Alistair nodded miserably. “He insulted her with reprehensible words I cannot repeat. He called me a brainless idiot overcome with lust and commanded me to leave her side. When I refused, he promptly disinherited me and we were shown the door. Lisa and I returned to her rooms, and she suggested opening the wine her friend had given her.”
“In vino veritas,” Holmes murmured absently.
“Did you know this friend of hers?” I asked.
The boy shook his head. “She said it was someone she had known as a child, and that he had recently returned from South Africa. She was going to call him to join us for a meal soon.”
“What happened next?”
“We toasted to our future and drank,” Alistair replied. “The next thing I remember is Lisa lying in a pool of blood. There was so much blood and she would not move, no matter how I called for her...” He choked a sob. “I cannot live without her, Dr. Watson! And if I have killed her, then I...” He trembled violently, unable to speak.
I reached out a lay a reassuring hand on the young man’s shoulder. “If Holmes says you have not killed her, it must be true,” I said firmly. “Believe in that.”
The boy nodded tearfully and clung to me for support.
“Are you certain that both of you consumed the same wine?” Holmes asked.
Alistair frowned. “Lisa poured two glasses and she took a sip, I think. I drained my glass quickly. I was... upset.” He buried his head in my shoulder and wept again. I was reminded of small hysterical children I have attended as a doctor, and suppressing a sigh, I rubbed his back gently. It often calmed them.
I glanced at my friend ruefully and found him gazing at me with a strange expression on his stoic face. I looked away and asked Alistair how old he was.
“Eighteen,” he said, looking up at me with tear-filled eyes. “Father wanted me to study law, and I, too, was looking forward to Oxford.”
The cab came to a stop in front of a run-down building. Alistair led us to the first floor, to an unlocked door. Holmes looked around, his raptor gaze sharp and assessing.
“Did you leave the door open when you left?” Holmes asked.
The boy nodded. Holmes examined the floor carefully. “Freshly cleaned,” he remarked.
Alistair frowned and shook his head.
Holmes stepped in without a word. There was nothing inside. No corpse, no furniture, no signs of anyone living in these rooms.
Alistair fell to his knees, the very picture of despair. “How...?” he wailed. “How is this possible?”
I attempted to placate the distressed boy. Holmes, meanwhile, examined every nook and cranny of the abandoned apartment. Several times he knelt on the floor and picked up some items, wrapping them carefully in sheets torn from his notebook.
“You have had a narrow escape, I daresay,” Holmes muttered finally, looking at Alistair with gentle eyes. “No blood was spilt in this room.”
Alistair stared at my friend with wide eyes. “Lisa... do you mean Lisa is alive?”
“In all probability. She was certainly not murdered here in the manner you think.”
I looked up at Holmes curiously. “Did you find evidence of her living here?”
Holmes nodded. “If she has long, curly, red hair, then yes.”
“She does,” Alistair exclaimed happily. “It is a most beautiful shade. It matches her eyes in the sunlight...”
I stifled a chuckle, amused at the sight of Holmes making a tremendous effort not to roll his eyes, while our young noble waxed eloquent about the love of his life.
When Alistair finally stopped speaking, he frowned. “If Lisa is not dead, what happened here? Why would she pretend to be dead and then leave?”
“Perhaps you were no longer useful,” Holmes said flatly.
To my horror, Alistair burst into tears again. “No,” he moaned. “Lisa loved me. She would not leave me in such a cruel manner because I was disinherited. We were going to be married.”
Holmes opened his mouth to speak, but I glared at him and he nodded. I patted the boy’s back and spoke softly, attempting to calm him down.
“It is possible he was given a potent hallucinogen?” I asked Holmes.
The detective shook his head. “No, Watson. There are traces of red dye in the room. I do not believe it was a figment of his imagination.”
“I do not understand, Holmes. What was the purpose behind such a farce? What could she hope to gain?”
“Perhaps the intention was to drive him away for good,” he replied.
