The House at Baker Street

by Michelle Birkby

  ‘I’m not sure it works like that,’ Mary said. ‘This equipment is hardly discreet.’

  I turned back to Robert Sheldon. I had an idea. There was a way to eliminate at least one suspect.

  ‘Have you seen him then? This man?’ I asked. He shook his head. He would not answer, but Ruby did. She didn’t seem to be afraid. Perhaps she didn’t know she was supposed to be.

  ‘I did,’ she said. ‘Just once. ’E came to see Robert. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t ’ave been looking,’ she said in response to Robert Sheldon’s horrified look, ‘but I couldn’t resist a bit of a peek. ’e never saw me. Besides, I didn’t really see ’im. It was all dark in ’ere, and ’e was leaving. I just saw sort of a shadow on the door, that’s all. Just an outline. Not enough to tell you what ’e looked like.’

  ‘Was he a large man?’ I asked.

  ‘No, just normal sized. Bit skinny really,’ she said, shrugging.

  Robert Sheldon stared at her in silence, and then moved away. ‘I didn’t hurt anyone,’ he insisted. I could not gauge the truth of that. ‘Probably not,’ I told him. ‘You’re a coward.’

  I had intended to provoke a reaction, and I got one. He drew himself up to his full height and marched down on us.

  ‘You insult me, you invade my work, you damage valuable equipment and you make foul accusations!’ he cried. Suddenly he was not the cringing little man any more, but someone with a bit of power. Even his accent had changed, from Whitechapel to somewhere more salubrious. I wondered who he’d run to once we were gone. ‘If you come near me again, I shall call the police. If you wish to question me again, contact my solicitor,’ and he shoved his solicitor’s card, drawn from his waistcoat pocket, at me as he ushered me through the door, ‘who I’m sure will be happy to charge you with libel! I’m not scared of you,’ he said, one last blow as we tried to leave with our dignity. ‘How could I be scared of a bunch of women?’

  Outside, mercy of mercies, Micky had found a cab large enough to take us all home. It was an ancient, rickety old thing that must have been fashionable a hundred years ago. It still bore traces of gilt paint here and there, and the upholstery, though worn and torn, held hints of the rich green colour it had once been. I was so tired. I had been kept going by the excitement of the day but now, as the clocks struck five and the murky daylight became night, I was exhausted. Judging by her yawns, so was Mary. Micky held the door open as Mary and I clambered in. We offered him a lift, but he said he’d rather walk. Carriages made him sick, he said. Irene paused and shook hands solemnly with the boy.

  ‘A pleasure working with you, Micky,’ she said. ‘I hope to meet you again sometime.’

  ‘And you, Miss Irene,’ Micky said, obviously impressed by Irene’s street skills.

  Irene climbed in, and I leaned out of the window. ‘Micky, here’s the five shillings we owe you; it was a good day’s work,’ I said, handing him the money. ‘Come to the kitchen at 221b tomorrow, and I’ll have hot gingerbread for you.’

  His thin face lit up, and for a moment, he looked just like the little boy he was. Then he controlled himself and said, ‘Enough for the others too, missus? We share what we got!’ They looked after each other, the Irregulars.

  ‘I shall make plenty for everyone,’ I promised him, ‘and you may take it back to them, but I want to see you in the kitchen, to thank you personally.’ Not just to thank him, but to make sure he suffered no ill-effects from the day’s adventures. Someone in this game was vicious enough to harm a child, I was sure. Micky grinned, tipped his hat to me, and left.

  I settled down into the back of the carriage, Mary lolling sleepily beside me. That woman could sleep after living though a battle. Irene sat opposite me, her back to the driver, watching to see if anyone followed us. She must have been satisfied, because she leaned out of the window and told the driver where to go. She sat back down, and we continued in silence, Irene watching, Mary dozing, me thinking, turning the card Mr Sheldon had given me over and over in my hand.

  ‘Well, at least it’s not Mycroft,’ I said. ‘He’s a large man, exceptionally large. Neither the man the Whitechapel Lady knew nor the man Ruby saw was large.’

