they wouldn't let Mr Holmes hire his own wheels."

  "I am sure you're right, Bowler," I chuckled. "No, I insisted that we got our own transport and flannelled Smethwick saying that we had another task to do in Corby on the way. The truth is that I am going to stop and have a really close look at the scene of the crime – if that is what it is – and I don't want the groom going back and telling our host and hostess what we've been doing. You could see how reluctant the Countess was to stop when we passed the spot yesterday," – she'd just slowed the phaeton a little and both Bowler and I had stuck our noses to the window but seen nothing much. I'd asked to be taken to the tied cottages, the stables, the ménage and all the other salient spots of the inquiry and the Countess had chosen to come with us, dressed to the Old Nines in fur and diamonds and very pretty and chatty she was too until we'd asked to visit Stagg's old room. That, apparently, was quite pointless as there had been a series of servants who had used the room, all of whom had believed that it had a strange atmosphere, haunted almost, and asked to move out. In the face of such superstition, she explained, it was left empty. And as all this was being related, we came to the ditch where the accident had happened. All either of us could see was a shallow dyke and some sort of marker stone, but when I'd asked to stop, she pronounced herself 'desolee…' the whole scene was, '…too, too painful for her.'

  "Here we are, cabbie, I say, cabbie…" – but on we rattled until Bowler swung from the window and employed terms to which the driver was clearly more used to.

  "Oi, you got cloth for lugs, cabbie? Stick the anchors on, wilyer?" and as a gentle, spring drizzle fell, we jumped out and looked at the spot where one of England's noblest families lost its most ignoble member.

  The ditch was about six foot wide and four foot deep with muddy sides and a trickle of brown water running at the bottom of it, a simple obstacle for an experienced horseman. On the near bank was a plain granite stone upon which was cut a family coat of arms and below, 'On this spot died the VI Duke of Cardigan, 28th March 1868,' nothing simpler, nothing more complex.

  "A horse wallah ought to be able to get across this with no difficulty, shouldn't 'e Doctor? It's slippery at this time of year – I guess it would be much like this in March, wouldn't it?"

  "Aye, simple enough even for you or me, Bowler. Unless you have a seizure, that is and get kicked on the way down, just like everyone says happened."

  "P'raps, Sir. Or get belted on the swede by some bastard who'd had the hide flogged off of him all them years back and needed to get even," Bowler said thoughtfully.

  "I agree, but isn't that motive enough? Why all this stuff about Disraeli?"

  "Strikes me there's only one man in God's England who can crack this one, Doctor…"

  And together we chorused, "Sherlock Holmes, the great detective!" The trouble was, we laughed so much that Bowler lost his footing on the greasy bank, his legs went from under him and, still chortling, he slid into the little stream thoroughly wetting his boots.

  "Here, here let me help."

  As I reached down into the beck, we continued to laugh, but as I hauled the great, clumsy oaf out, he suddenly hollered, "'Ang on Doctor, what's this?" and he pulled what looked like a funny little metal hook from the side of the bank, about two thirds of the day down, just above the water level. It was covered in mud.

  "Stop buggering about Bowler, come on, you're filthy wet," I uttered, still laughing.

  "No, Sir, look at this…" He was wiping the object up and down on his coat whilst I hung on to his left arm, quite oblivious to the mess it was making on the cloth.

  "Well, I'm jiggered."

  Chapter 5.

  I think Foxy was in a rare good humour when Bowler and I got back to Baker Street. He must have known the good
food and drink we'd enjoyed at the hands of the aristocracy, people with whom he had so much more in common with than I ever would. I sensed a new acceptance, a new approval from the old fellow as his grin became more knowing. On Mrs Hudson's advice, we dumped our muddy boots and in stockinged feet we hawked ourselves up the stairs to report to Holmes.

  "Ah, my two trusted companions," Holmes was up and dressed, despite the fact that it was hardly three o'clock. "Now, you have exactly sixty minutes to tell me whether I should indulge this charlatan Smethwick or not. I have an appointment at Scotland Yard about which I shall tell you both shortly, but first convince me that what I saw and heard from the good Captain was not utter nonsense."

