The Strange Adventures of Charlotte Holmes

by Hilary Bailey

  The Queen stared at him and said nothing – a basilisk stare and silence, being two important weapons in the armoury of the powerful.

  It had been a difficult audience from the start, Gladstone reflected. After inviting him to sit down, Her Majesty had cut off his enquiry about her health and launched directly in medeas res without any of the normal civilities. Her attitude had become immediately accusatory, masking an agitation for which he could hardly blame her. The Duke of Clarence – Eddy, as he was called in the family – was threatened with a lawsuit mounted by the distressed father of a boy missing from a male brothel. And the Duke was the Queen’s oldest grandson and would be King after his father, the Prince of Wales. The Queen was old, the Prince of Wales past middle age, now, and hard-living. There was every chance Eddy might be King in only a few years. And Eddy’s marriage was a month off. This threatened lawsuit could hardly have come at a worse time.

  The Reverend Michael Liversedge could not be ignored. Though not a rich man he had the dignity imparted to him by his position as a clergyman of the Church of England. Legal advisers when consulted had told Gladstone only what he knew – that the Duke was not above the law and could be brought to court by an anxious father, just like any other person. The Archbishop of Canterbury, when appealed to for an opinion, decided he could not, in conscience, require Liversedge to end a legal process concerning his only son. The Archbishop added that he would of course pray for the safe return of Henry Liversedge.

  He added what the Prime Minister perfectly well knew, that the wedding of the young Duke of Clarence, oldest son of the Prince of Wales and destined to be King of England, was now only a month away. He did not add what Glasdstone also well knew – that if the groom were involved in scandal, and under threat of prosecution from one of his own clerics, he, the Archbishop, would find it hard if not impossible to justify conducting the marriage service.

  It was known the Duke had done this sort of thing before. Only four years earlier he had been caught in a male brothel in the West End. Worse still, there were ugly rumours of his having an unspecified illness, possibly syphilis, which had perhaps reached the stage where it was affecting his mind. Gladstone felt he could hardly ask his Queen if she thought her grandson was suffering from general paralysis of the insane. In retrospect, the Prime Minister considered, it might have been wiser to allow the Duke to marry his earlier love, Hélène, daughter of the Count of Paris. Two years previously this had seemed highly undesirable. Hélène was a Catholic, her father scarcely royal, merely a descendant of the deposed French monarchy. But Gladstone wondered whether, if the young Duke had been allowed to marry his first love, the unfortunate affair at George Street might not have been prevented. Meanwhile, here was the Queen, saying icily, ‘So what news is there of the efficient Miss Holmes’s investigations?’

  ‘I have none, ma’am, as yet,’ the Prime Minister said uncomfortably. ‘I believe she is in Yorkshire.’

  ‘Then I suggest you find out quickly what she is doing,’ she said. ‘I shall require a written report from your office twice daily. Will you kindly arrange that?’

  With some relief that the affair had been put so firmly in his hands and that this unfortunate interview was over, Gladstone agreed. As he left the audience he prayed fervently for the return of Henry Liversedge and hoped the Archbishop was doing the same.

  Charlotte was awoken early with a good, strong cup of tea by the vicar’s housekeeper.

  ‘Fine day,’ announced the woman. ‘Clear, cold and a sprinkle of snow. The place looks as pretty as a picture. I’m Mrs Barlby, by the way.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said Charlotte, accepting the tea.

  ‘I’ll bring you some hot water in a moment. Then come down and I’ll get you some breakfast.’

  Bright light came through Charlotte’s bedroom window. She looked down into a long garden, with grass, some trees and bushes, and a neat vegetable patch. Hens clucked and scratched on the frozen lawn.

  Mrs Barlby, a grey-haired woman with a rosy face and a determined air, greeted her in the kitchen, where she was cutting up vegetables.

  ‘Would you boil me an egg?’ said Charlotte. ‘I see you keep hens.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the woman. ‘We grow our own vegetables. We give the peelings to the hens. Vicar’s ever keen to waste nowt.’ She went on chopping carrots, adding, ‘He’s out just now, taking early communion.’

  ‘Do you know the girl young Henry wrote letters to?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘Mary Thwaite, my niece, my sister’s daughter,’ said Mrs Barlby promptly. ‘You’re here looking for Henry, I suppose, on account of the vicar’s lawsuit.’

