by C J Lutton
My friend’s philanthropy had helped these homeless children, and that gratified me, for they are the least of us. During times of hardship too many of them must resort to illegal activity to stave off hunger and cold. The poorhouses and workhouses are not much better because the rations are paltry and the environment downright insalubrious.
“So was the reply satisfactory?” I asked Holmes as he tossed this second piece of stationery into the coals on the hearth.
“She wishes to meet us at half past five this afternoon.” He took a poker and stirred the fragments of wood timber. A chunk of burned wood rolled out onto the brick hearth where it glowed like the eyes of a demon.
“Half past five o’clock?” I repeated the time because I was confident I had heard him wrong. “That is odd.”
Typically one called on visitors between three and five p.m. The better acquainted one was, the later one might call. But a visit after five to someone to whom Holmes had not been properly introduced was exceedingly odd. Furthermore, if a spouse was missing, wouldn’t one hope to see the great detective immediately? If the missing person in question had been Mary, I should have beaten down Sherlock Holmes’ door and begged for help finding my wife. Yet, Mrs. Morel had sent along a note, received an answer, and decided to content herself by waiting for our help. Astonishing!
“Yes,” agreed Holmes. “The hour is rather curious, is it not?
2
Later that day, we did as instructed and found ourselves standing outside a two-story white house with black shutters and a black door. Holmes lifted the knocker and let it fall twice. The wait for an answer gave me a chance to scrutinize the neighborhood, an elegant residential area where lace curtains shielded the interiors from casual viewers even after the heavy velvet drapes had been drawn. Shivering in my tweed jacket, I hoped we’d be allowed entrance soon, when we were greeted by a parlour maid whose height was nearly that of Holmes’, yet another unusual aspect of this strange visit. Most household staff members tend to be small in stature. Often, they have lived their lives on the verge of starvation until coming into service, and this lack of proper nutrition stunts their growth.
This particular servant was wearing the black skirt, white blouse, and white apron so appropriate for her station in life, but unless my eyes deceived me, she had also artfully applied rouge to her cheeks. The distinct fragrance of violets clung to her person. My only qualification for making such judgements, I might add, is that my marriage to Mary opened my eyes to many of the closely guarded secrets of the feminine toilette. Before our wedding, I should never have stopped to ponder whether ruddy cheeks were the end result of nature or of artifice. Mary had also laughingly revealed other sundry trifles that now came back to me when Holmes and I had been welcomed into the home. Thanks to my late wife, I knew that a parlour maid did not wear scent, as this was viewed as putting on airs. Yet the parlour maid at the Morels’ home seemed to have missed the rules that Mary had quoted me.
We followed the young woman into the foyer of an immaculate and tastefully furnished home. We relieved ourselves of our topcoats, as the parlour maid had not offered to take them from us. Curiously, she hesitated at the door to the hallway before making up her mind to carry our outer garments up the stairs. Holmes and I stood there in that vestibule and waited to meet our hostess.
Soft footsteps marked the arrival of Maria Morel. The lady took my breath away, and I mean that literally. Her hair was the color of spun gold, and although she had made an effort to tame her locks, a few escaped to curl around her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were an unusual dark brown and framed by lashes so long they dusted her cheeks each time she blinked. Most alluring of all was her porcelain skin, a dermis as smooth and silky as any I have ever seen. The color was the palest pink and the texture flawless. All of this beauty was set off by a pair of delicately arched brows that added a piquant quality to what was already both an intelligent and feminine face. Needless to say, her figure was exquisite and her tiny hands with their thin graceful fingers were absolutely charming.
“You must be Sherlock Holmes,” she said, offering her hand to the detective.
“I am, and this is my associate, Dr. Watson.”
Her smile was disarming, as was her firm handshake. “Thank you for coming, gentlemen. I am Maria deMare Morel. Welcome to my home,” she said in a slightly breathy voice.
“Please come in and make yourselves comfortable,” she said sweetly.
