Secret Archives of Sherlock Holmes, The, The (17 page)

‘Oh, come, Watson! Use your eyes, my dear fellow!’ He picked up the locket and held it out, face upwards in the palm of his hand. ‘Is there any damage to the outer surface?’

‘No, Holmes,’ I agreed humbly, at last grasping the purpose behind this inquisition.

‘Or on the back?’ he persisted, turning it over.

‘No, none.’

‘So what can we deduce from these simple observations?’ He must have caught sight of my expression, for he continued in a much softer tone, ‘I think we may safely assume that the locket was not fastened round the dead woman’s neck when she was buried as we might have concluded. The little clasp holding the two ends of the chain together is closed. The locket itself is also closed. But the glass covering the two photographs that it no doubt contained was not just broken, but was smashed into small pieces; deliberately, I believe. Take my magnifying glass, Watson, and examine the edges of the pieces. I think you will see that they are not merely broken but crushed, as if they have been hit with some hard object, such as a hammer. Do you not agree?’

‘Yes,’ I said simply.

‘And the photographs?’

Copying Holmes’ technique, I picked up the magnifying glass and, training it on the small scraps of paper, was amazed at the result.

‘Good heavens, Holmes! They also look as if they have been deliberately torn and the edges pulverised with something heavy!’

‘The same hammer?’ Holmes suggested.

‘Most probably,’ I agreed.

I had recovered from my exasperation over Holmes’ cross-examination and had begun to appreciate, even to enjoy, the method by which he was leading me, step by
step, to a new and totally unexpected conclusion.

‘So we can now revise our interpretation of how the locket found its way into the grave, can we not? It was not put round the victim’s neck but was placed in the ground quite separate from the body. But before that was done, someone went to the trouble of opening the locket and removing the glass and the photographs before crushing all of them with a heavy implement such as a hammer, the motive for this presumably being to prevent the photographs from being identified. The glass over the photographs had also to be destroyed; had it remained intact it would have looked suspicious. After this was done, the fragments of glass and paper were placed inside the locket, which was then closed. However, two questions arise from this interpretation of the evidence of the locket. Can you suggest what they might be, Watson?’

‘Well,’ said I, with no great confidence, ‘while you were speaking, it did cross my mind to wonder why whoever carried out the damage bothered to take the photographs out of the locket in the first place. Why did not he—’

‘Or she,’ Holmes pointed out.

‘Or she,’ I concurred before continuing, ‘simply smash the locket with the photographs still in it?’

‘Excellent, my dear fellow!’ Holmes exclaimed. ‘You have asked the very question which I myself would have posed. Why indeed?’

Pleased though I was with Holmes’ complimentary remarks, I was aware that I had shot my bolt and could not for the life of me puzzle out the riddle any further.

Holmes came to my rescue in a kindly manner which was intended to be face-saving.

‘As you were no doubt going to add before I so rudely interrupted you, had he – or she – done so, then the locket would have been so damaged that a positive identification of it might not have been possible and it was vital that the two, the body and the locket, were incontrovertibly associated one with the other. However, our perpetrator failed to follow up this line of thought to its logical conclusion. One must always remember that deduction is not merely a matter of a succession of individual concepts, however brilliant each one may seem. Like the chain of the locket under present consideration, it is a whole series of perceptions, each one linked to the other until the sequence is completed and the only rational conclusion is achieved.

‘On that basis, we may perceive the flaw in our antagonist’s logic. He, or she – we must not be biased in our choice of gender – was so anxious that the locket itself should remain easily identifiable that this person forgot one important distinguishing mark which, had the locket been badly damaged, might have been destroyed.’

‘What mark is that, Holmes?’ I asked, puzzled once more by this unexpected twist to the investigation.

‘The mark which every piece of silver has to carry by law.’

‘Of course! A hallmark!’

‘Exactly. Now take this, my dear fellow,’ he continued, handing me his jeweller’s eyeglass, ‘and look for the hallmark on this particular piece of silver.’

It was not easy to find but, after a careful scrutiny, I discovered it on the rim of the left-hand interior section, just above where one of the photographs would have been placed.

