by Ashton, Hugh
“You’re referring to Doctor Clifford, I take it?” asked Holmes.
“Indeed I am, sir. It was a sorry day for my mistress and for young Miss Annabel when he first came to the house.”
“Did he come as a doctor, or as a friend of the family?”
“To start with, he came as a doctor, to treat Miss Annabel, who was suffering from a cough. He was charming enough, and Miss Annabel took to him. Soon he was visiting, and before long he was a sort of suitor. but I have something to show you, sir. Madame wrote this letter and gave it to me, and told me to give it to someone I could trust if she was to pass away. I can see that you are a good man, sir, you and the doctor both, and I want you to have it. It will explain things better than ever I can.” She reached into the pocket of her apron, and extracted a large envelope of stiff cream-coloured paper, sealed, and addressed on the front in a large florid hand, “To the Police, or Whomsoever It May Concern”.
Holmes accepted this letter from her with thanks, and passed it to me. “Thank you, Hannah. As you know, your mistress is unlikely to survive the day.” He said the last gravely and in a tone of great sadness, which robbed the words of any possible harshness or callousness. “In your opinion, are we permitted to open this and read it now?”
“As you think best, sir. But I hope you will excuse me if I do not stay to listen if you read it. It would be like listening to her voice, and it would pain me to hear her words.”
“I understand completely,” said Holmes in a tone of great sympathy, rising, and assisting the woman to her feet. “Your loyalty and feelings do you great credit.”
When she had left the room and the door had closed behind her, Holmes passed the envelope to me. “Please read it, Watson,” he instructed me. I will be intrigued to learn how closely this account corresponds to my deductions so far.”
I picked up a letter-opener, and extracted a thick sheaf, consisting of many sheets of heavy cream paper, covered in writing in the same hand that had penned the address on the envelope, and began reading.
-oOo-
“It is dated only one week ago,” I began. “And it starts almost as if it were a legal document. ‘I, Louise Marie Montpensier, formerly married to one Richard Stevens, and more recently to one Thomas Richards, also known as Ferdinand Colethorpe, who was recently executed at Pentonville Prison for the supposed murder of my step-daughter, Miss Annabel Stevens, do hereby make a complete and true statement regarding the events that occurred at my house in Reigate some six months ago. I do this in order that others may learn of the wickedness of others, and may bring them to justice, as well as to make my own conscience clear of the sins that I have committed.’ Strong stuff here, Holmes.”
“Proceed,” he commanded, his eyes half-closed in that curious hooded expression of his.
“ ‘I wish to tell of the perfidy of two men in particular as well as of my own involvement in this ghastly business, which I have come to regret with my whole being. The first of these men is my late husband, whom I knew and married as Ferdinand Colethorpe, and whose real name was Thomas Richards. As I discovered through the employment of a private investigative agent, I was not his only wife, but he had been married previously and still maintained a second family in London. This explained to me his lengthy absences, but did not provide me with a satisfactory reason why he had contracted a marriage with me. However, I suspected that the money that had been left to my step-daughter Annabel, the child of my first husband, and whom I loved as if she had been my own offspring, .
“ ‘At the time of my marriage to this man, a new servant, Sarah Nolan by name, entered our household, and it was plain to me that she was in some way the creature of my husband. Even had I not intercepted letters and messages that he wrote to her, I would have suspected some relationship between them. On the rare occasions when he graced our house, he was often to be seen in conversation with her. For this, of course, there was no need, since I was responsible for the management of the household. Indeed, it was the content of these letters that caused me to set a detective on his trail.’ It is is a thousand pities, Holmes, that she did not consult you on the matter. I am sure your wisdom would have spared us the tragedies that have unfolded.”
“I doubt if that would be the case,” he replied. “In any event, the tracing of missing husbands, or even the discovery of additional spouses, is a line of work in which I do not wish to be engaged.” He waved a seemingly languorous hand. “Continue.”
“ ‘Annabel was a sensitive child, and possessed of a fertile imagination. From childhood she had engaged in writing works of fiction—at first merely childish pieces of inventive nonsense, but as she matured, so did her writing, and one day she shyly confessed to me that she had written a novel of romantic longings. I read through the notebook in which she had written it, and it seemed to me that she had written well. In an unguarded moment, I was foolish enough to show it to Richards, who immediately gave the appearance of being entranced by it, and congratulated Annabel on its production.
“ ‘Little did I know at the time the foul use to which he was to put the delicate product of my dear Annabel’s imagination, but I was soon to discover it. The darling girl had written a passage in which the heroine is frightened by a prowler outside her window, and she fears that she has been poisoned. It was this, I am sure, that gave Richards his deadly idea.
“ ‘Of course, by reading the letters that he sent to the maid Sarah Nolan, I was well aware of the plot to implicate me in my darling’s death, including the substitution of the sugar jar with another similar jar containing poison. Of course, I was unable to read her replies, but I could guess at their content by what Richards wrote to her. I had warned Annabel never to drink her cocoa under any circumstances, whether it was I or the maid who had prepared it, but I was unsure how to proceed.
