The Strange Adventures of Charlotte Holmes

by Hilary Bailey

  The cat finished his Dover sole – Mary thought he had probably eaten a little more than Charlotte – and jumped down from the table. He strolled out through the french windows into the garden. ‘What do you call him?’ Mary asked.

  ‘He has a Kravonian name, but I call him Roger,’ Charlotte answered.

  There was a silence. Mary leaned forward. ‘Charlotte. Do tell me. Is something troubling you?’

  At this, Charlotte did lose her composure a little, saying only, ‘There are some matters – but I cannot tell you yet. I cannot involve you.’

  ‘Involve me?’ exclaimed Mary. ‘Charlotte – what can you mean? Are you in any trouble? Would it not be wise to telegraph Sherlock and ask his advice?’

  Charlotte looked grave, then smiled broadly. ‘I don’t think that would help,’ she declared. ‘Come into the garden. I wish to take your portrait with my newest camera.’

  This was done as, from the inside of the laboratory beside the apple tree, came the sound of hearty banging. Charlotte’s labourer was hard at work.

  It was next day when, eating yet another solitary breakfast in Battersea, Mary Watson began to suspect the reasons for Charlotte’s distracted air on the previous day. That morning’s Times, which she read with horror over her last cup of tea, contained a report of a prison escape from Pentonville. Dynamiters had blown a hole in the jail wall at exercise time and two prisoners had vanished, one being the man, Rory Flood, convicted of involvement in the Fenian bomb placed at Baker Street the previous autumn. The other escapee, Mary read with alarm, was Albert Wilkinson, the Whitechapel murderer caught some years earlier by Charlotte and Sherlock Holmes. The former seaman had been so seriously wounded in the affray leading to his capture at Cooney’s Lodging House in Whitechapel that he had been believed, at first, to be dead. Only after six months in hospital had he been pronounced fit enough to stand trial. He had been convicted and sentenced to death, but a public campaign had been mounted by those convinced the evidence against him had been insufficient, and as a result the Court of Appeal had commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.

  The alarming Times report concluded with the statement that the police believed the jail escape had been organised by Fenian supporters in order to release Flood, the escape of Wilkinson appearing to have been unplanned.

  Mary, appalled, put down her newspaper. No wonder Charlotte had been upset and distracted the day before. She must have heard of the escape of Albert Wilkinson, known he was at large and been anxious that he might be about to find her and take reprisals.

  There is only one place for a woman when her friend is in trouble, and that is by the side of the friend. Mary delivered a few domestic instructions, put on her hat and took an omnibus over the Thames to Chelsea. All the way she thought of Wilkinson. The madman might even now be prowling about, waiting to take his revenge on Charlotte in a horrible way.

  She was startled on arriving at Charlotte’s cottage to find the little road in front of the house crowded with carriages. The sound of talk and laughter, and of music being played on the piano, came from inside the house. Outside on the pavement a delivery man was arguing fiercely with Betsey about one of the carriages, which was blocking his way up the street.

  ‘Go inside, girl, and fetch out who’s responsible and tell them to move the carriage,’ he was saying doggedly, while Betsey was howling, ‘That conveyance belongs to Mr Arthur Wing Pinero, the celebrated playwright. It’s more than my job’s worth to start harassing him about horses.’

  ‘I don’t care who he is. Tell him to come and sort it out.’

  ‘You back off and go the other way.’

  ‘I’ll be damned if I do.’

  Mary advanced and, seizing the bridle of the closer of Mr Pinero’s smart pair of horses, pulled the animal up on to the pavement. The carriage soon followed. ‘I think you will find you have clearance now, my man,’ she said firmly.

  As the delivery man got back into his van she said to Betsey, ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Breakfast party,’ said the maid. ‘Suddenly called – oysters, smoked salmon, champagne, scrambled eggs, porter, toast, tea, coffee, twenty people – playwrights, portrait painters, peers, politicians – I don’t know who they all are. Not a word of warning. Suddenly at half-past seven Madam leaned over the stairs calling out orders. I know I complained to you of her retired life and low spirits yesterday, but I didn’t expect whatever you said to have this effect. Mrs Digby’s whirling like a dervish in the kitchen trying to keep up with it all.’