  There was no point in denying it, Charlotte thought, and if she had this woman would never have believed her. So she said, ‘Yes, that’s why I’m here. I’m curious about these letters to Mary.’

  ‘He loved her,’ the woman said. ‘And she loved him, from a child.’

  ‘Did Mr Liversedge know?’

  ‘No. He’d have been angry if he had, though, him being a clergyman and her just a baker’s daughter. Not that there’s owt wrong with Mary. But the vicar didn’t like Henry having to do with the locals, farmers, tradesmen and that. Why not, I say, but the world’s not like that, is it?’

  ‘It isn’t,’ Charlotte agreed. ‘Mrs Barlby, what sort of boy was Henry?’

  ‘Eh – poor lad,’ was her only reply, as she put Charlotte’s egg in boiling water. ‘Would you like to go into the dining-room, madam, while I get your breakfast?’

  Charlotte, feeling dismissed, retreated to the chilly dining-room, and hung over the fire until Mrs Barlby came in with a tray.

  ‘Will your niece talk to me about Henry?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t suppose she’ll have any objection,’ was the unencouraging reply.

  ‘It would be much better if I could find out what has happened to Henry, Mrs Barlby,’ Charlotte said firmly.

  ‘Better for some folk, no doubt,’ Mrs Barlby replied in an uncompromising tone. Then she left the room.

  Charlotte gazed speculatively at the door the housekeeper had shut so emphatically behind herself. Then she finished her breakfast and walked into the village, finding the baker’s shop easily enough between the post office and the cobbler’s. She stood behind a woman in clogs who was buying bread, scarcely able to understand the exchange between her and the big red-faced man in a long white apron behind the counter, so thick was the dialect they used. When she came face to face with the baker who had, as he served his customer, been staring at her over the woman’s shoulder, his accent modified. ‘Another one wanting to speak to our Mary, Mother,’ he called over his shoulder. A plump woman, his wife, Charlotte assumed, turned from the back of the shop.

  ‘Mrs Thwaite. May I speak to Mary?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘This way.’

  Charlotte went behind the counter and through a door into a small, trim room with a bright fire. ‘Sit down,’ said the woman and went to a door beside the fireplace, which she opened, calling upstairs.

  ‘Mary! Mary! Come down now. There’s a lady wants to speak to you about Henry.’

  There were feet on the stairs. Then a pretty, healthy girl, of about seventeen, wearing her blonde hair in a thick plait down her back, appeared at the door. She looked at Charlotte, barely masking her hostility.

  ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ said Mary’s mother, whisking through yet another door.

  Charlotte said, ‘My name is Charlotte Holmes. I’m trying to find out what happened to your friend, Henry. I hope you’ll help me. But I gather others have been here asking about him. Who were they? Was it the police?’

  ‘They were two detectives from London,’ she said. ‘They had a constable with them. But I don’t know anything, only the letters, and I’m right tired of people asking me about Henry. Why can’t they leave him alone, dead or alive? Hasn’t he suffered enough, with his father and that school he went to, then running away, then that awfu
l, awful house?’ She seemed on the verge of tears.

  Her mother came in with a tray, on which were two cups. ‘Here, Mary, have a cup of tea. You’ll have to put up with all this till it’s over.’

  ‘I wonder when that will be,’ said the girl with a sob.

  ‘She’s that worried about Henry she’s not herself, miss,’ Mrs Thwaite explained, proffering Charlotte a cup. ‘You’re staying with the vicar, they say.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Mrs Thwaite shook her head doubtfully but said nothing.

  ‘Sit down, Mary, and tell the lady what you know,’ encouraged Mrs Thwaite.

  Thwaite himself then appeared from the shop. He said, ‘Crying won’t help you, Mary. Speak up now.’

  ‘I really don’t want to cause you any distress, Mary,’ Charlotte said. ‘But the sooner we find out what happened to Henry, the better. Would you lend me his letters? I would take great care of them.’

  ‘The detectives took them away,’ Thwaite said. ‘I think that’s partly what ails her. She didn’t want to give them up. Did you, Mary?’

  Mary shook her head. ‘They were my souvenirs,’ she said. ‘I won’t get them back.’