Stepping aside to allow us entry into the sitting room, Mrs. Morel never averted her eyes as her silk skirts swished becomingly. Instead she watched us carefully as she nodded towards two leather-covered armchairs with ottomans that had been painstakingly needlepointed. I took one of the seats; Holmes took the other. A cozy fire was blazing away in the fireplace, imbuing the space with a sense of warmth and comfort. Wisps of steam rose from a recently poured cup of tea that sat untouched on a small side table.
“May I get you some tea?” Mrs. Morel asked breathlessly, as she took what seemed to be her accustomed place on a green damask settee. Her hand paused over the tea cozy. A fragrance of bergamot hung in the air.
“Yes, please, with milk,” replied Holmes, settling his long, lanky frame.
I could not help it, but my mouth fell open. I’ve never known Holmes to take milk in his tea. Gathering my wits, I realised that our lovely hostess was waiting to hear from me.
“The same,” I said. Perhaps Holmes knew something about this particular tea that I did not. Mrs. Morel lifted a silver bell and rang it. “Tea for these gentlemen, Linton,” she said politely when the maid reappeared.
“Tell us how we may be of assistance.” Holmes regarded the lady of the house coolly as he crossed one knee over the other leg. His hands rested loosely in his lap.
“Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson,” she said, while searching our eyes, “I am not normally a nervous woman. My husband has gone on extended trips before, and there have been weeks on end that I would not hear from him. But this feels different. I know that something’s amiss, but I do not know what it is.”
“Take your time, Mrs. Morel,” I remarked, feeling protective. The colorful needlework reminded me of my Mary. How I missed her!
“Thank you, Doctor,” Mrs. Morel smiled. Yet her voice trembled as she said, “But it is my husband that should be of concern to you. Perhaps I should not have contacted you, Mr. Holmes. There are those in authority who will become greatly agitated at my indiscretion; but confound them all! It is my husband that I care most about! Not my position!”
Her eyes glowed defiantly and spoke of an immensely strong and competent woman.
Holmes cocked his head and studied her. “Do go on, I beg of you. Time is of the essence, and I must hear everything.”
The woman composed herself, folding her hands in her lap. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry, Mr. Holmes. My husband has been retained by the firm of Morrison, Morrison, and Dodd for three years now. Before that, he was a part of the Royal Navy.”
“I’m familiar with Morrison, Morrison, and Dodd,” Holmes remarked. “They’re a highly reputable firm, specializing exclusively in the shipping industry. What’s your husband’s position with them?”
“He is a lieutenant, and he is one of the naval officers who are responsible for piloting the screw steamships Morrison, Morrison, and Dodd own. Lieutenant Morel is his proper title, and his job is sailing the vessels from Sydney to Liverpool and back again, once a month. Specifically, he’s been assigned to the Celestial.”
Holmes nodded for her to continue.
She cast her eyes down demurely and played with a linen handkerchief that she must have tucked up one sleeve. “Perhaps I should explain my relationship with my husband. Not only am I his wife, but I am also his confidante. We speak openly to each other about everything. Therefore, Mr. Holmes, I know that something is wrong. I know it. This is not mere suspicion. Nor is it the ramblings of an insecure wife! Rather, my conjecture is the result of piecing together a variety of happenings
in a logical manner.”
I smiled to myself. Mrs. Morel knew the way to make Holmes sit up and pay attention!
She continued, “Two months ago, my husband was informed that a serious mishap at sea had occurred. He was told this in a very confidential manner by a person who had reason to know. It seems that a ship carrying the usual cargo disappeared off the coast of Portugal. The crew was missing, too. No bodies washed up on the sand. No spars or bits of wood planking. Nothing. The cargo disappeared as well. Nothing was salvaged. The ship was a total loss. My husband wrote off the disappearance as bad luck. He presumed a storm at sea had knocked the ship off course and then they hit a reef. Since the ship would have been heavily laden with cargo, it might have gone straight down. That can happen. I know it does happen. I have not grown inured to the dangers of my husband’s profession.
