Our business quickly concluded, Hetty insisted that I accompanied her home, and it was as we dismounted from the carriage in Bloomsbury Square that I noticed a familiar figure advancing towards us unsteadily along the pavement. His arms were full of books, piled up to his chin, which tottered alarmingly whenever he attempted to raise his hand at a passing hansom.
‘Why, Hetty!’ I exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that Dr Watson?’
And Dr Watson it was, who at that moment saw us and directed at us a cheerful wave that threatened once more to undo his precarious balance.
‘Flotsam! Just the person!’ he cried, managing, after a little perilous groping, to raise his hat. ‘I confess I am in need of some assistance. I’ve just had a message from Holmes asking me to meet him at the Beaumaris house in Randolph Square, but as you can see I’m rather over-burdened…’
‘But what are all these books, sir?’ I wondered, relieving him of those that seemed in most imminent danger of falling. ‘I didn’t know you were allowed to take books away from the British Library.’
‘Quite right, Flotsam,’ the doctor nodded gloomily. ‘Unfortunately I got talking to one of the librarians there and it turned out he’d made a particular study of ancient religious texts. He insisted on going all the way home and bringing these from his personal collection. Very good of him, of course, but I rather wish he hadn’t. What am I to do with them all? I can barely lift them as it is. And if Holmes thinks I’m reading all these, he’s very much mistaken!’
That is how, twenty minutes later, I came to be dismounting from a cab in Randolph Square alongside Dr Watson, my arms full of dusty leather volumes. The door to Lord Beaumaris’s town house was opened to us, not by a maid as might have been expected, but by Inspector Mapperley of Scotland Yard, a lugubrious individual who always appeared rather disheartened by the criminality he encountered daily in the performance of his duties.
‘Ah, Dr Watson, sir,’ he acknowledged rather sorrowfully. ‘Mr Holmes said to expect you. He’s upstairs. Follow me…’
With no servant in evidence, Dr Watson and I piled our books onto a smart lacquered table near the door and looked around. It was a grand hallway, opulently finished in dark marble and decorated with a series of imposing, shoulder-height Japanese vases. But for all its opulence, there was a chill in the air that told us the house was not lived in, and we didn’t think to remove our coats. The surfaces were clear of dust, it is true, and there was nothing obvious to the eye to suggest the house was not properly looked after, but there was a sense of emptiness in that hallway which the great vases and the grand staircase only seemed to accentuate. It seemed a house without a beating heart.
I looked around me and shivered. Inspector Mapperley was already leading Dr Watson towards the stairs and, as no one seemed to mind particularly what became of me, I scurried after them.
We found Mr Holmes pacing Lord Beaumaris’s private apartments, listening again to Mr Fallowell’s account of his lordship’s last hours. We approached the pair through an ante-room, a splendid, high-ceilinged chamber furnished with ornate tables and chairs and a fine old writing bureau that lay open, ready for use. Beyond the antechamber, through the half-open double doors, lay a richly appointed bedroom where Mr Holmes was prowling. Mr Fallowell was sitting on a very high-backed chair watching him, a look of acute and painful concentration on his face.
‘Yes, Mr Holmes,’ he was saying. ‘I was seated here, exactly as you see me. His lordship was on the bed. Everything is exactly as it was when Viscount Wrexham burst in.’
Just then the two gentlemen became aware of us for the first time.
‘Ah, Watson!’ Mr Holmes exclaimed cordially. ‘You are just in time. So far today I have done little of any value. I have been talking to the inspector and Sir Percival about groups and factions which might have been organised and ruthless enough to seize the Viscount from a public street.’ He arched an eyebrow in the inspector’s direction. ‘I confess I am none the wiser as a result. But now we come to the real business of the day and I am delighted to have you by me. So, Mr Fallowell, tell us exactly what happened when Viscount Wrexham left his father’s bedside.’
‘Well, Mr Holmes, I was looking down at the invalid, but I heard the Viscount cross the ante-room. When I looked up he was scribbling a note to himself at that bureau.’
‘And he put that paper in his pocket, then left immediately?’
‘He did, Mr Holmes.’
