“What do you make of that, Watson?” my friend enquired as Miss Ffolkes disappeared from view round a corner. “Remarkable composure, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Holmes, are you suggesting that Miss Ffolkes had some hand in Montclair’s demise?” I said. I could not believe it myself.
Neither could Challenger. “That young lady, a killer? Perish the thought. Her father is a magistrate, I’ll have you know, and her mother the patron of many a charitable cause. She could not come from finer stock.”
“It is not always the case that one’s family background determines one’s ethics,” said Holmes. “A good tree may bear bad fruit. However, I was referring not to Miss Ffolkes’s self-control but rather to the forthright determination with which she departed from us.”
“Would you care to elaborate, Mr Holmes?”
“It is almost as though she had somewhere to be,” my companion said, “or perhaps someone to see.”
“Still you speak in riddles. Talk sense, man!”
“I feel I could not be making myself any clearer.”
Challenger lowered his head and snorted, for all the world like a bull about to charge.
“Alas, Professor,” I said mollifyingly, “Holmes is fond of making cryptic observations which hint at knowledge accessible to himself but unperceived by the rest of us. If you will bear with him, I’m sure all will be revealed in due course.”
“At the very least,” Holmes said, “both of you must have noted that Miss Ffolkes is not wearing an engagement ring. The fingers of her left hand are entirely unadorned with jewellery. Does that not strike you as queer?”
“Her fiancé has just died. Perhaps she has taken the ring off as a mark of respect.”
“His death is all the more reason, surely, for her to continue wearing the ring, Watson. You will recall that you wore your wedding band for several years after the regrettable loss of your beloved Mary.”
I offered a sombre bow of acknowledgement.
“No,” Holmes continued, “either Miss Ffolkes is a markedly callous young lady who has already ceased to mourn Montclair, or there is another much more plausible explanation for the ring’s absence.”
“Sirs! Oh, sirs!”
The imprecation came from the other end of the hallway, behind us. We turned to see a girl in housemaid’s garb, hurrying in our direction with the hem of her skirt held suspended off the floor to facilitate speed.
“Ida,” growled Challenger. “What is the meaning of this? Can’t you see we are busy?”
“Professor, I beg you, forgive the impertinence,” said Ida, bobbing a curtsey. “I heard from the cook that Mr Sherlock Holmes had been brought in to investigate this dire business. I also saw for myself Miss Ffolkes coming up the drive just moments ago. I have information which I think it is only right I share with you gentlemen.”
“I cannot fathom what you might have to tell us that might be of value.”
“Do not be so quick to dismiss the lass, Professor,” Holmes said. “It so happens that Ida here was going to be my next interviewee. She, don’t forget, was second into the pterodactyl room after you. She may have gleaned insights which you did not.”
He presented himself to the housemaid, adopting that air of suavity that was his wont when dealing with females. Ida was in her early twenties and not unattractive, if a little plump. Her eyes bespoke an intelligence well in excess of her station in life.
“Tell me, Ida,” Holmes said. “What is it you wish us to know?”
“Only that all was not as rosy in Miss Ffolkes and Mr Montclair’s garden as they might have people think.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh yes, sir. I myself witnessed them having a flaming row. Yesterday afternoon it was. Miss Ffolkes had been over for tea, and as she was leaving, the two of them started quarrelling on the front doorstep.”
“Professor, can you corroborate this?”
Challenger frowned. “Yesterday, did you say, Ida? That was a Sunday, and I was absent from the house all afternoon. Jessie and I called round at Summerlee’s for lunch and were there until six. I knew that Miss Ffolkes was visiting, but as I understand it, she came after we left and departed before we returned.”
“Well, I am sure other members of your household staff can verify Ida’s claim. Did you happen to hear what they said to each other, Ida?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr Holmes. They were trying to keep from raising their voices, and anyway, it isn’t my place to eavesdrop. But they were angry indeed with each other, that I can say. I saw them from an upstairs window, gesticulating wildly, all scowls and grimaces. Miss Ffolkes’s father’s coach was waiting to take her back home, and eventually she spun on her heel away from Mr Montclair and climbed into it with every appearance of finality, as though resolved she would never see him again. She even took off her engagement ring and threw it at him. It glinted in the sunlight as it flew through the air, and I saw him stoop to pick it up from where it landed at his feet.”