Alistair whimpered. “But...”
“You have to admit it looks suspicious,” I said gently. “The lady disappeared with a most horrific pretence upon your loss of inheritance.”
“She knew I cannot live without her!” he cried. “She would not-”
Holmes and I exchanged a look. That may have been her aim, but we were reluctant to point it out to the poor chap. He had already attempted suicide at the imagined loss of his duplicitous fiancée.
“Do not treat your own life so lightly!” Holmes said sternly.
“But-”
“What do you intend to do? Do you wish to let yourself waste away in the memory of a false love?” Holmes’s tone was clipped and his eyes shone with the hard glitter of diamonds. I had rarely seen him so enraged.
Alistair stammered in the wake of the detective’s fury. “I... I do not know.”
I could see that Holmes’s patience was at its last tether, and I could also see that the boy would be reduced to a whimpering mess again if Holmes uttered another angry word. So I spoke up. “Perhaps we should visit your father, Alistair, and let him know what transpired,” I suggested gently.
Alistair nodded tearfully.
I turned to Holmes, who had a faint smile on his lips. He nodded and left, while I helped the boy up and took him down the stairs. By the time we reached the gate, Holmes had already flagged down a cab. We rode in silence until the cab pulled up in front of the familiar Diogenes Club.
“Is the Duke a member of your brother’s club?” I asked Holmes.
The detective shrugged. “I recall Mycroft saying that he had arranged for late-night dinner with the Duke here tonight in the telegram he sent this afternoon requesting my presence.”
I stared at him in surprise. The telegram must have arrived just before we left Baker Street. What a coincidence! Could it be that the Duke wished to consult Holmes about his son’s unsuitable affair? And why on earth had Holmes agreed to accompany me when he already had plans to meet with his brother later?
I turned to Holmes with a silent enquiry. He shook his head gave me a small smile.
“Let us not keep my brother waiting,” he said and strode in, and we followed him into the Stranger’s Room. Mycroft and a distinguished looking elderly gentleman were already seated.
Alistair, who had worn a befuddled look so far, suddenly wailed, “Papa!”
Mycroft’s companion, presumably the Duke, turned to look at us and stood up abruptly. He rushed to us and embraced his son.
“Alistair,” he cried, relief evident in his face and voice. “My child! Thank the Lord you are safe!”
“Safe?” I asked, confused.
Mycroft spoke up from his seat. “The Duke received a ransom note for his youngest son this morning. I had invited Sherlock to dinner to discuss the matter.” He smiled beatifically at Holmes. “You have outdone yourself this time, brother mine. You have solved the case before it came to you.” He held out two pieces of paper.
Holmes took them. He read the first one without any expression, but frowned at the second one. He passed it to me, and I stifled a cry of shock. The first note demanded a thousand pounds in exchange for Alistair’s life and contained the usual threat of avoiding the police or the hostage would be killed. The
second one listed the time for the exchange as midnight, and the address we had just visited as the venue.
Alistair came over and studied the notes. His face lost all colour. “That... that is Lisa’s handwriting!” he whispered, and burst into tears. “Papa was right after all...”
“Are you certain?” I asked.
He nodded and withdrew a letter from his trouser pocket. He handed it to us. It was a rather embarrassingly overt epistle of an inamorata to her paramour, but the boy was right - the handwriting was the same.
“How were you able to rescue Lord Alistair from his abductors, Sherlock? The second note arrived later in the evening, and I did not have time to apprise you of the address.”
“The boy was not abducted, Mycroft. He was attempting suicide when I saw him,” Holmes replied bluntly. “It was mere coincidence.”
“What?” The Duke exclaimed. His eyes, the same as Alistair’s, brimmed with tears and he pulled his son closer. “Why?”
Alistair flushed and stared at the carpet. “I thought I had killed Lisa. Mr. Holmes saved me, though, and we went back, and there was nothing in the apartment, Papa! Everything was gone!”
