“I have come here to request your assistance, Mr Holmes,” our guest replied, “and I will follow your advice.”
My anger must have shown on my face then as I started to stand because Holmes motioned me back into my chair with a wave of his hand and an amused look. I retook my seat and made every appearance of being ready to listen to Mr Croft’s story.
“Come then, take heart, Mr Croft, said Holmes. “I am not the law and I am far from delivering clients to the mercy of the courts. Nor am I in the business of exposing secrets out of malice. Watson is my fried and can likewise be trusted. Please believe that I have your best interests at heart. The ring on your hand is not a wedding band, but it had a match you say. The phrase around the band in French “Gardi L-” is just visible. I assume that the full text is “Gardi Li Mo” and that its brother reads “A Vila Mon Coeur,” which is the usual initiation of that phrase. Your mourning is too acute to be for someone who was not your very dearest companion. I would advise you to be as honest with me as possible and trust that I will not land you in gaol since truthfulness is your best chance at success.”
Frederick Croft smiled wryly. “I have spent the better part of my life hiding what you have guessed in under a minute, Mr Holmes. I suppose that means I was right to come to you. I am reassured.” He sighed and for the first time a glint of life came into his eyes as he began to speak. “His name was Captain Elliot Clay. We were in the service together since our youth. We took all our posts together and vowed to stay together always. It was in Australia that he acquired the opals for the rings and had them made. Soon after, we were parted when he took up a dangerous but highly compensated position.
“The manner in which he distinguished himself and the honour he earned with his actions is a matter of public record. He was the pride of his town. I felt differently, as you may well imagine. I scarcely spoke to him for five years, I felt so betrayed, but when I heard that he had been injured and forced to retire from service I came to see him. I found him to be quite unchanged in his feelings and faithful to me even when I was most spitefully injurious to him. How happy he was to see the ring still on my hand! I recanted, resigned my position and devoted the remainder of my life to caring for him. Elliot was the best and most loyal man I have ever known. He forgave my long silence instantly.
“We were inseparable from that time on. He had gained a fortune in his travels and was able to lease a home near the sea at Rye where we made our residence.
“He suffered from a war injury which kept him from much activity but we had friends in town who visited often and his brother, Walter Clay, had been our guest for the better part of the year. I had thought him happy, but it seems that secretly he was in despair. It is true that he came back from the war a changed man. He rarely spoke of the horrors he had seen, even to me. I knew it was not out of mistrust but out of love that he did so. He wished to spare me from his memories. There were nights upon which I was forced to shake him in order to rouse him from nightmares but such nights had become less frequent as the months passed. It seemed clear to me that he would recover spiritually if not physically.
“I cannot believe, as his brother now believes, that he regretted his association with myself, but something drove him two nights ago to take more than his usual dose of the paregoric prescribed to him for the pain from his injury. He was found dead in the morning still in the chair by the fire where I had left him the night before.” Tears sprang to his eyes and it was some moments before he was able to continue his sad tale. “He was in exactly the same posture, only the ring was missing.”
Holmes looked up at that, leaning slightly forward in his chair and did not speak but waited for Croft to resume his narration.
“I soon found myself persona non grata. It seems that his brother blamed his death on his ‘entanglement’ with me. I was barely allowed to gather my own things before I found myself thrown out of the only home I had known since childhood. His brother had not approved our closeness at first; in fact family disapproval was the reason he had gone abroad. They had made up when he returned, however, and I thought he had become accustomed to me.
“We had a house guest, Mr Russell Carter, at the time, whom he cast out as well without even directions to the train station. Mr Holmes, I don’t think I can face him again, but I would very much like to have the ring. I don’t want money or any other remembrance. If I knew what had become of it I could retrieve it myself and no man would stop me, but I don’t even know where to start looking.”
“Were you the one who discovered him in the morning?” asked Holmes.
“Yes. It was very early, not even dawn and I awakened in bed and noticed he was still absent. I came downstairs and found him there. I raised the alarm instantly and the others came down.”
Perhaps I am as slow to notice what is before me as my much more capable companion would sometimes accuse, but it was for the first time then that I realized that Frederick Croft and Elliot Clay were in fact lovers.
“It was only Mr Walter Clay and Mr Russell Carter in the house besides yourselves? No servants?”
“No, there was a housekeeper but it was her day off.”
“Were there any signs of a struggle?”
“None. He was quite relaxed in his chair; I almost thought he was sleeping at first. I understand it is the nature of your profession to suspect foul play, but he had no enemies that I knew of. No one who would have wished him harm.”
“Was the local doctor called?”
“He came right away, and pronounced it the clearest case of over consumption of opium he had seen.”
“This friend is a trusted one?”
“Carter is a close friend. He had fallen on hard times, and left London to escape his creditors for a while. He could not possibly have had anything to gain by losing the people who had taken him in to protect him.”
“Had you quarrelled? Did he seem preoccupied?”
