The Redacted Sherlock Holmes, Volume 6

by Orlando Pearson

  The Redacted Sherlock Holmes

  Volume VI

  By

  Orlando Pearson

  First edition published in 2020

  Copyright © 2020 Orlando Pearson

  The right of Orlando Pearson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of any other party.

  Published in the UK by MX Publishing

  335 Princess Park Manor, Royal Drive, London, N11 3GX

  www.mxpublishing.com

  2020 digital version converted and distributed by

  Andrews UK Limited

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  Cover design: Jane Dixon-Smith

  For my family

  A Perilous Engagement

  It was the 14th of March 1907 when our client presented herself in the little sitting-room in Baker Street. My reader will have noted that many of the women whom Holmes and I encountered during our adventures were possessed of striking looks, spirit, and capabilities. The lady who stood before us was no exception to this. She was slight and short, but she radiated such youthful energy that it was impossible to imagine a dull moment in her company.

  I think Holmes too was impressed. “And,” he enquired solicitously, “are you the only woman in your Surrey shooting party?”

  “Yes indeed, Mr Holmes,” replied she in an assured voice. “My interest in field sports is unusual in my sex and so I am the party’s only representative of the distaff side. I presume where I was early this morning before coming here, will have been betrayed to you by the Surrey loam on my shoes, and what I did there by the traces of powder on my shoulder which I have not yet had the opportunity to remove”

  She gave my friend a searching look and then continued, “And, may I ask, has your violin, which I see in its case over there, been modified for playing by a left-handed player—I note that pugilism has left its mark in the form of swollen the knuckles on your left hand?”

  My friend chuckled at our visitor’s response. “I feel a foil as supple as my own,” he replied. “To your point, my violin is a Stradivarius, so I would not venture to modify it in any way other than to tune it. But, when I put it to my chin, I play it as a right-handed person would. My preference, to which my biographer here has referred, for putting my violin on my lap and drawing the bow over the strings while it lies there, may be explained by my left-handedness.”

  Holmes paused before a look of solicitude came over his face. “And what brings you here straight from the field?” he asked.

  “I find shooting helpful when I want to release energy in moments of uncertainty. I have a most peculiar matter to relate. My name is Jean Leckie. I live in Kensington and I am of gentle stock. I am unmarried, but I have an unusual association with a member of parliament, Ignatius Foley, the member for Perth in Western Scotland.”

  “Mr Foley’s name is of course known to me but not his association with you, dear lady. Perhaps you would elaborate.”

  “Mr Foley spends part of his time in London attending to parliamentary business and part of the time in his seat attending to his constituents’ needs. His wife lives in Perth. She is consumptive, and her death is a matter of time. These taxing calls on his energies mean that he has no aspirations for political high-office, and he serves this country’s democracy by being out-spoken on the back-benches. He had a highly successful legal practice before he went into politics and is an excellent public speaker. Ignatius and I have an understanding that we will marry once his wife is no more.”

  I certainly, and Holmes I think too, were taken aback by our client’s candour in her description of her situation, but Holmes confined himself to the question, “And how may I be of assistance to you, madame?”

  “I can see by the look on the faces of you two gentlemen that you find the relationship I have described a troubling one, but I can assure you that relations between Ignatius and me will remain of conventual purity until such time as his present marriage comes to its natural end. Indeed, neither of us would have it any other way.”

  She paused, as though expecting an interjection from one of us, but we were both silent and she continued.

  “Yesterday morning Ignatius came to our home. As usual I was chaperoned—on this occasion by my brother—and we sat in the lounge. Before Ignatius left, he reached into his jacket pocket to get out his diary so that we could arrange our next assignation—he is due to go up to his constituency tomorrow. He seemed to struggle to get his diary out and, when he did so, a heap of papers came up out of his pocket with it and scattered themselves over the floor. I made to help him pick them up, but he was, quite at variance to his normally imperturbable manner, extremely abrupt, and insisted on picking them up himself. He spent some time over this, and it was quite five minutes before he declared he had everything. My brother and I took Ignatius to the front door and he took his leave in very ill-humour. I returned to the lounge after Ignatius had gone and noted that he had failed to retrieve one document which was under the chaise longue.”

  “And what was the document?” Holmes enquired.

  “It was a rental invoice for a property in London.”

  “What was so unusual about that? I imagine your fiancé must rent a flat for when he is in the capital on parliamentary duty.”

  “It was not made out to him.”

  She passed it to across to Holmes and me and I saw that it was addressed to a Mr James Turnavine for the rental of a flat at Denbigh Row in Fitzrovia.

