by George Mann
After we had left Mr Duncan in the care of Mr Trenor, Mr Holmes and I hurried back to the cottage. Right on time, as we reached the front door, we heard footsteps approaching behind us. We turned to find Lillian, holding up her light, and in the distance, Dr Watson.
If I had questioned or doubted that Lillian was guilty, I didn’t now. Her face was full of masked worry, and I could smell the fear coming off her like a trapped rat.
“Where’s the child in the woods?” I asked.
“There was no child,” she responded, staring at Mr Holmes. “He made it up.”
“What?”
“May we speak with you inside, Mrs Eade?” Mr Holmes asked.
“My husband is resting from a broken leg. I’d appreciate it if—”
“I know. I’ve already met him.”
Lillian’s eyes flashed. “You have?”
Mr Holmes pushed the front door of Lillian’s cottage open.
“That door was locked,” Lillian said. “If you’ve been inside my property I’m calling the police!”
“The police will be called, Mrs Eade. As to when, you may decide. Shall we?” Mr Holmes gestured to the cottage.
For a moment, it looked as if Lillian might run.
“We’ve already spoken to Duncan,” Mr Holmes said. “Your husband is waiting for you.”
Lillian strode into the cottage. “I don’t want to disturb my husband,” she said, and went upstairs and closed the door to her husband’s room, assuring him that she had guests and would be back. When she returned downstairs, Mr Holmes placed an empty bottle of laudanum on the kitchen table.
Lillian and Mr Holmes locked gazes and never had I seen a stronger clash. Beneath her calm exterior I could sense the bubbles boiling and felt that she might lash out at him at any moment.
“Laudanum,” he said. “A potent narcotic, administered carefully, though perhaps without difficulty if you knew your chemistry. One dose administered to staff and one for children to create immediate sleepiness after dinner. That way you could move freely in the dormitories, lifting a drugged child, and guide him or her downstairs to the back of this very cottage. Miss de Merville, what did we see under Charles Eade’s bed this evening?”
Lillian’s snake-like eyes glided to me and I met her gaze head on.
“Chalk,” I said. “Boxes and boxes of chalk and a bowl full of the stuff, crushed. There were also pipettes and empty beakers and flasks.”
“Utensils to measure dosages and chalk to whiten the drugged child to give them the appearance of a ghost. Behind this cottage you would powder the child with chalk, before bringing him or her to the cliff edge. Timed with Mr Duncan’s attic movements, your targeted victim would be awakened by a loud noise, and in their drugged state be induced to look upon the cliff edge by the voice of the ghost, where you would hide just below, on a protruding rock, with a rope tied around your waist and around the child’s.
“You would then either hide the drugged child on the rock underneath while you returned here to the cottage in case you were summoned, or lead the child down the cliff to the riverbank. Along the riverbank, not far from here there is a rowing boat tied to a tree. There are hoof marks and large and small footprints in the grass. Most noticeably, on the rope and in the boat, is soot and sooty fingerprints. You stole these children and practically gave them away to someone who would put them to work as chimney sweeps.”
I closed my eyes. “You didn’t, Lillian.” I didn’t want to believe Holmes’s words but I knew they were true. When I opened my eyes and looked at Lillian her face was livid.
“Who was the man you sold them to?” Holmes asked.
Lillian didn’t respond, merely clenched her fists.
“Who was the man? Otherwise I may go upstairs, and ask Charles, as he is a chimney sweep—”
“Jack Barnell,” Lillian replied through gritted teeth.
I glanced at Dr Watson. He was making notes in a small notepad.
“But there is no fortune in selling children as we have an abundance of them and you know this, Lillian, which is why you didn’t take these children and create this spectacle for money. As we know from this—” From his inner coat pocket Mr Holmes took out some pieces of paper and passed them to me.
I saw a page ripped out of the accounts we had seen in Lillian’s office earlier that day, and also some goods receipts and bills of exchange. One of the bills was for repair work following the fire in the kitchen.
