by Nick Kyme
“I did not leave the house for several weeks after her arrival. During the first few days, she said little and ate furtively, but I learned she spoke good English in spite of her apparent dishevelment. Our conversations, if they could be called such, were brief at first, but by the end of the first week I had gained her trust and she mine.”
Graves paused to lick his lips. “If I am to give you the story entire, and since you have me a prisoner in my own home, might I trouble you for some water?” he asked, gesturing to a decanter sitting on a low table in the corner.
I confess my mood towards Graves softened a little at this point, as he seemed to cast off the mantle of idle dilettante. It did not excuse him for his complicity in the crimes, through inaction or otherwise, but I did not regard him with the same contempt as I once had.
I poured a glass of water and, once refreshed, Graves continued.
“She had travelled from Russia several weeks before, sailing across the Baltic and the North Sea until reaching England. Hailing from Pushkin, she told me of how she used to visit Saint Petersburg in the winter with her parents. Irina has many passions, Mr Holmes.” I caught a wistful look in Graves’s eye at this remark. “She painted, beautiful vistas of Alexandrinsky Square in the snow and the Alexandrinsky Theatre. I have been to Russia, but her descriptions of her native land and her paintings made it seem magical. She has a gift.”
“Was it the tale or the teller you found so alluring?” I asked.
“In truth, Doctor, I think it both, though I will freely confess she captivated me with her beauty and her courage in the face of such suffering. And this she painted too, the images entirely darker and less optimistic.”
“The Undying Man,” said Holmes.
“Amongst the others you see here,” said Graves, his mood turning grim. “When I found her that night, she was half starved and still fearful of a man she had left behind, despite the ocean between them.”
“The velikiy kniaz.”
“Your Russian does you credit, Mr Holmes,” said Graves with a wry smile.
“I only dabble. Your mastery of the tongue is far more accomplished.”
“One of many things Irina has improved in me. She learns quickly, a desire and aptitude for study having been instilled in her by her parents.”
“So, to the grand duke then,” said Holmes, “I assume he was the man she fled Russia to escape? You found her and took pity. I believe you love her, Mr Graves. Even though I consider it an impediment to reason, I am not blind to how it can turn men and women against their better natures.”
“At first I saw myself as her guardian, but our feelings blossomed over time and grew deeper.”
I frowned, for the notion struck me as unsettling and inappropriate. Holmes barely paused and went on. “Having heard her story, you took her under your wing but knew you could not keep her here forever, for such a situation would invite scandal and attention that even you would not wish upon yourself, and so you found a boarding school in the hope that she would find education and contentment there. You lied about her age. You even paid a generous stipend, knowing the school was in dire straits and likely to acquiesce to your needs, in order to keep her enrolment quiet and hidden under a false identity.”
“The young woman known as Letitia Irwin,” said I.
“Quite so, Watson,” said Holmes, before turning his attention back to Graves. “But you had not reckoned on the harshness of Mrs Sidley, though I believe this was merely an exacerbating factor and not causational. Irina had learned of the grand duke’s visit through you, had she not? The man she had fled had come to these shores at last.”
Graves nodded. “It was just over a month ago. I found out from an old family friend, and though I knew the pain it would cause, I could not keep it from her and so I visited the school. It stirred something within Irina, a desire for revenge.”
“You knew of her plan to kill Mrs Sidley?”
“Irina told me of her cruelty, and it was all she could do to prevent me from taking my anger out on the woman. I suspected then she would do something. She wanted to leave the school but not until she had meted out her revenge. I came for her the day after her tormentor met her end, and we returned to London. I had made arrangements for her to stay at Church Row, at her behest, as you already know. Her work on the paintings began soon after, though I maintained a studio for her here.
“An anger had awoken in her, Mr Holmes, one I felt powerless to abate. She was driven, obsessed. Yet even if I could, I would not have turned her from the course she had set upon.”
“You think murder is just then, do you Graves?” I said, my jaw clenched.
