The Strange Adventures of Charlotte Holmes

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘Christ!’ exclaimed the boy. ‘Don’t talk about that. If that’s what all this is about, the free food and kind offers, then you’d better forget it. I knew’, he said in a disillusioned voice, ‘there had to be a catch somewhere.’

  Jack added, ‘What made you think there wouldn’t be? Look, miss, just let us go, eh? We’re in danger lingering here.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Madame Mercury’s threatened us with death if we speak. Or, she says, she can get us arrested on a trumped-up charge, produce false witnesses and get us put in prison. She’s a powerful woman. If we cross her it could be prison at best or the bottom of the river at worst – we must get away now. George can go down to Rochester where he comes from and try to get work. I can go abroad, alone, if I must, or with Signor Gambini if I’m lucky. In a year or two Henry Liversedge will be forgotten. But if you start meddling you put us all in danger.’

  What he said was so probably true that Charlotte felt unable to argue. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Will you tell me only what you feel you can, in return for some money to set you on your way? Is that fair?’

  Jack shrugged. George said, ‘How much?’

  ‘Two guineas each,’ Charlotte said promptly. She then asked Jack, ‘So then, tell me more of Henry. He embarked on a career at Madame Mercury’s?’

  ‘Yes, about a year ago in January. And then, in November, he disppeared, taking nothing with him. Madame Mercury cleared out his property, little as it was. No one bothered about his disappearance. The maids were sacked – Liza stayed – and we were threatened to keep our mouths shut. A few of the lads hopped it, scenting trouble. And everything went quiet. Only later the Reverend Michael Liversedge arrived and knocked on the door, asking for his son. The poor man, full of remorse, had traced him, only to find him gone. Madame Mercury denied that he’d ever been there. The Reverend, not taking no for an answer, came back with a constable.’

  ‘Did Madame Mercury continue to deny that Henry had been at George Street?’

  ‘Yes, but the Reverend knew better. We knew Henry had been writing to a young woman in his own village. Henry had put the girl under a vow of secrecy so his father wouldn’t find out where he was and his manner of life; but when the letters stopped coming she told the Reverend. This was how Henry’s Pa found Madame Mercury’s. He had the letters and Madame Mercury’s denials meant nothing.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ asked Charlotte.

  ‘Walls have ears,’ was all Jack said.

  ‘And the contents of the letters?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Jack said. ‘We knew there were letters, but not what was in them.’

  ‘I’ve heard nothing of this,’ mused Charlotte.

  ‘Look,’ Jack said rising, ‘can we have that money? I have to get away. If Gambini doesn’t find me here soon, I must move on.’

  But at that moment a big figure, in an astrakhan-collared coat, with a tall silver-knobbed cane, came into the room. Jack ran to him.

  A quiet conversation ensued in the corner of the room by the door. It was soon decided, evidently, that Gambini would take both Jack and George under his protection. After some hasty farewells, the famous tenor and the two lads, Jack still carrying his bat, left the room. Where would they go next, Jack and George? And what would happen to them, brooded Charlotte. What irked her was that, overawed by the Queen and the Prince of Wales, she had not asked questions as penetrating as those she should have asked, and would have, had the persons involved been less exalted. What were these letters, and what did they contain?

  She thanked Henrietta, bade her farewell, picked up her handbag and headed for Scotland Yard. There she discovered where her old friend and admirer, Inspector Jules Lestrade, was to be found, and joined him in a plate of steak and kidney pie and a pint of bitter beer at an inn near his headquarters. The whole room seemed to be full of policemen, eating, drinking at the long bar, smoking like chimneys. She entered Lestrade’s special booth at the back, catching him in conversation with another officer, who, on a signal from Lestrade, left his seat. Charlotte slipped in.

  ‘You’re oddly dressed,’ he remarked. ‘I take it you’ve been off detecting. I take it you’re here because you’ve been pulled up short, as we have, in the matter of – ’ and he lowered his voice, ‘the boy Liversedge.’

  ‘First-class detecting,’ Charlotte agreed. ‘There seem to be some letters from the boy. Do you know who has them?’

