by David Marcum
The old woman leaned forward and gestured for us to sit down.
“We’re looking for Thomas Warren, Miss Borden,” Holmes said as soon as we were seated. “We know that he roomed here for months and has now disappeared. We were hoping you might shed some light on the matter.”
Below the unyielding vizard, the old lady worked a small smile - a sort of smirk, actually.
“He came here under false pretences,” she rasped. “He said he valued our old garden. He said it was exactly the kind of quiet place he was looking for in which to do his writing. He said he’d seen it through the fence and wanted to revive it. All it needed was some work, he said. He promised to find some geraniums or ‘Jack Frost’ that would flourish in the shade. He festooned the house with flowers. For weeks on end he played his game, and only lately did he show his hand.”
“He talked to me of plants and nature as well,” added Miss Rita. “At first. Then he moved on to art and books. It took him months to get round to talking about the research he did on writers. And when I asked if he knew about Jeremy Aspen, he said he didn’t know the name. Didn’t know Aspen was a poet, he said. The rogue was lying, of course. In point of fact, he knows lots about Aspen. But it was only last week that he finally began asking about him. He said that since he did research on other writers, he might as well enquire about Aspen. He wanted to know if my aunt might have some papers or letters concerning the man.”
“As if I would leave Mr. Aspen’s papers lying about,” the old lady said. “Once I realized that’s all he was interested in,” she added in a confidential whisper, “I told him he would never get them from me.” In a sudden burst of energy, she hissed, “If I had any such papers to give, that is.” This last utterance seemed to have tapped all of her strength; for after saying the words, she dropped back in her wickered chair and appeared to fall asleep.
Miss Rita gestured sympathetically at her aunt. “It’s late,” said the niece, rising and moving towards the entrance hall.
When she opened the door, we could see a finger of late-afternoon sunlight poking its way through the leaves. “I fancy you won’t be nosing round here again,” she said, her wide eyes registering a degree of triumph as she closed the door.
“That was no great help,” said I as we walked along the broken flags. “Not only did we learn nothing about Warren, but we haven’t even determined that the Aspen papers are real.”
“Did you not notice, Watson, how Miss Borden spoke of the poet as ‘Mr. Aspen’? When one refers to public figures that one doesn’t know, one generally calls them by their surnames only.”
“I’ve never thought of the matter.”
“Well, please do. We say, ‘Shakespeare wrote’ or ‘Shakespeare said’.”
“Of course, now that you mention it.”
“But when one speaks of an acquaintance, one employs a title like ‘Mister’.”
“And the old woman called the poet ‘Mr. Aspen’.”
“Precisely, old fellow. I’d be willing to wager that a relationship between Miss Borden and Jeremy Aspen is more fact that fiction.”
“Then how do you explain Warren’s disappearance? If she’s the right lady, why would he have left?”
“Since I expect him to return, the reason doesn’t concern me. No doubt, he was frustrated. He’d spent months cultivating his relationships with the two women and saw nothing come of it. As long as the papers are here, however - not to mention his manservant - he’ll be back. The Aspen papers are too important for him to abandon.”
The hansom stood where we’d left it; the sorrel horse was impatiently pawing the dirt.
“Back to Baker Street, if you please,” Holmes instructed the driver as we climbed into the cab. To me he said, “I shall speak to the Irregulars.” He was talking of the young street Arabs whom he frequently hired to provide information from the byways of London. “They can keep an eye on The Hollows for us. That way, when Warren does return, we shall know.”
The carriage took off with a jolt, and Holmes leaned over to me. “After I instruct the boys, Watson, I think a dinner in the Strand might be in order.”
I smiled in agreement, but Sherlock Holmes was already staring out the window submerged in thought. I don’t imagine he noticed the pink and purple swirls of sunset painting the sky.
III
“Dead!” came the cry as the street urchin burst into our sitting room the next morning. We were just finishing breakfast when he gave us the news. “There’s somebody in that house what’s died! Popped their clog, didn’t they? Hopped the twig!”
Sherlock Holmes put down his coffee and rose to meet the lad. “Who?” he demanded.
“Dunno, do I?” said the boy, brushing a lock of dirty brown hair from his eyes. “But I seen the wagon arrive. Only there was no black feathers on the horses. And no coffin inside. Just a bloke in a tall hat and black togs. He went into the house.”
Sherlock Holmes was already donning his coat.
“Come, Watson! There’s not a moment to lose! We must get to the body before it’s taken away. That was the undertaker the boy saw - come to make final arrangements with Rita Borden.”
Thomas Warren must have kept his own watch on The Hollows. For no sooner had the old lady died than Warren returned. In all probability, it was his manservant who’d informed him of her death. In any event Warren was already there when we arrived.
Rosa admitted us, and Holmes and I introduced ourselves in the sitting room. In black suit and sombre mien, Warren certainly dressed the part of a concerned mourner. Attired for a funeral, he had obviously packed his luggage for England contemplating the possibility of bereavement. Yet with those dark, penetrating eyes and black hair combed straight back, he appeared more dashing young suitor than heavy-hearted scholar.
