by John Maclay
As you may suppose, I am bewildered, but I will continue to report. I hope that your relapse is a short one, and that you will soon feel up to getting about.
With sincere regards,
Martha Hudson
* * * *
November 10
Dear Doctor Watson,
Although you may think me neglectful, I have not written simply because there has been nothing to report. Mr. Holmes seems content to remain indoors after receiving his brother’s note, and has kept to his chambers for several days. The young man, his nephew, I am certain is still in the house, though there has been no further instance by means of which I could prove that.
However, this morning found matters altered. Mr. Holmes rang for breakfast a full two hours earlier than usual, and when I took up the tray, he was pale, and his cough shook him painfully. He was so ill that he asked me to remain while he drank a bit of tea and crumbled a piece of toast. When I insisted that he allow me to call a physician, he sighed and nodded.
“A pity that Watson is under the weather, but that seems advisable. Yes, Mrs. Hudson, call in your doctor. I believe that I am too ill to go on.”
This astonished me, as you may well imagine. Never before have I heard him admit that he was not well, no matter how obvious that might be to the unaided eye. However, I called Tilly and sent her after Dr. Jermyn, whom you may recall as living two streets over and one down.
When that gentleman arrived, he insisted that Mr. Holmes be taken at once to hospital, as his bronchitis had become pneumonia. This left my tenant in a quandary, as you might think, for I was not supposed to know of the presence of the nephew. However, he took the opportunity, while the doctor sent for a carriage, to speak with me.
“Mrs. Hudson,” he said, staring into my eyes as if to read my thoughts, “I need a favor. You have never failed me, and I trust that you will aid me now. My brother’s son, Andrew, is staying with me. He is, as you probably gathered from the visit of our brilliant Lestrade, in a bit of trouble at the moment, and only this damnable illness has prevented my finding the true culprit and freeing him from this dangerous situation.”
“I knew he was here,” I assured him. “And I suspect that he hid in the overhead, while the police searched.”
He looked surprised, though why that should be true I cannot think. But I went on, “I handed in that note from your brother, as well, and that told me something, though I have no idea what was written there.”
“Mycroft has learned something vital. His own life may be in danger, for the father of that young woman was Lord Tenningsly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A plot has been afoot to discredit the British currency, and the Chancellor was murdered in order to conceal its existence. My unfortunate nephew was inadvertently caught in a web of international monetary manipulation, and if he is apprehended it will mean that the true culprits will never be brought to book.”
Dr. Jermyn’s steps approached along the hallway. Mr. Holmes laid a small envelope in my hand. “Care for him as you would for me. I will return, and those who intend to kill him, claiming that they acted in self defense, must not find him before that time comes.”
Naturally, I trusted his words implicitly, for although he sometimes takes a devious route, I have never known Mr. Holmes to arrive at anything other than the truth. I tucked the envelope into my apron pocket and assisted the men as they carried the sick man down the stairs. I removed the brooms and mops as they passed, but before they were out of sight, I had them all replaced. Now, more than ever, we needed a functioning alarm system.
When Tilly left, that evening, I went upstairs and tapped on the door of 221b. “Mr. Holmes! Mr. Andrew Holmes! Your uncle has entrusted you to my care, and I need to talk with you. Will you open the door?”
After a long interval, during which I thought more than once that the young man was not going to risk unlocking the door, the key turned in the lock. A pale face, long in the bone like his uncle’s, stared out at me. Along his cheek was a partially healed cut, which would, I was certain, have been caused by that bomb.
“You are Mrs. Hudson?” he asked. Even his voice was like, and when I entered the room and saw him in full I could see that the Holmes bone structure was there. His hands were long and thin, and they twitched, as Mr. Holmes’s do sometimes when he wants to play his violin but is prevented by other affairs.
“It is a pity the illness came on him so quickly,” I said. “He knows who killed your young lady’s father, and he would prove it like a shot, if he were able.”
