Prelude to a Partnership

by Miss Roylott

  "You should learn some manners," I rebuked him.

  He acknowledged his rudeness with a bowed head and a contrite voice. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I understand that you and Mr. Holmes are possessed of information that is important to me, and it has made me too eager." He also turned to Mrs. Hudson and made humble apologies to her, which she accepted disdainfully before turning away and descending the stairs with dignity.

  The fair-haired young man remained in an earnest, penitent posture by our door, looking to each of us for some decision.

  Holmes eyed the fellow piercingly and assessed the risk of allowing him to stay. Then he cleared his throat. "Close the door behind you and take that seat there. Now, state your name and business."

  "Robert Cooper. I'm a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. You won't know me, of course, for I am still too junior on the staff to get any by-lines yet."

  "You do look rather young," Holmes observed. "Scarcely twenty, if that."

  The young man smiled awkwardly, quite aware of his boyish, almost delicate features. He hardly looked older than any newsboy selling papers on a street corner. "It's the persistence and energy they want in a reporter," he explained, "and they hope to sort of 'raise me' in the profession. Meanwhile I'm paying my dues as they say."

  "And what, pray tell, do you want with us?" Holmes appeared distinctly amused.

  "It's about this Brixton Mystery, sir. I understand that you were both involved in the official investigation, the Doctor by advertising for the ring and you by arranging the capture of Jefferson Hope in these very rooms."

  "And do you want a scoop?" Holmes raised his eyebrows sceptically. "The Brixton Mystery is surely old news now."

  "Yes, but it's all I can get at present, and some readers might still be curious to read more about it. Yesterday, for example, the reports in the papers mentioned that there was a long history behind it all, involving Mormons or something. I should like to do a piece on that if I can, and also hear your own accounts of the investigation. The Scotland Yard detectives would be less inclined to tell me about it themselves; they'd scoff at me for my youth."

  I admit I felt a little peeved that this brash youngster intended to put forth an account of the case, making my own plans to do so redundant. Yet I could not blame him, either. He looked so frightfully boyish with those long eyelashes, and he seemed not unlike Holmes in his struggle to be taken seriously in his profession. So I gave in. "You might indeed have a scoop, young man, for despite what was printed earlier, Mr. Holmes here was actually responsible for the solving of the mystery, not Gregson and Lestrade."

  "Was he?" Cooper's brown eyes brightened with interest.

  Holmes fairly scowled at me for my remarks.

  "Yes, and he deserves public recognition of his merits. Here, you can borrow this." I rose to retrieve the Mormon manuscript I had left at my desk; I knew my private journals would need substantial editing before I could allow anyone to read them.

  "Watson, don't—"

  I ignored Holmes's protest, feeling glad of my magnanimous gesture. "This gives the Mormon history of the affair," I said, handing the manuscript to Cooper, and you can ask me anything about the investigation itself."

  The blond youth smiled at me and took out his notebook eagerly. "Thank you, Doctor. I am curious first to know what occurred after Mr. Jefferson Hope's arrest on Tuesday. Do you have any idea of his exact statement to the police upon his capture, and what has been done with his remains and possessions since his death?"

  Holmes laughed out loud, startling us both. "You surprise me," he said. "You surprise and interest me a great deal, Mr. Cooper." He folded his hands and looked the reporter squarely in the eye. "You are Jefferson Hope's secret ally,[21] are you not?"

  The accused dropped his pencil, and I sat dumbfounded.

  Holmes sprang up from his chair and locked the sitting-room door, slipping the key into his pocket. "Do not think," he shook his head sternly, "that because I am but a few years older than yourself, Mr. Cooper, that you can fool me the way you did the last time. I cannot be caught off my guard twice!

  "You recognised my friend Watson here and called him 'Doctor,' before either of us had introduced ourselves to you. You believed that Watson advertised for the ring, an impression you could have easily obtained by noticing the advertisement that I placed using his name. But the incident of the wedding ring was not a part of the official investigation, as you suppose; Gregson and Lestrade saw no significance in the clue, disregarding it entirely, and the ring was never mentioned in any journalist's account of the Brixton Mystery. You could only have known of our unofficial pursuit of the ring, and believed it to be significant to the investigation, by having been here yourself, as Mrs. Sawyer.