‘Inspector, you are sure that bureau has not been touched by anyone since?’
‘I’m certain of it, Mr Holmes. We’ve been very careful.’
The detective moved past us, purposeful and silent. Producing a magnifying glass from beneath his cape, he began the most minute examination of the desk and the objects on it, paying particular attention, it seemed, to the block of writing paper at its centre.
‘Looking for an impression of the Viscount’s message on the sheet below,’ Dr Watson whispered knowingly, giving me a nudge.
‘But it will do him no good, sir,’ Inspector Mapperley replied morosely. ‘We had already thought of that. There’s nothing there.’
Before Dr Watson could make any further observation, Mr Holmes straightened and turned to the inspector.
‘There appears to be no paper on the blotter,’ he remarked icily.
‘No, sir,’ Inspector Mapperley replied mournfully. ‘A great shame that. Had there been, the Viscount might have used it to blot his note, and we might have been able to make out an outline of what he’d written.’
‘I think you misunderstand me, Inspector. I do not mention the fact to lament our ill fortune. No, the obvious question that presents itself to me is why? Why is there no paper on the blotter, Inspector?’
The detective began to look a little uneasy. ‘I couldn’t say, Mr Holmes. I suppose the old paper was done with, and someone forgot to put in clean paper. I can’t really see as it matters, sir.’
‘In a household such as this, Inspector, you think someone simply forgot?’ He cast his eyes around the assembled group as if missing someone. ‘Ah, if only Mrs Hudson were here! She knows these things. Flotsam, in her absence, tell me, do you think that’s likely?’
‘No, sir,’ I told him, thankful for the many times Mrs Hudson had explained to me the routines of a great household. ‘You’d expect a footman to replenish the writing paper every day. He would always put a clean paper in the blotter at the same time, I’m sure he would.’
‘Thank you, Flotsam. Invaluable.’ Still ignoring Inspector Mapperley, Mr Holmes turned to Mr Fallowell. ‘I confess I find myself warming to Viscount Wrexham,’ he smiled. ‘He strikes me as a very cool customer indeed. Now tell me, there is something you have missed out, isn’t there?’
At this accusation Mr Fallowell first blanched, then turned very red.
‘It has certainly not been my intention to mislead –’ he began rather stiffly.
‘No, no, no,’ Mr Holmes interrupted him impatiently. ‘I’m sure you had no such intention. But you have told us the last thing the Viscount did before leaving was to place his scribbled note in his pocket.’
‘That’s right, Mr Holmes. And I stand by it.’
‘Think again. Did he not perhaps reach down and remove something else from the desk? Did he not in fact remove the paper from the blotter as you watched? It might have been done in one simple movement as he turned to leave.’
Mr Fallowell gulped audibly. ‘No, really, Mr Holmes, I’m sure…’ His frown of concentration deepened until he had succeeded in crumpling his brow into a shape not unlike a question mark. ‘I was thinking about the note, you see. It was that which seemed so important. But I suppose it’s just possible he might have… Yes, I suppose it’s possible he did reach down for something else… I wouldn’t have taken much notice of that. Yes, now you describe it to me, I think perhaps he might have done, Mr Holmes. I can almost see him reach out his arm a second time. I never really thought about it before. I was thinking so very hard about that
note, you see…’
The detective straightened triumphantly.
‘You see, Inspector! I’ve always maintained that logic is a far better witness than the human eye. And what does this tell us? Why, that even at such a time, and with scarcely a moment for reflection, Viscount Wrexham understood the implications of blotting his note. A sharp mind indeed!’
‘You can’t be sure of that, though, can you, sir?’ the inspector objected. ‘Mr Fallowell here isn’t certain.’
But Mr Holmes was having none of it. ‘From this we can deduce that when the Viscount left the room he carried the blotting paper with him, for it is not on the desk and the wastepaper basket is empty, and we know that nothing in this room has been interfered with since he left it.’
‘Magnificent, Holmes!’ Dr Watson exclaimed with fervour. ‘It must be exactly as you say!’ Then he paused as though a thought had struck him. ‘But where exactly does that leave us? Surely the blotting paper is just as lost as the original note?’