  ‘They may have been representatives of the blackmailer,’ Irene pointed out.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, pinching the bridge of my nose wearily. I would have liked to have just lain down and gone to sleep. ‘The blackmailer gets personally involved with his victims, otherwise how does he see their pain? The Whitechapel Lady said he enjoyed seeing her agony close up. I think he stays close to them, to watch what happens and to do that he has to blend in, he has to look unnoticeable. Mycroft Holmes stands out. He is very large, and very visible.’

  ‘Besides, he’s too lazy,’ Mary said. ‘I really don’t think he’s guilty.’

  ‘Not of this crime, no,’ I agreed. I didn’t trust the man. I never would. But this wasn’t his crime. He was capable of the events, but not, I think, capable of the lack of control this blackmailer was beginning to show.

  ‘Dead end,’ Irene said, after a while. She wasn’t talking about the road.

  ‘When Mr Holmes hits a dead end,’ I said to her, ‘he goes back to the beginning and re-examines the evidence.’

  ‘How many dead ends does Sherlock Holmes hit?’ Irene said wryly.

  ‘Not many,’ I admitted. To be perfectly honest with ourselves, we didn’t have all that much solid evidence. This case was all emotion and supposition, instinct and guesswork. There was no solid basis to it. It constantly shifted and changed, always just one step ahead of us, the entire story just a wisp of smoke that would disappear as soon as we tried to grasp it. The task seemed so huge. I sagged in my seat.

  ‘I feel so tired,’ I admitted. ‘Yet I doubt I could sleep.’ Beside me, Mary yawned widely, her eyes still closed, and I smiled. Obviously she was not having the same problem.

  ‘Mr Holmes stays awake for hours and days on end when he has a case,’ I told Irene, keeping my voice low so I did not disturb Mary. ‘I used to wonder how he did it. Now I think he has no choice. He cannot sleep.’

  Irene smiled, a little sadly, and stared out of the window at Oxford Street. The roads were brightly lit now, the gas lamps were alight, and the shops still open – some would be open until midnight. The streets were busy and crowded, and we moved slowly, but I was in no hurry.

  ‘What’s that?’ Irene asked, nodding at the bit of cardboard in my hand.

  ‘Oh, Mr Sheldon said if we were to contact him again, we’d have to do it through his solicitor. Something about libel.’

  ‘I didn’t hear him say that. . . Horrible little man,’ Irene muttered.

  I turned the card over. John Kirkby, solicitor at law. Not a well-regarded one, by any means, judging by the grubbiness of the cheap card. Not like . . . not like the Whitechapel Lady’s solicitor, Sir Richard Halifax.

  And then, all of a sudden, there was one solitary spark in the darkness. I felt my breath catch. Oh my. Oh my indeed.

  ‘I can’t talk to Laura Shirley,’ I said, half to myself. ‘I doubt she’d talk to me now.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Irene asked. I looked up.

  ‘I want to talk to a victim, but the only one I know is Laura Shirley, and I believe she’s doing her best to put the blackmail behind her and help her husband recover. I don’t think she’d appreciate me calling on her, not now,’ I told her, suddenly sitting forward in my seat. ‘I don’t know any of the other victims, or rather they don’t know me, I don’t think they’d want me turning up on the doorstep saying I know you’ve been blackmailed, can you . . .’

  ‘You know me,’ Irene said calmly, interrupting me.

  Of course. I’d come to think of Irene as an associate, but she was a victim too. That was the entire reason she was here. I leaned forward.

  ‘I may have an idea,’ I told her. ‘I need to work this through in my head, get it clear. Will you be so kind as to answer a few questions?’

  ‘Of course,’ Irene said, amused
.

  ‘The blackmailer: did he know about your liaison with the King of Bohemia?’

  ‘He did, which is why I had to suspect Sherlock in the first place.’

  ‘Who else knew of that liaison?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘No, people did,’ I insisted. ‘Name everyone, Irene. Everyone who had the slightest inkling. The King’s servants?’

  ‘Always blindfolded, and faultlessly loyal, or they wouldn’t be the King’s servants. And they are all in Bohemia,’ Irene said, looking puzzled.

  ‘We can rule the King out as a suspect, can’t we?’ I asked.

  ‘We can,’ Irene said dryly. ‘He may not be completely honourable, but he’s not clever enough to do all this.’

  ‘Me, John, Mr Holmes . . . ’ I went through the list.

  ‘Obviously not blackmailers.’

  ‘Your husband?’

