Sherlock Holmes and The Other Woman (22 page)

As he spoke, I was struck by how guileless he seemed. He was affable, kind, and considerate. He made sure I, as an old man, got the most comfortable chair and he kept me well supplied with food and tea. He inquired into my welfare. Did I live alone? I invented a daughter and a grandson. How did I manage? It was not idle curiosity, either. He gave me the distinct impression that he was genuinely concerned for the wellbeing of all his fellow man. Delightful as this was, it did nothing to advance my case.

I turned the conversation to Egyptian myths and legends. My host was delighted to tell me about those old tales and for the next hour, he spoke of Amun-Ra, the king of the gods, and of Anubis, the protector of the dead. He told me about Osiris, and Isis and Horus, and held me spellbound. Not only is he knowledgeable, but his enthusiasm for his subject is contagious. Indeed, I was so transfixed by his lesson that I almost forgot my purpose.

“Such stories you have, Mr Amun,” I said. “I suppose all these things happened millions of years ago.”

He shook his head and said gently, “Not at all; only a few thousand. Man wasn't even on this planet a million years ago.”

“I suppose all these gods were forgotten when Our Saviour arrived?”

In this manner, I brought the conversation around to the Church in Egypt and within a few minutes, Amun himself brought up the subject of St Mark and the coins.

He related the tale as I had heard it but somehow imbued it with a new life.

“And what happened, Mr Amun? Where are the coins now?” I sounded like Billy wanting more stories, which is rather how I felt.

“The story is just a legend, Mr Day,” he said. “The coins do not really exist.”

“Ah, do they not? That's a shame.”

“Oh, some people believe in them and have dedicated their lives to looking for them, but they are just a story.”

It was evident he had no illusions about the story, anyway, and we returned to our packing.

After a very generous luncheon, I asked if there were other newcomers to the area. Perhaps they might have some work? He suggested Mrs Portnoy. She is a widow lady who moved into Camden Town only a few weeks after he and his wife. She has two small children and possibly would be glad of a man to help her with some chores. Of course, as a widow, she probably couldn't pay much, but he would supplement any wages she could give me. It would be our secret. “The best charity is done without show, Mr Day,” he said.

I thanked him and ambled down the street. I knocked on Mrs Portnoy's door but there was no answer.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I am restless this evening and cannot sit still. Watson says I am anxious about Watteau's execution tomorrow. I am unsettled, certainly, but I do not think ‘anxious' is the right word. I pointed out to Watson that as a writer he ought to be more precise in his language.

“I will come with you, if you wish, Holmes.”

I shook my head. “It is a measure of your friendship that you would make such a suggestion,” I said. “I know you loathe the idea at least as much as I.”

He did not press the point.

In truth, I recoil from the idea of attending so ghastly an event, but I feel I owe it to Beatrice. The lady, of course, does not agree.

“You know I expect no such thing, Sherlock,” she said some weeks ago when we discussed it. “I would attend the execution myself if an outcry at a gentlewoman's presence could be avoided.”

How far less squeamish women are compared with the male of the species.

Lestrade stopped by for a drink after dinner and asked if I still meant to go ahead with my plan.

“Yes,” I said, “I must.”

He nodded, sipped his drink. After a few moments he said, “Well, I shall be there at your side, Mr Holmes. This isn't the sort of thing a man ought to do on his own.”

“Thank you, Inspector,” Watson said, smirking. “I'm sure Holmes is very relieved to have a friend with him.”

“You do not mean to attend yourself, Doctor?” Lestrade said.

“Holmes will find you more than adequate support.” Watson said. “My duty is to the living, not the dead. Frankly, I think executions are an abomination. ‘Thou shalt not kill.'” He smiled ruefully. “It seems my religious upbringing has deeper roots than I sometimes credit.”

After Lestrade left, Watson and I sat in a morose - on my part, certainly - silence for some time. At length my friend said,

“What is it that troubles you, Holmes? Is it just the execution? That would be a perfectly understandable cause for distress on its own, but is there something more?”

“I do not anticipate Watteau's execution with any great relish, Watson. I confess I am dreading it; but it is not that, not alone. I am troubled that there is still no sign of Rickman. Beatrice grows increasingly unsettled in Sussex and it seems unfair to have her stay there indefinitely. Stevens is due back in Hatton Garden on Friday and while Davenport will do his best to keep our friends safe, I cannot help but be anxious.”

“No, I quite understand.”

“It is one of your greatest gifts, friend Watson. You always do understand and you never try to pretend otherwise.”

“I need to stop filling your glass if you're going to say such nice things to me, Holmes.”

