by David Marcum
“Yes, there had been some strain in the friendship. But purely in matters of business. Francois inherited many factories and dealings in his province, which you must know runs side by side with my own region. Between us there is the border, marked by the great river, across which our friendship has built bridges to match those tangible bridges of stone and timber. One signifier of this alliance was always the free flowing of workers from my region into his factories, and of rural labourers from his territory into the farmlands of my own. Of late, however, more and more of my people were informed they were no longer required, while his tenants were discouraged from taking up work in our fields. Francois was more business-like about it than I had ever seen. ‘The factories become automated, Rupert, and it is but correct that my own people be first to learn these new technologies.’ But if you think this a reason for vengeance, I would bear a very bloody hand if I took such revenge against all who inconvenienced me in affairs of business.”
“I thank you for your statement, my Lord Graf,” said Holmes with a slight bow, “which I would undoubtedly have sought. But if we may remove ourselves to the downstairs area, I wish to speak to the unfortunate servant who raised the alarm.”
IV. A Rival of Sherlock Holmes
Though Lord Sternfleet objected to Holmes interviewing a lowly member of his staff before his guests, with his wife’s calming influence brought to bear he bit down on his objections, as he also did when my friend requested that he might speak to Miss Tanner alone. So we were soon seated at the table in the large, white-tiled kitchen, with a healthily plump, tousle-headed girl of some twenty years, uncomfortable in an ill-fitting lady’s maid’s uniform, seated apprehensively on the very edge of a kitchen chair opposite us. “Will this take long, sir? Only with everything that’s happened and us being short, and all, I can’t neglect my new duties. Thank you, sir. But you won’t make me describe it again, will you, sir?”
“We have already heard all about that, and you have been very brave,” said Holmes with one of those placid smiles he would conjure up when dealing with excessively nervous witnesses. “But you said that the late gentleman asked you to waken him early.”
“Most particularly early, sir. ‘You will knock at five of the clock, and if I do not answer you are not to hesitate a moment, but to come in and waken me.’ Only the master’s party stayed up so late that by the time we’d cleared after them it was after two, and I near overslept myself and forgot until breakfast was nigh served up. You... you don’t think, sir, that if I had been on time, the gentleman might still be alive? Or,” and here her hand flew to her throat, “Or might I have opened the door on the killer swooping over the bed with the bloodied blade still at work? Oh, sir! Now I’m moved up there, next door to her ladyship, I don’t sleep hardly any, knowing what happened just a few doors along.”
I was quick in reassuring her that she had no call for guilt over failing to waken Lefalque on time, or to fear that she had narrowly escaped his fate. She displayed clear relief at this, and also that Holmes steered his questioning to events prior to her appalling find. “Any other requests from the gentleman, sir? Only, before dinner, for ink and paper. No, he sent no letter that I know of, sir, as it would have been me or one of the footmen sent out to post it.”
“I saw both ink and paper on the bureau, but nothing written,” mused Holmes.
“He might have put off writing whatever it was to the morning,” I suggested. “Indeed, that may have been why he wished to rise so early.”
“Or perhaps what he wrote never left the house. But surely, Miss Tanner, it’s not a lady’s maid’s task to deliver mail. Oh, but you have been recently promoted, I gather, in place of that shameful rogue, Hodge...”
The maid’s rosy cheeks reddened further and the quaver fled from her voice. “Lodge is her name, sir, and Matty isn’t no rogue, sir, and whatever she done must have been because her family needed the money, or someone forced her to it, but not for her own self! She weren’t like that.”
“I thank you, Miss Tanner, as I am certain your friend would for your spirited defence and your loyalty.”
“If any was loyal, it was she to me, and to the mistress, sir. If she done the thing she’s accused of, she must have had reasons.”
“Greed is as good a reason for theft as any wretched excuse I’ve heard over the years,” snapped the diminutive, grimacing, fellow whose gingerish beard failed to conceal his weak chin, and who strode into the kitchen on the balls of his feet as if hoping to gain height, circling around us with all the purpose of a bull in fervent pursuit of a china shop. “We haven’t met, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, but I’ve heard a very great deal of you from my colleagues, and how you have a knack of getting wound up in those cases of theirs that might attract public notice for your vaunted methods.”
“Inspector Highford, I presume. Forgive me; I have heard nothing of you from your fellow officers. And I can assure you that gaining notice for my methods will not be the case here.”
“No, sir, it is I who offer you that assurance! But as you have been called in by his Lordship, I will let you proceed, even if you do not have the same courtesy to wait until the regulars are present to begin your inquisition.” Then, making abundantly clear his intention to monitor whatever may follow, he scraped a chair noisily across the tiles and sat, fixing Holmes with his pale and narrow gaze.
“Matty was proper shaken,” the maid, after a nervous glance at the scowling policeman, continued. “Though she was more concerned about Lady Verity than her own self, I’d swear. A real kind gentlewoman the mistress is. She gave me as many days off to get over the sight of that poor gent’s throat as I may need; only I’ve no family near nor anywhere to go, so I stayed here where there was folks about. And Matty, who had been so good and looked after me in my fright, she let go for the day to see her people.”
