by David Marcum
“Please, calm yourself,” said Sherlock Holmes soothingly to the young woman who started from her seat as I bounded into the room. “You have no cause for alarm with Dr. Watson. He may have forgotten his manners as regards knocking on doors in houses where he no longer resides, but in other regards he is quite the gentleman.”
“My apologies, Holmes,” I stammered. “I shall call again at a more convenient time. I’m deeply sorry if I startled you, Miss...”
“Miss Lodge had just begun telling me her most interesting story, Watson. I’m sure you won’t mind my friend sitting in while we conclude our meeting, Miss Lodge. Besides being a gentleman, as I said, there is no man better to have at one’s side in a time of crisis.”
As grateful as I was for Holmes’s endorsement, I was still more gratified to see the panicked expression on the young woman’s face relax into a somewhat bashful smile. “I’m pleased to meet you, Doctor.” She offered me her gloved hand, but as I bent to take it she froze indecisively, as if caught in mid-curtsey and, both rather flustered, we straightened up and parted.
Before I could return any pleasantry, Holmes cut in, declaring, “Seat yourself and stop distracting my client from the statement of her case, if you would, Watson.” The face of mock chastisement I pulled at this command saw the lady put a handkerchief to her mouth to stifle a laugh, and even Holmes permitted himself a thin smile. “Well, as we all seem to be comfortable in one another’s presence, let us continue. Miss Lodge, if you would briefly summarise what you have already told me for my friend’s benefit?”
She turned to me, still too self-conscious to look me fully in the eye, and thereby allowing me the opportunity to inspect her more closely. She could have been no more than seventeen, neatly but plainly attired, though both the heaviness of her clothing and the thickness of her gloves were vastly unsuited to the summer’s warmth. Her face was scrubbed and pink, her eyes bright, but with a puffiness around them that spoke of recent tears. “My name is Florence Lodge, sir, and my problem is my whole family’s problem, for it is our poor older sister who has been taken from us.” My eyes must have darted upwards, as if to the Heavens, for she shook her head firmly. “Taken by the law!” She paused, addressing the sudden rise in her voice, her tone as she resumed remaining studiedly polite. “Your pardon, but she has been taken from us by the police, Dr. Watson. She is a good, decent woman who would break neither the law of God nor man! And she would never betray one as has been so good in offering her a generous paying situation, and who has been the very soul of kindness itself to her those years she’s been there! But still, she has lost that situation, and lost her liberty, and we don’t know what is to be done to help her. For the police say there is proof against her, and she will not tell even us who she loves one word about what has brought her to such a pitiful plight. But I’ve read enough about you both, sir, to know that if anyone can see through false proofs to find the truth, then surely these are the men I speak to now.”
“Oh, surely,” agreed Holmes with a quick smile, waving the young lady to continue.
“I can offer you five pounds if you will help free my unfortunate sister. I would gladly give more, but those are all I have set aside. Though if poor Mathilda isn’t cleared and allowed her position back, that fiver isn’t going to go far in keeping us lot - my mother and little brothers - off the streets. Mathilda’s been our chief support since Dad went, and though I try to chip in when I’m earning, someone has to help with the little ones, so it’s not as often as I’d like. I’ll be able to go to ten, fifteen even, if you can wait a little for the balance.”
I was moved by the composure with which Miss Lodge set out her circumstances, with humility but no hint of pleading, and I was further touched by Holmes’s simple reply of, “You need not trouble yourself over my fee.”
His prospective client, on the other hand, appeared markedly less touched than I by the gesture, replying sharply, “We don’t expect anyone’s charity.”
“Nor do I offer it. If an injustice has been done, my reward will be in seeing it righted. And I have little else to occupy my time at the moment.” This latter was said with an edge of asperity, and I scarcely needed to follow Holmes’s glance to confirm that it fell upon the pile of newspapers threatening to spill off the table, and the topmost headline - matching that which nestled discreetly in my bag and which was being yelled by every paper vendor in London - proclaiming, “Continent’s Foremost Specialists Consulted in Marleigh Towers Tragedy”. I could not have declared which was the most likely basis of Holmes’s annoyance; that he himself had not been consulted in that matter which had gripped the city for days, or that there were others regarded as closer to the forefront of criminal investigation than he.
