Notes From the Dispatch Box of John H Watson, MD

by Ashton, Hugh

  “ Sir William owned several banks and businesses on the Continent at one time, did he not ? ” I asked.

  “ And as far as I am aware, he still does. Men such as he have many ways of concealing large sums of money. Since Ferguson had mentioned that Engelhart might within the next few days, it seemed wise for me to move as soon as possible. I therefore determined to make my attempt at escape, with the cameos in my possession, some time early in the morning before dawn, when I judged that my guards’ faculties would be at their lowest ebb. I made notes of all I had heard, and concealed them with the warrant, should they take it into their heads to search me at any time.

  “ I had left the house unarmed, and would have to rely on my fists should it become necessary to defend myself against any opposition. As you know, I have some skill in the noble art, and I felt confident, even were I to be faced with more than one opponent.

  “ When I judged the time to be just before dawn, I slipped out of the handcuffs and listened carefully. It took only a few seconds for me to realise that it was useless for me to make any attempt that night. At least two of my captors were awake and talking, with their conversation interspersed with snatches of drunken song. It was almost certain that if I tried to abstract the cameos, this would attract their attention, and while I might have been able to overpower two drunken men, there was no knowing how many others were in the house, who might be summoned to assist their comrades.

  “ I therefore returned to the bed and re-attached the handcuffs, sore at heart that I had been prevented from carrying out my plan. The next night was much the same—although I was ready to make my move, again I heard the sound of drunken roistering, and I judged it unwise to make any move.”

  “ Were you being fed during this time ? ” I asked Holmes.

  “ I was being given food of a kind, and water to drink. I cannot say that I was ill-treated, though it was far from luxury. In any event, Ferguson arrived at the house the next day, and again, his loud voice made its way up the stairs and through the door. I gathered that the cameos were to be sold the very next day.

  “ Accordingly, I determined that I should build up as much of my energy as was possible before making my attempt, though the cold from which I was suffering, which continued to worsen, was undeniably sapping me of much of my strength. I therefore determined to eat the food that was brought to me, however unpalatable it might be, but to my surprise it transpired to be an eminently passable Irish stew, brought to me by the same turnkey as before.

  “ He said nothing as he set the bowl before me, with a wooden spoon in it. ‘Eat it,’ he told me, not unkindly. ‘You look as though you need it.’ It was a human gesture from the man, and I returned it with my polite thanks. Believe me, Watson, it would be a mistake to mark down all these men as rogues and ruffians. Many of them are no more than discontents who feel they have been deprived of what they regard as their rightful due, and wish to put right what they regard as wrongs.

  “ My words and attitude had obviously had some effect on him, and he spoke to me. ‘You’ll be out of here soon enough. His nibs is going to be selling the goods tomorrow, and then you can go back to where you came from.’ I expressed my gratitude, and he left me, realising that it was essential for me to make an attempt that very night, no matter what obstacles would present themselves, or whatever might befall me.

  “ I attempted to pick the lock of the door, having first listened to ensure that there was no sentry outside, and there were no sounds of the carousing I had heard on the previous nights. I was not expecting to encounter a guard, but one can never be too careful under such circumstances. The lock yielded easily and swiftly to the shim that I had used to slip the handcuffs, when employed as a picklock, and I made my way down the stairs taking are to make as little noise as possible.”

  “ How did you know where the cameos were being kept ? ” I could not refrain from asking.

  “ Ah, there you have most astutely put your finger on the spot,” he told me. “ For all I knew, the cameos were being stored under the pillow of the sleeping leader of the gang, in which case I would have no chance of abstracting them. In the event, I discovered them in the same place where we discovered them earlier this evening, but to my dismay, I had only removed and pocketed the first of them, which was in a place of its own, as befitted its subject, when I heard the noise of voices from the next room. It is quite possible that the newspaper in which the cameo was wrapped rustled when I placed in my pocket, and disturbed a light sleeper in the next room. At any event, the room was suddenly illuminated by a lantern, and the leader of the gang stood before me, a heavy cudgel in one hand.

  “ I ensured that the cameo was safely stowed in my pocket, and prepared myself to meet him, snatching up one of the kitchen chairs as I did so. The cudgel swung at me, and I used the chair to deflect, but not entirely to break, the blow, which landed on my forehead, stunning me a little. I staggered, but managed to retain enough presence of mind to catch hold of the stick and twist it out of his hand. He dropped it with a grunt, and swung a left at me which I dodged easily, following it up with straight jab of my own which caught him in the right eye. Though I would have considered that this put him hors de combat, he continued to come at me, but this time I was able to intercept his fist with the chair, and he fell back, nursing his hand, which had obviously been injured by the blow.

