‘I’m satisfied that even now Rudolph is explaining all this to Sherlock. In the meanwhile I’ve taken the lease on the house next door and got the landlord’s permission to put some doors through from here, to make a bigger house. I must say, John and Mary, I’m happy to think your coming child will not be subjected to being parted from either one parent or the other and going from one country to another like Alexander.’
‘You must be very eager to see Princess Ursula bear a son,’ Mary said.
‘I am,’ Charlotte said fervently.
The door then opened and Alexander came in. Meanwhile the sound of raised voices came from the dining-room. To cover the sounds of argument, Mary Watson seated herself at the piano and began to play a loud and cheerful song, ‘The Soldiers of the Queen’. They were into the third chorus of this rousing ditty when the parlour door again opened and Sherlock entered. He still seemed displeased.
Charlotte, leaving the group round the piano, now singing more quietly, said to him, ‘I hope Rudolph has explained.’
‘He has,’ her brother interrupted, ‘but Her Majesty is extremely annoyed. Gladstone is very disturbed. And I know many diplomats and members of the Foreign Office at a high level are worried by this. And there is the moral side.’
‘My marriage is perfectly legal,’ Charlotte declared, ‘and if it weren’t, that would still be nobody’s business but my own.’
‘The Holmeses’, Sherlock pronounced, ‘have always been a substantial family, ready to do their duty. Sir Charles Holmes was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, Captain Torquil Mycroft, as you recall, fell at Malplaquet and was highly commended by Wellington – but we have never aspired to enter worlds not properly open to us. This connection, Charlotte, brings us into Hanoverian circles.’
But they were interrupted by the arrival of a portly man in his forties, dressed in a dark suit. He had a black moustache and a red face, which bore an unhappy expression. ‘Tracked you down at last, Holmes,’ was his opening remark.
‘So you have, sir,’ responded Sherlock. ‘But I wonder why.’
‘I am Henry Mortimer. I’m here on behalf of my cousin, Lord Thursby.’
‘This is a family party in my sister’s house,’ Sherlock pointed out.
‘I have come all the way from Aberdeen,’ said the other gentleman unapologetically.
‘Perhaps I can offer you the hospitality of my dining-room,’ Charlotte Holmes said. ‘You can talk in private there.’
‘That sounds an excellent idea,’ said Henry Mortimer.
‘If we must,’ murmured Sherlock. Raising his voice he asked, ‘Watson, is it possible I can drag you away from the glee club to assist me?’
‘Gladly, dear fellow,’ said the doctor genially. Bowing slightly to Prince Rudolph he left the room with Sherlock and Henry Mortimer, the cousin of the late, murdered, Lord Thursby.
Charlotte, Mary and Rudolph settled down with Alexander to play Lotto until Alexander’s bed-time.
‘Poor Mr Mortimer,’ said Mary to Charlotte some days later. ‘Apparently, he has the families not only of the present Lady Thursby, but of the late Lady Thursby, mother of the new Lord Thursby, all after him to take action over the murder.’
‘It’s surprising people so ill used by Thursby are so passionately keen to see justice done,’ observed Charlotte. ‘I gather none of them is now under suspicion, after questioning by the police.’
‘They have seen much scandal in their lives, thanks to Thursby when alive,’ Mary explained. ‘Now he is dead they simply want the mystery solved and the murderer convicted so that after a year or so they can hold up their heads again and begin to lead ordinary lives, uncontaminated by scandal or the fear of what that dreadful man would do next.’
‘Plainly, little progress is being made in the investigation,’ brooded Charlotte. ‘I wonder if the desire of the Thursby family to clear the matter up and return to society without shame will be satisfied? But happily,’ she said more cheerfully, ‘this is no business of mine, since my decision to retire to the comforts of domestic life. You have been right all along, Mary. Marriage, home and the satisfactions of domestic life are the greatest comforts a woman could have.’
Mary, regarding her friend’s smiling face, found herself unaccountably depressed by this statement.
‘Peace, that is what I require,’ said Charlotte, stretching in her chair under the sunny skies.
Unhappily, only a day later, the peace of both Charlotte and Mary was rudely broken. It was half-past six next morning when there was a frantic knocking on the front door of the Watsons’ house in Battersea. The Watsons’ maid, whose alarm clock had just gone off, arrived at the door in a wrapper to find Betsey on the step crying, ‘Get your master and mistress straight away. Miss Charlotte needs them. Hurry, girl. It’s urgent.’