“Well, now we know what became of the ring,” said Holmes.
“It was a lovers’ tiff,” I offered. “It can happen in even the stablest of relationships. Perhaps the effort of organising their upcoming nuptials was putting a strain on them both.”
Challenger chimed in. “Miss Ffolkes’s reaction to the news of Montclair’s death would certainly seem to indicate there was no bad blood festering between them. She broke down and had to be comforted by her mother.”
“I am only telling you what I saw, Professor,” said Ida. “A woman,” she added, “may be a skilled actress, even one who has not devoted herself to a career on the stage.”
“Very true,” said Holmes. “By your reckoning, then, Ida, whatever Mr Montclair and Miss Ffolkes argued about, it was enough to provoke her into orchestrating a gruesome end for him?”
“What is the saying about ‘a woman scorned’?” Ida replied.
“In that case, Miss Ffolkes somehow got hold of a duplicate key to the pterodactyl room, came to The Briars last night after the bird’s evening feeding but was seen by no one, and left the cage door unbolted, a trap waiting to be sprung by her fiancé the following morning.”
“You are the famous detective, sir. If that is how you think it fell out, then who am I to gainsay you?”
“But it seems somewhat far-fetched, don’t you think? Each step of the procedure would entail considerable stealth and cunning, not to mention luck.”
“I am sure that if a lady like Miss Araminta Ffolkes puts her mind to something, she will accomplish it come what may,” Ida said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to attend to.”
“Do take care not to overtax yourself, Ida,” Holmes said. “Physical exertion, even in one as young as you are, may have a detrimental effect upon one’s constitution.”
Ida shot him a curious look, as did I, for his remark struck me as odd and inappropriate.
Then, with a shrug of her shoulders, the housemaid turned and walked away.
She had not gone more than a dozen paces when Miss Ffolkes reappeared.
“You!” Miss Ffolkes cried with a jab of the finger. “I have been looking for you!”
Ida, the object of this exclamation, glanced round in sudden panic. She began to run, and Miss Ffolkes began to run too. The latter was the fleeter of foot, and in next to no time she had caught up with the housemaid. Seizing her by the arm, she belaboured her about the head and neck with slaps. Ida defended herself valiantly, kicking at her assailant and pulling her hair. All the while the two of them yelled at each other, using language that one would not have expected either to have known, let alone use, particularly a girl of breeding such as Miss Ffolkes.
Professor Challenger took it upon himself to break up the brawl. This he accomplished by placing himself between the combatants – an endeavour that I myself might have balked at, given the ferocity of their antagonism – and pulling them apart. He held the two young women at arm’s length, and it required all of his considerable
might to keep them separated. Each shrieked at the other and clawed at Challenger’s hand in order to be free to resume their fight. He, meanwhile, bellowed at them both to calm down, but with such vehemence that the command had the opposite effect of stoking their enmity further.
The commotion brought members of the household running from all quarters, among them Mrs Challenger. She it was who at last brought order to the chaos. As the wife of Professor Challenger she must have had some experience in managing irascible outbursts, for she knew exactly how to speak – soothingly but with a steely undertone – in order to placate the junior women’s fevered tempers.
Soon enough Miss Ffolkes and Ida had withdrawn to opposite ends of the hallway, whereupon Sherlock Holmes, drawing himself up to his full height, announced that matters were resolved to his satisfaction.
“Though it shames me to admit it,” said he, “Miss Ffolkes has performed much of the work for me. She knew, even before I myself was completely certain, that it was Ida here who set up the pterodactyl room as a death trap for Richard Montclair.”
“I never!” Ida shouted. “It was her. Her, I tell you! That vile, scheming witch over there!”
