by J. R. Rain
Chapter Two:
In the Presence of a Lady
True to form, it was nearly sixty minutes to the second after we had finished our tea when there came a knock upon the door downstairs. The rain had stopped pouring down by then, having slowed to a steady drizzle. A minute later, the soaking figure of a woman appeared in the study. Obviously, she had borne the brunt of the storm.
Holmes jumped up to grab a plaid blanket and wrap it around her shoulders before guiding her into the room to take my seat by the fire. I myself had gotten up to greet the lady and was happy for her to take the chair. I sat down on the windowsill.
“Watson, Miss Harcourt. Miss Harcourt, may I introduce you to my dear friend, Doctor Watson,” Holmes said as he introduced us.
“A pleasure, Miss Harcourt,” I greeted her.
“Likewise, Doctor Watson,” she said, still shivering.
Holmes sat down again, allowing a sizable interim in which Miss Harcourt could rediscover herself. Eventually, she found her damp clothes had dried a bit and the fire had warmed her enough for her to speak. Even so, as she spoke, I could see steam coming from the bottom of her silk skirt and from the lace that framed the ends of her sleeves. Her black leather boots, too, were still drying, a testament of which was the way the steam rose from the laces.
“Did you manage to find out more about the manuscript, Mr. Holmes?” she asked.
Holmes smiled and nodded seriously. “I have indeed been able to authenticate the document for you, Miss Harcourt. It is truly a work by one William Shakespeare, though certainly not his finest stuff.”
Miss Harcourt smiled, too, at that analysis. “Indeed, it is not, Mr. Holmes. It is quite an early play of his, don’t you agree? Perhaps he was still finding his feet, so to speak, in the world of the stage.”
“That might just be the case, Miss Harcourt. The handwriting itself is consistent with that of his earliest works. Tight, rigid, thoughtful, unlike his hastily written later attempts, genius as they were. Yet his youthfulness is not the most interesting thing about this whole affair. Can you please, for my friend Watson’s sake, recount how you came about this splendid document?”
The young woman turned to face me and I was struck by the clear, blue color of her large, almond-shaped eyes. Her face was perfectly angelic too and the strands of dark hair that came out from underneath her hat glowed as though they were made of the same sort of fine silk that formed her skirt.
“I worked as a governess at Galham House last year, you see.”
“My God, you were there when the tragedy happened?” I exclaimed in surprise. The drama that took place at Galham House had been splashed all over the papers for months. The master of the house had lost his mind, it seems, and killed his wife and his children, then put a rope around his neck and jumped from the mezzanine overlooking the entrance to the house. The penny dreadfuls had had a field day of their own, twisting the local people’s imaginations with gruesome crime scene pictures and equally fantastic stories.
She nodded and looked down sadly for a moment. “A great tragedy it was. Those poor little ones were lovely, and innocent of anything. They did not deserve the pain they’d been dealt.”
“And, pray tell, what did you proceed to do after this unfortunate incident?” asked I, once a suitably respectful moment of silence had passed. “I believe the new Earl of Galham has no children, so a governess would not have been required at the house.”
Miss Harcourt nodded and gave a vague smile. “I call myself ‘miss,’ but my proper title would be Lady Jessica Flora of Harcourt and Avon.”
I had to think for a moment and saw the vague smile on Holmes’s narrow face. I gathered he had discovered that by himself not soon after he had first been introduced to the lady.
“You might want to read up on the English Peerage, Watson,” he interjected happily. “Burke’s Peerage is worth perusing.”
“My father is the Earl of Harcourt; my mother is the Countess of Avon. When her brother died, she inherited the title. It is I who will inherit those titles upon the demise of my parents.”
“If you are an heiress of these two titles and estates, why were you working as a governess?” I asked, still not quite understanding the nature of her employment.
“My father did not want me to live the sheltered life many heiresses lead. Indeed, he has been careful to educate me well and send me to some fine higher learning establishments. He also insisted I find employment instead of supporting myself by means of a stipend he gives me.”
“A wise decision on your father’s part, Miss Harcourt,” Holmes said. “It means you will be far more knowledgeable about the world when you come to manage those joint estates, rather than having to leave it to a steward or your husband.”
