“Never mind – please forget that I brought it up.”
“Gladly.”
“Poiret – what are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you, mon ami.”
“You recognised me.”
“My suspicions of Dr Watson are fuelled by the fact that his word cannot be relied on. As I see here, he grossly exaggerated your talent for disguise. Do you think anyone is fooled by such inexpertly applied rouge and glued-on whiskers?”
Sherlock Holmes touched his cheek.
“I am wearing no rouge.”
“In that case, monsieur, I should see a doctor. Other than Dr Watson, that is. I deduce your interview with him did not go well.”
“You know he is staying here?”
“Where else would a wealthy man stay?”
“He is here at government expense. How do you deduce that our interview did not go well? Pray share your method with me.”
“No need for petulance, Mr Holmes – just because I predicted you would come here and pierced your disguise. In fact your disguise is better applied than the first time I saw you wearing it.”
“When was that?” Sherlock Holmes said, still tetchy.
“In the Duke of York’s kinematograph. A performance of the film Sherlock Holmes with the actor William Gillette in the title role he first made his own on stage some fifteen years ago.”
Sherlock Holmes’s red cheeks paled.
“You saw me there?”
Poiret tutted.
“And at the Theatre Royal where Mr Saintsbury is doing a fine job playing you in the revival of the play.” He smiled. “It is of no matter – I will likely do the same one day when my celebrity is more established outside France and there are seven-reelers of my own exploits.”
“I am sure of it.” Holmes shook his head and looked out to where a little blue-sailed boat tacked in the wind near the tip of the West Pier. “Do you know who played Billy, Mrs Hudson’s page, when I first saw Gillette do the play on stage in London?”
Poiret shook his head.
“The Little Tramp. That’s right – this Charlie Chaplin who is now doing so well in the flickers.”
“Indeed.”
Poiret too looked out to sea. The vicar coughed.
“But be aware, Poiret. It is not easy to see yourself as others portray you. You are bound to be disappointed. You will ask many questions - how could they possibly think that actor looks anything like me or that I would act in that foolish way and so on.
“I have observed myself in the flickers on many occasions. For one whole minute I was Sherlock Holmes Baffled as a burglar invaded my room then disappeared. In 1905 a saw an eight-minute version of what purported to be The Sign of the Four.
“Three years later I unmasked a gorilla as a murderer. I have battled Moriarty and a thief called Raffles together.”
Sherlock Holmes steepled his long-fingered hands.
“I’ve seen some thirty versions of me. I must say that I find it most disconcerting for other people to present me in such curious ways.” He leaned into Poiret. “It makes me doubt my own identity.”
“I can only imagine,” Poiret said. “What do you make of William Gillette? He is almost your actual age in this new film, which probably makes it even more abhorrent to you that at the end of the film he so vigorously courts young Alice Faulkner.” The French detective gave a little smile. “I know your views on women.”
“And yours? Are you with the other mustachioed continental detective in the view that women are never kind though sometimes tender?”
“I know that most Frenchmen would wish to talk about women all the day long but Jules Poiret is not most Frenchmen. Let us talk instead of your interview with my client, George Adlam.”
“He told you of my visit?”
“No, no. He told me nothing. I reasoned.”
“Indeed. How?”
Poiret chuckled, his eyes twinkling merrily.
“I saw you, reverend sir. In the public house in Ditchling. I guessed where you were going. Your walking stick, by the way, is behind the bar awaiting your return.”
Holmes touched his mutton chop whiskers.
“How did you meet George Adlam, Poiret?”
“We met by chance. I was dining with my good friend, Hercules Popeau – have you come upon him? No? You will. He is one of us. There is a little restaurant in London, in Soho. In the French Quarter, you understand. Oh, the moules there; the fruits de mer…” He smacked his lips. “Magnifique.”
Sherlock Holmes looked over his spectacles.
“I always enjoyed the chops or the roast beef at Simpson’s myself.”
“English chops.” Poiret cleared his throat. “Yes, I know them. Eh bien, Popeau and I walked over to Monmouth Street with the idea of calling on a colleague of ours who is a patient in the French Hospital and Dispensary. My friend Achille runs the dispensary.”
“Your friend? Isn’t that the name of your brother?”
“Not mine, maître. Dearest me, must I always be confused with that Belgian dwarf?”
“My apologies. Monmouth Street is very rough of an evening.”
“As we discovered. I had only ever passed through in the daytime when there is a charming collection of stalls selling a most interesting array of goods.”
“You were set upon?”
“Jostled. I think the pickpocket was intended.”
“Adlam intervened?”
“Nothing so heroic. We took refuge in a public house, although it was scarcely less worrisome than the street. There, Mr Adlam engaged us in conversation.” Poiret shrugged. “Voila.”
Sherlock Holmes looked at him for a long moment.
“That does not sound quite…complete.”
Poiret looked uncomfortable, touching the tips of his moustaches. Sherlock Holmes sipped his tea.
