by June Thomson
Holmes was about to reply when there came the sound of a hand-bell being furiously rung behind a closed door a little further down the landing. At the sound of it, Mrs Donkin gave a gasp and her hands flew up to her mouth.
‘That’s her ladyship, sir!’ she cried. ‘She must have heard us talking. I shall have to go to her. But what am I to say to her, Mr Holmes? She will be very angry when she finds out what me and Alfie have done.’
‘She is better?’ Holmes asked.
‘Oh, much better, sir. She’s out of bed today.’
‘Then give her this,’ Holmes told her. Taking out his pocketbook, he extracted one of his business cards which he handed to her. ‘Tell her I shall be much obliged if she would grant us an interview.’
Mrs Donkin, who had looked quickly down at the card, raised her eyes and gave Holmes a startled look, as if realising for the first time the significance of his name. But before she could make any reply, there came another violent summons from the bell.
‘Go to your mistress,’ Holmes said gently, escorting her down the landing to the door, his lean frame bent solicitously over her. He said something else to her but in so low a voice that I could not catch his words. As Mrs Donkin knocked and entered the room, he turned to me with a smile.
‘You see now, Watson, the relevance of that missing piece of evidence I referred to earlier? It was the absence of the pet dog which confirmed my suspicions and provided a motive. Mr Thackery told us that it never left Lady Ferrers’ side.’
‘Yes, I understand that, Holmes. But how …?’ I began.
There were several other questions I wanted to ask him. How, for example, had he been so certain, even before he met the woman posing as Lady Ferrers, that the case was solved? And what was the relevance of the coffee-tray?
There was, however, no time. The door had reopened and Mrs Donkin appeared on the threshold to announce that Lady Ferrers would see us and to usher us inside the room.
It was furnished as a boudoir in the same sumptuous style we had already seen elsewhere in the house. But I paid scant attention to the silk curtains or the magnificent Aubusson carpet on the floor. It was the elderly lady sitting bolt upright in a bath chair by the window who caught my attention.
Like her impostor, Mrs Campion, the real Lady Ferrers was white-haired and dark-eyed but there any likeness ceased. The woman who was confronting us was much more strongly featured and bore about her that air of bold imperiousness which I instantly recognised from her portrait.
Raising her ebony and silver stick, which was leaning against her side, she pointed to two nearby chairs.
‘Sit down!’ she ordered in a peremptory voice. When we were both seated, she continued, ‘I see from your card, Mr Holmes, that you are the well-known private detective agent whose exploits I sometimes read about in the newspapers. I assume your companion is Dr Watson. Mrs Donkin has already given me a brief if somewhat incoherent account of what has been going on in my house under my very nose. But even she seemed bewildered by your presence. What may I ask are you doing here, masquerading as a representative of Allardyce, Thackery and Makepeace?’
I must confess I was a little intimidated both by her tone and by the fierceness of the gaze with which she fixed the two of us. I could well understand the Donkins’ anxiety about arousing her displeasure. Had I been in their shoes, I, too, would have hesitated to cross her.
Holmes, however, seemed perfectly at his ease. Settling himself comfortably in his chair, he gave a short, succinct account of Mr Thackery’s visit to Baker Street and his reasons for asking him, Holmes, to investigate the affair.
‘Although,’ he concluded, ‘the apparent mystery was easily solved.’
‘How?’ Lady Ferrers demanded brusquely, voicing the question to which I was so eager to hear the answer.
‘It was a simple matter of observation, your ladyship,’ Holmes replied. ‘As we entered the hall, Mrs Donkin was coming downstairs, carrying a tray of coffee things. I noticed it was set for a right-handed person. However, when we were shown into the drawing room, I immediately perceived that in your portrait you were holding your fan in your left hand. The inference was obvious. Whoever the tray had been laid for it was certainly not you, Lady Ferrers. I therefore concluded that someone was impersonating you with Mrs Donkin’s connivance. The only question that remained to be answered was: why? What possible reason would your housekeeper, and I assumed also her husband, have for setting up such a subterfuge? The absence of your pet dog, Bonny, suggested a motive which Mrs Donkin confirmed when I questioned her. The dog had been run over and killed and, as a consequence, you had threatened to cut them out of your will, leaving them to face financial insecurity in their old age.’