“Quite so, Mr. Holmes.” She turned back to me and continued her tale. “The Galhams and the Avons have always had a very close relationship seeing as their estates border each other. The families often had to collaborate on matters of land ownership. My mother was childhood friends with the then earl, Lord Roger’s father, and arranged for the position there for me.” There was a pause as she sipped her tea before continuing. “As you know, Galham House is not far from Stratford-upon-Avon, the home of our cunning bard. It was rumored that Shakespeare himself spent some time in the house when it was first built.”
“He did?”
Holmes chuckled. “Shakespeare was notorious for his amorous appetites and the Earl of Galham had a number of rather pretty daughters, in addition to a very suitable wife.”
Miss Harcourt, too, grinned. “It was lucky for his poor wife, Anne, that they moved to the city in the end. He was discreet enough, but Galham House proved far too seductive for the love-struck young William. Indeed, his advances on Lady Anne Galham, the youngest daughter of the earl and the fiancée of Lord Lucy, could have proved his undoing. Especially when it was discovered she was with child.”
“By Shakespeare?” I demanded in utter surprise.
“We do not know, but that would seem to be the case.” She shook her head. “But I digress. I was about to tell you how I came by the manuscript, not about my family’s history.”
Just as she was about to launch into her narrative, the housekeeper came in with a tray containing cups and a pot of tea, alongside a plate of biscuits. Holmes took it from her and set it down upon the table, pouring each of us a cup in turn.
Having sipped the warm beverage, Miss Harcourt started her account of the procurement of the manuscript.
“After the tragedy at Galham House, I stayed on until the late earl’s brother came to take charge of the estate. The servants, too, stayed on in that interim. The new earl dismissed several of them of course, as he has no children and keeps his residence here in London, where he has his own staff.”
“But why did you stay there?” I asked her, being quite curious. “If your mother is the Countess of Avon, does your family not keep an estate nearby?”
Miss Harcourt blushed at the question. “My mother does own Bridgewell Abbey, the ancestral seat of the Earls of Avon, and she owns some residential property in Stratford-upon-Avon as well as in the surrounding villages. She is also the owner of the Pen and Sword Inn in said town. She offered to put me up at the house and at the inn in turn, but I had my reasons to stay. Reasons I could not divulge to my parents.”
“Your fellow employee, Mr. Miller.” I did not need Holmes’s help to understand that. “I thought your father was progressive?”
“Not that progressive,” she smiled. “Mr. John Miller is after all only a lowly gardener and I wanted to stay with him for as long as possible. I could possibly have gotten him a job at one of our estates afterward. But again, Doctor Watson, I digress now.
“In the interim between the tragedy and the arrival of the new earl, we had the run of the house to ourselves. The atmosphere among the staff was still professional, but standards were a bit more relaxed than they had been. I think we all needed to let our hair down after the terrible
events of the preceding period. Mr. Miller and I took to strolling around the grounds and around the house. He had his work to perform, too, but there was nothing to stop me from accompanying him in the grounds and in the hothouses.
“On one occasion, exactly five days after the tragedy and two days before the expected arrival of Earl Reginald, we were in the library. I had been studying the books there, having nothing else to do, and Mr. Miller came to find me there. I had, of course, had ample time to study the books previously, as I had taught the children, but now I was looking through the section containing plays and fiction. I was surprised to find the earl or the countess had purchased every single novel of Jane Austen’s, which was a good start for me to distract myself from the events in the house. Mr. Miller was a better distraction, of course, when he arrived.” She blushed again, this time brighter. “It was also he who found there was a book in the wrong place. Among the Jane Austen novels was one book in particular, its cover black and the spine lined with gold thread. It was untitled. I pulled it out a little and found it was a copy of Shakespeare’s Tempest. I pushed it back in its proper position, but Mr. Miller said he could not abide it being in the wrong place. He proceeded to take the book out to place it with the other Shakespearean works. However, it did not come off the shelf. Instead, when he pulled it out far enough there was a click and a section of the shelf came forward. Behind the shelf was a small recess. Mr. Miller reached inside it and took the manuscript in question out.
