The Solitary Witness: A Sherlock and Lucy Short Story (The Sherlock and Lucy Mystery Series Book 20)

by Anna Elliott

  CHAPTER 12: WATSON

  In the evening a week later, after a long and trying day with my patients, I made my way from my surgery towards Baker Street. The weather matched my mood. A driving rain lashed my cheeks, penetrating beneath my umbrella and trickling, cold and wet, down the inside of my mackintosh. Gloomily, I reflected that the dark and the early chill heralded the onset of a harsh winter. I pressed on. Finally, I reached the outer doorway of 221B and, gratefully taking shelter within our lobby, hung my umbrella and mackintosh in the front hallway.

  I noted that another umbrella and mackintosh, both as large as mine and nearly as wet, already hung on the coat rack.

  Conclusion: Holmes had a visitor, arrived only recently. A large man.

  I mounted our seventeen steps and opened the door to our sitting room. Entering, I saw the rotund figure of Mr. Phelps, director of public prosecutions, helping himself to a brandy from our sideboard.

  Holmes, his pipe in hand, sat in his familiar chair, on the other side of a blazing fire.

  “Ah, Watson,” Holmes said. “You are just in time. Pray warm yourself with some brandy. One must guard against the elements and their effects. Mr. Phelps was just informing me as to his progress in bringing the kidnappers of Sergeant Kelly to justice.”

  “Modest progress only,” said Phelps, as he arranged his broad bulk on the settee. “The perpetrators of the kidnapping will serve at least five years in prison. However, we have had no success in persuading them to identify their leader. And the police still have not found the gunman who wounded Lord Anthony.”

  I took my glass of brandy and settled into my own chair. “What of connections to Linden?” I asked. “After all, he is the one who benefits if no witness testifies against him.”

  Holmes roused himself from his meditative posture. “There is too much money and planning for Linden to have arranged for the kidnapping alone, particularly from prison. There is an organization at work. And if you recall, Linden was planning to flee from England.”

  Realisation struck. “Where he would find it extremely useful to assume a false identity,” I said.

  “Indeed. And we know the organisation that provides false identities as its stock in trade,” said Holmes.

  “Sonnebourne,” I said. “The Sons of Helios.”

  “Sonnebourne is a name also well known to me, sir,” said Phelps. “A name to conjure with, in some dark circles. I should dearly love to see that man in the dock.”

  “Someday you shall,” said Holmes.

  “Many have tried. To accomplish it would require a miracle.”

  Holmes said nothing.

  “But what of the case of Lady Constance?” I asked.

  “I have no joy in that quarter either, regrettably,” replied Mr. Phelps. “Her husband refuses to bring charges against her for the attempted murder.”

  “Hoping to continue his access to her fortune?” Holmes asked.

  “Quite so. As to colluding with the kidnappers, they have declined to name her as an accessory.”

  “But all three of us heard her, just before she was arrested,” I said.

  “She now says that she invented the tale, out of spite and indignation that you would malign her character. Patently false, of course, but there we are.”

  I felt the colour rising to my cheeks. “So, she simply walks free?”

  “Her life will never be the same. She has commenced civil litigation, struggling to free herself from her husband. How long that will continue is not my province to say.”

  “I had heard as much,” Holmes said. “I would expect the struggle to continue for as long as the unhappy husband and wife can continue to pay their solicitors and barristers.”

  “But what of the case against Linden?” I asked. “I see in the Times that it comes up for trial tomorrow.”

  “That is why I have come here this evening,” said Phelps. “I had hoped that some fresh clue might have been unearthed. Your note earlier this afternoon, Mr. Holmes, gave me that hope.”

  Holmes’s gaze flickered to the clock, which was chiming the hour. He said nothing.

  A gust of wind lashed the rain against our bow window. I thought I heard someone below, but I could not make it out amid the howl of the gale.

  Phelps continued, “I have had to withdraw the name of our one solitary witness, as you would expect. Linden’s barrister has got wind of the circumstances surrounding her attempt on her husband’s life, and he would make a mockery of her on the stand even if she changed her mind and agreed to testify.”

