“Your surmises are merely that – surmises,” he mused, scraping his thumbnail over his temple as the cigarette quietly fumed along with its owner. “Dairy farmers, especially on a scale as small as he claims, do not often expend candle wax on hobbies as frivolous as reading romantic fiction. However, I concur with your impression that something concrete is amiss. I merely hesitate to leap to any specific conclusions. Currently we stand hip-deep in a morass, our suspicions based almost entirely upon common types of people, if you will, rather than more uncommon examples of Homo sapiens, the study of which I have in essence made my livelihood.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that the unusual does not always connote the sinister.”
“It only usually does.”
Mr. Holmes almost smiled.
“So we’re not really any further along than we were before,” I sighed.
“On the contrary, Lestrade. We have been gifted with something remarkable – it is the unremarkable crime that always proves the most arduous to solve, because anyone may have committed it.”
Mr. Holmes in a lecturing mood generally makes me want to stuff his perfectly knotted cravat down his throat. This time, though, there wasn’t any joy in it on his part. Which took the wind clean out of my sails. It’s good sport to picture sticking it to Mr. Holmes when he’s puffing himself up like a prima donna. But his eyes were leaden, and his tone was weary. I almost longed for a few of the more extravagant hand gestures.
Almost.
“This man’s letters, then, are idiosyncratic because they are both articulate and crude at once,” Mr. Holmes explained vacantly. “Our subject’s word choice is vivid, precise; but his penmanship suggests the mental acuity of a man better used to the ploughshare than the ink nib. This, however, is a generalisation. Manifestly, there exist aristocrats with infantile penmanship, and ironworkers well up in their Aristophanes – who, I believe, opined that youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but stupidity endures.”
“All right. Sounds like a toff, writes like a farmer.”
“Admirably expressed. Now, there are large estates upon which cattle play a key economic role, and those landed gentry are schooled by private tutors prior to public boarding schools – then there are dairy farmers. Supposing our man the latter, his education was either extraordinary or he enjoys a noteworthy acumen. In both cases, I should expect his longhand to reflect as much.”
“It doesn’t. Which means he’s either the oddest man in the British Isles, or he’s two men.”
Mr. Holmes opened his mouth to speak, but nothing emerged. Instead, he commenced smoking rapidly. Not enjoying the cigarette in the least. Just sort of inhaling. For almost half a minute, I thought a string of minutiae was about to spill from his throat like a magician producing a string of pearls. Paper weight and manufacturer, chemical composition of the ink, the name of the clerk who sold the stationery, the peculiar shape of a capital “W”, followed by a description of what the absent Miss Sparks would be taking with her tea in a few hours.
He shrugged and commenced a survey of my floor.
“All right, out with it,” I demanded.
Mr. Holmes looked as if he’d just caught a whiff from a local tannery. “Excuse me, Detective Inspector?”
Linking my hands into a fist, I continued. “You, Mr. Holmes, are… how shall I put this? Glum.”
“Glum?” he repeated, impossibly giving the word several syllables.
“In the dumps. Dispirited.”
“Dear me, this is shaping up to be as painful as your tour of every English euphemism for overdone frivolity,” he replied coldly.
“That wasn’t all the terminology I know for being whiffled, not even by half.”
“Heaven save us.”
“But now you know the reason I’m so well versed, you’re going to be civil about it in future, and that’s not negotiable.”
A puff of air resembling a laugh escaped his lips. I confess, I was surprised at myself as much as he was. I’m not an impressive fellow – not physically, not like Mr. Holmes. I’d never tried putting my foot down or digging my heels in with him previously. I’d tried ignoring him, being scrupulously polite with him, losing my temper at him, and walking away from him. Nothing had worked.
And for all his faults, he really is a brilliant investigator, if he’d only stop looking for unicorns in stable yards.
“All right,” he demurred. “Far be it for me to refuse to incorporate fresh data.”
A thrill passed from my hair to my feet.
You’re going to try this ordering Mr. Holmes about again. Just don’t overdo it, or he’ll lose interest in the novelty.
