The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories Part II (41 page)

She took a dainty sip of brandy. “Although my family was of aristocratic status, we lost everything in the turmoil at the end of the last century. My great-grandfather opposed the tyrant Napoleon, and our family was proscribed. After the death of my father, my mother was obliged to sell what remained of our property and set up a lodging house in Boulogne. A very genteel establishment, you understand, catering to elderly ladies and retired gentlemen, several of them from Britain, as the town has a reputation as a welcoming place for such people: we have an English bookshop, several tea rooms, and a subscription library with the latest newspapers and periodicals from London. I left school in order to assist my mother in the business.”

“Your English is most remarkable, Miss Berthoud,” I said.

She bowed. “In France I received a typical education for a girl of my class and background, but I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of an English lady who boarded with us. She took me under her wing and tutored me in your language.”

Her voice took on a more severe quality as she continued. “My life changed forever when an elderly man in clerical hat and clothes appeared at our door enquiring whether we had rooms. He rented the second floor front bedroom, with the use of the necessary facilities on that floor and freedom of the downstairs sitting room where my mother and I spent our quiet evenings, sewing or reading improving literature.”

She sighed a most affecting sigh. “From the moment Reverend Murchison entered our household, I had not a moment's peace. At first, he dined with the other lodgers, but soon he was invited to share our supper
en famille
, and he ate with my mother and me every night, without fail. During meals, he did not take his eyes from me.”

Miss Berthoud leaned across and grasped my hand. “I was a caged bird, Doctor!”

I squeezed her hand in a reassuring gesture as she continued. “I must explain that in Boulogne, the English men who reside or holiday there are considered prime matches for young girls of the town; the gentlemen are usually elderly and are thought to be wealthy (at least in comparison the local
ouvriers
). My mother forced the man upon me. I had nowhere to go, and no funds of my own, but I knew that I could not endure being Reverend Murchison's wife.”

“
Ouvriers
,” said Holmes, “labourers.”

I frowned at him.

“I represented to my mother that the reverend gentleman was of a certain age and an ungenerous disposition, and that I was but nineteen,” Miss Berthoud continued with a long sigh. “But she would hear nothing against him. She even sought occasions when she might leave us alone together, and I was obliged to endure his vile advances.”

I stood and stroked my moustache. “He did not, ah - “

Miss Berthoud pursed her lips. “Reverend Murchison did not force himself upon me, no. But in every other way he bound me to him with chains of iron. He visited our sitting room morning and afternoon, visibly annoyed if other persons, such as our neighbours, Monsieur Sublier and his wife, or other lodgers were present.”

“You made your escape,” Holmes suggested.

“With the help of that kind English lady, since Passed Over, who knew of my travails and offered her wise counsel. I replied to an advertisement in an English newspaper, offering the position of nanny to a young lady of good character who could teach French. As you were kind enough to remark, my English was good (it has improved in the two years I have worked here). My benefactor provided a letter of introduction to Lord and Lady Muntley (for that is the name of my erstwhile employers) that served in lieu of an employment reference, and I happily accepted the position on adequate terms and conditions. I fled Boulogne for my safe haven in the town of Frome, in Wiltshire.”

Miss Berthoud blinked sadly at me, and I offered her another glass of medicinal brandy, which she reluctantly accepted.

“I will not say that my life was idyllic,” she continued, “although Frome is a pleasant location, and my employers were kind, but-” She sighed. “I hope that you will not judge me too harshly, gentlemen, when I admit that I am not one of those women who dote on children; in fact, I found no charming traits whatsoever in the baby boy in my care, or in the twin girls, his older sisters.”

“Reverend Murchison sought you?” Holmes asked.

“He somehow found me out and settled at an inn in the town. He followed me whenever I left the house, even to church on Sunday. He plagued me with bouquets of meadow flowers and boxes of inferior chocolates.”

“The hound,” I said.

“Frome is a small town, gentlemen, a village really, and Reverend's Millward's activities were noticed.” Miss Berthoud frowned down at the clenched hands in her lap. “He wrote to me, often daily.”