  ‘They said they’d bring them back,’ her father assured her.

  ‘That’s what they said, Dad,’ she told him, ‘but I don’t believe it.’ She looked directly at Charlotte. ‘It’s not so. They’ve got the letters. I know they’ll burn them.’

  Charlotte shook her head, baffled. ‘Did these men give their names?’

  ‘They left a card behind. I’ll get it.’

  Charlotte took down the names, Inspectors Murray and Robertson of Scotland Yard – but she was not altogether surprised to find they were names she was sure did not exist at Scotland Yard and perhaps not in any section of the police force. Saying nothing of this to the Thwaites she left the shop, worried, and went immediately to the post office to despatch two telegrams, before returning to the vicarage.

  She then packed, bade farewell to Michael Liversedge and left her card with him and, covertly, with Mary’s aunt, the housekeeper. As she did so, she said, ‘Mrs Barlby, I hope you and the Thwaites will call on me if matters take an urgent turn. I only want to help.’ She began to believe the answer to the mystery lay close to this village. ‘Trust no one,’ she told Mrs Barlby. ‘Tell the Thwaites the same.’ This advice was received with a neutral, impenetrable stare.

  During the journey back to London Charlotte read Henry Liver-sedge’s letters, copies of which had been lent her by his father.

  A smart carriage was standing outside her little house in Chelsea, when she arrived. Installed in the parlour, with a man in the uniform of a Guards officer, was Inspector Lestrade, who jumped up when she entered.

  ‘Charlotte! What on earth’s going on?’

  ‘I’m baffled,’ she said. ‘I take it you received my telegram and that no officers named Murray or Robertson are known to you?’ Then she glanced round the dusty room and asked despondently, ‘Is Betsey here?’

  Lestrade ignored the question. ‘I need a report from you now. This gentleman, Captain Simmons of the Household Cavalry, will take it straight to Mr Gladstone. Her Majesty is very concerned.’

  ‘If two men claiming to be Scotland Yard officers have taken Henry Liversedge’s letters from the young woman he wrote them to, what do you make of it, Lestrade? Have you any idea who they might be?’ asked Charlotte.

  Lestrade shook his head. ‘There are no such officers at Scotland Yard, as you suspected.’

  Captain Simmons was very alarmed. ‘Lestrade! What is going on? Her Majesty – ’

  ‘I have copies of the letters, Lestrade,’ Charlotte said. ‘And they make sad reading. Scribbles all the way from Yorkshire to Oxford, while Henry was with the gypsies, selling horses and ponies, then a gap, while he trudged to London, thinking to find a life in the rich city. Then there is another letter from a hostel run by the Salvation Army, where he was supplied with a pen, paper and a stamp. The remaining letters, six in all, are sadder still. They come from George Street, where the boy was sexually corrupted. He writes always that he loves young Mary and wishes to come back to her when he has, as he says, “made his fortune”. He tells her only of “entertaining gentlemen of every kind”, perhaps to spare his young friend the details, perhaps because he had no proper words to describe what was happening. In the last he writes, “Oh Mary, my little sweetheart, I am sick of this life. In spite of the good style of house this is, I wish I was home with you, my dear. Nothing has turned out like I expected. But always remember your Henry, who loved you.”’

  ‘Very affecting,’ said Lestrade. ‘But does he name names?’

  Charlotte in reply handed him the copies of Henry Liversedge’s letters. Lestrade scanned them rapidly. As he got to the last pages he began to groan, ‘Oh, my God. What was the boy thinking of? He’s collected all the names of all the men who visited. He mentions them as if to say, “Look, Mary. These are the prominent people with whom I’m associating.” Had he no sense of decency, morality?’

  ‘Perhaps he’d been drenched in morality since birth. And only become confused. His father, a stern moralist, appears to have told him the rules and regulations, but shown little affection,’ Charlotte said. ‘I think he loves the boy in his way, but felt it would be wrong to demonstrate it.’

  ‘He had no mother, of course,’ Lestrade said. He wiped his eyes with a large white handkerchief, and coughed.

  Captain Simmons said urgently, ‘Inspector, Miss Holmes – I must have a report as soon as you can manage. And copies of those letters.’