“Ha!”

We chuckled together and fell into our familiar, comfortable silence.

A short time later he said, “How is Beatrice?”

“She is well. She says she is well, but I sense her restlessness. I cannot say I blame her; I should loathe being forced away from London for an indefinite period, particularly if it were not my own choice.” I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles. “She tells me I should do my job and not worry about her.”

“Well then...”

“She is only telling me what she thinks I want to hear. She wants me to be able to focus on my work without fretting about her safety. Damnation! The whole marriage lark is of the very devil.”

He laughed most unsympathetically.

“Poor Holmes. All these years of treating women with disdain, telling yourself they are inferior, and here you are as much at the mercy of one as any other husband.”

My mouth could not decide whether to grimace or grin and I ended up with some bizarre mixture of both.

“It is not funny, Watson.”

He rose, swigged the last of his whisky, and said, “It's a little bit funny, Holmes. Good night.”

That was four hours ago. I have heard the chimes ring two o'clock and still I cannot sleep. My mind cannot settle.

I would have tomorrow over. Today, I should say.

It is today.

Tuesday 24 May 1898

I slept wretchedly, which is hardly surprising. Lestrade picked me up in his car and we travelled together to the gaol.

Time seemed to stretch out like a long piece of elastic and then suddenly it snapped back upon itself. We waited in the cold, a small group of us, until the chimes rang out the hour. Or did the chimes ring later? I cannot seem to recall.

For all the death and destruction I have looked upon over the years, nothing has ever seemed more grotesque than this state-sanctioned killing.

Lestrade introduced me to the hangman, Mr James Billington. “Tha' need have no apprehension, Mr Holmes,” he said in his Yorkshire accent. “'T'will all be over as quick and easy as you please. 'Tis a matter of mathematical precision.”

Watteau, it must be said, was surprisingly calm. He nodded at me quite genially, and climbed the gallows. His hands were strapped down at his sides with leather handcuffs. Billington, incongruously, asked if he was comfortable. Watteau smiled and nodded. His collar was removed with exquisite gentleness and this was tucked into his waistband.

Only when the yellow bag was placed over his head did Watteau's chest start to heave and collapse under the weight of his fear. Still, he made no sound. Not even when the noose was placed around his neck and positioned with the knot beneath his ear. Then came the drop and the twitch and it was all over.

It was horrid.

Lestrade handed me a flask and I took a long mouthful of whisky. I handed it back to him and he took an equal measure.

“Come along, old friend,” he said, gently. “Let's get you home.”

Wednesday 25 May 1898

Beatrice telephoned this afternoon: the Queen has asked her to attend Gladstone's funeral this Saturday. “I cannot refuse Her Majesty,” she says. She tries not to sound relieved.

I suggested she stay at Windsor while she is here and return to Sussex as soon as the Queen can release her.

“That is a dreadful idea, Sherlock,” she said. “Who is to look after the boys while I am freezing and starving in that monstrous old castle? No, I shall stay in Wimpole Street and they shall stay with me. I will still have Davenport and Simms with me.”

What can I say? Should I be truculent? Overly cautious? She will do whatever she wills, whether I like it or no.

“Well, then,” I said. “Come home. London is dull without you.”

Saturday May 28 1898

Gladstone's funeral. I did not attend. The boys, accompanied by Davenport and Simms, are confined to Wimpole Street for the moment. Beatrice is surrounded by royal and state officials. I must trust they will do their job. While the Queen had no great fondness for the late Prime Minister, I suppose at her age any death is a reminder of her own mortality. She likes to keep all her loved ones nearby at such times.

Beatrice telephoned from Windsor half an hour ago to say she is on her way back to Wimpole Street. The Queen has supplied her with a carriage so she has refused my offer of an escort. I shall call upon her this evening and we shall dine together.

Dear God. This is my fault. I should have done my job better.

How? Why?

I am incoherent with rage and grief.

I cannot write.

This death is my fault.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Monday 6 June 1898

There is one thing I have learned this year. Something there is that is worse than attending an execution: Attending the funeral of someone... Of someone one regards.

We gathered at the Kensal Green Cemetery. There was a spitting of snow in the air, even this late in the year, and the sky looked bruised.

The usual inanities ensued. Prayers and the like. No one wept, at least not overtly. I was conscious of eyes watching me, wanting to assess my reaction. I would not give them the satisfaction.

As soon as the coffin was lowered into the ground, I turned and left before anyone could speak to me.

Tuesday 7 June 1898

It was almost dawn before I fell asleep and so my response when Watson shook me awake at eight o'clock was less than cordial.