  "No, Mr. Cooper, you may give plausible excuses about your low rank in the press and your scrounging for scraps, but what really brought you here was Jefferson Hope, not your supposed article."

  Cooper still sat frozen and unnerved while Holmes smiled, immensely pleased that his state of recovery from me had not hampered his ability to deduce. "I'll admit you confused me when I observed that you did indeed possess all outward signs of being an actual reporter. Nor could I detect any trace of greasepaint or makeup on you at present, but then I realised that your ingenious disguise this time was to wear no disguise at all, to show us the person that had been hiding behind the 'Mrs. Sawyer' persona all along. A clever trick, but not clever enough!"

  I gazed at the cringing youth with astonishment. Could this slight, callow creature truly be the cunning accomplice of Jefferson Hope? I could not imagine his motives.

  Holmes perched on a nearby chair and interrogated Cooper closely. "You might well have disappeared yesterday, young man, so why did you risk returning to our rooms today? Why come without our having coaxed you at all?"

  "Does it matter?" the fellow spoke at last, his voice quite small and faint.

  "Of course it does!" Holmes grew impatient. "Do you want the ring? Has it some further duty to perform for you or Hope? You cannot want the manuscript, for that document would be so precious to you that you surely sent Watson only a copy of the original. Or is it information you desire? Do you wish to know Hope's exact statement at his capture so that you can be sure he did not betray you to the police?"

  "He—he wouldn't. He wished to protect me and he would have to admit… " Cooper swallowed uneasily and shook his head. "I don't care if he did. I just want to know if he mentioned… if he said anything for me. If he had any last words before he died." He seemed disconcertingly on the verge of tears, glancing at both of us with pleading eyes. "What will you do with me? Turn me in? But will I be able to see him again? Just once, before they give him some anonymous, pauper's grave? Please?"

  I found the poor wretch's despondency and attachment to his friend unsettling.

  Holmes was unmoved. "Explain yourself first, Mr. Cooper, and then we shall decide whether or not to reveal you to the police. As you are young and perhaps impressionable, you might deserve mercy for your part in this affair, so long as you stay out of further trouble."

  "I don't care about myself!" he declared, breaking down suddenly. "It's just as well that you found me out. What is my life worth now? What would I do without him?" Cooper buried his head in his hands, weeping.

  Though I hardly knew him, I felt an urge to put an arm around the youth and hush his tears. He seemed so fragile; no wonder Hope had felt an obligation to protect his friend.

  "Control yourself!" Holmes admonished. "You are young, yes, but no schoolboy, and I will not be manipulated with ploys for sympathy!"

  Cooper quieted after the rebuke, but did not cease, huddling against the chair's arm.

  Holmes scowled and folded his arms.

  I discouraged Holmes from scolding the lad further, and spoke gently instead, "Will you not tell us, at least, why you were loyal to Jefferson Hope? Why you condoned the two murders he committed?"

  Sniffling and slightly raising his head, Cooper timidly indic
ated the Mormon manuscript. "Did you not read it?"

  Holmes interrupted me. "Yes, but facts are what we need, sir. Facts. You ought to know better, being a journalist. You are not old enough to have witnessed any of events that you relate in that account, so I assume that you relied on Hope's memory of things he witnessed and things the Ferriers told him of their past. One man's fading memory, twenty years since, hardly makes for unimpeachable testimony."

  "He was a good man! A noble man seeking justice for horrible crimes—"

  Holmes waved away Cooper's protests. "You sympathised with him, clearly, but I reserve judgement in the absence of reliable facts. Now why did you trust this man? A man you could not have met until he arrived in England a few weeks ago? Why did you compose this lengthy tract in defence of him? Why did you risk yourself again and again?"

  "Why did you trap him, you busybody?" Cooper flung back with sudden fury. "Why did you interfere when you're not even the police? How dare you set traps for him, when I forgot to warn him against you! I should have saved him. I should have—" He choked on his emotion and sunk back into his chair, moaning softly as he wept again.

