However, looking at him closely, I saw no determination in his eyes.
‘Do we have a choice?’ I asked. He looked away. Did I feel any anger towards Mary for having made a fool of me? ‘Let’s sleep on it,’ Holmes suggested. I was surprised.
I went to Water Lane. I naturally sympathised with Mary, but I was troubled by her lapsus: “he raped me thirteen times. Sorry I meant he raped me. I was only thirteen.” Sounded too much like something rehearsed. Was it true that Windibank had abused her? I ended up convincing myself that it was just a slip of the tongue. I tried to imagine how a thirteen year old could have coped with this ordeal, with no one to share her humiliation. An unending torture. I ended up with a lump in my throat. But did she have the right to take a life? I needed to be reassured by my loved ones. Cole spoke of how slaves and their descendants were treated as providers of sex for their masters without any respect for their humanity. Armande spoke of her cousin Louise who was raped and abused by her own father. After she hanged herself, nothing happened to Oncle Horace who lived to a ripe old age. The law had always protected men who violated women. Everybody was of opinion that Windibank had got his just deserts. Mary was not a murderer, but an avenger. They reminded me of how I had killed Stonehead for his murder of young Gypsy children. I saw clearly that I was influenced in my stance, not by my wish to see justice done, but by my resentment at being bested by a chit of a girl. I was ashamed of not having thought out my position properly.
Next day when we met again, I was surprised to find Holmes had sunken eyes. The poor man had had a sleepless night. He listened to all my arguments, saying nothing, only occasionally nodding in seeming agreement.
‘So, Miss Adler, what are you suggesting we do?’
‘Nothing,’ I ventured.
‘Shall we be party to murder then?’
‘The alternative is to condone rape and violence to women.’ Holmes sucked on his pipe and nodded absently. I was heartened by his attitude.
‘I hear Lestrade is following a lead to Denmark. Someone swears to have spotted Barr boarding a ship in Harwich bound for Copenhagen.’
‘The holiday will do him some good, I daresay.’ Holmes smiled. He said nothing more. We did nothing more.
***
Eighteen months later, I received a parcel by the post. It was Mary Sutherland’s newly published novel, The Perfect Crime. Holmes spoke to me on the telephone machine shortly after. He too had received a copy of the book. The same evening I started reading it. I only meant to browse the tome, and perhaps read the introduction, but I received a jolt as I read the description on the back cover:
The killer planned in the minutest details the murder of her hated step-father like a general his campaign. To ensure that she will never be caught, she hires two of the best detectives in London, Helm and Lerner and convinces them that she had suffered abuse and sexual degradation at the hand of the victim.
Had she been taking us for a ride? I had no choice but to sit down and read the book from cover to cover. The part involving us was true in every detail. Even how the two investigators realised that Carr was Mrs Windstock in disguise. Mr Holmes and I spoke on the telephone machine. He had been similarly shocked. Could we meet?
We wended our way to the Parasol, our usual meeting place. We sat down and even before Gastron had served us our Mocha and macaroons, we were trying hard to convince each other that novelists have this habit of basing their fiction on real life situations, albeit modifying them as necessary. This book did not necessarily mean that Mary had pulled the wool over our eyes.
Or did it?
‘But would she brazenly say that she invented the story of Windibank raping her?’ Holmes asked.
‘A dedicated writer- and I have verified that she is one - sets herself challenges and solves them.’
‘I suggest that we go visit her. I am sure she will be expecting us.’
‘And I am sure she will explain how her ideas came to her.’
***
Mary could not hide a smile of triumph as she opened the door to us. Ethel looked like a real lady. The house was transformed. It had been tastefully redecorated. There was expensive furniture, woven Persian carpets and ornaments.
‘You seem to have come into money,’ I commented.
‘We inherited from Windibank,’ said Ethel.
‘He did not believe that money was for spending,’ said Mary. ‘He never stopped talking about rainy days.’
‘Let me serve you some tea and cakes,’ said Ethel.
‘We knew you would be coming, so we bought a few things.’
