I felt a nudge from Gregson and realised that the inspector was looking at me with silent concern. The distress I felt at hearing my just and honest friend say such base things, no matter that I knew he was dissembling, must have been showing on my face.
I nodded and essayed a smile, but Gregson was already rising to stand by Goring’s side. The door between the dressing room and the drawing room had been thrown open, and Mrs Cheveley’s voice rang out in triumphant amusement.
‘Mr Sherlock Holmes! How very surprising that we should meet here!’
A shocked pause – or rather, the facsimile of one – followed her arrival. Finally, my friend’s voice said, a trifle weakly, ‘Mrs Cheveley, I presume. I assure you, it is more of a surprise to me than it is to you.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I was not speaking of my own surprise.’ I wondered afresh whether her voice was truly that of Mrs Nepcote, though I was certain that it was one I knew. ‘Although I admit that I had not expected to learn that the great detective, the paragon of probity and the moral and intellectual exemplar of his age, has gained his reputation through grubby lies and purchased perjuries. Of all surprises, I love disappointments the most. The depravity of human nature is so delicious, and so universal.’
Holmes said, ‘Most of us love what we see in a mirror.’
Mrs Cheveley gave a delighted laugh. ‘Spoken just like a man! Not one woman in a hundred loves what she sees in hers. A man pays no more compliments to his mirror that he does his tobacconist. A woman treats hers like an oracle. We women are accused of self-satisfaction, but in fact it is a masculine virtue. You are very satisfied with your reputation, are you not, Mr Holmes?’
‘It has served me well,’ Holmes agreed in a pained tone. ‘Then I can serve you too, by allowing you to keep it,’ Mrs Cheveley laughed. ‘Provided, of course, that you render me a little service in return. That’s no more than fair, I think.’
‘You cannot prove what you have heard,’ said Holmes. ‘It will be your word against mine, and my reputation will protect me.’
‘Ah, there you are mistaken, Sherlock,’ said Langdale Pike. ‘I will corroborate Mrs Cheveley’s account in detail, and may go further. Our past interventions in the course of justice have left their mark on so many of your more famous cases. Colonel Moran’s lawyers, for instance, would be most interested to learn where the bullet came from that connected their client to the death of poor Ronnie Adair. On all of them I can cite chapter and verse. I think your friends in the police will listen to what I shall say.’
‘And if your reputation is of value to you, how much more is your liberty?’ Mrs Cheveley asked sweetly. ‘The company in prison is not of the best, so I hear, but you would, I am sure, find a good many who knew you already. What a welcome you should find in your new circle.’
‘Very well, you have made your point,’ snapped Holmes. ‘Langdale, I am disgusted with you, though I suppose I should have expected no better. From you, Mrs Cheveley, I certainly did not.’
I could hear the simper in her voice as she replied, ‘For my own part, I try never to disappoint. I feel that those who know me should have no illusions about anything at all. Indeed, I have made stripping away illusions my life’s work.’
Holmes growled, ‘And what must I do, madam, to preserve intact the illusions others hold about me? I suppose you desire me to cease my investigations, as Lord Goring asked me to do under instructions from you.’
‘Oh, there will be no need for that. Your plan to blame Lord Illingworth is perfectly in accordance with my own wishes. It will form a quite satisfactory resolution to the case… for the moment. No, I ask simply for immunity from all your future investigations. You must never make any enquiries about me, and if I warn you that something you are looking into has ramifications that affect my interests, you must desist at once. As far as you are concerned, we shall inhabit separate spheres, never touching. Almost like husband and wife.’
‘Under protest, I accept,’ said Holmes. ‘If that is agreed between us then I take my leave of you, madam.’
‘Oh, but that is not all,’ said Mrs Cheveley in the sweetest of voices. ‘You are a master of information to rival Mr Pike, and information is my stock-in-trade. You have investigated cases for countless clients, from itinerant labourers to members of the noblest families in Europe.’
Holmes said, ‘It is true, but I fail to see its relevance.’
‘That will not do at all, Mr Holmes. Embellished your reputation may be, but it is well known that you never fail to see the relevance of anything.’
