The Reigate Poisoning: Concluded (The Dispatch Box of John H Watson, MD)

by Ashton, Hugh

  More than a little astonished by his words and his general demeanour, I picked up my hat and my stick, and made my way into Harley Street, from where I hailed a cab to take me to Baker Street.

  On my relating these events to Sherlock Holmes, he rubbed his hands together in a sort of glee. “It seems to me,” he said to me, with a gleam in his eye which usually accompanied the achievement of some obstacle overcome, “that your friend Clifford has some strong connection to the mystery that we are investigating. Do you not find it significant that he has changed his practice?”

  “He told me that he proposed to do so when I visited him at the time of the inquest,” I replied. “I fail to see anything unnatural about it.”

  “He told you, did he not, that you wish to enter the field of pathology? Even if Menzies had turned out to be a less than congenial colleague, would you not think that he would pursue this goal at another institution? From what you describe of his present practice, this is exactly the kind of situation that he was trying to avoid when you spoke to him in Reigate.”

  There was something in what Holmes was saying, and I agreed with him. “But,” I objected, “given that he received a legacy which allowed him to set up this practice which gives him very little work and a substantial renumeration, would you not expect him to avail himself of the opportunity?”

  “Maybe,” Holmes conceded. “Let me tell you a little of how my researches have gone today. Can you remember the precise terms of the late Mr Stevens’ will as they were described to us by his widow?”

  “I cannot recall the precise terms.”

  “Neither can I, for the excellent reason that we were never provided with them in any detail. We were led to believe that the estate would be held in trust for the daughter until she came of age or when she came to be married, but in the event of her demise before either of those took place, the estate would pass to the widow and her husband.”

  “I agree that this is what we were informed.”

  “I spent a very interesting morning at Somerset House examining the will of Mr Stevens. It is a good deal more complex and intriguing than we were given to believe. I have as yet no opinion as to whether we were being deliberately misled, or whether this was a genuine misunderstanding on the part of Mme. Montpensier. For a start, let us consider the circumstances under which Annabel Stevens would inherit. We were informed, were we not, that she would inherit on her majority, as determined by the will? Majority here was defined to us as marriage, subject to the approval of her parents, or the age of twenty-one, whichever were to occur first.”

  “I remember that we were told this.”

  “As it happens, this is incorrect. Firstly, the age of majority as defined by the will is twenty-five, not twenty-one. Secondly, if marriage was the deciding factor in the inheritance, it was subject to the condition that the marriage ‘be in the True Faith’, as the will has it.”

  “The meaning here?”

  “I take it that Stevens was a Roman Catholic, as is Montpensier. You surely noted the crucifix in the stepdaughter’s bed-room, and the devotional pictures in the drawing-room in the house?”

  “I seem to recall them, yes. So if she were to marry outside the Catholic faith, that would preclude her inheritance?”

  “Until she reaches the age of twenty-five, that is correct. I do not see that the provisions of the will could be interpreted otherwise. However, the interesting part of the will is partly these stipulations, though they undoubtedly have more than a little bearing on the case. The clause of the will that determines the fate of the estate in the event of Annabel Stevens’ death before her marriage or majority is also a point of interest. We were informed that the estate would pass to the widow, if you recall. This, it seems, was not the case. The majority of the late Mr Stevens’ wealth was invested on the Stock Exchange, and most certainly comprises a tidy sum. In the event of the death of his, and I quote here, ‘beloved daughter Annabel’, the assets would pass to a favoured nephew, the son of a younger sister.”

  “The entire estate would be left to this nephew?”

  “No, there would be a small annuity for the widow, together with the house that we visited. But the annuity would be no increase over what she was receiving at that time.”

  “So this vast sum of money is now settled on the nephew?”

  “Aha! There’s the rub. This nephew cannot be traced. He seems to have been something of a black sheep, and left the country some years ago under a cloud—there was some scandal involving a young serving girl in his parents’ household. He was dispatched discreetly to South Africa, where enquiries have been made concerning his current whereabouts. Such enquiries have led nowhere. There is no record of his having died, and there appears to be no one living in South Africa under the name by which he went when he left England. The will remains in limbo, and should the nephew remain undiscovered, the state must necessarily pass to a charity for the promotion of the Catholic faith among the inhabitants of India, following a period of twelve months after the death of the daughter.”

  I considered what Holmes had just told me. “If this is true, then the machinations of the late Mr. Colethorpe were singularly in vain. Even if he had remained unsuspected and unconvicted, he would have been no better off than before.”

  “So it would seem. There is a delicious irony here, do you not think? But this raises other questions. Who is this woman in New York who claims to be Annabel Stevens? How is she aware of the terms of the will? And how does she know that the nephew is currently not the legatee? These are questions to which we must find answers, and I feel that somehow your friend Clifford is the key here. Your account intrigues me. I feel I must pay him a visit and obtain some answers from him.”

  “I feel that he is hardly likely to import any confidences to you,” I objected. “If he has anything to hide and he will not open up his confidences to a former fellow student, I do not think that he will be willing to give you any information.”