At this point, Lady Ferrers, who had been following Holmes’ account with the keenest interest, thumped twice on the carpet with her stick.
‘The woman is a fool, Mr Holmes!’ she declared roundly. ‘And her husband is not much better.’
I have mentioned before that, when he put his mind to it, Holmes could have a peculiarly ingratiating way with women.* He now proceeded to make full use of that ability.
Leaning forward, he looked her full in the face and smiled – it was a sincere, disarming smile which crinkled up the comers of his eyes and at the same time appealed to her better judgment.
‘Ah, Lady Ferrers!’ said he softly. ‘You may well be right. I am sure even the best of us have acted foolishly at one time or another. But were I in your place, I should much prefer to dwell on the many years of loyal service the Donkins have given you.’
I saw Lady Ferrers’ gaze waver but she was not yet quite ready to succumb to Holmes’ persuasive powers.
‘They were paid for it,’ she snapped back.
‘Can loyalty and devotion be bought?’ he inquired in a musing tone. ‘It has long been my belief that they can only be paid for in kind. Perhaps I am mistaken but I sincerely hope I am not, otherwise life becomes nothing more than a marketplace where all the better qualities of human nature are bought and sold like so much merchandise.’
I saw Lady Ferrers start up in her chair and, for a moment, I thought she was about to order us from the room. And then those hard features softened and a smile came to her lips so that fleetingly she resembled the young, handsome woman in her portrait.
‘You are an extraordinary man, Mr Holmes,’ she declared.
‘Indeed, I have never met your like before. But you are right. Loyalty can only be repaid with loyalty, devotion with devotion. Be so kind, sir, as to ring the bell by the fireplace. I shall speak to the Donkins immediately and put right the wrong I have done them.’
As he crossed the room to carry out her bidding, her ladyship added, ‘What is your fee, Mr Holmes?’
‘You owe me nothing, Lady Ferrers,’ he replied. ‘I am already amply rewarded.’
We took our leave shortly afterwards, passing the Donkins coming up the stairs. They had with them a small black terrier with a white patch under its chin which was bounding along eagerly at their heels.
Holmes regarded it with a smile.
‘So you have taken my advice and brought the dog with you, Mrs Donkin,’ he remarked. ‘I have every confidence that it will receive a warmer welcome this time.’
Holmes was correct in this prediction. A few days later, he received a letter from Lady Ferrers thanking him again and confirming that the Donkins had been restored to her good books and Mr Thackery reinstated as her legal representative. Mrs Donkin had added a postscript of her own in which she expressed her and her husband’s gratitude to Holmes, as well as stating that not only was her ladyship delighted with the dog but, on meeting Mrs Campion, she had insisted that her former dresser remain in her employment as a paid companion.
The two elderly ladies were now inseparable, regularly playing cards together or reminiscing over their memories of the past.
I was much touched by this last piece of news and said as much to Holmes.
At the time, he w
as busy at his desk pasting newspaper cuttings in his commonplace book.* Looking up, he gave me a brief smile.
‘Ah, Watson,’ said he, wagging an admonitory finger at me. ‘You are an incorrigible romantic. Nevertheless, I am pleased the case ended so satisfactorily, if only for your sake, my dear fellow.
However, I am afraid I shall have to disappoint you over one aspect of the affair. Only this morning, I received a letter from Mr Thackery asking that you refrain from publishing an account of the case as he feels it would contravene that sacred trust between himself and his client and, as he is a solicitor, his word must indeed be the law.’
* In ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery,’ Mr Sherlock Holmes informs Dr Watson that his method of deduction is ‘founded upon the observation of trifles’. Dr John F. Watson.
