Sitting at the bureau, he dashed off a quick note, then opened the window and summoned one of the Irregulars from the street outside.
‘Alfie, take this to an MP named Mr Kelvil, at the House of Commons, and wait for an answer,’ he told the scruffy lad who answered his summons. The boy wore a threadbare jacket and an ancient rugby cap that, as far as I could tell, had once belonged to a member of the Harrow First XV. ‘If you have any trouble getting in to see him, tell the policeman on duty that Sherlock Holmes sent you, and that I may be found at Wormwood Scrubs Prison for the next few hours.’
‘Cor!’ said the child, much impressed by his mission, and scampered off.
‘I remember Kelvil,’ I said. ‘You helped him in that matter of the missing memorandum.’ It had not been a very interesting case. The MP was a dull but sincere little man who was the antithesis of Lord Illingworth in every way. He believed in purity in all walks of life, and in public works to alleviate the lot of the poor. He and his wife had eight children, whom he cared for deeply.
Holmes said, ‘He is known as an opponent of political corruption almost as dogged as Sir Robert Chiltern, and has the advantage over him of having, so far as I am aware, no relative involved in this case.’
I asked, ‘Why not simply ask your brother?’ Mycroft Holmes had made it his business for decades to keep abreast of every disturbance in the smooth functioning of the political, civil and commercial life of the Empire, on no less an authority than that of its Empress. Something like a fraudulent railway scheme might bulk relatively small amongst his other priorities, but it would surely not have escaped his attention.
Holmes said, ‘There are a number of reputations at stake in this case, Watson, not least your own and Lady Goring’s, and while the disgrace that it might bring on some of the other victims may be better deserved, I would prefer not to do our blackmailer’s work for her. The involvement of Lord Illingworth, a senior diplomat, means that Mycroft surely already has his eye on the case. Merely asking the question might give him the information he needs to deduce something to the discredit of some person of importance to the realm.’
‘Why, who else do you suppose this woman has compromised?’ I wondered. ‘Is Gregson, after all, another of her victims?’ Yet that seemed unlikely, as she would surely have tried to use the inspector’s connection with us to her advantage.
‘I would prefer not to pre-empt what Mr Kelvil has to tell us, Watson,’ said Holmes. ‘Suffice it to say that I would not wish to bring the matter to the attention of an official with Mycroft’s reach and influence. My relationship with Mr Kelvil was merely professional, and I can trust him to supply the information we need without asking inconveniently perceptive questions.’
‘Yes, I see.’ I tried to recall the other point that had puzzled me, but which our conversation had driven from my mind.
Then I had it. ‘But Holmes, why on earth are we going to Wormwood Scrubs?’
‘Ah!’ Holmes seized his coat and hat from the stand beside the door. He said, ‘Because that is where they are keeping Lord Arthur Savile until his trial, and it is Lord Arthur Savile who holds the next piece of this most intriguing puzzle.’ At once he was effervescent with energy, his excitement in the case suddenly irrepressible. ‘Come, Watson! The game is afoot, and we must hound it to its very extinction!’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S PUNISHMENT
Wormwood Scrubs being out on the westernmost fringes of the city, we caught an Underground train from Baker Street to the Uxbridge Road, and thence the West London Railway took us out of the city past brickworks, claypits and farms to the recently rebuilt station that served the new prison. All along the way, Holmes was positively chafing with impatience.
The gaol was a modern one, designed upon fashionable principles of rehabilitation in preference to punishment, and its gatehouse, in red brick and Portland stone, held busts of the penal reformers John Howard and Elizabeth Fry. They presented a sympathetic, humane face to the world compared to London’s other, danker and more squalid houses of correction.
It was, for all that, a prison, and the chill I invariably feel when the gates of such a place slam shut and are locked behind me did not fail to revisit me there.
We were escorted through the grounds to an interview room with a view of the inner courtyard, where the inmates were permitted to exercise. A few moments passed, during which Holmes continued to fidget abominably, and then Lord Arthur Savile was ushered into our presence.