“We’re here at the behest of Henry James,” Holmes told the professor. “Mr. James is concerned with your whereabouts and the progress of your business.”
“I’ll contact him when it’s appropriate,” Warren said without much concern. “‘Comme il faut’, as the man himself likes to say.”
Holmes and I exchanged glances, but fell in line behind Warren as he crossed the sitting room and, passing through the door to the ground-floor sleeping quarters, made his way to Olivia Borden’s inner sanctum. It was there that Miss Rita stood beside the bed, the diminutive body of her aunt lying before her.
The late Olivia Borden commanded the centre of an anachronistic tableau. With her veil no longer in place, one could see the prominence of her aquiline nose and the roundness of her skull. Wrinkled hands folded on her chest, she was clothed in luminescent white, a dress most probably kept hidden away for this particular occasion. The threadbare quilt upon which she rested had yellowed over the years; and the bed itself, of Regency design, might have come from another century. Redundant hairbrushes and depleted unguents adorned the dressing table, and a mirror replete with spidery cracks presided over the futile homage to vanity. Atop the nearby chest of drawers, a japanned wooden box that could have contained any number of rings or necklaces or letters stood conveniently open - open and empty. With dusty white drapes covering the windows, the whole scene, illuminated as it was by floor-candelabras on either side of the bed, seemed a setting from some antique mystery play.
Warren had positioned himself next to Miss Rita and bowed his head. Despite his show of sympathy, I felt certain that his concern dealt less with the dead woman than with the papers she’d been suspected of possessing, the same papers presumably now in the custody of her niece.
We took our cue from Miss Rita and, following a decent period of respect, prepared to exit. I made one last visual sweep of the chamber, hoping I might detect evidence of someone’s final frantic search for the missing papers. But there appeared no signs of disruption.
As I turned to leave, however, Holmes caught my arm. �
��Watson,” he whispered. “Engage the others in conversation. I need time in here to examine the scene.”
“I wonder,” he now said to Miss Rita, “if you’d mind giving me a moment alone with your aunt. Many people will tell you that I am a private person who prefers to keep his personal thoughts strictly between the deceased and himself.”
“You hardly knew the woman,” she scoffed, but Holmes seemed sincere; and fortunately Miss Rita, no great master of recognizing deceit, needed no further convincing. For his part, Warren seemed eager to talk. Indeed, no sooner did we find our places in the sitting room than he began discussing what he knew of the elder Miss Borden and Jeremy Aspen.
“Looking at that old woman,” said he, “you wouldn’t think her to have been a beautiful, vivacious, even rebellious young lady. But she must have been all those things. It would explain why Aspen was attracted to her. For that matter, I often wonder how they met.”
Miss Rita shrugged. “He came calling on her.”
“But that’s my point,” said the professor. “Aspen was an aristocrat; Miss Borden’s background was more modest. My guess is that she must have been connected to someone with whom the poet had dealings here in England. She could have been a governess to a child of one of Aspen’s friends. Or the daughter of someone he’d employed - a secretary, perhaps, or a portrait painter. Americans love to have their images immortalized by English artists. Whatever the circumstances, she attracted the man - so much so that she became the object of his love. She was, after all, ‘l’ange’ in his cycle of love sonnets.”
I shrugged my shoulders, hoping that the conversation would prevent the others from wondering what Holmes was up to.
Suddenly, Warren’s eyes flashed, and he changed the subject. “I think she hid the papers somewhere.” He pointed at a tall mahogany secretary’s desk with brass fittings. “That was my first choice. I’d always suspected it was locked, but I couldn’t be sure. Not that I would ever steal them, mind you; but a few weeks before her death, I finally worked up the courage to see if the desk would open. I was just about to test the lock when the old lady interrupted me.”
“Why,” Rita cried, “that must have been just before you left.”
“In truth,” Warren said, “she gave me quite the fright. ‘Stop that!’ she’d rasped while teetering on a cane in the doorway - all those months and I didn’t even know she could walk. In such a fury was she that she tore off that infernal mask and threw it to the floor. That was when I saw her magnificent eyes.”
“My word,” I barely whispered.
“They were wide and deep and full of hatred. And yet, strange to say, they also filled me with a kind of comfort. For looking into those extraordinary orbs, I somehow felt closer to Aspen. Her rage at me was a short-lived imitation of the torrid flames that must have burned so brightly when she was in his arms, a fiery passion that I thought had been all but extinguished.”
Warren’s own eyes were wide open now, a man staring full-on into a vibrant past.
“‘I know what you’re looking for,’ the old woman screeched, ‘ - why you’ve come here.’ She nodded at the secretary desk. ‘Go ahead and look inside, if you must.’ Reluctantly, I tried the lid and, discovering that it was unlocked after all, lifted it open. I expected to discover nothing, and nothing is precisely what I found. The old woman stared triumphantly at me. It was when she turned and hobbled back to her room that I realized she would never be giving me the letters. Only when they passed to Miss Rita might I have a chance of securing them. Mortified - and not a little angry - I left the house the next day.”
