The Detective, The Woman and the Winking Tree

by Amy Thomas

  “I won’t disrupt your work,” said Holmes, cutting him off genially and thinking to himself that the work being performed, which included much stamping about and stroking of surfaces, had more to do with destroying evidence than collecting it. Chipping relaxed a little, and a smile crossed his thickly amiable face.

  “I suppose it won’t hurt anything.”

  “Very wise,” Holmes intoned, careful to stand out of the way of the concentrating boy policemen, who had ceased moving and were staring hard at the ground as if it might open its mouth and utter something profound. “Is that where he was found?” The detective’s eyes traveled to the top of a large hulk of a carriage, the sort that had, by its obvious age, been passed down through the family over several years.

  “Right there!” came the overly enthusiastic voice of one of the investigating infants, a short lad with sandy hair, who dropped his gaze as soon as he had spoken, as if he was abashed by the sound of his own voice.

  Chipping nodded gravely. “Sitting up there like he was going to drive away any second. Gave the man who found him quite a turn.”

  “Who found him?” Holmes asked, enquiring about a fact he already knew as a further test of the sergeant’s good humour.

  “Hired help by the name of Peter Warren,” came the reply. After a moment, the policeman dropped his voice and added, “No love lost between him and the dead man, they say.” Holmes realised that the large young man had begun to consider him an ally.

  The detective’s mind started to tease out strands of the web. A murderer might try to avert suspicion by finding the corpse himself, but Warren’s part in the drama certainly changed the look of things.

  After a short time, Chipping and his subordinates left, consenting to give Holmes a few minutes alone. The detective shook his head in exasperation at the police footprints that covered the floor and the evidence of interference on nearly every surface. Still, he was determined to discover what he could.

  Systematically, he walked a perimeter around the carriage, then climbed onto it. The one place the policemen hadn’t touched was where the corpse itself had rested, and he saw where the dust had been displaced. With irritation, he realised that he couldn’t ascertain how the body had been placed there because it was impossible to distinguish evidence of the murderer’s movements from the police’s. From atop the carriage, though, he was able to visualise the possible entrances and how the corpse might have been conveyed.

  After a few moments, Holmes jumped down and walked outside by way of the entrance that faced the house. He saw with relief that the police had managed to get rid of the village crowd and that no one else was in sight. He scanned the area, and, when he was satisfied, returned to the farmhouse and entered it by the staff entrance.

  Just inside, he found a man waiting for him. “Peter Warren,” barked the newcomer gruffly, inclining his head toward a small room near the kitchen, a dirty place where the household staff kept their shoes and coats. Holmes followed him inside, bracing himself for anything; an attempted punch wouldn’t have surprised him, nor would a flood of tears. What he did not expect was for the man’s face to break into a friendly smile. “I’m glad it’s you, Mr Holmes,” was next, followed by a proffered hand. It took the detective a moment to accept the enthusiastic handshake, though years of practise allowed him to disguise his surprise.

  “I’m equally pleased, Mr Warren,” he said smoothly, “given your unique vantage point on the day’s events.” The man smiled again, an action that seemed somewhat foreign to his face, and motioned to Holmes to sit down on a rickety wooden bench, while he occupied a chair opposite.

  “The thing is, Mr Holmes, I don’t know how they done it,” he began.

  “In that, you are not materially different from the majority of the rest of the world,” said Holmes drily, beginning to feel irritated.

  “It’s just, how did it get there without no one seeing it?” said the hired man.

  “Perhaps you might begin at the beginning,” said Holmes, carefully keeping his tone level.

  “I was on the other side of the barn from the carriage house - it was just me and Simmons - and I told him to go off for something to eat. He went back to the house; the men who live further away eat there. My Em and I live closer, so I usually go home. I decided to walk through the carriage house, and there he was. I didn’t know he was dead at first.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I called to him and then climbed up and saw the bullet in his forehead. I think - I might have figured it out sooner if I hadn’t been shaken up. I didn’t know what I was seeing at first.”

  “Continue,” Holmes murmured, finally engrossed in the man’s tale.

  “That’s about all. I went back to the house and raised the alarm - ”

  “To whom, exactly?” put in the detective’s deep voice.

  “I saw the cook, Mrs Merriwether, and she told the rest of the house.”

  “I see,” said Holmes, opening his eyes for the first time in several moments to find the hired man nodding intently.

  “That were - exactly like you do it in the stories, Mr Holmes, as if you’re asleep, but I’ll wager you heard every word.” Not for the first time in his existence, a certain number of uncharitable thoughts toward his loquacious flatmate entered Holmes’s mind, but he dismissed them as irrelevant to the present problem and returned his focus to the matter at hand.

  “You must know, Mr Warren, that you are a prime suspect,” he said sharply, watching the man’s face to ascertain his response.

  Warren went slightly pale, but he answered after a moment. “That’d be a strange way for a murderer to act, wouldn’t it, finding the corpse for the police?”

  “Killers have done odder things,” Holmes rejoined, “but you’re not a murderer. Still, it’s going to take some doing to make the police as firmly convinced of that as I am. They’re unlikely to take my word for it.” He met Warren’s eyes for a moment.