“But I do have tremendous faith in my husband’s abilities. Last month, shortly before he was to sail from Liverpool, an old friend visited. He told my husband about another such tragedy. A second ship from another shipping firm went down shortly after passing through the Suez Canal and clearing Port Said.. Only a handful of those men survived, and the stories they told were so clearly fabricated, that my husband’s first impulse was to ignore them. However, two such incidents happening so close to each other are highly irregular. I told Mr. Morel that I felt ill at ease about his upcoming voyage. My husband assured me that he’d taken every precaution. The crew was handpicked by him, down to a man. The vessel was one he’d seen being built. He’d sailed that particular ship twice, so he knew it intimately. Yet, my sense of dread was powerful. I could not overcome it. Seeing my agitation, he made me a promise. He swore to me that he would send a message each time the ship stopped at a port. That way I could track their progress as they returned to England.”
“And did he keep his word?” Holmes asked.
Mrs. Morel’s answer was delayed because the maid had returned. Linton was carrying a walnut tray trimmed with brass. On the tray there was a fresh pot of tea, two teacups, two saucers, and a plate of biscuits. Mrs. Morel poured our tea and Linton walked to the right of me and handed me the cup and saucer. She did the same with Holmes and then sat back in her seat and studied us both.
“Milk?” asked my friend, raising an eyebrow and addressing the maid.
“The milkman must have forgotten our order,” Linton said. Adding the quickest bob for a curtsey that I’ve ever seen, she seemed to recover herself, “Believe me, I’ll have words with him. It ain’t right. Not at all. Begging your pardon, sir. I did bring biscuits. Hope you like them.” With that, she held the plate of biscuits close enough for me to help myself. I did.
However, that first bite told me that I had made a mistake. The biscuit was old and hard as a rock. I did my best to swallow that piece and rested what was left of the wretched pastry next to my tea cup and thanked the stars above that I hadn’t broken a tooth.
“As you were saying,” Holmes prodded Mrs. Morel. “You received correspondence from each port where your husband’s ship docked.”
“Yes. However, my husband should have been home by now. In point of fact, he’s more than three weeks overdue! He last wrote me from Marseilles, and the last leg of the journey is only three days long at the most.” She touched her throat with delicate fingers. From the depths of her dress she withdrew a locket. As her fingers toyed with the chain, the locket twisted and caught the light. From my chair, I could discern golden wisps of hair. Not much more than a curl, actually. Clearly her next comment took a great deal of strength to share, “That was the last I heard from him.”
“But surely,” I interrupted, hoping to ease her fears, “three weeks is not a very long time to be gone, especially if they must travel to Portugal and remain there for the investigation.”
“Normally, I would agree with you, Watson,” Holmes remarked. “But Mrs. Morel has more to add—something that has caused her to question her husband’s whereabouts and safety. Is that not so, Mrs. Morel?”
“Why, yes. I’ll get them.” With grace, she rose to her feet.
Holmes’ eyes followed Mrs. Morel as she left the room. Anger flashed when he turned in my direction. His expression shelved any possibility for us to have a civil conversation, and I sank back into my chair and kept silent.
What next? I thought, disgustedly. The room suddenly grew hot and uncomfortable.
A few moments later, Mrs. Morel returned. Her delicate fingers held a folder overflowing with papers. “This is everything concerning this voyage, Mr. Holmes. My husband is a very precise and practical man and has taken on the habit, as of late, to make duplicate records. I believe this is what you might need to trace his journey.”
Sitting back, her face manifested a myriad of emotions. Most notably, she displayed a look of concern. After a brief pause, she added, “There is one more thing, Mr. Holmes. It is nothing that is written in those sheets of paper, but my husband did mention it to me on more than one occasion. He said that if anything should anything ever happen to him, I should seek you out and ask you to speak with someone called the Bard. That’s all I can say, as my husband provided me with no further information. Do you know of this person? Is that name familiar to you?”
“No.” Holmes shook his head glumly. “But I will tell you this, madam. In time, I will know all that there is to know about him.” Holmes spread the small amount of paper out on the table that stood between us and Mrs. Morel. He studied them for a minute. She nervously bit into her lower lip. But she was a strong woman indeed, and watched Holmes in silence.