Miss Rita sat open-mouthed. There was obviously a lot about her aunt she’d apparently never got to know.
Just then Rosa entered the room with two large vases of Calla lilies.
“I ordered them,” Warren said.
A look of admiration appeared in Miss Rita’s wide-set eyes. I couldn’t say whether she’d ever had a social engagement with a man, but she was certainly appreciative of Warren’s gesture.
I, on the other hand, was more cynical. With the papers as Warren’s goal, I couldn’t help regarding all of his acts as empty motions. They were designed to get Miss Rita to share her aunt’s literary trove with him. In fact, I was beginning to suspect that the letters had motivated the behaviours of everyone in that house. Perhaps the old woman had been dangling them in front of the professor to unite him with Miss Rita. Or perhaps the middle-aged spinster herself was hoping to inherit them and use them to entice the man.
Holmes’s return interrupted my thoughts. He arrived in the sitting room just as Miss Rita was rising to help Rosa set up the flowers.
“It’s a bit stuffy in here,” he observed, striding to the green-velvet drapes. Drawing one of them aside, he opened the French window an inch or two. Then he turned back to Miss Rita. “One last question, if I may. Did your aunt write a will?”
Miss Rita looked down. “No. She had nothing to leave me.”
“Except for the papers,” Thomas Warren muttered.
Holmes glared at the professor, but all he said was, “Don’t fail to let Henry James know that you’re safe.” Then he motioned for us to leave, and once more we expressed our condolences to Miss Rita.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Holmes said to her as we were about to exit, “should I want to pay my respects yet again, when will the undertaker come for your aunt.”
“At nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
With Holmes nodding at the information, we left that frightful house and hurried back to our waiting hansom. I climbed in as under darkening skies my friend exchanged a few words with the driver. Then Holmes joined me, and we began our journey back to Baker Street. Or so I thought.
IV
After we’d made the first turn that hid us from The Hollows, the cab came to an abrupt halt. The horse whinnied in protest, but Holmes stepped out and bade me follow. He dropped a healthy number of coins in the driver’s hand, and the two of us stood out in the road listening to the clink of the horse’s hooves diminish as the hansom disappeared in the darkness.
“Should anyone be watching,” he explained, “I wanted it to appear that we’d left. The old woman was murdered, Watson; and I fear there may be more violence yet to come.”
“Murdered?” I cried. “But she looked so peaceful, Holmes. What makes you say such a thing?
“You know my methods, old fellow. As soon as I was alone with the body, I drew my lens and examined the corpse. It was absurdly simple to discover the bits of down in Miss Borden’s nostrils, the tiny feathers she must have inhaled gasping for her final breaths with a pillow held down over her face.”
“Who committed this heinous act?”
“That is what I hope to confirm tonight.”
“But, Holmes, surely we must inform the police.”
“We don’t have the time,” said he, shaking his head. He then motioned me to follow, continuing his explanation as we moved down the dark road towards The Hollows. “We know that Olivia Borden’s body will be collected by the undertaker tomorrow morning at nine. I fear that the immediacy of that appointment may precipitate some harmful action.”
“You think that Miss Rita is in danger then?”
Holmes smiled. “On one level, I think not. The death of the old woman leaves the niece as the sole link to the papers. Anyone seeking the papers would be foolish to silence her.”
“Unless,” I added, “the miscreant has already acquired them.”
“If he had acquired them, Watson, he would no longer be here.” We were approaching the house now, and Holmes lowered his voice. “When I searched the old woman’s room, I spied some sheets that appeared dishevelled on the far side of the bed. I immediately ran my hand beneath the upper mattress.”
“Did you find anything?”
“A single scrap of very
old foolscap containing a few strokes of faded ink. But even so small a morsel was enough to suggest that somehow the withered old woman had mustered the strength to hide the papers between her mattresses.”
“Surely such a hiding place could not be secure. When Rosa changed the bedding, she’d discover the cache.”
“You’re right, of course,” replied Holmes. “Perhaps Olivia Borden had originally kept them in the secretary desk just as Warren suspected or even in the japanned box so conveniently left open for us. But move them she did, and somehow - maybe with Rosa’s help - hid them beneath her mattress. In any case, I suspect that by now Rita has found her aunt’s hiding place - or may even have been given the papers. In any case, Rita’s probably the only one who knows their current location.”
I was about to respond; but we had reached the metal fence, and Holmes put his finger to his lips. In the darkness, we slipped through the open gates and tiptoed to the garden at the side of the building. It was here that we encountered the French window that earlier Holmes had so presciently left open. Although we could see nothing of the sitting room through the curtained glass, we could hear quite clearly the conversation that was going on inside.
“I thought that you liked spending time with me,” Miss Rita was saying to Warren.
“Of course, I do,” said the professor. “I enjoy your company. Remember those summer evenings out in the garden?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “They were grand.” You could hear the longing in her voice. “For years I’ve been imprisoned here with my aunt. And then you came round, someone who took an interest in me.”