He sighed. “I know too. Danvers, the secretary, was the key to the entire plot, and Lord Tenningsly caught him out. He told me, before he was killed, but little good will that do me. Everyone thinks that I killed him because he objected when I courted Millicent. And he didn’t even object. Not really. He simply wants—wanted—us to wait until she is eighteen before we announce our engagement.”
I believed him. I think that I would have, even had Mr. Holmes not told me the facts in the case.
I smiled at the boy. “Keep the blinds drawn closely,” I said. “We want no light to show in the street, for the rooms are supposed to be empty. I will bring up your breakfast early, before the servants arrive, and your dinner will be served at about nine o’clock. I hope you will not become too hungry in the time between. Keep the door locked and the chain up. And remain in the back rooms, if you can manage to. Even if you pace, no one will hear you there.”
He nodded. I felt it a pity that so likely a youngster must have so harsh an initiation into the world, but that comes when it comes, and nobody can alter that.
I was abed before midnight, and I slept deeply, after the excitements of the day. Yet when the first pail clanged down the steps and the array of mops and brooms began their clattering falls, I was up in a moment, wide awake. Lighting a lamp, I hurried down the stairs toward the landing at 221b. The disturbance came from farther down, however, and I continued on my way.
The door opened as I passed, and Andrew Holmes looked out. “Trouble?” he asked.
I nodded without speaking, for I was wondering how I could cope with those who seemed determined to climb my stair, no matter what clamor they set up. I seized a mop that leaned against the railing and charged downward into the darkness.
Behind me, I could hear Master Holmes’s slippers flapping on the carpet. “Are you armed?” I asked, over my shoulder yet keeping my gaze fixed on the motion below.
“Now I am,” he said, his voice grim. “You are not alone!”
Even armed only with mop handles, I found that comforting. I had given my word, and anyone coming up the steps to harm this young man was going to answer to Martha Hudson!
I stumbled over the midget. He rolled beneath my feet, and I saved myself by grabbing the railing. Another shape, much larger than the first, loomed against the dim light from the foyer lamp, and I aimed my mop handle and rammed it into his waistcoat. He grunted and folded over, giving me the opportunity to rap him smartly upon the head.
I could hear a scuffle behind me. Then there was a sharp smack, and the midget rolled back down beneath my feet. I stepped over him and pushed the other man off the expensive carpet runner that protected my foyer. Blood is most difficult to get out of wool!
“Are you all right, Mrs. Hudson?” asked the young man.
“Quite well, Mr. Holmes. If you will retire to the upstairs, out of sight, I will summon the constable on duty. I have a whistle that will have him here at once.”
He moved out of sight, and I went into my lower rooms in order to find the whistle. As I rummaged about, I checked my apron pocket, and there was the envelope Mr. Holmes the elder had left in my hand. Surely he had intended that I open it!
I unfolded the crisp page, and another fell out of the protective wrapping. I stared down at it. Then I went to the door and blew the whistle shrilly into the damp night.
&n
bsp; Of course, the envelope that Mycroft Holmes had sent was a note (how he put his hands onto it I probably do not wish to know) from Tenningsly to his secretary, asking him to come to the office in order to explain his recent activities with regard to the International Currency Market. While it did not directly accuse him of misdoing, the inference was plain, and the police saw that as quickly as I had done.
I can only assume that Danvers’s attempts against Sherlock Holmes were caused by his uneasiness at the thought that the great detective might take a hand in proving the innocence of his nephew, and in so doing would uncover the plot and its participants. The police believe that as well, though Mr. Holmes only smiled when I mentioned my theory.
You have, no doubt, read the newspaper accounts of the affair. The police, of course, never apologized to Master Holmes, but that is something they seldom do.
I understand at last the irritation that Mr. Holmes must feel when his dangerous and difficult work is ignored, while the police take all the credit. It was I who captured Danvers and his midget accomplice. But what did the Times headlines say?
LESTRADE SOLVES TINNINGSLY CASE
The very idea!