  “ I was then able to follow up with a blow to his abdomen—hardly Queensbury Rules, I fear, but then he had already breached those by coming at me with a cudgel. Between that, the blow to his face, and the pain in his hand, he was temporarily out of action. One of his henchmen, the one who was not holding the lantern, came at me next, but I sprang to one side, finding myself against the back door of the house, which to my surprise I discovered to be unlocked and open as I felt the catch behind me click open in answer to the pressure of my weight against it. I had no idea where it would lead, but I felt instinctively that I would be better in the open air. Accordingly, I slipped through the door, my latest opponent hot on my heels. As I reached the outside, I saw his hand emerge through the doorway brandishing a knife. I quickly slammed the door, trapping the arm between the door and the frame, which resulted in the arm being quickly withdrawn and a shriek of pain from the other side.

  “ I found myself in a narrow alley between the backs of two rows of houses. The stench was vile, and the ground under my feet was slippery and filthy. At this point, I realised, to my intense chagrin, that I had left behind the warrant and the papers I had concealed earlier and I cursed myself silently as a fool. I was unsure of my precise location, but knew the house was in the East End of London. Naturally, there was no light, and the dawn was just breaking, so it was impossible for me to see any landmarks, but by great good fortune, as I ran around the corner into the street, I collided with a police constable on his beat, and we both fell to the ground.

  “ I wonder you were not arrested,” I remarked, laughing despite myself.

  “ It was a close thing,” he answered. “ As you no doubt remarked when I returned here, my appearance was somewhat unprepossessing, and I was in somewhat suspicious circumstances. My manner of speech seemed to convince him that I was not of the class of common criminals, but I was still invited, in the strongest possible manner, to accompany him to the nearest police station. There, a piece of good fortune awaited me. The sergeant to whom I was handed was Urquhart, whom you may remember as a junior constable in connection with the Bishopsgate jewel case. He recognised me, despite my tattered and dishevelled appearance. Naturally, when I was searched, the cameo came to light, but my reputation with the sergeant saved me from an appearance in the magistrates’ court.

  “ I discovered my exact location, and was able to hail a cab, whose driver seemed reluctant to take such a shabby-looking fare until our friend Urquhart persuaded him of my bona fides. I was mightily relieved, Watson, to see you here when I staggered through the door.”

  “ It must have been quite an ordeal.”


  “ It was most certainly an experience I am not anxious to repeat,” he laughed. “ And at the same time, the whole affair has been a most salutary lesson to me.”

  “ In what way ? ”

  “ In that I bungled the case almost from the start. I knew McCoy was the guilty party almost from the beginning, and I should have treated the case as one of simple theft, and called in the police, rather than allowing brother Mycroft to persuade me that this was a melodrama which required such secrecy in its handling. When I visited him before going to the Museum for the first time, and he offered me the warrant authorising me as a special constable, I should have refused, and simply offered my detective powers, rather than acting as an enforcer of the laws. Hubris, Watson, sheer hubris,” he sighed.

  It was unlike Holmes to castigate himself in this way, but I could not help but agree with him, remarking inwardly to myself that the cold from which he had been suffering might be in some way to blame for his lapse of judgement in this regard.

  McCoy and the three Irishmen who had attacked and confined Holmes and broken into the Museum were arrested and charged with assault and related charges. The cameos were never mentioned in court. Sir William Ferguson’s decision to emigrate to Canada was widely reported in the Press, and though various reasons were hinted at, none came close to the truth.

  Though Holmes’ role in the affair of the Vatican cameos was never made public, he received the grateful thanks of the Cabinet for his work. In addition, though he never spoke of this afterwards, he was summoned privately to Ambrosden Avenue to receive the gratitude, accompanied by a small financial reward, of the Vatican, expressed through the person of the Archbishop of Westminster.

  ≥

  The Reigate Poisoning Case

  Editor’s Notes

  This case confused me completely when I came across it in the box, with the handwritten sheets pinned together, in an unmarked manila envelope. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson refers to Holmes’ actions where “ he had defended the unfortunate Mme. Montpensier from the charge of murder which hung over her in connection with the death of her step-daughter, Mlle. Carere, the young lady who, as it will be remembered, was found six months later alive and married in New York”.

  The case described here deals with a Mme. Montpensier who is associated with the murder of a step-daughter. However, in this case, though the name matches and the initial circumstances are similar, there is no mention of the daughter’s survival or emigration to the United States of America.

  One can only assume that this adventure here is a completely different case to that described in “ Hound”. Surely Watson could not have confused the two cases ? And yet we know that he did indeed relate strange discrepancies in his accounts of his famous friend’s cases, well known and familiar to all who study the work of the great detective.

  In this instance, we must assume that bonus dormitat Homerus (“ great Homer nods”), and that a half-remembered name associated with the New York case has somehow found itself attached as a pseudonym to the case I have here named the “ Reigate poisoning case”, similar to the Camberwell case as mentioned in the Five Orange Pips.

  In any event, the adventure is one in which Holmes’ scientific deductive talents are matched by a quality that cannot strictly be called “ logic”, but must be classified as “ intuition”. His final reasons for determining the guilt and innocence of the parties involved depend more on an understanding of human nature than they do on his forensic analytic skills. This is a new, and rather attractive, side to Sherlock Holmes that we see here.

  zz

  My friend, the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, was possessed of strange moods and humours. I feared the times when no cases that demanded his full attention came to our door, for it was at those times that he turned to self-poisoning through his use—or I should rather say his abuse—of cocaine and morphine, and though I had largely cured him of these habits which threatened his reputation and career, I was all too aware of the possibility of a relapse.