  “Mr Turnavine,” she said, “is the Conservative member for Whitstable whereas Mr Foley is of the governing Liberal party. You are right to say,” she continued, “that as a Scottish member of parliament, my fiancé needs a London residence, but his is at Charter Place in St. Giles, so the rental bill would have nothing to do with him. Instead, he has a bill relating to another member of parliament from a quite different part of the country, with a residence in a different part of London, and from a different party.”

  “As a man with a successful legal practice, your fiancé is a man of means,” Holmes countered. “Could he have bought premises that he has rented out to another member of parliament?”

  “That was, Mr Holmes, of course, the first explanation that came to my mind although my fiancé has never mentioned owning any property in London. But the invoice is from Fitzrovia Estates and my research yesterday afternoon showed this is a company belonging to the Duke of Grafton who owns all the properties in the Fitzrovia area; so my fiancé cannot be a landlord at Denbigh Row.”

  “You seem to have a remarkable talent for investigative research. What are your next steps to be?”

  “Well, I really came here to hear a theory from you rather than to propose a course of action,” said our visitor.

  There was a long pause while Holmes considered the matter. He rose to check his files before he sat
down again.

  “I have commented,” he said at length, “in another case that men do not normally carry the bills of other men around in their pockets. They have quite enough of their own to settle. Then the bill was a clue in a case of a corrupt horse trainer who was leading a double life with a false identity, but my files confirm the separate identity of Mr Turnavine from Mr Foley.”

  Holmes paused again.

  “In the absence of any more material, I think the best thing I can do is to summarise the very limited facts before us. Your betrothed had with him a pile of documents which he was very anxious to retrieve when they fell out of his pocket. Nevertheless, he failed to retrieve one which is a rental invoice made out to another man, and you are unable to find an explanation for this, although you fear it may be discreditable to your fiancé.”

  “That is so.”

  “Has your fiancé noticed the missing document and made any attempt to retrieve it?”

  “He has not but he will have been on an overnight train to Perth last night, so I would not have expected him to do so even if he was aware that he had failed to pick up one document.”

  “Then, dear madame, I would suggest you return home. I will contemplate your disquisition and revert to you if any insight occurs to me. I would suggest that you yourself give some thought to the background of the matters you have raised with me. Consider whether there has been any other occasion when your betrothed might have displayed agitation and why that might have been so. Cast your mind back to try to recall whether he has ever mentioned any interests in properties? Any further particulars would be of the greatest interest to me in what appears to me to be a most peculiar matter.”

  Miss Leckie’s footsteps were still audible on the staircase when there was the sound of two sets of feet coming up. The street door below banged loudly shut as the buttons opened the door to our sitting room to announce the arrival of Mycroft Holmes.

  As my reader may recall, after the adventure of The Bruce Partington Plans of late 1895 Mycroft Holmes makes no further appearances in the stories I have chosen should appear in my lifetime. This was due to a falling out between my friend and his brother after the events described therein. This second matter is related in the story The Sleeper’s Cache. In spite of my embargo on the publication of further stories featuring Mycroft Holmes, my friend continued to help his brother on political matters after the fissure in their relationship but, as my reader will see, the nature of the events I now describe would in any case have rendered this story unpublishable for at least one hundred years after the time they occurred.

  As he sat down, Mycroft (to whom I shall refer as Mycroft while I refer to Sherlock Holmes as Holmes) displayed an agitation which I might refer to as quite theatrical. His bulky frame twitched with tension and his gaze flitted in all directions as he twice took pinches of snuff before he started speaking.

  “Sherlock,” he said, “I would that you go to the continent immediately. I will travel with you to Victoria Station, and we will wait under the clock there to meet a man from the Bulgarian secret police. There is a matter for you to resolve which affects the entire power balance of Europe. You will need to travel with him to Sofia and there is an express to Dover at noon. You will be in the Bulgarian capital by tomorrow evening.” Mycroft turned to me. “I fear, dear doctor, that the Bulgarians were insistent that only my brother should come and help them.”

  My friend sat in thought for some time, mindful that some of the other commissions he had received from his brother were more freighted with political implications than had met the eye. Nevertheless, after a few minutes he rose, packed his bag with a few small items, and left with Mycroft.

  I sat thinking for an hour about the case that our fair visitor of that morn had brought us.

  Had I ever had a rental bill to another man in my pocket and, once I had established in my mind that I had not, what possible reason might there have been for me to have one?

  I was about to ring the bell for lunch when here was a hesitant knock on the door.

  “Come!” I said, and Miss Leckie stood once again at the threshold of the sitting room.

  “Is Mr Holmes not here?” she asked.

  “I fear he has been called away on urgent business. I cannot tell you when he will return.”