His companion greeted this objection with pursed lips. ‘Not necessarily, my friend. You see, there was a great difference, in the Viscount’s eyes, between the two papers. Put yourself in his position, Watson. He has heard his father whisper to him instructions that are potentially worth a fortune. He immediately writes them down. That note becomes to him a document of almost incalculable value. But the other paper? No, that is merely something he wishes to remove from prying eyes. He simply wishes to discard it discreetly. Now, let us follow the Viscount’s footsteps…’
With that he stalked from the room, his brows knitted in thought and the rest of us trailing behind him like cygnets behind a swan.
The door from the antechamber opened onto a gallery landing that looked down upon the main entrance hall. From there, Mr Holmes descended the main staircase with us on his heels, and paused in the great marbled hallway.
On hearing our footsteps, a small and timid-looking maid of about my own age appeared from a concealed doorway below the stairs and came forward to greet us.
‘Is it your coats you’ll be wanting, sir?’ she asked cautiously.
‘It will not,’ Mr Holmes replied. ‘You will observe that we are still wearing our coats. No, it is you I wish to see. Gertrude, is it not? Inspector Mapperley here tells me you were the last person to see Viscount Wrexham alive. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, sir.’ She seemed to quake a little in the face of such a terrible accusation. ‘Least ways, that’s what they tell me, sir. It was me what gave him his gloves and stick that day, sir.’
‘Excellent!’ Mr Holmes cast a look around the rest of us, like a conjuror contemplating the production of rabbits from unlikely places. ‘And tell me, child, did he have anything in his hands as he came downstairs? A screwed up piece of paper, perhaps?’
‘Why, sir, I don’t think I could say, sir…’ But even as she tried to elude the bright glare of Mr Holmes’s gaze, we saw a thought strike her, halting her denial. It was with genuine surprise, and not a little awe, that she raised her eyes to meet his. ‘Why, yes, sir,’ she told him, ‘now you come to mention it, I believe he did have something in his hand. A little ball of paper it was, sir, like you say. He was bouncing it up and down on the palm of his hand as he came down the stairs. It being such a little thing, I didn’t really take any notice. If you hadn’t mentioned it, sir, I’d never have remembered.’
Once again Mr Holmes turned to the rest of us, eyes bright, before turning back to the girl.
‘And can you tell us what the Viscount did with that ball of paper? Did he put it in his pocket? Or did he discard it somewhere in this house? Think carefully. Your answer is important.’
We all watched in anxious silence as the girl considered this.
‘Well, sir,’ she began at last, and it seemed to me that everyone present leaned towards her an inch or two in anticipation. ‘He must’ve had it in his hand when I gave him his gloves. But then I turned round to get his stick, and when I turned back he was buttoning his gloves, so I suppose he must have put it somewhere by then, sir.’
Sherlock Holmes nodded encouragingly. ‘Indeed he must. And have you any idea where he might have put it?’
But all the girl could do was shake her head and drop her eyes in disappointment.
‘Must have put it in his pocket, Holmes,’ Dr Watson concluded glumly. ‘Otherwise someone would have found it. He probably tossed it into the gutter when he left. Damned rotten luck, I say.’
But I was barely listening to him. I was thinking of the way that Dr Watson and I had come in from the street that day with our arms full of books, and how we had discarded them onto the first table that presented itself. We had not thought where to put them. We had just put them down without thinking.
Which is why I found myself looking at the huge Japanese vase that stood to one side of the staircase, very close to the spot where Viscount Wrexham would have stopped for his hat and gloves.
It was a tall vase, at least five feet high, broad in the waist and narrow at the neck. Too large to move easily, it was the sort of object that simply stands in its place season after season, largely unnoticed, undisturbed save for an occasional dusting. Then I imagined the Viscount standing there with something in his hand that he wished to be rid of. I imagined the maid turning her back as he came to pull on his gloves…
Mr Holmes, I noticed, also seemed to be lost in thought, as if he too was imagining the Viscount’s movements. And then, at that moment, he lifted his head and our eyes met, and we both turned to face the vase.
‘Watson,’ he said quietly, ‘do you think yourself strong enough to pick that thing up?’