  ‘I don’t think anything I said – ’ Mary began, then was interrupted by a tall man with long hair wearing, she was astonished to see, a green carnation in the buttonhole of his velvet coat. This gentleman took her unexpectedly by the hand, and began to draw her into the house. At the front door he paused to peer at a bicycle propped against Charlotte’s window sill, observing, ‘Ah, Mr Shaw is here, and there is his hygienic machine. Come in, Mrs Watson,’ before he led her into the house.

  At the kitchen door three gentlemen were in animated conversation about the claims of Italy to Ethiopia. In the doorway of the parlour, from which came the lovely strains of the eminent operatic singer, Madame Sidonie Liebowitz, Prince Rudolph of Kravonia stood listening with the Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury.

  The man wearing the green carnation dropped Mary’s hand to greet a tall, tweed-suited man, coming from the dining-room. ‘Aha – Mr Shaw! So here under this one hospitable room we have the two main strands of Erin represented – you, the ethical but unappealing, and myself, the attractive but immoral.’

  Mary, wondering how this strange, flowing-locked gentleman had known her, pushed into the crowded hall. On the stairs sat the beautiful and famous actress, Mrs Patrick Campbell, her head thrown back in the act of eating an oyster. The equally crowded parlour found Charlotte at the piano, playing for Madame Liebowitz. She broke off when she saw Mary, saying, ‘Mary! I’m so pleased you came. My telegram must have arrived faster than expected.’ She then introduced her to two other guests, a physician and his wife, and went back to the piano.

  Mary was now confused. She had come from Battersea – obviously before Charlotte’s telegram arrived – to offer consolation to an anxious friend who was now giving a large, exciting party. She made her way into the garden in search of air. At a long table she found a young man in a waiter’s jacket, serving food and drink. She took a cup of coffee and, with voices around her talking away, retreated to the shelter of the apple tree. Beneath it a lady and a gentleman were seated on wicker chairs. They invited her to join them. The lady, an American in her sixties, said, ‘This is delightful, but I wonder if it is wise of me to begin my day so early.’

  ‘You normally finish it so very late, Cordelia,’ said the gentleman, a handsome man in his thirties. ‘But, admit it, you feel much better when you’re burning the candle at both ends. Let us introduce ourselves. This is Mrs Cordelia Johnson. I am Gustave Lebon.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Mary in astonishment, ‘I believe you are the gentleman my husband and Mr Sherlock Holmes are looking for in Paris.’

  ‘Looking for me – but why?’ asked Lebon. ‘I have been in Basle for several weeks, after my engagement in The Alhambra in Paris ended. I only arrived in London yesterday – then came the delightful message inviting me to breakfast at Miss Holmes’s. I’m astonished that the famous detective, Mr Holmes and his almost as famous biographer, are trying to find meæ’

  Mary reflected that an individual who had disappeared after a murder had been committed might assume a detective would desire an interview. However, she only said, ‘If you have no objection, I’ll send a telegram to Paris, saying you’re here.’

  It was at that point that Mary observed the gentleman with the green carnation in his buttonhole go into Charlotte’s laboratory with the workman she had seen the previous day.

  Suddenly, beside Mary was her reprobate cousin Geoffrey. He wore his straw hat at a jaunty angle and over his shoulder
was draped the arm of Prince Rudolph of Kravonia. Both men were laughing. ‘Geoffrey!’ Mary greeted him – unenthusiastically, for there had been family trouble involving Geoffrey, things said and done at that time which would never be forgiven. Soon after those events Geoffrey had joined the army.

  ‘Please meet my new military adviser,’ Rudolph declared. ‘I am in the process of reorganising the army, and this gentleman has been lent to me by your War Office.’

  ‘So you’ll be out of the country for some time, Geoffrey?’ Mary questioned.

  ‘I expect I’ll be back often enough, Mary,’ said the unrepentant Geoffrey. ‘Now, come and drink some champagne with me. Blood, after all, is thicker than water. And the Prince Rudolph wishes a word.’ He bowed to Mrs Johnson and to Gustave Lebon, and swept Mary away.

  Mary found Charlotte at the grassy side of the cottage, where small tables had been set up between the wall of the house and a fence covered with climbing roses. The heads of the twins next door, who were observing the party keenly, appeared among the roses. Mary, her cousin Geoffrey and the Prince sat down.