  As he spoke, I heard the sound of footfalls on our stairs and, when he had concluded, there came a familiar knock.

  Mrs. Hudson peered inside. “A woman here to see Dr. Watson,” she said.

  “Send her in,” I said.

  She opened the door to reveal a small figure, shivering in a wet woollen cape. “She says it’s important,” said Mrs. Hudson.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” I said. I recognised our visitor immediately, although her dark hair was streaked across her face and her small sharp eyes glistened from the rain. “Please come in, Leonie.”

  The small Frenchwoman obeyed, hesitantly, but with a firm and determined step.

  Holmes said, “Mrs. Hudson, would you please bring some hot coffee for Miss Dupont?”

  Mrs. Hudson nodded and withdrew.

  “How do you know my name?” Leonie asked.

  “I shall tell in a moment,” Holmes replied, with a glance in my direction that warned me to let him take the lead. “But first we all should like to get you settled after what must have been a difficult journey from Mayfair. You do recognise the three of us?”

  “From the day my mistress was arrested,” she said. “You were in the suite at the hotel.”

  I offered to help Leonie with her cape. She declined. I brought her to my chair and took a place on the settee, beside the somewhat bewildered Mr. Phelps.

  I waited, expectantly. Leonie leaned forward, her wide brown eyes on mine. She spoke somewhat haltingly, and heavily accented, but in English.

  “You have kind hands, Monsieur le docteur, and a kind heart. You were gentle even when tending to the wound of that scélérat, that scoundrel. Your generous nature is my reason for coming out in this harsh weather. Otherwise I should have told the boy to take back your invitation, even though your twenty-pound note was enclosed within the envelope.”

  Mindful of Holmes’s warning glance, I concealed my astonishment.

  Holmes said, “The boy’s name is Flynn. He helps us in our work from time to time. In various capacities. For instance, he learned that your surname is Dupont. So we should prefer to address you as Miss Dupont, if we may? After all, these gentlemen and I do not presume to be your employers.”

  She nodded.

  “Thank you, Miss Dupont. You are still in her ladyship’s employ?”

  The girl’s mouth tightened. “Her ladyship is not a good woman, as you and I both know, Monsieur. But I have my living to earn, and it would not be easy for me to get another post. I know too many of her ladyship’s secrets for her to allow me to leave her. If her ladyship speaks out against me amongst her wealthy friends, no one will wish to hire me.” She spread out her hands, but then smiled faintly, a trace of humour in her dark eyes. “At least with his lordship no longer living with her ladyship, I no longer have to worry about fending off his lordship’s improper advances when he has had too much to drink.”

  Holmes inclined his head. “We also want to reassure you that we have no wish to interfere with your relationship with Lady Constance.”

  She was looking at me. “Your note said as much, Dr. Watson. Now, please tell me directly. What is the assistance you think I may be able to provide?”

  “Thank you, Miss Dupont,” I said. “I would like Mr. Holmes to make that point clear. We thought it best not to involve him when sending the note to you, lest the name of Sherlock Holmes be seen by others and cause interference.”

  “Excellent,” said Holm
es, and I had a moment’s satisfaction as I saw a glint of acknowledgment in his eye.

  Holmes continued, “Miss Dupont, I further wish to make it clear to you that we have no connection whatever to Lord Anthony. Nothing that occurs here will advance his interests or interfere with those of Lady Constance in any way. I simply wish you to answer two questions, as honestly and as truthfully as you are able. If you do so, whatever your answers may be, I have another twenty-pound note for you.”

  She nodded. “Go on, Monsieur Holmes.”

  “First, I should like you to cast your mind back to the night that Lady Constance saw Mr. Linden enter and leave the house next door to the Dales’ estate in Belgravia. Were you awake at the time?”

  “I was.”

  “It required only a small amount of imagination to deduce as much,” he said, “knowing that you were close to Lady Constance. If she was unable to sleep, you might have been awake as well. That was my first question. My second question is just a bit more complex. Did you yourself see Mr. Linden enter and leave that house, with sufficient clarity that you could identify him again?”

