Sherlock Holmes

by Lyn McConchie

  10

  I arrived at the house to be told that the lady was from home but would return in an hour or so. I went to a Lyon’s corner shop, ate a moderate luncheon, and returned an hour and a half later to present both my last hostess’s and my cards. I was promptly admitted to Mrs. Jemison’s presence, where I explained that I was assisting Holmes—of whom she too had heard—over the death of a man once known to her, and asked if I might ask her certain questions, as they would assist the investigation.

  She nodded graciously. “You could also speak to my friend Mrs. Goodwinne, who lives not far from me.”

  I shook my head. “It is my understanding that the man of whom I speak once gravely offended the lady. I have no wish to recall such events to her mind, and then, too, if she was in any way fond of him, if she counted him a friend, such questioning could cause her distress. No, if you have no objection, I would ask you what you might know of this man and his actions.”

  Mrs. Jemison having signaled her consent, I laid out how Wimbledon had been found dead. How a will made earlier had left almost all his property to Mrs. Goodwinne, how he had left diaries in which he chronicled a number of occurrences, and how other events suggested that he had not been altogether honest or trustworthy. I uncovered to her the truth of his first property purchase and ended by relating the discovery of the previous owner’s body buried in Wimbledon’s garden. She hung on my words, alternately fascinated and aghast, until I was done. She then called for tea and a suitable selection of food, and commenced her own questioning as we ate and drank.

  “I knew Gerald Wimbledon, of course. Wherever Alice was he came to be sooner or later. I disliked him. I had always the impression that whatever he did was to produce an effect, like an actor on the stage, where no word or movement is wasted. He never bothered to be more than polite to any of her friends unless he was within her hearing. However, when someone could be of use to him they were flattered.” She nodded.

  “I heard him more than once say things that sounded honest and would please; I have seen grown men flush at his compliments and think him a good fellow, yet I always knew he did not mean what he said. He talked business at many of the places where he came to be with Alice, as if he did not wish to waste any time apart from his pursuit of her. I could not believe my ears that night.”

  “You were there? Why were you surprised?”

  She sniffed disdainfully. “I was there, yes. And of course I was surprised. Consider, Doctor. Here is a man with whom my friend had danced a few times, and she may have allowed him to escort her to supper once or twice, but between them there had been nothing more. He then became over-emphatic in his attentions and she had been forced to hint him away. When he paid no attention to that, she ceased dancing with him. She spoke only the merest commonplaces when she must for politeness’ sake. We all knew him for a nuisance, and aided her in avoiding him.”

  Her look was direct. “I assure you, Dr. Watson, there was no way in which he could not have known that she had no interest in him, that she wanted no part of his attentions. Yet he persisted beyond all bounds of good manners. Her father knew Alice’s feelings long before Wimbledon approached him, and it was only for form’s sake, having heard that none knew of the man’s antecedents, that he asked about those. On finding that Wimbledon could or would say nothing of his family, Mr. Leighton became the more set against him. Why, Wimbledon would not even say what school he had attended, or explain where he had received his money. Mr. Leighton told the man at last that he was unalterably opposed to the marriage and, when Wimbledon persisted, disclosed that Alice was to marry the son of an old family friend.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  She smiled. “My father and Alice’s father were old friends; on Wimbledon’s departure he came to talk with my father and I overheard.”

  “Accidentally, of course,” I said dryly.

  “On the contrary,” her eyes twinkled. “It was a warm and windless day, and I opened the French doors to the patio beyond my father’s study. They were behind heavy drapes, and had either man approached the doors, I would have slipped out. In a single long step I could have taken shelter against the wall where they would not have seen me. Mr. Leighton said that after their interview, he now suspected Wimbledon to be some sort of imposter. When my father asked in what way, he was unable to explain, save for saying that the man did not ring true.”

  I may have shown my surprise for she fastened upon it. “Someone else has said such a thing of him?”