  Lestrade’s black moustache seemed to droop like an unwatered flower, while he turned his fine dark eyes to heaven, or rather, the smoke-blackened ceiling of the inn. ‘Letters?’ he groaned. ‘What letters? Hearsay letters. None of us has seen these famous letters. All we have is the father’s allegation that they exist, and his complaints – and threats. Had the gentleman in question not been a clergyman of the established Church, none of this disturbance would have happened.’

  ‘Has the father a case to bring to court?’

  ‘How can I tell?’ Lestrade said gloomily. ‘We at Scotland Yard have no idea of what evidence he has. We have been given no information, only urgent directions to find the boy, dead or alive. The rest of it is gossip. In other countries,’ he said in a low voice, ‘an affair such as this would be handled by the Secret Police. There’s no proper machinery like that here, apart from those jokers in the political section of the CID and all they think of is catching Irishmen.’

  ‘You’ve had no luck in finding the boy?’ asked Charlotte.

  ‘You know the answer to that question,’ Lestrade told her. ‘One boy in a nation full of boys – he could be anywhere, doing anything – washing pots in the back of this hostelry, for example; or out of the country completely; or lying dead at the bottom of a quarry in a lonely spot. We questioned that so-called woman Madame Mercury and her lads at George Street with no result. The clients of course are untouchable. In any case this Madame Mercury persists she knows none of them by their proper names, or anything about them.’

  ‘Have you spoken to the former servants at George Street?’

  ‘There weren’t any servants when we went there,’ said Lestrade. ‘The housekeeper maintained all the work was done by herself and the boys. I suppose she was lying.’

  ‘She dismissed them,’ Charlotte said. ‘This was how I gained my position there as maid-of-all-work.’

  Lestrade roared with laughter, then sobered. ‘My instructions are to do nothing but find the boy,’ he said sourly. ‘If I exceed that duty in any way you’ll soon be talking to ex-Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard.’ His eyes now flashing on her, he added, ‘Miss Holmes – Charlotte – will you do me the honour to attend the music hall with me next week?’

  ‘The music hall – again?’ said Charlotte in horror.,

  ‘I know you for a serious lady, happier in the concert hall than the purlieus of the Hackney Empire. But, once more, to please an old friend …’

  ‘I should be delighted, Jules,’ declared Charlotte, relenting. Then she stood up. ‘Meanwhile, I begin to see what I must do. I shall hope to have cleared up this case by then.’

  ‘Good luck to you,’ said Jules Lestrade. ‘And I won’t ask who your client is.’ His eyes followed the tall, erect figure of Charlotte as she left the inn. So did those of many of his brother officers, in spite of Charlotte’s rough attire. ‘Next week, at the Hackney Empire, I shall be sitting by that glorious creature in the stalls,’ he could not resist boasting, as his friend rejoined him in his booth.

  ‘Jules, you’re a lucky dog,’ said the other.

  Charlotte, in the meanwhile, despatched a telegram, received an answer, packed a Gladstone bag with a few items from her still-neglected house and by late afternoon was on the train to Settle, in Yorkshire. Outside the station the Reverend Michael Liversedge greeted her and led her to a pony and trap, The horse’s breath blew whitely into the cold. ‘We’ll be at the vicarage in only twenty minutes,’ the vicar assured her.

  They set off down narrow roads. Quiet rocky fields,
mostly empty, lay on either side. During their drive Michael Liversedge, sober in his dark suit and clerical collar, said little. Charlotte, in the back of the trap, had observed, when they met, his bony, sombre face, topped by a head of thick grey hair. As they drove she could see only the back of his head, his black coat and his long arms, as he flicked a whip over the back of the sturdy pony. She had the impression of a capable man, but stiff and joyless, doggedly going through his life without interest or passion. They entered a small village of grey stone, shuttered up and dark. At the end of the village street Michael Liversedge turned into the drive of a house next to a low, old church.

  He pulled the pony up outside the house. Charlotte got out. ‘Let us go in,’ he said, unlocking a heavy door. They went through a small, dark hall and into the dining-room, where he lit some lamps and said, ‘My housekeeper has laid out some food. Would you like to help yourself, while I go and see to the horse? Plain fare, I’m afraid.’ Then he left.