Holmes, who had lit his pipe, was leaning back in his chair, eyes half closed, as he watched the smoke gently spiral upwards towards the ceiling. He seemed to be in a world of his own, far from the demands of the investigation but alert enough to be aware of any changes, however slight, in my own demeanour, for no sooner had I stiffened slightly in the excitement of finding the hallmark than, removing the pipe from his mouth, he said, ‘Well done, Watson! Now, if you would be kind enough to describe it to me, I should be much obliged.’

Even with the eyeglass, it was not easy to distinguish the tiny symbols and letters and I began slowly to focus on them one by one and to describe them for Holmes’ benefit.

‘Well, there is an animal’s head, rather like a cat’s …’

‘A leopard’s?’ Holmes suggested.

‘Yes, it could be. After that is a capital “A”, followed by what looks like a tiny lion with its tail and one paw raised …’

‘
En passant
?
’

‘If you say so, Holmes. Then there is a woman’s head in profile …’

‘Queen Victoria’s by any chance?’

‘Indeed yes, Holmes! Now you mention it, I can just make out a crown.’

‘Ah!’ Holmes replied, a simple enough exclamation but into which he managed to inject a whole complexity of reactions from delight to satisfaction, the latter having a ring of triumph about it.

‘Just as I thought,’ he began but got no further, for there was a knock on the door and Mrs Hudson stepped into the room to inform us that there was a visitor for us downstairs – much to our surprise, for the good lady rarely came up to our sitting-room to announce a client, sending Billy, the boy in buttons, in her stead.

‘She’s a foreign person,’ Mrs Hudson concluded, as if this fact explained and excused her unusual conduct.

‘Thank you, Mrs Hudson,’ Holmes said gravely. ‘You may show her up.’

As Mrs Hudson left the room to carry out this instruction, Holmes glanced across at me, raising his eyebrows and his shoulders in a Gallic gesture of ignorance, similar to that which Mme Daudet had made when he asked the name of the artist who had painted the watercolour in Mlle Carère’s bedroom. At the same time, he drew the edge of the towel covering the table over the locket to hide it from sight.

It was Mme Daudet herself who, moments later, was ushered into the room by Billy, Mrs Hudson having gone downstairs to resume her normal role of housekeeper.

Despite Holmes’ invitation for her to take a chair by the fire, she remained obstinately by the door, back erect, lips compressed, hands clutching a shabby black reticule in front of her as if it were a shield to ward off an enemy attack. It was obvious that whatever she had to say had been carefully rehearsed, for, before Holmes could ask her what had brought her to Baker Street, she broke into a torrent of French so rapid that I could distinguish no individual words apart from the names Mme Montpensier and Mlle Carère that were repeated several times. However, nothing else gave me any inkling of the purpose of her visit.

Holmes heard her out, occasionally inclining his head as if to indicate that he had understood what she was saying. But his response was strangely neutral, expressing neither concurrence nor disagreement, although he thanked her gravely when she had finished and shook hands with her before showing her out of the room.

No sooner had the door closed behind her than he crossed quickly to the window and, drawing aside the curtain, watched her leave the house.

‘What an extraordinary affair!’ I exclaimed. ‘What on earth did she want?’

‘Later, Watson,’ he replied. ‘Events are moving too
quickly for even a brief summary. And anyway a second visitor is on his way to see us.’

‘Who?’ I demanded as the front doorbell pealed to announce this new arrival.

‘None other than our old friend Lestrade,’ Holmes replied and began to chuckle. Letting the curtain fall back into place, he turned to me, struggling to keep a straight face. ‘Watson,’ he continued, ‘if ever you hear me complain about the tediousness of life and its lack of action and diversity, just repeat the name “Mme Daudet” to me, there’s a good fellow.’

Before I had time to reply, Lestrade was ushered into the room wearing an expression that I can only describe as shifty. He seemed to be acting a part, and not playing it very well either, as if, like Mme Daudet’s speech, it were over-rehearsed. The eagerness with which he shook hands with Holmes was certainly artificial; and so was his show of innocent curiosity when he jerked his thumb towards the door and asked: ‘What was she doing ’ere, Mr ’Olmes?’ Holmes, who was well aware of Lestrade’s deviousness, assumed an air of puzzled naivety himself.

‘To whom are you referring, Inspector?’

‘The French ’ousekeeper – what’s ’er name? – Madam Doodah.’

I saw the corners of Holmes’ mouth quiver upwards and I knew that, unless I found the means to divert him, and quickly, too, he would burst out laughing and Lestrade would be deeply offended.