  Holmes glanced at me, puzzled as much as I was by this indecent display of emotion. So much feeling, for someone he knew so briefly.

  As the youth sobbed without control, I awkwardly attempted to comfort him, pouring a brandy and patting his shoulder. "Calm down, please. Have a drink to steady your nerves."

  He only shrank away from me.

  Holmes impatiently grasped the fellow's shoulders and tried to shake some sense into him. "Stop it, Mr. Cooper! Stop this bawling and compose yourself!"

  I put down the drink and made Holmes let him go; the shaking was not helping anyway. Cooper only folded his arms around himself and whimpered, before returning to his laments about not having done enough for Jefferson Hope.

  Holmes stared at Cooper crossly, no doubt regretting that he had ever allowed the young man to stay. We had learned little about his association with Jefferson Hope, and the hysterical tears were fraying our nerves.

  I stood by Holmes and rubbed his shoulders.

  "Watson!" he whispered irritably, trying to refuse my touch.

  I continued anyway, and as the young man was not looking, and the curtains were all closed, I risked planting a kiss on Holmes's cheek.

  Holmes squeezed my hands, but then firmly pushed me away, clearing his throat.

  "Well, what should we do?" I said, going to retrieve my medical bag. I opened it and motioned to Holmes, silently asking whether we ought to sedate the fellow, since he still had not exhausted himself with tears.

  But Holmes was not looking at me, his eyes narrowly focused on Cooper with a new fascination and understanding. He leaned nearer to the sobbing lad, his dark brows deeply furrowed. "You loved him, didn't you? You loved Hope."

  That whisper caused Cooper's wracking tremors to subside. He choked down a few more sorrowful gasps and then raised his fair head slowly, turning to look at Holmes. I realised as I looked into his swollen, red-rimmed eyes that Holmes's intuition was correct; this young man had indeed been mourning over Hope as one would over a lost lover.

  Cooper stared at Holmes with shock, unable to deny it or to defend himself. He finally spoke with defeat, "So you know." Then he frowned and glanced at both of us accusingly. "You think I'm sick, don't you? You'll stick me in some horrid institution to cure me of my perversion. More like torture me. I won't go with you." He got up from his chair and began to back away from us. "I won't go. I'd rather rot in prison, or drown myself in the Thames. Don't you dare touch me!"

  "Calm down, please!" I urged, trying to look as friendly as possible. I feared that he might try throwing himself out the window like his friend Hope, if he could not escape by the door.

  "You should listen to the Doctor, Cooper," Holmes attempted to soothe him with his reasonable tone of voice.

  "Why?" he scorned us both. "Is he one of those alienists? Or the director of a looney bin?"

  "No, he's not. He's the same friendly chap he was when you retrieved the ring as Mrs. Sawyer. He's the same doctor who patched up Hope's many injuries when he was captured in these rooms—"

  "Injuries?" Cooper turned to me with horror. "What injuries? What did you do to him? He had a heart condition!"

  "We did not know," I answered. "He only told us afterward. Believe me, he was strong as an ox then, and we barely captured him at all."

  Holmes shrugged indifferently, "Hope had not long to live anyway."

  That unfortunate remark made Cooper despondent once more. "I know," he whispered. "The doctor said so. I just thought, I could keep him alive as long as possible. I thought—" He gave a choking sob again.

  I quickly approached and offered him the brandy again. Shaking all over, Cooper acquiesced as I sat him down on the sofa. He was about to sip from the glass, when he stopped and looked up sharply. "Wait, you're drugging me, aren't you?" he pushed away from me, spilling the drink, and started to rise again. "You'll cart me off somewhere."

  Holmes halted him with his iron grip. "No, we won't. In fact we can keep your secret safe from the authorities, whether medical or legal."

  "And why would you do that?" he demanded.

  "Because I could not care less about whom you wish to sleep with! Any man's deviance is his own business as far as I'm concerned. I care about murder, theft, blackmail—real crimes worthy of detection and punishment. I don't give a damn about your taste in lovers!"

  "Why should I believe you?" He was still afraid.

