by David Marcum
Holmes’s face was filled with absolute revulsion at Mr. Finke. “I believe in your country, just as ours, all people are created equal, and all people are equal in the eyes of the law. You chose to take the law into your own hands. You committed a crime and now must face the punishment.”
Finke lashed out with harsh words at my companion, words I cannot repeat in the confines of this narrative. My dear friend just stood quietly as the constables hauled away the murderer.
“I’m glad that’s over,” I said to my companion as the wagon took Finke away.
“I agree, Watson. Finke believed he was serving a perverse form of justice. In the end, he was actually a worse criminal than that of the Smiths. I believe he will learn true justice when he hangs from the end of a rope. And now, Watson, onto another puzzling dilemma,” my friend stated.
“I hope it is not another grisly murder,” I stated in astonishment.
“No, no, I was deciding whether I should order the quail or the flounder at Simpson’s this evening.”
The Adventure of the Aspen Papers
by Daniel D. Victor
Nine-tenths of the artist’s interest in [bare facts]
is that of what he shall add to them
or how he shall turn them.
– Henry James, The Art of the Novel
I
Mrs. Hudson recognized a man of noble bearing when she saw one. Those were the visitors she most often reserved for herself to introduce, leaving to the boy in livery the task of announcing the guests she deemed less important. As a consequence, when she appeared at the door of the sitting room one morning in late October of 1887, both Sherlock Holmes and I looked up with great expectation. Sensing the drama her presence created, she smoothed down her skirt, cleared her throat, and proclaimed, “Mr. Henry James.”
It wasn’t that I thought she’d actually recognized the cerebral American author of Roderick Hudson and The Portrait of a Lady. Rather, it was the man himself who presented quite the authoritative figure. He appeared to be in his forties, with piercing light-grey eyes, a high forehead, and thin dark hair at his ears that accented a balding pate. Combined with his short grizzled beard and sensitive mouth, his features conveyed a sense of dignity, perspicacity, intelligence. What’s more, having recently moved to London from the States, he was attired in a smart, three-piece English suit, a gold chain stretched taut across his waistcoat. Taken as a whole, his was an image destined to command respect from anyone, even those like Mrs. Hudson, who had never heard of him - let alone his reputation.
“Mr. Sherlock Holmes?” said our visitor to my friend, somehow aware of which of us to address.
Holmes bowed slightly, introduced me, and indicated that James take a seat.
No sooner had we settled ourselves than he addressed us. “Gentlemen, I come to you - I come to you - with a problem.”
Let me say from the start that for so accomplished a writer, Henry James had the startling tendency to hesitate and repeat - almost to stutter - when he spoke. His manner of speech seemed less a bumbling with words, however, than the rehearsing of finely-tuned sentences. To spare the reader superfluous repetition, I have striven to minimize this characteristic.
In point of fact, James’ voice was rich and melodious, almost mesmerizing; and I was pleased to observe that Sherlock Holmes was immediately engaged. As I have reported elsewhere, the previous spring had been a difficult time for my friend. He’d been worn down by the months he’d devoted to resolving the matter of the Netherland-Sumatra Company, not to mention the unpleasant business near Reigate in Surrey where ironically he’d gone to regain his strength. To see him devote his complete attention to Henry James was most reassuring indeed.
I hoped it would be equally reassuring to James; for as he sat drumming his fingers on the velvet arm of the chair, he certainly looked in need of some sort of aid.
“You don’t mind if I smoke,” said Holmes. It was more of a statement than a question, and it left to me the obligation of offering James a cigar.
“Not today, Doctor,” said he, waving off the suggestion. “I’m - I’m in need of quick answers. This is not a social call.”
Holmes flashed a smile as he filled his briar with dark shag. “How can I be of service?”
“It’s a moral issue, Mr. Holmes,” said James and immediately got to the point. “An acquaintance of mine has gone missing. Since I’m the one responsible for having gotten him into a sticky situation, I feel responsible for finding out what’s become of him.” He placed one hand on top of the other, interlocking his fingers in the process. It was as if he was signalling the complexity of the story he was about to tell.