* * * *
I hope that you are now well enough to visit Mr. Holmes, who is again in his rooms, though unable, as yet, to get about much. If I have rambled at some length, you must understand that it is seldom that a respectable female has the opportunity to participate in such exciting and interesting affairs, and this has been a most enlightening experience for
Your respectful friend,
Martha Hudson
CRAWFISH
Growing up in the East Texas woods and river country, I know all about crawfish!
It’s chill down there in the river, I reckon. She don’t know, though. Can’t know. Them big innocent brown eyes are starin’ away down there, unless the crawfish—God, I wish I didn’t know nothin’ about crawfish.
She’s got this soft white skin, like to a baby rabbit or some baby animal, sort of. It shined, like, even through the muddy old river water. I could see her, shinin’ and shinin’, as she sank. Her hair moved all out loose on the water, dark and curling in the moonlight. It kept moving in the water, all the way down...them crawfish....
She was a tramp, I tell you. Everybody knowed it, I reckon. Smiling and smiling at everybody went by. I moved way down in the bottom-lands, ’count of that. No fancy traveling salesmen comes down here. No Avon women selling damnation. No men in cars and men in trucks that’d look at her when she worked out in the yard. Bending over, showing her legs! Tramp, just tramp!
Must of been born that way. She was just fourteen when I hitched up with her, and hadn’t had time to learn nothing about men then. Just naturally bad, flirting when we went into town, smiling at them tellers in the bank, in their white shirts and city suits. Looking with eyes of lust and fornication at them. First time, when I got her home, I beaten the living daylights outen her.
Way she cried and took on, you’d of reckoned she was crazy. Her Pa never had no gumption with his women folks. Let ’em have their own way clear to ruination, seems like. His woman even had money to spend, when she felt like it. So I guess Mattie wasn’t all the way to blame for her sinful ways.
Still, beating didn’t do no good—not to last. She’d go ’round with her head down and her eyes on the ground, like is fitten, for a while, then she’d see something, maybe just a flower or a bird or some such sinful uselessness. All that decency would be gone in a minute, and she’d be laughin’ to herself. And when she laughed, any man inside a mile would be starin’ at her like they knowed her already.
I come home one evenin’, and she was full of talk. Met me at the door, jabbering fit to make me deaf. I slapped her a couple of times and quieted her down, like as my Pa used to my Ma, iffen she said more than is fitten for a woman. She didn’t say nothin’ else, just slapped the supper on the table and went off in the back to the garden and started pullin’ weeds. I looked ’round to make sure she wasn’t meetin’ nobody, afore I set down to eat.
Next day, Miz Rogers, down the road, met me at the end of the row and asked me, real sly like, who’d been visitin’ Mattie yesterday. Seemed like I got hot all over—it just seemed to rise up from my feet clean to my head—and I was so mad I could of busted. Miz Rogers, she looked at me kind of scared-like and took off afore I could answer.
It was away before noon, but I took the mules in and unhitched. When I got to the house, she was gigglin’ in the kitchen. I crept up, real sly like, and peeped in. They wasn’t no one there. She was crazy. Clean crazy and a whore too.
I slammed the screen open till the spring busted. My head was like to bust too, with the blood poundin’ and poundin’. She looked ’round and turned white and funny-lookin’. After she picked herself up from where I knocked her, I started tellin’ her what she was. The Whore of Babylon was nice to what I called her.
I slapped all her lies back into her teeth. She was gabblin’ about flat tires and women with thirsty children, but she quit that soon enough. She wasn’t so all-fired pretty, after I got through with her. Her nose was all lopsided and her eyes was so swole you couldn’t see what color they was. I figgered, Hell, I might as well of married a homely woman, iffen I was goin’ to have to keep mine all bunged up to keep the men away from her.
Next day, I went down to see Pa. Didn’t let on what was goin’ on, but Pa, he’s read the Bible and helled around some, so he guessed pretty close. He told me he knowed of some land that was for rent, down close to the river. Said iffen I wanted, he could find somebody to take over my place and finish my crop. It was still early in the spring, so’s I had time to make a crop down there in the wet land.