His Lordship greeted us affably enough. As a prisoner awaiting trial, and a person of status at that, he was permitted a certain latitude in the terms of his confinement. It was quite clear that he was not being kept with the other inmates. He wore his own clothes, and offered us Turkish cigarettes from a silver case. He was in all discernible ways the same agreeable, handsome, shiftless nobleman whom we had taken into custody a few days previously.
‘The Peruvian Railway Company?’ he said, when that business concern was mentioned. ‘Yes, as it happens I have heard of it. I have staked most of my fortune on it, for all the good it is liable to do me. Why do you ask?’
Holmes asked him, ‘On whose advice did you invest there?’
‘Oh, a fellow I met,’ said Savile lightly, but his face had taken on an equally familiar look of alarm. ‘He said it sounded like an excellent scheme and when I looked into it, it sounded all right, so I started moving my money there.’
Holmes stared at Lord Arthur in silence for a while, as the sun streamed in through the narrow barred window of the interview room. At length he said, ‘She can no longer harm you, you know.’
The aristocrat looked startled.
Holmes continued, ‘The worst has already happened. Your crime is known. Unless I have gravely misjudged you, there is nothing in your past that is worse than murder.’
Lord Arthur frowned ferociously. ‘I suppose you are right,’ he reluctantly agreed, ‘but it is confoundedly hard to think about it in that way. I have been scared of her for so long, you see. When you came into my house talking about Podgers’ death, I was certain she had sent you.’
‘So I recall,’ said Holmes. ‘You said, “So she’s been talking, then.” I foolishly assumed that you were referring to your wife.’
‘No, Sybil’s a perfect angel, thank heaven, and she has never known anything to tell. She has been surprisingly understanding about this business, though.’
‘I will grant you that is surprising,’ said Holmes carefully.
Lord Arthur shrugged. ‘She knows me well, and understands that I could not have behaved differently under the circumstances, though she is naturally distressed by the end to which it has led me. Her delicacy of feeling does her great credit.’
Holmes cleared his throat. ‘I have no doubt that Lady Arthur is an excellent woman, but our interest today is in another matter. If you see fit to cooperate with us I shall ensure that the fact is taken into account at your trial, although I make no guarantees as to the outcome.’
‘As far as that goes, if the choice is to be between a life in prison and execution, then I think either outcome equally abominable,’ said Savile gravely. ‘I would almost prefer the option that would leave Sybil free to marry again if she wishes. But I shall help you anyway, Mr Holmes. Why should I not? We all owe you for your public service, even if, on this occasion, it hasn’t been to my benefit.’
Holmes inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘That is generous of you, under the circumstances. Now, what can you tell me about the woman who has been threatening you?’
Savile took a long, shuddering breath. ‘She first spoke to me sometime around two years ago. She had found out somehow about Podgers – don’t ask me how, for I have never told a soul. I suppose I have quite often talked about cheiromancy, though, in a general sort of way. I have mentioned that I feel grateful that it delivered Sybil to me—’
‘How so?’ I interrupted, frowning.
Holmes sighed in mild exasperatio
n, though whether at Savile’s eccentricity or my slowness I could not tell. ‘Lord Arthur believes that, had he not been forewarned of his own proclivity to murder, he might have committed the crime at a time not of his own choosing, and thereby forfeited Lady Arthur’s affections.’
‘Well, quite,’ Savile confirmed, oblivious to Holmes’s scepticism. ‘And, you know, I have had ten years of happy marriage, even were it to end tomorrow. Had I not murdered Podgers in good time, the horrible possibility would have hung over me that I might have killed somebody important to me instead, like Sybil or the children. No, it was far better to get the distasteful business over and done with.’
‘I see,’ I said, though Savile’s logic still seemed to me perfectly preposterous. In my view his best chance at the trial would be a plea of insanity. I might even be persuaded to testify in support of it.