‘Oh, Mme Daudet!’ I intervened. ‘Such a curious lady. And so difficult to talk to, as she speaks no English.’

‘But what she had to say in French was most illuminating,’ Holmes remarked in his normal tone of voice, thank goodness, and he invited Lestrade to join us in the comfortable half-circle of chairs in front of the fire and to accompany us in a glass of Holmes’ choice single-malt whisky which Lestrade, who was off duty, as he was at pains to point out, accepted with alacrity.

‘Illuminating? In what way?’ Lestrade asked with
ill-disguised
eagerness.

‘Oh, on various aspects of the case,’ Holmes replied airily. ‘She called unexpectedly as a direct consequence of my interview this afternoon with Mme Montpensier, anxious to find out what was said, or not said, during our tête-â-tête, which, with your permission, Lestrade, I will give you my account of first, before moving on to the matter of Mme Daudet’s visit.’

‘Of course, ’Olmes,’ Lestrade agreed, by now thoroughly mellowed, his feet stretched out towards the fire and the glass of whisky cradled in his hands.

‘I questioned her most closely over her relationship with her stepdaughter and she gave me a full, or what seemed a full, account of their association which I will summarise. But we have to go back some few years to an earlier stage of their lives, to the time, in fact, of M Montpensier himself.

‘This gentleman was a well-to-do banker, a bachelor
of some fifty years when he married the then Mme Carère, a widow who had inherited a considerable fortune on the death of her first husband and the father of her only child, a daughter Lucille, whose mysterious disappearance is the
raison d’être
of our present inquiry. The two gentlemen were colleagues, both being directors of the Banque Continentale, M Carère of the main branch in Paris, M Montpensier of the London branch in Lombard Street. They were both on friendly terms, but from what Mme Montpensier told me during our interview this morning, Mme Carère and her daughter were not particularly intimate with M Montpensier. He was a confirmed bachelor, very set in his ways. However, on the death of M Carère, M Montpensier became very attentive to his widow, helping her with matters connected with her late husband’s will, a relationship that had inevitable consequences. They fell in love and two years later they married. Mme Carère, now Mme Montpensier, and her daughter came to live in London in the house in Hampstead. The daughter was then about eleven years old.

‘Unfortunately, the relationship between M Montpensier and his stepdaughter was fraught from the very beginning. Mlle Carère, who had been close to her father, very much resented M Montpensier usurping her dead father’s place, a situation which was exacerbated six years later when her mother died. To make matters worse, M Montpensier married again, to the lady who
now bears his name and resides in the same Hampstead house.

‘To the stepdaughter, this was yet another betrayal of her parents; to M Montpensier, it no doubt seemed a practical solution to a family situation which was becoming more complex and troublesome as Mlle Carère grew older.

‘As you probably guessed from her photograph, Watson,’ he continued, turning briefly to me, ‘she was a stubborn young lady with a mind of her own and her animosity towards her stepfather grew with every passing day, until he was at his wits’ end to know what to do with her. Finally, in desperation, he came to a decision that was foolhardy in the extreme. Having no children of his own and having been a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor for most of his life, he decided that what his stepdaughter needed was a mother, and in his bumbling, masculine way he set about looking for one. He could not have made a worse choice if he had tried. She was one of the late Mme Montpensier’s family members, a second cousin, a spinster of strong-minded principles and a will of iron whom he judged would be acceptable to his stepdaughter, as they were distantly related, and therefore the best person to keep the recalcitrant Lucille Carère on the straight-and-narrow path of filial meekness and obedience.’

‘Oh, I say, Holmes!’ I interjected, appalled at the situation but not without a tremor of
Schadenfreude
at the same time, a reaction which Holmes evidently shared
for he cocked a wry glance in my direction. ‘But surely,’ I continued, ‘Mme Montpensier did not confess all this openly to you?’

‘Not in so many words, of course, but in such a manner that I was able to read between the lines. The discovery of the body in the garden no doubt came as a dreadful shock to her and may have weakened her defences, although, when I spoke to her this morning, she did her rigid best not to let it show. By the way, it was because of this marriage that the Daudets were introduced into the household. Mme Daudet is related to the second Mme Montpensier. Perhaps, like an embattled army general, Mme Montpensier was looking for reinforcements whom she believed she could trust.’