“I examined it and thought at once it was a previously undiscovered Shakespearean play. I wanted to present the finding of it to the butler and to the new earl, Lord Reginald. Mr. Miller convinced me not to, that my top priority was first to keep the manuscript safe and, once safe, to take the steps necessary to ascertain its authorship. With the utmost discretion, of course.”
“Of course,” said I. “So you came to find Mr. Holmes for such a service?”
“Not exactly,” Miss Harcourt said hesitantly. “Shortly after the discovery of the manuscript, Earl Galham dismissed me officially to travel anywhere. A day earlier, he had also dismissed Mr. Miller, as had been somewhat expected. I am ashamed to say that I appropriated the manuscript from the premises at that time.”
“You stole it, you mean?” I interjected.
“Yes. Yes, I suppose I did. Mr. Miller had put it into my head that it was only safe with me, and I began to believe him.”
“Very well,” I said, now straight on the facts. “Continue.”
“Well, not a week later, I received a letter from Mr. Miller reminding me to have the manuscript examined. I fully intended to, but hadn’t yet formulated a plan. After all, how does one do such a thing? Anyway, I never heard again from Mr. Miller after that. Two weeks later, I engaged Mr. Holmes, who had been referred to me by a friend, to find out all he could about this manuscript, and to, perhaps, bring me back into contact with Mr. Miller.”
She blushed again, mightily, in fact.
“And this, my dear Watson,” Holmes interrupted, “is where the mystery lies that I have solved.”
With one of his self-assured and knowing smiles, Holmes turned to Miss Harcourt. “I will call on you at four o’clock two days hence at Harcourt Hall.”
“How did you know where I was staying?” she asked in surprise.
“The two times you came to call on me, you got here at a quarter past six. It takes a lady of your stature approximately sixteen minutes to walk here from Waterloo Station; the train from Dover arrives at five minutes to six. That train passes the station of Penstone Heath, two miles from Harcourt Hall. If you had come from Stratford-upon-Avon you would, of course, have arrived here an hour earlier.”
“Truly an astounding feat of deduction, Mr. Holmes,” Miss Harcourt commented.
“One needs only a working understanding of how train schedules work—”
“She is paying you a compliment, Holmes,” said I.
“Ah.” And my good friend bowed formerly. “I thank you.”
Miss Harcourt studied my friend for a good twenty seconds before responding. “But I am confused, Mr. Holmes. You say you have solved the mystery, but why do you insist on keeping me in the dark about it?”
Holmes nodded, and said, “Because I have solved the mystery, but I have not yet procured the solution to your problem.”
Chapter Three:
Unlikely bedfellows
“What was that, Holmes?” I demanded of my friend when Miss Harcourt had departed for Harcourt Hall.
“What was what, Watson?” Holmes returned the inquiry casually as he prepared his pipe.
“‘I have solved the mystery but I have not found a solution to your problem?’”
“Ah, that is indeed the case, Watson.” Holmes grabbed the tongs and took an ember from the fire to light his pipe. “I have solved the mystery of the manuscript, I am already aware of Mr. Miller’s role in it and where he might be located, but none of it helps Lady Harcourt.” He turned to me then, blowing out a large cloud of smoke. “Would you care to accompany me in my investigations, Doctor Watson? I assume you have time to spare in the next two days?”
“Uncanny, but you are right again, Holmes. I have no appointments; I have only rounds to make. My wife is away to visit her sister in Scotland, so I am completely at your disposal.”
“Excellent, Watson. I will see you at Waterloo Station at ten o’clock in the morning. If you visit old Mrs. Jacobson at the end of your round, you would only be five minutes away from the station.”
I decided not to question how Holmes knew my rounds, and I did not ask him why he reckoned I would be calling on Mrs. Jacobson the next morning as I had received no word of her being unwell. Instead, I just bade him farewell.
By the time I left the Baker Street residence, the rain had stopped and the streets were nearly empty, making for an easy walk home.
***
As I was having my morning tea, a footman arrived with a message.