  ‘Very well,’ returned Lestrade, recovering himself. ‘Let me suggest we give Miss Holmes time to recover from her journey and compose her report. If you return in an hour or two …’

  ‘Very well,’ Simmons agreed, though reluctantly. ‘I’ll tell Mr Gladstone to stand by, if that suits you, Miss Holmes. But who are Murray and Robertson, Lestrade? What do they want with the letters? Am I to tell the Prime Minister possibly incriminating letters are in the hands of unknown men?’

  ‘I suppose you’d better,’ said Lestrade coolly. ‘Though tell the Prime Minister that this is not the fault of Scotland Yard. We have not been given sufficient information. Our hands have been tied all along by the powers that be.’

  Simmons then left and Lestrade said, ‘Thank God he’s gone. Now we can examine the situation.’ He read out from Henry’s letter, ‘“Among the visitors are many prominent men, writers and statesmen, among them such as the anarchist Mr O. Wilde and a Frenchman, the author Mr M. Proust.”’ And here Lestrade blushed a little and said, ‘I won’t go on and on with the list. However, then we come to, alas, “also a member of the Royal Family, Eddy, as we call him, the Duke of Clarence. He is very nice and gentle and left behind his handkerchief which I send you, Mary, as a memento. I have washed it and hope it is well and truly clean.” My God,’ said Lestrade, ‘he even supplies her with the evidence. “Nevertheless, dear Mary,” he went on. And the rest we know.’

  There was a silence. ‘Something of a shock to find so many senior officials on young Henry’s list,’ Lestrade murmured. ‘I have met several on social occasions, some even with their wives. I am a naturalised Englishman but sometimes – sometimes I wonder what it is about the English … It is most distressing that you should have been involved in all this, Charlotte. How can it fail to have a coarsening effect on your nature?’

  ‘I feel my nature coarsening by the minute,’ agreed Charlotte readily. ‘But mercifully, my intelligence remains unaffected. Tell me, Lestrade, when will you be questioning Madame Mercury again to find out what she knows about Henry Liversedge’s disappearance?’

  ‘As I told you, the lady has already made a statement to the police, saying the boy ran off, she knew not where.’

  ‘No further questioning took place? And no one has closed down her establishment?’

  ‘In her statement she refers to it as a home for young men whom she has rescued from
the streets.’

  ‘And to herself as a philanthropist?’

  ‘Just so,’ said Jules Lestrade. He added, in a furious tone, ‘Sacré bleu!’

  ‘It is hard not to conclude that she’s being protected, by someone powerful.’

  Lestrade said sadly, ‘This, my adopted country, has few corrupt officials. In Britain you cannot easily corrupt men with money, as elsewhere. But the threat of sexual scandal will always cause fear.’

  ‘So it seems,’ said Charlotte. ‘Let the produce of part of your adopted country console you, Jules – you need a large whisky.’

  ‘You are, as ever, right,’ he said. ‘What are we to do? Mr Gladstone is reporting daily to Her Majesty. The Duke of Clarence is to marry next month and no power on earth will stop the Reverend Michael Liversedge from dragging these letters into court.’

  Charlotte looked piercingly at Lestrade. ‘You suspect you know who these men masquerading as policemen are, Lestrade?’ He nodded – and told her. ‘Then,’ she said decisively, ‘we must compose the Queen’s report, then leave immediately for Yorkshire. No one, from the Scotland Yard commissioner to Her Majesty the Queen, must know where we have gone.’

  Lestrade protested. ‘This is unorthodox.’

  ‘We’ve nothing to lose. A day, Jules, a day is all we need. I think we both know a life is at stake. Please help me.’

  *

  At dawn Charlotte and Inspector Lestrade were hammering on the door of the Thwaites’ bakery shop. An hour later, they, with Thwaite and his daughter Mary, were high up in the misty fells above the village. Only yards from the narrow, rocky track lay a stone sheep shelter, in front of which hung a thick curtain to keep out some of the cold, and it was in there they found the huddled form of Henry Liversedge, chilled, hungry, but very much alive. Even as Mary Thwaite and her father assisted the half-collapsing boy down the steep, snow-sprinkled track from the mountain-top, they met two tall men in tweeds carrying shot-guns on the path coming up.