  ‘No, he never had a clue until I told him. And he wouldn’t care if he did. The whole affair belongs firmly in the past.’

  ‘There was a photograph of you and the King together. You took it with you, didn’t you?’

  ‘No, I left it here,’ Irene told me. ‘In a very safe place.’

  ‘Where, Irene?’ I insisted, leaning further forward so I almost touched her. ‘Where did you leave that awfully incriminating photograph? Where did you leave all your incriminating papers, Irene?’

  ‘In a sealed box with my solicitor, of course,’ she told me, puzzled. And there I had my answer. She must have seen my face light up. ‘My solicitor!’ she breathed. ‘But the box was sealed . . .’

  ‘Anyone can open and reseal a box,’ I told her. ‘Especially a solicitor who has access to all kinds of ways of sealing boxes. Who is your solicitor?’

  ‘Kettlewell,’ Irene said breathlessly. ‘Sir Jacob Kettlewell. I trusted him . . .’

  ‘Everyone does,’ I told her. ‘I have left all kinds of papers with my solicitor. So have John and Mr Holmes. We never dreamed they’d be anything but utterly secure and safe.’

  ‘Kettlewell,’ Mary said vaguely. ‘Very pretty little village in Yorkshire. John and I went there once.’ She stirred out of her doze and saw Irene and I staring at her, our eyes wide. ‘Did I miss something?’

  ‘Kirkby,’ I said to her.

  ‘That’s in Yorkshire too,’ Mary said, sitting bolt upright. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I glimpsed the name of Sir George Burnwell’s solicitor in his study,’ Irene said, as excited as I was. ‘Peter York!’

  ‘The man that threatened the Whitechapel Lady was called John Ripon. That’s in Yorkshire too. Why are we talking about solicitors?’ Mary asked. So we told her.

  A woman has no safe places to hide. Everything she has belongs to her husband. He may read her private papers and letters if he so wishes. So women – especially ones with secrets – lodge all their papers and letters and private boxes with their solicitor, who is under oath not to reveal their secrets. The women imagine their papers safe. After all, a solicitor is a representative of the law. Who would imagine that a solicitor would break open the seal, read the secrets, blackmail and kill and destroy? And if you did suspect, how could you tell? Imagine all the secrets he kept back, ready to use, just to keep you silent.

  ‘It’s the same man,’ Mary said, in the end. ‘All those solicitors with names from Yorkshire, they are the same man.’

  ‘Why choose Yorkshire villages?’ Irene asked. ‘And wouldn’t he be rather busy with all those clients?’

  ‘Aliases are difficult to remember,’ Mary said. Irene nodded. So, she knew that too? ‘Far easier to remember who you are if you know it must be a village in Yorkshire.’

  ‘Maybe he comes from there,’ I said, staring out of the carriage window, willing it to push through the crowds and go faster. I was having to suppress an urge to cry ‘the game is afoot!’ No wonder Mr Holmes charged about the entire city when he was solving a case. I felt like I could run from Buckingham Palace to Baker Street in pursuit.

  ‘When was the last time you saw your solicitor?’ Mary asked Irene.

  ‘I saw him when I hired him,’ Irene said. ‘A little old man. Since then, all my transactions have been by post.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. That’s how most people deal with their solicitor. One or two initial meetings, and the rest by post. It’s simple. A few disguises, or a few willing actors to play a solicitor for the initial meetings . . .’

  ‘He did seem suspiciously solicitor-like,’ Irene agreed. ‘He did remind me of a solicitor in a play.’

  ‘Precisely!’ Mary exclaimed. ‘And after that, whichever office you directed your mail to would be nothing more than a clerk redirecting your mail somewhere else. Or even just a letterbox he visits twice weekly.’

  ‘That would be safer,’ Irene said. ‘But wait – Lillian Rose was sent to Sir George Burnwell by the blackmailer to retrieve papers from his solicitor. Why do that if the solicitor is the blackmailer?’

  ‘To test Lillian Rose?’ I said. I could think of half a dozen reasons now. ‘To prove he owns her? To test Sir George? To see how loyal Sir George is, or what he would do for a pretty face? To get them together for some reason? To make sure Sir George isn’t holding anything back? Or just to play with them; moving pieces around in his elaborate game to see what happens for fun.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Irene said. ‘With a mind like this, like the one we’re dealing with, all that is possible. You know, it works! That all actually works!’