“Pray, start at the beginning,” said Holmes, blowing a blue cloud upward.
“The acquaintance in question, gentlemen, one Thomas Warren, arrived in London from New York at the end of the summer. He’s an aspiring young academic, though a bit headstrong and compulsive. He’s a professor - an instructor - at the University of Virginia, and the two of us have exchanged some correspondence. He hopes to advance his career through a biography of the American poet, Jeremy Aspen - Jeremy Bishop Aspen.”
“Jeremy Aspen,” I repeated. It was a name unfamiliar to me. Holmes, who took little interest in poetry, showed no recognition at all.
James pulled at his beard. He resembled a frustrated instructor, annoyed that his students had not remembered his previous lecture. “Aspen was famous for the romantic poetry he composed at the turn of the century. His devotees call him ‘The Orpheus of the New World’. A few months ago, I learned through my arcane literary connections that a former paramour of Aspen, a woman named Olivia Borden, is rumoured still to be living in London. I forwarded this information to Professor Warren, and so great - so intense - was his interest that he dropped everything he’d been doing and immediately sailed to England.”
“Quite the dedicated scholar,” I chuckled.
A frosty glare quieted me. “I thought so too, Doctor; but he’s gone beyond so benign a description. He considers Aspen a veritable god. More to the point, he’s obsessed with the idea that Miss Borden will further his career. He believes that not only could she be a fountain of knowledge regarding Aspen, but that she might actually possess letters of an intimate nature from Aspen himself. Such a find - such a discovery - would elevate Warren’s career in an instant.”
“The paramour of a poet who wrote so long ago?” said I. “She must be well advanced in years.”
“Close to ninety, I should imagine,” said James, waving away Holmes’s smoke that had begun to envelop us all. “Her age explains Warren’s haste. He rightly fears that she could die at any moment, in which case his moment would dissipate as well. Little is known of the years Aspen spent away from his home in New York, you see. Oh, we’re well aware that he lived for some time in England - but nobody knows the details. The scholar - the researcher - who furnishes such information would certainly receive grand honours, and now Warren - thanks in great part to my encouragement - believes he can get the answer from this old woman, a lady with whom Aspen supposedly fell in love over seventy years ago. Warren thinks she must be the reclusive muse that scholars have been seeking for years.”
“If these letters exist,” I observed, “I imagine they’d be worth a fortune.”
“To be sure, Dr. Watson,” said James. “Thomas Warren’s quite right. The discovery of such a woman would go far to establish his career. He can’t afford to miss out.”
“And how well has he succeeded?” Holmes asked.
“That’s just it. I don’t know. Not long after he got here, he wrote me a lengthy letter. He said he’d established that the old woman really does exist and that he’d been able to track her down to a run-down manor house in Southwark called The Hollows. She lives in rented rooms there with her niece.”
Holmes exhaled another blue clo
ud. “You’re a literary man yourself, Mr. James. Hasn’t this singular information from Warren sparked a similar curiosity in you? Why haven’t you met the woman yourself, for example?”
“A fair question, Mr. Holmes. Aspen, you see, is Warren’s province. It’s true that I did go there - to The Hollows - once - but only after Warren had gone missing. That’s when I met the niece, a middle-aged spinster type, quite plain and matronly. I learned very little. Indeed, most all that I’m telling you I gleaned from Warren himself.”
“Pah!” Holmes snorted. “Little comes from second-hand tales.”
Henry James arched his eyebrows. Accomplished writer though he might be, I was certain he was unused to people discounting his narratives.
Nonetheless, he ran his hand across his balding head and continued. “Warren wrote me about an overgrown garden within the grounds. Apparently, he managed to convince the niece of his love for flora. More important, he convinced her of his need for seclusion. He told her he was a writer, you see, and required peace and quiet in order to compose. It was the grotesqueness of just such a garden, he told her, that soothed his soul. And I should imagine that she believed him.”
