Mrs Hudson and the Spirits’ Curse

by Martin Davies

  But as I watched her write I seemed strangely awake. My arms and legs ached from the unusual exercise of the night before and all the bumps and cuts that were beginning to throb again seemed to amplify the call of a warm bed. But my mind refused to be tired. There seemed to have been so many events happening so quickly that, as I changed into my nightdress in front of the fire, it seemed only a matter of time before a sudden visitor would pound on our door and demand our attention.

  Mrs Hudson sealed up her note and handed it to me. It was addressed in her neat handwriting to Mr A J Raffles at the Albany.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, Flottie, you and I need to work like navvies. Even Mr Holmes and Dr Watson expect certain standards. But when you’re through your list of chores, you may be good enough to deliver this for me. For myself, I would like another word with young Mr Spencer when the chance arises.’

  She eyed me quizzically as I stood before her, still uneasily wakeful.

  ‘Come on, Flottie, if that brain of yours is still turning over we may as well put it to some proper use. Do you remember the word game that Swordsmith used to have you play? I was thinking we could play a round or two. If running around in the gutter all night doesn’t wear you out, perhaps some mental exercise will do the trick.’

  I ran to fetch paper and pencils with a childish enthusiasm. It was rare for Mrs Hudson to suggest a game, though once she and Swordsmith had wracked their brains to devise ways of entertaining me when I was sleepless.

  ‘I’ll choose the first word, Flottie. How about orchestra?’ and she turned over the one-minute timer with a twist of her wrist.

  Before the first dozen grains had fallen my mind was entirely occupied with the game, trying to find smaller words contained in the word Mrs Hudson had chosen. The game was to find most words, but the real honour lay in finding the longest. After a minute of scribbling, we agreed that my search matched Mrs Hudson’s starch. Four or five more games ensued before Mrs Hudson sat back and smiled at my enthusiasm.

  ‘Now off to bed you go, Flottie, and no lying awake. I’ll give you one more to think about, just in case you can’t sleep. It will be easier than solving mysteries and better than counting pigeons. Just a simple one, I think. Try ‘Norman’. That should be about the right size.’

  And as I cuddled under my blanket in the velvet dark, my mind tried to play with the word Mrs Hudson had given me.

  ‘Norman,’ I considered. ‘There’s Roman and roam … manor … arm … roan … moan …’ But sleep was creeping up from my toes and before the thought was complete it had faded into the night.

  *

  Elsewhere in that same night not even the driving rain that had come with the darkness could empty the streets of London. Braziers burned in nameless yards. Ships slipped their moorings and edged from the pool of London into thick mist. Somewhere Mr Fogarty was at work, laying his plans, plotting his plots, smiling his thin, menacing smile. Somewhere else again, his collar hunched against the rain, Smale was smiling too, crouched in a doorway and looking up at a window where the last light had just been extinguished. And, nearer and nearer, a small boy was running with gasping urgency ever closer to our door.

  *

  When it came, the rapping I had been half expecting broke in on us with the violence of thunder. Mrs Hudson and I were awake at once and stumbling into a state of dress. But, fast as we were, by the time Mrs Hudson reached the corridor wrapped in an old gentleman’s overcoat, Mr Holmes was already there, running a hand through unexpectedly tousled hair. Dr Watson and I joined them a moment later, the doctor yawning dazedly in what appeared to be a regimental dressing gown.

  Mrs Hudson made her way to the door while the rest of us were still making embarrassed adjustments to our attire. We heard the street door open, a hushed exchange and then Mrs Hudson’s footsteps returning. There was a note in her hand that she held out to Mr Holmes with a short nod of her head.

  ‘From Inspector Gregory, sir.’

  Holmes took the note and opened it eagerly. After a quick glance at its contents he stepped back and passed the note to Dr Watson.

  ‘It appears we shall not be interviewing Carruthers a second time, after all. He is dead, Watson. Murdered.’

  The three of us crowded round the letter but there was little else to be gleaned.

  ‘As you see from his postscript, Gregory found your card in the man’s pocket, Watson. So for once he has sent for us with commendable promptness.’

