“My dear leading lady,” said Holmes. “Allow me to introduce Mr. Sasha Beleyi of The Evening Star, also known as Mr. Al White of the Kansas Agitator, also known as A.K. Blanc of the Liverpool Mercury, and as Mr. Alex Wiebe of the North London Journal. He has acquired a nasty habit over the past decade or more. When he could not find a scandal to write about and sell newspapers, he went out and created one. I believe, Inspector Lestrade and Marshall Black, that you will find he is directly connected to the death of Major Moulton some years ago in Oklahoma, to the tragic suicide of Lord Somerset following the Cleveland Street Scandal, to the poisoning of Mr. Maybrick in Liverpool, to the murder of Mr. Tom Rugglesworth near the Zoo, and to the shooting of Lord St. Simon in this very hotel. He is a vile and evil schemer who used the privileged position awarded to the press in a free society to enhance his own reputation and his pocketbook. Inspector, please take him away.”
Lestrade and his men took the villain out of the room and into the hall. We all followed him, not stopping to think that we might have attracted a crowd of curious onlookers. There were, at least, sixty of them, all in various stages of early morning attire, standing around the doorway, the hall, and the staircase.
“Right folks,” shouted Lestrade. “Nothing to see here.” But having had a taste of theater that morning he could not resist adding. “Thanks to these wonderful actors, Scotland Yard has apprehended a murderer.” A small round of applause went up from the audience. Lestrade gave a small bow and a wave.
An hour later our small troupe assembled around a table in the breakfast room of the Metropole, exulting in that feeling only known to actors after the final curtain has been closed with the audience still on their feet and thunderously applauding. Even Lestrade, who had returned from his nearby office in Scotland Yard, could not resist beaming. Mrs. Terry and Reverend Black were now more conventionally attired and getting on like dear old friends. Holmes had invited two reporters, one from The Times and one from The Daily Telegraph to sit with us with the hope of getting the true story out to the citizens of London.
“A shame,” I said, “that Lady St. Simon cannot be here to enjoy the celebration. For all her faults, she lost not one but two husbands to this villain. But I do not suppose that it will be long, will it Inspector, before she is fully exonerated and released?”
“I am afraid, Doctor Watson,” he replied, “that her release will not be a sure thing and certainly not immediate. She was not convicted of anything to do with the murder of her husband. It was for her licentious behavior that she was sent away. It may well have been a miscarriage of justice, but the wheels of justice grind slowly, and I do not expect to see her enjoying the open range for at least another year.”
“Well sir,” announced Mrs. Terry, “I, for one, will take up her cause. It is a ghastly thing that, as we are about to enter the twentieth century, a woman is put away for behavior that is excused in a man. Such a travesty of justice cannot be tolerated and it shall be changed.”
“I do hope,” I replied, “that you are right. But of more immediate concern is the curiosity that I am sure we are all feeling regarding the way Mr. Holmes managed to bring all these cases together and expose the villain.”
“Right you are,” echoed Lestrade. “So Holmes, out with it. How in the blazes did you see what the rest of us were to blind to?”
Holmes smiled, a bit smugly, and took a sip on his pusillanimous coffee. “Some elements of the case were elementary from the beginning. Some took longer to coalesce. It was quite obvious that the murderer of the Lord had attempted to frame the Lady. He escaped over the balcony but could not possibly have leapt to the tree, as it would not have held his weight. The only other avenue was the balcony on the second floor, and an escape through the room to which it was attached. I checked the hotel register for the name of the guest staying in that room and saw that is was a Mr. A. Alba, and as I could see no connection to any of the parties involved I assumed that the murderer had simply entered another guest’s room without permission, and escaped without the guest even knowing that his privacy had been violated.