As it turned out, the vase proved a great deal too heavy for one person to lift. In fact, it required the combined efforts of all four men in our party to lower the fragile object to its side and then to tip it slightly, a process during which Mr Fallowell more than once declared himself faint and Inspector Mapperley twice expressed a mumbled contempt for ‘blooming great jars with no purpose, not even a lid on them to keep biscuits’. Even these efforts did not succeed in completely up-ending the item in question, so while the four men held it at an angle, it was left to me to reach inside and feel for anything hidden within.
It soon became apparent that over the years many objects had been deposited in the accommodating depths of that vase, and from the multitude of old cigarette ends and chewed tips of cigars I quickly extracted a torn ostrich feather, the lid of a snuffbox and a copy of The Times dated December 1889. Lurking beneath those were two or three torn-up calling cards, an old invitation to take tea with the Bishop of Lichfield and, rather surprisingly, an ivory-handled grapefruit knife. Only on my third attempt did I feel something more promising against my finger tips, and I gave a little shout of triumph when my fingers closed around a crumpled ball of soft, fibrous paper.
‘It is here, sir!’ I cried. ‘This must be it. The Viscount did exactly what you said, sir!’
But Mr Holmes made no reply. He merely took the paper from my fingers, opened it carefully, then turned it towards the ornate mirror in such a way that all of us could see its reflection. I could see at once that it was a clean sheet of blotting paper, used only once, with the Viscount’s handwriting printed perfectly legibly across its middle:
Andover
Teddington
Prince Leopold
Tyrant
?
Colonel Middleton
‘By Jove!’ Dr Watson blinked rapidly. ‘What’s all that about?’
In reply, Mr Holmes raised one thin eyebrow. ‘Well, my friend,’ he said softly. ‘It is an answer of sorts. But I fear Lord Beaumaris and his son have not made it easy for us. It would seem we still have some work to do…’
*
We returned to Baker Street in triumph, a copy of the Viscount’s note clutched firmly between Mr Holmes’s fingers. The original was left in the care of Inspector Mapperley with instructions that he should communicate the discovery at once to Sir Perc
ival Grenville-Ffitch. Then Mr Holmes had hailed a four-wheeler and had insisted that I should join him and Dr Watson in it, along with the large pile of learned books that now seemed to be of no interest to anyone. Although all of us were thinking of the message we had discovered, for a short time elation triumphed over curiosity. Mr Holmes and Dr Watson were both in high good humour, exchanging jocular views on Scotland Yard and its singular lack of perspicacity.
On our arrival home we were greeted by Mrs Hudson, who was immediately regaled with an account of our great achievement. Indeed, so general was the air of celebration as the gentlemen took off their coats that she had some difficulty in explaining to Mr Holmes that a gentleman had called in his absence but had declined to wait.
‘He did not leave a card, sir, but he said he might write to you.’
‘I hope his need is not urgent, Mrs Hudson,’ the detective replied, ‘for we shall be fully occupied with Sir Percival’s case for a little while yet. Now, if you would be so good as to help us upstairs with these books, Dr Watson and I can get down to some serious work. There is not a moment to be lost!’
And such was Mr Holmes’s eagerness to scrutinise the Viscount’s note further that even before Mrs Hudson and I had finished piling up the books in his study, he had produced his copy and was reading it aloud.
‘What do you say to that, then, Watson?’ he asked. ‘Now we have escaped the inspector, we can speak freely.
‘Well, Holmes,’ the doctor muttered doubtfully, ‘it’s all a bit cryptic, isn’t it? I mean, are these the places where the Lazarus Testament is supposed to be hidden? And are those the people who did the hiding? It all sounds very unlikely to me…’
‘One moment, Watson. Let us consult out trusty gazetteer. Mrs Hudson, would you be so kind? It’s the large green volume to your left… Now, let me see… Alfreton, Amberley, Amersham… Ah! Here we are. Andover: Hampshire market town situated on the River Anton, 18 miles north-west of Winchester. Principal industries include dyes, dairy products and fancy goods. Well, that sounds simple enough.’
Mrs Hudson and the Lazarus Testament Page 8