He turned his cold blue eyes upon me. “In his case, it is just, for there is no fouler man than Grand Duke Konstantin. He will suffer, just as the others have suffered.”
“As the thirty-seven innocents suffered at the Grayson Gallery?” I said, fighting to keep my anger in check.
Grayson offered no sign of remorse.
“Torture and penance…” said Holmes, and again I was reminded of the Undying Man. “First the teacher, then a mass murder at the Grayson Gallery, though there was but one intended victim, a man by the name of Reginald Dunbar. But like Irina Laznovna, he sought to escape his Russian heritage, having once been Pavel Zyuganov, a lawyer formerly in the grand duke’s employ.”
Graves’s eyes raised a little at this, though Holmes still sought confirmation. “Is that the case, sir?”
Graves nodded. “Yes, you have the right of it, and for his part in this his fate was well deserved.”
“On then to the manservant, Grigori Andropov, who was slain out of necessity. A rare upset in the murderous plan, for he recognised her that day on Regent Street when the grand duke was with his son. He followed her, but his tenacity proved his undoing, waiting for her instead of returning to his master, to make sure that she was the girl he believed her to be. It had been several years after all, and she would likely have changed in appearance. Again, there is a gap in my understanding, but suffice it to say, whatever the connection, Irina Laznovna killed him for it.
“Who is the grand duke to her, Graves? I ask for the full truth of it,” Holmes warned, “and I shall have it, sir.”
“You will not hear it from me,” Graves said. “I won’t betray Irina. The rest is hers to tell, though I doubt you’ll ever get to hear the story.”
“Oh, and why is that?” asked Holmes.
“Because Konstantin will be dead and Irina long gone before you even get close.”
“Is that so, sir,” I said, my anger flaring anew. “Her poisoned painting will never reach the grand duke.”
Graves smiled venomously and despite myself, I felt a sudden chill.
“What poison?”
Quite taken off guard by his remark, I saw the glass and heard Holmes’s warning too late. A blur of movement caught my eye, the low light reflecting off the glass I myself had given Graves in good faith as it sped through the air. Then came a sharp, staggering pain in my left temple and a sudden flare of heat. I fell to my knees and dropped the sabre from nerveless fingers. Graves did not reach for it, instead taking to his heels and racing back down the stairs.
I went to follow him, but almost stumbled and would have fallen face first had Holmes not caught me. Holmes dabbed the side of my head with his handkerchief, and it came away bloody.
“Can you stand, Watson?” he asked, and made no effort to hide the concern in his voice.
I gave a weary nod, dazed like a punch-drunk pugilist. “Be careful, Holmes,” I said, as my companion helped me lean against the doorway, then hared off after Graves.
“Fear not, Doctor…” he called back to me, already halfway down the stairs.
I watched him disappear, but when I saw he had left the sabre behind I became terrified at the thought of my friend facing Graves alone and unarmed. Mercifully, Holmes returned a few moments later.
“As I suspected,” he said, “the impending threat of the law ha
s seen Graves on his way.”
“We must get after him, Holmes,” I replied, my voice groggy.
“Don’t worry, Watson. I have a feeling we have not seen the last of him,” said Holmes. He put his arm under mine and we descended together. “Now, I must ask you, Doctor: can you walk unaided and find your way to Scotland Yard? It is beyond time that we alerted the authorities.” He quickly checked his pocket watch.
“Of course, Holmes,” said I, still a little unsteady but my composure returning with the urgency of our task. “But what of you?”
“There is time enough yet before the gala performance. We might not know precisely what Miss Lasnovna has planned, poisoned painting or not, but we can take no chance. I shall make my way to the Royal Opera House and keep an eye out. It might be wise for you to fetch your revolver from our lodgings, though I dearly hope we do not end up having need of it.”
“I shall do so, Holmes. Will you warn the grand duke?”
