“I find that doubtful, considering that she has spent the bulk of her career drawing people. Moreso, the motive becomes clear in conjunction with the next point.”
“Which is?”
“She is using stylographic paper.”
“You mean the self-copying kind?”
“Precisely.”
“To what end?”
“That we know for a certainty.”
“We do?”
“Think back, Watson. Where have you seen her work before?”
“Nowhere, before today.”
“That is probably true, but not in the sense you mean.”
“You are speaking in riddles, Holmes.”
“Let me put the question to you another way. Where else have you seen portraiture today?”
“You don’t mean Longetine Manor?” I peered at the sketch on the artist’s easel again. “Why, I think you may be right, Holmes.”
“It is all but a certainty, but remains a conjecture until I hold the proof in my hands.”
“We won’t be able to show our faces at Longetine Manor anytime soon. Particularly if you still mean to keep the Lady’s secret.”
“I have made the acquaintance of a score of burglars who might be up to the task.”
“Holmes, you simply cannot burgle one of your own clients.”
“It would be an easy thing. I took a plastic impression of the lock on the front door.”
“I thought that was a ruse to goad Mr. Goldstone. Besides, you let the clay fall to the ground.”
“I let the excess fall to the ground. It was as easy to take the impression as it would have been to pretend to do so.”
“Perhaps we should leave the matter to Scotland Yard and keep our hands out of shackles.”
“A dreary solution, but perhaps Athelney Jones wouldn’t make a complete hash of it.”
“That’s better, Holmes. I’m sure a prison cell would drive you to destruction.”
“You have convinced me, Watson. I shall return to the station to wire Jones, while you stick to that copy of the drawing like a stamp.”
“Why you? Surely I, as your secretary, would handle such banalities.”
“Undoubtedly, but I fear I have been far too effective in ingratiating myself with the Whitshire sisters. If you were to leave me alone with them, you might well return to find me engaged, perhaps twice over. They have no such affection for you.”
“What a relief,” I groused.
“They are beginning to stir from their perch. I’ll be back by dinner.”
Before a protest could escape my lips, Holmes had disappeared and Minuet and Arietta were upon me.
“Where has the Colonel gotten to?” Arietta asked.
“We wanted to show him our charming portrait,” Minuet said.
“I’m afraid he had to see to some pressing and personal business,” I said.
“Oh, dear!” Arietta said. “He is returning, is he not?”
“Quite soon, I’m sure,” I said. “In the meantime, I would be happy to be of service.”
In response, the sisters simply wandered away. After a long moment of consternation, I snapped to attention when I realized I had already failed to keep an eye on the duplicated drawing. Emily Reynolds had packed up her supplies, and her satchel and easel were propped against the side of the hotel. I chanced to see the girl disappearing into the hedge maze with her portfolio precariously clutched under one arm. If the thing hadn’t slowed her down, I might never have seen her at all. Having, by some instinctual means, been deemed beneath the notice of this august company, I easily slipped through the throng and stepped into the maze. The hedges were expertly manicured to be rigidly plumb, and so dense that it was markedly darker and cooler inside. I could hear a gentle rustling ahead and so, as quietly as I could manage, I stalked along the narrow passages.
More than once the path doubled back and Miss Reynolds passed near me, separated by only a thin wall of leaves and branches. I hoped my movements were more silent to her than hers were to me. After what seemed to me an improbably long journey, I found myself at a dead end and, having met no diverging paths for at least a minute, I found that I had lost the sound of her dress dragging along the branches. I cast about for any foothold that might allow me to look above the maze, but no such cheat manifested itself. I took a moment to consider the possibilities. Miss Reynolds could be passing through the maze to the opposite side, or she could be progressing towards the garden at the center. For that matter she could be making a rendezvous at any prearranged point within the maze.
Hesitant to fall any further behind in my pursuit, I determined that the garden at the center was the most likely goal, and should that prove false, it was the spot from which I had the greatest chance of pursuing her further. In a moment of pique I tried to push through the nearest barrier in hopes of passing directly through to my destination. The hedge was surprisingly impermeable. Decades of patient horticulture had nurtured a formidable barrier. So I relied upon my sense of direction and moved ever towards the center. With each silent moment that ticked by, I became more sure that I had bungled the entire endeavor. At last, I came to a row where sunlight trickled through and I discovered a gap that allowed a view of the central garden.
Within, I saw Miss Reynolds tete-a-tete with a figure turned away from me. They each had their hands on the portfolio and Emily seemed reluctant to surrender it. The man was whispering something to her, to which she gave brief, perfunctory responses. At last, she let the portfolio fall away from her grasp, her stance shouting resignation. I thought that this rogue was somehow blackmailing the girl, but then he cupped her chin and kissed her. I had just laid my hand on the stock of my Webley when she drew the man in with both of her arms. I stepped back from my peephole and waited until I heard movement again. When I resumed my observation of the scene, I saw the two departing from opposite sides, the stranger going away and Emily returning to the hotel.