“These are forged documents,” Holmes stated. “The hand and ink used in the accounts book wrote these receipts and bills of exchange. They’re fake, forged by Lillian, and she’s pocketed the money. All of these were fabricated after the death of the Harlingdons.”
“You heartless man!” Lillian spat.
“Heartless?” I said. “Was it not heartless when you sent those children off to a life they didn’t want? When you snatched them from their beds?”
“He thinks he knows everything but really he knows nothing about any of this.”
“I’m merely expounding your criminality to Miss de Merville, Mrs Eade, which is what she hired me to do. Unless, of course, you’d like to explain it to her yourself?”
Lillian pursed her lips in anger.
“I thought so,” Holmes said. “And here we have the final piece to our puzzle.”
From his coat pocket Mr Holmes withdrew a small framed sketch and handed it to me. It was a family portrait of a husband and wife, holding a baby.
“I think you should hand it to Lillian.”
I frowned but did as Holmes requested. That sharp icy wall Lillian had put up suddenly melted away as her eyes fell on the picture and she clutched it with a sudden surge of emotion. She looked up at Mr Holmes. “Where did you get this from?”
“William Pearson, your relieving officer. After I climbed down the cliff this morning and followed the trail to the small boat and the Avonmouth Docks. I was able to take a cab to Clifton High Street. His office is quite small. I learnt a lot of things from visiting William Pearson. He’s a very meticulous man. He’s been with the committee for twenty years and has kept a record of everything from receipts, to salaries paid to staff, to visits to the orphanage. He had this picture on his wall, and was happy to tell me that it was of Gregory and Margaret Harlingdon, and the baby: Lillian Harlingdon. It was drawn while Margaret was pregnant.”
I looked at her. Tears were streaming silently down her face. She did not look up at us, but kept staring at the picture, staring at her mother.
“I don’t know many employees who keep sketches of their employers framed on their walls but the way he spoke about Margaret, your mother, well, it became very clear very quickly. They were childhood friends, and she was the reason he took the job in the first place and despite her being married, throughout 1881 he came to Harlingdon almost every other day. When I asked him the date of Margaret Harlingdon’s death he said effortlessly, ‘5th December 1882. Lillian’s birthday.’ His visits dramatically decreased after her death. He said that everything that happened to Lillian wouldn’t have happened if Margaret had been alive. If she had had a mother.”
“So Gregory Harlingdon married Margaret first,” I said, “and had Lillian. But then when did he meet my Aunt Penny?”
“At least a year later. They met on a trip he made to London.”
“How do you know this?”
“William Pearson. Is he wrong, Lillian?” Holmes asked her, but she lifted her tear-filled eyes and didn’t respond.
“So my aunt and Gregory had a daughter called Anna?” I asked quietly.
“And Gregory’s perfect family was complete,” Mr Holmes said. “As we’ve heard from Duncan, and I from Mr Pearson, Lillian was cast aside, blamed for the death of her mother in childbirth and Gregory wanted nothing to do with her.”
“Now, Holmes,” Watson spoke up, “I know that she’s a criminal—”
“It’s alright,” Lillian’s voice rang out. She sank to the floor, still grasping the picture
frame, and looked up at us. “Please continue, Mr Holmes.”
“And so this young girl was placed in a room away from the rest of her family: the room in the kitchen where Marie now resides. And throughout her whole adolescence she grew up alone and isolated, always second to Anna, and Penny. It was only the staff members, the teachers, Mr Duncan and Mr Pearson, who secretly disapproved of Gregory’s treatment of his daughter and took it upon themselves to care for her instead.
“One summer a young chimney sweep called Charles Eade came to work in the orphanage and struck up a friendship with Lillian. Friendship blossomed into romance and the two of them fell in love. Unfortunately, Gregory Harlingdon found out and disapproved of the union, thinking that the low-born Charles only wanted to marry Lillian for her inheritance. Gregory threatened Lillian, saying that if she married Charles she would never see a shilling of Harlingdon money. He sacked Charles and Lillian left with him. According to Charles, Mr Pearson paid for your wedding?” Holmes addressed Lillian.
