It was a quiet time of day, and there were no other passengers within earshot. ‘Is it possible that he’s more deeply entangled in this than we think?’ I continued. ‘Mrs Cheveley is an old attachment of his, and it does sound as if she got Mabel Goring freed from gaol. Could the two of them be working together now?’
‘If so, it would be foolish of him to have involved me in the first place,’ Holmes pointed out. ‘While it is not unknown for a criminal who believes he can deceive me to engage my services in the hope of establishing his innocence beyond doubt, it takes a particular combination of folly and arrogance to do so. Although,’ he added, ‘as a rational man I cannot rule out the possibility that others, more justifiably conceited, have been successful.’
‘Really?’ I was shocked. ‘Holmes, surely you don’t believe—’
Placidly he said, ‘Calm yourself, Watson, I am speaking of a logical possibility merely. I do not think it probable, but if I have been successfully hoodwinked I would know nothing of it. A criminal who could achieve such a thing would be even cleverer than the late Professor Moriarty, whose genius for obfuscation I was able to penetrate, but there is nothing impossible in the idea. An athlete is only the fastest or the strongest in his field until a faster or a stronger emerges, and the same surely applies to intelligence. The criminal may yet live who can pull the wool over my eyes.’
‘But Lord Goring?’ I asked.
‘It hardly seems likely. But I confess that the notion has crossed my mind. The viscount has, I am told, a formidable intellect. His reputation is as a philosopher as well as a dandy, surprising though the combination may be. The reason he has not made more of his talents is, as his father Lord Caversham tells any person who will listen, that he refuses to apply himself. It is, perhaps, conceivable that he has done so, but in a field where success is best secured by keeping it invisible.’
I said, ‘You said yourself that our investigation is furthering Mrs Cheveley’s schemes, allowing her to discard the victims she has wrung dry while acting as an object lesson to those who may still be lucrative to her. And it was Lord Goring who initiated that investigation.’
‘Only into the death at the Moncrieffs’, Watson. Our involvement in the Savile case predates our knowing him.’
‘That’s true,’ I agreed. ‘But since then we’ve found out all Illingworth’s secrets, and Cecily’s, and some of Algernon’s.’
‘In fact, we have found out virtually none of Algernon’s,’ Holmes admonished me, ‘beyond what was apparently common knowledge. Lane was far more discreet with us than he evidently was with Mr Broadwater. And Illingworth freely confessed his secrets, which are also Cecily’s, although I dare say my presence at the Moncrieffs’ house may have encouraged him in that direction. I imagine he might have reacted with even more alarm had he seen us watching him on his way to the post office.
‘More to the point, however, I have grave doubts about the idea that Lord Goring might work with Mrs Cheveley, so signally against the interests of his wife and her family, on the basis of an association between them that ended in estrangement many years ago.’
‘Well,’ I said doubtfully, ‘I suppose that if Goring is part of a conspiracy, then Lady Goring was never in any real danger. Unless,’ I added with a shudder, ‘he actually meant to get rid of her.’
‘Or unless,’ Holmes drawled, ‘she, too, is an accomplice.’
I began yet again to strenuously defend Mabel Goring’s innocence, but then I saw from the gleam in Holmes’s hooded eyes that he was deliberately baiting me, and subsided with a grunt of annoyance.
‘To return to the question of motives,’ Holmes said. ‘We might speculate that Lord Goring harbours a grudge against Sir Robert or Lady Chiltern, incurred before or since his marriage, or a rediscovered infatuation with Mrs Cheveley for which his marital life cannot substitute. Or, perhaps the least unlikely option, he might simply be another victim she has compelled to do her bidding, now so thoroughly entwined in her web as to be complicit in spinning it. But we have no evidence of any such thing. It remains speculation merely, and speculation, as you know, is anathema to me. It is of the utmost urgency that we establish the facts of the matter, and nothing less will do.’
At Baker Street Station we were met by Alfie, the young lad with the unearned rugby cap, who was enterprisingly awaiting our return, having learned from Mrs Hudson that we were travelling by Underground. He handed Holmes a message which my friend stood immobile to read, the pedestrians on the pavement parting irritably around him while Alfie waited patiently for his endeavours to receive some appropriate pecuniary acknowledgement.