She stopped at the threshold of the maze and turned to watch the man go. He did not so much as pause. Even I could read the looming heartbreak for Miss Reynolds. I made every effort to pursue the man to the far side of the maze, but he had long departed by the time I found the path through. I looked out upon the rolling hills as the sun hung low in the sky. I was ill-equipped to go out onto an unfamiliar countryside in the dark. With no small trepidation, I returned back through the maze. Perhaps having gained some understanding of its design, I soon found myself at the Meadowlark again, with the warm light of the dining room beckoning.
I had crossed the lawn and was just about to step inside when I was seized from behind. My good arm was pinned behind my back and my other hand clawed helplessly at the immobile elbow crooked round my throat. As I was being dragged back into the darkness, I felt my revolver dangling uselessly against my side. My heels scrabbled against the grass, failing to find any purchase. In a last fit of desperation, I threw all of my weight to one side. My assailant simply seemed to disappear from under me and I found myself on the ground. Quickly, I pushed myself up on my knees and went for my gun, which was now missing completely. I heard a familiar laugh.
“I’ll admit I expected a warmer welcome, Watson,” Holmes said, my Webley dangling by the trigger guard from a wagging finger.
“What do you mean by attacking me from behind like that?” I said, snatching the gun back.
“I do apologize, old friend, but the moment you were seen, we would have been committed to see the dinner through.”
“We aren’t going to the dinner?” I said, the aromas coming from the dining room now swelling around me and causing a hollow ache in my stomach.
“No need, thankfully.”
“Oh.”
“As I suspected, in these kind of bucolic hamlets, the telegraph operator and the postman are one and the sam
e.”
“What does that have to do with roast capon and saddle of mutton?”
“A postman is better than a vicar for knowing every last tittle of information in a village. It seems there is a recent immigrant by the name of Mr. Nigel Horne, who has set up shop in the old tannery.”
“Indeed?”
“The postmaster finds him to be a most remarkable specimen in that he has received no correspondence of any kind.”
“Surely any number of men move out into the countryside for a bit of solitude.”
“Yes, but this man was quite particular in directing the postmaster to hold all mail rather than deliver it.”
“Yet he has received no mail.”
“Nor ever even inquired.”
“Seems a strange way to run a business.”
“Hmm. The locals are not sure what he does, but they are emphatic that he is no tanner.”
“What does this Mr. Horne do then?”
“I mean to see for myself. As to the results of my telegraph, I’m afraid I owe Inspector Jones a new hat. It seems Lady Longetine reacted with some vigor when he asked for the sketch of her drawn at the Meadowlark. She expressed, in no uncertain terms, that Inspector Jones had best forget whatever I had injudiciously revealed to him, which of course was nothing but the very word that earned him a beating. That confirmed the locus of the crimes, and of course we already suspected the means. I still expect that a judge will find the Lady’s charcoal sketch most interesting.”
“So Miss Reynolds’ sketches are being used to create fraudulent replicas, by her accomplice who I followed out to the woods?”
“Where a mysterious Mr. Horne abides for no apparent reason.”
“You are suggesting this Nigel Horne’s enterprise is set up to rob the guests of this one isolated hotel? That is madness surely? How could he not be caught?”
“I suspect he thinks his counterfeits to be flawless. Besides, hotels are the perfect feeding ground for criminals. The guests come and go, they are distracted, all of their routines are disrupted, and things like jewelry can easily be lost along the way. In this case, he even provides a substitute so that any suspicion is allayed until later. Weeks in the case of Lady Longetine, perhaps forever in others. Remember, she suspected nothing until the forged jewels began to disintegrate. If not for some minor inconsistency in his method, she would have never known.”
“This is enough for Scotland Yard to make the arrest, surely.”
“Lady Longetine will not register an official complaint, and I doubt any other victim will either. Their reputations are worth more to them than a given valuable, which is exactly the arbitrage Mr. Horne is counting on. In a way he allows his victims to blackmail themselves with vanity and pride. Besides, I came to see his process and I mean to do it.”
As good as his word, Holmes immediately set off as I hurried to keep pace. The moonlight did little to penetrate the hedge maze, and yet Holmes passed directly through as assuredly as if he had nurtured the thing into being himself.
“This horticultural puzzle was designed to deceive,” Holmes said in answer to my silent ponderings. “Yet even the best gardener cannot hide the scars of decades of wanderers wearing paths into the ground. The greatest erosions and most elaborate restorations are as good as signposts.”
I could hardly see the ground in the moon cast shadows myself, but there was no arguing with the way Holmes dissected the maze in minutes.
“Ha!” Holmes barked when we arrived at the rolling hills lying before the trees. “A clever man indeed. Had he always followed the same path, he would have worn a tell-tale trail. Here, you see the faint traces of at least two comings and goings. More have surely been lost upon the resilient heath in the recent rains. No matter, but one trace is all I need.”