The Watsons’ maid went straight upstairs to arouse her master and mistress. Mary Watson came from her bedroom and put her head over the banisters. ‘Betsey! Is that you? What is it?’ she cried in alarm.
‘Please come carefully downstairs, ma’am, and I’ll tell you,’ replied Betsey, not wishing to alarm Mary too much and certainly desiring to avoid a fall downstairs.
‘Come in, then,’ called Mary, for Betsey was still on the front step.
They met in the hall, Mary in her nightdress, Betsey with her uncombed hair falling on to her shoulders.
‘Alexander’s gone,’ said Betsey.
‘Gone!’ cried Mary.
John Watson, accustomed to being called out by his patients, had dressed rapidly and was downstairs in time to put a steadying hand on his wife’s shoulder and ask, ‘What do you mean, Betsey?’
‘Someone’s come in and took him, in the night,’ she said. ‘They put up a ladder and climbed in through his window. They drugged him. There’s a pad of ether on his floor. And the ladder’s still there up against the window.’
Mary turned and went quickly upstairs. ‘My dear …’ called John warningly.
‘I’m perfectly all right, John,’ she called back. ‘I shall get dressed and go to Charlotte straight away.’
‘The cab’s still outside, ma’am,’ Betsey told her. Mary’s bedroom door banged.
‘I can hardly take this in,’ John said. ‘Who on earth would take that little boy? Can it be for ransom?’
‘I overheard – Prince Rudolph thinks it’s political,’ reported Betsey. She sniffed, ‘Some bad Kravonians may have took him. If that’s the case, what chance for the poor little mite? Miss Charlotte’s in such a state. I’ve never seen her like she is now.’
‘I’d better come and bring my bag,’ said Watson.
Five minutes later they were on their way to Chelsea. In the cab John questioned Betsey about the kidnap, but there was little to tell. Mrs Digby, Betsey and Moira Macgregor had gone to bed at ten, Prince Rudolph and Charlotte at eleven o’clock. Prince Rudolph had locked up before retiring. At six Betsey got up and met Mrs Macgregor coming from Alexander’s room with a horrified expression on her face. On rising she had naturally looked in on her little charge – and found him gone. His bedroom window was wide open, the tip of a ladder projected over the sill, the air smelt of ether. The pad of gauze with ether on it was found later by the bed.
‘Does Holmes know about this?’ was John’s question.
‘They’ve sent messages to Baker Street,’ Betsey told him.
In Chelsea all was confusion. Mrs Digby was in the kitchen making cups of tea and bacon sandwiches. A constable was posted at the gate. Another was walking round the house with a man in a brown suit. Through the open door of the dining-room Rudolph was talking to a gentleman who, in spite of the early hour, was so clean-shaven and tidy he might have been standing in a tailor’s window. Charlotte herself sat on a sofa in the parlour, crying pitifully. Horrified, apart from anything else, by her friend’s uncharacteristic collapse in the face of trouble, Mary rushed to her. Charlotte was incoherent at first, but calmed a little, gasping, ‘Alexander. My poor little boy. I brought
him so far – only to be stolen like this. Oh – Mary.’ Mary embraced the sobbing figure.
John, uncertain what to do, opened his medical bag and said, ‘Charlotte, I have a draught here. Take it – it will calm you.’
‘I can’t, John,’ said the tearful Charlotte. ‘I must keep a clear head – somehow. Though the thought of poor little Alexander coming to consciousness in a strange place, among strange people …’ and she began to cry again.
‘Really, my dear. It would be better to take some soporific and go and lie down.’
‘I can’t, John,’ she said again. ‘What good would I be to my child, lying upstairs in a stupor?’ She gasped, shuddered, calmed a little and said, ‘They think Chancellor Ristorin, or the Countess Seraphine of Kravonia are the kidnappers. But I – I’m not sure.’
‘Then who?’
She shook her head. ‘The footprints,’ was all she said. Tears began, again, to roll down her face.
‘If we ever needed Sherlock Holmes, we need him now,’ declared John.
