All Roads Lead to Whitechapel

by Michelle Birkby

  Upstairs, I heard John say, ‘Holmes, have you seen what’s in this package?’

  I heard the rustle of paper as Mr Holmes glanced through the letters and ledger, then I heard his great shout of laughter.

  ‘Well, that would have been the easiest fee we ever earned! Sir George begs us to find his papers, and here they are, not three feet behind him.’

  ‘Who do you suppose sent them?’

  ‘I have my suspicions,’ Mr Holmes said, and I wondered if he meant Irene. ‘But I’m not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.’

  ‘The man is a cad,’ John said. He must have been reading some of the letters. ‘He really does deserve to be punished.’

  ‘Oh, he will be,’ Mr Holmes said. ‘Put those papers carefully away, Watson. I’ve no doubt the name of Sir George Burnwell will pop up again.’

  Lillian Rose. She sounded like a woman who could answer a few questions. But first we had to see Adam Ballant.

  Mary arrived early the next morning, whilst I was still clearing away Mr Holmes’ breakfast things. She had dressed as if for court, or battle. She was all in black, smart and slightly intimidating. Her hair was neatly pinned for once, a black hat with an upturned side brim replacing her usual straw boater. She was very pale, but resolute. She was determined to face Adam Ballant and have it out.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

  ‘Certain,’ she said grimly. As I was already, as always, all in black, we left to catch a hansom to Adam Ballant’s house.

  Mr Ballant lived in a very quiet, clean, expensive street in the west of London. Very few hawkers and muffin-sellers cried down this street, the servants kept discreetly indoors, anyone too scruffy would be moved on by the patrolling policeman— although this morning, the policeman was absent so we had the street to ourselves as we walked down it.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Mary admitted. ‘What do we say to him?’

  ‘We accuse him, I suppose,’ I replied. ‘I actually have no idea how Mr Holmes does this part. He always has his confrontations away from his rooms.’

  ‘We have no proof,’ Mary said, suddenly nervous, her hand tightening on my arm. ‘Just a bit of card and a few suspicions. Maybe we should…’

  ‘We can’t wait,’ I insisted. ‘If we stop we will stagnate, and it is far too late for that now.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mary said. We had reached the steps of Mr Ballant’s house, with its moss-green front door matching the moss-green curtains contrasting tastefully with the brilliant-white stone of the house. Mary put her shoulders back, stepped up to the door and rang the bell firmly.

  The door was opened not by a footman or butler, as we expected, but by what seemed to be the scullery maid, sobbing violently. Mary’s greeting died on her lips. The girl just stood there, crying her eyes out.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked gently.

  ‘He’s dead,’ she cried out, gulping as she spoke. She seemed unable to contain herself now she’d started speaking. ‘He’s gone and hanged himself, he’s dead, I saw it, he’s dead!’

  ‘Who?’ Mary demanded.

  ‘The master, right over the balcony, rope round his neck, like a common criminal, only he did it himself, he’s dead and I saw it and I can’t stop seeing it—and he’s dead!’ With that she broke down sobbing into her apron.

  Mary and I stood there, utterly dumbfounded. Dead? Our prime suspect, a suicide? My gaze drifted upwards to the staircase that ran from the black-and-white tiled floor up to the first floor, sweeping around the hall. There was nothing there now, but I could see scratches on the banister, and smears of something on the highly polished floor, at least fifteen feet below.

  A door to the right of the hall opened, and an elderly man with flyaway white hair came out. He saw the maid standing on the step babbling to us and hurried forward.

  ‘Minnie, that will do! Go to the kitchen, now,’ he ordered, not unkindly. ‘I apologize,’ he said to us. ‘She should not have answered the door. I’m afraid we’re all not ourselves this morning.’ He seemed sad and worn and confused.

  ‘Is it true?’ Mary demanded. ‘Adam Ballant hanged himself?’

  ‘I regret Mr Ballant has died in unfortunate circumstances,’ he said, remembering his duty and standing a little straighter. ‘The police have been sent for. I regret the household cannot receive callers.’

  ‘I feel faint,’ I announced. ‘May I sit down for a moment? Just here, in the hall?’

