第 14 页

I thought of Holmes, so very alert and alive. In contrast I felt strangely tired and dead inside. He was so unlike my husband; healthy, handsome, fit and strong. He had a beguiling presence which had captured me from the first moment I had seen him. Though I had been disguised as a boy, I felt so very much like a girl for the first time in my life.

Now I wanted to see him again, wanted to explore my feelings. But that very thought terrified me. I was a physical machine, trained not to feel emotion. Emotions would have destroyed me in the workhouse, broken me when I was raped and debilitated me as a street girl. I couldn’t even dwell on the emotions I felt about losing my child, though the memory of it relentlessly pervaded my thoughts. There had never been any place in my life for emotion.

Jude was watching me and knew that a secret hurt had been plaguing me of late. He reached over and squeezed my hand. He was the one person I could trust. I loved him as my own brother, the truest friend I could wish for. I squeezed back and resolved that whatever secret lay hidden in those old pieces of paper, if it could break us free from this artificial life we led, I would use it unquestioningly.

Chapter Seven

When I returned from the boxing match, my husband was waiting in my study. This was unusual as my rooms were considered far too disorganised and chaotic for his liking.

He was pacing the floor; shaking his head in an agitated, compulsive manner. I sat behind the desk in my leather chair, wishing that he would leave me alone.

“Stop that James, it’s most annoying,” I complained as the twitching and head movements became increasingly erratic. I was the only person who he would come to when he felt like this.

He turned and glared at me.

“You fool! How could you not have realised that he was in disguise?” he said angrily.

I presumed that he was referring to the evening’s activities and Holmes’ trickery.

“I don’t pay you to make mistakes!” he continued, “if I wanted mistakes I would send Moran.”

I felt exhausted and irritated.

“Damn it, I am your wife James not a paid slave. I abhor your constant disrespect,” I snapped back.

There he stood, this frail, ageing man riddled with compulsions and obsessed by his foolish ideas about becoming the most powerful man in the world. He was like a caricature, a villain from the music hall. He had killed our child and I simply didn’t have the will to fear or respect him anymore. He continued to pace and rant.

“He wasn’t a beggar, the first one you brought in. He had face make-up on. He is actually Mr Neville St Clare, a family man of all things! This is intolerable, a most dangerous situation. Police will be involved. I wanted beggars because they are loners, no family. But now, what a mess this is! He died this evening. He lasted well; seven days, three hours and fifty-six minutes to be precise, but was overpowered in the end. The body has been burnt but the risk is still great.”

It became clear to me now why the beggar’s face had appeared to fall away when I kicked him. He must have died soon after Jude and I had come upon him in the medical rooms. A horrible, cold, sickening shudder passed through me as I remembered his pained expression and intense suffering.

I was so confused. I didn’t even know why I had spent the week bringing in beggars from all over London. Why was my husband inflicting such painful deaths upon these people? What horrors lay beneath my own home?

The professor continued to speak while tidying up my whisky tumblers with his nervous thin fingers.

“I have done what I can to contain the situation but so much is now at risk.”

I could not accept being kept in the dark a moment longer and decided to reveal that I had disobeyed orders and had gone down to the cellars myself.

“I went to the medical rooms this afternoon and saw that poor wretch just before he died. What is the meaning of all this? What are you doing to these people? If this is part of your plan to become the most powerful man in the world then I think experimenting on and killing feeble, helpless old beggars is rather pathetic. That’s not power James, its lunacy, cruel pointless barbarity.”

I paused slightly, overcome with anger. “Just like killing a child before it’s even been born, your own child.”

I marched over to him and demanded:

“Unless you tell me exactly what is going on I will find out for myself what mysteries are below my own feet.”

The professor’s hands began to tremble violently making the tumblers clatter together. Then his whole body started to shake causing them to fall to the floor and shatter noisily. Upon seeing the fragments he began to mutter numbers frantically and then became possessed by a full seizure. He fell to the floor shaking and twitching as his eyes rolled.

I went to his aid dutifully, surprised that I still felt any compassion. I feared that something most sinister had been started and it might be too late to stop it.

