The Strange Adventures of Charlotte Holmes

by Hilary Bailey

  Mary gasped and dropped her sewing on the grass. Sherlock put his head in his hands. ‘You did it, Charlotte. Against all the advice of the Prime Minister – and mine – you did it.’ He raised his head and looked at her furiously. ‘I am so angry, Charlotte, I can hardly contain myself. I shall leave now, before I say or do something I’ll regret.’ He stood up. ‘One thing, though – this cannot continue. The child must go back.’ He turned to leave.

  Charlotte, scarcely noticing, had swept up the child. ‘At last, Alexander. At last you’re here!’

  And, as Prince Rudolph of Kravonia came smiling through the french windows, Mary Watson fainted.

  Naturally, much confusion ensued: Sherlock Holmes and Prince Rudolph helped Mary into the house; Betsey brought water; Mrs Digby made a pot of tea; while Alexander, followed by his nursemaid, ran round Charlotte’s house to find out how it was. Mary, coming round from her faint, insisted vehemently that John should not be intercepted at Euston, before he got on the train north. She said weakly, ‘Nothing is wrong with me. In these circumstances, who would not have fainted?’

  With Mary sitting up and drinking tea, and the sound of Alexander crying out excitedly upstairs, while the Kravonian nursemaid’s reproaches rumbled round the house, Sherlock Holmes made his departure, bowing to Mary and hoping she would soon be fully restored, kissing Charlotte’s cheek and bowing coldly to Prince Rudolph as he left, murmuring, ‘Prince Rudolph. We must speak more of this affair.’

  ‘By all means, my dear Sherlock – as I hope now, as your acknowledged brother-in-law, I have licence to call you,’ replied Rudolph of Kravonia, with a humorous glint in his eyes.

  Charlotte saw Sherlock to the door. Returning, she said, ‘I’ve sent Betsey to Euston to get John back. You have had a shock, my dear. You are very brave, dearest Mary, but surely your well-being ought to prevail over the hunting down of a murderer, especially as the victim was not particularly well loved. I myself think it most unlikely, in any case, that the murderer is a miner from Yorkshire. But you need John with you, dear. Speaking as someone, the birth of whose own child was fraught with secrecy, partings and all kinds of complications, I believe separations at this time are wrong and should be avoided, if at all possible.’

  Prince Rudolph nodded. ‘John will be happier, believe me, if he can be often at his wife’s side at such an interesting and important time for both of you.’

  ‘It is true, then?’ Mary asked the Prince. ‘Alexander is your child – and Charlotte’s?’

  ‘You are shocked?’ Charlotte asked.

  Mary hesitated. ‘I do not know what to think.’

  Charlotte laughed. ‘We are married – morganatically. I do not believe in marriage as an institution, but would not have liked, and nor would Rudolph, to saddle any child needlessly with the stigma of illegitimacy. We live in narrow-minded times, Mary.’

  ‘For my part, I am relieved that we do,’ declared Mary. ‘But – I must congratulate you, Prince Rudolph. And Charlotte … Charlotte …’ But suddenly there were tears in her eyes and she could say no more. Rudolph put a consoling arm round her.

  This scene was interrupted by Betsey’s bursting in, saying, ‘Madam, madam, that Kravonian girl – she’s lit a candle in her room to get rid of evil spirits. It smells horrible. What evil spirits? There’s no evil spirits in this house. I told her, “There’s no evil spirits in this house. Trust me, I’m very sensitive,” but she won’t listen. She don’t speak proper English.’

  Tears drying fast, Mary rose to her feet, indignantly. ‘Betsey – you are a disgrace. How dare you interrupt your mistress in this manner!’

  ‘Quite right. Go away, Betsey,’ said Charlotte. Betsey withdrew, chastened. But not long after, a very strange odour composed of candle fat, herbs and an undefinable something nastier began to penetrate the room. At that point there was a knock at the door and John Watson came hurrying in, barely acknowledging Charlotte and the Prince, on his way to Mary’s side. As he knelt beside her, young Alexander Osteire ran in, hotly pursued by his nurse. Charlotte captured him by seizing the collar of his small Norfolk jacket and said, ‘Stand still and be introduced. John and Mary, this is my son, Alexander. Alexander, shake hands with Dr Watson and give Mrs Watson a kiss.’