“When a lord is murdered there are always people who stand to benefit. So, as is required of all diligent detectives, I then made a list of cui bono and proceeded methodically to eliminate them. In similar cases, the first suspects are often one or more of the children, but unless I was willing to imagine a spoiled stepson whacking His Lordship to death with a cricket bat, the sons were not in the running. The younger brother, Eustace, would have benefited from taking over the estate and managing it to his benefit, except that he claimed, and I confirmed, that the estate was impecunious and would be an albatross about his neck for years to come. That left me with the wife and the mistress. The most certain way to confirm my client’s innocence was to contact the paramour with whom she claimed to have been present while her husband was being shot.”
“The Alabama cotton man,” I interjected. “Brierly, wasn’t it?”
“Exactly. When his ship pulled into Cape Town, there was a wire waiting for him from me. I demanded only to know, in assured confidence, the truth, and if he dared ignore me or lie to me, I would hound him and humiliate him for the rest of his days until he was regarded with more disdain than a boll weevil. He promptly returned the wire and admitted that he and ‘Hattie-baby,’ as he called her, had been in each other’s presence throughout that night and the following morning. At that point, I could strike her off the list. She has her own money from her Pa and from her first husband, and there was simply no significant pecuniary interest. Therefore, Lady St. Simon was eliminated.”
“Which left the mistress,” chimed in Mrs. Terry.
“Yes, and even if, according to His Lordship, Lady Miller, could not hurt a fly, we must remember that she was known to be hot-headed and that jealousy is a strange transformer of characters. And so she moved to the top of my list. Then I was informed by Lady St. Simon of her meeting with Lady Miller, and the pact they made between them, their daring coercion of His Lordship, forcing the changing of his will, and their subsequent continuing friendship. Now there are some things on earth that are utterly beyond the reach of the logical processes of the male mind, no matter how hard we try. One of those is the unbreakable bond that forms between two women who have both been wronged by the same man, and who join their forces to bring him to heel. Such women become more like sisters and will fight, fairly or otherwise, on the side of the other. It is completely irrational and completely undeniable.
“Such a bond had developed between the two Ladies and it was inconceivable that one would turn and betray the other. So Florie was off the list. And now I had a most vexing quandary. I have repeatedly said that when all other possibilities have been eliminated, the only one remaining, however improbable, must be the truth. But here I had gone and eliminated them all. They had vanished away, like the genie of the Arabian Nights. There was not a single one left, improbable or not.
“I remained in that quandary until our most fortunate meeting with the unusual Lord Backwater. He had discerned that among a certain set of stories of murders there was an unusual pattern, and he set me off in that direction so I might get clear upon the subject.”
“Ah, c’mon now, Mr. Holmes,” objected Reverend Black. “There’s been at least a hundred murders in England the past decade that were linked to illicit relationships. And I reckon maybe a thousand in America. How could he or anyone tell just by reading the papers that these ones were all connected?”
“Dr. Watson,” said Holmes, looking at me. “Do you recall our being accosted by a reporter when we departed from this hotel after the murder of Lord St. Simon?”
“I do. By that Russian chap.”
“Good heavens, Watson. Is your ear really that full of tin that you mistook him for a Russian? He was an American, pure and simple, and attempting a dreadful imitation of a Slav.”
“Very well,” I said, not enjoying the rebuke. “What of it?”
“My knowledge,” he repl
ied, “of European languages is rudimentary at best, and the lessons I have given to myself are merely superficial. But every text book, within the first three chapters, introduces the corresponding words for the colors of the spectrum.”
“The colors?” I said.
“Precisely. He said his name was Beleyi.”
“Ha!” gasped Mrs. Terry, clasping her hands together. “That is the Russian word for white. And Wiebe is the same word German. And Blanc is the French, and Alba is Latin.” Her knowledge of languages was clearly more than rudimentary, thanks no doubt to Chekhov, Moliere, Sudermann, and Seneca the Younger.