Mycroft frowned at us. “Apartment?” he asked.
Alistair nodded. “The one Lisa shifted to because I did not want her to continue living at the brothel. It is this address.” He waved the second note.
Mycroft looked at Holmes and me, arching an eyebrow.
Holmes smiled. “Go on, Watson,” he said. “Storytelling is your forte.”
Repressing a sigh, I took the seat Mycroft indicated. He introduced everyone, though it was unnecessary at this point - but then, the older Holmes was a man of routine and etiquette.
I summarised the events of the evening as precisely as I could. The Duke made sounds of distress occasionally, and held on to his son’s hand tightly. When I finished narrating, he left his seat, walked to Holmes, grabbed his hands and thanked him tearfully. It was apparent from where Alistair had inherited his emotional disposition. Holmes shifted uncomfortably, and Mycroft and I shared a grin.
“How can I ever thank you for saving my child, Mr. Holmes?” he cried.
“The work is its own reward,” Holmes muttered, clearly wanting the elderly nobleman to release his hands.
“Oh, how noble!” he exclaimed. “The House of Drake shall forever be in your debt, Mr. Holmes! And should you ever require our assistance, please do not hesitate to call upon us.”
Holmes thanked him and extricated himself. He turned to his brother. “Should I continue?” he asked.
Mycroft smiled faintly. “Would you not, even if I asked you to refrain?” he challenged.
Holmes chuckled. “Probably not.”
The Duke and I stared at the Holmes brothers, unable to understand. Alistair, however, did.
“Are you going to look for Lisa?” he asked Holmes.
My friend nodded.
“What will you do when you find her?” he demanded. “You would not send her to gaol, would you? Will you let me speak to her, even if it is just once?”
The Duke bristled. “I do not want you anywhere near that scarlet woman ever again, Alistair. She nearly caused your death,” he commanded.
“But Papa...”
“Listen to me for once, son. Have you not learnt your lesson yet? Could you even imagine what it would do to your poor mother and me if you were to be taken from us?” His eyes shimmered again. “Have you any idea how worried we were?”
Alistair hung his head. “I am sorry, Papa. I was a fool.”
“Sometimes, love makes fools of us all, my dear boy,” his father said kindly. “I am glad you are unharmed. You can start afresh, and someday, you shall have a woman truly worthy of you, who will cherish you with all her good heart.”
Alistair nodded.
The Duke and his son took their leave soon after. Mycroft, quite generously, offered us board for the night in his rooms across the street, which Holmes took up reluctantly. I understood why as soon as we entered Mycroft’s abode, for barely had the door closed behind us that he whirled on Holmes and demanded, “What are you hiding from me, Sherlock? This does not make any sense at all! Even the most amateur abductor would have secured their captive appropriately before sending out a ransom note, and staging of a false murder of the girl is ridiculous! If she desired the money, she would have kept the boy sedated until midnight and made the exchange with his father. Why would she stage her own death in such a clumsy manner, and for what purpose?”
Holmes shrugged. “I do not know, brother.”
Mycroft, still breathing heavily from his tirade, sank upon the couch, and waved his arm at the chairs in front of him. Holmes and I took a seat silently. I looked around the living room curiously. The ornate furnishings, the perfect symmetry, the immaculate maintenance - Mycroft’s rooms were quite different from the messy, eccentric décor of our Baker Street apartment. If Holmes believed dust to be eloquent, his brother certainly deemed it to be his mortal enemy - for there wasn’t a single speck of dust nor a single thread out of place in Mycroft’s home. Even the pens and paperweights on the desk were lined up according to their size. Everything was neatly organised and perfectly aligned. In fact, the only imperfect items in the room were the three humans.
“Remarkable,” I muttered.
“Mycroft’s house is as orderly as his brain,” Holmes commented dryly.
The older Holmes appeared pleased. “Indeed,” he said.
“We are tired, Mycroft. Can we speak in the morning instead?” Holmes asked.