  Dr Watson, though astonished, mechanically put his hand out to the little boy, who advanced towards him, proffering his own hand. John bent over and said, with surprising calm in the circumstances, ‘I’m pleased to meet you, my little man.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ said the boy. ‘Are you a detective?’ He shot a glance at his father. ‘I mustn’t ask personal questions,’ he reminded himself.

  ‘Not usually,’ said John, ‘but let’s consider ourselves friends from the outset so yes, I am a detective, sometimes, but I’m also a doctor.’

  ‘I’ve had measles,’ Alexander said. ‘It’s wrong to scratch your spots, isn’t it?’

  ‘That is the opinion on the whole, of the medical profession,’ John soberly agreed. He then took the boy’s hand and led him to Mary, still on the sofa, and said, ‘Give this lady, my wife, a kiss, then, as instructed.’

  ‘You have the makings of an excellent father,’ Charlotte said. She then spoke in the Kravonian language to the nursemaid, who was standing in the doorway. The nursemaid appeared to protest. Prince Rudolph joined in the argument. As the discussion progressed there came yet another knock at the front door, a step in the hall and a strong-faced roly-poly woman in a navy travelling coat and sensible matching hat entered. She embraced Prince Rudolph, greeted Charlotte in a firm but kindly tone, nodded in a faintly threatening way at the Kravonian nurse and went to Alexander, still with Mary. She knelt down.

  ‘Hullo there, wee boy,’ she said. ‘Remember me? Nanny Macgregor? I’ve come to look after you. You look very hot. Have you no lighter clothes with you?’ She then spoke severely to the nursemaid in Kravonian. The nursemaid left the room.

  ‘John and Mary, please greet Mrs Moira Macgregor, my old nanny, whom we have persuaded out of unnecessary retirement to take care of Alexander,’ Prince Rudolph said. ‘Nanny – here are Dr and Mrs Watson, dear friends of ours.’

  ‘And I must love you and leave you, as the poet said,’ declared Nanny Macgregor. ‘Come, Alexander, let us go upstairs and see if there is anything in your trunk suitable for hot weather.’

  Prince Rudolph smiled reminiscently as they heard Alexander’s excited little voice and Nanny Macgregor’s responses as they went upstairs together. Charlotte sat down with a bump and fanned herself with her straw hat. ‘What a busy day,’ she remarked.

  John said, ‘He is a remarkably nice boy, Charlotte my dear.’ Mary looked at her husband with amazement tinged with respect. He looked at her, and some silent intelligence passed between them.

  Charlotte observed, ‘I’m so glad this is out in the open. It has all been a very great strain.’

  John said, ‘I imagine so. Let me offer belated congratulations on your marriage and on the birth of your son. I am not as astonished as you might have thought I would be, my dear. I knew something had happened, though I could not name it. One develops a kind of instinctive diagnostic skill over the years, part medical observation and part observation of character. I noted a slight change in you, physically and mentally, Charlotte, which I could not explain to myself at the time. But now I can, and am delighted the explanation is such a happy one. Prince Rudolph, I do congratulate you, my dear fellow.’

  Prince Rudolph clicked his heels together and mock-bowed. ‘Thank you, dear Watson.’

  Mary stood up. ‘I should love to stay longer, but you have had a busy day already and must have much to discuss. We will leave you in peace.’ She stood up and John offered her his arm.

  Charlotte said, ‘I’m afraid Sherlock’s very angry with me.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll come round,’ said John, but not in any very convinced tone.

  In the cab on the way to Battersea John said to his wife, ‘I didn’t like to comment, but t
here was a most peculiar smell …’

  Mary told him, ‘The Kravonian nursemaid lit a candle she had with her to expunge evil spirits from the house. Charlotte’s maid Betsey was making a terrible fuss. And now Mrs Macgregor’s arrived. Poor Charlotte – there will be such domestic battles – and the cottage is so small.’

  John shook his head. ‘I’m afraid those won’t be the only battles. This marriage, and the boy, will cause a lot of trouble. I’m delighted for Charlotte, of course, but unfortunately morganatic marriages, as I suppose this must have been, are not acceptable everywhere and – ’ He broke off, sighed and added only, ‘Oh dear, oh dear. I imagine Queen Victoria will be most displeased.’

  Sherlock Holmes, talking to Inspector Lestrade at Baker Street, said, ‘This Thursby affair is proving difficult, Lestrade. Have you any fresh information?’