‘I suppose that somebody with sufficient interest in my money might have noticed me mentioning palmistry in that sort of way, and made the connection with what everyone believed to be Podgers’ suicide,’ said Lord Arthur. ‘Now I think back, though, I am not sure that she knew it for certain at all. She certainly didn’t give me a marvellously detailed account like yours, Mr Holmes. I suppose it was more a shot across the bows, as it were.’
Holmes said, ‘So she hinted that she knew you had killed Podgers, and you were sufficiently alarmed to confirm it?’
‘I suppose I was,’ said Lord Arthur ruefully. ‘Now that I think about it, she might have been hinting at all sorts of things to different people, just to see what their response was. She’s the sort of woman who might pass that sort of thing off as a joke if it didn’t hit home.’
‘Do you mean that you knew her personally?’ I started to say, but Holmes waved a hand to silence me.
He asked, ‘What did she ask of you, once you had confirmed your secret?’
‘Well, to bet my shirt on this railway company, as I have done. After that she started asking me whether any of my friends had any disreputable secrets, but I told her I didn’t have a notion. Why would I, after all? None of them knew mine.’
Holmes nodded. ‘And what was her response when she realised that she had bled you dry and you could be of no further use to her?’
‘By then our communication was no longer direct. Her man told me that she was disappointed in me, and passed on her increasingly dire threats to expose me. What could I do, though? I had nothing more to give her. That was why I assumed that your arrival was her doing.’
‘None but my own, I’m afraid,’ said Holmes.
‘I say, though, Holmes,’ I put in. ‘There was that woman who passed Herr Winckelkopf’s ledger to the police. You don’t suppose…?’
Holmes shook his head. ‘I think not. The incriminating records in that book would have represented much richer capital to the person we are dealing with. She would not have relinquished them to crush a single victim. I think that the police’s interest at a time when Lord Arthur was expecting to be exposed was, after all, a coincidence.’
‘My arrest plays very well into her hands, though,’ Savile pointed out with surprising shrewdness. ‘If any of her other victims should start having second thoughts, all she need say is, “Look what happened to Lord Arthur Savile.”’
I said, ‘She could say that of any scandal, surely. Her victim would have no way of knowing whether it was anything to do with her.’
‘Ah, but in Lord Arthur’s case there would be records of his investment in the railway company to back it up,’ Holmes pointed out. ‘I fear that he is correct. As I was observing to you this morning, our work risks advancing this perfidious scheme, whether or not it is occurring at Mrs Cheveley’s behest.’
‘At whose behest?’ I asked. I was bemused, although the name did sound somewhat familiar.
Lord Arthur, however, seemed quite astonished. ‘I don’t believe I told you her name, Mr Holmes.’
Holmes nodded. ‘As we have been speaking for so long without it coming up, I guessed that you were feeling some residual compunction on that score. I thought I would spare you the trouble.’
‘He might have saved us a great deal of trouble if he’d used it on Monday,’ I complained. I had remembered, however, where I knew the name from. ‘But Holmes, is this that woman who Pike was telling us about? The one who—’
‘Your blackmailer was Mrs Cheveley, then?’ Holmes asked, ignoring me again.
Lord Arthur said, ‘That is right. I was introduced to her at a party of Lady Markby’s. She was a perfectly captivating woman, or might have seemed so, had I not had Sybil to spare me all thought of others. She had only recently arrived in London society, and she disappeared from it sometime afterwards.’
‘Realising that a criminal career is better conducted from the shadows, no doubt. Have you any idea where she might be found now?’
Savile shook his head glumly. ‘For the most part I have been dealing with a rather hideous fellow who works for her. I have enquired after her among my friends from time to time, without giving the true reason, but nobody claims to know her any more. She came here from abroad, Vienna I believe, and it is assumed she has gone back there.’
‘I think not,’ said Holmes. ‘I think not, indeed. Thank you, Lord Arthur, I believe you have been of inestimable help to us.’
The guard took His Lordship back to his cell, and we were conducted from the interview room, along brick corridors and through locked iron doors, back to the faux-medieval gateway which led us once again, with no little relief in my case, into the outside world.