Eventually, Holmes patted his pockets and produced a shilling, which he handed to Alfie with a terse word of thanks. The urchin scurried away, and Holmes deigned to tell me what he had read.
‘Mr Kelvil goes into admirable detail, Watson, and invokes technicalities which are obscure to me. His gist, however, is that the Peruvian Railway Company is exactly the kind of dubious business concern that would be outlawed by the government bill that Sir Robert Chiltern was previously believed to support, and which he apparently now opposes. It will not have escaped your notice that the evaporation of the police case against Lady Goring followed closely on the heels of Chiltern’s speech in the Commons, which effectively overturned the bill.’
‘Good heavens,’ I said, since it had in fact eluded my attention up to that point.
Holmes looked grim. ‘Whether with Lord Goring’s connivance or not, Mrs Cheveley has moved on from acquiring funds by blackmail for her dubious ventures, to using it as a tool to legitimise them. She is applying an insidious pressure to the very workings of our democracy.’ Holmes affected to have no interest in politics, but I knew that the law as it pertained to criminal activity was a matter of real import to him.
We took a cab to Lord Goring’s house, which for a change was not immediately by Belgrave Square but in Mayfair, not very far from the house of Sir Robert and Lady Chiltern.
‘Lord Goring is not at home,’ the viscount’s butler informed us after we had introduced ourselves. He stood in a magnificent front doorway framed by a grand portico, with pillars and a pediment.
‘Then we will speak to Lady Goring,’ Holmes declared.
‘Lady Goring is not at home,’ the butler said in identical tones. ‘She is with her sister-in-law, Lady Chiltern.’
Holmes glanced up at the pillared stone of the house and sighed. He said, ‘Is Lord Goring not at home in the same sense that Lady Goring is not at home?’
The butler gazed stoically at us. ‘I cannot imagine what you mean, sir.’
Holmes sighed. ‘Pray tell Lord Goring, in his absence, that Sherlock Holmes wishes to see him concerning Mrs Cheveley. I believe that this information will precipitate his instantaneous return.’
‘Very good, sir,’ the butler replied, entirely unperturbed. ‘If you would please wait in the hall?’ he asked, and vanished upstairs.
A few moments later, he returned and said, ‘Lord Goring will see you now, gentlemen.’
‘My compliments to His Lordship on his mastery of translocation,’ Holmes observed urbanely. ‘The Society for the Scientific Investigation of Psychical Phenomena will be most impressed.’
‘Indeed, sir,’ the butler agreed impassively.
He showed us to a well-appointed library, laid out well over a hundred years before in the Adam style. We found Lord Goring sitting with Sir Robert Chiltern, next to two untouched sherry glasses and a decanter. Both men wore quilted smoking jackets, Lord Goring’s gloriously embroidered with Chinese dragons. ‘Thank you, Phipps,’ His Lordship said distractedly. Despite his finery he looked concerned, and Sir Robert was so pale that I worried for his health.
‘Mr Holmes,’ Lord Goring said. ‘I asked you to keep me informed of your investigations, and I thank you for honouring that request. However, I cannot appreciate your insisting on entry into my home when I have given strict instructions that I am not in, in order to bandy about a
n embarrassment from my youth. I understand that, as a detective, you have ways of finding these things out, but I consider it bad form to bring them up when they are long ago resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Now, what is it you have to tell me?’
‘Lord Goring,’ Holmes nodded pleasantly, ‘I have no desire to rake over any scandal from your past. I am no Mrs Cheveley.’
Sir Robert winced. ‘That name again. Whatever it is that you are insinuating, Mr Holmes, I suggest that you come straight out with it. I also have history with that woman that I have no wish to revisit.’
‘And I repeat that history is not my interest here,’ Holmes said patiently. ‘I am speaking of current events. Mrs Cheveley is, I am convinced, the prime mover behind the death of Timothy Durrington, alias Bunbury, at the Moncrieffs’ house. She is conducting a complicated criminal enterprise involving blackmail and financial fraud, in which a number of your friends are embroiled against their will and which has, I believe, recently extended to engulf the pair of you. Lord Goring, am I wide of the mark?’
