by Mrs Hudson
Miraculously, as though controlled by a higher power, the fog chose that moment to lift a little and we were confronted by the sight of Mr Holmes desperately trying to evade the grip of a burly constable who, as we watched, succeeded in pulling open the priestly cloak to reveal the naval costume beneath.
‘You’re no clergyman, Jack!’ he grunted just as Mr Holmes, yielding to frustration, launched a straight left to his jaw. With an oath the policeman lurched backwards and the two of them rolled into the dark of an archway. I was aware of Mrs Hudson’s grip on my arm tensing as she began to turn.
‘It’s a trick, Flottie! He’s lured us all down here with that cry!’ She let go of my arm and set off at speed the way we had come. I began to follow but ten yards on there was a sickening crump as two more solid bodies collided. The fog was still lifting and despite the dark I could make out two familiar figures wrapped in each other’s arms.
‘Dr Watson!’ I heard Mrs Hudson exclaim.
‘What? Who? What?’ replied Watson, staring intently into the raddled, warty face that confronted him. Then his jaw sagged with astonishment and his eyes filled with recognition. ‘Good Lord,’ he exclaimed. ‘Is that really you, Holmes? Bravo! Magnificent! I should never have guessed in a thousand years!’
Mrs Hudson grasped the initiative with commendable aplomb. ‘Quickly, Watson,’ she replied, dropping her voice a couple of octaves and signalling behind her to where the sounds of struggle were now continuing amid a chorus of police whistles. ‘There’s a policeman needs your help! Go quickly!’ And she was off again, moving rapidly towards the guest house with me at her heels while Watson headed the other way with his stick raised purposefully and his moustache bristling with anticipation.
We sped on but as we reached the guest house another noise brought us to a halt. We heard breaking glass and from somewhere above us a startled cry. Looking up into the fog I was just in time to see a dark figure dropping to the pavement as if from nowhere. I let out a shout and the figure hesitated, trying to place the direction of my voice. Then it was off, gliding like a dark spirit along the wall and into the night.
‘There, Mrs Hudson! There!’ I cried, waving my arms at the escaping figure, but she was groping intently along the fog-clad wall. Above us, a square of light marked the position of Neale’s window. Mrs Hudson’s hand closed on something.
‘A drainpipe, Flottie!’ Then turning upwards, she gave a booming shout of ‘Scraggs!’
Only moments before such a shout would have attracted a great deal of attention but behind us, down the street, Mr Holmes’s battle with the law was continuing. Renewed whistles and a cacophony of shouts and groans suggested that Dr Watson had now joined the struggle.
‘Scraggs!’ Mrs Hudson cried again and moving sharply to her right began to beat on the door. It seemed to open to her touch and I glimpsed a white-faced woman behind it. ‘Upstairs!’ she cried, gesturing frantically. ‘Murder!’
And that’s what it sounded like. As we leapt up the narrow stairs we could hear muffled sobs of fear from the floor above and then a crashing blow and the sound of splintering wood. Another blow followed before we burst through the door at the top of the stairs, Mrs Hudson first, her gin bottle raised to strike; behind her, panting, I was ready to throw myself into any fray.
It was a strange sight that greeted us. By the light of a greasy candle we saw a man huddled in one corner of the room, his cheek pressed to the wall and his eyes shut, whimpering to himself. In the middle of the room, brandishing a fire shovel, stood Scraggs, pale but triumphant. As we watched he raised the shovel above his head, stepped towards the window and brought it crashing down onto a low chest of drawers.
‘Got it, Mrs H!’ he cried, stepping back. Reaching his shoulder and following his gaze, I saw ghastly and distorted in the candlelight the hideous remains of a giant spider, its furred legs still twitching against the broken wood.
A Lesson
†
It was a night that seemed to know no dawn. The fog turned slowly from black to grey without relinquishing its grip and the waking traffic trudged muted through an opaque half light. I was sleeping by the kitchen range when Mrs Hudson finally returned home. The process of calming Mr Neale had proved a lengthy one but with the assistance of Scraggs we had succeeded in bundling him out of the guest house before Gregory’s men thought to detach themselves from the brawl outside. After some minutes of creeping through the fog, Scraggs had succeeded in conjuring up a cab and, while Mr Neale slept, we rolled in empty silence back to Baker Street. There Scraggs had left us and, after placing me by the fire, Mrs Hudson had disappeared into the night with the sleeping Neale.