  “I did.”

  Holmes nodded. “I am very glad to hear that,” he said, “and not only because you have proved my second little deduction to be correct.”

  He stood, extracted his billfold from his coat pocket, and withdrew a banknote. Then he stepped forward and proffered the banknote with a bow and a flourish. “Here are the twenty pounds, Miss Dupont. They are yours to keep, along with, of course, the twenty pounds enclosed with the invitation that brought you here.”

  He watched her fold the banknote and tuck it into her sleeve. Then he resumed his seat in his customary chair and leaned forward once more. “Miss Dupont, I believe that Mr. Phelps will now have one additional and very important question for you. I must add that it will be impossible for him to offer you any payment whatsoever for your answer. However, Dr. Watson and I will ensure your absolute safety in the event that you choose to answer in the affirmative.”

  The courtroom at the Old Bailey was crowded with spectators who had paid their sixpence admission to the gallery so that they might watch Laurence Linden stand trial for murder.

  The black-robed judge presided at his bench; the jury members were seated to his right. In the dock, Mr. Linden was trying to carry off an air of bored insouciance to match his plea of not guilty.

  And in the witness box, Leonie Dupont sat primly, a diminutive but very upright figure in a dove gray bonnet and gown.

  Mr. Linden had engaged for his defense the eminent barrister Sir William Haymes, and it was Sir William who now stood before Miss Dupont for his turn at cross-questioning.

  “It was late at night when you observed a male figure leaving Mr. van Rensburg’s house, Miss Dupont?”

  Leonie inclined her head. “Yes, monsieur.”

  A big, barrel-chested man with small eyes and an overdeveloped jaw, Sir William leaned forward.

  “It was dark outside?”

  Leonie widened her eyes. “It usually is dark outside at night, monsieur. I wonder that you were able to attend school and become a clever barrister without discovering that fact for yourself.”

  Several of the members of the jury box raised their hands to cover smiles, and there were guffaws of laughter from the spectators, who must have felt they were getting their money’s worth.

  Sir William’s cheeks turned a shade ruddier, but he leaned forward, lips compressed. “I put it to you, Miss Dupont, that as it was dark, you may have been mistaken in your identification of my client as the man you saw leave the murdered man’s home.”

  Miss Dupont met Sir William’s glower with a level gaze. “And you may put a wig and a suit of clothes on a pig, monsieur, and call it a gentleman. But that does not make it true. I am perfectly certain of what I saw. That man”—she pointed to Mr. Linden in the dock—“was at Mr. van Rensburg’s house on the night he was murdered. I saw him leave through the front door.”

  The jury deliberated for only a quarter of an hour before returning a verdict of guilty.

  After seeing Miss Dupont safely off in a cab of her own, Holmes, Lucy, and I turned to find our own conveyance back to Baker Street.

  Despite the court verdict, a slight frown marred Lucy’s brow. “Sonnebourne is still out there,” she said.

  “True.” Holmes swung himself up into the carriage and settled himself with the stem of his pipe between his teeth. His gray eyes were serene as they looked into Lucy’s. “We will, I have no doubt, wage combat with Sonnebourne and his confederates again. But we have won this particular battle.”

  A fortnight later Linden was hanged.

  THE END

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  This is a work of fiction, and the authors make no claim that any of the historical locations or historical figures appearing in this story had even the remotest connection with the adventures recounted herein.

  However …

  1. Spratt’s Works in East London was once the largest pet food factory in the world. It became one of the first residential warehouse conversions in London during the late 1980’s and remains a fashionable and successful residential complex today.

  2. Claridge’s Hotel enjoyed the reputation of London’s premier hotel from the mid-Victorian period, when Princess Eugenie of France entertained Queen Victoria there in 1860. Richard D’Oyly Carte, impresario of the nearby Savoy Theatre and Savoy Hotel (and a character featured by the authors in The Last Moriarty), acquired Claridge’s in 1894 and rebuilt it to even higher standards of luxury. The hotel, owned since 2004 by the Maybourne Hotel Group, continues to be known as a favorite of visiting royalty as well as famous figures of politics, stage, and screen.