  ‘We found him! Well, almost found him, we’ve found him out, it’s just a question of research,’ Mary said excitedly. ‘But we’re within reach now! Martha, Irene, the game is very much afoot!’ she laughed, and then her face suddenly froze. I knew why. She had the same thought I’d had just a few moments before.

  ‘Martha,’ she said, quieter now. ‘We met the Whitechapel Lady’s solicitor outside her home, when she was murdered. You talked to him, I didn’t. What did he . . .’

  ‘Halifax,’ I told her. ‘He said his name was Halifax.’

  ‘In Yorkshire,’ Mary murmured. ‘Oh, Martha, we spoke to him. I shouted at him!’

  ‘Yes, I spoke to him,’ I said, my body cold, both with anger and fear. ‘I stood in the street, and spoke to her murderer, the blood barely dry on his hands, and I never knew. I never even guessed.’

  ‘Maybe it was one of his actors,’ Irene said.

  I shook my head. ‘For what reason?’ I asked. ‘He didn’t need to speak to anyone there. The only person he knew there was the Whitechapel Lady, and she knew him as himself, although under a different name. Besides, I think he was gloating. I think he’d come back to revisit the scene of his crime, to see how clever he’d been. To exult in what he’d done. Mr Holmes says criminals often do that. No, that was our man, I am sure.’

  ‘Did you tell him your name?’ Mary asked. I told her no.

  ‘He knew,’ Irene said. ‘He would have found out. I’m very much afraid this killer, this solicitor, has known who you are for quite a while now.’

  ‘Why hasn’t he done anything?’ Mary asked.

  Irene turned to her. ‘He’s a hunter. He’s stalking you. He’s stalking his prey, until you are in the right position.’

  Until he had us firmly in his sights.

  All those solicitors – Kettlewell, Kirkby, York. I’d lay good odds that Ripon was a solicitor, too – maybe not the Whitechapel Lady’s, but of someone she knew. Why would she mention that? Solicitors are so unimportant! All of them supposed to be quiet, good, loyal men, all to be trusted with the power and the secrets they held in their hands. I could imagine them – him – sitting in his office long after dark, the shutters closed, the dusty room lit by a single candle, taking down the black deed boxes inscribed with noble names, breaking the seals he knew how to replace, and reading each and every one of those secret papers they thought they had kept so safe. How he must have loved that. Standing in those grand houses, standing as they sat, and gave him orders, and conde
scended to him, and made him wait, how he must have stood there and thought. ‘I know. I know every one of your dirty, grubby, vile little secrets. I know exactly what you did. I know exactly how you covered it up. I could ruin you.’ It must have been such a small step from thinking that to one day, pushed too far, humiliated just that little bit more, actually saying ‘I know’. And then would have come their fear, the begging and the promises, and he must have realized that of it all, he liked the fear the best.

  But after a while, just fear alone became dull. He didn’t have enough secrets. So first he found more, and then he made them up, and then came the blackmail, and control, and terror and joy in someone else’s destruction, and then their death and then – and then how long before he found blood on his hands, and realized he liked that too?

  And now he was a madman. Small steps from the curious solicitor to the murderous madman. All because of those secrets. How he must love his secrets.

  We all sat back in our seats, just like before, yet changed. Now we knew. That knowledge made us all different. Mary leaned her head back and stared into the streets passing by with a satisfied little smile on her face. Irene sat in her corner, staring out the window, clenching and unclenching her fist, her face tight with anger, once muttering ‘Stupid, stupid!’ to herself. And I – I sat a little more upright. My hands rested in my lap, lightly clasped. I looked out of the window, searching and watching and knowing, now, that he was out there. And I would find him.

  ‘We’re on Serpentine Avenue,’ I said, noticing the street name.

  Irene stirred and looked around her. She called to the driver to stop. ‘It’s late,’ she said, noticing the dark and empty street. ‘I’ll make sure he takes you home.’ She got out and called up to the driver to take us to 221b, giving him enough money to complete the journey. Then she leaned in at the window.

  ‘That child Micky . . .’ she started to stay.

  ‘Will be safe,’ I assured her. ‘Wiggins takes care of his boys.’

  ‘On the streets,’ Irene finished blankly.