What then followed is one of those coincidences that would appear on the page as fanciful and farfetched if it were not absolute fact. My eye had no sooner lit upon that newspaper report than my attention was diverted by the rattle of carriage wheels drawing to a halt below. Having followed one of Holmes’s manoeuvres in sitting with my back to the window in order to view his visitor’s every change of expression while leaving my own features and the direction of my gaze partially obscured in shadow, it required a mere turn of my head to see that the carriage bore a coat of arms made instantly recognisable by its repeated presence in those news reports. Hurriedly gathering up the overflowing newspapers, I hissed, “Holmes, Lord Sternfleet of Marleigh Towers is on your doorstep.”
I had expected these words to galvanise the languid detective, but before even he could spring, alert and energised, from his seat, his young guest was on her feet and at the sitting room door. “I must go! I cannot meet... No, I will not meet...” The chiming of the doorbell cut across her words, and she threw the door wide and rushed from the room.
“I have your address, Miss Lodge,” called Holmes. “I shall call on you there to hear the remainder of your account, and so establish how best I may assist you.”
The young lady paused at the head of the stairs, snapping heatedly in response, “You shan’t find me there, for I’ll be waiting vigil outside that place they’re keeping her. I can see I wasted my time coming here, and that my sister’s troubles and her story are much too petty for you, Mr. Holmes! You’d do us both a kindness in forgetting I ever was here.”
“I cannot forget, nor would I wish to!” But my friend was left addressing an empty landing, as the rapid din of her receding footsteps on the stairs was followed by a deep, masculine voice letting fly an exclamation of startled annoyance, and Mrs. Hudson’s concerned call after the hastily departing visitor, just as the front door slammed with some finality.
“Such an extraordinary change of demeanour,” I shrugged. “Was she perhaps too embarrassed to meet such a distinguished figure?”
“Because she is merely a scullery maid or char and he a peer of the realm? No, there is more to it than that.”
But before I could establish what Holmes meant, or how he had known the girl’s mode of employment, his landlady hastily entered wearing a flustered look - one which turned rapidly to a grimace of mortification on sighting the cluttered mess of her upstairs front room - and announced severely, “A distinguished gentleman to see you, Mr. Holmes.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, that will be all. My, my; a third caller since the clock chimed the hour? It is as well I am without ego, or such unforeseen popularity might turn my head! Lord Sternfleet, do come in.”
“You know me, sir?” demanded the tall, stylishly garbed but grim faced gentleman who strode impatiently into the centre of the room, his dark eyes peering suspiciously from behind a swirling wreath of smoke from the cigar clamped in his gritted teeth; then, glancing at the newspapers I still held in my hands, gruffly adding, “Of course you know me, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. How foolish a question.”
“Of course, your Lordship,” replied Holmes, with the merest hint of a sly smile in my directio
n. “Alas, Watson, gone so soon are the days when our noble guests arrived masked and aliased, allowing us a scant few seconds’ intrigue at least.”
“There can be no intrigue over my visit, I trust,” glowered our eminent caller, “as my unhappy circumstances are the most talked about scandal of the summer.”
“A prominent foreign gentleman found in his bed with his throat cut while a guest under the roof of one of the nation’s most highly esteemed diplomats, and another guest so traumatised by the discovery that she has taken to her own bed, while her renowned husband is torn between his official duties abroad and his husbandly duties toward his stricken wife.”
“You encapsulate in a few words what the press has devoted yard upon yard of column inches to in these past dreadful days,” muttered Lord Sternfleet darkly, seating himself stiff and alert on the sofa toward which Holmes gestured, before he too sat, drawing deeply upon his pipe so that the combined smog from it and his guest’s cigar threatened to fill the room.
