by Eric Brown
“I have a room in the basement of the embassy, sir. I retired at nine, where I wrote for two hours before going to bed.”
“You keep a diary?”
Wells smiled. “I write fiction,” he said. “Though nothing of what I write finds favour with publishers’ current tastes. Too fantastical,” he finished.
Holmes murmured his condolences. “Perhaps what is needed in these fantastic times is a little more social-realism,” he said. “And you rose at?”
“Seven-thirty, as usual. It was just after eight when Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran summoned me with the alarming news.”
Holmes regarded his long fingers, splayed on the tabletop before him, then looked up at Wells. “And I take it that you know where the spare key to the ambassador’s bedchamber is kept?”
“Yes, sir. In the bureau in the outer room.”
“To which you have access?”
Wells nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“That will be all, Mr Wells. Will you be kind enough to send in Miss Cicely Fairfield?”
* * *
Wells opened the door to be met on the threshold by a vision of striking loveliness, a young woman I guessed to be barely eighteen, raven-haired and swarthy skinned, with a serious demeanour. Holmes watched the couple as they gripped each other’s hands and uttered what might have been reassuring words, before Miss Fairfield smiled bravely and strode with exceptional deportment into the room. She wore a navy blue crinoline dress and a fitted bodice.
Holmes regarded her keenly, his gaze lingering on her bodice, and I noticed what might have been egg yolk adhering to the material. It appeared that she had partaken of a hasty breakfast that morning.
She seated herself at the table. “Mr Holmes, Dr Watson, it is an honour indeed to meet such illustrious upholders of the law. I have followed your exploits with considerable interest.”
Holmes smiled. “In which case you will have no objections to aiding our enquiries?”
The slightest frown marred, for a second, the perfection of her forehead. “Of course not, Mr Holmes.”
The interview that followed was the swiftest I have ever seen my friend conduct. It seemed barely two minutes from when Miss Fairfield entered the room to the time she swept out.
“If you could inform me of the position you hold in the embassy, Miss Fairfield, and the duration you have been here?”
She regarded Holmes with a level gaze, her vast brown eyes unwavering. “I was employed as the private secretary to the late Martian ambassador, and I have held the position for a little over six months.”
“And your duties entailed?”
“I organised the ambassador’s itinerary, dealt with his correspondence, and arranged business meetings.”
“Would you say that, over the months you have held the post, you have come to know the ambassador?”
She frowned as she contemplated the question. “I am not sure that one is able to come to know, with any certitude, the person of an extraterrestrial being.”
“But did he seem, in your dealings with him, a fair employer?”
“I had no… complaints,” she said hesitantly.
“And between the hours of ten last night and eight this morning, you were on the premises?”
“I have an apartment nearby, but last night I was working late. It was after midnight when I left my office and made my way home.”
“And when was the last time you set eyes on the ambassador?”
“That would have been around seven, when I finished taking that day’s dictation.”
My friend then surprised me by saying, “Thank you, Miss Fairfield. That will be all, for now.”
She inclined her fine head towards Holmes and myself. “Good day to you, gentlemen.”
She was almost at the door when Holmes asked, “One more question, if I might?”
She turned. “Yes?”
“How long have you known the ambassador’s scientific liaison officer, Mr Wells?”
“For a little short of six months,” she replied.
“And how would you describe your relationship with him?”
Something very much like annoyance, or perhaps indignation, flared in her eyes. “Mr Wells and I are engaged to be married, Mr Holmes,” she said defiantly, whereupon she turned and hurried from the room.
* * *
For the next hour we interviewed the two Martian staff members, attachés who liaised on matters of state with the British government. They could tell us little about the ambassador, other than that they held him in high regard and were terribly shocked by his death. When asked if he had enemies among the many Martians in London, each replied that the ambassador had been highly respected.
In due course Holmes dismissed the second attaché and turned to Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran. “I presume you have alerted Scotland Yard as to what has happened, and that your own medical authorities will deal with the ambassador’s corpse?”
Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran waved a tentacle. “Inspector Lestrade is on his way as we speak,” he said, “and the body will be removed just as soon as he’s conducted his enquiries.”
“And I wonder what old Lestrade will make of the sad affair?” Holmes said in an aside to me. “Come, Watson, we have learned as much as is to be learned here. We shall continue the investigation elsewhere.”
“And where might that be?” I asked as we took our leave.
“We are heading for Madame Rochelle’s,” he said.
I echoed the name. “But isn’t that…?” I began.
“Indeed it is, Watson. Madame Rochelle’s is perhaps the most infamous brothel in all London.”
* * *
“I’m not at all sure…” I began as we paced down a narrow alley off the Strand, glancing over my shoulder to ensure that we were not observed.
“Curb your fears, Watson. We have penetrated more insalubrious premises than this one in the course of our investigations. Aha… this must be it.”
A dark recess gave access to a door, upon which Holmes rapped with his cane. A second later the door opened and a thin face peered out.
My friend whipped an unfamiliar, gold-bordered card from his pocket and showed it to the doorman. This had the effect of an open sesame, and we stepped inside.
“Where on earth did you come by the card?” I whispered as I followed Holmes down a darkened corridor.
“Where else, Watson, but in the ambassador’s bedchamber.”
“Ah! So that’s why you were looking like the cat with the cream,” I said.
Holmes paused and turned to me. “Your powers of observation, Watson, are as acute as ever.”
I huffed at this. “And what else did you find in the bedchamber?”
My friend gave a short laugh. “I found nothing, Watson. That is, I did not find what I was looking for.”
“And what might that have been?”
“The opener with which the ambassador had slit his private correspondence.”
“The murder weapon!”
“A brilliant deduction. Now, I think through here…”
He opened a green baize door and instantly we were assailed by music – Debussy’s Nocturnes – from one of the new-fangled Martian harmony-grams, along with the overwhelming reek of perfume and a scene to shock the most jaded of sensibilities.
Young ladies in various stages of déshabillé disported themselves around the room upon chesterfields and divans and were courted – shall we say? – by their suitors. Several among the clients were Martian, and it was a nauseating sight indeed to see the ivory limbs of the young ladies entwined with the writhing tentacles of their otherworldly patrons.
“I never even dreamed…” I began.
Holmes commented, “Some Martians find our women irresistible, Watson.”
“What shocks me more, Holmes, is that some of the fairer sex succumb to their advances.”
“Such is the tragedy of their circumstances,” said Holmes.
A scantily clad woman of middle years advanced upon us, smili
ng. “Welcome, gentlemen. If I might take your coats…”
Holmes proffered his calling card. “If you would be kind enough to present this to Madame Rochelle.”
Two minutes later we were ushered into a highly scented and sweltering boudoir. A buxom woman, whose wrinkled flesh spoke of advanced years, sat upon what appeared to be a throne beside a blazing fire.
“Mr Holmes hisself!” she declared in a Hackney shriek. “Never thought I’d see the great detective on my turf, so to speak. Are you sure I can’t tempt you with one of my more beautiful girls, Mr Holmes?”
He maintained an admirable élan. “We are here to investigate a murder, Madame.”
“A murder? Who’s been murdered? I swear that none of my girls—”
“I understand that the Martian ambassador himself was a frequent visitor to your establishment?”
“‘Was’ is right, Mr Holmes. He stopped coming here a few months ago, and I right miss him, I do. The ambassador was a bit of a character, he was.”
My friend considered her words and stroked his chin with a long forefinger. “Could you tell me if any of your ladies were in the habit of visiting the ambassador at the Martian Embassy?”
“What? You think I send my girls out into the city? I protect my girls, I do.”
“I am sure you do, Madame Rochelle,” said Holmes. “I wonder if you can recall whether, when the ambassador visited your establishment, he exhibited a preference for a certain type of lady?”