  Lestrade was not concentrating. He was staring into space with a melancholy air.

  ‘Lestrade,’ questioned Sherlock, ‘are you listening to me at all?’

  Lestrade sadly shook his head.

  ‘Is there something on your mind?’ demanded Sherlock.

  Lestrade only sighed. He had taken the news of Charlotte’s secret marriage hard. ‘My dear fellow,’ Sherlock said, ‘whatever it is, pull yourself together. We must not let personal preoccupations stand between ourselves and the detection of crime, must we?’

  Lestrade, lost in sad thoughts, was paying no attention.

  ‘Must we?’ Sherlock asked again.

  ‘No,’ said Lestrade in a gloomy tone, ‘we must not do that. Did you say Thursby?’

  The coroner had stated at the inquest that the death of Lord Thursby had been murder. The investigation continued, but all policemen know that every day without an arrest after the first forty-eight hours following a murder increases the murderer’s chances of getting away without being caught. More than a week had now elapsed since the crime. Moreover, there were many suspects. Sherlock himself had interviewed the strike leader Matthew Truscott and many others in the Yorkshire coalfields, but with little result. Lestrade had spoken to the family and friends of the first Lady Thursby, who had drowned herself. Also suspect were the family of the second maltreated Lady Thursby, and even, though no one liked to think it, the lady herself. Then there was Thursby’s heir, his oldest son, who had little reason to love his father and stood to gain a title and a fortune from his father’s death. A further possibility was that during his long stays abroad Thursby’s talent for causing rage and hostility had earned him other enemies. ‘A regiment of suspects,’ Watson had said to Sherlock Holmes, who had responded gloomily, ‘An army, rather.’

  The reconstruction of Mortimer, Lord Thursby’s last days of life had not proved edifying or rewarding. He had apparently left his wife in Scotland and returned to London with the friends who had been staying there during the summer, Harry Bell and Sir Arnold Roper, both men of such bad reputation that it was, some said, a scandal to impose such creatures on a wife. Once back in London he went to his house in Manchester Square where he had installed a young woman, Polly Fowles, formerly a member of the chorus of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. She had recently been dismissed for violating the code of conduct on which the company insisted.

  This good-looking young woman in her late twenties was found by the police staying with her mother in Kilburn. Inspector Lestrade had gallantly put aside his distress about Charlotte’s marriage and done his duty. He had been to interview Polly. ‘She was far from grief-stricken,’ he reported to Sherlock Holmes. ‘I found her sitting in the parlour in Kilburn eating chocolate creams. She says Thursby didn’t come home at all the night he must have died. The last time she saw him, she says, was at tea-time. He went out after tea saying he was going to his club and would probably not be back to dinner. This kind of behaviour was apparently not unusual. The young woman’s story is supported by the servants. Lord Thursby told the butler after tea he would be at his club that evening. And Polly Fowles, understanding Thursby would not be home, darted off later to see her old friends from the D’Oyly Carte, just back from a summer tour. She had supper with them, came back at about eleven and went to bed. In the early hours of the morning, about the time when Lord Thursby must have died, she was tucked up in bed in Manchester Square, or so she says and so do the servants. She could have crept out and murdered him, I suppose, and then transported him to the House of Commons in a wheelbarrow and put him in the Speaker’s chair, but I doubt it, somehow. She’d no reason to kill him. She was planning to leave – she’d got her old job back, that night, from the company manager, on promise of good behaviour in future. She’d gone right off Thursby, to use her own words, and regretted the whole affair.’

  ‘And Thursby was at his club all night?’ enquired Sherlock.

  Lestrade shook his head. ‘He left about eleven o’clock,’ he said. ‘No one knew where. Just left the club – the porter saw him hail a cab.’

  ‘So we still have a trail to follow, then,’ observed Sherlock.

  ‘Polly, the young woman, said one strange thing though – “Try a man called John Lee.” She seemed to think this fellow might be mixed up in the affair’.

  ‘John Lee!’ exclaimed Sherlock.

  ‘Why – do you know him?’ asked Lestrade, disturbed by the eminent detective’s agitation.

  Sherlock was silent for a moment. He then said, with an effort, ‘I do know him, Lestrade. Will you leave this matter with me?’