  “You played your cards well by speaking to me. Keep playing them well, and you may avoid the noose.” The detective left the room.

  No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.

  - A Study in Scarlet

  Chapter 5: Irene

  I am not the sort of person who goes around comforting people in their every distress. Fulworth, like all other villages in the world, I’ll wager, has its share of people who leap at the chance to feed off tragedy, but I find that a quiet word or a smile a few weeks after something has occurred is usually more welcome. I am not, however, without feeling.

  As I held Edith Phillimore, I understood the spectacular aloneness that can sometimes crowd around a popular person. Edith was known everywhere in town and by everyone, but she was close to no one. She had called for me because I was the closest thing she had to a friend, the other woman in town whom everyone knew but no one knew well. The difference was that I had chosen my aloneness intentionally, while she seemed to fight against hers with every fake laugh she uttered.

  After a few minutes, I thought of Eliza, and I felt a pang of guilt that she hadn’t crossed my mind sooner. I looked up over Edith’s bowed head and mouthed a question to the maid, who mouthed back outside with cook. I wondered where the woman was keeping her, and the question bothered me enough that I started to contrive a way to settle the mother so that I could find the daughter.

  Edith obeyed me with the compliance of a dazed child when I shepherded her upstairs, and the timid maid helped me get her into bed. I left the girl, who did not seem unintelligent, with instructions to stay by Edith’s bedside until the doctor appeared.

  I made my way downstairs with a determined step, knowing that I was about to re-enter a decidedly male domain. I saw no reason to create conflict without purpose, but I never had any trouble asserting myself when
the situation demanded, or should I say suggested it, as Holmes was well aware from our previous encounters.

  Indeed, as I stepped into the parlour, I could practically feel the ice in the stares that greeted me. Having been banished to my proper female sphere, I was neither expected nor welcome to return to this one. Thankfully, I have been plenty of places in my life where I was not welcome, and the impression has had no lasting effect on me except a lingering sense of amusement. I smiled at the police inspector and then addressed Dr Clarke, who was still studying the body. “I’ve put Mrs Phillimore to bed. I believe she might benefit from a sleep aid of some kind.” He stared at me for a moment, and then nodded wordlessly and left the room, clearly irritated at my interference, but even more so by the fact that my suggestion was undeniably reasonable.

  “Very good, Miss Adler,” came a voice from the recesses of the room, and I looked over to find Julia Stevenson’s father coming toward me, using every inch of his considerable height to intimidate me as much as possible. Charles Stevenson always seemed to be looking down at one from a physical and moral height of some sort, as if he saw a flaw in every character but his own - and his daughter’s, for he doted on her. I realised he had been in the room when Holmes and I had first entered the house. An unpleasant man, but I supposed he might be useful under the circumstances, since he had a great deal of legal knowledge.

  I excused myself quickly, much to the relief of Inspector Graves, who looked as though he would have liked to arrest me for something but couldn’t think of any legitimate reason. I determined to ask Holmes about the man’s obvious dislike of him at the earliest possible opportunity. Graves wasn’t the most delightful of men at any time, but seeing Holmes had brought something out in him that I had not previously observed.

  Holmes’s whereabouts didn’t concern me. Knowing him as I did, I expected that he would be at the scene of the discovery, taking in the details that would have eluded me. My mind, instead, turned to concern for Eliza. The maid had offered no suggestions, but I had an idea of my own: the chicken house.

  Sure enough, I wasn’t forced to employ my skills of deduction any further. The portly cook and the little girl were right where I had expected, in the midst of the hens, Eliza looking as if nothing in the world had ever been so enjoyable, and the cook looking as if she’d like very much to be elsewhere.

  The bright face the child turned toward me suggested that she knew nothing of what had transpired, and I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. Mrs Merriwether was certainly a poor choice to be the bearer of terrible news, but the truth couldn’t wait forever.

  “Eliza,” I said suddenly, “how would you like to stay at my house on the hill tonight?” Her face turned serious, and she nodded in wonder, as if the idea was beyond her comprehension. I smiled as brightly as I could and took her hand. “Come inside, and we’ll get your things ready.”

  The cook was obviously relieved. She seemed to have expected Eliza to be her personal charge for the foreseeable future, and my willingness to take on that dread duty earned the one and only smile I ever received from her during our acquaintance.

  I, of course, did not normally find Eliza an onerous duty. Her inquisitive mind and willingness to explore any subject made her, I thought, a far better companion than many of the village’s adults. This time, however, I didn’t look forward to her company. My thoughts swirled with the desire to keep the truth from her and the ever-growing assurance that I could not.

  The sun was low in the sky as Eliza and I walked across the yard hand in hand. She was quiet, as usual, but I could feel her excited anticipation of a night at the cottage. As soon as we entered the house, we found Holmes looking at scuff marks under the stairs, and I recalled that I hadn’t considered his feelings on the matter of having the child stay with us.

  “I see you’re to come back to the village with us,” he said promptly, addressing Eliza, who immediately let go of my hand and took his, staring at it and touching his long fingers one at a time. I didn’t blame her; he had magnificent hands.

  “Yes,” I answered. “I decided that would be best.”