“ ‘Now I come to the other villain of the story—Dr. Henry Clifford. Annabel had developed a severe cough, and on my sending for a doctor, it was this man who answered the call. He appeared to be a pleasant enough young physician, and Annabel’s cough was soon cured, thanks to the attention he paid to her and her illness. Indeed, he seemed to pay an inordinate amount of attention to her—more than would seem warranted by her being a mere patient of his—and at that time I had no objection to his doing so. He seemed to believe at that time that when Annabel married, the fortune that my beloved Richard Stevens had left for her in trust would become hers upon marriage (though there was a condition attached to this, unknown to him, which I will explain below), but I saw no harm in encouraging his attentions. I was mistaken in this, however, as I will explain later.
“ ‘As the romance (for I can term it by no other name) between Annabel and Clifford developed, I perceived that it appeared to be more on one side than the other.
“ ‘ “What is wrong?” I asked Annabel.
“ ‘ “I cannot tell exactly, Mama.” (for so she called me, though I am but her step-mother) “But I do not feel that Dr. Clifford and I are fated to be married.”
“ ‘ “What nonsense!” I replied. “He is as fine a husband as you could hope to meet in a lifetime.”
“ ‘ “I have heard stories,” she told me, “about his cruelty to animals. I believe that he gambles on the the lives of rats being killed by dogs.”
“ ‘Naturally, I was horrified by what she told me, and did not credit that it could be true, but on enquiring of Hannah, my faithful maid, as to whether any rumours of such behaviour were currently circulating (for Hannah has a facility of discovering these things) I discovered that Annabel’s fears were well grounded. Clifford’s treatment of his dogs was apparently notorious, as were the tales of his rat-killing escapades. There was one story which sickened me, regarding the treatment of a carter’s donkey, and that alone, even if there had been no more, was enough to decide me that under no circumstances was he to become Annabel’s husband. When I taxed him with these stories, and informed him that he would no longer be considered as a suitor for her hand if
he continued in these practices, I could see his jaw clench, and his face change to an expression of suppressed fury, but he told me that though some of the stories I had heard had some basis in truth, they were exaggerations of the facts, and that his activities of that type were now a thing of the past. However, in the coming weeks I heard from Hannah that he had not ceased these loathsome pastimes, and that indeed, their frequency had increased.’ “
“It would come as no surprise to me,” Holmes broke in, “if we were to discover that these tortures of animals were in some way connected with poison—a subject in which we know that he has some experience, if not outright expertise.”
“It would seem possible,” I agreed.
“At any rate, continue with your reading. Light is beginning to break, and I believe I now know the true story.”
“Very well. ‘I now had to make plans to help Annabel escape from the clutches of both men. This was going to take all the ingenuity of which I was capable, and it took me many days of thought before I came up with a plan which would kill the two birds with a single stone. In my younger days, I had played in Shakespeare’s drama of Romeo and Juliet, and it was from that play that my final plan took its shape. I advised Annabel to conceal her true feelings regarding Clifford, and to encourage him in his belief that his feelings towards her were reciprocated. I informed him of the condition of the will that I mentioned above—that is, that the money that was left to Annabel would come to her only on her marriage to a Catholic, and asked him, being certain in advance of his answer, whether he was prepared to accept this condition. He refused absolutely to countenance such an idea, swearing that he was a freethinker, and unable to believe in such nonsense, as he termed it.
“ ‘I asked him whether he truly wished to marry Annabel, but under somewhat different circumstances, and he protested that he did. I therefore proposed to him a plan—“
“I have it!” Holmes exclaimed, sitting up with a jerk from his near-prone position into which he had reclined during my recitation. “It is the mention of the tale of the Montagus and the Capulets that has stirred my brain into action. Allow me to expound my analysis, and you may tell me if I am correct as you read on. Montpensier suggested to Clifford that he marry the step-daughter, but Miss Stevens was to disappear and to assume a different name, and Montpensier would ensure that Stevens’ money would be paid to her and hence to him upon his marriage to her under this name. To enable Miss Stevens to disappear, she proposed that the girl would be dosed with a drug, provided by Clifford, which would simulate death. It would be Clifford’s responsibility, as the medical adviser, to ensure that the death certificate was signed, and that the funeral proceeded without any delay or questions.”
I scanned the papers that I held in my hand. “That would seem to be correct. She adds that she had no idea that a post-mortem examination would be required, though, and that a substitute body would be necessary. Clifford seems to have made these arrangements on his own initiative, if she is to be believed.”
“Hmph. Maybe so. It is possible, at any event. However, to continue with my thesis, the instructions given to Miss Stevens were somewhat different. When the drug had ceased to take effect, she was to fly away from Reigate, out of the country, and possibly to take another identity. Why New York, and why she should take the name of Carère, as Pinkerton’s O’Neill has told me, I confess it is impossible for me to say at this point.”
I had been reading ahead in the narrative as Holmes spoke, and I confirmed what he said, adding, “It would appear that Montpensier’s sister emigrated to New York, having married a M. Carère. Annabel Stevens was to make her way to America and to take on her new identity there with her aunt.”