As we hurried back across the common to St Quintin Park and Wormwood Scrubs Station, Holmes exclaimed, ‘As I surmised, Lord Illingworth’s guess was wrong. It was not some old flame of his who was tormenting him, but one of Lord Goring’s.’
‘She does not appear to have tormented Goring himself, though,’ I observed. ‘But how did you know that our mysterious lady blackmailer was this Mrs Cheveley?’
Holmes looked up from his clay pipe, which he had been filling with swift fingers since we left the prison gates, with a smile. ‘I did not, until Lord Arthur confirmed it. However, the assumption seemed a reasonable one. It is rare generally, and rarer still in the echelon of society we are dealing with, for a woman’s name to be connected with monetary fraud and sharp business practice. The fact that Mrs Cheveley is directly known to some of our principals made the proposition seem distinctly likely, and the fact that she spent time in Vienna, where Illingworth was first approached, brought it close to a certainty.’
I said, ‘But why do you suppose she wanted Durrington dead?’
My friend lit his pipe with careful deliberation, took a deep draught, and exhaled with satisfaction. Speaking just as rapidly as before, he continued. ‘With one exception, we have connected every victim we have encountered to the same blackmailer. Both Algernon and Lane named Broadwater as their intermediary, while in Cecily’s case Lord Illingworth himself took on that role. Illingworth, Lane and Savile were all induced to provide compromising information on their friends, and the same is now expected of you. Illingworth and Savile were obliged to invest their capital identically, and we can assume that this would also have been true of Algernon, Cecily and soon yourself. Lane presumably has no capital worth mentioning, and was valuable only for the information he held on Algernon.’
I had been following this carefully. ‘Would that not be consistent with two blackmailers? One employing Broadwater to threaten Lane and later Algernon, and another, this Mrs Cheveley, blackmailing Savile, Illingworth and eventually Cecily?’
Holmes shook his head. ‘Quite apart from the intimate connection between Cecily and Algernon, there are too many points of similarity. Savile and Illingworth both mentioned an intermediary, though they did not name him. Algernon said that he was encouraged to invest in a transport scheme, though he could not name it. How many blackmailers have you heard of who insist on their ill-gotten gains being paid to a company rather than a person? Besides, we know that Broa
dwater’s employer is a female.’
I said, ‘You haven’t mentioned Ernest Moncrieff.’
‘He is the exception I alluded to,’ Holmes replied. ‘We know enough to be sure that Timothy Durrington was blackmailing Ernest, if that was indeed his rather nebulous intent, for reasons uniquely his own. He made no attempt either to compromise others of Ernest’s acquaintance, or to persuade him to invest his money in anything other than Timothy Durrington.
‘Durrington was a free agent, blackmailing a member of the Moncrieff family on his own account rather than under Mrs Cheveley’s auspices, and that she could not tolerate. His grounds for extorting money from Ernest were nonsensical, but Mrs Cheveley will have had no way of confirming that. Rather than risk losing some of the family’s wealth to this interloper, she sent the invitation to lure Durrington to his death at the Moncrieffs’ house, and took further advantage of the situation to place Lady Goring under the threat of a murder charge. We know that the invitation was written by the same person as the address on the envelope to you.’
‘But how did she get her hands on the writing paper?’ I asked.
‘A guest or servant, another of her victims, will have procured it for her. In having Durrington killed and Lady Goring suspected of the crime, she eliminated a rival and gained a potential hold over Lady Goring’s relatives in one stroke. Hence, as you surmised, Lord Goring’s surprising change of mind concerning my own involvement in the case.
‘In any case, our villainess is one with whom our client has had past dealings, whether he is aware of it or not. Our logical course of action is to visit Lord Goring at home, and ask him to tell us everything he knows about Laura Cheveley.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
REVENGE OF THE SPIDER WOMAN
‘I’ve been thinking about Lord Goring, Holmes,’ I told my friend on the train from Uxbridge Road Station back to Baker Street. No station on the Underground circuit was closer to Lord Goring’s house in Curzon Street, so we would be obliged to pass within a few hundred yards of home before continuing our journey.
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