“I wouldn’t have seen anything suspicious in it Mr Holmes had it not been for the discovery of your card in the pocket of the jacket she was wearing. Experience tells me that if someone has been visiting you and then finds themselves dead, it could be foul play,” said Inspector Lestrade. He was standing with Sherlock Holmes in his rooms at 221B.

“Very good Lestrade, your instincts may well prove to be correct. Tell me the name of the lady in question?” asked Holmes, as he pressed together the tips of his fingers in thoughtful anticipation.

“The lady was Mrs Neville St Clare,” Lestrade announced.

The words bounced into Holmes’ brain and reverberated around making him feel suddenly light-headed. He knew Mrs St Clare was in danger but hadn’t acted on it. The guilt was overwhelming.

He had been distracted, caught up in the boxing the night before. He feared that the controlled reasoning he had based his whole existence on was being threatened by the formidable red-headed woman who had monopolised his thoughts since he had returned home. Already Mrs St Clare had paid the price.

“And the circumstances of death?” he asked Lestrade impatiently, beginning to pace the floor with his hands tightly clasped behind his back.

“Suicide Sir, swinging from a meat hook in the kitchen, a dressing gown cord tied around her neck. No sign of a break-in, a tiny side window was open but too small for someone to climb in or reach the window catch, no signs of a struggle. No suicide note either but there was a letter on the kitchen table from her husband saying he had left her for good this time. There were also various bills alluding to great financial difficulties. I must admit, despite my suspicious, it does look fairly conclusive Mr Holmes. A tragic suicide.”

“Murder Lestrade! And fear not, I shall have my man. You may take the glory if you wish but I will avenge the death of this innocent woman and her husband. That will be all the reward I need,” cried Holmes with determination.

Lestrade sighed and wondered if just this once Holmes might be completely wrong, seeing complications which simply didn’t exist. But, he knew better than to dismiss his opinion at this early stage, especially as Holmes had an annoying habit of always being right.

“We have no proof that the husband is dead, no reason to suspect he hasn’t just run off somewhere. You’re welcome to attend the scene though Mr Holmes. I have left everything untouched just as you like it. The lady is still swinging where we left her and the notes and bills are untouched upon the table.”

Holmes was already hurrying down the stairs before the inspector could finish his sentence. Lestrade rushed to join him and they both hailed a hansom and headed for the home of the late Mrs St Clare. Lestrade could not help but notice how pale and worn Holmes looked. He seemed fraught and had clearly passed the night with little sleep. They stopped off to collect Doctor Watson.

Despite being a medical man, Watson still found the sight of the fragile woman hanging in her kitchen grim and haunting. Holmes began his detailed examination of the scene, darting around the room with a sudden energy most unlike his silent poise in the hansom. Now he was enlivened, whipping out his magnifying glass, lying flat-out to examine the floor, standing on chairs to look at the ceiling, sniffing the victim’s lips and carefully examining papers laid out on the kitchen table.

Lestrade and Watson watched this display as it continued for half an hour.

“Cut her down,” Holmes finally instructed. The unfortunate woman was laid upon the table and Holmes asked Watson to examine the body.

“Death by asphyxiation. Died approximately six hours ago judging by the degree of stiffness in the body and the colour of the skin. No visible signs of a struggle. This does indeed appear to be a suicide Holmes.”

Holmes took a deep breath.

“I have seen all I need to; I now know the identity of the murderer and would advise you inspector that this is a most serious matter. The hand that took the life of this woman belongs to a very dangerous man but not as dangerous as the one who sent him.”

With a flourish he spun on his heels and exited the room leaving Lestrade baffled.

“Suicide, what a simplistic assumption,” grumbled Holmes once he and Watson were back at 221B. “One of the very first things the inspector said told me that it was not a suicide. Lestrade found my card in the lady’s jacket pocket; why would someone put on their outdoor jacket in order to hang themselves in their own kitchen? The lady was wearing her night gown with an outdoor jacket and shoes, what does this tell you Watson?”

Watson thought carefully for a few seconds but Holmes didn’t wait for an answer.