I sat back and waited for Holmes to complete his reading. Mrs. Morel did the same. From time to time, she would nervously sip her tea. When she wasn’t drinking from her china cup, she sat with her head bowed. She kept her gaze down, aimed at her hands. I fully expected to watch the tears flow. However, when she raised her eyes to meet mine, her face startled me because it held no emotion at all. That calm visage changed suddenly, or so it appeared to me, when she became aware that I was watching her. Her face grew rapidly worried and concerned. A remarkable woman! I thought.
“We may take these?” Holmes asked, snapping the folder shut and already stashing it in his coat. “Of course, they’ll be returned. Do you have any photographs of your husband? Obviously, the process of finding him would be greatly enhanced if I knew how to recognise the man.”
She colored. “No, sadly, I do not. Mr. Morel is averse to seeing his own image. My husband believes his features to be rather coarse. I see him through the eyes of love, and to me, he is the most handsome man in the world.”
What a pleasure it was to hear a woman speak of her husband with such love! The tilt of her head, the genteel way she compensated for his rough looks, were altogether a compliment of the highest rank.
“Could you describe him to us? How tall is he? Is he fair or dark? Portly or thin? Clean-shaven or not?” Holmes pressed on. I noticed my friend’s eyes had narrowed, and I calculated that he was unmoved by her profession of love.
Our hostess’s glance flitted to the ceiling and then down to her hands, clasped as they were in her lap. Her grip tightened as if the effort of recalling a person so familiar was difficult. After all, once we love, do we continue to assess? No, we accept and are accepted.
“I would have to say my husband is average in all respects, except of course, the regard he holds for me. His temperament and his mind are those aspects that set him apart from the vast sea of men. One could not look upon him and discern a particular appealing trait in his person. Rather it is the man’s inner life that I have found so admirable.”
Holmes eyed her thoughtfully. “Tell me, Mrs. Morel, did your husband have any distinctive marks on his person? Sailors are exceedingly fond of tattoos. Did Mr. Morel have one?”
“Y-Y-Yes,” she said with ladylike hesitancy. “I do not like to speak of it because I do not find it attractive. When my husband first presented it to me, I could not hide my disgust. Over time, I’ve learned to a
ccept that such adornments are part and parcel of his trade.”
“And could you describe that adornment to me?” Holmes pressed.
“Very well. He has a version of my name inscribed on his forearm,” she said in a voice not more than a whisper. “Here.” Gently she unbuttoned the cuff on the sleeve of her blouse and rolled the fabric up to expose creamy, unblemished skin. Slowly, she let her fingertips play over the porcelain flesh.
“I see,” Holmes sounded gruff. “But Mrs. Morel, you are not giving me much help. I am confident that almost any sailor I might find could show me a tattoo in that spot. What I need is a fulsome description of the image. Give me every detail you can.”
She pouted and rolled down her sleeve. “I do not like to speak of this. It is indelicate. However, since you insist—”
“I do,” Holmes rejoined.
“He had the letters L. I. V. inscribed there inside a heart-shaped frame.”
I was thoroughly puzzled and could not contain my exasperation. “How does one start with Maria and conjure up that combination of letters? It makes no sense. None at all.”
She gave me a shy smile. “My middle name is Olivia. He liked to call me Livvy. I can only guess that Liv fit better on his arm. You see, Doctor, it was a silly pet name. The sort of tomfoolery two lovers oft engage in. Only he took it to—” and she gasped as if a sharp pain coursed through her body. “He took it to his body as a way of saying we would never be parted. Ever! And yet here I am! Bereft of him! And worse, I have no body to mourn. I cannot rightly call myself a widow. I cannot honestly put on black. It is too, too hard.”
She burst into noisy tears. “Forgive me, I am overcome with grief. I cannot live without dear Jeremy.”
“Jeremy?” Holmes pressed her. “How did you come to call him Jonas in your note to me?’
“Oh!” and those delicate hands of hers flew to her mouth. “How silly of me. You see, Mr. Holmes, my husband’s given name is Jeremy, the same as his father, but he is known to all as Jonas, which is his middle name. At the time that I penned the note that summoned you here, I was worried about sharing this news with his father, and quite naturally, I confused their names.”