She nodded. “And Mr Duncan walked me down the aisle.”
“Lillian worked as a teacher and Charles as a chimney sweep, but when he fell and broke his leg badly they couldn’t survive on Lillian’s income alone. At the same time there was an influenza outbreak at the orphanage. Lillian had no choice; even though she hated it here, she had to come back. And when she arrived—”
“Anna was dying,” came Lillian’s faint voice. “Father and Penny were dead. Finally, finally, they had got their comeuppance. Justice had been served and I, as the firstborn daughter of Gregory and Margaret Harlingdon, would inherit what was rightfully mine. But I did not realise until after Anna died that they hated me so much as to ensure that I would not get a single piece of either of their fortunes, that all of it would go to Anna, entailed thereafter to her uncle, General de Merville. I could not let them win. Their dream to create a legacy… the name Harlingdon… all their work, their charitable deeds, their accolades were hypocritical in their treatment of me. And if I wasn’t going to have Harlingdon, then no one would.” She smiled sadly. “Well. If you hadn’t shown up, Mr Holmes.”
“You wanted to ruin your parents’ legacy and take everything you could in the process.”
“In my shoes, wouldn’t you have done the same? Please, Violet,” she looked to me and then to Holmes and Watson. “Give me one more night to tell my husband. He doesn’t know.”
“Miss de Merville?” Holmes turned to me.
“The police will be called first thing tomorrow morning,” I said.
“Thank you,” she breathed in relief.
“Dr Watson, please could you find two teachers who will stand guard outside the cottage tonight.”
“Of course, Miss de Merville.” Watson slightly bowed at me before exiting the cottage.
“Is it true you’re with child?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Where will we find the missing children?”
“Across country homes in Gloucester.”
“And Jack Barnell?”
“Tomorrow night. He expects me then.”
“Lillian,” I said. She looked at me. “If I’d have known, I would’ve given Harlingdon to you.”
Her face crumpled and I had to turn away.
“Mr Holmes,” I said, “your work here is done.”
He nodded. “Very well, Miss de Merville. Watson and I will return to London on the last train tonight.”
Watson returned with Mr Ardham and the porter, who had agreed to stand guard. Then Mr Holmes, Watson and I returned to the orphanage. I thanked both gentlemen profusely and told them to name their price as this was the second time they had helped me. We said our goodbyes and they left to walk to Clifton where they’d be able to catch a cab to the station.
I slept in the master’s bedroom that night, strangely unable to shake off the feeling that Lillian going to prison was wrong.
* * *
The next morning I was going to call the police when I discovered that the cottage was empty except for the porter and Mr Ardham, who were lying on the floor insensible. They’d been drugged with laudanum. Mr Duncan too had escaped and when I asked Mr Trenor he said he couldn’t help falling asleep. The police were still looking for them.
As Lillian had said, that night Jack Barnell was caught and arrested. Fourteen out of the fifteen children that were kidnapped were recovered; the fifteenth had died in a chimney accident. This left me with mixed feelings about the whole affair.
I sold the property to a philanthropist on the condition that he would keep Harlingdon as an orphanage and I returned readily back into my London life and society.
Even in London, I still thought about Lillian Harlingdon occasionally, more so her child, and hoped that he or she would have a better life than their mother had.
THE NOBLE BURGLAR
James Lovegrove
You should never dare me. I’m not saying that as a warning; I’m saying it as a plea. I’m begging you not to dare me, because I’m rash and bullheaded enough to go through with the dare, come what may. For instance, one afternoon at a pub, my editor at Titan Books, Miranda Jewess, dared me to write a story for this anthology that would spotlight Toby, the ugly but redoubtable sniffer dog who plays a significant role in The Sign of Four. “A Sherlock Holmes story told from a dog’s point of view?” I said to myself. “Absurd! Can’t be done! Only a crazy person would try.” And lo and behold…
—James Lovegrove
Marking my Territory: Doorstep of 3 Pinchin Lane, Lambeth
Yes, it’s me. Toby, of Pinchin Lane. My master is Mr Sherman, the taxidermist and menagerie keeper. This is our house, which lies near the river in a street full of identical two-storeyed houses. Number 3. Smells of fouling and sawdust inside. Every kind of animal lives there, from snakes to stoats, cats to cormorants, some in cages, the rest roaming free – those as Mr Sherman hasn’t eviscerated and turned into sawdust-stuffed statues, that is. There’s even a giant rat that he tells his customers he imported from a distant land called Sumatra but I reckon comes from no further afield than the banks of the Thames.