† When asked by Dr Huxtable to inquire into the disappearance of Lord Saltire, the only son of the Duke of Holdernesse, Mr Sherlock Holmes remarks that he is ‘already retained in this case of the Ferrers documents, and the Abergavenny murder is coming up for trial’. Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Priory School,’ which is variously dated between 1901 and 1903, 1901 being the year accepted by most critics. Dr John F. Watson.
* In ‘A Scandal in Bohemia,’ Mr Sherlock Holmes remarks that it is ‘a capital mistake to theorise before one has the data’. Dr John F. Watson.
† Fungu poison, or tetradotoxin, is found in two of the more poisonous species of Japanese globefish. Like curare, it paralyses the central nervous system. Dr John F. Watson.
* In ‘The Adventure of the Retired Colourman,’ Mr Sherlock Holmes refers to Dr John H. Watson’s ‘natural advantages’ with the ladies and in ‘The Adventure of the Second Stain,’ he refers to the ‘fair sex’ as being Dr Watson’s ‘department’. Dr John F. Watson.
* Although there is no direct evidence that Mr Sherlock Holmes could determine a person’s sex by his or her handwriting, in ‘The Adventure of the Reigate Squire,’ he was able to discern the age and relationship between the two men who had written the letter, a portion of which was found clutched in the hand of the murder victim, William Kerwin. He also remarked that there were twenty-three other deductions he might have drawn from the handwriting. Dr John F. Watson.
* Vide: ‘The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez’. Dr John F. Watson.
* There are several references to Mr Sherlock Holmes’ commonplace book in which he pasted any newspaper cuttings he thought relevant. Vide among others: ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ and ‘The Adventure of the Red Circle’. Dr John F. Watson.
THE CASE OF THE VATICAN CAMEOS
I
It was, I recall, one morning in June, a few months before Holmes became associated with the lengthy and highly complex inquiry concerning Sir Henry Baskerville,* that an unexpected visitor arrived at our Baker Street lodgings.
He was heralded by a frantic pealing at the front door bell, followed by a pounding of feet up the stairs. Seconds later, the door was flung open and a man burst into the room.
‘Mr Holmes?’ he cried, looking from one to the other of us in great agitation. ‘Which of you is Mr Holmes?’
‘I am,’ my old friend replied coolly, laying aside the Morning Post and rising to his feet. ‘Pray sit down and compose yourself, sir. Watson, I think a little brandy might act as a restorative.’
This last remark was eminently sensible for the man, who was visibly trembling, seemed close to collapse.
He was a tall, rather portly figure in his late forties, I estimated, and was impeccably dressed in morning attire with one or two embellishments about his person in the way of a pearl tiepin and a heavy gold watch chain which, together with a faint accent, suggested he was of foreign extraction. His olive complexion, black hair and small moustache, flicked up at the ends, bore out this impression.
As Holmes settled him into an armchair, I placed a glass of brandy in his hand which he drank quickly, his teeth chattering against the rim. But the spirit seemed to revive him for, by degrees, the trembling stopped and his breathing became easier.
‘Now, sir,’ said Holmes, drawing up a chair to face him. ‘Have you sufficiently recovered to give me your name and state what business has brought you here?’
Holmes’ calm manner seemed to encourage the man for, with no further ado, he plunged straight into his account.
‘My name, Mr Holmes, is Signor Graziani and I was asked by His Holiness the Pope* to bring to London one of the Vatican treasures for display at the exhibition of Renaissance art which is to be held at the British Museum next week. I was chosen for this task because I speak good English and am considered an expert in Renaissance jewellery. In the past I have been called in several times to advise the Vatican on the cleaning and care of some of its collection of precious gems. You see, sir, I have my own jewellery business in Rome, very exclusive and expensive, which caters for only the very richest clients.
‘On my advice, the object chosen for exhibition was a set of three fifteenth century cameos which once belonged to the Medici family.† They are exquisite, sir! Priceless!’ His voice rose and, in an excess of emotion, he gripped the arms of his chair so fiercely that his knuckles whitened. ‘To think that these treasures were entrusted to my care! How am I going to tell His Holiness the Pope that they have been stolen?’