Her return roused me and I made a sleepy effort to help her out of her things. The stinking coat had gone, replaced by a gentleman’s cashmere overcoat.
‘Mr Rumbelow’s,’ she explained. ‘I could think of nowhere else to take him where he would be safe. There is no fortress so impregnable as an English solicitor’s respectability. If there is one place in the Empire where you can be sure nothing untoward will occur, it must be at Rumbelow’s. Although I had warned him in my note this afternoon that some such action might be necessary, he was a little shaken by the hour of our arrival. Nevertheless, for a little while at least Mr Neale is as safe as the Bank of England.’ She produced a sealed note from one of the coat pockets and placed it on the table. ‘Between us we persuaded him to write this. It is a note for Mr Holmes from Mr Neale assuring him of his safety and telling him that he intends to lie low for a spell.’
‘But Mrs Hudson, I can’t make it all fit together. I don’t really understand what we saw last night. Someone managed to elude us all and get as far as Mr Neale’s window. But why did he stop there? There must be far surer ways of killing someone than by throwing a spider into the room.’
‘And what do your instincts tell you, Flottie?’
‘There is something too strange going on. Why not try to make sure of finishing off Neale there and then?’
‘Well, Flottie, sometimes you can judge people best by what they don’t do. I’m already confident I could tell you the name of Carruthers’s murderer but wouldn’t for the life of me be able to prove it. So for now, let’s sleep. Tomorrow we set to work finding the evidence. And on top of that, Rupert Spencer is expecting you for a chemistry lesson.’
*
And so the fires were allowed to burn down and I slept. I stirred only once, when Dr Watson and Mr Holmes were returned to their lodgings by a chastened Gregory, and the grey morning had become an indistinct afternoon before Mrs Hudson woke me.
‘Come on, Flottie, let’s get you dressed.’ As if in a dream, still heavy with sleep, I stood while Mrs Hudson recreated the neat young lady who had accompanied Dr Watson to Knightsbridge. My hair was neatly piled and pinned and another simple dress was produced. Again I found myself standing taller and straighter. I felt quite different. ‘Is this really who I am?’ I wondered. ‘Or am I really the girl in rags taking coins from strangers?’ The kitchen was warm and the muffled light that filtered through the fog made it all peculiarly unreal. Mrs Hudson paused with a hand on my shoulder and looked me up and down.
‘You’re ready, Flottie.’ And handing me a dainty bag into which she had packed the two items intended for scientific examination, she led me out of the house.
Outside, the fog seemed to be turning to ice and the cold began to banish my sleepiness. As I began to revive, a little spurt of excitement surged through me. At that moment, in the yellow, choking air, with untold dangers at large all around me, life seemed unbelievably wonderful. I could walk tall with my head held up. I was on my way to a big house carrying crucial samples for analysis. I was going to watch and learn. And we were going to solve the mystery that Mr Moran had placed before us. I might pass for a young governess in these clothes, I thought; but the truth was far more exciting. What would the hunched passers-by say if they knew that my plain little bag contained a silver dagger and a dead spider bigger than m
y hand?
We crossed Bloomsbury Square, coughing in the fog, and as I went to pass to the rear of the big houses, Mrs Hudson stopped me.
‘The front door on this occasion, Flottie,’ she said firmly, and after a short wait the door was opened by a butler of almost unimaginable grooming. ‘Miss Flotsam to see Miss Peters,’ she announced haughtily, and we were ushered into a drawing room bigger than all our rooms in Baker Street rolled together. ‘I’m not waiting, Reynolds,’ she informed him. ‘I was just escorting Miss Flotsam.’