  ‘The boy is waiting, sir.’

  ‘Of course, Mrs Hudson. Tell him I shall accompany him at once. Dr Watson shall follow us with all available speed. Watson, this might be the perfect opportunity to test the Niermeister equipment you have been so interested in. We can test Herr Niermeister’s theory of electrostatic irregularities. Would you be so good as to prepare the equipment and follow on?’

  ‘I say, Holmes, that’s a bit steep! It’s the middle of the night, it’s pouring with rain and I’ve only just dried out from my last soaking. And that German paraphernalia is dashed heavy for lugging around.’

  ‘Of course, dear fellow. How selfish of me. I shall insist that Flottie accompany you with an umbrella.’

  For a moment I thought Mrs Hudson was going to object but she caught my eye and seemed to understand the pleading there.

  ‘Well really, sir,’ she began, but by now I was essaying the most melting expression I could muster. ‘Of course, sir, if Flottie can be of assistance … I’m sure Dr Watson will answer for her well-being and perhaps the young need their sleep less than the rest of us.’

  Bending down, apparently to untuck my hair from my nightdress, she added in a low voice, ‘Keep your mind open as well as your eyes, Flottie. I know I couldn’t have a better deputy.’

  And it was with those words of praise still warm inside me that I found myself, ten minutes later, seated next to Dr Watson in a grumbling hansom as it shook its way southwards, its destination Knightsbridge.

  The Vanished Witness

  †

  The St James’s Hotel had a uniformed policeman at the entrance, another at the main desk and a third patrolling the space between with solemn, impressive steps. They stood guard on a place that was by some distance the most opulent I had ever entered. It smelled of leather and polish, and I seemed to sink into the carpet as if stepping onto velvet. The purple drapes and hangings soaked up sound so that even the bustle attendant on a murder was reduced to a meek murmur. An elaborately moustachioed man behind the desk was talking softly in a French accent to the nearest policeman, apparently upbraiding him for the temerity of the detective force in intruding on such carefully crafted luxury.

  But murder knows no aesthetics, as I was soon to find out. As we made our way across the foyer, the Frenchman’s glance followed me and I was glad Mrs Hudson had taken such care with my appearance. With some deftness my hair had been bundled up, a neat plain hat located and pinned and a slim navy dress produced from nowhere and slipped over my head while Mrs Hudson briefed me in a whisper on various questions of etiquette. To my surprise, in five minutes I had been transformed into the smartest and neatest I had ever been, from my piled-up hair to my never-worn best black shoes. I didn’t look at all like the Flotsam I recognised and the knowledge made me somehow taller and straighter so that when the Frenchman’s eyes met mine he dropped his head in a respectful bow. Would Smale recognise me now, I wondered with a little flash of pride? Was I the same person who had greeted Rupert Spencer with her mouth full of bread and her scarf in a puddle? The policeman showing us through the hotel had relieved Dr Watson of his cumbersome wooden chest and now the doctor slipped my arm through his and escorted me towards the gilded lifts with an air of protective gallantry.

  The scene upstairs brought my mind very firmly back to the grim purpose of our visit. Mr Carruthers had clearly met his end in a most horrible way. His body lay face down near the fireplace, collapsed as if his limbs had given way as he crawled towards the grate. His face was turned so it rested on one ch
eck, making his expression plain to all who entered. And what an expression! His features were contorted horribly, his mouth open with his tongue, swollen and distended, hanging out of it. A trickle of blood ran from the side of his mouth to the rug, where it gathered in a dark, congealing stain. And worst of all, both his eyes remained open so it seemed as you entered the room that he watched your entry with a frozen scream of pain. Around him the ornate furniture was overturned, as if the room itself had shuddered in horror.

  Mr Holmes looked up when we entered. His manner was remote, like a man absorbed in a landscape of his own, but his movements by contrast were short and jerky as if dictated by a barely suppressed energy. Nevertheless he lightened when he saw Dr Watson and beckoned him over to where a neat young man in tweeds knelt beside the body. Mrs Hudson had told me that I should learn most by being noticed least but even from a position by the door I could hear that Mr Holmes’s voice was fired with excitement.