“Let me surmise that perhaps the men in the street made unkind comments about your magnificent moustache,” Holmes said. “That Mr Adlam heard these and made, perhaps, a more kindly comment. But that he then went on to mistake you for another foreigner with distinctive moustaches who has been in the press very much of late…”
“That dashed Belgian! For one so short he casts a long shadow thanks to this mysterious affair in Essex. I fear he will eclipse all other foreign detectives who preceded him and who perhaps he modelled himself on.”
Poiret took a deep breath and let it out with a long sigh.
“D’accord, Adlam asked for my assistance. And the fellow intrigued me. A man of humble birth who had tugged on his shoelaces – no, that is not correct…”
“Pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, perhaps?”
“Exactement.”
Poiret looked suspiciously at the cake set on a plate before him.
“Do have some of this cake. I believe it is called a Lancashire sad cake and when it arrived at my table I could see why: it is indeed a cake most dolorous. Most down-in-the-mouth. Mon Dieu, the English cooking. I thought I had plumbed its lowest depths when I had forced upon me the Spotted Dick but I realise I am still only in the shallows.”
“There is a war on, after all, Poiret. Come and help yourself to the slugs in my garden if you miss French cuisine. Besides, I believed you to like some English food. Brown sauce?”
“You are thinking of the other fellow again and, I believe, he only likes a particular brand because it bears his initials. I had ersatz butter here a little while ago made from nuts. Unbelievably disgusting.” He pushed the cake away. “As is this.”
“You were telling me about George Adlam.”
“Yes. Humble background. Worked as a labourer for many years, set himself up in business and prospered.”
“So he has no need of this money he claims was stolen from him.”
“Mr Holmes, for men such as you and I, money means nothing. But for others there is wealth and there is great wealth. In addition, the qualities required to become a self-made man I do not believe allow for being cheated out
of something a person feels is rightly his.”
“Astute comment, Poiret, most astute. So you met this man in a public house. Why was he there?”
“I would not wish to libel such a man but nor am I naïve – I am French, after all.”
“Meaning?”
“There were a number of actresses there.”
“Ah. Do go on.”
“I explained his error but told him who he was addressing. So then he asked for my help. The case was most intriguing, especially as it gave me an opportunity to meet the maître, the man on whom, to an extent, I have modelled my career.”
“You’re too kind. Perhaps I will just take a small piece of that cake.”
“It is doubtless made with suet.”
“Quite so. Thank you.”
Holmes put a large piece of the cake into his mouth and began to masticate it vigorously.
“Imagine my disappointment when I realised the Great Detective I had venerated was largely a figment of the imagination of Dr Watson.”
Sherlock Holmes was afflicted by a coughing fit.
“Crumbs in the throat,” he gasped as Poiret passed him a cup of tea and chuckled. He made a “please excuse my friend” gesture to the two gentlemen at the next table who were watching Sherlock Holmes’s coughing fit. He turned back to Sherlock Holmes.
“Touché, I think, monsieur. Suggesting I was a waiter indeed…”
When his eyes had stopped bulging and his throat had cleared Sherlock Holmes laughed good-naturedly. Then his expression changed.
“But back to business. The attempt on Watson’s life puzzles me. How would that achieve the return of the money?”
“I think that was a mistake. Remember we are dealing with three men here, all of whom have been under great pressure. I think the garrotting was the foolish act of one of them and he has been rebuked by his two friends.”
“I concur. Do you have a plan?”
“To prevent further attacks? Watson is safe enough staying here. I don’t believe Adlam is under threat. I think we must bring him and Dr Watson together. I am embarrassed to say that among hundreds of fierce-looking Indian soldiers the three we saw do not stand out so they must be traced through their hospital records. Perhaps Dr Watson could help.”
“I fear we have antagonised him. Why would he wish to help?”
“So he can be cleared of the graver charge of murdering his wife.”
Chapter Seventeen
The Mystery of Mary Morstan
“Good grief, man!” Sherlock Holmes protested, looking around to see if they were being overheard. He lowered his voice. “Have you no decency?”
Poiret looked puzzled.
“Maître, it is a logical enough question. If your judgement were not clouded by your friendship with Watson you would see that.”
Sherlock Holmes observed that the two men at the next table were indeed listening in. With undue interest? One was elderly and frail, his skin sallow. He had the look of a man who had spent his life in the tropics and there picked up malaria or some other debilitating disease.
His companion, much younger, was dressed in what had probably once been a fashionable cut of a summer suit. It was well-pressed but well-worn. The man had a neatly trimmed goatee beard. The detective put him down as yet another mittel-European exile, eking out his dwindling money.
“Very well,” he said to Poiret. “But perhaps we could discuss this whilst promenading.”
“Bien sûr.”
They walked across to the West Pier and onto it. Seagulls wheeled above them, the sky was blue, the breeze fresh and tangy. Once again, it was almost possible to believe all was well with the world. Except for the various bandaged, scarred and maimed soldiers they passed in their promenade, all without exception returning their looks with haunted eyes.
“From a comment you make in the narrative Dr Watson called The Empty Room, it seems Dr Watson’s wife, Mary, died whilst you were away during what has been called your Great Hiatus, when the world thought you dead. That is, sometime between 1891 and 1894.