“Do be quiet, Ida,” said Mrs Challenger. “It would seem you have done enough damage already without making it worse by lying.”
“Under the circumstances,” Holmes continued, “the perpetrator had to be someone in the household. Only a resident of The Briars would have had the means and opportunity to obtain one of the two keys and enter the room. An outsider would have found it very difficult. As for motive, I am inclined to believe Ida’s assertion that Miss Ffolkes and Mr Montclair argued yesterday afternoon.”
Miss Ffolkes nodded bitterly. “We did, I regret to say.”
“I am less inclined to believe that Ida’s reason for informing us about the argument was purely altruistic. Rather, it was a flagrant attempt to cast suspicion upon Miss Ffolkes and deflect it away from herself. What Ida may or may not have realised is that the subject of the argument was, in fact, none other than she.”
“That, too, is true,” Miss Ffolkes conceded.
“To be specific, the condition in which an amorous entanglement with Mr Montclair has left her. I noticed that your uniform, Ida, has been let out at the waist. The new stitches are plainly in evidence. Yet still the garment is somewhat snug in that region. You are how many months pregnant? Four? Five?”
The housemaid lowered her gaze and mumbled something.
“I pray you, speak up,” said Holmes. “My ageing ears are not what they were.”
“I said five,” the girl replied truculently.
“Ida!” said Mrs Challenger, shocked, while her husband harrumphed into his beard.
“It is manifestly apparent to me,” said Holmes, “that Mr Montclair conducted a clandestine dalliance with you, Ida, before his attentions turned to Miss Ffolkes, at which point he spurned you in her favour, as any young gentleman with prospects might. You withheld from him the fact that you were carrying his unborn child until at last you could not bear to keep it to yourself any longer. When did you tell him about it? Last week?”
A mulish look entered Ida’s eyes. “I couldn’t stand it. Him going on about Miss Ffolkes all the time, bragging to anyone who’d listen how wonderful she was. And me all the while getting larger by the day, and just a domestic servant, not the sort the likes of him would ever marry.”
“Presumably you entreated him to do the decent thing.”
“And would he? Would he even consider it? He would not. I threatened to reveal all to the Challengers unless he called off the engagement and proposed to me instead. He dared me to try. Said he’d deny everything. Said he’d call me a fantasist and insist I was mad. ‘I’ll point to some local farmhand and accuse him of being the father,’ he told me, ‘and you can argue otherwise till you’re blue in the face, but who do you think our employers will believe, Ida? You, a mere skivvy, or me?’ I knew then, in that moment, that I hated him – truly despised him – and that he would not get away with treating me as though I were of no consequence. Getting hold of his key was child’s play. I went to him late last night, in his bedroom.”
Mrs Challenger could not have looked any more appalled. “In my house,” she breathed. “Under my roof.”
“I said I forgave him and I offered myself to him for one final tryst, for old times’ sake, as a way of saying bygones.” Ida was beginning to sound gleeful. Now that she had been found out, she was eager to show all and sundry how crafty she was.
“He, of course, refused you,” said Miss Ffolkes.
“On the contrary, Araminta. You, with your posh name and your sheltered upbringing, don’t seem to understand men half as well as I do. They are so easy to manipulate, so gullible, not least when there’s something pleasurable in it for them. Refuse? He did anything but. Afterwards, while he slept, I stole the key from his jacket pocket, crept down to the pterodactyl room, and carefully slid back the bolts on the cage door. Terrifying, it was, but exhilarating too. The creature was asleep at the time, perched in a corner of the cage with its head bent and its wings folded around it, but I left things so that there was every chance the door would swing open once it was awake. Mr Montclair – Richard – said the bird always became excitable when it knew its breakfast was imminent. It would move around inside the cage eagerly, and thus would be likely to dislodge the unbolted door from its jamb. It was perfect. Everyone would assume his death was an unfortunate accident, and I would have my revenge upon him. Then all I had to do was return his key to his jacket, and it was done. I barely slept a wink last night, so excited was I about the prospect of what was to come.”