Stiffly, he replied, ‘I accept all my cases in the strictest confidence, whoever the client. Were that confidence called into question, I could not operate at all. If private information about my clients were to reach a third party, they would know who to blame.’
‘But they would not blame you publicly, not if I warned them not to. Your role in the affair would be as hidden as my own.’
In a voice that sounded almost strangled with pain, Holmes said, ‘Watson would know, and it is he who mediates my reputation to the outside world. He has a certain gullibility that has always recommended him to me, but I could not hide such a thing from one so closely involved in my affairs. Your letter made no impression upon him whatsoever, I fear. Watson will never be suborned.’
‘Well, that may also be taken care of,’ Mrs Cheveley said calmly. ‘I, too, have my clients, people who pay me to ensure their own reputations survive. You know already how far they will go, out of gratitude to me, on my behalf. It would be a small matter to remove the good doctor from the picture.’
There was a long pause. Then Holmes said, in a cowed and broken tone, ‘Very well. If Watson must be dispensed with, so be it.’
I actually gasped at that, but fortunately Mrs Cheveley was already speaking. ‘Really? Then so be it indeed.’ She laughed again. ‘What a partnership we shall have! The great detective and the Cleopatra of crime!’
‘My God, she’s turned mad,’ whispered Lord Goring, aghast, under the cover of the ensuing peal of laughter.
‘May I ask one thing in return?’ Holmes asked, still in that small voice. ‘It would be to know whether I have accurately discerned the facts of the murder at the Moncrieffs’. Not the story where Illingworth is the sole culprit, but the truth.’
‘What is truth?’ asked Mrs Cheveley. ‘You yourself have amended reality on many occasions.’
‘Forgive me, but that is not so,’ said Holmes, a little more boldly. ‘I have altered others’ understanding of reality, no more. The facts in those cases remain the same, even when they are known to me alone. It would give me some small satisfaction to know whether I have correctly understood them in this instance. I believe that I have, now that I understand the calibre of intellect that I have been dealing with.’
‘Very well, then,’ Mrs Cheveley agreed smugly. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you believe happened?’
Holmes said, ‘The man Durrington was a threat to your operations. He was attempting to blackmail Ernest Moncrieff before you had had a chance to do so, and that made him a random factor. You were determined to remove it, but you thought you might thereby serve another end also.’
Mrs Cheveley’s voice was still amused. ‘That much would be obvious to anyone who knows what you know. You will have to do better than that to impress me, Mr Holmes.’
‘You learned of his existence and intentions, I imagine, because you were monitoring all the correspondence to and from Number 149 Belgrave Square, at least all that was sent through the standard postal channels.’
‘Postmen are eminently bribable,’ Mrs Cheveley crooned. ‘They are paid so wonderfully poorly. Please go on.’
‘You wrote to Durrington and asked him to call on Ernest Moncrieff during the evening of the ball. It amused you that he should give the name Bunbury, as a reminder to Algernon that he had not yet secured your silence on the secrets of his past, but that benefit was merely tangential. You hoped, not only to eliminate
your unwashed rival, but to make it appear that Mabel Goring was responsible for his murder. You knew of the forthcoming vote on the government bill, and that her brother’s voice would be decisive in that debate. And you also, of course, bore a grudge against her brother, her sister-in-law and especially her husband, which goes beyond your business affairs and into the realms of maleficence.’
‘I gave you no permission to analyse my character, Mr Holmes,’ Mrs Cheveley said lightly.
‘I apologise for it. I will confine myself, then, to your business motives, which I believe we have established.’ Holmes continued his narrative. ‘You had the house under surveillance, of course. You knew that tradesmen were routinely seen in the library. You saw that Ernest Moncrieff, as was his custom, had smoked on the balcony earlier and left it unlocked. I assume that you had a plan of contingency in case he did not, probably to obtain access to the housekeeper’s keys by way of Dora Steyne or another servant, but it was not needed. You also observed the Gorings’ arrival, and the details of Lady Goring’s clothing – the midnight-blue dress, the shawl and the brooch. Although you had your plan sketched out in outline, its finer details depended on the particulars of Mabel Goring’s attire.