“The fiend!” I cried.

“I think we might accept Reverend Murchison's villainy as a given, Watson,” Holmes said, turning to me, “requiring no further expostulation.”

I sniffed and sipped my whisky in a decided manner.

“One day,” Miss Berthoud continued, “earlier in the summer, the youngest child of the family was out of sorts, and our physician in Frome recommended the waters of Bath. We took lodgings there.”

Miss Berthoud seemed lost in thought for a long moment.

“And?” Holmes asked sharply.

She looked up. “I met Lieutenant Lord Alfred Bartholomew by chance in a small park where he played at quoits with some of his brother officers from
HMS Atropos
, his armoured cruiser. She is in the second rate of that class, but Alfie and I are convinced that she is the most effectively armed of her sisters, as she has no less than five six-inch quick firers, all Armstrong guns. He is Third Officer.”

Miss Berthoud smiled at me, and Holmes tut-tutted for her to continue.

“Alfie proposed, but I hesitated. I did not care to exchange one kind of domestic slavery for another; to become an officer's wife living at the admiral's manor house while my husband was in China or the Cape, with my contentment dependent on the goodwill of my mother-in-law. No, no, that would never do. But my beloved convinced me that the Navy is quite different from the Army, in that wives may follow their husbands to foreign stations and set up a home, if they have sufficient means.”

She took a sip of brandy and smiled again. “Admiral Lord Charles Bartholomew is very well situated, and Alfie has high expectations.”

“Reverend Murchison discovered your attachment to Lieutenant Bartholomew?” Holmes asked.

“He did. My tormentor followed me as I wheeled Baby to the park in his perambulator. I refused to enter into communication with him, but he sent me messages through the Personal Columns in which he avers in veiled terms that he will do everything in his power to sever relations between Alfie and me. If I will not be his, he is determined that I shall have no future with another, that I shall die an old maid.”

“The brute!” I exclaimed, and Holmes gave me a reproving look.

“He is determined to ruin my happiness,” Miss Berthoud said, sobbing into her hands. “The wedding is on Saturday at ten in the morning at the church in Rowland's Castle, a village in Hampshire close to Admiral Bartholomew's estates. Reverend Murchison requires me to submit to him within forty-eight hours or he will write to the admiral and acquaint him with his prior claim to my hand.”

“Very well,” said Holmes, rubbing his palms together in what I thought a rather callous gesture. “I must now ask if there is anything known to Murchison that might cause unease if it were relayed to the admiral.”

“Nothing! He will make something up. He is the Devil incarnate. Alfie's father would instantly forbid the match if he detected any taint of impropriety. Lady Bartholomew is of a frail disposition of mind. I fear for her sanity if any shadow of scandal adhered to the family name.”

“I must press you, Miss Berthoud,” Holmes said coldly. “If I am to help you in this matter, I must know everything.”

Miss Berthoud looked down and wrung her hands. “You must understand that I was very young, Reverend Murchison was very persistent, my mother entreated me, and I could conceive of no alternative to accepting his proposal.”

“You did so?” Holmes asked.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“There is written proof of your acceptance of Reverend Murchison's offer?”

“There were certain allusions in one short note I wrote to Reverend Murchison,” she answered. “Nothing untoward, you understand, but they might be taken as a statement of assent.”

“To marriage with him?”

Miss Berthoud nodded unhappily.

Holmes stood. “We have but two days before the deadline and four before the nuptials. We must act. Watson?”

I stood.

“Perhaps you might see Miss Berthoud to her conveyance.”

I offered Miss Berthoud my arm and accompanied her downstairs and to the omnibus stop.

I returned to our sitting room, and found Holmes leaning against the mantel smoking a cigar from my packet and undoing the string on the parcel I'd seen earlier.

“An interesting lady,” I suggested, “who mixes the delicacy of her sex with an admirable streak of determination; think on the pistol.”

“She is One Cruelly Used,” Holmes exclaimed, throwing his arms up in a melodramatic gesture.

“Are you quite well, Holmes?”