The bewildered look on Mycroft’s face was almost comical. “How can you possibly be tired, Sherlock?” he questioned, disbelief dripping from his voice. “You have always had more energy than the rest of our family put together.” He narrowed his eyes. “Something has disturbed you. What is it, Sherlock? What did you see?”
Holmes laughed mirthlessly. “Your precious Duke and his son are safe, brother. For what else could you wish?”
“The truth,” Mycroft replied promptly. “And my brother’s well-being.”
Holmes sighed. “I cannot win against you, Mycroft,” he conceded. “There was another man at that apartment. From the tobacco ash I collected, it is apparent that it was her South African friend. The girl was not alone, and I do not believe she was acting for her own benefit. The man, however, is likely to have borne our young aristocrat ill-will.”
I frowned. “Could it be... was she being blackmailed? Was she threatened into compliance?”
“I do not know.”
“Is she in danger?”
“I do not know.”
“Will you be able to find her?”
“Perhaps.” Holmes sighed again, closed his eyes and leaned back in the luxurious wingback chair. Mycroft really did have good taste.
I looked at Mycroft and found him regarding his younger brother with concern etched into his large face. His piercing grey eyes, the same as his brother’s, turned to me. I shook my head, for I knew no more than what Holmes had said. I did understand Mycroft’s anxiety, though. It was uncharacteristic of Holmes to be so upset about a case. The older Holmes made a silent entreaty to me to keep him updated about his brother’s activities, and I nodded my agreement. However impersonal Mycroft might appear to be, I knew for certain the depths of his affection and his protectiveness for his younger brother.
Holmes was unusually quiet the next morning. Mycroft served us an excellent breakfast and sent us on our way. We returned the short distance to Baker Street, but Holmes left within the hour, promising to be back by the evening. He came home fairly late at night, and did not speak except to tell me that he would be out again the next day. This went on for several days, until, one morning, I found him seated at the breakfast table.
“Not going out today?” I asked tartly.
“Apologies, Watson,” he replied, amused at my annoyance. “I did not realise my investigations were causing you grief.”
“Your brother and I have been worried about you,” I retorted. “Do not tell me that the most observant man in the world failed to observe such a blatantly obvious fact.”
Holmes threw his head back and laughed. “Touché, my dear doctor.”
Still miffed, I took my seat and rang for breakfast.
“I met Roberts yesterday,” Holmes said.
“The rude young chap from the club the other night?” I asked.
Holmes laughed again. “You really are an excellent judge of character, my friend. Young Roberts did, however, provided invaluable assistance to me, albeit inadvertently.”
I frowned. “How?”
Holmes simply smiled in response.
The answer came in the form of an anxious young woman who burst into our rooms, Mrs. Hudson at her heels.
“Mr. Holmes!” she cried. “You are Mr. Holmes, are you not?”
“I am, indeed, young lady,” Holmes replied, springing from his seat and leading her to a chair.
Mrs. Hudson huffed. “Are you certain it is all right to let her be here, Mr. Holmes?” she demanded. “Two gentlemen of your caliber-”
“The young lady is as welcome to my rooms as any other client, Mrs. Hudson,” Holmes said curtly.
Mrs. Hudson left reluctantly. She was usually a rather sweet-tempered lady. I turned to look at the young girl who had incurred her wrath, and immediately realised why. The girl was beautiful, certainly, but her ensemble was provocative to the point of vulgarity, and her profession was as clear as day. However, she was also quite distressed, and her lovely red hair was wild and uncombed. Her red-rimmed brown eyes were brimming with tears.
Epiphany struck. “Lisa?”
The girl nodded. “You must be Dr. Watson.” Her eyes returned to Holmes. “Is it true, Mr. Holmes? Did Alistair try to kill himself because he thought I was dead?”
“Yes,” Holmes said, and the girl slumped with a cry of agony.
I was surprised. “Did you not know?”
The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories - Part X Page 19