  The room was very clean, Charlotte observed after he had left. The threadbare carpet had been well brushed, the lamps sparkled, the lamp wicks were well trimmed. A vast sideboard and the old oak table on which the food had been put bore a high polish. A small banked fire glowed in the grate. It was a chilly, unornamented room and the meal the vicar had described as plain fare was exactly that. At one end of the table stood a large, round untouched cheese, a square of butter, a loaf, two bottles of beer and two glasses. After the long journey from London and a freezing ride in an open trap Charlotte felt the offer of a bowl of soup or a hot cup of tea would not have come amiss. However, famished, she cut some bread and cheese and sat down to eat it. The vicar returned after five minutes, and, opening the beer, poured her a glass and took one himself. ‘This is a poor parish,’ he remarked uncompromisingly, ‘so you must excuse the lack of luxury.’

  Charlotte took her chair to the fire. Michael Liversedge moved another. He sat opposite her, staring into her face. ‘It is late,’ she said, ‘but unless you are very tired, I should like to ask some questions.’

  ‘There’s no news of my boy, I take it.’

  ‘Sadly, no. This must be a bad time for you.’

  ‘I did my best,’ he said, and paused. Then he went on, ‘You must understand I brought Henry up alone. His mother died when he was five. He had no brothers or sisters. The position of clergyman’s child can be difficult, especially in these parts, where there is a stong Nonconformist tendency. It spreads out from the industrial cities, such as Leeds and Carlisle, and in from the borders of Scotland. There is some resentment of the established Church. This place is not like the south or west of England.’

  Charlotte had the impression that he wished it were. ‘I’m sure life is a good deal easier for the Church of England, and her servants, in other parts of the country,’ she agreed.

  ‘My duty lies here and I am glad to do it,’ Liversedge said.

  Charlotte nodded. ‘But understandably, life here as a vicarage child cannot have been easy. Henry, perhaps, being young, chafed at the restrictions?’

  ‘Yes. Indeed he chafed,’ agreed Liversedge, somewhat grimly. ‘It was a lonely upbringing. I did not allow him to mix freely with the village children, and there were few suitable companions for him in the neighbourhood. Of course, later, he went away to school, but perhaps by then the damage was done. I am a believer in bringing children up with some discipline, Miss Holmes, but Henry was obstinate. He resisted.’ He sighed. ‘Henry was a disappointment to me, I confess it. He roamed off with the local boys in his holidays, he would not attend to his studies. One day, about a year ago, I had occasion to punish him yet again. Afterwards he was locked in his room as usual – he escaped and disappeared. This was at the time of the Appleby Horse Fair so the district was full of gypsies. He ran away with them. The police looked for him, but to no avail. It was only a month ago that a young girl whom he knew, the daughter of the local baker, came to me and said she was worried because she had not heard from him for some weeks. They had been in secret correspondence all the time he had been away. Even while he had been with the gypsies he managed to stay in fairly regular communication with her. I believe myself that everyone in the village knew he was writing to Mary Thwaite, yet none of them saw fit to inform me, his father,’ he said bitterly.

  Plainly the Reverend Liversedge was not popular and the villagers had taken Henry’s part against his father. This, however well meant, had not had good results.

  Charlotte said, ‘This conspiracy was unwise.’

  ‘Unwise? Yes indeed. And wrong. Very wrong,’ Liversedge replied. ‘However, I insisted on seeing all the letters the girl had kept. She was obstinate at first, but after I had summoned the local policeman she was forced to give them up.’

  The harsh tone left his voice as he said, ‘Oh, Miss Holmes, the picture that presented itself through those letters, written on scraps of paper in that badly formed handwriting about which I had so often complained – the details of cold, hunger, hard treatment, the naïve revelations of a life conducted among the gypsies, and the terrible, appalling immorality which succeeded in that dreadful house in George Street – the story of his stay at that infamous place – words fail me. The boy barely understood what was happening to him, had lost all moral sense.’

  Contemplating this, Charlotte saw, Liversedge was close to despair.

  He sighed, then spoke again with difficulty. ‘I confess I wept. I wept sorely. What could I have done, I thought? What had I done?’ A lost soul, Miss Holmes, that was what I had produced. A lost soul – Henry, my own son.’

  ‘Mr Liversedge,’ Charlotte said, leaning forward and putting her hand on his. ‘Mr Liversedge, you are a clergyman. None know better than you that God can forgive all and heal all.’

  ‘The boy was unrepentant,’ he said, with something of his old tone.