  "You thought him a charlatan, Holmes? Why so?" I asked.

  "Where do I start? His suit alarmed me first: it was too well pressed. Did you see how his valet had ironed creases into the arms? That man rules his staff like a sergeant, not a gentleman. Then there was decorous little signet ring. It looked more like a funnel cover and had the 11th's crest on it, not a family coat-of-arms: have you ever heard the like? And bitten finger nails – really! No, there's much more to our bold hussar than meets the eye, gentlemen, don't you agree?

  "I do, I do." I tried not to sound too oleaginous, but I'd reached the same conclusion. Bowler, meanwhile, sat quite silent, one chin resting on the other, hands folded over the waistcoat that he now always wore. Again, he was listening in that intent way of his.

  "Pray go on," Holmes beckoned as he turned towards the window and began to toy with a paper knife that he'd picked up from his desk.

  I outlined all that we'd learnt as Holmes tinkered with his ornamental blade, first twisting it this way then that, balancing the wretched thing on the end of his finger and generally being terribly annoying. I took him through every last syllable from both Smethwick and de Horsey and the fact that their stories seemed well rehearsed.

  "But you're absolutely right to challenge the suggestion of any serious involvement of our late Prime Minister, Watson. The Countess's and his doings are well known, they dominated the papers back in the Sixties but ran into the sand exactly as de Horsey says – the two of them sheared off from each other and nothing more came of it. As a casual observer it always struck me that they both courted publicity in a most distasteful way and this is what I suspect she is trying to conjure up again. Let's just marshal the facts, shall we? First, Watson, how many horses in the Brudenell stable won or did well last season?"

  "I…I really don't know, Holmes." I couldn't see where this was going at all.

  "Well, with the exception of Blighton Boy who came second in the Derby, none, not one. And that comes on the back of two earlier disappointing seasons and the dismissal of Major Eric Holmes, the trainer. Then there's the costs of the Countess's divorce from her last husband, the Comte de Lancastre. On top of this come the very poor cereal harvests which, as you know, are the main produce in that part of the south midlands set against the increasing imports of wheat from the Americas. These simple facts combine to point towards the Countess's impending poverty. How does she repair her fortunes? I suspect that she thinks that rekindled fame – or perhaps notoriety – might attract money. She certainly can't depend upon her latest lover, the good Captain Smethwick for he's neither gentleman nor banker. You may not have noticed his hideous ring, Watson, but you saw his stick."

  I nodded, not knowing how Holmes knew that I'd examined it when it was in the hall last week.

  "Oh don't look so puzzled. I heard its ferrule touch the floor after you'd finished staring at it; I had a good look at it when I excused myself soon after Mrs Hudson had shown him in and before you arrived. What did you deduce?"

  "A very nicely engraved set of initials and a regimental '11'."

  "Exactly…a great rough stick to show the world that Smethwick had been a-soldiering somewhere unpleasant and then a much newer gold cartouche with just an '11'. If he'd designed that it would have been '11H' or '11 Hussars' in keeping with the Regiment's own shorthand. No, de Horsey had that done for him as she buys and has tailored everything else that the man wears. Then, who's to say that Cardigan actually was murdered? You rightly point out that there was no hue and cry after his death and whilst I partially buy Smethwick's explanation that the whole world was lusting for the funeral, if there had been a sniff of suspicion, the same whole world would have been transfixed by it. I agree with Smethwick's excuse that they had to wait until Disraeli was dead before opening up this Pandora's Box but I agree with it for quite a different reason: Disraeli would simply have discredited the whole thing. He may well have had some priapic interest in de Horsey, but he's hardly alone is that, is he gentlemen?"

  Bowler and I must have looked like two school boys found doing something nasty to ourselves behind the stable block.