“Good. So what’s wrong? It’s much easier for you to lie to Gregson than to me, you know. You pester me too frequently.”
“You flatter yourself immensely if you consider yourself worth prevaricating to.”
“Then tell me what the trouble is.”
“Leave it,” he hissed.
Then it came to me.
I’d admittedly been as slow as a blister-heeled Yard trainee. Trying to make sense of suppressed sighs and rants about Darwin. Right up until I realised that he’d unwittingly listed scattered papers, a bowler hat, and the aroma of familiar tobacco right after introducing the subject of home.
Mr. Holmes had every right to be melancholy. Who save Dr. John Watson would ever remain in his orbit long enough to learn to tolerate such a comprehensive ass?
“Dr. Watson found something he was looking for,” I mused. “And once you’ve found something that was missing, well… the mystery is solved, isn’t it? No more need for a sleuth.”
Mr. Holmes’s entire body tensed. “I don’t know what the devil you’re blithering about.”
“He’s not going to forget you,” I offered.
“He… What did you say?”
“You have excellent ears. Anyway, you boast about them often enough.”
“Lestrade, do make your meaning clear,” Mr. Holmes growled. “I may well be manifestly brighter than you are – don’t look so piqued, I’m brighter than almost everyone – but I have never affected to possess psychic powers.”
“Dr. Watson isn’t going to forget you,” I repeated. “And we’ll still have the work. Stop gawking at me like that, it’s unnatural on you. I had a sister once, and she had me, she had me right to my marrow, and I dare say that Dr. Watson is like a brother to you by this time. He won’t forget you. And for as long as the world is cruel, we’ll have the work.”
An ant could have started a trek across my office and we’d both have flinched. Everything was that still.
“Yes.” I fancied he must have been catching a chill and regretted the open window, for a rasp had crept into his throat. “Yes, the work must be enough. Mustn’t it?”
I wondered then – I wonder now – whether I had misjudged Sherlock Holmes entirely. The rogue is endlessly clever and in possession of a malleable conscience when it comes to fibbing. If he had wanted Dr. Watson to remain a bachelor, he could easily have accomplished such. A lesser man than he would have done so. But I don’t think the notion of interfering with the happiness of John Watson so much as crossed his capacious mind.
“What are we to do, then?” I asked when Mr. Holmes said nothing. “Assuming Miss Sparks went off to find this Mr. Boxall of her own accord, then no crime has been committed.”
“And therefore we need not investigate any further. I was speaking with perfect candour, however, when I mentioned to you that PC Zordan’s vision requires, if you’ll pardon my use of the phrase, looking into. It was coming upon dawn this morning when I realised that the empty barrel I’d employed for my ascent had been rolled away in the night. The drop was a daunting one in this morning’s downpour, I could barely see the drainpipe, and it seemed easier to soak my togs with the rotgut in my satchel and pretend to be a drunk seeking shelter in – I admit – a highly improbable sanctuary. Mrs. Bray shrieked t
o wake the dead when she discovered me asleep in the armchair. It was PC Zordan arrested me, and my picking the darbies with a hairpin ought to have been detectable for such a sharp lad – I gave him the slip within a block of his dragging me out the front door.”
By then I was laughing so desperately that I was hardly minding him. Mr. Holmes weighed being irritated versus being pleased and ended by saying, “Well, what with the chamber being unoccupied, I got two hours of sleep out of it without interruption, which you must concede—”
The door flew open. For the second time, a marauding personage invaded my sanctum. Miss Milhemina Sparks stood before us, ample chest heaving. Mr. Holmes responded first, springing out of the chair as if caught on Queen Victoria’s throne. He whirled, bowed, and extended a languorous hand all in one motion.
“Our esteemed client, I presume! Do please sit down. We were just discussing your case in detail – there have been developments Inspector Lestrade and I are eager to share with you. My name is Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I am the world’s only independent consulting detective, and I am also very much at your service.”