  ‘More ignorant than anything, I suspect,’ Charlotte responded.

  His answer was a deep sigh. There was a silence.

  ‘I should like to see the letters,’ she said.

  ‘Mary would not give up the originals. I have copies,’ he told her. ‘But I wasn’t clear from your telegram – what is your part in all this? I assume you are not investigating this matter on behalf of the police? So for whom are you acting?’

  ‘I act for another party. But I regret I am unable to tell you who it is.’

  The room seemed to grow colder as Liversedge said, ‘Well, I can guess. So I’m forced to assume you’re here to clear the name of the Queen’s grandson, not to help me, or Henry.’

  Charlotte answered, ‘I understand your suspicions.’

  ‘Since I read those letters, the final one suggesting quite clearly that one of the last people to see my son was the Duke of Clarence, the oldest son of the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of England, everything has been done to put obstacles in the way of my finding out the truth. I have approached the Home Secretary, and Mr Gladstone, and even the Monarch herself. All said they could not help me. The implication was that I was mad, my son a fantasist – I tell you, Miss Holmes, the letters Henry wrote to Mary Thwaite bore the obvious stamp of truth. He is my son. I know him.’ He looked at her angrily. ‘What could I do in the face of official denials? What could I do to find my son but mount a private prosecution against the Duke? That, I thought, and still think, is the only way this matter can be brought out into the open. Miss Holmes,’ he appealed, ‘I am aware Henry may be dead. If he is, I must know, I want to find his body and give it a proper burial. If he is alive, of course, I want him back, whatever he’s done, whatever he’s become. If you have come here pretending to help me, but in reality to silence me, you have come a long way for nothing.’

  Charlotte said, ‘It’s my belief, Mr Liversedge, that what is needed to help you, the Duke of Clarence, and Henry, if he is still alive, is – the truth. I am here to discover that and find Henry, if I can. I am not here to cover anything up.’

  ‘You may be sincere when you say that. But you may not
have the final say in how any information you may find is used. You have powerful masters.’

  ‘I can hardly argue with you there,’ Charlotte said soberly. ‘But if you think it over, perhaps you will decide it’s worth the chance. I’ll go to bed now and perhaps we can talk more in the morning.’

  He led her to a small room overlooking the garden, as clean and sparsely furnished as the dining-room. Charlotte was relieved a small fire had been lit in the grate. She and Mr Liversedge said good-night without cordiality. She heard his firm, lonely footsteps going along the corridor to his own room.

  Charlotte, in bed between cold sheets, hearing only the hoot of an owl, whispered superstitiously into her pillow, ‘Henry Liversedge, Henry Liversedge, if you’re alive, then show yourself for all our sakes.’

  In the great drawing-room at Buckingham Palace, a small, fat woman, seventy-one years old, who had been Queen of England for over fifty years, and a tall, bearded man, now eighty-one, who had been Prime Minister of Britain four times, confronted each other, much as Charlotte and the Reverend Michael Liversedge had the night before, from opposing chairs and opposing positions. Queen Victoria, a man’s woman, had never got on with Gladstone, no ladies’ man. Now they were, like many an old couple, unhappily joined, unable to part. And advancing years and the knowledge of her own power had not increased the Queen’s tolerance.

  ‘I have taken your advice, Mr Gladstone,’ she said, ‘and let us hope it is correct. But progress is slow.’

  ‘I believe Miss Holmes can be useful. She proved her merit in Kravonia, and has been all discretion since.’

  ‘Hah!’ said the Queen. ‘Your idea of discretion, Mr Gladstone, and mine, are very different.’

  ‘Politically discreet, ma’am, I should have said,’ he responded.

  ‘I said all along I would have preferred Sherlock,’ the Queen told him bluntly. ‘I do not entirely trust Miss Holmes.’

  Mr Gladstone did not say that the Queen had never trusted Miss Holmes, or that she was inclined on principle to mistrust most women other than herself. Moreover, he had to admit that, as he and the Queen saw it, Miss Holmes had not proved trustworthy in one way. Yet what she had done was natural and legal, though a thorough nuisance to all concerned. And that affair had nothing to do with the matter in hand. He now said, ‘We could not, as we agreed, involve the police. Miss Holmes has the knack of finding out the truth, of not publicising her own activities and of acting with speed. And speed is essential here.’