“Precisely,” said Holmes. “Mr. White, for that was his true name, attempted to be oh-so-clever and use a different alias with each newspaper he worked for. Once that common element in this series of murders could be seen, the motive became obvious. Newspaper reporters are paid a pittance for stories that end up in the miserable back pages of the gossip section. But being first past the post with a scandalous story, landing it on the front page, having it last for days or weeks, and thus drive circulation upwards, is the Holy Grail of the reporting world. Mr. White realized many years ago, while a young reporter in the American West, that he would be forever impoverished and destined to report endlessly on cattle auctions and feed corn prices unless he could deliver such a story. He had his first taste of the forbidden fruit when, it now appears, he shot Major Moulton in the Indian skirmish and subsequently wrote prurient stories condemning the young wife, who was at that time, Mrs. Moulton. He left America and came to England, where his first position was with the Mercury. Whether the unfortunate Mr. Maybrick was poisoned by arsenic or merely the victim of his own stupidity matters not. Mr. White was the first to accuse Mrs. Maybrick of the murder and expose her philanderings, and he kept up the accusations until the woman was sent off to jail for a crime she almost certainly did not commit. It had become overwhelmingly obvious that titillated readers buy more newspapers, and he had learned how to pander to them. He successfully lured several unsuspecting illustrious men into the brothel on Cleveland Street and managed to orchestrate the raid by the police to coincide with their visit. The sales of the miserable little paper he was working for soared. But lucrative success is a dangerous addiction, and once caught he had to continue to feed his inner devil. When he saw that his earlier victim, Hattie Doran, had arrived in England and had become the wife of a thoroughly disreputable noble husband, he set out to use her yet again for his profit. And when the all-too-easy target of a married American evangelist, seduced by the leading lady of the theater, was offered to him he could not resist. Framing Mrs. Ellen Terry for the murder of Reverend Black, with whom she had just spent the night, would have been a front-page story that would have boat loads of ink devoted to it for months as the trial dragged on. And so, he climbed up yet another drainpipe this morning with the intent of repeating his previous success. And, of course, we were waiting for him. Mrs. Terry’s revolver, which he knew she carried in her purse, was duly filled with blank cartridges.”
“But Holmes,” I said. “You took an enormous risk. What if he had brought his own gun instead of using Mrs. Terry’s?”
“It would be a poor choice if her gun were available, since hers would make the case against her so much stronger. But nevertheless, Inspector Lestrade provided Reverend Black with a fitted steel vest that, to his considerable discomfort, he wore under his nightshirt, and that was capable of stopping a bullet from a small pea-shooter, as he called it.”
Mrs. Terry clapped her hands. “Bravo. Bravo indeed. Doctor Watson, if you can turn this into one of your stories, then I am sure we can adapt it to the stage. Then I could play this wonderful role time and time again. Wouldn’t it be splendid?”
Our celebratory breakfast concluded on that note and we bid our farewells to each other. Holmes and I climbed in a cab and headed home to Baker Street. Holmes was smiling and humming as we went. I was more reflective.
“Can’t say as I cared much for that Lord St. Simon fellow,” I said.
“Of the many noble husbands and bachelors I have had to deal with, he was one of the more disagreeable,” Holmes asserted.
“Can’t say as I cared much for Lady St. Simon either. Spirited she may be, but utterly selfish in her reckless pursuits.”
“She is,” said Holmes, “a notable American. And even if you put ‘Lady’ in front of their names, the fierce independence cannot be refined away.”
“Hmm. Perhaps. So, what happens now?”
“We return home. I am inspired to while away these bleak autumnal evenings by composing an original number on my violin that might someday accompany Mrs. Terry’s stage production of this case.”
Can’t say as I cared much for that prospect at all.
Epilogue
IF YOU ARE READING THESE WORDS, it is a result of your purchasing a later bound volume of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that was printed a full decade since this story initially appeared in The Strand.
In the years that have passed since my first recounting of the case of Lord and Lady St. Simon, many readers have inquired as to what became of the various people involved. With the publication of this subsequent edition, I thought it opportune to bring you up-to-date.