Curious, I opened it at once to discover a request to visit Mrs. Jacobson that morning as she had been taken ill during the night. I shook my head, less over the news of Mrs. Robinson’s failing health, but more over Holmes’s seemingly supernatural ability to predict the future. I promised I would call on her and proceeded to do so, as on Holmes’s suggestion, at the end of my rounds. I then went on to Waterloo Station, where I found Holmes waiting impatiently on the platform, conversing with the conductor of the train to Dover.
“Honestly, Watson,” he exclaimed exasperatedly, “You are a full minute late. Do make haste and board before Mr. Evans here decides he will not wait a second longer.”
I did so instantly, recognizing that my good friend was in one of his moods, and was followed by Holmes into the compartment. He had not closed the door before the conductor blew his whistle and the train was set into motion.
“We are going to Harcourt Hall, I presume?” I inquired of Holmes, wishing to circumvent his ire.
“We are not, Watson,” Holmes said not-so-gently.
“Then might I inquire where we are going?”
“You may.”
I waited for a moment but received no answer, which I promptly pointed out to him.
“Oh, you were inquiring with the presupposition that an answer would also be forthcoming.”
Having confirmed that sentiment, I saw Holmes smile and recline into the seat, resting his elbows on the armrests and placing his fingertips together again, closing his eyes and not opening them again until the train had reached the village of Penstone Heath.
We alighted from the train there and Holmes proceeded rapidly from the station into the village. I marched quickly but found it hard to keep up with Holmes’s long strides.
We walked through the village without a stop and we turned onto a country lane without a word. After some minutes of steady walking, I saw the imposing figure of a country estate come into view. I assumed it was Harcourt Hall and our destination.
Almost a mile away from the estate,
though, Holmes pointed to a side road that joined the lane there, cutting a gap between the willows that lined the lane. “That’s the road to Harcourt Hall,” Holmes proclaimed, although he continued along the lane to quite a different estate in front of us.
I blinked and missed a step. “Harcourt Hall? But I thought that was where we were headed.”
“No, we are going to call on their neighbor, the Marquis of Tach Saggart.”
“The Marquis of Tach Saggart?” I had not heard the name before.
“Yes, that is his estate, Clonmore House.” Holmes gave a chuckle of laughter. “The Marquis is a member of the Irish Peerage. Rather a delusional one, though. He is a descendant of Lord Fitzwilliam, one of the commanders of the army that was comprehensively thrashed by the O’Byrne clansmen at the battle of Glenmalure.”
He glanced back and, undoubtedly, correctly read the puzzled expression on my face. In his pleasant voice, he launched into a verse of a song he must have picked up on one of his forays into the Irish expatriate community in London. Holmes had the uncanny ability to retain the lyrics and melody of any song he’d ever heard.
“From Tach Saggart to Clonmore, there flows a stream of Saxon gore, and great is Rory Óg O’More at sending the loons to Hades. White is sick and Grey has fled, now for Black Fitzwilliam’s head, we’ll send it over dripping red to Liza and her ladies.”
He looked round at me again and smiled. “That battle did not go well for the present Englishmen and collaborators. Yet in true form, honorable titles were issued to the deceased commanders and then passed on to their descendants. The Marquis of Tach Saggart took pride in where his ancestor earned the title and named his house after the place.”
“It is a new house?” I asked, making a leap of logic.
“Indeed, Watson. It was built ten years ago. The family was extremely impoverished and moved to the Ohio River Valley, as many of their countrymen solved their hunger and monetary problems by joining the Royal Navy or the armies on the Peninsula or in India. The current marquis is the second generation to have been born in the United States of America. That may explain his naivety about his heritage. The family procured some property there and got by. It was the current marquis, Gerald Fitzwilliam, who began working as a ranch hand in Texas after the war between the States and worked his way up the ranks. He became a foreman at a young age and his talent helped him secure a very favorable marriage. He made a small fortune from the cattle trade and invested most of that setting up further cattle ranches in Argentina. Subsequent investments also paid off and some ten years ago the marquis bought a house in Portobello, Dublin, took his place in the Irish Peerage and proceeded to build this house as well.”