“Then that is clear enough,” said Holmes. “But the chief purpose of this little comedy was not to dispose of Clifford as a potential suitor—this would have been easy enough to accomplish in many different ways. He was merely a tool in her plan to dispose of her unwanted husband, Richards, or Colethorpe, as you prefer.”
“Again, that part of the matter would have been simple enough to accomplish,” I objected. “She could merely have informed the authorities of his bigamous marriage, and the rest would have fallen into place.”
“I fear that you underestimate the hate that Montpensier felt for the man,” he replied. “She is an artist, and her passions are those of one of that tribe. Her love for her step-daughter and her first husband seem to be passionate and deep-seated, do they not? Her hate for the man who had deceived her and was now plotting evil against that beloved step-daughter was just as passionate. She wanted nothing so much as to see him eliminated. And what better way could she devise than to turn his own plots and his own foul scheme against him? Since she had access to his thoughts, through her reading of the letters to his accomplice, it was easy for her to carry out the supposed murder in such a way that any investigator worthy of the name would be able to point the finger of guilt towards him.”
“And by employing you to investigate her case before even any blame had been laid at her door, she was sure to be exonerated?”
“I am sure that is the case. Have the goodness to read and tell me if I am correct.”
I scanned the pages rapidly. “Indeed so, Holmes. You appear to be perfectly correct in your assumption that the main object of the scheme was to rid herself of her bigamous husband in such a way that her revenge would be complete. Here we are. ‘It was clear to me that my innocence and Richards’ guilt should not appear too obvious. Indeed, I could see it would be to my advantage were I to be initially suspected of the crime, and then found to be innocent, and the guilt laid elsewhere. I therefore secured the services of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, whose exploits were known to me through the medium of the press.’” At this point, I stopped, and smiled.
“There is something amusing there, Watson?” Holmes enquired of me.
“Forgive me, my dear Holmes, but I cannot help but find this passage as it relates to us both to be not without its humorous side.” Without waiting for his reply, I read on. “ ‘As I had expected, I found Mr. Holmes to be an intelligent and sympathetic listener to my story, and I found it easy to convince him of my innocence in the matter, and he agreed to take on my case. Rather than his professed love of reason and logical thought, his love of music, and his sympathy for those of an artistic nature, I am sure, led him to support me in my claims. I was convinced that once he started to investigate, there would be no doubt that I would walk away publicly declared innocent of any criminal act, and that my beloved Annabel would be released to start a new life in the New World. As for his friend, Doctor Watson, though I sensed some moral disapproval from that quarter regarding my theatrical past, he struck me as the sort of man who would naturally leap to the aid of a woman in distress.”
To my surprise, Sherlock Holmes, far from taking offence at this account, threw back his head and laughed heartily. “She has us both to rights, does she not? Yes, she played me for a fool, as easily as she played that music on my violin that time, convincing me of her purity and hence of her innocence. But yet,” he reflected, “I was not wholly mistaken. Though she set and baited a trap which incorporated me, in which she was to catch her rogue of a husband, she was wronged initially. And Clifford is far from innocent, if my suspicions regarding the substitution of the body are correct, as I am almost certain they are.”
“Indeed, he is the most guilty of all,” I agreed. “It would appear that he is the only one of the party who has actually committed a murder, though Colethorpe and Nolan may have believed that they did so, through the agency of Montpensier. Allow me to read a small further passage to you. ‘I can swear,’ she continues, ‘that I had no knowledge of the foul and odious scheme that Dr. Clifford employed in the substitution of an innocent’s body for my Annabel. I confess freely that I had not considered the matter fully—that a post-mortem examination would be required, and therefore a body would be needed. I was horrified and disgusted when I was informed of this revolting busines
s, and I grieve and pray for the soul of that poor girl, who will ever remain unknown to me, who was sacrificed by this monster.’ The whole affair seems to be as you suspected, Holmes.”
“Actually, it is even more complex and involved than I had suspected,” replied he. “There are layers of deceit and trickery here which are unrivalled in my experience. I have to confess to feeling a certain admiration for the perverse ingenuity with which Montpensier extricated herself from her unwanted marriage, although I seem to have been used as a part of the plot.”
-oOo-
As we spoke, there was a knock at the door. A messenger boy asked for me by name and handed me an envelope, which I ripped open. I called to Hannah, who entered the room.
“Hannah, I have some bad news for you, I am afraid. Your mistress—“
“—she’s dead. I knew it.” She made the sign of the Cross and started to mutter a prayer. I looked at Holmes, and shook my head, in an attempt to signify that further questioning would be useless at this point.
“Hannah,” I said to her gently at a break in her prayers. “May we leave you now and come back later? Do you have a friend who will sit with you?”
“Where is she?” she asked me. “I want to be with her. And then when I have prayed and made my farewell, I want to see that devil in Hell!”
“You are referring to Dr. Clifford?”
“I am, devil that he is. You will help me, won’t you, sir?” appealing to Holmes. “I know that I may end up in trouble as well as him if you see this business through to the end, but I don’t care about that, as long as I see justice done.”
“There is no cause for you to worry about that at present. Come with us and we will take you to the hospital where you can be with your mistress,” I told her. “Holmes, let us assist Hannah.”