‘Very good, Mrs Hudson,’ he replied with a sternly patrician bow of his head, then suddenly dropping his voice he added, ‘If you were to call at the rear of the building in two minutes’ time, Mrs Hudson, there is an exceedingly fine Tokay to be sampled that I think would interest you greatly.’ And so with a mutual nod they parted company and I was left rather alone in the mirrored drawing room.
The young woman who burst in upon me a minute later was easily the prettiest I had ever seen. She was, I thought, barely nineteen, but she was such a slim, sprightly, vital vision in lace that it was absurdly hard to be sure.
‘I’m Miss Peters,’ she began, ‘but you must call me Hetty. Everybody else does. I shall call you Flottie because that’s what Mrs Hudson says everyone calls you.’ She held out a tiny hand. ‘Mrs Hudson says that I am to be your companion while you study with Rupert. Of course, not being very bright I’ve always thought what Rupert does in his laboratory most terribly dull. But when Mrs Hudson said someone must be found to accompany you, I realised it would mean spending simply hours with Rupert, so of course I leapt at the idea. Mrs H says you are terribly clever so you mustn’t mind me. I shall be quite happy to sit and look at Rupert while you two do experiments and things. Of course, I know he will ignore me because he always does, but I like to think that eventually he will just give up and marry me to make me go away. If you come through here I’ll show you to his laboratory. A horrible smelly place, though of course I know I must pretend to be frightfully interested in it …’
And in this blizzard of words, I was carried off to my first ever science lesson and to a world of new knowledge that in time would change my life.
Although it was hard at times to concentrate with Miss Peters fluttering beautifully by my side, I think it is fair to say that my first lesson did not disappoint. There beneath the microscope was a world I had never seen before, a whole continent of knowledge that I had never been shown. I saw the wing of an insect transformed into ridged gossamer, the fabric of a leaf into a mountainous landscape and a drop of my own blood into something foreign, rich and strange. While I looked at these and other wonders, Mr Spencer studied the items I had brought him. Miss Peters gave a little scream when Mr Moran’s dagger was produced and threatened to swoon when the body of the spider was revealed, rendered all the more ghastly by the violent crushing wrought on it by Scraggs’s shovel. Mr Spencer, ignoring her completely, looked at the spider and then at me.
‘Remind me how this fits into your mystery, Miss Flotsam.’
I told him briefly about the watch at Neale’s guest house, the figure on the drainpipe, the smashed window and the release of the spider into the dimly lit room.
‘And this Neale is one of those said to be under the Sumatran curse?’
‘Yes, Mr Spencer.’
‘And are you and Mrs Hudson aware of the significance of this creature?’
‘I think it’s simply frightful!’ put in Miss Peters. ‘Of course I’ve adored Mrs Hudson ever since I was able to tie a bow in my hair, but I think it is most wrong of her to involve you in such gruesome activities, Flottie.’
I wondered for a moment what Miss Peters would say if she were to see me in the garments I had worn the previous evening but I put the thought aside and concentrated on the question.
‘It’s a very unusual murder weapon,’ I replied.
‘I feel it may be more significant than that. I shall make some inquiries tomorrow. Gregory has been persuaded to hand over the remains of the snake that killed Carruthers; when you next call, I hope I shall have some interesting things to report. Now, look at this. I have prepared two slides, one from the surface of the dagger you brought, the other from my silver paperknife. The first is the paperknife.’
I looked and saw a combination of different shapes, some dark and angular, others round and translucent.
‘The solution contains everything I could lift from the surface of the knife. Dust, dirt, a little bit of grease. Now, look at a similar slide from Moran’s dagger.’
The second slide seemed to contain nothing at all.
‘You see, Moran’s dagger is quite remarkably clean, almost as if it had never been used.’
‘According to Mr Moran, they dip the knives in animal blood when they make the curse, sir.’
‘There’s no trace of that here. Of course, it may very well have been thoroughly cleaned since, but the thing is you would expect to see traces of something. This knife could be brand new.’
But by now my head was beginning to ache from the bombardment of new ideas and Mr Spencer was sensitive enough to my state to bring the lesson to a close. Miss Peters sighed loudly as she accompanied me back through the house.