  “I feared that might be so,” said she. “In that case, Dr Watson, could I ask you to look at my petition anew for I have found some more material. Would you have time to do so before you go out?”

  I had formed no plan to leave the flat at Baker Street but let the matter pass in my eagerness to assist the young petitioner.

  “I am happy to do so, madame”, I said, “but I would advise you that my previous efforts at detective work have had results that have been mixed at best.”

  “I need someone whom I can trust to talk to,” said she with a smile that would have won over a stonier heart than mine.

  She passed to me a scrap of paper.

  “When I got home, the living room felt cold and I decided to add some coals to the fire. I found this in the coal scuttle which is next to where Mr Foley sat when he was with me yesterday.”

  I looked at the paper which still bore signs of having been in contact with coal dust. It was another accounting document—this time a bill from the Bar of Gold in Upper Swandham Lane in London’s docklands. The only entry on it said ‘Two pipes at four shillings’. There was no indication of whether the bill was made out to Mr Foley, but the Bar of Gold’s name was at the top.

  “Madame,” I said gravely, “I fear that I could not put any sort of construction on the rental bill you said came from your fiancé, but which was addressed to another member of parliament. This document, by contrast, is from an establishment in a most notorious part of London, and I fear you will find the explanation for it only discreditable.”

  “You say so, Dr Watson, and that was my immediate reaction too, yet your conclusion leaves so much unclarified.”

  “Perhaps you would like to expand on your thesis.”

  “If, as you surmise, the Bar of Gold is a dubious establishment, why would it issue a receipt and why would anyone wish to keep it? And look at the date on the bill. It is from the 25th of January of last year.”

  I still had the bill in my hand and when I glanced again at it, I noted the accuracy of Miss Leckie’s remark.

  “Why,” she continued, “would my fiancé have it in his pocket a year after it was issued? I would also advise you that while my fiancé enjoys a cigarette or a pipe like any normal man, and is the father of two children, he has never in our acquaintance displayed the least interest in the sorts of titillations you imply might be on offer at the Bar of Gold.”

  In retrospect, on the facts, I may have been somewhat generous in what I said next.

  “Very well Madame, I will go down to the Bar of Gold and form a view of what sort of establishment it is.”

  “If the Bar of Gold is a lubricious establishment, is that not a somewhat perilous engagement?”

  “Madame,” I replied, “I feel that you are the one with the perilous engagement and that you deserve clarity on the motives of your betrothed.”

  “But I must come with you. I have…” she glanced at her watch.

  “We are, madame,” I interjected, “already in breach of propriety in that you and I are alone in a room together unattended by anyone of an equivalent social class. This is only permissible because you yourself have entered the room unannounced and I had no idea who it was when you knocked. But I cannot sit in a carriage with you without a third person of suitable social standing being present, and I do not wish to wait for a third person to make themselves available. I shall undertake this part of the investigation myself. Do you have a photograph of Mr Foley?”

  “I have it here.”

  “I would that all of Mr Holmes’s clients we
re so skilled at anticipating his needs, dear lady.”

  In a minute I was on the pavement at Baker Street and had hailed a hansom. I was about to step into it when I discovered that I only had one cigarette left in my case. I went to the tobacconist on the corner of Baker Street and Marylebone Road to replenish my supplies before hailing another cab. A drive of three quarters of an hour found me in Upper Swandham Lane.

  Some of my readers will already know of the Bar of Gold. I say this, not because I would wish to cast aspersions on any of them, but because the establishment formed a key part in the events related in The Man with the Twisted Lip which took place in June 1889. I had visited it to try to rescue my patient, the sottish opium addict, Isa Whitney, from it and commented then that it was the vilest opium den in London.

  I felt that nothing was likely to have changed but was determined, armed with the photograph of Mr Foley, that I should at least try to establish whether the member of parliament for Perth had been inside.

  I confess that I was not at all sure of the wisdom of this course of action and it was with foreboding that I mounted the stairs worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of addled feet. I made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium smoke. Through the gloom I could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in strange poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back, and chins pointing upward, with here and there a dark, lack-lustre eye turned upon the newcomer. Out of the black shadows, there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the metal pipes.

  A sallow Malay attendant hurried up with a pipe for me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth.

  I took it with some misgivings, struck a match, and took the smallest possible pull on the pipe. To my surprise the Malay pinned a slip of paper to my berth and marked it.

  “Is that something you always do?” I asked.

  “Sir, you are obviously new to this. Of-course we keep a check on what each berth has consumed. I’ll collect the money from you when you leave. Letting you pay at the end helps you to forget, while marking down your consumption helps us to remember.”