  “Yes, a man who was a member of Wimbledon’s club and who knew him for some years. He said that there had been humorous comments regarding what the man had been before he came to London, some suggesting him to be a retired highwayman, and others that he was the son of a Lord by his father’s mistress. The man who knew him said to Holmes and me that he could have seen Wimbledon in either role, or others of that ilk. That there was the whiff of a mountebank about him.”

  “Yes,” my hostess said thoughtfully. “That is well put. Now and again he would say something and catch himself up. When he spoke that way, I thought that he revealed himself to be less educated, or perhaps not of our class. He never made that mistake when Alice was near, or when some of the other girls were within hearing, but in those days I was only sixteen and he may have thought that I would notice less.”

  “He was wrong,” I said with some satisfaction.

  “He was, indeed. There was another thing I noticed about him.”

  “What was that?”

  “Those who crossed him seemed to have ill-fortune.”

  I stared at her. I knew the man to have been dangerous, but had he also been so revengeful as to take action against even minor slights? “You mean…. What is it that you mean?”

  “I have said that my cousin, Davis, and his sister often escorted me to dances or parties. Davis, on seeing that Alice did not wish to dance with Wimbledon, kept an eye on the situation. Several times when Wimbledon almost demanded that Alice dance with him, protesting that she had not been claimed for that dance, Davis stepped up and said that she was already engaged. Wimbledon could not gainsay him, but I saw his look. After the third time, Davis, upon leaving that house, fell down the steps, injuring his knee. It was winter and everyone said he had slipped on ice.”

  “And he had not?”

  “It would have been unusual, for that family had a particularly trustworthy servant who always kept their steps clear of ice. On being questioned, the servant said that he had been outside clearing the steps barely ten minutes before Davis fell. Those at the party said that there must have been a brief shower immediately afterwards.”

  “But you do not think so?”

  “No, and that was not the only time when ill-fortune visited those who crossed Wimbledon.” She detailed for me two other occasions when someone Wimbledon had good reason for wishing ill had come to minor grief. It could all be coincidence, but I knew what Holmes might say on it. That once was coincidence, twice was suspicious, and a third time should be closely examined.

  “Tell me, Doctor, what was the date of the second will? The one that left all he had to Alice?”

  I told her.

  She nodded. “That was the day before he called upon Alice’s father to ask for her hand. It seems he must have been certain of himself. And he did not change that will for another for four years?”

  That aspect had not struck me. “No,” I replied. “Could he have hoped to change her mind, or that of her father?”

  The lady positively grinned. “Not if he were in his right mind,” she assured me. “Both Alice and her father made the matter clear to him beyond any doubt.”

  I made my farewells and left the lady’s home, thinking deeply as I hailed a cab and was driven back to Baker Street. The more I heard of Wimbledon, the more I thought that the world had been well rid of him.

  I exited the cab and walked to our door where a man whom I did not know accosted me at once. He was almost six feet in height, in hi
s late thirties, a man of conventional good looks, and wearing clothing that marked him as a man who did not have to worry about money. He eyed me in no friendly fashion and I wondered what he thought I had done to put such a glare in his eyes.

  “Sherlock Holmes?”

  “No,” I said, surprised any could mistake me for my friend.

  “You are not Sherlock Holmes?”

  “No,” I said again.

  “But you are about to enter his address.”

  “I also live here,” I said with growing impatience. “What of it?”

  “Who are you?”

  I drew myself up angrily, for this inquisition was beyond all courtesy. “Sir, I do not know who you are, but I do not come up to you in the street and demand your name or direction.”

  At which point two things happened: the man flushed and looked shamefaced, and Holmes exited the house to stand silently at my shoulder. I saw from the slight tensing of his body that Holmes feared an attack upon me and had come, should I require that, to assist. I felt a sense of affection that he had come at once to my assistance.

  The man rallied. “Sir, I have an urgent need to speak to Sherlock Holmes on a matter of personal importance. While I accept that you are not he, if you, too, live at this address, you must know him. I ask that I be admitted and introduced to the man, for I have a number of questions I would put to him.”