Not a bad man, my Mr Sherman, as they go. Has a temper on him, fond of a drink, but he’s kind enough to me, especially when I’ve earned him a bob or two, as I did just last week.
The tale attached to that piece of profit is still fresh in me and I’ll be giving it out in dribs and drabs while Mr Sherman takes me for a walk around the neighbourhood. Follow the trail and you’ll catch the lot.
The leash is on. Front door locked. Off we go.
* * *
First Instalment: Corner of Pinchin Lane and Park Street
It began, as my best exploits do, with the arrival of a certain person by the name of Sherlock Holmes. I always know when Mr Holmes pays a call that there’s adventure afoot, and I get fair excitable at the prospect. Wouldn’t you? Nothing compares with being useful to good humans, not least if it involves bringing bad humans to justice.
I knew he was coming. I smelled him a mile off. That coarse tobacco he likes to smoke. His clothes reek of it. Hangs around him like a brown haze.
His friend Dr Watson was with him, too. Nice fellow. Smells warm, like gunpowder and old leather. They always go around in a pair, a pack of two. Mr Holmes is the alpha, but only by a small margin.
Well, as is my wont I became agitated when I caught wind of them approaching. Whined and danced, such that Mr Sherman fetched me a couple of kicks and snarled, “Pipe down, you mangy mongrel!” But I couldn’t pipe down. I pawed at the front door, whimpering. He soon got the drift.
“Company we’re expecting, is it?” said he. “And would it by any chance be a famous consulting detective and his faithful companion?” He licked his palm and neatened down the fur on his head, then straightened his collar. A bottle of something cheap but potent was swigged from and stowed away.
Then came the sharp rap at the door, and in stepped the aforementioned two gentlemen.
* * *
S
econd Instalment: Railings on Park Street
Mr Holmes immediately bent down and proffered me the back of his hand to sniff. Once I’d wagged my tail to show him I accepted him on my home territory, he ruffled my ears, just the way a dog likes it.
Dr Watson was a bit more circumspect around me. He wasn’t that way when we first met, but since then something has happened to make him mistrust our species. Once, a couple of years back, I caught a whiff off him, such as belonged to an enormous hound from somewhere out in the countryside. That beast had been trained to kill humans, which is a wrong thing if ever there was one, and, if I’m not much mistaken, it had pursued Mr Holmes and Dr Watson with a view to causing them grievous harm. Dr Watson has not forgotten that. I have tried every time to reassure him that I am friendly and would never so much as growl at him, let alone bare my fangs, but he remains hard to convince.
Mr Holmes slipped me a morsel of dried beef from a pocket of his overcoat. It was gone down my gullet in a heartbeat. Delicious!
Then it was down to brass tacks.
“Mr Sherman, I require the loan of Toby once again.”
“Of course, Mr Holmes, of course. Wery happy to oblige. Usual rates apply, eh?”
Money changed hands, and in no time I was on the leash with Mr Holmes at the other end.
“Now, Toby, you look after these gents,” my master said, patting me on the head. “Use that magnificent nose of yours to track down another willain. He’s knocking on a bit,” he confided to Mr Holmes, as though I couldn’t hear. “Eleven’s a ripe old age for a dog. But he still doesn’t miss a step, does Toby. His powers haven’t dimmed, not one jot.”
Mr Sherman is only free with the compliments when there are customers to be impressed, but I don’t mind. Praise is praise.
I strained at the leash, impatient to get going.
Mr Holmes took the hint and we were off.