Lord Goring closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He said, ‘I am afraid we will have to tell them, Robert.’
Sir Robert groaned and slumped back in his chair. ‘I’ll be ruined, then, at last. That damned woman will be the end of me.’
Settling into one of the comfortable leather armchairs, Holmes said, ‘We will avoid that eventuality if we can, Sir Robert. Even if we cannot, the life of a public servant is one you have chosen freely, and I can imagine no greater public service than helping to place a malevolent criminal behind bars.’
‘He’s right, Robert,’ Goring said. ‘This is a greater matter than your career, or even our family. Let us by all means do what we can to limit the damage, but first let us do what is needed to cage that serpent. She has been at liberty for too long.’
Sir Robert shook his head mournfully. ‘Oh, very well. But will you tell them everything, Arthur? I haven’t the stomach for it.’
‘Of course,’ said Goring. After courteously offering us each a drink, which we declined, he drained his sherry, then poured himself another. He said, ‘First, I must apologise. I know I spoke ill-advisedly when we last met. It was tactless of me, even rude.’
‘Think nothing of it, Lord Goring,’ Holmes replied at once. ‘I have no need of any apology, merely of your account.’
‘Of course,’ said Goring. He sighed. ‘As I suppose you have discovered, I was briefly engaged to Laura Hungerford, the woman you refer to as Mrs Cheveley. It was an act of exceptional foolishness on my part, and the only excuse I can plead is that of my youth. Though younger still, she was a dishonest person, both disloyal and deceitful. I broke off the engagement when she stole some property belonging to my cousin. Out of a chivalrous impulse that I now consider misplaced, I let it be believed that our parting was due to some fault of mine.
‘Two years ago she appeared at a party at Robert’s house under the name of Cheveley, and attempted to exert pressure on him of the kind you have described. There is no need for us to discuss the details, except to say that they could have ended his career immediately. Robert’s party being then in government, she tried to induce him to give official sanction to an enterprise involving canals in the Argentine, which was nothing more than a base swindle. In the event, I was able to recover and destroy the… material she held, and thus salvage Robert’s reputation. The episode took a great toll upon us both and on Lady Chiltern, although between us we were able to shield Robert’s sister, who shortly afterwards agreed to become Lady Goring, from the knowledge of it.’
‘One moment.’ Holmes interrupted him. ‘Sir Robert, was it on this account that you considered rejecting the offer of a position in the Cabinet?’
Sir Robert hung his head. ‘It was, though I have no idea how you can know if it. I felt great shame at the way I had been compromised. Between them, Arthur and Gertrude persuaded me to rise above my past mistakes and to accept the portfolio.’
‘Thank you. Lord Goring, pray proceed.’
The viscount said, ‘Mrs Cheveley disappeared from society shortly afterwards, ostensibly to return to her haunts abroad, but I had my suspicions that she remained in London, to try her hand at a more systematic form of criminality. I am no detective, Holmes, but I noted certain acquaintances of mine making foolish investments which they were unable to explain satisfactorily, and politicians changing their minds in surprising ways. Some of them I have observed crafting artful, or occasionally artless, conversations aimed at discovering areas of my own life where shameful secrets might dwell. I came to recognise a pattern in such behaviour.
‘When I came to you on Monday evening and requested assistance for my wife I was quite sincere, but I had also an ulterior motive. I had heard of your part in the arrest of Lord Arthur Savile earlier in the day. I know Lord Arthur only slightly, although I bought this house from him. It belonged to his late cousin, Lady Clementina Beauchamp. Though I see him but rarely, he was one of those whom I suspected of having fallen under Mrs Cheveley’s influence, as was Lord Illingworth. I hoped that, by bringing you into association with the latter so soon after the former, I might set you on her trail. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see that woman arrested.’
Holmes said, somewhat acerbically, ‘And why did you not say so at the time, my lord?’