  "No, this is a bid for publicity which as you rightly say has been cooked up and well-rehearsed by our pair of lovers. It has some splendid and clever ingredients: a sensational murder which cannot be disproved without an exhumation – an exhumation of a nobleman whose reputation for valour grows as memories fade: I think not. Then the malevolent guiding hand of one who has now passed beyond justice and who happens to have been Prime Minister: hardly. A modest and demure heroine who'll sit quiet and not wear cherry pants and a tin belly as the Press tear this apart: I don't think so. No, this is all designed to repair the ravages that the Countess has wrought upon the Brudenell fortunes – I don't yet know the mechanism for this, but I do know the catalyst – me. De Horsey and Smethwick only have to get my public acceptance of the investigation and the whole shooting match rolls smoothly into action. Gentlemen, I'm most grateful for all the time you spent on this already but I can see that by taking this case I'm playing directly into the hands of the pair of them…I shall accept at once."

  I was truly surprised. I had quite thought that Holmes had set his face against the case but as I was still digesting this Bowler cut in.

  "Wha' about Stagg, Mister 'Olmes?"

  "Yes, Bowler, I'm conscious that we haven't accounted for him yet, but I'm still turning him over in my mind."

  "An' wha' do you make of this, Sir? I found it in the ditch where Lord Cardigan met his fate." Bowler passed him his trophy.

  "A spur, Bowler…a cheap iron spur that's rusted with age. How very intriguing."

  Chapter 6.

  The train journey was familiar by now. We'd bought our tickets at St Pancras and settled into a carriage with a middle-aged woman who might, in her day, have pleased the eye. Any latent attraction was soon dispelled, however, when Holmes produced his pipe. Now, you know how contrary people can be, don't you? Most believe that tobacco does you good – I'm not amongst that set, myself – clears the lungs, sharpens the perceptions and all the kind of thing. Many couldn't care less, but a few are passionately set against the habit claiming all sorts of ills from its causing inflammations of the throat to encouraging devil worship – well, not quite, but I'm sure you know the excesses to which some folk will go.

  "Sir, you do not intend to smoke that thing in here, do you?" There was no preamble with this woman, no kind entreaties, no soft persuasion, just straight confrontation. She was a termagant.

  "I do, ma'am. I do not wish to be ungallant and perhaps I should have explained, but I must try to keep my smallpox symptoms at bay and this mixture…" Holmes pointed to what looked to me like his normal Navy Shag, "…was prescribed by my doctor here. This is Ugandan tobacco, ma'am, cut with Nile dried herbs…"

  "Smallpox, Sir?" she quavered, all her stridency gone.

  "Well only a mild dose, ma'am," which was quite enough to have the gentle flower scrabbling for her bags in the rack above her head and reaching for her umbrella.

  "Give this lady a hand, won't you Bowler?" Holmes intone. Just for a minute, I thought that there might be another scene within seconds of the first as Bowler refused, for he took orders from no-one, least of all Holmes. There was a hint of hesitation, but then the good fellow leapt to his
feet, grabbed both bags and was out into the corridor before their owner who only paused to slam the carriage door to with enough force to keep Holmes and his germs sealed tightly together.

  "Nile dried herbs? Smallpox?" I asked, but all Holmes did was put the pipe away in his pocket and frown at me as Bowler came clattering back in.

  "Nice one, Mister 'Olmes! She weren't goin' to shift in a hurry, was she? Smallpox…ha, that's a good 'un!"

  "Quite, Bowler. That smaller bag was some sort of pill and potion holdall judging by the smell of it – I'm sure you caught the scent as soon as you came in the carriage too, Doctor." I just nodded in reply. "Hypochondriac, typical of her age and sex. We need some privacy if we are to discuss the work in hand. Now, Bowler, I've heard all that the Doctor has had to say about your new found friends in Deene Park and I'm fascinated to meet the Countess. But, I would be most grateful for your thoughts on Captain Smethwick, as they will help me to distil my own."

  "Nothin' much to say, Sir. 'E's a saddle wallah for sure, knows 'is 'orse flesh, but he's no proper off'cer. I never 'eard of a sixteen year old ensign, not since Wellington's time, anyway, but we 'ad young drummers an' that out in the desert an' we also 'ad blokes commissioned from the ranks; remember Posh Williams, Doctor?"