“Quite so,” murmured Holmes, the pipe clenched firmly between his teeth.
“The niece told him that her aunt craved money; and in the end, he offered the old woman much of his life savings for two rooms. He paid for three months the amount it might have cost him to stay in an exclusive flat for a year - that’s how important the Aspen papers are to him. She agreed; and he delivered the money to her in gold in a bag of chamois-leather. Or so he told the story. Accompanied by his manservant, he moved in soon after and seemed to be getting along. I myself had just returned from a lengthy stay in Italy - Venice and Florence, in particular - and have been quite busy with my own writing. Quite frankly, I didn’t think much about not having heard from him.”
“How long has it been?”
Henry James looked to the ceiling the way some people do when they calculate sums. “It’s three months since he moved into the house, the Hollows. But when I received no answer to a letter I sent him a few weeks ago, I myself went down there - to Southwark. That’s when I encountered the niece. Rita Borden - Miss Rita, she’s called. At first, she sounded worried. She said that she didn’t know what had become of Mr. Warren - that he seemed to have disappeared. And that was all. Then she said she didn’t want to talk to me. It was quite strange, really. She seemed both reticent and direct at the same time. All around, I must tell you, it was not too inviting a place.”
“And the old woman - she still lives?”
James flashed a quick smile. “Yes - as far as I know. Though I for one never got to see her.”
“And the Aspen papers?” Holmes asked, taking the pipe from his mouth. “I assume that while Warren was living at The Hollows, he never stumbled across them. If he had, I suspect he would have shared that knowledge with you.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Holmes. At the beginning of all this, I would have expected him to tell me of his discoveries. Now I’m not so sure. When I asked Miss Rita about his work, she shut the door in my face. That’s when I thought of turning to you.”
Sherlock Holmes put down the briar and smiled at Henry James.
Good fortune was smiling upon the writer as well. Appealing to my friend’s talents was a sure-fire method of engaging his services.
“I would like it very much, Mr. Holmes, if you could go to Southwark - to the house - and find out what’s become of Thomas Warren. It was I, after all, who set him off on this course; and it will be I who’ll feel culpable should something tragic have happened to the poor fellow.”
James reached into his inside coat pocket and produced a wallet.
“Let us see what I can uncover before we talk finances, Mr. James. Perhaps there will be very little mystery at all. What say you, Watson? Are you set for a drive to the Borough in search of a missing scholar this afternoon?”
I readily agreed. The pageboy could take a message to my wife, who was more than understanding when it came to matters involving Holmes. As for my surgery, I had no patients scheduled for the next day and could easily be spared.
“Dr. Watson and I will look into this matter, Mr. James. It seems quite the curious puzzle.”
Shaking hands with Holmes and me, Henry James offered a formal nod. Then he turned and marched down the seventeen stairs to the outer door, his footfalls ringing steady and certain.
II
A hansom carried us to London Bridge and over the river into Southwark. As per James’ instructions, we took the specified turnings below Long Lane and soon found ourselves in a low, wooded area where the abundance of foliage obliterated the afternoon sun. A final bend in the roadway brought us to the aging manor house known as The Hollows. Draped in darkness by the shade of the massive oaks that surrounded it, the structure appeared to be a single square - its two tall chimneys rising like bookends at each side; its once honey-coloured walls turned black by a century of soot, grime, and neglect. The curtained windows looked dark; many on the ground floor were barred. A rusting metal fence framed the primordial landscape, presenting to the unlucky visitor a tangle of gnarled and overgrown hedgerows.
Our driver pulled his horse up before the access road. The metal gates, mired in damp soil, might gape wide for eternity.
“Do you know this place?” Holmes asked the man.
“Aye,” said he, pulling down the front of his cap as he surveyed the gloomy scene, “but just to pass by. Nobody in there but a pair of daft old ladies. There’s some what calls ‘em witches, but that’s just a tale. They live in a couple of rooms downstairs; the rest of the place stays empty.”
