by Lyndsay Faye
“What is it, Holmes?” I inquired.
“Not this year, I’m afraid, my dear fellow,” my friend said softly, reading my train of thought as easily as he would read letters on a signpost. His eyes fell back to his knee. “But perhaps one year. Though to be entirely honest, I have my doubts.”
“And I have my hopes,” said I. “We shall see who emerges victorious.”
PART II
THE EARLY YEARS
The Adventure of
the Honest Wife
My earliest relations with Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street were rendered much the more intriguing because I spent an inordinate amount of time—or more than I believe to be usual with fellow lodgers, for I know of no other men who reside with independent consulting detectives—deciphering which aspects of his peculiar character were innate and which adopted owing to his singular choice of profession. As with every individual, some of his tastes must have been bred from the cradle, while others surely were cultivated to grant him greater chance of success in his field.
In no other arena did his attitude puzzle me so much as in his open aversion to the entire female gender, for in that particular respect Holmes is nothing less than a living contradiction. My friend is prepared to swear that no female is to be entirely trusted, and that the very finest examples of the sex are yet subject to flights of deception and caprice capable of driving any logician to distraction. He makes an abysmally poor misogynist, however. Holmes’s easygoing gentility in the presence of actual women seemed to belie his disdain for hypothetical ones, and during no adventure did the dichotomy more greatly bemuse me than that of the Treadwell scandal of March, 1882.
I was at that time still suffering lingering symptoms from my Afghan service, which unfortunately had left me with an imperfectly mobile right shoulder and a mercurial nervous system. Peripheral noises, especially sudden ones, sent my heart racing, and I was the victim of myriad sharp aches and dull throbs which echoed the initial agony of the moment a bullet had pierced my flesh in that far-off country. Having passed a wretchedly poor night’s sleep, wakened thrice by the cataclysmic volleys of thunder which herald the advent of springtime in London, I lay stretched upon the settee half-dressed at seven in the morning with a book in my hand and the hearth blazing like a small bonfire, supposing that abandoning the field of battle would improve my spirits and determined to attempt to conquer slumber again the next evening.
The scuff of a boot sole arrested my attention. I glanced up in some surprise when Sherlock Holmes entered the room neatly clad and fresh-faced, polishing a cuff link with his thumb. Seeing me, he paused, and then strode directly to his tobacco remnants of the day before, which he had recently commenced leaving out to dry upon the mantelpiece corner for some reason that I could not fathom and had hesitated to inquire over. He raised a genial black eyebrow in my direction.
“Whatever are you doing awake at this hour?” Holmes asked, pressing very unpalatable used shag into his pipe.
“Is that what you’ve saved the plugs for?” I reflected with a faint hint of distaste. “I know we are neither of us disposed to be spendthrifts at the moment, but I’ve some ship’s on my desk just there. Help yourself, by all means.”
He laughed merrily, shaking his head. “Thank you. However, it is not economy, but rather habit and inclination. I’ve a taste for intense flavor when it comes to smoking—the thicker the better. Does this bother you? Its concentration allows me to concentrate, if you follow me.”
“I am not sure I do, but no, I don’t mind in the slightest.”
“Capital. And why are you up with the sun, then?”
“I am awake because I prefer to succeed at reading than to fail at resting. My shoulder doesn’t care for this weather, and neither do my nerves, come to that.”
“Hardly surprising—it was dreadful last night. I confess I am myself a light sleeper and passed much of the time over a medical treatise regarding the effects of alcohol on blood coagulation.”
“You appear remarkably energetic.”
“Sleep has never been so prized a commodity for me as for most men. Were it not a necessity, I should forgo it altogether—think of all the profitable uses the time could be put to! Humankind could have advanced a full millennium beyond its present state of modernity by now, if beds were but taken out of the picture.”
“I wish I shared your sentiment, for it is eminently practical, but I confess I’d prefer to indulge in a restful night again.”
He clucked sympathetically. “I can well imagine, Doctor. Nothing is so desirable as that which is denied us, after all.”
Finding that I was dangerously close to complaining rather than simply remarking, which was not palatable to me in the slightest, I changed the subject. “Are you finished with your researches, then? Isn’t this rather before your usual breakfast time as well?”
“Yes, I’ve an appointment with a client.”
“Ah, I see. I’ll clear off, then, and leave you to it.”
“Stay if you like,” Holmes said, sitting upon the arm of the sofa at my feet as he lit his eccentrically stuffed pipe. “Mr. Treadwell will be here within a quarter hour.”
“But I should not wish to be in your way.”
“Well, I shouldn’t wish you to be either, but that eventuality seems rather far-fetched, doesn’t it? And nothing lessens the effects of a bad night’s sleep like setting straight to work, I have found,” he added brightly.
Having quickly discovered that, while detesting the banalities of polite society, Sherlock Holmes was considerably more tolerant of an audience for his remarkable conjuring tricks, I rose to my feet with much more energy than I had imagined I possessed. Why he had seemingly selected me for the task must have had to do with simple expediency—I was present, and too ill to work, and thus an ideal spectator—but I heartily welcomed the assignment, for both his methods and the cases to which he applied them were already endlessly fascinating to me.