Madame Rochelle thought about that. “He liked ’em dark, Mr Holmes. No blondes for the ambassador. Dark and sultry was how he liked his wimmen.”
In due course Holmes thanked Madame Rochelle, assured her once again that we did not care to avail ourselves of the pleasures of her establishment, and withdrew.
We escaped the cloying confines of Madame Rochelle’s and once again breathed the refreshing spring air of the Strand. Holmes hurried over to a communications kiosk – yet another wonder for which we had to thank the Martians – on the corner of the Strand and Northumberland Avenue. “Excuse me one moment, Watson,” he said, and entered the kiosk.
He emerged minutes later and explained. “I contacted Mr Wells and Miss Fairfield, and arranged to meet them, in secrecy, on Hampstead Heath at six.” Without further ado he crossed the pavement and slipped into W.H. Smith’s, emerging a minute later to hail a passing cab.
“And now?” I asked as we climbed aboard.
“To the Martian Embassy,” he said, and seconds later we were hurtling through the streets of the capital towards Grosvenor Square.
* * *
A Martian underling showed us into the embassy and summoned the deputy ambassador.
Holmes asked if he might once again examine the ambassador’s bedchamber, and Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran escorted us to the suite.
Holmes crossed to the bed while I remained on the threshold with the deputy, stopped in my tracks by the foul stench issuing from the corpse. Holmes, for his part, seemed not to notice the odour, for he had his back to me and appeared to be searching through the late ambassador’s inert tentacles.
“Aha!” he said at last, and turned to us with an expression of triumph.
Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran shuffled past me. He gave vent to a series of oesophageal belches, then said, “Mr Holmes?”
“I am happy to inform you that the case is solved,” he said. He stood beside the bed and gestured at the tangle of dead limbs. “My earlier examination of the corpse failed to locate the implement that caused the fatal injury for the very good reason that it was concealed beneath one of the ambassador’s limbs.”
Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran hurried across to the bed and I, gagging at the stench, joined them. I stared down at the tangle of tentacles and saw, protruding from beneath a pseudopod, a bloodstained letter opener.
The Martian spoke. “Are you saying, Mr Holmes, that…?”
My friend said, “My investigations led me, in due course, to an establishment at which the pleasures of the flesh might be indulged by those of little self-restraint. It is my painful duty to inform you that the ambassador was a frequent visitor to this establishment, where he developed a predilection for ladies of a certain type.”
Before me, Grulvax-Xenxa-Goran appeared to slump. “I was aware of his weakness,” he said, “and more than once attempted to reason with him, to no avail.”
“It is my opinion,” said Holmes, “that remorse overcame the ambassador, and in the throes of self-recrimination, and guilt at his unfaithfulness to his mate – at this very moment travelling through space towards Earth – he took his own life.”
The deputy ambassador said, “A tragic affair, Mr Holmes.”
Presently we took our leave, and as we hurried across the square towards the taxi rank I said doubtfully, “Suicide? But… how was it that you didn’t find the letter opener when you first examined the corpse?”
My friend said nothing, but opened the rear door of the cab and slipped inside. “To Hampstead Heath,” he told the driver.
* * *
We came to the crest of Parliament Hill and stood in silence, all London spread before us. The sun was setting, and a roseate light bathed the capital. I made out familiar landmarks, St Paul’s and Nelson’s Column, and the more recent addition to the city’s skyline: the docking station at Battersea. Prominent across the city were the towering tripods, stilled now after the activity of the day, hooded and slightly sinister. Soon, when the sun went down, they would begin their curiously mournful and eerie ululations.
Holmes pointed. “Look, Watson, down by that oak. Mr Wells and Miss Fairfield, holding hands like the lovers they are. Shall we join them?”
We made our way down the incline and met the pair beneath the oak’s spreading boughs. Both looked suspicious as we approached, Miss Fairfield’s beautiful visage drawn and paler than usual.