  ‘Gustave Lebon is here,’ said Mary.

  ‘I know,’ Charlotte told her. ‘Strange, is it not, while Sherlock and Dr Watson scour Paris for him?’ She did not seem unhappy about this. In fact she seemed in very good spirits. ‘I’ve had a word or two with Gustave.’

  ‘More detection, Charlotte,’ the Prince reproved. ‘After you took the trouble to send a telegram to Norvius telling me you had given it up for ever.’

  ‘Apparently it has not given me up,’ observed Charlotte.

  ‘I read in the newspaper you had been involved in the capture of Wilkinson, the Whitechapel murderer. But now it seems he has escaped,’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘Dreadful, isn’t it?’ said Charlotte.

  ‘I came to see you in case you were anxious,’ Mary was saying, when a gentleman, whom she recognised as the new Duke of Wiltshire, strolled up and sat down.

  ‘Miss Holmes,’ he said. ‘A charming breakfast. I’ve just been speaking to Salisbury. Funny chap.’ He nodded at the Prince, addressed Geoffrey in a friendly manner. ‘Geoffrey – haven’t seen you since Khartoum. How’s the leg?’

  ‘Better than the other one,’ Geoffrey told him cheerfully.

  Introductions were made. The Duke said genially to Rudolph, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve come to get Miss Holmes to sort out the new constitution of Kravonia now? Or Mrs Watson here? Do you see yourself as an able constitutionalist, Mrs Watson?’

  ‘Indeed not, your Grace,’ said Mary, shrinking somewhat at being in such close proximity to a Prince and a Duke. ‘Governing my own household is as much as I can manage.’

  ‘A refreshingly old-fashioned sentiment,’ said the Duke.

  ‘Do not, I pray, add “I would there were more ladies who felt the same,”’ Charlotte said. ‘Apart from anything else, I see Mr Bernard Shaw approaching, a lecture in his eyes.’

  The tall, bearded man in a tweed suit was coming towards them, but only, it seemed, to take his leave.

  ‘Many thanks, Charlotte,’ he said, ‘for a delightful breakfast party, and most charming, unforgettable singing. Please tell your cook her vegetable puffs are splendid and I shall be applying to her for the recipe. What a very pleasant start to the day and, to crown all, I have had the excitement of having my watch stolen by one your guests.’

  ‘Stolen?’ Charlotte enquired.

  ‘Only in fun. Mr Gustave Lebon charmed it out of my pocket in your drawing-room. He then had the goodness to return it. Being Swiss, he is of course a man of impeccable honesty.’

  Charlotte left to see Mr Shaw out, and was detained for some time, as the other guests began to leave.

  When she returned the Duke stood up and thanked Charlotte for the entertainment. He added, ‘I just observed Oscar Wilde coming out of your laboratory. I should have thought him the last man to take an interest in science.’

  ‘I saw him go in with the young workman,’ Mary said. ‘I expect he wanted to see the dark room.’

  ‘I expect so, Mary,’ said her cousin Geoffrey.

  There was something in his tone Mary did not like.

  ‘Well, Geoffrey,’ said the Duke, ‘I bid you farewell. Please visit me soon,’ and he was gone.

  Mary, too, excused herself, saying goodbye to Geoffrey in a passably cordial manner, respectfully to the Prince and anxiously to Charlotte. ‘The young man Wilkinson who escaped …’ She said at the door.

  ‘It’s all right, Mary,’ Charlotte said, unsatisfactorily. Then, over her shoulder to the waiter, who was carrying a tray of glasses to the kitchen, ‘You’d better clear the garden now. I think it’s going to rain.’

  A week later John and Mary Watson and Charlotte attending a charming performance of a play by Mr Pinero. This was followed by a light supper at Charlotte’s house. The outing had been devised chiefly for Dr Watson’s benefit by Charlotte and Mary, for he was in gloomy spirits and needed cheering up.

  ‘John and Sherlock are very disconsolate about the Little Cockney Nightingale, poor things,’ Mary had reported to Charlotte. ‘So many weeks have elapsed and the answers are no nearer, John says. Gustave Lebon was no use at all, by the time they found him. He’s gone to America now. There is despondency at Baker Street.’