  It was with some relief, therefore, that I heard Madame Montpensier confide her troubles to him, for the case promised, on first hearing, to be one of those where Holmes’ talents and capabilities were to be stretched to the fullest, thereby distracting his mind, and removing the temptation of the hypodermic syringe as a distraction. Nor were these initial impressions mistaken, as events were to show us.

  The lamps along Baker-street were being lit when our client was ushered into our room. She was of an indeterminate age, possibly about forty-five years of age, and undoubtedly had been an exceedingly handsome woman in her prime, but time and experience had laid their gentle hands on her. Her presence brought a breath of sophisticated femininity to the somewhat barbaric masculine atmosphere of our rooms, and Holmes himself appeared not to be insensible of the fact as he waved her to a chair.

  “ Please be seated, madam,” he invited. “ How may we help you ? ”

  She answered in a voice that bore slight traces of a foreign accent. “ My name, as you saw on the card that I sent up, is Louise Montpensier. I am a widow, but have remarried, and until two days ago, I lived with my step-daughter, the child of my first husband, in our house in Reigate.”

  “ There has been some change in the circumstances ? ” enquired Holmes.

  “ Indeed there has,” she replied. “ My beloved Annabel is dead. She died recently—all too recently—and it was I who was responsible for her death, but I swear to you that I am no murderer ! ” Following this outburst, she broke into a fit of hysterical weeping, which lasted for some minutes. From past experience, I knew there was little relief that I as a doctor was able to bring to her, other than dashing a glass of water in her face, or taking some similar form of drastic action, which I was understandably unwilling to do under the circumstances.

  While she was in this condition, Holmes glanced at me, and shook his head slowly, but I was unable to determine the exact meaning of his action. At length, the sobs died down, and our visitor produced a handkerchief with which she proceeded to wipe her eyes.

  I offered her a drink of water, which she accepted with thanks, and it was this that she sipped while proceeding to tell us her story.

  “ First of all, Mr. Holmes, I want you to know before others inform you of the fact, that I have lived a life of which some might disapprove. I came from Belgium when I was sixteen years old, as a singer and dancer. Without any vanity, I can tell you that I displayed an uncommon gift for these arts, and was blessed with looks that attracted a number of men. But such a life does not last for ever, and as my voice and my looks faded, I cast around for some anchor with which I might moor the barque of my life, if I may be permitted such a metaphor.

  “ I found such a man in Richard Stevens. He was a widower of some fifty years of age, and though he had full knowledge of my past and of my reputation, he loved me truly. He was such a man as I had long hoped for—true in heart, and steadfast in his love. He had one daughter from his previous marriage, who was then ten years of age, and Annabel and I were like mother and daughter from the day we first set eyes on each other. I can truly say that the six years during which I was married to Richard Stevens were the happiest years of my life. He never gave me any cause for complaint, and I can swear to you that the same was true of me. I loved that man with all my heart, Mr. Holmes, and would have done anything to avoid giving him pain.

  “ As for Annabel, his daughter, she was a delight to me. I had long ago resigned myself to the fact that I am unable to bear children of my own, and so all the love I would have expended on my own child was poured on Annabel, and she responded in kind. I watched her grow from a young girl into a young woman whose beauty, I could see, exceeded my own at the height of my fame. But was I jealous ? No, I was not,” answering her own question. “ I was delighted that the child of my beloved Richard was of such a unique and distinctive nature.”

  “ Can you tell us anything of her mother ? ” asked Holmes.

>   “ I have seen her portrait, which was of a delicate, somewhat sickly-looking young woman. She had apparently died while giving birth to her second child, which was stillborn. At that time, Annabel was three years of age, and therefore she has—had, I should say—little or no knowledge of her mother. She had been brought up by a series of nurses and governesses until my marriage to Richard Stevens.

  “ But our Eden was shattered. It was the night before Christmas three years ago. My Richard had been buying gifts for us—Annabel and myself—and was returning home. It was a cold night, and the snow had fallen heavily in the streets, but had melted in the daytime and had re-frozen. He slipped on the ice, and on account of the weight of the parcels he was carrying, lost his balance and fell under the hoofs of the horses drawing an omnibus. His mangled body was brought home to us.” Her voice trembled as she told us this sad tale, and her handkerchief went to her face.

  “ A terrible accident,” I sympathised.

  “ Indeed,” agreed Holmes. “ May I be impertinent and ask how his death affected you financially ? ”

  “ He was a rich man,” she answered. “ His will provided for Annabel and myself at least adequately. The house, and all in it, was made over to me, as well as sufficient money for us to continue our lives in the accustomed style. The bulk of his money was to be held in trust, to be presented to Annabel upon her marriage, or when she reached the age of twenty-one, whichever was the sooner.”

  “ And should your step-daughter die before either of those events ? ”