‘A message has come back from Baker Street – he left home the night before last and has not returned,’ Charlotte said. ‘Lestrade is on his way. He may know where he has gone. Mycroft is coming also, to discuss the political aspect with Rudolph – who is with a gentleman from the Foreign Office. Oh, Mary. If only I’d left Alexander at Norvius this might not have happened. What a fool I’ve been.’
‘You must eat something, Charlotte,’ declared Mary. ‘And even if you will not take a draught, you must at least go upstairs and lie down. If you can become calmer you may be able to think better who might have taken Alexander.’
In the bedroom, Charlotte attempted to drink a cup of tea, on Mary’s orders, while Mary herself tidied the disordered room. Then Lestrade came in, twisting his bowler hat in his hands. ‘Charlotte – this is a dreadful business,’ he declared. ‘My heart goes out to you.’
‘Thank you, Jules,’ said Charlotte in a small voice. ‘That is very kind.’
‘It seems we have a political affair on our hands,’ he said.
‘So they say,’ she said.
‘I’m here awaiting instructions,’ he told her. ‘As soon as they’re issued we’ll have every man in London looking, be assured of that.’
‘My mind is so confused, Jules,’ she said. ‘Yet – yet I cannot feel these kidnappers come from Kravonia: Rudolph is so … there is every reason why they should – and yet …’ She passed her hand over her brow. ‘Oh, it’s no good. I can’t think.’
‘Your brother Mr Mycroft Holmes is on his way, that’s a mercy.’
‘Has Sherlock been found?’ she asked.
‘No. The last I saw of him was some days ago at Baker Street. We were talking of Lord Thursby. The young woman who – ’ He coughed. ‘The young woman who lived at Lord Thursby’s house mentioned a man called Lee. Mr Holmes said he knew where he might be found.’
‘John Lee!’ cried Charlotte.
‘Yes, that’s the name. What do you know of him?’
‘The footprint under Alexander’s window,’ she said. Mary was alarmed to see beads of sweat on her brow. She gasped out, each word dragging, ‘At first I was clear-headed. I filled the footprint with plaster of Paris. It has no sole or heel. But then I, I …’ And Charlotte Holmes fell back on her bed, breathing shallowly, barely conscious.
John came immediately, felt her brow, put a stethoscope to her chest. He shook his head. ‘She has a high fever,’ he told his wife. ‘It might be the result of shock – or something else impossible at this moment to diagnose. Will you take care of her, my dear?’
A prescription was written out and Betsey despatched to the chemist. And Mary got Charlotte into bed where she lay, evidently most unwell, barely able to speak. Rudolph then came to see his wife and Mary left the room. She went to the kitchen and found a very distressed Mrs Macgregor with the cook and Betsey.
‘She thinks it’s all her fault, ma’am,’ Betsey said to Mary. ‘We can’t do anything with her. Can you say something?’
Mary sat down opposite Mrs Macgregor and assured her, ‘Mrs Macgregor, my dear. It is not your fault any more than it is anyone else’s. No doubt if the domestic arrangements had been better settled you would have been in the same room as Alexander and then this might not have happened. But as things were, you had no better chance of preventing this than anyone else. And who would suppose that in London, in this age, kidnappers would come for a little boy?’
‘He is royalty, though. We should have thought of that,’ she said.
‘If anyone should have taken extra precautions on that account, Mrs Macgregor, it was not you. You did your duty. But you will be needed now, for Miss Holmes. That is to say …’ Mary hesitated and asked Betsey, ‘By what name is your mistress known?’
‘Countess Osteire, on formal occasions,’ Betsey told her. ‘Miss Charlotte in the house.’
‘Miss Charlotte is ill, and she will need some nursing. I shall stay here until she’s better,’ Mary announced. ‘So you had better come to me in case of difficulty.’ She said to Mrs Digby, ‘You had better make some invalid broth, Mrs Digby. Order a calf’s foot, and some beef for a beef tea. As for lunch, can you provide a cold meal for an indeterminate number of people, say six to eight, and something for the police?’
‘I’ve put that in preparation,’ said Mrs Digby.
‘That’s admirable,’ said Mary. ‘Now, Betsey, Miss Charlotte said something about plaster of Paris, and a footprint. Do you know anything about it?’