“I’ll just be a moment,” I said en route to my staircase.
“I’d never dream of starting without you,” said he, with a faint trace of amusement.
After I had quickly shaved and donned more complete attire, I descended into the sitting room for the second time to discover Holmes already in the presence of his client. Mr. Treadwell was a formidable gentleman, not so tall as my friend but much broader in the torso, with an august tilt to his lip and a bullish brow below a sweep of blond hair which granted him a handsome, leonine appearance. While his abnormally dark eyes were intelligent, they also glittered with volatile annoyance. I did not think him a man it was safe to cross, idly wondering how many enemies he had left irreparably broken in his wake to have come by his fortune, for his attire was of the richest fabric and tailoring. He stood with his sandstone jaw cocked at an impatient angle above an emerald cravat, holding a heavy gold watch, which he snapped shut pointedly.
“Here we are. Mr. Lucien Treadwell, this is my friend and colleague Dr. John Watson,” Holmes announced with an aloof smile, ignoring the answering scowl on the face of his would-be employer. “Our party is now complete. He helps me in these matters, and you may rely as I do upon his invaluable assistance.”
This level of praise from my reserved new friend was as gratifying as it was unexpected. “I’m sure I’ll do all I can to help, Mr. Treadwell.”
“See that you do,” he huffed. “I am here to hire Sherlock Holmes, not an entire committee.”
“Well, well,” said Holmes soothingly, “you may consider his presence a bonus. I suggest we all sit down, and that you tell us with as much detail as possible what seems to be the trouble.”
Mr. Lucien Treadwell visibly attempted to swallow his choler as we seated ourselves. “I need a hired detective,” he reported bluntly, “for a policeman would be less than useless in my situation. This matter is private, personal, and indeed has a direct effect upon my marr
iage. Therefore the fellow who gets to the bottom of it needs to be my man to the marrow. That’s where you come in. I have heard that you are discreet, Mr. Holmes, and not overly expensive.”
My friend disdained to react to this introductory speech, but I who was learning his habits could see the twitch of his jaw and the beginnings of a smile which could chill a room by twenty degrees.
“You see, gentlemen,” Mr. Treadwell continued, his left hand worrying at the seam in his trouser leg, “I require evidence that my wife is having an affair.”
“Good day to you, Mr. Treadwell,” Holmes said pleasantly, rising.
“What sort of ludicrous game is this?” Mr. Treadwell bristled in shock.
“I have no desire to expend my valuable time learning the intricacies of your spouse’s leisure pursuits,” my friend returned acidly, gesturing at the door with his pipe. “While they doubtless are of interest to you, they are of the most profound uninterest to me, and no amount of money could cause me to see them in an attractive or intriguing light. Should you decide to persist in your course—and I have no means of dissuading you—I recommend you hire a detective.”
“What the devil do you call yourself, then, Mr. Holmes, if not a detective?” Mr. Treadwell sneered as he too pushed to his feet. “A simple gossipmonger, perhaps?”
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Sherlock Holmes is an independent consulting detective, the final recourse for those who wish to solve the unsolvable,” I put in. “If what you need is a paid spy, Mr. Treadwell, I would suggest you apply elsewhere.”
Holmes cast me a look of stark surprise commingled with far more open appreciation than was typical for him. Then he crossed his long arms emphatically and returned his attention to his would-be client. Mr. Treadwell, meanwhile, was fuming and empurpling simultaneously.
“I’ve never heard such rank trash in all my days! A detective who can’t be bothered to detect is worse than useless. Meanwhile, I’ve been driven nearly to distraction.”
“I detect, as you put it, with tremendous frequency and skill,” Holmes drawled, his pipe perched at the edge of his mouth. “But I do not meddle, and that is what you are proposing.”
“Meddling, fiddlesticks. I require assistance, and you suppose you’re too good for my money! Well, you aren’t, Mr. Holmes.”
“On the contrary. I suspect that I’ve been too good for better people’s money, as a matter of fact.”
“Of all the confounded nerve! It’s preposterous—no, no, Mr. Holmes, I’ve been told by informed parties that you’re the best in your field, and I’ll have you yet, by God. I’m a man who gets what he wants.”
Sherlock Holmes raised his brows in such an inimical fashion that most mortals would have quit the premises; but Mr. Treadwell stepped yet closer, the men’s eyes locking combatively.
“What’s the issue, then, if not money? Pride, eh? You suppose the task is beneath you? Well, there’s your first mistake, Mr. Holmes. I’m presenting you with a real problem, I tell you, a genuine case to solve. There are clues. For instance, Alice has started keeping her letter box locked. What call could she have to do such a thing? I already check everything that comes through the post, so what can she have to hide?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Holmes snapped, entirely exasperated. “If someone perused all of my correspondence, I should certainly take to locking it up myself. Meanwhile, one’s merely providing oneself with some privacy is no reason to suppose her in an illicit liaison.”