“When you met her, only a couple of years earlier, she was a young woman in rude health and of strong character. So far as I am aware she did not die in childbirth: Watson never mourns a lost child nor celebrates the birth of one. So, we have the unexpected death of a healthy woman.”
Sherlock Holmes said nothing.
“The last time you saw her she was in good health?”
“Blooming, as best I recall.”
“He fell in love with her most speedily,” Poiret continued. “In fact, it was a coup de foudre – love at first sight, you understand?”
“I do not understand. As I have said, women –“
“- were Watson’s province. I remember. You repeat this very much. She was an orphan, of course – her mother had died when she was a child and her father had a weak heart and had died from it when Sholto’s behaviour enraged him. So anything she left would go to her husband, Dr Watson.”
“If you are correct – if, I say – when you postulate that the box was full of treasure when Watson opened it then you are also suggesting that Miss Morstan – Mrs Watson – colluded with him to keep this secret. From my limited knowledge of her I find this hard to believe.”
“Oh, monsieur, I can think of half a dozen ways Dr Watson could have worked it! Miss Morstan may never have even seen the iron box full. He could have opened it and hidden the treasure before ever he showed her the box. Or, knowing her modesty and dislike for society, he could have persuaded her to keep silence about her new status so that she did not become the subject of intolerable attention from the penny press.”
“Plausible proposals, were they directed toward anyone other than Dr Watson.”
“Exactly my point – your blinkers, monsieur. Did you never wonder why from the start Mary Morstan was absent from home so often – on a visit to her aunt or some friend or other? Especially as she had no aunt. In 1890 he was often absent from the marriage bed, leaving scribbled notes for Mary saying that he was off with you. I wonder what he was actually doing, since he recorded only three of your cases in that year?”
“I have no idea.”
“Tell me, were you best man at their wedding – or did your experience as witness at Irene Adler’s put you off such ceremonies for life?”
“I was not at Watson’s wedding - it was a small, private affair.”
“I can find no record of such a marriage in either her parish or his – and believe me I have looked. Perhaps they did not marry at all.”
“You can’t have it both ways,” Holmes protested. “If they weren’t married then Watson has no motive for killing her since he cannot inherit.”
Poiret shrugged.
“That is true and why I have to deal in probabilities not certainties.”
“Always a risk,” Sherlock Holmes said. “Presumably you have found her will in the public record confirming your suspicions.”
“I have not,” Poiret said, his manner less confident now.
Sherlock Holmes came to an abrupt stop.
“Poiret – really!”
Two fishermen, their lines hanging over the end of the pier, turned their heads.
“If you are not careful you will develop a bad reputation for theorising before the facts.” Holmes whispered. “How can you make these allegations with no proof at all to support them?”
“I make these remarks only to you, a fellow detective with whom I discuss a case. I said it was a possible hypothesis and so it remains. It is for you to find the truth before harm comes to Dr Watson.”
“Surely it is to find the three Indians who threaten Dr Watson’s life?”
“Did you meet his next wife?”
“His next wife?”
“You yourself reported, Mr Holmes, in your account of The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier that ‘the good Watson has deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association’.”
“I did?”
Poiret nodded.
“That was in 1903. I presume you have never met this wife?”
“I have not.”
“Nor even know if she too might have died?”
“Are you trying to make Watson into Bluebeard?”
“It seems I do not need to try very hard.”
“Like Watson you see but you do not observe,” Holmes said mildly.
“I observe that Dr Watson’s word cannot be trusted about anything.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Plot Thickens
George Adlam stood on the esplanade, a cigarette cupped in his hand as the wind blew in from the sea. It was quiet except for the rattle of the shackles against the spars of the fishing boats drawn up on the beach below and the suck of the sea on the pebbles and rocks. It was dark too. The worry about German warships bombarding the town, or zeppelins and aircraft dropping bombs, meant that all the lights along the seafront were turned off each evening.
He looked back at the Royal Pavilion. The lights were not fully extinguished there. Candles and lamplight somewhere in the depths of the building. And somewhere inside the grandiose palace, perhaps, his quarry.
He listened to the chop and the slap of the water against the huge concrete blocks of the groyne below him. For a man from Pershore, who’d scarcely seen the sea, he was ineluctably drawn to oceans. Or maybe it was the thought of crossing them to some far-off exotic land. As his grandfather had done, although he had not fared so well on his travels.
He would have liked to have known his grandfather. He would have asked him:
“Which is best? To have gained a fortune and lost it or never to have had the fortune in the first place?”
The treasure that his grandfather had suffered so much for, the treasure that would have made them perhaps wealthier even than Lord Holderness, had been torn from them.
Adlam’s mother had been keen for him to get an education but his father’s priority was putting food on the table for harsh winters so Adlam had left school at eleven and laboured day and night.
For years he had meditated on the treasure, working crippling hours as a farm-labourer then moving into cities, stoking the fires of the industrialisation of England. He still occasionally coughed up the coal dust that would probably forever coat his lungs.
The Belgian and The Beekeeper Page 8