  3. Lucy James will return, in “The Body in the Bookseller’s,” available in July, 2020.

  A NOTE OF THANKS TO OUR READERS

  Thank you for reading this Sherlock and Lucy story. We hope you’ve enjoyed it.

  As you probably know, reviews make a big difference! So, we also hope you’ll consider going back to the Amazon page where you bought the story and uploading a quick review. You can get to that page by using this link:

  https://amzn.to/2N6UXwE

  You can also sign up for our mailing list to receive updates on new stories, special discounts, and ‘free days’ for some of our other books: www.SherlockandLucy.com. And if you’re wondering about Lucy’s next adventure with Sherlock, just turn the page for our bonus preview section.

  Wondering what happens next?

  Read the next exciting installment in the Sherlock Holmes and Lucy James series!

  A packet with a deadly secret has been stolen from a diplomatic courier. Sherlock and Lucy must recover it, or its lethal contents will wreak havoc throughout England. Can a pretty young bookseller’s clerk give them the help they need?

  Read on for a thrilling preview of

  THE BODY AT BOOKSELLER'S

  A SHERLOCK HOLMES AND LUCY JAMES STORY

  1: WATSON

  London was unusually cold on the day this adventure began, and a heavy downpour pelted us on Baker Street, lashing our bow window with sheets of icy rain. Inside, I was looking forward to a leisurely coffee and an hour with the Times before settling down to organize some notes on one of our earlier cases. Holmes was busy with his laboratory chemicals.

  Then Mrs. Hudson brought in a telegraph message from Mycroft Holmes.

  “Come at once to Diogenes Club Library,” the message read. “Bring Dr. Watson.”

  Our journey by cab left me chilled and wet. Holmes seemed to take no notice of the wind and sleet, marching up the wide granite steps to the familiar oak entry doors. The attendant took our coats. I followed Holmes up the carpeted stairs to the library, where we found Mycroft, Holmes’s older and much more corpulent brother, seated at the far end of the polished oak conference table. Across from Mycroft sat another man, small and rumpled, his face bleary-eyed as though he had not slept.

  “We came at your summons,” H
olmes said.

  “This gentleman is Mr. Rupert Hobbes, of The Queen’s Messenger Corps,” said Mycroft, motioning us to seats. “Our most senior and most capable man. We have a pretty problem for you. Mr. Hobbes will explain, and then I shall add what little I can.”

  Hobbes had a round, almost cherubic face, but his rimless spectacles gave him a fragile, scholarly look. “I will be brief. I have twelve years’ experience as a courier, and not a single loss. I was in the Queen’s Cavalry for ten years before that. Mr. Holmes has referred to me as capable, and I do fancy myself a competent fellow. At least I did so, up to today, when I failed in my mission. I had no notion. But I am getting ahead of myself.”

  “Perhaps it is as well if you started at the beginning,” Holmes said. He barely concealed his impatience. “Allow me to ask the questions and we shall get on more efficiently. So, given your position as Queen’s Courier, I take it that some valuable documents are missing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Those which you were transporting.”

  “Yes.”

  “From where to where?”

  “From Paris to Whitehall. The War Office. But I never got that far.”

  “You reached Dover uneventfully?”

  “Yes.”

  “Victoria Station?”

  “Yes. It was there that the problem occurred.”

  “I wish to hear about Paris first. Where did you acquire the documents?”

  “At the British embassy. The secure mail room. Where we normally go to pick up our parcels.”

  “You acquired this one in the ordinary way?”

  “I had no special instructions, if that is what you mean. I knew to keep it within my sight at all times, and so I did.”

  “Chained to your wrist?”

  “I don’t go in for that. It only calls attention to me. And that’s not what I want when I am on a job. They train us to pass innocuous through the waystations of the world.”