  Lestrade disguised any surprise he might have felt at this and replied, ‘Of course, Holmes.’ Then he, also with difficulty, asked, ‘Have you – have you seen Miss Holmes recently?’

  ‘I am just about to do so,’ said Sherlock Holmes grimly. ‘Have you any message for her?’

  ‘No,’ Lestrade said sadly, ‘no message. Merely my kindest regards.’ He added, ‘Do not be hard on her, my friend.’

  Sherlock Holmes stared at him and said coldly, ‘Thank you, Lestrade, but please allow me to deal with my family affairs in my own way.’

  On arrival at Charlotte’s cottage, Sherlock Holmes found his sister out. She was at the zoo, said Betsey, and would be back shortly. Attempting to converse on subjects of detection with the eminent sleuth as he waited for Charlotte’s return, Betsey met with a frosty reception. She was, in fact, invited to return to the kitchen and concern herself with her work. Sherlock then refused an offer of tea or any other kind of refreshment and sat waiting in Charlotte’s parlour, his feet planted together and his hands on the ferrule of his walking-stick.

  Half an hour later, a party consisting of Charlotte, Prince Rudolph, young Alexander and Dr and Mrs Watson came cheerfully into the house. Faces fell when, upon going into the parlour, all observed Sherlock Holmes’ unencouraging expression. He rose to his feet, cast a reproachful look at Dr Watson and, bowing to Prince Rudolph, asked him if he might have a private word in the dining-room. Prince Rudolph agreed and he and Sherlock left the room. Nanny Macgregor then whisked Alexander away for washing, brushing and tea purposes, leaving Charlotte and John and Mary Watson alone in the parlour. Betsey provided tea for both parties – the group in the parlour and for the two gentlemen in the dining-room.

  John Watson broke the long silence after Betsey had left the room: ‘I suppose Sherlock has come to canvass the idea of sending Alexander back to Kravonia.’

  Charlotte nodded. ‘He disapproves of Alexander’s presence here. Queen Victoria has always been adamant that Alexander should remain in Kravonia. She detests morganatic marriages. She feels they erode the majesty of royal houses, weaken the dignity of royalty and subtly foster a republican spirit. I happily embarked on a morganatic marriage – a marriage, as you know, involving a commoner and a royal person, where the children of the marriage have no claim to the throne, or other royal position – because I love Rudolph. But I wonder if Queen Victoria believes that. Royalty perhaps cannot believe others do not want their thrones. And, of course, the Queen’s granddaughter is Tsarina of Russia, which wishes to gobble
up Kravonia. And Mr Gladstone is hearing more and more often from the Foreign Service that Alexander represents a constitutional threat to the stability of Kravonia and that certain interests would be upset if he came here. And this, of a child of three!’

  ‘Kravonia seems to be one of those places where there is always a grave constitutional threat, if not a grave constitutional crisis,’ observed Mary.

  ‘Central Europe is always complicated,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘I must confess I can’t quite grasp the subtleties of a threat posed by a three-year-old boy,’ John said.

  ‘The difficulty is’, Charlotte told him, ‘that once Rudolph’s brother Oscar had returned to the bosom of the family and resumed being the heir apparent, he married the Countess Ursula of Holstein – previously, as you know, Rudolph’s designated bride. Unfortunately, up to now the couple has had no child. It’s not been very many years. The majority of couples would be philosophical but hopeful. However royalty is different. An heir to the Kravonian throne is needed for stability. It’s being said there will never be a direct heir to the throne. And Alexander, though he has no claim to the throne whatsoever, due to the nature of his parents’ marriage, is at present King Weland’s only grandson.

  ‘You can imagine the gossip, speculation and even conspiracy beginning to surround him, even before King Weland’s death and the accession of Crown Prince Oscar. This is why Rudolph and I brought him away. Up at Glamis Moira Macgregor guessed Alexander was our son and warned us, very tactfully, that we must. The fate of the unfortunate Duke of Clarence was much on our minds. For if Oscar and Ursula remain childless for a few more years, poor Alexander could well become a pawn in the game of making kings. There might be danger for him in Kravonia. In any case, I am his mother and I want him with me. I always have,’ she said, ‘but Rudolph wanted him in Kravonia, as is only natural, and Queen Victoria was so opposed to Alexander’s coming here that I decided we might be better off with his father. Now, both Rudolph and I are agreed he should be here.