“No, he seemed very much himself. He even mentioned some plans we had made to go to the theatre the following week. He did tell me that he had recently had his will drawn up.” Mr Croft ran his hands through his hair and sat forward with his elbows on his knees.
“Did he give you a copy of this will?”
“No, and I was not aware of where he had placed it.”
Holmes glanced up. “And the ring was missing when you found him in the morning?”
“I noticed it was not on his hand almost immediately, for I took his hands to see if he could be roused.”
“Then it must have gone missing at some point during the night.”
“I suppose so.”
“Was anything else taken?”
“Not that I noted. I confess I did not inventory the room,” he paused. “Actually, now that you mention it. When the local doctor came to examine him, the bottle of paregoric, which was on the table at the side of his chair, was also gone. I assume he must have drunk it all and then thrown the bottle somewhere. His cause of death was officially listed as accidental, for which I am glad. I would not want him to be remembered as mentally ill…” He leaned his head in his hands and began to shake.
I poured a glass of brandy and took it to him. He drank it and it seemed to calm him a little. When the colour came back into his face he began to look as he would have looked in better days, with the warm colouring and gentle features of a Pre-Raphaelite Apollo.
“I cannot go to the police with this matter. Not only would it bring shame to his memory if it were made public, but it is not likely to result in the ring’s being returned to me at all. Even if they were to find it, I’m sure it would go to his brother with all his possessions. Knowing Mr Walter Clay, he would have it sold to anyone in the world except myself.” He sighed. “It’s not really a case for the famous Mr Sherlock Holmes, is it?” he asked.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Mr Croft,” my friend replied. “It seems to pose some interesting mental problems and as my friend Watson was just saying before you arrived it would do me
some good to get a little fresh air.”
The next train for Rye did not leave until the following morning and so we determined to go see Mr Frederick Clay’s unfortunate house guest, Mr Russell Carter, since he resided in London. To my surprise, Holmes did not knock at that door but took up a position opposite on a bench near the park and waited. It seemed we were to follow him and I looked forward to watching Holmes in action.
Mr Russell Carter emerged from his apartments in Knightsbridge in the early part of the afternoon. He was all in dove grey with black gloves and boots and a darker grey band around his hat. Although handsome and well dressed he looked pale and the halos around his eyes told of sleepless nights. He was taller than myself, not much shorter than Holmes and had a roundness about his face which made him seem younger than his dress indicated. He had large pale eyes with heavy lids which gave him an air of thoughtfulness, although not one of will or determination. His hair was slightly unkempt and fell in dark wisps from the brim of his hat as he glanced around. He did so often and seemed to be expecting to be followed although he made no effort to shake his pursuer and seemed to take no notice of Holmes and myself.
Several cabs pulled up to offer him transport but he seemed distrustful of them and turned them away. At one point he stopped into a jewellers and Holmes quickly scurried to one of the local soot-covered boys and penned a quick note which he handed to the little vagrant. The boy saluted, ran with it into the shop and we were once again on our way. It seemed the Baker Street Irregulars had been such a success that their ranks had been expanded considerably.
I was still preoccupied by the way I had been nearly dismissed from the room the previous night and its implications. It recalled to mind a patient of mine who asked me to see his wife about a problem in her nether regions. The problem proved to be easily solved by the application of an ointment, but on examination I found that the wife had male genitalia. I performed my examination and gave my prescription to the couple without mentioning it. I assumed that there was an understanding between them, and it is the duty of every doctor to protect the secrets of patients. What sort of medicine could I practice, who would come to me with a delicate problem, if it were thought that I could not be trusted?
“Do you really believe me to be so narrow minded,” I asked Holmes, “that I would have given away our client to the police?”
Holmes took my arm and guided me near enough to hear him without taking his eyes off our man. “I had simply never heard you express an opinion on the subject and did not wish to place you in a position which might be distasteful to you.”
“But surely you must suppose that as a medical man I have seen more than the average bachelor has of these things, Holmes. And even if I had not come to it then, such behaviour is quite common in the Army and a few of my less sober comrades in arms have even found themselves doing such things accidentally.”
He chuckled. “My dear Watson, I give you my word that I will never accuse you of naïveté again.” There seemed to me to be an edge of sarcasm in this comment but I had to let it stand. His attentions were focused on the pursuit and I did not wish to draw too much of his attention from a case when he was on the trail.
Carter walked a fair way on foot and then, to my delight, turned into the Turkish Bathhouse on Jermyn Street. I was an advocate of taking the waters since it had done much good for the occasional aches I endured from the Jezail bullet I still carried, but had never been able to persuade my friend to accompany me there. Now it seemed I would have the chance to convert him.