Mrs Digby said to Mary, ‘Miss Charlotte was in a terrible state, but she was out in the garden mixing something in a bowl not long after Betsey went off in the cab to fetch you. And she took a photo of the bottom of the ladder.’
‘Well,’ said Mary Watson, ‘you know her methods, Betsey, and you saw her do what she did, Mrs Digby, so you’ll have to spare ten minutes from your duties to come and show me.’
Betsey and Mrs Digby went with Mary into the garden. As she knelt on the grass, examining the two shallow layers of plaster of Paris lying on the ground under Alexander’s bedroom window, the rotund figure of Mycroft Holmes appeared round the side of the house.
‘Turning detective, Mrs Watson?’ he enquired.
Startled, she looked up at him. ‘No, Charlotte did this just after they found Alexander gone. What does one do with these things?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ he said. ‘That kind of detection is not my forte. I am here to discuss political matters. Please excuse me. I must hurry in. I hope to see you later.’
After he had gone Mary continued to stare at the two white impressions, one of which was that of a whole foot, the other, she assumed, of part of a foot, toe or heel. Baffled, she fell back on a housewifely instinct which suggested to her that anything left on the ground will soon be trodden on and broken. She therefore asked Betsey to fetch a spade and then levered the spade under the earth beneath each of the moulds and set them on a large tray which Betsey carried to Charlotte’s laboratory. ‘Put the tray gently on the laboratory bench,’ she instructed. Betsey, never reluctant to comment, did not question this, so Mary thought and hoped that what she was doing was in keeping with the principles of scientific detection. As the operation was conducted she stood in front of the french doors to the dining-room, attempting on instinct to mask what the maid was doing from the men inside. The dining-room now contained Lestrade, the early-arrived man from the Foreign Office, Mycroft Holmes and three other gentlemen. They were seated at the dining-room table, maps spread out, in earnest consultation, too preoccupied to notice what was happening in the garden.
Betsey had just taken the plaster of Paris moulds to the laboratory when Mary observed Prince Rudolph re-entering the dining-room. She said to Betsey, ‘Thank you, Betsey. Well done. I see Prince Rudolph has come downstairs, so I will go to Miss Charlotte. I think, as soon as your duties permit, you had better develop the photographs Mrs Digby saw Miss Charlotte take earlier on. I know this is not part of
your work, Betsey, but we must all do what we can to help.’
‘No sooner said than done, ma’am,’ Betsey replied promptly, at which Mary was forced to admit to herself that this otherwise very undesirable servant had useful qualities.
She went upstairs, observing the smoke of many cigars and pipes billowing from the open dining-room door. She softly opened the bedroom door. Charlotte lay in bed, plainly in a high fever. She murmured, ‘Tell Rudolph I’ll be all right.’
‘My dear Charlotte,’ said Mary, as she bathed her friend’s brow and wrists with eau-de-Cologne and raised her a little so that she could drink some water. ‘Don’t worry, John will reassure Rudolph. You must rest, be confident and recover your health. Mrs Digby is making you some beef tea.’
‘They say rest – it is hard to rest, with Alexander gone,’ said poor Charlotte.
‘I understand,’ Mary said gently.
Charlotte smiled weakly. ‘You are a great comfort, Mary.’ Then more earnestly she pleaded, ‘You must help me. I cannot help myself now.’
‘Anything,’ Mary said, soothingly, observing Charlotte’s sweating face with grave alarm.
‘Tell me what is happening downstairs, what decisions they are making. I cannot rest – I dream such dreams.’
Mary was not sure whether Charlotte would be more able to rest if she were told of the deliberations downstairs or kept in ignorance. She concluded that, as long as Alexander was missing, Charlotte would never be easy in her mind. So she said quietly, ‘Very well, Charlotte. I shall go down and find out what Prince Rudolph and the others are thinking and what they plan to do. Try to rest. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
Charlotte’s eyes closed. ‘Tell them to find Sherlock, at all costs. And Lee. Find Lee.’
Downstairs Mary met Lestrade coming out of the dining-room. ‘What’s happening, Inspector?’ she asked urgently. ‘Charlotte is upstairs, unable to get out of bed, barely able to speak and terribly anxious about what plans are being made to recover Alexander.’
‘She should not be agitating herself. It will make her illness worse,’ Lestrade said with a preoccupied air.
The Strange Adventures of Charlotte Holmes Page 24