  Mary, grasping my lie, hurriedly took my arm to support me. The butler hesitated, but I was only a woman, obviously not used to such shocking news, and ladies were prone to faint. From downstairs came a great cry—the servants were clearly getting worked up.

  ‘It’ll only be a moment,’ Mary said sweetly. ‘Then we’ll be on our way. It’s been such a great shock for her.’

  ‘She knew Mr Ballant?’ the butler queried.

  ‘As a child,’ I said weakly, hoping the butler had not been in the family back then. ‘He was such a beautiful boy. Such promise, then to die so young and so tragically…’ I allowed my voice to fade away.

  ‘You don’t want her fainting on the doorstep where the whole world can see her,’ Mary pointed out.

  The butler, prizing discretion above all—they all do— nodded, and guided me into the hall. There were some wooden chairs arranged there, against the wall, next to the door the butler had come out of, and Mary solicitously placed me in one. I could hear a woman screaming somewhere.

  ‘It sounds like the servants are in uproar,’ Mary said sympathetically. ‘We will be fine by ourselves, if you wish to go and calm them. You wouldn’t want the hubbub to alert the neighbours.’

  The butler hesitated, glancing at the door beside us. Then, hearing raised voices, and something smash, he nodded quickly and left through the green baize door under the stair.

  ‘That must where he hanged himself,’ I said, looking up at the banister. Mary, in one swift movement, stood up and opened the door beside her.

  ‘It’s the billiard room,’ she whispered to me. ‘They’ve got him laid out on the table.’ She stepped inside, whilst I just peered round the door.

  Adam Ballant had been a magnificent young man in life. Now he looked diminished, laid out in the morning light on the table. His face was suffused with blood, and there was a livid purple bruise around his neck. He had not died easily. If he truly was our blackmailer, I was glad of that, and yet the sight of him made me feel sick.

  ‘Keep watch,’ Mary ordered. ‘I’m going to examine his body.’

  ‘Why? What are you looking for?’

  ‘Just checking,’ Mary replied, as she tilted Mr Ballant’s head back to fully examine the bruise around his neck. I looked away, into the hall.

  ‘How do you know what to look for?’ I hissed.

  ‘John’s become quite the medical criminal expert,’ Mary said, only half listening. She was peering closely at Mr Ballant’s neck, moving the folds of skin aside. ‘All kinds of people consult him now, not just Mr Holmes. I type up his reports, so I’ve learnt quite a lot too. Ah, that’s interesting.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘In a minute. Is anyone coming?’

  The hall was empty, but I could hear voices. And of course the police were expected any moment—we didn’t have long.

  ‘He’s quite cold,’ Mary said, as clinical as John would have been. ‘And stiff too. This must have happened quite a few hours ago.’

  ‘The scullery maid found him,’ I reminded her. ‘They’re normally up at six.’

  ‘It’s eight now,’ Mary agreed. She had lifted up Mr Ballant’s hands and was examining them closely.

  ‘Mary, I think the butler’s coming back!’ I whispered urgently.

  ‘All done,’ Mary said calmly, replacing Mr Ballant’s hand on his chest and sweeping out of the room, closing the door behind her. We sat just as the butler returned.

  ‘My friend feels so much better now,’ Mary said. ‘Thank you so much for your k
indness, we cannot impose any more, not on this day of all days.’

  We stood and headed for the door, far faster than was polite. Hopefully he’d put our speed down to distaste at being at the scene of an unnatural death.

  ‘Who shall I say called?’ the butler asked as we hurried past him.

  ‘It’s of no matter now,’ I said, weeping a little. ‘Such promise—and all gone to dust. Farewell.’

  And with that we headed down the steps as fast as possible and along the street.

  As soon as we were far enough away, I asked Mary what she had found.

  ‘Well, it’s not a suicide,’ Mary asserted.

  ‘How on earth do you know that?’

  ‘There were two bruises on his neck,’ Mary said, gesturing to her own neck to demonstrate. ‘One bruise around his neck, rising from the front to the back, knot under his left ear. A classic hanging bruise.’

  I felt a bit sick, but Mary seemed calmly competent.

  ‘However,’ she continued, ‘underneath that is another bruise, horizontally around his neck, and with no knot, just the two ends crossed at the back of the neck.’ She clasped her hands round her throat to show me.