Miss Ffolkes let out a snarl like an enraged tigress and lunged for the housemaid. Professor Challenger barred her way.
“No, my girl,” said he. “You are better than this. Better than her.”
“The argument you had with Mr Montclair,” said Holmes to Miss Ffolkes, “arose from the fact that he decided to confess to you about Ida.”
“It had been preying on Richard’s conscience. He said he wanted there to be no secrets between us. He was making a clean breast of it in the hope that I would forgive him. At the time, I was too stunned by the revelation, and too disgusted with him, to be rational. I hurled my ring at him. I told him the wedding was off. Yet I knew, in my heart of hearts, that I would relent eventually. I loved him too much. I still love him.”
Her words were lost in a choking sob and her shoulders began to heave. Mrs Challenger slipped an arm around her, while glowering at Ida.
“Ida,” said Holmes, “I believe you possess a certain item which is not yours and which rightfully belongs, if anyone, to Miss Ffolkes. It may even be upon your person, in which case I entreat you to hand it over.”
The housemaid, after a brief hesitation, reached sullenly into a pocket of her skirt to produce a silver ring mounted with a trio of diamonds. She tossed it towards Miss Ffolkes, who snatched it up off the floor with a gasp of mingled delight and dismay.
“You had this?” she said to Ida. “How did you come by it?”
“That ring,” said Holmes, “betokens the one significant mistake Ida made in her well-laid plan. The ring was previously attached to the bow of Montclair’s key with a piece of cotton, was it not, Ida?”
“Yes.”
“And when you entered the pterodactyl room hot on Professor Challenger’s heels, you spied the key in your former lover’s hand. I imagine he had been holding it when the bird attacked him, and it now lay clasped loosely in his lifeless fingers. You knew already about the ring being attached to it. Now an opportunity presented itself, and you elected to add to the crime of premeditated murder the sin of greed, or at least of covetousness. You desired possession of the ring. As a memento? Or to sell?”
“Does it matter?”
“Not to me, but I would fancy that a housemaid’s income could always do with a little augmenting, and why not profit from the very item which represented so much
heartbreak for you? There would seem to be a rough kind of poetic justice in that.”
“The ring would undoubtedly have fetched a bob or two at the pawnbrokers,” Ida said. “I suppose you are keen to tell us how you worked all this out.”
“More than keen.” Holmes turned to Challenger. “You remember, Professor, telling me how you entered the pterodactyl room. You unlocked the door, did you not?”
“Yes, with my own key.”
“But when I inspected the room, Montclair’s key was in the lock.”
“True. Was it not there all along?”
“Think, man. How could it have been? You could not have unlocked the door if there was another key already on the other side, obstructing the cylinder.”
Challenger slapped his forehead. “Bless me! Of course not! My key would not have gone in.”
“In all the excitement of entering the room and shooting the pterodactyl, you were too preoccupied to notice that there was no key in the lock at that time. Then in came Ida, who promptly fainted. Or pretended to.”
“It was a ruse,” I said.
“A pretext so that Professor Challenger would leave the room to fetch help, giving her time to retrieve Montclair’s key from his dead hand, with the engagement ring attached. What Ida did next was clever but also, it transpires, foolish. She wished to detach the ring from the key bow but it was tied too tightly for her to unpick the knot easily, not in the scant amount of time available. She could not simply pocket key and ring together, for the key’s absence from Montclair’s body might be noticed and questions might be asked. Instead, she inserted the key into the lock to steady it and pulled hard on the ring, snapping the thread. She would no doubt have returned the key to Montclair’s grasp, but you and Mrs Challenger arrived before she could do so, obliging her to leave the key in the lock. You found her purportedly clinging to the door, as though in the throes of coming round from her swoon, whereas in fact she had just carried out an act of petty larceny. Her loot – the ring – was by then either concealed in the palm of her hand or stowed in her pocket.”
“When I learned that the Professor had gone to fetch Sherlock Holmes,” said Ida, “I resolved to return to the pterodactyl room and plant the key back on Richard’s person.”
The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes Page 18