“I should think not, Watson. If we are to trap our murderess, we must let her plan proceed but only to a point. Besides, we have yet to determine the precise nature of the threat posed and from what we know of Konstantin, he is unlikely to be put off by the mere supposition of danger. No, we must let it play on for a while yet. I am not enamoured with the idea, Watson, but I am certain it is the best course.”
As he made to leave, I gripped his arm. “For God’s sake, Holmes, do be careful. Graves meant to murder you, I think, and we know she has killed before.”
“Rest assured, old friend,” Holmes replied, “I shall take every precaution. I will not act until you and Inspector Gregson are on the premises. I shall observe, and nothing more.”
We left the house as quickly as we had arrived, my senses all the better for being out in the London air. We saw no sign of Graves and with Hobbers having been dismissed some time ago we had no way of knowing where he had gone, though I suspected he would not be far from Irina Laznovna.
“I think he might try and warn the girl, Holmes,” I said.
“It’s highly probable, Watson, for he has formed quite the attachment to her it would seem. I would not let it concern you, though. The plan is too close to completion for either of them to countenance abandoning it now.”
“Which means the threat to the grand duke is as great as ever.”
“Only the apprehension of Miss Laznovna can put that to rest, I fear,” Holmes replied, peering up and down the street.
“What do you think he meant, Holmes, back in the house when he questioned the poisoned painting?” I asked. “I think it highly unlikely Graves would be attending the gala if there was a risk to his life, but can we rule it out entirely? What if Miss Laznovna has some other use in mind for the painting, one we are ill-prepared to counter?”
Holmes scowled. “Whatever the case, Watson, we must obtain that painting to remove any possible threat. But I curse myself for a fool, and for a fact overlooked. I shall say no more now, for I see two cabs approaching and we would do well to take them, but I dare rule nothing out. Be as swift as you can, Watson,” he added, leaping aboard the first hansom as it pulled up, the second only a yard or two behind. “There is little time to lose.” My companion gave a theatrical wave from the window of his hansom before the driver cracked the whip and he was on his way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
GREGSON RALLIES THE TROOPS
Reaching our lodgings, I did not tarry, fairly running up the stairs much to Mrs Hudson’s alarm. I retrieved my service revolver, which I hastily stuffed into my jacket pocket before I was off again.
“Doctor, you’re bleeding!” I heard our landlady call after me as I shot out through the door.
“Just a scratch, Mrs Hudson,” I replied, not wishing to worry her. “Quite careless, really. Good evening!”
I dashed back to my waiting hansom and willed my head to stop spinning quite so fiercely. I slipped the driver an extra shilling to show the beasts the lash and we hurtled with all haste to Scotland Yard, the violent rattling of the carriage doing much to exacerbate my growing headache. I was pleased to see that Inspector Gregson was back from the country and was discussing some matter with the desk sergeant as I burst in through the main entrance.
“Ah, the elusive Dr John Watson,” uttered Gregson upon my arrival, his manner insouciant, “and where might your friend Sherlock Holmes be? I have a fair bit to discuss with him since he sent me off to Cambridgeshire with barely a word of explanation. What am I to make of it all, I ask—” He hesitated, caught short in his tirade as soon as he noticed my injury. “Good heavens, Doctor, what happened?”
I told him everything I knew, for I saw no need or value in keeping the inspector in the dark any longer. We had reached the end of it, this whole sorry business, and Holmes and I would need every ally if we were to prevail.
Tobias Gregson, whilst often brash and overly bullish, is a good and diligent man. He listened carefully to my account, his face betraying no emotion whatsoever but I could tell he heeded every detail. Occasionally, he would ask a question for the purposes of clarity, but for the most part allowed me to divulge all I knew. If he thought anything of the few legal “irregularities” Holmes and I had been forced to commit, such as keeping much of our investigation from the police as well as breaking and entering, then he made no mention of it, and I was once again reminded of the man’s pragmatism and general common sense, qualities that set him above a great many of his contemporaries at Scotland Yard.
When I was done Gregson merely nodded, closed his notebook and summoned a cohort of constables to his side.