“We could visit the fellow as friends of Miss Berthoud and warn him that his behaviour is intolerable,” I suggested later in the day as we rumbled towards the West End in a four-wheeler. Holmes was dressed in the uniform of a district messenger. On my knees was a picnic hamper.

“Reverend Murchison is already in a paroxysm of jealousy over the naval lieutenant,” Holmes answered. “I fear that his Scots intransigence would meet your own well-documented pugnacity and lead to fisticuffs. He boards at the Langham Hotel in Portland Square, a genteel establishment whose staff might look askance if violence (however justified) were offered to one of their guests. No, we must adopt a more circumspect approach.”

“How did you come across the correspondence in the
Evening News
, Holmes?” I asked.

“You know that the Personal Column is the first I turn to in every paper. The thread of messages between Ajax and One Cruelly Wronged intrigued me. She refused to countenance a face-to-face meeting with Ajax to discuss the matter between them. He suggested instead a rendezvous on the bridge with a go-between. Miss Berthoud accepted, and I intervened and sent a message to Ajax putting the meeting back and signing it - “

“One Cruelly Wronged.”

“Exactly.” Holmes sniffed. “I believe Miss Berthoud saw through Reverend Murchison's ploy of confidential agents and knew that the reverend himself would accost her on the bridge. She was prepared to end the matter there and then.”

“Would she have shot her adversary?”

“French women are unencumbered by notions of propriety.”

I frowned.

“There was no danger, my dear fellow; everything was under my control,” Holmes said. “On my orders, the newspaper boy at the Palace contacted a local band of pickpockets and gave them a commission to dip the lady's reticule as she stepped onto the bridge.” He smiled. “Two hours later, the same band accosted a gentleman carrying a folded
Evening News
and wearing a carnation buttonhole,” Holmes continued. “The newspaper boy delivered a parcel early this morning in exchange for twelve-and-six from our contingency fund, plus omnibus fare and refreshments.”

Holmes displayed a silver pocket watch, a spectacle case, an empty wallet, a bill for accommodation at the Langham Hotel at the clergy rate, and an unopened, unstamped letter addressed to Admiral Bartholomew, care of the Railway Hotel, Rowland's Castle, Hampshire.

“So, we not only have the reverend's address, we have the letter he intended to give to Miss Berthoud to show that he was in earnest.” Holmes slit the envelope open with a pocket knife.

“I say, old man, you can't just - “

“The envelope is not franked; it is unprotected by law.”

I muttered something about the inviolability of private property while Holmes held the letter to the light from the cab window. He offered it to me, but I waved it away.

He shrugged. “It is as vile as we might expect. Miss Berthoud, however circumspect she has been with the truth, is under threat from this man.”

“Will Reverend Murchison not take precautions after his things were stolen?”

“No, no,” Holmes answered. “He was prey to a band of ragamuffins who will throw the letter away, take the cash, and sell the empty wallet, spectacles and watch.”

The cab turned off Regent Street and halted in Portland Place “We must return Reverend Murchison's possessions,” I said. “And pray that no more contingencies occur this month.”

We stepped down from the cab, and I sat on a bench under a tall plane tree just across from the grand entrance to the Langham Hotel.

“I expected you to infiltrate the hotel in the guise of an aged clergyman,” I said as I peered into the hamper, but Holmes was already out of earshot and halfway to the cab stand on the corner. I poured myself a cup of wine and sipped it as I watched Holmes chatting with the drivers in his guise as district messenger. He nodded farewell to them and climbed the steps to the hotel entrance.

“The task before us may be divided into several stages,” Holmes said when he returned to the bench some minutes later. “The first is already accomplished: we have the address and room number of our mark and, after a moderate distribution of silver to the cab stand and the hotel door and boot boys, we will soon note his routines. The second stage is the letter he threatens to send to the groom's father and how we may prevent it reaching its recipient.”

Holmes accepted a chicken leg and a cup of wine. “Word from the cab drivers is that the reverend gentleman is of a choleric disposition, prefers to travel by omnibus, and frequents Madame La Rout's establishment in Jermyn Street.”