‘Primarily for fear that, if I revealed her part in the matter, Mrs Cheveley would retaliate by placing Mabel in yet worse danger. It seemed sensible, though, to allow you to reach your own conclusions, rather than having them suggested by me. In that way you would be firmer in your convictions. I had not then realised, of course, that the two investigations would be so intimately connected.’
‘And when did you realise?’ Holmes asked quietly.
Lord Goring sighed. ‘I received a message the morning following my wife’s arrest, informing me that I might learn something to her advantage, if I attended an… assignation. It was to be at a tearoom in Shoreditch, a place that, as you may imagine, was not of a kind I would normally frequent, and I was to arrive alone and incognito. I do not believe that the last stipulation was necessary, but it evidently amused the blasted woman to see me borrowing my valet’s clothes.’
Holmes leaned forward eagerly. ‘She came in person?’
‘For me, she did,’ said Goring grimly. He evidently did not consider it a compliment. ‘Our past association means something to her still, though nothing good. She has borne a grudge against me for many years, and now that resentment is extended to the whole of our family. That is why she arranged for my wife, the mother of my son, to become the chief suspect in the murder of this fellow Durrington, but it is not the whole reason. She is an intensely practical woman and her every action serves her ends, usually financial ones.
‘She has hair of a very dark shade of red and her eyes are greyish-green. She wore a simple silk dress in heliotrope, a colour that has always suited her. Indeed, she had dressed as well as she ever did, and I told her so.
‘“I get about so little nowadays,” she replied. “I have standards to maintain, and a dressmaker who is pining away for want of my custom.”
‘I said, “I’m surprised you’re not worried that you’ll be recognised.” She is a striking woman in appearance, as I hope you will have the opportunity to see for yourself.
‘She said, “Oh, few people are as fascinated by me as you are, Arthur. That is their tragedy, and yours.”
‘I said, “I came here to learn how I may help my wife. I have no interest in trading unpleasantries with you, Mrs…?”
‘She laughed gaily. “Mrs Cheveley will do very well for now. Although you could call me Laura, you know.”
‘“We both know that I will not, and why I will not,” I said stiffly. “Let us get down to business, if you please.”
‘“Business is very much why we are here,” said Mrs Cheveley. “Your business, and mine. Your business is to help your pretty Mabel to escape the noose, and mine is the business of ot
hers.”
‘“It will not come to the noose,” I said, but with less certainty than I might have wished.
‘“Certainly it won’t,” she replied. “Provided that you and Robert Chiltern do as I say in all particulars. If you do, I can arrange for testimony which will free her.”’
Holmes interrupted him. ‘Those were her words? “I can arrange for testimony”?’ I recalled that the witness statement which had convinced Gregson to free Mabel had come from the widow Mrs Teville. I had ceased thinking of her as the blackmailer once Lord Illingworth was revealed as Cecily’s treacherous parent, but the fact that she was not Violet Cardew did not mean that she was incapable of arranging the threats made to Cecily, or to others.
‘Her exact words,’ Lord Goring confirmed. ‘She said that only she could ensure that Mabel’s name was cleared.’
‘Then Mrs Teville, who provided that testimony, is another of her confederates,’ Holmes said. ‘Either she is a victim, like Lord Illingworth, or an employee, as we assume Broadwater to be.’
I recalled that Mrs Cheveley had been at school with Gertrude Chiltern, whereas Mrs Teville I guessed to be in her mid-forties, and besides, had fairer hair than the dark red Lord Goring ascribed to his old flame. But there was also the question of Mrs Teville’s secret daughter. Mrs Teville’s age was difficult to guess with accuracy. If, for instance, she were in her late rather than her early forties, then she might just have a daughter of Lady Chiltern’s age, and perhaps one with hair of a different colour from her own. Could that be the nature of Mrs Teville’s connection with Mrs Cheveley?
As I considered this, though, I realised that there was a further alternative that we had been ignoring, and one which made perhaps more sense than any other.
As my mind raced through these conflicting possibilities, Lord Goring had been continuing. ‘Mrs Cheveley insisted to me that Robert should use his political influence on her behalf. She knew a good deal more than I did myself about his forthcoming speech in the House, and what he was expected to say. She told me what he should say instead.’
Sherlock Holmes--The Spider's Web Page 22