“She was disturbed from her bed by a noise outside and ran down the stairs barefoot. The soles of her feet were a little dirty. I noticed this when I removed her shoes. She pulled on her outdoor shoes and the jacket which she had been wearing on the day she visited us, that’s why my card was in the pocket. She did this in order to investigate the source of the sound, not to take her own life. And besides, the woman had children. She sat in this very room fretting about their welfare and pawned her wedding ring to feed them. She would hardly make them into orphans intentionally would she? Confound the ignorance of our blessed police force, the easiest explanation is always more agreeable to them than the obvious.”

Holmes was pacing the floor, his mind full of frantic activity. The link, the connection which brought together everything including the missing beggars and the red-headed woman still eluded him. His mind was searching for it desperately.

“But what of her husband Holmes? If he hasn’t left by choice and hasn’t returned to begging, then where is he? Surely he must still be alive?” asked Watson, as always several steps behind his friend.

“Dead Watson; captured by an evil group who presumed him to be simply a harmless beggar. Tell me, if you wanted to take someone from society, someone no-one would notice or care about, who would you take? A gentleman? Family man? No, you’d take a beggar because no-one would miss him. And if you then discovered that through extreme bad luck the man you had taken was actually in disguise and had a wife, you’d dispose of her immediately. Then you’d make it look like the husband had left due to the shame of mounting debts and the woman could not live without him. You would probably have succeeded in this if not for the interference of a keen observer analysing the scene. The lady was poisoned; I smelt it on her lips. I have dabbled with poisons enough to recognise even the faintest aroma. Whoever hung her did not think to remove her jacket which she had donned to investigate the noise he made, probably just by knocking on the back door.”

“But, how did he poison her? There were no signs of a struggle. If she let the man in and he tried to force a poison into her somehow, she would have fought against him. There would be bruising surely?”

“No Watson, he simply lured her into the kitchen then went to the small side window and blew the poison through it. Even your trained medical eye failed to spot the tiny mark on the lady’s neck where the arrow from a blow-pipe would have forced the poison into her system. He then picked the lock of the back door, entered the kitchen and hung her lifeless body. There were fresh scratches all around the key hole, too thin to be from a key but certainly from a lock picker.”

“But why were there scratches? Surely someone who has possession of a lock picker’s tool would know how to use one carefully?” asked Watson.

Holmes waved his hand in irritation, frustrated that others could not understand that which was so obvious to his own peculiar mind.

“Clearly the man was drunk, missed his mark several times. Even the forged letter alleging to be from the poor woman’s husband smelt of alcohol and strong bitter tobacco. Pass my index of crime from the shelf would you, the volume containing ‘M’ if you please,” he asked and Watson dutifully pulled down a heavy volume from the shelf behind him.

Holmes flicked through the many pages all written so neatly in his perfect hand.

“There is not a crime which does not have an origin or similarity to something which has been done before, there is nothing new. The names contained within these volumes, my encyclopaedia of crimes and their perpetrators, recur time and time again.”

He found the page he was searching for.

“Here we are, Moran, Colonel Sebastian, once an expert shot with a particular preference for air guns and blow pipes, limited knowledge of poisons gained through various years on military campaigns in India; alcoholic, smokes strong tobacco, gambler. Excellent game-hunter,’ Lestrade was right when he noted that the open side window was too small for anyone to climb through, but not too small for the insertion of a blow pipe by someone who learnt such skills in the colonies.”

A grave expression passed over Holmes’ face and he looked at Watson earnestly.

“The most disturbing fact about Moran is his association with Professor James Moriarty who is the most ruthless and intelligent criminal ever to walk this earth. Moriarty and his associates are behind most that is bad and evil in this city. An enigmatic character who is seldom seen, the professor simply pulls the strings of his puppets like Moran, who get their hands dirty on his behalf. Moran would have been working under instruction. But why would the greatest criminal mind in England want to kill a beggar and his wife? This is what I simply must answer. I fear that we have discovered only the tip of a most dangerous iceberg.”

Once the professor’s seizure eased, I sent for his nurse and made my way to the cellar stairs. I was surprised to find the door locked and went to fetch my set of master keys. I returned to the door and inserted the cellar key but it didn’t fit.

Perplexed, I knelt down to examine the lock and realised that it was new. I put my shoulder against the door but it did not give.