“Gorblimey,” she breathed. “Are ye a gentleman tec then, engaged special fer me? I knew as I’d come to the right crusher, Detective Lestrade ’ere bein’ known fer his willingness to stand up fer the fair sex, like, and come to find ’e’s already called in the cavalry! Met plenty o’ bluebottles in me time, stiff-necked and walking round and round like ponies at a fair, but never a real live toff sniffer, what knows how to treat a lady, and don’t mind if I do sit down, beggin’ yer pardon supposing yer fagged after chasing down any cold-blooded ruffians.”
“Is that how you imagine I passed my morning?” the amateur enquired with an odd mixture of disdain and satisfaction.
“Who’s to say what ye’ve been about this fine morn, Mr. ’Olmes? It’s quite beyond me, says I, seeing as in a great ’ousehold a servant’s life is that protected, sir, coddled as we are and shielded from the harsh gusts o’ misfortune and foul play. Ye could ha’ been recoverin’ a chest o’ diamonds at the bottom o’ the Thames or happrehending a bloodthirsty ’ighwayman what knifed throats fer sport and drank the blood after. Still warm, even. Oh! Where is me manners at, Mr. ’Olmes? Miss Milhemina Sparks, under-housemaid, pleased to meet you. I’ll wait if yer keen to write it down.”
Sherlock Holmes’s grey eyes met mine.
I gave a small nod.
Yes, she is always like this.
Slowly, Mr. Holmes beamed. It was the delight of a connoisseur of the bizarre, a veritable collector of human oddities. I was almost charmed by it.
“What brings you here an hour before your time, Miss Sparks?” I asked. Mightily fearing the answer.
“Only I’m so worried about Willie.” Miss Sparks’s voice was a whine, her hair was a hay bale, her blue eyes wide and clear as undiscovered lakes. But her sincerity was unmistakable. It even affected Mr. Holmes, for he leaned forward with arms crossed, attending with care. “Snatchers underfoot round every corner, and me own sister in their filthy grip! It’s enough to turn a girl’s stomach, Inspector. Me dear Willie still ain’t written, nor sent word through a street boy, nor hadvertised, nor—”
“You mean to say the elder Miss Sparks has failed to extend any communiqué whatsoever thus far, regardless of medium,” Mr. Holmes interjected silkily.
“I’ll be ’anged if I don’t mean just that!” she exclaimed. “But when you says it, it comes out all polished and primped, like… like ye were reading it right off a page, by jingo! Fess up now, Mr. ’Olmes – did ye make a note o’ that phrasing, and trot it out to impress a poor, lowly under-housemaid? Or did it spring up natural, straight from yer brain?”
“I conjured it on the spur of the moment,” the amateur admitted.
“Saints alive,” she marvelled. “It’s like summat out o’ Shakespeare. Or a hadvertisement fer Lyle’s Golden Syrup, even.”
We brought Miss Millie Sparks up to date as quickly as possible. Which wasn’t very fast, all told, and Mr. Holmes appeared too fascinated by her bubbling, blubbering candour to object. She gushed over his escapade of the previous night and confirmed that when her sister was low, she turned to books about romance and distant frontiers for succour. But she knew nothing at all about any male correspondent, although she eagerly reported that in hindsight, her sister had occasionally seemed on the verge of confiding a secret of some kind.
“Figured it was summat about our dear departed mum, or maybe… maybe even that now we was reconciled, we ought to take digs and kip together someplace warm, far from London’s stink. Brighton, maybe. Portsmouth? Hastings? And now I’ll never again know the sound o’ me sweet Willie’s voice.” Her broad mouth wrenched almost as hard as she was twisting Mr. Holmes’s handkerchief. “And who’s to say what cause she had to take up with anyone from West Sussex? It’s beyond my scope, gents, and that’s the gospel truth. Were it an old flame? A scallywag, bent on me only kin’s complete ruination? A mate o’ some friend she made in the CCC? It’s a sight too much fer this under-housemaid to puzzle out, and that’s past remedy.”
“Beg pardon – what is the CCC?” I questioned.