“Which was more kind than sensible, as we had not had time to question everyone,” opined Highford. “But she can’t have expected me to still be here in my vigilance. These local boys aren’t much, and it took a proper professional turning up before we even had the weapon, but with our Mathilda acting suspicious by the shrubs near the path, even this lot had to notice. And with her wrestling with a bag she tried to drop as soon as she saw the constable’s approach, I had her. Yes, I can show you what the bag contained, for it is still here.” And with an impatient cry he summoned a constable, before sending the man rushing off again to fetch the confiscated item. “We’ve had no time to take it to the local station, as I’ve more important matters to attend to here. But you be sure that when they’re settled, I’ll be taking Miss Mathilda Lodge and her bag of spoils back with me to the Yard and teaching her how those who abuse the trust of their betters are dealt with there. Come on, let’s have them here, lad.” The garments Highford wafted out across the kitchen table, as if laying a delicately embroidered table cloth, were a pair of women’s nightdresses, the one of them plain but of the finest cotton, the other more feathered and lacily decorated than anything one might see in any but the most stylish and exclusive clothing shop.
“In all things feminine and fashionable I bow to your considerable knowledge and experience, my old friend, yet your blush tells me that this is not a common garment.” I protested that, as a recently married man, I should keep my own counsel in such matters, provoking a barked laugh from Holmes. “But it is at least as uncommon in London as a maker’s label declaring its origin in a deluxe continental boutique would make it.”
“And worth a penny every bit as pretty as these ribbons and laces. Though not worth nearly as much as this,” gloated Highford, tossing a large and sparkling ruby brooch onto the topmost nightdress, where it redly glistened like a fresh bullet wound to the heart of the garment’s unseen wearer. “Lord Sternfleet confirms it as property of his wife, and the girl has no good explanation for why she would be in possession of it. For cleaning and polishing, she claimed, yet
she could give the name of no jeweller to whom such a task had been assigned. No, there was nothing noticed as missing previously, but that simply tells me that after some petty pilfering the likes of these fine garments, she’d grown bold, and thought nobody would pay any heed to a missing jewel when there was murder on every mind.”
“Matty isn’t like that, I’ve told you already!”
“Mind your place and hold your tongue, Miss Tanner! If she’s so innocent, how is it that when we took ourselves round to her old mum’s address, we found towels enough to fit some nice gaps in the linen closet here, all fresh from the copper and hung out to dry in her back yard? Ha! Just as they’ve hung her out to dry? The mother doesn’t even know what day it is, chasing after those nippers of hers, and I doubt she’d ever seen anything so clean and white hung there since her wedding day. If then! I would still have brought her in and got something out of her. Leastways suggesting that such an action might just be my next step, with the mum in the next cell and the little ones to the poorhouse, got Miss Mathilda talking, and she’s admitted, finally, that she took them. And that the murder was the cause!”
“Did she, indeed?” responded Holmes, an eyebrow sharply rising. “How so?”
“Folks, as I’ve long-since learned, are ghoulish. They were lining up outside the gates here the instant word was out someone had died nasty inside. Or maybe the mob just smelled the blood! Fine fabrics and the like will fetch a price anyway, as you’d know if you’d to deal with every dipper who’d hooked himself a pocketful of silk hankies. But as souvenirs of the murder house, she saw they’d double or treble in price. And this is the girl whose innocence everyone pleads? The depths to which some will sink to make money from misery. Unbelievable!”
“The exact word,” replied Holmes. “And so you have left this frightened girl to fret and stew, and await her punishment as a common thief, while you scrabble to locate the clues to a killer you have not the slightest trace of, before your field of enquiry is invaded by private investigators from all across the continent.”
As the inspector rose abruptly, glaring down at Holmes, I was put instantly in mind of one of those awful, spoiled lapdogs one sometimes sees snapping and growling defiantly round the heels of a much larger hound, oblivious to the fact that one single flash of teeth and snap of a jaw from the mightier beast would quickly silence its yapping. “And fretting and stewing has finally produced results, for her confession will be all I need when her time in the dock comes round.”
Holmes leapt smartly to his feet, and I did likewise, if less nimbly, and followed as he strode towards the kitchen door. “Then you merely prolong her agony as you do your own. And we waste valuable time here.”
Highford’s unconvincing mien of superiority could not survive his awkward stumbling trot as he came clattering up the stairs and barging through the green baize door into the marbled hall in our wake. “What do you mean by that? If you know something, you’ll tell me, Mr. Holmes!” These squawked demands brought a halt to the urgent conversation taking place by the foot of that great staircase we had earlier ascended, as Lord and Lady Sternfleet and the Graf von Schellsberg turned their combined scrutiny upon us.
“I cannot know, only suspect, while one who gains nothing from withholding what she does know is not being asked the proper questions, since, in your eagerness to arrest someone for anything, you treat her as a mere pilferer instead of a vital witness who may know exactly why Lefalque died and who it was that applied the killing blade.” The instant these words passed Holmes’s lips, Highford snapped his instructions for a constable to ride to the station and fetch the prisoner. Sherlock Holmes, lighting a cigarette, raised a concerned eyebrow. “You are surely not leaving such a valuable witness to the care of a fresh-faced constable?”