“Already you have the pre-eminent experts of both affected countries en route to forage the ancestral grounds for traces of an assassin. I am sure your judgement in awarding these specialists carte blanche will eventually prove sound. They say that Herr von Waldbaum has the tenacity and stamina to turn entire households on their head in pursuit of his prey, while Monsieur Dubuque is more inclined to probe within the actual heads of those inhabiting the households.” If it were possible for the nobleman’s expression to darken any further, these words provided just cause. “I would have been most interested in studying these gentlemen at work, but as you observed from my now disrupted previous appointment, I am already engaged on a case.”
Lord Sternfleet’s eyes bulged in their sockets. “That unruly child who practically dashed me over on your doorstep?”
“My client,” said Holmes blandly. “Yes.”
“But you surely realise the enormity of my situation, Holmes! My family’s long-established name lies in hazard. My cousins are the Earls of Shardsmere. My own sister is married to a Duke! What affects my reputation also overshadows some of the noblest houses in Britain! And as this ghastly business has taken place on British soil, a British agency must take charge of these enquiries.”
“And on whose advice do you approach me? Not on the say-so of Scotland Yard, for the official charged with taking the case over from your local constabulary - Inspector Godfrey Highford? Thank you, Watson - is not one that has consulted me in the past.”
“Nor did he wish you consulted here, for what his approval matters. Yet your suitability and availability for this commission were vouched for by an utterly reliable source within those circles my position makes my own, Mr. Holmes. From any other, I would have suspected favouritism in the recommendation, but knowing my advisor’s precise and logical nature, such a factor would, I believe, be absolutely incidental.”
Hindsight now leaves it clear to me that this nameless advisor could only be Mycroft Holmes, yet at this time I had encountered Holmes’s remarkable older brother but once, and the scant information I held on him gave no indication of the supreme levels of authority or trust he held within the government, nor, of course, of his influence in murkier, shadowed areas of power. And as such things were yet unknown to me, so too was the reason this reply appeared to nettle Holmes, who coolly responded, “Your advisor’s cast-iron reputation for reliability must suffer a unique dent, for I remain otherwise engaged.”
“Then, Holmes, you must disengage yourself! Before God, I promise five hundred guineas to the one who untangles this frightful affair. No? A thousand! More, if you would but name your price! And what can that wretched girl offer?”
“Your Lordship could lose the sums he speaks of a hundredfold and only notice the loss if it meant switching to a less exclusive brand of cigar. That ‘wretched girl’ offered to the very limit of what she can give - beyond even that - and only the direst need would inspire such a sacrifice. Therefore her needs are more urgent, and my services are hers.”
Fearing that my friend’s pique had prompted him to act rashly, I spoke urgently. “Miss Lodge’s case is no doubt important, but the matter at Marleigh Towers is the only crime being spoken of anywhere.”
His Lordship turned an appraising eye on me, as if noticing my presence for the first time. “Lodge, do you say?”
“The name has some meaning for you, Lord Sternfleet?”
“A triviality, Mr. Holmes. A damn servant girl my wife imprudently trusted was caught taking advantage of these appalling events to cover her own petty thievery. She is rotting miserably in a cell now, but if only that cell held the malefactor who brutally did to death a guest to this nation as well as to my home! There are international implications here, sir. My guests were in this country for more than a mere holiday. Not that this is known save by those under orders of the strictest confidence.”
“Then, as you have clearly decided to take me into your confidence, I had better hear the full particulars,” said Holmes, mildly.
Lord Sternfleet rose to his full, considerable height, the steely look returning to his eyes. “Then it would be better for you to hear the account at the site of these grim events, if you would be good enough to accompany me.”
“Well, Watson, will your good lady wife miss you dreadfully if you were gone a few hours? You have no objection if my friend, Dr. Watson, joins me, your Lordship? He is an invaluable ally and frequently highlights angles to a situation that I may have failed to consider.”
Whether either my wife or Lord Sternfleet objected or not, Holmes did not wait to learn, as, throwing his dressing gown aside in favour of a light jacket, he led our procession downstairs and into the waiting carriage, although he did recall his manners long enough to permit Lord Sternfleet the task of instructing the driver to convey us to Marleigh Towers.