The CCC, Miss Milhemina Sparks explained, was a club her sister joined when she cut herself off from public life. It was an organisation of respectable female letter writers of limited social scope. Unmarried, childless, often friendless, seldom well situated. Upon filling out a brief personal application and providing some details regarding favourite hobbies, members of the CCC wrote to one another after being “matched” with like-minded women. The fee for this service was nominal, simply to reimburse the coordinator for the postage she spent. Afterward, the women were free to converse as often or as sparsely as they liked.
“It sounds like an admirable association.” Mr. Holmes deposited the end of his cigarette in my desk tray with a neat twist. His face had regained some of its – well, I won’t say colour, but he looked livelier anyhow. “How long had your sister been a member?”
“Oh, I couldn’t tell ye, Mr. Holmes. Since her beau done dropped her and she lost her way. When I think o’ Willie sufferin’ without me…” Miss Millie Sparks glanced up, twin pools overflowing. “Clean breaks me ’eart I weren’t there to give a bit o’ comfort. I were only fifteen when Mum took ill, and… I liked to have a laugh with the lads down at the pub now and again, and then she passed, and I might ha’ carried it all a wee bit far? A touch wild in me ways, ye understand, not meanin’ any harm by it, but—”
“But you left home to become an under-housemaid and thereafter your opportunity to communicate with your sister was regrettably truncated,” Mr. Holmes supplied.
Blushing hotly, Miss Sparks nodded. “Yes.”
“We quite understand. Do you know how your sister came to learn of this club?”
“I sure enough do, fer ’twas the first thing I asked!” she affirmed triumphantly. “Mum always called me naturally curious. It were hadvertised in the Ladies’ Society Journal agony columns.”
“The Ladies’ Society Journal – minor weekly publication, annual subscriptions holding steady at around five thousand, main consumers under-stimulated spinsters and bored housewives, focusing on light news, moral politics, original poetry, society gossip and fashionable trends,” Mr. Holmes rattled off. “I stopped perusing it two years ago when The Queen Lady’s Newspaper and Court Chronicle proved to cast a wider net. I shall have to re-evaluate my position, it seems. Do you know what the CCC stands for, perchance, Miss Sparks?”
She blew her nose – fruitfully, it sounded – into Sherlock Holmes’s handkerchief. “The leader, who’s a most reticent lady and don’t give out her real name, calls it the Common Correspondents’ Club, and herself the chief Common Correspondent. Always struck me as pretty-sounding. A touch daft, mind. But pretty. Could it help ye find me lost sister, and capture the snatchers what took her away?”
And there we have it. So much data and still not enough for me to write up an actual police report. Aggra
vating in the extreme. We asked whether our guest knew the names of any of her sister’s letter-writing acquaintances. She replied tearfully and in the negative. Miss Sparks left soon after, curtseying to each of us when we took her hand. Mr. Holmes said something about needing to assist Dr. Watson regarding the price of the wedding ring, and a pawnbroker who owed the detective his life following a false murder charge. I was only half listening. I called to him that we each ought to pursue the case further along our own lines and meet the day after tomorrow at Baker Street to share our findings. He agreed.
One thing is certain: Sherlock Holmes is every bit as intrigued as I am about this matter of the Sparks sisters. Me, having lost a sibling, wanting to find another one. Miss Millie Sparks, having found a sister, not wanting to lose her twice. Mr. Holmes, losing a brother of sorts, wanting to give a sibling back to her.
Or maybe something about the tale of Miss Willie Sparks frightens me. To have her fortune and her heart spirited away by a blackguard, then to vanish in search of a near-stranger. Where would she turn if she were in peril? To whom? Where would I, if I were her?
If I were her.
What an absurd and yet crucial thought that is. What if I’d been born a woman? I’d still live with Dad and Mum. Be raising Jonas. Unmarried, probably, and the clock ticking faster every day, until what used to be a waterwheel spun like a carriage spoke. What if Mr. Holmes, too, had arrived on Earth in a different skin? Of course, being women, our interests and talents would differ, I suppose. We’d not need to be as active. Might even appreciate peace and quiet. Still.
What does it mean when you aren’t expected to make your own way, aren’t allowed?
Entry in the diary of Inspector Geoffrey Lestrade
Saturday, 12 January 1889
Sherlock Holmes Page 40