‘Two hours, Flottie! I had no idea it would go on so long. But Rupert looks so wonderfully handsome when he’s concentrating that I can’t imagine why I never thought of doing this before. Now you must come back very soon for another lesson because it’s good for Rupert to meet someone interested in the things that interest him. When he’s with his friends from the club, he pretends to be interested in nothing but horseracing and cards. I’m sure it bores him enormously. That is why he will make such a wonderful husband; it will be so simple to dissuade him from going out. I shall make sure that I always have some disgusting creepy-crawlies around my person to attract his interest.’ She burbled happily until we arrived in the hallway. ‘Now I shall get Reynolds to hail you a cab.’
‘Oh, no, Miss Peters, I should much prefer to walk. I pretty much always do.’
‘Hetty, Flottie. You must call me Hetty.’ She peered out of the window and eyed the fog dubiously. ‘Well, if you really prefer …’
I assured her that I did and with many promises of a swift return, I stepped again into the glowering fog.
It was getting dark now and for a second night the city was being choked into a foggy paralysis. The streets were almost empty and suddenly Baker Street seemed a long way off, the safety of Mr Spencer’s house distractingly close. But Mrs Hudson was expecting me back and I stepped out into the gloom and scurried forward across the square. In my haste, I became unsure of which street I needed to take and, choosing the first, I began to wonder if perhaps it shouldn’t have been the second. I slowed a little and peered at the houses I was passing. Were they familiar? If this was the wrong street, the correct one must be parallel. If I took a right turn I should join it. Taking the next turn to appear on my right hand side, I skipped forward again; the correct road should be just a couple of dozen yards away . . . But after fully sixty or seventy paces the road appeared to be narrowing into an alley. There was no sight or sound to suggest it might be leading to a thoroughfare and I began to suspect that perhaps my original road had been correct after all. I retraced my steps cautiously but within a few paces the creeping fog revealed a fork in the road ahead. Which of the two had I come down? It was hard to tell. The fog imposed an eerie quiet. It was getting darker.
Choosing the right-hand fork, I ploughed on, my feet governed now more by a fear of stillness than by any certainty of direction. If anything, I seemed to be zigzagging, following left turn with right as the opportunity presented itself. Taking a sudden decision, I made myself stop. ‘Keep calm,’ I whispered, and the confidence born out of my new learning seemed to inspire me. I thought of where I had come from, of Mr Spencer’s sure fingers on the microscope, his air of total confidence. It suddenly seemed a silly thing to get lost in a fog. I had stepped out of a calm, scientific w
orld and I would not disgrace it. I would keep calm, would think my way forward and would absolutely not panic.
I proceeded with more care, and miraculously it seemed to work. I came to a corner where the metal name plate was not overlaid with soot and I recognised it as a quiet backstreet not far from Baker Street and home. I stood for a moment and attempted to get my bearings. I had just calculated that a left turn was needed when I heard the footsteps. Perhaps part of my mind had been aware of them before, clipping along somewhere behind me. But now as I took a pace forward and heard them start up again I realised that they had stopped when I had stopped. I took another three steps then paused. Three crisp footsteps sounded in the fog and then no more.
‘Who’s there?’ I asked, turning to face the invisible, but my voice trembled a little in the heavy air and there was no reply. I began to back away very softly, almost silently. The fog was not so thick as on the previous night and despite the dark I could see that for five, six, seven yards, there was no-one. Perhaps now was the time to turn and run . . .
‘No you don’t, my girl!’ snarled a voice from behind me and a dark figure stepped from the shadow. A hand caught my wrist and I was pulled hard into its arms. ‘Nice to see you again, Flotsam,’ spat Smale’s voice, full of contempt. He twisted my arm behind my back and pushed my wrist up to my shoulder blades while his other arm wrapped round my neck so the crook of his elbow was at my throat and my cheek was pulled back next to his. As I hung there, pinned to him like a limed bird to a branch, the footsteps that had followed me moved slowly forward out of the darkness until Fogarty was revealed, sleek in dress clothes, his shoes and top hat shining in the traces of light that penetrated the fog.