The younger brother, Eustace St. Simon, and his wife took care of the two St. Simon boys and, however briefly, attempted to instill in them an honorable set of values that had not been imparted to them by their parents. However, Eustace gave up all hope of rescuing their ancestral home. He tried to donate the estate to the church, any church, as a listed property of great historical importance but was turned down. So, he set fire to it, burned it to the ground, dynamited what was left, removed the rubble and cut his losses. He sold off the remaining property to his generous neighbors who had and still have more money than God.
Mrs. Ellen Terry, now Dame Terry GBE, continues to enjoy magnificent success in front of audiences throughout the world. She has played, to great acclaim, every leading role available to accomplished actresses. The only exception has been the role of herself, in the story of our philandering nobleman and his likewise notable wife.
Lady St. Simon served eighteen months of her sentence and, as the result of advocating on her behalf by both Mrs. Ellen Terry and Lady Miller, was released early from prison and allowed to leave England. She returned to America along with her boys and her now dear friend, Lady Miller. The two ladies opened a very select bar in the mid-town section of Manhattan, where they specialized in the cocktail that had, so many years earlier, first led to this unusual series of events — the martini. Wisely, they improved the delectable mixture by diminishing the quantity of vermouth and increasing that of gin, to the everlasting benefit of civilized society.
The above contribution of America to a peaceful world, along with the frontier justice meted out by the Code of the West, led Sherlock Holmes to comment from time to time that, “the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years should not prevent English-speaking children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.”
Proof that sometimes our excellent system of British Common Law falls far short of what it should achieve was, to my sorrow, once again demonstrated in the punishment meted out to Mr. Al White. It was known by all that he had murdered at least four people, possibly more. However, there was no solid evidence which, beyond a reasonable doubt, could be brought against him for those deeds. He was tried and convicted only for the attempted murder of Reverend Black, for which the judge gave him a sentence of ten years. Unlike what would have occurred under the Code of the West, he was released after seven years, walked free, and immediately boarded a ship to return to his native United States. The ship he traveled on, the Normandie, sailed from Southampton to New York City.
Mr. White was in the midst of a crowd of people descending the gangplank when a loud blast was blown from the ship’s fog ho
rn. He suddenly fell back and toppled over the railing and into the water. Two stevedores leapt into the water to save him, but on bringing him back up on to the pier observed that he had a bullet hole between his eyes. The closest building from which a shooter could have fired unseen was at least two hundred feet away, so the police immediately began a search for a sharpshooter with an exceptionally accurate rifle. To the amazement of all, the coroner reported that the bullet had come from a revolver, most likely a Colt 45.
Did you enjoy this story? Are there ways it could have been improved? Please help the author and future readers of future New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries by posting a review on the site from which you purchased this book. Thanks, and happy sleuthing and deducing.
Historical Notes
Prior to 1889, the part of the western United States now known as Oklahoma was designated as Indian lands. On April 22, 1889, it was opened to settlers who go there and make a claim. Over 50,000 people rushed across the border that day, staked their claim, and began opening up farms and ranches. Several thousands of them, however, rushed across the border sooner than they were supposed to with the intent of getting to the front of the land-claim line. The Sooners became a part of the history of the West.
There are numerous locations in America that lay claim to having been the place where the martini was invented, including the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco. While that dispute rages on, what is not open to dispute is that the greatest cocktail ever to emerge in America was made even better by reducing the volume of vermouth and increasing the gin.
Ellen Terry and Henry Irving ruled the stage in London’s West End during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Together, and with the help of Bram Stoker, they managed the Lyceum Theatre and delivered wonderful performances of Shakespeare and the plays of every other dramatist.
Sherlock Holmes Never Dies - Collection Three: New Sherlock Holmes Mysteries - Second Edition (Boxed Sets Book 3) Page 17