We congratulated her on her book, which had been enthusiastically received by the critics. The Times extolled its craftsmanship. The Pall Mall Gazette, waxed lyrical about the rhythm of the prose. Reynolds’ News expressed concern about murder going unpunished, but averred that this was fiction and the immorality of the plot was more than made up for by its originality and the quality of the writing. The Daily Telegraph opined that Mary Sutherland would surely surpass the likes of the two Charlottes, Yonge and Bronte, and wondered how someone in her early twenties could handle her pen with such maturity.
When I mentioned the ecstatic reviews, Mary pursed her lips and nodded slightly.
‘I’ll tell you what made them say these nice things. I took risks.’ She confirmed what I had said to Holmes: that she had a ready-made story, which by itself was already a puissant one. A sordid story, undoubtedly, and with the intensity of a Greek tragedy. She then decided to challenge herself and let her dark side dictate. That’s how she came with the story of greed.
‘Why cannot a victim be grasping?’ She challenged us.
‘Why did you never mention the inheritance?’ Holmes asked.
‘That was not central to what happened to us.’
‘In the book it was not Windstock’s brother who went to Australia, but the wife from whom he was separated. And their son had written to claim his inheritance.’
‘Yes,’ laughed Mary, ‘in the book Windstock’s son had contacted his father. That was what pushed Mary Argyle to kill him.’
‘I had looked after him for twelve years,’ Ethel intervened. ‘Surely we deserved...’
‘Mother,’ Mary admonished, ‘will you please not interrupt. Mother means Esther Windstock.’ Ethel said that she had things to do and left.
Holmes and I were seated on a large sofa, with Mary on the one opposite, so that we formed a regular triangle. We were not surprised that she was willing to submit herself to our questioning. She didn’t need to. We had no ground to stand on. A year and a half had gone since Windibank was killed. Where would the police start their new enquiry if they were persuaded to reopen the case?
‘The story of Mr Windstock’s first family in New Zealand,’ Holmes began.
‘Pure invention. I remember telling you that Windibank’s wife died. He was a widower.’
‘But he did have a son?’
‘No. There were no children. I invented that strand.’ In the novel, Windstock’s son, Mary’s step-brother wrote from Auckland to ask if Aldous Windstock was the same person who married Emmeline Callaghan who bore him a son Bartholomew. Mary Argyle intercepted the letter and wrote an answer on her typewriter to the effect that he had never met any Emmeline Callaghan. Perhaps young Bartholomew could try other John Windstocks. She then signed it Aldous. I mentioned this, and Mary smiled.
‘Yes. A writer can never let a gem of idea just evaporate. That is one sure way of stopping the flow of the creative juices. The idea occurred to me in the middle of the night and I could not resist it. There was never any Bartholomew.’
‘Mary Argyle reflects upon the need to eliminate Windstock in such convincing terms.’
‘That’s because Mary Sutherland is a writer who takes risks.’
‘In the book, after the murder, Mary wonders whether she shoul
d eliminate her mother Esther as well, as she fears that she might spill the beans.’
‘Do you think I could kill my mother?’ I did, but said nothing.
‘Could you?’ asked Holmes, and Mary smiled.
‘Bartholomew sent a second letter. Am I right?’
‘Yes. I’ll remind you.’ She picked a copy of the book which was on a sideboard, flicked through it, found the page and read: If it is true that you are not my father, why did spend time and money writing to me and buying the postage stamp? I wrote back to inform him that Windibank had died, enclosing a newspaper notice which obviously did not mention the manner of his death. I mean Mary Argyle did.’
‘I was surprised that Miss Argyle was never molested by her step-father.’ I said.
‘Yes, but I explained that I could never...I mean Argyle could never dismiss the thought of Windstock having planned the collapse of the wall. Initially I thought of making the rape and subsequent abuses central to the tale, but changed my mind. Isn’t it more dramatic to give her a weak motive? Critics call this challenging the reader.’
‘I noticed that you cannot help saying “I” when you mean Mary,’ Holmes said. Mary laughed.