  ‘Gregory here has done an excellent job, Watson. Nothing has been moved, not a single item disturbed. This is exactly how the body lay.’

  I looked again around the rooms that had belonged so briefly to Mr Carruthers. Beyond the living room, through an oak-panelled double door, I glimpsed a bedroom where clothes sprawled in confusion across a bed that seemed to reach for ever. Both rooms were high-ceilinged and expensive in purple and gold, brightly lit by electric lights concealed in cut-glass chandeliers. Around the body, murder had wreaked havoc. A plush divan had been toppled over and lay alongside an overturned chair. A velvet footstool lay upside-down in one corner. Next to it a wooden box, still partly wrapped in brown paper, had been swept from an adjacent table and lay amongst its disordered wrappings. Near the door someone had sent a whisky decanter crashing to the floor, where it lay in pieces near its crystal stopper. The escaped liquid had crept across the floor until it reached the dead man’s feet. The air smelled of whisky.

  By the fireplace, Mr Holmes and Dr Watson continued to examine the body in the company of the man referred to as Inspector Gregory. I had no great urge to join them for, although death was not uncommon on the streets of London, I found I had no great curiosity to examine it at close quarters. In addition, Mrs Hudson’s advice as she pointed me towards the waiting cab had been quite clear. ‘You can leave Mr Holmes to spot the bizarre. What the likes of you and I must do, Flottie, is to keep an eye on the commonplace.’ And so, while the convulsed corpse was the focus of attention, I lingered on the edge of the scene and endeavoured to observe what was ordinary. But I found my mind turning like a barrel organ, there was so little here that was commonplace to me. From the silk carpets to the ornately plastered ceiling, everything seemed overwhelming in its richness and luxury. But I did my best. I duly noted the design of the half-wrapped box, the position of the fallen decanter, the colour of the curtains, the maker’s name on the clock, even the number of horned cattle in the vast Highland scene above the fireplace.

  Finally I felt I had no choice but to turn my attention to where the dead man lay. The sense of motion in the collapsed body was unnerving, as if at any moment he might resume his final desperate crawl to the beckoning bell-pull that hung by the fire. But his face vanquished any doubts. The skin was sickly pale and his lips were drawn back in a snarl or grimace that distorted every feature. My attention was caught by Mr Holmes’s voice – low, urgent and excited.

  ‘Certainly poison, gentlemen, and judging by its effect a powerful one. Note the swelling of the tongue. I suggest, Gregory, that since no alternative presents itself we assume the poison was administered in the decanter. The whisky would mask the taste …’ Then his voice dropped lower amongst the nodding heads as they clustered closer over the victim.

  The dying man had nearly reached the bell-pull, I thought. His head was no more than a foot away from the marble surround of the fire. One more lurch forward on his knees and he would have reached it. Would that have helped? By then the poison was already spreading through him. Even as he crawled he must have known it was too late. In the grate, the fire was almost burnt down but the embers still glowed brightly. I noticed automatically that it needed stoking and then, almost simultaneously, I noticed something strange amongst the ordinary. Next to the grate, so bright and clean that I wondered if it was simply for ornament, stood a smart brass fire set of hearth brush, fire-shovel and poker. Except it didn’t. One of the hooks was empty. The brush and the shovel were in place but the poker was missing. I looked around the fireplace but there was no sign of it. In a place such as this it was impossible that the set might have been incomplete. The poker must have been removed.

  I made another hushed circuit of the apartment but failed to find it. In the bedroom everything was orderly but for some open drawers and the pile of garments on the bed, as if Carruthers had been contemplating a rapid departure. I knew little about Carruthers but felt sorry for him: it seemed that a great deal of his last few months had been spent in flight – from Sumatra, from his London home and now from here. Making sure I was unobserved, I sorted quickly through the scattered clothes, then checked under the bed. There was no poker. I tried to make sense of it. A missing poker might be anticipated had Carruthers been bludgeoned but why should it be moved if he had met his death by poison? I stepped back into the living room to try again. Could it have rolled somewhere? I peered again under the furniture but the room was brightly lit and even an ornamental poker should have been obvious. Then I came to the overturned footstool that I had noted in my initial inventory. It lay to one side of the room, near the small table under which the open parcel now lay. As I looked at it this time, I realised that it wasn’t lying quite flush with the floor. As if there was something underneath. Very gently I tilted it upwards and peeped beneath it.