  Holmes had left the door open and now he walked towards it. “Come in, Mr. Goodwinne. I am Sherlock Holmes, and I am prepared to answer such questions as you may put to me. I am in police confidence, and the matter of which you speak is a series of crimes, including a brutal murder. It is better we discuss such things in private, rather than allowing all the world and his wife to overhear.”

  Perhaps recalled to his senses by that comment, the man followed us as we retired to our rooms. He accepted a seat and sat tensely, his gaze fixed on Holmes. I helped myself to a drink, offering one to Holmes and Mr. Goodwinne, both of whom initially declined. Goodwinne then changed his mind and, taking the tumbler of whisky and soda I held out, he drained it and set the glass aside with an abrupt gesture.

  “You have said you will answer my questions,” he snapped at Holmes. “Then answer me this and at once, sir—by what right do you come sneaking around my wife’s friends, asking about her, and suggesting that she may have been involved with some other man? By what right do you rake up the follies of that man who was for a time infatuated with her? By what right…”

  “By the right that no man should be murdered,” Holmes said quietly.

  I found Mr. Goodwinne’s anger convincing as he retorted: “Murder! She had not known or seen the man for years, not since the day she told him never to see or speak to her again. And in any case, he was never more than a minor acquaintance. How do you claim her to be involved in any way?”

  Holmes sat back in his chair and surveyed the angry husband. “Mr. Goodwinne, it is not I who did so. Wimbledon left diaries in which he said that his association with your wife had continued long after the evening of which you speak.” He held up a hand as Goodwinne would have risen in fury. “I did not say that I believed his account, I said only that Wimbledon left diaries in which he said so. The police, being reluctant to approach your wife openly and cause a scandal, asked me to investigate quietly.”

  This, I thought, was stretching the truth somewhat, although it was in essence correct. The information calmed our guest, who was obviously imagining the reactions of his neighbors should hordes of police begin arriving at his address. Even the most suave of inspectors can be seen as none other than what he is, and neighbors will talk. They will also conjecture, imagine, elaborate, and pass on their speculations to all and sundry, until what may have been an insignificant molehill is now a snow-capped mountain range.

  “As you request, then,” our visitor said after considering this. “Please explain to me what occurred, and why my wife should be supposed to be involved.”

  So Holmes laid out the events we had examined since first Harrison came to see us, but confining the explanation to Wimbledon’s past twenty years. He concluded, “You understand, we assuredly now know the man for a fraud, liar, cheat, murderer, and, considering what we have discovered of him thus far, I think his crimes may range beyond even those.”

  “My dear sir,” Goodwinne said with a wry smile. “How much further can he have ranged beyond the murder of a harmless elderly man for his money?”

  “There are such crimes as you cannot comprehend,” Holmes said softly. “And I suspect him of those. But to return to our discussion, your wife knew Wimbledon. A woman often has intuition, and your wife’s friend told us that she thought Wimbledon to be less than he held himself to be. She said she felt him to be a mountebank, although she could point to no reason in particular for saying so. An associate of his described Wimbledon as ‘a bell that did not ring true.’ It is our suspicion that Wimbledon committed other thefts, at least two earlier murders, and abandoned to penury those who should have been able to depend upon him.”

  Goodwinne stared. “I met him a number of times before my marriage, but I cannot connect that man with the monster you say him to have been.”

  “How did you find him?”

  “Why, he was pleasant enough, affable and intelligent. He was involved in business and I suppose one could say he was more interested in that than in most other topics. I most assuredly could not have imagined him as a brutal murderer, and even less so one who would have the body of his victim buried in his back garden. It is beyond my comprehension. Yet, if the police found the body, I suppose that I must believe what is said.” He stared at us. “And this was the man who wished to marry Alice? What do you wish to ask her? You surely do not imagine her to have known any of this!” Hs face twisted into a threatening scowl.