‘Lord Illingworth was not your only agent among the invitees to the ball. There was also Mrs Teville, who is indebted to you for keeping secret her true relationship with her daughter. I do not know the young woman’s identity, but I assume she is a figure of some significance in London society.’
‘Oh, you would be amused if I told you, Mr Holmes,’ said Mrs Cheveley. ‘Not that I shall, of course. We all have our codes of professional ethics.’
‘Indeed we do, though they may differ in detail,’ Holmes noted, with something more akin to his usual dry tones.
Mrs Cheveley said, ‘Mrs Teville is most protective of the young lady, however. She has taken drastic action before to defend her reputation, and I expect her to take it again shortly.’
Holmes said, ‘Be that as it may, you sent a messenger to Mrs Teville, describing Mabel Goring’s ensemble and telling her to wear as similar a dress as she possessed. She dutifully arrived, dressed in royal purple, a little before Durrington himself. The mink stole which she was wearing when I saw her later that evening would make her outfit superficially dissimilar to Lady Goring’s, but could be put aside as easily as the latter’s shawl. Indeed, I noted that it was slightly discoloured by a pale dust, suggesting that she had stowed it on some high shelf, or similar out-of-the-way place.
‘There was, of course, some risk in this plan, since Mrs Teville is known in the character of a widow, however gay her habitual behaviour, and thus could only have attended the ball in some suitable mourning colour. I may be wrong, but I suspect you mitigated this by conniving with Lady Goring’s maid so that her first choice of dress, in eau de Nil, was rendered hors de combat and replaced with a gown of a darker colour. I doubt you are a person who willingly trusts to luck in any aspect of her enterprises.
‘Acting on instructions he had received from you, Lord Illingworth played on Mabel Goring’s concern for her friend Cecily Moncrieff to detain her near the fire in the music room, causing her to shed that shawl, which he purloined. He tore the brooch free and passed it to Mrs Teville, then giving the shawl to the maid Dora to throw from her window.
‘The fact that Mabel Goring went directly from the music room up to the library was an unexpected development, but it complicated matters only slightly. Even had she met and spoken to Durrington, it is unlikely that it would have changed anything, except to make her later testimony even more dubious.
‘As it happened, though, the room was warm, and the balcony already unlocked. In his nervousness, Durrington had doubtless felt the heat oppressive, and stepped outside. For the few minutes during which Lady Goring was present in the library, each was unaware of the other’s existence.
‘After Lady Goring left, Mrs Teville entered the library and found Durrington already on the balcony. If any observed her there, as Dora in fact did, she would be easily mistaken for the younger woman thanks to the colour of her dress.
‘I imagine she claimed to be acting on behalf of Ernest Moncrieff. Positioning herself carefully above the place where Lady Bloxham’s sundial used to stand, she offered Durrington the brooch as a down payment for his silence about Ernest’s true identity. It would have represented more wealth than he had held in his entire life; perhaps, since he was an outdoor servant, not present on formal occasions, more wealth than he had even seen. Taking advantage of his understandable distraction, Mrs Teville pushed him over the balcony to his death on the flagstones beneath, then quickly left the library and went downstairs.
‘It was all very neat,’ Holmes concluded, ‘and planned in meticulous detail. I congratulate you particularly for the double layer of obfuscation which enabled the police to construct a perfectly plausible case around Lord Illingworth, after Lady Goring was eliminated as a suspect. Illingworth was involved, of course, and may have been very well aware of what was he was doing, but he was only an accomplice to your true assassin. As a pawn he had reached the end of his usefulness, and could be sacrificed to protect a more valuable piece.’
We heard the sound of Mrs Cheveley’s applause. ‘Bravo, Mr Holmes. You have described everybody’s part in the affair quite accurately. I must say, I wonder that you have had need of Mr Pike’s services, if you always hit the mark so well. But I suppose that accuracy is not the same thing as proof, and the courts are so wearyingly insistent on proof, aren’t they?’
Holmes said, in an altogether different tone of voice, ‘In this instance, I am pleased to say proof will present very few difficulties.’