Wells stepped forward. “You said you had news.”
“Indeed,” said Holmes. “The case is solved.”
At this Wells frowned. “Solved?” he said, looking from Holmes to myself.
“It appears,” I said, “that the weapon was concealed beneath the ambassador’s limbs all along.”
“But isn’t it curious that you did not find the knife when you first examined the corpse?” Miss Fairfield asked.
“Not in the slightest,” Holmes replied, “for the implement was not there when I made my initial examination.”
“What?” I cried.
“Then how…?” Wells began.
“I purchased a letter opener from Smith’s just one hour ago, and planted it upon entering the ambassador’s bedchamber.”
I stared aghast at my friend. “Do you know what you’re saying, Holmes?” I expostulated. “Why… but that means the ambassador cannot have taken his own life!”
Holmes smiled, then turned to Mr Wells and Miss Fairfield. “That is correct, is it not? Perhaps one of you would care to explain?”
Miss Fairfield opened her mouth, shocked. “Why, I have no idea what you might mean.”
“Come,” said Holmes, “I am quite aware of the ambassador’s… predilections, shall we say?”
At this, Miss Fairfield broke down. Wells embraced her, and it was a full minute before she regained her composure and looked Holmes squarely in the eye.
“A few months ago,” she began, “shortly after my appointment as the ambassador’s private secretary, he made his feelings known to me. I was revolted, of course, but with increasing insistence he proceeded to press himself upon me. Last night he asked me into his room, ostensibly to dictate a letter. However…” She shook her head. “Oh, it was horrible, horrible! His strength, his ghastly, overwhelming…”
“Please, there is no need to go on,” Holmes said.
Wells interposed. In a trembling voice he took up the story. “I was nearby, Mr Holmes, when I heard Cicely’s cries. I fetched the key and let myself into the bedchamber, and what I saw there…” He shook his head bitterly, his expression wretched. “I was besid
e myself with rage, sir, and blinded to the consequences took up the letter opener and… and plunged it into the horror’s torso.” He looked up, defiantly. “I am not proud of what I did, but I was spurred into action by my love for Cicely and by my revulsion at the ambassador’s vile actions.” He paused, then went on. “I opened the window and gouged a mark in the wall beneath, to make it appear that the murder was the work of an intruder. I then left the embassy and disposed of the weapon in the Thames.”
He hesitated, then continued. “I do not regret what I did, for the creature had it coming to him, and like a man I will face the consequences. If you inform Scotland Yard of my actions, I will have my day in court.”
Holmes smiled at this, and shook his head. “Well said, but it will take more than pretty rhetoric to persuade me that what you claim is the truth of the matter.”
I stared at my friend. “What the deuce are you driving at, Holmes?”
Holmes turned to Miss Fairfield. “At our first meeting,” he said, “I noticed the splashed ichor on your bodice which I took at first to be egg yolk.” He paused. “Well?”
Miss Fairfield faced the detective foursquare, thought for a moment, then began, “I admit—”
Wells gripped her hand. “Cicely…”
“No, Bertie,” said she, “the truth is better out. You are correct, Mr Holmes, Bertie did not kill the ambassador.” She took a deep breath, then said, “When he pressed himself upon me, held me down with his tentacles and… and proceeded to… You must understand that I was beside myself with terror, and when I saw the letter opener on the bedside table, I…” She stopped, almost out of breath. “I did what I did, Mr Holmes, in self-defence, but I too will face the consequences if that is what you feel is right and proper.”
My friend paced back and forth, his chin upon his chest, lost in thought. Then he stopped and faced the pair.
“As far as the human and Martian authorities are concerned,” he said at last, “the affair is closed. The ambassador killed himself in a fit of remorse and guilt for his philandering with human women of ill-repute. The Martian judiciary will not arrive for another seven days, by which time what little evidence there is will be corrupted. While not condoning your actions, Miss Fairfield, I understand the terrible fear that drove you to commit the deed.”