  ‘They’ll soon find something else to interest them,’ Charlotte said carelessly. ‘Let us think of something to encourage John to take his mind off the crime.’ Thus the idea of the theatre visit was formed.

  It was after the play and the return to Chelsea for one of Mrs Digby’s excellent cold suppers that Dr Watson, purely for Charlotte’s own good, saw fit to make certain remarks, and Charlotte, who had sworn to herself she would never respond to comments of that description made by Dr Watson, broke her own oath to herself, and did so. She had also sworn never to reveal what she knew about the death of Nancy Flood, but she did that as well.

  The incident began with Dr Watson leaning back in his chair, well satisfied with the repast, and saying, ‘Mrs Digby is a genius, Charlotte. And the cottage is so charming and the garden so completely delightful. The effect of turning your mind from detection to housekeeping is certainly apparent.’

  ‘Thank you, John. I do flatter myself the new covers, based on designs by Mr Morris, have made the parlour nicer. But I must not boast. Shall we have coffee in the garden?’

  So the little party sat in the garden in rose-perfumed air, as the light slowly left the sky and the last birds went to roost in the surrounding trees.

  ‘Take some port, John, do,’ urged Charlotte.

  Dr Watson acepted. ‘The ladies,’ he said, comfortably at ease, by way of a toast, ‘where would we be without them? Beasts, merely, living in disorder and discomfort. My dear Charlotte, it’s time you made some man as happy as you have made me tonight.’

  To this, Charlotte replied nothing.

  ‘You should settle down,’ he continued.

  Mary broke in: ‘I am sure Charlotte will act in her own good time.’

  ‘Action perhaps is not what is required of women, particularly when it comes to matrimony,’ John said jovially. ‘At any rate, Charlotte, I do congratulate you on your wise decision to abandon detection. It’s not really a suitable employment for a lady. Ultimately, it must have a coarsening effect. I feel sure Sherlock feels the same. Marriage is, after all, the career most appropriate for women, and the one, finally, to which they most aspire. Detection may have been a pleasant hobby for a while, Charlotte, during your single years, when time must be occupied; but now perhaps is the moment to abandon it in preparation for woman’s true fulfilment.’

  ‘Would you advise my giving up my scientific research also, John?’ Charlotte enquired.

  ‘Well,’ John replied judiciously, ‘perhaps, like detection, science is a little less than charming in a lady. One would not like a wife covered in chemicals, with a dissecting knife in her hand, presiding over the family tea table.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ responded C
harlotte.

  Encouraged by her mildness, John asserted finally, ‘It has of course been scientifically proved that man’s brain is rational, whereas woman’s is intuitional.’

  There was a long silence. Charlotte poured more port for the good doctor. Mary sat quietly, perhaps asking herself why Charlotte was not mounting a defence of her ardently held convictions about what was termed ‘the woman question’.

  But Charlotte, gazing quietly into the gloaming, eventually answered, ‘That is the general view of society, though not mine. But let us not spoil a pleasant evening by argument.’

  Mary believed, as she made her remark, that she was steering the conversation away from conflict. She said, ‘All I hope is that no one will talk of murder tonight. It’s growing dark, and if I hear too much murder late at night I have nightmares. The fate of that poor young girl still haunts me.’

  Her comment had the opposite effect from the one she intended: Charlotte’s self-restraint collapsed. ‘Let Nancy Flood’s fate cease to worry you,’ she said, ‘for Nancy is alive and well and starting a new career in the United States.’ And she laughed.

  There was a silence. John Watson, accustomed through his profession to dealing with people whose minds were disturbed, said quietly, ‘My dear Charlotte, that cannot be true. You yourself saw her dead at the Hackney Empire. There was an inquest—’

  ‘Conducted by a coroner whose family had been threatened by Irish revolutionaries,’ claimed Charlotte.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said John, startled. ‘Do you suggest the coroner falsified the results of the inquest?’

  ‘Regrettably,’ answered Charlotte. ‘Alas, he had relatives in Dublin. These things sometimes happen in the hurly-burly of Irish politics.’

  ‘But Nancy – not dead?’ exclaimed Mary. ‘You saw her dead, her poor breast covered in blood.’

  ‘Stage blood,’ announced Charlotte.