“The telephone, Holmes,” he said. “It is urgent.”

Glaser's voice crackled on the line. “Mr Holmes? Mr Holmes? Is that you? It's Rickman... Can you come?”

I dressed in a hurry and rushed to Hatton Garden. Watson, silent, anxious at my side.

We hurried up the steps into Schwartz's workshop. A small, silent group met us and parted to reveal Avery Rickman. The thing that had been Avery Rickman.

The monochromatic light turned the scene into a tableau. That bench, the bench where I sat when I first came here, was overturned on the floor. One of the man's shoes had fallen off and lay on the ground in a puddle of urine and faeces. Slivers of sunlight picked out the hairs on the rope and the knots in the stout wooden beam. There, amid the pouches of tobacco, hung a grotesque thing: the corpse. The neck was unnaturally stretched, the face livid.

Watson pulled over a chair and climbed up to examine the body.

“Dead for hours,” he said.

“Is it all right if we cut him down?” Glaser asked.

I nodded.

The body was in full rigor and when they cut him from the beam, he toppled like a grotesque carved statue, like a monolith from Stonehenge. The men laid him on the floor. I examined his neck and the beam. “Suicide,” I said. “He brought the rope with him. There are fibres under his coat around his shoulder and under his arm where he carried it.

“Who found the body?”

“Daniel.”

Solberg was sitting on a chair in the back room. His face was the colour of sour milk. The rabbi held a cup of cherry-sweetened tea to his lips, but the jeweller shook his head.

I pulled up a chair and faced the man.

“I am sorry to trouble you, Mr Solberg,” I said. “I have only a few questions.”

He nodded.

“Were you alone when you found the body?”

“Yes.”

“What time was it?”

“Around half-seven. I am always the first in. I like to work when it is quiet, before anyone else arrives.”

“And you have a key?”

“Yes. I've always had one. I was
Reb
Mordechai's manager and Leah saw no reason to change anything after he died.”

“Leah?”

“Mordechai's widow,” Glaser said. “She took over the business when her husband died.”

“When you arrived, was the door locked?”

Solberg frowned. “I don't remember... Yes, it must have been. I mean, I would have been surprised if it hadn't and I had no sense that anything was amiss until I came in and I...” He swallowed. “I saw him.”

Watson took the man's pulse and said, “You've had a bad shock. If there's nothing else, Holmes, I think Mr Solberg should go home and rest.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

The rabbi led the shaken man out. A short while later the corpse was removed. There was nothing on the body. No identification, no letters, no suicide note.

His clothes were expensive but past their prime. They stank of cheap alcohol and tobacco. He was well nourished and his soft hands were without calluses. His shoes were two years old and had been re-heeled twice. They were long past needing to be done again.

“A man who was once affluent but has come down in the world. His change in fortune is recent: You can tell by the age of his clothes and his shoes. A man who can afford tailoring and footwear of this quality will buy new when fashions change or when the garments show signs of age. He has not done so. The cut of his coat is excellent and was tailored to fit him; the sleeves, you see, are the perfect length, and yet you see the tear in the lining was repaired by someone with very poor sewing skills.”

“A wife?”

“Perhaps. A woman, anyway. She has some rudimentary skills. No man would manage half so well unless he were a tailor, and then he'd do far better.”

“That is true,” Watson said. “Most soldiers can sew, but they only have one basic stitch. This stitching assays a style of sorts.”

“She is not accomplished though,” I said. “The stitches are uneven and there are no less than three drops of blood on the seam. She pricked her fingers.”

A quote from something I learned many years ago came back to me, “By the pricking of my thumbs something evil this way comes,” I muttered.

“
Macbeth
?” Watson said, recognising it.”It's wicked, I think. Not ‘evil'.”

I shrugged. “Well, he is dead, and by his own hand. The timing is curious, don't you agree?”

“The timing?”

“The day after the funeral.”

“You think he was driven by guilt?”

“Have you another theory?”

“No.”

In the cab, shaking. Even now, hours later, I cannot seem to get warm.

Watson said, “At least the danger is past now. It's all over.”

“Over?”

“We got our man. Or, I suppose, he got himself.”

“What about the ‘Patriarchs'?”

“He discovered they were fake. Perhaps one of the reasons why he took his own life.”

“Perhaps.” It was hard to think. There were things just out of my reach and I wanted quiet and seclusion, a chance to put my thoughts in order. After several minutes, I roused and said, “Where are we? This is not the way to Baker Street.”

“We're not going to Baker Street.” Watson waited a moment then said, “You know where we're going.”

I swallowed back the protest and made myself nod.