  I spoke hastily. “No, of course not. But as my friend says, a woman’s intuition is powerful. Do you not see? She disliked him, she distrusted him, and before even he made his desire known openly, she had gone to her father to say that if Wimbledon approached him for her hand she would not consent, and to ask that he turn the man away. She is an excellent judge of character.” Goodwinne relaxed, and from the corner of my eye I saw Holmes’s amused glance at me.

  He nodded. “No, Mr. Goodwinne, we want to question your wife: not as a suspect, but as a witness. You do understand that should a murderer be apprehended, she would have to appear in court, depending on the motive and claims made. Would it not be easier if we talk quietly to her? We are not police detectives, not do we look like them. Our visit will occasion no scandal, or even neighborhood talk. My friend is a doctor, and the lady can say that we are knowledgeable on charities and she wished to consult us.”

  “Hmmm, yes, what you say is true. Well then, I consent. If you call tomorrow, my wife shall be available and you may ask your questions. I shall, of course, be present,” he added, eyeing us challengingly.

  Holmes inclined his head in acceptance. “As you wish. We shall call at two.”

  Goodwinne saw himself out soon after and I turned to my friend. “You don’t want him present, surely?”

  “I do not, but he will receive an urgent visit before we have done more than exchange polite civilities.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “How will you arrange that?”

  Holmes looked at me. “Goodwinne is in a syndicate that buys cargo for a merchant ship they own. It has come to my attention that the ship is slightly overdue from its latest voyage—although I also know all is well. One of his fellow syndicate members is Lord Temberton. I will request that he call upon Goodwinne, take him aside, and ask him a number of urgent questions as to how they should proceed, should creditors move against them.”

  “Ah,” was all I said. Lord Temberton had been a client in one of Holmes’s most peculiar cases, and we had both come to esteem him as a man of sense and honor. Frankly I liked the man, and I was sure he would play his part well if he accepted the role.

  It fell out as I h
ad expected. We arrived at two o’clock, were welcomed, and we were sitting asking innocuous questions when there came a butler to say that Lord Temberton had arrived to speak with our host. Before Goodwinne could suggest that we leave, Temberton was in the room, sweeping his fellow businessman out, saying it was a matter of urgency, and, when Goodwinne would have held back, adding something in a low tone that caused Goodwinne to forget whatever he had been about to say and follow him with all haste.

  We waited until a door shut in the distance and Holmes nodded. Then, taking the copy of one volume of Wimbledon’s diary from his pocket, he looked at our hostess. “Mrs. Goodwinne, we know of your dealings with a man named Wimbledon. They occurred many years ago, and I regret that I must ask you to recall them. I daresay that on your husband’s return yesterday, he told you of his conversation with us and our revelations concerning that man?” She nodded without speaking. “We can tell you that your ultimate dislike and distrust of the man were well founded.”

  Here he revealed to her Wimbledon’s former incarnation as Melville Warner, and our belief that he had stolen from his employer and later murdered him. “There is, besides that, the death of a young man, a man who met Wimbledon upon his initial appearance in society. The boy sponsored Wimbledon into an exclusive club, later discovered him not to be a gentleman as he had believed, and was about to expose the man when the lad died. It was previously supposed a suicide, but certain indications uncovered by us have reversed that verdict. We and his family and friends also, believe him to have been another of Wimbledon’s victims.”

  The lady was white to the lips, and I intervened lest she faint. “May I bring you a drink, Mrs. Goodwinne?” She signaled her assent and I brought her a glass of sherry, watching over her while she drank and some color returned to her face.

  Holmes resumed. “Wimbledon was dangerous. The police, having discovered much of what we have told you, are convinced that he was murdered by someone he wronged. They searched his property most thoroughly and discovered a body, as your husband will have told you. However, that was not the end of it: they also found a false wall that housed a secret room. In the room they discovered ledgers showing fraud on a continuing and growing scale, and also diaries covering all the years he had been known as Wimbledon. One of them contained entries that ran during the period of his pursuit of you and for about a year after your rejection of his suit.”