‘That’s our cue!’ exclaimed Gregson, and at once the three of us burst out into the drawing room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE MUSIC OF NAMES
Mrs Cheveley was dressed as if for a ball, in vibrant purple silk with a diamond necklace. She wore also an expression of stunned horror.
I was, as Lord Goring had predicted, impressed at once by her beauty, though her allure was that of a poisonous blossom. I had not seen her grey-green eyes or dark red hair before. They had been obscured by her widow’s veil.
‘Mrs Winterbourne,’ I gasped. Little wonder that she had been able to abstract Ernest Moncrieff’s notepaper, or to observe his house so closely during the night of the ball. She had even told us that she had been watching the comings and goings.
Mrs Cheveley herself only had eyes for Lord Goring. ‘You have betrayed me, Arthur Goring!’ she exclaimed, ignoring Inspector Gregson as he cuffed her. ‘You will come to lament this day. I can still bring you down.’
Lord Goring said, ‘On the contrary, your only hold on me is broken. The inspector knows who killed Durrington. He knows that Mabel is innocent, as she has always been in all things. You know nothing to my discredit beyond what is public knowledge, and there is nothing to know to Mabel’s because she is the best woman in England.’
Mrs Cheveley’s eyes narrowed. ‘I know all about Robert Chiltern, though.’
Goring sighed elaborately. ‘Nothing that can be proven, as we established two years ago. Besides, you are in no position to threaten anybody. You have confessed to conspiracy to murder, in the hearing of a police officer. I doubt you will find many to mourn for you when you hang, Laura. I know that I shall not.’
At the mention of hanging, Mrs Cheveley, whose skin was naturally pale, turned whiter still.
Constable Northbrook had appeared at the door to Pike’s rooms. ‘She’d left that bloke with the scar and the broken nose hanging around outside,’ he reported, ‘just like you said, Mr Holmes. We’ve got the beggar in custody now. Put up a proper fight, mind,’ he added, gingerly fingering his own nose, which was beginning to swell.
‘Let me take a look at that, Constable,’ I said.
‘No need, Doctor, I’ll get it seen to back at the Yard,’ he grinned. ‘I don’t want to miss bringing this one in.’
‘I will ruin you all,’ hissed Mrs Cheveley. ‘Even from beyond the grave, should it be necessary. I have friends who will still do my bidding. Everybody has a shameful secret, and certainly every man. If you have forgotten yours, Arthur, I will still find them. And yours, Mr Holmes, and yours, Inspector Whatever-your-name-is. Yours I know already, Dr Watson. And as for you, Langdale Pike, I know things about you that I am sure the good inspector would love to hear.’
‘All right, all right, that will do,’ said Gregson. ‘Let’s get you down to the Yard. We’ll need a formal statement from everybody,’ he reminded us.
‘One moment, Gregson,’ said Holmes. ‘I firmly believe you will find that Illingworth is dead—’
‘As to that, sir, sorry, sir,’ said Northbrook, ‘word’s come through while you was shut up in here. They’ve dragged a body out of the river at Greenwich. It’s difficult to be sure, of course, but they reckon as it’s His Lordship.’
‘Thank you, Northbrook,’ said Holmes graciously. ‘I believe we can assume for the moment that Lord Illingworth is out of the equation. Mrs Teville, however, remains at large.’
‘Her real name’s Mrs Erlynne,’ I interpolated, forgetting in my excitement that it was probably Lady Augustus Lorton.
‘Thank you, Watson,’ said Holmes, in exactly the same tone he had addressed to the constable. ‘Mrs Erlynne is still at large, and Mrs Cheveley made a remark earlier that rather alarmed me. What did you mean, Mrs Cheveley, when you said that you expected her to take further drastic action to defend her daughter’s reputation?’
But Mrs Cheveley, the keeper of secrets, smiled like a sphinx and kept her silence, until Gregson and Northbrook bundled her out.
‘I must tell Mabel and Robert,’ said Lord Goring. ‘There is a late sitting in the House tonight. Robert still has time to retract his previous statement.’ He bade us goodbye and left, his concern for his wife and brother-in-law palpable in his haste.
Sherlock Holmes--The Spider's Web Page 24