“And this man, Graves you say, he is still at large?” he asked as we left Scotland Yard mob-handed.
“Regrettably, he fled our custody.”
“After the assault on your person, Doctor?”
“Yes, although Holmes believes he is likely bound for the Royal Opera House.”
Gregson nodded, his expression stern, and I realised he felt personally affronted by the injury done to me. After all, I suppose my companion and I were upholders of justice, if only the “reserves” as Holmes would occasionally put it. An attack on one was an attack on all, at least so it appeared judging by Gregson’s mood.
He rallied his constables, a general addressing his troops. “We make all haste to Bow Street. Look lively now!”
* * *
Two sturdy growlers and a Black Maria awaited us on the corner of Whitehall Place as we left Scotland Yard. The evening had turned grey since I had first arrived, clouds gathering in earnest over the City of London threatening rain, and I wondered if this was an omen. The heavily muscled beasts who would draw our carriages, bright-eyed and dark-maned in the gloom, felt it too, I think, scraping at the ground with their fore hooves, impatient to be away.
As the constables climbed aboard the carriages, Gregson loudly declared the dangerousness of the criminals being sought but that he expected nothing less than their swift apprehension.
“Dr Watson,” he said to me, catching my arm before I took my place in one of the carriages, “are you sure you wish to accompany us, given that knock you’ve taken to your skull? There’d be no shame in it and none here would think any the less of you.”
I patted him on the shoulder, genuinely moved by the concern, but shook my head. “I am as well as can be expected, Inspector, and shall see justice done.”
“Very well, Doctor,” he replied, before bellowing for the remaining men to mount up.
Gregson and I, along with two constables, sat in the first cab with three further officers in the second and two more in the police wagon.
During our journey, I learned his own enquiries had come to naught, directed, as they were, at poor Edmund Garret. Bereft of other suspects, Gregson had pursued the unfortunate gallery assistant quite doggedly but had achieved nothing but the worsening of the man’s tremulous nature. I imagine it had been quite the ordeal for the fellow. Gregson had been nearing the point of exasperation when he had received the telegram
from Sherlock Holmes requesting he pay a visit to Saint Agatha’s School for Girls, at which point he had learned of the murder of Mrs Sidley, Irina and her association with Graves. It had been up to me to fill in the rest.
Gregson did not mention it, but I suspect he was somewhat relieved at my companion’s intervention in what now could prove to be a case of some considerable import. Gregson is not quite so brazen about it as Inspector Athelney Jones, but he is not above taking credit for the genius of Sherlock Holmes, and I believe he saw this as an opportunity to further his career. He was, however, as committed to the law as my companion and I felt confident in his ability to see justice done. He requested descriptions of both Graves and Laznovna, which I provided to the best of my ability. The girl, of course, proved rather difficult and, as Holmes and I had recently discovered, somewhat chameleonic. I briefly wondered at what fact my companion had overlooked, that which he had chastened himself so severely for back at Graves’s townhouse, but knew I had not the wit to see it if Holmes had nearly missed it. I settled instead on making Gregson aware of the painting commissioned by the Royal Opera House for the grand duke and of its potentially hazardous nature. At this, he frowned, scratching at his fair hair.
“How can a man be so threatened by a portrait, though, Doctor?”
I divulged the discovery by Holmes of the hydrogen cyanide on the painting at the Grayson Gallery.
Gregson raised his eyebrows at this. “Truly horrifying, Doctor, but I cannot see how such a travesty could happen again.”
I did not know either, but as Holmes had said, we could take no chances. Anything could go awry, and I did not believe Irina Laznovna would leave anything to chance where the grand duke’s demise was concerned. I said none of this to Gregson, however, and merely reiterated that Holmes had instructed the painting found and carefully dealt with to remove any and all doubt, to which Gregson grudgingly conceded.
My head throbbed viciously as the carriage rattled along, and I thought I might have erred in coming along with the inspector after all, but as the Royal Opera House came into sight, the pain abated, dulled by a sense of righteous purpose.