  ‘Dr Watson, sir,’ I called, taking great care to replace it exactly in the position I had found it. Dr Watson was standing now, his attention still on the group crouched over the body. ‘Dr Watson, sir, I think perhaps someone should look at this.’

  ‘One moment, Flotsam,’ he replied and continued to direct his attention downwards, to where Mr Holmes was addressing Inspector Gregory with unusual animation.

  ‘There was no struggle, Gregory. This disorder represents the frenzied blundering of a dying man, a man who can feel himself stricken and stumbles repeatedly as he seeks in vain to summon help. And, of course, there is something else of importance to note …’

  By now I had resorted to tugging Dr Watson by the sleeve and rather grudgingly he left the two gentlemen to their discussion.

  ‘Well, Flottie, what is it?’

  I indicated the overturned footstool and Watson advanced towards it slightly impatiently. He lifted it casually to one side then dropped it with a sharp cry, leaping backwards and shielding me from the stool with an outstretched arm.

  ‘Great Scott!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘It’s quite all right, sir,’ I offered from under his arm. ‘I made sure it was completely dead before I called you.’

  His cry had attracted Mr Holmes and the inspector, and Watson stepped forward gingerly and moved the footstool further to the side. Under it lay the missing poker and, under the poker, its head crushed flat, a slim blue snake the length of my forearm.

  Inspector Gregory let out a low whistle of surprise. Holmes stepped forward and peered more closely at the strange tableaux. ‘It seems, Watson, that you may have been premature in concluding that the poison was administered through the whisky. However, you have more than redeemed yourself by discovering something that Gregory’s men, in their anxiety not to disturb the evidence, rather remarkably appear to have overlooked.’

  The two men began to protest together but Holmes silenced them with a raised hand. ‘Let us consider how this discovery alters our thinking, gentlemen,’ and stepping deftly over the upturned divan he moved to where the body lay. We gathered around as he lifted first one of the victim’s arms, then the other. After a close examination of the second, he let out a small cry of satisfaction. />
  ‘Ah, just as I imagined!’ He produced a magnifying glass with a flourish and held it out to Gregory. ‘Note the small puncture marks. I think we have our murder weapon.’ While Gregory and Watson took turns to examine the wound, Mr Holmes had returned to where the poker lay but this time his attention was held by the box under the nearby table.

  ‘It all becomes clear. What a fiendish device! We are dealing with a criminal mind at once both ruthless and cunning.’

  ‘The parcel, you think, Holmes?’ murmured Watson as he and Gregory joined Holmes in examining the box. ‘Dashed unpleasant trick. The chap opens the lid, pushes aside the layers of paper and bang! One bite and before he knows it he’s as good as dead.’

  ‘Precisely, Watson. In the first few seconds, before the poison began to take effect, Carruthers had time to stride to the fireplace, seize the poker and make certain his executioner would do no further harm. Then he begins to understand his peril. He may have had an idea to use spirit from the decanter to cauterise the wound but by then the poison was already beginning to tell. He tries to support himself on the furniture but his desperate attempts to reach the bell only lead to the disorder we currently witness. How was the body discovered?’

  ‘The gentleman below, sir. A Belgian gentleman. He was woken by a series of crashes from the room above. He rang for the night porter and made a complaint. When the porter investigated, he found the door locked from the inside and the lights burning. After getting no reply to his knocking, he put his ear to the door and claims he heard a groan. He then spent some time finding the manager, who used his shoulder to burst through the door. They found Carruthers dead and the furniture in disarray. The key was in the lock on the inside.’ Despite the hour, Gregory seemed wide awake. ‘We shall of course make enquiries at once about the delivery of this box. It is likely that someone in the hotel will remember its arrival.’