‘Yes. A writer cannot help identifying with the characters she has created. You know how much of himself Dickens put in David Copperfield. I am convinced that he wasn’t sure if he was David or Charles while he was writing the book.’ I had one last question, and the moment I asked it, I saw Holmes nodding. He obviously wanted to ask the same thing.
‘Tell me, eh, tell us, Mary. Why did you take the trouble to send us a copy of your book?’
‘Why do you think?’
‘An act of defiance?’
‘Cocking a snoop at us?’
‘Is that what you think? I just thought that you would be bound to hear about the book, and wanted to give you the opportunity of getting some answers from me.’
‘We aren’t any the wiser,’ I said.
‘I didn’t suppose you would be.’
Her Last Bow
My late father, Wilhelm Adler, acknowledged by the cognoscenti as the most promising of all up-and-coming Austrian baritones had chosen to leave the land of his birth for London. He had not approved of Emperor Ferdinand’s abdication in favour of his reactionary nephew, the hotheaded Franz Joseph. He had foreseen the strengthening of the Triple Alliance which consisted of Germany, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the inevitable catastrophic effects of their militaristic ambitions. Now that the fire-breathing Kaiser Wilhelm II had assumed the reins of power of that unsavoury coalition, my dear father’s selfless choice, giving up a brilliant career at the Vienna Court Opera, has been proved entirely justified. I am eternally grateful to him for it.
I was born, and have lived mainly in London. Although there were many aspects of the English way of life that I did not admire, for example its colonial policy or its overt militarism, when the drums of war began rumbling in the distance at the turn of the century, I found myself leaning more and more towards the country of my birth. I had little doubt that my late lamented sire would not have disapproved. Mam was a Union-Jack-waving and Rule-Britannia-singing Scottish patriot. This made it easy for me to choose my affiliations.
At first, my friends at the Club de As, like me, worshipped at the altar of Dr Johnson.
Daily we had flexed our knees to the mantras “A plague on both your houses” and “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. However, we had obviously become aware of Kaiser Wilhelm’s bellicose stance since his coronation. This, in the light of Admiral von Tirpitz’s war-like determination to completely overhaul the Kaiserliche Marine with the obvious aim of outstripping our own unrivalled Royal Navy, drove us en bloc to declare our allegiance to the Triple Entente of Britain, France and Russia. Of course none of us would have contemplated anything more than driving an ambulance or bringing succour to our wounded in some field hospital, if hostility broke out.
The reader will recall the initial hostility between Sherlock Holmes and myself. He had unwisely accepted a mission from my erstwhile lover, the fatuous Otto, hereditary king of Bohemia. I learnt later that this was at the behest of his brother Mycroft, himself following instructions from the Viscount, to help a political ally of Great Britain. Had Holmes succeeded, it would have seriously undermined me. I had come out unscathed in the battle of wits that ensued between the two of us. He had graciously admitted defeat and bowed to my victory in the first round. Later, feeling that I needed his protection from the paranoid Otto who had persisted in his determination to eliminate me, I had an inspiration: I would pull the wool over the eyes of the hawk-eyed detective, and infiltrate Number 221B Baker Street, passing myself for a housekeeper, assuming the name of Mrs Hudson (Mam was née Hudson.) We had then redefined our relationship and become allies of sorts.
At Reichenbach Falls, I had rescued him from certain death at the hands of the evil Moriarty. I had then accompanied him, badly bruised, physically as well as morally, to the antipodes for a complete change of environment. Not that he trusted me without reservation now. He knew that my friends at the Club and I did not feel bound by traditional laws and mores of the land. If we respected the property of the average person, we accorded no such courtesy to those who had gained inordinate wealth which they would have found difficult to account for.
On my return from Australia I went back to Armande’s large rambling, if slightly dilapidated mansion in Water Lane, Brixton. I have now spent a few years there. At Mr Holmes’ instigation, I started offering detective services to Londoners, putting to good use whatever innate skills I possessed, to say nothing of the non-negligible lessons learnt from my mentor. He it was who advised me to do so in the guise of a man. I therefore donned trousers jacket and tie, and went about my business as Dai Lernière, a name I again owe to him. He is the only person who shares the secret of my assumed identity with my intimates of the Club. I know that not even Dr Watson is privy to this confidence.