Holmes nodded and instructed him to wait: paying for the added time would be far easier than trying to hail another cab on this deserted road.
With a dank, cloying smell attacking our nostrils as soon as we set foot on the broken flagstones, Holmes and I quickly negotiated the irregular pathway through the unruly grounds. It came as no surprise to encounter neither bell nor knocker when we reached the entrance to the house, and Holmes pounded on the massive oak door with his fist.
After a few moments, it was opened but a few inches by a short young woman dressed in a blouse and skirt of white linen. She stared out at us suspiciously from beneath a single eyebrow extending above both eyes. Her black hair hung in a plait down her back to her waist.
“Si?” said she in Spanish through the small gap.
“Is your mistress in?” Holmes asked, but already we could sense someone else approaching behind her.
“Yes?” this latter asked, stepping in front of the maid and opening the door a few inches wider. She was a heavy-set, middle-aged woman draped in a formless dress of navy blue. “Rosa doesn’t speak much English. What do you want?” She wore her dark hair tightly wound in a bun, its severity accenting her aquiline nose; and she stared at us with wide-set eyes. This was obviously the matronly niece, Rita Borden, about whom Henry James had spoken.
“Yes?” she asked again.
“You are Miss Borden? Miss Rita Borden?”
“I am Miss Rita. And who are you, I should like to know?”
“My name is Sherlock Homes, and we’re looking for a gentleman who lodges here, Mr. Thomas Warren.”
“Oh,” said she. “He’s gone. Left suddenly, he did, without even taking his man. I haven’t seen him in days - though it seems much longer.”
There was sadness in her voice. But suddenly, just as Henry James had forewarned, she countered, “And what’s it to you?”
“I’m a colleague of Mr. Warren,” Holmes lied.
“You’re another book critic then?” said she with a touch of venom.
“Not exactly. But we haven’t heard from him in months, and we are concerned about his welfare.”
She smirked. �
��He said he was interested in our garden. That’s what he told my aunt. He said he wanted to rent a room, but she told him no.”
“And yet I understand that he did secure lodgings here. What changed your aunt’s mind?”
“Money, of course. Lots of it. Say, you do ask a lot of questions. I don’t know why I should be telling you all this.”
“To help find Mr. Warren, of course.”
Holmes seemed to be offering hope, and she brightened a bit at his response. “My aunt gets a trifling amount each year from someone in America - hardly enough for us to live on. That’s why she accepted a lodger. She wants the money for me.”
During the course of this discussion, Miss Rita had allowed the door to open wider, and it was through this larger gap that I gazed upon the ancient woman herself. The maidservant had pushed towards the door a three-wheeled Bath-chair. Staring up at us from its brown, wickerwork seat was a decrepit little figure cloaked in black - or in what must have at one time been black; her dress was now a faded dark-grey, worn shiny by many years of wear. Sitting hunched over like that, she could have been a hundred years old.
Henry James’ estimate, however, was probably nearer to the mark. She had to be close to ninety - infirm, frail, desiccated. Breathing seemed to be a chore as well. But it was not her cadaverous form that caused the most alarm. That distinction fell to a black veil of tightly drawn lace that covered the upper half of her visage, leaving visible only her withered lips and skeletal jaw. It was as if she was wearing a ghastly mask. Worse, in the darkness of the room, though you could barely discern her eyes, you still had the sense that they were boring right into you.
“Who’s there, Rita?” she called in a grating voice. “Who’s come to disturb our afternoon?”
“Two men looking after Mr. Warren.” Her tone was matter-of-fact.
“Show them in, dear. They might have money as well.”
Miss Rita led us into a large sitting room, the thick green-velvet curtains pulled shut before a row of French windows. Heavy crossbeams ran across the ceiling, and oak panelling lined the walls. Although white sheets covered most of the furniture, a few wooden chairs and a low mahogany table stood open in a far corner, illuminated by a pair of yellow candles. One got the feeling the room had looked like this for ages.