Mr. Treadwell, whom I heartily disliked by this time, took a turn before the hearth, searing fiery tracks in our rug with his volcanic eyes. “Privacy has nothing to do with it! She’s up to no good, I tell you, but she’ll not make a fool of me. A man knows when his way of life is threatened, Mr. Holmes, and the smart man makes a stand to defend it. I’ll have her yet. Locking her letters away, going out and coming back with the paltriest excuses—”
“Perhaps she finds the company at home less than congenial,” I put in.
My friend emitted a quiet cough.
“Moping about all the godforsaken afternoon—”
“Mr. Treadwell, I seem to recall that I have already wished you good day,” Holmes observed icily.
“Claiming the jewelry I’ve bestowed to try to repair the rift between us is poisoned . . .”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Alice’s jewelry,” Mr. Treadwell repeated, stopping before Holmes to grin in malicious triumph. “Ah, I see that’s netted you at last! My wife grows thinner and paler by the week, refusing all my overtures, and when I try to get it out of her that she’s pining away for love of another, she insists that my gifts to her have been somehow imbued with poison. Necklaces, earrings, bracelets, all of the finest quality, and she swears before high heaven I’ve laced them with something, which is obviously absurd. No, not absurd—downright impossible.”
“It is at the very least . . . interesting,” Holmes conceded reluctantly, setting his pipe down.
“And this when I’ve been nothing but generous over her ceaseless melancholic fits! She won’t touch her baubles these last six months, even when we’re attending society balls and dinner parties, and whenever I force her to wear anything, she’s always visibly worse the next day. Sprawling about like an invalid, white as milk and mewling like a kitten. It’s an excuse, I tell you, a wild fantasy concocted to throw me off the true scent.”
“Dr. Watson, how common to your knowledge are simple metal aversions?”
“Do you mean the unexplained sort along the lines of hay fever, which cause scarlet rash, pulmonary distress, and the like?” I questioned.
“Just so.”
“Common enough with cheap metals like nickel and so forth, but as for precious metals like gold or silver? I’ve never heard of a patient who reacted to either, nor come across such a case in any study.”
Holmes’s quicksilver eyes lost their focus as he stared past his would-be client, mechanically placing his hands in his pockets. This new information had produced a seismic shift in my friend’s mood. Meanwhile, I could hardly contain myself for agitation—whatever ailment plagued Mrs. Alice Treadwell, bullying her into wearing finery she imagined was somehow harmful to her health was the act of a blackguard and a boor.
“Mr. Treadwell, was your wife fond of wearing her jewelry before she began locking her letter box?” This time, Holmes sounded genuinely intrigued.
“Why should I bother telling you if you’re too kid-gloved to touch the case?” the extraordinarily contrary Mr. Treadwell shot back in a mocking tone.
Holmes, realizing that our caller was a more contumacious specimen than any we had previously encountered, shrugged his shoulders like a famous theatre critic being asked to sit through a penny concert. His disinterest was well thought of. I attempted likewise to affect an air of indifference, probably with poorer success, as I could imagine no finer pastime than that of thrashing Mr. Lucien Treadwell down our staircase.
“I haven’t the time for this,” the detective remonstrated. “Your case has no features of interest whatsoever save in the aspect of your wife’s strange horror of her own jewelry, which frankly indicates to me that she isn’t having an affair. What woman intent upon seducing a man would employ merely some of her visual charms and not all of them? But in any case, it doesn’t matter—I’ll have to speak with Mrs. Treadwell and look over the house if I am to be of any real use, and I’ve no intention of wasting my morning.”
“Aha, so it is to be cash over principles after all! I thought as much. Would you call being paid twenty pounds for a trip to Hampstead a waste of your morning, Mr. Holmes? I am willing to pay so much in return for your services. Or have you really no skills in the detecting arena at all?”
My friend grumbled, and fished for his watch, and compared it with the time on the mantel clock as Mr. Treadwell glowered. I observed them, deeply discomfited.
“Well, I suppose I could cancel an appointment or two. But this is really very awkward,” Holmes said with deliberate truculence, reaching for his hat. “Are you game for a visit to Hampstead, Watson?”
“It’s most incommodious.” My voice was equally dry. “But I’ll join you all the same.”
“Please procure a cab and await us below as we gather a few necessaries, Mr. Treadwell. We shan’t be a moment.”
When our highly disagreeable visitor had started down the stairs, I plucked at my friend’s sleeve. “I am not enamored of Mr. Lucien Treadwell, Holmes.”
He tamped out his pipe with uncharacteristic force and a lip quirked significantly, as if imagining the object standing in for his client. “Fictio cedit veritati so soon? The man is barely out the door.”
“Surely you concur.”
“I have vastly preferred the company of no fewer than three murderers who spring to mind, one of whom also dabbled in arson. He is vile.”
“Then you’ve no wish to accept his offer?”
“God no, I should as soon shake hands with Mephistopheles.”
“In that case, my dear Holmes, what interest could this wretched matter possibly hold for you other than the not insignificant sum of twenty pounds? I hope that you would never stoop to digging up sordid evidence of a lady’s dalliances.”