‘Stolen?’ Holmes repeated abruptly and I saw his head lift, like a gun dog’s scenting game. ‘How, sir? From your hotel?’
‘No, Mr Holmes. The cameos were kept in the hotel safe until this morning. It happened in the street. I was taking them to the British Museum so that Mr Valentine, the curator who is in charge of the exhibition, could examine them and decide where they could best be displayed. They were in their silk-lined box which I had placed in a valise. I took a cab to the museum where I alighted at the gates. As I had to search my pockets for money to pay the driver, I put the bag down on the pavement so that I had both hands free. Having paid the cabby, I turned to pick up the valise and ecco! it had gone just like that!’ he cried, snapping his fingers.
Holmes’ features sharpened, his deep-set grey eyes taking on a keener brightness, although when he spoke his voice suggested only a casual interest.
‘Did you notice any particular passers-by at the time the valise was stolen?’
‘There was a young lady who was walking past me as I was looking for the fare.’
‘Would you be able to identify her if you saw her again?’
‘Identify her? You are not suggesting she was the thief, Mr Holmes?’ Signor Graziani looked horrified at the mere idea. ‘She was so beautiful and so well dressed! But I am not sure I would recognise her again.’
‘Was there anyone else near by; a man, this time?’
‘Not that I can recall. There were quite a number of people in the street.’ Here Signor Graziani paused and, regarding Holmes with a keen glance, added, a note of appeal in his voice, ‘Am I right, sir, in thinking that you know who the thief might be?’
‘Perhaps,’ Holmes replied, with a shrug. ‘We shall see. Now, Signor Graziani, pray continue with your account. What did you do next after the valise disappeared?’
‘What could I do? I went straight into the museum where I spoke privately to Mr Valentine who is in charge of the exhibition. Both he and I were anxious to avoid any publicity. Think of the scandal, Mr Holmes, if it became known that the Vatican cameos have been stolen! Mr Valentine was of the opinion that the thief might be willing to return the cameos – for a price, of course! – providing the transaction was handled with great delicacy. For this reason, he advised me to come to you as well as informing the police. He said you are by far the best private inquiry agent in the whole of England with many successes to your credit. Will you take the case, Mr Holmes?’
‘Indeed I shall, Signor Graziani. It presents some most interesting features.’
‘Of course, I must first inform the Holy Father about what has happened and ask his permission for you to undertake the investigation, although I have no
doubt he will agree. I shall telegraph him immediately and then report the theft to Scotland Yard. Meanwhile, Sir, will you begin your inquiries so that no time is lost?’
‘I shall do so at once,’ Holmes assured him. ‘But first I shall need a description of the cameos. You said there were three?’
‘Yes, Mr Holmes. All of them are portraits of members of the Medici family, cut from agate and onyx. The smaller two are of Pietro and Giuliano, both sons of Lorenzo II Magnifico. The third and largest is of another son, Giovanni who later became Pope Leo X, and is particularly fine.* All three are contained in a box, covered with red leather, which has the papal coat of arms stamped in gilt on its lid.’
‘Are the cameos framed?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Signor Graziani said with a touch of impatience. ‘The smaller two have narrow, gold settings.’
‘And the third?’
‘The frame of Giovanni de’ Medici’s cameo is a little more elaborate. It is also of gold and its upper part is set with seed pearls and a garnet. But the frames are of no great importance. It is the cameos which are the real treasures. They are irreplaceable! Now, Mr Holmes, before I leave for Scotland Yard, is there any more information you need to know?’
‘Only your present address in London. Where are you staying?’
‘At Claridge’s hotel.’†
‘Then I shall call on you there as soon as I have any news,’ Holmes said, rising to his feet. As he escorted Signor Graziani to the door, he added, ‘I must congratulate you, sir, on your excellent English.’
Our client’s face flushed with pleasure at this compliment.
‘I studied it at school, Mr Holmes. It was my favourite subject. It is also good for business for I regularly come to London to attend the sales of jewellery at your two great auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s.’