  Holmes smiled suddenly. "You don't have to believe me. Watson will do, won't he? Why did you trust Watson, Mr. Cooper? Is there something sympathetic about him? He's the man you sent your Mormon story to you; he's the man you asked to have mercy on Hope."

  Cooper said nothing, looking at me then.

  I searched for something to say. "Do trust us. We only wish to help."

  He pondered that awhile, and contritely whispered, "I'm sorry I spilled that drink on you, Doctor."

  "That's all right," I said, still trying to dry myself and clean up the broken glass.

  Cooper sat down then.

  Holmes found the young man's calmness quite encouraging, and he pulled up a chair, gesturing for me to come join them. "Leave that, Watson. A maid can get it."

  "We'll forget about it," I protested, "as we did all the mess the other day."

  "Watson!" He was mildly irritated.

  I saw Cooper gaze at Holmes's face for a moment, perhaps seeing some tenderness there that suggested our intimacy to him. We were friends yes, but I was not sure if he saw that we were lovers too, if Holmes's face seemed that transparent to me alone. Indeed, I wondered if my own face were transparent at the moment.

  I rose at last and sat beside young Cooper on the sofa.

  "Thank you, Watson. Now, Mr. Cooper, are you in a proper frame of mind to speak to us rationally?"

  He nodded, glanced at me, and then addressed Holmes quietly. "You asked me before, why I trusted Jefferson Hope, when I knew him so briefly." He shrugged. "I just did. It's the same way that I trust Dr. Watson here. I don't doubt my judgement about Jefferson. You can think I'm impressionable, gullible, if you like, but I sensed such a good heart in him, such a noble heart." He closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

  Holmes feared the return of hysterical emotion, but I gestured to him that it was all right.

  "Tell us about him," I prompted. "How did you meet him?"

  Cooper hesitated, swallowing. "I don't know if you'd understand. Maybe you'd think I was more sick. Maybe you wouldn't want to protect me anymore, Doctor."

  I was not sure what to say, and Holmes tried to be helpful, venturing a theory. "Did Hope arrive in England, know his health was failing, and realise he needed assistance to accomplish his vengeance? Thus he sought out someone to write his story for him, in order to gain sympathy for his cause."

  Cooper stared at Holmes as if he were mad. "He never knew I wrote that for him! He tol
d me the whole thing one night, and I—" He shook his head. "You don't know anything about how it happened."

  Holmes was peeved. "Well, tell us, then."

  Chapter 11

  The Story of Cooper

  The youth struggled for words. "Well, he was lost, you see. I didn't know at the time, but Jefferson was new to town, roaming about with a map so he could learn landmarks and streets for his job as a cab driver. He just wandered right in, not knowing what kind of place it was, not knowing anything. I-I don't know if I should explain, if it would shock you… That part of town, it's just—it's infamous, the men of that persuasion find it so easily." Cooper flushed and grew more uncomfortable by the moment.

  Holmes shook his head. "I assure you, young man, that nothing you say can shock us. You admitted already that you had a deviant love for Jefferson Hope."

  "Yes," he said, but he kept staring down at his hands, unable to continue.

  "Watson, get him another brandy, will you? Come now, Cooper. We can keep anything you say in confidence, and we are worldly enough to know about the shady sort of districts that you describe. In fact, Watson, where did you put that list of addresses I gave you the other night?"

  I shot Holmes a warning glance, brought Cooper his drink, and resumed my seat.

  The lad sipped the brandy slowly and seemed eased by my presence.

  Holmes, however, had not finished with his indiscretions. He pursed his lips. "Would it interest you to know, Cooper, that Watson here is a deviant as well?"

  "Holmes!" I sat horrified.

  He continued jauntily, "You should hear the perversions that he practised with his lover in the army."

  "Holmes!" I jumped up from my chair and clamped my hand over his mouth, fighting an urge to throttle him. How dare he speak so freely about me, and all without the slightest indication of his own perversion!

  "It's true," Cooper said suddenly. "It's true," he whispered, staring at us in amazement.

  I blushed hotly in the face of the young man's scrutiny, and Holmes forced me to let go of him, sitting me back on the sofa.