From the outside, the Turkish Bathhouse on Jermyn Street looked like a smaller and more garish representation of a Sultan’s Palace, complete with onion domes and Moorish arches. The front, however, belied the enormity of the interior. The bathhouse took up the width of an entire city block and there was another entrance on the opposite street as well, just as ornate. Inside, one first entered a large lobby where clothes were checked and towels were handed out. We followed our quarry through the entrance and handed our coats to the attendant. There were many changing rooms off of this, a warren of sitting and smoking rooms in which various men lay on couches and read the morning paper or discussed business in hushed whispers. To my surprise Holmes seemed to know his way around as though he came there often, but I recalled many times that he had led me through alleyways I scarce knew the existence of in pursuit of some lead.
Through hallways hung with silk we then filed in slippers and robes into the Heating Room, where coals in filigreed copper braziers were the only light. Holmes looked even more slender, once he had hung up his robe and seated himself on the edge of the benches. I had been concerned about him, as his devotion to his art continued to obscure his appetite and he was thinner and paler than I had seen him in some time. The striations in his muscles were visible through the skin, his collarbone arching out from his neck like the curve of a longbow. Even his face was narrower, the high brow and curved cheekbones giving him almost the look of a greyhound, elegant but predatory. For a moment he seemed to have forgotten the rabbit we were chasing and I was happy to see his muscles relax in the heat. He lay back with his long thin fingers interlaced behind his head and stared up at the star shaped windows in the curved copper ceiling.
“Indeed I am, Watson,” he said.
“Now truly, what sort of an answer is that?” I asked. Accustomed as I was to having him read my thoughts from the expression on my face, there were times when I again doubted that he had followed my thoughts accurately. “I could be thinking anything and have you say, ‘Indeed I am.’”
“No, not quite anything. You could not have been thinking about your work, your latest card game or some exploit of military history as you so often are. You have often remarked that a few hours in the hammam would do my constitution some good, and when I saw your glance pass over me, first with a furrowing of your brows and then almost with a smile I knew that you were thinking of my health and the beneficial effect this would no doubt have on me.”
I had to concede, with a nod, that he was again correct and thought to use this opportunity to encourage his interest in his own well-being.
“Perhaps you will allow me to order some food brought over, once we are in the Cooling Room.”
“No, thank you,” he replied, “I have need of all of the nervous energy in my possession to fuel my mind at the moment.”
I said nothing, but attempted to look around for the gentleman we were following. Holmes took my elbow and led me to lie beside him. It was only then that I noticed the ceiling was highly polished, enough so that I could watch all the other clients in its mirrored curve without so much as moving my head.
Mr Carter was moving distractedly about the room, alternately sitting with his chin in his hands and pacing like a caged animal. His eyes darted back and forth, not focusing on any one thing before him but seeing some internal scene. He had, despite his physical beauty, every outward appearance of a guilty man. After a while in this room he began to calm down and took several deep breaths.
When he rose to his feet and walked towards the Vapour Room my friend stirred and slowly got to his feet. He seemed to be moving quite slowly, but one glance at his keen and alert face told me we were to follow.
In the inner chamber of the Vapour Room it was difficult to see at all. Each man’s body looked alike, glimpsed for an instant as the steam drifted and then hidden again except for a dim outline. Some were young, some old, all types and manner of the human form were represented there, but in their languor there was a sameness which made it a matter of looking very closely to spot our quarry among them. There was little light and the overall impression was that of being in a primeval cave, the civilization stripped from us with our clothing, returning to a sort of Eden only half-made, requiring by its very nature a silence which implied acceptance of this exotic ritual.
Carter moved through the room deliberately, looking at each man there with a half-nod that seemed to denote acquaintance. Some nodded back and some
looked away.
When he looked at me there was a question in his glance which I could not read. I nodded, hoping that was the signal my friend wished me to give. When he had breathed enough steam and his hair was wet with perspiration he at last made to leave.
We followed him out of the room into a larger area with couches. Through receding filigreed arches we could see the whole of this side of the building, comprising massage areas, perfumeries, and the tattoo parlour.
These all fed into the central area, the Cooling Room. This room was as large as a cathedral, with a similarly vaulted ceiling, all panelled in cedar and giving off a delicate fragrance in the heat. The crossbeams were simple, with a pattern of intersecting triangles, through which the scented smoke drifted but found no outlet. Along the middle of this great hall stretched a pool of chilled water done in an intricate mosaic of Turkish tile in which bathers immersed themselves between excursions into the heated rooms. A set of carved wooden double doors, now open, marked the return to the heated chambers from which we had just come.
Holmes followed our man across the room until he seated himself on a couch in an alcove lined with silks. We were screened there from the rest of the room and the sounds of water and soft unintelligible voices came to us distantly.
“I believe there is something you gentlemen wish to discuss with me in private?” he began.
“Indeed there are several things,” Holmes replied, seating himself on the couch beside Mr Carter and accepting the cigarette he offered.
“Well, several things!” he said with a smile, “I’m not sure I fancy a charver with yourself, but your cove there is quite the picture! I have always been an admirer of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.”
A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes Page 28