Mr Holmes and I meet once a week on a Thursday morning (barring the unavoidable contretemps), at the Parasol Tea Rooms in the corner of Lombard and King William Streets. We usually partake of coffee and profiteroles or macaroons, to both of which the man from Baker Street is rather partial. It was on a glorious spring morning that Holmes, seated opposite me over our weekly indulgences intimated that he had received rather alarming intelligence from his brother Mycroft.
‘But first, tell me I am not wrong, Miss...eh...Mr Lernière,’ he began. It’s always been Miss Adler and Mr Holmes, between us. Now it’s Mr Lernière. ‘Is my deduction, arrived at by observing your reaction to various developments on the world stage in the last months, to the effect that your sympathies in case of a European conflict, would lie with the country of your birth, correct?’ I assured him that this was certainly the case. He nodded and put his case to me.
***
‘Enter, venerable brother, and make yourself as comfortable as you dare in my less than modest abode, and accept fraternal effusions of amity,’ Holmes had said.
‘Just as facetious as ever, I notice, runt,’ Mycroft had said with put-on sternness contradicted by the affectionate twinkle in his eyes. His housekeeper, Mrs Obassanju, served them Lapsang Souchong tea to which the government mandarin was addicted, and the latter went straight to the point. The Viscount had entrusted him with a very important mission.
‘Then why are you wasting your valuable time visiting your ineffectual sibling rather than rushing to do your master’s bidding?’
‘Very droll, runt, very droll.’ Mycroft had explained that the Home Secretary had been alerted by William Melville, known as “M”, the astute Irishman who was running the G-division at Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, sometimes referred to as the Secret Service, about something which was troubling him: in the last three years, he had kept a close watch on the barbershop of one Heinrich Gustav Ernst (known as German Enery) in
Tottenham Court Road, in the belief that he was the main German spymaster to whom enemy agents reported. M’s men had kept Ernst under surveillance, and carried out a number of occult activities, including feeding him with misinformation via his agents, passing for Irish renegades. The upshot was the discovery that the barber was nothing but a decorative cog in the wheels of German perfidy. The Irishman was increasingly minded to conclude that German Enery was no more than a decoy, whom the crafty Krauts had installed for the purpose of deviating attention from the real spymaster, whoever he might be. Now that it was becoming increasingly clear that the Kaiser was waiting for the flimsiest of excuses to light the fuse of the powder keg and start hostilities, it had become imperative to locate the real brains and deal with him. Melville had a list of suspects, and had indeed put some of his best men on the job. A certain German Baron with powerful friends among the English aristocracy seemed to be the likeliest candidate. He was still a long shot, but the Special Branch man felt that heshould be investigated.
‘And why,’ Holmes had asked his brother, ‘are you telling me state secrets? Does it mean that you have plans for me?’ On Melville’s advice, the Viscount had asked Mycroft to entrust Sherlock with that delicate task.
‘Why me?’ Holmes had protested. ‘I am a detective and my specialty is solving crimes by using what modest observational and deductive skills I possess. Whatever makes you think that I have any talent for subtle activities like spying? And if you want me to pass myself for a maid, please not that I am of the wrong gender.’ Mycroft had flared up.
‘You’re behaving like a spoilt brat again, Sherlock. It was your constant arguing that drove our dear Mamma to an early grave.’ That had shut the younger brother up.
‘Obviously you would have carte blanche to choose the best approach to tackle the problem.
You might do a convincing act as a butler. A reasonable fund would be made available to you. I can’t guarantee that you will receive any honorarium commensurate with the effort you will be expected to put into this, although I daresay I will try for it. But any expenses, backed by receipts, I will make sure will be refunded to you in toto. Can’t say fairer.’
The Adventures of Irene Adler : The Irene Adler Trilogy Page 12