  ‘The rope slipped?’ I asked.

  She carried on walking.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I think someone wrapped the rope around his neck, enough to choke him into unconsciousness, maybe even to death, and then tied the rope around his neck and tossed him over the balcony to make it look as if he hanged himself.’

  ‘He’s too heavy!’ I objected.

  ‘Not really, it’s all a matter of angles,’ Mary said, lost in thought. ‘Choke him from behind, at the top of the stairs, make sure he passes out draped over the banister, tie the rope around his neck, then using his own body as fulcrum, tip him over…’

  ‘Mary!’ I cried, eager to stop the picture she was building up in my mind. It was horrific.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, seeing my white face. ‘I couldn’t help working it out. Mathematics was always my best subject as a governess,’ she remarked inconsequentially, as I stood still, breathing deeply. ‘I was terrible at French grammar though.’

  I didn’t smile.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

  ‘That he was murdered? Yes,’ she replied, as we walked on. ‘I’m afraid there were scratches on his neck, and his fingernails were torn, as if he’d tried to pull the rope away from his throat. He fought for his life.’

  ‘So, murdered,’ I said. ‘And therefore, not our blackmailer.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Mary corrected. She looked at my face. ‘All right, almost certainly not. And therefore, the next logical step is that Ballant was killed by him.’

  ‘He must have known him,’ I said. ‘If he let him in during the early hours of the morning.’

  ‘Known him and trusted him. Probably like the Whitechapel Lady did…Martha?’

  She was staring down the street ahead of us. A familiar figure, one I knew well, was approaching us. It was a little man with red hair and a permanently suspicious expression. He was counting the house numbers, with a constable by his side.

  ‘Yes,’ I said grimly. ‘That is Inspector Lestrade.’

  Unfortunately, at that moment he spotted us, and hurried towards us.

  ‘Mrs Hudson? Mrs Watson? What are you doing here?’

  I had to make a quick decision. What lie to tell? How much could I get away with? What would he believe? If he was heading towards the murder scene—and what else would he be doing here—the butler would be bound to tell him about the mysterious lady visitors. Inspector Lestrade was not clever, but he was perceptive and tenacious.

  ‘I have a friend in service near here,’ I said quickly. ‘We came to visit her. She’s not been well, poor soul. I took her some cake, to feed her up.’

  ‘Bit early, isn’t it?’ he asked suspiciously. He was always suspicious.

  ‘She’s a very early riser. Alas, her illness means she does not sleep well at night, and is too tired for visitors in the afternoon. And you—are you here to visit the Ballant house?’

  Beside me Mary gasped slightly—but how could I conceal our visit there, and our knowledge?

  ‘How do you know?’ he demanded.

  ‘Martha felt faint as we walked down here,’ Mary said, catching on quickly, thank goodness. ‘We called at a house, any house really, for a rest, and unfortunately, it turned out to be Mr Ballant’s house. Such a pity.’

  ‘Quite a coincidence,’ Lestrade said dryly. ‘Own up, the pair of you. Mr Holmes sent you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Why on earth would he?’ Mary demanded.

  ‘He heard about this death—I don’t know, he has his little methods—and sent you two here to get ahead of the game, didn’t he?’ Lestrade crowed, certain he’d caught us out.

  ‘His housekeeper and his friend’s wife?’ Mary said scornfully. ‘What on earth do you imagine he thinks we can do?’

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ I demanded myself. ‘This is not your patch,’ I said, slipping into the Irregulars’ vernacular.

  ‘Mr Holmes sent me here personally,’ Lestrade said with pride.

  ‘Sherlock sent you?’ Mary asked, bemused.

  ‘Not Mr Sherlock Homes. Mr Mycroft Holmes,’ he said, visibly standing straighter. ‘My reputation has spread far and wide, ladies.’

  ‘I’ll just bet it has,’ Mary murmured. But Lestrade didn’t hear her, and announcing he didn’t have time to stand around in the street talking, he and the uniformed constable by his side walked past us and up the street to the Ballant home.