  “You misunderstand me,” replied Holmes. “When I say that he will give me some answers, I do not mean that he will be conscious of providing me, Sherlock Holmes, with such. Naturally, I will not visit him in my own person, but will assume some other identity for the purpose, and I will use my eyes and my mind to acquire whatever knowledge there is to be learned. I feel that my skills in malingering are sufficiently advanced to take in such a lazy practitioner as you have described him to be.”

  Holmes was as good as his word regarding the disguise, and in thirty minutes, a somewhat seedy middle-aged man, limping slightly and leaning on a cane, emerged from Holmes’ bedroom.

  I clapped my hands together in a kind of applause for this minor theatrical triumph. “Excellent!” I cried. “May I be permitted to coach you in the finer points of the symptoms of sciatica?”

  With a faint smile on his face, Holmes assented to my suggestion, and I instructed him on how he was to describe his imaginary symptoms should Clifford decide to treat the case with any degree of seriousness.

  He left me, to return a little under two hours later.

  “Well,” he said to me, smiling broadly. “You will be relieved to know that according to your friend Clifford, my sciatica is largely in my mind—a psychosomatic condition, as he described it. I have been given something approaching a clean bill of health.”

  “I am certainly relieved to hear it,” I laughed. “And did you discover anything interesting?”

  “Yes, there were one or two interesting points, but I fear that they only add to the mystery rather than helping to solve it. Tell me, Clifford is unmarried, is he not?”

  “I never heard him mention a wife. Certainly not six months ago at the time of the inquest. Our conversation ranged over a variety of subjects, and I am sure that he would have mentioned it if he had married.”

  “As I thought. The state of his hat and of his boots were sufficient to tell me of that, and we may safely assume that he remains in the blessed state of bachelorhood. Strangely enough
, though, I observed lying on the desk in his consulting room a small locket with the initials A.J.S. engraved on it. Here,” extending his hand and displaying a small gold heart-shaped piece of jewellery.

  “Holmes!” I exclaimed. “This is truly intolerable! You have absolutely no right to have taken this. Will you not be suspected of the theft when he discovers its absence?”

  “I suppose that a certain Mr Peter Barnsley, a resident of Chelsea, may be suspected, as that is the name of the patient who complained of his sciatica to Dr Clifford just now. However, I have a presentiment that the sciatica will take a turn for the worse tomorrow, psychosomatic or not, and Mr. Barnsley will be forced to pay another visit to the good Dr Clifford, following which, it will be discovered that the locket had merely been temporarily mislaid.”

  Even following this explanation, I found it hard to approve of Holmes’ actions in the case. “But to what purpose?”

  “Let us assume, shall we, that the initials on this locket stand for Annabel Stevens, with the middle initial possibly forming the first letter of a name such as Jane, Julia or some such. Such a locket typically has a portrait inside it. Be so good as to open this one, and tell me what you see.”

  I did as he requested, and beheld the smiling face of a young woman. “Do you expect me to recognise the person depicted here?”

  “Since you have seen the face of Annabel Stevens, if only in death, then you should be able to tell me if this face resembles the one that you saw.”

  “That would by no means an easy task,” I replied. “Remember, as you say, I only saw the face in death, and I was not taking an interest in it. I was hardly expecting to be asked if I recognised it six months later. Even so, based on my memories, I would say that the face in this locket is almost definitely that of a different person.”

  “Would you be prepared to take your oath on that in court?”

  The question took me aback. “By no means,” I retorted. “It would be impossible for me to swear with any certainty whether the face of a cadaver which I saw for a matter of an hour or so only, some six months previously, corresponds to a small photograph. You seem to forget, Holmes, that the whole world does not share your powers of perception and memory.”

  “My apologies, Watson. It is true that I am too ready to assume that all minds work in the same way. But without wishing to hold you to the highest legal standards of evidence, you can tell me with some confidence that the face here is not the face that you saw in the mortuary?”

  I assured Holmes that such was the case.

  “Very good. I am of the opinion that you and I should pay another visit to Reigate and talk to Mme. Montpensier.”

  -oOo-

  On our arrival at the somewhat gloomy house that we had visited half a year previously on the occasion of the death of Annabel Stevens, or, as it now seemed to me to be, the supposed death of that young lady, we were received at the door by a sour-faced servant whose face I could not recollect from our previous visit.

  “May we speak with Madame Montpensier?” Holmes asked her.

  “There’s no one of that name living here,” we were informed.

  “Really? May I enquire who is living here now?”

  “It’s a Mr Kilburton and his family, sir. They moved in here some three months ago.”

  “Would it be possible for me to speak to Mr Kilburton?” Holmes asked politely, presenting his card.

  “I’ll ask him, sir,” was the answer.

  In a few minutes we were shown into the drawing room in which so many singular events had occurred six months previously. The furnishing of the room had altered considerably from my memories of the place, and it was obvious to me, even if I had not been informed of the fact, that the inhabitant of the house had changed.