So we moved. There was a fair cabin on the place. Not fancy— she started sayin’ something about havin’ to carry water so fur—but I just had to look at her mean by then, and she shut right up. I broke a garden patch, and she put in a nice garden, but seemed like she didn’t care iffen it growed or not. She didn’t put no more flowers ’round the front, neither, so’s I knowed she’d done it, t’other place, just to bend over and show her legs to the men on the road. She didn’t fix up the cabin none, neither. Just went around like she was listenin’ to somethin’ inside her head. Her Maw come, a time or two, but I didn’t care about havin’ her come ’round givin’ Mattie fancy notions, so I got rid of her quick as I could.
Got so I hated to come in, after finishin’ work. I’d stay out till dark, near, or go night-fishin’ with the niggers down the river. She kind of looked at me like I was somethin’ scary. Give me funny feelings, the way she looked at me.
No, sir, when I took her where she couldn’t go smilin’ at the men and flirtin’ all over town on Saturday no more, she kind of dried up. Never even tried to talk to me no more. I might even of let her, so’s to liven up the quiet some, but she kept her lips tight shut over her broke tooth and let the mosquitoes buzz.
Her eyes got queerer and queerer. They was big to start with, but it got so that they was deep as the pool down at the river, and just as full of strange things. I’d go in at night and she’d watch me, starin’ and starin’ like I was a bug or a snake. She was crazy, I tell you.
Anyways, one evening, I come in dead tired. Crop was laid by and I’d been fishin’ all day, but it was so hot it like to of took your breath. They wasn’t no air down there, ’count of the woods just closed in all ’round like walls and kept it out.
While I was eatin’ supper, she was standin’ by the wash-pan, waitin’ for the dishes. All of a sudden, she turned ’round with the meat knife in her hand and started for me. Iffen I hadn’t of looked up, she’d of killed me where I set. Seems like, when she done that, everything just come together like. I took her ’round the neck and shut my hands tight and when I opened ’em up, she was dead.
My folks has always been mighty proud and upstandin’ people, ’round here. And Pa, w
hy it’d kill Pa iffen they hung me over a woman. So I took her through the woods down to the river.
I could hear the snakes slidin’ off in front of me, while I carried her down the path. The ’gators was bellowin’, and the moon was comin’ up full. It was right hard, gettin’ her down the bank to the deep water. She was right smart tall, if she was so slim. I got her down, though, and tied on some weights offen the nets we’d been settin’ that day. They wasn’t too heavy, but nobody never come there, no way. So I put her down in the water. And she sunk, slow, and the moon made her go down shinin’ and shinin’, real soft, like a dream.
Wasn’t till the next day I started thinkin’ about them crawfish. Iffen you never seen a body that’s been et by crawfish, you don’t want to. It’s a sight to turn a goat’s stomach, let alone a man’s. I kept thinkin’ about her, down there, with them things eatin’ out her eyes, nibblin’ on that soft skin. Seems like I couldn’t rightly stand it. For two days I held myself down. I took out and went with the niggers down the river and never come back till the morning of the third day. This morning...seems like forever.
Something drug me down there to the big pool. It’s like I couldn’t help myself at all. And when I got there, I couldn’t see nothin’. I would of thought she’d of riz some by then. Seems like I had to see what they’d done to her, though. Thinkin’ was a lot worse than knowin’. I took a sweet-gum sapling and started dredgin’ around in the deep water, wadin’ out fur as I could. I didn’t want to, couldn’t hardly stand it, but something made me keep pokin’ and feelin’ around with that pole, till it caught her.
Must’ve been caught on a snag or something, cause when the pole hooked her, up she come, slow and easy, just like she gone down. And I throwed up in the water until my insides like to of come out my mouth. Then I had to go and git rocks and rope and sink her good, so’s I couldn’t never see what they’d done to her, never no more.