II. Guests of His Lordship
What was recounted during the drive to that stricken house was in keeping with the news reports. Lord Herbert and Lady Verity Sternfleet - herself the daughter of an illustrious house, whose elderly patriarch was said to be gravely affected by the possible scandal - had opened their home to a gathering consisting of Monsieur Francois Lefalque, the French industrialist and magnate, and his near neighbours on the far side of the much disputed Franco-German border, the Graf and Grafin Rupert and Natascha von Schellsberg. “This was a reunion of longstanding friends, you understand, who have often played host to one another, be it in manor house, chateau or schloss. Yet in recent years there had been a cooling in our kinship, and my dear Verity urged me to allow her to extend an invitation before we good companions had drifted irretrievably into the status of mere former acquaintances. To our great elation, the invitations were enthusiastically accepted, and the dining hall of Marleigh Towers rang with happy laughter, while the jovial discussion of old times led freely into plans for further reunions and a strengthening of bonds grown fragile due to neglect. The happy group that parted long after midnight was one fully expecting to reconvene over breakfast in a similarly joyful frame of mind. Yet all joy was dashed aside by the terrible discovery of that morning.
“We had, I suppose, dined and drank rather too well. Consequently none of us was notably early in rising, or else Francois Lefalque’s brutal fate would have been detected far sooner. And when those horrified screams rang out and set bedroom doors crashing and footsteps hurtling along corridors, I had to forego dressing, throw on my dressing gown, and race from my room to discover the outcry’s source. I almost collided with Verity, looking so pale and anguished as she grasped my hand for courage, and we both rushed to find the maid - Tanner is the name my wife cried out - standing shuddering and whimpering in the open doorway of Lefalque’s bedroom, while Rupert von Schellsberg’s swift arrival and efforts to discover the cause of the snivelling girl’s alarm were hampered by the fact that, in his rudely awoken perplexity, he addressed her in his native German.
/> “At our approach, Tanner nearly threw herself into my wife’s arms, such is the devotion and esteem in which the staff holds Lady Verity. ‘Your Ladyship, the gentleman asked me to wake him, but the door wasn’t locked nor even closed properly, because it opened at my knock, and I saw... Oh, it’s too horrible, your Ladyship! You mustn’t look!’
“The Graf, already left looking green and drawn by his consumption of claret the previous night, had now glimpsed what Tanner had seen, and he echoed her words. ‘Your wife should not see this, Sternfleet. Nor any woman. My God, if Natascha had witnessed such a thing!’ And he lurched to his wife’s bedchamber, his hurry partly fuelled by his wish not to be seen looking so shaken as servants began swarming into the upper corridor, drawn by those cries. My wife instructed her lady’s maid - that despicable girl I spoke of earlier, Lodge or Hodge - to give the gravely shaken Tanner something warming for the shock, and she wrapped a coat around her and took her down to the kitchens. Then, ignoring all warnings and my own attempts to prevent her, Lady Verity strode past me and into that bloody chamber.”
So gripped was I by the account, I was startled back into the reality of our carriage by the raising of Holmes’s hand. “Sir, you are lapsing into melodrama, and such is best left the province of the good doctor. My understanding is that what blood was visible was confined to the victim, his bedding and night attire, not slathering the walls of some gore-streaked horror chamber. I appreciate that emotions have run wild, but as it has been left too deplorably late for me to witness the scene for myself, I must ask that you are as accurate as possible in your report so that I may reconstruct the setting in my mind.”
Plainly unused to being interrupted in anything, Lord Sternfleet even so acknowledged the reasoning behind Holmes’s rebuke, nodding tersely before continuing. “I feel I have told this story a thousand times over, to a veritable parade of policemen of all ranks, and to my superiors and advisors within Parliament. I will attempt to be as precise with you as I was with them. But when I cast my mind back, the room and its contents recede, and all I clearly see is the glassy-eyed glare of my old friend and a monstrous quantity of blood! Francois was propped up in the bed, pillows at his back, and his nightshirt and sheets were soaked through. It can only have been a cowardly sneak attack as he had slept, for he had the strength of a bear. Once, as a younger man, I saw him tackle and best two men far larger than he, purely because he overheard them make some remark about a lady in our company. But here he had no time to fight back, and his throat was cut clean across.”