  Kilburton, a well-built man of genial appearance, greeted Holmes enthusiastically. “Well, well, the famous detective in person!” he exclaimed, shaking hands vigorously, and turning to me. “And Dr John Watson, I do declare. My wife and I are most grateful to you for the powers of entertainment you have provided us in the accounts you have written. I trust that I am not suspected of a crime in one of your cases, Mr Holmes?” His eyes twinkled. “May I offer you gentlemen some refreshment?”

  “Thank you, no. I merely wish to make a few enquiries regarding this house. I had occasion to visit it some six months previously, when it was occupied by a Madame Montpensier and her family. It was really Madame Montpensier herself whom I am seeking on this occasion.”

  “I must confess I am somewhat disappointed not to be a major protagonist in one of your adventures,” smiled Kilburton. “On the other hand, I am delighted to be able to be of assistance to you, and inform you that the lady of whom you speak is our landlady. We are renting this house from her while the builders complete our future residence.”

  “Thank you. That explains many things. Do you happen to know where Madame Montpensier currently resides?”

  “I am afraid that I do not. The lease of this house has been arranged through an agent. I can give you the details of the agent, if you like, and I’m sure that he will be able to supply you with the information that you need.”

  Holmes accepted this offer, and Kilburton left the room, to return a moment later bearing the sheet of paper on which was written the name and address of a property agent in the City.

  “Thank you, Mr Kilburton,” said Holmes. “Rest assured that if you are ever in need of my services, I will be happy to oblige.”

  “As it happens, there is one small thing that both you and Dr Watson can do for me,” answered Kilburton. There seemed to be something slightly sheepish in his manner. His hand, which had been behind his back, came forward, bearing two volumes, which I recognised as collections of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes which I had chronicled and had been published. “If you and Dr Watson would both be kind enough to inscribe these, both my wife and I would be highly gratified.”

  Holmes threw back his head and laughed. “I wish that all the problems presented to me had such a simple solution,” he chuckled, signing his name as requested, and passing the books to me for my signature.

  “And now,” said Holmes, as we left the house, “to the City and Mr. Congreave. I am sorry that this turns out to be such a cross-country chase for you, Watson. Our trip to the agents will not turn out to be the last of our journeys today.”

  At the agent’s, the name of Sherlock Holmes worked wonders in opening the books and providing us with the address at which Madame Montpensier currently resided.

  “I must confess, Watson, that your chronicles of our little adventures are of great utility in opening doors which would otherwise remain shut. Though, as you know, I do not seek publicity, I do recognise that it is of value at times,” he said to me as we were seated in the hansom cab bearing us to a Bayswater street, the name of which had just been given to us.

  The address transpired to be a dingy boarding house, occupied by a number of tenants. A surly woman, whom I took to be the landlady, answered the door, and informed us that Madame Montpensier was lodging on the second floor.

  “This is not what I expected,” confessed Holmes, as we trudged up the stairs. “I am beginning to gain an impression of the facts of the case, however.”

  “I am still in the dark,” I replied.

  We had reached the door that we had been told was that of Madame Montpensier, and Holmes had raised his hand to knock at it, when we heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. “Quick, Watson, let us conceal ourselves as best we can in that corner.”

  “Why on earth –?” I began, but Holmes bundled me, more roughly than otherwise, into an angle of the staircase from which we could observe the door, but presented difficulties for anyone who wished to observe us. The footsteps drew closer, and to my astonishment I beheld my former fellow student, Clifford, mount the stairs and knock on the door which we had been about to enter. Holmes pressed a finger to his lips, warning me to keep silence, but the caution was hardly necessary
– I was bereft of speech at this sudden appearance. The door was opened, and I recognised the figure of Hannah, the maid who had been in the employ of Madame Montpensier in the house of Reigate. Clifford was admitted, and the door closed behind him.

  Motioning to me to be as quiet as possible, Holmes descended the staircase, with me in his wake. Once out in the street, Holmes let out his breath.

  “That was a close thing,” he said. “I had no wish to be seen by him. It is best that he is unaware of our knowledge regarding Montpensier.”

  “How did you know that it was he following us?” I could not refrain from asking.

  “I was not completely sure, but I fancied that I saw him out of the corner of my eye when we were waiting for the door to be opened to us. I therefore deemed it prudent for us to remain invisible as far as he was concerned, and to watch rather than to act at this point of the proceedings. I am confident that he did not observe us.”

  “But what possible connection can he have now with her?”

  “The obvious answer would be that he still practices as her doctor. But to me, that seems an unlikely possibility. Come, let us stroll back to Baker-street. I am in the mood for some physical exercise to stimulate my powers of thought.”

  We walked together in companionable silence for some ten minutes, which Holmes suddenly broke with the words, “I take it that you have remarked a certain flow?”

  “I fail to take your meaning.”

  “Surely it is obvious. Montpensier is now in considerably straitened circumstances compared to the last time that we encountered her. That fine house in Reigate is now let to strangers, and she is currently resident in a neighbourhood and surroundings representing several social steps down from those to which she was accustomed in the past. On the other hand, our friend Clifford has risen from the security of a small suburban practice to the status of a Harley-street specialist. This last requires a considerable sum of money. Your conclusions?”