Following some track that was invisible to me, we crowned the hills and passed through the trees. The stench was the first sign Holmes was on the right track. It was not that of a tannery, but rather a chemical scent, almost industrial in nature. When Holmes paused for a moment and cocked his head, I was sure he had discerned many of the components of Horne’s concoction already. We continued until the trees ended. A distance away, we saw a ramshackle building, the stonework and large timbers largely intact, but the thatch work long since collapsed. There was a faint flickering visible through warped wooden shutters. Holmes crept up to peer in. I followed on his heel with my Webley at the ready. More than once a villain had gotten the drop on us in his own lair. Holmes seemed transfixed, yet for me there was little but dwindling fortitude and the oblique sounds of a craftsman inside at his trade. As the moon crossed overhead, I slumped against the wall, and finally sat with my gun across my knee. At some point I must have dozed, for Holmes was gently shaking my shoulder and gesturing that we should retreat into the woods. The pink fingers of dawn were just peeking over the canopy.
“Remarkable,” Holmes whispered. “Mr. Horne is truly an artist in his own right. It is a shame he has abused his talent thusly.”
“We have him dead to rights, at least,” I yawned.
“I’m afraid the law is ill-equipped to understand the implications of his laboratory, and he burned the incriminating diagram upon completion of the piece. At the moment, all he has upon him is a bit of costume jewelry.”
“What was the meaning of our vigil then?”
“It was a master class in forgery. I’ve learned as much from observing Mr. Horne for a night as I might have in a year of study on my own. It is a rare pleasure for me to be the student.”
“My aching bones beg to differ.”
“Fear not, Watson. The criminal will be in shackles within the hour. In the meantime, let us return to the hotel.”
Holmes surprised me by making his way out to the road rather than trailing Mr. Horne directly.
“We know precisely where he is going and I mean to be there first,” Holmes said.
“Surely this is the longer route.”
“Yet quicker nonetheless.”
We stepped out of the trees to find a sour-looking man with a rifle across his lap sitting atop a sturdy hay wagon.
“Constable Juno, I presume?” Holmes said.
“So you are the famous Mr. Holmes,” the man spat from beneath a bristly mustache. “I don’t much appreciate you stirring the pot around here. And without so much as a by-your-leave either.”
“My apologies, sir. I left word for you at the earliest opportunity, as soon as I knew there was a situation worthy of your attention.”
The constable seemed to ponder for a moment before spitting in a great arc towards the far side of the road.
“We don’t have time to waste,” Holmes said. “If you do not find this morning’s endeavor to be worth your while, I shall gladly stand you a few rounds at the Meadowlark.”
Juno made some kind of clicking sound deep within his jaw. “Get on.”
Holmes instructed the country constable to park his wagon round the far side of the hotel. Quietly, we slipped through the servants’ entrance and had the room opposite the Whitshire sisters unlocked. All of the guests were at breakfast, and so the guest rooms were completely silent and void. Holmes was peeping through the curtains he had just closed.
“There he is!” Holmes hissed.
Juno took his place at the crack in the window dressing. “All right, Mr. Holmes. You have produced a mysterious figure in black creeping from the maze. You have my attention.”
We crossed the room and put our ears to the door. There was a slow creaking upon the main stairway, and then silence for several moments. The next sound was the tumble of the lock across the way.
“He has a key!” Juno whispered.
“A trivial matter for a criminal fabricator of his talent,” Holmes said. “Give him a few moments more.”
Holmes ticked
off the count to three with his fingers and then we burst forth into the hallway. There, framed in the open doorway as pretty as a picture, was Nigel Horne with his hand in Minuet Whitshire’s jewelry box. Quickly he yanked the genuine necklace out and tossed in the replacement before frantically glancing about the room. He turned and began wrenching at the window.
“Please, Mr. Horne,” Holmes said. “It is a sheer three story drop to the ground. You may not survive it, and you surely won’t escape that way.”
Horne turned to face his captors, calm seemingly washing over him.
“This is it, then?” he asked.
“There are but few criminals who have impressed me, Mr. Horne. I count you among them.”
“And yet it will be the shackles for me.”
“The gallows more likely,” Holmes said.
“You can spare the girl,” I said.
“What girl?”
“Why, Emily Reynolds!”
Horne snorted. “Why bother.”
My fists were clenched and my aspect red. “Is she not dear to you? You certainly kissed her thusly.”
“I kissed her because I could. She is in my power completely.”
“Was in your power,” Holmes corrected. “How?”
“She is a naive idealist, blind to the ways of the world. She was so eager to help the downtrodden, particularly a fellow artist. It was easy to win her affections with my tragic story.” Horne smirked at me.
“Which was?” I managed through clenched teeth.
“Mr. Horne was a jeweler, or at least a jeweler’s apprentice,” Holmes said. “That much is clear from his craft. He enjoyed an education far beyond his means, as is evidenced by his art, his manners, and his dress. He was cast aside unfairly, and by a young woman, perhaps a fiancée, as is evidenced by his self-loathing, and his choice of enterprise.”
“Simple,” Horne sneered. “I thought you were meant to be clever, Mr. Holmes.”
“So you compromise Miss Reynolds and then use her disgrace against her?” I said.
“Steady, Watson,” Holmes said. “Mr. Horne is playing a bigger game. You involved Miss Reynolds in one of your thefts, knowingly or unknowingly on her part, and then used that to drive a wedge of control deeper and deeper.”
The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part X Page 42