“The Dickens I will,” cried Highford, storming toward the door, while Holmes drew the constable momentarily aside, murmuring a few quick words to him and eliciting a nod of assent before the policeman hurried off in pursuit of the inspector.
The echo of the constable’s footsteps had barely been replaced by the rattle of the police wagon’s wheels when a door slammed directly above. I looked to the top of the stairs to see a swaying apparition, hair awry around a pale and staring face, a clawed hand tugging her dressing gown around her while she grasped the railing with the other, as if dragging herself forward with every step. “You know. You know! No use now in hiding it,” she shrilled, her words halting the Graf’s ascent toward her, before he addressed her in urgent German. The distressed woman, so clearly his wife, replied in that same tongue. The language was lost on me, yet still the shifting expression on the Graf’s face spoke eloquently of his shock, anger and finally utter sadness, while his refusal to accept his wife’s proffered hand as she passed him was answered by a glance of such sorrow and regret that my heart was moved to both of them.
“Thank you for saving me the trouble of summoning you, Grafin von Schellsberg. The inspector will be back as if the devil himself was on his tail, so keen is he to have the experts repelled at the ports. Therefore, we have little time to piece this story together.”
“Natascha, you are not well, and do not know what you are saying,” pleaded Lady Verity, gripping her friend by the shoulders as if trying to calm a hysteric. But the Grafin had become calmness itself, brushing back her unkempt hair from her weary but striking face, and summoning up every inch of poise in her reserves.
“I know exactly what I am saying, Verity,” she said, her English faultless and clear. “I should have said it all from the beginning, and saved all of you these dreadful days.”
“And will you leave your friend to speak alone, your Ladyship?” asked Holmes. “Or would you have me speak for your part in the tragedy?”
“You impertinent swine,” roared Lord Sternfleet, his eyes savage with uncomprehending fury.
“Mr. Holmes is correct. I must speak along with Natascha,” said her Ladyship. “No, please, Herbert, do not look at me like that, as if I were a stranger. Just listen, and try to find it in your heart, if not to forgive, then to understand that we did only what we thought was for the best.” Lady Sternfleet then placed her hand in Grafin’s, and the women faced their dumbstruck husbands with an air of desolate nobility, before politely requesting that we move elsewhere so that they might relate their sad tale.
V. The Statement of the Crime
The clear blue day seemed to dim and the shadows lengthen, while the clouds beyond the windows of the vast drawing room in which we now gathered converged and loomed, darkening the heavens and betokening storms as if in sympathy with the events taking place inside that room. “You knew of my part in this from the outset, Mr. Holmes,” said Lady Verity, “but may I know how?”
“I should also like to know this,” snapped Lord Sternfleet, his temper as hot as the glowing tip of blazing cigar, “and also why you kept these monstrous accusations to yourself while sending the inspector off after trifling matters.”
My voice echoed loudly in that vast room, as I snapped, “A defenceless woman’s liberty is not a trifle!”
“Well said, Watson! I knew because, while the inspector and I both regularly encounter the worst and most depraved examples of humanity, I have also learned to listen when innocence is protested and where loyalty is invoked; for what purpose does it serve to pursue justice if we cannot believe there exists good in this world, despite its vices, temptations and ills?”
“You evidently mean the innocence and loyalty protested by Miss Lodge’s sister,” I surmised, finally slotting the pieces of that incomplete statement I had heard on my arrival in Baker Street into place within the larger puzzle of the day.
“Lord Sternfleet’s brusque arrival interrupted a resourceful young visitor in the telling of her story, yet the dramatic reaction his imminent presence provoked was to provide me with two of the most vital missing parts of that tale. I now knew the house
hold involved, and also that the ‘good’ and ‘kind’ employer spoken of could not be a reference to his Lordship; a supposition his very clear attitude to anyone not his social equal rapidly proved. This is why I did not instantly expose her Ladyship’s involvement, for to earn the loyalty she has been shown, she must be a formidable woman, and my subsequent discoveries of the day have only confirmed that deduction. Why else would an innocent, facing imprisonment, remain silent for another’s sake? To whom was she loyal, if not the mistress whose kindness and honour she has praised, not only within this household where deference would be expected, but beyond and with those she most trusts? And with that honour so highly spoken of, I could reasonably conclude that you, Lady Verity, had not been the late Lefalque’s mistress.
“It is not prurience that causes such an allegation, so put aside your outraged sensibilities, your Lordship! That this soiree was arranged to coincide with Madame Lefalque’s traditional absence was suggestive, and there have been too many coincidences along the way to allow the strange wanderings of nightdresses to be counted as such. We then have the possibility of notes being written that do not pass outside this house, and, as your Lordship assures me Lefalque was carrying no secret papers, what other kind of incriminating item might more easily require a fire to hasten its disposal than some indiscreet communication? Ah, talk of secret papers surprises some of you? But there has been little innocence to this gathering, and while your Ladyship was fostering intrigues and affairs of the heart, affairs of an equally delicate nature were the ultimate goal of other parties.”