  Well, Inspector Lestrade had a reputation all right. He was steady and persistent, but always tended to go for the obvious answer. His greatest cases had been solved by Sherlock, and Mycroft, as Sherlock’s brother, would know this. So why send him out to this case? Lestrade would be bound to rule it suicide. And what was Mycroft’s interest in Adam Ballant?

  At the end of the street was a small garden with gravel paths and trees just bursting into bloom. It was rather pretty, even in the grey drizzle that had started, and we turned into the garden. We walked round and round the paths, arm in arm.

  ‘Mycroft?’ Mary said suddenly. ‘John’s mentioned him, Sherlock’s brilliant older brother.’

  ‘I’ve met him once,’ I told her.

  I had of course met Mycroft Holmes the previous year when he, quite unexpectedly, visited Mr Holmes at 221b to help a friend of his, a Greek interpreter. He seemed to me a very large man, slow and lazy in person, but with a quick and sharp mind behind grey eyes. He had glanced at me momentarily, and yet I had an impression that in that moment he had sized me up, classified me, docketed me, and put me aside to be remembered in case of future usefulness.

  A few weeks later I had been asked by Mr Holmes to take a message to his brother at his club, as none of the boys seemed to be available at that time, and Mycroft Holmes had wanted the information instantly. I was instructed to go to the Diogenes Club, but on no account to talk or make any sound in those premises except in the Strangers’ Room. The members prized silence and solitude. I doubted this would be a problem. As a woman, I would be lucky to get through the front door. I was only allowed in as I had a message from Mr Holmes marked ‘Confidential. By Hand Only.’

  Mycroft Holmes met me in the Strangers’ Room. I entered as a young man left. He had obviously been in conference with Mycroft Holmes, and Mr Holmes still held the purple piece of paper he had given him. I gave Mr Holmes my message, for which he thanked me, and then he left. I followed him outside and watched him walk away towards Whitehall. He had again given me the impression of assessing me, not as a person, but as a possible tool. Sherlock Holmes liked to find out the details of a person out of curiosity, or an urge to help. Mycroft assessed them for what function they could fulfil for him.

  As I stood on the steps of the Diogenes Club, I became aware the doorman was talking to me. He was a tall man, cadaverously thin and with a high-pitched Cockney accen
t.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said to the doorman. ‘Do you enjoy your post?’

  ‘I do not!’ he said firmly. ‘Standing ’round all day, not so much as a “thank you”; against club rules, apparently,’ he said scornfully. ‘And none too free with the tips either! Don’t trust a man ’oo don’t tip and don’t talk, I say. F’r instance, you want to watch that one,’ he said, nodding at Mycroft Holmes. ‘’E ain’t safe.’

  ‘What do you mean, not safe?’ I asked. A gentleman I recognized as quite a high-ranking minister had met Mycroft in the street and was talking urgently to him.

  ‘’E knows things,’ he said, under his voice.

  It must be difficult to work in a place where no one is allowed to say so much as good morning to you. He was obviously yearning to talk.

  ‘I seen ’im, meeting all kinds of people down here, and getting ’em to tell him stuff. Know ’oo that is ’e’s talking to right now?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. The man looked deeply distressed and Mycroft was soothing him.

  ‘Well, that bloke’s done things ’e ought not to,’ he said. ‘Things I can’t tell a lady. ’E thought no one knew, but I heard that fat bloke tell ’im ’e knew everything.’

  ‘Blackmail, do you mean?’ I asked sharply. I saw Mycroft hand the purple piece of paper to the man, who sighed in relief.

  ‘Gawd, no, not that sort o’ thing, not ’ere!’ the doorman said sharply. ‘That fat bloke, Mr ’Olmes, just said ’e’d take care of things, and ’e’d be grateful if that minister could let ’im know a few things in return, that’s all. Just a sort of exchange of information.’

  ‘Exchange of information,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘All men of business do it. Why is he dangerous?’

  ‘’Cos it’s not an exchange,’ the doorman said. ‘ ’E has these men that work for ’im, all over the city, and they come and tell ’im stuff. Secret stuff. Stuff no one’s supposed to ’ear or know. But ’e never tells anything in return. Oh no, not ’im. ’E watches and listens and collects all these secrets, but ’e never gives anything in return.’