  “Indeed,” said Holmes, but I couldn’t tell from his face what he thought about it.

  ***

  The police wagon was crowded on the way back to the village, but we were nearly silent. Chipping seemed afraid to say anything with the child present, for fear of upsetting her, and Holmes was in a world of his own. I held Eliza in my lap and let down a few strands of my hair for her to play with, and she seemed content.

  Chipping left us at the cottage with a subdued goodbye, and Holmes swung Eliza down from the wagon, making her giggle and cling to his neck, which didn’t seem to bother him. The case filled his mind, I could see, to the exclusion of almost everything else.

  The child’s delight was matched only by Mrs Turner’s, and upon arrival at the house, the little girl was immediately taken from Holmes’s arms along with her tiny suitcase to be settled into the second guest room and then plied with tea and as many pink frosted cakes as she could eat.

  My friend and I took our familiar places on wing chair and sofa. “Holmes,” I said. “I need your advice.”

  “You want to know how to tell the child that her father is dead, since her mother is in no condition to tell her, and she will no doubt hear from someone in the village if she is not told very quickly,” he rejoined, and I realised that, as usual, he had not been as oblivious as he’d appeared.

  “Exactly,” I answered, looking down at my hands.

  “I will do it,” said Holmes, and my head jerked up.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Completely,” he answered.

  Part of me wanted to argue, but I had learned to trust Holmes, especially when he was as certain as he was about this. Besides, I truly had no idea how to break the news to her myself.

  Dinner was a cheerful affair, with Eliza jabbering excitedly and Holmes proving that he could talk nonsense as well as anyone. I tried to join in, but a lump kept forming in my throat whenever I looked at the little girl. Finally, after we had all eaten our fill, Eliza began to realise that things were not as they usually were.

  “Is mummy coming?” she asked, peering out the window into the darkness.

  “No, love,” I answered. “You’re going to stay the night. Remember?” She pressed her face into my skirt then, and I looked over at Holmes for assistance, which he provided with his violin, playing a series of happy tunes that finally forced a grin out of the little girl. In the end, he was the one who ended the evening by asking Mrs Turner to get Eliza ready for bed. The child looked stormy for a moment, as if she might balk, but Holmes lifted her chin with a single finger and promised to come and tell her a story, which filled her with curiosity.

  “You don’t intend to tell her right before she goes to sleep, do you?” I hissed as soon as she had tripped off with the housekeeper to be put into her nightdress.

  “Certainly not,” said Holmes with annoyance. “I shall tell her the story of Ali Baba and drag it out so long her body will be forced to give in to sleep.”

  I confess to sneaking into a shadowy recess across the hall to watch Holmes as he seated his spare frame on the end of Eliza’s bed and went so far as to put out a long finger and tickle one of her small, pink feet, eliciting giggles.

  “Hush, Madam,” he said in a deep voice. “Keep still for the tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” Eliza’s eyes widened, and she sat up against the pillow with rapt attention, clutching the much-loved Charles to her chest.

  I don’t know why it should have surprised me that Holmes was an excellent storyteller. He certainly had a large enough streak of the dramatic in him. His voice was by turns as quiet as a whisper and as loud as a thunderclap, and his fingers formed fleeing thieves and camels in the shadows on the wall. Eliza listened patiently, but I could see her eyel
ids beginning to droop after a while. My friend also noticed, and he made his voice quieter and his details more intricate, until the child’s head rested on her pillow and he could make his exit without disturbing her.

  “Come along,” whispered Holmes, putting a light hand on my shoulder and propelling me into the sitting room. Of course he’d seen me watching, as I’d known he would.

  “Marvellous performance,” I said, once we were seated again.

  “I hardly doubt you’d have done the same.”

  “Perhaps, but why did you do it? I don’t suppose you’re in the habit of telling bedtime stories to Dr Watson.”

  “Only if there’s a case to be mulled over,” said Holmes drily, leaning back in his chair and stretching his long legs. “I know, Irene, what it is like to lose one’s parent.”

  “Oh,” I said, unsure how to respond. I waited several long moments in the flickering light, but he did not continue.

  “So do I,” I ventured, though the silence had been so heavy that it seemed as if the previous comment had been uttered days before. “Both of my parents died during my first singing tour. I left a normal home, but there was nothing to return to when I came back.” I didn’t say this as bleakly as it sounds. Holmes and I had never spoken to each other about our distant pasts, and I found that I didn’t mind revealing some of mine to him, though the intervening years and, hopefully, a measure of maturity, had lessened the sting of grief. Holmes nodded, but he did not reply.

  After another long silence, I went to the kitchen to make tea and forestall the sleepiness that I could feel attempting to overtake me. Mrs Turner always went to bed early, and late-night tea was my one rebellion against her insistence on preparing all the food and drinks in the house herself. I did not know if Holmes wished to discuss the case, but I had no intention of going to bed without receiving an explanation of his thoughts.

  When I returned with the tea tray, I found my friend looking through his notebook. “I hope your curiosity has not failed you to the point that you intend to go to bed without filling me full of questions like a Christmas goose,” he teased, obviously aware of my intentions.